paying customs duties. they'd shipped goods to other countries, slap a new label on something with different information on their products, and manage to slip them into the american market. that experience helped us build momentum for trade enforcement that became to be known as the enforce act passed a few years later. when the trump administration's new nafta was weak on enforcement, jayme and ambassador ty worked to make huge improvements. and we all worked together in our committee. there are many of us and certainly our colleague senator brown of ohio who has championed this for so many years, this effort, this bipartisan effort to strengthen enforcement made sure that usmca raise the bar over any other trade agreement in history in terms of enforceable commitments on labor rights and the environment. he's been a champ of transparency and accountability and i can tell you, madam president, when i came into public life, people hardly knew anything about trade agreements that were getting ready to be voted on. you'd go home for a meeting and people would ask you about some trade proposal, and you'd be kind of in the dark. jayme wanted to make sure that the days when well connected reporters and insiders in the industry knew more than members of congress and the public about what was being negotiated, jayme said we're going to change that. and we did. there are now concrete rules giving members access to negotiating text while the negotiations happen. final text of trade agreements has to be public for anybody to see for a minimum of 60 days before the congress can consider approving it. those commitments to transparency, new accountability which we had nothing like when i came into public life come about because of jayme's hard work. so i'll sum it all up. i know we're waiting for our vote. what i've come to say and we've all listened to the debates about free trade and fair trade and the like. jayme understands that our challenge for all of us, for our workers and our small businesses, and to protect the rights of all concerned, we've got to have trade done right. trade done right. rigorously enforce the trade laws on the books, make sure that there's more transparency and accountability, and particularly, make sure that foreign markets, foreign markets are open to american products and american workers. i'll just tell you i'm sorry to lose him after 12 years on my staff. i al knew this -- i always knew that he would be going off to big things. wasn't sure it was going to be this soon. but 25 members of the finance committee agreed with me when they voted to send his nomination to the floor. he's got 110% of my support. i urge my colleagues to vote yes on the white nomination. my understand is we'll vote first on the batchelder nomination i spoke about earlier and a bit later in the evening we'll vote on mr. white. i strongly urge colleagues to vote for both. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the question occurs on the batchelder nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: have all senators voted? does any senator wish to change his or her vote? if not, the yeas are 64, the nays are 34. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's actions. the presiding officer: the senior senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call in progress be vitiated. the presiding officer: we are not in a quorum call. mr. inhofe: madam president, i ask consent that i be recognized as if in morning business for such time as i shall consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: first of all, i'm going to do something that's a little bit unusual. i'm going to start off by saying thank you. we've got a lot of people to thank yet we never seem to do it. when you look about what happened in afghanistan over the past 20 years, i can't approximate nature how many times i was over there. that was a tough duty. those guys and the gals there, they -- it was not easy. this is not the place you want to go to take a vacation. and to their families and of course on august 26, we were reminded so painfully of what we ask our troops and their families to do. they lay it all on the line for this country. our service members represent the very best of us over the past 20 years they've -- they did everything that they could in afghanistan to rid out evil and champion american values. i couldn't be more grateful to -- or have more respect for them than i have today. and i say this not only because we should say it more often but because it's important to remember that what we saw in afghanistan over the past few months is not -- that's not a failure of our military. it's a failure of the commander in chief and the president of the united states and the people who advised is him on his policy in afghanistan. i still don't know who those people are, and you know i have chaired the senate armed services committee and other committees and of all people -- and people ask me --gy back to my state of -- i go back to my state of oklahoma and people say, who's advising the president to do all these things? i have to tell them, i don't know. i've been around a long time. i don't remember any administration who i honestly don't know who's making the decisions and who's advising the president. and what we did witness, though, was a failure of the commander in chief and whoever was advising him. no one can look at what happened over the past few months and claim that it was a success like president biden did. it was a disaster, leaving americans behind and allies -- don't forget our allies that are still behind. it was un-american. the administration keeps saying, quote, we didn't inherit a plan. that's false. they inherited a condition-based agreement that made their own policy decisions. it was condition-based. it wasn't open-ended. it was something that was out there and they -- and they had the reins. let's keep in mind, this administration has a majority in the house and the senate and the white house. they make their own decisions. and they say we didn't have a plan. they had a plan, and we had a plan. but everything we did -- and this previous administration did -- was condition-based. so according to the condition-based approach, president trump agreed to withdraw our troops from afghanistan if and only if the taliban acted against al qaeda. now, that's one of the things. many other conditions -- and one condition was to leave some of our troops there. not just to walk away, to vacate. those conditions were in line when this administration came in. that didn't happen. president biden knows it. the secretary blinken admitted it. when president biden announced his decision to withdraw back in april, a senior administration official told "the washington post" -- and this is a quote -- quote, the president has judged that a condition-based approach is a recipe for staying in afghanistan forever. that's a quote. and just last week in front of the senate foreign relations committee, when asked if the taliban had severed its relationship with al qaeda, secretary blinken said the relationship has not been severed. let's keep that in mind. we keep hearing, yes, they're taking action against that administration. but the relationship has not been severed. now president biden says that he will hold the taliban accountable, but he didn't hold the taliban accountable while our troops were still in afghanistan. that's when we had the leverage to do it. but we didn't do it t and he has presented no plan for holding the terrorists accountable now. this decision, this rushed withdrawal that has left the taliban stronger than it was on 9/11 was president biden's alone. he's responsible for the chaos that followed. he's got to be held accountable and should everyone who advised him to make such a horrible decision. now, what's more outrageous to me is that president biden left americans behind. that's not something we do. he said that we're going to get everyone out, and that didn't happen. and, you know, when historians look back at this, you know, this may be decades from now, centuries from now, this will what they'll remember, the biden administration knowingly left americans behind. the administration has tried to downplay this. earlier the evacuation, secretary of state blinken said that there were perhaps 10,000 or 15,000 american citizens in afghanistan. our men and women in uniform, working tirelessly and effectively with our diplomats under incredible -- incredible bring difficult circumstances managed to evacuate about 6,000 of our citizens. according to my math, that means between 4,000 and,000 morons were left behind -- 4,000 and 9,000 americans were left behind. secretary blinken said there were only 100 and the rest of them preferred to stay in afghanistan. by the way you some legitimately did prefer to say in afghanistan because they were married people, they had families and they made it very clear that when something like this normally happens, families are moved as a family unit. not there. that's not what happened. so that's more of the bad math. it's a lie. we know and every congressional office who tried to get people out of afghanistan knows -- and i know this because our senate office was very busy at that time helping people to get out -- that there were many u.s. citizens who wanted to leave afghanistan but they couldn't leave there because the taliban would not let their families go with them. well, that's exactly what i would expect from the terrorists. that were there at that time. so secretary blinken wants you to think that these people made a choice. he wants to hide the fact that the administration in which he serves created its own hostage crisis and gave the taliban the upper hand. keep in mind, when we talk about this, it's the taliban. they were the terrorists. he also wants you to think it was the fault of those families that didn't get out before august repeatinging that they hd been telling americans to leave for months. there is a kernel of truth to that, but it has -- it's clouded by the fact that they repeatedly stated that it would be a year, probably more, before kabul was at risk of falling to the taliban. instead of 36 months, the fall of kabul only took 36 hours. in addition to american citizens president biden left behind our afghan partners who risked everything to support our shared goals. i was out there many times in the past talking about that very thing, about the problems that they had and that they were -- and the dangers that they're in. these are not our american citizens. they were some of our allies that were left over there. in addition to american zones, president biden left behind our afghan partners who risked everything to support our shared security goals. as a result of the president's decision, afghan women and children have been thrown back to the stone age. we all know that. we know what they're doing right now. we don't have to guess. our allies and partners around the world are questioning our credibility, our leadership, and our commitment. these are our allies. they're not used to having the rug pulled out from under them. this is the first time. our enemies are bolstered by president biden's policy, which puts taliban terrorists in charge of afghanistan, a policy that spread the perception that we not only abandon our allies and partners but we also abandon our own citizens. seeing all of these failures, americans are demanding accountability and they deserve it. but let's make this crystal clear -- none of this senior senator fault of our military. our military leaders, the ones with real experience on the ground advised the same thing that i did, and that is leave a small force in afghanistan. now, this would have supported the afghan military, prevented the taliban's takeover, kept the pressure on the terrorists, reassured our regional partners and kept our homeland safe. president biden pretends that if none of this was possible, he claims that he had two options -- a massive deployment or zero troops. that's just not true. in fact, i publicly support a third option -- maintain a small force to preserve our air power. we can't do the air power without some troops on the ground. we needed to have some troops on the ground. we did. counterterrorist operations, military operations, many of us supported a small taylored deployment -- tailored deployment to protect our own interests. so did his own military advisors. yet when he was asked, did your top military advisors warn against withdrawing at this time line, did they ask you to keep 2,500 troops, president biden said -- and this is a direct quote -- no, they didn't. it wasn't true. but it was true. we talked to -- in fact, you're going to find something out this coming tuesday when we have a hearing. we're going to have many of the principles that we really haven't heard of, principles who were involved in advising the administration as to what the military wanted and didn't want. except it was -- we know that now -- the former commander of the u.s. forces afghanistan general miller who told the senate armed services committee just this last week -- this was our committee, committee i chaired for some people of time. he said, no, now he didn't tell president biden directly because president biden didn't even bother calling his top commander on the ground before making his decision. but general miller did report it the to the chain of command. now, we're talking about general miller and his time -- at that time he was the top commander on the ground. and so the president didn't even consult him as to whether or not we should -- he made it very clear, he advised him not to go, not to close everything up. he also tried to say that al qaeda is gone from afghanistan and that terrorism is not emanating from that particle of the world. well, we know that's not true. general mckenzie said al qaeda remains the main focus in the region. last week the director of the defense intelligence agency, that was lieutenant general scott barrier, said that the projected time line for al qaeda to have the capability to threaten our homeland is one to two years at most, if not sooner. and that's it. so president biden was not telling the truth about -- in that area, about having only two choices. he didn't tell the truth about getting american families out of afghanistan. he failed to tell the truth about the advice that he got from his military commanders, saying that his military commanders did not advise him. we know better than that. and if you don't know it, stick around for next us in day and you'll -- for next tuesday and you'll find o he didn't tell the truth about al qaeda not being a threat. so i have to wonder if he is not telling the truth about this, what else is he not telling the truth about? if we can't trust the president on this -- if we can't trust him to tell the truth and we can't trust him to put together a good strategy in afghanistan, how can we trust him to protect a nation from our strategic competitors? after watching president biden stumble badly in afghanistan, i'm worried that he won't pursue a strong strategy to push back on china, and china is our top threat right now. we all know that. we don't like to talk about it, but it's true. as former secretary gates famously wrote in his memoir, president biden has, quote -- this is a quote from his memoir -- has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades. that was secretary gates, former secretary of defense. and i'm also worried about the administration desperately trying again to return to the obama administration's failed iran deal and offering iran massive sanctions relief, sanctions that were put out in the previous administration to get their -- of course, we know iran would just use that sanction relief to ramp up terrorism. you know, i don't know why the american people -- maybe it is the people in oklahoma. they're the ones you talk to more than any other groups. what else would they do? what would iran, with their background, do with sanction relief or funds? they would use them on terrorism. that brings us back to afghanistan, which is only one of many examples in the middle east and north africa where the administration has no plan for countering terrorists and keeping us safe. president biden and his administration have broadly talked about a new over-the-horizon trait to counter terrorism. over the horizon menswear's don't have boots on the ground. we send airplanes in from afar, something our military leaders have told us is way more difficult than most people believe, far more difficult without partners on the ground. you can't dot it, you can't lead with military air power. i ask that you a give me support in the air -- the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. memb members will take their conversations off the floor. the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: thank you. even if it's possible experts are telling us it won't be effective. we haven't even seen a plan for how this will be enough to keep american families safe. this is a failure of leadership. along the way, president biden has tried to blame everyone else , the security force, the afghan government and the previous administration, but the blame lands squarely on him, and he owns this. we should expect his failures in afghanistan to bleed into other issues -- china and russia see a weak america now. terrorists see safe havens and use afghanistan as a rallying cry. i still have a lot more questions and expect president biden and his administration to have more answers. 13 brave americans died in the chaos created by president biden's policies. we need explanations and we need accountability. and we're going to hear from secretary austin, general milley, and general mckenzie next week. this is going to be on tuesday. i've reminded people of that for a long time, because we need to have a clear understanding, and we will get that understanding. we're going to start to understand this, just what went wrong, who's to blame, and what we need to do to protect ourselves. and this is going to be an open meeting. this is not a classified meeting. this is going to be an open meeting that's going to take place on tuesday, this coming tuesday. we're going to be doing this as transparently and openly as possible because the american people deserve the truth. our service members and their families who sacrificed so much over the last 20 years deserve that too, and we're going to give them the truth. and that's going to happen next week. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. 44 -- i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. a senator: it's my pleasure --. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: it's always a thrill to come to the floor to talk about the child tax credit especially with three colleagues who really are the authors and most important pushers, if you will, of this bill in the senate. i'm going to turn it to senator bennet. he and i worked on this for close to a decade now, and senator booker. then we'll be joined last by senator warnock, who's only been in the senate for a year, not even -- done so much for the state of georgia and is one of the best supporters of this in the united states senate. i will reserve my comments for a little bit later. senator bennet first. mr. bennet: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i want to thank my colleague from ohio, senator brown, for his remarkable leadership getting us to to this point with the child tax credit and the earned tax credit for childless families. i think we're here today on a really, really momentous matter. when i think back, mr. president, to the days when i was a superintendent of schools in denver, and most of the kids in my city were kids of color and most were living in poverty and many of their families were working two and three jobs, and no matter what they did, they couldn't get their kids out of poverty. today, now i've traveled the state of colorado, a state that has got very rural areas and very urban areas. if i summarized the last ten years of my town halls, 10 or 1 1 -- 11 years, it's very easy to do it. no matter what county i'm in, people are saying we are killing ourselves. no matter what we do, we can't afford some combination of housing, health care, higher education, early childhood education, if there is any early childhood education. we can't say. we feel like our kids are going to live a more diminished life than the life we lived. that is an anecdotal reflexion of -- reflection of a economy that has worked for 60 years and not for anybody else. today the united states is 38th out of 41 industrialized countries in terms of childhood poverty. the poorest people in our society are our children. the poorest generation in the united states of america are our children, which is scandal. and senator brown and i and introork -- senator booker and senator warnock, senator harris before that came together to try to address it and to say we don't have to accept this much childhood poverty as a permanent feature of our economy or a permanent feature of our society. we can actually fix it by making three changes to the child tax credit, to increase the amount, make it fully refundable so that for the first time in our country's history the poorest kids have the benefit of it, and to have it paid out on a monthly basis so that when parents and grandparents are at the end of the month trying to make the rent or buy a few more groceries or pay for a little bit of child care, they're able to do it in real time. i'm sure my colleagues on the floor today spent time meeting with people in their states over the recess. i did. i met mostly moms, but parent after parent after parent who said to me for the first time in my life i was able to buy back-to-school clothes and i didn't bankrupt my family. buying back-to-school clothes was not catastrophically, you know, a catastrophe for my family. my kid was able to go to school in a new shirt. one mom in colorado springs said to me that she had bought a bicycle for her son so he could take himself to school and participate in after-school programs that he wouldn't have otherwise been able to participate in, because he could take himself there and bring himself back. she said that he had burst a tire in this new bicycle, and that she was able, because of the child tax credit, not to buy the cheap tire that she would ordinarily buy that would break next week, as she said, but to buy a tire the kid could rely on. she said that's what being poor in america is like, you have to pay a tax on everything, because you can't buy a pair of decent shoes, you can't buy a decent tire for a bicycle. and this is a reason why 450 economists have written to the administration saying we should be making this permanent. i believe we should be making it permanent. and they have also pointed out it's very important for people to hear, that this is pro-work. that countries that have child allowances like this, they actually have a higher percentage of people in the workforce than we do, because people can use that allowance to pay for a little extra child care so they can stay at work. they can use that allowance to pay to help fix a car so they can stay at work. this is a pro-work policy. and just as important as that, childhood poverty costs our country $1 trillion a year. we've been told by columbia university that we're going to see an 8-x annual return as a result of cutting childhood poverty in half this year as opposed to spending money just to mitigate the effects of childhood poverty. so there is every reason in the world that we should make this permanent, that we should extend it. in my view, we can't afford not to. and that's why we're here today. and i want to thank my colleague from new jersey, senator booker, somebody i've known since he was mayor of newark and i was the superintendent of the denver public schools, and we were working together to try to lift up kids in our respective communities. and there have been many times when i've been on this floor, and i've side that we're treating america's children like they're someone else's children, you know. that only a country that didn't care about their kids would treat their kids the way we have. but finally, we're not. finally we said we're not going to tolerate this, and a lot that has to do with the senator from new jersey's leadership. so, mr. president, i would yield the floor. mr. booker: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. booker: i want to thank two leaders that i joined -- senator brown and senator bennes issue for not this congress, but for years. before i came to washington these two men were standing up and talking about the moral core of our country. if you want to see how a nation is doing, don't look at the buildings we build, how many billionaires we have. just look at children. and what is galling me right now is that we have come to the one-yard line. we are at an inflection point in our country where we have to ask the question, who are we? my friend, senator bennet, and i have been working with kids well before we came here, and he rattled off data that should be repeated. i say this as a moral issue, but he shown this is an economic issue. we are the wealthiest nation on the planet earth, and of the top 41 countries, we're at 38 in poor kids. and what he pointed out is that poverty costs all of us. it is a deep self-inflicted wound in this society, because poverty costs this nation over $1 trillion, as measured by economists. but i'm telling you right now economists don't measure all the things that are important. our g.d.p. does not reflect well-being. it doesn't reflect how many antidepressants people take or how many child deaths there are. but the truth of our economy is every dollar we invest in getting children out of poverty returns $8 to this economy. so it is an economic issue clearly. it is a globally competitive issue because the nation in a global knowledge-based society, the nation whose children learn the most will earn the most and will outcompete. it is a national security issue as we go up against countries like china whose top 10% of their graduating high school classes outnumber all the children we have virtually. but it is a moral issue most of all. if we are going to create a more beloved community, how do we treat our children? children who live in poverty literally have physical effects. poverty is violence. study after study shows that the brain development of children in poverty is inhibited. literally the stress hormones, the cortisol, it is akin to an adult having a traffic accident every single day. it is an indicator of childhood trauma. poverty is a moral obscenity, and we, the richest nation on the planet that year after year are getting richer, our children are getting poorer. who are we? when we pledge allegiance to a flag and say liberty and justice for all, who are we? we don't even know the demographic changes in our country. we have cities across america where one out of every ten child is being raised by a grandparent and so here we're discussing childhood poverty, and some people are talking about work requirements when we know from the data, from conservative think tanks to what we see in other nations like canada, that things like the child allowance, or in our country, the child tax credit, increase workforce participation. but if you get rid of the child tax credit, those grandparents raising grandchildren, half of them plunge back into poverty. and the stories are profound. you heard from my colleague in colorado. we know families in new jersey, like a woman i just saw named margarita, she used her child credit payments for exactly what so many said they would be used for. she used them for food for her children, for school supplies, to keep the electricity running in her house. we we heard stories they are used for a car to get to work and child care so they can work. families are not using this money so they can quit their jobs. quite the contrary, they are using them so they can get to work. mr. president, we are a nation in crisis because of how we treat our children. the child tax credit is a lifeline for the millions of grandparents raising grandchildren. it's a lifeline for low-income children. and so you heard it from senator bennet. we are at an inflection point. what will we do right now? will we extend the child tax credit? will we make the full refundability permanent? will we keep people having the monthly checks? that is a policy question but the question before us really is a moral one. for once and for all, this is not partisan. it's a defining moment for the character of our country and i say words are not enough. we should show what the child tax credit, the truth in our policies, what we do with our budgets, we should show our love through what we do, not what we say and the best leading indicator of that will always be how the most vulnerable in our society are doing, how we take care of our elderly and in this case how we care for your children. i'm honored now to have come to the floor our senator from georgia. i would mark as much as i love the senator from ohio and the senator from -- the senator from georgia has a much better haircut. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you. i join my friend. thank you senator bennet, senator booker and senator warnock for being here. senator bennet and i began on that years and years and years ago, joined by other colleagues. senator warnock has really taken it over in a big way this year and getting it across the finish line. sorry for the sports metaphor, but how important this is. senator bennet said something about and as did senator booker, that raising children is -- is work. i -- at least one of my colleagues -- a number of my colleagues on that side of the aisle and i believe a colleague or two on this side of the aisle said something about a work requirement and the child tax credit and i don't understand that because i spend a lot of time, including this weekend, with my grandchildren and i see how hard my daughters work raising children and our son works raising children and the pressures. this bill, cutting everything else away, relieves some of the anxiety that parents face, the anxiety of how do i get the money together to pay the rent this week before the end of the month so i don't get evicted or behind on my rent. how -- it just gives parents opportunities. mr. president, i want to talk directly -- directly to ohio parents. i want to talk to ohio parents for a moment. parents, check your bank accounts. a week ago today, we once again put money directly in the pockets of most ohio parents. the families of 92% of ohio children are getting -- are getting these dollars either direct deposit in their accounts or in their mailboxes in checks. it started in july 15 and augus. it will continue. our goal on the floor today is to make this permanent. at least to make sure this goes beyond the end of -- the end of the year. we're going to succeed in doing that. it's so important we do. we know -- back to talking about parents, we know how hard you work, any parent knows how hard it is to take care of children, especially young children, it's only gotten harder over the last year and a half, the anxiety is greater, the pressure placed on families is more. we don't recognize often enough that raising children is work. if you have a job outside your home, you're probably not getting what you're worth many we've seen what happens over the past two decades, productivity has gone up, wages have been flat. wages for most americans have barely budged. meanwhile, you all as parents know how expensetive is to raise kids, child care, health care, school lunches, school supplies, braces, sports fees, the list never seems to end. that's not to mention just putting money away, just a few dollars a month to put money away for college or sending your kid to camp or maybe, as i heard from some parents, for the first time in two or three years, they will get to take a vacation for a few days or go to a local diner. it's why we passed the child tax credit. it's why we started several years ago working to get other senators on board until we had virtually -- literally every senator on this side of the aisle, every single democrat has voted for the child tax credit twice already. unfortunately, every single republican voted against it. i don't really understand why they are against it. when you look out down the hall and senator mcconnell's office is down the hall. you see the lobbyists lining up there. they always get their tax cuts. a train carrying tax cuts leaves the station whenever republicans are in power, but a tax cut for wealthy people, but this is a tax cut for working families and we now how -- know how important that is. it's finally -- finally to america's parents making your hard work pay off so you can keep up with the extra expenses that keep coming and coming and coming when you're raising a family. stories have poured into our office from parents across ohio about the tax cuts. let me give you snipets of several. katie in akron, it pays for school supplies, lindsey, it's back to school clothes, fern, it will pay for preschool for both children and the rest goes into a savings account. for me melissa, i used part of t to buy uniform for my 4-year-old, mia, food and school supplies. one of the most common stories we hear is that families are using this to afford child care to go bark to work. one -- back to work. one mother wrote to me said my husband and i had middle class, raising two children both under 6, we have been worried about the financial burden of raising two kids and full-time child care, this will be placed directly toward child care so we don't have to worry about me being in the workforce, she continued, i believe these payments will allow more parents, especially mothers, to participate more fully in the workforce, allowing more time to pursue training, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. she really tells the story, mr. mr. president. not everybody has gone back to work to find work in part because they are starting to pay more, or because they can't find or afford child care. we know that. that's what these tax cuts are all about. they are about the dignity of work. all work has dignity, whether you punch a clock or swipe a badge, whether you're raising children or caring for aging parents. raising children is work. it is a hell lot more work than moving money from one bank account to another or checking the money in your bank portfolio, that didn't start senator mcconnell from giving men to swiss bank account holders. senator mcconnell passed the tax cut for the wealthy. you know what they promisedded? they promise it had would all trickle down and we have more jobs and workers in savannah, the hometown of the senator from georgia, that there would be more job and the workers would get more pay and the companies would invest more in the workforce. well, it didn't exactly happen that way. they kept the money for themselves, they turned around and spent the money on stock buybacks, where does that money go? it goes in the pockets mostly of executives. now this year, without a single vote from republicans in congress, we passed tax cuts for everyone else. it's pretty simple contrast. who's side are you on? do you want tax cuts for billionaires and corporations? that's what they did four years ago. that's what the president and congress did four years ago or do you want tax cuts for working families? that's what senator warnock and senator ossoff, that instead of more tax cuts for the richest people in the country that bill, 70% of the benefits went to the richest 1%, now we're seeing our tax cut goes to 90% of the families in this country. every single month we're showing patients and workers we're on your side, we'll not stop fighting to make sure parents' hard work pays off for years to come. i yield the floor. mr. warnock: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. warnock: mr. president, i first wanted to say thank you to senators brown, bennet, and booker for keeping a spotlight on this issue. i must admit, however, on this issue when i say senators brown, bennet, and booker, i think about the multiple choice questionnaires we got in school and how someone with the name warnock got to be a part of this great effort. it's special. mr. president, i want to get straight to the point. there are many reasons to move this build back better america -- build back america better package forward. we have to build back better. we have an historic opportunity to make landmark investments that will strengthen our families, our economy, our care infrastructure, including expanding medicaid benefits to more than four million americans. we've got 600,000 georgians in the medicaid gap. we've got to provide critical debt relief for small farmers who have taken a financial hit during the pandemic. all of these things are covered in this build back better agenda. but the other top priority of mine and why we're all here today is that we have a chance to extend the expanded child tax credit. we've already seen making a difference in the lives of over 2.2 million children just in georgia alone. i want to be clear about who this tax cut helps. because people who have no vision engage in division and sometimes when we're discussing these policies, we need to slow down and make sure folk know exactly who we're talking about. 97% -- 97% of american families with children would benefit from this tax cut. after we passed the american rescue plan, we significantly expanded the child tax credit and earned income tax credit to put money in the pockets of working families, i remember senator booker -- actually senator bennet called me from his car. he was on his way back home. i had just gotten elected and just a few short months after i got elected, we passed the american rescue plan because we were in the majority and were able to do this. senator brown said to me, this is one of the best days of my career because we were able to pass the american rescue plan with all of these amazing provisions and this provision alone is transformational. experts have said that this investment that we made earlier this year would cut child poverty in half nationwide. think about that. one provision, just giving ordinary people, hardworking families a break cuts child poverty in half. this is good public policy. but i'll tell you what would be bad public policy. it's bad public policy to cut child poverty in half one year and then go back the very next year and double child poverty. that's poor public policy. it's not right and it's not smart. the expanded child tax credit is helping georgians and you want to know how i know that? i know because as i'm moving across the state, they are telling me. it's no surprise. when you put an extra $200 or $300 in the bank account of ordinary people, working people, it makes a huge difference. and then my regular travels around the state, georgians have told me how this tax cut for working families has made a difference in their lives. made their lives just a little bit easier, especially at the start of a new school year. a few weeks ago i was down in columbus, georgia, and i met with some of the hardworking families who received this tax cut. and as i stand here, mr. president, i think about donte and alisia, a couple of met. their daughter's name is london. i asked them what are you going to do with this monthly payment. and they said it will help cover the cost of school clothes and brain building, extracurricular activities. they had a very active young daughter, very bright. she came to the meeting. they said we wouldn't be able to afford these extracurricular activities but this extra support, just this little lift has made a difference in our personal economy. it's made a difference for london. i talked to will who works as a local hairdresser and the monthly payment helps his 12-year-old daughter participate in karate tournaments, a development opportunity that family would not otherwise be able to afford. in another conversation i asked a georgia mom with two young growing boys where would this tax cut go. i said what are you going to do with this tax cut? you know what she said to me? she said i'm going to buy food and shoes. you know, when you give ordinary folk a break, when you give them an extra $200 or $300 a month, you know they go and buy extravagant things like food and shoes and a coat for their kid. they invest in extracurricular activities because they want to see their children do a little bit better than they did. and when they invest in their children, in a real sense they invest in all of our children because when you give folk who already have everything they need and then some, you give them that money, they can hold on to that money. but when you give money to ordinary folks, they put that money right back into our local economies. and into our small businesses. often the right thing to do is also the smart thing to do. it creates jobs, helps all of us. and so the expanded child tax credit grows and bolsters our economy from the bottom up. i agree with senator brown. i'm old enough just to remember, just old enough to remember when folks were talking about trickledown economics. as a pastor i've worked and conducted my ministry in these communities that have been hearing folks talk about trickle down for the last 40 years. the way to grow an economy is from the bottom up. the right thing to do is the smart thing to do. mr. president, the expanded child tax credit is changing lives right now, and we have a chance in this economic package we're working on to secure this investment for working georgians and americans into the future. and it's why i believe -- and that's why i believe we should make it permanent. and i'll keep advocating for that, but extending this critical tax cut right now is the right thing to do for working families. we ought to do it. we ought not just talk about it. we ought to do it. the scripture says he has shown your own mortal what is good and what does the lord require but that you do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your god. i see the face of god in the faces of our children. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. . the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: thank you, madam president. madam president, in june our democratic colleagues voted on their first and initial efforts to nationalize our state-run and local-run election system. this bill, this legislation, this effort had been years in the making. you know, in some ways it's interesting to think about because back when our country was founded, there was a big debate on whether we should have a national government or whether we should have a federal system. and of course we opted for a federal system where the states retained their sovereignty within their authority, and all powers not delegated to the federal government were retained by the states and the people. that's a very definition of a federal system. so our colleagues on the democratic side of the aisle have sort of renewed that debate again and trying to upend our federal system of governance in favor of a national government. basically a command and control run out of washington, d.c. when it comes to the takeover of our elections or to try to nationalize our elections, the initial proposal surfaced as a messaging bill in 2019, but over the years has undergone a number of makeovers. each time our colleagues have tried to sell this radical change in the way that our elections are run by different appeals. they talked about, well, this is important for election security. remember the 2016 election, obviously big concerns about russian misinformation campaigns and cyber attacks and election security was obviously top of mind. and then it was sold as a matter of regaining the voters' confidence, that their vote would actually count. and then it was sold as a way to remove the obstacles that prevented people from voting, which appears to be the current message. in 2020, in my state alone, but not just in texas but across the country, we saw a record voter turnout. my state we said 66% of registered voters cast a ballot. 11.3 million people. the last time i had been on the ballot, six years previously, we only had 4.8 million voters. we went from 4.8 to 11.3 in just six years. part of that is because my state has been growing. between 2010 and 2020 we've seen four million new texans either born or moved or made their way one way or another to our state. but the 2020 election saw the largest voter turnout in 120 years. 120 years. well, clearly the people are voting, including people of color,s minorities are voting at record levels. it's time to come up with a new sales pitch to try to sell this hijacking, really of our state and local-run elections. so a number of states, including my state, have recently passed legislation to address voter confidence to make sure that elections are fair and that people have an opportunity to vote who are legally qualified to do so. the phrase many of them used in that process was they tried to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. so that now has been the focus of our democratic colleagues in trying to nationalize our state and local-run elections, which, by the way, is esconced within the framework of the constitution itself. so our democratic colleagues then attacked the state election laws, and really just went over the top in terms of their description of what exactly was happening. certainly it was not factual, but they said in a number of cases these changes in state election laws -- and i'm thinking of georgia, arizona, and texas in particular -- they said they are the most sweeping attacks on the right to vote since the beginning of jim crow. and they said the only way to change that was to pass their election law. our colleagues talked about the bill in terms of protecting the right to vote and strengthening our democracy. who could be against that? but the reality of the situation is very different, and the far-reaching provisions of the democrat election takeover bill looks nothing like the safeguards of democracy. it looks more like a partisan power play. so in the end, the only thing bipartisan about the bill was the opposition. in both the house and senate, republicans and democrats voted against the initial legislation, but our democrat colleagues still refuse to recognize the reality of the vote and throw in the towel. so after the failed vote this summer, our colleagues on the democratic side went back to the drawing board and came back with a new bill they called the freedom to vote act. well, if we needed any more proof that this is not a good-faith effort to strengthen our election but rather a partisan power play, the bill was introduced one week ago, and the senate could end up voting on it as early as this week. that's hardly what i would call a deliberative process or one that even invites bipartisan debate and consideration. so we may end up being required to vote on the bill. that's certainly the prerogative of the majority leader, with no real committee hearings, no real testimony from experts, and no indication that this bill is really being taken seriously other than to check a box and to send a message. what's really been interesting is our colleagues on the left have said they've tried to brand this as a compromise bill. i think that's primarily because of the objection of the senator from west virginia, senator manchin, who said he couldn't support the original bill, so they tried to come up with something that maybe looked more like a compromise but really isn't. and i'll talk about that more in a second. but this bill is not the result of bipartisan deliberations or consultation or communication even. as the republican leader has noted, this so-called compromise bill is a compromise between the left and the radical left, which is hardly a compromise at all. but that's apparently the way that leader schumer decides to run the senate, after all. passing a $1.9 trillion spending bill right after joe biden became president with no republican support under the auspices of being covid relief when only 10% of it actually had anything to do with covid. well, the good news is we've done a few bipartisan things. we passed the endless frontiers act, our way of trying to address the challenge of china. we passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill. but now our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to do it alone again, and they're trying to pass a bill that could end up costing taxpayers as much as $5.5 trillion. the nominal figure is $3.5 trillion, but right now they're experiencing a lot of differences of opinion within their own ranks as to what's acceptable and what's not, and they certainly aren't talking to us. but all the while they have continued to work on a partisan effort to overrun our constitutional delegation really of the election system to state and local government. so no one should be fooled. this bill is not a compromise in any sense of the word. just like its predecessor, this bill hijacks state constitutional power to make decisions on things like voter registration and early voting. actually this morning in the constitution subcommittee, the senator from connecticut, senator blumenthal, was talking about the fact that his state, connecticut, did not have early in-person voting. but they now passed a bill which provides for a referendum in connecticut. and then if the referendum passes, then the state legislature may actually provide for early voting in person. i would just tell you that the contrast between the rhetoric and the reality is pretty amazing because the texas election law passed by the state legislature just recently provides for 17 days of early voting in person. in other words, there is a fulsome opportunity for anybody who's qualified to vote to cast their ballot in person or by mail, if you qualify, or on the day of the election. and as you can see, with 66% of the renal -- of the registered voters taking advantage of the opportunity to pass their ballot, they did in historic numbers. well, there's a saying that if it's not broke, don't fix it, and there's nothing broke about our state and local-run election systems. well, certainly the guardrails are in place. if, for example, someone were to deny a minority voter the opportunity to cast a ballot or to make sure their ballot counted just like anybody else, there's section 2 of the voting rights act. in fact, the biden department of justice filed such a lawsuit against georgia based on the changes in their voting laws. so there's plenty of opportunity to raise these issues in court should the federal government and should the biden administration wish to challenge them. but the truth is they're going to lose because what they've tried to do is to change through litigation what they cannot do constitutionally through legislation. well, this so-called compromise bill, which is no compromise at all, contains invasive disclosure requirements that would attack the privacy of voters and chill free speech. it places handcuffs on states when it comes to drawing new legislative lines in redistricting and it threatens action from the attorney general if those standards aren't met. it makes it too difficult to root out fraud and protect the integrity of the vote by prohibiting voter i.d. for mail-in ballots and mandating drop boxes for ballots to be dropped by partisan advocates. you know, people act like there's no such thing as voter fraud, but actually we have a famous case in texas called box 13 in duval county, texas, where coke stevenson and l.b.j., lyndon baines johnson, were running for the senate. and you know what they found? because of the manipulation of the voter rolls by the county judge in duval county, literally they had people who were already buried from the cemetery vote in favor of lyndon baines johnson and in alphabetical order, once they figured out how many votes they needed to cast. that is one example of voter fraud and our democratic colleagues act like it doesn't exist. what we did hear in the judiciary committee a few months ago is the secretary of state for new hampshire, he's a democrat, and they don't have any early voting, and it was interesting to hear him say he thinks the single most important factor when it comes to people casting their ballot is people's confidence in the system, that their ballot will actually be counted the way they voted. and so all of these different times and conditions under which people can cast their ballot really don't have nearly as big an impact as the confidence they have that their vote will be counted as they cast it. and why are democratic colleagues -- our democratic colleagues are opposed to voter i.d. is beyond me. you know, jimmy carter and james baker, iii -- of course jimmy carter, a former democrat president, and james baker, iii, a former secretary of state and treasury secretary, they had a commission to look at things like voter i.d. and they actually recommended that voter i.d. would be one way to instill public confidence in the integrity of the vote. you've got to show your i.d. when you go through the transportation security administration, t.s.a., to get on an airplane. you've got to show an i.d. if you're going to buy a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store or six-pack of beer. i mean, we are accustomed for people to be able to identify who they are. if you want to get into a federal building, you have to show an i.d. so the idea that we should prohibit voter i.d., to me, is ridiculous. and that's one of the provisions in the democrat substitute bill which is before us. it would prohibit the use of voter i.d. through mail-in ballots. but that's just the beginning. one of the most outlandish, or i should say on top of what i already talked about, provisions in this bill is the use of taxpayer funds for campaigns. well, a lot of companies have matching programs for charitable giving. that's a positive, good thing. if an employee donates to a charity of their choice, many times their company will match that donation dollar for dollar. that's a positive thing. but here what happens is instead of a charity getting the money, it's a political candidate. in other words, our democratic colleagues are recommending that for every dollar that's donated to a political candidate that the taxpayer kick in an extra $6. well, i know some of these campaigns that we've -- we've all run in recently get to be pretty expensive campaigns, but can you imagine that the taxpayers be asked to pony up $6 for every $1 that's contributed to the campaign? and is it really fair to ask taxpayers to subsidize the election of somebody that they may disagree with? it makes no sense to me. well, this means that if someone donates $200 to their preferred congressional candidate, the federal government could match with $1,200. and it's not the federal government, it's the taxpayer, by the way. and then there are the campaign vouchers, which provide eligible voters with a $25 voucher to donate to the campaign of their choosing. i am not making this up. this is what's in the legislation that, undistrict court -- unfortunately i don't think many people have read or understand. it's easier to imagine a better use of taxpayer funding, whether infrastructure, help for people who still are in need as a result of the covid pandemic, it could go to crime victims or supporter response to humanitarian response at the border like we're seeing in del rio, texas, but, no, our democratic colleagues want to put it in the political campaigns of the candidates of their choice. well, in addition to the rotten provisions that are maintained from the previous bill, there's even more. the bill places immense power in the offense of general counsel of the general election commission, he's an unelected official, that overturns voter laws and makes election day a federal holiday even though the bill mandates 15 days of early voting which is less than the state legislature provided for in texas, we have 17 days of early voting. well, the truth is this is a so-called solution in search of a problem. the truth is there is no voter suppression epidemic. during the obama administration, their justice department brought four lawsuits -- four lawsuits under section 2 of the voting rights act. if you thought there was an epidemic of voter suppression, don't you think that the obama administration would have been more active and more vigilant? and, again, there's the fact that the 2020 elections saw the highest turnout in 120 years for all racial and ethnic groups. over the last four years states across the country undertook efforts to keep their elections free from fraud and foreign interference. and, oh, by the way, one of the conclusions following the 2016 election by the intelligence community was that the dispersed and defused nature of our elections actually made it harder for russia to impact the outcome because they would have had to do so in all 50 states. if this was all run out of washington, d.c., and one black box appear, it would probably be easier for them to concentrate their efforts on one location rather than 50 locations and increase the likelihood of their ability to influence the outcome. well, we've -- we've kicked in here in congress hundreds of millions of dollars to help the states keep their elections free from fraud and foreign interference, but under the constitution, as currently written, each state has a constitutional authority to governor how their elections are run, and i think it's a good thing, subject to section 2 of the voting rights act if someone commits a foul. in my state, 29 million people spread out across major cities and small towns alike, and what works well in our state may not make sense in a small densely populated state like new jersey or large sparsely populated state like alaska. that's why it's important that the states be the laboratories of democracy and try to be responsive to the needs of the people in their particular state because we're not all the same. i believe the leaders in each state know best the unique circumstances of their constituents and they are best suited to craft voting laws that prioritize both access and security. so a federal government hijacking of our state and local run election laws will not improve voter confidence in our elections. in fact, it will stir the very fears that democrats claim that they are trying to alleviate. but this isn't really new. it's just a repackaged and new effort to do the same thing, which is to nationalize our elections and run all of them out of washington, d.c. and discourage commonsense measures like voter i.d. that help bolster public confidence in our elections and diminish the opportunity for people to cheat. well, no matter how many times we see this rebranded and new version federal takeover of elections, i will continue to fight any effort to take the constitutional authority given to my state to run our own elections, and i'm certainly not going to turn it over to the national democratic party. the senate will never green light america's election, and that's a good thing and we will not go down the road on this new rehashed, modified substitute effort to nationalize our federal elections. madam president, i yield the floor. ms. stabenow: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you, madam president. for more than 100 years scientists have shown that burning fossil fuels burns carbon pollution that builds up in our atmosphere and it doesn't go away. it builds up more and more and more and more. and for 100 years we kept on burning fossil fuels anyway. and, in fact, we have given -- as a congress major, permanent tax benefits for the past 100 years to the fossil fuel industry. now we're experiencing the full force and the huge cost of that choice and it's growing even faster than many predicted. this week i published a report that outlined how extreme weather events are becoming more destructive, more dangerous and more expensive thanks to the climate crisis. last year the united states set an awful record. we had 22 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in one year. the most ever. in total, these 22 disasters cost the nation almost $100 billion in damages and 262 americans lost their lives in severe storms and heat waves and wildfires. 2020 may have set a record, but, unfortunately, it's a record that's going to be broken probably this year. over the past five years, american taxpayers have spent an average of $126 billion a year in damage due to these disasters. and the total cost of these disasters over the last 15 years tops $1 trillion, and growing every single day -- every single year. we are debating right now a budget, a build back better budget and it involves investing in a number of important things over ten years at about $350 billion a year and we're going to spend that very soon just on climate damage if we don't get ahead of this. and i know the presiding officer is leading us in a very important way, which i thank you for the issue around clean electric policies. so we have a lot of work to do, and nobody's going untouched. no state is untouched from montana to mississippi to massachusetts to michigan. last week president biden was in idaho surveying the terrible damage caused by wildfires and he said we can't continue to ignore reality. he's right. and the reality is carbon pollution is the root cause of the climate crisis. pollution goes into the atmosphere, it doesn't leave. it just gathers more and more and more and more, and we are seeing what's happening as a result of that. and if we don't calm down the climate crisis now, the destruction and the deaths will continue to go up and up and up. if you think taking action is expensive, consider the cost of inaction. who pays the bill? well, we all do. we all pay the bill. and then there's the personal cost. i'm thinking of a landowner who lives on the same wooded acres his grandfather owned, or at least he did until a drought-fueled wildfire destroyed him home and the forest that surrounded it. i'm thinking of the small business that lost its roof and all its inventory when a hurricane and the resulting storm surge hit a small beachside community. i'm thinking of all the michigan growers i know who are one early freeze or dry season away from being unable to keep the family farm going. and i'm thinking of those 262 families who lost someone they loved and will never be the same. we owe it to those families to take action so that the climate crisis doesn't continue to cost people their lives and their livelihoods. and we owe it to american taxpayers to do all we can to avoid the worst impacts of this crisis. we know what we need to do. we know what we need to do. we need to cut carbon pollution. that's what we need to do. there's big interests on the other side, oil and gas and coal interests. a lot of money. big special interests who keep trying to tell us this isn't real. you know, what you're seeing right in front of your face, what you're experiencing in your life is not real. it's pretend. it's not happening. and they put a lot of money into trying to stop what we're doing. but we have to take action. we have to take action. we know this is about carbon pollution. it's also about methane pollution. and other greenhouse gases. and we can start doing something about it by passing the build back better budget that the president has proposed. the bill back better budget will make electric vehicles more afford able and ensure -- affordable and ensure that they're built right here in the united states. i want them built in michigan. at minimum we want them built in the united states. and that's really important because we know that the transportation sector is the single largest source of carbon pollution that's driving climate change. electric vehicles are a major part of the solution but not the only part. but they are a major part of it. the question is not whether they will -- whether they will be built. it's where they will be built. are they going to be built in china where they're spending over a hundred billion dollars right now to capture the entire market including electric batteries as well as the vehicles or are we going to make it in america? my vote is to make it -- to make these vehicles in america. i've often said that michigan workers are the best in the world. i believe that. under the build back better budget, they will lead the world. american workers will lead the world if we are smart about doing what we need to do to invest in america. the build back better budget will also provide clean energy tax incentives and it funds clean energy procurement so we can make the electricity we need to power the vehicles without carbon pollution. it helps ensure that the technologies we need to transition to clean energy are built right here in the united states by providing tax credits for manufacturers to retool and build new plants, to produce advanced energy parts. it will hold polluters accountable and ensure they are held responsible for their actions. it will invest in important clean electricity policies. it will invest in climate-smart agriculture so that farmers and ranchers and foresters can continue to be an even bigger part of the solution. and it will restore our forests and make them more resilient to wildfires. the build back better budget alongside the bipartisan infrastructure package which is also very important will make our infrastructure more resilient and tackle the main driver of the climate crisis, carbon pollution. and best of all, these investments will also create millions of good-paying american jobs. that's the great part. as we are transitioning in michigan, we are seeing jobs that are being created as part of the clean energy economy. sofer it's true that these -- so it's true that these policies represent significant investments, but it's also true that the cost of inaction is much, much higher. inaction has consequences, so many different consequences for us, for our children, for our grandchildren. and we can't afford those consequences. we just can't afford those consequences anymore. so on behalf of all of our children, on behalf of our grandchildren, now is the time to act. we must take this moment because we're running out of time. we must take this moment to act, to address the pollution that is creating this climate crisis. we can do it. we know what to do, but now is the time to act and get it done. i yield the floor, madam president. mr. cruz: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: madam president, i rise today to call attention to the humanitarian crisis that is happening right now in the state of texas. another one happening right now in del rio, texas. yet another consequence of president biden's and vice president harris' dangerous refusal to enforce our laws or to protect our border. a refusal that is causing people to die, that is causing young girls to be trafficked, that is causing drugs to pour into our state, and that is causing our communities to become much less safe. right now thousands of haiyans -- haitians are camped under a bridge after illegally entering our country. six days ago i went down to del rio myself to see firsthand what was going on and why this was happening. the shear number of people under the bridge took my breath away. people were struggling enormously, including infants, including young children. and i learned from authorities on the ground what had happened and that this was a manmade crisis. to understand what occurred, we have to go back to september 8. on september 8 and in the weeks that preceded it, there were between 700 and 1,000 people under that bridge in del rio. that was about the traffic that was coming in each day ille illegally. then on september 8, the biden administration made a political decision. there were some 900 haitian illegal immigrants that were scheduled to board planes and be deported back to haiti. roughly 80% of the illegal immigrants crossing at del rio are from haiti originally. on september 8 the biden administration canceled those planes. it informed those 900 haitians that they would not be deported but that they would instead be allowed to stay in the united states. what happened next is simple. those 900 picked up their phones and they called their friends, they called their families, they texted their friends and families. and between the period of september 8 when the biden administration can sellinged those flights back to -- canceled those flights back to haiti and september 16, eight days later when i was in del rio, the 700 people under the bridge had become 10,503. that's what the total was the day i was there. 10,503 packed in deplorable conditions. they'd already crossed into the united states. they were packed under that bridge because the border patrol lacked the capacity to process anything close to that number. and within a couple more days, the 10,503 had become 15,000 people. madam president, to put that in perspective, the city of del rio has a population of 35,000 people. nearly half the population of del rio was under that bridge. we've seen bread and water and toilet paper and basic necessities flying off store shelves in del rio which wasn't expecting to have to handle such a massive influx of illegal immigrants. the people of del rio are concerned. they're dismayed. they don't understand why the federal government refuses to enforce the law. law enforcement is concerned and dismayed and doesn't understand why joe biden and kamala harris won't enforce the law. the mayor in del rio is a democrat, and he's frustrated and dismayed with the crisis the federal government has caused. the past month i've traveled throughout south texas doing round tables sitting down with farmers and ranchers, sitting down with sheriffs and local law enforcement. sitting down with elected officials. a great many of the elected firms in south texas are democrats. south texas historically has been a very democratic region in the state. to a person every elected democrat with whom i sat down was horrified at what's happening. more than one elected democrat in south texas said to me if the national democratic party is the party of open borders, i can't be for that. in this body we listen to loghts of elected -- lots of elected officials from states that don't have a border with mexico. pontificate on how enforcing the border is somehow cruel. i'll tell you what's cruel. having 10,503 people underneath a bridge in shanytown conditions where children, where women, where men are sleeping out in the elements and we're -- and where even more come. one of the things that's striking about that del rio influx is many of those individuals had already been granted asylum in mexico. so they had come from haiti to mexico. they'd been granted asylum. they were living legally in mexico. but when the biden administration canceled the flights back to haiti and word got out hey, come to del rio, it's alley oxen free. if you come to del rio, you can stay in america. it took eight days for 700 people to become 10,503. the biden administration has also shut down five border patrol check points in the del rio sector area of responsibility so they can redirect personnel just to process the mass of illegal immigrants under the bridge in del rio. and information it's at those check points that trucks carrying illegal immigrants or trucks carrying drugs into our country are caught. so with joe biden and kamala harris pulling the personnel away from that, we know yet more illegal immigrants will stream into this country. we know yet more women will be raped and sexually assaulted by human traffickers. we know more children, more little boys and more little girls will face physical assault and sexual assault from human traffickers. we also know that more heroin, more fentanyl, more illegal drugs will pour into our states. and by the way, not just the state of texas but every state in the union will have more people die from illegal drugs because joe biden and kamala harris refuse to enforce the law and are pulling law enforcement off of their job of protecting our communities. on monday department of homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas went down to del rio. let me say i'm glad he did. joe biden hasn't been to del rio. kamala harris hasn't been to del rio. she is ostensibly the border control czar, but the czar can't be bothered to actually go to the southern borpder where the crisis -- border where the crisis is occurring. secretary mayorkas in del rio said, quote, we are very concerned that haitians who are taking this irregular migration path are receiving false information that the border is open. well, i wonder, madam president, why they think the border is open. maybe it's because the biden administration halted the deportation flights to haiti? maybe it's because joe biden is releasing haitians who illegally crossed the border at del rio into the united states at staggering scale? maybe it's because joe biden halted construction of the border wall the day that he became president? maybe it's because joe biden reinstate the failed catch-and-release policy? or maybe its because joe biden on day one of the presidency ended the incredibly successful remain-in-mexico policy, which was an international agreement that president trump had negotiated with the government of mexico that provided that when people cross illegal lay into mexico that they would remain in mexico while their u.s. asylum case was proceeding. that agreement was phenomenally successful, so much so that last year in 2020 we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. mr. president, i want to point out to you that some in the democratic party, some in the media like to say, well, this problem has been with us for a long time, this problem is is not joe biden's fault, a i.t. not kamala harris' fault. we can't solve the crisis at our southern border. if you hear elected democrats saying that, if you hear the corrupt corporate media saying that, you know they are not telling you the truth. why is that? because last year, 12 months ago, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. we know how to solve this crisis. the remain-in-mexico international agreement worked, and joe biden and kamala harris for political reasons decided to tear up that international agreement and declare open season on our southern border. this year since joe biden has been president, over 1.2 million illegal immigrants have come into the united states. we are on pace for more than two million this year, which is the highest rate in the 20 years. you want to see how much policy and politics matter? we went from the lowest rate in 45 years last year to the highest rate in 21 years this year. and i.t. all because of politics -- and it's all because of politics because joe biden and kamala harris had made promises to the open-border radicals in their party. i'll tell you, i've been to the border. i've been to the biden cages. for four years democrats went on and on and on, the corrupt corporate media went on and on and on about kids in cages. you couldn't turn on the evening news without hearing kids in cages. what they didn't tell you is obamacare built those -- is barack obama built those cages and today they're more full than they were before. mr. president, every democrat who stood up and lamented kids in cages -- in the house of representatives oz, representative ocasio-cortez has a famous photo of her grasping her head of the kids in cages. go see the biden cages with your own eyes. i've seen them, the tent facility over 4,000 people with little boys and little girls on top of each other. just a couple of weeks ago when i was in the rio grande valley, the rate of covid was over 22%. and all the democrats who talked about this, if they don't go, if they don't denounce the biden cages, then they're telling you that they're hypocrites, that they didn't believe it when they said it, that they didn't care about it when they said it, that it was all politics; it wasn't about their kids. why does joe biden refuse to for example to the rio grande valley? because if he goes, the tv cameras will come with him. why does kamala harris, who's supposed to be the border czar, she's supposed to be in charge of this, why won't she go to the rio grande valley? because if she went the tv cameras would come and would show the biden cages, and the democrats are counting on the corrupt corporate media to suddenly say, nothing to see here. 15,000 haitians under a bridge in del rio, nothing to see here. anyone want to know what joe biden's favorite ice cream flavor is? that's the news. never mind 1.2 million illegal immigrants. never mind when i took 19 senators down to the border, we went out on the river and saw a man floating dead in the river who died trying to cross illegally. never mind the south texas farmers and ranchers, the moms who told me, i won't let my teenage kids go out on our ranch because being armed with a loaded firearm. because there are so many human traffickers and narcotics traffickers that it's gainingous for them to go out on their -- that it's dangerous for them to go out on their own ranch. never mind the farmers and ranchers who told me that they're tired of going out and finding dead bodies. you with aens to understand what's happening -- you want to understand what's happening. come to brooks county. i invite every democrat here to brooks county in south texas, just north of the border. brooks county over and over and over again, there are dead bodies of illegal immigrants. the traffickers who are bringing them in, they're not nice guys. they're not humanitarians, they don't give a damn. that means if one of the illegal immigrants is a pregnant woman, is a young child, is elderly, is sick, they just abandon them. they leave them in the rough terrain, in the summer heat and over and over again farmers and ranchers encounter dead bodies on their property where the traffickers have abandoned them. mr. president, i ask you -- is that humane? is that compassionate, the joe biden and kamala harrispologies, that encourages, that puts people in harm's way and results in people dying? when we were down on the border we saw a young girl who had been gang raped by the human traffickers who had brought her to america. the rate of sexual assault is staggering, particularly among the girls and young women. so much so that a dig percentage of -- that a significant percentage of young women before they take the harrowing trip with the traffickers will plant a birth control because they know the odds of being sexually assaulted are so great. as i was doing the roundtables, one of the things i saw also was the colored wristbands. so the traffickers are global cartels, they're vicious criminals. they charge anyone -- a young man, a young woman, a little boy, a little girl -- thousands of girls to cross into the united states. by the way, do you know there's a 100% operational control on the border? 100% on the southern side. nobody crosses the border without the cartel's permission. if you do, they will kill you. every person who crosses the border does so after paying the cartels because you will be killed otherwise. but often when they come, they'll cross and they'll end up in a stash house. it's been to those stash housings. i have been out on the midnight patrols with the border patrols. you go to the stash houses and there are color wristbands that they put on the illegal immigrant. they correspond to how many thousands of dollars they paid and how many thousands of dollars more they owe. often when they get here, the cartels will say, thank you for yore "x" thousands of dollars. we want "y" thousand more. tragically, it is at those stackhouses in the united states, where many of the sexual assault occur, and so these immigrants, many of whom are young children, when they get here, the biden administration delivers them to their final destination. joe biden and kamala harris and their administration are the last mile of the human trafficking network. but for the 14-, 15-year-old boy who arrives in atlanta, who arrives in new york, who arrives into detroit, who arrives in nashville, many of those 14- and 15-year-old boys owe thousands of dollars to the cartels. which means they arrive in your city -- you might think georgia is not a border state. but when teenagers are arriving in atlanta owing thousands of dollars to the cartels, they work for the cartels. and the cartels know who their family is and where their family is and they risk their mother or father being murdered if they don't work for the cartels to pay off the cartels. the young women have it even worse. there are teenage girls who make the decision, i want to come to america. i want to come to the promised land. we've been a beacon of hope to millions throughout our history. they don't realize they are stepping into hell on earth. when the traffickers take them and then take them to a cartel facility in whatever city they end up in, where many of those teenager girls still owing thousands of dollars to the cartels, have to work to pay off that debt by forced prostitution. young girls, forced into a life of sex slavery because the alternative is murder at the hand of the cartels. this is happening. the fact that joe biden doesn't want to talk about it, the fact that kamala harris claims it's not happening, the fact that the corrupt corporate media ignores it, it doesn't stop the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are suffering. mr. president, you and i are on the senate judiciary committee. we've had four hearings in the democrat-controlled judiciary committee on amnesty. in case the american people missed it, we get that democrats want am necessary cities for every illegal -- amnesty for every illegal alien. that is not lost on anybody. we haven't had a single hearing on the humanitarian crisis on the border. and not a single hearing on the biden cages. is it really the case that no democrat in this chamber cares about the children being assaulted, cares about the children catching covid, cares about the illegal immigrants being released by joe biden and kamala harris with covid into our communities? i get politically this is an inconvenient topic to discuss. it's not the political narrative democrats with aens to address. -- want to address. but every democrat in this body needs to ask, did you believe one word of the rhetoric you said during the trump administration? or was it all politics? and, by the way, i saw the kids in cages, and i went to them directly when obama was president. i saw them when trump was president. i saw them when biden was president. the difference last year is we had the lowest numbers in 45 years. we were fixing the problem last year by enforcing the law. joe biden has created this crisis through political decisions. i'll make one final point, mr. president. right now, 10,000, 15,000 haitian illegal immigrants under a bridge in del rio, texas. it's easy for democrats to say, well, that's not my problem. it's easy for democrats to say, i've never been to del rio. what do i care? -- about those folks in south texas? i ask you, mr. president, how would this issue be different if those illegal immigrants, if their point of entry was march -- was martha's vineyard? how would it be different if their point of entry was silicon valley, perhaps outside the headquarters of google? 15,000 illegal immigrants under bridges. corrupt corporate media doesn't care. the democrats, i hope, will demonstrate that they do. and i tell you this -- the american people care. what is happening at our southern border is wrong, and it needs to end. i yield the floor. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. under the previous order, the question is on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: the yeas are 80, the nays are 18. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 341, florence y. pan of the district of columbia to be united states district judge for the district of columbia, signed by 16 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the senate is -- it is the sense of the senate that debate of the nomination of florence y. pan of the district of columbia to be united states district judge for the district of columbia shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: the yeas are 66, the nays are 27. motion is agreed to. the clerk will report a nomination. the clerk: nomination, florence y. pan of the district of columbia to be united states district judge for the district of columbia. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor, say aye. those opposed, say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, i understand there are two bills at the desk and i ask for their first reading en bloc. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the titles for the first time en bloc. the clerk: s. 2809, a bill to protect social security benefits and military pay and require that the united states government to prioritize all obligations on the debt held by the public in any event the debt limit is vaccine, h.r. 5305, an act making appropriations for the fiscal year ending september 30 or, 2022 and for providing emergency assistance and for other purposes. mr. durbin: i now ask for a second reading and i object to nigh own request, all en bloc. the presiding officer: objection is is heard. the bills will receive their second reading on the next legislative day. mr. durbin: mr. president, i move to adjourn until 8:22 p.m. today. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to adjourn until 8:22. all those in favor, say aye. all opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the senate stands adjourned the senate stands adjourned for the remainder of the week, the senate plans to work on additional executive nominations when the senate returns, watch live coverage here on c-span2. ♪♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered government provided by television companies and more included buckeye broadband. ♪♪ buckeye broadband supports c-span as a public service along with use other television providers giving a front row seat to democracy. ♪♪ >> was the for ray and homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas specified at a house human security committee on global threats facing the u.s., 20 years after the september 11 terrorist attacks. it runs about three hours and 20 minutes. >> the committee on homeland security will come to order. testimony on worldwide threat to the holman, 20 years after 9/11. the chair authorizes the recess at any time. good morning and i want to thank secretary of homeland security alejandro mayorkas, fbi director national counterterrorist director. they keep for coming before the committee today. >> washington d.c. december 22, 2021. paragraph three of the rules of the senate i hereby appoint the honorable mark kelly, senator from the state of arizona to perform duties of the chair. >> i ask unanimous consent proceedings be approved to date, the time for theer two leaders e reserved for later in the day and morning business with senators permitted to have ten minutes each. >> without objection. >> i understand there are four bills of the desk do for a second reading on block. >> the sender is correct. the clerk will read the titles for the second time on block. >> 2788, reauthorize what insurance program as 2789, a bill continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2022 and providing emergency assistance and for the purposes it will to protect social security benefits and military pay and so forth. hr 5305 and x continuing appropriations for fiscal year september 30, 2002 and providing emergency assistance and for other purposes. >> to place the bills on the calendar, grow 14 abject to further proceeding on block. >> having heard, the bills will be placed in the calendar. >> i ask unanimous consent to proceed calendar 174. director of the united states marshals service, vice donald w washington. >> is there objection? without objection, the clerk will report. >> nomination department of justice california to be director of united states marshal service. >> questions on the nomination. all in favor, say i. all opposed, no. the i's have it. the nomination is confirmed. >> i ask if be considered made in late up on the table, no further motions be in order to the nomination. any statements related to the nomination printed to the record, the president be immediately notified to the senate's action incident resume legislative session. i ask unanimous consent the armed services committee be discharged for the consideration and senate now proceed to 357. the clerk: s. res. 357, honoring missourians who made the ultimate sacrifice in afghanistan. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the senate will proceed. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 378 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 378, designating september 2021 sasse national process state cancer awareness month. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measurement? -- to the measure? without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. durbin: i know of no further debate on the resolution. the presiding officer: is there further debate? if not, all those in favor, say aye. all opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the resolution is agreed to. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that at senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 379 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 379, expressing support for the designation of the week of september 13, to 21 through september 17, 2021, as national small business week to celebrate the contributions of small businesses and entrepreneurs in every community in the united states. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the senate will proceed. mr. durbin: i further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until the:00 a.m. thursday, september 23. following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. that upon conclusion of morning business, the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the pan nomination. further, that all time on the pan nomination expire at 10:00 a.m. finally, if any nominations are confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: if there is to further business to come before the senate accuracy i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 9:

Related Keywords

Afghanistan , United States , Alaska , Georgia , Akron , Ohio , China , Russia , Brooks County , Texas , Kabul , Kabol , Connecticut , West Virginia , Mexico , Arizona , Newark , New Jersey , Switzerland , New York , New Hampshire , Iran , Washington , Togo , Canada , Michigan , Haiti , London , City Of , United Kingdom , Mississippi , Denver , Colorado , Jersey , Oklahoma , Duval County , Colorado Springs , Texans , Americans , America , Georgians , Afghan , Haitians , Swiss , American , Jimmy Carter , Lyndon Baines Johnson , Max Baucus , Al Qaeda , Kamala Harris , Joe Biden , James Baker ,