Maria Cantwell

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I come to the floor today to urge my colleagues to vote to confirm Judge Mendoza to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This is a historic moment. If confirmed, Judge Mendoza would be the first Hispanic judge to serve on the Ninth Circuit from Washington. Judge Mendoza, whom I met before nominating him to the White House Counsel's Office as a candidate for U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, has been somebody who, when you think about his childhood growing up in the Yakima Valley--an agricultural area in Eastern Washington--he comes from a family of farm workers and has worked in the fields himself. As a young student at Prosser High School, it was not uncommon for him to wake up before dawn to work in the fields before rushing home to change and head to school. His hard work earned him admission to the University of Washington. After graduating from the University of Washington, he left the State to get his law degree from UCLA. After earning his degree, he returned home to Washington, where he worked as assistant attorney general in the Washington State AG's Office. He went on to serve the community he grew up in, first as a deputy prosecutor for Franklin County and then as a judge in the Benton- Franklin Superior Court. He has been an outstanding judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, where he has served since 2014. Clearly, my colleagues here in the Senate saw his potential since he was confirmed to the Eastern District 92 to 4. Judge Mendoza is not just an outstanding jurist; he is a community leader as well. He has served on the boards of directors for numerous organizations in Central Washington, including the Benton-Franklin Legal Aid Society, the Benton and Franklin Counties Circle of Hope Foundation for Drug Courts, and the United Way of Benton and Franklin Counties. I know Judge Mendoza will make an excellent addition to the Ninth Circuit Court, and I urge my colleagues to support his nomination to the court of appeals.

Ms. CANTWELL. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I object.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act and any other applicable budget points of order for the purpose of the pending bill, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to finish my remarks prior to the scheduled vote.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the legislation before us and how it is an investment today for jobs tomorrow. And I want to thank my colleague from Mississippi for his partnership on this legislation. It seems like a century ago that we had a markup in committee and passed this out--the science portion, which we are now voting on--24 to 4, more than a year ago. And yet here we are today, on the product of much negotiation, not just in our committee but in eight other committees--seven other committees. We are here because we know that innovation is in the DNA of Americans, and we know that it helped us win the world wars; it helped us cure disease. We know it has helped create millions of jobs, and it has helped members of the business community on opposite sides of a phone call or an email connect to each other to get a product or a service. So this bill embraces American innovation and our tradition of it, and I, too, encourage a ``yes'' vote. After watching the COVID crisis mangle our supply chain and see semiconductors be a big part of inflation, the shortage of semiconductors has increased the cost of a used car by more than 40 percent, putting it out of reach of many families at a time when they just needed a car to drive to work. So this bill is about making sure that we face our manufacturing challenges here at home and that we train and skill the scientists and the workers to get that done. And so thanks start with Senators Schumer and Young for their hard work in introducing this legislation more than 2 years ago. Senator Schumer's great work with Senator Young on this was an eye-opening change in the way that we make investments in R&D. It was a concept novel then, but I think we have a lot of understanding of it now, and that is to move our R&D into faster translation into products and services. Why? Because the rest of the world is doing that and we need to hurry as well. I also want to just point out that there are lots of contributions from Members in this bill: Senator Peters on AI scholarships, Senator Cortez Masto on national science technology strategy, Senator Rosen on critical minerals, Senator Sinema on our NASA authorization, Senator Warnock on semiconductor supply chains, Senators Brown and Coons on Manufacturing USA Institutes, Senator Ossoff on cyber security education grants, Senator Menendez on supply chain issues. So many, many things in this legislation were contributed by many different Members through a regular order process. But let's get specific about it. There are about five or six things in this bill that really matter to our Nation at this critical moment. First is a new mission at the National Science Foundation. That new mission is different because the National Science Foundation has been focused on basic research. So we are creating, for the first time, in a $20 billion investment over 5 years, the focus for that new mission at NSF to say that they have to focus on translating that science into faster discoveries in products and solutions that will help U.S. manufacturing here at home. And while the United States has excelled at basic research, we have allowed other countries to excel at translational research, and that needs to stop now. We need to make the investment in industries from aerospace to pharmaceuticals, to farming, to information technologies that will help increase the pace of innovation here in the United States of America. Second, we say that NSF is not alone in its mission. We recognize that the Department of Energy also has a key role to play in translational science. I want to thank the Presiding Officer, Senator Lujan, for his contribution of a $16.9 billion DOE investment that doubles down on the current work in key technology areas that we also have to do faster translational science to scale up in cutting edge energy R&D. This was a very large portion of the energy innovation that was funded in this bill. This legislation also includes a 5-year, $50 billion, first-ever reauthorization of the Department of Energy Office of Science. And I want to thank Senators Manchin and Barrasso for working on this and its inclusion in this. Combining these investments will go a long way in reversing the decline in Federal R&D that has dropped three-fold since 1978. We need to improve U.S. competitiveness, but we are only going to do it by investing today for those jobs tomorrow. Third, the bill also says that we need to be smarter at how we make our investments. Now, I would say I represent a tech hub. It is already in existence. It took 30-plus years to create. There are places like Seattle, San Jose, San Francisco, Boston, and San Diego that you could say are tech hubs. They account for 90 percent of the growth in innovation sectors between the years 2005 and 2017. But is that all we are going to do in the United States of America, allow innovation to just continue to be more and more expensive because it is only produced in those areas? I am a firm believer in distributed generation, whether that is electricity or whether that is innovation. And the more dispersed the innovation is, you never know where the next Bill Gates or Bill Boeing is going to be from and what innovation they might come up with. So this bill also has a new mission in the Department of Commerce in technology hubs, where it will focus on trying to foster new collaboration between universities, businesses, labor, and local government to accelerate economic growth and opportunity in innovation. These tech hubs will focus on the key technology areas that are in this bill and help us move faster at innovation. I want to thank my colleague Senator Tester, from Montana, who is a very big advocate in making sure that there was geographic diversity to the tech hubs. And we know that while we want to grow more technology advancement in the United States, that we also want to see it not just in Seattle, but in places like Spokane or Indianapolis or West Virginia or Wichita. We also increase in this Act the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships. During the pandemic, we saw that many companies could not survive without supplies that were no longer available to them. And we know that with the manufacturing extension ecosystem, that we have to stay competitive by innovating. This bill delivers $76 billion over 10 years to develop the next generation of chips and to reestablish chip manufacturing in the United States. Now I know my colleague from Vermont and my colleague from Florida and many others have criticized this part of the legislation. I know that they think that this is somehow--I wish, trust me, I wish that--I would probably agree more with the Senator of Vermont on the prioritization within our budget on the various things that will help American families. But we can't ignore that chip production has gone overseas and that the United States has lost its share of that production to the point that we are now down to as little as 12 percent--or could go to 12 percent, at which point, who wants to manufacture when the ecosystem is somewhere else? We know that just last year alone, chip shortages cost the U.S. economy $240 billion. That is the automobile industry that didn't have chips; that is part of the electronics industry that didn't have chips. You can say it is even in the cost of every product that you buy because we certainly didn't produce the transportation system to even move products throughout the United States in companies like PACCAR that are from the Northwest, because they too did not have chips to put into their trailers to move products across the United States. So we know that with every dollar of chip R&D investment, that increases GDP gains by $16.50. So I know my colleagues would like us to make other investments, but I would say that chips are just as essential as wheat is in America. People think about our farm investments and with no hesitation say: Let's make sure that we keep wheat production in the United States of America. I guarantee you, chips are no less important. And we have to have an increase in the United States, or we are going to continue to fall behind on national security issues and on economic development issues that are so critical. We also, in this legislation, make one of the most significant investments in STEM over the last many years. It puts $13 billion into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce development. It creates $2 billion to minority-serving institutions, including Native American institutions, to encourage their research and innovation. And I want to thank Senator Wicker for his leadership on the F-score provision, probably one of the more hotly debated conversations between our colleagues here in the Senate and in the House. But I would say to my colleagues, this is about innovation everywhere. This is about growing opportunity everywhere. And that is exactly what we are saying with F-score. You never know what the next innovation is going to bring. So these key provisions, from diversifying our investment in education and job training, from making investments in tech hubs, to the investment in R&D by both DOD and NSF through faster translational science, we are improving the ecosystem that we have in the United States of America. This ecosystem has been built over a long period of time. It represents competing and collaborating organizations. That is what the strength of our R&D is. So I want to thank Senators Schumer and Young, Senators Cornyn and Kelly, and many other people who helped introduce and move this legislation. I want to thank Senator Warner for his contributions and thank, again, Senator Wicker and his team for the many advances in this legislation. I also would be remiss if I didn't thank retiring Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson and Ranking Member Frank Lucas who worked hard to craft the legislation before us. I want to thank on my staff: Lila Helms, Melissa Porter, Mary Guenther, Amit Ronen, Stacy Baird, Nikki Teutschel, Christi Barnhart, Jonny Pellish, Rosemary Baize, Erica Holman, and Emma Stohlman for their help; and on Senator Wicker's staff, as he already mentioned, James Mazol and many other people. I want to thank on Senator Schumer's staff Jon Cardinal, Mike Kuiken, and Meghan Taira for their hard work. But no one deserves more focus and attention than Richard-Duane Chambers from my staff, who literally worked on the last COMPETES bill and then worked at DARPA, so clearly knows seriously the challenges that we faced in getting this legislation done and getting it over the goal line. So I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. We don't know exactly what innovations will come out of this, but we do know this: America will be more competitive because of it. And we do know this: that we will be able to grow our economy for the future because of the investments that we have made today. I yield the floor. Amendment Withdrawn

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, no one could be more disappointed than myself in the fact that we don't have a conference report before us at this point in time. With so many different committees and the four corners working to resolve so many issues, I had hoped that we would get over the goal line and be here with that conference report. Unfortunately, events overtook us and objectives of the calendar and a variety of issues that narrowed the discussion we have before us today to two focus points: one, the Science Committee's work with the Commerce Committee in the Senate and language that basically would incent the semiconductor industry. And our colleagues voted to proceed on those two measures, and there was a lot of discussion on what the definition of a ``skinny bill'' was. Not sure, exactly--I mean, I know a lot of the events that got us to that discussion. But I will say to my colleague that he is correct. When USICA left the U.S. Senate, it included this language, and this language was very much debated in conference, and it was part of the jurisdiction of several committees, but primarily the HELP Committee, whose content is now not part of the legislation we are considering. So I am hopeful that we will get those committees that have jurisdiction over this language to rectify their differences between the House and the Senate, but that is what four corners is. It is rectifying these issues between the House and the Senate, and I hope that my colleague will work with me on a conference that will continue after this point. I hope that we get this legislation done, and then I hope that we literally return to finish up the rest of the conference work because there are so many important issues, like this, that we should include in the legislation. So I hope my colleague will continue to work with us, knowing that these are not all of the issues that had been discussed, but a more narrow issue. So, therefore, I object.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, I say to my colleague from Ohio that I know how hard he and Senator Peters from the Homeland Security Committee have worked on this language. I know because I have consulted with them many times over the last month and a half, wondering about its progress and wondering about various issues involving people on both sides of the aisle to resolve what they were concerned about in definitions. I, too, felt like the Senators' hard work and language had gotten to a point where it could be included in a package of legislation. We were very, very hopeful that the various committees' work--that of the Finance Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the HELP Committee--the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--the Intel Committee work, and the work that we just discussed from the Homeland Security Committee--could all be included in a conference report. So the words ``pins down'' did not come from my side of the aisle. The words ``pins down'' did not happen. For me, I have been doing nothing but diligently working with all of my colleagues--most of the time when they don't agree--in trying to get them to agree. I very much appreciate the subject at the heart of what Senator Portman's work is. He is trying to say to us that we have to understand the reality of the world that we live in now and make sure that we are protecting all of our research dollars as we move forward. Again, it wasn't my decision to decide the narrowness of this bill. It wasn't my decision to say that these are the two subject areas that people are going to include. I know because I thanked the Senator for his help in getting the Science Committee's legislation included in this package. But you could see that even that was a very tough lift in that there were a lot of people around here who didn't want to do that. So I say to my colleague from Ohio that I am going to work with him in whatever capacity to get this language accepted. Now he is saying that he has streamlined this language from, probably, what the four corners has agreed to. I do know that the Senator worked very hard trying to get a four-corner agreement from the Science Committee, which we didn't have, to include this language. And why? Because there had been a big fight in the House between the Science Committee and their Homeland Security Committee about what this language said. Then you had the Judiciary Committee weighing in in both the House and the Senate as to what this language said. Since all of those people have been part of that discussion, that part of the four corners did not happen. My colleague is earnest, and his work is real. The reports that he is referring to in the Homeland Security Committee are real, and we should honor them and honor that work. I am committed to getting that legislation passed, and we will confer with the Senator from Ohio about where that goes and if it goes in the conference report because I am committed to finishing the conference report, because as I said, the Finance Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the HELP Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and your Homeland Security Committee--five committees--would still all like to have language as part of this conference report. While we aren't able to cover every aspect of this jurisdiction, I am very hopeful that our colleagues will take the impetus of this legislation's passing and double down on getting the rest of the conference report done and signed and on the President's desk. Then we will have a robust policy, not just the incentives, not just the R&D but a variety of issues addressed as they relate to our competitiveness. So I will continue to work with my colleague from Ohio on this important language and with all of my colleagues on those various committees who have asserted their interest on this subject, but at this time, I object.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if Senator Scott of Florida makes a budget point of order and a motion is made to waive, at 4:55 p.m. today, the Senate vote on a motion to waive the budget point of order; further, that if Senator Sanders raises a budget point of order and a motion to waive is made, that at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, July 27, all postcloture time expire and any remaining amendments except Senate amendment No. 5135 be withdrawn and the Senate vote on the motion to waive the Sanders point of order and the motion to concur with respect to H.R. 4346, with an amendment; further, that following the vote, the Senate resume consideration of the message to accompany S. 3373, the PACT Act, and notwithstanding rule XXII, at 4:30 p.m., the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur, all without further intervening action or debate.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, pursuant to section 404(b) of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 13 of the 111th Congress, as amended by S. Con. Res. 11 of the 114th Congress, I move to waive section 404 of S. Con. Res. 13 for purposes of the pending measure and ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know we are expecting a vote soon here, and I know that our colleagues know that we will have two votes-- one on a nominee and the second one on a motion to proceed to what has been known as the Innovation and Competition Act. I just wanted to say, because I know there have been a few people out here on the floor--and I won't spend a lot of time now--that, hopefully, we will proceed on the motion to proceed and that we will have a much larger discussion. I do want to clarify that today's vote is really about whether we are going to stop shipping jobs overseas and instead invest in American R&D. If we invest in American R&D, then we will see the plant, like is being talked about in Ohio, get built instead of getting immediately built in Europe. We will see other companies make investments in States like Texas and Arizona and Idaho and in many other parts of the United States. We will help build an ecosystem here in the United States of technology and next-generation development. I encourage my colleagues to vote for a bill that makes an investment and competes with the next-generation semiconductors so that we can go even faster with innovation than we are currently doing because so much of that development is happening overseas. It is happening in Taiwan, and it is happening in Korea. They have had ``game on'' for a while. They have had ``game on'' and have literally taken a page out of what the United States has done to attract and keep industry here. Innovation is in the DNA of Americans, and if we want to create the economy of the future, we need to invest in the R&D of today. That means passing this next motion to proceed, getting on the bill, and passing as much of it as we can today. That way, we can be assured that we are not going to lose out in this round of investment that is, yes, very challenging on a global basis. We should be really realistic. We have a chip shortage today, and it is costing our economy, and it is increasing inflation. We know that there is going to be a chip demand that is going to be threefold from where we are today in the very near future. That means, if we don't start building here, we are not going to catch up. More importantly is the national security element of making sure that the United States is making the most advanced semiconductors. So today's vote is to say to our colleagues that we believe in the R&D ecosystem of the United States--we believe in the NSF; we believe in our universities; we believe in the DOE--and that we believe that we can do translational science and help our manufacturing base be more competitive whether it is autos or airplanes or other aspects of the tech sector. This underlying bill invests in 10 key technology areas that we need to make investments in, and it makes sure that we in the United States of America are saying: We want to see that innovation here. We want to see these in tech hubs and in tech centers. We want our universities to translate that science faster and keep our patents and make sure that we are, obviously, continuing to lead the world in innovation. If we fail to do this, I guarantee you that more jobs are going to go overseas. American R&D can create the hub of innovation that we would like to see for the future. We have done it many times over. We just need to proceed to make sure that we are aware of the competition that exists around the globe. The United States is up to it; it is capable of competing; and this institution is also capable of making decisions and proceeding by working together. Trust me. That is what people are looking at around the world. Whether they are in Europe or Asia, they want to know whether we know how to get things done. Let's show them that American innovation is here to stay; that it is the top of the game; and that we can compete with anyone given the right investments in STEM, job training, education, and in taking that ecosystem that is so unique and making an investment in it. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. CANTWELL

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

Ms. CANTWELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. CANTWELL

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

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 968, the nomination of Julianna Childs, under the previous order.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, while other colleagues are joining us to speak on behalf of the Cortez Masto language, I wanted to thank the Senator from Nevada for her legislation and just emphasize how important this is to people all through the United States, including my State. It happens to be a border State, but even in Seattle, providers are worrying about a chilling effect. I was wondering if the Senator from Nevada--while our colleagues have been talking about how this impacts individuals, people seeking healthcare in other States, what is happening now with the chilling effect to providers and their anxiety over people pursuing them for seeing patients from States in which Roe v. Wade is not fully protected?

Ms. CANTWELL. I want to thank the Senator from Nevada. We were joined by the American Medical Association that also expressed this concern. They are speaking on behalf of the providers that want to provide reproductive choice in States that pass this law, and they are concerned. We need to get this legislation passed. I thank the Senator from Nevada.

Ms. CANTWELL

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

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, later this afternoon, we are going to vote on Mary Boyle to be a Consumer Product Safety Commissioner. This organization, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, works on the frontlines to protect consumers from dangerous and defective products, and Ms. Boyle's confirmation will give the Commission a full complement of Commissioners to complete its important work. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is responsible for regulating the safety of more than 15,000 everyday products and helps keep hazardous products out of our homes and away from our families. The Agency is responsible for investigating hazards, effectuating product recalls, issuing and enforcing product safety standards, and informing consumers and manufacturers about potential dangers and how to avoid them. The CPSC's work literally saves lives and prevents injuries. We know that Ms. Boyle is well qualified for this position and that she will make consumers a top priority and their safety a top priority. Now is an important time for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to be well equipped to fight for these consumer safety issues. We need it to remain a strong force in keeping unsafe and defective products, including children's toys, infant rockers, household appliances, and other issues in the development space, like elevators and space heaters, out of the market. When it comes to recalls, for example, this year the Consumer Product Safety Commission and three residential elevator manufacturers announced the recall of 70,000 residential elevators that posed a serious risk of injury and, tragically, death to small children. I am encouraged to see that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is taking action on this heartbreaking issue. There is more to be done, and we need a Commission that will follow through. The Commission is also responsible for investigating tragedies, such as home fires that might have been caused by defective products. In fact, the Consumer Product Safety Commission was quickly on the scene in the Bronx earlier this year when a fire from a space heater caused the death of 17 people, including 8 children. When I sent a letter to the Consumer Product Safety Commission asking them to look further into this issue, they acted quickly and knew that we had to investigate. While these investigations are still ongoing, we need assurances that if a defective product is found to be the cause, that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is going to be fully equipped to take action. I also want to mention with respect to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's rulemaking authority that the Commerce Committee recently passed the STURDY Act, a bill that would speed up the Consumer Product Safety Commission's rulemaking process to deal with furniture tipovers. Unfortunately, many furniture items are designed in such a way that they can tip if a child grabs or climbs upon them, with the potential of very tragic consequences. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has been undertaking a rulemaking to ban unsafe furniture items by imposing strict tipover testing requirements. I hope we will see a safety standard for this very soon. Over the course of more than a decade at the Commission, Ms. Boyle has worked on these issues in senior positions across the Consumer Product Safety Commission, including as General Counsel and Deputy General Counsel before assuming her current role as Executive Director. As the Consumer Product Safety Commission's General Counsel, Ms. Boyle served the Agency's chief legal officer--providing legal, policy, and strategic advice on a multitude of regulatory, statutory, fiscal, litigation, and enforcement issues--and examined proposed product safety rules and standards. So I think she is well qualified for this job. She worked with the Department of Justice on Federal court litigation in which the Commission was involved. In her current role as Executive Director, she is the chief operating officer of the Agency, ensuring that it meets program and operational and administrative functions. She is more than well-versed in the Agency's processes and eminently qualified to hit the ground running as a Commissioner. Over 90 different organizations have written to my office in support of her nomination, including the AFL-CIO, the Consumer Federation of America, the National Consumers League, Kids in Danger, and many, many more organizations. I want to say to all my colleagues, I hope you will vote to confirm Ms. Boyle to ensure that the Consumer Product Safety Commission can move forward so that these important issues can be addressed and Americans can find safer products in their homes. I look forward to working with Ms. Boyle at a critical time for the Agency in making sure that these products are safe and that Americans are protected from dangerous and defective products. Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:15 today, the Senate vote on the motion to discharge the Freeman nomination; further, that immediately following that vote, the Senate vote on confirmation of the Boyle nomination as under the previous order; and that if the nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now recess until 2:15.

Ms. CANTWELL

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