Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate resolutions, which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 768, S. Res. 769, S. Res. 770, S. Res. 771, S. Res. 772, and S. Res. 773.

Mr. BLUNT. I know of no further debate on the measures, en bloc.

Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent that the preambles be agreed to en bloc and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3 p.m. on Monday, November 16; further, that 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; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Johnson nomination; and further, that notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motions filed during today's session of the Senate ripen at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the provisions of S. Res. 770 as a further mark of respect for the late Mark Andrews, former Senator of the State of North Dakota.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the appropriate committees be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following resolutions, en bloc: S. Res. 716, S. Res. 717, S. Res. 746, S. Res. 764, S. Res. 765, S. Res. 766, and S. Res. 767.

Mr. BLUNT. I know of no further debate on the measures, en bloc.

Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent that the preambles be agreed to en bloc and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, let me just follow right on with that important topic of the vote we will have in a few days to send another Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. I had the opportunity this morning to meet with Judge Barrett. The conversation reminded me exactly why she is the right choice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court now. I was asked the first weekend of this discussion, before the President had made the decision, if I could vote for her, and I quickly said yes, having watched her circuit judge bipartisan confirmation, having seen how that discussion went. I have had her on a short list that I have kept myself for a long time as someone who would be an important addition to the Court. She was first in her class at Notre Dame; clerked on the district court in Washington, DC; clerked for Justice Scalia at the Supreme Court; and was a law professor at Notre Dame for 15 years. At least three times in that 15 years, she was chosen by students as the top faculty member. She was bipartisanly confirmed on the Seventh Circuit and has a history over the last 3 years of the kind of Justice she would be. The dean at the law school at Notre Dame had this to say about Judge Amy Coney Barrett. He said: Judge Amy Coney Barrett is an absolutely brilliant legal scholar and jurist. . . . She lives a life of humility and grace, devoted to her family and community. Somebody else at the Notre Dame Law School said that when Professor Barrett was in the room, the smartest person in the room was also the most humble person in the room. I think we saw some of that when she was before the Judiciary Committee as she answered those questions understanding what her job was, understanding the job of a judge is not to decide what the law should say but what the law does say; not to decide what the Constitution should say but what it does say and even more importantly, in her view of what a judge should look at, what people thought it said when they wrote it, that textualist, that originalist concept. She I think rightly perceived that if we want to change the Constitution, there is a way to do that. If we want to update it to what it might mean now, we have the chance to do that. Certainly, if we want to change the law, we have the chance to do that. If you really listened to the questions, particularly from our friends on the other side, the Democrats on that committee, they were all very much premised on: Well, what do you believe? What do you think about this? What do you think about that? That is not the point. She, I thought, very consistently, for 24 hours, made the point that the point is, it is not about what I believe; it is about what the law says. By the way, members of the committee--she didn't say this, but it was obvious--it is your job to decide what the law says. It is the job of the Court to decide how the law is applied and whether it meets the test of the Constitution. A widely respected scholar, a person of faith--by the way, I think in the previous hearing, we all heard that comment ``The dogma lives loudly in you.'' There may be a good way to use the word ``dogma,'' but I don't think I have ever heard it used in a positive way. But if you just substituted ``dogma'' for ``faith,'' what a great thing that would be to say about somebody. The faith lives--your faith--the faith lives loudly in you. No matter what your faith is, that is a great thing to hear about yourself or to be able to say about somebody else. Lots of people say that about Amy Coney Barrett. She has written 79 opinions at the circuit court level, the court level right below the Supreme Court. Everything she said as a circuit judge, as a witness before the committee, and as a nominee before the committee has been exactly what I think a judge should do. The day she was nominated by the President, she said: A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policymakers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold. Judge Scalia famously said that a really good judge will often issue an opinion that they wish was a different opinion; an opinion that doesn't meet their view of what they would like to see happen but meets their view of what the law requires to happen. The American Bar Association--sometimes not that friendly to Republican nominees to the court--concluded that she was well qualified. They asked for input from more than 900 people familiar with Judge Barrett, and in the end, not one person uttered a negative word about her. Certainly, there is nobody who has been elected to this body who didn't have lots of negative words said about them. But just to find 900 people and none of them have a negative thing to say I think is a great indication of who she is. One lawyer told the ABA that she is ``an intellectual giant with people skills, and engaging warmth.'' Not every intellectual giant is praised for their warmth or their people skills. It is clear that she is well qualified. It is clear that she is a brilliant lawyer. It is clear that she cares about her faith, about her family, and about her community. As Senator Ernst mentioned, she is the first nominee since Sandra Day O'Connor who didn't graduate from Yale or Harvard. There is nothing wrong with Yale or Harvard, but there is nothing wrong with having a different background as you come to the Court, particularly if all of your associations as a lawyer have been that ``she's mind-blowingly intelligent''--that was one of her colleagues at Notre Dame--``and she's also one of the most humble people you're going to meet.'' Brilliant and humble is a pretty good combination. America needs judges that bring both humility and brilliance to the court. The Supreme Court will benefit from her being there. I certainly look forward to voting for Judge Amy Coney Barrett as she moves from that job to Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and I believe we will be able to do that within the next few days.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, in accordance with rule 23 of the Rules of Procedure of the Committee on Rules and Administration and pursuant to Senate Rule XXXIII, on October 7, 2020, the Committee on Rules and Administration adopted the ``United States Senate Chamber and Galleries Regulations,'' which supersede and replace the current ``Rules for Regulation of the Senate Wing of the United States Capitol and Senate Office Buildings.''

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I want to talk for a few minutes about securing our election process. At various times, in the last 4 years, there have been different levels of reasons why the Federal Government needed to take over the election process. For a while, it was that the process was too easily infiltrated by outside influences, and then it was COVID-19, and it was important that everybody vote in different ways than they have ever voted before, and somehow only the Federal Government could manage that. I would say that, in that, just as we look toward the 2020 elections, we have spent over $1 billion. I think it is $1.2 billion in funding from the Congress. We have had dozens of hearings in the Rules Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Homeland Security Committee. There was a 3\1/2\-year bipartisan investigation that I was part of as part of the Intelligence Committee, and we have looked at this about every way we can. Right now, people across the country are beginning the process of casting their votes. This year, more than any other year up until now, we will have election day, but, really, we will have more like ``election month,'' and, in some States, it is going to be ``election 6 weeks'' or ``election 7 weeks.'' So this process is starting right now. It is a process where people will decide who represents them in the White House and the Congress; or, in some cases, in city hall; in many cases, the Governor's mansion; and in almost all cases, the general assembly; and in all cases, the U.S. House of Representatives. Confidence in the voting process is the thread that holds the fabric of democracy together. Every time we needlessly get into a discussion about whether this process is fair or safe, I think it is harmful. Every time we need to have that discussion about whether it is fair or safe, it is, of course, not only helpful but totally appropriate. This is the time when we need to be sure that our work has brought us to a good conclusion, rather than talking about the fact that the system is not going to work. The system is going to work. As the chairman of the Rules Committee, where we have the principal election jurisdiction, or as a member of the Intelligence Committee, I spent a lot of time looking at this. I think we have been very serious in the Senate, particularly, in considering these issues and at looking at the threats to our election system itself. I am not going to talk much in the next few minutes about false information and other things. In my view, all you have to do is turn on the television to find some false information and watch the campaign commercials. There is a nugget of truth, perhaps, but most of them-- many of them have little more than a nugget of truth in them. Sure, I am concerned about false information. I am particularly concerned about it if it comes from foreign governments, from those who wish our country ill. But there is a lot of information out there--a lot more information than there has ever been before--and people should be very thoughtful about the information they take in. I am not going to talk a lot about that. I want to talk about the election system itself because, in my view, the election-day system is as secure as it has ever been. The registration system is as secure as it has ever been. Four years ago, the Obama administration--a little later than this-- said: There is a big problem, and we are going to declare the election structure a structure of national significance, and we are going to play a different role than we have ever played before. There was no anticipation that this was going to happen and not much discussion. Election officials all over the country immediately said: Oh, no, you are not. You are not going to just decide in October of an election year that you are going to take over the election system and declare it a system of national significance, a system of critical significance to the future of the Nation. Of course it is, but it didn't become that in October of 2016. But the message was clear that we needed to build those stronger ties with local and State election authorities. We needed to do everything we could, as we saw the efforts by some foreign actors and some people in their basements trying to see if they could get into the voter registration system and do something with it. We have done more of that--well, we have done all we can think of, in my view. We did a lot of it before 2018, and that never stopped. For 20 years, Congress has done all we can think of to help make the system work better. We have spent over $1 billion in the past 4 years. We have encouraged them to update, and we have seen updates of antiquated systems. Systems that didn't have a ballot trail and other things have all been generally replaced, and where they haven't been, I think they are on even higher alert. We have helped them increase their cyber security. We have responded to COVID-19 with help to local governments, which in some cases was used for establishing polling places and even maybe paying extra to election judges. While we provided those resources, it has been for a long time and still is up to local and State officials, who are the closest to the people they work for, to do everything they can to secure those elections. I spent about 20 years doing that, part of it as a local election official in Missouri, a county official, and part of it as the Missouri secretary of state, the chief election official. Earlier this month, I had a chance to be in Kansas City when the county clerks and election authorities were all meeting. Most of them were there at a distanced meeting to talk about election responsibility. Others were virtually there to talk again about the absolute commitment they have made to the people they work for to conduct elections in a way that is both free and fair. I think that is what is going to happen. Clearly, again, there are efforts by foreign adversaries--Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and others--to interfere with our elections, but we want to be sure and I believe have been sure that Federal agencies have been providing the resources they needed to investigate bad actors, to punish bad actors, and to do everything they could to protect the American election system. We are in a much different place than we were 4 years ago. Election authorities--State and, in many cases, local--know the name of the person at Homeland Security with whom they have had now a 4-year relationship or a 2-year relationship or a 1-year relationship, and when they get a call the day before the election, they are going to know that is a call from somebody who not only is there to help them that day but has been there to help them up until now. The Rules Committee has held four hearings since the 2018 election-- one on election security, one on how we are preparing for the 2020 election, one on oversight of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and in addition to that, putting people on the Federal Election Commission to fill vacancies that had been there for a long time. The Judiciary Committee has looked into things like the social media companies that are trying to stop disinformation. Homeland Security has drawn out a roadmap and has put the kinds of protections into the system that you want to have in the system for equipment that counts votes, the registration system that is available on election day. The Intelligence Committee, as I said before, conducted a 3\1/2\-year investigation on foreign meddling in the last election, and the administration is holding those perpetrators accountable. The Justice Department has secured indictments against three Russian companies. Twenty-six people involved with Russia's influence campaign in 2016 have been impacted by that. The Justice Department has sanctioned 46 other people and 18 businesses. One of the things we didn't have in 2016 was a cyber offense. We had a cyber defense and I think the best in the world at that moment--I hope it still is--but we didn't have a cyber offense I remember being in an Intel hearing in 2017--this was early 2017-- when the question was put to our intel community: Have you ever been told by the President of the United States that you should have offensive action taken against these bad actors? The answer by all of them was no. But it was March or April of 2017. The President of the United States who hadn't given that direction for the previous years was not the current President, who, not too long after that, did give that direction. By 2018, when we sought cyber offense, we had our own cyber offense. They know who they are, and they know the price they paid and the price they would pay again. Thousands of members of the intelligence community have been working to keep an eye on that part of keeping our elections secure. Providing Federal support to State and local officials is the right approach. Frankly, I have been in favor of providing a little more yet this year, but that appears to be part of a bill that we just can't seem to agree to even though somewhere between the targeted Senate bill and the Problem Solvers' bipartisan bill in the House that was released a week or so ago, there is clearly a settlement there that would likely include a little more election security assistance. But we are getting pretty late to add much to the system; we need to now be sure that what is in the system really works. We don't need a Federal takeover. Many of you heard me say before that late in 2016, President Obama said: ``There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they're so decentralized in the numbers of votes involved.'' I think he is exactly right. The diversity of the system is the strength of the system. I personally think the best place to vote is at a polling place on election day. I don't always get to vote that way. But if you want to have all the information that happens between the start of the campaign and the day you vote, the only way you get that is voting on election day. If you want to see your ballot go into a ballot box or into the counting system and know that happened, you better get that on election day. But many people will vote in other ways, particularly this year. Usually, the other ways are a little more complicated, but they are still protected by comparison of signatures in most States. Usually, there is still going to be included an indication on the voter roll that goes to the polling place that somebody has already received another ballot. There are safeguards there. For reasons we all understand, more people are going to vote earlier in this election than ever before. I know our election officials in our State and I suspect all over the country are planning for what they can do to still have the most information available possible on election night, but it is unlikely that we are going to know everything we want to know on election night. If you don't want to vote at a polling place on election day or can't vote at a polling place on election day, you should still vote. Confidence in everything you hear or read should not be complete, but I think confidence that the election system itself is going to tabulate the results that came in and the votes that were cast is a pretty safe bet. Politics can become heated and noisy during an election season, but at the end of the day, the American people need to understand that we are doing all we can to give them the ability to cast their ballots with minimal obstacles and maximum confidence that what happens on election day is what the voters voted to do on election day. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, as we all know and as any American who has watched the news over the summer knows, there has been a terrible increase in crime in America's cities. Assaults, shootings, murders have been higher this year, and my home State has not been safe from this trend. In fact, in St. Louis, MO, there were 55 murders in the month of July. That compares to 22 murders a year earlier in July, which we thought were way too many then. In Kansas City, MO, homicides in the first 6 months of this year were about 40 percent higher than they were last year. One of the Kansas City victims was a 4-year-old boy named LeGend Taliferro. He was murdered in the early hours of July 29 while he was asleep--a 4-year-old boy murdered while he was asleep--by a random shooting, violence going on outside his home. So early in July, the Justice Department launched an effort in Kansas City that has become a national effort, which they called Operation LeGend, named for little LeGend Taliferro. Under Operation LeGend, Federal law enforcement officers are working alongside local police to solve crimes, to make arrests, to track down fugitives, and to prepare cases for trial so criminals can be held accountable. The key phrase there is ``alongside.'' Federal agents aren't going in and taking over the police department; they are going in to add assistance to the police department. On that topic, there was no immediate raid of trafficking centers or drug gangs or anything like that. I, frankly, thought the Justice Department was wrong in not announcing earlier to Federal officials and local officials what they were going to do and when they were going to do it, but I think we worked with them to see that that isn't going to continue to be the case. In fact, in early August, they made a similar determination to go into St. Louis. One of the advantages of having Federal officers work with the local police in these cases is, one, they bring a whole lot more intensity to the moment. With the extra help, suddenly something becomes possible that wasn't possible before. Also, many of the people arrested can face Federal charges as well as other sentences. Certainly in our State--in Kansas City and Missouri both--the two different U.S. attorney's offices have done a great job working with local officials before this but are even better able to look at what Federal charges might be faced to take some of that load off the local prosecutor and also look for another way to get these people off the street. By September 1, in Kansas City, the operation had led to the arrest of 355 people suspected of serious crimes in Kansas City. More than 100 of those 355 people have been charged in Federal court. In St. Louis, where I said before that the government decided to bring Operation LeGend--the Justice Department made that decision in early August, and by September 1, there were already 359 arrests, and 128 of those people arrested were looking at Federal charges as well. In addition to St. Louis and Kansas City, the Department of Justice has launched Operation LeGend in seven other cities. This is not a Federal overreach. It is not the Federal Government, again, taking over local law enforcement. It is not the first step toward martial law. It is not a crackdown on peaceful protests. What it is, is a cooperative effort with cities that have been suffering from increases in violent crime. Under this operation, officers have arrested, nationwide, more than 2,000 people, including 163 people for murder, and one of the people arrested was the alleged killer of 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro. The rise of violence in cities this year--and particularly the cities I am talking about that have benefited, I think, from Operation LeGend--has been incredibly rapid and unbearably destructive, not to mention totally unacceptable. It has taken a toll on lives unlived, families torn apart, communities terrorized, people wondering what is going to happen when they or their children walk out the front door or play in the backyard or, like little LeGend, are sound asleep in their beds. Nothing we do can fully heal the damage, certainly, that these victims of violent crime and their families have suffered, but we can get the justice that both the victim and people who care about them deserve. We may have a lot of disagreements in the Congress, but I hope we can agree that violent criminals belong behind bars. I hope we can all agree that all parents deserve a safe neighborhood where they can raise their children. I hope we can all agree that the police do a difficult and dangerous job, and they deserve all the support and appreciation we can give them. Not long ago, LeGend Taliferro's mother spoke about her son and the pain of losing him. She said: ``He was a ball of joy, and I want his legacy to live on and I want us to continue to fight against violence and get justice for my son and others.'' That is the end of that mother's quote, but it is not the end of a life that mother will now live without her son or the life he didn't get to live. And there are too many lives that didn't get to be lived, too many lives lost through needless violence. Operation LeGend gives local law enforcement the valuable support they need to get violent criminals off the street. Again, it was named for an innocent 4-year-old boy. It could have been named for any of the thousands of other victims of violent criminals in dozens of other cities this year. It could have been named for St. Louis Police Officer Tamarris Bohannon, who was killed in the line of duty last month. It could have been named for the two officers in California who had a sneak attack as they were sitting and trying to secure the local transportation center just in the last couple of days. It is a tragedy that it had to be named for anyone. While some people have sought to defund the police and to disparage the police, Operation LeGend is successful because it supports the police. These are some of the hardest jobs in America, second only to the families of people who care deeply about their loved ones who have decided to serve in that job to protect us all. American communities are safer because of Operation LeGend. They will be safer as we continue to work toward greater and more effective community policing. They will be safer when people who are violent criminals are no longer walking around to perpetuate further violence. I salute the Justice Department for their efforts and the local departments that have reached out and taken advantage of the moment to get something done that they were not able to get done by themselves I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I think the President of the United States has done the things he can do within his authority to try to address the issues before us, but the truth is, his authority just doesn't go far enough. Now, I have frequently questioned the President's view of how broad the Presidential authority is, but in these actions he took in the last few days, I looked at them carefully, and I think he had the authority to do what he did, but he would probably be the first to admit that the authority he has doesn't solve the problem the way it needs to be solved. It is time that the Congress stepped up and did its job. You know, in this debate with the President, there is the article I view of the government. There is a reason that the legislative branch is article I. There is a reason it is our job to pass laws, and there is a reason that it is the President's job to execute those laws. Occasionally, the President has to act quicker on some emergency basis than the Congress, and within the fairly narrow ability he has to act on this issue, he has tried his best to step up where the Congress has failed to step up. My good friend from Virginia just said: Well, the House bill is $3 trillion, and the Senate bill is $1 trillion. We should figure out how to compromise at $2 trillion. Now, I believe in compromise. I think it is the essence of democracy, but compromise actually has to be based on some principle of the issue you are dealing with. You know, if the House bill had been $5 trillion, I guess the logic would be that we compromise at $3 trillion. If they had known that, their bill would have probably been $5 trillion. When the bill was passed, it was described by more than one reporter as a Democratic wish list or the ultimate campaign platform having everything in it. It was described by a whole lot more than one reporter that about a third of their bill had nothing to do with COVID, and another third of their bill is about the big question of what we can do to help State and local government. Let's put that issue aside for a minute. It is an issue that clearly the House feels strongly about. Clearly, there are challenges to governments, particularly at the local level, I think, and that has to be dealt with in some way and maybe not at the $871 billion level or whatever they have suggested. But that is a different issue that I will, first of all, concede is very much part of the discussion and should be. But if you take out the third of the bill that has nothing to do with COVID--let's get that off the table. We could have a debate about whether people who are in the legal marijuana trade should get access to banking, but I think you have to work really hard to make that a COVID issue. We could have a debate about whether the Federal Government should require every State in the country to allow ballot harvesting, but I think that is very hard to make a COVID-19 issue. A third of the bill, according to many people who analyzed the bill when it came out, has nothing to do with COVID. So let's set aside the other third of the bill that deals with State and local government, our giving State and local government what we don't have to replace money they don't have. I am not going to say that some element of that will not be in a final bill, but let's talk about the things we all know need to be in the first bill, which, in the House bill, were about $1 trillion. How do you compromise with the House when you agree with them on a number and they change the number? Getting back to school is a critical part of what ought to be happening right now. By the way, back-to-school money the schools get in December will not be nearly as helpful as back-to-school money the schools get in August. They need the money now. We need to see kids back to school, whether it is distance learning, which takes some assets and planning that districts need to do more on, or in-person learning where that is possible, where you have more expenses for probably more bus routes so you don't put as many people on the same bus, more expenses for delayed starting times, and more expenses for social distancing in classrooms. They need that money now. In their bill, the Heroes Act, for elementary, secondary, and higher education, the House put in $100 billion. We looked at that carefully. I chair the committee that does that appropriating. I think we know as much in our committee as anybody in the Senate about some of the needs that are out there. We thought the number was $105 billion. As soon as our bill came out, the House decided, no, we really need $400 billion. How do you meet somebody in the middle when they keep changing where the middle is? The Heroes Act, which Members on the other side of the aisle have repeatedly said we should pass and pass immediately, had $100 billion. We had $105 billion. You would think that would have been good enough. We might have argued some about the language, but there is not much difference on the language. The argument is that Republicans never spend enough, according to Democrats, and the Democrats seem to have no limit on what they are willing to spend, according to us. For childcare, there is a critical need for people to get both back to school and back to work. The childcare system is intensely stressed as part of what is going on--people who lose their jobs and take their children out of childcare; people who would prefer, after they have figured out how to do this a different way, not to put their kids back in childcare for a little while. I haven't talked to anybody who thinks the childcare system would have more than 50 percent of the kids willing to come back who were there before. So how do you still make childcare work? Do you double the childcare cost to make up for the fact that 50 percent of the kids aren't there? Of course not. That doesn't work at all. The House put in the Heroes Act $7.5 billion for childcare; we put $15 billion for childcare. Then the House decides: Well, no, we really need $40 billion or $50 billion for childcare. It is pretty hard to compromise in the middle if the middle was somewhere between $15 billion--and I think, hopefully, our number would have prevailed--and $7.5 billion, and then suddenly the middle is somewhere between $50 billion and $15 billion. Let's be serious here. Let's get this job done. Let's get kids back to school. Let's get people back to work. Let's get childcare back for kids. Let's do what we can to restore the healthcare system that has been incredibly stressed during this, and let's quit acting like there is this vast disagreement, when the disagreement is way more apparent than real If you look at the third of the bill that dealt with COVID-19 that the House passed, we are very close. We are a little ahead of them on testing. Testing absolutely is essential, in my view, to get kids back to school and to get people back to work. Until we get well into the vaccine period, having the vaccine and getting that vaccine to people, testing is going to continue to be critical. We have money for vaccines and vaccine distribution that I think exceeds the House bill money. We could talk about what is really not a very big difference in a $1 trillion bill or something a little more than that. We have said in our bill that, on testing, on vaccines, and on other things, we are going to set some priorities. We said the Federal Government priority is to be sure that everybody gets that test in whatever way they can get it as quickly as they can get it. We said nursing homes, childcare centers, elementary and secondary education, and colleges and universities would be Federal priorities. Employers are going to have to help with some of the workplace priorities, but we think those are the right Federal priorities, and we put it in our bill. Back to work: You have to have childcare, again, to get back to work. A second round of PPP: Again, something the Senator from Virginia agreed we need to do. Healthcare provider assistance: We ask our healthcare providers to do the two hardest things you could possibly do at the same time; one was stop all of the income you can possibly stop--stop the so-called elective surgeries. By the way, some elective surgeries get less elective the longer you wait until you have them, and we are seeing some results of that right now. I think there was some logic to stop putting people into the hospital, if you didn't have to, or having them in the surgeon's facility, if you didn't have to, until we knew what was happening here--and not only stop the income but stand ready for the worst epidemic your community may have ever had to deal with or may ever have to deal with at any time in the future. So maintain your full readiness, stop your income. We need to come back now for the third time and provide money for providers. Again, money now is much more valuable than money 90 days from now. Telemedicine: We finally have woken up to what the Federal Government should have been doing for a decade and embrace telemedicine as part of normal office visits that don't have to happen in the office as part of behavioral health. Our bill says that CMS, which determines how Medicare money is spent, can't go back on what they have allowed in the last few months, ever. And on some of the things they have allowed, they can't go back for a significant period of time to see how this works. Broadband: We could deal with this. If we are going to have telemedicine and telebehavioral health, that kind of medicine, as well as other kinds of medicines, you need to have access to broadband. Kids who are learning remotely have to have the same opportunity as other kids who are learning remotely and need to have access to broadband. They need it as soon as they can get it, whether that is assistance to get hooked up, which is a little easier than just access. We have been working hard in this Senate and in our State legislature in my State to get the Missourians who don't have access to high-speed broadband to get that access. There are areas here that are areas we need to be dealing with. Most of them, you have to really work hard to pretend there is a disagreement. Sure, you can decide that your education category was really only 25 percent of what you really needed, but I think our House friends know that is not right, and we know that is not right. This is probably not the last bill we will pass, if it turns out we are incorrect on our $100 billion or $105 billion, but $100 billion right now to schools trying to get started is worth more than what $200 billion will be in May. Let's give people the help they need when they need it. Let's quit arguing about whether the President has inadequate tools to do what everybody knows needs to be done. Certainly, that is true. That should be true; that under the Constitution, the Congress has to do its job. Compromise is more than some middle number between an outrageous number and a number that may turn out to be not quite big enough. Let's get serious. Let's get back to work. Let's do our job. Let's get back to school, the country back to work, the country back to childcare, and do those things we need to do to restore both the healthcare system and, more importantly, the health of every American we can possibly help. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, the second topic I wanted to talk about is that we spend lots of time discussing what to do in this next phase of dealing with the coronavirus legislation. I want to talk about something we did earlier and the results it has produced. In April, Senator Alexander and I proposed that the National Institutes of Health create a ``Shark Tank'' program for scientists to develop new technologies for COVID-19 testing. NIH set up that program very quickly. We gave them the authority and money to do it, but they did in a week what they normally would have done in 6 months. They have been working overtime ever since with the private sector and with BARDA, or the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, to meet the tremendous need for quicker and earlier tests. The Presiding Officer and I talked about this just the other day. The President is right in his view that some of these tests only tell us information that gives us more data. We need tests that are quicker and have an immediate response. When you go get a test and you don't have a response for 5 days, that really doesn't do anybody a whole lot of good. You have been moving around for 5 days, maybe without symptoms, and you don't know that you are continuing to spread the virus. If you had known in 5 minutes or 15 minutes what it took you 5 days to find out, how many less people would have gotten the disease if you had known what you needed to know when you needed to know it? We need tests that give accurate results in minutes, that are easy to take, and are inexpensive--tests that may cost from a $1 to $5 or $6, that give you an immediate response. So that is what we asked of this program at the National Institutes of Health to work on, to put together scientists, researchers, and engineers to come up with their boldest ideas. So far, since April 29, 650 applications have been submitted with ideas from single individuals or businesses who say: I think this would work. That would be sort of the starting point. By the way, a lot more than 650 people had ``this will work'' ideas, but when NIH sat down and looked, they came up with 650 applicants they thought needed a careful look. Thirty-one of those projects have gone into phase 1 testing. They go through a process of validation, seeing if the likelihood that this will work is as great as what the scientists, engineers, and technologists who populate the shark tank thought it would be. NIH announced that 20 of those projects would be considered even more closely over a few weeks in phase 2, and just last week, NIH selected 7 companies that would start scaling up production of their technology. Taxpayers are investing about $250 million to help those tests get out there quickly. These tests could be available as early as next month. Some of them are the type of rapid tests that give a result on site. One test uses a handheld device that can detect the virus within 30 minutes. Another test company has developed a way to speed up lab testing so that labs that now handle hundreds of tests can handle tens of thousands in the same period of time. These kinds of technologies and others are essential if we want to get our society fully reopened. In early April, there was an average of 145,000 tests a day. Today, we are running about 800,000 tests, but often they are not the kind of tests we need, and they are not the numbers we need. We need tests that millions of people can take dozens of times. We need tests for every person who walks into an office or a factory or a nursing home or a school or a childcare center so that there is confidence in knowing they are not bringing the virus into that center. It is a high hurdle, but I think it is one that we are going to clear. The HEALS Act includes another $15 billion for testing to help in our priorities, which are nursing homes and daycare centers, childcare centers, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities. Those are areas where we think the government itself has an extraordinary obligation to make the difference. That $16 billion, added to the $9 billion of money for this purpose that hasn't been spent up until now, means that we have that kind of big investment to see that people have tests that work for them and work quickly. For this to happen, Congress has to act. Congress has to move. We have to be supportive of efforts that get our society back to school, back to work, back to childcare, and back to better health. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I want to talk about two topics today. One topic I was reminded of when I was in St. Joseph and Joplin, MO, over the weekend, talking to healthcare providers and volunteers of all kinds who are trying to do what they can to help us emerge from this pandemic stronger than we were to start with. Certainly, what first comes to mind is the healthcare workers themselves--the medical workers, doctors, nurses, and support staff whom we have relied on from the very first moments that we began to realize that this virus was bigger than any health issue we have dealt with in a long time. We are still depending on them today. At some point someone can run out of some of the capacity and steam that you have to do the job that needs to be done, but we see these heroes continuing to step up, and some giving their lives. Billy Birmingham, in Kansas City, was an emergency medical technician. He was with the Kansas City Fire Department, and he died of coronavirus in April. His son described Billy as selfless. He said Billy had decided he wanted to find new ways to help people. So he reinvented himself as an EMT when he was in his 40s so he could help others. He was an EMT for about 22 years. We see the emergency medical technicians and first responders out there saving lives, bringing people into the hospital who are in a desperate situation, infectious, as many of them can be, and at sort of the height of suffering and unable to do much to help you help them, but we see that happening. We are benefited by it, and we see a lot of sacrifice in the community. There are people such as Heather Black at the Harry S. Truman Memorial Hospital in Columbia, MO. She donated 623 hand-sewn masks for her colleagues and the veterans at the facility whom they care for. She brought her sewing machine to work so that she could make masks during her free time before and after her shift and during her breaks. One of her colleagues said: You have to be just literally awed by somebody that dedicated to helping people. Remember that she is making masks, and between the breaks she is helping care for the patients at the veterans hospital. We see people finding different ways of being heroes in their communities. Dozens of people in Cape Girardeau, in May, decided to put a parade together for residents of the veterans home who were unable to have visitors. The veterans got to the windows and the dozens of people came by doing what they could to present a Memorial Day kind of parade. There are groups in St. Louis and other places, but particularly the one I was thinking about in St. Louis. They went around and collected food and personal care items, and they took those to people who had lost their jobs, who were suffering from the pandemic, who were isolated in their efforts. I talked today to a number of people in the behavioral health area who understand that, at moments like this, people who have behavioral health issues have logical reasons for those issues to begin to pile up on them. You are isolated. You are sick or somebody in your family is sick. You have lost a job or somebody you know has lost a job. And those issues get bigger. Then we see businesses who figure out how to use their unique set of resources, whatever that might be, to make things happen. When we find it hard to get hand sanitizers, a number of distilleries went into the hand sanitizer business. Anheuser-Busch, which is not a distillery but a brewery, used their brewery facilities to produce more than a half- million bottles of hand sanitizer and then they used their distribution system to get those half million bottles in the communities and places around the country where they would do the most good. Bass Pro Shops, in my hometown of Springfield, donated 1 million face masks to healthcare workers on the frontlines. From delivering truckloads of critical supplies to simply checking on our neighbors, there are thousands of stories to tell in towns across Missouri and in towns in Georgia, where the Presiding Officer lives. There are people doing all they can to make this terrible situation less terrible and this challenging situation less challenging. We are grateful to them. I know a number of people have come to the floor today to talk about those heroes and how they serve us

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I want to talk about the portion of the bill that we have made available to our colleagues and the country this week after lots of input from our colleagues on the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education part of the bill. It is about 25 percent of the bill, almost $250 billion. That money would be used to get us back on track toward vaccines that work, toward treatments that work, to provide additional resources for testing, for treatment, for care, to get us back to school, to get us back to work, and to get us back to childcare. These are all things that are critical for our economy and families to return in the way they want to. For those things to work the way we would want them to work, our colleague Senator Alexander put it very succinctly: All things run through testing. If you are going to go back to school, if you are going to go back to work, if you are going to go back to childcare, if you are going to be in a nursing home between now and the time we have a vaccine, we need tests that are easy to take and quick to respond. A test that you can take and have the answer in 10, 12, or 15 minutes will make all the difference, and we continue to push for that in this bill. In fact, there is about $9 billion in a fund that maybe should have been designated a little more specifically, but it hasn't been spent. It was designed to be a testing fund. We should combine that with another $16 billion and make testing available for those priorities-- for nursing homes or in that State-Federal partnership. In this bill, we say that a priority for the Federal Government in that partnership is tests that work in nursing homes, tests that work in childcare centers, tests that work in elementary and secondary education, and tests that work in colleges and universities, that allow people to get back into those situations, including a residential campus, to know that when you are there, you have a way to not only test people quickly but get an answer quickly. Frankly, President Trump is right when he says that the way current testing has been working really doesn't do much but measure how many people had the disease. It doesn't even say how many people necessarily have the disease but how many people had the disease. If you have a test and you don't get an answer for 5 or 6 or 7 days, what good did it really do you to take the test? It certainly didn't do you much good in terms of not infecting others because you didn't know that you had it-- particularly if you are in that high percentage of people who don't have symptoms but are still able to spread the disease. That is why a test that gives you an answer in 15 minutes makes all the difference in the world. If you are on a college campus and take that test and in 15 minutes you have the answer, and if the answer is that you have this, your next place to go is somewhere by yourself. I think almost every campus returning to residential campus living is setting aside some of their dorm space--on some campuses, all their dorm space is single-student dorm rooms--but for every campus I talked to, some rooms are set aside just so the student has a place to go. If you show up at the nursing home as a worker and in 15 minutes you find out you have COVID, the last place you need to be is that nursing home. But if you don't know for 5 or 7 days whether you have COVID, it doesn't help out very much. I think what the President has said on testing makes a lot of sense. But it doesn't mean the tests aren't good; it means better tests. We have put a lot of money and effort behind those tests. Sometime in the next few days, I think the National Institutes of Health will be announcing tests that are moving forward that will do just what I suggested. We put another $26 billion toward a vaccine. Our colleague Senator Daines has been very helpful in looking at this organization called BARDA, which was designed a decade ago to be able to respond to a pandemic and never has been effectively used in that way, in my view. This time, we are using it and intend to continue to use it to form those partnerships with the private sector early on to begin to produce a vaccine, even when we don't know absolutely for sure that it is going to be FDA-approved. But we do know that if it is FDA-approved, we want it as soon as it can possibly be available. If it is not FDA-approved, it never gets used, but if it is FDA-approved, the difference between a vaccine that is available January 15 and a vaccine that is available May 15--it is worth the loss if it doesn't work out. Let's say you went forward with five of these vaccines, and three of them worked. Then you have vaccines--maybe 300 million doses on January 15, and you have to destroy a couple of hundred million doses because that didn't get through the full safety requirement. That makes all the difference in the world. Lives are saved, and the economy is restored. And we are moving forward with that. We are putting another $26 billion behind that. We also have language in our bill that requires an effort that was announced yesterday, which is for a group of scientific ethicists to start talking about what the priorities should be for that vaccine when we have it. Who should get it first? What should our priorities be? How do we distribute this in a way that seems fair and equitable? How do we distribute this in a way that somebody who can't get in a car and drive 100 miles to a doctor and pay for the shot has the same chance to get the vaccine as somebody who could do all of those things? Our bill requires that. All of our discussions on this bill, plus our public discussions in a hearing we had a month ago, have said we want the administration to have a plan as to how to distribute the vaccine before we have the vaccine. Everybody thinks we might have a vaccine available by the end of this year or early next year. There is no reason to wait for that to happen to have a plan. I would like to see a plan on October 1. I told the Chief of Staff of the President that again yesterday. This bill provides money to be sure that people who go to places like community health centers are going to have a community health center that can respond to what they need. There is $7.6 billion for community health centers. There is another $25 billion for providers that lost income--which is almost every provider--during the last several months as our hospitals and our doctors and our surgical centers and other places were told: Here is what we want you to do. We want you to stop your income. We want you to stop all the elective things you can possibly stop. At the same time, we want you to be ready for the greatest healthcare crisis your facility will ever meet. So fully engaged in spending money and being ready to meet a crisis, but because you stopped income that you would normally have, we are trying to do what we can--not to exceed the income they would have normally had but to replace some of that income. There is also money for rural clinics that would step up and do that. Senator Capito and Senator Collins were particularly vigorous in making sure we had the money needed for people who have mental health challenges, many of whom have gotten worse during this isolation period and this job-loss period, or if you or somebody in your family is sick. The opioid deaths, the substance abuse deaths have gone back up for the first time in about 3 years. That is totally logical when you think about it. Had this headed in another direction, you would have a support system working that keeps you from returning to that habit, that dependency. Then you are suddenly by yourself. Maybe you are not only by yourself, but you are by yourself and you lost your job. Maybe you are by yourself, and your mother is sick with COVID, and you can't see your mom or dad or somebody in your family, and you are thinking: I wonder--surely I can do that thing that made me feel so good just one time and not be addicted. We know it doesn't work that way. Our Nation continues to face challenges, and with those challenges, we have asked the National Institutes of Health to look one more time and more closely at people's underlying conditions that might put them more at risk for COVID-19, see what has happened with minorities, with pregnant women, with children, and begin to drill down and figure out what we can do. As I have said before, bipartisan priorities should include school. Frankly, they also need to include childcare. If you are going to get America back to work, you are going to have to have a childcare system that works, and that is not going to happen on its own. About half of our childcare facilities have been closed since the 1st of March. The other half that has been open has struggled to stay open. Many have benefited from the PPP program, but at the same time, when they stay open or when others reopen with social distancing and the reluctance of people to send their kids back to a place where there are lots of other kids, there is probably no more than 50-percent occupancy. You are not going to make up for that by doubling the amount that families pay for childcare. You need to make up for that with the kinds of grants and assistance that are in this bill. It is about getting students back to school, getting people back to work, and getting childcare facilities working. Senator Ernst, who was just on the floor, and Senator Loeffler have both been big advocates of what we need to do to make childcare a priority. Schools need to reopen safely based on State and local criteria. This bill includes money for schools to do that. There is about $70 billion for elementary and secondary schools. Frankly, we are a little bit ahead of where the House was with the Heroes Act. If you get into a bidding war with the House, you are never going to win. You need a realistic discussion. Only 90 days ago or so or 60 days ago, the House felt it needed $100 billion to reopen schools. We suggested $105 billion. In some report, I read that the House then decided, well, maybe it should be $400 billion if the Senate were willing to spend $105 billion. We should be able to figure this out and figure this out quickly, with some of that money being available only if you go back to school in person and some of it being available if you go back to school virtually, as others will do, depending, again, on their situations locally. We are ready to move forward. Answers to these important questions are in this bill. I look forward to talking about it not only with our Democratic colleagues in the Senate but with our colleagues in the House. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, today I stand to recognize a historic milestone for the U.S. Navy and for the remarkable city of St. Louis, MO. I am proud that the brandnew USS St. Louis (LCS-19) will be commissioned August 8, 2020, and begin service as the Navy's newest littoral combat ship. The USS St. Louis will be the seventh U.S. Navy ship named for the city of St. Louis, which is known as the Gateway to the West and serves as an enduring symbol of our country's westward expansion. From the early days of American expansion through the Cold War, ships carrying the name St. Louis have supported U.S. naval operations in many major conflicts. Historic ships named for the city of St. Louis include an ironclad gunboat in the Civil War, a troop transport and protected cruiser during World War I, a light cruiser during World War II, and an amphibious cargo ship during the Cold War era. It seems only fitting that the very first USS St. Louis, which dates back to 1828, was a sail-powered sloop-of-war designed to protect the United States in its littoral zone. Similarly, today's USS St. Louis, a Freedom-Class littoral combat ship, boasts the unique capability to operate in near-shore littoral environments as well as blue-water missions. In addition to her operational flexibility, the USS St. Louis has reconfigurable payloads known as mission modules that can be quickly changed to adapt to shifting requirements. These mission modules, in combination with crew detachments and air assets, make littoral combat ships like the USS St. Louis the Swiss Army knives of the Navy. This ship's innovative technological advances will enhance our Navy's ability to project power into the littoral regions of the world in defense of U.S. interests. President Truman, a Missouri native, once said, ``Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you.'' The USS St. Louis will enable the Navy to do just that. The USS St. Louis also reflects the extraordinary amount of time, expertise, and craftsmanship necessary to produce this great marvel of technology and symbol of American freedom. The defense industrial base, which employs countless hard-working Americans, is a critical component of our national defense. Each day that the USS St. Louis sails in support of her missions around the world will serve as a testament to the hundreds of thousands of hours necessary to manufacture such an advanced, impressive ship. Without the contributions of the industrial base, our Navy would not be able to build the fleet it needs to confront today's challenges and prepare for future threats. For decades to come, the USS St. Louis will represent the people of St. Louis and the Show-Me State of Missouri around the world. I am proud of the role she will play in defending our Nation and safeguarding freedom across the globe. I congratulate the ship's sponsor, Barbara Broadhurst Taylor, along with the Navy and the officers and crew of the USS St. Louis, on this historic occasion and wish them all the best as the USS St. Louis enters service.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I could make this really simple by just saying: Look at everything I said last week about this same bill, but I know that Senator Klobuchar is here in good faith trying to be sure we call attention to this issue. She and I are working together on the Joint Committee for the Presidential Inauguration that we formed just today. Six people were appointed to that bipartisan committee. I was pleased to have her nomination to be the chairman of that event again. We find ways to work together. I think on this bill, there is really nothing simple about this bill. It is not a bill that just allows the other three States somehow to meet the standard that all but three States have now moved toward--not exactly as this bill would have them, but, as my friend just pointed out, 13 of the 16 States have changed their provisions, some just for this election. Some will look at it, and they will decide whether they did it exactly right or they need to further modify it. Others will make that maybe a permanent part of their process. I am of the view that this is one of the things States and local governments really do well. We will have a hearing next month--Senator Klobuchar and I have worked together to talk about what that hearing will look like--where I hope we will have at least one local election official, some State election officials, and some people concerned about the civil rights aspects of voting. That hearing will also get into the challenges that States face and particularly the challenges that States and communities face if they try to change too much too quickly. I think both Senator Klobuchar and I were pleased to see Georgia, for instance, change their voting system to where they have a voting system--they were one of the handful of States that still had a voting system left that didn't have an audit trail--didn't have a paper audit trail. Well, they changed the system, but they changed it, and I don't know that they had many options. They had gotten behind on this issue, in my view. They changed it on primary election day. It was probably too big an election to try an entirely new system you are not used to, just like some of the changes in this bill. While I might not be for them, I can certainly argue, even if I were for them, this is not something you want to try to change at this moment. Legislators have met; States have acted; and 13 of the 16 have changed their laws to accommodate the moment we are in. The three that haven't will have to be answerable for their decision not to do that. Not only are we going have a hearing to talk about this, Senator Klobuchar and I have talked about funding on these issues for some time. As she pointed out, we put in over $800 million and made it available to the States. I will also point out that a lot of that money is still not spent. But I am prepared not only to look at more money for the States to use as they see fit for elections this year but also to even consider whatever kind of matching requirement we have to see if that matching requirement is reasonable. We continue to work toward an election that produces a result that people have confidence in and is done in a way that everybody that wants to vote gets to vote. I continue to feel strongly, and let me, once again, quote President Obama that the diversity of our system is really one of the strengths of the system. For months, Democrats had legislation very similar to this to federalize the election system because we needed more ballot security. Now we have elections, but the new reason is, well, we have a pandemic. But the goal appears to be always the same--to federalize the election process. That would have meant that in Nashville, when they had a tornado, hours before the polls were to open on Super Tuesday, the local officials wouldn't have had nearly the flexibility they had to immediately change polling locations, put out the notice they thought was appropriate, and extend voting hours. Nobody in Washington, DC, had to give permission for commonsense decisions that apparently everybody in Tennessee thought were the best things to do. So, with great appreciation for my friend's dedication to this issue, with certainly a willingness to be sure that money is not an obstacle in States being able to have successful elections this year in areas where we can help--now, we are going to look at what we can do to help financially within the matrix of the elections that a State and local communities in that State have determined should be their election structure. In most cases, it is an election structure that has served them well in the past, that people fully understand, but, still, the need to accommodate the health needs of people who normally were election workers or people who have a great record of being voters or people who are voting for the first time will be part of what we need to discuss. We can do that without a Federal takeover of the election system. With that, I object.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I am always pleased to be on the floor with my good friend from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford, but I am particularly glad I was able to be here today. Early, in his remarks, he was talking about a family, remembering that family in prayer, and then very thoughtfully going around the world of where people are, at this minute, who defend us. It is a good thing for us to think about; it is a good thing for us to keep in mind; and it is good that when we say we are remembering people in our prayers, to be sure they really understand that we are. I am glad to be with my neighbor here today and also with Senator Hoeven on the floor. This will be the 60th time in a row, if we do our job, that we pass the National Defense Authorization Act. I don't think there is any other bill--in fact, I am sure there is no other bill--we pass every year. When we pass this bill every year, we reestablish, every year, that defense is our No. 1 priority. Defending the country is the one thing that almost everybody admits they can't do for themselves. The States don't think they could do this without us. This is a national responsibility, and the threats we see today are complex. They are more pronounced than any our Nation has ever faced. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dunford, recently said that our military has to be ready to fight across regions, to fight across domains, and across functions. This bill moves forward in all of those areas, being sure that we are interoperable where we need to be; that we are quickly mobile where we need to be; and that our armed services work as well together as we could possibly hope they could work together. The President has launched policies and programs to ensure the safety and the well-being of Americans. Certainly, the people who defend us who serve in the military are doing their part to protect our Nation. Now it is time for the Congress to do its part, led by the Senate and led by Chairman Inhofe and Ranking Member Reed bringing this bill to the floor. It is not a small bill, and it is not a bill that gets done just without a lot of work and a lot of compromise and a lot of determination as to what is really doable at this time, but this is the bill we are voting on. Since we do it every year, a lot of it is not absolutely new, but all of it is, in my view, as updated as the committee could bring it to the floor, and we are going to have a discussion of what needs to change, even being that this year the Senate's version of the bill provides $740 billion to support the Department of Defense. We see this at a critical time when our adversaries, including China and Russia, seek to undermine our influence around the world. Russia was just accused of putting a bounty on the head of not only American service people but our allies in some parts of the world. If that is true, a price should be paid for that. We are going to be working hard in the next days to determine how deep that intelligence goes and how true that allegation is, but whether it is true or not, it should be no surprise that the Russians are constantly focused on things that diminish the impact of the United States of America, and the Chinese are more and more focused on that at the same time. This bill authorizes $1.4 billion to establish a Pacific Deterrence Initiative that will help secure our interests in the Pacific and our friends in the Pacific. The bill supports military readiness and modernization priorities. It has more than $21 billion for shipbuilding and investing in technology like hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and things we have to have to keep the current advantages we have. It recognizes the family. There is $4 million in this bill to help military spouses transfer their professional license between assignments and between States when servicemembers are reassigned. I am pleased to say that the Missouri General Assembly has been a leader in that effort. When you move to our State as a spouse of someone in the military, your credentials should be, and I think now are, able to be moved with you. This bill increases funding for Impact Aid by $70 million, and $20 million of that is for children with severe disabilities. The other $50 million is just for trying to make up for what would have been a taxpaying unit, if that unit hadn't been there. I think Impact Aid matters. This bill, once again, says it matters, and we are increasing it. These programs are critical. They are important. We need to ensure that the military construction projects that will be funded later by the appropriations process are authorized here. There is $40 million for the new hospital that ground was broken on at Fort Leonard Wood just last week. There is $60 million for the new National Geospatial- Intelligence facility in St. Louis, a $1.3 billion or so project that is well on its way now. This authorizes the next moving forward of that project. Investments in military weapons that are made in Missouri and things that help our military that are made in Missouri, such as the development of the B-21 Raider that will be based at Whiteman, or the modernization of the C-130H aircraft where Rosecrans, in Saint Joseph, is the world training center for our NATO allies to come and understand lift and moving things around and how those C-130s work. This bill authorizes $1.8 billion to buy 24 F-18 aircraft that are built in Missouri and $1.3 billion to buy F-15s. They are built in Missouri, made with a great Missouri-Illinois workforce, and I know Senator Durbin and I will work together again on Defense approps to be sure that this authorization is fully filled. These aircraft are essential and need to be part of our continuing defense base. Senator Hawley and I proposed an amendment in the bill that would make Silver Star Service Banner Day an annual recognition on May 1. This is to be sure we honor the sacrifices of wounded and ill members of the Air Force. I urge my colleagues to recognize the addition of Silver Star Banner Day in this bill. There are a lot of bipartisan priorities in this bill. This will have a bipartisan vote when it leaves the Senate. It is a bill worthy of support, and I look forward to our efforts to get this done for the 60th Senate in a row. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.