John Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to talk briefly about boil water advisories. They are more than just frustrating. They are more than just inconvenient. They can be dangerous. I don't know about the Presiding Officer's community or my colleagues' communities, but they have been happening more and more frequently in Louisiana. Since 2005, we have had 9,661 boil water advisories. We had 1,600 of them last year alone. I thank the EPW Committee for working with me and all of my colleagues. My amendment would require the EPA to provide us an annual study on the prevalence of these boil water advisories and the reasons therefor so we can decide whether to take action, if any. I would appreciate my colleagues' support.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this body does not have to automatically raise taxes to pay for infrastructure. Now, I know some of my colleagues would disagree with me. Some want to raise the gasoline tax. The President--well, I think he wants to raise every tax known to man and beast to spend on infrastructure and other things. And that is--he is the President. He is an American. He is entitled to his own opinion. But I don't think we spent nearly enough time looking at our current spending and asking ourselves if we could reprioritize some of the ways that we are spending taxpayer money. Let me put it another way. No person with even a casual relationship with the Federal budget and/or an IQ above a root vegetable believes that every single penny being spent today in the U.S. Government's budget is being spent efficiently. I mean, it is just not, Mr. President. You know that. You have run a State before. You have put together a budget before. It is not. For example, we waste $144 billion a year, every year, on improper payments. We send checks to people who are not entitled to receive them--for the earned income tax credit, for example. We spend money on people who don't exist or aren't qualified to receive Medicaid. We even send money to dead people, and they cash the checks--or at least their relatives do. Now, I am not naive. I know that we will never ever--an organization as large as the Federal Government will never be able to avoid a percentage of improper payments. I understand that. But we ought to at least try, particularly on sending the checks to dead people. Even if we could reduce that $144 billion by 10 percent or 20 percent or 25 percent, we are talking about a very large amount of recurring revenue. A very simple solution--I suggested this to the White House, which hasn't responded--we have passed legislation in this body, as you know, to try to stop sending checks to dead people. There is just one problem: It was made effective 3 years from now. I had to agree to it in conference to get the bill passed. There is no good reason for it other than some lobbyists insisted on it. President Biden right now, I think, could pick up at least $10 billion, maybe more--we are not sure how much--by just saying: Effective immediately, my administration is no longer going to send checks to dead people. I mean, who is going to get mad? Who supports sending money to dead people? The American people don't. No. 2, we could repurpose the money--a lot of the money that we have already appropriated. I have lost count on how much money we have appropriated for coronavirus--not just on public health but also for our economy. Look, I voted for many of the bills. I didn't vote for the last one because I felt the last one was unnecessary, it was too expensive, and it really wasn't about the coronavirus. But I think all fairminded people can agree right now on two things: No. 1, a lot of the money we appropriated in the last coronavirus bill has not been spent, and No. 2, we are no longer in an economic crisis. The main crisis we have right now is that our small business women and small business men can't find workers. So we are currently not in an economic crisis, and I think we can go back and take some of that money--and my State, Louisiana is going to take--some aspects of my State government--it will take them 10 years to spend all the money we sent to them in the last bill. I can tell you, given the option in my State, they are going to choose to spend that money on infrastructure and not on what Congress sent them the money to spend it on. No. 3, there is a very interesting study by the CBO taking the years--I think it was 2013 to 2017. The CBO took the entire Federal nonmilitary workforce, on which we spend $220 billion a year because we have to have workers, and they took every job in the Federal Government and compared it to every equivalent job in the private sector. It was a massive study. So it is apples to apples. The CBO found that the Federal Government, on average, pays a Federal worker 17 percent more annually than we pay the same worker in the private sector. Now, I won't begrudge anybody a living, but what if we could reduce that to 15 percent or 12 percent? What if we could just not automatically fill every vacancy? What if we actually stopped and asked ourselves, if this position has been vacant for 8 months, maybe we don't need it. I think there are enormous savings to be had. The final thing I will point out: Doing is better than having. Doing is better than having. You are happier when you have earned something than when somebody has just given it to you. We are the most generous Nation in all of human history. The American people spend about $1 trillion a year helping our neighbors and some folks who are not our neighbors but are less fortunate than we are. But we spend about $76 billion a year on Medicaid and on food stamps for adults who are able-bodied, who are 55 years of age and younger, and who don't have children. Many of them could work. Now, I know there are obstacles to them being able to work. Maybe they need help looking for a job. Maybe they need employment counseling. Maybe they need help with transportation. But we could save enormous amounts of money, and our citizens, our people, and our neighbors, who are receiving this money, would be better off if they had a job. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. All we have to do is look to Denmark. Denmark does an extraordinary job. They are very generous in Denmark with their payments for unemployment, but they also have an infrastructure set up in government, which we could do, which works with people to get them a job and to get them off welfare. And Denmark has saved an enormous amount of money. Let me say it again. Doing is better than having. Am I saying we could save 100 percent of that $75 billion? No. I don't know how much we could save. Nobody else does either because we have never tried. Now, in about--I don't know--7 minutes, I have just given you four or five ideas. I am not suggesting that this is anything. I am not pretending that I just discovered gravity or something. This isn't Earth-shaking. I mean, you can find this with just a cursory amount of research. Just call the folks over at the Congressional Budget Office and ask them: What are some ways we can save money in our Federal budget? I just think we would all feel so much better. I know the American taxpayer would feel a lot better, if just for a little while, as we talk about the importance of infrastructure, true infrastructure-- roads, bridges, broadband--if we just spent a little while, as we talk about infrastructure, on how to pay for it without putting our hand even further, deeper, and more frequently in the taxpayers' pockets, because it can be done. I watched the Presiding Officer do it in Colorado. I have seen too many public officials do it. I think we need to at least try. With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I further ask that the Kennedy substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to, that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. KENNEDY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, you are aware, as we all are, of the scourge of opioid abuse in this country. It is horrible. It is terrible. We sometimes lose as many as 50,000 of our people a year. And as you also know, many people who become addicted to opioids don't necessarily buy the opioids on the street. They get the opioids from family and friends. So one of the best things you can do to try to stop the scourge of opioid abuse is to clear out your medicine cabinet so that people aren't tempted to use the drugs. Turn them in, if they have been prescribed to you, and you don't need them any longer. To make this easier, our DEA, as you know, Mr. President, holds pretty regularly what we call Take Back Days. On a Take Back Day, any person can go into his or her medicine cabinet, find drugs, including opioids, that they are not using anymore, that could be dangerous if abused, and they can take those unused medications and drop them off at a previously announced DEA drop site. Take Back Day is this Saturday, April 24. I want to encourage all Americans and Louisianans to do this. Go through your medicine cabinet. If you have opioids that have been prescribed to you--legally, of course--and you don't need them any longer, don't just leave them hanging around. Turn them in, please. But not every day is Take Back Day, and last year Congress, in its wisdom, passed a law, a very good law, instructing the Department of Veterans Affairs to ask--well, actually to require--VA medical centers to have these drop boxes permanently so that American veterans can throw away medications, including but not limited to opioids, that they don't need. And it has worked out really well. The question that occurred to me after we passed the bill was why limit that kind of access only to our veterans. So I have a bill to basically open up the Veterans Administration drop boxes for unused drugs, including but not limited to opioids, at VA medical centers to anybody who wants to go get rid of these unused drugs at any time. You don't have to wait until Take Back Day. This would be a permanent program. The name of the bill is the Dispose Unused Medications and Prescription Opioids Act. And before I offer this bill up, let me just give one more plug. I would remind everyone that this Saturday, April 24, is Take Back Day. If you have unused medications, including opioids, that you want to get rid of, it will have been publicized in your community by the DEA. You can go drop them off, and I hope people will do that. Mr. President, toward that end, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of my bill, S. 957, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to join my colleague Senator Cantwell in congratulating Senator Hirono and all of us for almost unanimously passing this bill that would try to stop discrimination against Asian Americans. I am happy that passed. There was only one vote against it. I just don't think it goes far enough. I think it is ludicrous, it is odious to me, that in the year 2021, we have major universities in the United States of America that are setting quotas on their admissions for Asian Americans--not quotas to have enough Asian Americans, quotas to keep Asian Americans out. They are, and everybody in this body knows they are doing that. Harvard is in litigation over it. Harvard officials have already stated that but for their quotas, there would be twice as many Asian Americans at Harvard as there are now if they base the decision solely on academic achievement. And that is wrong. There is no way to discriminate in the right way. Discrimination is discrimination. Judge people on the basis of their academic achievements. President Biden has talked an awful lot about the error of discriminating against Asian Americans, and he is absolutely right. What is the first thing he did? He pulled his Justice Department off of filing litigation to try to stop these quotas on Asian Americans and universities. I mean, if there weren't double standards around here, there would be no standards at all. So I strongly encourage--Senator Cruz and I offered an amendment to Senator Hirono's bill to try to fix this. Unfortunately, we couldn't get 60 votes. In fact, I don't think a single--maybe I am wrong in saying this, but not very many of my Democratic friends voted for it. But I would say to President Biden, now, if you are serious about ending discrimination against Asian Americans, tell your Justice Department to get off its ice cold, lazy rear end and do something about it. Stop the quotas in higher education. Anyway, that is not, really, what I came up to talk about.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in 2021, the year of our Lord 2021, we have major universities in this country that are discriminating in admissions against Asian Americans. Now, I know they think they know how to discriminate in the right way, but discrimination is discrimination. At one of these universities in 2013, Harvard admitted that if it admitted Asian Americans purely on the basis of academic achievement, it would have doubled the number of Asian Americans. Now, this is wrong; it is contemptible; it is odious. This amendment doesn't go nearly far enough. It is a baby step, but at least it is a step.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to talk a little bit today about a subject that I have struggled with in terms of how to address, and I am going to finish my remarks by offering a bill up for the Senate's consideration. Mr. President, I know you are aware of all of this, but we can't live without glucose. Glucose fuels our cells, and, of course, our cells make up our muscles and our tissues and our organs, and we can't live without insulin. Insulin is a hormone that regulates the amount of glucose in our blood. Thankfully, for most people, their pancreas produces insulin naturally. It is just an undeniable fact that without insulin, without glucose, you are dead. Unfortunately, as you know, sometimes our pancreas does not create insulin or doesn't create enough insulin or creates it erratically, and that condition, of course, is called diabetes. Thankfully, 100 years ago, in 1920, there was a Canadian physician and scientist whose name was Dr. Frederick Banting. He invented a synthetic form of insulin to help people whose pancreas could not produce the hormone. He won a Nobel Prize for it. It was extraordinary. He was so committed to helping humanity that he and his other colleagues who had patents on this synthetic insulin sold their insulin patents for $1, 1 buck. They wanted to make sure that insulin was affordable. God bless them. Today, 34.2 million Americans have diabetes. Not all people who have diabetes need insulin, but of that 34.2 million people, 7.4 million people need synthetic insulin; otherwise, they are dead men; they are dead women. Eighty-eight million Americans have what we call prediabetes. That means they are just a hair away from having full- blown diabetes. It is a problem in Louisiana, Mr. President, as I am sure it might be in Colorado. Louisiana has about 500,000 people with diabetes, most of whom need insulin. That is 12 percent of my population. Now, here is where the story becomes dark. Three pharmaceutical companies have a monopoly on synthetic insulin. These three companies control about 90 percent of the global supply of insulin. Diabetes is certainly not unique to Americans, and these three pharmaceutical companies control almost, well, virtually, 100 percent of the U.S. market. Their cost, as best I can tell, you might be surprised to learn that a lot of the cost of these pharmaceutical drugs--and that is what synthetic insulin is; some call it a biologic--but the cost, as best I can tell, to produce a vial of insulin is about 10 bucks in today's dollars. There is no viable generic. You have to buy a brand name from one of the three companies. Now, the cost of synthetic insulin has increased fairly recently very dramatically. The average list price for insulin tripled from 2002 to 2013, and then from 2013 to 2016 it doubled again. In the last 10 years, the out-of-pocket costs because many people have insurance--not everyone, but many people have insurance--in the last 10 years, the out-of-pocket cost of insulin for the average patient has doubled. Most diabetes patients, to give you some context, require two, quite often, three vials a month. Let me try to get out of the conceptual and be specific. One type of insulin, and I don't mean just to single them out, but it is called Humalog. It was released in 1996. Its price since 1996, which costs about 10 bucks to make it per vial, has increased 1,700 percent. It has gone from $21 a vial to $375 a vial. Now, that same vial in Canada that costs $375 here costs about 50 bucks in Canada. Remember, you need three vials, sometimes two, hopefully, a month to live, to survive. So if you use three vials a month at 375 bucks a crack, the cost has gone from $750 a year in 1996 to $13,500 a year. Nothing has changed about the insulin. This insulin is 100 years old--100 years old. Now, that, of course, is the list price. As we know, many people have insurance, and there are all sorts of insurance plans with differing amounts of deductions and differing amounts of copays, but I think a recent report by the Health Care Cost Institute is instructive. It found that the average American with type 1 diabetes, who needs insulin, has out-of-pocket insulin costs every year of about $6,000. That is every year. You will not be surprised to learn that, as a result of that, about one in four Americans has to ration the insulin-- they don't take their full doses--to make them last longer. Now, I have a bill. It is called the Ending Pricey Insulin Act. I don't know where my staff comes up with these names. I can hardly say that. Anyway, it is to try to lower the cost of insulin. It is going to cap out-of-pocket costs for insulin if this bill, in its wisdom, passes the Senate. It is going to cap the cost at 50 bucks for a 30-day supply. It is going to cap the cost for people who have insurance. It is going to cap the cost for people who have Medicare. It is going to cap the cost for people who have Medicaid, and it is going to cap the cost for the people who don't have anything--no insurance whatsoever. It is going to cover high-deductible health plans. It is going to cover the CHIP program. It is going to cover veterans' health plans. It is going to cover TRICARE. It is going to cover everybody and have a maximum out-of-pocket cost per month of $50. This bill would take effect for plan year 2022. Health plans, as the Presiding Officer knows, set their rates 6 to 9 months in advance, so I want to give them fair warning here. My bill provides a workable runway for the insurance plans to comply, but the bill does include a retroactive clause that insures any out-of-pocket costs above 50 bucks that people pay. After that, they will be reimbursed. The bill is only five pages long. I don't think it is complicated to fix this problem. Now, I really struggled with whether to offer this bill. Let me say first that I am not trying to pick on our pharmaceutical drug companies. What they have done in the last year is nothing short of miraculous. To me, it is just evidence that American and human ingenuity can never be underestimated, and it is extraordinary what the private sector can accomplish when the government gets out of the way. I am talking, of course, about the coronavirus vaccines. I happen to have two brothers who are physicians, and I called both of them right after the coronavirus was determined to be the coronavirus. I said: How long for a vaccine? They both said: A minimum of 2 years, probably 3 or 4. The pharmaceutical drug industry did it in less than a year. God bless them. So I don't mean to criticize them. I understand they have research costs, and I understand they have marketing costs, and I certainly understand that the health insurance delivery system and the market itself is opaque. God, how did we design such a system? I yearn for the day--we all do--when we have a healthcare delivery system for pharmaceutical drugs that looks like somebody designed it on purpose. I have spent a lot of time--I certainly don't pretend to be an expert--researching the problem surrounding the cost of insulin, and everybody blames everybody else. The pharmaceutical drug companies blame the PBMs. The PBMs blame the insurance companies. They all blame each other. Some of them blame the doctors. Some of them blame patients for whining. You know, at some point, you say: Gosh. You know, it is almost as if you are intentionally making it opaque, and that is a big part of our health insurance market problem. I was reading an article the other day, and this is on a slightly different subject. As you know, the Trump administration issued an Executive order saying hospitals have to post their prices. The hospitals sued, and the government won. So now the hospitals have to post their prices. The Wall Street Journal did a very interesting investigative piece. It really was a fine piece of work in this post-journalism, pay-to-play world that we live in. It looked at the websites of all of the major hospitals throughout the United States, and it found, I think--I don't remember the number--over 100 that had implemented or put it on their websites' software so that the posted prices for their services that they offered, which the Executive order required, were there on the websites, but you just couldn't see it, and consumers couldn't find it. Those who could find it had to go through about 10 different layers to get to it. When the Wall Street Journal contacted the hospitals, they said: Oh, whoops. It is just a software mistake. We will get it fixed. So the market is opaque. Look, some of my colleagues are going to oppose this bill, and I understand their point of view in their saying: Kennedy, this is price- fixing. We thought you were a free market guy. I am. I am. I don't want to have to do this, but we have been talking about this problem for years, and it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. I think the Members of the U.S. Senate--the most interesting group of people I have ever been around--are intelligent enough to understand nuance. They understand that this is price-fixing, but they also understand this argument of, well, you are going down a slippery slope. No, we are not. There is nothing in this bill that says we have to go down a slippery slope. I think most fair-minded people understand that insulin, as a biologic, pharmaceutical drug, is unique. We are not talking about a drug that the pharmaceutical industry has spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing and has taken on extraordinary risk. This is a product that has been around since 1920. It is virtually unchanged. It costs 10 bucks a vial to produce. There is virtually no risk, none whatsoever. It hasn't changed much in 100 years, and people have to have it. The costs were recouped long ago. I am not accusing anybody of anything, but I think a big part of the problem is the fact that three companies have a monopoly, and there is no generic because some people engage in what is called evergreening, which is a very clever way devised by the patent lawyers to keep patents from ever running out. I am just tired of holding hearings and issuing press releases and talking to the press about it and then doing nothing. I will just say--and I am going to end because I know Senator Crapo has something he wants to say, and I want to hear him--that I really struggled with this. I guess I am being inconsistent, because I do believe in the free market. I don't believe in having the government set prices, but I don't know what else to do. I don't think we are going down a slippery slope. Insulin is unique. We have all got good pairs of L.L. Bean and other boots to keep us from going down that slippery slope. There is no law that says the U.S. Senate can't consider issues on an ad hoc basis. Senators understand nuance, and in any event, I would rather be right than consistent For that reason, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1132, introduced earlier today. I ask unanimous consent 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. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, my colleague, the Senator from Idaho, knows how much I respect him, and I certainly appreciate the invitation to work with him and his committee, and I intend to do that. And I know that the Senator didn't say this, but I don't believe in government-run healthcare. But we have a discrete problem here and a very unique situation that can be addressed. This is not a biologic, as I said earlier, that costs hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. This is insulin, and a lot of Americans need it or they will die. There is a monopoly, and there are efforts that have been made to maintain that monopoly, and my people in Louisiana--I know the people in Idaho--many of them feel the same way, and that is why they applaud Senator Crapo's efforts, but they are hurting. You can die without insulin. You can die. And it costs 10 bucks a vial to make, and it has been around 100 years, and now it costs 375 bucks. And all you have to do is walk across the border into Canada, and you can buy it for 50 bucks. The market is being manipulated. I know it is complicated, and I understand politics. I have been around it a good portion of my life, but this is an issue where we need to stop--we need to stop--talking about it, strutting around, issuing press releases, holding hearings, and doing nothing. I don't want to price fix. I don't. It makes me real uncomfortable to be proposing this, but I don't know what else to do. There comes a point where patience--where patience--ceases to be a virtue. And here is what I know. I mean, the bill has been objected to, and I appreciate it. You pass a bill like this or a similar bill like this; you are going to see a solution pretty fast. You are going to see a solution real fast. You are going to see some--this opaque market react with new energy. They are going to be running around like hounds from hell, trying to keep this from becoming the law, and that is why we need to hit this head-on. But with that, I thank the President for his attention, and I thank my colleague for his eloquent remarks. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we dispense with the reading.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, without order, there can be no justice. We all know that. Without order, there can be no justice. This past year, we have seen felony rioting throughout the United States. It doesn't matter whether that felony rioting happened here at the Capitol. It doesn't matter whether it happened in Portland or Chicago or Atlanta or at any of our other wonderful communities throughout the United States. It is wrong, and we have all condemned it. It should be punished, and it certainly shouldn't be rewarded. My amendment is very simple. It says that if you were one of those rioters and you have received due process, you have been convicted by a court of law of competent jurisdiction, and you have been adjudged to have committed a felony with respect to a riot or civil disorder in the past 2 years, then you cannot participate in the PPP program. We already have that law at the SBA for disaster loans. This would extend it to the PPP program. What you allow is what will continue. What you allow is what will continue, and that is why I would respectfully ask consideration for my amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, this is the third time I have brought this amendment--the third time. Now, you either approve of the rioting that happened this summer and at the Capitol or you don't. The riots this summer killed 47 people. There was well over $1 billion worth of damage. No. 2, I can't help it if Speaker Pelosi has decided to go home, which prevents us from offering amendments to make this bill better. We all support extension of the PPP program, but this is not right, and it would be a lot more intellectually honest if my colleague, who opposed my amendment, said: Look, we just don't think that if you rioted you should be punished with respect to the PPP program, because that is what a ``no'' vote is saying.

Mr. KENNEDY. Could I ask unanimous consent for another 30 seconds?

Mr. KENNEDY. How much time do I have left?

Mr. KENNEDY. I would like to ask my colleague for 30 more seconds.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I just wanted to read the language to you. It says that you are prohibited from getting a PPP loan if you have been convicted of a felony in relation to a riot or a civil disorder in the past 2 years. You either support violence or you don't. Madam President, I would like to ask that my amendment, Kennedy amendment No. 1401, be called up.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am sure you have been to Paris. The architect, as you undoubtedly know, who designed the Louvre's iconic glass pyramid was actually an American. He was an Asian American. His name was I.M. Pei. Mr. Pei emigrated from China to the United States in the 1930s. By the time he passed at the age of 102, he had designed a number of famous buildings. He had done that all across the world, including on U.S. soil, including the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. America is proud of Mr. Pei. He is just one of millions of Asian Americans whose talents have helped America continue to be an exceptional nation, a nation made up of exceptional people who take advantage of all of the opportunities that these United States have to offer. The contributions of individual Asian Americans have helped our country pioneer--and the Presiding Officer knows this--advances in architecture, in medicine, in art, and in technology. But, more than that, Asian Americans are our friends, and they are our neighbors. The recent murder of Asian-American women in an evil assault in Atlanta was an assault not just on the Atlanta community but on the United States of America. President Biden has correctly denounced these attacks, and he is not alone. I know the Presiding Officer can join me in this. I condemn these evil murders in the strongest possible terms. No one can justify--no one--the brutal theft of eight lives. Every community--every single one--across our country is grieving for the victims and is grieving for the families. These victims were all made, they were each made, in God's image, and Americans know that. I also feel the same way about the shooting in Boulder. We all do. America pioneered government that is based on inalienable rights that God gives each person. God has imbued every man and woman with dignity, and Americans answer that dignity with respect, respect for each individual and their right to make the most of the manifold opportunities our country offers. Unfortunately, President Biden's rhetoric in defense of the Asian- American community is not altogether matched by respect for the right of Asian Americans to reap the reward of their talent and grit. The Biden administration, thus far--it has time to correct its course--has shown and did show right out of the gate a determination to stick its head in the sand while some of America's top universities are actively discriminating against Asian Americans. Last year, as the Presiding Officer knows, the Justice Department sued Yale University. The Justice Department contended that Yale rejected many qualified Asian-American applicants on the basis of race--not on the basis of qualification, on the basis of race. The decision by the Justice Department came 2 years after several Asian-American organizations filed a complaint with the Department of Justice and the Department of Education that accused Yale of what I just described: racial discrimination. Yet only a few weeks--only a few weeks after President Biden set up shop in the Oval Office, the Department of Justice withdrew its own lawsuit based on racial discrimination against Yale University, and that is an actual fact. Watch what we say, not what we do. Unfortunately, Harvard University also seems determined to discriminate against Asian-American applicants. In 2014, Students for Fair Admissions sued Harvard, claiming that the school was using an application system that intentionally reduces the number of Asian Americans through evaluations that are subjective and potentially racially biased. You see, Harvard apparently believes it knows how to discriminate in the right way. It believed the same thing a number of years ago when it limited the number of Jewish people who could attend Harvard. When Harvard considers an applicant, the school doesn't just look at their grades or their test scores or their academic awards. In fact, the admissions team at Harvard often looks past these objective indicators to a student's--this is what Harvard calls it--personal ratings, which is an unfair, ridiculous, and a subjective standard. These personal ratings, as Harvard calls them, supposedly take into account character traits like humor, sensitivity, helpfulness, and courage. For years, Harvard has consistently granted lower personal ratings scores to Asian Americans than it has to other applicants, and that, too, is a fact. The judge in the Students for Fair Admissions' lawsuit wrote the following: The data demonstrates-- These are the judge's words, not mine. The data demonstrates a statistically significant and negative relationship between Asian American identity and the personal rating assigned by Harvard admissions officers, holding constant any reasonable set of observable characteristics. I didn't say that; the judge in the case did. Now, I want to be fair. It may look smart or wise for Harvard to look for well-rounded applicants--I get that--until you realize and think about that these personal ratings are not just subjective; they are subversive. If you think about it, the scores, these scores--they are not objective like test scores or grades or extracurricular activities; these personal ratings are value judgments that can easily be tainted by racial bias. It is clear that the personal ratings minimize the accomplishments of Asian Americans in particular. Just look at the numbers. Harvard's admission scores work like this: They use a scale of 1 to 6. One is the strongest possible rating. When it comes to personal ratings--remember, this is the subjective analysis of the personhood of the applicant by Harvard, not the test scores, not the grades, not the extracurricular activities. When it comes to personal ratings, only 17.6 percent of Asian-American applicants receive a score of 1 or 2--17.6 for Asian Americans. For African Americans, that number is 19.01 percent. For Hispanic Americans, it is 18.7 percent. In fact--and these are the numbers--Harvard gives Asian Americans the weakest personal ratings of any ethnic group, bar none. Harvard admissions officials have reportedly handed out these scores without even interviewing all of the candidates in question--personal ratings without interviewing the applicants. This happens now despite the fact that Asian Americans have the highest grades and test scores. So on the objective criteria--test scores, grades--Asian Americans have the highest scores. What pulls them down? The personal ratings. Harvard officials admitted in 2013 that if Harvard considered only academic achievement, then proportional Asian-American representation that year would have doubled. Think about that. If Harvard went on the objective criteria--extracurricular activities, grades, test scores-- twice as many Asian Americans would have been admitted to the university. Why weren't they? Because of the personal ratings. They call it ``personal'' even though many of the applicants are never even interviewed. The Department of Justice has historically supported the Students for Fair Admissions lawsuit. In 2018, the Justice Department filed a statement of interest in the case. Last year, the Justice Department filed an amicus brief in the case. A Federal judge ruled against the plaintiffs in 2019 in the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld that decision last November--this despite the fact that the Federal district court judge in the case openly acknowledged that Harvard grants lower personal ratings scores to Asian-American applicants. The fruits of Harvard's policy are pretty clear. You don't have to be Mensa material to figure this out. The Ivy League school has repeatedly rejected highly qualified Asian-American candidates because of their race. But there is still hope for justice for our Asian-American students. The Supreme Court may well take up this case, and the White House could defend the cause of merit against Harvard's alleged racial discrimination. So let me say this as clearly as I can. If President Biden--if the Biden team is committed to fighting racial discrimination against Asian Americans, if President Biden and his team want to lift up Asian Americans, as they say they do, it is not hard to see how countering racist policies within the privileged halls of Harvard--a school that receives Federal dollars--it is not hard to see how supporting that litigation must be part of President Biden's commitment. So today, with all the respect I can muster, I am calling on President Biden and his Justice Department to support the Asian-American students who have brought their case against Harvard. Harvard is an extraordinary school. Nothing I say is meant to denigrate the quality of that great university. But being a pillar of higher education doesn't mean that Harvard is above the law. I.M. Pei attended Harvard in the 1940s. Who knows if they would accept him today because of his personal rating. You know, that is a shame, and it shouldn't stand. President Biden should stand up for the rights of Asian Americans to be treated fairly by America's schools. His Justice Department should support this lawsuit. To be is to act. All we are is the sum of our actions. Everything else is just conversation. Don't just talk about supporting Asian Americans; do it. Do it. Please don't be selective in the reality you choose to accept. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is a felony for rioting. We shouldn't be giving them money.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes of debate equally divided.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have a motion to commit at the desk, and I ask that it be reported.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, my amendment would prohibit the Small Business Administration from providing any assistance including, but not limited to, Paycheck Protection Program 7(a) loans or other small business assistance to anyone who has been convicted during the past 15 years of a felony during and in connection with a riot, a civil disorder, or another declared disaster. Without order, there can be no justice.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent 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.