Marsha Blackburn

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I know that some of my colleagues have been talking about schools, getting children back to school, getting schools reopened. Indeed, in Tennessee, that is a topic that has received a good bit of conversation. All but two of our school systems have been open and working this entire school year, and those other two systems have recently reopened since the first of the year. Our school superintendents, our directors of school, our parents, our teachers, and the students have all worked together as a team--a solid, cohesive team--to make this happen. I think there are two main points that we have seen, and as we are holding meetings with our county elected officials and city officials and as they talk about the efforts that they have made in getting children back into the classroom, we hear a lot about one point. That is that our Governor, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, made it clear that the school districts would be responsible for the ``how'' they were going to open and the ``when'' they would be reopening. I really thank him for listening and recognizing that local officials and individuals in the community really do know what is best for their school districts and their students. The second point is that these plans didn't just drop out of the sky. As I said, this has been a team effort in our communities, and it has happened because there was this agreement between the administrators and the parents and the teachers that they were going to make decisions that were going to be best for the children. So when you look at Tennessee and how they have approached this--indeed, the schools reopening and how they proceeded--it was done with the children in mind. Last week, I had the privilege of speaking with school administrators from West Tennessee, who played a part in developing their own reopening plans. I cannot adequately describe to you with the time that we have on the floor today the amount of work and the thoughtfulness that they put into these schedules, from health and safety considerations, to scheduling changes, to the complicated logistics of social distancing and cramped classrooms. They thought it all through by walking through the day and listening to what teachers and parents had to say as to how they would walk through this day. They took the millions of dollars in CARES Act funding that the area received, and what did they do with that money? They invested in the best possible plan for these kids--no Federal mandate or sweeping litmus test required. They said: We are going to do what is right by these children. Then, of course, they turned on the TV, and they saw that the Biden administration was busy walking back their own enthusiastic scientific guidance on safely reopening schools--walking it back--and they didn't have to flip too many channels to figure out why. Powerful teachers unions had taken their own stands in refusing to make a plan, in refusing to think things through, and in some cases in refusing to go to work at all--not doing what is best for the children but doing what was going to serve their interests first and, in their opinions, what would best serve their interests. That, I think, they will see were regrettable actions. Educators in Tennessee were not just confused by what they saw; they were insulted because they knew exactly what was happening. On January 26, CDC officials released a study showing that, if we were careful, safe reopening was indeed possible. Administration officials touted that report as a light at the end of a very long COVID pandemic, but now, just a few weeks later, those same officials are defying their own experts, insisting that safe reopening can only happen if Congress approves additional funding contained in the Democrats' latest, untargeted spending bill. Students in this country are suffering. They are lonely, they are bored, and many of them are struggling with clinical depression and anxiety. Teen pregnancy, teen alcohol, and suicide rates are rising. Children need to be in in-person school. The American Academy of Pediatrics has repeatedly stated--bear in mind, this isn't something that I am saying; it isn't something that is partisan; it is the American Academy of Pediatrics--that it is not only feasible but necessary for students to be back in school, back in the classroom, back to seeing their friends, back to participating in extracurricular activities and sports. I would ask my colleagues across the aisle to keep this in mind when they hear from so-called stakeholders who are willing to hold a child's mental health hostage in exchange for a political win that will serve their power and their purposes and not that of the child's. They might have powerful voices in the cable news circuit, but those sound bites will provide you no cover back home with the teachers and administrators who have rolled up their sleeves, have gotten to work, and have figured out a way to get schools open for the children. I yield the floor

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, today, the HELP Committee considered the nomination of Xavier Becerra, our former House colleague, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and tomorrow the Finance Committee will take their turn at examining his record. It is hard to think of a nominee more notorious for actively seeking out ways to undermine religious freedom and our religious liberty. His contempt for those whose beliefs differ from his own is well documented, and, in many cases, his positions on those issues are far more radical than those held by the majority in his own party. He supports abortion up to the moment of birth, and, in 2003, actively opposed the partial-birth abortion ban. He cosponsored legislation that would have forced religious employers to provide insurance that covers the morning-after pill, in spite of their mainstream and sincerely held religious beliefs. Bear in mind I said the legislation would have forced--not an option--forced religious employers to provide insurance that covered the morning-after pill. In fact, Mr. Becerra has been so antagonistic toward fundamental constitutional principles that you could almost forget he doesn't have the public health experience most Americans would expect the Secretary of Health and Human Services to possess. In fact, he has no meaningful experience in healthcare at all--zero, none, not in public health or large-scale logistical operations or in any other area that might be helpful as we navigate our way out of a global pandemic. That is right. He has no healthcare experience. This lack of experience, combined with his desire to destroy those who disagree with him, places him among the most unqualified and dangerous nominees ever to come before the Senate for consideration, and I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing his confirmation.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, the first few weeks of the Biden administration produced an absurd number of Executive orders, soft talk on China policy, and the threat of open borders. These actions left the American people confused and diluted their faith in our institutions, but nothing made the American people feel more unsettled than the unprecedented second impeachment and trial of former President Donald J. Trump. Impeachment is inherently political. The fallout is everything but. Last week, I was able to spend time talking to Tennesseans about what they saw and heard during the trial, and I was struck by how fiercely most of them spoke out against the very idea of it. The House Managers didn't just fail to prove their case against the former President. They failed to convince the American people that the Members of the House of Representatives who supported impeachment acted in good faith when they drafted their single Article and transmitted it to the Senate for consideration. Tennesseans saw no serious inquiry into the alleged connection between the former President's words and the actions of the dangerous rioters who breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021. They remain unpersuaded by the arguments the House Managers offered to prove the constitutionality of the trial itself. In fact, the only thing they remain firmly convinced of is that this second impeachment culminated in nothing but a partisan show trial designed to humiliate the former President and wipe the voices of more than 70 million Americans from the pages of history. The Senate's vote to acquit the former President of these spurious charges put an end to the House Managers' charade, but it will take more than an entry into the Congressional Record to help the country rise above the enmity that fueled it. It is our duty to lead by example and get to work on behalf of the millions of Americans living under this cloud of anxiety, fear, and mistrust. I encourage my colleagues to quiet their hearts in the coming weeks and commit to doing the work that will put us on the path to economic recovery, quality in-person schooling, and a strong national defense. Only then will we be justified in asking those we serve to once again put their faith in us. I would be remiss if I did not associate myself with the comments of the Republican Leader honoring Officer Eugene Goodman for his actions during the January 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol. On that day, Officer Goodman found himself alone, facing off against a rushing tide of violence. Without blinking, he lured the mob away from the Senate chamber, protecting us from what we now know was an all but inevitable tragedy. I was honored to celebrate these acts of bravery and self-sacrifice by joining the Senate's unanimous vote in support of S. 35, to award Officer Goodman the Congressional Gold Medal. I thank him for his courage and his commitment to duty, and for his willingness to continue to serve here in the Capitol.

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, when President Biden addressed the Nation on Inauguration Day, he promised unity and bipartisanship. It was a big part of his inaugural address, and so far the Democrats here in Washington are not living up to that promise. Their message, and we saw this last week, is not unity; it is submit and conform. On his very first day in office, President Biden rubberstamped 17 separate Executive orders. Since then, he has approved so many changes that a lot of Tennesseeans can barely keep track of the orders and memos and directives that are flying out of the Oval Office. It is safe to say the only benchmark they have to work with is the number of lost jobs we will see as a result of all of this paper-and- pen governance and paperwork. Jobs gone--stroke of a pen. The American people are very unsettled by this. I am hearing it from Democrats, Independents, Republicans, Libertarians. Last week, I came to the floor, and I spoke in detail about how this lack of clarity about the future has made many Tennesseeans fearful of the impending changes to our national security policy. They are very unsettled. So many of our veterans in Tennessee have talked with me about this. They don't like all this soft talk when it comes to talking about China and Russia and Iran and North Korea. They are worried about what comes next. The domestic policy mandates have done nothing at all to give reassurances or calm spirits. Last week, the Senate Democrats put forth a budget proposal that treats struggling communities like hypotheticals that could work with theoretical changes, all created for a graduate-level economics exam. They are not dealing with real problems and real life. For about 15 hours, we debated and voted on a fraction of the almost 900 amendments filed in an attempt to do some damage control to that budget resolution. But when Friday morning came and went, all the Democrats had to offer was a glaringly partisan resolution that blatantly contradicted President Biden's stated commitment to unity and bipartisanship. And, you know what, in a perfect world, the solutions the Democrats have come up with just might work. But we do not live in a perfect world; we live in a fallen world. This country is not created in the image of the Democratic Party. To anyone who has ever managed a small business budget, what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trying to do just does not make good common sense. One of the top issues I hear about from people back home in Tennessee is this proposal they have for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. I feel I should remind my colleagues that resistance to this mandate doesn't come from a place of stinginess or classist hatred but from a place of absolute confidence that it will destroy small businesses, even with the phase-in period. I have not heard from a single business owner who will be able to pay the wage and employ the same number of people--not one. They will have to let staff go. A report by the Congressional Budget Office released just today echoes and confirms their concerns. By 2025, the Democrats' proposal will cut jobs for 1.4 million workers, at a time when workers are struggling to get back to work. So much for job creation, and we all know the best economic stimulus is a job. Just 6 weeks ago, Congress passed a $900 billion COVID relief package. Very little of that money has been spent. Yet Democrats and the White House continue to demand trillions--that is right, trillions--in overbroad spending that targets no specific problem and has no actual bipartisan support. If that is not bad enough, billions of dollars from last year's bipartisan relief packages, all five of them, also remain unobligated. So we are at $3.6 trillion in spending, and they are wanting another $1.9 trillion, with little idea of the effect that remaining unobligated funding will have on the economy. But still, the data shows that what has been spent already has made a difference and will continue to do so. Relief should be timely. It should be targeted. It should be temporary. Those that need the help should get the help, but we do not need overbroad spending. The Congressional Budget Office released another report just over a week ago showing that if we leave the laws governing how we tax and spend alone--leave them alone on the books, in force--the GDP will continue to rise and the economy will get back to its prepandemic health without, without Congress authorizing one more penny in relief spending. So the American people want to know why, why are the Democrats claiming that the only solution to our present crisis is to spend as much as possible, as quickly as possible, without considering which sectors of the economy actually need the help, which families need help, which individuals need help. What we do know is what we saw in 2009 and 2010 and 2011 and 2012 and 2013 and 2014 and 2015, which is that, if you get in here and overspend without targeting, without direction, you slow the recovery. We know that. We watched it. We lived through it. They are going to need a better answer than ``because we say so,'' ``because this is what we are going to do,'' because the people understand that the Federal deficit was historically large even before the pandemic. They know how debt works and that a big deficit means more of that Federal debt. They also know that who holds that debt matters and that we are beholden, right now, to China, to OPEC, for trillions of dollars in that debt. Scale that down for a minute. When that same thing happens to one of these small businesses, when they max their credit line, if they fall behind in their payroll, they can't plan for the future, they can't plan for emergencies, and they can't invest in their own success. The same concepts apply to the Federal budget. You cannot tax and spend your way to prosperity. You have to have economic growth. So I ask my colleagues: Why are you making decisions that are going to slow the recovery and slow the economic growth? The Democrats' approach to planning for the future might sound good in theory, it might sound good in hypotheticals, but real-life economics is not. Future pandemics are not. The need to innovate and stay competitive in the warfighting domain is not. Those are real-life issues. The Democrats have been so aggressive this past couple of weeks, and President Biden, in taking out the eraser and trying to erase 4 years of productive policy that benefited millions of Americans, and the people are starting to wonder what else they are going to throw away in favor of a very autocratic, authoritarian, empty vision for our Nation. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, since 1976, Federal law has prohibited the use of Federal funds--taxpayer dollars--for abortion. Section 1008 of the Public Health Service Act explicitly States that title X funds ``shall not be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.'' But, as often happens in Federal law, there is a loophole: Federal regulations do allow abortion facilities to be colocated within clinics that are following the title X rules, and those rules are providing healthcare to women. The Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act would close that loophole by prohibiting the awarding of these funds to entities that perform abortions or that provide funds to entities that perform abortions. The bill allows for exceptions to be mad in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. It would also require HHS to provide an annual report to Congress listing entities receiving grant funds, and specifying which of those grantees performed abortions under the exceptions. This is not a big change. As I said, this is a simple change. It is one that would add to the protections of women and their unborn children. It is a statutory fix that will redirect tens of millions of dollars in funding to providers, our community care clinics that are offering comprehensive healthcare services for women. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 88, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to much of what my colleague had to say about we are in the middle of a pandemic. Families are struggling. Yes, indeed, that is very true. And if you want to talk about making healthcare services more available to more women, then, yes, indeed, what you want to do is make certain that these taxpayer funds are not used to provide abortion services, that these funds are going to the community clinics that are the ones that are providing the screenings. Many of the Planned Parenthood clinics do abortions. They refer women to the community clinic around the corner for the cancer screenings, for the breast exams, for the Pap smears. So there should be agreement that, yes, individuals should have access to this healthcare. And if you say: If you perform abortions, you cannot have these title X dollars, then the hundreds of community clinics that are access points to healthcare for women in underserved communities, these funds would be made available to them. I think we also have to talk about rights and privileges and touch on that for just a moment. I fully appreciate, we all have different opinions, and it is wonderful that we live in a country that allows freedom of speech, where we can express our difference of opinions. What we do have to realize is this, that we have in this country 1,700 lives lost every day to abortion--1,700 voiceless and vulnerable--and to me that is just an absolutely heartbreaking stat that these unborn children do not have the opportunity to enjoy that right to life. I find that very sad. As I said, this legislation would make certain that all of this money goes to these health clinics but not to a clinic that provides abortion service. This is the kind of access that, yes, indeed, many families would appreciate having more access and more services available to women at their community clinics.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with a group about the legislative priorities for this upcoming Congress. I know the Presiding Officer and I are two Members of the Senate who like talking to the people we represent and doing that as much as we possibly can. I always try to cover as much ground as I can when I am visiting with a group. But what has struck me recently, and this was true yesterday, is that the conversation really started to center around our national security--protecting this Nation--and people seem to have defending this country on their brain--standing up for America. Some of the things that come up are what they have noticed since November. You have individuals who are now a part of the new administration working hard to try to erase every trace of the Trump era, even the successes--legislation, many times, that moved forward and things that were done on a bipartisan basis. Part of the problem that people are beginning to have is that President Biden signed off on more day 1 Executive orders and actions than any President in recent memory. Indeed, I think you would have to go back to the time of Ronald Reagan and combine all of those day 1 Executive orders and actions to equal what President Biden has done. I have a tendency to say they kind of lost the ability to keep track of them because there are so many. They are numerous--every single day--and this has people very unsettled. They see this strategy, and they think this is oddly familiar. Their most powerful leaders are treating policymaking like it is some kind of graduate seminar--all about theories and not about consequences and not about concrete outcomes, at least not as far as Washington is concerned. The message flowing from the White House hasn't helped ease their concerns. You see, the administration has given the impression that when it comes to national security policy, they are going to exercise strategic patience when engaging with our adversaries. And I will tell you this: Tennesseeans back home might not know all the details of what is in store, but they know that the tone has changed, and they don't like what they are hearing. When strategic patience failed to yield results during the President Obama administration, analysts dubbed this tactic as strategic passivity, and I believe that is a very apt description because at the heart of strategic patience is the belief that the status quo, while less than ideal, is better than many possible consequences of taking an action. It is a dangerous posture, especially when applied to powerful adversaries like China that are positioning themselves for global dominance. In fact, our regional allies in Japan and the Philippines immediately expressed concern at the idea that the United States of America would embrace such a tactic. For the past few decades, they have had a front row seat for the rise of Chinese influence. They watched as China grew from a struggling regional player into our most significant competitor in every domain. It is important to realize that we allowed that evolution in the hopes that China's transition into a developed nation would foster within its leaders a sense of global responsibility. This approach failed, and now China is a major international player intent--intent-- on global domination. I can tell you that officials in Beijing are not taking a passive approach in their effort to surpass us. Through their Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese Communist Party has bought or extorted control over the economies of some of the most strategically important nations on the planet. Until recently, their grasp on global supply chains flew well under the radar. But we can no longer ignore the negative consequences of Beijing's control over access to active pharmaceutical ingredients and prescription drugs to medical devices, natural resources, telecommunications equipment, and, even more, defense materials. Where they couldn't buy influence, the Chinese Communist Party seized it. If they could not buy it, they seized it. They took it outright by reducing themselves to intellectual property theft and money laundering schemes and, more subtly, by installing Confucius Institutes in American classrooms and universities and putting Chinese Communist Party spies on those university campuses in research positions. Beijing is just as brash militarily. Chinese aggression and violence in the Indo-Pacific threatens regional stability in defiance of basic global norms, rulings offered by international bodies, and showings of strength from Western military players. The Chinese Communist Party has leveraged all of this against the most powerful nations in the Western world, and their belligerence has paid off. Even when, time and again, news breaks of some human rights horror in Hong Kong Taiwan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, or Tibet, global leaders hit the brakes on their rebuke of human rights violations because it could draw economic consequences. The term ``strategic patience'' had been used by now-Secretary Austin prior to his confirmation. We discussed that, both privately and during his recent confirmation hearing, and I am confident he knows how important it is to check Chinese aggression now--right now--before it is too late. However, the general language used by the Biden administration officials in press conferences and other settings reflects former President Obama's liberal theories rather than concrete policies. Now, to be clear, I think I can speak for everyone here when I say that we are willing to work with the administration on this, but the threat from China isn't merely theoretical, and I hope I have made it clear that we here in the Senate aren't prepared to treat it like it is. For decades, Chinese Communist Party officials have been successful in using China's modernized economy to distract from the threat their aggressive tactics pose to the international order. The fact is, the concept of strategic patience simply does not apply to Beijing. The CCP's influence grows by the day and far too quickly to be contained by a cautious wait-and-see attitude. We did wait. We tried. It did not work. We know it did not work. We see the entanglements and the risk of simply poking at those knots and hoping they will resolve themselves. Instead, we need to take a great power competition-tailored approach right up to the CCP's front door and craft policy and budget priorities to match. To those who would still embrace the kind of restraint the White House seems to have endorsed, I would ask: What about the status quo looks sustainable to you when you are dealing with the aggressiveness of the Chinese Communist Party? I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, ahead of our votes today, I wanted to echo the concerns that have already been voiced by many of my colleagues in this Chamber regarding the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to be the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. At this point, we are all very familiar with his long legacy of service on behalf of people of the United States, so I will just highlight one example of the ``value'' that he will bring to the table should the Senate vote to confirm him. When he served as USCIS Director during the Obama administration, the inspector general was forced to investigate an ``extraordinary'' number of internal allegations that Mayorkas was granting ``special access and special favors'' to wealthy EB-5 ``investor visa'' applicants linked to influential Democrats. When the IG took a closer look at the visa applications for three powerful Chinese nationals in particular, they came to the conclusion that if Mayorkas hadn't intervened, and I am quoting, ``the matter would have been decided differently.'' Now, this is something that we know is inappropriate. We know that this is something for which Mr. Mayorkas should be held accountable. We know that this is something for which he has not been held accountable, and here is what he did: He put his thumb on the scale, pressured his DHS colleagues--pressured his DHS colleagues--to break their own rules and turn the law on its head, all because a few powerful friends asked him to do it. He pressured others for the benefit of some powerful friends, and it is all there for everyone to read in the inspector general's report, and he was never held accountable. Yet, here we are, being asked to support his nomination to the President's Cabinet. There are plenty of policy differences between myself and Mr. Mayorkas that have convinced me I have no choice but to stand in opposition to his confirmation. But the example I just cited, in particular, gives me additional serious concerns about how his influence would affect the integrity of the Agency. Just last week, I joined several of my colleagues in a letter to the senior Senator from Illinois, asking him to exercise his judgment as the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and allow for a second hearing so we could examine Mr. Mayorkas's record thoroughly because, while I believe that the President has every right to assemble his Cabinet, I also believe that the American people have every right to understand exactly who is being put in charge of enforcing our Nation's immigration laws and keeping our border secure, enforcing counterterrorism measures and keeping an eye on the country's cybersecurity. And the current nominee? Never held accountable for showing favor to some friends in high places. That is not the way this is supposed to be. I would urge my colleagues to consider the American people--the taxpayers who are footing the bill for every salary that is given to every individual working with the Federal Government. What is the standard? What do they expect from their leaders? Thereby, I oppose the nomination. I yield my time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, as we move through what is appearing to be a choppy start to the 117th Congress, I think it is worth reminding ourselves of the standards that guide our work here. The mandate that we have does not come from the 24-hour news cycle or from lobbyists or advocacy groups, but it comes, very simply, from the Constitution. It is the foundation of the rule of law, our Nation's Constitution, and it really serves as a pretty good policymaking guideline. The American people are looking at what is going on here, and they see the cracks that Washington has made in the foundation of this Constitution. These realizations have eroded their confidence in our ability as a body to perform the basic functions of government without devolving into partisan chaos when faced with disagreements. Many times I will hear Tennesseans say: What happened to robust political debate? What happened to being able to agreeably disagree and have a discussion? Are those days totally lost, or can we return to them? They are asking themselves how many shortcuts--like Executive orders--Washington is going to take before the shortcut becomes the rule or the norm and how many times can Washington chip away at the standards that govern our country before those standards start to crumble or are not relevant. Restoring the trust of the American people will not be easy because this fundamental lack of faith in our institutions has caused Americans to question their very safety and security in the physical space and also in the virtual world that they have been forced into by the COVID- 19 pandemic. I like to say we have a lot of security moms who are out there--moms and grandmoms like me--and, quite frankly, they are out in full force, alongside millions of other Americans who now have cause to wonder if their own government will bother making their security a priority. What about their communities? What about their neighborhoods? What about the universities where their children go to school? What is going to be done about riots? What about the virtual space? As they have seen their children move to online school, more of their daily functional life and their transactional life has moved online. How do they keep their families safe? How do they protect their rights to privacy? In the physical space, yesterday we got the good news that a Federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order barring the Department of Homeland Security from implementing a nationwide pause on most deportations. That pause was mandated by a DHS memo signed by the Acting Secretary on day one of the Biden administration--not such a great start for the administration's immigration policy team, but the American people will benefit from having the time that has come to them to ask questions about proposed shifts in existing policy. People want to be safe. I would like to just stipulate for the record that immigration law is very complex. While most Americans aren't experts in the finer points of immigration law, they do have and most of us have a very common touchstone that we relate to; that is, having a secure border. This should be a basic concept--let's secure the border; let's secure our country--but somehow we have managed to politicize that point that advocates at the highest levels of the Federal Government--for what? A weakened border. Just imagine that. You have individuals at the highest level of the Federal Government who are saying: Let's weaken our border. That is stunning, absolutely stunning to Tennesseans. Why would you not protect your border? Why would you not want to know who is coming into your country? Why should I be forced to accept a lax border? Why should I be accepting of allowing drug cartels to run those drugs into the country? Why should I be told I should accept human trafficking; I should accept gangs; I should accept sex traffickers coming in across the border? When we have a weak border, this is what you get. Every town--every town--becomes a border town. Every State becomes a border State because of the impacts--the negative impacts--of drug trafficking, sex trafficking, human trafficking, and the toll that that takes on our communities. Last week, I introduced two key pieces of legislation that attack specific vulnerabilities in our body of immigration law that thousands of bad actors use to game the system every year. The first is the Stop Greenlighting Driver Licenses for Illegal Immigrants Act. It does exactly what it sounds like. It blocks certain Federal funds from reaching the coffers of sanctuary States. This includes States that defy Federal immigration law or that allow individuals to obtain a driver license without providing proof that they are here legally or without providing proof that they are who they claim to be. This is no small penalty, and here is why. In 2020, our Nation had 15 States plus the District of Columbia that have decided to give illegal immigrants a valid State-issued ID, a driver license. These 15 States and DC got $53 million in JAG grants from the Department of Justice. These are funds--these are Justice Assistance Grants that are given to local law enforcement and criminal justice projects to do what? Enforce the law. So if you are not going to enforce the law, why should you get the money? Those funds should go to entities that have said: We will abide by the rule of law. That is where those funds should go. Now, the second bill is the Ban Birth Tourism Act. This would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to prohibit pregnant foreigners from obtaining a temporary visitor visa they could use to enter the United States specifically for the purpose of giving birth here. Yes, you heard me right. There is a loophole in the law, in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Because of this, we have some pregnant foreigners, primarily from Russia and China, who circumvent the law, and they get a temporary visitor visa, and they come here working with some of this multimillion-dollar-a-year birth tourism industry. They get coached. They come here. They go to a facility. They give birth. The child becomes a citizen, and then they return. As I said, primarily these are wealthy Russians and wealthy Chinese. Our citizenship is not for sale. No, indeed. It is hard-fought. It is hard-won. It is hard-kept. The American people are right to expect better than this. Tennesseans want to see something done about this. That is why I, once again, have filed this legislation. The American people are not unreasonable. They do not lack compassion. They just don't understand why officials who are charged with upholding the law would act in their official capacity to undermine something as basic as border security, as basic as national security. We have a lot of security moms out there who understand that it is no small task keeping things secure at home. All of these security moms out there know that there are plenty of threats online--threats that they cannot see, but they know that there are a lot of these threats that come into their homes and onto their computer screens and onto the devices of their children because of a lack of privacy online. How we curate and protect our virtual use, as I call it, is critically important because it defines who we are to the people who we do not see in person. And as I mentioned earlier, more of our functional and transactional life is now online. So tomorrow, to mark National Data Privacy Day, I will once again reintroduce the BROWSER Act. Mr. President, as you and I served in the House together, I know you remember how I would introduce this bill, the BROWSER Act, to secure online privacy for millions of Americans. Now, at its heart, this is an effort to inject awareness, transparency, and accountability into the relationship between technology platforms and their users. This legislation sets up a very basic Federal compliance framework that tech companies can use as a guide to update their privacy policies online, make it something that is going to give you the ability to say: This is information that I want to share. It would require companies to secure an opt-in from consumers before collecting their sensitive data. And for less sensitive information, you, the consumer, would have the ability to opt out and not share that browsing history with that company. Companies would not be able to deny you service if you want to practice your right to privacy. That makes common sense. It happens in the physical space every single day, and it should also be a right reserved to the individual in the virtual space. This also would put the Federal Trade Commission, our online privacy regulator, in charge of watching what is happening in the virtual space, applying these rules equally across the entire internet ecosystem. A right to privacy, being secure in our communities and our homes, is something that not only Tennesseans but millions of Americans are wanting to see.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, this week Team Blackburn is saying goodbye to Heath Huckabay, who came to us last January as part of a fellowship program between my office and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is located in Oak Ridge, just outside of Knoxville, TN. It has been an interesting year to say the least, but Heath has risen to the occasion and impressed each and every one of us with his breadth of knowledge and his ability to adapt to the hectic pace of life in the Senate. We did our best to persuade him to stay with us a little longer, but I am confident that his colleagues at Oak Ridge will be happy to see him return, as well as his wife Emily and little Elliot. They are looking forward to having him home. It was an honor working with him this past year. We will miss him, and we wish him all the best as he heads back to Tennessee. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

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

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I tell you, I am going to follow right along with the comments that my colleague from Texas has made, because, in Tennessee, whether someone is a Republican or a Libertarian or an Independent or a Democrat, they have very high expectations of what this Congress is going to be able to accomplish, and they also have high expectations for this administration. What they are doing is looking there, and they are saying: Politics and politicians are not what this is all about. They don't necessarily matter. Policies matter. And, as my colleague is saying, maintaining the filibuster rule in the Senate allows robust, respectful debate so that we arrive at a sense of compromise and we do what is best for the American people. Today, I was talking with one of our Tennesseans, and they were talking about that it doesn't matter what is being said on social media--on Twitter or Facebook or Parler or any of the social media platforms--that when you strip it all away, good policy is good policy, and that is what matters. Good policy is good policy. It is good for the people, and that is where the emphasis should be. So when I say they have high expectations, I don't only mean that they want good policies; they want this to focus on them. They want it to focus on their concerns, their communities, their schools, their right to feel secure, their right to enjoy free speech, their right to pursue their happiness, their American dream, and their right to celebrate and protect life. It is about them, not politicians, not politics. It is about the American people. From their perspective, we can spend hours debating the budget or immigration reform or data privacy--which I will talk more about later this week--as long as at the end of the day, whatever compromise we reach not only meets their needs but recognizes that the people are the most important part of this entire equation--the people. Every Member of this body understands that when the balance of power shifts, sometimes that means that the guy across the aisle is going to get the upper hand. Things change, but it would be a mistake for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to assume that that means we are willing to set our priorities and our principles aside. It doesn't mean that we are going to submit to their agenda. It doesn't mean we are going to conform to their agenda. It means we are going to stay true to our principles, represent our States, and work-- work diligently--for what is going to be best for the people. We may have had a changing of the guard here in Washington, but it doesn't mean that any of us has set aside the promises that we have made to the people we represent, and that is why I came out so strongly against the Biden administration and the President's Executive order that really crushed the jobs and the potential for energy security that came with the building of the Keystone XL pipeline. This was a project that had achieved bipartisan support, and what are we seeing now? Lost jobs, lost livelihoods, more money being taken out of the taxpayers' pocket. For similar reasons, I came out in opposition to rejoining the Paris climate accords and reversing our course on the departure from the World Health Organization. For me, this is isn't about politics. It is about the policies this new administration has decided to unilaterally say yes to--without consulting Congress, without including the people in the discussion. And just so we are all aware, President Biden said yes to more unilateral policy changes on day one than any President in our Nation's history--more than any President in our Nation's history. The Biden administration looked at those new policies and decided that the result--achieving that outcome--was worth whatever it would cost the American people to get it. So over the next few weeks, we will also be examining the President's Cabinet picks to get a sense of the tradeoff they will be willing to make. Safety is at the forefront of everyone's mind back home in Tennessee--not just safety from COVID but from the bad actors and the foreign adversaries who continue to show us just how far they are willing to go to undermine us on the world stage. Back in Tennessee, we have a saying: When somebody shows you who they really are, you better believe them. And I will tell you that they are paying attention, and I will tell you that they are not very impressed right now with some of the so- called soft talk that they are hearing on proposed policies toward Iran and the communist regime in China. This is why I chose not to support the confirmation of our new Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines. I also had some pretty tough questions to ask Secretary of State Nominee Blinken about some of these same issues dealing with Iran, dealing with China. Many of the proposals that I am hearing from them have sounded strangely familiar from years gone by. We don't have to look overseas to find some very real policy differences between what Tennesseans have said they expect and what the Biden administration is signaling that they want to deliver. In his hearing before the Commerce Committee, Transportation Secretary Nominee Pete Buttigieg signaled to the panel that he would put the administration's environmental goals ahead of some very basic changes to Federal policy that would lighten the regulatory load on the county and city mayors trying to get their transportation projects off the ground. As I told him, many times the regulations at issue don't just slow the projects down, they kill the project and that town's prospects for growth, for a better life, for people in the community. Hopefully, he is going to keep in mind what it means to these mayors the next time he is asked to consider the benefits of removing unnecessary redtape. These tradeoffs many times are just too destructive to say yes to. I would encourage all of my colleagues to look at the compromises the President is asking each and every one to make, not just in terms of what we stand to gain but what is going to be the cost. What is the monetary cost? What is the cost of freedom? What is the opportunity cost that will be delivered to the American people in order for the administration to have their way, to get their income? That is the question we should each ask: What is the cost to the American people in order to protect them, in order to meet the expectations that they have? We should be listening to the people. These policies are about them. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I consider it an honor and a privilege to acknowledge for the official record Houston County, TN, sesquicentennial anniversary. Each State is its own melting pot of history and culture, and Tennessee is no exception. In Houston County, the Irish roots of the pioneers who explored the Cumberland River run deep, having buried themselves in the rugged, foggy hills and creek beds that so resembled the founders' homeland. First settled in the 1780s, the Houston County area served as a new frontier for early pioneers. What began as a small working settlement flourished into a community that bore witness at the crossroads of the Civil War, embraced the possibilities of crisscrossing railroads, and led the charge toward progress that we now look back on as a major industrial boom. On January 21, 1871, the Tennessee legislature officially established Houston County, named in honor of Texas freedom fighter and the sixth Governor of Tennessee, Sam Houston. Since then, the people who call Houston County home have turned their little piece of rural Tennessee into a beautiful place to live, work, and raise a family. Congratulations are in order to the members of the Houston County Historical Society and, most importantly, to the citizens of Houston County. I ask my colleagues to join with me in wishing them another 150 years of progress and prosperity.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I yield back all time.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

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

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, isn't it interesting? Here we are, Christmas week, the weekend before Christmas, and we are talking about needing targeted relief. Now, the Democrats have spent their year pushing off targeted relief. They have had their opportunities to tackle this issue. They have chosen not to tackle this issue. They have chosen to play politics with this issue. So, on the Saturday before Christmas, when we should be home and visiting with our families--I would love to be home with my children and grandchildren--here we are. I honestly have decided that my friends across the aisle must not be paying very much attention to what is going on back home because the people back home in Tennessee are very frustrated with them. They seem out of touch. They seem to not care. They don't seem to be interested in taking care of people with needs who have been adversely impacted by COVID. They seem to be more interested in taking care of themselves. This year really did not have to end this way. As I said, our friends across the aisle could have addressed this back in the summer. In July, the minority leader and his colleagues in the House immediately rejected our HEALS Act proposal in favor of Speaker Pelosi's mega- trillion-dollar--$3 trillion--wish list that they had dubbed the ``Heroes Act.'' You know, they always give such nice sounding names to things. Who could be against this? Yet they rejected the HEALS Act proposal that was targeted-specific relief and went with the Heroes Act. It was a very partisan bill. It contained provisions that had nothing to do with COVID relief and that the House and Senate Democrats knew were going to be stumbling blocks. Their bill was filled with things-- nothing to do with taking care of people, but, oh, they had it filled with poison pills. Why? They wanted to make certain that relief didn't come. They wanted to make certain that they could run this out and get it past the election. Then we found out from Speaker Pelosi herself and from some of the other Democrats who are in leadership why they did this. Oh, politics. It helped them with the election, they thought. They used people as pawns. That Heroes Act that they continue to like to talk about would have undermined State voter ID requirements and given the green light to some ballot harvesting schemes. Isn't it interesting? What are we talking about? What are Tennesseans talking about so much? Yes, you got it--ballots, elections, some of the harvesting, some of the tricks. Those items they had in the Heroes Act didn't have anything to do with targeted relief, but do you know what? They were willing to play these games and to withhold that relief. Why? They thought it would help them in winning an election. That was all back in July. Then comes September 10. The Democrats again block the forward motion on another targeted bill, throwing a procedural hurdle in between the American people and desperately needed relief. They got by with it in July, so September rolls along, and it is about time for people to start getting ballots and mailing in ballots. What do they do? They decide to mess with it again--to play politics, to use people as pawns. They lower the bar even further on October 21, throwing away $500 billion in targeted relief. They all vote no in an attempt to tear our focus away from another round of funding for small businesses, support for schools, and more money for COVID-19 testing. Think about this. Time and again, they say: Oh, we have to have more PPP. We have to have more unemployment insurance. We have to have more money for vaccines. We have to have more money for testing. We have to have more money for getting schools open. But they vote no. They have turned their backs on the American people repeatedly. They did it in July. They did it in September. They did it in October. They have turned their backs. Think about what a plus-up of unemployment insurance would have done for a family had they decided to vote yes and worked with us in July. That would have been a lot of money if they had had that plus-up every single week through August, September, October, November, and December. I mentioned the October 21 vote. One day earlier, on October 20, the Democrats had blocked Senate action to extend the PPP. That was for all of our small businesses--and yes, indeed, they are hurting. We are hearing from them on the phone and through email. They are begging for relief. The minority leader threw another possibility of compromise out the window by again insisting that the Democrats would accept the full Heroes Act or nothing. Isn't that amazing? That is what small businesses have gotten, is nothing, because my colleagues across the aisle have basically said: Give us everything we want, or we will just vote no. We will just leave people suffering. It is not the Republicans who have voted no. The Republicans have consistently tried to help people, and my friends across the aisle are consistently trying to help themselves and use people as pawns. At the beginning of this month, the minority leader took to the floor again. He rejected targeted relief again, and he demanded that the Republicans come to the table. Well, we have been at the table. They are the ones who reject proposal after proposal and don't want to move forward on things on which there is agreement. They want to hold out. They have not been paying attention to what is going on outside the four walls of this Chamber. They continue to say: We have to have money to bail out cities and States. They call it aid to cities and States, but they are bailouts for these big blue cities and States that were having problems long before lockdowns came along and that have really made an uncomfortable spot for themselves because of having irresponsible spending policies. I know that Tennesseans do not want to see their tax dollars going to bail out people who have chosen to waste their taxpayers' dollars, and I can't help but wonder how much longer the Democrats are going to allow industries and small businesses and individuals to twist in the wind because they feel like this is a great time to push their socialist agenda and get us on that fast track. Oh, that is what they would like to do. We had a hearing this week in the Commerce Committee and had some of the venues and the live entertainment industry come before us--the people who tend to the stages when the curtains go up, the people who are working backstage. We heard from Michael Strickland, out of Knoxville, whose company, Bandit Lites, helps these shows look great. You have millions of people who are in these support industries. We heard from the motor coach industry. We heard from some of these smaller venues. They are totally shut down. They were totally shut down when the country went into lockdown. They were the first to be totally closed, and they are going to be the last to reopen. These are people, joined by small business retailers and restaurants, who can't open their doors, and they are small business manufacturers who have to wait for the supply chain to kick back up so that they can reopen their production lines. And they are saying: We need the help. They are asking us: Who is blocking it? Who is holding out? And we tell them repeatedly they could have had relief in July or they could have had it back in September or a couple of times in October or November or earlier in December. And it is not Republicans who have blocked that relief. Time and again, the Democrats have blocked Republican proposals to send funding where it is needed most. They have rejected every single lifeline that we have tried to throw. I think it has become clear that the Democrats in Washington, DC, never really saw getting assistance to the unemployed, getting help to small businesses as a priority. Instead, they looked at this, they saw a crisis, they said: Well, this is an opportunity. Let's not let this crisis go to waste. They have used it so that they can push their message, their agenda: Do what the Federal Government says or we will let you drown. So they know that their bills weren't meant to act as help. Maybe they were meant to be a push for their leftist agenda. They know that the emergency financial provisions of the CARES Act were never meant to replace private markets or be used as a mechanism to bail out State and local governments. But you know what? They are going to push to try to make it so to further a leftist agenda. Crisis management is no substitute for fiscal policy. So I would say to our friends on the left, these tactics have failed. It is time to stop using the American people as pawns. Read your mail; listen to the phones. People want targeted relief that will help them to get to recovery. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

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

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. If they can do that with a hashtag--all of that suppression, all of that intimidation--then think about what they will do in the real world. If we stand down, the Chinese Government is going to keep pushing to stand up. They will fill a power vacuum because their determination is to be the leader, the global dominator. They want the 21st century to be the China century. It is their strategy. It is what they do. So now is the time to act. I would encourage my colleagues to remember this as we begin a new Congress. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I have to tell you, when I am back home, I am struck by one of the things I am hearing in Tennessee, and it is this odd mix of optimism and also of concern. And Tennesseans are very concerned that we are not going to pass another round of COVID relief in time to help save their businesses and in time to help people who lost their job through no fault of their own. And, on the other hand, they are excited about the fact that we finally have vaccines that are going through the process, that are getting to communities, and there are vaccinations taking place. And I have thought, you know, this is really an interesting mix of emotions, especially with Christmas right around the corner. And Sunday, after I had visited with some folks, I thought, you know, this, I think, is where people are going to be for a while. Some are very optimistic. Some are incredibly worried. But there is one thing that is a constant--and I have really watched this grow over the last several months. It is the confusion and the anger that is directed at the Chinese Communist Party. And, quite frankly, this is something that I fully believe has reached a boiling point with Tennesseans and with the American public. Tennesseans were familiar with the tense relationship between China and the United States well before they found themselves in the middle of this pandemic. Here is a good example. At this point, most everyone is familiar with China's notorious disregard for intellectual property rights, but when I first started working on this issue in the House with songwriters back in Tennessee--and it was in the early 2000s--we felt like we were fighting that battle all alone. We had to fight with Chinese officials and eventually were able to establish some initial royalty rates payable to U.S. copyright owners whose sound recordings are broadcast in China. That was a solid win, but the fact that we had to fight so hard for something so simple really was frustrating, and people in Tennessee have not forgotten that frustration. Before this year, they were painfully familiar with the Chinese Government's abysmal human rights record. That initial footage of massive protests in Hong Kong had resurrected memories of Tiananmen Square and reminded everyone that the Chinese Government still uses political violence, speech suppression, and torture to silence dissent. The people I talked to had read about diplomatic tensions and trade deals, and they could sense that in spite of all those optimistic perspectives on the nightly news, our biggest rival in Asia had become our adversary. So they weren't at all shocked when news reports started rolling in that the Chinese Communist Party officials in Hebei Province and Beijing had done nothing--not one thing--to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Since then, Tennesseans and, indeed, most Americans have received a valuable education, courtesy of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. We learned that the Chinese Government's failure to sound the alarm wasn't an anomaly. It was intentional. Neither was there strong- arming of the World Health Organization or the incarceration and torture of doctors and journalists who defied gag orders to blast out warnings to anyone who would listen. They tried to tell us this was reaching a pandemic, and they were punished. And as they look around at the economic ruin in their communities, as small businesses are shuttered and independent music venues are boarded up for the long haul, all those puzzle pieces are falling into place, and, quite frankly, they are justifiably upset. I would venture to say many of them are absolutely furious with what the Chinese Government has done. By now, we understand this is what the Chinese Communist Party does as a government, as an all-powerful political organization, and as a group of rabid ideologues from whom acts of genocide flow as easily as the propaganda posted to their many official Twitter accounts. This is all a part of their quest for global dominance, and their success depends on gaining complete control over speech, thought, resources, and their relationships with other nations. This is the Chinese Communist Party's master plan. When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, there were a lot of optimistic pundits out there who thought that he would embrace transparency and liberal economic policies, but oh my goodness, have they ever been wrong. In fact, he styled himself in the image of Mao, creating a personality cult that equates attacks on Xi with challenges to the legitimacy of party rule. It is all about him. Anyone who has opened a history book knows this doesn't bode well for diplomatic efforts to rebalance power. This isn't my political opinion; this is the reality that diplomats, members of the defense community, and policy experts accept as a matter of fact. The Senate Armed Services Committee accepted this reality when we drafted the bipartisan 2021 NDAA. This year's bill contains the most substantial action we have ever taken to counter Chinese aggression and great power competition. It establishes the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which will help the military enhance defense capabilities in the region and reaffirms our commitments to Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Japan, and other allies and partners geographically near China. We drafted numerous provisions to keep U.S. intellectual property, technology, and data out of Beijing's grasp by limiting funding for universities that host Confucius Institutes and restricting defense industrial base employees from working for Chinese-owned companies. Why did we do this? Because we have learned that not only is this part of China's propaganda, this is where they are embedding their spies. In 2021, we will take major steps to secure our supply chain and invest in American innovation to maintain our technological advantage. We paid particular attention to accelerating the development of 5G networks that are needed by our troops in the field and, to complement that expansion, enhancing our Nation's cyber security strategy. The Chinese Communist Party isn't just playing politics on Twitter; their tactics pose a very real threat to our Nation's security and that of our allies and our partners. I have spoken at length about how badly we need to unravel our relationship with China. I have examined problems related to our medical supply chains, security issues in the building blocks of popular technology, and sourcing for rare earth elements. Reclaiming these critical resources will take time and investment, but it can be done, and I will continue to fight for this as we move into the next Congress. But I want to consider just for a moment a few examples of this entanglement that hit particularly close to home and really give a sense of how much private companies and organizations compromise just to maintain access to the Chinese marketplace. Earlier this year, the PR professionals at the NBA worked some serious overtime after an investigative report published by ESPN showed that the Chinese Communist Party-affiliated coaches at the league's training facilities in Xinjiang were abusing players. That is correct-- abusing players. Initial reports of this abuse were ignored by NBA officials. Keep in mind that these training facilities existed in the same region as those concentration camps used to imprison the Uighur Muslims and others guilty of thought crimes against the Chinese Communist Party. So what was the NBA doing there in the first place? How could something like this actually happen? Here is the reason: Communist China plays host to an estimated $4 billion NBA market. They say that China is ``basketball obsessed,'' and NBA execs have used every avenue they can to take advantage of that $4 billion market. They jealously protect those relationships even if it means using skyrocketing sales numbers to explain away the blind eye they have turned to the CCP's crimes against humanity. They are not alone. This fall, Walt Disney released their live-action version of ``Mulan'' and caught some well-deserved hell after sharp- eyed rights activists combed through the credits and discovered that filmmakers chose to shoot scenes for the movie--where? Xinjiang, knowing that they would have to cooperate--with whom? The Chinese Communist Party's propaganda flacks to get the kind of footage they wanted to play to their desired Chinese audience. Netflix also ran afoul of human rights activists when they inked an adaptation deal with an author who parrots Chinese Communist Party propaganda and made racist comments about the persecuted Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. None--none of these scenarios involved high-stakes diplomatic negotiations. No one involved was on a mission to balance the geopolitical scales at all cost. They did, however, stand to net a tidy profit by maintaining friendly relations with the Chinese Communist Party. But did they ever stand up and defend the Uighur Muslim minority? No, they did not. When faced with such manipulation on a global scale, Tennesseans expect accountability. They want news reports and hearings and absolute condemnation. But that is not what they get. Instead, they get regurgitated propaganda transmitted directly from the CCP, peppered with media buzz words and distilled into sound bites. Our attempts to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for covering up the origins of the pandemic were met with baseless accusations of xenophobia and of racism. I have met similar resistance when speaking truth to power about the CCP's aggression in Tibet, Mongolia, the concentration camps in Xinjiang, and the arbitrary detention of the Hong Kong freedom fighters. Prominent members of the press, pundits, and even Members of Congress who have access to more than enough information to know better--all provide cover for the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of American lives and livelihoods. It is all there in black and white. They are failing an open-book test because they are refusing--refusing to admit that their coziness with China does not serve the American people or our allies well. This situation will not evaporate with the start of the new Congress. Vaccines and defense funding and new technology will solve some immediate problems, but they are not a strategy. Those are action items. We must all commit right now to an aggressive strategy that leads a whole-of-government approach to protecting American intellectual property, securing our critical supply chains, and bringing our manufacturing back home. We must assert our role as a leader on the global stage and stand between the Chinese Government and leadership roles in international organizations. How is it that China could have a seat on the Human Rights Council of the United Nations? Look at what they are doing to the Tibetans, to the Taiwanese, to the Hong Kong freedom fighters, and to the Uighur Muslims. We should continue to provide support for Hong Kong and for Taiwan, build a strong network of allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific, and we should increase our defense investment in the Indo-Pacific Command. I laid out more items in a white paper I released earlier this year. It is online at Blackburn.Senate.gov. It is time to pay attention to everything the CCP is doing. In today's New York Post, I have an op-ed that lays out how they are using Twitter to troll and intimidate the rest of the world into staying silent. Do you know what? They are, unfortunately, having some success with that. World leaders, powerful corporations, and celebrities are all scared into silence by online propaganda campaigns. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my op-ed be printed in the Record with these remarks

Mrs. BLACKBURN

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

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I am pleased that we've finally agreed on language to enhance penalties for female genital mutilation, or FGM, a truly horrible practice. I thank my colleagues in the House who worked with me on this issue. More than 200 million women and girls alive today in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States have fallen victim to this monstrous practice. Researchers estimate more than 500,000 women and girls in the U.S. have experienced or are at risk of falling victim to FGM. I introduced legislation on this subject earlier this year, and, although the final language adopted by the House in H.R. 6100 doesn't include the protections I championed in a legally precise manner, it will send a strong message that Congress condemns the violent and disgusting butchery of young girls and women in this country. Federal law bans the practice of FGM. However, in 2018, a district judge in Michigan found unconstitutional under Commerce Clause grounds the Federal statute banning FGM. Rather than appeal, the Department of Justice's Solicitor General wrote a letter asking Congress to amend the law to address the constitutional problem. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record following my remarks. The bill I introduced in response to this request, S. 2017, the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2019, fixes the constitutional defects by adding specific commerce clause-focused language to the current law. It is a straightforward change that would make the existing statute consistent with Supreme Court precedent. The House version of my bill will go a long way in protecting women and girls from FGM, but I remain convinced Congress can and should go even further to prevent this barbarity. Because H.R. 6100 only criminalizes FGM acts committed for nonmedical reasons, it creates a loophole in the form of a medical benefits defense. Criminal defendants could leverage this defense against their victims by claiming they performed FGM to prevent infections, inflammation, or sexually transmitted diseases, all common excuses in countries where FGM is widespread. Unlike the old law, the burden is now on the government to prove the act was not done for medical reasons. Previously, it was the defendant's burden to prove the act was not medically necessary, per 18 U.S.C. 116(b). While medical issues are commonly contested in FGM cases, the addition of a new element for the government to prove as part of its case-in-chief makes it tougher to prosecute perpetrators. Furthermore, section 5 of H.R. 6100 declares that the Michigan district court decision on interstate commerce is erroneous. That language squarely conflicts with the Solicitor General's letter to Congress, which asserts the exact opposite. A fix-it law should make a defective law better, not introduce new problems or make it easier for defendants to escape accountability. I am disappointed that these concerns were not addressed early on in the legislative drafting process, but I am also optimistic that we will resolve them in a future Congress.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, those of you who have taken time out to watch college sports this fall--and I know there are many in this Chamber who have, and they know that the games this year have looked very different when you compare them to previous years' games. A lot has changed for these young players, but they are no less popular with their fans and no less important to the success and prominence of the academic institutions they represent. For a while now, I have been joined by other members of the Commerce Committee as we have tried to resolve the tension that exists between the NCAA and college sports stars over a student athlete's right to earn compensation for the use of their name, image, or likeness. This is called the NIL issue. Last week, Senator Wicker, who is chairman of the Commerce Committee, introduced the Collegiate Athlete and Compensation Rights Act, which would finally create a uniform national framework to allow student athletes to receive that compensation without the risk of losing their amateur status and without falling into traps set by dishonest outside parties looking to exploit their fame. Normally, we don't make too much hay over a bill introduction, but just getting everyone to the table is a first step that student athletes have wanted to see happen for a while. And I thank Chairman Wicker and Senator Moran for backing this legislation. I do want to point out that the reason the Senate has stepped in is because the NCAA just never could get around to addressing this issue. They kept kicking the can down the road. They kept sending it to one committee and to another committee, and the NCAA has shown very little determination to solve this issue for these young athletes. Because the leadership at the NCAA has proven unable and has shown an inability to address this, we have stepped up to address this issue. Our student athletes deserve more respect than they have been shown by the NCAA. (Mr. BOOZMAN assumed the Chair.)

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I have to tell you, every day, I am hearing from Tennesseans who are asking what we are going to do about COVID relief. It is coming up in nearly every conversation that I have--with our county mayors, with citizens, with employers and employees; conversations with those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Why can't we get something done? The phones really started ringing last week when Speaker Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, accidentally revealed that it was politics and not principle that convinced her to spend months--months--standing between the American people and targeted relief that they are asking for and that they desperately need. It was politics--all politics to her. People were pawns that she was moving around, trying to get her way. It is disgusting. It is a tragedy. But I will tell you this: It is nothing new. In fact, since July, Democrats have continuously blocked efforts to provide targeted relief. The minority leader obstructed these efforts in the hopes of passing a $3 trillion bill. That is right, trillion--$3 trillion bill. It was filled to the brim with partisan proposals that had nothing do with the pandemic and a bailout for fiscally irresponsible States and cities. Tennesseans are very much opposed to having their hard-earned dollars that are tax dollars that come to the Federal Government used to bail out States that have chosen not to be fiscally responsible. They say: Above all else, do not bail out these States, these cities, these pension funds. Let's be clear to the American people. It is the Speaker of the House and the minority leader who are holding noncontroversial relief--they are holding it hostage. There should be another round of PPP. There should be another increase, a plus-up, of unemployment. There should be more money for vaccines, testing, and getting children back to school. But, oh, no. For months, what did they want to do? Play politics. Play politics with people's lives. If that isn't the most tone-deaf thing that I have ever heard, I don't know what is. Perhaps some of my friends across the aisle should check their mail and make certain that their office phones are being answered. People are quite upset with them. It doesn't stop there. I wish it did. It only gets worse. In the fall, the Democrats filibustered targeted relief proposals not once but twice and rejected a much needed extension of the Paycheck Protection Program almost as soon as it was proposed. This month, more of the same. Their refusal to negotiate in good faith has made it abundantly clear to the business owners, the healthcare providers, and millions of other struggling Americans that partisan grandstanding is more of a priority for Democrats than doing their jobs. The American people are not pawns, and it is time my colleagues in the minority stopped treating them as such. The House Speaker and Senate Democrats might have all the time in the world to stall. Maybe they are pretty comfortable with where they are. But outside of this Chamber, for a lot of our families and small businesses that are struggling, it is the eleventh hour. Now is not the moment to strong- arm the U.S. Senate into rubberstamping a radical liberal wish list. It is time to step up and deliver relief--targeted relief, relief we all agree will mean the difference between survival for many of these small businesses and economic collapse; money and support for vaccines; another full round of PPP funding for the businesses that need it most; and support for our frontline heroes and essential workers. This bullet list of absolute essentials must also include reasonable, responsible liability protections for small businesses and healthcare workers. These protections are the flip side of relief funding. Without them, we take these business owners and workers out of one bad situation and put them right into another one. Without them, we effectively force entire industries to choose between economic survival or, in the case of healthcare workers, literal survival and death by opportunistic lawsuits. We can't allow this to happen. One of the things that I have noticed this past year is how critical it is for us to be able to articulate problems and lay the foundation to address them before an emergency strikes. In Tennessee, as in many other States, the number of people who live in rural and remote areas poses challenges when it comes to providing a variety of services that we all consider essential, chiefly among them, healthcare delivery and access to high-speed internet. I have worked with healthcare practitioners and advocates to cut a path forward for the widespread use of telemedicine. Last year, I introduced the Rural Health Agenda to increase access to healthcare for the 60 million Americans who leave in rural areas. A crucial component of that legislative package was a set of provisions that lifted unnecessary regulatory barriers standing in the way of access to telemedicine. As always, it is the redtape that slows up progress. The pandemic only highlighted the importance of opening up contact-free access to healthcare. Fortunately, in March, after a lot of meetings with the White House and Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, we were able to roll back a particularly frustrating regulation preventing the use of telemedicine by Medicare enrollees. Provisions I supported as part of the CARES Act further expanded access to telemedicine by removing even more of that redtape and providing funding for reimbursement to frontline healthcare providers. Of course, access to telehealth and access to high-speed internet go hand in hand. You can't really have one without the other. This week, I learned that the FCC, as a result of the recent Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction, has now made some great steps, and Tennessee is going to receive about $150 million to help close the digital divide over the next decade. These new connections will be a game changer for rural and underserved communities. Not only will they open up access to telehealth, distance learning, and remote work opportunities, they will open up the local economy and encourage growth and outside investment because these dollars are targeted to unserved areas. This award, coupled with CARES Act funding put to work earlier this year, will help us build on our prepandemic work on behalf of rural and unserved Americans. The Internet Exchange Act, a bipartisan bill I sponsored to provide grant funding for broadband infrastructure, recently reported out of our Commerce Committee. The pieces are, indeed, falling into place, and, hopefully, we can keep the momentum going and finally get this job done: closing the digital divide, providing everyone with access to high-speed internet and allowing communities that have been cut off from economic development, from telehealth, from remote learning to enhanced law enforcement--allowing them to benefit. It is not just a matter of connectivity or convenience. It is an investment in a better quality of life for all Americans who call the rural parts of this country home. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. BLACKBURN

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, over the past few months, there have been many of us in this Chamber who have taken Big Tech to task over their shady and biased business practices. In more than one hearing, we have grilled them on the privacy, censorship, and antitrust concerns that have allowed us to keep these CEOs in the hot seat, and that grilling has taken place by those of us on either side of the aisle. These are big, big problems, and they are not going to disappear at the end of this Congress. These are problems that are going to be around. But one of the advantages of having these companies, like Facebook and Twitter and Google, living in our phones and in our homes is that it is much harder for oppressive governments and global bad actors to hide their crimes from the rest of the world. Just last year, about this time, the freedom fighters in Hong Kong-- and this is a poster that I used on the floor just about this time, December 9, 2019, and it shows the freedom fighters in Hong Kong. It shows how they were making their case: ``We do not want to become like China.'' These freedom fighters in Hong Kong captured our attention when they filled the streets and demanded an end to the Chinese Communist Party's terrible crackdowns on free speech and expression. While the coverage in the 24-hour news cycle definitely made an impact, it was the millions of tweets and Facebook posts and videos and blog posts that turned their movement into a collective global outcry for an end to violence and terror in Hong Kong. You see, people saw what was happening there. They saw it in realtime. Even if they didn't fully understand the politics behind these protests, they knew that the disproportionate response by the Chinese Government to stamp out these protests was wrong. As those posts flowed out of Hong Kong, support flowed right back in, and having spoken with many of these brave activists, it really meant the world to them that they were hearing from us. While all of this was happening, something else--some countermessaging, if you will--was flowing from Beijing. It was a message of total capitulation sent by corporations, sports organizations, the mainstream media, and even powerful national and world leaders. They were all trying to keep the peace on behalf of their own self-interests, but as the days and weeks passed by, their blinders became more and more obvious. By that time, the online activist community had put the Chinese Communist Party's crimes on full display. What started as a debate on free speech and political autonomy morphed into a full indictment of the Chinese Communist Party's crimes against humanity, against the Uighurs in Xinjiang, in Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, and all across Mainland China. Thanks to internet freedom efforts made possible by the Open Technology Fund, tweets and videos describing the Chinese Communist Party's intolerance of dissent escaped the Great Firewall and made its way into Western news feeds. The spread of the coronavirus tore away the veil covering Beijing's corrupt relationship with the World Health Organization and other international organizations and revealed their scandalous coverup of the virus's origins--all that truth right on our phones, right on our iPads and computer screens and on every screen in the house. Unfortunately, for the millions suffering under the horrors of communism, truth didn't win the day. The people with the most responsibility to speak up stayed silent because they were fearful of retaliation. It was too politically charged, too economically risky. Someone might take their criticisms the wrong way, and, well, we can't have that now, can we? I know from personal experience what it is like to have the Chinese Communist Party and their allies retaliate against you. Once you speak up, you are going to get it from all sides. Just last week, a member of the Chinese state media--for all intents and purposes, I would suggest this is a propaganda minister for the Chinese Communist Party. Well, he decided that he had had enough of what we are doing here in Washington to expose Chinese aggression and fired off a series of vile, sexist tweets while conspicuously avoiding the issue at hand. It sounds fairly familiar: Attack the person; attack the messenger. The thing is, he was just mirroring the tactics used by his government. Beijing is all too happy to prey upon the ignorance of their massive online audience and encourage accusations of racism or xenophobia as the only acceptable responses to evidence documenting their own racist, repressive politics. That, right there, is how you end up with repressive regimes like the one in China gaining so much power on the global stage when those who should know better allow their adversaries to cow them into silence. I appreciate the importance of diplomacy, but diplomacy is meaningless without consequences. Activists, by their very nature, rise and fall based on their willingness to speak truth to power when the most influential among us allow evil regimes to escape those consequences. Today, I call on my colleagues to follow their example and use their work in this Chamber to speak truth to power about the crimes of the Chinese Communist Party. We no longer have any excuse not to. If you want proof, pull out your phones and listen to what activists in Hong Kong, in Taiwan, and in Mainland China are telling you--or better yet, listen to what some of your colleagues are telling you. Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong currently sits in jail for the crime of criticizing his government. I repeat this: Hong Kong activist, a young freedom fighter, Joshua Wong, is in jail because he criticized the Chinese Communist party. He criticized his government. His sentencing barely managed a blip on the radar here. Another Hong Kong activist, Jimmy Lai, was denied bail during his own prosecution specifically because his online newspaper revealed the truths of the Chinese Communist Party's chokehold on their own people. The CCP cut off access to his corporate accounts and those of his employees. So much for Hong Kong's free press. Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong live in Hong Kong. In June, the Senate passed a resolution condemning the CCP's repression of speech and expression in Hong Kong. These protests are still happening. Authoritarian crackdowns are still happening. We must keep speaking about this. In Xinjiang, CCP forces are systematically targeting and eliminating the Uighur Muslim population through mass surveillance, population control, and incarceration in internment camps. Yes, you heard me-- internment camps. It should make your skin crawl to hear that today, in 2020, this is happening. Last month, I joined my colleagues Senator Cornyn and Senator Menendez in supporting a bipartisan resolution to finally recognize that what the Chinese Government is doing in Xinjiang constitutes a genocide. If you are looking for a reason to start speaking out, I can't think of a better way to get started. Speak up on that. Support this resolution, which would not only urge the White House to take action against Beijing but also urge national governments and organizations to get their heads out of the sand and tear away, piece by piece, China's disastrous influence over the global political economy, which is highlighted by the success of the Communist Party's Belt and Road Initiative. I will add that I was thrilled today with Secretary Pompeo's tweet regarding his once again reupping the countries of concern under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. China is on this list, as well they should be, as they continue to infringe on religious liberty, and they do engage in systematic, ongoing, egregious religious freedom violations. They are doing it every day, and the world is watching. I tell you, I could monopolize this floor for the next week and lay out every opportunity we have to stand up for the cause of freedom and speak truth to power about the crimes of the Chinese Communist Party. Here is a white paper that I unveiled earlier this year. There are over 100 specific paths toward how we as a nation unraveled the relationship that we have right now with China. The paper is only 52 pages long. It is a short version. I encourage one and all to take a look at it and to think about how it is that we got to this point where an influential government, active in many major international bodies, including, as of next year, China being in the U.N. Human Rights Council--how can this government perpetrate a genocide against minorities and get away with it because of the appalling cowardice of those who bear witness and choose to do nothing. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.