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2050th Anniversary of the Alexandria Archaeological Commission
21Remembering Robert W. Fleming
22Messages From the President
23Presidential Message
24Report of the Continuation of the National Emergency That Was Originally Declared in Executive Order 14046 of September 17, 2021, With Respect to Ethiopia: Pm 40
25Submission of Concurrent and Senate Resolutions
26Senate Resolution 378: Supporting the Designation of the Week of September 8 Through September 12, 2025, as "Malnutrition Awareness Week"
27Senate Resolution 379: Amending the Standing Rules of the Senate to Authorize the Majority Leader to Move to Proceed to the En Bloc Consideration of Certain Nominations
29Senate Resolution 381: To Designate September 9, 2025, as "National World War II Italian Campaign Remembrance Day", and to Recognize the Sacrifices Made by American and Allied Soldiers Who...
Fourteen bills and four resolutions were introduced, as follows: S. 2736-2749, and S. Res. 378-381.
Pages S6469-70
Measures Considered
En Bloc Consideration of Certain Nominations--Cloture: Senate began consideration of S. Res. 377, authorizing the en bloc consideration in Executive Session of certain nominations on the Executive Calendar.
Page S6462
A motion was entered to close further debate on the resolution, and, in accordance with the provisions of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a vote on cloture will occur on Thursday, September 11, 2025.
Page S6462
Prior to the consideration of this measure, Senate took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Legislative Session.
Page S6462
By 53 yeas to 46 nays (Vote No. 511), Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Executive Session to consider the resolution. (By 53 yeas to 46 nays (Vote No. 510), Senate earlier tabled Schumer point of order that a motion to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 1, S. Res. 377, is not in order because legislation that provides for en bloc consideration of individual nominations on the Executive Calendar is legislative business.)
Pages S6461-62
Appointments
Board of Visitors of the U.S. Naval Academy: The Chair, on behalf of the Democratic Leader, and Ranking Member of the Committee on Armed Services, pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 8468(a), as amended by Public Law 118- 159, appointed the following Senator to the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Naval Academy: Senator Alsobrooks.
Page S6507
National Defense Authorization Act: Agreement
A unanimous-consent agreement was reached providing that at approximately 10 a.m., on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, Senate resume consideration of S. 2296, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2026 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year.
Page S6507
Message from the President
Senate received the following messages from the President of the United States: Transmitting, pursuant to law, a report of the continuation of the national emergency that was originally declared in Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001, with respect to persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism; which was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. (PM-39)
Page S6466
Transmitting, pursuant to law, a report of the continuation of the national emergency that was originally declared in Executive Order 14046 of September 17, 2021, with respect to Ethiopia; which was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. (PM- 40)
Page S6466
Nominations Sent Back to Committee
In Executive Session, Chair sustained a point of order that the following nominations were not properly reported and will be returned to committee:
Pages S6505-07
Nicole McGraw, of Florida, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Croatia; Thomas DiNanno, of Florida, to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security; Sarah Rogers, of New York, to be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy; Somers Farkas, of New York, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Malta; Leandro Rizzuto, of Florida, to be Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the Organization of American States, with the rank of Ambassador; Kenneth Howery, of Texas, to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark; Caleb Orr, of Texas, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Economic and Business Affairs); Chris Pratt, of Utah, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Political-Military Affairs); Michael DeSombre, of Illinois, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (East Asian and Pacific Affairs); Stacey Feinberg, of California, to be Ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg; Howard Brodie, of Florida, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Finland; Arthur Fisher, of North Carolina, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Austria; Nicholas Merrick, of Texas, to be Ambassador to the Czech Republic; Roman Pipko, of Florida, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Estonia; Jacob Helberg, of Florida, to be an Under Secretary of State (Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment); Benjamin Black, of New York, to be Chief Executive Officer of the United States International Development Finance Corporation; Paul Kapur, of California, to be Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs; Lynda Blanchard, of Alabama, to be U.S. Representative to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, with the rank of Ambassador; Anjani Sinha, of Florida, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Singapore; Michael G. Waltz, of Florida, to be Representative of the United States of America to the Sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations during his tenure of service as Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations; Michael G. Waltz, of Florida, to be the Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, with the Rank of Ambassador, and the Representative of the United States of America in the Security Council of the United Nations; Neil Jacobs, of North Carolina, to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere; and Thomas Rose, of Florida, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Poland.
Pages S6505-07
Nominations Confirmed
Senate confirmed the following nominations: By 52 yeas to 45 nays (Vote No. EX. 505), Maria A. Lanahan, of Missouri, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Pages S6443-52
By 49 yeas to 46 nays (Vote No. EX. 507), Robert Law, of the District of Columbia, to be Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans, Department of Homeland Security.
Page S6453
During consideration of this nomination today, Senate also took the following action
By 51 yeas to 46 nays (Vote No. EX. 506), Senate agreed to the motion to close further debate on the nomination.
Page S6452
By 53 yeas to 45 nays (Vote No. EX. 509), Kyle Christopher Dudek, of Florida, to be United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida.
Pages S6454-61
During consideration of this nomination today, Senate also took the following action
By 53 yeas to 44 nays (Vote No. EX. 508), Senate agreed to the motion to close further debate on the nomination.
Pages S6453-54
Statements on Introduced Bills/Resolutions:
Pages S6471-73
Record Votes
Seven record votes were taken today. (Total--511)
Pages S6452-54, S6461-62
Adjournment
Senate convened at 10 a.m. and adjourned at 8:17 p.m., until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, September 10, 2025. (For Senate's program, see the remarks of the Acting Majority Leader in today's Record on page S6509.)
Every speech and line is the Congressional Record's own text, read from GovInfo. Speakers are matched to members by GPO's own metadata. Referandom places each turn on the Clerk's video by matching its words: 93 of 164 spoken turns were found. Turns without a time are still listed; they just can't seek.
Prevent Government Shutdown Act (Executive Session)
Mr. President, one of the most fundamental constitutional responsibilities afforded Congress is the power of the purse. It grants Congress the authority to raise and spend revenue, to operate the government, and examine spending decisions.
The Federal Government is primarily funded through 12 annual appropriations bills. The Federal fiscal year begins on October 1 of each year. If the appropriations bills are not signed into law by September 30, lawmakers and the President must agree on a temporary spending resolution that is known in this town as a continuing resolution, keeping the government open for business. If that fails, the unfunded parts of government shut down.
History has repeatedly shown that shutting down the government is bad policy and also bad politics. It costs the taxpayers money to shut down the government and even more to reopen it. A government shutdown reduces essential services for the American people, erodes the trust of the American people, and limits the ability of Congress to conduct oversight over Federal Government operations.
Government shutdowns don't make for great bargaining tools. How many times have we heard Members of both political parties--probably not at the same time--but say: If I don't get what I want, I am not going to vote for a continuing resolution. We are going to shut down the government.
What happens after a few days or even, in one case, 3 weeks? Eventually, the heat gets so bad that Congress votes to reopen the government and the Members who crowed that they were going to shut down the government if they didn't get what they wanted--who were eventually pushing for certain policy changes that they wanted--usually, in the end, don't get what they want. That is why it is bad politics, as well as bad financial management.
Instead, Congress is in the same spot, but now is stuck with a last- minute omnibus bill or a long-term continuing resolution. Neither a last-minute omnibus or a long-term continuing resolution allows Congress to carefully analyze spending and make necessary tough decisions. In other words, that is not a good replacement for passing 12 appropriations bills separately. In short, shutdowns have always been a losing proposition for the American people.
On Thursday, I joined Senator Lankford and others in reintroducing a bill entitled the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act. This bill would permanently end government shutdowns by creating an automatic continuing resolution.
This would continue critical services and operations and hold Federal workers harmless while Congress negotiates a final spending agreement. To encourage Members and the President to reach an agreement on funding, the Lankford bill would prohibit Members of Congress, congressional staffs, and Office of Management and Budget officials from traveling outside of Washington, DC, during the automatic continuing resolution. In other words: Do your job. Stay here in town until you get it done and prevent a shutdown.
It would also prevent Congress from recessing or from considering legislation unrelated to appropriations bills
So Congress needs to stop governing from crisis to crisis, respect the appropriations process, and fulfill its constitutional responsibilities to keep the government funded. Moreover, we need to put an end to the recurring political side show of costly government shutdowns.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, a new report came out last month detailing who benefits from the working-families tax relief that Republicans enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill, and here is what they found: Americans in every county in America will see tax relief from this bill. Let me say that again. Americans in every county in America will see tax relief from this bill.
I said this was a new report, but it is hardly news for Republicans. We knew what we were doing when we crafted this bill. We knew that we were enacting tax relief that would benefit people in every corner of this country. We knew that it would benefit people of every income level and that the greatest proportional benefit would go to working Americans. That is what we did in 2017. In 2017, we cut taxes for all Americans, and the greatest proportional benefit went to working Americans. What we did this year with the One Big Beautiful Bill was make that tax relief permanent. Now hard-working American families can be confident that they won't see a tax hike next year or in the years to come, and they can spend, invest, and save more of their hard-earned money with greater confidence for the future.
This morning, I want to walk through how working families will benefit from our legislation.
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered tax rates for every income level and adjusted tax brackets to provide additional relief, but those reforms were going to expire this year without action from Congress. What that would have meant is that a typical family earning $80,000 a year would have seen their tax rate jump from 12 percent to 15 percent next year. Not only that, that family would have lost other benefits, like the increased standard deduction and the increased child tax credit.
The standard deduction, which is something that 90 percent of taxpayers in this country use to simplify and reduce their taxes, would have been cut nearly in half, and the child tax credit would have shrunk from $2,000 per child to $1,000 per child. For people in my State, that would have meant paying an average of $2,500 more in taxes next year--$2,500. Republicans were determined not to let that happen, and with our bill in July, we locked in the lower tax rates permanently.
We also made permanent the increased child tax credit and actually increased it further to $2,200 per child and then linked it to inflation so it won't ever lose its value, and then we made the higher standard deduction permanent as well.
We also added a $6,000 bonus deduction for seniors, and then we eliminated taxes on tips--something that will benefit millions of Americans who earn part of their income from tips. That includes servers, busboys, and bartenders; Uber, Lyft, and taxi drivers; hairstylists, tour guides, and a whole host of other Americans. Working people who once dreaded big tax bills on their tips every April are now breathing a little easier. They are already making plans to save that money, put it toward their schooling, or use it for groceries and other needs of their families.
We also eliminated taxes on overtime pay. That means that folks like police officers, first responders, and nurses won't have to pay taxes on the money they earn when they spend time away from their families working extra shifts to keep us safe. It is also a boon to Americans who put in overtime working in manufacturing and the trades--hard- working Americans who spend the workday on their feet and take a shower after work, not before.
All of these reforms make for a Tax Code that works for working people. That gives them more breathing room in their budgets and helps them build a better future for their families.
I also want to say a word about what this bill does for Americans who work for themselves.
Family-run businesses--farmers and ranchers, like the people I represent in South Dakota--are the backbone of a lot of American communities. They are families' livelihoods, job creators, and part of Americans' way of life. This bill makes sure our Tax Code helps them grow. Small businesses, farms, and ranches will all benefit from the permanent lower tax rates in this bill.
Those that are passthrough businesses will also benefit from the 199A small business deduction, which is also now a permanent fixture of the Tax Code. These provisions free up cash that will allow family farms and ranches and small businesses to invest in their operations and their workers.
Then there are the investment incentives this bill makes permanent: bonus depreciation for new equipment, meaning a farmer can deduct the full cost of a new tractor or combine the year he or she starts using it; a factory owner can deduct the full cost of improving his or her assembly line; a construction company can invest in new vehicles and technology more easily.
Immediate expensing for research and development is also now permanent--a provision that has had a meaningful impact on getting innovative technologies off the ground in South Dakota and around the country.
We also raised the exemption threshold for the death tax, which means a lot more family businesses, farms, and ranches are protected from this fundamentally flawed tax and the costly estate planning that comes with it. It means Americans who have worked their entire lives building up their dream won't have to worry about that dream being sold off or dismantled to settle a tax bill when they pass it on to the next generation.
With the working families tax reform Republicans enacted this year, America's Tax Code is now permanently oriented toward supporting hard- working Americans, helping the people who work every day to build a better future for their children, ensuring that they keep more of their hard-earned money, and making America stronger and more prosperous.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, a few moments ago, we got more news that the economy Donald Trump is sabotaging is in worse shape than we imagined. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added about 900,000 fewer jobs than originally thought through the early part of this year. This report shows one thing: The job market was already struggling when Donald Trump took office, and he has made it much worse.
His tariffs are raising prices. His tariffs are making factories slow down. His ``Big Ugly Bill'' is kicking 16 million people off healthcare; unemployment is going up; health insurance premiums are going up; and people are less optimistic about the future as they struggle to make ends meet.
When Donald Trump came in, he said he would start the golden age--he was criticizing Joe Biden. But he is doing worse and worse and worse every month. Under Donald Trump--since Donald Trump has taken office, as these numbers show, there are fewer jobs, there are higher prices, and there is less opportunity for the American people.
The economy is clearly getting worse under Donald Trump's stewardship. His policies are leaving the American people holding the bag, and they don't like it.
Mr. President, I come to the floor having just listened
These traditions go all the way back to George Washington. So let me remind the Senator from New York about how the Senate functions--is supposed to function--before he and those with this Trump derangement syndrome have come to the position that the country shouldn't be allowed to function, because exactly 235 years ago this week, the Senate used its advise and consent powers, and they used them for the first time.
President George Washington nominated Alexander Hamilton to be the Secretary of the Treasury. The Senate confirmed him immediately. The official Senate history says:
That has been the standard for more than two centuries. Senate Democrats have now, under Chuck Schumer, trashed this tradition of the U.S. Senate. Confirming even the most routine nominees is now a long and bitter fight.
From Hamilton's confirmation in 1789 to Schumer's unprecedented obstinate obstruction going on today, the Senate has gone from speed to stalemate.
Prior to Senator Schumer trying to shut down the Senate and shut down the confirmation process, routine nominees cleared the Senate Chamber quickly by voice vote, by unanimous consent, and often in groups.
More than half of every President's nominees were confirmed that way until this year; 90 percent or more of a President's nominees were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent from the days of George Washington all the way through the Presidency of Barack Obama.
During President Trump's first term, Democrats cut it down to 65 percent. Now during the second term, it is zero. Absolutely zero of President Trump's nominees have been confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote. Not a single nominee has been confirmed that way since President Trump took office almost 8 months ago.
President Trump is the first President in U.S. history to not have a single nominee confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent. Not one. Never happened before in the history of the United States. Maybe Chuck Schumer is proud of that. Maybe he is going to use it around with the Democrats and the far-left wing of his party who continue to be radical, extreme, dangerous, and scary and don't want this country heading in the right direction, but it is a disgrace what he has done to the U.S. Senate.
This is the Schumer confirmation shutdown. He and the Senate Democrats are forcing the Senate to waste hundreds of legislative hours because they have filibustered each and every one of President Trump's nominees, every single one.
Mr. President, 109 sub-Cabinet nominees have been confirmed this year. Democrats filibustered every one of the 109, and that calls for two separate rollcall votes with 2 hours in between set aside for debate. Now, of the 109 nominees, in those 2 hours that were set aside for each one of those 109, 81 of them not a single word was spoken by the Democrats on the floor about any of them.
Chuck Schumer just came to the floor, and he said: These nominees are not qualified. But he didn't say anything about when any of these 81 actually came to the Senate floor; when we voted, through cloture, and then waited 2 hours for the Democrats, they talked about other things. They didn't talk about the nominees. If they are so bad, why didn't they talk about them?
The average amount of time of all of these sub-Cabinet nominees spent by the Democrats: 2 min 12 seconds. Eighty-one of them, they said nothing. Only seven of them did they talk about for more than 10 minutes. If they are so bad, why aren't they talking about them? Because these people are qualified.
But they were delayed for no reason other than the Trump derangement syndrome. Each one has been confirmed after maximum amounts of time have expired. That is time that should have been spent on legislation. But, no, the Democrats don't want us to be able to legislate.
Is what they have done advise and consent? No. Is it congressional oversight? No. Is it serious scrutiny? No. It is obstruction on autopilot. That is what we are seeing in this body by those Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, the ``king of the shutdown.'' No President has ever faced a total shutdown of nominees like President Trump has under the Democrats and Chuck Schumer.
This has resulted in a historic backlog. Today, 149 qualified, ready- to-serve nominees are still waiting to be considered here on the Senate floor, and they are stuck in Senate purgatory.
Now, we know these nominees are qualified, despite what Senator Schumer said on this floor just a couple of minutes ago. How do I know they are qualified? Well, the FBI has vetted each and every one of them. The Office of Government Ethics has reviewed each and every one of them. The Senate committees who held hearings heard from all of these nominees, and they were all voted successfully out of committee.
And now let me just point out to Chuck Schumer that over half of them earned bipartisan support with Democrats voting for them in the committee. Yet, here on the Senate floor, Senate Democrats are stonewalling their consideration.
And there are still more than 800 nominees and nominations and positions in our government that still need to be filled. So, this week, Senate Republicans are going to restore these longstanding traditions of the Senate to get back to the way the Senate is supposed to work.
Nominees who have been successfully approved by Senate committees will now be considered and confirmed in groups. This is keeping with the longstanding traditions of how this body operates. The Republican plan is similar to one that was proposed by Senators Klobuchar and King in 2023.
At the time, they said that they were facing obstruction. Sixty-two percent of Joe Biden's nominees had been confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote. So this updated process applies only to the routine executive branch decisions. This is pretty simple. We are talking about positions like Deputy Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, Deputy Assistant Secretaries, Ambassadors, and hundreds more. These are the positions that in the past have never required a rollcall vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
America needs these men and women working, not stuck in some procedural traffic jam. The process of Cabinet-level and judicial nominees remains the same. They are going to continue to come to the floor individually for debate, discussion, and votes. These rule changes will get the Senate working again, doing the business of the American people.
Eight months now into President Trump's second term, only 12 percent of President Trump's team is in place.
Now, remember, modern Presidents have over a thousand positions to be filled. At this pace, it would take over a thousand additional hours of Senate time on the floor to fill it.
No Senate, Democrat or Republican, has ever operated this way. No President, Democrat or Republican, can govern efficiently under the current abuse by the Democrats.
The Schumer confirmation shutdown leaves critical jobs unfilled in our government. That weakens our economy. It undermines our international diplomacy. It jeopardizes our safety. It disrespects the will of the voters. This rules update will clear this backlog of nominees, and it will allow us to scrutinize nominees effectively and confirm qualified nominees efficiently.
Committees are still going to hold hearings. They will still question the nominees. There will still be all of the background work, and then the FBI checks will still be done. The Office of Government Ethics will still review the conflicts. None of that changes. What changes is this pointless partisan delay right here on the Senate floor.
What we are doing today is restoring the Senate's constitutional responsibility. That responsibility is advice and consent, not stall and delay. President Trump was elected to get America back on track. He deserves to have his
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. President, it has been my honor and one of the highlights of my Senate career to watch the restoration of democracy in the Baltic States: Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. I have said on the floor many times with real pride, my mother was born in Lithuania, and she was an immigrant to this country at the age of 2. And she never made it back to her home country where she was born, but I did, even to the town where she was baptized and raised before she came to the United States.
It has been quite a journey. In 1978 or 1979, I visited what was then the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania. I am still struck by the images which were so common there: the gray Soviet approach to things both physical and otherwise and the belief that these poor people were under the subjugation of Moscow at a time when they deserved independence.
And then to have served in the House of Representatives and, again, in the Senate and to watch the evolution of Lithuania as well as Latvia and Estonia as democratic countries and the amazing development where they became part of NATO and part of the European Union and became Western-viewing nations and equal partners with other countries in Europe when it came to security and democracy--it is remarkable.
And yet I am not naive, I know these are smaller countries, and they will be easily overwhelmed by Russia if that were the Russian ambition.
So I have tried over the years to maintain the strong relationship between the Baltic States and NATO and also the strong relationship with the United States and these three Baltic nations.
One of the things I worked on for a number of years is known as the Baltic Security Initiative. It is an investment by the United States of several million dollars in the training of troops in the Baltic States so that they are prepared if they are brought into enemy conflict. It is a modest investment. They have shown their good faith on their side by maintaining strong support from NATO and contributions to it. But the Baltic Security Initiative is an incentive for them to continue along those lines.
As I have said, I am not naive about this situation. Being part of NATO means that our alliance will stand by them if they are ever invaded by another country. I hope that never happens, but if it does, it means that NATO is there. They cannot go it alone, but they have certainly shown they are prepared to do their part to demonstrate their commitment to democracy and the values the United States shares.
We are now considering the National Defense Authorization bill. It is an important piece of legislation, which we, every year, take seriously and pass, and I hope we do this time as well.
I have offered amendments that would strengthen our alliances in my bipartisan amendment to authorize the Baltic Security Initiative. Since I created the program by including it in the fiscal year 2021 appropriations bill, this initiative has provided millions of dollars in dedicated security assistance to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
These important NATO allies are on the frontlines against Russian aggression. They have a long history of experiencing Russian tyranny, and I firmly believe they have also been targets of Putin if they were not members of NATO. They are some of the top NATO members in terms of military expenditures and percentage of GDP, something President Trump has rightfully urged. I have visited bases in Lithuania where American and other NATO allies are working closely to deter Russian aggression.
Yet, despite the clear success of this program, we recently learned that the Trump administration announced last week that it intends to suspend the European security programs, including the Baltic Security Initiative. That would be music to the ears of Vladimir Putin, and it sends a dangerous signal as Putin continues to attack Ukraine despite assurances from President Trump that he wanted to end the war on Ukraine on his first day in office.
As I mentioned, I am the son of a Lithuanian immigrant. My mother's family knew she could depend on the United States and all it stood for when they gave up their home in Lithuania and came to this country.
We should not allow the President to unilaterally threaten our alliance that has been carefully threaded over decades and decades.
I am grateful to the senior Senator from Iowa, Senator Grassley, for joining me on the amendment which I am going to offer on the Baltic Security Initiative. I urge my colleagues to join us.
I am reaching out to colleagues on both sides of the aisle and asking them to stand with me for the Baltics to make it clear to Putin this is not going to be easy picking for him in the future.
They are part of the NATO alliance and a worthy part as well. We should continue our support, and I hope the Baltic Security Initiative is an indication of that.
I urge colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join us in this bipartisan effort to support Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. President, first, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled rollcall vote: Wicker for up to 10 minutes, Reed for up to 15 minutes, Cotton for up to 5 minutes, and Tuberville for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, now let me say that I come to the floor today to join with President Trump and with a bipartisan majority of my colleagues in the Senate in calling for another tougher round of sanctions against Russia and its war machine.
For the past 8 months, President Trump and President Zelenskyy have extended the hand of peace. Ukraine is committed to a cease-fire. President Trump has sat down personally with Vladimir Putin on U.S. soil. In response, President Putin has mocked the peace process by repeatedly escalating his attacks on the free people of Ukraine, and he is doing so even as we speak.
Over the weekend, Russia launched its largest aerial attack of the war. Putin rained over 800 Iranian-designed drones and missiles down on cities across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv.
For the first time, Russia damaged Ukraine's main government building, where the Cabinet of Ministers meets. The burning building symbolizes Putin's ultimate prize: His dictatorship seeks to take down Ukraine's democratically elected government.
On Sunday, President Trump said he is ready to increase the economic pressure against Russia. I agree. So does commentator Mark Levin, an experienced political writer and analyst and a prominent advocate for President Trump and his agenda.
After the attack, Mr. Levin put it well when he said:
I say: Amen. Do not tolerate Putin's lies and games any longer.
President Trump has given Vladimir Putin every chance to show who he is, and time and again, Putin has shown himself to be a war criminal. Economic and military punishment is all Putin understands, and it is all he deserves.
Here is a brief refresher. In February, Vladimir Putin marked the third anniversary of his invasion by launching what was then the largest drone strike of the war. The next month, Ukraine agreed to a cease-fire even though Ukraine is the one being invaded.
The episode previewed a pattern that has continued ever since: Ukraine
In March, Russia launched drones and ballistic missiles into a residential neighborhood in President Zelenskyy's hometown. Putin fired cluster munitions into the city, sending shrapnel--where did he send it? Into restaurants, homes, a children's playground. He killed 9 children in that strike. Once again, the world saw Vladimir Putin escalate, targeting a nonmilitary town because that is where President Zelenskyy is from--the actions of a war criminal who should be in prison.
In the following months of this year, Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy remained committed to peace. But then, in May, Putin launched 273 drones against Ukraine. It was a new record, but he broke that evil benchmark a few days later in the largest combined drone and missile attack of the war so far. He launched 367 aerial weapons against Ukraine. Once again, the world saw Putin escalate, proving to be a war criminal.
Amid the brutality, Vladimir Putin has played games with peace talks. We have all seen it. With one hand, he signals interest in negotiations; with another, he lobs bombs and kills civilians.
In early July of this year, he once again upped the ante. He sent 728 drones and 13 missiles to Ukraine, making clear his evil intention. Once again, the world saw Putin escalate, proving to be, again, a war criminal.
At this point, I need to mention that those attacks are making little progress for the invading Russians. That is a strong testament to the will and resolve of the Ukrainian people and military, who are simply defending their own country, their own soil, and doing so admirably.
In the aftermath of this attack in July, President Trump made the correct assessment that Vladimir Putin ``talks nice [and] then he bombs everybody.'' Those are President Trump's words, and I congratulate him on that observation. The barrage prompted President Trump to work with NATO to supply Ukraine with more arms. He also gave Russia a deadline to pursue peace.
Just this weekend, the world saw the war criminal escalate again. He dropped more than 800 Russian drones onto civilians, neighborhoods, and government buildings. Vladimir Putin sent an unambiguous message: He is not interested in peace; he is interested in conquering Ukraine. And he won't stop there.
As if this weekend's attacks were not a clear enough sign of his intentions, Putin continued his brutality just this morning--just this morning, Mr. President. He launched a glide missile into a village, killing at least 24 Ukrainians who had lined up to receive their pension payments. Nearly two dozen more were wounded, and the statistics are still coming in.
Just last week, Russia struck another hospital--this time in Donetsk--killing two people and damaging medical facilities.
I could go on with more examples, but it is worth stopping here to again make two points that former Secretary Mike Pompeo made in an interview just this morning with Brian Kilmeade on FOX News.
The first is that there is very little military objective to strikes like these. Twenty-four innocents killed is a tragedy, but it is not a resounding military success. That is because Putin is not and cannot make very many resounding military successes.
The second is that Putin clearly has no intention to stop. This morning, former Secretary Pompeo, a distinguished former member of President Trump's Cabinet, said:
Zero interest.
I think that is what the President of the United States was saying just a day or so ago. In other words, there is no reason to believe that Putin wants anything less than to take the country of Ukraine successfully, and he will not stop until he is forced to stop.
The Kremlin is projecting confidence at home, but that confidence is a sham.
This morning, a Moscow newspaper was honest enough to say:
I disagree with that, by the way.
To continue the quote:
Doesn't intend--
Could there be any doubt that this is a true statement? They have a fake confidence, but they have no intention of stopping.
Mr. Putin is regularly shutting down internet access for Russian citizens so they won't know what is going on in the war, so they won't know how slowly they are moving, allowing only approved sites that do not allow the truth to come through. This is Russian totalitarianism at its best--or worst.
Putin hopes to project enough confidence at home to sustain the war effort and wear Ukraine down. Abroad, he hopes to wait out the West with fake peace talks while he continues pummeling Ukraine with missiles and drones of death.
Where does Putin's rain of fire come from? It comes from Russia's war machine, which produces what seems to be an endless supply of deadly drones. But it does not have to be endless. Today, Russia barely has the economic capacity to continue bombarding Ukraine--barely.
But now at last, President Trump has indicated he is willing to cut off that capacity. Again, I say: Amen. We must be willing to cut it off. Again, a majority--a huge bipartisan majority--of Senators have said this.
Russia's friends are only encouraging his villainy. China is buying and selling with Russia, enabling its war machine. North Korea sent its own troops to assist Russia's soldiers on the battlefield. Iran designs and supplies weapons. That is a troubling axis of aggressors.
In the face of such malicious collaboration, we must use every available tool to increase pressure on Putin's war machine. Extending the hand of peace has not worked with this dictator because this dictator is not interested in peace. He will respond only to strength. He will act only if his war machine begins running out of funds, and we can help accomplish that.
The U.S. Senate has shown broad support for increasing Russian sanctions. Eighty-four Senators have signed on to a tough sanctions bill that can help us bankrupt Putin's war machine.
I am ready to work with my colleagues and the President to put real cost on Putin for these war crimes. I congratulate the President of the United States for his strong statement this weekend. As Mark Levin said, let us ``unleash an economic barrage against Putin.'' Well said. Let's do it today.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. President, last week, President Trump gave two orders to the U.S. military that were astonishing even by this administration's standards.
First, he ordered the Department of Defense to be renamed the Department of War, a political theater exercise designed to sound tough while distracting from the real issues facing the Nation. Second, he ordered a military strike on a speedboat operating in the Caribbean, reportedly killing 11 people on board.
In response to the attack, Venezuela has placed its military on high alert, and we are one miscalculation away from a shooting war no one in this Chamber has authorized.
Rather than rebranding itself, the Pentagon should be providing to Congress and the public answers. For example, the intelligence that justified that strike on the vessel, the legal authority the President relied upon, and an assurance that we are not drifting toward another undeclared war.
The Department of Defense was named as such after World War II for a reason. It was a deliberate statement from America's military that we are not a tool of conquest but a shield designed to deter aggression, defend the
Changing the name of the Department of Defense will not improve military readiness, will not strengthen deterrence. It will not prevent a single conflict. What it will do is signal to the world that America is abandoning its role as a stabilizing force and embracing a posture of quasi--or real--permanent warfare.
I am deeply concerned about the President's military actions in the Caribbean, which were taken without congressional authorization, without clear legal justification, and without any evidence presented that it was necessary to protect the United States or its forces from an immediate threat. Now, nearly a week out after the operation and amid threats of additional actions, the administration is just beginning to brief Congress on these issues.
I want to be very clear. We all share a commitment to protecting the American people from transnational criminal organizations. Cartels are violent and dangerous, and they cannot be allowed to traffic across our borders. But we cannot allow that Homeland Security mission to become a blank check for war, for military action directed at civilians. We cannot let one man's impulsive decision making entangle this Nation in another conflict we neither need nor want nor care for.
Last week's strike was no minor confrontation. This was a deliberate, lethal use of American military power. Press reports suggest that the operation was carried out by an attack helicopter or MQ-9 Reaper drone. Neither of those platforms are typically deployed to warn a vessel to stop. Those aircraft are designed for precision strikes. There is no evidence--none--that this strike was conducted in self-defense.
That matters because under both domestic and international law, the U.S. military simply does not have the authority to use lethal force against a civilian vessel unless acting in self-defense. At most, and only in extraordinary circumstances, warning shots or disabling fire might be used to halt the vessel posing an imminent threat. That is the standard rule of engagement for U.S. forces worldwide. And there are no indications that U.S. forces attempted to stop, board, or even contact the vessel in question.
Lethal force, particularly force that kills nearly a dozen people, is reserved for moments when there is no other option existing, when the safety of U.S. personnel or vital interests is immediately at stake. No such case has been made here.
The Trump administration has offered no proof that this vessel was engaged in an attack or even that it was engaged in drug trafficking at the time. They offered no positive identification that the boat was Venezuelan nor that its crew members were members of Tren de Aragua or any other cartel. And even if we believe their unsupported assertions, that does not change the legal calculus.
Our Armed Forces are not law enforcement Agencies. They are not empowered to hunt down suspected criminals and then kill them without trial. The Department of Defense's own senior leadership, including the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low- Intensity Conflict, have testified before the Armed Services Committee that the mere designation of a cartel as a foreign terrorist organization does not confer any new authority to use military force. And that is the administration speaking publicly.
Let us be candid about what this means. Eleven people were killed without any apparent justification other than the word of President Trump. If there is evidence that these people were, indeed, cartel members trafficking drugs, it needs to be made public immediately. I would point out that the U.S. military monitors maritime drug movements in this region on a daily basis. For weeks--perhaps months-- surveillance aircraft and other sensors have been tracking cartel operations in the Caribbean. This strike, therefore, was not a snap decision made in the heat of the moment. It appears, frankly, quite premeditated, and it was carried out, in my view, without the legal authority to do so.
Congress received a notification from the White House on September 3 citing a number of reasons for the attack and claiming that the President acted under his article II authority. But article II is not a blank check. The President is the Commander in Chief, but Congress retains the sole power to declare war under article I, section 8 of the Constitution. The War Powers Resolution exists precisely to prevent unilateral military actions like this from dragging our country into undeclared war.
The law is also clear that any change to the legal and policy frameworks governing the use of military force must be reported to Congress within 30 days. The administration submitted its annual review in February. If President Trump issued a new order on August 8 authorizing the use of force under these circumstances, as has been reported, then Congress should have received immediate notification. And we have not. Section 1067 of the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act further requires notification of any changes to an Execute Order, or ``exord.''
Lastly, section 130f of title 10 United States Code requires a detailed justification for and description of military operations involving lethal force. The Department submitted a 130f notification to Congress, but its contents were entirely insufficient and inconsistent with the level of detail that are normally compiled in such a report. This is a direct challenge to the separation of powers.
If we allow this to stand, then Congress will have effectively ceded its war powers to the executive branch. We will have surrendered to the authorities the Framers to the Constitution invested in us, the representatives of the people, to decide when this Nation goes to war.
And we also must reckon with the risk of escalation. Venezuela has already placed its military on high alert. President Maduro's regime has accused the United States of aggression. If they retaliate or answer by firing on our surveillance aircraft or other naval vessels in the region or responding in kind against U.S. civilians, the Trump administration has already stated that it will respond with more force. Then we are on a path for a shooting war with a foreign nation, a war that no one in this Chamber has authorized and that the American people have not been consulted about.
We have seen this pattern before. Time and again, this President has tested the limits of Executive authority. He has unilaterally ordered major U.S. military operations in Iran and Yemen, and has refused to answer to Congress about these strikes. Right now, more than 2,000 National Guard troops are deployed on the streets of Washington. And earlier this summer, more than 4,000 National Guardsmen and marines were deployed in Los Angeles.
Each time, we have seen the slow erosion of congressional oversight. Each time, we have seen the creeping normalization of unilateral military action. And each time, we have inched closer to a world in which the decision to wage war or to use the military to enforce the law is made by one person alone.
That is not the system our Founders designed. James Madison wrote:
And we forget those words at our peril. This Chamber must act immediately. Members of Congress must receive a full briefing from the administration, including the intelligence that supposedly justified the strike, the legal analysis authorizing it, and a copy of any Presidential order that reportedly expanded the use-of-force authorities. If that order exists, it must be scrutinized publicly. If the President has exceeded his authority, this body must consider all remedies available, including legislative action to limit the use of funds for further unauthorized military operations.
We cannot allow the United States to slide into another mindless conflict. We cannot risk the lives of American
We also, as Senators, have responsibilities to protect the congressional powers inherent in the Constitution, not to simply surrender them to the President because of political expediency. Let us reassert Congress's role. Let us demand accountability. And let us ensure that this Nation does not stumble into war by the reckless acts of a single man.
Mr. President, what the American people saw last week in the Finance Committee with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was not a hearing on oversight. It was a dogpile by politicians who are scared to death of questioning the status quo. It was, at its worst, a full-on blitz against one man for the simple crime of telling the truth and refusing to play ball with the swamp.
I spent 40 years in coaching before I got into this clown show. I know what it looks like when a player gets piled on. I know what it looks like when referees refuse to call a fair game. And I know what it looks like when the other team tries to run up the score. That is exactly what we saw last week--a coordinated, deep-state hit job on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
I have absolutely no idea what my colleagues have against R.F.K., Jr. Surely, they don't disagree with his efforts to make America healthy again. But there is one thing I know for sure: R.F.K., after that hearing, is not working for the swamp; he is fighting for the American people--people all over this country.
I have personally seen him come close to tears while talking about his passion for ending the chronic disease epidemic in this country. What is wrong with that? As a proud grandfather to Rosie Grace, I am so grateful to have someone who is so passionate about helping our young people live longer, healthier lives leading Health and Human Services. I am excited. He is working for moms and dads across this country in my State of Alabama who are sick and tired of being lied to by the so- called experts in this country.
When you are playing for the people and are willing to take on the system, you are going to take some hard hits. We have all seen that. Just ask President Trump. He took a bullet for the exact same reason--a bullet.
Although it didn't come in the form of a bullet, R.F.K., Jr., sure got hit real, real hard last week by the deep state. But instead of folding, R.F.K., Jr., stood his ground. He got back up after every hit and responded with the truth and facts. That is toughness. That is leadership. That is why President Trump picked him for the role.
Democrats came into that hearing ready to throw every flag they could in an attempt to get 20 seconds of fame on their social media. Senator Wyden opened up with a personal attack, calling for R.F.K.'s resignation. Senator Warnock piled on, calling him a hazard to public health. Senator Warren tried to run a trick play, twisting his words to paint him as dishonest. Senator Sanders just couldn't stomach the fact that someone finally said out loud what everybody already knows: For years, Big Pharma money has corrupted politicians and our medical institutions. Big Pharma is quietly calling way too many of the plays here in DC.
These weren't questions. They weren't oversight. They were cheap shots.
I was particularly disappointed because several of my Republican colleagues joined in on this fiasco. Something I have learned is that when you challenge the status quo, you find out real quick who is willing to stand with you and who is just concerned with getting reelected.
You might be asking, what has R.F.K., Jr., done to receive all this wrath from my colleagues? It is because he has dared to bring accountability to our health-related government Agencies. He is asking questions that are daring to challenge the status quo.
There is a lot of misinformation being spread by Democrats about R.F.K.'s position on vaccines. I have never seen anything like it. The Department of Health and Human Services is not--and I repeat: not-- banning vaccines. R.F.K. is simply directing the Department to look into some of the potentially long-term effects of anything that we are putting into our bodies. As far as I am concerned, that is a great thing. It is long overdue.
He is also restoring sanity by getting rid of woke bureaucrats at the CDC--an Agency that lost the trust of the American people during COVID.
I know a lot of my colleagues have been hyperfocused on the CDC Director being fired. They obviously weren't there, and I wasn't either, but according to R.F.K., Jr., he asked the CDC Director point blank ``Are you a trustworthy person?'' and she said ``No.''
You know, I owned a small business one time, and if one of my employees had told me that, I would have immediately fired them the same way he did.
He is calling out the deep state, and that is why they are after him--the same CDC bureaucrats who told us to follow the science during COVID, the ones that shut down our schools. They shut down our churches. They told us that endless vaccines would stop the spread of COVID despite the fact that the vaccine was not proven to do anything to stop the transmission of the virus. In other words, they lied to us. Meanwhile, liquor stores and abortion clinics were allowed to stay open. And let's not forget the violent BLM riots that broke out in blue cities across the country during the summer of 2020. What a joke.
The so-called health experts failed America, and in doing so, they revealed that the only thing they really care about is power and control. That is a scary place to be. And now they want to lecture R.F.K., Jr., about science. He has dedicated his entire career to this subject. That is like a coach who never stepped on a field trying to tell me how to run a football program. It is laughable, and we have a lot of people who should be laughed at.
Let me tell you, the CDC, from top to bottom, needs to be cleaned out. That Agency was supposed to protect us in 2020 until the end of COVID. Instead, it became a political mouthpiece. It censored doctors and nurses, and it worked with Big Tech to shut down free speech. People lost their lives because of the CDC--lost their lives. And when R.F.K., Jr., fired some of those folks, this town acted like the sky was falling. They needed to be fired because the swamp protects its own. That is why they went crazy.
Thank goodness he hasn't stopped there. Secretary Kennedy has already delivered results. He worked with me in the MAHA Caucus to push the FDA to finally--finally--ban red dye No. 3--a dangerous chemical that was banned from cosmetics. It was banned from cosmetics because they found it causes cancer. But what did we do? We left it in our food. Now, that makes a lot of sense. We left it in our kids' food and in the food that we eat every day, but they couldn't put it in cosmetics. There is no common sense there.
R.F.K., Jr., is fighting for families.
Another major problem is that he is cracking down on the revolving door between NIH, the CDC, and Big Pharma. It is corrupt, and it is wrong.
He is focused not only on preventing diseases, but he is helping people live longer lives. Under his leadership, HHS is focused on increasing access to healthy, affordable, nutrient-dense foods instead of just pumping more drugs into sick people. These are real wins for the American people. Yet what does he get in return? Attacks and smears.
R.F.K., Jr., told the truth last week when he said we are the sickest country in the world. He is exactly right. He goes by facts, not by the so-called science. Despite spending more on healthcare than anybody else, we are leading in obesity, diabetes, cancer, and mental health problems. Don't believe me? Then explain why you can go to Italy and eat nothing but bread and pizza and pasta for a week and not gain a pound. It is because of all the chemicals and toxins we have here in our food in the United States that we get
He is also daring to ask questions, which apparently isn't allowed in the deep state here--commonsense questions like: Why are American kids required to get dozens more vaccines than we did when we were all growing up? We have gone from a few to almost 100. Yet, by every metric, we are sicker as a country, as 6 out of 10 Americans have a chronic disease in this country--6 out of 10, which is most of us. Our food is filled with chemicals and things that other countries won't even allow. That is why we have these diseases. Why are we protecting Big Pharma's bottom line while our families are getting sicker?
These are fair questions and questions we should be asking if we actually care about the people we represent. But in this town, when you ask fair questions, you get labeled ``dangerous,'' ``anti-science,'' and ``conspiracy theorist.''
R.F.K., Jr., is not your typical politician. He is blunt. He is not very comfortable around people. He doesn't toe the line. And that is exactly what the doctor ordered because if all you do is follow the deep state's demands--what happens up here--you will never get the change in this country we desperately need. Sometimes you have to call out the mistakes, push harder for answers, and not be afraid to shake things up. That is how you build a winning team. That is what R.F.K., Jr., is doing. He is not playing it safe, and he is getting real results.
Since R.F.K. took over at HHS, companies like Hershey, Kraft, Pepsi, Steak `n Shake, and In-N-Out Burger have made meaningful changes to their ingredients. He is delivering major wins, and the swamp can't stand it because they can't control him. That is what happens up here-- they want to have control.
But let's not forget the American people are watching. There are 77 million Americans who voted for President Trump and his agenda. That is the most votes a Republican running for President has ever received. President Trump campaigned on making America healthy again, along with R.F.K., Jr.
Now, if some of my colleagues want to keep running defense for Big Pharma, that is their choice. But I didn't come to Washington to protect the swamp; I came here to fight for the great State of Alabama and the people across this country--for the parents who are trying to raise healthy kids, for families who have felt lied to by their government, and for the hard-working folks who lost their jobs simply because they chose not to take the COVID vaccine.
I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with R.F.K., Jr. He is not perfect--none of us are--but he is in the fight for the right reasons. He is fighting for accountability, transparency, and for the health and freedom of the American people, and that is a team I am proud to be on.
Mr. President, when a criminal is convicted of a crime and locked away in prison, you would think that would put a stop to their illicit activity, but sadly, in too many tragic cases, criminals just continue their wicked ways behind bars. That is because tens of thousands of contraband cell phones are smuggled into and throughout prisons, enabling convicted criminals to carry on with their criminal business as usual from behind bars.
Contraband cell phones in prisons pose a severe threat to public safety. After all, these convicted criminals aren't using cell phones to order takeout, to check the weather, or to watch NFL highlights--no. They use contraband cell phones to order hits on criminal rivals, to traffic drugs, and to run extortion schemes.
Convicted criminals who are sitting in a prison cell shouldn't be able to endanger correctional officers, members of law enforcement, and innocent Americans outside of prisons by using contraband cell phones. If we opt to stand idly by, we might as well hand these criminals the keys to their prison cells.
That is why I have introduced again the Cellphone Jamming Reform Act--to allow State and Federal correctional facilities to use targeted cell phone jamming equipment in prison housing facilities. The key word here is ``targeted.'' The technology is so precise that it does not interrupt with the regular communications of law enforcement or emergency first responders in the vicinity.
However, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and at the end of the day, I simply care about delivering results for every Arkansan. That is why I am proud to support President Trump in his efforts to bring back law and order to neighborhoods and communities across our country. I applaud the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on crime and specifically Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr's announcement that the FCC will vote on a proposal allowing prisons to jam contraband cell phones for the first time. As I am sure many of my Republican colleagues and friends would agree, this action is both a welcome step forward and a long-overdue development.
For years, I have repeatedly urged Democrats to take action, but they didn't--instead, prioritizing and coddling criminals as usual. Consider that in the final hours of the Biden Presidency, Joe Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 convicted criminals, robbing hundreds of thousands of victims of the closure and justice they deserved. To be clear, these were not sympathetic figures; these were criminals, such as a drug dealer responsible for killing a relapsing addict; a fraudster who stole millions of dollars intended for hungry Arkansas kids and low-income families; and the so-called ``kids-for-cash'' judge, who accepted kickbacks in exchange for his role in sending thousands of children to private detention centers.
Sadly, that is not all. Last year, just 2 days before Christmas, Joe Biden announced he was commuting the death sentences of 37 depraved rapists and murderers. While we still don't know how many of these pardons were signed by Joe Biden and how many were signed by his radical aides using his autopen, this is a reminder that, unfortunately, the Democratic Party is the party of soft-on-crime.
As further evidence of this, consider the so-called George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would have handcuffed law enforcement instead of dangerous criminals. Further, consider that every single Soros prosecutor is a Democrat. Finally, consider that the jurisdictions with the worst crimes at the local level are all controlled by Democrats.
Now, you may have heard some Democrats argue that cities with the highest homicide rates are in Republican States, but look a little closer. In almost every case, those cities--like Jackson, MS; Birmingham, AL; and St. Louis, MO, are run by Democrats.
Look at Democrat-led Charlotte, NC. Just last month, an innocent, 23- year-old Ukrainian refugee was heinously murdered by a crazed career criminal while riding a light-rail train. Thanks, in part, to the soft- on-crime policies of the liberal former Governor, Roy Cooper, this deranged murderer had been arrested 14 times, had been convicted of crimes, including robbery with a dangerous weapon, and had assaulted his own sister. Yet he was still allowed to walk free and take the life of Iryna Zarutska.
I want to extend my condolences to her family and loved ones and assure them that we will pursue justice in her tragic case. President Trump and Republicans are working on behalf of innocent individuals like Iryna, who have a right to be safe and secure in their homes, neighborhoods, and communities.
Compare Charlotte to Washington, DC, where more than 1,900 arrests have been made and more than 200 illegal guns have been seized since President Trump deployed the National Guard and Federal law enforcement last month. While the Democratic DC Mayor admitted that President Trump's strategy is working, other Democratic leaders in places like Chicago and Baltimore are resisting assistance and putting up a big stink.
But let me remind everyone that Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson and Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott aren't the
I would bet that many of the 81 percent of Americans who see crime as a major problem in large cities worry about some of these very real threats in their day-to-day lives. So I would invite the Democrats to wise up and join us on the right side of this issue: fighting crime and standing up for innocent Americans. I am pleased to stand with President Trump and my Republican colleagues to crack down on crime and ensure that every law-abiding American can live in safety, security, and freedom.
Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote on the nomination of Maria Lanahan to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. I will oppose her nomination.
As the principal deputy solicitor general in the Missouri Attorney General's Office, Ms. Lanahan has been at the forefront of litigating cases on politically charged issues, including restricting access to reproductive rights.
For example, she served as counsel of record for Missouri in an effort to restrict access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medication abortions, despite the fact that decades of peer-reviewed research has found mifepristone to be safe.
Ms. Lanahan argued in briefs that abortion medication are ``dangerous drugs,'' and she claimed in responses to written questions that she was unaware of more than 60 studies supporting the FDA's approval expanding the use of mifepristone.
It is notable that she argued that Missouri has standing to bring this case because access to abortion medication is ``depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers in Plaintiff States.'' She also claimed that Missouri would be injured because a loss of potential population would lead to ``diminishment of political representation'' and ``loss of federal funds.''
Ms. Lanahan also served as counsel of record to Missouri in its challenge to the CHNV Parole Program, which grants a pathway for parole in the United States from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. In the Missouri Attorney General's Office, she has demonstrated hostility to humanitarian parole, a critical component of our country's commitment to aiding people who are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.
I urge my colleagues to oppose Ms. Lanahan's nomination.
I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 52, nays 45, as follows:
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The assistant bill clerk read as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the mandatory quorum call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the nomination of Robert Law, of the District of Columbia, to be Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans, Department of Homeland Security, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 51, nays 46, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 51, the nays are 46.
Madam President, I staunchly oppose Robert Law's nomination to be Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans at the Department of Homeland Security.
If confirmed, Robert Law will be responsible for developing policies for all of DHS's critical national security missions, including border security and immigration enforcement, cyber security, protecting critical infrastructure, counterterrorism, and disaster management.
This role requires someone who understands the full mission of DHS and can manage strategy across all of these components. Given his record and views, I have serious concerns about how he will carry out these responsibilities.
First, he has shown that he has limited understanding of some of DHS's most critical missions. In comments before my committee, he has maligned DHS cyber security and election security missions, and he downplayed terrorism threats that DHS is charged with countering. He has dismissed the work of key DHS components like FEMA and CISA as ``off mission,'' and I am deeply concerned that he will abandon critical emergency management and cyber security missions that protect our communities every day.
I am also concerned about Robert Law's promotion of discriminatory travel bans and mass deportations. He has a record of working with organizations that were founded by White nationalists, whose extremist policy positions he himself has enforced and advocated for.
Robert Law currently serves as Senior Counselor to Secretary Noem and is supporting DHS's ongoing efforts to indiscriminately ramp up deportation of law-abiding individuals and families while losing focus on counterterrorism, cyber security, and disaster preparedness.
During the first Trump administration, Robert Law worked at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, where he helped implement the travel ban targeting many Muslim nations, creating, essentially, a religious test for entering the United States. Robert Law also supports ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, known as DACA, and has referred to Dreamers as ``human shields.''
To make matters worse, he denied to my committee that the Trump administration has a family separation policy when, in fact, we know that there are children who still have not been reunited with their parents.
If Robert Law is confirmed, I am concerned that he will neglect vital missions of the Department and make Americans less safe. Because of this, I strongly oppose Robert Law's nomination, and I would urge all of my colleagues to do the same.
The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), and the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Justice).
I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) are necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 49, nays 46, as follows:
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's actions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The assistant bill clerk read as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the mandatory quorum call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the nomination of Kyle Christopher Dudek, of Florida, to be United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. President, I want to tell you a story about Tina Pierce. Tina grew up on a farm in Idaho. She was the first in her family to earn a college degree.
After earning her degree in accounting, she served in the U.S. Marines. She was deployed in Kuwait as the comptroller for the contingency Operation Desert Thunder.
She earned her MBA from Colorado State University. She graduated at the top of her class. She then became a CPA, a certified public accountant. She has been married 26 years. She has four children. Her husband also served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a colonel.
Why do I bring her up? Well, here is why. President Trump nominated Tina Pierce to be the Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Energy. She went through the process with the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where she was voted out in May of this year 13 to 7--pretty strong bipartisan vote.
She passed out of the committee and then has sat waiting. What is interesting for this is the Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Energy has actually never had a vote in the Senate on the floor of the Senate. It has always been a position that, in the past, went through committee, was approved in committee, and then passed on the Senate floor either by unanimous consent, a voice vote, or what is called en bloc, grouped together with other nominees and passed all in a group.
This is not the Secretary of Defense; this is not the Secretary of Energy or the Secretary of State. This is the CFO for the Department of Energy. It is one of those 1,200 positions that the Senate must confirm but, historically, has always been confirmed in a very fast-track process after they passed out of committee. Especially when they pass out 13 to 7 out of a committee, everyone knows they are going to pass.
You see, that is the way it used to be--but not anymore. My Democratic colleagues have determined that Tina Pierce should be filibustered. So this marine, married to a marine, mom, highly qualified, graduated top of her class has to sit at home and wait as Democrats block every single nominee on the floor. So she waits since May of this year to see if the Senate can open up enough time to have a vote.
Well, that is not the only one. Jonathan Morrison was President Trump's nominee to be the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Jonathan was the first in his family to go to college. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2001, went on to law school at Notre Dame. He also got a master of laws degree in international business law from University College London.
Over his career, he has worked with automobiles. He has also served as Chief Counsel at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. He is supremely qualified to be able to lead this part of the administration.
He came out of the committee in a vote of 16 to 12, but he also just sits and waits because there is not enough time.
In every administration, there are lots of nominees. There is 1,200 nominees. And everyone knows there are so many nominees, so you pick and choose which nominees you actually want to be able to debate. That is normal in every single administration.
They all have to go through the committee process, but when it comes to the floor, you don't dedicate all the floor time to different, what are called, sub-Cabinet officials. Those get fought out in committee, and then they come to the Senate floor and either pass en bloc or they pass by voice vote or unanimous consent. Or if they are highly controversial individuals, maybe we will have a floor vote on them.
It has been 200 days of this administration. Let me give you some examples of this. What is called a cloture vote, a demand to be able to go through this full, long process--under Bill Clinton, there was zero of those--zero. Were there controversial nominees? Sure, there were. But they worked through the process on that.
Under G.W. Bush, zero cloture votes that were required in the Senate. There were nine under President Obama, but then under the first President Trump administration--38, all of a sudden.
You know what we did as Republicans? We pushed back. And there were 71 under President Biden. It was kind of a tit for tat. Now our Democratic colleagues have determined this is not going to be tit for tat anymore. We are just going to shut the whole place down.
Now under President Trump, 134.
What does this really mean? This really means that we are not moving anyone across the floor unless they actually have 3 hours of floor time. That is a vote on a motion to proceed. That is 2 hours of debate time here on the floor for that person and then another vote after that. It takes a total of 3 hours to be able to do that whole process-- 3 hours for every single person, when you have got 1,200 people.
You would think during that time--that is, the 2 hours of debate time--we would have massive amounts of debate because if these are highly controversial nominees, of course, there is going to be debate on this floor to be able to discuss all these highly controversial people.
Well, let's talk about that. For these sub-Cabinet officials that are there--there has been 109 of them--all of them have been filibustered through the process to say they demanded. The average Democratic debate time for these 109 people has been 2 minutes--actually, technically, 2 minutes 12 seconds.
So 2 hours of time that they have demanded to debate these highly controversial people, and they have allocated 2 minutes 12 seconds, on average.
Well, interestingly enough, 81 of those 109 Democrats actually did zero debate on the floor. This was just about shutting the Senate floor down. That is all it was. This was about attacking President Trump, not acknowledging the fact that he won the election and that he should be able to actually go through the process to be able to have his staff like every other President has had.
Interestingly enough, I have had folks that have said to me: How do you actually fix this? How does this get better? Well, the first way this gets better is, typically, in the past, Republicans and Democrats would sit down together and would say: This is intolerable; we can't actually get to other bills.
You see, right now, to be able to do the 3 hours that it takes to be able to move it just with the nominees that we have in the backlog right now--not counting the 700 more nominees that are still coming in the days ahead--it would take 900 hours the rest of this year to actually move those through across the floor--900 hours.
Well, if you look at the rest of the year, the Senate would have to be actively voting and in process 80 hours a week every single week, only on nominations. That would mean we would not do the National Defense Authorization; we would not do the 12 appropriations bills; we would not do a farm bill, we would not do an FAA reauthorization; we would not do a new tax policy.
We wouldn't do anything else except nominees 80 hours a week. If we did that, we could get caught up on the
So when I say this is intolerable and it has never been done in the past, that is what it means. The Senate has to do legislation as well as nominations. This is a situation that my Democratic colleagues have broken the Senate structure. We have got to figure out a way to be able to fix this that works for Republican or Democrat Presidents in the future. Regardless of party, the President has got to be able to move their nominees. And this should not be an issue that once they have gone through committee and been resolved, that they literally can't get to the floor, or that people wait for months and months and months to be able to get a vote on the floor because there is so little time and we are so backed up.
So here is a simple idea: Just like has been done in the past, move folks in groups just like it happened in the past. You go to the first Trump administration, there were the 22 separate votes that were taken en bloc, groups of folks that have all been passed out of committee.
Under the Biden administration, that happened 17 times where Republicans allowed Democrats to be able to lump these individuals together to be able to pass them together.
Under this administration, so far, zero. None.
Under the first Trump administration, 559 of the 1,200-plus people all went through that process. Under Biden administration, 277. This is Republicans and Democrats alike. Now it is zero because my Democratic colleagues, I assume, have just determined they are going to be the resistance. But what they are setting up is a process where in the future, as soon as there is a Democrat President, this is going to be the same thing because Republicans are just going to go tit for tat on that.
That is not right for the country; it is not right for then; it is not right for now.
Very simply, we have got to get back to legislating, which means we have got to allow the President to be able to have his nominees go through the process. We have a constitutional responsibility to advise and consent. Let's do that in the committee process. Let's bring those to the floor in a debate. Let's actually pass or not pass those individuals, whatever this body may determine. But let's, at least, get an up or down vote on every single one of these individuals to be able to get this part of our responsibility checked off.
Because this week, we are also trying to work on the National Defense Authorization. That is an essential piece of legislation we have got to get done. By the 30 of this month, we are supposed to have 12 appropriations bills done. We can't get on appropriations bills, can't work on the National Defense Authorization, the time that it needs, while we are backed up with hundreds of nominees and my Democratic colleagues are blocking, literally, a mom and a marine who is a highly qualified CPA to say they can't be the CFO. Please.
This is all about trying to attack Trump, but what they are doing is actually stopping the country from getting its business done. So let's get this fixed. That is my request.
My colleagues are coming to the floor in the next hour. We are all going to make our case. This is so important that we actually get resolved--not some time--right now, get this resolved.
I yield the floor to my colleagues who will continue to be able to make the case. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague from Oklahoma. He did a tremendous job on what he just laid out, and he has also been working tirelessly on this for the last few months, in particular the month of August, along with myself, Senator Eric Schmitt, Senator Ted Budd, Senator Ron Johnson, all trying to coalesce on how to make this place work again.
This is about preserving the institution, not about partisan advantage. Unfortunately, this is where we are today.
I think it is important that we rise to continue to talk about this, about Senate Republicans working to restore order to this Chamber. The Senate has a constitutional obligation to provide the President advice and consent on his nominations for key professions. This role is a cornerstone of the checks and balances system created by our Forefathers, and it is a process we must ensure continues to function, no matter who is currently serving in the White House.
I understand being in the minority, and it is certainly frustrating when your party doesn't win the general election. But as we have heard our colleagues say a number of times, elections have consequences. And while we have seen power change back and forth from Republican and Democratic administrations, the Senate was specially designed to uphold our constitutional obligation of advice and consent.
We serve 6-year terms with one-third of the Senate being up for reelection every Congress because we want to make sure that we are not shortsighted or partisan acting, but unfortunately this year, we have seen that unravel due to historic obstruction by Senate Democrats, a theme that goes back nearly 25 years.
Over the August recess, as we have worked on this, I spent a great deal of time studying the history of Senate confirmations to better understand inflection points and how we actually got here.
This is a common theme. The Senate slows confirmations when there is a Republican in the White House. It started in 2003 when President Bush nominated Miguel Estrada, a brilliant attorney, to serve there, and he received bipartisan praise from the likes of future Biden White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain. Democrats, concerned that Estrada might be soon nominated to the Supreme Court, used the filibuster to block him-- the first time in history an appellate court nominee was blocked.
What started with Estrada continued to shape Bush's term. While President Clinton had 98 percent of his nominees confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent, President Bush had 90 percent in his first term--a small but noticeable dropoff.
Much to the disappointment of conservatives around the country, President Obama was sworn into office in 2009. In his first term, how many nominees do you think Obama had confirmed without a rollcall vote? Ninety percent--the exact same as his Republican predecessor, President Bush.
Next, President Trump. He took office in 2017. Senate Democrats dusted off their same playbook that they wrote during President Bush's term, and while Obama had 90 percent of his nominees approved without a rollcall vote, President Trump actually received just 65 percent. This slowed the Senate down and, more importantly, kept well-qualified leaders out of key roles for our country.
President Biden took office in 2021. He nominated a number of people controversial not just to Republicans but actually to many Democrats too. In fact, one in particular was his Secretary of Labor. His nominee to be Secretary of Labor couldn't get confirmed by his own party and actually was in an acting role for over 680 days--nearly 2 years without a confirmed Cabinet Secretary. Despite all of this, 57 percent of President Biden's nominees were confirmed without a rollcall vote.
Now, this takes us to President Trump's second term, where he won, obviously, an overwhelming majority of Americans with the popular vote and the electoral college, but, as you know, he has received zero percent of his nominees without a rollcall vote--not one.
Look at this chart. This lays it out for you. You have H. W. Bush, 98 percent; Obama, 90 percent; you have Clinton here, 98; you have Trump 1, 65; you have Bush again, 90. I mean, look at this: 98, 98, 90, 90, 65, 57, 0. Does this seem like people are trying to make this place work or does this seem like they are trying to bring it to a screeching halt?
For me, I came here to actually do something. So we have 120 pieces of bipartisan legislation on really incredible things that have been marked up in committee and are ready to see time on this floor. They are things like social media to protect kids online, to finally stand up to Big Tech and say: The safety and security and mental well-being of our children comes first, not the profits in your pocket.
We have bills on affordable housing, knowing that now, when you look at the American dream, almost everyone's piece of that comes through owning their own home. While previously you would buy your first home between 26 and 28 years old, now that number has moved to 38 or beyond. Making sure that we make that more tangible for Americans, that we figure out how to actually address those prices, is critical, and we have a bill waiting to see the floor.
Yet Senate Democrats continue to try to prolong this, to try to put every roadblock in place just to keep President Trump from getting his people in place.
At the end of the day, last November, the American people were actually faced with two options, and this, to me, was the most well- informed election we have ever had in American history because they were two very known entities. You knew what you were getting. You had seen Kamala Harris serve as Vice President, you had already seen President Trump serve in one term, and so you knew what you were getting. And the American people overwhelmingly said: We want President Trump back in office.
Kamala Harris said she wouldn't do anything differently--I think you all remember that on ``The View''--anything differently than Joe Biden. So they said: This is what we want. But yet we are not allowing him to get his people in place to actually do the things that he needs to do for the country.
I understand voting against nominees that you disagree with. I even understand requiring a cloture vote on some. What I can't understand is the blocking, is the delay tactics on every single nomination. These are bipartisan nominees--many of them. The ones we will be talking about here came out of committee with a bipartisan vote.
Now, during President Biden's term, there were certainly a lot of nominees that I did not agree with, but a President deserves some deference. Give him an up-or-down vote and move on. Senate Democrats have given no such deference to President Trump and, just like the 2024 election, in my opinion, have failed to present the case to the American people. This is not obstructing nominees; this is a protest of an election that didn't go their way.
We have spent an unreasonable amount of time just trying to confirm largely uncontroversial nominees when we could be using it to see those bills that have been marked up in a bipartisan fashion on this floor. We could be using it to work through appropriations bills, which, in my opinion, are so critical to the job that we do. We could be using it to continue to move the NDAA and make sure that our forces are the best trained, ready, and equipped across the planet. Instead, we are nearly 9 months into this administration, and President Trump has less than 12 percent of his positions confirmed.
The Senate has worked hard these last 9 months. We have actually held a record number of rollcall votes. We have been in session a record number of days. Unfortunately, we have another record, and that is that we have zero voice votes here for President Trump at this point in time.
But it doesn't stand to reason that a historical effort is being put on us for continuing this lowest number of nominees confirmed through the Senate. President Trump is on pace to have confirmed just 426 nominees by the end of this Congress--426. Look at this. You have President Biden at the end of his first Congress, the end of the first 2 years--919 nominees confirmed.
Now we hear our colleagues on the other side of the aisle consistently say that we did everything possible to create an impediment for President Obama. That is clearly not true when it came to letting his people have an up-or-down vote or giving them an opportunity to get in his Cabinet.
You look at President Trump, you see what they did here--715 nominees by the end of Congress. Then you go to President Biden--817 at the end of the first Congress. At the current rate we are at now--and you heard my distinguished colleague from Oklahoma say that if we kept doing this, it would be 900 more hours that we would spend just in the near future--we will have only 426 nominees confirmed into his administration by the end of this Congress at the rate we are going.
Now, do you know how many people serve in a Cabinet? serve in an administration? Over 1,200. Over 1,200. So what you are saying essentially, then, is that at the end of his first 2 years, you are going to give him a third of the people, at best, that he needs to complete the mission that the American people very clearly said on November 5 they wanted to see enacted.
It is not right. President Trump deserves the men and women he has nominated to be in place today, and that is exactly why our conference has been working diligently to find a solution.
The Democrats' behavior in requiring a cloture vote on almost every single nominee is, in fact, a change in rules. Their behavior has set a new precedent. It is one that will last with this body on and on and on and on.
We want this Senate to work again. We want it to function once again. We want to be able to bring this important legislation that we worked on in committee in a bipartisan fashion to the floor and get things done for the American people once again. And we are not going to allow the obstruction by the Senate Democrats to continue.
It is important to understand that a significant number of these nominees that we will be talking about this week and next came out of committee on a bipartisan basis. Some are individuals whom many of us have known and have worked with for years. They deserve an opportunity to serve, and I think many of my Democratic colleagues would actually agree.
Now, before we discuss the rules changes our conference has coalesced around, we have obviously made sure that we have been thoughtful about a number of different avenues.
People have brought recess appointments up, amongst a number of different things. When recess appointments are made, they only fill a position for this Congress, so you are not fixing it for the entirety of President Trump's tenure. Also, many times, these recess appointments are generally unpaid positions. For these outstanding nominees, it would be unfair to ask to make many of them move across the country with their families for an unpaid job that expires at the end of a Congress, not even at the end of President Trump's term. Therefore, we landed on another solution--the Klobuchar-King proposal.
Now, look, this solution would allow us to vote en bloc, to confirm multiple nominees at one time--so not so dissimilar to how the Senate used to work for every other President--passing dozens of nominees at once through unanimous consent. We haven't had any of those packages here.
Look, there is no perfect solution, but one thing we do know is that we have to get this place back functioning again.
So I want to point out that when the Klobuchar-King proposal was introduced, the Senate was regularly confirming batches of nominees by voice vote--clearly something that is not happening now.
This was when the Senate was keeping the same pace confirming President Biden's nominees with Senate Democrats' pace confirming President Trump's in his first term.
The blame for the delay of President Trump's nominees lies solely with Senate Democrats. When President Trump first took office, he became the first President to not have at least 90 percent of his nominees confirmed without a rollcall vote.
I mean, this chart speaks for itself.
Now that they have exhausted every tool, they keep chipping away until nothing is left--not a single nominee more to obstruct. This is truly ridiculous, and it is actually no way to run a country. This is not what our Founding Fathers intended when they gave the Senate the power of advice and consent, and it is not what our voters sent us to Washington, DC, to do.
So, alongside Senate Republicans, I remain committed to finding a pathway forward to get the Senate back to working, to put institutional reform ahead of partisan politics, and to make sure this body is actually working for the American people.
Mr. President, I want to compliment my colleague from Alabama Senator Britt. I can't begin to tell you how hard she has worked through the August time period.
There is this sense of we are just trying to be able to ram this solution through the Senate. She spent hours on the phone talking to different Democratic Senators--as I did, as multiple other members of our group did--to try to be able to find a pathway to be able to resolve this because that has always been the way it has been resolved. Eventually, it just gets to a point that you talk to each other enough, you figure out a way to be able to work it out; you work it out; and you figure out how to be able to do that. We reached an impasse the first days of August.
Typically, before we actually have a gap to be able to be back home in August, we will pass dozens on what is called an en bloc vote.
That didn't happen this time. We couldn't find that pathway to be able to actually get there. So in frustration, Senator Britt, myself, Senator Budd, Senator Cornyn, Senator Schmitt, Senator Johnson all spent lots of time over August trying to be able to figure out how do we weave out of this, and the idea became: There is a Democratic proposal that is out there that was brought to the Rules Committee in 2023. It was never voted on in the Rules Committee when Democrats actually ran and chaired the Rules Committee. But it was brought to the Rules Committee to say: Let's see if we can figure out how to be able to do this in a better way, and that was to be able to put in the rules to do en bloc voting, to be able to say: If they have come out of committee, they passed out of committee, we know they are going to get passed on the floor. Instead of holding up sub-Cabinet individuals--we are not talking about the Cabinet level--these sub-Cabinet individuals, put them all together in a group and be able to pass them.
We agreed the least partisan way to be able to do this, that is fair to both Republicans and Democrats, is to be able to literally take a Democrat proposal in 2023 and say: Let's finish that out. Let's actually bring that and to be able to bring it for a vote.
The response we got back, overwhelmingly, from our Democratic colleagues was: Yes, we still believe that is a good idea. Let's start it when the next President comes in place.
So in other words, we want to block every single one of President Trump's nominees, but we want to make sure this doesn't happen to us.
It will. So we have got to be able to fix this now.
Interestingly enough, many of my Democratic colleagues that I have spoken to over the past several weeks about this, when I brought up this proposal to say: This is a way to fix it that we think is the best solution for the Senate long-term, they have quietly over the phone said: Yes, we need to get this fixed. We just don't want to be the people to actually fix it. You fix it for the Senate.
We think it is better long term to be able to find a rule that works in a nonpartisan way that resolves it for everybody. We understand full well there will be a Democrat President and Democrat Senate in the future; that they will do en bloc voting like this. Fine. That is the way we did for a century. We didn't have to have a rule to be able to do that. We just came to agreement and did it.
So let's get back to actually operating because we do have serious issues to argue over. We have got lots of arguments about budget. We have $37 trillion in debt. We need to spend more time arguing about that and less time arguing about who the CFO for the Energy Department is going to be when they have already passed out of committee in a large bipartisan vote. So let's have the argument over the hard issues, and let's move the nominees that we know are going to get moved across the floor in a way that makes sense to everybody, regardless of party.
I have multiple other colleagues that are coming to the floor here in just a moment. We want to be able to make the argument to the American people.
I have to tell you, I have lots of phone calls that have come to my office that say: Why can't the President actually move his nominees? Why is this? This seems to be different.
And people may not know all the numbers and the details, but they feel it and go: Why does it feel like he is being treated differently? Well, it is because President Trump is being treated differently by not having a single voice vote, not a single unanimous consent, and not a single time to be grouped together into groups that we know are going to pass. That has not ever happened in this Senate.
And I have had multiple colleagues say: And we are going to keep blocking every single one.
Do you know what? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. We are trying to figure out how to be able to get back to our functioning again and to be able to actually operate.
So I have multiple colleagues that will come to this floor, and we will keep making the argument to say: Let's get the nomination process fixed because we have got to get back to legislating more.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. President, I regret to say that my Democratic colleagues have become addicted to hating President Trump, and it is no longer about policy or even strong disagreement. It seems to be an obsession--obsessed with finding every way possible to undermine the President and his agenda, no matter the cost.
And what they have done to the nomination process in the Senate might be the height of partisanship since President Trump returned to office. Democrats have blocked 100 percent--that is, 100 percent--of President Trump's nominees from being confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote.
Now, by the way, why do I say--my chart here. Look at this. It has been the tradition for noncontroversial nominees to be confirmed by the Senate.
And in the first Trump, it fell from 90 percent under President Obama--games Democrats play--to 65 percent under Trump 1. Well, it turns out it was 57 percent under Biden. Now, under Trump 2, we have zero percent of the nominees approved by unanimous consent.
Let's put that in perspective. We are speaking about noncontroversial nominees, and it has been something that has been consistent for Presidents of both parties for decades, as we can see from this chart. And yet here we are, 8 months into President Trump's second term, and not a single nominee confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote-- zero, zip, nada.
By the way, these nominees made it through committee with bipartisan support on the record. Democrats, Republicans both voted for them in committee, and yet we can't get them off the floor without tying up precious floor time.
Now, that may sound like process. It might sound like: Oh, my gosh. We are talking about time. This is how the Senate works, in terms of getting the nomination through quickly, allowing the legislative issues addressing our country to then be faced.
It is a full-blown example of Democrats not caring if the business of government gets done. They would rather obstruct President Trump than to allow the American people to be served.
Now, Americans are sick of it. They want Congress to work, and Republicans are showing up to work. We are ready to confirm the people required to work in government to keep the country running, but Democrats are holding nominees for ransom it seems for no other reason than their desire to obstruct President Trump.
So why does Congress have such a low approval rating? Why do people think this place doesn't work? It is because of stunts like this, blowing up the standard operating procedure, which allows us to get on the work of the people, all to score cheap political points.
Now, the American people chose President Trump. They gave Republicans control of the House and the Senate. They told us the agenda they wanted pursued.
So when Democrats dig in their heels, kick and scream, they are proving that they did not hear the message the American people sent last November.
If no one is standing with you but your own party insiders and maybe the occasional liberal cable news host, then your resistance isn't brave. It is meaningless. It is an obstruction. It is only there to defeat the will of the American people. It is noise.
The American people deserve better. Republicans are ready to deliver.
Mr. President, I rise to discuss the unprecedented obstruction by my Democrat colleagues, which brings us here today, in the activity we are going to see on the floor this week and next.
Article 1, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution requires that every officer in the United States receive the advice and consent of the Senate. This is a very important function. At times, it can seem tedious, I suppose, on the floor when we are voting on some of these, but this is contemplated by our Founding Fathers to be a really important part of the process of getting good, qualified people in important positions in the executive branch.
With that power comes responsibility, a duty. And the Democrats have completely abandoned that duty to provide the advice and consent; instead, moving forward with complete obstruction.
``Unprecedented,'' now that term gets thrown around a lot in this town. Every day somebody says something is unprecedented. It is not actually unprecedented. This really is unprecedented.
In the almost 250 years of our country, and, of course, a little bit sooner than that when we had the first Congress--a little bit later than that when we had our first Congress, we have never seen anything like this, like not even close. The minority leader would rather burn all the norms down than do it like we have done it before. Even though that process has sort of eroded to some degree in recent years, it was never anything like this.
For those of you watching at home or in the Gallery here today, and we are glad to have you, the Senate kind of operates in three calendars--let's put it in those terms--three operational modes.
One is the legislative calendar when we have bills that come up--the NDAA, the continuing resolution, appropriations bills, that kind of stuff.
Let's be clear. What the minority leader has already said he would do and what Democrats in this Chamber have already voted for is to completely eliminate the legislative filibuster. If they were in charge, if they were in the position the Republicans are in right now, they would blow it up; it is gone. DC is added as a State, maybe Puerto Rico, court packing--they voted on this stuff. I am not making this up. They campaign on this stuff. That is what the minority leader would like to have happen to the legislative calendar.
Let's talk about the impeachment calendar. Well, last year, we saw Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas impeached by the House of Representatives. The Articles of Impeachment are transferred over here. We are all sitting at our desks. For the first time in the history of this country, there wasn't a trial.
Now, trials look a little bit different. Sometimes they are in committee, and sometimes they are in front of the full Senate. But there is not a single instance in the history of this country where the person who was impeached who either was still alive or in that office hasn't had a trial. So they blew that up.
Now we are dealing with the Executive Calendar, which is essentially where all the personnel decisions are made. We approve Ambassadors, Cabinet Secretaries, judges, U.S. attorneys, marshals, all that stuff. There has been not a single instance, not one time has there been a unanimous consent granted in this Chamber--not once. That has never happened before.
We will talk about some of those details here as we move a little bit further along in this debate, but just to add a little meat onto the bones, in defiance of the vision of the Founders, the Democrat obstruction leaves President Trump on pace to have just 426 nominees confirmed by the end of the 119th Congress. That is if we are working at a pace which is unprecedented. I don't mind it. We can be here. I am not afraid of hard work. But if we are here as much as we have been here just to get to that number, which is lowest in history--less than half of what Joe Biden had at this point in time, 817; or even President Trump's first term, 715. So at the end of the first Congress, those are the numbers. So it is not even close. It is less than half of the total number.
By the end of his term, we are projecting that a mere 872 confirmations--so the full 4 years--would actually get through. That would be the first time in the history of the country that that number would fall below 1,000, compared to Joe Biden's 1,175 and President Trump's first term, which is about that same number, about 1,200, and President Obama's staggering number of almost 1,500. So it is not just slow; it is sabotage, echoing the darkest days of the most partisan feuds we had threatening our young Republic 200 years ago.
Democrats have required cloture 360 percent more in President Trump's first term--in this term's 200 days than in his first. So 137 nominees have been subjected to it--nearly double Biden's 71 and far beyond Obama's paltry 9.
In the past, over 50 percent of every President's nominees were confirmed via voice vote or unanimous consent--until this year, where President Trump has received 0.0--Blutarsky. That is unprecedented.
Under Obama, in his first 200 days, 292 nominees passed by voice vote alone. President Trump has just 135 confirmed, all via overcoming-- except Marco Rubio--overcoming filibusters. Every single one, save the first, has been filibustered.
To put that in perspective, Clarence Thomas--perhaps the most controversial Supreme Court judge as far as that vote went--got 52 votes. It wasn't even filibustered. All of these are being filibustered, including the general counsel to the Department of Transportation.
The average time from nomination to confirmation is a glacial pace of 94 days--nearly double President Trump's first term of 54, worse than Biden's 70, and a far cry from Reagan's efficient 25 days. We have shattered records with the most Senate session days in rollcall votes in modern history--126 days in the first 200; more than Biden's 121-- yet the backlog swells: 139 nominees on the Executive Calendar, 153 in committee, 786 not yet received.
This obstruction is antithetical to our constitutional design. You can have problems with nominees. You can vote no. You can even filibuster some of them. But to filibuster all of them and not have a voice vote on any of them is a symptom of something else--Trump derangement syndrome. They can't get over the fact that President Trump actually won. They thought that by coming on this floor, as the minority leader did so often, and calling half the country MAGA extremists, trying to bankrupt him and his family and throw him in jail for the rest of his life--they thought that thing was over. But the American people sat in their own jury box, they watched all of this nonsense unfold for the last 4 years, and they rendered their own verdict, and it was for reform; it was for the very kinds of people President Trump is putting up for these positions.
So to subvert that democratic process, the sand has been thrown into the gears of our Republic in a way that we have never seen before. That is what we are here to fix. The Democrats have turned the cooling saucer of the Senate into a deep freezer.
But here is the good news: A great thaw is coming. The Republicans in this place are going to return the Senate back to what it was always meant to be able to do, which is to actually function and vote on confirmations. It is not that tall of an ask. But, again, blinded by TDS--and quite frankly, if you talk to some of my Democratic colleagues, like I have privately, they understand that this is a real problem. They know that this is wrong. But they can't be seen by their increasingly radical base doing anything that would be perceived as helping President Trump.
So here we are. The conditions have been set, the landscape has been made, and it is time for action. I would argue that this isn't actually even a new phenomenon; this has been a slow-moving disaster 25 years in the making.
After the 2000 elections, Democrats met at a private retreat to strategize how to maximally obstruct the Republicans--25 years ago. A couple of leftist Harvard professors concocted an idea: Filibuster the Executive Calendar.
The minority leader wasn't done there. Just yesterday, he blew up our entire system on voice voting in the Senate. When push came to shove, he would rather blow up all the norms of this place to hold on to the power that
The decisions of the minority leader over the course of the last 25 years has led us to this place. So if anybody uses the term ``gone nuclear,'' just understand we are having to deal with the nuclear option that has already been executed on the Senate Chamber, which is to say we are filibustering everything, and there is no unanimous consent on anything. That is the nuclear option, and we have to react to it.
One final note here. What we are really trying to do is restore the balance and using a profile that was submitted by a couple of our Democrat colleagues in the last year or two. In their words--and this is, by the way, voting en bloc--their words, not my words:
The en bloc proposal being referred to is--``This commonsense reform will help improve efficiency and make sure we're able to fill positions that are vital to our national security, economic success, and more.''
When the Democrats proposed that solution very recently, 62 percent of Biden's nominees had already been confirmed by voice vote. Think about that. Two-thirds of his people were in place, and they were calling for the reform. Guess how many have been confirmed by voice vote now. Zero. Zero percent.
So we are going to take them up on their offer of reform. I appreciate the majority leader moving this forward to restore, again, the very important balance that our Founders knew was necessary for this Republic to survive. America demands no less.
Mr. President, I want to begin by thanking our colleagues--particularly from Oklahoma and Alabama--for leading the working group that was appointed by the majority leader to try to solve this problem. In their typical deliberative, careful, and thoughtful fashion, they could have come up with a lot of ideas that would, I think, perhaps overreach, but rather than do that, they have come up with a solution that Democrats themselves have proposed, which strikes me as the epitome of fairness.
But there are three main points I want to make before I sort of summarize where I think we are.
First of all, as my colleagues have eloquently noted, we have exhausted virtually every other alternative to this vote to overrule the Parliamentarian and establish a new precedent, which is an alternative to a formal rule change which takes 67 votes. But we know our colleagues will never vote for that, leaving us no alternative but to invoke what is sometimes called the nuclear option.
But as our colleague from Missouri just pointed out, this is really not so much a nuclear option as a restoration option. This is restoring the Senate to the way it used to work--not just before President Trump was reelected but for the last couple of hundred years, where we had an orderly process to consider a President's nominees, a committee process to vet them, and then a debate and a vote on the Senate floor, so that the mandate of the voters in the Presidential election could be carried out by the President.
So we have tried virtually everything else, but I am going to give them one last chance here in a minute, but then as I have been thinking about it: What have we been doing as we have spent hour upon hour, day upon day, week upon week trying to move through all of these various Senate-confirmed nominees, with no help--not just no help but with active obstruction--from our Democratic colleagues?
I think about all of the other things that we could be working on-- even together--bipartisan solutions to our Nation's biggest problems and challenges. Economists call that opportunity cost. In other words, when you are mired down in this mindless obstruction and blocking any nominee just because they happen to be nominated by President Trump, you are missing the opportunity to do other important things. I know all of my colleagues--all 100 of us--came here to, hopefully, do important things, and that has been the source of great consternation and disappointment, I know, to many of us.
But then I think about the people who have been nominated by President Trump. I have had them tell me this is an honor of a lifetime--people who have enjoyed tremendous success in business or in their professional lives to then give all that up in order to serve their country. These are patriots, and it is profoundly unfair to them, to their families, and to the American people to continue to block these nominees and leave them, basically, hanging in the wind. I have talked to many of them myself, these nominees, with their asking: Senator, when can I expect a vote on the Senate floor?
I say: Well, I don't know.
Many of them have said: Well, I have had to quit my job or sell my business. I have had to go through a rigorous vetting process for ethics and legal conflicts of interest and I am waiting and my family is waiting, not knowing whether we will be going to, maybe, an Embassy somewhere around the world or serving in some other important position here in Washington, DC, in the Trump administration. So this is profoundly unfair to them.
And we wonder whether we are having a hard time getting good people to want to serve in government. Well, thankfully, there are still people who are willing to do it, despite the way they get treated when they are nominated. Thank goodness there are still good people who want to serve. Our Nation depends on it.
But just to summarize, more than 140 of President Trump's nominees are waiting to be voted on as we speak. I don't know how you argue the converse of what I feel to be the case, which is the President won the election on November 5, and he is entitled to his team. He is at least entitled to an up-or-down vote on the nominations, and the American people are the ones who actually gave him that mandate. This is a kick in the teeth, a punch in the gut to those voters who voted for President Trump in this last election, expecting that he would bring change to Washington, DC, but he can't accomplish that mandate without his team.
As we have heard, Senate Democrats are now engaged in an unprecedented level of obstruction, preventing these nominees from being confirmed and burning up all the floor time when we are in session on waiting around to vote on these nominees, most of whom in the past would have been confirmed by a voice vote or some sort of an expedited process--by consent even--but not with Donald J. Trump as President. Democrats have taken a completely different approach in obstructing each and every one of his nominees.
Most of these individuals are uncontroversial. I remember the other day, we were voting on the general counsel for advocacy for the Small Business Administration, and I asked myself: What is that? And, yes, maybe--just maybe--we should limit the number of Senate-confirmed positions. I think that might be a good exercise to go through and see: Are there people who currently require Senate confirmation for whom it really isn't necessary because they only serve for a short period of time under the leadership of, maybe, a member of the President's Cabinet who is Senate-confirmed?
Under George Herbert Walker Bush and President Clinton, 98 percent of those nominees were confirmed by unanimous consent. Under George W. Bush and President Obama, 90 percent were confirmed by unanimous consent, which is no debate, no argument--just a unanimous consent request, without objection, so ordered.
During President Trump's first term in office, only 65 percent were. So you can see the slide from 98 to 90 to 65. What we have also learned is what goes around comes around. With President Biden, his number was 57 percent, but that is a far cry from what we have seen in President Trump's second term, with zero--zero--of these noncontroversial nominees, patriots. They want nothing but to serve their country, but they are being denied that opportunity out of blind, partisan obstruction--mindless obstruction. The only way it can be explained, the Senator from Missouri mentioned, is with Trump derangement syndrome, and this is it in all of its ugly manifestations. There is no other explanation.
Now, changing the Senate rules is not something we do lightly because
In a moment, I am going to propose a unanimous consent request on a resolution that would allow the majority leader to call up at least 10 nominees advanced out of the same committee to be considered for a vote en bloc, or all together. This is something very similar to that which the chairman of the Rules Committee, Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota, and Angus King, an Independent from Maine, had proposed in 2023. If Democrats were really interested in solving the problem, if they were really interested in restoring the Senate to its previous reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body, they wouldn't object; they would agree. It is their idea, but what remains to be seen is whether Senate Democrats will agree to their own proposal.
If Senate Democrats will consent to this proposal which I will propound momentarily, which will allow the en bloc consideration of nominees, then we can avoid a rule change, but if they block this resolution, they will show their true colors. They will show that this is not about deliberation; that this is not about what is in the best interests of the American people; that this is not about genuine oversight--but that this is naked, partisan obstruction. It will then be clear to all of us across the country that Democrat objections to changing the rules have nothing--nothing--to do with preserving the institutional integrity of the Senate and more to do with their crusade against President Trump and the American people who elected him last November 5.
We will see if Senate Democrats would prefer to continue their historic obstruction or whether they would consent to let us carry out the essential function of this Chamber to provide a vote. That is all we are asking for is a vote on the nominations.
Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 379 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
I have been listening to my colleague from Texas. The part that he said a couple of times over the last several minutes was that he was looking for some sort of explanation as to why Democrats are doing what we are doing. So let me attempt to respond to them.
I can't help but observe that my colleague from Texas and Senate Republicans like to point out that Senate Democrats were proposing reforms to the nominations process in 2024--yes, just last year. That is not a secret. A formal proposal was introduced. The Senate Rules Committee, of which I was a member and am now serving as ranking member this session, held a public hearing on these issues just over a year ago. There have been bipartisan discussions about these issues going back years. Senate Democrats led a bipartisan effort in 2024 for changes that would take effect in 2025.
Now, why are those dates important? Because these proposals were made back when the outcome of last year's Presidential election was unknown, like that is the ultimate fair way to do it. That is the way to get bipartisan support. These ideas are good or not good; you support them or you don't support them regardless of who is President or which party is in power. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans, at the time, showed little interest in these reforms, not just last summer but even late into 2024.
I can't help but observe that, at the time, they were engaging in their own unprecedented obstruction and blockades of President Biden's nominees. One Senator, a Republican Senator, held up routine promotions at the Department of Defense for nearly a year--yes, I said the ``Department of Defense,'' by the way--and they were planning to use these same tactics if then-Vice President Harris had been elected President. But now that Donald Trump is back in the White House-- surprise, surprise--they are ready and set to make all of these changes immediately. The truth is, we shouldn't be in this situation. On that much, I guess, we do agree.
But I am not just talking about the process. I am not just talking about the process. Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, this Senate has been faced with an unprecedented number of highly extreme and unqualified, unfit nominees, many nominees whose stated goal is to dismantle the Departments and Agencies and programs which they are being nominated to lead. Meanwhile, this administration is unlawfully impounding funds, firing people in droves, and abolishing Agencies created by Congress--actions that, if this Senate and Congress as a whole was living up to its responsibility as a separate but coequal branch of government, this branch is supposed to be providing oversight and accountability that is so lacking by the majority.
Yet still, given all that, Senate Democrats have been willing to negotiate. We have been partners in good faith. There was even a bipartisan agreement on the table just before the August recess that we just returned from, a proposal that would expedite some of the less objectionable nominees. All the administration had to do was accommodate some reasonable requests--bipartisan requests, for that matter--from a number of Senators.
Now, that is the normal process. Presidents and administrations of both parties have cooperated with Senators from both parties for decades to ensure the confirmation of nominees. But Trump rejected that option just weeks ago. The President himself told Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats to ``go to hell'' before the recess. Those three words are the perfect summary of how this President views Congress. It shows his contempt for Congress. That is why we are in this situation when it comes to his nominees, many, again, of whom are extreme and unfit in so many unprecedented ways.
Talk about unprecedented. The way this administration is behaving is unprecedented. This is not normal. Now, it is clear that the President rejected a reasonable bipartisan agreement before the recess, and I appreciate my Republican colleagues' new interest in the 2024 proposal to reform the nomination process. So in that spirit of bipartisan cooperation, I think there is a very good chance that we can pass this with a very simple amendment to make the resolution effective January 20, 2029.
Nobody here knows who the President will be then. Nobody knows which party will control the White House or be in the majority in this body by then. Nobody can predict it, and that is exactly the point. If the rule is good, then let's do it not knowing who is going to be in power when it takes effect.
So I invite discussion and negotiation about the effective date in this resolution or, as my colleague from Texas suggested, maybe even revisiting the list of which nominees should require Senate confirmation. But this resolution doesn't even begin to discuss or address that. So as this resolution is currently drafted, it is unacceptable, and, therefore, I object.
Mr. President, of course, I am disappointed that our colleague from California is objecting on behalf of the Democrats in the Chamber, but I just want to summarize what I think I heard him say. First, Democrats are prepared to hold all these nominees hostage pending some sort of agreement.
Well, you heard the Senator from Alabama, the Senator from Missouri, and the Senator from Oklahoma all talk about the endless discussions with
We are all accustomed to negotiating around here. We do it on a daily basis. But we have tried, in good faith, every possible permutation, short of this action that we are taking today. But I have to ask, is it in good faith to say: Let's wait until 2029 to change the rules? What is President Trump supposed to do over the next 3 years? Govern with one arm tied behind his back, without the team that he has selected to help him govern the country?
He won the election on last November 5. He got a mandate. People are sick and tired of the status quo here in Washington, DC. They want to see change. They want to see things shaken up. But now Democrats are saying: You have got to wait until 2029. That is obviously unacceptable.
And then, finally, I would just point out we could have offered a number of different solutions to this problem, some that, perhaps, would advantage Republicans and disadvantage Democrats, but we haven't done that. We said: Let's take the Democratic proposal from 2023 and offer that. Surely, they would think that is reasonable since they themselves have proposed it in the first instance.
But what we have just heard is that Democrats won't even agree to that--their own proposal, their own idea. So, to me, it is abundantly clear that we have exhausted all the opportunities for negotiation. We have vetted a number of different alternatives, but it is this all- consuming, mindless partisan objection to President Trump and his policies that are blinding our Democratic colleagues from doing what they know is right, which is having a way, with debate and with votes, to give the American people a President who has a team to carry through the policies that they voted for on November 5.
So, Mr. President, I am disappointed but not surprised, but I think we have done everything we can. This obstruction has to end, and it will end very soon.
I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 45, as follows:
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
Mr. President, I make a point of order that a motion to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 1, S. Res. 377, is not in order because legislation that provides for the en bloc consideration of individual nominations on the Executive Calendar is legislative business; therefore, such a resolution should be required to be considered in legislative session.
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.
The question is: Is a resolution for the en bloc consideration of specific nominations on the Executive Calendar required to be considered in legislative session?
I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 46, as follows:
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to the motion to proceed to executive session to consider Executive Calendar No. 1, S. Res. 377.
The yeas and nays were previously ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act requires that Congress receive prior notification of certain proposed arms sales as defined by that statute. Upon such notification, the Congress has 30 calendar days during which the sale may be reviewed. The provision stipulates that, in the Senate, the notification of proposed sales shall be sent to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In keeping with the committee's intention to see that relevant information is still available to the full Senate, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the notifications that have been received. If the cover letter references a classified annex, then such an annex is available to all Senators in the office of the Foreign Relations Committee, room SD-423.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Mr. President, section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act requires that Congress receive prior notification of certain proposed arms sales as defined by that statute. Upon such notification, the Congress has 30 calendar days during which the sale may be reviewed. The provision stipulates that, in the Senate, the notification of proposed sales shall be sent to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In keeping with the committee's intention to see that relevant information is still available to the full Senate, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the notifications that have been received. If the cover letter references a classified annex, then such an annex is available to all Senators in the office of the Foreign Relations Committee, room SD-423.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Mr. President, in acknowledgement of National POW/MIA Recognition Day this September 19, 2025, I honor Idaho's and all of America's prisoners of war, POWs, and missing in action, MIA, as I extend my support and gratitude to their loved ones.
In February, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, DPAA, the Agency primarily responsible for recovering America's servicemembers, unveiled its 2025 National POW/MIA Recognition Day poster. Each year, the Agency creates a poster commemorating the lives of U.S. servicemembers still unaccounted for from past conflicts and showcasing the DPAA's commitment to bringing them home. This year's poster features the statement, ``Delivering on the nation's promise.''
Fittingly, this year's poster was designed by a Gold Star Daughter, Jeanie Jacobs Huffman who, unfortunately, knows deeply and personally the price military families pay for our freedoms. Jeanie Jacobs Huffman's father, Navy Commander Edward J. Jacobs, Jr., remains unaccounted for after contact was lost with the aircraft he was piloting in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam in 1967. At the unveiling of the poster, Jeanie shared, ``I always felt a huge void in my life not having my father. I believe that each of our missing is still seeking their way home and they expect that our nation's promise will be kept.''
To help meet our Nation's promise to America's servicemembers and support the efforts of those who work tirelessly for their return, I continue to press for the enactment of the Bring Our Heroes Home Act. This legislation would help eliminate obstacles preventing families and caseworkers from accessing the records needed for recovering America's POWs and MIA.
This POW/MIA Recognition Day, and every day, I remain deeply grateful for the committed individuals and groups, such as the POW*MIA Awareness Rally Corp. of Pocatello, ID, and others across our country who keep an unwavering spotlight on the need to bring every American servicemember home. With a heavy but hopeful heart, I continue to pray for all those who await answers about lost servicemembers and thank America's servicemembers, veterans, and their families for their extraordinary commitment to our country.
Mr. President, I wish to recognize the life and legacy of Dr. Annette Nevin Shelby of Tuscaloosa, AL.
The daughter of Gladys Price and Edwin Claude Nevin, Dr. Shelby was born on January 22, 1939, in Kinston, AL. Dr. Shelby graduated as an honors graduate of Kinston High School and attended Alabama College, now the University of Montevallo, for 2 years before transferring to the University of Alabama.
While earning her bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees in speech, she excelled in several organizations on campus, including Delta Delta Delta sorority and Delta Sigma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha National Debate Society. Her commitments were honored through inductions into Mortar Board, a women's service organization, and into Phi Beta Kappa, a national scholastic honor society.
Dr. Shelby's dedication to higher education did not end in Tuscaloosa; rather, her personal and professional careers were just beginning. She earned a Ph.D. degree at Louisiana State University, received an honorary doctor of humanities degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and received an honorary litterarum humanorum doctoris degree from the University of South Alabama.
The daughter of two educators, Dr. Shelby followed in their footsteps through a lifelong commitment to educating the next generation. Notably, Dr. Shelby's 20-year instruction at Georgetown University in management, corporate, and crisis communication led to national acclaim and earned her tenure and a promotion to professor. She was the first woman in the business school to achieve this distinction and was named professor emerita upon her retirement.
Dr. Shelby's love for travel rivaled her husband's, retired U.S. Senator Richard Craig Shelby. She served as a director of Georgetown's program in comparative business at Oxford, taught graduate and undergraduate students at the Helsinki School of Economics, and lectured at the University of Leipzig. She also taught on the University of Pittsburgh's Semester at Sea program, where she spent time in 11 countries.
Throughout her life, Dr. Shelby sought to invest in the lives of students and in universities and schools. At Alabama, she served as the vice president of the women's division of the women's alumni association, where she spearheaded the restoration of Woods Hall, the first structure built on campus following the Civil War. She later served on the president's cabinet
As two of the most generous, dedicated Alabama trailblazers, Dr. and Senator Shelby have continued to make remarkable contributions that will no doubt strengthen our State for many years to come.
In 2023, Dr. and Senator Shelby established the Shelby Institute for Policy and Leadership at the University of Alabama. The program endeavors to educate future leaders through civic engagement, research, and public policy. Most recently, Spring Hill College broke ground on the Annette N. Shelby Health and Science Innovation Center. This state- of-the-art facility will not only expand Spring Hill's current nursing and pre-med programs, but also launch new programs.
Dr. Shelby died on July 23, 2025, at her home in Tuscaloosa. She is survived by her husband of 65 years, Senator Shelby; two sons Richard Craig Shelby, Jr., and Claude Nevin Shelby (Lisa); two grandchildren Anna Elizabeth Shelby and William Nevin Shelby; and brother Edward Haskell Nevin.
On behalf of Dr. Shelby's friends, family, and students, I am deeply proud to recognize her extraordinary life. Dr. Shelby's quiet strength, keen intellect and discernment, and elegant poise all contribute to her legacy as one of Alabama's most influential figures. Her status is cemented not just in the buildings and programs across the State that bear her name, but for the tremendous, indelible impact she made on all who were fortunate to know her. Alabama and our Nation are undeniably stronger because of her extraordinary life of service.
Mr. President, today I would like to congratulate an accomplished North Dakotan who is providing outstanding service to the Nation in the U.S. Army. BG Rebecca McElwain recently became the new Army budget director, and we look forward to working closely with a fellow North Dakotan in this role.
Brigadier General McElwain was raised on a family farm near Karlsruhe, ND, and graduated from Minot High School. She attended North Dakota State University where she was in the ROTC program. She graduated with a bachelor of science in business administration from NDSU in 1997 and was then commissioned into the U.S. Army Finance and Comptroller Corps. From there, she spent significant time serving abroad, including deployments in Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East, with command assignments at every level.
Prior to this new assignment, she served as an Army congressional budget liaison and then the director of the Army's budget liaison office. Through all of her assignments, she brings as wealth of experience that will serve the Army and Congress well.
Brigadier General McElwain and her husband James have a son Andrew. James is a classically trained chef, and Andrew is a recent graduate of the University of Mary Washington and works with the General Services Administration in Washington, DC.
We benefit enormously from talented leaders like Brigadier General McElwain, and we look forward to her continued contributions to the Army and to the Nation. I congratulate her on this new role and look forward to working with her.
Mr. President, I rise today to honor a great American and an exceptional member of the U.S. Air Force, Maj. Michael P. ``Mikey'' Mason.
As a Department of the Air Force Senate Legislative Liaison Officer, from January to July 2025, Mikey performed his duties well and without reservation supporting the 119th U.S. Congress. Hailing from Scottsdale, AZ, and a graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Mikey has served in the Air Force for over 13 years. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated exceptional and unrivaled officership. A graduate and former instructor at the U.S. Air Force Advanced Maintenance and Munitions Operations School--AMMOS--he brings extensive experience in both nuclear and conventional munitions, gained from diverse roles across Air Combat Command Air Education and Training Command, U.S. Air Force Europe and Air Force Materiel Command.
Major Mason distinguished himself through his professional character and dedication by serving this Nation in uniform as an Air Force Legislative Liaison to the Senate. In this role, he advised Department of the Air Force senior leaders and helped develop strategic engagement opportunities to advance U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force priorities. His leadership facilitated seamless collaboration on behalf of the Department of the Air Force across 62 congressional offices, serving as the principal Air Force liaison to 21 Senators and their respective staff. He supported numerous engagements and delegations for 109 Senators, Congressmen, and staffers to showcase Department equities in the United States and abroad. Most notably, Mikey spearheaded initiatives within Headquarters Air Force to effectively bridge the information gap between Members of Congress and the Department of the Air Force.
By fostering a shared understanding of congressional priorities and Departmental objectives, Mikey enabled the alignment of goals and fostered a cohesive, multifunctional approach to achieving them. Mikey's direct support led to the successful execution of nine Senate confirmation, posture, and subcommittee hearings while managing 32 congressional requests, directly shaping and advancing legislative priorities. Additionally, Mikey's diplomatic nature and commitment to enhancing global partnership was evident during four congressional and staff delegations planned and executed under his leadership. These trips, both within the United States and overseas, supported the Air Force Caucus, State delegations, key Senate committees, and our allies and partners. Through these interactions, he successfully strengthened international collaboration and cultivated relationships crucial for advancing shared defense priorities while showcasing select Department of the Air Force equities. Due to his direct involvement and oversight, Members of Congress were able to make informed decisions to ensure the Department of the Air Force possessed the right authorities and resources necessary to equip our warfighters and fulfill their role in the joint fight.
Finally, he led a pivotal congressional delegation to the Middle East to secure key regional partnerships, conduct vital oversight of U.S. military operations, and gain firsthand understanding of critical national security issues, including counterterrorism, the humanitarian crisis, and regional stability. Mikey's significant efforts led to numerous successful engagements between this governing body, current and former administration officials, senior military leaders, industry executives, technology innovators, and leading edge thought leaders. These interactions helped Senators and their staff advance the national security conversation and collaboration required to achieve our shared goal of peace through strength.
After serving in this crucial role and becoming a fixture on Capitol Hill, Major Mason has moved on to become the executive officer to the director, Air Force Legislative Liaison, Washington, DC, office. Mikey and his wife Carolyn have instilled a legacy of service for their two children Walker and Kinsley. They have sacrificed much as a family in service to our Nation. I am thankful for Mikey's service and his work with my office and the Senate over the past year on issues of vital importance to the defense of the United States. I salute this American patriot whose selfless service has kept our country safe and strong.
Mr. President, I have three requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.
Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:
The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, at 3 p.m., to conduct a closed briefing.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following interns on the Committee of Agriculture be granted floor privileges through December 12, 2025: Mara Hallcock and Elise Sharp.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Rick Berger and Brad Patout, members of Senator Wicker's committee staff, be granted full floor passes for the remainder of the consideration of Calendar No. 115, S. 2296, Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 102 and make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 104 and make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 146, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 147, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 148, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 150, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 174, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 175, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 187, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 188, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 189, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 190, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 191, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained, and the nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 193 and make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 194 and make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 195 and make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, as if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 288 and make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to committee.
As if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 308 and make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to committee.
As if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 309, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to committee.
As if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 343, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to the committee.
As if in executive session, I ask consent to move to proceed to Executive Calendar No. 351, and I make a point of order that the nomination was not properly reported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The point of order is sustained. The nomination will be returned to committee.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stands adjourned until 10 a.m., Wednesday, September 10; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 115, S. 2296, the National Defense Authorization Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Whitehouse.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, sailors and pilots know to look out for dangerous weather ahead. Politicians can get lost in the moment. We are on the verge of a major economic shock, but Congress is lost in the moment, not paying attention.
Well, when that economic shock hits, I want people to know how and why we failed to protect them. The shock is simple. Climate change makes property insurance unpredictable, so insurance prices soar, insurers withdraw from high-risk regions, and fake or flimsy insurance populates the market. As the insurance market goes, so goes the mortgage market, given the many linkages between insurance and mortgages.
As mortgage markets fail, property values fall since there is way less demand for real estate properties that are unmortgageable. The combination threatens a reprise of the 2008 great recession or worse. It is what economists call systemic rescue, the scariest word in the economic lexicon because it means the damage cascades throughout the entire economy, hitting everyone.
Remember 2008--everybody hurt. This cascade is pretty broadly predicted by insurers, economists, bankers, regulators, even the big, short guy who predicted the great recession. The Economist magazine has warned of a $25 trillion hit to global real estate values. Yes, I said ``trillion.'' Even climate-shy Fed Chair Powell predicted whole regions of the United States would soon go without mortgagees.
So why the big fail here? Why aren't we paying attention to the great climate insurance collapse that is looming and predicted? To understand that, you have to understand the four phases of climate denial because fossil fuel-funded climate denial is the root of the danger.
Phase one of climate denial for the fossil fuel industry was simple: Bury the evidence. Decades ago--many decades ago--scientists in the fossil fuel industry warned about climate change. Exxon, Chevron, Shell, American Petroleum Institute all got internal warnings decades ago of the danger ahead. Instead of facing up to the problem and looking for solutions, they buried the evidence and acted as if they had never been told.
Just keep it secret was phase 1.
Phase 2 was to begin actively misleading the public. Two things coincided to kick off phase 2. One was scientists outside the fossil fuel industry beginning to publicly discuss the climate dangers of fossil fuel combustion--and not just fringe scientists either but leading scientists from places like NASA. NASA is pretty good with science--you know, man on the Moon, rovers driving around Mars. Anyway, Congress perked up. Hearings were held, and what Exxon and others knew was brought out into the public daylight.
The second thing that kicked off phase 2 was a Federal court decision against the tobacco industry and its front groups for fraudulently misleading the public about the dangers of tobacco. Federal Judge Gladys Kessler--God rest her soul; she passed away 2 years ago in March--put the tobacco industry and its front groups under court order to stop the lying and knock off the fraud. No more lying? No more fraud? That decision put the tobacco industry's denial operation out of work, at least on tobacco.
But it gave fossil fuel a prefab denial operation to take over. And suddenly, a lot of people and a lot of front group who had been expert in how tobacco smoke wasn't bad for you suddenly became expert in how fossil fuel emissions wouldn't wreck the Earth's climate. So that kicked off phase 2 with public recognition of the dangers and attention of Congress. The tobacco fraud operation became the fossil fuel fraud operation--same entities, same people, same tactics.
For years, the fossil fuel industry used that operation. It actually expanded and multiplied that tobacco operation to sow false doubt about climate science and to fraudulently suggest we would all be worse off if we solved the fossil fuel emissions problem.
One sidebar here. That all seems terribly expensive. Well, yes and no. Yes, in that billions and billions of dollars were spent on the climate denial fraud operation. Just the work to capture the Supreme Court so it would be friendly to fossil fuel polluters has been estimated at roughly $600 million. And that work was just one aspect of the vast climate denial fraud operation.
On the other hand, you have to understand what the climate denial fraud operation was protecting. The fossil fuel industry floats on the biggest economic subsidy in human history thanks to its free-to-pollute business model. The value to fossil fuel interests of that subsidy from being allowed to pollute for free has been calculated by the International Monetary Fund at north of $600 billion every year--every single year, $600-plus billion worth of free pollution that we all pay for in various ways. Honest calculations of what is called the social cost of carbon pollution differ a bit, but they are all in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
So when the fossil fuel industry picked up the tobacco fraud operation and multiplied it, cost was no object. Imagine, for example, if they spent $6 billion a year on their climate fraud operation. That pays them back over $100 every year for every single dollar spent. If they spent $60 billion a year, it is a 10-to-1 payback. It makes the climate fraud operation likely the most lucrative segment of the fossil fuel industry.
So let's just say, phase 2 was robust--over 100 front groups, billions of dollars, stables of fake scientists, massive Madison Avenue propaganda campaigns, even attack goons to go after scientists and reporters. It was and is probably the biggest fraud operation in history. But a fair campaign of lies against truth, even with billions of dollars behind the lies won't guarantee a win for the lies.
So phase 2, even with all of its billions, had its limits. That brings us to phase 3, unleashed by the Citizens United decision, a truly toxic decision delivered by an all-Republican panel of five on the Supreme Court. That decision did two things. One, as a legal matter, it unleashed infinite special interest money into our political system. Two, as a practical matter, it allowed that money to be anonymous--what is called dark money--flowing into the political system through front groups that obscure the actual donor, keeping citizens in the dark about who is who in the political arena and who is behind what they are being told--basic information to accomplish the office of citizen, in this great Republic, denied to the citizens.
The fossil fuel industry sought that decision, was prepared for that decision, and moved aggressively to flood dark money into elections.
It is a whole separate speech about fossil fuel's role in that Citizens United decision. But the important thing was that they won. Dark money corruption now could buttress climate denial fraud. In the contest between truth and lies, lies now had not only billions, but an enormous new dark money thumb on the political scale.
There is a famous saying that it is hard to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it. Thank you, Upton Sinclair. Well, right away, the Republican Party came to depend on that fossil fuel money. And, no surprise, its understanding of climate change vanished.
It wasn't always like this. It was not always like this, not on corruption, not on climate denial. Super PACs didn't even used to exist. Nondisclosing 501(c)(4)s stayed out of political elections. Entities like DonorsTrust that exist solely to launder off donor identities just were not a thing. Shadowy political front groups and shell corporations weren't even worth setting up until secret political spending could surge into the billions. That whole new corrupting, toxic political ecosystem has developed to enable dark money power. It is all new, and it all stinks.
Climate denial is the same. In the 3 years after I came to the Senate and before the toxic decision in Citizens United, big, beautiful, bipartisan Senate climate bills were common. I can think of four offhand--real ones--that would have really reduced emissions. Republican Presidential candidate John McCain ran in 2008 on a perfectly decent climate platform--no denial, no fraud. Please remember, it once was that way. Then Citizens United was decided in January of 2010, and since that day, there has not been a single serious bipartisan climate bill in the Senate--not one. The echocardiogram of bipartisan Senate climate action blipped and flatlined.
Now, for over 15 years, the combination of the fossil fuel industry's massive climate denial fraud operation and the fossil fuel industry's massive dark money political corruption operation was a deadly combination. It was lethal. Just as the fossil fuel industry intended, these crooked, semicovert operations protected its annual $600 billion- plus freedom-to-pollute subsidy, and the pollution spewed and spewed and spewed.
The legendary political wheeler-dealer Mark Hanna said:
Historian John Barry observed:
Now we are in phase 4, the phase where an increasingly desperate fossil fuel operation switches from defense to offense--burying the evidence, running the climate denial fraud operation, and corrupting politics with dark money. All were essentially defense at all costs--at all costs. Protect that free-to-pollute $600 billion-plus annual subsidy. Phase 4 is different. Phase 4 is fossil fuel on offense, using the power of government to crush fossil fuel's clean energy competition.
Phase 4 kicked off with Trump. Fossil fuel may be an evil industry in its politics, but it is not a stupid one. It knows it is losing. It sees the clean energy cost trends. It knows free, clean fuels like the Sun and wind must inevitably win. It knows that a commodity's price set by a foreign cartel will sooner or later blow up in its face. It knows that polluting for free--contrary to moral as well as economic and environmental principles--can only be protected for so long. It knows that last year, 95 percent of new power coming onto the grid in the United States was clean power--wind, solar, and battery storage.
Fossil fuel knows its days are numbered, so it has infiltrated the Trump administration and is running the U.S. Government for its own benefit from the inside. There is a kind of wasp, a wasp that injects its larvae into another bug, and its larvae then take over the command and control systems of that unfortunate bug from the inside. The larvae drive the bug around like you or I might drive a car around except that the larvae are eating it from the inside at the same time.
That is a good image to keep in mind about the corrupt Trump regime and who is driving it. Under Trump, the Government of the United States is being driven by those fossil fuel larvae to attack cheaper, cleaner, less subsidized energy competitors who are winning against polluting fossil fuel.
There was a time when Republicans used to say: Government shouldn't pick winners and losers. Like so many vanishing Republican principles, what a laugh that one now is.
Trump asked this industry for $1 billion in campaign cash, and who knows what he got, but it was provably hundreds of millions.
The Republican Party is as dependent on fossil fuel dark money as a deep-sea diver is on his air hose. Pinch that flow just a little, and the diver will dance whatever jig he is told to dance
Trump's energy Executive order denied that solar and wind energy were even energy, violating the very dictionary.
Republicans went to bat using the Congressional Review Act to defend the worst methane leakers--the ones that weren't even meeting their own industry standards. ``Keep leaking, guys'' was the message.
Senate Republicans even went nuclear in overruling our Parliamentarian to undo the auto emissions standards followed by much of the country--never mind the damage to the auto industry.
Trump illegally shut down nearly finished wind farms whose clean electrons would displace gas-generated electrons as soon as next year. Those clean electrons also save consumers tens of millions--less pollution, more savings. We can't have that, said Republicans. They have even undone the social cost of carbon rules, as if the pollution wasn't real, and are trying to undo the endangerment finding as if the pollution isn't a danger.
It is all a pack of lies and nonsense, but it has a purpose: Crush America's clean energy industry. It is a separate speech, what economic damage that does to America in international competition as the rest of the world moves to clean energy and we get left behind.
So where are we?
Thanks to fossil fuel's massive climate denial fraud and dark money political corruption, storm clouds loom ahead. Florida is our preview of coming attractions: an insurance market in grave distress, mortgage markets beginning to tremble, middle-class families finding it hard to sell homes. The chief economist of Freddie Mac some years ago predicted this cascade--from insurance, to mortgages, to property values, to what he then called a ``coastal property values crash'' that would hit the entire economy like the 2008 great recession.
Note that word ``coastal.'' Well, it is not just coastal anymore. ``Wildfire'' now matches ``coastal'' as an added threat that can trigger that economic cascade into collapse.
On top of that looms the long-predicted carbon bubble. What is the carbon bubble? That is when the fossil fuel industry collapses in a sudden and disorderly fashion because we were irresponsible about a gradual and reliable energy transition.
By the way, it is not coastal or wildfire or carbon bubble collapse. All three could happen, each collapse making the others faster and more deep and dangerous and painful.
Remember Hemingway's notorious line that you go broke gradually and then all at once? What could provoke this already gradual collapse to suddenly go all at once? Well, there are a lot of ways this could happen.
One is related to OPEC. Say a low-cost oil and gas producer like Saudi Arabia decides to sell fuel at cost rather than at the OPEC cartel price. When they see it is time to make the move for the exits and sell what they can while they still can--when they do that, the American fossil fuel industry rapidly collapses because our fossil fuel industry can no longer compete. It is only profitable at puffed-up OPEC cartel prices, not at the price that Saudi Arabia could bring to the market if it chose to. So instant crash.
Here is another scenario: Fannie and Freddie--the mortgage giants-- stop accepting mortgages insured by Florida's flimsy, pop-up property insurance companies, over a dozen of which have already gone bust since Hurricane Irma in 2017. It is a huge taxpayer liability for Freddie and Fannie to assume all that risk without credible insurance. Local Florida banks won't hold those mortgages because the 30-year risk to a bank is not survivable. Florida becomes a region Chairman Powell predicted, where you can't get mortgages anymore. A massive asset repricing then follows. That triggers systemic economic damage, perhaps even cascading globally, as The Economist magazine warned.
The trusty sign that I have worked with all these years, through hundreds of speeches, is ``Time to Wake Up.'' I am not sure we can save ourselves any longer. We have blown so many chances. The remaining pathway to climate safety is steep and narrowing, and the climate chasm deepens by the day. The evil forces that put us in this danger are more powerful, desperate, and malevolent than ever. The massive economic shock so many foresee could come next week, next month, or next year. It may now be too late to prevent it. It may now be too late to wake up. I hope we can pull this off, but our chances have really slimmed.
So I am here because I, for damned sure, want people to know why we got to this dangerous precipice and who is to blame. Chalk it up to a massive, semicovert operation of industrial-scale disinformation and dark money influence run against our country from within by a polluting industry fighting to pollute for free and by the politicians who enabled them for money.
