[Pages S3025-S3052]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5,
UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY
TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION RELATING TO ``FEDERAL MOTOR VEHICLE
SAFETY STANDARDS; FUEL SYSTEM INTEGRITY OF HYDROGEN VEHICLES;
COMPRESSED HYDROGEN STORAGE SYSTEM INTEGRITY; INCORPORATION BY
REFERENCE''

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the joint resolution by
title.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 55) providing for
congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United
States Code, of the rule submitted by the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration relating to ``Federal Motor
Vehicle Safety Standards; Fuel System Integrity of Hydrogen
Vehicles; Compressed Hydrogen Storage System Integrity;
Incorporation by Reference''.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

Climate Change

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, let me describe what I think is going
on here on the Senate floor. Today is an unusual and interesting day.
What we understood the plan was, was that the majority was going to
move to the Congressional Review Act regarding the California clean air
rule in an effort to overrule the Clean Air Act rule for the fossil
fuel industry, which the majority so diligently serves.
The problem with that is that the Parliamentarian has ruled that the
Congressional Review Act does not apply to the waiver that California
gets, allowing it to do its own clean air standard. So they had a
problem. The problem was that Democrats were going to make a point of
order saying: Hey, you can't do that. We have argued this matter. We
both went before the Parliamentarian. We made our case. We filed our
pleadings. We got a decision. In our view, it was not even a close call
of a decision. But that is in our view. And what you are really doing
here is, for the fossil fuel industry, going nuclear, overruling the
Senate Parliamentarian to accomplish a legislative task--to amend,
basically, the Congressional Review Act--and then open the door for
that to undo a 30-year tradition of California and other States like
Rhode Island being able to operate under better clean air standards and
the vehicle emissions standards than the Federal Government may be
willing to accomplish.
So that is where we thought we were. Now, what is happening is that
we have gone to a different CRA, this one having to do with hydrogen
vehicles. The minority has 5 hours. There is a total of 10 hours,
evenly divided. I suspect the majority is not going to use much of that
time. But the minority has 5 hours to talk about what is going on.
We are now in the 5-hour debate period on the hydrogen vehicle CRA,
as the majority moves toward making its play on the California clean
air standard.
This is a slight bump in the road for them, but our understanding is
that there is a new plan. The new plan is, at the conclusion of our 5
hours, to make a new point of order that allows them to do the
California CRA effort and create a new way to get around the terms of
the Congressional Review Act.
The predicament for them is that the Congressional Review Act, as a
law--passed by the Senate, passed by the House, signed into law by the
President--says: In the Senate, which is where we are, when a committee
is discharged from further consideration of a joint resolution, which
is where we are, all points of order against the joint resolution are
waived.
They intend to create a Senate exception to that. We expect the
Parliamentarian will say, when they offer this point of order, based on
the statute, based on the law, well, that is not in order. Then they
will go nuclear on this. They will bring everybody back to, by a simple
majority vote of 51, overrule the Parliamentarian as to that new point
of order.
The purpose is to create a point of order that allows a bypass of the
Parliamentarian's decision--a very sound one, a clear one, in my view,
based on precedent, law, history, tradition, all of it--that the CRA
effort to undermine California's clean air standard does not work under
Senate rules.

[[Page S3026]]

In a sense, this is like a double nuclear option. They are going to
overrule the Parliamentarian to create a new point of order under the
CRA that will amend, in effect, the CRA. It will make the law regarding
this no longer effective because they will come in and overrule the
Parliamentarian.
And, then, even though the Parliamentarian's ruling is that you can't
use the CRA to go after the California waiver, they don't have to
overrule that directly because they will have, by overruling the
Parliamentarian, created this little end-around.
So I guess this is a demonstration of how many hoops the Senate
majority is willing to jump through for their fossil fuel supports.
And it ends at the same point, which is the purpose of the exercise.
It ends with the Parliamentarian being overruled, and it ends with an
attack on California and other sovereign States' ability to require
cleaner air and lower vehicle emissions in their States.
Now, why does that matter? Well, obviously, if you are the fossil
fuel industry, one of the things you sell is gasoline, and one of the
things that the California clean air and emissions standards do is to
require the auto industry to make automobiles more efficient--maybe
even make them hybrid, maybe even make them electric. And whether they
are more efficient or hybrid or electric, it all ends in the same place
for the fossil fuel industry, which is: We can't sell as much polluting
gasoline, and we want to sell more gasoline, and we don't like clean
air standards that get in the way of us selling as much gasoline as we
want to.
So we are here through this complex parliamentary rigmarole to
overrule the Parliamentarian to get around her ruling that the
Congressional Review Act only covers rulemakings, not the California
waiver and other things. One of the problems with that is that--you
know, if you give a mouse a cookie--it doesn't stop here; it opens the
Congressional Review Act, which was very specifically designed to
address rulemakings within a period of time after the conclusion of the
rulemaking. And this would allow essentially anything you could put
into the Federal Register to be submitted to Congress for Congressional
Review Act review, no matter when it was done. All you have to do is
re-up it with a submission and send it in to Congress, the California
waiver being an example of that in the sense that it has been around
for about 30 years now.
So one of the Congressional Review Act's limitations was it had a
brief time window in which you were allowed to come to Congress to
disapprove a rule, and that time period is now blown to smithereens if
they go through with this parliamentary scheme.
The second thing is, it had to be a rulemaking; that it added a
process at the end of the Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking, when
the rule was finally enacted into law as an Agency rule. You always had
the ability to go to court and sue and say that the Administrative
Procedure Act was violated, it is arbitrary and capricious, was a
violation of the law or whatever. This gave it political extra
opportunity, which was to jump straight to Congress and just ask us to
disapprove it. You don't have to prove, then, that there is anything
wrong with the rule; just, politically, we don't like it so we are
going to jam it.
And so, when you expand beyond just APA rulemaking to essentially any
Executive decision that can be dumped into the Federal Register to
create a submission that can then be brought here, you have opened a
massive, massive array of Executive actions to Congressional Review Act
disapproval.
As my colleagues have said, it could be as simple as a lease, as
simple as a permit, as simple as a license. Essentially, any Executive
decision since the passage of the Congressional Review Act can now be
brought here on a purely political basis and--boom--blown up.
If my colleagues on the other side don't think that we will use this
if they do this, they have taken leave of their senses. Of course we
will. They are about to create a new Senate in which the CRA can be
used for an immense array of purposes, well beyond what the actual law
says.
(Mr. SHEEHY assumed the Chair.)
They don't have to be doing this. Let's be clear. They do not have to
be doing this. There are other ways to serve their fossil fuel industry
friends in the industry's desire to attack the vehicle emissions
standards, the clean air standards. There are a whole bunch of them.
One, they could do it administratively.
In fact, in 2019, the Trump administration withdrew a previously
granted Clean Air Act waiver. And to do that, it made findings per a
Clean Air Act process--administrative findings per a Clean Air Act
process--as to the three criteria established under the Clean Air Act
that determine whether a waiver application gets granted or denied.
So they already tried that once. They know that that is an avenue.
Why did they not want to do that? Well, for starters, it is amenable to
challenge if it is done unlawfully, if it is done arbitrarily and
capriciously--the magic words of administrative mischief. And you end
up in a forum like a court where you have to defend your facts, unlike
here where all you have to do is have a majority and ram it through. So
they didn't want to do it administratively, but they could have, and
they already tried in the last Trump administration.
What else could they have done? Well, this is California's Clean Air
Act standard. They could have gone and negotiated with the sovereign
State of California and the other sovereign States that have attached
themselves to the cleaner standard of California, which includes Rhode
Island. This could be done through a regular process of negotiation.

We just had the Administrator of the EPA in the committee this
morning for a lively exchange, and he repeatedly talked about how
interested EPA was in cooperative federalism; that the Federal
Government has to be a real partner with sovereign States; that we
shouldn't be lording it over the sovereign States; they have expertise
and interests of their own and cooperative federalism means that the
Federal Government and the State governments should work as partners to
accomplish goals.
Well, that was pretty rich, while EPA is trying to roll a sovereign
State that is the fourth biggest economy on the planet without any hint
of negotiation or cooperative federalism or effort--because when you
are negotiating, the other side gets a vote, too, and you have to come
to an agreement. And it is much easier to come here and have your
friends in the Senate do your bidding in the Senate without any
standard other than: Do we have the votes?
But they could have done it that way. There is a totally clear path
to negotiate with California--say: Hey, circumstances have changed in
this way or that. We have new policy issues that we want to argue to
you, and let's try to figure out if we can work this out.
Nope. Didn't even try.
The other way to do this would be to go back and actually change the
Congressional Review Act, right? It is a statute so we can amend it.
And we could go through the process of amendment and say: OK, we don't
want the Congressional Review Act to be limited to rulemakings any
longer. We want to open it up to more stuff. And we could have a
conversation about what should and should not be included in an
expanded gateway to the Congressional Review Act. The House would have
its say. You would end up doing what we call around here regular order.
And in the Senate the minority--because you would have to get through
cloture, the minority would have a chance to make our points. And you
could do an amendment using regular order. Again, they would have to
listen to us, and they would have to pay attention to facts.
Now, all they have to pay attention to are interests--and the fossil
fuel interest is their dominant interest--and votes, do they have the
votes. And those make it easy to choose this way, to go nuclear in the
Senate rather than do the work either of amending the Congressional
Review Act by law or negotiating with a sovereign State in ordinary
Federal-State cooperative federalism or pursue that Clean Air Act
administrative process that they had begun back in Trump 1.
Again, the reason not to do all those three is you can't just roll
everybody and do what the fossil fuel industry wants. So here we are.
This is because

[[Page S3027]]

this is the shortcut. This is the thing that does what the fossil fuel
industry wants.
And the price is going to be very, very high because, in my
recollection, there has never been a legislative outcome in this body
determined by overruling the Parliamentarian. We have gone back and
forth on nominations, but on a legislative outcome which changes the
Congressional Review Act and which allows an attack on a statutory
waiver in the Clean Air Act for the State of California--those are
legislative in their effect. And so, to me, that is not the right way
that we should be going about this.
So there are a bunch of problems with what is going on here, but to
understand the floor machinations we are about to go through--the
overruling of the Parliamentarian to create an end-around so we don't
have to overrule but can only violate the order of the Parliamentarian
on the CRA--you really have to understand the baseline story here. And
the baseline story here is that this is the fossil fuel industry in
action. It may look like it is a majority and a minority in the Senate
having an argument. No. It is the fossil fuel industry in action,
trying to create a shortcut for itself so it can sell more gasoline and
pollute more and ignore all the States that have joined with California
to demand cleaner air for their constituents.
The fossil fuel industry essentially runs the Republican Party right
now. The fossil fuel industry hates this clean air standard because it
sells less gasoline in the States where the clean air standard is
there. And it sells less gasoline in other States because it is hard to
market both a clean vehicle and a dirty vehicle side by side. So to get
to the enormous number of States that are with California on this and
to sell into their markets, they have to make more efficient vehicles
everywhere so that everybody enjoys the benefit of spending less on
gasoline, getting better vehicle mileage, and having cleaner air.
So it actually works out pretty well for everybody except--except--
the fossil fuel industry, which, of course, wants to sell more
gasoline, period and end of story. And what they have is a willing
Senate majority that will basically do whatever it is that they want,
and they have an executive branch that has been infiltrated by fossil
fuel interests and is now essentially run by fossil fuel interests.
In my previous ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches, I have described--I am
probably not going to get this perfectly right because I am going from
memory here, but there is a kind of wasp that injects its larvae into
another bug; and as the larval wasp begins to grow, it takes over the
neural system, it takes over the command and control system of the
other bug. So the other bug is still alive. It still looks like the
other bug's shape and size and all of that. It doesn't look any
different than a regular other bug, but it is being driven from inside
by the larval wasp, which tells it to go do things that then create a
place where the larval wasp can grow, can nest, can feed, whatever it
needs to do.
It takes over the bug from the inside and takes over command and
control, and steers it around. That, to me, is a pretty good analogy
for what the fossil fuel industry is doing with the U.S. Government
right now.
All of their front groups, all the machinery they created over the
years to propagate the fraud of climate denial and to exert wild
political influence all over the country, all of that just slots right
into positions in government that are taken over by people who say, you
know, that the concern about climate change is crud, climate change is
a religion and not science.
They speak utter nonsense. It is like the worship of Baal back in
Biblical times, bowing down to fossil fuel and doing whatever it is the
great god Baal wants.
Well, things didn't work out too well for the priests of Baal, if you
followed that analogy, but that is where we are. And what all of this
overlooks is the coming storm.
When the President pretends that climate change is a hoax, he
disables government's ability to prepare for a coming storm. When the
executive branch sensors the use of the terms ``climate change,''
demands that they be struck from government documents, that prevents
the executive branch from preparing for the coming storm.
When the executive branch--as we heard just today in the Environment
and Public Works Committee--goes around and terminates grants based on
a heresy hunt, where they are looking through the grants for language
they don't like--like ``equity,'' there is a bad word; ``inclusion,''
can't have that; ``climate,'' definitely worth terminating a grant over
that--they are destroying the programs that would help communities
prepare for the coming storm because they have the word ``climate'' in
them.
They even went so far in the executive branch as to have an Executive
order on energy that refused to include either solar energy or wind
energy in the definition of ``energy.'' Like, you can say what you want
about whether you like solar or whether you like wind, but all you have
to do is go to a solar facility or go to a wind facility, and you can
see the electrons coming off of it.
The idea that that is not energy, that is not just a violation of law
and common sense, that violates the dictionary. But that is how far the
fossil fuel industry wasp will drive the Trump administration bug to
ignore the coming storm.
What does the coming storm look like? Well, let me start.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use a larger than usual
graphic in order to show an old page from the New York Times.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, now this is always good to remember
because it wasn't always this way with President Trump. Here in 2009,
there was a full-page ad in the New York Times. President Obama was
getting ready to send a crew to Copenhagen for the COP, the climate
change conference, and business leaders spoke up about that, saying, as
business leaders, here is what we have to say:

[One,] if we fail to act now, it is scientifically
irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible
consequences for humanity and our planet.

Well, that is kind of the point here, and I will get into, in a
moment, what some of those catastrophic and irreversible consequences
look like.
And it goes on to demand that the Obama administration show
leadership on climate change:

Please allow us, the United States of America, to serve in
modeling the change necessary to protect humanity and our
planet.

Signed by Donald J. Trump, chairman and President; Donald J. Trump,
Jr., EVP; Eric F. Trump, EVP; Ivanka M. Trump, EVP; and the Trump
organization.
So there have been times when the Trump family understood what
climate change was all about, understood the catastrophic and
irreversible consequences that were looming, and were willing to say
so.
But in between came exposure to politics, exposure to the power of
fossil fuel on the Republican side and the understanding that if you
really want to make it in Republican politics, you have got to do
whatever the fossil fuel industry wants, whenever the fossil fuel
industry wants it. That means we are ignoring some pretty serious
warnings.
One of the earliest warnings came from Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac is
not a green organization. Freddie Mac is a huge mortgage company, a
federally chartered giant mortgage company. And as a giant mortgage
company, it has a very distinct interest in the mortgage market.
And what did the chief economist for Freddie Mac warn? He warned that
climate change was making coastal properties uninsurable. Climate
change was making coastal properties uninsurable, either because sea
levels were rising and they would flood or because storms were worse
and there would be more damage by hurricanes and massive rains or
because, who knows, they would lose access to the fresh water in their
wells because of the infiltration of salt water underground. There are
all sorts of ways in which climate risk hits coastal properties.
So the chief economist said: Here is how that works. The climate risk
disrupts the insurance industry as to certain properties--meaning,
those properties also can't get a mortgage any longer.

[[Page S3028]]

Freddie Mac is a mortgage giant. It knows what is needed for a
mortgage. What is needed for a mortgage is an insurance policy. No
insurance policy, no mortgage.
So now you have got properties along the coast that are at risk, that
can't get insurance and can't get a mortgage. What happens to the value
of those properties? Well, it goes down, he predicted. He predicted a
coastal property values crash as a result of that cascade from climate
risk to uninsurability to no mortgages.
And the coastal properties values crash he predicted was going to be
so severe that it would look like 2008--that mortgage meltdown--all
over again, and he stands by that testimony. In fact, he came when I
was chairman of the Budget Committee to reiterate it.
Something else has changed in the meantime, though. It is not just
coastal property risk. Ask any of our Western colleagues about wildfire
risk and about what is going on in areas that have wildfire risk that
the insurance company can't figure out, can't predict; and, therefore,
it backs away from.
We are seeing that all across the country. The coastal property
values crash warning now has an evil sibling: the wildfire adjacent
property values crash warning. And either one of them, or both, could
create that cascade from uninsurability to unmortgageability to crash
in property values to nationwide recession.
He is not alone. A little over a month ago, the Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Chairman Powell came and testified in the Banking
Committee. What did Chairman Powell have to say? He said that in 10 to
15 years, it will be impossible to get insurance or a mortgage in
entire regions of the United States; exactly that cascade--climate
risk, uninsurability, can't get a mortgage, property values crash.

Here is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, also not green, just a
guy who is interested in dealing with risk to the financial system, and
he is saying: Here it comes, buckle up. We are going to see that in 10
to 15 years.
Well, if we are going to see that in 10 to 15 years, who is looking
at that now? Investors are; insurance companies are. You can't wait 10
to 15 years for the effects of entire regions of the country that can't
get mortgages to start to be felt. That is going to start to happen
now, and, in fact, it is. Look at the high-risk areas in the country.
Here, we see things like--from our Budget Committee work--these are
nonrenewal rates around the country. And you can see in high-risk
areas--Florida or coastal, California for both coastal and wildfire,
that nonrenewals are spiking up in areas of climate risk.
What is nonrenewal? A nonrenewal is when your insurance company says
to you: You know, thanks for all the premium you paid all these years,
but your piece of property has now become uninsurable. We can't manage
that risk any longer. Therefore, you are fired. Go find another
insurance company.
Well, that is a big mess.
Then we go onto First Street, which took some of this data and others
and started predicting forward. This is where home values are headed
because of climate change.
You can see in these darker red areas, you are looking at actual
reductions in home value, right? Not your home is your castle and it is
always going to be valuable but, actually, the value of it goes down.
Some of the marks go as much as 100-percent loss of value. Eighty
percent is this color. Sixty percent is this color. And you can see it
speckled throughout the country. Places where, in the time of a 30-year
mortgage--in the time of a 30-year mortgage, you are going to see
property values actually go down--the property values crash that was
predicted by Freddie Mac and the loss of mortgage availability that was
predicted by Chairman Powell.
Here is another one: Where do insurance premiums go in the next 30
years? Well, in a lot of places, like down in Florida, we have already
seen double, triple, and quadruple. An average home insurance payment
in Miami Dade County is $17,000 a year. You look down here at Miami,
and it is in the dark zone where it is supposed to go up 300 percent.
That is a quadrupling, just so you know.
So if you are at $17,000 now and you are going to quadruple in 30
years, that means you are going to end up--do the math. I am not doing
it right now in my head, but let's say it is $70,000 a year, right?
Quadrupling $17,000--$68,000 a year.
If you have a property that has a carrying cost for the buyer of
$68,000 a year, how valuable is that property? What is the present
value of that liability that comes with the property? It is a huge
liability, and it knocks down the value of the property.
So that is why the home value evidence that First Street collected
here relates to the insurance premium expense. You don't just lose the
value of your house when your property isn't mortgageable any longer
and you can't find anybody to buy it other than a cash buyer; you also
lose the value of your house when the carrying cost of your home
insurance becomes so great that nobody wants to buy into that annual
$68,000 liability.
How much would you pay to have to write a $68,000 check every year?
Not much. It would have to be a pretty darn nice house to cover that.
And for a lot of people, that just erases the value of the home, which
is why we get there.
So, First Street, their estimate was that climate change could erase
$1.4 trillion in U.S. residential real estate value by 2055 due to
these concerns that they put on the chart. And they are not alone. It
is not just Freddie Mac; it is not just First Street Foundation; it is
not just Fed Chair Powell.
Here is the Mortgage Bankers Association. You think that is a green
group? Fat chance. But they do care about mortgages, and what they say
in their report is:

Chronic physical risk associated with climate change--i.e.
the insurance risk--may exceed the capacity of insurance and
government assistance to sustain some areas.

That kind of tracks with Jay Powell saying there are going to be
whole regions of the country where you can't get a mortgage any
longer--even with government help, even with insurance, it just doesn't
work any longer.
So when an advocacy group like that for the mortgage bankers is
giving this warning, it might be worth paying attention to. It might be
worth not just dismissing it: Oh, climate change is a hoax. None of us
need to worry about that.
The Economist Magazine, also about as ungreen as it can be. And the
Economist Magazine--this is a cover story. If you can't read it, it
says: ``The next housing disaster,'' and it is a house on a piece of
land that is being eroded by seas.
If the size of the risk suddenly sinks in and borrowers and
lenders alike realize the collateral underpinning so many
transactions--

Like those mortgages--

is not worth as much as they thought--

Because those prices have fallen as insurance rates climbed--

a wave of repricing will reverberate through financial
markets.

Here is the punch line:

Climate change, in short, could prompt the next global
property crash.

Another way they say it in the article is this:

At present, the risks of climate change are not properly
reflected in house prices. A study in Nature, a journal,
finds that if the expected losses from increased flooding
alone--

That is that coastal value crash risk; not the wildfire one, just
flooding--

were taken into account, the value of American homes would
fall by from $121 billion to $237 billion.

Again aligning with what First Street predicted--changes in
Americans' home values because of climate risk uninsurability and
unmortgageability.
Mr. President, $121 billion to $237 billion is a pretty big hit on
those homeowners whose properties have lost that value.
Globally, what they say is that we are looking at a $25 trillion hit
to global real estate markets. The largest asset class on the planet is
real estate, and it is looking at a $25 trillion hit. Yeah, let's
ignore that and believe the fossil fuel-funded White House that says it
is a hoax. That makes a lot of sense.
Obviously, if there is going to be a property values crash and if
mortgages are going to be in the center of it, that is not great for
the banking industry. Why? First of all, the banking industry makes a
lot of money off of mortgages.

[[Page S3029]]

If a whole bunch of properties won't sustain a mortgage any longer,
that shrinks the market, so there is less revenue to be had for the
banking industry.
Also, if you have a mortgage on your books as a bank, the liability--
what the owner owes you on the mortgage--gets offset in your solvency
determination by the value of the collateral that you hold against that
liability. The collateral is the value of the home.
What happens to a bank in a region where the value of the home has
fallen by half? What happens when the homeowner owes more money than
the property is now worth? That hits the bank's loan-to-value ratio.
That is a determinant of bank solvency.
So, guess what, this is not just me saying this; the International
Financial Stability Board just did this report in January giving a
warning to the global banking system: Look out. Buckle up. Climate risk
is coming. Uninsurability is coming. Unmortgageability is coming. You
need to plan to stay solvent through and survive that crisis.
So I will tell you, this is a very technical report done by very
technical people. The Financial Stability Board is, again, not a green
organization, but they do have an obligation to look forward and
predict risk, and they are predicting this risk to the global banking
system.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, during Trump 1, by the way,
issued this report--``Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial
System''--saying that climate change poses systemic risk to the U.S.
economy across multiple sectors ``simultaneously and within a short
timeframe''--this is coming at us--undermining the U.S. financial
system's ability to sustain the economy.
Let me read the opening sentence from the report, from the executive
summary:

Climate change poses a major risk to the stability of the
U.S. financial system and to its ability to sustain the
American economy.

Precisely as the other experts argued.
Risk to insurance, to mortgage, to property values crash, to economic
collapse.
On the next page, they say among findings of the report:

A central finding of this report is that climate change
could pose systemic risks to the U.S. financial system.

Let me say a word on systemic risks because it sounds like a pretty
dull term. It is not like apocalyptic risk, catastrophic risk; it just
says systemic risk. What does that mean? That means that the whole
system takes a hit. That means that the damage is not contained to the
sector where the damage is happening.
That is like 2008 all over again. We had that set of bad mortgages,
but when that set of bad mortgages--when it became apparent that that
was fake and phony and that there was not real value there, it didn't
just harm the mortgage holders, it took down entire investment firms,
and that crash cascaded out through the entire economy.
Those of us who were here in 2008--I can remember the financial agony
of Rhode Islanders when that recession hit so hard and so suddenly. I
can remember the people who were at the Treasury and at the Fed who
were supposed to prop up our economy in a state of absolute, sweating
panic about how this crash was going to wipe out the U.S. financial
system. That is what systemic risk is. It means the whole thing goes
down, the whole system.
So it sounds like a pretty mild term, but if you are familiar with
economics, you know that is one of the scariest words in the economic
lexicon.
What else have we here? We have Deloitte--not very green, either--a
big consulting powerhouse. Here is what they say about continuing to
fiddle around on climate change, pretend it is a hoax, censor the term,
and act like idiots about a true coming risk with abundant warnings
about the risk. They say that we have a range of outcomes. By 2070--
that was their target period--they said that if we can start getting
climate right, if we can start addressing this problem before these
systemic harms happen, then what is going to happen is the global GDP
will increase by around $40 trillion; i.e., the world will be better
off financially by $40 trillion by our making the right decisions to
get climate change right. That is one outcome.
The other option is that we continue goofing off. We continue
fiddling around and lying about climate change or believing the lies
about climate change. We continue ignoring the evidence. We continue
ignoring what we are seeing with our own eyes in the insurance industry
in regions of the United States right now, already.
Go around Florida and talk about property insurance and tell me what
you hear, because I am pretty sure I know because I have been there and
heard it.
The other is a $180 trillion hit to global GDP, which means there is
a $220 trillion swing that will come to pass in the lives of children
now. The world can be $220 trillion poorer or $220 trillion richer
depending on whether we continue to screw up responding to climate
change, ignore it, and listen to the worst people in the world to
listen to--the fossil fuel industry, which is wreathed in conflicts of
interest on the subject, crawling with conflicts of interest, infested
with conflicts of interest, and eager to shove those conflicts of
interest into our politics with lies and dark money, secret influence.
It is one of the fouler things that have been done, what has been done
in our Congress by the fossil fuel industry.
If Deloitte is right, that $220 trillion swing is a hell of an
outcome for people who will be alive then--all because we won't make
good decisions now.
Potsdam Institute says that climate change losses by 2049 could hit
$38 trillion and then get bigger after that.
So, again, we are dealing with a sooner window than 2070, but we are
dealing with very, very, very big numbers--$25 trillion hit to the
global real estate sector; $38 trillion hit from lost agricultural
yields, labor productivity, and infrastructure; $220 trillion globally,
depending on whether we get this right or continue to be fooled by
those with the worst conflicts of interest.
Recently, Allianz, which, by the way, is the biggest insurance
company in the world, a trillion-dollar company--two things about the
insurance industry and Allianz in particular. The insurance industry
needs to predict accurately in order to price its insurance correctly.
So, first of all, they are making like trillion-dollar bets on what the
future is going to look like. They are not just lying to make up stuff
so that they can sell more gasoline next year in California and Rhode
Island and other States; they have to look out.
When they do look out, not only do they have that huge bet that they
are placing on what the world is going to look like, what risk they are
insuring, they are actually under a fiduciary obligation. They can be
sued by their shareholders and by their members if they are not doing
proper due diligence and getting it right.
So when the insurance industry is doing signals like this, it is
worth paying attention. The insurance industry is under a fiduciary
obligation to get it right, the fossil fuel industry has a massive
conflict of interest to tell us stuff that is wrong, and we are
believing the fossil fuel industry? It is madness or it is politics or
worse.
Well, here is what the Allianz board member wrote:

We are fast approaching temperature levels--1.5 degrees
[centigrade], 2 degrees [centigrade], 3 degrees
[centigrade]--where insurers will no longer be able to offer
coverage. . . . Entire regions are becoming uninsurable.

Sound familiar? Fed Chair Powell used almost the exact same language.
They are seeing the same thing.
This is a systemic risk. Remember what I said about systemic risk?
Here is a board member of the largest insurance company on the planet,
with a trillion dollars at stake, saying that this is a systemic risk
that threatens ``the very foundation of the financial sector''--just
like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission report threatened, just
like the International Financial Stability Board warned.
This is a systemic risk that threatens ``the very foundation of the
financial sector.'' How? He continues. If insurance is no longer
available, ``other financial services become unavailable'' too. A house
that cannot be insured cannot be mortgaged.
This is the same deal that the chief economist of Freddie Mac was
predicting. No bank will issue loans for uninsurable property.

[[Page S3030]]

Credit markets freeze. This is a climate-induced credit crunch.
He also points out in his article something that I hadn't paid
attention to. I was looking at the ``insurance to mortgage to property
values'' crash. But what he points out is that, if you go to the
financial sector, big wheeler-dealers in the financial world do big
deals and transactions, and very often those transactions depend on an
insurance component to make the deal work. And in areas where the risk
involved in that transaction is uninsurable, then the transaction can't
happen any longer.
So it is not just mortgages and the mortgage market that are
imperiled by this insurance risk. It is the whole swath of other
financial transactions, which is why the title was ``An End to
Capitalism.'' That is what we are dealing with.
There is a lot more that I could go through. Here is my current
binder on the economic risks of climate change, which includes these
articles and more. I have circulated it to Finance Committee members. I
have circulated it to Budget Committee members. I have circulated it to
Environment and Public Works Committee members. I don't think anybody
really wants to read it because, in this place, the fossil fuel
industry gets what it wants, whatever it wants, whenever it wants. And
the fossil fuel industry does not want the Senate or the House paying
any attention to these looming risks, to these storm warnings that are
coming.
I have been through small insurance collapses in Rhode Island--two of
them. One was a banking insurance--State-backed banking insurer--that
failed just as I was coming in as a new Governor's legal counsel. And
as we saw this beginning to fail, he asked me to handle the issue. So
it was a handful of an issue, I will tell you, because we knew that the
insurer was going to fail, and we knew that all of the insured banks
would no longer be able to honor their accounts. And we knew that about
a third of Rhode Islanders had money in those various banking
institutions and that they would lose access to their funds until we
sorted this out. And it happened the day that the new Governor was
sworn in.
I can remember preparing the needed papers to take over the closed
institution in an all-nighter in a law firm and, in the morning,
running the papers up to the Governor's office through the cold weather
of a Rhode Island January as the guns were firing, signaling the start
of the new administration--the ceremonial guns of probably the Newport
Artillery Company.
And on day one, we had to close all of these banking institutions,
and I spent the next many months of my life trying to figure out how to
get them back, get depositors repaid, and clean up the insurance
system.
So I know that when Ernest Hemingway was asked, ``How did you go
broke?'' he said, ``Gradually, and then all at once.'' That is how
these insurance crises happen.
The Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corporation went broke
gradually and then all at once. It was just a matter of days from
steady state status to complete calamity, and we had to dig our way
back out of it.
The next one was workers' compensation insurance--that too, gradually
and then all at once.
Like the California FAIR Plan, we had a backstop insurance entity
that, if you couldn't get insurance in the regular market, you would go
to the State entity, and then your risk would be farmed out to all of
the other companies--which is fine if it is 2 or 3 or 4 percent of the
market. But when that company starts to have a huge share of the market
and huge losses, the insurance companies look around and say: Wow, we
are going to own our share of those losses. I don't want to do business
here any longer.
They came in, and in a matter of a day or two, every single workers'
comp insurer in Rhode Island had said: We are out of here. We are done.
We are closing.
And we had until the end of their policy to stand up a whole new
workers' compensation system that paid for itself and was fair to
workers.
Between those two things, I don't think I have ever worked so hard in
my life. But we solved both of those problems.
Now, you may say: Well, that is just a little problem in a little
State. Yes.
Many years ago, my father set up Special Operations and Low Intensity
Conflict in the Defense Department. He was the first SOLOC, as they
called it. And one of the things that people in Special Operations
really didn't like was being told that what they were doing was low
intensity.
Mr. Whitehouse, when it is you that is being shot at, it is not low
intensity. We have got to get rid of that name.
So small fights can be brutally intense fights, and these were small
but brutally intense situations in Rhode Island. And the lesson to me
is really clear: These things happen gradually and then all at once.
And we are well into the gradual part of what climate change is doing
to insurance markets, and the cascade from that into mortgage markets
and into property values and into economic recession is now entirely
predictable--indeed, predicted by essentially anyone who is, A, paying
attention to this, and, B, not on the payroll of the fossil fuel
industry.

So when we are messing around with Senate parliamentary procedures,
when we are actually threatening--maybe cooler heads will prevail--
threatening to go nuclear, threatening to overrule a ruling of the
Parliamentarian just to run a political errand for the fossil fuel
industry to help it sell more gasoline, we are doing two really evil
things at once: We are doing real damage to this institution that will
be very hard to walk back from; and, two, we are indulging an industry
with a massive special interest and a massive conflict of interest that
is simply out to sell more gasoline and that wants us to ignore the
risk that its emissions are creating in the world.
And we are now, in this building, so overwhelmed by that fossil fuel
political influence infrastructure--all its dark money running through
super PACs, all its lies being spouted out by phony front groups, all
of the fake scientists making up stuff that isn't science but sounds
good because it was cooked up on Madison Avenue to sound good. And now
they have actually infiltrated the office of government, and they are
running the U.S. Government from the inside with a view to making sure
that nobody pays attention to the climate harm.
And I will close with a different point, which is that I have spent
my time so far on the floor talking about how a corrupting industry has
used its influence in Congress to steer us away from paying attention
to a massive economic risk that numerous expert voices have warned us
is in peril--and not just expert voices but many who are under a
fiduciary obligation to their shareholders.
We had in the Budget Committee the CEO of Aon, which is one of the
biggest insurance companies in the world. He is their U.S. CEO. He came
in to testify and give that same warning. Over and over and over again,
we are getting that warning about the economic peril that is looming,
where we are now in it gradually, and we are waiting for ``all at
once'' to happen.
And I talk about that as an economic matter because this is the
``House of Mammon,'' where the worship of the fossil fuel god Baal and
money is the No. 1 thing that we do. So I am speaking in the terms that
the Senate and the House most pay attention to, which is money--money.
But know that behind the economic peril is real natural disaster, is
real tumult in the natural systems of the Earth that have allowed our
species to develop for 20,000 years in a relatively safe harbor of
limited atmospheric carbon, a healthy climate range, moderate storm
activity, and a robust ecosystem around us where that security and that
safety have allowed the ecosystem to flourish.
And it happens in a million small ways. One of my favorites was the
red knot. There is a bird; it is called the red knot. It lands in
Delaware every year, and lots of them land in Delaware every year, and
they come to Delaware every year because the horseshoe crabs in
Delaware Bay come ashore to lay their eggs. So it is like social hour
for horseshoe crabs, but it is also feeding frenzy for birds that like
to eat the horseshoe crab eggs.
But here is the deal about the red knot. I bet you don't know where
they come from to get to Delaware Bay for that moment when the
horseshoe crabs are laying their eggs. They come from

[[Page S3031]]

Brazil. They have come from all the way down in Patagonia. They have
flown up to Brazil, and then they go from Brazil over the water to
Delaware Bay.
Imagine how long it takes to fly from Brazil to the east coast, to
Delaware, in a jet plane. These little birds, they do it on their own.
They are not big. They are about that big. And they fly all that way on
their own.
It is such an arduous journey that their bodies actually metamorphose
a bit during the journey to make it possible. It is one of the miracles
of creation that this little bird can make that astonishing journey and
have the physical changes to its body that take place during that trip
make it possible for that little bird to make that journey.
And the reason that species makes it and survives is because, in
God's great ecosystem, they have figured out that if they land at this
time in this bay, the food will be there for them. And if we screw that
up with fossil fuel emissions so that the schedule of the horseshoe
crabs' egg laying goes off and those red knots come all the way from
Brazil and there are no eggs there for them--they are too late; they
are too early--that is how populations crash.
That is just one tiny example. That is one thread of this beautiful
interlocking natural planet that we have, and there are a million more
such threads that put the world together that we take for granted.
Behind the looming economic risk is a disruption of the Earth's
natural systems that goes well beyond just economic harm.
It means that the creek where your grandfather taught you to fish and
where you want to teach your granddaughter to fish isn't going to have
the fish in it any longer. Can you put a price on that? No. It means
that the water flowing out of the Himalayas--fought over between
Pakistan and India forever--becomes less because there is dramatically
less glacier in the Himalayas to provide the glacial flow down into
those rivers.
And now you have a conflict between those countries over that most
elemental need of humans--water. Can you put a price on that risk?
Coastal homes all over the world are being lost to sea level rise.
After Superstorm Sandy, I walked the beaches near Matunuck, RI, and
there was a man standing on the shore near his house. His house was
tipped over because the storm had eroded the foundations of it, and he
was looking at his house. They spent time going into it. It was tipping
over. It was dangerous to go in, but they were getting out as much
stuff as they could.
I asked him: Tell me the story of this house. It was a nice old
house, been there a long time. He said: Well, I remember being here as
a baby. It was my grandparents' house. They came here in the summers.
It was beautiful. We had all this beach in front of us. We even had a
lawn in front of us. The thing I want most in my life is to be able to
pass this home on to my grandchildren; to have that family tradition,
generation after generation after generation, to be able to come to
this beautiful place and enjoy this beautiful shore and continue this
glorious family tradition.
How do you put a price on that when that is taken away because we are
too damned lazy and indolent to clean up the fossil fuel industry's
mess when they won't do it?
My point is that as I focus on the economics of this--because that is
what people care about in this place--there is a whole other set of
costs to mankind and to our Earth that we will be forcing future
generations to bear that have nothing to do with the almighty dollar
but actually may be worse in terms of humankind and the human spirit.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). The Democratic whip.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me first thank my colleague from Rhode
Island. I don't know how many years he has been delivering this message
on the floor, but he has become the spokesperson for a cause that we
all should share and try to make certain we address the deterioration
of this planet that we live on; that our kids, our grandkids, and their
children have a fighting chance against elements that they can't
personally control. It is up to our generation. And Senator Whitehouse
comes to the floor and reminds us on a regular basis about our moral
and economic and environmental responsibility.
I thank him for his statement today. I want to join him in that
respect.

S.J. Res. 55

Mr. President, last month, the Senate Parliamentarian analyzed the
GAO's opinion ruling that Senate Republicans cannot use the
Congressional Review Act to overturn a waiver granted to California by
the U.S. EPA to regulate its own vehicle emissions.
I remember a time in the House and, again, in the Senate when we had
a hardy debate here over miles per gallon and what was reasonable. I
remember the automobile industry saying that we shouldn't impose a
standard that they could never live up to, never produce cars that meet
that standard of the higher miles per gallon.
I remember that California stepped out ahead of the rest of the
Nation and said: Let us prove we can do it. Our economy is so big, you
can't miss it if we succeed or if we fail. And they succeeded. They
proved that if you create the right incentives, technology will move in
that direction, and it has, successfully, when it comes to miles per
gallon.
Now Republicans have decided, with the new President, to attempt to
block a California law requiring all new cars sold in the State by 2035
to be zero-emission vehicles. It is an ambitious goal. It is as
ambitious as some of the MPG goals they set in earlier times.
That is right. Despite the claims of being the party of States'
rights, Republicans want to end the State-level regulation in the State
of California. And get this, Elon Musk--the unelected adviser to the
President--previously wrote to the EPA in favor of California's waiver.
Now he has joined the Republican majority to try to gut the rule.
The Parliamentarian's decision was not one of party loyalty. It
followed decades of precedent showing California's Clean Air Act
waivers are not subject to the Congressional Review Act.
Despite the Parliamentarian's decision, my Senate Republican
colleagues want to override the GAO and Senate Parliamentarian to
advance the fossil fuel agenda. It is ``burn, baby, burn; drill, baby,
drill.''
Now, I understand using the CRA might be faster than Agency
rulemaking or even considering legislation. Think about this. There was
a time when we actually legislated on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I
can vaguely remember, it was so long ago. Rather than deal with
legislation, hearings, and public review, we are all about these
shortcut methods, which in some cases are disastrous. In fact,
President Trump, in his first term, took administrative action to
rescind California's Clean Air Act waivers and can take that path
again.
But what Republicans are pursuing today is a procedural nuclear
option, a dramatic break from Senate precedent with profound
consequences. Let me repeat. Should my Senate Republican colleagues
overrule the Senate Parliamentarian, it will have a major long-term
impact for the Senate and the legislative filibuster.
This move is unprecedented. The Senate has never overruled the
Parliamentarian regarding the CRA or allowing a bill to pass by
majority vote. Before, when the tables were turned and the Senate
Democrats were in the majority, my Republican colleagues were singing a
very different tune about never breaking from the Parliamentarian.
Leader Thune, himself, acknowledged in January of this year that
overruling the Parliamentarian is ``totally akin to killing the
filibuster. We can't go there,'' Leader Thune said, ``People need to
understand that.''
If Senate Republicans disregard the Parliamentarian's decision, they
would set a new precedent in the Senate, eliminating longstanding
guardrails and paving the way for future Senate majorities to overrule
the Parliamentarian to achieve its partisan goals. I caution my Senate
Republican colleagues from toeing this line and setting the wrong
precedent.
As I said, time and time again, there cannot be one set of rules for
the Republicans in the Senate and another set of rules for the
Democrats. I hope my Republican colleagues will heed my

[[Page S3032]]

warning and make the right choice--the only choice: accept the GAO and
Senate Parliamentarian's decision.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, colleagues, today, on the Senate floor,
we are expecting to see some outrageous attacks on my home State of
California and important provisions of the historic Clean Air Act.
While it is not too late to turn back at this moment, I think it is
important for all of my colleagues to know that I will be back here
again and again and again throughout this process to make sure that
everyone knows what these votes mean, not just for the precedent and
procedures of the U.S. Senate but for the health of my constituents in
California and about the real threat to human life that comes when
California is denied the ability to control toxic air and greenhouse
gas emissions.
But before I do, I want Senators and the American people to fully
understand what we are about to witness on the Senate floor. Put aside
all the procedural back-and-forth--I will get back to that in a few
minutes--but overall it is actually pretty simple. Senate Republicans
are preparing to vote to overrule the Parliamentarian--the nonpartisan
umpire, referee for the Senate--who lets us know what is in order, what
is not in order. Senate Republicans are preparing to vote to overrule
the Parliamentarian. They will argue that they are not, but that is
indeed what is happening here. They want to do that in order to bypass
the filibuster in order to gut the Clean Air Act.
As I stand here right now, those joint resolutions that are going to
be before us are subject to rule XXII of the Senate and, therefore,
subject to the 60-vote filibuster threshold. They are subject to
debate. They are subject to amendments. That has already been
determined.
In this moment, they are in regular legislation and are subject, as a
result, to the legislative filibuster. But if we see what we expect to
see happen today, the status of these same bills--maybe later this
evening--will be very, very different. If Senate Republicans behave the
way that we expect them to, all of a sudden these same measures that
are subject to the legislative filibuster and debate and amendments
will all of a sudden be expedited procedurally--no amendments allowed,
very limited debate.
Colleagues, as I said here yesterday, it is not just the ``why''
Republicans are willing to endanger the health of Californians, it is
also the ``how'' they are doing it that is threatening.
A bit of history. In 1967, the Clean Air Act passed this body under
regular order by a vote of 88 to 12. In 1990, the landmark Clean Air
Act amendment passed the Senate 89 to 11--overwhelming bipartisan
support. But today, Republicans are trying to pass these bills to gut
California's Clean Air Act authority under a simple 50-vote threshold.
They are plotting to overturn the Senate Parliamentarian's
determination, plain and simple.
Why is that significant? Well, the majority leader said it himself at
the very start of this Congress that when it comes to overriding the
Parliamentarian, ``that is totally akin to killing the filibuster. We
can't go there. People need to understand that.'' But fast forward to
this week, and we have heard all sorts of excuses and explanations and
mental gymnastics as to why all of a sudden overturning the
Parliamentarian is not akin to killing the filibuster. It is a complete
180-degree shift.
But in one way, I guess, they might be right. No, this isn't the same
as killing the legislative filibuster. This actually goes way, way
beyond that because, first, they are doing more than going nuclear on
the Parliamentarian; they are going nuclear on the Congressional Review
Act itself. It is true that the Parliamentarian does not make law.
Under the Constitution, the House and the Senate set their own
procedures, limited by the requirements set in the Constitution.
For the good of the order and actual functioning democracy, we have
all come to rely on the Parliamentarian to call balls and strikes and
set the rules of the road. But the Congressional Review Act is a law,
and it says that all points of order are waived during a CRA
resolution. And that is what we are debating right now, an actual CRA
resolution relating to hydrogen fuel.
I oppose this particular resolution, but at least it is following the
law and Senate procedure. But what is about to happen is going to be
against the law and against Senate procedure.
As I understand it, Senate Republicans are preparing to have this
Senate go nuclear not just once but twice. First, we will go nuclear
and overturn the rule on points of order during a CRA, which is in the
law. Then Republicans plan to go nuclear a second time: to throw out
the rulebook and use the CRA against any Agency action that any Agency
submits, no questions asked. Like I said, this goes way beyond just the
legislative filibuster. So let's play it out a little bit so we are
clear as to what this would lead to.
Under this logic, the Trump administration can send an endless stream
of nonrule actions to Congress going back to 1996, including vaccine
approvals. After all, we have an HHS Secretary with a spotty history as
it pertains to the health and safety of vaccines. The administration
could send broadcast licenses because you know this is an
administration that is not shy about attacking anybody in the community
who disagrees with their agenda. We can see the administration send
merger approvals--again, not just those that are pending but go back to
1996--and any number of government decisions that apply to President
Trump's long list of enemies.
All it would take is a minimum of 30 Senators to introduce related
bills, and the Senate would be bogged down voting on Agency actions,
large and small, all day long. Is that how we want to spend our days
here in the Senate, voting on every vaccine approval because Secretary
Kennedy decides to send them to Congress?
And what about the next Democratic administration? All bets would be
off. Consider mining permits. Consider fossil fuel project approvals;
consider LNG export licenses or offshore leases, IRS tax policies,
foreign policies, and every Project 2025 or DOGE disruption or
overreach. Every Agency action the Democrats don't like--whether it is
a rule or not and no matter how much time has passed--would be fair
game if Republicans go through with this and establish this precedent.
So let's take a step back. Republicans are admitting that they don't
have the votes to pass these California resolutions under the Senate
rules that the Parliamentarian says apply in this case, so they will
overrule the Parliamentarian--why not throw out the rulebook
altogether?
By voting to go nuclear on the CRA, they are ignoring the law, not
just Senate rules but the text of the law itself. By voting to overrule
the Parliamentarian, they are saying that the rules are whatever the
Republicans say they are, not what the Parliamentarian has determined.
The majority here can tell themselves whatever they want, and they can
twist themselves into pretzels and knots to try and justify these
reckless actions, but despite their smoke-and-mirrors approach to
confuse the general public, we are all going to see it today with our
own eyes if they go forward.
The majority wants to go nuclear to bypass the filibuster and pass a
bill for the first time in Senate history. It has happened for
nominations before. It has happened on a few procedural questions
before, but never on a bill or three bills--never. And if this happens
under a Republican majority, it would actually be pretty ironic that
the party who claims to be the staunch defender of the filibuster threw
the rules aside as soon as it was convenient.
I have been honest on my views of the filibuster. I do think it needs
to be changed overall going forward, but it was my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle who fought hard to keep it.
Well, there is about to be a new precedent on the record, unless we
step back at the last minute. And it will stand as a guidepost going
forward. Democrats are in the minority today. Democrats will be in the
majority again some day--maybe later, maybe sooner--but we will
certainly not forget what happened here today. History will not forget.
California will not forget what is at stake today either.
I yield for now, but I will be back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.

[[Page S3033]]

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Padilla for
his eloquent speech on this subject.
Today, I want to talk about what is taking place in this Chamber, and
I want to talk about it in two respects. I want to talk about what it
will mean for the American people in terms of the air that we breathe
and the water that we drink--that is the most important thing--but then
I want to also talk about what it will mean for this institution, for
the Senate; what it will mean for the filibuster; what it will mean for
whether things can get passed on a simple majority vote at the behest
of the oil industry or any other special interest or whether things in
the future will continue to require 60 votes to get through this body.
Let's start with the first and most important thing: What does the
repeal of California's clean air waiver--that is, its right to set its
own standards for the air that we breathe--what does this mean for the
people of California? What does this mean for the people of the United
States?
This is downtown Los Angeles in 1955. Now, I don't remember 1955--I
didn't come around until 1960--but I do remember air that looked a lot
like this when I moved to Los Angeles. I remember days when there were
smog alerts. We still have some of those. I remember when it was
unhealthy air to breathe, and people were advised not to go outside if
they didn't need to, and kids couldn't go out on recess because the air
quality was so bad.

But this is what places in California, like Los Angeles and many
places in the San Joaquin Valley, looked like just a few years ago--the
San Joaquin Valley, where so much of the food in the Nation is grown.
These areas have experienced the rapid rise of personal automobiles and
expansion of our population--America's West, its suburbs and its
cities.
On days like this, you just couldn't walk outside sometimes without
hacking. If you had asthma or breathing problems, it was even more
severe. And California families, through no fault of their own, were on
the frontlines of a health risk unseen since the worst days of the
Industrial Revolution pollution. The smog was so bad that in one
instance, mass panic broke out in California because there was a belief
that there was some kind of chemical weapons attack.
This was, in part, due to these amazing increases of population, but
it was also our unique topography. The San Gabriel Mountains in Los
Angeles, the Sierra Nevadas for the Central Valley, they trap fossil
fuel emissions and keep smog clouds hanging over our cities where they
may not hang over other parts of the Nation. So the San Gabriel
Mountains, for those of us in L.A., but the Verdugos and other mountain
ranges and the Sierra Nevadas have an impact on the Central Valley.
All that means is that 10 million Californians are living in areas
that are under distinct and elevated threats from air pollution. And
what that has meant historically is higher rates of respiratory issues
like asthma and chronic lung disease. It has meant increased risk of
heart disease, chronic headaches, immune system issues, and, most
significantly, increased cancer risks.
That is multiplied by us living now on the frontlines of the climate
crisis. We have devastating and year-round fire dangers that put
millions of other pollutants into our air. So we need, deserve, and
reserve the right, as Californians, to do something about our air.
In fact, this is why California became the first State in the Nation
to regulate the emissions of automobiles back in 1966 because we
understood then, as we do now, the risks that Californians face if we
don't take action. Over the past 60 years, since our skies looked like
this, California has led on this issue, and now, we are being targeted
for it.
What will the cost of that be? By revoking California's right to
protect its citizens from dirty air, we face not just dirtier air, but
we also face a sicker society. The American Lung Association projected
that our Nation moving to zero-emission vehicles in the next decade
would generate more than $1 trillion in public health benefits and save
more than 100,000 people from premature death.
So this is really the heart of the question for this body, and that
is, What is more valuable to us? Is it the unfettered right to pollute
the skies and make them look like this? Or do we want to save about $1
trillion in money we would have to spend otherwise on treating asthma
and treating lung cancer and treating heart disease that is caused by
air like this?
That electric vehicle requirement can save more than 100,000 people
from premature death. So I guess we have to ask ourselves, How much is
life worth? What would it be worth to us to be able to live a few years
longer?
I suppose the answer to that question depends on, well, what kind of
life is that? What kind of health are we in? But I would say a few more
years is worth a lot. It is worth a lot. It is certainly worth more
than contributions from the oil industry to be able to live a little
longer, to be able to live a little healthier.
By targeting California--as this effort is doing--which comprises 11
percent of the Nation, and our goal of decarbonizing our transportation
sector, we are selling poison seeds for the future--seeds that will
grow to be more asthma and more sickness and more hospitalizations and
more death. That is the bleak but blatant reality of what we are
debating here today.
If the Republicans go nuclear to repeal California's clean air rules,
that is what this will mean. It will mean shorter lives, poorer quality
of life because of what we are breathing in the air, and ultimately,
when they strike down clean water rules, what we are drinking in our
water is going to be dirtier, and the American people are going to be
more plagued by a whole variety of cancers.
Now, I mentioned the term ``going nuclear.'' What does that mean?
This gets to the second point I want to make today, which is how the
Republican majority intends to go about repealing California's ability
to set the standards for its own air; that is, how does the Republican
majority intend to foist its will on millions of people in other
States? How are they determined to overturn States' rights? How are
they determined that the Federal Government should tell a State: No,
you can't protect your people from air pollution, not to that degree
you can't, because we answer to a higher authority and that higher
authority is called the oil industry? So how are they going to do it
because in this body, for better or worse, it generally takes 60 votes
to get things done. That is the filibuster. It requires 60 votes.

To repeal California's law, if you were to take that step, it would
require 60 votes. Don't just take my word for it. We asked the
Parliamentarian, who is the expert: Does this require 60 votes? Is this
subject to the filibuster?
The answer is, yes, it does.
Well, you would think that would be the end of the story, but you can
overrule the Parliamentarian, say the Parliamentarian is wrong, and
then reduce the threshold to 50 votes.
Now, you might ask: How is that possible? Is the filibuster really
that fragile that whenever it is ruled that you need 60 votes, you can
simply overrule the Parliamentarian?
The answer is, yes, the rule is that fragile, which means that if
Republicans move to go nuclear, to overturn the Parliamentarian, to do
away with the filibuster, to do away with California's clean air, they
will be setting a precedent that at any time and for any reason, for
any State, for any rule, for any nonrule, for any waiver, for any
license, for any grant--for any anything--a new majority can simply
say: Well, we would like to vote on this with 50 votes. And if the
Parliamentarian says it takes 60, you just vote to overturn the
Parliamentarian.
So that is the import of what we are doing today, which is we are
setting a precedent that the filibuster is essentially now meaningless,
because if you can do away with the filibuster to do away with one
State's clean air, well, you can pretty much do away with the
filibuster for anything and everything.
So that is the momentous nature of what is happening today. The
majority here may force Californians to breathe air like that again,
and the majority here may decide they are getting rid of the
filibuster.
Now, getting back to the underlying merits here, the American Lung
Association found that our transition to cleaner air and zero-emission
vehicles would result in 13 million fewer lost

[[Page S3034]]

workdays in the next 10 years. So what does that mean, 13 million? It
means 13 million fewer times that you are so sick, you can't go to
work. You get 13 million more days of health with these clean air
rules. Think about that--13 million more healthy days for you, the
American people, if we achieve our emissions goals.
Now, since my swearing-in 6 months ago to the Senate, I have had the
privilege of visiting communities all over California, talking to
Californians who are on the frontlines of this. Yes, some are
environmental activists, and, yes, some work on science and climate
issues, but there are others, too. They are the people who put food in
your grocery stores. They are the people who spend so much of their
days outside, breathing the only air available to them. They are the
people who will be sicker--some of the people who will be sicker, work
less, maybe die earlier, if we let the fossil fuel industry win this
week; the people who spend hundreds of hours each month on their hands
and knees, making sure that all the rest of us can have fresh berries
and greens and other crops that California puts on your plate. I am, of
course, talking about farmworkers. I invite any of my colleagues to
consider what millions more pounds of smog in our air over the next
decade will do to them.
Of course, it is not just farmworkers; it is all of us--all of us who
spend time outdoors, all of us who can't help but be outdoors. All of
us are going to be breathing in dirtier air, all of us are going to be
suffering more sick days, and all of us are going to be plagued by more
cancers if we repeal the rules that each State gets to set that has a
waiver or wants to join California's healthier air rules. That will be
the repercussion.
It used to be there was a bipartisan consensus in favor of cleaner
air. It wasn't just Democrats. Richard Nixon, who founded the EPA, Pete
Wilson, Ronald Reagan--they all understood the importance of the
environment and clean air and clean water. They helped California take
the environmental movement and make it mainstream. We got pollutants
out of our air and out of our water and out of our communities.
Where is that party now? Where is the party that helped write the
Clean Air Act? Where is the party that says Congress should not meddle
in what one State is doing to govern itself?
What will happen when you lose the majority and Democrats have the
opportunity to follow this precedent? What will happen to your State?
We decide we don't like your State's rule on mifepristone or we don't
like the fact that your State got a license to export liquid natural
gas or we don't like a grant that your State got in transportation or
we don't like some rule that benefits your State. Will you argue to us
that ``oh, no, you can't overturn the Parliamentarian''? Will that be
your argument? Because that fight will be over.
So I will remember where I am today. I will remember what we are
doing today. I think we all would and will. I hope it is not the day
that we made it easier to pollute California's skies. I hope it is not
the date we made it easier to make water filled with more forever
chemicals like PFAS. I hope it is not the day we decided that we could
eliminate a State's right to control the quality of the air that their
citizens breathe or the water they drink. And I hope it is not the day
we decided that it was worth getting rid of the filibuster to satisfy
the fossil fuel industry.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. SCHIFF. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Vermont.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1818

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I know that my Republican colleagues like
to do what the President asks them to do. They agree with him on
virtually everything, so today I am going to make life easy for my
Republican colleagues. I am going to ask them to support legislation--
extremely important legislation--that, in fact, does what President
Trump claims that he wants to do.
On May 20, just a few days ago, President Trump said the following:

Not only that, remember, I am cutting drug prices by 85
percent.

This is what President Trump said a few days ago: I am cutting drug
prices by 85 percent. Right now, I am saving--I am saving the whole
thing because I did something nobody was willing to do. Other countries
pay a tiny fraction of what we do, and I instituted favored nations. We
are now going to pay the lowest in the world. We will be the equivalent
of the lowest country in the world. People go to London, they go to
Canada, they go to other countries, many other countries, because they
want to pay their pharmaceutical products--their drugs--at a fraction
of the cost. We are going to have the lowest cost of anywhere in the
world. No one else could do that but me.
That is President Trump a few days ago.
Well, I don't usually agree with President Trump on anything, but, in
fact, on this issue, he makes a very strong point.
In the United States today, we have a healthcare system that is
broken; it is dysfunctional; and it is cruel. It is a system which
spends twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other major
country while 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. And
one out of four Americans today cannot afford the cost of the drugs
their doctors prescribe, and it is a system where over 60,000 people a
year die because they don't get to a doctor on time.
While the current system makes huge profits for the large drug
companies, huge profits for the insurance companies, it is obviously
failing the needs of ordinary Americans.
So what is the U.S. Congress doing to address this crisis? Well,
right now, sadly and tragically, the Republicans are trying to ram
through a so-called reconciliation bill, which would deny coverage--
take away coverage--for up to 13.7 million Americans, according to the
Congressional Budget Office.
In other words, in the midst of a terrible healthcare crisis, this
legislation makes a very bad situation much worse. We cannot allow that
to happen.
So what should we do? Well, in my view, healthcare is a human right.
We should do what every other major country on Earth does and guarantee
healthcare for all people.
But, today, I want to get back to what President Trump said a few
days ago, and what he said is that the American people are sick and
tired of paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription
drugs. And he is right.
Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent, or
progressive or conservative, you understand that there is something
wrong when Americans can't afford the high cost of prescription drugs,
and the drug companies make over $100 billion a year in profits.
Let me give you just a few examples of the current situation
regarding prescription drug costs in America. While it costs just $5 to
manufacture Ozempic--that is a widely used drug right now--Novo
Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic, makes obscene profits by selling
this drug for more than a $1,000 in the United States. That drug costs
$76 in France, $85 in Germany, and $170 in Canada.
But it is not just Ozempic. Prescription drug after prescription drug
costs far more in this country to purchase than in other countries--in
some cases, 10 times more.
So what are we going to do about it? Well, I think it might be a good
idea for my Republican friends to listen to what the President of the
United States said. And, today, we are going to offer my Republican
friends the opportunity to achieve the goals that President Trump has
talked about.
The problem with President Trump's initiative is that he is mostly
just talking. The Executive order that he has introduced and signed
does not do what he says he wants to do.
Just don't take my word for it. An expert at Harvard University was
recently quoted as saying:

The executive order reads more like an aspirational
statement than a serious attempt to initiate a policy change.

[[Page S3035]]

The Wall Street Journal--no great friend of mine--their analysts said
the order was ``more bark than bite.''
Since issuing the Executive order, President Trump has gone on FOX
News, and while talking about differences in American prices and
international prices, he said ``he ended it.''
Good news. It is all over. He ended it. We no longer pay the highest
prices in the world for prescription drugs, according to President
Trump.
During that same interview, he said that ``drug companies were
great.'' The drug companies, apparently, even told him: ``Look, it's
time.''
Just yesterday, at a press conference with Speaker Johnson, he
claimed he ``is cutting [drug prices] by 80 to 85 percent'' because
``he stopped the scam.''
Well, there you go. Good news, America. The President said it. It
must be true because he would not lie. Drug prices are down by 80 to 85
percent.
Does anyone really believe that? Nobody does.
If we want to, on the other hand, do more than just talk, we have got
to do something, and the way we do it is with some serious legislation.
And that is the legislation that I have introduced today.
If we want to actually lower the outrageously high cost of
prescription drugs in America, we need to take on the pharmaceutical
industry in a way that President Trump has never even thought about
doing. In other words, we need less talk; we need more action.
And that is why I introduced legislation to make sure that Americans
pay no more than people in other countries for the exact same
prescription drug. Unlike President Trump's Executive order, my bill
doesn't just ask drug companies nicely, please, to lower prices. My
legislation makes it clear that drug companies must lower prices for
Americans to those they charge people in other countries. In other
words, what we are finally saying is, if you are charging the people in
the UK $100 for this prescription drug, that is what you are going to
charge the people in the United States--not 10 times more.
And the difference between my legislation and Trump's so-called
Executive order is that, if the pharmaceutical industry refuses to do
the right thing and substantially lower drugs, my bill will allow other
companies to sell the same prescription drugs at a far lower cost. In
other words, generics can come on to the market and sell the drug for a
fraction of the price.
So President Trump says he supports making sure Americans pay no more
than people in other countries for prescription drugs. President Trump
says:

Campaign contributions can do wonders, but not with me, and
not with the Republican Party. We are going to do the right
thing, something that the Democrats have fought for many
years.

Well, I am just ever so delighted that campaign contributions have no
impact on the Republican Party. It could have shocked me, but there we
go. President Trump said it. It must be right.
So the bottom line here is President Trump says he wants to lower the
cost of prescription drugs in America by 80 to 85 percent. I agree.
President Trump has issued an Executive order which he says will do
that. It will not do that.

The legislation that I have introduced has real teeth, and it will do
that. So, today, I call upon all of my colleagues, especially my
Republican colleagues, to support this legislation, because I know
President Trump has said that the huge amount of money that the
pharmaceutical industry gives in campaign contributions to Democrats
and Republicans doesn't have any impact on the Republicans. They are
prepared to stand up to the drug companies. So that is great news. I am
delighted to hear that.
So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous
consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be
discharged from further consideration of S. 1818, and the Senate
proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be
considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider
be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
Mr. CASSIDY. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. CASSIDY. I appreciate the ranking member's interest in addressing
drug prices, and you absolutely have to lower the cost of prescription
drugs. And we absolutely have to acknowledge that there is a tension.
If we do not incentivize the development of new types of drugs, we
condemn ourselves to continue to die from diseases for which there are
currently no cures.
And I say this as a guy who has practiced medicine--or graduated from
med school in 1983. Let me put it that way.
When I graduated from medical school, one of the most common
surgeries was taking out a portion of somebody's stomach. I don't mean
your belly. I mean your stomach, where the food goes down after you
swallow it. This is how I talk to medical students--because of peptic
ulcer disease.
And there came along a medicine called cimetidine. It just changed
the landscape. And we went from a surgery being most common to one
which was rarely performed in 6 months. Cimetidine, which is now called
Tagamet, which is now sold over the counter--just a measure of
innovation, which if we had not had that innovation then, a most common
surgery would still be removing a portion of somebody's stomach because
of bleeding ulcers.
More tragically--it is pretty tragic when you lose part of your
stomach--when I was a resident in Los Angeles is when the HIV epidemic
came out. And all of these men--they were all men--20 to 30, came in
with something that we didn't even know what the disease was. We didn't
have a way to diagnose it. So we called it the Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome. And they all died. They all died.
And I remember saying to one of the older physicians: Why do we even
bother treating them, because they all die?
But because there was an incentive for companies to come up with
cures, they did it. And they stopped dying, and they began living.
That doesn't happen accidentally. It happens because there is
incentive to bring a drug through expensive studies to the market. By
the way, I recently had a doc tell me, who treats HIV positives, that
if a patient takes their medicine, they die when they are 88 of
Alzheimer's or a stroke or something else, but they should not die from
an AIDS-related cancer. That is the power of innovation, and that is
the power of incentivizing innovation.
I could go down a list of other drugs. Melanoma. When I was in med
school, if you got diagnosed with melanoma, they said go fill out the
will. Now I have friends who have been living for 8 years, 10 years
longer taking immunotherapy for melanoma. That doesn't just happen.
That happens because you incentivize innovation.
So what are our diseases now for which we have no cure? Alzheimer's.
I lost two parents to it. Wouldn't it be great if we had a cure for
Alzheimer's?
Pancreatic cancer, esophageal cancer--I could just go down the list
of things for which there is no cure. But, I can tell you, with the
appropriate incentive, with the research taking place, in 10 years, we
will speak of those diseases as diseases of the past, as we now speak
of bleeding peptic ulcer disease causing a portion of your stomach to
be resected as something in the distant past.
Now, by the way, I applaud my colleague. I applaud President Trump
for saying that other countries are not carrying their fair share of
the load for paying for this innovation. They should do it too. This is
not the way to get there. But it is absolutely essential that they do.
And my staff is bringing something, which I will invite my colleague
from Vermont to join us on that, because it is absolutely essential
that we have the innovation, that we be able to afford it. And the only
way we balance those two is if other countries pay their fair share.
But let's return to the measure at hand. The measure at hand sounds
simple. It is simple. It won't succeed. Well, it will succeed in
lowering prices temporarily, but, in the long term, it will defeat the
ability to incentivize innovation. And then all drugs will be cheap
because all drugs will be old. But we need new drugs, and we need the
incentive, and this kills that incentive.
So for that, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.

[[Page S3036]]

The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. I want to thank my colleague from Louisiana, the
chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, on
which I serve, for his remarks. And I think nobody will disagree with
him that we have seen in recent years incredible innovation, and there
are drugs now on the market that are saving lives that 20, 30 years
ago, 10 years ago, were not the case. And we want to continue that
innovation--no debate about that.
But all that I am asking my colleague from Louisiana to focus on is
what President Trump said, not last year, not 5 years ago. It is what
he said yesterday. And what he said yesterday, and I quote, Senator
Cassidy--this is President Trump:

I'm cutting drug prices by 85 percent. Right now, I'm
saving--I'm saving the whole thing because I did something
that nobody was willing to do. Other countries pay a tiny
fraction of what we do. And I instituted favored nations.
We're now going to pay the lowest in the world. We will be
the equivalent of the lowest country in the world. People go
to London. They go to Canada. They go to other countries--
many other countries.

But we are going to do it here in the United States. That is what he
said.
So all that I am doing, Chairman Cassidy, is putting into
legislative, effective language what the President of the United States
said.
And by the way, he said, again, that the pharmaceutical industry and
all of their campaign contributions have no impact on Republicans, only
on Democrats. Well, maybe that is the case, but I doubt that very much.
So all that I am asking my colleague and friend the chairman of the
committee to do is to put in place what President Trump said he was
doing.
And what my legislation would do is exactly what Trump talked about.
It would lower the cost of prescription drugs to what other countries
are paying. That is what it does; it does what Trump says he wants to
do. I would urge my friend from Louisiana to reconsider.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

Budget Reconciliation

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, there is a sort of general rule in
politics, which is that if you start your meeting at 1 a.m., you are
probably not proud of what you are doing. Now, there are some instances
in which you start the meeting at 7 p.m. and it goes long and then you
have to vote at whatever hour you finish. But to convene at 1 a.m. is
an intentional thing. It is to say: I would very much like if nobody
saw what we were up to. And that is exactly what happened at 1 a.m.
today, Wednesday morning.
Republicans in the House know that the bill that they are considering
is super unpopular, but they have been ordered to pass it anyway. That
is what is happening on the other side of the Capitol right now. House
Republicans have convened the Rules Committee at 1 a.m. to advance
their tax bill, and it is because they know this bill stinks.
For starters, it is the largest wealth transfer in American history.
Think about that. There have been a lot of wealth transfers in American
history, but this is the biggest one in terms of the Tax Code. It is
not like they were redistributing wealth among the wealthy. They are
literally taking from the poor--people who don't have enough money--and
shoveling it straight into the pockets of people who already have more
than enough.
This bill is about making the richest people ever to walk the Earth
even richer. How do they plan to do that? By kicking 14 million
Americans off of health insurance and denying food assistance to
millions more. People will be turned away at hospitals and go to bed
hungry, all so that billionaires have a bit more.
You do not need fancy polling to tell you that this is super
unpopular. And so Republicans have decided to fix that problem by
convening the hearing in the middle of the night, hoping that people
will not notice.
The plain facts of the bill are so egregious. And as I started to
write these remarks, I had a problem, which is, How do you describe
this thing accurately and not sound like you are frothing at the mouth
like a partisan and sort of overstating the case? Because this really
is kicking 14 million people off of Medicaid, kicking millions more off
of food assistance, and then that is the savings that is generated in
order to fund these tax cuts for billionaire corporations and the
wealthiest people in the United States.
And what happens if something is both true and sounds like a partisan
accusation? But that is where we are at. This is actually what they are
trying to do.
Here is the thing, even the biggest cuts to Medicaid in history are
still not enough to cover the cost of these enormous giveaways. So the
Republicans have turned to one of their favorite punching bags: solving
the climate crisis.
Never mind that hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested in
clean energy across the country, mostly in Republican States and
districts; never mind that those investments are creating hundreds of
thousands of good-paying jobs; never mind that even if you don't care
about any of that, there is a basic principle in running a smart
economy and running an investable economy--and that is that when the
private sector makes an investment on the basis of the Tax Code and
they are in the middle of that investment, you can't pull the rug out
from under them.
The reason is very simple. Besides fairness and besides the fact that
we are undermining progress towards actually addressing an existential
crisis for the planet, it also makes the United States very hard to
invest in because if you were a business and you are looking at the
Federal Tax Code and you are saying: I am going to make a 5-, maybe 10-
year investment--capital investment--in chips, manufacturing, climate,
agriculture, hospitality, real estate, transportation, infrastructure,
whatever it may be--you are doing it on the basis of what the Federal
Tax Code says.
And then your investment committee, board of directors, whomever it
may be, will say: How do we know these things are going to stay on the
books?
The normal answer is: Come on, the Federal Government is not going to
pull out a tax incentive structure in the middle of your investment and
construction cycle.
And the truth is, yes, they are.
So this doesn't have just climate implications or economic
implications in terms of the specific projects. It actually has to do
with how stable of an investment climate we establish in the United
States of America. We are no longer doing ``all of the above.'' The
argument that we used to have between the political parties was
Democrats would say we have to transition to clean energy; Republicans
would say, no, let's do clean energy, but let's also do these other
things.
But now the Republican position is picking winners and losers and,
basically, riding the losers into the ground.
Here is the very tough truth: Coal is on the way out, whether you
like it or not. But Trump and Republicans would rather revive it for a
few more years just to squeeze a couple more years of profitability out
of it because, after all, their capital investments are fully
amortized. So a couple more years of profitability means no more
investment, but a couple more years of revenue.
So that is what they are doing. This is going to raise costs for
Americans. Let's be clear. This is going to raise costs for Americans.
There was a time--and I was part of these debates in the State of
Hawaii--there was a time when there was a tradeoff between how much
consumers had to pay and our climate objectives. But those trends have
changed. Now wind is the cheapest form of energy. Nuclear is among the
cheapest forms of energy. Solar is among the cheapest forms of energy.
For me, in the State of Hawaii, to bring in low sulfur fuel oil on a
fuel tanker and then light it on fire for electron is the dumbest thing
to do, even if you don't care about climate.
It is simply cheaper. It is simply cheaper for consumers and
businesses and for the climate crisis and, therefore, our ability to
fiscally manage the climate crisis as we see increasing disasters, both
in their severity and how often they happen. And then every--what?--
year, year and a half we do $150 million emergency supplemental because
there are now wildfires where there have never been wildfires, floods
where there have never been floods, tornadoes where there have never
been

[[Page S3037]]

tornadoes? This is not made up. Nobody gets to deny this anymore.
So there is a reason they convened at 1 a.m., and it is not because
that is prime time in Hawaii. They didn't convene at 1 a.m. because
they like to see each other past midnight. They convened at 1 a.m.
because they are about to pass one of the most unpopular pieces of
legislation that has ever been passed out of the U.S. House of
Representatives.
I just wonder why--if I am a House Member and I am being told ``We
are going to make all these changes. All these things that you are
voting for are going to be excised from the Senate version. Don't
worry,'' well, my view would be ``If you are going to fix all that
stuff, why are you making me vote on it now? Why are you making me vote
on it now?''
The answer is very simple: Donald Trump showed up in the caucus and
used a couple of expletives. They implied that voting no is a betrayal,
that standing up for your constituents is a betrayal, and I think they
are all going to fall in line.
So it is up to the U.S. Senate to fix this bill or kill this bill.
That is the task in front of us.
I am hoping that cooler heads prevail. I know there are a number of
Republicans who hate these Medicaid cuts. I know there are a number of
Republicans who have a ton of clean energy investment in their States.
There is plenty of political room to criticize the Biden
administration or say ``I am against the Green New Deal'' and still be
for wind and solar and nuclear and geothermal and agriculture that is
done in a more climate-friendly way. All of that is available to us. We
don't have to do things in the maximally unpopular way, but the Speaker
apparently wants to do it that way.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Democratic leader.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1593

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I am a sponsor, along with Senator
Markey, our lead sponsor, and Senator Hirono, for the Small Business
Liberation Act. In a few minutes, Senator Markey will come to the floor
and ask unanimous consent to pass it, but I wanted to say a few words
in advance of his coming.
Senate Democrats today will try to pass the Small Business Liberation
Act to exempt small businesses from Trump's destructive trade war. I am
very proud to cosponsor and support this legislation that Senator
Markey has sponsored.
Two months since Donald Trump's so-called ``Liberation Day,'' his
tariffs have been economic arson on Main Street, and small businesses
are getting scorched.
I have visited small businesses from one end of New York to the
other, and these tariffs are sowing chaos. They are raising costs,
smashing supply chains, forcing businesses to hike prices, lay off
people, and even close their doors for good. Already, employment of the
smallest of small businesses has declined by 3 percent, and last month
alone, 65,000 small business jobs were wiped out.
Trump's 90-day pause does nothing to bring relief or certainty to
small business but only continues the uncertainty and chaos. How can a
small business possibly plan for the future when the future only shows
chaos? One day Donald Trump says this, the next day he says that, and
nobody knows what tomorrow brings.
These small businesses can't do anything about their pain. They don't
have the ear of the President like the mega corporation CEOs do. The
administration is utterly clueless about the pain they are creating for
small business.
Our legislation will help small businesses get back on track by
exempting them from Trump's destructive tariffs. There are almost 35
million small businesses in the United States that employ roughly half
of the private sector jobs in the country. Providing these businesses
with tariff relief shouldn't be partisan. It is a national priority.
If Republicans clearly care and truly care about protecting small
business, they should not stand in the way of our legislation passing
today.
Will they side with the American people and small business and help
pass our legislation or will Republicans block this bill and side with
Donald Trump as his trade war decimates small businesses from one end
of the country to the other?
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, we are witnessing one of the most anti-
small business administrations in our Nation's history.
Since day one, Donald Trump and his administration have sown chaos in
our country and our economy, disregarding the impacts of their mayhem
on the American people, including the nearly 35 million small business
owners in our country.
From freezing Federal funds to enacting tariffs that harm small
businesses and consumers, Donald Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the
American economy and the small businesses that fuel it. Now the Trump
administration has taken to gaslighting business owners and the
American people about the impacts of their recklessness.
Just today, Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler--a
billionaire herself--testified before the Small Business Committee on
which I sit. To call her remarks Orwellian would be an understatement.
In her testimony before the committee, Administrator Loeffler claimed
that thanks to the President's economic agenda, ``demand for American
goods is rising and small manufacturers are stepping up to meet it.''
On the contrary, President Trump's tariffs are harming U.S.
businesses--especially small businesses--and increasing their costs. As
a result, business confidence is plummeting.
According to the National Small Business Association, only 59 percent
of small business owners are confident in the financial future of their
businesses. This is a new low in this organization's survey. It is a
new low in the 16-year history of this survey.
According to another organization, Small Business for America's
Future, 80 percent of business owners feel concerned or pessimistic
about their economic outlook, 79 percent of businesses are concerned
about a recession in the next 12 months, and 86 percent are concerned
about navigating current economic conditions.
Normally, the SBA would be there for small businesses in moments of
pain and uncertainty like this, but this anti-business administration
has wasted no time in basically gutting the SBA. To date, nearly 800
SBA employees have been fired or resigned, and the Administrator has a
goal to shed another 1,900 employees in the months ahead. The SBA is
the smallest entity in our Federal bureaucracy, and they are shedding
all these employees. When I asked the Administrator about these
employees, the majority of whom are gone, she had a hard time giving me
a straight answer.
Already, we have heard from small businesses that have noticed a
significant decline in customer service since January when the SBA
began shedding all these employees. If the SBA goes ahead with this
disastrous plan to shed more employees, nearly half--nearly half--of
the Agency's workforce will have been eliminated, leaving small
businesses across the country basically to fend for themselves, not to
mention all of the programs that the SBA supports on behalf of small
businesses.
Gutting the SBA is hardly what I would call, to quote Ms. Loeffler in
her testimony today, ``meeting the moment.'' Despite the
Administrator's bluster, the numbers are clear: Our small businesses
are suffering; they are not prospering. They are suffering under the
weight of Trump's actions, especially his tariffs.
That is why I was proud to join Senator Markey in introducing
legislation which he will talk about soon to exempt small businesses
from Trump's tariffs, tariffs that may well force many of these
businesses to shut down altogether. While the massive corporations
controlled by President Trump's billionaire buddies may be able to
weather this economic storm, our small businesses don't have the same
luxury.
Republicans think our Tax Code makes our economy great; that if they

[[Page S3038]]

keep giving massive tax breaks to their billionaire buddies, some of
these tax breaks, this money that is concentrated at the top, will
eventually trickle down to working people. We already know that is not
so. Democrats know that small businesses, entrepreneurs, and their
hard-working employees are the powerhouses of the American economy. We
should be making it easier for hard-working people to start and run
businesses--not harder--so that they can unleash a wave of innovation
and prosperity rather than waiting and hoping for a trickle that may
never come. And in fact, it hasn't. It doesn't. But the Republicans
keep hoping that we are going to continue to buy this argument.
So, for these reasons, if Republicans are serious about supporting
small businesses, they will join us in passing our commonsense bill. On
behalf of the nearly 35 million small businesses across our country, I
urge my colleagues to join us in passing the Markey bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schmitt). The Senator from Massachusetts.

S.J. Res. 55

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, while we are waiting for the next
opportunity to move on the legislation to liberate small businesses
from the tariffs of the Trump administration, I would just like to
speak for a few minutes about the attempts by the Republican leadership
to truncate the process by which California is able to have a waiver to
increase the efficiency of the vehicles which are driven in California,
but the same thing would be true across the rest of the Nation.
All I want to say is that, right now, China is investing $1 trillion
this year in clean energy, low-carbon technologies--$1 trillion in 1
year. Japan has just announced they are investing $1 trillion in clean
energy, low-carbon technologies.
So what we are debating here is going to absolutely allow for these
other countries to catch up to us, and we will ultimately fall further
and further behind, especially in the efficiency of the vehicles which
we drive in this country. We might as well put a bow on an entire
industry over the long term and just hand it over to countries around
the world that are focusing on these technologies.
That is why this is a big mistake. We should not be allowing for a
procedural trick to be played here that is unprecedented in the history
of the Senate, to then have the underlying issue be really not debated
the way it should in terms of the consequences for our Nation and for
the planet in terms of the greenhouse gases, additionally, that are
going to go up that will endanger our planet.
So I just wanted to make that comment. I will come back later in
order to speak on it.
At this point, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

Tariffs

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here in support of Senator
Markey's very important bill that looks at these tariff taxes which, as
we all know, apply to consumers--$3,000 for every family in America
will be the tariff tax from President Trump's tariffs.
But the focus of Senator Markey's bill--which is so smart--it is on
what is happening with small businesses. They are literally roadkill
here. They do not have the margins of the big businesses who can go in
and have the number of the White House and get a special meeting and
get an exemption, which is exactly what has happened.
Or they are not invited to the special secret meeting at JPMorgan
with the Treasury Secretary with major investors to find out what is
going to happen next with tariffs. They are completely in the dark. Yet
they are the backbone of our economy.
I use the example of Beth Benike who is from Minnesota, an Army
veteran from southern Minnesota, CEO and founder of a little company
called Busy Baby, Minnesota Small Business Person of the Year, just
honored at the Small Business Administration about a week ago or 2. And
she was celebrating getting her products into major, major retailers.
And then these tariffs struck.
Beth's story is the American dream. She came up with an idea based on
her own experiences with little kids to help with highchairs. And now
she is worried about losing her business and even her house because of
these across-the-board tariffs.
We are seeing this over and over again. That is why I am honored to
join Senator Markey in his bill to say: If we are not going to help the
rest of the world, at least we must exempt small businesses in America
from these tariff taxes.
I would prefer for everyone to look at only doing targeted tariffs
like we have successfully done in the past under both Democratic and
Republican Presidents, instead of this across-the-board business that
is basically driving China into the arms of Russia, that is dissing our
own allies, like South Korea and Japan and Europe, Canada and Mexico.
And the time is here to do something.
Mr. President, at the very least, let us exempt those small
businesses who are going to be the first to fold under the weight of
these tariff taxes. I thank Mr. Markey for his leadership.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.

Tribute to Jessica Stevens

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the motto of the State of Oregon is ``She
flies with her own wings.''
I can't think of a better description for my State director Jessica
Stevens. After more than 12 years with Team Merkley, I have come to the
Senate floor today to bid her a grateful farewell.
Jessica has spent her career serving the people of our State of
Oregon. She fought for working families as the executive director of
the Oregon State Council of the Service Employees International Union,
SEIU, before joining Team Merkley as director of our field team.
I hold a townhall in each of Oregon's 36 counties every year, so
leading the field team is a very demanding challenge.
For 3 years, she traveled with me across the length and breadth of
our State, from big cities to rural communities, from the Oregon coast
to the Owyhee Canyonlands, from the Columbia River to Crater Lake.
So in 2015, when it was time to hire a new State director, there was
no question that Jessica was the right person to lead our State team.
For the last decade, she has coordinated between two teams on two
coasts, managing six field offices with nearly 20 staff working across
Oregon's more than 98,000 square miles.
She has overseen more than 400 townhalls with the people of Oregon.
She has built close working relationships with 3 Governors, 11 Members
of the House of Representatives, countless State legislators, county
commissioners, community leaders, stakeholders, advocates, and
constituents, not to mention Senator Wyden's team.
And she leads by example.
As one of our team members said:

Jessica works harder than anyone else. And what we see is
only the tip of the iceberg.

Others describe her ``constantly working behind the scenes,'' that
she ``squashes trouble,'' ``puts out fires,'' and ``fixes problems
nobody [has even yet seen].''
A former Team Merkley member said she ``was so impressed with how
Jessica handled [difficult situations, bringing] immense calmness and
clarity [with] considerable empathy and support.''
Another former team member said:

Regardless of roadblocks or the crisis du jour, Jessica has
always remained dogged and determined to make sure that the
people and causes who needed help [get] it.

Jessica has also taken countless members of Team Merkley under her
wing. She has encouraging words for our interns, podcast
recommendations on tricky local issues.
She sets a ``calm but strong'' example for the entire team, including
her ``skill for listening and really seeing all the diverse groups and
constituencies'' my office serves.
One longtime member of our team said:

When I first met Jessica, I was pretty intimidated by her
as an intern and just recognized immediately [that] she
was a badass woman.

Another shared the story of the first time she had to do an airport
pickup, saying:

Jessica could tell I was really nervous and offered to come
with me . . . so I would feel

[[Page S3039]]

more comfortable and [that] everything would go smoothly.

Another member of Jessica's team said:

She takes care of family, she takes care of friends, she
takes care of her neighbors. She is just honestly incredibly
selfless and giving.

Someone said:

[She's] always sending a personal note to celebrate
people's good news and glad tidings. [And] it [really] means
a lot and builds the kind of camaraderie that makes Team
Merkley special.

And one member of my team summed it up by simply saying:

When you have Jessica in your corner, you feel [very]
supported and safe.

In addition, she led one of the most consequential and sensitive
processes: the nominations of Federal judgeships in Oregon. She
supported judicial selection committees of legal and community leaders
and worked with the White House to advance these nominations.
Thanks to her tireless efforts, Oregon has made history with its
recent appointments, including Judge Adrienne Nelson, who is the first
African-American woman to serve on the Federal bench from the District
of Oregon, and Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, who is the first Muslim to serve
as a Federal judge in the United States.
Her quiet efforts behind the scenes have helped to make our courts
and our country more equitable and more just.
The motto of the State of Oregon is ``She flies with her own wings.''
Through workers' strikes and wildfires, through pandemics and post
office closings, through the first Trump administration and now the
second, she has kept Team Merkley flying for 12\1/2\ years.
It is with deep gratitude that Team Merkley and I thank Jessica
Stevens for her service to the people of Oregon. We wish her all the
best in her new chapter.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1593

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, today, I rise to advocate to my colleagues
in the Senate for my Small Business Liberation Act, and I do so with
Leader Schumer and Senator Hirono, who have each already spoken on this
very important issue.
Here is what the bill would do: The bill would give relief from
President Trump's disastrous, destructive, small business-killing
tariffs that have been turning Main Street into ``Pain Street'' all
over our country for the last 7 weeks.
I would also provide with my bill certainty to the constant whiplash
and chaos that is President Trump's tariff policies by exempting small
businesses from the baseline 10-percent tariffs and the tariffs that
have been on a 90-day pause since April 9.
So let me just explain what I am talking about. On April 2, President
Trump imposed a 10-percent tariff on pretty much the whole world. In
other words, a 10-percent tax on anything coming into the country--10
percent.
He also imposed an additional--called reciprocal tariff--on April 2
as well. And those tariffs, for example, were an additional 20 percent
on the EU or an additional--we will just say--32 percent on Fiji, for
whatever reason.
So that was an incredible additional tax on top of the 10-percent
tax, which he imposed on the same day.
So on April 9, the President said: Well, we will wait--we will wait
90 days on those additional tariffs; on the EU for 20 percent; the 32
percent for Fiji; the 24 percent additional for Japan--we will put that
aside, but we are going to keep the 10 percent on.
Now, for a big company, maybe they can figure that out. They can ride
that out, the 10 percent. However, if you are a small business in our
country, and all of a sudden, there is a new 10-percent tax you have to
pay on all of those goods which you are bringing into our country, and
then there is a sword of Damocles sitting out there, as well, that
there could be, in July--which is only 6 weeks away--an additional 20
percent if those products come in from Europe. You are going to have a
chilling effect that is placed on your business decisions, without
question.
They don't have the leeway to be able to make the kind of riskier
decisions that, perhaps, a bigger business could to just ride through
all of these tariffs. So all across every Main Street in our country,
these small businesses are getting paralyzed by the Trump actions.
Again, we are going to start with this: There is a 10-percent
tariff--tax--already in place right now, since April 2, on every good
coming into our country. So this is a very dangerous place to put the
small businesses of our country.
Even as the vast majority of small businesses are seeing massive
tariff-induced cost hikes, this administration is offering exemptions--
exemptions--for billion-dollar corporations.
If you can get a dinner invitation to Mar-a-Lago, like the heads of
Apple and Google, you can secure an exemption for your industry.
Now, in almost every instance, that is preceded by a big, big
multimillion-dollar contribution to some entity that the Trump
administration would like you to give that money to.
And then Apple is out; Google is out. They are not any longer
affected by the tariffs. But no one on Main Street can afford to go to
Mar-a-Lago to give the President $1 million. That probably exceeds the
total worth of their business.
So that is the problem with where we are. And, by the way, it is also
why the national chamber of commerce says that small businesses should
get an exemption. It is not me. It is the national chamber of commerce
that says that they should get an exemption.
And 97 percent of all companies that do business on an international
basis are small businesses, and they constitute 30 percent of all
trade. The national chamber of commerce is saying they should all be
exempted. That is what my bill does. It says: Exempt those 97 percent
of all businesses that constitute 30 percent of the trade from these
tariffs--from the 10-percent tariff; from the upcoming, 6 weeks from
now, upward of 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent more tariffs that are
being imposed on countries around the world, while we are waiting for
the President to negotiate bilateral agreements with each one of these
entities.
Well, so far, after a month and a half, he is up to one agreement
with the United Kingdom. That is it. He has got dozens and dozens to go
and no time on the clock, and that is what small businesses are looking
at. They are looking up at the clock. They are saying: How long can I
last? I survive week to week. I survive month to month. I can't afford
to be paying these tariffs or wondering if there is a new tariff which
is coming in.
And all across our country, these numbers are unbelievable. In
Massachusetts, we have 7 million people. We have 700,000 small
businesses. Well, the same thing is true for the country. There are
about 330 million Americans, and there are 33 million small businesses.
There is a small business in America for every 10 people, and that
person right now is looking up with fear that their future has a cloud
over it.
And those small businesses, they account for two out of every three
jobs added to our economy in the last 25 years. They are our engine of
growth.
So I have heard from small businesses all across Massachusetts, all
across our country, about how they are forcing those businesses to lay
off employees, scale back benefits, or even shut their doors in some
cases.
I spoke with Brandale Randolph, founder of the 1854 Cycling Company,
an electric bike manufacturer based in Massachusetts, and here is what
Brandale told me. He shared the story that his company finally--
finally--after years of work, recovered from the $45 million which they
lost during COVID, only to now be forced to decide whether or not they
can weather this new tariff disaster hanging over their head.
So they moved from COVID to tariffs--none of this having been in any
way instigated by the small businesses of our country. They don't have
anything to do with it. It just keeps coming into their lives. And the
messages from 1854 and other small businesses across the country are
clear: These tariffs are going to threaten to put them out of business.
Small businesses are not Democrat. They are not Republican. This
should not be a partisan issue, and I am disappointed that President
Trump continues to ignore the outrage and the opposition to his
irrational and ill-advised tariff policy.

[[Page S3040]]

It is time for the Senate to stand up and exempt small businesses in
our country. There is a trade war going on. We should allow small
businesses not to be drafted into this war because they are the ones
that will be the casualty.
So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on
Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 1593, and the
Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be
considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no
intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. MORENO. Reserving the right to object, and if my Democratic
colleague could just yield for a very brief question for clarification,
I think, for those listening: How do you define a small business?
Mr. MARKEY. Well, a small business is defined in the Small Business
Administration definitions, and those would be the ones which we would
exempt. And it can be different, depending upon the industry or its
status, but, in general, what we are using is the definition used by
the Small Business Administration.
Mr. MORENO. And just for clarification of my colleague, that is
actually 500 employees or less. So I think when we are talking about
small businesses, I just want to clarify that we are talking about 500-
employee businesses.
So, first of all, I also want to actually thank my colleague for
caring about small businesses. Certainly, as a small business owner up
until 4 months ago, I think we should have much more passion here in
this Chamber around small businesses. So I truly commend you for that.
I also commend you in a very big and meaningful way for the vote you
took 25 years ago when you voted against giving China normalization
status with the United States. I think that was a courageous vote. You
were on the right side of history.
That disastrous situation has led China to grow its GDP from $1.2
trillion back then, when you voted, to $25 trillion today. So the fact
that you went against some of your colleagues and took that vote shows
that you are somebody who is independently minded and understands what
businesses go through.
I truly, truly commend you for that because there is no worse bill in
American history than that act. That act destroyed companies, not just
all over America but, specifically, in the Presiding Officer's State
and in my State. We see it every day, don't we, when we go on the
campaign trail, when we are driving around Missouri or driving around
Ohio. We see the remnants of companies that once existed.
Well, let's talk about how we can liberate small businesses, and
maybe we can agree on these plans. No. 1, in the 2017 tax reform, the
2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, what is interesting to me, as a small
business owner, is that very large companies had their taxes made
permanent, but it was for small businesses that those tax rates expire.
In fact, they expire this year.
And the bill that we are looking to advance here in the Senate is a
bill that would make those tax rates permanent. Let me just repeat
that. We are not looking to cut taxes, because that is what you hear
from my colleagues quite a bit. We are looking to make the 2017 tax
reform permanent--not for big companies, not for the massive companies
that are headquartered in Massachusetts but for the small businesses in
Ohio and Missouri and in other places around the country that are going
to see a massive increase in their taxes if we don't take action.
To put it in numbers, it is a $4 trillion tax increase for
businesses. So if we are going to liberate small businesses, join me in
calling for the 2017 tax reform to be made permanent.

Let's reform onerous regulations, especially in the banking sector.
If you were a small business over the last 4 years, it was really hard
to get access to banking because banks were basically shutting out
small businesses from lending. The big banks kept getting bigger.
Community banks, which is what small businesses rely on, were getting
absolutely tortured.
We need better energy policies. What that means is certainly not
banning coal, which is important in my State; natural gas, of which we
have a thousand years of reserves. And I have offered to my colleague
that we will build a big, beautiful pipeline right to Massachusetts.
You will never need energy again from Canada or any other place. You
can get it right from Ohio.
Better workforce policies, ending the incredible amount of onerous
overlitigation--those types of policies will liberate small businesses.
How do I know it? Because I have been a small business owner my entire
life.
So let's talk about the subject at hand, tariffs. Tariffs are exactly
intended to help these kinds of companies. When a Mexican company came
in and bought Republic Steel in Canton, OH, the first thing they did
was take all the equipment that was valuable, shipped it to Mexico,
massively laid off the employees, sucked all of the cash out of the
business, and left a 258-acre environmental disaster in the heart of
Canton, OH. Now, that same steel is made in Mexico, and they want to
ship that steel into the United States completely tariff free.
What was the impact on small businesses around that steel mill--
restaurants, the hairdressers, the grocery stores, the doctors, the
dentists--that relied on those employees? Devastation. Devastation
rate.
In Lordstown, OH, we once had a General Motors facility that employed
10,000 people, 6 million square feet. They made the highest quality
products of any facility in America. The production was shipped to
Mexico. Now the facility remains basically idle. What was the effect on
the small businesses of Lordstown, OH? Total and complete devastation.
So while I appreciate my colleague's desire--I really, really do. I
have had a chance to meet you in your office. I think you are a good
man. I say that with total earnestness on my part.
Let's actually liberate small businesses. Let's give them certainty
on taxes. Let's keep their tax rates permanent, just like the big guys
got.
Why did the big guys get permanency? And the little guys, who don't
have access to the Halls of Congress, why do they get the tax rates
that go up?
Let's give them better energy policies that allow them to have energy
costs go down. Let's give them better workforce policy. Let's end the
reign of terror of litigation that hits small businesses and drives up
insurance costs. And let's give them good workforce policies. And let's
support--let's unite as a country, as President Trump tries to undo,
Senator, what you tried to do 25 years ago. And 25 years ago, you
wanted this country to stand up to China and say: No, we will not give
you normalization because if we do, you will destroy our economy.
And they have.
Let's rally around President Trump. It has been just over 100 and
some-odd days. He is trying to reverse 25 years of bad behavior. We
should be in this Chamber saying: Look, go out and do that. Negotiate.
We have your back. Fight for America. Fight for American workers. Fight
for American small businesses.
That is the message other countries need to hear. They shouldn't be
hearing from this Chamber that we are not united as Americans in making
the best deal for American workers.
And with that and therefore, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. First of all, I want to say that I appreciate the
comments of the Senator from Ohio.
But here is the bottom line: This isn't just about China. The
President hasn't targeted just China. He hasn't explained his ``just
China'' strategy. He has imposed these tariffs all across the world--
all across the world, every country.
And yes, the legislation that we have, it doesn't touch the steel
tariffs that are imposed. We don't touch those. They can stay in place.
We don't touch them.
But here is the bottom line: You can't make silk for U.S. ties in the
United States. You can't grow coffee in the United States. I could go
on and on and on and on, about product after product that is sold in
Main Street in America. Putting a 20-percent tariff on and, on top of
that, an additional 20

[[Page S3041]]

percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, it is not going to do anything for the
person on Main Street with the small business. It is just going to make
it almost impossible for them to import those goods that they need to
sell in their stores on every Main Street in America. That is what they
are saying to us. And this 10-percent tariff is still going to stay on.
We are only 6 weeks from having the sword of Damocles of 20 percent
more for the EU and countries from all around the world--Japan, Israel,
you name it, India--it is just dozens and dozens of countries that
aren't China. But there is no plan. The President is making it up as he
goes along, and the people who are going to suffer are going to be the
small business people.
If you import toys, and there are maybe 20 different countries from
which you import your toys to put on the shelves of your stores on Main
Street everywhere, and parents can go in to buy the presents for their
child--I just think it is unrealistic. The President is saying: Well,
maybe the kids can get by with 3 dolls instead of 30.
Well, that is not how it is going to work. The store is going out of
business. The store has a certain predictable business model in terms
of how much revenue they are going to have per year, based upon what
they can import.
If the President had a plan, I would like to hear it. But I don't. I
don't want to hear him talk about how he is ultimately going to get a
deal with dozens of countries in 6 weeks. There is no likelihood of
that happening. But a small business person can't take that risk.
So that is why, again, this short-term pain that the President keeps
talking about for long-term gains, well, honestly, in the short run,
these businesses are going--they are going under, the small businesses.
And there may be some posthumous indication of the President's theory
about these tariffs, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years from now. That won't
really do these small businesses any good.
So let the big businesses fight it out, and don't allow the Googles
and the Apples to buy their way out of it.
You know, in the Civil War, there was an old saying: It was ``a rich
man's war but a poor man's fight''--meaning the rich man could buy his
way out of the draft. Rich man's war; poor man's fight.
So big business war, but it is going to be fought by small businesses
on Main Street, who are going to be the victims. Those are always the
casualties. And they have been drafted into this battle of big
businesses.
So, again, I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Ohio. I
think he is wrong. I think we should exempt small businesses and let
them know that they are not going to be driven out of business by this
still-unplanned guided missile heading right toward every Main Street
in our country that is going to be destructive of the hard-earned
success those small businesses have had.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. MORENO. Just real quickly. Again, I truly respect my colleague
and his point of view. I want to remind him that there is a great
Massachusetts family, the Hassenfelds. Do you know what they used to
do--what they still do? The brothers created a company called Hasbro.
Those toys used to be made in the United States of America. They were
employing lots of American citizens. They shipped all that production
to China and elsewhere, and communities suffered as a result.
As I said--if you notice, my colleague did not address any of the
points that I made. If you talk to any small business owner, they will
tell you the No. 1 priority right now is for us to make their tax rates
permanent. It is not tax cuts. No matter how many times my colleagues
will say it is tax cuts for billionaires, it is objectively not true.
This is permanency of the current rates.
Only in Washington, DC, by the way, would keeping things the same be
considered a tax cut. It is ludicrous, and it makes no sense.
Since you asked for the plan, here is the plan: We are going to make
America the best place to do business. We are going to give American
companies and American citizens the best tax rates so they can grow and
thrive here. We are going to give them a regulatory environment that is
not overbearing, that doesn't kneecap companies. We are going to make
certain we protect critical industries like steel, which I appreciate
that.
I think we should put, by the way, a full tariff on all major steel
products--like, for example, appliances. This country was once the
epicenter of appliance manufacturing, and now there is only one
company--Whirlpool. I am proud they make their appliances primarily in
Ohio. Yet they have to compete with cheap appliances coming in from
China.
We have a plan. The plan is very simple. We are going to have fair
and reciprocal trade. And you are right; it is not just China. It is
Japan, which charges us tariffs and nontariff barriers, and we allow
them to bring their products here.
South Korea--not only is that the case, but we also pay to defend
them.
Australia. Great ally. Great people. They tariff our meat. Their meat
can come in tariff-free.
Canada and Mexico are great allies and large trading partners, but
they have allowed their borders to be open. They have allowed hundreds
of thousands of Americans to die of fentanyl. I am ecstatic that we
have a President of the United States that says: No, we will not allow
that to continue. And if you want to have a relationship with the
United States of America, you are going to secure your borders, and you
are going to make it darn well necessary to secure your borders to
protect Americans.
So that is the plan. The plan is to usher in a golden age for this
country where working-class Americans have the ability to live a good
life, have a good job where a mom or a dad can provide for their kids,
afford a home, afford a car, go on vacation every once in a while, and
retire with dignity. That was once the dream of the Democratic Party.
This is what we should unite around and rally around and make certain
that all of our policies are pointed straight in that direction.
So, again, I appreciate the comments from my colleague. Hopefully, I
think we can work together on some initiatives, as I laid out--good tax
policy, good regulatory policy, good workforce policies that allow
small businesses to thrive--because as somebody who did that 5 months
ago for my whole entire life, I am happy to hear that conversation
happening here in the U.S. Senate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1804

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, earlier today, the Defense Department
announced that the United States has formally accepted a luxury 747
jetliner as a gift from Qatar to be used as Air Force One. It is the
largest foreign gift to an American President in modern history--one
Donald Trump says will go to his Presidential library after his term.
This gift is outrageous. Donald Trump will berate companies to ``eat
his tariffs'' and tell parents to pay yet more for groceries but is
accepting a luxury plane he can use as Air Force One.
This gift screams ``national security risk.'' It is bribery in broad
daylight. Donald Trump is thumbing his nose at Republicans and
practically daring them to stop him.
Well, today, the Senate can. In a few moments, I will move for swift
passage of the Presidential Airlift Security Act, prohibiting the use
of any foreign plane to be utilized as Air Force One.
Specifically, my legislation would prohibit even a single taxpayer
dollar from being used by the Department of Defense to procure, modify,
retrofit, or maintain any foreign aircraft for the purposes of
transporting a U.S. President. This is about ensuring our national
security and about not wasting taxpayer dollars on an utterly senseless
deal.
It should not take an act of Congress to stop the President of the
United States from accepting the largest foreign bribe in modern
history, but apparently Donald Trump is perfectly willing to sell out
the American people and the Presidency to fill his own pockets.
Senate Republicans who say they are troubled by the idea of using a
foreign plane as Air Force One should join me in supporting this very
commonsense

[[Page S3042]]

bill. Donald Trump accepting this gift reeks of corruption and naked
self-enrichment, and Republicans should stand up and support my bill,
defend national security, and protect Americans.
So I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be
discharged from further consideration of S. 1804 and the Senate proceed
to its immediate consideration; 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 an objection?
The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MARSHALL. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
Mr. SCHUMER. I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

Unanimous Consent Requests--S. Res. 242, S. Res. 243, S. Res. 244, and
S. Res. 245

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time
to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the
Democratic leader, the Senate proceed to the consideration of the
following Senate resolutions in the order listed: S. Res. 242, S. Res.
243, S. Res. 244, and S. Res. 245; that there be up to 2 hours for
debate on each resolution, individually; and that upon the use or
yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on adoption of the
resolutions, individually; and that if any of the resolutions are
adopted, the preambles be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, the purpose and effect of these
resolutions, very simply, is to provide votes. That is what we do in
the U.S. Senate--we vote. And on these votes, the Constitution is
involved. The provision of the Constitution commonly known as the
emoluments clause enables officials of the Federal Government--from a
sergeant in the Air Force or some other military branch to the
President of the United States--to accept payments or benefits from a
foreign power or other foreign entity or individual but only if there
is approval by the U.S. Senate and Congress.
We need to take those votes if the President of the United States is
to accept any benefits or payments. And that is what is happening in
plain sight, openly, for all to see.
Literally, tomorrow night, in the White House, individuals who have
invested to the President's benefit in his meme coin and World Liberty
Financial will have dinner with him in the White House. He has
literally put a ``For Sale'' sign on the White House. But money in his
pocket will come from some anonymous donors, some foreign investors,
and others in violation of the emoluments clause, unless there is
approval from the U.S. Congress. That is tomorrow night in the White
House.
And today, the Trump administration formally accepted a $200 million
Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the Government of Qatar. Now,
that plane may be used as Air Force One while he is in office before it
is transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation before the
end of his term.
The Department of Defense has confirmed that the Secretary of
Defense, Pete Hegseth, has ordered the Air Force to plan rapid
modifications to upgrade the plane for use as Air Force One. They are
no small modifications. The plane has to be stripped down virtually to
its shell to ensure the installation of multiple top-secret systems.
The work will take, potentially, years to complete. And the estimate to
taxpayers--all of us American taxpayers--is about $1 billion.
That plane probably won't even be ready before the end of President
Trump's term when the foundation--his foundation--takes ownership of
it. It is a gift, in effect, to him from Qatar.
The Air Force is a passthrough entity. That is the arrogance of this
step--corruption--but also a violation of the emoluments clause, unless
there is approval from the U.S. Congress.
Majority leader Thune has said:

If and when the plane is no longer a hypothetical, I can
assure you there will be plenty of scrutiny of whatever that
arrangement might look like.

Well, it is no longer a hypothetical. Selling out American interests
began the first days and hours of this administration in President
Trump's second term. How did he celebrate his inauguration? Well, he
launched a cryptocurrency scheme, a meme coin. The only purpose of it
was to enrich the President. Unsurprisingly, by design, foreign
governments, unscrupulous foreign individuals, and anonymous foreign
nationals are competing with themselves--literally, there is a
leaderboard--to line his pockets and make known how they are lining his
pockets.

There is no reason for them to write him a letter or file with some
government Agency. Face-to-face, he will be with them in the White
House tomorrow evening. They are competing--and I mean literally
competing--with each other for access, and he has put his office and
the White House on the auction block.
Tomorrow evening, he will be hosting that dinner--personally hosting
it for 220 holders of that meme coin. Wherever the dinner occurs,
whether it is in the White House or someplace else, the effect is the
same: to be selling access.
And after the dinner competition was announced--alongside a ``Special
VIP White House Tour'' for the top 25 holders--President Trump cashed
in. The price of that meme coin rose more than 50 percent after the
announcement of that dinner. In total, President Trump and his sons and
his business partners have now earned $350 million in sales and related
fees from that scheme.
Come tomorrow evening, he will have pumped up the price. And
sometimes the price goes down. He may have dumped part of his holding--
pump-and-dump--raise the price and then dump the stock. It is a classic
Wall Street corrupt move that would normally go to the SEC. But, of
course, there is no regulation.
Bidders aren't hiding the pay-for-play scheme either. The winner of
Trump's contest--the grand winner--is Justin Sun, who faces a civil
fraud case from the SEC over allegations of market manipulation and
unregistered asset sales.
Since the election, Justin Sun has poured nearly $100 million into
Trump's crypto ventures. And guess what. Trump's SEC--poof--it is not a
legal term, by the way--poof--the SEC paused the litigation and now is
in negotiations to settle that case. It is out in the open.
One shipping firm with operations in Mexico announced it has raised
$20 million to purchase the Trump coins for the express purpose of
influencing tariff policy in the United States of America.
When Donald Trump negotiates tariffs, is he protecting American
consumers and small businesses? No, not so much. More likely, he is
cutting deals for his crypto friends. That is the essence of selling
public office, and it is corruption.
But put aside the criminal violations of law that may be involved
because the U.S. Supreme Court has given him immunity for what he is
doing in the White House, the emoluments clause forbids him from taking
those payments--benefits--without coming to the U.S. Congress and
seeking our consent and approval.
Foreign governments are paying President Trump through another one of
his cryptocurrency ventures, in addition to the FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT
meme coin. World Liberty Financial, on May 1--literally, this month--
World Liberty Financial announced an investment fund backed by the
United Arab Emirates. The government of that country, using Trump's
digital coins, is completing a $2 billion transaction that, once again,
puts money in his pocket. From this deal, Donald Trump and his family
stand to gain hundreds

[[Page S3043]]

of millions of dollars--apart from the $350 million I mentioned
earlier--hundreds of millions more from this foreign government.
His sons are traveling around the world getting VIP treatment in
Pakistan and elsewhere, using the President and the White House to
strike deals for World Liberty Financial. We simply cannot accept this
kind of practice as normal or legal. We can't abdicate our
responsibility. We cannot seem to endorse or encourage this kind of
corruption. That is the reason we have the emoluments clause. That is
the reason the Founders wanted Congress to be involved whenever there
is any benefit or payment to a member of the executive branch. Again,
it applies not only to the President of the United States but all of
the Federal officials, down to the rank and file.

Right now, the Senate is considering legislation to promote the
growth of cryptocurrencies. This legislation has no ethical rules or
conflict of interest provisions that would stop the President or his
family from using the White House to enrich himself--none applying to
the President. It fails to provide many basic consumer protections and
national security rules. It invites Big Tech into our financial system.
We are considering this legislation at the very same time as Trump's
crypto dinner will be happening literally within about 24 hours. Is
there any wonder that the public's esteem for the U.S. Congress has
sunk to the kinds of lows we are seeing right now? We are adding to the
perception that Congress somehow is legitimizing or overlooking his
behavior--in fact, looking the other way. That is not the message we
ought to be sending at this moment in our history, and it is not
legally right under the Constitution.
We ought to be voting on his emoluments, every one of these benefits.
That is the reason I have separate resolutions--simply to preserve our
own authority and power and our integrity and send a signal about the
independence of this branch, the legislative branch.
Foreign governments have figured out a lot of ways to line Donald
Trump's pockets. The Trump Organization--he is still the owner. It may
be in trust. He maybe figured out some technical legal way to seem to
insulate or isolate himself from it. But that organization is doing
business deals with Saudi Arabia, with Qatar, and with Oman and Serbia.
LIV Golf, backed by the Saudi Arabian Government, hosted a tournament
at Trump National Doral in April--April--of this year. The Trump
Organization has signed $5.5 billion in real estate deals with a Qatari
Government-owned firm, and it is going to build a new development on
government-owned land in Serbia and Oman. The Trump Organization has
already received $5 million from Oman. These are violations of the
emoluments clause plainly, simply, in plain sight.
We have no excuse for failing to vote. We have no excuse for
remaining silent. We have no excuse for ducking or dodging.
The foreign emoluments clause states:

[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under
them, shall, without the Consent of Congress, accept of any
present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind whatever,
from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Foreign states are clearly involved in these transactions.
The purpose of this clause is basic and unassailable, indisputable.
It is to prevent undue foreign influence and foreign corruption.
The Founders knew about the dangers of a foreign government trying to
influence our President or anyone under him. They knew about those
powerful Kings in France and England. We had just liberated ourselves
from England. We were a small, struggling country, and they were afraid
that our executives would be influenced by those more powerful
countries.
It was to ensure our government officials work for the American
people and the Nation rather than their own financial self-interests or
on behalf of any foreign government that the emoluments clause was
adopted. But President Trump seemingly doesn't care about working for
the American people; he cares about his own pocketbook. Not once has he
come to Congress for consent on any of these deals. He hasn't even
hinted at it. And he will continue pursuing these corrupt foreign deals
until we, as Congress, have the gumption to act.
Today, I am introducing resolutions that condemn President Trump's
violation of the foreign emoluments clause and demand the transfer to
the U.S. Government of any gifts, benefits, or payments recovered or
received from foreign governments or others through his illegal
dealings.
I have asked for unanimous consent to schedule floor votes--I want
floor votes--on each of these resolutions. I think the American people
deserve to know where we stand, who is going to allow him to go forward
with these deals, who is going to sacrifice the integrity and
independence of this branch of government, and where every Senator
stands on Donald Trump's self-enrichment schemes. We need to know
whether the Senate is willing to stand up and show up against this
corrupt self-dealing.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it was my good fortune as a young man to
work for a Senator from Illinois named Paul Douglas. He was known as
Mr. Ethics in the U.S. Senate. He believed--and he shared that belief
with me and all who worked with and for him--that the first obligation
of a public official is to not betray the trust of the voters when it
comes to self-dealing or making money out of public office.

He started me down the path in my early years in politics of making a
complete disclosure--both my income tax return and net worth in detail,
specific amounts--every year. I have done that for over 40 years. I
believe he was right.
I remember Paul Simon, my predecessor in the U.S. Senate, used to
say: People may not agree with my vote, but they know I didn't cast it
to make a buck.
It is just that simple.
So what has happened at the highest level of the Government, the
Office of President? Throughout our history, there have been examples
of corruption which have been well documented. The Teapot Dome scandal
comes to mind, and certainly the departures of previous Vice Presidents
for wrongdoing have been well documented.
What we have going on in the White House now with the Trump
administration is unprecedented not just in the amount of money
involved going to the President and his family but also in the very
real fact that the bottom line is that he is bold and states clearly: I
have done it, and I defy you to do anything about it.
It is one of the reasons I am opposing the pending legislation on the
floor on cryptocurrency. The President, as has been documented by my
colleague from Connecticut, is making millions of dollars exploiting
cryptocurrency, and he is inviting those who buy into his scheme--his
profit-making scheme--to official gatherings and occasions at the White
House. It is the most bald-faced demonstration of corruption we have
ever seen in the Office of the Presidency. And this plane now--this
$400 million airplane--says it all.
Mr. President, so that you understand, Pam Bondi is the Attorney
General of the United States, duly appointed, and she has supposedly
released a memo justifying the transfer of this airplane to the U.S.
Government and then to Donald Trump personally as being acceptable--no
objection. I am still looking for a copy of that public opinion. It
should be public, if it hasn't been yet.
There has been reference made to the Constitution on this issue. In
the Constitution, article I, section 9 is explicit:

[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under
them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of
any present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind
whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

How clear can you be? This President has no authority to accept this
gift. And the notion that he would accept it, use it for the remainder
of his Presidency, and then take personal title to the airplane is
outrageous.
The fact of the matter is--those of us who have taken the time to
check--it will cost the American taxpayers a fortune to take this gift
from Qatar and to make it safe for any President to travel in it.

[[Page S3044]]

As one of my colleagues has said, if the Qataris said ``As a favor to
the people of the United States, we are going to redesign and pay for
the redesign of the Oval Office, the Situation Room, and the
President's residence. We will do it on our dime,'' the American people
would never fall for it. Why would we ever let them get that close to
the decision making at the highest level in America? That is exactly
what we are doing here if we accept this airplane. We have taken all
those three functions of the President, added wings to the equation,
and said the Constitution doesn't count.
Republicans have claimed for years that Joe Biden, during his
administration and his time as Vice President, engaged in wrongdoing
due to his family's business dealings. I am sure we remember
congressional Republicans' endless investigations into President
Biden's son and his past business dealings as a private citizen. But
despite multiple investigations and a failed impeachment inquiry
against President Biden, Republicans are largely silent and willing to
disregard the overwhelming corruption of President Trump and his family
as they pocket millions of dollars personally at the expense of the
American people.
In the latest of a long line of shady dealings, President Trump is
receiving a private jet as a gift from the royal family of Qatar and is
claiming that it is simply a gift to the Defense Department.
This aircraft that we are talking about is sitting in San Antonio,
TX. It would be retrofitted to act as Air Force One for the remainder
of Trump's term in office before ownership is transferred to the Trump
Presidential Library Foundation.
The President claimed it would be ``stupid [to] say `No, we don't
want a free, very expensive airplane.' '' However, what he doesn't say
is that it will cost American taxpayers millions more to retrofit the
plane to meet the President's security, communication, and intelligence
needs.
Mr. President, what is stupid is retrofitting a very expensive plane
from a foreign government, which constitutes a major
counterintelligence risk, on the American taxpayers' dime when an
American company is already manufacturing the next Air Force One.
The Constitution, as I have read, explicitly gives Congress the power
to control whether any officer of the United States, including the
President, may accept a gift from ``any King, Prince, or foreign
State.'' This unprecedented gift clearly violates the Constitution and
laws enacted by Congress to govern such gifts. Yet Attorney General
Bondi reportedly concluded it would be ``legally permissible'' for
President Trump to accept this gift. I am calling on the Attorney
General today to release this opinion and report in its entirety to the
U.S. Congress.
I am not surprised by it. This administration continues to abuse its
power at the cost of the American people time and again, while
Republicans in Congress stand by and allow it.
Mr. President, do you hear it? The silence? The silence of the
President's party? The silence of the lambs?
Make no mistake, this is more than just a gift that benefits the
President and not the American people. The President, we understand, it
has been reported, has actively solicited this gift from Qatar. The
question remains: In exchange for what?
President Trump's acceptance of such a substantial gift from a
foreign government could disproportionately influence the foreign
policies of this country--exactly why the Founding Fathers gave
Congress the power to control these gifts under the Constitution. It is
clear to our foreign partners and enemies that, under President Trump,
America's policymaking is open to the highest bidder.
We also see President Trump and his family profiting off the promise
of influenced domestic policy. Right before his second inauguration,
President Trump launched a valueless cryptocurrency token marked not as
an investment but as monetary support for Trump. First Lady Melania
Trump also promoted her own meme coin shortly thereafter. This scheme
allowed the President to pocket millions of dollars in direct payments
with little or no public disclosure or oversight. He has never denied
it. He has since fired the heads of the Agencies that investigate these
crypto schemes.
Donald Trump, Jr., has founded a new private membership club in DC
called Executive Branch with a $500,000 membership fee. The launch
party, featuring several Cabinet and other administration officials,
underscored Trump Junior's efforts to sell access.
That is what this administration does. It sees a barrier to cutting
corners or any check on its corruption and gets rid of it. These
actions were entirely predictable because Trump and his family also
blatantly used the Presidency to enrich themselves by selling access
and the chance to influence policy under his first administration.
I am saddened that our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle
apparently believe that silence is the best response to these outrages.
It is the ``Silence of the Lambs.''
When will they stand up for the American people and say ``enough is
enough,'' or do they believe American policy should be sold to whatever
country is willing to place the highest bid?
If we are talking about a swamp in DC, sadly, this is a major part of
it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I want to align myself with the comments
made by the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from Illinois.
The Constitution is pretty straightforward on this. It is pretty
basic:

[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under
them, shall, without the Consent of Congress, accept of any
present, Emolument, Office or Title, of any kind whatever,
from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

This $200 million plane that is going to--$400 million plane--the
estimates go up and down, but it is an expensive plane--is a gift, and
it is going to the personal use of the President of the United States.
The Constitution says it is the job of Congress to say yes or no to a
gift. It is our job. And if this Congress wants to vote to accept this
$400 million plane, that is our job to do it. If this Congress is
silent and doesn't demand that we enforce article I responsibility
about this extraordinary gift from the Government of Qatar, that is on
us. That is on us.
And what we are seeing time and again is the relinquishment of
authority and power under article I, and it can't be shipped out of
here fast enough to the Executive down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to
satisfy anyone.
That is so profoundly threatening to the well-being of our democracy.
The whole point of having three branches of government is the
recognition that you cannot allow one person, or even one branch of
government, to consolidate all power. There has to be checks and
balances. It was based upon what was true then and is true now:
Absolute power can corrupt absolutely. And the foundational principle
that has served us well is that with the checks and balances, the
ambition of one branch can compete with the ambition of the other
branch. We have given away the authority that Congress has and the
responsibility it has to have those checks and balances and defend
democracy.
And by the way, why in the world would we want some other government
to be providing transportation for our Chief Executive? It is
embarrassing. We don't need no stinking Qatar plane. We need our own
planes. We need our own planes. This is about us having respect for the
men and women who work here. It is about us having respect for our own
responsibility to take care of our own national security needs. We
can't outsource this to another government. We shouldn't do it, just as
a matter of pride.
But we also shouldn't do it because it does stink--it does stink--of
corruption. And all the evidence here is that, for whatever reason,
Donald Trump thought this would be a pretty cool plane to fly in. He
started putting the pressure on, directly and indirectly, to get this
offer of a gift, and now it is a $200 million, $400 million gift. That
is what we have. And that is, by the way, without any of us having any
opportunity to ask the hard questions: What is it going to cost to so-
call retrofit? Can it be retrofitted? How much will taxpayers be asked
to pay? Is this gift going to be something that actually costs us a lot
more money?

So the Appropriations Committee has no capacity to look into this, to
kick the tires, to assess what this

[[Page S3045]]

means for the taxpayers of this country. So I find it astonishing that
we would even be considering and that the President of the United
States would be considering having the national security
transportation, Air Force One, be a gift of a foreign government. I
find it astonishing that we in Congress wouldn't, on a unanimous basis,
demand that the emoluments clause be enforced by the Congress voting
yes or no on acceptance of this gift.
The implications are pretty clear: Corruption is alive and well in
the administration. The implications are pretty clear: Passivity is
alive and well in the Congress of the United States, that we turn our
back on exercising the profound responsibility that we have, an
obligation we have to the people we represent.
Mr. President, I urge the passage of this resolution, and I yield the
floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleagues Senator
Durbin and Senator Welch for being here today. I know my resolutions
reflect unanimity on our side, and I believe sincerely the reservations
and doubts on the other side as well. And I regret the objection to
these resolutions because I think that my colleagues deserve a vote. We
deserve a vote on both sides of the aisle.
This violation of the Constitution benefits nobody. Many of the votes
we take here, there are differing interests, there are contrasting and
sometimes conflicting points of view on the merits, on who benefits and
who may be hurt. Here, there is only one beneficiary: Donald Trump and
his family--maybe some of the foreign investors, maybe some of the
others who have donated or contributed to his campaign and have
invested in the meme coins or in World Liberty Financial stablecoin.
This plane should be built by an American company. It should be built
so that President Trump can use it--or any other President--on time, on
schedule. It is now already delayed. Boeing should be held accountable.
And if it can't deliver it when the President needs it, somebody else
ought to be required to build it.
So I am deeply disappointed we are not going to have these votes, at
least right now. I am going to be coming back to the floor and asking
for these votes on the emoluments clause because it is part of our job,
it is part of our constitutional responsibility, and Donald Trump is
violating the Constitution by accepting gifts in the plane,
investments, and money in his pocket from his cryptocurrency ventures
and other schemes that he is enabling in plain sight. This corruption
should not be allowed to continue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.

Clean Air Act

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, today, I am here to defend clean air
regulations that tackle the climate crisis, protect public health, and
save drivers money at the pump.
For more than 50 years, California has had the legal authority under
the Clean Air Act to adopt stricter emissions standards than the
Federal baseline. For 50 years, both Democrat and Republican
administrations have granted these Clean Air Act waivers that are
essential for reducing toxic air pollution, protecting public health,
and cutting greenhouse gas emissions that dangerously warm our planet.
No Congress has ever dared to revoke these waivers--until now.
My Republican colleagues say this is about protecting consumer
choice. Well, let me ask: Who is really choosing this? Not the parents.
Not the residents near busy highways. Not the doctors and nurses. Not
even the drivers.
It is the polluters. This dependence on fossil fuels allows Big Oil
CEOs to turn drivers upside down at the pump and shake money out of
their pockets.
The Republicans say ``all of the above.'' No. No. It is ``oil above
all.'' We put 70 percent of the oil we consume into gasoline tanks. And
with cleaner, smarter, more efficient technologies, we can reduce and
reduce and reduce the amount of oil that we put into the vehicles which
we drive. This terrifies the oil industry.
America is a technological giant. We have a capacity to invent new
technologies. By the way, the Chinese are just on the HOV lane of new
technologies for the vehicles which they are driving. They have
invented a technology that allows for the charging of a battery in 5
minutes in a vehicle that people are driving.
That should be us. We should be the ones leading.
That is not what the Republicans are doing. Donald Trump is saying he
wants to repeal the tax breaks for electric vehicles in our Nation,
just take those tax breaks off the books. He wants to repeal the laws
which incentivize the development of even better batteries in our
country--batteries that, with one charge, will go further and further
and further. Maybe we could compete with the Chinese. But Trump wants
to take them off the books, and the Republicans are going along with
that.
Maybe we could put more charging stations across the country to make
it easier for people to drive all-electric vehicles. No. Trump is
saying we want to take away all those tax breaks too. Let's just make
it easy for the Chinese to take over the electric vehicle industry of
the 21st century. Let's just hand it over to them on a silver platter.
We are only 5 percent of the world's population. The other 95 percent
is going electric.
The other 95 percent is moving to the future. That is not going to be
the United States. The Republicans are working here tonight in order to
absolutely short-circuit this future that was ours.
You know, honestly, gas-guzzling cars aren't just bad for drivers,
they are bad for every one of us. According to the American Lung
Association, more than 131 million people live in counties with
unhealthy levels of ozone and particulate pollution.
And what is the largest source of that pollution? It is vehicles. It
is the cars and the trucks which we drive in our country. That is what
sends up the pollution. That is what gets into the lungs of Americans.
And now my Republican colleagues are trying to rip away the
safeguards that help to protect public health and to save our country
money. By triggering the Congressional Review Act to repeal
California's waivers, it would allow for 1.6 billion metric tons of
carbon emissions; more than 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen oxide,
all going up into the air; 17,000 metric tons of fine particulate
matter, the type of pollution that penetrates deep into your lungs, the
lungs of your children, the lungs of your loved ones, and enters the
bloodstream to wreak havoc on the body in the form of asthma,
respiratory problems, cardiovascular diseases, and more--much, much,
more--all spewed into the air.
And that is what they want. That is what they want.
After the Surgeon General in 1964 issued a warning about smoking,
America went from 50 percent of the country smoking down to 18 percent.
People started to wise up. They said: We don't want that stuff in our
lungs, and we are going to tell our kids not to smoke because it is
dangerous.
Your lungs--your lungs--are vulnerable if there is an inhalation of
dangerous substances.
So what does it look like in real life? Well, it means more kids are
going to suffer from asthma. It means grandma and grandpa dying
earlier. It means more death and destruction from extreme weather
events, such as the Los Angeles wildfires and Hurricanes Helene and
Milton. By the way, those three events caused $500 billion worth of
damage--those three events, all related to climate change, all related
to the warming of the atmosphere.
Just assume that the ceiling here on the Senate floor is capturing
all of the heat all day long, and there is no air-conditioning down
below. That is the greenhouse effect. It just gets warmer and warmer
and warmer, which is why, by the way, the Senate used to adjourn in the
beginning of May because it just got too hot in rooms like this before
air-conditioning.
Well, there is no air-conditioning for the planet. You have to engage
in a preventive strategy, lower the temperature right from the
beginning, lower the thermostat right from the beginning.
Ultimately, it is just going to raise costs on everyday families. By
blocking the California waivers, consumers would spend more than $89
billion in additional fuel costs through the year

[[Page S3046]]

2040. It is much less expensive to be charging a battery than to be
putting that pump into the side of your car and watching that dollar
sign just skyrocket as you are watching your hard-earned money go to
Big Oil all across our Nation.
That is more money at Big Oil's gas pump and less money at your
kitchen table. This comes at a time when Trump is waging war on clean
cars, repeals to clean vehicle tax credits, attempts to flip a U-turn
on fuel economy and EPA vehicle emissions standards.
In 2007, I worked on a bipartisan basis as the chairman of the
committee over in the House to enact a provision in the energy law that
increased our Nation's fuel economy standards for the first time in 32
years. We were actually going backward by 2007, and the rest of the
world was zooming right past us.
It is one of the laws I passed which I am most proud of, and that is
what led to the rulemaking that promulgated the higher fuel economy
standards for our Nation. I am very proud of that law and the work I
played over in the House authoring it.
And the industry, they were able to do it. They were still stuck at
27 miles a gallon. That was the law from 1975. It was 2007, 32 years
later. They still couldn't figure out how to improve the efficiency of
the vehicles which we drive.
Meanwhile, the Chinese and others, they were getting on the speedway.
They were getting ready to catch up to us. And starting in 2009, the
Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency and Department
of Transportation built upon that law to negotiate a historic agreement
with the State regulators, with the automakers, with labor unions, and
the environmental community.
But now--now--Trump, Republicans, at the behest of the oil industry,
are trying to do a U-turn on these standards and the benefits that they
give to our consumers, to our families, to our planet.
It is not enough for Republicans to promote chaos and conflict in our
economy for the sake of billionaires. They now want to create chaos and
conflict as well.
By intentionally modifying the Senate rules that protect this
institution at a moment when Donald Trump is actively undermining the
checks and balances enshrined in our Constitution, that is a serious
threat, not just to the Senate but to our country. It is a threat to
the rule of law. It is a threat to our health, to our communities, and
access to clean air. It is a threat to our planet.
With this action, my Republican colleagues are opening the door for
future votes on the countless unlawful and unethical actions waiting to
be carried out by the Trump administration. There will be no putting
the genie back into the bottle.
It is going to unleash the President who says he is a stable genius
to continue to perpetrate more of his unconscionable actions on the
people of our country.
So let's not trigger this nuclear option. Let's not unleash a
mushroom cloud of pollution on our communities. Let's not allow
polluters to rewrite Senate precedent. Let's not steal the right of
States to set high standards that result in children breathing cleaner
air, not having their vulnerable lungs be sucking in these
particulates, sucking in this unhealthy air that vehicles emit.

We have another direction in which we can head. We have a better
vision for us. By the way, this is not rocket science. We are not
asking anyone to go to Mars. We are just asking people to improve
automotive technology. This is car mechanics. It is not a mission to
the Moon.
So while I hear Trump bragging about his buddy Elon and a mission to
Mars and all these satellites out in outer space and how he wants to
have a Golden Dome over our Nation that is going to protect us from
incoming Soviet missiles at 2 a.m. in the morning, and here is vision
of a Golden Dome that is going to protect us.
Then, when you turn to him and say: Hey, can we improve the
efficiency of the cars which we drive, Trump and his oil buddies said:
What are you crazy? That is auto mechanics. That is too difficult for
us to figure out.
Well, it is not too difficult for the Chinese. They are coming. They
are coming. And country by country, it is going to say: ``Made in
China.'' ``Made in China.''
Unfortunately, for too many of our domestic auto companies, they are
using this as the excuse to just walk away. And maybe for the short
run, it will be OK, but in the long run, that is not a business plan.
Maybe it makes it to their retirement as executives of the companies,
maybe they make it a few more years, but the country--the country--is
going to suffer.
You know, when you look at Fortune magazine or Forbes magazine and
there is a picture of one or another businessperson on the cover, that
is great. That is great for that individual. But when you look at the
international magazines, you know what is on the cover, just a picture
of China.
It is a country with a plan. It is a country with a vision. It is a
country that is just speeding past us in terms of their capacity to
deploy new technologies. That is what we are confronted with right
now--a plan from our arch rival economically that we are going to
ignore on behalf of the oil industry in our Nation.
They will reap the short-term profits for sure, but our country and
the children in our country will reap whirlwinds economically as each
year goes by because we are going to be left in China's technological
dust.
So that is what we are voting on, and they are going to use a
perversion of Senate rules to attempt to accomplish it at the behest of
the oil industry, but the price--the price--not only for this
institution and its rules but also the well-being of our economy, the
health of our planet is going to be way too high to pay.
You can't preach temperance from a barstool. You can't tell the rest
of the world they have to reduce greenhouse gases if the Senate
continues to pass laws which allow for all of this dangerous pollution
to go up in historically high quantities.
That is absolutely the wrong path for the next several generations of
American children. You are endangering their lungs right now, and you
are going to endanger their ability to have a job in the future.
We are going to wind up with China dominating the auto industry and
the planet. That is what we are voting on tonight: Who is going to win
in the long term?
By the way, the Republicans have a comprehensive plan to hand this
entire industry over to the Chinese. They are going to do away with all
the tax breaks for electric vehicles, do away with all the tax breaks
for chargers. They are going to do away with all the tax breaks for
battery storage technologies to be developed.
This is systematic. This is a plan that our country has to pull us
out of the competition with the largest industry in the world, this
automotive industry, tied to the oil industry--just an absolutely
reckless, historic mistake.
And by the way, they are doing the same thing over in biotech. They
want to cut NIH funding by 40 percent. That is finding the cure for
Alzheimer's and cancer and diabetes and Parkinson's and every other
disease.
You are saying to all the young, brilliant people in the country who
are going to dedicate their lives to finding the cures for those
diseases: Don't go there. There is no guarantee you are going to have a
job next year or the year after or the year after. Again, another
industry we are going to put a bow on it and hand it over to Beijing:
Hope you enjoy this great present we are handing you--the technological
leadership of the United States in biotech, in automotive technology,
in battery technology, just handing it over.
So this is a pretty sad day in the history of the Senate, that there
will be a compromise of our procedures--our rules--that have been
sacred on behalf of the oil industry in our Nation. It is not the
first. There is an ongoing systematic plot that Donald Trump came up to
the Hill to say: Get my ``big, beautiful bill'' passed.
Well, he might see it as a ``big, beautiful bill,'' but this thing is
one big economic disaster for our Nation.
And I will say it again. It is all to get the tax breaks for the
billionaires, all of the tax breaks for the wealthiest people in our
society.
So, please, Senate, please say no. Please allow us to retain our
procedural prerogatives. And please, on this

[[Page S3047]]

larger issue of the planet and the leadership which the United States
should be playing, please say no to these industries.
They are going to look back at this moment--children alive today--and
they are going to just wonder, What were they thinking that every car
is coming in from China into every country in the world, and eventually
our barriers will come down, too, because we won't be able to compete.
It is just a sad commentary on the Senate today that they will
acquiesce to such a pathetic concession made to the oil industry in our
Nation. But it is the perfect example of the outsized influence that is
now playing in our society.
When Trump promised them last April if they gave him a billion
dollars, he would do away with all the clean energy technologies in our
country, he is paying them off right now. There is no transition plan.
There is no promise that maybe we will help the oil industry so they
catch up to the Chinese Government.
Mr. President, no. They are going to cede the field, and ultimately
it will be the next generations that pay the price.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SCHATZ. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Democratic leader.

S.J. Res. 55

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I want to be very clear about what is
about to happen tonight, here on the floor of the Senate.
Tonight, in order to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry,
Republicans will erode away at the Senate and undermine this
institution they claim to care about.
By weaponizing the CRA, Republicans tonight cross a point of no
return for the Senate, expanding what this Chamber can do at a majority
threshold--this from the very party that professes to care about the
rules and norms and precedents of this institution.
To override the Parliamentarian and to use the CRA in the way that
Republicans propose is going nuclear--no ifs, no ands, no buts. It is
going nuclear.
Don't take my word for it. This comes from Leader Thune himself. He
was asked a few months ago about this very scenario of overriding the
Parliamentarian, and he said this:

Yeah, and that's totally akin to killing the filibuster. We
can't go there. People need to understand that.

But, unfortunately, we are going there, it seems. And, just
yesterday, he admitted that this step could ``create precedent for the
future.''
So, apparently, when the rules suit the Republicans, they will preach
about protecting them. But now that the rules are inconvenient, when
they stand in the way of their ideological goals, Republicans will say:
Away with them.
Make no mistake, this is not a narrow assertion of congressional
authority, as the other side claims. This is an aggressive, new
precedent. Moving forward, Congressional Review Acts will likely be
weaponized to bold new levels.
Today, it is all about California emission waivers, but tomorrow the
CRA could now be used to erase any policy from an Agency that the Trump
administration doesn't like, at a simple majority threshold. They could
eliminate healthcare innovation waivers that assist patients on
Medicaid and the ACA, at a simple majority threshold. They could use
CRAs to make it harder to form a union, at a simple majority threshold.
They could go after Agency actions that protect access to reproductive
care, like making it harder to access the medication mifepristone. All
of this and more can now be done, at a simple majority threshold, with
an expanded CRA.
This, in other words, is a backdoor strategy for Republicans to make
Project 2025 a reality. It is the legislative branch ceding its
authority over to the Executive, which will now slap the ``CRA'' label
on a whole host of policies and get Congress to rubberstamp their
appeals.
Republicans should tread very carefully today. What goes around comes
around.
If Republicans are willing to overrule the Parliamentarian and hijack
the CRA in a way it has never been used before, they will not like it
during this session of Congress and, certainly, next time, when they
are in the minority.
So this is a sad, shameful, disappointing day for the U.S. Senate.
Republicans, I am certain, will come to regret the ill-considered step
they take tonight.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Now, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Capito). The Senator will state his
inquiry.
Mr. SCHUMER. Is the Chair familiar with section 802(d)(1) of the
Congressional Review Act, which states that ``all points of order
against the joint resolution (and against consideration of the joint
resolution) are waived''?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you, Madame Chair, you made the case that this is
nuclear.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

S.J. Res. 55

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, we are facing a novel situation here in
the Senate. For the sake of my Democrat colleagues, who seem more than
a little confused as to what is going on here, let me just review the
situation.
We have received from the House joint resolutions of disapproval that
meet all the statutory requirements under chapter 8, title 5, of the
U.S. Code, the Congressional Review Act.
In the past, the Senate has treated any such joint resolution as
being eligible for expedited floor consideration procedures prescribed
under the Congressional Review Act. But here is the twist: Senate
Democrats claim that we can't consider these resolutions under these
Congressional Review Act procedures because the rules addressed in the
resolutions in question are not, in fact, rules.
Now, the rules in question, the California waiver rules, were
submitted to Congress's rules, which has always been all the Senate
needed to consider something as eligible for consideration under the
Congressional Review Act, and they are clearly rules in substance given
their nationwide impact and scope. But, in an unprecedented move, the
Government Accountability Office has inserted itself into this
situation and declared that these rules submitted to Congress by the
EPA as rules are not, in fact, rules.
Now, for years, the Senate has turned to the Government
Accountability Office, the GAO, to determine if something not submitted
by an Agency is actually a rule that should have been submitted to
Congress as such. That is not part of the Congressional Review Act
statute, but the Senate has relied on GAO for this to prevent Agencies
from flouting the law and ignoring Congress's statutory right to review
Agency rulemaking. In other words, GAO has acted as a failsafe to
ensure Congress's rights are protected from encroachment by the
executive branch.
That is not the situation we find ourselves in today. In fact, it is
the inverse. The situation we are facing today is an Agency submitting
to the Senate actions that the Agency says are rules and GAO, for the
first time in history, inserting itself into the situation and offering
its own opinion that the rules in question are not, in fact, rules.
Well, so what do we do about this? I believe that when the Senate is
facing a novel situation like this one with disagreement among its
Members, it is appropriate for the Senate to speak as a body to the
question--something the Senate does when questions over application of
the rules arise.
For example, just last year, a Republican Member of the Senate
brought a resolution to the floor under a fast-track procedure, the War
Powers Act, and a Democrat Member of the Senate argued that it was not
entitled to those

[[Page S3048]]

procedures. He then made a point of order to that effect, and the Chair
submitted the question to the Senate, and the Senate voted on what
qualifies for that fast-track procedure. That is what we are doing
today.
Nobody at the time cried nuclear. Nobody said the Democrat Member was
blowing up the Senate. In fact, most Members probably don't even
remember the situation because it was just the Senate doing what the
Senate is supposed to do, and that is voting on how to apply the rules
when faced with a new situation.
I think at this point it should be abundantly clear that what we are
doing has nothing to do with the legislative filibuster. But while I
would love to think that reality will prevail, I fully expect Democrats
to continue to misrepresent the situation, and I think there are
probably multiple reasons for that.
One is that I think a lot of Democrats support an electric vehicle
mandate and are perfectly happy to allow California to set an EV
mandate for the whole country. In fact, I think they are somewhat
frantic at the prospect of losing this ``Green New Deal'' policy.
Two, I suspect Democrats are trying to use the situation as cover to
justify abolishing the filibuster next time they are in charge. I think
they think that they can make dismantling the Senate filibuster a lot
more palatable by claiming--however mendaciously--that Republicans
attacked it first.
I would love to believe--I would love to believe--the Democrats have
suddenly come to the realization of the importance of the legislative
filibuster no matter how misplaced their concerns would be in this
particular instance. I think there is perhaps no Senate rule today that
does more to preserve the character of the Senate as developed by our
Founders, and there is nothing I would like more than to see Democrats
recognize this.
But despite the rank hypocrisy the Democrats have displayed by
embracing the use of the filibuster this Congress repeatedly after
campaigning to overturn it mere months ago, I suspect that their
newfound enthusiasm for the filibuster is situational only--something
to be used when it helps them and to be destroyed when it doesn't.
As I said, I strongly suspect they are attempting to use the
situation as cover for destroying the filibuster the next time they are
in power; hence the misrepresentations and hysteria.
I can't control what Democrats do the next time they take the
majority here in the Senate, although if they attempt to abolish the
legislative filibuster and destroy the institution of the Senate, I can
safely promise to fight them on it tooth and nail. But I can say this:
While Republicans are in charge, the legislative filibuster will remain
in place, and you can take that to the bank.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democrat leader.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, is it true--parliamentary inquiry,
Madam President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will state his inquiry.
Mr. SCHUMER. Yes. I just want to--I hope our leader will listen
because it is exactly clear, and I want to repeat what we had said
yesterday.
Is it true what you said yesterday: that the Parliamentarian advised
leadership offices that the joint resolution of disapproval regarding
the California waivers at issue do not qualify--do not qualify--for
expedited consideration under the Congressional Review Act?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Parliamentarian has advised me that such
advice was given.
Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you. It shows we are going nuclear, no matter what
the leader says.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

S.J. Res. 55

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, notwithstanding the distinguished
majority leader's accusations of mendacity and hypocrisy and
misrepresentation, the facts at heart here are quite simple: The waiver
at issue is not a rule and was never a rule. Thirty years of precedent
and practice at EPA and in this body prove that. So what the GAO did
here was not unprecedented.
What was unprecedented was for the House to send over a document
claiming falsely, according to the Parliamentarian, that the waiver is,
in fact, a rule under the CRA. And to blame the GAO or the
Parliamentarian for that is to mistake the referee for the player who
committed the foul. The foul here is pretending that a waiver is a
rule, and both the GAO and the Parliamentarian independently blew the
whistle on that foul. Those are the facts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. THUNE. I yield back all time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.

Point of Order

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I make a point of order. The points of
order are in order under the Congressional Review Act, given sections
802(d)(1), 802(d)(2), and 802(d)(4) are in conflict with each other.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. In the opinion of the Chair, the Senate has
not previously considered this question; therefore, the Chair, under
the provisions of rule XX, submits the question to the Senate for its
decision: Shall points of order be in order under the Congressional
Review Act?
The Democrat leader.

Vote on Motion to Table

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I move to table the question submitted
by the Chair, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 52, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 265 Leg.]

YEAS--46

Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Fetterman
Gallego
Gillibrand
Hassan
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Schumer
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden

NAYS--52

Banks
Barrasso
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Murkowski
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young

NOT VOTING--2

Blackburn
Heinrich

The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. For the benefit of the Senate, I would like to
remind you that the question is, Shall points of order be in order
under the Congressional Review Act?
The Democratic leader.

Point of Order

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I raise a point of order that points of
order are not in order under section 802 (d)(1) of the Congressional
Review Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. A point of order is currently pending before
the Senate. It is not in order to have multiple points of order pending
at the same time; therefore, the point of order is out of order.
Mr. SCHUMER. I appeal the ruling of the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.

Motion to Table

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I move to table the appeal, and I ask for
the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion to Table Appeal

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.

[[Page S3049]]

Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from Kentucky
(Mr. Paul).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 46, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 266 Leg.]

YEAS--51

Banks
Barrasso
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Murkowski
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young

NAYS--46

NOT VOTING--3

Blackburn
Heinrich
Paul
The motion was agreed to.
(Mr. JUSTICE assumed the Chair.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The Senate sustains the decision
of the Chair. The point of order by the Democratic leader is not in
order.
The Chair recognizes the Democratic leader.

Motion to Recess

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I move to recess for 90 minutes, and I
ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Budd).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd) would have voted ``nay.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 51, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 267 Leg.]

YEAS--46

NAYS--51

Banks
Barrasso
Boozman
Britt
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Murkowski
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young

NOT VOTING--3

Blackburn
Budd
Heinrich
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, for the information of Senators, for the
balance of the evening, we are going to confine votes to 15 minutes in
duration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.

Motion to Recess

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I move to recess for 60 minutes, and I
ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Budd).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd) would have voted ``nay''.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) and the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Hickenlooper) are
necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 45, nays 51, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 268 Leg.]

YEAS--45

Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Fetterman
Gallego
Gillibrand
Hassan
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Schumer
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden

NAYS--51

NOT VOTING--4

Blackburn
Budd
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ricketts). The Democrat leader.

Motion to Recess

Mr. SCHUMER. I move to recess for 30 minutes, and I ask for the yeas
and nays.

Vote on Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Budd).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd) would have voted ``nay.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from new Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 51, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 269 Leg.]

YEAS--46

NAYS--51

Banks
Barrasso
Boozman
Britt
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst

[[Page S3050]]

Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Murkowski
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young

NOT VOTING--3

Blackburn
Budd
Heinrich
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.

Motion to Recess

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I move to recess for 15 minutes, and I
ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Budd).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd) would have voted ``nay.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 51, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 270 Leg.]

YEAS--46

NAYS--51

NOT VOTING--3

Blackburn
Budd
Heinrich
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.

Motion to Recess

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I move to recess for 10 minutes, and I
ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Budd).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd) would have voted ``nay.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 45, nays 52, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 271 Leg.]

YEAS--45

Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Gallego
Gillibrand
Hassan
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Schumer
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden

NAYS--52

Banks
Barrasso
Boozman
Britt
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Murkowski
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young

NOT VOTING--3

Blackburn
Budd
Heinrich
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The Democratic leader.

Motion to Adjourn

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I move that the Senate adjourn, and I ask
for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.

Vote on Motion

The question is on agreeing to the motion to adjourn.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennesee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Budd).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd) would have voted ``nay.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 46, nays 51, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 272 Leg.]

YEAS--46

NAYS--51

NOT VOTING--3

Blackburn
Budd
Heinrich
The motion was rejected.

Vote on Point of Order

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Capito). For the body to remember, the
question is, shall points of order be in order under the Congressional
Review Act?
Mr. THUNE. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Budd).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd) would have voted ``yea.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 46, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 273 Leg.]

YEAS--51

Banks
Barrasso
Boozman
Britt
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven

[[Page S3051]]

Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Mullin
Murkowski
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young

NAYS--46

NOT VOTING--3

Blackburn
Budd
Heinrich
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 51, the nays are
46.
The point of order is sustained.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

Point of Order

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I make a point of order that joint
resolutions that meet all the requirements of section 802 of the
Congressional Review Act or are disapproving of Agency actions which
have been determined to be rules subject to the CRA by a legal decision
from GAO are entitled to expedited procedures under the Congressional
Review Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. In the opinion of the Chair, the Senate has
not previously considered this question. Therefore, the Chair, under
the provisions of rule XX, submits the question to the Senate for its
decision.
Shall joint resolutions that meet all of the requirements of section
802 of the Congressional Review Act or are disapproving of Agency
actions which have been determined to be rules subject to the
Congressional Review Act by a legal decision from the Government
Accountability Office be entitled to expedited procedures under the
Congressional Review Act?
The Democrat leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, on this vote, the Republicans will be
breaking their commitment and will be going nuclear. And however they
try to disguise their actions, this is nuclear--no ands, ifs, or buts.
Tonight, Senate Republicans expose themselves as fair weather
institutionalists by overriding the Parliamentarian, which the Chair
explicitly noted that the Parliamentarian has been overridden. And in
order to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry, Republicans have
eroded away at the Senate foundation and undermined this institution
they claim to care about.
Make no mistake, Republicans have set a new precedent that will come
back to haunt them and haunt this Chamber. What goes around comes
around.
If Republicans are willing to overrule the Parliamentarian and
highjack the CRA in a way that has never been used before, they will
not like it next time they are in the minority.
I yield the floor.
Mr. THUNE. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Budd).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd) would have voted ``yea.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 46, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 274 Leg.]

YEAS--51

NAYS--46

NOT VOTING--3

Blackburn
Budd
Heinrich
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 51, the nays are
46.
The point of order is sustained.
The clerk will read the title of the joint resolution for the third
time.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading
and was read the third time.

Vote on S.J. Res. 55

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the
third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
Mr. BARRASSO. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) and the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Budd).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd) would have voted ``yea.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr.
Heinrich) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 46, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 275 Leg.]

YEAS--51

NAYS--46

NOT VOTING--3

Blackburn
Budd
Heinrich
The joint resolution (S.J. Res. 55) was passed, as follows:

S.J. Res. 55

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress
disapproves the rule submitted by the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration relating to ``Federal Motor
Vehicle Safety Standards; Fuel System Integrity of Hydrogen
Vehicles; Compressed Hydrogen Storage System Integrity;
Incorporation by Reference'' (90 Fed. Reg. 6218 (January 17,
2025)), and such rule shall have no force or effect.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

[[Page S3052]]

____________________