James Lankford

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, just like you do, I get a lot of requests in my office. I get about 150,000 emails a year. I don't know how many different requests that I get to come in for personal meetings, both instate and here in Washington, DC, but a few weeks ago I got a video request from a bow-tied 8-year-old asking for a meeting with me--a person I had never met before, but he said he wanted to be able to come in and talk to me about rare childhood diseases. And I have to tell you, you would have to see the video to be able to see the meeting request that I got in from Christian Jaspersen. He is from Keota, OK, which no one can find here without using Google Maps, I promise you. But he was enthusiastically wanting to be able to share his story about a complex medical history and how things have gone for him. So we said yes. Christian was born with a very rare medical condition that most of us couldn't pronounce, much less want to be able to live with. He was born with his intestines outside of his abdomen. That impacts about 1,500 babies a year. It is extremely rare. Patients are born sometimes with their intestines or other organs outside their abdomen. You can imagine the damage that that does, even while they are still in the womb. Well, he required a ton of surgeries. Several surgeries were required immediately after birth. Several digestive impacts on him will be felt for a lifetime. He spent 5 months in NICU after birth. He lost a significant portion of his intestinal tissue during those different surgeries. It has impacted his nutritional intake and his bowel function, as you can imagine. There were some clinicians that had recommended to go ahead and remove all of it, and he would spend the rest of his life living on IV nutrition. But he was able to get a second opinion from Boston Children's Hospital. They left out from beautiful Oklahoma and headed for Boston for that second opinion. They provided some alternative care for him, and he is growing and doing well at now 8\1/2\. He is not just 8; he is 8\1/2\. He credits his doctors for saving his life and allowing him to live his best life now. He still has to go back to Boston often, and there are unique challenges that he faces with insurance and with all the challenges of travel and, quite frankly, the finances that go along with that, but he is a very spunky young man with an extremely large personality. He played the role of Christopher Robin in a youth production of ``Winnie the Pooh'' recently, and I bet people would pay to see that twice. He also has political aspirations. When I had the opportunity to be able to meet him and his brothers, Noah and Lane, and his mom Rachel yesterday, we had that opportunity to be able to sit down and talk. Christian told me all about the disease that he has struggled with, the treatments that he has had, the heroes at Boston Children's who have worked alongside of him, but he also informed me to be prepared to see him again because he will be a Supreme Court Justice in the days ahead. And he just might be. So for Christian and for his wonderful family and for all that has happened and the heroes at Boston Children's and for the research that they have done, I have to express the gratitude of my State for all of that work because that is a lot of work to invest in that young man. And he is determined not to waste the investment that has been put into him but to live his best life and to be extremely productive in the days ahead. I am grateful to the Oklahomans that spent so much time with him, working to guard his life in the earliest days, and for the folks at Boston Children's. I look forward to ``Chief Justice Christian'' in the days ahead and seeing the work that he does and how that pans out for all of us as a country. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I wanted to just give a quick update on a project I was working on last week to my fellow Senators. I spent the last week, during Memorial Day week, in the Middle East. Angus King and I actually traveled to Baghdad, Erbil, Beirut, and Oman. And then Angus left out for Turkiye, and I left out for Jerusalem. It is exceptionally helpful to be able to walk through the different countries of the region right now. Obviously, there is a tremendous amount of instability around Syria. We had the opportunity to be able to ask leaders in every single one of those countries about the future of Syria and the options that are there and what could happen. It is to America's best interest to be able to have a stable Middle East and a functioning relationship in all of those countries. Just a quick walk-through of a couple things that I think are important there: In Baghdad, they are actively working to be able to reach out to American companies. There is a real interest there and, quite frankly, a growth in Baghdad's economy, in Iraq's economy. They are trying to be able to stabilize, though they are still very close to Iran and to Tehran. As chilling as it is, when I went in to meet with the Prime Minister, you can't go to the Prime Minister's office without going through the large traffic circle right outside his office, where he has a giant depiction of the martyr Soleimani in front of his office. That is the Iranian head of the IRGC that actively worked to kill as many Americans as possible. It was a reminder that there are still challenges in this region, while they are still welcoming to American businesses. In Erbil, in the Kurdish Regional Government, they truly love America, and there is a true Western feel when you get to Erbil. They are open for commerce. They are open for capitalism. They are still a part of Iraq, but they are very interested in turning their attention toward the Western world and toward engaging in a great deal of American business. In fact, one of the most prideful moments of the conversation were on the American businesses that are coming through and engaging in the Kurdish Regional Government, in that area. To be able to see--I counted 15 cranes across Erbil, with the construction that is happening there. It is remarkable to be able to see the investment that is coming into that area. It is good for us to continue to be able to maintain relationships with that region, and they are grateful to be able to be a partner to the United States. But even they are saying to their Kurdish friends that are over on the eastern side of Syria that they should turn their attention toward Damascus in forming a unified Syrian Government. In the broad diversity that is Syria, with Kurds, with Turks, with Alawites, with Sunnis, with Shias, with Christians that are all in Syria in multiple areas and then in the broad swath of the desert area in the south, to still see a stronghold for ISIS that remains in Syria--it was a reminder again of the challenges this new Syrian Government has. It was interesting as well to me that every single one of the leaders that I met in the area all raised to me their gratitude for President Trump canceling the sanctions on Syria. They all said: We don't know exactly which way the Syrian Government is going to go. It is too early to be able to tell. But American sanctions would have prevented them from ever being successful in the future. So they expressed their gratitude over and over again to the United States for giving Syria a shot to be able to form its own country and its own nation. When we landed in Beirut, we landed on a Sunday. It was the Sunday before Memorial Day Monday. It was a sober reminder to wake up in Beirut at the Embassy compound and to just walk that half block from where I was staying there over to the memorial that is on the Embassy compound for the many, many lives that have been lost over the years in Beirut, including the 241 marines that died in the marine barracks in 1983. To be there on that ground on Memorial Day was sobering to say the least. But I have to tell you, I have been to Lebanon multiple times. I have met with the Lebanese leaders multiple times and with the Lebanese Armed Forces. I have never left Lebanon more optimistic than when I left Lebanon, when I took off. The new leadership there--President Aoun, the new Prime Minister there--is focused on fixing the banking system in Lebanon, fixing the port, repairing the airport, and getting a new economic infrastructure in place. They said over and over again: We are not looking for assistance coming to us; we are looking for investors to be able to be here. We want to be open for business and have people from all over the world to be able to come here to be able to do business, so we are going to get our systems right and get rid of corruption. They also said something that was a pretty remarkable statement. They said they want to have a monopoly on military weapons. Now, that may not seem like a big deal to us as Americans, but there have been two militaries in Lebanon for decades: Hezbollah's military and the Lebanese Armed Forces. The places where Hezbollah's military stands, the Lebanese Armed Forces don't go--until now. With Israel's bombardment of Hezbollah in the south, what is south of the Litani River, the Lebanese Armed Forces have moved into that area, and now the Lebanese Army is actually defending Lebanon--not some terrorist organization trying to be able to defend southern Lebanon; the Lebanese Armed Forces are actually stepping up to be able to do that. They are taking the lead in those areas, setting up posts. The government there is very focused on getting weapons out of the Palestinian refugee camps that are there in Lebanon and defanging Hezbollah in the south and Hezbollah in the Beqaa Valley bordering with Syria. They are serious about taking on drug interdictions along their border with Syria. They are serious about trying to be able to balance things out. I have to give kudos to Morgan Ortagus. She has done a phenomenal job there, and her name came up over and over again in my meetings with the Lebanese leaders as they saw her as a straight shooter and a good negotiator between Israel and Lebanon to be able to establish a lasting border and a lasting peace and relationships. There are American leaders--what they call the mechanism--there as well. That mechanism is helping monitor the cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon, and they have become a trusted partner to both sides of that border. We as the United States do make a difference when we engage in different parts of the world. Lebanon and Israel would not be experiencing the peace they are experiencing right now if it was not for American engagement. No other country in the world walks in and has the reputation that the United States of America does, so it allows us to be able to step in and help provide stability by just our presence and our engagement to be able to be there. There are not large numbers of Americans that are there, but it is to America's benefit to see peace between Lebanon and Israel, not just because of two countries far away in the Middle East, but in Israel-- there are 700,000 Americans in Israel right now--right now. If we want to be able to stand with those Americans that are right now in Israel, we don't want to see Hezbollah's rockets coming at our citizens from the north. We also have hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Americans and their families and Americans living in Lebanon. We should continue to be able to have our relationships and our engagement there to be able to provide a stable, lasting peace, and there is a shot for that like there has not been for decades between Lebanon and Israel. When we left out from Lebanon, we went to be able to meet the King in Amman, Jordan. He is a trusted partner with the United States, and he is passionate about bringing a peaceful relationship with the entire region. He is somebody who actively wants to see stable relationships and a stable region, and he is doing the work that it takes, hard work in that region on things like water. It is not a simple thing everywhere in the world like it is in most places in the United States. When you are in Jordan, that is a tough challenge. But the ability to be able to bring nations together, to be able to provide that kind of engagement with the country of Jordan and our friendship with the King there, matters. We left out from Amman, and I drove to Jerusalem. Israel is facing very real risks. This body knows it well, and we have had plenty of conversations about it for a very long time. The United States stands with our ally Israel. It was interesting for me to be able to see Israeli press there that has a whisper going out among the Israeli press that the United States is walking away from Israel. That is far from the truth. The United States continues to stand with our ally and friend Israel. But Israel is facing a multifront war. What they are dealing with day after day after day, we as Americans would never put up with. We are now about 612 days past October 7 of last year. There are still hostages being held in Gaza today. Today, there are still hostages. There are still challenges being faced every single day. The day that I arrived in Israel happened to be the first day that a new strategy for getting humanitarian aid into Gaza started--that day. It was a chaotic day of a brandnew plan of, how do we not have huge bags of flour and food be delivered and then Hamas scoops those up and then Hamas tries to be able to portion it out as they choose and instead deliver boxes of food to a family where they have a week's worth of food there, to a group of people who have no chance to be able to get to a grocery store, no chance to be able to get options for food? So they experimented with a brandnew way to be able to do that--which was, by the way, an American-Israeli partnership--to be able to deliver that food into Gaza. That first chaotic day, tens of thousands of boxes of food were delivered to Gazans who are desperate. That led to the second day, a little better; the next day, a little better; the next day, a little better. Each day, they tried to figure out how to maintain security, how to maintain order, how to register people, and to be able to make sure as many people as possible are getting as much food as possible and to be able to get that out to people who desperately need the help. Each day, that humanitarian aid is getting better and better as they are learning how to be able to do it more effectively now. That is important to us because we care about all human life. We are Americans. We have people that we disagree with, people that we disagree with strongly, but we still care about the dignity of human life. So we are watching that aid actually go into the country, and I am proud, actually, that we as the United States, as private citizens in the United States, are a part of delivering that aid that is desperately needed there. But I will tell you, my conversation in Israel with key leadership there, including with the Prime Minister, always circles around the threat of Iran--always--because the rockets that are coming in from Gaza were paid for by Iran. The rockets and missiles and unmanned drones that were coming in from southern Lebanon were paid for by Iran. The missiles and rockets that are coming in from Yemen against Israel are paid for by Iran. As they face all the challenges that are around them--and I could go on and on and on--as they face all the challenges that are around them, we cannot forget that the Iranian people live under the thumb of an oppressive Iranian regime that is not just oppressive to their own people, they are the destabilizing force in the entire region. The one thing that is clear in this is that we have to make sure we strengthen our sanctions against the Iranian regime so that they cannot have more money to do more acts of terrorism. They can never ever have a nuclear weapon. That means no enrichment. That means no centrifuges. That means no opportunity to be able to create a nuclear weapon. Iran has used their centrifuge technology to be able to enrich uranium up to 60 percent. There is zero purpose for highly enriched uranium other than a weapon. They cannot in one moment say they are not trying to weaponize and in the next moment brag about how much they have enriched uranium. Those two don't go together. So we as Americans have to be vigilant because if you look at the flag of the Houthis in Yemen, the flag of the Houthis in Yemen has five phrases on it. Let me give you two of them: ``Death to the Jews'' and ``Death to the Americans.'' That is not a banner; that is their national flag. They are serious about it, and I think we shouldn't just say: No, they are kidding. They are not. So we cannot allow the Iranians to continue to be able to arm the rest of the area and to be able to bring the fight to us and pretend that is never going to happen. We have learned the lesson of 2001. People that are far away will do what they can in their deep hatred to come to us. So we should make sure that the Iranian regime never gets a nuclear weapon and that we remain clear and concise on that. There are a lot of things that we can continue to be able to talk about as we talk about multiple regions around the world, but as we focus on so many areas around the world, we cannot lose focus on the Middle East--the opportunities and the promise that are there but also the threats that still remain. So let's stay vigilant. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we waive the mandatory quorum call with respect to the Shumate nomination.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I want to make a comment on the lands bill, my frustration of where things have gone today on things. I do want to just pause for a moment and recognize that two staff members of the Israeli Embassy were murdered last night here in Washington, DC, simply because they were Jewish. The murderer literally hovered outside of the Jewish museum here in Washington, DC, waiting for someone to walk out to murder--just a random person, apparently just to be able to kill a Jew. And then later screamed at the front door ``Free Palestine.'' This is anti-Semitism at its worst, and I want my Jewish friends to be able to know we are praying for you; we are speaking out on your behalf today; and we have not forgotten. And this kind of hatred and anti-Semitism cannot continue in America. Historic Greenwood District-Black Wall Street National Monument Establishment Act Mr. President, today, I am also disappointed. There is a bill that is a very simple bill that literally every single Republican has released and said: We want to be able to move this. This is recognition of a national monument for the Historic Greenwood District in North Tulsa. In 1921, on May 31, overnight to June 1, there was the worst race massacre in American history. It is a stain on our American history, but it is also a moment to be able to look back to and learn from. Over 100 years ago, this race massacre, when it occurred, was pushed under the rug and was told for generations to forget about it. We are pulling that thread and saying: There is some benefit to not losing track of that moment. This particular bill is a designation as a national monument for that Historic Greenwood District. Now, it is written very carefully and in very close cooperation to make sure there is no eminent domain for the Federal Government; there is no Federal takeover; private property rights are all protected. But it puts a recognition in this area that it is a Federal designation, just a recognition, no property is taken over, but to say: We as a nation remember. It is important to the people of North Tulsa because the families and communities and the businesses in North Tulsa are literally turning tragedy into triumph. They are looking back on that time and saying that is what happened on that day, but don't look at just that day, look at who we are; look at who we have been; look at who we are now and where we are going. This is an important piece that literally every single Republican cleared. No struggle with this bill at all. And then my Democrat colleagues came today, of all weeks and this day, to be able to say they were going to block it. So my challenge is to my Democratic colleagues, I don't know what the fight and struggle is on this, and I don't know why this is difficult to be able to do. We should all have agreement on this. So whatever struggle is happening among their conference, I would encourage them to be able to work it out so we can pass this because in the past, in this body, this has been a unanimous issue. This should not be controversial to say: We, as a nation, recognize what happened on that day, and we honor the people of North Tulsa for what they are working to still create there in the Greenwood District. So my encouragement is, let's work out our differences today on this. Let's get this passed and get this done. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I have three requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be discharged from further consideration of S. 1051 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. LANKFORD. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about two separate issues that seem to be confusing in our current climate at this point. The first of those is something called nationwide injunctions. Now, for folks that don't track this issue of nationwide injunctions, they have no idea what this means. I would tell you it is a fairly recent thing. We have three branches of government. Any civics student in middle school knows that. We have the legislative branch, we have the executive branch, and we have the judicial branch. All three have unique roles. The legislative branch that we are in right now--we write the law. The executive branch executes the law. The judicial branch interprets the law. Now, we know there is a difference between the House and the Senate. The Senate has a responsibility and the House has a responsibility, and they are different, but they are both in the legislative branch. The judicial branch also has different pieces as well, just like the legislative branch. There is the Supreme Court. We know that. It is right across the street. There are nine Justices that sit there, and they are the final decision makers on what the law says. But there are also daughter courts. There are circuit courts below the Supreme Court, and below the Supreme Court, there are district courts. District courts are scattered all over the country, and those individual, small district courts that are scattered all around the country--those individual courts make a decision on the person that is in front of them. Now, again, this is fairly simple civics. When you have a Federal case in front of you, you go to the district court, and you file, and you get time in front of a judge. It may take time to be able to get there, but they make a decision on what is in front of them. That is what district courts do. They don't make decisions on something that is in a different State. The fine judges that are in Oklahoma make decisions about the case that is in front of them in Oklahoma. They don't decide a case in Indiana because they are not in Indiana and it is not a case filed in front of them; it is only the case filed in front of them in Oklahoma. Now, if there is a dispute about that, it can be appealed, and it goes up to a circuit court, and it takes in a region. If there is a dispute even there, they take it on to the Supreme Court. It is pretty simple--until the last several decades. You see, prior to 1960, there was no such thing as a nationwide injunction. No one even considered that. But we started seeing this beginning point where a district judge in a court in a single State would hear a case and say: This is so big, I am not going to let this go to the circuit court or to the Supreme Court. In my lower--in fact, lowest--court in the Federal structure, I am going to decide for the entire country, not just the person in front of me. There were just a few that happened at that time, and the Supreme Court kind of looked away because they seemed like big cases. But then it started to rise. During the George W. Bush administration, there were six nationwide injunctions that were done in these local district courts. Under President Obama, there were 12 nationwide injunctions that were issued. Then under President Trump, the first term, there were 64 nationwide injunctions. More and more individual district courts decided: I have an opinion, and I am not going to decide about the case in front of me; I am going to decide about the entire country. Under President Biden, there were 14 nationwide injunctions that happened. In fact, President Biden's Solicitor General--the one who actually argues to the Supreme Court--warned that nationwide injunctions halt legal government actions and policies. See, this is not a Republican-Democrat thing; this is a constitutional thing. This is the U.S. Constitutional structure to say: What is the role of lower courts? What is the role of a circuit court? What is the role of the Supreme Court? We as people in our Nation honor the constitutional construct. For me, it is exceptionally important that the courts are blind to these issues and that they take action on the case in front of them and not a case that is not in front of them. Senator Grassley has introduced a bill to rein in the use of nationwide injunctions. His legislation is called the Judicial Relief Clarification Act. It makes it very simple. It is an important piece of legislation to decide how we are going to handle cases like this. It is very simple: Courts decide the cases in front of them. That had been the practice up until the early 1960s. We need to get it to be back to that practice again. It is not a Republican issue and not a Democrat issue. It is a constitutional issue. Nationwide injunctions are a backdoor way for judges to actually write legislation and to bring the decision of the executive branch to a halt. The executive branch does have checks and balances, as does the legislative branch, as does the judicial branch. Those checks and balances are clear. If the executive branch does something inconsistent with the Constitution, it goes to our Federal courts and quickly works its way up through the district court, circuit court, to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is the one who checks the executive branch, not each district court around the country. It is the Supreme Court. We need to be able get back to that process in the days ahead. That needs to be done. So I am looking forward to seeing Senator Grassley's legislation actually move.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, a second issue. This body for the last week has had a conversation about CRAs, and most Americans would just flip the dial and go ``I don't even know what that is.'' Well, a Congressional Review Act is a CRA. It has actually only existed in the last several decades as Congress found a reason to do oversight of the executive branch, especially when the executive branch writes what is called a midnight regulation. Now, that doesn't mean they wrote it at midnight; that means they wrote it and put it in place at the very end of a Presidency. A Congressional Review Act says that if there is a piece of regulation that is put in place, a rule that is done by an Agency and it is put in place--especially when there is a change in Congress and the White House--that the next Congress and the next White House can look at it and say: Yeah, that is out of bounds. That is too big. That needs to be stopped. It was actually first used under President Bill Clinton. He put in what is called an ergonomics rule that literally changed the rules for every keyboard on every desk in America that would be produced. It was a giant rule they did at the very end. The next Congress came in and said: That would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. By the way, why should we in the Federal Government care what everyone's desk is like? Let people choose on that. That simple statement, that simple first time that it was actually used, started a process now of saying: If an administration at the last minute puts in a rule that Congress then comes in and says ``You overreached your bounds,'' we can check it. Now, how do you determine whether it is a rule or not? What is a rule? What is not a rule? Because a lot of times, Agencies put out guidance or they put out orders. They put out all kinds of things. The Congressional Review Act is very specific. It says that you can only take action on this when it is actually a rule. Well, there are two different ways that is determined, actually. One is, how much is it going to cost the entire economy? If it is over $100 million that it is going to cost the economy, it is a rule. It is going to have a massive effect across the entire economy. The second way is pretty straightforward. The Government Accountability Office--you will hear it often referred to as GAO--in 2018, they came out and wrote their legal decision and said: It can even be a big thing that costs $100 million across the government. I am going to quote GAO in this, in their decision that the CRA--the Congressional Review Act--gives Agencies the primary responsibility for determining which Agency actions meet the CRA's definition of ``rule.'' In other words, Agencies get the first option to say: Is this a rule or is this not a rule? If an Agency says it is a rule, it is a rule. That is what GAO said. They came back a couple years later and rewrote an updated document. GAO came out again and said in their legal opinion: When an Agency submits a document to our office--that is, GAO--under the CRA, we consider that to be the Agency's determination that the document is a rule under the Congressional Review Act. Now, again, everyone is glazing over on this because it just seems like legalese. Why are we even talking about this? Well, because it has been in the news this week because something unique happened. In 2022, the State of California put in a request to the Biden administration and said: We want to do a rule that is different in our State for electric vehicles than the rest of the country. Now, you may say: Well, they can't do that. Well, actually, interestingly enough, California can. California is the only State in America--because they had environmental rules even before the Clean Air Act was done. So California got a waiver, basically, to say: If your rules are at least as strong as the Clean Air Act, you can have your own rules, but you have to ask permission. So that is part of law that was originally written on the Clean Air Act. So California approached the Biden administration in 2022 and said: We would like to have an even stronger rule on emissions and on vehicles. We want to have a rule that says that by 2026, 35 percent of all vehicles have to be zero emission--that is, electric vehicles--by 2026. Now, they asked for this in 2022. So they said: Within 4 years, we want 35 percent of all the vehicles sold in California to be zero emission, and by 2035, we want 100 percent of all vehicles to be electric vehicles, to be zero-emission vehicles. Now, they asked for that in 2022, as I mentioned before. The Biden administration took a look at it, and in 2023, the Biden administration sat down with the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, and they started working on the text for this. The specific question was: How can we make sure that this is not a rule; that this is an order? And for months, they worked to be able to shape the language to be able to make sure it was an order, not a rule. And then the Biden administration sat on it and did nothing with it. In the meantime, 11 other States said: If California does that for electric vehicles, we are going to do that as well. Here is the other thing about the law I didn't mention. The way the Clean Air Act gave permission to California to be able to do their own rules, the Clean Air Act is also written to say: If other States want to adopt the California rule because it is at least as strong as the national, other States could do it. So in the next few months, from 2022 and 2023, 11 other States adopt this rule. Suddenly, this is not a single-State issue; this is a national issue. In fact, it would now affect 40 percent of all the vehicles sold in America. This just shifted. This is not about one State anymore. This is almost half the vehicles sold in America now are going to have a new set of rules. The Biden administration sat on that request. They didn't move on it. They have gotten their opinion worked out with GAO in 2023, but they didn't move on it, quite frankly, because the American people hate mandates. We don't like them at all. We like choice. We like to make our own decisions. I would dare say, everybody in this room uses a different kind of ink pen because we all like our choices and options. We drive different cars. We wear different colors of ties and different shoes because we like our options. The Biden administration knew most American people would hate this rule because it suddenly created a nationwide mandate for what kind of car you could buy, and it had to be electric. So they sat on it. After the election was over, in late December of 2024 and into January of 2025, the Biden administration dropped their order and gave California permission now to be able to do zero-emission vehicles by 2026. Next year, 35 percent of vehicles that have to be sold across 12 different States were going to have to be zero emissions, which would dramatically change car sales in America. They did it after the election. That is the very definition of a midnight regulation. That is the very definition of a rule. It meets both criteria. It is well over $100 million of impact onto our Nation, and it affects multiple States. So when the Trump administration came into office, the Environmental Protection Agency immediately reupped this, and they laid it down and said: That is definitely a rule. That is a rule. The Agency declared it. Now, it definitely has both definitions: The Agency declared it is a rule, and it is over $100 million of impact. But then a letter went to GAO. Remember I said in 2023, they had worked with the Biden administration? Someone in this body wrote a letter to GAO and said: That thing you worked out with the Biden administration, do you still have that in the file? And GAO sent a letter back and said: We declared this, in 2023, just an order because it only affected one State, just California. Here is the problem. GAO, as I mentioned in the beginning, in their very own legal opinion, said: If an Agency says it is a rule, it is a rule. And GAO doesn't even get involved. Literally, GAO broke its own legal opinion to now declare it is an order. Why would they do that? Well, they would do that to prevent this Congress from speaking to that rule. It would no longer be under the Congressional Review Act. I told you this was technical. But this was a fascinating little plot that went from 2022 all the way to the present to try to figure out how to get an electric vehicle mandate in America without ever having a vote in Congress. It was slick. It was well-shaped--except it was dependent on one thing: GAO breaking its own legal opinion. I happened to call the leadership of GAO just last week and said: As far as you know, has GAO ever--ever--declared something not a rule when the Agency said it was a rule? And after a moment of silence, he responded: As far as I know, GAO has always deferred to the Agencies, until now. They literally broke their own policy. They literally violated their own legal counsel. So now, we are in a quandary. GAO has broken their own legal counsel. We have an issue that will have well over $100 million worth of effect onto the country. It is now a near nationwide mandate on electric vehicle sales across the country without ever having a vote in Congress. And our Democratic colleague says you can't change it because we worked a way to be able to fix it so you couldn't. That is not true. This body worked extensively with the Parliamentarian's office. This body worked extensively across the aisle to be able to have conversation, talking with members of the Democratic caucus to say: Do you really want to have, in your State, a mandate sitting there? We don't. Not only that, what will this do to our economy across the country? This was not about challenging the essence of the Senate; this was not about breaking the filibuster rule; this was not about going nuclear. This is about confronting an entity that broke its own rules intentionally to prevent this body from acting. This was a decision made to say: Get an Agency to impose on America a mandate that Congress never spoke to--never. Where does Congress get to speak to this? I would say to you as a Member of the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Congress is the lawmaking body for the country. The U.S. Constitution begins with ``All legislative power shall reside in a Congress,'' not an Agency that wants to have electric vehicle mandates for every American. That is not how it works. So we worked to make sure that we were clarifying one simple thing-- in the Congressional Review Act, in this time as it has been every time it has been done and for every time in the future, this one simple question: When an Agency says it is a rule, is it a rule? It has been every other time until this time. We clarified that one question. It didn't change the dates of the Congressional Review Act. It didn't change the process. It answered one question that, apparently, was in dispute that was never in dispute before but now appeared to be in dispute: When an Agency says it is a rule, is it a rule? And we clarified what it has always been. The answer is, yes, it is a rule. And then we acted on that. This body said, no, we will not have a nationwide mandate for electric vehicles across the country. By the way, I don't have any opposition to electric vehicles. If somebody wants to buy an electric vehicle, they should be able to buy them. I think a lot of them look like great vehicles. Buy if you choose to. But we are Americans. This body should not mandate that everyone has to be able to buy one. This body should make the path that if people choose to buy one, they can. That is setting the rules of the road saying: Here is the definition of a safe vehicle. Pick any one of those safe vehicles you want to be able to have. We just set the rules of the road and then get out of the way and let people decide which vehicle they want to drive on that road. That is what has happened this week. I understand there has been a lot of bluster and trying to redefine what actually occurred. But what has occurred this week is choice for the American people and clarification of what has always been: When an Agency says it is a rule, it is a rule--just like it was last year, just like it is now, just like it will be next year. It is technical but important because the American people want to follow the U.S. Constitution and know that all legislative powers resides with this body, not in some other building somewhere down the street. I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I wanted to thank the Presiding Officer and several folks because we passed by unanimous consent today a national monuments piece for the Greenwood District in Oklahoma. On May 31 of 1921, the largest race massacre in American history occurred in my great State of Oklahoma. It was in North Tulsa. That community was burned to the ground and destroyed in a race massacre. It is a scar on our Nation's history and on my State's history, but it is an area that we remember for a reason because we know how far we have come. The community in North Tulsa and Greenwood--they are turning tragedy into triumph. They are starting new businesses. It is a beautiful area, and it continues to be able to grow and advance, but it still bears the scars of over 100 years ago of the incredible fire and massacre that happened there. What we did today with unanimous consent didn't change the property rights of any person in Tulsa or in Oklahoma. It didn't add eminent domain. It didn't change codes. It didn't give the Federal Government control of any square inch of my great State. It just gave a designation--a monument designation--to that area. It is very similar to some other places in that it is just a designation so that we will always remember as a nation that something significant happened here. And it is not just about what happened on that day, May 31, into June 1 of 1921. It is what it was like before, when it was Black Wall Street, a thriving community. It was like what it was like afterward, when people stayed and rebuilt a community. It is like what it is now. It is people with great pride who continue to be able to thrive in that community and still call it Black Wall Street based on the entrepreneurship that is there. So I appreciate my colleagues who have been involved in this-- Chairman Mike Lee and Ranking Member Martin Heinrich--for their leadership in allowing this to be able to move today, and to Angus King and Cory Booker, who has been my partner in this now for years, to be able to move this particular designation. I just want to tell the Presiding Officer that I appreciate all of the work of this body in what has actually occurred here and for allowing this to move, because it may not be significant to a lot of people in the country, but it is to us in Oklahoma; it is to the good folks in Greenwood. And it is not a bad thing for us to remember, during this time period, how far we have come and the work that is still yet to come.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: all nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, and Space Force, with the exception of PN89, Matthew Ryan, of the Army; that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and that the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that, as if in executive session, the nomination of Jeremiah Workman, of Ohio, to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans' Employment and Training, received in the Senate on May 6, 2025, be jointly referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following resolutions, which are at the desk: S. Res. 250, S. Res. 251, S. Res. 252, S. Res. 253, and S. Res. 254.

Mr. LANKFORD. I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 255, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn to then convene for pro forma sessions only, with no business being conducted, on the following dates and times: Friday, May 23 at 10 a.m.; Tuesday, May 27 at 1:15 p.m.; Friday, May 30 at 7 a.m.; further, that when the Senate adjourns on Friday, May 30, it stand adjourned until 3 p.m. on Monday, June 2; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that the Senate be in a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; finally, notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motions filed on May 22 ripen at 5:30 p.m.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the provisions of S. Res. 255.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 214.

Mr. LANKFORD. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, that the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I rise as chairman of the Select Committee on Ethics and on behalf of the members of the committee and its staff to pay tribute to Danny Remington, the committee's director of IT and operations, as he retires after 30 years of Senate service and almost 29 of those years with the committee. Danny joined the staff in October of 1996, hired by then-committee Chairman McConnell. In total, Danny served with 10 committee chairmen, five staff directors, and dozens of Senate colleagues who will remember his steady demeanor and willingness to assist with any task. Danny's tenure spans decades of technological advancement and process improvement. Joining the committee in a world of floppy disks and years before the office had an internet connection, Danny transitioned the committee into 21st century, or at least 20th century, technology while maintaining an enduring commitment to the core principle of confidentiality that guides all the committee's work. Beyond the technical achievements, Danny represented the committee well throughout the Senate community by establishing connections with his fellow staff members, whether they worked for the Architect of the Capitol, the Sergeant at Arms, Secretary of the Senate, another committee, or a Member office. As Danny retires, he looks forward to spending more time with his family, his wife Theresa, and their grown sons Ryan and Reece coaching volleyball and enjoying some well-deserved time on the beach in Ocean City, MD. On behalf of the members and staff of the Select Committee on Ethics, I thank Danny for his decades of service and commitment to the U.S. Senate. I offer my sincere best wishes and gratitude to Danny and his family as he begins his retirement. Thank you, Danny.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I flew back to Washington, DC, from the glorious State of Oklahoma on Monday. It was a normal flight for me to be able to fly in on a Monday morning. As I landed at DCA airport and squeezed out of my coach seat, where I had been for the last 4 hours, and walked off the plane and into the terminal, there was a line of police officers on both sides of the gate. They were honor guards from all over the country. As I walked off the plane, I realized there was a family member of the fallen on my same plane, and I didn't know it. Many Americans may not know that this is Police Week. It is a week when the Nation stops to be able to pause to thank all those police officers who served around the country and who literally put their lives on the line every single week for our country--every week. My colleague Ashley Moody is helping to cohost this time as we have a conversation about Police Week and what it means to be in law enforcement in America now. She is not only a great Senator from Florida, but she is also the wife of the deputy police chief of the Plant City Police Department in Florida. She knows what it means to be able to hug a loved one, look them in the eye, and say: Stay safe out there. She knows exactly what that means. As I stepped off the plane on Monday and walked through the middle of that honor guard, as they were looking for a family member to step off somewhere on that plane, what they were looking for this week was the family of a fallen police officer to step off that same plane, whom they were going to escort into Washington, DC, because, this week, their loved one's name is being added to the list of law enforcement who have died in the line of duty. It is a painful reminder of the reality of what it means to be in law enforcement. You get up every day, and you take care of your neighbors. Some days, you are pulling over a reckless driver and trying to be able to protect the rest of the community from someone who has had too much alcohol, smoked too much marijuana. By the way, I think any is too much, but that is a different conversation for a different day. For that person, they are going to try to protect the rest of society from their dangerous acts. It is that moment when we are in traffic, we are driving down the road, and a car whips around us at 90 miles an hour. We are used to traffic, and we think: I wish there was a police officer here to take care of that. They are out there. Some of them are going to get up this morning very early and do a warrant service on someone who has violated the law, whom they are going to be able to actually get to their house maybe at 3 in the morning and to try to be able to arrest them before there is an incident. There are some of them who, actually, when there is a shot being fired in an apartment complex somewhere, and as everybody else scatters, they turn on their lights and drive toward the sound. They are law enforcement. That is what they do. They get up every day, and they put on a vest to be able to protect the center of their body because they know, at any point during the course of the day, they could be facing danger coming right at them. They serve their community. It is always interesting to me when I often ask people their thoughts and beliefs about law enforcement. I say: The real test of what you think about police is when you are driving down the highway, you look in your rearview mirror, and you see an officer right behind you. That is always the test of what you actually think about police. It is that first emotion. Is that first emotion, ``Oh, no''? Or is that first emotion, ``I feel safer; there is a police officer right behind me''? You see, those law enforcement officers literally spend every day protecting total strangers who live in their community. They work very long hours, a lot of times in isolation. They go into dangerous places--often, first by themselves--because they care about their community. In the past decade, there seems to have been a shift in attitudes about law enforcement. For some reason, it has become trendy to be able to attack law enforcement, to belittle them, to demand we defund police departments entirely, to be able to criticize them for every sort of thing. I will tell you, every police officer I talk to will say: Hey, we are all humans too. We make mistakes, as well, just like everyone else. But for some reason, law enforcement doesn't seem to get the same grace everybody else gets. When somebody gets pulled over and gets a warning, they are grateful for the grace. But when the news hits of a police officer doing something, it seems the community doesn't want to give them a warning. It wants them to always get consequences. What I hear from most law enforcement whom I know is: Hey, we are just one of everybody else, but the difference is we have dedicated our lives to protecting people who will cuss us out and will literally lie to us all day long. But we are still committed to protect them. That is what they do. They literally get into a dangerous situation, as has happened recently in Oklahoma. There could have been shots coming at them or an attack coming at them, but, instead, that person turned the weapon on themselves. And law enforcement immediately moved from trying to protect the community and protecting themselves to jumping in immediately and trying to save the life of the person who just started attacking them. How many people would do that? Law enforcement does it every day-- every day. There is an old adage in tax policy: If you tax something more, you get less of it. Raise the taxes on it enough, and people just stop buying it. You know, it works exactly the same with criticism. If you criticize something more and more and more, you get less and less and less of it. I remember a day, when I was growing up, that everybody wanted to be a police officer because everyone had respect for police officers. Now there is a generation growing up that all they have heard is criticism of law enforcement. And do you know what? It is hurting recruiting. Why don't we look people in the eye and see them for who they are? They are folks who get up every day, defend their neighbors, do what they can to bring calm to a crazy, chaotic situation, and serve total strangers. I have had the benefit of my dad being a smalltown cop for decades. I know what it is like to be in a family and to be able to think about: How is your family member doing today? So when I talk about law enforcement, maybe, it is a little different for me. But I think it should be a little different for our whole community, actually, and I think it should be different for our Nation. So on this Police Week, I have two things to say: Thank you to those who are serving all over the country right now, some right here in this Capitol. Thank you to those folks who are serving our Nation today. We are exceptionally grateful for you. And for those of you who, this year, have lost a loved one in the line of duty, I want you to know that our Nation is grateful. We see their sacrifice, and we are of the tribe to be able to say: We want this to be different. In 2020, Sergeant Johnson--Craig Johnson--I am going to say his whole name. Sergeant Craig Johnson in 2020 was shot during a traffic stop in Tulsa. He was 45 years old. He had a wife, Kristi, and two sons, Connor and Clinton. When Sergeant Johnson's killer was sentenced in 2022, his wife Kristi just had one clear thing to say. She said: My request at this time is that the silent majority that I have seen and heard from starts speaking up and changing the anti-police culture being created. Kristi, we still hear you, 3 years later, and we are still grateful for the sacrifice you and your family have made and for other families like yours. We are not silent. We are grateful. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the scheduled rollcall vote begin now.