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formal | working families | null | racist | Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about our economy. The President has been doing a lot of bragging these days about the economy. Last week, it was Virginia. Later this week, it is Philadelphia. He is in New York City today. He is going to be here on Capitol Hill, down the hall, in the House, next Tuesday night, for the State of the Union. You know, the American people that I talk to--and looking at statistics and poll numbers from around the country--the American people just don't believe the President has anything to brag about, not when you look at the economy that is facing our Nation today. Two-thirds of people in polls out this weekend say that they disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling the economy--disapprove, doing a bad job, the country heading in the wrong direction. And it is really a problem when 70 percent of the people think the country in which they live, the county they love, is heading in the wrong direction. Why would they say it? Well, they took a look at their own personal situation, because the average American family has lost more than $10,000 to higher prices since Joe Biden took office just 2 years ago, and, now, what we are seeing across the country is more and more signs of the economy slowing down. Last week, we found out that the economy had slowed down at the end of last year. Last year, the economy grew at only a rate of 2.1 percent for the entire year. The White House predicted that it would be 3.8 percent, so much below what the President and the White House had predicted. Actually, they missed it by almost half. And this is just the latest in a long list of disappointments that have affected the people all across the country over the last 2 years. We found out Friday that consumer spending has dropped again. This week, working families are now getting another punch to the gut. Economists are predicting that the Federal Reserve is likely going to raise interest rates again in just 2 days. More rate hikes are going to make it even more expensive to borrow money. It is going to slow the economy down even further. Over the last year, we have seen the largest rate hikes in 40 years. The average rate of new mortgages doubled since Joe Biden became President. Credit card interest are at an all-time high. Higher rates, harder to buy a home, harder to buy a house, harder to pay off credit card debt--it is no surprise that mortgage applications recently hit their lowest level in 25 years. They say they can't afford it at these rates. This is very bitter medicine for the American people to take because they have been living through the worst inflation in 40 years. So why do we have the worst inflation in 40 years? Well, it is obvious. It is the massive spending done by the Democrats on a strictly party-line basis and the fact that the Democrats shut down American energy. You talk about a one-two punch--trying to kill the American energy industry and massive amounts of spending on top of it, inflation at a 40-year high, people suffering all around the country. Now, economists are predicting another recession coming this year. What does that mean? Well, it means more pain for people, more punishment for families who are just trying to get by or trying to put food on the table, and food prices have skyrocketed again. The American dream is moving further and further out of reach for many, many American families. According to the Gallup poll group, faith in the American dream recently hit an all-time low. How could that happen? Record numbers of people, surprisingly, believe that their children will have a lower standard of living than they have had. That is not the way my parents looked at me when I was growing up or your parents did, Mr. President, when you were growing up. The American dream was about a better next generation. Parents today don't see that for their kids because they see what they see going around their communities and this country. Many young people are giving up on their hope to buy a home someday. Families trying to get ahead are having a harder time, and many are falling behind. It didn't have to be this way. Oh, no, this is the result of the decisions that Joe Biden made and the inflation that Joe Biden and the Democrats have brought about this country. Remember, when Joe Biden took office just 2 years ago, inflation in this country was virtually nonexistent. A typical 30-year mortgage went for less than 4 percent. The lockdowns from the pandemic were coming to an end. The economy was ready to take off. And then in March of 2021, with every Democrat voting for it and every Republican voting against it, Democrats printed $2 trillion and added it to the national debt. Republicans warned the Democrats: Don't do it. Don't do this. Don't put the money. Don't spend the money. Don't add it to the debt. We said it would cause inflation, and it wasn't just Republicans who were saying it. Democrats' own economic experts warned them: Don't spend the money. It is going to jazz up the economy to the point of more money in. Prices are going to go chasing it, and prices will go up. Democrat advisers, like former President Obama's advisers--Larry Summers, Jason Furman, and Steve Rattner, to just to name a few--Democrats in Washington, in this body, on this side of the floor, ignored the whole thing, refused to listen. Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the House said we don't want to hear it. They put their fingers in their ears. A month after President Biden signed the bill, inflation climbed. We have been suffering the consequences ever since. President Biden said: No, no, it is transitory. No, it is not inflation. He had a hundred excuses. It was here, and it was here to stay, and the Democrats caused it. To add problems on top of this, Democrats also raised taxes on nearly every tax bracket. Of course, this was a direct violation of the promises Joe Biden made to the American people. Democrats raised prices anyway. Joe Biden went and gave an inaugural address where he talked like he was going to work together. It is not what happened. He went to the White House and killed the Keystone XL Pipeline and went far, far to the left, raising taxes on American energy, raising taxes on natural gas. Natural gas powers about half the homes in the United States. Taxes on coal went up a billion dollars. That means everybody is paying higher prices. It is strangling our economy. It is strangling our energy production. It is wrong for the Nation. You look at Joe Biden. He is smiling away like things are going well, completely out of touch with the families all across the country. We are still producing a lot less oil today than we were before the pandemic, and gas prices have gone up about 40 cents already this year. They are predicted to go to over $4 a gallon by March because of the attack on American energy by this administration and this President. Democrats have taken a sledgehammer to our economy on each and every side: higher taxes, higher spending, higher gas, less American energy. It is a Democrat policy in a nutshell. That is the Democrat economic policy: higher taxes, higher spending, higher debt, less American energy. It is a policy for failure, a policy for pain for American families. I guess that is why, right now, today, in the United States Joe Biden is the least popular Democrat President in the last 60 years--the least popular. So instead of bragging, instead of going to New York and pounding his chest, as he did in Virginia and he is going to do in Pennsylvania--instead of bragging, he ought to be apologizing to the American people. He does owe the American people an apology for the damage andthe destruction that he has inflicted because of his radical leftwing policies. His policies caused higher prices, caused higher interest rates, caused slower growth, caused much pain and much stress. So the American people are taking a look right now at the Biden economy, and they are not liking what they see. People want their money back. They want their future back. They want a future for their family. So if Joe Biden won't apologize, which is what he should do when he comes to Congress next week for the State of the Union, then he should at least announce that he is going to change course, try to make things better, announce that he is going to stop this reckless spending that has brought us these problems, announce that he is finally going to unleash American energy so energy is affordable, available, and reliable. That is what the American public is asking for and demanding. Working families in this country cannot afford any less. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. BARRASSO | Senate | CREC-2023-01-31-pt1-PgS161-2 | null | 5,700 |
formal | terrorist | null | Islamophobic | Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I saw some exciting news this morning, and it said that General Motors announced it is making a $650 million equity investment in Lithium Americas to develop the Thacker Pass Mine in Nevada. Now, this has been talked about for 10, 12, 13 years, but it is time to do something. According to GM, this represents ``the largest-ever investment by an automaker to produce battery raw materials,'' and that is exactly what the Inflation Reduction Act was meant to do. It is a tangible result because of that, and now, we have to make sure we follow through. GM's CEO, Ms. Mary Barra, even said: Direct sourcing critical [electric vehicles] raw materials and components from suppliers in North America and free-trade agreement countries helps make our supply chain more secure, helps us manage cell costs, and creates jobs. This is really what we are dealing with. We are dealing with--basically, China has a captive market. I had a hard time understanding why our administration was going down a path of transitioning into electric vehicles as quickly as they intended and wanted to do without having our own secure supply chain. China right now has 80 percent of the world's anode production, which is the positive and negative part of the battery that makes the battery work; 80 percent of the world's battery material processing, which is the processing of raw material that makes the batteries that run the vehicles we have; 60 percent of the world's cathode production; and 75 percent of the world's lithium ion battery cells. I am old enough to remember--and maybe the Presiding Officer might be, too--that basically in 1974 I was standing in line waiting to buy gas, if it was my turn to buy gas, to go to work. I don't intend to stand in line to wait for China to send a battery to make my car work. I just won't do it. So this is why we are moving in the direction we are. China has worked long and hard on cornering this market and done a very, very thorough job. We have seen firsthand what Russia has done to the EU--to Europe, our allies--and most importantly, to Germany. They have used their production of energy--inexpensive, cheap energy--and let Europe and mostly Germany put their guard down and become totally dependent. Then Putin weaponized energy against them and put them in a heck of a stranglehold. Then basically decisions were being made about what they could do. Well, the first thing they did was basically eliminate their dispatchable, dependable fuel, whether it be the coal-fired plants, which they had a desire to do, but they actively worked quicker than they had anything to replace it with and became more dependent. They got rid of their nuclear plants because their extreme environmental community wanted none of that; they wanted to go absolutely clean and green. There will be a time probably--hopefully in our lifetime; maybe not, but in our children's lifetime--that all of this might be transitioned into a new carbonless fuel, but right now, we need an ``all of the above'' energy policy. But they became totally dependent on cheap Russian gas, and they realized only after the invasion that they had made a mistake. Well, now they are scrambling to revive the very same coal-fired powerplants they shut down prematurely and bring back the nuclear reactors that they are going to need for a while. People talk about the social cost of greenhouse gases, and I agree, there is a social cost, but we are not even talking about the geopolitical cost of inaction, being energy secure. That is really what this is all about. The Inflation Reduction Act that we worked so hard on and every Democrat voted for in the House and the Senate, as the Presiding Officer knows, has been touted as an environmental bill. That is all you have heard. You have not heard the word from our administration talking about energy security. The United States is the superpower of the world, and to remain that status, you have to have energy independence and be secure in your own energy sources. If you recall, when all this happened and the invasion of Ukraine by Putin and basically the challenge we had and the high rising of oil prices to gasoline prices to everyday workers going back and forth--in my State, there is an awful lot of transit that goes on to secure your jobs. What had happened during that period of time, our administration started saying: Well, maybe we can reduce the sanctions on Iran. I said: You have the most prolific terrorist supporters in the world, and you want to lift sanctions so they can put more product into the market and make more money or have more revenue to wreak more havoc on humankind? I don't think that should be, I don't think that is a good idea, and I sure can't sign up for something such as that. Then we allowed Venezuela, which basically has very little oversights on their environmental emissions--but we released that, and now they are putting product in the market. Now, if we are so concerned about the environment, which we all should be, then shouldn't we basically look at what is going on? Is America just turning a blind eye and saying: Out of sight, out of mind. We are asking other parts of the world to do what we won't do. We asked the Gulf States--Saudi Arabia--to produce more oil, put more oil into the marketplace, because that would stabilize the oil price, bring the price of gasoline down. We never asked our friends in Texas. We never asked our friends in Alaska. We never asked our best trading partner Canada to do more for us. We were seen asking other people--and pretty drastic measures, if you would, by other nations--to do something we didn't want to do for ourselves. I thought that was unattainable, it was just unrealistic, and it did not show the leadership of the superpower of the world. Again, I will repeat this, and I will continue to repeat it: You will not maintain this status of being a superpower unless our allies look to us for help when they need it. We didn't have the energy to even be independent ourselves, let alone be able to help our allies as quickly as they needed it. We are getting up to speed now, we are coming back, and that is exactly what the Inflation Reduction Act was intended to do. If we don't establish a domestic supply with the God-given resources that we have--we produce oil, we produce coal, and we produce natural gas environmentally better than anyplace else in the world. In the IRA, that bill was designed to have two tracks. For 10 years, we would have certainty that we would be energy independent by using everything above, and that means relying on the fossil fuels that we need, and we have, but we are going to do it better and cleaner than we have ever done it before. We put more money in carbon capture, sequestration, and utilization than ever before. We put more technology and fees on methane emission, which we know is harmful to the environment, than ever before. So basically we are leading the world and going to find the new technology we can share that makes the environment better. But if you can replace the dirty production of fossil with the cleaner production from the United States, that istruly helping the environment. It is something that the leaders and the superpower of the world should be doing. We weren't in that position. We are fighting to get back. But I have to watch now, after we passed a piece of legislation we all voted for--we are getting different interpretations from Treasury and other Agencies that have oversight, which is so wrong. That is not their job, to interpret what they want in a piece of legislation; their job is to basically enforce what we wrote in the legislation. And we said that we will be independent, that we will have our own supply of critical minerals. We will have our own supply, basically, and we are not going to have to depend on China for car batteries or anything else we need to run our economy. That is what we should be fighting for, and that is what we should all be considering that we should be doing. The IRA is crystal clear. What the Department of the Treasury did is wrong. The law was very clear. By December 31 of last year, 2022, they were supposed to have the rules and regulations of how they would enforce the bill that we wrote. Well, guess what. They didn't. Now, guess what happened. Let me explain to you how the law worked before. Before we did what we did with the IRA, the electric vehicles, the supplement that we gave, $7,500, from 2008 after the crash of the economy, the banking crash that we had--there was a bill passed in 2008, a recovery bill, that was going to give $7,500 credit to any manufacturer--I mean, any manufacturer--that sold an electric vehicle in the United States of America. Now, once they saturated and sold 200,000 cars, it was over; they got no more credits. So let's look at our big manufacturers in the United States. We have General Motors, OK, we have basically Ford, and we have Toyota. Let me just tell you what has happened. So we are going to set the record straight because I had a discussion with my dear friend and colleague from Michigan, the Senator from Michigan, and we talked about that, and I think there was some misinterpretation or misspeaking about what has really happened. As of last year, Tesla and--no, 2018. So that bill went into effect in 2008, and by 2018, Tesla and General Motors reached their cap of 200,000 cars. They weren't getting anymore $7,500 if they sold a Tesla and if they sold a General Motors electric vehicle. And guess what. It didn't slow down the sales any. Tesla kept right on. They are past the million mark now and still going strong. So people want the product. We didn't have to give them Treasury or give them taxpayers' money to do it. General Motors hit their 200,000. Toyota reached theirs last year. Ford reached theirs September of last year. So all the major manufacturers. If we had not done the inflation reduction bill and put in new guidelines, all the people who would have gotten the $7,500 credit from American taxpayers were all foreign manufacturers sending electric vehicles to America. That is not right. But now what happened is they picked and chose. So the Secretary of the Treasury--and we have had a conversation. We agree to disagree, and I disagree stronger than anyone's ever disagreed on something that they are doing that they shouldn't be doing. They are doing it wrong, and I will continue to fight and hold them accountable. Last week, I introduced a bipartisan bill with Senator Braun that would do one simple thing. It would implement the law as intended by putting the sourcing provision in effect immediately, whether Treasury chooses to issue guidance or not. I cannot pressure them to do their job on time, but I can do this: We can do our job. We wrote a piece of legislation, and we can make sure it takes effect when it was supposed to when they haven't done their job. They failed to do it. What we are going to say is, fine, and you implement it exactly the way you wrote the law. What they are trying to do is this. They said: We don't have rules and regulations, but from January 1--and still going on--they are going to continue to give $7,500 to everybody again. So they are opening it back up to General Motors. They are opening it back up to Tesla. They are opening it up to Toyota, to Ford. To everybody, it is opened up to start getting $7,500 again. Now, what they did, they chose out of our bill--the Inflation Reduction Act--they said: Yes, but if you make more than $150,000, you are not qualified. That is exactly what is in our bill. But they said they don't have rules and regulations, but they took that part of it. They said: Well, if you buy a sedan that costs more than $55,000, you don't qualify for the 7,500. If you buy a pickup truck that is more than 85,000, you don't qualify. That is all in our bill. If you can't write your rules and regulations, but you can pick and choose what you like in the bill, that means you don't want to enforce the bill the way it was written. That is what we should not tolerate. That is not what anybody in this body should ever tolerate, to let the Agencies do exactly what they think they want to do to appease whomever they are trying to appease versus what we passed and the intent of what we passed. That is what I am upset about, and that is why we are going to continue to fight. And as it stands right now, they are cherry-picking, and they have completely cherry-picked, and other Agencies will do the same. This selective implementation is going to create a disadvantage for some automakers while giving more flexibility to others by allowing this to happen. It is beyond being not right. So let me tell you what we are going to do to make sure that the American people understand. If you believe that we were wrong in passing that piece of legislation, then speak up. If you believe that we were wrong in saying that we should not be dependent on China, but you want to continue to have China dominating the market, you want them to have total control in a market that we are moving--it is the first time in the history of the United States that we have ever had to rely on a foreign supply chain for our transportation mode, whether it is trains, whether it is planes, whether it is automobiles, any form of transportation. We have been able to not have to depend on another foreign supply chain because we were able to do it in the United States. We have allowed a lot a manufacturing to leave. We are bringing it back now. So what we said basically in the bill was: You get $3,750 credit toward an electric vehicle you bought from an American manufacturer, when the vehicle was manufactured in North America. That is the culmination between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, which is what NAFTA, which is what the USMCA, the new bill, that is what we do, has been moving those vehicles back and forth. If it is manufactured here, you get 3,750. You get the first 3,750 if the selection of all the rare earth materials are selected from either North America or from countries that we have a free-trade agreement. And the reason that is done, we want to make sure that we have a secure channel for these rare earth minerals it takes to process and manufacture the battery. So the processing, as far as the selection of the rare earth minerals, they have to come from either North America or our free-trade agreement countries. That gives us a solid supply. We are not dependent on China or Russia or any other nation that does not have our best interests and is not a democracy, does not have the same beliefs that we have for human rights and everything else that we do. We have that first, and then basically, it has to be manufactured in North America. Then you get the other 3,750. So we use the $7,500 as the carrot to reimplement ourselves into the manufacturing and self-reliance of our transportation mode. That is simply it. I would hope everybody watching, listening, or anything else, as far as trying to get the knowledge of what we have done and what we have tried to do and what we are intending to make sure happens--which is to hold this administration, hold basically the Treasury Department and every other Agency that thinks that they can free will and just make up what they want and do what they want and pick regulations that they think that they would rather implement rather than implementing the law. That is where we are. That is what I want is to set the record straight. Firstof all, all the automakers in America who hit the 200,000 cap, this was a new lease on life for them--the IRA, selecting it, and I would quote, and I am going to read again from Mary Barra, who is the CEO of General Motors: [The] [d]irect sourcing [of] critical EV raw materials and components from suppliers in North America and free-trade- agreement countries helps make our supply chain more secure, helps us manage cell costs, and creates jobs. Now, that is one of our largest manufacturers of automobiles in the United States of America. If she thinks it is good for her company, if she thinks it is good for the American citizens and the car buyers in America, then it should be good enough that the bill should be implemented the way it was intended to. What we are going to do is reestablish ourselves: major manufacturing; not being reliant; superpower of the world--maintain that; have the energy sources; use our fossil, clean as anywhere in the world, for the next 10 years, as we are investing $369 billion for the new technology of carbonless or carbon-free energy. Then that is leadership. That is what the world needs. That is what the world expects from the United States, and if we are going to maintain this world power, be the superpower of the world, we must maintain that leadership. And it is tough at times, but we can do it. We have always done it. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. MANCHIN | Senate | CREC-2023-01-31-pt1-PgS162 | null | 5,701 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | At 10:39 a.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered by Mrs. Alli, one of its reading clerks, announced that the House has passed the following bills, in which it requests the concurrence of the Senate: H.R. 290. An act to provide for transparent licensing of commercial remote sensing systems, and for other purposes. H.R. 298. An act to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to expand access to capital for rural-area small businesses, and for other purposes. H.R. 342. An act to amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to require reporting relating to certain cost-share requirements, and for other purposes. H.R. 500. An act to amend the Investment Company Act of 1940 to postpone the date of payment or satisfaction upon redemption of certain securities in the case of the financial exploitation of specified adults, and for other purposes. H.R. 582. An act to amend the Federal Credit Union Act to modify the frequency of board of directors meetings, and for other purposes. The message also announced that pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 1928a, and the order of the House of January 9, 2023, the Speaker appoints the following Members on the part of the House of Representatives to the United States Group of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly: Mr. Guthrie of Kentucky, Mr. Dunn of Florida, Mr. Bergman of Michigan, Mrs. Wagner of Missouri, Mr. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Mr. McCormick of Georgia. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-01-31-pt1-PgS166-4 | null | 5,702 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | The following bills were read the first and the second times by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated: H.R. 290. An act to provide for transparent licensing of commercial remote sensing systems, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. H.R. 298. An act to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to expand access to capital for rural-area small businesses, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 342. An act to amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to require reporting relating to certain cost-share requirements, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. H.R. 500. An act to amend the Investment Company Act of 1940 to postpone the date of payment or satisfaction upon redemption of certain securities in the case of the financial exploitation of specified adults, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. H.R. 582. An act to amend the Federal Credit Union Act to modify the frequency of board of directors meetings, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-01-31-pt1-PgS166-5 | null | 5,703 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated: EC-146. A communication from the Director of Congressional Affairs, Federal Election Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Internet Communication Disclaimers and Definition of `Public Communication' '' (Notice 2022-22) received in the Office of the President pro tempore of the Senate; to the Committee on Rules and Administration. EC-147. A communication from the Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to fifteen (15) legislative recommendations received in the Office of the President pro tempore; to the Committee on Rules and Administration. EC-148. A communication from the Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to fifteen (15) legislative recommendations; to the Committee on Rules and Administration. EC-149. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Prohibition Against Certain Flights in the Territory and Airspace of Somalia'' ((RIN2120-AL78) (Docket No. FAA-2022-27602)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-150. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Eastern United States, NY'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0906)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-151. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``IFR Altitudes; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 569'' ((RIN2120-AA63) (Docket No. 31462)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-152. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4036'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31459)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-153. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4038'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31461)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-154. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4040'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31464)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-155. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4039'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31463)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-156. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH (AHD) (Type Certificates Previously Held by Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm (MBB), and Eurocopter Deutschland GmbH (ECD)) Helicopters; Amendment 39- 22247'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1070)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-157. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters; Amendment 39-22233'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0881)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-158. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22243'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1155)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-159. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22245'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0463)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-160. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bombardier, Inc. Airplanes; Amendment 39-22269'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0995)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-161. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; BAE Systems (Operations) Limited Airplanes; Amendment 39-22274'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1574)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-162. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22251'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0799)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-163. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Embraer S.A. (Type Certificate Previously Held by Yabora Industria Aeronautica S.A.; Embraer S.A) Airplanes; Amendment 39- 22256'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1489)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-164. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22254'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1165)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-165. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22253'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0471)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-166. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Leonardo S.p.a. Helicopters; Amendment 39-22281'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-158)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-167. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22260'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0985)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-168. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22264'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1237)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-169. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited (Type Certificate Previously Held by Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22262'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0993)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-170. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; ATR-GIE Avions de Transport Regional Airplanes; Amendment 39-22272'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0395)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-171. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22277'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1576)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-172. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22278'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1167)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-173. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22258'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0833)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-174. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22259'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1168)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-175. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Type Certificate Previously Held by C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP); Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22261'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0882)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-176. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Type Certificate Previously Held by C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP); Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22275'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1236)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-177. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22249'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0588)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-178. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22271'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1061)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-179. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22255'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1054)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-180. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; General Electric Company Turbofan Engines; Amendment 39-22276'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0978)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-181. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; GE Aviation Czech s.r.o. (Type Certificate Previously Held by WALTER Engines a.s., Walter a.s., and MOTORLET a.s.) Turboprop Engines; Amendment 39-22279'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 1239)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-182. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Embraer S.A. (Type Certificate Previously Held by Yabora Industria Aeronautica S.A.; Amendment 39-22266'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1568)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-183. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22265'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1567)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-184. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22270'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1571)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-185. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22267'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1569)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-186. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22268'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1570)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-187. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Pratt and Whitney Division Turbofan Engines; Amendment 39-22289'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1306)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-188. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Leonardo S.p.a. Helicopters; Amendment 39-22288'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0465)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-189. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG (Type Certificate Previously Held by Rolls-Royce plc) Turbofan Engines; Amendment 39-22284'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1649)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-190. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bell Textron Canada Limited Helicopters; Amendment 39-22293'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1658)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-191. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22292'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1657)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-192. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22286'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1248)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-193. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Type Certificate Previously Held by C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP); Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22285'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0981)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-194. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Dassault Aviation Airplanes; Amendment 39-22290'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1238)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-195. A communication from the Deputy Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Improving 911 Reliability; Amendments to Part 4 of the Commission's Rules Concerning Disruptions to Communications; New Part 4 of the Commission's Rules Concerning Disruptions to Communications'' ((PS Docket Nos. 15-80, 13-75 and ET Docket No. 04-35) (FCC 22-50)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-196. A communication from the Deputy Chief, Enforcement Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``In the Matter of Amendment of Section 1.80(b) of the Commission's Rules Adjustment of Civil Monetary Penalties to Reflect Inflation'' (DA Docket No. 22-1356) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-197. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG (Type Certificate Previously Held by Rolls-Royce plc) Turbofan Engines; Amendment 39-22246'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1158)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-198. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Eastern United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0906)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-199. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Removal of VOR Federal Airways in the Eastern United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0940)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-200. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Route T-266; Juneau, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1106)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-201. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Revocation of Multiple Air Traffic Service (ATS) Routes; Establishment of Area Navigation (RNAV) Route; and Revocation of the Pawnee City, NE, Low Altitude Reporting Point in the Vicinity of Pawnee City, NE'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0712)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-202. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Eastern United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0906)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-203. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishment and Amendment of Area Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Eastern United States'' ((RIN2120- AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0858)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-204. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of Area Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Northeast United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0826)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-205. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Northeast United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0826)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-206. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Domestic VOR Federal Airway V- 356; Mile High, CO'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0027)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-207. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Federal Airway V-573 and Area Navigation (RNAV) Route 398 in the Vicinity of Sulphur Springs, TX'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0617)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-208. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class C Airspace; Manchester, NH'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1472)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-209. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishment of Class E Airspace; Christmas Valley Airport, OR; CORRECTION'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1472)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-210. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishment of Class E Airspace; Brookings Airport, Brookings, OR'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1031)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-211. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled '' Modification of Class D Airspace and Class E Airspace; Boozman Yellowstone International Airport, MT; CORRECTION'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0764)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-212. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class D Airspace and Class E Airspace; East Hampton and Montauk, NY'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1545)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-213. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishmen of Class E Airspace; Christmas Valley Airport, OR'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0571)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-214. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Montpelier, VT'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0376)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-215. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class C Airspace; Manchester, NH'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1472)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-216. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class D Airspace and Establishment of Class E Airspace; Butts Army Airfield (AAF) (Fort Carson) Airport, CO'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0797)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-217. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Montpelier, VT'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0376)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-218. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class D Airspace; Fort Belvoir, VA'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1447)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-219. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Oneonta, NY'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1073)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-220. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Amber 4(A-4); Anaktuvuk Pass, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0078)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-221. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Proposed Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue (B-79); Annette Island, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0109)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-222. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue 7 (B-7) and Green 9 (G-9); Bethel, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0186)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-223. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Green 7 (G-7); Nome, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0301)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-224. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Green 15 (G-15); St. Mary's, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0162)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-225. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Amber 6 (A-6); St. Mary's, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0299)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-226. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Red 1 (R-1) Vicinity of King Salmon, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0765)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-227. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Green 17 (G-17); Atqasuk, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0539)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-228. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Amber 5 (A-5) and Blue 4 (B-4); Bettles, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0172)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-229. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue 26 (B-26); Fort Yukon, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0110)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-230. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue 37 (B-37); Level Island, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0312)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-231. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Red 51 (R-51); Level Island, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0120)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-232. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Amber 2 (A-2); Northway, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0120)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-233. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue 8 (B-8); Shishmaref, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0300)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-234. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Green 18 (G-18); Point Lay, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0165)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-235. A communication from the Program Analyst, International Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``In the Matter of Process Reform for Executive Branch Review of Certain FCC Applications and Petitions Involving Foreign Ownership'' ((IB Docket Nos. 22-271 and 18-313) (FCC 22-74)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-236. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Norwell, Massachusetts'' (MB Docket No. 22-376) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-237. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Memphis, TN'' (MB Docket No. 22-146) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-238. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Chicago, Illinois'' (MB Docket No. 22- 546) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-239. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Final Rule; Technical Amendments; Miscellaneous Amendments'' ((RIN2120-AL53) (FAA-2022-1355)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-01-31-pt1-PgS166-7 | null | 5,704 |
formal | Chicago | null | racist | The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated: EC-146. A communication from the Director of Congressional Affairs, Federal Election Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Internet Communication Disclaimers and Definition of `Public Communication' '' (Notice 2022-22) received in the Office of the President pro tempore of the Senate; to the Committee on Rules and Administration. EC-147. A communication from the Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to fifteen (15) legislative recommendations received in the Office of the President pro tempore; to the Committee on Rules and Administration. EC-148. A communication from the Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to fifteen (15) legislative recommendations; to the Committee on Rules and Administration. EC-149. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Prohibition Against Certain Flights in the Territory and Airspace of Somalia'' ((RIN2120-AL78) (Docket No. FAA-2022-27602)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-150. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Eastern United States, NY'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0906)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-151. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``IFR Altitudes; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 569'' ((RIN2120-AA63) (Docket No. 31462)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-152. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4036'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31459)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-153. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4038'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31461)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-154. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4040'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31464)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-155. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4039'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31463)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-156. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters Deutschland GmbH (AHD) (Type Certificates Previously Held by Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm (MBB), and Eurocopter Deutschland GmbH (ECD)) Helicopters; Amendment 39- 22247'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1070)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-157. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters; Amendment 39-22233'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0881)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-158. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22243'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1155)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-159. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22245'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0463)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-160. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bombardier, Inc. Airplanes; Amendment 39-22269'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0995)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-161. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; BAE Systems (Operations) Limited Airplanes; Amendment 39-22274'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1574)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-162. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22251'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0799)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-163. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Embraer S.A. (Type Certificate Previously Held by Yabora Industria Aeronautica S.A.; Embraer S.A) Airplanes; Amendment 39- 22256'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1489)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-164. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22254'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1165)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-165. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22253'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0471)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-166. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Leonardo S.p.a. Helicopters; Amendment 39-22281'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-158)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-167. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22260'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0985)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-168. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22264'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1237)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-169. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited (Type Certificate Previously Held by Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22262'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0993)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-170. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; ATR-GIE Avions de Transport Regional Airplanes; Amendment 39-22272'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0395)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-171. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22277'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1576)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-172. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22278'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1167)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-173. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22258'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0833)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-174. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22259'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1168)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-175. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Type Certificate Previously Held by C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP); Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22261'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0882)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-176. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Type Certificate Previously Held by C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP); Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22275'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1236)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-177. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22249'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0588)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-178. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22271'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1061)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-179. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22255'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1054)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-180. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; General Electric Company Turbofan Engines; Amendment 39-22276'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0978)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-181. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; GE Aviation Czech s.r.o. (Type Certificate Previously Held by WALTER Engines a.s., Walter a.s., and MOTORLET a.s.) Turboprop Engines; Amendment 39-22279'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 1239)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-182. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Embraer S.A. (Type Certificate Previously Held by Yabora Industria Aeronautica S.A.; Amendment 39-22266'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1568)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-183. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22265'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1567)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-184. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22270'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1571)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-185. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22267'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1569)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-186. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22268'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1570)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-187. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Pratt and Whitney Division Turbofan Engines; Amendment 39-22289'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1306)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-188. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Leonardo S.p.a. Helicopters; Amendment 39-22288'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0465)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-189. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG (Type Certificate Previously Held by Rolls-Royce plc) Turbofan Engines; Amendment 39-22284'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1649)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-190. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bell Textron Canada Limited Helicopters; Amendment 39-22293'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1658)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-191. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22292'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1657)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-192. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22286'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1248)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-193. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Type Certificate Previously Held by C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP); Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22285'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0981)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-194. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Dassault Aviation Airplanes; Amendment 39-22290'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1238)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-195. A communication from the Deputy Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Improving 911 Reliability; Amendments to Part 4 of the Commission's Rules Concerning Disruptions to Communications; New Part 4 of the Commission's Rules Concerning Disruptions to Communications'' ((PS Docket Nos. 15-80, 13-75 and ET Docket No. 04-35) (FCC 22-50)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-196. A communication from the Deputy Chief, Enforcement Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``In the Matter of Amendment of Section 1.80(b) of the Commission's Rules Adjustment of Civil Monetary Penalties to Reflect Inflation'' (DA Docket No. 22-1356) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-197. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG (Type Certificate Previously Held by Rolls-Royce plc) Turbofan Engines; Amendment 39-22246'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1158)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-198. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Eastern United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0906)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-199. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Removal of VOR Federal Airways in the Eastern United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0940)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-200. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Route T-266; Juneau, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1106)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-201. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Revocation of Multiple Air Traffic Service (ATS) Routes; Establishment of Area Navigation (RNAV) Route; and Revocation of the Pawnee City, NE, Low Altitude Reporting Point in the Vicinity of Pawnee City, NE'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0712)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-202. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Eastern United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0906)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-203. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishment and Amendment of Area Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Eastern United States'' ((RIN2120- AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0858)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-204. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of Area Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Northeast United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0826)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-205. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment and Establishment of United States Navigation (RNAV) Routes; Northeast United States'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0826)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-206. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Domestic VOR Federal Airway V- 356; Mile High, CO'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0027)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-207. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Federal Airway V-573 and Area Navigation (RNAV) Route 398 in the Vicinity of Sulphur Springs, TX'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0617)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-208. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class C Airspace; Manchester, NH'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1472)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-209. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishment of Class E Airspace; Christmas Valley Airport, OR; CORRECTION'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1472)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-210. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishment of Class E Airspace; Brookings Airport, Brookings, OR'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1031)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-211. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled '' Modification of Class D Airspace and Class E Airspace; Boozman Yellowstone International Airport, MT; CORRECTION'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0764)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-212. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class D Airspace and Class E Airspace; East Hampton and Montauk, NY'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1545)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-213. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishmen of Class E Airspace; Christmas Valley Airport, OR'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0571)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-214. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Montpelier, VT'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0376)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-215. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class C Airspace; Manchester, NH'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1472)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-216. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class D Airspace and Establishment of Class E Airspace; Butts Army Airfield (AAF) (Fort Carson) Airport, CO'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0797)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-217. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Montpelier, VT'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0376)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-218. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class D Airspace; Fort Belvoir, VA'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1447)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-219. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Oneonta, NY'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1073)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-220. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Amber 4(A-4); Anaktuvuk Pass, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0078)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-221. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Proposed Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue (B-79); Annette Island, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0109)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-222. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue 7 (B-7) and Green 9 (G-9); Bethel, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0186)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-223. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Green 7 (G-7); Nome, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0301)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-224. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Green 15 (G-15); St. Mary's, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0162)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-225. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Amber 6 (A-6); St. Mary's, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0299)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-226. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Red 1 (R-1) Vicinity of King Salmon, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0765)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-227. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Green 17 (G-17); Atqasuk, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0539)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-228. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Amber 5 (A-5) and Blue 4 (B-4); Bettles, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0172)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-229. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue 26 (B-26); Fort Yukon, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0110)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-230. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue 37 (B-37); Level Island, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0312)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-231. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Red 51 (R-51); Level Island, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0120)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-232. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Amber 2 (A-2); Northway, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0120)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-233. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Blue 8 (B-8); Shishmaref, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 0300)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-234. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Colored Federal Airway Green 18 (G-18); Point Lay, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA- 2022-0165)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-235. A communication from the Program Analyst, International Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``In the Matter of Process Reform for Executive Branch Review of Certain FCC Applications and Petitions Involving Foreign Ownership'' ((IB Docket Nos. 22-271 and 18-313) (FCC 22-74)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-236. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Norwell, Massachusetts'' (MB Docket No. 22-376) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-237. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Memphis, TN'' (MB Docket No. 22-146) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-238. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Chicago, Illinois'' (MB Docket No. 22- 546) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-239. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Final Rule; Technical Amendments; Miscellaneous Amendments'' ((RIN2120-AL53) (FAA-2022-1355)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-01-31-pt1-PgS166-7 | null | 5,705 |
formal | Detroit | null | racist | The following petition or memorial was laid before the Senate and was referred or ordered to lie on the table as indicated: POM-2. A concurrent resolution adopted by the Legislature of the State of Michigan requesting the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress approve the replacement of Michigan's statue of Lewis Cass with a statue of Coleman A. Young as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection and to take other actions related to this request; to the Committee on Rules and Administration. Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 23 Whereas, Congress authorized the creation of the National Statuary Hall Collection in 1864 to provide an opportunity for each state to honor two distinguished people with statues at the U.S. Capitol Currently, Lewis Cass and Gerald Ford represent the state of Michigan in the collection. The statues were placed in the U.S. Capitol in 1889 and 2011, respectively, and Whereas, Federal law establishes a process by which states may request the replacement of a statue located in the National Statuary Hall Collection. The first step in the process is the state legislature adopting a resolution identifying the statue to replace and the person to be honored with a new statue, selecting the entity responsible for choosing the sculptor, and directing the method of obtaining funds to cover the necessary costs of the replacement. Federal law also requires that the state's governor submit a written request to provide a new statue to the Architect of the Capitol along with a description of the location in the state where the replaced statue will be displayed after it is transferred, and a copy of the resolution authorizing the replacement, and Whereas, A statue of Lewis Cass was placed in the U.S. Capitol on behalf of Michigan in the late 19th century in recognition of his service to the state of Michigan and United States Lewis Cass served as a Governor of the Michigan territory, U.S. Senator from Michigan, U.S. Secretary of War, U.S. Secretary of State, and U.S. Ambassador to France during his career, and Whereas, Honoring Lewis Cass with a statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection is no longer consistent with the values of the people of Michigan While Lewis Cass was an accomplished public figure, he played a prominent role in the implementation of President Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, was a proponent of allowing states and territories to permit slavery, and enslaved at least one person himself, and Whereas, Coleman A. Young was the first African-American mayor of Detroit and one of the most accomplished leaders in Michigan's largest city's history. Young served his country as a bombardier and navigator with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. He demonstrated an early interest in justice and fairness, spearheading a protest against the exclusion of Blacks from segregated officers' clubs. Young became a union activist after the war and was elected to the Michigan Senate serving for nine years. The people of Detroit elected him as their mayor for the first time in 1973, reelecting him four times over the next two decades. Young was known for championing needs of the city's Black community and for building coalitions among its business leaders. Under his leadership, the city saw the completion of a number of major projects, such as the Renaissance Center, Detroit People Mover, and Joe Louis Arena. Young's contributions to the city of Detroit, and our entire state make him deserving of a place in the National Statutory Hall Collection, and Whereas, The Michigan Statuary Hall Commission will select the sculptor and secure funding for this project; Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives Concurring), That we request the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress approve the replacement of Michigan's statue of Louis Cass with a statue of Coleman A. Young as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection; and be it further Resolved, That we urge the Governor to communicate approval of this replacement to the Architect of the Capitol and to sign an agreement with the Architect of the Capitol to replace the Lewis Cass statue with one of Coleman A. Young; and be it further Resolved, That we hereby establish the Michigan Statuary Hall Commission. The commission will select an artist to sculpt the statue of Coleman A. Young. The commission shall be made up of five members, with one member appointed by each of the Governor, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Senate Majority Leader the House Minority Leader, and the Senate Minority Leader; and be it further Resolved, That the costs of this entire project, including the costs of creating, transporting, and placing both statues at their respective locations and the costs related to ceremonies that may be held in Lansing and Washington, D.C., will be paid for by donations and other funding secured by the Michigan Statuary Hall Commission; and be it further Resolved, That copies of this resolution be transmitted to the Governor, the Architect of the Capitol, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the members of the Michigan congressional delegation, and the members of the Joint Committee on the Library of Congress. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-01-31-pt1-PgS171 | null | 5,706 |
formal | religious liberties | null | homophobic | The Chaplain, the Reverend Margaret Grun Kibben, offered the following prayer: Intercede in our lives, O Lord, even as we offer prayers of intercession for others. While we offer our petitions and thanksgiving for our leaders and all who are in authority, with our voices we also pray for those who have no voice, for those who have no hope, and for those who don't know how or what to pray in the moments they are now enduring. Hear our prayers for the individuals we know and name in our hearts who are grieving loss or suffering illness. For too many who are mute with pain and despair, may the prayers from our lips reach You on their behalf. Hear our prayers for our communities and our country who are fractured by the tragedies of violence in all its forms. For the many cities and neighborhoods disrupted with animosity and distrust, may the prayers we offer together in this place bring forth a comity to be found only in You. Hear our prayers for the war-torn countries around the world and for their citizens who suffer from abuses of power, the deprivation of religious liberties, and the brutal oppression of human rights. For these who are prohibited from praying, may our prayers be louder and stronger than the adversary who seeks to silence them. You alone are sovereign, O God. May our faith be found righteous before You that our prayers would be powerful and effective on behalf of Your people. In the strength of Your name we pray. Amen. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgH587-3 | null | 5,707 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. RESCHENTHALER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, notwithstanding section 1(a)(2)(A) of H. Res. 12, as amended by section 1(c) of House Resolution 78, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government be composed of the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary, together with not more than 19 other Members, Delegates, or the Resident Commissioner appointed by the Speaker, of whom not more than 8 shall be appointed in consultation with the minority leader. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. RESCHENTHALER | House | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgH590-2 | null | 5,708 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Proceedings will resume on questions previously postponed. Votes will be taken in the following order: Ordering the previous question on House Resolution 83; and Adoption of House Resolution 83, if ordered. The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the remaining electronic vote will be conducted as a 5-minute vote. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgH598-3 | null | 5,709 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on ordering the previous question on the resolution (H. Res. 83) providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 9) denouncing the horrors of socialism and providing for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 76) removing a certain Member from a certain standing committee of the House, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgH598-4 | null | 5,710 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Proceedings will resume on questions previously postponed. Votes will be taken in the following order: Passage of H.R. 139; and Passage of H.J. Res. 7. The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, remaining electronic votes will be conducted as 5-minute votes. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgH611-3 | null | 5,711 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on passage of the bill (H.R. 139) to require Executive agencies to submit to Congress a study of the impacts of expanded telework and remote work by agency employees during the COVID-19 pandemic and a plan for the agency's future use of telework and remote work, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgH611-4 | null | 5,712 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. C. SCOTT FRANKLIN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding section 1(a)(2)(A) of H. Res. 12, as amended by section 1(c) of House Resolution 78, and the order of the House of today, the Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government be composed of not more than 21 Members, Delegates, or the Resident Commissioner appointed by the Speaker, of whom not more than 9 shall be appointed in consultation with the minority leader. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. C. SCOTT FRANKLIN of Florida | House | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgH613-3 | null | 5,713 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Pursuant to clause 7(c)(1) of rule XII and Section 3(c) of H. Res. 5 the following statements are submitted regarding (1) the specific powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the accompanying bill or joint resolution and (2) the single subject of the bill or joint resolution. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgH629-2 | null | 5,714 |
formal | election integrity | null | racist | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, finally, on election undermining by the Republican National Committee, one of the biggest lessons of last November was that, for all of the attempts by MAGA Republicans to undermine our elections, the roots of our democracy remain strong and run deep. For 2 years, we heard the same thing over and over again from the MAGA brigade: that the 2020 elections were stolen, that President Biden was illegitimate, and that we couldn't trust that our votes were properly counted. Well, Americans simply didn't buy it. They saw that the elections were fair. Some have said these were the fairest elections we have ever had. Yet, in every virtual race last fall, MAGA candidates who campaigned explicitly on denying the results of the 2020 election and overturning it were rejected by the voters. It was a good result for the country, for our democracy. Frankly, it was a necessary wake-up call for the GOP, telling them: Get rid of the Big Lie once and for all. The American people aren't buying it. Maybe a small band of extreme rightwingers is--MAGA people--but not everybody else. It was so disturbing to read in the Washington Post that the RNC is not abandoning the conspiracy of the Big Lie so much as it is doubling down. According to reports, they are working on creating a ``permanent infrastructure in every state to ramp up `election integrity' activities'' as a way to cater to that portion of their base that still believes in wacky election fraud conspiracies. As a sign of how unserious this report is, the RNC also makes unfounded claims of a ``continuing onslaught of Democrat election manipulation.'' I would call it ridiculous--it is ridiculous--but it is a troubling attempt to undermine our democracy. When people don't believe the elections are on the level, that is the beginning of the end of this grand experiment in democracy that has lasted for centuries. Fortunately, the American people are rejecting it, but the Republicans that lead the MAGA wing are keeping at it. I will make this easy for the folks over at the RNC: Undermining our elections is a losing strategy. It is a loser politically. It didn't work last year, and it is not going to work next year. For the sake of our country and the sake of the GOP, the RNC and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party need to break the election fraud echo chamber that has paralyzed their party and has, frankly, caused them to lose election after election. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS180-2 | null | 5,715 |
formal | MAGA | null | white supremacist | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, finally, on election undermining by the Republican National Committee, one of the biggest lessons of last November was that, for all of the attempts by MAGA Republicans to undermine our elections, the roots of our democracy remain strong and run deep. For 2 years, we heard the same thing over and over again from the MAGA brigade: that the 2020 elections were stolen, that President Biden was illegitimate, and that we couldn't trust that our votes were properly counted. Well, Americans simply didn't buy it. They saw that the elections were fair. Some have said these were the fairest elections we have ever had. Yet, in every virtual race last fall, MAGA candidates who campaigned explicitly on denying the results of the 2020 election and overturning it were rejected by the voters. It was a good result for the country, for our democracy. Frankly, it was a necessary wake-up call for the GOP, telling them: Get rid of the Big Lie once and for all. The American people aren't buying it. Maybe a small band of extreme rightwingers is--MAGA people--but not everybody else. It was so disturbing to read in the Washington Post that the RNC is not abandoning the conspiracy of the Big Lie so much as it is doubling down. According to reports, they are working on creating a ``permanent infrastructure in every state to ramp up `election integrity' activities'' as a way to cater to that portion of their base that still believes in wacky election fraud conspiracies. As a sign of how unserious this report is, the RNC also makes unfounded claims of a ``continuing onslaught of Democrat election manipulation.'' I would call it ridiculous--it is ridiculous--but it is a troubling attempt to undermine our democracy. When people don't believe the elections are on the level, that is the beginning of the end of this grand experiment in democracy that has lasted for centuries. Fortunately, the American people are rejecting it, but the Republicans that lead the MAGA wing are keeping at it. I will make this easy for the folks over at the RNC: Undermining our elections is a losing strategy. It is a loser politically. It didn't work last year, and it is not going to work next year. For the sake of our country and the sake of the GOP, the RNC and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party need to break the election fraud echo chamber that has paralyzed their party and has, frankly, caused them to lose election after election. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS180-2 | null | 5,716 |
formal | echo | null | antisemitic | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, finally, on election undermining by the Republican National Committee, one of the biggest lessons of last November was that, for all of the attempts by MAGA Republicans to undermine our elections, the roots of our democracy remain strong and run deep. For 2 years, we heard the same thing over and over again from the MAGA brigade: that the 2020 elections were stolen, that President Biden was illegitimate, and that we couldn't trust that our votes were properly counted. Well, Americans simply didn't buy it. They saw that the elections were fair. Some have said these were the fairest elections we have ever had. Yet, in every virtual race last fall, MAGA candidates who campaigned explicitly on denying the results of the 2020 election and overturning it were rejected by the voters. It was a good result for the country, for our democracy. Frankly, it was a necessary wake-up call for the GOP, telling them: Get rid of the Big Lie once and for all. The American people aren't buying it. Maybe a small band of extreme rightwingers is--MAGA people--but not everybody else. It was so disturbing to read in the Washington Post that the RNC is not abandoning the conspiracy of the Big Lie so much as it is doubling down. According to reports, they are working on creating a ``permanent infrastructure in every state to ramp up `election integrity' activities'' as a way to cater to that portion of their base that still believes in wacky election fraud conspiracies. As a sign of how unserious this report is, the RNC also makes unfounded claims of a ``continuing onslaught of Democrat election manipulation.'' I would call it ridiculous--it is ridiculous--but it is a troubling attempt to undermine our democracy. When people don't believe the elections are on the level, that is the beginning of the end of this grand experiment in democracy that has lasted for centuries. Fortunately, the American people are rejecting it, but the Republicans that lead the MAGA wing are keeping at it. I will make this easy for the folks over at the RNC: Undermining our elections is a losing strategy. It is a loser politically. It didn't work last year, and it is not going to work next year. For the sake of our country and the sake of the GOP, the RNC and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party need to break the election fraud echo chamber that has paralyzed their party and has, frankly, caused them to lose election after election. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS180-2 | null | 5,717 |
formal | echo | null | antisemitic | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on the ERA, which is a different and extremely important matter, I want to praise and echo the words of my colleagues yesterday who reintroduced a resolution to affirm the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. The resolution is simple. It removes the arbitrary deadline for ERA ratification that was placed by Congress in the 1970s and recognizes the amendment as a valid part of the Constitution. There is no good reason why a constitutional amendment needs a deadline, especially not an amendment that affirms gender equality. The Equal Rights Amendment has never been as necessary and urgent as it is today. The Supreme Court's repeal of Roe v. Wade reminded all of us that, even today--in 2023, the 21st century--women don't have the same fundamental rights as men. So this resolution is a terrific and necessary idea. The ERA has been ratified by three-quarters of the States but not in the requisite time, and that is what this proposal would fix. It is very popular in the minds of the American people, and I strongly support the resolution. I want my daughters and granddaughter to live in a country where they never have to worry about being discriminated against simply because of their gender. Sadly, today, that is not the case. The ERA would fix that. So I want to thank Senators Cardin and Durbin, Representatives Pressley, Dean, and Bush, and everyone who is championing this important resolution. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS180 | null | 5,718 |
formal | thugs | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, finally, today marks a solemn anniversary for the people of Burma and for all of us around the world who spent years--literally years--rooting for them to make progress toward greater freedom and democracy. Two years ago, their hopes of a stable democracy were wrenched away by a brutal military coup. To date, this takeover by the Tatmadaw, which is their army, has displaced 1.2 million people, including many thousands who have been forced to flee the country altogether. Inside Burma, more than 16,000 people have been taken as political prisoners. At one point, the military was detaining American journalist Danny Fenster and Nathan Maung; the Australian economist, Sean Turnell; dozens of innocent children; and, of course, my friend Aung San Suu Kyi, whose latest conviction and a sham trial leaves her facing the possibility of life in prison. Expert observers count the coup's death toll at 19,000. That includes people this illegitimate government simply executed outright, like the activists Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zeya Thaw. Now the leaders of the Tatmadaw coup are laying out plans in broad daylight to stamp out Burma's pro-democracy movement once and for all. The military is shedding any last ounce of legitimacy it pretended to have and is now conducting airstrikes against innocent civilians. The junta's new regulations for this year's election are designed to make viable opposition virtually impossible. No wonder the illegitimate Tatmadaw rulers rolled out the red carpet for Putin's Foreign Minister to visit Burma. Thugs recognize other thugs. On the second anniversary of the coup, with a potentially devastating sham election on the horizon, it is absolutely vital that the United States continue our assistance to the National Unity Government and other key groups working inside Burma to protect the innocent and advance the cause of democracy and increase cross-border humanitarian aid. By our example, America should rally our partners to raise the international stakes for the Tatmadaw's continued brutality. In December, the National Defense Authorization Act instructed the Biden administration to take several more concrete steps to bulk up American support for the people of Burma. It made sanctions on senior junta officials mandatory. It required more targeted and precisely timed sanctions against state-owned enterprises like MOGE, M-O-G-E. Finally, the NDAA also notably authorized funding for programs to strengthen federalism in and among ethnic states in Burma and for technical support and nonlethal assistance to Burma's ethnic armed organizations and People's Defence Forces to strengthen communication, command and control, and coordination ofinternational relief and other operations between and among those entities. So, Mr. President, the people of Burma are fighting for the sort of future that citizens of democracies like ours enjoy: the right to self-determination. I am proud to stand behind them in this effort. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS181-2 | null | 5,719 |
formal | government handout | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on a related matter, there are lots of egregious ways that President Biden has wasted taxpayer money trying to buy up his low approval ratings, but the Democrats' proposal for student loan socialism is really one of the worst. It is like the Democrats paid scientists in a lab to invent the most unfair government handout that could possibly, possibly exist. Democrats want to take the graduate school loans of doctors and lawyers and white-collar professionals making six figures and put their debt on the shoulders of Americans who didn't take out loans at all. To the middle-class families who saved, sacrificed, and skipped vacations to pay for more of their kids' college, the Democrats want to turn you into suckers. To the plumbers, firefighters, checkout clerks, and auto mechanics who made career choices to avoid taking on debt, the Democrats think dentists and the lawyers deserve extra handouts at your expense. To the patriots who volunteered to serve our Nation in uniform as part of a plan to attend college debt-free, the Democrats want to change the rules behind your back. President Biden and his party wake up every day looking for ways to transfer money and power away from the working class toward elites. But even for today's Democratic Party, this one is especially galling. This is ``reverse Robin Hood'' policy: Democrats stealing from the working class to reward people who are comparatively better off. It just isn't fair on a personal level. It is also staggeringly reckless fiscal policy. Remember, this whole undertaking was first set up as a short-term emergency measure at the very start of COVID--those earliest weeks when the entire economy seemed to be in a free fall. That was almost 3 years ago. Shortly afterward, thanks to the bipartisan CARES Act that came out of the Republican-led Senate, the economy rebounded. Household savings actually went up. Many white-collar professionals spent months, if not years, working remotely from the comfort of their living rooms. Any legitimate reason for pausing loan payments evaporated just a few months after it began, but the Democrats have kept it going, year after year. Now they want to magically wave away people's debts altogether. Needless to say, this would be enormously expensive for the country. If you add up the cost of three things: the nearly 3-year-long ``pause'' thus far, the mass jubilee the Biden administration is trying to defend in court, and the Democrats' proposal to turn the income-driven payment program into permanent socialism, the total cost of these three measures is projected to hit $1 trillion--$1 trillion. This estimate is from our colleague Senator Cassidy, who is shining a bright spotlight on these terrible policies as the incoming ranking member of the HELP Committee. On top of all the reckless inflationary spending the Democrats have pushed through, they want to redistribute up to another trillion dollars away from working-class Americans toward college-educated people who already earn higher salaries on average. The Democrats want to squeeze even more money out of cashiers, welders, first responders, janitors, and cosmetologists and send it to a group of people who already outearn those people on an average basis--more reckless spending, more debt inflation, and no fairness for American families. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS181 | null | 5,720 |
formal | handout | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on a related matter, there are lots of egregious ways that President Biden has wasted taxpayer money trying to buy up his low approval ratings, but the Democrats' proposal for student loan socialism is really one of the worst. It is like the Democrats paid scientists in a lab to invent the most unfair government handout that could possibly, possibly exist. Democrats want to take the graduate school loans of doctors and lawyers and white-collar professionals making six figures and put their debt on the shoulders of Americans who didn't take out loans at all. To the middle-class families who saved, sacrificed, and skipped vacations to pay for more of their kids' college, the Democrats want to turn you into suckers. To the plumbers, firefighters, checkout clerks, and auto mechanics who made career choices to avoid taking on debt, the Democrats think dentists and the lawyers deserve extra handouts at your expense. To the patriots who volunteered to serve our Nation in uniform as part of a plan to attend college debt-free, the Democrats want to change the rules behind your back. President Biden and his party wake up every day looking for ways to transfer money and power away from the working class toward elites. But even for today's Democratic Party, this one is especially galling. This is ``reverse Robin Hood'' policy: Democrats stealing from the working class to reward people who are comparatively better off. It just isn't fair on a personal level. It is also staggeringly reckless fiscal policy. Remember, this whole undertaking was first set up as a short-term emergency measure at the very start of COVID--those earliest weeks when the entire economy seemed to be in a free fall. That was almost 3 years ago. Shortly afterward, thanks to the bipartisan CARES Act that came out of the Republican-led Senate, the economy rebounded. Household savings actually went up. Many white-collar professionals spent months, if not years, working remotely from the comfort of their living rooms. Any legitimate reason for pausing loan payments evaporated just a few months after it began, but the Democrats have kept it going, year after year. Now they want to magically wave away people's debts altogether. Needless to say, this would be enormously expensive for the country. If you add up the cost of three things: the nearly 3-year-long ``pause'' thus far, the mass jubilee the Biden administration is trying to defend in court, and the Democrats' proposal to turn the income-driven payment program into permanent socialism, the total cost of these three measures is projected to hit $1 trillion--$1 trillion. This estimate is from our colleague Senator Cassidy, who is shining a bright spotlight on these terrible policies as the incoming ranking member of the HELP Committee. On top of all the reckless inflationary spending the Democrats have pushed through, they want to redistribute up to another trillion dollars away from working-class Americans toward college-educated people who already earn higher salaries on average. The Democrats want to squeeze even more money out of cashiers, welders, first responders, janitors, and cosmetologists and send it to a group of people who already outearn those people on an average basis--more reckless spending, more debt inflation, and no fairness for American families. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS181 | null | 5,721 |
formal | handouts | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on a related matter, there are lots of egregious ways that President Biden has wasted taxpayer money trying to buy up his low approval ratings, but the Democrats' proposal for student loan socialism is really one of the worst. It is like the Democrats paid scientists in a lab to invent the most unfair government handout that could possibly, possibly exist. Democrats want to take the graduate school loans of doctors and lawyers and white-collar professionals making six figures and put their debt on the shoulders of Americans who didn't take out loans at all. To the middle-class families who saved, sacrificed, and skipped vacations to pay for more of their kids' college, the Democrats want to turn you into suckers. To the plumbers, firefighters, checkout clerks, and auto mechanics who made career choices to avoid taking on debt, the Democrats think dentists and the lawyers deserve extra handouts at your expense. To the patriots who volunteered to serve our Nation in uniform as part of a plan to attend college debt-free, the Democrats want to change the rules behind your back. President Biden and his party wake up every day looking for ways to transfer money and power away from the working class toward elites. But even for today's Democratic Party, this one is especially galling. This is ``reverse Robin Hood'' policy: Democrats stealing from the working class to reward people who are comparatively better off. It just isn't fair on a personal level. It is also staggeringly reckless fiscal policy. Remember, this whole undertaking was first set up as a short-term emergency measure at the very start of COVID--those earliest weeks when the entire economy seemed to be in a free fall. That was almost 3 years ago. Shortly afterward, thanks to the bipartisan CARES Act that came out of the Republican-led Senate, the economy rebounded. Household savings actually went up. Many white-collar professionals spent months, if not years, working remotely from the comfort of their living rooms. Any legitimate reason for pausing loan payments evaporated just a few months after it began, but the Democrats have kept it going, year after year. Now they want to magically wave away people's debts altogether. Needless to say, this would be enormously expensive for the country. If you add up the cost of three things: the nearly 3-year-long ``pause'' thus far, the mass jubilee the Biden administration is trying to defend in court, and the Democrats' proposal to turn the income-driven payment program into permanent socialism, the total cost of these three measures is projected to hit $1 trillion--$1 trillion. This estimate is from our colleague Senator Cassidy, who is shining a bright spotlight on these terrible policies as the incoming ranking member of the HELP Committee. On top of all the reckless inflationary spending the Democrats have pushed through, they want to redistribute up to another trillion dollars away from working-class Americans toward college-educated people who already earn higher salaries on average. The Democrats want to squeeze even more money out of cashiers, welders, first responders, janitors, and cosmetologists and send it to a group of people who already outearn those people on an average basis--more reckless spending, more debt inflation, and no fairness for American families. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS181 | null | 5,722 |
formal | working class | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on a related matter, there are lots of egregious ways that President Biden has wasted taxpayer money trying to buy up his low approval ratings, but the Democrats' proposal for student loan socialism is really one of the worst. It is like the Democrats paid scientists in a lab to invent the most unfair government handout that could possibly, possibly exist. Democrats want to take the graduate school loans of doctors and lawyers and white-collar professionals making six figures and put their debt on the shoulders of Americans who didn't take out loans at all. To the middle-class families who saved, sacrificed, and skipped vacations to pay for more of their kids' college, the Democrats want to turn you into suckers. To the plumbers, firefighters, checkout clerks, and auto mechanics who made career choices to avoid taking on debt, the Democrats think dentists and the lawyers deserve extra handouts at your expense. To the patriots who volunteered to serve our Nation in uniform as part of a plan to attend college debt-free, the Democrats want to change the rules behind your back. President Biden and his party wake up every day looking for ways to transfer money and power away from the working class toward elites. But even for today's Democratic Party, this one is especially galling. This is ``reverse Robin Hood'' policy: Democrats stealing from the working class to reward people who are comparatively better off. It just isn't fair on a personal level. It is also staggeringly reckless fiscal policy. Remember, this whole undertaking was first set up as a short-term emergency measure at the very start of COVID--those earliest weeks when the entire economy seemed to be in a free fall. That was almost 3 years ago. Shortly afterward, thanks to the bipartisan CARES Act that came out of the Republican-led Senate, the economy rebounded. Household savings actually went up. Many white-collar professionals spent months, if not years, working remotely from the comfort of their living rooms. Any legitimate reason for pausing loan payments evaporated just a few months after it began, but the Democrats have kept it going, year after year. Now they want to magically wave away people's debts altogether. Needless to say, this would be enormously expensive for the country. If you add up the cost of three things: the nearly 3-year-long ``pause'' thus far, the mass jubilee the Biden administration is trying to defend in court, and the Democrats' proposal to turn the income-driven payment program into permanent socialism, the total cost of these three measures is projected to hit $1 trillion--$1 trillion. This estimate is from our colleague Senator Cassidy, who is shining a bright spotlight on these terrible policies as the incoming ranking member of the HELP Committee. On top of all the reckless inflationary spending the Democrats have pushed through, they want to redistribute up to another trillion dollars away from working-class Americans toward college-educated people who already earn higher salaries on average. The Democrats want to squeeze even more money out of cashiers, welders, first responders, janitors, and cosmetologists and send it to a group of people who already outearn those people on an average basis--more reckless spending, more debt inflation, and no fairness for American families. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS181 | null | 5,723 |
formal | public school | null | racist | Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, Louisiana, like all of our States, is working as hard as we can to improve K-12, elementary and secondary education. We used to have the best system of elementary and secondary education in the world. We still have the best system of higher education in the world, bar none. Kids from all over our planet want to come to America to go to college. I know our universities have problems. We have to do a better job, in my judgment, with encouraging our universities to allow the free exchange of ideas, the dialectic through which we get the truth. I will save that topic for another day. Our problem in America is elementary and secondary education. It is frustrating. We made some improvements, but not nearly enough. It is frustrating. Americans can do extraordinary things. Americans can unravel the human genome. Americans can take a diseased human heart and replace it with a new one and make the thing beat. Americans can send a person to the Moon and bring that person back safely. But we can't seem to teach all of our kids how to read and write and do basic math when we have 18 years to do it. I know the Presiding Officer knows what I am talking about because you, in a prior lifetime, have been in the trenches. Yes, we made progress, but it is so, so frustrating sometimes. We have made progress. I know in Colorado, in part under your leadership--in large part under your leadership--Colorado has made strides. We made strides in Louisiana. We started--we have made efforts to improve for many, many years, but we started in earnest under a Governor in Louisiana called Governor Buddy Roemer, back in the late eighties, early nineties. I am not saying other Governors before and after Buddy didn't contribute mightily, but Buddy made education a major goal of his administration. And we have made progress, but it is fits and it is starts. Here is our problem today. Some years ago, we started grading our schools. We graded our schools in Louisiana, our elementary and secondary school for two reasons. First, because we want education quality and, No. 2, transparency. We want parents to know where their child is going to school. We grade our schools A, B, C, D, E, F, and it is tough because everybody wants to be the best, but that which is measured gets done. Today, we still grade our schools and we should continue to grade our schools. But here is the problem: Forty-one percent of our elementary and middle schools get As and Bs. I think that is probably pretty accurate. We are going to get that number up, those letter grades up, but about 41 percent of our elementary and middle schools grade ``A'' or ``B.'' Seventy percent of our high schools grade ``A'' or ``B.'' Something is not mentioned here. I wish I could say that 70 percent of our high schools were ``A'' or ``B'' schools, but we all know in Louisiana that they are not. If you look at our college entry scores, if you look at our ACT scores, if you look at other objective assessments, they are not in line with 70 percent of our high schools being ``A'' schools or ``B'' schools, while only 40 percent of our elementary and middle schools are. And that is just a fact. I hope there will come a time in my lifetime when I come here and say we have 90 percent or all of our schools are ``A'' or ``B'' schools, but I can't do that today. I wish I could, but I can't. We need to look reality in the eye and accept it--not like we do in Washington, look reality in the eye and deny it. In Louisiana, we believe in looking reality in the eye and accept it. I know it is hard. Right now, our teachers and our principals and our superintendents and our legislatures and people of Louisiana who care about education are trying to reform the system and come up with a new methodology, an objective methodology that properly grades our high schools; and it is hard. I know. I get it. Here is the undercurrent. A lot of our teachers and our principals and our school board members are concerned that if the grades go down to reflect reality, they are going to get blamed. They are going to get blamed, and I get it. And it is wrong to blame them. I will just mention our teachers. You know, for a kid to learn, somebody has to make him do his homework. Teachers can't do that. For a kid to learn, someone has to make that child go to bed at night and get a full night's sleep. For a kid to learn, someone has to feed that kid breakfast in the morning. For a kid to learn, someone at home has to enforce and reinforce to that child that he or she has to mind his teachers. It is called ``parents.'' In Louisiana, as in other States and as throughout the world, unfortunately, we have some parents who don't seem to care. I don't know what to do about that. I don't know why it is, but we do. And we can't expect teachers and superintendents and school board members to take the place of parents, but too often, they are blamed for all of the problems when, really, it starts with the parents. And the fact of the matter is, if a parent--if a parent doesn't love his kid--I can't imagine that, but it happens--if a parent doesn't love his kid, the kid is not going to stop loving his parent; the kid is going to stop loving himself. So I get it. We can't hold our teachers and our superintendents and our school board members responsible for fixing the impossible. We just have to figure out a way to work around it. It is not just money. The Federal Government, State government, local government last year spent somewhere in the range of $760 billion--three-quarters of a trillion dollars--on elementary and secondary education. In Louisiana, we spent about $12,000 per year, per child. That is a lot of money in my State, given the standard in cost of living. By way of comparison, Florida spends about $10,000. It is not just money. I read a statistic one time--it is several years old. I don't know if it is accurate today or not. But I read several years ago that we spend twice as much--we, in America--spend about twice as much on elementary and secondary education as Slovakia does, yet we rank about the same. I don't know if it is still accurate, but it was then. It is not just money. It is also will. It is commitment. I want to emphasize one more time that we need to come up with a new system that doesn't just blame the teachers and the superintendents and the school board members. I don't blame them for not wanting to be the scapegoats. About--I don't know--it was 2002, 2003, I was State treasurer. One day, I was listening in on a legislative hearing, listening to all these experts testify about how we fix these schools. There was not a teacher among them. I remember thinking, you know, I wonder how many of these folks really know what public schools are like today. So I went back to my office, and I made a phone call to these Baton Rouge Parish School systems where our State capital is located, and I said: What does it take to be a substitute teacher? They said, man, we need substitutes. All you have to do is have a college degree and go to a short orientation. We need substitutes so bad, we will take politicians. I said: Sign me up. Every year since then, I try to do it three times a year. Sometimes I try to do it more. I have done it less this year. I will make it up this spring. I have been a volunteer substitute teacher. Every time, I insisted I really wantto be the substitute. I don't want somebody there with me. I don't want to just go and talk about how a bill becomes law. I want to be a substitute. If you do it--I encourage everybody to do it--you start about, I don't know, depending on the school, quarter to 7 and go to 2:45, maybe 3, 3:30. You have lunchroom duty or bus duty. Let me tell you something. You are worn out. The first time I did it--I will never do this again. They gave me 11th grade chemistry. After about 2 hours--nobody told me this, I realized, man, you have got to go to the bathroom before you start class. The next time I taught, I remember I brought a thermos of coffee because you get so tired. But my point is, after starting--I think then, we started at 8 and I went to 2:45. My plan was to go home after substitute teaching this chemistry class--my plan was to go to my office at the State Capitol there and work. I went home. I was dead-dog, down-to-the-marrow tired. It is hard being a teacher. It is hard. We have done a better job in Louisiana, with our teachers' cooperation, finding out which of our teachers can teach and paying them. And we also worked hard to find out which of our teachers can't teach and either teach them how or find a new line of work. I am not going to stand here and blame the teachers. But I return to where I began. Seventy percent of our schools are not ``A'' and ``B'' schools. I wish they were. Some day they will be, but they are not. All I am asking today to my people back home who are listening, to the people in Louisiana who care about education--and most of them do--to our teachers, to our principals, to our superintendents, to our school board members, to our board of elementary and secondary members, to our legislators: Let's work together. Let's look reality in the eye and accept it. Let's understand that we need a new methodology to try to grade our schools. Let's look reality in the eye and accept the fact that our parents deserve to know the quality of school that their kids are attending, and let's come up with a new system that is accurate but that is fair to everybody. Let's stop blaming people and regretting yesterday and start creating tomorrow. Because in my State--and I bet it is true in the Presiding Officer's State--the future of my State is education. It is not the price of oil, it is not the unemployment rate, it is not who the Senators are. It is education. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. KENNEDY | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS182 | null | 5,724 |
formal | public schools | null | racist | Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, Louisiana, like all of our States, is working as hard as we can to improve K-12, elementary and secondary education. We used to have the best system of elementary and secondary education in the world. We still have the best system of higher education in the world, bar none. Kids from all over our planet want to come to America to go to college. I know our universities have problems. We have to do a better job, in my judgment, with encouraging our universities to allow the free exchange of ideas, the dialectic through which we get the truth. I will save that topic for another day. Our problem in America is elementary and secondary education. It is frustrating. We made some improvements, but not nearly enough. It is frustrating. Americans can do extraordinary things. Americans can unravel the human genome. Americans can take a diseased human heart and replace it with a new one and make the thing beat. Americans can send a person to the Moon and bring that person back safely. But we can't seem to teach all of our kids how to read and write and do basic math when we have 18 years to do it. I know the Presiding Officer knows what I am talking about because you, in a prior lifetime, have been in the trenches. Yes, we made progress, but it is so, so frustrating sometimes. We have made progress. I know in Colorado, in part under your leadership--in large part under your leadership--Colorado has made strides. We made strides in Louisiana. We started--we have made efforts to improve for many, many years, but we started in earnest under a Governor in Louisiana called Governor Buddy Roemer, back in the late eighties, early nineties. I am not saying other Governors before and after Buddy didn't contribute mightily, but Buddy made education a major goal of his administration. And we have made progress, but it is fits and it is starts. Here is our problem today. Some years ago, we started grading our schools. We graded our schools in Louisiana, our elementary and secondary school for two reasons. First, because we want education quality and, No. 2, transparency. We want parents to know where their child is going to school. We grade our schools A, B, C, D, E, F, and it is tough because everybody wants to be the best, but that which is measured gets done. Today, we still grade our schools and we should continue to grade our schools. But here is the problem: Forty-one percent of our elementary and middle schools get As and Bs. I think that is probably pretty accurate. We are going to get that number up, those letter grades up, but about 41 percent of our elementary and middle schools grade ``A'' or ``B.'' Seventy percent of our high schools grade ``A'' or ``B.'' Something is not mentioned here. I wish I could say that 70 percent of our high schools were ``A'' or ``B'' schools, but we all know in Louisiana that they are not. If you look at our college entry scores, if you look at our ACT scores, if you look at other objective assessments, they are not in line with 70 percent of our high schools being ``A'' schools or ``B'' schools, while only 40 percent of our elementary and middle schools are. And that is just a fact. I hope there will come a time in my lifetime when I come here and say we have 90 percent or all of our schools are ``A'' or ``B'' schools, but I can't do that today. I wish I could, but I can't. We need to look reality in the eye and accept it--not like we do in Washington, look reality in the eye and deny it. In Louisiana, we believe in looking reality in the eye and accept it. I know it is hard. Right now, our teachers and our principals and our superintendents and our legislatures and people of Louisiana who care about education are trying to reform the system and come up with a new methodology, an objective methodology that properly grades our high schools; and it is hard. I know. I get it. Here is the undercurrent. A lot of our teachers and our principals and our school board members are concerned that if the grades go down to reflect reality, they are going to get blamed. They are going to get blamed, and I get it. And it is wrong to blame them. I will just mention our teachers. You know, for a kid to learn, somebody has to make him do his homework. Teachers can't do that. For a kid to learn, someone has to make that child go to bed at night and get a full night's sleep. For a kid to learn, someone has to feed that kid breakfast in the morning. For a kid to learn, someone at home has to enforce and reinforce to that child that he or she has to mind his teachers. It is called ``parents.'' In Louisiana, as in other States and as throughout the world, unfortunately, we have some parents who don't seem to care. I don't know what to do about that. I don't know why it is, but we do. And we can't expect teachers and superintendents and school board members to take the place of parents, but too often, they are blamed for all of the problems when, really, it starts with the parents. And the fact of the matter is, if a parent--if a parent doesn't love his kid--I can't imagine that, but it happens--if a parent doesn't love his kid, the kid is not going to stop loving his parent; the kid is going to stop loving himself. So I get it. We can't hold our teachers and our superintendents and our school board members responsible for fixing the impossible. We just have to figure out a way to work around it. It is not just money. The Federal Government, State government, local government last year spent somewhere in the range of $760 billion--three-quarters of a trillion dollars--on elementary and secondary education. In Louisiana, we spent about $12,000 per year, per child. That is a lot of money in my State, given the standard in cost of living. By way of comparison, Florida spends about $10,000. It is not just money. I read a statistic one time--it is several years old. I don't know if it is accurate today or not. But I read several years ago that we spend twice as much--we, in America--spend about twice as much on elementary and secondary education as Slovakia does, yet we rank about the same. I don't know if it is still accurate, but it was then. It is not just money. It is also will. It is commitment. I want to emphasize one more time that we need to come up with a new system that doesn't just blame the teachers and the superintendents and the school board members. I don't blame them for not wanting to be the scapegoats. About--I don't know--it was 2002, 2003, I was State treasurer. One day, I was listening in on a legislative hearing, listening to all these experts testify about how we fix these schools. There was not a teacher among them. I remember thinking, you know, I wonder how many of these folks really know what public schools are like today. So I went back to my office, and I made a phone call to these Baton Rouge Parish School systems where our State capital is located, and I said: What does it take to be a substitute teacher? They said, man, we need substitutes. All you have to do is have a college degree and go to a short orientation. We need substitutes so bad, we will take politicians. I said: Sign me up. Every year since then, I try to do it three times a year. Sometimes I try to do it more. I have done it less this year. I will make it up this spring. I have been a volunteer substitute teacher. Every time, I insisted I really wantto be the substitute. I don't want somebody there with me. I don't want to just go and talk about how a bill becomes law. I want to be a substitute. If you do it--I encourage everybody to do it--you start about, I don't know, depending on the school, quarter to 7 and go to 2:45, maybe 3, 3:30. You have lunchroom duty or bus duty. Let me tell you something. You are worn out. The first time I did it--I will never do this again. They gave me 11th grade chemistry. After about 2 hours--nobody told me this, I realized, man, you have got to go to the bathroom before you start class. The next time I taught, I remember I brought a thermos of coffee because you get so tired. But my point is, after starting--I think then, we started at 8 and I went to 2:45. My plan was to go home after substitute teaching this chemistry class--my plan was to go to my office at the State Capitol there and work. I went home. I was dead-dog, down-to-the-marrow tired. It is hard being a teacher. It is hard. We have done a better job in Louisiana, with our teachers' cooperation, finding out which of our teachers can teach and paying them. And we also worked hard to find out which of our teachers can't teach and either teach them how or find a new line of work. I am not going to stand here and blame the teachers. But I return to where I began. Seventy percent of our schools are not ``A'' and ``B'' schools. I wish they were. Some day they will be, but they are not. All I am asking today to my people back home who are listening, to the people in Louisiana who care about education--and most of them do--to our teachers, to our principals, to our superintendents, to our school board members, to our board of elementary and secondary members, to our legislators: Let's work together. Let's look reality in the eye and accept it. Let's understand that we need a new methodology to try to grade our schools. Let's look reality in the eye and accept the fact that our parents deserve to know the quality of school that their kids are attending, and let's come up with a new system that is accurate but that is fair to everybody. Let's stop blaming people and regretting yesterday and start creating tomorrow. Because in my State--and I bet it is true in the Presiding Officer's State--the future of my State is education. It is not the price of oil, it is not the unemployment rate, it is not who the Senators are. It is education. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. KENNEDY | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS182 | null | 5,725 |
formal | Federal Reserve | null | antisemitic | Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, before he leaves, let me commend my colleague from Louisiana. His role as a substitute teacher is one I greatly admire. I thank you for sharing that with us today. I am sure it gives you great insight into education--greater than some--and I am going to accept your challenge and try to find a way to be a substitute teacher myself along the way, if they will have me. But thank you for that statement. It has been almost 100 years since the Great Depression. It was a terrible time in American history. Businesses failed right and left. Families lost all of their savings. There were runs on banks, businesses failing. It was a horrible moment. Luckily for us, the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt appeared in 1933, when he was sworn in as President of the United States, and we made some significant basic changes. One of them we still benefit from today: Federal deposit insurance. If you go to a recognized legal bank in America, a regulated bank, under our Federal guidelines, there is an insurance policy that says that even if this bank goes bust, we are going to be there to protect much of your savings, maybe all of them, depending on how much you have invested in that bank. We were tested during the savings and loan crisis a few decades ago, and we kept our promise. We paid people back when the savings institutions they were invested in failed. But there are areas where you can invest your own personal savings where there is no insurance policy. You are on your own. The stock market is one of them. By and large, when you buy stock, if you don't make money on it, that is your personal loss. But even when it comes to the stock market, the companies that are in that stock market doing business in America are largely subject to regulation. So we know, at least, that the books they are presenting have to be legal and be accurate in their disclosures. It is just the basics of government regulation. However, there are some areas where you can bet your money or invest your money where there is no protection and no regulation. I want to speak to one of those areas at this moment. This area has been called the ``new money,'' ``digital cash,'' and some have called it ``the way of the future.'' I have another name for it: reckless, predatory, foolish, and dangerous. I am referring, of course, to cryptocurrency, the latest scam to rip off millions of hard-working Americans to the tune of billions of dollars. In under a decade, this industry has skyrocketed in popularity, raked in big bucks for its leading speculators, before exploding into dust for all the world to see. Let me tell you about crypto's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year--2022. Let's start with the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. In 2022, the currency cratered, losing more than 60 percent of its value in 1 year. To put it in perspective, if you bought one Bitcoin at the start of 2022 and held on to it today, you would be down $25,000. Think of all the Americans who could have held on to that cash for family needs or to cover a downpayment on their first home. Their money is gone. There is no insurance. It is just an investment that disappeared. They are not alone. The disaster began last May with a financial meltdown known as ``crypto winter.'' If you are one of the millions of consumers--millions--who were convinced by those well-respected financial advisers--Matt Damon, Larry David, and LeBron James--to buy into crypto, you don't need me to tell you what happened next. In a matter of months, more than $2 trillion vanished from this industry. One crypto firm after another folded. Even a so-called ``stablecoin,'' which claims to offer great stability, went bust. Then, in the fall, came the mighty collapse of the exchange FTX. Its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, spent years cultivating the reputation of a selfless wunderkind and entrepreneur. He claimed crypto and the FTX platform would democratize finance, that he was giving a leg up to the little guy, finally, and sticking it to the barons of traditional finance. It was all a lie. While Sam Bankman-Fried was burning millions of dollars branding himself as some noble disruptor, the reality is he was stealing his own users' money to fund his own risky bets. Here is the worst part. For Americans who were scammed into investing in FTX, there is little hope of retrieving any of their money. Earlier this week, Annie Lowrey wrote a piece in The Atlantic, sharing the story of one FTX user whose money was stolen. His name was Greg Sanders. Greg has actually been a crypto investor for quite a while, a pretty vigilant investor too. He even protected his assets with a technique he calls ``cold storage.'' So Greg knew about the risk with trading crypto. He knew those assets were loosely regulated, if regulated at all, and he knew about the volatility of the market. But Greg never expected that the company he trusted to safeguard his money would end up stealing it. He lost nearly $10,000 when FTX collapsed, and, like millions of others, he hasn't gotten any money back. Here is what he said about his experience: ``FTX was legitimized in the public eye . . . I saw the Tom Brady commercials,'' Greg said. ``I saw the Major League Baseball umpires'' with FTX's name on their uniforms. ``Its name was on the Miami Heat arena. There was so much legitimatization from the public, and it lent credence to the idea that this was a safe place,'' to put your money. Thankfully, Greg says he will be OK. He has a good-paying job and enough money saved to pay his bills. But stop for a second and think about Americans who are not that lucky.More than half of our Nation's families cannot afford a $1,000 emergency, and those same families, who struggle to make ends meet, have been targeted by the crypto ad campaigns Greg mentioned. In fact, leaders of the crypto industry have explicitly marketed their products to unbanked and underbanked Americans, those who do not have access to traditional financial services. Now, this is a problem that disproportionately affects Black and Brown Americans, who have historically been outside the financial system. So along comes crypto and its leading fabulists, like Sam Bankman-Fried. These grifters cloak themselves in the language of inclusion and accessibility, promising that crypto is open to everybody and operates ``without discrimination.'' Well, in a way, they are right. When the crypto industry melted down, everybody got hurt, especially all of the Black and Brown Americans, who were more likely than White Americans to invest in crypto. It seems the cynical ad campaigns worked. So as a new year begins, where do we stand with crypto? The industry is hoping the dust will settle, that things will quiet down. Maybe it will even blow over, and everybody will forget the damage of 2022. Guess again. Our Federal regulators are coming to life, and they are bringing down the hammer on crypto. I want to commend Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. He is doing his part to protect the integrity of our capital markets and to hold bad actors accountable. In the past month alone, the SEC has filed charges against two major crypto companies for burning their investors. And there are other cops on the beat too. On Friday, the Federal Reserve rejected an application from a crypto company called Custodia for a deposit account at the central bank and denied its request to become a member of the Federal Reserve System. In denying the application, the Federal Board wrote that Custodia ``proposed to engage in novel and untested crypto activities . . . on open, public and/or decentralized networks.'' As we have learned, that would be a recipe for disaster. So I am glad both the Fed and the SEC, among others, are working to insulate our broader financial system and protect investors from the instability of crypto. But, now, it is time for wiser minds in finance to come to their senses, and it starts with Fidelity. To think the crypto industry has entranced one of the largest 401(k) providers in the world is shocking. Yet that is exactly what happened. This past summer, Fidelity announced it would allow retirement plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Remember, Bitcoin alone lost more than 60 percent of its value last year. Now imagine if your 401(k) lived or died by the value of Bitcoin. That is unacceptable for 40 million Americans who invest with Fidelity, and I am one of them. Many of them are relying on those investments to retire in dignity. So that is why last year I sent a letter, along with Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson. We respectfully asked her to reconsider this ill-advised decision on crypto. We received a response in which Fidelity said: ``respectfully disagree[d] with the assertion that bitcoin cannot meet the higher standards applicable to retirement accounts.'' So after the collapse of FTX, I thought: Let's send another letter to Fidelity and see if they have a change of heart. We figured that at least diversifying from crypto would be a no-brainer at that point. Apparently not, because we still haven't received a response. Hard-working Americans who entrust Fidelity with their retirement savings expect more. They deserve better than Ponzi schemes and endless volatility. The financial future and stability of millions of their customers--and many others--is on the line. It is time to do the right thing and be honest about cryptocurrency. There should be more transparency, accountability, and enough regulation so that we know they are telling the truth. And let me close with one point. I was at a hearing with the Agriculture Committee where we were discussing the issue from a different perspective, whether Bitcoin and similar objects were commodities, subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an Agency I know well from the financial industry in Chicago. I left that hearing after some critical remarks about cryptocurrency, and a reporter stopped me in the hall, and she said to me: How much money have you received in political contributions from FTX? I said: None. She said: You are wrong. Look again. I looked. It was over $7,000--money that I did not solicit but banked not knowing what was behind that money. We have given that money to charity, as you might expect. But they have more friends in high places than they have really good arguments for their product. I think that we have got to be thoughtful and mindful as politicians that this industry has a lot of money riding on this bet, and we have got to be careful that we don't become so beholden to them that we lose our clear-eyed look at an entity that has hurt so many people already and is likely to do more in the future. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. DURBIN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS183 | null | 5,726 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, before he leaves, let me commend my colleague from Louisiana. His role as a substitute teacher is one I greatly admire. I thank you for sharing that with us today. I am sure it gives you great insight into education--greater than some--and I am going to accept your challenge and try to find a way to be a substitute teacher myself along the way, if they will have me. But thank you for that statement. It has been almost 100 years since the Great Depression. It was a terrible time in American history. Businesses failed right and left. Families lost all of their savings. There were runs on banks, businesses failing. It was a horrible moment. Luckily for us, the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt appeared in 1933, when he was sworn in as President of the United States, and we made some significant basic changes. One of them we still benefit from today: Federal deposit insurance. If you go to a recognized legal bank in America, a regulated bank, under our Federal guidelines, there is an insurance policy that says that even if this bank goes bust, we are going to be there to protect much of your savings, maybe all of them, depending on how much you have invested in that bank. We were tested during the savings and loan crisis a few decades ago, and we kept our promise. We paid people back when the savings institutions they were invested in failed. But there are areas where you can invest your own personal savings where there is no insurance policy. You are on your own. The stock market is one of them. By and large, when you buy stock, if you don't make money on it, that is your personal loss. But even when it comes to the stock market, the companies that are in that stock market doing business in America are largely subject to regulation. So we know, at least, that the books they are presenting have to be legal and be accurate in their disclosures. It is just the basics of government regulation. However, there are some areas where you can bet your money or invest your money where there is no protection and no regulation. I want to speak to one of those areas at this moment. This area has been called the ``new money,'' ``digital cash,'' and some have called it ``the way of the future.'' I have another name for it: reckless, predatory, foolish, and dangerous. I am referring, of course, to cryptocurrency, the latest scam to rip off millions of hard-working Americans to the tune of billions of dollars. In under a decade, this industry has skyrocketed in popularity, raked in big bucks for its leading speculators, before exploding into dust for all the world to see. Let me tell you about crypto's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year--2022. Let's start with the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. In 2022, the currency cratered, losing more than 60 percent of its value in 1 year. To put it in perspective, if you bought one Bitcoin at the start of 2022 and held on to it today, you would be down $25,000. Think of all the Americans who could have held on to that cash for family needs or to cover a downpayment on their first home. Their money is gone. There is no insurance. It is just an investment that disappeared. They are not alone. The disaster began last May with a financial meltdown known as ``crypto winter.'' If you are one of the millions of consumers--millions--who were convinced by those well-respected financial advisers--Matt Damon, Larry David, and LeBron James--to buy into crypto, you don't need me to tell you what happened next. In a matter of months, more than $2 trillion vanished from this industry. One crypto firm after another folded. Even a so-called ``stablecoin,'' which claims to offer great stability, went bust. Then, in the fall, came the mighty collapse of the exchange FTX. Its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, spent years cultivating the reputation of a selfless wunderkind and entrepreneur. He claimed crypto and the FTX platform would democratize finance, that he was giving a leg up to the little guy, finally, and sticking it to the barons of traditional finance. It was all a lie. While Sam Bankman-Fried was burning millions of dollars branding himself as some noble disruptor, the reality is he was stealing his own users' money to fund his own risky bets. Here is the worst part. For Americans who were scammed into investing in FTX, there is little hope of retrieving any of their money. Earlier this week, Annie Lowrey wrote a piece in The Atlantic, sharing the story of one FTX user whose money was stolen. His name was Greg Sanders. Greg has actually been a crypto investor for quite a while, a pretty vigilant investor too. He even protected his assets with a technique he calls ``cold storage.'' So Greg knew about the risk with trading crypto. He knew those assets were loosely regulated, if regulated at all, and he knew about the volatility of the market. But Greg never expected that the company he trusted to safeguard his money would end up stealing it. He lost nearly $10,000 when FTX collapsed, and, like millions of others, he hasn't gotten any money back. Here is what he said about his experience: ``FTX was legitimized in the public eye . . . I saw the Tom Brady commercials,'' Greg said. ``I saw the Major League Baseball umpires'' with FTX's name on their uniforms. ``Its name was on the Miami Heat arena. There was so much legitimatization from the public, and it lent credence to the idea that this was a safe place,'' to put your money. Thankfully, Greg says he will be OK. He has a good-paying job and enough money saved to pay his bills. But stop for a second and think about Americans who are not that lucky.More than half of our Nation's families cannot afford a $1,000 emergency, and those same families, who struggle to make ends meet, have been targeted by the crypto ad campaigns Greg mentioned. In fact, leaders of the crypto industry have explicitly marketed their products to unbanked and underbanked Americans, those who do not have access to traditional financial services. Now, this is a problem that disproportionately affects Black and Brown Americans, who have historically been outside the financial system. So along comes crypto and its leading fabulists, like Sam Bankman-Fried. These grifters cloak themselves in the language of inclusion and accessibility, promising that crypto is open to everybody and operates ``without discrimination.'' Well, in a way, they are right. When the crypto industry melted down, everybody got hurt, especially all of the Black and Brown Americans, who were more likely than White Americans to invest in crypto. It seems the cynical ad campaigns worked. So as a new year begins, where do we stand with crypto? The industry is hoping the dust will settle, that things will quiet down. Maybe it will even blow over, and everybody will forget the damage of 2022. Guess again. Our Federal regulators are coming to life, and they are bringing down the hammer on crypto. I want to commend Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. He is doing his part to protect the integrity of our capital markets and to hold bad actors accountable. In the past month alone, the SEC has filed charges against two major crypto companies for burning their investors. And there are other cops on the beat too. On Friday, the Federal Reserve rejected an application from a crypto company called Custodia for a deposit account at the central bank and denied its request to become a member of the Federal Reserve System. In denying the application, the Federal Board wrote that Custodia ``proposed to engage in novel and untested crypto activities . . . on open, public and/or decentralized networks.'' As we have learned, that would be a recipe for disaster. So I am glad both the Fed and the SEC, among others, are working to insulate our broader financial system and protect investors from the instability of crypto. But, now, it is time for wiser minds in finance to come to their senses, and it starts with Fidelity. To think the crypto industry has entranced one of the largest 401(k) providers in the world is shocking. Yet that is exactly what happened. This past summer, Fidelity announced it would allow retirement plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Remember, Bitcoin alone lost more than 60 percent of its value last year. Now imagine if your 401(k) lived or died by the value of Bitcoin. That is unacceptable for 40 million Americans who invest with Fidelity, and I am one of them. Many of them are relying on those investments to retire in dignity. So that is why last year I sent a letter, along with Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson. We respectfully asked her to reconsider this ill-advised decision on crypto. We received a response in which Fidelity said: ``respectfully disagree[d] with the assertion that bitcoin cannot meet the higher standards applicable to retirement accounts.'' So after the collapse of FTX, I thought: Let's send another letter to Fidelity and see if they have a change of heart. We figured that at least diversifying from crypto would be a no-brainer at that point. Apparently not, because we still haven't received a response. Hard-working Americans who entrust Fidelity with their retirement savings expect more. They deserve better than Ponzi schemes and endless volatility. The financial future and stability of millions of their customers--and many others--is on the line. It is time to do the right thing and be honest about cryptocurrency. There should be more transparency, accountability, and enough regulation so that we know they are telling the truth. And let me close with one point. I was at a hearing with the Agriculture Committee where we were discussing the issue from a different perspective, whether Bitcoin and similar objects were commodities, subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an Agency I know well from the financial industry in Chicago. I left that hearing after some critical remarks about cryptocurrency, and a reporter stopped me in the hall, and she said to me: How much money have you received in political contributions from FTX? I said: None. She said: You are wrong. Look again. I looked. It was over $7,000--money that I did not solicit but banked not knowing what was behind that money. We have given that money to charity, as you might expect. But they have more friends in high places than they have really good arguments for their product. I think that we have got to be thoughtful and mindful as politicians that this industry has a lot of money riding on this bet, and we have got to be careful that we don't become so beholden to them that we lose our clear-eyed look at an entity that has hurt so many people already and is likely to do more in the future. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. DURBIN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS183 | null | 5,727 |
formal | hard-working Americans | null | racist | Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, before he leaves, let me commend my colleague from Louisiana. His role as a substitute teacher is one I greatly admire. I thank you for sharing that with us today. I am sure it gives you great insight into education--greater than some--and I am going to accept your challenge and try to find a way to be a substitute teacher myself along the way, if they will have me. But thank you for that statement. It has been almost 100 years since the Great Depression. It was a terrible time in American history. Businesses failed right and left. Families lost all of their savings. There were runs on banks, businesses failing. It was a horrible moment. Luckily for us, the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt appeared in 1933, when he was sworn in as President of the United States, and we made some significant basic changes. One of them we still benefit from today: Federal deposit insurance. If you go to a recognized legal bank in America, a regulated bank, under our Federal guidelines, there is an insurance policy that says that even if this bank goes bust, we are going to be there to protect much of your savings, maybe all of them, depending on how much you have invested in that bank. We were tested during the savings and loan crisis a few decades ago, and we kept our promise. We paid people back when the savings institutions they were invested in failed. But there are areas where you can invest your own personal savings where there is no insurance policy. You are on your own. The stock market is one of them. By and large, when you buy stock, if you don't make money on it, that is your personal loss. But even when it comes to the stock market, the companies that are in that stock market doing business in America are largely subject to regulation. So we know, at least, that the books they are presenting have to be legal and be accurate in their disclosures. It is just the basics of government regulation. However, there are some areas where you can bet your money or invest your money where there is no protection and no regulation. I want to speak to one of those areas at this moment. This area has been called the ``new money,'' ``digital cash,'' and some have called it ``the way of the future.'' I have another name for it: reckless, predatory, foolish, and dangerous. I am referring, of course, to cryptocurrency, the latest scam to rip off millions of hard-working Americans to the tune of billions of dollars. In under a decade, this industry has skyrocketed in popularity, raked in big bucks for its leading speculators, before exploding into dust for all the world to see. Let me tell you about crypto's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year--2022. Let's start with the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. In 2022, the currency cratered, losing more than 60 percent of its value in 1 year. To put it in perspective, if you bought one Bitcoin at the start of 2022 and held on to it today, you would be down $25,000. Think of all the Americans who could have held on to that cash for family needs or to cover a downpayment on their first home. Their money is gone. There is no insurance. It is just an investment that disappeared. They are not alone. The disaster began last May with a financial meltdown known as ``crypto winter.'' If you are one of the millions of consumers--millions--who were convinced by those well-respected financial advisers--Matt Damon, Larry David, and LeBron James--to buy into crypto, you don't need me to tell you what happened next. In a matter of months, more than $2 trillion vanished from this industry. One crypto firm after another folded. Even a so-called ``stablecoin,'' which claims to offer great stability, went bust. Then, in the fall, came the mighty collapse of the exchange FTX. Its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, spent years cultivating the reputation of a selfless wunderkind and entrepreneur. He claimed crypto and the FTX platform would democratize finance, that he was giving a leg up to the little guy, finally, and sticking it to the barons of traditional finance. It was all a lie. While Sam Bankman-Fried was burning millions of dollars branding himself as some noble disruptor, the reality is he was stealing his own users' money to fund his own risky bets. Here is the worst part. For Americans who were scammed into investing in FTX, there is little hope of retrieving any of their money. Earlier this week, Annie Lowrey wrote a piece in The Atlantic, sharing the story of one FTX user whose money was stolen. His name was Greg Sanders. Greg has actually been a crypto investor for quite a while, a pretty vigilant investor too. He even protected his assets with a technique he calls ``cold storage.'' So Greg knew about the risk with trading crypto. He knew those assets were loosely regulated, if regulated at all, and he knew about the volatility of the market. But Greg never expected that the company he trusted to safeguard his money would end up stealing it. He lost nearly $10,000 when FTX collapsed, and, like millions of others, he hasn't gotten any money back. Here is what he said about his experience: ``FTX was legitimized in the public eye . . . I saw the Tom Brady commercials,'' Greg said. ``I saw the Major League Baseball umpires'' with FTX's name on their uniforms. ``Its name was on the Miami Heat arena. There was so much legitimatization from the public, and it lent credence to the idea that this was a safe place,'' to put your money. Thankfully, Greg says he will be OK. He has a good-paying job and enough money saved to pay his bills. But stop for a second and think about Americans who are not that lucky.More than half of our Nation's families cannot afford a $1,000 emergency, and those same families, who struggle to make ends meet, have been targeted by the crypto ad campaigns Greg mentioned. In fact, leaders of the crypto industry have explicitly marketed their products to unbanked and underbanked Americans, those who do not have access to traditional financial services. Now, this is a problem that disproportionately affects Black and Brown Americans, who have historically been outside the financial system. So along comes crypto and its leading fabulists, like Sam Bankman-Fried. These grifters cloak themselves in the language of inclusion and accessibility, promising that crypto is open to everybody and operates ``without discrimination.'' Well, in a way, they are right. When the crypto industry melted down, everybody got hurt, especially all of the Black and Brown Americans, who were more likely than White Americans to invest in crypto. It seems the cynical ad campaigns worked. So as a new year begins, where do we stand with crypto? The industry is hoping the dust will settle, that things will quiet down. Maybe it will even blow over, and everybody will forget the damage of 2022. Guess again. Our Federal regulators are coming to life, and they are bringing down the hammer on crypto. I want to commend Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. He is doing his part to protect the integrity of our capital markets and to hold bad actors accountable. In the past month alone, the SEC has filed charges against two major crypto companies for burning their investors. And there are other cops on the beat too. On Friday, the Federal Reserve rejected an application from a crypto company called Custodia for a deposit account at the central bank and denied its request to become a member of the Federal Reserve System. In denying the application, the Federal Board wrote that Custodia ``proposed to engage in novel and untested crypto activities . . . on open, public and/or decentralized networks.'' As we have learned, that would be a recipe for disaster. So I am glad both the Fed and the SEC, among others, are working to insulate our broader financial system and protect investors from the instability of crypto. But, now, it is time for wiser minds in finance to come to their senses, and it starts with Fidelity. To think the crypto industry has entranced one of the largest 401(k) providers in the world is shocking. Yet that is exactly what happened. This past summer, Fidelity announced it would allow retirement plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Remember, Bitcoin alone lost more than 60 percent of its value last year. Now imagine if your 401(k) lived or died by the value of Bitcoin. That is unacceptable for 40 million Americans who invest with Fidelity, and I am one of them. Many of them are relying on those investments to retire in dignity. So that is why last year I sent a letter, along with Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson. We respectfully asked her to reconsider this ill-advised decision on crypto. We received a response in which Fidelity said: ``respectfully disagree[d] with the assertion that bitcoin cannot meet the higher standards applicable to retirement accounts.'' So after the collapse of FTX, I thought: Let's send another letter to Fidelity and see if they have a change of heart. We figured that at least diversifying from crypto would be a no-brainer at that point. Apparently not, because we still haven't received a response. Hard-working Americans who entrust Fidelity with their retirement savings expect more. They deserve better than Ponzi schemes and endless volatility. The financial future and stability of millions of their customers--and many others--is on the line. It is time to do the right thing and be honest about cryptocurrency. There should be more transparency, accountability, and enough regulation so that we know they are telling the truth. And let me close with one point. I was at a hearing with the Agriculture Committee where we were discussing the issue from a different perspective, whether Bitcoin and similar objects were commodities, subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an Agency I know well from the financial industry in Chicago. I left that hearing after some critical remarks about cryptocurrency, and a reporter stopped me in the hall, and she said to me: How much money have you received in political contributions from FTX? I said: None. She said: You are wrong. Look again. I looked. It was over $7,000--money that I did not solicit but banked not knowing what was behind that money. We have given that money to charity, as you might expect. But they have more friends in high places than they have really good arguments for their product. I think that we have got to be thoughtful and mindful as politicians that this industry has a lot of money riding on this bet, and we have got to be careful that we don't become so beholden to them that we lose our clear-eyed look at an entity that has hurt so many people already and is likely to do more in the future. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. DURBIN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS183 | null | 5,728 |
formal | hard-working American | null | racist | Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, before he leaves, let me commend my colleague from Louisiana. His role as a substitute teacher is one I greatly admire. I thank you for sharing that with us today. I am sure it gives you great insight into education--greater than some--and I am going to accept your challenge and try to find a way to be a substitute teacher myself along the way, if they will have me. But thank you for that statement. It has been almost 100 years since the Great Depression. It was a terrible time in American history. Businesses failed right and left. Families lost all of their savings. There were runs on banks, businesses failing. It was a horrible moment. Luckily for us, the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt appeared in 1933, when he was sworn in as President of the United States, and we made some significant basic changes. One of them we still benefit from today: Federal deposit insurance. If you go to a recognized legal bank in America, a regulated bank, under our Federal guidelines, there is an insurance policy that says that even if this bank goes bust, we are going to be there to protect much of your savings, maybe all of them, depending on how much you have invested in that bank. We were tested during the savings and loan crisis a few decades ago, and we kept our promise. We paid people back when the savings institutions they were invested in failed. But there are areas where you can invest your own personal savings where there is no insurance policy. You are on your own. The stock market is one of them. By and large, when you buy stock, if you don't make money on it, that is your personal loss. But even when it comes to the stock market, the companies that are in that stock market doing business in America are largely subject to regulation. So we know, at least, that the books they are presenting have to be legal and be accurate in their disclosures. It is just the basics of government regulation. However, there are some areas where you can bet your money or invest your money where there is no protection and no regulation. I want to speak to one of those areas at this moment. This area has been called the ``new money,'' ``digital cash,'' and some have called it ``the way of the future.'' I have another name for it: reckless, predatory, foolish, and dangerous. I am referring, of course, to cryptocurrency, the latest scam to rip off millions of hard-working Americans to the tune of billions of dollars. In under a decade, this industry has skyrocketed in popularity, raked in big bucks for its leading speculators, before exploding into dust for all the world to see. Let me tell you about crypto's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year--2022. Let's start with the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. In 2022, the currency cratered, losing more than 60 percent of its value in 1 year. To put it in perspective, if you bought one Bitcoin at the start of 2022 and held on to it today, you would be down $25,000. Think of all the Americans who could have held on to that cash for family needs or to cover a downpayment on their first home. Their money is gone. There is no insurance. It is just an investment that disappeared. They are not alone. The disaster began last May with a financial meltdown known as ``crypto winter.'' If you are one of the millions of consumers--millions--who were convinced by those well-respected financial advisers--Matt Damon, Larry David, and LeBron James--to buy into crypto, you don't need me to tell you what happened next. In a matter of months, more than $2 trillion vanished from this industry. One crypto firm after another folded. Even a so-called ``stablecoin,'' which claims to offer great stability, went bust. Then, in the fall, came the mighty collapse of the exchange FTX. Its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, spent years cultivating the reputation of a selfless wunderkind and entrepreneur. He claimed crypto and the FTX platform would democratize finance, that he was giving a leg up to the little guy, finally, and sticking it to the barons of traditional finance. It was all a lie. While Sam Bankman-Fried was burning millions of dollars branding himself as some noble disruptor, the reality is he was stealing his own users' money to fund his own risky bets. Here is the worst part. For Americans who were scammed into investing in FTX, there is little hope of retrieving any of their money. Earlier this week, Annie Lowrey wrote a piece in The Atlantic, sharing the story of one FTX user whose money was stolen. His name was Greg Sanders. Greg has actually been a crypto investor for quite a while, a pretty vigilant investor too. He even protected his assets with a technique he calls ``cold storage.'' So Greg knew about the risk with trading crypto. He knew those assets were loosely regulated, if regulated at all, and he knew about the volatility of the market. But Greg never expected that the company he trusted to safeguard his money would end up stealing it. He lost nearly $10,000 when FTX collapsed, and, like millions of others, he hasn't gotten any money back. Here is what he said about his experience: ``FTX was legitimized in the public eye . . . I saw the Tom Brady commercials,'' Greg said. ``I saw the Major League Baseball umpires'' with FTX's name on their uniforms. ``Its name was on the Miami Heat arena. There was so much legitimatization from the public, and it lent credence to the idea that this was a safe place,'' to put your money. Thankfully, Greg says he will be OK. He has a good-paying job and enough money saved to pay his bills. But stop for a second and think about Americans who are not that lucky.More than half of our Nation's families cannot afford a $1,000 emergency, and those same families, who struggle to make ends meet, have been targeted by the crypto ad campaigns Greg mentioned. In fact, leaders of the crypto industry have explicitly marketed their products to unbanked and underbanked Americans, those who do not have access to traditional financial services. Now, this is a problem that disproportionately affects Black and Brown Americans, who have historically been outside the financial system. So along comes crypto and its leading fabulists, like Sam Bankman-Fried. These grifters cloak themselves in the language of inclusion and accessibility, promising that crypto is open to everybody and operates ``without discrimination.'' Well, in a way, they are right. When the crypto industry melted down, everybody got hurt, especially all of the Black and Brown Americans, who were more likely than White Americans to invest in crypto. It seems the cynical ad campaigns worked. So as a new year begins, where do we stand with crypto? The industry is hoping the dust will settle, that things will quiet down. Maybe it will even blow over, and everybody will forget the damage of 2022. Guess again. Our Federal regulators are coming to life, and they are bringing down the hammer on crypto. I want to commend Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. He is doing his part to protect the integrity of our capital markets and to hold bad actors accountable. In the past month alone, the SEC has filed charges against two major crypto companies for burning their investors. And there are other cops on the beat too. On Friday, the Federal Reserve rejected an application from a crypto company called Custodia for a deposit account at the central bank and denied its request to become a member of the Federal Reserve System. In denying the application, the Federal Board wrote that Custodia ``proposed to engage in novel and untested crypto activities . . . on open, public and/or decentralized networks.'' As we have learned, that would be a recipe for disaster. So I am glad both the Fed and the SEC, among others, are working to insulate our broader financial system and protect investors from the instability of crypto. But, now, it is time for wiser minds in finance to come to their senses, and it starts with Fidelity. To think the crypto industry has entranced one of the largest 401(k) providers in the world is shocking. Yet that is exactly what happened. This past summer, Fidelity announced it would allow retirement plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Remember, Bitcoin alone lost more than 60 percent of its value last year. Now imagine if your 401(k) lived or died by the value of Bitcoin. That is unacceptable for 40 million Americans who invest with Fidelity, and I am one of them. Many of them are relying on those investments to retire in dignity. So that is why last year I sent a letter, along with Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson. We respectfully asked her to reconsider this ill-advised decision on crypto. We received a response in which Fidelity said: ``respectfully disagree[d] with the assertion that bitcoin cannot meet the higher standards applicable to retirement accounts.'' So after the collapse of FTX, I thought: Let's send another letter to Fidelity and see if they have a change of heart. We figured that at least diversifying from crypto would be a no-brainer at that point. Apparently not, because we still haven't received a response. Hard-working Americans who entrust Fidelity with their retirement savings expect more. They deserve better than Ponzi schemes and endless volatility. The financial future and stability of millions of their customers--and many others--is on the line. It is time to do the right thing and be honest about cryptocurrency. There should be more transparency, accountability, and enough regulation so that we know they are telling the truth. And let me close with one point. I was at a hearing with the Agriculture Committee where we were discussing the issue from a different perspective, whether Bitcoin and similar objects were commodities, subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an Agency I know well from the financial industry in Chicago. I left that hearing after some critical remarks about cryptocurrency, and a reporter stopped me in the hall, and she said to me: How much money have you received in political contributions from FTX? I said: None. She said: You are wrong. Look again. I looked. It was over $7,000--money that I did not solicit but banked not knowing what was behind that money. We have given that money to charity, as you might expect. But they have more friends in high places than they have really good arguments for their product. I think that we have got to be thoughtful and mindful as politicians that this industry has a lot of money riding on this bet, and we have got to be careful that we don't become so beholden to them that we lose our clear-eyed look at an entity that has hurt so many people already and is likely to do more in the future. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. DURBIN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS183 | null | 5,729 |
formal | Chicago | null | racist | Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, before he leaves, let me commend my colleague from Louisiana. His role as a substitute teacher is one I greatly admire. I thank you for sharing that with us today. I am sure it gives you great insight into education--greater than some--and I am going to accept your challenge and try to find a way to be a substitute teacher myself along the way, if they will have me. But thank you for that statement. It has been almost 100 years since the Great Depression. It was a terrible time in American history. Businesses failed right and left. Families lost all of their savings. There were runs on banks, businesses failing. It was a horrible moment. Luckily for us, the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt appeared in 1933, when he was sworn in as President of the United States, and we made some significant basic changes. One of them we still benefit from today: Federal deposit insurance. If you go to a recognized legal bank in America, a regulated bank, under our Federal guidelines, there is an insurance policy that says that even if this bank goes bust, we are going to be there to protect much of your savings, maybe all of them, depending on how much you have invested in that bank. We were tested during the savings and loan crisis a few decades ago, and we kept our promise. We paid people back when the savings institutions they were invested in failed. But there are areas where you can invest your own personal savings where there is no insurance policy. You are on your own. The stock market is one of them. By and large, when you buy stock, if you don't make money on it, that is your personal loss. But even when it comes to the stock market, the companies that are in that stock market doing business in America are largely subject to regulation. So we know, at least, that the books they are presenting have to be legal and be accurate in their disclosures. It is just the basics of government regulation. However, there are some areas where you can bet your money or invest your money where there is no protection and no regulation. I want to speak to one of those areas at this moment. This area has been called the ``new money,'' ``digital cash,'' and some have called it ``the way of the future.'' I have another name for it: reckless, predatory, foolish, and dangerous. I am referring, of course, to cryptocurrency, the latest scam to rip off millions of hard-working Americans to the tune of billions of dollars. In under a decade, this industry has skyrocketed in popularity, raked in big bucks for its leading speculators, before exploding into dust for all the world to see. Let me tell you about crypto's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year--2022. Let's start with the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. In 2022, the currency cratered, losing more than 60 percent of its value in 1 year. To put it in perspective, if you bought one Bitcoin at the start of 2022 and held on to it today, you would be down $25,000. Think of all the Americans who could have held on to that cash for family needs or to cover a downpayment on their first home. Their money is gone. There is no insurance. It is just an investment that disappeared. They are not alone. The disaster began last May with a financial meltdown known as ``crypto winter.'' If you are one of the millions of consumers--millions--who were convinced by those well-respected financial advisers--Matt Damon, Larry David, and LeBron James--to buy into crypto, you don't need me to tell you what happened next. In a matter of months, more than $2 trillion vanished from this industry. One crypto firm after another folded. Even a so-called ``stablecoin,'' which claims to offer great stability, went bust. Then, in the fall, came the mighty collapse of the exchange FTX. Its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, spent years cultivating the reputation of a selfless wunderkind and entrepreneur. He claimed crypto and the FTX platform would democratize finance, that he was giving a leg up to the little guy, finally, and sticking it to the barons of traditional finance. It was all a lie. While Sam Bankman-Fried was burning millions of dollars branding himself as some noble disruptor, the reality is he was stealing his own users' money to fund his own risky bets. Here is the worst part. For Americans who were scammed into investing in FTX, there is little hope of retrieving any of their money. Earlier this week, Annie Lowrey wrote a piece in The Atlantic, sharing the story of one FTX user whose money was stolen. His name was Greg Sanders. Greg has actually been a crypto investor for quite a while, a pretty vigilant investor too. He even protected his assets with a technique he calls ``cold storage.'' So Greg knew about the risk with trading crypto. He knew those assets were loosely regulated, if regulated at all, and he knew about the volatility of the market. But Greg never expected that the company he trusted to safeguard his money would end up stealing it. He lost nearly $10,000 when FTX collapsed, and, like millions of others, he hasn't gotten any money back. Here is what he said about his experience: ``FTX was legitimized in the public eye . . . I saw the Tom Brady commercials,'' Greg said. ``I saw the Major League Baseball umpires'' with FTX's name on their uniforms. ``Its name was on the Miami Heat arena. There was so much legitimatization from the public, and it lent credence to the idea that this was a safe place,'' to put your money. Thankfully, Greg says he will be OK. He has a good-paying job and enough money saved to pay his bills. But stop for a second and think about Americans who are not that lucky.More than half of our Nation's families cannot afford a $1,000 emergency, and those same families, who struggle to make ends meet, have been targeted by the crypto ad campaigns Greg mentioned. In fact, leaders of the crypto industry have explicitly marketed their products to unbanked and underbanked Americans, those who do not have access to traditional financial services. Now, this is a problem that disproportionately affects Black and Brown Americans, who have historically been outside the financial system. So along comes crypto and its leading fabulists, like Sam Bankman-Fried. These grifters cloak themselves in the language of inclusion and accessibility, promising that crypto is open to everybody and operates ``without discrimination.'' Well, in a way, they are right. When the crypto industry melted down, everybody got hurt, especially all of the Black and Brown Americans, who were more likely than White Americans to invest in crypto. It seems the cynical ad campaigns worked. So as a new year begins, where do we stand with crypto? The industry is hoping the dust will settle, that things will quiet down. Maybe it will even blow over, and everybody will forget the damage of 2022. Guess again. Our Federal regulators are coming to life, and they are bringing down the hammer on crypto. I want to commend Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. He is doing his part to protect the integrity of our capital markets and to hold bad actors accountable. In the past month alone, the SEC has filed charges against two major crypto companies for burning their investors. And there are other cops on the beat too. On Friday, the Federal Reserve rejected an application from a crypto company called Custodia for a deposit account at the central bank and denied its request to become a member of the Federal Reserve System. In denying the application, the Federal Board wrote that Custodia ``proposed to engage in novel and untested crypto activities . . . on open, public and/or decentralized networks.'' As we have learned, that would be a recipe for disaster. So I am glad both the Fed and the SEC, among others, are working to insulate our broader financial system and protect investors from the instability of crypto. But, now, it is time for wiser minds in finance to come to their senses, and it starts with Fidelity. To think the crypto industry has entranced one of the largest 401(k) providers in the world is shocking. Yet that is exactly what happened. This past summer, Fidelity announced it would allow retirement plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Remember, Bitcoin alone lost more than 60 percent of its value last year. Now imagine if your 401(k) lived or died by the value of Bitcoin. That is unacceptable for 40 million Americans who invest with Fidelity, and I am one of them. Many of them are relying on those investments to retire in dignity. So that is why last year I sent a letter, along with Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson. We respectfully asked her to reconsider this ill-advised decision on crypto. We received a response in which Fidelity said: ``respectfully disagree[d] with the assertion that bitcoin cannot meet the higher standards applicable to retirement accounts.'' So after the collapse of FTX, I thought: Let's send another letter to Fidelity and see if they have a change of heart. We figured that at least diversifying from crypto would be a no-brainer at that point. Apparently not, because we still haven't received a response. Hard-working Americans who entrust Fidelity with their retirement savings expect more. They deserve better than Ponzi schemes and endless volatility. The financial future and stability of millions of their customers--and many others--is on the line. It is time to do the right thing and be honest about cryptocurrency. There should be more transparency, accountability, and enough regulation so that we know they are telling the truth. And let me close with one point. I was at a hearing with the Agriculture Committee where we were discussing the issue from a different perspective, whether Bitcoin and similar objects were commodities, subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an Agency I know well from the financial industry in Chicago. I left that hearing after some critical remarks about cryptocurrency, and a reporter stopped me in the hall, and she said to me: How much money have you received in political contributions from FTX? I said: None. She said: You are wrong. Look again. I looked. It was over $7,000--money that I did not solicit but banked not knowing what was behind that money. We have given that money to charity, as you might expect. But they have more friends in high places than they have really good arguments for their product. I think that we have got to be thoughtful and mindful as politicians that this industry has a lot of money riding on this bet, and we have got to be careful that we don't become so beholden to them that we lose our clear-eyed look at an entity that has hurt so many people already and is likely to do more in the future. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. DURBIN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS183 | null | 5,730 |
formal | safeguard | null | transphobic | Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, before he leaves, let me commend my colleague from Louisiana. His role as a substitute teacher is one I greatly admire. I thank you for sharing that with us today. I am sure it gives you great insight into education--greater than some--and I am going to accept your challenge and try to find a way to be a substitute teacher myself along the way, if they will have me. But thank you for that statement. It has been almost 100 years since the Great Depression. It was a terrible time in American history. Businesses failed right and left. Families lost all of their savings. There were runs on banks, businesses failing. It was a horrible moment. Luckily for us, the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt appeared in 1933, when he was sworn in as President of the United States, and we made some significant basic changes. One of them we still benefit from today: Federal deposit insurance. If you go to a recognized legal bank in America, a regulated bank, under our Federal guidelines, there is an insurance policy that says that even if this bank goes bust, we are going to be there to protect much of your savings, maybe all of them, depending on how much you have invested in that bank. We were tested during the savings and loan crisis a few decades ago, and we kept our promise. We paid people back when the savings institutions they were invested in failed. But there are areas where you can invest your own personal savings where there is no insurance policy. You are on your own. The stock market is one of them. By and large, when you buy stock, if you don't make money on it, that is your personal loss. But even when it comes to the stock market, the companies that are in that stock market doing business in America are largely subject to regulation. So we know, at least, that the books they are presenting have to be legal and be accurate in their disclosures. It is just the basics of government regulation. However, there are some areas where you can bet your money or invest your money where there is no protection and no regulation. I want to speak to one of those areas at this moment. This area has been called the ``new money,'' ``digital cash,'' and some have called it ``the way of the future.'' I have another name for it: reckless, predatory, foolish, and dangerous. I am referring, of course, to cryptocurrency, the latest scam to rip off millions of hard-working Americans to the tune of billions of dollars. In under a decade, this industry has skyrocketed in popularity, raked in big bucks for its leading speculators, before exploding into dust for all the world to see. Let me tell you about crypto's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year--2022. Let's start with the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. In 2022, the currency cratered, losing more than 60 percent of its value in 1 year. To put it in perspective, if you bought one Bitcoin at the start of 2022 and held on to it today, you would be down $25,000. Think of all the Americans who could have held on to that cash for family needs or to cover a downpayment on their first home. Their money is gone. There is no insurance. It is just an investment that disappeared. They are not alone. The disaster began last May with a financial meltdown known as ``crypto winter.'' If you are one of the millions of consumers--millions--who were convinced by those well-respected financial advisers--Matt Damon, Larry David, and LeBron James--to buy into crypto, you don't need me to tell you what happened next. In a matter of months, more than $2 trillion vanished from this industry. One crypto firm after another folded. Even a so-called ``stablecoin,'' which claims to offer great stability, went bust. Then, in the fall, came the mighty collapse of the exchange FTX. Its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, spent years cultivating the reputation of a selfless wunderkind and entrepreneur. He claimed crypto and the FTX platform would democratize finance, that he was giving a leg up to the little guy, finally, and sticking it to the barons of traditional finance. It was all a lie. While Sam Bankman-Fried was burning millions of dollars branding himself as some noble disruptor, the reality is he was stealing his own users' money to fund his own risky bets. Here is the worst part. For Americans who were scammed into investing in FTX, there is little hope of retrieving any of their money. Earlier this week, Annie Lowrey wrote a piece in The Atlantic, sharing the story of one FTX user whose money was stolen. His name was Greg Sanders. Greg has actually been a crypto investor for quite a while, a pretty vigilant investor too. He even protected his assets with a technique he calls ``cold storage.'' So Greg knew about the risk with trading crypto. He knew those assets were loosely regulated, if regulated at all, and he knew about the volatility of the market. But Greg never expected that the company he trusted to safeguard his money would end up stealing it. He lost nearly $10,000 when FTX collapsed, and, like millions of others, he hasn't gotten any money back. Here is what he said about his experience: ``FTX was legitimized in the public eye . . . I saw the Tom Brady commercials,'' Greg said. ``I saw the Major League Baseball umpires'' with FTX's name on their uniforms. ``Its name was on the Miami Heat arena. There was so much legitimatization from the public, and it lent credence to the idea that this was a safe place,'' to put your money. Thankfully, Greg says he will be OK. He has a good-paying job and enough money saved to pay his bills. But stop for a second and think about Americans who are not that lucky.More than half of our Nation's families cannot afford a $1,000 emergency, and those same families, who struggle to make ends meet, have been targeted by the crypto ad campaigns Greg mentioned. In fact, leaders of the crypto industry have explicitly marketed their products to unbanked and underbanked Americans, those who do not have access to traditional financial services. Now, this is a problem that disproportionately affects Black and Brown Americans, who have historically been outside the financial system. So along comes crypto and its leading fabulists, like Sam Bankman-Fried. These grifters cloak themselves in the language of inclusion and accessibility, promising that crypto is open to everybody and operates ``without discrimination.'' Well, in a way, they are right. When the crypto industry melted down, everybody got hurt, especially all of the Black and Brown Americans, who were more likely than White Americans to invest in crypto. It seems the cynical ad campaigns worked. So as a new year begins, where do we stand with crypto? The industry is hoping the dust will settle, that things will quiet down. Maybe it will even blow over, and everybody will forget the damage of 2022. Guess again. Our Federal regulators are coming to life, and they are bringing down the hammer on crypto. I want to commend Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. He is doing his part to protect the integrity of our capital markets and to hold bad actors accountable. In the past month alone, the SEC has filed charges against two major crypto companies for burning their investors. And there are other cops on the beat too. On Friday, the Federal Reserve rejected an application from a crypto company called Custodia for a deposit account at the central bank and denied its request to become a member of the Federal Reserve System. In denying the application, the Federal Board wrote that Custodia ``proposed to engage in novel and untested crypto activities . . . on open, public and/or decentralized networks.'' As we have learned, that would be a recipe for disaster. So I am glad both the Fed and the SEC, among others, are working to insulate our broader financial system and protect investors from the instability of crypto. But, now, it is time for wiser minds in finance to come to their senses, and it starts with Fidelity. To think the crypto industry has entranced one of the largest 401(k) providers in the world is shocking. Yet that is exactly what happened. This past summer, Fidelity announced it would allow retirement plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin. Remember, Bitcoin alone lost more than 60 percent of its value last year. Now imagine if your 401(k) lived or died by the value of Bitcoin. That is unacceptable for 40 million Americans who invest with Fidelity, and I am one of them. Many of them are relying on those investments to retire in dignity. So that is why last year I sent a letter, along with Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson. We respectfully asked her to reconsider this ill-advised decision on crypto. We received a response in which Fidelity said: ``respectfully disagree[d] with the assertion that bitcoin cannot meet the higher standards applicable to retirement accounts.'' So after the collapse of FTX, I thought: Let's send another letter to Fidelity and see if they have a change of heart. We figured that at least diversifying from crypto would be a no-brainer at that point. Apparently not, because we still haven't received a response. Hard-working Americans who entrust Fidelity with their retirement savings expect more. They deserve better than Ponzi schemes and endless volatility. The financial future and stability of millions of their customers--and many others--is on the line. It is time to do the right thing and be honest about cryptocurrency. There should be more transparency, accountability, and enough regulation so that we know they are telling the truth. And let me close with one point. I was at a hearing with the Agriculture Committee where we were discussing the issue from a different perspective, whether Bitcoin and similar objects were commodities, subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an Agency I know well from the financial industry in Chicago. I left that hearing after some critical remarks about cryptocurrency, and a reporter stopped me in the hall, and she said to me: How much money have you received in political contributions from FTX? I said: None. She said: You are wrong. Look again. I looked. It was over $7,000--money that I did not solicit but banked not knowing what was behind that money. We have given that money to charity, as you might expect. But they have more friends in high places than they have really good arguments for their product. I think that we have got to be thoughtful and mindful as politicians that this industry has a lot of money riding on this bet, and we have got to be careful that we don't become so beholden to them that we lose our clear-eyed look at an entity that has hurt so many people already and is likely to do more in the future. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. DURBIN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS183 | null | 5,731 |
formal | balance the budget | null | conservative | Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, on another matter, today, President Biden and Speaker McCarthy will sit down to discuss options to avoid a debt crisis and rein in government spending. The one thing that President Biden and Speaker McCarthy agree on is that we cannot breach the debt ceiling. I guess that is at least a start. From there, there doesn't seem to be a lot of common ground, not yet anyway. With a potential default on the horizon, this topic has gotten a lot of attention, but as we all know, America's debt crisis didn't appear overnight. It has been building for decades. As I have said before and will say again, Republicans and Democrats have not exactly covered themselves with glory when it comes to deficit spending and increasing the debt. Washington has spent and spent with no meaningful steps to balance the budget. We are writing checks--spending money--that we know people of my generation will never have to pay back but that younger generations certainly will. That strikes me as profoundly immoral. The national debt has skyrocketed from $3.2 trillion in 1980--$3.2 trillion in 1980--to $9.7 trillion in 2000 to $31.5 trillion today. I think it was Everett Dirksen who said, years ago, ``A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.'' Nobody ever thought to use the T-word until recently. During COVID-19, we worked together to avert a public health crisis and an economic catastrophe during the pandemic, and we did that on a bipartisan basis, but in the last 2 years, our Democratic colleagues have spent another $2.5 trillion-plus in purely partisan spending bills: the so-called American Recovery Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. There has been more than $2.5 trillion in partisan spending, and the President takes the position that he won't even negotiate on the debt ceiling, when he is the one person whose signature is required to sign something into law. And by his signature, he has raised the debt more than $2.5 trillion in partisan spending in the last 2 years, and he won't even negotiate? It strikes me as unsustainable and certainly irresponsible. The President was happy to take a tour across America to brag about these costly bills, but when we hit the debt limit, he is nowhere to be seen. He is pointing the finger of blame at the Republican House of Representatives and at the Speaker and suggesting that, well, if you want to cut spending, tell us where you would cut. Let's look at spending that the President and Democrats were solely responsible for. If we could cut back $2\1/2\ trillion of spending, that would do a lot to address the current level of debt. But the President's position is, it is not my responsibility. I don't really care. And he wants to try to lay all of this at the feet of Speaker McCarthy. It is wildly inappropriate and irresponsible. In short, President Biden has made clear that he expects Congress to raise the debt limit with no conditions attached, but that also means to let this runaway spending and accumulating debt continue. That is the part he doesn't say but is implicit in his position. Republicans have made clear that his position is untenable. For one, it is a matter of financial prudence. Congress can't raise the debt ceiling just to keep spending like there is no tomorrow. We need to get government spending in check, and the best way to do that is on a bipartisan basis. But there is also a matter of practicality. Republicans now control the House, meaning that the only viable path to success means compromise. We have a divided government--that is what the midterm elections gave us. Some of my colleagues like to say that divided government is the best time to do hard things. I think that is true, but if it doesn't change behavior, those hard things never get addressed. President Biden can roll out as many ultimatums as he wants, but the reality is his party no longer controls all the levers of government like it has during the last 2 years. And in order to avoid a debt crisis, which he said is nonnegotiable, he is going to have to work with Republicans. Today's meeting with Speaker McCarthy is a start, but at minimum, I hope the President will walk back his statement about not negotiating and understand that he has no choice but to work with Republicans, just like Speaker McCarthy has no choice but to work with President Biden. That is the nature of a divided government that the voters gave us with the midterm elections, and we need to get serious about workable solutions. Secretary Yellen has said she thinks that the government will not default before June, which means we have approximately 4 months to work this out. I hope today's meeting between the President and the Speaker marks the beginning of bipartisan negotiations, and I am eager to learn more about their discussion. 20th Anniversary of Space Shuttle ``Columbia'' Accident | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CORNYN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS185 | null | 5,732 |
formal | government spending | null | racist | Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, on another matter, today, President Biden and Speaker McCarthy will sit down to discuss options to avoid a debt crisis and rein in government spending. The one thing that President Biden and Speaker McCarthy agree on is that we cannot breach the debt ceiling. I guess that is at least a start. From there, there doesn't seem to be a lot of common ground, not yet anyway. With a potential default on the horizon, this topic has gotten a lot of attention, but as we all know, America's debt crisis didn't appear overnight. It has been building for decades. As I have said before and will say again, Republicans and Democrats have not exactly covered themselves with glory when it comes to deficit spending and increasing the debt. Washington has spent and spent with no meaningful steps to balance the budget. We are writing checks--spending money--that we know people of my generation will never have to pay back but that younger generations certainly will. That strikes me as profoundly immoral. The national debt has skyrocketed from $3.2 trillion in 1980--$3.2 trillion in 1980--to $9.7 trillion in 2000 to $31.5 trillion today. I think it was Everett Dirksen who said, years ago, ``A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.'' Nobody ever thought to use the T-word until recently. During COVID-19, we worked together to avert a public health crisis and an economic catastrophe during the pandemic, and we did that on a bipartisan basis, but in the last 2 years, our Democratic colleagues have spent another $2.5 trillion-plus in purely partisan spending bills: the so-called American Recovery Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. There has been more than $2.5 trillion in partisan spending, and the President takes the position that he won't even negotiate on the debt ceiling, when he is the one person whose signature is required to sign something into law. And by his signature, he has raised the debt more than $2.5 trillion in partisan spending in the last 2 years, and he won't even negotiate? It strikes me as unsustainable and certainly irresponsible. The President was happy to take a tour across America to brag about these costly bills, but when we hit the debt limit, he is nowhere to be seen. He is pointing the finger of blame at the Republican House of Representatives and at the Speaker and suggesting that, well, if you want to cut spending, tell us where you would cut. Let's look at spending that the President and Democrats were solely responsible for. If we could cut back $2\1/2\ trillion of spending, that would do a lot to address the current level of debt. But the President's position is, it is not my responsibility. I don't really care. And he wants to try to lay all of this at the feet of Speaker McCarthy. It is wildly inappropriate and irresponsible. In short, President Biden has made clear that he expects Congress to raise the debt limit with no conditions attached, but that also means to let this runaway spending and accumulating debt continue. That is the part he doesn't say but is implicit in his position. Republicans have made clear that his position is untenable. For one, it is a matter of financial prudence. Congress can't raise the debt ceiling just to keep spending like there is no tomorrow. We need to get government spending in check, and the best way to do that is on a bipartisan basis. But there is also a matter of practicality. Republicans now control the House, meaning that the only viable path to success means compromise. We have a divided government--that is what the midterm elections gave us. Some of my colleagues like to say that divided government is the best time to do hard things. I think that is true, but if it doesn't change behavior, those hard things never get addressed. President Biden can roll out as many ultimatums as he wants, but the reality is his party no longer controls all the levers of government like it has during the last 2 years. And in order to avoid a debt crisis, which he said is nonnegotiable, he is going to have to work with Republicans. Today's meeting with Speaker McCarthy is a start, but at minimum, I hope the President will walk back his statement about not negotiating and understand that he has no choice but to work with Republicans, just like Speaker McCarthy has no choice but to work with President Biden. That is the nature of a divided government that the voters gave us with the midterm elections, and we need to get serious about workable solutions. Secretary Yellen has said she thinks that the government will not default before June, which means we have approximately 4 months to work this out. I hope today's meeting between the President and the Speaker marks the beginning of bipartisan negotiations, and I am eager to learn more about their discussion. 20th Anniversary of Space Shuttle ``Columbia'' Accident | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CORNYN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS185 | null | 5,733 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I take this time to celebrate the success of the Affordable Care Act. We just completed the open enrollment period for 2023. Over 16 million Americans signed up for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. That is about a 100-percent increase from the first year's enrollment in 2014. In less than 10 years, we have doubled the number of enrollees under the Affordable Care Act. It has contributed to a substantial reduction in the number of uninsured, which, in and of itself, is an important goal in healthcare. Uninsured individuals have less ability to access qualitycare in this country. That is something we all need to be concerned about and do our best to make sure everyone has access to healthcare. But they also contribute to what is known as cost-shifting, and it causes a dislocation of healthcare facilities in the proper locations in our community. It also makes our healthcare system less efficient. If an individual does not have coverage for preventive healthcare and diseases are discovered later, it makes it more expensive and less likely a successful result. We all can celebrate the numbers but recognize we also are taking a big bite out of the uninsured medical population in this country. My numbers in Maryland are very impressive: 180,000 Marylanders enrolled in our State insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act. That is, by the way, for minorities, a 9-percent increase in the Hispanic population and a 3-percent increase in the Black population. We are committed to eliminating health disparities in America. There are many provisions in the Affordable Care Act. I want to mention one I am particularly proud of because I had something to do with its creation, and that is elevating the National Institutes of Health with the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. We made it a full Institute under NIH. We set up an office for minority health within the Health and Human Services Agencies. We did this so there would be a focus on dealing with the systemic challenges we have to medical care in this country. And the research that is being done by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities is cutting edge on reasons why we have disparities in this country, and it is leading to corrective action being taken. I will just give you one example: NIH UNITE Program, which deals with incentives to create a more diversified workforce in healthcare, which is critically important to access, as well as to make sure that clinical trials include all of our population so that the results are meaningful for all communities in America. The results that we have been able to move forward in bridging the disparities for access to healthcare in America, all this has been done under the Affordable Care Act. But we didn't stop there. We recognized we had to improve the Affordable Care Act. I am very proud of the leadership of President Biden and the Democrats in our initiatives under the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. We enhance the subsidies to make it affordable for all Americans to be able to purchase their insurance through the health exchanges. We made that a commitment so every American could have access to affordable, quality healthcare. We need to make those enhancements permanent so we still have work to do. I want to thank our colleague Senator Shaheen for her leadership in legislation, which I strongly support, that would make the enhancements in the subsidies under the Affordable Care Act permanent so that we can keep having these impressive numbers of Americans enrolling in health insurance. Americans are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act, not just in having comprehensive, affordable insurance coverage but also the quality of that coverage. No longer do they have to worry about exclusions for preexisting conditions. It wasn't too long ago that just about everyone in this country was concerned as to whether their insurance coverage would cover their entire healthcare needs because they had a prior episode sometime in their life. Women were concerned whether childbirth was a preexisting condition. Well, we eliminated that fear with the Affordable Care Act in that insurance companies cannot exclude coverage or limit coverage based upon preexisting conditions. And as you recall, the leading cause of bankruptcy in America was unpaid medical bills. But under the Affordable Care Act, we eliminated lifetime and yearly caps on the coverage that you have--again, helping American families deal with their healthcare needs. There is still more to be done. I want to acknowledge that. We need to do some things. I want to say, first, that I was pleased that under the Inflation Reduction Act, we were able to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. Insulin, starting last month--January--was limited to $35 a month. That was a game changer for millions of Americans to know they have an affordable supply of insulin to deal with their needs. That has already taken effect. And included in the Inflation Reduction Act will be a cap on Part D out-of-pocket expenses of no more than $2,000 a year. So we are also capping today the unlimited exposures seniors had on prescription medicines. I must tell you, we passed legislation--as I think everybody here is aware of--under the Inflation Reduction Act, to start, by 2026, doing something that most Americans would be shocked that we are not doing today: negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry, using our market share to bring down the cost of medicines so American consumers are not gouged compared to the international marketplace. Starting in 2026, we will have negotiated the price, starting with the 10 most expensive drugs in this country. I want to mention an area where I think we need to do more. I have been very much engaged in oral healthcare. Most people know that when I came to the Senate in 2006, a year later, Deamonte Driver, a youngster in Prince George's County, lost his life because he couldn't get access to oral healthcare. I made that a crusade with my former colleague, the late Elijah Cummings, in trying to do something about that. I am pleased that both the Affordable Care Act and the Children's Health Insurance Program require coverage for pediatric dental care. That is a step in the right direction, but we haven't completed the needs that are out there. If you neglect your oral healthcare, you are likely to be neglecting your general healthcare. It is an area where we can prevent a lot of illness and problems. Most dental problems are preventable if you have access to dental care. I have introduced legislation that would remove any annual or lifetime limit on oral healthcare under the Children's Health Insurance Program, the CHIP program. I want to thank Senator Stabenow for joining me in this effort. To me, this is something that is very consistent with the Affordable Care Act, and I hope that we will be able to get that passed. But we also have to expand coverage. Medicaid coverage for dental care is primarily determined by the States, and many States limit coverage to emergency dental care, which means people, many families, can't afford their normal checkups for the adults who are in the family. We must do better as a nation. We need to expand Medicaid to cover oral healthcare. And for the 37 million seniors who are on Medicare, many cannot afford their dental annual visits. We need to expand Medicare to cover dental care as well. I want to thank my friend Senator Sanders for his leadership, also, on that particular issue. The bottom line: Let us all work together so that we can achieve the goal of the Affordable Care Act. We have achieved a great deal to date by the passage of that bill, but we still need to do more to make sure healthcare is a right and not a privilege and that every American has access to affordable, quality care. Working together, we can achieve that goal. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CARDIN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS188-2 | null | 5,734 |
formal | tax cut | null | racist | Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, let me begin with a simple statement which I hope every Senator in this body agrees with: that the United States of America pays its bills on time. We have since our Nation was founded. We never default on our debts. We always pay what we owe. We honor our financial obligations to all Americans and all those who invest in the American economy. And because we pay our bills on time, the United States has earned a reputation as a reliable, credible, and trustworthy partner aroundthe world, and that helps every single American and our entire economy. Now, as everybody in this Chamber knows, in order to maintain the full faith and credit of the United States, we have to raise the debt ceiling. And this is not about new spending. This is about paying the bills that are already due and already owing under the laws that we have already passed in this country and that have already been signed by Presidents of both parties. When Donald Trump was President of the United States, Republicans voted with Democrats to raise the debt limit three times, and the U.S. Congress has raised the debt limit a total of 78 times since 1960, under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. If the Government of the United States had failed to raise the debt ceiling in the past, we would have faced an economic catastrophe. Think about it this way: You wouldn't just wake up one day and decide not to make your mortgage payment or not to make your car payment. You pay what you owe. It is as simple as that. And you know that, if you were to wake up one morning and say that you are not paying your mortgage or you are not paying your car payment, you will face consequences. If you don't pay your mortgage, you could have your home foreclosed on. If you don't pay your car payments, your car can be repossessed. The same logic applies to the U.S. Government, but the consequences are not confined to just one individual or one homeowner or one car owner. If the United States fails to pay its bills on time, every American--everyone inside this room and everyone outside this room--will suffer the consequences. We are not talking about risking foreclosure on one house or losing one car. We are talking about the economy of our country grinding to a halt. If the United States stops paying our bills, our economy takes a nose dive. It is as simple as that. When I talk to my colleagues here on the Senate floor, both Republicans and Democrats, they agree that it is a no-brainer. You pay what you owe. You raise the debt ceiling. You don't default. It is common sense. In fact, I was listening just the other day to Republican leader Senator McConnell, who said: America must never default on its debt. He said that a few days ago. I agree. But across and on the other side of the Capitol, in the House of Representatives, Speaker McCarthy and the new majority, composed of some very rightwing and extreme Members, are taking their orders from former President Donald Trump, the same Donald Trump who as President signed three debt limit increases into law. Now he wants Republicans to use the debt limit as a club against President Biden. House Republicans are stalling our efforts right now to pay our bills on time, even though they know--just as Senator McConnell knows, just as every Senator here knows--that failing to do so would result in chaos and calamity for the country. It is a threat designed to force the rest of the U.S. Congress into enacting an extreme rightwing agenda. So let's be very clear. Here is what House Republicans are saying. They are saying: You do what we want or else we will tank the American economy. I think anybody hearing that proposition would recognize it for what it is--a form of economic terrorism. But MAGA Republicans are holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to impose their agenda on the American people. They have decided to politicize what should be a nonpartisan issue because Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate have voted for programs to require us to raise the debt ceiling in the past. In fact, I think it would be important to know that we would not be here at this time, on the Senate floor, having hit the debt ceiling and trying to work to make sure we avoid actually going over the cliff--we would not be here--if it was not for the tax cuts that were passed during the Trump administration. We would not be here at this particular moment. And, in fact, 25 percent of the total national debt was accumulated during the Trump administration--25 percent of the total debt of the United States, during the Trump administration. Now, I want to be clear, I am not saying this is all Republican debt, but it certainly is not all Democratic debt. This is the debt of the country. This is the debt owed by Uncle Sam. And what does the Constitution of the United States tell us about how we treat America's debt? Well, here is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution right here, and what it says is this: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. The Fourteenth Amendment passed shortly after the Civil War, and it is crystal clear that the obligation to pay America's debts is not a Democratic obligation; it is not a Republican obligation. It is an American obligation, and beyond being the right thing to do, it is in the Constitution of the United States. It is a national duty and a constitutional duty. So, as I listen to Speaker McCarthy and his Republican House colleagues, they want us to ignore the Fourteenth Amendment. They want to impose their reckless policies on the rest of us under threat of our doing what they want us to do. So I do want to be clear about what the consequences of this would be. I talked in general terms about economic catastrophe. Here is what it would mean. It would mean seniors going without Social Security benefits. It can mean troops going for weeks or even months without pay--the men and women in uniform who are out there protecting our country. Medicare may not be able to cover the costs of a doctor's visit. Those are just some of the governmental functions that could come to a grinding halt if we don't pay our debts on time, and we don't know the full extent of what would happen because, as I said, we have never been there before. This is uncharted territory. Economists estimate a very dire toll: 3 million jobs lost; $130,000 added to the cost of your average 30-year mortgage. I want everyone to hear that. The mortgage costs for homeowners would go up. And, of course, as the mortgage costs for homeowners go up, the value of everyone who has already got a House also goes down. Retirement accounts in free fall, skyrocketing borrowing costs on car loans, and we would be hit by this catastrophe just as we are recovering from the economic hit we took during the pandemic. And it would trigger an increase in costs just as we are beginning to turn the corner on inflation. So why would anyone do this? Why would someone threaten to do this? I have been listening very carefully to Speaker McCarthy and Republicans in the House, and they say that they want to reduce the deficit and the national debt. That is what they say, but this is one of those situations where you always say: Watch what they do, not what they say. The reality is that Republicans, through their actions and their records, don't care about the deficit and the debt. That is not their priority because, if they really cared about the deficit and the debt, they would not have passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts without a plan to pay for them--a tax cut, by the way, which disproportionately benefited the very, very rich and big multinational corporations--because that tax cut, that giveaway to the very wealthy and big corporations, it increased the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years, added to our national debt. As I said, we wouldn't even be here today, at this point in time, but for the fact that Republicans increased the deficit by $2 trillion. By the way, that is not my estimate, that $2 trillion. That is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, they could have joined us, just last year, when we closed a number of loopholes for big corporations, a measure that reduces the deficit by $238 billion over the next 10 years. That is something Democrats did. We didn't have a single Republican vote here in the Senate or in the House for that. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would not, as one of their very first measures, have passed a lawto slash the funding that the IRS desperately needs to enforce the law against wealthy tax cheats. Let me say that again. They cut the moneys that the IRS needs to enforce current tax law against very wealthy Americans and big corporations that are not paying what they owe today. They are getting away with cheating on their taxes, and Republicans cut the money that the IRS needs to go after them. And this is very explicitly, as the Secretary of Treasury said, talking about Americans who earn more than $400,000 every year, including lots of multimillionaires and billionaires in the country. So when you say the IRS can no longer have the funds to go after wealthy tax cheats, what happens? You collect less revenue from very wealthy people. And what happens when you collect less revenue from very wealthy people? You increase the deficit. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the action the House already took would increase the deficit by over $114 billion. This is from the Republicans in the House who are now threatening the United States not pay its bills, claiming that they care about the deficit and debt, when one of the very first actions that they took was to increase it. So that is just not the case. Their actions indicate that they don't care about the deficit. What is it really about? So what Republicans are really after is attacking critical investments that support the American people and that help strengthen our country. As one Republican strategist, Grover Norquist, once said, it is about shrinking the government down to the size where you can ``drown it in the bathtub.'' This House Republican majority is desperate to cut and decimate programs that Americans need and that our future requires. So, for example, they want to cut some of the new initiatives we undertook to supercharge American innovation. We passed legislation, the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to maintain our technological edge over China and others. They want to cut it. They want to roll back investments that we made that are already bringing more high-tech manufacturing jobs back to the United States. We want to ensure those manufacturing jobs. They want to continue to offshore those good jobs. They want to cut investments we are making in clean energy that will help us fight the climate crisis, strengthen the American workforce, and, yes, also help us better compete around the globe, where China has a huge headstart when it comes to things like electric batteries. They want to cut Pell grants, which help millions of Americans pursue a college degree. They want to cut investments we are finally making to modernize our national infrastructure--something that was very bipartisan here in the U.S. Senate. That is important for our roads, our bridges, our transit systems, our ports, our airports. They want to cut it. Some are talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security. That is just a partial list of what the House Republicans are threatening to do, and they are saying that if we don't all agree to that, they are not going to allow the United States to pay its bills on time. The bottom line here is, when you look at the Republican playbook, it is cutting investments that are important to the American people and important to the success of our country while pushing for more tax cuts for the superwealthy. This is not a new movie; this is a rerun; this is trickle-down economics. It is the same old playbook, and here they go again. But here is the thing: We have been here before. Some of us were here when this threat was last made. I vividly remember the year 2011. It was another moment when the Republicans were fresh--fresh--after winning a majority in the House of Representatives. I was in the House at the time. Then, as now, the Republicans said they really cared about the deficit and the debt. Then, as now, they threatened that they wouldn't pay the bills on time. They wouldn't vote to pay the country's bills on time. I remember back then that we sat down with them in good faith. President Obama tapped Vice President Biden to lead the budget negotiations, and a small bipartisan and bicameral group of us was selected to try to hammer out a plan. I was part of those discussions. They took place just off the floor here, down the hall, less than 15 yards away. We worked week after week after week, and we negotiated to try to hammer out an agreement. But here is what became very clear: The Republican objective then, as now, was not to reduce the deficit and the debt. The Republican objective was simply to cut investments in important areas. They didn't want to raise one penny--not one dime--to reduce the deficit or debt by closing tax breaks for very wealthy people. That was then. This is the same story today. If you look at the list of things they did back then--no cutting tax breaks for the wealthy, cutting important programs, including Medicare, were very much part of their agenda--we got very close to tripping over the final cliff of the debt ceiling. Like today, we had already hit the debt ceiling, and the Treasury Department was taking extraordinary measures to prevent us from actually defaulting on our debts. In fact, we got so close to actually not paying our bills on time that the S&P downgraded America's credit for the first time in our history. They said: You are getting very close to the place where creditors of the United States aren't going to anymore support the United States. They are not going to buy U.S. bonds. In fact, interest rates began to creep up just because of that when we got so close to the cliff. We came very close to going over that waterfall and crashing the economy. So many of us learned a valuable lesson that day. I learned it, and I know that then-Vice President, now-President Biden learned it, and that is that you don't negotiate over whether or not the United States pays its bills on time, because all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, have an obligation and a responsibility to do that. We also learned something I want to be equally clear about. We are not against negotiating about the budget. We are happy to sit down anytime with Republican colleagues and the Speaker of the House to negotiate all aspects of the budget. We can talk about spending levels, and we can talk about revenue levels. In fact, we have a budget process here. If Speaker McCarthy and his colleagues want to do this under the regular process and do it in a bipartisan way, they have to pass a budget resolution. They outline where they want to make cuts. I don't expect them to outline any proposed increases in revenue, but that is the place they would do that. Then we will have a debate. I serve on the Senate Budget Committee. I would look forward to that. I do look forward to that. I serve on the Appropriations Committee where we decide on expenditures. That is the forum for negotiation. The Democrats are for negotiating on the budget. We welcome that. Then the American people would see exactly what everyone's budget priorities are. They would see that the Republicans want to protect tax breaks for the very wealthy while they want to cut investments that are very important to middle America. They would see all of that during the budget process, but they want to short circuit that process. They, instead, want to say that they are not going to vote to pay our bills on time unless we all agree to their radical agenda. We are saying we are happy to negotiate--let's have a budget negotiation--but the negotiation isn't that you get everything you want in exchange for the Democrats' joining you to vote to pay our bills on time. We didn't do that when President Trump was in office. As I said, we voted three times to raise the debt limit. We didn't say: You have got to accept all of our proposed efforts to get rid of tax breaks for the very wealthy. Yet what they are saying is that we have got to accept their approach to deep cuts to important investments in order for them to do what all of us have an obligation under the Constitution to do, which is to pay our bills on time. So I hope all of us will do the simple thing--mandated in the Constitution--as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans. As Americans, let's pay our bills on time, and let's not crash our economy. Yes, as part of the normal budget process, let's have a conversation about spending and about revenue, but don't do it while, at the same time, you are saying you are not going to let the United States pay our bills on time. As I said in my opening remarks, we have always paid our bills on time. If you don't do it, really bad things happen to all Americans. So let's get that done, and then let's have our conversation about budget priorities. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. VAN HOLLEN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS189 | null | 5,735 |
formal | tax cuts | null | racist | Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, let me begin with a simple statement which I hope every Senator in this body agrees with: that the United States of America pays its bills on time. We have since our Nation was founded. We never default on our debts. We always pay what we owe. We honor our financial obligations to all Americans and all those who invest in the American economy. And because we pay our bills on time, the United States has earned a reputation as a reliable, credible, and trustworthy partner aroundthe world, and that helps every single American and our entire economy. Now, as everybody in this Chamber knows, in order to maintain the full faith and credit of the United States, we have to raise the debt ceiling. And this is not about new spending. This is about paying the bills that are already due and already owing under the laws that we have already passed in this country and that have already been signed by Presidents of both parties. When Donald Trump was President of the United States, Republicans voted with Democrats to raise the debt limit three times, and the U.S. Congress has raised the debt limit a total of 78 times since 1960, under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. If the Government of the United States had failed to raise the debt ceiling in the past, we would have faced an economic catastrophe. Think about it this way: You wouldn't just wake up one day and decide not to make your mortgage payment or not to make your car payment. You pay what you owe. It is as simple as that. And you know that, if you were to wake up one morning and say that you are not paying your mortgage or you are not paying your car payment, you will face consequences. If you don't pay your mortgage, you could have your home foreclosed on. If you don't pay your car payments, your car can be repossessed. The same logic applies to the U.S. Government, but the consequences are not confined to just one individual or one homeowner or one car owner. If the United States fails to pay its bills on time, every American--everyone inside this room and everyone outside this room--will suffer the consequences. We are not talking about risking foreclosure on one house or losing one car. We are talking about the economy of our country grinding to a halt. If the United States stops paying our bills, our economy takes a nose dive. It is as simple as that. When I talk to my colleagues here on the Senate floor, both Republicans and Democrats, they agree that it is a no-brainer. You pay what you owe. You raise the debt ceiling. You don't default. It is common sense. In fact, I was listening just the other day to Republican leader Senator McConnell, who said: America must never default on its debt. He said that a few days ago. I agree. But across and on the other side of the Capitol, in the House of Representatives, Speaker McCarthy and the new majority, composed of some very rightwing and extreme Members, are taking their orders from former President Donald Trump, the same Donald Trump who as President signed three debt limit increases into law. Now he wants Republicans to use the debt limit as a club against President Biden. House Republicans are stalling our efforts right now to pay our bills on time, even though they know--just as Senator McConnell knows, just as every Senator here knows--that failing to do so would result in chaos and calamity for the country. It is a threat designed to force the rest of the U.S. Congress into enacting an extreme rightwing agenda. So let's be very clear. Here is what House Republicans are saying. They are saying: You do what we want or else we will tank the American economy. I think anybody hearing that proposition would recognize it for what it is--a form of economic terrorism. But MAGA Republicans are holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to impose their agenda on the American people. They have decided to politicize what should be a nonpartisan issue because Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate have voted for programs to require us to raise the debt ceiling in the past. In fact, I think it would be important to know that we would not be here at this time, on the Senate floor, having hit the debt ceiling and trying to work to make sure we avoid actually going over the cliff--we would not be here--if it was not for the tax cuts that were passed during the Trump administration. We would not be here at this particular moment. And, in fact, 25 percent of the total national debt was accumulated during the Trump administration--25 percent of the total debt of the United States, during the Trump administration. Now, I want to be clear, I am not saying this is all Republican debt, but it certainly is not all Democratic debt. This is the debt of the country. This is the debt owed by Uncle Sam. And what does the Constitution of the United States tell us about how we treat America's debt? Well, here is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution right here, and what it says is this: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. The Fourteenth Amendment passed shortly after the Civil War, and it is crystal clear that the obligation to pay America's debts is not a Democratic obligation; it is not a Republican obligation. It is an American obligation, and beyond being the right thing to do, it is in the Constitution of the United States. It is a national duty and a constitutional duty. So, as I listen to Speaker McCarthy and his Republican House colleagues, they want us to ignore the Fourteenth Amendment. They want to impose their reckless policies on the rest of us under threat of our doing what they want us to do. So I do want to be clear about what the consequences of this would be. I talked in general terms about economic catastrophe. Here is what it would mean. It would mean seniors going without Social Security benefits. It can mean troops going for weeks or even months without pay--the men and women in uniform who are out there protecting our country. Medicare may not be able to cover the costs of a doctor's visit. Those are just some of the governmental functions that could come to a grinding halt if we don't pay our debts on time, and we don't know the full extent of what would happen because, as I said, we have never been there before. This is uncharted territory. Economists estimate a very dire toll: 3 million jobs lost; $130,000 added to the cost of your average 30-year mortgage. I want everyone to hear that. The mortgage costs for homeowners would go up. And, of course, as the mortgage costs for homeowners go up, the value of everyone who has already got a House also goes down. Retirement accounts in free fall, skyrocketing borrowing costs on car loans, and we would be hit by this catastrophe just as we are recovering from the economic hit we took during the pandemic. And it would trigger an increase in costs just as we are beginning to turn the corner on inflation. So why would anyone do this? Why would someone threaten to do this? I have been listening very carefully to Speaker McCarthy and Republicans in the House, and they say that they want to reduce the deficit and the national debt. That is what they say, but this is one of those situations where you always say: Watch what they do, not what they say. The reality is that Republicans, through their actions and their records, don't care about the deficit and the debt. That is not their priority because, if they really cared about the deficit and the debt, they would not have passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts without a plan to pay for them--a tax cut, by the way, which disproportionately benefited the very, very rich and big multinational corporations--because that tax cut, that giveaway to the very wealthy and big corporations, it increased the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years, added to our national debt. As I said, we wouldn't even be here today, at this point in time, but for the fact that Republicans increased the deficit by $2 trillion. By the way, that is not my estimate, that $2 trillion. That is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, they could have joined us, just last year, when we closed a number of loopholes for big corporations, a measure that reduces the deficit by $238 billion over the next 10 years. That is something Democrats did. We didn't have a single Republican vote here in the Senate or in the House for that. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would not, as one of their very first measures, have passed a lawto slash the funding that the IRS desperately needs to enforce the law against wealthy tax cheats. Let me say that again. They cut the moneys that the IRS needs to enforce current tax law against very wealthy Americans and big corporations that are not paying what they owe today. They are getting away with cheating on their taxes, and Republicans cut the money that the IRS needs to go after them. And this is very explicitly, as the Secretary of Treasury said, talking about Americans who earn more than $400,000 every year, including lots of multimillionaires and billionaires in the country. So when you say the IRS can no longer have the funds to go after wealthy tax cheats, what happens? You collect less revenue from very wealthy people. And what happens when you collect less revenue from very wealthy people? You increase the deficit. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the action the House already took would increase the deficit by over $114 billion. This is from the Republicans in the House who are now threatening the United States not pay its bills, claiming that they care about the deficit and debt, when one of the very first actions that they took was to increase it. So that is just not the case. Their actions indicate that they don't care about the deficit. What is it really about? So what Republicans are really after is attacking critical investments that support the American people and that help strengthen our country. As one Republican strategist, Grover Norquist, once said, it is about shrinking the government down to the size where you can ``drown it in the bathtub.'' This House Republican majority is desperate to cut and decimate programs that Americans need and that our future requires. So, for example, they want to cut some of the new initiatives we undertook to supercharge American innovation. We passed legislation, the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to maintain our technological edge over China and others. They want to cut it. They want to roll back investments that we made that are already bringing more high-tech manufacturing jobs back to the United States. We want to ensure those manufacturing jobs. They want to continue to offshore those good jobs. They want to cut investments we are making in clean energy that will help us fight the climate crisis, strengthen the American workforce, and, yes, also help us better compete around the globe, where China has a huge headstart when it comes to things like electric batteries. They want to cut Pell grants, which help millions of Americans pursue a college degree. They want to cut investments we are finally making to modernize our national infrastructure--something that was very bipartisan here in the U.S. Senate. That is important for our roads, our bridges, our transit systems, our ports, our airports. They want to cut it. Some are talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security. That is just a partial list of what the House Republicans are threatening to do, and they are saying that if we don't all agree to that, they are not going to allow the United States to pay its bills on time. The bottom line here is, when you look at the Republican playbook, it is cutting investments that are important to the American people and important to the success of our country while pushing for more tax cuts for the superwealthy. This is not a new movie; this is a rerun; this is trickle-down economics. It is the same old playbook, and here they go again. But here is the thing: We have been here before. Some of us were here when this threat was last made. I vividly remember the year 2011. It was another moment when the Republicans were fresh--fresh--after winning a majority in the House of Representatives. I was in the House at the time. Then, as now, the Republicans said they really cared about the deficit and the debt. Then, as now, they threatened that they wouldn't pay the bills on time. They wouldn't vote to pay the country's bills on time. I remember back then that we sat down with them in good faith. President Obama tapped Vice President Biden to lead the budget negotiations, and a small bipartisan and bicameral group of us was selected to try to hammer out a plan. I was part of those discussions. They took place just off the floor here, down the hall, less than 15 yards away. We worked week after week after week, and we negotiated to try to hammer out an agreement. But here is what became very clear: The Republican objective then, as now, was not to reduce the deficit and the debt. The Republican objective was simply to cut investments in important areas. They didn't want to raise one penny--not one dime--to reduce the deficit or debt by closing tax breaks for very wealthy people. That was then. This is the same story today. If you look at the list of things they did back then--no cutting tax breaks for the wealthy, cutting important programs, including Medicare, were very much part of their agenda--we got very close to tripping over the final cliff of the debt ceiling. Like today, we had already hit the debt ceiling, and the Treasury Department was taking extraordinary measures to prevent us from actually defaulting on our debts. In fact, we got so close to actually not paying our bills on time that the S&P downgraded America's credit for the first time in our history. They said: You are getting very close to the place where creditors of the United States aren't going to anymore support the United States. They are not going to buy U.S. bonds. In fact, interest rates began to creep up just because of that when we got so close to the cliff. We came very close to going over that waterfall and crashing the economy. So many of us learned a valuable lesson that day. I learned it, and I know that then-Vice President, now-President Biden learned it, and that is that you don't negotiate over whether or not the United States pays its bills on time, because all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, have an obligation and a responsibility to do that. We also learned something I want to be equally clear about. We are not against negotiating about the budget. We are happy to sit down anytime with Republican colleagues and the Speaker of the House to negotiate all aspects of the budget. We can talk about spending levels, and we can talk about revenue levels. In fact, we have a budget process here. If Speaker McCarthy and his colleagues want to do this under the regular process and do it in a bipartisan way, they have to pass a budget resolution. They outline where they want to make cuts. I don't expect them to outline any proposed increases in revenue, but that is the place they would do that. Then we will have a debate. I serve on the Senate Budget Committee. I would look forward to that. I do look forward to that. I serve on the Appropriations Committee where we decide on expenditures. That is the forum for negotiation. The Democrats are for negotiating on the budget. We welcome that. Then the American people would see exactly what everyone's budget priorities are. They would see that the Republicans want to protect tax breaks for the very wealthy while they want to cut investments that are very important to middle America. They would see all of that during the budget process, but they want to short circuit that process. They, instead, want to say that they are not going to vote to pay our bills on time unless we all agree to their radical agenda. We are saying we are happy to negotiate--let's have a budget negotiation--but the negotiation isn't that you get everything you want in exchange for the Democrats' joining you to vote to pay our bills on time. We didn't do that when President Trump was in office. As I said, we voted three times to raise the debt limit. We didn't say: You have got to accept all of our proposed efforts to get rid of tax breaks for the very wealthy. Yet what they are saying is that we have got to accept their approach to deep cuts to important investments in order for them to do what all of us have an obligation under the Constitution to do, which is to pay our bills on time. So I hope all of us will do the simple thing--mandated in the Constitution--as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans. As Americans, let's pay our bills on time, and let's not crash our economy. Yes, as part of the normal budget process, let's have a conversation about spending and about revenue, but don't do it while, at the same time, you are saying you are not going to let the United States pay our bills on time. As I said in my opening remarks, we have always paid our bills on time. If you don't do it, really bad things happen to all Americans. So let's get that done, and then let's have our conversation about budget priorities. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. VAN HOLLEN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS189 | null | 5,736 |
formal | terrorism | null | Islamophobic | Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, let me begin with a simple statement which I hope every Senator in this body agrees with: that the United States of America pays its bills on time. We have since our Nation was founded. We never default on our debts. We always pay what we owe. We honor our financial obligations to all Americans and all those who invest in the American economy. And because we pay our bills on time, the United States has earned a reputation as a reliable, credible, and trustworthy partner aroundthe world, and that helps every single American and our entire economy. Now, as everybody in this Chamber knows, in order to maintain the full faith and credit of the United States, we have to raise the debt ceiling. And this is not about new spending. This is about paying the bills that are already due and already owing under the laws that we have already passed in this country and that have already been signed by Presidents of both parties. When Donald Trump was President of the United States, Republicans voted with Democrats to raise the debt limit three times, and the U.S. Congress has raised the debt limit a total of 78 times since 1960, under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. If the Government of the United States had failed to raise the debt ceiling in the past, we would have faced an economic catastrophe. Think about it this way: You wouldn't just wake up one day and decide not to make your mortgage payment or not to make your car payment. You pay what you owe. It is as simple as that. And you know that, if you were to wake up one morning and say that you are not paying your mortgage or you are not paying your car payment, you will face consequences. If you don't pay your mortgage, you could have your home foreclosed on. If you don't pay your car payments, your car can be repossessed. The same logic applies to the U.S. Government, but the consequences are not confined to just one individual or one homeowner or one car owner. If the United States fails to pay its bills on time, every American--everyone inside this room and everyone outside this room--will suffer the consequences. We are not talking about risking foreclosure on one house or losing one car. We are talking about the economy of our country grinding to a halt. If the United States stops paying our bills, our economy takes a nose dive. It is as simple as that. When I talk to my colleagues here on the Senate floor, both Republicans and Democrats, they agree that it is a no-brainer. You pay what you owe. You raise the debt ceiling. You don't default. It is common sense. In fact, I was listening just the other day to Republican leader Senator McConnell, who said: America must never default on its debt. He said that a few days ago. I agree. But across and on the other side of the Capitol, in the House of Representatives, Speaker McCarthy and the new majority, composed of some very rightwing and extreme Members, are taking their orders from former President Donald Trump, the same Donald Trump who as President signed three debt limit increases into law. Now he wants Republicans to use the debt limit as a club against President Biden. House Republicans are stalling our efforts right now to pay our bills on time, even though they know--just as Senator McConnell knows, just as every Senator here knows--that failing to do so would result in chaos and calamity for the country. It is a threat designed to force the rest of the U.S. Congress into enacting an extreme rightwing agenda. So let's be very clear. Here is what House Republicans are saying. They are saying: You do what we want or else we will tank the American economy. I think anybody hearing that proposition would recognize it for what it is--a form of economic terrorism. But MAGA Republicans are holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to impose their agenda on the American people. They have decided to politicize what should be a nonpartisan issue because Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate have voted for programs to require us to raise the debt ceiling in the past. In fact, I think it would be important to know that we would not be here at this time, on the Senate floor, having hit the debt ceiling and trying to work to make sure we avoid actually going over the cliff--we would not be here--if it was not for the tax cuts that were passed during the Trump administration. We would not be here at this particular moment. And, in fact, 25 percent of the total national debt was accumulated during the Trump administration--25 percent of the total debt of the United States, during the Trump administration. Now, I want to be clear, I am not saying this is all Republican debt, but it certainly is not all Democratic debt. This is the debt of the country. This is the debt owed by Uncle Sam. And what does the Constitution of the United States tell us about how we treat America's debt? Well, here is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution right here, and what it says is this: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. The Fourteenth Amendment passed shortly after the Civil War, and it is crystal clear that the obligation to pay America's debts is not a Democratic obligation; it is not a Republican obligation. It is an American obligation, and beyond being the right thing to do, it is in the Constitution of the United States. It is a national duty and a constitutional duty. So, as I listen to Speaker McCarthy and his Republican House colleagues, they want us to ignore the Fourteenth Amendment. They want to impose their reckless policies on the rest of us under threat of our doing what they want us to do. So I do want to be clear about what the consequences of this would be. I talked in general terms about economic catastrophe. Here is what it would mean. It would mean seniors going without Social Security benefits. It can mean troops going for weeks or even months without pay--the men and women in uniform who are out there protecting our country. Medicare may not be able to cover the costs of a doctor's visit. Those are just some of the governmental functions that could come to a grinding halt if we don't pay our debts on time, and we don't know the full extent of what would happen because, as I said, we have never been there before. This is uncharted territory. Economists estimate a very dire toll: 3 million jobs lost; $130,000 added to the cost of your average 30-year mortgage. I want everyone to hear that. The mortgage costs for homeowners would go up. And, of course, as the mortgage costs for homeowners go up, the value of everyone who has already got a House also goes down. Retirement accounts in free fall, skyrocketing borrowing costs on car loans, and we would be hit by this catastrophe just as we are recovering from the economic hit we took during the pandemic. And it would trigger an increase in costs just as we are beginning to turn the corner on inflation. So why would anyone do this? Why would someone threaten to do this? I have been listening very carefully to Speaker McCarthy and Republicans in the House, and they say that they want to reduce the deficit and the national debt. That is what they say, but this is one of those situations where you always say: Watch what they do, not what they say. The reality is that Republicans, through their actions and their records, don't care about the deficit and the debt. That is not their priority because, if they really cared about the deficit and the debt, they would not have passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts without a plan to pay for them--a tax cut, by the way, which disproportionately benefited the very, very rich and big multinational corporations--because that tax cut, that giveaway to the very wealthy and big corporations, it increased the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years, added to our national debt. As I said, we wouldn't even be here today, at this point in time, but for the fact that Republicans increased the deficit by $2 trillion. By the way, that is not my estimate, that $2 trillion. That is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, they could have joined us, just last year, when we closed a number of loopholes for big corporations, a measure that reduces the deficit by $238 billion over the next 10 years. That is something Democrats did. We didn't have a single Republican vote here in the Senate or in the House for that. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would not, as one of their very first measures, have passed a lawto slash the funding that the IRS desperately needs to enforce the law against wealthy tax cheats. Let me say that again. They cut the moneys that the IRS needs to enforce current tax law against very wealthy Americans and big corporations that are not paying what they owe today. They are getting away with cheating on their taxes, and Republicans cut the money that the IRS needs to go after them. And this is very explicitly, as the Secretary of Treasury said, talking about Americans who earn more than $400,000 every year, including lots of multimillionaires and billionaires in the country. So when you say the IRS can no longer have the funds to go after wealthy tax cheats, what happens? You collect less revenue from very wealthy people. And what happens when you collect less revenue from very wealthy people? You increase the deficit. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the action the House already took would increase the deficit by over $114 billion. This is from the Republicans in the House who are now threatening the United States not pay its bills, claiming that they care about the deficit and debt, when one of the very first actions that they took was to increase it. So that is just not the case. Their actions indicate that they don't care about the deficit. What is it really about? So what Republicans are really after is attacking critical investments that support the American people and that help strengthen our country. As one Republican strategist, Grover Norquist, once said, it is about shrinking the government down to the size where you can ``drown it in the bathtub.'' This House Republican majority is desperate to cut and decimate programs that Americans need and that our future requires. So, for example, they want to cut some of the new initiatives we undertook to supercharge American innovation. We passed legislation, the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to maintain our technological edge over China and others. They want to cut it. They want to roll back investments that we made that are already bringing more high-tech manufacturing jobs back to the United States. We want to ensure those manufacturing jobs. They want to continue to offshore those good jobs. They want to cut investments we are making in clean energy that will help us fight the climate crisis, strengthen the American workforce, and, yes, also help us better compete around the globe, where China has a huge headstart when it comes to things like electric batteries. They want to cut Pell grants, which help millions of Americans pursue a college degree. They want to cut investments we are finally making to modernize our national infrastructure--something that was very bipartisan here in the U.S. Senate. That is important for our roads, our bridges, our transit systems, our ports, our airports. They want to cut it. Some are talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security. That is just a partial list of what the House Republicans are threatening to do, and they are saying that if we don't all agree to that, they are not going to allow the United States to pay its bills on time. The bottom line here is, when you look at the Republican playbook, it is cutting investments that are important to the American people and important to the success of our country while pushing for more tax cuts for the superwealthy. This is not a new movie; this is a rerun; this is trickle-down economics. It is the same old playbook, and here they go again. But here is the thing: We have been here before. Some of us were here when this threat was last made. I vividly remember the year 2011. It was another moment when the Republicans were fresh--fresh--after winning a majority in the House of Representatives. I was in the House at the time. Then, as now, the Republicans said they really cared about the deficit and the debt. Then, as now, they threatened that they wouldn't pay the bills on time. They wouldn't vote to pay the country's bills on time. I remember back then that we sat down with them in good faith. President Obama tapped Vice President Biden to lead the budget negotiations, and a small bipartisan and bicameral group of us was selected to try to hammer out a plan. I was part of those discussions. They took place just off the floor here, down the hall, less than 15 yards away. We worked week after week after week, and we negotiated to try to hammer out an agreement. But here is what became very clear: The Republican objective then, as now, was not to reduce the deficit and the debt. The Republican objective was simply to cut investments in important areas. They didn't want to raise one penny--not one dime--to reduce the deficit or debt by closing tax breaks for very wealthy people. That was then. This is the same story today. If you look at the list of things they did back then--no cutting tax breaks for the wealthy, cutting important programs, including Medicare, were very much part of their agenda--we got very close to tripping over the final cliff of the debt ceiling. Like today, we had already hit the debt ceiling, and the Treasury Department was taking extraordinary measures to prevent us from actually defaulting on our debts. In fact, we got so close to actually not paying our bills on time that the S&P downgraded America's credit for the first time in our history. They said: You are getting very close to the place where creditors of the United States aren't going to anymore support the United States. They are not going to buy U.S. bonds. In fact, interest rates began to creep up just because of that when we got so close to the cliff. We came very close to going over that waterfall and crashing the economy. So many of us learned a valuable lesson that day. I learned it, and I know that then-Vice President, now-President Biden learned it, and that is that you don't negotiate over whether or not the United States pays its bills on time, because all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, have an obligation and a responsibility to do that. We also learned something I want to be equally clear about. We are not against negotiating about the budget. We are happy to sit down anytime with Republican colleagues and the Speaker of the House to negotiate all aspects of the budget. We can talk about spending levels, and we can talk about revenue levels. In fact, we have a budget process here. If Speaker McCarthy and his colleagues want to do this under the regular process and do it in a bipartisan way, they have to pass a budget resolution. They outline where they want to make cuts. I don't expect them to outline any proposed increases in revenue, but that is the place they would do that. Then we will have a debate. I serve on the Senate Budget Committee. I would look forward to that. I do look forward to that. I serve on the Appropriations Committee where we decide on expenditures. That is the forum for negotiation. The Democrats are for negotiating on the budget. We welcome that. Then the American people would see exactly what everyone's budget priorities are. They would see that the Republicans want to protect tax breaks for the very wealthy while they want to cut investments that are very important to middle America. They would see all of that during the budget process, but they want to short circuit that process. They, instead, want to say that they are not going to vote to pay our bills on time unless we all agree to their radical agenda. We are saying we are happy to negotiate--let's have a budget negotiation--but the negotiation isn't that you get everything you want in exchange for the Democrats' joining you to vote to pay our bills on time. We didn't do that when President Trump was in office. As I said, we voted three times to raise the debt limit. We didn't say: You have got to accept all of our proposed efforts to get rid of tax breaks for the very wealthy. Yet what they are saying is that we have got to accept their approach to deep cuts to important investments in order for them to do what all of us have an obligation under the Constitution to do, which is to pay our bills on time. So I hope all of us will do the simple thing--mandated in the Constitution--as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans. As Americans, let's pay our bills on time, and let's not crash our economy. Yes, as part of the normal budget process, let's have a conversation about spending and about revenue, but don't do it while, at the same time, you are saying you are not going to let the United States pay our bills on time. As I said in my opening remarks, we have always paid our bills on time. If you don't do it, really bad things happen to all Americans. So let's get that done, and then let's have our conversation about budget priorities. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. VAN HOLLEN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS189 | null | 5,737 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, let me begin with a simple statement which I hope every Senator in this body agrees with: that the United States of America pays its bills on time. We have since our Nation was founded. We never default on our debts. We always pay what we owe. We honor our financial obligations to all Americans and all those who invest in the American economy. And because we pay our bills on time, the United States has earned a reputation as a reliable, credible, and trustworthy partner aroundthe world, and that helps every single American and our entire economy. Now, as everybody in this Chamber knows, in order to maintain the full faith and credit of the United States, we have to raise the debt ceiling. And this is not about new spending. This is about paying the bills that are already due and already owing under the laws that we have already passed in this country and that have already been signed by Presidents of both parties. When Donald Trump was President of the United States, Republicans voted with Democrats to raise the debt limit three times, and the U.S. Congress has raised the debt limit a total of 78 times since 1960, under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. If the Government of the United States had failed to raise the debt ceiling in the past, we would have faced an economic catastrophe. Think about it this way: You wouldn't just wake up one day and decide not to make your mortgage payment or not to make your car payment. You pay what you owe. It is as simple as that. And you know that, if you were to wake up one morning and say that you are not paying your mortgage or you are not paying your car payment, you will face consequences. If you don't pay your mortgage, you could have your home foreclosed on. If you don't pay your car payments, your car can be repossessed. The same logic applies to the U.S. Government, but the consequences are not confined to just one individual or one homeowner or one car owner. If the United States fails to pay its bills on time, every American--everyone inside this room and everyone outside this room--will suffer the consequences. We are not talking about risking foreclosure on one house or losing one car. We are talking about the economy of our country grinding to a halt. If the United States stops paying our bills, our economy takes a nose dive. It is as simple as that. When I talk to my colleagues here on the Senate floor, both Republicans and Democrats, they agree that it is a no-brainer. You pay what you owe. You raise the debt ceiling. You don't default. It is common sense. In fact, I was listening just the other day to Republican leader Senator McConnell, who said: America must never default on its debt. He said that a few days ago. I agree. But across and on the other side of the Capitol, in the House of Representatives, Speaker McCarthy and the new majority, composed of some very rightwing and extreme Members, are taking their orders from former President Donald Trump, the same Donald Trump who as President signed three debt limit increases into law. Now he wants Republicans to use the debt limit as a club against President Biden. House Republicans are stalling our efforts right now to pay our bills on time, even though they know--just as Senator McConnell knows, just as every Senator here knows--that failing to do so would result in chaos and calamity for the country. It is a threat designed to force the rest of the U.S. Congress into enacting an extreme rightwing agenda. So let's be very clear. Here is what House Republicans are saying. They are saying: You do what we want or else we will tank the American economy. I think anybody hearing that proposition would recognize it for what it is--a form of economic terrorism. But MAGA Republicans are holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to impose their agenda on the American people. They have decided to politicize what should be a nonpartisan issue because Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate have voted for programs to require us to raise the debt ceiling in the past. In fact, I think it would be important to know that we would not be here at this time, on the Senate floor, having hit the debt ceiling and trying to work to make sure we avoid actually going over the cliff--we would not be here--if it was not for the tax cuts that were passed during the Trump administration. We would not be here at this particular moment. And, in fact, 25 percent of the total national debt was accumulated during the Trump administration--25 percent of the total debt of the United States, during the Trump administration. Now, I want to be clear, I am not saying this is all Republican debt, but it certainly is not all Democratic debt. This is the debt of the country. This is the debt owed by Uncle Sam. And what does the Constitution of the United States tell us about how we treat America's debt? Well, here is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution right here, and what it says is this: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. The Fourteenth Amendment passed shortly after the Civil War, and it is crystal clear that the obligation to pay America's debts is not a Democratic obligation; it is not a Republican obligation. It is an American obligation, and beyond being the right thing to do, it is in the Constitution of the United States. It is a national duty and a constitutional duty. So, as I listen to Speaker McCarthy and his Republican House colleagues, they want us to ignore the Fourteenth Amendment. They want to impose their reckless policies on the rest of us under threat of our doing what they want us to do. So I do want to be clear about what the consequences of this would be. I talked in general terms about economic catastrophe. Here is what it would mean. It would mean seniors going without Social Security benefits. It can mean troops going for weeks or even months without pay--the men and women in uniform who are out there protecting our country. Medicare may not be able to cover the costs of a doctor's visit. Those are just some of the governmental functions that could come to a grinding halt if we don't pay our debts on time, and we don't know the full extent of what would happen because, as I said, we have never been there before. This is uncharted territory. Economists estimate a very dire toll: 3 million jobs lost; $130,000 added to the cost of your average 30-year mortgage. I want everyone to hear that. The mortgage costs for homeowners would go up. And, of course, as the mortgage costs for homeowners go up, the value of everyone who has already got a House also goes down. Retirement accounts in free fall, skyrocketing borrowing costs on car loans, and we would be hit by this catastrophe just as we are recovering from the economic hit we took during the pandemic. And it would trigger an increase in costs just as we are beginning to turn the corner on inflation. So why would anyone do this? Why would someone threaten to do this? I have been listening very carefully to Speaker McCarthy and Republicans in the House, and they say that they want to reduce the deficit and the national debt. That is what they say, but this is one of those situations where you always say: Watch what they do, not what they say. The reality is that Republicans, through their actions and their records, don't care about the deficit and the debt. That is not their priority because, if they really cared about the deficit and the debt, they would not have passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts without a plan to pay for them--a tax cut, by the way, which disproportionately benefited the very, very rich and big multinational corporations--because that tax cut, that giveaway to the very wealthy and big corporations, it increased the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years, added to our national debt. As I said, we wouldn't even be here today, at this point in time, but for the fact that Republicans increased the deficit by $2 trillion. By the way, that is not my estimate, that $2 trillion. That is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, they could have joined us, just last year, when we closed a number of loopholes for big corporations, a measure that reduces the deficit by $238 billion over the next 10 years. That is something Democrats did. We didn't have a single Republican vote here in the Senate or in the House for that. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would not, as one of their very first measures, have passed a lawto slash the funding that the IRS desperately needs to enforce the law against wealthy tax cheats. Let me say that again. They cut the moneys that the IRS needs to enforce current tax law against very wealthy Americans and big corporations that are not paying what they owe today. They are getting away with cheating on their taxes, and Republicans cut the money that the IRS needs to go after them. And this is very explicitly, as the Secretary of Treasury said, talking about Americans who earn more than $400,000 every year, including lots of multimillionaires and billionaires in the country. So when you say the IRS can no longer have the funds to go after wealthy tax cheats, what happens? You collect less revenue from very wealthy people. And what happens when you collect less revenue from very wealthy people? You increase the deficit. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the action the House already took would increase the deficit by over $114 billion. This is from the Republicans in the House who are now threatening the United States not pay its bills, claiming that they care about the deficit and debt, when one of the very first actions that they took was to increase it. So that is just not the case. Their actions indicate that they don't care about the deficit. What is it really about? So what Republicans are really after is attacking critical investments that support the American people and that help strengthen our country. As one Republican strategist, Grover Norquist, once said, it is about shrinking the government down to the size where you can ``drown it in the bathtub.'' This House Republican majority is desperate to cut and decimate programs that Americans need and that our future requires. So, for example, they want to cut some of the new initiatives we undertook to supercharge American innovation. We passed legislation, the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to maintain our technological edge over China and others. They want to cut it. They want to roll back investments that we made that are already bringing more high-tech manufacturing jobs back to the United States. We want to ensure those manufacturing jobs. They want to continue to offshore those good jobs. They want to cut investments we are making in clean energy that will help us fight the climate crisis, strengthen the American workforce, and, yes, also help us better compete around the globe, where China has a huge headstart when it comes to things like electric batteries. They want to cut Pell grants, which help millions of Americans pursue a college degree. They want to cut investments we are finally making to modernize our national infrastructure--something that was very bipartisan here in the U.S. Senate. That is important for our roads, our bridges, our transit systems, our ports, our airports. They want to cut it. Some are talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security. That is just a partial list of what the House Republicans are threatening to do, and they are saying that if we don't all agree to that, they are not going to allow the United States to pay its bills on time. The bottom line here is, when you look at the Republican playbook, it is cutting investments that are important to the American people and important to the success of our country while pushing for more tax cuts for the superwealthy. This is not a new movie; this is a rerun; this is trickle-down economics. It is the same old playbook, and here they go again. But here is the thing: We have been here before. Some of us were here when this threat was last made. I vividly remember the year 2011. It was another moment when the Republicans were fresh--fresh--after winning a majority in the House of Representatives. I was in the House at the time. Then, as now, the Republicans said they really cared about the deficit and the debt. Then, as now, they threatened that they wouldn't pay the bills on time. They wouldn't vote to pay the country's bills on time. I remember back then that we sat down with them in good faith. President Obama tapped Vice President Biden to lead the budget negotiations, and a small bipartisan and bicameral group of us was selected to try to hammer out a plan. I was part of those discussions. They took place just off the floor here, down the hall, less than 15 yards away. We worked week after week after week, and we negotiated to try to hammer out an agreement. But here is what became very clear: The Republican objective then, as now, was not to reduce the deficit and the debt. The Republican objective was simply to cut investments in important areas. They didn't want to raise one penny--not one dime--to reduce the deficit or debt by closing tax breaks for very wealthy people. That was then. This is the same story today. If you look at the list of things they did back then--no cutting tax breaks for the wealthy, cutting important programs, including Medicare, were very much part of their agenda--we got very close to tripping over the final cliff of the debt ceiling. Like today, we had already hit the debt ceiling, and the Treasury Department was taking extraordinary measures to prevent us from actually defaulting on our debts. In fact, we got so close to actually not paying our bills on time that the S&P downgraded America's credit for the first time in our history. They said: You are getting very close to the place where creditors of the United States aren't going to anymore support the United States. They are not going to buy U.S. bonds. In fact, interest rates began to creep up just because of that when we got so close to the cliff. We came very close to going over that waterfall and crashing the economy. So many of us learned a valuable lesson that day. I learned it, and I know that then-Vice President, now-President Biden learned it, and that is that you don't negotiate over whether or not the United States pays its bills on time, because all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, have an obligation and a responsibility to do that. We also learned something I want to be equally clear about. We are not against negotiating about the budget. We are happy to sit down anytime with Republican colleagues and the Speaker of the House to negotiate all aspects of the budget. We can talk about spending levels, and we can talk about revenue levels. In fact, we have a budget process here. If Speaker McCarthy and his colleagues want to do this under the regular process and do it in a bipartisan way, they have to pass a budget resolution. They outline where they want to make cuts. I don't expect them to outline any proposed increases in revenue, but that is the place they would do that. Then we will have a debate. I serve on the Senate Budget Committee. I would look forward to that. I do look forward to that. I serve on the Appropriations Committee where we decide on expenditures. That is the forum for negotiation. The Democrats are for negotiating on the budget. We welcome that. Then the American people would see exactly what everyone's budget priorities are. They would see that the Republicans want to protect tax breaks for the very wealthy while they want to cut investments that are very important to middle America. They would see all of that during the budget process, but they want to short circuit that process. They, instead, want to say that they are not going to vote to pay our bills on time unless we all agree to their radical agenda. We are saying we are happy to negotiate--let's have a budget negotiation--but the negotiation isn't that you get everything you want in exchange for the Democrats' joining you to vote to pay our bills on time. We didn't do that when President Trump was in office. As I said, we voted three times to raise the debt limit. We didn't say: You have got to accept all of our proposed efforts to get rid of tax breaks for the very wealthy. Yet what they are saying is that we have got to accept their approach to deep cuts to important investments in order for them to do what all of us have an obligation under the Constitution to do, which is to pay our bills on time. So I hope all of us will do the simple thing--mandated in the Constitution--as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans. As Americans, let's pay our bills on time, and let's not crash our economy. Yes, as part of the normal budget process, let's have a conversation about spending and about revenue, but don't do it while, at the same time, you are saying you are not going to let the United States pay our bills on time. As I said in my opening remarks, we have always paid our bills on time. If you don't do it, really bad things happen to all Americans. So let's get that done, and then let's have our conversation about budget priorities. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. VAN HOLLEN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS189 | null | 5,738 |
formal | MAGA | null | white supremacist | Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, let me begin with a simple statement which I hope every Senator in this body agrees with: that the United States of America pays its bills on time. We have since our Nation was founded. We never default on our debts. We always pay what we owe. We honor our financial obligations to all Americans and all those who invest in the American economy. And because we pay our bills on time, the United States has earned a reputation as a reliable, credible, and trustworthy partner aroundthe world, and that helps every single American and our entire economy. Now, as everybody in this Chamber knows, in order to maintain the full faith and credit of the United States, we have to raise the debt ceiling. And this is not about new spending. This is about paying the bills that are already due and already owing under the laws that we have already passed in this country and that have already been signed by Presidents of both parties. When Donald Trump was President of the United States, Republicans voted with Democrats to raise the debt limit three times, and the U.S. Congress has raised the debt limit a total of 78 times since 1960, under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. If the Government of the United States had failed to raise the debt ceiling in the past, we would have faced an economic catastrophe. Think about it this way: You wouldn't just wake up one day and decide not to make your mortgage payment or not to make your car payment. You pay what you owe. It is as simple as that. And you know that, if you were to wake up one morning and say that you are not paying your mortgage or you are not paying your car payment, you will face consequences. If you don't pay your mortgage, you could have your home foreclosed on. If you don't pay your car payments, your car can be repossessed. The same logic applies to the U.S. Government, but the consequences are not confined to just one individual or one homeowner or one car owner. If the United States fails to pay its bills on time, every American--everyone inside this room and everyone outside this room--will suffer the consequences. We are not talking about risking foreclosure on one house or losing one car. We are talking about the economy of our country grinding to a halt. If the United States stops paying our bills, our economy takes a nose dive. It is as simple as that. When I talk to my colleagues here on the Senate floor, both Republicans and Democrats, they agree that it is a no-brainer. You pay what you owe. You raise the debt ceiling. You don't default. It is common sense. In fact, I was listening just the other day to Republican leader Senator McConnell, who said: America must never default on its debt. He said that a few days ago. I agree. But across and on the other side of the Capitol, in the House of Representatives, Speaker McCarthy and the new majority, composed of some very rightwing and extreme Members, are taking their orders from former President Donald Trump, the same Donald Trump who as President signed three debt limit increases into law. Now he wants Republicans to use the debt limit as a club against President Biden. House Republicans are stalling our efforts right now to pay our bills on time, even though they know--just as Senator McConnell knows, just as every Senator here knows--that failing to do so would result in chaos and calamity for the country. It is a threat designed to force the rest of the U.S. Congress into enacting an extreme rightwing agenda. So let's be very clear. Here is what House Republicans are saying. They are saying: You do what we want or else we will tank the American economy. I think anybody hearing that proposition would recognize it for what it is--a form of economic terrorism. But MAGA Republicans are holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to impose their agenda on the American people. They have decided to politicize what should be a nonpartisan issue because Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate have voted for programs to require us to raise the debt ceiling in the past. In fact, I think it would be important to know that we would not be here at this time, on the Senate floor, having hit the debt ceiling and trying to work to make sure we avoid actually going over the cliff--we would not be here--if it was not for the tax cuts that were passed during the Trump administration. We would not be here at this particular moment. And, in fact, 25 percent of the total national debt was accumulated during the Trump administration--25 percent of the total debt of the United States, during the Trump administration. Now, I want to be clear, I am not saying this is all Republican debt, but it certainly is not all Democratic debt. This is the debt of the country. This is the debt owed by Uncle Sam. And what does the Constitution of the United States tell us about how we treat America's debt? Well, here is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution right here, and what it says is this: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. The Fourteenth Amendment passed shortly after the Civil War, and it is crystal clear that the obligation to pay America's debts is not a Democratic obligation; it is not a Republican obligation. It is an American obligation, and beyond being the right thing to do, it is in the Constitution of the United States. It is a national duty and a constitutional duty. So, as I listen to Speaker McCarthy and his Republican House colleagues, they want us to ignore the Fourteenth Amendment. They want to impose their reckless policies on the rest of us under threat of our doing what they want us to do. So I do want to be clear about what the consequences of this would be. I talked in general terms about economic catastrophe. Here is what it would mean. It would mean seniors going without Social Security benefits. It can mean troops going for weeks or even months without pay--the men and women in uniform who are out there protecting our country. Medicare may not be able to cover the costs of a doctor's visit. Those are just some of the governmental functions that could come to a grinding halt if we don't pay our debts on time, and we don't know the full extent of what would happen because, as I said, we have never been there before. This is uncharted territory. Economists estimate a very dire toll: 3 million jobs lost; $130,000 added to the cost of your average 30-year mortgage. I want everyone to hear that. The mortgage costs for homeowners would go up. And, of course, as the mortgage costs for homeowners go up, the value of everyone who has already got a House also goes down. Retirement accounts in free fall, skyrocketing borrowing costs on car loans, and we would be hit by this catastrophe just as we are recovering from the economic hit we took during the pandemic. And it would trigger an increase in costs just as we are beginning to turn the corner on inflation. So why would anyone do this? Why would someone threaten to do this? I have been listening very carefully to Speaker McCarthy and Republicans in the House, and they say that they want to reduce the deficit and the national debt. That is what they say, but this is one of those situations where you always say: Watch what they do, not what they say. The reality is that Republicans, through their actions and their records, don't care about the deficit and the debt. That is not their priority because, if they really cared about the deficit and the debt, they would not have passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts without a plan to pay for them--a tax cut, by the way, which disproportionately benefited the very, very rich and big multinational corporations--because that tax cut, that giveaway to the very wealthy and big corporations, it increased the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years, added to our national debt. As I said, we wouldn't even be here today, at this point in time, but for the fact that Republicans increased the deficit by $2 trillion. By the way, that is not my estimate, that $2 trillion. That is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, they could have joined us, just last year, when we closed a number of loopholes for big corporations, a measure that reduces the deficit by $238 billion over the next 10 years. That is something Democrats did. We didn't have a single Republican vote here in the Senate or in the House for that. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would not, as one of their very first measures, have passed a lawto slash the funding that the IRS desperately needs to enforce the law against wealthy tax cheats. Let me say that again. They cut the moneys that the IRS needs to enforce current tax law against very wealthy Americans and big corporations that are not paying what they owe today. They are getting away with cheating on their taxes, and Republicans cut the money that the IRS needs to go after them. And this is very explicitly, as the Secretary of Treasury said, talking about Americans who earn more than $400,000 every year, including lots of multimillionaires and billionaires in the country. So when you say the IRS can no longer have the funds to go after wealthy tax cheats, what happens? You collect less revenue from very wealthy people. And what happens when you collect less revenue from very wealthy people? You increase the deficit. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the action the House already took would increase the deficit by over $114 billion. This is from the Republicans in the House who are now threatening the United States not pay its bills, claiming that they care about the deficit and debt, when one of the very first actions that they took was to increase it. So that is just not the case. Their actions indicate that they don't care about the deficit. What is it really about? So what Republicans are really after is attacking critical investments that support the American people and that help strengthen our country. As one Republican strategist, Grover Norquist, once said, it is about shrinking the government down to the size where you can ``drown it in the bathtub.'' This House Republican majority is desperate to cut and decimate programs that Americans need and that our future requires. So, for example, they want to cut some of the new initiatives we undertook to supercharge American innovation. We passed legislation, the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to maintain our technological edge over China and others. They want to cut it. They want to roll back investments that we made that are already bringing more high-tech manufacturing jobs back to the United States. We want to ensure those manufacturing jobs. They want to continue to offshore those good jobs. They want to cut investments we are making in clean energy that will help us fight the climate crisis, strengthen the American workforce, and, yes, also help us better compete around the globe, where China has a huge headstart when it comes to things like electric batteries. They want to cut Pell grants, which help millions of Americans pursue a college degree. They want to cut investments we are finally making to modernize our national infrastructure--something that was very bipartisan here in the U.S. Senate. That is important for our roads, our bridges, our transit systems, our ports, our airports. They want to cut it. Some are talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security. That is just a partial list of what the House Republicans are threatening to do, and they are saying that if we don't all agree to that, they are not going to allow the United States to pay its bills on time. The bottom line here is, when you look at the Republican playbook, it is cutting investments that are important to the American people and important to the success of our country while pushing for more tax cuts for the superwealthy. This is not a new movie; this is a rerun; this is trickle-down economics. It is the same old playbook, and here they go again. But here is the thing: We have been here before. Some of us were here when this threat was last made. I vividly remember the year 2011. It was another moment when the Republicans were fresh--fresh--after winning a majority in the House of Representatives. I was in the House at the time. Then, as now, the Republicans said they really cared about the deficit and the debt. Then, as now, they threatened that they wouldn't pay the bills on time. They wouldn't vote to pay the country's bills on time. I remember back then that we sat down with them in good faith. President Obama tapped Vice President Biden to lead the budget negotiations, and a small bipartisan and bicameral group of us was selected to try to hammer out a plan. I was part of those discussions. They took place just off the floor here, down the hall, less than 15 yards away. We worked week after week after week, and we negotiated to try to hammer out an agreement. But here is what became very clear: The Republican objective then, as now, was not to reduce the deficit and the debt. The Republican objective was simply to cut investments in important areas. They didn't want to raise one penny--not one dime--to reduce the deficit or debt by closing tax breaks for very wealthy people. That was then. This is the same story today. If you look at the list of things they did back then--no cutting tax breaks for the wealthy, cutting important programs, including Medicare, were very much part of their agenda--we got very close to tripping over the final cliff of the debt ceiling. Like today, we had already hit the debt ceiling, and the Treasury Department was taking extraordinary measures to prevent us from actually defaulting on our debts. In fact, we got so close to actually not paying our bills on time that the S&P downgraded America's credit for the first time in our history. They said: You are getting very close to the place where creditors of the United States aren't going to anymore support the United States. They are not going to buy U.S. bonds. In fact, interest rates began to creep up just because of that when we got so close to the cliff. We came very close to going over that waterfall and crashing the economy. So many of us learned a valuable lesson that day. I learned it, and I know that then-Vice President, now-President Biden learned it, and that is that you don't negotiate over whether or not the United States pays its bills on time, because all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, have an obligation and a responsibility to do that. We also learned something I want to be equally clear about. We are not against negotiating about the budget. We are happy to sit down anytime with Republican colleagues and the Speaker of the House to negotiate all aspects of the budget. We can talk about spending levels, and we can talk about revenue levels. In fact, we have a budget process here. If Speaker McCarthy and his colleagues want to do this under the regular process and do it in a bipartisan way, they have to pass a budget resolution. They outline where they want to make cuts. I don't expect them to outline any proposed increases in revenue, but that is the place they would do that. Then we will have a debate. I serve on the Senate Budget Committee. I would look forward to that. I do look forward to that. I serve on the Appropriations Committee where we decide on expenditures. That is the forum for negotiation. The Democrats are for negotiating on the budget. We welcome that. Then the American people would see exactly what everyone's budget priorities are. They would see that the Republicans want to protect tax breaks for the very wealthy while they want to cut investments that are very important to middle America. They would see all of that during the budget process, but they want to short circuit that process. They, instead, want to say that they are not going to vote to pay our bills on time unless we all agree to their radical agenda. We are saying we are happy to negotiate--let's have a budget negotiation--but the negotiation isn't that you get everything you want in exchange for the Democrats' joining you to vote to pay our bills on time. We didn't do that when President Trump was in office. As I said, we voted three times to raise the debt limit. We didn't say: You have got to accept all of our proposed efforts to get rid of tax breaks for the very wealthy. Yet what they are saying is that we have got to accept their approach to deep cuts to important investments in order for them to do what all of us have an obligation under the Constitution to do, which is to pay our bills on time. So I hope all of us will do the simple thing--mandated in the Constitution--as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans. As Americans, let's pay our bills on time, and let's not crash our economy. Yes, as part of the normal budget process, let's have a conversation about spending and about revenue, but don't do it while, at the same time, you are saying you are not going to let the United States pay our bills on time. As I said in my opening remarks, we have always paid our bills on time. If you don't do it, really bad things happen to all Americans. So let's get that done, and then let's have our conversation about budget priorities. I yield the floor. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. VAN HOLLEN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS189 | null | 5,739 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated: EC-242. A communication from the Senior Attorney for Regulatory Affairs, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Hazardous Materials: Editorial Corrections and Clarifications'' (RIN2137-AF56) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-243. A communication from the Chair, National Transportation Safety Board, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to the Commission's competitive sourcing efforts during fiscal year 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-244. A communication from the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of Commerce, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Spiny Dogfish Fishery; 2019- 2021 Spiny Dogfish Specifications'' (RIN0648-XG800) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-245. A communication from the Branch Chief of the Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of Commerce, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Pollock in Statistical Area 630 in the Gulf of Alaska'' (RIN0648-XA774) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-246. A communication from the Acting Branch Chief of the Office of Sustainable Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of Commerce, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Fisheries of the Northeastern United States; Mid-Atlantic Blueline Tilefish Fishery; Final 2022 and 2023 and Projected 2024 Specifications'' (RIN0648-XC411) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 13, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-247. A communication from the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Affairs, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of Commerce, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Atlantic Highly Migratory Species; Adjustments to 2019 Northern Albacore Tuna Quota, 2019 North and South Atlantic Swordfish Quotas, and 2019 Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Reserve Category Quota'' (RIN0648-XT006) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-248. A communication from the Secretary of the Maritime Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Tanker Security Program'' (RIN2133-AB95) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 2, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-249. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Medical Certification Standards for Commercial Balloon Operations'' ((RIN2120-AL51) (Docket No. FAA-2021-1040)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-250. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Increase the Duration of Aircraft Registration'' ((RIN2120-AL45) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1514)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-251. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4031'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31454)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-252. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Yaw Maneuver Conditions - Rudder Reversals'' ((RIN2120-AK89) (FAA-2018-0653)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-253. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4033'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31456)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-254. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4034'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31457)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-255. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standard Instrument Approach Procedures, and Takeoff Minimums and Obstacle Departure Procedures; Miscellaneous Amendments; Amendment No. 4032'' ((RIN2120- AA65) (Docket No. 31455)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-256. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment to VOR Federal Airway V-426 and Jet Route J-125, and Establishment of United States Area Navigation Route T-399 in the Vicinity of Clear, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2021-0245)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-257. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishment of United States Area Navigation (RNAV) T-Route T-378; Fort Yukon, AK'' ((RIN2120- AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0232)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-258. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of VOR Federal Airways V-26, and V-63; Establishment of Area Navigation (RNAV) Route T-464; and Revocation of the Wausau, WI, Low Altitude Reporting Point; in the Vicinity of Wausau, WI'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0243)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-259. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of R-2206 and Establishment of Restricted Areas R-2206B, R-2206C, R-2206D , R-2206E, R- 2206F, and R-2206G; Clear, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2020-0755)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-260. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of United States Area Navigation (RNAV) Route T-269; Yakutat, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2021-1152)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-261. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishment of United States Area Navigation (RNAV) Route T-380; Emmonak, AK'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0245)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-262. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Eagle Lake, TX'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0924)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-263. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Multiple Indiana Towns'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0871)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-264. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revocation of Class E Airspace; Startford, TX'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0970)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-265. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Bloomfield, IA'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0773)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-266. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Duluth, MN'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0904)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-267. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class C Airspace; Evansville, IN'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1209)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-268. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Colorado Plains Regional Airport, CO'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0711)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-269. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class D Airspace and Class E Airspace; Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport, MT'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0764)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-270. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Liberal, KS'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1004)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-271. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Independence and Pittsburg, KS'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022- 1007)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-272. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Class E Airspace; Menominee, MI'' ((RIN2120-AA66) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1003)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-273. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Hoffman GmbH and Co. KG Propellers; Amendment 39-22212'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0980)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-274. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Viking Air Limited (Type Certificate Previously Held by Bombardier, Inc. and de Havilland) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22235'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1490)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-275. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22199'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0159)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-276. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Leonardo S.p.a. Helicopters; Amendment 39-22218'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1307)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-277. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bell Textron Inc., Erickson 214 Holdings, LLC, Leonardo S.p.a., and Various Restricted Category Helicopters; Amendment 39-22227'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1402)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-278. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited (Type Certificate Previously Held by Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22228'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0672)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-279. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22197'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0817)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-280. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22186'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1164)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-281. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22200'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1247)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-282. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22201'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0986)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-283. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Diamond Aircraft Industries GmbH Airplanes; Amendment 39-22214'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2021-1070)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-284. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Type Certificate Previously Held by C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP); Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22202'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0982)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-285. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Deutsche Aircraft GmbH (Type Certificate Previously Held by 328 Support Services GmbH; Avcraft Aerospace GmbH; Fairchild Dornier GmbH; Dornier Luftfahrt GmbH) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22206'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0688)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-286. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Viking Air Limited (Type Certificate Previously Held by Bombardier, Inc. and de Havilland) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22240'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1420)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-287. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters; Amendment 39-22217'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0988)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-288. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22216'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1052)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-289. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22213'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0673)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-290. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Fokker Services B.V. Airplanes; Amendment 39-22211'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1299)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-291. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Gulfstream Aerospace LP (Type Certificate Previously Held by Israel Aircraft Industries, Ltd.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22215'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0887)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-292. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22222'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0682)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-293. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Embraer S.A. Airplanes; Amendment 39-22207'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0984)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-294. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bell Textron Canada Limited Helicopters; Amendment 39-22188'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0807)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-295. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bell Textron Canada Limited (Type Certificate Previously Held by Bell Helicopter Textron Canada Limited) Helicopters; Amendment 39- 22223'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0286)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-296. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Piaggio Aviation S.p.A. (Type Certificate Previously Held by Piaggio Aero Industries S.p.A.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22222'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0599)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-297. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bombardier, Inc., Airplanes; Amendment 39-22231'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1065)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-298. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bell Textron Canada Limited Helicopters; Amendment 39-22248'' ((RIN2120- AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1481)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-299. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bell Textron Inc., Helicopters and Various Restricted Category Helicopters; Amendment 39-22198'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0460)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-300. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22225'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1066)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-301. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22224'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1064)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-302. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22226'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1060)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-303. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Bell Textron Canada Limited (Type Certificate Previously Held by Bell Helicopter Textron Canada Limited) Helicopters; Amendment 39- 22229'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0992)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-304. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus SAS Airplanes; Amendment 39-22219'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0503)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-305. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22239'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1059)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-306. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; Airbus Helicopters; Amendment 39-22232'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0808)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-307. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22237'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0156)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-308. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes; Amendment 39-22238'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0103)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-309. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; BAE Systems (Operations) Limited Airplanes; Amendment 39-22234'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-1053)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-310. A communication from the Management and Program Analyst, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Airworthiness Directives; MHI RJ Aviation ULC (Type Certificate Previously Held by Bombardier, Inc.) Airplanes; Amendment 39-22209'' ((RIN2120-AA64) (Docket No. FAA-2022-0885)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-311. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Butte, Montana'' (MB Docket No. 22- 115) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-312. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Great Falls, Montana'' (MB Docket No. 22-117) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-313. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Helena, Montana'' (MB Docket No. 22- 118) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-314. A communication from the Program Analyst, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Empowering Broadband Consumers Through Transparency, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking'' ((FCC 22-86) (CG Docket No. 22-2)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-315. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Wireline Competition Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Establishing the Digital Opportunity Data Collection, Modernizing the FCC form 477 Data Program'' (WC Docket Nos. 19-195 and 11-10) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-316. A communication from the Chief of Staff, Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Television Broadcasting Services; Missoula, Montana'' (MB Docket No. 22- 116) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-317. A communication from the Honors Attorney, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``3.45 GHz Clearinghouse Selection Committee Order'' (WT Docket No. 19-348) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on December 21, 2022; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-318. A communication from the Acting Chief of Engineering and Technology, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Protecting Against National Security Threats to the Communications Supply Chain through the Equipment Authorization Program; Protecting Against National Security Threats to the Communications Supply Chain through the Competitive Bidding Program'' ((FCC 22-84) (ET Docket No. 21- 232) (EA Docket No. 21-233)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 10, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-319. A communication from the Bureau Chief, Wireline Competition Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Wireline Competition Bureau released a Fourth Report and Order and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking entitled Affordable Connectivity Program'' ((RIN3060-AL16) (FCC 22-87) (WC Docket No. 21-450)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 10, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-320. A communication from the Division Chief for Regulatory Development, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Incorporation by Reference; North American Standard Out-of- Service Criteria; Hazardous Materials Safety Permits'' (RIN2126-AC48) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 10, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-321. A communication from the Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Director for Financial Management, Office of the Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for Administration, Department of Commerce, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Civil Monetary Penalty Adjustments for Inflation'' (RIN0605-AA65) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 10, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-322. A communication from the Program Analyst, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of Part 90 of the Commission's Rules, Seventh Report and Order and Ninth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking'' ((FCC 23-3) (WP Docket No. 07-100)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-323. A communication from the Chief of Revenue and Receivables, Office of Managing Director, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment of the FY 2023 Schedule of Application Fees Set Forth in Sections 1.1102 Through 1.1109 of the Commission's Rules'' ((FCC 22-94) (MD Docket No. 20-270)) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-324. A communication from the Secretary of the Federal Trade Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Procedures for Submission of Rules Under the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-325. A communication from the Secretary of the Federal Trade Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Energy Labeling Rule'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-326. A communication from the Secretary of the Federal Trade Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Policy Statement of the Federal Trade Commission on Education Technology and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-327. A communication from the Secretary of the Federal Trade Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Statement of the Commission on Use of Prior Approval Provisions in Merger Orders'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-328. A communication from the Secretary of the Federal Trade Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Policy Statement on Enforcement Related to Gig Work'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-329. A communication from the Secretary of the Federal Trade Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Procedures for Responding to Petitions for Rulemaking'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-330. A communication from the Chairman of the Office of Proceedings, Surface Transportation Board, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Final Offer Rate Review'' ((RIN2140-AB46) (Docket No. EP 755) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-331. A communication from the Senior Attorney, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Department of Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Hazardous Materials: Enhanced Safety Provisions for Lithium Batteries Transported by Aircraft (FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018)'' (RIN2137-AF20) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-332. A communication from the Chair, National Transportation Safety Board, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Civil Monetary Penalty Annual Inflation Adjustment'' (RIN3147-AA24) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. EC-333. A communication from the Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report on D.C. Act 24-789, ``Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. EC-334. A communication from the Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to D.C. Act 24-789, ``Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS199-5 | null | 5,740 |
formal | religious freedom | null | homophobic | Mr. DAINES (for himself, Mrs. Hyde-Smith, Mr. Lankford, Mr. Braun, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Scott of Florida, Mr. Risch, Mr. Thune, Mr. Tillis, Mr. Hoeven, Mr. Cramer, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Wicker, Mr. Hawley, Mr. Cruz, and Mr. Lee) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary: S. Con. Res. 3 Whereas the democracy of the United States is rooted in the fundamental truth that all people are created equal, endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; Whereas the freedom of conscience was highly valued by-- (1) individuals seeking religious freedom who settled in the colonies in the United States; (2) the founders of the United States; and (3) Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in a letter to the Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, Connecticut, dated February 4, 1809, that ``[n]o provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprizes of the civil authority''; Whereas the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was-- (1) drafted by Thomas Jefferson, who considered the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom to be one of his greatest achievements; (2) enacted on January 16, 1786; and (3) the forerunner to the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; Whereas section 2(a) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401(a)) states that-- (1) ``[t]he right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States''; and (2) religious freedom was established by the founders of the United States ``in law, as a fundamental right and as a pillar of our Nation''; Whereas the role of religion in society and public life in the United States has a long and robust tradition; Whereas individuals who have studied the democracy of the United States from an international perspective, such as Alexis de Tocqueville, have noted that religion plays a central role in preserving the Government of the United States because religion provides the moral base required for democracy to succeed; Whereas, in Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014), the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that ``people of many faiths may be united in a community of tolerance and devotion''; Whereas the principle of religious freedom ``has guided our Nation forward'', as expressed by the 44th President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 2011, and freedom of religion ``is a universal human right to be protected here at home and across the globe'', as expressed by that President of the United States on Religious Freedom Day in 2013; Whereas ``[f]reedom of religion is a fundamental human right that must be upheld by every nation and guaranteed by every government'', as expressed by the 42nd President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 1999; Whereas the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects-- (1) the right of individuals to freely express and act on the religious beliefs of those individuals; and (2) individuals from coercion to profess or act on a religious belief to which those individuals do not adhere; Whereas ``our laws and institutions should not impede or hinder but rather should protect and preserve fundamental religious liberties'', as expressed by the 42nd President of the United States in remarks accompanying the signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq.); Whereas, for countless people of the United States, faith is an integral part of every aspect of daily life and is not limited to the homes, houses of worship, or doctrinal creeds of those individuals; Whereas ``religious faith has inspired many of our fellow citizens to help build a better Nation'' in which ``people of faith continue to wage a determined campaign to meet needs and fight suffering'', as expressed by the 43rd President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 2003; Whereas, ``[f]rom its birth to this day, the United States has prized this legacy of religious freedom and honored this heritage by standing for religious freedom and offering refuge to those suffering religious persecution'', as noted in section 2(a) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401(a)); Whereas Thomas Jefferson wrote-- (1) in 1798 that each right encompassed in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is dependent on the other rights described in that Amendment, ``thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press: insomuch, that whatever violated either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others''; and (2) in 1822 that the constitutional freedom of religion is ``the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights''; Whereas religious freedom ``has been integral to the preservation and development of the United States'', and ``the free exercise of religion goes hand in hand with the preservation of our other rights'', as expressed by the 41st President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 1993; and Whereas we ``continue to proclaim the fundamental right of all peoples to believe and worship according to their own conscience, to affirm their beliefs openly and freely, and to practice their faith without fear or intimidation'', as expressed by the 42nd President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 1998: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That Congress-- (1) on Religious Freedom Day on January 16, 2023, honors the 237th anniversary of the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom; and (2) affirms that-- (A) for individuals of any faith and individuals of no faith, religious freedom includes the right of an individual to live, work, associate, and worship in accordance with the beliefs of the individual; (B) all people of the United States can be unified in supporting religious freedom, regardless of differing individual beliefs, because religious freedom is a fundamental human right; and (C) ``the American people will remain forever unshackled in matters of faith'', as expressed by the 44th President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 2012. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS211 | null | 5,741 |
formal | freedom of religion | null | homophobic | Mr. DAINES (for himself, Mrs. Hyde-Smith, Mr. Lankford, Mr. Braun, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Scott of Florida, Mr. Risch, Mr. Thune, Mr. Tillis, Mr. Hoeven, Mr. Cramer, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Wicker, Mr. Hawley, Mr. Cruz, and Mr. Lee) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary: S. Con. Res. 3 Whereas the democracy of the United States is rooted in the fundamental truth that all people are created equal, endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; Whereas the freedom of conscience was highly valued by-- (1) individuals seeking religious freedom who settled in the colonies in the United States; (2) the founders of the United States; and (3) Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in a letter to the Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, Connecticut, dated February 4, 1809, that ``[n]o provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprizes of the civil authority''; Whereas the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was-- (1) drafted by Thomas Jefferson, who considered the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom to be one of his greatest achievements; (2) enacted on January 16, 1786; and (3) the forerunner to the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; Whereas section 2(a) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401(a)) states that-- (1) ``[t]he right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States''; and (2) religious freedom was established by the founders of the United States ``in law, as a fundamental right and as a pillar of our Nation''; Whereas the role of religion in society and public life in the United States has a long and robust tradition; Whereas individuals who have studied the democracy of the United States from an international perspective, such as Alexis de Tocqueville, have noted that religion plays a central role in preserving the Government of the United States because religion provides the moral base required for democracy to succeed; Whereas, in Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014), the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that ``people of many faiths may be united in a community of tolerance and devotion''; Whereas the principle of religious freedom ``has guided our Nation forward'', as expressed by the 44th President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 2011, and freedom of religion ``is a universal human right to be protected here at home and across the globe'', as expressed by that President of the United States on Religious Freedom Day in 2013; Whereas ``[f]reedom of religion is a fundamental human right that must be upheld by every nation and guaranteed by every government'', as expressed by the 42nd President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 1999; Whereas the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects-- (1) the right of individuals to freely express and act on the religious beliefs of those individuals; and (2) individuals from coercion to profess or act on a religious belief to which those individuals do not adhere; Whereas ``our laws and institutions should not impede or hinder but rather should protect and preserve fundamental religious liberties'', as expressed by the 42nd President of the United States in remarks accompanying the signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq.); Whereas, for countless people of the United States, faith is an integral part of every aspect of daily life and is not limited to the homes, houses of worship, or doctrinal creeds of those individuals; Whereas ``religious faith has inspired many of our fellow citizens to help build a better Nation'' in which ``people of faith continue to wage a determined campaign to meet needs and fight suffering'', as expressed by the 43rd President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 2003; Whereas, ``[f]rom its birth to this day, the United States has prized this legacy of religious freedom and honored this heritage by standing for religious freedom and offering refuge to those suffering religious persecution'', as noted in section 2(a) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401(a)); Whereas Thomas Jefferson wrote-- (1) in 1798 that each right encompassed in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is dependent on the other rights described in that Amendment, ``thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press: insomuch, that whatever violated either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others''; and (2) in 1822 that the constitutional freedom of religion is ``the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights''; Whereas religious freedom ``has been integral to the preservation and development of the United States'', and ``the free exercise of religion goes hand in hand with the preservation of our other rights'', as expressed by the 41st President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 1993; and Whereas we ``continue to proclaim the fundamental right of all peoples to believe and worship according to their own conscience, to affirm their beliefs openly and freely, and to practice their faith without fear or intimidation'', as expressed by the 42nd President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 1998: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That Congress-- (1) on Religious Freedom Day on January 16, 2023, honors the 237th anniversary of the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom; and (2) affirms that-- (A) for individuals of any faith and individuals of no faith, religious freedom includes the right of an individual to live, work, associate, and worship in accordance with the beliefs of the individual; (B) all people of the United States can be unified in supporting religious freedom, regardless of differing individual beliefs, because religious freedom is a fundamental human right; and (C) ``the American people will remain forever unshackled in matters of faith'', as expressed by the 44th President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 2012. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS211 | null | 5,742 |
formal | religious liberties | null | homophobic | Mr. DAINES (for himself, Mrs. Hyde-Smith, Mr. Lankford, Mr. Braun, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Scott of Florida, Mr. Risch, Mr. Thune, Mr. Tillis, Mr. Hoeven, Mr. Cramer, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Wicker, Mr. Hawley, Mr. Cruz, and Mr. Lee) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary: S. Con. Res. 3 Whereas the democracy of the United States is rooted in the fundamental truth that all people are created equal, endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; Whereas the freedom of conscience was highly valued by-- (1) individuals seeking religious freedom who settled in the colonies in the United States; (2) the founders of the United States; and (3) Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in a letter to the Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, Connecticut, dated February 4, 1809, that ``[n]o provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprizes of the civil authority''; Whereas the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was-- (1) drafted by Thomas Jefferson, who considered the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom to be one of his greatest achievements; (2) enacted on January 16, 1786; and (3) the forerunner to the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; Whereas section 2(a) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401(a)) states that-- (1) ``[t]he right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States''; and (2) religious freedom was established by the founders of the United States ``in law, as a fundamental right and as a pillar of our Nation''; Whereas the role of religion in society and public life in the United States has a long and robust tradition; Whereas individuals who have studied the democracy of the United States from an international perspective, such as Alexis de Tocqueville, have noted that religion plays a central role in preserving the Government of the United States because religion provides the moral base required for democracy to succeed; Whereas, in Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. 565 (2014), the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that ``people of many faiths may be united in a community of tolerance and devotion''; Whereas the principle of religious freedom ``has guided our Nation forward'', as expressed by the 44th President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 2011, and freedom of religion ``is a universal human right to be protected here at home and across the globe'', as expressed by that President of the United States on Religious Freedom Day in 2013; Whereas ``[f]reedom of religion is a fundamental human right that must be upheld by every nation and guaranteed by every government'', as expressed by the 42nd President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 1999; Whereas the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects-- (1) the right of individuals to freely express and act on the religious beliefs of those individuals; and (2) individuals from coercion to profess or act on a religious belief to which those individuals do not adhere; Whereas ``our laws and institutions should not impede or hinder but rather should protect and preserve fundamental religious liberties'', as expressed by the 42nd President of the United States in remarks accompanying the signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq.); Whereas, for countless people of the United States, faith is an integral part of every aspect of daily life and is not limited to the homes, houses of worship, or doctrinal creeds of those individuals; Whereas ``religious faith has inspired many of our fellow citizens to help build a better Nation'' in which ``people of faith continue to wage a determined campaign to meet needs and fight suffering'', as expressed by the 43rd President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 2003; Whereas, ``[f]rom its birth to this day, the United States has prized this legacy of religious freedom and honored this heritage by standing for religious freedom and offering refuge to those suffering religious persecution'', as noted in section 2(a) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401(a)); Whereas Thomas Jefferson wrote-- (1) in 1798 that each right encompassed in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is dependent on the other rights described in that Amendment, ``thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press: insomuch, that whatever violated either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others''; and (2) in 1822 that the constitutional freedom of religion is ``the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights''; Whereas religious freedom ``has been integral to the preservation and development of the United States'', and ``the free exercise of religion goes hand in hand with the preservation of our other rights'', as expressed by the 41st President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 1993; and Whereas we ``continue to proclaim the fundamental right of all peoples to believe and worship according to their own conscience, to affirm their beliefs openly and freely, and to practice their faith without fear or intimidation'', as expressed by the 42nd President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 1998: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That Congress-- (1) on Religious Freedom Day on January 16, 2023, honors the 237th anniversary of the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom; and (2) affirms that-- (A) for individuals of any faith and individuals of no faith, religious freedom includes the right of an individual to live, work, associate, and worship in accordance with the beliefs of the individual; (B) all people of the United States can be unified in supporting religious freedom, regardless of differing individual beliefs, because religious freedom is a fundamental human right; and (C) ``the American people will remain forever unshackled in matters of faith'', as expressed by the 44th President of the United States in a Presidential proclamation on Religious Freedom Day in 2012. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-02-01-pt1-PgS211 | null | 5,743 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on adoption of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 9) denouncing the horrors of socialism, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH651 | null | 5,744 |
formal | Detroit | null | racist | Under clause 2 of rule XIV, executive communications were taken from the Speaker's table and referred as follows: EC-325. A letter from the Associate Administrator, Livestock and Poultry Program, Agricultural Marketing Service, Department of Agriculture, transmitting the Department's final rule -- Pork Promotion, Research, and Consumer Information Order-Decrease in Assessment Rate and Importer Assessments [Doc. No.: AMS-LP-22-0032] received January 30, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Agriculture. EC-326. A letter from the Chief, Office of Regulations, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Department of the Interior, transmitting the Department's final rule -- Reorganization of Title 30-Renewable Energy and Alternate Uses of Existing Facilities on the Outer Continental Shelf [Docket No.: BOEM-2022-0042] received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Natural Resources. EC-327. A letter from the Director, Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting the Agency's final rule -- Air Plan Approval; Wisconsin; 2015 Ozone Standard [EPA-R05-OAR-2022-0370; FRL-9950-02-R5] received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. EC-328. A letter from the Director, Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting the Agency's direct final rule -- Clean Air Act Operating Permit Program; California; San Diego County Air Pollution Control District; Correction [EPA-R09-OAR-2022-0623; FRL-10031-03-R9] received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. EC-329. A letter from the Director, Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting the Agency's final rule -- Air Plan Approval; New Mexico; Excess Emissions [EPA-R06-OAR-2016-0676; FRL-10186-02-R6] received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. EC-330. A letter from the Director, Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting the Agency's final rule -- Air Plan Approval; New Hampshire; Approval of Single Source Order [EPA-R01-OAR-2022-0866; FRL- 10415-02-R1] received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. EC-331. A letter from the Director, Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting the Agency's final rule -- Fluopyram; Pesticide Tolerances [EPA- HQ-OPP-2021-0449; FRL-10566-01-OCSPP] received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. EC-332. A letter from the Director, Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting the Agency's final rule -- Finding of Failure To Attain and Reclassification of the Detroit Area as Moderate for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards [EPA-HQ-OAR- 2021-0742; FRL-10611-01-R5] received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. EC-333. A letter from the Program Analyst, Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, transmitting the Commission's final rule -- Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991; ACA International, the Edison Electric Institute, the Cargo Airline Association, and the American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management Petition for Partial Reconsideration; Enterprise Communications Advocacy Coalition Petition for Reconsideration [CG Docket No.: 02-278] received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. EC-334. A letter from the Senior Advisor, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting two (2) notifications on an action on nomination and discontinuation of service in acting role, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 3349(a); Public Law 105- 277, Sec. 151(b); (112 Stat. 2681-614); to the Committee on Oversight and Accountability. EC-335. A letter from the Senior Advisor, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting a notification on an action on a nomination and discontinuation of service in acting role, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 3349(a); Public Law 105- 277, Sec. 151(b); (112 Stat. 2681-614); to the Committee on Oversight and Accountability. EC-336. A letter from the Senior Advisor, Department of Health and Human Services, transmitting a notification on an action on a nomination, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 3349(a); Public Law 105-277, Sec. 151(b); (112 Stat. 2681-614); to the Committee on Oversight and Accountability. EC-337. A letter from the Attorney-Advisor, Office of General Counsel, Department of Transportation, transmitting three (3) notifications of an action on a nomination and discontinuation of service in acting role, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 3349(a); Public Law 105-277, Sec. 151(b); (112 Stat. 2681-614); to the Committee on Oversight and Accountability. EC-338. A letter from the Program Analyst/Regulatory Officer, Directive and Regulations Branch, Forest Service, Department of Agriculture, transmitting the Department's final rule and record of decision -- Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation; National Forest System Lands in Alaska (RIN: 0596-AD51) received January 30, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Natural Resources. EC-339. A letter from the Chief, Regulations and Standards Branch, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Interior, transmitting the Department's final rule -- Reorganization of Title 30-Renewable Energy and Alternate Uses of Existing Facilities on the Outer Continental Shelf [Docket No.: BSEE-2022-0015; EEEE500000 223E1700D2 ET1SF0000.EAQ000] (RIN: 1082-AA03) received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Natural Resources. EC-340. A letter from the Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, Department of Labor, transmitting the Secretary's response to the Office of the Ombudsman's 2021 Annual report, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 7385s-15(e)(4); Public Law 106-398, Sec. 1 (as amended by Public Law 113-291, Sec. 3141(b)); (128 Stat. 3899); to the Committee on the Judiciary. EC-341. A letter from the Regulation Development Coordinator, Office of Regulation Policy and Management, Office of General Counsel (00REG), Department of Veterans Affairs, transmitting the Department's final rule -- Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Amendments (RIN: 2900-AR79) received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on the Judiciary. EC-342. A letter from the Policy Advisor, Office of Law Enforcement, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, transmitting the Department's final rule -- Civil Penalties; 2023 Inflation Adjustments for Civil Monetary Penalties [Docket No.: FWS-HQ-LE-2022-0176; FF09L00200-FX-LE12200900000] (RIN: 1018-BG74) received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on the Judiciary. EC-343. A letter from the Secretary, Federal Trade Commission, transmitting the Commission's policy statement -- Withdrawal of the Statement of Enforcement Principles Regarding ``Unfair Methods of Compensation'' Under Section 5 of the FTC Act received January 4, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on the Judiciary. EC-344. A letter from the Regulation Development Coordinator, Office of Regulation Policy and Management, Office of General Counsel (00REG), Department of Veterans Affairs, transmitting the Department's final rule -- Statutory Increase in Operations and Maintenance Grant Funding (RIN: 2900-AR71) received January 31, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. EC-345. A letter from the Regulations Writer, Federal Register Liaison, Office of Regulations and Reports Clearance, Social Security Administration, transmitting the Administration's final rule -- Service of Process and Updated Addresses for Certain Communications with the Agency [Docket No.: SSA-2022-0051] (RIN: 0960-AI78) received January 13, 2023, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); Public Law 104-121, Sec. 251; (110 Stat. 868); to the Committee on Ways and Means. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH674-2 | null | 5,745 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Pursuant to clause 7(c)(1) of rule XII and Section 3(c) of H. Res. 5 the following statements are submitted regarding (1) the specific powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the accompanying bill or joint resolution and (2) the single subject of the bill or joint resolution. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH680 | null | 5,746 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. DUNCAN: H.R. 777. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant the following: The single subject of this legislation is: The online version has been corrected to read: | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH681-17 | null | 5,747 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. DUNCAN: H.R. 777. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant the following: Article I Section 8, Clause 4 grants Congress the right to set forth rules for Naturalization.The single subject of this legislation is: | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH681-18 | null | 5,748 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. DUNCAN: H.R. 778. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant the following: The single subject of this legislation is: The online version has been corrected to read: | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH681-20 | null | 5,749 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. DUNCAN: H.R. 778. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant the following: Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 gives Congress the authority to create laws necessary for the proper execution of its powers. Also, Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 allows Congress to make Rules for Naturalization.The single subject of this legislation is: | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH681-21 | null | 5,750 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. DUNCAN:H.R. 779.Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant the following:The single subject of this legislation is: The online version has been corrected to read: By Mr. DUNCAN:H.R. 779.Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant the following:Article I Section 8, Clause 18 gives Congress the authority to create laws necessary for the proper execution of its powers.The single subject of this legislation is: | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH681-23 | null | 5,751 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. DUNCAN:H.R. 780.Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant the following:The single subject of this legislation is: The online version has been corrected to read: By Mr. DUNCAN:H.R. 780.Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant the following:Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 gives Congress the authority to create laws necessary for the proper execution of its powers.The single subject of this legislation is: | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH681-25 | null | 5,752 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. CLYDE: H.J. Res. 26. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to the following: Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution in that the legislaiton adddresses legislation governing the affairs of the District of Columbia, to which Congress has the power ``excercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may . . .'' The single subject of this legislation is: This bill pertains to DC matters of legislation. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH683-18 | null | 5,753 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. GRAVES of Missouri: H.J. Res. 27. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to the following: Article I, Section 8, clause 18 of the U.S. Constitution. The single subject of this legislation is: Waters of the United States | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgH683-19 | null | 5,754 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, in America, when it is time to pay the bills, we do so without fail and without delay. That is what families must do, and that is what our government must do. It is one of the bedrock principles of this country--one that holds true no matter who is in the White House and which party holds majorities in Congress. Not even during the Trump administration was this solemn duty neglected even if many MAGA Republicans may feel differently today. When I was minority leader here in the Senate, I sat down with President Trump to find a path to raise the debt ceiling multiple times. We didn't engage in hostage-taking. We didn't resort to blackmail or brinksmanship. By no means was it easy, and many on the other side didn't want to go along, but Democrats worked constructively with the Trump administration to get it done, and it happened three times. The same thing must happen again this year--no brinksmanship, no hostage-taking, no default on the national debt. Congress must raise the debt ceiling on a bipartisan basis without the hostage-taking, without the brinksmanship. So I was very glad to hear President Biden reaffirm this truth after his meeting with Speaker McCarthy. He reiterated we ought to pass a clean debt ceiling extension. President Biden is correct--the American people expect us to do the right thing in the coming months because if we default on the debt, every single American is going to pay the price. Later this morning, I will join with some of my Democratic colleagues to put a spotlight on the consequences of default because they are not remotely theoretical or abstract. The debt ceiling is not just an abstract exercise somewhere up there in the clouds. If we fail to renew it, it is going to affect every American family's pocketbook or wallet, with many, many dollars taken away. A default on debt would create a crisis unlike any we have ever seen in our country. Mortgages, car loans, and credit card rates all will go shooting up. American families with adjustable rate mortgages or who are seeking to buy a house will pay thousands of dollars more each year--what a terrible nightmare at a time when costs are already too high in housing and everywhere else. But just as terrible as that sounds, this is only the tip of the iceberg. If the U.S. defaults, retirement savings--themoney that people have scrapped away, put away, so they might live in dignity toward the end of their lives--will be utterly devastated. By one measure, the typical retirement account could lose $20,000 in value--$20,000. We are talking about people's livelihoods, money that people have set aside little by little every month so they can reach retirement with some degree of dignity. A default would rob Americans of that, and the devastation would go on and on and on. Social Security would suffer. Medicare would suffer. Over 18 million veterans could lose their hard-earned benefits, like disability compensation. America's reputation on the world stage would be permanently stained, and few things would hand the world over to the Chinese Communist Party more than a first-ever default by the United States of America. So the bottom line is simple: Playing games with the debt ceiling is dangerous, destabilizing, and would spell disaster for every single American--dangerous, destabilizing, disaster. The last thing we should be doing in Congress is using the debt ceiling as a political bargaining chip. Instead, we need to come together and make sure the United States is able to pay its debts on time--without brinksmanship, without hostage-taking--just as we have done throughout our history. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS213-7 | null | 5,755 |
formal | MAGA | null | white supremacist | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, in America, when it is time to pay the bills, we do so without fail and without delay. That is what families must do, and that is what our government must do. It is one of the bedrock principles of this country--one that holds true no matter who is in the White House and which party holds majorities in Congress. Not even during the Trump administration was this solemn duty neglected even if many MAGA Republicans may feel differently today. When I was minority leader here in the Senate, I sat down with President Trump to find a path to raise the debt ceiling multiple times. We didn't engage in hostage-taking. We didn't resort to blackmail or brinksmanship. By no means was it easy, and many on the other side didn't want to go along, but Democrats worked constructively with the Trump administration to get it done, and it happened three times. The same thing must happen again this year--no brinksmanship, no hostage-taking, no default on the national debt. Congress must raise the debt ceiling on a bipartisan basis without the hostage-taking, without the brinksmanship. So I was very glad to hear President Biden reaffirm this truth after his meeting with Speaker McCarthy. He reiterated we ought to pass a clean debt ceiling extension. President Biden is correct--the American people expect us to do the right thing in the coming months because if we default on the debt, every single American is going to pay the price. Later this morning, I will join with some of my Democratic colleagues to put a spotlight on the consequences of default because they are not remotely theoretical or abstract. The debt ceiling is not just an abstract exercise somewhere up there in the clouds. If we fail to renew it, it is going to affect every American family's pocketbook or wallet, with many, many dollars taken away. A default on debt would create a crisis unlike any we have ever seen in our country. Mortgages, car loans, and credit card rates all will go shooting up. American families with adjustable rate mortgages or who are seeking to buy a house will pay thousands of dollars more each year--what a terrible nightmare at a time when costs are already too high in housing and everywhere else. But just as terrible as that sounds, this is only the tip of the iceberg. If the U.S. defaults, retirement savings--themoney that people have scrapped away, put away, so they might live in dignity toward the end of their lives--will be utterly devastated. By one measure, the typical retirement account could lose $20,000 in value--$20,000. We are talking about people's livelihoods, money that people have set aside little by little every month so they can reach retirement with some degree of dignity. A default would rob Americans of that, and the devastation would go on and on and on. Social Security would suffer. Medicare would suffer. Over 18 million veterans could lose their hard-earned benefits, like disability compensation. America's reputation on the world stage would be permanently stained, and few things would hand the world over to the Chinese Communist Party more than a first-ever default by the United States of America. So the bottom line is simple: Playing games with the debt ceiling is dangerous, destabilizing, and would spell disaster for every single American--dangerous, destabilizing, disaster. The last thing we should be doing in Congress is using the debt ceiling as a political bargaining chip. Instead, we need to come together and make sure the United States is able to pay its debts on time--without brinksmanship, without hostage-taking--just as we have done throughout our history. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS213-7 | null | 5,756 |
formal | hard-working Americans | null | racist | Mr. SCHUMER. Now, Mr. President, on Big Oil profits, last year, while soaring gas prices stretched the budgets of American families, Big Oil enjoyed a record--a record--year of profits. There were huge amounts of money made by these companies. Earlier this week, Exxon reported a $56 billion--billion--net profit in 2022, setting a record high not just for Exxon but for Big Oil as an industry. And Exxon wasn't alone--Chevron reported $35 billion. While Americans were feeling the pain at the pump--driving their cars up to the gas stations and wondering how high it was going to be--the five top big oil companies brought in a record of nearly $200 billion in total profits in 2022, taking advantage of what they called ``favorable market'' conditions. It is nothing short of repugnant for the biggest oil companies in America to celebrate dizzying profit margins that they earned by jacking up gas prices on hard-working Americans. And what did the oil companies do with this tsunami of cash? They could have prioritized it by paying their workers better, but they did not. They could have made transformative investments in new clean tech and helped push the frontier in clean energy, which we all know is coming, but they did not. Maybe, best of all, they could have lowered gas prices, but they did not. Do you know what the oil companies did? This is just as galling--galling. They rewarded shareholders by implementing stock buybacks at near record levels. Buybacks do no good for the economy. They don't help the worker. They don't help the consumer. They don't move us along to green energy. They don't even produce more oil. All they do is line the pockets of the already uberwealthy executives and shareholders. Here is one example: Exxon announced they plan to spend $35 billion--$35 billion--on stock buybacks in the next 2 years, which is more than double their plans to invest in clean energy over the next 5 years. I want to say that again. For anyone who doesn't think corporate America is out of control and does whatever it wants and thumbs its nose at the needs of the globe or the workers or the citizens, Exxon announced they plan to spend $35 billion on stock buybacks in the next 2 years--more than double their plans to invest in clean energy over the next 5 years. That is where Exxon's priorities are. So Big Oil executives may claim they are good stewards or that they understand the climate crisis, but when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is, their actions tell a different story. We must continue to take on entrenched oil interests, just as we did last year when we passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Doing so will have a tremendous benefit for our economy, for our environment, and for American families everywhere. We Democrats will continue to make one thing clear: If oil companies are going to make record profits, they must do it not by manipulating prices to take advantage of hard-working Americans. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS214 | null | 5,757 |
formal | hard-working American | null | racist | Mr. SCHUMER. Now, Mr. President, on Big Oil profits, last year, while soaring gas prices stretched the budgets of American families, Big Oil enjoyed a record--a record--year of profits. There were huge amounts of money made by these companies. Earlier this week, Exxon reported a $56 billion--billion--net profit in 2022, setting a record high not just for Exxon but for Big Oil as an industry. And Exxon wasn't alone--Chevron reported $35 billion. While Americans were feeling the pain at the pump--driving their cars up to the gas stations and wondering how high it was going to be--the five top big oil companies brought in a record of nearly $200 billion in total profits in 2022, taking advantage of what they called ``favorable market'' conditions. It is nothing short of repugnant for the biggest oil companies in America to celebrate dizzying profit margins that they earned by jacking up gas prices on hard-working Americans. And what did the oil companies do with this tsunami of cash? They could have prioritized it by paying their workers better, but they did not. They could have made transformative investments in new clean tech and helped push the frontier in clean energy, which we all know is coming, but they did not. Maybe, best of all, they could have lowered gas prices, but they did not. Do you know what the oil companies did? This is just as galling--galling. They rewarded shareholders by implementing stock buybacks at near record levels. Buybacks do no good for the economy. They don't help the worker. They don't help the consumer. They don't move us along to green energy. They don't even produce more oil. All they do is line the pockets of the already uberwealthy executives and shareholders. Here is one example: Exxon announced they plan to spend $35 billion--$35 billion--on stock buybacks in the next 2 years, which is more than double their plans to invest in clean energy over the next 5 years. I want to say that again. For anyone who doesn't think corporate America is out of control and does whatever it wants and thumbs its nose at the needs of the globe or the workers or the citizens, Exxon announced they plan to spend $35 billion on stock buybacks in the next 2 years--more than double their plans to invest in clean energy over the next 5 years. That is where Exxon's priorities are. So Big Oil executives may claim they are good stewards or that they understand the climate crisis, but when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is, their actions tell a different story. We must continue to take on entrenched oil interests, just as we did last year when we passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Doing so will have a tremendous benefit for our economy, for our environment, and for American families everywhere. We Democrats will continue to make one thing clear: If oil companies are going to make record profits, they must do it not by manipulating prices to take advantage of hard-working Americans. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS214 | null | 5,758 |
formal | safeguard | null | transphobic | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, at this time 1 year ago, the Democratic Party was in the middle of a hysterical meltdown over a new voting law in the State of Georgia. The President of the United States declared that the State's modest changes to election procedures were ``Jim Crow 2.0.'' He said the law was about ``voter suppression and election subversion.'' He said citizens should doubt ``whether your vote counts at all.'' The sitting President of the United States said lawmakers' positions on this bill would define--listen to this--whether we were ``on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace . . . John Lewis or Bull Connor . . . Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis.'' The Senate Democratic leader said his fellow U.S. Senators who are Republicans were ``supporting the reenactment of those Jim Crow laws.'' My colleague from New York, as the Senate majority leader, is supposed to safeguard and steward this institution. Instead, he tried to destroy the Senate and ``nuke'' the 60-vote threshold so that Democrats could take over all 50 States' election laws on a partisan basis. And, believe it or not, 47 of the other 49 Democrats went right along with him. The liberal hysteria spread to the press and the private sector. Woke activists started talking about boycotting companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines. Major League Baseball caved and moved the All-Star Game out of Atlanta, directly harming the local economy, all for the sake of symbolism. Republicans said this was unhinged, phony outrage over a commonsense law that would make it both easy to vote and, of course, hard to cheat. Democrats said the new voting rules were evil and racist and the literal death of democracy. Well, the facts are now in. We have hard evidence. After the new bill took effect in early 2022, the State of Georgia held a primary election. Do you know what happened? Record turnout for a primary. Then, last November, Georgia had a general election. What happened? A new record for ballots cast in a midterm. Oh, some might say: But that doesn't tell us anything about the voting conditions. Maybe there were terribly long lines. Maybe there were sinister road blocks, and voters persevered in spite of them. Ah, but alas, except an academic research center at the University of Georgia spent weeks--weeks--conducting a major survey of Georgia voters after the election. Let's take a look at what they found. Seventy-two percent of all Georgia voters--and 73 percent of Black voters, specifically--said their voting experience was ``excellent.'' Ninety-two percent of all voters--and 92 percent of Black voters, specifically--said either that voting had gotten easier since the prior election or that there was no difference. Ninety-two percent of all voters in Georgia said that voting had either gotten easier or that there was no difference between that election and prior elections. More than 70 percent of Black voters in Georgia said they waited less than 10 minutes to cast their ballot. This is all with the supposed ``Jim Crow'' law in action: record-high turnout, lightning-fast voting lines, a supermajority of African-American voters rating their experience under the new voting rules as ``excellent.'' Ah, but here is the icing on the cake. The same Democratic Party that cheered Major League Baseball from moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta--listen to this--now has Atlanta on the short list for the next Democratic National Convention. Here is what happened. We were right, and they were wrong. But it goes beyond that. These people actually lied. They invoked our darkest history and slandered half the country because they wanted more power for themselves. Some of the most powerful people in our entire country, including the President of the United States, staked their personal credibility to these claims. President Biden screamed from a podium that the bad old days of Jim Crow were back. Over this? The majority leader from New York tried to destroy the Senate. Over this? The American people were subjected to months of baseless, pointless, media haranguing. Over this? And the country is supposed to go on pretending like nothing happened? We are all supposed to take the President, Vice President, and Senate Democrats seriously the next time they start shouting and waving their arms about the next supposed crisis? I don't think so. I don't think the American people will forget who kept their credibility and who lit theirs on fire. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS215-2 | null | 5,759 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now, on an entirely different matter, today, Ranking Member Capito of the Environment and Public Works Committee will introduce an important resolution on behalf of millions of American farmers, ranchers, and builders. Two years ago, the Biden administration picked up an Obama-era crusade to micromanage the small businesses that help feed, clothe, and power America. Literally, on President Biden's first day in office, he signed an Executive order that began tearing down the regulatory certainty that Republicans had worked hard to restore for American workers and entrepreneurs. And in December, this crusade yielded a new rule from EPA that enacted a dizzying new definition of which temporary, tributary, and upland waterways fall under the Federal Government's authority. There is a case before the Supreme Court on this very subject right now. The Court's ruling in Sackett v. EPA will provide new clarity on just how far Federal bureaucrats can stretch their powers to meddle in working Americans' business under the Clean Water Act. But instead of waiting to see whether a massive expansion of the regulatory state would be legal, the Biden EPA went ahead with their new rule. Can you imagine why Washington Democrats would be in such a rush to get ahead of the law? So what does this latest power grab by Washington Democrats mean for working people out in our country? Well, for starters, it means that cattlemen, contractors, and all sorts of folks have now had to put up with three--three--major changes to Federal regulation on the lands where they do business in just the past 8 years. Democrats' relentless attempts to step on State and local authorities in their own backyards has left small business owners across America chasing moving goalposts. The Biden administration's latest rule means it will be harder for farmers in Kentucky to figure out which ditches on their property are subject to the whims of Washington bureaucrats. It will create new headaches for builders in West Virginia trying to make sure they dot every ``i'' and cross every ``t'' on much needed development projects. It will mean ranchers out West may discover that every ditch and low-lying puddle they own--even ones that only hold water when it rains--is now the business of EPA. And as every American who has tried to create jobs or build something knows, redtape doesn't just cost valuable time. Legal experts project the Biden administration's latest overreach would raise the cost of development and infrastructure projects near waterways by--listen to this--a million dollars an acre. So while President Biden takes a victory lap on infrastructure projects made possible by bipartisan work, this latest salvo in Washington Democrats' war on working Americans would devastate the sort of small businesses that actually build the infrastructure projects. But it isn't going unanswered. Twenty-five Governors, representing fully half the States in our country, havecondemned the EPA's waters of the United States rule. And here in the Senate, West Virginia's own Senator Capito has consistently led our efforts to cut the overreaching regulatory state back down to size. She sponsored the legislation that would have codified the last administration's commonsense fixes. She spearheaded Congress's brief to the Supreme Court as it considers this issue. And today, she will introduce her Congressional Review Act resolution to give every one of our colleagues the opportunity to protect the future of transformative infrastructure, energy, and agriculture projects in their States. West Virginia should be proud that one of their two Senators is committed to reforms that get more of Washington's messes out of their way. I am proud to support Senator Capito's resolution. I would urge each of my colleagues to do the same. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS215-3 | null | 5,760 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Committees Mr. President, yesterday Republicans confirmed their committee assignments for the new Congress. And for the 118th Congress, I am excited to once again be serving South Dakotans on the Senate Agriculture, Finance, and Commerce Committees. If any committee is a good fit for a South Dakota Senator, it is the Senate Agriculture Committee. Agriculture is the lifeblood of South Dakota, and day in and day out, one of my top priorities is addressing the needs of farmers and ranchers. And my seat on the Senate Agriculture Committee gives me a particularly valuable platform from which to advocate for South Dakota producers. Over the years, thanks in part to my position on the committee, I have been able to help secure resources for farmers and ranchers whose herds and crops have been hit hard by adverse weather. I have been able to strengthen the farm safety net through commodity programs like the Agriculture Risk Coverage Program. And I have been able to establish a safety net for livestock producers through programs like the Livestock Indemnity Program and the Livestock Forage Program. I have been able to make the Conservation Reserve Program a more effective tool for producers. And more. And 2023 is a particularly exciting time to be on the Ag Committee because 2023 is a farm bill year. During my time in Congress, I have been involved in drafting four farm bills, and I am eager to get to work on my fifth. I have been gearing up for the 2023 farm bill since last year, when I began convening roundtables with farmers and ranchers and ag stakeholders to hear about their top priorities for this year's bill. I have also introduced several pieces of legislation that I will work to get included in this farm bill, including legislation to strengthen and improve the Conservation Reserve Program, increase the information available on the impacts of conservation practices, and address the needs of South Dakota livestock producers. In addition to focusing on the farm bill, I will be monitoring the evolving situation on the Obama-era Waters of the United States rule that President Biden's Environmental Protection Agency just resurrected, which would give the Federal Government sweeping jurisdiction over most water features in our State, from ephemeral streams to prairie potholes. This would be a nightmare for South Dakota landowners and particularly farmers and ranchers, and I will be doing everything I can to keep the heavy hand of the Federal Government out of the business of regulating landowners' puddles. I am also proud to continue serving on the Commerce Committee of which I am a long-term member, including 4 years as chairman. The Commerce Committee's jurisdiction is broad. It is the Senate's ``planes, trains, and automobiles'' committee and its oceans and space; it is the technology committee. Our work is inherently forward-looking, and it is often some of the most interesting, relevant, and exciting work going on in the Congress. So it is no surprise that the Commerce Committee offers plenty of opportunity to deliver for South Dakotans. With a reliable internet connection being increasingly essential for everyday life, closing the digital divide is more important than ever. And as a member of the Commerce Committee, expanding broadband access into unserved areas has long been a priority of mine. I have worked to support broadband expansion, reduce unnecessary obstacles to building reliable networks, and, most recently, to hold Federal agencies accountable to ensure that Federal funding for rural broadband goes to its intended purpose, which is expanding broadband access to areas that currently lack it. I also believe we need to hold Big Tech platforms accountable. South Dakotans and many other Americans arefrustrated by the lack of transparency in these companies' content moderation practices. In this Congress, I will be working to advance my bipartisan legislation to increase transparency and due process for users on internet platforms. I will continue working to ensure that rural States like South Dakota have a seat at the table when it comes to infrastructure investment. I have spent my time on the Commerce Committee working to support rural States' unique transportation needs, especially maintaining reliable transportation for livestock and agricultural products. Last year, I worked on a bipartisan fix to shipping bottlenecks that were interrupting exports of South Dakota agriculture products and other goods. This year, we will need to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration and improvements to South Dakota's airport infrastructure and rural air service will be among my priorities. My third committee assignment is on the Senate Finance Committee. Over at Finance, we focus on tax, trade, and health issues. Making sure that our tax system is serving our economy and American workers is something I take very seriously. And I am deeply committed to making sure that we keep a lid on the amount of money the Federal Government is taking out of Americans' paychecks. I was proud to be involved in the Republican-led tax reform legislation that passed in 2017, which allowed Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money and helped ensure that American businesses can be competitive in the 21st century economy so that they can offer the best opportunities to American workers. And one of my priorities right now is making sure that we extend, or make permanent, expiring provisions of the 2017 legislation so that American families and businesses aren't facing tax hikes in the near future. Another priority of mine at the Finance Committee is making sure that we are opening new markets for American products and services abroad. And, of course, agriculture producers, in particular, are at the top of my mind. They have had a tough couple of years between inflation, shipping issues, meat-processing bottlenecks, and all the usual challenges that come with an industry where a single storm can wipe out a year's work. And opening up new market access opportunities for our ag producers to sell their products is one of my biggest Finance Committee priorities. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has done very little to advance U.S. trade leadership and create new markets for American products and services. So this year, I will be doing everything I can to ensure that we are advancing trade opportunities that benefit American producers and American workers. It is the honor of my life to represent South Dakotans in the U.S. Senate. And I am excited about the opportunities that I will have this year at the Agriculture, Finance, and Commerce Committees to serve the people of South Dakota and to help make life better for Americans around the country. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS216-5 | null | 5,761 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Committees Mr. President, yesterday Republicans confirmed their committee assignments for the new Congress. And for the 118th Congress, I am excited to once again be serving South Dakotans on the Senate Agriculture, Finance, and Commerce Committees. If any committee is a good fit for a South Dakota Senator, it is the Senate Agriculture Committee. Agriculture is the lifeblood of South Dakota, and day in and day out, one of my top priorities is addressing the needs of farmers and ranchers. And my seat on the Senate Agriculture Committee gives me a particularly valuable platform from which to advocate for South Dakota producers. Over the years, thanks in part to my position on the committee, I have been able to help secure resources for farmers and ranchers whose herds and crops have been hit hard by adverse weather. I have been able to strengthen the farm safety net through commodity programs like the Agriculture Risk Coverage Program. And I have been able to establish a safety net for livestock producers through programs like the Livestock Indemnity Program and the Livestock Forage Program. I have been able to make the Conservation Reserve Program a more effective tool for producers. And more. And 2023 is a particularly exciting time to be on the Ag Committee because 2023 is a farm bill year. During my time in Congress, I have been involved in drafting four farm bills, and I am eager to get to work on my fifth. I have been gearing up for the 2023 farm bill since last year, when I began convening roundtables with farmers and ranchers and ag stakeholders to hear about their top priorities for this year's bill. I have also introduced several pieces of legislation that I will work to get included in this farm bill, including legislation to strengthen and improve the Conservation Reserve Program, increase the information available on the impacts of conservation practices, and address the needs of South Dakota livestock producers. In addition to focusing on the farm bill, I will be monitoring the evolving situation on the Obama-era Waters of the United States rule that President Biden's Environmental Protection Agency just resurrected, which would give the Federal Government sweeping jurisdiction over most water features in our State, from ephemeral streams to prairie potholes. This would be a nightmare for South Dakota landowners and particularly farmers and ranchers, and I will be doing everything I can to keep the heavy hand of the Federal Government out of the business of regulating landowners' puddles. I am also proud to continue serving on the Commerce Committee of which I am a long-term member, including 4 years as chairman. The Commerce Committee's jurisdiction is broad. It is the Senate's ``planes, trains, and automobiles'' committee and its oceans and space; it is the technology committee. Our work is inherently forward-looking, and it is often some of the most interesting, relevant, and exciting work going on in the Congress. So it is no surprise that the Commerce Committee offers plenty of opportunity to deliver for South Dakotans. With a reliable internet connection being increasingly essential for everyday life, closing the digital divide is more important than ever. And as a member of the Commerce Committee, expanding broadband access into unserved areas has long been a priority of mine. I have worked to support broadband expansion, reduce unnecessary obstacles to building reliable networks, and, most recently, to hold Federal agencies accountable to ensure that Federal funding for rural broadband goes to its intended purpose, which is expanding broadband access to areas that currently lack it. I also believe we need to hold Big Tech platforms accountable. South Dakotans and many other Americans arefrustrated by the lack of transparency in these companies' content moderation practices. In this Congress, I will be working to advance my bipartisan legislation to increase transparency and due process for users on internet platforms. I will continue working to ensure that rural States like South Dakota have a seat at the table when it comes to infrastructure investment. I have spent my time on the Commerce Committee working to support rural States' unique transportation needs, especially maintaining reliable transportation for livestock and agricultural products. Last year, I worked on a bipartisan fix to shipping bottlenecks that were interrupting exports of South Dakota agriculture products and other goods. This year, we will need to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration and improvements to South Dakota's airport infrastructure and rural air service will be among my priorities. My third committee assignment is on the Senate Finance Committee. Over at Finance, we focus on tax, trade, and health issues. Making sure that our tax system is serving our economy and American workers is something I take very seriously. And I am deeply committed to making sure that we keep a lid on the amount of money the Federal Government is taking out of Americans' paychecks. I was proud to be involved in the Republican-led tax reform legislation that passed in 2017, which allowed Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money and helped ensure that American businesses can be competitive in the 21st century economy so that they can offer the best opportunities to American workers. And one of my priorities right now is making sure that we extend, or make permanent, expiring provisions of the 2017 legislation so that American families and businesses aren't facing tax hikes in the near future. Another priority of mine at the Finance Committee is making sure that we are opening new markets for American products and services abroad. And, of course, agriculture producers, in particular, are at the top of my mind. They have had a tough couple of years between inflation, shipping issues, meat-processing bottlenecks, and all the usual challenges that come with an industry where a single storm can wipe out a year's work. And opening up new market access opportunities for our ag producers to sell their products is one of my biggest Finance Committee priorities. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has done very little to advance U.S. trade leadership and create new markets for American products and services. So this year, I will be doing everything I can to ensure that we are advancing trade opportunities that benefit American producers and American workers. It is the honor of my life to represent South Dakotans in the U.S. Senate. And I am excited about the opportunities that I will have this year at the Agriculture, Finance, and Commerce Committees to serve the people of South Dakota and to help make life better for Americans around the country. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS216-5 | null | 5,762 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated: EC-335. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Rimsulfuron; Pesticide Tolerances'' (FRL No. 10478-01-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-336. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Malic Acid; Tolerance Exemption'' (FRL No. 10494- 01-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-337. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Fluridone; Pesticide Tolerances'' (FRL No. 10504- 01-OCSPP) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-338. A communication from the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), transmitting the report of an officer authorized to wear the insignia of the grade of vice admiral in accordance with title 10, United States Code, section 777a; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-339. A communication from the Associate Administrator, Agricultural Marketing Service, Department of Agriculture, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Strengthening Organic Enforcement'' ((RIN0581-AD09) (Docket No. AMS-NOP-17-0065)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-340. A communication from the Chairman of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to a real estate lease transaction; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-341. A communication from the Alternate Federal Register Liaison Officer, Office of the Secretary, Department of Defense, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Civil Monetary Penalty Inflation Adjustment'' (RIN0790-AL58) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-342. A communication from the Alternate Federal Register Liaison Officer, Office of the Secretary, Department of Defense, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Expanding TRICARE Access to Care in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemtic'' (RIN0720-AB85) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-343. A communication from the Alternate Federal Register Liaison Officer, Office of the Secretary, Department of Defense, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Reorganization of Defense Acquisition Statutes'' (RIN0750-AL72) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-344. A communication from the Alternate Federal Register Liaison Officer, Office of the Secretary, Department of Defense, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement'' (RIN0750-AL58) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Armed Services. EC-345. A communication from the Associate General Counsel, Department of Agriculture, transmitting, pursuant to law, four (4) reports relative to vacancies in the Department of Agriculture, received during adjournment of Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. EC-346. A communication from the Director of Public Affairs and Congressional Relations, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the Office of the Comptroller's 2022 Annual Report to Congress; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-347. A communication from the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Sustainment), transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to a plan of action for any use of the authorities available in Tile III of the Defense Production Act of 1950 to establish or enhance the domestic production capability for microelectronic technologies and related technologies; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-348. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency that was declared in Executive Order 13581 with respect to significant transnational criminal organizations; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-349. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency that was declared in Executive Order 13882 with respect to Mali; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-350. A communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic report on the national emergency that was declared in Executive Order 13566 with respect to Libya; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-351. A communication from the Chair and President of the Export-Import Bank, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to a transaction involving U.S. exports to Turkiye; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-352. A communication from the Chair and President of the Export-Import Bank, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to a transaction involving U.S. exports to Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-353. A communication from the Sanctions Regulations Advisor, Office of Foreign Assets Control, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Inflation Adjustment of Civil Monetary Penalties'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-354. A communication from the Sanctions Regulations Advisor, Office of Foreign Assets Control, Department of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Amendment to OFAC Sanctions Regulations'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 13, 2023; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-355. A communication from the Secretary of the Commission, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Standards for Safeguarding Customer Information'' (RIN3084-AB35) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-356. A communication from the Secretary of the Commission, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Privacy of Consumer Financial Information Rule Under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act'' (RIN3084-AB42) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-357. A communication from the Senior Congressional Liaison, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Home Mortgage Disclosure (Regulation C) Adjustment to Asset-Size Exemption Threshold'' (12 CFR Part 1003) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-358. A communication from the Secretary of the Securities and Exchange Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Adjustments to Civil Monetary Penalty Amounts'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-359. A communication from the Director of Legislative Affairs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Community Reinvestment Act Regulations Asset-Size Thresholds'' (RIN3064-AF87) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-360. A communication from the Secretary of the Securities and Exchange Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Insider Trading Arrangements and Related Disclosures'' (RIN3235-AM86) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. EC-361. A communication from the Branch of Administrative Support Services, Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Reclassifying Fender's Blue Butterfly From Endangered to Threatened With a Section 4(d) Rule'' (RIN1018-BD97) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-362. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Ohio; Redesignation of the Ohio portion of the Cincinnati, Ohio-Kentucky Area to Attainment of the 2015 Ozone Standard; Correction'' (FRL No. 9532-03-R5) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-363. A communication from the Associate Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Significant New Use Rules on Certain Chemical Substances (21-1.5e); Correction'' (FRL No. 8582-03-OCSPP) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-364. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Finding of Failure to Submit State Implementation Plan Revisions Required Under Clean Air Act Section 185; California; Sacramento Metro Area'' (FRL No. 10505-01-R9) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-365. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Approval and Promulgation of Implementation Plans; Colorado; Delegation of Authority of the Federal Plan for Existing Hospital, Medical, Infectious Waste Incinerators'' (FRL No. 10462-02-R8) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-366. A communication from the Director of the Regulatory Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Air Plan Approval; Michigan; Base Year Emissions Inventory and Emissions Statement Rule Certification for the 2015 Ozone Standard'' (FRL No. 9746-02-R5) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-367. A communication from the Legal Yeoman, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Consumer Price Index Adjustments of Oil Pollution Act of 1990 Limits of Liability - Vessels, Deepwater Ports and Onshore Facilities'' ((RIN1625-AC84) (Docket No. USCG-2022-0252)) received in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 26, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-368. A communication from the Director of Congressional Affairs, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Adjustment of Civil Penalties for Inflation for Fiscal Year 2023'' (RIN3150-AK59) received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-369. A communication from the Director of Congressional Affairs, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Revision of the NRC Enforcement Policy'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. EC-370. A communication from the Director of Congressional Affairs, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``NuScale Small Modular Reactor Design Certification'' received during adjournment of the Senate in the Office of the President of the Senate on January 19, 2023; to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS227-7 | null | 5,763 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | By Ms. COLLINS (for herself, Ms. Sinema, and Mr. King): S. 255. A bill to authorize certain aliens seeking asylum to be employed in the United States while their applications are being adjudicated; to the Committee on the Judiciary. Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I rise today to introduce the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act of 2023 with my colleagues Senator Sinema and Senator King. It is my hope that the changes proposed by our bill will lessen the burden on the budgets of communities hosting asylum seekers, while allowing these individuals and their families to support themselves as they want to do, bringing needed skills to the cities and towns in which they settle. This legislation would allow individuals seeking asylum at ports of entry to be eligible for employment authorizations starting 30 days after applying for asylum, provided their applications are not frivolous; they are not detained; and their identities have been verified, with their names run through the Federal Government's terrorist watch lists. This change would allow asylum applicants to work, support themselves, and contribute to society without being as dependent on assistance from local governments while their claims are being adjudicated. By encouraging asylum seekers to enter the country through official ports of entry, this legislation would also help create a more orderly asylum application process. Under current law, asylum seekers must wait extended periods of time after filing their applications before they are allowed to obtain work permits. This waiting period places the burden of care for these asylum seekers onto communities across the Nation. One such community is Portland, ME. Over the span of the last 2 years, a historic number of asylum seekers have arrived in Portland after crossing our southern border. Currently, hundreds of asylum seekers are being housed in emergency shelters and other facilities by the city of Portland. These asylum seekers could give a much needed boost to Maine businesses that are facing labor shortages--our State's unemployment rate is just 3.8 percent--but the lengthy work authorization process prevents these asylum seekers from getting jobs, even to support themselves. While the Federal Government has provided assistance to Portland and other communities around our country dealing with a surge in asylum seekers, it would be a better solution if those seeking asylum were able to join the workforce and achieve self-sufficiency as quickly as possible while awaiting the outcome of their cases. I encourage my colleagues to support this win-win solution that will allow asylum seekers to work, as they are eager to do. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS235-3 | null | 5,764 |
formal | terrorist | null | Islamophobic | By Ms. COLLINS (for herself, Ms. Sinema, and Mr. King): S. 255. A bill to authorize certain aliens seeking asylum to be employed in the United States while their applications are being adjudicated; to the Committee on the Judiciary. Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I rise today to introduce the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act of 2023 with my colleagues Senator Sinema and Senator King. It is my hope that the changes proposed by our bill will lessen the burden on the budgets of communities hosting asylum seekers, while allowing these individuals and their families to support themselves as they want to do, bringing needed skills to the cities and towns in which they settle. This legislation would allow individuals seeking asylum at ports of entry to be eligible for employment authorizations starting 30 days after applying for asylum, provided their applications are not frivolous; they are not detained; and their identities have been verified, with their names run through the Federal Government's terrorist watch lists. This change would allow asylum applicants to work, support themselves, and contribute to society without being as dependent on assistance from local governments while their claims are being adjudicated. By encouraging asylum seekers to enter the country through official ports of entry, this legislation would also help create a more orderly asylum application process. Under current law, asylum seekers must wait extended periods of time after filing their applications before they are allowed to obtain work permits. This waiting period places the burden of care for these asylum seekers onto communities across the Nation. One such community is Portland, ME. Over the span of the last 2 years, a historic number of asylum seekers have arrived in Portland after crossing our southern border. Currently, hundreds of asylum seekers are being housed in emergency shelters and other facilities by the city of Portland. These asylum seekers could give a much needed boost to Maine businesses that are facing labor shortages--our State's unemployment rate is just 3.8 percent--but the lengthy work authorization process prevents these asylum seekers from getting jobs, even to support themselves. While the Federal Government has provided assistance to Portland and other communities around our country dealing with a surge in asylum seekers, it would be a better solution if those seeking asylum were able to join the workforce and achieve self-sufficiency as quickly as possible while awaiting the outcome of their cases. I encourage my colleagues to support this win-win solution that will allow asylum seekers to work, as they are eager to do. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS235-3 | null | 5,765 |
formal | terrorist | null | Islamophobic | Mr. PETERS (for himself and Ms. Stabenow) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services: S. Res. 26 Whereas Selfridge Air National Guard Base is named after Army 1st Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge, the first aerial military casualty during a demonstration flight with Orville Wright in 1908; Whereas the Army commissioned Selfridge Field in Harrison Township, Michigan, on July 1, 1917, and it is one of the first military airfields in the United States under continuous service; Whereas the 332d Fighter Group of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, an all-African-American unit, moved to Selfridge Field on March 29, 1943, and Colonel Benjamin O. Davis became the first African-American commander on October 8, 1943; Whereas, on July 1, 1971, Selfridge Field was transferred to the Michigan Air National Guard, becoming the first major Air Force base under the jurisdiction of the Michigan Air National Guard; Whereas, on April 1, 1996, the 127th Wing of the Michigan Air National Guard was established at Selfridge Air National Guard Base; Whereas, after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, Selfridge Air National Guard Base became a key center for security operations to protect and secure the northern border of the United States; Whereas the 127th Wing of the Michigan Air National Guard was the 2016 recipient of the Carl A. Spaatz Award, a prestigious award given to the best flying organization in the Air National Guard, and was awarded the Meritorious Unit Award in the same year for ``outstanding devotion and exceptional performance''; Whereas opportunities for investment in aerospace, as well as more fighter missions, will keep Selfridge Air National Guard Base successful and will contribute to a dominant Air Force and to a strong national defense; Whereas annual joint service and international Northern Strike exercises, combined with the critical manufacturing base of the ``Arsenal of Democracy'', position the State of Michigan as an invaluable cornerstone of national defense and aerospace; Whereas the State of Michigan is home to the ``Arsenal of Democracy'' along with the United States Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, the United States Army DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center, and Selfridge Air National Guard Base; Whereas Selfridge Air National Guard Base finds itself surrounded by premier institutions of higher educations and with ample space and resources to become a hub of defense and aerospace research and innovation; Whereas the resolute support of residents of Macomb County, Michigan, and elected officials of the State of Michigan has resulted in continued investment and resources from the Federal Government for Selfridge Air National Guard Base and the defense industry in the State of Michigan; Whereas Selfridge Air National Guard Base is a source of community pride and enjoys unparalleled community support; Whereas Selfridge Air National Guard Base generates hundreds of millions of dollars to the surrounding cities and townships of the State of Michigan and supports over 4,500 jobs; and Whereas Selfridge Air National Guard Base is a joint military base and home to many national security assets of the United States, including assets of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Department of Homeland Security: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate-- (1) honors Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township, Michigan, on its 106th anniversary; (2) commends the thousands of men and women who have worked and trained at Selfridge Air National Guard Base; (3) reinforces the commitment of the military to Selfridge Air National Guard Base as a facility that is key to the national security of United States; (4) encourages continued cooperation and dialogue with the Department of Defense in support of Selfridge Air National Guard Base; and (5) acknowledges the ongoing investments of the State of Michigan in its defense assets and workforce and continued contributions to the defense of the United States. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-02-02-pt1-PgS237 | null | 5,766 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered, or votes objected to under clause 6 of rule XX. The House will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-06-pt1-PgH689-8 | null | 5,767 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Proceedings will resume on questions previously postponed. Votes will be taken in the following order: The motion to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 302; and Agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal, if ordered. The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the remaining electronic vote will be conducted as a 5-minute vote. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-06-pt1-PgH696-3 | null | 5,768 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 302) to direct the Secretary of Energy to establish a program to provide financial assistance to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers pursuing certain courses of study relating to cybersecurity and energy infrastructure, and for other purposes, as amended, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-06-pt1-PgH696-4 | null | 5,769 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the question on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal, which the Chair will put de novo. The question is on the Speaker's approval of the Journal. Pursuant to clause 1, rule I, the Journal stands approved. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-06-pt1-PgH697 | null | 5,770 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Pursuant to clause 7(c)(1) of rule XII and Section 3(c) of H. Res. 5 the following statements are submitted regarding (1) the specific powers grantedto Congress in the Constitution to enact the accompanying bill or joint resolution and (2) the single subject of the bill or joint resolution. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-06-pt1-PgH709 | null | 5,771 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Ms. SANCHEZ: H.J. Res. 28. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to the following: Article I, Section 8 The single subject of this legislation is: Expressing support for designation of the week of February 6, 2023, through February 10, 2023, as ``National School Counseling Week''. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-06-pt1-PgH711-2 | null | 5,772 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. MANN: H.J. Res. 29. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to the following: Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. The single subject of this legislation is: Congressional Review Act pertaining to the listing of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken under the Endangered Species Act. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgH738-12 | null | 5,773 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. BARR: H.J. Res. 30. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to the following: Section 8 of article I of the Constitution. The single subject of this legislation is: Resolution under the Congressional Review Act to nullify the Department of Labor's Rule, ``Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights''. | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgH738-13 | null | 5,774 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Mr. CLOUD: H.J. Res. 31. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to the following: Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. The single subject of this legislation is: The rule submitted by the Department of Veterans Affairs relating to ``Reproductive Health Services'' (87 Fed. Reg. 55287; published September 9, 2022). | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgH738-14 | null | 5,775 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Pursuant to clause 7(c)(1) of rule XII and Section 3(c) of H. Res. 5 the following statements are submitted regarding (1) the specific powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the accompanying bill or joint resolution and (2) the single subject of the bill or joint resolution. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgH738 | null | 5,776 |
formal | cut taxes | null | racist | Mr. SCHUMER. Tonight, President Biden will come before a joint session of Congress and deliver his State of the Union to the American people. It is a chance for all of us to hear directly from the Commander in Chief about the tremendous progress we have made as a nation, the challenges we have overcome in recent years, and how Democrats are keeping our promises to make the lives of the American people better. I expect the President will make the case clearly and convincingly that today the United States is far better off than it was a year ago. Inflation is coming down; wages are going up; gas prices have eased at last; unemployment is near record lows; and the pandemic, after causing so much suffering, so much destruction, no longer dominates our lives. Our work is not finished, but today we can confidently say America is headed in the right direction thanks to President Biden's leadership and thanks to the work of a strong, unified Democratic Party in Congress. As Americans listen to President Biden, I am confident they will see the glaring contrast between Democratic unity on the one hand and Republican chaos on the other. Democrats remain laser-focused on delivering our people-first agenda. Every bill Democrats passed last Congress was written with average Americans in mind, from the American Rescue Plan to the infrastructure bill, to the Inflation Reduction Act, to gun safety, marriage equality, and so, so much more. Let's just take one example out of many. It is an important example but just one. Senate Democrats worked very hard to deliver a $35 insulin cap for every American on Medicare, but, of course, we want to go further. We tried to get it for everybody before reconciliation, but the reconciliation bill only allowed us to pass, in the IRA, an insulin cap for some Americans. Whenan amendment was offered to add everybody in, unfortunately we did not get enough Republicans to vote for it. But this idea deserves new life and bipartisan cooperation in this Congress, and I look forward to hearing more from the President tonight. Very soon, Americans are going to feel the benefits of our agenda in their daily lives. Implementation is going to be a top priority for Senate Democrats in the months to come. Not everyone has the time to follow what happens in Congress day by day, but when we actually start doing things, implementing the bills, oh, it gets out. Just look at my home State of New York. After we passed infrastructure, many people didn't hear about it. To others, it was a line in the newspaper--oh, they have a bipartisan infrastructure bill. But last week, when the President came to New York to celebrate Gateway, you could feel the exaltation and excitement in the city. That is going to start happening again and again everywhere, in every State, in every community, as these large bills that helped American families are implemented and people see the actual results in their communities. So let me say it again. Democrats are proud we stuck together and delivered on an agenda that lowered costs, lifted America out of crisis, and helped lay a foundation for future prosperity. Our MAGA Republicans cannot claim the same. On the very first day in the new majority, House Republicans passed a bill not to help average Americans but, rather, that helps the ultrarich so they can avoid paying their fair share in taxes. The bottom line is, these people who are going to be added to the IRS are going to focus on all of those who are much richer than the average American but pay at a much lower rate. But the Republicans couldn't go for that. Those are the people they want to represent. Then they hardly stopped there. In just 1 month, the MAGA House majority has doubled down on their war on women, tripled down on their asinine national sales tax proposal, and Republicans continue to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to their radical agenda. In the coming months, nothing will require more cooperation and serious-mindedness than lifting the debt ceiling. I was glad to work with both Presidents Biden and Trump to lift the debt ceiling over the past couple of years. We did it without political blackmail, without brinkmanship. But Speaker McCarthy and many of his House MAGA Republicans are taking the debt ceiling hostage and basically saying: Our way or the highway. Agree to cuts or we won't lift the debt ceiling. That is not going to work, plain and simple. History shows that those who try to threaten their way to an agreement end up losing. If Speaker McCarthy is insistent on spending cuts, which we Democrats will strongly oppose, he has an obligation to take the next step and actually say what those cuts are for. We will oppose tying the debt ceiling to these types of cuts. The debt ceiling is debts we have already incurred and should be paid without brinkmanship, without adding things to the agenda, which risks a great deal for the American people. So what are the Republicans asking for? They say they want cuts. What are they? Are Republicans going to ax Social Security or Medicare? We think it is not enough for the Speaker to just say he doesn't want to make those cuts, because Members of his own party, including some of the very MAGA Republicans he followed in the first week of his session, are saying otherwise, and they have shown--some of them--that they can get their way in the new majority. Speaker McCarthy needs to prove he won't cut Social Security and Medicare by showing us the plan, his plan. What about funding for national defense? Our military just shot down the Chinese spy balloon. Are Republicans seriously thinking about cutting defense on some bogus claims of fighting a ``woke agenda''? What the heck does that mean? Republicans, show us the specific cuts. Show us the plan. What about families and children who rely on nutrition aid? The chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee recently said they are still looking at cuts to SNAP benefits at a time when children are hungry and groceries are far too expensive. This is from the party that cut taxes for billionaires and mega corporations back in 2017. If making sure hungry children have enough to eat is part of the ``woke agenda,'' then we sure don't have the same definition. Look, I know it is not easy for this new majority. The 20 or so extremists who dictated the House rules package can now thwart whatever proposal the Speaker wants to come up with if they feel the cuts don't go far enough. So I am gravely concerned that things will be very, very hard for the Speaker to manage, if he can come up with a plan at all. All this brings us back to what Democrats have been insisting on from the very beginning: No brinkmanship. No hostage-taking. Let's lift the debt ceiling together. Let's pay the debts that Democrats and Republicans, including Donald Trump, already incurred without ultimatums. Tonight, I expect the President will make this very clear to the American people, and it will be the responsibility of House Republicans to show that they take the debt ceiling seriously before they create an unprecedented crisis that will wreak havoc on every single American. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS245-9 | null | 5,777 |
formal | extremists | null | Islamophobic | Mr. SCHUMER. Tonight, President Biden will come before a joint session of Congress and deliver his State of the Union to the American people. It is a chance for all of us to hear directly from the Commander in Chief about the tremendous progress we have made as a nation, the challenges we have overcome in recent years, and how Democrats are keeping our promises to make the lives of the American people better. I expect the President will make the case clearly and convincingly that today the United States is far better off than it was a year ago. Inflation is coming down; wages are going up; gas prices have eased at last; unemployment is near record lows; and the pandemic, after causing so much suffering, so much destruction, no longer dominates our lives. Our work is not finished, but today we can confidently say America is headed in the right direction thanks to President Biden's leadership and thanks to the work of a strong, unified Democratic Party in Congress. As Americans listen to President Biden, I am confident they will see the glaring contrast between Democratic unity on the one hand and Republican chaos on the other. Democrats remain laser-focused on delivering our people-first agenda. Every bill Democrats passed last Congress was written with average Americans in mind, from the American Rescue Plan to the infrastructure bill, to the Inflation Reduction Act, to gun safety, marriage equality, and so, so much more. Let's just take one example out of many. It is an important example but just one. Senate Democrats worked very hard to deliver a $35 insulin cap for every American on Medicare, but, of course, we want to go further. We tried to get it for everybody before reconciliation, but the reconciliation bill only allowed us to pass, in the IRA, an insulin cap for some Americans. Whenan amendment was offered to add everybody in, unfortunately we did not get enough Republicans to vote for it. But this idea deserves new life and bipartisan cooperation in this Congress, and I look forward to hearing more from the President tonight. Very soon, Americans are going to feel the benefits of our agenda in their daily lives. Implementation is going to be a top priority for Senate Democrats in the months to come. Not everyone has the time to follow what happens in Congress day by day, but when we actually start doing things, implementing the bills, oh, it gets out. Just look at my home State of New York. After we passed infrastructure, many people didn't hear about it. To others, it was a line in the newspaper--oh, they have a bipartisan infrastructure bill. But last week, when the President came to New York to celebrate Gateway, you could feel the exaltation and excitement in the city. That is going to start happening again and again everywhere, in every State, in every community, as these large bills that helped American families are implemented and people see the actual results in their communities. So let me say it again. Democrats are proud we stuck together and delivered on an agenda that lowered costs, lifted America out of crisis, and helped lay a foundation for future prosperity. Our MAGA Republicans cannot claim the same. On the very first day in the new majority, House Republicans passed a bill not to help average Americans but, rather, that helps the ultrarich so they can avoid paying their fair share in taxes. The bottom line is, these people who are going to be added to the IRS are going to focus on all of those who are much richer than the average American but pay at a much lower rate. But the Republicans couldn't go for that. Those are the people they want to represent. Then they hardly stopped there. In just 1 month, the MAGA House majority has doubled down on their war on women, tripled down on their asinine national sales tax proposal, and Republicans continue to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to their radical agenda. In the coming months, nothing will require more cooperation and serious-mindedness than lifting the debt ceiling. I was glad to work with both Presidents Biden and Trump to lift the debt ceiling over the past couple of years. We did it without political blackmail, without brinkmanship. But Speaker McCarthy and many of his House MAGA Republicans are taking the debt ceiling hostage and basically saying: Our way or the highway. Agree to cuts or we won't lift the debt ceiling. That is not going to work, plain and simple. History shows that those who try to threaten their way to an agreement end up losing. If Speaker McCarthy is insistent on spending cuts, which we Democrats will strongly oppose, he has an obligation to take the next step and actually say what those cuts are for. We will oppose tying the debt ceiling to these types of cuts. The debt ceiling is debts we have already incurred and should be paid without brinkmanship, without adding things to the agenda, which risks a great deal for the American people. So what are the Republicans asking for? They say they want cuts. What are they? Are Republicans going to ax Social Security or Medicare? We think it is not enough for the Speaker to just say he doesn't want to make those cuts, because Members of his own party, including some of the very MAGA Republicans he followed in the first week of his session, are saying otherwise, and they have shown--some of them--that they can get their way in the new majority. Speaker McCarthy needs to prove he won't cut Social Security and Medicare by showing us the plan, his plan. What about funding for national defense? Our military just shot down the Chinese spy balloon. Are Republicans seriously thinking about cutting defense on some bogus claims of fighting a ``woke agenda''? What the heck does that mean? Republicans, show us the specific cuts. Show us the plan. What about families and children who rely on nutrition aid? The chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee recently said they are still looking at cuts to SNAP benefits at a time when children are hungry and groceries are far too expensive. This is from the party that cut taxes for billionaires and mega corporations back in 2017. If making sure hungry children have enough to eat is part of the ``woke agenda,'' then we sure don't have the same definition. Look, I know it is not easy for this new majority. The 20 or so extremists who dictated the House rules package can now thwart whatever proposal the Speaker wants to come up with if they feel the cuts don't go far enough. So I am gravely concerned that things will be very, very hard for the Speaker to manage, if he can come up with a plan at all. All this brings us back to what Democrats have been insisting on from the very beginning: No brinkmanship. No hostage-taking. Let's lift the debt ceiling together. Let's pay the debts that Democrats and Republicans, including Donald Trump, already incurred without ultimatums. Tonight, I expect the President will make this very clear to the American people, and it will be the responsibility of House Republicans to show that they take the debt ceiling seriously before they create an unprecedented crisis that will wreak havoc on every single American. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS245-9 | null | 5,778 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Mr. SCHUMER. Tonight, President Biden will come before a joint session of Congress and deliver his State of the Union to the American people. It is a chance for all of us to hear directly from the Commander in Chief about the tremendous progress we have made as a nation, the challenges we have overcome in recent years, and how Democrats are keeping our promises to make the lives of the American people better. I expect the President will make the case clearly and convincingly that today the United States is far better off than it was a year ago. Inflation is coming down; wages are going up; gas prices have eased at last; unemployment is near record lows; and the pandemic, after causing so much suffering, so much destruction, no longer dominates our lives. Our work is not finished, but today we can confidently say America is headed in the right direction thanks to President Biden's leadership and thanks to the work of a strong, unified Democratic Party in Congress. As Americans listen to President Biden, I am confident they will see the glaring contrast between Democratic unity on the one hand and Republican chaos on the other. Democrats remain laser-focused on delivering our people-first agenda. Every bill Democrats passed last Congress was written with average Americans in mind, from the American Rescue Plan to the infrastructure bill, to the Inflation Reduction Act, to gun safety, marriage equality, and so, so much more. Let's just take one example out of many. It is an important example but just one. Senate Democrats worked very hard to deliver a $35 insulin cap for every American on Medicare, but, of course, we want to go further. We tried to get it for everybody before reconciliation, but the reconciliation bill only allowed us to pass, in the IRA, an insulin cap for some Americans. Whenan amendment was offered to add everybody in, unfortunately we did not get enough Republicans to vote for it. But this idea deserves new life and bipartisan cooperation in this Congress, and I look forward to hearing more from the President tonight. Very soon, Americans are going to feel the benefits of our agenda in their daily lives. Implementation is going to be a top priority for Senate Democrats in the months to come. Not everyone has the time to follow what happens in Congress day by day, but when we actually start doing things, implementing the bills, oh, it gets out. Just look at my home State of New York. After we passed infrastructure, many people didn't hear about it. To others, it was a line in the newspaper--oh, they have a bipartisan infrastructure bill. But last week, when the President came to New York to celebrate Gateway, you could feel the exaltation and excitement in the city. That is going to start happening again and again everywhere, in every State, in every community, as these large bills that helped American families are implemented and people see the actual results in their communities. So let me say it again. Democrats are proud we stuck together and delivered on an agenda that lowered costs, lifted America out of crisis, and helped lay a foundation for future prosperity. Our MAGA Republicans cannot claim the same. On the very first day in the new majority, House Republicans passed a bill not to help average Americans but, rather, that helps the ultrarich so they can avoid paying their fair share in taxes. The bottom line is, these people who are going to be added to the IRS are going to focus on all of those who are much richer than the average American but pay at a much lower rate. But the Republicans couldn't go for that. Those are the people they want to represent. Then they hardly stopped there. In just 1 month, the MAGA House majority has doubled down on their war on women, tripled down on their asinine national sales tax proposal, and Republicans continue to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to their radical agenda. In the coming months, nothing will require more cooperation and serious-mindedness than lifting the debt ceiling. I was glad to work with both Presidents Biden and Trump to lift the debt ceiling over the past couple of years. We did it without political blackmail, without brinkmanship. But Speaker McCarthy and many of his House MAGA Republicans are taking the debt ceiling hostage and basically saying: Our way or the highway. Agree to cuts or we won't lift the debt ceiling. That is not going to work, plain and simple. History shows that those who try to threaten their way to an agreement end up losing. If Speaker McCarthy is insistent on spending cuts, which we Democrats will strongly oppose, he has an obligation to take the next step and actually say what those cuts are for. We will oppose tying the debt ceiling to these types of cuts. The debt ceiling is debts we have already incurred and should be paid without brinkmanship, without adding things to the agenda, which risks a great deal for the American people. So what are the Republicans asking for? They say they want cuts. What are they? Are Republicans going to ax Social Security or Medicare? We think it is not enough for the Speaker to just say he doesn't want to make those cuts, because Members of his own party, including some of the very MAGA Republicans he followed in the first week of his session, are saying otherwise, and they have shown--some of them--that they can get their way in the new majority. Speaker McCarthy needs to prove he won't cut Social Security and Medicare by showing us the plan, his plan. What about funding for national defense? Our military just shot down the Chinese spy balloon. Are Republicans seriously thinking about cutting defense on some bogus claims of fighting a ``woke agenda''? What the heck does that mean? Republicans, show us the specific cuts. Show us the plan. What about families and children who rely on nutrition aid? The chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee recently said they are still looking at cuts to SNAP benefits at a time when children are hungry and groceries are far too expensive. This is from the party that cut taxes for billionaires and mega corporations back in 2017. If making sure hungry children have enough to eat is part of the ``woke agenda,'' then we sure don't have the same definition. Look, I know it is not easy for this new majority. The 20 or so extremists who dictated the House rules package can now thwart whatever proposal the Speaker wants to come up with if they feel the cuts don't go far enough. So I am gravely concerned that things will be very, very hard for the Speaker to manage, if he can come up with a plan at all. All this brings us back to what Democrats have been insisting on from the very beginning: No brinkmanship. No hostage-taking. Let's lift the debt ceiling together. Let's pay the debts that Democrats and Republicans, including Donald Trump, already incurred without ultimatums. Tonight, I expect the President will make this very clear to the American people, and it will be the responsibility of House Republicans to show that they take the debt ceiling seriously before they create an unprecedented crisis that will wreak havoc on every single American. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS245-9 | null | 5,779 |
formal | MAGA | null | white supremacist | Mr. SCHUMER. Tonight, President Biden will come before a joint session of Congress and deliver his State of the Union to the American people. It is a chance for all of us to hear directly from the Commander in Chief about the tremendous progress we have made as a nation, the challenges we have overcome in recent years, and how Democrats are keeping our promises to make the lives of the American people better. I expect the President will make the case clearly and convincingly that today the United States is far better off than it was a year ago. Inflation is coming down; wages are going up; gas prices have eased at last; unemployment is near record lows; and the pandemic, after causing so much suffering, so much destruction, no longer dominates our lives. Our work is not finished, but today we can confidently say America is headed in the right direction thanks to President Biden's leadership and thanks to the work of a strong, unified Democratic Party in Congress. As Americans listen to President Biden, I am confident they will see the glaring contrast between Democratic unity on the one hand and Republican chaos on the other. Democrats remain laser-focused on delivering our people-first agenda. Every bill Democrats passed last Congress was written with average Americans in mind, from the American Rescue Plan to the infrastructure bill, to the Inflation Reduction Act, to gun safety, marriage equality, and so, so much more. Let's just take one example out of many. It is an important example but just one. Senate Democrats worked very hard to deliver a $35 insulin cap for every American on Medicare, but, of course, we want to go further. We tried to get it for everybody before reconciliation, but the reconciliation bill only allowed us to pass, in the IRA, an insulin cap for some Americans. Whenan amendment was offered to add everybody in, unfortunately we did not get enough Republicans to vote for it. But this idea deserves new life and bipartisan cooperation in this Congress, and I look forward to hearing more from the President tonight. Very soon, Americans are going to feel the benefits of our agenda in their daily lives. Implementation is going to be a top priority for Senate Democrats in the months to come. Not everyone has the time to follow what happens in Congress day by day, but when we actually start doing things, implementing the bills, oh, it gets out. Just look at my home State of New York. After we passed infrastructure, many people didn't hear about it. To others, it was a line in the newspaper--oh, they have a bipartisan infrastructure bill. But last week, when the President came to New York to celebrate Gateway, you could feel the exaltation and excitement in the city. That is going to start happening again and again everywhere, in every State, in every community, as these large bills that helped American families are implemented and people see the actual results in their communities. So let me say it again. Democrats are proud we stuck together and delivered on an agenda that lowered costs, lifted America out of crisis, and helped lay a foundation for future prosperity. Our MAGA Republicans cannot claim the same. On the very first day in the new majority, House Republicans passed a bill not to help average Americans but, rather, that helps the ultrarich so they can avoid paying their fair share in taxes. The bottom line is, these people who are going to be added to the IRS are going to focus on all of those who are much richer than the average American but pay at a much lower rate. But the Republicans couldn't go for that. Those are the people they want to represent. Then they hardly stopped there. In just 1 month, the MAGA House majority has doubled down on their war on women, tripled down on their asinine national sales tax proposal, and Republicans continue to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to their radical agenda. In the coming months, nothing will require more cooperation and serious-mindedness than lifting the debt ceiling. I was glad to work with both Presidents Biden and Trump to lift the debt ceiling over the past couple of years. We did it without political blackmail, without brinkmanship. But Speaker McCarthy and many of his House MAGA Republicans are taking the debt ceiling hostage and basically saying: Our way or the highway. Agree to cuts or we won't lift the debt ceiling. That is not going to work, plain and simple. History shows that those who try to threaten their way to an agreement end up losing. If Speaker McCarthy is insistent on spending cuts, which we Democrats will strongly oppose, he has an obligation to take the next step and actually say what those cuts are for. We will oppose tying the debt ceiling to these types of cuts. The debt ceiling is debts we have already incurred and should be paid without brinkmanship, without adding things to the agenda, which risks a great deal for the American people. So what are the Republicans asking for? They say they want cuts. What are they? Are Republicans going to ax Social Security or Medicare? We think it is not enough for the Speaker to just say he doesn't want to make those cuts, because Members of his own party, including some of the very MAGA Republicans he followed in the first week of his session, are saying otherwise, and they have shown--some of them--that they can get their way in the new majority. Speaker McCarthy needs to prove he won't cut Social Security and Medicare by showing us the plan, his plan. What about funding for national defense? Our military just shot down the Chinese spy balloon. Are Republicans seriously thinking about cutting defense on some bogus claims of fighting a ``woke agenda''? What the heck does that mean? Republicans, show us the specific cuts. Show us the plan. What about families and children who rely on nutrition aid? The chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee recently said they are still looking at cuts to SNAP benefits at a time when children are hungry and groceries are far too expensive. This is from the party that cut taxes for billionaires and mega corporations back in 2017. If making sure hungry children have enough to eat is part of the ``woke agenda,'' then we sure don't have the same definition. Look, I know it is not easy for this new majority. The 20 or so extremists who dictated the House rules package can now thwart whatever proposal the Speaker wants to come up with if they feel the cuts don't go far enough. So I am gravely concerned that things will be very, very hard for the Speaker to manage, if he can come up with a plan at all. All this brings us back to what Democrats have been insisting on from the very beginning: No brinkmanship. No hostage-taking. Let's lift the debt ceiling together. Let's pay the debts that Democrats and Republicans, including Donald Trump, already incurred without ultimatums. Tonight, I expect the President will make this very clear to the American people, and it will be the responsibility of House Republicans to show that they take the debt ceiling seriously before they create an unprecedented crisis that will wreak havoc on every single American. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS245-9 | null | 5,780 |
formal | MAGA | null | white supremacist | Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now on the Chinese surveillance balloon, I strongly--very strongly--condemn President Xi's brazen incursion into American airspace with the Chinese surveillance balloon, and I commend President Biden for being calm, calculated, and effective in taking down the balloon over water to ensure the safety of Americans on the ground and to ensure we maximize our intelligence gains as we examine this balloon, which is far less likely to burn and crash into a million pieces in water than over land. Instead of criticizing China, I was shocked to hear MAGA Republicans--before they even knew what was happening, before they even knew the whole story--direct their criticism toward the President, saying that we should have shot down the balloon the moment we saw it. So it is clear that the MAGA Republican criticism was at best premature and at worst political. This is one area where we don't need politics. We need Democrats and Republicans to come together to condemn China and be a unified front against the CCP. President Biden and his team did the right thing. They waited and took down the balloon carefully, precisely, and with what both the military and intelligence experts urged them to do. Had the President not gone along with what the military said, I can imagine that some of these same Republicans, so highly political in their criticism, would have then criticized the President for not listening to the military leaders. But now we can recover most of the equipment and begin to analyze the technology in the way it was done. Again, I applaud President Biden for his leadership. And on Thursday, all Senators--all Senators--we have upgraded this. Because so many Senators wanted a briefing, I asked the administration to do it as an all-Senators briefing instead of the Gang of 8, and that is what is going to happen. So all Senators will receive a classified briefing from administration officials on the surveillance balloon. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. SCHUMER | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS246 | null | 5,781 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this evening, President Biden will begin the back half of his term with his State of the Union address to Congress and to the American people. But the White House's attempts to script the message for this week have been upset by recent events. Over the last several days, the country learned that on President Biden's watch, the state of our Union is apparently under Chinese surveillance from our own skies. It is ludicrous to suggest that Canada and the United States had no choice but to let this thing traipse across the continent from coast to coast. President Obama's own Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, says, ``We should have acted earlier.'' The administration's handwringing and indecision, finally downing the balloon only after it had toured the length of our country, was typical of how President Biden and his team have conducted our foreign affairs. Our top military commanders and civilian experts all say that our broader strategic competition with China is our most serious challenge. But this President's last budget request tried to cut funding for our military after inflation, while Beijing keeps investing in their own capabilities. The commander of our U.S. Strategic Command just told Congress that China now has more land-based intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than we do. The administration's reckless retreat from Afghanistan blew past the expert warnings, cost the lives of 13 American servicemembers, let thousands of terrorists waltz out of prison, and incentivize others to challenge an America that looked cowardly. Its hesitating, indecisive, self-deterred approach to helping Ukraine before Putin invaded and in the earliest days right afterwards left freedom's friends flat-footed and are making the substantive fight more difficult than it ever had to be. And now the Biden administration apparently has pivoted from chasing another bad nuclear deal with Iran to trying to let terrorists out of Guantanamo Bay. These are just some of the reasons why 41 percent of Americans say the state of our union is weak--weak--and only 13 percent say it is strong. Of course, this administration has also created problems for American families closer to home. A nationwide poll published last week revealed that just 16 percent of Americans say they are in a better financial situation today than they were 2 years ago when the President and his party assumed total control of government. For 84 percent of Americans, one-party Democratic control of Washington either failed to live up to its promises or actively made life worse. Two years ago, over the objections of their own party's top economists, Washington Democrats misinterpreted a narrow election victory as a mandate for an unprecedented spending spree. When President Biden took office, inflation was at 1.4 percent. From Inauguration Day to today, inflation is over 13 percent. Working families have seen grocery prices jump 18.6 percent, used car prices rise 26.2 percent, and energy prices soar by 33.9 percent. Millions--millions--of Americans have earned pay raises at work, but runaway inflation has left them with less purchasing power than before. Our southern border is in crisis, shattering all-time records for illegal immigrant apprehensions. Streets and neighborhoods are being swallowed up by violent crime--after local Democrats have cut police budgets, liberal prosecutors have turned jails into revolving doors, and national Democrats spent years amplifying the kinds of anti-police rhetoric that result in more crime. And President Biden is helping the radical left go on offense and bring a culture war to the doorsteps of normal American families--trying to squeeze Catholic hospitals and faith-based daycares out of business; trying to take school choice and curriculum transparency away from parents--and on and on and on. President Biden campaigned on being the adult in the room. But he is not even calling the shots in his own party. Over and over on issue after issue, this President hands the car keys to the radical left and turned himself into a passenger. That is why working families across the country have voted for change. They elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives to put the emergency brakes on runaway liberal spending. They reelected all-star Republican governors in places like Texas, Georgia, and Florida. And they elevated a talented new generation of leaders, including the youngest serving governor in America--Governor Sanders of Arkansas--whom the American people will hear from tonight. Our country may still be struggling to understand what on earth Washington Democrats think they have actually accomplished in the past 2 years. But they can be absolutely sure where Republicans stand. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-2 | null | 5,782 |
formal | illegal immigrant | null | anti-Latino | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this evening, President Biden will begin the back half of his term with his State of the Union address to Congress and to the American people. But the White House's attempts to script the message for this week have been upset by recent events. Over the last several days, the country learned that on President Biden's watch, the state of our Union is apparently under Chinese surveillance from our own skies. It is ludicrous to suggest that Canada and the United States had no choice but to let this thing traipse across the continent from coast to coast. President Obama's own Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, says, ``We should have acted earlier.'' The administration's handwringing and indecision, finally downing the balloon only after it had toured the length of our country, was typical of how President Biden and his team have conducted our foreign affairs. Our top military commanders and civilian experts all say that our broader strategic competition with China is our most serious challenge. But this President's last budget request tried to cut funding for our military after inflation, while Beijing keeps investing in their own capabilities. The commander of our U.S. Strategic Command just told Congress that China now has more land-based intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than we do. The administration's reckless retreat from Afghanistan blew past the expert warnings, cost the lives of 13 American servicemembers, let thousands of terrorists waltz out of prison, and incentivize others to challenge an America that looked cowardly. Its hesitating, indecisive, self-deterred approach to helping Ukraine before Putin invaded and in the earliest days right afterwards left freedom's friends flat-footed and are making the substantive fight more difficult than it ever had to be. And now the Biden administration apparently has pivoted from chasing another bad nuclear deal with Iran to trying to let terrorists out of Guantanamo Bay. These are just some of the reasons why 41 percent of Americans say the state of our union is weak--weak--and only 13 percent say it is strong. Of course, this administration has also created problems for American families closer to home. A nationwide poll published last week revealed that just 16 percent of Americans say they are in a better financial situation today than they were 2 years ago when the President and his party assumed total control of government. For 84 percent of Americans, one-party Democratic control of Washington either failed to live up to its promises or actively made life worse. Two years ago, over the objections of their own party's top economists, Washington Democrats misinterpreted a narrow election victory as a mandate for an unprecedented spending spree. When President Biden took office, inflation was at 1.4 percent. From Inauguration Day to today, inflation is over 13 percent. Working families have seen grocery prices jump 18.6 percent, used car prices rise 26.2 percent, and energy prices soar by 33.9 percent. Millions--millions--of Americans have earned pay raises at work, but runaway inflation has left them with less purchasing power than before. Our southern border is in crisis, shattering all-time records for illegal immigrant apprehensions. Streets and neighborhoods are being swallowed up by violent crime--after local Democrats have cut police budgets, liberal prosecutors have turned jails into revolving doors, and national Democrats spent years amplifying the kinds of anti-police rhetoric that result in more crime. And President Biden is helping the radical left go on offense and bring a culture war to the doorsteps of normal American families--trying to squeeze Catholic hospitals and faith-based daycares out of business; trying to take school choice and curriculum transparency away from parents--and on and on and on. President Biden campaigned on being the adult in the room. But he is not even calling the shots in his own party. Over and over on issue after issue, this President hands the car keys to the radical left and turned himself into a passenger. That is why working families across the country have voted for change. They elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives to put the emergency brakes on runaway liberal spending. They reelected all-star Republican governors in places like Texas, Georgia, and Florida. And they elevated a talented new generation of leaders, including the youngest serving governor in America--Governor Sanders of Arkansas--whom the American people will hear from tonight. Our country may still be struggling to understand what on earth Washington Democrats think they have actually accomplished in the past 2 years. But they can be absolutely sure where Republicans stand. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-2 | null | 5,783 |
formal | terrorists | null | Islamophobic | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this evening, President Biden will begin the back half of his term with his State of the Union address to Congress and to the American people. But the White House's attempts to script the message for this week have been upset by recent events. Over the last several days, the country learned that on President Biden's watch, the state of our Union is apparently under Chinese surveillance from our own skies. It is ludicrous to suggest that Canada and the United States had no choice but to let this thing traipse across the continent from coast to coast. President Obama's own Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, says, ``We should have acted earlier.'' The administration's handwringing and indecision, finally downing the balloon only after it had toured the length of our country, was typical of how President Biden and his team have conducted our foreign affairs. Our top military commanders and civilian experts all say that our broader strategic competition with China is our most serious challenge. But this President's last budget request tried to cut funding for our military after inflation, while Beijing keeps investing in their own capabilities. The commander of our U.S. Strategic Command just told Congress that China now has more land-based intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than we do. The administration's reckless retreat from Afghanistan blew past the expert warnings, cost the lives of 13 American servicemembers, let thousands of terrorists waltz out of prison, and incentivize others to challenge an America that looked cowardly. Its hesitating, indecisive, self-deterred approach to helping Ukraine before Putin invaded and in the earliest days right afterwards left freedom's friends flat-footed and are making the substantive fight more difficult than it ever had to be. And now the Biden administration apparently has pivoted from chasing another bad nuclear deal with Iran to trying to let terrorists out of Guantanamo Bay. These are just some of the reasons why 41 percent of Americans say the state of our union is weak--weak--and only 13 percent say it is strong. Of course, this administration has also created problems for American families closer to home. A nationwide poll published last week revealed that just 16 percent of Americans say they are in a better financial situation today than they were 2 years ago when the President and his party assumed total control of government. For 84 percent of Americans, one-party Democratic control of Washington either failed to live up to its promises or actively made life worse. Two years ago, over the objections of their own party's top economists, Washington Democrats misinterpreted a narrow election victory as a mandate for an unprecedented spending spree. When President Biden took office, inflation was at 1.4 percent. From Inauguration Day to today, inflation is over 13 percent. Working families have seen grocery prices jump 18.6 percent, used car prices rise 26.2 percent, and energy prices soar by 33.9 percent. Millions--millions--of Americans have earned pay raises at work, but runaway inflation has left them with less purchasing power than before. Our southern border is in crisis, shattering all-time records for illegal immigrant apprehensions. Streets and neighborhoods are being swallowed up by violent crime--after local Democrats have cut police budgets, liberal prosecutors have turned jails into revolving doors, and national Democrats spent years amplifying the kinds of anti-police rhetoric that result in more crime. And President Biden is helping the radical left go on offense and bring a culture war to the doorsteps of normal American families--trying to squeeze Catholic hospitals and faith-based daycares out of business; trying to take school choice and curriculum transparency away from parents--and on and on and on. President Biden campaigned on being the adult in the room. But he is not even calling the shots in his own party. Over and over on issue after issue, this President hands the car keys to the radical left and turned himself into a passenger. That is why working families across the country have voted for change. They elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives to put the emergency brakes on runaway liberal spending. They reelected all-star Republican governors in places like Texas, Georgia, and Florida. And they elevated a talented new generation of leaders, including the youngest serving governor in America--Governor Sanders of Arkansas--whom the American people will hear from tonight. Our country may still be struggling to understand what on earth Washington Democrats think they have actually accomplished in the past 2 years. But they can be absolutely sure where Republicans stand. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-2 | null | 5,784 |
formal | school choice | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this evening, President Biden will begin the back half of his term with his State of the Union address to Congress and to the American people. But the White House's attempts to script the message for this week have been upset by recent events. Over the last several days, the country learned that on President Biden's watch, the state of our Union is apparently under Chinese surveillance from our own skies. It is ludicrous to suggest that Canada and the United States had no choice but to let this thing traipse across the continent from coast to coast. President Obama's own Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, says, ``We should have acted earlier.'' The administration's handwringing and indecision, finally downing the balloon only after it had toured the length of our country, was typical of how President Biden and his team have conducted our foreign affairs. Our top military commanders and civilian experts all say that our broader strategic competition with China is our most serious challenge. But this President's last budget request tried to cut funding for our military after inflation, while Beijing keeps investing in their own capabilities. The commander of our U.S. Strategic Command just told Congress that China now has more land-based intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than we do. The administration's reckless retreat from Afghanistan blew past the expert warnings, cost the lives of 13 American servicemembers, let thousands of terrorists waltz out of prison, and incentivize others to challenge an America that looked cowardly. Its hesitating, indecisive, self-deterred approach to helping Ukraine before Putin invaded and in the earliest days right afterwards left freedom's friends flat-footed and are making the substantive fight more difficult than it ever had to be. And now the Biden administration apparently has pivoted from chasing another bad nuclear deal with Iran to trying to let terrorists out of Guantanamo Bay. These are just some of the reasons why 41 percent of Americans say the state of our union is weak--weak--and only 13 percent say it is strong. Of course, this administration has also created problems for American families closer to home. A nationwide poll published last week revealed that just 16 percent of Americans say they are in a better financial situation today than they were 2 years ago when the President and his party assumed total control of government. For 84 percent of Americans, one-party Democratic control of Washington either failed to live up to its promises or actively made life worse. Two years ago, over the objections of their own party's top economists, Washington Democrats misinterpreted a narrow election victory as a mandate for an unprecedented spending spree. When President Biden took office, inflation was at 1.4 percent. From Inauguration Day to today, inflation is over 13 percent. Working families have seen grocery prices jump 18.6 percent, used car prices rise 26.2 percent, and energy prices soar by 33.9 percent. Millions--millions--of Americans have earned pay raises at work, but runaway inflation has left them with less purchasing power than before. Our southern border is in crisis, shattering all-time records for illegal immigrant apprehensions. Streets and neighborhoods are being swallowed up by violent crime--after local Democrats have cut police budgets, liberal prosecutors have turned jails into revolving doors, and national Democrats spent years amplifying the kinds of anti-police rhetoric that result in more crime. And President Biden is helping the radical left go on offense and bring a culture war to the doorsteps of normal American families--trying to squeeze Catholic hospitals and faith-based daycares out of business; trying to take school choice and curriculum transparency away from parents--and on and on and on. President Biden campaigned on being the adult in the room. But he is not even calling the shots in his own party. Over and over on issue after issue, this President hands the car keys to the radical left and turned himself into a passenger. That is why working families across the country have voted for change. They elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives to put the emergency brakes on runaway liberal spending. They reelected all-star Republican governors in places like Texas, Georgia, and Florida. And they elevated a talented new generation of leaders, including the youngest serving governor in America--Governor Sanders of Arkansas--whom the American people will hear from tonight. Our country may still be struggling to understand what on earth Washington Democrats think they have actually accomplished in the past 2 years. But they can be absolutely sure where Republicans stand. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-2 | null | 5,785 |
formal | working families | null | racist | Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this evening, President Biden will begin the back half of his term with his State of the Union address to Congress and to the American people. But the White House's attempts to script the message for this week have been upset by recent events. Over the last several days, the country learned that on President Biden's watch, the state of our Union is apparently under Chinese surveillance from our own skies. It is ludicrous to suggest that Canada and the United States had no choice but to let this thing traipse across the continent from coast to coast. President Obama's own Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, says, ``We should have acted earlier.'' The administration's handwringing and indecision, finally downing the balloon only after it had toured the length of our country, was typical of how President Biden and his team have conducted our foreign affairs. Our top military commanders and civilian experts all say that our broader strategic competition with China is our most serious challenge. But this President's last budget request tried to cut funding for our military after inflation, while Beijing keeps investing in their own capabilities. The commander of our U.S. Strategic Command just told Congress that China now has more land-based intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than we do. The administration's reckless retreat from Afghanistan blew past the expert warnings, cost the lives of 13 American servicemembers, let thousands of terrorists waltz out of prison, and incentivize others to challenge an America that looked cowardly. Its hesitating, indecisive, self-deterred approach to helping Ukraine before Putin invaded and in the earliest days right afterwards left freedom's friends flat-footed and are making the substantive fight more difficult than it ever had to be. And now the Biden administration apparently has pivoted from chasing another bad nuclear deal with Iran to trying to let terrorists out of Guantanamo Bay. These are just some of the reasons why 41 percent of Americans say the state of our union is weak--weak--and only 13 percent say it is strong. Of course, this administration has also created problems for American families closer to home. A nationwide poll published last week revealed that just 16 percent of Americans say they are in a better financial situation today than they were 2 years ago when the President and his party assumed total control of government. For 84 percent of Americans, one-party Democratic control of Washington either failed to live up to its promises or actively made life worse. Two years ago, over the objections of their own party's top economists, Washington Democrats misinterpreted a narrow election victory as a mandate for an unprecedented spending spree. When President Biden took office, inflation was at 1.4 percent. From Inauguration Day to today, inflation is over 13 percent. Working families have seen grocery prices jump 18.6 percent, used car prices rise 26.2 percent, and energy prices soar by 33.9 percent. Millions--millions--of Americans have earned pay raises at work, but runaway inflation has left them with less purchasing power than before. Our southern border is in crisis, shattering all-time records for illegal immigrant apprehensions. Streets and neighborhoods are being swallowed up by violent crime--after local Democrats have cut police budgets, liberal prosecutors have turned jails into revolving doors, and national Democrats spent years amplifying the kinds of anti-police rhetoric that result in more crime. And President Biden is helping the radical left go on offense and bring a culture war to the doorsteps of normal American families--trying to squeeze Catholic hospitals and faith-based daycares out of business; trying to take school choice and curriculum transparency away from parents--and on and on and on. President Biden campaigned on being the adult in the room. But he is not even calling the shots in his own party. Over and over on issue after issue, this President hands the car keys to the radical left and turned himself into a passenger. That is why working families across the country have voted for change. They elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives to put the emergency brakes on runaway liberal spending. They reelected all-star Republican governors in places like Texas, Georgia, and Florida. And they elevated a talented new generation of leaders, including the youngest serving governor in America--Governor Sanders of Arkansas--whom the American people will hear from tonight. Our country may still be struggling to understand what on earth Washington Democrats think they have actually accomplished in the past 2 years. But they can be absolutely sure where Republicans stand. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. McCONNELL | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-2 | null | 5,786 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, when the COVID pandemic hit, small businesses were shut down; millions of Americans lost their jobs; schools were shut down; flights were canceled; and traveling ground to a halt. The sick and the elderly were forced to die in hospitals and nursing homes, tragically alone, without the comforting embrace of loved ones. The corporate media told us there was no way that this virus could have escaped from a Chinese Government lab, and Big Tech companies banned and censored posts laying out the evidence that it had escaped from a Chinese lab, labeling that evidence a ``conspiracy theory.'' Masks were mandated everywhere. And when the COVID vaccines came out, those were mandated too. Doctors, nurses, and our brave service men and women who chose not to get the vaccine were fired, discharged, sent home. The corrupt corporate media's reaction to COVID devastated our economy and led directly to massive inflation, to weakening and even destroying faith in public health institutions, and resulted in learning loss that millions of American children may never recover from. The pandemic is over. President Biden has even admitted that. The vast majority of America has moved on with their lives. But, sadly, the BidenWhite House and too many Senate Democrats want to cling to power. During the pandemic, we saw abuses of power at every level of government but especially the Federal Government. Over the past 2 years, I have been proud to lead the fight in the Senate to stop these abuses by introducing targeted pieces of legislation that I have reintroduced in this new Congress. Five of these bills would get rid of mandates. If passed into law, they would mean no more mask mandates, no vaccine mandates, no vaccine passports, no vaccine mandates for minors, and no vaccine mandates for kids to go back to school in Washington, DC. Two other bills concern vital healthcare. The GIVE LIFE Act, or Doss's bill, is named after a teenager in Texas who was denied a kidney transplant because he hadn't been vaccinated against COVID. No American should be denied a lifesaving medical treatment such as an organ transplant because of their COVID vaccine status. That is wrong. Unfortunately, we have seen this kind of discrimination over and over again. We saw it happen to a teenager in Texas. It also happened to a 31-year-old man in Boston who was denied a heart transplant, to a 38-year-old veteran who had already had COVID twice who was denied a kidney transplant in North Carolina, and a man in South Carolina who was also denied a kidney transplant because he wasn't vaccinated against COVID. Just in December, yet another teenager was denied a kidney transplant, this time in North Carolina, because she wasn't vaccinated against COVID. The GIVE LIFE Act would stop the Federal Government from enabling this discrimination when it comes to organ donation. Another bill, the Ending Discrimination in COVID-19 Treatments Act, would mandate the Department of Health and Human Services to require that providers not engage in discriminatory practices when treating COVID. I filed this bill in response to reports that States across the country have used race and ethnicity as a factor in determining whether someone is eligible to receive COVID treatments, particularly monoclonal antibodies when they were first introduced. This bill now applies to all COVID funding and treatments, not just monoclonal antibodies. This kind of discrimination and treatment has happened in the past year. In January 2022, a man in New York who had both COVID and pneumonia was denied monoclonal antibodies. He told CBS News: The doctor just shut me down and said this is the criteria: You're not of age, which is 65, and you're not a minority. As part of its response, the New York Department of Health told CBS: This guidance is based on CDC guidelines that show COVID mortality rates are higher among certain demographic groups, including senior citizens, immunocompromised individuals, and nonwhite/Hispanic communities. So what New York said is they were following CDC guidelines in determining how this COVID treatment would be distributed. As New York, itself, admitted, the CDC guidelines are encouraging racial discrimination in the distribution of healthcare, and that is immoral and wrong. My bill would stop this discrimination. Let's be very clear here. Race, religion, ethnicity should not be a factor--zero--in determining anyone's medical treatment. Doing so is unconstitutional; it is wrong; and it is abhorrent. These are battles worth fighting. For those of us who have been standing up against these abusive mandates, we recently won a big victory in December of last year on COVID vaccines in the military. I have fought hard to end President Biden's military vaccine mandate and last month, December, we succeeded. We passed into law a provision to end the mandate, finally, but, sadly, that provision was prospective. The Democrats in Congress would only agree to it going forward if it applied in the future, but provided zero relief to the thousands or even tens of thousands of service men and women who were terminated because they declined to get the vaccine. To fix this, I have introduced legislation called the AMERICANS Act, which would allow those service men and women who were terminated to be reinstated if they want to go back into the military. And if they do, they could go back to their original rank and receive the benefits to which they were entitled and which they have earned. If those servicemembers choose not to go back in the military, my bill would ensure that they receive an honorable discharge--not merely a general discharge, as too many of them have received--which will ensure that they can receive the benefits they earned by fighting to defend this country. I am committed to fighting for every soldier, every sailor, every airman, every marine, every coastguardsman who was wrongfully terminated or wrongfully demoted because of the COVID vaccine mandate. And I give my word: I am going to keep fighting for them until they see justice. That is why tonight, we are going to be at the State of the Union Address on the other side of the Capitol, and my guest tonight for the State of the Union is LT Levi Beaird, a naval surface warfare officer. Lieutenant Beaird is a Texas resident and a top-rated officer. In March of 2022, he faced a separation board because he made the personal decision to decline to get the COVID vaccine. But before the Biden administration could kick him out, a Federal judge entered an injunction preventing the Navy from terminating Lieutenant Beaird. However, the Navy is, right now, trying to recoup from him $75,000 that they already paid him in anticipation of Lieutenant Beaird's becoming a department head because he wasn't named a department head. Well, the reason he wasn't named a department head is because he made the personal decision not to get the COVID vaccine due to his own sincere religious objection. I am proud to be welcoming Lieutenant Beaird to the State of the Union tonight. I hope that his being there will cause those in the media to tell his story because it really underscores how grotesquely unfair the Biden administration's policies have been and how they punish those American heroes. So Lieutenant Beaird will be in the audience tonight as Joe Biden, no doubt, will congratulate himself and try to avoid accountability for the problems his administration has caused. When it comes to COVID, the pandemic we endured as a nation was an enormous challenge. The policies that were put in place across this country in response to the pandemic, many of them have caused enormous damage. I believe, as a nation, we will look back on these policies, in the years and decades to come, and wonder what collective insanity came over this country; what insanity led to the judgment that it is a good idea to shut down schools for tens of millions of children across this country for more than a year; that it is a good idea for young children, elementary school children, not to learn reading and writing and math. That policy has resulted in massive learning loss, and that learning loss has been all the greater among the economically disadvantaged, among Hispanic and African-American kids. The result of these shutdowns is a generation of kids who have been harmed, perhaps, irreparably. In our military, the results of firing thousands upon thousands of service men and women--and we don't know how many. I would note, I asked the Biden administration over and over again: How many of our heroes have you fired? The administration refuses to answer. It is, in the minimum, thousands; it may be in the tens of thousands. But I can tell you, I have spoken with Navy SEALS, heroes who spent their lives training and defending this Nation, and they are being fired--some of the youngest, healthiest people we have in our country are being fired because they didn't comply with an arbitrary decree. And now, the President and the administration have admitted that decree should no longer be enforced, but the Navy Seals they fired last year or the year before are still out of the military. All the while, we have massive recruiting shortfalls, and America is in greater jeopardy. Mr. President, you are new on this side of the aisle but not new to Congress. There was a time in this body when Republicans and Democrats could come together and reason together, where not everything we did was a shirts-and-skins partisan battle: Good morning. No, it is not. In less vituperative times, these shouldn't be difficult questions. When I forced a vote on the Senate floor thatthe DC Public Schools should not throw out of school every student who hasn't received the COVID vaccine--and, mind you, that is 20 percent of the students in DC Public Schools, and, in the African-American community, it is 40 percent of the African-American students in the DC Public Schools. I am sorry to say, but when we voted on that on the Senate floor, every single Democrat--all of them--voted to throw out of public schools 40 percent of the Black kids in DC. You are talking about a 13-, 14-, 15-year-old kid who Senate Democrats were willing to make a high-school dropout involuntarily because that child or that child's parents made the decision not to receive the vaccine. In ordinary sane times, that should be a 100-to-nothing vote. You would think it was almost satirical that someone would stand up and say: We are debating whether or not to throw out of DC Public Schools 40 percent of the African-American children. If you and I go home and talk to our citizens at home, to a person, they would think that was nuts, unless they happened to work in this building. On the question of service men and women, we saw, in the preceding year, that President Biden called to congratulate a coastguardsman who showed incredible heroism rescuing people at a time of natural disaster. That coastguardsman, within the week, was notified that he was being terminated because he hadn't gotten the COVID vaccine. This shouldn't be divisive. We want our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines and coastguardsmen to be ready, to be trained, to be serving, and, if the administration agrees the mandate makes no sense today, why would we sit by and let thousands upon thousands of them remain fired, terminated, and denied the benefits they have earned? So I call upon this body: Let's have a return to sanity. Let's fight for the men and women we are elected to represent. And I give you my word that I am going to continue to fight against these mandates that are wrong, that are unjust, that are harmful, and I hope and pray this body can come together and embrace sanity once again. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CRUZ | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-5 | null | 5,787 |
formal | the Fed | null | antisemitic | Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, when the COVID pandemic hit, small businesses were shut down; millions of Americans lost their jobs; schools were shut down; flights were canceled; and traveling ground to a halt. The sick and the elderly were forced to die in hospitals and nursing homes, tragically alone, without the comforting embrace of loved ones. The corporate media told us there was no way that this virus could have escaped from a Chinese Government lab, and Big Tech companies banned and censored posts laying out the evidence that it had escaped from a Chinese lab, labeling that evidence a ``conspiracy theory.'' Masks were mandated everywhere. And when the COVID vaccines came out, those were mandated too. Doctors, nurses, and our brave service men and women who chose not to get the vaccine were fired, discharged, sent home. The corrupt corporate media's reaction to COVID devastated our economy and led directly to massive inflation, to weakening and even destroying faith in public health institutions, and resulted in learning loss that millions of American children may never recover from. The pandemic is over. President Biden has even admitted that. The vast majority of America has moved on with their lives. But, sadly, the BidenWhite House and too many Senate Democrats want to cling to power. During the pandemic, we saw abuses of power at every level of government but especially the Federal Government. Over the past 2 years, I have been proud to lead the fight in the Senate to stop these abuses by introducing targeted pieces of legislation that I have reintroduced in this new Congress. Five of these bills would get rid of mandates. If passed into law, they would mean no more mask mandates, no vaccine mandates, no vaccine passports, no vaccine mandates for minors, and no vaccine mandates for kids to go back to school in Washington, DC. Two other bills concern vital healthcare. The GIVE LIFE Act, or Doss's bill, is named after a teenager in Texas who was denied a kidney transplant because he hadn't been vaccinated against COVID. No American should be denied a lifesaving medical treatment such as an organ transplant because of their COVID vaccine status. That is wrong. Unfortunately, we have seen this kind of discrimination over and over again. We saw it happen to a teenager in Texas. It also happened to a 31-year-old man in Boston who was denied a heart transplant, to a 38-year-old veteran who had already had COVID twice who was denied a kidney transplant in North Carolina, and a man in South Carolina who was also denied a kidney transplant because he wasn't vaccinated against COVID. Just in December, yet another teenager was denied a kidney transplant, this time in North Carolina, because she wasn't vaccinated against COVID. The GIVE LIFE Act would stop the Federal Government from enabling this discrimination when it comes to organ donation. Another bill, the Ending Discrimination in COVID-19 Treatments Act, would mandate the Department of Health and Human Services to require that providers not engage in discriminatory practices when treating COVID. I filed this bill in response to reports that States across the country have used race and ethnicity as a factor in determining whether someone is eligible to receive COVID treatments, particularly monoclonal antibodies when they were first introduced. This bill now applies to all COVID funding and treatments, not just monoclonal antibodies. This kind of discrimination and treatment has happened in the past year. In January 2022, a man in New York who had both COVID and pneumonia was denied monoclonal antibodies. He told CBS News: The doctor just shut me down and said this is the criteria: You're not of age, which is 65, and you're not a minority. As part of its response, the New York Department of Health told CBS: This guidance is based on CDC guidelines that show COVID mortality rates are higher among certain demographic groups, including senior citizens, immunocompromised individuals, and nonwhite/Hispanic communities. So what New York said is they were following CDC guidelines in determining how this COVID treatment would be distributed. As New York, itself, admitted, the CDC guidelines are encouraging racial discrimination in the distribution of healthcare, and that is immoral and wrong. My bill would stop this discrimination. Let's be very clear here. Race, religion, ethnicity should not be a factor--zero--in determining anyone's medical treatment. Doing so is unconstitutional; it is wrong; and it is abhorrent. These are battles worth fighting. For those of us who have been standing up against these abusive mandates, we recently won a big victory in December of last year on COVID vaccines in the military. I have fought hard to end President Biden's military vaccine mandate and last month, December, we succeeded. We passed into law a provision to end the mandate, finally, but, sadly, that provision was prospective. The Democrats in Congress would only agree to it going forward if it applied in the future, but provided zero relief to the thousands or even tens of thousands of service men and women who were terminated because they declined to get the vaccine. To fix this, I have introduced legislation called the AMERICANS Act, which would allow those service men and women who were terminated to be reinstated if they want to go back into the military. And if they do, they could go back to their original rank and receive the benefits to which they were entitled and which they have earned. If those servicemembers choose not to go back in the military, my bill would ensure that they receive an honorable discharge--not merely a general discharge, as too many of them have received--which will ensure that they can receive the benefits they earned by fighting to defend this country. I am committed to fighting for every soldier, every sailor, every airman, every marine, every coastguardsman who was wrongfully terminated or wrongfully demoted because of the COVID vaccine mandate. And I give my word: I am going to keep fighting for them until they see justice. That is why tonight, we are going to be at the State of the Union Address on the other side of the Capitol, and my guest tonight for the State of the Union is LT Levi Beaird, a naval surface warfare officer. Lieutenant Beaird is a Texas resident and a top-rated officer. In March of 2022, he faced a separation board because he made the personal decision to decline to get the COVID vaccine. But before the Biden administration could kick him out, a Federal judge entered an injunction preventing the Navy from terminating Lieutenant Beaird. However, the Navy is, right now, trying to recoup from him $75,000 that they already paid him in anticipation of Lieutenant Beaird's becoming a department head because he wasn't named a department head. Well, the reason he wasn't named a department head is because he made the personal decision not to get the COVID vaccine due to his own sincere religious objection. I am proud to be welcoming Lieutenant Beaird to the State of the Union tonight. I hope that his being there will cause those in the media to tell his story because it really underscores how grotesquely unfair the Biden administration's policies have been and how they punish those American heroes. So Lieutenant Beaird will be in the audience tonight as Joe Biden, no doubt, will congratulate himself and try to avoid accountability for the problems his administration has caused. When it comes to COVID, the pandemic we endured as a nation was an enormous challenge. The policies that were put in place across this country in response to the pandemic, many of them have caused enormous damage. I believe, as a nation, we will look back on these policies, in the years and decades to come, and wonder what collective insanity came over this country; what insanity led to the judgment that it is a good idea to shut down schools for tens of millions of children across this country for more than a year; that it is a good idea for young children, elementary school children, not to learn reading and writing and math. That policy has resulted in massive learning loss, and that learning loss has been all the greater among the economically disadvantaged, among Hispanic and African-American kids. The result of these shutdowns is a generation of kids who have been harmed, perhaps, irreparably. In our military, the results of firing thousands upon thousands of service men and women--and we don't know how many. I would note, I asked the Biden administration over and over again: How many of our heroes have you fired? The administration refuses to answer. It is, in the minimum, thousands; it may be in the tens of thousands. But I can tell you, I have spoken with Navy SEALS, heroes who spent their lives training and defending this Nation, and they are being fired--some of the youngest, healthiest people we have in our country are being fired because they didn't comply with an arbitrary decree. And now, the President and the administration have admitted that decree should no longer be enforced, but the Navy Seals they fired last year or the year before are still out of the military. All the while, we have massive recruiting shortfalls, and America is in greater jeopardy. Mr. President, you are new on this side of the aisle but not new to Congress. There was a time in this body when Republicans and Democrats could come together and reason together, where not everything we did was a shirts-and-skins partisan battle: Good morning. No, it is not. In less vituperative times, these shouldn't be difficult questions. When I forced a vote on the Senate floor thatthe DC Public Schools should not throw out of school every student who hasn't received the COVID vaccine--and, mind you, that is 20 percent of the students in DC Public Schools, and, in the African-American community, it is 40 percent of the African-American students in the DC Public Schools. I am sorry to say, but when we voted on that on the Senate floor, every single Democrat--all of them--voted to throw out of public schools 40 percent of the Black kids in DC. You are talking about a 13-, 14-, 15-year-old kid who Senate Democrats were willing to make a high-school dropout involuntarily because that child or that child's parents made the decision not to receive the vaccine. In ordinary sane times, that should be a 100-to-nothing vote. You would think it was almost satirical that someone would stand up and say: We are debating whether or not to throw out of DC Public Schools 40 percent of the African-American children. If you and I go home and talk to our citizens at home, to a person, they would think that was nuts, unless they happened to work in this building. On the question of service men and women, we saw, in the preceding year, that President Biden called to congratulate a coastguardsman who showed incredible heroism rescuing people at a time of natural disaster. That coastguardsman, within the week, was notified that he was being terminated because he hadn't gotten the COVID vaccine. This shouldn't be divisive. We want our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines and coastguardsmen to be ready, to be trained, to be serving, and, if the administration agrees the mandate makes no sense today, why would we sit by and let thousands upon thousands of them remain fired, terminated, and denied the benefits they have earned? So I call upon this body: Let's have a return to sanity. Let's fight for the men and women we are elected to represent. And I give you my word that I am going to continue to fight against these mandates that are wrong, that are unjust, that are harmful, and I hope and pray this body can come together and embrace sanity once again. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CRUZ | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-5 | null | 5,788 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, when the COVID pandemic hit, small businesses were shut down; millions of Americans lost their jobs; schools were shut down; flights were canceled; and traveling ground to a halt. The sick and the elderly were forced to die in hospitals and nursing homes, tragically alone, without the comforting embrace of loved ones. The corporate media told us there was no way that this virus could have escaped from a Chinese Government lab, and Big Tech companies banned and censored posts laying out the evidence that it had escaped from a Chinese lab, labeling that evidence a ``conspiracy theory.'' Masks were mandated everywhere. And when the COVID vaccines came out, those were mandated too. Doctors, nurses, and our brave service men and women who chose not to get the vaccine were fired, discharged, sent home. The corrupt corporate media's reaction to COVID devastated our economy and led directly to massive inflation, to weakening and even destroying faith in public health institutions, and resulted in learning loss that millions of American children may never recover from. The pandemic is over. President Biden has even admitted that. The vast majority of America has moved on with their lives. But, sadly, the BidenWhite House and too many Senate Democrats want to cling to power. During the pandemic, we saw abuses of power at every level of government but especially the Federal Government. Over the past 2 years, I have been proud to lead the fight in the Senate to stop these abuses by introducing targeted pieces of legislation that I have reintroduced in this new Congress. Five of these bills would get rid of mandates. If passed into law, they would mean no more mask mandates, no vaccine mandates, no vaccine passports, no vaccine mandates for minors, and no vaccine mandates for kids to go back to school in Washington, DC. Two other bills concern vital healthcare. The GIVE LIFE Act, or Doss's bill, is named after a teenager in Texas who was denied a kidney transplant because he hadn't been vaccinated against COVID. No American should be denied a lifesaving medical treatment such as an organ transplant because of their COVID vaccine status. That is wrong. Unfortunately, we have seen this kind of discrimination over and over again. We saw it happen to a teenager in Texas. It also happened to a 31-year-old man in Boston who was denied a heart transplant, to a 38-year-old veteran who had already had COVID twice who was denied a kidney transplant in North Carolina, and a man in South Carolina who was also denied a kidney transplant because he wasn't vaccinated against COVID. Just in December, yet another teenager was denied a kidney transplant, this time in North Carolina, because she wasn't vaccinated against COVID. The GIVE LIFE Act would stop the Federal Government from enabling this discrimination when it comes to organ donation. Another bill, the Ending Discrimination in COVID-19 Treatments Act, would mandate the Department of Health and Human Services to require that providers not engage in discriminatory practices when treating COVID. I filed this bill in response to reports that States across the country have used race and ethnicity as a factor in determining whether someone is eligible to receive COVID treatments, particularly monoclonal antibodies when they were first introduced. This bill now applies to all COVID funding and treatments, not just monoclonal antibodies. This kind of discrimination and treatment has happened in the past year. In January 2022, a man in New York who had both COVID and pneumonia was denied monoclonal antibodies. He told CBS News: The doctor just shut me down and said this is the criteria: You're not of age, which is 65, and you're not a minority. As part of its response, the New York Department of Health told CBS: This guidance is based on CDC guidelines that show COVID mortality rates are higher among certain demographic groups, including senior citizens, immunocompromised individuals, and nonwhite/Hispanic communities. So what New York said is they were following CDC guidelines in determining how this COVID treatment would be distributed. As New York, itself, admitted, the CDC guidelines are encouraging racial discrimination in the distribution of healthcare, and that is immoral and wrong. My bill would stop this discrimination. Let's be very clear here. Race, religion, ethnicity should not be a factor--zero--in determining anyone's medical treatment. Doing so is unconstitutional; it is wrong; and it is abhorrent. These are battles worth fighting. For those of us who have been standing up against these abusive mandates, we recently won a big victory in December of last year on COVID vaccines in the military. I have fought hard to end President Biden's military vaccine mandate and last month, December, we succeeded. We passed into law a provision to end the mandate, finally, but, sadly, that provision was prospective. The Democrats in Congress would only agree to it going forward if it applied in the future, but provided zero relief to the thousands or even tens of thousands of service men and women who were terminated because they declined to get the vaccine. To fix this, I have introduced legislation called the AMERICANS Act, which would allow those service men and women who were terminated to be reinstated if they want to go back into the military. And if they do, they could go back to their original rank and receive the benefits to which they were entitled and which they have earned. If those servicemembers choose not to go back in the military, my bill would ensure that they receive an honorable discharge--not merely a general discharge, as too many of them have received--which will ensure that they can receive the benefits they earned by fighting to defend this country. I am committed to fighting for every soldier, every sailor, every airman, every marine, every coastguardsman who was wrongfully terminated or wrongfully demoted because of the COVID vaccine mandate. And I give my word: I am going to keep fighting for them until they see justice. That is why tonight, we are going to be at the State of the Union Address on the other side of the Capitol, and my guest tonight for the State of the Union is LT Levi Beaird, a naval surface warfare officer. Lieutenant Beaird is a Texas resident and a top-rated officer. In March of 2022, he faced a separation board because he made the personal decision to decline to get the COVID vaccine. But before the Biden administration could kick him out, a Federal judge entered an injunction preventing the Navy from terminating Lieutenant Beaird. However, the Navy is, right now, trying to recoup from him $75,000 that they already paid him in anticipation of Lieutenant Beaird's becoming a department head because he wasn't named a department head. Well, the reason he wasn't named a department head is because he made the personal decision not to get the COVID vaccine due to his own sincere religious objection. I am proud to be welcoming Lieutenant Beaird to the State of the Union tonight. I hope that his being there will cause those in the media to tell his story because it really underscores how grotesquely unfair the Biden administration's policies have been and how they punish those American heroes. So Lieutenant Beaird will be in the audience tonight as Joe Biden, no doubt, will congratulate himself and try to avoid accountability for the problems his administration has caused. When it comes to COVID, the pandemic we endured as a nation was an enormous challenge. The policies that were put in place across this country in response to the pandemic, many of them have caused enormous damage. I believe, as a nation, we will look back on these policies, in the years and decades to come, and wonder what collective insanity came over this country; what insanity led to the judgment that it is a good idea to shut down schools for tens of millions of children across this country for more than a year; that it is a good idea for young children, elementary school children, not to learn reading and writing and math. That policy has resulted in massive learning loss, and that learning loss has been all the greater among the economically disadvantaged, among Hispanic and African-American kids. The result of these shutdowns is a generation of kids who have been harmed, perhaps, irreparably. In our military, the results of firing thousands upon thousands of service men and women--and we don't know how many. I would note, I asked the Biden administration over and over again: How many of our heroes have you fired? The administration refuses to answer. It is, in the minimum, thousands; it may be in the tens of thousands. But I can tell you, I have spoken with Navy SEALS, heroes who spent their lives training and defending this Nation, and they are being fired--some of the youngest, healthiest people we have in our country are being fired because they didn't comply with an arbitrary decree. And now, the President and the administration have admitted that decree should no longer be enforced, but the Navy Seals they fired last year or the year before are still out of the military. All the while, we have massive recruiting shortfalls, and America is in greater jeopardy. Mr. President, you are new on this side of the aisle but not new to Congress. There was a time in this body when Republicans and Democrats could come together and reason together, where not everything we did was a shirts-and-skins partisan battle: Good morning. No, it is not. In less vituperative times, these shouldn't be difficult questions. When I forced a vote on the Senate floor thatthe DC Public Schools should not throw out of school every student who hasn't received the COVID vaccine--and, mind you, that is 20 percent of the students in DC Public Schools, and, in the African-American community, it is 40 percent of the African-American students in the DC Public Schools. I am sorry to say, but when we voted on that on the Senate floor, every single Democrat--all of them--voted to throw out of public schools 40 percent of the Black kids in DC. You are talking about a 13-, 14-, 15-year-old kid who Senate Democrats were willing to make a high-school dropout involuntarily because that child or that child's parents made the decision not to receive the vaccine. In ordinary sane times, that should be a 100-to-nothing vote. You would think it was almost satirical that someone would stand up and say: We are debating whether or not to throw out of DC Public Schools 40 percent of the African-American children. If you and I go home and talk to our citizens at home, to a person, they would think that was nuts, unless they happened to work in this building. On the question of service men and women, we saw, in the preceding year, that President Biden called to congratulate a coastguardsman who showed incredible heroism rescuing people at a time of natural disaster. That coastguardsman, within the week, was notified that he was being terminated because he hadn't gotten the COVID vaccine. This shouldn't be divisive. We want our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines and coastguardsmen to be ready, to be trained, to be serving, and, if the administration agrees the mandate makes no sense today, why would we sit by and let thousands upon thousands of them remain fired, terminated, and denied the benefits they have earned? So I call upon this body: Let's have a return to sanity. Let's fight for the men and women we are elected to represent. And I give you my word that I am going to continue to fight against these mandates that are wrong, that are unjust, that are harmful, and I hope and pray this body can come together and embrace sanity once again. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CRUZ | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-5 | null | 5,789 |
formal | public school | null | racist | Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, when the COVID pandemic hit, small businesses were shut down; millions of Americans lost their jobs; schools were shut down; flights were canceled; and traveling ground to a halt. The sick and the elderly were forced to die in hospitals and nursing homes, tragically alone, without the comforting embrace of loved ones. The corporate media told us there was no way that this virus could have escaped from a Chinese Government lab, and Big Tech companies banned and censored posts laying out the evidence that it had escaped from a Chinese lab, labeling that evidence a ``conspiracy theory.'' Masks were mandated everywhere. And when the COVID vaccines came out, those were mandated too. Doctors, nurses, and our brave service men and women who chose not to get the vaccine were fired, discharged, sent home. The corrupt corporate media's reaction to COVID devastated our economy and led directly to massive inflation, to weakening and even destroying faith in public health institutions, and resulted in learning loss that millions of American children may never recover from. The pandemic is over. President Biden has even admitted that. The vast majority of America has moved on with their lives. But, sadly, the BidenWhite House and too many Senate Democrats want to cling to power. During the pandemic, we saw abuses of power at every level of government but especially the Federal Government. Over the past 2 years, I have been proud to lead the fight in the Senate to stop these abuses by introducing targeted pieces of legislation that I have reintroduced in this new Congress. Five of these bills would get rid of mandates. If passed into law, they would mean no more mask mandates, no vaccine mandates, no vaccine passports, no vaccine mandates for minors, and no vaccine mandates for kids to go back to school in Washington, DC. Two other bills concern vital healthcare. The GIVE LIFE Act, or Doss's bill, is named after a teenager in Texas who was denied a kidney transplant because he hadn't been vaccinated against COVID. No American should be denied a lifesaving medical treatment such as an organ transplant because of their COVID vaccine status. That is wrong. Unfortunately, we have seen this kind of discrimination over and over again. We saw it happen to a teenager in Texas. It also happened to a 31-year-old man in Boston who was denied a heart transplant, to a 38-year-old veteran who had already had COVID twice who was denied a kidney transplant in North Carolina, and a man in South Carolina who was also denied a kidney transplant because he wasn't vaccinated against COVID. Just in December, yet another teenager was denied a kidney transplant, this time in North Carolina, because she wasn't vaccinated against COVID. The GIVE LIFE Act would stop the Federal Government from enabling this discrimination when it comes to organ donation. Another bill, the Ending Discrimination in COVID-19 Treatments Act, would mandate the Department of Health and Human Services to require that providers not engage in discriminatory practices when treating COVID. I filed this bill in response to reports that States across the country have used race and ethnicity as a factor in determining whether someone is eligible to receive COVID treatments, particularly monoclonal antibodies when they were first introduced. This bill now applies to all COVID funding and treatments, not just monoclonal antibodies. This kind of discrimination and treatment has happened in the past year. In January 2022, a man in New York who had both COVID and pneumonia was denied monoclonal antibodies. He told CBS News: The doctor just shut me down and said this is the criteria: You're not of age, which is 65, and you're not a minority. As part of its response, the New York Department of Health told CBS: This guidance is based on CDC guidelines that show COVID mortality rates are higher among certain demographic groups, including senior citizens, immunocompromised individuals, and nonwhite/Hispanic communities. So what New York said is they were following CDC guidelines in determining how this COVID treatment would be distributed. As New York, itself, admitted, the CDC guidelines are encouraging racial discrimination in the distribution of healthcare, and that is immoral and wrong. My bill would stop this discrimination. Let's be very clear here. Race, religion, ethnicity should not be a factor--zero--in determining anyone's medical treatment. Doing so is unconstitutional; it is wrong; and it is abhorrent. These are battles worth fighting. For those of us who have been standing up against these abusive mandates, we recently won a big victory in December of last year on COVID vaccines in the military. I have fought hard to end President Biden's military vaccine mandate and last month, December, we succeeded. We passed into law a provision to end the mandate, finally, but, sadly, that provision was prospective. The Democrats in Congress would only agree to it going forward if it applied in the future, but provided zero relief to the thousands or even tens of thousands of service men and women who were terminated because they declined to get the vaccine. To fix this, I have introduced legislation called the AMERICANS Act, which would allow those service men and women who were terminated to be reinstated if they want to go back into the military. And if they do, they could go back to their original rank and receive the benefits to which they were entitled and which they have earned. If those servicemembers choose not to go back in the military, my bill would ensure that they receive an honorable discharge--not merely a general discharge, as too many of them have received--which will ensure that they can receive the benefits they earned by fighting to defend this country. I am committed to fighting for every soldier, every sailor, every airman, every marine, every coastguardsman who was wrongfully terminated or wrongfully demoted because of the COVID vaccine mandate. And I give my word: I am going to keep fighting for them until they see justice. That is why tonight, we are going to be at the State of the Union Address on the other side of the Capitol, and my guest tonight for the State of the Union is LT Levi Beaird, a naval surface warfare officer. Lieutenant Beaird is a Texas resident and a top-rated officer. In March of 2022, he faced a separation board because he made the personal decision to decline to get the COVID vaccine. But before the Biden administration could kick him out, a Federal judge entered an injunction preventing the Navy from terminating Lieutenant Beaird. However, the Navy is, right now, trying to recoup from him $75,000 that they already paid him in anticipation of Lieutenant Beaird's becoming a department head because he wasn't named a department head. Well, the reason he wasn't named a department head is because he made the personal decision not to get the COVID vaccine due to his own sincere religious objection. I am proud to be welcoming Lieutenant Beaird to the State of the Union tonight. I hope that his being there will cause those in the media to tell his story because it really underscores how grotesquely unfair the Biden administration's policies have been and how they punish those American heroes. So Lieutenant Beaird will be in the audience tonight as Joe Biden, no doubt, will congratulate himself and try to avoid accountability for the problems his administration has caused. When it comes to COVID, the pandemic we endured as a nation was an enormous challenge. The policies that were put in place across this country in response to the pandemic, many of them have caused enormous damage. I believe, as a nation, we will look back on these policies, in the years and decades to come, and wonder what collective insanity came over this country; what insanity led to the judgment that it is a good idea to shut down schools for tens of millions of children across this country for more than a year; that it is a good idea for young children, elementary school children, not to learn reading and writing and math. That policy has resulted in massive learning loss, and that learning loss has been all the greater among the economically disadvantaged, among Hispanic and African-American kids. The result of these shutdowns is a generation of kids who have been harmed, perhaps, irreparably. In our military, the results of firing thousands upon thousands of service men and women--and we don't know how many. I would note, I asked the Biden administration over and over again: How many of our heroes have you fired? The administration refuses to answer. It is, in the minimum, thousands; it may be in the tens of thousands. But I can tell you, I have spoken with Navy SEALS, heroes who spent their lives training and defending this Nation, and they are being fired--some of the youngest, healthiest people we have in our country are being fired because they didn't comply with an arbitrary decree. And now, the President and the administration have admitted that decree should no longer be enforced, but the Navy Seals they fired last year or the year before are still out of the military. All the while, we have massive recruiting shortfalls, and America is in greater jeopardy. Mr. President, you are new on this side of the aisle but not new to Congress. There was a time in this body when Republicans and Democrats could come together and reason together, where not everything we did was a shirts-and-skins partisan battle: Good morning. No, it is not. In less vituperative times, these shouldn't be difficult questions. When I forced a vote on the Senate floor thatthe DC Public Schools should not throw out of school every student who hasn't received the COVID vaccine--and, mind you, that is 20 percent of the students in DC Public Schools, and, in the African-American community, it is 40 percent of the African-American students in the DC Public Schools. I am sorry to say, but when we voted on that on the Senate floor, every single Democrat--all of them--voted to throw out of public schools 40 percent of the Black kids in DC. You are talking about a 13-, 14-, 15-year-old kid who Senate Democrats were willing to make a high-school dropout involuntarily because that child or that child's parents made the decision not to receive the vaccine. In ordinary sane times, that should be a 100-to-nothing vote. You would think it was almost satirical that someone would stand up and say: We are debating whether or not to throw out of DC Public Schools 40 percent of the African-American children. If you and I go home and talk to our citizens at home, to a person, they would think that was nuts, unless they happened to work in this building. On the question of service men and women, we saw, in the preceding year, that President Biden called to congratulate a coastguardsman who showed incredible heroism rescuing people at a time of natural disaster. That coastguardsman, within the week, was notified that he was being terminated because he hadn't gotten the COVID vaccine. This shouldn't be divisive. We want our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines and coastguardsmen to be ready, to be trained, to be serving, and, if the administration agrees the mandate makes no sense today, why would we sit by and let thousands upon thousands of them remain fired, terminated, and denied the benefits they have earned? So I call upon this body: Let's have a return to sanity. Let's fight for the men and women we are elected to represent. And I give you my word that I am going to continue to fight against these mandates that are wrong, that are unjust, that are harmful, and I hope and pray this body can come together and embrace sanity once again. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CRUZ | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-5 | null | 5,790 |
formal | public schools | null | racist | Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, when the COVID pandemic hit, small businesses were shut down; millions of Americans lost their jobs; schools were shut down; flights were canceled; and traveling ground to a halt. The sick and the elderly were forced to die in hospitals and nursing homes, tragically alone, without the comforting embrace of loved ones. The corporate media told us there was no way that this virus could have escaped from a Chinese Government lab, and Big Tech companies banned and censored posts laying out the evidence that it had escaped from a Chinese lab, labeling that evidence a ``conspiracy theory.'' Masks were mandated everywhere. And when the COVID vaccines came out, those were mandated too. Doctors, nurses, and our brave service men and women who chose not to get the vaccine were fired, discharged, sent home. The corrupt corporate media's reaction to COVID devastated our economy and led directly to massive inflation, to weakening and even destroying faith in public health institutions, and resulted in learning loss that millions of American children may never recover from. The pandemic is over. President Biden has even admitted that. The vast majority of America has moved on with their lives. But, sadly, the BidenWhite House and too many Senate Democrats want to cling to power. During the pandemic, we saw abuses of power at every level of government but especially the Federal Government. Over the past 2 years, I have been proud to lead the fight in the Senate to stop these abuses by introducing targeted pieces of legislation that I have reintroduced in this new Congress. Five of these bills would get rid of mandates. If passed into law, they would mean no more mask mandates, no vaccine mandates, no vaccine passports, no vaccine mandates for minors, and no vaccine mandates for kids to go back to school in Washington, DC. Two other bills concern vital healthcare. The GIVE LIFE Act, or Doss's bill, is named after a teenager in Texas who was denied a kidney transplant because he hadn't been vaccinated against COVID. No American should be denied a lifesaving medical treatment such as an organ transplant because of their COVID vaccine status. That is wrong. Unfortunately, we have seen this kind of discrimination over and over again. We saw it happen to a teenager in Texas. It also happened to a 31-year-old man in Boston who was denied a heart transplant, to a 38-year-old veteran who had already had COVID twice who was denied a kidney transplant in North Carolina, and a man in South Carolina who was also denied a kidney transplant because he wasn't vaccinated against COVID. Just in December, yet another teenager was denied a kidney transplant, this time in North Carolina, because she wasn't vaccinated against COVID. The GIVE LIFE Act would stop the Federal Government from enabling this discrimination when it comes to organ donation. Another bill, the Ending Discrimination in COVID-19 Treatments Act, would mandate the Department of Health and Human Services to require that providers not engage in discriminatory practices when treating COVID. I filed this bill in response to reports that States across the country have used race and ethnicity as a factor in determining whether someone is eligible to receive COVID treatments, particularly monoclonal antibodies when they were first introduced. This bill now applies to all COVID funding and treatments, not just monoclonal antibodies. This kind of discrimination and treatment has happened in the past year. In January 2022, a man in New York who had both COVID and pneumonia was denied monoclonal antibodies. He told CBS News: The doctor just shut me down and said this is the criteria: You're not of age, which is 65, and you're not a minority. As part of its response, the New York Department of Health told CBS: This guidance is based on CDC guidelines that show COVID mortality rates are higher among certain demographic groups, including senior citizens, immunocompromised individuals, and nonwhite/Hispanic communities. So what New York said is they were following CDC guidelines in determining how this COVID treatment would be distributed. As New York, itself, admitted, the CDC guidelines are encouraging racial discrimination in the distribution of healthcare, and that is immoral and wrong. My bill would stop this discrimination. Let's be very clear here. Race, religion, ethnicity should not be a factor--zero--in determining anyone's medical treatment. Doing so is unconstitutional; it is wrong; and it is abhorrent. These are battles worth fighting. For those of us who have been standing up against these abusive mandates, we recently won a big victory in December of last year on COVID vaccines in the military. I have fought hard to end President Biden's military vaccine mandate and last month, December, we succeeded. We passed into law a provision to end the mandate, finally, but, sadly, that provision was prospective. The Democrats in Congress would only agree to it going forward if it applied in the future, but provided zero relief to the thousands or even tens of thousands of service men and women who were terminated because they declined to get the vaccine. To fix this, I have introduced legislation called the AMERICANS Act, which would allow those service men and women who were terminated to be reinstated if they want to go back into the military. And if they do, they could go back to their original rank and receive the benefits to which they were entitled and which they have earned. If those servicemembers choose not to go back in the military, my bill would ensure that they receive an honorable discharge--not merely a general discharge, as too many of them have received--which will ensure that they can receive the benefits they earned by fighting to defend this country. I am committed to fighting for every soldier, every sailor, every airman, every marine, every coastguardsman who was wrongfully terminated or wrongfully demoted because of the COVID vaccine mandate. And I give my word: I am going to keep fighting for them until they see justice. That is why tonight, we are going to be at the State of the Union Address on the other side of the Capitol, and my guest tonight for the State of the Union is LT Levi Beaird, a naval surface warfare officer. Lieutenant Beaird is a Texas resident and a top-rated officer. In March of 2022, he faced a separation board because he made the personal decision to decline to get the COVID vaccine. But before the Biden administration could kick him out, a Federal judge entered an injunction preventing the Navy from terminating Lieutenant Beaird. However, the Navy is, right now, trying to recoup from him $75,000 that they already paid him in anticipation of Lieutenant Beaird's becoming a department head because he wasn't named a department head. Well, the reason he wasn't named a department head is because he made the personal decision not to get the COVID vaccine due to his own sincere religious objection. I am proud to be welcoming Lieutenant Beaird to the State of the Union tonight. I hope that his being there will cause those in the media to tell his story because it really underscores how grotesquely unfair the Biden administration's policies have been and how they punish those American heroes. So Lieutenant Beaird will be in the audience tonight as Joe Biden, no doubt, will congratulate himself and try to avoid accountability for the problems his administration has caused. When it comes to COVID, the pandemic we endured as a nation was an enormous challenge. The policies that were put in place across this country in response to the pandemic, many of them have caused enormous damage. I believe, as a nation, we will look back on these policies, in the years and decades to come, and wonder what collective insanity came over this country; what insanity led to the judgment that it is a good idea to shut down schools for tens of millions of children across this country for more than a year; that it is a good idea for young children, elementary school children, not to learn reading and writing and math. That policy has resulted in massive learning loss, and that learning loss has been all the greater among the economically disadvantaged, among Hispanic and African-American kids. The result of these shutdowns is a generation of kids who have been harmed, perhaps, irreparably. In our military, the results of firing thousands upon thousands of service men and women--and we don't know how many. I would note, I asked the Biden administration over and over again: How many of our heroes have you fired? The administration refuses to answer. It is, in the minimum, thousands; it may be in the tens of thousands. But I can tell you, I have spoken with Navy SEALS, heroes who spent their lives training and defending this Nation, and they are being fired--some of the youngest, healthiest people we have in our country are being fired because they didn't comply with an arbitrary decree. And now, the President and the administration have admitted that decree should no longer be enforced, but the Navy Seals they fired last year or the year before are still out of the military. All the while, we have massive recruiting shortfalls, and America is in greater jeopardy. Mr. President, you are new on this side of the aisle but not new to Congress. There was a time in this body when Republicans and Democrats could come together and reason together, where not everything we did was a shirts-and-skins partisan battle: Good morning. No, it is not. In less vituperative times, these shouldn't be difficult questions. When I forced a vote on the Senate floor thatthe DC Public Schools should not throw out of school every student who hasn't received the COVID vaccine--and, mind you, that is 20 percent of the students in DC Public Schools, and, in the African-American community, it is 40 percent of the African-American students in the DC Public Schools. I am sorry to say, but when we voted on that on the Senate floor, every single Democrat--all of them--voted to throw out of public schools 40 percent of the Black kids in DC. You are talking about a 13-, 14-, 15-year-old kid who Senate Democrats were willing to make a high-school dropout involuntarily because that child or that child's parents made the decision not to receive the vaccine. In ordinary sane times, that should be a 100-to-nothing vote. You would think it was almost satirical that someone would stand up and say: We are debating whether or not to throw out of DC Public Schools 40 percent of the African-American children. If you and I go home and talk to our citizens at home, to a person, they would think that was nuts, unless they happened to work in this building. On the question of service men and women, we saw, in the preceding year, that President Biden called to congratulate a coastguardsman who showed incredible heroism rescuing people at a time of natural disaster. That coastguardsman, within the week, was notified that he was being terminated because he hadn't gotten the COVID vaccine. This shouldn't be divisive. We want our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines and coastguardsmen to be ready, to be trained, to be serving, and, if the administration agrees the mandate makes no sense today, why would we sit by and let thousands upon thousands of them remain fired, terminated, and denied the benefits they have earned? So I call upon this body: Let's have a return to sanity. Let's fight for the men and women we are elected to represent. And I give you my word that I am going to continue to fight against these mandates that are wrong, that are unjust, that are harmful, and I hope and pray this body can come together and embrace sanity once again. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CRUZ | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS247-5 | null | 5,791 |
formal | terrorism | null | Islamophobic | Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself and Mr. Risch) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations: S. Res. 36 Whereas Nigeria is the most populous democracy in Africa; Whereas Nigeria remains one of the United States closest partners in Africa, with billions of dollars of United States aid and investment per year going towards key areas of governance, health, education, energy, and finance, and democracy in Nigeria continues to be a strategic priority; Whereas Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa and plays an essential role in the economic growth and development of West Africa and continent-wide; Whereas the United States-Nigeria trade relationship, supported by the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) (19 U.S.C. 3701 et seq.) and foreign direct investment, further connects our two countries' economies; Whereas Nigeria's leadership in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) underscores Nigeria's position on upholding democracy and adherence to transfer of power through constitutional means; Whereas the 2023 electoral process in Nigeria is scheduled to include a presidential election, 28 governor elections, 469 Federal lawmaker elections, and 36 State House of Assembly elections that may test the very foundation of democracy in Nigeria; Whereas the United States supports peaceful, credible elections in Nigeria in keeping with the democratic aspirations of the Nigerian people; Whereas the United States, through key multilateral and nongovernmental international organizations, has provided support to increase voter participation, access, education, and safety in elections since Nigeria's transition to multi- party democracy in 1999; Whereas the 2019 Nigerian presidential and state-level elections were marred by election-related violence, last- minute delays, widespread vote buying, and disinformation, and had the lowest voter turnout in a presidential election since the return to civilian rule in 1999; Whereas, after the 2019 elections, Nigerian citizens made a resounding call for electoral reforms to address violence, corruption, and political party conduct within the country's political system; Whereas, over numerous election cycles, Nigerian civil society has developed significant capacities to impartially observe elections, conduct civic and voter education programs, and hold government officials accountable to democratic values; Whereas the 2019 international election observation report published by the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute noted that ``political parties remain the weakest link among Nigeria's nascent democratic institutions,'' a sentiment shared by other citizen and international election observation missions, and emphasized the need for political party reforms to promote stronger internal democracy mechanisms, the further inclusion of women and young people in the political process, and the adherence to election codes of conduct and the legal framework by political parties; Whereas despite the low voter turnout in the 2019 elections, a 2022 Afrobarometer poll indicated that 70 percent of Nigerians favor democracy over any other kind of government; Whereas, since 2019, Nigeria has taken integral steps to advance transparency and inclusion in elections, including through key provisions passed as part of the Electoral Act, 2022; Whereas the Electoral Act, 2022 calls for, among other things, an earlier release of election funding for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the electronic transmission of results, and the enfranchisement of voters with physical and mental disabilities; Whereas the people of Nigeria continue to advocate for stronger democratic values, governmental accountability, and the full implementation of the Electoral Act, 2022 in advance of presidential elections in 2023; Whereas President Muhammadu Buhari has committed to a ``peaceful transfer of power to an elected democratic government'' in 2023, and has pledged to ensure that ``elections are conducted in a free, fair, and transparent manner''; and Whereas Nigeria continues to suffer from a multitude of security issues, including banditry, terrorism, ethnic violence, religious intolerance, and a lack of accountability for human rights abuses attributed to state security forces: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate-- (1) reiterates the United States commitment to democracy and good-governance in Nigeria and underscores the support of the United States for all people of Nigeria to be able to participate in free, inclusive, and fair elections; (2) commends the Government of Nigeria on the passage of the Electoral Act, 2022, which signals the intent of the Government of Nigeria to strengthen its administration of elections, and emphasizes the need for fair and transparent electoral processes; (3) applauds the work of the many Nigerian civil society organizations that continually work to advocate for and support the implementation of key election reforms, bolster civic education, demand accountability for actions of the government and security personnel, and embolden women and youth participation in politics; (4) encourages all Nigerians to exercise their right to vote and to refrain from all acts of electoral violence, voter malfeasance, vote buying and selling, inflammatory speech and disinformation, and any other actions that undermine free and fair elections in Nigeria; (5) condemns violence perpetrated by Boko Haram, ISWAP, and numerous other insurgent and bandit groups that has impacted millions of Nigerians and displaced hundreds of thousands in neighboring Chad, Niger, and Cameroon; (6) calls on the Government of Nigeria to fully implement the various reforms included in the Electoral Act, 2022, and to-- (A) fund INEC to its fullest capacity to independently administer free, fair, and credible elections; (B) ensure that Nigerian citizens can safely vote in elections, free of voter intimidation and violence perpetrated by security forces, bandits, paid political disruptors, and armed insurgents; (C) remain independent from political interference by candidates, appointed or elected officials, political parties, and state security forces; (D) work with INEC to ensure that elections are held as scheduled; (E) partner with civil society organizations, the United States Department of State, and the United States Agency for International Development on programs that promote and fund good-governance, civic education, and voter access; (F) work meaningfully to reduce domestic tensions within Nigeria; and (G) support effective sub-national elections through State Independent Electoral Commissions; (7) urges INEC to-- (A) ensure equitable access for voter registration, the distribution of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and voter rolls, and ensure that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) accurately allows for only one vote per person; (B) maintain and publicly share accurate pre- and post- election voter turnout data; (C) hold candidates, elected officials, and political parties accountable for electoral law violations, and take steps to prosecute all those who engage in voter intimidation, vote buying, and all other forms of electoral malfeasance; (D) coordinate with civil society groups that help advance voter education, voter registration, and election observation; (E) minimize bureaucratic hurdles for accreditation of citizen and international observers and ensure they have unfettered access to all aspects of the electoral process; and (F) work with the United Nations and the international community to enfranchise millions of Nigerian citizens that have become internally displaced due to violent conflict; (8) urges political parties in Nigeria to undertake reforms that reinforce democratic values and good-governance, including by-- (A) holding candidates, elected officials, and party operators accountable for efforts to interfere with elections, including vote buying, voter intimidation, and electoral violence; (B) addressing financial and other barriers that routinely block women and young people from participating or running for elected office; and (C) addressing electoral corruption, patronage, and clientelism; (9) calls upon the United States Government and the international community to continue to invest in programs aimed at advancing voter education, electoral security, conflict mitigation, electoral dispute resolution, anti- corruption efforts, as well as the development of political parties in Nigeria, including-- (A) funding pre- and post-election data collection with the Government of Nigeria and INEC in accordance with the best election data maintenance and accessibility practices to ensure there is a free open source for post-election data that is transparent and permanently available to the public; (B) supporting the right of Nigerian citizens to vote in elections that are free, fair, credible, and consistent with international democratic standards; (C) promoting accountability for any individual that seeks to use violence, intimidation, or corrupt electoral practices to undermine peaceful credible elections in Nigeria, including through consideration of targeted financial and travel sanctions; (D) enabling citizen and international observation initiatives unfettered access to observe and issue reports on the pre-election, election day, and post-election processes, including independent verification of election results to the greatest extent possible; and (E) working alongside the Government of Nigeria to call out and address disinformation about the electoral process or from malign external actors; (10) calls on candidates running for the office of the president, governor, and Federal and state elected offices to publicly commit to peace and to pursue the resolution of election disputes through peaceful means; and (11) calls on the Secretary of State to pursue diplomatic engagement to encourage a peaceful and transparent electoral process in Nigeria in 2023, including by coordinating efforts among various United States Government agencies and departments to further good governance, strengthen democratic and electoral institutions in Nigeria, and prevent intercommunal violence. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | Senate | CREC-2023-02-07-pt1-PgS269 | null | 5,792 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Pursuant to clause 7(c)(1) of rule XII and Section 3(c) of H. Res. 5 the following statements are submitted regarding (1) the specific powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the accompanying bill or joint resolution and (2) the single subject of the bill or joint resolution. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-08-pt1-PgH781 | null | 5,793 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the Chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which the yeas and nays are ordered, or votes objected to under clause 6 of rule XX. The House will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-09-pt1-PgH794 | null | 5,794 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on passage of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 24) disapproving the action of the District of Columbia Council in approving the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-09-pt1-PgH799 | null | 5,795 |
formal | XX | null | transphobic | The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on passage of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 26) disapproving the action of the District of Columbia Council in approving the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. | 2020-01-06 | The SPEAKER pro tempore | House | CREC-2023-02-09-pt1-PgH800 | null | 5,796 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | Pursuant to clause 7(c)(l) of rule XII and Section 3(c) of H. Res. 5 the following statements are submitted regarding (1) the specific powers granted to Congress in the Constitution to enact the accompanying bill or joint resolution and (2) the single subject of the bill or joint resolution. | 2020-01-06 | Unknown | House | CREC-2023-02-09-pt1-PgH826 | null | 5,797 |
formal | single | null | homophobic | By Ms. TENNEY: H.J. Res. 32. Congress has the power to enact this legislation pursuant to the following: Article V authorizes Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses ``deem it necessary,'' to propose amendments to the Constitution. The single subject of this legislation is: Adding term limits to the Constitution | 2020-01-06 | The RECORDER | House | CREC-2023-02-09-pt1-PgH829-26 | null | 5,798 |
formal | based | null | white supremacist | Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the lives lost during the tragic earthquake that shook southern Turkey and northwestern Syria and to reaffirm the American commitment to provide assistance to recover from this disaster. In the early morning hours of February 6, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, one of the strongest quakes in the region's history, struck near the city of Gaziantep, causing the deaths of thousands of innocent individuals and wreaking disaster and destruction on many communities that were already struggling from the effects of war. I am devastated by the growing loss of life and injuries in Turkey and Syria. As of today, the earthquake has left more than 20,000 dead in Turkey and Syria and over 50,000 injured. Rescue missions continue to search for scores more that remain missing. In this great time of sadness for their countries, the United States will stand in humanitarian solidarity to provide relief, recovery, and efforts to build back even stronger. Within hours, the U.S. Agency for International Development activated a Disaster Assistance Response Team--DART--to lead the U.S. Government's humanitarian response to the disaster. The DART is working closely with Turkish authorities on the frontlines and will continue provide search and rescue support and identify priority humanitarian needs in the days to come. Globally, the outpouring of support in resources and rescue workers has been encouraging. The White Helmets, a volunteer organization that has assisted in the rescue of the many civilians suffering from attacks by the Syrian regime, has sprung into action. The internationally renowned group is currently working around the clock and has sent out over 300 search and rescue teams--several times their normal operating capacity. Over 20 NATO allies and partners have provided more than 1,400 emergency response personnel, including firefighters, engineers, search-and-rescue and medical teams. I am heartened by the generosity of individuals, countries, and organizations, which include the Catholic Relief Services--CRS--a humanitarian agency based in Baltimore, MD. CRS is supporting emergency relief efforts by local partners in Turkey and Syria, including partner organizations Caritas Turkey, Caritas Syria, and Caritas Anatolia. Today, we honor those lost and injured in this week's disaster. We will continue to provide rescue support, and send our thoughts and prayers to the people of Turkey and Syria. | 2020-01-06 | Mr. CARDIN | Senate | CREC-2023-02-09-pt1-PgS307 | null | 5,799 |
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