Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. For clean air and clean water, I vote no.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight in opposition to the nomination of Russell Vought to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget, also known as OMB. My colleagues and I have been holding the Senate floor since yesterday to sound the alarm on this dangerous nomination. Russell Vought is the architect of Project 2025, the hateful, racist, sexist policy roadmap at the center of Trump's campaign. Mr. Vought has been working behind the scenes for years on policies to consolidate power, undermine the critical services that the Federal Government provides to the American people, and undermine Congress's power of the purse. When Vought was at the Office of Management and Budget during the last Trump administration, he demonstrated a complete lack of regard for our branch of government--the Congress. He was responsible for illegally withholding and delaying billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated funding and now is planning to ratchet up this whole destructive power to a new level in 2025. While Vought was withholding the funding that he and Trump don't like, he revealed a 2021 budget plan that showed us all the terrible things that he did like. That plan, authored by Russell Vought, proposed--listen to this--$500 billion in cuts to Medicare, $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid, $71 billion cuts to Social Security. In those budgets, Vought was able to find $1.4 trillion to continue the tax that Trump gave--that big tax break to the millionaires and billionaires in our country, all paid for out of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Right now, Russell Vought is working behind the scenes and not even waiting to propose a budget. He is directing the Agency to illegally cut billions of dollars in spending from programs that American families rely upon. Someone else's name may have been on the January 27 memo that came from OMB that froze all government spending, but--make no mistake--it was authored by Russell Vought. Everything we are seeing right now--the illegal and unconstitutional actions being taken to dismantle Federal Agencies, freeze funding, steal the data of American citizens--is a push to further the Project 2025 playbook. Vought may be the one to have written the blueprint, but now he and everyone else, including the President himself, are taking orders from one man--Elon Musk. All of this chaos is because the richest man in the world spent more than $280 million on buying this election, and he wants to reap the benefits from his investment. For Donald Trump, DEI seems to only stand for ``defending Elon's interests.'' Now, he and Vought are planning to make OMB stand for ``only Musk's business.'' Elon Musk and his unqualified, unelected government arsonists wants to be able to carry out their attacks on your privacy, your rights, and your friends and neighbors under the cover of darkness. Because with every new day, we are seeing Donald Trump's deep-pocketed puppeteer, Elon Musk, attempt to dismantle the government services that keep our communities clean, healthy, and safe. And they are acting with impunity. I just came from the Environmental Protection Agency--an Agency created by Congress, authorized by Congress, signed into law by Richard Nixon, and one which the Environmental and Public Works Committee, on which I sit, oversees. I was denied access to the EPA to talk to Musk's DOGE henchmen. No, you can't come in Senator. You can't talk to these young people rumbling around, interviewing people who majored in physics and biology and chemistry who are protecting the clean air and clean water and clean lands in our country. No, you can't come in. Musk doesn't just believe he is above the law; he doesn't believe in the law at all. He believes that the U.S. Constitution does not apply to him. Elon Musk is not bound by the Constitution. Everyone knows that we have three branches of government created in the Constitution as separate articles defining the powers of each. Article I of the Constitution is the Congress, article II of the Constitution is the Presidency, and article III of the Constitution is the judiciary. But Elon Musk doesn't need to answer to any of those branches--not to Congress, not to the courts, and certainly not to his newly bought Presidency. It makes sense for Trump to make Elon Musk a buddy. The guy who declared bankruptcy six times really needs a rich guy around to bail him out. But it is almost as if Musk believes that he has his own special place in the Constitution separate from the first three articles. In Musk world, our Constitution contains an article III.V right after article III of the judiciary, and that new article that he believes exists and applies to him is a never-before-used provision in the Constitution with unlimited authority to remake our constitutional order with Musk as the unelected and unaccountable leader. Now, in Musk world, articles I, II, and III of the Constitution are toothless compared to the power reserved for him and him alone in article III.V, right before article IV. He just slipped it in now. Article III.V. In Musk world, article III.V goes something like this: Article III.V, the Muskocracy--his own separate provision in the Constitution. Section 1 of the Muskocracy, establishment of the Elon Musk branch: The executive, legislative, and judicial branches shall hereby recognize a new and supreme branch of government known as Elon Musk. This branch shall operate independently of the other three branches, unburdened by traditional constraints such as laws, ethics, or the need for congressional approval. That is section 1. Section 2, powers and responsibilities for the Muskocracy: The Elon Musk branch shall wield absolute authority over but not limited to, No. 1, Federal Agency reorganization. ``Abolish the at will clause'' is in that section--whatever he decides. The Musk branch may at any time eliminate, restructure, or replace any Federal Agency by way of a single tweet. A lot of power that section 1 is. Section 2, workforce optimization: All Federal employees shall be subject to an immediate performance review determined by way of an AI-powered metric called the HyperProductivity Index, trademarked. Any Agency deemed ``inefficient'' shall be replaced by a new office staffed entirely by a mix of X Premium subscribers, Tesla interns, and SpaceX engineers working 120- hour weeks. This is the Muskocracy, and it just continues. Data access, part 3: The Musk branch shall have unrestricted access to all government personnel records, including security clearances, tax filings, and even embarrassing Slack messages. All goes to Elon Musk under article III.V of the new U.S. Constitution enacted on Inauguration Day in 2024. Then we have legislative override: All bills must be reviewed and meme'd upon by the Musk branch before passing. A simple ``haha no'' tweet from the Musk branch shall serve as an automatic veto. He didn't like it, just tweet it out. Everyone will jump. Make sure that doesn't happen. This is the new Muskocracy in which we are now living--article III.V of the new Constitution of the United States of America. Judicial review: The Supreme Court shall be replaced with a single X post where Elon asks ``Should this be legal?'' The most liked reply becomes binding precedent. This is the only way to govern. You can just see how it is all playing on X. It is the new Constitution of the United States, binding on the U.S. Senate for sure. We can see that in the votes that are being cast out there by the majority. Then we move on to section 3, Administration and Oversight. The Musk branch shall be staffed exclusively by engineers, AI-powered bots, and a small staff of interns selected through an online gladiator-style coding competition. How else would you run America in 2025 but have those superior beings making all decisions for all of us? Then, section 4, checks and balances--all of them. Checks and balances has always been the key going back to Madison and Jefferson. They thought through the checks and balances, and so did Elon Musk in his article III.V, the Muskocracy, the provision that is now operative in our country in the Donald Trump Presidency. So checks and balances says: Although the existing three branches may express opinions, all official government actions require verification from the Musk branch, except those initiated by Musk himself, which are self-verifying because he is infallible. No one can question him. And any opposition to the Musk branch shall be met with immediate ridicule. Come on. You can't question Elon Musk. It is the new Constitution. That is how it is. Everyone should just understand. And then section 5, succession and perpetuity. How does our country then operate into the future? Well, in the event that the physical Elon Musk ceases to exist, the Musk branch shall be transferred to an AI- trained on/off system for all of his tweets that are gathered together and then Neura-link data and past Rogan podcast appearances and that AI shall rule indefinitely unless overthrown by a more innovative billionaire. Isn't that really how we want our country to be running under this Muskocracy, article III.V? That is where we are right now. That is the country that we are living in. And does he have power? Oh, he has power. Because let's not kid ourselves; right now Elon wants us to live in the Muskocracy. The Trump administration is operating as if article III.V is real, as if Elon Musk has supreme authority to override the will of Congress, seize government property, hire and fire at will, and otherwise bend government to his benefit regardless of the consequences. So let's not fool ourselves. We can see article III.V in action right now. Musk is obsessed with shutting down USAID, slandering its public service, spreading baseless conspiracy theories about the Agency's work and mission. If we don't stop him now through legislation and lawsuits, he will not only destroy our ability to address global crises that will eventually impact us at home; he will go after the Agencies that keep our food and water safe, our infrastructure repaired, and our communities secured. Gutting USAID will cause immediate harm to our national security, place our citizens at risk, and disrupt lifesaving work. USAID helps protect children from starvation. It prevents the spread of infectious diseases. It is critical in our global fight against AIDS and HIV. If we don't hold the line on Elon Musk's abolition of USAID and the Trump administration's illegal actions, nothing will prevent him or Trump from doing the same thing to the CDC, to the Environmental Protection Agency, to the Small Business Administration. He is bragging that he put USAID in the wood chipper. We wants to do the same thing for every other Agency. And that is why I am voting no on every Trump nominee while this illegal and unconstitutional power grab continues, while this chaos continues, and this corruption continues. The fights before us will not be easy, and there will be many. The American people are relying on us to protect their rights, their pocketbooks, and their families. And that starts with protecting them from nominees whose only goal is to dismantle the programs that help feed them, employ them, and keep them warm in the winter, educate them, and help them meet the ends that their families seek to achieve. We need to say no to the nomination of Russell Vought tonight; no to the illegal, unconstitutional Muskocracy; and no to the costly, sick, or unhealthy future that Donald Trump is creating. I urge all Members to vote no on Russell Vought as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak out on behalf of the American people about the Trump administration's unjust and unconstitutional cutoff of Federal grants and assistance programs. Donald Trump's administration isn't governing. It is not delivering for the American people. It is stealing from our public services, from Meals on Wheels to community health centers, to housing for our veterans. From day one, Donald Trump's administration has careened from chaos to self-induced crises. American families and workers are left guessing whether lifesaving services, school lunches, help paying for home heating, basic healthcare, and public safety are going to be funded day by day. The collective outrage of literally everyone in this country, along with lawsuits filed over its illegal behavior, got Donald Trump's administration to rescind its latest memo to cut off Federal money. But the chaos continues. The confusion continues. The Federal funding witch hunt continues. The Trump administration has made clear they intend to proceed with their cruel plan of stalling or stopping essential Federal funding. They will lie, disregard Congress, and now they are bypassing the courts. We will need all of our collective engagement to make sure that Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their unelected, unqualified henchmen keep our services going and stop breaking the law because the American people are paying the price on a daily basis. The consequences--the consequences--of Trump's Federal funding cutoff are already far-reaching, and they are devastating. Doctors were told to turn away patients when the Medicaid payment portals were down. The organizations that are the backbone of our country--food pantries, vocational services--are looking at laying people off. Veterans might be getting evicted as their rent payments don't come through. There might not be someone on the other end of the phone at the national suicide hotline. Think about what that might mean to someone in crisis. I say again, this funding was sent by Congress to provide necessary services to our constituents in all States, red and blue alike. It is essential, and it has already been signed into law--passed by the U.S. House, passed on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and signed by a President. This is what the American Revolution was all about. When the redcoats were coming down Massachusetts Avenue, heading toward Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts in 1775, the Minutemen and -women were coming out, and they were all saying the same thing: no taxation without representation. The King would not give the American Colonies any members of Parliament. They kept begging for the ability to have representation. So after the American Revolution, and they wrote the Constitution, the first article is to create a House and Senate and to give that first article the power of the purse, the power to spend money. They made it very clear. That is what the Revolution was about. So I say again, this funding was sent by Congress--article I--to provide necessary services to our constituents in all States. If the Trump administration claims this funding ``does not improve the day-to- day lives of those we serve,'' then there is just one question every American should be asking the President: Who do you serve? Because it certainly isn't the everyday Americans who will wake up tomorrow without heat in their house, their medicine, or a roof over their head. The Trump administration said it is targeting ``Green New Deal social engineering.'' When Trump says he wants to end the Green New Deal, he wants to end union battery manufacturing jobs in Ohio; he wants to end rebates that help American families afford new air-conditioners and heaters; he wants to keep school districts from getting clean buses to take kids to school; he wants to end programs that help our communities rebuild after a disaster, such as the fires in Los Angeles or the hurricanes that devastated Georgia and North Carolina. What Trump is doing with this so-called freeze, with his Executive orders, with his firing of inspectors general and government regulators, is an unconstitutional, illegal power grab. But here is the truth: Trump can't get rid of the Green New Deal because there is no stopping a mobilization and a movement once it is galvanized. The Green New Deal doesn't stop until the climate crisis stops. The Green New Deal doesn't stop until fossil fuel billionaires stop lining their pockets while our cities burn to the ground. I introduced the Green New Deal resolution nearly 6 years ago with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Its values and jobs and justice and climate action are now core parts of our economy and our society. Clearly Trump's unelected bureaucrats are terrified of the power of union jobs, clean air and clean water, and climate action. They are trying to break our country's laws in order to break our movement. We cannot let them do that. We know we face an uphill battle with a climate denier-in-chief. He doesn't have a Cabinet that he has appointed; he has a cartel that he is putting in place. You know the saying ``money talks''? Well, we heard the money talk loud and clear with Donald Trump's day-one Executive actions, which were a parade of price-gouging fossil fuel giveaways. His energy agenda isn't American dominance; it is the dominance of his donors over our energy policy. It is not ``all of the above''; it is ``oil above all.'' Yes, drill, baby, drill, but kill solar. Kill wind. Kill all-electric vehicles. Kill the Green Revolution. Kill it. It is not ``all of the above''; it is taking care of all of his fossil fuel donor buddies. He made a promise that if he won, he would kill the competition; he would kill the Darwinian paranoia-inducing competition that is happening with wind and solar and all-electric vehicles and battery storage technologies and any technologies that reduce greenhouse gases, which are dangerously warming our planet. And why are they doing that? Because Big Oil and Big Gas are running scared. Fossil fuels have been getting outcompeted by wind and solar and all-electric vehicles. The Big Oil and Big Gas barons see people rejecting their products and having an alternative, and they want to choke out the competition. That is what the fossil fuel fat cats demanded when they got Donald Trump elected, and that is what Trump is delivering on with his orders to attack climate action, attack offshore wind, attack international climate agreements, and attack our movement, the Green New Deal movement of young people across our country demanding that this government do something about the threat of climate change that was ignored for generations. That is what young people are saying all across our country: Protect us. Protect us from the threat of climate change. Instead, what Donald Trump is trying to do is to kill all of the protections. All of them. All of them. So just think of what has been happening. As the rest of the country is sitting around the kitchen table debating necessities to sacrifice this month, they are wondering if they can rebuild after a wildfire or if they can keep the lights on when prices spike as energy gets exported overseas. I want everyone to understand this: He wants to export oil and export natural gas out of our country. That is his promise to the oil and gas barons. Do you know what that does domestically? It increases the price for everyone here. Consumers and businesses have to pay more because there is less oil and gas here--inflation. Yes, that is the plan-- increase the profit for the big fossil fuel plants. So we can't allow Trump and Republicans to throw families into financial instability just to pay for tax breaks for the ultrawealthy. Just like climate change won't be solved by any one President, climate action won't be stopped by any one President. Look at what has happened in the past week. This isn't business as usual, and we have to stop acting like it. That is why I won't be supporting any Trump nominee who will only do his illegal bidding. I urge all of my colleagues to join me in rejecting those who will reject the will of Congress and reject the needs of the American people. From day one, Donald Trump has been singularly committed to abandoning working people, their future, our very democracy--all for the power of wealth. That is absolutely unacceptable. Donald Trump isn't just ignoring the promise to lower costs for families and make our Nation safer; he is inflicting harm on millions of Americans, taking away funding for critical, lifesaving health research, from cancer to Alzheimer's. The potential ramifications of Trump's Federal funding freeze are endless. Trump is trying to bully the American people and public servants into submission by ignoring the law and cutting off funding to take away the services the public needs to get by. This is what dictators do. He wants us to forget what he stands for, for us to either give up either slowly or all at once. We cannot do that. We must stand up. So whether it is racial justice, the rule of law, reproductive freedom, economic equality, immigrant and refugee rights, our LGBTQ community, universal healthcare, consumer protections, protecting clean air and water, creating union jobs and supporting our union workers, fighting the climate crisis, holding the fat cats accountable for their greed and corruption, more than ever, we must be the fearless voice for a livable future. That is my pledge to you. It is time to be brave. It is time to stand up for the protection of the most vulnerable in our country and our vulnerable planet. He is trying to frighten people. He is trying to scare people. That is what his agenda has been right from the beginning. And even when his henchmen put out that first statement in terms of the freeze, the cutoff of funding on Monday night, what does he attribute it to? They want to root out Marxism in our country, they want to protect against transgender people, and they want to kill the Green New Deal. That is what he puts out on the first night. Well, just so everyone understands, when Republicans are talking about Marxism, they are talking about Social Security; they are talking about Medicare; they are talking about Medicaid; they are talking about public education. That is what they call Marxism, just so everyone understands. They are going to need hundreds of billions of dollars and more in order to have tax rates for the billionaire boys' club that was sitting right behind the President at the swearing-in. He promised them tax breaks. Where is the money going to come from? I will tell you where it is going to come from--from the programs that they call the Marxist programs. Those are all the healthcare programs. Those are all the education programs. He has nominated a Secretary of Education who has had to promise to try to end the Department of Education in our country--end it. They need money for billionaires. In the Department of Education, title I--that is for the poor children in America to get an education, money in there for the kids with disabilities. End the Department of Education? Yes. Marxist. Get that money into the hands of billionaires and millionaires. Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, Medicare--those three programs provide healthcare for 170 million Americans to get the healthcare, which they need--170 million Americans. That is where the money is-- healthcare. You have to call it Marxist. You have to try to demonize it. That is because they have to pay back all of those people who gave them money in order to win in November. And he then moves on to transgender kids, trying to demonize them. And we know why he does that. He is just trying to scare people. It is part of who he is. And then the third part of what he mentioned on Monday night was the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal is the ultimate payback because the President met with the oil and gas executives in April of 2024, and he said to them: If you give me $1 billion, I will kill all of the renewable energy projects in America. I will take all the money away. They gave him the money, and now they are going to get paid back. So when they say Green New Deal and they want to kill it, just understand they want to kill all the competition to the oil and gas industry. The natural gas industry wants all of offshore wind all along the east coast to just be destroyed because those 30,000 new megawatts would make obsolete the need for more natural gas pipelines to be built along the east coast, and he wants to take care of the natural gas boys. That is what it is all about. When he says he is going to roll back electric vehicles, roll back fuel economy standards for the vehicles we drive, he is doing that for the oil industry. We put 70 percent of the oil which we consume in our country into gasoline tanks. The more people who drive electric vehicles, the higher the fuel economy standards, the less oil people have to consume, the less money in the pockets of the oil barons--but more money in the pockets of consumers. So that is what this fight is all about. It is pretty simple. And I am glad they put it up there on Monday night, what this battle is about, because I know it is going to create a movement across this country in the same way that the Green New Deal created a movement that created the momentum that made it possible for us to pass the IRA in 2022. But another way of saying IRA is ``the largest climate bill in the history of the world.'' That is what is scaring--totally scaring--the oil and gas industry, because they can see they are losing in the marketplace. They can see that that is where Americans are moving. So I will just conclude with this one brief history lesson. Back in 2009, when Joe Biden was sworn in as Vice President, we had 2,000, total, electric vehicles in the United States. That is all. We had 2,000 total megawatts of solar in the United States. Do you know what is frightening to the oil and gas industry? Last year, 40,000 new megawatts of solar in 1 year--frightening to them. All-electric vehicle revolution? Millions have been purchased just in the last 2 years. The oil industry is petrified because we have gone from 2,000 megawatts of solar, total, in the whole history of our country, and 2,000 all-electric vehicles to a revolution, and they want to stop this revolution. That is what Trump is all about: the payback to big industries that want to thwart Americans who are playing a role in being the leader in the world on all of these green energy and climate issues and then saying to the rest of the world: We will partner with you to solve this problem. But you cannot preach temperance from a barstool. You cannot tell the rest of the world to stop if you are not doing it yourself. You lose all credibility, which is why Trump just pulled totally out of the Paris climate agreement at the same time. He doesn't want to be part of the world. But that is not how greenhouse gases travel. They travel with the clouds. They travel all over the world. And unless we lead, we are going to pay a tremendous price in subsequent generations for what Donald Trump is trying to perpetrate on our country. I yield the floor, and I thank the Presiding Officer for his indulgence, and I thank the Senator from Delaware for his indulgence as well.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Bianca Routt, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the day.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, we are about to have a monumental vote out here on the floor of the U.S. Senate on who will become the next Secretary of Defense for the United States of America. The defense budget in the United States is $900 billion. The person who is given that responsibility has to be exceptionally well qualified in order to deal with all of the responsibilities that are tied to those military and personnel decisions which have to be made because there are 3.5 million servicemembers, and there are hundreds of thousands of aircraft, ships, submarines, combat vehicles, satellites, and the nuclear arsenal. And a variety of sources, including his own writings, implicate him with disregarding the laws of war, of financial mismanagement, of racist and sexist remarks about Americans in uniform, of sexual assault, of sexual harassment, and other very troubling issues. These are perilous times, and the position of Secretary of Defense demands a leader of unparalleled experience, wisdom, and, above all else, character. The Secretary of Defense carries an immense responsibility not only to the American people but to the servicemembers whom they lead. If confirmed, Mr. Hegseth will have a responsibility to serve our servicemembers in a manner that is fair and nonpartisan and responsible. Yet Mr. Hegseth has demonstrated that he is incapable of doing so. He has said: I am straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. He is opposed to transgender people serving in the military, despite their willingness to serve and sacrifice for our country right now. He called reproductive justice ``absolutely and utterly meaningless'' in the military. He opposed Pentagon policies to help servicemembers get reproductive care, including IVF to start a family. These are American servicemembers. I find Hegseth's record extremely alarming. He is nominated to lead an Agency charged with defending American freedom abroad. Yet he does not stand for freedom and dignity and respect for the servicemembers of the United States of America in the military. Indeed, Mr. Hegseth's own writings and alleged conduct should disqualify him from holding any leadership position in the military, much less from being confirmed as the Secretary of Defense for our Nation. Donald Trump dared to impugn the legacy of the late, honorable Congressman John Lewis by saying, ``John Lewis was all talk and no action,'' but then Trump nominates a Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who perpetuates the lie, the racism that Black military officers are only promoted because of their race. Tell that to Colin Powell; tell that to Lloyd Austin, that they were only promoted because of their color. This is not just a failure of leadership; it is a moral crisis that strikes at the heart of who we are as a people. It is not enough to just oppose Trump's vision. There are hundreds of thousands of women in the military right now, and 19 percent of our military is African American. These are Hegseth's own words about this very high percentage of the members of our military right now. So the criticism of Hegseth is bipartisan. Senators from both sides of the aisle are opposed to this nomination. If you didn't know anything else about him--if we didn't have any more hearings, if we didn't have any more documents, if we didn't have any other people coming forward--we already have enough evidence and eye-watering detail sufficient to cast a ``no'' vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate on this nomination. That is because the position of Secretary of Defense is a serious job. We need someone who will bring their A game, 24/7, 365 days a year; and Pete Hegseth is not that person. His lack of experience aside, he has not shown the necessary morality, sense, or judgment to be Secretary of Defense. Take the issue of nuclear weapons. Is this the person we want advising the President on whether or not he should launch a nuclear weapon against another country and possibly begin the end of life on Earth as we know it? Secretary of Defense is a very important position. It puts him right at the heart of these nuclear decisions. This nomination is a joke. Are you kidding me? Pete Hegseth will be there helping to decide whether or not we launch nuclear weapons? Let's be clear. President Trump, as Commander in Chief, has the sole authority to order the launch of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. This is crazy, on its face, that one person can determine whether or not we start a nuclear war, with no consultation with anyone else. That is just absolutely absurd on its face, because no one person, particularly not President Trump, should have that unilateral power to start nuclear war. I have just reintroduced my legislation with Congressman Ted Lieu in the House of Representatives to make it the policy of the United States that no President can use nuclear weapons first without the express approval of Congress if we have not been attacked with nuclear weapons. You have got to come to Congress. But that is not the law right now. It is just the President. Under the Constitution, Congress gets to declare war, not the President. But for now, President Trump has that power exclusively. At any time, for any reason, he can call over the military attache with the nuclear football and call the war room at the Pentagon and give the order to launch. Trump does not have to consult with anyone--not Congress, not the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not the Secretary of Defense. But if President Trump did want to get a second opinion before starting a nuclear war which could end humanity, calling the Secretary of Defense would usually be a pretty good option in order to make that decision. Do we have any reason to believe that Pete Hegseth has any clue about nuclear weapons or nuclear policy or nuclear strategy? No, we do not. In fact, Mr. Hegseth's only qualification for this job that I can see is whether he will do whatever the President asks him to do. Pete Hegseth is a yes-man. If President Trump calls Pete Hegseth at 2 a.m. in the morning and says, Pete, I am about to start a nuclear war, even though we haven't been attacked with nuclear weapons, what will Pete Hegseth say? He will say, yes, sir. So from this perspective, Mr. Hegseth is the worst possible choice to lead the Department of Defense. We need someone who can challenge the President's thinking, slow him down, curb his worst impulses, and give him sober, reasoned advice. And with Hegseth, that is not going to happen. There are other monumental decisions on nuclear policy that President Trump will need reasoned advice on that he is not likely to get from Pete Hegseth. During the campaign, Trump had just one clear proposal related to nuclear policy: to build an Iron Dome missile defense system to ensure that ``no enemy can strike our homeland.'' Now, this is a throwback to former President Ronald Reagan's 1983 proposal called the Strategic Defense Initiative--also called Star Wars--to build a system of space- and ground-based interceptors to make nuclear weapons ``impotent and obsolete.'' It made for great slogans. But after 40 years and some $400 billion, the technology is still not up to the challenge. If you try to scale up Iron Dome and cover a country the size of the United States against hundreds of Russian or Chinese long-range missiles, it just won't work. Trump could provoke a new arms race, even without his Iron Dome on steroids. Trump's allies have called for the United States to build more nuclear weapons than Moscow and Beijing combined. This idea is popular among conservatives at the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. But let's be clear. Expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal is a terrible idea. We need treaties that end the nuclear arms race. We don't need a nuclear arms race with AI making these weapons even more deadly, even more accurate. We need treaties. We need negotiations. We need to come together on the planet. That is what we should be talking about. Building more than we need is a waste of money, but it also makes the world more dangerous, not less dangerous, because it provokes a response from the other side. Second, guess what Moscow and Beijing will do if Washington suddenly builds more bombs. They will do the same. Third, a U.S. buildup would doom any chances of saving the U.S.- Russian arms reduction process. The last remaining treaty, New START, expires 1 year from now. And unless we replace that treaty, there will no longer be any legal limits on the United States or Russian warheads for the first time in 50 years. Do you hear what I said? No limits. We are in a new world now. For 50 years, we have had limits on nuclear weapons. They will all be gone in a year. Trump's allies are also calling for the United States to resume the testing of nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992. We ended nuclear testing three decades ago and then signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996 banning all nuclear tests. We have conducted more nuclear tests--over 1,000--than all other nations combined. We have no need to test. But if we do, other nations will too, like Russia and China. Beijing has only conducted 45 nuclear tests. We have conducted a thousand. Imagine how much China could learn if Trump gives it an excuse to resume testing, which China is not doing. The only state in the world today that is still conducting nuclear tests is North Korea. We should be pressuring Pyongyang to stop, not reopening this Pandora's box. So, under Trump, we could see billions of dollars spent on long-range missile defenses that don't work, the end of arms control and the start of a new nuclear arms race with Russia and China, and new nuclear testing. All of this would make the world a more dangerous place and increase the risk of nuclear conflict. If Trump asks Hegseth if he should do these dangerous things, the answer will be yes and yes and yes. That is where we are going to be. Now, there is some possible good news, too. Trump, not surprisingly, gets along well with Russian President Putin. They might end the war in Ukraine. If they do, that could open up a path to negotiate a treaty, to follow a New START. And as President Trump said just this week: We want to see if we can denuclearize. And I think it's very possible. And I can tell you that President Putin, if he wants to do it, we should take him up on it. We should see. We should move in that direction. As for Mr. Hegseth, the last thing President Trump needs is a yes-man for Secretary of Defense. I will just add one final issue. As a national security threat, climate change, which the Pentagon and which the Joint Chiefs of Staff have said over and over and over again is a threat multiplier to our military and our ability to protect the world--it is a threat multiplier. Having a President who is a climate denier, coupled with the Secretary of Defense who is a climate denier, just ignores the reality of the world as it is unfolding in this climate era. The whole defense budget is $900 billion. Hurricanes Milton and Helene in October and November, combined with the fires in Los Angeles right now, $500 billion of damage in three storms. That is half the entire defense budget for our country. We can't have a Secretary of Defense who doesn't believe that climate change is a threat multiplier to our military and to the security of the planet. We need someone there who can speak truth to power to the President of the United States. So I can't more strongly recommend a ``no'' vote on the floor of the Senate on this nomination. He is unqualified. His confirmation could be very dangerous to our Nation. We need military personnel who respects the Secretary of Defense. We will have none of that with Pete Hegseth. So I very, very strongly recommend to this body that we vote no and tell the President to come back with someone who is worthy of this most important of all positions in his Cabinet. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise today to stop the unnecessary and devastating consequences that will result from a ban on TikTok in the United States. In a few moments, I will ask unanimous consent that the Senate pass my legislation with Senator Wyden and Senator Booker, the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, to extend the deadline by which ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, must sell TikTok or face a ban in 270 days. This simple, one-sentence bill would avoid significant harm for TikTok's creators, who depend upon the app to make a living, to find community, to share resources during emergencies such as the Los Angeles wildfires, and to discuss everything from the latest pop culture trends to controversial political topics. It is the home to 170 million American users--170 million American users. That is over half of the U.S. population and 65 percent of the United States adult population. It is 50 percent higher than the number of Americans who watch the Super Bowl. Those 170 million Americans will be devastated by a TikTok ban. Many make their living on the app and could face difficulties paying for groceries, rent, or medical care. Others may lose contact with a crucial support system, leaving them isolated and scared. If you don't believe me, then I encourage my colleagues to view the thousands of videos posted by TikTok users over the past few days explaining why TikTok is so important to them. These testimonials are powerful evidence about TikTok's economic, social, and cultural importance, and I implore my colleagues to listen to these users. Now, supporters of the TikTok ban will claim that any delay will threaten national security and allow China to, supposedly, indoctrinate the youth with anti-American views. First, I stand behind no lawmaker here in my commitment to protecting children online. I am the original author of the only Federal online protection for children today: the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. And I have authored legislation to update and modernize those protections. My Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act to lift it up to age 16, that was blocked here on the Senate floor just 1 month ago in December. We had it out of committee. We could not get it passed. And I repeatedly sent letters to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice urging them to investigate and impose penalties on TikTok for putting their younger users at risk. When TikTok violates the law and puts its users at risk, I will call them out and I will demand accountability. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission has fined TikTok for violation of my law, so, obviously, I am concerned. But I am also concerned about what American social media companies do to teenagers. They do the same thing. I am very concerned about what they do to young children. According to the Surgeon General, we have a mental health crisis in our country, pointing the finger at social media--not one company, but all the companies that are targeting teenagers and children in our country. As for the national security arguments, I recognize that ByteDance's ownership of TikTok poses security risks. I do not want China to have significant influence over an important communications channel in the United States and access to Americans' data, but Congress must appropriately balance those risks with the serious hardship imposed on TikTok's 170 million American users and the unintended consequences of a nationwide TikTok ban. With the impending TikTok ban, Congress has gotten that balance wrong, and most importantly, the proponents of the ban have repeatedly argued that TikTok is ``brainwashing Americans,'' but these claims are, at best, just speculation. At worst, they are a disguised effort to target Americans' speech. So don't take it from me. In an affidavit in the District of Columbia Circuit, a senior intelligence officer stated that the government has ``no information'' that China coerced ByteDance to covertly manipulate content on TikTok. That is coming from our own government. That alone should make us pause. This is in the DC Circuit Court. They are not lying to a circuit court. So they don't have any information with regard to that accusation. Even worse, rather than addressing China's supposed influence over a key communications channel, the TikTok ban appears to be driving users to alternative Chinese applications which we know even less about. In fact, on Monday, RedNote--a China social media app--became the No. 1 most downloaded app on the Apple app store. Is that the outcome that the law's supporters were seeking or thought about? The TikTok ban not only threatens to shut down a platform critical for 170 million Americans, but also, 7 million American businesses use TikTok. They use it as part of their business. All of that will shut down on Sunday, 4 days from now--just shut down--7 million businesses who use it. And it is taking effect, at least in parts of America, at the single worst period of time, a moment when TikTok creators in Los Angeles are using the app to share their stories and find resources during the tragic wildfires; a moment when a new President is set to take office with different views on the ban--and President-elect Trump is asking for a pause right now, asked the Supreme Court of the United States for a pause--Donald Trump--a moment when the Supreme Court is still considering the case, hasn't even rendered a decision yet; a moment when the first official bid for TikTok was just submitted last week. It is time for Congress to acknowledge that the rushed passage of this law was a mistake. There were no hearings in the Senate. There were no witnesses in the Senate. No one got to hear anything about this ban because they put it into the bill that was going to provide military aid for Ukraine, for Israel--humanitarian aid--and they just stuck the TikTok ban into the legislation over in the House of Representatives to send it over here. We never had a hearing. We never had any consideration. And it is time for Congress to acknowledge that the rushed passage of this law was a mistake, that we need more time to let the courts and outside parties consider this issue. We need to do a better job of understanding the importance of the TikTok community and the impact of a TikTok ban. That is why I introduced the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act. This bill does not repeal the underlying act. It simply gives TikTok, Congress, the people here in the Senate, parties that might want to buy TikTok, the incoming Trump administration--he himself is asking for an extension--and outside stakeholders additional time to get this right. We need time. We need time to figure this out. The court process is still going on for something that started last April. That would never have been expected to have occurred. We don't have any certainty as to the outcome, one way or the other. If this had happened in September, October, or November--out of the courts--we could have then deliberated before the deadline on Sunday, 4 days from now. But it didn't happen that way. So to the millions of creators who have bravely shared their stories and explained why TikTok is important to them, I hear you, I am listening, and I encourage my colleagues to listen as well and to give a short reprieve to TikTok's death sentence. TikTok is far too important to let it die like this on Sunday without having given the extra time which is needed--time for President-elect Trump, time for everyone to think about what an alternative pathway could be to letting TikTok die. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 103, introduced earlier today; further, 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. MARKEY. Mr. President, I am disappointed that my colleagues have objected to this simple legislation. I recognize the national security risk here. But the fearmongering about the supposed anti-American content on TikTok is the exact type of government overreach that has left tens of millions of Americans furious. The hyperbolic statements made by my colleagues are especially concerning, given that the intelligence community itself has acknowledged that it has no information that China is covertly manipulating content on TikTok--no information. Let me say that again: In the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, the government was asked to present evidence that ByteDance was covertly manipulating content on TikTok for the benefit of the Chinese Government, and the intelligence community submitted an affidavit saying that the government has no information that it is being manipulated. So as we are out here today--by the way, that would change the whole debate. If they had information, we would be having a different debate. If there were proof that they were manipulating, provided by the intelligence community, we would be having a different debate. They don't have any information. And I sat in the same intelligence briefings that my colleagues did, and I kept waiting to hear that information. I never heard it. I don't think it is giving up secrets to say: I didn't hear any secrets. I didn't hear them because there weren't any. And they made that filing in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. They have no information. And I have read the reports and news articles. I have tracked the court case closely. I am clear-eyed about the risk. But unlike many of my colleagues, I am also clear-eyed about the profound economic, political, and social importance of TikTok to 170 million users and 7 million businesses in the United States, and I understand how many creators depend on TikTok to find community, share their story, find resources. So my ask again here is simple: 270 days, and we can try to find a resolution of this issue that doesn't have a draconian cutoff on Sunday afternoon. So this is the issue that we are confronted with at this point. We don't have the evidence that is being cited by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. It doesn't exist. They may believe it, but they don't have the evidence to present to this body because the intelligence community has not provided it. Otherwise, again, as I am saying, we would have a very different debate. And this is a very important issue because the Supreme Court just had a hearing--it is unbelievable that it is 9 months later--on the constitutionality of your ban. So I think that the colleagues of mine who spoke on the other side, they are saying: Well, they should have already sold it. Well, they took it to court to find out if this law was constitutional. They have a right to do that. They have a right to go to the Supreme Court. They have a right to have a hearing. They have a right to make their case. They have a right to say it is unconstitutional. It hasn't been ruled on yet. It hasn't been ruled on. And so because of that, all I am asking for is more time. Listen to Donald Trump. He is saying: Give it more time. That is all I am asking for. And I will say, as well, when my friend cites suicides and other incredible consequences of social media in our society, I do agree with him 100 percent. But it is not just TikTok. It is Instagram. It is Facebook. It is company after company after company that is targeting 14-year-old girls with bulimia, with anorexia, with information that is making them even sicker and sicker and sicker. That is why, when my bill was killed here in December to pass a law which said that parents can just say: Erase all that information you are gathering about my daughter--and it is the third Congress in a row that happened. Yes, TikTok should be stopped, and so should Facebook, and so should Instagram--so should all of them. But just don't raise it in a TikTok context. Raise it in a Senate context. That law should have passed. That should have already been on the President's desk. And it was bipartisan. It was bipartisan. You want to talk about lobbyists. You want to talk about stopping legislation. So I agree with the gentleman on the fundamental fact that TikTok is a contributor to this problem, but it is a part of a larger problem. And I also want to make the point that there is no imminent threat of a compromise of this information that we are talking about here today because the intelligence community does not, in fact, have the information to say that that is accurate. So I agree with Donald Trump. Give it more time. Allow for the process to play out. Allow for the Supreme Court to make a decision. Allow for potential buyers to step forth. Allow for the users of TikTok, the 7 million businesses that use it for their own families-- allow for the families in the fire zone in L.A. to continue to use it to build community, to run their small businesses, and not cut it off on Sunday. And that is what I have been asking the Senate to do. So I regret that the objection has been raised by my colleagues. But I tell you there is going to be real harm, and my hope is that I can partner with President-elect Trump to try to find a resolution of this issue so that we do it with the information that, right now, we do not have to take such an action. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, we are in a climate emergency. Over just the past few months, powerful hurricanes and severe wildfires have caused nearly one-half of a trillion dollars in estimated damage. The Los Angeles fires are estimated to be the costliest blaze in the history of our country. Insurance is becoming unaffordable. People have lost their lives. People have lost their livelihoods. Rather than address our climate catastrophe, Republicans' highest priority is passing a new $5 trillion tax scam to subsidize the ultrawealthy at the expense of working families. Now, in Massachusetts, per capita, we are the wealthiest State in America. We are very proud of that. We believe in capitalism. But I haven't had one millionaire come up to me and say: I need a tax break-- because they know they don't. To pay for their tax scam, Republicans propose slashing Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, ripping away food security and other supports that parents rely on to feed their children and keep a roof over their head, and ending support for clean energy, which would only add more fuel to the fires raging across our country. Los Angeles is just the most recent example. House Republicans have said they want to pay for their tax cuts for the ultrarich with $300 billion in ``the Green New Deal Provisions in the 2021 Infrastructure Bill.'' I don't know if that means cutting programs to get lead out of our drinking water or stopping programs to help struggling school districts buy new clean energy buses to cut costs and keep kids healthy. Maybe they have a problem with programs that let people walk and bike and live safely in communities across the country. But we are watching hundreds of billions of dollars in climate-fueled tragedy in the past few months alone. The Green New Deal is a systemic response to this crisis. I will give you a couple of numbers. Hurricane Milton, Hurricane Helene--remember them last fall--two storms, 2 weeks? It was $300 billion worth of damage--$300 billion. They are saying: Let's cut the $300 billion for clean energy programs. Oh, sure, let's have the storms cost $600 billion worth of damage, $1 trillion worth of damage each time they come to shore. Sure. Why put prevention in place? Why have wind and solar ever be deployed? That is what they are coming for. It is outrageous. Donald Trump and Republicans would rather trade programs to help communities survive the climate crisis for tax cuts that help their ultrarich donors survive tax season. This week, in a response, I will be introducing legislation to make polluters pay by increasing taxes on private jet fuel to $2 a gallon. Do you know what these billionaires pay for their private jets today? Twenty cents. That is the tax on the jet fuel they put in their luxury jets to travel around America and the world. So we are just going to bump it up to $2 a gallon. That will ultimately raise $1.8 billion. I think they can afford it, given what we are seeing happening in L.A. or Florida or North Carolina or State after State in the last 6 months. The tax-dodging ultrawealthy need to stop fanning the flames and start supporting first-class solutions. To tackle the climate crisis and to have a fair Tax Code, we need to ensure that those doing more than their fair share to fuel the problem are paying the bare minimum and are held accountable for contributing to the solution. So if Donald Trump and his Cabinet of fat-cat billionaires and the three richest people in the world want to fly private jets to Monday's inauguration to pay tribute to Donald Trump, the very least they can do is to pay for the damage they are doing to our environment. Per passenger, private jets pollute up to 14 times more than commercial flights, and they pollute 50 times more than trains, producing as much emissions as 5 million cars every single year. Do you hear that? Private jets emit as much pollution as 5 million cars a year. Just a few hours of flying private offset the benefits of an entire year of driving an electric car. That is not fair. In just 1 year, Elon Musk's two private jets produced nearly 5,500 tons of carbon emissions. That is more than 300 years' worth of emissions for the average American. Everyday Americans should not have to subsidize the lavish lifestyle of the ultrarich. The world's wealthiest 1 percent burn through their entire carbon budget for the year in the first 10 days of January--10 days. So let's not let the 1 percent blow a $5 trillion hole in our Federal budget as well. Republicans just spent the past 2 years complaining about the Inflation Reduction Act. Yet Republicans are preparing to spend trillions on tax breaks. They want to feed billionaires' greed instead of the families who will go hungry when they cut SNAP. They want to grow billionaire excess while they cut people's healthcare, including the two-thirds of nursing home patients and 40 million children on Medicaid, and pursue work requirements that do little. Let me just say this. Ronald Reagan, 1981? He set the playbook. Who followed it? Newt Gingrich, 1995. Who followed him? George W. Bush, 2021. Who followed him? Donald Trump, 2017. They each had the same plan because the Republicans have a remarkable ability to harness voluminous amounts of information to defend knowingly erroneous promises, and the central erroneous promise is that it is possible to dramatically increase defense spending, which they want to do and which those others guys did; cut taxes for the richest people in our country--that is what all these other guys did--and then to pretend with crocodile tears that they want to balance the budget because all that is left are the programs for regular families, for poor families. We call it Medicaid. Do you want to hear another way of describing Medicaid? Two-thirds of all people in nursing homes are on Medicaid. Two-thirds of all people who are in nursing homes are being paid by Medicaid. Do you want to know another number about them? Fifty percent of them have Alzheimer's. How can families keep them in a nursing home? Medicaid. Do you know another name we have for them? They are called Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa are in nursing homes with Alzheimer's because of Medicaid. They want to cut that? Good. Come for it. We are ready for this discussion. The poorest children in our country, 50 percent of all children in our country--50 percent--are on SNAP, on food stamps, at some point in their life. That is the poorest children in our country. That is who they are. That is Medicaid. That is another way of talking about Medicaid--the poorest children, the most vulnerable seniors. That is the piggy bank they are going to use for tax breaks for billionaires. And they are then going to turn and say: We are going to the Affordable Care Act. Do you know another way of talking about that? That is how people get the funding for opioid treatment and for mental health treatment. That is the Affordable Care Act. That is millions of people. Yes, just slash it. Sure. Who needs to help families with mental health issues? Who needs to help families who have opioid addiction? Why do that? Then they say: We are going to go to wind and solar, and we are going to cut that too. And we are going to keep the tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. Kick them in the heart; you are going to break your toe. That is what this plan is all about. It is what the plan has always been about since 1981. So we just can't let the ultrawealthy play while leaving hard-working Americans to pay with their healthcare, their financial security, and bearing the brunt of the climate atrocities. We need economic justice. We need climate justice. We need wealthy polluters to pay, especially jet-setting billionaires who are polluting right now. And we need a system that works for the American people, not for the billionaire excess that the Republican Party is going to bring out to the Senate floor. I yield to my friend from Rhode Island, a great leader, Senator Whitehouse.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise today to address the profound economic, social, and political importance of TikTok's creators and the serious consequences of a nationwide TikTok ban. When the Senate passed legislation last year authorizing a ban on TikTok, it was bundled with essential foreign aid measures. Critically, the Senate never held a direct vote on the TikTok ban itself. This rushed process left many of my colleagues with the impression that ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, would divest from the platform, rendering the ban unnecessary, as its proponents had suggested. Back in April, I took to this Chamber floor to warn that such an approach was ill-considered. Today, with TikTok on the brink of being banned in the United States, my concerns have become a reality because what we are learning is that the TikTok law is indeed a TikTok ban. As the January 19 deadline approaches, TikTok creators and users across the Nation are understandably alarmed. They are uncertain about the future of the platform, their accounts, and the vibrant online communities they have cultivated. Supporters of the law have often dismissed TikTok as trivial, characterizing it as a platform dominated by juvenile dance videos and seemingly inconsequential content. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. TikTok, like all social media platforms, has flaws, but TikTok is also critical for millions of creators to earn a living, for young people to express themselves, and for Americans of all ages to foster community, share a laugh, and learn something new. Yes, sometimes these laughs come from the shared experience of attempting to learn and recreate a funny dance video, but just as often, TikTok provides a space for meaningful political conversations on everything from gun violence to climate change. Most recently, TikTok users have been sharing harrowing videos of the devastating wildfires that have destroyed thousands of homes in California. These personal videos have provided a firsthand account of the tragedy, creating a virtual gathering space for shared stories, mutual support, and urgent calls for assistance to this climate change- created catastrophe. Over the past 24 hours, I have received millions of views on my TikTok videos advocating for an end to the ban. One of these videos has over 20,000 comments and counting. That is tens of thousands of users reaching out to make their voices heard. I have been tagged in hundreds of stories over the past 24 hours as TikTok users have posted short videos explaining why TikTok is important for their lives. Meredith Lynch, a writer and comedian from my home State of Massachusetts, currently residing in Los Angeles, said: Here in Los Angeles I know I personally--and I know so many other people have been relying on this app during the fires. It is a way in which we are spreading [information that the] community [needs], it is a way in which we are spreading resources. Rae, a user who has recently been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, explained: Because of TikTok I was able to come on here and share my story . . . I was able to participate in the creator rewards program. That money is going to help me pay for my cancer surgery. Mary, a disability rights advocate and low-income, single mother living in Rhode Island, shared that she plays ukulele on TikTok for tips, which pays for her groceries. She explained: While the district failed me, I found a community on TikTok. This is just a small sample of the thousands of stories that TikTok users are posting about the app's importance in their lives. If my colleagues remain unmoved by these personal accounts, they should consider the political implications of the TikTok ban. The 170 million Americans that use TikTok each month will be furious when their favorite platform goes dark. That is 170 million Americans--170 million reasons to think very carefully about their position on the TikTok ban. Make no mistake, these communities cannot be replicated on another app. Creators and small businesses cannot rebuild their audiences overnight. Many have stated that thanks to TikTok's unique culture, it is impossible to develop a similar following on another platform. Users cannot transfer their followers and communities to a new platform. A ban would dismantle a one-of-a-kind informational and cultural ecosystem, silencing millions in the process. The stakes are very high over the next week, and that is why I will soon introduce the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act to extend the deadline by which ByteDance must sell TikTok or face a ban, and it should be extended by an additional 270 days. Now that my colleagues understand that the TikTok ban is real, we need time to have a deeper conversation about how to address the national security risk caused by ByteDance's ownership of TikTok. We need time to understand the ban's implication on TikTok's creators and users. We need time to consider alternative ideas. This legislation does not repeal the original legislation; it merely allows for more time. Let me be clear. TikTok has its problems. Like every social media platform, TikTok poses a serious risk to the privacy and mental health of our young people in our country. In fact, TikTok paid a fine for violating my law, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, just a few years ago. I am proud of my law, and I am proud that the Federal Trade Commission took action under my law. But they have also done the same kind of action against American companies and fined them for doing the very same thing to children in our country online. So it is not just a TikTok issue; it is American companies that actually set the example for how young people in our country get abused. Last year, I sent a letter to the Department of Justice urging it to quickly review the allegations that TikTok had violated COPPA yet again. I will continue to hold TikTok accountable for such behavior, but I will hold every American company, from Instagram to Facebook, all the way down the line, that is doing the very same thing to the children in our country. A ban on TikTok does not solve the problem because young people in our country are still going to be going to American sites that will abuse them. And the Surgeon General tells us that there is a mental health crisis amongst young people in our country. This doesn't solve the problem. If we are going to deal with it, let's deal with it, but let's step back and understand that it is not just a TikTok issue; it is social media in general. A TikTok ban would impose serious consequences on millions of Americans who depend upon the app for social connections and for their economic livelihood. We cannot allow this to happen. I will urge the U.S. Senate to adopt my legislation to give the whole process an additional 270 days for us to debate it in a way in which we did not debate it last year on the Senate floor. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I thank Senator Cortez Masto for being such a leader on fighting the opioid epidemic. She is on the frontline of conducting that battle against this scourge. We are both here on the floor today in an effort to find the best solutions for addressing this crisis. We lost over 105,000 Americans to overdose last year. That is over 1 million people in a decade who have died, at that pace. And to put this in more concrete terms, we lost more Americans in a single year to overdose than in the entirety of the Vietnam war or the Korean war--in just 1 year, 105,000 people. For every death, we unleash waves of grief and hurt on families and communities that lose one of their own. Now, 105,000 deaths is more than unacceptable; it is a tragedy. And this epidemic is made worse by the scourge of xylazine. The tragedy does call for immediate, full- scale solutions. Americans need solutions that work. In developing those solutions, we must be conscious about any unintended consequences, and I am concerned about the unintended consequences of passing the Combating Illicit Xylazine Act. The bill would require scheduling xylazine under the Controlled Substances Act as a schedule III drug. And these schedules are meant to create restrictions based on a balance of the substance's legitimate medical use and their potential for abuse. It is a balance. And in the United States we actually have a process to schedule xylazine and other drugs. We have a process that is time tested, that requires the Department of Health and Human Services to provide a scientific and medical evaluation. And as the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, has indicated, they have already started that process. So instead of waiting for the scientific and medical evaluation to be completed, this bill would actually require we skip the process and let Congress decide what scheduling is the most appropriate. But, ultimately, this process is something which I believe has to be given due respect. If we schedule this without waiting for the experts, this could lead to more people struggling with addiction, having a hard time asking for help, and less research into xylazine testing, overdose reversal, and treatment. So, from my perspective, I just don't think we should be skipping over expert recommendations that would help us avoid those unintended consequences. And efforts to skip medical and scientific evaluation should certainly not be supported by the DEA, working to undercut the administration's own health experts in their role in developing a scheduling recommendation. So there is a tension here that exists between the DEA and between our health officials in terms of the processes that we should be using. And I understand that part of the justification for a legislative solution is to create exemptions for veterinary medicine to avoid unnecessary interference in legitimate uses of xylazine. We can do that once we have a complete medical and scientific recommendation, and I look forward, obviously, to working with my great friend Senator Cortez Masto--she is, again, a great leader in this battle against the opioid epidemic--to identify the appropriate legislative solution once we have obtained that medical recommendation from the medical experts. I also look forward to working with the Drug Enforcement Administration in making a serious effort to support Americans who are struggling with addiction, and that includes increasing access to medication treatment, including methadone, for opioid use disorder. Senator Cortez Masto and I agree xylazine is dangerous. Our overdose epidemic is unacceptable, and we need solutions. I am honored to work with Senator Cortez Masto in this fight. We have solutions that we can pursue. We need to pass the Support Act Reauthorization. We need to give communities the tools to test and respond to substances coming into their communities. We need to train and support law enforcement and health providers responding to overdose after overdose. We need to break down old War on Drug structures that make it nearly impossible for Americans to get treatment they need without being criminalized, penalized, and stigmatized. But in pursuing these goals, we cannot provide solutions that offer the potential of undermining the process that has been in place to rely upon medical and scientific evaluation and then work in coordination with the Drug Enforcement Agency. For that set of reasons, at this time, I object.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I rise today with deep disappointment and frustration at the House of Representatives' failure to take up my bipartisan, bicameral legislation with Senator Bill Cassidy--the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, COPPA 2.0. Just a few months ago, the Senate passed COPPA 2.0 by a resounding vote of 91 to 3 as part of the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act. It was a remarkable moment for a Chamber that has too often succumbed to partisanship on key technology issues. Young people and families across the country finally had a moment to celebrate that their government was actually coming to their aid on a critical issue and that lawmakers from across the aisle could hold hands and recognize that the youth mental health crisis was raging in red and blue States alike. This crisis demanded action, and the U.S. Senate was meeting the need and the moment with a popular children's and teens' privacy bill. Help, it seemed, was finally on the way. It was long overdue. For more than a decade, I have been fighting to strengthen online protections for our young people. In fact, if COPPA 2.0 were a person, it would have just turned 13 and would have aged out of our current privacy protections for children, which I first authored 26 years ago. Over those 26 years, that law--the original Children's Online Privacy Protection Act--has been critical to protecting children online, but when I wrote COPPA, only birds tweeted, and ``TikTok'' was a sound that a clock made. Today, our children and teens confront a far more complicated and privacy-invasive online world--one that, according to medical experts and the Surgeon General, is contributing to a youth mental health crisis. The stats are devastating. The stats are overwhelming. Listen to these stats. Listen to the problem we have in our country: More than one in four high school girls in the United States seriously considered suicide in 2023--one in four teenaged girls--and at least one in eight high school girls attempted suicide in 2023. Let me repeat it again. One in eight teenaged high school girls attempted suicide in 2023. Amongst LGBTQ+ youth, the number is more like one in five attempted suicide in 2023. COPPA 2.0 cuts to the heart of the emergency. COPPA 2.0 bans targeted advertising to young people, ensuring that teenage girls stop being targeted with weight loss pills and other harmful ads. It empowers parents and teens by giving them an eraser button to delete an ill-advised post, and it prevents companies from burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the children and teens on their platforms. These policies specifically target Big Tech's financial incentives-- profitable targeted ads--that keep kids and teens clicking, swiping, and scrolling on social media, even to their ill health. In fact, in 2022, the major Big Tech platforms earned nearly $11 billion from U.S. users under the age of 18--$11 billion--and those are 11 billion reasons to oppose any opposition to COPPA 2.0. But the tech companies-- they want to monetize the young people in our country, and we know they are doing so at the expense of their mental health. Who said it? The Surgeon General of the United States. Who said it? The pediatricians of the United States who are the experts on children and teenagers in our country--a mental health crisis largely created by online social media. So this is an incredible moment for us because, with that $11 billion which the media companies and the big tech companies make, there are 11 billion reasons to turn their lobbying power on the House Republican leadership and concoct farfetched theories for why a bill that passed 91 to 3 on the floor of the U.S. Senate should not even receive a vote--at the height of a mental health crisis for young people in our country--on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Unfortunately, House Republican leadership capitulated to the pressure of Big Tech, with grave consequences for young people. The House had a rare opportunity to show families across the country that it cared about their children, about their teenagers; that money in politics didn't drive their decision making; and that our youngest and our most vulnerable came first and not Big Tech. House Republican leadership--they failed that test. They sat for months on the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and then refused to even consider it for passage at the end of the year. They want to wait until next year and next year. We brought this bill out for three Congresses in a row. This is not a new issue. It is a crisis. Everyone knows it is a crisis. Everyone knows that teenagers are getting addicted because of deliberate strategies by Big Tech to absolutely harm them. We know that, right now, if a teenaged girl has bulimia and she goes online to get information about it because she has only told her mother and father, that girl can be bombarded with ads from companies and from others because that information is now out there that she Google- searched. Well, the impact on her psyche is dramatic if that happens, and it is happening every single day because Big Tech monetizes that girl's bulimia or anorexia problem. This is the bill that says you can't do that. If the parents want all of that information erased or they don't want the girl to be targeted with ads, you can't do it--91 to 3 on the Senate floor, no vote in the House for three Congresses in a row. They always want to wait until next year for a Republican Congress or for a Republican President, yes, but what about right now? And are they actually going to do it next year? And while they wait, our young people will continue to suffer. Every day that this does not pass is another day where platforms can serve dangerous, targeted ads to children and teens. Every day that it does not pass is another day when parents and teens don't have the tools they need to protect themselves online. Every day that COPPA 2.0 does not pass is another day when children and teens are suffering from suicide, from anxiety, from depression. This is the heart of the issue. This is the sinister side of cyberspace. This is the harmful side of it. Are we going to do anything about it? Is it the Keynesian quality to the internet? It is the best of technologies and the worst of technologies simultaneously. It can enable. It can ennoble. It can degrade. It can debase. Yes, these companies tout all the wonderful things that they are going to do, and they actually want to put it on steroids: AI. They are going to find a cure for cancer. They are going to do all these other wonderful things. We will see. But at the same time, we don't have the safeguards built around the harm they are doing right now--the mental health harm to teenagers and children in our country. And it is only going to get worse--much worse--as AI injects itself into the system more and more: more suicide, more anxiety, more depression. So it is a sad day for an institution that had a historic opportunity. And I commend the Senate leadership for making a decision in prioritizing the mental health of kids and teens. But I am deeply disappointed in the House of Representatives, where I proudly served for 36 years. For decades, the House has lamented that the Senate's rules have prevented us from taking action on important issues. And I have made those arguments myself as a House Member years ago. But when the Senate did act on an issue critical to families and to parents across the country and when it acted decisively, House Republican leadership decided to play politics with the lives of teenage children in our country. So to the kids and the parents and the advocates who have fought courageously for stronger online privacy rights for children and for teens, thank you. Don't go away. Keep your energy up. If you are knocked down, you are hurting, just come right back. Come back the same way the abolitionists came back, the same way the suffragettes came back, the same way the anti-Vietnam movement came back, the same way the same-sex marriage movement came back. Just get up again. We are right; they are wrong. We have to get this passed. So I have been honored to be with you. It is a very disheartening moment--very disheartening. This is an ongoing, preventable crisis in our country. And if we don't act and act soon, we are going to have teenagers and children 20 years from now writing books about what their Congressmen, their Senators--an older generation--inflicted upon them, with no protections whatsoever. They will be talking about it. They will be writing about it. Let me finish, again, by giving you the numbers. These are, without question, some of the most staggering numbers I have ever seen attached to one single preventable issue. One in four high school girls in the United States seriously considered suicide in 2023. Let me just say that. One in four seriously considered it. One in eight high school girls in the United States in 2023 actually attempted suicide--one in eight. And one in five LGBTQ attempted suicide in 2023. And the Surgeon General, the pediatricians of our country implicate--point the finger at--social media, the self-image of these kids, as one of the leading causes. And we are not going to pass this legislation. And the actions of the House and now from Elon Musk and others who are preventing this whole institution from working are going to ultimately expose all of these young people to images, ideas, that are, in fact, avoidable. I thank you for giving me the time. And to all of those who worked so hard on this legislation over the last 2 years, please get up and get ready to come back again next year because this is a crisis in our country. This is something that these young people do not deserve, and their privacy cannot be monetized. It is just absolutely wrong and preventable. With that, I yield back the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Baldwin for her leadership on this issue, for helping us to focus on this threat to the rights of Americans that is being propounded in this Defense bill. I want to thank Senator Merkley. I want to thank everyone who is joining with Senator Baldwin in this fight because today we are considering the National Defense Authorization Act, and embedded within its language would be a ban on TRICARE coverage of gender-affirming care for children of servicemembers in our country. If passed into law, it would be the first anti-LGBTQ law passed by Congress in decades. Since the 1990s, there has been no anti-LGBTQ law which has passed. If passed into law, it would force thousands of members of the military to decide between service to their country and guaranteeing their child can get the healthcare they need. This language was the product of a nationwide campaign against trans rights--a campaign that has facilitated the harassment of teachers, bomb threats to children's hospitals, and attacks on transgender people. This is the same campaign that drives legislators from State capitals to Capitol Hill to insist on dictating Americans' healthcare decisions. We have seen this playbook before. For decades, Republicans attacked the right to abortion. They slowly chipped away, State by State, law by law, and today there is no constitutional right to abortion. Now they have turned their attention to servicemembers' families. We must fight off efforts by politicians to force themselves into exam rooms. They think they know better than trained healthcare providers and patients. They do not. The only expertise they are exhibiting is an expertise in the oppression, suppression, and repression of healthcare freedom. And their attacks will not stop there. Freedom isn't lost all at once; it happens 1 inch at a time. As the Senate author of the Transgender Bill of Rights, this is an inch that I insist that we cannot give. At its best, this institution has affirmed the rights of every American. On this floor, we have expanded access to healthcare, guaranteed Americans' civil rights, and protected same-sex marriage. Today, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to fight discriminatory attacks on servicemembers, their families, and their healthcare providers. We must strike this language. If we do not, we must vote no on the entire bill. To every trans American, every servicemember, and their families, friends, and communities: I will not turn my back on you. I am with you. Together, we will keep fighting. So, again, I thank Senator Baldwin for her leadership on this issue. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I am actually joined here today with my Massachusetts staff, who is joining with my Washington staff, and they are in the Gallery today. The subject I am about to talk to is very near and dear to their hearts. It is near the top of the list of all the issues they think go to fundamental unfairness in our society, because right now, an entire generation of teachers and firefighters and postal workers and police officers and public servants of all stripes are being denied the Social Security benefits which they earned. In 1983, the so-called windfall elimination provision slashed retirement benefits in the name of austerity. I was a Member of the House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress in 1983. I voted against the windfall elimination provision. I voted against Republicans. I voted against many Democrats who all were willing to slash the benefits of those hard-working teachers, firefighters, police officers, across the board--and have lost it for four decades--because I knew that I was voting for public servants and voting for their families. I have been fighting for repeal of the windfall elimination provision as well as the government pension offset ever since, and I stand here today because we have an opportunity to finally see this repeal through to conclusion. Senator Brown and Senator Collins' Social Security Fairness Act would repeal the windfall elimination provision and the government offset provision. I am proud to cosponsor that bill, alongside 60 of my colleagues from both parties, and 60 is the number you need to pass a bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We can restore Social Security benefits for millions of workers now, and we should do it now. Three million--unbelievable--three million public servants and their families around the country, including 130,000 in Massachusetts and their families, are counting on us to get them their earned benefits. They have already done the work, but a 1983 law denies them that check in the mail. No one else in the country was targeted in that bill--just those public servants, those people who work for each and every one of us every single day. A retired public school teacher in Chicopee, MA, wrote to me and explained that she had dutifully paid into Social Security for decades, earning her right to Social Security and a secure retirement. But late in her career, she answered the call to public service and dedicated her time to educating students in Massachusetts. That is the kind of action we should value and we should reward. Instead, she was blindsided 10 years later to learn that because of her public service and the modest public pension she accrued, her Social Security benefits would be cut by $580 a month, which otherwise would be there on her kitchen table for herself, for her family. Now, instead of a secure and dignified retirement, she has to worry about affording rent and medication and groceries. If, instead of teaching, she had earned a private pension, she had worked in any other sector of the American economy or she was wealthy enough to live off of her investments, her Social Security would be safe. The only category is these people who were the public servants. They are the ones who got targeted in 1983. Another constituent from Tyngsboro, MA, wrote me to say that after her father passed away, her mother, a retired school employee, lost over $1,000 a month in Social Security. Now, in addition to mourning her husband, she also struggles to pay bills and meet her basic needs. There are 3 million more stories of injustice and indignity just like this. We know the Federal Government can be in the business of allowing windfalls. Major corporations hiking up prices on the American people while paying effectively no Federal taxes--that is a windfall. Private equity cronies making millions off the backs of workers while laying them off and gutting their pensions--that is a windfall. But make no mistake, allowing a third grade teacher, a town firefighter, and a mailman to receive their hard-earned retirement benefits is not a windfall. Repealing these draconian policies is a matter of justice and dignity for millions of public servants. These workers served their communities and delivered for us every single day. In every city and town across the country--Massachusetts, the President's home State of Pennsylvania--State after State, the story is the same, and now it is time for us to deliver for them. After four decades of fighting and organizing alongside unions and workers and retirees, Congress must repeal these policies once and for all. The Senate may be short on time, but public servants have waited long enough. In the time remaining this year, we must deliver for those 3 million families in our country. They earned this benefit. We have to finally meet the obligation which has been accrued by the American people to those 3 million workers. So let's vote to pass the Social Security Fairness Act. Bring home this win for public servants, their families, and our communities. No matter where you live in America, when you see that firefighter on the fire engine, when you see that police officer rushing to protect a family, when you call the teacher to ask ``How is my child doing?''-- every time you make one of those calls, every time you see one of those people, just know that they are denied--they are denied the benefit which they have earned. They are denied it by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1983. Why them? Why were they singled out? Why wasn't it billionaires? Why wasn't it private equity? Well, the votes were there, and, unfortunately, too many Democrats voted for it as well. It is time for us to rectify that historic injustice. It is time for us to provide fundamental fairness for each and every one of those families. This is the time; this is the place; we are the people who must get this done. It goes right to the heart of who we are as a people. If you believe in government, then you must believe in everything that teachers and firefighters and police and everyone else who is in our cities and towns provide for us every single day. And we must have that vote on the Senate floor. We must pass this legislation. We must finally give back to these families what they have earned by their service to us. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue that has been a dominant topic of conversation in this country: artificial intelligence, or AI. Over the past 2 years, generative AI products like ChatGPT have exploded in popularity, while companies have invested tens of billions of dollars developing new AI models. The AI innovation race is in full swing, and I share much of this excitement. AI holds great promise with the potential to transform the way we live, we work, and interact with the world. But as with any race, there are winners and there are losers, and I am deeply worried that we are too focused on the potential winners of this AI race and we are neglecting those who are already being left behind, because although AI may be having a moment right now, we have been living with its impact for years. This is especially true for Black and Brown and immigrant and LGBTQ communities which have borne the cost of the ``move fast and break things'' mindset that pervades Silicon Valley. To understand why, it is helpful to understand how these AI-driven algorithms actually work, because these algorithms are really just supercharged pattern recognition systems. It is not all that different from teaching a dog a new trick. For example, to teach a dog to fetch, you gather a bunch of balls and treats and instruct the dog to run after and return the ball and provide feedback--treats--along the way. Over time, the dog recognizes the pattern: Run after it and return the ball and receive a treat. The same principles apply to algorithms. A company will feed historical information into a computer with basic instructions. Like a dog that looks helpless when first told to fetch, an algorithm may first provide confusing responses to these instructions. But over time, as the algorithm receives feedback from a trainer, the algorithm will improve at responding to the instructions. Here is the problem: This training and the algorithm's decision making and recommendations happen outside of public view. This lack of transparency and the failure to properly test for bias in algorithms create serious risk. What happens when the information being fed into an algorithm reflects preexisting societal biases? To return to our dog analogy, if the dog is only trained to fetch tennis balls, it may not understand how to fetch a stick, or it may return the stick to a different person. The same problem happens with algorithms involved in decisions around banking, healthcare, and the criminal justice system, but with much more serious results. Numerous studies and reports have revealed the consequences that biased algorithms have for marginalized communities. For example, a 2019 report found that due in part to biased mortgage approval algorithms, lenders were 80 percent more likely to reject Black applicants than similar White applicants. On another occasion, a tech company found that its AI resume screening tools recommended male applicants for jobs at much higher rates than similar female applicants. And, just yesterday, a comprehensive new report found that 92 million low-income Americans are subject to algorithmic decision making and, therefore, potentially subject to bias and discrimination baked into these algorithms. This is unacceptable. That is why, in September, I introduced my AI Civil Rights Act, comprehensive legislation intended to ensure that the AI age does not replicate and supercharge the bias and discrimination already prevalent today in our real world. Specifically, my legislation would impose new rules when companies use algorithms to make decisions on employment, banking, healthcare, the criminal justice system, and other important aspects of our lives. Today, I am proud to announce that 54 new organizations have endorsed my bill, including some of the biggest labor unions in the country, critical housing organizations, and indispensable civil rights groups. In total, 80 civil rights organizations and AI experts have endorsed my AI Civil Rights Act. This support sends a clear message: As Congress considers AI legislation in the coming weeks and years, we must ensure that the AI age does not come at the expense of already marginalized communities. We cannot allow AI to stand for ``accelerating injustice'' in our country. We have a choice. Do we promote innovation without addressing AI bias and discrimination? Do we protect profits instead of people? Do we allow biased black box algorithms to control our lives? Make no mistake: We can have an AI revolution while also protecting the civil rights and liberties of everyday Americans. We can support innovation without supercharging bias and discrimination. And we can promote competition while safeguarding people's rights. And that is why we must pass my Artificial Intelligence Civil Rights Act. This is the beginning of an era where we can do this right. But it is up to Congress to make sure that that happens. With that, I yield back.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. Thank you for your great leadership on this issue. Thanks to Senator Cassidy. We have made this bipartisan from the very beginning in order to ensure that the American public can completely understand what has happened to this Steward Health Care chain, and I thank him for the leadership in holding Dr. Ralph de la Torre accountable for his greed and shining a light on the deadly consequences that result from the involvement of for-profit forces in our healthcare system. Steward Health Care declared bankruptcy in May. It was a culmination of a financial tragedy. Over the past decade, Steward, led by its founder and CEO, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, and his corporate enablers, looted hospitals across the country for their own profit. And while they got rich, workers, patients, and communities suffered. Nurses paid out of pocket for cardboard bereavement boxes for the babies to help grieving parents who had just lost a newborn. Hospital beds collapsed underneath patients. Patients died alone in hallways. The Boston Globe Spotlight team has laid out the details in eye- watering fashion. Meanwhile, Ralph de la Torre and his corporate cronies got just what they wanted: hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, yachts, private jets, luxury vacations. They used hospitals to fund their own episode of ``Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.'' And its star is CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre. Today, we are here because Dr. de la Torre has yet to answer for what he has perpetrated. I asked him to appear before my Primary Health and Retirement Subcommittee in April in Boston. He declined. He refused. Senators Sanders and Cassidy invited Dr. de la Torre to testify in July here in Washington. He declined. He refused. On July 25, the committee issued a legal order for him to appear. He ignored it. He refused. Dr. de la Torre is using his blood-soaked gains to hide behind corporate lawyers instead of responding to the U.S. Senate's demand for actions. But while he tries to run and hide, Dr. de la Torre is revealing himself for what he truly is: a physician who placed personal gain over his duty to do no harm. The Senate has not made a criminal contempt referral in more than 50 years, since 1971. It is a rare move for the rare degree of callousness, cruelty, and cowardliness that Dr. de la Torre has demonstrated. In the face of all of the mismanagement, health workers fulfill their sacred responsibility to their patients and to their communities. They cared for young and old, held grieving families' hands, and responded in people's greatest moments of fear and vulnerability. And now workers and communities will spend years cleaning up Ralph de la Torre's disaster all in order to ensure that they will be protecting patient care. The rich don't need to use communities as a safety net for their wealth, but that is how Dr. de la Torre used these hospitals and communities--including in Massachusetts--and sacrificed community health in the process. They are rightly outraged in those communities, and I am outraged for them. For them and for everyone who has suffered due to Ralph de la Torre's greed and Steward's collapse, I hope the Department of Justice will move swiftly to bring charges against him. To Dr. de la Torre, you cannot use your millions to shield yourself from accountability to the American people. I urge the Senate to hold Dr. Ralph de la Torre, CEO of Steward, in criminal contempt. And I thank, once again, Chairman Sanders and Ranking Member Cassidy for their great leadership on this issue.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, for 42 years, Joe Castiglione's resonating voice has been the bridge between Boston's great cathedral Fenway Park and Red Sox fans listening to the game in garages, kitchens, workplaces, and vehicles across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and throughout New England. Whether you were turning your dial to 93.7 FM in Boston or Lawrence or Malden, 105.5 FM in Springfield, 1440 AM in Worcester, or 96.3 FM on the Cape, Joe Castiglione made you feel like you were in the bleachers with peanuts and a score card. When you were listening to him, you always knew who was at bat, you always knew the count, and you always knew how many runners were on base. With humility, grace, and an encyclopedic baseball mind, Joe Castiglione took us on a journey every season. It was Castiglione who introduced us to our new ball club each spring after the snow of winter gave way to the green grass of spring. It was Joe Castiglione who ushered us through the dog days of summer, when winning and losing streaks began to cement our spot in the standings. And it was Joe Castiglione who carried us through four magical, crisp October runs that cemented Boston's status as the City of Champions. On behalf of Red Sox fans everywhere, thank you, Joe Castiglione. I hope retirement brings you as much joy and happiness and entertainment as you have brought Red Sox Nation. Your wonderful wife Jan, sons Joseph Jr. (Duke) and Thomas, daughter Kate, and six grandchildren are fortunate to have you. As a poet, a wordsmith, an alltime orator, we leave with some of Joe Castiglione's greatest words: ``Swing and a ground ball, stabbed by Foulke, he has it, he under hands to first, and the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions! For the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox have won Baseball's World Championship. Can you believe it?!''

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, yes, this proposal really deserves to be objected to. You know, it really deserves an objection because what we really have to say here is that we object to this bill as a ridiculous attack--a Republican attack--on the authority of the executive branch. But we don't need to talk about how this bill would work. Let's talk about why this bill is the bill that the Republicans are pushing. Are they lining up here to protest something worthy, like public health? No. Are they demanding we deliver something meaningful, like clean air or clean water? No. Are they taking a stand for the future that worries moms and dads and parents and grandparents and neighbors and young people who are asking us to fight for those things? No. So what are the Republicans doing? They are protecting the profits of fossil fuel companies. They are delivering our dollars to oil and gas exporters. They are taking a stand against a clean, healthy, sustainable future. What a track record--what a track record that they have. These companies are fracturing American lands to produce gas for fossil fuel executives to export--to export--out of our country to the highest global bidder. They want to export this. And who takes the environmental risks? Well, the families who live nearby, who are going to be near these pipelines. And then the companies take it to the first port they can get it to and then send it out of our country. Do they want to keep it here to lower the price of natural gas for American consumers? Absolutely not. They want to get it out on the open market in a ship because that is the highest bidder. Around the world, let them bid for it. Now, if they were saying, ``Hey, we really want to lower the price of natural gas in the United States,'' that is one thing. But that is not what this is all about. It is all about an export plan: Get the oil, get the gas out of our country and get the highest price in the world. They are putting wells filled with toxic chemicals next to schools, your homes, your daycare, your hospitals--all so they can ship tankers filled with natural gas to China or any other country that is the highest bidder. That is what this is all about, ladies and gentlemen. It is not about lowering the price of natural gas or oil for American consumers. It is about oil company executives getting higher profits for themselves. The United States exported a record shattering amount of natural gas in 2023, more than 10 percent higher than in 2022. We export more liquefied natural gas than any other country in the world. And what do we get for all of these planet-destroying emissions? While Big Oil and House Republicans say that those fossil fuel exports are good for the economy, soaring LNG exports actually cost big bucks, with Americans spending $111 billion more on natural gas as exports soared from 2021 to 2022. While many justified the rapid natural gas export build-out as critical for European energy security, the reality is that European gas demand is not only already met, it is declining. So we are not using this fracked gas here in the United States. We are not benefiting from exports of this fracked gas. In fact, it raises prices at home as we export the oil, as we export the gas. If we kept it here, it would put pressure on the price of natural gas and oil here in the United States. But they don't keep it here. They put it on ships to send it around the world. This fracked gas is a reason that prices are going up in the United States, and our allies aren't demanding a surge in fracked gas. So who benefits from this fight for fracked gas? In 2023 alone, the 15 biggest oil and gas companies made more than $172 billion in profit. That is money that directly comes out of household budgets for fuel, for electricity, and even food and other necessities affected by the high prices. Gas companies and oil companies are running the same old-fashioned playbook for their dinosaur products, fossils: Drill and shill their fuels as hard as they can. And as we stop moving toward clean energy, these fossil fuel executives are trying to get other countries hooked and exporting products to keep prices high at home. So that is a crazy economic strategy for the United States: building export terminals to take our own oil and gas that should be here and lowering the price for consumers, for our businesses, for our homeowners, for our commercial sector. But, no, they say: Put it on the open market around the world and leave less of it here for American consumers. So just as we can track earthquakes in States that have large fracking and be able to see that that is happening, we can track this fracking defense bill to the companies that will benefit from it. This bill does nothing to protect Americans' health or their communities or their future or even their budgets. It protects fossil fuel companies from having to answer for their actions and pay for their profiteering. And for that reason, I stand in support of Senator Merkley's objection to this, because this is not a policy which we should allow to go permanently unaddressed in our country. It is time we have the big debate about the impact exporting our oil and gas has upon domestic prices. You can't have it both ways. You can't say this is good for America because we are exporting it and not understand that the less that we have here is to lower the pressure, to lower the prices for ordinary Americans. So when you look at all the polling and it says, ``People are concerned about high energy prices; people are concerned about our economy,'' what is at the center of it? Well, what is at the center of it is oil and gas and high prices. And what this proposal does is say ``Just keep it going; send it to China, send it to other countries around the world.'' But, no, at the same time, in the same way, we are importing lower-priced Chinese goods, we are to be sending them even more materials that allow them to become more dominant as an economic power. I support Senator Merkley's objection. And I hope that we actually come to the day where we have a full-blown debate here on the Senate floor on the impact this export of oil and gas, this impact of fracked materials with chemicals in the soil of our country, have upon the totality of our economic and environmental justice issues in our society. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I was necessarily absent, but had I been present, I would have voted yea on rollcall vote No. 208, the nomination of Charles J. Willoughby, Jr., to be an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, I would have voted yea on rollcall vote No. 209, the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Anne Marie Wagner to be a Member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority. I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, I would have voted yea on rollcall vote No. 210, on the nomination of Anne Marie Wagner to be a Member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority. I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, I would have voted yea on rollcall vote No. 211, the motion to invoke cloture on the Motion to Proceed to S. 4554. I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, I would have voted yea on rollcall vote No. 212, On the Point of Order Is the Point of Order Well Taken Re: To the Privilege Status of S.J. Res. 89. I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, I would have voted yea on rollcall vote No. 213, on the nomination of Robin Michelle Meriweather, of Virginia, to be a Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article on the history of privacy protections for children and teens from Common Sense Media be printed in the Record.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, today is a historic day. Today the U.S. Senate will vote on the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, which includes my legislation with Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, COPPA 2.0. With this vote, the U.S. Senate will finally send a message to Big Tech that the days of indiscriminately tracking and targeting children and teens are over in our country; that their privacy-invasive business model must change; that young people and their parents are more important than shareholders' bank accounts. This vote is long overdue. On June 20, 1996--June 20, 1996--more than 28 years ago, at the dawn of the information age, when only birds tweeted and ``the gram'' was simply a measurement, I stood before the House of Representatives and warned about the internet's unique threat to user privacy. I stated then, in 1996, that the internet would allow corporate America to have the ``opportunity to track the clickstream of a citizen of the Net, to sneak corporate hands into a personal information cookie jar and use [that] database to compile sophisticated, highly personal consumer profiles of people's hobbies, buying habits, financial information, health information, who they contact or converse with, when and for how long.'' The internet would allow ``digital desperadoes to roam the [internet] frontier unchecked.'' Two years later, Congress enacted my Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA--that was 1998--and it was for kids under the age of 13. That is all I could get in 1998--protections for kids under 13, in our country--knowing that there was going to be an effort by corporate America to exploit those children. Now, how did I know that? I knew it because I had been chairman over telecommunications in the 1980s, when the television industry was targeting kids with advertising on Saturday morning cartoons, Saturday morning programs. They were pretty much turning all the programs into one big ad targeted at vulnerable kids. And so I had to author the Children's Television Act of 1990 in order to put protections for television on the books. But then, as the internet evolved, the marketers, the targeters all moved over from television over to the internet. And with it, Congress has to follow them in order to pass the laws to protect children, to protect teenagers from being exploited by the very same marketers, the very same companies that sought to exploit them on television. And as I explained back then, the original COPPA, or the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, can be summarized in three words: ``disclosure,'' ``knowledge,'' and ``no''--disclosure of privacy policies, knowledge of information collected on our children, and no to the sale of the information. That information should only be used for the purposes for which the young person and their family had intended it. So COPPA put real safeguards on the internet, at least for kids under the age of 13. But over the last 26 years, the Federal Trade Commission has brought dozens of cases against both household names, like Google, TikTok, and even Mrs. Fields Cookies, and lesser known entities. And during that period, the Federal Trade Commission has collected over half a billion dollars in fines for violations of COPPA, of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The original COPPA law has done a lot of good. But as the years have passed and technology has evolved, our online world, once again, started to look like the Wild West with the desperadoes in charge, exploiting teenagers, exploiting children, using algorithms--powerful algorithms--to target those kids. So, in 2011, I introduced my children and teens' privacy bill to update COPPA. And in every Congress since, I have continued to introduce that legislation, slowly developing coalitions, answering questions, building support to modernize and update COPPA to protect children and teens' privacy online. And it can no longer be under the age of 13. Now we have to move it up to age 16 because we can see very clearly the targeting that goes on by these companies, the exploitation of the young people in our country, and the vulnerability of that group of Americans under the age of 17 who, according to the Surgeon General, according to the CDC, are in a mental health crisis in our country. And social media has been implicated by the Surgeon General, by the CDC, as one of the principal causes of this mental health crisis in our country. And while knowledge and disclosure and no may have been effective during the early internet era, today, that formula needs to be modified. The no must now be no, no, no; and that is the foundation of COPPA 2.0--no targeted advertising toward children and teenagers in our country, no excessive data collection of information of teens and children, no deliberately ignoring young users. For over a decade, I have been fighting for these essential privacy protections. In fact, if COPPA 2.0 were a person, it would have just turned 13 and would have aged out of COPPA's critical privacy protections, and that is unacceptable. I introduced it in 2011, but the power of those tech industries has blocked that progress that we needed. Yes, you want all the good things from the internet, but there is a Dickensian quality to the internet. It is the best of technologies and the worst of technologies simultaneously. It can enable; it can ennoble. But it can also degrade; it can debase. And we must put these protections in because we know that these companies have been exploiting their ability to reach children and teenagers all across our country and, largely, unencumbered by any restrictions whatsoever. I know that privacy can sometimes seem as an elusive concept because strong privacy rules sound great in theory, but what does that mean in practice? Well, with COPPA 2.0, here is what privacy is going to mean: It is going to mean privacy will put an end to the manipulative, personalized ads that trick young people into purchasing unwanted goods and services. Privacy means stopping a search engine or social media site from collecting a teenager's eye color or location or other information which has nothing to do with why that young person had gone online in the first place. It is none of that company's business. And it also means giving teens or parents an eraser button to delete a social media post--to tell the company: ``Delete all that information you have gathered about me, a teenager''; or, as a parent, ``that you have collected about my child. Erase it all.'' And that right will be in the hands of the young person. It will be in the hands of the parent to just say: No, stop it. Stop collecting that information and delete whatever you have. Erase it. So there will be an eraser button so a youthful mistake doesn't last forever. So that is going to be a big home run, too, when we pass this legislation, to move the power over to the parents and to the young people. And, most importantly, privacy means a fighting chance for parents and young people who are struggling against trillion-dollar platforms looking for every way to keep kids and teens on their app. Today, with passage of COPPA 2.0, the Senate takes a momentous step to stand up to the Big Tech lobbying machine; to stop the privacy- invasive business model that exploits young people for profit; to give our high-tech regulator, the Federal Trade Commission, the tools to tame our modern, digital desperadoes who are out there trying to exploit young people in our country. With AI supercharging Big Tech's algorithms and encouraging platforms to collect more data on young people, it has never been more important to protect our young people's privacy. With this vote, the Senate is finally meeting that moment. When I was a boy and I was home with my mother and with my two brothers--and I would be 10 years old, 9 years old--a salesman would ring the doorbell, and my mother would tell me: Just go to where the letter opener is in the door and tell the salesman that your mother is not home. And I would. And then I would go to my mother and say: But you are home. And she would say: I am not home to him. He is not getting in our living room. It is 11 in the morning. We are not having a stranger in our living room with you and three small children. It is just not happening. Well, that same sense of privacy is still present in American families, in America's mothers and fathers. They don't want strangers in their living rooms, in their kitchens, in their bedrooms, with their children. And what has happened is that, in the internet age, those same salesmen have been able to get around that front door. They have been able to get into the lives of the children, of the teenagers in our country, in ways that the parents have had great difficulty in controlling. And so what we are going to say here today on the floor of the Senate is no. We are going to change this balance of power. We are going to hand it over to the parents, hand it over to the children and the teenagers, so that we can just say to those salesmen, those digital salesmen, those digital desperadoes trying to take advantage of young people in our country: No, you cannot get in. You cannot compromise the well-being of the young people in this family. So that is what this vote is all about. It is historic. It is long overdue. It was pretty clear what the business model of these companies was going to be long ago at the dawn of the era. I was the Democratic author of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that moved America from analog to digital, from narrowband to broadband. Not one company in America had broadband in February of 1996, but it was all predictable. The pediatricians in our country said: We must put protections in for this new digital world in 1996. So it was highly predictable. Those who cared about the well-being of children, of teenagers were saying it all back then. Nothing is new. So today is a historic day, and we thank all of our partners for working with us and all of the outside groups who have dedicated their time, their effort, their resources to getting this bill to the Senate floor. I am deeply grateful to Senator Schumer for his partnership and leadership on this issue, to Chairwoman Cantwell, to Ranking Member Ted Cruz, and to my partner Senator Cassidy from Louisiana. In 1998, COPPA 1.0 was a partnership between myself and Billy Tauzin from Louisiana, and, today, with Senator Cassidy, we are going to take COPPA 2.0, partner it with the legislation of Senator Blumenthal and the Senator from Tennessee, and we are going to make history. And then we are going to get it over the finish line and onto the President's desk before the end of this year. So I thank all the Members for their cooperation on this, and, again, I want to thank Senator Schumer for his great effort in expediting the movement of this legislation to the floor and for, I believe, its inexorable, inevitable passage. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, thanks to Senator Collins for her longtime leadership on this issue. There is no more important issue in our country than the scourge of Alzheimer's. My mother, like Senator Collins's father, succumbed to Alzheimer's. But today, there are very few families in our whole country that do not have a similar story, some relative who has had Alzheimer's. My mother was diagnosed, and she was a brilliant woman. She was president of her senior class in high school. But her mother died--my grandmother--when my mother was 17. She had to be the mother and raise her three younger sisters so she never got to go to college. She ultimately finished raising the first family. Then, at 37, she married my father who was a milkman and then had me at 39 and my two brothers at age 40 and then she raised us. Now, my mother was a completely brilliant woman. She could do calculus for fun at the table, even though she never had calculus in school. And my father used to say, after my mother contracted Alzheimer's, your mother was a brilliant woman. It was an honor that your mother married me. Your mother is never stepping foot in a nursing home. No one is touching your mother at 2 a.m. in the morning. It was an honor that she married me. And so at age 80, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90, my father kept my mother in our living room. That is my story. That is my family's story. That is Senator Collins's story. That is the story of millions of families in our country. Alzheimer's is a scourge that needs to be defeated. And so I learned a lot from my father and his dedication to my mother. He was a milkman for the Hood milk company. He was 6 feet 1 inch, 265, so he could do it. But many families cannot do it, especially when it is the man who has Alzheimer's and not the woman-- although, two-thirds of all Alzheimer's cases are women. Can I say that again? Two-thirds of all Alzheimer's cases are women in our country. So these families are heroes, but heroes need help. So in the House, as Senator Collins is leading in the Senate, we were able to pass the first law. And the first law said to the National Institutes of Health: Break down all the silos at NIH and all of your institutes. You all have information on the brain, and you don't even share that information on the brain. The Institute on Aging is not sharing with Infectious Diseases what you know about the brain. Break down all the silos and put together a plan to find the cure by 2025. I was leading in the House; that was my bill. Senator Collins was doing it in the Senate; that was her bill. That became the law in 2011. But we realized by 2014 that a vision without funding is a hallucination. Right now in our country between Medicare and Medicaid, our country spends the equivalent of one-third of the defense budget's money every single year just on Alzheimer's patients--one-third of the defense budget. By the year of 2050, at the pace at which Alzheimer's is advancing, the Alzheimer's budget in our country will equal the defense budget because no one is saying that grandma shouldn't have a nursing home bed because she has Alzheimer's. That is not going to happen in our country. So finding a cure is absolutely not an option. And so in 2014, we passed another law. And that law said that each year the NIH has to tell the Senate Appropriations Committee and the House Appropriations Committee how much money they needed to find the cure for Alzheimer's by the year 2025. Well, back then, it was about $500 million a year that was spent to fund research. Last year, because of that law--Senator Collins leading in the Senate, along with me--we are up to $3.7 billion a year because, obviously, prevention is preferable to cure. Let's stop it. Let's try to get this right at its beginnings. And we made some progress, but we are not going to find the cure by 2025. So what this legislation says is we are extending it out to 2035, and we are going to continue both of these programs to make sure that it gets the focus at the NIH so that we will find the cure because research is medicine's ``field of dreams'' from which we harvest the findings that give hope to families that there will be a cure for the disease which has been ravaging their family for generations. Alzheimer's is the one disease that we all know almost every family in our country has in common. So President Kennedy created a mission to the Moon in 1961, and our country responded to it. And what these two bills that we are passing today have done is they have created a mission to the mind. They have created a mission to find what is going wrong with the brains of not just people in our country but all around the world because we are going to have to find the cure. And it is our responsibility here to provide leadership in the U.S. Senate, to keep the plan in place, and to find the funding that will have the best, brightest young scientists in America make careers out of finding the cure for Alzheimer's. The same thing is happening with cancer. The same thing is happening with HIV. But we have to focus here on Alzheimer's and keep that investment rising and rising because patients deserve it; families deserve it; caregivers across our country deserve it. We have millions of families right now--as Senator Collins just said, 7 million families--who have this disease in their families right now, and there is no cure. The end result is always inexorable. It is always inevitable. It always ends the same way. And so we are the only way in which this can be solved. So 3.7 billion a year--or 4 billion a year--that is a small price to pay against the disease which will ultimately cost the Federal Government the equal amount as the Defense budget every single year by 2050. So we have to act. And we have come a long way on research. But we have a long way to go. So here is what we hope: We hope to promote healthy aging; to reduce risk factors; to require the National Alzheimer's Plan to include recommendations on reducing health disparities for Black, Brown, and disabled Americans, because that is all part of this storyline--along with women, they are in a separate and higher risk category than men are--and expanding the National Alzheimer's Advisory Council to ensure a true whole-of-government approach to preventing, treating, and curing Alzheimer's and supporting family caregivers. That is why we can't delay another day. So I urge my colleagues to celebrate today. We have just passed two historic pieces of legislation. And it sets 2035 as the target date. And we can get this done, but we have to finish the job. And today's vote is going to clear the path for millions of Alzheimer's patients and their families, for them, their loved ones, and for the communities all across our country. And so I thank Senator Collins for her great, great leadership on this. And my family and Senator Collins's family, we stand here speaking for the 7 million families. And there will be many more to come if we don't find a cure. And we thank the Members of the Senate for passing this historic legislation today. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. May I ask for one additional minute?

Mr. MARKEY. Here is what the bill does. One, it will ban targeted advertising to children and teens. Two, it will create an eraser button to delete children and teens' data. And, three, stop the unnecessary data collection practices of online platforms. With these updates, the Senate has an opportunity to pass the most comprehensive privacy law for young people in over 25 years and send a message to Big Tech that these days of invading and exploiting young people must come to an end. We have to stop business as usual. That is what we are going to vote on today, to begin this process procedurally to get it out on the floor of the Senate substantively for an historic vote next week. I yield the floor.