John Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use a prop during my remarks.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to spend a few minutes talking about Senator Marshall's and my legislation to overturn President Biden's squid-brained idea with respect to pistol braces. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Mr. President, as you well know, gives private citizens the right to possess a firearm, including a pistol, and to use it lawfully. That is not a right of government; that is a right that each of us has as Americans. Justice Scalia said it pretty well in DC v. Heller: The American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon. So many people who are opposed to the Second Amendment--they say they are not opposed to the Second Amendment. They say they just want to regulate guns. They don't. They want to abolish guns. And many of them wouldn't know a gun from a J.Crew catalogue. This is a handgun. This is what we are talking about. Our Second Amendment right is not unlimited. We know that. It is subject to reasonable--reasonable--restriction by government, consistent with the Constitution and the country's ``historical tradition of firearm regulation.'' Those aren't my words; those are the Supreme Court's words. I am quoting New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen by the U.S. Supreme Court. For example, in many States, you can't own a bazooka. That is a reasonable restriction. Your right to own a gun can also be restricted if you suffer from mental illness. That is what we have concluded as a society as a reasonable restriction. The issue today is very simple. It is whether President Biden's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms' new rule, in effect, banning or, at a minimum, severely restricting pistol braces is a reasonable restriction under the Constitution. That is what we are discussing today. Trigger warning: This is a pistol brace. I know it is scary. This is a pistol brace. It fits on your forearm like this. Here it is right here. To the pistol brace is added another piece that grips the handgun. That is what we are talking about here. A pistol brace is also known--this scary piece of equipment here is also known as a stabilizing brace or an arm brace. It is a simple device. It is mounted to the rear of the pistol. It is designed to anchor the pistol to the shooter's arm, right here--it goes on the forearm--so the shooter can shoot the pistol with one hand. Now, why is that important? Because some Americans don't have two hands or the use of two hands or two arms. Pistol braces were invented to help handicapped people, particularly handicapped veterans, who don't have the use of both of their arms. You don't have to be a handicapped person to use a pistol brace. Some studies have shown that there are as many as 40 million pistol braces in the United States that President Biden wants to outlaw--not 4 million, 40 million--and most of them--I would say virtually all of them--are owned by law-abiding citizens. Now, this pistol brace, other than stabilizing the pistol, it doesn't change the pistol in any way. The pistol brace doesn't change the caliber of the pistol. It doesn't make it more powerful. The pistol brace doesn't change the number of rounds that the pistol can hold. The pistol brace doesn't make the pistol an automatic pistol. Automatic weapons are forbidden in the United States. And the pistol brace doesn't make the pistol fire any faster. The pistol brace also does not help the shooter load the pistol more quickly. Except for stabilizing the pistol, it doesn't change the pistol in any way. It just makes it easier to hold, which is important particularly if you are handicapped. As one of my colleagues alluded to, pistol braces were invented in 2012. They have been legal since. As I said, millions of Americans own them. Millions of Americans use them, especially handicapped Americans. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has never had a problem with pistol braces--none, zero, zilch, nada--until President Biden became President. Now, President Biden and his ATF have promulgated a rule. It says attaching a pistol brace to a pistol somehow magically stops the pistol from being a pistol and turns it into a short-barreled rifle. The ATF has defended its proposed new rule, as has President Biden, by pointing to two mass shootings that were committed by individuals who used pistols with pistol braces. Now, why does it matter? Why is the ATF trying to say a pistol is no longer a pistol if you use a pistol brace; it is a short-barreled rifle? I will tell you why. You don't have to be a Latin scholar to figure it out because short-barreled rifles, once again, which the ATF says pistol braces turn pistols into, are heavily restricted by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968. That is why they want to turn a pistol into a short-barreled rifle by using a pistol brace. Under these two Federal statutes, if the ATF can succeed, the ATF can require the owner of the pistol with the pistol brace to register it within 120 days with the ATF. They want to start a gun registry for law-abiding Americans. Hello. They want to start a gun registry. If the ATF pulls this off, this is what they can do. This is what you have to do if you own a pistol brace and you use it with your handgun, handicapped or otherwise. You have got to register it within 120 days with the ATF. You have got to destroy the pistol brace, or you have got to dismantle the pistol brace, or you have got to surrender your pistol to the ATF, or you have to destroy your pistol. And violations: If you don't do what the ATF says, violations of these two Federal statutes are punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison and fines up to $250,000. Stupidity should hurt more. Unless you self-identify as an idiot, you can see what is going on here. The American people may be poorer under President Biden, but they are not stupid. The ATF is trying to keep Americans from owning pistols and/or they are trying to keep Americans from owning pistol braces and/or they are trying to use this rule to start an extensive national gun registry. And the ATF rule is just a backdoor way to subject pistols to more smothering regulations. I swear to God and all the angels, Americans get so much government, they choke on it. They choke on it. Neither the National Firearms Act of 1934 nor the Gun Control Act of 1968 mention pistol braces, nor does the statute's legislative history. Under recent unambiguous decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA, in Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services, and in King v. Burwell--all Supreme Court precedent--a regulatory Agency like the ATF does not have the power under our Constitution to decide major questions like banning pistol braces unless Congress says it is OK, through the text of the statute that the Agency is relying on. The statute itself clearly and unambiguously has to give the ATF the authority to ban pistol braces, and it does not. The ATF rule is unconstitutional. It is also unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which was handed down a couple of years ago, because banning pistol braces is not part of our country's ``historical tradition of firearm regulation.'' The ATF rule also violates, in my judgment, the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. And finally, the ATF rule and President Biden's rule are just--the rule is just plain bottom-of-the-barrel moronic. Attaching a pistol brace to a pistol, which doesn't change the pistol in any fundamental way except stabilizing it, does not stop the pistol from being a pistol. It doesn't. And it sure doesn't turn it into a short-barreled rifle. Pistols are pistols. Rifles are rifles. Duh. All the pistol brace does is allow an American, especially a handicapped American, to safely grip a pistol and control it in a safe manner. That is all it does. Like I said, stupid should hurt more. This ATF rule is why so many Americans wonder how so many governmental officials in Washington, DC, made it through the birth canal. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, also with me today is Mr. James Shea, who is one of my colleagues.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following associates who are working with me this summer in my office be granted floor privileges until June 16, 2023: Ms. Lauren Gachassin and Ms. Jolea Simpson.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following members of my staff be granted floor privileges until June 8, 2023: Ms. Maddy Dibble, Mr. Jack Lieux, and Mr. Chris Le, who are with me here today.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, the United States and China should talk. The United States wants to, but the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party--the CCP--does not. And, frankly, the leadership of the CCP is acting like a sullen teenager. You can only be young once, but you can always be immature. Talking does not show weakness. It shows strength. It shows confidence. America is confident. In refusing to talk, the Chinese Communist Party and its insecurities are loud. Now, the United States, as you know from recent media reports, has tried to talk to China, and we have had some success. Recently, not that long ago, our National Security Advisor and our Commerce Secretary met with their Chinese counterparts. I understand they had good discussions. I had hoped that that might be a start, but I was wrong. The CCP proved me wrong. For instance, our Defense Secretary, the weekend before last, I believe, was at the annual Singapore Security Conference. Our Defense Secretary asked to meet with Chinese defense officials, a fairly routine request. The defense officials from China snubbed it. Further, on May 26--you may have read about this in the media--a Chinese fighter jet flew within 400 yards of a U.S. reconnaissance plane flying above the South China Sea in international waters--in international waters. The U.S. plane had to fly threw the Chinese fighter jet's wake, which is very dangerous. It was an unmistakable attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to intimidate. Further still, just this past weekend, a Chinese naval ship came within 150 yards of a U.S. missile destroyer, yet another intentional and dangerous act. The U.S. ship was in the Taiwan Strait along with a Canadian warship. Both the U.S. ship and the Canadian ship had every right to be there. This was another unmistakable attempt by China to intimidate. Additionally, hardly a day goes by that the CCP doesn't release a statement denigrating the American people and accusing the United States of wanting to suppress and even destroy China. Let me be clear. The United States of America does not want to suppress China. The United States of America does not want to destroy China. All we want is for China to become and to act like a responsible member of a stable world order that follows international rules and norms. And that is all the world wants too. All we want and all the world wants is for China to stop its aggression. All we want and all the world wants is for China to stop manipulating its currency. All we want and all the world wants is for China to leave Taiwan alone. All we want and all the world wants is for China to end its attempt to militarize the South China Sea and the East China Sea, which are international waters. All we want and all the world wants is for China to stop poisoning our children with fentanyl. Stop it. All we want and all the world wants is for China to end its ``debt trap'' diplomacy through its Belt and Road Initiative and other loan schemes. All we want and all the world wants is for China to cease using its economic power to bully other sovereign countries--like Australia, like Lithuania--when those countries offer an opinion the Communist Party of China doesn't like. All we want and all the world wants is for China to tell us the truth--the truth--about how the COVID virus started, or at least work with us and other countries so we can find out. I could, of course, continue this list, but I won't. So let me repeat. The United States and China should talk. The advantages are and ought to be obvious. Why should we talk? To avoid military conflict. It is a pretty good start. To avoid miscalculation. The more silence there is between us, the more Beijing underestimates American strength. Why should we talk? To limit the risk of accidental confrontation, to pursue bilateral detente, because our economies are interwoven, because our economies are stronger together if everyone plays by the rules. Why should we talk? To seek peace in Ukraine; to develop a mutual plan for how we should respond to advancements in technology, like artificial intelligence, like quantum computing; to talk about space; to discuss fair trade policies for products that don't have national security implications. Why should we talk? To prepare for the next pandemic--it is just a thought--to develop cheaper and cleaner energy, to avoid nuclear war, to avoid destroying the human race. Look, if China doesn't want to talk, that would be a shame. But it is hard to fix somebody who doesn't want to be fixed. It would also be China's loss. It would be China's loss not to talk. For years, China has tried to portray itself to the world as mighty, as successful, as peace-loving. And I hope someday China is all of those things. China, for years, has tried to portray itself to the world as a gentle giant. For a while, it worked. It worked until it didn't. The world now sees a different China. The world now sees a China that mismanaged COVID, that is on the wrong side of the Ukraine war, that is destroying Hong Kong, that has militarized the South and East China Seas. The world now sees a China that punishes its own people--the Uighurs and the good people of Tibet--that denies even the most basic civil rights to its Han Chinese majority, including the right to self- determine, including the right even to access an uncensored internet. The world sees a China that tries to bully other sovereign countries. The world now sees a China whose population is shrinking, whose people are aging without a safety net for its elderly, whose young, college-educated children can't find a job, whose housing market is in turmoil. The world now sees a China whose debt is unmanageable, whose technology sector has been purposely, intentionally stunted by its own political leadership. The world now sees a China whose capital markets are flailing, whose state-owned entities are models of inefficiency and corruption, and whose economy is slowing. I know that is a cold dish of truth, but that is what the world sees. If China cares about the world and if the people of China care about how the world sees China--and both do--China will reengage with the world, including the United States of America, not shrink from it. So I end, Madam President, as I began. The United States and China need to talk. The United States and China need to talk, not just for the United States but also for China and for the world. And, frankly, China has the most to gain, given the deterioration of its reputation. But it is entirely up to China. America, we have done our part, and the United States will continue to do its part. We want to talk. We are confident, but, lately, China's insecurities are loud. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, this is the last amendment of the evening. I have 3 minutes. I can read a room, and I can count votes. This amendment would require States to use the most up-to-date unemployment data for waivers of food stamp work requirements. Thank you.

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Madam President. I think we all know the June 5 deadline is a fiction. It is. We know that. We know that the Treasury Secretary can take special measures to extend the deadline until the middle of June, when tax revenues will come in. I understand the need to go ahead and act, but we all know that. Let me say it again. Those who can work should work. Those who can work should work, and that is all my amendment does. Vote on Amendment No. 104

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, Madam President.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, the American people are the most generous people in the world. In our country, if you are hungry, we will feed you. If you are homeless, we will try to house you. If you are sick, we will pay for your doctor. I am very proud of that, and I know you are too. However, those who can work should work. Those who can work should work. A person without a job is not healthy, not happy, and not free. History has demonstrated that the best social program is a job. The best social program is a job. Free enterprise has lifted more people out of poverty than all the social programs put together. So while we should continue to be generous to our neighbors as Americans, we also need to repeat and repeat often: Those who can work should work. My amendment would make the food stamp work requirement in this bill permanent. It would remove the sunset.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 104 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, it is late, and I will be candid. To my colleagues, I say, not a single one of you is a dummy. Not a single one of your mothers raised a fool, and if she did, it was one of your siblings. We all know that a pay-go requirement for a regulation that can be waived by the proponent of the regulation is meaningless. This amendment will provide that the pay-go requirement cannot be waived.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I will accept a voice vote. Vote on Amendment No. 102

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 102 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am going to talk for a few minutes today about HB12. That is not HB12 from the U.S. House of Representatives; that is HB12 from the Louisiana House of Representatives. Why do I want to talk about it? Because it is important. It is important for my State, and I think it is important for other States. HB12 passed the Louisiana House of Representatives yesterday--maybe it was the day before--by a vote of 88 to 15, and it is headed to my senate. As the Presiding Officer knows, it is frustrating in that the American people can do things that take your breath away--we can unravel the human genome; we can take a diseased human heart--we can do that in America--and replace it with a new one and make it beat; we can send a person to the Moon--but we can't seem to teach our children how to read and write when we have 18 years to do it. I don't come here this morning to assess blame. Our problem is shared in other countries. That is no excuse. Our problem is caused by a multitude of factors, but I believe and I will bet the Presiding Officer believes that every child can learn--that every child can learn. It is harder for some than others. I recognize that some of our children do not have a supportive home life, not just in America but in other parts of the world. It seems commonsensical to me that if parents do not love their child, the child is not going to stop loving the child's parents; the child is going to stop loving himself or herself. But I don't know how to fix that. All we can do is continue to believe that every child can learn--every child. My State, like other States, has a problem with elementary and secondary education. Over half of my children--my young people--in Louisiana are not reading at their grade levels, and at some point, as a child is socially promoted in school and progresses, it almost becomes impossible for a child to learn if the child can't read. It is not just money. Go look at a list of what States spend on elementary and secondary education--and not just States but local governments and the Federal Government as well. One of our States in America is spending $54,000 a year on their public schools. I mean, God bless them, but that is a lot of money. It is not just money. We have to try and we have to be courageous enough to try new things that we think will work. Now, what does that have to do with HB12 in the Louisiana State Legislature? Here is what HB12 would do. It would say: Look, we are not blaming anyone, but if you are a child in the third grade in Louisiana and if you can't read, according to objective standards, at an acceptable level, then you are going to stay in the third grade. We don't care if you are 16 years old. We can hold you until you are 18. But we think you can learn, and you can't learn if you can't read. Now, that doesn't mean that the child just repeats the third grade with no help. We will assign that child special tutors. We will assign that child special attention. We will give that child a number of efforts to demonstrate that child's proficiency after getting this special tutoring and attention. But we think every child can learn. This approach has been tried in two other States--Mississippi and Florida--and it has worked in both States--in both States. We have copied it from Mississippi and Florida. We take no pride of authorship. I am always willing to copy other people's ideas that work and give them full credit. Let me just mention the success in Mississippi, and I hope my colleagues in the Louisiana Legislature--I love every one of them--are listening to me. After Mississippi implemented its requirement that kids can't advance until they can read, this is what one analysis says of the results of that effort: The results are stunning: In sixth grade, three years after the intervention, retained students outperform similar students by 1.2 standard deviations (a 0.8 effect size is generally considered ``large''), with no measurable impact-- None-- on student absenteeism or special education classification, negative indicators sometimes associated with retention. Those aren't my words; that came from an in-depth study at Boston University. This analysis goes on to say: The magnitude of Mississippi's accomplishments with early reading is truly impressive and rightly deserves attention and replication by other states. For low-income, Black, and Hispanic students, by 2019, Mississippi had risen to the top five of all the states on the fourth grade NAEP, with each group showing more than a year's additional progress since 2013. I could go on. I could cite you similar analyses and statistics for the State of Florida. Every child can learn. It just requires a little extra attention and love for some of our children. Now, HB12 in the Louisiana Legislature would copy the program in Mississippi and Florida. It has passed, as it did last year, overwhelmingly, as I mentioned, in the Louisiana House of Representatives. Last year, in the Louisiana House of Representatives, it passed overwhelmingly. This year, just recently, it passed by a vote of 88 to 15. Last year, when the bill went to my State's senate, the bill died. We are on our second try, and the bill is now before the Louisiana State Senate. I know every member of my Louisiana State Senate. I respect all of them, and I am pleading with them. Please, please, please, pretty please with sugar on top, pass this bill. It has worked in other States. If it doesn't work in Louisiana, I will come right to this lectern and say it didn't work, that we tried it. We gave it our best shot, but it didn't work. But I think it will, and I think our kids deserve the chance. Every child can learn. Every child can learn, but some of our children need special attention. This bill, HB12, before the Louisiana State Senate will provide that attention. Please, members of my Senate, pass this bill. I yield to my colleague from Hawaii.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use a prop or two during my remarks.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I listened very carefully to my friend Senator Booker's remarks, and I appreciate them, and I thank him for his offer to work together. And I do want to work with him again, but I want to make a couple of things clear. My bill doesn't deal with addiction. My bill deals with dealers. A pencil, the point of the pencil--enough heroin to fit on a point of a pencil will kill you dead. You are not walking around with 40 grams of fentanyl for your own personal use. You are going to deal it. You are going to cut other drugs with it. You are going to sell it to young people, probably not even tell them fentanyl is in it. And you are not going to measure the fentanyl very carefully. If you get too much in it, somebody dies. There are others, because if you can get them to take your meth with fentanyl--laced with fentanyl--given that fentanyl is 50 times more powerful, more addictive than heroin, you can get them addicted. I am not talking about addicts. I am talking about dealers--dealers in death, dealers that this body punishes less severely than a meth dealer or a crack cocaine dealer or a PCP dealer or an LSD dealer. What you allow is what will continue. I don't know if my bill will stop all the fentanyl dealers in America. I can't make you that promise. But it will, sure as hell, stop the dealer caught dealing, and that will save lives. I agree with my good friend Senator Booker. I believe in justice. The definition of justice for some is complicated. I believe in the definition that was put forth. I think it was Saint Augustine who said: Justice is when you get what you deserve. Justice is when you get what you deserve. And fentanyl dealers deserve, yes, a special place in hell, but they sure deserve to be punished more severely than dealers of less dangerous drugs.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today, I would like to talk about a distasteful subject to me--I get angry whenever I think about it-- fentanyl dealers. I hope there is a special place in Hell for them-- fentanyl dealers. Today is National Fentanyl Awareness Day. In 2021, fentanyl killed 71,000 Americans. If you break down these sterile statistics, you will see that somebody in our country dies from fentanyl poisoning every 7 seconds. There ought to be a special place in Hell for fentanyl dealers. And these aren't just sterile statistics. These are real people, and they have real families whose lives are torn apart. A lot of these deaths occur among young people. Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans who are 18 to 49. From 2020 to 2021, fentanyl deaths in our country increased by 24 percent. It was even more among young people. What you allow is what will continue. And today, this body--the U.S. Congress--allows fentanyl dealers to carry on their person, if they would like to, enough fentanyl to kill 20,000 Americans before they face a mandatory 5-year minimum sentence if they are caught. Until these fentanyl dealers have to deal themselves with real consequences, I think the carnage is going to continue. I have a bill--it is called the Fairness in Fentanyl Sentencing Act of 2023, and it will change what I just talked about drastically. It will reduce the amount of fentanyl that a fentanyl dealer has to possess before facing the mandatory minimum 5 years of prison. Now, I know you know this, but when you are dealing with fentanyl, the amounts really matter. Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin--not 5, not 15--50 times more potent. It takes only 2 milligrams to kill you. Here is a pencil. Here is the point of the pencil. The amount of fentanyl you can put on the point of a pencil will kill you. Let me say that again. The amount of fentanyl that you can put on the point of a pencil will kill you. Today, fentanyl dealers can carry up to 40 grams of fentanyl before they face the mandatory minimum 5 years of prison. And with me today is one of my colleagues, Mr. Wesley Davis, who is also a good lawyer, I might add. This is 40 grams of fentanyl. It is not actually fentanyl; it is flour. But if the flour were fentanyl, this would be 40 grams. You can have this much--you have to have this much before you get a minimum of a 5-year sentence. And remember the pencil? Enough to go on the head of a pencil can kill you. But you have to have this much--I don't know how many pencil points this is, but it is a lot. You have to have this much to get a minimum 5-year sentence-- 40 grams. It would kill 20,000 people. This amount will kill every Member of this body 200 times over--every Member of this body 200 times over. And thanks to us, and the laws that we passed, the fentanyl dealer would just get a minimum 5-year sentence. This bag has 400 grams in it. It is flour, but fentanyl would represent the same thing. This has 400 grams. You have to have 400 grams, given the laws that we have passed, to face a mandatory 10-year sentence, and 400 grams will kill 200,000 people dead as a doornail. Shreveport, LA, in my State--some of you have been there; if you haven't, you should visit--is home to 184,000 people. So a dealer has to have 400 grams--an amount that would kill every man, woman, and child in Shreveport, 400 grams--in order to get a mandatory 10-year sentence. These sentencing guidelines do not reflect how much damage can be done with just a little bit of fentanyl. For example, fentanyl dealers face a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence if they have 5 grams of methamphetamine. To get 5 years in prison, you just have to have 5 grams of methamphetamine, but you have to have 40 grams of fentanyl, which is 50 times more powerful than heroin. Does that make any sense to anyone? Meth is a bad drug. I am not defending meth. But it is not nearly as lethal as fentanyl. This stuff will kill you, and people deal it every day in America. They deal it every day, and they are not facing consequences. In 2021, in fact, meth killed less than half as many people as fentanyl. Yet fentanyl traffickers--fentanyl dealers--I don't want to call them traffickers because that sounds too tame to me, too beige. They are dealers. They are drug dealers. They are death dealers. Fentanyl dealers can possess eight times as much fentanyl before facing the same mandatory minimum sentence as somebody who is dealing meth. We need a sentencing scheme that looks like somebody designed the damn thing on purpose. We need to have a Criminal Code that reflects fentanyl's lethal force. (Mr. MARKEY assumed the Chair.) My bill, the Fairness in Fentanyl Sentencing Act of 2023, is pretty simple. It will cut the fentanyl threshold for the 5-year mandatory minimum sentence from 40 grams to 2 grams--from 40 grams to 2 grams. You are not going to have 2 grams of fentanyl on you unless you are dealing. It would reduce the legal threshold for fentanyl analogs as well. Fentanyl analogs are synthetic copycats of fentanyl, and actually, these analogs can be even more lethal than pure fentanyl itself. Today, a dealer can carry up to 10 grams of fentanyl analogs before facing a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence. My bill would drop that threshold down to half a gram. By doing this, my bill helps our Criminal Code reflect the reality that fentanyl is not like other drugs. It is not. I mean, as bad as meth is, as bad as PCP is, as bad as crack cocaine is, as bad as heroin is, as bad as powder cocaine is, fentanyl is in a class by itself. The drug cartels who operate south of our border have found that fentanyl is a cheap way to cut corners and to make more money. They use fentanyl to make other drugs. They put fentanyl into cocaine. They put it into heroin, which makes the final concoction cheaper and more powerful. Today, everything from marijuana to Adderall can be laced with lethal amounts of fentanyl on the black market. It gives the concoction more kick, and the drug dealers make more money, which is all they care about. If the drug dealers don't measure it right, it will kill you. Now, look, we all know that young people experiment, and many young people--I dare say most young people--are going to try drugs. When my son, whom I love more than life itself, was a youngster--he is no longer young. Well, he is young. I consider you and I young, Mr. President. When my son was growing up--he is now a grown man--I would lecture him about drugs, and I would say: Don't use them. I knew he was going to try them, but I would say: Don't use them. He said: Dad, why? You get addicted. You get addicted. I was always terrified that my son would get addicted and would fall in with the wrong crowd. That conversation today is different for parents with young teenagers. Now it is, you can't even try it once--not fentanyl. You can't even try LSD or meth or PCP or crack cocaine or heroin or powder cocaine. Do you know why? Because it might have fentanyl in it. The drug dealers cut these products with fentanyl, and if they put too much in it, you get one shot--one shot. Forget addiction; the first time a young person experiments might be the last. My State of Louisiana, like every other State in this country, has seen the carnage of fentanyl. We all have. In 2021, 94 percent of drug overdose deaths in New Orleans were related to what? Fentanyl. In Louisiana, we call our counties parishes. Our coroner's office in East Baton Rouge Parish investigated 300 overdose deaths, and 88 percent of them last year were linked to fentanyl. In an average month in St. Tammany Parish, or county, where I live, we lose 10 or 11 people just about every month--10 or 11 young people usually--to fentanyl overdoses. Why? These weren't people just taking fentanyl; these were people taking other drugs that drug dealers--each of whom should be assigned a special place in Hell--that drug dealers are cutting with fentanyl to give the concoction a higher high to make more money. If they measure wrong and put too much fentanyl in it, you get to try their product one time, and then you are dead. These are sons. These are daughters. These are friends. These are coworkers. And every one of them has a family. While our families and our kids are suffering, the cartels and the drug dealers who help them in America are getting rich. There was a recent report from the Department of Justice. It stated that fentanyl dealing is one of the Sonora Cartel's most lucrative endeavors. That cartel is led by three of El Chapo's sons. We are not talking choirboys here; they have made a boatload of money selling poison to our children. But it is not just them; it is dealers in the United States as well. Our Customs and Border Protection officers are working as hard as they can to stop drugs from coming into this country, but their hands are tied by our bad policies. More people have crossed the border in the last year than at any time in the history of ever. That is a fact. More than 5 million people have entered this country illegally under President Biden, during the Biden administration. I only have 4.6 million people in Louisiana, so imagine just us adding another State besides Louisiana. The problem is expected to get worse. As we know, title 42 expires next week, and more people will be coming in. But it is not just folks who are coming into our country illegally. Let me say, I don't hate migrants. I don't hate immigrants. I love immigrants. I mean, we are a nation of immigrants. But we have a legal immigration system, and we ought to follow it. Most Americans distinguish between legal immigration and illegal immigration. If you support legal immigration, as I do, and oppose illegal immigration, that doesn't make you a racist, as some people think. The American people oppose illegal immigration and support legal immigration for the same reason they lock their front doors at night. Most Americans don't lock their front doors at night because they hate everybody on the outside; they do it because they love people on the inside, and they want to know who is coming in and out. They are happy to welcome--I am happy to welcome Nigerian doctors and German engineers and whomever to come into our country legally. Vetting people at the border is not racist; it is prudent. But a lot comes across that border--and not just people. A lot of fentanyl does as well. In 2022, Customs and Border Protection seized 14,000 pounds of fentanyl--a 127-percent increase from the previous year. That is enough fentanyl to kill every man, every woman, every child in the United States. We have to show the cartels and the people in America, in our communities, who are dealing this stuff that there are consequences for poisoning people, especially young people. I have also introduced a bill called Ending the Notorious, Aggressive, and Remorseless Criminal Organizations and Syndicates Act of 2023. It is known as the NARCOS Act. It will designate these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. We need to give our border agents the resources to secure the border and to stop these dealers before they set foot in our country. Let me return to the Fairness in Fentanyl Sentencing Act of 2023. It is not going to solve the problem, but it is a start. Dealers carrying enough fentanyl to kill a small town deserve to face a minimum mandatory sentence of 5 years, and they deserve to be punished more severely than someone carrying meth or PCP or crack cocaine because fentanyl is in a class by itself. Without serious prison sentences for these drug dealers who put money over human life, we are not going to make progress. A 5-year prison sentence can close one stream of fentanyl into our communities, and it might deter the next person who is looking to make a quick buck while trafficking this poison. I am going to be clear. I am almost done. My bill is not looking to punish acts. My bill will not punish acts. I believe in free will and responsibility, but I also think there are mitigating circumstances in the nitty-gritty of life. That is why, if you are an addict and you are convicted of a crime, a serious crime, a judge will consider mitigating circumstances, like addiction. I wouldn't wish addiction on my worst enemy. This bill isn't about addiction. A lot of these people don't even take their own product. This is about people--fentanyl dealers--who deal death every day to make money, and there ought to be a special place in Hell for them. In Congress, this Senate punishes them less than we punish somebody dealing meth. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 878 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. Further, I ask 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. KENNEDY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today, for me, in one particular respect, it is both a happy day but also a sad day. With me on the floor is Mr. Michael Wong, to my right. Michael is my State director. I will come back to him in a second. Also with us today is Michael's spouse, Jamie, in the Gallery. Jamie is not only Michael's spouse; she is in her own right a nationally known and locally renowned expert in special education. Michael and Jamie have two children. I am going to read their full names and embarrass them: Mr. Thomas Miller Wong and Miss Julia Rose Wong. Thomas is 7. Julia is 5. They are both whip-smart. They are both future leaders of this country and, I hope, of Louisiana because I hope they will stay in my State. On top of that, Julia is quite the gymnast, and Thomas is a heck of a right fielder and a heck of a point guard and a heck of a quarterback. And they are both cool. They are both what ``cool'' looks like. Now back to their dad. I say it is a sad day for me because Michael is stepping down from government. It is a happy day because he is going to pursue some very exciting opportunities in the private sector. Michael has been working for the American people and the people of Louisiana for 16 years. Before he worked with me, he worked with Senator David Vitter, and he worked with Congressman Steve Scalise. Michael has been my State director every single day that I have been a U.S. Senator. Let me tell you, it is a tough job, and it is one of the most important jobs. As the Presiding Officer knows, we are here in Washington, and our people are back home. A State director has to make sure that their needs are being addressed back home and that their concerns are heard. The State director has to manage our local representatives and make sure that they are representing me in all of the different functions I need to do. In Michael's case, he is also a valuable source of policy advice. I am going to miss that every day. Michael has one of the best--maybe, the best--political minds in Louisiana. And he is a nice guy, much nicer than me. I just can't overstate how important he has been not just to me but to the people of Louisiana. I said Michael has one of the best political minds. He has one of the best minds, period, not just in terms of policy and politics. But I want to mention the political mind in one respect. Michael ran my reelection campaign. It was certainly the best-run campaign I have ever been involved in. I stepped back. Of course, I was the candidate, but as you know, Mr. President, the candidate is only one small part of the campaign. Michael and his team--and I had a great team--they managed everything from the ``get out the vote,'' their work on the analytics and data--I still don't understand how they did it-- their vote targeting, and their TV commercials. I had 13 different opponents, and I was expected to win in the first primary. Those weren't my expectations, necessarily. The media back home would repeat that repeatedly, and that put pressure on us. It is hard to do when you have got 13 opponents. That was Michael's responsibility. I was just hoping to win, period. In the first primary, I was hoping just to get 50 percent plus 1. Michael managed the campaign that returned 62 percent. It was just breathtaking. I have talked about Michael's policy chops. I have talked about his policy expertise. I have talked about his political acumen. I have talked about the fact that he cares about people. As an aside, a wise person once told me: People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Michael understands that. I mentioned Michael's beautiful family. He has also always made time for his kids and for Jamie, and I know there are times when it has been difficult. But let me tell you one particular attribute, among many, with respect to which I most respect Michael. He will do the right thing, and he will tell his colleagues in a very tactful way, but a firm way, what they need to hear. He will tell me what I need to hear, not what I just want to hear. I am not going to go into detail, but early in my first term, we, in our office, had what I will call a capital ``T'' tough, capital ``I'' issue. I will call it a tough issue. It involved our whole office. I thought I knew how to solve this capital ``T'' tough, capital ``I'' issue. We basically had option A and option B, and I chose option A. Michael didn't agree with me. Some others in my office didn't agree with me, but they tried to implement option A, my option. Michael told me from the beginning: Option A is not going to work. We need to go to option B, but I will try to implement option A. But what I respect most about Michael is that he tried to implement my option A, but he never was frightened to look me in the eye and never was scared to look me in the eye--and I hope our pages are listening to this--and tell me, in a respectful but firm way: Kennedy, you are wrong. It is going to hurt you. It is going to hurt the people of Louisiana. We need to go to option B. He kept coming back, and back, and back. Sometimes, I would get kind of angry and say: Michael, I have made a decision. Implement option A. He would say: I am trying to, but I think we are wrong on this one. Do you know what? He was right, and I was wrong. If Michael hadn't had less courage and just said, ``OK, the path of least resistance is just to agree with Kennedy; I know he is wrong, but, you know, let him find out for himself,'' I would have been hurt and the people of Louisiana would have been hurt. That is not easy because all of us in this room have worked for somebody before. My first job in government was for a ``reform'' Governor. I was his legal counsel. Like Michael, he was very, very, very smart. God rest his soul. We used to say about Buddy: Often wrong, but never in doubt. Buddy was a tough boss. Part of my job was to go to him and say: Governor, you are wrong on this. Then I would cover up and take my whipping. Sometimes the Governor would change his mind, and sometimes he wouldn't. But he was very opinionated. That is one of the things I loved about Buddy. That is a hard thing to do. It is hard to go to your boss in a firm, respectful way and say: Sir, I know I have told you before, but I am going to tell you again: This is a mistake. This is a mistake. Michael did that. He avoided a lot of heartbreak--I don't want to overstate the case, but a lot of heartbreak--for me, for our office, and for the people of Louisiana. That is the kind of guy he is--a guy who doesn't think he has all the answers, but when he thinks he is right, by God, he will stick. I am going to miss Michael. I am going to miss him every single day. I mean, he is not dying or anything. He is going to be around, OK. I know that. I am still going to call him and say: What do you think about this? What is going on? But I wanted to rise today and thank Michael Wong, and thank, Jamie, and thank Thomas, and thank Julia for their years of service to the people of Louisiana. I wish them Godspeed. I wish them health. I wish them happiness. I can't wait to watch how Thomas's arm develops as a quarterback. Thank you, Michael.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today I would like to talk about nuclear revitalization for a few minutes. I want to make two overarching points. First, no sane person wants a nuclear war. No sane person wants a nuclear war. But, No. 2, peace through weakness never works--never. When the United States built much of its nuclear stockpile, the Cold War was raging, and the Soviet Union was our only major adversary with a sophisticated nuclear stockpile. We remember those days. Our nuclear power deterred Soviet aggression and made sure the Cold War never escalated. But today, fast forward, we no longer face just one threat. Russia still maintains the world's largest nuclear arsenal, but China's nuclear stockpile is growing rapidly. North Korea, as we know, continues to threaten our allies with its collection of nuclear weapons. And thanks to the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, Iran is marching ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon of its own. So here is where the United States finds itself today. The United States must now counter nuclear superpowers in both China and Russia while also deterring the itchy trigger fingers of unstable dictators like Kim Jong Un and the Ayatollah in Iran. We should be innovating and preparing our nuclear arsenal for this new global dynamic. But, instead, our nuclear stockpile remains stuck in the Cold War, and that is just a fact. Put simply: America's nuclear stockpile is old, and it is shrinking. And while modernizing our nuclear arsenal should be a top priority, our effort to restart nuclear weapon production has been riddled with delays and poor planning and we do not have time to waste. The United States has not built a single nuclear warhead since the close of the Cold War. Let me say that again. The United States has not built a single nuclear warhead since the close of the Cold War. Instead, we have focused on what we call Life Extension Programs to keep our old weapons operational by refurbishing them. Those that aren't refurbished are destroyed. From 1994 until 2020, the United States dismantled 11,683 total nuclear warheads. And this total does not include the 2,000 other warheads that have been retired while awaiting their own demolition as well. Most of our nuclear warheads are decades old. The facilities where we built and store these are even older. As recently as 2019, the computer system controlling our nuclear weapons ran on floppy disks. I kid you not. Today, we are so far behind in our nuclear revitalization that we cannot even produce plutonium pits. Plutonium pits are an essential component of every nuclear weapon. Plutonium pits sit at the center of a warhead. They are not all that different from pits in a peach. The pit is essential because it triggers the nuclear explosion. Plutonium pits do not last forever. They can only sit inside a weapon for roughly 100 years before we must replace them. The clock is ticking on our Cold War-era weapons. During the Cold War, the United States produced more than 1,000 plutonium pits per year. And without plutonium pits, you can't have a nuclear weapon. But the United States has not regularly manufactured plutonium pits since 1989. In fact, the United States has not produced a single warhead-ready plutonium pit since 2012. As you would imagine, our nuclear engineers cannot just stop by the hardware store to pick these up. It doesn't work that way. Pit production is a very complex, a very expensive, and a very time-consuming process. But our adversaries haven't stopped. Our adversaries certainly haven't stopped. China, Russia, North Korea, Pakistan all continue to produce plutonium pits to ready their arsenals. Yet the U.S.A. fell asleep at the wheel and let our plutonium pit production die off almost entirely. Keeping our nuclear arsenal in shape is sort of like keeping your body in shape. If you stop exercising all together, it will be very painful when you start it again. The United States is learning this the hard way. In 2014, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense determined that it would need at least 4,000 new plutonium pits--4,000, not 40, not 400, 4,000 new plutonium pits--to replace the aging pits in our current weapons as part of our larger refurbishment strategy. New pits are also needed for any new weapons that we choose to build. Department officials determined that the United States would need to produce a minimum of 80 plutonium pits per year by 2030 to be able to reach our national security goals by 2080. To meet this goal, Congress passed a bill, and in that bill, we instructed the National Nuclear Security Administration--we call it the NNSA--to resume plutonium pit production in two separate facilities in 2015. Congress tasked the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico with a goal of 30 pits per year, and we tasked the Savannah River Site in North Carolina with the remaining 50 to achieve the 80-plutonium-pits-per-year capacity. But that hasn't happened. I meant it when I said we fell asleep. That hasn't happened. Pit production has been postponed and postponed and postponed. Most recently, NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby estimated the United States will hit its production goal sometime in 2036, 6 years later than projected. The delays are so significant--so significant--that in 2021, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command testified before Congress that no amount of funding--no amount of money--would have been enough to get the NNSA to its production capacity goal by 2030. That is what happens when you fall asleep. That is what happens when you stop exercising. These new pits are not just nice to have; they are essential for developing new weapons to deter aggression from hostile nations. Consider what our military calls the W87-1 Modification Program. Under this program, the United States is developing--or trying to develop--a new warhead that would ride atop the next generation of ICBMs. And an ICBM, of course, is an intercontinental ballistic missile. But these new weapons cannot run on old plutonium pits; they require a new design. The delayed pit production means that these warheads and our ability to deter China's growing arsenal is delayed as well. Now, I understand that plutonium pit production is not simple. And like many other workplaces in our wonderful country, supply chain issues and a shortage of qualified workers created unexpected problems for our capacity goals. I get that. But there is a difference--there is a stark difference--between encountering unexpected challenges and simply failing to prepare, and investigations show the NNSA has not taken its preparation seriously enough. The Government Accountability Office, one of our watchdogs, determined that the NNSA lacked both a comprehensive schedule and a cost estimate for its plutonium projects. Importantly, the NNSA also lacked an integrative master schedule that can be used to coordinate everything from production to staff. Administration officials recently announced better, more concrete schedules and cost estimates, but that cannot make up for the valuable time we have already wasted. It can't. And concerningly, the NNSA remains on the Government Accountability Office's list of organizations that are at high risk for ``fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement'' because of its practices. It gives me no joy to point these things out. Modernizing our nuclear stockpile is essential for maintaining our national security and affirming our position as a global leader. Our weapons don't only protect Americans--we know that. They protect our allies. As part of our extended deterrent strategy, we have agreed to help defend our allies who don't have nuclear weapons of their own, in large part to deter them from getting nuclear weapons. But our allies aren't stupid. They see our antiquated stockpile, and they wonder if we can follow through on our promise to protect them if they themselves do not acquire nuclear weapons. Take our friends in South Korea. They announced their doubts earlier this year. South Korea has considered developing its own weapons because its leaders do not know if America's arsenal is ready to answer the call if, God forbid, South Korea ever faces an imminent nuclear threat. Now, our friends in South Korea--and they are dear friends--they are not going to say that in stark terms, but we know from our diplomatic relations that is how they feel. The good news is that after some recent negotiations, our friends in South Korea--our ally, South Korea--reaffirmed its commitment to work with the United States. But this situation, I bring it up because it showcases the severity of our problem. The people of South Korea are our friends. They are our allies. They embrace democracy as we do. But if they are doubting our capabilities, our adversaries are, too. You can bet on that. Look no further than China. Now I don't hate China. I don't hate the Chinese people. They are wonderful human beings with souls like all of us, and they have the right to freedom and self-determination. I don't want a Cold War with China. I don't want a hot war with China. But according to the Pentagon, China already has more intercontinental ballistic missiles than the United States. In 2001, China had 400 nuclear warheads. At the rate it is growing, by 2035, China will have 1,500--far outpacing--far outpacing--the Pentagon's initial projections. China is also rapidly innovating. The Chinese military has been testing nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles. These nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles can fly five times the speed of sound. That is roughly 3,800 miles an hour. A few weapons that China is also testing could leave its intended target only minutes to respond. The United States of America cannot continue inching along while China quadruples its arsenal with newer and faster nuclear weapons. The days when we could neglect our nuclear stockpile without risking our national security are over. Our ability to deter unstable nuclear powers and maintain a peaceful world relies on our ability to continue innovating in ways only freedom-loving Americans can. But these vital projects rely on our plutonium pit production, and failing to produce pits at full capacity is just not acceptable. As the ranking member on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, I know we will continue our focus on this issue. As we modernize, we must modernize our nuclear stockpile for the peace and safety of generations to come, and I urge my colleagues to make it a priority as well. We cannot fix this problem overnight. We didn't develop this problem overnight. But if we continue to work in a bipartisan fashion, we can restore our stockpile. We must restore our stockpile. It is time for the United States to get serious about revitalizing its nuclear arsenal so that we can continue to have the most reliable and sophisticated defense systems on the planet. Why is that important? Let me end as I began: because peace through weakness never works. Peace through weakness never works. Never. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 10 minutes before our vote.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, with me today is Mr. Seth Brazier, who is one of my colleagues in my Senate office. Madam President, I want to talk about my city today, the city of New Orleans. The city of New Orleans is iconic, and the whole world knows it. My first job in State government was with a reform Governor, back in the late 1980s, named Governor Buddy Roemer. Japan was doing extraordinarily well at that time economically, making many foreign investments, and Governor Roemer traveled to Japan to try to convince Japan to invest in Louisiana. And when the Governor got back, he told me: Kennedy, my first meeting was very enlightening. He said: In my first meeting, I met with about 50 Japanese business people. He said: I asked them how many of you have been to Louisiana? The Governor said three of them raised their hand. He said: Then I asked them another question. I asked these 50 Japanese business people: How many of you have been in New Orleans? He said: Twenty-five of them raised their hand. The city of New Orleans is iconic. Every State, every country would love to have a New Orleans. Our city was founded over 300 years ago. We are one of the oldest in America. It was founded in 1718. Our city is envied for--let's see--our food, our music, our architecture, our diversity, our dialects, our merriment, and our festivals--for our celebration of life. In New Orleans, we dance with or without music. But New Orleans is under attack. People there are being murdered. They are being shot. They are being raped. They are being stabbed. Their stuff is being stolen, and our quality of life is being degraded because of crime--because of crime, a cancer on our city. I want to give you a sense of the breadth of our problem. In 2022, we had 280 murders in New Orleans. The victims ranged from six months of age to 91 years old. Ten percent of these victims were under the age of 18. Seventy percent were people of color. Listen to this. One out of every eight Black males who live in New Orleans between the age of 15 to 24 will be shot--one out of eight. Statistically, it is more dangerous to be young and Black in New Orleans than it was to be a marine in the battle of Fallujah during the height of the insurgency in Iraq. Those are the numbers. Last year, my city had the highest murder rate in the country, twice the murder rate of Atlanta--twice. We had the most murders since 1996. Our murder rate was up 141 percent since 2019, and it is not just murder. Shootings in 2022 were up 88 percent from 2019, carjackings up 156 percent, armed robberies up 20 percent, and it is not much better in 2023. Now, behind these sterile statistics are real live human beings, flesh and bones, blood and tissue. In one of the most appalling cases that we have had, about a year ago, in an area in New Orleans that we call Mid-City, four teenagers--a 17-year-old boy, a 16-year-old girl, and two 15-year-old girls--four teenagers, carjacked a 73-year-old grandmother. The teenagers pulled the grandmother out of the car and drove away, but the grandmother's arm got tangled in the driver's seatbelt. The teenagers kept going. They dragged her for a block until her arm was severed. This lady bled to death at the scene. Crime in New Orleans is affecting all of us in our city--residents, visitors--every part of our city, but no one is hit harder than our low-income communities. That is true both in terms of public safety, and it is also true economically. Most poor people are not criminals. They are not. But criminals often prey on our lower income fellow citizens, particularly in their own communities. Existing businesses then leave and they take jobs with them and unemployment goes up and we have more poverty. And those businesses that remain in our lower income communities-- they are often mom-and-pop shops with a small margin of profit--they have to pay more for insurance; they have to pay more for security; they have to pay more for credit, so they have to raise their prices, and that makes people even poorer. That is what crime does. We have tried--we in New Orleans, we have tried everything. We have around 900 police officers--we need 2,000--because many of our police officers retire every day. We have tried paying higher salaries. We have tried paying better benefits. We have tried curfews. We have tried task forces. We have tried social programs. We have tried afterschool programs. We have tried crime cameras. We have tried facial recognition. We have tried conflict management. We have tried mentoring. We have tried youth clubs. We have tried job training. We have tried enhanced educational opportunities. We have tried prosecuting juveniles as adults. We have tried hotspot policing. We have tried 12-hour shifts. We have tried hiring administrative personnel to take the paper workload off our cops to get them back on the street. You name it, and we have tried it. We have tried everything but one thing--stop and frisk. Stop and frisk. Under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a police officer may stop a suspect on the street without probable cause, and that police officer can stop that person on the street without probable cause so long as that police officer has what is called reasonable suspicion to believe that the person stopped has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. And after that person is stopped, if the police officer has reasonable suspicion to believe the person stopped might be carrying a weapon, the police officer can pat down that person on the outside of his or her clothing. That is called stop and frisk. It is a very effective law enforcement practice. It is used by police officers every day in virtually every city all across America, and it has been used since 1968. In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case--a very famous case-- called Terry v. Ohio. Terry v. Ohio. The very liberal Chief Justice--I don't use the word ``liberal'' in a pejorative sense. I am just describing him as many scholarly works have. The very liberal Chief Justice Earl Warren actually wrote the opinion in Terry v. Ohio, and he was joined in that opinion by Justices Hugo Black, John Harlan, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Abe Fortas, and Thurgood Marshall. They all said together: Here is our opinion, Terry v. Ohio. And what did that opinion say? That opinion said that under appropriate circumstances, stop and frisk is permissible. It is perfectly constitutional under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Now, I want you to note that a police officer cannot stop and frisk somebody on a whim, on a hunch. A cop does not have unfettered discretion. In order for a police officer to stop a person on the street, that police officer--let me say it again--must have reasonable suspicion-- reasonable suspicion--to believe that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. And once again, once the person is stopped, the cop can frisk that person on the outside of his clothing--called a pat-down--only if the cop has reasonable suspicion to believe that the person stopped is carrying a weapon. Why does this cop have this authority? To protect the cop during the questioning. Reasonable suspicion is not a hunch. It is not a whim. It is an objective standard. It is not probable cause. You have to have probable cause to make an arrest, to conduct a search, for example, of someone's home. Probable cause is a higher standard, but reasonable suspicion is an objective standard. Reasonable suspicion exists, according to the case law, as you know, Madam President--reasonable suspicion exists when an objectively reasonable police officer, given the facts and circumstances of that particular situation and considering the cop's training and experience, would suspect that a person, as I have said, has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. And if probable cause is then established, of course, the person can be arrested. Every cop in America who goes through training academy--and every cop in America does. Every cop in America knows about stop and frisk. Every cop in America is trained in the law enforcement practice of stop and frisk. Let me give you an example: Let's suppose a police officer is driving by and he sees an individual late at night walking along the street with a coat hanger or a slim jim--do you all know what a slim jim is? It is sometimes called a lockout tool. It is a way to get into a car if you have lost your keys. If a police officer sees someone late at night walking down the street with a coat hanger or a slim jim looking in cars, the police officer can stop that person. Can he arrest that person? No, he does not have probable cause. No crime has been committed, but he has reasonable suspicion to stop and talk to that person. And once he stops to talk to that person, if he sees a big bulge here in his top pocket, he may have reasonable suspicion to believe that person has a weapon, and it would be dangerous for him, the police officer, to keep talking to that person. So the police officer--he can't make him take his jacket off or anything. He can just pat him down to see if there is a weapon. Now, I repeat: Cops all over America stop and frisk suspects every single day, and they have for 50 years. And you know who endorses it? The U.S. Supreme Court. Now, like all police practices, it can be abused. Stop and frisk can be abused. And when it is, it can be and it should be challenged in court, and the abusing officer should be held accountable. But most officers don't abuse it. As many people know, Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg--two New York mayors back-to-back--used stop and frisk extensively during the crimewave of the 1990s and the early part of this century to fight crime and gun violence in New York City. We have all read about that. Crime fell dramatically. Now, some have said that is due, in part, to stop and frisk. Some have said that stop and frisk had nothing to do with it. Some have said that in some cases, the New York Police Department abused stop and frisk, and those who maintain that position said that too often police officers were stopping and frisking people on the basis not of reasonable suspicion but on the basis of race or national origin. And that is wrong. A case was filed called Floyd v. City of New York. Floyd v. City of New York. It was a class action. It was filed against New York Mayor Bloomberg and others, alleging that the NYPD was not stopping people on the basis of reasonable suspicion but on the basis of race and national origin. The Federal district court in that case ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The NYPD then set about the business of reforming its stop and frisk policy, but Mayor Bloomberg left office, Mayor Bill de Blasio became mayor, and for all practical purposes, he completely stopped the practice of the stop and frisk. So stop and frisk can be abused, and it is important to establish practices and procedures to guard against that abuse. But let me put this another way. This is how I look at it. Some cops may and have violated the legal requirements for a proper Terry v. Ohio stop and frisk. And when that happens, that may make that person a racist or at least guilty of committing a racist act. But that does not mean that the practice of stop and frisk is inherently racist. Because some knuckleheads abuse it does not mean that the practice is inherently racist. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court, with only one dissent, has said that, properly applied, it does not violate the Constitution of the United States and can be an effective law enforcement tool. So when there is abuse, the abuse is on the cop. It is on the officer. And most officers don't abuse stop and frisk. And if it is proven he did something wrong, he should be held accountable. The time has come. The time has come for my city of New Orleans to try stop and frisk. It is time. Now, some of our public officials in New Orleans are going to probably disagree with me, and some are going to say: Well, we are using stop and frisk already. They are. Every now and then. Sometimes. But if you go talk to the average cop on the street in the city of New Orleans--I have; I have talked to many of them--they are going to tell you: The people with the flags in their offices--the politicians and the big shots and the political hierarchy--they are discouraging us from using stop and frisk. They don't want us to use stop and frisk. I think it is time. We tried everything else, Lord knows. It is time to allow the men and women of the New Orleans Police Department to use stop and frisk without fear of losing their jobs. I do not believe that the New Orleans Police Department is racist. Let me say it again: I do not believe that the New Orleans Police Department is racist, systemically or otherwise. I do not believe that the average New Orleans Police Department police officer is racist. My God, the NOPD is 58 percent Black and people of color and 35 percent White. Now, we have a Federal consent decree in New Orleans for our police department. It is between the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of New Orleans. It oversees the New Orleans Police Department or, as we call it, NOPD. It was signed and entered into by Mayor Mitch Landrieu in 2010. The consent decree does not prohibit stop and frisk. In fact, the consent decree provides for stop and frisk. I want to quote from the consent decree: NOPD officers may only conduct investigatory stops or detentions where the officer has reasonable suspicion that a person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in the commission of a crime. Does that sound familiar? That is right out of Terry v. Ohio, where the U.S. Supreme Court almost unanimously said stop and frisk, when used appropriately, is a very effective law enforcement tool. Now, the consent decree goes on--wildly, in my opinion. It mandates a stop-and-search data collection and review procedure. So the consent decree says, if you are going to use stop and frisk, you have got to collect all the data. I think that is a great idea. The consent decree also requires the police officer, when he or she uses stop and frisk, to document the stop and frisk and detail the reasonable suspicion in writing--in writing. In New York, they call this report a UF-250 form. I don't know what it is called in New Orleans. They have been using stop and frisk so infrequently, I am not sure they have one. But it requires the cop who does the stop and frisk to sit down and say: Here is the suspect. I had reasonable suspicion, and here, with specificity, is why. And let me say, collecting the data and requiring the reporting after the fact is standard operating procedure. This is nothing new. It is standard operating procedure in every police department in America. It is also common sense. There is a gentleman in New Orleans by the name of Mr. Ronald Serpas. Mr. Serpas is a former superintendent. We call our chief of police at NOPD a superintendent. He is a former NOPD superintendent. Mr. Serpas is also a former chief of the Washington State Patrol, and he is now a professor of, I think, criminology at Loyola University in New Orleans. I don't speak for the superintendent, and I don't want--intend to. But he has written a number of articles in support of stop and frisk in New Orleans. He has said that the NOPD today has been reduced to only responding and reacting after a crime has been committed, when the damage has been done. The former superintendent says: What we need in New Orleans is more proactive policing to prevent crime, like stop and frisk. Now, the former superintendent has analyzed the publicly available data on the NOPD consent decree. We collect data on our consent decree. It is publicly available. In fact, the city council has put up a dashboard for the consent decree, and one of the provisions in the dashboard has a stop-and-search feature. You can go on the stop-and- search feature on the internet and see how many stops and frisks the police department has done in the past 180 days. So you have a date, and it looks back 180 days. This is what the former superintendent found after he analyzed the stop-and-search feature on the website. And I will give you an example; I don't know if I was clear about the 180 days. For example, January 2, 2015, on that day, if you went back 180 days, the NOPD had conducted 32,913 stops in the prior 180 days. Let me say that again: January 2, 2015--8 years ago--in 180 days prior, the NOPD had conducted 33,000 stops. As of January 18, 2023, 8 years later--really 7, because it is January--NOPD had conducted 5,095--let's call it 5,000 stops over the past 180 days. So 5,000, down from 33,000; and that 5,000 is spread over 6 months. Do you see a trend here? Now, during COVID, as you would expect, stops and frisks in New Orleans were down. People were inside. Following COVID, the stops increased--according to the superintendent who analyzed the data-- increased to 14,303 in the 180 days before August 17, 2021. So think back to August of 2021, over the prior 6 months, the NOPD did 14,303 stops. But after that day, there was an uninterrupted decline in the number of stops, down to 5,095 today. So the stops are up here. They came down. They went down further because of COVID. They went up to 14,000 in August of 2021, and then they kept going down. That doesn't exactly, but it closely tracks crime rate in New Orleans, because stop and frisk is used to proactively prevent crime. Look, I want you to understand. The problem in New Orleans--I love my city. I love my State. I love my city too. The problem in New Orleans is--I don't want you to think that we have thousands of previously law- abiding New Orleanians turning to crime. That is not what is going on. We don't have a bunch of law-abiding people who have now turned to crime in my city. That is not what is happening. The problem we have is with career criminals. And they are running rampant, and our cops are spread thin. And we have some public officials--not all of them but there are some--that think cops are a bigger problem than criminals. And they think that criminals really shouldn't be prosecuted--they are not bad; they are just sick. This is America. You can believe what you want, but that is what is going on in my city. It is not a majority, but it is more than a handful. We tried everything. We need to allow police officers to stop and frisk. We need to allow our police officers to stop and frisk. It should be carefully monitored. It should be done legally. But it should be done. We have tried everything else, everything under the sun, to stop the extreme recidivists. Nothing has worked. And maybe this perfectly legal, very effective police practice, stop and frisk, which is used every day across America, will help. I yield the floor to my colleague from New Hampshire.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I just came from an Appropriations subcommittee hearing, and our witness today was Secretary Janet Yellen. I always love when Secretary Yellen testifies because I learn so much from her. Today, among other subjects, we talked about the President's proposed budget, and I want to tell you some of the things I learned today from Secretary Yellen about the President's proposed budget. The President's proposed budget is $6.9 trillion. That is up from $6.4 trillion. So it is a proposed half-a-trillion-dollar increase. I learned that, since 2019 until today, and not including the President's new spending--I learned that since 2019 until today, the population in the United States has grown 1.8 percent. Do you know how much our budget has increased? Fifty-five percent, and that doesn't even count the additional half-a-trillion dollars' worth of spending that the President has just proposed. I also learned that the President is proposing $4.7 trillion--not billion, $4.7 trillion--in new taxes. It takes my breath way--$4.7 trillion. We are going to run out of digits. And I also learned something else. You know, the President--and I say this gently and with respect--the President has been running all over hell and half of Georgia saying: My proposed budget decreases the deficit by $3 trillion. You probably heard him say that. I heard him say it the day before yesterday: My proposed budget will cut debt by $3 trillion. You know what I learned today about the President's proposed budget? Under his proposed budget, gross debt--that is all of America's debt, not just debt held by the public, but gross debt--all of our debt will rise under President Biden's budget from $32.7 trillion at the close of this year to $51 trillion by 2033. Only in Washington, DC--only in la- la land--can you go around and say: My budget reduces the deficit and debt by $3 trillion, when it really increases it by $18 trillion--$18 trillion. I have also learned a lot this week about Silicon Valley Bank. I think I spoke--I don't know--a week, maybe 10 days ago--gosh, we learned a lot in a week. One of the things that we have learned is that the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and President Biden's bailout of Silicon Valley Bank was the result of bad management by the bank officials but also by bad supervision. I talked a week or two ago about the risk that the management of SVB took. This is what I learned this week. I want to talk about the mistakes that were made by the Federal Government in supervising this bank. Fact No. 1, it is a fact that in January of 2019, the Federal Reserve, which is one of the banking regulators in charge of supervising the bank, issued a warning to the bank--this is 4 years ago--over its risk management systems. Four years ago, the Fed told Silicon Valley Bank that its system to control risk was not up to snuff. Fact No. 2, last fall, short sellers and private bank analysts said the same thing. What? Five months ago, 6 months ago? Fact No. 3, some of my colleagues have said: You know, we didn't have sufficient regulation. I don't know how you regulate greed. I don't know how you regulate stupidity. I am referring now to the management of the Silicon Valley Bank. But it wasn't a failure of regulation that caused Silicon Valley Bank to go under. It was the failure to enforce the rules that we already have. Here is the article from the Wall Street Journal. The Federal Reserve, one of the banking regulators in charge of Silicon Valley Bank, knew in January of 2019 that the bank was criticized for its risk control practices. And they were supposed to correct those risk control practices. Why didn't the Federal Reserve follow up? Now, I also learned that some of my colleagues are saying: Well, you know, this is all the fault of Congress. It is the fault of Congress because Silicon Valley Bank was not subject to a stress test. We, as you know--Democrats and Republicans--supported an amendment to Dodd-Frank back in 2018 that some say prevented the bank from being stress tested. That is not true. The bill that we passed in 2018 said, categorically and unequivocally--look at title 12, chapter II, subchapter A, part 252, subpart A, section 252.3. It said in our legislation that the Federal Reserve and the other banking regulators had the authority at any time to stress test Silicon Valley Bank. And they chose not to do it. Now, the other point being made by some of my colleagues is that, well, they weren't big enough to stress test. They had to be $100 billion or more. That is not true. They were an over-hundred-billion- dollar bank at the end of 2021. So they did qualify to be stress tested in 2022. One of the other things we learned is that in 2022 the Federal Reserve stress tested 34 banks. Silicon Valley Bank was not one of them, as I said. They could have been. Under the rules, they qualified. They were supposed to be. They were over $100 billion. And even if they had not been over $100 billion, the Federal Reserve could have said: We are going to stress test them anyway under our legislation because, back in January of 2019, we were worried about their risk control. But, for whatever reason--we are going to find out--the Federal Reserve chose not to stress test them. The Federal Reserve issued a report on its stress tests from 2022. Here it is. If the Federal Reserve had stress tested Silicon Valley Bank, Silicon Valley Bank would have passed. It would have passed. Do you know why? Because the Federal Reserve in its stress testing in 2022 didn't stress test interest rate risk. They just stress tested credit risk. I just find that extraordinary. In 2022, we were experiencing raging inflation. The Fed was raising interest rates. The Fed understands that, when you hold a long government bond or a long treasury, its value decreases as interest rates go up. You would think that the first thing the Federal Reserve would stress test for was interest rate risk and duration risk. But it didn't. It didn't, and I am at a loss to understand. The Federal Reserve has announced--I think the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Barr, has announced that he is going to be in charge of finding out what went wrong. And Mr. Barr is a fine person, and nothing I say today should be construed to suggest that he is not. But Mr. Barr has a conflict of interest. His own Agency contributed to the downfall of Silicon Valley Bank. It wasn't a question of something that Congress did or didn't do. Under the regulations we passed, we put the Federal Reserve in charge of checking these banks for duration or interest rate risk, and the Federal Reserve chose not to do so. Silicon Valley Bank is not the only one out there. And here is the problem with Silicon Valley Bank. It took in a whole bunch of deposits from a bunch of venture capitalists and paid them-- let's call it an x amount of interest--and then Silicon Valley Bank took that money and invested the money in long-term government bonds and treasuries, as the Federal Reserve encouraged them to. Go read all the Federal Reserve rules. They tell you: The safest assets if you are a bank are long-term securities issued by the Federal Government, treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Silicon Valley Bank did that. But as the Federal Reserve is also supposed to know, as is the management of the bank, these long-term bonds--government or otherwise--as interest rates rise, fall in value. I mean, that is like banking 101. That is like Econ 101. And that is what happened to Silicon Valley Bank. They took all the deposits, paid x amount of interest, and bought treasuries and long- term government bonds, making more interest. They were taking the profit, but they didn't account for interest rate risk. And, sure enough, when the Federal Reserve, which is supposed to be supervising the bank, raised interest rates, the value of those bonds and the value of those treasuries went down. And so, when all these depositors in Silicon Valley decided to take their money out, they panicked, and they all started talking to each other on social media, and they started taking their money out. Because of the decrease in the value of those long treasuries and mortgage- backed securities, Silicon Valley Bank didn't have the money to pay them. Let me end like I began. President Biden's bailout was necessitated by two things: the greed and/or the stupidity of the management of this bank to buy long-term bonds--government-backed or otherwise--and not hedge against interest rate risks. And, No. 2, the bank's failure was the result of inadequate supervision by the Federal Reserve and the other banking regulators and the Biden administration. Congress had nothing to do with it. Our amendments to Dodd-Frank, which were approved by both Republicans and Democrats, had nothing to do with it. I suggest the absence of a quorum.