Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, this week is the week that we honor veterans, on what we call Veterans Day, so in honor of Veterans Day, I would like to spotlight one Iowa community's exemplary support of our veterans and Active-Duty military. This is a town of 2,000--Britt, IA--in North Central Iowa. This year, Britt's Dean Welsh VFW Auxiliary Post 4370 received the Veterans and Family Support Award. This annual award from the national VFW recognizes select local auxiliaries for their exceptional work for our servicemembers. This community's now-far-reaching efforts started with a phone call. A volunteer with the Britt VFW auxiliary was talking to her granddaughter, who was serving on the USS Oscar Austin. She mentioned that some of her fellow crew members hadn't received care packages. Within 1 week, Britt residents shipped 39 packages to that crew of the USS Oscar Austin. That was 11 years ago. Now, a decade later, the Britt VFW is sending care packages to crew members on the USS Fitzgerald, USS John McCain, USS Chafee, and Iowa National Guard units deployed to Kuwait and to Poland. They are also preparing to send packages to the USS Carl Vinson. Volunteers fill these packages with various items, including beaded American flag key chains that they make by hand. Britt VFW members gift thousands of their key chains to veterans they cross paths with throughout the year, whether at community events or even in their daily lives. Britt VFW's example should be a reminder to all of us of the importance of honoring our veterans and servicemembers, and we will be doing that this weekend. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, throughout my years of public service, I have had the honor to meet citizens from all walks of life across my home State. As Iowa's senior U.S. Senator, today I pay tribute to a dynamic civic and business leader who passed away earlier this year. Donna Lee Nelson was an indomitable pillar in her community who leaves behind a legacy of leadership, service, and entrepreneurial spirit for which the city of Waterloo and the Cedar Valley will benefit for generations to come. She also was the family matriarch, lovingly recalled as a ``force of nature,'' and her long list of achievements and traveling adventures will be fondly remembered by her family and friends for years to come. Donna and her husband Verner D. Nelson, Sr., celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in January. That was a remarkable milestone and testimony to their faith-filled partnership. They were high school sweethearts who together launched a business enterprise that started with insurance and ventured into many others, including construction, trucking, and real estate. Looking back at her 89 years of life, Donna certainly didn't let any grass grow beneath her feet. She traveled all over the world but never lost sight of home. The city of Waterloo benefited from what you might call her Midas Touch with her tireless, decades-long efforts to preserve the vitality, culture, heritage and history of downtown, including the Black's Building and the old YMCA. Her selfless approach to leadership and ability to mobilize others carried over from business and industry to philanthropy, as well. Donna was recognized by more than 20 achievement awards, including being named Citizen of the Year in 1985 and Eight over Eighty in 2015. Donna chaired and served on numerous boards, from the United Way to the American Heart Association and the Salvation Army. Barbara and I extend our condolences to Donna's family and friends, particularly to her beloved husband Vern. We were blessed by her friendship and thank the Nelson family for their support over many years.

Mr. GRASSLEY

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, 59 years ago tomorrow--in other words, Friday--Ronald Reagan delivered his iconic ``A Time for Choosing'' speech. In this speech, the future President laid out, in very stark terms, the challenges that Americans faced as a nation, all due to a bloated Federal Government that threatened America's prosperity and individual freedoms. Well, America is once again at a time for choosing, and much like in Reagan's time, the issues confronting us cross party lines. This would be a good time for me to say that we have a partial step in this direction because of the Biden-McCarthy agreement in June not to shut down the government because the government couldn't issue debt. So here we are again. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and others have warned policymakers for decades that, absent changes, the retirement of the baby boom generation would result in an explosion of debt and deficit. Yet we in the Congress have turned a blind eye as the country walked headlong towards a fiscal cliff. For 40 years, our public debt averaged around 35 percent of our economy. But over the past 15 years, that debt has grown by leaps and bounds. First came the 2008 financial crisis, which led to a $6 trillion leap in public debt in just 4 years after 2008. This amounted to a doubling of the national debt as a share of the economy, rising from 35 percent--where it was for about 40 years--to over 70 percent of GDP. Then, we all know what the pandemic has done to the public debt. The pandemic hits, and public debt went upwards by $7.5 trillion over 3 years. As a result, public debt soared to roughly equal to our Nation's entire annual economic output--or what you have economists tell you: That is about 100 percent of GDP. Now that brings us to where we are today and to take Ronald Reagan's advice very seriously: a nation drowning in a sea of red ink with no life preserver or a rescue boat in sight. What is more, debt continues to rain down upon us at a record clip. The fiscal year 2023 deficit checked in at 2 trillion once you adjust for the Supreme Court striking down the Biden student loan bailout. Measured as a share of GDP the 2023 deficit was larger than in all but 5 years since 1945. Our historic deficit was fueled, in part, by rising interest payments on the debt, which alone cost $711 billion. The cost to service our debt is expected to consume an increasingly larger share of the Federal budget. While we argue about what we should or shouldn't spend taxpayers' money on, interest on the debt is crowding out our priorities and shrinking our options going forward. And this all automatically happens because you pay the interest on the national debt or you default; and we don't want to do that. And that is what the Biden-McCarthy agreement of June kept from happening. Going back to June, the CBO projected that servicing our debt over the next 10 years would cost 10.4 trillion; however, that projection was made before rates on treasury bonds used to finance our debt surged to a 16-year high. The rate on a 10-year treasury bond is now a full percentage point higher than what CBO assumed this spring. All of that adding to our deficit problems. But these higher than expected borrowing costs persist. It will be trillions more spent simply servicing that debt. What is more, we haven't yet hit the precipice of the fiscal cliff that CBO and other nonpartisan experts have been warning will result due to the aging population. And, of course, that involves Social Security and Medicare. And the trustees of these two programs say the trust funds for both programs will be insolvent within the next 10 years. Moreover, CBO projects that spending for major health programs will skyrocket from 32 percent of Federal revenue this day to 45 percent of revenue at midcentury. We can no longer afford to kick the can down the road. We must put an end to governing crisis to crisis and get back to the fundamentals of government. And the fundamentals of government for Social Security and Medicare should cause us to look at the success that Reagan and then- Democratic speaker Tip O'Neill of the House of Representatives said: We can't let Social Security go bankrupt. And they fixed it to this very day by tough decisions that we ought to be making today to fix it for the next 50 years like they did. And I will bet maybe they, at that time, thought maybe they were only fixing it for 10 or 20 years. But that is from 1983 till now. Social Security is supposed to run out of resources, reserves by, I think, 2033. So what I am saying is it means actually managing the government instead of doing it from crisis to crisis and to do it by not chasing an elusive partisan ideal. That will require implementing honest budget and appropriations practices that will enable us to begin to chip away at this daunting debt. According to the well-regarded Penn Wharton Budget Model, the United States has about 20 years to take corrective action to avoid fiscal disaster. I almost hate to say 20 years--but Penn Wharton is respected--because that means that maybe we won't take the necessary action in the near term. And it is always easier to solve these problems yesterday than it is tomorrow. The longer we wait to take these actions, then, obviously, I am saying the more painful those actions will be. In Penn Wharton's estimation, if we put off corrective action until the fiscal crisis is at our doorstep, no amount of future tax hikes or spending cuts will enable us to avoid defaulting on our debt. When I just said--as I did--until a fiscal crisis is upon our doorstep, Iowans at my 99-county meetings that I hold every year would say that we are already at that point. And when you talk about maybe it can be done or not done, then you can imagine the cynical people of Iowa--just like the cynical people of the United States as a whole--are even going to have less confidence in our government institutions. Now, we all know there is plenty of blame to go around for how we got into our current fiscal situation, but no amount of finger-pointing-- political or otherwise--will change where we find ourselves today. We must now make a choice. We can either continue down the path to fiscal ruin, or we can begin to rein in a bloated Federal Government in pursuit of a more prosperous tomorrow. Well, remember what I said about Ronald Reagan 59 years ago tomorrow, also in the words of Ronald Reagan: You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. We see on television a lot of times people saying how God-awful this country is. And yet on that same television day, you can see 10,000 people crossing the border to come to our country. For those people that live in America and have lived here all their life and find that America is not such a great place, they ought to wonder why people all over the world want to come to America. Or sometimes I tell people at citizenship ceremonies in the courthouses of Iowa when I am able to go there, I say to this group-- many of them have come from autocracies to America where they have less freedom than they have in America today--and I say to those people, I hope when you hear somebody that was born in America bellyaching about the God-awful wrongs we have in this country, I hope you will remind them as a person born in another country how great this country is because people that were born here lose sight of how great America is. So getting back to this fiscal issue I have been talking about, whether Ronald Reagan says it or I say it or each of my 99 colleagues say it--because I think, to some extent, we are all on the same page-- maybe not how to solve the problem, but that there is a problem--then I say, like Reagan said: The choice is clear. It is time we do what our constituents sent us here to do. And that basically means to lead--to lead us out of this fiscal crisis. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I have come to discuss with my colleagues the plight of our local pharmacists, which is always difficult, particularly in small towns; but it is going to be particularly difficult come January 1 and through next year. I have heard firsthand from rural pharmacists about the looming cashflow challenges that they face next year. These challenges are a direct result of the powerful pharmacy benefit managers and the managers' behavior in response to Federal regulations. This is the situation. You see, pharmacies are going to face direct and indirect remuneration clawback fees, or what we call DIRs, from the PBMs for calendar year 2023, just after January 1, 2024. At the same time, pharmacies will also be facing lower post point of sale reimbursement from PBMs beginning that same date of January 1 of next year. So it is a double whammy against cashflow problems of small rural pharmacies. For over a decade, these powerful PBMs have gouged rural pharmacies by clawing back part of the reimbursements many months after the sale. It is almost like you sign a contract the first of the year that you are doing business with the PBMs. Then, at the end of the year, you get a dun to pay back sometimes thousands of dollars, and I have even heard examples of tens of thousands of dollars. You see, this situation comes because three very large PBMs control nearly 80 percent of the prescription drug market. Some of them are vertically integrated, also, with chain pharmacies, insurance companies, and other parts of the prescription drug supply chains. So PBMs have a lot of power over what the prescription drug patients can access through the formulary and how much these drugs are going to cost the patient and then the reimbursement for the pharmacy. In other words, what is the pharmacy getting paid for doing this service? I want to end all direct and indirect reimbursement fees. I attempted to do this in legislation, which never passed the Senate, in a bipartisan bill by Grassley and Wyden called the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act. Even though the legislation didn't pass, we, luckily, in 2021, had the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services determine that that Agency had the authority to end most but not all direct and indirect reimbursement fees. I support CMS's actions they have already taken, but we still need to take legislative action to end all DIR fees. CMS's regulations will go into effect this January. With CMS's regulations nearing the effective date to end most DIR fees, you would think rural pharmacies would be about to see some relief. Sadly, this is not the case. These changes have turned into a cashflow issue for many rural pharmacies, forcing many rural pharmacists to consider closing or going without pay for a while so that they can keep their staffs around and keep the lights on. Now let's get to a suggested solution for this issue. PBMs should work with rural pharmacists to make sure that they don't close, because if you are paying everything back to the PBMs or you are getting less reimbursement and you are running your accounts from day to day, it brings financial problems particularly to these small rural pharmacies. Of course, PBMs are so financially strong that they have the ability to help these small pharmacists after the first of the year. We aren't asking them to help forever; we are asking them just to help through this interim period of clawback and less reimbursement. So what I am asking here of PBMs is PBMs should work with pharmacies to give a little extra time to pay back the 2023 direct and indirect reimbursement fees. I am not asking the PBMs to give up a single dollar that they are entitled to. Because CMS can help us solve this problem, in their final regulation, the Agency spoke to concerns about rural pharmacy cashflow issues, saying that they were--their words--``particularly attuned'' to this issue. CMS said that, through law, they have the power to conduct oversight. They said that they could enforce, first of all, provider network access standards and, second, prompt payment rules. In July, I wrote to the CMS Administrator to see what the Agency is doing to conduct this oversight and, in turn, help small pharmacies through 2024--and, of course, only that 1 year--with their cashflow problems. As of mid-September, I had not received a response from CMS. I will soon tell you about a telephone conversation I had with them. It shouldn't take an Agency almost 2 months to respond to me about a problem that they said that they are ``particularly attuned'' to. Remember, I told you previously those words--``particularly attuned'' to--are their words. So last week I spoke for a long time on the phone with the CMS Administrator. I asked what her Agency is doing to conduct oversight and protect our constituents' access to their rural pharmacy and particularly our older seniors who can't travel for miles to get their drugs. I asked that question because, so far, I have not seen any action of oversight by this Agency. The Administrator committed in the phone call to monitoring compliance to pharmacy access standards and the prompt payment requirements, but, at the same time, the Administrator didn't offer any specific action that she has taken or even what action she might take. The Administrator also committed to looking into what the Agency can do to encourage payment plans between rural pharmacies and PBMs or, at the very least, bring rural pharmacies and PBMs together to work out a joint effort. I am going to be holding the CMS accountable for following through on that promise. Iowa's seniors and rural pharmacies are counting on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Agency can't sit on the sidelines and let rural pharmacies go out of business. I told this directly to the CMS Administrator, and I will state it now to the same CMS Administrator: Please use your authority and bully pulpit to protect seniors' access to their rural pharmacies. These very powerful PBMs, which receive a lot of public funding from Medicare and Medicaid Programs, can also put many rural pharmacies out of business if you just stand down. PBMs can't put the blame on others. They must and ought to work with rural pharmacies. Don't drive them out of business by idly standing by. PBMs have the opportunity to protect seniors' access to their local pharmacy. It is kind of this situation in rural America because I see it all the time in rural Iowa--losing local health delivery professionals. It happens that your local pharmacy is oftentimes the only healthcare provider that you have. So, obviously, and what I am telling my colleagues today is, we need them in our communities, I say to my colleagues--because everybody in the U.S. Senate has rural communities--I hope you will check into this situation affecting small pharmacies, starting January 1, 2024. We have got about 3 months to get CMS, rural pharmacies, and PBMs together to smooth out this cashflow problem that rural pharmacies are going to have through next year. I am not going to stop fighting to protect rural pharmacies. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, before I speak, I would like to ask unanimous consent that Silvia Symber, a detailee in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, earlier this year, Chairman Whitehouse and I began bipartisan work to investigate Credit Suisse's historical servicing of Nazi-linked accounts. Today, I would like to discuss this important bipartisan work and thank Senator Whitehouse and his staff for their assistance on this very important topic. In March of 2020, Simon Wiesenthal Center notified Credit Suisse that it found previously undisclosed information relating to the bank's Nazi ties. The bank, to its credit, initially took steps in the right direction and agreed to investigate. It even retained a research firm to conduct a forensic review. It even retained former TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky to oversee that review as an independent ombudsman, and they also had U.S. Envoy Ira Forman as an independent adviser. But after Credit Suisse hired a new general counsel--so a new person stepped in--the bank paused its review, limited experts' access to records, and terminated Barofsky and Forman; very odd acts to take compared to the positive start of this investigation. Anyway, the bank cited performance issues for the termination. Well, the then-general counsel's predecessor never expressed those concerns, and the bank's research firm described Barofsky as professional. And I happen to know some of Barofsky's work, and he is, in fact, a professional. Barofsky drafted a report about what he observed at the bank and found, as he was contractually obligated to do. So Chairman Whitehouse and I issued the Budget Committee's first subpoena since 1991 to obtain that report. Credit Suisse had prevented Barofsky from providing us a fully unredacted report. Ultimately, we not only obtained that report fully unredacted but also the bank's own report. So then what did Chairman Whitehouse and I find? Credit Suisse did not review and investigate all relevant records. For example, Credit Suisse did not use a full dataset from its predecessor's bank. It inconsistently collected and reviewed information such as account balances. Credit Suisse failed to review allegations that Nazi heirs had sought access to bank accounts. When the review pointed to evidence of wrongdoing beyond Argentina, Credit Suisse stated the information was ``out of scope'' and then didn't do any investigation. Now, even after those limitations, the reports revealed new information, including nearly 100--and let me emphasize ``100''-- previously undisclosed Nazi-linked accounts. Some accounts remained open as recently as the year 2020. And when we finally got an unredacted version, it showed evidence that 64,000--let me emphasize ``64,000''--sets of potentially relevant records related to Nazi-linked accounts were not part of the investigation. Credit Suisse claims that they are irrelevant without giving us a sufficient explanation. Credit Suisse also blocked its independent oversight that included Barofsky, Forman, and also a historian hired to assist the investigation from accessing critical evidence. The reports also raised brandnew questions about the bank's potential support for Nazis fleeing justice following World War II via the infamous ratlines. Until pressured by Chairman Whitehouse and me, Credit Suisse had refused to fully investigate allegations of its potential role aiding Nazis' escape from justice via the ratlines. So, today, despite multiple requests, Credit Suisse still refuses to share exact details on the scope of its ongoing ratlines review. This is unacceptable. And do you know what else is unacceptable? Credit Suisse's actions after we made those reports public are unacceptable. The bank issued a press release on April 19 of this year filled with one excuse after another. The bank's press release essentially ignored its own report. It also incorrectly claimed full cooperation with the committee's oversight, despite the bank objecting to the committee receiving a fully unredacted copy of the Barofsky report until July 31 and despite failing to provide a full report of the ratlines review. Then, the bank petitioned a Federal court against the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The bank says that litigation from the 1990s provided full disclosure in all matters related to the Holocaust and World War II. Now, this seems to me that the bank is trying to silence a prominent--very prominent--Jewish human rights organization. Ironically, as the bank continues down this road, it appears to be creating a modern-day ``David versus Goliath'' story. Notably, it was the bank that initiated the new review that I have discussed with my fellow Senators here today. Credit Suisse acknowledged the potential for the investigation to result in settlements or restitution. The fact that the bank has since agreed to fully review its reported role with the ratlines also shows that we are dealing with a whole new set of facts. But now let's take a step back. I have listed numbers, and I have listed figures. Let's not forget that we are talking here about, not facts and figures, we are talking about real people, victims of atrocities perpetrated through the Holocaust. Credit Suisse--and now UBS as the new owner--must embrace the sunlight, which, of course, we all know in government is the best disinfectant. So here is my advice: Accept the historical facts and own those facts. They ought to play a positive role in exposing the historical evils of the Nazis once and for all. Credit Suisse--and now UBS--has a responsibility to expose all information related to its historic servicing of Nazis during and also following World War II. They owe it to the Holocaust victims, survivors, and to the world community. This information is very critical to a more complete record, and it will also allow us to learn from history, to create a more peaceful, just future. We must learn from history to prevent the mistakes of the past, from those mistakes being repeated again. Simon Wiesenthal once said: Justice for crimes against humanity must have no limitations. So I encourage Credit Suisse and UBS to bring this matter to a positive conclusion worthy of history's eyes. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in June, Congress passed a bipartisan bill to increase the debt limit and impose meaningful fiscal controls. That law was appropriately titled the ``Fiscal Responsibility Act.'' Its passage marked a long-overdue step toward fiscal sanity. I assume you have to go back about a dozen years until Congress had taken such a fiscally responsible step. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, as we call it here in town, projects the Fiscal Responsibility Act could save Americans $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. I say ``could save'' because for this to hold true, Congress must adhere to the spending caps that it has imposed. The CBO's latest long-term budget outlook shows that in 30 years, our national debt will be $11 trillion lower than previously projected. This is, in large part, thanks to this bill passed this year, the Fiscal Responsibility Act. While $11 trillion is certainly a large sum, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the $118 trillion in debt that the United States is expected to chalk up over those same 30 years. So, of course, the fiscal path we are on is not sustainable. If you take debt held by the public, today public debt is about as large as the annual U.S. economic outlook. Within 6 years, public debt will reach a historically high 107 percent of GDP. The previous record was set in the wake of World War II. Once that dismal record is broken, public debt will grow faster than the economy with no end in sight, as you can see from the chart on display here. When the public holds large amounts of debt, well, it naturally slows the economy; it naturally reduces national income; and it naturally increases inflation. It also leads to ballooning interest costs, which are already at a 22-year high. Based on the current trajectory, here is a snapshot of the years ahead. So pay attention to the chart, please. Within 5 years, the United States will spend more on interest than on national defense. Within 8 years, interest payments will surpass our spending on nondefense discretionary programs. Over the next 10 years, interest on our debt will cost taxpayers more than $10.4 trillion. That is $10.4 trillion that could be used to improve the lives of Americans. Now, instead, it will pad the pockets of our Nation's creditors, even including foreign adversaries like China, which considers investment in the national debt of the United States to be a good investment. Finally, within 30 years, interest payments will reach over $5 trillion a year. That would make interest the single largest annual government expenditure, surpassing both Social Security and Medicare. Now, everybody listening and everybody not listening knows that we can't keep swiping our Nation's maxed-out credit card while we cross our fingers for prepandemic interest rates to return. Families, farmers, and small businesses make tradeoffs every day to stay on budget. They have to balance their checkbooks besides staying on budget. Congress, of course, needs to do the same. Enacting spending caps in the Fiscal Responsibility Act was the very, very easy part. So the real challenge will be walking that walk and sticking to those caps. To do this, Congress must renew its focus on two things: fiscal responsibility and good governance. Now, recently, you know Fitch downgraded the United States' credit rating just last month. It named both fiscal responsibility and good governance as factors in its decision. Congress has the responsibility and the duty to demonstrate fiscal responsibility and good governance and to do it now, as we work to fund Federal Agencies and programs for this upcoming fiscal year. Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker told Congress in the 1980s: Cutting spending may appear to be the most painful part of the job, but I'm convinced that the pain for all of us will be ultimately much greater if it is not accomplished. Paul Volcker's advice is even more apt today than ever because our national spending and our national debt are much greater than in Paul Volcker's time. We need to stop governing from crisis to crisis and return to regular order, like we are today on the appropriations bills before the U.S. Senate. That means restoring a key component of Senate procedures: real and robust debate on spending decisions. The Senate has only debated one or more appropriations bills seven times--just seven times--since 2008. The last time we did it was 5 years ago: 2018. Otherwise, between 2018 and last year, we operated under this Omnibus appropriations bill process where we didn't give proper attention to each segment of our government. We didn't have much chance for debate and probably no chance for amendment. Last year, as one of those years, not a single funding bill was reported out of committee. Congress didn't complete its appropriations until December 23. We must do better this year, and we need to applaud Chairman Murray and Ranking Member Collins. They have both done their part by shepherding all 12 regular funding bills through the Senate Appropriations Committee. Now it is the full Senate's turn. So let's get to work and get the job done. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

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

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am committed to lowering healthcare costs, expanding access to high-quality care, and supporting research and innovation. The healthcare system in the United States needs more reform and accountability. However, we shouldn't ruin it by turning it into a government-run healthcare system, whether you want to call it government-run healthcare system, Medicare for All, or single payer, or even socialized medicine. A government-run healthcare system is a one-size-fits-all approach. It results in longer wait times, delayed care, and do-it-yourself healthcare because you cannot access a doctor. In February, the Wall Street Journal highlighted the failure of the United Kingdom's National Health Service, NHS for short. They wrote: Now, the state-funded service is falling apart. People who suffer heart attacks or strokes wait more than 1\1/2\ hours on average for an ambulance. Hospitals are so full that they are turning patients away. A record 7.1 million people in England--more than one in 10--are stuck on waiting lists for nonemergency hospital treatment like hip replacements. But I want to quote from the article of the Wall Street Journal, another one: Delays in treating people are causing the premature deaths of 300 to 500 people a week. One in five British people were waiting for a medical appointment or treatment by NHS in December. If you didn't find that article about the United Kingdom alarming, in May, British Columbia announced that they are sending cancer patients to Bellingham, WA, in the United States, for treatment. A Canadian news outlet wrote this: Health Minister Adrian Dix announced . . . that eligible breast and prostate cancer patients will be sent to one of two clinics in Bellingham for radiation treatment. . . . The unprecedented move to send thousands of [British Columbia] patients to the [United States] over the next two years is an attempt to address the backlog in [British Columbia] which has one of the longest waits for radiation treatment in Canada. Canada is taking this action because its cancer patients face unacceptable waiting times. Currently, only 82.9 percent of the British cancer patients who require radiation start treatment within 28 days. That means that 17 percent of cancer patients are waiting at least a month or longer to start cancer treatment. Canada's single-payer healthcare problems aren't found in just one province. In January, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ontario is turning to private healthcare options to fix the growing problem with its single-payer-funded healthcare system. Canada's most populous province is allowing more patients to go to private treatment centers for cataracts and joint replacement surgeries and for services such as MRIs and CT scans. The Wall Street Journal writes: [T]he median wait time in Canada last year between referral and treatment was between 27.4 weeks, the longest on record, compared with 9.3 weeks in 1993. Ontario reported the shortest wait times of 20.3 weeks, while the eastern province of Prince Edward Island reported the longest at 64.7 weeks. And, finally, back to Great Britain, a YouGov poll recently found that Britons are ``pulling their teeth out with pliers'' because they can't access the National Healthcare Service dentists. The poll found 10 percent of the respondents had attempted do-it-yourself dentistry. I am committed to improving the healthcare system. I am working to lower the cost of prescription drugs, maintain access to rural healthcare, ensure our Nation's seniors can have high-quality, affordable hearing aids, address high maternal mortality rates, and, lastly, improve the healthcare delivery systems for kids with complex medical needs. And that is just to name a few. However, a government-run healthcare system is not the answer. British and Canadian healthcare systems are plagued by longer and longer wait times and delayed care. These government-run healthcare systems are paying for patients to get care in the United States, not resorting to DIY healthcare. This body needs to be reminded how government-run healthcare systems are broken and do not work. In closing, I ask unanimous consent that the articles I referred to in my remarks be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I have just learned that the majority leader has filed for cloture on the nomination of Ms. Tanya Bradsher to be Deputy Secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs. In addition to my remarks on the Senate floor on July 18, I would like to provide more context to my decision to oppose her nomination, especially in light of new information that has come to my attention. Ms. Bradsher, if confirmed, would be second in command at a deeply troubled agency. Both the VA and Ms. Bradsher in her current role as chief of staff have shown repeated indifference to congressional oversight. Records show that she played a key role in the VA's deficient response to my investigation of VA corruption that I launched in 2021. Another of my investigations has revealed that she also failed to secure sensitive veterans' health information, PII, and whistleblower information in the VA's correspondence system, VA Integrated Enterprise Workflow Solution, also called VIEWS, which is under her direct authority. My oversight has shown that VIEWS exposes veterans' private and sensitive information to thousands of VA employees, only a small number of whom are authorized to see it. The VA and Ms. Bradsher provided misleading information about that as well, which I will discuss here. If confirmed, Ms. Bradsher would be in charge of the VA's effort to modernize veterans' electronic health records. This involves the healthcare records of millions of veterans, which obviously contain huge amounts of sensitive information. Ms. Bradsher's failures on privacy issues as chief of staff and her lack of transparency to the Veterans Affairs Committee show that we can't trust her to secure this sensitive information or to take the lead and address Agency failures, of which VA has many. As part of Ms. Bradsher's committee proceedings, she responded to questions for the record about veterans' medical records stored in the VIEWS correspondence system at the VA. Ms. Bradsher provided misleading and often contradictory answers to Senators' questions. When asked about veterans' medical records exposed in VIEWS, she responded that the VIEWS system doesn't ``handle'' medical records. This was deeply misleading, as my staff had already verified that sensitive medical records are stored in VIEWS, and often exposed improperly for thousands of VA employees to see. Ranking Member Moran, unconvinced, pressed her about her answer. She then admitted that these health records are indeed stored in VIEWS as part of VA correspondence. Either she didn't know this on the first round of questions or she intentionally misled the committee. Both of these are disqualifying for a nominee to this position. And Ms. Bradsher's remaining answers were no better. When asked whether she knew anyone who may have been harassed, doxed, or who may have had any negative consequences from their information being exposed in VIEWS, she answered that she didn't. That is astonishing given the fact that one of the internal whistleblowers approached her office just last year complaining of exactly that. This whistleblower told Ms. Bradsher's deputy that she had been harassed and feared for her safety. Both I and members of the committee had reminded Ms. Bradsher of that correspondence before she answered. Yet she apparently hadn't even bothered to review it before answering questions. She also repeatedly dodged responsibility for her failures and provided no plan at all to secure veterans' and whistleblower PII already exposed in VIEWS. We shouldn't reward a nominee and the VA for their inattention, neglect, and lack of candor. When whistleblowers last year informed the Office of Special Counsel--OSC--about these VIEWS privacy flaws, OSC found a ``substantial likelihood of wrongdoing'' related to potential violation of Federal privacy laws. On August 2, 2022, OSC directed VA to investigate and report back within 60 days. The VA, however, continued to ask for extensions, which led to the report being released only recently, during the August recess. That report should stop this nomination in its tracks. It reveals that even as Ms. Bradsher and the VA attempted to deny and downplay the serious matters I brought to the attention of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, the VA had already determined internally that these allegations were true. And not only are they true, but the VA's internal report shows they were even worse than I thought. The VA now admits that more than a hundred more employees have improper access to sensitive data in the VIEWS system than they originally represented. And the report revealed that the VA knew since at least July 2019 that these data privacy issues existed for ``a massive number of cases [in VIEWS] that were improperly marked `not sensitive,' '' a full 3 years before whistleblowers reached out to Ms. Bradsher's office last July. This was, therefore, a known issue when Ms. Bradsher took office. Not once did Ms. Bradsher in responding to members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee even bother to mention these significant facts, nor apparently did she lift a finger to take care of these issues in the 16 months she was in office before the whistleblowers spoke out to her deputy last year. The VA's report further calls Ms. Bradsher's candor into question. It seems to directly contradict Ms. Bradsher's answers to questions for the record in her committee proceedings. For example, in response to Senator Blackburn, Ms. Bradsher claimed that, ``the VIEWS system has controls in place to protect personal and sensitive information . . . system access is logged. Audits also are done to make sure information on the VIEWS system is accessed appropriately.'' Yet the VA's report to OSC specifically noted regarding VIEWS that, ``there is no program of auditing or detection in place . . . to log when a user views whistleblower identities and sensitive personal information without authority.'' It looks like Ms. Bradsher has some explaining to do. Democrats on the committee likewise failed in their duty to get to the truth of this matter. They didn't accept the whistleblowers' offer to speak with them and answer questions about the allegations they raised with Ms. Bradsher's office and reported to OSC. Given the VA's record on whistleblower retaliation, those brave folks risked their jobs and livelihoods to come forward. But there was one job the committee wasn't willing to risk: Ms. Bradsher's promotion to Deputy Secretary. Rather than exercising its solemn constitutional duty to properly vet a Presidential nominee, the committee's majority instead took the VA's word on the matter and voted the nominee out without duly investigating, days before a report that ended up providing highly relevant information about the VA's data privacy failures on her watch. The full Senate shouldn't make an even worse mistake by confirming the nominee after the VA's report verified the allegations I brought to this body's attention. Even before Ms. Bradsher's committee hearing was held, the VA had already admitted to OSC that the VIEWS allegations raised by whistleblowers to Ms. Bradsher's office last year were true. It is not all in our imagination, as VA tried to mislead the U.S. Senate into thinking. The VA admitted as much in its own letter to OSC on May 26 of this year, before Ms. Bradsher's VA Committee hearing, stating that the VA's OSC-ordered investigation at the outset of its investigation had already ``fully substantiated'' allegations whistleblowers raised that, ``VA officials are violating the Privacy Act of 1974 and the provisions of VA Directive 6502 and VA Handbook 6500 by improperly storing the personally identifiable information of whistleblowers, employees, and veterans in the Veterans Affairs Integrated Enterprise Workflow Solution (VIEWS) system of records because such sensitive information is not marked as sensitive and is therefore accessible to all VA employees that have access to VIEWS.'' In other words, VA admitted that it violated Federal privacy laws related to VIEWS by not securing sensitive data, but Ms. Bradsher withheld this key fact from the committee when questioned, and the VA insinuated otherwise in its last- minute misleading memo circulated by the committee majority on the eve of her committee rubberstamp. Despite their legal obligation to be candid with Congress and not to omit material facts from their statements to this body, this deeply misleading memo to members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee right before their vote on Ms. Bradsher failed to even address the VA's preliminary findings, and it misled the committee by minimizing data security issues in VIEWS. The VA memo claimed that, ``[the Committee minority staff's conclusion] that thousands of VIEWS files are not being properly treated as sensitive is misguided.'' The VA's report, however, specifically stated that, ``[c]onsidering that over 200,000 [VIEWS] cases were created over the past three calendar years alone, and the rate at which the presence of sensitive personal information can be found in cases, the `Not Sensitive' cases containing sensitive personal information before remediation actions were implemented is easily estimated to have been in the multi-thousands at the time the whistleblowers came forward with the allegations.'' The memo also implied that a search of VIEWS conducted by the committee's Republican staff as part of their investigation, which turned up ``countless'' records responsive to the term ``whistleblower,'' didn't ``show[] that files with the names of whistleblowers were not treated as sensitive,'' again ignoring the fact that they had already confirmed to OSC that VIEWS files did expose the personally identifiable information of whistleblowers. The VA report, dated July 21, notes that even at that time, 2 weeks after the minority's search, key whistleblower terms when searched still returned, ``cases and files containing significant whistleblower identification and sensitive personal information,'' although to a ``significantly lesser degree'' than before. This contradicts the VA's implication in its misleading memo before Ms. Bradsher's committee vote that private whistleblower information did not come up at all when searched for. Accordingly, the VA's memo to the committee in advance of the Bradsher vote was not only misleading, but it was also arguably obstructive conduct meant to deceive and frustrate the Congress from knowing the full set of facts in this matter. Such conduct is indefensible. But the Democrat majority blindly and irresponsibly accepted it. Moreover, these more significant changes that the VA points to in the VIEWS system were made at the eleventh hour, only in response to significant Senate attention and public criticism. The VA's report noted that, ``changes applied to VIEWS CCM in July 2023 significantly reduced the accessibility of whistleblower identities and sensitive personal information contained in archived and active cases.'' Note carefully, July of this year, well after Ms. Bradsher's committee hearing. That they have made changes years after finding out about the problem and only after having their nominee embarrassed in a very public way illustrates problems of honesty and transparency that are illustrations of deeper systemic problems in the VA and its present culture of cover-up. And that is just the tip of the iceberg with this nominee and this Agency. Ms. Bradsher has failed to accept responsibility for her demonstrated failure to secure veterans' private data and attempted to deflect her responsibility by pointing to the OSC-ordered investigation. She has never explained why she would need to wait for that investigation to be complete, a full year, before complying with Federal privacy laws and securing any veterans' data she could as soon as possible. She likewise has never explained why she did nothing in the year-and-a-half before whistleblowers approached her office, despite the VA being aware of veterans' personal data being unlawfully exposed. As I said in my floor speech on July 18, this obfuscation is yet another sign that Ms. Bradsher is a ``business as usual'' nominee for the VA. Our veterans deserve better. Now to the other objection I have to this nomination. Ms. Bradsher also played a key role in the VA's stonewalling of my investigation into VA corruption. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act--FOIA--by third parties show that Ms. Bradsher helped lead the VA's response to my inquiry launched in April 2021 into the conflicts of interest of a senior VA official, Ms. Charmain Bogue. Under Ms. Bradsher's leadership, the VA waited nearly nine months and until I had sent four letters demanding a response, before even answering. Even then, in late December 2021, it refused to answer any of my questions, citing Inspector General Missal's ongoing investigation. Well, that investigation ended early last year. The VA still hasn't answered those questions, despite repeated requests. Congress has a right and constitutional responsibility to independently investigate to determine how these conflicts were allowed to exist and why the VA berated the internal whistleblower who brought it to the Agency's attention rather than providing praise for exposing government wrongdoing. This is especially important given the fact that the inspector general didn't have the chance to finish his investigation due to Ms. Bogue's resignation from VA so she didn't have to cooperate and provide answers that may have implicated her in a criminal conflict of interest. I have inquired about other issues as well in this ongoing and largely one-sided correspondence with VA. This includes whistleblower retaliation, potential failure to secure information about a publicly traded company that may have enabled insider trading, and, most recently, allegations of contract irregularities, with senior officials who resigned under ethical cloud receiving tens of millions of dollars in lucrative VA contracts. The VA has failed to answer dozens of questions on these matters, and they will be in hot water with this Senator from Iowa until they do. I will oppose this nominee due to the well-documented stiff-arm she has given Congress, her failure to protect sensitive veteran information, and her penchant for providing misleading information to the Senate. I urge the Senate to reject this nomination not only because of the nominee's clear inability to get the job done the right way, but to also send a message to the VA that it must put veterans first.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, I come to report to you on some of the activities I did during the August break and what Iowans were telling me. On August 29, I completed my annual 99 county meetings for the 43rd year in a row. My decades-long practice is a part of my commitment to the people of Iowa to keep in touch with them because representative government is a two-way street. Those of us elected to the Senate and the House are one-half of the process, and my constituents are the other half of that process. Holding at least one Q&A in every county every year is one way that I foster dialogue. No matter the setting, the format is the same: My Iowa constituents set the agenda. I have spent the last 5 weeks, while the Senate was not in session, convening with Iowans in every corner of the State with nearly 40 Q&As that I had with those constituents in those counties. From factory floors and rural hospitals to town meetings, Iowans shared their point of view with me. Now, I am bringing their concerns to my colleagues here in the Congress. Even though you don't represent Iowans, you need to know what they are telling me. One consistent theme that I gathered from my meetings: Iowans are fed up with soaring inflation and high interest rates. The Biden economy is not working for Iowans. Contrary to the sales pitch parroted by this administration, Iowans aren't buying the Biden economy. From the feedback I got at my county meetings, the so-called Bidenomics ``rebuilding our economy from the bottom up and the middle out'' is not working as Iowans see it. Iowans are emptying their pocketbooks just to make ends meet. I heard from Iowa families about the high cost of groceries at their supermarkets and the pain that they are feeling each time they fill up their gas tank. The administration's assault on fossil fuels and lackluster support for homegrown biofuels isn't helping. Young Americans, as well as young Iowans, in particular, are concerned about the record high mortgage rates hindering homeownership. Iowans work hard, but the Biden economy is hardly working for them. Another issue that Iowans are especially attuned to, as you would expect because we are a great agricultural State, is the timing of the upcoming farm bill. I held a meeting with Lamoni Food Pantry to learn about their nutrition services there in Decatur County. And they were also concerned about the SNAP program within the farm bill. I also met with egg producers, pork producers, dairy producers, and cattlemen at the Iowa State Fair, and their message was very clear: Farmers need certainty and a farm bill should be passed as soon as possible. I look forward to working in a bipartisan way to deliver a farm bill to the American people. After my 99th county meeting, I celebrated, as usually I do, with a Snickers Blizzard at the Dairy Queen in Onawa, IA. All this doesn't mean that my work is over because I am going to continue, between now and the end of the year, to hold more Q&As throughout this period of time. And I hope to see my fellow Iowans soon at football games, businesses large and small, or a Dairy Queen near any one of them. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY. What am I doing?

Mr. GRASSLEY. Well, so far I have been lucky enough to keep them open. As far as I know, there is only one that closed in the last 12 months in Iowa.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act is an opportunity for Congress to make history, an opportunity to change the lives of the more than 100,000 Americans waiting for an organ transplant. Organ donation has always been a bipartisan issue. In 1984, Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act. That bill was cosponsored by Senator Al Gore and Senator Orrin Hatch. I would like to thank the bipartisan group of Senate colleagues who cosponsored our bill. I would like to give special thanks to Senator Cassidy, who championed the bill in the HELP Committee. I would also like to recognize Senators Wyden, Cardin, and Young, who have worked with me for years to shine a light on the deadly failures of the Nation's organ donation system. Thank you all for your leadership. Our bipartisan work will continue. The organ donation system has failed patients and generous donor families from all walks of life. After years of bipartisan work in the House and Senate, we have finally passed this bill. Success with this bill means patients are the winners. For almost two decades, Congress, government watchdogs, and the media have questioned the United Network for Organ Sharing's ability to carry out its responsibilities. I have written about these issues since 2005. Since then, 200,000 Americans have died on the organ waiting list. Those aren't numbers; those are lives. To put it in perspective, that is the population of Des Moines, IA. There is a reason I call the United Network for Organ Sharing the fox guarding the hen house. In August of 2022, the Senate Finance Committee issued a bipartisan report that detailed vast disparities in how Organ Procurement Organizations serve their communities. Based on the findings, the organ network has worse outcomes for people of color and rural residents. This bipartisan investigation, which started when I was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, uncovered fraud, waste, abuse, criminality, deadly patient safety issues, failure to recover organs, and retaliation against whistleblowers. The Senate Finance Committee's bipartisan report was clear: ``From the top down, the U.S. transplant network is not working, putting Americans' lives at risk.'' We must break up the monopoly that has held the U.S organ donation system hostage since 1986. Patients deserve the best possible care; it is the difference between life and death. Our bipartisan bill will help ensure they get the best care. Earlier this week, our colleagues in the House passed this same legislation to break up the organ monopoly and serve patients instead of special interests. Today, by passing this bill, we have accomplished a major milestone in saving lives and taking care of those who need it most.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today is National Whistleblower Appreciation Day on the Hill. So today we celebrate and recognize the contributions and sacrifices that whistleblowers make every day for our country. I have said this many times before, whistleblowers get treated like skunks at a picnic. It shouldn't be that way. Whistleblowers are patriots. This year is special because it marks the 10th anniversary of National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. And I am proud to introduce the National Whistleblower Appreciation Day resolution for the 10th year in a row along with Senator Wyden and the rest of the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus. As early as the Revolutionary War, the first whistleblower reported fraud and misconduct. On July 30, 1778, the Founding Fathers passed the first piece of legislation to protect whistleblowers in our country. Whistleblowers are critical to the operation of good government. Whistleblowers risk their jobs, livelihoods, and reputations when they blow the whistle on government waste, fraud, and abuse. Recently, VA whistleblowers approached my office and alerted me of the Agency's failure to secure veterans' sensitive, private information. They also exposed how the failure in security allows for staff to learn the identities of whistleblowers, leaving them vulnerable to retaliation. DEA whistleblowers also have provided important details about alleged contract irregularities and the DEA's failure to root out corruption in its foreign operations. The oversight that flows from this kind of crucial information can help clean house at DEA and save taxpayer money. It can also improve international drug interdiction and save lives. Let's also not forget about the IRS whistleblowers who have recently testified before Congress regarding wrongdoing at the IRS and Justice Department. As many know, I have had my fair share of Justice Department whistleblowers over the years. Most recently, my public oversight activities regarding the Justice Department and FBI shows that more have come my way. God bless them all. The information that I have made public, whether it is the VA, DEA, DOJ, or IRS, it is only because of whistleblowers that I am able to do the work. The government hides information that the American people ought to know about. Simply put, that is wrong and we must ensure that all whistleblowers are fully protected from retaliation and championed for their work. Accordingly, it is critically important that all Federal Agencies promote openness and transparency. They must also ensure Federal employees know their rights to blow the whistle on wrongdoing, including to Congress. Federal Agencies must protect their employees from retaliation and take appropriate corrective actions against those who retaliate against whistleblowers. For me, there is no middle ground when it comes to whistleblowers. They must be protected and fought for. Full stop. This year, I introduced the SEC Whistleblower Reform Act to expand protections for whistleblowers and ensure SEC whistleblower awards are made in a timely manner. This bill ensures that these whistleblowers would be fully protected if they report wrongdoing to a supervisor. Since we created the SEC's Whistleblower Program in 2010, it has been a massive success. The SEC reported receiving a record number of whistleblower tips in 2022--over 12,000. This year, I also introduced the IRS Whistleblower Program Improvement Act. And this week, I have introduced the False Claims Amendments Act and the CFTC Whistleblower Fund Improvement Act. There is still a lot of work to be done. In April, I wrote to President Biden requesting him to honor whistleblowers by hosting a Rose Garden ceremony on Whistleblower Appreciation Day. I have asked every President since President Reagan to hold a Rose Garden ceremony to honor whistleblowers. No President has done so. The task of supporting whistleblowers doesn't start and stop on Whistleblower Appreciation Day. It is a year-round job. Whistleblowers are brave men and women who perform an invaluable public service. Again, they are patriots. Together, one day we are going to get that Rose Garden ceremony.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, I would like to address the unclassified, FBI-generated 1023 form that I made public last week. This is a 1023 that Director Wray refused to admit existed until I and Chairman Comer told him that we had read the document. The FBI provided a highly redacted version to the House Committee on Oversight and in the process ignored the Senate access to that document. That version redacted references to the alleged audio recordings between then-Vice President Biden, Hunter Biden, and the foreign national. It also redacted references to text messages and financial records that allegedly existed to prove the criminal act was done. Those redactions are an obstructive conduct by the United States Government. Why? Because this was an unclassified document. It is not even marked ``law enforcement sensitive.'' By the way, Justice Department and FBI leaks exposed the source well before the 1023 became public. Now there have been allegations in the media that this 1023 consists of unverified information. That didn't stop the media's breathless reporting for years about the unverified and very famous Steele dossier. But the Justice Department and the FBI have not told us what they did to investigate the 1023 document. So since the FBI hasn't told us anything about their investigation of the 1023, if they did any, how does the media then know that it is unverified? From what I have seen, much of the media's reporting has missed the essential question. That essential question is this: Did the Justice Department and the FBI follow normal investigative process and procedures to run the information down or did they sweep this information under the rug? Now, we have had several media outlets interviewing law enforcement sources with knowledge of the 1023 who start to answer that very question, so I am going to refer to some of these reports from the media. One law enforcement source reported that ``this was a confidential human source that had a long relationship with the FBI, had given information that was used in multiple other investigations unrelated to Burisma or the Bidens.'' That law enforcement source said there was a ``fight for a month'' to get the FBI handler to reinterview the FBI source. That reinterview was necessary because a separate 1023 mentioned Hunter Biden, and that reinterview ultimately produced the 1023 that I made public last week. When seeing that, my first question was: Why the fight to reinterview the FBI source? That is the fight that supposedly took a month that I previously referred to. Then the law enforcement source said: We got that report back and we're, like, holy smokes, this is something. The news reports also show that the Justice Department and FBI personnel were able to validate some claims in the 1023 report without compulsory process. For example, a news report quotes a law enforcement source: There were multiple meetings alleged overseas. Some of the confidential human source's claims were corroborated against the confidential human source travel records and contemporary knowledge from the handler about him attending meetings with Zlochevsky and other people present. The news report also notes that public records also validate some of the 1023 claims about Zlochevsky's efforts to buy into the American energy market. A separate news report, based on a law enforcement source with knowledge, says that Weiss's team was briefed on the validations, which then begs the question, What did the investigators do to investigate? Well, it has been reported that a law enforcement source believed U.S. Attorney Weiss was reluctant to pursue leads because of political sensitivities. More precisely, Weiss' team was concerned about investigating because it would involve then-Presidential candidate Biden. Well, that didn't stop the Justice Department when Trump was a candidate the first or second time. I would be remiss if I didn't mention a July 25, 2022, letter that I wrote to the Justice Department and FBI. That letter talked about the FBI shutting down verified and verifiable investigative avenues into Hunter Biden separate from the ongoing U.S. Attorney Weiss' investigation and the 1023. So it is clear that even if information is verified, the FBI has shut it down in the past if it relates to the Biden family. Former Attorney General Bill Barr has said that the 1023 was credible enough to be passed on to Delaware for ``further investigation.'' He has also said that a review was done to ensure the 1023 wasn't disinformation before passing it on. Director Wray, likewise, informed me and Chairman Comer of its credibility, noting that it is relevant to an ongoing investigative matter. This also took place in the phone call that Comer and I had with Wray. Wray also didn't say that it is part of Giuliani's information, and he didn't tell me and Comer that it is the product of any disinformation. Accordingly, I want to make clear what my oversight focus is and will be: holding the Justice Department and the FBI accountable to explain to the American people what they did to investigate and what they found. To do that, congressional oversight must focus on the Justice Department and the FBI's investigative process and whether the U.S. Attorney Weiss's scope includes bribery. Congress and the public must get answers to these questions: What did the Justice Department and FBI do to investigate the information contained in the 1023? Did the Justice Department and FBI follow normal investigative process and procedures or try to sweep it all under the rug because of political bias? More precisely, did the FBI and DOJ seek to obtain the evidence referenced in the document? Did the DOJ and FBI seek to interview individuals relating to the 1023? If not, why not? If so, one way or the other, what did they find? Here we are in July 2023, and we are talking about a June 2020 document. The FBI can easily answer those questions. The fact that they haven't indicates to me that the Justice Department and FBI have not followed normal investigative protocol. Congress must also find out the true extent to which the August 2020 assessment created by Brian Auten was used to shut down the Biden family investigative leads. For example, we know that the FBI had at one time over a dozen sources who provided potentially criminal information relating to Hunter Biden. Did the August 2020 assessment shut any of them down? In conclusion, as we prepare to celebrate National Whistleblower's Day, let's not forget that the only reason why Congress has been able to make this information public is because of brave and very patriotic whistleblowers who have approached my office. Remember this: To date, the Justice Department and the FBI have not disputed any of their allegations. Further, remember that it includes information relating to this 1023 that I made public, and some of this information goes back to October of last year. During that period of time, the Department of Justice and the FBI haven't disputed any of that information. And a perfect chance for Christopher Wray, Director of the FBI, to do that would have been in that telephone conversation that he had with Chairman Comer and me. Having given you all this information, that ought to tell you something about what the FBI is up to, what the DOJ is up to. And the information I have given you today ought to tell you that there is plenty out there in the media, and the media should not be questioning whether or not this information in the 1023 has any validity. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, Congress and our Nation have no more solemn duty than the one we owe to our veterans. They have given their blood, their sweat, and their tears for our great country. They have fought on battlefields only to come home and face new battles, like difficulty accessing healthcare and challenges in transitioning to civilian life. A lot of them face homelessness, PTSD, and, of course, we hear it all the time, in our various congressional offices, about bureaucratic redtape at the Veterans' Administration. I have long engaged in Veterans' Administration oversight. The VA has fought my efforts tooth and nail. I won't tire. Our veterans deserve nothing less than making sure the VA delivers in an efficient way, and particularly when we find things to be wrong there. It is because of my oversight that I placed a hold on the nomination of Tanya Bradsher to be Deputy Secretary at the VA. I urge my colleagues to oppose the nomination as well. So I am here to tell you why. Records in my possession, as well as statements from VA whistleblowers, show that Ms. Bradsher has failed to secure our veterans' private and sensitive protected health information, personally identifiable information, and whistleblower information. Information also shows that she played a key role in the Veterans' Administration obstruction of my investigation of VA corruption. My Democratic colleagues rushed Ms. Bradsher's nomination through the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee without even investigating the allegations that I brought to the committee's attention. Let's start with one of these: the VA Integrated Enterprise Workflow Solution, otherwise known by the acronym VIEWS. Records show that this system exposes sensitive medical, health, and personal information of many veterans, as well as whistleblower names and information. At least 1,900 Veterans Affairs employees have access to this system but without the need to view this sensitive information. Now, Ms. Bradsher has direct responsibility for that system as the VA's Chief of Staff, her present position. Emails and screenshots from VIEWS were supplied to me by whistleblowers. And most of my colleagues know I get a lot of information from whistleblowers. These emails show that these whistleblowers notified Ms. Bradsher's deputy last July--a whole year ago--about these issues. One of these whistleblowers told Ms. Bradsher's office she had been harassed and that she feared for her safety. To this day, Ms. Bradsher hasn't followed up or instructed anyone else to follow up with these whistleblowers to make sure that their concerns were addressed. Despite questions for the record asked by Ranking Member Moran and Senator Blackburn, Ms. Bradsher has offered no explanation whatsoever for why the specific personnel information brought to her office's attention was not secured as it should be secured. Instead, she pointed to a few feeble actions she says were taken to address future correspondence, such as training on private data. This is unacceptable for a nominee who will be in charge of the VA's effort to modernize our veterans' sensitive electronic health records if she is confirmed. Ms. Bradsher was in the Chief of Staff position 16 months before whistleblowers notified her of the serious potential data breach and now for a year after. That kind of inaction and negligence is remarkable, even for the Veterans' Administration. These flaws provide a back door enabling whistleblower retaliation and potential identity fraud, and they must be fixed now, not ignored. The matter was serious enough that the Office of Special Counsel last August found ``substantial likelihood of wrongdoing'' in potential violation of Federal privacy laws and ordered the Secretary to complete an investigation within 60 days. The Veterans' Administration still hasn't completed its investigation. The Office of Special Counsel advised my office that the most serious allegation relating to data privacy has already been confirmed. The Veterans' Administration report to the Office of Special Counsel should be issued by August 1, just days away. We would fail our Nation's veterans and neglect our constitutional duty to offer informed advice and consent on this nomination if we allowed the nomination to go forward before we have those answers. Also, how can any Member have an informed choice on this nominee if the Veterans' Affairs Committee didn't even bother to interview the people with relevant information on that matter? Instead, rather than investigate, the majority actually circulated a misleading memo to the committee members that was written by the Veterans' Administration. It also slandered my office by claiming my staff had these allegations but intentionally hid them from the committee until the day before Ms. Bradsher's hearing. This is not true. My staff provided the information to the committee right away. The VA ought to quickly get with the program. That brings me to my second point of opposition to this nominee. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that Ms. Bradsher played a key role in the VA's failed response to my investigation into VA corruption, which the VA has stonewalled for over 2 years. We shouldn't continue to reward the Veterans' Administration and a nominee for their inattention to congressional oversight. We shouldn't confirm a nominee who represents business as usual and continued inattention to Congress and our veterans. I urge my colleagues to vote against this nomination until we get the answers to the American people, as they deserve those answers. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. We just heard my friend from Nebraska say that Biden wants Bidenomics to be all about restoring the American dream. Well, for most Americans, it is turning out to be a nightmare. Inflation brought on by the Biden administration's misguided policies has Americans trying to figure out how to afford everyday necessities. One thing that they are not buying is the Biden administration's latest catchphrase: Bidenomics. Over the Fourth of July break, I held meetings in 24 of Iowa's 99 counties. There was a very common theme there. That common theme was that families and businesses are struggling with the economic impact of inflation. It is not just Iowans who are feeling the pain from the economy under the Biden administration. According to a recent Associated Press survey, only 34 percent of Americans approve of President Biden's handling of our economy. President Biden's message to these Americans is: Don't believe your bank accounts. Well, that message doesn't resonate. Iowa families are hit with ballooning bills and higher prices at every corner. For 2 years, Iowans have been stretched thin because of decades-high inflation stoked by Democrats' reckless $2 trillion spending spree, a spending spree that would not have happened if they had listened to their own Democratic economists, particularly the outstanding Harvard economist and former Secretary of Treasury in the Clinton administration and economic adviser to other Democratic Presidents. Their own Larry Summers told them, before this President took over, that the economy was already turning around; don't spend any more money or you will have inflation. So what do we see? On average, American consumers are facing prices that are 16 percent higher today than when Biden took office. While prices have climbed, wages have failed to keep up. American workers have seen their paychecks shrink by more than 3 percent in real terms. Now, we heard the word ``transitory''; that inflation was going to be transitory so you didn't need to worry about it. And this was what the Biden administration claimed when they took office, and of course inflation has proved persistent. Just remember, 1.4 percent inflation the day this President took office. It rose to 9.1 percent a year ago, and it is still at 4.5 percent. In its effort to tame inflation, the Fed has hiked interest rates to the highest level in 16 years, putting mortgages and businesses and their loans out of reach for more and more Americans. Half of the small businesses report delaying plans to grow their business due to rising interest costs. A rebranding of his far-left agenda as Bidenomics is cold comfort for Iowans and Americans everywhere who are coping with rising prices, falling real wages, and ballooning interest rates. As we saw with last year's partisan tax-and-spending package that the Democrats named the Inflation Reduction Act, as you see, labels are often deceiving. Contrary to the bill's name, this partisan tax-and- spending package had nothing to do with reducing inflation or providing relief to Americans struggling with inflation. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office--and I emphasize the word ``nonpartisan''-- confirmed the Inflation Reduction Act will worsen inflation. And, of course, recent estimates show it will add hundreds of billions more to the Nation's credit card. Rather than providing relief for Americans struggling to make ends meet, this legislation raised Americans' taxes while showering Democrat-favored industries with corporate handouts with the government taking an increasing role in choosing winners and losers in our economy. Unless you are a corporation or a wealthy individual looking to buy an $80,000 electric SUV, the Democrat ``Inflation Enhancement Act'' has little to offer. And I think changing the name from the Inflation Reduction Act to the ``Inflation Enhancement Act'' is exactly the intellectually honest thing to do. Bidenomics isn't about growing the economy from the middle out or the bottom up, as the President claims in almost every speech. It is the same old top down, Big Government agenda Democrats have always pursued. It means then, as you know, higher taxes, more reckless spending, and a growing national debt as far as the eye can see into the future. It is time for a change in policy, not merely a change in messaging. President Biden needs to redirect his message to the facts, the real facts of life, because Bidenomics is not selling. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, it is no secret this U.S. Senator loves history. I like to learn about history, talk about history, and preserve history. I am Iowa proud today to share a community's efforts to preserve history in my home State. Next month, a small farming town located 13 miles west of the Mississippi River will welcome a poignant relic from World War II to its local museum. An authentic rail cattle car used in the Holocaust has been meticulously refurbished in Duisberg, Germany, and is being shipped to Danville, IA. This story begins in 1939 when a local teacher named Miss Birdie Mathews organized an international pen pal exchange for her class. She gave her students a list of names from which to write a letter. Two of her students chose another pair of sisters who lived across the world in Amsterdam: Anne and Margot Frank. Juanita and Betty Wagner wrote to the Frank sisters about life on an Iowa farm. Anne Frank's letter to Juanita is dated April 29, 1940, and she also enclosed a picture card of the Amsterdam canals. Margot's letter to Betty is dated April 27, 1940. She wrote ``having a frontier with Germany and being a small country we never feel safe.'' Less than 2 weeks after these letters were written, Germany invaded the Netherlands. The Wagner sisters later recalled fearing they would never hear from their new pen pals again. Of course, history tells us the Frank sisters perished in a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen. When the war ended in May 1945, Betty wrote to the Frank's Amsterdam address. Their father Otto Frank survived his imprisonment in Auschwitz and responded to her letter. He explained what happened during the war and about the family's time in hiding in the attic in Amsterdam. That is when the Wagner sisters learned their pen pals were Jewish. The Frank letters were donated to the Simon Wiesenthal Center which gave permission to the museum in Danville to display digital images of the letters. Danville Station also includes a replica of the attic where the Frank family lived in hiding and other artifacts that memorialize the historic connection between the Frank and Wagner sisters. The museum's curator is Janet Hesler, a lifelong resident of Danville. Her father served in World War II and was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the Battle of the Bulge. He was among the American forces who liberated the concentration camp in Dachau on April 29, 1945. People from around the world have visited Danville Station. Here they bear witness to this Iowa community's commitment to never forget and to keep shining a light on history. From my years in public office representing the people of Iowa, I certainly appreciate the can-do spirit at the grassroots. The museum curator, Janet Hesler, was the driving force behind efforts to expand the museum's exhibit to include a rail car used to transport Jewish people during the Holocaust. Janet worked with Dr. Ruthie Eitan, Claudia Korenke, and Bernhard Mertens to fulfill her mission to find one. The restoration of the rail car was managed by Martin Kaufmann at Die Schmiede in Duisberg. The people of Danville have worked to raise funds $1 at a time to help pay for the restoration and shipping of the rail car. They also are working to collect 1.5 million postcards from around the world to honor the number of children who perished in the Holocaust. I applaud the tenacious efforts and support of local civic and religious leaders to help make this happen, including Allan Ross, who leads the Jewish Federation of the Quad Cities. Anyone who visits or donates are helping to preserve history, build community, and strengthen civic engagement, cornerstones of a strong society. Without a doubt, this restored, authentic rail car will serve as a profound reminder about the atrocities of the Holocaust. We must learn from history to avert the mistakes of the past. Never again can society ignore religious intolerance. The community of Danville is heeding the advice of Simon Wiesenthal, who survived the Holocaust and brought 1,100 Nazi war criminals to justice. In his words, ``Antisemitism did not die with Hitler in his Berlin bunker in 1945.'' By bringing this rail car across the world to Danville, this Iowa community is bringing a piece of history to life so that our children and grandchildren can learn from history for a more peaceful, just future.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of the California law that is called Proposition 12, affecting the pork industry, has sent shock waves through the entire agricultural industry. Particularly hard-hit by the news is my State of Iowa, which is No. 1 in pork and No. 1 in eggs; and another proposition California law affects the selling of eggs in California. California is 15 percent of the national market for pork, so you can see what California is doing can have a big impact on the pork industry in the other 49 States. If California can regulate pork producers out of business through costly and unrealistic regulation, which food will be next? What segment of agriculture will be negatively affected next? Consumers should be waking up to the reality of activist policies coming from folks on the left who want to put the kibosh on animal agriculture. California's law is based on arbitrary and prescriptive standards that lack any scientific, technical, or agricultural basis. It also jeopardizes sow safety. And for you city slickers, ``sow'' is the word we use for mother pigs. The cost to implement Proposition 12 has been measured to be approximately $3,500 per sow--a cost that farmers would need to pass on to the consumer. This additional cost will threaten the independent pork producers in rural Iowa and run them out of business due to burdensome regulations. I am not only speaking for Iowa pork producers, even though we are No. 1 in pork production. This is affecting pork producers in the other 49 States. The result of this law will be significant on Iowa's independent pork producers. We all know people will continue to eat pork chops, ham, and bacon, but this will only lead to further consolidation so that you will only have three or four companies controlling the entire supply of pork for our country. The future of the independent pork production is at stake, and I do not want to sit idly by as pork producers across Iowa go out of business. So this Monday, our national holiday, when the Senate wasn't in session, I met with 40 pork producers in Palo Alto county. Hearing from Iowans firsthand on this issue was especially impactful. Iowa producers who have raised hogs for more than 50 years told me that they have never been so worried. How will rural agriculture fight against the special interests and big money of the coasts is a question I was asked. How can farmers afford to remain compliant with nonsense policies written by someone who has never been on a hog farm? There has to be a legislative solution to what California is negatively doing to pork producers in the other 49 States, so Senator Marshall, Senator Ernst, and I have been working on a solution. The EATS Act--E-A-T-S, that is an acronym for a piece of legislation preventing States from impeding ag trade from other States within the United States, under the constitutional power of Congress, to regulate interstate foreign commerce. Our legislation is an example of Congress regulating interstate commerce. In the court's majority decision, it was a five-to-four decision--an odd combination of liberals and conservatives on the Supreme Court saying that California did the right thing and an odd combination of liberals and conservatives who said that California didn't have the power to do what they did under our Constitution. But in this majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that Congress has the power to regulate commerce but has yet to enact legislation to displace Proposition 12. I read Justice Gorsuch saying to the Congress of the United States-- the courts are kind of saying to themselves something like this: Why should we say that California has acted unconstitutionally when Congress has the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce and they have not done it? So this is the reason for this bill. This bill would put an end to California's war on breakfast and override the coastal State's overreach into the heartland's breadbasket. The Supreme Court asked Congress to act, so that is what Senators Marshall, Ernst, and I--and many other Senators have now joined us in this effort. We are responding to the Supreme Court's decision. Feeding your family is not a partisan issue and neither is protecting our food supply chain. Food security, after all, is national security. I am engaging in discussions with as many as my colleagues as I can on this very issue. I hope this will soon be a bipartisan bill. It is common sense to protect affordable, quality food for America's families and support the 2 percent of the country that we call family farmers who feed the other 98 percent of the people in this State; and not only produce for the other 98 percent but about a third of our agriculture production is exported. Remember, bacon doesn't grow in grocery stores. I urge all of my colleagues to join me as cosponsors of the EATS Act.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, last week, I came here to speak to my colleagues about the Biden administration and the FBI playing games with the American people by hiding the FBI-generated 1023 document from Congress and the American people. Director Wray was going to be held in contempt for refusing to produce the 1023 that I told Chairman Comer about, and I think I had that first conversation with Chairman Comer about 3 weeks ago. Then, instead of contempt, the FBI committed to showing the 1023 and related documents to the whole Congress. By the way, I thank Chairman Comer for his cooperation with me and for how he has pursued this issue, because we know a heck of a lot more now than if he had not been involved in this whole effort. So the FBI showed--after the FBI committed to showing this document-- but didn't provide possession of that 1023 to the House Oversight Committee last week. By the way, 1023 is unclassified, so why shouldn't the entire country know about what is in this 1023? As the public knows, that 1023 involves an alleged bribery scheme between then-Vice President Biden, Hunter Biden, and a foreign national--the same allegations Chairman Comer and I made public on May 3 of this year. On the very same day that the FBI provided a redacted version of the 1023 to the House Oversight Committee, the Justice Department then announced that former President Trump had been indicted and charged with 37 crimes relating to his alleged mishandling of classified records. Attorney General Garland signed off on prosecuting Trump for conduct similar to what Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton engaged in. Two standards of justice in this country will turn our constitutional Republic upside down. Thanks to the political infection within the Biden Justice Department and the FBI, we are well along the road for that to happen. This Senator will do all that he can to fight that political infection in the Department of Justice and the FBI. You fight it, then, by bringing transparency to what this government does. The public's business ought to be public. Transparency brings accountability. With respect to the 1023 shown to the House Oversight Committee, from what I have been told by folks who have reviewed it, it is filled with redactions. The document that Comer and I read had maybe two or three half-inch redactions, not whole sentences redacted, as I am told the document in the SCIF has. So Director Wray placed redactions on a document that is already unclassified--as I have said before, unclassified. More than that, the FBI made Congress review a redacted, unclassified document in a classified facility. That goes to show you the disrespect the FBI has for Congress. During a previous time on the Senate floor, I think I told my fellow Senators what was so unusual about an unclassified document being given to the public when--I think it was on May 18 of this year--there was leaked to the New York Times a classified document and even the name of a confidential human source. So we are kind of in a strange situation here when a classified document can be leaked to the New York Times, but an unclassified document cannot be made public to 300 million Americans if they are interested in reading it. Accordingly, Congress still lacks a full and complete picture with respect to what that document really says. That is why it is important that the document be made public, without unnecessary redactions, for the American people to see. Can you believe redacting an unclassified document? Now let me assist for the purposes of there being more transparency on this subject. The 1023 produced to that House committee redacted the reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversation with them--17 such recordings. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden. According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden. These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma's employing Hunter Biden. So, as I have repeatedly asked since going public with the existence of the 1023, what, if anything, has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate? The Justice Department and FBI must show their work. They no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt. It is clear that the Justice Department and FBI will use every resource to investigate Candidate Trump, President Trump, and former President Trump. Based on the facts known to the Congress and the public, it is clear that the Justice Department and the FBI haven't nearly had the same laser focus on the Biden family. Special Counsel Jack Smith has used a recording against former President Trump. Well, what is U.S. Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to a high-stakes bribery scheme? Getting a full and complete 1023 is critical for the American people to know and understand the true nature of the document and to hold the Justice Department and the FBI accountable. It is also important for asserting constitutional congressional oversight powers against an out- of-control executive branch that is obviously drunk with political infection. Remember, Congress has received 1023s in the past, and they have been made public. So asking for this 1023 to be turned over to the American people to read is not an unusual thing that goes on with 1023s. Congress owes it to the American people and the brave and heroic whistleblowers to continue to fight for transparency on this matter and make this document public without unnecessary redactions. I want everybody to remember that I have read the unredacted version except for a couple or three half-inch redactions, I would say. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.