Michael Bennet

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, over the past few weeks, familiar scenes have been playing out in Colorado and all across the country. Families are buying new books and backpacks, picking up school supplies, and taking their children to the pediatrician for their annual checkup. For decades, back-to-school season did not prompt anxiety or confusion--except for maybe the kids like me that didn't do their summer reading. Parents could rely on the recommendations from their pediatricians, and the questions they did have were answered by professionals. But that peace of mind is being undermined by the current administration--including by the President of the United States and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who have worked tirelessly to undermine decades of settled science around routine vaccinations that have kept kids safe in this country and around the world for years. The consequences of that broken trust are showing up in our emergency rooms and in our classrooms. Parents are increasingly concerned that their kids will go to school and come back with a serious disease. Right now, our Nation is living through the most severe measles outbreak in over 35 years. Measles is not a mild childhood inconvenience; it is one of the most contagious viruses on Earth, capable of causing high fevers, brain swelling, long-term disability, and death. In Colorado, we have already confirmed 25 cases this year, including 7 hospitalizations. Of these cases, 22 people were unvaccinated. Of the 25 who have measles in Colorado today, 22 were unvaccinated. That is the most we have had in over 30 years. You have to go back to 1995 to find an outbreak in my State that is even close to what we are seeing today. We are going backward when it comes to public health in the richest country in the world, and families in Colorado and all across this country are suffering the consequences. But what is taking place in Colorado is especially tragic because Colorado's experience is one of the reasons that the United States has a two-dose vaccine recommendation today. Back in 1988, an outbreak of 84 measles cases swept through Fort Lewis College in Durango. It caught public health officials completely by surprise because nearly every student on that campus had already received a measles shot. Under the guidance at that time, one dose was supposed to be enough, so CDC researchers--not people playing politics--CDC researchers went to Durango to figure out what exactly had gone wrong, to learn from this surprising outcome. There, they discovered something that continues to inform our vaccine policy even today: While the virus infected students who had only received a single shot, not a single student who had had two doses got sick. That campus in Durango became the proving ground for today's recommendation on measles. Based directly on what they saw at Fort Lewis and similar outbreaks at that time, the CDC updated its guidelines in 1989 to establish the two-dose MMR schedule recommended for every schoolchild in America today. This updated recommendation paved the way for measles to be officially eliminated across the United States in the year 2000. That was a quarter of a century ago, when, following the science, this country eliminated measles; and for 30 years after that, routine vaccine recommendations have kept children safe and in the classroom. Back then, faced with a public health emergency, we did what you would expect: We followed the evidence, updated our practices, and successfully prevented another outbreak of that scale or severity going forward. We learned from each other. Today, we are taking the opposite approach. Instead of defending the settled science that saved millions of lives, President Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., have spent months waging a campaign to promote skepticism, stoke fear, and amplify outright lies. Look at what has happened in just the last few weeks. In August, President Trump signed an Executive order on childhood vaccines that overrides decades of settled scientific consensus. It encourages States to abandon school entry requirements. It recommends reducing the number of routine vaccines protecting our kids. And it calls for breaking up longstanding combination shots like the measles, mumps, and rubella-- MMR--vaccine into separate single-disease doses spread over multiple doctor visits. That recommendation ignores the basic, undeniable fact, which is that separate single-disease shots for measles, mumps, and rubella do not even exist in the U.S. market today. They are so obsolete, and we were following the science, such that those single shots that the President and the HHS Secretary are calling for don't even exist today. And it ignores the evidence that we have from countries that have already tried to separate the dose and then reverted back because it didn't work. In the 1990s, Japan moved away from the combination MMR shot and attempted to separate the vaccines. The result was predictable. It was immediate and disastrous. They saw vaccination rates plummet and measles outbreaks surged. And, earlier this year, Japan officially abandoned the experiment--as we will, undoubtedly--and returned to the combined MMR vaccine. We don't need to repeat another nation's mistake when the safety and lives of American children are on the line. And telling parents to ask for shots that don't exist today only plunges families into further chaos. It forces parents to schedule endless appointments, take time off work, and pay multiple copays for vaccines that used to be delivered safely in a single visit. As everybody in this place knows, before I came to the Senate, I was the superintendent of schools in Denver. This was such a happy time every year, when people were coming back, bringing their kids back to school. And the last thing that they wanted to worry about was getting a free vaccine for their children or whether they should have that vaccine at all. In those days, not that long ago, there was nobody worrying about a President or an HHS Secretary peddling misinformation that would lead to the biggest outbreak in measles that we have had in 30 years. Things are hard enough as it is for families in Colorado and all across this country right now. We don't need to make matters worse by intentionally misleading them about what is safe and making it harder for them to get a free vaccine at the pharmacy down the street. And, by the way, I know my colleagues here well enough to understand something that I don't think the administration understands. It is not good enough just to get your kid vaccinated. The other kids in the school need to be vaccinated. The other kids in the classroom need to be vaccinated for vaccines to work. And, until this administration, that wasn't controversial because we could see what the science told us. And for families in rural Colorado, where healthcare access is already stretched thin and local hospitals are already in danger of going bankrupt because of the razor-thin margins, this burden that they are creating is almost unbearable. And to make matters worse, the other week, the President told the American people that the MMR vaccine--a safe, lifesaving shot given to hundreds of millions of children over four decades--the President called it ``quite lethal''--``quite lethal.'' They had to send out Dr. Oz to clean up the record after that--the Director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. They had to send him out on live television to contradict the President of the United States, who said that this routine vaccine that we have relied upon to save millions of lives was ``quite lethal.'' Meanwhile, Secretary Kennedy spent last week serving as the keynote speaker for an anti-vax convention. In the middle of the worst measles surge our country has seen in 35 years, the Nation's top health official stood in front of a crowd of anti-science activists and reassured them that they have ``a strong and steadfast friend in the White House.'' I wish I could tell families trying to get their kids back to school that they have a steadfast friend in the White House, that they have somebody who is trying to make their life easier, not harder; to make it easier to bring up a kid, not harder. When the leadership of HHS spends its time amplifying conspiracy theories, they are not making communities safer; they are driving down immunization rates, leaving our schools vulnerable, and putting the lives of Colorado's children directly in harm's way. Today, Colorado has the sixth lowest measles vaccination rate in the nation for kindergartners. Only 87.7 percent of Colorado kindergartners have received both doses of their MMR vaccine, and that is well below the 95 percent threshold for herd immunity. In fact, 57 out of Colorado's 64 counties now fail to meet that basic safety line. My message to Colorado parents from this floor tonight is simple: Vaccines are safe, they are effective, and they remain our strongest defense against diseases like measles. And when we allow misinformation to drive down vaccination rates, we aren't just failing to meet an important public health indicator; we are failing moms in Aurora and in Pueblo and in Durango. We are failing pediatricians like Dr. Stinar in Grand Junction, who are fighting on the frontlines of this disease; and we are failing vulnerable children across Colorado who have no choice in the matter. Parents, pediatricians, and families across Colorado should be able to expect more from their government. They deserve certainty. They deserve clear communication. They deserve to know that their public health system is designed to keep them safe, rather than to pursue another political agenda that has nothing to do with their education or their health. I think we should be having a debate in this country about the state of healthcare in the United States of America and about the ways in which we failed this generation and the next generation in providing a system that actually delivers better healthcare at a reasonable price and mental health care at a reasonable price, instead of plunging people into further misery or into bankruptcy. I wish we were having that debate on the Senate floor, but we can't begin to have that until the basic facts about science and medicine are taken seriously by this administration. The President should start by rescinding his Executive order today on childhood vaccines. He should fire Secretary Kennedy, as I have long called for. But until that happens--and I don't think it is going to happen in the foreseeable future. Until that happens, we are going to be stuck fighting battles against a disease that we functionally eliminated 30 years ago. Kids and families in Colorado and all across this country deserve so much better than that. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 185, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 780, John George Edward Marck, of Texas, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 186, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 780, John George Edward Marck, of Texas, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 187, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 777, Michael J. Hendershot, of Ohio, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 188, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 777, Michael J. Hendershot, of Ohio, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 189, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 778, Arthur Roberts Jones, of Texas, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 190, motion to proceed to Calendar No. 432, S.J. Res. 196, A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to ``Reimagining and Improving Student Education-Federal Student Loan Program Final Regulations''. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 191, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 776, Matthew A. Schwartz, of New York, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 192, motion to proceed to the consideration of S.J. Res. 185, a joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 136, Thune motion to proceed to the bill which provides $69.5 billion in funding for Department of Homeland Security immigration and border enforcement agencies for FY 2026, including: $22.6 billion for Customs and Border Protection; $38.5 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and $8.5 billion in additional funds to DHS for immigration enforcement. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted no. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 137, Schumer motion to commit the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee with instructions to report the bill back in three session days with changes that safeguard the Department of Justice from partisan political influence, which may include prohibiting the use of funds for a so-called ``anti- weaponization fund.''. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 138, amendment No. 5452, Tillis motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Tillis amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which prohibits the attorney general from using appropriation funds to pay out claims as part of an ``anti-weaponizing fund'' and would instead provide $1.7 billion for Justice Department anti-fraud enforcement activities. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted no. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 139, amendment No. 5512, Merkley motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Merkley amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which prohibits federal funds as well as private donations from being used for the construction of the East Wing modernization project without congressional authorization. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 140, on amendment No. 5514, the Reed motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Reed-Bennet amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which redirects $62.1 billion from funds intended for immigration enforcement towards the Housing Department's HOME Investment Partnerships Program. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 141, Ossoff motion to commit the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee with instructions to report it back with changes that would amend the False Claims Act to require the Department of Justice to establish a task force to conduct investigations into health insurance companies that are found to routinely deny and delay patients' access to medically necessary care. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 142, on amendment No. 5535, Hassan motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Hassan amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which provides such sums as necessary for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program through September 30, 2029, to build 7 million homes. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 143, amendment No. 5556, Warner motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of Warner-Kelly amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which prohibits any Senate-confirmed head of another federal agency or department from being directed to perform the functions and duties of the director of National Intelligence in an acting capacity. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 144, amendment No. 5779, Graham motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Graham et al., amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which adds a provision to bar educational institutions that receive federal funding from allowing transgender women or girls to participate in athletics programs or activities designated for women or girls. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted no. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 145, amendment No. 5501, Hickenlooper motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Hickenlooper-Bennet amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment) which prohibits the use of federal funds to make prosecution-related payments to individuals who were convicted for certain crimes, including election interference, identity theft and official misconduct. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 146, amendment No. 5545, Kim motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Kim-Booker amendment (to Graham substitute amendment) which provides $2 million to the Office of the Inspector General and Office of Detention Oversight to conduct, within one week of the bill's enactment, an unannounced inspection of the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, New Jersey; requires Congressional reports on facility conditions and recommendations on whether to pursue charges against immigration agents and other facility employees who responded to protests; and requires the Homeland Security Department to suspend contract payments to operate the facility until the department certifies that the facility's deficiencies have been adequately remediated. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 147, Warnock motion to commit the budget reconciliation bill to the Judiciary Committee with instructions to report the bill back within 3 days with changes that amend the provisions of law commonly referred to as the ``False Claims Act'' to require the Department of Justice to establish a task force to conduct investigations and make public findings and records relating to the causes of denial of Medicaid coverage to eligible beneficiaries. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 148, amendment No. 5451, Sanders motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Sanders amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which places reasonable limits on contributions to Super PACs which make independent expenditures. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 149, amendment No. 5485, Baldwin motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Baldwin amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which redirects $14.3 billion in funds made available under the bill from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be used by the Department of Health and Human Services to carry out low-income family child care programs. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 150, on amendment No. 5803, Booker motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Booker-Kim amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment) which redirects $28.6 million of the funds in the bill to the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman; and prohibits using the funds to pay contractors or cooperating entities that violated law or detention standards or engaged in substantiated misconduct. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 151, amendment No. 5806, Lee motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Lee amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment) which requires individuals to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections and to present photo identification in order to cast a ballot. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted no. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 152, amendment No. 5806, Durbin motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Durbin, et al., amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment) which redirects $10 million provided in the bill for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be used for the processing of renewal applications under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program; and prohibits the use of funds in the bill to detain or deport individuals reasonably believed to be DACA recipients on the basis of immigration status. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 153, Wyden motion to commit the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee with instructions to establish a task force to conduct investigations related to confidential drug pricing agreements entered into by a Federal agency and pharmaceutical manufacturer. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 154, amendment No. 5506, Hirono-Van Hollen amendment (to Graham substitute amendment), which redirects $105 million in funding provided under the bill for each of fiscal years 2026 to 2029 for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be used for youth mentoring programs in the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 155, amendment No. 5763, Peters amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment) which rescinds any unobligated funds made available under the fiscal 2025 budget reconciliation measure (PL 119-21) and returns the money to the U.S. Treasury to reduce the deficit. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 156, amendment No. 5813, Gallego amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which decreases funds appropriated to the Homeland Security Department by $11 million and increases funding for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services by $10 million for the processing of renewal applications under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 157, amendment No. 5808, Padilla amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which requires that at least $300 million of the bill's funds provided for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement be used for the implementation and deployment of body cameras for federal immigration agents. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 158, amendment No. 5457, Coons motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Coons amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment) which prohibits the use of taxpayer funds for settlement payments to individuals convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers at or around the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 159, amendment No. 5812, Cassidy motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Cassidy-Van Hollen amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment) which provides $100 million in the Justice Department's ``anti weaponization fund'' to pay law enforcement officers who suffered bodily or financial harm as a result of the Jan 6, 2021 events in the U.S. Capitol; prohibits payments from the fund to any other person; and offsets the funding by reducing funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement by $102 million. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 160, amendment No. 5463, Cortez Masto amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which redirects $31 billion in funding from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Justice Department local law enforcement hiring grant programs. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 161, amendment No. 5632, Van Hollen motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Van Hollen amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment), which prohibits payments from the Justice Department's ``anti-weaponization fund'' to pay individuals convicted of certain crimes, including assaulting a police officer, crimes against minors, and sexual assault. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 162, amendment No. 5740 Schiff motion to waive the Budget Act to permit consideration of the Schiff-Kelly-Slotkin amendment (to the Graham substitute amendment) which prohibits the authorization of funds to pay out a judgement award, settlement, or claim filed by the U.S. president or vice president for any cause of action arising on or after Jan. 20, 2025. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 163, passage of the bill which provides $69.5 billion in funding for Department of Homeland Security immigration and border enforcement agencies for FY 2026, including: $22.6 billion for Customs and Border Protection; $38.5 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and $8.5 billion in additional funds to DHS for immigration enforcement. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted no. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 164, Thune motion to proceed to the House message to accompany the bill which extends the surveillance authorities of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) through April 30, 2029. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 165, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 744, Anthony W. Mattivi, of Kansas, to be United States District Judge for the District of Kansas. If I were present, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 166, Confirmation of the nomination of Anthony W. Mattivi, of Kansas, to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Kansas. If I were present, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 167, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 745, Anthony J. Powell, of Kansas, to be United States District Judge for the District of Kansas. If I were present, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 168, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 745, Anthony J. Powell, of Kansas, to be United States District Judge for the District of Kansas. If I were present, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 169, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 765, Brock Dahl, of Maryland, to be Legal Adviser of the Department of State. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 170, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 765, Brock Dahl, of Maryland, to be Legal Adviser of the Department of State. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 171, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 742, Justin D. Smith, of Missouri, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit. If I were present, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 172, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 742, Justin D. Smith, of Missouri, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit. If I were present, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 173, Motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 190, disapproving the rule submitted by the Executive Office for Immigration Review relating to ``Appellate Procedures for the Board of Immigration Appeals'' (Kaine), I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 174, motion to discharge S.J. Res. 172, a joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 175, motion to proceed to consideration of the House Message to accompany H.R. 6644, 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 176, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 760, Michelle Steel, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Korea. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 177, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 760, Michelle Steel, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Korea. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 178, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 763, George Holding, of North Carolina, to be United States Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 179, motion to discharge S. Res. 616, a resolution requesting information on Honduras's human rights practices pursuant to section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 180, motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the House Message to accompany H.R. 6644, 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, with further amendment (No. 5823). Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 181, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 763, George Holding, of North Carolina, to be United States Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 182, motion to concur in the House Message accompanying H.R. 6644, 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 131, Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 736-- Kathleen S. Lane, of Montana, to be United States District Judge for the District of Montana. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 132, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 736, Kathleen S. Lane, of Montana, to be United States District Judge for the District of Montana. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 133, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 743 Jeffrey M. Kuhlman, of Kansas, to be United States District Judge for the District of Kansas. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 134, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 743, Jeffrey M. Kuhlman, of Kansas, to be United States District Judge for the District of Kansas. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 135, motion to proceed to Cal. No. 409, S.J. Res. 188, disapproving the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Coal- and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Unites: Final Repeal.'' If I were present, I would have voted yea. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 136, the motion to proceed to Cal. No. 417, S. 2, To provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of S. Con. Res 33. If I were present, I would have voted nay.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 125, the confirmation of the en bloc consideration of 49 nominations on the Executive Calendar pursuant to the provisions of S. Res. 690. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 126, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 735, Sheria Akins Clarke, of South Carolina, to be United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 127, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 735, Sheria Akins Clarke, of South Carolina, to be United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 114, the adoption of S. Res. 690, Authorizing the en bloc consideration in Executive Session of certain nominations on the Executive Calendar. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 115, the motion to close further debate on confirmation of the nomination of Executive Calendar No. 728, Kevin Warsh, of Florida, to be a Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for a term of fourteen years from February 1, 2026. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 116, the Confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 728, Kevin Warsh, of Florida, to be a Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for a term of fourteen years from February 1, 2026. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 117, the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 727, Kevin Warsh, of Florida, to be Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for a term of four years. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. I move to proceed to Calendar No. 364, S.J. Res. 139.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, today, I am bringing the Congressional Review Act resolution to the floor to challenge EPA's disapproval of Colorado's regional haze plan. I want to thank my colleagues Senator Hickenlooper and Senator Whitehouse for joining me in this effort. For decades, we have relied on a simple principle in this country to keep our air clean: States and the Federal Government work together to reduce pollution and protect public health. That includes programs like Regional Haze, which is designed to improve visibility in national parks and wilderness areas, like Rocky Mountain National Park in Northern Colorado. In 2022, Colorado submitted a good-faith plan to improve air quality. The State provided a range of solutions--including the voluntary, already-planned retirement of aging coal plants. The decisions to close these plants were driven by basic economics. Colorado utilities recognized that it no longer made sense to keep them open, based on the high costs of maintaining and operating. And so in its regional haze plan, Colorado incorporated these previously made decisions into the State's strategy to reduce air pollution. But EPA rejected Colorado's plan--not because it failed to meet Federal standards. EPA rejected it because President Trump is laser- focused on keeping even aging coal plants operational, regardless of the costs or the desires of the local communities. EPA's disapproval of Colorado's plan was based on an unprecedented and flawed legal theory. EPA alleges that under section 110 of the Clean Air Act, Colorado must somehow prove these coal plant requirements would not violate the Constitution's takings clause, or, in other words, not constitute an illegal government seizure of private property. But that is an impossible case for the State to make. It is also not, in fact, what section 110 of the Clean Air Act requires or what Congress ever intended. And to make matters worse, the EPA made this shift without any meaningful public input. And the consequences of President Trump and Lee Zeldin's actions are real. They are real for Colorado and for the West and for this country. They are making it harder--harder--for Colorado to chart our own path on the energy transition and trying to force Coloradans to pay tens of millions of dollars to keep outdated coal plants running. And they are doing this at a moment when energy prices have already increased as a result of the administration's own reckless actions. Since President Trump's unprovoked war, gasoline prices have risen over 30 percent in Colorado. They have cut investments in the cheapest types of electricity, while promoting the most expensive. Everything the administration has done has made it harder for parents in Colorado to pay their bills and heat their homes, and now to take their children to enjoy some of the incredible national parks and public lands our State has to offer. If this ruling stands, it won't stop in Colorado. It could open the door to similar challenges across the country, weakening air quality protections and leaving States in an impossible position--responsible for results but stripping them of the tools and the authority to achieve them. And so I urge my colleagues to support S.J. Res. 139 to overturn the EPA's decision. I ask consent to yield back all time. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BENNET

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

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 75, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 672, John Thomas Shepherd to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Arkansas. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 76, confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 672, John Thomas Shepherd to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Arkansas. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 77, motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 674, Christopher R. Wolfe, of Texas, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Texas. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay.

Mr. BENNET

Mr. BENNET. The Founders understood the gravity of the debate before them about who could and who could not claim the franchise. The authors of Federalist No. 52 explain that ``the definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government.'' They wrestled with this question. They wrestled with this question. They debated it. And, ultimately, they excluded the great number of subjects who were newly made Americans, but, nevertheless, were denied, as those at Seneca Falls wrote, ``the first right of citizen.'' This was the founding generation's great mistake--this and the enslavement of Americans. And we have spent centuries working to rectify it--centuries working to rectify it. Should the SAVE America Act pass, we will fall further away from realizing this country's promise and retread the familiar errors of the past. We should reject that vision of our democracy. We should reject that return to a history that we have fought so hard to free ourselves from. Coloradans and all Americans deserve better than this. I yield the floor and look forward to hearing my colleague from Texas.

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, if we pass this bill, we will now have two different election regimes in this country--one for Federal elections and one for local elections. That is insane in and of itself and begs the question: Why does Donald Trump want to pass this bill? He wants to run roughshod over our election system because he claims there is an epidemic of voter fraud caused by undocumented people voting. That is at the heart of his claim, and that has been the heart of his claim throughout two Presidential elections and this Presidency. The problem is that he is blowing up our elections, and there is no evidence to support his claim of fraud. The fact is that even his own Department of Homeland Security used by many States to verify voter citizenship returned .04 percent of voter participants as noncitizens. A bipartisan policy center analysis of the Heritage Foundation's debate of noncitizen voting found only 77 cases in 25 years of nearly 2 billion votes cast. And individual States tell us the same. We heard it earlier tonight. Last year, Utah performed a citizen review of its entire voter registration list. There was no noncompliance. After an assessment of more than 2 million registered voters, Utah identified only 1 confirmed instance of noncitizen registration and no instances of noncitizen voting. We definitely have a crisis in our democracy and in our economy and they are related. Over the decades, we have suffered through an economy that has reduced economic mobility and hollowed out America's middle class. At the same time, we have built a tax system that disproportionately benefits those who own assets and perpetuates the inequalities that accumulated with generational wealth, a tax system that allows Donald Trump and Elon Musk to pass their stock portfolios onto their heirs without paying a dollar on the gains that they have accrued. That is a crisis. The lack of economic mobility is a crisis, and I am sorry to say that that tax regime, that has been done in a bipartisan manner. Republicans definitely more than Democrats have pursued trickle-down economics, but Democrats and Republicans both played a role creating an unfair system that reinforces our desperate lack of economic mobility and concretizes our deep and growing economic inequality. At the same time, this body has failed to make important investment in our infrastructure while saddling future generations with ever- greater amounts of debt, debt whose service costs will now predictably take up $1 trillion of our annual budget in interest--more than we spend on Medicare or defense, a higher share of the economy than at any point in American history. We are in a dangerous moment at home and abroad. There is no doubt about that. And at the same time as Coloradans and Americans across the country are struggling to get by, as teachers are going to those food banks to feed their own children, when confidence in our institutions and in our politics is at record lows, and we have a campaign finance system that gives inordinate power to the wealthiest. Tonight is not the night to go through how wrongly decided Citizens United was, how wrongly decided, how ignorant that decision was of the way politics actually works in this country. But let me just point out to you that in 2008, before Citizens United was decided, the top 100 individual donors contributed a combined $80 million--$80 million in 2008. That is what the 100 donors contributed. In 2024, the top 10 donors--the top 10 donors--contributed over $1.2 billion. Spending by outside groups has exploded from a total of $574 million in 2008 to almost $4.5 billion in that last election, an increase of 8 times--8 times. No one could possibly believe that the amount of money--that that amount of money is helping our democracy. Let me tell you something: Does the SAVE Act do anything about that corrosiveness in our politics? Of course not. Of course not. And let me tell you something that was a fatal flaw in the Supreme Court's decision while I am here. Maybe the pages, when they are Senators, will be able to fix this problem because we sure aren't going fix it. At the end of that--at the end of their decision, they said: By the way, if the Congress ever passes a constitutional regulation of--in their words--constitutional regulation of the outside spending in our political system, we will, of course, have to give that the proper analysis, the proper--excuse me--the required constitutional analysis. Of course, nobody will ever pass that around here because the billionaires that are writing checks to these elections just have to rattle the pennies in their pockets and the change in their pockets and threaten to run a primary against anybody in this place, and the bill won't be brought. And then there is a profound corruption of inaction that sets in as a result to our legislative branch both here and in the House of Representatives. Does the SAVE America Act address any of this? Of course not. Instead, Donald Trump and the Republicans have brought to the floor a bill to make it harder for ordinary American citizens to register and to vote. Fundamentally, the SAVE America Act is an astonishing Federal overreach in search of a scandal that doesn't exist and would have the effect of undermining fraud-free elections like we have in Colorado. Colorado was the first State in America to complete a risk-limiting audit, the gold standard for verifying the integrity of election results. It entails counting and comparing a representative sample of ballots to the reported result. To prevent hacking, none of our voting machines are connected to the internet. We require county clerks to use two- factor authentication to access voter databases. Once a vote is cast, a bipartisan team of election judges in each county checks every signature against the copy in the database for any discrepancies. All election officials and judges with access to the tabulation process must first pass a Colorado Bureau of Investigation background check. And Colorado has spent years--years--implementing top-tier cyber security measures and audits to prevent hackers from interfering in our electoral process. We should be modeling our Federal system off the gold standard framework we have in Colorado, a national leader in terms of voter access, election security, and might I say, voter turnout. Instead, the SAVE America Act would eliminate--eliminate, outlaw-- many of the practices that Colorado has adopted to keep our elections safe and increase voter confidence. How dare you? It would end Colorado's mail-in and online voter registration system. It would force Colorado to increase the security risks of our voter data and routinely purge voter rolls. It would push experienced county clerks and election workers out of the field. It would remove the possibility of using a number of State IDs when going to vote. It would create two tiers of voting for Federal and State elections and possibly upend our mail-in ballot system itself by requiring that every Coloradan proactively request a ballot and resubmit proof of ID alongside their ballot request in every election. Colorado already has ID requirements when casting a ballot. We already have among the cleanest voter rolls in this country. We don't need Donald Trump to corrupt our process. Even the Heritage Foundation ranked us as second in the Nation in 2020 for clean lists--the Heritage Foundation. We have one of the most secure election systems of any State in our country, and because Coloradans have trust in our elections, we have some of the highest voter turnouts in the country. But the SAVE America Act--the so-called SAVE America Act--does not bring our system anywhere close to what we enjoy in Colorado. Instead it turns into a dark but familiar pattern in American history. And I am sorry to say, but this bill before us is just another in a long line of legislative efforts to limit the franchise in this country, to add new restrictions and additional obstacles. Nobody wants voter fraud. I do not want voter fraud. I come from a State where there is no voter fraud. We set the gold standard, in part because of the work my colleague John Hickenlooper did when he was Governor of Colorado. This is a pretext. This is a pretext to invade our elections. I know my colleague from Texas wants to speak. So I am trying to skip ahead here. We have had a fight over many, many, many years in this Nation to broaden the franchise, from the very beginning, and that fight was won by men and women who marched to demand that their vote count equally in this country, no matter what color they were, no matter where they lived in our Nation, no matter what education or religion their parents had or whether their parents were immigrants to this country. In this modern era, when one of the real fundamental risks to our democracy is the American people's loss of confidence in our institutions, including our voting process and elections themselves, we now have a group of people who are trying to create political advantage for themselves by restricting the vote in the name of addressing a mythical voter fraud that does not exist. The American people will not be fooled by this. They will be angry about this, as they should. The American people have come to rely on vote-by-mail, and registration by mail, and early voting. They believe our system is fraud free, and where it is not, the State should address it. Our citizens have come to rely on having the franchise extended through modern technology and modern practices. Nobody I know in Colorado has said they doubt the validity or veracity of our voting system--no matter what party they are in or whether they live in rural Colorado or urban Colorado--or the importance of the ability to register online, or for students and others to have the benefit of same-day registration. I wish everybody in this country had the benefit of that. Those are ways of encouraging participation in our democracy. None of us want fraud. None of us want fraud. And there is no fraud. The good news is there is certainly no evidence in Colorado or across the country that that fraud exists. And this is the most sweeping effort, make no mistake, by Donald Trump, by the Republicans here in the Senate, to ``nationalize our elections,'' to undermine voter confidence, and inject new chaos into a system he is terrified will turn against him; to make life harder for Americans that he thinks voted against him, and probably will make it harder for the people who voted for him. Since the President's return to office, he has focused relentlessly on false narratives of voter fraud. He has issued Executive orders that are unenforceable. He has sued States that have refused to comply and threatened to take control of the electoral process in States he views as political enemies. He has sent Federal agents from the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence to seize ballots in Georgia, election records in Arizona, and voting machines in Puerto Rico. His Justice Department has sued 30 States, including Colorado, demanding sensitive, unredacted voter data to create a national voter database. And President Trump has pursued a longstanding and inexplicable grievance against mail-in voting, which he falsely claims can be used to commit mass amounts of fraud. It is simply not true. It is simply not true. He sees it, in his own words--the SAVE America Act--as a method to ``guarantee the midterms'' this November. He sees, in his own words, the SAVE America Act as a method to ``guarantee the midterms'' this November. And that is why they put this on this floor now? I hope not. I really hope not. This is an election bill that distorts our shared understanding of what free and fair elections should look like, and Coloradans want no part of it. This legislation, by the way, is wildly unpopular in America. We have received thousands of calls and letters in opposition to the SAVE America Act. We received over 7,000 last month alone. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that these constituent letters be printed in the Record.

Mr. BENNET. If you guys are done, I would like to--Madam President, I would like--

Mr. BENNET. I will exercise my right to withdraw. Madam President, all of this will have to be done in-person. Kansas tried to implement its own State-level version of President Trump's SAVE America Act in 2013 with disastrous results. This law, which included citizenship documentation requirements, ended up blocking the voter registration of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who are otherwise eligible to vote. That represented about 12 percent of all Kansas voter registrations during that period. Even Kansas Republican secretary of state who championed the bill when he was a State legislator has warned against the bill now before us. He has warned against the bill now before us saying: It didn't work out so well. And Kansas law was blocked by a Federal court, as it should have been. If we pass this bill, we will have now two different election--Madam President, can I have the floor without the interruption of my colleague from Utah?

Mr. BENNET. If I did yield--

Mr. BENNET. I don't believe I did yield.

Mr. BENNET. I am not willing to hear it. I am not willing to hear it. I will hear it after--

Mr. BENNET. I didn't. I said I would yield for one inaccuracy. That is all I said.

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I haven't yielded the floor.

Mr. BENNET. Well, then you will have to wait. Then you will have to wait. Then you will have to wait.

Mr. BENNET. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, I will yield for the one inaccuracy you think that I have--

Mr. BENNET. You will have your time.

Mr. BENNET. I will not yield. I will not yield. I have waited an hour--

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I thank the Presiding Officer for the recognition. I spent last weekend in Grand Junction. I am happy to be here tonight on the floor with my colleague from Colorado John Hickenlooper. I spent last weekend in Grand Junction, in our State, on Colorado's Western Slope. And my conversations with young parents and with families just starting out, I think--I would hope--would be familiar to many colleagues that are here. We discussed the price of housing, which has surged over 80 percent over the last 10 years in Colorado; the price of healthcare, which is ratcheting higher and becoming impossible for families to afford, not just in Colorado but all across our country; the cost of childcare, which is making it harder for families to live any semblance of a middle-class life--families that are working two jobs just to pay the mortgage can't even afford childcare when they are working with those two salaries--and our inability as a nation, as a State, to prepare our kids for the dynamic and potentially hugely unforgiving economy they are about to enter. This is a tough economy that we are in today, and tariffs and now gas prices haven't helped. Last week, colleagues, I met with a food bank from El Paso County, who told me that they stay open late--listen to this, U.S. Senate. This food bank in El Paso County said that they stay open late 1 day a week to have teachers' night so the teachers that have worked all week teaching children have the opportunity to come to that food bank in the evening to get food to feed their own children at home. I doubt very much that there is a living American who can remember a decade in this country when we took it for granted that teachers would have to go to a food bank to feed their own children. Can you imagine, in the 1950s, in this Chamber, if it were known that people teaching in America--in inner-city America or in the suburbs of our great cities--that the pay wasn't satisfactory, so they had to go to a food bank after work? And that is happening to working people all over our country, people that are in what we think of as traditional middle-class lives, because of how savage this economy has been, because of the affordability crisis that, I will say, has been with us for decades in this country but the current administration, the Trump administration, has made far worse and now is making it even worse with what they are doing to energy prices because of their unauthorized war in the Middle East. I wish we were working on that affordability crisis today. I wish we were working on building an economy that worked for everybody, not just the people at the very top. This is a choice that is being made by President Trump and the majority in this Senate, the Republicans, who have spent the entire week fighting for a bill that will make it harder for family members and for aging parents and for their cousins to vote or to register to vote. That is what they have chosen to use the floor of the U.S. Senate to do. It is shameful. It is shameful both because it is ignoring the affordability crisis that our families are facing, but it is shameful because there is no excuse for taking away the right to vote from people all over the United States of America. These are people who are supposed to believe in States' rights, believe in the ability of States to be able to run their own affairs. And Donald Trump--President Trump--and the Republican's SAVE America Act rewrites the way we run elections in America completely. It rips up the processes all over the United States of America at the local level that county clerks and election officials understand. It requires the Federal Government to have access to the voter rolls, a shocking thing from the party that is supposed to be about States' rights. And it creates yet another unfunded mandate for States and for local communities. There is no money in here to fund the stuff that is in this bill. Most troublingly, it imposes new document requirements for voter registration that many Americans do not have or do not have access to. Madam President, 146 million Americans don't have a passport. Almost 70 million women do not have a birth certificate that matches their real name. That should be self-evident to anybody in this Chamber, but it is ignored completely by the people who wrote this legislation. Over 8 million Americans have moved to a different State within the last year, and an average of over 17 million will have moved counties. Many of them--probably most--do not have the paperwork that this bill requires. That doesn't make any sense. These people aren't trying to evade the law. These people are availing themselves of their right as an American citizen to move from place to place in this Nation. This radical legislation actually requires people to register in- person, banning common methods, as we heard from the Senator from Alaska who is standing up for her State as she always does. We should be supporting her. We should be supporting Alaska's way of running their elections rather than imposing Donald Trump's corrupt way of running his elections. This radical legislation actually requires people to register in- person, banning common methods of registration--online registration, through the mail, or automatically at the DMV. That is how 94 percent of Americans register to vote. Many of them are seniors. Many of them live in rural communities. I would like to see the majority party in this Chamber come to western Colorado and try to take--rather than having this fake filibuster--try to actually take mail-in ballots from the people of western Colorado. I would like to see that. They would avail themselves of any means necessary to prevent that from happening. The SAVE America Act would set our voter registration process back decades. If you are one of the more than 60 million Americans who live in rural areas, you might now need to drive hundreds of miles to stand in line at a local election agency. If you live overseas, you will have to fly back. If you don't have a passport, you better have your birth certificate. If you don't have your birth certificate or you changed your name like tens of millions of married women across this country living in the 21st century, you will have to provide additional documents and sign affidavits. All of this will--

Mr. BENNET. Thank you, Madam President.