John Barrasso

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the Defense bill that is currently before the Senate and note that the majority leader this morning made some mention and some complaints about substantive, timely, and important amendments that are being offered by my colleagues. He was particularly agitated, it seems, about an amendment dealing with communist China. Well, the U.S. Senate has a lot of work to do by the end of the year. We need to fund the government. We need to prevent a shutdown. We need to deal with the debt ceiling. Democrats are going to need to lift that. We need to make sure that our troops are funded and that we deal with the Defense bill. These are some of the important issues that are before the Senate. Yet, here we are, near the end of the year, scrambling to get it all done in just a couple of weeks--no way to run the U.S. Senate. We haven't had an appropriations bill brought to the floor all year, and the Defense bill has been sitting in limbo for months. The Armed Services Committee actually finished marking up this bill in July. It is a bipartisan bill. It passed the vote in the committee by 23 to 3. Things don't get a lot more bipartisan than that. So, typically, the Senate starts working on the Defense bill and then negotiates over the next couple of months. We start in June. But, instead, we have gone months and months and months. We have seen the disastrous collapse and fall and withdrawal in Afghanistan, and yet no Defense bill to the floor of the U.S. Senate. So what did the Democrats try to do instead? Well, they pushed a very partisan agenda and brought to the floor two bills on election takeovers. And the Democrats also seem to be very obsessed with their own bill. They want to call it Build Back Better, something like that. I will tell you, it is a bill that is going to break the backs of American families. So now here we are, just at the deadline, and the majority leader is finally getting around to dealing with a bill that has to do with supporting the troops. It seems to me that is like a kid with a term paper that is due tomorrow. It is the night before, and they are going to start writing the term paper. Well, if you want to get it right, it takes a longer process than that. It is a long process, generally, because it is that important for the Nation. Every Senator wants to be involved. Yet, through the procrastination by the majority leader, the Defense bill has been delayed. Now, I have made the case that, frankly, national security has been a very low priority of this President and this administration and the majority party in the House and in the Senate. And the reason I say that, exhibit A, is the fact that the budget that President Biden proposed when he came into office--and let's be frank. The budget he proposed was a massive, supersizing of the size of the Federal Government--more money for this, more money for that, more money for everything except for two items alone. Only two items in the entire Federal budget came in to grow at a rate less than inflation--less than inflation. Now, what were those two items? Defense and homeland security. That tells me how this administration prioritizes the role of our Nation's security for our country. So, finally, we have gotten to work on this bill, and there are some concerns because amendments need to be voted on, debated, brought to this floor. I have introduced an amendment with the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee to sanction the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. There is bipartisan agreement that that pipeline needed to be sanctioned, and we have been fighting for that together in a bipartisan way through multiple administrations. This is Vladimir Putin's pipeline to which Joe Biden has given the stamp of approval. It is a weapon that Putin is going to be using to hold half of Europe hostage. And under what this administration has been doing on energy--penalizing American energy production and begging Putin to produce more and sell it to us--this has been a jackpot for Vladimir Putin. Our amendment would do the right thing and block this President's present to Vladimir Putin--a Christmas present. And this is at a time with Joe Biden inflation that we have many Americans worrying if they are going to even be able to afford to buy Christmas presents. This is no time for our Nation to give this present to Vladimir Putin. The Republican Senator from Ohio has introduced an important amendment to provide lethal aid to Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has 100,000 troops right now staged on the border with Ukraine. We ought to stand by Ukraine and pass that amendment. The Senator from Montana has an amendment to block Joe Biden from sending $400,000 to the families of illegal immigrants. An open border is a threat to our national security, and these payments would cause a mad rush if not a stampede to the country and into the country, the way the border has been left open. There are lots of important amendments, and we ought to be having a fair and open debate. This is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the world, and yet the majority leader has tried to cut off debate on some of the most important issues facing our Nation. Why? Because we can hear the clock ticking, that is why. He has dragged his feet for months, and now, he wants to force us into a mad dash to close this. Look, it is a disservice to our troops. It is a disservice to our allies. It is a disservice to the people of our Nation. And yet, this morning, the majority leader is pointing his finger. He came to the floor. He attacked Republicans. We didn't make him delay this bill for month after month after month. This is a choice that the majority leader has made. It does seem that the other Democrats have basically higher priorities than our Nation's defense: election takeovers, new entitlements, amnesty for illegal immigrants. It is no way to govern, no way to make important decisions, no way to run the U.S. Senate. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. BARRASSO

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

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, as I was home last week for Thanksgiving, traveling the State of Wyoming, talking to many folks, I heard a lot, got an earful from people about the Democrats' reckless tax-and-spending bill that is being proposed and that Senator Schumer has said he wants to get passed before Christmas. Well, if that is the case, it is going to be a long December. The people of Wyoming do not like this bill because they are finding out more and more about what is in it and how it is going to impact their lives. So I come to the floor today to talk about a couple of things that the American people have heard and the people in Wyoming have been tuned in to dramatically, and that is wanting to know what does it cost. Just before Thanksgiving, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its report about the cost of the bill, and the report confirmed what Republicans who had read through it have expected. It is jam-packed with phony accounting gimmicks, and it seems like the Democrats have used just about every trick in the book to deal with the true cost of the massive amounts of money the Democrats are trying to spend in this bill with one giveaway after another and, additionally, entitlements--new entitlements that the country cannot afford. Even with all the gimmicks used, the spending is still hundreds of billions of dollars added to the debt--not just hundreds of billions of dollars of spending, hundreds of billions of dollars added to the debt. This is a violation of the speech that Joe Biden has given repeatedly, that his press people have said repeatedly, that the Speaker of the House has said repeatedly, because they continue to say and the President has said and the Secretary of the Treasury just yesterday said the cost of the bill would be zero. I can remember seeing President Biden on television saying the cost is zero, zero, zero. The budget office even says it is hundreds of billions of dollars added to the debt. But watching this unfold, as the President and the Democrats have tried to force this bill onto the American public, there have been three big lies coming out of the President's mouth repeatedly on this. One is, he said it would cost zero. The second, he said it wouldn't raise taxes on anybody making less than $400,000 a year. The third thing, he said it wouldn't add to inflation. Well, the President has been wrong on all of those. Hundreds of billions of dollars onto the debt--hundreds of billions of dollars. It does raise taxes on the middle class. The budget analysts and the tax analysts who looked at this say at least one in three Americans in the middle-income areas will be paying more in taxes. And it will certainly increase inflation. I would point out that the people at home are feeling the biting impacts of inflation. It is hitting their lives. It is hitting their pocketbooks. They noticed it over the Thanksgiving holiday. People in Wyoming are going to the gas station to fill up their truck, and it is $100--$100 dollars every time you fill up. People drive great distances to work in Wyoming. I think we are the State that has the most miles driven, average, for any State over the course of a year, more miles driven in Wyoming by Wyoming residents, so we know what happens when gas prices go up a dollar and a quarter. Prices are up at the store as well, up a dollar and a quarter at the grocery store. I don't know if you know that the Dollar Tree store has actually changed it to a dollar and a quarter for what they are charging for things. That is what we are getting under this administration with its reckless positions and policies. Yesterday, the Treasury Secretary, at the Banking Committee, said that this would not add to the debt. You know, the American people don't believe it. Poll after poll says the President is not being honest with them, in their opinion. That is what they are seeing, and the budget report confirms it. The American people do not want more debt, more taxes, and more spending which results in higher costs for them. When the President said it wouldn't actually raise taxes on people making up to $400,000 a year, there are the direct taxes, which the budget analysts point out to us, but there are also the taxes that are going to be raised by the IRS fund, putting the American people under the microscope, because in this bill that the Democrats are proposing, it super-sizes the Internal Revenue Service to go after American taxpayers to try to squeeze more money out of honest people so they can spend it on things like five new entitlements for illegal immigrants. The bill would nearly double the size of the IRS, and the money is going to enforcement. Now let's talk about some of the tax breaks that are in this. Who is going to benefit the most with tax cuts that are actually in the bill? Because the President says there are tax cuts in it. Well, there are. Nancy Pelosi's California--the millionaires there benefit a lot. People of New York benefit a lot. People of New Jersey benefit a lot. The millionaires in those three States will see significant cuts in their taxes, as middle-income people pay more, which gets us to the third big concern about what the President is continuing to say to the American people, which is where he says that it will not add to inflation. People can see through this. They see what they are paying. They see that inflation is coming. I would note that yesterday, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve said that this idea about temporary inflation is wrong. Oh, no--here to stay. People get it, and they don't like it. They don't like it when they are thinking about what is going to happen if they are trying to shop for Christmas. Can they get what they want to buy, and what is it going to cost? Well, the President has said that 17 Nobel laureates said the bill wouldn't add to inflation. But then his comments were fact-checked, as so many things we say are fact-checked, and what those economists, the Nobel economists, actually said was that it wouldn't add to inflation if the bill were fully paid for, and it is not, because the budget officials have pointed out that the bill is going to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt. As I started this, I talked about the fact that I was home for Thanksgiving. Well, this Thanksgiving has been the most expensive ever for the American people, and people are now really worried about what is going to happen come Christmas. The price of gas is at a 7-year high. Natural gas is at a 7-year high. It is getting colder. Winter is here. What is going to happen with heating costs? Hard to believe that in just 10 months as President, Joe Biden has taken inflation to a 30-year high. According to one estimate, families are paying about $175 more each month because of inflation since President Biden took office. That is about a $2,000 bite out of the paychecks for every working American over a year. Now, it is interesting, when you kind of dig into the meat of what is in this bill, the Democrats want to make energy even more expensive than it is now. So if we are at a 7-year high for the cost of gasoline and a 7-year high for the cost of natural gas, what is going to happen when the new taxes and regulations on American energy go into effect at a time when President Biden is begging Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Saudi Arabia to produce more oil to sell it to us? It is a jackpot for Putin. That is what we have--Joe Biden's jackpot payday for Vladimir Putin at the expense of the American people. So there are families who are going to have to decide this winter whether they are going to be able to afford to eat or to heat their homes. The Democrats' tax-and-spending bill is going to raise taxes across the board, and a lot of it is aimed at small businesses, mom-and-pop operations. What are they going to do with the taxes that come at them? Well, of course, they are going to pass them on to the customers. What is that going to do to the cost when the customer comes in? The cost is going to go up, and therefore you have inflation. Another part of what the Democrats are proposing, which will make inflation worse, is they are going to increase government spending. More spending. More debt. More printing of money by the Federal Reserve. More dollars facing fewer goods. Prices will go up. One of the things that we are starting to hear about as people learn more about it is the increased cost of childcare under the President's proposal, by about $13,000 per family. Look, this is already a huge expense for working families, but the bill could nearly double it. That is because it includes a Federal takeover of childcare in America. In total, the bill would create more than 150 new government programs. It is interesting that it uses the words ``tax,'' ``fee,'' and ``penalty'' 637 times. When the President said Build Back Better, I looked at this as a bill that is going to break the back of American families 637 times--tax, fee, penalty. From top to bottom, this bill is a laundry list of more taxes, more debt, more government control over our lives. The people of Wyoming do not like it and do not want it. This is not what the American people are asking for. They don't like its content; they don't like its cost; and the more they learn about it, the less they like it. It is interesting because the day after the budget office came out with their report, the Democrats rushed the bill through the House, saying: We have got to get this through here before people see what is in it. Every Republican is united against it. Every Republican voted against it in the House, and actually, there was a Democrat who voted against it as well. So the opposition is bipartisan. Now, the bill comes to the Senate. Here we are. I promise you it will hit a buzz saw of resistance from Republicans in this body. So Democrats in the Senate have to make a decision. As people in our States struggle to pay for Christmas, the Democrats who are pushing this reckless proposal have to decide whether or not they want to ignore the suffering that has been created by this administration with increased prices, by causing prices to go up even higher as well as taxes to go up as well. The American people know that President Biden has not been truthful with them about the bill--about what he has said about the cost, about what he has said about taxes, about what he has said about inflation. Poll after poll says they don't believe him because they know the bill is going to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt; they know it is going to raise taxes on the middle class; and they know it is going to make the pain of inflation even worse. If Democrats pass this bill, everyone in this country will end up paying for it, one way or another. The last thing the American people need for Christmas is higher taxes, more debt, and higher prices. The last thing the American people are asking for is this reckless tax and spending. I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

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

Mr. BARRASSO. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the need for more American energy, not energy that the President is begging to OPEC or Russia to produce for America but American energy. Last week, President Biden ordered the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The President, by doing that, in my opinion, is just pretending to show concern about the high cost of energy in this country. I will get into why I think he is only pretending to show it because the amount he released is so very little. In reality, this President's call to release energy oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was an admission of failure of this President and this administration. Releasing oil from the Reserve is something that Presidents did in the past during times of war, the Iraq war, after Hurricane Katrina, and during the Arab Spring. In other words, it is something Presidents do in times of crisis. Well, President Biden doesn't want to admit that he has created an emergency crisis in our country, but his actions of calling on the release from the Strategic Reserve--the actions speak louder than his words. By releasing oil from the Reserve now, the President is admitting what every American knows, that America has an energy crisis and it is not for lack of the fact that we have plenty of energy reserves here in the United States. Last week, an estimated 50 million people over Thanksgiving weekend took to the roads. Those who drove paid the most for gasoline that they have in 7 years. Gasoline and diesel fuel prices are sky-high, and they have increased more than a dollar a gallon since Joe Biden took office just in January. Why is it happening? Well, it is economics 101, really. You have demand; you have supply. Demand is up; supply is down. With the end of the lockdown, demand for gasoline has increased as people took to the roads. Yet domestic supply is still below the peak that we reached under President Trump. The Biden administration wants us to believe that releasing oil will solve the problem when he taps the Strategic Reserve, but I don't even think President Biden believes it. I am not sure they actually know what they are doing. If you watched that press conference with the Secretary of Energy last week, she was asked how much oil the American people use. She admitted she didn't know. She said: I don't have a number in front of me. She didn't know how much oil, how much energy Americans use. The Nation's top energy official doesn't know how much oil the American people use so how can she then know that the amount to call for the release is the right amount or not? She is President Biden's top lieutenant in the war on American energy. She doesn't know how much we use. Well, the media has broadly reported that the total amount that Joe Biden is releasing from the Petroleum Reserve is what the American people use every 2\1/2\ days--every 2\1/2\ days. That is the total amount that is being released. It is the amount that we in the United States use every 2\1/2\ days. This is a drop in the bucket when it comes to oil prices and energy prices and what people are paying at the pump. It is not a long-term solution. It is not even a short-term solution. It is just a carefully created sound bite. Oil production is down by nearly 2 million barrels a day compared to the peak under President Trump. It is not a surprise when you take a look at the attack on American energy that President Biden and this administration have continued to do since day 1, when he killed the Keystone XL Pipeline. The administration also announced last week, without any fanfare, without the President making a statement at the White House--the Department of the Interior said: Oh, by the way, American people, we are going to do this the day after Thanksgiving, when you are busy doing other things, maybe going shopping, doing other things and not paying attention to the news of the day. This administration called for additional fees, more taxes, more expenses on oil and gas leases on Federal land. That impacts my State dramatically. This is in addition to the fees that the President is also including in this massive tax- and-spending bill that the Senate is going to be considering. This is also economics 101. Higher fees on the cost of producing oil means higher prices for people at the pump--astonishing--making it harder to produce and more expensive to produce American energy. Begging OPEC and Russia to produce more to sell to us is a jackpot for Vladimir Putin. So if President Biden and his Department of the Interior get their way, the prices will go up even higher. Inflation is here to stay under the Democrats. The American people deserve better. They deserve real solutions in this energy crisis that this administration has created. Higher fees are only going to get passed on to consumers. Instead of spending our savings, we should be producing more American energy. Why are we sending this money to Vladimir Putin and begging him to produce more so we can send him even more money? That is the policy of this administration. Today, I am introducing legislation that says an administration needs to develop a plan to increase oil and gas production anytime an administration taps the Reserve unless there is an energy supply emergency like Katrina, like a war. Those are the things that are legitimate reasons to release energy from the Strategic Reserve. The Reserve is for emergencies, not for sound bites. It is not supposed to be a bandaid for bad policies. If the President is tapping the Reserve, he also ought to increase American energy production. So I urge my colleagues to return to the policies that gave us the best economic times in my lifetime, return to the policies that made us energy-independent as a nation for the first time in 70 years, return to the policies that made us the No. 1 producer of petroleum in the world. We are much stronger and better as a nation if we are selling American energy to our friends than if we have to buy it from our enemies. Apparently, the President does not fully grasp that or believe in that or he would not be begging Vladimir Putin to produce more energy; he would be encouraging America to produce more energy, which we have here. It is time to stop the restrictions on energy production, time to stop the rush to raise billions in taxes, time to stop the President and the Democrats' declared war on American energy.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the need for more American energy, not energy that the President is begging to OPEC or Russia to produce for America but American energy. Last week, President Biden ordered the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The President, by doing that, in my opinion, is just pretending to show concern about the high cost of energy in this country. I will get into why I think he is only pretending to show it because the amount he released is so very little. In reality, this President's call to release energy oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was an admission of failure of this President and this administration. Releasing oil from the Reserve is something that Presidents did in the past during times of war, the Iraq war, after Hurricane Katrina, and during the Arab Spring. In other words, it is something Presidents do in times of crisis. Well, President Biden doesn't want to admit that he has created an emergency crisis in our country, but his actions of calling on the release from the Strategic Reserve--the actions speak louder than his words. By releasing oil from the Reserve now, the President is admitting what every American knows, that America has an energy crisis and it is not for lack of the fact that we have plenty of energy reserves here in the United States. Last week, an estimated 50 million people over Thanksgiving weekend took to the roads. Those who drove paid the most for gasoline that they have in 7 years. Gasoline and diesel fuel prices are sky-high, and they have increased more than a dollar a gallon since Joe Biden took office just in January. Why is it happening? Well, it is economics 101, really. You have demand; you have supply. Demand is up; supply is down. With the end of the lockdown, demand for gasoline has increased as people took to the roads. Yet domestic supply is still below the peak that we reached under President Trump. The Biden administration wants us to believe that releasing oil will solve the problem when he taps the Strategic Reserve, but I don't even think President Biden believes it. I am not sure they actually know what they are doing. If you watched that press conference with the Secretary of Energy last week, she was asked how much oil the American people use. She admitted she didn't know. She said: I don't have a number in front of me. She didn't know how much oil, how much energy Americans use. The Nation's top energy official doesn't know how much oil the American people use so how can she then know that the amount to call for the release is the right amount or not? She is President Biden's top lieutenant in the war on American energy. She doesn't know how much we use. Well, the media has broadly reported that the total amount that Joe Biden is releasing from the Petroleum Reserve is what the American people use every 2\1/2\ days--every 2\1/2\ days. That is the total amount that is being released. It is the amount that we in the United States use every 2\1/2\ days. This is a drop in the bucket when it comes to oil prices and energy prices and what people are paying at the pump. It is not a long-term solution. It is not even a short-term solution. It is just a carefully created sound bite. Oil production is down by nearly 2 million barrels a day compared to the peak under President Trump. It is not a surprise when you take a look at the attack on American energy that President Biden and this administration have continued to do since day 1, when he killed the Keystone XL Pipeline. The administration also announced last week, without any fanfare, without the President making a statement at the White House--the Department of the Interior said: Oh, by the way, American people, we are going to do this the day after Thanksgiving, when you are busy doing other things, maybe going shopping, doing other things and not paying attention to the news of the day. This administration called for additional fees, more taxes, more expenses on oil and gas leases on Federal land. That impacts my State dramatically. This is in addition to the fees that the President is also including in this massive tax- and-spending bill that the Senate is going to be considering. This is also economics 101. Higher fees on the cost of producing oil means higher prices for people at the pump--astonishing--making it harder to produce and more expensive to produce American energy. Begging OPEC and Russia to produce more to sell to us is a jackpot for Vladimir Putin. So if President Biden and his Department of the Interior get their way, the prices will go up even higher. Inflation is here to stay under the Democrats. The American people deserve better. They deserve real solutions in this energy crisis that this administration has created. Higher fees are only going to get passed on to consumers. Instead of spending our savings, we should be producing more American energy. Why are we sending this money to Vladimir Putin and begging him to produce more so we can send him even more money? That is the policy of this administration. Today, I am introducing legislation that says an administration needs to develop a plan to increase oil and gas production anytime an administration taps the Reserve unless there is an energy supply emergency like Katrina, like a war. Those are the things that are legitimate reasons to release energy from the Strategic Reserve. The Reserve is for emergencies, not for sound bites. It is not supposed to be a bandaid for bad policies. If the President is tapping the Reserve, he also ought to increase American energy production. So I urge my colleagues to return to the policies that gave us the best economic times in my lifetime, return to the policies that made us energy-independent as a nation for the first time in 70 years, return to the policies that made us the No. 1 producer of petroleum in the world. We are much stronger and better as a nation if we are selling American energy to our friends than if we have to buy it from our enemies. Apparently, the President does not fully grasp that or believe in that or he would not be begging Vladimir Putin to produce more energy; he would be encouraging America to produce more energy, which we have here. It is time to stop the restrictions on energy production, time to stop the rush to raise billions in taxes, time to stop the President and the Democrats' declared war on American energy.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Owen for his hard work as an intern in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming. Owen is a native of Laramie. He is a graduate of the University of Wyoming, where he studied mathematics. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months. I want to thank Owen for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to David for his hard work as an intern in my Washington, DC, office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming. David is a native of Casper. He is a graduate student at George Washington University, where he is studying legislative affairs. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months. I want to thank David for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Hank for his hard work as an intern in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming. Hank is a native of Casper. He is a student at the University of Wyoming, where he is studying political science and economics. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months. I want to thank Hank for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Billy for his hard work as an intern in my Washington, DC, office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming. Billy is a native of Riverton. He is a student at Georgetown University, where he is studying government and English. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months. I want to thank Billy for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Brandon for his hard work as an intern in the Senate Republican conference. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming. Brandon is a native of Maryland. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, where he studied philosophy, politics, and economics. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months. I want to thank Brandon for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Matthew for his hard work as an intern in the Senate Republican conference. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming. Matthew is a native of Oklahoma. He is a graduate of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where he studied international affairs. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months. I want to thank Matthew for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.

Mr. BARRASSO

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

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about our Nation's defense. Last week, America marked Veterans Day. I was in Wyoming and started Veterans Day the way I do every year, which is in Douglas, WY, in Converse County, at the American Legion. We raised the flag at 7 a.m. We kicked off a day of Veterans Day ceremonies all around Wyoming. Last week, I visited with veterans all around the State. I will share with you the things that I hear all across Wyoming. What I continue to hear is that since Joe Biden took office, our Nation has become weaker--weaker--and the world has become more dangerous and our Nation is now less safe. In August, Joe Biden oversaw the tragic and failed withdrawal from Afghanistan. Because of the President's weakness, incompetence, and mismanagement, the Taliban took over Afghanistan in just a matter of weeks. Just before the withdrawal, terrorists killed 13 of our troops. It was the deadliest day for our military in a decade. One of those fallen heroes was Rylee McCollum of Wyoming. All of Wyoming felt the terrible loss of this 20-year-old marine. He was a statewide high school wrestling champ. On August 30, the Biden administration left hundreds of Americans behind enemy lines, in spite of the fact that the President said he wouldn't leave anyone behind. The administration has admitted to the Armed Services Committee that more than 400 Americans are still behind enemy lines. Joe Biden's Afghanistan surrender was a national disgrace. The consequences are being felt all around the world. Our friends are furious. Our enemies are emboldened. Last month, we saw a hypersonic missile being tested. We see that an emboldened Vladimir Putin now has stationed 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine. Vladimir Putin continues to speak of Ukraine as if it is part of Russia. North Korea showed last month that they can launch ballistic missiles from submarines. Iran will soon have much, much more cash than they did when President Biden took office. You say: How could that be? Well, one reason for the influx of cash is the rising price of oil and a weak enforcement of the sanctions that we have against Iran. It is easier for them to sell and more profitable to do so. The Biden administration is trying to negotiate with Iran from a position of weakness. Yet the most alarming developments are the strides being made right now in China. Since Afghanistan fell, China has aggressively flown dozens of military planes over Taiwan's air defense zones. The Pentagon admitted recently that China now has the largest navy in the world. China plans to build more than 100 new ships over the next 8 years. China is also building about 300 missile silos and plans to have 1,000 nuclear missiles in the next 8 years. China recently tested a hypersonic weapon capable of use around the world. These are pressing challenges, challenges like we haven't seen since the Cold War. This administration has been caught flatfooted. At the White House, utter incompetence. At the Pentagon, complete mismanagement. At the State Department, global weakness. No one has been fired. No one has been held accountable over the withdrawal from Afghanistan. No one has resigned. There has been no accountability. It is astonishing, but the President must still believe in his statement where he said it was ``an extraordinary success.'' He may be the only one in America who believes that. Our enemies are getting stronger, and the Democrats are asleep at the switch. The Pentagon Press Secretary was asked last week which is a bigger threat--which is a bigger threat--China or climate change? His response: ``They are equally important.'' This is the Pentagon Press Secretary. This isn't somebody at the EPA. This is somebody responsible for the defense of this Nation. This is not just false; it is absurd for this to be the policy of this administration. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is focused on fighting so-called dissident ideologies in our military. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified in Congress that he supports servicemembers studying critical race theory. Our enemies are not following that path. Oh, no, they are focused on winning wars. The Biden administration seems to be focused on liberal fantasies. Well, I believe it is about to get a lot worse. That is because President Biden's vaccine mandate will likely cause the discharge of thousands of servicemembers. It is certainly a concern of mine with our National Guard in Wyoming, as it is with troops around the country and around the world representing and defending our Nation. Recruitment was difficult already. Our troops are feeling the pain of inflation cutting into their paychecks, and now the President seems to be determined to decimate their ranks. I fully support vaccination. I am a doctor. I am vaccinated; so is my family. I am pro-vaccine. I am anti-mandate. At a time when our enemies are getting stronger, we don't need to drive the men and women who defend our Nation out of the military. Now, the Senate has still not passed the National Defense Authorization Act. The Senate went Independence Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day with no action on the Defense bill. The majority leader now says the Senate will finally get around to it. Why did it take so long? The Senate has been debating a reckless tax-and-spending blowout the American people did not ask for, do not want, cannot afford, as prices continue to grow and go up and up and up, when the cost of Thanksgiving dinner is going to be the most expensive in the history of our Nation. And we are here in the Senate and the House. What are they doing? They are debating taxpayer dollars for illegal immigrants instead of taxpayer dollars for American heroes. We have been debating taxpayer dollars for what Democrats call tree equity. The New York Times even wrote about it today. We ought to be debating national security. We should be talking about the U.S. Army instead of Democrats who have been talking about an army of climate activists and an army of IRS agents. We just honored veterans last Thursday. We will give thanks again for all of them next Thursday on Thanksgiving Day. It is time, today, for the United States to do right and for the Senate to do right by all of them. I urge my colleagues to focus on a bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act, the Defense bill, for the defense of our Nation. It is time we prove to the Nation that we do support our troops and we do protect them against--and protect all of us against--rising threats and keep this great Nation safe. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, this morning, the majority leader came to the floor of the Senate to talk about the Democrats' reckless tax- and-spending bill. Now, he repeated the claim that the bill would actually reduce inflation. It won't. Just like the claim the President makes that the cost of the bill will be zero, the American people know that that is not true either. The majority leader asked a question. He asked why not a single Republican would support the bill. Well, I am happy to respond to the majority leader and explain why the American people and the Republicans are rejecting what the Democrats are trying to force through the Congress. So I come to the floor today to talk about rising prices. Next Thursday will be the most expensive Thanksgiving ever. As the New York Times put it, the Thanksgiving dinner will wallop your wallet. Turkey prices are up 25 cents on the dollar so far this year. Prices for meat, poultry, fish, and eggs are up more than 10 cents on the dollar in just 1 year. Companies like Nestle and Procter & Gamble, well, they put out warnings that they are raising their prices. Who would have thought that in just 10 short months of the Biden Presidency we could set a record--a 30-year high record for inflation? Millions of families this year will sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, and in addition to eating turkey, families around the table will also be talking turkey. They are going to have difficult conversations about how to make ends meet. According to one estimate, families are now paying about $175 more every month because of inflation for the same things they were getting before Joe Biden became President. This works out to a $2,000 bite out of the paychecks annually of every working American. So what is happening? Why is it happening? It is for at least three reasons. First, Joe Biden's incompetence and mismanagement has caused the worst supply chain disruption in at least 40 years. Now, the supply chain crisis is largely the result of a labor shortage. Last week, the New York Times called the shortage of truck drivers--truck drivers; not of trucks, but of the drivers--the single biggest cause of the supply chain crisis. We don't have enough goods in large part because we don't have enough workers. This is the worst labor shortage in American history. There are more than 10 million jobs which have gone unfilled in recent months. We have broken new records for unfilled jobs in 5 of the last 9 months that Joe Biden has been in office. This isn't a coincidence. This is happening because of the policies that have been put in place by the Democrats in this administration. In March, President Biden and the Democrats extended a bonus payment to people who stayed home from work. Millions of people made more money by staying home instead of going to work. Well, in September, the bonus payment ran out. Then President Biden announced a nationwide vaccine mandate on the American people. Having been traveling around the State of Wyoming this past week, I will tell you it is a mandate that is taking a sledgehammer to the American workforce. Now, I fully support vaccination. I am a doctor. I am vaccinated, so are all the members of my family. I am pro-vaccine and anti-mandate. Imposing new mandates on workers during an unprecedented labor shortage is complete incompetence. Now, this mandate is only making the supply chain crisis worse. The President must have known that many would not comply with this mandate. He must have known that people would be forced out of their jobs by his mandate. It didn't seem to faze him; he imposed the mandate anyway. Now people are losing their jobs, shelves are empty, and prices continue to go up. The second major reason why prices are rising is President Biden's war on American energy. Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest travel times of the year. AAA estimates that more than 50 million Americans will take to the highway and travel next week--pretty standard for a Thanksgiving weekend. Those who drive will pay a lot more for gas than they did last year or the year before. It is the highest in 7 years. Gas prices are up about $1 a gallon in the number of months that President Biden has been in office. It is more expensive to travel. And it is getting more expensive also to stay warm. One in five American families has already cut spending to pay for their energy bill in the last year. Winter is coming. It is going to get worse. Some will have to choose between whether they can heat their home or whether they can eat a meal. Prices are so high, 11 Democratic Senators are pleading with the President to bring down gas prices. So what is Joe Biden's solution? Well, he admits he has no solution. He says that gas prices are going to stay high until the springtime. One of the President's top nominees for the Treasury Department says she wants to ``starve''--starve--American oil and gas. She actually said that we want--in her mind--``we want [oil and gas companies] to go bankrupt.'' She is the nominee to be the Comptroller of the Currency. The Secretary of Commerce was asked what the administration was doing to lower energy prices. She couldn't name a single thing. The Secretary of Energy apparently thinks high gas prices are funny. She was asked what she could do to increase oil production in America. She laughed and said: ``That is hilarious.'' The Secretary of Transportation also thinks it's funny. He is joking around that people need to start Christmas shopping early this year. So there you have the elites of the Biden administration--the elites of America--the people he has chosen to run these Agencies. They think it is funny. It is no laughing matter for the working families in Wyoming or all across America. So who gets hurt by high prices? The poor, people living on fixed incomes, families struggling to get by. Working families cannot afford what the Democrats are offering. Since Joe Biden became President, prices have gone up much faster than wages. In other words, the American people have taken a cut in the spending value of their paychecks. They can buy less with the same amount of money. And even if they have gotten a bit of a raise, the prices are taking a greater and greater bite out of that paycheck. So as we approach Thanksgiving, Democrats in Washington want to spend like it is already Black Friday. Democrats seem to think that every day is Black Friday, when you take a look at this reckless tax-and-spending bill where every page is over $1 billion of spending. They have already put $2 trillion on the credit card earlier this year. This is in addition to the bipartisan coronavirus relief that the Senate passed last year. But for Democrats, there is never enough spending. Taxing and spending: it is an addiction. They want to print more money, they want to spend more money. And right now, Democrats are pushing a reckless tax-and-spending bill, which will make inflation in this country even worse. Democrats say that the bill that they are proposing in the House right now will cost $2 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office will give a final report the end of the week. Experts say, if all of the programs they are proposing were to stay in place for the full 10 years in the budget system, the price is much closer--if not exceeding--$4 trillion. So if the Democrats pass this bill, we are talking about more spending, more debt, and higher prices. We are also, of course, talking about more taxes that ultimately will hit everyone in this country one way or the other. Last week, the New York Times reported ``many researchers . . . say the bill is structured in a way that could add to inflation next year.'' Not just this year; next year as well. Experts say this bill could increase the cost of childcare up to $13,000 for each and every family in America whose children need that care. This is already one of the biggest expenses on working families. They will nearly double that. And, of course, Democrats' spending spree would add over $400 billion in taxes on America's small businesses--the mom-and-pop businesses in the communities all around this country. Interestingly, at a time of high energy costs--we had a hearing about this this morning in the Energy Committee, the trend in prices on energy. Astonishingly, what the Democrats are proposing at this time are the highest natural gas prices in 7 years, and a tough season coming for the cost of heating oil and heating gas. This could raise taxes on American natural gas as well, when prices are at a 7-year high. What happens to these costs with these taxes? Of course, they get handed off to consumers in the form of higher prices. If Democrats pass this bill, the American people are going to pay more at the pump, more at the store, and more on tax day. So, last week, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said this bill would raise taxes on nearly one-third of middle-class families. Didn't Joe Biden say he wasn't going to do that? Well, who is right: the President of the United States, whose approval is at an all-time low and only 21 percent of Americans think the country is going in the right direction, or the Tax Policy Center that says that a third of all middle-class families will end up paying more taxes if this is signed into law? This is a blatant violation of the President's campaign promises. The last thing the American people need right now is higher taxes, more debt, and higher prices. The last thing the American people need is this reckless tax-and-spending spree. It is no wonder that 71 percent of Americans think our country today is on the wrong track, and this includes many Americans who actually voted last November for Joe Biden. What do the American people want? Well, they want us to produce more American energy so they can pay less for energy. They want us to make it easier for people to get back to work. They want higher wages and lower prices. That is not what we are hearing from the Democrats. So that is my response to the majority leader when he asks why not a single Republican would support this reckless tax-and-spending spree. With Thanksgiving coming, we need to stop this reckless spending ``cold turkey.'' I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BARRASSO

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

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today to oppose the Biden administration's agenda, which is anti-American energy. That is what we are facing in the country today. President Biden just got back from a trip to Europe. He went there to attend the United Nations' Climate Change Conference. I noted the previous speaker said he was jetting off to there this weekend, heading to Scotland. He also made reference to the Climate Corps, which is part of President Biden's agenda. He said: Who could criticize it? Well, I am happy to criticize it. That legislation is asking to hire 1 million Americans--1 million Americans--to protest, to wage war on oil, gas, and coal jobs, energy jobs in this country. This is at a time when we have 10 million open jobs in this country and ``Help Wanted'' signs all around my State and the States of all the Members on the floor today. Yet the Biden administration's answer to rising energy costs is to hire a million people to protest American energy and American jobs as the prices continue to go up and inflation continues to ravage the paychecks of the American people. So, yes, they are flying off to Scotland, so many of the Members on that side of the aisle. The Democrats have joined John Kerry. Nancy Pelosi is heading there. Many in this body from the Democratic side of the aisle will be joining them, heading there soon. Well, back at home, people are struggling with inflation that is at a 30-year high as a result of the policies of this administration. One in five American families has cut their spending this year. Why? To pay for the energy bills that are being brought forth by the policies of this administration, which is anti-American energy. The cost of a gallon of gasoline has gone up a dollar a gallon since President Biden has come into office. It means the cost of everything else is up as well because higher prices aren't just prices you pay at the pump; they are prices you pay at the grocery store. At the same time, the cost of natural gas has doubled, and it is now at a point where it is at the highest price it has been in 7 years. Half of the homes in this country are heated with natural gas. Winter is coming, and it is going to get worse. This leaves less money in people's paychecks. They pay so much to fill up, so much to heat their home, there is less money for their family. That is why the New York Times' front page story last week talked about Thanksgiving and the cost of walloping the wallet of American families. People are soon going to have to decide whether they will have the money to heat or to eat. That is what we are facing as a result of the agenda of this administration. So what is the President doing about it? Well, he went to Europe, and, astonishingly, he apologized to the world for America. He made unrealistic pledges to cut emissions. He said he was going to cut 1 billion tons in the next 8 years and went so far as to say the United States would reach zero emissions in 28 years. That would be a most dramatic change in the history of the American economy. It is a reckless promise. Yet the President did get the applause from the global elite. Well, the American people aren't applauding. The American people are wringing their hands today. The average European doesn't have reason to applaud either. Joe Biden left out a few important facts in his speech in Europe. He forgot to mention he had given Vladimir Putin the green light to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany. He failed to mention that Putin can now hold half of Europe hostage with natural gas. He failed to mention that today--today--in America, we are using more oil from Vladimir Putin's Russia than we are from the State of Alaska. Listen to this, Senators from Alaska, who follow these figures every day. The President failed to mention that he is actually asking Vladimir Putin to sell more oil to the United States, pump more oil, because he doesn't want it produced in the United States, and he is willing to kill American jobs in the process. Well, due to the policies of this President and his radical attacks on American energy, Vladimir Putin has hit the jackpot, and he is going to cash in for years to come. Working families all across Europe know better. They have seen this movie before. That is why, this morning, I have released a report. I have it here. It is called ``Europe's Energy Crisis: A Warning to America.'' The subheadline: ``Democrat plans to mimic Europe's energy and climate policies will lead to sky-high prices, less reliability, and shortages.'' That is where President Biden is leading the United States. It is no wonder that the national poll released last Sunday by NBC News showed only 22 percent of the American people believe the country is heading in the right direction under the Democrats and under this President. This report details how Europe has tried many of the environmental policies that the Democrats are proposing and want to pass today. The consequences have been devastating to families there and will be devastating to families here. Because of the policies, Europeans are paying some of the highest energy prices in the world, and much of the energy they use is undependable and unreliable. Prices are really high in America right now, but they are even higher in Europe. This spring, gasoline prices were at least 65 percent higher in Europe than they were in America. From 2005 to 2020, the cost of energy in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom increased between 28 and 71 percent, depending on the country. European industries pay at least 90 percent more for natural gas than American industries do. This is a major competitive advantage for American companies. Yet President Biden is doing everything he can to throw our competitive advantage away. This President is trying to pass legislation that will make it worse here at home. The largest piece of the President's spending bill is over $500 billion for the heavily criticized Green New Deal. It includes high payoffs for electric vehicle owners and an army of full- time climate activists that I just talked about. It includes higher taxes on American energy and higher prices for consumers. It would ban exploration for oil and gas off our shores and in the Arctic. All of these ideas will raise costs additionally for working families. My new report shows that Europe already tried the Democrats' environmental policies. The results were disastrous for Europe. They will be disastrous here. I urge my Democratic colleagues: Don't make this same mistake. Don't subject the people of the United States to the same punishing pain of the high cost of energy that people are sustaining right now in Europe. Stop raising prices. Stop making life harder. The American people and American producers and American families deserve better. I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to oppose the Democrats' reckless tax-and-spending spree. On Thursday, President Biden came here to Capitol Hill to meet with Democrats over in the House. Just hours before he got here, economists sounded the alarms once again about the economy that our Nation is facing under President Biden. Economic growth slowed to just 2 percent. Now, this is the slowest it has been since the post-pandemic recovery began. This was also significantly lower than even the experts expected. So there was a disconnect. It was really low and even lower than they expected. Growth is slowing down; hiring is slowing down; and shelves are empty all across America. We have a growing supply chain nightmare. Prices continue to go up. I heard about it all across the State of Wyoming this past weekend. So what did President Biden do in response? Well, he ignored the alarm bells. He gave his blessing to the latest version of this reckless tax-and-spending bill. And the new version looks a lot like the old version--just as radical, just as reckless, and just as unpopular with the American public. There is nothing really new in the bill except more budget gimmicks. And it is interesting that NBC News, this weekend, came out with a poll that only 22 percent--only about one in five Americans think that, under Joe Biden and the Democrats, the country is on the right path. Seventy-one percent said we are on the wrong path. And the bill that is being proposed by the Democrats is still about 2,500 pages long and still contains the worst parts of the old bill. So what is in the new one? Well, here are a couple of things. It still supersizes the IRS. This new bill would still give the Internal Revenue Service $80 billion to hire an army of IRS agents. Now, Democrats know this is unpopular, yet they continue to defend the proposal. Why would that be? The American people have spoken out. They complained to Congress. Democrats don't seem to care. That is because Democrats need to squeeze working Americans for more of the hard-earned money they make. Why do they want it? So the Democrats can spend it. What do they want to spend it on? Well, the largest part of this bill has to do with energy. It would spend half a trillion dollars for parts of the Green New Deal. That includes over $2.5 billion for something they call tree equity. It still includes enormous handouts to people who buy electric luxury vehicles. Now, we already give billions and billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidy to electric vehicle makers and owners. This would be even more. Studies show 80 percent of these subsidies go to households making more than $100,000 each. Well, Democrats say that is not enough. This bill still would give $12,500 to couples making up to $800,000 a year to buy luxury electric vehicles. The bill still includes the $1,500 payouts to people who buy electric bicycles. It is a mystery to me how electric bicycles can be better for the environment than regular bicycles. They are obviously not. It just shows that this policy is really not about the environment; it is about payoffs to Democrat elites in the big cities. That is why the bill still includes the Civilian Climate Corps. Now, this is an army of full-time, taxpayer-funded climate activists. They would get paid generous stipends and salaries. And what would they get paid to do? To protest American energy projects. Now, just last week, climate protesters stopped traffic in New York City during rush hour. People were just trying to get to work or get home, just trying to take their kids to school, yet they had to sit in traffic because of professional protesters, and this administration wants to hire up to a million of them. Now, Democrats know this isn't popular. That is why they changed the name of the Climate Corps in the new bill. They didn't change the purpose. Now they are trying to call it the Land Corps. It sounds like a harmless group. It is the same civilian climate army, a green army to attack American oil, gas, and coal. Now, this name change alone is an admission that this idea is very unpopular. Democrats know the American people don't want to spend billions of dollars to subsidize protesters. A recent poll found 90 percent of Americans are unwilling to pay more than $100 a year to fight climate change. We are already paying more than $1,000 a year in energy costs to drive and to heat our homes due to Joe Biden's energy policies. This is $1,000 more than we did last year. At home this past weekend in Wyoming, I noted and talked to folks while I was filling up that gas is a dollar a gallon higher than it was when Joe Biden took office. Natural gas prices have doubled, and that means a lot because half of the families in America use natural gas to power their homes. This bill also increases taxes on American energy production. Democrats specifically target a new tax on natural gas production. So this would raise taxes and prices significantly--even higher--for American families who already this winter are facing a 7-year high in the cost of natural gas and are already trying to decide this winter are they going to be able to heat or to eat. That is becoming a concern of families all across America under Joe Biden's agenda and economy. One in five American families have already cut their spending to pay for their energy bills this year. The American public and people are paying too much for Joe Biden's energy agenda. They don't want to pay a penny more. They are tired of it, fed up. Democrats know their agenda is unpopular with the American public. That is why this bill would also permanently change the makeup of the country, because the new version of the bill would give amnesty for millions upon millions of illegal immigrants. The Parliamentarian has said Democrats couldn't pass amnesty in the last version of the bill, yet Democrats want amnesty so badly they are going to try it all over again. Apparently, version C is coming soon. This is supposed to be a spending bill, not an immigration bill. If they want to do an immigration bill, they ought to introduce an immigration bill. Yet Democrats know that they don't have the votes to pass the kind of immigration bill that they want to pass--not at a time when we have a flood of illegal immigrants coming across the southern border, with more on the way. So they are trying to cram it into this spending bill. They are hoping that the American public won't notice. If Democrats have their way, this would be the most consequential immigration bill in half a century. The bill would give millions of illegal immigrants amnesty and then give them plenty of taxpayer money because this bill includes new permanent welfare programs with no work requirements--none at all--and no citizenship requirements. That is what the Democrats are proposing. It is no wonder that we have a border crisis at our southern border, a flood of illegal immigrants. With this bill, Democrats are promising amnesty, as well as free childcare, free preschool, and even free college to illegal immigrants. This is in addition to the $300 checks they already sent to illegal immigrants with the spending bill that the Democrats passed along party-line votes in March. Democrats seem to do everything that they can to reward illegal immigration. The Wall Street Journal reports the Biden administration now wants to give millions of dollars to families who came here illegally in 2018 and were detained for illegal entry. The number being reported is that the Biden administration wants to give them $450,000 a person. Now, this is more than six times the annual income of a typical American family, Mr. President. It is more than 50 times the per-capita income of El Salvador. $450,000 per person will mean millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars for families who came here illegally. You talk about an incentive for people to come here illegally--this is exhibit A. The total payout could be more than a billion dollars. Now, let me just contrast that number of $450,000 with the fact that those who lose their lives defending the country, like a marine--a young marine from Wyoming, Rylee McCollum, who was one of the 13 killed in Kabul, Afghanistan--the United States sends to those families $100,000, and Joe Biden is promising 4\1/2\ times that much for people who came here illegally. Mr. President, the Democrats say this is a new bill. It is the same old Democrat agenda: high energy costs, amnesty for illegal immigrants, welfare and payoffs to wealthy donors. And this is the bill endorsed by the President of the United States. It is no wonder that 71 percent of Americans this past weekend said this country is heading in the wrong direction. It is the wrong direction under the Democrats and under Joe Biden. Democrats ought to listen to the American people. People are furious with this administration. Listen to the sirens blaring with the poor economic numbers reported last week. It is time to stop making the Biden economy even worse. It is time to stop the freefall. Stop this reckless tax and spending before the administration does even further damage to our economy and our country. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, first, let me commend my colleague, the former Governor of North Dakota and now the senior Senator from North Dakota, for his very thoughtful comments with which I agree. I come to the floor today, as well, to talk about energy prices, which we know are spiking all across the country. As the President is soaring off to a climate conference in Scotland, energy prices are soaring here at home. This year alone, we have seen energy costs spiking for families all across this country. Energy prices have gone up not just a little; they have gone up a lot. The cost of filling your tank with gas is up about $1 a gallon today as compared to the day that Joe Biden was sworn into office. As a result, my constituents in Wyoming are paying about $25 to $30 more per tank every time they fill up--every time they go to the pump--than they would have done in January, when Joe Biden was sworn in. It is not just gasoline prices that are up in our cars and trucks; it is natural gas prices that are way up--a 7-year high for gas at the pump and a 7-year high for natural gas. And all of these things are impacting people, especially as winter is coming. People use natural gas to heat their homes and cool their homes, and they use natural gas to cook. Well, you know, it really shouldn't be this way wherein we see these skyrocketing prices because, in America, we have the largest energy resources in the world. Many of them are in my home State of Wyoming. Under the last Presidential administration, America became the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world, yet, in what we saw on the first day of his administration, President Biden declared war on American energy, on energy produced here at home in America. On that very first day in office, he killed the Keystone XL Pipeline. That action immediately ended the jobs of thousands of individuals at the height of a pandemic. President Biden didn't stop there. He went further when he shut down the exploration of oil and gas in the Arctic. He banned oil and gas leasing on Federal lands and in Federal waters. It was ruled illegal, and he did it anyway. President Biden's radical, anti-American energy agenda is hurting our economy, and people in every State of the Union are paying the price and feeling the pain today. They are feeling it with higher energy bills. Anytime they pay an energy bill, they are paying more. So what do the Democrats want to do about this? Well, it is pretty obvious they want to make it worse. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are pushing a $3.5 trillion reckless tax-and-spending spree. Last month, in the Energy Committee, of which I am the ranking member, one Commissioner of the FERC--the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission--had something to say about this $3.5 trillion spending bill. He said it would be like an ``H bomb''--an ``H bomb''--on America's electric markets. That is because the bill that the Democrats are trying to push through on a party-line vote is actually just the disastrous Green New Deal with a new name. So what is in this bill? Well, it would effectively kill coal, oil, and natural gas permitting on Federal lands. It would replicate California's unreliable electric grid, and it would do it on a national scale. The result would be what they have seen in California: rolling blackouts, service that is less reliable, and costs that are even higher. The Democrats' bill would impose punishing new taxes on natural gas producers. What happens to that? Well, of course, these fees would be passed along to the consumers. Where will they see it? Well, in their energy bills. It would create a new tax on mining firms based on how much dirt they moved. The Democrats literally, in their legislation, with 40 different taxes in it, now have a dirt tax. The bill would waste $27 billion on a slush fund for environmental activists. Now, it is not clear exactly what all of this $27 billion would be used for--$27 billion--but we can be sure that taxpayers won't be getting their money back. Taxpayers will never see that money again. How they actually dish out the money is completely open-ended, but what we do know is it can be used to hire environmental activists, armies of lawyers and mobs, to protest because their goal is to shut down energy and our industries and the energy economy, harming families and throwing people out of work. Then, finally, this large bill would give huge tax breaks to rich people who want to buy electric vehicles. The Democrats' spending bill would give up to $12,500 to married couples who make as much as $800,000 a year. They would get a tax break. All they would need to do is buy a luxury electric vehicle. The American people are already paying high energy prices. They are doing it because President Biden is blocking American energy. You know there isn't enough supply to meet the demand, and the Democrats have complained about it. So how do they make the situation worse? Well, they impose punishing fees; they waste billions of taxpayer dollars; they shut down the abundant and affordable energy sources that fuel our economy. And, of course, all of these are good-paying jobs. American families can't afford the Democrats' reckless tax-and-spending spree. So here we are today with the President's going off to Scotland. He will be there for Halloween, and people around this country will be suffering the nightmare of high energy costs. Not that long ago, we were a nation of energy wealth and energy dominance, but this President and this administration have changed it to make us a nation of energy weakness and a nation that is now dependent upon others for energy. The American people wouldn't believe that we are, today, using more energy and more oil from Russia than we are from Alaska, but that is what this President has brought to this country--a jackpot for Vladimir Putin--and energy workers who are out of work here at home. It is a disgrace. I yield the floor.