Mike Lee

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, here again, the Senate has procedures for dealing with any nomination, including these military promotions. These could be brought up individually; they could be voted on; and those whose promotions have the greatest urgency could be dealt with. We could stay in session until all these are done. Neither Senator Tuberville nor any other Senator, to my knowledge, would interfere with that, nor could we. What Senator Tuberville refuses to do, with very good reason, is to pretend like nothing has happened; pretend like nothing has changed; to pretend that he didn't have repeated conversations with high-ranking officials within the Department of Defense in recent months expressing his concerns about rumors that this very policy was being considered; to pretend that he didn't tell them then there would be serious consequences if they decided to proceed in violation of 10 U.S.C., section 1093. No, this is not fair to put this on him. When the Pentagon comes crawling back after they did what they did to him--after they did what they did to the law, to all Americans--that is manifestly unfair. To all of a sudden put it on him to make sure it is his job to make sure that everyone gets confirmed--and, oh, by the way, you also have to help--you are being told--you have to help the Pentagon, even though the Pentagon has just cut you off at the knees. Look, it is very clear. When the law says you may not use Federal taxpayers for abortions, that is a thing. When you have Department of Defense specific legislation that says you may not use Department of Defense funds, you may not use Department of Defense facilities to perform abortions, that is a thing. To argue otherwise and to try to point out that this policy memo somehow complies with that is too cute by half. No. 1, it is still, quite arguably, in violation of the letter of the law. You are still doing this to bring about an abortion. You are using Federal taxpayer dollars from the Department of Defense so that someone has an abortion. You are paying for someone's travel to that State--per diem to that State--3 weeks of paid leave time to that State, and it is specific to abortion. That is what that is. If, in any other circumstance, someone were asked: Are you using Federal dollars for abortions? The answer would be, unequivocally, ``yes.'' I know those raising these consent requests are trying to get Senator Tuberville to capitulate, trying to get him to reverse course, trying to get him to help the Department of Defense when the Department of Defense hid from him what they were going to do, then undercut Federal law in the process, that is not fair. That is what this is about. That is what you are trying to do. I am happy to stand with Senator Tuberville in defending his rights. On that basis, I object.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the argument made by my friend and my distinguished colleague from Colorado resonates with me. He doesn't want this to be treated ``unlike every other medical procedure.'' I couldn't agree more. That is all Senator Tuberville is suggesting. It shouldn't be treated any differently than the others, because other medical procedures--you don't get 3 weeks of paid leave; you don't get per diem; you don't get your airfare and whatever else paid for. Just treat it the same way. It is not just that it is a good idea; it is not just that it is fair; it is that it is also consistent with Federal law, which says we don't use Federal funds for abortions. We just don't do that. So here, not only are we doing the opposite of what he said he wanted, which is to not have abortions treated unlike every other medical procedure, but we are using Federal funds to do it. I find that difficult to reconcile with the law and with the policy embodied in that law. As to the suggestion of States' rights, I want to be very clear here. Speaking of federalism--I don't speak of this ever as States' rights. States don't have rights. States have power. They have authority. Rights are the opposite of power and authority. Rights are things that you invoke against authority, as a carve-out to that authority. So with regard to federalism, there is no reason why someone serving in the military couldn't be given some sort of preference not to serve in a particular State, whether because of a moral objection to a State's policy or a practical medical objection. That would be an entirely permissible way, as far as I am concerned, for the Department of Defense to deal with the issue raised by the Senator from Colorado. But what they can't do is find a way sneakily to use Federal funds-- Department of Defense funds--in order to bring about these abortions. Look, it is not Senator Tuberville who brought us here. Senator Tuberville didn't bring us to this moment. This was a conscious, deliberate choice made by the Department of Defense, made by the Secretary of Defense, and it was an unwise one, and I am proud to stand behind him in that.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, to the extent any one of these nominations-- or all of them taken together--to the extent military readiness is invoked, implicated, is threatened, challenged, by all means, let's figure out a workaround. By all means, let's have the Department of Defense realize that as this policy debate happens, it should be the very last entity putting American national security at risk. So if that is what this is resulting in, then the Department of Defense, with all due respect, needs to stand down on this until such time as this can be debated and discussed. The fact is that every single year--every single year--the Department of Defense has the luxury that very few other branches have in that we devote an enormous amount of time to debating a policy bill--every year, year after year, going back for the last half century--the National Defense Authorization Act. This is the kind of thing that, if it is going to be addressed, if they want a change of law, then that change of law ought to be pursued on the floor of the Senate. The National Defense Authorization Act would present an opportunity for the Department of Defense to pursue that change. It can do it that way. It can do it in a stand-alone bill if it wants to. What it may not do is change the law on its own. So, look, to the extent that this implicates military readiness-- which let's just take those words on their own face--that seems to me that should apply with at least as much force, if not a ``for sure'' to the Department of Defense rather than to Senator Tuberville. It is the Department of Defense that is asking for his help. It is the Department of Defense that is using Federal funds to facilitate the performance of abortions. If anyone is threatening national security, it is not Senator Tuberville. And if these are threatening America's national security, particularly those you have identified, bring those to the floor. We have procedures to do that. It takes time. I understand, perhaps, that is not what this Democratic majority of the Senate wants to do. That is the Democratic majority's prerogative. But that being the prerogative, they can't all of a sudden put that on Senator Tuberville. Finally, as to the suggestion that Senator Tuberville is extorting anyone--extortion, of course, is a crime. That is a really inappropriate reference to use here, but let's go with it for a second for purposes of this discussion. Who is extorting whom? Who is it that receives all this money and then goes about saying: We are going to change the law. Now, it is up to you to help us make sure that every one of these people gets a promotion. If you are going to use that term, you have to realize it cuts both ways. I don't think it has any place on the floor. But if you are going to use it, it swings both ways. And it may well hit you.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I appreciate the thoughtful insight provided by my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Colorado. In particular, I appreciate his acknowledgment that issues related to abortion really involve deep and profound areas of fundamental disagreement among and between Americans. I also appreciate his acknowledgment that this really is about Dobbs; it really is about abortion. This didn't arise in a vacuum. I also appreciate his reference to federalism. He knows me well, and he knows that I am a fan of federalism, this concept that there are 50 States that have united for common purposes related to our national defense; weights and measures; trademarks, copyrights, and patents; regulating trade or commerce between the States and with foreign nations and with Indian Tribes; and a handful of other purposes, but then we leave the rest of the governing to the States. We come together in the same manner articulated by the Iroquois Indian Chief Canassatego from the Onondaga Tribe, who at a conference in Albany explained to early Americans the secret to the Iroquois Confederacy's longevity, to its peace, to its security. The Tribes came together. When they were united, they couldn't be broken, but each one maintained its independence. A quiver of arrows bound together is almost impossible to break. One arrow by itself can be broken easily. It is that same vision--largely unheard of in the rest of the world--that helped create a uniquely American experiment in self-government. This has been the recipe to our success, to our longevity as a constitutional Republic, to our ability to exist as now 50 separate States with different opinions. There are great consequences to moments when we take debatable matters--matters of profound and fundamental disagreement, as described by my colleague--and we place them beyond debate. This is precisely what happened some 50 years ago when the Supreme Court of the United States arrogated to itself at once the power of lawmaker and the power of constitutional draftsman. You see, what they did was they took away the power from the 50 respective States to decide these issues of profound and fundamental disagreement regarding the sanctity of life: when it begins, when unborn human life deserves protection of the law and when it does not. Oh, yes, last year, the Supreme Court of the United States finally undid that usurpation of constitutional authority. They were acting as lawmakers. It was not their role. They were taking something Federal, relegated to the States. It wasn't theirs. Even if it were a Federal issue, it wouldn't be theirs to make law in this area because there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution of the United States that makes abortion something to be decided at the Federal level by nine lawyers wearing robes, sitting at the Supreme Court of the United States. Not one jot, not one tittle, not one syllable pertains to that. So the Supreme Court of the United States was right in making that decision. I understand that my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Colorado, disagrees with me on that front, as is his right. Importantly, however, this debate is not about that. This debate doesn't even deal with abortion. It doesn't deal with abortion directly. It doesn't deal with whether or under what circumstances the law should allow a woman to pursue an abortion. I have strong feelings about that that differ sharply from those of my friend and colleague from Colorado, but that is not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about here is that the American people recognize that this is an issue that sharply divides Americans--an issue that my colleague describes as a matter of profound and fundamental disagreement. What does unite them is the idea that Federal taxpayer dollars shall not be used for abortions. This is codified elsewhere, in the Hyde amendment, in the Mexico City policy. It is codified in matters particular to the Department of Defense in 10 U.S.C., section 1093. That is what we are dealing with here. We can't make the mistake of accusing Senator Tuberville of trying to impose his morality or his conception of under what circumstances a woman ought to be able to obtain an abortion. I believe Senator Tuberville's views on that are similar to mine, but those are not at issue here. What is at issue here is whether taxpayer dollars from U.S. taxpayers ought to be spent in this area. My colleague also suggested that this is somehow not different from what we do in other areas. There are all kinds of medical procedures for which members of the military can travel from one State to another in order to obtain those procedures. Understood. But those aren't the procedures at issue here. This is specific to abortion. We are specifically creating measures for abortion--not for appendicitis, not to have bunions removed, not for other procedures. It is for abortion. What you are doing here is to say we will pay your travel. We will give you a per diem. We will give you 3 weeks of paid leave time. You don't have to use your accumulated leave time in order to do that. That is unique to abortion. That means they are paying for abortion. So, no, I am not willing to concede, and I have not conceded, that the law has no application here. I believe it violates the spirit--if not also the letter--of the law. It certainly violates the spirit but, inarguably, the letter. When there is a Federal law that says you may not use this for abortion, if you use it for things that are entirely around abortion-- we will pay for your travel out of State to get the abortion; we will give you additional leave time with an attached value to it; we will give you per diem while you seek that abortion--that is about abortion. Imagine a young college student--a young college student who has something that every college student probably wishes they had, a rich uncle. Imagine there is a college student. We will call him Bill. Bill has got a rich uncle. We will call him Thurston--Thurston Howell III. Thurston Howell III has got an enormous amount of money--more money than he knows what to do with. He is what you might call a gazillionaire. He says to his nephew Bill: Bill, I don't have any kids. You are the only one who is going to be able to carry on the family name. You are attending my alma mater, and I want you to live in style. I want you to enjoy life. I am going to pay for your tuition. I am going to pay for your room and board. In fact, not just your housing, I am going to buy you a house located close to the campus where you can live in style. I will get you a car, pay your healthcare expenses, and everything. I am going to do all of this for the rest of the time you are in college. Bill, you see, is in his first semester, about to wrap up the first semester. So he is excited about all he is about to gain. But his uncle, Thurston Howell III, imposes one restriction on those funds. He says: Now, I know that you have pledged with and are now a member of the Sigma Beta Fraternity. And the Sigma Betas at this university are known for one thing. They are infamous. Everybody knows they throw really big, exciting keg parties, drunken frat parties. They love those things. So Mr. Howell says to his nephew, Bill: Look, as a Sigma Beta, you are going to do what you are going to do. That is your decision. I am not going to tell you that you can't drink while receiving money. But I am going to say this: You may not use my money for your drunken frat parties. And, by the way, I want you to submit quarterly receipts to me so I can review what you are doing. Well, the first quarter of the next semester goes by, and Thurston Howell III is reviewing Bill's receipts. He is aware that some huge keg parties have been thrown. He has heard that the latest of them happened to be carried out in the house that he bought for his nephew Bill and that there was a lot of alcohol served there, just as there is at every Sigma Beta party. Then he sees in the receipts-- receipt after receipt--one for invitations, one for streamers, one for various forms of video entertainment that they had set up there, a big expense for a lot of red cups, and even an expense line for ping-pong balls, you know, for beer pong. He goes to Bill, and he says: What have you done? I have asked you not to use this for your drunken frat parties. I don't want to be paying for your alcohol-filled ragers. Bill says back to him: Well, no, every other member of the fraternity paid for the alcohol. I just paid for the invitations and the streamers and the red cups and the ping-pong balls and the video entertainment system and the DJ. I don't think Thurston Howell III would be all that convinced that Bill hadn't violated the terms of the support agreement. Now, sure, Bill could argue with him all along. He could say: No, you are wrong, Uncle Thurston. It doesn't make Uncle Thurston any more inclined to go out of his way to continue to provide that funding. If anything, what we are dealing with here is far clearer than the restriction placed on Bill in my hypothetical. Congress has said unequivocally: We are not going to use Department of Defense funds, we are not going to use Department of Defense facilities for abortions. That is what the Department of Defense has done. It is a policy change, and a policy change that my friend from Colorado has acknowledged is a policy change. He believes it is justified somehow by the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs. He is welcome to that opinion, but it is not accurate. There is no clause in there that says that there is an exception if the Supreme Court changes its jurisprudence with regard to Roe v. Wade, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, and their progeny. Not a jot, not a tittle, not a scintilla supports that. So, now, unhappy that some of these nominees aren't moving, Secretary Austin sends his emissaries, sends his friends in the Senate to go and attack Senator Tuberville. Why? Because Senator Tuberville is standing up for what the law says. He is not trying to impose his morality on women in the military--far from it. He is just trying to impose the law, to make sure the law is followed, and that when the law is not followed, he is not going to help the Department of Defense move things any faster. That is well within his right to do, and I applaud him for it. We need more of that very kind of courage in the U.S. Senate. As the Supreme Court has learned--as we have all learned from that experience--we don't end these profound and fundamental disagreements by taking debatable matters beyond debate. That is what the Supreme Court tried in Roe v. Wade, and it failed, especially because it was untethered from the Constitution and fundamentally at odds with it. This effort here to rewrite the law from the E-Ring of the Pentagon will fare no better.

Mr. LEE. We can confirm every one of those folks tonight, right now.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, there are myriad ways in which concerns of those serving in the military, concerns of dependents of those serving in the military, could be accommodated in a way that doesn't violate the letter, if not--or at least the spirit of the law. Among other things, the military, if it wanted to, could, without offending this provision of law or any provision of law that I am aware of, give military personnel some say in where they live. If there is some State that, for one reason or another, whether related to this issue or another, is offensive to them; if it would, in their judgment, impair their health or otherwise be objectionable to them--perhaps just be objectionable to them on this basis--the military could, without implicating this or any other statute of which I am aware, give them some say in it, give them the ability to say ``I don't want to serve there; I would like to be transferred somewhere else.'' That wouldn't involve Federal funds funding or at least facilitating abortion. So the fact that we have different States with different laws and the fact that those laws may impact people differently depending on where they happen to be living, where they happen to be serving at the time, doesn't mean that the only answer is for the Department of Defense to ignore 10 U.S.C. 1093 and pretend that nothing has changed and pretend that nothing has changed relative to its relationship to Congress. Now, as to Senator Tuberville, let's remember, he went to the Department of Defense. If I am not mistaken, he went to the Secretary of Defense himself. He outlined his concerns because there have been rumors circulating about this policy for months. Senator Tuberville, remember, is a member of the Armed Services Committee. The Senate Armed Services Committee has an oversight role-- an important one--over the Department of Defense. It was his right, it was his duty to know what was going on in the Department of Defense. He inquired again and again and again, and they wouldn't tell him. Finally, he got an audience with the Secretary of Defense and informed him, as I understand the conversation, of the fact that there would be dire consequences, including this one, if he chose to proceed. The Secretary of Defense considered that risk, and he undertook it nonetheless. He stood before the law and the wishes of a U.S. Senator and the promise of a U.S. Senator that this would be the consequence, and he did it anyway. I can't speak to why he chose to do that, but it was, in fact, his choice; it was, in fact, his decision. So, now, as to the suggestion that there are other procedures for which people can travel interstate and that we haven't raised objections with regard to those, those aren't covered by this policy. This one is about abortion. This one is there to say: If you want to get an abortion, then you get the 3 weeks of extra leave, paid leave; then you get the per diem; then you get the reimbursed travel. You get all of that if you are getting an abortion. That is not there for anything else. It is not there for the treatment of other medical conditions that are common--strep throat treatment that happens to be unavailable in one area or another or--I don't know--schistosomiasis. I don't know what that is, but I heard the term on ``M.A.S.H.'' once. It is a real dire medical condition. Maybe you are serving in one State, and they can't treat that in one State because of that State's quirky laws. This policy doesn't offer any relief on that, no. This applies specifically to abortion, implicating the concerns of the American people--legitimate concerns, I would add--over the use of Federal funds for that purpose. That unites Americans more than perhaps any other, and with a lot of good reason. They are telling these military women: We are so supportive of this particular thing that we are going to pay for your travel; we are going to reimburse everything; we are going to give you a per diem and give you 3 weeks of paid leave. I do wonder sometimes how one would feel, as a woman serving in the military, being told that. What if you are a woman who may become pregnant who wants to become pregnant? Does this create the kind of hostile environment in which a woman wanting to serve in the military and wanting to have children feels that the Department of Defense is so, so resistant to childbearing among its female servicemembers that it is willing to pay out a lot of money to do that? In any event, this is not something that one can easily reconcile with the policy embodied in 10 U.S.C. section 1093. That can be changed. There is nothing etched into the Constitution about that. Congress could change it. But to do that, you would have to have the votes. To have the votes, you would have to have some sort of legislative effort to do that. There hasn't been one here. Why? Well, because it is a lot easier to just decree it, just pen a memo and issue the memo, saying: We are going to make it so. We are going to ignore it. As to the suggestion that this is not something that can be compared to a drunken frat party, well, fair point; it cannot. No, it is much more serious than that. The American people don't feel so passionately about a drunken frat party that they have put in place a Federal law saying that the Department of Defense may never use funds to hold certain kinds of parties, including those involving alcohol. This involves unborn human life. Now, I understand that not everybody approaches unborn human life and its sanctity and the degree to which it should be protected under law the same way, but that is exactly why this policy exists, and that is exactly why the policy is embodied in a Federal statute. This stands squarely in the face of that, and it disregards it. Senator Tuberville has every right and every reason to stand up for this.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stand here before my friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Alabama. He stands in opposition, as do I, to the plan of the Department of Defense to use Federal funds to facilitate the performance of abortions. Now, let's remember what we are looking at here. This has been in place for a long time. Congress enacted a law. Codified 10 USC section 1093. Let's just brief that here. 1093 part (a) says: Restriction on use of funds. Funds available to the Department of Defense may not be used to perform abortions except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or in a case in which the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest. Part (b) reads as follows: No medical treatment facility or other facility of the Department of Defense may be used to perform an abortion except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or in a case in which the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest. Look, this policy has been in place for a long time--for decades, in fact. It is accompanied by other policies restricting the use of Federal funds on issues related to abortion. You know, the American people, yes, are divided on questions, many questions, regarding abortion. There are a lot of gradations of that. Some would put restrictions here; others restrictions there; others would insist on no restrictions whatsoever. But one thing that does tend to unite Americans, more than any other topic within the area of abortion, is that we don't want the use of Federal taxpayer dollars going to facilitate or fund abortions. We don't want that. Overwhelmingly, that holds really, really well. Democrats and Republicans alike believe that it is unfair, understand that it is unjust, especially on an issue that is as divisive as abortion is. To take money at the point of a gun, which is what we do when we collect tax revenue, essentially. You know, that if you don't pay your taxes, at some point people with guns will show up, and you have got to do what they say. So when you are taking money at the point of a gun--as you do when you are collecting tax revenue--you have a sacred responsibility to handle that well. And if the American people don't want it, that is why they enacted a Congress that has put this in law, that we don't use Federal funds to fund abortion. So along comes Secretary Austin and the current Department of Defense, and they decide, well, we really want to do this. And so I can only imagine how this conversation must have gone internally. Obviously, I wasn't part of those conversations. I was not made privy to them. They didn't invite me to them, we will just say. But I would imagine they more or less went something like this, hey, what can we do to, you know, help people get abortions using Federal funds. And I am sure someone brought up, well, 10 USC section 1093 prohibits that. So they said, what could we do that arguably could circumvent that, something that Congress may not have specifically identified. And at some point, someone said, well, there is nothing in here that directly categorically prohibits the use of travel funds or the availability of leave time for people seeking abortions. So, bingo, they came up with this idea. Let's just give people who want abortions, women who want abortions in the military 3 weeks of paid leave and an expense account to handle out-of-state travel during that 3-week period, and that circumvents, technically speaking, the restriction. This is, of course, a major policy change, and it is a policy change on a topic that many Americans feel passionately about-- and, by many Americans, I mean not just Republicans. Republicans and Democrats don't like the idea that U.S. taxpayer dollars should be used for abortions, and they have put this in place--this being a major policy change, a major policy change affirmatively at odds with the spirit, if not also the letter, of various provisions of Federal law. Respect for the Constitution itself, for the separation of powers, and for the sacred role of the legislative branch to make laws should have commanded that the burden of making this policy change should be on those who would want Congress to act, and that we not give special privilege to an executive branch Department--here, the U.S. Department of Defense--to undertake such a major policy change that they knew they could never get past the Congress. They couldn't. It wouldn't pass. There is not a chance it would get past the House. It wouldn't get past the Senate either. They knew this, and that is why they did it by executive action--just executive fiat. If Secretary Austin, the Secretary of Defense--if he wants to make law, he should run for Congress. He should run for the House. He should run for the Senate. I would welcome him here as a colleague or as a counterpart, down the hall in the House. I genuinely would. Then he would be in a position to do this. But he may not and must not be allowed to legislate from the E-Ring of the Pentagon. That is not how we do things in this country. Now, as you look at the arguments that have been exchanged today, we have talked about military readiness. I agree with my colleague from Alabama. I haven't seen anything indicating that military readiness commands this, much less commands it in a way that justifies departing from the spirit, if not the letter, of Federal law. I have also heard the argument made, quite counterintuitively, that if the Senator from Alabama, Senator Tuberville, wants to change the law, he should run legislation to that effect. He should be required to pass a statute. That is not how our system works. We have got laws. This is a major departure from established policy set in existing law. The burden is not on Senator Tuberville. You see, it is this body that gets to change laws, to change policy. We are the policymaking organ of the Federal Government, and to pass a law--any law--article I, section 1, and clause 1, the very first operative provision of the U.S. Constitution, right after the preamble and all the initial language, it says that ``all legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.'' Article I, section 7, makes it clear how you make a Federal law, and it is not made by the Secretary of Defense or any other executive branch official. It is made, under article I, section 7--the only way you can make a Federal law--when the House of Representatives and the Senate both agree on the same legislative text, then presents that legislation to the President of the United States, who may sign it or acquiesce to it--after 10 days, if he acquiesces, it becomes law--or he can veto it. If he vetoes, it can become law only after two-thirds of both Houses have overridden that veto. Those are the only ways you can change Federal law. The onus is not on those of us opposing this policy. Nor should the onus be on Senator Tuberville to establish that he is not the one impacting military readiness. This is untrue. It is unproven. It is contrary to fact. But even if it were not so, this is not on him. You see, because to whatever degree this is impacting military readiness, that argument goes right back on Secretary Austin in a heartbeat. It goes right back on him because he doesn't have to impose this policy. He doesn't have to force this change in policy amounting to a hostile act against the spirit, if not the letter, of this law. He doesn't have to do that. He could and should allow Congress to make this determination in due course, as Congress does. And it just so happens that we are coming up, in the coming weeks and months, on an opportunity to do precisely that, through a committee--through legislation that comes through a committee--on which both the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from Alabama serve, the Senate Armed Services Committee. This legislative vehicle of which I am speaking, of course, is the National Defense Authorization Act. It is an opportunity that we use every year, for many, many decades, to make policy decisions involving the Pentagon. So, if this issue is so important to military readiness, let Secretary Austin and those around him come to Congress and ask us to approve that, to make that policy choice--recognizing, as they should have done already without having to be told, that it is wildly inappropriate for them to make this policy change so wildly in conflict with the spirit, if not also the letter, of existing statute. So that is what he could do. He can come to us and make that argument in connection with the National Defense Authorization Act. If he can persuade enough Members of the House and enough Members of the Senate to get it passed, it would be done. In the meantime, unless or until such time as he can do that, especially to the degree that this is impacting military readiness-- these objections--then, what he should do is abundantly clear: Suspend implementation of these policies until such time as Congress acts to change them. That is not an unreasonable demand--not in the slightest. Look, it is also apparent that Secretary Austin and the Department of Defense have become hostile toward female members of the military who choose to have children. That is the message this sends--undeniably, unequivocally. When you tell people: You know, you are pregnant, and it sure would be convenient for us if you didn't have this baby--so inconvenient, in fact, that we will give you 3 weeks of paid leave and a travel account so that you can go somewhere else, you know, so that you cannot have that child--think about what that does. That creates a hostile work environment for our female servicemembers, and I find it repugnant, and so do the American people. That is why we have a prohibition in law. For these reasons, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, first of all, my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, a moment ago, referred to the Pentagon's policy as a bill. Perhaps this was a Freudian slip, but one way or another, it was an acknowledgment of the fact that it is a change in policy--a change in policy that is in conflict with the spirit if not also with the letter of Federal law. So, as a bill--and I think it is fair to characterize it as such--it ought to have to be passed through Congress. Now, my friend from the State of Massachusetts has used the language of the text of statute 10 U.S.C., section 1039 in much the same way, I would imagine, that Secretary Austin and his advisers parsed it and cribbed it and manipulated it in their development of this policy. But let's remember the reason I say that it violates the spirit if not also the letter of it. It is that there is an argument to be made here that it is. Funds available to the Department of Defense may not be used to support abortions. How is this money being used? Well, with the extra leave time that you wouldn't get in the absence of this and with the travel to another State, it is for the purpose of an abortion. It is conditioned on your getting an abortion. My friend and colleague from Massachusetts points out that it is also there with respect to fertility treatments--IVF or otherwise. Well, all that may be the case, and I have a couple of responses to that. No. 1, I do not and would never object to that if that is what this were. In fact, I would relinquish my objections altogether if this policy were about helping military women gain access to fertility treatments. There is no provision in Federal law--not in title 10 and not anywhere else that I am aware of--that prohibits the Secretary of Defense from doing that. That would, moreover, not amount to a major departure from established policy. So, if that is really what is on the table here, I wouldn't object to that at all. But it is the part about abortion. The Senator is conditioning the use of these funds--the receipt of additional leave time, the receipt of an expense account, and 3 weeks off--to go have an abortion. That is using Federal funds to get an abortion, to fund an abortion, because that is part of that. Moreover, the suggestion that this applies evenhandedly, equally-- that it was equally intended to promote access by military women to fertility treatments--is at odds with and belied by the fact that the President, ever since the Dobbs opinion was released at the end of the last term of the Supreme Court, has been calling this an all-of- government cause--an all-of-government cause--to make sure that they can get around Dobbs in any way that they possibly can. This is, was, always has been, and always will be about abortion. Like I say, the rest of it would be unobjectionable. I wouldn't raise any objection to it. I can't imagine my friend and colleague from Alabama would anyway. So that is a bit of a red herring, and it is a bit of a smokescreen to say that this is about fertility treatment. It is not about that. With respect to the readiness component of it, look, I get it. As for the hard-working men and women of the military, for whom I have deep respect, in having gained promotions, we want to be able to promote them and approve their promotions. Yes, that needs to happen. And to the extent that any one of those people really needs to be processed and approved very quickly, there are ways to do that. We could tick these off one after the other. Senator Tuberville mentioned that we took care of one just in the last week or so on the floor. We could be doing that right now. If you want to see where the Senate's legislative priorities are, they are not with this. They are with other things. If this really were a priority, we would, through the leadership of the Democratic majority leader, be in a position to do that. He has chosen different priorities and not this one. Look, at the end of the day, this thing--you could dress it up any way you want, but this is a major change in policy that is utterly at odds with the spirit if not also the letter of Federal law. As such, changing it should require a change in statute. If he wants to push for that, he is free to do so. If it doesn't pass, then he is stuck with that. If he is not content with being able to advocate for it from the outside, he should run for the House, or he should run for the Senate. He must not be allowed to legislate from the E-Ring of the Pentagon. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, for half a century, the Heritage Foundation has worked to build a United States where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish. Their unwavering commitment to our Nation's core principles has been a guiding light for generations, and we owe them our deepest gratitude. In 1972, the Heritage Foundation was conceived by Dr. Edwin J. Feulner and Paul Weyrich to deliver timely and persuasive research to Congress with facts, with data, and sound arguments on behalf of principles that promote freedom, opportunity, and prosperity for all Americans. On February 16, 1973, the Heritage Foundation opened its doors for the first time and quickly grew to become one of the most influential and most broadly supported think tanks in the United States. Over the past 50 years, the Heritage Foundation has played a critical role in many great legislative successes of our great country. They published the ``Mandate for Leadership'' in 1981, which served as a ``policy bible'' for President Ronald Reagan in his administration. In 1982, the Heritage Foundation published the first comprehensive study outlining a missile defense system to defend the United States from nuclear missile attacks. Six months later, President Reagan made his historic speech calling for a strategic defense initiative to protect the United States. Research by the Heritage Foundation formed the basis for welfare reform in the 1990s, resulting in more than 5 million people in the United States leaving welfare, finding work, and, ultimately, reducing African-American child poverty to historic lows. The Heritage Foundation understands that the people of the United States are best served by a government that understands, honors, and respects self-governance. They have been a voice of reason and an advocate for our shared American values, reminding us of the power of individual liberty and the importance of limited government. Their dedication to promoting a society based on these ideals has helped shape the course of our Nation, and we are all better off for it. As we look back on the past 50 years, we should remember the incredible impact of the Heritage Foundation on our Nation. Their legacy is one of service, and we are grateful for their unfailing commitment to our country. I urge my colleagues to support my resolution recognizing the important contributions at the Heritage Foundation to American life over the past 50 years and acknowledging their central role in shaping our Nation's policies and values. As we move forward, the challenges facing our country continue to grow. We need the Heritage Foundation now more than ever. Their expertise, research, and dedication to our shared values are crucial. They will continue to be a force for good in the years to come, and I am proud to stand with them to support a better, brighter, and more prosperous future for all Americans.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 164, which is at the desk; further, that the resolution be agreed to, 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. LEE. Mr. President, moments ago, when I asked to pass this resolution honoring the Heritage Foundation by unanimous consent, moments before I made that motion, I was informed of this policy, a policy that I have never seen. After more than 12 years in the Senate, I haven't seen this policy. It is a policy within the Judiciary Committee--not a rule but a policy--but a policy that is seldom employed. I have never seen it invoked. There are a couple of requirements in it. One is that a commemorative resolution, in order to be approved for clearance for passage by unanimous consent on the floor with the approval of the committee, would need to be bipartisan. I want to be clear that while this was not bipartisan, I invited Democrats to join in this. I genuinely think they should be willing to join it in the same sense that I would be willing to join them in something honoring Brookings or some other think tank. This group has done good work, and there is nothing in the resolution that commits them to substantively embracing every policy recommendation in the Heritage Foundation's past. So that one should be easily satisfiable. I hope to get to that point at some point. It is unfortunate that we can't get this passed today, but I would love to be able to do that. The other one is that no measure may commemorate any entity that is political. Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)(3), and it is a charitable nonprofit entity. It is not political, and it also can't commemorate a living person. This is there to commemorate an institution, a foundation--not an individual. So even though I wasn't aware of this policy until today, I think there is no strong reason why this should stop us from doing this. In any event, I hope we can get this passed, if not today, then on some other day soon. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I would like to talk about fentanyl. It is cheap, it is highly addictive, and it is deadly. It is responsible for more overdose deaths in America than any other drug. Last year alone, 110,000 Americans died from fentanyl poisoning in America. I recently joined a U.S. delegation to Mexico focused on stopping illicit drug trafficking, curbing illegal immigration at the U.S.- Mexico border, and addressing China's role in providing precursor chemicals for fentanyl production and laundering money for the cartels. I can say that the drug crisis spilling into our country is apparent to anyone willing to travel to the border and witness it for themselves. It is becoming more and more apparent every day. In fact, it is becoming more apparent even within Mexico. During my recent visit with President Lopez Obrador in Mexico, I heard him talk about the fact that, although in many instances, with many other drugs, drug production in Mexico has often been sending drugs just to the United States, at least far more than it has to Mexico, but with fentanyl, we are seeing something different. We are seeing that fentanyl is now spilling into the Mexican market, and many Mexican citizens are starting to die from fentanyl poisoning. So he, too, is concerned about it and is looking for ways he can make sure that China keeps closer track of the precursor chemicals and that the Government of Mexico is notified when those shipments of large- scale containers of these precursor chemicals arrive in Mexico, presumably for the production of fentanyl inside of Mexico. Yet, notwithstanding all these developments and 110,000 Americans dying in the last year alone from fentanyl, the Biden administration has utterly failed to stop this massive influx of fentanyl flowing across our southern border. In fact, fentanyl is one of the only commodities to see a price decrease since Biden took office. We have seen rampant inflation everywhere else but not with fentanyl. So despite this historic inflation that we have been experiencing ever since January 21, 2021, street prices for this deadly drug have fallen, indicating supply is meeting demand without significant impediment, bringing down the price. For example, in Arizona, users were paying $20 per pill in early 2021, but by early 2022, the price had plummeted to $5. In Ohio, the cost of fentanyl went from $75,000 per kilogram in 2017 to $50,000 in 2019 and then to $36,000 in 2021. This is the last of the places where we want to see the opposite of inflation. We wish that our consumer products at grocery stores and everywhere else were going down, not the price of illegal, deadly fentanyl. To put these numbers in perspective, we have been talking about the price per kilo--$75,000 per kilo a few years ago; and then 50,000 in 2019; and then 36,000 in 2021. To put it in perspective, each of those kilos--just 1 kilo of fentanyl contains half a million lethal doses. That is to say, 1 kilogram could wipe out the entire city of Atlanta, GA; and 1 kilo could essentially wipe out the entire population of the State of Wyoming. And 2 kilos could kill the entire State of Delaware. The DEA recently announced the seizure of more than 50 million fentanyl-laced pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder, just in 2022 alone. These seizures--that no doubt just represent a fraction of all fentanyl that made its way into the United States without detection and seizure--represented a staggering 379 million lethal doses, far more than enough to kill every man, every woman, and every child in the United States. Fentanyl is a killer. It is more powerful than morphine and has a potency that is measured in micrograms. Even a tiny amount can be lethal. Just 2 milligrams can kill an adult. That is why, when you measure this out, 2 milligrams--or 2,000 micrograms--going into a kilogram is going to get you to half a million lethal doses in 1 kilo. It is just unconscionable for this administration to turn a blind eye to the problem of fentanyl trafficking across the border. In the face of such a lethal threat, we need to have bold and decisive action, not empty rhetoric, because the drug cartels really don't care about party politics. They only care about making money. And that money is coming from the pockets of our fellow Americans suffering from addiction. This isn't just a problem for border States like Texas and Arizona. It is a threat to every community in America. It is sold on street corners in small towns and in big cities. It is killing our friends, our neighbors, and our loved ones. We must secure our borders to disrupt the drug cartels. We cannot tacitly allow fentanyl and other deadly drugs to continue flowing into our communities and destroying the lives of our everyday citizens. Now, yes, it is true, they are working to seize the stuff; and our law enforcement agents have seized a lot of it. But with millions of people crossing into our border--our southern border--over the last slightly more than 2 years--millions of people pouring in--it is making it worse, especially when you consider those same people are being trafficked into the United States, earning billions of dollars--the extortionate rates that they charge--to smuggle human traffic into the United States. It would be folly to assume, as the Secretary of Homeland Security recently suggested at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, that that doesn't play a very significant role in fentanyl making its way into the United States. He insisted that nearly all of the fentanyl comes in by way of vehicles--trucks and passenger vehicles--at points of entry. I don't know how he can possibly know that. In fact, it is impossible he could know that, because when you have 5 million people coming into the United States illegally through our southern border in slightly more than 2 years, it would be folly to assume that those people being trafficked by the drug traffickers wouldn't also be used to carry fentanyl. In short, every pill of fentanyl is a potential killer. Every shipment of fentanyl is a ticking time bomb, if not a weapon of mass destruction. And every life lost to fentanyl is a tragedy. We owe it to ourselves, our families, and our communities to tackle this problem and to do everything in our power to stamp out the scourge of this drug in American communities.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, wildfires pose a significant threat to the safety and well-being of our citizens, particularly those living near Federal lands. One way to protect against wildfires is with the use of fuel breaks. Fuel breaks are--think of them as firewalls, firewalls for our communities. They are manmade areas with a reduced fuel load that are set up to act as a barrier to slow the spread of a wildfire. They slow it down and make it so the fire can't spread as quickly. In 2021, Congress created a series of categorical exclusions specifically for the creation of fuel breaks. That was good. They were intended to protect communities adjacent to Federal land from the devastating effects of wildfires. However, the Federal Agencies responsible for implementing these exclusions have been bogged down by regulatory delays. These delays are really problematic, and they are adding up, especially in certain parts of the country where there is a lot of Federal land and where there is a lot of Federal land near where people live. For example, in California, there are 5.1 million homes in the wildland-urban interface. The Forest Service and the BLM will never have the capacity to protect these homes. The hands of the States shouldn't be tied while they watch their homes being burned. So Congress did a good thing by creating these categorical exclusions, but it has been more or less rendered--I think by mistake-- a dead letter in many areas because of these regulatory problems. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, we need to make this one work. My amendment aims to do precisely that. It aims to create a process for States to assume responsibility for the environmental analysis, approval, and execution of these projects. By allowing States to take on these responsibilities, we can expedite these critical projects for community protection. The safety and well-being of our citizens and our communities are at stake. By passing my amendment, we can take a significant step toward protecting our homes, communities, and critical infrastructure from the devastating effects of wildfires. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 80 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. LEE. I would be happy to.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, this is how the western lands suffer--people from the Eastern United States, with neither the knowledge nor the concern about how they are managed and don't care. And so while they passed something in 2021 to make these firebreaks easier to put in place, as a practical reality, the regulatory hurdles are proving too much. This would fix that. This is reasonable. There is nothing that the Senator from Delaware has pointed to that makes this amendment to this bill objectionable in any way. I urge my colleagues to support it. And if you do so--if you come from the west of Colorado, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you come from the Eastern United States, I beg you to imagine, for a moment, that you represent a Western State, where we have experienced, in some cases, decades of drought and where we are sitting ducks, where we are an island of private land amidst a vast overwhelming sea of Federal land that is chronically mismanaged just because it is physically impossible for them to manage it properly to avoid this kind of thing. I urge you to be sympathetic to this and support it.

Mr. LEE. Thank you.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President.

Mr. LEE. The distinction he is dwelling on is the distinction on page 4, the ``may-shall'' distinction. The only way he can be right on this, of course, is if he presupposes that the Secretary is just not going to care; that the Secretary is not going to exercise that authority. It is not going to happen. I am sure he is not impugning a lack of concern on the part of the Secretary of Agriculture to do that. He wouldn't do that. Secondly, look, if that is what is holding this up, if you want to switch--if you would be willing to support it if I made the ``may'' and turned it to a ``shall,'' I will do that right now. I will offer up a second-degree amendment to my own amendment right now, and we will do that. If the gentleman from Delaware were to agree to that, I would be fine with it, and we could get this passed.

Mr. LEE. I will point to two things. First, on page 4 of the amendment, subdivision (D) Verification of Resources. This requires each State or Indian Tribe to go through a process to verify that they have got the resources to do it. Turn to page 6. It is subject to full judicial review in the same way that they would be subject to judicial review if these actions were being undertaken by a Federal Agency. So the only difference is, these State and local governments, they have both the personnel, and they have the incentive to do it. Federal land managers can't and don't and won't ever be able to do this the same way State people, State officials, State governments, and local governments will be able to. We either care about these communities or we don't. If we don't adopt this, we are effectively nullifying what Congress passed back in 2021, and we cannot do that. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on this matter.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President.

Mr. LEE. I call for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I appreciate the insight and the observations of my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Delaware. I appreciate the amount of effort that he puts into this and I am sure a lot of hard work. He raises some good points, and there are points that I might find persuasive if they were accurate. He seems to be under the impression that these would be broad categorical inclusions, that these procedures we contemplate would apply broadly to all Forest Service operations. It wouldn't. This is talking only about fuel breaks and only about fuel breaks in narrow sets of circumstances. He suggested incorrectly that there is no requirement in place to make sure that the States have the resources financially, regulatorily, and otherwise to undertake the analysis contemplated under this. It does. He has been misinformed on that point. Finally, I might feel differently about this if, like my friend from Delaware, if I were from a different State, if I were from the State of Delaware. But when you look at the Western United States, we have Federal land everywhere. In every State to the east of Colorado's eastern border, the Federal Government owns less than 15 percent of the land in each State, and in most cases, it is in the single digits. In many States, it is in the low single digits. I don't remember what the percentage of land is in Delaware. I can find that out. But in Utah it is two-thirds of our land. It is 67 percent. In every State to the west of Colorado's Eastern Rim, it is more than 15 percent and usually a lot more than that. That affects people. These are people's homes, their livelihoods, their communities, their economies are all put in jeopardy by the fact that the Federal Government owns too much land. It owns so much land that no one would have the capacity to operate this. No one. It is impossible. More than 5 million homes in California alone are in these affected areas. No matter how efficient we may be in the Forest Service, no matter how many employees we authorized them to hire, they are still not going to be able to keep up with it. It is a matter of doing this or losing more property, losing more ecosystems and losing more homes and communities and sources of economic activity. That is what is at stake. Now, if the points he made were factually correct or legally correct, he might be right, but they are not correct. We need this, and we need to pass this now. Mr. President, thank you.

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

Mr. LEE. I appreciate the magnanimous offer from my colleague. I will take him up on that. I am still hoping that it will pass. It is still my hope that it should pass today. Mr. President, I know of no further debate. Vote on Amendment No. 80

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I am back again, seeking unanimous consent for the passage of my FREEBIRD Act. Now, previously, my request for unanimous consent was met with an objection, an objection on the grounds that we are still in the midst of a public health emergency. It was obviated. This unanimous consent request was objected to on the grounds that if we were going to do this, we should end the vaccine requirement for foreign travelers and the public health emergency at the same time, in the words of the objector, to make it clean. Well, just last night, the Senate voted to terminate the COVID-19 pandemic national emergency order. That makes this as clean as it gets. We have passed this now, and early this morning the White House announced that the President will be signing that measure--which had previously been passed by the House--into law. So that is happening now. That means that this is as clean as it gets. These things would go out at the same time with a bang--as well they should. Now, that also means that there is no reason why we shouldn't end this particular restriction, the restriction on unvaccinated foreign travelers coming into the United States today. Now, to those who might think that the Senate passed something last night that might somehow make it unnecessary to pass the FREEBIRD Act, make it unnecessary, separately, to enact legislation ending the foreign traveler vaccine requirement, they are mistaken. And they are mistaken because those two legal documents--the proclamation issued by President Trump in 2020 declaring a national public health emergency and the October 2021 Executive order issued by President Biden putting in place the foreign traveler vaccine requirement--are separate things; neither depends on the other. And so the fact that the public health emergency Executive order is now on its way out the door, it will be no more in a matter of hours or days, makes no difference as to this one. This one remains in effect unless or until it is undone. So to paraphrase the words of the Member of the Senate from the Democratic Party who objected to this just a few days ago, we can make it clean. Now, we should make it clean. In fact, we should make it clean by getting rid of this just as the other expires. Now, look, so basic question, right, why does this matter so much? Why do we care about the fact that we are requiring foreign travelers to prove that they have been vaccinated prior to entering the United States? Well, we care, and we should care because it is levying a really heavy cost on State and local economies and on the American economy and on American relationships across this country. Continuing to keep this mandate in place at a time when President Biden himself has declared that the pandemic is over and is prepared, apparently, to sign into law legislation passed by both Houses, officially ending the order declaring the existence of a public health emergency over COVID, it doesn't make any sense to continue this, especially at a time when this body has voted and the President's prepared to sign the other measure. Look, those who oppose this really are unjustified in what they are trying to do, especially because they are ignoring the new risk calculus that is affording Americans a renewed sense of normalcy, much needed normalcy after 3 years of chaos. This policy has separated loved ones for far too long. It is time to end the COVID-19 vaccination requirement for foreign travelers, prohibit using Federal funds to carry out the requirement, and prevent the CDC from ordering future COVID-19 vaccine mandates for foreign travelers. It is costing us too much. In 2021 alone, Utah visitors, travelers coming into Utah, spent nearly $11 billion, generating over 130,000 jobs and almost $2 billion in State and local tax revenue. Now, look, Utah's tourism sector experienced so much decline during COVID, particularly during 2020. By 2021, and even more so by today, it really has recovered quite well, except in one area. We still haven't recovered, much less made any gains, with regard to foreign visitors to the State of Utah. Why? Well, I think a lot of it has to do with this unnecessary, draconian requirement, a requirement that the developed world no longer recognizes the need for. We are outliers in the free world for keeping this in place. But by lifting the vaccine mandate, Utah and the United States stand to benefit tremendously from increased international travel. Look, it is not just that it is costing us tourism. It is costing us meaningful connections, connections that enrich and promote our shared humanity. Right now, foreign travelers, including family members, including friends, business relations, and even international sports figures are being kept off of U.S. soil arbitrarily due to this draconian vaccine mandate. Look, right now today, this very moment, we have the opportunity to reverse course. In fact, the House of Representatives has already passed this very bill ending the vaccine mandate, and it passed it with bipartisan support. Today, we can restore our personal and business relationships, boost our tourism, not just in Utah but across America, and reengage in the competitive spirit that brings nations together. It is time to end this mandate. It is time to join the rest of the developed and the free world. It is time to free the bird and to pass the FREEBIRD Act. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 14, H.R. 185; further, that the Lee substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.