Legislative Session
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will resume consideration of H.J. Res. 140, which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant bill clerk read as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. President, the SAVE America Act has been a discussion for quite a few days on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and I would like to give my update on that. I have already spoken once on the subject. But before I speak, I would like to ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record after my speech some of the remarks that my constituents have been sending to my office on this issue so that they have direct quotations from letters backing up what I am saying here on the Senate floor today.
Mr. President, as I said, I am a cosponsor of the SAVE America Act. This SAVE America Act ensures only U.S. citizens are registered to vote in Federal elections, and it also requires voter ID when voting. Now, that is pretty simple. It is so simple that 85 percent of Americans generally support those principles of voter ID and only citizens voting. Even 71 percent of the Democrats in polls also support that.
Now, what I have inserted in the Record is what I have heard from some Iowa constituents who would say that while election integrity is important, noncitizen voting is not an issue. Some of my constituents even accept that noncitizen voting happens, but at the same time, they say it is not that often, so we should just ignore it.
That is not how the rule of law works, and we all take an oath to uphold the rule of law. And I will bet every one of our constituents say the rule of law is a principle applying in America and it should be fully supported.
It is a fact that nobody's vote should be diluted by people voting who are not eligible to vote and that voter fraud should not be ignored, no matter the scale.
I want to share some recent examples of noncitizens registering to vote and voting in elections. The first one is the State of Montana. In a State where elections have been decided by only a handful of votes, 23 potential noncitizens cast nearly 150 votes in various elections.
Then let's go to the State of Ohio. In 2024, Ohio found 597 noncitizens registered to vote--138 of whom voted in recent elections-- that lacked citizenship status.
Then in Texas--Texas removed over 6,500 noncitizens from their voter rolls between the years 2020 and 2024. That is a larger population than some small Iowa towns.
Then let's go to New Jersey. In January, two people in New Jersey were charged with illegal voting in the 2020 elections. This is in addition to other foreign nationals charged last year for registering to vote and voting in Florida and Massachusetts.
My home State of Iowa takes pride in civic participation and election integrity. Even so, in my State, our secretary of state found 277 noncitizens registered to vote and 35 who actually cast ballots in 2024.
Maybe you would say this doesn't really matter because most people win by thousands or at least hundreds of votes, but I want to give you an example in Iowa where we had a very close election and just a handful of people not registered legally to vote--either they were noncitizens or they weren't the people that said they were going to vote. So we know elections can be decided by just a handful of votes. Iowa experienced that firsthand in 2020 when one of our congressional seats was decided by six votes. That is Miller-Meeks, presently a Congresswoman from southeast Iowa. So we have that election demonstrating how every single vote matters and why only legally cast ballots ought to be counted.
Citizen participation is a sacred cornerstone of representative government. The SAVE America Act gives Americans absolute confidence that their elected representatives won fair and square, by the people who are legally eligible to vote.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill 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 leader is recognized.
Mr. President, one thing you can always count on is that Democrats have a lot of nerve. The Democrat leader has been out and about, this week, criticizing Republicans for taking up reconciliation legislation to fund border security and immigration enforcement.
This was his quote:
Let me repeat that:
Is he serious? Because the shoe is entirely on the other foot. Democrats, through their stubborn refusal to seriously engage in bipartisan negotiations and their ultimate refusal to fund law enforcement at all, have forced us into a position where the only way we can fund law enforcement and border security is through reconciliation.
A big priority of mine, when I became leader, was conducting appropriations through regular order. And despite Democrats' decision to shut down the entire Federal Government for 43 days in the fall, we were well on our way to passing all of fiscal year 2026 appropriation bills--all 12.
We had a bipartisan deal on DHS funding--DHS funding for the entire Department--that included additional funding for body cameras for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, deescalation training, and increased oversight of ICE funding.
But then Democrats reneged on that agreement. But did Republicans then move to reconciliation? Not at all. We bent over backward to reach a new deal with Democrats. The White House repeatedly--repeatedly-- offered a robust package of reforms, and we spent weeks--weeks--trying to negotiate.
But Democrats weren't interested in negotiation. A good example of that is that one of the offers that was made by the White House wasn't responded to by Democrats for 18 days. Eighteen days we kept coming out here saying: Come on. Give us a counteroffer here. You want reforms, you want changes made; let's sit down and figure that out.
Just more stall, delay, obstruct.
I would say they were interested in nothing but their exact list of demands with no compromises, but I strongly suspect that Democrats were never interested in a deal at all.
And, in fact, after weeks of stonewalling, Democrats eventually made it clear that no deal was happening, which meant that either Republicans acceded to Democrats' refusal to fund law enforcement and border security or--or--we pursue the only option left to us, which is funding law enforcement and border security through reconciliation.
If Democrats want to be the party of defunding law enforcement and open borders, then so be it. But we are not going to join Democrats in their irresponsible refusal to fund key parts of the Department of Homeland Security.
Democrats refused to fund the deportation of criminal illegal aliens, individuals guilty of things like murder, assault, and sexual crimes against minors. They refused to fund drug interdiction and efforts to fight human trafficking. They refused to fund border security. That is right. They refused to fund the Border Patrol. These are all critical security priorities.
So Republicans are going to fund them through reconciliation because the Democrats have left us no other option. And to prevent Democrats from voting to defund law enforcement once again in September, we are going to fund border security and immigration enforcement for the next 3 years.
If you want to see a partisan circus, look no further than Democrats' 43-day government shutdown in the fall. Remember what that was about-- what that was over. It was over a clean, nonpartisan funding bill. And the Democrats' shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security happened because they couldn't take yes for an answer.
Our national security, the functioning of our government, the salaries of government workers, all--all--have been repeatedly sacrificed this year thanks to Democrats' partisanship.
I would say that the Democrat leader should be embarrassed by what his party has done to the Federal Government and to the Senate itself.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled rollcall vote: Senator Heinrich for up to 5 minutes, Senator Klobuchar for up to 5 minutes, and Senator Smith for up to 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant bill 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 Democratic leader is recognized.
Mr. President, well, today Trump is in Las Vegas trying to sell the American people on his tax policies and convince them that everything is going just dandy, but the reality for American families is that thanks to these deleterious policies people are hurting worse than before. Working families are hurting worse than before, middle- class families are hurting worse than before; overall, because of Trump's policies, people are hurting.
Here is the truth in Las Vegas. Here is the truth. If you are a hotel or casino owner in Las Vegas, if you are a multimillionaire, Donald Trump's tax policies have been very good to you; but if you are a hotel staffer, a waiter, a janitor, a DoorDash delivery driver, the tax policies don't come close to undoing the economic damage he has done to you.
Again, if you are a hotel owner, a casino owner in Las Vegas, if you are a multimillionaire, Trump's tax policies
And there are three major reasons Donald Trump's ``Big Ugly Bill'' has turned out to be a giant scam for most Americans. First, Republicans promised their ``Big Ugly Bill'' would mean tax refunds of more than a thousand dollars. That promise was false. The average refund is less than one-third of what the Republicans promised.
Second, whatever benefit families may have gotten has already been devoured by Trump's policies that have led to higher gas prices, higher grocery prices, higher electric costs.
For example, the average tax cut is maybe an extra $350. But thanks to Donald Trump's war in Iran alone, Americans will pay an extra $740 this year just to fill up their tanks. Just like that, your tax break is gone, America. And that doesn't include the increase to healthcare costs, grocery costs, housing costs, electricity costs, and so much more.
So the tax cut is more than undone by the rise in costs, the rise in costs that Americans feel just about across the board, so many of them, because of Donald Trump's policies.
Third, Donald Trump's ``Big Ugly Bill'' is overwhelmingly skewed to benefit the rich. This is an old Republican trick: Give most of the tax breaks to the very wealthy, let a little bit trickle down to middle- class people and call it a middle-class tax break. It is a tax break for the rich.
While the average American might see a small tax increase, the ultrarich will see their taxes cut by more than a trillion dollars over the next decade.
Republicans, if you wanted to make the tax cut a middle-class tax cut, put all of the money into the middle class, not a nickel to billionaire-millionaire tax cuts.
The largest corporations will see a $65 billion tax cut in just 1 year alone. Multimillionaires are getting a tax cut worth more than $300,000 a year.
The vast majority of these tax breaks go to the very wealthy and the big corporations. To label this package of tax breaks a middle-class tax cut is just as close to lying as it comes.
And for those of you who live in Las Vegas, don't forget, Trump's disastrous tariff policies and foreign policies are greatly cutting down on tourism in the United States and will greatly cut down on tourism to Las Vegas and Nevada, particularly this summer, the lifeblood of the Las Vegas and Nevada economies.
And then when you add in the soaring costs of jet fuel that will raise airline tickets, that will be far more damage to the Nevada economy and Nevada families than any gain from Trump's tax policies.
So, yes, if you are a multimillionaire or giant corporation, Trump's policies are really helping you. With Trump's policies, the owners of Las Vegas big hotels will do far better than the staff, the custodians, the drivers, or the servers.
If you have to work for a living, Donald Trump's tax breaks, coupled with his other policies, are turning out to be a giant failure for you, putting your family in an economic hole.
Mr. President, on Department of Homeland Security, well, all this week the Republican leader has come to the floor to try and pin his party's failure to fund the Department of Homeland Security on Democrats. He did it again today. He said we--Democrats--``shut down the appropriations process,'' and that ``Republicans have been forced to do this the hard way.''
Let's be very clear about all of this. DHS has been shut down now for over 60 days for one reason and one reason only: Republicans have been so paralyzed by their own dysfunction that they cannot govern.
Republican leaders in the House and the Senate are busy fighting with each other, and that is what has caused this paralysis.
Remember, it was Thune's bill that we passed in the Senate at the end of the last work period, not a Democratic bill. It was Thune's bill. Thune put the bill on the floor to fund every single Agency within DHS except for ICE and Border Patrol, and it passed unanimously.
It was Thune's bill; Democrats agreed and voted yes. In fact, Democrats agreed twice. It was Speaker Johnson, cowed by radical rightwing Republicans in the House, who stood in the way--not Democrats.
If Johnson would have put the bill on the floor, which he was afraid to do, it would have passed. So if the majority leader wants to put an end to this Department of Homeland Security shutdown, he should start talking to Speaker Johnson in the House instead of pointing fingers at us.
That is why DHS remains shut down, even though every single Democrat stands ready to fund agencies like TSA, FEMA, Coast Guard, and CISA and at a moment's notice.
But this is not the path Republicans want to take. They do not seem interested in reaching a compromise to rein in ICE with exceedingly simple guardrails.
We were clear from the start about what kind of reforms the American people want, and Republicans have never moved, never budged. Republicans seem so sickened, in fact, by the idea of basic reforms to ICE that they would rather take up weeks of the Senate's time, ramming through a party-line reconciliation package without a shred of the reforms that Americans demand, commonsense reforms that police departments in every part of the country obey: no masks, warrants when you break into someone's home, cooperating with local authorities.
That is right, instead of passing legislation to lower gas prices, lower grocery prices, lower energy costs, Republicans want to hijack the Senate and spend weeks on reconciliation to ram through billions more for ICE with zero reforms.
So while I have great respect for the Republican leader, the plain facts are these: Democrats are not the ones dragging this shutdown on; Republicans are.
And, again, I say this to Leader Thune: Republicans could open DHS today, all they have to do is start listening to the American people and stop obeying Donald Trump and the MAGA radical right.
Mr. President, on Iran, there is an old saying that says ``success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan.'' The Republicans who voted against our War Powers Resolution yesterday, they may try and dodge responsibility for Trump's failed war, but they have joint custody over this debate. And certainly the war is a debacle.
After 48 days of destruction, carnage, and soaring costs here in America and around the world, Trump has no idea how to end this war, just as he had no plan when he started it. All this war has gotten us is a more radical Iranian regime with greater nuclear ambitions, a closed Strait of Hormuz, skyrocketing gas costs, and the ire of the world.
Is anyone surprised that only one in four Americans think that ``Operation Epic Failure'' has been worth it? That is what we call it, Operation Epic Failure.
Trump isn't practicing the ``Art of the Deal''; Trump is practicing the ``Art of Defeat'', and he seems all too good at it. Republicans are kidding themselves if they think they can distance themselves from Trump's Iran blunder by sitting on the sidelines.
When it comes to war and peace--the most important decision a legislator can make--Republicans in the Senate and the House have an obligation to take a stand, but they are putting their heads in the sand. They haven't even had one hearing on this war. This is a war that has gone on close to 50 days, creating huge problems for our economy, huge problems for our national security, and not one hearing? What are you afraid of?
Republicans have had four opportunities to support our War Powers Resolution, to finally reassert Congress' constitutional authority, and each time they have said no. But the debate is not over. Next week, Republicans will have to answer the question again: Do you want endless war with Iran, yes or no?
Senate Democrats will bring our War Powers Resolution to the floor for a vote next week and every week that Trump's war continues.
Republican silence is a stamp of approval. Republican silence is a stamp
I thank Senator Duckworth for introducing this resolution and arguing for it so eloquently as only she can.
And I want to thank Senator Kaine for keeping this pressing issue on the top of the mind for the Senate and for the Nation. The same goes for Senator Booker and so many in our caucus who have participated in this debate.
Finally, on Assistant Chief Sean Gallagher, I want to join the rest of the Senate today in saying thank you and goodbye to one of the most beloved members of the Capitol Police, Assistant Chief Sean Gallagher. He retires today after 25 incredible years. He joined the Department in April of 2001 and has been a part of keeping the Capitol Complex safe during some of the most consequential moments in our Nation's history, from national crises, to Presidential inaugurations, to papal visits, and so much more.
After January 6, he led the establishment of the Department's peer support program, and helped create the Howard C. Liebengood Center for Wellness to support officer well-being.
We thank Assistant Chief Gallagher for 25 years of service to the U.S. Capitol Police, to Congress, and to our Nation.
We say goodbye and thank you on your retirement.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, we have a vote before us today, and this vote is involving an unprecedented use of a procedural mechanism that would have far-reaching consequences, not just for the beautiful Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota, but for public lands across our country.
And I want to thank my colleagues, including, of course, Senator Smith who you are about to hear from, Senators Heinrich and Baldwin for speaking out against this resolution on the floor last night.
I have especially been careful when you look at a project like the one proposed here that is so close to the cherished Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and I continue to have concerns about this administration's intention and their disregard of science across the board in every Agency in the government, but especially when you are looking at something like this.
So, as many of my colleagues know, I am the granddaughter of an iron ore miner. My grandpa loved that life, but he mostly also loved the time he had in the outdoors. He would go down in a cage 1,500 feet every single day with the lunch bucket that my grandma would pack for him, that black lunch bucket.
I always thought, what did he think when he was going down every day, when he was saving money in a coffee can to send his two sons to college when he never even got to graduate from high school? Well, he would think of the outdoors because he loved to hunt, he loved to fish, and he loved to pick blueberries.
In his later years, he became a foreman of the mine. I would meet people when I was first running for the U.S. Senate up in Northern Minnesota, where my relatives live, and they would say to me: You know, my dad worked with your grandpa.
They said: A lot of times, the foremen would never go down when they found a new part of the mine. They would always stay up at the top and radio down. But your grandpa always went with the guys, and he always went first.
That was my grandpa.
So the joy he had was the outdoors.
That mining life is so important in Northern Minnesota. And I have stood with our miners. I have stood with them when steel was dumped from China. I have brought the former President's Chief of Staff up to Northern Minnesota, where we met with steelworkers, where we met with mine owners, and we have made the case for changes. We have made the case for their benefit. We have made the case for them. And that is why we are getting a new mine, Mesabi Metallics, which is a taconite mine that I just visited last week. It is incredible. Hundreds and hundreds of new jobs are about to open, construction jobs. That permitting process has been fair, and it has been fast. But what we have today is something else.
It has always been a balance of the working life and mining and the outdoors. My family values the outdoors. My mom and dad met in the Twin Cities Hiking Club, and generations of Minnesotans have found the same joy up north.
So let's talk about H.J. Res. 140. It would threaten public lands across the country. So many of our colleagues know this. Senator Smith has made this case ardently and repeatedly.
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, border security protection, and, yes, conservation. But now, for the first time, the Congressional Review Act is being used to rescind the public land order that bans mining in the Boundary Waters for 20 years.
Senator Heinrich, the ranking member on the Interior Committee, will soon tell you that this is unprecedented. Public land orders have never been considered rules under the CRA and have never been submitted to Congress' rules.
The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service conducted a public input process.
Today, the CRA before the Senate is being used simply as a way of revoking the land withdrawal without having to conduct the level of public engagement that is expected.
The unprecedented use of the CRA will have broader disruptive impacts on the ability of land management agencies to oversee public lands all across the country. Yes, this is focused on Northern Minnesota today, but where will it be next time? What part of your State will it be focused on? What will happen to your public lands?
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 lands that would be put at risk. Twenty-five military withdrawals would no longer be considered final. The CRA could even threaten the protected status of the Grand Canyon.
So I will close with this, as I did last night. Sigurd Olson, the great Ely, MN, author and conservationist who went from that small, hardscrabble mining town to great national prominence, someone who loved the land and was a beautiful author--he wrote:
That is the Boundary Waters to me. That is the Boundary Waters to so many people in Minnesota and across our country.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed into law Hubert Humphrey's bill to protect this area by creating the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
This was a special, special place to my dad and to our family. My dad actually went to Ely Junior College when Sigurd Olson was the dean, and that launched a lifelong friendship. I found books of Sigurd Olson's in my dad's belongings after we lost him, with notes of my dad of their meetings together and their time together.
As my dad said, the Boundary Waters is a million acres of waterways and forests unlike any in the United States. So we should be preserving and treating these public lands as treasures, not messing around like is happening today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. President, why are we here today? We are here today because some people want to abuse the Congressional Review Act and use it in a way it has never been used before.
The Boundary Waters is protected from copper sulfide mining because there was a secretarial order that was put in place, a narrow order authorized by statute under FLPMA--the Federal Land Policy and Management Act--which specifically spells out the Secretary of the Interior's authority to do this. It is not a regulation.
The Congressional Review Act was written to prevent regulatory overreach. Regulations are broad. They
This has never been done before, and if we do this here, if we do it to the delegation from Minnesota, who has spoken up again and again and again about why this is wrong, what about when it is aimed at Montana? what about when it is aimed at Alaska? what about when it is aimed at South Dakota?
This is wrong. And why are we doing it? To pad the pockets of the President's buddy from Chile so that he can take our minerals--our minerals, the American people's minerals--send them to China, process them in China, and then maybe sell them back to the American people with a tariff. This is nuts. Is that ``America First''? That is ``America Last.''
What is at stake? What is at stake is a million acres of the most pristine public lands in the United States, places where my kids have canoed and fished and forged their identities. We are going to do that to Minnesota? We are going to do that to the delegation from Minnesota? We are going to do that to the American people who cherish this place?
Twenty percent of the National Forest Service System's freshwater is in these Boundary Waters, and we are going to pollute that with sulfuric acid? This company plans to dump millions of tons of waste rock on this site. That will never be removed. It will be sitting there, waiting for the air and the water to turn that waste rock full of sulfides into sulfuric acid.
I can tell you as somebody who has been a natural resources trustee, who has had to negotiate with copper companies in my own State, that this type of copper mining has never been done without polluting the water--never. Not once. So we are guaranteeing that we are going to pollute the Boundary Waters.
It is fashionable today to talk about selling off the public lands. These places--this place that people like Teddy Roosevelt and Sigurd Olson and so many others fought to preserve--they are the anvil on which we have forged our collective identity as a country. They are the places we are still free. They are not places to sell off to some foreign company for a few years of profit, a few years versus a century of identity for the people of Minnesota and this country.
This is a dark day for this body. This is a stain on what the Senate used to be but certainly is not today.
The public lands are the one thing, when I go home, that unites my constituents from left to right. Whether you are a bowhunter or a bunny hugger, it doesn't matter--they love our public lands, and they care about our public lands.
There are many places that we can mine and do it right. My dad worked for Anaconda Copper. My grandfather was a gold miner. This is a boondoggle. This is wrong.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, I want to start by just thanking my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Klobuchar, and Senator Heinrich and Senator Baldwin and all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have joined me in opposing H.J. Res. 140.
I start from this place: One of our most important responsibilities, I think, in this body is to protect our precious public spaces--those places that, as Senator Heinrich just said so eloquently, helped to forge our national identity and connect us to our past and to our future. I am thinking of places like Yosemite and the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Grand Canyon, and, of course, the Boundary Waters.
Traditionally, historically in this body, we have approached our responsibilities to protect these precious places with a sense of balance. We think of the value of the wilderness itself. We also think of the need for economic opportunities for our constituents. We think of our responsibilities around stewardship of these places, of these natural resources.
In that balancing effort that we have traditionally tried to take, we are guided by the science; we are guided by public input, what people in these parts of the country think is the best thing to do, because those folks that are closest to the issues, closest to the land are going to have the best ideas about what should happen to the land. Also, we are guided by the longstanding trust and treaty obligations that the Federal Government has to the Tribal nations, a sovereign relationship that goes beyond just the laws of this country.
This is actually what Minnesota knows how to do. We know how to strike this balance. Minnesota is the No. 1 producer in the country of iron ore. The battleships and the tanks of World War II were built with Minnesota iron.
Minnesota is also moving down the path of figuring out how to safely and responsibly mine the copper and the nickel and the platinum group of metals that are there in the Duluth Complex up in Northern Minnesota. You can see it in the maps that I was showing last night.
But Minnesota also understands--we know that you can support mining, but that does not mean that you support every mine in every place. I think that this is bipartisan. We understand this in our country. We can support the need for mining, but that doesn't mean that we mine on the edge of Chaco Canyon or on the rim of the Grand Canyon, and it does not mean that we think that a copper sulfide mine on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters is a good idea.
Colleagues, what you are about to do, should you end up passing H.J. Res. 140--what you are about to do is fly in the face of that balance that has traditionally been a bipartisan goal, something that we have traditionally worked on together. You are about--should you make this vote, you are about to overturn a public land order that was put in place 3 years ago that stopped not all mining--not all mining, colleagues--but this particular kind of copper sulfide mining for 20 years in just one place--in this one place--in the Superior National Forest on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters.
If this is the decision that you end up making, colleagues, in this goal that we have of striking a balance, you are picking one side over the other. You are putting your thumb on the wrong side. When it comes to protecting this precious place, you are choosing the wrong side because you are not protecting this place that needs our support, that needs our protection.
Colleagues, the outdoor economy and outdoor recreation is essential to the vibrancy of Northern Minnesota. You are not choosing that if you make this decision, and you support H.J. Res. 140.
Of the small business people who count on the economy of Northern Minnesota and the outdoor recreation economy, I have a letter here from dozens and dozens of Minnesota small businesses beseeching the Senate to oppose H.J. Res. 140, and the reason is they tell us right here.
They say:
Many small businesses have been able to grow and develop and support their families because of the access to this incredible resource of the Boundary Waters. But, no, colleagues, you would not be choosing that in this balance that we are trying to strike.
Colleagues, if you support H.J. Res. 140, you are ignoring what Minnesota wants, not only the hundreds of thousands of people who sent in their public comments during the process of setting aside this space and protecting it from mining but the 70 percent of Minnesotans who say: No, we do not want this mine in this place. We want our elected leaders to protect--to protect--the Boundary Waters.
I want to be clear because there has been a question about this. This is not just people from the Twin Cities who go up to the Boundary Waters to visit. This is everybody in Minnesota. This is people who live in Northeastern Minnesota who want to see this protection done.
So, colleagues, if you support H.J. Res. 140, you are also choosing to ignore the trust and the treaty obligations that we have to the Chippewa Tribes in Northern Minnesota. You are saying: Nope. We are not going to pay any attention to that. That doesn't matter.
You know that this mine is going to infringe on their hunting and fishing
What you are going to do if you support H.J. Res. 140 is you are going to come down--who is the winner here? You are going to come down on the side of a Chilean billionaire, a Chilean billionaire who owns the largest copper mine--the largest copper company--in the whole world, a Chilean billionaire who is going to take our minerals, ship them to the Pacific coast, where they are going to go to China to get smelted--where this company has a sweetheart deal with their smelters. Then, if we are lucky, that copper is going to be sold back to us at a profit.
That is not an ``America First'' strategy, colleagues. That is a ``Chilean Billionaire First'' strategy.
I can't help but just recognize that, as we are on the cusp of making this decision in the Senate, isn't it ironic that President Trump, who says that he is a supporter of miners and that he stands with steelworkers, is about to use foreign steel to build his billionaire ballroom off of the White House? What is that about?
Now, look, I understand that there are different perspectives on this mining issue--I see this play out every single day in my beloved State of Minnesota--but as you vote, I ask you to think about this: I ask you to think about the precedent that you are setting here because here is what I have learned after having been in the Senate for the last 9 years: What goes around comes around. What goes around comes around because what you would be doing here, colleagues, is you would be allowing this public land order to be rescinded under the Congressional Review Act. This is a dangerous precedent. This has never been done before. Public land orders have never previously been submitted by any administration, including the Trump administration, as rules subject to the CRA. This would be the first one submitted even though this public land order was submitted 3 years ago, processed legally, and done by the book--done by the book that Congress wrote.
So what does this really mean if this is the step that the Senate takes today?
What this would mean is that any public land order that has been done over, potentially, decades could then be rescinded by some partisan act of Congress just willy-nilly. Think about what this means. It means mineral leases, and it means timber public land orders in North Dakota. It means that any public land order that has been out there in the past or potentially any administrative action could be just undone under a privileged process in the U.S. Senate.
Colleagues, I beseech you not to do this. I know that this is a terrible thing for us to do. I know that not only will it have impacts for my beloved Boundary Waters in my State but that it will have impacts in all of our States.
So, as I close, I want to speak directly to the Minnesota people who care so much about the Boundary Waters and who care so much about the precious places that we have all over this country.
You have organized. You have made calls. You have sent messages. I am thinking about the hunting and fishing groups. I am thinking about the outdoor groups. I am thinking about the Minnesota citizens and American citizens. I am thinking about all of the Tribal leaders and members who have made your voices heard.
I want everyone to know that whatever the outcome of this vote this afternoon, that we will not stop fighting, and we will not stop our work to protect the Boundary Waters. Of all the places that we have in this country, this place has such special meaning. It is a sacred place, and we will never stop defending it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the joint resolution by title for the third time.
The joint resolution was ordered to a third reading and was read the third time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
Mr. President, 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 Missouri (Mr. Hawley).
The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 49, as follows:
The joint resolution (H.J. Res. 140) was passed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with respect to H.J. Res. 140, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Appropriations (Executive Session)
Mr. President, we are nearly done with our fiscal year 2026 spending bills. It has been a long road--no question--and we still have some serious disagreements around reforms and funding for ICE and Border Patrol, which I will speak to in a minute, but despite the major challenges, we accomplished something important in passing 11 and, hopefully soon, 12 of our funding bills.
We outright rejected Trump's plan to gut the programs families rely on. We protected crucial investments that people count on every day, and we took some important steps to reassert Congress' power of the purse. That matters immensely. We would almost be there on the Homeland appropriations bill if it were not for Speaker Johnson. Despite the Senate unanimously passing a bill--twice, in fact--to fund the parts of DHS we can agree on while continuing to work on the areas of disagreement when it comes to ICE and Border Patrol, Speaker Johnson and the House Republicans have refused to put the bill up for a vote. They have chosen to needlessly extend the DHS shutdown, making it the longest shutdown in history. House Republicans need to stop holding disaster relief hostage and put that bill up for a vote. We know it will pass overwhelmingly.
I also want to step back for a moment because we cannot lose sight of the fact that the reason we find ourselves in this mess is that, last summer, in their ``Big Ugly Bill,'' Republicans did an end run around the bipartisan appropriations process and handed ICE and Border Patrol vastly more money than they receive each year. They gave ICE $75 billion, the CBP $65 billion, and even more funding on top of that for the Secretary to tap however they would like. All told, Republicans signed off on over $160 billion in funding for Trump's mass deportation campaign at DHS. That is nearly three times the entire Department's annual budget, and they did so with virtually no guardrails.
We all know what happened next. President Trump and Stephen Miller built ICE and Border Patrol up into untrained paramilitary forces and sent them out to terrorize communities across the country. American citizens were wrongfully detained. Peaceful protesters were teargassed, tackled to the ground, and pepper-sprayed for no reason. Windows and doors were smashed in by masked agents with no warrants and no IDs. Of course, American citizens like Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot by Federal agents and slandered by the Trump administration.
Democrats made clear there has to be reform, and we will not approve more funding for their Agencies until that happens; but after weeks of very tough negotiations, Republicans ultimately refused to agree on some very basic reforms, including reforms that the White House had, by the way, already agreed to. Now, while they continue refusing those commonsense reforms, Republicans are, once again, vowing to give ICE and the Border Patrol even more money, without any accountability. That is right. After America spoke out, demanding more accountability, Republicans are actually doing less accountability.
From what I am hearing, they are looking to now approve funding for ICE and Border Patrol for the rest of Trump's term, with none of the accountability measures we regularly include in our annual spending bills. By pursuing this path, they are intentionally walking away from the reforms that we were negotiating over, and on top of that, they will not include longstanding legacy guardrails that have been bipartisan when it comes to DHS funding.
So let's be crystal clear about what that means: Republicans are now choosing to cut another blank check for these Agencies and to forfeit Congress' ability to put checks on them for the next 3 years.
If Republicans want to cut Stephen Miller another blank check to terrorize American cities and communities, Democrats will have no part of it, and we will fight them every step of the way. But if they are ready to get serious about reforms--and ICE needs a heck of a lot more than another money bomb--Democrats are at the table, ready to rein in those rogue Agencies.
This week, now that President Trump has finally submitted his fiscal year 2027 budget request, which he did over the recess, we are kicking off the fiscal year 2027 appropriations process in earnest with hearings in the Appropriations Committee.
Now, a budget is a statement of values, and what this budget says about our President's values is bleak. Trump's vision for our future is not better schools for our kids; it is not curing diseases like cancer or Alzheimer's; and it is not lowering costs for families, like childcare or home energy bills. It is war--war--plain and simple.
None of the priorities Trump campaigned on are reflected in this budget. He is breaking every single promise he made about lowering costs and helping families and putting America first. Instead of putting America first, he is asking Congress to slash investments in families to help fund his reckless foreign wars and line the pockets of defense company CEOs and their stockholders.
He summed it up pretty well when he said recently:
That was him. It doesn't get more explicit or more wrong than that. Trump is saying we can't afford to help families afford the basics because we have to fight wars that he chose to start.
We also have Trump admitting in an interview that gas prices may be higher in a few months because of his latest
Now, I assure you the values in this budget are just as morally bankrupt because Trump wants to defund programs that lower people's costs while increasing war spending by half a trillion dollars.
All told, he wants a $1\1/2\ trillion defense budget. That is a trillion--that has 12 zeros. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason for that number, except that Trump liked the sound of it, woke up one day and announced on Truth Social he would seek $1\1/2\ trillion for defense.
It is really hard to put that number into perspective, but I am going to try because the tradeoffs could not be more stark. Instead of spending half a trillion dollars more on war, we could easily extend the healthcare tax credits that Republicans let expire for many years to come. We could afford millions of affordable new homes or help millions of Americans afford quality childcare or just about end homelessness or make sure that no kid in this country goes hungry. We could develop new cures and treatments for devastating diseases or cut families' energy bills in half or help students actually afford to go to college.
Seriously, half a trillion dollars more for war is such a mind- boggling amount that White House aides scrambled to even produce a request to meet Trump's number. There is no world in which the Pentagon can spend that kind of increase responsibly.
But blowing up the war budget and blowing up the debt is only half the story with Trump's absurd budget. Because while Trump's budget has plenty of cash for warmongering, while he is more than happy to shovel your tax dollars at defense contractors, Trump wants to cut funding for our schools. He wants to cut funding for medical research. He wants to cut funding for affordable housing programs and a whole lot more.
Truly, the only thing that might be more breathtaking than the amount of money Trump wants to spend on warmongering abroad is the amount of damage he wants to do with those cuts here at home. There are entire programs that do real good for families across this country that Trump wants to turn into dust. A few examples: Trump wants to eliminate programs that help families pay their energy bills, which Trump has already sent skyrocketing with his tariffs and clean energy cuts and now this war. Just last month, the price of home heating oil increased by 30 percent--30 percent.
Trump wants to eliminate nutrition assistance for our seniors, not even a year after Republicans made the largest SNAP cuts in history.
Trump wants to eliminate title X programs, cutting off access to family planning, preventive care, at the same time the Republican healthcare hike just pushed millions of people off their health insurance and extreme abortion bans that are putting women's lives in danger.
Trump wants to eliminate housing supply programs, even as he wrecks the economy, sends inflation higher, and puts home ownership even farther out of reach.
He also wants to eliminate roughly 30 K-12 programs, totaling over $6 billion in funding, including support for our homeless students and our afterschool programs, not to mention another 30 DOJ programs that help keep our communities safe.
You know, I could go on all day. And beyond the programs Trump wants to zero out completely, there are many others he just wants to cut down to the bone. He wants to cut NIH by $5.75 billion. He wants to cut CDC by a third, and cut funding for mental health and rural health and maternal health even more.
Think about that. Trump wants to slash funding to fight against disease so he can bankroll his war against Iran that no one asked for.
At the same time, Trump wants a recordbreaking, budget busting half a trillion dollar increase for war. He wants to cut COPS grants by a quarter; that will make our communities less safe. He wants to cut our national parks by a third; that would eliminate 2,500 positions and put our national treasures at risk. He wants to slash EPA in half; that would let polluters run amok and put our families in danger.
He wants to cut the Small Business Administration by two-thirds, as if he hasn't already done enough damage to the economy.
Or when it comes to NASA. The world was just captivated by the Artemis mission, sending humans further from Earth than ever before and preparing to return to the moon for the first time in this century. Most of us in this country watched that mission, and we were awestruck. We watched and said: Wow. This country can still inspire the world. We can still reach for the stars.
Well, Trump watched that mission, and he said: Whatever. Let's cut NASA by a quarter.
Not to mention the other cuts to science, slashing the National Science Foundation in half. So we just let China continue to win when it comes to science and technology.
Trump also wants to cut funding for Amtrak and for transit projects across the country. He wants to cut funding to address violence against women. He wants to slash WIC benefits that help our moms and kids get healthy food. He wants to practically eliminate Federal funding for drinking water and sewer infrastructure, even as those old sewage pipes in DC nearly put our Nation's Capitol at risk.
Not to mention he wants to rob States like mine of funding for critical projects. He is, once again, zeroing out funding for Howard Hanson Dam, and he is trying to shortchange the Hanford cleanup. And, once again, I will not stand for that.
I cannot drive home enough how backward all of this is. Trump's budget has zero dollars--zero--to increase childcare funding, but, again, he has got a half trillion dollars more to increase war spending--not because we actually need that much to keep our country safe; because Trump apparently likes starting wars and threatening to end civilizations. He likes sending our sons and daughters into Venezuela and Iran and who knows where next without any sort of plan or any regard for the consequences, like those skyrocketing gas prices.
This is not what Trump campaigned on, and it is not what anyone wants. And as long as I am on the Appropriations Committee, you can be darn sure it is not what we are going to be doing in our annual funding bills.
Trump's budget request to blow half a trillion on wars across the world while cutting programs here at home belongs in the trash, and that is exactly where I intend to send it.
But as we look ahead to fiscal year 2027, we are staring down some major challenges. In many respects, even bigger challenges than we have faced in the past year. Because while Trump pushes this half a trillion dollar war spending bonanza, the reality is that for 3 successive years now, our domestic budget has essentially remained flat, and that is in nominal terms. For 3 years in a row, Republicans have squeezed nondefense programs as much as possible while pushing for higher defense spending.
Democrats have fought off countless cuts pitched by Trump and House Republicans. But the fact of the matter is, when Republicans hold these programs roughly flat for 3 years and inflation--not to mention tariffs and chaos--keep raising costs, that is effectively a cut.
Over the last few years, we have turned over just about every couch cushion we can find to prevent the cuts to childcare or cancer research, but there is only so many cushions in that couch; and we will need significantly more funding for nondefense to simply tread water this year.
For example, the Pell Program is facing a $17 billion shortfall. If we don't address that, students are going to pay the price.
Medical care for our veterans will cost many billions more. If we don't have more nondefense funding, we will either shortchange veterans or have to cut other programs that families rely on.
Housing costs, as we all know, continue to rise; and we will need more funding just to tread water and keep serving the Americans who count on rental assistance.
And it is the same story for WIC and many other important programs that people count on.
And then there is the massive infrastructure cliff we are about to barrel over because the bipartisan infrastructure law that we passed about 5 years ago included tens of billions of dollars each year for key nondefense programs. Those programs and funds have supplemented our annual appropriations in an absolutely critical way. Those funds run out in September. We are talking about resources to repair our roads and bridges, expand public transit, lower energy costs, create jobs, and invest in communities across this country--all gone in the blink of an eye.
You know how many pages Trump spends planning to address that in his budget? Zero. None. That is unacceptable, and we cannot fail to address this infrastructure cliff and increase domestic investments that help families and put our communities first.
And as we know, meanwhile, inflation is squeezing families across the board. Electric bills are going up. Tariffs have sent grocery prices higher and higher. Childcare is expensive, hard to find, and healthcare premiums are skyrocketing.
In the face of all of that, we have to put more resources into helping people out, not funding Trump's wars abroad. Do Republicans really want to give Trump's warmongering a blank check while giving families the short end of the stick? Because that is the basic pitch that Trump has made.
The problem with Trump's budget are many, but it does boil down to this: Trump would rob our families to pay for war while still burdening our grandkids with mountains of debt. And for what? To make defense contractors rich? To buy more bombs that Trump can threaten to end civilization with?
We should be building bridges here in America, not destroying them in Iran. We should be lower costs here in America, not waging wars that send prices through the roof. We should be fighting a war against cancer, not another war in the Middle East. We should be investing in our working families, not funding whatever new war Trump decides to start.
So as we now start our appropriations process for fiscal year 2027, I am going to be pressing Trump's Cabinet about these backward priorities. As for the previous fiscal years, I hope my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee can do what we do best: Come together, write commonsense bills that put the priorities of American families first and our communities first.
As I said when I started, we are nearly there on Homeland Security funding, and we got this far despite the obstacles because we have worked so closely in a bipartisan fashion to focus on what is important, what is needed, and truly what we can do best.
And I look forward to working with my colleagues as we start this process. And throughout it, I will be clear with my colleagues: I want to work with you, but we have to write funding bills that instead of slashing funding for our families, we provide significant new investments in the American people, especially as we face major shortfalls, a fast-approaching IIJA cliff, and rising prices that are hitting every family's budget.
And instead of writing a blank check for whatever war Trump wants to start next, we have to write here a measured, strategic defense budget focused on actually keeping our country safe.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
