Christopher Coons

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. You have, sir.

Mr. COONS. To my good friend and colleague, as we transition to comments about the economy, are you familiar with the very first time that Jesus stood in his home synagogue in Nazareth to preach? He read from the scroll a passage from, I believe, Isaiah 61:1-2. This is recorded in Luke Chapter 4. And it is a well-known passage. I rely upon it to understand what was the ministry of Jesus centrally about. He says: This is fulfilled in your hearing today, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. I don't think it is possible to read the Gospels and to read the Torah and to understand righteousness without hearing over and over and over in the course of the Old and New Testaments a call to respect those at the margins of life, a call to be generous and openhearted and kind to those who suffer and struggle, to be attentive to and present to those who are imprisoned, who are widows, who are orphans, to allow the gleaning of a field, which means to make sure that out of an abundance of our productivity on our farms, we make sure we feed those who hunger here at home and abroad. You cannot miss the central message, which is, as you have said: kindness to those on the margins, attentiveness to those in need, good news to the poor. So in this season of Lent, I ask my friend and colleague whether he is aware of our President's intention to impose significant tariffs sometime today or tomorrow that may raise the costs for working families in our Nation, that may make harder the lives of those who struggle to pay for their children's food and medicines and schooling, that instead of meeting his promise to make America affordable again, we will almost certainly make America less affordable for those who are exactly those to whom we are called to give attention kindness and service? I ask my colleague and my friend: Are you aware of President Trump's so-called ``liberation day'' that will impose, in fact, thousands of dollars of additional costs on the working families of America who struggle so hard to make ends meet in a direct violation of a call to care for those in need?

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, Putin will only stop when we stop him. That piece of wisdom was shared with me on a trip to Europe by a former colleague, Senator McCain, and it seems to me to predict what has now unfolded over the last 3 years. Three years ago, I was in Europe with colleagues, visiting American troops training with NATO allies and partners in Poland and Lithuania, on the day that the Russians began their illegal, unjustified, full- spectrum invasion of Ukraine. As more than 100,000 combat troops poured over the border, missiles flew in the air, and jets bombed, the world recoiled in horror and watched, expecting that the Ukrainians would be overrun in just 3 days. Instead, President Zelenskyy, the elected President of a democracy, stood firm and stayed fast and defended his country. When offered a last-minute evacuation by America, he said: I don't need a ride. I need ammunition. And I am thrilled to be on the floor today with a bipartisan group of my colleagues. Thank you to my colleague from New Hampshire for organizing this, and to my colleague from Maine for her words, which I will agree with from beginning to end. We must deter Russia's aggression in Ukraine. If you look at who has joined the fight alongside Russia--Iran, North Korea--this is not a team America should be on. And if we look at who has come to the defense and aid of Ukraine, it is democracies from throughout Europe and the world--more than 50 countries--that, in combination, have done more than we have, significantly, to welcome Ukrainian refugees; to support the recovery of their economy; and to arm them in this ongoing, desperate, and critical fight for freedom in Ukraine. Who is Vladimir Putin? He is a brutal and aggressive dictator. He is a war criminal. He is someone who has used every ounce of power and resource at his grasp to shatter the peace of Europe that has lasted decades since the Second World War and to attempt to drive a wedge between the United States and our European partners and allies. The bravery, the determination, the skill, and the capacity of the Ukrainian people to stand and fight is breathtaking. And all of us who have had the honor of visiting Kyiv, of visiting Ukraine, of spending time with those who, behind the frontline, support their troops and those who have served and sacrificed have been forever changed. I had the opportunity, with our former colleague and friend Senator Portman, to go to Kyiv and to present the Liberty Medal from our National Constitution Center to President Zelenskyy. And to travel through a city shattered by war and to visit with people determined to continue their fight was as inspiring to me as I know it has been to many of my colleagues who have made that same trip. We are here today to ask: Who are we and what will we do? We are Americans. We have stood alongside and fought alongside those who have pursued democracy, those who have stood up for liberty, for decades, around the world, and we should not shrink from this fight. We can and should insist on a just and lasting peace. We would all like to see this brutal war come to an end. We would all like to see the suffering stop. But to force on Ukraine a cease-fire that is really a surrender masked as a cease-fire would be to betray the sacrifice and service of so many. Asking Ukraine to willingly give up conquered territory and recognize Russian sovereignty, asking Ukraine to give up its desire for security and for integration into the West, to ask Ukraine to agree to limits on its military and its capacity to be prepared for what is a likely renewed Russian assault in the future--all of these would lead to not a neutral Ukraine but a neutered Ukraine. We know what happens next. What happens next is that the world will look at whatever peace we can secure for Ukraine and ask: Are we reliable? Is the United States a reliable ally and partner? Putin has already suffered a strategic defeat. NATO has already been expanded. The border between NATO and Russia has doubled. Our partners throughout the world have come to this fight, and they are committing even more, in recent weeks, as Europe has stepped up to pledge hundreds of billions of dollars more. If we are to restore deterrence, if we are to sustain the peace, if we are to be the indispensable Nation that we have worked and fought so long to be, we must finish the job. We must deter Putin from future aggression by demanding that Ukraine be secured by a just and lasting peace. The news today that intelligence and security cooperation has restarted is encouraging, but we have a resolution cosponsored by all the Members on the floor today that makes clear where we stand: We stand with Ukraine. We stand with democracy. We insist on a just and lasting peace in this instance, and we stand for Ukraine. ``Slava Ukraini.'' I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, today, Tuesday March 4, is the 100th anniversary of the Probation Act of 1925. The act created our Nation's Federal probation system and, for the first time, authorized Federal judges to impose a sentence of probation as an alternative to incarceration. Alternatives to incarceration like probation facilitate the fair administration of justice, enhance public safety, and positively impact the lives of individuals who become involved with the Federal courts. Our Nation's probation officers and staff do deeply difficult and too-often unheralded work that plays a critical role in the functioning of our criminal justice system, and I am committed to doing what I can in the U.S. Senate to support them in what they do. I firmly believe that we owe them a debt of gratitude for their service, and I am especially grateful for the incredible work of Delaware's probation officers and staff working to make Delaware safer every day.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to seek unanimous consent for my STABLE Trade Policy Act with Senator Kaine, an act that would prevent any President from imposing tariffs on a U.S. ally or a free- trade agreement partner without congressional consent. I will make that motion in just a moment, but let me, first, just explain what this is and why I am doing it. Next week, President Trump has announced plans to impose 25-percent tariffs on products coming into the United States from Mexico and Canada, our No. 1 and No. 2 trading partners. These tariffs will be disastrous for our economy and our national security. These tariffs will cost the average American household about $1,200 a year. They will raise costs for avocados, appliances, diesel fuel, dog toys, car parts, Christmas tree lights, tomatoes, and tequila. I could go on. Our economies are so closely integrated--the United States, Canada, and Mexico--that it will increase the cost of a GM pickup truck about $10,000. Even if these tariffs, at the last minute, are delayed, businesses are hurt by the uncertainty, which continues to increase costs. President Trump plans to follow those tariffs with reciprocal tariffs on the EU, which includes many of our critical NATO allies and closest partners. Imposing tariffs on our allies and partners diminishes our standing in the world and makes our neighbors less likely to help us in the future. It is no surprise that Americans think this is a terrible idea. Barely a quarter of Americans think imposing tariffs on Canada is a good idea. More than double that disapprove. President Trump has already declared an economic emergency to justify imposing these tariffs on Mexico and Canada, but my bill with Senator Kaine would prevent him from abusing long-established national security authorities to follow through on further tariff threats against our allies and FTA partners. The U.S. Constitution in the Commerce Clause, article I, section 8, gives Congress jurisdiction over trade policy. It is time that we take ownership back of controlling the ability to impose tariffs willy-nilly on our trusted partners and allies by passing this bill and reining in President Trump's costly and damaging ideas. So I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 348 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I understand that Senator Crapo, the chairman of the Finance Committee, a supporter of President Trump, has blocked this bill today. I hope to find ways to work with him on improving market access and on elevating the quality and the capabilities of U.S. trade engagement with our partners. But I really don't understand why President Trump seems so intent on harming one of his signature accomplishments, the USMCA. I am disappointed because Congress gave the President authority to impose tariffs in the event of a national security crisis. Congress did not grant this power to pursue petty grudges against trusted neighbors. Honestly, how can anyone be angry with Canadians? They are the nicest people in the world. Yet here they are, working with us, pleading with us to not impose ruinous tariffs that would harm their economy and ours. I will briefly, then, just make, again, a few simple points. I am disappointed that President Trump isn't doing more to reduce costs. He was elected, in no small part, because of high inflation and promised it would come down on day one. These tariffs, if imposed, will make inflation worse and hit the lowest income Americans the hardest. It will impact American business, American families, and American communities. So I hope that working together with my friends and colleagues here in the Senate, we can find ways to lower costs on pharmaceuticals and automobiles and microchips. But imposing reciprocal tariffs on trusted friends and allies and sparking tariff wars in our region and around the world is not the way to do that. Two-thirds of Americans already think that President Trump isn't doing enough to lower costs. Blocking this bill will only accelerate that if President Trump continues to act unwisely and bully and threaten our closest and most trusted partners. We must find a better way forward together. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1223 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President and colleagues, unvetted and unaccountable DOGE agents have seized control of government systems and databases that contain vast troves of personally identifying, sensitive information about nearly every American--financial data, health data, Social Security numbers, home addresses. The risks to our privacy are immense, and the opportunities for corruption alarming. The possibility that unqualified and inexperienced individuals will break critical systems through malice or incompetence is chilling. In the past few weeks, I have received literally thousands of calls from concerned constituents, and I expect many of my colleagues have as well. Musk and his DOGE bureaucrats are accessing private data, and I am urging a ``yes'' vote on this amendment that would prohibit their access to this data or misusing private information. Voters are worried. They are worried that if they say the wrong thing or speak up against Trump or DOGE, their bank account information will end up on Twitter, their tax return won't come, or their family member won't get their Social Security check. I urge a ``yes'' vote on amendment No. 1223.

Mr. COONS. I will accept the voice vote.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, trust--trust is at the very center of our national security: the trust that we share with allies and partners around the world; the trust that the American people have in us and in our armed services and in our intelligence services; the trust that vital allies have that causes them to share with us information about threats, challenges, opportunities. That is the very foundation of our national security. And today, I rise to warn my colleagues about the risks to our national security posed by the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence. As ranking member of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, I have a significant involvement in our Nation's intelligence apparatus. And over the course of the confirmation hearings and the debate here on the floor about former Congresswoman Gabbard, I have concluded that she has an alarming record, revealed more fully in her confirmation hearings but also in a review of her speeches, her travels, her positions. As a Democrat, as a Congresswoman, as a candidate for President, as a supporter of President Trump, she has gone quite a distance. She has defended Edward Snowden. Snowden is widely viewed by folks in our intelligence community, our national security apparatus, our Armed Forces, and many here as a traitor who betrayed some of the most important secrets that are critical to keeping the United States secure. She would not, in her confirmation hearings, answer the question: Is Edward Snowden a traitor? Ms. Gabbard bemoaned the rise of HTS in Syria, which recently overthrew the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad, without mentioning the fall of Assad. She talked about how tragic it was that HTS overran Damascus, without mentioning the side benefit of the fall of a brutal dictator. And in her confirmation hearings, she repeatedly dodged pointed and relevant questions about FISA and section 702, key tools for our intelligence community. All of this is in keeping with a longstanding record as an apologist for authoritarians and even enemies of the United States. She has repeatedly blamed the United States and NATO for Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And I will tell you, as someone who is about to go to the Munich Security Conference this weekend with a broad and bipartisan delegation from this body and from the House: I will never forget being at the Munich Security Conference just before Russia invaded Ukraine broad spectrum. They had been in eastern Ukraine at that point for years. They had occupied Crimea and then launched a war into the Donetsk, the Donbas, the eastern part of Ukraine. But it was just days after the Munich Security Conference, in February 2022, that tens of thousands of Russian troops--whole divisions--poured over the line in a broad-spectrum invasion that included brutality against civilians, bombardment of the entire nation--ultimately, cruel acts of violence against women and children, fully documented in the press and courts around the world. And yet Ms. Gabbard blamed the United States and NATO for provoking this invasion by Russia of a sovereign nation--a nation where the United States, in writing, guaranteed its territorial sovereignty in the 1994 agreement that led to them giving up their nuclear weapons. Ms. Gabbard visited Syria and met with Bashar al-Assad for several days, in 2017, and relied on pro-Assad sources to cast doubt on accounts of his use of chemical weapons against his own people. She has a long history of repeating pro-Kremlin talking points and has become a favorite on Russian state media. She appears frequently because she frequently is attacking the United States in Russian state media. Mr. President, this body will all too soon take up the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard. We should not proceed. We should not vote for her. Our Nation faces massive threats that are growing day by day. Our Nation is facing threats around the world--from North Korea and Iran, from China and from Russia--and we need an intelligence service equipped to respond to these challenges. Can we trust Tulsi Gabbard to lead our intelligence services and to respond to these threats? I cannot. We cannot, and we should not. This body should not vote to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as the next Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in speaking against Russell Vought, who has been nominated to run the most powerful and important Federal organization you never heard of, the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB. Russell Vought has as much business running OMB as I do being a hair model for Pantene. Russell Vought has as much business being near the Federal Government again and running the central plays that make the Federal Government work as I have standing behind center for the Eagles this Sunday running plays in the Super Bowl. Vought had this position before, and it was a disaster. President Trump is supposed to be hiring on merit, have the very best people, the world's best people working for him. Why is he bringing back this complete failure for such a critical position? Last time he was OMB Director, he rolled back critical regulations that keep Americans safe. He illegally withheld funds already appropriated by Congress. Sound familiar? As bad as he was in the first term, he is already off to a much worse start in the second term as the shadow Director before he is even confirmed. His fingerprints have been all over the last 2 weeks of chaos and dysfunction. He was the principal architect of Project 2025--a deep, thorough, detailed proposal for what it was that the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action wanted to do if Trump were reelected; a policy blueprint so extreme that on the campaign trail, President Trump pretended he had never heard of it: Who is that? Who is this? No idea what Project 2025 is, who wrote it, or what it would do. Russell Vought has demonized the folks who help run our Federal Government--the people who keep the VA running; the folks who deliver Social Security checks; the men and women, many of whom live in Delaware, who help keep us safe through air traffic control systems; who predict our weather through NOAA; who help Federal funds flow to school districts and daycares and senior centers. I know the average American thinks of the Federal workforce as Federal bureaucrats who don't do much for them, but if you get into the details of their actual public service, the reach and scope and impact of what they do is remarkable--as we learned in Delaware just last week when they tried to shut it all down; but more on that in a moment. Russell Vought has demonized these civil servants--he has called them villains who need to be in trauma--and he wants to radically augment Presidential authority. We are in the middle of a huge power grab by President Trump and his administration. He doesn't know or care whether or not the constitutional appropriations powers of Congress ought to be upheld. Not to get all ``Schoolhouse Rock!'' on you for a moment, but the core power of this body of Congress is the power of the purse--to decide how to spend the money that we collect from the American people to invest in your safety and security. If you vote for Russell Vought to run OMB and you happen to be an appropriator, as I am, or one of the Members of this body who votes for appropriations every year, you are consigning yourself to irrelevance. You are voting to no longer be relevant to the future of our country, to our place in the world, and how the money we sign off on gets spent. He has got a lot of bad ideas. I could spend a lot of time on the bad ideas of Russell Vought. Russell Vought has been nominated to run OMB, but I wouldn't trust him to run a Wawa. His ideas include redirecting all disaster assistance to the States. Well, the point of having FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is when a State gets overwhelmed by a hurricane, a wildfire, a tornado, when a natural disaster is so massive that it overcomes a State's ability to manage the disaster response, we elevate it to a Federal disaster response. That is the point. But he thinks we ought to pull all that back down to the States. Guess what States aren't going to get taken care of. One of his core ideas in Project 2025 is to take a chain saw to the deep state--by freezing Federal assistance, by impounding Federal spending, and destroying Congress's power of the purse. He is the architect of the Executive orders issued by President Trump on his frenetic first days that produced a Federal spending freeze. And the results, folks, have been catastrophic: widespread chaos, uncertainty for the nonprofits that provide so much support, whether it is counteracting fentanyl misuse, supporting Head Start, daycares, childcare, monitoring the weather to make sure that folks know when a tornado is coming or when there is a wildfire or a hurricane, supporting State and local law enforcement and our volunteer fire companies. These are all grantees. To be clear, when President Trump signed an Executive order freezing all Federal grants for the domestic United States, these are all examples of the dozens and dozens of organizations that called me, called my office, called my Governor, and said: What does this mean for us? Organizations were locked out of the Federal funding portals where they go to get their Federal funding. The Medicaid system went down. A fifth of all people in my State are on Medicaid, and it provides critical public health support for the opioid pandemic. If President Trump's promise was to bring prices down and keep Americans safe, he has failed on both counts, and what he did with this nationwide Federal freezing ban--dreamed up by Russell Vought--failed to keep us safe. When FEMA grants went down, when they froze the grants to State and local law enforcement, Russell Vought and President Trump were literally defunding the police. Let's take a second and look at that again. Lots of my colleagues--I was here on the floor. Lots of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle gave speech after speech about how terrible it would be to ever put at risk law enforcement--Federal, State, local--by defunding the police. President Trump did two things in his first week that made clear they don't mean this at all. One was pardoning hundreds of individuals who stormed into this Chamber and assaulted Capitol Police officers, pardoning people who assaulted police officers. The second was freezing all domestic Federal grants with no exception for State and local law enforcement. I am the cochair of the Law Enforcement Caucus. I was responsible for the second largest police department in Delaware. I know what it means to have Federal grants come through what is called the Byrne-JAG grant program. I know what it means to have Federal grants for bulletproof vests. I know what it means to have Federal grants come through the COPS Hiring Program. For State and local law enforcement, this was a moment of ``Hang on a minute. What?'' when those grants were frozen. There are other ways that Federal grants help our country be safe. It promotes research that keeps us healthier. We just survived a pandemic, made worse by President Trump's mishandling of it, but let's not relitigate that now. Research hospitals in my State got notification from the NIH and the CDC that their research projects were frozen and were now under review. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distribute billions of dollars in grants. There are teams of folks doing research on the ground, in hospitals, in academia, in medical practices. All of them got notices that these were being frozen. Domestic violence shelters. Part of my role in my decade in county government was helping advocate for law enforcement and our paramedics and community-based nonprofits that respond to incidents of domestic violence. It was to be as supportive as possible to make sure the victims were not retraumatized by a second, third, and fourth interview; to protect the security and sanctity of the shelters they went to; and to protect, in particular, children who had been abused. The idea that in order to slash government spending by wasteful Federal bureaucrats, notice would go out to all of the nonprofit shelters and organizations in my State and around the country that keep people safe from domestic violence--how was this a good idea? This was Russell Vought's idea. I wouldn't trust Russell Vought to run a 5K, let alone to run the Federal Government, let alone to run the process by which we distribute funds to the things that keep us safe and healthy and prosperous. Whether it is hospitals, domestic violence shelters, daycares, senior centers, the things that were impacted by the abrupt taking of a chain saw to our Federal system defies description. But Russell Vought didn't stop with freezing Federal funds. Bluntly, the disorder, the chaos, the alarm is part of the goal. Empowering DOGE--the Department of Government Efficiency, which is neither a Department nor is advancing government efficiency that is affiliated with Elon Musk--has been advanced aggressively in these first 2 weeks by giving them access to reams of data at the center for Medicare and Medicaid at USAID--the foreign aid Agency at the National Institutes of Health at the Department of Education. Bluntly, the most alarming thing that has happened is access to the entire Treasury payment system. This is part of Russell Vought's Project 2025--to make sure that this unelected, unauthorized DOGE team got into the most important, critical repository of people's personal information--their tax records--and to be able to control which disbursements of Federal funds will happen and which will not. Before he has even been voted on in this Chamber, Russell Vought as OMB Director, as shadow director, and as author of Project 2025 has been to facilitate some of the most alarming violations of Americans' privacy in our lifetimes, and this must be stopped. For all of my colleagues on the right who screamed bloody murder about censorship in recent years but are silent when unelected DOGE bureaucrats can turn off your Social Security and Medicare payments if they think you are not supportive enough, who can peer into and malignly share details about payments you received or didn't receive, they now have the access and control to go back and change the master record of your tax filings. This should be alarming to anyone who cares about privacy, security, individual liberties. They are now threatening to destroy the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Labor--disfavored Federal service Agencies--after taking a sledgehammer to our foreign aid system by shutting down USAID. The stuff they are doing before Russell Vought is even confirmed is breathtaking, and the consequences are real--yes-- to the government workforce but to people in my home State. So let me take a moment and just share a few examples from Delaware of how this chaos--how this tearing through our system with a chain saw--has impacted the people I represent. One Delawarean, alarmed, called in to my office and said: I am a Department of Defense employee that received the Office of Personnel Management notice that ``resign'' is an option I should take as part of the ongoing purge of career civil servants by President Trump. We are left-- He said-- with the worst possible decision to make with emotion as the only driver since the list of exempt positions-- Those who are exempt from this drive to force folks out of service-- isn't being shared. So I have to come to work to the U.S. Department of Defense every day, wondering if it's my last day, if I'll be asked to resign and be later told we can't-- or to resign proactively and find out later whether the position is actually cut, and I won't receive my severance benefits. As a retired veteran--someone who served our Nation for 21 years in the military and now 5 years in the civil service--I can honestly say, I am ashamed of my government. This mistreatment of a veteran, of a civilian employee of the Department of Defense and trying to force them out with a scare tactic identical to what was done at Twitter is beneath us. I have been on this floor, in my 14 years as a Senator, where I have heard passionate statements about the urgency of supporting our veterans and those who support our veterans--the Department of Defense and the VA. Yet I hear nothing from my colleagues on the other side--no alarm or concern. From my constituents, yes. From my colleagues, no. Here is another message I got this week from a Delawarean in my office: I am a Federal employee, and I am very disturbed by the continuous string of emails we are receiving about this cryptic deferred resignation program. I feel the information we are receiving is a flat-out lie, and I don't understand how the government can pay employees for 9 months and receive the full pay and benefits if they agree to resign. I feel this email is a lie, and I don't understand how Congress is continuing to allow these emails--pushing us out--to be sent to us. These are just two of hundreds of examples. The phones in my office-- in Wilmington, in Dover, and here in Washington--have been ringing off the hook. The number of calls to my colleagues have nearly broken the voice mail system here in Congress. Folks are alarmed and upset either because they have gotten these emails that they have to choose today-- literally, this is the day--whether or not to resign. They are unclear whether it is actually funded. It is not. They are unclear whether this was approved by Congress. It wasn't. They are unclear as to whether, if they fail to accept this ``resign now'' offer, they will instead be fired and lose some part of their pensions. These are folks who have served us--as has the individual whose story I just read--for decades. Yet where is the concern from my colleagues for our veterans and those who maintain our Department of Defense, our Veterans Health Administration, our intelligence Agencies, and the rest of the important Federal services that are provided to our constituents and our States? Let me talk for a few minutes about the brutal impact on our global foreign aid system of Mr. Russell Vought's Project 2025. I am here on the floor as part of an effort by my colleagues to stand up and speak out against what his plan is doing at home and abroad, and I want to take a moment and talk about USAID, which is an Agency founded by President Kennedy that does good work around the world on our behalf--work that keeps us safe, keeps us strong, and protects the American people. The cuts to AID by Russell Vought and President Trump are just the very first step in a playbook that will next move on to other Agencies--Agencies like the Department of Education, NOAA that predicts the weather, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Veterans' Administration, and the Foreign Aid Administration. USAID is just the rehearsal. The main act is coming very soon--in fact, likely this week or next. President Trump promised to keep America safe, and foreign aid is a key part of keeping us safe. It is less than 1 percent of the total Federal budget. In my role on the Foreign Relations Committee, I have traveled with Members of both parties to places around the world where I have seen how our trusted nonprofit partners--partners like Catholic Relief Services, partners like Save the Children, partners like World Vision-- implement programs that fight disease, that counter human trafficking, that push back on extremism, and that stabilize countries devastated by war. All build relationships with other countries and communities to, frankly, push back on Chinese and Russian influence, to push back on extremism and jihadism, and to make the world safer for America and Americans. This is not just soft power; it is smart power. And for years, it has enjoyed bipartisan support. USAID programs authored by Republican Presidents, like PEPFAR and the President's Malaria Initiative, which I visited with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, show real results for the American people. Right now, there is an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda. Right now, there is an outbreak of Marburg in Tanzania. These are horrific diseases-- diseases that shred your internal systems and cause you to bleed out of every orifice. Marburg, in recent cases, has a 90-percent fatality rate, and there is no approved vaccine. It is so much smarter for us to invest in local staff in these countries in East Africa, tracking, tracing, and preventing the spread of these diseases than shutting it all down and waiting and hoping that it doesn't spread. When the Ebola pandemic occurred in West Africa in 2017, 2016, I traveled there and saw what USAID partners--partners like Samaritan's Purse, partners like Catholic Relief Services, partners like Doctors Without Borders--what they were doing on the ground, bravely, to push back on this incredible, horrible pandemic. When we cut foreign aid, we cut off our nose to spite our face. We impose costs and loss with the suddenness, the sharpness of these freezes, and we will not have anything left. Some of my Republican colleagues have said: We are just trying to trim out the woke programs. We are just trying to shrink it a little bit, reform it a little bit, and most of it will survive. That, I expected. That, I could work with. But here is how this is supposed to work, folks: Next budget year, which is beginning now, we have hearings. We do oversight. We look at these programs, and we figure out how to trim them and make them more efficient and shape them so that they match the policy objectives of the current majority and the current President. That, I expect, but that is not what is happening. What is happening is that Russell Vought, the nominee to be OMB Director, in carrying out Project 2025, which Trump claimed he knew nothing about on the campaign trail, shut it down cold, issued an Executive order completely shutting off funding. Now, there have been some attempts at humanitarian waivers. Secretary Rubio had promised his colleagues there will be waivers for things like PEPFAR, but they are not yet working. So when hundreds of programs around the world get what are called stop-work orders, which means put the tools down; abandon the food supplies on the dock; walk away from the hospital; stop pulling up mines out of the ground in Angola--a place riven by conflict, where we fund, through The HALO Trust, demining--stop training children how to avoid the predation of gangs and human traffickers in Mexico; stop trying to reduce civil conflict in the Philippines by engaging with civil society groups; just walk away from all of this--a stop-work order has caused our USAID workforce and their nonprofit partners around the world to put the tools down. Just yesterday, an order went out to bring back to the United States the entire workforce around the world of USAID. Don't they have homes? Don't they have families? Don't they have spouses? They do. So what this will effectively mean is, it will force some of the most capable and skilled people, who understand how to deliver humanitarian relief at scale, to choose to resign, to give up a career and a life that they have enjoyed, making a real difference for the American people, or to comply and abruptly sell their home, pull their kids out of school, get their spouse to quit their job, and move back to the United States. Guess what that is. Chaos. That is taking a chain saw to Federal aid, not a scalpel. That is not reforming. That is not getting rid of the woke. That is not aligning with American values and priorities. That is harming one of the most effective, valued, long-bipartisan Agencies we have. The damage is being done today. While we talk and debate and deliberate, thousands of people's lives are being changed, and millions are being cut off from lifesaving assistance, from critical development support, and from interventions that help make us safe. Who wins? Who is cheering? I am here on the floor today joining my colleagues in speaking out against the nomination of Russell Vought to run the OMB because his Project 2025 and his plans for what to do with the Federal Government have one clear winner: our adversaries and our opponents. The complete shutdown of U.S. foreign aid has China and Russia cheering. Russian state media is already celebrating that we are ceding the field, that we are putting down our tools, that we are abandoning our partners. China has already come to Nepal--a country in the Himalayas, where the United States has long been working with communities to stabilize them after their civil war. China is saying: Oh, the Americans abandoned you. How sad. We will come in and help you. China has invested massively in expanding their diplomacy and their development, their soft power, and they have won friends and influence around the world. They are getting access to ports and airports, to critical minerals, and to resources that we need, at our expense. Secretary Rubio, who served as a Senator here with me for 15 years-- no one has been more fierce, more persistent, more focused on standing up to the threat of the People's Republic of China than Senator Marco Rubio. I don't comprehend how he can look at what is happening around the world and say this isn't creating a huge opening for China. So when my friends across the aisle say that this is all about efficiency, about trimming, about reorganization, don't be fooled. Don't believe them. Don't think that this is about a nip here and a tuck there. This is a chain saw. They are starting with foreign aid, and they are advancing to the Department of Education, and then they are moving to the Veterans' Administration, and then they are taking on programs that millions and millions of Americans rely on day in and day out. Last week was a rehearsal. The Executive order that froze all domestic grants caused a huge pushback in the United States and brought a Federal court action, an injunction. That is the reason, folks, if you are watching, that you haven't seen daycares shut down, that you haven't seen police and fire departments complaining, that you haven't seen veterans' homes shuttered, that you haven't seen an immediate impact here in the United States. It is only because a Federal court in Rhode Island, at the insistence of my attorney general Kathy Jennings and the attorneys general from New York and two dozen other States filed in a Federal court and said this is illegal. Judge McConnell looked at it and said ``You are right'' and issued an injunction. That is the only reason this hasn't moved forward. But it has moved forward overseas. Our foreign aid has been slashed to the bone, shut down cold. People were called, folks shut out, and security systems infiltrated. What they have done to USAID is a rehearsal for what they are doing next, and it was all designed by Russell Vought, the nominee to run OMB. OMB is the most powerful and important Federal Agency you have never heard of, and Russell Vought--seemingly a pleasant man, Christian nationalist, someone who seems to be more interested in academia than in fundamentally reshaping this government and this country--made clear in Project 2025 that that was his goal, has made clear with his actions last week and this week, through President Trump and his Executive orders, what he intends to do. It is nothing short of a stunning restructuring of the United States, of the role of the Federal Government in the lives of Americans. And when folks wake up--when folks wake up--to the scope and the reach of it, they will be enraged. The number of calls I got in my offices in Dover and in Wilmington, DE, and here in Washington from people alarmed to hear that DOGE--the Department of Government Efficiency--and Elon Musk and his band of merry men had gotten into the data files that control every Federal disbursement--the amount of alarm about that was appropriate. Wait until they start using it to cut those payments off. When Elon Musk said he intends to cut $2 trillion out of Federal spending, he wasn't kidding. But, folks, there is no way to do that without impacting veterans' benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, education, environmental work, and healthcare. The Federal Government only has $1.7 trillion a year in discretionary spending. So you can't cut $2 trillion without cutting deep into our Department of Defense, cutting deep into our treasured and valued programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. You should be asking: What are they coming after, and why are they doing it in such a forceful, determined rush? There are rules here. There are processes here. There are ways we are supposed to do things. This is not following those rules or those procedures. That is why a Federal court stepped in and offered an injunction to try to slow some of this headlong rush toward restructuring the entire Federal Government. But, folks, the hour is late, and the moment is pressing. We Democrats have held this floor all night to speak out about why this is important, to help engage, educate, and inform the American public, those who are not yet alarmed about what has been happening and what is going to happen. One of my colleagues said: Wow, it is almost like they had a plan. They did. Project 2025--massive, clear--was developed and written over several years as President Trump planned his return, and its goals are remarkable, transformational, aggressive, frankly, shocking--not to reasonably reform things in the Federal Government that are misspent, not to look under the hood and tinker in a few ways with the engine of the Federal Government and say ``That is a little off. This needs a little tuning,'' but to rip out whole systems, whole sections that had been designed over years by bipartisan majorities to keep us safe, to keep us strong, and to keep us healthy. This isn't a scalpel approach to Federal Government; this is a chain saw approach. One of the heroes of the new Trump administration is the President of Argentina. I bet if you are watching, you have never heard of the President of Argentina, but take a moment and look him up, President Milei--his wild hair. He has an interesting approach to government. His symbol is a chain saw. He campaigned across Argentina saying: If you elect me President, I will take this chain saw to the Argentine Federal Government. And he has. He was here in the Rotunda, cheering on President Trump during his inauguration. Why did this foreign head of state from South America come here, and why was he welcomed and celebrated? Because his approach to not trimming, not reforming, not improving but slashing the Government of Argentina is exactly the approach that Russell Vought, if confirmed in this body to lead OMB, will take. You are going to wake up and discover that, by handing the keys to DOGE of the system that controls all of our personally identifying information and all of our Federal payments, we have handed the keys to the architect of a program to take a chain saw to organizations, institutions, to a workforce, and to programs that the American people need, that keep us safe, that keep us healthy, and that keep us strong. And folks, putting Russell Vought in charge of OMB is like giving a toddler a crayon and a white wall and saying: Let's see what you make of it. You know what is going to happen. It is going to be a crazy mess. And he has already started before this place has even confirmed him. Russell Vought running OMB is a terrible idea, and he will run this country into the ground. We should vote to oppose Russell Vought, to oppose Project 2025, to push back on this chaotic and crazy attempt to take a chain saw to the American people and our American government.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. On behalf of foreign aid, which keeps us safe and saves lives, I vote no.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I have joined my colleagues on the floor today. We have held the floor all night speaking out against the nomination of Russell Vought to lead the OMB, the most powerful Federal Agency you have never heard of, because it has the power to suspend payments, to direct funding, to cut things off, or to make funding flow. Russell Vought has a plan, it is called Project 2025, and it laid out how if President Trump were reelected--although he disavowed it on the campaign trail, he is implementing it now as President--he would issue Executive order after Executive order to slash Federal funding and shut down Federal programs. I have spoken about how this is impacting Federal aid all over the world, foreign assistance, and how that is making us less safe and less secure; how those who cheer are the Chinese and Russians, the human traffickers and the drug cartels; and I have read from e-mails, calls, letters that I have gotten in my offices in Delaware and here in Washington, the alarm, the embarrassment, the concern of folks being pushed out of the Federal workforce and whose partners and programs are being shut down. We will be less safe. We will be less strong. We will be less the America that we all promise we will work hard to be if Russell Vought is confirmed to lead the OMB. I wouldn't trust this man to run a Wawa or a sports league or to run a 5K, and we are voting to empower him to run the most important and powerful Federal Agency you have never heard of but that will impact your life. I will vote no, and so should all my colleagues. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 51, which was submitted earlier today; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, if I might further expound on the resolution and respond to the comments by my colleague, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on which I serve, the resolution I sought to advance today is a simple statement of fact. It reviews the history of USAID--its creation as an independent Agency and its recognition in a law I helped write just last year, that to reorganize it explicitly requires congressional consultation and notification in advance. The statement of the resolution, the core point of it, is that AID is central to advancing the national security of the United States because it mitigates threats abroad before they reach us here; it promotes global stability; and it addresses the root causes of migration and extremism and secures the leadership and influence of the United States in an era of strategic competition with the People's Republic of China. Let me speak to a few points, if I might: the power of the purse, process matters, 1 percent, and who wins. Rolling back the decades of work and relationships that the nonprofits and AID do around the world is creating a vacuum--a vacuum that will be filled by bad actors. So in a country where we have long funded the PEPFAR Program--started by President Bush, long supported on a bipartisan basis--that provides antiretrovirals and testing and nurses and support and clinics--to abandon that, to defund that, to shut that down simply creates an opening for a bad actor to come in and say: The Americans abandoned you. Sorry for your luck. Here we are. We want to help. The Chinese have invested hundreds and hundreds of billions in advancing their interests through investing in infrastructure, building partnerships in critical minerals, becoming the leads on port operations, and delivering humanitarian aid. We should not shut down our assistance to the world in a way that creates this vacuum. Who wins? is the first question. My concern is, our adversaries. Second, process matters. As those of us who are lawyers know, it is backward to start with an Executive order that shuts down the funding for an organization and an entity, to invade and occupy its headquarters, to have an unelected Department get into its systems, to lay off and furlough its senior leadership, and then notify Congress of the intent to begin a conversation about reorganization. I welcome a chance to have a conversation about the future of our development assistance around the world, and my hope is that it will continue because I have case after case to review here about the good work it does. But to shut down the funding and to cause lots of our partners to lay off their key staff and then begin a conversation about reorganization is to get it backward in terms of process and the law. I am an appropriator. Why should we bother coming to an agreement on appropriations here in the Senate, pass a law, send it to the President, he signs it, and then in the next Congress, the next President--they can shut it down and claw it back. It gets to the very question of the power of the purse, which, in article I of the Constitution, is the power of this body. Going forward--of course, as my colleague said, elections have consequences. It is true that President Trump and the new majority here will put their imprimatur on the policy priorities across a wide range of Agencies and programs--absolutely--and I expect that discussion and that fight. But this is reaching back and shutting down. One percent. One percent--actually, less than 1 percent of the total Federal budget goes to these vital humanitarian programs around the world. I will give you a few examples of what has been stopped in its tracks. A U.S. organization funded through AID has stopped its counterterrorism work in the Philippines that was reducing the appeal of terrorist recruitment and radicalization. We have walked away from that work. In Mexico, an organization that reduces the number of children recruited by gangs to help move drugs and migrants across our border has had its funding cut off. I remember trips that I took, bipartisan delegations I was a part of that went and visited AID-funded work where folks were delivering critical care. St. Mary's Clinic in Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya--one of the worst informal resettlement slums I have ever been in my life, and these dedicated, caring, capable folks were delivering vital life assistance. In Liberia, during Ebola, I will never forget meeting with the nurses, the doctors, the volunteers, the Liberians, who were helping save lives. Why does this matter? Today, there is an Ebola outbreak in Kampala, Uganda. There is a Marburg outbreak in Tanzania. It is the disease monitoring and testing, it is the clinics and the nurses that keep these diseases controlled and managed on the other side of the world before they come here. Failing to sustain this work in an efficient and effective work way is to fail to show the values of the United States, is to show we are not a reliable partner, is to show that the decades of bipartisan support for critical initiatives like PEPFAR have been abandon because they are no longer considered a smarter strategic investment by one party, while the other party will fight for it. My fondest hope is that we will yet find there is bipartisan support for continuing and sustaining these investments, but it is unclear because the unelected leader of DOGE, Elon Musk, is even now tweeting: Shut it down. Close it off. My hope is that Secretary Rubio's comments today on television about sustaining many of the critical functions of AID will win out, but I am not confident because it is unclear to me who is really driving this initiative. Let me close. We know that diplomacy and development stand alongside defense in being critical to our national security. President Trump's first Defense Secretary, Gen. James Mattis, said to us in a hearing that if foreign aid were to get cut, he would need to buy more bullets because foreign aid around the world helps us build relationships of support, combat terrorism and extremism, advance our values and priorities, and makes us safer and more secure. I cannot think of a more troubling development than that this long- trusted, capable, bipartisan effort at helping bring our values to the world and helping secure our Nation would be cut off abruptly, roughly, in a way that violates the law and the spirit of our long bipartisan compromise. Who wins if we do, in fact, shut this all down? It is our adversaries. It is terrorists. It is drug cartels. It is Russia. It is China. It is those we have held at bay through the great work of this organization and its dedicated servants for decades. My hope is that even though this resolution was opposed and thus defeated tonight, the determination to support this great work will survive and thrive and prevail. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, if I might, one of my own pressing concerns I have raised with colleagues here on the floor tonight is that even in cases where Secretary Rubio has given a waiver to try to keep programs like PEPFAR going, money is not flowing. Several Republican Senators have posted and spoken to this issue today. If Secretary Rubio is in charge of this initiative, those waivers should lead to funding being restored. If he is not, if this is really Elon Musk's vision of ``shut it all down,'' then what is happening on the ground today in country after country will show us where we are really headed, which is the complete abandonment of our global leadership in humanitarian relief and development. I pray that we can work together to ensure that the critical work of dozens of household-name nonprofits is not abandoned and that what is left of AID is not allowed to bleed out while we here in the Senate debate it. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to address the chaos that has been caused by this week's disastrous, unprecedented, and unconstitutional funding freeze directive. Then-Candidate Trump said on the first night of the Republican National Convention: Starting on day one, we will drive down prices and make America affordable again. I don't think the actions of this week have contributed to making America affordable again or driving down prices at all. Instead, when the White House abruptly announced a complete halt to all domestic grants--grants that covered trillions of dollars of spending to thousands of organizations, from medical research to police and fire, from construction projects to daycares and senior centers--it caused great chaos and concern. I got calls, texts, and emails from hundreds of Delawareans--from the State and local governments, from nonprofits, from business leaders--saying: What does this mean? Meals on Wheels, school lunches for Delawareans in schools, opioid prevention programs and community healthcare centers, critical programs for military families stationed at Dover Air Force Base, and police and fire departments up and down the State raised their hands, digitally, to say: What does this mean, and where are we going? The Delaware delegation convened a conference call that day with 250 different participants to try and give them clarity on the path forward. I hope that this disastrous directive has been rescinded, but I only can say ``I hope'' because I don't truly know. The White House Press Office tried to rescind the rescission. So it is unclear exactly what its status is now. There have been filings in court, both in the District Court for DC and for Rhode Island. There is an injunction against the OMB order here in DC. There is an injunction or a TRO under consideration up in Rhode Island. But it created a mess. It created a mess at a time when Americans need clarity. What I have heard from business and business leaders for decades is that predictability is the most important part for businesses to grow, and what I have heard from families and friends at home was that this was not the sort of start they had expected to the Trump administration. I want to caution folks: We may not know when or if the administration will try this order a second time or a third time. I will remind you that at the beginning of the last Trump administration, he tried to pass a Muslim travel ban--a ban on people coming to this country from a series of Muslim-majority countries. That ban was enjoined in Federal court. It was blocked. They tried again. It was blocked. They tried a third time. It was ultimately found to clear judicial muster. So, frankly, an administration that has said over and over again they believe that impoundment is within the scope of power of the President is likely to try again and again. Impoundment sounds like a fancy way of putting your dog on a leash in the backyard. What it means is violating our constitutional order. Article I of the Constitution sets the powers of Congress, and the power of the purse--the ability to say what will and won't be spent--is central to the relevance and the authority of the U.S. Congress. And I will say there is a reason this is dangerous; this is bad. I am an appropriator. Those of us who serve on the Appropriations Committee, every year, participate in a difficult and complex process where we pull together all the different requirements and requests and issues and concerns from across our States and departments, and we pass a bill here on the floor. We pass it through the House. We send it to the President. The President signs it, and then the directives go out for what grants and what funding will be available. I understand; President Trump won the election. There is a new majority in Congress. I fully expected that this year's appropriations process would reflect those different priorities. That is the normal order of things. But this order is reaching back to last year's appropriations and the previous President and trying to freeze it and reallocate. That has real consequences for our ability to come to bipartisan agreements and pass legislation on appropriations if, in the going- forward years, Presidents can say, ``I am not actually going to do disaster relief for this State because I don't like them,'' or, ``I am going to freeze and cut funding for this program because it doesn't fit with my priorities,'' when he has already got signed legal orders. There are still impacts on the ground. I am still hearing from Delawareans that funding for construction of roads or bridges under the bipartisan infrastructure law and new energy sources and tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act are frozen or facing freezes. And I want to turn to another concern of mine that is critical, important, and ongoing, but let's just focus on this first point. Until Trump backs down on these illegal orders and respects Congress's power of the purse and puts his focus back on helping Americans and reducing costs, this place and our country will not function and will not get better. Nothing about this order makes us safer, more prosperous, or more secure. Mr. President, I am speaking today in strong opposition to President Trump's illegal Executive order of last Friday night that pauses all of our foreign assistance and development assistance. Let's be clear. Our development assistance, our foreign aid, isn't about charity; it is about security, and it is about values. We have alliances and partnerships around the world that are undergirded by our soft power, by our partnerships and investments in helping make the world safer, more stable, and more secure. And what happened last Friday night at the end of the workday, when there was no one there to answer urgent questions, was a freeze on all foreign assistance, with a very narrow exception for food aid, and it has caused chaos in the global community that delivers aid and assistance around the world. For days, there were questions unanswered--what did this mean?--in Ukraine, in Lebanon, where there are wars and ceasefires, where critical grant funding and work by contractors help put the lights back on after Russian attacks on the electrical infrastructure in Ukraine, where a cease-fire implementation in Lebanon was ongoing; in parts of the world where we were continuing to bring home to the United States those who had served alongside us in Afghanistan, Afghan SIVs and their families, waiting for processing, abandoned from Qatar and here in the United States; a halt on drug supplies that help keep 20 million people living with HIV through the program PEPFAR, long supported by Presidents and Congresses of both parties; a freeze on activity to counter fentanyl and narcotics trafficking, to push back on Chinese and Russian disinformation, and to promote democracy. With urgent upcoming elections, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute are frozen in their activities and forced to lay off or furlough their workforce. Let me thank Secretary Rubio for responding to urgent calls to broaden the aperture for humanitarian waivers for this freeze, but let me also say that with dozens and dozens of the most senior people at USAID put on furlough--so implementing this got harder--and with thousands of contractors who work for USAID in countries around the world dismissed or laid off, the consequences will be severe. I will just give you one example. I suspect everyone listening has heard of the disease Ebola. I suspect not everyone has heard of the disease Marburg. They are related. They are highly transmissive and deadly viruses. There is a new outbreak of Ebola in the capital of Uganda. There is an ongoing outbreak of Marburg in the neighboring country of Tanzania. This freeze pauses the pandemic surveillance work, the urgent public health work, the assistance we provide that makes sure that we are safe from a rapidly emerging and lethal global pandemic that we put in place after the last pandemic. When we halt foreign assistance, it has consequences. It is just 1 percent of our total budget. Most Americans think it is a big percent of our spending, but it is 1 percent--actually, less than 1 percent--of the total Federal budget. And there is a winner here. It is not the American taxpayer. Freezing programs like this causes chaos and often causes more to restart them after a review. The winner is China. Our biggest global competitor and adversary is delighted that we have handed them an opportunity to say to communities and countries around the world that we are not a reliable partner; that despite contracts and promises, commitments and programs, they now have months to crow about how we have abandoned our partnerships with country after country around the world. China is delighted when we lay off or furlough or cut the resources that help fuel the work of our diplomats and our development professionals. And China has seen its opportunity to expand its influence through programs like the Belt and Road Initiative. They have spent a trillion dollars in projects across the global south in the last decade, and our ability to counter Chinese influence, to make strategic investments, has been put gravely at risk by putting on hold the workforce and the contracts that help deliver. The administration may be claiming that this pause is temporary, but its effects will not be. The lasting impacts on small businesses, on contractors, on NGOs, and loss of expertise, loss of their workforce, and loss of their credibility I think will be lasting, dangerous, and harmful.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to finish my brief remarks before we proceed to the vote.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, we are about to consider two amendments to the Laken Riley Act. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to amendment No. 23, which would strike section 3 of the Laken Riley Act. I respect that colleagues on both sides of the aisle have expressed their intention to vote for the Laken Riley bill and to advance it. I have not yet made any such commitment out of concern about the unintended consequences of several provisions of this bill. I want to briefly speak to the consequences of the section that my amendment would strike. Amidst real resource constraints, unpredictable migration patterns, and fluctuating diplomatic sensitivities, our Federal law enforcement officers at ICE and CBP make thousands of complex decisions day in and day out about how to deal with interior enforcement, about border encounters, who to detain, and who to release. It is because these decisions involve so many complex factors that the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that the Federal Government is and should be the ultimate authority on enforcement of our immigration laws. Section 3, however, would mark a sea change by inviting every State attorney general to sue whenever they disagree with even an individual- level Federal decision regarding detention and removal. This could create uncertainty or even chaos by encouraging conflicting lawsuits brought by different States in different courts. I will remind my colleagues that this provision may have been drafted when the view was that Republican States' attorneys general would sue a Democratic administration to move closer towards the enforcement vision that they prioritized. Roughly half of the State attorneys general belong to each political party. I hope that my colleagues who have reflected upon the consequences of this provision will conclude that we should not have the division and, frankly, ultimately the chaos in the enforcement of our immigration laws that would likely result from having a raft of lawsuits brought by State attorneys general in courts all over the country testing and challenging almost literally every detention decision. I believe it is possible for this act to be improved, for it to advance public safety, and for it to make a contribution to the country, and it is my hope that the amendments being offered will be taken up and passed. I will urge a ``yes'' vote on my amendment for all of my colleagues because I think an improved bill should be the ultimate objective of this amendment process. I yield the floor. Vote on Amendment No. 14

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment No. 23, as provided under the previous order.

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 minute to this amendment.