Lisa Murkowski

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we will soon have a voice vote on a motion to adjourn the Senate until next week. Had there been a recorded rollcall vote on that motion, I would have been a resounding ``no,'' and I ask to be recorded as a ``no'' based on my strongest opposition to Members leaving town. This is day 30 of the Federal Government shutdown. Agencies are shuttered. Important services are paused and unavailable. Countless Americans have missed paychecks because of our failure to do our job to keep the government open. It only gets worse as this drags on. On November 1, an estimated 42 million Americans will miss out on their monthly benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which are essential for individuals and families across the country, including countless military families in Alaska. We have seen delays at major airports. People are canceling appointments as they cut back on expenses. Businesses are losing business they count on to keep their doors open. None of this should be acceptable to us. At the start of this week, I came to the Floor and asserted that we need to stay here and stay in session until we have reached agreement to re-open the government. I remain convinced of that. Instead of adjourning, we need to lock ourselves in a room and figure this out-- because real people are being needlessly hurt as Members fly out for another long weekend.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I yield the floor.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to join my colleague from Alaska Senator Sullivan in support of S.J. Res. 80, as Senator Sullivan explained earlier. This resolution will disapprove the integrated activity planned by the administration, issued back in 2022, to manage the National Petroleum Reserve in northwest Alaska. He sponsored it and I cosponsored it because the Biden administration imposed this management plan over not only our objections but the objections of leaders from across Alaska's North Slope. The third member of our delegation, Congressman Begich, has introduced H.J. Res. 124, which is identical and is pending in the House of Representatives. I think it is important to outline a little bit of the history on this issue, but I don't want to go into all of it. The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska--we call it NPR-A--is a 23 million-acre tract of land. It is roughly the size of the State of Indiana. It was specifically--specifically--designated for responsible energy development. The petroleum reserve dates back a century, to President Harding's withdrawal and initial control by the U.S. Navy. More recently, Congress has come to understand not only the naval value but the national value of the area. They have directed the Department of the Interior to ``conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing of oil and gas in the Reserve'' to help boost our energy security. What I just shared there is a word-for-word requirement from existing Federal law, so this is what is in law: ``to conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing of oil and gas in the Reserve.'' The Department is mandated to do that while protecting important values, including sensitive areas, as well as providing for subsistence use for Alaskans. This is generally Alaskan Natives who live in the North Slope area. Congress really envisioned this as a balance here, where you had responsible exploration and development moving in tandem with strong environmental protection and subsistence rights. The statute is pretty clear. It kind of spells it out. And we are OK with that. We don't have a problem with that. That is kind of the Alaska way. But, unfortunately, the Biden administration ignored that. Instead of providing for balanced management, the last administration ignored what I think was a good plan that was already in place. They ignored Federal law. They ignored the congressional delegation. They ignored the people who live on the North Slope. I think they also ignored or overlooked our history of responsible production, our energy security, and they instead prioritized conservation over everything else. So that is why we are here. The 2022 Integrated Activity Plan cut off access, to cut off leasing, to cut off development in our petroleum reserve. That was not an accident. That was the goal here. That was the intent. The 2022 plan admits--they admit--that it will reduce oil and gas activity, which was fine in the eyes of the Biden administration because, right as they were putting sanctions on Alaska, they were taking them off of places like Iran and Venezuela to free up those nations to produce more. Let me reiterate how the Biden administration went about doing this. The 2022 plan replaced the 2020 plan, which was put in place after an environmental review process that featured public comment and significant consultation with communities and leaders on the North Slope. Under that 2020 plan, the BLM concluded that 18.6 million acres--this was 82 percent of the NPR-A--should be open for potential leasing, but in the 2022 plan, just 11.8 million acres--52 percent of the petroleum reserve--were left open for that purpose. Under the 2020 plan, 4.3 million acres were closed to new infrastructure, with development across millions of additional acres subject to requirements for no surface occupancy, seasonal timing, and other sensible protections, but then the 2022 plan rejected that, closing off 8.3 million acres to any new infrastructure. The 2020 plan was well received by most Alaskans because it was viewed as balanced. BLM crafted a plan that was, as the Agency wrote at the time, ``suitably specific for broad-scale management decisions. . . . Additional site-specific analysis will occur when BLM receives an application to approve an action on the ground. This will be done through subsequent NEPA reviews and analysis, which will be conducted before BLM issues permits or approvals for any ground disturbing activity.'' In other words, what you had was a high-level management framework. No individual projects were approved. Any seeking to advance would still have to go through a separate permitting process before being allowed to do so. But unfortunately, BLM abandoned that approach after the Biden administration took office. They didn't base their 2022 plan on any new scientific analysis or new environmental review process; they based it on a political agenda and their preference to what they called ``keep it in the ground.'' They issued a ``determination of NEPA adequacy'' and then went into the 2020 plan and selected a far more restrictive alternative from it. So with virtually no public process, no public comment, no consultation with Alaska Natives who call the North Slope home, the Biden administration unilaterally cut off access to 6.8 million acres of our petroleum reserve. That is an area that is larger than the individual States of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Hawaii. It is clearly not what the delegation wanted. It is not what most Alaskans wanted. And, as I explained when discussing the administrative withdrawals in the Central Yukon plan just a few weeks back, it violates multiple Alaska-specific statutes. I should add that this was just one plank in the Biden administration's plan to shut down development in our petroleum reserve. In addition to cutting off access, they refused to hold a single lease sale in the NPR-A during their time in office. They dragged the Willow Project through years of additional process, sending a signal that nobody else should dare try to develop there. They issued a management rule that turned the law on its head by establishing a presumption against new development. They initiated another process to expand and designate new special areas where no development would be allowed to occur. Then, just a few days before leaving office, an Acting Deputy Secretary issued a memo with interim management measures to further tilt the balance away from any potential development. So what you had was an administration that wanted nothing to do with responsible development in Alaska's petroleum reserve, and that was enough to cause some whiplash for those of us who not only know the law but also remember the Obama-Biden administration repeatedly urging companies: Go over there. Go to the National Petroleum Reserve. This was the big fight over ANWR. They said: Don't go to ANWR; go to NPR-A. I have kind of outlined the history of this, some of the politics of it, but I would suggest that folks just shouldn't take the delegation's word for it either. We received a letter from the North Slope trilateral. This is the political leadership on the North Slope consisting of the North Slope Borough, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. They weighed in with their strong support for this disapproval resolution. In their words: The NPR-A lies entirely within the homelands of the North Slope Inupiat. Congress established the NPR-A with a clear purpose: to ensure energy security for the Nation while respecting the needs of Alaska Natives. Despite that, the 2022 plan ``imposed sweeping restrictions that curtail responsible development, undermine congressional intent, and disregard the well-being of the people who depend on these lands for both subsistence and livelihoods.'' The letter then goes on to explain how the impacts of the 2022 plan ``are especially severe for the North Slope. Oil and gas development in the NPR-A funds the Borough's schools, emergency services, and infrastructure. It supports jobs for Inupiaq shareholders and residents. It underwrites the continuation of our communities, even as we maintain our subsistence way of life. By arbitrarily locking away vast portions of the NPR-A, BLM's rule threatens these essential services and imposes disproportionate burdens on our people.'' Equally concerning, BLM failed to engage in meaningful government-to-government consultation with ASRC, the Borough, and ICAS. This omission contradicts federal consultation requirements and disregards the voices of the very communities most affected. Our leadership has consistently raised concerns about this process and its outcomes, yet those concerns were ignored. I think the words from the North Slope trilateral are particularly strong and powerful, and I thank them for their leadership on the issues. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of their letter be added to the Congressional Record immediately following my remarks. There is a good chance you will see Senator Sullivan and me here on the floor of the Senate seeking to disapprove any administrative action that unreasonably restricts access to public land in our home State. That is exactly what happened in this 2022 plan. Like we saw so much in the Biden administration, it lacked balance, and it failed to adhere to the law. We feel pretty strongly back home that we don't need Washington, DC, to try to protect Alaska from Alaskans. We need Washington, DC, to understand that no one--no one--cares more about Alaska, our lands, than those who live there and to partner with us on the balanced management of our lands. That is true across our State, and that is true within the NPR-A. We had a good framework for responsible development in our petroleum reserve back in 2020. Today, we can vote to nullify the 2022 replacement and go back to it. I would urge my colleagues, when we have this measure before us tomorrow--I would urge support for the resolution.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, we are in day 27 of a government shutdown--27 days where the government is shut down--and yet we are here. You are presiding. We have pages on the floor. There are people in the Gallery. There are people coming and going. We have Capitol Hill police that are in the area. And it just kind of feels like business as usual. We are going to have committee hearings this week. We are going to be voting on judges and some CRAs. And it just kind of feels like business as usual, and yet it is so not business as usual. We are pretending that everything is OK. We are pretending that people are not being impacted by this shutdown. I am looking at the people that are here recording this, that will be working to process this Record. None of them are getting paid. The Capitol Hill police that I visit with on a daily basis outside and inside are not getting paid. And they share with me that: Well, I still had to drive in. I have a 40-minute drive to get here, so I have to fill up my car. I have kids at home that are young kids, and they go to childcare. This is a Capitol Hill police officer saying this. And he says: So I still have to pay the childcare provider even though I have to come in and I am not getting paid. So my expenses are not going away. Yet every single one of them says: I am not complaining. I am not complaining. I have signed up for this. This is my mission, and I will be here. They are proud to be here. But what is wrong is that their families are stressed. I was talking with one Capitol Hill police officer on Thursday of last week, and he says: Every day, I go home and my wife says, ``So, did they open it up? Are we going to be paid?'' And he said: I tell her ``Nope, no progress today.'' So we are starting to feel that, because people who would otherwise just be saying ``I signed up for this. I am not going to complain. I am just going to do what I am going to do''--we are starting to feel this in real time, and it is having an impact not only financially but, I fear, from a mental health perspective. We had a call come in just--well, actually today. This is a person who was calling from Fairbanks, and she said: It is getting chilly in Fairbanks. I woke up to a bill for heating oil of nearly $2,500. Normally, this wouldn't be that big of a problem for me, but I am a Federal employee. I love my job, but it has been very frustrating to have constant threats of shutdowns and RIFs looming over my head. I work hard. I am so tired of being labeled as one who is not working hard. I would first like to propose that Congress doesn't get paid while we aren't getting paid and maybe take fewer long weekends. Well, I would let her know that, for many of us--I don't know about the occupant of the Chair, but for many of us, we have deferred our pay. It is not right that our staffs should not get paid and yet we get paid. But she raises a good point. She says that maybe we in Congress should take fewer long weekends. I think she is right. I think she is right. We left here Thursday afternoon. Members are just now coming back. We will have our first vote here at 5:30. In the meantime, people have done important stuff. We have important jobs. We go home, we do important things, and maybe we are able to carve out a little time to be with our families as well and try to have some of that balance. But, for some, they still had to come in this weekend. Some of those Capitol Hill police officers still had to come in this weekend to keep this place moving. Some of the folks who are here to provide services to the building still had to come in this weekend, and they weren't getting paid. So I think the suggestion about us maybe taking fewer long weekends is something not only that we should consider, but I am going to challenge this body. I have a long commute home, folks, and I am not begrudging that, but I don't think that we should be going home and just behaving as if this was another week in the U.S. Senate--not when we have a government shutdown. There is so much--so much--that is coming at us like a freight train. Little kids are excited because Friday is going to be Halloween, but let me tell you, the scary costumes on Halloween night are not going to be the scariest things; it is going to be what is delivered, what is left on the doorstep the next morning, November 1, when it then becomes officially official that SNAP payments will not be processed, will not be available for the many, many--66,000 in Alaska--who rely on those food benefits. The WIC payments to the women, infants, and children-- those, too, will be impacted. It is a reality for us that we are seeing an impact across our society in ways that are not only scary but overwhelming for some. We had a pretty, pretty tough week and a half with a major disaster. Thank you to the President for declaring that Presidential disaster following ex-Typhoon Halong. But I can tell you that those who are reliant on SNAP benefits are increasingly stressed because of what they have just gone through with displacement within their homes. And now it is across the whole State. Our food banks are stressed. We were stressed going into the beginning of winter already. We keep in close touch with our food banks, and what I am hearing is that we are already seeing the lines at the food banks growing longer. And what is hard to see is to know how many military families are part of those lines now. Madam President, this is simply--this is simply not right. And we may or may not have what we call rifle-shot votes this week that will-- maybe we will take up again the bill that would pay all the Federal workers. Maybe there will be a way that the military, who has been paid up until the end of this month--that we will be able to make that next pay increment. I certainly hope so. And not just our military but our U.S. Coast Guard and those that are in law enforcement. Maybe there is going to be a vote that would allow us to pay our U.S. Capitol Police. I have signed on to that bipartisan measure. And maybe there is going to be a vote for us to pay out the SNAP benefits. I have signed on to that legislation as well. Maybe but maybe not. Again, if we do take the rifle-shot approach, who else are we leaving behind? What have we done for the men and women who are making sure that when we go through those airports--the TSA--you have gone through the TSA. What have we done to make sure that our air traffic controllers that are keeping us safe in the skies--that their wives aren't yelling at them at the end of a long, stressful day and saying: When is this going to end? So we have to figure this out. And I know that we have our positions, and if people don't know what the Republican positions are and the Democrat positions are, they haven't been listening to this discussion for the past 27 days. We know what it is. We have got to come together, which means we have got to talk to one another. And it can't be about Republicans winning and Democrats losing or Democrats winning and Republicans losing because right now--right now--those that are losing are the American people, those who are calling us up and saying Social Security hasn't released her survivor's benefits after her husband's death. The inquiry is placed on hold. Sorry. You are just going to have to wait. A fellow in Petersburg was told that his telehealth appointment with his cardiologist was canceled because of the lapse in authorization of telehealth benefits. So they basically said: If you want to keep this appointment, you are going to have to fly to Seattle. Those of you that know Alaska know that Petersburg and Seattle are not connected by a road, and it is not cheap. A couple in Anchorage said that they have been waiting on an approval from the FDA on a compassionate use exception for a medication to treat stage IV ovarian cancer, and now they are told: Just hold on. Hold on. The government is not operational right now. We have a lot in our maritime community, and in order for them to be lawfully out on the water, they need to have a license renewed through the new merchant mariner credentialing. That is on hold. We have a housing situation in Sitka, and we have an Army Corps permit for the housing authority that has been delayed. We can't figure that one out. We are talking to people who have been trying to get an SBA loan--a local business owner in downtown. The school district in Sleetmute has been waiting to get the impact aid emergency construction dollars so that they can repair this roof that is literally falling down on top of the kids in the back of the school there. They are told: Well, there is nobody here to take your call. There is nobody here to take your call because the government is not open. So for those who think that this is not that big of a deal, they need to start asking people--not only people who are Federal employees, not only people who are SNAP recipients; they need to be asking people about just some of the day-to-day, matter-of-fact things that happen when you have a small business or you are trying to get your fishing vessel out in the water. Real Alaskans are being impacted, and real Alabamans are being impacted. Americans are being impacted when we don't do our job. And maybe this idea of ``We don't go home this weekend until we resolve this''--maybe it doesn't work. Maybe we just look at one another and say: I am not even going to talk to you. Maybe we just continue on with multiple rounds of the same vote that we have been taking for the past 27 days and see if we get a different result. Now, some say that is the definition of insanity. I don't know. I don't know. But what I do know is that when we leave and we assume that things are fine or we send that message that things are fine because we have just gone home and it is just business as usual here, then people whose lives are really being impacted right now--they think we don't get it. We do get it. We need to act to end this shutdown, and I am going to call on all of my colleagues to stay here until we get it done. I yield the floor.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I came in at the tail end of the comments from my colleague and my friend from Delaware. He has underscored some points that I think are important to remind us here in the Senate but also people who are watching as we are in day 16 of the government shutdown. There is no great secret as to how we get the government fully functioning again. It is going to come about through cooperation. It is going to come about through good-faith efforts by good folks who are intentioned to address the matters in front of us. We deal with politics. This is a political world. But I can tell you that so many of the people who I am talking to don't really care about the politics of our situation. They don't care if the Democrats are winning or the Republicans are winning. They feel like, as Americans, they are the ones who are being caught in this backwash. They don't understand why their flight was delayed or canceled this morning. They don't understand why the individual that they are trying to get through to at an Agency is not picking up the phone or they get a message saying that this office is going to be closed until the government is reopened. What they care about is that we figure it out--that we figure it out. That requires communication. It requires talking with one another. That is why I appreciate much of what my colleague has shared today, because as we are positioning as two sides that are seemingly dug in on this 16th day of a shutdown, real people are wondering: Is their government going to be there for them?

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 5371.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I move to proceed to the motion to reconsider the cloture motion on the motion to proceed to H.R. 5371.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to my congressional fellows and interns for the remainder of this Congress. They are Mary Horton, Kathleen Song, Valerie Hines, and Michael Notti.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I yield the floor to my colleague from Alaska, who has worked very, very hard on this resolution, and I appreciate his leadership of the same.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we have all talked about what the primary goal is right now in the Senate. It is to reopen the Federal Government, but that is not all we need to reopen right now. As we focus on ending this shutdown, I have come to speak in support of a disapproval resolution that is now pending. This is H.J. Res. 106. This is the companion to the resolution that Senator Sullivan and I have introduced to reopen the Central Yukon resource management plan after BLM finalized it over our objection last fall. The formal name of this rule is the Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan. The name is big, and it is a really big area, encompassing nearly 56 million acres, mostly in Northern and Interior Alaska, so the full State of Alaska. But it is this central area here that is really quite substantial. Not all of that is Federal land. You will see the different colors here. In fact, most of it is not. This RMP is only supposed to affect 13.3 million acres managed by BLM. That is still a lot of land. To put it into perspective, it is more than twice the total acreage of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Vermont. That is what you are looking at here within this region. We do need an RMP, resource management plan, to guide management of the Central Yukon's Federal acres. This plan is meant to replace older regimes that were put in place back in 1981, 1986, and 1991, as well as some lands that are unplanned. This is a big undertaking. It has been going on for a long time. It started back in 2013, 12 years ago, costing taxpayers millions of dollars to complete. I didn't want to have to overturn this RMP because I really do respect much of the work that was done--certainly, the people who worked really hard to do it. I also recognize that some Alaskans support pieces of last year's final plan and are concerned that their input could be lost if it is reopened. But the problem we have here and why we are taking this resolution up today, is that the Biden administration, which was in office during the last few years of this 12-year process, really has left us with no choice here. They lost sight of the need for balanced management. They dropped any pretense of it from the final plan. So despite objections from me, from Senator Sullivan, the State of Alaska, many Alaskan stakeholders, BLM kind of plowed ahead, and they finalized a plan that overwhelmingly prioritizes conservation but fails to reflect the principle of multiple use, multiple use that is required with our public lands and fails to honor the explicit requirements of a Federal law. There are some very significant issues within this plan. There are further deficiencies based on what BLM pledged to do and then refused to do. And that combination is what caused us to file this resolution and to seek a more balanced plan going forward. Let's go through those problems in a little bit greater detail. I expect that one of the things you are going to hear today in opposition is that this is unprecedented; that Congress is now overturning 12 years of nonpolitical, legally sound Agency work. If that were true, I would not be standing here in opposition to this. I would be a no on the resolution, but that is not where we are. In December of 2020 and BLM's eighth year of work on this RMP, the Agency released a draft plan with a pretty reasonable preferred alternative. This is a proposal that would have protected sensitive areas; it would have upheld subsistence and recreational uses; it would have provided opportunities for resource development and other legal uses on BLM land. Under that proposal, many outdated public land orders--we call them PLOs--would have been lifted, and the majority of BLM lands would have been accessible. Just a few years later, we saw a very different preferred alternative emerge from BLM. This was in the middle of the Biden administration. The final Record of Decision issued last November is 362 pages long. There are multiple appendices that total another 1,428 pages. It is 1,800 pages. This is the stack of the maps and the pages of the final Record of Decision--1,800 pages showing those various designations and restrictions. This is in not a user-friendly plan. It is not a printer-friendly plan, that is for sure. But it is also not a BLM employee-friendly plan. It is long and complex. And unless you are really superinvested in learning what was designated as visual resource management class II as opposed to class III or IV, you are probably not really going to enjoy reading it. The differences between what the BLM proposed in 2020 and what BLM finalized in 2024 show how this process went off the rails. I will give you a couple of examples here. In 2020, BLM proposed one area of critical environmental concern--we call them ACECs--and research natural area. These are administrative withdrawals for conservation and restrict other uses. This covered 77,000 acres. Then, last year, BLM's final RMP ballooned this to include 21 ACECs and RNAs, covering 3.6 million acres. This is imposing restrictions on nearly 47 times more land. In 2020, BLM proposed 497,000 acres of special recreation management areas. In 2024, we saw that triple to 1.453 million acres. In 2020, BLM proposed a little over a million acres of utility and transportation corridors. In 2024, that fell by two-thirds to just 33,000 acres. In 2020, BLM proposed to have almost 7.5 million acres open to fluid mineral leasing. Then, in 2024, it leaves just 845,000 acres, and that is 89 percent less. So you can see the dramatic differences between the plan in 2020 and the plan in 2024. There is a lot more I could go through, but the point is that restrictions exploded in the final plan while opportunities for economic development were severely curtailed. We saw it over and over in Alaska over the last 4 years. We don't think it was any accident. You have heard my colleague speak on the floor about this a great deal, but it was just, really, the last administration's goal to reduce and curtail many of these activities. BLM's treatment of public land orders, which have been obsolete in Alaska for decades, also backslid dramatically. These came to be in the 1970s when Alaska's land ownership was greatly unsettled, but they should have been revoked a long time ago. In 2020, BLM proposed to revoke 5.863 million acres of so-called d-1 withdrawals, but then, in 2024, BLM zeroes that out. Instead, they have only lifted withdrawals for one narrow purpose. It is an important purpose, but it is very narrow, and that is allotments for eligible Alaska Vietnam veterans but no others. In 2020, BLM proposed to lift PLO 5150, reflecting State and Native selections around our Trans- Alaska Pipeline corridor, but then, in 2024, BLM reversed course. It refused to lift a single acre of PLO 5150 within the RMP process. The problem is that BLM told us--they told me; they told my team-- that they would address PLO 5150 through a separate process. They called it a tiered environmental assessment, and they said that that was going to begin immediately after the finalization of the Central Yukon RMP. They just had to get to that point, and they just needed us to back off so they could. Guess what never happened. The day after the State of Alaska's consistency review period for the Central Yukon RMP ended, BLM canceled its separate process for PLO 5150. It was an absurd decision. BLM spent years--they spent years--telling us that they could only lift public land orders within the RMP process. And then, as the Central Yukon RMP nears completion, they then tell us that they could only lift one of the most visible PLOs in Alaska outside of it. And then as soon as we reach that point, they break their promise, immediately pulling the whole thing down. My team was actually on the phone with BLM when this happened. They asked about the process, and they were told everything was on track. Everything was going just fine. Right after--probably not even more than 30 minutes after that--BLM calls State officials to tell them it is off and is never coming back. If that is not a bait and switch, you know, I don't know what is. This is where you can start to see how BLM's actions--both what it did and what it refused to do in this RMP-- directly contradict multiple Federal laws. The first is ANILCA, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. That was Alaska's grand bargain. This is where Congress withdrew and conserved tens of millions of acres in our State in exchange for reasonable opportunities for economic development, whether it be within the 1002 Area, the Ambler Road, but this was the deal back in 1980. And to confirm that Alaska had done its part for national conservation, ANILCA also includes several of what we call ``no more'' clauses, reflecting the fact that we were done and that no more wilderness needed to be designated in the State of Alaska. It should be pretty apparent that the unilateral, administrative designation of 3.6 million acres of ACECs, dozens of other restrictions across millions of other acres, and the retention of virtually all land withdrawals, which were supposed to be lifted decades ago, are all directly contrary to ANILCA. The Central Yukon plan also conflicts with a law that I wrote called the Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act. Some people around here are still surprised that Alaska's land ownership is still not settled yet. Sixty-six years after statehood, neither our State nor our Native land entitlements have been fulfilled. We have got millions of acres remaining outstanding on both of these, and their settlement hinges on the Federal Government making available and then transferring selected lands. Congress agreed to enact my Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act back in 2004. We set this goal that our land entitlements would be complete by 2009. That was the 50th anniversary of statehood. Well, that didn't happen, but some good did come from it. BLM surveyed its land withdrawals in Alaska. Then, in 2006, there was a report to Congress that recommended that 95 percent of them--covering 152 million acres--could be lifted consistent with the protection of the public's interest. The only caveat here was that BLM preferred to lift its orders through its land planning process. So we worked with them. We pushed to make that happen. We have appropriated funding to make it happen. But when BLM undertakes a new RMP and decides that not a single acre of a single PLO can be lifted across 13.3 million acres for any other purpose other than Native allotments, you are going to see patience run out, and then it turns to frustration; it turns to opposition. Then it takes us to where we are today, which is to the congressional disapproval of a resource management plan. I would also point out that the Central Yukon RMP conflicts with ANCSA, or the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The regional ANC in the Central Yukon area, Doyon, has rightly pointed out that BLM's actions in this RMP would make it difficult, if not impossible, to utilize its lands for the benefit of its people in line with congressional intent. In a letter to Alaska's congressional delegation, Doyon explained how BLM's restrictive land designations will ``complicate access to and use of Doyon lands and potentially prevent Doyon from fully realizing the economic and other benefits that Congress intended it would enjoy as a result of ANCSA's settlement of aboriginal land claims.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Congressional Record immediately following my remarks. We also received a letter of support for this resolution from the North Slope Trilateral, which includes the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, the North Slope Borough, and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, ASRC. Their letter lays out a series of fundamental flaws within the final Central Yukon plan, including its failure to account for North Slope priorities, the impact that it would have on Native lands, the barriers it creates to cooperative land management, the restrictions it imposes to foreclose the production of rare earth elements and other resources, as well as the lack of consultation with Alaska Natives who live on the North Slope during its development. As the Trilateral writes, ``The result is a plan that ignores congressional intent under both ANCSA and ANILCA, disregards the economic needs of North Slope communities, and creates unnecessary obstacles to infrastructure, energy, and community health across northern Alaska.'' So, again, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter from the North Slope leaders be printed in the Congressional Record following my remarks. The sad part is that what these Alaskans are pointing to-- restrictions that encumber access to lands and opportunities--was largely the point of BLM's final RMP, and that again points to why we are here to disapprove this plan. I should point out that there is a big misunderstanding about the effects of this resolution. There have been some false claims out there, and I think there has been some kind of sloppy reporting of them. But when the House passed this resolution, we saw over and over again in different articles that somehow or other the passage of that resolution had approved the Ambler Access Project, which is not the case. That project has been in permitting for a decade. Then, just on Monday, President Trump issued a determination reapproving it, which we appreciate, but nothing in this disapproval resolution approves that project. So that is just misinformation out there. What is true is that, over the course of decades, Congress has ceded a lot of authority on Federal land management to the executive branch. We trust them to follow the laws that we have made and find a balance between competing uses and priorities. We know it is not an easy job, especially in a State where you have more than 223 million Federal acres, but when the Agencies lose sight of that, it is our job here--it is our responsibility--to rein them in. That is what we are doing. We are reminding BLM that these are public lands that are generally available for multiple use, not exclusively conserved lands with layer after layer of administrative restrictions heaped onto them. Before I end here, I would like to briefly discuss what comes next if we are able to pass this disapproval resolution. It should be very clear. Passage does not invalidate 12 years of Agency work. It does not overturn the environmental analysis that has been done or the public comments that have been received. We are simply reopening this plan, and we are telling BLM: Return. Come back with a new one that is more balanced. That shouldn't be hard, and it shouldn't take that long because the plan already exists. It was just abandoned once the Biden administration took office. For 8 years, BLM was on the right track in this process. It has a readymade plan in the form of its preferred alternative from 2020. The record of decision from last year even acknowledges that the 2020 preferred alternative features a ``blend of resource protection and resource development.'' It is an actual balance between the two, and that is what we should be seeking. It is time to go back to that proposal, update it as needed based on the passage of time, and put into place a final Central Yukon plan that maintains access, respects multiple use, and conserves where necessary and appropriate. It is entirely possible to serve the varied interests of this region, and through this resolution, that is exactly what we are telling BLM to do. When they do, we will have a final Central Yukon resource management plan that Alaska's delegation, the State of Alaska, the largest landowner in the region--Doyon--and a wide range of Alaska stakeholders can support. So I would urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have a news alert. This afternoon, we had a 7.3 earthquake off of the coast of Alaska. Pretty big. We got the alert from KUCB staff members who felt this earthquake out there in Alaska. They contacted the emergency responders. It was an all-hands-on-deck. I am looking at a text I received from the station manager there at KUCB: Three staff members worked at sea level in our studio to get emergency messages on the air in coordination with local public safety officials. A fourth employee worked remotely to update the web and social media. When the tsunami sirens started to glare, the voice message in the warning instructed community members to tune into the local radio. We provided up-to-date information throughout the entire evacuation and all-clear procedures. So the good news is, tsunami is all clear. They say this is the work we do to keep Alaska safe, and it is only possible with Federal funding. Mr. President, I have an amendment that protects public media, their independence, their ability to provide local news, weather reports, and, yes, emergency alerts. What we do in this amendment is we tweak the rescission for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to protect public broadcasting while removing the pot of money that can go directly to NPR. We are reminded today that this stuff matters. I would hope my colleagues would recognize what is at stake and vote for my amendment.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I call up my amendment No. 2865.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I know we are approaching the hour that was planned for the vote on this motion to discharge this rescissions package. I just want to take a couple of minutes. I am going to be voting to oppose discharging this package from committee. It is not that I don't think that we should be doing more when it comes to the oversight of our budget. It is not that I don't think that we should be doing more when it comes to ensuring that we are working to get our levels of spending down, but I also think that we need to be doing more as legislators, more as lawmakers, more as Senators when it comes to our own authorities, our constitutional authorities, when it comes to the power of the purse. We do rescissions. We do rescissions in our annual budget bills, in our own appropriations bills--in fact, bills that we are working on right now as appropriators. We have got a series of markups that are going to be coming up this week. We had some last week. We do this. We look to provisions that have been included in the budgets. We look to reprogram, and we look to rescind. We do that as legislators. There is a good reason, I think, that we haven't seen a successful rescissions package before the Senate in almost 33 years. It is because we have recognized that, hey, that is our role here. That is our role here when it comes to the power of the purse. So I have several concerns, specific concerns, about this package. First, it is unclear to me how the specific accounts that are targeted for the rescission are going to be impacted. Neither the administration nor others have been able to provide that very clear, very transparent explanation about the programs and the priorities that are going to be cut as a result of the measure. Some changes have been proposed to protect local health programs--that is great; that is important--but I think it is important that we have those details, including the ones that are going to be absolutely zeroed out. So how do we determine the implications for lifesaving care, for vital resources for women and children abroad? We have got big, broad categories, but I haven't been given the comfort, if you will, that we are not impacting maternal and child health; that we are not impacting HIV/AIDS; that we are not impacting nutrition programs and programs related to tuberculosis, malaria, polio, neglected tropical disease, pandemic prevention, family planning. I think that we are entitled to have that level of detail when these funds that we have authorized, that we have appropriated, are now being clawed back. I don't think that that is too much to ask. When it comes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, my colleagues know I have been a strong supporter, and I will continue to be a strong supporter. If you don't like what is going on within NPR and you think there is too much bias there, we can address that--we can address that--but you don't need to gut the entire Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The entity--the program--that provides for so much support, particularly for those in rural places, is not just your news. It is your tsunami alert; it is your landslide alert; it is your volcano alert; it is the weather to let you know it is safe to go out and get on the fishing grounds; it is your educational programming. I am going to continue to be an advocate for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. So I have got concerns about the contents of the package, yes. I have concerns about the details that we have not been able to fully receive. But more importantly than all of that--more importantly--is our role here. I don't want us to go from one reconciliation bill to a rescissions package to another rescissions package to a reconciliation package to a continuing resolution. We are lawmakers. We should be legislating. What we are getting now is direction from the White House and are being told: This is the priority. We want you to execute on it. We will be back with you with another round. I don't accept that. I am going to be voting no. Vote on Motion to Discharge

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I have 12 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the historic remarks of my Democratic colleagues, led by the Senator from Rhode Island after 300 floor appearances on 1 subject.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Thursday, July 10; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of Calendar No. 64, Jonathan Gould; further, notwithstanding rule XXII, at 11 a.m., the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Gould nomination, and following that vote, the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Calendar No. 261, Whitney D. Hermandorfer; further, if cloture is invoked, the Senate vote on confirmation of the Gould nomination at 1:45 p.m.; and if cloture is invoked on the Hermandorfer nomination, all postcloture time be expired and the Senate vote on confirmation at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the Democratic leader on Monday, July 14; finally, if any nominations are confirmed during Thursday or Monday's session of the Senate, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to my first session summer interns Amanda Edgar, Grace Kolean, Jeffry Alsup, Rhiannon Dobbins, Wesley Hulbert, Selby Long, Brooke Markoff, Mia Parish, Karley Thrun, Drake Ward, Braxton Zine, and Vanessa Auth and to my Senate Committee on Indian Affairs interns Elmore Limberhand, Julia King, and Austin West for the month of June 2025 in the 119th Congress.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I am really very glad we were able to reach agreement today to pass these four bills by unanimous consent and will send them to the President to be signed into law. I want to acknowledge and thank my colleague and friend from Nevada Senator Cortez Masto. I also want to acknowledge Senator Markey from Massachusetts. They worked with us to try to get us to the place we are today in which we were able to move these bills across the floor. I also want to thank the chairman of the Energy Committee and the ranking member, Chairman Lee and Ranking Member Heinrich. Their teams worked with us on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as well as the cloakroom teams, to make sure we were able to be successful today. The Senate passed all four of these measures last December, so we have seen them once. Now we have seen them twice. But the House ran out of time at the end of the last Congress to take them up, so we are where we are. But now these bills are going to be going to the President for his signature. Two of the bills we just passed are important for Alaska Natives, and I am proud to have been able to work on these important measures. It has been a multiyear effort to get them to the President's desk. Again, I don't care, really, if we send an H.R. or if we send a Senate bill to the President; we just want to get it accomplished. We want to get some things done for Alaska. The first measure, which is H.R. 42, amends the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA. It amends it to ensure that when Alaska Native elders, the blind, and the disabled receive dividends from their settlement trusts, they do not inadvertently become, then, ineligible to participate in Federal needs-based assistance programs. This is pretty common sense. You have a situation where Alaska Natives who are aged, blind, or disabled should not have to choose between accepting the settlement trust income they are entitled to or qualifying for Federal benefits such as supplemental security income, SSI, or SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as well as housing assistance. Now, with this bill, they are not going to have to make that choice. The second measure is H.R. 43, the Alaska Native Village Municipal Lands Restoration Act. What this does is eliminate a requirement under ANCSA, section 14(c)(3), that Alaska Native village corporations convey land to the State of Alaska to be held in trust for future municipalities, which are not likely to ever be established. So what we are doing with this measure is sunsetting this requirement and allowing village corporations to regain title to conveyed lands. This will allow village corporations to fully utilize their lands for the benefit of their communities. This is what we want to see happen. Again, it has been a long time coming. So I am pleased that we are here. I am hopeful that the Senate can pass more of these similar, very noncontroversial bills through the unanimous consent process. We shouldn't get into the practice where we wait until the end of a Congress or perhaps even multiple Congresses for a package to be knit together. People in these communities are waiting on us, as Senator Cortez Masto noted in her State of Nevada and in my State of Alaska. They are waiting on us to deliver these small legislative priorities that will allow them to move forward, whether it is economic development or just making sure that there is a level of equity and fairness. So I thank my colleagues, I thank the Energy Committee, as well as the floor team, and my staff who helped us move these measures forward. I yield the floor.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, yesterday was a day that really captured the attention of the world. We have all been talking about tariffs for a little bit, but yesterday was the day that really brought the focus to what was going on here in the United States. At 12:01 in the morning on Wednesday, President Trump's tariffs on the countries with which the United States has had the largest trade deficits went into effect, on top of the 10-percent tariff rates that had previously applied to all countries, which had been initiated on Saturday, April 5. And then just hours later yesterday afternoon, the President announced a 90-day pause on lowering reciprocal tariffs to then 10 percent--at the same time announced that he was raising tariffs on China to 125 percent. Now today, it looks like that number is closer to 145 percent. To say this has been a dizzying week in Washington, DC, is probably an understatement. Those of us who are following the markets, it has been somewhat headspinning. I am not going to comment here on the floor today about the negotiating tactics of President Trump. I think he is legendary and really world-renowned for his skills at that--his skills in bringing nations to the table. We are seeing some of this play out literally as we speak; other countries that have approached the administration to have discussions about tariffs. This is a unique kind of leverage, most certainly keeping those across the table off-balance. But bringing the world, potentially, to a--to the brink of a ruinous trade war certainly qualifies as a very unique point of leverage. The effort to try to reshore manufacturing here in this country is important, it is admirable, and it is something that we all should be working toward. But I think there has been general agreement that the message from the administration has been decidedly mixed, which leads to further confusion among our trading partners and our allies. If nobody understands where the finish line is, it is hard to reach it. I don't want to focus my comments here this afternoon about these possible strategies and end results of these policies so much. But I want to focus more on the process of how these tariffs were imposed because I believe--I believe--it is yet another example of Congress is choosing to cede its powers to the executive branch. If the global implications of these tariffs have shown us nothing else, it is that measures that are as important as the issue be considered by the 535 elected individuals that are in tune with the American people rather than vesting that with just one individual acting unilaterally. It is under article I section 8 of our U.S. States Constitution that clearly enumerates that Congress ``shall have Power To Lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises.'' In other words, the power to levy tariffs rests with us here in Congress. So why--why--have we seen the Executive take control over tariff rates? And the answer lies in almost a century-long series of bills that we have seen here that Congress has voluntarily--voluntarily--enacted and laid down its authority for the Executive to pick up. Following the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which plunged our Nation deeper into the Great Depression, Congress passed the following legislation: First, it was the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, which authorized the President to make limited tariff rates without congressional review on top of negotiating bilateral reciprocal trade agreements. Then it was the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which broadened the President's trade powers to include multilateral trade agreements while also allowing the President to unilaterally impose tariffs if imports could threaten national security. Then the Trade Act of 1974, which allowed the President to protect U.S. workers by adjusting tariffs if foreign countries engaged in unfair trade practices. And then just a few years later, it was the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which gives the President authorities to address declared emergencies if ``unusual and extraordinary'' threats exist to national security, foreign policy, or to the economy. So powers include--you probably guessed it--the authority to ``regulate'' or ``prohibit'' imports. So in his April 2 Executive order, President Trump declared a national emergency because of ``a lack of reciprocity in our bilateral trade relationships'' and our ``trading partners' economic policies that suppress domestic wages.'' He is authorized--he is authorized to do so under the National Emergencies Act of 1976. So I want to be clear about all of this. I know some people might not like it, but all of what he has done is clearly above board. The President is clearly within his powers to impose tariffs on our allies like Mexico and Canada and the EU just as much as he is with our adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran. President Trump, and President Biden before him, took this route because Congress has largely relegated tariff authority to the President through the laws that effectively cede to the Executive. And, my friends, it is just one more example--just one more example-- of Congress abdicating instead of legislating. In my time here, I have seen a troubling pattern in both bodies where the party that controls the White House seems all too comfortable relinquishing authority to the President and then rubberstamping whatever policies the Executive wants enshrined into law. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have deferred to the Executive to call the shots, in my view, for far too long. Now, we use the phrase around here a lot, ``coequal branches of government.'' I use it all the time. But the reality is, Congress was created in article I--article I of the Constitution. We are given far more authority than the Executive. All you need to do is look in your handy-dandy pocket Constitution. Ours is a lot longer, but look at the authorities that we have: Congress may impeach and remove a President and members of the judiciary; Congress can override a Presidential veto of legislation; Congress appropriates the money that funds the operation of all branches of government; and it is Congress that, again, needs to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises. We also say a lot around here that ``business loves certainty.'' I would suggest the country's entire tariff regime being subject to the whims of one individual lends anything but certainty, and that is why-- that is why--I have signed onto Senator Grassley and Senator Cantwell's legislation. They call it the Trade Review Act of 2025, and it would reclaim this branch's authority and duty to help manage tariffs as outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The bill requires notice to the Congress of the imposition of--or increase in--any tariffs, requires notice to the Congress in 48 hours; and with that congressional notification, it has to include an explanation of the President's reasoning for imposing or raising the tariffs as well as providing an analysis of potential impact on American businesses and consumers. I can tell you, the Alaskans that I am talking to back home would really like the last part of this, an analysis of: How is this going to impact us? Another provision within the Grassley-Cantwell act is, within 60 days, Congress would pass a joint resolution for approval on the new tariff. Otherwise, all new tariffs on imports could expire on that deadline. So what this act effectively would do would be to reaffirm Congress's role with regards to tariffs. It allows for a greater engagement, if you will, between the executive and the congressional branch; allows for the debate; allows for that engagement; allows for that understanding. Again, I am hearing from folks all over back home because they are worried. We already pay high costs for just about everything in Alaska, but they are worried what it is going to mean for groceries, for cars, for furniture, electronics, coffee. We had a visit with a group of high school students on the steps yesterday and they were from all over the State. You had some from Ketchikan all the way up to King Cove and out in the Y-K Delta. And the first question from one of the 16-year-olds in that group was: Can you tell me what is going on with tariffs? How is this going to impact us? You know, I really appreciated that question from that 16-year-old, who is paying attention to what is going on. He has got questions. He is here in Washington, DC, and he is figuring he is going to get some answers from his Senator. Alaskans are facing consequences. They want to know that they have a voice in it. And their voice is us. It is their Senator. It is their Representative. That is our role here. Now, it has been suggested--the President himself has issued a statement about this legislation. He has indicated that he does not support it and that he would veto it. That is absolutely within his power, but we also have powers. We also have powers here in Congress, and we need to assert them. So I would hope that this bill is maybe just the start--maybe just the toe in the water here where we are starting to see Congress reassert its authority. Because if we don't stand up for the institution, if we don't stand up for the legislative branch of our government by debating this issue and others, but holding votes, debating--let's debate this. Let's have a vote on the Trade Review Act. Because if we just sit back, if we don't assert our authority, we have only got ourselves to blame when we don't like the direction that may be taken. The Executive has slowly arrogated more and more power since the end of World War II, and it has dramatically accelerated post 9/11, but we here in Congress have stood by, and we have accepted it. We have said it is OK. I think it is time for Congress to reassert itself, whether it is on tariffs, whether it is on the power of appropriation, whether it is overseeing the bodies and the Agencies that we as a body have authorized. So let's legislate. Let's remember our role is to legislate. We owe that to those that we represent as well as to this institution for the long-term good of the Nation. I yield the floor.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

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

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, before I begin my comments, I wanted to acknowledge the extraordinary life and the contributions of Senator Alan Simpson from Wyoming. I had an opportunity to hear several of my colleagues speak to the accomplishments of Senator Alan Simpson. And while I did not have an opportunity to serve with him, my father served many years with Al Simpson, and he and my mother Nancy were very close friends with Al and his wife Ann. They traveled together. They joked together. And I had an opportunity to occasionally meet with Al Simpson. As has been mentioned, his humor was legendary. And as a young woman who was kind of observing, here you have this very important person, this Senator from Wyoming, who was very accomplished in so many years, with a sense of humor and a joke for just about everything--sometimes appropriate, maybe sometimes not quite as appropriate. But he was a genuinely beautiful individual, and you saw how he reacted and interacted with people at all levels. I can only imagine the depth of appreciation and love that he had from the people in the great State of Wyoming because those of us who had just mere glimpses of an opportunity to see him and to know him found him to just be truly a lovely and a good man. So I know that my parents would want me to be able to express my condolences to the Simpson family and the great appreciation for the contributions that he made to his State of Wyoming and to our great country.

Ms. MURKOWSKI

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I am pleased to be on the floor today with the Senator from New Hampshire as well as other colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support Ukraine. We are now more than 3 years into Russia's unprovoked brutal war against Ukraine. I think we are encouraged by the news that we are seeing advance this afternoon with the talks in Saudi Arabia between the United States and Ukrainian officials as they talk about the potential for a cease-fire and potential for the United States to restore military support and intelligence sharing. These are promising developments. I think we all want to--we all want to--arrive at a place where we see peace. But when we talk about how the peace is gained, I think, again, the discussions that are had on this floor--those of us who have had an opportunity to go to Ukraine and see the situation on the ground ourselves, to speak with so many engaged in this effort--the stakes are not only about Ukraine's sovereignty. The stakes also include our values, our security, and our credibility as the leader of the free world. This is not just a regional conflict on the edge of Europe. It is a global test. It is a test of whether the international community will allow borders to be redrawn by force, a test of whether democracies will continue to stand together when authoritarian regimes literally try to rewrite the rules, and, yes, it is a test; it is a test of American leadership in the 21st century. As was stated, the Ukrainian people are not asking us to fight their war. They are doing the fighting. It is their sons, it is their daughters that are dying. What they are asking of us as the world's leading democracy is to help us with the tools, help us with the arms, the ammunition, the logistical support; help them protect them; help them with the intelligence that can be provided through satellite imaging; help them so that they can protect themselves. I think we should be proud. We should be proud as Americans that we have helped to make a difference. We have helped Ukraine push back the Russian advance. It has prevented Kyiv from falling to Russia. It continues to help Ukrainian defenders hold the line there. So every weapons system, every round of ammunition and radar and drone that we have helped to provide--these aren't just supplies; these are literally lifelines to the people. When you think about the people, I think it is important to also recognize another way that we have helped in this country. Senator Shaheen showed a picture of the Ukrainian families and the people in her State. In Alaska, we have welcomed, we have embraced, we have helped situate Ukrainian families who have sought refuge, who are here in a place like Alaska, in a place like New Hampshire, because where they call home is not safe to be. So how we can support them is important because when we support Ukraine, we are not just helping a nation in need, we are protecting and we are preserving the rules-based international order that has helped keep the peace for generations. If we falter, others are watching. Others are watching the situation in Moscow, in Beijing, in Tehran, Pyongyang. So if it is seen that we are walking away from Ukraine, if we embrace appeasement, we embolden every aggressor around the globe. More than that, it is our allies, it is our friends, our partners-- they are watching this, and they are asking the question: Is the United States a country that can be depended on? Are we seeing this alliance that we have had, that we have worked to nurture and build for 80 years--are we seeing that fray? I understand absolutely the cause for restraint in our support--that war costs too much, that we need to be focusing on issues here at home--but, again, the fight is bigger than that. It is significant, yes, for Ukraine, but it is about democratic values and standing up for democratic values; it is about stopping the expansionist ambitions of authoritarian regimes. I think we have to be honest here. Look at history. Russia is not going to stop at Ukraine. In 2005, in a state of the nation address, Putin said: The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. He has never hidden his ambitions from that statement. When Putin says that the ``ongoing collapse of Western hegemony is irreversible,'' he means us. He means our allies and the broader narrative about the decline of Western influence. He wants NATO to be divided, and he wants the United States isolated. This works to his advantage. He just probably didn't expect that America was going to do it for him. Now, as an Alaskan, I get geography. I am acutely aware of the threat a more aggressive Russia poses just across the Bering Sea. Two miles separate the United States--Alaska's Little Diomede and Russia's Big Diomede. We see Russia's military buildup when we see the Russian bombers that are flying in our area, when we see the Russian and the Chinese naval forces out in our waters. But we also know and have long known that a destabilized Europe means a more dangerous world for the United States. This conflict may seem like a continent away, a long way away, but the consequences are anything but distant. We all want this war to end, but it cannot end on Russia's terms. If it does, we should expect nothing more than a temporary respite before the resumption of hostilities. Why are we going to start trusting and believing Putin's word now given his track record? We have seen this before. History doesn't lie, and the appeasement of tyrants does not bring peace. Russia started this conflict, and it is critical for us to stand with Ukraine to end it--not just because it is right but because it is necessary. I yield the floor.