Maria Cantwell

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for coming to the floor to remember this horrific shooting in their State and to remember those and the family ones who were affected by this. I very much appreciate this resolution.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I am here too to focus on some history and a resolution. Today is the 95th anniversary of one of the worst economic policies our country ever made: the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Don't just take my word for it. The Senate Historical Office has characterized it as ``among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history.'' So today I am introducing a resolution that commemorates this anniversary as a moment to reflect on the devastating impact and the consequences. It shows you what we can learn from history, and at its peak, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act placed an average rate of 20 percent tariffs on goods imported into the United States--just 20 percent. So we have had this big discussion about many other things, definitely well above 20 percent. The goal then was to bolster U.S. farmers and manufacturers by protecting them from foreign competition. But that goal, as we all know, if you study history, was not met. What it did instead was widen and deepen the Great Depression. My resolution recounts our major trading partners, including Canada and countries in Europe, responded to those tariffs placed on by the United States by raising tariffs on the United States' exported goods. So yes, let's say a trade war. And anti-United States sentiment rapidly intensified in foreign countries, leading to a consumer boycott of American products in Canada, France, Spain, Italy, and many other countries. The retaliatory tariffs and consumer boycotts caused farm and manufacturing exports from the United States to plunge from 68 percent, basically $5.24 billion, in 1929, to basically $1.6 billion--so from $5 billion to basically $1 billion in 1933, so a big drop in what the United States was able to do. The U.S. gross domestic product fell nearly in half, from $104 billion in 1929 to just $57 billion in 1932. And the unemployment rate rose from 3.2 percent to a peak of around 23 percent in 1932. So the Great Depression had arrived. In my State, the State of Washington, we have always been dependent on trade. Back then, lumber was our main export, and the trade war essentially destroyed that industry. Production dropped 70 percent, and the board feet dropped down to just 2 billion board feet in 1932--more than cutting in half what we had done before. More than half of our State's loggers lost their jobs. The unemployment rate in my State was 33 percent much higher than the national average. And where do we stand 95 years later? Do we want to take a moment and understand the lessons of Smoot-Hawley? The administration is running a very high tariff playbook. The world's economy is much more interconnected now than it was in the 1930s. Uncertainty is the enemy of continued economic growth. And at least the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were set at an established rate. American businesses knew what they were standing up against and could make forecasts and plans accordingly. These tariffs in the Trump administration change at the discretion of the President, creating huge uncertainty. Small business owners in my State tell me that while the tariffs are a challenge, the uncertainty is what keeps them up at night. The administration's tariffs are on par with Smoot-Hawley era tariffs. On that, the economic historians agree: That was a prolonged and deepened global depression. Last week, the President said the tariffs on China would be set at 55 percent. So what have we learned from this historical date? Before President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Act, he got a signed letter from more than 1,000 economists--1,000 economists sent a letter. The economists warned that raising tariffs would cause the cost to rise on consumers; farmers and manufacturers would suffer; and retaliatory tariffs would make exports dry up. And they said that starting a trade war would damage our foreign relations. As early as 1934, Congress tried to right the ship. That year, we passed the Reciprocal Tariff Act directing Presidents to reduce us and world tariff rates. This year, my colleague Senator Grassley and I are trying to stop the administration by introducing the Trade Review Act of 2025 that establishes limits on the President's ability to impose tariffs. Why? Because this is the constitutional power given to Congress, not to the President. The courts have already said at certain levels that this President, as it relates to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, does not have this authority. So out of the ashes of World War Two, the U.S. led in a way of creating an open and rules-based international trading system. Tariffs were lowered in the U.S. and abroad--falling in the U.S.--from a trade weighted average of 20 percent in '33 to 7 percent in 1950 and continuing to fall afterward with trade agreements. So it means we established rules. That is what trade needs. We don't need a President whose authority isn't in this particular area to start trade wars with no end in sight. The rules-based trading system provided the stability we needed to drive investment and to drive growth. So the resolution I am introducing today asked the Senate to affirm the importance of a rules-based trade policy that reduces production costs for American farmers, for manufacturers, and one that opens markets to US exports. It is time for us to commit to encouraging trade policies, particularly when so many other countries are getting their products on the shelves in foreign markets, leaving our products at home. Let's avoid the repetition of this historical policy mistake and instead do something that reaffirms this institution's oversight of this issue and recognize the problems that tariffs are causing.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor to join my colleagues to express outrage over the actions taking place in Los Angeles when our dear colleague Alex Padilla, Senator Padilla, was thrown out of an event where he was just simply trying to express his opinion on behalf of the millions of Californians that he represents. It is so interesting to me that this situation happened because not that long ago in the State of Washington, in Olympia, we had a bill signing, and it is no secret in the State of Washington that a guy named Tim Eyman is probably the antithesis of what our Governor Bob Ferguson believes. He fights him on all sorts of initiatives to the people about policies that Mr. Eyman wants to express. So he is a noted individual in our State. So Mr. Eyman shows up at a press conference to basically protest a bill that the Governor is going to sign. And he gets into the Governor's office, and he stands right behind our Governor. One of our legislators, who basically wants the Governor to know that this individual, who he disagrees with--doesn't support this bill--has now snuck into the Governor's press conference. So what does our Governor do? He turns around, and he looks at Mr. Eyman, and he says, ``Oh, why are you here?'' And he said, ``I'm here to protest this.'' And the Governor turns around and delivers his remarks. Because, you know why? Because our Governor was not afraid what Tim Eyman said. Our Governor didn't think, You throw him out of the building, and he is just a constituent. It is not like he is a State rep. It is not like he got elected by people. Our Governor was not afraid to let this voice be heard. But somehow, ICE and Homeland Security are afraid of the voice of Alex Padilla. They are afraid of Alex Padilla's presence in a room. Now, how can that be in the United States of America that a Senator elected by the people of his State, who simply wants to go to a public meeting and have his voice heard on behalf of his constituents, is handcuffed and thrown to the ground? It is not acceptable. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle need to say, ``This is not acceptable.'' Are we trying to freeze the voice of dissent? Are we trying to say that we cannot understand what true public policy discourse is about? I think we showed in Olympia, WA, that we are big enough to take it, that we know that if somebody disagrees with us, we are not going to get them thrown out. And in this case, to have a U.S. Senator handcuffed and thrown to the ground is disrespectful. It is an atrocity. We need to understand how this is happening and if this administration or this side of the aisle thinks that is the way you treat the voice of a U.S. Senator expressing dissent. 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 to complete my remarks before the vote starts.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about the action that we are seeing in the House of Representatives today that will lead to action here in the Senate and asking our colleagues to reverse course on this reconciliation bill that I think is going to have unbelievable economic consequences to our economy. Trillions in red ink that are alarming credit agencies and bond markets, spiking billions in energy project costs, and driving up prices and burdening States with billions of dollars of new healthcare that they can't afford. Instead, they should be focusing on protecting healthcare coverage, lowering costs for American families, and giving working families the breathing room they need to prosper. Even now, 5 years later out of COVID, we can still see the effects of the pandemic. That time changed the way we live and took a toll on our economy. The U.S. economy lost 23 million jobs at the start of the pandemic, leading to a recession in early 2020, and thanks in no small part to well-designed, bipartisan fiscal policies by both Congress and the Biden administration, the recession that started was the shortest in history, lasting only 2 months. Coming out of it though, the combined effects and impacts on our supply chains and durable goods caused inflation to spike to 9 percent by June of 2022. Again, well-designed fiscal policies by the Fed helped get that inflation back down in just 1 year to 3 percent by June of `23 and continue to lower and hover just above 2 percent. We need, though, to continue to make progress on inflation and costs--costs that impact everything from clothes, cars, food, computers, you name it, and costs may be getting even more expensive because of the impacts of the tariffs, and they are making their way onto our shelves. The last thing American families need is to be saddled with even more financial restraint, particularly as it relates to Medicaid and the policies in the reconciliation bill. More than 72 million Americans are enrolled in Medicaid, making it the single largest insurer in the United States. It is critical that it remain a critical part of our healthcare system. Depending on the State, the Federal Government covers somewhere between 50 and 70 percent of the cost of insuring people with Medicaid. While Medicaid is administered jointly by the Federal Government and, in most States, about two-thirds of the funding for the State Medicaid program is Federal support. So make no mistake about it, cutting Medicaid at the Federal level is going to have a dramatic economic impact on States. It is the largest source of Federal funding for States. It is the largest component expenditure across all States--more than K-12, more than higher education, more than transportation--and somehow, in an economy with great inflation, you think the idea is to make it more expensive for Americans to get health insurance and cover their costs and impact the economy? The bill that is now being cobbled together is a serious attack on Medicaid. As an assault, they will continue to have ripple impacts on the economy. It undermines the Medicaid program, shifting the burdens to the State, and it makes the entire healthcare system more expensive for everyone. Medicaid provides financial support to the healthcare sector, stimulates local economies--spending that does have a multiplier effect. Every dollar spent generates more than $1 worth of economic activity. Medicaid drives employment in the healthcare sector, it generates State and local revenue, and it saves money for the enrollees to spend on more items--not healthcare. But reductions in the Medicaid funding, especially as large as $715 billion, will take a toll on States, on jobs, on revenue, and it will increase the financial burden on individuals and families. So it is important to remember that direct recipients of Medicaid are not just individuals with coverage. They are a payment system. They are the benefits of a healthcare system, hospitals, doctors' offices, pharmacies, nursing homes. And so when you cut that funding, you are cutting those businesses and those opportunities. The impact on the State economy would be greater than the loss of Federal Medicaid funding because of the ripple effects of the costs across the State. The Commonwealth Fund estimated that, collectively, States' gross domestic product could be cut $95 billion smaller than the total economic output lost, and that could be even deeper. So imagine every State now having $2 billion more costs because of Medicaid. The additional loss in individual income would mean that State and local revenues would decline by $7 billion. This would make it harder for States and localities to balance the burden of Medicaid. And our constituents would also see more far reaching impacts as they struggle to provide healthcare. Today, 49 States, plus the District of Columbia, are all part of the system and counting on these providers and the funds. But this bill even eliminates the ability for States to adjust the revenue in any way that would be helpful for them to deal with this crisis. So this is an extreme approach to cutting American citizens off of the healthcare. But think a bit about it for a second on the work requirement--also almost like a surveillance of U.S. citizens, trying to make them prove that they are eligible. Let's be honest; the provisions are not designed to cut down on waste. Rather, their primary objective is to prevent people from signing up for Medicaid coverage. In Arkansas, the casework requirement led to disenrollment of 18,000 people in just 4 months. And in New Hampshire, the complexity and administrative burden of the work requirement caused 17,000 beneficiaries to receive coverage termination in just 1 month. Today, Georgia is the only State that has a work requirement for Medicaid. And instead of expanding Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act, it allows individuals and households that have income up to 100 percent of the Federal work poverty to get coverage if they work for 80 hours a month. The results are not good. A report found that Georgia's model cost taxpayers--taxpayers, not these individuals--cost the taxpayers $87 million and enrolled only 6,000 people, about 75 percent fewer than had been projected. So I ask again, what policy is this that saves money? It makes healthcare more expensive for the rest of us. Nobody defers their healthcare costs. They are just going to show up at the emergency room. Just because we are cutting spending, it doesn't mean that the need magically disappears. States will have to find their way to make up for these shortfalls. A Kaiser analysis found that the House reconciliation bill--if it is enacted, the State of Washington would need to spend 30 percent more per Medicaid enrollee to make up the difference. We don't have those resources. The same will be true of every State. For example, Louisiana would have to spend 50 percent more per Medicaid enrollee to make up the difference, translating into an 11 percent increase in the State taxes if they had to do that. Now is not the time to force our States to jump off of a cliff just because we won't live up to our Medicaid obligation. I know the President used the f word, but what is real here on the Senate floor--I am not going to say it--but you are making a mess out of Medicaid, and we should stop them. I yield the floor. Vote on Motion

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 rise today to urge my colleagues to oppose any proposals to take healthcare coverage away from the American people who need it most. Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is marking up a section of what is called their budget reconciliation bill, which would reduce spending by $912 billion over 10 years. That is a lot of money. Out of that, $715 billion would come from Medicaid and other healthcare programs that are essential to Americans, children, and our most vulnerable families. House Republicans say that these cuts are about waste, fraud, and abuse--but the real fraud is telling the American people that by implementing these requirements, that somehow these policies are going to save money. The truth is, it is just making it harder on Americans to stay on Medicaid. A Medicaid program that even the Seattle Times has said cutting it could hurt our State's poor and our children. So is that what we are trying to do, give a tax break to corporations and billionaires by cutting the effects of Medicaid on poor people and children? The proposed work requirements basically make Medicaid beneficiaries submit paperwork every month to prove that they are working at least 80 hours a month, but we already know that 64 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries are working. That is what the big fraud is. This chart right here shows that people who couldn't find other affordable health insurance and are working full-time is 44 percent of Medicaid adult recipients. Some are not working because of their inabilities and due to retirement. So 8 percent of them are not doing that, 20 percent are working part time, 12 percent we basically said it is better for you to be a caregiver and provide the caregiving, and we will cover your health insurance costs so you can provide the caregiving because that way the families stay in the home instead of going to their nursing home, which would cost all of us a ton more amount of money. So they are working. There are 10 percent not working due to illness or disability, and some are not working because we are smart enough to let people who go to school, but don't have the ability to get affordable insurance, allow some percentage, a small percentage of them to be on Medicaid too. So what is it that the House is really trying to say? They are really trying to sneak in a massive cut to Medicaid that will shut down hospitals, kick people off of Medicaid, make them go to emergency rooms, cost us all more money, and do nothing but perpetrate a fraud. When in reality, people are working and those that aren't working, we are happy that they are not working because one--could be due to an illness, or they are a caregiver, or they are working part time. So all of these issues show that the House isn't serious. In 2018, another State tried this, ``Oh, brilliant idea. We're going to make a work requirement.'' Now, if I hadn't been in the U.S. Senate at the same time the House of Representatives tried another canard--``Oh, we're going to block grant Medicaid. We're going to block grant it and it's going to be great, and then we're going to save money.'' No, no, the hospitals, the Republican county commissioners, the jails--everybody basically said, ``Don't do that. You're going to cut Medicaid--you're going to decimate the safety net that makes healthcare work in our communities. Don't do it.'' And because we had three Republicans join us, we were able to stop that ridiculous idea of block granting Medicaid. But in 2018, Arkansas tried the same thing that the House of Representatives are now suggesting. They became the first State to establish a work requirement for certain Medicaid enrollees. It took just 4 months, and the new requirement got 18,000 people kicked off Medicaid. Where do you think those people go? You think they don't have any healthcare needs? You don't think they go to the hospital and cost us all a bunch load more money? That is what they do. They cost all of us a bunch load more money. A Federal court ruling stopped Arkansas from implementing that rule a year later because it disrupted so many people because of the work requirement. And after that, a Harvard University study found that Arkansas' work requirement didn't lead to more people getting jobs. It actually took away their health insurance, and then they didn't have the ability to stay as healthy and get jobs. So is that what is going to happen across our country, to my State, all because the Republicans are putting this nonsensical idea on the table? Still, the issue is that other States tried the same thing, and other States also stopped their ridiculous idea. So this isn't something that works, and according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, more than 780,000 Washingtonians could be subject to a work requirement and are at risk of having their coverage taken away. Now, I am already done fighting with the DOGE people who basically said, ``Oh, waste, fraud and abuse, and Social Security.'' Really? My constituent not only had his Social Security benefits cut; they said he was dead. He wasn't dead. And not only did he go there, wait in line, crummy service, and say that he wasn't dead--they still, after that-- after he notified Social Security and told him he wasn't dead, and I want my Social Security, they had the audacity to go back into his bank account and claw back money out of his bank account, still saying that he was dead. Now, is that what really the House of Representatives wants us to do, harass the heck out of 780,000 Washingtonians to write a proposal every month, telling them they are somehow doing something? Or do we want to set up a program to cover those who can't get affordable insurance and cover them because we don't want to pay the extra costs at the emergency room? That is what we are trying to say. We don't want to pay the extra costs. So this proposal just doesn't make sense, and so I am not surprised that I got a copy of a letter passed on by health officials in my State that said, ``The undersigned here are writing to you to oppose any cuts to the Medicaid rates, any adjustments to the federal Medicaid assistance program, to our healthcare systems, or changes to the direct payment programs.'' Well, what is surprising about this is it is signed by the Republican county commissioners, the Republican State representatives. The people in that community who know what it takes to build a healthy community, they sent a letter basically saying, Don't do the very things that the House of Representatives just did. My own constituents, bipartisan Republicans and Democrats, though, already said, Don't do this because you will cut the legs out from under us. We won't have rural hospitals. And just think about all the jails that are dealing with the opioid and fentanyl epidemic, and now, all of a sudden, you are taking Medicaid away from them. What are they going to do? You are going to make all those people go to an emergency room? Now, all of our emergency rooms, instead of these people being in a detention facility, are all going to be in an emergency room crowding us all out from getting healthcare? So this idea is ridiculous, and people all across my State are already speaking out about the choices or lack thereof. I spoke to a Medicaid patient in eastern Washington who was worried that she wouldn't be able to be supported when she needed to go to a nursing home because where is all the money going to go? We are trying to save enough money by putting people on Medicaid, so the people who do need to go to a facility can, but a resident told me that without Medicaid, her father wouldn't have been able to afford treatment or medication for his mental health issues. So that is really what we want to do? Give a tax break to wealthy, wealthy people and to corporations, just so we can be kicking poor people off of Medicaid? So I hope our colleagues will not allow this to happen. I hope that our Senate colleagues will be ready to show that the defeat of the fentanyl epidemic needs to be addressed, and helping Medicaid continue with substance abuse treatment is key. Recent polls show that 77 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Medicaid, including 64 percent of Republicans. And as I said, last week, I met with the healthcare providers, mostly from central Washington, who said, ``You literally will take away essential revenue that keeps our hospitals open, and our State could see five to seven hospitals close.'' That is not what we want to see out of a budget proposal to give a tax break to wealthy corporations and individuals. So I ask my colleagues to make sure that we are fighting these cuts to Medicaid. Our communities are demanding it. They are watching, and just like with the block granting of Medicaid, they are not going to believe another idea that has already been tried and failed and doesn't even meet the goals of being successful in making the most affordable healthcare possible and keeping the cost down on all of us. I urge my colleagues to reject this House proposal on Medicaid. I yield the floor.

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 come here today to urge my colleagues to vote no on the nomination of Mark Meador to be the FTC Commissioner. But before I do that, I did want to take a moment and talk about today's actions that happened when the President created a 90-day pause on the tariffs, taking the temperature down a bit. I definitely want to thank my House colleagues Representative Bacon and Gottheimer for introducing legislation similar to the Trade Review Act of 2025 that we have introduced here in the Senate. And while we have seen America on a roller coaster the last couple of days, I think it also is a reminder that we need to continue to play this oversight role. If you want to have the ability not to have the roller coaster ride we have been on, the best way to do that is to make sure that Congress continues to play a role in this very important policy. So I appreciate all my colleagues, and I appreciate my House colleagues for their leadership.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor with my colleagues today to echo concerns about the budget process that is pursuing here related to a proposal that we will be voting on that I am not sure I understand the math. I certainly, when it comes to Medicaid, want to make sure that we are protecting Medicaid, that the House budget that proposed to have $880 billion come out of the Energy and Commerce portfolio--a portfolio that is basically Medicaid and Medicare. So I don't know how you would get the majority of that money if it didn't come out of Medicaid, I hope my colleagues are not considering any cuts to Medicaid, and I heard from people all over my State last week about what a devastating impact that would be in the central part of our State, where many of our hospitals rely on a huge Medicaid/Medicare population, hospitals wouldn't be able to deliver services or stay open. So I want to see a promise that we are not going to touch Medicaid, no sleight of hand, no gimmickry, no budget where all of a sudden now somebody is going to go in a dark room after we pass this and then say, oh, oh, but I got a great idea. Here is how I am going to save X billions of dollars out of Medicaid. I am just not for it. When we had this debate before, I heard from Republican county commissioners all over my State, when people wanted to block grant Medicaid, and they were basically saying, How am I supposed to run this jail? How am I supposed to take care of these issues in my county if you are going to block grant Medicaid? So again, I hope my colleagues won't do that. I also hope my colleagues won't count revenue from the tariffs. I hope that they are not saying, Okay, well, we got a brilliant plan now. We are going to give a huge tax break to corporations and billionaires, but we are going to do it basically on the backs of American people who are paying higher tariff costs today, I don't think we don't need that in America. We certainly don't need these tariff costs. And what we are now seeing this morning is that China is imposing reciprocal tariffs. We are seeing a counterpunch from our other allies. A tariff is a last resort, not a first step in a process. We need to have a rules-based trade regime where you are doing trade that is fair trade, based on rules and not using a disruption of the market that ends up costing all of us, trillions of dollars could be, and certainly impacting us. So my State obviously wants to see a more alliance-based approach. We believe in building alliances with like-minded countries. It is very interesting how Europe successfully created a huge alliance. Europe, many years ago, said, You know, we are better off together. Let's create a European Union, and now they have something like a $20 trillion GDP because they work together in an alliance. Or if you look at the trade deals that we did as a nation in the Bush administration, we did a half a dozen or so trade deals that now represent a $47 billion surplus because we did those trade deals with those countries and we created an alliance. So I just see this world view differently than what is being proposed today. I definitely think that building alliances, getting supply chains here in the United States, strengthening those alliances are the key to our success. I believe in betting on the American worker. If you bet on the American worker, they will do the rest. And we do need to help upskill and train, and we should reward them for their upskilling. Right now, I think we need something like 500,000 electricians--that is what the AFL-CIO and Microsoft say. Hardly people that get up every day and get on the same page, but they are saying we need 500,000 electricians. I met a young man in my State who said, You know, you helped us get the workforce training. And he said, You brought me out of poverty. I said, How did we bring you out of poverty? He said: Well, I had some health challenges, and literally, I didn't even have tires for my car. but [because of] a stipend that went along with the program, I was able to then get tires, drive myself to another town, and get the training to become an electrician. He said: I accomplished that, and now I'm going to buy a house. That's how you got me out of poverty. So that is what we need to focus on. We need to focus on skilling and training the American worker for the opportunities of tomorrow that are here today, and that is why I feel so strongly that we can't ask the American people to pay for a bill that gives away tax breaks to billionaires and corporations by taking money from tariffs that are costing us. I know in my State, because I am already starting to hear this from people all over, that they are impacted from these tariffs. They could be the largest economic impact in the history of our country, the largest increase and very regressive, burdensome to households. But here is what I am hearing from my constituents. A retired woman told me that her stock portfolio which, along with Social Security, she relies on to pay for her living and healthcare expenses, lost $40,000 yesterday. That was yesterday. I don't even know what is happening today. But we have Americans who are like this individual counting on Social Security and that market income for her retirement, and it just got a big hole blown in it because of tariffs. So please do not put tariff revenue in this bill and say that you gave that revenue to corporations for a tax break. I heard from the owner of Fernseed, a plant and flower shop in Tacoma. The owner said: We work with the supplier of pretty much everyone and every vase that you will ever see in any plant or flower shop. She goes on to say: We got notification two weeks ago that there's just going to be a blanket 10% increase on prices, increased costs for imported ceramics, going to cut into our margins that we are going to have to pass on to consumers. And with margins of just six to 8% there's not enough breathing room. She continued to say: Our employee review cycle is in April, and because of the uncertainty about tariffs, I have to give my employees a small, incremental raise instead of a real raise. That puts me under the threat of losing those people that have been with me for three to four years, which is a lot in a very incredibly small business. And by the way, I don't expect to be paying myself either. That is what I am hearing from my State. We know that small businesses are going to be hard hit by this. They are resilient, but this is asking a lot. I heard from the president of the Washington Distillers Guild and founder of broVo Spirits. They told me: For lots of distilleries in my State, it's 20% of business that's going away, whether that's from Canada or the EU, the two primary markets. So exports aren't a big part of our business, but it's 20% and that hurts enough. I find this very real for my constituents. I--oh my gosh--I am so proud to represent the State of Washington. They are a resilient group of people, but in our State, we evangelized becoming exporters a long time ago. We just told people, go, go, do it. You can grow your market. Go, take your product and get it sold overseas. And what we find is that a lot of these businesses, somewhere between 20 percent and 25 percent of their sales are in overseas markets. So it is a nice little boost to what just the domestic market is. We certainly grow more apples than can be eaten in the United States of America, and we sure as heck want them to be reached to international markets. And I would say the same thing for these distillers. It is one thing to look at the U.S. as a geographic market. It is another thing to look at the whole world as a market. It is amazing. It is an amazing market, and they want to have entry into that market instead of having some aspect of their business being attacked. So people are now holding back on spending. They are not going out as much. They are staying home, and they are going to start cutting back on everything. The opportunity has been taken off the table for export growth, and at the same time, we are getting hammered on day-to-day operation expenses. So they continue to say at this distillery they are ``concerned about bars and restaurants and surviving the tourism impact we're going to see during this summer.'' I am sure they are saying that because a lot of our tourism comes from Canada, and I know that they believe that that is going to be challenging, given what the Canadians are telling us. I believe open markets and innovation are a better approach. I hope that we also don't see any cuts in these important programs on the other side of the aisle that I know have been proposed by DOGE. I can't believe that when it comes to agriculture, they are cutting the ARS programs and research that help our farmers be competitive in addressing issues to get markets open in the first place. We know that we have to continue to fight to make sure that we do get these markets open and, I believe, reverse these tariffs because I think that they are having a devastating impact. When it comes to fair trade, we need a rules-based trading system. That is what the U.S. has led since World War II, creating bigger global opportunity, creating more prosperity, and certainly not leading with the tariff first approach. So I hope that we will hear in our budget discussions, think about these hard-working American families that are working so hard to produce these products. I hope that you will think about the fact that many of these people have taken the risk to become exporters, to grow jobs in our State. It was a risk. It is harder to do. No one wants the unknown of what is happening in an overseas market. That is why I also support the Export-Import Bank that made financing of those exports easier, and certainly it makes for the innovation that Americans pull off much easier. I told a story yesterday about Cosmic Crisp. Cosmic Crisp--it took us 20 years, 20 years to figure out this apple and to get it produced for the market. It is the story of R&D work with federally funded research dollars from Washington State University. But that is about producing an apple that, once you cut into it or bite into it, doesn't brown. That is an amazing feat. It doesn't brown. That means all of a sudden, apples on a fruit tray or use in various things, people decide, wow, not only do I like the taste, I like the fact that it doesn't get discolored. So we don't want to see markets close to our Washington apples. We want to see markets opened. We want the R&D and innovation that succeeded in growing this market be matched with the market opportunity around the globe, and that is why we were able to get reduced the first Trump administration tariffs on apples that shut us out of a $120 million market in India. My colleague, who is on the floor, Senator Klobuchar and I wish we had a Zoom or an app that shows us, but literally, she and I got to go to India, and right after an official greeting of Prime Minister Modi, we were standing there in somewhat of a reception. And she and I pounced on him, and the first thing that we did is we started talking about agriculture. What was good is that he wanted to talk about agriculture too. That was the good news. That was the good news. But we had a very long conversation with him about opening up markets and why this matters so much to agricultural families across the United States. And he said--we were kind of surprised, but he said, yeah, maybe we need to figure out a new agreement that we need to do together. And when we came back, we were able to open that market, not only to apples and to chickpeas and lentils. It was a partnership that I think is going to continue to grow at a critical time. So don't try to jam the tax bill with tariffs. Don't try to stick in something that is costing the American people a lot of money. Try to work together as a body to say that this approach to tariffs needs to be reviewed, but certainly make sure that we are thinking about the small businesses, the individual consumers, the individual investors who are getting hard hit right now over this and let's move forward on trying to come together on what will really help make American agriculture opportunity, small business success, opening markets the main focus of our work. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. I yield the floor. Recognition of the Majority Leader

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the important role that Congress plays in ensuring our economy remains strong, and very important for the American people, to lower costs. That is why today I am inducing legislation by myself and Senator Grassley. Congress has a duty to ensure that our country remains competitive and leads in the global marketplace. American families rely on our economy for goods and to make ends meet and to provide shelter. American manufacturers rely on an economy to maintain resilient supply chains, keep production lines open--and that means aircraft from Everett, WA, or cars and trucks from Detroit, MI. American farmers rely on our economy to keep fields planted-- production in eastern Washington and northern and central Iowa depend on the cost of fertilizer, seed, and equipment. Small business owners across the country depend on consumer confidence in our economy so that they can keep sales and stay afloat. Sharp increases propose a major threat to that economy. Inflation and high costs are a threat to stability and prosperity of American businesses of all size, to our farmers, and to our consumers. We live now in an interconnected world--a global economy--and advances in technology and transportation have brought that world closer and closer together. We have a global economy. That is why it is so important to have rules-based trading systems that have been in place since World War II, and it is the bedrock of a global economy. That is to have rules. Rules-based trade is essential to have predictable and stable trade and promoting economic growth and development and global cooperation. No doubt, opening up markets has grown the pie, not just for those economies, but for the U.S. economy. When you establish clear rules- based mechanisms, you can also resolve trade disputes and encourage more investment and more trade. Businesses need this certainty to move forward with deals, to reach new markets, and grow. But now we are seeing a barrage of tariffs on at least 185 countries. We cannot have arbitrary policies create chaos and uncertainty. These kinds of chaos and uncertainty kill business investment and make for very challenging stock market assessments of investments for the future based on predictability. The current approach, in my opinion, is outside the predictable, rules-based system. It is arguable that the current approach is literally a misconstruction of statutory authorities. But what we know today for sure is that 95 percent of the world's consumers are outside of the United States. That means the global middle class includes almost 4 billion people. Those are markets for American businesses, for farmers to reach to grow and prosper. According to the World Bank, in the recent decade, trade has lifted 1 billion people out of poverty. My colleagues here, who have worked on deals in the past that opened up markets in places like Chile, Peru, Singapore, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the update of the USMCA, all know that this hard work created economic opportunity. Our trade agreements helped American farmers export $176 billion in agricultural products last year. They helped ensure that the United States is the world's largest agriculture exporter, with soybeans and corn leading the way as the top export. I want to return to trade agreements. I want to open up more markets. I want us to have a robust export opportunity for the excellent U.S. manufactured and grown products. Our trade agreements have ensured that the U.S. remained the second largest exporter of manufactured goods in the world--$2.06 trillion in 2024. And it is clear today, the United States must be competing hard to win in the race for emerging technologies like AI and quantum. Our foreign adversaries and our competitors are in this global race too. So that is why economic disruption puts America at risk. Straining ties with trade alliances also put us at a security risk. Trade wars have lasting consequences. Trade wars devastate Americans working families and small businesses and manufacturers. Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress--gave Congress--the explicit authority to impose duties and regulate commerce, given the far-reaching impact to our national economy that I just mentioned. As ranking member of the Commerce Committee, and my colleague from the Senate Finance Committee, we both know how much our Nation needs to continue to have interstate commerce and to have foreign commerce. Since the 1930s, Congress has enacted or directed the President to negotiate trade deals, including authority to negotiate the agreements and impose or adjust tariffs. But I think these Presidents have used this authority correctly by opening up markets, lowering tariffs, and establishing a rules-based trading system. The current approach, I believe, is creating uncertainty and certainly raising costs unnecessarily. Businesses rely on certainty and transparency from a rules-based trading system. So how has Congress done on these issues? Well, it is time, I believe, for Congress to reassert ourselves in our constitutional duties. Article I of the Constitution also gave Congress the power to declare war. The Founding Fathers wanted to prevent any single individual from unilaterally committing our Nation to war. The Founding Fathers wanted to ensure that we had a strong check and balance. I believe the same check and balance needs to exist now as it relates to protecting our commerce activities and any Presidential overreach that is not a rules-based approach. Congress, in the War Powers Act, decided to reclaim its authority because they thought a President had overreached. Senator Grassley and I are trying to do the same thing today by introducing the Trade Review Act of 2025. Trade wars--which frequently trigger sharp price increases, foreign retaliation, and huge shock impacts to our economy--could affect the livelihood of workers, supply chain manufacturers, and hard-won markets that American exporters have wanted to see continue to be open. I want to thank Senator Grassley for his leadership over many years for American farmers, for the people of Iowa, and for our country. I want to thank him for working with me on the introduction of the Trade Review Act of 2025 that ensures that Congress plays its constitutional role in making sure that, as our Founding Fathers intended, we set the duties and regulate foreign commerce. This important reassertion of Congress's constitutional role is important so we have a strong voice in trade policy. This legislation, as I said, modeled after the War Powers Act, says that a President must notify Congress within 48 hours of imposing or raising tariffs, provide an explanation of why they are warranted, and an assessment of their likely impact on American businesses and consumers. Our legislation, though, protects that constitutional authority by also saying these tariffs should be reviewed by Congress for approval or disapproval, and doing so is in the best interest of our country. I can't tell you how challenging I think competition in a fast-moving information age global economy is. We can't afford a trade war that lasts for 2 or 3 years, leaving our product off the shelves. We must reassert Congress's role over trade policy and ensure that a rules-based trade system is based on transparency, consistency, and the benefits of the American public.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the important role that Congress plays in ensuring our economy remains strong, and very important for the American people, to lower costs. That is why today I am inducing legislation by myself and Senator Grassley. Congress has a duty to ensure that our country remains competitive and leads in the global marketplace. American families rely on our economy for goods and to make ends meet and to provide shelter. American manufacturers rely on an economy to maintain resilient supply chains, keep production lines open--and that means aircraft from Everett, WA, or cars and trucks from Detroit, MI. American farmers rely on our economy to keep fields planted-- production in eastern Washington and northern and central Iowa depend on the cost of fertilizer, seed, and equipment. Small business owners across the country depend on consumer confidence in our economy so that they can keep sales and stay afloat. Sharp increases propose a major threat to that economy. Inflation and high costs are a threat to stability and prosperity of American businesses of all size, to our farmers, and to our consumers. We live now in an interconnected world--a global economy--and advances in technology and transportation have brought that world closer and closer together. We have a global economy. That is why it is so important to have rules-based trading systems that have been in place since World War II, and it is the bedrock of a global economy. That is to have rules. Rules-based trade is essential to have predictable and stable trade and promoting economic growth and development and global cooperation. No doubt, opening up markets has grown the pie, not just for those economies, but for the U.S. economy. When you establish clear rules- based mechanisms, you can also resolve trade disputes and encourage more investment and more trade. Businesses need this certainty to move forward with deals, to reach new markets, and grow. But now we are seeing a barrage of tariffs on at least 185 countries. We cannot have arbitrary policies create chaos and uncertainty. These kinds of chaos and uncertainty kill business investment and make for very challenging stock market assessments of investments for the future based on predictability. The current approach, in my opinion, is outside the predictable, rules-based system. It is arguable that the current approach is literally a misconstruction of statutory authorities. But what we know today for sure is that 95 percent of the world's consumers are outside of the United States. That means the global middle class includes almost 4 billion people. Those are markets for American businesses, for farmers to reach to grow and prosper. According to the World Bank, in the recent decade, trade has lifted 1 billion people out of poverty. My colleagues here, who have worked on deals in the past that opened up markets in places like Chile, Peru, Singapore, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the update of the USMCA, all know that this hard work created economic opportunity. Our trade agreements helped American farmers export $176 billion in agricultural products last year. They helped ensure that the United States is the world's largest agriculture exporter, with soybeans and corn leading the way as the top export. I want to return to trade agreements. I want to open up more markets. I want us to have a robust export opportunity for the excellent U.S. manufactured and grown products. Our trade agreements have ensured that the U.S. remained the second largest exporter of manufactured goods in the world--$2.06 trillion in 2024. And it is clear today, the United States must be competing hard to win in the race for emerging technologies like AI and quantum. Our foreign adversaries and our competitors are in this global race too. So that is why economic disruption puts America at risk. Straining ties with trade alliances also put us at a security risk. Trade wars have lasting consequences. Trade wars devastate Americans working families and small businesses and manufacturers. Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress--gave Congress--the explicit authority to impose duties and regulate commerce, given the far-reaching impact to our national economy that I just mentioned. As ranking member of the Commerce Committee, and my colleague from the Senate Finance Committee, we both know how much our Nation needs to continue to have interstate commerce and to have foreign commerce. Since the 1930s, Congress has enacted or directed the President to negotiate trade deals, including authority to negotiate the agreements and impose or adjust tariffs. But I think these Presidents have used this authority correctly by opening up markets, lowering tariffs, and establishing a rules-based trading system. The current approach, I believe, is creating uncertainty and certainly raising costs unnecessarily. Businesses rely on certainty and transparency from a rules-based trading system. So how has Congress done on these issues? Well, it is time, I believe, for Congress to reassert ourselves in our constitutional duties. Article I of the Constitution also gave Congress the power to declare war. The Founding Fathers wanted to prevent any single individual from unilaterally committing our Nation to war. The Founding Fathers wanted to ensure that we had a strong check and balance. I believe the same check and balance needs to exist now as it relates to protecting our commerce activities and any Presidential overreach that is not a rules-based approach. Congress, in the War Powers Act, decided to reclaim its authority because they thought a President had overreached. Senator Grassley and I are trying to do the same thing today by introducing the Trade Review Act of 2025. Trade wars--which frequently trigger sharp price increases, foreign retaliation, and huge shock impacts to our economy--could affect the livelihood of workers, supply chain manufacturers, and hard-won markets that American exporters have wanted to see continue to be open. I want to thank Senator Grassley for his leadership over many years for American farmers, for the people of Iowa, and for our country. I want to thank him for working with me on the introduction of the Trade Review Act of 2025 that ensures that Congress plays its constitutional role in making sure that, as our Founding Fathers intended, we set the duties and regulate foreign commerce. This important reassertion of Congress's constitutional role is important so we have a strong voice in trade policy. This legislation, as I said, modeled after the War Powers Act, says that a President must notify Congress within 48 hours of imposing or raising tariffs, provide an explanation of why they are warranted, and an assessment of their likely impact on American businesses and consumers. Our legislation, though, protects that constitutional authority by also saying these tariffs should be reviewed by Congress for approval or disapproval, and doing so is in the best interest of our country. I can't tell you how challenging I think competition in a fast-moving information age global economy is. We can't afford a trade war that lasts for 2 or 3 years, leaving our product off the shelves. We must reassert Congress's role over trade policy and ensure that a rules-based trade system is based on transparency, consistency, and the benefits of the American public.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, will the Senator from New Jersey yield for a question?

Ms. CANTWELL. I so appreciate the Senator from New Jersey trying to articulate the urgency of this moment. I know you have discussed many things over the last I don't know how many hours it is, but it has been many, many hours. You know we just had a hearing this morning related to the markup of the Social Security nominee, and somebody--we are just trying to find out--who is a whistleblower said he was involved in helping DOGE. We are here today, trying to bring attention to the American public that people are trying to rearrange essential services and contractual obligations--things like Social Security or Medicaid or even Medicare-- by basically saying ``Well, we have this efficiency strategy'' when in reality they are over there with numbers just trying to carve something out of the budget--billions of dollars out of Social Security efficiency or billions and billions and billions of dollars out of Medicaid, which would really come right out of our hospitals, which are saying they don't even think they can stay open. But this notion of Social Security--I don't know if you have heard that not only are they closing offices and cutting jobs, but they are asking people to reregister.

Ms. CANTWELL. So my constituent, who they basically said was dead, was not dead. He wanted his Social Security. So not only did they not give him his check in January, they tried to claw back checks from the previous months out of his bank account. Even though this has gotten national press and attention, you would think that everybody on the other side would be like ``No, that is not what we are trying to do'' even though the President in the State of the Union said all of these people were getting Social Security checks when my constituent is standing in line with less and less staff, trying to get his Social Security. And guess what. They are still at it. As of last Friday, they were still not giving him his Social Security. So what are we unleashing on America? What are we unleashing that even--and I don't know whether you addressed these Social Security issues in your statements. I so appreciate you emphasizing the urgency here because this is the dismantling of contractual agreements between the American people and the people's body. We are here to represent them and stand up for it, and people are acting like they don't care. So you are here in an extraordinary athletic achievement. Thank you. It makes your Stanford days look like nothing, right? You have achieved this great, long effort to bring illumination to the American people that they are getting screwed over the fact that these cuts are not some efficient way to deliver better service. In Social Security, they are undermining Social Security. So have you heard of these cases, the whistleblower issue and others, and do you believe that is what we should be paying attention to and that before we get a vote on Mr. Bisignano, we should be finding out what whistleblowers are saying and about his involvement relating to DOGE and making sure that Social Security checks are protected?

Ms. CANTWELL. Will the Senator yield for another question?

Ms. CANTWELL. I thank the Senator from New Jersey. The issue that I think is not being illuminated enough is the sheer numbers here. In my State of Washington, 1.4 million people are on Social Security and 1.8 million people are on Medicaid. So you are talking about a big Federal relationship. You know, I actually worked in the private sector. I can tell you one thing about the private sector: The bigger it gets, usually the more inefficient it gets. It just happens. Big organizations can be inefficient. So just because the Federal Government is the government doesn't mean that Social Security and Medicaid are fraught with fraud. In this case, my constituent is not even getting his check, and no one is responding. You would think that with all this commotion, that Social Security would want to jump right on it and fix it, but they are not. The question I have for the Senator from New Jersey is, in my State, I have, as I said, nearly 1.8 million people who are on Medicaid, and the same problem is now where our colleagues are trying to say they are going to get $880 billion out of the Energy and Commerce budget of the House of Representatives when in reality like 90 percent of that money is Medicare or Medicaid. If Medicare is supposedly off the table, then the majority of that is going to come from Medicaid. So in my State, I am hearing from hospitals that that means they could close. That means essential Medicaid services that are used even in our jails or for fentanyl treatment or Medicaid that is used as an ObamaCare expansion for healthcare that so many literally red Republican States, Republican Governors have said: We want that. The Governor of Idaho: Yes, we want that. That is an expansion of Medicaid, and it is successfully working at providing healthcare to millions of Americans. But now our colleagues are entertaining a notion that they could cut this system. They are not really making it clear, so, again, the illumination of you showing the urgency is like a big flag that we are trying to show to the American people: This is not a drill. This is now. This is happening. The beginnings of it are happening. Now this debate that is going to ensue is going to be a massive cut into the programs unless the American people wake up. Now, in your State, are you hearing in New Jersey about the Medicaid cuts, the impacts on hospitals, on the delivery system, on essential services?

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, before I go to my remarks, I wanted to thank the Senator from Mississippi for that fabulous statement. I really do appreciate his leadership. I am pretty sure your father served in World War II, as did my father. I think that we continue to echo the lessons that we learned from that conflict. I thank you for that tremendous statement in support of Ukraine.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning to speak in opposition to the nomination of Steven Bradbury. He is nominated to be the Deputy Secretary of Transportation. When it comes to transportation safety, we don't measure success in dollars saved. We measure success in lives protected and tragedies prevented. Last week, I met with the parents of Sam Lilley, the first officer of the American Airlines plane that fatally collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter at DCA Airport. Sam's father happens to be a commercial pilot now, and before that, he flew Black Hawk helicopters in the military. He expressed his concern about reports that the Black Hawks are regularly being operated in this busy airspace without the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, commonly known as ADS-B, turned on. We know that the Black Hawk in the January 29 collision wasn't transmitting. We hope that we will find out later today in the NTSB report what we need to do to fix this problem. We know that during Mr. Bradbury's first tenure at DOT, he let the FAA create exemptions to permit military aircraft to operate without this key safety technology transmitting. And guess what? The military knew that they had been granted a loophole, but they said it would not be used all the time--only to find out later that the military said they were using the exemption 100 percent of the time. My heart goes out to the Lilley family and to all the families of the victims of this tragic accident. It didn't need to happen. That is why, last week, I wrote Secretary Hegseth to ask about the Army's letter from 2023 stating that 100 percent of its helicopters fly in the DC area with this ADS-B technology not activated. We can't afford another light-touch approach at the Department of Transportation when it comes to safety. We cannot. It simply does not matter if you are saving dollars if you are not saving lives. Unfortunately, I believe the President's nominee to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of Transportation, Steven Bradbury, has shown more interest in a light-touch approach that benefits industry, than being a champion for safety. During his nomination hearing, I questioned Mr. Bradbury about his record as previous general counsel for the Department of Transportation during the first Trump administration. In this capacity, Mr. Bradbury played a key role in orchestrating the rollback of multiple, multiple safety requirements under the guise of advancing a reform agenda. For example, under his watch, he prevented requirements for truck drivers. There was a fatigue prevention requirement for truck drivers, which he loosened. Vehicle safety recall investigations reached an alltime low, and meanwhile, road fatalities increased. Under his watch, there were a number of rail safety requirements that were also waived. The Department of Transportation withdrew its two- person crew rule. This was a rule that people had recommended after derailments in the United States and in Canada, including a runaway oil train in Quebec in 2013 that derailed and killed 47 people. And during this same time period, the main line derailment rate increased, all during Mr. Bradbury's tenure. Perhaps, though, the most troubling of all, is Mr. Bradbury's watch during the rulemaking on what is called a safety management system for aviation manufacturers like Boeing. Just 9 days after the first 737 MAX crash in 2018, which resulted in 189 deaths, there was a rule that said--being proposed--that the safety management system should be a mandatory requirement--not voluntary. Don't tell an industry that has to manufacture planes, ``It's okay, you can voluntarily comply with some of these rules.'' No, no, we need requirements that manufacturers must meet. As my colleagues on the Commerce Committee know, a safety management system rule for aviation manufacturers would have instituted a comprehensive process for analyzing, predicting, and ultimately mitigating risk. The safety management system is considered the gold standard now around the world. If you want to have safety, you have a safety management system. It is a more robust process. And I question how Mr. Bradbury, at DOT, after the Indonesian 737 MAX crash, didn't see or understand the need for critical information and analysis that a safety management system would have put in place, particularly because the FAA continued to let the MAX plane fly, and part of the process in question is whether they considered the critical analysis that Boeing had done to allow the plane to fly and what the FAA's role was. So following the tragedies of both 737 MAX crashes, the Commerce Committee, led by then-Chairman Wicker, launched an investigation into the crashes to find solutions and prevent the disaster from happening again. But what did Mr. Bradbury do? Did he work with the committee to improve safety for the flying public? No. No, he did not. He basically thwarted Senator Wicker and the committee's efforts to get the information about what the FAA had done. Make this clear here today: Our colleagues need to hold the FAA accountable. If you don't hold the FAA accountable as the oversight body, fat chance the FAA is going to continue to do its job as aggressively as it needs to. So Senator Wicker's office said, ``Mr. Bradbury intentionally withheld relevant information requested by the committee.'' He made our investigation very hard. In fact, Senator Wicker later said, ``He deliberately attempted to keep us in the dark. And by that I mean our investigations, our staff, our committee, and me.'' Now, I have great respect for my colleague Senator Wicker, but the Bradbury findings, in stymieing us as a committee to do our oversight job, gives me serious questions about his level of transparency. The families of the 737 MAX crashes wrote to Chairman Cruz last month to express their concerns about Mr. Bradbury's role in obstructing the committee's investigation into the crashes that took their loved ones' lives. They also voiced concern about Mr. Bradbury's role that led to the delays in holding Boeing accountable to implementing a true mandatory safety management system. Now, during his hearing, Mr. Bradbury suggested that the rule ready to be proposed by the previous Trump administration that made it mandatory for manufacturers to have a safety management system was held up because some small businesses didn't want to meet that requirement. Do we not believe that businesses are going to object to some rules? They do. They do all the time. But that doesn't mean scrapping the rule altogether, which is exactly what happened as far as the mandatory requirement. Well, lucky for the consumer, our committee, in the aftermath of these two crashes, got legislation passed that said, ``Yes, you have to have a mandatory safety management system, and you have to, FAA, put that rule out.'' Now, Mr. Bradbury was still serving as general counsel and acting Deputy Secretary of the Department. You would have thought now that he has gotten a directive by Congress to put out this rule, he would have said, ``Hey, we have one. We have been debating it for a while, but now we have had two crashes. It is really clear that the safety culture needs to be upgraded. Everybody agrees, all experts, this is the great system. Let's implement it.'' But he didn't. He didn't move forward, even after Congress mandated it. And after Mr. Bradbury's confirmation hearing in front of the Commerce Committee last month, the families of the 737 MAX crashes released a statement saying his testimony purporting to prioritize aviation safety, ``Shows a complete disregard for the 84 people who died in plane crashes in the United States in the last month.'' Mr. Bradbury's troubling record doesn't stop just with transportation. During his time at the Department of Justice during the Bush administration, Mr. Bradbury authored what we know now as the widely known torture memos, justifying the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques. The Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility reviewed these memos and raised doubts about ``the objectivity and reasonableness'' of these legal analyses. DOJ also found evidence that Mr. Bradbury's legal analyses ``were written with the goal of allowing the ongoing CIA program to continue.'' Mr. Bradbury, then, at the Department of Justice, was writing rules that fit the outcome that he wanted, instead of looking objectively at what the American people needed. These legal opinions were contrary to what this Nation stands for. Later, the Senate refused to confirm Mr. Bradbury as Assistant Attorney General during the Bush administration, and Congress passed the McCain-Feinstein amendment to the 2016 NDAA, codifying the illegality of those torture methods--those very torture methods that Mr. Bradbury said were okay. We passed a law to basically change what this guy's legal opinion was because it was so bad. And so now, when the Senate is asked to provide advice and consent on Mr. Bradbury's nomination to be Deputy Secretary of the Transportation Department, I think you should look back at what happened then. Two of our Republican colleagues voted against his nomination because of the torture memos. They rightly concluded that he was not right to fit in the Department of Justice role. I am saying today, what do you need to know? He didn't fight for strong safety rules at the Department of Transportation before; he is not going to fight for them now. It is really clear that our aviation safety system needs strong leadership at the FAA, not someone who is going to write the rule to fit business, but write the rule to fit safety. As if these issues weren't concerning enough, there is another issue. During his confirmation hearing, I asked Mr. Bradbury, ``What about the conflicts of interest that appear to be mounting between Elon Musk and the FAA?'' I thought, a smart lawyer could really give guidance to the Secretary of Transportation, give guidance to the FAA Administrator, the acting one, and could say, ``These are the ways in which Elon Musk should not pass go, would be a conflict of interest, would be a problem at the FAA, given that there are already issues that are really clearly in front of us.'' So I said, ``Tell us. Tell us. Where do you think those conflicts of interest exist?'' Of course, at the hearing, he kind of demurred, and I said, ``You know what, Mr. Bradbury, you can give me for the record where exactly do you think there's a conflict of interest.'' But he didn't just evade my questions; he basically said that he thought that it was an excellent idea to have Elon Musk and SpaceX making changes to the FAA air traffic control system. In fact, he said that he didn't ``see the potential for a conflict'' with the SpaceX employees having access to the FAA. Of course, we know now that three SpaceX engineers were recently hired as special government employees at the FAA and were immediately granted conflict of interest waivers by the Trump administration so they could work on matters at the FAA. Why? Because they had ``direct and predictable effects upon the financial interests of SpaceX.'' So in other words, the Trump administration conceded that conflicts of interest do exist, and they are going to let them happen anyway, and they went to get a waiver. The conflicts of interest for Mr. Musk and SpaceX at the FAA is obvious. Let me just say, though, first, you can have all sorts of broadband solutions, including satellite solutions. But when you are talking about the air traffic controller system, that kind of system is inferior to fiber. Why? Because of speed, capacity, cost, weather, all sorts of issues. And when there is chaos, we need certainty and predictability. So we are seeing a conflict play out right before our eyes. According to a Bloomberg report, one of SpaceX's engineers who was granted a conflict of interest waiver recently told the FAA that SpaceX planned to send 4,000 Starlink terminals to the Agency. For what? We are still trying to find out. The FAA already entered into a $2 billion contract with Verizon in 2023 to upgrade its telecommunications network. But Mr. Musk's own tweet suggests he wants to cancel the FAA's contract with Verizon. He is saying that they are failing. He wants them to use his product instead. And yet, Mr. Bradbury apparently doesn't even see the potential--he doesn't even see the potential for the conflict of interest. It doesn't stop with Starlink as a broadband supplier. Just last week, SpaceX's Starship heavy lift rocket malfunctioned and broke apart over the Caribbean before it reached orbit. Dangerous debris fell from the sky. The FAA smartly halted flights in the area to ensure safety, and thankfully, no one was injured. The FAA initiated an immediate investigation into SpaceX to determine what happened. The investigation presents another clear conflict of interest. As we know, Mr. Musk doesn't think FAA safety rules should apply to him. Last September, the FAA fined Mr. Musk and SpaceX for failing to comply with specific requirements in its launch license. Afterwards, after getting fined, Mr. Musk made a spectacle, calling for the firing of the FAA Administrator. That is right, the FAA fined him, and then he called for the FAA Administrator--oh, wait, wait 1 second, the FAA Administrator that passed this body 98-0, because everybody here thought he was going to do a great job. But Mr. Bradbury doesn't think Elon Musk has a conflict of interest, but Elon Musk can basically say to the President of the United States, ``Fire the FAA Administrator that we all said we thought would do a good job.'' Now, we all know Mr. Whitaker wasn't going to stick around without being backed up for the safety work that he was doing. And now, we don't have a Senate-confirmed head of the FAA. Why? Because Mr. Whitaker didn't want to stay around if everybody was going to let Donald Trump do whatever the heck he wanted when it came to the FAA. All this because Musk got fined for violating safety rules. So I really don't understand what Mr. Bradbury doesn't understand that he can't write down on a piece of paper where real conflict of interest exists. We need new leadership in the Department of Transportation so that we can continue to stand up to safety issues. I do not believe Mr. Bradbury is that person. Mr. Bradbury sees bureaucratic hurdles when other people see safety safeguards. He sees redtape where we see lifesaving protections. He sees the objective of having a light-touch FAA, and we see the objective of having safety be the primary purpose--because you can't win at aviation if you don't win at aviation safety first. Ask the people of the Pacific Northwest. The catastrophes of the MAX crashes not only lost lives; they cost billions of dollars. So not adhering to safety is hardly a winning economic solution. So Mr. Bradbury hasn't shown us the leadership on safety. He has not shown the fidelity of upholding the law, of even respecting Congress. He has not shown us the courage that it takes to stand up and make sure that safety is implemented. And the consequences of putting the wrong person in place are measured in human lives, not dollars--human lives. The Boeing 737 MAX families know this--yesterday was the sixth anniversary of the Ethiopian Airlines crash that claimed 157 lives-- family members like Javier de Luis and Nadia Milleron, who have now oriented their lives around making aviation safer. I so appreciate their advocacy, but the people at the FAA should be doing the same. I urge my colleagues to vote against the nomination of Steven Bradbury. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to support Senator Cruz in our efforts here to pass the Coast Guard bill. Chairman Cruz and I worked diligently on this bill in the last Congress with many of our colleagues. Unfortunately, the clock ran out, and we are here today to pass this important legislation. We hope our House colleagues will just take this up and pass it as well. The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2025 provides the tools that our Coast Guard needs now to protect our shores, keep our maritime moving, and the Coast Guard and its responsibilities need the support of this legislation. All in, the Coast Guard is responsible for facilitating over $5 trillion of maritime commerce in our waterways. The Coast Guard is also the sole operator of icebreakers in our polar regions, and they are our primary force charged with the stopping of pirate fishing from China, Russia, and other dark fishing fleets that are stealing American fishing jobs. The issues in the Arctic are real, and we have highlighted them many times, and this bill will help address that. Passage of this measure now will enable us to further provide the Coast Guard additional assets like icebreakers, hopefully in the upcoming reconciliation bill, and the Coast Guard also helps stops the flow of illegal drugs in the maritime environment. This legislation also strengthens each of the Coast Guard's missions and authorizes a 30-percent budget increase to support that workforce. I noted the President last night talked about shipbuilding in general. We are enthusiastic about that mission. I know that in budget reconciliation, people are already, the chairman of the committee, talking about the Coast Guard and $20 billion to help us recapitalize our Coast Guard fleet. Replacing the aging and inadequate equipment, from icebreakers to offshore patrol cutters to heavy weather boats to MH-60 helicopters and C-130 aircrafts are all important. But beyond the modernization, there are other things. It includes in Base Seattle, the homeport to our Nation's current icebreakers, the future heavy icebreaker fleet, and the needs for the Arctic Nation that we are, now defending against Chinese and Russian aggression. The bill also reauthorizes the Puget Sound Whale Desk for another 2 years, which helps ships steer clear of our cherished orca and whale populations. It also increases collaboration between Washington Tribes and the Coast Guard. And the bill invests in critical safety programs. We are very proud of all of that. But one of the most important things in the bill is, obviously, dealing with the workforce--making sure that we have access to medical care, housing, and behavioral health and to deal with what we know in 2023 was a decades long, uncovered, sexual assault and sexual violence coverup in the Coast Guard. Operation Fouled Anchor identified 62 substantiated incidents of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment perpetrated by at least 42 individuals. The Coast Guard took action on only two of those subjects. Due to the lack of oversight and the Coast Guard's mishandling of this, these individuals were allowed to retire, some at the grade of commander, with full benefits, and they received no punishment. That is unacceptable. In 2023 December, former Commandant Schultz admitted to withholding information from Congress and stating that, ``He made this decision, and he stands by it.'' That is why, as chairman and working then with Senator Cruz and their oversight efforts, we did everything we could to make sure that this story came out and that we address it in this legislation. This issue of failure to do this is--this is why we need transparency, this is why we need to make sure that we continue to address our workforce issues in the Federal Government. The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2025 would strengthen authorities and programs to hold perpetrators accountable, enhance investigative and legal processes, improve victim recovery services and access to care, as well as boosting training. These reforms would extend the Coast Guard protections available to members of the Armed Forces in general, in the whole Department of Defense, and it establishes a comprehensive prevention training and reporting requirement to address the issues identified in our investigation. Moving forward, we have more to do to support the Coast Guard. They needed our help with their assets, and they need access to shipyards. This morning, during the Commerce Committee, I said I would work with my colleagues on all the shipbuilding efforts to help us meet our key global shipping competitiveness issues, to ensure that American farmers and manufacturers have access to global markets, and to make sure that we continue to invest in the best people for the Coast Guard. To do that, we have to pass this legislation and get it on to the President's desk. So I thank my staff Nikky Teutschel, Melissa Porter, Lila Helms, and all of the committee staff that worked on this bill. And again, thank the chairman, Chairman Cruz, for bringing this bipartisan measure to the floor today.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to speak today on important public policy issues related to my State's economy and appreciate the opportunity to follow our senior Senator, Senator Murray, who is articulating the impact of some of these so important public policy issues on the State of Washington. Trade is the lifeblood of the State of Washington and our economy. Farmers in my State export $7.5 billion worth of agriculture products a year. That was the number from 2023--$7.5 billion. So anytime somebody starts a trade war, I guarantee you, you are going to get our attention. Under the President's trade war, the farmers in my State are going to be the first victims. Trump said to our farmers yesterday on Truth Social, ``Tariffs will go on external products on April 2. Have fun!'' Have fun? Have fun? When retaliatory tariffs strike our farmers, just as they did in the first Trump administration, it is not going to be fun; it is going to be a nightmare for our farmers. And many of the farmers in my State worry that they will be able to farm at all. It is not like they are going to lose farmland. There are rich people, billionaires, software executives who will buy farmland. We are going to lose farmers. I know this because we have already been through this trade war, with many of my farmers struggling to overcome the damage that was wrought during the first Trump administration. The last time we went down this road, we lost the apple market because of retaliatory tariffs. We had a $120 million market that basically collapsed, practically overnight, in India. And I traveled to India and worked hard over several years to lift those tariffs, and now, we finally are back growing our exports exponentially, but the market still isn't fully recovered, and now, people are questioning what is going to happen next. I heard from a grower in my State who said, ``The alarms in ag are sounding. The band has stopped playing, and the last lifeboats are leaving the ship. We cannot endure another cycle similar to the one that was started seven years ago when tariffs were first put in place. And without meaningful, long-lasting solutions, you may very well be looking at the last generation of farm families.'' That is just one of my constituents. He doesn't sound like he is having fun. These family legacies, built on generations of work, cannot be lost in a trade war. You can't get them back once they are gone. I hope my colleagues will slow down on this tariff tirade. Under article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to set duties and regulate foreign commerce. However, Congress has spent the last 80 years delegating its tariff authority to Presidents. You can say, okay, well, that might have been okay because previous Democrat and Republican Presidents worked to lower tariffs and to open up markets. I have voted for many of those trade agreements. But this President, I believe, is abusing this authority. He calls it an emergency. He is using the trade wars to supposedly force countries to do things like changing their border policies. I believe it is time for Congress to start taking back some of that power and considering how we are going to protect the family farm. We know this--that in my State, families are paying more for groceries. They are paying more at the gas pump. They are paying more for electricity bills. And they are seeing the stock market plummet because, as businesses grapple with Trump's unnecessary trade war, businesses are concerned about the long-term impacts of the supply chain and the cost of those tariffs. The American people want to see the administration tackle inflation and the high cost of everything. When President Trump was on the campaign trail, he talked about inflation. He said, ``Starting day one, we will end inflation and make sure that America is affordable again and bring down prices on all goods.'' Well, I don't think that is what is happening today. The Wall Street Journal editorial board put it well this morning when they wrote: ``Trump takes the dumbest tariff plunge.'' I agree. We don't need to be doing this. These tariffs are attacks on groceries bought by every American. Canada is the largest exporter of meat to the United States, while 77 percent of fresh vegetables are imported from Mexico and 11 percent are imported from Canada. So costs are going up on every American who is buying, and that means they will also buy less. The tariffs on Canada and Mexican goods that President Trump is planning would cost American families an estimated up to $2,000 per year. According to Anderson Economic Group, tariffs could raise the price of a new car as much as $12,000. I am pretty sure nobody has extra money for a new car. Housing costs--one of the biggest drivers on inflation, but President Trump's tariffs would drive up the cost of construction material, making it even more expensive to address our housing shortage, slow our new home construction, and one analysis found that tariffs could push home construction up by 4 to 6 percent over the next 12 months. I can tell you, we already have expensive housing in the Northwest. We can't afford another 4 to 6 percent. And the tariffs also create supply chain disruptions, making it harder to find alternative sources of materials, delaying projects that are already underway, and these short-term sticker shocks will put long-term pressure on housing affordability, making the problem worse--not solving it. Just last week, when people want to talk about GDP and where this is going, it was amazing that the Atlanta Fed was forecasting GDP growth over 2 percent for the first quarter of 2025. That is literally what this line here was discussing, that the consensus was 2 percent, and even the Fed was weighing in on that. But we can see when we got to February, we fell off a cliff. We fell off a cliff. And why? Because now the Atlanta Fed is saying we had one swing of 5 percent in just 1 week. And now, this drop is the representation of a cliff that President Trump is pushing the American economy over. So you can see they are going down to negative--not just zero growth, but negative. We can't afford that, and we can't afford the stock market dropping 700 points yesterday. The only way that we can work together is that if my colleagues here will start talking about these tariff issues. We don't need to weaken our institutions here; we need to strengthen them. And our colleagues need to work together to resolve these issues. I would say, too, that as my colleagues start to plan how we deal with these budget issues, that we should also keep in mind that some of the cuts that these Agencies have been facing are really the cuts to some of the most technical jobs the U.S. Government has. Whether you are talking about NOAA or the National Weather Service or the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation or the U.S. Department of Agriculture--they have all been targeted for reductions. These Agencies are critical to our economic growth and to our security. And at a time when we are seeing more extreme weather events or more floods or more wildfires, why shouldn't we be investing more in weather forecasting, not less? And when you look at NOAA workers who support our commercial and recreation and Tribal fisheries--they employ 1.7 million people, including thousands in the State of Washington. Why would you cut specialized workforce that are helping support the growth of GDP? Because you want to basically cut those technical workers at the same time you are putting on tariffs? In 2023, the National Institute of Health awarded $1.2 billion in highly competitive grants to the State of Washington--65 different organizations. This supported 12,000 jobs and generated $3 billion in economic activity. But DOGE wants to cap the overhead expenses of research. University of Washington Medicine tells me that this would leave them with shortfalls and that they might have to stop clinical trials that are underway. You can't just stop medical research like it is a faucet. Once halted, the research, the data, the clinical trials, the patients, the laboratories, the equipment, all that led to innovation-- will be lost. You think you just turn that back on? You know, these kinds of ideas sound great, but they are not well thought out. It is literally throwing tax dollars away. Tonight, my guest at the State of the Union will be Dr. Paul Lange from the University of Washington. With support of Federal funding, Dr. Lange helped develop early detection tests for prostate cancer. Because of these tests and other treatment breakthroughs, we have seen a decrease in the death rate from prostate cancer. From 1993 to 2022, it dropped by one-half--significant progress. That is why we need research dollars to save lives. Similarly, Washington State University researchers actively test on novel drug treatment for advanced prostate cancer at Sharma Lab. If its work is disrupted, they say that ``risk potentially is high, not being able to replace data, and endangering the ultimate viability of potentially lifesaving treatments.'' There are lives that might not be saved because of these budget cuts. So it is time that Congress gets involved, that we fight for the science that we believe will save lives, move our country forward and grow our GDP, and help our farmers by stopping these trade wars, and putting our farmers back in charge of growing an economy for the future. I hope that we don't cut ARS funding that USDA depends on. I hope that we will give hope to our future constituents and the growth that we need to grow our economy instead of cutting our opportunity. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, starting last week, the Trump administration began firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees. Today, we had a hearing in the Commerce Committee to talk about what kind of a key Deputy Secretary we need at the DOT, and we asked questions about this. But what is perplexing is, while the American people were watching in horror as a Delta Airlines plane flipped over on the Toronto runway, President Trump was focused instead on purging dedicated FAA employees from the Federal workforce, something that I believe makes us less safe in the skies. Among those fired were aeronautical information specialists, legal instrument examiners, telecommunication specialists--all of whom played a key role in supporting the work of air traffic controllers. In fact, there was a story today in Politico. The headline is, ``Air traffic controllers cannot do their work without us.'' That is a quote from the article. And inside the article, a statement, reading from the article, ``One of the people last week let go was an aeronautical information specialist, a member of a team outside Washington whose job it was to create maps and highways in the sky, the pre-planned routes that pilots control and controllers use to guide airplanes.'' So it is very perplexing that we have had these accidents, and now, we have an administration that wants to cut people at the FAA. This headline here refers to the fact that the last Trump administration actually blocked safety rules, and that is what today's Commerce hearing was about for the No. 2 person at the Department of Transportation, the people that served in the first Trump administration, and why did they block these safety rules? In fact, some of these safety rules, which would have required manufacturers to have better safety, were written and proposed by the FAA--but when the Trump administration came in and then 9 days after the first MAX crash--somehow, the rule that was set to move forward was pulled. So now, we are seeing an administration that is being, in my mind, thoughtless to the incidents that we have now seen in aviation and saying it is okay to cut people at the FAA. I disagree. The administration has said that it is no big deal because it is 1 percent of the workforce. Now, I know the objective is to give a $4 trillion tax break to corporations and ultrawealthy people, but I don't understand how making the skies less safe helps you in that agenda. It doesn't. The individual lives and safety of the American people are worth way more. These people that got fired are not just a bunch of junior hires, no--one news report stated that ``More than 130 of those eliminated held jobs that directly or indirectly support the air traffic controllers. They support the facilities and the technologies they use to keep the planes and their passengers safe.'' So you are going to tell me that a telecommunication specialist who supports the maintenance of key communications technology used by controllers is not important to aviation safety? Are you going to tell me that the legal instrument examiners who ensure that the pilots are medically fit to fly are not important to aviation safety? Are you going to tell me that the air traffic controllers--the same workers that originally were not exempted from the administration's hiring freeze, but then, only after the fatal collision at DCA put a spotlight on the issue, they finally exempted controllers from the freeze. Most astonishing of all, though, is that the administration has let go of aeronautical information specialists who evaluate and prepare navigational charts and helicopter routes used by both controllers and pilots. Now, we have just had this midair collision in the DCA area, and what was it about? A route that didn't seem to be a decision somebody had made to let these planes fly too close together? Made no sense. How did that route get approved? Who at the FAA said it was a good idea to allow the Department of Defense to fly in the same air space as a plane landing on runway 33 at DCA airport? So mapping helicopter routes in a busy air space, I think, is critically important--and not somebody who should have been fired this week from a job. Our aviation system is not a place where you can shortchange workers. This SMS rule proves it. This rule, which would have mandated that manufacturers of aviation implement a Safety Management System, constantly approving on analytical basis, is critical information about how to maintain safety. But it never got implemented. So I am concerned that an administration that in the previous Trump years thwarted the safety rule and now is firing people at the FAA after these crashes are going to continue to erode the aviation safety net. Surprisingly, after the helicopter crash with the CRJ from American Airlines--there was a lot of discussion about how and why a military helicopter would be in the same space as a CRJ regional jet trying to land in DCA from Kansas. One of the questions asked was, why was there not this Next Generation technology that would allow the helicopter to be detected? This included a DOD helicopter in the DCA collision incident. The issue is that the controllers needed this information, but in an exemption done in the Trump administration, gave them an exemption to do this. And this week, we find out in a letter that they never, ever use ADS-B as a way to help us in our navigation safety. Air traffic controllers themselves know that these firings are anti- safety. Ken Greenwood, a constituent of mine in Washington State, who is a former air traffic controller, wrote me on Sunday about how important these workers are. According to him, he said, ``These technicians and engineers maintain every piece of equipment that keeps our flying public safe, keeps radars and instrument landing to air traffic controllers on automation. FAA technicians undergo years of specialized training to maintain critical missions and systems and cannot be replaced quickly. In the 35 years since I began my controller career, we have never, never had a surplus of technicians or engineers. ``To the contrary, it's a challenge to keep them in these jobs. Once our aviation system infrastructure is compromised, it takes decades to take it back, and money will not be saved and lives may be lost.'' I thank Mr. Greenwood for his service. I hope the administration is listening. I hope that you figure out now is not this time to shortchange aviation. Unfortunately, right now, we don't even have a confirmed FAA Administrator. They are critical to this job. We had a strong Administrator, Mike Whitaker, who was confirmed 98-0 by this body. But that didn't matter to Elon Musk, who went after Administrator Whitaker because he dared to fine SpaceX for not following the rules, and as a result, the FAA now does not have an Administrator at one of its most critical points in decades. All the firing of employees and dangling resignations and trying to get people to resign to save money to give a tax break of $4 trillion to corporations and the ultrawealthy is not what we should be doing. We should be working hard on aviation safety. We should not be rolling back safety rules. We should be enforcing safety rules and implementing them as fast as we can that says this body, this body knows that aviation safety is a priority. I yield the floor.