Marsha Blackburn

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks, I do want to respond to my colleague and his comments about the For the People Act, which the Democratic Party is continuing to push. Now, I will say that I am pleased to learn that many of my Democratic colleagues are standing up against the Jim Crow-era policies that their party put in place, the work that their party did with the KKK and other entities to block and obstruct access to the voting booth. And I will remind him also that the 1965 Voting Rights Act was a very solidly bipartisan effort that took place here in this Chamber. And in regard to their S. 1, H.R. 1, For The People Act, it is anything but the For the People Act. What this would do is make it easier to cheat and harder to vote. We should be working to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. That is what election integrity is all about, and that is what the American people would like to see. What this bill would do, their S. 1, H.R. 1, would federalize elections. Now, many in this Chamber may have served on an election commission or been the secretary of state in their State, and they fully appreciate and understand it is the constitutional duty--the constitutional duty--of the States to set the time, place, and manner of elections, and that the voter rolls are maintained there in your local county by citizens who serve on the election commission and who work those polls. But this bill that the Democrats are wanting to pass would, in essence, do away with voter ID. Do you know what? Recent polling of various and different groups, numerous groups, have shown 80 percent of the American people really support showing a voter ID, showing an ID in order to cast that ballot. Prove that you are who you are. Their legislation would also institutionalize ballot harvesting, something that really offended so many thousands of citizens this year because with mail-out ballots, which they want to institutionalize, some people got three, four, five ballots. You can go online on social media, see pictures or videos of people holding up multiple ballots. That is not election integrity. That is not something that will ensure trust in the system. That would cause more doubt. We should agree--we should agree, as Members of this Chamber, that we will work together to ensure that our local and State officials can carry forward with their elections

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, now, one of the most important duties we take on as Members of this Chamber is the confirmation of the President's Cabinet and other top executive branch issues.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Not until I finish my remarks, but I thank the gentleman. A Senate confirmation hearing is probably the world's worst job interview, but there is a good reason for that. The various candidates who come before our committees are asking to take on some of the most important challenges that we face as a country. And so when the President sends us these nominees for consideration, it is our job to vet their resumes, to vet their records. To go through the motions is not enough. We need to meet with them and review their history. So imagine our shock when the Biden administration began to send us candidates that made it clear the President expects the Senate to act as a rubberstamp for some of the most controversial and unqualified nominees in recent memory. His choice for Health and Human Services, Secretary Xavier Becerra, had no meaningful experience in healthcare before his very first day serving as the country's chief healthcare officer. He did, however, have quite a long history of weaponizing the full force of government against people whose views differ from his own. Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security, boasted a proven record of corruption from his time serving in the Obama administration. An investigation by the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security revealed that Mayorkas abused his position as the Director of USCIS to help politically powerful friends violate immigration laws. Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta's record as a radical, liberal activist was so diametrically opposed to the beliefs of most Americans that she tried to ``evolve'' her positions on drug crime and defunding the police just to avoid scrutiny during her confirmation hearing. Of course, by ``evolve,'' I mean she outright lied about her position. And there have been many, many, who have stood on this floor and have challenged her nomination. Another, David Chipman--this is Biden's pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He is so anti-Second Amendment, he has endorsed policies that would effectively ban all sporting rifles in the United States. He has no respect for the constitutional right to bear arms, no respect for the nearly 20 million Americans who hold a concealed carry permit, or the 15.5 million Americans who hold hunting licenses. President Biden chose the anti-gun lobby over the American people when he nominated Chipman for this post. President Biden's parade of genuinely unacceptable nominees continued this week. Today, the majority leader has decided to move forward with the nomination of Donald Remy to be Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs. If that name sounds familiar to you, it is because you have heard about Mr. Remy's work in other controversial context. He served as the NCAA's COO and chief legal officer and was the architect of that organization's restrictive policy against name, image, and likeness compensation. Between September 2018 and August 2019, the NCAA spent more than $26 million defending an NIL business model that the Supreme Court recently described as ``patently and inexplicably stricter than . . . necessary.'' It was a 9-to-0 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The $26 million, where does the NCAA get that money? From colleges, from universities, from student athletes. That is where the money came from, and it was used to defend this lawsuit. But let's not focus on this one policy governing the NIL compensation. We need to keep in mind that Mr. Remy was comfortable using his training as a lawyer and his considerable power as a top NCAA official to maintain the culture of exploitation that defines modern college athletics. I am not sure what led President Biden to believe that Mr. Remy could help lead an agency notorious for its own brand of careless exploitation, but whatever the reason, we have a duty to get in his way. For our veterans, decisions can be life or death. I have objected to his nomination since I came through the committee. And, quite frankly, I think it is a shame that President Biden refused to nominate someone who could demonstrate an ability to earn back the trust so many veterans have lost in the VA system. Our veterans who have served this Nation honorably deserve better choices. They deserve at least that much from their Commander in Chief. This nomination is just one more unserious shot in the dark from an administration that is yet to focus its energy on any one of the long list of problems they say they came to Washington to solve. A quick scan of the morning newsletters on any given day show a complete lack of direction on the part of the White House and the Senate majority. Will we be working on infrastructure in the next few weeks or are we just going to be handling nominations? Are the most radical elements of the American Families Plan on the table or are we going to pivot to election law? Well, we won't have to flip a coin on that last one. We know that over the next few weeks, we will waste time and energy resurrecting the Democrats' failed election takeover bill. As most everyone has seen, this week, Washington is playing host to a delegation of Texas Democrats' intent on holding election integrity legislation hostage in their very own State. They have come all the way to Capitol Hill to try and convince their Federal counterparts to go nuclear on behalf of a bill that has failed in various forms so many times that the objections write themselves. This political stunt is part of a larger movement within the radical American left to destroy the concept of one person, one vote and replace it with an unconstitutional, centralized election system that invites fraud and encourages donor intimidation. This foolish attack on ballot integrity has seized hold in Texas, Georgia, and other States attempting to protect the vote for all eligible voters. Ballot integrity is a foundational concept in our Republic. It should be easy to vote. It should be hard to cheat. State and local officials should feel empowered to grow and tailor elections in a way that meets the needs of the community, not the demands of power-seeking politicians. I think I speak for all of my Republican colleagues when I say that we will not legitimize this hysteria that has gripped the Democratic Party. Instead, we will defend the constitutional prerogative of one person, one vote through however many objections it takes to relegate this scheme that the Democrats have been trying for 20 years to relegate this to the dustbin of history I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, this weekend, the people of Cuba rose up in opposition to their repressive socialist government. I think it is important to be clear on that point because much of the mainstream media that is reporting on these protests makes it sound as if everything is pandemic related, but what is happening in Cuba is not an economic fluke, and every single person serving in this body, working in the media, and analyzing the policy implications knows better than to say otherwise. This isn't the pop socialism touted by the American left. It is not fashionable. There is no empowerment or equality in the socialist regime; there is just starvation, shortages, violence, and failure. For 62 years, the ruling Communists have bled the Cuban people dry, and now armed thugs have taken to the streets to repress the opposition at any cost. Make no mistake, this is a test for President Biden. He must draw a line in the sand. I call on my colleagues in the majority and on President Biden and the members of his Cabinet to join me in supporting all who would risk their lives to expose the ravages of socialism in Cuba. We must lead in discussions with the U.N. and the EU and coordinate opposition to this violence being carried out against the people of Cuba. We must demand that the Cuban Government allow for a free and open internet and initiate investigations into if and how Havana used technology supported by the Chinese Communist Party to cut off access to the internet just as the protests started gaining mainstream attention. We cannot stand by while Communist thugs gun down their own people. We cannot let this become another Venezuela. Just as we stand with the freedom fighters suffering in Hong Kong, on mainland China, and in other socialist regimes around the world, we must stand with the people of Cuba.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

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

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, it seems that for the past month Senate Republicans have watched as our Democratic colleagues send up one partisan test balloon after another. They threatened a battle over a so-called equal pay bill, which turned out to be chum in the water for the trial lawyers but really not much else. Then they, once again, threatened the Second Amendment, but they couldn't find a friend across party lines to join them in that fight. So that trial balloon was popped. And who could forget their promise to bring the improperly named Equality Act to the floor for a vote? Well, that balloon didn't take flight either. And, yesterday, the Democrats' democracy-destroying election takeover bill almost survived, but it too came crashing back to Earth after failing to clear a procedural hurdle. Still, they have made the most of their time over the past month, holding up their string of failures as evidence that it is the filibuster and not the radically partisan nature of their agenda that is thwarting their progress. As the Republican leader said at the beginning of this month, it was an agenda that was designed to fail. It failed to bring them the power that they are craving to have over the lives of millions of Americans. It failed to kill the filibuster, and it certainly failed the millions of Americans who have been forced to watch, dumbfounded, as this circus played out in realtime on their television screens. It was a complete waste of our time. It is what one of my Tennesseans said this weekend, talking about these trial balloons, talking about this lurch to the left--and Madam President, this was a friend of mine who is a Democrat--as he said, it was a complete waste of our time, the American people's time. He added: It was a complete waste of my dime-- for the tax dollars that he sends to Washington, DC. He went on to say: Think about the problems you could have solved if you had been focused on making some progress instead of creating chaos. Yesterday, the Commerce Committee held a hearing on achieving broadband resiliency. As you well know, this is one of the most important infrastructure problems that not only faces our committee but also faces this body. We had a great discussion, and I thanked Chairman Lujan for that hearing. But I can't help but wonder how much more progress we would have been able to make on this issue if the 14 million unserved rural Americans--yes, unserved; they have nothing-- think about the progress we could have made if those 14 million unserved Americans had taken precedence in the minds and in the agenda of our friends across the aisle. It would have been great to focus on that. Speaking of infrastructure, perhaps we could have focused more energy on giving the needed authority to our local officials so they can fix crumbling roads and bridges and getting regulations out of their way so they can go to work helping people get to work and helping children get back to school. Certainly, I know a few officials in Memphis who would love to see us start thinking long term about practical infrastructure support that doesn't include the Green New Deal fantasies that are favored by this White House. The American people have noticed this lack of focus and this freewheeling attitude when it comes to spending taxpayers' money. When they look around, they see real need. There are businesses and families who are still struggling to pull themselves out of the ashes of the pandemic. Policies that are favored by the Democrats would be policies that would bankrupt their businesses, that would drive up the debt, and that would cause massive inflation. Tennesseans know these policies are not going to help them. What it does do is to frustrate them. Neither will the Democrats' continued failure to manage President Biden's border crisis. In April, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 178,000 people attempting to illegally cross our border. Fourteen thousand of these were unaccompanied alien children. It is a record year for drug runners, for the cartels, for bootleggers, for human traffickers, and for sex traffickers. We caught the Department of Health and Human Services actually finishing the work of the cartels, trafficking many of those unaccompanied minors through the Chattanooga Airport without the knowledge or the involvement of local officials. Meanwhile, my Democratic colleagues are treating this humanitarian crisis as if it is nothing more than a logistics challenge. But perhaps if we had spent more time on this in the past month, we could have convinced them that until they get this crisis under control, they would have to admit, in this country right now, every town is a border town; every State, a border State. Just ask your local law enforcement. They will tell you. Perhaps they didn't want to put the time there because they had been busy putting a show on for the cameras and their friends on the left. Tennesseans noticed what went on here this month. They are not happy about it. They have been reaching out. They don't have the luxury of playing political games. They don't have the spare resources to gamble on woke politics. They are trying to keep the doors of their businesses and their churches and their schools and their factories open. We did a lot of talking this month, but the friends on the left chose not to take action to solve problems. I would encourage them to do a little soul-searching over the next couple of weeks and address the agenda that the American people would seek to have addressed. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to complete my remarks prior to the rollcall vote.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, if the Constitution is the foundation our Republic, then the concept of ``one person, one vote'' is the cornerstone. It is also a promise that every single eligible voter in America takes with them into that voting booth on that election day. It gives them confidence that their vote matters. It helps them to keep the faith in our electoral system and in their local government. We can talk about the vote on a grand scale here in Washington, but this is where it really matters: back home at your local polling place, in your home county, and in the precincts with the people who do the work of standing up elections, running elections, and certifying their own elections. It is of the people, by the people, for the people that this process is carried out in each and every one of our counties. And you know what, that is how it is supposed to be. Article I, section 4 of our Constitution clearly states--here it is: Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof. Well, how about that? The Constitution delegates that authority to the State legislatures, and that is why our States' secretaries of state work with our counties to make certain the process is put in place. You know, I had the opportunity to serve on my county's local election commission prior to my being in elective office. One person, one vote--that is the No. 1 rule that guided the decisions they made. When we recruit poll workers, it is the No. 1 concern that drives people to go sign up. When we train the volunteers who are staffing polling places, it is the No. 1 rule to teach. Every person gets one vote. All legally cast votes are counted. That is the way it is supposed to work--one person, one vote. Here in the Senate, I am concerned that my Democratic colleagues have forgotten about this rule. Why else would they once again pledge to move a piece of legislation that would throw ``one person, one vote'' out the window? Many of my Republican colleagues have taken to calling H.R. 1 or S. 1 the Politician Protection Act or the For the Politician Act, and I will have to agree that is a fairly apt description. There are a lot of problems with this bill, but I want to focus on a few key provisions that will gut ``one person, one vote'' and destroy confidence in our elections. If this bill passes, say goodbye to meaningful voter ID laws. My Democratic colleagues kept the idea of these requirements intact, but to please their radical base, they added a loophole that would force every single jurisdiction to accept affidavits in lieu of identification--that is right, an affidavit. They may as well have banned voter IDs because that loophole makes requirements that voters prove they are who they say they are absolutely meaningless. They can just sign a statement saying ``I am who I say I am'' without having to show proof. The bill also requires States to allow paid campaign operatives to engage in ballot harvesting schemes. That is right. This allows your paid campaign operatives to engage in ballot harvesting schemes. Now, these ballot harvesting schemes have been proven time and again to increase the risk of fraud, so much so that many States on their own moved forward and banned ballot harvesting schemes. Why did they ban this? Because it leads to fraud in elections. Inexplicably, my colleagues also want to throw ballot drop boxes into the mix. They pitched them as a convenience, but that convenience will be nearly impossible to monitor and to protect 24 hours a day, which means that it will be nearly impossible to monitor and protect the ballots that are inside those boxes, and these boxes then become a fairly convenient way to stuff the ballot box. But perhaps the most dangerous, counterproductive, and outright infuriating provision my Democratic colleagues have included in this mess of a bill is a restriction against voter roll maintenance Anyone with a bit of common sense knows how inaccurate or duplicate entries in a dataset can add up. That leaves these datasets in a state of disrepair, and that is how fraud and mistakes occur. It is just one more provision in a bill raising red flags for local officials in every single State in this country. And this red flag, in particular, is prompting people to ask me if my Democratic colleagues involved in drafting this bill have ever actually volunteered at a local polling place, which really tells you a lot about how shortsighted this legislation is. This bill really doesn't have anything to do with voting rights. This is a politically motivated Federal takeover of elections that would give us the exact opposite of what is laid out in the Constitution. The Founders--the Founders--granted the States power over their own elections for a reason. The Federal Government is beyond incompetent to get this job done. If you like the service you get from the IRS or the EPA or OSHA, that is what you could expect the next time your community has an election. If we allow this bill to pass, the promise of one person, one vote will crumble. The promise of counting eligible ballots and not counting ineligible ballots would go by the wayside. And what do you get in exchange? The promise of chaos, confusion, and a lack of confidence in the integrity of the vote.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, it has been so interesting to talk with Tennesseans over the past couple of weeks, and it is interesting in the vein that they are beginning to really question some of the proposals that my Democratic colleagues are bringing forward and items that they are pushing from the left side of the aisle. I have to tell you that I honestly can't blame them. After all, when they promised COVID relief, they delivered a blue State bailout, which was something that was not popular in Tennessee. They said that they were going to be all for some much needed infrastructure projects. In Tennessee, we like to talk about this in terms of roads and railways and runways and rivers. Yet what did the people from Tennessee hear? They heard all about the Green New Deal, they heard about incentives for electric vehicles, and they heard about alternative energy. They looked at that infrastructure bill and said: This is fantasyland. Then, when they promised to support families and children, what did you get from the left side of the aisle? You got support for expanding the welfare state. Now Senate Democrats have promised to vote on legislation that they claim is going to make our elections more transparent. Hmm. That is interesting. Surprising no one, the bill the Democrats are trying to sell to the American people will do exactly the opposite. Of course, in typical fashion of the House, what did it do? It gave it a friendly sounding name--the For the People Act--but in actuality, this is a bill that would take away rights and responsibilities from the American people. They are saying: This is going to be about transparency. Well, when we think of transparency, we think of things that are going to be seen, of things that are going to be easily understood. We think of things from which the activity within is going to be made available so that people can see this. It should follow, then, that a bill that is promising transparent elections would be there to help voters understand the rules, trust the people in charge, and cast their votes of confidence. It would not be a bill that would seize control from local officials and place it in the hands of unelected Washington bureaucrats, and it would not be a bill that would make it literally impossible to stand up polling places. It certainly would not be a bill that would erode confidence in ballot integrity, but that is what we have. It just doesn't make sense what they are trying to do when it comes to voting. Even with all of this, my Democratic colleagues have spent most of this year trying to sell the American public on a bill that would centralize power, that would impose burdensome rules on State and local governments, and that would take away constitutional responsibilities and rights and all but ensure rampant voter fraud. That is correct. A piece of legislation that would do--what?--make it easier to cheat. So, in the interest of the transparency my Democratic colleagues have promised, let's take a closer look at the legislation they are pushing forward. Like most proposals they have tried to force through this year, this latest, brazen political power grab is built on a foundation of unreasonable mandates--mandates from the Federal Government to the State and local governments. Yet, rather than simplifying the process, these new rules would throw your local elections into chaos. If passed, the provisions in this bill would mandate the use of ballot casting technology and voter registration systems that don't even exist yet. That is correct. What is being mandated is not in existence, but when it does come to exist, you can bet that it will cost a fortune, that it will come with a steep learning curve, and that there will be buddies of the Democratic Party that will make a bucket of money. The same automatic registration procedures that failed voters in California and Illinois will fail voters in every State in this country. It would force States to stand aside for activists running ballot harvesting schemes--and, indeed, ballot harvesting is a scheme. Anyone who has ever watched one of these campaigns in action knows that forcing officials to tolerate them is an invitation for these activists to engage in a little sleight of hand, if you will. In fact, this bill truly outdoes itself when it comes to encouraging fraud. Its hallmark provision would ban meaningful voter ID laws and stop State and local officials from cleaning up their voter rolls. This bill strips away every commonsense defense against voter fraud. It would also inject fear into the process by mandating donor disclosure and weaponizing a partisan FEC against minority political parties. The American people know there is only one reason you would work this hard to remove transparency from elections: They are seeking to remove transparency from the voter. Truth be told, many of my colleagues across the aisle know it, too, which is why this bill has earned bipartisan opposition. I have spent the better part of 2 years coming to the floor to object to various iterations of this bill, and I will continue to do so until my colleagues abandon this partisan power grab. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, last week's conversations about our own government's role in the COVID coverup reflected over a year of refusal on the part of my Democratic colleagues to accept that the novel coronavirus may not have spread via natural transmission from a Chinese wildlife wet market. As the theories of the pandemic's origins evolved, one remained, until very recently, off limits. This is, of course, the lab leak hypothesis, or the theory that the virus somehow escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. Now, this theory didn't come out of nowhere. In early January 2020, alarm bells were already ringing at the CDC, the State Department, and in the scientific community over problems with the natural origin theory of transmission. Virologists and other public health officials studying the disease were quickly coming to the conclusion that the way the virus was spreading suggested that this theory was flawed. Officials also knew that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting controversial and dangerous ``gain of function'' research with the help of repackaged U.S. Government grants. Yes, that is correct. In April of last year, I joined many of my colleagues in publicly demanding a thorough investigation into the lab leak theory. What followed was nothing less than moral panic. Activists, journalists, and even our own Democratic colleagues accused us of racism, xenophobia, and science denial. Major media organizations refused to report on the hypothesis, except to decry it as a racist attack on Chinese scientists. Facebook banned accounts that posted about it. YouTube deleted videos that dared contradict the World Health Organization. Rather than scaring us off, though, these attacks left us with another question to answer: Why did the very idea of investigating the Wuhan lab inspire such a bizarre panic? Or, perhaps, the better question is, Why did NIAID Director Dr. Fauci and the rest of the powers that be publicly insist that the idea of a lab leak was completely preposterous? Even NIH Director Francis Collins hadn't ruled it out. In a March 2020 interview with the Atlantic, he said that while natural transmission was the likely culprit, ``the possibility that such a naturally evolved virus might have also been under study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and reached residents of Wuhan--and ultimately the rest of the world--as the result of a lab accident has never been adequately excluded.'' We certainly have evidence to show that mistakes happen, even in a professional lab. Who could forget that back in 2015, we saw reports that personnel at a military facility in Utah accidentally shipped active samples of anthrax to labs in nine States--yes, a 2015 lab accident. NIH has also had problems keeping track of things. According to a memo prepared in 2016 by a minority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a 2009 Department of Health and Human Services OIG audit found an inventory discrepancy at the NIH caused in part by mislabeled envelopes containing unregistered vials of plague and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In 2012, NIH researchers found vials of anthrax spores in the wrong place. What is worse, the scientists in that particular lab weren't registered to possess them. In 2014, an FDA researcher working at the NIH campus in Bethesda discovered vials of live smallpox virus stuffed in a cardboard box in an unsecured cold storage room. Mistakes were clearly made. Lab accidents happen. It is also clear that while a leak from the Wuhan lab could have happened due to human error, this coverup we are now learning about certainly did not happen by error. We now have an emerging picture of what did happen behind the scenes to create so much resistance to the lab leak theory. On June 3 of this year, that bastion of rightwing insanity known as Vanity Fair magazine published an investigative report exposing the deranged political gamesmanship that prompted public health officials to paint the lab leak theory as a conspiracy. The report confirmed just about everything those officials wanted to keep hidden--namely, that the lab leak hypothesis was suppressed at multiple levels of government by officials looking to protect their own interests and to distance themselves from President Donald Trump--so much for following the science. They were following emotions. The report confirmed conflicts of interest concerning grant awards that supported gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The same people who knew that Chinese scientists were performing these dangerous experiments on the taxpayer dime also knew from verified intelligence reports that three Wuhan-based researchers fell ill with COVID-like symptoms in November 2019, well before the first reported outbreak. Still, State Department officials warned investigators to abandon their inquiries into the origins of COVID-19 because it would ``open a can of worms.'' The internal coverups bled into this year until, finally, 5 days before President Biden took the oath of office, the State Department put out a fact sheet on the Wuhan lab that confirmed the November outbreak and revealed that scientists working there had collaborated with the Chinese military on classified research. The Biden administration has yet to walk any of this back. We are also finally seeing some interest in the World Health Organization's Beijing-controlled investigation into the Wuhan lab. On March 1 of this year and again on May 24, I laid out my concerns to the White House about the WHO's reliance on the Chinese Communist Party for funding and support. I explained how this reliance drove their initial support for Beijing's response to the outbreaks and ruined the integrity of their investigation. The White House has yet to respond to my concerns, but it is not going to be able to avoid responding because the American people are demanding the answers. I think it is important to state for the record that what we are seeing in these news reports is not entirely new information. The foundations of the lab leak hypothesis remain much the same as they were a year ago. So why pop open that can of worms right now? Because there is no way to sweep this thing back under the rug. We have the sudden interest of the media. Imagine that. We also have an entire body of published statements and investigative reporting from inside China. Facebook and YouTube have reversed their content policies, which means they couldn't stop people from sharing this information unless they pulled the plug on the entire internet which, obviously, isn't an option. We also have the magic of FOIA on our side. We learned from Dr. Fauci's published emails that he knew about the dangerous research happening in China. He was aware. We know he allowed inquiries into the Wuhan lab leak theory to go unanswered. We also know he worked with Mark Zuckerberg to determine what COVID-related information flowed into the public timeline and when that information went out. Now, I stand by my criticism of Dr. Fauci. His dystopian comments equating attacks on his job performance with attacks on science are unacceptable, but I want to encourage everyone to not make this about one person. We now have evidence that public officials were eating each other alive over political disagreements and that these disagreements derailed investigations into the origins of COVID-19. This is more than just political failure; it is a moral inversion that empowered one of the globe's most violent authoritarian governments. The Chinese officials who hid the existence of the novel coronavirus from international bodies are the very same Chinese officials who gunned down freedom fighters in Hong Kong, who unleashed political violence in Inner Mongolia and Tibet, and who continue to commit ongoing genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. It is time for Congress to get serious about cleaning up this mess. I reiterate the same demands I made more than a year ago for a full and unbiased inquiry into the lab leak hypothesis and a broader investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, I joined Senator Cotton in reintroducing the Li Wenliang Global Public Health Accountability Act. This legislation would authorize the President to sanction foreign officials who suppress or distort information about international public health crises, including COVID-19. I encourage my colleagues to sign on to the bill. Most importantly, I would implore my Democratic colleagues to engage in a little introspection. The officials implicated in this coverup swept science under the rug, orchestrated a relentless smear campaign, throttled the flow of public information, and allowed the Chinese Communist Party to exonerate itself at the expense of truth and accountability. You don't have to defend this. Please, have the moral courage to make the right choice, and join us in our demands for unbiased investigations into the origin of the pandemic. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the referenced fact sheet and letters. The referenced articles and report can be found online at www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/ 06/francis-collins-nih/619065, www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab- leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins, and osp.od.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/BRP-House-EC-Report.pdf

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. I object.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, you know, it is truly an honor to work with the veterans in Tennessee, and we have hundreds of thousands of veterans in our State. I know that the chairman says he prides himself in working with the veterans. I will tell you, quite frankly, I consider it a humbling experience to work with these veterans. Whether they are from World War II or Korea or Vietnam or whether they are from any of our recent wars--the Mideast--whether we are dealing with Agent Orange or burn pits, to me it is heart-wrenching to hear their stories. And the VA has not done their job. So what we are doing is standing up for these veterans and saying to the VA: Get your act together. Provide this information. How do you deal with this backlog? Do you have the capability to deal with what we are discussing? Do you have that capability? What is your capacity? How do we best handle these issues? The VA, for years--decades, decades, decades--has not done their job in a timely manner, in a responsive manner to our Nation's veterans. Therefore, let's say: Let's get this right. Let's get it right. Excuse me. There is a fly in this Chamber. Let's get it right now.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object, and I rise to object to this unanimous consent request. The VA, for years, has made promises that they have year after year failed to meet. For years, veterans and their family members have called my office, whether I was in the State senate or over in the House or here in the Senate. They are distressed by the lack of service they receive from the VA. My caseworkers would work tirelessly with these constituents, only to end up frustrated by a very unresponsive VA. This is unacceptable. It has become the culture of the VA, and this is something that has to change. Now, for weeks, the committee has been asking for feedback on legislative proposals which have the potential to affect the workflow and the capacity of the VA. The VA has been silent on this even though we have asked for their views and have asked them to weigh in. The reason we have asked them for this is the VA has a backlog of over 180,000 cases. Their wait times this year have continued to escalate. They are not going down. So, yesterday, I had a call with Secretary McDonough expressing my concerns with the lack of feedback that the committee has received on what is shaping up to be the most consequential legislative effort in the veterans space in an entire generation. The formal response that I received today was incomplete, but it contained a promise that they would have more fulsome feedback by July 30. I will continue to keep my hold on these pending VA nominees until I receive the official views on the COST of War Act, on the toxic exposures bills. We owe our veterans. We owe it to them to get this right. Therefore, I object to the unanimous consent request, and I will continue my hold on these nominees.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, we have a tendency in this Chamber to talk about hindsight being 20/20, and I think that this is what we will be doing in 10 or 20 years when we look back on the Biden administration. I really expect that we will highlight all of the big talk here in DC that has led to some really bad ideas the White House has tried to legitimize through legislation and budget requests. If you remember, even before the 2020 election, Biden's big talk on amnesty welcomed the hundreds of thousands of migrants who are currently flooding the southern border. He said: We expect to see these migrants at the border. So, yes, they heard him say, ``Y'all come,'' and they are coming. His big talk on Green New Deal programs got us the boondoggle of an infrastructure package that all but ignores roads, bridges, and broadband. The people in Memphis, TN, have not appreciated some of this talk of other items as infrastructure. They want bridge repairs immediately. Then, just before Memorial Day, we got some more big talk in the form of his $6 trillion budget request that reads like an instruction manual on how to make our country less secure, less free, and less competitive. Back home in Tennessee, people looked at this thing, and they didn't believe what they were seeing. At church last Sunday, I had some friends ask me if the budget proposal was supposed to be a joke or if this were serious because, when they look around, they see real need. They see communities without broadband, small businesses that are struggling to get back on their feet, and crumbling roads and bridges. Yet what did the administration choose to do with their first budget? They turned away from those needs. They decided to throw billions of dollars at the environmental lobby to make it happy. They put in money to abortionists and to an already bloated Federal bureaucracy. Tennesseans are looking at their own budgets and thinking about all of the ways they have had to make tough choices over the past year, and they are wondering why the Biden administration cannot seem to bring itself to show some fiscal restraint. Why is it that they just say: Crank up the printing press. Let's print more dollars. Let's put more money in the system. Let's give everybody a check--and no worries about who is going to pay the bill? They are used to seeing the Democrats act in a very cavalier manner about spending, and they are very much concerned about what they see happening in Washington, DC. They know, without a doubt, that this is really going to cost them and that it is going to cost their children and their grandchildren, and as someone said this weekend, it is the great-grandchildren who will bear the brunt of the Biden extravaganza. They know better than to nod along with the administration's promises that only the rich and the megacorporations will be responsible for offsetting this massive spending program I will tell you that they know how this works. They have seen it before. They know that there are higher taxes at the top and that higher taxes at the top of this wish list and on the top earners will mean less investment in their communities, which will lead to stagnant economic development, which will land them in the exact same place that they were during the Obama-Biden years, except there will be the added expenses of having to comply with future mandates the administration is going to pile on them. They know, when you take from the people who create the jobs and make the investments and provide the goods that drive our economy, that you are taking from the middle class, that you are taking from small businesses on every Main Street in this country. You are making opening that business too expensive to afford because you have taken those tax dollars and you are using those dollars to grow union membership, to show favoritism, and to pick winners and losers Washington, DC, style. That is exactly how you destroy that competitiveness that makes companies want to do business here and to emigrate here, and that makes other countries a little nervous to stand toe to toe with us on the international stage. This international element is important, and I fear the Biden administration has lost that perspective. If you look at the budget items related to immigration, it is clear that the White House still thinks they can make it out of this border crisis without having to admit that their policies have, indeed, caused this crisis at our Nation's southern border. Yes, indeed, this is the Biden border crisis. Instead of securing the border by investing in the technology, infrastructure, and manpower our Border Patrol agents have repeatedly asked for, the administration wants to focus on sending foreign aid to the Northern Triangle, foreign aid without accountability. This is a noble effort, but it will do nothing to mitigate the disaster on the border that has since bled into the communities that are now playing host to busloads of unaccompanied migrant children, like we see in Chattanooga. At least they decided to invest in a few more immigration judges. Yet what we see them doing through this is making every town a border town and every State a border State. They are transferring the costs to our States and to our local communities--the costs for education, for healthcare, for children's services, for social services, for housing. The Federal Government doesn't want to admit they are incurring that cost. So what are they doing? At taxpayer expense, they are putting these over a half-a-million illegal entrants onto airplanes, onto buses, and they are sending them to communities around this country. That is what they are doing, and that is what millions of Americans, including thousands of Tennesseans, are pushing back on. I have to tell you, I had a telephone townhall last night. It was with some of the counties that are around Chattanooga, TN, in that area, and COVID-19 and the immigration policies of the Biden administration were the top questions that came up. I will tell you that things don't look any better on the national security front. If you account for inflation, you find out that the topline request for the Department of Defense represents a $7 billion decrease compared to fiscal year 2021 funding levels. That is right, a $7 billion decrease for defense. Maybe they forgot that what we are responsible for, first and foremost, is providing for the common defense. Talk about misplaced priorities. The Biden administration picked the absolute worst time to undercut the military and employ President Obama's demand to do more with less. We know from experience that it takes between 3 and 5 percent in annual growth to keep our military and national security programs competitive, and this budget doesn't even come close to hitting that mark. For reference, China increased their defense budget by 6.8 percent this year--oh, and who is our main competitor when it comes to great power competition? You are right. The answer is China, absolutely. Biden's budget, on the other hand, asks for $112 billion in R&D spending, but it cuts procurement spending. Imagine that. This means, as of right now, the administration has no plan to put that R&D to good use. Keep doing the research and development, but by the way, we are not planning to purchase. Think about that. Think about the message that sends to our allies and the message it is sending to our adversaries. They paid lip service to supporting our nuclear programs, but earlier this month, the Secretary of the Navy sent a strategic memo ordering the service to defund the development of the nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles that are essential for deterring China in regional waters. That is right. The Secretary of the Navy sent a strategic memo ordering the Navy to defund the development of the missiles that are essential for deterring China in regional waters. The kicker? All of this is to be done before the Nuclear Posture Review is even completed. So don't wait for the report. We need an outcome, and the outcome is, Let's make ourselves less competitive. This is astounding. Instead of following the directives that have clearly been laid out by last year's NDAA and investing in a combat- credible force, the budget guts and confuses the mission driving the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, and this has had bipartisan support. Keep in mind that this is the best set of tools we have against Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region, and the Biden administration has decided to use it like some sort of slush account for projects that, in a normal year, would be funded under other categories. They are going for an outcome. The outcome is not ``America first'' or an America able to defend. Their budget is cutting defense. Their budget is cutting these cruise missiles. It makes no sense. And I can assure you, as we begin the NDAA negotiations, that this is something that will deserve and will get a full review. I have said it before and I will say it again: The American people understand that elections do have consequences. They knew that some priorities would change with President Biden. Even my friends back home who voted for President Biden will tell me they liked what they heard on the campaign trail from him. But they will also tell you they did not vote for this. They did not vote for what is happening, for the Executive orders that are coming out of this administration, for the ridiculousness that they see in this budget. They did not vote for tax plans that will stand in the way of local investment with small businesses. They did not vote to make things more expensive and scarce at the grocery store. They did not vote to fund a bloated and power-hungry Federal bureaucracy. They didn't vote to leave our border in shambles, to wreck our Nation's sovereignty. They certainly didn't vote for a defense strategy that will allow the Chinese Communist Party to expand their influence into underdeveloped countries and threaten our allies in the Indo-Pacific. No, they did not vote for that. Our National Guard men and women, our men and women who every day are in service there at Fort Campbell--God bless them. And we worry about the lack of attention to defense. I would remind my Democratic colleagues that any action they take on this budget proposal won't exist in a vacuum, and I ask them to reconsider their justification for asking the American people, who just survived a global pandemic and a near total economic collapse--I think they should reconsider their justification for asking them to bankroll an activist-driven, radical, fantasy budget that nobody really asked for. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, it appears the White House had good reason to wait until the Friday before Memorial Day to release their budget proposal. They couldn't afford a full week's news cycle any more than the American people can afford to fulfill the wish list items President Biden is asking them to pay for. It is a very long list. I think it is safe to say my Democratic colleagues are trying to make the most of the next year and a half. They know that time is not on their side nor are the American people. There really is something for every faction of the left. Here are a few of the items that are contained in this Biden boondoggle of a budget. The environmental lobby did a great job these past few months. They are more than taken care of with more electric car subsidies and a $936 million payout toward environmental justice initiatives. We also have more funding to expand the Department of Education. If you think that more government is what your child's educational experience has been missing, well, this is the budget for you. Yet, if you are fed up with the way teachers unions have treated children in the classroom, if you are fed up with schools that have been in lockdown, you will want to pay close attention to what I am talking about today. Apparently, the good people over at the Department of Health and Human Services have time on their hands. Bear in mind, it is your money that is paying them to do the job at which they have time on their hands. Now, they will be switching gears from pandemic response to a new focus on environmental extremism, reparations, and gutting the Second Amendment. What is in this budget? Bigger government, a higher deficit, and runaway inflation. What is out? According to this budget, national defense is no longer a priority for the Biden administration or for the Department of Defense. Border security is also on the back burner along with the family-friendly tax policies we implemented under President Trump. President Biden and the Democrats are doubling down on every mistake they have made so far. Instead of doing their jobs, they are paying lip service to struggling businesses, to struggling stores on Main Street in your hometown, to crumbling bridges--like in Memphis, TN--and roadways, and to future generations of Americans who will come into this world owning their own, personal chunk of our skyrocketing national debt. That is right. If you have a child or a grandchild born this year, their share of the national debt is going to be about $80,000. Think about that. Think about what has happened to this debt. From President Washington to President George Bush, it was about $10.6 trillion. During the Obama-Biden years, that debt doubled. Then it was added to through the pandemic. Now one would be led to believe that this administration had decided it was going to take the credit cards and swipe them so many times they would run the numbers off of them Yes, this is the Biden surcharge at work--forcing the American people to pay a premium just to live. Cradle to grave, daylight to dark, they have got a list of tax hikes and increased fees for you. You hard- working Americans, you cannot escape it, and what a world they have decided they want to leave for future generations. I think it is awful. I will tell you what--this budget is such a terrible representation of what America actually needs that, back home in Tennessee, as I was home last week, people would come up to me and ask me if this was really a serious budget. It is so extreme. It is so huge. They would say: Surely, your Democratic colleagues are not serious about this. Surely, President Biden is not serious about this budget. Still, my colleagues across the aisle are so eager to get this done that they are prepared to, once again, throw regular order out the window. My Democratic colleagues are living in an alternate reality. It is the only explanation for why they continue to insist that this country will be better off under a government that strips away your freedoms rather than guarantees them and one that tries to tell you how to live your life every minute of every day--from the time your feet hit the floor in the morning until the time you brush your teeth and get in bed at night.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, in the 4 months since the Democrats took control of the U.S. Government, they have not once indicated they understand the severity of the crisis playing out along our southern border. It is hard to believe they get the same reports from Customs and Border Protection as I do, so just in case they haven't seen this month's update yet, I am going to go ahead and run through the numbers. In April, CBP apprehended more than 178,000 people trying to illegally cross our border. Almost 14,000 of them were unaccompanied children or single minors. Drug seizures were up 6 percent from March. We have already seized more fentanyl this year than we did all last year. On top of all that we are still catching smugglers trying to pass off counterfeit face masks, prohibited COVID test kits, and banned pharmaceuticals. It is important to understand that all of this, from the human trafficking to the drug smuggling to the bootleg PPE operations, are symptoms of a much bigger problem. We are dealing with a systemic humanitarian, health and safety, and national security crisis that gets worse every time the Biden administration doubles down on open borders rhetoric. What is worse, they are treating the chaos like a logistics issue. Instead of trying to reduce the flow of migrants coming to the southern border, the Biden administration is trying to speed the flow. They are actively trying to move as many migrants into our country as possible. Last week, we received reports that the Department of Health and Human Services is using Chattanooga, TN, as a rally point for unaccompanied minors on their way to meet up with their sponsors or move on to area shelters and homes. We saw video of the children getting off of planes at Wilson Air Center and boarding buses to continue on their journey. At least four planes full of unaccompanied minors landed in Chattanooga last week. It is important to realize that all this was happening in the dead of night, without the knowledge of any Tennessee elected officials or community leaders. No transparency, no coordination, no notice whatsoever. This is cause for concern not only because HHS circumvented State authorities but because this Agency has a history of operating under a veil of secrecy when it concerns their handling of migrant children. Back in 2014, HHS blocked congressional oversight of their migrant housing facilities. Our attempts to tour one such facility, which at the time housed more than 1,000 children, were met with delays, denials and refusals. Fast-forward to today, and HHS is being just as secretive about how they are managing care for these children. Fortunately, eyewitnesses have come forward to confirm the scope and secrecy of this operation. One source said: ``They have intentionally not shared a lot of information with us. They don't want this to get out.'' He went on: ``They had, to my understanding, a field full of buses with more buses and more buses running all of these routes. Now, they're flying the kids because the buses were easier to videotape going down the highway. They've changed their strategy from buses to flying . . . In Chattanooga and other cities, motorcoach companies are waiting on planes to land and continuing their trek further north, dropping kids off along the way.'' Now, let's be clear about one thing: The children in those buses are victims--victims of irresponsible rhetoric, of bad policy, and of manipulation and abuse by traffickers. I would implore my colleagues to listen to these stories and to accept that the tragedy is compounded by the knowledge that none of these children should have been on those buses in the first place. Moving children through Border Patrol custody, into HHS custody, and then delivering them to sponsors throughout the country is not a solution to the problem. It only makes the problem worse. If Democrats want to embrace a ``humane'' approach to immigration reform, they should stop worrying about those talking points and secure the border. Treat this like the crisis it is. Restore the Migrant Protection Protocols. I have introduced a bill that would make that happen; all we need is a few votes and a signature. Fully embrace our title 42 authority to turn away adults and children who attempt to enter the country illegally. Close the loophole that has tempted so many parents to send their children to the border alone. Resume construction of the border wall, and invest in the infrastructure, technology, and manpower it will take to truly secure those points of entry. But above all else, stop making promises you can't keep. This is the most important piece of advice I can give to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and to the administration. I know that you believe opening the border is compassionate policy, but the cartels are exploiting your version of compassion and using it to manipulate desperate families. For some inexplicable reason, the Biden administration has made it official policy to finish the cartels' work for them and take these children to their new life, which could be as part of an MS-13 gang, or a labor work crew, or a sex trafficking ring. It could be with drug runners. If you believe all these children are headed to their families, you're living in fantasyland. Last week, Senator Hagerty, Congressman Fleischman, and I sent a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and OHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking for an explanation. We are still waiting for a satisfactory response. But I will tell you, you cannot fix this crisis with a talking point. You cannot fix it by staying silent, as Secretaries Becerra and Mayorkas have chosen to be. Parents are sending their children 1,000 miles across the continent in the custody of drug mules and sex traffickers because the administration has given them hope that if they take this one, unthinkable risk, the door will be open, and they will be able to follow their children into the country. We have the power to stop this. It is time to abandon talking points, address the root cause of the crisis, and secure our southern border before it is too late. Because if we have learned anything about how the cartels operate, the children who passed through Chattanooga last week, the ones who made it here, are the lucky ones.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

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

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, this month is Military Appreciation Month. It is a month when we let our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines know just how grateful we are for their service. Madam President, we are grateful for the service that you gave our Nation in uniform. We thank you for that. Tennessee is home to three major military installations and numerous other Guard installations. For us, Military Appreciation Month actually lasts all year long. I would like to start off by welcoming the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Squadron, 17th Calvary Regiment back stateside following a 9-month rotational deployment to Korea. We are so happy to have them back home. In more exciting news out of Fort Campbell, this Thursday, SGM Veronica Knapp will become the first woman to serve as a command sergeant major of a U.S. Army division. She will assume responsibility as the senior enlisted adviser of the 101st Airborne Division. On behalf of the entire Tennessee delegation, I offer my congratulations and wish her success in all that is yet to come. The servicemembers stationed at Fort Campbell have really had a very busy past year. Starting last March, we began deploying soldiers to help with COVID-19 response operations across the Northeast, including members from the 501st Medical Company, the 531st Hospital Center, and the 101st Division Sustainment Brigade. Boston and New York City were among the most severely affected areas in the country. And if you ask the healthcare workers and city officials in those areas if Tennessee servicemembers made a difference, they will tell you, yes, without a doubt. Last year, many of our Tennessee National Guard members also joined the fight against COVID-19. The 164th Airlift Wing transported desperately needed PPE all the way from Italy to healthcare workers across the entire country. The 118th ISR Group, along with five other Air National Guard targeting units, produced over 70 percent of the U.S. Air Force's targeting materials, all while providing continuity to Activity-Duty units. I want to keep bragging on our Guard members because they really have made an impact, especially when it comes to getting testing and vaccine centers up and running. They set up more static vaccine sites than any other State. As of March of this year, they have set up double the number of sites that were running in the next most successful State. Job well done. They directly helped more than 1 million Tennesseans stay healthy through the pandemic. It was a great effort, and we thank them for that. I am sorry to say that the pandemic wasn't the only natural disaster Tennesseans had to deal with over the past year. But when tornados destroyed multiple counties across West and Middle Tennessee, the National Guard was right there to help. And when blizzards shut down half the State, the Guard kept water flowing in Memphis, repaired communications infrastructure for first responders in Rutherford County, and found shelter for displaced families in Lynchburg and Manchester. When you are on the outside looking in on a natural disaster, the last thing you want to hear is that local officials had to call in the National Guard. But I will tell you, when you are sitting in the aftermath, there is no more hopeful sight than a vehicle full of guardsmen pulling into town ready to help. That peace of mind, of course, comes at a cost. Our servicemembers go where they are told to go and do the jobs they are told to do without hesitation. Why? Because they have accepted that the cost of freedom is more important than the freedom they sacrificed when they put on the uniform. Their families have accepted this too. And when you are a military family, the uniform comes first. This is why every year when we re-up defense funding, we put special focus on military families and their needs. For example, 2 years ago, we established a pilot program to offer professional licensed reciprocity for military spouses who want to continue working after moving across State lines. Last year, we increased funding for that program. We also continued our support for the Preservation of the Force and Families Program, which helps special operators process the aftereffects of their missions. Last month, the Presiding Officer and I introduced a bill called the Military Hunger Prevention Act. This is an incredibly important piece of legislation that would create a basic needs allowance for low-income military families. The reason this is so important is that existing benefits programs like SNAP and free school lunches include housing allowances and other military benefits in revenue calculations. Although it is obvious that this only creates the appearance of higher income, the programs aren't designed to allow an exception. Once we pass this bill--and I am sure that we will--these families will be able to use their allowances to buy groceries instead of relying on food pantries to put dinner on the table. This is what we should all be thinking about during Military Appreciation Month--renewing the commitment we have made to take care of our servicemembers both on and off the battlefield. We need to ask ourselves: What are we doing to meet their practical needs? What are we doing to support their families? What are we doing to right unintended wrongs? It is the most important way we can recognize their extraordinary service to our Nation. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, one of the benefits of vaccine rates going up is that school districts will no longer have an excuse to keep kids and teachers at home for virtual learning. But if I know kids--and as a mom and a grandmom, I can assure you, I understand the kiddos-- getting them back in the classroom won't get them away from the screens. These big tech companies in China and the Silicon Valley have done their jobs well. For many American kids, devices are integrated into their everyday lives. There is no escaping that 4-inch plate of glass in their pockets. It has become a part of their culture. Now, this addiction to tech doesn't sit well with many parents and watchdogs. We have all heard arguments that in order to break this addiction, we need to somehow change the culture and persuade young people to break their own ties with Big Tech. I have a different argument: It is Big Tech that needs to change its culture. As we all know, many of these companies are little more than glorified ad agencies. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and TikTok have all been successful because of their advertising strategies. Their job is to get eyeballs on content and keep fingers scrolling up and down the screen. This means that with every shiny new update, their advertising algorithms have also gotten an update. The more complex and pervasive these tracking figures become, the harder it is for users to understand what data these companies are collecting and how that data is going to be used. Not even tech-savvy adults can keep up with the legalese in those updated privacy policies. I think if I went around this Chamber and asked ``When is the last time you read the terms of service on an app update?'' I am willing to bet the answer for most of us would be ``Well, it was a long time ago,'' or it could be maybe even never. Big tech companies have taken advantage of that, and they have created within their sphere a culture of pushing boundaries. It is do first, apologize later, and never ever respond to questions about their policies with a straight answer. This Congress, I reintroduced the BROWSER Act as a way of pushing that culture toward a more consumer-friendly consent model. It would require tech companies to add opt-in and opt-out features to their data collection policies and inject some transparency into the relationship between the user and the service provider. It is a great place to start and a key element of my virtual new protection agenda. Regulation hasn't kept up with innovation--that much is clear--but neither has demand for corporate responsibility and transparency. It is time to change that, and I encourage all of my colleagues on each side of the aisle to take a look at the BROWSER Act. But what about those kids? Tech companies are increasingly catering to young demographics, which means the kids are exposed to more of the online world every day, which, depending on what corner you find yourself in, is a productive educational experience, or it could be a life-and-death situation Now, the science tells us that, physically, children do not have the cognitive ability to understand the advertisements and data collection scenarios that they are being thrown into. Their brains are simply not developed enough. But the security moms out there are keeping an eye on all of this, and they will tell you they do not need an anatomy lesson to know when their child is in over their head. They see their children following trails left for them by predators, and they are bothered. They see their daughters falling apart over body image and self-esteem issues made worse by photoshopped images. They see the violence and the sexual content in music and movies that is created for adults, but children are being exposed to this. They have a really bad feeling about the expanding role of technology in their child's life. The stats and the scandals we are seeing every day back up their concerns. According to Common Sense Research, 98 percent of children in this country--98 percent of children in this country--under the age of 8 have access to a mobile device at home. In 2011, just over half of the children had that kind of access. This means that 98 percent of children under age 8 are subjected to unprecedented levels of surveillance, data collection, and advertising attacks, even in supposedly kid-friendly apps. Alphabet, Google's parent company, got caught tracking children on their school-provided devices outside of school hours. Amazon got caught collecting recordings from children's Echo Dot Kids devices. Parents and regulators have raked Google, TikTok, and Facebook over the coals for pushing products to children that would increase social media addiction. In 2020, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a recordbreaking 21.7 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation, and 21.4 million of those reports came from electronic service providers. If you are looking for the danger, there it is. During yesterday's meeting of the Commerce Committee's Consumer Protection Subcommittee, Baroness Kidron had it right when she said that Facebook has not earned our trust, and I would encourage my colleagues working with me on this issue to apply this fact to Big Tech in general. These companies are entangled in our daily lives and in the lives of our children, and they have no incentive to loosen their grip on our attention by making things easier to understand. Therefore, we have no incentive to assume they are acting with the interest of their customers in mind. Remember that terms of service agreement we talked about earlier? Well, imagine standing by and asking a child to read, understand, and make an informed choice about whether to click the ``accept'' button. This is preposterous. We need to bring the parents back into the conversation and inject accountability and transparency into the process. Last Congress, I introduced the SAFE DATA Act with my colleagues, Senators Wicker, Thune, and Fisher. This bill contained a requirement that companies not transfer data collected from children between the ages of 13 and 16 without the explicit consent of their parent or guardian. This Congress, I hope my colleagues, Democratic and Republican, will be willing to work with me on similar legislation that truly targets this problem of child exploitation online. We will never change the culture of Big Tech--the culture Big Tech has created for itself--if we don't take steps right now to deincentivize the monetization of children's attention and browsing habits. This is a bipartisan issue. The Zuckerbergs and the Dorseys and the Pichais of the world who have come to testify before the Commerce Committee--they understand this. It wasn't a pleasant experience for them, but I do believe they have gotten the point. They need to understand that when it comes to privacy and safety mistakes, there is no safe harbor to be found here in the U.S. Senate, especially when it concerns the exploitation of our precious children. What we have going on is going to be even more unpleasant when these security moms start upping the ante and start cutting off the flow of all that valuable underage data that is produced by their children online that is being data-mined by these big tech companies and then sold to advertisers, sold to the highest bidder. That is the breaking point we are rapidly approaching. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, in Music City, we have a saying: ``It all begins with a song.'' It is our universal truth and the foundation of hundreds of iconic moments in country music. This year, we have the privilege of celebrating the breakthrough of one of Nashville's most promising young artists. Her moment appropriately began with a very special song and a very special group of songwriters. It is my pleasure to recognize for the Congressional Record the first song in country music written, performed, and produced by an all-female team to hit the No. 1 spot on the charts. Congratulations to songwriter and performer Tenille Arts, songwriter Allison Cruz, and songwriter and producer Alex Kline on the historic success of ``Somebody Like That.'' On behalf of the entire Tennessee congressional delegation, I thank you for your stunning contribution to the beautifully female future of country music.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, over the past week, the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas has launched more than 3,000 rockets at civilian targets in Israel. Violent mobs have taken over the streets of Jerusalem, and even seasoned veterans of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have expressed shock at the intensity of the violence. This isn't normal. This isn't the Middle East version of the Resistance. This is terrorism. Still, pro-Hamas activists have flooded the media with Instagram-friendly content condemning Israel for defending itself and questioning the legitimacy of Israel's very existence, which is an argument that in any other context would bring all hell down on the person foolish enough to say it out loud. The level of denial and misinformation about what is happening in Israel and why it is happening is appalling. Nearly every single member of the United Nations Security Council embarrassed themselves this weekend by embracing a generic draft statement condemning the violence but refusing to acknowledge the hundreds of Hamas rockets that started it. The U.N. has a shameful history of ignoring threats and violence against Israel, but rarely in recent memory has the Security Council so blatantly regurgitated anti-Israel propaganda while Israeli civilians cower in fear under persistent rocket fire. Thankfully, the U.S. mission blocked the statement's release, but I think it is important--important--to inject a little reality into the ongoing discussion. First, we must acknowledge that Israel has the absolute right to defend itself, no matter the state of their relations with the Palestinian Authority. There is a world of difference between a state- sponsored terrorist attack on a civilian population and action taken to stop that attack. We have a responsibility to counter the dangerous argument that because Hamas currently lacks the weapons capability to win this battle, Israel must stand by and allow terrorists to slaughter civilians. Second, I would encourage all of my colleagues to join me in making it clear that the United States is and will remain Israel's closest friend and ally. We will continue to assist with the development and production of advanced missile defense systems like the Iron Dome. We will not step away from that obligation simply because celebrity influencers would rather witness a slaughter than a proportionate response to mass terror. Last, it is important to acknowledge that this violence is a symptom of a much more serious disease. Hamas terrorists may be the ones launching rockets at civilians, but it is Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terror, that is paying for it. That is right, Madam President--it is Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, that is footing the bill for these attacks. When we provide assistance and support to Israel, we are not just protecting an ally; we are containing the destructive influence of our most belligerent adversary in the Middle East. This month, the Biden administration traveled to Vienna to negotiate sanctions relief with Iranian officials. Since then, President Biden has also spoken to Prime Minister Netanyahu and reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself from these attacks. However, I would take this opportunity to remind my Democratic colleagues that the United States designated Hamas as a terrorist organization more than 20 years ago. That is right. For the past two decades, we have recognized Hamas as a terrorist organization. As a rule, we do not provide them assistance of any kind. They are a terrorist organization. But by opening the door to sanctions relief for Iran, we cannot help but enrich a regime that will not stop until it destroys Israel. That is their goal. We know it because they have told us that is their goal. We must not provide sanctions relief to Iran or give quarter to any regime that allies itself with this evil. It is my hope that all Americans will take some time this week to just unplug and think about this and reflect and then pray--pray that reason and wisdom will prevail as we seek an end to this outbreak of violence and the defeat of this terrorist group that wants to destroy the nation of Israel. Tennessee Madam President, this weekend, we had a positive development in the status of the I-40 bridge that connects West Memphis, AR, and Memphis, TN. Just as a reminder, last week, inspectors discovered a crack in one of the steel beams supporting the bridge. The crossing was immediately closed to all vehicle and barge traffic. On Friday morning, the Coast Guard reopened the stretch of Mississippi River that runs under the bridge, but the bridge itself remains closed indefinitely. Now, a lot of armchair experts have decided to sound off with the argument that this closure won't affect local economies, but with all due respect, those making this argument really should spend a little bit more time out in the real world. This part of Middle America that we are talking about is an incredibly important part of our Nation's domestic supply chain. We have a 15-mile stretch along the Mississippi River, and that houses 68 waterfronted facilities. Thirty-seven of those facilities are terminal facilities moving products such as petroleum, tar, asphalt, cement, steel, coal, salt, fertilizers, rock and gravel, and grains. Shipping companies and cross-country trucking companies depend on the I-40 crossing, and so do the local grocery stores, industrial facilities, restaurants, retail outlets that purchase the cargo, and, of course, our Nation's farmers. Commercial trucking constitutes 25 percent of all traffic that crosses the I-40 bridge. The river traffic that flows beneath the bridge is just as important. When the Coast Guard reopened that stretch of the Mississippi, they had to juggle 60 vessels hauling more than 1,000 barges. Yes. We had a little traffic jam in the Mississippi River. It is amazing to me how quickly a problem like this does turn into a bottleneck. Tennessee and Arkansas transportation officials are still working out a timeline for repairs, but as of now, the trucking industry is preparing for a downward spiral. According to the Arkansas Trucking Association, this could cost operators and their customers more than $2 million a day, which is an amount that the industry actually cannot absorb. This means that the delay could end up costing consumers an additional $2 million a day. And depending on what they are buying, they could also see empty shelves due to a supply chain interruption. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is putting all their energy and focus into checking items off of a decades-old wish list of social programs. They put forward an infrastructure package worth more than $2 trillion that wastes about two-thirds of this total pricetag on projects that have nothing to do with infrastructure, nothing to do with making sure that major bridges and thoroughfares are safe and open or expanding broadband access or making sure that parents in rural Tennessee can get their kids to school without worrying that a rainstorm will flood the road on the way to town. This is making the American people feel so incredibly unsettled and very frustrated, and Tennesseans are pretty nervous about the future. If I could give the President one piece of advice, it would be this: If you want to waste time peddling Green New Deal policies or expanding social safety nets, admit it--just admit it. Call it what it is. Don't call it infrastructure and then turn around and throw pocket change at actual infrastructure problems that need to be addressed right now. That mislabeling makes it look like you are trying to pull a fast one over the American people, and it makes the American people believe that you really don't care. And that is a dangerous message to send in the middle of a traumatic pandemic recovery, especially considering that prices are already on the rise. We see it in utilities. We see it at the gas pump. We see it in the packaged snacks we purchase for the children's Sunday school class. Even basics in the produce section at the grocery store are beginning to get out of reach. It is affecting basic nutrition. This is the Biden surcharge. We are paying a premium just to live from the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning to the time we brush our teeth and get into bed at night. The barebones cost of living is going up thanks to these reckless spending priorities. My Democratic colleagues need to understand that a government subsidy cannot save a family from that kind of hit to their monthly budget, affecting everything from the moment their feet hit the floor in the morning to the time they brush their teeth and go to bed in the evening. The Biden administration is creating a perfect storm of income insecurity, shortages, and the uneasiness that comes when Americans see more month at the end of their money than money at the end of the month. They know how to manage their budget, and they know what they have to do when prices creep up 25 cents, $1 or $2 at a time. Their instinct isn't to reach out to the Federal Government for help; their instinct and their action is to cut back on the extras and to prepare for harder times ahead. The only way to avoid this even now is to make prudent, targeted investments in economic recovery, supply chain security, cyber security, and, yes, actual real infrastructure projects. The American people cannot afford all the extras that are on the Democratic Party's wish list. Their income can't keep up with the inflation that is hitting their pocketbook every single day of the week. And they really are concerned with what will happen when those trend lines cross and inflation heads north every single day. I would, again, ask my Democratic colleagues to step back from the money printer and recognize the effect all this spending is having on American families. I yield the floor I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I was on the floor earlier this week, and I made a point that I think is really relevant to the discussion that we are having today as we are now looking straight into these proposals coming from the administration that would end up totaling $6 trillion in new spending. Now, that is not the annual appropriations; that is new spending. The point that I had made was that we have to go back pre-COVID and remember what was going on in this economy. Everything was thriving, really thriving, and people kept talking about how great the economy was. In Tennessee, I had so many people who would say: You know, I have more money at the end of the month, and before, during the Obama years, I had too much month left at the end of my money. Do you know what? They liked having some money left over at the end of the month. That economy we had pre-COVID came about because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It came about because of the work of President Trump and a Republican-led House and Senate and, indeed, because of the support from some of our Democratic friends. This gave us, our country, the most robust economy we have seen in decades. Unemployment had hit 3.5 percent--historic lows. Wage gains were at a record high. Pro-growth policies, like the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, had set a new standard. We proved we don't have to tax and spend ourselves into oblivion to make a difference in the lives of struggling families. It is a legacy that my Democratic colleagues wish the American people would forget because that memory is getting in the way of their work on behalf of big spending, big government, and big programs that take big bucks right out of the American taxpayers' pockets. The Democratic agenda is not cheap. It is going to take a lot of taxpayer dollars. So how does President Biden intend to pay for this? It is called a $2 trillion tax hike that targets all of the usual, supposed villains but that in reality would harm the very people my colleagues across the aisle insist they are trying to help. Let's look at the proposed corporate tax hike. Corporations are the left's favorite villain, and they would certainly suffer under this scheme, but it is not the CEOs and the high earners who would feel the pain. As it stands, the proposal would impose a combined corporate tax rate higher than any other developed nation. It would put us at the top of the heap in tax rates. The only way American corporations would maintain their competitiveness is if other countries were to set aside their advantages, which, of course, we know would never happen. Not only will the Amazons and the Apples bear the brunt of this decline, so will nearly a million small businesses. We call them the mom-and-pops, and they are organized as C-corps. Workers won't escape the fallout either. When the cost of doing business goes up, growth and investment stagnate, wages fall, and the people driving the economy suffer. That is right. This is going to hit Main Street in local communities where you are going to see small businesses that cannot afford to keep up with inflation, that cannot afford these high taxes, and that cannot afford increased regulation. They are your friends and neighbors who have these small businesses. They are the ones who are going to suffer. And why will they suffer? Because the Democratic majority never ceases to have an outsized appetite for the taxpayers' dollar. Even conservative estimates from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation show that workers will bear a quarter of that new cost of doing business. The workers, the laborers, are going to have this on their shoulders. Think about it. Think of what you are doing to families. The view doesn't look any better from the owners' side. Anyone taking advantage of an IRA or a pension plan will see a bigger tax bill too. Watching this White House make fiscal policy is like watching reruns of the Obama administration. The formula is the same: Pitch a big idea. Sound compassionate. Make a big promise--you are going to help all of these people--and then send the bill to hard-working taxpayers. They do it every time. Increasing taxes is bad enough, but now they are demanding bigger payouts from struggling families and small businesses on Main Street in your community, and they are doing this in the middle of a pandemic recovery. They locked you down, and now they are going to push you down. They are going to shut the doors of your small business, your version of the American dream. Do they give a ripping flip? Probably not. It is all about getting the money to pay for what they want to do. It is a power grab. I would encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to stop the madness, because we know this will cause irreparable harm to our Nation's already fragile recovery. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I hope that you had a marvelous Mother's Day. I enjoyed so much being back in Tennessee, and over the past week, I really had the pleasure of hearing from so many Tennesseans who are just celebrating having reopened businesses and music venues and public spaces in our communities. There was a lot of happiness across our State as I was there. Everywhere you looked, you could see evidence that people are ready to get back to work, and they want to get back to life as normal. There is also a lot of evidence that local businesses are ready to get back to normal. You cannot walk 10 feet in Knoxville, TN, for example, without running into a ``help wanted'' sign. Normally, this would be an indicator of a successful economic comeback, but here is the problem: Those signs just are not working, not for retail or restaurants or even for the industrial sector with small business manufacturing. Some businesses are getting so desperate for help that they are offering signing bonuses worth hundreds of dollars to anyone willing and able to come back to work. All year, we have used a particular catchphrase to encourage people to get their vaccinations. We have said that if we could only get shots in arms, then we could get back to normal. Well, as it turns out, that was step 1. We are getting the shots in arms. People are getting vaccinated. Now it is time for step 2, and that is getting people back to work, getting them to fill these jobs. I have said time and again and I will say it again: The best economic stimulus there is, the very best economic stimulus there is, is a job. It is a job. This holds true not just for those pulling in a paycheck but for the businesses that are hiring. My Democratic colleagues--many of them--disagree with me on this point, but I firmly believe the best economic stimulus is a job. For months, some have refused to discuss an end to the various emergency relief programs we all agreed were necessary to help workers and businesses survive the lockdowns. But they were never meant to be permanent programs; they were there for a time of specific need. I think, if some of my colleagues took the time to speak to the owners whose businesses are short on labor, they would hear the same story over and over again. Their pool of potential employees was drained dry, at least in part by the unemployment insurance plus-up that we initiated last year. Because of the way that program was designed and because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle rejected our offers to amend it, potential employees are drawing in more in unemployment than they would make at some jobs. Now, some of my colleagues across the aisle dispute the notion that this imbalance has led to a labor shortage. They claim that if there are people staying home and collecting unemployment rather than taking their old job back, or maybe a new job, that those examples are anecdotal. But to that point, I would ask: How many anecdotes does it take to create a trend? In Tennessee, there are at least a quarter of a million jobs available, but as of last week, we still have about 49,000 people receiving the $300 plus-up. This means that there are five jobs--five-- five jobs available for every single one of those 49,000 people. I want to make it clear that these business owners have no reason to lie about the trouble they are having finding help. Their survival depends on their ability to hire a team of employees. They gain nothing by poisoning the well with false accusations. Anyone who has ever run a business knows that. They also know it is a difficult call for these potential employees to make, even when signing bonuses and higher wages are on the table, but therein lies the disconnect. While businesses are incentivized to do all they can to attract workers, the Federal Government has incentivized workers to hold out as long as they can before taking the leap into a new job. It is not their fault, but it is the reality that Congress created. What we are seeing now isn't economic stimulus. I would offer that it is an economic stalemate. And if we don't break the ties that bind recovery to the success or failure of a government program, we will suffer long-term economic consequences. As I said, some of my Democratic colleagues fundamentally disagree with that approach. They have made that disagreement clear to the tune of $6 trillion worth of spending that would be like nothing else that we have ever seen and making it a permanent part of our economic landscape. They gave us a COVID relief package that had almost nothing to do with fighting the pandemic, an infrastructure proposal that dedicates 60 percent--60 percent of its total pricetag to job-killing proposals like the Green New Deal fantasies and, most recently, a supposedly pro- family proposal that, if implemented, will in fact replace the stability of the nuclear family with a lifelong tether to the welfare state. Talk about never letting a crisis go to waste. This isn't compassion, in my opinion, and it isn't recovery. This is a power grab. They took the majority, put pen to paper, and produced a wish list. They have wanted to check off items from that wish list since 2010. So their list is long. This version of economic stimulus, which, in reality, is just a destructive cycle of spending and dependency and taxation and inflation, will require more than just a general buy-in from the American people. They are going to have to persuade people to cede authority, to cede authority over their lives, their families, their businesses, their jobs, their employment--cede that authority to the Federal Government. Now, if this isn't true, if this isn't their goal, let the Democrats dispute it. Let them come to the table and listen to what these business owners are telling us. Let them help figure out a way to offer a light at the end of the tunnel to the unemployed and underemployed instead of keeping them tangled in a safety net that was neither designated nor intended to be permanent. We still have a long way to go before we can declare victory over the COVID-19 pandemic. But what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to acknowledge is that we will never make it across the finish line if we don't allow the American people to hope for that victory. We need to allow them to hope that last month's terrible jobs report was just an anomaly. I certainly hope it was. And most importantly, we need to allow them to remember that a little over a year ago, we didn't have to rely on emergency supplements and direct payments from the government to survive. We had the most robust economy we had in decades and decades. Unemployment numbers were at record lows. Wage gains were at record highs. So we have been there before. We can and we will recover. But encouraging total reliance on the government is not going to be what gets us there, especially when so many businesses in this country are trying to hire workers, and workers are not taking the jobs. I yield floor.