John Barrasso

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, last month, the American people created 379,000 new jobs across our country. The unemployment rate fell to 6.2 percent. Our economy is recovering. We are actually on our way back to normal. In early February, the Congressional Budget Office published a report on this. The report says that our economy will reach the same size that it was before the pandemic, and it will do it in just a few months. It says this summer our economy will be back to normal. Now, the CBO made that projection weeks before the Democrats passed and the President signed into law a $1.9 trillion wish list. In other words, our economy would be back to normal even had they never passed the bill. We would be back to normal without a dime of this incredible high amount of spending We didn't need the liberal wish list. The country doesn't need it. Yet it is obvious why Democrats rushed--rushed--their liberal wish list into law. They wanted to stamp their name on the recovery that was coming, no matter what. I have no doubt that that is the goal. Yet the truth is clear: This is not President Biden's recovery. President Biden inherited three vaccines--successful vaccines, vaccines that work and are safe. President Biden inherited 2 million tests a day for coronavirus. President Biden inherited falling coronavirus numbers. He also inherited a recovering economy. Last year, we saw the fastest economic recovery in American history. The unemployment rate fell by half in 6 months. The American people created more than 12 million jobs coming back from the pandemic. They did it in just 6 months. That is more jobs than were created in the 8 years of the Obama-Biden administration. Now, this was in large part because of the foundation laid by Republicans before the pandemic, with President Trump's economic programs in the White House. Republicans cut taxes for the middle class, on job creators. We cut regulations, and we cut government redtape. We made a better trade deal with our neighbors. Our agenda worked. Just before the pandemic hit, the unemployment rate was down to 3.6 percent. The American people created more than 7 million new jobs under President Trump. We saw record-low unemployment for Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and African Americans. We reached the lowest unemployment rate for women in 60 years. When America began to reopen, the success of that agenda helped us recover at a record pace. The economy is also recovering because we are making progress against the virus. With Republicans in the White House and a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, we passed more than $4 trillion in coronavirus relief. Unlike the Democrats' relief wish list, all five of our bills were bipartisan. They each got 90 votes in the Senate or more. Operation Warp Speed broke records for vaccine development. A new vaccine typically takes about 10 years from the lab to people's arms. The previous record for a vaccine was for mumps. It took 4 years. Last year, we achieved two coronavirus vaccines in 10 months. We broke records, and it wasn't even close. The Food and Drug Administration made dozens of cuts to regulations in order to make this happen. The Biden administration has not played it straight with the American people about coronavirus. We remember when Vice President Harris said that there was ``no national strategy or plan for vaccinations.'' We were delivering millions of doses of vaccines in December. President Biden said: ``We got into office and there was nothing in the refrigerator''--``nothing in the refrigerator.'' The Biden campaign and now the Biden administration has repeatedly misled the American people on the coronavirus. They have repeatedly taken credit for things for which they deserve no credit. Mark my words. This summer they are going to try to take credit for our recovery. If they do, they will be flat-out wrong. Our recovery was booming under the Republican agenda, and it was an agenda of low taxes and fewer regulations. That is the agenda that the American people need to get our economy booming again.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about President Biden's runaway spending proposals. Of course, as a conservative Republican, when I look at this thing, I have to say: Wait a second. This is not something that I can support in any way. We have a 50-50 Senate here in the United States. The Democrats have won a narrow margin in the House, but the Democrats in Washington are acting like they have won in a landslide and have a national mandate. They do not. If there is any mandate when you have a 50-50 Senate and when you have such a narrow range in the numbers between the Republicans and the Democrats in the House, you would say it is a mandate to move to the middle. That is what the American people voted for. They said: Let's get to the middle. Let's find solutions to move our country forward. It does seem, to me, what the Democrats are doing is an unprecedented overreach. The Democrats have only had control in Washington for about a month and a half, and it has already cost the American people $1.9 trillion. It is an astonishingly large figure. It was supposed to be for coronavirus relief, but 1 percent of the money went for vaccines, and only 9 percent went to actually fighting the coronavirus. Yet, before they passed the bill, that is what the Democrats said it was for. It does seem to be the oldest page in the Democratic playbook. We all remember the old ObamaCare bill and debate and discussion. They said it was a tax. When they needed votes in Congress, they said it wasn't a tax. Then they realized they were going to lose in court, and they said it was a tax all over again. Well, we have seen the same playbook here. They said we needed more coronavirus relief, and then they passed this liberal wish list. Once they had the votes, they admitted the bill was not about coronavirus medical relief, healthcare relief or vaccines or fighting the disease. No--a liberal wish list. Now, don't just take my word for it. The Democratic majority leader, standing right there, called it a ``turning point'' that transforms the United States. The White House Press Secretary called it the ``most progressive bill in American history.'' One Democratic leader in the House called it an ``ideological revolution.'' I guess they forgot it was supposed to be about the coronavirus. It doesn't sound like coronavirus healthcare relief to me. After the bill passed, Speaker Pelosi admitted this was the same bill that she put forward last summer. Back then, the New York Times looked at it and called it ``more a messaging document than a viable piece of legislation.'' POLITICO called it a ``Democratic wish list filled up with all the party's favorite policies.'' This was never a coronavirus relief bill. They used the coronavirus to cover the payoff to all of the most powerful people in the Democratic Party: $85 billion to union pension plans, irresponsibly run; $26 billion for California Gavin Newsom; $12.5 billion for New York and Governor Andrew Cuomo; a big payoff for teachers unions and potentially millions for Planned Parenthood. President Biden signed the bill, and then he gave a speech a few hours later. In effect, he admitted the bill doesn't get us 1 day closer to reopening our country. This is what this was supposed to be about--getting kids back to school, getting people back to work, and getting the virus behind us. President Biden said ``there is a good chance'' that small groups of people can get together outside in July. Well, he said, ``that doesn't mean large events.'' The Democrats spent $1.9 trillion, and, once again, they moved the goalposts. Congress has already paid for enough vaccines for every American to get vaccinated by the end of May. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that getting vaccinated means getting your life back. This is what they told us. It means you can have indoor gatherings without masks. America needs to be fully open before the Fourth of July. The Democrats haven't even finished their victory lap over the spending bill, and they are already telling us they want more. Here are just a few examples of what they propose to do, not with their money but with the American people's money--the taxpayers' money, the hard- earned dollars of the people who go to work every day and send their tax dollars to Washington. In their $1.9 trillion wish list, the Democrats tried to double the minimum wage by Federal mandate. They failed, but they are going to keep trying. Now, of course, the Office of Management and Budget, which took a look at this thing, said: Well, if they had succeeded, it would have forced 1.4 million Americans who have jobs right now to be out of their jobs because, when you mandate a doubling of the minimum wage, small businesses are either going to have to close or lay off certain people so they can pay the wages to others in an effort to keep the doors open. It means less tax revenue overall for the country, and it means more spending for unemployment insurance. If you add it up, it would increase the national debt by about an additional $54 billion. In their $1.9 trillion wish list, the Democrats also wrote a big check to the teachers unions. Now, they actually didn't need the money because, in the five bipartisan coronavirus bills that we have passed in overwhelming majorities, we sent schools $113 billion. The schools haven't even spent most of that money yet. In fact, they have only spent about $16 billion of the $113 billion. There is almost $100 billion yet to spend. On top of that, the Democrats have just put up another $170 billion in their wish list. If you add it up, that is nearly $270 billion to spend with no promise--none--to reopen the schools. The Democratic leader wants to forgive $1 trillion in student loans. Subsidizing student loans just lets colleges raise prices. That is exactly what would happen if Leader Schumer's plan were to become law. Colleges don't need to raise prices. They need to lower the cost of education. Senator Sanders has an even more radical proposal. He wants to forgive all Federal student loans, and that would cost $1.6 trillion. Forgive them all. Just forgive all of the loans. It doesn't matter. Rich or poor, forgive all of the loans. Well, that would drive up the price of tuition even higher. If it allows colleges to get the money directly from the Federal Government without having to go through the students, the costs will escalate dramatically. Let me remind my Democratic colleagues that most Americans don't have college degrees. Yet, under the Democratic plan, all taxpayers--all taxpayers--would have to pay for the college tuitions for all of the students, including those who have families who can clearly afford to pay the tuitions to the colleges which they attend. It doesn't matter. If you go to the most exclusive college or if you go to your State college, if you have a debt, we are going to get rid of it, says the Democratic proposal, and the hard-working taxpayers of America are going to be stuck with the bill. Count me out on that one. The Democrats want to take tax dollars from people who don't have college degrees or who never went to college and give it to the leftwing professors at so many universities, and this is wrong. President Biden also wants to double down on ObamaCare. He thinks ObamaCare didn't go far enough. According to one estimate, President Biden's healthcare plan would cost about an additional $2.25 trillion. These are astronomically large figures. His housing plan would cost $640 billion. The Democrats have proposed another $2 trillion in infrastructure spending. One Democratic Senator even called for doubling that amount--$4 trillion in new infrastructure spending. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on. If you add up all of the new spending proposals by the Democrats and the White House and the Senate, it could cost nearly $12 trillion. By the end of this year, the national debt is going to be bigger than our economy, and we have the biggest economy in the world. Even before the Democrats passed their wish list, we were on track this year to have the second biggest deficit since World War II. When the Democrats increase spending, we know what is next--massive tax increases on the American public. We heard it yesterday in the news. It was in the headlines. That is President Biden's plan--the first major tax increase in 28 years. He is proposing the biggest tax increase since 1993. He wants to raise taxes on businesses and on families, and he even wants to resurrect the death tax. Let me remind President Biden what happened after 1993. A year later, the Republicans took back the House and took back the Senate. The 2020 elections were close. The American people didn't vote for this radical agenda, and it is a radical agenda. They didn't vote for $12 trillion in new spending and new taxes with increased tax rates and increased taxes on long-term investments like your home and increased taxes like the death tax--oh--and more money for the IRS so it can send agents to investigate the American public even further. I would urge the Biden administration and my Democratic colleagues to listen to the people and to the people from whom I hear every weekend in Wyoming. It is time to put down the credit card. It is time to stop the spending spree. It is time to move to the middle to solve problems--that would be best for our Nation if we would address them-- for the people of this great Nation. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, today the Senate is debating the nomination of Deb Haaland, a Member of Congress, to serve as Secretary of the Interior. If confirmed, she will be the first Native American Cabinet member in U.S. history. This is a historic moment, and it should be recognized. I want to be very clear with you. Representative Haaland's policy views and lack of substantive answers during her nomination hearing, in my opinion, disqualify her for this job. In May of 2019, Representative Haaland said unequivocally in an interview with The Guardian: ``I am wholeheartedly against fracking and drilling on public lands.'' On her campaign website, she stated she wanted to ``keep fossil fuels in the ground.'' On the same site, she pledged to ``vote against all new fossil fuel infrastructure,'' period. I, along with many western Senators, have consistently opposed nominees who hold such views, and in my opinion and the opinion of my constituents, these views are extreme. Representative Haaland's views aren't just statements; they are backed up by legislation that she has cosponsored. As a Member of Congress, she was a day-one cosponsor of the Green New Deal. Now we are talking about destructive legislation that would not just overhaul American energy but would impact almost every sector of society and cause great harm to America's economy. That bill was so extreme that when it was brought here to the Senate floor, it received no support. None. She also cosponsored legislation to provide permanent Federal protections for the grizzly bear. I believe that legislation is also extreme, and I will tell you why. The legislation that she proposed as a Member of the House completely disregards the scientific conclusions of the Bush administration, the Obama administration, and the Trump administration. How many things can we name that all three of those Presidents agreed upon? But the three of them did. They all concluded--the Obama administration, the Bush administration, and the Trump administration concluded that it was time to take the grizzly bear off the endangered species list. Both Democratic and Republican Interior Departments determined that the grizzly bear was fully recovered, but Representative Haaland has chosen instead to ignore the science and the scientists of the very Department that she is now nominated to lead. Representative Haaland's policy views are squarely at odds with the mission of the Department of the Interior. That mission includes taking species off of an endangered species list when they are recovered, and the grizzly bear is fully recovered. That Department also manages our Nation's oil, gas, and coal resources and does it in a responsible manner, not eliminating access to them completely. Just as troubling as her policy views were her answers to questions during the confirmation process. She struggled or refused to answer the basic questions any nominee for the Department of the Interior would be expected to know and answer. She was unwilling or unable to respond to questions about the Department, about resource policy, and about the laws that she was asked to implement. I asked her why the Biden administration wouldn't just let energy workers keep their jobs. She had no good answer. American jobs are being sacrificed in the name of the Biden agenda, and Representative Haaland wouldn't defend it--couldn't defend it. Senator Risch had to ask her multiple times if she supported shutting down the Keystone Pipeline before she admitted that she did. He then asked her multiple times why she thought that was a good idea, and she never really gave an answer. Her written answers to the questions for the record were equally vague and unacceptable. In one response to a question of mine, she refused to acknowledge that the United States has higher environmental standards for oil and for gas production than Russia or Nigeria--would not acknowledge that. The American people deserve straight answers from a potential Secretary about the law, about the rules, and about the regulations that are going to affect so many lives and livelihoods. She gave very few of those at her nominating hearing and in her written responses. Representative Haaland's extreme views, cosponsorship of catastrophic legislation, and lack of responsiveness disqualify her from this important position as Secretary of the Interior. If she is allowed to implement her Green New Deal-inspired policies at the Department of the Interior, the results for America's energy supply and economy will be catastrophic. So I cannot support and will not support her nomination, and I urge other Senators also to vote against the nomination. 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. Mr. President, I rise today to submit for the Record a letter sent to the U.S. Senate from Cathy and Bill Schreiber of Wilson, WY. I recently had the opportunity to visit with Bill. He shared with me his optimism for the future of our Nation and his belief that the ``worst of the pandemic is behind us.'' In their letter, Cathy and Bill expressed support for helping those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many people, they felt assistance should be targeted to only those individuals truly impacted by the pandemic. They offered sincere, honest options to make sure the relief got in the hands of those who need it, while limiting the financial strains additional debt spending will create for our Nation. Cathy and Bill asked that I share their letter with the Senate. It expresses their confidence in the future and their compassion for others who continue to be adversely impacted by the current pandemic. I ask unanimous consent that their letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to oppose President Biden's Executive orders on immigration. Now, there are more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the country today. This is a group equivalent to the population of the entire State of Georgia, and this number has nearly tripled in the last 30 years. In fact, some experts say the number is a lot higher than that. Folks at Yale and MIT and the researchers there said it could actually be twice as high; it could be 22 million people in the country illegally. Well, that is more than the population of the entire State of New York. So it appears to me that illegal immigration is making a mockery of our borders. Yet President Biden and this administration refuse to admit, even as of this morning, that there is a crisis at the southern border. Now, if you talk to law enforcement all across the country, they will tell you that many of the problems that they face every day are problems related to our open southern border. The Drug Enforcement Administration has said for nearly a decade now that the vast majority of illegal drugs in America come here across the southern border. Now, I am a doctor. I will tell you, these drugs have killed thousands of Americans. They kill thousands of Americans every year. They tear families apart. They lead to heartbreaking stories. They rob people of their God-given potential. Our law enforcement, our Coast Guard, our border agents, they do heroic work every day to intercept drugs, to stop human trafficking. They can't do it alone. They need the support of the U.S. Senate. Well, during the debate last week over the spending bill, we had a chance to give them support. Senator Cruz introduced an amendment to prevent checks from going to illegal immigrants. Democrats blocked it. Senator Cotton introduced an amendment to cut the bailout funding to sanctuary cities. Well, these are cities that actively try to prevent Federal agents--actively try to prevent Federal agents from enforcing our immigration laws. Democrats blocked the amendment. So no wonder we have a crisis at the border. Democrats seem to be advertising to the entire world: Come here now. If you come here illegally, you can get a check, possibly. If you are an immigration enforcement officer, Democrats seem to block them from doing their own job. President Biden has already issued at least seven Executive orders on immigration. In just over a month in office, President Biden has already proven to be the most open-border President in U.S. history. Now we face an entirely predictable crisis at the border. That crisis rests squarely at President Biden's feet. On his first day in office, President Biden shut down construction of the southern border wall. By the time the day was over, President Biden stopped all deportations for a hundred days. It didn't matter to President Biden what you were going to be deported for. No. Now, maybe you are a serious criminal. President Biden says: You can stay longer. A court has already stepped in and said this is illegal, this Executive order. President Biden has, astonishingly, brought back the idea of catch- and-release--catch-and-release. He has ordered our immigration agents to release illegal immigrants into the United States, and he is doing it in the middle of a pandemic. Senator Cotton and I sent a letter to the President raising this concern. It is now harder to go to church in some parts of America than it is to cross the border into America. Under President Trump, if you wanted to apply for asylum in this country, you had to remain in Mexico. That was the policy. The policy of ``Remain in Mexico'' was based on the standards of international law. To get asylum, you have to show that you can't live safely in your home country because of persecution--understandable. Yet the fact is that most illegal immigrants don't come here because of persecution. They come here for economic reasons. They want a better job. They want better schools for their kids. They are understandable motives; nonetheless, they are not standards for asylum. Now, another requirement for asylum is that you have to go to the nearest safe country and seek asylum. You don't get to pick anywhere you want to go in the world. You have to go to the nearest safe country. Yet people around the world know that our asylum system here in the United States has become a sham. It is no secret that it is easy to game the system, and it is being gamed regularly in the Biden administration. So they often stop in at least one other safe country, and they apply for asylum here. President Biden now says: You don't have to wait in Mexico. Cross the border. We will give you a court date years from now, years from now, and after they give you the court date, they release you into the United States. Even those who know they don't qualify and will not qualify for asylum, they come anyway because they know they get released into the United States. It happens all the time. Just before the new administration took over, the Department of Homeland Security published a report about this. According to the Department, our border agents apprehended 3.5 million illegal immigrants along the southern border between 2014 and 2019. Only 8 percent of them--only 8 percent, 1 out of 12--ended up receiving legal protection from being deported, but the Department says half of them are still here in the United States. How does that happen? They didn't show up. President Biden has also started an unprecedented expansion of the refugee program. The most refugees that this country has ever resettled in a single year was 85,000 in President Obama's final year in office. President Biden wants to break the record. He wants to increase it to 125,000. It will be the most, by far. President Biden has told his administration to bring back the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA. Now, this is a program for people who were brought here illegally while they were children. It is not the children's fault. Yet DACA is illegal, plain and simple. President Obama has admitted it. Liberal activists asked him to do it. At least 10 different times President Obama said: No, I can't do it. It is illegal. Then an election year came. He decided to do it anyway. As you and I know, we are a nation of compassionate people. We are giving. We are generous. We have the most generous immigration system in the world. The issue before us is one that should be handled by Congress, not by Executive order--not through an illegal Executive order, and DACA is still illegal. I expect a court will ultimately strike it down. So this is some of what President Biden has done by Executive order. At the same time, he is trying to cram an even more radical agenda through Congress. Last month, President Biden's immigration bill was introduced in the Senate. It already has the support of 26 cosponsors on the Democratic side of the aisle. It includes the majority leader, Senator Schumer. Well, this bill will give illegal immigrants not just amnesty, citizenship--citizenship. Democrats in Washington tried that in 2007, the year I arrived in the Senate. The American people picked up the phone. They actually shut down the phone lines, shut down the switchboards here in the U.S. Senate. They were all calling in to say no. Democrats in Washington tried it again in 2013. The American people picked up the phone again. The American people said no. And we said no in the Senate. We said no in 2007, no in 2013. The American people are going to say no again in 2021. Now, President Biden has issued, signed a lot of Executive orders; many of them, the ones I talked about with people at home this weekend in Wyoming, very unpopular. Polls show his immigration order is the most unpopular of them all. President Biden should keep in mind that it was a very close election in November. We have a 50-50 Senate, very narrow margins in the House. The American people, for the first time, are finding out just how liberal Joe Biden is. Many of them are already having buyer's remorse. They didn't believe he would be this radical and his actions would be this scary. President Biden needs to listen to the American people. The American people don't want a radical, extreme, dangerous, scary agenda. We want safe communities. We want laws obeyed. We want a secure border. It is time to stand up to this radical agenda. Our immigration system is broken. Instead of breaking it further, we should work together to fix it. Let's protect our communities, protect our American workers, and secure our southern border. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BARRASSO

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

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, first, I would like to associate myself with the outstanding remarks from the senior Senator from Iowa, whose long experience in this body is one that we all look to with great admiration and respect. When he speaks on this, he is well known for his fundamental focus on taxpayer dollars and making sure money isn't wasted, making sure money is directed to the areas where it is supposed to go, where it is needed the most. When he points out how this is a bill basically piled on with pork--and he is from Iowa; he knows about pork--he points out how misguided this effort is, how expensive it is, and how misdirected it is. I just want to associate myself with these wonderful remarks of the senior Senator from Iowa, and it is a pleasure and a privilege to serve with him.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I also come to the floor today to talk about the need for integrity in our elections. In 2020, the American people voted for a 50-50 Senate. We are in that body today. And they gave Republicans nearly a dozen more seats in the House of Representatives. In the Presidential election, 37 electoral votes were decided by less than 1 percent in those States. Without those 37 electoral votes, President Biden would have failed to achieve a majority in the electoral college. This was a close election. The reason it is a close election is it is a closely divided country. I am home every weekend in Wyoming and the two things I hear about is, one, this massive bill in front of the Senate right now--a $1.9 trillion amount of money that is all going to be added to the debt--and the concern for that spending. And the other issue is the integrity of our elections. So we have a close election. We have a closely divided country. If you would think anything, that should be a mandate to move to the middle, to find common ground, and to work for solutions. It is the kind of things that the President talked about in his inaugural address on January 20. At a time like this, Americans want to make sure that our own elections are safe and secure and fair. I think voters, no matter what their political party or predisposition is--I think all voters deserve that, and they want it. But when Republicans raise questions about the integrity of the election, well, we are attacked, and we have seen that now. In fact, earlier this very week, the majority leader of the U.S. Senate spoke of ``the pernicious and nasty guise of election integrity.'' ``Pernicious and nasty guise of election integrity''--the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. He attacked the motives of millions of Americans who want to be confident in our elections. Every American ought to want to be confident in our elections. But it looks like though some Democrats may accuse us of this, many Democrats share our concerns. I hear that from both sides of the aisle. Democrats in Iowa, right now, are contesting a congressional race, and as I stand here, Democrats in the House are considering the most sweeping changes--and this is reason I am here--to election laws in decades. Their bill is nearly 800 pages long. It is called H.R. 1, No. 1. To me, that means it is their No. 1 priority. Otherwise, why would they introduce it as their first bill and label it as H.R. 1? H.R. 1, for Democrats in the House, is not the coronavirus. It is not jobs. It is not schools. It is a change in the election process for the American people and is a big mandate coming out of Washington. So the No. 1 priority of House Democrats is not those key issues. Their No. 1 issue is elections and changing elections in our country. The bill, interestingly, didn't go through a normal committee process as bills are supposed to do in the House or in the Senate. It went straight to the floor--from Nancy Pelosi's desk to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Hundreds of pages are in there of new mandates, and it tells each of our States how to hold elections. It doesn't read, ``States, you do it.'' It tells the States how to do it. These aren't just any mandates. These are radical leftwing mandates that people in my home State of Wyoming view as scary and say would make the elections less secure. This bill is so radical that an earlier version of it was felt to be too liberal even for the ACLU, and the latest version is even more liberal than that. I am just going to mention a few of the mandates in this bill. H.R. 1 would force every State--force every State--to give the vote to convicted felons. This would not be a State choice but a Federal mandate. One group of Democrats even tried to give the vote to felons who are still in prison right now, but that amendment failed. H.R. 1 would force every State to allow same-day voter registration, online voter registration, and even automatic voter registration. Automatic voter registration? Voter registration is something somebody should have to do, register to vote. If the bill were to become law, you would be registered to vote automatically, without even knowing it, and when the States automatically register you, you are not allowed to find out how they got your information. They can't tell you. In effect, voter registration would be a thing of the past. A thing that we all did as young people, register to vote, would be a thing of the past. H.R. 1 forces States to count provisional ballots statewide. So, if you vote Democrat in one district and are from another district, they will count it as a vote for the Democrat in your district. Mistakes like this shouldn't happen, let alone should your vote be able to be changed from the vote you actually cast. The bill also doubles down on mail-in voting. The problems with that, I think people would agree, are obvious. Amazon--and many of us shop on Amazon, if not everyone--recently tried to restrict mail-in voting for a union election at one of its facilities. That is not because Amazon has conservative leadership; it is because they say it is harder to secure mail-in voting than it is to secure in-person voting. If you want an accurate vote, in-person voting is more accurate. The reason mail-in voting was expanded last year was because of the pandemic, but now the Democrats want to carve it into stone forever. H.R. 1 would also take government funding and give it to political campaigns. The American people have some thoughts on that. The bill actually has a 6-to-1 match for campaign donations under $200. So, if you were to donate $100 to your favorite candidate, the Federal Government would take taxpayer dollars and give an additional $600 of taxpayer money to that candidate who just got a $100 check. Hard- working people would pay their taxes knowing that their hard-earned dollars would go to fund political activity, even activity that they would not necessarily agree with. Like so many liberal government programs, this is a system that could easily be defrauded. We see that now with the coronavirus bill as well. The Democrats know that they would still get their big corporate donations in New York and in San Francisco, but now they would get an added bonus--a 6-to-1 match--from taxpayers. H.R. 1 would also give government-funded vouchers for people to donate to political campaigns. Political campaigns do not need taxpayer subsidies. People can decide how they want to spend their own money. The government shouldn't be redirecting it toward the party in power. The Democrats complain about money in politics all of the time. The solution, in seeing H.R. 1, apparently, is for there to be more money in politics as long as it is the taxpayers' money. H.R. 1 ends the equal balance between the Republicans and Democrats on the Federal Election Commission. It ends it. The Democrats want to politicize the Commission that enforces our election laws. They want to make it a partisan organization. That is just another idea that would make it easier to commit fraud. H.R. 1 doesn't just politicize the Federal Election Commission; it politicizes the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS. The Democrats want to break down the guardrails that currently keep the IRS out of politics. H.R. 1 gets rid of any of the limits on the IRS when giving tax exemptions to nonprofits. Now, think about this. Remember the scandal at the IRS under the Obama-Biden administration--a scandal, headlines. People are well aware. Well, H.R. 1 enshrines that into law. H.R. 1 gives a big stamp of approval to Lois Lerner and her behavior in the way she worked the IRS. Every Democrat who votes for the bill is saying that he or she will endorse what happened at the IRS under President Obama. There is more, a lot more. The bill goes on and on. It is 800 pages. It is hard to believe too many Democrats have actually read it. The bottom line is this: H.R. 1 would not reform our elections; it would deform our elections, change them dramatically. H.R. 1 makes our elections harder to secure, easier to defraud, and will cast doubt on every election into the future. That is the last thing we need in this country. This is no time to sow doubt about our elections. People want confidence in the elections. That is why I am joined with Senator Scott of Florida, Senator Hyde-Smith, and Senator Lummis to introduce a better proposal. Our bill would make our elections safe and secure and fair. It would give people more confidence in our elections. Our bill says: no automatic registration. The House bill repeals all voter ID laws. Our bill says, if you want to register to vote, let's make sure you are a citizen. We need to make sure of your identification. Let's make sure you have a Social Security number. Those are the sorts of things to provide integrity in the election process. Under our bill, States can't just send out ballots in the mail based on old information, and that happened all around the country this year. You can still vote by mail. You just need to request a ballot so your information is up to date. It is the way we have done it in Wyoming. We send out requests to say, if you would like a ballot, apply for your absentee ballot, and people do. There is no question about the integrity of that system. It was in a number of States in which ballots were mailed out based on old information and without a request by a voter for that ballot that led to so many concerns about the abuse and fraud. Our bill bans vote harvesting. It means you can't drop off somebody else's ballot. The collection boxes they have need to be monitored. When you turn in your ballot to a ballot box, that ought to be monitored. When votes are being counted, our bill makes sure that both sides are watching. Our bill prohibits delays or pauses in ballot counting. We require an audit of ballot counting systems within 30 days after the election. Now, these are basic, commonsense measures to protect against fraud and error. You want it to be accurate. You want it to be fair. The differences between our bill and the House's 800-page bill could not be more clear. The Republican bill makes it harder to commit fraud. The Democratic bill makes it easier to commit fraud. The Republican bill costs almost nothing. The Democratic bill costs billions. The Republican bill strengthens the protections of our elections. The Democratic bill weakens those protections and even gets rid of some of them. This shouldn't be a partisan issue. We should all be against voter fraud. We should make it as hard to commit fraud as we possibly can. So I urge my colleagues to join me with Senators Scott and Lummis and Hyde-Smith. Let us stand for integrity in our elections. Let us give every American citizen confidence and the peace of mind that our system works I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I have come to the floor, on several occasions now, to talk about this $1.9 trillion spending bill that will be soon before this body. I have talked about different parts of the bill on different occasions. I have talked about the mandates, the bailouts, and the billions and billions of dollars of spending completely unrelated to coronavirus. Now, these are all reasons enough to oppose this piece of legislation. Today, I would like to talk about another problem that I see with the bill, and that is that this bill would now subsidize health insurance far beyond what was ever imagined when the House and the Senate passed the Obama healthcare law--way beyond the subsidies ever envisioned in that. One analysis shows that this bill would give a family of four making close to a quarter million dollars a year--family of four making close to a quarter million dollars a year--up to $9,000 in free subsidies for healthcare. Now, that is not four times the poverty level; that is almost four times the average income of a household in the United States. You know, government aid is supposed to be for those who need it, people who can't make it on their own, but that has not been the focus of the Democrats with this legislation. This legislation is not about coronavirus, not about coronavirus testing and vaccinations. They have already been paid for, so that someone who wants to get a test or get the vaccine, they get it. It was paid for previously. The vaccines are free. We don't need additional money to pay for the shot. We voted on that last year. It is the law of the land. This new proposal, with these additional subsidies, is just going to get us this much closer to one-size-fits-all, socialized medicine. Now, Democrats have realized for many years that the Obama healthcare law has failed America. They know it is unaffordable for working families. People understand that the copays are so high, the deductibles are so high that people who have been mandated to buy it found that they didn't really get any value for their money. Many people I have talked to said, with ObamaCare, the premiums were so high it was actually higher than their mortgage at home. Well, Republicans want to lower healthcare costs, actually the cost of care. Democrats seem to just want to raise what government pays. And Democrats are also trying to pressure States to expand Medicaid. There are about a dozen States that have chosen not to expand Medicaid. Now, I am a doctor. I know the importance of Medicaid. I know the importance of providing care for people who cannot care for themselves. Often, that is families, low-income families, pregnant women, patients with disabilities. You look at the original intent of Medicaid--huge value for the American people but not what they have seen with the ObamaCare expansion. We should work together for these most vulnerable of individuals so that they can get the care that they need. Yet it is not what Democrats are doing with this proposal, not with the additional subsidies, not with the additional expansion of Medicaid. They are trying to bribe States--bribe States to give free care to able-bodied, working adults; not to people who were originally intended to be helped by Medicaid but for able-bodied, working adults. Those are people who ought to be getting their health insurance through their job, through work. That is the best way this works for them, insurance that they can use without these extraordinarily high deductibles and copays that we see with ObamaCare. The contrast could not be clearer. Republicans are offering the American people a stronger economy and opening schools. That is what we ought to be focusing on. Democrats and the healthcare law are subsidizing health insurance for the rich. It is astonishing. You wouldn't think it would be that way. It doesn't make sense. It is not coronavirus relief. People need relief now. They want their kids back in school. They want to get back to work. They want to put the virus behind them. That is not what I see in this $1.9 trillion bill that the Senate will soon be considering. I think only 1 dollar out of 11 of this $1.9 trillion bill actually goes to help get people back to work, kids back to school, focuses on the healthcare components of coronavirus. The kids-back-to-school component, you say: Well, there is money to put kids back to school, but 95 percent of that money doesn't even start to get spent until 2022. The coronavirus crisis is going to be behind us by 2022. We should be working together, targeting support for the American people who need it the most, not subsidizing people who don't actually need the subsidies. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I would like to join my friend and colleague from Oklahoma, as well as the Senator from Iowa, who has previously spoken, and the Senator from Indiana in opposing the Democrats' $1.9 trillion spending bill. The Democrats want to call it the sixth coronavirus bill. In fact, that is false. It is not a true statement because only about $1 out of every $11 being spent on this monstrosity is really focused on coronavirus health. The rest is a partisan liberal wish list that the Democrats have wanted to pass for a long, long time--long before the pandemic, long before anyone in this country had ever even heard of coronavirus. I remember President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, famously said: ``Never let a good crisis go to waste.'' Well, that is what they did under President Obama. They saw a crisis. They passed laws that had nothing to do with what had caused it. And now here we are a dozen years later. President Biden is in the White House, and he is using that playbook once again. President Biden's Chief of Staff calls this bill, the one coming to the floor right now--he described this on MSNBC the other day as--``the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation''--``the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation.'' More progressive than ObamaCare, more progressive than the Obama-Biden stimulus--that doesn't sound like a coronavirus relief bill to me. The White House Chief of Staff admits this isn't mainstream. This is radical. And you know, he is absolutely right about that. In the House, not a single Republican voted for this bill. Actually, Democrats joined every Republican in opposing it. President Biden ran for President as being mainstream, as being a unifier. That is how he got to the Oval Office. But ever since then, it has been scorched-earth partisanship every day since that time. Last week, President Biden gave a speech about the bill. He talked about Senate Republicans, those of us who are on the floor today and coming up next. He said: ``What would they cut?'' I am very glad he asked. President Biden can start by cutting $350 billion of bailing out States and local governments. State tax revenues are down less than 0.1 of a percent, as we just heard from the Senator from Oklahoma. Most States actually have more tax revenue than before the pandemic. Actually, 44 States have more tax revenue than before the pandemic. President Biden could cut the $85 billion that is earmarked for union pension funds, to bail them out. This has nothing to do with coronavirus. Unions have been mismanaging their members' money for decades. President Biden can cut the $4.5 billion for the New York City subway system. He could cut $111 million for a subway system in Silicon Valley for Nancy Pelosi, $270 million in funding for the arts and humanities. He could cut $200 million from museums and libraries. That is not coronavirus. He could cut $12 billion in foreign aid. He could cut $36 billion in subsidized health insurance for people making over $100,000 a year. It is a lot of income to additionally get health insurance subsidies. We all know President Biden loves Amtrak. Well, he could cut $1.5 billion in funding for Amtrak in this bill. That has nothing to do with coronavirus. He could cut $1.5 million for the funding for the bridge from New York to Canada. It is probably a pet project for the majority leader. To answer the President's question of what could we cut, we could cut a lot. Thankfully, the Senate Parliamentarian already cut $67 billion from the bill. That is how much Democrats' national wage mandate was going to cost. Yet there is still a lot we can cut. Here is the bottom line. The people of Wyoming, whom I visit with every weekend while I am at home, don't want to live with wish lists. They want to make sure they can stay at work, their kids can stay in school, and they get the virus behind them. When I say ``stay,'' that is because the kids in Wyoming have been in school since last August, in spite of the fact that it seems like only half the kids in America are back in school. You can either get to yes or you can get to no. And the people in Wyoming wanted to get to yes when it came to getting kids back to school. What we see President Biden doing is saying yes to the teachers union. He has paid the ransom note, and this is the money being paid to them, not to get our kids to school but to keep the teachers unions happy. I believe teachers want to get kids back to school. Teachers want to teach, but not the unions who pull the strings and are certainly pulling the strings of Joe Biden in the White House. Working families don't want politicians to exploit a crisis for political gains. They want to protect their physical health and their financial health and well-being. So it is time to stop trying to exploit a crisis, which is what I see every Democrat doing. Let's give the American people what they really need all across the country-- getting back to work, getting kids back to school who aren't there already, and putting the disease behind us. I yield the floor

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, when Governor Granholm came before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee for her nomination hearing, she said she was committed to American energy dominance. She stated she understood the importance of having a broad energy mix and supporting energy innovation. Now, I asked her if it was a good thing that the United States is the world's leading producer of oil and natural gas, and she said it was. I asked her if low energy prices and high-paying American energy jobs were good things, and she agreed that they were. And when I asked her if America exporting its energy influence around the globe was a good thing, she again affirmed that it was. She has demonstrated that she is dedicated to supporting carbon capture, nuclear power, and American uranium production. For these reasons, she cleared our committee with broad bipartisan support and will soon be confirmed by the Senate. I expect we will work together closely on these efforts when she leads the Department of Energy. During her nomination hearing, Governor Granholm also said that she didn't want to see anyone lose their job or get left behind. Yet this is exactly what the Biden administration is doing to thousands of American energy workers. On Inauguration Day, the President spoke of unity and bringing our Nation back together. Once he arrived at the White House, however, he threw that rhetoric out the window, picked up his pen, and started signing radical Executive orders. His orders to ban oil, gas, and coal leasing on Federal lands and to kill the Keystone XL Pipeline will throw thousands of Americans out of work. These workers' livelihoods are being sacrificed in the name of the Biden agenda. Leaders in the administration are telling these oil rig and coal mine and pipeline workers that they can simply get new jobs building solar panels. Actually, John Kerry said that the Biden administration policies will give these workers better choices. In 2019, the average salary of a solar panel technician was about $30,000 a year less than the average salary of a worker in the gas, oil, and coal industry. So John Kerry flies around the world, private jet, but is asking American energy workers to each take $30,000 a year less in income. And that is if these green energy jobs even exist. To that point, the Washington Post Fact Checker took a look at what John Kerry had said, and they said he was offering ``false hope with a misleading use of statistics.'' Look, we have heard it all before. When President Biden was Vice President, the Obama administration promised thousands of green energy jobs--jobs that never materialized. Millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted on green energy companies that went belly-up. Now the ``Solyndra Syndrome'' has returned. The Washington Post Fact Checker said it expects just a little over 10,000 new wind and solar jobs over the next 10 years. In Wyoming alone, the long-term leasing ban would result in 33,000 workers losing their jobs. And where are these Wyoming workers supposed to go? Hundreds of thousands more workers are going to lose their jobs in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and other States. How will they provide for their families? The Biden ban won't just hurt workers; it is going to hurt kids too. A long-term leasing ban is going to eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in State revenue--the dollars which go for essential services, for public schools, for roads, bridges, and hospitals. A long-term leasing ban is going to hurt teachers, students, and the communities they call home. America needs all the energy--the oil, the gas, the coal, the uranium, the wind, the solar--all of them. Banning fossil fuels will hurt our economy and force more workers out of work. President Biden has declared war on American energy and American energy workers, and I just can't stand by as this administration tries to crush Wyoming's economy. I can't support an administration that throws my constituents out of work and hurts the schools and the hospitals in the communities and the teachers who teach the children. Energy is a force multiplier. American energy is--America is an energy superpower. We need to act that way. President Biden seems to want to pull the plug on American energy dominance. So I cannot in good conscience vote to approve his nominee for Secretary of Energy I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from West Virginia and I both be allowed to complete our remarks before moving to the rollcall vote.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to conclude my remarks before recessing.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today, as I have done twice before over the past month, to sound the alarm about the new administration's attacks on American energy. Yet there is still more to talk about. President Biden has continued this assault on American energy as well as the American economy. Now he is taking that attack further. He is taking the attack on energy around the world as well as attacking the needs for energy of a number of our allies around the world. President Biden signed an Executive order to cut off all loans for coal, oil, and gas projects in some of the poorest nations in the world. Now, some of these nations are our friends that we work with and we try to help, and these are people who desperately need affordable energy, and they don't have it. Democrats close to the administration have reported that what the administration and President Biden are trying to do is to ``isolate'' the Chinese Communist Party. The Biden administration thinks that by refusing to make these loans to folks around the world, that the Chinese Communist Party will be shamed for using fossil fuels for energy and will shame the Communist Party of China for loans that they make to countries to develop coal- fired powerplants, natural gas plants, and other projects that use fossil fuel. Let me tell you, the Chinese Communist Party will not be shamed. China has a totalitarian regime; China puts Uighurs in concentration camps. So I am not sure what makes President Biden and his administration think that the Chinese Communist Party will be ashamed of using an affordable reliable source of energy--coal. In reality, President Biden, by this Executive order, is giving China a gift. President Biden is giving China another advantage on the world stage and putting ourselves at a disadvantage, if you think about it. If the United States and those that we fund through the World Bank refuse to provide loans to those countries to build the powerplants that they need, that is going to leave a vacuum. They are going to need to use the resources that they have--if they have plenty of coal or natural gas--and the Chinese Communist Party is going to come in and make the loan. China already funds 7 out of 10 new coal plants around the world, and thanks to President Biden's misguided effort, that is likely soon going to be close to 10 out of 10. Just like President Biden's other energy orders, this new policy will make China stronger. It will make America weaker. China will have more influence, and the United States will have less. Now, this order is not going to hurt China at all. The people whom it will hurt are those who look to the United States for help and for friendship. It is going to especially hurt the 840 million people around the world who don't have access to electricity today. Developing countries desperately need the electricity. They need it to be affordable. They need it to be reliable. So if you help developing countries in terms of helping them get a stable supply of energy, it is one of the best things we can do to help people around the world in their fight against poverty. Many parts of the world, countries with abundant energy resources, just need our help and turn to us for our help so they can use the resources that they have. And let me give you a good example, Madam President, because you and I have traveled to various places around the world and had a chance to see men and women in uniform and thank them for their services, as we have done, and gone to battlefields, as we have had family members who have served in the military and defended this country and our freedoms. And it has been a pleasure to be able to do that with you and share that with your family because of our united heritage of fighting or our family history of fighting for the country. So a good example of what I am talking about is Kosovo. I have been there on three separate occasions specifically to visit members of our troops--the men and women in uniform, people from Wyoming who are serving in Kosovo. I have been there three separate times. I was there in 2019, was there previously for Thanksgiving, was there on Easter Sunday one time to be with the troops. Well, Kosovo is one of the poorest nations in Europe, but it has vast energy resources. Despite being physically smaller than the State of Connecticut, Kosovo has the fifth largest reserves of coal in the world: small geography, massive resources of coal. So the World Bank has cut off Kosovo's funding for a new state-of- the-art coal-fired powerplant. They have old coal-fired powerplants. They are burning coal right now. I have talked to the leaders of the country, and they say: We need to build a new coal-fired powerplant. We need to borrow the money to do it. Well, the World Bank has said it is only going to support new energy projects from renewable sources. So this is what Kosovo's Minister of Economic Development is saying. He said: ``In a poor country [like] Kosovo . . . we don't have the luxury . . .''--the luxury of focusing only on renewable sources when they don't have that much access to renewable energy. The wind doesn't blow that much; in terms of sunny days, not at all during the winter, and they have this incredible resource of coal. Well, the Minister of Economic Development is absolutely correct-- because I have been there in the spring; I have been there in the winter; I have been there different times throughout the year. Developing countries cannot afford the elitist environmental agendas of Presidents who become climate elitists, especially those being put in charge of those issues, former Secretary of State John Kerry. Let me repeat myself so--I want to just make this absolutely clear: We, the United States, have peacekeeping troops in the country of Kosovo. We have them right there in Kosovo. And we, the United States, are driving the Government of Kosovo into the clutches of the Communist Chinese Party because of a holier-than-thou attitude of the climate alarmists in the White House. So we pay to put our troops on the ground, and then we say: Go to China if you need help providing power to your country. People need affordable, reliable energy. Traditional energy projects are still the most affordable, still the most reliable. If we really care about the people in developing countries, then we ought to help them turn on the lights. So I urge the Biden administration to reverse course, to rethink this, to look at all the implications of the decisions they are making. We need to stop this senseless attack on energy jobs. We need to stop this reckless attack on developing nations. We need to stop pushing our allies into the waiting arms of the Chinese Communist Party. The American people and our friends around the world--we are better than what we are getting right now from this administration, and we need to reverse course. I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about the $1.9 trillion spending bill that is under consideration before this Congress. As President Biden has said repeatedly, if you want to know someone's values, look at one's budget. Well, that is what we are doing, because I believe that President Biden is right. If the American people want to know the Democrats' values, all we need to do is look at the budget. The Democrats are making clear what they stand for. It seems that they are standing for teachers unions and job-crushing mandates on American businesses. The Republicans stand for ending the pandemic, for getting people back to work, and for getting kids back to school. The differences could not be more clear. The Senate has debated the Democratic budget--we did it a couple of weeks ago--and we voted on many amendments. Every Senator had a chance to propose and make some changes to the budget that was brought forth. Every single Senator went on record on a number of amendments and items related to the budget for the United States of America. Now we know where we stand. I introduced an amendment that had to do with energy production in my home State of Wyoming. Wyoming feels like we are being targeted by President Biden because of his ban on oil and gas exploration on public lands. You know, those projects are a major source of jobs in my home State. They fund our schools, our roads, our bridges, our teachers, our students, and additional services for working families. My amendment would provide funding for our public schools--schools that have been punished by this ban announced by President Biden. That amendment on this floor received 98 votes out of 100. It got the support of every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate, so I am grateful for my colleagues for that support of the amendment to protect our students and our schools and our teachers. Yet I have to say that by voting for my amendment, the 98 people in this body--specifically the Democrats--are admitting that there is a problem created by the actions of President Biden. They are admitting that President Biden's Executive order, signed on the day he was inaugurated, is hurting families all across the country. So, to my Democratic colleagues, keep working with us to address the needs of the Nation. Stand up to these overreaching, radical proposals by the Biden administration. On issue after issue, that really has not yet happened. Many of my Republican colleagues, on this side of the aisle, offered good ideas that the Democrats refused to support. Senator Blunt introduced an amendment to reopen America's schools. Now, that is an idea that science has supported for months. Every Republican voted yes. Every Democrat voted no. I have yet to hear one of my Democratic colleagues make the case for keeping the schools closed; yet that is how they voted when it came to the budget. Just like President Biden, they are trying to have it both ways. They say they want the schools open; yet they don't do what needs to be done. President Biden has claimed time and again he wants the schools open; yet his Chief of Staff says there is no money to reopen them. Well, that is absolutely wrong. Last year, President Trump signed into law $68 billion for our schools, specifically tied to coronavirus relief. Only $5 billion of that money has been spent. That leaves $63 billion still available. In the Democrats' budget being proposed right now, almost all of the money for schools is not even for this year. Ninety- five percent of the money is for the years 2022 through 2028--after the coronavirus will be behind us. The Democrats are still putting the teachers unions ahead of students. Joe Biden has surrendered to the teachers unions. They have written to him a ransom note, and he has been happy to pay it. Teachers are putting politics ahead of science, and so is this administration. I joined with Senator Scott of South Carolina to introduce another amendment to the budget bill of the Democrats. It said that if we give money to States--and there is a lot of money in this proposal to give money to States: New York, Illinois, California--that the States have to give the American people accurate data about the coronavirus and specifically in their nursing homes. People want to know the answers about the coronavirus and the impact on nursing homes because there is a real problem there. New York now admits that it gave the public false information. The numbers were not just wrong; they were nearly off by half. The Governor's top aide in New York said they were afraid of being investigated by Bill Barr's Justice Department. They were afraid that President Trump would make it a ``political football.'' Don't the people of New York have a right to know the truth about what is happening in the nursing homes in that State when people are losing parents and grandparents and when people with the coronavirus are being moved from the hospital back into those nursing homes to spread the disease to others? The Governor of New York wanted to cover it up. People would agree it sounds like a coverup, so Senator Scott and I came to the floor and said that it was unacceptable, that States have to tell the truth. Every Republican voted yes. Every single Democrat voted no. Every Senate Democrat voted to protect Governor Cuomo instead of telling the truth to the American people. During the budget debate, there were some good ideas that some Democrats supported. Yet, even then, in the wee hours of the morning, a number of the Democrats who had voted for those amendments flip-flopped on a later vote to head the other way. What they did is they had another amendment to strip out the amendments that had been put on. For example, Senator Young of Indiana had an amendment so that money in the bill would go to American citizens, not to illegal immigrants. Eight Democrats voted in agreement with that. They said you shouldn't be sending checks to illegal immigrants. A few hours later, they voted to strip it out. So every Democrat in the Senate is now on the record. Every Democrat in the Senate has voted in favor of taking people's hard-earned taxpayer dollars and giving it to people who are in the country illegally. Senator Daines brought up an amendment on a different topic. He said we should proceed with the Keystone Pipeline. Remember, President Biden, with an Executive order on the day he was inaugurated, stopped work on the Keystone Pipeline, resulting in the loss of hundreds and hundreds and likely thousands of jobs. Several Democrats voted and said we should reopen the pipeline. Let it go. Let it work. A few hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, they reversed themselves and voted to strip it out. Senator Braun of Indiana introduced an amendment to prevent President Biden from banning fracking. Now, this is something that President Biden promised to do during the campaign. Of course, that would end millions of jobs across America, and it would put us at a disadvantage from the standpoint of energy. Seven Democrats voted with Senator Braun to protect American jobs. Hours later, they flip-flopped and took it out of the bill. The Democrats keep trying to have it both ways. They want to look like moderates, pretend to be moderates, while still getting their leftwing spending bill through. They are not playing it straight with the American people. It is not going to work. The people in their States aren't going to be fooled. They are going to remember the votes, and they will certainly be reminded of those votes in the future. So we have talked about what the Senate Democrats blocked. Now let's take a look at some of the things the Senate Democrats support. The bill includes a mandate from Washington, DC, to double the minimum wage. It has nothing to do with the coronavirus. In fact, it would actually make things worse. The Congressional Budget Office took a look at this as to what the impact would be on the economy, and it said that 1.4 million people who have jobs right now would lose their jobs if the Federal Government were to come in with a mandate to double the minimum wage. It is not a stimulus. According to one report, the new Washington mandate would also raise the cost of childcare by about 21 percent. How is that going to work for hard-working families who are trying to get back to work with the coronavirus and need daycare for their children? With schools closed in so many locations across the country, that is the last thing that working families need--an increase in the cost of providing care for their children. The big Democratic spending bill also includes a $350 billion bailout for States and local governments. The money is especially targeted to States that have stayed closed the longest. This is money rewarding big cities and States like California and New York and Illinois that have had financial trouble due to financial mismanagement for many, many years. It has nothing to do with the coronavirus. Those States were in trouble long before the coronavirus made it to our shores. Multiple studies show that State tax revenues are actually up in many States across the country. In some States, they fell, but on average, States are continuing to do quite well. Most States are expecting more tax revenues this year than they had before the pandemic. If a State needs a bailout, it is not because of the coronavirus; it is because of years and years of mismanagement, and this bill rewards mismanagement. Those are the priorities of the Senate Democrats, not jobs and not opening our schools. The priorities are mandates and bailouts. Only about $1 of every $20 in this entire proposal goes for public health, but it does contain $4.5 billion for Senator Schumer's New York City Subway system. It does provide $112 million for a subway system in Silicon Valley. It does provide $270 million in funding for the arts and humanities and $12 billion in foreign aid. This is supposed to be for the coronavirus in America, here. So what does $1.9 trillion get for you? I am asked at home in Wyoming. What does it do for people at home--yes, the American taxpayer? Not much when you look at this Democratic shopping list. It is a wish list of liberal priorities. As President Biden says, if you want to know somebody's values, look at one's budget. We have just done that. If the American people want to see the contrast between Republicans and Democrats, they should look no further than this bill. The Republicans are offering the American people jobs, a vaccine, and opening our schools. The Democrats are offering excuses and the liberal wish list. We still have time to fix the final bill, so I would urge my Democratic colleagues to join with us. Work with the Republicans for real coronavirus relief. Help our small communities and small businesses keep their doors open. Get our kids back in school. Target the funding to the American citizens who need it the most. We have done five bipartisan coronavirus bills. A sixth coronavirus relief bill should be done in a bipartisan way as well. That is what the American people, with a 50-50 Senate, are asking us to do. 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. Mr. President, my amendment addresses the serious impacts of the Biden administration moratorium on oil and natural gas leases and the impact on Federal lands and waters. Wyoming and many States across the West have Federal land where there is oil and gas development. The revenue generated from the lease sales goes to States, which use it for essential services. One of the many crushing consequences of the moratorium is eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars for K-12 education for students, funding all of these States. In 2019 alone, revenues from oil and gas contributed $740 million to Wyoming's public schools. This amendment creates a deficit-neutral reserve fund to protect students and schools from this misguided moratorium by restoring these lost funds to the States. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 653 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. BARRASSO

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

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, first I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma, who has such a good insight into the impact of the Executive orders of the Biden administration on his State, very similar to my State. The concerns that he heard at home over the last 2 weeks are identical to the ones that I have heard in Wyoming the last 2 weekends. It is day 15 today of the Biden administration, and on day 1, President Biden--and we listened as he spoke--promised to usher in a new era of bipartisanship, he said, and healing. Well, within his inaugural address, he said the words: ``With unity, we can do great things.'' The Senator from Oklahoma and I agreed with the President and the words that he spoke on inaugural day, but here we are just 2 weeks later, and it seems to me it was all just talk. So far, we haven't seen much bipartisanship from the Biden administration. President Biden has already issued more than 45 Executive actions, and that is more Executive actions in the first 2 weeks than Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton in their beginnings in office. It is interesting because, as President Biden was rolling out one Executive order after another, even the liberal New York Times, which endorsed President Biden, had this lead headline. And this was Thursday, January 28, so this was a full week ago. It says: Ease up on Executive orders. The New York Times to President Biden: Ease up on Executive orders. When the New York Times has to call President Biden out on Executive overreach, you know that President Biden has abandoned the promises that he made during the campaign and that he made to us on inaugural day. To just kind of go into the editorial and what they wrote, they said: ``Ease Up on the Executive actions, Joe.'' They said: ``[T]his is no way to make law.'' They said: ``These directives . . . are a flawed substitute for legislation.'' That is what we see the Biden administration adopting, a flawed substitute, as they say, for legislation. They go on to say that on the campaign trail, President Biden touted his skills at making compromise. I saw that when I served with him in the Senate--before the Presiding Officer got here, but he and I served together in this body. I was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chaired. He does have a history and a skill at finding compromise. The New York Times went on to say that President ``Biden's legacy will depend on his ability to hammer out agreements with Congress.'' That is why we have three branches of government--the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judiciary branch; all of the branches of government--and, as they say, the legacy will depend on his ability to hammer out agreements with Congress. The problem isn't just how many Executive orders are being issued, as my friend and colleague from Oklahoma said; it is what is in them. President Biden has already launched a full-scale attack on American energy. To me, this is the whole Green New Deal dressed up as Executive orders. In fact, a Congresswoman from Michigan who is part of the squad has been actually boasting about it. She said the principles and the values in the Green New Deal are in the Executive orders by President Biden. She went on to say that the Green New Deal pushed the President toward a much more aggressive approach. I think her statement is accurate. President Biden has already shut down the Keystone Pipeline. He drew a big target on the back of American energy, and then he pulled the trigger, killed the Keystone Pipeline. Hundreds of American workers have already received pink slips. Thousands more will do so. And that will be soon. President Biden banned new oil and gas leases on Federal lands. Half of my State is Federal land, so we know how this works. If this President also keeps his promise to ban fracking, this could lead to a total of millions of Americans losing jobs over the next couple of years. At a time when 10 million Americans are already unemployed, these figures are shocking. Yet Democrats aren't stopping there. Last week, the Democratic leader came to the floor, and he urged President Biden to go even further, to do even more--much more than was criticized by the New York Times. He said President Biden should declare a national emergency because of climate change--a national emergency, he said, the leader of the Democratic Party, on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Leader Schumer is admitting that this radical environmental agenda doesn't have bipartisan support. It doesn't seem to even have Presidential support to that level, but that is what Senator Schumer is calling for. Apparently, Senator Schumer isn't just wanting to outsource energy jobs; he seems to want to outsource the work of the U.S. Senate as well. That is not what the American people sent us here to do. They didn't send us here to stand by and watch a President go with one Executive order after another, after another; they sent us here to get things done. The truth is, despite what Leader Schumer says, there is actually bipartisan support for action on climate change. Just over a month ago, the Senate passed a bill called the USE IT Act, which I authored with Senator Carper. It came through the Environment and Public Works Committee, which I chaired. It was completely bipartisan. It came through the committee unanimously. It doesn't cost a single American a job. It makes a difference with regard to climate. That is what the American people sent us here to do, to work together to find solutions that work, that don't hurt. Unfortunately, it is not the Biden approach. The Biden approach turns out to be more mandates, less energy production, and fewer American jobs. Now we see President Biden pushing a $2 trillion spending bill. He says it is to help fight coronavirus. We just passed a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill about a month ago, signed into law, and as a result, our economy is actually doing better than expected. Now President Biden, with his new bill, wants to send checks to families making in excess of $250,000 a year--a government check, paid for by taxpayers, added to the national debt. Families making over a quarter of a million dollars a year getting a check from the government when they have never missed a paycheck in the first place? He also wants to give added bonuses for people who are out of work on unemployment. People who are out of work on unemployment need that unemployment but not with the added bonuses to the level that President Biden is pointing to. And I hear about it in Wyoming. I heard about it last week. If we pass what President Biden is calling for, the average unemployed American would receive a little less than $800 a week total from the government, by their regular unemployment and by the enhance unemployment. That is equivalent to a job making $40,000 a year. People would, in many places, be paid more to not go back to work than they could earn if they went back to work. So the incentive is to keep them out of work. At the same time, we have ``Help Wanted'' signs up around the State of Wyoming. President Biden's proposal also includes billions of dollars in spending unrelated to coronavirus--completely unrelated--which is something the American people don't understand. They understand we need to fight coronavirus. They understand we need to get people back to work. They understand we need to get kids back to school. But to add extraneous spending unrelated to coronavirus is something Americans don't understand. Now, this bill includes a mandate from Washington, DC, a mandate to the small businesses all around the country--many of them struggling, many of them having a hard time making their payroll--and the Washington mandate is, you will double the amount of money that you pay right now if you are paying the current minimum wage--doubling the national minimum wage; a mandate from Washington on small business; nothing to do with coronavirus but a lot to do with making it that much harder for the small businesses in the small towns of Wyoming to make their payroll and to stay open. Now, it makes common sense when you take a look at that impact--and even the Congressional Budget Office has looked at it, and they have come to the same conclusion that I have and that the people of Wyoming have: It is going to cost jobs. The Congressional Budget Office says it will cost 1,300,000 jobs across America if President Biden has his way and forces a double of the minimum wage on small businesses of America. Now, in exchange for that Federal mandate, the bill pays off States, big cities, blue States with a long history of bad behavior, to the tune of $350 billion. A study from JPMorgan just came out, and the study shows that State tax revenues barely dropped at all in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus. They dropped less than 1 percent. These States do not need $350 billion of additional Federal support. If the State needs a bailout, it is not because of coronavirus; it is because of a long history of mismanagement. The Biden administration made this proposal without any meaningful discussions with Republicans at all. And the administration is even ignoring the Democrats. Vice President Harris recently went on television in West Virginia and in Arizona. Why? Not to put pressure on Republicans; to put pressure on Democrats--big story in the New York Times today--putting pressure on the two new Senators, Senator Sinema and--the Senators from Arizona--Senator Kelly, the newest elected Senator from Arizona, put on them to vote for the bill. She also went to West Virginia--Senator Manchin. Not only are they not talking to Republicans; now they are trying to pressure Democrats. Let's face it. The Democrats are trying to cram this bill through Congress. That is what they are going to do with the vote-arama this week. On Friday there was an article in the Washington Post. The headline is this: ``Biden, Democrats prepare to move beyond efforts to woo Republicans.'' I have to ask, what efforts? Haven't reached out in any serious way. As some of my colleagues have said, we have proven we can work together with coronavirus relief. We did it five times in the last year. We passed five different coronavirus relief bills, and the total relief was $4 trillion. The article in the Post goes on and quotes Leader Schumer. He says that we must not repeat the mistakes of 2008 and 2009. He is referring to the fiscal crisis back then. Well, that response was then led by Vice President Joe Biden. Yes, there were plenty of mistakes. Leader Schumer seems to think that the mistake was that it was too bipartisan, and that is the wrong lesson. The mistake Congress made under Vice President Biden in 2009 was to spend huge sums of money, completely unrelated to solving the underlying problem. Yet that is what the Democrats seem to want to do once again. The last time the Democrats did that, we had the slowest recovery since the Great Depression. Do you know what got us out of that slow recovery? American energy, which President Biden is now trying to kill. There are a lot of lessons to be learned here. So, on Monday, 10 Republican Senators went to the White House and made their own proposal on coronavirus relief. I really do hope the President listened because 2 weeks into this administration, the President's inaugural address is not something that is going to be remembered like John Kennedy's inaugural address was in 1960. This inaugural address is going to be remembered for empty rhetoric. President Biden has been trying to govern using a pen and a phone. Remember that from the Obama administration? I would say to President Biden: Time to just put down the pen and pick up the phone. A Democratic politician famously said that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose. President Biden campaigned in moderation, but that is not the way he is governing. He is governing in partisanship. It is not what the American people are asking for. It is not what they voted for. We have a 50-50 Senate. Democrats have a very narrow majority in the House. I would urge the administration to change course. This--if there is a mandate--is a mandate to move to the middle. I urge my Democratic colleagues to work with us on real coronavirus relief, on producing more American energy, and on creating more jobs across our country. Let us come together and get things done. I yield the floor.

Mr. BARRASSO

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss the urgent need to get our kids back in school. Kids deserve to be back in school. Last week, the White House Chief of Staff was on television. He was interviewed. The interviewer asked him why so many public schools remain closed. His answer--amazingly, astonishingly--was ``money.'' If I may, the record is very clear. Republicans supported more money for schools since last summer--a full $105 billion to get our kids back to school. In fact, the Senate Republicans' targeted coronavirus bill included more money from schools than Speaker Pelosi included in her bloated, liberal wish list. For months, Senate Democrats obstructed, delayed, and dragged their feet. For months, Democrats played politics with coronavirus relief. In all that time, families across America suffered. It wasn't until the end of December that Democrats finally agreed to pass legislation to reopen the schools, and it included $82 billion-- less than Republicans had offered the last summer. Well, the ink is now barely dry on the overall relief bill at the end of last year. It was a $900 billion relief bill. So here we are, just 1 month later, and the new administration says that there is no money to reopen schools. The White House Chief of Staff goes on television with a supposedly new idea. The idea is that ``we, as a country, should make the investments to make it safe'' to get back to school--astonishing, because we did that. If the Biden administration really wants their schools to reopen, they ought to be talking to the teachers unions. They should talk to the leaders of the teachers unions based in Fairfax County, VA, just a few miles from here. You know, it is one of the largest school districts in America. Fairfax County teachers demanded a vaccine before they would go back to the classroom. Thanks to Operation Warp Speed, they got the vaccine. Yet they still refused to go back to the classroom, which, of course, means that the students aren't in the classroom either. In Chicago, the teachers union is threatening to go on strike rather than to go back into the classroom, which, of course, means the students don't get to back into the classroom either. In Washington, DC, the teachers union would rather go to court than to the classroom, which means that students don't get to go back to the classroom either. Similar stories are taking place all across America. The union bosses might think this is just a big game. The truth is, this is doing terrible things to our children. Our teachers do incredible work. Many are working harder than ever in the virtual setting. Many want to go back to the classroom. Yet, because of the union bosses who pull the strings, our kids are being denied access to in-person learning by our amazing teachers. On Wednesday, the New York Times said it was ``breaking news'' that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention want the kids back in school. That is not breaking news. That is old news. The CDC said it last July. Experts have been echoing this call for months. One study estimated that because of the lockdown last spring, a typical student entered this school year 35 percent behind schedule in reading and nearly 50 percent behind in math. The children hurt the most are, of course, the most vulnerable--kids from lower income families, like the millions of kids who receive nutrition assistance, medical care, or counseling in public schools; also, the children of single parents, many of whom--the parents, that is--can't work from home. According to the National Education Association, a quarter of the families with kids ages 5 to 17 either don't have a computer or don't have wireless internet, so the lockdowns have been especially tough on all of those kids in those settings. For many children, the lockdown has been far tougher on their health than coronavirus itself would be. That is because serious coronavirus symptoms among healthy children are extremely rare. And Congress has provided funding to prevent kids from spreading the coronavirus. It has done it by improving ventilation, by social distancing, and by disinfecting our classrooms. So while Democrats were taking their orders from teachers unions, Senate Republicans listened to the science. It is time for Senate Democrats to decide: Are they going to put our kids first or are they going to continue to put the teachers unions ahead of our kids? Senate Republicans have done our part to reopen our schools with incredible amounts of funding and support. This is no time for excuses, no time for backtracking. The science supports it. We have provided the funding. Now I would point out that students in Wyoming have been back in school since September. That is where students belong. Kids deserve to be in school. So let's get our kids back in the classroom. It is what is best for kids; certainly, it is what is best for working families; and it is what is best for our future as a nation. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 discuss some of the first actions that have been taken by the new administration. At his inauguration, President Biden spoke about the importance of uniting the country, bringing us together, the importance of unity. Well, I agree. We have been much too divided as a nation. We need to bring America together. In just a few hours after his inaugural address, President Biden issued one Executive order after another that I believe is only going to drive America further apart. He hasn't really reached out and hasn't really tried to work with us. At a time when millions of people across the country are struggling with unemployment and the effects of a global pandemic, President Biden has taken actions that will actually raise the cost of living for people all across the country. In particular, President Biden has taken aim at American energy. Now, in Wyoming, energy production does a lot more than just keep the lights on. It puts food on the table. It does it for thousands of families. It pays for our schools, education, and our roads. In Wyoming we produce coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium for nuclear power. We also have incredible renewable resources. Wyoming, in many ways, has world class wind. We are experiencing that today in Casper, WY. Wyoming has some of the largest reserves of energy in terms of resources anywhere in the country. In Wyoming we produce 15 times more energy than we use in our State. It actually makes us the country's largest net energy supplier to the rest of the country. Energy production is the economic lifeblood of Wyoming. It is a major source of revenue for, as I said, our schools, our roads, our bridges, and essential services for all of our citizens. Wyoming is very proud of our energy workers. Remarkable men and women every day get up and go to work to put food on the table, put clothing on their kids' backs, and the whole country benefits from the energy that comes from Wyoming. Thanks to America's energy workers, in 2019, America became energy independent. It was the first time we had become independent in over 60 years. That makes it easier for families to make ends meet. It makes us stronger on the world stage. It decreases our reliance on energy from other sources, like foreign powers who want to do us harm. Thanks to our American energy workers, America is an energy superpower, and I believe we should be acting like one. That is why it is remarkable when I see President Biden painting a target on the back of American energy. That is what he has been doing with his Executive orders, including today. Despite all of the talk about unity, one of the first things that President Biden has done in office is to directly attack--attack-- energy-producing States like Wyoming. It has actually turned out to be his No. 1 priority. The White House is calling today ``climate day.'' This morning, President Biden stopped all new oil, gas, and coal leases on Federal lands--today. Well, half of the State of Wyoming is federally owned. Even a greater percentage of that, Madam President, in your State is federally owned. Experts tell us that the long-term ban could cost us 33,000 jobs in Wyoming. We are a State of only a half-million people. Earlier today, at a hearing of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where I am the ranking member, the senior Republican, I asked the President's nominee for Secretary of Energy about how the President's ban would affect jobs, and she admitted that in terms of jobs--she said some ``jobs . . . might be sacrificed.'' Saying no to American energy production means less energy, less economic activity, and less money in the pockets of American workers. It is not going to do a thing to lower emissions. It won't bring down global temperatures, but it will bring down workers' wages. It won't cool down planet Earth, but it will cool down our Nation's economy. Energy producers will simply go elsewhere while families in our country will suffer. President Biden has also put a stop to the Keystone Pipeline. It has been in the headlines. The pipeline creates jobs. It reduces energy prices, and it strengthens our bonds with our neighbor to the north, with Canada. The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, is no conservative. He is known to be extremely progressive. Even he has said he was disappointed in the decision by President Biden to cancel the pipeline. President Biden's very first phone call with a foreign leader since becoming President was with Prime Minister Trudeau. The Prime Minister raised the issue on the call. President Biden shut down the pipeline anyway. It has also been reported that TC Energy warned the President's administration that the Keystone Pipeline means thousands of construction jobs, many of those union jobs. They are gone. They are gone. President Biden shut it down anyway. President Biden has also begun the process of putting us back into the Paris climate accord. Now, under that agreement, the Biden administration is going to set unworkable targets for American businesses. So what does it mean? Well, it hurts America, but it means China and Russia can continue with business as usual. It is a bad deal for our country. It makes us less competitive. It sacrifices energy jobs to try to stop climate change, which it will not do. The Paris climate agreement is based on the fantasy that climate change is America's fault--blame America first. In reality, the United States is the leading driver of innovative climate solutions. President Biden's actions aren't just targeting American energy, they are also going after American small businesses. President Biden is calling on this body to vote to double the Federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Now, maybe the President's idea of national unity is national uniformity, but that doesn't work in Wyoming or for the people of Wyoming. Maybe he thinks that imposing top-down regulations on every American would bring us all together. It is not the kind of unity that the American people are looking for. We want to stand shoulder to shoulder but not in the unemployment line. In 2019, well before the pandemic hit, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that mandating a $15 minimum wage nationwide would lead to 1.3 million fewer Americans working--1.3 million Americans. At a time when 10 million Americans are unemployed due to our pandemic, 1.3 million Americans more can't afford to lose their jobs. The CBO also says it will lead to higher prices for consumers--paying more wages, passing on prices to consumers. Now this could hurt America's small businesses all across the country. I talked to a small business owner from Lovell, WY, Jimmy Minchow, who has a Sinclair station there. He called me on Sunday. He said $15 an hour--there is a station and a food court next to it in Lovell. He said we would have to shut down the food court. We can't afford $15 an hour for the young people who are working there. Putting money in their pockets and providing food services to the people of the community, $15 an hour will shut it down. So the jobs ticker is now on President Biden's watch, and the President will be judged by his decisions. Now, the Senate, right before Christmas, passed another round of Paycheck Protection Programs we all supported. These are loans to help small businesses. I voted for it, and the Presiding Officer voted for it to help our small businesses. Doubling the minimum wage is going to hurt small businesses and going to force them to lay off employees like will likely happened in Lovell, WY, and all across the Cowboy State. It is going to hurt the very people these loans are supposed to be helping. A bill to provide $900 billion of relief was signed just in late December. President Biden now wants to double that amount of funding. Now, Democrats may try to ram the bill through the Senate using a process called budget reconciliation. Now, of course, this entire cost will be added to our national debt, and if it occurs, it will likely be done without a single Republican vote. This isn't unity. It is not bipartisanship. It is not healing our divisions. This is a time for President Biden to heed the words of his own inaugural address. We need to work together to lower the cost of living, to produce more energy, to create more jobs, and to create more opportunities for every American. That is how we bring our Nation together. That is what we ought to do now. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BARRASSO

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