Martin Heinrich

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I have come to the Senate floor today to say what every New Mexican I know can easily tell you: Americans are reeling from an affordability crisis. It doesn't matter if you are talking about the price of groceries or rent or healthcare, everybody is stretched thin. They need help and they need it now and they need it from Congress and the President. But help is not what the President and his administration are delivering. Instead of working to lower healthcare and energy costs for American families, the President, his administration, and Republicans in Congress are choosing to drive those costs through the roof. They repeal energy tax credits making it harder and more expensive to build and deliver energy to the grid or even just to put solar panels on your own roof. They made it more expensive to make your home energy efficient. They imposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum, driving up energy costs, infrastructure costs, and they are blocking energy from coming onto the grid. Now, if it feels chaotic, it is probably because it is. They are trying to sow chaos. While all of the numbers and projects and policies float around in the headlines, the real story, the real impact is in your budget. It is in your electric bill. According to the Energy Information Administration, residential electricity bills have already increased by almost 10 percent since President Trump took office. Household energy costs are expected to increase by another $170 annually by 2035 thanks to tax credit repeals and tariffs. And when it comes to the impacts on energy supply, it is the same story. As of August, clean power estimated that 25,000 megawatts--that is like 25 gigawatts, it is 25 nuclear powerplants' worth of energy-- 25,000 megawatts of planned energy generation have been lost to projects being canceled or delayed since the President's election. That is more than enough power for 8.4 million homes in the United States. And I have bad news: It is about to get a whole lot worse. That is because President Trump is strangling the energy supply we badly need to drive down costs for everyone. From canceling energy projects to withholding energy permits, to issuing illegal stop work orders on fully permitted generation projects, President Trump is waging a war on affordable, American-made energy. Most recently, that came in the form of canceled energy projects. Last week, the Trump administration unlawfully canceled nearly $8 billion in Federal investments in 223 energy projects across 21 States, including 10 in the State of New Mexico. In Albuquerque, two projects by the same company were targeted. They have already had to make their first round of layoffs. If these awards are not restored in the next 45 days, they will be forced to lay off 50 percent of their workforce. These are people's lives we are talking about. And their local partners and collaborators who were anticipating growth opportunities because of the investment are being left in the cold. In Socorro, NM, one technical university lost funding for four projects--$67 million in total. One project alone will impact 36 student researchers, all of whom now have to search for new funding or lose their research roles altogether. In Fruitland, NM, another canceled project could have unlocked the key to keeping 600 people working. In Taos, NM, more chaos is playing out. Funding for Kit Carson Electric Cooperative's project to provide a battery energy storage system and microgrids to rural communities, canceled. This project would have directly improved reliability in Picuris Pueblo, the Taos Ski Valley, and El Rito West. Millions of dollars have already been expended, and countless New Mexicans were depending on that project. Now they are all left wondering whether those funds will ever be reimbursed or if New Mexicans will simply be left to pay the price and pick up the pieces. But it looks like cancellations may just be getting started. This morning there was another article about rumors of even more cancellations coming. According to reports, this next round of cancellations could involve another 260 awards and $13 billion in revoked funds. Whether that happens or not, I can tell you, without a doubt, that the harm done from the first round will be irreparable. The cancellations will mean lost jobs for Americans, lost educational opportunities for students. It will mean higher energy bills for households and businesses across this country. It will make it even harder for folks who are already struggling to make ends meet because of the affordability crisis instigated by this administration's tariffs and economic policies. It will mean less domestic manufacturing and innovation, all while diminishing America's competitive leadership globally, and it will make it harder for impacted developers and utilities to secure their financing. That is not just true for the now-canceled projects but also for any future opportunities that depend on the stability of things like government permits and regulatory structure, investments, grants because that is another casualty of this administration's war on American-made affordable energy: the reliability of the permitting process. In January, on his first day in office, President Trump paused all new leasing and permitting of wind energy projects on public lands. In February, the Army Corps of Engineers singled out and delayed 168 energy projects on private land. In March, the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew the permit for Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind. In April, the Department of the Interior imposed a stop-work order on the Empire Wind 1 project. In July, the Interior Department released a directive requiring the Secretary's personal review and approval of every wind and solar energy project on public lands--a move that will undoubtedly cause long delays. In August, the Department of the Interior issued an illegal stop-work order on Revolution Wind's offshore wind project--a project that was already 80 percent done. It was fully permitted, and it was 80 percent complete, and they told people to go home. They said: Your job doesn't matter. In September, the Trump administration asked a court to cancel the permit on a wind farm off of Ocean City, MD. It is a project that would generate 2.2 gigawatts of energy--enough to power 718,000 homes and, just as importantly, support almost 2,700 jobs every year over the next 7 years. That is just among the ones that have actually been in the news. I have heard from companies across the Nation about delays and difficulties getting their projects permitted. So let's be clear. Spending your time canceling ready-to-go energy projects isn't doing anything to address the energy crisis. Instead of fixing any of this, President Trump's Executive order makes it worse. Here is what his order actually does: hikes energy costs for millions of Americans by doubling down on expensive fossil fuels when it makes no economic sense, sends hundreds of thousands of American jobs overseas as other countries continue to develop their next-generation energy sources, decreases our American-made domestic energy supplies, forces us to be more reliant on foreign energy sources, and erodes our economic competitiveness and energy dominance. It does not have to be this way. The last time we faced an energy crisis in the United States, it was the 1970s. Energy prices were skyrocketing because of the 1973 oil crisis, when barrels of oil--then, our most in-demand energy source--quadrupled in price. U.S. energy production could not meet domestic demand, and the country saw blackouts and brownouts. With an energy crisis on its hands, Congress actually acted. In a bipartisan effort, Congress created the Department of Energy. It funded significant research around the country to explore new ways to power things--solar, geothermal, nuclear--including the Energy Research and Development Administration. It worked on advancing transmission systems to create more competitive energy markets, saving money for everyone. Congress met the moment and defined our energy future for decades to come. As part of that, in 1976, construction began on a 5-megawatt thermal solar test facility at the Energy Research and Development Administration's Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM. Before it was even complete, the facility became the largest operational solar installation in the world. This solar test facility was just one small example of the huge bipartisan effort to meet that moment. Today, we are at a similar crossroads. Demand for new technology has once again outpaced available power reserves. Infrastructure is aging. Across the country, utility prices are rising as demand for energy rises too. Again, Congress can meet this moment. We cannot do that by doubling down on expensive fossil energy or generation sources that take 5, 6, 7, even 10 years to build. If you order a gas turbine today, it would take you 5 to 7 years just to receive it, and its price is going through the roof because of the tariffs that the President has put on things like aluminum and steel. That is not going to solve the rising costs we are dealing with right now. In contrast, solar, wind, and battery are modular, faster to permit, and easier to construct with fewer supply chain restraints. That is especially true when they are--or were--already permitted, with shovels in the ground, workers ready to build. Instead of accepting this reality, President Trump and congressional Republicans are flailing, and it is leaving everyday Americans to shoulder the costs. By eliminating energy sources instead of adding more, this administration is raising your energy prices, raising your electricity bill, not lowering it. The impacts are real, and they are far-reaching. For many households, the choice to pay hundreds more in energy costs means the choice to not pay for other things--groceries, doctor's bills, school supplies. That is not a choice you should have to make. You shouldn't be a pawn in President Trump's political games. Senator Kaine and I introduced S.J. Res. 71 to put an end to Trump's war on American-made, affordable energy, to bring down costs for American families, to save jobs that American families rely on, and to call out this administration for its chaos and its incompetence and the fact that it doesn't seem to care about the impacts on everyday Americans. So I call on all of my colleagues here in the Senate to join us. Vote yes on S.J. Res. 71. Do not make American families pay the price for Trump's war on affordable American energy.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, on October 6, 2025, I was unavoidably absent for the following rollcall votes. My absence was due to an unavoidable conflict. For rollcall vote No. 544, On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to S. 2882), a bill making continuing appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes, I would have voted yea. For rollcall vote No. 545, On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to H.R. 5371), a bill making continuing appropriations and extensions for fiscal year 2026, and for other purposes I would have voted nay. For rollcall vote No. 546, On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture: En bloc Nominations Provided for Under the Provisions of S. Res. 412), I would have voted nay.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, what is the status of the floor?

Mr. HEINRICH. I would ask unanimous consent to offer remarks as if in morning business.

Mr. HEINRICH. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, when I draw a hunting tag, especially for elk, one of the first things that I do is to look at a map of the unit where I drew. I do that for a couple of reasons. I look to see where the public land is, and I also look to see where the roads are because the vast majority of time, that is where the elk aren't. Elk need habitat security. If there is food and water and a place to securely bed on national forest land in New Mexico, and that spot is a couple of miles or more from an open road, the odds that elk live there are really, really high. So it is almost like the roadless rule was written for elk country because, in fact, it was. And if you like to catch wild trout that have never seen the inside of a hatchery, you are probably familiar with some of the roadless refuges where these fish still thrive. In fact, 70 percent of the roadless areas in the Nation provide crucial habitat for native trout. So it is almost like the roadless rule was written by fishermen-- because it was. In fact, it was written by many hunters and fisherman, actually. One of them is, today, the President and CEO of Trout Unlimited, who served as the senior policy and communication advisor to the chief of the Forest Service when this rule was crafted back in 2001. When my friends draw a coveted Coues deer tag in the Bootheel of New Mexico in what is a famous unit, Unit 27, where are they hunting? Chances are, they are hiking deep into inventoried roadless areas to glass for these deer that Jack O'Connor made famous when he referred to them in his writings as ``the gray ghost.'' So when the Trump administration advocates for eliminating the roadless rule, they are talking about endangering some of the last great wild game habitat on our national forests. These are the back- country places where we sit around a campfire under a sea of stars and pass our traditions down to the next generation of sports men and women. Finalized in 2001, the roadless rule protects nearly 45 million acres of national forest land that belongs to each and every American. From the hazy blue peaks of the Appalachian Mountains to the imposing spires of the Rockies, from the saltwater estuaries of the Croatan National Forest in North Carolina to the towering Ponderosa Pines of the Santa Fe National Forest in my home State, across the country, many people's favorite hunting spots, their favorite hiking trails and biking routes, ATV trails, and fishing streams are in these protected roadless areas. When the Nation debated the merits of the roadless rule 24 years ago, the Forest Service held 600 public meetings around the country. These were attended by tens of thousands of Americans. I should know, I attended one of them. The Forest Service received more than 1.6 million comments, and over 95 percent of those were in favor of these roadless protections. You could ask a group of Americans about apple pie, and you wouldn't get a number that high. At the time, this was the largest response to a public comment request ever--ever--that any Agency had ever seen. Fast-forward 2\1/2\ decades to today, and the Trump administration is threatening to throw the roadless rule into the dustbin of history, except this time, the process looks very different. The administration opened the public comment period on August 19 and will close it Friday. Now, I know how slow and deliberate government can sometimes be, but there should be no shortcut to public engagement and to the democratic process. Yet a shortcut--or maybe more accurately a short circuit--is exactly what this administration has chosen. With an underresourced and understaffed Forest Service, I know for a fact that the resource professionals and the scientists at the Forest Service do not support eliminating the roadless rule. This is being imposed upon them by people in the White House who, frankly, have never harvested a bull elk or released a native trout or otherwise experienced the wonder of God's creation in the very lands that represent the anvil on which our Nation's character was forged. The truth is that the roadless rule protects us from wildfires; it ensures clean drinking water for communities; and it sustains wildlife habitat for wildlife and for sportsmen. Wildfire prevention is at the heart of why the roadless rule is so important. Eighty-eight percent of wildfires are started by human activity, and 95 percent of human-caused fires begin within a half mile of a road. You can imagine why. It is not complicated. Cars backfire. Cigarette butts get thrown out a window. Trailer chains can spark on a rock. Sometimes campfires get mismanaged. These things happen where we can get with a car or a truck, so roads vastly increase the probability of wildfires rather than reducing them. The roadless rule specifically allows for the removal of fuels that promote unnaturally intense wildfire. This helps to create a healthier forest and reduce wildfire risk. The bottom line is that when we build new roads in protected areas, we risk more fires, not fewer. In States like Idaho and Utah, more than 35 percent of roadless lands have had work done to help reduce fire in those roadless areas. In Montana, almost 30 percent of roadless areas have had similar treatments. The idea that the roadless rule somehow prevents us from taking steps to lessen wildfire risk and from affecting human communities is patently wrong and inaccurate. The reality is that the Federal Government should be spending its scarce resources to focus on protecting communities closer to roads because that is where the people, homes, and towns are. Can I talk for just a minute about the economics of building roads in roadless areas? The Forest Service maintains a more than $8.6 billion-- with a ``b''--backlog on maintenance of its existing infrastructure and roads. Why would we countenance building new roads in back-country areas with low timber values and extremely high costs when we can't even take care of the existing roads that we already have? Beyond wildfire prevention, the roadless rule protects the water sources that sustain our communities. Many people don't know that large cities like Atlanta and Denver and Los Angeles rely on water supplies from our national forests. In fact, some 180 million people--over 68,000 communities, large and small--rely on forested lands to capture and filter drinking water. That means that the Forest Service lands are the largest source of municipal water supply in the Nation, serving over 60 million people across 33 different States. Roadless areas actually protect the headwaters of many municipal watersheds, and that includes places like the water supply for the city of Santa Fe, in my home State. When they rescind the roadless rule, it threatens access to clean water for millions of Americans. Now, finally, the roadless rule preserves the fish and wildlife habitat and sustains the hunting, fishing, and recreation economy. Every year, I and millions of other hunters rely on public lands to feed our souls and to feed our families. The Sportsmen's Alliance estimates that in 2022, recreational hunters alone generated $133 billion in economic output, created 1.3 million jobs, and supported more than $80 billion in wages alone. And this is part of a larger pattern. The Bureau of Economic Analysis calculated that the economic output of outdoor recreation in 2023 was over $1 trillion. If the administration builds roads in these places, we not only lose these experiences, but our economies lose their customers. It is not just me saying this; constituents across my State are saying it to me too. Michael writes from Albuquerque. He says: [T]his seems to be rushed without full considerations of the ramifications. I do not want the health and solitude of our forests compromised by opening the door to unwanted development. Diane from Taos writes: Please vote to stop the plan to rescind the Roadless Rule. I lead herb identification walks in the Taos area . . . so many people come to this state to enjoy the beauty of untrammeled forest. We need to . . . stop Trump and his abuse of our public lands. Hannah writes from Santa Fe: Our forests need our help now more than ever. It's hard to feel so hopeless to help them these days, and I hope you will defend our forests. So I stand here today, supported by my own experiences and supported by the voices of constituents, to defend these forests. But I am not only defending our forests. In fighting for the roadless rule, we are fighting for protections for our roadless areas and against putting special interests first. We are fighting for stronger local economies for all and against industrial development for a wealthy few. Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and he once said: The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only when we make ourselves responsible for that future. We are responsible for that future, and the actions that we take today will reverberate for generations to come. I am fighting for the roadless rule, and I urge you to join me. To my colleagues in the Forest Service, I ask that you extend the public comment period for the public so that we can hear their voices. To the American people and my constituents in New Mexico, I urge you to engage in the public commenting process and make sure that your voices are heard.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, thank you to Chair Collins and Vice Chair Murray. The legislative branch bill is the smallest of the bills produced by the Senate Appropriations Committee, but it is really one of the most important because it helps to make sure that the legislature maintains its role as a separate and equal branch of government. It is no secret that this balance of power enshrined by the Founders in the Constitution could not be more important than it is today. To be an effective check and balance to the executive branch, Congress and our support Agencies need adequate resources to carry out our responsibilities. This bill allocates those resources, allowing us to do the jobs that we were elected to do for the people of this Nation. Like most bills, each side got some of what they wanted and some of what they didn't, but like any good legislation, we continued to find common ground across the aisle on so many important points. This includes a continued focus on investments, constituent services and security, oversight, and campus operation. It also includes placeholders for several important, security-related activities that Chair Mullin and I have collectively agreed to further develop and appropriately fund in conference based on additional information that we expect to receive from the Sergeant at Arms and the Capitol Police. I want to especially thank Chair Mullin and his clerk Molly McCarty for their incredible work with us on the Legislative Branch bill and report and demonstrating their commitment to continuing to work with me to provide the resources necessary to protect all of us. I also want to thank Richard Braddock and my team for their work to develop this bipartisan bill. I believe this legislation provides a bipartisan package supporting our most critical needs, and I would really urge all of our colleagues to vote in favor.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, on May 21, 2025, I was unavoidably absent for the following rollcall votes. My absence was due to familial obligations that presented an unavoidable conflict. For rollcall Vote No. 265, had I been present, I would have voted yea. For rollcall vote No. 266 had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall Vote No. 267 had I been present, I would have voted yea. For rollcall Vote No. 268, had I been present, I would have voted yea. For rollcall Vote No. 269, had I been present, I would have voted yea. For rollcall Vote No. 270, had I been present, I would have voted yea. For rollcall Vote No. 271, had I been present, I would have voted yea. For rollcall Vote No. 272, had I been present, I would have voted yea. For rollcall vote No. 273 had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall vote No. 274 had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall vote No. 275 had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall vote No. 276 had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall vote No. 277 had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall vote No. 278 had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall vote No. 279 had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall vote No. 280 had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall vote No. 281 had I been present, I would have voted nay. On July 8, 2025, I was unavoidably absent for the following rollcall votes. My absence was due to a weather delay in my flight arrival, which created an unavoidable conflict. For rollcall Vote No. 373, had I been present, I would have voted nay. For rollcall Vote No. 374, had I been present, I would have voted nay.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, in New Mexico, we practice querencia. Querencia is a deep, even spiritual, connection to the land--a love of place that demands that we care for what has been passed down to us and protect it so we can pass it along to future generations. Today, I stand on the Senate floor to pay tribute to a man who literally embodied this idea. His name was Ralph Vigil. And Ralph grew up along the Pecos River, at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, in Northern New Mexico. With family roots extending hundreds of years, Ralph often called himself ``a twelfth-generation Hispano in a state of Nuevomexicanos.'' He took pride in his Hispanic and indigenous heritage, and every aspect of Ralph's life was really a testament to his commitment and connection to our State and its people. A parciante of his local acequia, Ralph often brought people in to share acequia traditions, and this included Mark Allison, the executive director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. One year, Ralph and his family invited Mark for an annual acequia spring cleaning. So all day, they shoveled and raked and cleared the way for the water to be able to nourish the fields. Once they were done, they went up and opened up the headgate. Ralph's dad moved a few rocks, and Mark and Ralph stood and watched the water come down to water the fields. As mayordomo of the Acequia del Molino, Ralph determined the allocation of water for each family like he did everything else, with the resounding belief that in the acequia, as in life, everyone is equal, bound together by water, by land, by tradition. So Ralph carried these principles of equality and justice and interconnectivity to literally everything he did. As chairman of the New Mexico Acequia Commission for 19 years, Ralph fought to protect the water and the needs of local communities. In the words of Juan Sanchez, who worked alongside Ralph at the commission, ``Ralph . . . helped communities who didn't really have a voice, keep a voice.'' And when extensive mining proposals threatened the traditional way of life along the Pecos River, Ralph stepped into action, helping to form the Stop Terrero Mine Coalition. This is where I really got to know Ralph, as we worked together to craft and introduce legislation, the Pecos Watershed Protection Act-- legislation to defend our watersheds and designate over 11,000 acres of national forestland as the Thompson Peak Wilderness Area. At the Federal and State level, Ralph was a community leader in every sense of the phrase, committed to protecting and nurturing the people and places of New Mexico. He was also a farmer, a father, a skateboarder, a mariachi, and a friend--one who let others know how much they meant to him. As described by one of his close friends and colleague he worked with, Garrett VeneKlasen, ``Ralph was an old soul and a sage'' who ``radiated goodness and grace.'' His friend Robert Apodaca put it similarly: Ralph . . . loved with his whole heart and soul. . . . [And his] legacy lives on in every life he touched and every cause he stood for. Julie and I extend our heartfelt condolences to Ralph's family, friends, colleagues, and community. And I know that we will all think of Ralph every time we see the Pecos River. May we all honor Ralph's memory by carrying on our own querencia for the places and waters that have sustained our way of life, traditions, and forged our communities.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Virginia for bringing this resolution to the floor. And it was a little less than a year ago, I met with workers at several manufacturing facilities in New Mexico. These are the workers who are making the solar and wind technologies that are generating record quantities of clean, affordable, American-made energy. And at a groundbreaking ceremony for Array Technologies, at their factory in Albuquerque, I met with over a dozen New Mexicans, and they told me about the impact of our investments on their lives, their abilities to support their families. I talked with folks like Ramon Romero, who joined Array Technologies as an entry-level machinist, worked his way up to have a career as a production manager. I met with Daniel Beltran, who explained how Array's expansion has created new job opportunities for himself and many others in his community. He told me that the company's growth has been ``life- changing'' for him. And I met with Ray Muddaluri, who spoke about how significant a role Array has played in supporting her growth as a young professional and her ability to serve her community. Here is what every one of those New Mexicans had in common: They were able to create better lives for themselves, better lives for their families, because of the jobs that were available for them. This is what I mean when I say these industries, these clean industries, are creating careers that New Mexicans and other Americans can build their families around in their home communities. And thanks to the investments that Democrats made in the last few years, we have seen record growth in new American manufacturing facilities. More than 400,000 new jobs have been announced across the country as a part of this ``Made in America'' clean and affordable energy manufacturing boom. In New Mexico, we celebrated the first wind towers coming off the line at Arcosa Wind Towers, a new factory in Belen. It was a shuttered plastics factory. And now Arcosa's workers are creating the huge steel towers. They are heading straight to the SunZia Wind and Transmission Project, a 3\1/2\ gigawatt project. That project, SunZia, brought in more than $20 billion to States like New Mexico and Arizona in capital. And when it comes online, it is going to generate more clean power with its wind turbines than the Hoover Dam. It is the largest ever built clean energy project in the Western Hemisphere. America is actually building big things again. So these projects have enormous scope. But our affordable, American-made energy boom is already under threat because of the uncertainty that President Trump has foisted on the energy sector. And if you are thinking about opening a new factory, like Array or Arcosa did in my State, you don't know what your tax structure will be after the Republicans take up their Trump tax bill. If you are trying to site and build a new transmission line, the Federal Agencies and the staff that you work with just had their expert staff sacked, making it hard to get a permit when no one is on the other end of the phone. And thanks to Trump's so-called national energy emergency, many of the lowest cost, 100-percent clean additions to our grid can't get permits. Make no mistake, Americans' electric bills are going to go up. I am going to say that again: Americans' electric bills are going to go up because Trump and his loyal Republicans are picking winners and losers on the power grid. That is why I am joining my friend and colleague Senator Kaine to force a vote to put an end to all of this before any more damage is done. And I want to be clear about something, and certainly Senator Kaine raised this point, but America is the world's leading energy producer. And before Trump injected all of this uncertainty, our country was producing record quantities of both conventional and clean advanced energy. There is no energy emergency. It was made up to skirt the law. It was made up to favor some sources and not others. But if Trump gets his way, his faux declaration may very well create a real emergency, an energy emergency and an economic emergency. I also want to be clear to my colleagues across the aisle that this clean energy phenomenon has created 400,000 jobs around the country. But most of them--most of them--are in Republican-led States. This is not a red States or a blue States issue. This is about good-paying, blue-collar, skilled jobs in all of our States. So what is at risk because of all of this? Let's take a look. In North Carolina, there is a new nearly $13 billion--with a ``b''--$13 billion Toyota battery plant, which will employ 5,000 workers. Where are we getting our batteries now? We are getting them from China. This is progress. This is putting Americans to work to make batteries here. In Louisiana, First Solar announced a billion dollars for a new solar energy project that is projected to create 700 new jobs, making that technology here, not being dependent on China. In Kentucky, Ford is building a new battery plant, which will employ another 5,000 workers and manufacture batteries here instead of China. In Georgia, an estimated billion dollars in projects to modernize the power grid--and our power grid needs a heck of a lot of modernization. We are going to have more and more demands on this grid in coming years, especially with the growth of data centers and AI--a billion dollars sidelined to upgrade that power grid in Georgia. Do we really want all these jobs to disappear because President Trump wants to create a war on affordable, American-made, clean energy? Do we want to import more batteries from China? I don't because that is what is going to happen if we turn our backs on these factories and these energy sources. And among other things, Trump's so-called national energy emergency declaration would allow his administration to use eminent domain, one of the most controversial powers that a government can have, to take private land for oil and gas infrastructure at the expense of our American jobs and livelihoods. As we speak, President Trump's chaos and incompetence are jeopardizing and fueling the real energy emergency in our country. Trump's plans to eliminate dozens of advanced energy tax credits, those have unleashed more than $165 billion in private sector capital, moving into over 1,000 factories and expansions across the country. The President has also halted many of the Department of Energy's loan guarantees, which will further jeopardize the U.S. energy manufacturing expansion and will lead to higher energy bills for millions of Americans. This is blatant hypocrisy, as Trump's favorite billionaire ``bro'' Elon Musk actually took a $465 million Federal loan guarantee from that same Department that literally saved Tesla from bankruptcy in 2010. And when these massive, multibillion-dollar construction projects stall, it is not Trump's billionaire friends who will suffer; it is everyday Americans who work in these factories. It is all the families who will be stuck with higher electric bills. I want to emphasize something that my colleague from Virginia raised. More than 90 percent of the electricity generation projects currently in line to connect to the grid all across this Nation--in red States and in blue States--waiting interconnection are clean energy projects. They are wind, solar, storage, nuclear. Just last year, 93 percent--93 percent--of new electricity generation was carbon-free. That is a record. We added 52 gigawatts--50 nuclear power generating station quantities' worth--of solar, wind, and storage to the grid in the last year alone. There is a reason for that. In addition to being clean and carbon-free--and many of the big companies that procure energy care about that--these power sources are cheaper, they are faster, they are less capital-intensive than older technologies, like coal-fired plants or gas turbines. Put simply, clean energy is the cheapest electricity on the grid. You can see it right here. Onshore wind and solar are by far the cheapest. We have combined cycle natural gas. Guess what? You can't get a gas turbine these days. If you order a combined cycle natural gas turbine today, you are going to wait 3, 4, 5 years before that is actually delivered, without permitting. Nuclear is great. I hope we build more of it, but we have to get the cost down. It is 18 cents a kilowatt hour, average. If we don't plug these clean sources into the grid, especially at a time of surging demand, the outcome is obvious: Prices will go up. And it is not physically possible to stand up enough costly gas plants to keep growing power demands and keep prices down. As I said, the wait times to just get a turbine is 4 or 5 years. If Trump has his way and he keeps blocking American-made clean energy projects, we know that significantly higher energy and electricity costs are on the way. Is that what we want to do? We want to impose on working families that are already struggling to pay for eggs--if they haven't crossed that off their grocery list already--the rising cost of milk, groceries going through the roof, rent payments going up--we are going increase their electric rates because that is what this fake emergency is going to do. A couple of weeks ago, an Alabama utility company sent a letter to customers saying: Sorry, you owe us another $100 because what we credited you based on the law is no longer valid. Trump's EO took that away, so pony up. Write us another $100 in your electric bill this month. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Advanced groups who do the analysis, folks like the Rhodium Group, have looked at what his crusade will mean regarding American clean energy investments and electricity costs. And they say that, on average, American families' electricity bills could go up by nearly $500 a year as a result of these actions. Trump's war on American-made clean energy is going to kill thousands of jobs in the skilled trades. Huge construction projects are going to get stalled. The biggest winner in all of this is going to be China. China wants to become even more dominant in the global renewable energy marketplace. They will happily take the private investment that could have gone to the United States and take those jobs back overseas. The biggest loser from this is our economic competitiveness, our national security, our families. Trump has claimed that his so-called natural energy emergency order is needed to unleash more American fossil fuel development. He is also wrong about that. Not only is our production--13 million barrels a day on average; a little over that--not a record-producing number, but oil and gas executives will tell you the truth. Look at what ConocoPhillips' CEO said in response to a question about this: Would he really increase production with the gloves coming off? He said, ``Not really.'' Why is that? Because American oil and gas production is already at a record high, and it is not economically advantageous to push production further. I know this firsthand because we are producing more oil and gas in New Mexico than most other States combined, with the exception of one. Clearly, we need to put an end to this stuff that will fuel a real energy emergency, kill thousands of jobs, and raise electricity costs on American families. The most important decision of our energy future--worth hundreds of billions of dollars in private sector investment, factories, thousands of high-quality jobs--remains in the hands of our Senate Republican colleagues. If you want to have an ``all of the above'' approach, if you want to continue to bring down energy costs, if you want to protect jobs for hard-working Americans in our States, and to help America remain the global leader in energy production, I would urge you to vote in support of this resolution and against higher electricity bills.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Madam President, I rise today in opposition to S.J. Res. 11, which would repeal a policy that helps protect archeological sites in the ocean when oil and gas development is planned in the area. I want to be clear that this policy does not prevent any oil and gas development. It simply requires that companies take a good look at the ocean floor with sonar where they are planning to drill a well and see what historic and prehistoric resources are there. The Outer Continental Shelf, where these wells are typically drilled, is home to one-of-a-kind cultural resources, from incredible historic shipwrecks to old maritime infrastructure, even evidence of human settlements on land that used to be on dry ground but is now on the sea floor. This policy is a small change, and it simply brings offshore oil and gas up to the exact same standard that we already apply to offshore wind projects. It is entirely reasonable to require energy developers to identify archeological sites and other cultural resources on the ocean floor, just as they do when they produce energy on land. In fact, in my home State of New Mexico, energy companies routinely work with Tribal representatives, State agencies, and other experts to identify cultural resources in an area proposed for development and to make a plan to limit the impact of development on those resources. It is reasonable for us to expect the same of offshore energy developers. This policy was supported by two federally recognized Tribes, the Chickahominy and the Rappahannock. Passage of this resolution means not only that this would be repealed but that any similar policy could never be put back in place. Our cultural resources are too valuable to let them go unprotected just because they are on the ocean floor, and I would urge my colleagues to oppose the resolution.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 101 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I rise to offer this amendment to support grants for survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Over the last several weeks, I have heard from thousands of New Mexicans about how Donald Trump and Elon Musk have thrown their lives and communities into chaos. That includes Alexandria Taylor and her New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs. She called me about President Trump's blockade on Federal grants under the Violence Against Women Act. These grants do two things: They support survivors of rape and sexual assault, sexual abuse, and domestic violence; and they help law enforcement hold predators and abusers accountable. These are not woke ideas. These are American values. If you support survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, if you support law enforcement holding abusers and predators accountable, I hope you will support this amendment. Vote on Amendment No. 101

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, just over 5 years ago, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., traveled to the Pacific island Samoa. Mr. Kennedy was on a mission to spread baseless and debunked conspiracy theories about the safety and efficacy of children's vaccines. Trading in his esteemed family name and peddling himself as some sort of expert, Mr. Kennedy discouraged parents in Samoa from vaccinating their children. The impact of Mr. Kennedy's visit was undeniable. Health providers in Samoa reported that anti-vaccine voices ``got louder'' after his visit, and the rate of measles vaccinations for eligible 1-year-olds in Samoa fell to under 33 percent--well below herd immunity. Five months after Mr. Kennedy's visit, Samoa had a massive measles outbreak, with 5,000 of its citizens contracting the disease and 83 Samoans dying, the vast majority of whom were children under the age of 5. During his recent Senate confirmation hearings, Mr. Kennedy doubled down on his denialism, claiming, ``We don't know what was killing'' those children in Samoa. Mr. Kennedy also claimed in written responses to Senate questions that ``my words had nothing to do with vaccine uptake in Samoa or with the 2019 epidemic.'' But the current top health official in Samoa has denounced Mr. Kennedy's characterization of the measles outbreak in his country and Mr. Kennedy's role in it as ``an outright lie'' and ``a total fabrication.'' As someone with a background in science but more importantly, just as a father of two young men, I am horrified by this story. The measles vaccine has been one of the most successful public health and science stories of the last century. One vaccine administered in two doses now provides protection against four devastating diseases: measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, nearly twice as many young people died from measles as from polio. Thanks to incredible scientific research and medical advances, we now have a vaccine that is proven to be safe and effective at protecting our kids from these deadly diseases. This vaccine has largely eradicated the measles outbreaks that used to result in the devastating loss of babies and young children--that is, until anti-vaccine crusaders like Mr. Kennedy started promoting phony science and conspiracy theories in places like Samoa. Over the last two decades, thanks in large part to Mr. Kennedy, this anti-science movement has moved from the darkest corners of the internet into the mainstream. The Samoan story provides us a heartbreaking example of just what is at stake if we give this movement's leader a national platform to spread his junk science. I hope all of my colleagues take seriously what it would mean to confirm this anti-vaccine, anti-science, snake oil salesman as our next Secretary of Health and Human Services. As the leader of the largest anti-vaccine organization in the country, the so-called ``Children's Defense Fund''--and I use air quotes for a reason--Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly pushed junk science studies to spread fear and skepticism of vaccines. And it is not limited to the measles. Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly and falsely alleged that safe and effective vaccines for tetanus, for the flu, for COVID, for HPV are dangerous to human health. Mr. Kennedy has even promoted the completely discredited conspiracy theory that vaccines lead to autism. I want to be really clear that decades of extensive, peer-reviewed, scientific studies have found no connection--zero connection--between vaccines and autism. When he was pressed about this during his confirmation hearings, Mr. Kennedy continued to promote junk science studies rather than walk back his misinformation. In response to Mr. Kennedy's words in his confirmation hearing, Christopher Banks, the president and CEO of the Autism Society of America, said: The Autism community deserves leadership that prioritizes evidence-based policies and respects the lived experiences of Autistic individuals and their families. The continued promotion of debunked vaccine theories only serves as a distraction from the critical research needed to better understand Autism and provide support for the Autism community today. I completely agree with Mr. Banks. Financial disclosures from his confirmation process have also revealed that Mr. Kennedy has made millions of dollars in referral fees from law firms suing vaccine manufacturers based on baseless conspiracy theories. If confirmed, his own personal financial interests could still be tied to these anti-vaccine lawsuits. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to more than a million deaths in the United States alone, Mr. Kennedy campaigned to end the nationwide vaccination effort that helped us save millions more lives. He continued his well-worn and, again, completely evidence-free message that no vaccine is safe and effective. And just like with all vaccines, the COVID vaccines went through independent review and extensive trials to ensure they were safe and effective. If Mr. Kennedy had had his way, we might still be losing thousands and thousands of our family members and neighbors to that virus. Mr. Kennedy has, again, without any sound evidence also pushed conspiracy theories claiming that antidepressant medications cause mass shootings and chemicals in our water make children gay. If those claims sound nuts, it is because they are. Mr. Kennedy has said that he is opposed to promoting prescription medications to treat chronic diseases, including anti-obesity medications like Ozempic that are currently used by millions of Americans. Mr. Kennedy has said that he would eliminate the entire nutrition department at the Food and Drug Administration, jeopardizing the safety of our Nation's food supplies. Mr. Kennedy has said that he supports gutting the National Institutes of Health, which supports the development of medicines to treat diseases and delivers untold resources to healthcare institutions in New Mexico and every other State in this country. During his confirmation process, Mr. Kennedy also reportedly made commitments to my Republican colleagues to support restrictions on mifepristone, a medication abortion and miscarriage management drug. Mifepristone has been approved by the FDA for 25 years. It is true that Mr. Kennedy has made a number of conflicting statements in the past about his personal views on women's reproductive healthcare, but during his confirmation process, Mr. Kennedy signaled to Republican Senators that he will go along with whatever President Trump wants to further roll back women's reproductive rights. Mr. Kennedy is not who any of us should want to put in charge of our Nation's health and food safety. The Department of Health and Human Services oversees health coverage programs that serve half--half--of all Americans. HHS plays a critical role in overseeing Medicare, overseeing Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. HHS also supports the medical research that helps us to develop the next vaccines, prevent the next pandemic, and find cures for cancer and chronic diseases like diabetes. We have already seen President Trump, Elon Musk, and his DOGE minions target scientific and medical research at Agencies like the National Institutes of Health. Just last week, we saw them announce an estimated $4 billion cut for health research at universities across the Nation, including an estimated $17 million impact at the University of New Mexico alone. And just like many of the unilateral and illegal actions of this emboldened Trump administration, this one received a temporary halt from a Federal judge 2 days ago. But whether this particular attack holds up in court or not, the Trump administration's intention is clear: dramatic cuts to medical research into treatments and cures that countless Americans are depending upon to save their lives. Mr. Kennedy plans to lead this effort and even to expand on it. Mr. Kennedy is not who my constituents in New Mexico want to see leading our Nation's health Agency. In fact, New Mexicans have raised their concerns in letters and emails and phone calls day in and day out, and I am going to take a few minutes to read to you from some of these New Mexicans who are terrified about the danger that Mr. Kennedy would pose as our Nation's healthcare Agency leader. Melissa from Albuquerque is concerned that Mr. Kennedy's past of promoting misinformation about vaccines and his lack of experience will endanger Americans. Melissa said: This role demands a leader who relies on evidence-based decision-making, upholds public trust, and prioritizes the health and safety of all Americans. RFK Jr.'s history of promoting conspiracy theories makes him fundamentally unfit for this critical position. If RFK Jr. were confirmed to head HHS, millions of American lives would be put at risk. His policies would jeopardize public health and undermine efforts to protect our communities from preventable diseases and health crises. William from Albuquerque, a retired University of New Mexico health communications professor and longtime NIH principal investigator, knows that Mr. Kennedy's harmful rhetoric and lies will hurt public health efforts and lead to unnecessary deaths. William said: My research team and I have had to continually battle anti- vax misinformation. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is often at the center of that misinformation. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to oppose his nomination as Secretary of HHS. The damage he would do will take decades to undo and will lead undoubtedly to US morbidity and mortality increasing due to infectious diseases. Jane from Albuquerque is concerned that Mr. Kennedy's lack of experience will negatively impact the health of New Mexicans. She said: The administration has nominated manifestly unqualified individuals and those openly hostile to evidence to head the Department of Health and Human Services and the individual agencies that are charged with protecting the health of everyone in the U.S. This abdication of responsibility will undoubtedly impact vulnerable populations most profoundly, including those living in New Mexico. Mark from Albuquerque, a survivor of polio, knows that the polio vaccine effectively eradicated this relentless and deadly disease. He is worried that Mr. Kennedy's confirmation could stifle future vaccinations like the one that saved his life. Mark said: I am a polio survivor. I know that I was very fortunate in my recovery and I also know that the vaccines effectively eradicated this relentless and deadly disease. So, I ask that you do whatever you can to prevent RFK Jr. from overseeing the healthcare of all Americans! Lori from Las Cruces is also worried that Mr. Kennedy's history of spreading misinformation could harm Americans. Lori said: If the Senate confirms RFK Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Americans' health care will be put at risk and we'll be ill-prepared for another public health catastrophe. We need to push for a qualified, trustworthy nominee to lead America's health policy. Meghan from Albuquerque, a primary care physician, is worried that Mr. Kennedy's lack of experience and disregard for evidence-based medicine pose a danger to Americans. Meghan said: As a primary care physician in New Mexico, I am also very worried about the possibility of RFK Jr. being confirmed as HHS Secretary. His past actions have shown that he has little regard for research, evidence based medicine or the expertise of scientists and physicians. He is dangerous to the American people. I agree with these New Mexicans that Mr. Kennedy is unprepared, he is unqualified, and he is dangerously unfit to be confirmed as our next Health Secretary--unfit to protect our kids' health from debunked conspiracy theories, unfit to defend women's reproductive rights, unfit to safeguard the future of Medicare and Medicaid, and unfit to continue lifesaving medical research and medical care in my State and across the country. For all of these reasons, I would urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting no on confirming Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, every one of us remembers where we were when the first plane struck the World Trade Center the morning of September 11, 2001. On that day, we watched in horror as the North and South Towers fell, terrifying debris clouds flooding the ground beneath them. We witnessed the Pentagon, the heart of our national defense, engulfed in flames as a hijacked plane crashed into it head-on, taking the lives of all the people aboard that flight and over 125 employees in the building itself. Our hearts broke as we saw yet another plane go down in an open field in Pennsylvania, after brave Americans decided to fight back and regain control of the aircraft before it reached its intended target here in this very Capitol building. From that day forward, we pledged to never forget the nearly 3,000 Americans who lost their lives that day and the thousands more who were first responders that have died since. That pledge led us to immediately establish a bipartisan commission devoted to understanding how our Nation's intelligence Agencies could have left us vulnerable to this attack. And the 9/11 Commission discovered that our intelligence community had received warnings about the dangers posed by al-Qaida but that a systemic lack of communication and coordination between intelligence Agencies that were effectively stovepiped off from one another had left glaring blindspots at the highest levels of our government. And to fix this, the Commission recommended that our government establish a new Cabinet-level position called the Director of National Intelligence, the DNI. The DNI is specifically dedicated to coordinating all of our intelligence-gathering operations that protect the safety and security of the American people. For the last two decades, the Director of National Intelligence has played a vital role in every administration as the leader of our intelligence community overseen in coordinating 18 of our intelligence Agencies. The Director of National Intelligence is also one of the main voices that any President hears from, literally, each and every day. That is because the DNI serves not only as the coordinator of our intelligence community but as the compiler and presenter of the President's daily brief. This is the daily high-level, highly classified briefing on the most pressing and sensitive national security matters. This is where all of our Presidents have gathered critical information needed to make incredibly difficult military or foreign policy decisions. And it is where our Presidents learn about potential threats from our adversaries, from nonstate terrorist organizations, and to think through how to combat those. Put simply: Our national security depends on the person that we entrust in that role. In fact, we need to implicitly trust that this person is relying on and providing incredible and accurate information so that our country's Commander in Chief can make the decisions that will determine our security as a nation. As a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for the last 12 years, I do not say this lightly: I do not believe that Ms. Gabbard has demonstrated the judgment to merit our trust as Director of National Intelligence. Ms. Gabbard's statements and actions leading up to and during the confirmation process should make all of us question her qualifications for this essential national security role, and they should make us seriously question her basic judgment. Time and again, Ms. Gabbard has elevated conspiracy theories, parroted dictator's talking points, and repeatedly undermined our country's national security. Let me give you some specific examples of her statements and her legislative track record. In 2017, while she was still serving in the House of Representatives, Ms. Gabbard exercised seriously questionable judgment in scheduling a foreign trip into Bashar al-Assad's pariah state of Syria. This was after Assad had committed well-documented crimes against his own people, including the use of chemical weapons, and plummeted his country into a bloody civil war and devastating humanitarian crisis. Both before and after this trip, Ms. Gabbard undermined U.S. intelligence and echoed Russian and Syrian disinformation regarding Assad's use of chemical weapons on his own people. She has made statements that appear to defend Assad. For example, on February 6, 2019, Ms. Gabbard claimed in an interview that: Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States. This is a shockingly narrow view of threats to U.S. national security. During the course of Syria's civil war, Assad used chemical weapons more than 300 times against his own people, killing and wounding thousands. To this day, Syria has still not accounted for this. The U.S. has also described Syria as being in ``flagrant noncompliance'' with the Chemical Weapons Convention. And there is no question that Assad's regime posed a serious threat to international peace and security. It is mystifying to me how Ms. Gabbard could not understand this then and still, apparently, doesn't understand it today. Ms. Gabbard's 2020 Presidential campaign website stated that she remains ``skeptical'' about two particular chemical weapons attacks in Syria in 2017 and 2018. Her website wrongly stated that: Both attacks occurred in towns under the control of al- Qaeda-linked opposition forces. Both attacks resulted in multiple civilian casualties, and both were immediately blamed on the Assad government. However, there is evidence to suggest that the attacks may have been staged by opposition forces for the purpose of drawing the United States and the West deeper into the war. Of course, there never was such evidence. Disturbingly, Ms. Gabbard decided to take the views of a discredited professor, who was himself taken in by a Syrian Australian YouTube influencer, that somehow the opposition forces had staged these chemical weapons attacks. As a Member of Congress, she could have taken the time to read the summary of a declassified U.S. intelligence report released the week after the 2017 attack, warning that claims shifting blame to rebel groups reflected the ``false narratives'' spread by Syria and its patron state, Russia. Instead of looking to the intelligence community for answers, Gabbard sought out fake intelligence, demonstrating her distrust in the very intelligence Agencies that she could soon coordinate and oversee. Her trip to Syria and her visit with Assad himself should be alarming to all of us. Normally, if any Member of Congress goes on a foreign fact-finding trip like this, we take precautions to not jeopardize our vital national security interests. We coordinate with the State Department. We coordinate with the Pentagon. We carefully account for our schedules. And we sure as hell make sure we are not giving a platform to state-sponsors of terrorism or terrorist leaders. Ms. Gabbard did none of these things on this rogue trip into Assad's Syria. In fact, she sat down for an unscheduled meeting with Assad himself, not once but twice. She also met with the Grand Mufti of Syria. The Grand Mufti was appointed in 2005 to be Syria's most senior Sunni Muslim cleric. In 2011, he threatened Western countries, including the United States, against taking military actions in Syria. And he said in his speech: I say to all of Europe, I say to America, we will set up suicide bombers who are now in your countries. During her confirmation hearing last month, I asked Ms. Gabbard directly about this meeting with the Grand Mufti, Mr. Hassoun. She claimed that this was the first she had ever heard about Mr. Hassoun's threats to set up some suicide bombers to target America and our European allies. However, records from her congressional office suggest that almost immediately after returning from her controversial trip, she was fully aware that she had met with a leader with direct ties to terrorism. According to recent reporting in the Washington Post that helped to unearth these records right after she returned from Syria, Ms. Gabbard and her congressional staff worked feverishly to account for her meetings and official paperwork and to contain the political fallout. In the documents that the Post reviewed, Ms. Gabbard's staff asked her: Did you know you were meeting with people with direct ties to terrorist organizations? And her response in those documents: Is this question re the Mufti? I want to be clear, I am not suggesting that Ms. Gabbard endorsed or endorses the despicable views or actions of this particular Syrian terrorist leader. What I am suggesting is that Ms. Gabbard's false denial to me in her confirmation hearing of any prior knowledge of this terrorist leader whom she personally met with should be evidence enough that we cannot trust her. And in the position that we are being asked to confirm her for, telling the whole truth accurately is the whole point. On top of this, Ms. Gabbard has repeatedly made public statements that echo Russian justification for Putin's unjustified, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. She has blamed our NATO allies for failing to recognize Russia's ``legitimate security concerns.'' Those are literally her words. And she has amplified Russia and Putin's disinformation campaigns alleging Ukraine's development of bioweapons. On February 23, 2022, Ms. Gabbard echoed Russian talking points blaming Putin's invasion of Ukraine on the Biden administration. Specifically, she tweeted: This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine's becoming a member of NATO, which would mean U.S./NATO forces right on Russia's border. As my colleague Senator Bennet said so powerfully as he pointed out at Ms. Gabbard's confirmation hearing, she sent this tweet at the very moment that Russian tanks were rolling over Ukraine's border, essentially saying that Vladimir Putin was justified invading the free nation of Ukraine. Then-Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair and now Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted in response saying, this is ``simply not true,'' noting that the week before the invasion, Putin once again demanded NATO leave every country that joined after 1997, including Bulgaria, Romania, and 12 others. Ms. Gabbard chose not to listen to the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee or the intelligence community itself, which had issued a declassified threat assessment two weeks prior. Ms. Gabbard decided, instead, to give the benefit of the doubt to Vladimir Putin. How can we trust that she won't do that again? Ms. Gabbard has also repeatedly praised Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who fled to China and then to Russia after he was charged in 2013 with illegally exposing government surveillance methods and classified information. Ms. Gabbard has called him a ``brave whistleblower'' and even went so far as to introduce legislation in the House of Representatives to pardon Edward Snowden. In 2016, the House Intelligence Committee issued a declassified, scathing report that found Snowden leaked secrets that caused tremendous damage to U.S. national security. This included leaking secrets that protect American troops and American personnel overseas. As that report made clear, Snowden was not a whistleblower; he was and is a traitor to this Nation. Ms. Gabbard and anyone who is interested in understanding the impact of the leaked secrets has access to the declassified House Intelligence Committee report and many other public sources of information explaining the damage that Snowden caused to our national security. Yet she continues to believe her own sources of information instead and to this day will not say that Snowden betrayed this country. Let me be clear. Edward Snowden is not a whistleblower; he is a traitor. Ms. Gabbard should know this full well. If we confirm her as our next Director of National Intelligence, Ms. Gabbard will be responsible for transmitting lawful whistleblower complaints to Congress. Her past statements on Snowden reveal a deficient understanding of our Nation's whistleblower laws that should be patently disqualifying for any Director of National Intelligence, much less any national security appointee. When my colleagues on the Intelligence Committee pressed Ms. Gabbard during her confirmation hearing about whether her views had changed and if she would acknowledge that Mr. Snowden were a traitor, she refused. This is who we want to lead our intelligence community--someone who outright refuses to condemn the actions of someone who jeopardized our national security and put the lives of many members of our intelligence community and national security community at risk? It is hard to believe that we could be so reckless. Finally, Ms. Gabbard has also advocated for a full repeal of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Section 702 is one of our intelligence community's most important tools to effectively fight terrorism, disrupt foreign cyber attacks, impede drug trafficking, and protect U.S. troops serving abroad. Ms. Gabbard introduced a bill in the House that would have completely repealed section 702. I will be the first to say that there are reforms to section 702 that we should make to ensure that this law always focuses on the communications of foreign targets abroad and is never inadvertently used in a way that threatens the privacy of innocent Americans. In the past, including just last year, I worked closely with my colleagues to advance some of these reforms. A wholesale repeal of section 702, however, is a wildly out-of-step and dangerous proposal. Do we really want to confirm a Director of National Intelligence who has advocated for the dismantling of such a foundational source of foreign intelligence to protect our national security? Any number of Ms. Gabbard's statements or actions would be disqualifying for a nominee to lead our intelligence community and keep our President accurately informed on pressing national security matters. But I am not alone in raising concerns about this nomination. As with many of President Trump's unqualified nominees, I have heard from many New Mexicans--from many constituents in my own State--in opposition to Ms. Gabbard's nomination, and I want to take a moment to read to you from some of these letters that I have received. Addie from Mountainair wrote to me to share her concern about Ms. Gabbard's lack of experience to safeguard our Nation. Addie said: Running the DNI requires an unwavering commitment to evidence-based decisionmaking, national security, and independence from political or foreign influence. Tulsi Gabbard has none of that. She is completely unfit for this position. A constituent and former intelligence officer from Santa Fe who wished to remain anonymous is concerned how Ms. Gabbard's background will impact operations critical to defending the United States from foreign threats. This individual told me: As a retired intelligence officer, I urge you to do everything you can to keep Tulsi Gabbard from becoming the next [DNI]. Our allies will be reluctant to share intelligence with her, as will our own intelligence professionals, given her past support for Putin and for other dictators. This is a job that needs to be filled by a serious expert in intelligence and national security policy. Katy from Tularosa is troubled by Ms. Gabbard's past association with dictators and tyrants. Katy wrote to me: Tulsi Gabbard is known to have had sympathies for Russia and has met with Bashar al-Assad, the unrepentant dictator and war criminal. Her appointment threatens U.S. national security. Gary, also from Tularosa, is a retired intelligence officer. Gary is worried about Ms. Gabbard's lack of national security experience and how it will affect efforts to safeguard the United States. Gary wrote: As a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, I urge you to use all [of] your influence to block Tulsi Gabbard as the next Director of National Intelligence. She is absolutely unqualified to assume this key position in the Intelligence Community. To serve our nation, the DNI must have a deep understanding of the strengths and limitations of the broad array of civilian and military intelligence agencies. Only then can the DNI lead effectively and offer unbiased counsel to the President. Tulsi Gabbard has none of these qualifications or experience. Walter from Santa Fe is a veteran who served as an intelligence officer as well. He wrote to me to convey his disgust with President Trump in putting individual loyalty over national security with his nomination. Walter said: I am appalled at President Trump putting individual loyalty above competency in his appointments. While Ms. Gabbard is a veteran, she lacks experience in the field of national security, and her playing with conspiracy theories lacking valid documentation raises serious questions about her judgment. I agree with my constituents in New Mexico. Ms. Gabbard's poor judgment and lack of national security experience make her wholly unqualified to serve as our next Director of National Intelligence. Confirming her to this role will make our Nation less safe. For all of these reasons, I will not be supporting Ms. Gabbard's confirmation.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. For our air traffic controllers, I vote no.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, every single day, millions of hard- working Americans report to work to serve their communities and their country. They are known to our government as civil servants, but I want to be clear about who they really are. These civil servants are the more than 300 air traffic controllers at the Albuquerque Sunport and airports across New Mexico who keep us safe in the air. They are the wildland firefighters battling catastrophic forest fires each year. They are the FBI agents who are working to get drug cartels out of our communities. They are the rangers taking care of our national parks and the civil engineers who manage and restore our watersheds. They are the Federal customs officers and border agents who enable trade at our southern border and stop fentanyl before it enters our country. They are the inspectors and scientists who ensure the safety of our food and our medicine, and they are the countless workers who ensure our elders receive their Social Security checks on time. These are the unsung heroes in our Federal civil service. The impact of their work touches every single person in our State and our country. They deserve our respect and our gratitude, not an all-out attack against them. But while these civil servants have done the quiet work of keeping our government working, Donald Trump is singlehandedly forcing a partial government shutdown and throwing the lives of hard- working civil servants into chaos. We are barely 3 weeks into this new Trump administration, and it is abundantly clear that Donald Trump and his team have taken his narrow victory as a license to run roughshod over all laws, norms, and even the Constitution. Trump and Elon Musk are attempting an unlawful, hostile takeover of the most basic Federal Government operations, functions that so many Americans depend on. Over the course of the last 2 weeks, Trump has threatened mass layoffs of civil servants and closures of entire Federal Agencies. Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE minions have forced access to the Federal payments system. This system contains Americans' private data as well as classified information and processes government payments that make up more than one-fifth of the U.S. economy. And I wish I were making this up, but it is true. According to a report in WIRED, a 25-year-old engineer from Musk's DOGE group has gained direct access to the Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the Federal Government. This is someone whose only other experience is working for Musk at other places--at SpaceX and Twitter. This unelected, unvetted member of Musk's DOGE team reportedly has administrator-level privileges. Normally, access privileges to this highly secure system are reserved for high-level professionals with years and years of experience at the Treasury Department. This breach by Elon Musk's DOGE minions may expose the system to irreversible damage, undermining our individual privacy rights and our country's economic and national security. And many of us will simply not stand for it. On top of this, Trump triggered a vast and ongoing blockade of congressionally appropriated Federal funds, the impacts of which are still reverberating across the Nation. The ``masterminds'' behind this whole mess: Trump, Elon Musk, and-- yes--Russell Vought, Trump's nominee to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget. Let's talk about Mr. Vought and his plans. Mr. Vought was the lead architect at the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump's dismantling of the Federal Government. He has spent years crafting plans to circumvent Congress, our Constitution, and, of course, the law. Let me read to you directly from Mr. Vought's statements in his own words. In a private speech last year, at his far-right Center for Renewing America think tank, Mr. Vought stated that he would like to put career civil servants ``in trauma.'' Mr. Vought said: We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them not to want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. He laid out how he would do this in his chapter of the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook for the incoming Trump administration White House. He wrote there: The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch. He went on to say: Success in meeting that challenge will require a . . . boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy. Meaning bending and breaking our career civil servants who carry out laws passed here by Congress. As the OMB Director at the end of the last Trump administration, Mr. Vought was the lead architect of the President's fiscal year 2021 budget proposal that called for $500 billion cut from Medicare, $900 billion cut from Medicaid, $71 billion cut from Social Security--yes, Social Security--$76 billion cut from disability programs, zeroing out entire Federal programs, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Legal Services Corporation, community development block grants, and community services block grants--all to pave the way for Trump to double down on his tax breaks for billionaires. At his Center for Renewing America think tank, Mr. Vought drafted a 2023 budget plan entitled ``A Commitment to End Woke and Weaponized Government.'' This is the playbook that Trump and Musk are already running to freeze Federal funding, dismantle and dismember Federal Agencies, and seize the power of the purse from Congress, where the Constitution put it. That plan called for extending Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy by slashing Medicaid by $2.1 trillion, SNAP by $400 billion, and eliminating the Affordable Care tax credits that help folks afford healthcare coverage. Mr. Vought has also openly admitted his intentions to challenge the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which enforces Congress's constitutional power of the purse. During his confirmation hearing last month, Mr. Vought said he believes the President can just overrule Congress in deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars, despite constitutional authority and the law to the contrary. Mr. Vought said the President ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. I agree with that. Last time I checked, that was up to the Supreme Court and our court systems. Mr. Vought has already made clear how he would use his role--or I should say abuse his role--as OMB Director to politicize the Agency and bend it to the whims of the President. In Project 2025, Vought wrongly stated that OMB has the only statutory tools in the White House that are powerful enough to override implementing the Agency's bureaucracies. What this really means is overriding the law, duly enacted here in Congress and signed by the President. Mr. Vought has also questioned the very ideas of independent Federal Agencies. In fact, in an interview last November with Tucker Carlson, Mr. Vought said: Number one is going after the whole notion of independence. There are no independent agencies. Congress may have viewed them as such--the SEC or the FCC, the CFPB, the whole alphabet soup. But the whole notion of an independent agency should be thrown out. You can apply the concept of destroying independence at every agency. Mr. Vought has called OMB a President's air traffic control system with the ability and charge to ensure that all policy initiatives are flying in sync and with the authority to let planes take off and at times ground planes that are flying off course. Do we really trust a man hell-bent on slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, defying Congress, and destroying independent Federal Agencies to be an air traffic controller? Let me be clear. My constituents in New Mexico did not vote for this. And my office has been fielding thousands of phone calls, letters, and emails from New Mexicans who are upset, angry, and frustrated that President Trump, Elon Musk, and Russell Vought are breaking laws and shredding the Constitution in a bid to upend the basic functions of our government. Here is a little bit of a taste of what New Mexicans are telling me. Arthur from Rio Rancho called my office to tell me he is concerned about how Trump and Vought's plans to dismantle the Department of Education will impact his son and millions of other students with disabilities. Arthur said: I have a son who is autistic and nonverbal with an individual education plan. Dismantling the Department of Education will not only impact him, but it will devastate all public schools and hurt students like my son who have disabilities. This will strip away any rights and protections for millions of students. Trump and Elon need to be sent a clear message: Education is a fundamental right, not a privilege for the wealthy. A constituent from Albuquerque who requested anonymity is worried about his job as a Federal civil servant because of Vought's agenda. He wrote to me: I am a U.S. Forest Service employee. Most of us are now afraid of losing our jobs and of, among other things, the demand for loyalty. This makes it difficult to work in the manner that we wish to--efficiently, effectively, and to do well for the land and all citizens. Marissa from Santa Fe is hesitant to start a family because of the uncertainty caused by Musk, Trump, and Vought. Marissa wrote to me: I am really terrified at the idea that so much of the Federal Government is being dismantled by someone who was never nominated to a position of power. I want to be able to start a family, but how can I do that without fear of knowing that this man and the GOP are destroying any chance of that happening? Holly from Albuquerque, a public school teacher, is also deeply worried about Trump and Vought's intentions to dismantle the Department of Education and what this could mean for her students, fellow teachers, and her financial security. She wrote: As an educator for 22 years here in New Mexico, I know firsthand the struggles that our families and students and educators are facing in the classroom, and we really need access to the Federal support that we get. Whether it is title I, special education money, or grants, I don't know how we're going to operate our schools effectively without that. I am also worried about my pension as a public school educator. I am supposed to be eligible for retirement in 3\1/ 2\ years, and I have dedicated my life to the students of New Mexico. Today, I say to the thousands of New Mexicans who have asked me to oppose Mr. Vought's nomination: I agree with you. Mr. Vought is unfit to lead the OMB. We should reject this dangerously unfit nominee before he dismantles the services that New Mexicans rely on. We should reject him before he unilaterally overrides the laws that Americans' elected representatives have passed. We cannot stand by and allow Mr. Vought, Elon Musk, or even this President to disregard the safety and security of the American people, and the law is on our side. In the last week, two Federal courts have issued restraining orders on Trump's directives. I want to read a few short words from what the judges have said: The Executive's action unilaterally suspends the payment of federal funds to the States and others simply by choosing to do so, no matter the authorizing or appropriating statute, the regulatory regime, or the terms of the grant itself. The Executive cites no legal authority allowing it to do so; indeed, no federal law would authorize the Executive's unilateral action here. The court continued by dismissing Trump's arguments justifying the funding freeze, declaring: The Executive Branch has a duty to align federal spending and action with the will of the people as expressed through congressional appropriations, not . . . ``Presidential priorities.'' These court rulings represent battles won, but this war to defend the Constitution and stability in this Nation is far from over. We won't stop until Trump, Musk, and Vought follow the law and abide by the Constitution. That means respecting Federal workers. It means ending the unilateral and unlawful freeze of appropriated funds for projects from the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Project to the Red Top Water Development Project. I have said it before and I will say it again: This is not a game. This is a nation of laws, and just like you, every one of us here in this body swore to defend the Constitution. Mass layoffs of Federal workers, working to disband the Department of Education or the EPA or the National Science Foundation, abusing the FBI, handing over access to more than one-fifth of our economy and the private data of every single American taxpayer without any regard for the risk that you are creating for our national security--that is not defending this Nation of laws; it is not following the Constitution; it is not putting public service or even America first. It looks a lot like tyranny. It needs to stop. ``We the People'' is the first phrase of the U.S. Constitution, and that is exactly who Republicans in charge of the Senate, the House, and the White House--the people who can stop this need to hear from you. So to all Americans wondering what can be done right now, rise up your voice, call your Member of Congress, call your Senators, call the White House, call the Treasury Department, comment on your Republican representatives' social media channels, write op-eds in your local newspaper telling how you are impacted. Make sure that Republicans know that we the people are paying attention, that we will hold them accountable for following the law, upholding the Constitution. Make sure to let your lawmakers know when you support the work that they are doing so that they continue to do it. And let Federal civil servants know that you support them and that you want them to keep doing their jobs and doing them well. I will continue to stand up to this chaos, to this lawlessness, and as part of that work, I will vote no on Russell Vought.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, in an overnight maneuver on Monday, President Trump unlawfully and unilaterally blockaded much of the Federal budget. Hitting ``send'' on a two-page memo, the Trump administration triggered a chaotic 24 hours that has thrown every town, county, Tribe, nonprofit, doctor's office, hospital, nursing home, school, and preschool in my State into disarray. From New Mexico's Roundhouse--our capitol--to the classroom, to the emergency room, there were a thousand questions and zero answers. Now the Trump administration has both withdrawn and not withdrawn this blockade. In so-called clarifications, President Trump has made things about as clear as mud, but here are three things that are crystal clear: First, President Trump's funding blockade was blatantly unconstitutional and illegal; secondly, it has caused real harm; and third, this was a test run where chaos was actually the point. If you are trying to follow the news and getting confused, it is not you. If you heard that President Trump blocked all Federal Medicaid reimbursements, you heard correctly. If you heard that the White House claimed Federal Medicaid reimbursements were exempt from the blockade, you also heard correctly. If you heard that despite being allegedly exempt, Medicaid reimbursement was still blocked, you heard correctly. Same story for Head Start, same goes for food assistance, or SNAP, and for school lunches, and that list goes on and on and on. Even today, after a Federal court ruled that the Trump administration had to pause the pause, I am still getting reports of organizations that cannot access Federal funding portals. In the midst of all of that, there are very real consequences. Let's just take Medicaid just for a start. Almost a quarter of my State's budget moves through the Medicaid portal--the one that was shut down yesterday. Eight billion dollars in Federal Medicaid funding comes to New Mexico every single year. Millions and millions of dollars' worth of Medicaid reimbursement happen on that portal in any given day. Seven out of ten nursing home residents, 55 percent of newborn births, more than 700,000 people in total in my State depend on Medicaid for their healthcare. Because a Medicaid blockade would impact over a third of New Mexico's population, it really impacts all of our healthcare providers, from small, rural clinics to our largest hospitals. Shutting that down is a big deal, but it wasn't just that. I heard from childcare and Head Start providers, rental assistance programs, Tribal governments, local law enforcement, fire departments, and nonprofit organizations that provide everything from support to our veterans to healthy meals for seniors and families. We need to call out Trump's brazen action for what it truly is. It is a power grab and a test to see just how much he can get away with. President Trump and his cronies are testing how far they can go to dismantle and dismember our democracy in service of his strongman impulses and his ideological agenda. Our message to him: The stove is hot, Mr. President. You should remember that. The Constitution and Federal law are clear on who controls the spending of our taxpayer dollars. The President cannot simply override or delay or rescind Congress's appropriations bills once they are signed into law--full stop. This has been upheld time and again by the Supreme Court, by the Justice Department, the Government Accountability Office, and it was codified into law in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Under that law, the President cannot unilaterally stop the disbursement of Federal funds that Congress has appropriated and the President has signed into law. Sound familiar? A President unilaterally stopping the disbursement of Federal funds that Congress has appropriated? Yes. This is exactly what President Trump just tried. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I know how much work goes into writing and passing our bipartisan funding laws. I am here now talking on the Senate floor because I will fight like hell to stop this or any of Trump's brazen, illegal funding blockades, and I am not alone. I am joined by my colleagues here in the Senate on the Senate floor tonight, my colleagues in the New Mexico Federal delegation, my State's attorney general, and countless of my constituents. Now, let me read just a few letters that I received from New Mexicans over these last 2 days: Tamborah from Deming, who depends on Social Security disability benefits and Medicaid, was scared she would not be able to keep up with rent or basic necessities during the pause. Tamborah wrote to me: I will not be able to pay full price rent. My heart is filled with uncertainty. I am afraid for my neighbors with children. It has saddened my heart to see so many people including myself become unsure of the future. Caitlin from Taos wrote to my office expressing concern for her safety and security should DreamTree, a federally funded youth shelter in northern New Mexico, shutter its services due to Trump's pause. She wrote: Without DreamTree, I wouldn't have a roof over my head, which would cause a lot of worry and fear, being vulnerable to sexual assault, which happened to me in the past. DreamTree is not just a program: it's home, it's my safe space. Dolores from Albuquerque is fearful she won't be able to make ends meet if she loses her job because of the freeze. She wrote to me: Please help! I am a senior citizen trying to make ends meet. I am alone paying my own bills. I work in the Senior Community Service Employment Program and President Trump's administration is going to cut the funding. I won't be able to pay my bills. I am so afraid. Shelley from Albuquerque, a dietitian, nutritionist, is scared for the very lives of her patients who depend on Medicaid to survive. She wrote to me: Those I serve on the Developmental Disabilities Waiver are Medicaid recipients, and some rely 100 percent on the specialized formula for tube feeding. To reiterate, they get 100 percent of their nutrition from that formula, primarily through a tube in their stomach. If they do not have it, they will starve. Louis from Las Cruces is concerned that his grandson won't be able to support his family if President Trump's border eliminates NIH funding and consequently his grandson's job. Louis wrote to me: My grandson graduated with honors from [New Mexico State University]. He is the recipient of an NIH grant which has been suspended. He has a wife and child. I don't think the President understands his actions affect real people. Joan from Santa Fe has already lost money due to Trump's funding freeze. Joan wrote: I've just lost a $5,000 contract, and this order is going to have a negative ripple effect through the economy. Please protect federal workers from the Trump administration's purge and harassment. Mara from Albuquerque, who is a biomedical student at the University of New Mexico doing cancer research and is fearful of what this freeze means for her job and ability to do this important work, wrote: I am personally affected by this pause because of the NIH grants that sustain my lab and pay the salaries of my staff and students. These grants were applied for and awarded in good faith and they pay for extremely important cancer research. Melissa from Albuquerque is a Head Start childcare provider and has a son at Head Start. Melissa wrote to me: I am employed by Head Start. My son is a student at Head Start. I believe in what we do, I believe in the men and women I work with. These teachers change children's lives. I am so saddened and stressed. Can you please help? Andra from Albuquerque is a researcher at the University of New Mexico whose work is funded by the National Science Foundation. Andra wrote to me: I work at the University of New Mexico as part of a team entirely funded from the National Science Foundation. We have been notified that we may lose our funding. This will likely result in the loss of my job, along with those of my colleagues. Eytan, a Forest Stewards Guild member in New Mexico, is worried about how a Federal funding freeze could lead to more deadly and destructive wildfires across our State. Eytan wrote to me: This disruption puts New Mexico at significant risk for a catastrophic wildfire as we head into another high-risk fire season. Sienna from Taos is a behavioral healthcare provider concerned that the loss of Federal funding could prevent her from meeting the needs of toddlers and their families. Sienna wrote to me: This is a total assault on New Mexico's most vulnerable populations. Our programs assist families everyday and this funding is at risk. Halting federal grants will impact the early childhood programs serving low-income kids. These letters paint a painful picture of the chaos and uncertainty that President Trump's actions have created in my State alone. What do you say to those Americans, President Trump? How could you possibly defend taking their taxpayer dollars, the work of their elected leaders, the Constitution you swore to defend just a few days ago and pushing that all aside? What funding exactly was thrown aside with it? Let me read you a list of funding impacted in just New Mexico, even as we still do not know which programs are or are not on the chopping block. I will start with the New Mexico High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program. If you have one in your State, you probably know it as an HIDTA program. This program includes 17 counties that are coordinating on drug intelligence, interdiction, investigation, and prosecution efforts to reduce the impact of illicit drugs. These are the folks coordinating to go after the cartels, who are going after the fentanyl trafficking. How woke is that? Stopping fentanyl trafficking. They received over $1 million last year for this work. New Mexico's program to prevent and prosecute violence against women--this program works to reduce domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking by strengthening services to victims and holding offenders accountable. New Mexico received over $1 million for this program last year. The New Mexico crisis intervention program was created through our Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a bill that I helped to negotiate. This program funds the enforcement of red flag mandates to combat and prevent gun violence. Last year, Federal funding for New Mexico's crisis intervention program totaled over $4 million. New Mexico's crime victims funds. These programs help New Mexican community organizations and public agencies provide services directly to the victims of crime. Last year, the Crime Victims Reparation Commission of New Mexico received $1.2 million in Federal funds. Justice assistance grants for police departments. Last year, New Mexico local law enforcement entities received about $1 million in Federal justice assistance grant funding, and that funding is used for personnel, equipment, training, and technical assistance for New Mexico's police departments. You heard from my colleague from Connecticut about fire grants, assistance to firefighter grants and staffing for adequate fire and emergency response. These programs fund equipment and resources for our fire departments, including volunteer firefighters in rural areas and emergency first responders. Just last year, many of us in this body worked hard to get this program reauthorized, and I can't tell you of another program that is more popular at home than the fire grants. Since 2015, fire departments across my State have received over $22 million through these programs. New Mexico homeless support services. Last year New Mexico nonprofits received $17 million to the Housing and Urban Development Department's Continuum of Care Program to help put a roof over the heads of people who have been living on the streets. Road improvements to prevent traffic deaths. You heard me. Those woke road improvements. In 2024, New Mexico local governments received almost $2 million to make our roads safer. Local governments, from Truth or Consequences to the Pueblo of Santo Domingo, rely on this funding to make their streets safer. Road construction for railroad crossings. Recently, New Mexico was awarded $44 million for road construction in Gallup to build a safer rail crossing. New Mexico's community schools. New Mexico community schools rely on the Community Schools Program for social support services for their students and families. Last year, schools in Bernalillo County received $2.4 million to support the work of their educators and their students. Literacy programs. Comprehensive literacy development programs, $60 million to help kids read better. The community health centers. Each year, 16 federally funded community health center organizations in our State leverage, on average, $76 million to serve over 300,000 patients, to provide them with healthcare--17 percent of those patients are completely uninsured; 40 percent are covered by Medicaid. How about essential air service for our rural airports? That is something that gets incredible bipartisan support in this body because it makes sure that rural communities have access to air service. Carlsbad air terminal, Clovis Regional Airport, Grant County Airport-- all rely on this program to maintain their commercial air operations. These three rural airports receive $15 million a year, more or less, through this program. New Mexico's housing trust fund. The housing trust fund money is used for affordable housing for extremely low- and very low-income households. It is not like any of us have a housing problem in our States right now, do we? Small business loans. The Small Business Administration loan program has supported 112 New Mexico small businesses with almost $50 million in loans. And those loans help those businesses grow; they allow them to purchase new facilities, equipment, supplies. Let's not forget New Mexico's farmers. Last year, New Mexico received funding to support our specialty crop farmers. Those are the farmers who grow crops essential to the economy, as well as to the history, the identity, of our State--crops like chili, onions, pecans, garlic, stone fruit--just a few examples. These programs that I have just read through are a fraction of the list. They aren't even a quarter of it. So let's go a little deeper now into more concrete examples of the disruptions and harm caused by President Trump's blockade. And each of these were shared directly with me or with one of my staff just in the last day and a half. This one really pisses me off: Sexual Assault Services of Northwest New Mexico. They provide lifesaving services to sexual assault survivors in our State, and the freeze meant that this organization may not make payroll because they were locked out of the Federal reimbursement portal. They don't even know if their grant is still coming through. They said that ``as a victims' service provider, this memo directly threatens our ability to serve survivors of sexual assault.'' Women's Economic Self-Sufficiency Team--we call them WESST in the central part of the State. WESST serves around a thousand New Mexico small businesses--2,000 people a year--with consulting and training, incubation, microlending programs. They told me Federal funds directly and indirectly provide the majority of their operating budget. They planned to open a seventh Women's Business Center in Hobbs, NM, to focus on growing childcare businesses. That expansion was put on hold by the freeze. They employ 34 staff and operate six Women's Business Centers throughout New Mexico. They are incredibly concerned about the continued survival of the SBA Office of Women's Business Ownership and the Minority Business Development Agency. Here is another really woke one. Cannon Air Force Base and the Ogalalla Land and Water Conservancy. They told me the readiness and environmental protection integration program that is at risk is more than a funding mechanism; it is a lifeline. This project addresses the incredibly severe water scarcity challenge faced by the entire region where groundwater from the Ogalalla Aquifer is now the sole source of water for municipal, industrial, and agricultural needs. But without this program, the Ogalalla Aquifer is projected to lose its functional capacity as early as 2028. That would leave the region without water that they need to survive, but it also cripples those local communities, and it would jeopardize the very viability of Cannon Air Force Base and the Melrose Air Force Range. Albuquerque Public Schools. This is the largest school district in New Mexico. It is actually the 31st largest in the entire Nation. It serves almost 80,000 students across 143 schools, and one of Albuquerque's largest employers with over 11,000 staff and well over 5,000 teachers. Because of the freeze, APS was forced to halt all nonstaff-related funding for grants from the Department of Education, Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Here is what they told me: APS paused spending on its Federal community school grant, magnet school grant, Centers For Disease Control grant, and transportation funding for upcoming college field trips. Their community school grant provides essential support--including counseling, tutoring, food assistance, and housing programs--for almost 2,000 students across three schools in Albuquerque. We have learned that these community schools are vital to better outcomes in our public schools. The magnet school grant serves over 2,000 students across four more schools, funding programs that keep students engaged and prepare them for the 21st century workforce. The CDC Prevention grant supports students in all of our 141 APS schools, providing critical health and wellness resources. Finally, students at 13 schools who were looking forward to a college field trip to New Mexico Tech next month just had their trip canceled because the district could not access Federal grants to pay for their transportation. Silver Consolidated Schools, which serves over 2,500 students and their families in Southwest New Mexico, they told me the Silver Consolidated School District is 2 years into their 5-year, nearly $6- million school-based mental health services grant. And this grant created, once again, in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, has allowed the school district to put mental health services in each school in the district. These are services that the students, especially those in crisis, have come to rely on in a four-county region that lacks basic mental health services. These programs I have just read through, they are not the whole list. They aren't even a quarter of it. So let's go now--and some of you watching are wondering, Why come to the Senate floor? Why decry an action that the President has already supposedly reversed? First, I think we have to ask: Has he reversed it? According to his Press Secretary, the funding is still blocked. Again, these are laws, not guidance. They are laws passed by Congress, signed into law by the President of the United States. And let me tell you about just a few of the projects under some of these laws that President Trump is unilaterally blocking funding for: projects from the Inflation Reduction Act, which is law, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which is now law. Over $9 million for the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water System Project, which would continue fieldwork and design on a project that will, eventually, bring drinking water to more than 75,000 people in Clovis, Portales, Cannon Air Force Base, and other communities in eastern New Mexico. Another 5 million for the Jicarilla Apache Rural Water System Project, which would contribute to final design and construction of the water system serving the Jicarilla Apache Nation. Just over 5 million for the city of Santa Fe from the infrastructure law to complete the San Juan-Chama Return Flow Pipeline that will return treated unconsumed San Juan-Chama water back to the Rio Grande. This project was Santa Fe's primary strategy to mitigate the water supply shortages that we struggle with and create a sustainable water source. I could go on and on and on. It is really remarkable how many people in my State have just been thrown into chaos by all of this. Now, before I finish, I want to be clear that this type of chaos and uncertainty is not what Americans elected President Trump to deliver. It is illegal. It is a type of action that puts our democracy--really, the whole structure of our government--in jeopardy. But if your focus is just on money, if the fate of our democracy feels a little too abstract, then understand this: President Trump has also blocked funding from going out under the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Again, these laws are laws passed by Congress and certainly not what New Mexicans sent me to Washington to deliver. They want certainty. Americans are calling on us--really, all of us--to work together on policies that will bring down the cost of their groceries, their rent, their internet, their healthcare. They want us to help get fentanyl off of our streets or make our communities safer and support survivors of sexual assault. They want us to put our veterans in safe housing. And according to a number of New Mexicans, they still can't access Federal funding. They want us to help the small businesses and support the public lands that are the beating heart of local rural economies. They want us to create jobs that they can build a family around, jobs they can be proud of, jobs that are in their own communities. They don't want all this chaos. I would hope that my Republican and my Democratic colleagues alike, especially the appropriators--we work together every single year to try to produce bipartisan bills. By nature, those bills have to be written in a bipartisan way. I have written many of those bills since I joined the Appropriations Committee with my Republican colleagues, some of which got reported out of committee unanimously. I hope we can all join together in calling on the President to just get back to following the law that we all passed together. Let's get back to creating certainty for our communities, for our small businesses, for our democracy itself. Benjamin Franklin put it years ago like this: We have a republic, if we can keep it. I will fight like hell to keep it. And I know that I am not alone.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, our economy, our hospitals, your mother's nursing home, your son's school lunch, your niece's afterschool program, our police, fire departments, our newborns, our elders, our veterans, pretty much everyone in my home State of New Mexico--President Trump threw them all into chaos with an unconstitutional and patently illegal power grab. In an overnight maneuver that would make a dictator envious, President Trump unlawfully and unilaterally froze all Federal grant funding. He shut down the housing portal that nonprofits and Tribes in my home State use to access mortgage financing. He literally shut down the Medicaid reimbursement portals across the country. Although after a day of raising hell over it, I think that Medicaid--at least the Medicaid portal in my State--may well be up and running again, at least for now. And for context, almost a quarter of my State's budget actually moves through that portal--about $8 billion in Medicaid funding every single year in one small State alone. He threw every town and county, Tribe, nonprofit, healthcare provider, school, and preschool into total disarray. And from our State's Roundhouse to the classroom, to the emergency room, today was chaos. People want answers. My phone has literally been ringing off the hook from people around the State who want answers, who want certainty. Did Donald Trump just cut off funding for 7 out of 10 nursing home residents, for 55 percent of newborn births and New Mexico's doctors and New Mexico's hospitals? Did Donald Trump just deprive 7 out of 10 New Mexican children their daily lunch? Did Donald Trump just effectively close my child's preschool program? The reality is that most of President Trump's own staff don't know or won't answer those questions just yet, and my Republican colleagues sure aren't jumping in to figure it out either. One thing that is clear to me is the law. The President cannot override, delay, rescind Congress's appropriations laws once they are signed into law--full stop. This has been upheld time and again by the Supreme Court, by the Department of Justice, by the Government Accountability Office, and by the law--specifically, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Congress had to write and pass this law after President Nixon tried to withhold congressionally appropriated funds, and Nixon was wrong just like President Trump is wrong now. We should all remember--especially my Republican colleagues who aren't here tonight, but really all of us--that elections swing both ways. We have seen the back and forth for the last few election cycles. Sometimes, your party is in charge of the White House; sometimes, it is not. But think for a moment about what it would mean if the President--any President--could unilaterally cut off Federal funds that he or she didn't like. Sure, a conservative President could decide to cripple the Head Start programs in blue States, but it is every bit as true that a progressive President could decide to cripple the defense contracts or the military bases in red States. That is not democracy; that is chaos. And today was just a small taste of that. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I know how much work goes into writing and passing our bipartisan funding laws. There have been times when I have been able to work with my Republican colleagues to pass appropriations bills out of committee unanimously, and I am not going to cede that to any administration to be abused. Here is where I need help from my own constituent, help from New Mexicans. I want to hear from you about Donald Trump's blockade and how it is affecting you and your family. If your town's COPS grants get frozen, I need to know. If your VA mortgage gets held up, I need to know. If you are a nonprofit that is giving services in the area of violence against women, refuges for people who are battered, and your funding gets held up, these are the stories that I think need to be held up to understand just what is happening in our country right now. And I hope that all of us--not just Democrats, but Republicans as well--who have a vested interest in being able to create certainty in our own States, certainty for the economy, certainty for the small business community, can come together and say that this is not what democracy looks like. Let's create that certainty. Let's follow the law. Let's make sure that whatever we agree to here in this amazing Capitol, that not only passes both Chambers but gets signed into law by the President of the United States, that we abide by that, because only if we all agree to color inside the lines and to act like this is a democracy will this remain a democracy. And I just want to say to my own constituents how sorry I am that they are going through this right now because the amount of anguish and uncertainty--and, you know, I had heard from a Tribal housing program today that said: You know, we won't be able to make payroll in a few days if this is how this is going to be. And you can tell story after story like that of just huge clouds hanging over people who are just trying to do a good job for their communities and provide services and do their jobs. That is not how you grow the economy. I want to thank all of my colleagues who have come to the floor to talk about this. We are all getting story after story from our States. We need to lift those up, and we need to say that we need to put this chapter behind us for the benefit of the American people.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of Senator Sinema's staff: Kelsie Hovenden.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HEINRICH

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I want to begin today before we get to bump stocks by acknowledging the South Fork and Salt fires that have forced literally thousands from their homes in Lincoln County, NM, and the Mescalero Apache Nation over the last 24 hours. I was actually just at the White House discussing these fires with Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. These are no-joke fires. They are large, they are fast-moving, and they are threatening thousands of people's homes today. I know that many are worried that they may have already lost their homes, their property, their businesses, their animals. My thoughts are with every single one of you. I want to extend my extraordinary thanks to the wildland firefighters, the first responders, local and Tribal leaders who are working right now to protect New Mexicans. I am also grateful to all the surrounding communities that have already welcomed thousands of their neighbors. In times of need, New Mexicans look out for each other, and I know that we will do everything possible to help our fellow New Mexicans through this immediate emergency and the recovery in the months and years ahead. I want to stress the importance for everyone in the impacted area to please heed evacuation orders and follow directions from local authorities. Please do everything you can to stay safe. Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1909 Mr. President, I am also here today to make a UC request for the Senate to consider my legislation, the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts or BUMP Act. Nearly 7 years ago on October 1, 2017, more than 20,000 people gathered for a large outdoor music festival. It was the third day in a row that folks from all around the country joined their friends and family to hear music from some of their favorite musicians. No one could have anticipated the nightmare that was about to unfold that day. Just after 10 o'clock at night, thousands were listening to the final performance of the night. And then over the music, they started to hear what at first people thought were fireworks. Rapid gunfire rained down on the crowd with shots so close together they seemed to almost bleed into each other. Complete panic erupted. And for the next terrifying 10 minutes, concertgoers ran in every direction, searching for cover where there was none--some falling down next to bleeding friends and dying loved ones, others fleeing desperately trying to reach safety. In total, the shooter fired more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition in just 10 minutes. He killed 58 people that night, injured hundreds more, including 2 more who ultimately perished from their wounds. It was and is the deadliest mass shooting in American history. The Las Vegas gunman was able to murder and injure so many people so quickly because he used a deadly device known as a bump stock. Bump stocks are an attachment that modify semiautomatic firearms to dramatically increase their rate of fire, allowing them to operate as fully automatic weapons. They make it possible to shoot hundreds of rounds a minute. And let me be real clear, as a firearms owner myself, there is no legitimate use for a bump stock--not for self-defense, not in a law enforcement context, not even in military applications as they are less accurate than a standard fully automatic military platform. But what they are tailor-made for is a mass shooting. I know there are people who will say: Guns don't kill people. People kill people. But the reality is this: Bump stocks kill and injure in the hundreds. As someone who has owned and used firearms for most of my life for hunting, sport, for self-defense, I know for a fact that bump stocks serve no legitimate purpose. And that is why in the days and weeks that followed the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas, NV, I led a bipartisan effort to ban bump stocks. I introduced legislation in the Senate alongside my Republican colleague and friend Jeff Flake of Arizona and Nevada's Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. We also called on then-President Trump to use his authority to ban bump stocks in a Federal rule. President Trump actually agreed with us at the time and finalized an ATF rule to get that done. But last week, our wildly out-of-touch Supreme Court majority invalidated that rule. In an illogical and deadly ruling, they made bump stocks legal once again. As Justice Sotomayor said in her dissent, ``When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.'' I agree with Justice Sotomayor. A bump stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle is a machinegun, and it should be banned just like machineguns have been banned for nearly 100 years. Even still, within the Supreme Court majority's ruling, they gave Congress--they gave us--clear direction on the only way for us to protect Americans from these deadly devices. Congress needs to act. We need to pass my bill to ban bump stocks and do it now. I am proud to lead the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts, or BUMP Act, alongside Senators like Catherine Cortez Masto, Susan Collins, Angus King, and the more than 20 new cosponsors who joined our legislation after the Supreme Court's recent ruling. This is the same bipartisan bill that I first introduced in 2018 in the aftermath of that shooting. The BUMP Act would prohibit the sale of bump stocks and other devices that allow semiautomatic firearms to increase the rate of fire and operate as fully automatic weapons. This is something that nearly all Americans agree should be done. This should be a commonsense, bipartisan public safety vote that all of us should welcome if we believe that our kids should have the freedom to feel safe in their church or their classroom or their movie theater. We should also be clear about what happens if we don't pass this legislation. We will be giving a free pass to street gangs and cartels and mass shooters to access these deadly devices and turn them against our communities. That is the harm that we are putting our communities in. There is some skepticism out there about whether Congress can get this done, about whether all of us coming together to ban bump stocks is impossible. But 2 years ago, we proved that type of thinking is flat wrong. Over my time here in the Senate, I have learned that people are always quick to tell you there is no path forward for your legislation. And the reality is that there is never a path forward until we collectively choose to make one. I was proud to be part of the core group of bipartisan negotiators here in the Senate that helped pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. That was the first significant Federal gun safety legislation signed into law in nearly three decades. During those negotiations, I worked especially close with my colleague Senator Collins on a successful effort to increase criminal penalties for those who would put guns into the hands of criminals and to make it illegal to traffic firearms out of our country. And by passing that law, we proved that Congress can take concrete action to protect our communities from gun violence. Now, it is time that we take similar bipartisan action to ban these bump stocks. For my part, I refuse to stand idly by and wait for the next mass shooting. I would ask all of my colleagues to please support the BUMP Act to ban these deadly mass killing devices once and for all. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 1909, the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts Act, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I just want to remind our colleagues that we actually did pass legislation, 2 years ago, to invest in mental health, and we passed a meaningful gun safety piece of legislation. But the assertion that this would ban some enormous number of firearm devices is certainly not rooted in fact. It would, however, ban bump stocks, and it would ban things like Glock switches, which also let semiautomatic firearms act as fully automatic firearms. I think the American people understand what commonsense gun safety looks like, and that is what the BUMP Act is all about. And I will reserve the rest of my time, but this will not be the last time you hear about these devices on the floor of the Senate. I suggest the absence of a quorum.