Mike Lee

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 5316 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, across the Nation, local governments are struggling to support their constituents. These frontline public servants provide for the safety and well-being of their friends and neighbors, typically using funds derived from local property taxes. However, in many counties, these Federal neighbors of sorts don't pay property taxes, but they draw heavily on the resources made available by these local governments. Rescuing hikers, paving roads, addressing forest fires--these are just a few of the vital services that these communities honorably provide even though they receive little to no compensation for them. My amendment would institute a supplemental PILT Program--payment in lieu of taxes--an additional PILT payment increasing funds by nearly 10 percent. It would not make these communities completely whole by providing true tax equivalency, but it would make a huge difference. If Americans want to continue to safely enjoy our national parks, monuments, forests, and general landscape, we must ensure this program, PILT, continues to serve as a reliable source of income as property taxes would were Federal lands subject to property tax. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

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

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, just last night, U.S. Navy LT Ridge Alkonis was forced to leave his wife and three children and report to a Japanese prison. An American serviceman had to explain to his children that although he had done absolutely nothing wrong, he had to leave them, and he had to leave them to be incarcerated in a prison on foreign soil for 3 whole years--a prison inside a land that he had been asked to serve in by his country, to protect that country. And now he is in prison in that country, having been ordered to prison by that country even though he had done nothing wrong. While serving his country in Japan, Lieutenant Alkonis, a man who loves the country of Japan, who has spent years there, who had spent years there many years before the U.S. Navy had assigned him to serve in Japan--he served there for 2 years as a missionary. He learned the language. Both as a missionary and as a member of the U.S. Navy, he has continued his acts of community service in every community where he has lived and served. He is a model, an upstanding citizen in every respect. He is a decent, kind, intelligent, hard-working officer, and a loving husband and father. It is while serving in Japan that he was involved in a car accident. It was a car accident that resulted from a tragic, unforeseeable, unforeseen medical emergency. Now, that accident left two people dead. I speak sincerely when I say that my deepest sympathies go out to the victims of that accident, along with their families and their friends and their loved ones. I can't begin to imagine their sense of loss and confusion and hurt and even anger associated with the horrific accident. It is important to note, however, that this was, in fact, an accident. In no way, shape, or form do the facts of the case suggest otherwise--quite to the contrary. All of the facts in evidence indicate that this is what happened, and yet the Japanese court continues to insist that Lieutenant Alkonis somehow had some culpability, that he did something wrong. They continue to float the false narrative that he fell asleep while driving as a result of his own carelessness or negligence. That simply is not true. The accident occurred at 1 p.m. a little over a year ago--at 1 p.m. in broad daylight. Lieutenant Alkonis was well rested and had no reason to be tired or drowsy. In fact, he was having a conversation with his daughter when he passed out midsentence. He remained unconscious despite his daughter's repeated attempts to yell and scream and kick the seat. Alkonis did not wake in response to his daughter's cries, nor did he wake even upon impact when the accident occurred. No matter how deep a sleeper, anyone would be awakened by either of these events, but he didn't. He remained unconscious even after the collision. It is important to note that eyewitnesses reported that Lieutenant Alkonis's color had drained from his face, which is precisely consistent with what would happen with someone who has suffered from a syncopal episode like this one. He was too weak to even open his car door after he finally regained consciousness in the wake of the accident. It is simply disingenuous that Judge Kumiko Maesawa would offer such a simplistic view by stating that Alkonis should have pulled over if he felt drowsy. It flies in the face of the evidence and the experiences of everyone at the scene, including--and especially--his family, who were present at the time. The comments are even more egregious considering the fact that the Japanese authorities didn't even so much as bother to conduct a thorough investigation into the medical event following the crash. They appear to have been willfully inclined to disregard pretty clear indications of a medical emergency. Apparently, it wasn't what they wanted to find. So they didn't find it. So they didn't conduct the thorough investigation that needed to be conducted. He was even denied a medical evaluation before the Japanese police subjected him to 26 days of rigorous detention and custodial interrogation before he was so much as charged. This is not how friends treat each other. This is not how one friendly nation treats another nation when one nation sends its best and its brightest and its bravest, including people like LT Ridge Alkonis, to go and fight to protect that country. That is not how we treat each other as nations. The U.S. Navy did conduct an investigation, the same kind of investigation that should have been conducted by the Japanese authorities but the Japanese authorities didn't conduct. And in that investigation the U.S. Navy, very thorough in its approach, concluded that Lieutenant Alkonis, in fact, lost consciousness, and the loss of consciousness was attributed in that thorough investigation to something known as acute mountain sickness. There were no drugs in his system. There was no alcohol in his system. Nothing like that had anything to do with this crash. And yet, even after the Navy concluded that he was not at fault, Lieutenant Alkonis did everything within his power to remedy the situation, because being the brave, patriotic, decent, kind, loving American that he is, he was heartbroken over the fact that an accident had occurred that he was involved in and that two people had lost their lives. You know, there is a tradition in the Japanese culture, a tradition that is in so many respects admirable. It is known as the ``gomenasai'' tradition. Under the ``gomenasai'' tradition, when something awful happens, there is an attempt made by those involved in an incident or resulting in loss. You go to the family, the loved ones of the deceased, and offer something to offset it. We may think of it in rough terms here as a crude approximation of restitution. It is not exactly that, but it is a significant, profound gesture of remorse of the fact that the incident happened at all. In fact, he paid over $1.5 million to the victims' families, more than what would ordinarily be considered customary within the ``gomenasai'' tradition. He has expressed deep and sincere remorse, and despite all of this, despite all of his efforts through the ``gomenasai'' process, despite all of these mitigating circumstances, despite the deep remorse, and despite the noble, unblemished record of distinguished service to the U.S. Navy and to Japan, despite using every resource at his disposal to make things right, he is still in prison. I find it nothing short of inexcusable that an American who experienced a medical emergency should be treated so poorly by an allied nation that he is protecting. Japanese nationals convicted of the same crime are routinely granted leniency. In fact, 95 percent of similarly charged defendants get a suspended sentence; meaning, even if they are charged, even if they are convicted, 95 percent of them don't actually have to do prison time because their sentence has been suspended. Clearly, the Japanese judicial system is trying to make an example of Lieutenant Alkonis, perhaps stemming from a history of disputes over our status of forces agreement. But I will note here that those disputes have absolutely nothing to do with Lieutenant Alkonis. No, he is being targeted here because he is an American and because he was in the unfortunate position of having suffered a medical emergency that resulted in tragedy. This is no way for a friendly nation to treat a friendly nation. These conversations are difficult because we have a great relationship with Japan. We have been allies for a long time. We have had a good relationship under our status of forces agreement. So these conversations are difficult, but not in spite of the fact that our Nations are friendly but because they are friendly, we need to have difficult conversations, just as sometimes it is only a friend who can approach a friend and speak the truth. How, I would ask, can we possibly ensure justice for the thousands of American men and women who serve our country abroad when they face prejudice because of their status as Americans and as American servicemen and servicewomen? Lieutenant Alkonis represents our best--our very best, the best of the best. If our servicemembers can't get fair treatment from the country they have been tasked to defend--especially those who, like Lieutenant Alkonis, represent the very best ideals of the U.S. Navy-- then maybe it is time to revisit key portions of our status of forces agreement with Japan. If their due process protections aren't sufficient to protect someone like Lieutenant Alkonis, to make sure that he has an adequate opportunity to build his case, to prepare to meet his accusers, to gather exculpatory evidence, then something is wrong with the status of forces agreement. I am still not entirely convinced--not at all--that there weren't violations of the status of forces agreement. In fact, it appears that there were here. But to the extent the status of forces agreement is insufficient to deal with those, then we need to reopen that because this is too high a price to pay. We are willing to make sure that there are consequences to people who disobey a law, who engage in bad behavior on foreign land. But to have a situation like this one, where someone through no fault of his own, just as a result of a tragic medical emergency of which he had no prior warning whatsoever, to have him sent to prison for 3 years bereft of his friends, his family, his career that he so deeply loved, his children, to whom he is everything--this is wrong. We deserve better than this from an allied nation, especially a nation with which we have such a generally good relationship, as we do with Japan. And so I sincerely hope and pray that Ambassador Emanuel, Secretary Blinken, and the Department of Defense will immediately take every step possible to negotiate with their Japanese counterparts and bring Ridge home. I call upon the President of the United States to intervene directly with his counterpart and bring Ridge home. I call upon all sympathetic ears within the sound of my voice to plead not only with decision makers in Japan but with almighty God to bring Ridge home. We need that to happen. It is not just about Ridge Alkonis and his family. It is about the security and confidence needed by every service family in the American Armed Forces. Deployed whether in Japan or anywhere else, they need to know that we have their backs. They need to know that while they are in the service of the United States of America, we will watch out for them; that when a foreign country makes a tragic mistake, as they have done here, we will continue to advocate for them until we bring them home. I call on my colleagues to join me in the effort to bring Ridge home. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, for months now, American babies have endured an unprecedented and prolonged formula shortage. Some doctors have called this the worst crisis of their careers. It has become so widespread that nearly everyone knows someone who has been personally affected. Desperate parents have scoured online marketplaces. They reached out to family and friends for help. They paid exorbitant markups just to feed their babies. In some worst-case scenarios, some have even resorted to dangerous homemade formulas. In the U.S.A., no parent should be left to wonder how they are going to feed their newborn baby. After months of work and bipartisan collaboration with my colleagues in the House and the Senate, I rise to pass needed reforms that will finally provide relief to hungry babies. Today, we can take action to alleviate a crisis largely of the Federal Government's own creation. Poor governance has crippled our domestic formula market. Tariffs and regulations have prevented safe foreign formulas from entering the United States, even while we are experiencing this acute shortage at home. Currently, the government imposes a 17.5-percent minimum tariff on formula imports. This tariff has stifled competition. But it doesn't have to be that way. We can lift these substantial tariffs on the importation of baby formulas and reduce the costs borne by retailers to provide access to safe, affordable formula. Doing so will expand the severely limited formula options for American consumers. This modified version of the Formula Act does just that by waiving these tariffs through the end of this year. While passing my bill won't provide immediate relief, our work is far from complete. I am committed to doing everything I can not only to provide this relief now but also to make the necessary permanent reforms to our system to ensure that a crisis like this never arises again. We still have work to do, and we must further our efforts by allowing WIC recipients to buy whatever brand of formula might be available. We must make meaningful reforms to how the FDA regulates the formula industry. Passing this bill today is the first step. In the meantime, I am actively working on expanding the list of products to receive temporary relief from tariffs. While this is an important first step, it is certainly not the last. This crisis is such that American babies cannot wait any longer than they already have. We have a moral obligation to these infants to say that we did everything we possibly could to fight for them. Passing the Formula Act will be an incredible win for families and hungry babies everywhere. It will make meaningful headway that is so desperately needed today. By suspending the tariff on formula imports, we are providing cheaper access to individual consumers and to retailers alike. This relief has been long overdue and long overdue especially for Utahns, who have the largest families, the most children per capita, and the highest birth rate. I am grateful for the countless hours of behind-the-scenes work and successful negotiations with my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, in the House and in the Senate, which have resulted in a win for our most vulnerable Americans--babies. I look forward to continuing this important work with them. Passing my Formula Act today is a victory for families and for babies everywhere. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 8351.

Mr. LEE. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LEE. I know of no further debate on the bill.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Thank you to the Senator from Florida. Mr. President, President Biden has wasted no time--no time at all--in embarking on his crusade to hamstring American energy production. On day 1 of his Presidency, President Biden halted all new oil and gas lease sales on Federal land. Now Americans are paying the price. Across the Nation, people struggle to fill their gas tanks, as prices climb to over $5 a gallon, but there is apparently no need to worry. According to the President, Americans' pain at the pump is merely part of an energy ``transition,'' as he puts it. It is important to note here that this transition is a transition away from affordable, reliable fossil fuels. It is not that high gas prices are a problem to be fixed but, rather, high gas prices somehow are the solution. They are what will facilitate this transition. The President is getting the results that he wants. This is a feature, the ultimate feature. It is the end goal, not a bug in his plan. Despite this being part of the plan and, in fact, his objective, it didn't take long for the President to realize how unpopular high gasoline prices really are. Now he is trying to take credit for even a slight reduction in gasoline prices. First, by no means is this reduction sufficient. Second, we can't attribute that reduction to the President's policies. To be clear, placing a moratorium on the sale of oil and gas leases on Federal land is outside the President's authority. If the President actually possessed that authority, he wouldn't have attempted to portray this as a temporary pause. It is clear that this is a thinly veiled attempt to enact the most radical climate policies our country has ever seen--policies that have never been enacted by Congress and policies that Congress would not enact. Our suspicions were confirmed when Gina McCarthy, the President's climate adviser, said during an interview: President Biden remains absolutely committed to not moving forward with additional drilling on public lands. So much for a temporary moratorium. Confused as to whether Ms. McCarthy's statement represented the administration's policy, I asked Interior Secretary Deb Haaland whether it was indeed the administration's intention to indefinitely pause the sale of all Federal oil and gas leases. She responded: ``I don't know.'' ``I don't know'' is not an acceptable answer to the Utah communities who rely on those oil and gas leases. ``I don't know'' is not an acceptable answer to Americans paying over $5 a gallon for gas. ``I don't know'' isn't an answer to the Americans who have found every aspect of their lives rendered unaffordable by this administration's policies, and now this only adds insult to injury. The American people simply cannot endure President Biden's clear-as- mud policies any longer. I have introduced legislation to reaffirm that under the Mineral Leasing Act, the President of the United States absolutely does not have the authority to hold the country's domestic energy production hostage. Their continued efforts are coming at the expense of struggling families. The Biden administration is fighting in court for Presidential authority to enact sweeping changes to American energy policy on a whim. While I believe the courts will arrive at the same conclusion, we can act now to ensure citizens and companies receive the certainty they deserve. We could end this crusade today if we enacted this legislation and get to work securing American energy independence for generations to come. It is for that reason that I was disappointed when my friend and colleague on the other side of the aisle came and objected to passing this by unanimous consent today. It does, in fact, state what the law already provides anyway. It shouldn't hurt us to make it obvious. Yet he objected even though this policy is harming the American people. It is disappointing that it had to end this way today, but this is not over. No, we will be back. We will be back as often and for as long as it takes in order to give the American people the relief that they need and that they definitely deserve. Now I yield the time to my friend and colleague, the Senator from Alaska.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4571, which is at the desk; further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the Senator from Vermont and I don't agree on every issue. We represent very different States, come from very different political backgrounds. While I don't agree with everything he just said and while I am disappointed by his objection to my effort to pass the PRICE Act, which I regard as necessary to help keep inflation under control, I want to echo and applaud so much of what my colleague from Vermont just finished saying. I don't think it is appropriate, when we have people throughout the country struggling just to get by and we have people in Utah shelling out an additional $881 a month--every month--not for luxury items, not for some wish-list item, but for their basic household monthly expenses, every single month because of excessive runaway spending in Washington leading to that inflation. Especially in that circumstance, I can't fathom why we would want to turn now and devote $75 to $76 billion to what my colleague from Vermont appropriately described as corporate welfare. This is industrial policy, which--unlike the Senator from Vermont, I don't like industrial policy--but I completely agree with my colleague from Vermont. This goes beyond even that. This is corporate welfare. There is an editorial in today's copy of the Wall Street Journal by the editorial board. It makes some excellent points, which I would like to excerpt and present to the Senate today. The editorial starts out as follows: Industrial policy is back in fashion in Washington, or as it ought to be called, corporate welfare. The semiconductor industry is first in the queue, but it won't be the last. Taxpayers should at least know they'll be subsidizing highly profitable companies that don't need the help and might end up regretting the political handcuffs they're acquiring. The bill that will head to the Senate floor as early as Tuesday-- Meaning today-- includes $52.2 billion in grants to the computer chip industry. But wait, there's more. Congress is also offering a 25% tax credit for semiconductor fabrication, which is estimated to cost about $24 billion over five years. That's $76 billion for one industry. The editorial continues: Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee point out that for the same money Congress could double the research and development tax credit for all companies through 2025. It could also throw in 100% expensing for companies and allow immediate R&D deductions through 2025. But that would mean the politicians aren't picking favorites, which is what they prefer to do. The editorial goes on from there to describe the circumstances that led to the introduction of this bill, the fact that there was surging demand and diminished capacity to produce the semiconductors during the pandemic and that, since the pandemic, a lot of these very same firms trying, understandably, to keep up with demand have increased their production. Meanwhile, 2 years later, they find themselves in a position where, due to changing economic circumstances, demand is starting to soften; and so they may now be in a position where they have ramped up supply only to see that demand is diminishing. All of which starts to beg the question, Why would we dump over $76 billion into this industry right now when people across America, including these Utahns, are facing some of the highest price hikes in the country for a variety of reasons? Why would we give money to a small handful of wealthy corporations at a time like this, understanding that every dollar we spend here that we don't have means that we are inflating the currency even more? And that ends up creating all sorts of problems. A few paragraphs later the editorial goes on to explain the next line of arguments. They point out that those advocating on behalf of the CHIPS Act say: But, oh, we have to do this because it is about China. We have to do this in order to stop China, and this also can't withstand scrutiny. Look, as the editorial writers of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal point out: Global semiconductor capacity increased 6.7 percent in 2020 and 8.6 percent in 2021 and is expected to grow another 8.7 percent this year. The risk of over-capacity is growing as China heaps subsidies on its semiconductor industry as part of its Made in China 2025 initiative, and the U.S. and Europe race to compete. Some 15,000 new semiconductor firms registered in China in 2020. Some have drawn investment from U.S. venture-capital firms. Intel has backed Chinese startups even as CEO Pat Gelsinger lobbies Congress for subsidies to counter Beijing. Intel has threatened to delay a planned Ohio factory unless Congress passes the subsidy bill. I pause here to note that this is troubling. If true, this should be a warning to us about why we don't engage in corporate welfare. This is wrong. Deep down, we know it is wrong to take from the poor and give to the rich. We have no business doing this, nor do we have any business voting cloture on a motion to proceed to a bill that doesn't yet exist. We don't yet know what is in the bill because it is still being transformed significantly, even as we speak. The Wall Street Journal editorial board continues: The other claim for the bill is that the U.S. must subsidize domestic chipmaking to compete with China, but this also isn't persuasive. The companies like to point out that the U.S. share of the world's chips has fallen to 12 percent from 37 percent in 1990. They don't mention that the U.S. leads in chip design (52 percent) and chipmaking equipment (50 percent). Seven of the world's ten largest semiconductor companies are based in the U.S. China trails American companies by years in semiconductor technology. Chip fabrication has moved to South Korea and Taiwan because many chips are commodities with low margins. But chip makers are working to diversify their manufacturing bases to avoid future supply disruptions and have announced $80 billion in new U.S. investments through 2025. Samsung plans to build a $17-billion factory in Texas. TSMC has a $12- billion plant under construction in Arizona. I pause here to note that in meeting with representatives from some of these companies, including TSMC, TSMC noted--in my conversations with high-ranking executives of that company--that plant isn't made contingent on any legislation they are producing. They are doing that because it makes good business sense, not because it is their last-gasp effort. This is a profitable company doing well, and for the United States to be considering giving money--whether to domestic companies or foreign ones--under these circumstances in this amount of money makes no sense. The editorial continues: One unfortunate impetus behind this bill is that, for all their talk about competing with China, many politicians believe that Beijing's economic planning is superior to the U.S. free market system. It reminds us of the 1980s when legendary Intel CEO Andrew Grove warned that Japan was going to dominate the chip industry and the future of global technology. As former Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers explained on these pages last year, the government set up the Sematech chip consortium that ``was obsolescent when it opened.'' But Intel innovated with more advanced chips, and no one is talking now about Tokyo's central-planning genius. The editorial concludes: History shows that easy government money can undermine competitiveness. It often leads to inefficient spending and investment. The politicians will also attach their own strings, perhaps with limits on stock buybacks and dividends. Wait until Bernie Sanders is heard from on the Senate floor. They forecasted what we have seen today. It closes with the following sentences: The chip bill isn't needed to compete with China, and it will set a precedent that other industries will follow. Anybody who can throw up a China competitive angle will ask for money. Why Republicans want to sign up for this is a mystery, especially when they might control both Houses of Congress in six months. I couldn't agree more with the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal on this assessment. This is wrong. We know it is wrong. The bill still, as it stands right now, is unknown to most for the entirety of this body. We do know it costs over $76 billion. We do know people across America, including poor people throughout the State of Utah--not just the poor, but most people--again, with inflation, during periods of inflation, the extremely wealthy can find ways to become even wealthier, but everyone else suffers--literally, everyone else. The poorer you are, the more you suffer. Even people well-entrenched in the middle class get gouged considerably. Why we would want to take money away from them and give it to the wealthy is beyond my ability to fathom. All of this ties back to the reason I came to the floor today, which was to try to pass the PRICE Act by unanimous consent. We didn't succeed today, but we are not going away. We are going to keep undertaking this effort because the fact is, we do need to impose a supermajority requirement for spending, especially when spending levels are producing inflation in excess of 3 percent. We are at 9.1 percent nationally. And in many of our States, including my own, it is higher than that. That is why we need this. My colleague pointed out he believes that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act may have contributed to that. Well, that is not exactly how things work. When you are passing a tax reform bill--a tax reform bill that makes downward adjustments to marginal income tax rates and to corporate rates and capital gains rates--yes, it brings in less revenue, but the government taking in less revenue doesn't cause inflation. It is deficit spending that causes inflation. Given that it is deficit spending--particularly deficit spending during periods of inflation--that matters, I believe that is where we ought to be focused. We ought to be focused on pro-growth opportunities. And, frankly, if those adjustments to corporate rates, to capital gains rates, and to marginal tax rates are, in fact, pro- growth, they reduce disincentives to work, they bring more people back into the labor market, and that, in turn, produces more tax revenue. You can expand, broaden the base, while lowering their rates and, ultimately, come out on top and with more robust economic growth. But what you can't do is engage in increasingly more aggressive deficit spending and expect that is going to do anything but harm the American people, especially America's poor and middle class. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, we have broken another record. Unfortunately, it is not the kind of record we want to boast about. Last week, the latest Consumer Price Index exceeded inflation expectations at a staggering 9.1 percent. In Utah, that rate is much higher. The Biden administration's evolving blame game has shifted. It has shifted its focus from the pandemic to the supply chain and then from the supply chain to Putin. There is, however, a more coherent answer: Government continues to spend more than it has--a lot more. Last year, we saw this play out. This Congress spent a stunning $6.8 trillion while collecting just over $4 trillion in revenue. With the return of legislative earmarks, porkbarrel spending, meanwhile, has increased over 1,700 percent. Rather than recognizing the problems associated with spending more than the government brings in, the government simply prints itself more money. Like a child stricken with affluenza, rather than being cut off, the government helps itself to more money. It doesn't take long to lose the value of a dollar when you are not spending your own money. Government is no different. While hard-working Americans pinch pennies, lawmakers spend carelessly. To pay for their next project, they threaten to raise taxes. When they don't have the support to raise taxes, they nevertheless continue to spend and drive up inflation. Inflation is nothing but an invisible tax on the people--a tax on the people that, I would add, disproportionately affects hard-working Americans, the poor and middle-class Americans. Sometimes the wealthiest of the wealthy can find ways to get even wealthier in times of inflation. Everyone else gets hurt. With no action, the reckless spending will drive us off a financial cliff. But our spending trajectory is such that we cannot afford to wait for the consensus needed to pass a constitutional amendment. While hard-working Americans wait, I have introduced the Preventing Runaway Inflation in Consumer Expenditures Act, or the PRICE Act, to stop the bleeding. The PRICE Act requires a three-fifths supermajority of Senators to approve new spending measures when the Nation's inflation rate is at or above 3 percent. The PRICE Act is desperately needed. This insatiable spending machine is now costing Utahns $881 a month more than they paid last year, and that is on top of what they already pay in taxes. Those are 881 dollars every month for which Utahns receive nothing in return. It represents money that could be spent toward their home, toward their child's college education, toward filling their empty gas tank, but instead, millions of Americans will look at the skyrocketing costs of living and determine that they must sacrifice their wants and, in many cases, their needs just to meet their most basic, fundamental necessities. My PRICE Act flips the script. It doesn't altogether prevent lawmakers from spending when inflation is above 3 percent, but it requires lawmakers to offset that spending with cuts from somewhere else. In essence, it puts the impetus on Congress to weigh its legislative wants against the legislative needs of the American people. That is because for everyone living in reality, a budget means something. Failure to live within a budget has profound consequences. When Jack has to pay an extra $93 a month on food, he begins to doubt his ability to feed his family. When Jill has to pay an extra $145 a month for housing, she doubts her ability to keep a roof over her child's head. When Joe has to pay an extra $404 a month on transportation, he doubts his ability to get his child to and from soccer practice. So why is it that when inflation is at 9.1 percent, lawmakers are still spending and looking for ways to spend even more? As Americans are filled with financial fear and doubt, why is it that Senate Democrats want to spend an additional trillion dollars for their Build Back Better plan? Congress is failing to exercise self-restraint during this period of unprecedented inflation. As Americans tighten their belts, Congress has opened the spigot. If a household ran this disaster of a budget, a family would quickly be met with foreclosures, repossessions, and ultimately bankruptcy. Ronald Reagan couldn't have been more prescient when he described inflation as ``the price we pay for those government benefits everyone thought were free.'' While Members tout their shiny new pet projects, Americans are footing the bill. It is unconscionable that Congress continues to pat itself on the back for passing massive spending bills while the country has a financial millstone around its neck. It is high time that Congress subject itself to the same cutbacks that working-class families are facing now. Although I wish Members of Congress would self-impose these restraints, this latest push for a new trillion-dollar spending plan shows that is unlikely to happen. Given our long-demonstrated lack of self-restraint, it is time to pass the PRICE Act. Congress has become the trust fund baby that doesn't understand the value of a dollar. The PRICE Act is the recognition that sometimes you need to take away the credit card. So to that end, I would like to secure passage of this measure to protect the American people. As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Budget Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3770 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. I ask unanimous consent 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 motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, for months, American moms and dads have endured an unprecedented baby formula shortage. All of us know someone that this crisis has personally affected. In May alone, reports showed that the out-of-stock rate jumped from 43 percent to 74 percent nationally. In my home State of Utah, that out- of-stock rate is much higher. And while the Biden administration made ambitious attempts to invoke the Defense Production Act and fly in formula from other countries, these efforts ultimately provided less than 2 days' worth of formula for our country's hungry babies--less than 2 days. So yesterday, I took to the floor asking that this body take immediate action to address our Nation's massive formula shortage by unanimously passing my FORMULA Act, something that I have come repeatedly to the Senate floor in an effort to pass and it has been met with objections so far. My bill included three measures to accomplish this goal. The first was a regulatory component, one that would remove certain FDA requirements for imported formula, mostly dealing with labeling. And I will explain more about that one in a moment. The second removed the restrictions that limited the availability of formula brands available to WIC recipients. And, finally, the bill temporarily suspended import tariffs on formula, increasing supply and decreasing consumer costs. These three components would provide immediate relief to anxiety- ridden parents who were forced to scour supermarkets, make dangerous homemade formula, or, even worse, hospitalize their infants. I need not explain why a problem of this magnitude is so deserving of our immediate attention. After addressing the Senate on each of these topics, I engaged in a lengthy and substantive debate with my friend and distinguished colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Bob Casey. I listened intently to his objections regarding his concern for the safety and quality of formula crossing over our borders. And while I appreciate my colleague's concerns, I still believe that this body can and must fix this problem, a problem that is, no doubt, the sole creation of the Federal Government. It is no accident, for example, that we are the only country facing this particular shortage. No other country is dealing with this because our country and our own Federal laws in this area and the way they have been enforced and implemented have caused it. So I am determined to provide relief to families dealing with this inexplicably, unnecessarily prolonged crisis. For far too long, the people enduring this mess have gone without answers. And so in the spirit of comity and compromise, I have modified my request by removing the FDA regulatory component of the bill. I hoped that this would resolve any reservations that my colleague from Pennsylvania may have had regarding the safety of these products. And I should add here, those concerns are not concerns that I agree with for the simple reason that the countries that, under my bill, we would have allowed to produce formula, to have that formula introduced into the United States, they are countries that we have already identified as having safe regulatory systems. They are countries with regulatory systems that are strong enough, in fact, that we allow imports of their pharmaceutical products produced in those countries because their standards are as rigorous as those imposed by our own FDA. Nonetheless, I offered to remove that and made that a request for passage by unanimous consent. Still, my friend objected to expanding the range of products available to WIC recipients. Remember, this component to the bill would have simply allowed American moms and dads who were beneficiaries under the WIC program to use their vouchers to purchase any form of formula they would prefer, or more commonly these days, any form of formula that is available. Whereas, right now, the WIC vouchers require you to stick to the brand specified on the vouchers in question. My distinguished colleague objected also to that version of what I offered, despite the retention of FDA regulatory authority and the fact that wealthy Americans are personally importing these products already from Europe. And while I find this unfortunate, I was still determined to make an argument and to, ultimately, formulate an agreement consistent with that argument to fix a problem that our Federal Government has made and has created and in which it has made no discernible progress in its attempts to resolve it. So, again, in the spirit of comity and compromise and a willingness to do absolutely whatever it takes to provide whatever relief we can provide to hungry babies throughout America suffering from malnutrition, I modified my request yet again. This time to include only the provisions related to the tariff suspension. And while I am hopeful that we will be able to come together to address the concerns of my colleagues and pass the first two provisions of my bill as well, I hope to report today to families across the country that my legislation has achieved unanimous support and passed the Senate. This would be an incredible win for families and for hungry babies nationwide. My bill would make meaningful headway in dealing with an issue that some doctors call ``the worst crisis of their careers.'' By suspending the import tariff on formula imports or providing cheaper access to formulas to individual consumers and to retailers alike, no longer will access to these safe formulas be limited to a select group of wealthy individuals because, again, wealthy individuals have been able to pay the higher prices and suffer the inconvenience of going online or otherwise making a special order on their own of these European formulas. Again, these European formulas from the countries that we are talking about--countries covered by the bill--are countries that produce safe, effective formula and that are regulated by regulatory bodies that are every bit as stringent as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And on that basis, in fact, we import pharmaceutical products from those same countries. Currently, formula is produced in those countries, countries like France and Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Babies there do just fine on those formulas. In fact, they do great. And some American families have been able to benefit from those formulas as they have ordered it online, but they pay higher prices, and they have to deal with restrictions that make it more difficult to access those things. So this bill will open that up. This is relief that really is long overdue, particularly for Utahns who have the largest families, the most children per capita, and, also, the highest birthrate. Not coincidentally, those are some of the same reasons why the baby formula shortage is felt so acutely in Utah, but it is being felt acutely throughout the United States. I hope that we can come together and pass even more meaningful reforms that will help solve the problem completely and once and for all. I am grateful, however, that the countless hours of behind-the-scenes work and successful negotiations with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis have resulted in a win for the most vulnerable Americans. Passing my FORMULA Act is a victory for families and for babies in Utah and everywhere else in the United States. And so, to that end, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 372, S. 4261.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the bill before us. All too often, we very often applaud instinctively the concept of ``bipartisanship'' but fail to actually evaluate the policies underlying bipartisan legislation and the effect that our policies may have on law-abiding Americans. Bipartisanship is a good thing. In fact, bipartisanship is an inevitability in any legislative body that contains multiple parties with significant representation. It certainly is an indispensable feature of this legislative body, as it is virtually impossible to pass any legislation--with only the rarest of exceptions arising at most once or twice in a year--except through bipartisanship. The question isn't whether to achieve bipartisanship or whether it is good but what policies are produced through the bipartisanship in question. Don't get me wrong--in this polarized climate, it is good when people of different political affiliations and different backgrounds, representing different parts of our great country, are able to come together and have productive conversations. These conversations occur with some regularity. In fact, they occur far more often than most people would assume based on depictions in the news and entertainment media in this country. It is also good when those conversations lead to legislation that is further refined on the Senate floor through robust debate and an amendment process, one that refines the legislation in question to make sure that all viewpoints have been taken into account. But that is, tragically, not what happened with this legislation. No one--no one except a small ``gang'' of Senators and a few favored members of the news media--no one was allowed to view the legislation until Tuesday evening. Less than an hour later, less than an hour after it had been released to the public, released to us, the Senate was forced to vote on whether we should proceed to the legislation in question. Immediately after that vote, the majority leader filled the amendment tree and filed the cloture motion to end debate on the bill without a single hearing held or a single amendment having been debated or considered or even offered. In fact, it couldn't be offered because prior to that time, there was nothing to amend. Now, less than 48 hours after we received the text of this legislation for the very first time, the Senate has voted to end debate--a debate that never really started; a debate that involved not a single amendment passed--no, not one single one; a debate in which there was not a single opportunity for Members to offer improvements to the legislation. No. This small gang came together, materialized, and put together a bill. It released the bill, and all of a sudden, we were expected to vote on it up or down, yes or no, no changes, no questions asked. Those of us who are not members of this particular gang were told, essentially: Too bad. We don't want your input. Your only option is to support this entire bill, warts and all, ambiguities and all, vagueness and all, without any changes; or, on the other hand, you can oppose it, and you would be accused of savagely not wanting to protect children from school shootings. That is not what our Founding Fathers envisioned for the U.S. Senate. It is not how they imagined it working. It is also not how it worked for hundreds of years. For more than two centuries, the U.S. Senate functioned in a way that has had as its distinguishing characteristic those procedures that earned it the title of being the world's greatest deliberative body. Chief among those features was the willingness and the ability of each Member to offer up improvements in the form of amendments and have those amendments considered, debated, discussed, and ultimately voted upon. But, unfortunately, this is how the Senate has been run over the last few Congresses. Sadly, we have seen some of this under Democratic and Republican leadership alike. This isn't just bad news for the Senate; it is especially bad news for the American people, who deserve better from an entity that still calls itself the world's greatest deliberative body. It is not without notice that this has become a problem. It is not without notice that we have deviated from this. The thing is, when we deviate from our own procedure and our own processes, the substance shows. The inadequacies of the substance are the natural, foreseeable result. They are the inevitable product of a defiant refusal to abide by our most time-honored procedures: rules and customs. In this case, the substantive problems with this bill are pretty significant. The restrictions that it imposes on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans are significant, and those impositions come about in such a way that burdens the American people, while doing little or nothing to address actual gun violence committed by prohibited persons in many of our largest cities. You would think that a bill that purports to be able to keep kids safe in schools would at least have some funding for school security measures or school resource officers, but if you felt that, you would be wrong. I am very skeptical of Federal intervention in education. If Congress is going to provide billions of dollars of mental health funding to schools and claim to keep kids safe, we should at least allow States to use some of their funding for security measures, like reinforced doors, school resource officers, or training programs for teachers who are allowed to conceal and carry if they choose. This bill provides Federal grant funding for State red flag laws without sufficient due process protections. This is a trick--a trick-- often used by Congress, increasingly so of late. Congress does this sometimes when it has no constitutional authority and sometimes when it lacks political will. Instead of passing the Federal law at issue--the Federal law that it wishes it could pass--Congress bribes the States with money to pass the laws that Congress wants, that Congress wishes Congress could pass but for whatever reason can't or won't. This allows Members of Congress to go to their home States and take credit for doing ``something,'' even if that ``something'' does nothing to address the problem. That impulse to do something has been noticed. It has been noticed by Professor Robert Leider of George Mason University and the Antonin Scalia Law School. He penned an op-ed in today's copy of the Wall Street Journal. In that op-ed, he begins with the following words: When mass shootings such as Uvalde happen, a rallying cry emerges for Congress to do something--anything--to prevent such tragedies in the future. On Tuesday, senators introduced the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act--their effort to do something. But when your sole rallying cry is to do something, the thing you do may be worse than the status quo. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is a terrible bill, and in its current form, it ought to be defeated by a bipartisan coalition of Congress. Professor Leider then goes on to explain why opposition to this legislation ought to be coming from the left and from the right. He explains in great detail why Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives alike, sometimes for similar reasons, sometimes for different reasons, should be outraged, should be upset by this legislation. It offends people at every end of the political spectrum. I will go more into some of those details in a moment from Professor Leider. But, look, when the government seeks to deprive an American citizen-- a law-abiding American citizen--of a constitutional right, we have protections in place, and those protections can be found among other provisions in the Constitution. They can be found in the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. In both provisions, you have a due process clause. In both the 5th and the 14th Amendments, it says that a person can't be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. What does ``due process'' mean? Well, ``due process'' means the right to be heard. You can't have a deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process. The word ``without'' has been interpreted and fairly does mean ``before.'' You have to have due process before they take it away from you. It means meaningful review at a meaningful time. It doesn't--it can't mean they can take away life, liberty, or property and then ask questions later. It doesn't mean they can take away life, liberty, and property and thereafter demand that the person from whom they took it return to litigate his or her right to exercise that thing that was taken. Red flag laws enacted in States thus far get this exactly backward-- confiscation first; due process later. That is not how due process works. That is not what due process is. You can call that process, but it is not due process, not for these purposes. It doesn't work. The confiscation before notice and a hearing, this model--this confiscation before notice and hearing model of red flag laws raises concerns of civil asset forfeiture, when a person is forced to forfeit her firearm pursuant to a civil order without a hearing. This legislation places overly broad and undefined restrictions on Second Amendment rights--the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens--creating the risk that false allegations could and inevitably would lead to the deprivation of a constitutional right with no recourse afforded to address the harm suffered. Now, when you look at the legislation, there are pieces of the legislation that pay lipservice to due process. While the legislation, you might say, draws near unto due process with its lips, its heart is far from it. When you read the fine print, the due process of which it refers is not due process at all; it is post-depravation due process. The very specific procedural protections that we associate with due process--an opportunity to be heard before a fair, impartial tribunal; the opportunity to offer up evidence; the opportunity to cross-examine adverse witnesses, for example--things that we associate as inextricably intertwined with due process because they are, those things are all articulated at the back end of this due process paragraph of the bill. And it makes reference to the fact that that is the type of due process that, in the view of the bill, can, according to State law, be made either before or after the constitutional depravation in question, depending on the dictates of the State law at issue. That is not due process; that is something else, and that creates a lot of problems. There are other problems with the legislation dealing with juveniles, problems arising out of uncertainties that the legislation itself creates. Now, I want to be clear about something: I could certainly consider supporting a measure prohibiting certain older juveniles who have been convicted of crimes as adults, crimes that if they had been committed by an adult would have been deemed felonies, and, on that basis, deem them prohibited persons. I could consider that. There are a lot of public policy questions surrounding that. And I think there are a lot of people on the left and on the right who would have concerns with opening that up, with saying: We are going to allow--in fact, require--juvenile records to be entered into the NICS system. Remember, the NICS system is a database, a database that is used to identify prohibited persons, persons who are prohibited from buying or otherwise acquiring or even possessing firearms and ammunition, as defined by 18 U.S.C. section 922(g) or, alternatively, persons to whom one may not lawfully sell or otherwise transfer firearms or ammunition, as defined by 18 U.S.C. section 922(d). Both 922(d) that talks about those to whom you may not transfer a weapon and 922(g), those who may not acquire or possess a weapon--both provisions have nine paragraphs attached to them. In each instance, the nine paragraphs are virtually identical. In other words, the universe of those who may not buy or possess weapons is essentially the same as those to whom you may not sell them. It is almost essential--in fact, the only distinction I can think of under existing law is that while under 922(g) you may not possess a firearm if you are a convicted felon, that same prohibition extends in 922(d) in such a way that you may not sell or otherwise transfer a firearm to a person who is either a convicted felon or has been indicted for a felony and is standing under indictment, under currently pending criminal charges. Other than that, as far as I can tell, 922(d) and 922(g) are coextensive. This legislation changes that a little bit, and it prohibits the transfer of a weapon, under 922(d), to a person who, as a juvenile, stood convicted of a crime that would be a felony. Now, this creates all sorts of uncertainties in the law because, in many if not most States, juvenile proceedings--what we would consider juvenile criminal proceedings--are, in fact, not criminal proceedings. The defendant isn't entitled to a jury trial. And in the Federal criminal system, a juvenile criminal defendant may not have a jury trial; that even if they want one, even if all the parties were to agree, they can't allow them. In many State systems, including the State system in my State, the State of Utah, juvenile criminal proceedings are not even criminal proceedings; they are civil proceedings, very often conducted under civil law procedures rather than criminal law procedures. So the same protections aren't in place. Again, I am open to the idea of opening this up because I think there are some juveniles who commit some offenses, particularly in their later teenage years, that perhaps ought to be taken into account for purposes of 922(d) such that you can't give them a gun or under 922(g) such that they may not possess a gun without committing a felony. I think we could have that debate and discussion. We should have that debate and discussion. That hasn't occurred here. Instead, what we have done is muddied the waters by creating a very significant difference between 922(d) and 922(g), between those prohibited from being given a gun and those who are prohibited from possessing a gun. But we haven't defined it well, and it is not really clear what it is that we are doing or what it is that makes it fair; nor is it clear, as I read the legislation--and, again, it has been less than 48 hours since we have had access to it. It is about 80 pages long. It doesn't read like a fast-paced novel. It is full of cross-references. And even someone such as a former Federal prosecutor who is very familiar with these laws and prosecuted cases under them--even with that level of familiarity, it has taken me some time to get through it and understand what it means. In fact, to this moment, it is difficult for me to ascertain exactly how far these changes go. It is not clear to me, for instance, which kinds of criminal records for juveniles will be added onto the NICS system. Remember, the NICS system is this database that identifies those prohibited from possessing firearms or being given firearms under 922(g) and 922(d), respectively. It is a database that keeps track of those prohibited persons. It is not clear to me which types of juvenile records can be taken into account in those proceedings. This also allows for a prohibited--one can be a prohibited person under 922(d) and 922(g) if they have been adjudicated--and this is terribly awkward language--if they have been adjudicated as a ``mental defective'' or if they have been ordered institutionalized. No one really knows what that term means. It is a sloppy term. It is an offensive term to many, and it is full of uncertainty. We have compounded the uncertainty by now saying that mental health records of older teenagers, those between 16 and 18, will now be uploaded onto the NICS system such that certain mental health crises one experiences as an older teenager could result in an older teenager later in life being unable to possess a firearm without committing a felony. That raises some concerns--or at least those drafting the bill would probably interpret it differently, to say they may possess one in some cases but not necessarily be someone to whom a gun can lawfully be sold or otherwise transferred. That also raises additional questions. Sections 922(d) and 922(g) are currently nearly identical, except in the rare exception that I noted just a moment ago. Yet we have had no conversations about these. We have had no conversations about what this does for juvenile criminal justice, about what this does to the rights of individuals who, as juveniles, may not fully understand the ramifications of the criminal proceedings against them or of decisions regarding their mental health at the time those decisions are made and that might affect them later in life, including after they have become adults. My point is not to say these things don't matter. They do. And I think there are a lot of these people who probably shouldn't have guns and should be prohibited persons, but we need to know what we are doing. We need to agree on what is actually happening because right now we take some areas of the law that are already fraught with some uncertainty, and we are magnifying that uncertainty manyfold. I think that is dangerous, and I think it is dangerous in a way that both Democrats and Republicans ought to find offensive--sometimes for the same reasons, sometimes for entirely different reasons. My point is this. There is no reason why legislation like this--it does--it has got some good provisions in it. There is no reason why this couldn't be amended in such a way that would allow more Members of this body to vote for it or vote against it, depending on what it looked like at the end of the day. But the way it is written, it has got a lot of problems with it. We have got the due process problem that I mentioned with the red flag laws. That is their distinguishing characteristic is due process problem. You have got the juvenile records problem that I mentioned just a moment ago. It is not fair to people to leave them in that state of uncertainty, especially juveniles. So that ought to be a concern to all of us. Perhaps we might get to the place where these provisions do just what the proponents of the bill say that it does. But in this instance, as in so many other areas, the best way to get there is to go through the normal deliberative process, the process that long defined this institution as the world's greatest deliberative body, which includes a full opportunity to present and vote on amendments and to hear concerns and objections raised by Members of this body, Members of this body some of whom have experience with the statutory framework in question and can offer insights as to what might have been overlooked. Now, look, I speak here of my colleagues who were part of this effort. I speak with great respect toward them and admiration for the fact that I think they are motivated, by and large, by a desire to help people. I don't think any Member of this body wakes up every day and says, ``I want to make America less safe'' or ``I want to make America less fair.'' I don't think that is what is going on. But I do think we delude ourselves, we sell ourselves short, and we harm our constituents when we pretend that it is OK to pull the functional equivalent, the legislative equivalent, of running through a congested intersection with our eyes closed and think that that is not going to cause problems. That is exactly what we are doing here. This is the legislative equivalent of driving with your eyes closed through a busy intersection, and we are making some really big mistakes here. And a lot of these are mistakes that could be fixed with relative ease. Now we will never know. We will never know what might have happened. It may be that this could have been something that, had we gone through the whole amendment process, could have been supported by nearly all or even all Members of this body, but we will never know of that now. We will never have that opportunity. Instead, we are going to push through this rushed piece of legislation that I am convinced no one had read in its entirety prior to its release and, essentially, no one was familiar with by the time we started voting on it. And then we were told: No opportunity to make it better. If you notice a problem with it--and I have noticed several--we really don't care to hear about it. Expediency demands that we somehow just rush this through. But the American people deserve better. There are, moreover, other provisions of the legislation that have raised some eyebrows in some corners. They are provisions of this bill that provide funding to encourage States to provide Medicaid and CHIP services in schools under the auspices of an effort to increase access to mental health, to mental health services in the schools. While Federal Medicaid funding is, of course, something that cannot lawfully be used to perform abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or to preserve the life of the mother, some have pointed out that schools under this legislation easily could use the clinics established under the bill as a means of accomplishing the provision of abortions and also prescribe abortifacient drugs using State rather than Federal Medicaid funds. There has been some discussion even today about this. The fact that we still don't know this is troubling to many. I certainly would like to know what the definitive answer to it is. As far as I can tell, it does open the door to that, and we ought to at least have that discussion. Now, there are some legislative options before us that address things that can be done practically to improve safety. One is the Luke and Alex School Safety Act, which is included in this bill. Like I said, there are plenty of things in this bill that are unobjectionable. And this is, certainly, first among them. And it codifies into law the Federal clearinghouse on school safety. I spoke in favor of this bill at a Judiciary Committee hearing just last week. Additionally, I support the bill's provisions increasing penalties for straw purchasers who know or have reason to know that the gun they are purchasing for someone might be used in a crime. And I am open to other proposals that tackle safety in schools head-on. Senator Marshall, from Kansas, has an interesting amendment that would use unspent COVID funds to improve school safety and school security. Look, there are a lot of things in this legislation that really ought to be discussed in greater detail. And we haven't been able to discuss them. We haven't been able to debate them. We haven't been able to amend them because of the rushed process. It begs the question: Why are we in such a rush? Don't America's schoolchildren and America's teachers and America's moms and dads deserve better consideration than this? Schools are out for the summer at the moment. It would actually be a good thing for us to take a few more weeks to debate and discuss these things and get to a better solution. Why are we rushing it? I want to get back to the juvenile provisions for a minute. This is something that Professor Leider speaks about at some length. And he raised some observations that I hadn't entirely considered. And I would like to share some portions of that. At the end of this, I will be offering this. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this op-ed submitted by Professor Leider. Professor Leider describes one feature of the bill as particularly discouraging, particular troubling. I spoke of the juvenile provisions a moment ago. I identified some troubling features of them. Professor Leider gives additional commentary on this and provides additional observations, not all of which had been noticed by me. Here is how he puts it: The most significant provision in the bill is the prohibition against firearm possession by those convicted of a misdemeanor violent crime against a dating partner--closing the ``boyfriend loophole.'' He goes through this after he has discussed the problems with the juvenile provisions, noting that this will create disparities. It will cause uncertainties with juvenile offenders of one sort or another. And then he does go through a fuller explanation of how those operating under the boyfriend loophole provisions might be affected. He continues: But the senators who negotiated this bill evidently couldn't agree on the definition of a dating partner. They define ``dating relationship'' as a ``relationship between individuals who have or have recently had a continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.'' But relationships come in all forms, and this definition provides little guidance. He continues: The senators provided three criteria for consideration: (1) the length of the relationship, (2) the nature of the relationship and (3) the frequency and type of interaction between the people involved in the relationship. Professor Leider continues: This means that a ``continuing serious relationship'' will be some function of quantity of dates, length of time and physical intimacy. But these vague factors don't provide fair notice and are susceptible to inconsistent application. We pause there to just note what he is referring to. The so-called boyfriend loophole exists because two of the provisions in 18 USC 922(g), defining the prohibitive persons, paragraphs 8 and 9 respectively, apply to those individuals who have either been in receipt of a restraining order arising out of a domestic relationship, under paragraph 8, or those who have been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence under paragraph 9 of 922(g). In both cases, there has to be a relationship that makes it about a domestic situation, has to be an intimate partner of one sort or another. Current law tends to define that as a spouse--when you are dealing with a spouse or a live-in partner, for example. But this provision seeks to address what the sponsors of the bill referred to as the ``boyfriend loophole,'' meaning what about someone who is not married and who doesn't reside with or hasn't resided in the past, didn't reside at the time with the person but was nonetheless in a type of romantic relationship. Now, here again, it is not a bad impulse to want to close some ambiguities in the law, but you have got to do it with language that makes sense. You have to do it with language that puts people on fair notice of what the consequences of a guilty plea might be or what the consequences of not litigating more aggressively in the context of a restraining order or something like that might be. Particularly in the context of 922(g)9, where we are dealing with a domestic violence misdemeanor, the person needs to know when that person is being asked to plead guilty what consequences that might have on the person later in life. And those questions aren't answered here. Professor Leider continues: By failing to define ``dating relationship''-- The term ``dating relationship''-- [A]dequately-- That is the term of art that they introduced into this legislation-- Congress is effectively delegating the critical question of who falls within this ban. To whom it is delegating the hard details remains to be determined. Perhaps it will be to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which has regulatory authorities over firearms or the courts may decide as they resolve cases. Either way, Congress has yet again handed off its responsibility for defining crimes to unelected bureaucrats and judges. Then he continues: Until a specific definition exists, it is unclear how the federal government will implement this prohibition. Suppose a criminal-records check indicates that a potential purchaser has committed assault or battery. What next? Maybe the trial record will show that the defendant was in a relationship with the complaining witness. Or maybe it won't. If such information is available, how is the examiner supposed to gauge the relationship? The available records likely won't provide the precise details of the relationship. Even if they do, the examiner still has to decide whether the relationship was serious enough to trigger the gun disability. The Senate compromise feeds many prospective gun owners to the bureaucratic wolves. Professor Leider's point is an excellent one. When people are going through criminal proceedings, if they have been charged with a misdemeanor and they are deciding how aggressively to fight it--whether to take it to trial, whether to plead guilty, under what terms to plead guilty--it is nearly always going to be in State court. After all, very few criminal convictions are in criminal court, a tiny percentage of them. And the prohibited persons, as defined under sections 922(d) and 922(g), the underlying convictions can be either State or Federal. These proceedings, nearly always taking place in State court rather than Federal court, are not going to be in a position, it is not knowing to be within their jurisdiction to decide whether, or to what extent, this will put them in that status, in that boyfriend status, in that status of a ``dating relationship.'' The fact that the term is so vague, the structure is so broad and undefined that it is not reasonably possible to know what consequences the law might attach to a guilty plea in that circumstance or to a conviction following a jury trial in that circumstance. You know, James Madison said, in ``Federalist No. 62''--and I am paraphrasing here--something to the effect that it will be of little avail to the American people that their laws may be written by individuals of their own choosing. If those laws are so voluminous, complex, or ever changing that they can't reasonably know from one day to the next what the law requires of them, this is one of those moments. We are imposing a pretty significant restriction--a restriction on a constitutionally protected right, one that may well apply for the rest of their life in some cases without them even knowing what is happening. This is the kind of rain that will fall on the criminal defendant of all backgrounds, of all political views. Every demographic could be harmed by this in one way or another. So it really would be better if we were taking the time to draft this legislation carefully. And that is my No. 1 complaint. That is why I can't vote for it. There are some things in here I wish I could vote for, but they have lumped it all together. They said: Here you go. Take it or leave it. But, look, you put red flag laws in here, knowing the red flag laws, the way we have now outsourced them to States and that we have now started paying the States, giving them money to adopt red flag laws whose distinguishing characteristic is to take away someone's constitutionally protected right without due process of law--that is a problem. And when you add to that complexity by adding uncertainty about the juvenile records problem that I identified, which ought to be concerning to many liberals as well as many conservatives, and when you add to that by coming up with this vague, broad definition of ``dating relationship,'' it has huge consequences with no reasonable ability to understand and ascertain how certain court proceedings might affect someone's rights, perhaps for the rest of their life, that is a problem. It doesn't have to be this way. I look forward to the day when the Senate will operate the way that it was designed to, the way that it once did, the way that, in fact, it has operated in the not-too-distant past. But we have to demand it. As long as people continue to tolerate, continue to accept and condone and reward and encourage this type of sham process, we will be left with subpar legislation, sloppily written. I will conclude with the words, once again, of Professor Leider, who says it well. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will likely pass because members of Congress feel enormous pressure to do something. But it is not a good bill, and it deserves further deliberation and refinement. The Senate's job is to help draft good laws by cooling the passions of the moment. Right now, it is failing.

Mr. LEE. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I return to the floor of the Senate again today to ask that this body take immediate action--action needed--to address our Nation's massive baby formula shortage. For months, American moms and dads have been scouring supermarkets and drugstores looking for baby formula. Anxiety-ridden parents are frantically checking online stores and pleading with family and friends, trying to figure out how to ship, purchase, and otherwise procure baby formula. Still, some families must hospitalize their babies because they can't find formula. Yes, they are hospitalizing them for that reason alone. Inexcusably, the crisis has only gotten worse. In May alone, reports show that the out-of-stock rate jumped from 43 percent to a staggering 73 percent nationally. In Utah, my State--the State with the largest families, the most children per capita, and the highest birthrate in the Nation--reports show that out-of-stock rate to be as high as 88.9 percent. Desperate parents are now resorting to places like Facebook Marketplace, buying from unknown sellers at exorbitant markups. The failure of the Biden administration's photo-op policy has not so much as put a dent--even a tiny dent--in this problem. Now, initially, the White House said that parents should ``ask your pediatrician, who may have formula samples or possible alternatives,'' as if that were somehow a solution. This hollow nonresponse was embarrassing enough, but, tragically, the administration's response has not improved with time, in the time that has passed since that statement was made. When the question came up again, the White House press secretary spent nearly 20 seconds flipping through a binder, only to respond with: ``I don't have anything new.'' That response is simply unacceptable. It is unacceptable for the American people generally and especially for those families dealing with this inexplicably, needlessly prolonged crisis. By failing to act, we are leaving parents in an unimaginable situation during one of the most stressful and impactful times of life. Worse, they have received no discernible answers from their elected officials. The White House's website lays the blame solely on Abbott's plant closure in Michigan ``due to safety concerns from the FDA.'' Now, this is a very limited, narrow line of thinking. The FDA regularly recalls other food products, but none of those recalls happens to result in shortages of this magnitude or this significance with such weighty consequences on the youngest of Americans. Look, it doesn't have to be this way. There are a lot of weighty problems that we address in the U.S. Senate that are seemingly unsolvable, intractable, or, at least, very, very difficult to solve because they involve things that very often are beyond our ability to control. This is not one of those problems. This is within our grasp. It is within our control. In fact, the government is the problem. Government caused it, and by turning certain levers, government can relieve this problem and do so in a very short period of time. This suffering is unnecessarily being prolonged by the government itself. So the Senate can help these families, these American families struggling with this crisis, by immediately passing my bill called the FORMULA Act. This bill responds to the crisis in three simple ways to help solve the crisis at hand and feed American babies. First, my bill would suspend tariff collection on currently allowed formula imports. We tax imported formula at a rate of at least 17.5 percent upon entering the United States. It can roughly double to about 35 percent, depending on the circumstances of the shipment. We can help ease the skyrocketing prices and encourage companies to import as much baby formula as possible or as much as demand within the market requires by simply suspending for a period of 6 months this tariff collection. Look, the administration has acknowledged there are appropriate times to suspend the collection of certain taxes. For example, it is currently proposing suspending the gasoline tax for a period of 3 months. Surely, it is not the Biden White House's position that gasoline is more important than feeding infants. Second, my bill would temporarily allow formula imports from several safe countries like those in Europe. This would enable us to access plentiful formula supplies from abroad and meet our current needs with that. Now, allowing these imports is not going to endanger American babies. The manufacturing plants in question are already approved and are already regulated by their home countries. And the only plants that operate in countries and subject to authorities that are comparable to those imposed by our own Food and Drug Administration, these are countries from which we already import pharmaceutical products. The fact is that parents have already begun taking matters into their own hands, often with dire consequences. We are hearing reports of parents resorting to online homemade recipes for formula that they then feed to their infants. Infant hospitalizations due to malnutrition are correspondingly increasing as a direct result of these activities and the shortages from which they stem. Doctors have voiced their concerns that homemade formulas can lead to liver and kidney issues and, in some cases, even heart failure. Some families have tried diluting the formula that they are able to access with more water, a tactic that health experts warn can lead to brain swelling and organ failure. Some doctors refer to this shortage as ``the worst crisis they have experienced in their careers.'' They have to place dehydrated children on IV fluids, which isn't, of course, a long-term solution; it is an acute and dire response to a life-threatening emergency brought about through an artificial government constraint on the market. These short- term consequences are scary enough. They are scary enough for the moms and dads, to say nothing of the horrors the children, the infants, experience in the process. We still don't know what the long-term effects of these might be to the babies. Those worried about the formula quality may find solace in the fact that my bill retains the FDA's authority to recall foreign formulas in the very unlikely event that these safety issues arise. Remember, these are formulas produced in facilities in countries from which we already import pharmaceutical products based on our country's trust and confidence that their safety and quality standards are as secure as, if not more stringent than, our own. Additionally, my bill only calls for importing formula that is lawfully marketed and approved in select foreign countries. Again, private citizens are already doing this. The law already allows the personal importation of baby formula, meaning somebody can jump online and order it on their own, and parents are voluntarily choosing to do so because they have done the research and they trust that it is safe for their baby. They understand, as we do, that babies in France and Switzerland and of the United Kingdom are not different than babies in the United States of America. Formula that works for them, that is safe and healthy for them, is proven safe and healthy and effective for them for many, many decades is also going to work with respect to an American baby. My bill would just make this easier and more affordable for parents, you see, because to be one of those parents, you have got to have a degree of sophistication to know what you are looking for. Most people aren't really aware of the fact that they could jump online and order this. Secondly, it is really expensive to do it. They can't buy in bulk, and it requires extra shipping and handling costs that makes this prohibitively expensive for many people, even the lucky ones who become aware that it is even an option. So my bill isn't making something legal that is currently illegal in that respect; it is simply making it more affordable. It is making it so that we no longer limit access to these foreign formulas--foreign top-quality formulas from places like France and Switzerland and the United Kingdom. They will be available to poor and middle-class families, and not just the wealthy. Finally, my bill would allow WIC program recipients to buy whatever brand of formula is available with WIC vouchers. My bill will allow these parents to buy from available stock and feed their children and guarantees greater flexibility. You see, the existing formula crisis has been exacerbated by virtue of the fact that the WIC formula--the WIC beneficiaries are given a voucher. Very often, that voucher limits them to procuring only that brand of formula specified on the voucher itself, which, in many instances, might be out of stock. This would eliminate that problem. Keeping American infants fed should be one of the least controversial proposals imaginable, especially because this is something that can be done easily. We can bring about almost immediate relief to these American parents and especially to their babies, just by not causing the problem anymore or, at least, waiting for a few months before causing this problem again. In the meantime, the hope and the expectation is that the American formula industry can retool, revamp, and get back in the practice of producing in sufficient quantities that they will be able to meet the demand, but we need 6 months in order to do that. American babies are going hungry and the Federal Government is the problem. The Federal Government is causing these babies to starve and otherwise suffer. My FORMULA Act will help solve the formula crisis and ensure that American babies do not go unfed. Look, there is a reason why we see this crisis here, but not in any of our neighbor countries, not in any of our peer countries. No, the crisis exists here because this is a feature of U.S. law. We can fix this problem. We can help solve this crisis today. We can make sure Americans babies' cries do not go unanswered. We can and must pass my FORMULA Act. So, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 372, S. 4261; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I appreciate the thoughts expressed by my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Pennsylvania. I share this concern and this desire to see this worked out and worked out on a bipartisan basis. I think it is important. It is true that people have been working on it. They have been working on it now for the better part of a month and a half. Yet nothing has happened. Now, I understand that Rome wasn't built in a day. Significant legislative reforms are not usually enacted very quickly. Well, they are in some places, and we are experiencing some of that this week, but that is a different issue altogether. I understand that it takes time, on many occasions, to develop a legislative solution. This is not one of those issues. This is just not that complicated. I appreciate the fact that people are considering it. I appreciate the fact that my friend and colleague, the Senator from Pennsylvania, is willing to try to clear this on the Democratic side. I hope and expect that one of the four alternatives that I have proposed today-- each in the spirit of comity and compromise and as something that should be acceptable to both political parties--has got to get there. There are issues on which we are always going to struggle to find solutions. This one isn't hard. We can do this. We can fix this. American babies are going hungry because of the mismanagement within our country. Yes, I share the Senator's belief that we have got to hold the FDA accountable, but I feel like we are in the same position as the unarmed English bobby--but with the FDA lately. The unarmed English bobby, being unarmed and upon seeing the commission of a crime, shouts, in a charming British accent, ``Stop or I will yell `stop' again.'' We need to actually do something to force this issue because people are going hungry--babies are going hungry--and there are dire, long-lasting consequences. I hope and expect that we will solve this before the end of the week. This issue is not going away, and neither am I.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I appreciate the insight and the always thoughtful counsel of my distinguished friend and colleague, the Senator from Pennsylvania. I always enjoy working with him. He is a voice of reason and is a delight to work with. I do feel compelled to respond to a few of his points. Now, yes, it is true, there are ambitious plans to fly formula over. They used the Defense Production Act to do that, to have the government to act. And the ambitious plans that he describes have yet to materialize. What we have to look at is the bottles that are available now, that have been flown over now, that are here now as a result of that program, is about 13 million bottles. Do you know what the average daily consumption of formula is in America? Nine million. So this buys us a day and a half of formula--a day and a half--and it is still not solving the problem. So that is not a solution. As to the objection related to the FDA's regs, he points to the safety concerns and highlights a few adverse incident reports not necessarily linked to the formula itself but things that people experienced as they were switching formulas. A lot of the symptoms that he described--all of them, in fact, as I understand it--including lethargy, diarrhea, and some of those have been linked to babies switching formula. So, yes, when a baby switches formula, whether it is from one American brand to another or an American brand to a European brand, it is not uncommon during this transition period for babies to react that way. Now, I wish--we wish--that it wasn't necessary for them to switch to begin with. This was unnecessary to make them switch. In fact, another point that I need to refute that he made at the outset about formula being responsible for the contamination, for the food-borne illness, it was, in fact, not the formula itself that caused it. In fact, an FDA investigation revealed that it wasn't the formula. It was a source of bottled water that had itself been contaminated, and it was that bottled water that the parents were mixing with the formula that turned out to be contaminated, by no fault of their own but also by no fault of the manufacturer. So we have got to keep straight exactly what happened here and what didn't happen. Finally, with regard to the safety risks, I understand this, and it is important that we be safe in doing this. We have to remember these are countries from which we currently import pharmaceutical products because we trust that their equivalent of the FDA is safe and is effective. So if we don't trust them with respect to baby formula, I would submit that we shouldn't trust them elsewhere. But in fact, we can trust them in these areas. None of those adverse incident reports that were reported, to my knowledge, have been linked to a defect or a contamination in the formula itself. Finally, it is important to remember that we have a massive health crisis faced by these babies who are unable to get formula. Children are being hospitalized because they are dehydrated. These can have lasting consequences. They are occurring at a time when the baby's brain development is on a very critical timeline. You don't want to interrupt that. You don't want a supply chain disruption to lead to a disruption in the baby's developmental growth. So it is unfortunate that my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Pennsylvania, has objected to this very reasonable, rational, sensible response that lists the government's impediments. I wish this were not the case because this would deliver meaningful reform, unlike the 13 million bottles--the day and a half's worth of formula that has been brought over to date through the Defense Production Act efforts that he described--this would actually solve the problem. And it would solve it for at least 6 months, long enough for our domestic production capabilities to resume. So it is unfortunate. I wish that were not the case. But in the spirit of comity and compromise, I will modify my request. Again, the FORMULA Act would have included these three legs, a regulatory component lifting the regulatory restrictions, an import tariff restriction, and also lifting some restrictions in the WIC Program. So I am going to counteroffer with another amendment that would remove the waiver of the FDA regulations for the imported formula. That, after all, is the concern he expressed, and so that should allow us to deal with it. It would keep the tariff and the WIC waivers from the FORMULA Act intact and therefore shouldn't raise any concerns not addressed by my friend and distinguished colleague. And so, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 372, S. 4261; further, I ask 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.

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

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I find this, too, unfortunate. I wish we could adopt all three of these reforms; again, we have a regulatory reform, an import tax reform, and a WIC reform. He has now expressed objections to the regulatory reform and the WIC reform. So, in the spirit of comity and cooperation and compromise, I would like to modify again, and I will take out the WIC restrictions--the WIC component of the bill--and leave only the tariff waiver. That, at least, would remove some of the protectionist problems that we have got in place that is currently prohibiting people from being able to import this stuff, leaving it available really only to wealthy, well-connected parents who know how to find this stuff and can pay the higher price for it. This would at least allow people to buy it in stores if we could lift that restriction and do so in larger quantities while adhering to the labeling and other regulatory requirements. So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 372, S. 4261; further, I ask 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 motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I find it most unfortunate that, as American babies are starving and are literally being admitted to hospitals for dehydration and malnutrition because of a government-created problem, we can't get to a solution here. I am determined to find one, and I am determined not to take no for an answer. We have to get to yes on that. To that end, I would like to modify my last request and shorten it down from 180 days--a 6-month suspension--to a 90-day suspension. This is the exact timeframe that mirrors the Biden administration's proposed time window for gas tax alleviation. The President has raised this and has asked us to act on that immediately. Look, I happen to think baby formula is a whole lot more important and urgent than gasoline. We can at least do this. So I am going to modify my request to move it down to just 90 days. We should be able to do that for 90 days. I am certain that we can. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 372, S. 4261; 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 motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I rise to support this Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval of the rule recently published by the Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office for Immigration Review entitled ``Procedures for Credible Fear Screening and Consideration of Asylum, Withholding of Removal, and CAT Protection Claims by Asylum Officers.'' Madam President, we are currently experiencing an unprecedented crisis on our southern border. As of April of this year, 4 months into 2022, over 1 million illegal crossings have been encountered at our southern border. And with the administration fighting the migrant protection protocols and willing to remove the title 42 restrictions on entry, this crisis is about to get much, much worse. We have heard estimates of unauthorized border encounters this summer ranging close to 20,000 daily. We don't know how to handle these numbers, and nothing has been done by the administration to deter these immigrants. Despite knowing of the coming influx and despite understanding the statutory mandates which would require immigrants to be detained, this administration is closing detention centers. It appears we now have fewer than 20,000 detention beds available. This seems to suggest that DHS has no intention of detaining these immigrants, even though it is plainly required by statute. In the midst of this unprecedented crisis at our southern border, the Department of Homeland Security, under Secretary Mayorkas, has, by regulation, bypassed duly enacted laws to make the asylum process a mere rubberstamp for basically anyone who can make it to our border. Because of the internet and the sophistication of coyotes and cartels, every alien encountered knows to express fear of returning to their home country, thus triggering the asylum process. This rule would change that adversarial process--whereby one actually has to produce some shred of evidence that they qualify for asylum to a nonadversarial process--whereby the alien merely has to assert their claim. Additionally, this rule would take the asylum decisions out of the hands of immigration judges and put them into the hands of frontline screeners who often have no legal skills at all. This rule violates current immigration laws--laws passed by this body, laws enacted by Congress. It violates the separation of powers by usurping congressional authority to enact the laws of the Nation. Currently, under the law, until an immigration judge has ruled on an asylum claim, the claimant is required to be detained. Under the proposed rule, there would be no need for detention because no time would be required to rubberstamp that asylum application. It just happens. It is very interesting that this rule is about to go into effect right before this already unprecedented crisis exponentially increases. I don't think this is by accident. It is by design. This rule demonstrates that they simply want to manage the unprecedented influx of illegal immigrants into every American city, making every town a border town. America has always been a welcoming land, a land with outstretched arms. And it always should be. I am very proud of Utahns for how well they exemplify that welcoming spirit to immigrants, including the refugees and the asylum seekers who come into our State. I am also concerned that if we degrade the process by administrative rule, we erode our ability to give refuge and asylum in the cases where it is truly needed, in the cases where, as a representative body, we have decided it should be given. Now, in studying this rule, I was struck by the fact that it assumes asylum is a right--a legal right--for anyone and everyone managing somehow to get to our border. It is not a right. Asylum is a gift, a gift that the United States can choose to bestow on those who really need it: the persecuted, when authorized by law and consistent with the terms of the law. This rule doesn't ever mention the interests of the American citizen in this process, not once--the interest that would usually be representative in the adjudicative adversarial process that occurs before a judge. The American people are left out of this process. In fact, that process is eliminated by this rule. Indeed, this rule is completely unconcerned with the interests of the American people. It prioritizes the claimed interests of illegal immigrants over the interests of our own people and American national security. It must be struck down, and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I appreciate the longstanding friendship I have with my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Illinois. I know he has no objection to passing this bill in this fashion. In fact, it was after a long negotiation process culminating with an agreement between me and the Senator from Illinois that we made modifications to this legislation--modifications I didn't want to make but I made in order to get this passed. It was represented to me in good faith by the Senator from Illinois that it would pass the hotline; it could pass by unanimous consent, if it happened. Had it all gone according to how we had every reason to believe and how the Senator from Illinois had every reason to believe at the time, this would have been passed by now. What we didn't anticipate was that the lead cosponsor of this legislation who had herself been a part of these negotiations, been a part of the conversation about how we were going to get it passed, and been a part of the conversations about the very modification that might be necessary in order to get it passed by unanimous consent, would then suddenly decide to object. Again, this is based not on a substantive objection to the bill, of which she is the lead cosponsor; it is based solely on her assessment that this might somehow jeopardize her chances of passing another antitrust bill, an antitrust bill that does not contain any provision like this one, an antitrust bill that does not preclude consideration of this one nor would this preclude consideration of that one. It is, in short, folly, to say the least, to object to this under these circumstances. It is also bad faith, I believe, to object at the very last minute after many, many months of negotiation on this issue as the lead cosponsor of the legislation. It is unfortunate that she is unwilling to agree to that. It is unfortunate, also, she is not willing to be here to raise the objection on her own but insisting on doing so through a third party-- through no fault of his own--who is here at her request, being a good colleague, as he is, doing as she had requested. This is unnecessary. This is petty. We are better than this. We need to pass this bill. I will be back. I am not going to quit until this thing is passed, because the fact is, all 100 Senators agree that this is good legislation, including the objecting absent party. We should never get to the point where egos get in the way. And egos, alone, prevent us from passing legislation that all 100 Senators agree would make things better. I can tell you, there is no one who would be happier about this than Big Tech. So if the objecting Senator, who is absent today, wishes to make sure that Big Tech is held accountable, then she should allow this to pass forthwith without her objection. If, on the other hand, she wants to make it easier for Big Tech, then this objection would be the way to go.