James Lankford

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I have an amendment that we are calling up. It is a very straightforward amendment. This deals simply with how we handle E-Verify. The E-Verify system is very simple and straightforward. It has been used all over the country. It is a nonpartisan issue that we have used for decades now. It verifies whether the people that we are actually hiring, and all this purchasing that we are doing, this massive billions of dollars will actually be--the simple, straightforward piece of it is, we are putting billions of dollars into our economy right now. We are doing a lot of infrastructure with this bill. The promise should be that we are not just buying American, but we are actually hiring Americans as well. This is a bipartisan issue, quite frankly. President Biden, just today, released a statement that this is a once-in-a-generation investment in our infrastructure and will create good-paying union jobs, repairing our roads and bridges, replacing lead pipes, building energy transmission lines. It invests in clean energy, manufacturing, and zero-emission vehicles, ensuring that the jobs in the clean energy industry are good- paying, quality American jobs. That is a great promise to be able to make, and it is a great statement to make. What this amendment does is to make sure it actually is American jobs. We know there is a tremendous pull factor with the American good- paying jobs that are out there. This E-Verify requirement puts in place, both for the contractors and subcontractors, they will actually be American citizens. So, with that, I ask support for this bill.

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, are there any of my 2 minutes left?

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

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, this is not just a mandate; this is just a statement, if we are going to put American tax dollars in place, that we are actually hiring Americans to do it. If we are going to build America, let's also hire Americans in the process. That shouldn't be inconsistent with our basic values. Vote on Amendment No. 2233

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, there are a lot of issues we are working through right now in the Senate. Obviously, infrastructure is in conversation, and what is going to happen with some spending dealing with National Guard, Capitol Police. We are working a lot on issues, like Afghan translators--trying to get those folks who walked alongside our soldiers for 20 years and risked their lives out of harm's way before the Taliban slaughters them. We are engaged in a lot of issues. There are a lot of things happening behind the scenes. I thought it might be helpful to be able to give a couple of things I think we need to consider. One is what is happening in the State Department right now. State Department engagement on the issues of passports is a major issue. It is a frustration for a lot of Americans. And I would tell you, a lot of Oklahomans that we deal with on a day-to-day basis on our team are very frustrated with trying to get their passport renewed. They didn't travel last year, obviously, with COVID, but now they want to be able to do some traveling in places where they can. Good luck with that, as we have found. Right now, the backlog at the State Department is about 18 weeks. Today is the 29th of July. That means if you turn in your application for your passport today, you may get your passport December 2. Merry Christmas. If you plan on traveling Thanksgiving, you need to pay the extra fee to do an expedited delivery though we are at the end of July right now. The problem? The State Department still hasn't brought all of their staff back. They are not engaging. The rest of the country is open and operating, and the State Department is still studying how they are going to come back in, and millions of Americans are just waiting for their passport I have spoken to leadership in the administration about this exact issue. In fact, I talked to some leadership who literally said to me: Oh, I wasn't aware there was a problem. Listen, there is a problem, and it is not just in the State Department. It is in multiple other agencies. As America opens back up, trying to be able to manage all the issues with COVID, they are very aware of masks and vaccines and spacing. But companies have figured out how to do this. For some reason, multiple agencies have not and it is causing real problems. It is not just problems in our economy with permitting and other things, some of the policies that have been put in place are causing real problems across our economy for just individuals. We have an unemployment rate right now in June at 5.9 percent. We don't know what it will be for July, but it is getting better and better all the time. In Oklahoma, we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. We have a lot of people employed because we turned off the extra unemployment benefits at the end of June and people came back to work. That is a good thing for them, for their families, for their kids, and for our economy. As we continue to be able to reengage, that is helpful. But what we are seeing right now is inflation, consumer price increases like we have not seen in more than a decade. The Consumer Price Index increased by 5.4 percent. That is the most in 13 years. We are watching the rapid rise in prices that Americans feel. It is a direct result of this $2 trillion bill that was done in March, where it paid people not to work, sent checks to individuals, and did lots of other benefits. Many people, even economists from the Obama administration, said: Don't do this. It will cause inflation. What have we seen? In just the last 5 months: milk prices up, bread prices up, bacon prices up, price of gasoline up, price of wood up, price of building materials up, price of rental cars up, prices of used cars up, shortages in different supply chains--things we all identified in February and March and said we need to be attentive to. If you dump $2 trillion into the economy, what does that do? In the middle of this dialogue about inflation rising right now and everyone in America is seeing the rise in prices, there is a conversation about trillions of dollars more of spending--more of spending. What effect do you think that will have? We have already seen the effect of what happened in March. What effect do you think it will have to add another, as is being forecast, $3.5 trillion more spending? Sometimes we can't wrap our head around the issues of millions and billions and trillions because it all seems like numbers. There is a big difference between millions and billions and trillions. The best way I can describe this is, if you have a million seconds rather than a million dollars, a million seconds is about 11\1/2\ weeks. That is a lot. But a billion seconds is 31\1/2\ years. That is a big difference. Brace yourself because a billion seconds is 31\1/2\ years, but a trillion seconds is 31,688 years. These are big numbers that are being thrown around and it is hard to wrap our head around how much spending is really going on, but the concept of throwing out $3.5 trillion is mind-boggling. Let me give you one more. A trillion miles--if I were to say: How far is a trillion miles? A trillion miles is if you left Washington, DC, today and flew to the planet Pluto 334 times. From DC to our furthest planet 334 times, that is 1 trillion miles. This is a lot of money that is being thrown around and has real consequences, knowing the debt and the borrowing and the tax changes, but how much things actually cost. I am continuing to challenge my colleagues when they discuss all these big numbers and say: Let's throw all this money out there; it will have no consequence. I will tell you, the people in Oklahoma feel what is going on. They may not know, but they feel it in the prices every day, what is going on in supply chains, and they are very aware. And the No. 1 question that I get asked when I am out and about in places in Oklahoma is: Where is all this money coming from? It is a fair question. There is this back-channel conversation right now happening on immigration as well. Right now, the news is focused on 10 million other things, and I literally have people in my State saying: Things must be going better at the border now because I don't hear about it much anymore. I will smile at them and I say: I happen to be on that committee and be very engaged in the issues of border management and border security. Things are not getting better; they are getting worse. March was the highest number of illegal crossings in 20 years. It was beaten in April; it was beaten in May; it was beaten in June. Current trend, that will be beaten in July. Just last week--just in 1 week, last week, the Rio Grande crossing--just that one sector in 1 week had 20,000 interdictions--in 1 week. At one time, they had 15,000 people who they were detaining. So what is happening with that? I keep hearing from the administration that we are going to take on the root causes. The root causes is a simple way to say we will deal with this later. Because if you want to talk about root causes, it is a statement saying that, basically, the problems are in Central America; we can't stop it. Well, that is a nice note, except for here is a list of the countries that have crossed our border illegally just this year. It is over 100-- over 100 countries where individuals have illegally crossed the border. So what about Brazil? What about Chile? What about Colombia? What about Guinea? What about Indonesia? What about Mauritania? Are we going to go after the root causes there? What about the Philippines, Indonesia, Romania, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates? This is just a few of the people who have illegally crossed this year in big numbers. Listen, this whole conversation about root causes is a distraction. We do need to be engaged in the Western Hemisphere. We do need to deal with our drug addiction in this country that causes the flow of drugs to be able to move through South America, Central America, Mexico into the United States. We do need to be aggressive in how we are handling cartels. But to somehow believe that if we poured enough money into the Northern Triangle that suddenly this would all end is false. We are the greatest country in the world. The root cause of immigration into this country is the great power of the United States, both for freedom and for our economy. People from all over the world want to come here. We have a million people a year who legally come to the United States--legally, a million--and folks who don't want to wait in line, who pay a cartel and move through Mexico to be able to get here literally from all over the world. If we do not enforce our borders, these numbers will continue to rise as they have every single month in this administration. Every month, the numbers get bigger. We have got to get on top of this. I wish I could say the administration is taking it seriously. I wish I could say they have a plan. I wish I could say they have released out their studies that they said they were going to do. But they have not released out their studies. They have not released out their plans, and I continue to ask week, after week, after week. The first hint that I got of what they planned to do came out in their budget. In their budget, they reduced funding for ICE, and they reduced the number of bed spaces for ICE. I was shocked. The numbers continue to skyrocket, and in their first release of what they plan to do on it, they asked for a 1,500-bed space reduction in ICE capacity for detention. Now, honestly, when I got it, I thought: I can't believe they are putting this in print, but I already knew that it was going on. Why did I already know that it was going on? Because, as I have tracked the numbers all the time, I have watched the number of deportations and ICE detentions dramatically decrease. While some people are focused on the border, they lose track of the fact that not only is this administration not enforcing our southern border, they are not enforcing the interior of the country. We have 6,000 ICE agents in the United States, 6,000 professional law enforcement-career folks who are in the country, arresting individuals who are illegally present in the country, with the first priority being criminal illegal aliens. That is their first priority, the safety and security of the United States. Of the 6,000 agents in the United States, in May, they did 3,000 total arrests--3,000 among 6,000 agents in a month. That is a record low because the administration changed the rules for ICE agents on who they could interdict. The first big rule change they made is that ICE agents cannot arrest someone who is not legally present unless they get permission from regional leadership by name to arrest that individual. This means, if they go into a place to arrest someone and they encounter one person they received permission to actually arrest but also find three other criminal aliens there, they cannot detain or arrest them. They have to leave them and request by name later to go back and get them. And guess what. They are not there. Shocking. And it is not all criminal aliens. There are only certain criminal aliens they are now allowed to actually detain. That is a big shift from every previous--every previous-- administration. Let me give an example that I actually gave to Secretary Mayorkas and asked specifically about some recent frustrating moments from our ICE agents. Just a few days ago, ICE reached out on a previously deported alien by name. This person had been convicted of a sex assault of a minor under age 14. The alien was at large, and they asked permission to be able to go after this alien and to be able to do a street arrest. Remember, they had been deported before. They knew they were in the area. There were previous sex offender convictions. They were denied the ability to go after that person. They were told, no, they don't meet the standard. Case No. 2. Another person who was previously deported had a previous conviction for indecency with a child, sexual contact. They were a registered sex offender. They believed they were in the area. They were asked if they could pursue an arrest. Regional leadership told them no, they could not. Case No. 3--this just happened last week--is of a previously deported alien, twice. So this means they were for the third time in our country illegally. There were previous convictions for alien smuggling--that is, trafficking of people--theft, and illegal entry. They knew they were in the area. They asked if they could do the arrest. Regional leadership told them no. I could go on and on. ICE has a different set of rules now from what they had in the past. It is not just criminal aliens anymore; it is that they have to be really high criminal aliens. I could give you lists of people who have multiple DUI offenses, and ICE asked if they could detain them, and they were told no. Listen, we have all said in this room that we should engage with criminal aliens and that criminal aliens should be deported. I don't know of a person in this room who hasn't said it. We stopped in May deporting criminal aliens. Are we going to do nothing about that? If you don't believe me, call Secretary Mayorkas. He will send you a copy--that I have as well--of the interim guidance that was put out in May for ICE agents, limiting who they could deport and the process for deportation. I have asked him specifically: If someone goes to pick up a criminal alien and there are other aliens who are there, can they be picked up? The answer has been no. We have a problem not just on our southern border but what is happening in our country and the issue of enforcement, and we would be wise if we would pay attention to this. I am fully aware that there are many individuals in this body who do not like the southern border wall. That has been a topic of great debate in this room for several years. But is this body aware that in January of this year, when President Biden ``paused'' the border wall construction and said: I am going to spend 60 days studying it, that 60-day study is still not complete 200 days into the Presidency? He has still not completed the 60-day study. On top of that, the pause of that construction, during that time period, we are still paying contractors to not do construction. So far this year, we have paid contractors $2 billion--billion with a ``b''-- not to construct the wall. Now, you may think it is a waste to construct the wall. I do not. But please tell me you at least believe it is a waste to not construct a wall and still pay contractors--to not construct a wall. We are currently paying contractors $3 million a day to watch the materials that had been delivered by January 20 that were sitting on the ground--for steel, for fiber, for cameras, for lighting, for roads. We are paying $3 million a day to have them watch the materials on the ground to make sure they are not stolen--$3 million a day. That is a waste. As people cross our border in record numbers, a new policy has been instituted on our southern border, called a notice to report. This, again, has never been done by any administration. A notice to report is when the line gets too long on the southern border, with people crossing the border, when they are trying to check everyone in--if the line gets too long, Border Patrol is instructed to grab the folks in the back of the line and give them a notice to report. That is a card telling them where ICE Agency offices are around the country, and they can just go ahead and go and turn themselves in at whatever ICE Agency they want to turn themselves in to anywhere in the country. So far, 50,000 people this year have been given one of those cards at our southern border and told ``turn yourself in wherever you go in the country''--50,000. My shock, as I am trying to track the number, is that 13 percent have actually done it. I was surprised the number was that high. But that means 87 percent of the people who we have handed a card to and said ``turn yourself in wherever you go in the country'' have not. Eighty- seven percent--we have no idea where they are of the 50,000 people who were released into the country because the line was too long at that moment Listen, we can disagree about a lot of things on immigration, but handing people a card and saying to just travel anywhere you want to go in the country and turn yourself in when you get there--can we at least agree that is a bad idea? Can we at least agree that paying contractors $2 billion not to construct the wall is a bad idea? Can we at least agree that criminal aliens who had been previously convicted and are being picked up for another charge should at least be deported in the process? Can we at least agree, if you want to deal with the ``root causes'' in the Northern Triangle in Central America, that it does not deter the people from over 100 countries who have crossed our southern border this year illegally? There is a bigger problem. Can we at least agree that we should address this? We have a great deal of work to be done. I would encourage all of us to get the facts, to get the details of what is really happening, and to understand that when over a million people have illegally crossed the border just this year, that we know of, that is a problem. It is a problem that hasn't been there in the past anywhere close to this kind of number, and we should address it in this body. I have written letters. I have made phone calls. I have done reports. We have done research. I have sat down with Secretary Mayorkas. I have held nominees for DHS. I have done everything I can do to bring this issue to the forefront. Although others seem to ignore it, this is an issue that we should not ignore. National security is not something we should be flippant about, and not everyone crossing that border is just coming for a job. We should engage. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, President Biden nominated Tracy Stone-Manning to be the leader of the Bureau of Land Management. Many people in my State don't know much about the Bureau of Land Management. We don't have a lot of areas actually managed in our State by BLM. It has more than 10,000 employees. It manages roughly an eighth of the Nation's land, including 65 million acres of our forests. The land holds 30 percent of our minerals. Whoever leads this entity leads the issue of how we are managing our forests, how we are handling our minerals, how we are handling our energy development, livestock grazing, recreation, and, yes, timber harvesting. The individual President Biden nominated we now know was an Earth First! ecoterrorist. She actually typed out, as she has admitted in the past, a threatening letter that was sent out to leaders who were doing forestry in Idaho, saying in her letter that she typed out--and she has admitted that she typed out the threatening letter--that ``we,'' as she put it, drove 500 pounds of spikes into the trees in the Idaho forest and then threatened them, to say: If you harvest those trees, it will not be good for you. The challenge that we have here is that we have an individual who has admitted that she actually was a part of a group to do tree spiking. Now, what we don't know is if she actually drove a spike. We have no idea. But we do know that she turned evidence on the other people who did and admitted as a part of her plea bargain that she is the one who actually did the letter from a rented typewriter to be able to make sure she couldn't be traced and even in the letter said: If you find me, it would be ``your worst nightmare.'' So what do we do about this? Typically, when you are going to deal with the person who handles forestry for the United States and the Bureau of Land Management and you find out this person has been involved in tree spiking, which actually is designed to injure or kill people who are logging or people who are actually harvesting the lumber in the sawmills and actually processing that lumber, it would cause a pause. I cannot imagine what it is going to be if she is actually confirmed in this position, and the individuals who come to her to get a permit to be able to do any kind of forestry work, because they would have to actually come to her office, what they would think when they actually walked through the door, because the Bureau of Land Management notices timber sales and signs off on timber sales for the country. The Bureau of Land Management is the one that makes forest product sale plans. The Bureau of Land Management is the one that develops, maintains, and revises the plans for all public management, including identifying areas for timber sales. In fact, the Bureau of Land Management is also the group who sends in the firefighters to the wildfires to be able to put out the fires, which could be including some of these same trees in the days ahead that apparently still have the spikes in them from decades ago. Understanding this is not just a loose issue. Individuals from the Biden administration just recently have talked about how timber harvesters and haulers are critical to forest management across the country. We need these individuals to help with our forest management. We have wildfires in the areas that individuals in the Biden administration have testified because we are actually not maintaining our forest management enough. We are not doing enough harvesting and thinning in those areas, and so it is actually a problem. In fact, Christopher French, the Deputy Chief of the National Forest System, recently testified the Forest Service research indicates we need to dramatically increase the extent of impact of fuels treatment, such as thinning, harvesting, planting, and prescribed burning across all landscapes. But yet the leader for the Bureau of Land Management who has been recommended is an individual who has been outspoken in opposition, so much so that she has been active in actually promoting spiking trees. And it is not just spiking trees. It has also been her environmental issues about grazing land--understanding the Bureau of Land Management is responsible for millions of acres of grazing pastureland across the West. Because the Federal Government owns so much land across the West, many ranchers actually then lease out some of that land for grazing. She has been outspoken as an opponent against this. That is not going to help our ranchers across the West. And what was most stark to me was this presentation that she had years ago, where she designed several of what she considered to be environmental-focused advertisements, this being one of them where she has a picture of a young girl, and the heading is: ``Can you find the environmental hazard in this photo?'' And then she lists out at the bottom of it: ``That's right. It's the cute baby that's the environmental hazard.'' With this statement below that, she wrote: ``We breed more than any other industrialized nation.'' Listen, I understand every President has the right to pick their team, but when the leader of the Bureau of Land Management considers this little girl to be an environmental hazard, have we not crossed a threshold of saying our problem with our environment is that we have too many little girls? Honestly, is anyone else disturbed by this as a possibility to lead the Bureau of Land Management, to make a decision about how we are going to manage our forests, how we are going to handle our grazing land, and what is going to be the general attitude about permitting and people? Because, apparently, from what she wrote, one of the biggest environmental hazards we have as a country is we breed too much. I don't think that little girl is a hazard. I think it is a little girl. And I will absolutely oppose Tracy Stone-Manning to lead the Bureau of Land Management. And I would ask my colleagues, even one of my colleagues on the other side, to say: Do you not see a problem with this nominee? If so, let's find another person. Surely there is another Democrat out there who doesn't have this set of views, who can lead our forestry, our grazing area, and our mineral rights. Surely there is one more Democrat who is out there somewhere who does not share these views, because I don't think that little girl is a hazard. I think she is a blessing. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I often come to this floor to be able to speak about news of the day, disagreements that we have, ways that we can solve a problem we have as a nation. Today, I come to tell a story. In 1774, an Englishman met Benjamin Franklin. They spent a lot of time together in conversations, and Franklin convinced this young sailor and writer and young friend to move to America, to move to his hometown, to Philadelphia. A few months later, 1774, he did. Franklin saw something in this young man that no one else saw. That Englishman who loved freedom and who saw the glaring injustice of the British Crown, 2 years later, on January 10, 1776, wrote a short pamphlet that changed the course of history. The man's name was Thomas Paine, and the short work that he wrote was called ``Common Sense.'' It was the first publication that declared we should call for independence for these 13 Colonies. It didn't include his name because if it included his name, it would have been a certain death warrant from the King, but it made the case for freedom for each person, for an elected government rather than a monarchy, and the case for religious liberty. In short, he made the case for the United States of America. He wrote these words: The cause of America is, in great measure, the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interesting. He wrote about the rule of law and how that would be different than living under a monarchy, and he challenged the young colonists to be able to pursue more. He wrote: But where says some is the king of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far we may approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king. He wrote: As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of [every] government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. Suspicion is the companion of mean souls. . . . He wrote and he said: It affords us a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were we all one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look to the various denominations among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is called, their Christian names. He shared a lot of great ideals in ``Common Sense.'' He challenged the colonists to dream of an America that would set the example for the world. Thomas Paine's ideas weren't all great, and we didn't accept all of his ideas. In fact, he wrote a long section in ``Common Sense'' saying that when we form our own Constitution, we should take these 13 Colonies and we should elect a President and alternate among each State, so each State would, in turn, have a different President for the whole group. It is a fairly terrible idea that we never implemented. But this passion about the law being king, we did; this passion about religious liberty, we did; this passion that America would be an example to all mankind, we did. One hundred fifty thousand copies of ``Common Sense'' were printed. That is an enormous number for that time period. On that January day when the first printings of ``Common Sense'' started being passed around the Colonies, it fanned the flame of that spark of freedom in the hearts of the colonists. By June 11, 1776, Congress had appointed a committee of five to draft the Declaration: John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert Livingston of New York, and Robert Sherman of Connecticut--by the way, I think two redheads in that group. The Declaration ended with this simple paragraph. We are familiar with that Declaration. It said: We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States. It ended with this: And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. And they gave their all. John Hart, one of the signers of the Declaration, from New Jersey, ended up hiding in the woods that December of 1776, just a few months later, while the Hessian soldiers hunted him across the countryside. He died before the war's end. Richard Stockton, also of New Jersey, wasn't so lucky. He was dragged from his bed, thrown into prison, and treated like a criminal. His home was looted, his fortune stripped away. Thomas Nelson of Virginia: He commanded the militia and served as a Governor during the Revolution. He had to instruct the artillerymen to fire at his own house when the British started using it as their headquarters. Nelson had used his personal credit to raise money for the cause. The Revolution left him in distress, and he was unable to ever recover what he had lost. Thomas Heyward, Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge were three South Carolina signers who served in their State's militia and were captured when the British seized Charleston. They spent the rest of the time in prison. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. By that December, when all of this was going on to all of these signers of the Declaration, Thomas Paine wrote again, and this time, he wrote directly to the patriots serving with George Washington. In the freezing winter, on December 23, 1776, Thomas Paine wrote these words: These are the times that try men's souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of [their] country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: It is dearness only that gives every [living] thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. It is a good thing for us to be able to stop and reflect on these simple words: What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly. Sometimes I am afraid that, as we approach the Fourth of July each year, we will have forgotten the sacrifices of previous generations. In our time period and in this wealthy moment in our Nation's history, we seem to esteem too lightly what was obtained too cheaply, and we forget the great sacrifices of the past. Generation after generation of American history has set an example of how we have worked for a more perfect Union. Generation after generation has served each other and the children who have come after them so that they could have a better future. It is our generation's turn. The generation that I speak of could have never dreamed of the Capitol that stands on this hill. The generation that I speak of could have never dreamed of the 50 States that would cover this continent, but they did dream this, because it is in Thomas Paine's introduction: ``The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind.'' This Fourth of July, we should recommit ourselves to the cause of freedom, the future of our Nation, and the service to our children and the children not yet born. We are still a great nation, conceived in liberty, born to greatness if we are willing to work and sacrifice and give for each other. No generation in the history of the world has inherited more than we have--no generation. We should not receive it too cheaply or hold it too lightly. Ironically, as I end my story of an Englishman who became a writer and the inspiration of a nation, I must tell you the end. Thomas Paine died a bitter and broken man. He remained a revolutionary in the fight. He could never stop searching for the next revolution. He went off to France to support the French Revolution and almost lost his head for it. He ended up in prison there. He came back to America and determined that George Washington wasn't as loyal as he was. He spent his last years writing against President Washington: that he was the real traitor and that he wasn't strong enough. He ended up dying alone, isolated, rejecting his faith--and a bitter man. My fellow Senators and fellow Americans, the war has been won. Freedom, that gift, has been passed on to us. Let's protect it. Let's cherish it. Let's pass it on. Each generation should be passionate about passing that on to the next generation. That is why, on this Fourth of July, it is not just a day off; it is not just a day to be at the mall; it is not just a great day to be at a lake--it is a great day to contemplate how you will serve our Nation in the days ahead in this generation and how you can pass on the freedom that we have to our children. Our Nation still needs people who will build on the foundation of liberty. We need writers and soldiers and farmers and moms and dads. We still need people who will run for city council and the school board, people who will pick up trash in the neighborhood, people who will march in a protest and then intentionally go love people and work for the reconciliation of broken relationships. We need people who will start new businesses, give to nonprofits, get involved in their churches, and love their neighbors as themselves. We are free, but as the Bible says in 1 Peter 2, we should live as free people but not use our freedom as a coverup for evil. Those of us who have freedom should help others to live in the same freedom we have and to serve with joy. That is the legacy that was passed on to us. That is the legacy we should pass down. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, next week looks like a busy week. That is fine. We have a lot of things we need to be able to cover and to be able to walk through as the Senate. Next week will be particularly divisive, though, in some of the issues that are coming up. Let me give you two examples that I hear are on the docket for next week. One of them deals with how we vote in America. In Oklahoma, we know how we vote. Each State determines its own structure of how they vote. In Oklahoma, you can do absentee mail-in voting, with no excuses. If for any reason you want to be able to mail in a ballot, you can do that. You can do in-person voting early. In fact, this year, our State legislature met, and they added another day of in-person voting. So there are lots of days of in-person voting in Oklahoma. You could actually go to the poll the day of the election and be able to vote then. It is up to you. We have very straightforward voter ID laws. We have a system set up that if you do early voting or absentee voting, all the disputes on those are handled before election day itself, so that on election day, when the polls close at 7 p.m., we then finish all the voting--or the counting, I should say, on early absentee, on early in-person, and then we are counting the day of. Usually by about 10:30 at night on election day, we are done voting and everyone is watching all the final results in from the entire State. It is a pretty straightforward, clean process that we have seen that is exceptionally reliable. In fact, it is so tough, in 2016, when the Russians were probing different systems to try to get into it, our State was one of the States the Russians tried to get into, couldn't get into our system, and they moved on to other States to try to get into those. We have a secure system. We have a reliable system. But that is apparently not enough because S. 1 that is coming to the floor next week would say: Oklahoma, we are going to completely change your system. People in Washington, DC, don't like how you vote, don't like your clean, reliable efficiency. Regardless of complaints, we think we want to change it here in Washington, DC. Interestingly enough, we have a system that can also verify if someone voted twice. In fact, in this past election, 57 people in Oklahoma voted twice. We could verify that after the fact based on all the records, and we can go back and be able to actually prosecute those individuals who chose to vote twice because that is not legal. Here is what happens when S. 1 comes to the floor. The debate here on S. 1 will begin with no voter ID. Take away your voter ID in Oklahoma. Change the way you do early voting. In fact, change the way the ballots are actually collected entirely. No longer in Oklahoma will we know the winner of our election at 10:30 on election night. S. 1 changes that and said that ballots have to be able to be allowed to trickle in for 10 more days after the election is over. So we won't know at 10:30 at night on election night; we will know 2 weeks later who actually won the elections. As far as a reliable system that we can all verify and check--oh, no, it changes that dramatically. It now opens up what is called ballot harvesting. Ballot harvesting would allow political operatives to go door-to-door to be able to engage with people who had mail-in ballots and to say to them ``Have you mailed your ballot in?'' If they say ``No,'' they can say ``Well, let's just fill it out right here on the porch, and then you can hand it to me, and I will take it in.'' So on election day, what happens is, political operatives show up with boxes full of ballots and turn in boxes full of ballots with the words ``Trust me; these are all good.'' I would tell you, in Oklahoma, we like it better when the postman carries that ballot or when you actually turn it in to that county or precinct official so we know where it has been, that there has been an accurate chain of custody, not someone showing up with a box full of ballots saying ``Trust me; I collected all of these'' because when that happens and someone is just collecting ballots, you have no idea if the person voting voted for one person and left the rest of them blank and the person carrying them just filled out the rest of the ballot for them. You have no chain of custody at all on it. That is why I say S. 1 makes voting easy, cheating easy, and verifying elections impossible. This is not the direction we should go. If we want to build trust in our election system in America, let's let each State build trust in their election system for each State, like we do in Oklahoma, where we work together to make sure we can make it as easy as possible for every person to be able to vote and to encourage every person to vote, but when it is over, to verify that election and to be able to know that we can check it all off and to go, regardless of the outcome, we can trust the outcome because we know we can verify it. Let's make it easy to vote, hard to cheat, and easy to verify--not having Washington, DC, folks here say DC is righteous and States are wrong. I think there are lots of great people all over the country who want to do their elections right and who aren't Republicans or Democrats; they are just people protecting democracies in the States. Let's keep that system. That is the first of two divisive bills that are coming up next week, which will absolutely fail in this body and should fail in this body. There is a second bill that I understand is coming up next week, as well, and it is called the Equality Act. Now, I will tell you that it is a great name, and I don't know of anyone on my side of the aisle or on the other side of the aisle who opposes equality. I will state frankly that no person should be discriminated against in America--no person. It is a basic constitutional principle: We are all equal under the law--all of us. We have different ideas about music and food. We have different ideas about sexuality. We have different ideas about occupations. We have different skin colors. We have different faiths. We are a tapestry, and that is one of the things that makes us strong in such a perfect way as to build a more perfect Union. I believe that every person should be protected from discrimination in America, but that does mean every person. Today, the Supreme Court ruled 9 to 0--9 to 0 in the Supreme Court-- that Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia was being discriminated against by the city of Philadelphia because the city of Philadelphia said to Catholic Social Services: You cannot practice your Catholic faith in foster services. Now, what is the story? There have been Catholic services in Philadelphia since the 1700s. For the last 50 years, Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia, this particular organization, has served the neediest children in that area by providing foster services and placement for them. They are a religious organization, a faith-based organization--a Catholic organization--and they believe that God created man and woman and that this is God's design for marriage. So, in their placement of foster children, they place children in homes where there is a man and a woman who are present in marriage because of their profound belief. There are 20 other foster services in Philadelphia that place foster children in any family situation: husband and wife or two men or two women. There are 20 of those services in Philadelphia, but the city of Philadelphia went to Catholic Social Services and said: You have to be like the other 20. You cannot practice your faith. Even though, literally, Catholic Social Services had never had a gay family reach out to them for an adoption placement--they had gone to other places--the city of Philadelphia said: No, you have to change your practice. Unfortunately, Catholic Social Services had to argue for their religious freedom all the way to the Supreme Court, and, today, they ruled 9 to 0 that a faith-based institution cannot be discriminated against because of their faith. They should be able to live out the tenets of their faith and be able to practice them. To me, that is a great decision to make--to say: Why can't we coexist? Why can't we honor everyone in their differences of opinion? Even the Supreme Court stated today, in its opinion, that there was no work from Catholic Social Services to stop gay marriages in Philadelphia or to stop couples from fostering children who are gay couples there. They just chose not to do it based on their faith. So they were not working against individuals. They were practicing their faith. Now comes the Equality Act vote next week. The Equality Act would, for the first time ever in this Congress, take away the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in statute--it would remove it--and say there could be no protection for religious institutions. This is a direct shot against the Supreme Court, in its 9 to 0 decision today, which said: No, religious institutions have to be protected in their decisions. Why can't both exist? Why do we have to get into a situation, as the Equality Act does, that says, if you don't agree with one particular expression, then you have to be canceled? that you have to be silenced? Why has it come to this in America? The way the Equality Act is written is, with regard to any faith- based institution, if they did any public, outward-facing work at all-- if they fed the homeless, which many do; if they provided clothing; if they took care of individuals with food who needed it--that was considered to be of public accommodation, their labor laws, even if they were religious institutions, had to be exactly like large corporate labor rules as well. It literally imposes on religious institutions that you can be a private entity and be inward facing, but if you are going to do your mission to actually serve the needy, then you have to actually shift to be like corporate America. That is not providing opportunities for people of faith to live their faiths. I have to tell you that I honor people of faith--people of different faiths, people of faiths that I disagree with. The nature of religious liberty in our country is to be able to honor people of different faiths. That is also what the Supreme Court reaffirmed today directly in contradiction to the Equality Act. Clearly, if this were to pass-- and I do not believe it will--the Supreme Court would hear it immediately, would align with this case from today, and would say: We have already ruled on these issues 9 to 0--that is, against not allowing people to be able to live their faiths. Unfortunately, there are some in this body who not only vehemently disagree with the Supreme Court and with the opportunity for people to be able to live their faiths, but they are willing to do it in the most pejorative of terms. When I spoke against the Equality Act in the Judiciary Committee, just weeks ago, and shared the issues that I had that were pragmatic labor issues and set those in front of it and also did a challenge on a religious liberty issue and said, ``Here are the obvious issues of religious liberty where I think it is unconstitutional,'' the response I got from a member of the Judiciary Committee was, This reminds me of the Ku Klux Klan, who burned crosses and used religious symbols to hide behind their bigotry. The Supreme Court disagreed with that today and said: We are the United States of America. We honor people of faith to be able to live their faiths. We honor people who don't have faith or have differences in their faiths and choose to be able to live that out. This body should not try to cancel out every group of faith in the country that disagrees with people in this body who say: You cannot practice your faith if we tell you no. That is not who we are. The Equality Act is not about equality. It is about imposing and prohibiting disagreements. We are Americans. We can respect each other and disagree. We can live next-door to each other and disagree. Let's prove it in this body by not passing the poorly named Equality Act but by actually demonstrating what this act says it wants to demonstrate. Let's treat each other with respect in our differences and honor us in that. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I come to the floor today to give an update on what is happening on our southwest border. It seems a lot of the national media has stopped focusing on that area. I talked to the people in Oklahoma and asked: What is going on on the southwest border? What has changed? Interestingly enough, just 2 days ago, President Biden and his team released what is the current status of what they call the ``border challenge.'' They talked about it, and here is the update. This comes from the White House itself, their update. They stated this: There is improved processing of unaccompanied children. The administration successfully reduced the number of unaccompanied children in Customs and Border Protection custody. The second thing they list is that the administration has reduced the average amount of time children are in Customs and Border Protection facilities. The third thing they list is that the administration has reduced the number of unaccompanied children in the care of Health and Human Services. Then they move on and say that they removed barriers to unifying children with parents and sponsors in the United States. And they go through and give the details of how much better they are at unifying parents and children here in the United States. Interestingly enough, when you read through this and just look at the language, you think, gosh, the numbers are going significantly down-- until you slow down and ask the question. What they are really saying in this report is: We are moving people across the border faster than we used to. They don't spend as much time at the border as they used to. They are now in the interior of the country. Why do I say that? Because the information came out, strikingly enough, the day after this was released, the update of what was happening on the border in May. In March of this year, with the highest number of interdictions that we have had in 20 years--in March of this year--173,000-plus; only to be beaten in April by the highest in 20 years with 178,000-plus; only to be beaten, now we know, in May with 180,000-plus. The surge continues to accelerate while the administration puts out their notice saying: We are getting so much more efficient at moving people from the border into the interior of the country. This is why President Giammattei of Guatemala spoke to the administration this week in a public setting, strikingly enough, saying: You are giving mixed signals to the people of Central America. For the Vice President to come to Guatemala and say ``Don't come; don't come'' but then for the administration to say ``But if you do come, we are a lot faster getting you into the country than we used to be,'' this is the mixed-signal problem. It is why coyotes continue to be able to move record numbers of people through Central America into the interior of the country It is not just from Central America. We have had this year a more than 400 percent increase in migration from nations outside of the Northern Triangle in Mexico because the coyotes are learning--we know how to move people, and the world is seeing that if you want to be able to come to America illegally, now is the time to do it. So if you go back to March, we had all these individuals who were coming from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Now there is a 400- percent increase of people from outside of those areas who are coming into those same trafficking networks moving into the United States. We have now had this year 23,000, that we know of, individuals who, when they were brought across the border under the new Biden proposal to be more efficient at moving people across the border, that if the line was too long to be processed at the border, they would be released into the United States and told: Whatever city you go to, turn yourself in to ICE and start what is called a notice to appear process to be able to request asylum, literally. This has never happened under any administration. No administration has done this. If the line is too long at the border when you are crossing illegally and it backs up there to be able to check in with the Border Patrol or CBP, then they are released into the country. As we know of, by the end of March--we don't know the numbers yet for April and May, but by the end of March, 23,242 people had been just released and told ``Turn yourself in, whatever city you get to.'' Now, I have asked the question: How many people have actually turned themselves in? How many people have actually done that? The latest number that we have that have actually checked in is about 1,800 people. Quite frankly, I was surprised it was that high. That is almost 8 percent of the people who have actually turned themselves in when they arrived at the city, meaning 92 percent of the people who were released at the border, we have no idea where they are anywhere in the country--92 percent. This is not what Americans expected. Worse still, I have asked the basic question: What is happening with ICE? Why should I ask that question about interior enforcement in the United States? Because the first week President Biden was in office, he announced a moratorium on any deportations, even deportations that a Federal court has ordered removed. He was going to do no deportations at all. He was going to stop for 100 days. A Federal court actually interceded in that and responded: If a Federal court has ordered what is called a final order of removal, they have to be removed. The Biden administration responded with: OK, we will do that. We will remove people if there is a final order of removal. So I asked the simple question: What has happened since then? Here is what has happened since then. The Biden administration has changed the policy for ICE into a policy we have never done as a country. If an individual is going to be removed by ICE now, they have to contact regional leadership and ask permission to be able to remove that person. Regional leadership will go through a whole set of the criteria established by the Biden administration, and if they don't qualify, they cannot be removed regardless of their status. What has happened since then? Last month, there were only 3,000 people in the country removed--3,000. That is the lowest number we have had on our records. To give you an example of this, we have 6,000 ICE agents in the country yet only 3,000 deportations in the country in a month. We are on record to be at a number we have never experienced before as a country for deportations of any President because we are not enforcing the law. Not only do we have record numbers coming across the border, we have a record low number of deportations that are happening. What do I mean by that? Well, we contacted the ICE Council, and we asked specifically: What does it mean when we learn that people are not being deported? Who is not being deported? When I talked to ICE leadership 2 weeks ago, I asked very direct, specific questions: Are all criminal aliens being deported? Their answer back to me was, no, we are making a case-by-case decision on criminal aliens. My next question: Are all sex offenders being deported? The answer was, no, we are making a case-by-case decision on sex offenders on whether they should be deported. Let me give a few examples. These are direct examples that come from the ICE Council of things that have happened in the last month under the new Biden policy to not deport individuals. First option. This person was in local custody pending charges for aggravated assault. The detainer was carried over from the previous administration, from the Trump administration. Once the Biden administration took leadership, the ICE detainer was removed. They ordered a reevaluation of the case and said that they have to be actually convicted of aggravated assault charges before you can put a detainer. Now, a detainer doesn't actually remove them. That is just a detainer to say: Don't release them if convicted. That detainer was removed. Case No. 2. This person had been deported four times before--four times before. They have had convictions for evading arrest, domestic violence, and multiple DUIs. They also have a pending DUI charge right now again. ICE officers requested permission to place a detainer on this person, and they were instructed that they could not put a detainer on this person. Even though they had been deported four times--domestic violence conviction in the past, evading arrest in the past, and multiple DUIs--they were told they could not put a detainer on him. Case No. 3. This is actually an ICE fugitive who has a court-ordered final order of removal. Remember, I mentioned earlier that a Federal court said you do have to deport these individuals? Well, guess what. That is actually not occurring. ICE officials made a request for someone who had an aggravated assault, and they were told that they could not do it unless they went through a lengthy, long process. They started through the process, and by the time all the paperwork was done, that person had already bonded out, and they are gone. They are at large. Case No. 4. This individual had illegally entered the country. They had local charges for rape of a child. ICE officers were prohibited from placing a detainer on them, saying that they hadn't been convicted yet, so they couldn't even put a detainer pending their conviction to remove them. Case No. 5. This person had already been deported before, had a conviction for a sex offense against a child and sexual battery. ICE officers requested permission to make an arrest on this individual, but ICE management denied the request based on the new Biden priorities. That person is on the street right now. Case No. 6. This person has been deported twice already. There are pending charges right now. Although they had been deported before, they have pending charges on them right now for distribution of heroin, aggravated assault, endangerment of a child, and failure to stop or to respond to a command of police. Here is what happened. A criminal informant advised police that this individual had arranged to sell him a quarter-pound of heroin. By the way, that is a lot. When the subject appeared at the designated location, the police attempted to arrest this individual, but instead the person, illegally present in the country, attempted to ram the police with his car. He almost hit a police officer who was standing outside of his vehicle. The person was arrested. The subject did have a quarter-pound of heroin in their possession. They admitted also to selling heroin just moments before, and they had a child and an adult in the back seat of the car during the heroin sale and when that person had rammed the police vehicle. ICE officers requested permission to place an ICE detainer on this individual, and ICE management denied that request--denied that request. Though they had been deported twice, though they had attempted to ram a police officer's vehicle, though they were currently in the act of selling a quarter pound of heroin, they said: Police work is inherently dangerous. Officers know the risk. No detainer is warranted. What are we doing? Three thousand people have been deported in our country in a month, and individuals literally selling heroin and attacking our police officers, ICE is not allowed to deport. Individuals in this country who are currently pending charges of sexual abuse of a child are not being deported, not even a detainer to be able to hold them. Is this what America wanted? It is certainly not what the people of Oklahoma want. It certainly does not strengthen the morale of our ICE agents who currently cannot make an arrest or our Border Patrol and our Customs and Border Protection individuals who function more like hotel check-in staff at our border than they are law enforcement. This is not creating a stable environment in America. It is unstable. This has got to stop. This is not a radical request of the administration; it is a simple statement: Follow the law. Article II of the Constitution, the President of the United States is the individual who is given the responsibility to enforce the law of the United States. The law is clear in all of these areas, and he can't just say: I have prosecutorial discretion. I am not going to deport sex offenders and people who try to ram their car into police officers and people with multiple DUIs. What in the world? These are not possible cases. These are recent cases that are real cases happening in the country right now. And it is why our ICE agents are so incredibly frustrated because they want to enforce the law and protect our country. They have kids as well, and they don't want someone with multiple DUIs driving on the street. This needs to be addressed by this administration--and stop just making brief statements in Guatemala, saying don't come but having doublespeak here at the border, saying but if you do, we will move you through quickly. And if you get into the country, we will not deport you, even for sexual battery. Now, in the ``haven't I seen this movie before'' category, I noticed a couple other things this week that came up. There is a new leaked document that came out that was released by the press of tax documents that had been leaked out of the IRS that somehow miraculously got to individuals in the press who ran an extensive story about tax documents. Now, we can all have our different perspectives on how people pay taxes and how much taxes they pay, but one thing should be clear for every person in this body; it is against the law to release tax documents. It is against the law to do that. But somehow, mysteriously, tax documents started getting released in the last couple of weeks. This reminds me so much of a few years ago, when the IRS was weaponized for political purposes and Lois Lerner was actively shutting down conservative nonprofits, getting access to nonprofit status, but left-leaning nonprofits were expedited through. And we all expressed our frustration that the IRS was being politicized. The IRS, of all places that have all documents, should not be politicized. And now, suddenly, at the beginning of this administration, just as we saw in the Obama-Biden administration, now we see in the Biden-Harris administration the politicization of the IRS again. Interestingly enough, in the President's budget that he released this week, he wants to give an additional authority to the IRS that has not been talked about much. He wants every bank transaction in America-- credit union or bank--of $600 or more to be sent to the IRS. So the IRS would have--every time you go to your bank or credit union, deposit or withdraw $600 or more, that transaction and all the details of it would have to be sent to the IRS not by you but by the bank or the credit union. When I asked the IRS Commissioner about that earlier this week in my conversation with him, he said they literally do not have the capacity to handle that much information. They don't have the technology to do it. They don't have the manpower to do it. But the Biden administration wants every bank transaction that you do of $600 or more of any type to be able to go to the IRS and to be kept there. Interestingly, that proposal comes out the same week that information comes out that the IRS is now suddenly leaking tax information to the press. I have seen that movie before. I have seen the movie before on the Keystone Pipeline. That was news again this week. We saw that during the Obama-Biden administration as well, and now we are seeing it in the Biden-Harris administration; that suddenly pipelines are bad news. Well, when the Colonial Pipeline went down a couple of days, the whole East Coast panicked because they couldn't get fuel when one pipeline went down. We shouldn't be talking about how to not build pipelines; we should be talking about how to build pipeline redundancy to make sure that if a pipeline goes down, we are not trapped, as Americans, with no fuel in the situation that we are in right now. But in the middle of this, to be able to please the environmental left, the President of the United States shut down the Keystone Pipeline, and the company finally gave up and said: We are not going to invest any more money on something that we can't finish. Now, will that change America's use of oil by one drop? No, it won't. America will use the exact same amount of oil that it used before. But what it will do is make it more expensive to be able to move oil from the northern part of the United States to the southern part of the United States to raise prices on all consumers. We will still have a use of oil; it will just raise prices. And the oil that moves will now move on a train or on a truck, which uses more carbon, which is more dangerous than using a pipeline. I have seen this movie before. In the middle of canceling out the Keystone Pipeline, the President lifted sanctions on a Russian pipeline, the Nord Stream 2, which will cut off the United States from selling natural gas to Western Europe because that was Western Europe's alternative. They can either buy natural gas from us or buy gas from Russia. The Trump administration had put sanctions on that pipeline, and so the pipeline had stopped construction. President Biden lifted sanctions on that so now we won't sell American natural gas; now Western Europe will be dependent on Russian natural gas. How does that help the stability of Europe? How does that help American jobs? How does that help our future? I have no idea. In the ``I have seen this movie before,'' I was fascinated this week to be able to see President Zelensky of Ukraine, when he found out about this pipeline shift, which, by the way, dramatically affects Ukraine, when he read about it in the press because the State Department and the administration didn't notify him that the pipeline that skips Ukraine and cuts them off, our administration--the Biden administration--approved. President Zelensky stated to the press he has reached out over and over to President Biden to get a meeting with him and can't get a meeting with him. When I read that, I had to laugh. I sat in this seat during an impeachment proceeding on President Trump because he wouldn't give a meeting to President Zelensky. President Zelensky is screaming in the media: I am trying to get ahold of President Biden, and he won't meet with me, and he is benefiting Russia and cutting off Ukraine--and everybody just yawns. It is quite remarkable to see the difference in how our media and how individuals treat everyone. And in the category of ``I have never seen this movie before,'' let me give you one. Today, I had the opportunity to be able to meet with our Secretary of HHS, Xavier Becerra. We were talking about the budget that he has presented for HHS, which is enormous. In fact, the President's budget is larger than any budget any President has ever given--not even close--in the overspending. The deficit total in it is epic, almost $2 trillion in deficit just from the budget, not including everything else this year. But in my conversation with Xavier Becerra, I asked him a simple question: I noticed in your budget proposal you have changed the term that I am not familiar with. You have added a term, and the term that you put in your budget is you refer to some people as a ``birthing person.'' I said: I have to tell you, I don't know that term ``birthing person.'' What does that mean? And he said: Well, I think it describes itself, is what he said. I said: What is that? Is that a mom? And he said: Well, yes, that describes itself. It describes the function. I thought, the function? That is a woman. That is a mom. That is not a birthing person. My simple question was: It sounds like you are trying to be politically correct here to be able to appease someone, but do you think it might possibly be offensive to some women and some moms to not be referred to as a woman or as a mom but to be referred to as a ``birthing person'' instead? And he just said: I will look into it. Just when I think it can't get weirder around this town and the terms can't get stranger, that is a new one on me. I look forward to next May, when I walk down the aisle at a Hallmark store to look for the ``Happy Birthing Person Day'' card that I can send to my mom. What an odd statement to make. What a demeaning statement to make to moms, to refer to them as a ``birthing person.'' What is wrong with just calling a mom a mom? It is a pretty great term that Americans are most certainly used to. And if it is the intent of Xavier Becerra to retrain Americans to stop calling their mom a mom, to call them a birthing person, I hope that he loses that one big time. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 234, submitted earlier today.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, Senator Inhofe and I and this body have just passed by voice vote a resolution recognizing the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. It is a significant resolution not only to be able to recall what happened in that terrible time in 1921 but to also recognize the 13 Black towns that still remain in Oklahoma. It is an interesting history that we have in Oklahoma, and I encourage folks to be able to find out more about us as a State. From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, Black individuals and families from all over the South were fleeing away from where they were being oppressed, and they were coming to Oklahoma, setting up vibrant communities. Over 50 all-Black towns rose up in Oklahoma. In fact, there was some dialogue in the early 1900s about possibly having Oklahoma be an all-Black State even. These Black communities were rising up around our State looking for opportunities, freedom, and a chance for a better life. Thirteen of those fifty towns still remain today as communities. Many of the individuals in these towns are friends and people whom I know and Senator Inhofe and I have the honor of being able to represent in this great body. I think about Dr. Donnie Nero, Sr. He is the President of the African American Educators Hall of Fame. He is the one who helped found and pull this all together. He has an attitude in wonderful Clearview, OK, and he says: ``One of the greatest motivational concepts accessible to mankind is `Recognition.''' He says recognition is about remembrance and acknowledgment. We are taking a moment as a Senate today to be able to acknowledge these 13 Black towns that still remain in Oklahoma and to be able to look at some of the history of what happened during that time period. So let me walk through this somewhat. Tullahassee was founded in 1883. It is regarded as one of the oldest surviving historically Black towns in Indian Territory. Langston, founded in 1890, and was named after John Mercer Langston, an African-American educator and U.S. Representative from Virginia. Seven years later, the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature established the Colored Agricultural and Normal University, which would later be called Langston University. This historically Black college and university has grown from 41 students in 1897 to over 3,000 students today. Prominent Oklahomans such as Melvin Tolson, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, Clara Luper, E. Melvin Porter, Frederick Moon, Marques Haynes, Zelia Breaux, Isaac W. Young, Inman Page, and Zella Black Patterson all resided in the town of Langston or called Langston University home. Tatums was founded in 1895. It was named after brothers Lee B. Tatum and Eldridge ``Doc'' Tatum. They found prosperity in 1929 when oil wells were drilled in Tatum. Norman Studios even filmed a silent movie called ``Black Gold,'' using the brothers in their film Taft was founded in 1902 on land allotted to Creek Freedman. They changed their name from Twine, which they were originally, to Taft to honor the then Secretary of War and later President William Howard Taft. Grayson was bustling with five general stores, two blacksmiths, two drug stores, a cotton gin and a physician shortly after it was founded in 1902. It was originally known as Wildcat. It was changed in 1909 to honor the Creek chief, George W. Grayson. Boley was a town established in 1903 and named after J.B. Boley, a railroad official of the Fort Smith and Western Railway, and grew to be the largest African-American town in Oklahoma. Only 5 years after being founded, Booker T. Washington visited the town and wrote about the prosperity that he had witnessed. Boasting the first Black-owned bank, the First National Bank of Boley was owned by D.J. Turner. It received a national charter and rose to be one of the largest and wealthiest exclusively Black communities. Today, Boley still hosts the Nation's oldest annual Black rodeo. Rentiesville, founded in 1903, was developed on 40 acres owned by William Rentie and Phoebe McIntosh. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway developed a flag stop, putting Rentiesville on the map. John Hope Franklin, a scholar of African-American history who promoted dialogue that reshaped American views on race relations, was born in Rentiesville in 1915. The Franklins later moved to Tulsa, where John Hope Franklin graduated from Booker T. Washington. He survived the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and he went on to become one of the most decorated historians. He inspired the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, Reconciliation Park in Tulsa, and an elementary school in North Tulsa. Rentiesville continues to host the Dusk Til' Dawn Blues Festival that attracts blues artists and all the folks who come in. Clearview, a town I have already mentioned, was founded in 1903 along the tracks of the Fort Smith and Western Railroad, was widely known for its baseball team, but it is widely known now for the Hall of Fame for Black Educators. It is a place that I would encourage people to be able to stop in and to be able to see. And it is an annual tradition where individuals from around the State ride in to be able to recognize Black educators to be recognized that year in the Hall of Fame ceremony led by Dr. Nero, Sr. Brooksville, founded in 1903, originally named Sewell, was renamed in 1912 in honor of the first African American in the area, A.R. Brooks. Red Bird, founded in 1907 along the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, was built on the land allotted by the Creek Nation. E.L. Barber was one of the town's original developers and the first justice of the peace and an early mayor. Before Red Bird officially became a town, Barber organized the First Baptist Church in 1889, which grew to be the largest church in Red Bird. Summit was founded in 1910 along the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway. Vernon was founded in 1911 on Tankard Ranch in the Creek Nation and was home to many trailblazers such as Ella Woods, who was the first Postmaster, and Louise Wesley, who established the first school and church. Lima, founded in 1913 along the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad. The Mount Zion Methodist Church was built in 1915 and still stands to this day. And, of course, the most famous and prosperous of all of the Black communities was Greenwood. Greenwood District became a thriving community where Black business owners, schools, and churches flourished. By the late 1910s, it was the wealthiest Black community in all of the United States. The community earned the name ``Black Wall Street'' from the famed African-American author and educator I already spoke of, Booker T. Washington. The history of these historically Black towns is interwoven into the history of Oklahoma and the history of the United States. The residents of these towns have achieved great success and faced tremendous challenges. The stories of these Black towns and communities in Oklahoma are also inextricably linked to the events of May 30 through June 1 of 1921, when the Greenwood District in North Tulsa burst into flames. An important part of history is learning from the past. It is not looking at an incident in isolation. It is what came before and after. This weekend, the Nation will pause and reflect on the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the worst race massacre in the history of the United States. But we can't look at Greenwood as if it was a single weekend. It was a prosperous, thriving Black community. And it still has a history to be able to share in our future. Maybe you have heard me share the story on the floor of the Senate before. In the past several years, I talked about the race massacre, here in committee meetings and in conversations around this body. There is a significance of the 100th anniversary, not just for Tulsa and my State, but for the rest of the Nation as well. So let me recount this again On May 30, 1921, a young Black man named Dick Rowland was in downtown Tulsa. He entered the Drexel Building to use the only bathroom in the area that was available for Black people to be able to use in downtown Tulsa. An incident occurred in the elevator between Dick Rowland and Sarah Paige, and Sarah Paige screamed. We really don't know what happened there, but as the doors opened, she screamed. The police did an investigation and the next day they went to Dick Rowland and they detained him at the Tulsa Police Department for questioning before removing him to the Tulsa Courthouse to be able to be confined. On May 31, 1921, the Tulsa Tribune released a sensationalist story claiming that a young Black man had attacked a White girl in an elevator in the Drexel Building. That story and long, simmering tensions in the city led to a large group of White individuals surrounding the courthouse to demand that Dick Rowland be released so he could be lynched. A group of Black men traveled to the courthouse to help defend Dick Rowland from the angry mob, many of them veterans from World War I who had served honorably there. After a scuffle at the downtown Tulsa courthouse, White rioters pursued the men back to the Greenwood District and the violence escalated dramatically. Literally, as the violence increased, the White rioters that really became a mob were deputized to be able to handle the issues in Greenwood. They gathered firearms as they ran the few blocks from central downtown Tulsa into Greenwood just north of Tulsa. Houses and businesses were burned and looted throughout the Greenwood District, and the attacks lasted well into the night and well into the next day before being quelled by the Oklahoma City National Guard. In less than 24 hours, 35 city blocks were destroyed by fires, 6,000 African American individuals were detained, and up to 300 lives were lost. Out of the 23 churches that were located in the Greenwood area prior to the 1921 massacre, only 13 of the churches survived and only three churches were able to be rebuilt after being destroyed--Paradise Baptist Church, Mount Zion Baptist Church, and Vernon AME Church. It was a horrific day, and 100 years later, the residents and businesses in the Greenwood District still carry on the legacy of resilience and determination. For the past few years, I have been working to tell this story. For some--even some Oklahomans--it is a story that they had not heard before. Five years ago, I started telling the story in Washington, DC, and when I told it, hardly anyone knew about it. Now everyone I speak to is familiar with the story. We have pulled this story out of the dark ages of history and lifted it up for our Nation to be able to see and our Nation is looking at it. In Oklahoma, many people now know about that terrible 2-day period when rioters set a community on fire and set our Nation back. But I also tell people that you can't understand Tulsa and Oklahoma unless you understand May 31 and June 1 of 1921. So I worked to develop a curriculum to ensure future generations of Oklahomans learn the accurate historic events of 1921. Before we started working on the curriculum, our schools had a mandate to teach the 1921 massacre. But there were no materials to actually use to teach that accurate history. There were no visuals. There was no curriculum. Now there are. We pulled all those together and made that resource free to every educator in Oklahoma and every educator in America that wants to be able to teach that history accurately. During this same time period, 5 or 6 years ago, I started working on something I called Solution Sundays, because when I started speaking about 6 years ago now to individuals all around Tulsa and around the State about the Tulsa Race Massacre, I usually started the conversation the same way: May 31 and June 1 of 2021, I would say, about 6 years ago, the entire country is going to pause. I don't know how long. They may pause for a minute. They may pause for an hour. They may pause for a day or for a weekend. But the entire country will pause and will look at Tulsa and look at Oklahoma and will ask themselves one question: What has changed in America in race relations in the last 100 years? I said 6 years ago, that is a fair question for someone to ask; we had better be able to answer it when May 31 of 2021 comes. Little did I know 6 years ago, when I started asking that question and continued to ask that question when it was 5 years, 4 years, 3 years, 2 years, and the next year--little did I know--about the events dealing with race that would happen in the last 12 months and the awakening that in the Nation really has happened to what is still left undone in the issue of race in America. I started something about 6 years ago. At this same time, I started asking about what would we say. I started challenging families with something I called Solution Sundays. It is a simple idea, quite frankly. I would just ask people that I would encounter, of all races, of all backgrounds, a simple question: Has your family ever invited a family of another race to your home for dinner? I thought it was simple until, when I would ask people, I would get the same answer back. I would ask people: Has your family ever invited a family of another race to your home for dinner? And the most common answer I got back was: I have friends of another race. To which I would always smile and say: That is not what I asked. I asked: Has your family ever invited a family of another race to your home for dinner? And what I found in my State was that most individuals of every race all answered it the same way: That has never happened in my house. So I would ask them a simple question. A national conversation about race is not something that happens on TV. A national conversation on race happens at our dinner tables with our families. We should not expect that the Nation will speak on race when our families are not. And the best way for our families and to show our kids that this is normal conversation is to have a family over of another race to sit around the table. What I like to say to people is, we will never get all the issues of race on the table until we get our feet under the same table and just talk and just get to know each other as friends. The Nation will not shift on race relations until each of our families shifts on race relations. I continue to be able to challenge this simple concept of Solution Sundays. By the way, if you want to pick a different day, that is fine with me. But Sunday seems to be a pretty good day just to invite someone over for dinner or for lunch. In just a few days, people from all over the country will fly into Tulsa, some of them for the first time. They are going to participate in events to commemorate the hundredth anniversary. It is my hope that what they see will be a model of reconciliation for the rest of the country. But after the anniversary passes and the crowds leave and the national folks will go on to doing something else, we will still be around. Tulsa and all of Oklahoma will still need to finish the work that has begun on race. I will still be around North Tulsa. I have lots of friends there. And I know there will be an ongoing dialogue, still, about reconciliation because the big event that the whole world turns the television cameras on for doesn't solve the issues of race. We solve that as individuals and as a family. You see, I believe, like many do, that I have a calling toward reconciliation. As a follower of Jesus, as I read through the New Testament, I bump into passages like Second Corinthians, chapter 5, where Paul wrote to us and said we have the ministry and the message of reconciliation. Now, I understand that Paul first meant that was an ability to be able to come to God and be reconciled to God. And I do believe firmly that every individual can be reconciled with God, and I am glad to share that message of ministry. But I also believe it is a challenge to each of us to work toward reconciliation. Where relationships are broken, we are the reconcilers, and we have a ministry and a message of reconciliation. My friend Robert Turner is the pastor of Vernon A.M.E. Church, in the heart of Greenwood. He and I were visiting last week on the phone, talking through the things coming up in the days ahead. As I was chitchatting with my friend, he said: I have to tell you about my sermon that I preached a couple of weeks ago. So I said: Tell me all about it. Pastor Turner said: I preached on Matthew, the tax collector, also called Levi. And we spent some time talking about that. And he said: What I told my congregation was that Jesus called Matthew, the tax collector, to be one of his disciples, but he also called Simon the Zealot to be one of his disciples. Now, you may not know, but the tax collectors were loyal to the Romans. They were Jews who were loyal to the Roman authority, and the zealots were Jews who were adamantly opposed to the Roman authority. So, literally, Jesus grabbed two people from opposite political perspectives--opposite, if I can say it, political parties--and he grabbed both of them and said: I want you to be my disciple. And Pastor Turner said: There is a lot that we can learn from Jesus, beginning with what Jesus said: Everyone is welcome, from every political perspective, to come and follow Him. Pastor Turner, you are spot on. My friend, keep preaching it. But excuse me for noticing, Jesus is the one who set the example, and he called all of us to be able to follow it. Now, I have to tell you, Pastor Turner and I don't agree on everything. We may not even vote alike, though, honestly, I have never asked him how he votes. But he is my friend, and he is my partner of reconciliation. For 6 years, I have asked people across Oklahoma, when May the 31st comes and the Nation stops and asks, ``What has changed in the last 100 years?'' We should be prepared to answer. That weekend is here, and each of us should be able to answer that for our lives and for our families. Let's finish the work. We are not done on racial reconciliation. Let's finish the work, starting with our own families, our own communities, and our own lives. God help us to carry on the ministry and the message of reconciliation With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the resolution.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, there is a lot going on right now. I have already spent time on the floor today to talk about some of the economic issues--inflation, unemployment--that are happening. There are a number of jobs that are open in my State. In fact, there is a record number of job openings in my State. There is unrest in the Middle East right now, and there are all kinds of things that are happening in the world. Yet I can't help, just for a moment, pausing to be able to reflect on a friend of mine who, in a few days, will be sitting and hanging out with his 12 grandchildren and enjoying a moment of retirement. His name is Roger Beverage. Roger Beverage just retired as the CEO of the Oklahoma Bankers Association. He is not the big banker guy. He is the community banker guy. For 30 years, he led our State in banking and engaged in issues from the smallest of the small banks in rural Oklahoma to family-owned community banks that are scattered around our State. He worked tirelessly to help individuals get access to banking who were blocked out, and he made sure that everyone had a shot. He has been a remarkable leader, and he is just a great grandpa. In the days ahead, I celebrate his getting time with his 12 grandchildren because he has given so much to so many others. As he spends time with his five kids--just the five kids who carry around the 12 grandchildren at this point--and as he spends time with his bride of 43 years, Paula, I want to say thank you to him. Roger wasn't born in Oklahoma; he was born in Nebraska. If you know Nebraska and Oklahoma's long heritage of football, you will know there has been quite a rivalry for a long time. Roger graduated from college and went to law school. When he finished up law school in 1971, he enlisted in the U.S. Army right in the middle of the Vietnam era. He served 2 years in the Army, working as a lawyer. He then served 6 more years in the Reserves after that. He retired as Captain Beverage. He is also a person who has never been shy or would walk away from a challenge and is one who has constantly been focused on service. In the middle of times that people up here in Washington, DC, wanted to equate big banks and community banks the same and to say: Let's put the pressure on the big banks but ``leave the little banks alone,'' often the little banks got caught up in that fight, and he was one of the folks who was constantly stepping out and saying: Allow community banks to serve communities. In rural communities, like many of mine in Oklahoma, that bank was essential to the economic development of what is happening in farming, in ranching; what is happening in every single person getting access to a car loan or a home loan or just being that friend when they need a chance to talk about financial advice. Now, Roger is a leader, and you can imagine, with bankers, who all have lots of opinions and lots of great leaders, he didn't agree with everybody all the time, but I would tell you something I know about Roger: He always listened. Always. People would ask me about Roger and what I think of him, and I would say: He is a servant leader. He is a hard worker. He is a person who listens. He has strong opinions, but his strong opinions are based on his own experience in the facts of the day, but he is also a humble worker who is actually working for the best of everyone. He will be missed in my State--21 years of serving in the State chamber and leadership in so many areas in our State--but I am grateful today and in the days ahead that he is going to finally get a chance to just be grandpa and hang out with those 12 grandchildren. Enjoy those days, Roger. Thank you for what you have done to be able to help lead our State in this area and to be able to serve so many community bankers all across the Nation. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, in February of this year, there was bipartisan conversation about what is the next step dealing with COVID. We knew we were coming out of it. Vaccines were going in arms. States were opening up. My State in Oklahoma was rapidly opening in February, and there was this dialogue about what would happen in the economy. Unfortunately, in the middle of that dialogue, my Democratic colleagues determined: We were going to go this on our own. We still stay engaged. One of the big issues, though, was unemployment. Would there be additional unemployment benefits that would be done? Now, myself and multiple others raised the issue on both sides of the aisle: How would this be handled? If it was a year before--literally, in March of 2020, there was an extension of unemployment because unemployment was at 15 percent at that point, and there were no jobs to be had. But in March of this year, when the agreement was finally made and a straight partisan bill was passed, we weren't at 15 percent unemployment. It was at 6 percent and driving down to the floor. Now we are below 4 percent. The challenge that we have is, there is additional unemployment benefits that have extended all the way until September. Now, that bill passed--a straight partisan bill--in March. By the Sunday after Palm Sunday, when I was back in my State, I was already having businessowners catching me and saying: What in the world? I can't hire now because I am competing for wages with someone in the Federal Government. What has that meant for right now? Now and May, what does that mean for us in Oklahoma? In Oklahoma, there are 37 percent more jobs available now than there were a year and a half ago before the pandemic began, when we were at the best economy in 50 years. Literally, there are more job openings in Oklahoma now than there have ever been in the history of our records. Let me run that past everybody again. There are more openings in Oklahoma right now for jobs than ever in the history of our recordkeeping for our State, but we can't fill jobs because people are making so much money on unemployment and they get the first $10,000 of that written off on their taxes. Those two pieces together incentivize people, literally, to be able to stay home. Our State has had to take a pretty radical step, quite frankly. We have stepped in with 20 other States and have ended the unemployment assistance, but we have had to take it the next step because we have so many job openings in our State. We are literally giving a $1,200 bonus to anyone who will go back to work. For the first 20,000 people who will actually get off of unemployment benefits and go back to work, we are paying a $1,200 bonus to those individuals to return to work. What in the world? Why would we have to do this as a State? Our State is taking leadership, and I am grateful to Governor Stitt and his continued leadership to be able to help navigate our economy and our families. But why would we want to have a situation where we have literally disincentivized work and encouraged people to not return to work? What Governor Stitt has set up is an encouragement to actually get back to work. That is better for families. That is better for children. That is better for our economy. Right now in Oklahoma, if you are going to build anything--and I mean build anything--good luck finding building supplies. And it is not because we don't have lumber. It is not because we don't have bricks. It is not because we don't have windows and shingles and all those things. Good luck getting it because they can't get enough labor to actually do the manufacturing. So everyone is running behind simply because there is a shortage of labor because we are incentivizing people to stay home rather than to be able to come back. Shots are in arms. Our rates of COVID have decreased dramatically. It is time for us to return to work. But now we are going to have a situation where we have right now--where half the country is incentivized to stay home. Now you have 21 States--slightly less than half the country--that are trying to incentivize people to get back to work. We need, as a nation, to incentivize work and to encourage families to be able to be engaged in productive activities. It is right for families. It is right for our economy. It is certainly right for us as a nation. And I thank Governor Stitt for his leadership in this area and for what we continue to do, but we have to get back to basic policies that don't disincentivize work. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I want to be able to comment on my colleague, Senator Portman, and some of the comments he has made about unemployment. My State is not one of those States yet that has made the decision to be able to end the additional unemployment benefits that are coming from the Federal Government, and it is harming workers and it is harming jobs and it is harming businesses in my State. And I hope in the days ahead, my State will be one of those States to be able to step up and will say--and I believe my Governor will--to be able to step up and say: Let's actually make sure we are benefiting families long-term. There is a whole group of folks who believe that if you only give people enough money, that is going to help them rise out of poverty. People need a job. People need a purpose. People need a plan to be able to do that. Folks don't need long-term Government benefits to be able to help sustain that. They need a way to be able to help earn a living to be able to pass it on to their family to set a job record for them and to set a path for their kids and grandkids after them. That helps people rise--every study we have seen on how to help people rise out of poverty, graduate high school, wait till after marriage to have kids, and have a job of any type. Let's help people rise. Let's help people be employed and engaged. That is a helpful thing. I think about some of the things that are happening even today. Secretary Mayorkas was in front of our committee today, and it was shocking to me to hear the Secretary of Homeland Security talk about how much more efficient they have become at processing people at the border and getting them into the country. It used to be our evaluation for how we were managing Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection was how many people we were stopping at the border and returning to their home country. He, literally, over and over again, articulated how much faster they are now at processing people at the border and releasing them into the country. Even at one point when I challenged him and said: I understand people are being released into the country without even a notice to appear; that they are just being released into the country and told to go to a place somewhere in the country, self-report themselves to an ICE office and say: I would like to get a court order to be able to have a notice to appear. At that point, I said: How many people have been treated that way? He said: I am not sure. Well, I have already looked up the record on it. It is 19,000 just in the past couple of months who have been brought across the border, released into the country, and told just self-report yourself to whatever ICE agent you see somewhere in the country. I asked the simple question: How many people have already done that? Not only could he not answer the number 19,000, which we have confirmed, but he didn't know how many people had actually turned themselves in and actually done it. But we continue to do this. It was all about speed of moving people who are crossing the border into the country rather than actually managing our border. And even something as simple as just the gaps in the fence, they are still, as he said to me, ``studying'' whether they are going to close the gaps in the fence. We have a gas pipeline that has gone down due to a ransomware attack. It reminded me, again, of how important gas pipelines are all over our Nation, and it is interesting to me that on day one, one of the first things that President Biden did was he stepped in and ended the Keystone Pipeline moving through here and is now actively working to be able to shut down all pipeline construction around the country. Can I remind Americans, especially Americans on the East Coast, what it means to lose a pipeline When the President says we are not going to do more pipelines, that means we have no redundancy; that if a pipeline goes down, there is not an additional backup one in construction to be able to get there. It is better to have multiple pipelines in the area so that if one goes down, you still have other fuel supplies. What if this pipeline had actually been a larger scale issue even than a ransomware attack, as bad as that is? This whole fight that we are having about pipelines suddenly makes sense to a whole lot of folks on the East Coast who can't get gasoline. Pipelines are not evil. Pipelines are moving energy across the country, and it is the least expensive, safest way to be able to move that energy across the country. This week, of all weeks, has been interesting to have a dialogue about S. 1. It was a long markup in the Rules Committee to be able to talk about voting in America. Now, I was at the White House several years ago when the FIRST STEP Act was signed. It was a remarkable bill dealing with criminal justice reform. As I was at the White House signing ceremony and the gathering of all these different folks that had been engaged, it was interesting to me to stand in that room with President Trump and to have folks from the Heritage Foundation and folks from the ACLU in the same room shaking hands and smiling and saying that this is a good piece of legislation. In fact, it is the only time that I can remember sitting at a signing ceremony watching people from two different perspectives saying they both support something so strongly. That was the FIRST STEP Act. I have now seen my second time that that has occurred, when both the Heritage Foundation and the ACLU both oppose S. 1 and H.R. 1. They have both come out in opposition to it. Well, that is an interesting gathering of folks to be able to gather together from both political extremes to be able to look at a piece of legislation--all 880 pages of it--and to say: That is a bad idea. Why would they say that? Well, let me count the ways of why they would say that. In my State in Oklahoma, we have great voting engagement. Good. We want to make it easy to vote. We want to make it hard to cheat. We want as many people as possible to be able to vote and as many people as possible to be able to engage in the process. It is the nature of a Republic like ours. You need people to be able to be engaged. But we also want to be able to follow up on that process as well, to be able to make sure that if somebody is actually breaking the rules on that, we follow up. And in our State, we do. Recently, I followed up with our State leadership for voting to be able to find out what happened in our last election and what are we doing. We found 57 people as a State that voted twice in my State. All 57 of those names were turned over to local district attorneys, and they will start following up with those individuals because that is a violation of the law to be able to vote twice in our State. Fifty-seven names is not very many, but it is because we continue to enforce the law in our State to be able to make sure that we have as many people voting as possible but also accountability for people who want to be able to cheat in the system. The interesting thing about S. 1 and H.R. 1 is that they make it much easier to cheat in the process. They set up a different system where you can actually have no voter ID. And it is not just no voter ID; it is no voter ID and same-day registration combined. So you can literally walk into a polling place that you are not registered for, not show an ID, and say ``I am not registered. I would like to vote'' and not show an ID and also vote that same day in that spot. There is no way to be able to verify, then, one way or the other if this person is voting twice because no one knows. In my State that has great voter ID laws, it would gut them, and it would take it away from our State, though no one is complaining about voter ID in my State. You can show an ID. You can show a library card. You can show a utility bill. You can show anything in my State just to be able to verify that is actually you because we want people to be able to vote, but we want to make sure it is that person who is actually voting. That used to be a common, accepted practice. Why would we want to create an environment where we would make it easy to be able to cheat? This bill, S. 1, also creates ballot harvesting--forces it around the entire country. Folks may say: I have no idea what that is. Well, let me set up what it is. Ballots are mailed to your house, and if you haven't mailed it back in yet, you may have a knock at your door. They come to your door. And if they come to the door--it would be a political activist from one of the campaigns, and they would say: Hey, have you filled out your ballot yet? I know they got mailed out yesterday. Have you turned it back in yet? Oh, you haven't? Grab your ballot inside and bring it out on the front porch, and I will help you fill it out right here on your front porch. And, I tell you what I will do. I will also turn it in for you. You won't even have to mail it. I will deliver it for you. That is ballot harvesting. In most States, that is illegal. They want to make that legal in every single State. That is an invitation to fraud. Now, there is a difference between ``I want to help facilitate everyone to be able to vote and to be able to protect their right to vote'' and actually creating opportunities for fraud where everyone doubts every election. That is not the right way to go. I want to make sure that we all look at an election at the end of it and say we can trust that. One of the ways we can trust it is through a Federal Election Commission that actually is bipartisan. We have a Federal Election Commission with an even number of Republicans and Democrats. They want to change that to where it is five members, not six, and the last member, who is the tie breaker, is someone selected by the President who would be ``independent.'' I am sure that is going to work out just fine, but that is not going to end up being a partisan individual. In my State, all the ballots are done ahead of time--all of them. If you do a mail-in ballot, those ballots are opened up early on. There are Republicans and Democrats. There are poll watchers who are watching it. All of the evaluations for the quality of the ballots are all tested before election night. So that is all finished. So when election night is done, by 10:30 in the evening, all the ballots have been counted and election results are out. Oh, no, that won't work. My Senate Democratic colleagues want to give an additional 10 days for ballots to continue to trickle in. So, literally, what we had in this last election where it was for days that no one even knew how many ballots were coming in, and the uncertainty that that creates in the process, they want to make sure that exists in every State, not just in a few States. Listen, I would rather have every State be like mine, to say that everyone has to turn their ballot in early. It is not like election day is a shocking day that no one knew about. In fact, the majority of States around the country are like my State. This is not just a partisan issue. Vermont has the same rule that we have in Oklahoma. This is a straightforward way to protect the integrity of the ballot, that you can turn in the ballots early, and that you can evaluate all of them so the ballots aren't trickling in for days. If you love all those rules, let me give you one more quick one. Remember that campaign speech or that campaign commercial that you really, really hate, that you are sick of it by the time the election comes? Well, get ready for a whole lot more of them because the S. 1 bill gives Federal dollars, 6 to 1, to be able to fund more campaigns and to make sure campaigns have even more money. So if someone raises $100,000, they are going to give--Federal tax dollars--$600,000 to that candidate, even a candidate you didn't vote for and don't like. They are going to get $600,000 for every $100,000. If they raise $1 million for their campaign, they will get $6 million of our Federal tax dollars. I don't want to pay for campaigns I don't agree with. I don't think that is the right way to go. And I don't bump into many people in my State that get real excited about paying for someone else's campaign whom they disagree with. I think this bill was the result of the 2020 election. They pulled it out and said: That election was such a shambles. We need to be able to put a bill out there to do that. But you would be incorrect. Actually, this bill is exactly what they pulled out in 2017, saying that Russia took over the election in 2016 and so we need a big bill to be able to fix it. And for 4 years they have been pushing it and, now, after this election, they pulled it out again and said: We have to be able to do this. It is the same bill. It used to be the bill to fight Russia. Now it is the bill to be able to fight whatever now. Listen, let each State make those decisions, and when there is a challenge for that, take it to Federal court. That is why we have the court system. Allow those Federal courts to process through those challenges. We want every person to be able to be protected, to be able to vote, and if some State is suppressing the vote, take that to Federal court, and let's solve that and make sure that does not occur. But don't tell everyone in my State that Washington, DC knows better. We have Republicans and Democrats that have worked very hard on election law in my State. In fact, there was just an expansion of additional days for early voting in my State. It has been a nonpartisan issue in my State. Let's not make it a partisan issue now and tell everyone across the entire country that DC knows best. Let's put this bill aside and not pass the S. 1 bill. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I have had the privilege to represent the great State of Oklahoma and the people of Oklahoma, to be able to sit in multiple Presidential addresses in the House of Representatives Chamber. At that joint address that happened last night, I didn't have the privilege to actually get a chance to sit in on. As, clearly, anyone who watched the speech saw that there were 200 people in a room designed for 1,600 people, with the spacing and all of the things that were happening there. In some ways it seemed normal, and some ways it seemed ridiculous with the room of 200 vaccinated people all spaced out. But that is a different story for a different moment. For that speech last night, as I listened, I thought about the other speeches that I have listened to as well. Many of these speeches are similar. The President comes and casts a vision. Says these are things that they want to be able to do, talk through different programs, talk through different tax issues, talk through where we are as a country, cast a vision. I get all of those things. Last night, and every night, when one of those speeches occurs, there is usually something unique or different about the speech. It is a little different direction for where they want to go. Not all those programs will get implemented. I had people already contacting my office, panicked in some ways, saying: Are all those things going to be done? And I can smile at them and say: No, all those things won't be done, because it never is. It is a vision that is cast by the President that they have to convince the American people and Congress to be able to engage with as well. But last night was epic in the sense of spending. I was even surprised at the amount that we are talking about at this point, and it seems to be just so flippant and normal at this point. When you do the math of what just happened with the American Rescue Plan, that was just under $2 trillion of spending. Last night, one of the proposals was also about $2 trillion, and another one was about $2.5 trillion. So take those together--just over $6 trillion in proposed and spent government debt just in those three recommended. What people aren't adding to this is that starting in June, in July, it is appropriations time. Our best understanding--we haven't received the budget from the White House yet--is that proposal will be about $4.5 trillion. So adding together what happened in the first 100 days and what is about to happen in the next 100 days that we already see coming, is a proposal to spend, this year, $11 trillion--$11 trillion. That far exceeds what was even spent during the pandemic time period, when we all determined that this is a rainy day that we definitely need to be able to help stabilize our economy--$11 trillion. The size of government, the number of times that I heard, ``If there is a problem, government here in Washington, DC, can solve it''--it was epic. Now, initially, at the beginning of the speech, there was a lot of talk about COVID, as well there should be. Our Nation is coming through this. But I was surprised how little conversation there was about the vaccines and the process, Operation Warp Speed, and the partnership between government and private industry that was done last year to be able to bring all these vaccines to place. You see, all the vaccines were developed and ordered last year. All the needles and the alcohol wipes and the materials--the PPP that would be needed--were all ordered last year. This year was just a matter of getting shots in arms, which I am incredibly grateful we have had so many Americans that have stepped up and driven up, come and put their arm out there and said I want to be part of this solution for getting rid of COVID in our country. Everyone knew that as we got shots in arms, we would see the numbers come down--at least we hoped. And we did. The numbers are coming down, and the economy is coming back up. That is the other thing that everyone predicted, as well--that as soon as some of the shutdowns happened, we would begin to see the economy begin to rise again, and, thankfully, we are. It was interesting to be able to hear the President last night take credit for all that, which I assume every President sitting in that spot would. But I am grateful to President Trump and the leadership that happened in HHS and the work of career folks and the folks who are in science and private industry and pharmaceuticals and what they have done over the last year because it is remarkable what we actually have walked through and what we have seen. What was not mentioned last night when talking about the economy is unemployment insurance. It is something I brought to this body before. When I traveled around my State the week before Easter and the week after Easter when we were not voting those 2 weeks--as I traveled around, every employer I talked to said the same thing: We are hiring, but we don't have people applying, or people who are applying are coming in and just applying and filling out a form, and when they offer them the job, they are saying: I don't want the job. I just need to be able to bring the completed form back to the unemployment office so I can continue to get my check. I talked to employees who were frustrated because the person who used to work next to them is not showing up for work anymore because they are home getting unemployment benefits because the unemployment benefits in my State right now far exceed what the normal wage is. People aren't showing up. That is a problem in our economy. My fear is that is a problem that is going to continue all the way until September because the unemployment benefits that were extended were extended all the way through the first week of September. Even though we pushed back and said this is a bad idea, the Democratic colleagues and the President said: No, let's keep moving forward. There are lots of parts of the Green New Deal that were presented last night, but they didn't use the term ``Green New Deal.'' It was bits and pieces of elements of the Green New Deal separated in different sets of the ideas. The term ``Green New Deal'' has become very, very unpopular with folks as they find out what it is. Taking pieces of the Green New Deal, separating them in different spots, and trying to pass them doesn't change anything either. I was surprised how little the President really talked about what is going on in the crisis at the border. He did mention it, and I was pleased to see that. Many people in my State really see that as a very serious issue that needs to be resolved. Our open borders right now and the literally hundreds of thousands of people who have crossed our border illegally just this calendar year, just in the last 100 days, is record levels. I talked to the Border Patrol folks, and they talked about how in March alone, they had 172,000 encounters. It is a record number. But now in April, they are hitting or exceeding that record, just in April, again because the numbers continue to skyrocket to numbers we have not seen. The number of unaccompanied minors is at a 20-year high. We have not seen these numbers in decades. It is a significant issue for us as a country. It is one that started on January 20 with the change in policy and issues. We have more than 5,000 individuals who have been picked up by Border Patrol just this year who have a criminal record in the United States. We have 15,000 individuals whom Border Patrol has just released into the country with no notice to appear at all, just a statement as they come through. The line was so long that Border Patrol leadership was telling them, from Washington, DC, that if the line gets too long, just release people into the country and tell them to check in with immigration folks in whatever part of the country they go to. Just check in. Literally, if they are coming across the border and the line is too long, just let them go and tell them to check themselves in when they get to wherever they are going in the country--15,000 people like that just this year We have 150,000 people whom Border Patrol has reported that they saw crossing the border, but they literally didn't have the manpower to even get to them, what they call ``got aways''--150,000 this year who won't show up in anyone's numbers of people entering the country illegally. These numbers are truly epic numbers. Last night, the President's proposal was to allow us to do more in Central America and eventually this will get better. I would tell you from being down at the border three times just this year and interacting with folks, I would encourage anyone from the administration to go to the border and actually see what is going on and actually talk to law enforcement there. From being down in that area, their concern is that this is a very long-term issue because the administration doesn't seem to see it as a crisis or something that has to be fixed immediately; it can be fixed eventually, with hundreds of thousands of people coming across the border now every month. In the last official report from Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol, there were over 100 different countries represented by the individuals crossing the border just this year--over 100 countries. It is not just folks from Central America. Literally, people from all over the world are paying the cartels the money it takes to get through Mexico and traveling into our country and checking in or skipping across the border, and they disappear into our economy. I see that as an issue. I wish the administration would see that as an issue. A conversation that came up last night was about voting. It is an important conversation for us. We are a representative republic. Voting is extremely important to us as a nation; that every vote counts and that every vote has the integrity that it needs. But with S. 1 and on the House side, what they call H.R. 1, I am stunned at the contents of that bill. When President Biden said: Just pass that bill and put it on my desk, I thought, there is absolutely no way I would pass a bill like that; nor would the people at home even want me to pass a bill like that. That is a bill that is intentionally designed to make voting easy and cheating easy. We want to make voting easy and cheating hard. That is the way we have done elections for a very long time. Why would we want to shift from that? I am all for making voting as easy as we can. My State has early voting. It has mail-in voting and all the characteristics you want to have to protect the integrity of the vote so when it is over, everyone can look at it and say: My person won or lost, but I trust the integrity of the vote. It has all those elements. We worked very hard to make sure every community in every area has access to voting and doesn't have long lines and make sure we get to mail out ballots and all those things to be able to not only give the opportunity for people to vote but to protect the integrity of the vote. S. 1 and H.R. 1 does things like same-day registration but also removes voter ID. You partner those two together, and that is a recipe for double-voting and fraud. You can't have those two together. It mandates a third-party collection of ballots that could be done in any State. Individual political groups could literally go door-to-door and say: Have you voted yet? If you haven't, come out on the porch right now. I will stand with you, and we can vote together, and then I will turn your ballot in for you. That violates everything we have done in voting about secret ballots and about the integrity of the ballot, and only the folks in the post office would handle it or the folks in the polling place would handle it. Now, this is a third party whom no one has any connection to nor accountability to who can randomly grab ballots and collect them. How do we not think there won't be fraud in that system? It also takes away all voter IDs in every State, including my State, where there is not even a complaint about voter IDs on either side of the aisle because it is an incredibly fair system. It doesn't require a driver's license. It can require any piece of paper or any way to be able to show you are who you are. We have a straightforward system to be able to protect not only the integrity of the ballot but to make sure every person is not only allowed to vote but is encouraged to vote. Why would we take that away from places where it is already working and there hasn't been a complaint just because someone in Washington, DC, says we shouldn't do it? Centralized control of voting in Washington, DC, seemed to be part of the theme of the night last night, where it was, everything would work better if it only came to DC. I tell you, I have met a lot of smart people in DC, but I can also tell you that I know a lot of smart people in Oklahoma who love their neighbors, who want to see the right thing done, who care about people in their community and in their State. And this sudden belief that if we are going to get things done right, we have to bring it to Washington, DC, and allow the folks in Washington, DC, to be able to run it, I will tell you, the folks in my State would shake their heads and say: We are doing OK. Let us take care of our neighbors at home, and don't make us sign a paper every time we want to do something and send it off to somebody we never met in Washington, DC. This growing in size of our Federal Government is not a goal for me. Being efficient, protecting the rights of every American, protecting our national security--those are goals. They don't require federalizing everything. I can tell you a couple of areas where last night really had some shining moments for me, though. President Biden, twice in his speech, literally reached out to Republicans and said: I understand Republicans have another idea on this. Let's sit down and talk. That was a good moment. Quite frankly, for the last--let's say of a 100-day Presidency so far, for 90 days of that, we have gotten the Heisman from the President and his team, saying: We have got this; we don't need you. Then in the last really 10 days or so, the White House has started reaching out some. And to be able to hear President Biden last night say: We understand Republicans have a different idea; let's sit down and visit--that almost sounds like governing. That would be a great shift for us, to be able to sit down and talk these things through. Republicans aren't opposed to infrastructure. How absurd to be able to make infrastructure a partisan issue. We have always done infrastructure together. It is not like any of us are opposed to highways and to waterways and to clean drinking water and to broadband. There are key aspects that are core to infrastructure. Let's continue to be able to do those. Let's do them efficiently and wisely. That is all that we would ask. I am pleased the President actually reached out and said: Let's start sitting down to be able to talk these things through, because that will allow us to be able to work together toward a better solution. The second big moment for me last night was listening to my friend and colleague Tim Scott speak about his family, speak about a vision for the country, to be able to challenge the country and to be able to challenge this body to be able to do what he called commonsense finding common ground. It is a great idea. We have different perspectives across the aisle in this building. That doesn't mean we can't sit down as Americans and be able to work them out. As Tim Scott reminded us, part of the story of America is a story of redemption. We can do that together. Tim also challenged this Nation to stop politicizing race, to stop saying over and over again that because we disagree, it is because we are racist. Tim spoke to the Nation and said there are real issues of race out there, and you cheapen it when you politicalize every issue and say it is because you are racist. Let's actually sit down and disagree on issues as Americans, and let's resolve those things together. We have common ground, and we have areas of real disagreement. I had lots of areas where I disagree with President Biden, but I am willing to sit down and lay out a set of ideas that I think are a much better option. Let's talk it out. That is what we do. But let's resolve these issues in the days ahead. And no, you are right, I am not going to give on the Second Amendment. I am not going to give on issues of life and the value of every child. I am not going to give on--I think the debt and deficit is a very important issue. I am not going to give on encouraging the value of work for every single person and every single family. There are areas I am not going to give on, but we should at least sit down and treat each other with dignity and respect, and let's talk it out. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I bring news back from Oklahoma to this body and a request for dialogue. The COVID bill that was passed a little over a month ago--that bill provided all kinds of relief. As this body knows, we were deeply divided on that bill and some of the issues within it. One of the issues stretched out the debate all the way to the last moment, and it was the additional unemployment assistance. The conversation about the additional unemployment assistance is this: The economy is reopening. Is this the time to extend additional money above and beyond State unemployment assistance, what we normally do? With unemployment rates going down, should we add more money on top of it? No one really knew what would happen when that occurred, but we had some suspicions. The 2 weeks I spent traveling around the State, the week before Easter and after Easter, in town after town after town after town after town, I heard the same thing from employees and employers. Employees would tell me that somebody who used to work next to them is now at home because they are making as much money at home on unemployment assistance as they would when working. So the person standing there working at the factory, the person standing there working at the restaurant is ticked off at the person who is at home watching TV, making as much money as they are. The employer is just as frustrated or more because they have all kinds of orders coming into their business, saying: Can you send us more of this? And they could, except they don't have enough labor. An additional $300 a week was added on top of the unemployment assistance and extended out all the way to the first week of September. At the same time, checks were sent out to every individual. Then they were told they would get a $10,000 tax break. The combination of those three things together has caused some folks to do what people do in a free market: They look to see where they are going to work based on where they can make the most money at that moment. That is what a free market is like. That is why employers continue to pay a little more to get good employees. But the problem is, in Oklahoma, where there is a low cost of living, many of our employers are struggling to find workers because they are competing against this body. The employees are ticked because they are at work working, paying taxes, and the person who used to work next to them and probably will return this October got several months off and is making the same, except for the person working is paying for the person not working, and they are a little ticked off about it. I bring this to you because this is not hypothetical. In Oklahoma, our unemployment rate dropped again to 4.2, but we still have 100,000 people. Our rates continue to rise for people filing first-time claims, but I promise there is not a town you can go to in Oklahoma that doesn't have ``help wanted'' signs all over town. I heard it from every single town that I went to, from employers in every single place that they cannot compete with what the government is just mailing to people for staying at home. The very first day I was out a couple of weeks ago, I was in Tulsa at a business there that does manufacturing. He told me that for the first time ever--and he has owned the business a long time--for the first time ever, one of his managers came to him and said: You are not going to believe what just happened. They had an employee who came up to them and said: I would like for you to fire me. He said: Well, why in the world would I do that? He said: Well, I just figured out, with the tax break and what I would get on unemployment assistance, I could make as much staying at home as I could working. But I need you to fire me so I can go file for unemployment. He literally said to him: I am not going do that. Go back to work. So the next day, the guy showed up 30 minutes late to work, and at lunchtime, he took an hour and a half off. He did the same thing the next day. The third day, according to protocol in their company, they called him in, talked to him, and wrote it all up. The fourth day, they did the same thing again--called him in, wrote it up. By the fifth day, they fired him. His exact words to his manager on the floor: What took you so long? There is a restaurant in Oklahoma City that told us they were preparing to reopen. Finally, the pandemic is over. We have a very high percentage of folks in Oklahoma who have received the vaccine. We are one of the top 10 States in the country for distributing the vaccines. Our State, our county, our local offices, our hospitals, and our Tribal areas have done a fantastic job getting the vaccine out. We are open. One of the restaurants trying to reopen in the Plaza District of Oklahoma City, a beautiful cultural district, couldn't reopen because they couldn't hire people because they got larger unemployment benefits, and they remain closed. The mayor of Muskogee told me that most employers in their town are struggling to be able to get employees to get back to work. In Northern Oklahoma, in Perry, there is a restaurant that was talking to one of my staff this week that said they are having to close early because they can't get enough business. I would tell you, a couple of Sundays ago, my wife and I drove to go eat lunch after church, and we went to two restaurants before we had to go to a third to find a restaurant that was open. The second restaurant literally had a sign on their door: ``Closed Due to Labor Shortage.'' This is a real issue that was created in this room that is impacting my State trying to reopen. I have no idea if my Democratic colleagues will acknowledge this as a real problem or will just say: That is a hypothetical issue; it is not real. But this is going to continue all the way through September, and my State is not going to be able to reopen. This will get even worse in the days ahead when additional money will start being shipped out to families in the change in the child tax credit, when people will literally start getting checks in August on top of the other checks they are receiving. I bring this to this body because I would like for us to have a conversation about it and for somebody in this body to acknowledge that a mistake was made and we need to fix this. We all agreed last year to be able to help during the time of the pandemic. People needed help. Everyone was out of work, and there were no options for work. That is not true anymore; yet these larger benefits are still coming out. This needs to be addressed. For the sake of getting our economy going again, this needs to be addressed. I would hope we could have a reasonable, rational, fact-based conversation about it. U.S. Supreme Court Madam President, for most of the history of the United States, we have had nine Supreme Court Justices--nine. Now, we started out originally with six, and then it dropped for just a little while to five and then went right back to six again. When we added a seventh circuit court in 1807, it popped from six to seven, and there was some discussion about whether it would just continue based on the number of circuit courts. It was determined that, no, that was a bad idea. Then it went to nine in 1837. Lincoln actually added 1 to make it 10, and they determined that was really too many and brought it back down to 7, actually. In 1869, we went back to nine again, where we were most of the time before that and where we have remained, nine Supreme Court Justices. That is not just a random number; it seems to be a pretty good number-- nine--to be able to open up debate. I don't just think it is a pretty good number. There is a rather famous and some would say ``notorious'' Justice named Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She made this statement in 2019 when asked about Court- packing and asked about increasing the size of the Court. In 2019, Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: Nine seems to be a good number. It's been that way for a long time. . . . I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court. . . . If anything [it] would make the court look partisan. That is not just one Justice. Early in April this year, Justice Breyer was speaking at the Harvard Law School, and he addressed this issue of Court-packing while this body is in the middle of a conversation about Court-packing--extremely rare for that to occur. Justice Breyer stated: I'm an optimist. The rule of law has weathered many threats, but it remains sturdy. I hope and expect that the Court will retain its authority, an authority that my stories have shown was hard-won. But that authority, like the rule of law, depends on trust, a trust that the Court is guided by legal principle, not politics. . . . Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that latter perception, further eroding that trust . . . There is no shortcut. Trust in the courts, without which our system cannot function, requires knowledge, it requires understanding, it requires engagement. In a word, it requires work. Work on the part of all citizens. And we must undertake that work together. . . . What I'm trying to do is to make those whose initial instincts may favor important structural change or other similar institutional changes--such as forms of court-packing--think long and hard before they embody those changes in law. That was so well received, by Justice Breyer, that progressive activists started calling for him to take early retirement. Court-packing is not a new conversation in this body, but it has not been well received in the past. The Court has always ebbed and flowed in its liberal or conservative bents. President Obama spoke openly when he was President about the Court in the 1960s. That was a very progressive Court in the 1960s that drove conservatives crazy with some of the decisions they made, but there was no packing of the Court to try to change the direction of the Court in the 1960s and 1970s. There was a frustration but a realization that nine was the right number. Over time, the Court, as it does, as it ebbs and flows over the decades, has flowed to be more conservative. In the days ahead, at some point, it will flow to be more liberal. It just will. But the rule of law is important. It is not a new concept that is being addressed, but it is one this body should think long and hard about. Quite frankly, I agree with Joe Biden on this concept, but not the President Joe Biden, the Senator Joe Biden. With this body's permission, let me read Joe Biden's speeches when he was in the U.S. Senate and he stood right over there and spoke on this floor or spoke in committee hearings when he was in the Judiciary Committee, speaking often about this issue. Joe Biden, once speaking, made this statement. He said: President Roosevelt clearly had the right to send to the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress a proposal to pack the Court. It was totally within his right to do that. He violated no law; he was legalistically absolutely correct. But it was a bonehead idea. It was a terrible, terrible mistake to make. And it put in question, for an entire decade, the independence of the most significant body-- including the Congress, in my view-- The most significant body in this country-- --the Supreme Court of the United States of America. The President had the right to do that. He was totally within his power, and his objective was seen clearly. Well, the President clearly has the right to do what he is doing, in my view. But he also called it ``bonehead.'' Joe Biden, as Senator, also continued with this statement. He was discussing the same issue. He said: ``The Senate again stood''--by the way, this was two decades later, after Joe Biden made that statement I just read. Two decades later, Joe Biden still has the same passion. He stated this: The Senate again stood firm in the 1937 court-packing plan by President Franklin Roosevelt. This particular example of Senate resolve is instructive for today's debates, so let me describe it in some detail. It was the summer of 1937. President Roosevelt had just come off a landslide victory over Alf Landon, and he had a Congress made up of solid New Dealers. But the ``nine old men'' of the Supreme Court were thwarting his economic agenda, overturning law after law overwhelmingly passed by the Congress and from statehouses across the country. In this environment, President Roosevelt unveiled his court-packing plan--he wanted to increase the number of Justices on the Court to 15, allowing himself to nominate these additional judges. In an act of great courage, Roosevelt's own party stood up against his institutional power grab. They did not agree with the judicial activism of the Supreme Court, but they believed that Roosevelt was wrong to seek to defy established traditions as a way of stopping that activism. In May 1937, the Senate Judiciary Committee--a committee controlled by the Democrats and supportive of his political ends--issued a stinging rebuke. They put out a report condemning Roosevelt's plan, arguing it was an effort ``to punish the Justices'' and that executive branch attempts to dominate the Judiciary lead inevitably to an autocratic dominance, ``the very thing against which the American Colonies revolted, and to prevent which the Constitution was in every particular framed.'' Our predecessors in the Senate showed courage that day and stood up to their President as a coequal institution. And they did so not to thwart the agenda of the President, which in fact many agreed with; they did it to preserve our system's checks and balances; they did it to ensure the integrity of the system. When the Founders created a ``different kind of legislative body'' in the Senate, they envisioned a bulwark against unilateral power--it worked back then and I hope it works now. Said Joe Biden during that time. The noted historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.-- Joe Biden, continuing as Senator-- has argued that in a parliamentary system President Roosevelt's efforts to pack the Court would have succeeded. Schlesinger writes: ``The Court bill couldn't have failed if we had a parliamentary system in 1937.'' A parliamentary legislature would have gone ahead with their President, that's what they do, but the Founders envisioned a different kind of legislature, an independent institution that would think for itself. In the end, Roosevelt's plan failed because Democrats in Congress thought court-packing was dangerous, even if they would have supported the newly-constituted Court rulings. The institution acted as an institution. In summary, then, what do the Senate's action of 1795, 1805, and 1937 share in common? I believe they are examples of this body acting at its finest, demonstrating its constitutional role as an independent check on the President, even popularly elected Presidents of the same party. That was from Senator Joe Biden. His challenge to this body was to think long and hard before they destroyed an institution of our government. It was right then; it is right now. In a final statement from Joe Biden, he spoke about the filibuster-- often, actually, about the filibuster. Senator Biden stated this: The Framers created the Senate as a unique legislative body designed to protect against the excesses of temporary majority, including with respect to judicial nominations; and they left us all the responsibility of guaranteeing an independent Federal judiciary, one price of which is that it sometimes reaches results Senators don't like. It is up to us to preserve these precious guarantees. Our history, our American sense of fair play, and our Constitution demand it. Joe Biden continued. As Senator, he said: I would ask my colleagues who are considering supporting the ``nuclear option''--those who propose to ``jump off the precipice''--whether they believe that history will judge them favorably. In so many instances throughout this esteemed body's past, our forefathers . . . stepped back from the cliff. In each case, the actions of those statesmen preserved and strengthened the Senate, to the betterment of the health of our constitutional republic and to all of our advantage. Our careers in the Senate will one day end--as we are only the Senate's temporary officeholders--but the Senate itself will go on. Will historians studying the actions taken in the spring of 2005-- When Joe Biden stated this in the Senate-- [Will they] look upon the current Members of this Senate as statesmen who placed the institution of the United States Senate above party and politics? Or will historians see us as politicians bending to the will of the Executive and to political exigency? I, for one, am comfortable with the role I will play in this upcoming historic moment. Then he stated this, from Senator Joe Biden: I hope . . . my colleagues [will] feel the same. So do I. Less than the days ahead, history will look at the unwinding of the judiciary based on a season in the Supreme Court, as we have had seasons and cycles before. Don't unwind the judiciary for a season. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, let me read to you a section of the proposal on infrastructure that has been put out by the White House, just one section of many sections that are there. This particular section on national critical infrastructure reads this way: Funds for schools to reduce or eliminate the use of paper plates and disposable materials. I don't know what your definition of ``infrastructure'' is, but I don't meet a lot of Oklahomans who, when I say ``infrastructure,'' they think school lunch trays. We need to work on infrastructure, and I would tell you, I don't meet a Republican who is not engaged in this issue of infrastructure. And it is not the first time for any of us to work on infrastructure; we have had multiple bills. I remind people around my State that every time you are driving around my State and you see an orange construction zone and a flashing sign, that is a previous infrastructure bill that was done. In every direction that you go in my State, you are going to see infrastructure that is already happening and working because working on infrastructure is a common part of what we do. Republicans have stepped to the table and have said: Let's work on infrastructure together. In fact, it was interesting--President Trump over and over again talked about working on infrastructure and tried to be able to get a major infrastructure proposal. Our definition of ``infrastructure,'' though, doesn't include school lunch trays. We would like to work on highways. This particular package that the White House has sent us, we have just raised our hands and said: We have a few questions before you want to be able to move this forward. This particular proposal spends $174 billion for electric vehicles but only $115 billion for the highways that they will drive on. We just believe we need to spend more on highways. We don't mind incentivizing electric vehicles, but, quite frankly, there have been a lot of incentives out there already. Every Tesla that you pull up next to, when you turn over and see them at a stoplight, you should ask for your turn to drive because every one of those beautiful Tesla vehicles, the Federal taxpayers also kicked in $7,800 in Federal tax subsidies for that beautiful $60,000 automobile that someone else is driving. There have been tax incentives that have been out there for electric vehicles; we just believe we need to spend more on actually dealing with our roads and bridges because they have major problems. So what can we do? For those of us in Oklahoma, we know full well. I- 35, Interstate 44, Interstate 40 all cross in my beautiful State. We are the center of the country in trucking. We are the center of the country in railways. We have the farthest, northernmost inland port that is actually in Oklahoma, where a lot of wheat and fertilizer move through our State, coming from the north to get into the ports to be able to get out. We understand the significance of what it means to be able to work on our ports, our waterways, our highways, our bridges; to deal with clean water, to deal with sewage water; to be able to deal with even broadband. All those things are essential for every farm to be able to operate and for every section of our economy to be able to function. Let's work on this together. Let's find a way that we can actually hit common ground and agree that working on airports and working on highways and working on bridges is vital to us, and then let's talk about the rest of the other things on this because we have a lot of debt as a country, and adding another $2.5 trillion and having a debate about a corporate tax change that--quite frankly, in 2017, when we made that corporate tax change, 70 percent of the difference in those companies went to employees' wages. Now to go back and to raise that corporate tax again, we know exactly what that is going to mean for employees of those companies and future raises that they may or may not get. So let's actually talk about this, and let's work on infrastructure together, but let's actually work on what is truly infrastructure. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I do want to thank my friend from Maryland. This is an important issue. It does need to be resolved. It has not had enough attention on this. As he and I talked about it the last several days, and several others joined in, this deals with partnerships, whether it be ag. This deals with individuals. So my friend from Kansas, he and I worked together on this to be able to combine a piece of legislation to make sure we are dealing with all types of businesses that will be affected, and I do hope to be able to get this through by unanimous consent in the days ahead to get this resolved as quickly as possible as well as continue to reach out to the Small Business Administration and to see what they can to do to be able to communicate with those folks.

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, there is a problem with the Paycheck Protection Program. It passed with overwhelming bipartisan support last December, but the implementation has been botched. Let me explain what I mean. If you are a small business owner, if you are an individual that is a sole proprietor of what is called a schedule C, if you had major issues in trying to be able to cover your employment last year, you would turn in--make a request for the Paycheck Protection Program. It was extended in December of last year for only the hardest hit businesses, those that had a 25-percent loss or more. Those businesses could not survive into the next year. So we extended it out and allowed them to be able to get additional time and an additional couple of months of payroll to be able to make sure they make it. Now, for these extremely small businesses, these sole proprietors, and these individuals who are out there, this means just them or sometimes them and one other person whom they are actually covering the expenses for. These are not our megabusinesses. These are our backbone small businesses. This is the truckdriver in Oklahoma. This is the piano teacher in Oklahoma. These are folks who are actually trying to be able to make a living the best way they know how. When it was passed in December, the Small Business Administration interpreted that rule to say you can only use your net expenses for that--your net expenses. Then, in March, the Small Business Administration reinterpreted that and said: No, you could use your gross expenses on that. Now, for a lot of folks, they would say: What is the difference on that? Well, the difference is usually about $5,000 or $10,000. That is an enormous difference. And for some folks in this room, $5,000 or $10,000 may not be very much, but it is a lot more for that truck driver and that piano teacher. So the logical thing for the Small Business Administration to do would be to say: OK. We changed the rule in March from what it was earlier so let's make it retroactive. Then folks who apply early, the most desperate folks, could actually still get the difference. But that is not what happened. The Small Business Administration said: No, if you received the loan earlier, you received the smaller amount. If you waited and applied later, you get the larger amount. It is the exact same type of business, exact same situation, but basically the Small Business Administration said: This is too complicated to go back and redo this. So we will just allow folks who applied early, the most desperate, to get the least, and folks who applied later to get more. We are bringing an amendment that would just fix that and would allow the folks who applied early, the most desperate folks, to be able to get the same level of help as the folks that applied later. So, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to offer my Amendment 1402.