Legislative Session
Mr. President, pursuant to section 1013 of the Department of State Authorization Act, fiscal years 1984 and 1985 (50 U.S.C. 1546a), and in accordance with section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 123, to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Iran, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a specific authorization for use of military force.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Majority whip.
Mr. President, today is April 15. Americans all across the country know that it is tax day in America.
We just heard the minority leader come to the floor, and it sounds like he is almost despondent that this year the American people are able to get higher tax refunds than in the past.
Because of what we have been able to do and pass, people are keeping more of their hard-earned money. For people that are filing their taxes for the first time under this new tax law, the Working Families Tax Cuts, they are seeing that they are keeping more. And this is what we promised: to put more money in people's pockets.
I hear about it at home in Wyoming. I was home, traveling in the State, and recently spoke to a group of veterans. They were meeting with their families in Dubois, WY. We had a ``welcome home'' for our veterans.
I was also in Sundance, WY; Gillette, WY; Laramie, WY. I visited with students. I was in Lusk, WY, as well as Newcastle. I sat down with farmers, ranchers, and small business owners. Across the board, we talked about new opportunities that they are experiencing as a result of the law, since Republicans cut taxes dramatically, and how that appears to them in their daily lives and what it means to them and their families.
And those families in Wyoming aren't alone. Americans all across the country are seeing smaller tax bills and larger tax refunds.
So the Internal Revenue Service has released data today on the tax refunds. The average refund this year is over $3,400 per family. Now that is nearly $250 per month in people's pockets. That is much higher than it was last year. These are the refunds that people are getting.
And yet, when I hear the Senator from New York, he referred to the amount of money that people are getting back in their refunds, and I think he said the word ``dud.'' Maybe to him that is a dud. Maybe to him, in New York City, that is a dud.
For working families in Wyoming, $250 a month means a lot of money in their pockets. When they go to the gas station, the grocery store, when they
That is not what I am hearing around my home State. It is probably not what you are hearing in your home State of Oklahoma. People understand that money in their pockets matters to them, and it matters to their families, even if the Democrats don't believe that or the minority leader doesn't see it the way we see it.
But in so many ways, he doesn't--because we think it is important for people to keep more of their hard-earned money, and it is a direct result of the bill that we passed, the Working Families Tax Cut law.
So what have the Democrats said to do about that? Well, they tried to do the opposite last year. They wanted to pass a $4 trillion tax increase on the American people--not $4,000, not $4 million, not $4 billion--$4 trillion of increased taxes. That is where they were headed.
They weren't just heading that way. They voted for that. They voted for the largest tax increase in American history.
And Senator Schumer, today, talked about a poll. And what did he say? He said Americans think they are paying too much in taxes right now. Can you imagine what they would have been saying if they were paying what they are paying now plus 4 trillion additional dollars in taxes?
Why in the world would, then, the minority leader come to the floor and put together a group and lead the charge to raise taxes by $4 trillion, if he comes to the floor and talks about the fact that Americans think they are paying too much in taxes?
I think we are paying too much in taxes. I want to cut more taxes. That is what the people of Wyoming want. That is what Americans want. That is certainly what Republicans want.
So it was just interesting to hear the minority leader talk about these refund checks that are putting more money in people's pockets and saying: Well, it is a dud.
It is not a dud for the people of Wyoming. They are encouraged by what we are doing, and they want us to do even more. And we need to do more.
The Democrats talk about a $4 trillion tax increase. That is raising taxes on families, on workers, on small businesses, all across the board. Well, Republicans permanently lowered taxes, and we did it for hard-working families and small businesses.
You know, in doing so, we made it easier for all Americans--whether they are working, whether retired--to keep more money in their pockets. More than 53 million Americans have benefited from at least one of the new Republican tax cuts. That is a lot of people.
So if you are a senior and receive a Social Security check, you are benefiting for the first time from our ``no taxes on Social Security'' pledge. This is a new $6,000 deduction for seniors.
Mr. President, 30 million seniors have already benefited, and everybody doesn't even have their taxes in yet. The deadline is tonight at midnight.
Well, if you are a mother or a father with children, you are benefiting from the expanded child tax credits. That is $2,200 per child, per year.
Millions of parents have enrolled their children in Trump Accounts. That is a big deal. For parents with newborn children, the savings accounts get $1,000 deposited into them straight from the U.S. Treasury. It happens immediately when your child is born. And I am happy to report that there are groups of individuals around the country who are matching those contributions in the Trump Accounts and adding more in individual States or to young people born in different locations--all of this in an effort to get these young people off on a good start.
In Wyoming and across the country, more than 6 million Americans are benefitting from the ``no tax on tips'' provision in the Working Families Tax Cut law. These are our waiters, our barbers, our bartenders, the tour guides. They have claimed an average deduction of over $7,000 on the no tax on tips.
More than 25 million Americans have benefited from no tax on overtime. They are the firefighters, the police officers, the nurses, the linemen, the coal miners in Wyoming and in your home State. They have claimed an average deduction of over $3,000 on overtime.
So hard-working Americans are being rewarded--rewarded for working more--working more. Think about that. That is not what the Democrats are proposing. What we did was put incentives in for people working more, to keep more of what they earn.
Democrats are looking to take more for the government. We are looking to find ways to let people keep what they earn.
So the extra money goes right into their bank accounts, not to the bureaucrats in Washington or the Democrats that want to take that money to spend it. That is why they wanted to raise taxes by $4 trillion. They wanted to tax more so they could spend more. It is all wrong.
The Working Families Tax Cut law protects 2 million family-owned farms and ranches in my State and in the Presiding Officer's from the dreaded death tax. The small business owners in our communities talk about that when I walk Main Street, and I saw it in Newcastle, WY, 2 weeks ago. Instead of being forced to sell their land or their small businesses to pay taxes to Washington so Democrats can spend more, families in Wyoming are now able to plan for their futures for generations to come.
The Working Families Tax Cut law also allows businesses to immediately deduct up to $2.5 million in new equipment. That means more jobs, more growth, more people in the workplace. It means more opportunities for farmers, for ranchers, and for Main Street America.
Because of lower taxes and more opportunities, workers across our Nation are seeing bigger paychecks--another thing that the Senate minority leader referred to as a ``dud'' earlier today. Real wages are up this year. This is significant progress.
The only people who seem to be upset about lower taxes, bigger refunds, and higher wages are the elected Democrats in this body, who voted for a $4 trillion tax increase, and the minority leader, who led the charge. Democrats want to raise taxes on the American people. They believe that the money you earn isn't yours. They want it so they can spend it. Democrats believe that the money you earn belongs to the government. That is why the Democrat Party is known as the party of high taxes.
It is not just here in the U.S. Senate; it is in the States and the big cities that are run by Democrats across the country.
This year, in the State of Virginia, a Democrat Governor was elected and sworn into office. So Democrats in Virginia now control the house, the senate, and the Governor's mansion--a big flip in Virginia. Since they took over in January, Democrats have introduced 50--50--new tax increases. That is the Democrat mindset: Raise taxes. Get power. Raise taxes.
Democrats want to raise taxes on barbershops, on nail salons, on dry cleaners, and gymnasiums. They are proposing new taxes on firearms and on ammunition in Virginia. That is what has happened now that Virginia has elected Democrats.
Democrats like to use the word ``affordability.'' Apparently, the Democrats' idea of affordability is higher taxes paid by working families so they can spend more money on liberal social programs. That is where we are in America today.
Republicans know the best way to make America affordable is with good jobs, growing paychecks, lower taxes, and that is exactly what we are seeing here today, on April 15, as people file their taxes and see the larger refunds this year--refunds of over $3,400, over $250 a month.
The American people know the money belongs to them, not to Washington. They have earned it. They should keep more of it. Republicans trust people at home to know best what they want to do with that money--what they want to spend, what they want to save, what they want to invest.
So this tax day, I come to the floor to say the American people have more money in their pockets because Republicans--all of us--have passed the Working Families Tax Cut law. Republicans are going to continue to fight for an America where families get to keep
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The President pro tempore.
I have two items I would like to discuss. During the Easter break when the Senate was not in session, I was holding in Iowa Q&A's in 25 of our 99 counties. My annual practice allows me to hear directly from the grassroots. At my meetings, Iowans set the agenda. No issue is off limits.
I had a chance to hear from the Rural Health Transformation Fund--how it is working out for our hospitals and helping our communities. For example, in Pella, IA, they are using the Federal dollars to invest in a PET scan machine and an oncology nurse.
Then I also had the working families tax cuts coming up and how that is making a difference in rural America.
I also heard from farm families and rural bankers about the high costs of impacting farmers' bottom line.
To relieve some pressure on this farming situation in the Midwest and, of course, my State of Iowa, I am calling on President Trump to use his emergency powers to suspend the countervailing duties on phosphate fertilizers. I also appreciate the President's recent tweet in regard to his concern about high fertilizer costs for farmers, so I am suggesting one way to him of how he could fix that.
I have long been beating the drum on another issue affecting our family farmers, and that is for the nationwide, year-round E15. There has never been a more important time to infuse markets with $14 billion to boost the farm economy. That $14 billion is not my figure. It comes from the economists for the Iowa corn growers.
Finally, at these 25 county Q&A's I held, Iowans told me they are sick and tired of government shutdowns. As a cosponsor of the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, I hope that we will consider that it costs money to shut the government down, and it costs money to reopen government. We ought to applaud Senator Lankford on his legislation for a continuing resolution that he has been trying to push Congress to adopt for maybe the last 5 or 6 years. There is no better time to use an example of the need for Senator Lankford's legislation than the fact that we had a 43-day, all-government shutdown last year, and this year we have already, for the Department of Homeland Security, had a 45- or 46-day shutdown so far. Senator Lankford has the best idea that that will never happen again in our government--any shutdown.
Congress' failure to fund the government shouldn't be penalizing the hard-working men and women of this country.
At my 99 county meetings, I promise to bring Iowans' views back to the policymaking tables, and I intend to roll up my sleeves and keep working on behalf of Iowans.
Now, on another subject--and more critical because of timing--deals with FISA Section 702 reauthorization. In 5 short days, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--FISA for short--is set to expire.
Section 702 is an essential national security tool. That law is responsible for over 60 percent of the intelligence in the President's daily brief. Section 702 enables our intelligence and law enforcement community to thwart attacks before they occur. It is, as I see it, a preventative national defense-national security issue.
Section 702 has saved countless lives in the United States and even abroad. It gives our military a strategic edge, allows us to hunt down foreign terrorists and rescue hostages, and helps us defend critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.
More recently, Section 702 has enabled more than 90 percent of CIA- driven synthetic drug disruptions abroad and prevented a mass casualty terrorist attack at a Taylor Swift concert overseas.
So there is no doubt that this is a powerful, critical tool to protect Americans. But there is also no doubt that powerful tools like this require strong oversight and accountability.
I have put a lot of attention into the fact of congressional oversight as it applies to Section 702. I have and will continue to demand transparency. I will faithfully make sure that we execute in Congress its duty to encourage oversight, but we must balance our oversight responsibilities with our responsibility to protect our country and our countrymen. I refuse to incapacitate our intelligence community at a time of conflict and when threats to our national security and prosperity continue to multiply.
Two years ago, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act-- RISAA for short--added critical and successful reform to section 702 in response to some abuse and overreach. I have been monitoring the implementation of these reforms for 2 years, and so I want to discuss with you some of my concerns.
One important RISAA reform was a provision that grants access to select Members of Congress to attend and conduct oversight of ``any proceeding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.'' This ensures that these hearings, which necessarily occur in secret because of national security, are subject to congressional oversight in a secure way. That was intended in our legislation.
But at the end of the Biden administration, the Justice Department imposed a set of unlawful restrictions on congressional access to these proceedings. Among other things, the rules DOJ imposed allowed the Justice Department to kick Members out of the courtroom at will, also prohibiting them from even taking notes and even prohibiting them from requesting information or sharing what they learned with their colleagues. And from my standpoint of emphasis upon oversight and following the law, this was an untenable position and situation and, of course, contrary to the compromise that was worked out during the last reauthorizations 2 years ago.
I have been fighting to fix this issue for months. I even wrote a letter to Attorney General Bondi with my Democratic colleague Senator Durbin, demanding change. We both recognize that transparency and congressional oversight is not a Republican or Democrat responsibility or issue, but it is rather a separation of powers issue--something that you learn in eighth grade civics or high school government classes-- that we call checks and balances. Around here, we don't use that term. We use the term of ``oversight.'' In other words, Congress passes laws that appropriates money, and we have a responsibility after we do that to make sure that the executive branch faithfully executes these laws.
So today, I am happy to say that this issue has now been resolved, and an important transparency and accountability tool has been returned to the Congress. So I am really grateful to the Trump administration and the Department of Justice for revising and repairing the misguided and noncompliant procedures that were written in the previous administration. This new Department of Justice policy restores the intent of RISAA and the constitutional separation of powers to its proper boundaries with Congress as a coequal branch.
Additionally, because of my oversight, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is working to create overflow space to ensure that all eligible Members and their staff will be able to attend proceedings and thus exercise their oversight authority.
I have no reason to understand how the Department of Justice under Biden thought they could get away with violating this responsibility that the compromise gave us to exercise our oversight responsibility. But that is the way it worked out, and now we have that corrected.
So now that DOJ has made this right, the reforms from the last reauthorization are in full effect. In the last public audit, the FBI achieved a 99-percent compliance rate with the U.S. persons queries, which have also decreased sharply overall in recent years.
The reforms that we imposed in RISAA are working. If it expires, so do its civil liberties protections and many of the oversight mechanisms.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board recently reported that section 702 targeting and querying compliance remains at nearly 100 percent throughout the intelligence community. FISA, including section 702, remains subject to intense Agency, judicial, and congressional oversight and
I have spent my career in the Senate holding the government accountable. I will never stop asking questions or abandon my oversight duties. That doesn't mean that we should blind ourselves and gamble with the safety of our communities. So with these oversight reforms fulfilling the intent of the previous reauthorization, I will support this year's reauthorization. Let's reauthorize 702 before it expires.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. President, it has been 2 weeks since we last voted on a War Powers Resolution to responsibly end Trump's unauthorized, unconstitutional, reckless war with Iran. In just those 2 weeks, the war has continued to spiral out of control, and Americans are paying the price.
Here is where we are since we last voted and why we are calling up another War Powers Resolution for a vote, why we are forcing that debate onto this floor. Americans are facing soaring costs, and this war is making those costs explode and get worse. Prices are rising because of the decisions made by President Trump without congressional approval. Gas and essentials are surging as global energy markets react to the blockade, the destruction of energy infrastructure, and the unbelievable, immense uncertainty in the market. Inflation jumped sharply, driven overwhelming by energy costs tied to the conflict. Analysts say we spent $25 billion during the month of March on the war, and this month, it is expected to be similar.
Now, remember, the President launched this war without congressional consent. He has basically said that any President is entitled to commit tens of billions of dollars, to commit American lives--13 we have lost, hundreds of Americans injured--as he began this war without authorization, without transparency.
Observers note that this is a war the administration initiated not only without approval but with shifting reasons for the provocation of our going to war itself.
This President has said everything: We are going to stop this regime. We want regime change and then we don't. He has said that we are going to save civilians from being murdered by this regime, and now, he says that is not the priority.
He says: Oh, we are getting in for the nuclear crisis. Even though I had obliterated it just months ago, it is now a crisis again.
His shifting reasons and provocations are bad enough, but now the outcomes he says he seeks are outcomes that have shifted themselves. He has failed to tell the American people why we are in this. He has no endgame.
Just today, the administration deployed 10,000 more U.S. troops into harm's way into this region. Naval forces have expanded to now enforce a maritime blockade that takes the efforts of tens of thousands of American military professionals, and officials are preparing for potential additional strikes and ground operations.
So where does that leave us? Well, No. 1, if the war ended today-- which it won't. It seems to be expanding. But if it ended today, the oil shock, the economic crisis would go for months and months longer-- again, Americans paying the price. We still have our American troops in greater harm's way. We have an Iranian regime who--even though their near-term combat capabilities have been significantly degraded--now are flexing more power in that region and influence by choking the Strait of Hormuz, which we have not been able to stop.
The situation is worse. The regime is more extreme. The fissile material to make a nuclear weapon is still there in that theater. This President has made the situation worse, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars, American lives, and hundreds of troops injured.
The thing that makes this all worse is the enabling that Congress is doing of this war, their failure to ask for accountability, this failure to have even one open hearing on the biggest military engagement since the war in Afghanistan, not one open hearing where Congress has asked for accountability, for transparency, for facts and information.
On top of that, this body was designed just for that purpose--to provide a check and a balance, to provide oversight--and what we have done is nothing of any substance to play that critical role.
Our Founders warned us what an out-of-control Executive could do if not checked by Congress, and we are not doing it. The price we are paying--every American is feeling it. That is why this war is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people of all political backgrounds, because they know. Not only are they feeling the pain of it economically, not only are they seeing the pain of it when American troops are killed in battle and the families live with that loss, not only knowing the pain of the hundreds injured, but they are also seeing with their own eyes how the situation is getting worse and not better.
We are bringing this War Powers Resolution back to the floor today because Congress cannot look away. Congress must do their job. Congress must stand with the American people, ask the tough questions that we deserve answers to, hold this President to account, really do our job of asking the hard yet urgent questions.
We need transparency. We need accountability. We need the Senate to do its job. So today, I again lead, with a handful of my colleagues, to bring these War Powers Resolutions, to demand a debate, to demand that this body show some account for its inaction on a war, for allowing an Executive to spend tens of billions of dollars, throw the world and our Nation into economic shock, not achieve any of its stated goals with the nation of Iran, and make more of that region more dangerous and unstable by the day.
We must do our job. We must defend the Constitution, which spells out the checks and balances that should be happening but are not. But we will continue this fight. We will continue to force debate on this floor. We will continue to call on my colleagues across the aisle not to just let Donald Trump do whatever he wants but to hold him to account, to hold public hearings, to ask the difficult questions, to demand accountability.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. President, well, today is tax day. It is not a day that conservatives usually celebrate, but this year it is a little bit different. And that is thanks to the working families tax cuts, the Big Beautiful Bill, that are allowing individuals to keep a lot more of their hard-earned money.
And as we have this discussion on tax day, it is imperative that we remember government doesn't create jobs, it creates the environment for jobs growth.
Government is not the one that is generating income. All of that comes from hard-working taxpayers. They send their hard-earned tax dollars here to Washington, DC. And today is a day we should be mindful of the imperative that we should be good stewards of the taxpayer dollar.
Now, one of the things that we heard so much about during the Biden administration was, every time you turned around, taxes were going up; inflation was going up because taxes were going up; and government spending was going up.
Well, things have changed. Things have changed. And as I said, because of the tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill, what we know is, citizens are seeing more money stay in their pocketbook without having to send it to DC.
What we also know is, tax refunds this year are up 24 percent, just over $3,500--$3,500--for most refunds. A big reason why is that almost half of the filers are claiming new tax breaks that were created in the working families tax cuts, Big Beautiful Bill.
So think about that. Half of the filers are benefiting from the bill that every single one of our Democrat colleagues voted no on that bill.
Now, Americans who claim these added deductions are seeing refunds that are $775 higher than they were last year, and as we think about that, that is more money in your pocketbook for groceries, for gas, for car payments, for education expenses, for clothing, for things that your family wants to do with your hard-earned money.
Now, earlier today, we heard from our IRS head, and what we heard from
We should keep in mind that all of this is happening because of President Trump and because Republicans, indeed, have put the American people first.
They have put these hard-working taxpayers first. That is what people want to see, put them at the first of the queue. They deserve it.
Now, if we had not passed the working families tax cuts, Big Beautiful Bill, last spring and summer, we would have had a $4 trillion tax hike. Think what that would be doing to you right now if your taxes had gone up, if those escalation rates had kicked in, things had gone up. And what we do know is that while our colleagues across the aisle, the Democrats, wanted to see Americans pay more in taxes, that what that equates to is, there would be fewer jobs; there would be lower wages; and I think one of the big ones, especially when you talk about a State like mine, Tennessee, where small business is your largest employer, then there would be less opportunity.
But because we passed that bill last summer, there is more opportunity. And our small business employers, people that are there on Main Street, are prospering, and businesses are growing.
Now, I do want to highlight some of these provisions that our Democratic colleagues chose to vote against. What we put in the working families tax cuts, the Big Beautiful Bill, that is yielding these deductions that about half of the tax filers are taking is this--this is one that I have worked on for years--and it is the bonus deduction for every senior. And for 88 percent of our Social Security recipients, it has eliminated all the income tax they have on that Social Security.
Now, I actually printed out that page from the 1040 form, and I think it is so important to see. Section 5 has that enhanced deduction for seniors. So it is, for every senior, a $6,000 deduction. If you and your spouse are both over 65, that is a $12,000 deduction, but it is part 5, when you get to the point that you are filling out this form, and all the instructions are right there. That is a really big deal. And what we know is that because of this provision, seniors are saving $670.
Now, think about that. If you are a senior and you are using that deduction and you are represented by Democrats, they voted against that. They voted against allowing you to have a $6,000 bonus deduction. And what we know is that 30 million seniors have already used that--30 million seniors. According to Mr. Bisignano, it is the most used of all the deductions. It is money in your pocket.
Now, there are millions of workers who are seeing lower taxes on tips and overtime. With the new tips deductions, senior filers are seeing a savings of $1,370. Some have gone as high as $5,500. These are savings that are leaving money in your pocket.
But, again, every single Democrat in this Chamber, every single one voted against that. So if you are a worker who uses and receives tips, they voted against that. If you are a senior who works with tip income, they voted against your senior deduction, and they voted against your deduction with tips.
Now, we also know that children that are born can do Trump Accounts. They are eligible for that $1,000 seed account. These accounts will grow all through that child's life. This is a way they can have money for education or for a first home or keeping that account and letting it grow until they are ready for retirement.
But if you have a baby that was born this year, a child or a grandchild, every Democrat voted against--against--their having that nest egg.
So how wonderful it would be if these children came out of college debt-free. How wonderful would it be if they had that money for a downpayment. And think about overtime work. We have so many Americans that work overtime. Again, they are benefiting, but the Democrats voted against no tax on overtime.
And they also voted against the enhanced child tax credit, which benefits more than 40 million American families. So if you have children that are under 18 and you are taking that enhanced child tax credit, you are looking at that, and you see when you get to that bottom line and you look at your total deductions, your total credits, Democrats voted against that.
You know, it is so interesting, they think they should have the right of first refusal on your money. They think they know better what to do with your money than you do. They say: Send more of it to DC, and we will put it where we want it. But what we know is that the American people want to keep their money and keep it in their pocket.
Now, we also have a deduction for interest that is paid on ``Made in America'' vehicles. That is an important thing. So if you bought a car this past year, that interest on that car payment, you are going to be able to deduct every penny.
The Democrats also voted against the permanent extension of the lifetime gift tax exemption. Now, in Tennessee, this was very important to us for family farms. We raised that to $15 million per individual for a couple that has a family farm or maybe a small business manufacturing company. That is $30 million. So they will be able to pass that company and its assets on to their children and grandchildren so that they can continue to run this business.
But, bear in mind, every Democrat in this Chamber voted no. They voted against your being able to take what you have worked hard for, to build, to build that company, to carry on the legacy of that farm.
They voted against your being able to do that. They voted against an increase to the standard deduction. That is used by 90 percent of all filers. So as you fill out your tax form, remember, the Democrats said you don't deserve it, they do. They want your money. They don't want you to keep your money so they voted against raising the standard deduction.
They voted against the permanent extension of the 2017 tax cuts for businesses, which fueled investment across America.
You know what, they really have been the ``no'' caucus when it comes to cutting taxes. They have been the ``no'' caucus when it comes to allowing you to live your version of the American dream.
What they want, they want that control; they want that power. They want to be able to say: Give it to us. Let us decide what to do with your money. And, oh, by the way, they want more of it. They want you to have less.
They want more so they can waste it in the name of programs that by and large many have outlived their usefulness for the American people.
So this is tax day. We should be grateful for President Trump's leadership. Without him, there would be no Working Families Tax Cut; there wouldn't have been that Big Beautiful Bill. So instead of celebrating historic refunds, Americans, if the Democrats had been in charge, if they had their way, would be struggling to pay another $4 trillion in taxes. Think about that one.
I am so pleased that we were able to get these taxes passed, signed, sealed, delivered, and signed into law, and that on this tax day, tens of millions of Americans are celebrating increased deductions, increased tax credits, and more money in their pockets because of larger refunds.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. President, I have come to the floor today as a U.S. Senator, of course, but also as a former soldier who served in uniform the last time a President rashly sent our men and women into an unjustified war in the Middle East.
I spent nearly a year in Walter Reed Army Medical Center recovering from injuries I earned in Iraq. Every morning, as I struggled to sit up straight, every time I was rolled into yet another surgery, I made sure to read the poster I had next to my hospital bed. It was a framed copy of the Soldier's Creed, the words that those lucky enough to wear the Army uniform live by.
That same framed copy now hangs by my desk here in DC. As I glanced at it
The creed may be associated with the Army, but the sentiments hold true for all of those who wear the uniform of this great Nation. Its 13 lines tell us to be disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained, proficient, and to look out for those who look out for us, to look out for one another.
Donald Trump is supposed to be our servicemembers' Commander in Chief. The very, very least we should expect of him is to epitomize the standards that we ask our troops to swear by, to live by. The very, very least we should expect of the Commander in Chief is to be as competent, disciplined, and professional as the men and women whose very lives hinge on his capacity to lead, on that competence and professionalism we expect to see in the White House.
The creed makes clear that our troops will never quit, that they will never leave a fallen comrade behind. Yet ``Cadet Bone Spurs'' is someone who will always quit. And every hour he orders our servicemembers to remain in unnecessary, growing danger, he is proving that Donald Trump does not give a damn about leaving a comrade or so, so many comrades behind. Every moment that Donald Trump leaves our heroes mired in the muck of this illegal war of choice with Iran, he is showing that he cares more about saving face than leading our troops.
So I come to the floor today with a simple question. Our military men and women go out there every day and do their jobs, no matter the risks--all on Donald Trump's orders. So I ask you, Mr. President: Why the hell can't you do your job too? Why can't you live up to the same level of proficiency as our troops?
Look, I am proud of every mission I completed in Iraq, but I would never ever wish another endless, needless, unjustified war like the one I served in on anybody else. I wouldn't wish it on the heroes who are packing up their rucks right now, knowing they may never touch American soil again. I wouldn't wish it on their families, who are being forced to spend their days anxiously awaiting news from half a world away. And I wouldn't wish it on the American people, who want their President to focus on bringing the costs down here at home, not starting new, expensive, taxpayer-funded wars continents away.
But Trump either doesn't understand or he simply doesn't care about that. From the moment this conflict began, the President has tried to shroud his incompetence behind the valor of our servicemembers. When asked to justify his illegal actions, Donald Trump has tried to hide his cowardice behind our heroes' courage. He has tried to act as if questioning why we are at war is the same as questioning the skill and bravery of our troops themselves. It isn't.
And I am here to call bullshit on the President of the United States because I know that our military will always do the best job possible. When given a mission, our servicemembers will say: Yes, I will serve. They don't say: Why me. They don't ask: Will I be safe? No. They dust off their boots, they show up, and they do what is asked of them to the best of their ability every single time, time after time, tour after tour, no matter the risk, no matter the sacrifice. They will always, always execute their orders to the maximum capability of their professionalism, and they are proud to do it.
That isn't the problem. The problem here is that the person who is supposed to be leading them spends more time talking about his Marie Antoinette ballroom than he does sitting in the Situation Room, trying to get us out of this war.
The problem is the guy who claims to be making America great again looks at the word ``America'' and only sees the letters ``M'' and ``E'' in the middle of it.
The problem is that the Commander in Chief not only has no idea what the end state is like for his war of choice but probably doesn't know what the term ``end state'' means at all.
The problem is that even in the last 2 weeks, the man who is in charge of our Nation's nuclear codes has himself gone increasingly nuclear. He is not believing literal war with Iran is enough. He has now gone on to proverbial war with the Vatican, choosing to pick fights with the Pope, of all people--the Pope.
Rather than trying to engage in any semblance of real diplomacy to end the conflict in the Middle East, he has threatened to annihilate an entire civilization, terrifying people overseas and here at home, who are understandably worried about retaliatory strikes.
Now, after 1 half-assed day of so-called negotiations with Iran, he has whipsawed to the next risky frontier in the region--a dangerous, complex, partial military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, launching it at our Nation's expense with no justification, no explanation, or any real plan as to what comes next. His only plan seems to rely on the valor, willingness to sacrifice, and professionalism of our military men and women. But let me tell you, that is not enough. They need a true commander.
But Trump is Trump, and he is actively, unabashedly telling us how to ignore what we are all seeing with our own eyes. He is trying to declare ``mission accomplished,'' despite his obvious failures at every single turn. He is declaring ``We did it. We're winning'' after all signs point to the opposite. We are still at war. Americans are still at risk. Civilians across the region are still dying for no reason that anyone can truly articulate.
In reality, the only thing that Donald Trump has accomplished over the last 6 weeks is more chaos. Because of his choices, a new, young Ayatollah is in charge who seems even more radical than his father was. Thirteen American heroes have been killed and hundreds more wounded. More Gold Star parents are grieving their children.
More American families are struggling to avoid the spiking gas prices. They are unsure if they can pay even more every time they go to the gas station, but they have to because they need to get to work; they have to take their kids to school; they have to take their aging parents to the doctor. The farmers of Illinois, the farmers of this great Nation have seen, at a time when we should be planting, their input costs skyrocket because of Donald Trump's war of choice.
Look, war is always tragic, but when it is preventable, when it is unjustified, it is not just tragic, it is a travesty. Trump wouldn't let himself be dragged by the bone spurs to serve in Vietnam, so how dare he--how dare he--drag our Nation into a war of his choice today? But this draft dodger--this five-time draft dodger--is too infatuated with maximum pressure to make a serious effort at even minimum diplomacy.
Once again, the Trump foreign policy doctrine has proven reckless, senseless, and dangerous--a doctrine in which fact and fiction are one and the same, one in which our Commander in Chief seems to come to military decisions by virtue of temper tantrums and announces them via tweet in the middle of the night and one in which avarice outweighs advice every single time.
Look, unlike Trump, I actually know what it is like to leave your blood soaking into the desert sand a half a world away. I know what it is like--I know what it is like--and what is at stake for the troops this administration is sending into harm's way. We must safeguard their valor and their professionalism by doing our jobs.
I can tell you this: It is a whole lot easier to cover your eyes and order other Americans to sacrifice their children and sacrifice themselves if you don't have to do any of the sacrificing yourself. It is easier to send other people's children to fight in a war if you know your own children are cozy in a penthouse suite somewhere. It is easier to ignore the everyday realities of war from inside the hallowed halls of the White House where you have McDonald's being DoorDashed to the Oval Office. But it is nearly impossible--it is near impossible--if you have been actually outside the wire yourself.
So I have come to the floor today to keep true a promise I first made over two decades ago. I ran for Congress not because I wanted to be in Congress, not because I wanted to be a Congresswoman or a Senator. I ran for Congress to honor the men and women who carried me out of that bloody war zone.
I made a promise that when the drums of war started beating again, I would be in a position to make sure that our elected officials fully consider the true cost of war--not just in terms
I am here today under this great Capitol Dome to keep that most sacred oath because right now, thousands of our troops are ready to do their jobs even if it means laying down their lives. And it is tragic, it is disgusting to me that even as they prepare to do their jobs, our President and some Members of this Chamber seem so eager to neglect their own.
So as those drums of war echo louder than they have ever in years, I am here to remind Donald Trump that he does not have the authority to unilaterally force us into war. He may never have read the Constitution, but I have.
So let me direct his attention to article I, which makes clear that only Congress--only Congress--has the power to declare war. We are the ones tasked with deciding when and how Americans are sent into combat. We are the ones charged with that most solemn duty. Yet Trump is acting as if article I simply doesn't exist, as if obeying the Constitution is optional, as if our founding document is just a yellowing, crumbling piece of paper that he can crumble up and toss into the garbage can at will.
This should not, must not be a partisan issue. No matter if you are struggling to pay rent or if your name is plastered in fake gold on a building on Fifth Avenue, no one can ignore the Constitution, especially if you have sworn an oath to defend it. No matter if you are a Mar-a-Lago worker who is pulling down double shifts or if you are the President of the United States, no one is above the law.
Look, I believe fully that there are certain solemn and urgent times when our military must be called upon to defend us. There are certain moments when the threat in question is significant and imminent, instances when military force is the most effective tool at hand, and when using it is necessary to protect America and her interests.
The thing is, from what little information the Trump administration has shared publicly that he hasn't immediately contradicted--and sometimes in the same sentence--this was not one of those times. If the administration thinks that I am wrong and there was an imminent, reasonable, actual threat to America, then guess what. The floor is theirs.
Come to the Senate. We are just 20 minutes from the White House. It is not hard to find. It is even faster in your motorcade, Mr. President. It is not hard to find us. We are the building with the big dome on top. We are only a 20-minute walk.
Trump knows where the Capitol Building is. It is the spot he told the insurrectionists to march toward on January 6.
So, if his team actually believes that the war is justified, then they need to come to Congress and do their jobs: Explain their case and give the American people a say through their elected representatives, the Members who sit at every one of these desks in this Chamber.
They need to respect the American people enough to finally tell them why they are being forced to bear the costs of this conflict, both in dollars and cents and daughters and sons.
They need to respect our servicemembers enough to prove why war with Iran is worth having more children grow up without their moms or dads. They need to make it clear that they have thought this through and well enough that they can actually articulate what an end state with this war of choice in Iran would even look like.
When their case has been made and when the debate here in Congress is completed, then the Members of this Chamber must vote. It is our duty. Yes, it is our burden. It is the least we can do for those who are willing to sacrifice everything to safeguard this democracy.
But if the Trump administration refuses to do that--if they refuse to adhere to the Constitution--well then, it begs the question: What are you hiding? What are you hiding, Mr. President? We already know you are incompetent. What else are you hiding?
Look, we have now been at this war of choice--of Trump's choice--for a month and a half. Thousands are dead or are grieving, wounded, and suffering. Only someone as inept and unfit, someone as callous and cruel as Trump would see this as winning. Only a draft-dodging coward would think that this is the right way to engage in a war. Only a man so unqualified to be Commander in Chief would be proud to keep on risking our heroes' lives without even having a concept of a plan for how to get them back home without risking more graves at Arlington.
We can't let this chaos continue unchecked. As our troops continue to sacrifice whatever is asked of them, we Senators--we Senators--need to do the absolute minimum required of us. That is why, this week, I am calling up my War Powers Resolution, demanding that the Trump administration finally end this illegal war, and calling for some actual public oversight and accountability on behalf of the American people. It will come to the floor for a vote shortly.
So, to my Republican colleagues, you have a choice--a simple one, really. You can vote with me to end this conflict and show that you actually care about putting America first, like you claim; or you can vote to put Trump's ego first, proving that, when push comes to shove, you care more about protecting Trump's thin skin than the Constitution that you swore to defend.
At this point, it is pretty clear. Donald J. Trump will always be more interested in looking out for his own self-interest rather than truly serving America's interest.
So my question is, if any of my Republican colleagues are actually brave enough to stand up and tell Donald J. Trump--the five-time draft- dodging coward--``enough.''
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. President, I rise in support of my colleague's War Powers Resolution.
I am proud to be a cosponsor with Senator Duckworth, and I am very humbled to be here in the Chamber and listen to her--to listen to her recount her own experience as to her own vow as a Member of this body and to take the very painful lesson that she absorbed when her future was completely altered by her wartime service and put it to a positive use in trying to protect others like her.
Senator Duckworth proves a point that gets proven over and over and over again: that our military serves with distinction and bravery and that they serve with professionalism and excellence. But so often, the issue for them is the quality of the civilian decisions about whether they go to war or not. So often in my lifetime--in Vietnam and Iraq and now in Iran--that brave service was compromised--really, betrayed--by poor civilian decision making and for improper political reasons, rather than a careful assessment of what was in America's best interests.
I have been asking the question since this war began: Have we learned nothing from 25 years of war--unproductive war--in the Middle East?
It is pretty apparent to me, in having asked that question over and over again, that this administration has not.
This administration has not factored in the 14,000-plus deaths in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have not factored in the more than 65,000 American troops and contractors who were injured. They have not factored in the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. They have not factored in the fact that the U.S. military engagements did not produce a safer region. They have not factored in the $8 trillion spent during those 25 years. They have acted as if that history is now wiped away, and we can engage in a war in the Middle East without reflecting upon these lessons that are written in blood and in the precious resources of our Nation.
So I am not going to ask the question again today, ``Have we learned nothing from 25 years of war?'' because I think the answer to that, sadly, is plain.
So let me ask a different question: What have we learned in 45 days of war in Iran? What have we learned?
I would argue that we have learned at least three things: War is costly. An unwise war is deeply unpopular. Those who would make diplomacy impossible
First, war is costly.
As my colleague laid out, 13 members of our armed services--one who lived in Spotsylvania County, VA, who had purchased a home, who was within a few months of retirement and was wanting to retire to that home with his family--have died. Spouses and kids and parents and friends and brothers and sisters are mourning the losses from this unwise and illegal war.
Hundreds of our troops have been injured, and stories come out about the depth of those injuries and the lack of planning that left them exposed to the attacks that caused them to be injured. While I wish it were otherwise, it is likely that there will be more such stories.
There is also the cost in dollars. We are spending, by some estimates, between $1 billion and $2 billion a day. We are expecting to see the President, sometime soon, send over a new request for a dramatic increase in funding to fund this Iran war.
But let me talk about costs in a different way, just the cost to everyday Americans' pocketbooks.
Today is tax day. Today is tax day. President Trump is the ``taxer in chief.'' Last year, he imposed chaotic tariffs on the world's economy, right before tax day, and those tariffs cost American families a couple of thousand dollars each. With this one-man tariff war that President Trump started without having congressional authority--that was, ultimately, in significant part, struck down as illegal by the Supreme Court in February of this year--last year, right before tax day, President Trump stood up and showed by his actions that he was the ``taxer in chief.''
This year, on tax day, we are seeing Americans pay more for food, pay more for energy, and pay more for building supplies because of the actions of this President--in particular, just the price of gas at the gas pump in Virginia and nationally. The price of gas has gone up $1 a gallon since February 27, just because of President Trump's unilateral decision to take us to war.
Virginians buy 8 million gallons of gas a day. So that is $8 million Virginians are having to shell out of their pockets--that they weren't having to shell out--because Donald Trump started this war.
This is happening in Illinois. It is happening in Connecticut. It is happening in Nebraska. It is happening in every State, and it is happening all over the world. We are reading about economies that are shutting down 1 day a week. We are reading about street protests in allied nations over the cost of petroleum, all driven by this one man's deciding to take us to war.
So the first lesson from the last 45 days: War is costly.
The second lesson is, an unwise war is deeply unpopular. This war is deeply unpopular with the American public.
Most of us took the last 2 weeks of recess to travel around our States. I represent Virginia, which I believe is one of the most pro- military States in the country. I spent significant time in the Hampton Roads area, which is the center of American naval power, where we build ships and subs, and it has the biggest Navy base in the world.
I spent a lot of time with Virginians over the last 2 weeks. This war is unpopular. Virginians are deployed, and they don't know why, and they don't know when they will come home.
The USS Ford carrier, today, passes the record for the longest deployment of a carrier in American modern history. They were supposed to be home with their families before Christmas, and they are still deployed away from their families, with significant maintenance issues reducing the quality of life on that ship.
This war is unpopular. But, of course, it is unpopular. If you go to war without a clear rationale--and the President has floated five or six of them. If you go to war without a clear plan, without apparently anticipating what everyone would have anticipated with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, if you go to war without allies, if you go to war without Congress, the war will be unpopular. With no plan, no rationale, no allies, and no congressional debate, the war will be unpopular.
This was so easy to predict at the beginning. For some reason, the President thought the magic of his own personality could turn a war of choice into something that would be embraced by the American public. The American public is too smart for that.
So an unwise war is deeply unpopular. That is a lesson of the last 45 days.
Then, the last lesson, I believe, is a profound one that we have to acknowledge, and that is this: Those who make diplomacy impossible make war inevitable.
The President, the Vice President, and his U.N. Representative--even within the last 2 hours, in a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--said the war was necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. There is no intelligence that said that Iran was near getting a nuclear weapon. If what President Trump wanted was to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, then he committed one of the most egregious blunders in the history of the United States, in his first term, when he tore up a diplomatic deal that did precisely that.
The United States and our European allies and adversaries--China and Russia--engaged in a 20-month negotiation with Iran that led to an agreement. On the first page of the agreement--page 1--Iran reaffirms that it will never seek to purchase or develop any nuclear weapons. We had the agreement with Iran for no nuclear weapons. We had mechanisms of inspection. We had limitations on centrifuges and limitations on the enrichment of plutonium or uranium.
We had a diplomatic deal, and the President tore it up. The deal was working according to our allies. The deal was working according to President Trump's first Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, who urged him to stay in it.
The deal was working, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency that was investigating and inspecting Iranian facilities, but President Trump took a deal that guaranteed no nuclear weapons ever, and he tore it up. The United States doesn't walk away from diplomatic deals; other nations do that. But the President established a dangerous precedent. And many of us said to him at the time: If you tear up a diplomatic deal, you are paving the path to war. It might be soon or it might not be soon, but you are paving a path to war.
If you make diplomacy impossible, you make war inevitable, and that is exactly what Donald Trump has done. Those troops who have died, they have died because Trump tore up a diplomatic deal. The costs that are being experienced by American consumers, we are suffering those costs because Donald Trump tore up a diplomatic deal. The injuries to civilians, to schoolchildren, the injuries to American troops, those are occurring because Donald Trump tore up a diplomatic deal.
We still have a seal that is available right here on the walls of the Senate that has the eagle representing the United States and in each claw it is holding the arrows of war or the laurel branches of peace, and the seal of the United States always has the eagle looking to the laurel branches. We are supposed to prefer diplomacy first.
But Donald Trump has decided that a Department of Defense now needs to be a Department of War, and rules of engagement to protect civilians now can be dismissed and called stupid and things that we don't need to follow.
I hope this body still believes that America should prefer diplomacy first. I hope this body still believes in the United States being a values-based nation, not a bully nation. That is what this vote is about, and that is why I am so proud to join my colleague to support it, and I will continue to be on the floor with my colleagues every week until we stop an illegal and unwise war.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. President, I am here on the floor to add my support to the resolution being brought before us by Senator Duckworth. This is the third week in a row that we are having an opportunity on the Senate floor to have a short debate and a vote on the most significant military engagement
We are now a month and a half into this bungled, mismanaged war, and we have yet to have a single hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the Senate Armed Services Committee on this war, on this military operation.
In the absence of these privileged motions that we are bringing-- thankful to Senator Duckworth for bringing one this week--we would have no debate, no vote on the floor on the authorization of war, maybe the most sacred charge we are given as U.S. Senators.
We should not normalize that. We should not fail to note how extraordinary it is that our Senate Republican leadership has declined to do any oversight of a war that is costing billions of dollars every week, that has already led to the loss of over a dozen American lives, that has erupted a regional war throughout the Middle East and is literally melting down economies all over the world, especially in the developing world--not a single hearing--not a single hearing--in the U.S. Senate. Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hegseth have not come to the Senate to explain what their plan is, what their strategy is, what their endgame is.
And I think we know the answer. They simply can't explain what is happening. They can't articulate a strategy. They are not ready to answer questions from Democrats or from Republicans who, I think, increasingly are starting to scratch their heads about how on earth this is in the U.S. national security interest.
Very quickly, because I know we have a number of other colleagues who want to speak, let me just talk about what has happened since we last had an opportunity to vote.
First, the impact on the U.S. economy is getting more acute. There are more and more Americans who are unable to make their lives work because we have seen a 30-percent increase in gas prices since this war began. Farmers have seen a 35-percent increase in fertilizer, a 50- percent increase in diesel costs.
That increase in agricultural costs is going to almost immediately spill over into big increases at the grocery store. And so amidst high inflation, you are now going to see costs just become prohibitive for a lot of American families--a 30-percent higher gasoline cost simply because of this war of choice.
And agricultural economy, which was already in crisis--60 percent of farmers had already said that they were in a worse financial shape this year, prior to the war, than when President Trump came into office--now that gets even worse.
What is the impact on our national security? Well, the President has said that there are a bunch of different meandering explanations and objectives for this war. He said that we want to destroy their missile program. Well, what have we found out in the last 2 weeks? We have found out that we have come nowhere close to destroying their missile program. In fact, they still likely have the majority of their missiles. And during the cease-fire, Iran has used that time to rehabilitate and rescue many of the missiles and the launchers that were buried in rubble. China stands ready, as soon as the bombing fully ceases, to help them immediately rebuild their missile program. There is no way this campaign is going to eliminate their missile program.
Just the same, we were told that part of the objective of this war was to eliminate their nuclear program. And yet, a month and a half later, they still have all of their enriched uranium. We have not destroyed Iran's knowledge of how to produce nuclear weapons out of existence because neither are possible through a bombing campaign alone.
Sometimes regime change is an objective; sometimes it isn't. The President said: Well, we were gone last week. In fact, we have already achieved regime change. Well, technically, there is a new Ayatollah, but there is absolutely no evidence that this new Ayatollah, that this new crowd of elite leadership--mainly coming out of the hard-line IRGC--is any less provocative, any less dangerous, any less adversarial to U.S. interests. In fact, the opposite is probably true. A doddering 90-year-old Ayatollah was replaced by a group of leaders that are likely much more fanatical and probably much more effective in their aims to try to attack U.S. interests there and around the world.
Of course, one of our objectives is a new objective, the objective to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait was open before this war began; it is now closed. It is unclear whether President Trump knew that they would close the strait and just threw up his hands, didn't care about the impact on the U.S. economy or whether he didn't know--which would be egregious in and of itself--and was shocked to find out that Iran would close the strait.
We are now a month and a half into this war. The strait is still closed. The President is trying to reopen the Strait by blockading it, which is a very strange strategy, one that, in day two of this new plan, does not seem to be succeeding.
Finally, what is the impact on the world? And I just want to touch on this very shortly. A new war is erupting in the Middle East; Hezbollah was empowered by the attacks; and there is a prospect of a massive new ground invasion of Lebanon from Israel. Already, hundreds have died in that conflict. Last weekend, you likely saw images of just vicious bombings of what looked to be civilian infrastructure happening inside Lebanon. But a new war in the Middle East between Israel and Lebanon, in which thousands will likely die, in which millions will be displaced, that is horrible for U.S. interests, for our allies' interests. The region is exploding in violence.
But even more cataclysmic in its scope is what is happening to developing nations. Developing nations' economies are literally melting down right now because a 30-percent increase in fuel costs for a short period of time is something that wouldn't tank the entirety of the American economy, even though it does great damage to individual families. But in nations where a short-term fuel shortage or a 30- percent immediate spike is something that a government or a very poor population cannot manage has caused a lot of these countries' economies to simply melt down. These governments are now closing their public operations. Universities in some developing nations are permanently closed because they can't afford to keep the lights on.
There is a rolling disaster happening throughout the world because of these energy price increases that have been designed, manufactured, by Donald Trump. So it is not just that the Middle East is exploding; it is not just that we aren't meeting any of our objectives in Iran; it is not just that American consumers are being harmed--there are billions-- billions--of poor people all around the world whose lives are more miserable, whose lives are slipping into greater chaos because of this war.
So we will be down on this floor week after week, every single week, to force at least a short debate, to force a vote. And my hope is that at some point our Republican colleagues, besides one, choose to join us.
It is OK for you to support President Trump, generally and politically, and admit that this war was a massive mistake. We did that when there were Democratic Presidents in office. President Obama helped participate in a war in the Middle East, helping the Saudis be involved in a conflict in Yemen. Many of us thought that was a mistake. We came to the floor and opposed President Obama. We actually filed resolutions making it harder for President Obama to fuel that war.
So I hope, at some point, our Republican colleagues decide they can choose to just say what is clear and obvious--this war was a mistake; it should end as quickly as possible--and not believe that this is somehow incommensurate with their broader political support for the President.
You can, as a U.S. Senator, occasionally stand up to the leader of your party if it is a matter of right and wrong. I believe this is a matter of right and wrong. Maybe it won't be in today's vote, but hopefully in one of the votes we will continue to have, we can have some bipartisan agreement that this war needs to end.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. President, first, I want to salute Senator Duckworth for bringing this critical issue to the floor so that the American people can hear
Thank you, Senator.
I rise today to discuss the war in Iran. Forty-six days ago, President Trump unilaterally launched this war. He declined to make his case before the American people. He refused to consult Congress. He failed to present evidence of an imminent threat, and he ignored his advisers, who warned him about the peril of such an operation.
President Trump believed he alone had the judgment to engage our Nation in a major conflict, and he alone had the ability to secure a quick, complete victory.
After more than 6 weeks of war, what has the President accomplished? Thirteen American servicemembers have tragically lost their lives. More than 300 have been wounded. Thousands of civilians across the Middle East have been killed and injured, and hundreds of thousands displaced. The United States has lost dozens of aircraft, sustained significant damage to our bases, and burned through an alarming amount of our missile inventory and other munitions.
Global oil prices have surged more than 45 percent, and the cost of gasoline and household goods in our communities have risen significantly. American families are bearing the cost of a war they wanted nothing to do with and have gained nothing from.
In sum, the President took a difficult status quo and somehow managed to make it far worse.
On February 27, the Strait of Hormuz was open to maritime traffic. American farmers could count on fertilizer shipments. Our high-tech chip makers, in whom we have invested billions of dollars, could count on helium deliveries.
Today, the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Incredibly, it is now President Trump who is blockading the strait, rather than Iranians. This is a bizarre and incoherent strategy. A blockade will push prices even higher, with ripple effects on food, fuel, and consumer goods across this country--indeed across the world.
Additionally, Iran has demonstrated that it responds to military pressure with defiance, not concession. This blockade is unlikely to change Iran's negotiating position, and I worry it will do nothing more than place our servicemembers in greater danger.
Only under President Trump's chaotic tenure would a month and a half of fighting result in the United States being in a weaker strategic position than before the war began. Here are the facts. Iran still retains its nuclear program. Its ballistic missile capabilities and drone arsenal, although diminished, still pose a threat. Moreover, the regime has learned it can effectively control the Strait of Hormuz when it chooses. President Trump has badly damaged America's standing with our allies, emboldened our adversaries, and lost any moral authority he had on the international stage. The American people, including many of his own supporters, strongly disapprove of this war.
At this stage, we must ask: What comes next?
The President has shown he will not listen to military and regional experts and is uninterested in earning the support of the American people.
While that is a decision he can make, if he is unconstrained by anything other than his ``own morality,'' then Congress has a duty to constrain him through the powers we hold as the constitutional check and balance on the President.
Congress controls the purse. Congress declares war and ratifies treaties. Congress represents--and answers to--the American people. It is long past time for Republicans to stop avoiding their constitutional duties and start reining in the President's ability to unilaterally wage war. At a bare minimum, it is long past time they hold public hearings with Cabinet officials to provide accountability for the American people.
Now, I am relieved that the cease-fire appears to be holding for the moment. The administration should use this time wisely and immediately return to negotiating a diplomatic agreement. That means engaging in serious, structured conversation with Iran to address nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, their proxy activity, but also the sanctions that are in place and the security guarantees that the Iranians will demand.
It also means taking a realistic approach to opening the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians have a complex, layered network of sea mines, fast attack boats, air and sea drones, missiles, and hidden launch sites in the cliffs around the strait that provide them with many effective options to threaten ships in the passage. Even if the United States cleared the strait of mines and began escorting commercial ships with our own Navy vessels, militarily suppressing and defeating Iran's ambush network is not a sustainable long-term option. A diplomatic arrangement is the only real answer. And I must say that to achieve this diplomatic arrangement, the President needs and should announce a group of experts--not real estate developers and golfing buddies--to go over there. This is not going to be settled by the friends of the President cutting a deal.
It took us almost 2 years and complicated discussions about nuclear policy, nuclear objectives, et cetera, to get the JCPOA. It is going to take us a while to settle this issue, too, and we can't settle it with a casual group negotiating on a weekend.
The President said he was shocked that Iran closed the strait and bombarded gulf nations in response to his attack. That is rather astounding because everyone with a modest knowledge of the Iranian regime was not particularly shocked. Indeed, the course of this war was entirely predictable. Generations of American military and political experts have examined the Iran problem and repeatedly reached the same conclusion: War with Iran would not achieve our goal.
Indeed, President Trump was given the same warning by his advisers. According to press reports, Gen. Dan Caine the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs warned the President of becoming entangled in a prolonged conflict and expressed concerns about U.S. casualties and the difficulty caused by a lack of allies. General Caine also raised the possibility that Iran would block the Strait of Hormuz, stating it was long believed Iran would deploy mines, drones, and missiles to close the world's most vital shipping lane.
A separate intelligence official reportedly emphasized, in his words:
The President ignored the advice and decades of historical lessons and attacked anyway.
At this juncture, the administration has realized that the Iranians are not going to capitulate and that the difficult work of diplomacy cannot be wrapped up in a mere 21 hours of negotiation. Facing this reality, the President has several options.
First, the President could simply declare victory, as he has done so often, and leave the region without a deal. But what would he leave behind? A battered Iran with more antagonistic and radical leaders who may have concluded the only way to avoid future attacks is to acquire a nuclear weapon. With hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium on hand, that possibility is very real--and could be accelerated with Russian, Chinese, or North Korean assistance.
Second, the President could launch new military strikes to try to force the regime to surrender. However, this would inevitably result in renewed attacks against our forces in the region and a prolonged closure of the strait. And as I mentioned earlier, the regime has already demonstrated that its threshold for pain is high and its regard for its people is low. An extended military campaign would not change the Iranians' negotiating demands.
Now I would propose a third route. The President can resurrect serious negotiations with Iran across the full range of issues dividing our two nations. The agenda must be broad enough for both sides to claim benefit. That is the only way you get to a deal, and we hope ``The Art of the Deal'' is present in this situation.
The United States must address nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and malign proxy activity, and Iran will seek guarantees against further military operations, sanctions relief, and other assurances.
President Trump was foolish, in my view--and reflecting Senator Kaine--to
But there is an additional obstacle to peace that must be addressed: Prime Minister Netanyahu. Prime Minister Netanyahu has spent the better part of 30 years gathering support for what he believed to be an inevitable confrontation with Iran. His personal and political fortunes are entirely aligned with the continuation of this war. As he faces an election and a criminal trial, he is using the war as personal and political armor. Unless Trump is willing to force Netanyahu to stand down, Israel will continue operations regardless of what America does.
Mr. President, this war was ill-conceived, I oppose it, and if it is still ongoing after 60 days, I will vote against an authorization of military force to continue it. I am proud to be here today in support of Senator Duckworth's proposal. From day one, Trump lacked any clear objectives and realistic views of the consequences, but peace can be accomplished. The path forward requires honesty from President Trump about what military force can and cannot achieve, the discipline to negotiate seriously, and the courage to lead our allies rather than alienate them.
Unfortunately, this President, I believe, cannot be trusted to chart this path. He has shown an intractable instinct for destruction first and diplomacy last. He will never secure a peaceful conclusion to this conflict as long as Congress allows President Trump to wage war whenever and however he sees fit. Yes, we have to stand up and be true to the oath we all took: to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this War Powers Resolution. I urge them to choose the path of peace before the costs of President Trump's war become irreversible.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. President, I rise today because I had conversations with a woman in New Jersey recently that I just can't get out of my head. I was in Atlantic City talking with a woman there about how she felt things were going in our country and for her and her family. What she said really stuck with me, seared into my mind. She said that with everything going on right now--this war and rising costs--she felt like she was ``drowning.'' That was the word she used--``drowning.''
That is the impact this war is having on the American people. And when someone is drowning, you don't just stand by and wait; you don't hesitate; you don't wait for somebody else to act; you act with urgency, swiftly and decisively.
That is what we are trying to do here right now. We are acting by bringing up another War Powers Resolution to bring an end to this war and give the American people the relief they need.
I know the Trump administration and Republicans here in Congress think that this war is going just fine. Depending on what day it is, Trump either is saying the war is over or threatening to escalate it. That is the problem. We are engaged in a war without a clear mission, without taking negotiations to end the war seriously, and without the consultation or buy-in of the American people.
It is a war this administration seems to think can go on almost indefinitely. They don't care about the consequences; they are simply posting their way through it on social media.
What we have seen from Republicans here in Congress isn't any better. A month and a half into this war, and we have not had a single hearing--a month and a half in.
By the way, we haven't had a hearing at all about what happened in Venezuela either.
Every one of our offices gets a flood of calls every day from people tired of this war, people who can't afford this war, who can't afford to pay for the decisions that this President made, and the Republicans in Congress have stood by and watched like bystanders.
Donald Trump, this administration, this Republican Congress--they have all just stood by and watched as the American people feel like they are drowning. If anything, they are making that feeling of extreme anxiety worse. That anxiety is driving our urgency to act.
There were a number of reasons why the woman I talked to was feeling that stress and anxiety, and one of them was gas prices. Gas prices were below $3 a gallon in February. In New Jersey, the average price is a little more than $4 a gallon right now, but it is so much higher in some of the biggest population centers. You go around the country, and you can find gas for $5, even $6 a gallon right now. If you are a working parent and you have to put gas in the tank every single week to get the kids to school and yourself to work, you are paying significantly more at the pump.
Ending this war is an urgent matter. It is not just gas for our cars that is driving this urgency. Look at the price of diesel. The average price of diesel--what a lot of trucks that transport goods run on--was $3.72 in February. It is more than $5.80 in New Jersey right now according to AAA. That means everything you buy, from meat and eggs to coffee and clothes, is getting more expensive because the cost of shipping it costs more than $2 more per gallon than before.
If you are a working family looking at your bills and wondering how you are going to make ends meet, ending this war is an urgent matter.
Another concern I have heard from so many is the unhinged way that this President has been acting during this war. Threatening to destroy a civilization--that is not American; that is not what we do; that is not who we are.
I am proud to represent tens of thousands of servicemembers in New Jersey, hundreds of thousands of veterans, people who are obeying the law, people who are abiding by the principles of our country. But this Commander in Chief is threatening to change that.
When the American people see a President threatening what would be war crimes in America's name, it sends a shock through our consciousness; it sends a clear signal that ending this war is an urgent matter. That is why we are doing what we are doing right now-- because the American people can't wait for this President to act like a responsible Commander in Chief. They can't wait for this Republican Congress to wake up. They need relief, they need it now, and they deserve it now.
I can't go back to that woman in Atlantic City and tell her that she should wait, that we can address her concerns later.
I urge my colleagues to think about the people back home who need help now and the power we have with this vote to deliver it for them. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution by Senator Duckworth-- someone who knows better than any of us the toll that war takes and the urgency needed to stand up for our neighbors.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from New Jersey for his powerful words, and I, too, rise in support of this War Powers Resolution put forward by our colleague Senator Duckworth, who knows a thing or two about the costs of war.
This is a resolution to halt President Trump's unjustified, illegal war against Iran--a war that the overwhelming majority of American people want to see end; a war that this Congress never authorized and where we have never had a hearing from a Trump administration decisionmaker about the war; a war that was started by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu that has made us less--not more--safe; and a war that has made us much worse off, not better off.
We have lost 13 American servicemembers. Hundreds more have been wounded. Thousands of civilians, innocent civilians, have been killed throughout the region.
And the sacrifice of our servicemembers deserves more respect than the President casually remarking that ``[s]adly, there will likely be more. . . . That's the way it is.'' That is what President Trump said.
Well, that is not the way it is, and it is not the way it should be, and it is not the way an American President should talk about our troops. We must not and cannot normalize President Trump's reckless actions that have brought us to this point.
The costs of this war are mounting. We just saw it today: The President intends to send thousands more troops to the Middle East-- 6,000 as part of a naval deployment and thousands more to come later.
This war has already cost us, in addition to lives, $52 billion--$52 billion--and another billion dollars every day from the American taxpayers. On top of that, on top of what taxpayers will be shelling out, we are seeing Americans struggle with rising prices: gas prices, oil prices. Of course, when you have rising gas and oil prices, it drives up prices on everything else, like fertilizers that our farmers need as we go into the season of growing. And all this coming from the President who promised that he would focus on lowering prices and ending wars. He promised the American people he would be ``a peacemaker,'' and he is a warmonger. He lied, and because of his lies, people are dying.
Now the President wants to put even more lives at risk to open the Strait of Hormuz. We should all remind our fellow Americans that the Strait of Hormuz was open before the President started this war. It was open before the President started this war, and now the President's main goal is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The President also said the other day that we achieved regime change. He just didn't tell the American people that when he knocked off some of the top Iranian leaders--the ayatollahs--they were replaced by an even more militant and even more radical regime. That is the President's definition of ``regime change.''
Now, the President likes to claim periodically that we won. In fact, more than 3 weeks ago, the President of the United States said ``We won,'' the United States won. He said that a few days ago. The President said ``We won.''
My question for my Republican colleagues is, If we won, what the hell are we still doing there? If we won, why are we still there? Why are we still putting American lives at risk? Why are we spending a billion dollars of taxpayer money a day if we won?
Well, we didn't win. And it is impossible to measure how you win because the President never set forth clear rationales for this war because there wasn't really one to be had. And certainly they have advanced no endgame, like what does it mean for him to win the war that he already said that he won.
So we know from the President's own words that there is no clear endgame here, and it is clear every day that this war is not in the interests of the American people.
Now, we have seen from President Trump not strength or leadership. What we have seen is recklessness. Now we in the Senate should apply some brakes and accountability. We have seen a President threatening massive war crimes in the name of the American people, threatening to end a civilization.
Colleagues, this is a time for sober and serious American leadership, and Donald Trump is not a serious leader.
In addition to threatening to end a civilization, he has attacked the Pope because the Pope seeks peace. He has posted an image of himself as Jesus Christ. This is the man in the White House who is running this war. He is putting American lives at risk and endangering people throughout the world, and he is simply not fit to be Commander in Chief.
So all of this without the consent of the American people. That is where Congress is supposed to come in.
So when the Presiding Officer is looking at a President of the United States who is so unhinged, how is it that we can only find one Republican Senator, Senator Rand Paul--how is it that we can only find one to stand up for the Constitution and against this President who clearly is not following the will of the American people, a President who took us into an illegal war that is making us less safe and worse off? That is our job. That is our job, and this Senate keeps ducking its responsibility.
This resolution put forward by Senator Duckworth is another opportunity for our Republican colleagues to show that they are going to exercise their responsibilities under the Constitution of the United States. We will keep offering War Powers Resolutions so the American people know that we are working every day to end this war which they want to see come to a close. Maybe we can begin that process today.
I thank Senator Duckworth for offering this resolution and really urge my colleagues to search their souls and talk to their constituents and vote yes.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled vote: Senator Schiff for up to 10 minutes, Senator Risch for up to 5 minutes, Senator Duckworth for up to 3 minutes, and Senator Schumer for up to 2 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, I rise today to stand with the American people, who are demanding that we bring an end to President Trump's war in Iran.
It has been over a month since President Trump made the decision to take us to war, and I would like to take a moment to reflect on what this illegal war has achieved and what it has cost.
President Trump's war has delivered higher costs for Americans at the pump, and it has jacked up the cost of fertilizer and fuel for Wisconsin farmers. As Americans struggle to afford basic necessities, the Trump administration has spent tens of billions of dollars on a war that Americans did not ask for. We have lost 13 servicemembers, with hundreds of others injured. Thousands of civilians have been killed, including dozens of schoolgirls by an errant U.S. missile. President Trump has eased sanctions on Russia and shown Iran how to profit from blocking the Strait of Hormuz. The same oppressive regime remains in place, Iran still controls its enriched uranium, and the United States is no closer to a guarantee that Iran will not pursue a nuclear weapon.
In short, President Trump's war of choice has accomplished next to nothing at a tremendous cost to the American people, and still Donald Trump has been unable or unwilling to offer a coherent reason for why we are at war.
The American people are looking to Congress to do something. The people's branch is supposed to be a check on this President. We need to stand up on behalf of our constituents, who do not like this war and who want it to end. Americans know the cost of this war. They are the ones who are paying for it.
My Republican colleagues have a choice: Do your job, stand up to this President, and send a clear message to Americans by ending this war today, or live with the consequences as more civilians are killed, more servicemembers are put in harm's way, and more American families struggle to make ends meet. The choice is yours.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. President, we are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and we have already, tragically, lost 13 servicemembers, including one--CW3 Robert Marzan--from my home State of California.
We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and more than 200 servicemembers have been injured, some very seriously.
We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and we have already had two American pilots shot down over Iran, necessitating a rescue under extremely dangerous conditions--a heroic rescue, a daring rescue, and one that was only possible because we have the most capable Special Forces in the world but a rescue mission that we must all acknowledge put an incredible number of our servicemembers at grave risk and could have easily gone wrong.
We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and we have squandered tens of billions of dollars that could have been used to build hospitals and affordable housing, to build childcare centers and senior centers, at a time when the President says we can't afford daycare or Medicare or Medicaid.
We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and Americans are paying astronomical prices at the gas pump, at the grocery store, on their utility bills and medical bills, but the
We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and the President has offered no proposal to even authorize the use of force in Iran, nor have Republicans demanded one. We have not had a single open hearing on the war, nor have Republicans called for one. The case for the war in Iran has never been made, will never be made, and my colleagues will not put the matter to a vote for fear they will lose that vote or be held accountable for it.
How long can this go on? And the short, terrible answer is: for a very long time. It is beginning to have all of the telltale signs of a quagmire.
For this war had no clear purpose. It had no well-defined goal. It had no strategic plan. Its rationale has shifted endlessly with the wind and the whims of the President. It has vacillated between being about regime change and then not about regime change, about missiles and then not about missiles, about oil and then not about oil, about Iran's nuclear threat and then not about its nuclear threat since the President had said the Iran nuclear program had been obliterated a year earlier.
Ironically, the administration's nuclear endgame now sounds a lot like the JCPOA, the much-maligned agreement that Trump tore up and now seems reconciled to embrace--the JCPOA or something like it.
Iran had blockaded the Strait of Hormuz sending oil prices skyrocketing, and now the Vice President says: Two can play at that game. So we are in the blockade business too.
How does that help the American family that can't afford to fill up the car, the trucker put out of work, or the farmer with no fertilizer?
The simple truth is that this administration has no idea how or when this war will end. It is hard to end a war when you are not clear on why you began it.
We can only be certain of one thing: at some point the President will claim victory. But what kind of victory will it be? One in which Iran for the first time can demand tolls from ships passing through Hormuz? One in which the regime has survived--and empowered and embittered--is even worse with more crackdowns on the Iranian people, even less tolerant of dissent, or worse still, with a fervent desire to break out and build a bomb? One in which we suffer persistent and higher gas prices because of long-term damage that has been done to gulf oil and gas infrastructure? One in which Russia is richer and will be richer for the foreseeable future from the higher oil prices it can charge so that it can better fund its war with Ukraine?
Is this the victory that Trump will declare? One for which we have paid dearly in blood and treasure? One for which we will have cut healthcare by $200 billion more for defense to replenish the stocks of the weapons that he has used?
Does that sound like victory? Does that feel like victory?
In 1984 at the height of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan said this, he said:
Sadly, the lessons of that history have come to pass, and they have come to pass in the form of a President who now too often sees aggression as cheap as he has launched not one, but two wars against Iran, as he has launched unilateral strikes in South America and Africa, as he has overseen a war on vessels in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, as he has blockaded Cuba and threatens to ``take it'' along with Greenland.
To Donald Trump, war has become easy. It has become a kind of default. And as a result, he has become the President he promised he would never be. Far from his promise to end wars, he is now the President determined to start them--and lots of them.
The Founding Fathers warned us of a man like this, a President grown too fond of war, seduced by the quick success of the apprehension of Maduro and Venezuela and of the access to another country's oil, that such an operation begat, he was induced to make war against Iran.
But Iran is not Venezuela, and the son of the Ayatollah is no Delcy Rodriguez, not another pliant regime figure to be easily manipulated.
In the same speech, Reagan also said this:
This is peace through strength, his most famous mantra in foreign policy.
Well, what is the strength of our alliances now? The President has turned our back on the security pacts that Reagan championed, like NATO. He has failed to consult with our allies before embarking on this war of choice and claimed we didn't need allies, and then complained when our allies did not come to our assistance in reopening a strait that previously had been opened, but now was closed.
The President has undermined our credibility with friend and foe alike as he threatens to end a civilization or to commit war crimes or as he has ordered military strikes while talks were ongoing or as ``two more weeks'' becomes--well, becomes a kind of punch line.
And what have we taught Iran the ostensible aggressor in Ronald Regan's formulation? Have we taught Iran that war can bring no benefit, or is Iran now convinced it can bring the world economy to its knees and impose its will by imposing fees on passage through the Strait of Hormuz? Does it believe that while the U.S. military can pound its navy and missile sites, it can still strike U.S. targets and our partners in the region with rockets and drones? Does it believe it has an asymmetric advantage over the United States because drones and missiles are cheap and interceptors are expensive?
Ronald Reagan will be right, that we have convinced the aggressor that war can bring no advantage, only disaster if, in fact, it is we who are the aggressors.
This war should never have begun, and it is long past time for the U.S. Congress to put an end to it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to oppose the resolution we are going to vote on here in just a little bit. I think this is the--I don't know how many times I have been here on this--but this is the same old, same old again.
The resolution isn't very long. It is a few pages long, and really, the operative language is very short.
It says:
That is all it says. It says: President Trump, put your tail between your legs and run. That is what this resolution says.
Now, let me tell you where we are. First of all, I want to talk to Iran. Iran: Nobody is coming to help you, not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the North Koreans, not Venezuela, not Cuba. Nobody is coming to help you, Iran, except for the 47 people over here.
The 47 people on this side of the room are trying to direct the President of the United States who is defending the United States--they are trying to direct him to remove the Armed Forces that we have--our brave, young men and women who are engaged in these hostilities--they are trying to remove them from these hostilities. These 47 people. Nobody else in the world.
So to them I say: The President of the United States has not only the right to do this--I know you claim he doesn't--but he has the right to do this. Not only does he have the right to do this, he has the duty to do this. He took an oath to defend the people of the United States of America.
How did we get here? Forty-seven years ago, Iran started this conflict. We did not. We did not start a war with Iran. We don't want a war with Iran. But we have to defend ourselves. Forty-seven years ago, they took over our embassy in Tehran and held all of our United States, American people who were employed in that embassy for 444 days.
Finally, Ronald Reagan was elected President. We got them out. But since that time, Iran has killed thousands--not hundreds--thousands of Americans wherever they can find them. They do it with all kinds of methods including IEDs, which are deadly.
Fortunately, President Trump in Trump 1 took out General Soleimani
The President of the United States is defending the United States of America. You can pass all the resolutions you want. This President is going to defend this country.
Now, I know you say it is illegal. If, indeed, it is illegal as you claim it is, you are in the wrong room. You ought to be in the room across the street in the U.S. Supreme Court, because if it is illegal, you should sue him and you should stop it. You are not doing it because you know you are going to lose that case.
The President of the United States under article II of the Constitution gives the President the authority. He is doing it. This is not going to be a forever war. Indeed, if anything, it is ending what seems like has been a forever conflict with Iran.
Mr. President, you are doing the right thing. You have done a great job thus far. This is going to end fairly quickly. Keep up the good work.
My friends on this side of the aisle, vote to oppose this resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. President, I just listened to my colleague on the other side of the aisle who raised concerns about my War Powers Resolution, and I am disappointed--but not in any way surprised--that they continue to carry the President's water on this war.
I would welcome the chairman of Senate Committee on Foreign Relations scheduling oversight hearings for Secretary Rubio. I mean, as a former member of the committee, the Secretary should be used to testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
He should schedule them because we and the American people are owed actual answers on this administration's conduct, planning, and diplomacy during this war of their own making.
And right now, American servicemembers are already in harm's way 6,000 miles east. These troops are ready to do their jobs no matter the risk or the sacrifice required of them, just as our brave American troops have always done time after time and tour after tour.
So to me, it is tragic that even as they continue to do their duties, our President and Members of Congress from the Republican side of the aisle seem so ready to neglect their own duties.
I want a democratic Iran. I want to see its people free from the iron grip of its brutal authoritarian regime, and I am not about to shed a tear for the previous Ayatollah's death. But that does not mean we should not be gravely concerned by the consequences of Trump's actions in his war of choice.
Look, I know there are solemn and urgent times when our military must be called upon to defend us. To determine when that is, there are four questions we should be asking. No. 1, is the threat significant? No. 2, is the threat imminent? No. 3, is the military the most effective tool for the goal at hand and that there are no other tools that can do the job? And No. 4, would the military be counterproductive to its most solemn mission of protecting America?
With this unconstitutional, unjustified, and unwanted regime-change war in the Middle East, Trump has traded deterrence for instability and chaos and made all of us less safe in the process. It is time for us to rein him in.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. President, first, I want to thank my colleagues--my colleague from Illinois, who has done such a good job and knows all about what our veterans go through in the horrors of war; my colleague Tim Kaine, who has been so involved in this issue of War Powers Resolutions for decades--or a decade--and so many others of us who are introducing resolutions on this issue.
Now, Republicans have voted against this resolution three times now. But as the war drags on for 47 days, with no end in sight, they should join us today on this resolution to end this war once and for all.
With gas costs costing over $4 a gallon, with inflation climbing, with mortgage rates going up, the American people literally cannot afford for Republicans to forego another opportunity to work with Democrats to end Trump's disastrous war, at long last.
Congress cannot simply sit on the sidelines while our brave servicemembers are risking their lives on the frontlines. The stakes are too high, and the risks are too great for Republicans to stay silent.
I urge my Republican colleagues to listen to the majority of Americans who are calling for an end to Trump's wanton war of choice. We still don't know the goals. We still don't know the costs. We still don't know the length of time.
There are so many unanswered questions on the most important issue that this Senate can face, which is whether to go to war, and then total silence from the other side--not a single hearing, not a single discussion on this.
Well, I am going to tell my Republican colleagues: They are not going to be able to escape continuing to vote on this. Until our Republican colleagues join us, we will continue forcing a vote on our War Powers Resolution, week after week after week.
This is an American issue, not a partisan one. This is one of the worst forays America has ever made, with so much damage that is going to be lasting.
And so I urge my colleagues to do what they know is the right thing and join us in voting for Senator Duckworth's resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to discharge.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Justice).
The result was announced--yeas 47, nays 52, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. President, I am back again talking about something that is very, very important to everybody in the United States of America. There should be alarms going off about what is happening. I know we have a lot of bad things happening all over the world. We are in conflicts. We are in situations where we are trying to control our own destiny when we are not getting a lot of help from a lot of people that we should be counting on.
But let's talk about the United States of America for a second. Let's talk about our farmers. Our farmers are in trouble. We better wake up and smell the roses because what is happening in this country should be a crime. We have lost, just in the last few years, 150,000 farms and over 25,000 farmers--150,000. And we take pride in what we do in this country. We do everything as first class as we possibly
Nobody is listening. Nobody is out there pounding on all of our doors saying, ``We need help,'' other than the ones right now that are in desperate and dire need.
Again, we have a lot of problems. But you think we have problems. We start and continue to lose these farmers that we have in this country, and we continue to eat the trash that is sent in from these foreign countries, we are going to have many, many more problems.
It is a big deal because there is not one State in this country that doesn't deal in farming in some capacity--not one State. We are all involved in it. We all have skin in the game.
Agriculture is the backbone of who we are and what we are. And if we are going to continue to be the place that everybody wants to move to, to be a part of, and not a Third World country like a lot of these places that we are allowing to ship food in from, we better wake up.
You know, for some reason, the past administration either didn't understand the importance of agriculture or our farmers or, to put it bluntly, they really didn't even give a damn about it, to be honest with you. Instead, they were focused on outsourcing our food, our lumber, our fish. Anything to do with farming or agriculture, we, for some reason, were turning over everything to people outside our country. And the people that are the cream of the crop, that are true Americans in this country, are our people in agriculture.
You would think that we would have learned a thing or two back during COVID. I can remember standing up here back in the early part of COVID, back in--what was it--2020 and talking about how in the world have we allowed this country to outsource everything that we do medically? Because when we looked up and COVID was rampant, we were looking around for masks, we were looking around for drugs, looking around for things that save people lives. And guess what. We don't make any of that stuff anymore. We outsourced it all. Now we are doing the same thing to farmers.
You know, it is very dangerous to be reliant on countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Brazil, all these people that are either socialists or communist countries. We can't continue to do this. We can't do it.
We built this country on hard work and effort and not by handouts and not by cheap things that we buy to keep this country going, such as what is coming from China or some of these Third World countries.
One thing that we need to be doing to help our farmers is we need to be tariffing the heck out of these countries that are sending in food that is taking over our grocery stores and our restaurants that they say is great food, it is reliable, it is best in the world, when it is nothing but trash. That is all it is, is total trash. For some reason, because we think that the price is a little bit better, we are getting involved in that--in terms of our grocery stores and our restaurants-- and we are serving things that we shouldn't be serving and it is causing a lot more problems.
You know, we have got the best food safety programs and standards in this country by far. We have got to know where it was raised. We have to know what has been sprayed on the food or where the fish was caught. All the things that go along with food safety go along with farming.
You know, over the past decades--past few decades, the beef-packing industry has shrunk to the point that there are only a few plants processing the majority of our Nation's cattle today, and that is beyond stupid--really, it is. Think of what we have done. We have outsourced most of our food processing, especially when it comes to beef, to these gigantic processing companies that, by the way, are owned--two of them--by foreign entities.
President Trump did an Executive order to try to get to the bottom of what these foreign-owned meatpacking companies were doing because their prices were going so high. They were price-fixing. And what do you think is going to happen when you run into a situation where you allow people to control the market?
Think about it. These foreign entities are controlling America's meat supply at the expense of American farmers and their families--people that work hard, like all of us in this country--not to mention that the consolidation of these few processors has threatened Americans' food supply.
You know, in 1980, these foreign processors controlled about 36 percent of the beef market. Think about that. In 1980, they controlled 36 percent of the beef market. Now, today, these processing plants--two of which are foreign-owned--control 85 percent of the U.S. beef- processing market, and we are asking for huge problems.
I am not a mathematician, but I know that those numbers mean that our American-owned small meat processors have been pushed out of business, and that is what they have done. That is how they do it. They try to control everything, so they put in these four meatpacking processing plants across this country, they control it all, and the little guys are gone.
And this country was built on small businesses, small farms-- everything that produced good product for U.S. citizens. That is how we were raised. That is how we were brought up.
We need to open up competition and find ways to support American meat-processing plants. We have got to do it. We have to do it. I mean, that is the job of our Agriculture Department. They have started working on that, started trying to open up more to see what we can do. But we cannot continue to allow four meatpacking processing plants to control everything that we do when it comes to beef.
You know, when I was growing up, it was common to see ``Made in America'' labels on everything at the store. ``Made in America.'' We were all proud of it. Now, it is rare. Most of the labels we see are ``Made in China'' or ``Made in India.'' I want to challenge everybody: When you go in the store and you think that this product is made in America, all you have to do is look at the box or the can or whatever. You will be very, very surprised where that product is made. Very surprised. And most of the time, it is not going to be made in the good old U.S.A., and it is hurting our American farmers. It is hurting us bad.
They can put a name on it, they can put a label on it, but that doesn't mean a hill of beans. Unless it says ``Made in America,'' we are selling our country out, we are selling our farmers out--people that have built this country.
In addition to growing our own food and producing our own medicine, we need to be using our own cotton. I want you to think about this: Our cotton farmers are broke. They have had three bad years, and it is getting worse and worse every year.
Now, this is planting season. They are putting all the cotton in the ground. They are putting fertilizer. They have got all these people out there working these tractors and machines worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that they use to plant this cotton. And if you look at it at the end of the day, the cost of putting this cotton in the ground is far and above the amount of money that they will receive when they sell this cotton.
Used to, that didn't happen. Used to, we were not challenged as much. But what have we done? We have allowed foreign countries to do everything they possibly can to outgrow and do things at a rate faster than us, and then we are allowing all this cotton to come in from other countries. Brazil is one.
And, again, if we continue to allow Brazil--without tariffing these people and let them know: Hey, if you are going to send your cotton in here, we are going to have a tough time, and we are going to lose our farmers so we are going to start tariffing your cotton and put a pricetag on it when it comes to this country.
We do not owe Brazil one thing. Our farmers don't owe them anything. We owe our farmers in this country. You know, in my State of Alabama, we are one of the top cotton producers in the country, and we bring in more than $400 million of revenue every year to the State of Alabama. You know, our stores are filled with shirts, jeans, towels, bedding, but the problem is that you look on that tag, most of them are made overseas--everything with cotton. I mean, we don't really use cotton in this country anymore unless it comes from overseas.
American cotton farmers produce the highest quality of cotton in the world. I mean, but they are undercut by all this foreign junk that we are bringing in. So there is a lot of work that goes into cotton production, and one thing about our cotton farmers, they work 365 days a year. They make the best product they possibly can, but, unfortunately, we are held to a standard that a lot of people and a lot of things that go on--whether it is textile mills or people that are involved in the cotton business use the foreign cotton, and we don't use near as much in our country.
So my point here is that Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi and I, we are introducing a bill called the Buying American Cotton Act. Now, here is the reason we are doing this: We have to save our cotton farmers. If we don't do it in the next few years, it will be over. They will all be gone. And every American in this country, when you buy something with cotton in it, that cotton is going to come from a foreign entity.
We have to do something to help them, and there is a way to do it without costing a lot of money. There is a way to do it in this building. All we have to do is pass the Buying American Cotton Act to incentivize folks to buy American cotton and bolster our American cotton producers instead of arguing about bailouts when our cotton farmers go under and they need help. Of course, we always, as the Federal Government, try to help them out, but you can't help them out enough where they can really survive in a long period of time.
So what we want to do is get away from the subsidy part and give them an opportunity through the Buying American Cotton Act to give tax credits when people buy American cotton. That is all we want to do. When people buy American cotton, they get a tax credit for it.
If you buy Brazilian cotton, you don't get a tax credit. We have to do something to help our farmers--especially these cotton farmers. When farm income improves, everything else improves. The safety-net programs go down, not to mention the additional economic activity that a strong rural economy will contribute to when you get this tax base done with farmers making a profit. Again, they haven't made any profit going on 4 or 5 years.
Instead of spending money--that is the reason we did this bill. Instead of spending money, we wanted to make sure that these farmers don't need a subsidy at the end of the year. If we give tax credits to entities that buy American cotton, we will not have to pay subsidies anymore. This is an end-all solution to helping the cotton farmers across this country.
Cotton is not just for T-shirts and stuff either. Cotton is for medical supplies, you know, military, critical materials that we use across this country. Cotton plays a key part in national security.
A nation that cannot supply its own basic materials is a nation that has surrendered its independence. And so that is why I am up here today. We are getting ready to celebrate our 250th anniversary, and our farmers have been a huge part of that. For 250 years, we grew our own food; we cut our own timber; we caught our own fish. We did everything we possibly could. But what have we done? Corporations have run out the private sector in this country--the small businesses in this country. They moved it to corporations out of this country, and they have put us in harm's way. They have really put us in harm's way.
So the Buying American Cotton Act puts our farmers in a situation where we do not have to, as a government entity, bail them out every year when they are losing money because they won't lose money, because if we buy their cotton in this country--we are the biggest buyers of cotton all over the world, the United States of America, so let's help our cotton farmers.
And one other thing I want to say about this: I have talked about this several times on the floor. It is getting pretty serious, and it is something that, again, we look at it and say: Oh, it is not going to continue to happen.
Just recently, we estimated that China has bought and owned, as of today, 300,000 acres of American farmland. I want you to think about that--300,000 acres that the Chinese own. Who is our biggest adversary? China. And we are allowing them to buy American farmland in this country, and a lot of it is by our military bases. Now, I wonder why that happens? And I don't think we are stupid, but we are crazy if we continue to let this happen.
It is an urgent and national crisis, and we have got to make sure that we keep an eye on this. And we understand there are some States that are going and telling China now that they cannot buy farmland because they run it through different entities. And that is one thing that we need to make sure that at the end of the day, that we keep an eye on this.
But I want to come up here today and let people know, our farmers are in the fourth quarter, OK? And if we don't have a good year this year, we are going to have a serious--serious--problem with our farmers going out of business. And when farmers go out of business, they are big contributors to our country when it comes to tax base, buying things, producing things, and making our country much stronger.
So I plead with people: Please start understanding what is going on here because if we don't put our foot down and we wait too long and our farmers are gone and they have sold their land, we have got a big problem ahead of us.
And, again, I think it is a huge national security threat when you are having to buy everything out of the country. Again, go back to one thing: Did we learn anything from COVID? Evidently, we didn't. And next time we look up and you are going to have to buy everything coming from another country--especially when it comes from ag--we have got huge problems.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Proposed Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Israel of Certain Defense Articles and Services: Motion to Discharge
Mr. President, pursuant to section 36(b)(1), I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 138.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Senator Kelly not only for his remarks and his work as a U.S. Senator but for his service to our country in the military, and I very much appreciate his support for these resolutions.
Mr. President, 60 percent of our people here in the United States live paycheck to paycheck. They are struggling to pay for groceries, for housing, for healthcare, and, increasingly, the ability to fill up their gas tanks in their cars in order to get to work.
We also have a $37 trillion national debt. Bottom line: The American people--whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, conservatives, moderates, or progressives--want to make certain that their tax dollars are spent responsibly.
And in strong and growing numbers, they do not want us to continue spending billions of their taxpayer dollars in support of the illegal, horrific, and expansionist war policies of the Netanyahu Government in Israel.
Since October 7, 2023, the United States has provided over $21 billion--$21 billion--in military aid to Israel. And today, we are saying loudly and clearly: Enough is enough.
We all know that on October 7, 2023, Hamas, a terrorist organization, attacked Israel. They killed more than 1,200 innocent men, women, and children and took hundreds of hostages. I believe that there is no disagreement in this Chamber that like any other country on Earth, Israel had the absolute right to respond to that barbaric Hamas attack.
But Israel did not have the right to violate international law and wage an all-out war of unspeakable destruction against the entire Palestinian people in what experts have correctly concluded is a genocide.
Israel did not have the right out of a population of 2.2 million to kill more than 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wound over 170,000. That is more than 10 percent of the population.
If that happened here in America, that would be over 30 million Americans dead or wounded. And in Gaza, a strong majority of the dead and wounded are women, children, and the elderly.
By the way, that number is likely an underestimate as to the tragedy as bodies are literally being pulled out of the rubble every single day.
Israel did not have the right to destroy virtually all of Gaza's infrastructure, including its water and sewer systems and its supply of electricity. They did not have the right to demolish every one of Gaza's 12 universities, along with hundreds of schools, dismantling their entire educational system. A vast majority of the children in Gaza today are not in school.
Israel did not have the right to indiscriminately bomb civilian neighborhoods and damage or destroy over 90 percent of the housing units in Gaza--over 90 percent damaged or destroyed--resulting in the vast majority of the population there now sleeping in tents.
That is where they are today.
Israel did not have the right to bomb over 90 percent of the hospitals in Gaza--hospitals--and kill 1,700 healthcare workers.
And Israel did not have the right to impose a blockade which prevented food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, resulting in thousands of Palestinians being diagnosed with malnutrition and hundreds actually starving to death.
But, today, we are not just talking about Gaza. In the West Bank, in direct violation of international law that protects Palestinian territory, Israeli soldiers and settlers, since 2023, have killed over a thousand Palestinians, including 233 children. During that period, they have demolished more than 6,000 Palestinian homes and established more than 200 new illegal settlements and outposts in Palestinian territory.
And let us be clear, because I think there is some confusion about this. These actions are not just the results of some extremist, out-of- control settlers who are just doing whatever they want. Those actions are consistent with Israeli Government policy.
Netanyahu's Security Cabinet has approved the most sweeping changes to the West Bank's legal status since 1967, removing nearly all constraints on settlement expansion. Netanyahu himself declared:
And I say that to some people here who still say: Well, we are in favor of a two-state solution.
That is not Mr. Netanyahu's position. He said:
His Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, bragged that new settlement construction in the West Bank would ``bury''--that is his word-- ``bury'' the idea of a Palestinian state.
But it is not just Gaza and the West Bank. We now know that Netanyahu convinced President Trump to start an unprovoked and unconstitutional war on Iran.
For 40 years--for 40 years--Netanyahu had wanted the United States to participate with Israel in a war against Iran, and, finally, after 40 years of effort, he finally found in Trump a President willing to go along.
He couldn't get Democratic Presidents in the past and couldn't get Republicans in the past. In Trump, he finally found a President willing to go along.
This war, in violation of international law, has resulted already in the deaths of thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children in Iran and Lebanon, including 26 Israeli civilians who are now dead and 13 American soldiers who have lost their lives so far in this conflict.
All over the world, certainly including the United States, hundreds of millions of innocent people are suffering the economic consequences of this war, with higher prices and growing scarcity of basic goods.
I believe that in Vermont, now, the price of regular gas is about $4 a gallon, and in parts of the country, it is even higher than that.
But for Netanyahu, Gaza was not enough. Attacking Iran was not enough. Netanyahu is now waging a full-blown war of expansion against Lebanon. That war in Lebanon has not only killed more than 2,000 people but has resulted in Israel occupying 14 percent of Lebanese territory.
Let me repeat that. The war in Lebanon has not only killed more than 2,000 people but has resulted in Israel occupying 14 percent of Lebanese territory.
The Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has announced that all Lebanese border villages will be demolished--will be demolished--his exact words, following ``the model in Gaza''--demolish border villages.
Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, has warned that Dahieh, a suburb of South Beirut, will look like Khan Yunis, a city in Gaza that Israel reduced to rubble.
In other words, what they did in Gaza is now what they intend to do in parts of Lebanon. And these are not threats. They are promises.
For all of the reasons that I have given and more--and you are going to hear more from some of my colleagues, in a few moments--support for Israel in this country has plummeted. Today, according to a recent Pew poll, 80 percent of Democrats now have an unfavorable opinion of Israel, and 41 percent of Republicans share that view.
And the numbers in all parties, among young people, are even higher. Young people, whether they are young Democrats, progressives, or conservatives, do not want us to continue to fund the horrific war policies of Netanyahu.
A recent Quinnipiac poll also found that 60 percent--including three- quarters of Democrats, two-thirds of Independents, and 37 percent of Republicans--I say that to my Republican
And that is why I am offering, today, two joint resolutions of disapproval, the only formal mechanism Congress has to block an arms sale.
The first resolution would block the sale of $151 million in 1,000- pound bombs. The second would block $295 million in bulldozers, the machines used to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza and make a Palestinian state physically impossible.
The time is long overdue for Members of the U.S. Senate to start listening to the American people and not to AIPAC. The time is now for us to end all U.S. military aid to the extremist Netanyahu government, and a ``yes'' vote is an important way forward.
Mr. President, with that, I yield to my colleague from Maryland, Senator Chris Van Hollen.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. President, I rise in support of the two resolutions offered by my colleague Senator Sanders that would bar the transfer of certain offensive weapons and equipment to the Netanyahu government.
Specifically, these resolutions would block the transfer of 12,000 1,000-pound bombs and 132 armored bulldozers, valued at more than $446 million and funded entirely by American taxpayers.
We cannot continue to provide a blank check to the Netanyahu government as it continues to use U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. and international law.
As I have long said, Israel was justified in its war against Hamas after the horrific attack of October 7, 2023. But the Netanyahu government is not justified in imposing collective punishment on all the people of Gaza.
As Senator Merkley and I wrote in our report after traveling to the region in August 2025, ``The Netanyahu Government is Implementing a Plan to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza of Palestinians. America is Complicit.''
And now, as Senator Sanders indicated, Israeli leaders are saying out loud they plan to apply the same plans in southern Lebanon as they implemented in Gaza.
Senator Sanders mentioned threatening what they did in Khan Yunis. As recently as March 31, Israeli Defense Minister Katz said:
Well, colleagues, I visited Gaza. I visited the Gaza crossing--the Rafah crossing--twice, along with my colleague Senator Merkley, first in January 2024, when Gaza's population had quadrupled from prewar levels to more than 1 million people who had been displaced within Gaza, from northern Gaza.
And then we traveled to the Rafah crossing, in August 2025, after the IDF's offensive against Rafah, one that the Biden administration claimed that they tried to stop. And on that visit, Senator Merkley and I climbed a rooftop, and you could look into Rafah--obliterated, reduced to absolute rubble.
And as we were told by former IDF soldiers--eyewitnesses who had the courage to speak with us--Israel has systematically dismantled essential infrastructure and brought near-total destruction of civilian sites throughout Gaza, including through the use of these bulldozers and 1,000-pound bombs. And now the Israeli Minister of Defense says they are going to do the same thing in southern Lebanon.
And, indeed, since the war in Lebanon restarted, Israeli forces have killed over 2,000 people, including 250 people in 10 minutes, the day after the cease-fire was announced. Entire villages have been destroyed and over 1.1 million people displaced.
Now, let's not forget how we got into this most recent round of destruction in the region. President Trump is fully responsible for getting America into this war, period.
But we know from Trump administration officials and public reporting how Prime Minister Netanyahu, for his own reasons, was pushing Trump to attack Iran. Indeed, he said it himself on April 11. Netanyahu boasted to the Israeli public that Israel was ``first to act because we knew what was at stake. But if I had told you a year ago that our pilots, men and women, would fly in Iran, who would have believed it?'' So said Prime Minister Netanyahu.
He went on to say:
And then Prime Minister Netanyahu went on to say:
Now, those of us who have been around here a little while know that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been pushing for a war with Iran for a very long time. In fact, he recently publicly acknowledged that the current U.S.-Israeli war on Iran ``allows us to do what I have been hoping to do for 40 years.''
That is what Prime Minister Netanyahu said.
I remember when Prime Minister Netanyahu actually spoke before a joint session of Congress, asking us not to support the JCPOA, which, of course, prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Of course, the current President then tore that up when he first came into office.
So Prime Minister Netanyahu had been trying to get previous Presidents to join him in attacking Iran, but no previous President was stupid enough or reckless enough to actually do it.
So here we are without facing any imminent threat, and President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu started an illegal war against Iran.
It is a gross violation of international law. Indeed, on April 2, a group of over 100 international law experts, people who actually believe in international law, which included former U.S. and U.N. officials, published an open letter stating that ``the initiation of the campaign was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter'' and that the conduct of the United States and Israeli forces in the war ``raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes.'' That is on top of the illegality of initiating a war against Iran.
Look, earlier this afternoon, nearly all Democrats voted together to end Donald Trump's illegal war against Iran. Many of us have vowed that we will not support 1 taxpayer dollar to continue this war that is making us less safe and less well-loved.
Well, that commitment and determination should apply to the Trump administration and to the Netanyahu administration. We need to rein in Trump in this illegal war, and we need to rein in the Netanyahu administration in this illegal war.
Now, colleagues, I want to focus for a moment on the portion of the Sanders resolution that bans the transfer of bulldozers to the IDF. These are the bulldozers that helped raze Rafah in Gaza to the ground.
For those who don't remember, I ask them to recall the case of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to block the razing of buildings in Rafah over 20 years ago. Rachel Corrie has never gotten any justice, and her family will tell you that today.
In fact, just since January of 2022, at least nine more American citizens have been killed by extremist Israeli settlers or security forces in the West Bank. Not one of them--not one--has gotten justice, just like Rachel Corrie--no accountability.
There is no piece of equipment that has helped Israel and the Netanyahu government destroy civilian infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza and now Lebanon more than the bulldozer.
Just look at the titles of some of the reporting coming from what is happening in southern Lebanon. The Guardian title: `` `Everything is gone.' Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon.''
And you can see it for yourself. I really encourage my colleagues just to look at the videos. Some of them have been shared by members of the Israeli military themselves. They showed controlled detonations and destruction of entire villages.
This isn't new. During the last war in Lebanon, Amnesty International documented how the Israeli military carried out extensive and deliberate destruction of civilian property across almost the entire Lebanese border with Israel, including 10,000 structures, primarily through the use of manually laid explosives and bulldozers.
In the West Bank, as we speak, we are seeing violent Israeli settlers kill Palestinian citizens with impunity. We are also seeing the use of these bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes in the West Bank and other civilian infrastructures. Again, you can see it for yourselves in the videos.
This is all part of a slow-motion ethnic cleansing effort in the West Bank and de facto annexation of the West Bank. Indeed, the New York Times in September 2024 spoke about raids in the West Bank villages of Tulkarm and Jenin. The headline is this: ``Israeli Bulldozers Flatten Mile After Mile in the West Bank.'' In total, since the Gaza war started, Israeli authorities have demolished at least 4,900 structures in the West Bank and displaced 9,000 Palestinians there.
As this has gone on, so has settler violence, often with the complicity of the IDF. In the West Bank, over 1,000 Palestinians, including 230 children, have been killed with virtual impunity since October of 2023--with impunity. The Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din said that between 2000 and September 2025--that is a 20-year period--more than 93 percent of police investigations into settler violence in the West Bank concluded without an indictment.
So what are we going to do about this? We need to stop providing the Netanyahu government with an absolute blank check. We need to demand accountability for American citizens who have been killed there.
So I urge my colleagues now to support this resolution. If we want to rein in a Trump administration that wants an illegal war against Iran, we should also rein in the Netanyahu administration. It is doing exactly the same thing with American taxpayer dollars.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Oregon Mr. Merkley.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. President, on February 28, in coordination with and at the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Trump attacked Iran without congressional authorization--that is, without the authority required under our Constitution. Almost immediately, Hezbollah, Iran's proxy, engaged in a battle with Israel. Now we have Israel invading southern Lebanon.
The Netanyahu government is exercising the same strategy they pursued in Gaza: Drop massive bombs, level entire towns, block routes for civilians to leave, and block access for humanitarian relief.
And the United States? We are partners in this. We are complicit in this--not just because we partnered with Israel to ignite the war with Iran but because we sold the bombs and the bulldozers that Israel is using. We didn't stop supplying the Netanyahu government with weapons years ago even when it became clear that they were deliberately targeting homes, schools, and hospitals; when they were blocking deliveries of humanitarian aid, including water, food, and medicine; when the result was mass malnutrition, particularly among mothers and children and the elderly.
We must not continue to be complicit in these tragedies by selling these tools of destruction--the bombs and the bulldozers--to Israel.
The administration says: Let's sell them 12,000 more 1,000-pound bombs.
Picture 12,000 1,000-pound bombs dropping on neighborhoods--that is what we are enabling--or a vast number of bulldozers to destroy homes and buildings. We have seen it in the West Bank--homes and villages bulldozed, ancient olive groves bulldozed--and now we are seeing it in Lebanon, with the Netanyahu government bragging about doing the same thing to Lebanon they did to Gaza: Make it uninhabitable.
Let's be clear. Bulldozers are not defensive weapons.
Recent satellite images of southern Lebanon show the Netanyahu government flattening towns, destroying bridges, cutting off civilian movement, and cutting off humanitarian access in a replay of the destruction we saw in Gaza, not to mention the Netanyahu government has supported settlers in their expansion, massive expansion, of outposts and settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank, in their mass increase in construction of homes and villages, and most disturbing of all, supporting the settlers in their violent attacks on Palestinian communities--all of this in the goal of creating a greater Israel by destroying any prospect of a Palestinian state.
Let's not forget, as my colleague from Maryland mentioned, it was a bulldozer operated by the Israeli Defense Forces that killed American citizen Rachel Corrie in Rafah in 2003--the first of 14 Americans citizens who have been killed by Israeli soldiers since then.
Approving this sale of the bombs and bulldozers deepens our responsibility for these tragedies and for the suffering.
Colleagues, when we became Senators, we swore an oath to take on the responsibilities designated to Congress in the Constitution, including the question of war.
As Madison summarized: The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it. Thus, the Constitution has accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislature.
That is the Constitution we swore an oath to, and it is the Constitution that President Trump violated by launching a war without congressional authorization.
In 1973, during the Vietnam war, Congress approved the War Powers Act to, in their words, ``fulfill the intent of the Framers of the Constitution'' and rein in the President from waging wars without congressional approval.
The War Powers Act does allow the President to respond to an imminent threat that is ``a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States, its territories, possessions, or its Armed Forces.'' But in this case, no such condition existed and thus the violation of the Constitution.
Yet, earlier today, my colleagues across the aisle voted to allow the President to continue to violate the law and violate the Constitution. When will we say enough is enough?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute to close.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, let us today, all 100 Senators, uphold our oath to the Constitution. The indiscriminate use of American bombs in Iran and Lebanon and Gaza that targets civilians and infrastructure by Israel must end. We should not sell these bulldozers and these bombs to Israel.
I urge my colleagues to vote for these two joint resolutions of disapproval.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. President, I rise tonight in support of Senator Sanders' joint resolutions of disapproval for select arms sales to Israel. The Senate has voted on similar resolutions in the past, all of which I have supported. The last time this Chamber voted on prior resolutions, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was bombarding Gaza. A cease-fire had collapsed, hostage release negotiations had stalled, and innocent children and families in Gaza were starving and suffering. That was because the Netanyahu government, fueled by extremist Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Smotrich and supported by the Trump administration, was blocking humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza. The large-scale bombs covered by those resolutions went far beyond what Israel needed for its defense. Their use would cause indiscriminate damage and only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Now, the need for restrictions on military aid to Netanyahu has only taken on renewed urgency. The Trump administration is proposing to sell to Netanyahu 1,000-pound bombs and armored bulldozers that Netanyahu could
So make no mistake, a vote to approve arms sales to Israel at this time would be seen as a message of approval for Trump and Netanyahu's disastrous war against Iran. I will not send that message. Trump's war of choice in Iran is a moral tragedy and economic disaster playing out before our eyes. It is only making the United States, Israel, and the world less safe.
Let us count the ways:
One, we have seen thousands of civilian deaths in Iran and Lebanon. More than 100 Iranian schoolgirls have been killed by American weapons, and 13 American servicemembers have been killed and hundreds injured.
Two, the United States and the Netanyahu government are losing credibility. In particular, President Trump's threats of war crimes and genocide against Iran are a total abdication of moral leadership on the global stage and must be opposed here and everywhere.
Three, the United States and Iran are blockading the Strait of Hormuz--crippling the global economy and sending energy prices sky high.
Four, gas prices in America are $1.20 a gallon higher than before the war. Vehicle owners will be paying $500 to $600 more here in the United States over the course of this next year. It is going to be Trump at the pump. The American people are going to be paying for this war.
Five, this dangerous, unnecessary, and expensive war has cost the American taxpayer about $50 billion so far, with the Trump administration seeking hundreds of billions of dollars more as part of a $1.5 trillion military budget, which must be rejected.
Six, Iran still controls its uranium.
Seven, there has been no regime change. We just swapped out one Ayatollah for another.
And, eight, Iranians are still not free.
Why would we send American military weapons that could prolong, escalate, or worsen this horrible situation in the Middle East?
I say no more. The Senate should express its opposition to Trump and Netanyahu's needless war and seek to stop it.
No. 1, we should pass these resolutions to block 1,000-pound bombs and armored bulldozers for use in this war.
No. 2, we should pass a War Powers Resolution that denies President Trump the authority to continue this war.
And, No. 3, we should reject any request for funding to pay for Trump's war of choice.
Today, we must send a clear message that the U.S. Senate opposes--in the strongest possible terms--Trump and Netanyahu's dangerous, expensive, unnecessary, and immoral war.
There is no military solution to this crisis. We must solve this at the negotiating table. We must end this war now. We must pass these resolutions in order to have the U.S. Senate speak to our outrage at what is happening in the name of the American people.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Sanders' resolutions. I will be voting for both of them.
On February 21, 2024, I wrote a public letter to President Biden, and I said: The Hamas attack on Israel is devastating and Israel faces threats from other adversaries in the region and we should help Israel defend its civilians, but we should do so only by providing defensive weapons to Israel and not offensive weapons.
Why defensive weapons?
We have long been a security partner of Israel. Those who follow the relationship understand there are threats to Israeli civilians that are very present because of actors in the region like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis; and Iran and Iranian-backed militias and Israeli civilians do face threats that warrant the United States providing defensive support.
But I took the public position more than 2 years ago now that it would be wrong to send offensive weapons to Israel, and that position was based on exactly the same reason, to protect civilians--protect Palestinian civilians, protect Lebanese civilians--to protect civilians. Offensive weapons delivered to Israel in the way they are using them, particularly bombs, are guaranteed to cause mass civilian suffering. That is what has happened in Gaza, and that is what is happening in Lebanon.
Anyone who has paid attention to this region just has to answer this question: Is more civilian death going to get us to the right place?
This is a region that has been replete with the deaths of civilians, and the U.S. taxpayer and this body should not be pouring gasoline or adding tinder to a fire where more and more civilians are in jeopardy.
So, since that public letter to President Biden, I have supported Senator Sanders and other resolutions before. If weapons are offensive in nature, the United States shouldn't be transferring them, and I will support the resolutions for that matter. We need to protect civilians. We don't need to pour gasoline on a fire in the region and accelerate more deaths of civilians.
I have received some outreach about this particular vote from some who say this is a vote to deny all military aid to Israel. That is not what this vote is about. This is about denying particular weapons that are offensive in nature.
Just to give you an order of magnitude, during this term of Congress, the President has noticed 27 different arms transfers to Israel; and with these two joint resolutions of disapproval, we have challenged 6-- 6 of those 27 arms transfers--as being offensive in nature. We have not challenged 21 of the arms transfers that are primarily defensive in nature. There has not been a single Senator who has brought up a challenge to the defensive arms sales because we want to protect civilian lives; but when weapons like this that are offensive in nature are guaranteed to lead to the deaths of civilians, I think it is appropriate to challenge them, and that is why I am going to support these resolutions.
I have also had some say that, if these resolutions succeed, the United States is reducing its support for Israeli defense. That is also not true. The support for Israeli defense is the result of a 10-year memorandum of understanding that has an annual allocation for Israeli defense that has been supplemented by a supplemental bill that was passed by this body in April of 2024. That amount of money, which is an annual allocation, gets drawn down by these transfers.
I would urge my colleagues to support the cessation of offensive weapons transfers. If this bill succeeds, it doesn't reduce support for Israeli defense by a single penny. It just means that Israel should request and the United States should consider transferring defensive weapons to enable Israel to defend its own civilians but not to carry out military action that would harm other civilians.
The principle of ``let's just stop the damage to civilians in the region'' seems to me to be overwhelming. If the deaths of civilians were accomplishing anything, we would have seen that accomplishment long before now. So stopping the transfer of offensive weapons seems to me to be the right thing to do not just for the United States security interests and the safety of our servicemembers in the region, but it is also the right thing to do to promote regional stability and the security of Israel.
For that reason, I will vote for the resolutions, and I appreciate my colleague for introducing them.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. President, let me thank Senator Van Hollen, Senator Merkley, Senator Markey, Senator Kaine, and, before that, Senator Kelly for their remarks.
The American people increasingly are sick and tired of spending billions of dollars in support of illegal, horrific military actions on the part of the Netanyahu government. We have spent tens of billions of dollars already. Gaza has been destroyed--10 percent of the population dead or wounded. Netanyahu got Trump into a war in Iran. Thousands of civilians are now dead, including many children, and now Netanyahu is at war in Lebanon--thousands of civilians dead, civilian neighborhoods bombed, a million people displaced from their homes, and 14
What the American people are saying is: Enough is enough.
By the way, this is bipartisan. It is not just Democrats, and it is not just Independents. It is a significant number of Republicans who remember President Trump talking about ``America First'' and talking about the need to invest in this country, not in bombs and bulldozers to destroy people in the Middle East.
With that, I would hope that we would have a very strong vote in support of these resolutions to tell Netanyahu and to tell the world that enough is enough.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. President, as everyone in this Chamber knows, Israel is one of the closest allies in the Middle East. No one can discount the fact that without Israel and President Trump's maximum pressure campaign, Iran would have nuclear weapons, would still be exporting terror throughout the region, and would still pose a significant military threat to its neighbors and, indeed, to a good share of the rest of the world.
Unlike some of our other allies, Israel has stood side by side with the United States, working hand in glove to advance our shared objectives and to keep American citizens safe. Passing these two resolutions would embolden our adversary Iran and call into question American reliability in the region. Refusing to send help to allies and to sell weapons to allies would be incredibly debilitating to our ability to work together. It would send the message that the United States is prepared to leave our ally Israel vulnerable to further Iranian attacks and put the tens of thousands of Americans who are living there at risk. This is not acceptable.
Again, I come to the floor and tell Iran: No one is coming to help you, not China, not Russia, not North Korea, not Venezuela, not Cuba-- except for the 47 people that sit over here. They are trying to help you, Iran.
We are not going to let that happen. We are not going to abandon our ally Israel. We are not going to abandon the fight that is taking place. We are going to win this fight and have already won it, to a very large extent.
Let us not forget the Iranian regime has been exporting terrorism and chanting ``Death to America'' and ``Death to Israel'' consistently since the founding of this regime 47 years ago. Enough is enough.
It is time to continue this until we get to the end. This is not going to be a forever war. The country of Iran is very badly debilitated right now. I would hope that common sense prevails and they reach an agreement with the administration and get to a permanent cease-fire.
I would urge all of my colleagues: Oppose these resolutions. They will not help the United States of America.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question occurs on agreeing to the motion to discharge S.J. Res. 32.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Ms. Lummis).
The result was announced--yeas 40, nays 59, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question occurs on agreeing to the motion to discharge S.J. Res. 138.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).
The result was announced--yeas 36, nays 63, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. President, I move that, for the remainder of the votes this evening, all votes be limited to 17 minutes and, at the end of 17 minutes, voting automatically expire ipso facto without any discretion whatsoever.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
H.J. RES. 140
Mr. President, I rise tonight thinking about my beloved Minnesota and thinking about all of the people in Minnesota and around the country that love the Boundary Waters.
And I want to talk for a while about the Congressional Review Act resolution--this is H.J. Res. 140--that is before us tonight, and I want to speak directly to my colleagues about the CRA and why I think it is so important that we vote no on this CRA.
So what this CRA would do is it would roll back protections for the Boundary Waters Wilderness, which is in Northeastern Minnesota. This is a picture of just one of the many glorious scenes of what you find in the Boundary Waters, which I will be talking about more this evening. This CRA, as I said, would roll back protections for the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Northeastern Minnesota. What it would do is it would allow copper sulfide mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, and this would be devastating to the wilderness.
The decision that this body makes will have long-term implications for the Boundary Waters, and it will also have long-term implications for how we protect public lands around this country going forward.
So I want to start with the core point that Minnesota is a mining State. We support mining--just not mining in this place. Minnesota is a mining and natural resources State. Mining is so important to our economy. We are proud to be the No. 1 source of iron ore in the whole country, and we produced three-quarters of the iron that went into the tanks and planes that led us to victory in World War II. And we are still producing most of the Nation's iron ore today.
And it is also true that there are other potential mines currently under consideration and development in Minnesota--not iron ore mines but other mines--that would produce copper and nickel.
Responsible mining is an economic driver in our State. It is part of our history, and it is part of our future.
So why oppose this CRA? Why would we oppose this CRA, which, I will tell you, will pave the way for developing a copper sulfide mine right on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters?
Well, I want to start this discussion tonight by giving three simple and basic reasons. The first is that this is an incredibly special place, beloved by Minnesotans and beloved by people all around the country, and this mine poses an unacceptable threat to this place.
The Boundary Waters, if the Presiding Officer has not been there, is a million acres of lakes and bogs and rivers. It is a wealth of hunting and fishing resources. People go there to canoe all the time. They go there in the wintertime to dogsled and to ice-fish.
I was there last summer, and I saw two wolves just in one day, on a day trip to the Boundary Waters.
It is some of the cleanest water that you will find anywhere in this country. You can drink the water right out of the middle of the lakes. You will find lake trout and northern pike and walleye. There is no better place in the world for it.
Over 150,000 people visit this incredible place every year, and so what that means is that the outdoor recreation economy in Northern Minnesota benefits greatly from the Boundary Waters.
This generates thousands of jobs and supports hundreds of local, small businesses, and it generates millions in economic activity.
Outdoor recreation is also a significant economic driver in the region around the Boundary Waters Wilderness. What happens here with this mine that will be allowed by the CRA is that this mine puts this incredible resource and the economic benefits of this resource at great risk.
It is kind of unbelievable to know that this kind of mine in 100 percent of the instances where they have been built has caused pollution.
What happens is you bring up the rock from underground. The sulfide in the rocks interacts with the water and the oxygen. My colleague Senator Heinrich is an expert on this. That rock interacts with the water and the oxygen, and it creates basically sulfuric acid. That sulfuric acid flows directly into the Boundary Waters and on into Voyageurs National Park.
We have a map here so you can see how the water flows. This sulfuric acid, of course, is extremely dangerous, not just for fish and wildlife and the whole ecosystem in the Boundary Waters but also for the humans that recreate there, that swim in this water, that canoe in this water.
This is why Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, why sportsman's groups, why Trout Unlimited, and Pheasants Forever, and outdoor people of all kinds have weighed in and said: No. Simply, this is the wrong thing to do. Not this mine in this place. Even descendants of the great President Theodore Roosevelt have said that we should protect this national treasure and ``leave it as it is.''
This is also why this mine is so unpopular in Minnesota. A recent poll showed that 70 percent of Minnesotans across the political spectrum--Independents, Republicans, and Democrats--agreed that protecting the Boundary Waters from sulfide-based mine pollution should be a very important priority for elected officials in the State. And 61 percent of Minnesotans have said that they support establishing a permanent protection for public land within the Boundary Waters Watershed.
So that is the first reason because this place is so special and because this mine is so dangerous to this place.
But the second reason why, colleagues, we should oppose this CRA is that it sets an incredibly unprecedented and dangerous use of the Congressional Review Act. Now, we know that the Congressional Review Act is a way for Congress to doublecheck the executive branch if Congress feels that the Executive has passed a regulation that goes too far, that didn't follow the laws that Congress passed.
If the Executive passes a regulation that Congress feels doesn't reflect the will of Congress, then Congress can within 60 days say: Nope. You can't do that. That doesn't make sense.
But that is not what is happening with the CRA before this body tonight because for the first time ever, the House is asking the Senate to apply
They want to claw back a public land order that was put into effect legally and lawfully 3 years ago. This was never the intention of the Congressional Review Act. It has never been used in this way, to overturn a mineral withdrawal or any public land order, and especially not a mineral withdrawal that was finalized 3 years ago like this one was.
Now, I know that many of my Republican colleagues are thinking about this, and they are asking themselves: What does this mean? What are the implications of this? What would happen if this were to pass--this CRA were to pass?
And ask yourself: What would you do if the shoe was on the other foot? What would you do if we set this precedent where we say that with a simple partisan majority, Congress can claw back a public land order that has been in place potentially for years or decades? What might that mean in North Dakota? In Montana? In Utah? In Arizona? In any State in the country if these public land orders could be undone so easily? I mean, it would be chaos, I think.
The third reason that I want to talk about why it is so important to oppose this Congressional Review Act before us today, this House resolution, is that this will violate Tribal treaty rights in a way that is strongly opposed by Tribal Nations not only in Minnesota, but also around the country.
These are Tribal Nations, indigenous people, that have lived in Northern Minnesota, on the borderlands of Northern Minnesota, for time immemorial. They have treaties with the Federal Government, particularly the treaty of 1854, which grants to these Tribes in exchange for the land that they gave up hundreds of years ago, it grants them hunting and fishing rights, and also the rights to harvest manoomin, which is wild rice.
And yet, this CRA before us today completely aggregates those Tribal treaty rights. It ignores the responsibility of the Federal Government to consult with Tribes, which has not been done. That is why so many of the Tribes across the country have come together to oppose this.
This includes the Grand Portage Band and all the other members of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. It includes the National Congress of American Indians which passed a resolution urging the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to at least hold a hearing on the implications of this before this legislation--this resolution--passes the Senate.
Tribal Nations across the country have spoken out, including the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, White Earth Nation, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation, the Eastern Shoshone. They have all come out in opposition to the CRA.
So before I hand over to my dear colleague from Minnesota the senior Senator from Minnesota, Senator Klobuchar, I want to address one question that I have heard made in favor of this mine and just kind of flush this out for folks.
Now, some people will say that we need to pass this CRA for its national security benefits. They claim that this mine will provide much-needed sources for critical minerals.
But I ask, colleagues, to think about what is really going on here and who will be the owner of these minerals because that is very important as you think about this national security argument.
Just because these minerals are mined on American land, on public land, on national forestland, that does not mean that they will be reserved for American markets. In fact, the copper and nickel mined in the Duluth Complex which is where the Boundary Waters is, where this mine would be, would essentially be brought out of the ground. They would be shipped to the Pacific Coast. They would be taken to China where they would be smelted, and there, they will either be sold by the company that is doing all of this, a foreign international conglomerate from Chili, Antofagasta. It will either be sold there or sold back to the United States to be paid for by all of us.
This mine is wholly owned by Antofagasta, a massive Chilean conglomerate with billionaire owners. It is one of the largest foreign mining companies in the world. They have deep ties to the Chinese Government in its mineral processing operations. Most recently, Antofagasta secured recordbreaking, zero-cost processing agreements with the Chinese copper smelters, all of which are state-owned in whole or in part.
So what we are doing here is we are creating a pathway for this foreign company to build a mine, pollute the Boundary Waters, send the minerals to China where they will be processed with this sweetheart deal, and then sold on the open market. And that is not an America- first strategy.
So I encourage my colleagues to take a look at who is benefitting from this mine, and it certainly won't be in the long run Minnesotans. There are no real winners here except for this massive Chilean company.
So in a few hours, we are going to be voting on this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to vote no on rolling back protections for the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area. We can support mining in Minnesota and in this country, but not this mine in this place.
We can be good stewards of our natural resources and support mining, but not this mine. These public lands belong to all of us, and we should not allow them to be exploited for our loss and the gain of others far, far away.
With that, I would yield the floor to my colleague Senator Klobuchar who has been such a strong champion for Minnesota for so many years.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, this bill is an unprecedented use of a procedural mechanism that would have far-reaching consequences, not just for the Boundary Waters, as Senator Smith has explained, but for public lands across our country.
I have always supported science-based review, especially a project so close to this cherished Boundary Waters canoe area, and I continue to have concerns about this administration's disregard for science.
So as many of my colleagues know, I am the granddaughter of an iron ore miner. My great-grandparents came from Slovenia, and that was the job that my great-grandpa came to do. He died very young from his work, and then my grandpa took it up. He started very, very young in underground mines with a number of brothers and sisters that he took care of when his parents died, married my grandma, and this was his life. And he loved that life.
But he mostly also loved the time he had in the outdoors. He loved to hunt. He loved to fish. Every day he would go down 1,500 feet in that cage in that mine and always thought about what he thought about with that black lunch bucket that my grandma packed for him every single day in that little house that they had taken when a mine closed down in Babbitt. They put it on the back of a flatbed truck and they blew a hole with dynamite in the ground and put that house on top of it. That was their life.
My grandpa worked most of his life in the mines as did so many friends. He became, in his later years, the foreman of the mine, and I would meet people when I was first running for U.S. Senate up in Northern Minnesota that would say to me: You know, my dad worked with your grandpa. And whenever they explored a dangerous part of the mine, the other foreman wouldn't go. They radioed down from above. But your grandpa, he went first. He went with the guys, and he went down in the mine.
Such a big part of my life. That is why I have stood with our miners. I have stood with them when we had steel dumping from China and brought President Obama's chief of staff up to Northern Minnesota, met with our steel workers and our unions.
I have stood with our workers through good times and bad and will continue to do that. We have, as Senator Smith explained, some exciting new projects up there like Mesabi Metallics which is going to be a big taconite mine, a modern mine with some of the biggest equipment in the country. And we will have more.
But what this is about today is something else because my grandpa always got that balance. It was a balance of the working life that we must continue up in Northern Minnesota and a balance of the world around him, that world where he loved to hunt and he loved to fish.
I was 18 years old before I took a vacation that didn't involve a tent or a camper in one way or the other. I grew up in a family that valued the outdoors. My mom and dad met in the Twin Cities Hiking Club and generations of Minnesotans have found this same joy: hiking, paddling, camping in the Boundary Waters, and our beautiful parks. But I don't think they would have ever expected this.
H.J. Res. 140, as I noted, is an unprecedented use of a procedural mechanism that would have far-reaching consequences, not just for the BWCA but for other public lands. Secretaries of the Interior have long had the ability to issue public land orders to reserve Federal land for specific uses, setting it aside for things like infrastructure, certain military purposes, training and border security, or protection and conservation.
And public land orders are carefully made. The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management gather public input. They hold townhalls. They analyze inputs.
But now for the first time, the Congressional Review Act is being used to rescind a public land order. Public land orders have never been considered rules under the CRA and have never been submitted to Congress as rules.
Today, the CRA before the Senate is being used simply as a way of revoking the land withdrawal without having to conduct that public engagement. And this unprecedented use of the CRA will have broader disruptive impacts on land management agencies' ability to oversee public lands all across the country.
This process is focused on Northern Minnesota today, but this new precedent could lead to Congress overturning public land orders elsewhere.
The Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service have long been trusted with working with landowners, nearby towns, and counties, and others to develop plans for managing public lands. This is often a give-and-take process built on trust. But this Congress, for the first time, has disrupted decades of work by the Bureau of Land Management and has stepped in the way of locally led land management.
These CRA resolutions disregard extensive public input. If this CRA resolution were approved, public access to some of the Nation's most treasured landscapes could be lost and the careful management of their lands and waters eliminated.
There are hundreds of public land orders that have been issued to protect our public land that could be put at risk: The Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana, considered a sportsman's paradise for its elk and bighorn sheep hunting; the 355,000 acres of Federal land near the Chaco Canyon National Historical Park in New Mexico. The precedent potentially being established today could pave over the comprehensive process undermining these landowners.
The CRA even threatens the protected status of the Grand Canyon, which happens to sit on significant mineral deposits. This precedent could lead to CRA resolutions beyond the BLM's work. Forest Service plans might be the next Land Management Agencies Congress attempts to disrupt using this process.
This ultimately could lead to Washington micromanaging public lands rather than letting the people and experts that live near the forest, grasslands, and waterways have a say.
So look at who is concerned about what is happening in the Senate today, the groups that are supportive of what I have been talking about here and are against this effort: American Fisheries Society, American Fly Fishing Trade Association, American Hunters & Anglers, Angler Action Foundation, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, Fly Fishers International, the Izaak Walton League of America, Minnesota Trout Unlimited, Minnesota Wildlife Federation, National Deer Association, National Wildlife Federation, North American Falconers Association, North American Grouse Partnership, Pheasants Forever, Quail Forever, Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Trout Unlimited, Whitetails Unlimited, Wildlife Management Institute, the American Canoe Association, the Outdoor Alliance, Outdoor Life, Outdoor Realm.
So maybe some time should be taken to listen to what some of these national groups are saying that care about what my grandpa and my dad cared about, and that is public lands that can be used for recreation, for canoeing, for hunting, and for fishing.
So I will end with this: Sigurd Olson, the great Ely, MN, author and conservationist, wrote that ``joys come from simple and natural things, mists over meadows, sunlight on leaves, the path of the moon over water.''
This is the Boundary Waters. So Sigurd Olson just happened to be the dean of Ely Junior College and yet he rose to this national fame and that is when my dad met him because my dad went to a 2-year college, Ely Junior College, because my grandma believed that somehow that would launch his career in journalism. She happened to be right, but no one would have believed it then.
But Sigurd Olson was then the college dean. My dad and Sigurd Olson maintained a friendship for many years, powered by their shared love for the written word, for the Boundary Waters, and for their efforts to preserve Minnesota's forests and parks.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed into law Hubert Humphrey's bill, and this is the desk that I stand at today--Hubert Humphrey's desk--to protect this area by creating the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
And the Boundary Waters are now the most visited wilderness area in the country, welcoming 150,000 people each year. Over the course of my dad's career, he wrote 8,400 columns, more than a few of which were dispatches from the Boundary Waters. Speaking to the complexity of this national wonder, my dad wrote about the Boundary Waters: This is a place of woods and lakes and repose most of the time where a person can roam or drift or watch and listen. And that is not so much different in winter than in summer.
He called it a million acres of waterway and forest unlike any in the United States.
And my grandpa who loved that area, loved the forest, understood that you can make both things work but not when you are messing around with rules, not when you are not even taking the time to look at what is happening here to our public lands, and instead are just making this decision at night and going home for the day.
I thank Senator Smith for her work, and I ask my colleagues to vote with us and listen to us about what is going on here.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.
Senator Klobuchar, you and I have known each other for many years, and I never knew that your father was friends and colleagues with Sigurd Olson, which is really incredible. He is such a storyteller of this particular part of this amazing, beautiful part of the world. So thank you for sharing that. And also thank you for the incredible representation that you have provided to Northern Minnesota and all of Minnesota for so many years. Your deep roots in Minnesota's Iron Range gives you so much credibility across the State, particularly on this issue. So thank you.
Mr. President, I believe that Senator Baldwin wants to say something.
Thank you for your leadership, Senator Smith.
And I also want to note the powerful words that Senator Klobuchar just shared. She took me down memory lane as we remember the conservationists and the folks that came from our States.
And just earlier today, I was noting with my staff that next week we will be commemorating the 56th anniversary of Earth Day, the first Earth Day, and it was Gaylord Nelson, a Senator in this body who brought forth the whole concept of respecting the Earth and celebrating with a day focused on celebration of the Earth.
Wisconsin was also home for large portions of their lives, Aldo Leopold and John Muir. And hearing those accounts makes me feel especially humbled and honored to rise to speak to this resolution, this joint resolution that is before the Senate right now that we really must defeat.
I want to share with my colleagues what is at stake if the Senate removes
And if these protections are rolled back and mining moves forward, there is no restoring, there is no restoration of this watershed. It will be risking permanent damage for the profits of a multibillion- dollar foreign mining company, and I will return to that in a moment.
We must recognize who will be most affected by revoking the protections that have been in place for decades and for good reason.
Tribal nations in this region have lived with and depended upon the Boundary Waters for generations. These lands are sacred to the Ojibwe people. Tribes have treaty rights to hunt, to fish, and to gather. Voting for this resolution would betray our centuries-old treaties between the United States and the Chippewa of Lake Superior.
We cannot say that we respect Tribal sovereignty while undermining the very resources that those rights depend upon.
There is a reason that the Boundary Waters is also America's most popular and water-rich wilderness area. Its 1.1 million acres contain more than a thousand pristine lakes and 1,200 miles of river and stream.
Voting for this resolution risks the destruction of the region's prized natural resources, where the wild rice beds and the fisheries are thriving, and the water is clean and safe to drink.
People come from all over this country to recreate on the Boundary Waters, fish in the lakes, hunt in the forests. Before my colleagues vote to greenlight a mining operation, I urge them to come and see the beauty and the magic of the Boundary Waters. I have done so. It was an amazing experience. And I have heard from so many Wisconsinites who have shared their stories, their memories. And they cannot fathom the idea that Congress would take the step that we are on the precipice of taking.
As well, I have heard from our 11 federally recognized Tribal nations and their strong opposition. Our waters, our rivers, our lakes are all a part of the way of life in the Midwest. They provide fresh drinking water; they are endless sources of recreation; and they bring tourism to our States.
You know, this area, in particular, generates over $900 million in annual tourism revenue and sustains roughly 17,000 jobs. Rural towns across the region depend on the protection of the wilderness area and its natural resources. Family-owned small businesses that provide guiding and fishing and outdoor recreation will not survive if the water is polluted and the wilderness is degraded.
The Boundary Waters must not be put at risk of perpetual pollution, which is what this resolution would do. I also just want to make it clear to my colleagues who actually stands to benefit if this resolution passes the Senate.
While we have heard that rolling back protections for the Boundary Waters would bring economic opportunities for the region, that is false. The profits from the mining contract that this resolution aims to fast track are ultimately going overseas to benefit a Chilean multinational organization and China's industrial supply chain.
That is right. After enabling the destruction of one of our most pristine natural resources, those very resources are expected to be sold to China. With this resolution, the majority will be cashing out on a mining deal that has no long-term benefit to our economy or workforce.
The short-term gain of a mining contract cannot compete with the benefits of protecting the region that already generates, as I said earlier, over $900 million annually in tourism revenue and sustains nearly 17,000 jobs.
This resolution does not invest in the future of communities across the Boundary Waters, nor does it respect the treaties with our Tribal nations. Its passage would come at public expense while the profits from the project flow to foreign corporations.
I invite my colleagues who have never yet made it to the Boundary Waters to come and experience it for yourself.
I encourage you to meet with the Tribes and small businesses in the region and see for yourself what we stand to lose. I implore my colleagues not to jeopardize the future of one of the most pristine freshwater ecosystems in America and override Tribal rights.
I urge my colleagues to vote no on this resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, I want to just thank my colleague from Wisconsin for her powerful words and her longtime support for the Boundary Waters and for treaty rights and for American jobs and American-made products.
And I just so greatly appreciate your being here today in support of this and appreciate very much--and I also really appreciate my colleague Senator Heinrich from New Mexico being here today as well to talk about how important this is and why this matters so much to him.
I know Senator Heinrich is planning a trip to the Boundary Waters this summer, and we will all be able to hear stories of that when you get back.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Minnesota for her endless advocacy for this special place, one of America's true gems.
I do hope to make it to the Boundary Waters this summer. Last July, I was supposed to be in the Boundary Waters. I had long planned a trip with my family. It was to be our first time exploring the Boundary Waters.
My family made it; I did not. My wife Julie and my sons Micah and Carter had an incredible time that they will always remember. They paddled their canoes across lakes. They portaged from lake to lake. They slept under a blanket of stars that most people in Washington, DC, could never imagine because they can't see it.
I was supposed to be part of that trip. I was stuck here, fighting to strip out the public land selloff language from the Republican budget bill. They sent me lots of pictures afterwards, pictures of the northern pike here that my son caught--my son Micah.
My wife Julie was able to spend some really quality wilderness time with both of our sons before they went off to their respective colleges for the year. She basically told me that they ate more food on this trip than most rugby teams.
Like my family, millions--literally millions--of Americans have hunted and fished and paddled and traversed the Boundary Waters. In fact, it has an almost religious connotation among sportsmen in particular.
It is somewhat amazing to me to see a Republican Party that used to have such fidelity to hunters and anglers basically roll all of the organizations that my colleague from Minnesota rattled off which said this is not the right place for this--organizations like Pheasants Forever, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, and Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and on and on and on--but that is where we are today.
You know, stories from the Boundary Waters, stories of stalking whitetail and grouse are passed down from generation to generation in the Midwest. Legendary stories of lake trout and northern pike and walleye abound, sometimes with the fish actually getting bigger with each telling of the story. The water, as the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Smith, said, is some of the cleanest you will find anywhere in the lower 48. It is a bucket-list, once-in-a-lifetime designation for so many public land owners. And that is precisely what is at risk with this vote--one of our Nation's true crown jewels.
So let's back up a little bit for folks who don't have firsthand knowledge of what the Boundary Waters is, where it is, and do a little explaining.
The Boundary Waters is one of the most incredible intact wilderness landscapes left in our Nation. It is an absolute tapestry of lakes and streams, consisting of well over 1,000 individual lakes, 2,000 designated campsites, and hundreds of miles of rivers and streams. The Boundary Waters contains the largest contiguous landscape of uncut forest remaining in the Eastern United States.
The 3 million-acre Superior National Forest in which the Boundary Waters
In fact, this wilderness was so important that Teddy Roosevelt himself, President Roosevelt, set it aside as part of the Superior National Forest all the way back in 1909. Almost half a century later, Congress voted overwhelmingly to include the Boundary Waters as one of the original units of the National Wilderness System.
In many ways, Minnesotans rely on the Boundary Waters to support their local economy. Every year, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness draws more visitors--more visitors--than any other wilderness area in the entire Nation. This recreation supports 17,000 Minnesotan jobs, contributes roughly $1 billion in annual sales, and preserves and shares, more importantly, a way of life--a way of life that has been passed down from generation to generation.
This is a place, this is an area that is no stranger to threats. In addition to containing so many of the natural resources that come with the wilderness, the area also contains copper.
I should say, you know, for one, there is a long history of iron mining in this area. I grew up the son of someone who worked for Anaconda Copper, the grandson of somebody who was a gold miner. But I want to talk a little bit about the difference between some of these Iron Range mines that mine ore that is just chemically inert. It is chemically stable.
When you mine for iron, you are basically mining iron oxide. You are mining rust, and then you are turning that back into iron. This is not that kind of mine. This is a copper sulfide mine, and the company that wants to mine here is called Twin Metals. And that sounds so Minnesotan. I think they might have picked it to sound Minnesotan. It is actually a subsidiary of a Chilean mining company called Antofagasta.
They want to build this copper-nickel mine less than a mile upstream from the Boundary Waters on a spit of land between two waterways.
Let me explain a little bit about what it looks like to mine copper in a place like Boundary Waters, particularly when you are mining copper sulfide ore. The company will have to dig some very deep shafts to reach these very deep ore bodies. They will then remove many millions of tons for processing, millions and millions of tons of copper sulfide ore. After they remove what copper and nickel are economically recoverable in that ore, they will dump as much as 100 million tons of waste rock and low-grade ore on the site, never to be removed.
Now, deep underground, the copper is locked up in this ore rich in sulfur, but that ore has never been exposed to water. It has never been exposed to oxygen or air. And when you bring it to the surface and you let it sit out in a pile and you expose it to air and water, oxygen bonds with that sulfur, and when you bond oxygen to sulfur, you get sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is one of the hardest waste products you can imagine to try to control.
The waste rock that has been dumped on the site will naturally form sulfuric acid. That acid will then dissolve toxic heavy metals present in the waste rock, and then you have this toxic stew of heavy metals along with sulfuric acid.
Now, there is no plan to remove all this waste from the mine site, so it is basically a ticking time bomb of acid and heavy metals.
Studies by the EPA say that the odds of sulfuric acid polluting the Boundary Waters under this scenario are highly likely. And I will do you one better: It has a perfect track record of polluting water. That is according to the peer-reviewed study on sulfide-ore copper mining that drove the 2023 decision to ban mining in the area. It is also my personal experience as a former natural resources trustee who had to negotiate with copper companies that polluted water with this same technology.
So it is not just highly likely; it is guaranteed. Sulfide mining in the Rainy River watershed will cause certain irreversible pollution to the Boundary Waters. Think again about eating those fish that you caught or drinking that water you dipped from the middle of the lake, because the thing about sulfuric acid poisoning is it is invisible. You can't see it, but it makes water unsafe to drink.
Sulfuric acid also lowers the pH level of water, changing entire ecosystems. At high levels, fish that rely on healthy water to live literally experience respiratory failure in water poisoned by sulfuric acid. They literally drown to death. They will not be able to reproduce normally. Their food sources will be tainted, meaning entire fish populations of lake trout and smallmouth bass will be at risk.
The sulfuric acid produced by this mine will leach heavy metals like lead, mercury, or copper into that same water. That will then accumulate in the bodies of fish and wildlife that consume that water. And when people eat meat and fish with heavy metals, they accumulate in our bodies too.
This isn't a myth; it is a virtually guaranteed outcome because we know that plans for the mine include storing over 100 million tons of toxic waste rock on the edge of the wilderness upstream of the Boundary Waters. Think about how much that is. Let's visualize how much waste rock we are talking about being dumped and never removed from this mine site. A hundred million tons is like 740,000 Boeing 777 airplanes. It is twice the mass of all the living people on Earth. It is 500 times the weight of the Empire State Building sitting there, generating toxic acid. It is the amount of toxic waste that Antofagasta--a foreign mining company that plans to sell the copper to foreign countries-- plans to store on the edge of the largest patch of wild rivers and forests in our country, the place that has 20 percent of all the freshwater in our National Forest System.
The damage is really unthinkable, but it is also irreversible because currently we don't have any technology available that is capable of reversing sulfuric acid contamination.
This is bad. It is so bad that in 2016, even before there was a mineral withdrawal, the Obama administration canceled the mine's lease. And in 2023, after years of review and overwhelming public support, a 20-year mineral withdrawal was established in the Rainy River watershed, home to the Boundary Waters. That decision reflects common sense. Some places are too valuable to gamble with.
With today's technology, if it is a gamble, why not wait 30 years when maybe that technology is a sure bet? But it is not a sure bet today.
That decision also reflected the voices of the American people because the assessment that led to the mineral withdrawal was completed by the U.S. Forest Service in 2022, and it included hundreds of thousands of public comments--675,000 public comments--over 95 percent of which favored the withdrawal area being withdrawn from nonferrous mining, sulfide mining.
Today, 70 percent of Minnesotans oppose mining in the Boundary Waters. Instead of listening to Minnesotans and Americans from all over the country who care about this place, Republicans today are using an unprecedented, blunt-force legislative method that includes zero public comment--no comment period--to make decisions about our public lands without any input from the people to whom those lands actually belong.
We can't talk about the Boundary Waters without also speaking of belonging and Tribal communities. Three Tribes--the Bois Forte Band, the Fond du Lac Band, and the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa--have extensive treaty rights in Northeastern Minnesota. These are rights to do things like hunt and fish and gather wild rice. These rights are guaranteed to them by the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe and have been reaffirmed by Federal courts over and over again. By overturning the public land order with a CRA resolution, Senate Republicans will not only cut Tribes out of the conversation, but they disrespect the Tribal treaty rights and directly risk those Tribes' guaranteed access to their traditional way of life and subsistence use of this place.
So since my Republican colleagues are refusing to include constituents' voices in this process, I will bring a few of those from New Mexico to the floor here today.
Dr. Brown, from Santa Fe, wrote me in urging that we oppose this vote. He said:
Dr. Merriman, from Albuquerque, said:
Lee, from Los Alamos, wrote:
From Naima in Santa Fe:
From Dr. Bagne in Silver City:
Judy, from Albuquerque, wrote:
From Roxane in Rio Rancho:
From Amy in Albuquerque:
Their voices matter because the Boundary Waters are our public lands--all of ours. President Teddy Roosevelt, who had the incredible foresight to protect this beautiful place, had it right when he said that we ``should see to it that they are preserved for [our] children and [our] children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.''
The way I look at public lands is that they are the closest, most tangible thing we have to being able to represent true Jeffersonian democracy.
They are the thing, as we saw last June, that often unites us across the political spectrum. If you take these public lands away, you tear away the places where we are the most free. This is an issue of our heritage, and it is an issue of our inheritance.
It is an issue for Minnesota, but it is not just an issue for Minnesota--it is an issue for our Nation. It is about something bigger. It is a test of whether our public lands--as a friend of mine likes to say--our public lands that are the anvil upon which we have forged our collective identity.
Can that be stripped from us? Can it be stripped of their protections?
You know, I am going to summarize this one more time. We are going to allow a foreign mining company to take our minerals, to ship those minerals to China for processing, and then to sell those back to us with a tariff on top.
Like, how is that ``America First''? It is not. And to risk this globally, incredible rare asset that is the Boundary Waters for that, boy, that just seems really shortsighted to me.
I would urge every one of my colleagues--I would urge you--to vote no on this Congressional Review Act resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from New Mexico for laying out the issues so ably that are before us with this House resolution on the Boundary Waters. It is wonderful to have a colleague who not only is really good at being a legislator but who is also an outstanding hunter and fisherman and then, on top of that, is also an engineer so that he can explain to us the impacts of this kind of mining on the environment with a scientific expertise that I just really value.
I thank Senator Heinrich so much for being here tonight to help tell the story of what the impact of this mine would be on this incredible place and why it is so important that this CRA be defeated.
As I think about what I want people to know about this place, I can't help but think about the first time that I saw the Boundary Waters myself. Some of my colleagues may know that I was originally born in New Mexico. I have lived in Minnesota for over 40 years now, but I was originally born in New Mexico. New Mexico is a desert climate. So, when I first went to Minnesota, I didn't quite know what to make of all of the lakes and rivers and streams and the beautiful green everywhere.
But I was married to a man who had spent his high school years up in the Boundary Waters. He went to a camp up there where he would go up for weeks at a time and canoe throughout the Boundary Waters. The Boundary Waters are connected to a big Canadian provincial park called the Quetico, and you literally can canoe from surface water in the Boundary Waters and get all the way to Hudson Bay, which is just remarkable. I went up there for the first time to see this incredible place after Archie and I had lived in Minnesota for a few years, and I think, in a lot of ways, it is when I first fell in love with Minnesota--the place of Minnesota--because I just couldn't believe all the water and the green and the wildlife and also how wild it was and to be able to be out on the water, in a canoe, and feel like you were just so far away from the pressures of modern civilization.
Yet, the Boundary Waters is really quite accessible to people. It is not one of those areas that is a wilderness area that is impossible to get to, which is why, as you know, we are talking about it tonight. People have been--you know, hundreds of thousands of people are able to visit the Boundary Waters each year and are able to experience what it is like to be in this place.
As I said earlier, the last time I was there was at the end of last summer. We were in the Boundary Waters just for a day trip, and even on that day trip, we saw two wolves, which is, like, really incredible. You can imagine in the wintertime, when it is so dark in that part of the world--long, long nights--the opportunity to see the aurora borealis, or the northern lights, which are just really phenomenal. Then, in the summertime, the long, long northern summer evenings stretch on until, you know, 9:30 or 10 at night, and you have incredible opportunities to go fishing and just be at the camp and just enjoy it. It is really amazing.
When I first went to the Boundary Waters with our kids, I started to get really interested in the history of this place, and I found it just fascinating to think about. So you have got, you know, what today we think of as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is a million areas of protected wilderness. It is important, I think, as I was diving into the history of this place, to understand that, historically, this has been the home of the Anishinaabe people, the Ojibwe people, in Northern Minnesota. They lived in this place for, you know, generations and generations. They canoed and hunted and fished to support themselves and their families and their communities, and that was their home.
Starting in the 18th century, the Boundary Waters got connected up through the fur trade routes as the voyageurs came, you know, all the way from across the Atlantic and in through, you know, what is now Northern Minnesota and Canada; but it was at that point that this was just an incredible resource for these fur trading routes that were a hugely--hugely--big deal. That fur trade really, you know, drove what was happening in that part of the country. In the 1700s and 1800s, French explorers and traders really opened up the area. The North West Company established a trading post at Grand Portage, and that was really kind of the economic driver.
In this moment, this part of the country that is now the Boundary Waters experienced some, you know, huge transitions, but I think it is important for us all to understand that, even though this is a wilderness place--it is a wild place--it has also always been a place where people were, where people were a part of what was happening in this country and in this particular part of the country.
Of course, you know, over time, as the United States became a country and entered into relationships with the Tribal nations that lived in this part of the country, that became sort of what drove a lot of the geopolitics, I guess you could say, of this part of the Nation.
In 1857, there was the Enabling Act, and the U.S. Congress was granted land to support schools through the University of Minnesota. Then a little bit later--this is right about the time of
By the time of about 1902, the U.S. Land Office--what it did is it withdrew a half a million acres in what is now the future--what was the future WCA wilderness area, and they withdrew it from settlement, which was a really, really important thing because, at this time, we were seeing massive development in Northern Minnesota, a huge--you know, massive timber resources were present in the State and, of course, mineral resources, including iron.
In 1904, at the request of the State's forestry board, Congress granted 20,000 acres to the State for the Burntside Forest Reserve, and it said in that situation that State forest reserves should be devoted not alone to the business of raising timber but to the pleasures of all the people. It is interesting to me. I think about how Minnesota--even, you know, back more than a century ago--was thinking carefully about how to balance the power and the vitality of our economy in Northern Minnesota with also the understanding that some of that most precious land needs to be set aside in a place where people can enjoy it.
Over time, in 1909, the Superior National Forest was created by President Theodore Roosevelt--a great conservationist in our country's history. I often think of him as the man who really was the leader of the powerful Republican conservation movement in this country. So, in 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt created the Superior National Forest from previously withdrawn lands that had been set aside, including what is now part of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. There was continuing work both at the State level and at the Federal level to create sort of game refuges--yes, refuges--and other places that would be places where, you know, the moose and the caribou and other wild creatures would have a place to live even as Northern Minnesota was becoming increasingly developed.
In 1926, the roadless wilderness area in the Superior National Forest was established by the Secretary of Agriculture at the time, which was 640,000 acres. At that point, they said the policy here was to retain as much as possible the land which had recreational opportunities of this nature in the wilderness.
The efforts of this country to continue to protect this area went forward in the 1930s with the passage of the Shipstead-Newton-Nolan Act to protect water levels and lakeshores. There had been some dams and other sort of navigational structures that had been built that were having an impact on how the water flowed in the Boundary Waters. So here we had kind of a prohibition of those dams and logging within 400 feet of this recreational area just to sort of protect the natural area.
And then in the late 1920s and early 1930s, work continued to sort of establish what was this special place that was going to be protected.
In 1938, the U.S. Forest Service established the Superior Roadless Primitive Area, with boundaries that, today, are quite similar--quite similar to what today is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
In Minnesota, we know a lot about something called Thye-Blatnik. I can talk more about that, but in 1948, Congress passed the Thye-Blatnik area. And what happened then is that, through the Thye-Blatnik Act, resorts and other private lands in the wilderness were bought up, and we established something that is still very important to this day, something that I work on all the time, that in lieu of the property taxes that might have been achieved through those lands, there is a payment in lieu of taxes called Thye-Blatnik that goes to the counties up in Northern Minnesota--Cook County and Lake County, St. Louis County--in exchange for what was this wilderness area for all of us to enjoy.
In 1949, President Truman issued an Executive order for basically an airspace reservation over the wilderness area to prohibit planes from flying in on the lakes and disrupting the experience of nature that people could have there. You were not allowed to fly lower than 4,000 feet over the wilderness.
And then in 1958, the Forest Service changes the name of this place to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and it becomes a part of what we now know as the Boundary Waters.
In 1964, another really important milestone happened for the protection of this incredible place, and that was when Congress passed the Wilderness Act, and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area became part of the National Wilderness Preservation System with a clause that allowed for some logging and some use of motorized vehicles to continue in this area.
In 1965, the Secretary of Agriculture at the time was Orville Freeman, who was a Minnesotan, and Secretary Freeman issued all sorts of management changes that were recommended to kind of further protect this area from logging and from motorized boats and zoning to make sure that it would stay in its most natural state.
In 1978, Congress enacts the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act, which protected this place in perpetuity--we would hope--to be the wilderness area that it is. This was a very, very important thing.
It was somewhat controversial in Minnesota at the time, there is no doubt, but it has, today, become one of the most beloved places in Minnesota, thanks to the prescience of State and local leaders who went forward to protect this place.
And I am thinking--as I think about all of the people over so many generations who have been in this place for sustenance, for their food, for their housing, and in more modern times, for their ability to get away from it all and to enjoy this place in ways that is so difficult, I am thinking about all the people that I have heard from who have asked me to make sure that we are protecting this place.
I think, today--a big thanks to everybody who has reached out to our office. I think, today, we had hundreds of phone calls into the office asking me to do everything I can to protect the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area. And, honestly, over the last many weeks that this issue has been on the forefront of people's minds, we have gotten, I am sure, just thousands and thousands and thousands of messages from people.
And what is interesting about these messages is, you know, one, how many people have firsthand experience of this incredible place and what it means to them and just the diversity of the stories that people have.
I find this all the time when I go around Minnesota, and people will stop me and thank me for the work that I have done to protect this place, just the way that people want to tell the stories of what it has meant to them.
I think, today, especially in this time when it is so hard, especially for our young people to get--I mean all of us, however old you are--to get away from technology and to just sort of be centered in that experience of being, you know, out in nature, that it is causing people to be even more appreciative of what it means to have a wilderness area like this.
So I am going to just take a moment to read some of the stories that have been forwarded to me about the power of this place and the lives of people in Minnesota and across the country.
This is a story from Grand Rapids, MN, which is in the, kind of, northern part of the State, still south of the Boundary Waters, and it says:
I am a 53-year-old that has lived in Northern Minnesota her whole life. My family and I have enjoyed God's great Northwoods and all it has to offer through canoeing and camping, water skiing, biking, campfires, hiking, swimming, and much more. To see and hear about the Boundary Waters possibly condemned would be beyond a travesty. Just think of all of the animals, all of the family trips ended, tree growth, the disaster that would happen there, not to mention what it would do to the ecosystem and whatever else I cannot fathom right now.
This is a message that was sent in to me from Mahtomedi, MN, which is more in the Twin Cities, South Central part of the State in the Twin Cities area. This person wrote:
The Boundary Waters have been a very special place to me for a long time. I was first taken there by my father and my uncle, and it was the start
This is a message from someone from Farmington, MN. Farmington is also in the suburban metro area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. And this person said:
Me and my dad take a trip once yearly to canoe the Boundary Waters. I am 23 years old, and every year is incredibly special because the Boundary Waters are so important to my family. My dad proposed to my mom in the Boundary Waters. The Boundary Waters represents love; the wild, untamed American spirit; and my family. I want to be able to show my children pristine wilderness. I am begging you to act to protect the Boundary Waters.
This is a message from Rochester, MN, the home of Mayo Clinic and University of Minnesota Rochester, an incredible community. This person has written this:
I was 10 years old when I first visited the Boundary Waters with my dad and my grandfather. I have since visited numerous times, including in 2020 when my grandfather, who had been going to the Boundary Waters for 40 years, made his final visit. This place is now, to my family, not just a tranquil retreat but also a time-honored family legacy and an act of remembrance for my grandfather. To allow the Boundary Waters to be permanently open for mining is to destroy one of the great natural gifts God has given Minnesota for current generations and generations to come.
Now, I just want to pause on this because I think it is an opportunity to talk a little bit more about--kind of help to locate in colleagues' and people's brains like where this mine will be, and I have a map which shows how this all flows.
So the Boundary Waters is this huge area, as we have said, a million acres of wilderness. And I am going to orient you here. The green here is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. And this is the border between Minnesota and Canada here. And this is the Quetico Provincial Park, which is this huge Canadian national park. It is really quite incredible.
And then here you see Ely, MN, which is a major entry point into the Boundary Waters. If you were to go over here, you would find--oh, I guess it is down here as I am orienting myself on this map. I guess it is over here. There is another access point that is commonly used by people in going into the Boundary Waters through the Gunflint Trail and Grand Marais, which is right here on Lake Superior.
And what we are talking about here, here you can see--I am going to give you the orientation here--the red--this area here, the yellow and green stripes, which you can see here, this is where the Twin Metals deposits are, this mine that we are talking about. These are the deposits that would be developed by Antofagasta, by the Twin Metals Mine, right here.
The red area shows how the water flows on the map, and it gives you an idea of why, even though this mine is just slightly outside of the actual boundaries of the Boundary Waters, that, for the practical purposes of the watershed and how the water moves, it might as well be inside the watershed in terms of how the damage to the water would flow because you can see, it is all connected. I mean, that is what happens with water, it flows.
And so here you have Birch Lake. It flows up this way. This is the Namakan River, Namakan Lake. Up here is Rainy Lake. This is close to where our kids went to camp. Kabetogama Lake is up here.
All of this area is connected. And so when you hear, colleagues, people telling you: You don't need to worry about this because this mine isn't in the Boundary Waters, that is not the point. The point is that it is in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, and that is how the damage is done.
(Mr. ARMSTRONG assumed the Chair.)
Mr. President, I was showing colleagues this map because I wanted to make a couple of points about how this works--how the waterflow works.
One is that even though the mineral deposits and how they are going to be developed are just barely outside of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, the impact of the mine and the impact on the water spreads not only through the Boundary Waters, but it also flows up through these rivers that essentially form the border between Minnesota and Canada-- the United States and Canada--and then into Voyageurs National Park. I think sometimes we don't talk enough about the impact on Voyageurs, which is an incredible park.
Together, Boundary Waters and Voyageurs offer people so many different ways of experiencing this wilderness, and the impact on both of them is really significant.
I think sometimes also it is hard for folks to fully understand and appreciate what is the impact on water quality of this kind of mine. And so I want to just share some of that with you as well as you think about what is the risk that is actually posed by this?
And I am going to get into this a bit more in some detail, but I think it is important, as you are considering this, to understand that during the mineral lease withdrawal process that happened in--well, really, stretched over time between, roughly, 2016 and 2021, when it was brought to a conclusion, there was a massive amount of effort, scientific research study that was done, huge amounts of public comment to gather information about what people thought about this that became the basis for the decision to do this mineral withdrawal.
The mineral withdrawal process is defined in the Federal Land Management Policy Act. I believe it is the FLPMA, as people call it around here. And that was followed to a tee. And that congressional law allows for mineral withdrawals when it is determined that the potential risks of mines or other kinds of natural resources development pose too great a risk to the public resource that belongs to it all. So I will talk about that in a little bit more detail, but I wanted to just share with colleagues this background on why sulfide ore copper mining poses such a unique risk to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.
So the background here is that a Chilean mining company operating under the name of Twin Metals--Senator Heinrich said it sounds like a nice Minnesota name, and it is, but it is essentially a wholly owned subsidiary of Antofagasta.
So this Chilean mining company has proposed this mine--a large copper-nickel mine immediately upstream of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. And this proposed mine would extract copper from a geological formation called the Duluth Complex.
The Duluth Complex really runs kind of this way. It runs from northeast to southwest across Minnesota. This is important because there are lots of places where the Duluth Complex can be developed in addition to this particular place where these leases in question are right on the border of the Boundary Waters. There are huge resources all across the way. And, in fact, there are other mines under development down in this part of the State that are going through the process of getting developed.
So this Duluth process, which has a specific type of sulfide ore that interacts with water in ways that can create--that do create permanent contamination risks. And so the question is, How does this mechanism work? What exactly happens? And why is it so particularly difficult to manage in this watershed? Part of why the water quality is of such a big concern in this area is that the baseline condition here is just so outstanding.
A 2017 report by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency describes the water within the Boundary Waters watershed as ``exceptionally clean and immaculate.'' It concludes that the majority of the water bodies within this watershed have exceptional biological, chemical, and physical characteristics.
So the water in the Boundary Waters is so clean that visitors frequently drink right out of the lakes. There is no need for any purification. I have done this myself. When you are canoeing--now, you are not going to want to drink the water right next to the shore
When sulfide-bearing rock is excavated and exposed to oxygen and water, a chemical chain reaction begins, and what happens is that the sulfide minerals here, primarily--I might not say this exactly right-- pyrrhotite, which is in the Duluth Complex, it oxidizes upon exposure and then you have sulfuric acid. And sulfuric acid then dissolves the surrounding rock and leaches out heavy metals--including copper and arsenic and lead and cadmium--into the water. And the resulting contaminated water, which is the acid mine drainage, is very acidic, and it is also laden with heavy metals, and that, of course, is toxic to aquatic life.
And the mining operations are going to dramatically increase the surface area of this rock as it is exposed to water and oxygen, and that accelerates the oxidation by many orders of magnitude compared to what you would see with natural weathering rates. And once this acid mine drainage has started, it is incredibly difficult to stop it, and it can continue for centuries or in perpetuity after the mine closes--a problem that is sometimes called perpetual treatment.
So if you think about it, this mine--the mining company itself says that they think that the mine would probably be in operation for, I think, 10, 15 years or in that area. Yet you are going to have centuries of impact from this so-called perpetual treatment issue.
A secondary chemical hazard, when you are doing sulfide ore mining in this particularly damp environment of the Boundary Waters watershed, would also substantially increase sulfite loading in the water. So elevated sulfate triggers a separate but related chemical reaction with serious consequences for human health.
Sulfite-reducing bacteria in sediment can convert sulfate to sulfide under low oxygen conditions and then the sulfide can react with inorganic mercury, which is naturally present in the environment, to produce methylmercury. And methylmercury bioaccumulates in the food chain, concentrating in fish at levels that can be dangerous for human consumption.
Sulfate discharges from existing disturbed areas of sulfide ore in the watershed have already elevated sulfate levels in the BWCA headwaters, and analysis of monitoring data indicates that there is a measurable water quality degradation that is already occurring.
So this is important because the Boundary Waters fisheries-- particularly walleye, the most beloved fish in Minnesota--are central to the recreational and economic value of this place. And, of course, mercury contamination resulting in consumption advisories would have a significant impact for the sport fishing industry, certainly for Tribal subsistence rights, and overall for the negative impacts on the regional tourism economy.
So I think, as you think about this, I mean, you have got to sometimes think: Wow, like, that sounds bad, but is that really going to happen? Do we really have to worry about that? Won't there be a way of avoiding this? And I just want to point out that we can look at the precedence of what has happened in the other places around the country to help answer that question.
The chemical risks that I have just described are not theoretical. In fact, there are two sites in the United States where this AMD from sulfide ore mining has caused serious and long-lasting harm. This is the acid mine drainage--AMD.
So the first site is the Gold King Mine in Colorado. This is from 2015. In August of 2015, an EPA contractor crew working at the abandoned Gold King Mine near Silverton, CO, accidentally breached a plug, releasing approximately 3 million gallons of acid mine drainage into Cement Creek, which is a tributary of the Animas River.
So this plume, which was literally visible orange from dissolved iron and heavy metals, it traveled more than 100 miles downstream through Colorado and New Mexico. It crossed into the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation relies on the San Juan River for irrigation and for drinking water, and three States had to declare emergencies.
The Navajo Nation had to shut down all water withdrawals from the river, farmers lost crops and were forced to sell their livestock, and some metals were measured at hundreds of times the legal limits for drinking water. Now, a treatment plant costing $1.5 million to build and $2.4 million per year to operate was still running as of 2024--9 years after the spill. This treatment plant is treating an estimated 300 gallons of contaminated water per minute draining continuously from the mine.
Local communities have declined Superfund designation for years out of concern for tourism, but the spill forced their hand, and victims have filed hundreds of millions of dollars in claims. None has been paid because the EPA evoked sovereign immunity.
So this was a breach in this gold metal mine in Silverton talking about a plume of this polluted acid drainage that is traveling more than 100 miles. And I know my Minnesota pretty well, but I would say that--I mean, certainly from Birch Lake to Voyageurs National Park is less than 100 miles. So it gives you an idea of how far this polluted water can spread in these kinds of dangerous environments.
I want to tell colleagues about another example of this kind of failure, and that is the Summitville Mine in Colorado. At the Summitville Gold Mine in southern Colorado, acid- and metal-laden runoff killed all biological life in a 17-mile stretch of the Alamosa River.
The operator declared bankruptcy in 1992 and abandoned the site midoperation, leaving EPA to manage the ongoing emergency, and the site was designated a Federal Superfund site, and Federal cleanup costs have exceeded $210 million. The Alamosa River has never fully recovered.
I think it is important that we think about these things as we consider the risks of this kind of mine. And, again, I want to remind colleagues that that is one of the reasons why this mineral withdrawal was done--because the Forest Service considered these risks. They did an environmental assessment, and they concluded that this risk was too great to bear.
When we weigh these substantial risks of mining near the Boundary Waters, it is important for us to ask: What is the benefit? What might we see here? Where might we benefit? And this is, I think, really important to understand because where would these minerals go?
There has been an argument made that this is an ``America First'' national security priority to develop these minerals, but the question is, Who would own the minerals that are brought up from this piece of land right here near Birch Lake in Northern Minnesota? And the answer to that question is these minerals are going to go to China.
Antofagasta--the Chilean company that is wanting to develop these leases--operates a number of copper mines in South America, and it sends the majority of the ore that it pulls out of the ground to Chinese state-owned refineries for processing.
This year, in fact, these Chinese refineries have agreed to an unprecedented zero-dollar contract for processing Antofagasta ore. So if you think about it, what this means is that China is in such great need of copper ore to develop their energy and their AI infrastructure--and all of the reasons that they need copper ore--that they have agreed to directly subsidize Antofagasta's copper production by providing free processing of its ore.
So what this means, of course, is that the copper nickel that is pulled out of these deposits is going to probably travel by train to the Pacific coast, where it is then going to be transported to China, where it will be smelted in China, and it will be used.
Those minerals aren't going to then be sent back to us free. They are going to be maybe, at best, sold back to us in iPhones or other kinds of consumer products. But they are not ours to develop. We are going to have to buy them back.
So I question, colleagues: What is the advantage here? Where is the national security advantage? Where is the ``America First'' advantage that we are looking for?
With a critical minerals trade war already underway, shipping American minerals to China seems to run counter to so much of the work that Congress
So as I have been looking at this, I think it shows us that the proposed risks of this mine are substantial. They arise from the chemistry of the ore itself and, specifically, the chemistry in this very particular climate. And here in the particular rock and the particular climate in Minnesota, you have got the inevitability of AMD, this acid mine drain-off, from this sulfide-rich rock. You have the absence of any natural acid buffering capacity in the watershed. And then you have this sort of sulfate-driven methylmercury pathway that is developed.
These chemical realities, combined with the connectivity of this water across so many miles between the mine site here, the BWCA immediately adjacent to it, and then all of this watershed mean that the consequences of contamination would be really severe. They would be long-lasting, and they would be effectively irreversible.
And as we consider the risks that come from this mine proposal, I think we really have to ask ourselves if it is worth endangering one of our most beloved wilderness areas so that American minerals can be processed and used in China.
Now, colleagues, I want to turn to an issue that is a little bit geeky and nerdy. If you are in Congress, though, you appreciate the value of it. And this has to do with, sort of, what is the process that we are using right here, right now, to pass this CRA. Let me just kind of talk about that a little bit because I think it is important for us to understand the precedent that we will be setting if we pass this resolution.
So we have before us H.J. Res. 140, which would essentially apply the congressional review authority process, with all of the privileges of that process, to something that is not a rule--which is what the congressional review authority is all about--but is a public land order. And this is important to understand.
The mineral withdrawal that was done here was done under the authorities of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. And in that Federal Land Policy and Management Act, there are processes that Congress defined if they don't like what happened, if they don't like what the executive branch did. There are processes for congressional disapproval of a public land order.
And so under this Federal Land Policy and Management Act--I am going to call it FLPMA because that is what everyone calls it around here-- there is an existing process for Congress to express its disapproval with a public land order, like the 2023 mineral withdrawal which is under consideration here on the Senate floor tonight. In that process that is described, Congress is given 90 days to adopt a concurrent resolution of disapproval.
So what is interesting is that, following the 2023 mineral withdrawal, which was completed in 2023, a resolution of disapproval on that mineral withdrawal was actually introduced. It was introduced on the House floor, and it passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee--all done, sort of, under the rules of sort of what FLPMA establishes. But it was never brought to the House floor, never brought to the Senate floor. And, in fact, Congress never acted on it.
And what happened, of course, is that under FLPMA you have 90 days to review or disapprove of an action, and that 90-day window opened and closed, and it passed.
So now what is happening--you might be asking: So why are we dealing with this now? This was in 2023. It actually came up on the House floor, and nothing ever came of it. Why are we dealing with this now?
Well, so the reason for that is that Republicans in the House are trying to use the congressional review authority, basically, to get a do-over. They are ignoring the fact that the CRA wasn't created to overturn a public land order, especially one that was 3 years old.
The CRA was designed by Congress to say: If the Federal Government passes a rule that we don't like, within 60 days we have the right to say: No, that is not what we meant; we want to draw it back again.
But, of course, that is not what is going on here. We are talking about not 60 days, not 90 days; we are talking about 3 years. We are not talking about a Federal regulation; we are talking about a public land order that has been standing for 3 years.
And I just think we have to think about what are the impacts of this precedent if this is the step that the Senate decides to take, because, if we are allowing these public land orders to be rescinded under the Congressional Review Act--I mean, this is a really dangerous precedent. Public land orders have never previously been submitted by any administration, including the first Trump administration. They have never previously been submitted as rules subject to the congressional review authority. This is the first one, submitted 3 years after the public land order was issued by the Department of the Interior. And, in fact, as I have just said, Congress set up a completely different set of procedures specifically to reconsider public land orders under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.
So what we are seeing here is using the CRA to undo this public land order, which would establish an entirely new precedent. It would allow future Congresses to undo public land orders with no time limit on any public land order. And potentially, based on this precedent, it could allow future Congresses, with a simple partisan majority vote, to undo any administrative action.
So what would that look like? What would that mean? Because I think, as we are making this decision, colleagues, you always have to think about that sometimes you are in power, sometimes you are out of power. But you have to think about what are the long-term implications of your decision.
So if this precedent is set--if we say, yes, the CRA could be used to undo a public land order, like we have here in the Boundary Waters-- well, then, I would think that some future Democratic Congress might think: Hmm, let's use the CRA to undo a fossil fuel lease or a mining lease or a timber lease that we don't think makes sense in South Dakota. Maybe we could use--this precedent would suggest that you could use the CRA to undo a permit or undo a permit denial. In fact, it seems so broad, this precedent, that it could probably undo any determination on an administrative law matter.
So that seems to me to be really risky--because one of the things that matters in this country is that you might not always agree with what happens, but there has to be some continuity, some consistency. If we are constantly doing something and then undoing it and then doing it again, I can tell you from my business background that that is a disaster, because how do you decide to make investment decisions if you think that willy-nilly, depending on who is in power and what the environment is, what the political environment is, an investment that you made in one area, under one administration, is going to be undone by another administration at another time--because that is exactly what is happening here. One administration, one party, is undoing what was done perfectly legally 3 years ago.
Now, it makes sense to me, right, that if something is done that Congress just disagrees with, that you would have a window of time to undo it--like, I think, 60 days, 90 days, as we have with the CRA and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. That makes sense.
Congress says: No, that is not what we wanted. That is not what we intended. That was not our legislative intent when we wrote this. We are going to undo it.
Then that makes sense to me.
If an administration does a mineral withdrawal like we did here, like the Biden administration did here, and Congress says, ``That was a mistake; that doesn't comply with the laws as we wrote them; we are going to change it,'' then, by all means, go ahead and try to change it, but not 3 years later and not in this way, not using a tool that was not--the CRA tool was not built for this. It was built to change a regulation that Congress disagreed with.
I think that it is a very dangerous--very, very dangerous--precedent, and I think it is the kind of precedent that, honestly, when the shoe is on the other foot, it creates problems. And I know that I have spoken with my colleagues
In a world where the Senate is always going to be a place where people disagree with one another, where we are not always going to see things the same way, where a project that I might think shouldn't be permitted somebody else might think is reasonable to be permitted-- those disagreements will always be there. But if we get into a situation where different parties, depending on whether they are in power or not, are just sort of--kind of randomly--undoing what has been in place for several years, I just think it further undermines the need for--it adds to chaos, it undermines certainty, and it certainly doesn't contribute to the problem-solving mentality that I think that we need around here.
And, of course, for my precious Boundary Waters, it has potentially really significant impacts, as I have described here, with the likely impact of water pollution on this precious place. And it also just leads to more lawsuits and more, sort of, legal wrangling that, in my mind, I wish we could just avoid.
In my life as a political leader, I have always found that the best ideas usually come from the people that are closest to the ground and closest to the work and do understand best what is going on, and so I am going to just take a few more minutes to read some of the comments that have come my way from people who have firsthand experience with the Boundary Waters and know what an incredible place it is.
This is a note from a constituent of mine from Medina, MN, which is, again, in the Twin Cities Metro Area. They write:
I know all the facts and arguments below are important, but for someone who went on Boundary Waters trips growing up, to bring my own girls starting at ages 5 and 8, it is truly a place like no other. It is my dad's happy place. He has led and gone on hundreds of BWCA trips over his lifetime, and at the young age of 72, he continues to go.
This is what I was talking about earlier about how, even though this is a very wild place, it is also so accessible to people.
This person goes on to write: He told myself and my husband when we were packing up for our first trip ever with the girls that from the moment that they were born, he has dreamt of this moment. The girls love it there. We have gone every year since. They adore being in the wilderness, seeing nature, and disconnecting from a world that can be so overwhelming. They look forward to it every year. As a mom, I am truly proud that my two girls are getting these opportunities. They are learning valuable life skills while being up there, and it doesn't hurt that we all get to disconnect from technology for a few days. I beg you to work as hard as you can to save this special place so that my daughters' kids will be able to enjoy it all in its splendor for years to come.
This is a message that came to me from Waconia, MN, and this is what this person writes: I first visited the BWCA on a church retreat in 2001, and it has been a magical place for me since then. As someone with a wildlife biology degree who also happens to have conservative political beliefs, I believe that protecting our country's pristine wilderness should take precedence over any financial partnerships with other countries. While it may momentarily create jobs for people in the Iron Range, those benefiting the most will be in Chile and China. Let's protect one of our country's last natural treasures so it will be around for generations to come. I have a close group of nine girlfriends from high school, and we have been making an annual trip to the BWCA just outside of Ely--this is it; this is what it looks like-- just outside of Ely for 23 years now. I am now a 41-year-old mother, and it is still my favorite weekend of the year. Please vote no to protect the environment, the animals, and my own personal sanity. I need the BWCA to remain protected. Remember, take nothing but pictures; leave nothing but footprints; kill nothing but time.
I love that.
This is making me think that there has been, you know, some things written--some things said--about what is it that Minnesota wants when it comes to this mine and this place and protecting this place. The stories that I am reading give wonderful anecdotes about what people think about it, but I think I am just going to bring some polling into this here because this is polling that shows what Minnesotans think about this broadly across different parties.
I think it is important to know that this was research that was done just in December of 2025. That is quite recent. This research shows us that Minnesotans are deeply connected to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and intensely support its protection. Multiple polls over the last 10 years have consistently shown this deep connection amongst voters across all political alignments.
This connection drives opposition to sulfide ore copper mining within the Boundary Water watershed by double margins. Minnesota voters are generally pro-mining, as I talked about earlier. They are pro-mining for iron ore, taconite, and for copper-nickel with one important exception: They overwhelmingly oppose sulfide ore copper mines that would be located in the watershed of the Boundary Waters.
I am going to give you some of the data in a minute, but I think this is something that I was saying earlier and that I want to return to. Minnesota is a pro-mining State. We are so proud of our mining heritage, and we are very, very proud of the continuing contributions we make to the Nation's economy through iron ore. We are the No. 1 producer of iron ore in the whole country. It is a crucial part of our economic foundation, and we are excited about the opportunity to develop new precious metals mining in Minnesota as these new deposits in the Duluth Complex are being explored. But Minnesota's view is, not this mine in this place. That is the issue here because they understand how popular, they understand how precious this place is.
So here is some of the data that I think is interesting. The Boundary Waters is uniquely popular, and voters across all political parties-- all political parties--say protecting it is an important priority.
Sixty percent of Minnesotans say that they have been to the Boundary Waters. That is kind of incredible.
The Boundary Waters is viewed favorably by nearly all Minnesotans across the State. Eighty-six percent of Minnesotans have a favorable view and 67 percent of Minnesotans have a very favorable view of Boundary Waters.
Now, I don't know what your State is like, Mr. President, but to find something that 60 percent of people say they have done and--what was it here?--86 percent of people have a favorable view of, that is a pretty big deal in our State, that everybody agrees on this.
I think it is important to understand--let me kind of break that down a little bit because you might be thinking: Is this something that is driven by party politics? And I can tell you as a Senator from Minnesota that there is nothing political about people's love of the Boundary Waters. It is not a Democratic love or a Republican love or an Independent love, and you see that in this data.
When you ask Minnesotans ``How much of a priority do you think it should be for Minnesota elected officials to protect the Boundary Waters from mining pollution,'' overall, 68 percent say it is a priority. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats say this, 66 percent of Independents say this, and 50 percent of Republicans say this. So, again, it is not a partisan issue. By more than a 2-to-1 margin, Minnesota voters oppose sulfide ore copper mining in the Boundary Waters watershed, and opposition is consistent. It has been consistent over quite a few years because this issue has been very much on Minnesotans' minds for quite a few years. This has been in the works for nearly 10 years. So I think it is important to understand that this is consistent.
It is also interesting that support for sulfide ore copper mining in the Boundary Waters watershed has actually dropped in 8 years--over the last 3
It says--I will just read this--it says: This is consistent with the view that Minnesotans generally support mining outside the Boundary Waters watershed by a 14-percent margin--40 percent favor, and only 26 percent oppose--and they strongly oppose sulfide ore copper mining within the Boundary Waters watershed.
I love this because it sort of shows that Minnesotans--I guess it is no surprise that as a Minnesota Senator, I should be reflecting the views of my constituents, and I think that is the case here--being pro- mining, wanting to see that opportunity, wanting to see that developed but not this mine in this place.
If you look at the biggest differences in opposition between mining in Minnesota versus mining in the Boundary Waters watershed, it is really quite interesting. The difference amongst Independents is plus- 62. That is a very big number for people who look at polling across the board.
I don't know if it shows this in this memo that I am referring to, but I can tell you, because I have seen the data, that this is also not a regional thing. Even in Northern Minnesota, even in the Eighth Congressional District where this mine would be, a majority of people in the Eighth Congressional District would agree with this statement: not this mine in this place.
So you can imagine what Minnesotans are thinking about tonight if they are watching me talk here and thinking about what the Senate is doing, and they are asking themselves: Why is the Senate--why did the U.S. House--why are they undoing this protection that we had in place that we wanted? Why are they ignoring what we think should be happening in our State? Why are they ignoring or undermining or undoing the protections we want to see in place for these public lands that matter so much?
I can tell you from the conversations I have been having that it is contributing to their lack of trust in this body, the ability of this body to, you know, produce action and legislation that actually reflect what they want to see happen. It is frustrating to them, and they are asking me: Why is this happening? Why is it even possible that something that was done and done correctly and done legally, you know, years ago is now being undone by a lot of people who have never even been to Minnesota and don't really even know what this is all about?
You know, it is difficult for me to explain exactly why this is happening. That is why I am here tonight to talk about this in all the ways that I can and help to try to change the flow of this debate as I am trying to change the flow of this polluting water through the Boundary Waters.
I would like to take a couple of minutes and talk a little bit about the work that was done to establish this mineral lease withdrawal because I think there has also been some discussion about what was really involved in that and shouldn't we just really let sort of the permitting process play out as it normally would?
I would say I understand that argument that there is a--you know, we have established a permitting process at the State level and at the Federal level, and that should be allowed to play out. But, you know, it is interesting because Congress also, in this Federal Land Policy and Management Act, said that there might be occasions when there are places where we want to be able to withdraw those mineral leases because we can see ahead of time--before all of the work has been done, we can see ahead of time based on our environmental assessment that this is not wise, that this doesn't make sense.
That is exactly what happened with the Rainy River withdrawal environmental assessment, which was done with extensive work.
I have it all right here. I do not think that I will read it all to you tonight, but I want to just highlight some of the pieces of this so that it can give colleagues an idea of how comprehensive this environmental assessment was--I mean, honestly, much more comprehensive than the Congressional Review Act resolution that is before the Senate right now that included, you know, no outreach, no scientific evidence.
There was nothing that was presented in this CRA that says ``Nope, this is all wrong'' that was done in this environmental review. There was none of that at all.
So let me just highlight some of what is in this Rainy River withdrawal, which is the basis for the mineral lease withdrawal, to give you some confidence that it was done with a lot of integrity and a lot of scientific backdrop.
The environmental assessment says this: The purpose of the requested withdrawal is to protect and preserve natural and cultural resources in the Rainy River watershed, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Mining Protection Area, and the 1854 ceded territory.
Let me just let everyone know that that is the ground that is covered by the 1854 treaty between the Federal Government and the Chippewa Tribes of Northern Minnesota that gives them hunting and fishing and wild rice-harvesting rights.
So it is saying basically that the purpose of this requested withdrawal is to protect and preserve natural and cultural resources in the Rainy River watershed from the known and potential adverse environmental impacts arising from exploration and development of federally owned minerals.
The withdrawal is needed because the Forest Service and the BLM have seen and can reasonably anticipate increasing interest within the private sector for developing the copper, nickel, ore mines in the Duluth Complex that may adversely impact the Rainy River Watershed.
This goes on to describe what the decision-making process looks like under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and describes how this act, written by Congress, of course, signed into law, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to make and modify and extend or revoke withdrawals, in accordance with the terms of the law. And that is what this is all about.
So what happens in this environmental assessment is that they look at alternatives, they look at an alternative where the leases are withdrawn, for 20 years to be clear, or a second alternative where there is no withdrawal and the leases continue.
And they evaluate what is likely to happen, what is likely to happen to the environment. They also evaluate what is likely to happen to the socioeconomics of the region because, of course, these things are always a balance.
We don't want to live in a world where all we do is to protect environmental resources but there is no way for people to earn a living or to feed their families or to own their own home.
So let me just talk, let me just highlight some of this because I think it is interesting and gets to that point.
It says, the region--this region around the Boundary Waters has a long history of mineral exploration and extraction with mining activity attracting migrants and establishing communities since the 19th century. Similarly, the region's unique natural amenities and recreation opportunities have been a source of recreation and tourism and an amenity-based economy. The relative concentration of jobs in both mining and tourist and related sectors demonstrate these economic dependencies within the region, which I can say from personal experience is very true.
So in 2019, the mining-related employment was estimated at 3 percent of total employment in St. Louis County, Cook County, and Lake County, that is this region. So think about that, 3 percent.
This represents over 40 percent of all mining sector jobs in the State. Sectors associated with recreation and tourism also make up a higher proportion of total jobs in the study area relative to the State average.
In 2019, recreation and tourism-dependent jobs--so that includes retail trade, arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food services--that was 22 percent of total employment in the three-county analysis plan.
But, of course, job numbers tell only part of the economic picture, average
In 2018, visitors to the wilderness area were estimated to contribute between 230 and 570 jobs and 6 million to 14.8 million in labor income all across this region, which we call the Arrowhead Region in Minnesota.
So I like that this is looking at the socioeconomics of this and kind of what are we going to do, how do we kind of maximize the benefit here.
I want to also just say I think it is important, because I always come back to this, the impacts on Tribes in Northern Minnesota. And this assessment points the following out: The lands proposed for withdrawal include the homeland and traditional use areas of the Lake Superior Chippewa Tribe, comprised of multiple independent bands living around Lake Superior and what is the northern parts of Minnesota.
And this, I think, is important. The Ojibwe bands were signatories of key treaties executed by the Federal Government in the 19th century. This withdrawal application area falls entirely within the 1854 ceded territory of the Lake Superior Chippewa from lands deemed to have been under the sole control of signatories at signing.
So every single thing that we are talking about here falls within the 1854 ceded territory, and this is not some historical document that is interesting to know about that has no impact on our daily life. This treaty is still in effect. It still establishes these hunting and fishing and wild rice harvesting rights that exist to this day. It still establishes the right that the Lake Superior Chippewa people, the Anishinaabe people of Northern Minnesota have around moose and deer and fish and berry and wild rice, their sugar bush sites, their maple stands, their white cedar stands, ducks, and other forest resources.
Of course, these resources are available to everybody, but they have a particular legal access point for the folks--for the Tribal nations. It is not known in many parts of the country, but in Minnesota, wild rice, manoomin, is a hugely important food source and also very important culturally to Native people, and it is a very important part of the ecosystem of this part of Minnesota.
And wild rice is a wetland plant that grows in exactly this kind of ecosystem, and it is, again, super important to the Ojibwe people. And this wild rice, it grows in very shallow freshwater marshes on the edges of lakes and rivers, and typically it grows only to about 3 feet high. And it is a very, very important part of what is included in these treaties. I think it is important to understand that.
As I go through this environmental assessment to share what it evaluates in terms of the opportunities in this area, what needs to be protected and what impacts you might see from the mine, I want to just share a little bit of that with you. I just need to find it here. This talks about--let me find it here.
Here we go. This is a good summary, I think, of what the environmental assessment finds. It says: The greatest potential risk to water quality of the wilderness area and lands within the withdrawal area comes from the catastrophic failure of a wet basin tailings storage or impoundment dam. Wet basin tailings storages pose the risk of dam failure and the potential release of a large volume of contaminated sediment or tailings into the water to a nearby water body, the potential transport of that downstream in water bodies and receptors.
Dam failures have the greatest potential of traveling downstream at a volume that could impact receding wilderness area water resources. Impacts would be most severe for streams and wetlands and lakes most adjacent to the failure. Failure would be highly likely to result in increases of total solids, sulfates, metal, or other constituents, exceedance of water quality standards, and observable impacts of aquatic bio and habitat in Birch Lake becoming successively less severe, of course, as the water moves forward.
But it assesses that the risk effects to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area would be significant and can't be--can't be--you know, mitigated in any way.
I think that that is the reason why this environmental assessment forms the basis for the mineral lease withdrawal. And, again, the mineral lease withdrawal is for 20 years, and 20 years seems like a long time. I have been in the Senate for 9 years--half of that time-- but the idea here is that you don't want to lock these minerals up forever. That doesn't seem reasonable. But given what the technology is right now, given what we know about the environmental risks and what this kind of mining would do, something is going to have to change before this makes sense, before this is a risk worth taking.
And I believe that that is really--the message that I take out of this environmental assessment, along with, you know, the many hundreds of thousands of people who wrote in talking about this and saying why-- why this mattered to them.
I think during the course of this discussion when we are talking about the special place that this is, also talking about the unusual precedent, the remarkable and dangerous precedent that the CRA establishes should it pass and also talking about the special consideration that I think that we need to give to Native people who have particular and sovereign treaty rights related to this place.
And I want to just, if I can, take a minute to go over in a bit of detail what some of the Tribes have said about this because I think it gives a good impact--it gives a good sense of why this is important to them.
And let me just find this for you before I--while I am looking for that, I want to share these other things with you because I think they are helpful.
Senator Heinrich spoke about this earlier, and it was really remarkable to me that as we were considering this CRA, as it was coming over from the House to the Senate, that we received here in the Senate an open letter from President Theodore Roosevelt's direct descendants talking about the importance of saving the Boundary Waters. I am going to just read this letter to make sure that people have had a chance to understand what it says.
The letter says: Dear United States Senators, the purpose of this letter is to strongly recommend all Senators vote against House Joint Resolution 140 and to ask you to work with President Trump to seek ways to permanently protect the Boundary Waters and to send a unified message that America is still a land that relentlessly protects its greatest wilderness terrain.
The proposed House resolution erroneously uses the Congressional Review Act to disallow the current withdrawal of over 225,000 acres and the headwaters of the Boundary Waters and would green-light exposure of this national treasure to the highly toxic and destructive impacts of sulfide-ore copper mining.
It is faulty on several key fronts. First, it is the opposite of ``America First.'' The mining company in question is foreign-owned, will use Chinese state-owned smelters, and will then sell the extracted metals on the open market.
Next, it removes the American public from public land decision making. A key priority of American public land policy has always been to have a strong bias towards obtaining robust public input. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have already weighed in on the Boundary Waters, and they overwhelmingly want it protected forever.
Next, it discards sound science. A detailed environmental assessment has already documented the substantial risk copper mining poses to this highly-valued ecosystem.
It sets a very bad precedent for other public lands. Using the CRA in this fashion, which has never been done before, would put at risk other public land withdrawals across America to
For all these reasons we feel a deep obligation to T.R.--as they call him in this letter--to speak out loudly in support of this exceptional American wilderness area.
As T.R. said at the Grand Canyon in 1903, we now reiterate with the Boundary Waters today ``leave it as it is.'' Vote no on House Joint Resolution 140 or any other similar legislation and seek creative ways to protect the Boundary Waters forever.
Frankly, T.R. would have been appalled at House Resolution 140 and the misguided and harmful effort to revoke sound and necessary mineral withdrawals in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters.
To understand T.R.'s perspective on all of this, it is important to review a little of his history starting with Minnesota.
T.R. had a strong affinity for Minnesota. T.R.'s love of Minnesota emanated directly from Lincoln and Grant's leadership during the Civil War. Minnesota immediately stepped up to support the dire cause.
T.R. had a huge amount of respect for the 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment, who literally saved the Union at Gettysburg. It is perhaps why, shortly after the Civil War, as a 10-year-old sitting in Germany, T.R. dreamed of proudly going to Minnesota someday. He hoped to get there when he was 14, and he cheered in his diary about the prospect: Hip, hip, hoorah.
In 1880, T.R.'s first extended hunting trip to the West brought him as far as the Red River in Moorhead, MN, way up in the northwestern quadrant of our State, where he briefly ducked into the Dakota Territory for the first time. From then on, T.R.'s strong historical connections and interest in Minnesota accelerated exponentially.
In 1838, he signed his first cattle ranching contract in Saint Paul. In the rest of the 1880s and in the 1890s, he crossed through the State on many memorable occasions.
In 1900, he launched his Vice Presidential campaign in Minnesota. In 1901, he gave his famous ``Big Stick'' speech at the Minnesota State Fair.
These are just a few small samplings of T.R.'s oversized affection for Minnesota, which helped to catapult him toward his destiny.
T.R. worked exceedingly hard to protect Minnesota's forests and water. It should come as no surprise that T.R.'s appreciations for Minnesota translated into an aggressive pursuit of protecting the State's favored forests and water.
In 1902, shortly after taking office, T.R. used scientific forestry to establish the Minnesota Forest Reserve, which was later renamed the Chippewa National Forest. It was the first national forest reserve in America east of the Mississippi River and the first one set aside through an act of Congress, rather than by a Presidential proclamation.
Around the same timeframe, closer to America's northern border, T.R.'s administration withdrew hundreds of thousands of acres in Lake and Cook Counties in the vicinity of the Boundary Waters to get a jump start on protecting this even more pristine source of water.
Finally, in 1909, for the public good, T.R. formally established the much broader Superior National Forest, where the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area resides.
Based on all of these proactive measures, there is no doubt T.R. wanted Minnesota's greatest natural resource, its most beloved Boundary Waters ecosystem, protected in perpetuity for all future generations to enjoy. It was a central tenet of his balanced approach to conservationism.
Saving the Boundary Waters makes common, bipartisan sense. Because of the foresight of America's early Republican leaders, the Boundary Waters has risen, as per the Department of the Interior, to become America's most heavily visited wilderness area. Its greatness goes way beyond Minnesota. It is the fourth pillar of all of America's greatest continental wilderness terrain--Yosemite, Lincoln and Harrison; Yellowstone, Grant; the Grand Canyon, Roosevelt; and the Boundary Waters.
Saving it from the devastating effects of copper mining is, therefore, the conservation imperative of our time and should be bipartisan in nature.
It is certainly bipartisan in Minnesota, as evidenced by the fact that 70 percent of Minnesotans want the Boundary Waters permanently protected. Minnesotans know, aside from the devastating impact on the environment, copper-nickel mining in the Boundary Waters would deal a crushing blow to a great rural American economy. It would kill jobs, dampen growth, decrease affordability, and erase any meaningful prospects for future economic prosperity in the region.
For all of these reasons, we are positive T.R. would want the Boundary Waters protected in a bipartisan fashion. But, sadly, the passage of H.J. Res. 140 in the House puts all of this in grave jeopardy.
Our specific ask of the United States Senators: To America's Senators, please do all that you can to protect this national treasure. On both sides of the political aisle, we strongly ask you to vote no on this resolution and on any other similar legislation proposed in the future.
T.R. was active in the preserving of our greatest wilderness terrain on both the east and west coasts. It became one of the greatest enduring legacies of his life. It is now time for all of you to get in the arena with him.
We implore you to do your own parts to ensure T.R.'s commonsense approach to conservationism is as strong today as it was more than a century ago. There is no better place to do this than to preserve the greatest wilderness terrain in the middle of America's heartland: the Boundary Waters, the greatest ``America 250'' conservation gift, protecting the fourth pillar.
This letter concludes in this way: In conjunction with America's 250th birthday, we ask you to honor President Theodore Roosevelt's conservation legacy.
As T.R.'s Presidential Library formally opens in Medora, ND, on Independence Day, three pillars of T.R.'s life will take central stage: Leadership, conservation, and citizenship.
It is one thing for politicians to say they believe in these three pillars, and it is quite another to see them act that way. We humbly submit it would be hard to gift America a more meaningful fourth pillar, one that better unites these three aspects of his legacy, than a huge enduring present in the form of a permanently protected Boundary Waters.
Finally, it should be noted that the signatories below represent the three branches of Theodore Roosevelt's family, emanating directly from his three sons, who all served in both World War I and World War II.
Quinton Roosevelt was, sadly, killed in action in World War I or he certainly would have risen to the call of service the second time.
The four of us below--this is important. The four of us below have never collectively cosigned a letter together, which should give an indication of how strongly we support voting no on this resolution and then voting yes on permanent Boundary Waters protection.
We greatly appreciate your time and attention to this matter.
This is signed by Theodore Roosevelt IV, Teddy Roosevelt's great- grandson, and cosigned by Tweed Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt III, and Mark Roosevelt.
I think this is so interesting because, one, it speaks to the great tradition of conservationism in the Republican Party. And I love also that it highlights these other great pillars of American remarkable places. They talk about, in this letter, America's greatest continental wilderness terrain: Yosemite, protected by Lincoln and Harrison; Yellowstone protected by Grant; the Grand Canyon and Roosevelt.
And, you know, just as it is impossible for us to imagine a big mine right on the doorstep of the Grand Canyon or Yosemite, it is impossible for us in Minnesota to imagine this mine right on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters. The Boundary Waters is the same caliber of national treasure as the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or Yellowstone.
And in this country, we certainly don't say we don't want to do any mining anyplace. But we also acknowledge that there are places that are so special, that that does not need to be the place where we look to meet our needs for precious metals, precious minerals.
I was searching, a moment ago, for--I had mentioned that I wanted to share some of the views of America's indigenous Tribes, talking about why they think that it is important to protect the Boundary Waters.
I have got a few here that I am going to read to you, and I am going to start with the letter from the National Congress of American Indians, which, as you no doubt know, is the oldest and largest organization of sovereign Tribal nations from around the country.
I am going to--this is actually not a letter. Forgive me. This is a resolution that the National Congress of American Indians put forward a few weeks ago, speaking on behalf of all of the Tribes, all of the Tribes that are members.
It is as follows. It is called: Calling on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to hold a hearing to consider and take testimony on H.J. Res 140, entitled, ``Disapproving Public Land Order 7917'' due to the impacted Tribal interests contained in the subject public land order.
It goes as follows:
Whereas we the members of the National Congress of American Indians of the United States, invoking the designed blessing of the Creator upon our efforts and purposes, in order to preserve for ourselves and our descendants the inherent sovereign right of our Indian Nations, rights secured under Indian treaties and agreements with the United States, and all other rights and benefits to which we are entitled under the laws and Constitution of the United States, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to enlighten the public toward a better understanding of the Indian people, to preserve Indian cultural values and otherwise promote the health, safety, and welfare of the Indian people, do hereby establish and submit the following resolution:
And whereas the National Congress of American Indians, NCAI, was established in 1944, and as the oldest and largest national organization of American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal governments;
And whereas the Ojibwe people have resided in North America since time immemorial, and before the establishment of the United States, have resided among what has become the border between the United States and Canada and the places now called Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota;
And whereas the Ojibwe people entered into numerous treaties with the United States, ceding land and reserving rights within those lands in exchange for peace, protection, and services, including the Treaty of La Pointe, September 30, 1854;
And whereas in the 1834 treaty, the Ojibwe reserved rights to hunt, fish, and gather within the territory ceded in the 1854 ceded territory, and such rights remain intact and are presently exercised by the current beneficiaries of the 1854 treaty;
And whereas, over time, the Federal Government took land within the ceded territory for conservation and protection, including the Superior National Forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, both within the Rainy River Watershed, which runs along the current United States-Canada border and what is now Northeastern Minnesota;
And whereas the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a globally unique freshwater ecosystem with some of the world's cleanest water--it comprises 20 percent of the freshwater within the entire National Forest System. And through its interconnected system of lakes, forests, and wetlands, provides irreplaceable habitat for threatened species like the lynx and the loons, and, by doing so, offers invaluable and cultural recreational resources, including resources that the Ojibwe utilize when exercising their reserved treaty rights;
And whereas, as recognized in the NCAI resolution on FDA O2510, wild rice, manomin, is the sacred food of the Ojibwe people, integral to their identity and necessary for their subsistence, and the Federal Government must protect the waters of the 1854 ceded territory from contamination to maintain traditional harvesting of wild rice, which, as the Ojibwe treaty guaranteed, are usufructuary rights;
And whereas, on January 31, 2023, then Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland issued Public Land Order 7917, withdrawing approximately 225,504 acres of National Forest System lands from disposition under the United States mineral and geothermal leasing laws for a period of 20 years to protect and preserve the 1854 ceded territory of the Lake Superior Chippewa in Northern Minnesota from the political adverse effects of mineral and geothermal exploration and development;
And whereas the order further provides that the purpose for the withdrawal is also to protect the health, traditional cultural values, and subsistence-based lifestyle of the Tribal nations that rely on resources in the region, such as wild rice, which are particularly susceptible to adverse impacts associated with mineral exploration and development;
And whereas NCAI acknowledges that any threats to Tribal rights and treaty rights of one Tribal nation erodes the reserved Tribal and treaty rights of all Tribal nations, thereby eroding Tribal sovereignty;
And whereas H.J. Res. 140, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 12, 2026, authorizes the disapproval of Public Land Order 7917;
And whereas the U.S. House of Representatives enacted H.J. Res. 140 without a hearing and without soliciting input from the impacted parties, including from the Tribal nations whose treaty rights are impacted by the disapproval;
And whereas pursuant to the rules of the Congressional Review Act adoption and enactment of H.J. Res. 140 would permanently preclude any future consideration or action by the executive branch, forever stripping the impacted Tribal nations of their right to be consulted prior to Federal actions that materially impact their lives, lands, and interests;
And whereas H.J. Res. 140 has been transmitted to the U.S. Senate and because disapproval of the underlying public land order directly impacts more than one federally recognized Tribe's treaty guaranteed rights, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs should hold a hearing on Public Land Order 7917 in order to solicit testimony from the impacted Tribal nations before Senate floor consideration;
Now therefore be it resolved that NCAI urges the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee to expeditiously schedule a hearing regarding the contents of Public Land Order 7917 and the potential detrimental impact adopting H.J. Res. 140 would have on treaty rights by soliciting testimony from the Tribal nations impacted.
And be it further resolved that NCAI insists that the administration and the Congress protect the unique ecosystems of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from contamination and encroachment, which is the underlying purpose of Public Land Order 7917.
And be it finally resolved that this resolution shall be the policy of NCAI until it is withdrawn or modified by any subsequent resolution.
Now, I think this is important for a couple of reasons.
One, this is such an important organization reflecting so many Tribal nations. It is important also that they are saying clearly that they believe that the public land order in place right now is protecting their Tribal sovereignty and treaty rights as they should be protected.
The resolution is also saying, if you are going to take such a dramatic step, U.S. Senate, you ought to at least have a hearing in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee to create an opportunity for Tribal nations to express their views on this.
Of course, that hearing hasn't happened. Because the CRA came before the Senate as a privileged resolution, it was not possible to refer this to the committee during these processes that were going on. There are so many things that the Senate is limited from doing because of the form in which the House sent this resolution over to the Senate; but I think it is a travesty that, at the very least, a hearing exploring the impacts on Tribal nations will not have been held before Members of the Senate are to make a decision that has such a significant impact on treaty rights and Tribal nations in Minnesota. As this letter says, what impacts one Tribal nation impacts all Tribal nations in this environment, in this situation.
Having the support of the National Congress of American Indians is extremely important, but I also want to just note that the Minnesota Chippewa Tribes--that all of the Chippewa Tribes in Northern Minnesota have also expressed their strong disapproval of this action that the Senate is contemplating tonight. So I am going to read the letter that the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe sent to Senator Klobuchar and me so that everyone will--so that it will also be in the Record.
Here is the letter, which was written on March 4, my birthday. It's to Senator Tina Smith and Senator Amy Klobuchar. Re: Vote No on Mining in and around the Boundary Waters: Dear Senators Smith and Klobuchar, I write at the direction of the leadership of the six bands of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe--otherwise MCT--all of which are federally recognized Indian Tribes under the umbrella of the MCT.
As you know, in January, H.J. Res. 140 passed the House and rolls back the 20-year ban on mining in and around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and within the Superior National Forest in Minnesota. The MCT strongly opposes any mining in that area and asks that you vote no on any companion bill in the Senate, and we thank you both for your public statements to date in opposition of this destructive measure.
Members of those MCT bands who were signatories to the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe, which encompasses the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, retain the right to enter millions of acres in the Arrowhead region of Minnesota to exercise their treaty reserved rights to hunt and fish and gather.
The entire area is Ojibwe homeland. In fact, one of the key purposes of the Bureau of Land Management order withdrawing the Superior National Forest lands from potential mineral and geothermal leasing was to protect and preserve the fragile and vital socio-natural resources, ecological integrity, and wilderness values from the potential diverse effects of mineral and geothermal exploration and development. The 1854 ceded territory was expressly called out as one of the areas that must be protected.
The letter includes a map of the ceded territory, and the letter concludes by saying: Again, we appreciate your opposition to lifting the mining ban and your support of Tribes in this region. Thank you.
I have here also letters from the White Earth Indian Reservation expressing their opposition to mining in or near the Boundary Waters Wilderness.
I have a letter from the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, and all of the Anishinaabe Tribes across Minnesota and Wisconsin are all relatives.
This is another letter basically saying: We are writing to you today on an issue of utmost importance to all of our members. It is our understanding that the House joint resolution may soon be brought to the floor. This resolution is a measure brought under the Congressional Review Act to repeal a current rule banning copper-sulfide mining. We urge you and your colleagues to vote no on this measure.
I have here a letter from the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, which is a Wyoming Tribe, sent to Senator Lummis, Senator Thune, and also to Senator Schumer and Senator Barrasso. It includes opposition, saying clearly, on behalf of the Eastern Shoshone Business Council, it urges the Senate to oppose H.J. Res. 140.
I have a letter from the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation urging opposition to this resolution.
I have a letter from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe from Rosebud, SD, urging opposition to this CRA.
I have here a letter from early February to all of the Members of the Senate, and I am just going to read you a bit of it, but I think what I want you to know is that, at the end of this letter, it is signed by--I mean, my word. I would have to count them all up--I would guess, 40 or 50 small businesses in Minnesota. Many of them are from the area--you know, they benefit so much from the natural resources of Northern Minnesota and from the outdoor recreation economy of Northern Minnesota.
They are urging the U.S. Senate to oppose H.J. Res. 140, and I am just going to read you a bit of it.
It says: The Boundary Waters and downstream Voyageurs National Park are currently protected by Public Land Order 7917--the 20-year mineral withdrawal banning copper and nickel mining on Federal public lands in the headwaters of these beloved wildlands. This mining ban is based on the U.S. Forest Service's comprehensive environmental assessment, which concluded that sulfide-ore copper mining near the Boundary Waters would cause irreversible harm to the region's watershed, fish, and wildlife, treaty and Tribal rights, and robust recreation economy.
The analysis completed by the Forest Service in 2022 included 675,000 public comments, over 95 percent of which favored protecting the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs from sulfide-ore copper mining. Overturning the mining ban puts at risk the forests and the clean waters of the region as well as its town's indigenous communities and the regional economy.
The love for the Boundary Waters powers a strong and enduring recreation economy in Northeastern Minnesota--responsible for 17,000 jobs and over $1 billion in sales annually in the region. This includes the many businesses many of us have created and grown which will be seriously damaged if sulfide-ore copper mining were allowed in this fragile environment.
The wilderness is also a crown jewel of Minnesota and important to the State's growing $13.5 billion outdoor economy. Economic studies show that protecting the Boundary Waters would be better for the economy than opening the area to copper mining.
The letter goes on to say: Once compromised, the Boundary Waters cannot be restored. This region is much more than a beautiful place. It embodies the best of our public lands: clean water, expansive habitat, world-class recreation, vibrant wilderness communities, and sustainable local economies. Generations of Midwesterners and Americans from across the country have formed deep connections to nature through hunting and fishing and camping and canoeing and hiking in the Boundary Waters.
We urge you to vote no on H.J. Res. 140. Do not sell out our wilderness, our way of life, and our businesses.
This letter is signed by--and I won't read all of the people who have signed it--Ely Outfitting in Ely, MN; Freedom Explorer; the Lodge of Whispering Pines; River Point Resort; Wilderness Cabins; Piragis Northwoods Company; Voyager Outward Bound School; North of North Resort; Ely Cabin Collective; Final Touch Proofreading and Editing.
I am sure there are, you know, advertising and marketing jobs connected to the Boundary Waters.
White Pine Productions. All of these are in Ely, MN.
Then there are many others: North Shore Adventure Park in Silver Bay; Big City Mountaineers in Tower; Granite Gear in Two Harbors; Madison Elyse, LLC, in Alexandria; Littlbug Enterprises in Bemidji; Java Moose in Grand Marais; the Fisherman's Daughter in Grand Marais.
I mean, there are dozens of businesses that are listed here, and I think this just goes to show how the outdoor recreation economy powers these small businesses. They are the employers and the drivers of Minnesota's economy. So listening to them and hearing what they have to say as we make this decision is just so important.
The hour grows late, and I know we have people who have been here all day long, so I am going to take a couple of--a bit more of the time that I have--5 hours all in--on this extremely important topic just to talk a little bit more about some of the feedback that I have gotten from Minnesotans before I wrap up tonight.
Here is something that I think is really an important and interesting note that I have gotten from Lakeville, MN.
This person says the following: I moved to Minnesota over a decade ago from Chicago. As someone born in Iowa, I visited Minnesota often. When making the decision to move to Minnesota, a huge draw for us was outdoors. We visit the Boundary Waters Canoe Area every year, and my kids know the feeling of a great hike and the beautiful scenery to go with it. If this resolution passes Congress, not only will my grandchildren not be able to enjoy this beautiful place, but my kids will watch it disappear before
This is a letter from Lake Elmo, MN. It is very short.
She says: I am a 79-year-old woman who goes to the BWCA with my kids and grandchildren. Chilean mining in the area will hurt the tour industry.
Thank you for sending that.
I will read a couple more here before I close.
This is from St. Augusta, MN, and it says: I am a 45-year resident of Minnesota. I am an Eagle Scout, husband, and father of three daughters. I have been an outdoor enthusiast from a very early age--deer hunting with extended family and camping with the Scouts. When my daughters were old enough, I began planning annual trips into the BWCA for 4 to 6 days, acquiring all of the equipment necessary and passing on my knowledge and appreciation of the outdoors, hoping that, one day, they will take up the mantle with our children and help protect these critical ecosystems. I also require that no phones or electronic devices accompany us on our BW adventures--something my daughters label as a technology detox and, in my opinion, provides a type of reset against an increasingly technological existence.
Here is a note from somebody from Big Lake, MN: I am Minnesota born and raised. I grew up in a Republican household with a father who showed me all the true beauty and wonder of this State through fishing, hunting, foraging, and camping. The land that makes up this State and all the creatures and features within it have given me a purpose and a mission. I went to college at Gustavus Adolphus, where I studied the environment, and I got a job there guiding others on how to enjoy the outdoors and invest in protecting the wonderful State that gives them these opportunities.
I have seen the impact firsthand on how countless times people's whole worlds have changed when they are introduced to the beauty and recreation of the Land of 10,000 Lakes, of which you are representing me.
If I could sit down with you face-to-face, Mr. Emmer, you would see the absolute fear in my eyes at the prospect of losing more wild areas than we already have. And I can assure you that sentiment is shared by a vast majority of Minnesotans. No matter what side of the aisle people are on, they can unite over the unique beauty and foundational importance that our ecosystems have, not only on the very water we drink and the air that we breathe but in the foundation for pride in our chest when we beam that we are from Minnesota.
I sincerely urge you to consider this deeply, to talk to those you represent about the impact that this would have, and to take heed to science. This isn't about me. This is about every little kid who is growing up or who is about to be born in this great State. Will they still hold that pride in their chest when they declare where they are from if the very thing that makes us Minnesotans is ripped away from them?
Already I have taught young people who have never seen an unobstructed night sky or know what it is like to catch a firefly. I have taught young people who know what it is like to fish at a lake their grandfather recommended and to catch nothing because the fish are gone and hear nothing but machinery instead of loon calls while they are out. Please, I am begging you on behalf of all our legacies, please fight for us.
Mr. President, I think I wanted to just clarify that this letter was forwarded to me, but it was sent to Congressman Emmer of Minnesota, and this Minnesotan is begging him to listen and fight.
Here is a letter from a Minnesotan that says: I am devastated to learn that the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to repeal the longstanding ban on mining near the Boundary Waters. I have been going on yearly BWCA trips with my mom since 2009, when I was 10 years old. I am now 27, and she is now 70, and we plan to continue our annual tradition for as long as we can. Though I haven't yet started a family, my mom has always hoped she will be around to introduce her future grandchildren to this beautiful wilderness. I now fear, though, that the Boundary Waters themselves won't be around for my children to enjoy.
My mom raised me to care for nature, to leave each BWCA campsite cleaner than I found it, and it grieves me that I am powerless to preserve the Boundary Waters beyond these small actions.
When we go on our 2026 trip, I will continue to treat each campsite and portage and lake with respect and love. I can only hope that those with power in this country can, from afar, do the same.
I don't think I could possibly read all of the letters and messages that have come from Minnesota to me over the last many months about this, and you may be wondering why I am standing here at nearly midnight keeping everybody up, and here is why: because I know there are so many people in Minnesota who are wondering--excuse me. I am losing my voice. I know there are so many people in Minnesota who are wondering whether anybody in this building cares about what they think, and the one thing that I can do is to be here, speaking to this mostly empty room, making sure that, to the best of my abilities, that their voices will be heard. Their voices will be heard, regardless of what the Senate does.
I dearly hope that the Members of this body will think about their legacy in protecting the great places in this country, to think about the risks--there are risks in this time that you must take, but then there are other risks like the risk of polluting this beautiful place that is not necessary. It is not necessary to take.
And I hope that my colleagues will also think about the precedent that taking this action will take and the ways in which other politicians down the road will look back on the actions that this Senate is taking right now and saying: They gave us permission to do the same thing because they said it was OK. And that will have impacts not only on the Boundary Waters, this precious place, but it will have impacts on precious places all over the country, and it will have impacts on the overall integrity of our government if actions that are taken that are legal can just be undone willy-nilly. And that just seems to me to be so bad for this body, to be bad for the public lands that we all love, and to be bad for this country that we all love so much.
So I stand here tonight with a mostly gone voice to give voice to all of those people in my home State and in States all over this country who feel like what they think doesn't really matter, and I am here to tell you that it does. And the power of the organizing that has happened over the last many weeks to raise up this issue in the face of a time in our country when there are so many issues that demand so much attention: a war in Iran, the brutal attacks on my home State of Minnesota by Federal agents, so many worries, so many worries that so many people have in this country right now--worries, fundamentally, about how they are going to put food on the table and how they are going to pay rent and how they are going to hold their lives together. But they organized to make sure that their voices were heard on this thing that they care so much about, and so it has been my honor and also my responsibility and my obligation to help to lift those voices up tonight.
Tomorrow, I believe the Senate will vote on this, and I hope that the Senate makes a good decision--a good decision not only for my home State of Minnesota and for this precious place but also for the good of the whole, for the good of the whole country, and the protection of our public lands and the integrity of our democracy.
I yield the floor.
