Jeff Merkley

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Washington State for her fierce advocacy on healthcare and on so much more in terms of the affordability of living in America. Our families are oppressed. Mr. President, we are considering a trio of appropriations bills, and one of those is the appropriation bill, or spending bill, for Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. I believe that this Interior bill for fiscal year 2026 is an important step toward Congress reclaiming its constitutional power of the purse. The bill protects funding for public lands, including national parks, wildlife refuges, conservation lands, and national forests. President Trump's proposed budget slashed $1 billion from the National Park Service and created the opportunity to transfer or sell off our national park treasures. This bill rejects that vision. It has a better plan: full staffing capacity for our national parks, full complement of seasonal staff, State and Tribal historic preservation offices funded, and needed park maintenance and repairs funded. President Trump proposed massive cuts to the U.S. Forest Service, which would be devastating, $1.4 billion in cuts. Those of us who live in the West who have significant amounts of Federal forests know how much investment it takes to appropriately manage these lands. So this bill presents a better plan. It funds the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program. It preserves State forestry grants and programs for research and forest health management. It invests in hazardous fuels reduction projects and wildfire preparedness and suppression efforts. It ensures that Federal wildlife firefighters are fully paid. The bill funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million instead of a much smaller amount proposed by the President. And this bill requires that all projects get funded, not simply projects that the President favors. The bill fully funds Payments in Lieu of Taxes, normally known as PILT, to ensure counties across the country, especially rural communities, have resources they need. The bill upholds our commitment and treaty obligations to Tribes. It rejects President Trump's attempt to slash $1 billion from Tribal programs. It boosts funding for the Indian Health Services. It provides resources to staff newly opened hospitals and clinics, and it preserves the Indian Health Services advanced appropriations for fiscal year 2027 to ensure that, if there is a government shutdown, healthcare through the Indian Health Service will not shut down. That is protection for 2.5 million people across Indian Country. President Trump proposed gutting the Environmental Protection Agency. This bill has a better plan. It provides almost $5 billion above his budget. It protects the Energy Star Program, the water and wastewater State Revolving Funds--so important to so many communities across the land--and the WIFIA Program, the Water Infrastructure Finance Innovation Act, that provides low-cost loans for large water projects across the country that would otherwise be unaffordable. It preserves programs for air quality management and pollution control. And the bill includes more than $1.7 billion for community initiated projects. Now, these are projects where communities said, Here is our top priority, and Senators then advocated and House Members advocated that those projects be included in this budget. That is a powerful vision of a local understanding of the best and the most important need being addressed through this bill. Often, that involves replacing wastewater treatment plants or restoring critical watersheds. This bill, in addition to these programs, takes another critical step forward. When programs are included in an appropriations bill, the details of how Congress intends for those funds to be spent are traditionally laid out in report language. The report language doesn't have the force of law, but in the understanding of the separation of powers, the administrations of the past respected and operated according to that report language. Every single former Presidential administration has honored those directives, but not the Trump administration. That is why we have included 140 new line items in legislative text, moving items that used to be in report language into the actual language of the law. It is a challenge if the administration does not respect the visions laid out through the language of our spending bills. How can Members of Congress negotiate a compromise that includes the priorities of different Senators from different parts of the country, different House Members from all over the country, if a President is going to say, Well, you know what, I have decided I am simply not going to act on some of those projects; maybe I will only implement the projects for red States and not blue States? Or maybe a different President might say: I will to the projects for blue States but not red States--or Senators I like rather than Senators I don't like. No. That is unacceptable. Every time you hear the phrase of the administration saying--a Cabinet Member or the President himself, We are going to cut programs that don't align with the administration's priorities, that is an authoritarian strongman state comment that breaks the law and guts the Constitution. That is the administration stealing the power of the purse. The Founders deliberately placed the power of the purse--the spending power--with Congress. You can read it in article I of the Constitution because it is therefore the people's representatives who decide the design of the programs and how much money they will receive. If just the Chief Executive makes those decisions, then we don't have a President; we have a King; we have a tyrant. And we here in Congress have failed our responsibility to defend the Constitution--yes, that Constitution, the one we took an oath to defend. It is the vision of a democratic republic that we come together from all over the country, from different walks of life, and work together to forge spending bills and authorizing bills that serve interests across this Nation. In a continuing resolution last year, Congress abdicated that responsibility. We failed in defending the Constitution and effectively handed the President a blank check. That is exactly what Trump wanted this year, another blank check to operate as a tyrant instead of a constitutional President. But he is not getting it. We have protections in these spending bills that take a significant stride toward defense of our constitutional responsibility and the power of the purse. Now, it is not as strong a language as I would have liked, and yes, there is vulnerability to slow-walking or freezing or transferring, but we have taken a strong step in the right direction. There is more we need to do in that, more than we ever thought we had to do, but it is going to take the majority and minority parties working together to fully restore our responsibility under the Constitution. A huge thank you to the chair of the committee, the subcommittee, Senator Murkowski. She is a great partner to work with. We come from different sides of the aisle, but we both come from States full of BLM lands--Bureau of Land Management lands, that is--full of forests, full of challenges that are addressed in this bill. We both care a great deal about the environment, that we have a responsibility to defend now and hand to the next generation in healthy condition. The bill that we worked on together here in the Senate, it passed the Senate committee 26 to 2. That says a lot. To summarize, the bill before us today rejects the President's disastrous cuts. It defends our public lands and our Tribal programs and our environment. It keeps out new poison pill riders--and there were a lot of them in the House version of this bill. Together, let's proceed to do more of this kind of bipartisan work and to enable the responsibilities invested in Congress to be fulfilled in responsibility to our constituents across the Nation and the structure of our democratic republic.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to grant floor privileges to my interns for their shadow days on the following dates: Wes Baskette on January 28, Justine Wendt on February 4, Shireen Kaul on February 11, Inez Nieves on February 25, Maria Ambrozewicz on March 4, Finnegan Hecox on March 11, Grace Davenport on March 18, Kiley Huffman on March 25, Xenia Ellis on April 15, Anushka Pandey on April 22, Violet Sheehan on April 29, Zach Marchetti on May 14, Jack Schallich on May 20, and Joseph Novack on June 3; as well as my fellows Mary Trechok and Robin Watson Moser for the rest of the year.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. I thank my colleague Senator Whitehouse, who has been pointing out that we have a money and politics system that is corrupting the vision of government by and for the people and is replacing it with government by and for the powerful. Who in America wants a governmental system, designed and intended to be a reflection of ordinary citizens' desires and aspirations and opinions, to simply be a country run by oligarchs, by billionaires? Yet that is where we have arrived. We absolutely need to change this campaign system--moneys in the campaign--in order to save any possibility of a republic by and for the people. What we really have now are two campaign systems--one for ordinary citizens and one for the megarich that gives the megarich extraordinary power. If you or I make a donation to a candidate, well, first of all, there is a cap on it of several thousand dollars. I know nobody in my blue- collar community donates several thousand dollars to a campaign, but there are upper middle-income families that do donate thousands of dollars, but it is thousands, not millions, not tens of millions, and it is completely disclosed. You can look up who gave to the candidate. It is disclosed. It is capped. That is the system for ordinary Americans. But then there is the system for the powerful that every single Republican in this Chamber keeps voting to defend. It is called the dark money system. There is no cap on the amount that can be donated. There is no public disclosure to the American people. The Supreme Court created this dual system, saying: You know, a cap on money to the candidate--well, that could produce a conflict of interest or appearance of corruption, so you can cap it. But if you give it to the friend of the candidate to run a parallel campaign, well, that is suddenly whitewashed or washed clean and no influence on the candidate. The candidate probably won't even know about it. Well, everyone knows that is a complete fallacy, complete and totally. Somebody gives $10 million to the friend of the candidate to run a parallel campaign, the candidate knows that is happening. They know the ads. They hear about the source. Even that parallel campaign-- they can still share staff. I mean, there is no real division between them. So that was a completely phony distinction created by the Court to create a system of corporate and billionaire power in America. As my colleague pointed out in the context of climate, we saw a radical change immediately. Well, the growth in dark money has been stunning. Because there is so much money among the oligarchs and billionaires, they want to spend it to create laws that favor the oligarchs and billionaires, and they are spending at an extraordinary rate. Six years ago, it was about $300 million. That is a lot of money. But according to the Brennan Center article from May 7--Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this Brennan Center article printed in the Record.

Mr. MERKLEY. Dark money hit a record-high $1.9 billion in the 2024 races. That is a sixfold increase in 6 years. That is the rich and powerful buying their government. It is an absolute travesty. No one in the founding community of our Nation who wrote the Declaration of Independence, who wrote the Constitution, wanted to design a system where the megarich ran the place as a cabal of elites, but that is what we have, and that is what we have to change. We saw this with President Trump. On April 11 in 2024, he met with the fossil fuel executives. He had dinner at Mar-a-Lago. His pitch was simple: In exchange for $1 billion, he told them, he promised to prioritize their preferences in the next election. Well, those fossil fuel leaders delivered hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in election spending and lobbying. And what did Trump do? He delivered for them. He gave them $18 billion in new and expanded tax breaks. A pretty good deal, huh? With hundreds of millions of dollars invested, you get $18 billion in tax breaks. He penalized their competition. The renewable energy that is cheaper and cleaner? He put up all kinds of obstacles to favor dirty, more expensive fossil fuels. He green-lighted LNG terminals. He blocked new solar and wind. He took the United States out of the Paris climate accords. That is the example of how this money corrupts. So everything we are fighting for, for the ordinary person, is being torched by these megadonations. You saw what Trump calls this Big Beautiful bill. It was really a big, ugly betrayal of American families. It proceeded to cut nutrition. It proceeded to cut healthcare to deliver, well, trillions of dollars of tax breaks for the richest Americans, and it even will run up the debt by $30 trillion in the next 30 years for those richest Americans. If we are going to change this, we have to change this dynamic. If we fail, we have really failed in our oath to the Constitution. I invite my Republican colleagues to start fighting for a vision of government by and for the people, not by and for the elite--oligarchs and the billionaires. Let's save our Republic.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, 5 years and 2 days ago, the Capitol Police protected us as a team stormed the Capitol. Many other forces came and defended the Capitol as well. It was more than just stopping folks headed toward the Capitol to try to interrupt the counting of votes; it was protecting the peaceful transfer of power, which goes to the heart of the Republic. In 2022, we passed a law saying we would put up this plaque to recognize the valiant efforts of the police officers, but the plaque has not gone up yet; so I am here to team up with my colleague from North Carolina in order to have a strategy to make sure that we do get this plaque up until the House and Senate can reach an agreement. Therefore, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 580.

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

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I yield to my colleague from North Carolina. I will have some comments following his comments. We also have the Democratic lead on the Rules Committee here who would like to weigh in on the importance of this action.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it was an extraordinary moment to be sitting here in this Chamber and seeing a member of the staff's team run down the aisle to the podium, speak quietly to the Vice President, have the Vice President immediately gavel down the session and depart through the side door; then to see police officers from the Capitol Police immediately engaged, working to lock the doors, protect this Chamber; and whole teams set up to ensure the safety of the Members of the Senate, with the same thing happening over on the House side. Then, within a few hours, as my colleague from North Carolina has pointed out, the Capitol was secured, but in the process, 170 police officers in defending the Capitol were injured, and as a consequence of the attack on that day, 5 died. So it was no small movement. It was not a peaceful protest outside but a storming of the Capitol, with some brutal assaults on folks within, on the police officers within. It is so important that we fulfill the vision of the 2022 law and get this plaque up to honor those police officers. What this resolution is saying is that we in the Senate will put it up here, in a publicly available space, until a deal can be reached with the House of Representatives to display it. Both Chambers have to agree on that, but this is to put it up here in the Senate in a place where the public can see it. That we can do here on our own, and we intend to do it. That is the right thing to do. It was a shocking thing to me this week because, simultaneous with discovering that this plaque had been stashed away in a room--out of sight somewhere--and that there wasn't an agreement to display it, I also saw the White House's posting, saying that it was a fiction that the Capitol was assaulted and that it was just a peaceful protest outside. It is so important we be honest with the American people about what happened. It is so important that we recognize those who defended our democratic Republic on that day. It is so important that people know that we came back as Senators and House Members and finished our work that day for the peaceful transfer of power, which is essential to the future of our democratic Republic, and that we succeed in that every 4 years. We have all taken an oath to the Constitution, and that is one of the most important functions to preserve in the Constitution--the integrity of the ballot box, which is the beating heart of a democratic republic--and the subsequent peaceful transfer of power.

Mr. MERKLEY. I will yield, yes.

Mr. MERKLEY. I am so glad my colleague mentioned that because, for us to take action here, we have to have bipartisan work, including the leadership on both sides of the aisle. So while neither my colleague from North Carolina nor I are in the leadership of our--at least I am not, but we worked with our leadership to make this happen. So this is an example of bipartisan cooperation on a very important point. So with that, unless my colleague from North Carolina has more to share, I am going to yield to my colleague from California and thank him and his leadership on the Rules Committee as we worked to get to this point, with a bipartisan partnership, to get this plaque honoring the police officers from many groups--most, of course, the Capitol Police, but several other groups--that came to defend the Capitol and make sure they know how much we appreciate what their sacrifice was to defend democracy on that day 5 years and 2 days ago. I yield to my colleague from California.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, Donald Trump has taken us back to the era of gunboat diplomacy over the last 4 months, back to that era when a powerful nation would station its gunships off the coast of another nation in order to compel them to do what we wanted to enable us to have access to their resources, to force them to enable our corporations to take over their economy. It is a deeply powerfully resented strategy for nations to say: Hey, that militarily powerful other nation came and threatened us with their gunboats in order to take our resources and profit the more powerful nation--gunboat diplomacy. And yet here we are. This is hot off the press from CNN. Two senior White House officials told the CNN reporters: ``During conversations led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Trump administration told Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez that the country must cut ties with China, Iran, Russia and Cuba, and agree to partner exclusively with the US on oil production.'' And that ``Rodriguez,'' the Acting President, of Venezuela, ``must also agree to favor the Trump administration and US oil companies for future oil sales.'' Gunboats off the coast. Threats to say we will keep grabbing your oil tankers to prevent you from selling your resource on the international market unless we, the United States, take control of your oil. Sorry, Venezuela. Well, this certainly wasn't about the future of a better Venezuela for Venezuelans. You know, just 18 months ago, the people of Venezuela voted in a Presidential election, and they voted for a man named Gonzalez, who was a stand-in for the champion of democracy, Maria Machado, who just received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. They voted, according to the estimates of monitors, about a ratio of 2 to 1--2 to 1--for democracy. No, Venezuela is no stranger to democracy. They had a democracy for three decades, and they lost it to the internal corrosion of the separation of powers and the checks and balances of a democracy. And certainly that led to the current tyranny, the authoritarian state that they live in now. But did the Trump administration say: We want to help Venezuelans reclaim their country? No. They said: We like dictatorships. We just want a pliable dictatorship. So they said: We are leaving in place this entire structure of corrupted military and government officials with massive corruption, and yet we will have a new Acting President, who has assured us that she will do what we want. And what do we want? We want your oil. We want it under the control only of U.S. corporations. That is hardly a message that helps the United States in our standing or our interests in the world. First of all, it produces enormous hostility from countries that faced that type of coercion in the past. They well remember the United States using its economic might, its military might, to try to exploit their resources through our U.S. corporations. So it undermines our collaboration around the world. You know a second thing it does, it undermines the respect we are held in--or used to be held in--for advancing the vision of democracy, of government by and for the people, kind of the light that we brought to the world to say: The world shouldn't be in a situation where citizens are ruled by powerful people for their own gain. No, they should be able to make their own decisions for their own future, for their own better future. But you didn't hear any discussion about honoring the will of the Venezuelan people who voted 18 months ago, 2 to 1, for democracy. So now we are looking at a situation where we see other challenges that flow from this, this continuation of a dictatorship by Delcy Rodriguez, the Vice President, who Secretary Rubio has said is more pliable, more manipulatable, will more service our interest than the predecessor, and yet all the corruption of that authoritarian government, all of the repression left fully in place. President Trump said: If she doesn't do what's right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro. Leave the dictatorship in place. Put a person in charge we think is more going to bend to our pressure, and threaten her--the President of the United States threatened her with something worse than what he did to Maduro. Trump's goal is clear: He doesn't mind if there is a dictatorship, as long as it is our dictatorship, serving us, the American corporations, and the Trump administration, rather than the Venezuelan people. The people of Venezuela deserve free and fair elections. And then let's talk about how this entire setup for this gunboat diplomacy was based on a massive lie to the American people. The Trump administration said: This is about stopping drugs coming into the United States that have done so much damage to our families. Well, we are all very sympathetic to stopping every bit of drugs that come into our country. We have cocaine. We have fentanyl. We have meth. But here is the story: On the Venezuelan exports of cocaine, expert after expert says, overwhelmingly, that is the path of drugs to Europe, not the United States. And then the Trump administration said: But--wait, wait, wait--there must be fentanyl down in Venezuela. We are stopping fentanyl from coming into the United States. But that, too, was another lie. The fentanyl comes from Mexico. It comes across our southern border. It is made with precursors from China. We are pressing China to end their distribution or their importation or exportation of those precursors into Mexico, and we are working with the Mexican Government to stop the flow into the United States, doing everything we can to find those places where the fentanyl is made. We need to stop fentanyl in every possible way, but Venezuela is not the source of the fentanyl problem. I think about how it was the case with George W. Bush that he created a fake story about weapons of mass destruction to lead us into a massive regime-change strategy and nation-building strategy in Iraq. Huge amounts of American treasure and lives paid the price. Four thousand U.S. servicemembers died, and $2 trillion of our American treasure that could have built our schools, could have built our healthcare system, could have built our infrastructure was wasted because of a big lie told to the American people. And now we have the Trump administration with this big lie that this was about drugs, when it turns out that it is about regime change and it is about oil. What bothers me is a lot, but it is the fact that the administration directly lied to the American people and lied in the classified hearings that they held up here on Capitol Hill, saying: Nope, no plans for regime change. Well, it turns out those plans had been developing over a very significant period of time. So if it was about drugs, by the way, the President wouldn't have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, a drug kingpin, right in the middle of the process of saying he is trying to stop drugs. Here is a guy who was sitting in our prison because he was the architect of a cocaine superhighway into the United States of America, delivering an estimated 400 tons of cocaine, devastating hundreds of thousands of American families, and Trump busted him out of prison while he was saying he was absolutely trying to stop drugs. You don't send a message about stopping drugs by taking a kingpin and setting him free, and yet that is exactly--exactly--what happened. And then we have this issue of the administration saying: Hey, this isn't a military operation--no, no, no. It is a judicial operation. If it is a judicial operation, then what we are talking about is an American indictment supported by an extraterritorial rendition, a fancy term for going abroad and kidnapping the person whom we have an indictment on. Is that a principle that we abide by in the law? Are we saying: Hey, Canada, if you have an indictment, come to the United States of America and grab an American citizen. We are fine with that. I say: Hell, no. We don't want any country coming to the United States of America and grabbing people off our streets, and yet that is the principle that Donald Trump just promoted and exemplified to the world: We are going to go kidnap somebody we have an indictment for. And if it was about an indictment, then it would have ended the moment that he was on the plane being brought to the United States. But it doesn't end--does it?--because we are hearing from the administration that it is about us now running Venezuela. Obviously, this was a military operation--a military operation not in support of an indictment; a military operation in support of a regime change and in support of taking oil. That is why my colleague from Virginia is bringing forth the War Powers Resolution--because if it is a military operation, it should go through Congress because our Constitution says so. If we go back to how the Founders viewed this situation, we can turn to James Madison, who wrote to Thomas Jefferson and said: The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature. That is our Constitution--vested in the legislature because issues of war and peace should never be entrusted to one person. It is too tempting. That is why our Founders put it in the responsibility of this Congress. So to my colleague from Virginia, thank you for bringing forth this War Powers Resolution. Under the leadership of the last year, the House and the Senate have failed their article I responsibilities in three very significant ways. First of all, they have not defended the power of the purse placed here with Congress, not the President. Every time the President shuts down a program and says, ``It is authorized, it is funded, but I am ending it because it doesn't align with the priorities of the administration,'' that is an authoritarian statement, breaking our Constitution, and all 100 Senators should be down here on the floor and saying: Hell, no. We failed. Second is in oversight. It has now been 4 months that the administration has been preparing their war plan, striking ships in the Eastern Pacific, striking boats in the Caribbean. Not a single oversight hearing--not one. That is our responsibility, and we failed it. And now we are failing on the third key provision, which is that it is Congress that carries the responsibility for declaring war or authorizing war, not the President. So this week, due to the resolution being brought forth by my colleague from Virginia Senator Kaine, we have a chance--all 100 of us--to weigh in and correct this failure on this third point and reclaim the responsibilities that we took on when we took the oath of office to become a U.S. Senator. That is our responsibility. This should pass overwhelmingly to tell the President: no more military action in Venezuela unless Congress provides an authorization for the use of military force.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it is with heavy hearts that we pause to mark the fifth anniversary of the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol--this Capitol, this Capitol that represents article I of the Constitution, the people's representatives in the House and the Senate, forging the vision to be implemented by our Chief Executive. There are two ways that a republic can be destroyed. The normal vision is with a mob attacking a Capitol or a White House and taking over a country in short order. The second way is for an authoritarian President to dismantle it from within, eroding the checks and balances of the Constitution. I don't think any of us who serve in this Chamber ever thought either was a possibility here in the United States of America with the strength of our two centuries-plus of determined efforts in the course of running a democratic Republic, but we were wrong. Five years ago today, our Republic suffered just such an assault by a mob. I will never forget seeing an individual run down this aisle, then circle around to the desk where the Vice President was presiding, have the Vice President immediately gavel down the session, be escorted out, and everyone is looking around the room in mystery. And then, soon, the Capitol Police officers were working to lock the doors on this level and the balconies above, a moment none of us who were here will ever forget and a moment that America should never forget--a mob that was tearing down the American flag and putting up a flag that said ``Donald Trump,'' a mob that was breaking down these doors and occupying this Chamber, and doing the same in the House of Representatives. That moment, when we are counting the electoral college votes--the slates, those who were assigned to the electoral college to determine who was elected President--that moment, that is the peaceful transfer of power. The ballot box, the counting of the votes, the peaceful transfer of power--that is the vision at the heart of government by and for the people. That is the difference between a democratic republic and an authoritarian state. And on that day, we went over to the House Chamber and started the rollcall of States. On the State of Alabama, no one objected. On the State of Alaska, no one objected. And then it came to Arizona, and a Member of the House and a Member of the Senate objected, and we came back over here to debate that issue of whether or not we would accept the slate from Arizona, and that is when the chaos ensued. You know, up front here were these amazing three boxes. We carried them over to the House, and then when we came back to debate, they came back here to the Senate Chamber, these mahogany and leather boxes with all kinds of straps on them. They look like treasure. They look like they would be filled with gold. But their content is more precious than gold; their contents, the expression through the electoral college ballots of the will of the United States of America about who would next serve as the President of our Nation. And if it wasn't for the quick action of our Parliamentarian team to grab those boxes, I am sure that the rioters who entered this Chamber just moments later would have destroyed those boxes--another symbolic destruction of a democratic Republic in an effort by some to create an authoritarian state. We had some real heroes that day like Eugene Goodman, who got Senator Mitt Romney to safety, and then, seeing people coming up the stairs from the lower level, proceeded to steer those folks away from the center of the building and away from the Senate Chamber where we were sitting--an amazingly effective strategy to buy a few more minutes of time for the security of this Chamber. And we remember the police officers who so valiantly defended this building--170 injured--and others who lost their lives as a consequence of the attack on that day: Brian Sicknick, Howard Liebengood, Jeffrey Smith, Gunther Hashida, and Kyle DeFreytag. Now, there is a plaque that has been built, and I ask unanimous consent to have the text of it be entered into the Record.

Mr. MERKLEY. The plaque says:

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it was this time of the evening 5 years ago that the Senate had returned here to this Chamber and then gone back across to the House of Representatives to continue counting the ballots from each State, the ballots for the electors, the electoral college, the number of which would determine who would be the next President of the United States. It is steeped in tradition. It is a complicated system because we don't have a direct election for a President, and it involves these beautiful boxes that would be displayed here on the Senate desk. They have the official statements and envelopes from all the secretaries of state across the country saying: We are validating that this is the slate from our State elections. And then when the counting would begin in the House, we would parade over to the House of Representatives, and the ballots would start to be opened, one State and then another. And it was that evening when we started with the alphabet, beginning with the As, and when we came to the third State starting with an A, Arizona, there was an objection to validation of the slate. And it is at that moment that we journeyed back from the House of Representatives here, and those beautiful wooden boxes with straps and buckles were replaced on the table here before the dais of the Senate. And then as we were in that moment of preparing to debate whether or not we would agree or disagree with the acceptance of the slate of electors from Arizona, that is when all hell broke loose. That is when rioters stormed the Senate steps, beat up the police officers, pushed through, and came into the Capitol seeking to stop the peaceful transfer of power, a moment none of us ever expected to witness in our lifetime. In the course of that riot, more than 170 police officers were injured, and as a consequence of that day, five police officers died. I would never believe it if I was reading a book, a novel, a fiction story about the Senate that rioters would storm the Capitol. I would never believe that this Chamber would be taken over by those rioters, that their fierce assault with flag poles and fire extinguishers and all sorts of handcrafted weapons would result in the death of a group of officers and more than 170 being injured. But it happened. The end of that day was a good story because we returned to this Chamber, and we re-paraded over to the House and continued the counting and proceeded to establish who would be the next President of the United States of America. But it feels particularly important today to honor those who defended this Capitol. It was certainly not within their frame of reference the degree to which that riot would be ginned up. Ginned up are the words of our then-sitting, outgoing President, President Trump, who wanted to interrupt the counting of the ballots, so he could continue to be President, break this chain of peaceful transition that had existed for 200-plus years. It really was not within the frame of reference of any of us; it was outside the box of what we considered possible, what happened this evening 5 years ago. This is why earlier today, I was shocked to read that the plaque that we had passed a law to commemorate the service of the officers, that that plaque had been cast in bronze, but never actually displayed as required by the law that we adopted in 2022. Here we are on the 5-year anniversary, and we have never put up this plaque. I have the plaque right here. It is incredibly elegant, a picture of the Capitol, and it says: ``On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol''-- The Capitol. ``this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021. Their heroism will never be forgotten.'' And yet this plaque is forgotten--stuffed into a room, out of sight, never mounted. How can that possibly be the case? We passed a law that this would be displayed. So, well, this is the night to fix that. This is the night to come, draft a simple resolution, and say: We here in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans together, want to see this plaque up on a wall. Our leadership on both sides has already agreed to put up the plaque, but to do so in the course as required by the 2022 law requires some agreement from down the hall in the House of Representatives that, for whatever reason, hasn't been secured. But we can at least get it placed up here on the second floor of the Senate, the floor where we sat 5 years ago, the floor where the House sat 5 years ago. The Chambers are on this floor where we had the ballots from the States across the country that contained the electoral college slates. So I drafted a resolution, and I wanted to be able to get unanimous consent tonight, but I also want it to be bipartisan. And it turns out that sometimes the gears here move more slowly, even on simple tasks, than one would like. But instead of asking for unanimous consent on this resolution tonight, instead, I am going to work with a colleague across the aisle, a colleague, a Republican from North Carolina, Thom Tillis, who came here earlier today with the same sentiment in his heart that I have in my heart that this plaque needs to be up, needs to be up in the hallway here on the second floor. And pending resolution of agreement with the House on where it should be, we can put it up here. So I will read you the resolution, and here it is: Directing the Architect of the Capitol to prominently display in a publicly accessible location on the second floor of the Senate wing of the United States Capitol, a plaque honoring the members of law enforcement responding on January 6, 2021, until the plaque can be placed in its permanent location; whereas, the United States owes its deepest gratitude to these officers of the United States Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Colombia, as well as officers from other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and protective entities who valiantly protected the United States Capitol, Members of Congress, and staff on January 6, 2021; whereas, section 214 of division 1 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 directed that a plaque be placed on the western front of the United States Capitol to honor the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy, the United States Capitol, on January 6, 2021; and whereas their heroism should never be forgotten, now therefore be it resolved that the Architect of the Capitol shall prominently display the plaque authorized by section 214 of division 1 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 in a publicly accessible location on the second floor of the Senate wing of the United States Capitol until such time as the plaque can be placed at a permanent location on the western front of the United States Capitol. So my colleague from North Carolina Senator Tillis and I are carrying this sentiment in our heart; that here on the fifth anniversary, in which so many officers sacrificed so much, sustaining injuries, five sustaining death as a result of what transpired here, this plaque needs to go up, and it needs to go up this week. But tonight, I am not asking unanimous consent because I want colleagues on both sides of the aisle to be able to do what is appropriate in the U.S. Senate, to be familiar with this, so that they can willingly--and, hopefully, enthusiastically--agree that this will be done. Let not this representation of our appreciation of the sacrifice of the Capitol Police and other police departments--Federal, State, and local--that came to the defense of this Capitol, let this symbol of our appreciation not sit, stuffed into a back room, but be prominently displayed here on the second floor of the Senate wing of the Capitol because their heroism must never be forgotten.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, the heart of our Constitution is the separation of powers. The Founders, having just won their freedom from the tyranny of a King, were determined that the most profound responsibilities of government--whether to go to war and how to spend taxpayer dollars--would be decided by the people. The Founders wanted the people's representatives in Congress, from all parts of the Nation, from all walks of life, to publicly debate and vote on these critical decisions. That is why article I, section 8, of this Constitution says: Congress shall have the power . . . to declare war. Not the courts, not the President, but Congress. Yet, as we stand here in this Chamber, President Trump is preparing to launch a war--a war on Venezuela--without a declaration of war, without a congressional authorization, without a congressional appropriation of funds. So I have come to the floor to reassert the constitutional role of Congress over this decision of going to war. This bill is cosponsored by Senators Kaine, Van Hollen, Alsobrooks, Welch, Markey, and Sanders, and I appreciate their partnership. It prohibits the unauthorized use of the U.S. Armed Forces in hostilities with respect to Venezuela. Certainly, Nicolas Maduro is a brutal dictator. His regime has a long history of abusing human rights and crushing political dissent. That is not in question. And that reality demands a consistent, principled foreign policy. But it does not give permission for any President to violate the Constitution of the United States of America that we are sworn to uphold when we come here to serve the American people as Senators. Yet President Trump is still threatening these hostilities against Venezuela by deploying a massive force in the Caribbean. That military force reportedly, as of this moment, includes about 15,000 American troops, including 2,200 marines; 11 naval warships, including our largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its strike group. It includes amphibious assault vehicles and guided-missile cruisers and destroyers and a submarine. The deployment includes fighter jets, surveillance drones, and patrol planes--many of which are based in nearby Puerto Rico where the United States has opened an old naval base for this operation. The force includes gunships, helicopters, and bombers. Military buildups like this take on a momentum of their own. A President may hesitate to disperse this buildup lest he look weak and indecisive and, thus, large buildups often result in launching the military action they foreshadowed. My friends, wars are easy to start, but they are hard to end, and the consequences are often devastating. Look at the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Together, more than 7,000 American servicemembers gave their lives; more than 50,000 servicemembers seriously injured, often with devastating, lifelong consequences; more than $8 trillion in American treasure lost. Launching another reckless war to depose an authoritarian leader in South America is not an ``America First'' strategy; and without congressional authorization, it is unconstitutional. The prelude to this military action has been military strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela. The administration has said they are acting to stop these boats from delivering narcotics. Well, there is a legal way to do that, and then there is an illegal way to do it. The legal way is for the Coast Guard to intercept the boats, to search them, arrest those present should narcotics be found. And the illegal way is to simply blow up boats in international waters. The legal path is the right way to go. The Coast Guard makes arrests, which allow them to collect evidence and information for broader counternarcotics operations. Destroying boats and killing those aboard means no evidence or information that confers evidence of what was undertaken. Was it even a narcotics operation to begin with? It is either a war crime or it is a murder. It is a violation of our law; it is a violation of international law. We have a stake in the structure of international law because we want our troops to be treated in a right manner, not to be executed when they are out of the action, lying wounded on a battlefield, not to be murdered, clinging to debris after their boat has been blown up. Our military forces don't summarily execute others because we don't want others to summarily execute our forces. That is the principle involved. So the President's extraterritorial, extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean are terrible policy, terrible principles, and a terrible precedent. We are in a bizarre moment--bizarre. President Trump, while saying he is trying to intercept drugs, just pardoned the kingpin who organized the narcotics superhighway that delivered 400 to 500 tons of cocaine to the United States of America. Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras, former President, convicted on overwhelming evidence of moving massive drugs to the United States of America was pardoned by President Trump. If you want to stop narcotics, you don't go around releasing the kingpins who organized this devastating assault on our Nation. On November 29, President Trump said that the Venezuelan airspace should be considered closed in its entirety, and commercial flights have been greatly reduced as a result. On December 2, Trump said the military strikes would ``start very soon'' and ``we're going to start doing those strikes on land, too.'' So we don't have a moment to waste to be here on the floor of the Senate defending the Constitution to ensure that the will of the people on issues of war are respected. If my colleagues want there to be a declaration of war, then bring that to the floor of the Senate because that is what the Constitution says. And let's debate that and let's see if there is a majority vote for that and let's send it over to the House of Representatives and see if they agree because we took an oath to the Constitution. Thus, I have come to the floor to ask unanimous consent for the Senate to pass the Prohibiting Unauthorized Military Action in Venezuela Act. Again, I thank my cosponsors--Senators Kaine, Van Hollen, Alsobrooks, Welch, Markey, and Sanders--who are stalwart defenders of the Constitution and the constitutional responsibility for Congress, not the President, to authorize war. The bill prohibits any Federal funding from being used for the United States to wage war against Venezuela. To be clear, the bill does not prevent the United States from defending itself or its citizens against an armed attack. It does not prevent lawful counternarcotics operations. It does not prevent humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people, but it does protect and defend our Constitution's essential separation of powers. So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 3344 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; 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. MERKLEY. Would my colleague from Idaho yield for a question?

Mr. MERKLEY. I do appreciate your yielding because too often we have very little debate about these issues. My question is, if the President is trying to stop drugs from coming into the United States, why did he pardon the kingpin who built the cocaine superhighway that killed thousands of Americans?

Mr. MERKLEY. Would my colleague yield for a more direct question to the bill at hand?

Mr. MERKLEY. Well, I did think it was connected because you said the mission was to stop drugs from getting into the United States. So it seems inconsistent. But if, in fact, there is so much evidence that these boats are moving drugs, why wouldn't it be advantageous to board them, to arrest them, to collect the evidence and the understanding of the broader drug operation, and why wouldn't it be valuable to show the American people the evidence?

Mr. MERKLEY. Thank you to my colleague for sharing your thoughts, at least a little bit of perspective on a difference of our opinions here, but I do appreciate your presenting your thoughts on this topic. Obviously, I see this profoundly differently. Some of my colleagues are here who would like to speak to this issue. Before I yield to them, I will just say simply: There is no justification in international law for executing people on the high seas and then executing survivors clinging to debris. And there is certainly no clarity that there was evidence of the sort my colleague from Idaho suggested because it certainly hasn't been shown to the American people, and the setting the stage for this broader war on Venezuela because we are going to have a new policy, a new Monroe Doctrine on the United States simply taking the law into its own hands throughout Latin America, South America, regardless of international law, regardless of treaties, regardless of whether it is even an effective strategy, it is wrong on every level in terms of effectiveness, but it is certainly wrong when it comes to this Constitution of the United States of America. I yield to my colleagues.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to grant floor privileges to my intern Jeremy Zwick for his shadow day on December 10, 2025.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I join my colleague the minority leader from New York in noting that principles matter. Equal justice under law matters. In fact, it matters so much that it is carved into the facade of the Supreme Court. If you go out these doors down the hall, under the big staircase descending to the plaza, and you look out, you are square center of the Supreme Court--``Equal Justice Under Law.'' It is a powerful concept. It goes to the sense that everyone should be accountable for their crimes here in the United States of America no matter how much money you have, no matter how much power you have, no matter what large office you hold. Mr. President, 427 to 1. That is what the House said, 427 to 1. The House just voted to say that equal justice under law matters, and they are standing behind that principle. But is it a principle this U.S. Senate will stand behind? Let's look at what has happened. Back in July, a bipartisan group of Senators that included two of my Republican colleagues introduced legislation to release the Epstein files--the same bill that just passed the House of Representatives 427 to 1. But we only had two colleagues across the aisle join us in demanding justice. In September, on the Defense Authorization Act, we had a vote on this bill as an amendment put forward by the minority leader, leading the charge to say that equal justice under the law matters. My colleagues across the aisle--did they follow the example of the House, or did they express the same spirit as the example we saw moments ago? No. They tabled the amendment. Only two colleagues across the aisle, only two Republicans stood for the principle of equal justice under law. So there we have it--a bill introduced with only two colleagues; a bill voted on as an amendment led by the minority leader--only two colleagues from across the aisle, but every Democrat saying this matters. Now, the Department of Justice didn't need a law to release the Epstein files; they could have just done so. In fact, when President Trump was campaigning, he kept saying that these files are going to be released when he is President. Well, he has been President for 10 months. Where are those files? They haven't been released. President Trump, why haven't you released the files? In fact, not only has he failed to release the files, he has fought the release at every possible moment. It was widely reported that back in May, Attorney General Pam Bondi informed President Trump that his name appeared in the files. Oh, his name appears. Well, now he has doubled down on making sure they are never released. The Attorney General herself said she had the full file on her desk, and then she said, well, she didn't. At every level, this administration has sought to thwart equal justice under law. Powerful men--the President of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives--have fought to make sure these files are never released. How long was the House on vacation in the middle of the legislative year? A full 7-plus weeks of abandonment, missing in action, nowhere to be found in the middle of the legislative year. The entire House of Representatives shut down for over 7 weeks and into an 8th week, vacationing around the world to avoid voting to release the Epstein files. That is how much powerful people at the very top of our government were fighting to make sure these files never see the light of day. But across this great country, people said: Hell no. People on the right side of the aisle and the far-right side of the aisle, people on the left side of the aisle and the far-left side of the aisle all demanded that justice be served because this particular case is one that involves such egregious conduct. Jeffrey Epstein was a monster who groomed, abused, raped underage girls and facilitated the ability of other powerful men to groom, abuse, and rape underage girls. He trafficked these women to rich and powerful men. He destroyed the lives of hundreds of young women. That is why, from every corner of this Nation and from every part of the political spectrum, there is a demand to release these files. The Senate Finance Committee, led by my colleague from Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, had been investigating the financial network that facilitated this national and international crime, and the Biden administration cooperated fully with the Senate investigators in this case. The Finance Committee, under President Biden, went to Treasury to see the Epstein files suspicious activity reports. They proceeded to put together an incredible database of how money was spent to facilitate this network. The Biden administration echoed the demand for equal justice under law. Trump campaigned saying he would release these files, but then he is in office, his name is in the file, and he does everything possible to stop their release. Now the House voted powerfully for sure--427 to 1--but a bill doesn't get enacted into law unless it is passed in this Chamber. That is why the minority leader Senator Schumer said he would return today after the bill has been sent over to the Senate to ask for unanimous consent. If the House--427-strong--can call for equal justice--the release of these files--certainly the Senate can stand up and say 100 to 0 that we also stand for equal justice under the law. The truth must not be buried. We know how nervous the administration is. They responded by saying: We are going to release information about how those files affect powerful people who are Democrats. Let me tell you, President Trump, that does not stop one of us because this is not a partisan affair. This is about a horrific crime on hundreds of underage girls whose lives were destroyed, hundreds who were groomed, hundreds who were abused, hundreds who were raped. So the chips must fall where they may no matter what the political party of the actors may be. So, President Trump, you think you are doing something clever and you are going to intimidate Democrats from supporting this by making this partisan? I tell you, President Trump, hell no. There is nothing partisan about the principle of equal justice under law. Now, we know why the President is so nervous. A few days ago, a trove of emails was released from the Epstein estate. They made clear in Jeffrey Epstein's own words that President Trump ``knew about the girls,'' and he called President Trump ``the dog that hasn't barked.'' Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted pedophile, even wrote: I've met some bad people. None as bad as Trump. Not one decent cell in his body. Well, I don't know what President Trump's role was, and President Trump says he wants to see others investigated, including former Presidents who were Democrats. I don't know whether they were involved, but I do know this: It is time for the truth. It is time to end the coverup. The Epstein coverup is morally wrong; it is legally wrong. The victims deserve justice. The victims and the American people demand not just justice but transparency. The American people demand accountability. It is the right thing to do no matter how rich or famous an individual might be who is mentioned in those files. And they may be mentioned in those files with no connection to the crimes committed. There is no knowing until we see what the files say. That is the point. The bill that was passed in the House--the bill almost word for word identical to the bill introduced here in the Senate--says that ``no record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of'' any of the following: ``embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.'' Nothing withheld, redacted, or delayed because some powerful man or group of powerful men is afraid of what is in that file. We did say in this bill to protect the victims and underage witnesses by redacting the personally identifiable information, any depictions of abuse or information that would jeopardize an active Federal investigation or national security. Protect the victims, but don't protect the perpetrators. Let all 100 Senators come up the staircase outside, in order to enter this Chamber, and on the way up those stairs, look back--turn around-- at the principle ``Equal Justice Under Law,'' carved into the facade of the Supreme Court, and carry that principle in your heart. And when the minority leader from New York comes to this floor and asks to pass this bill with unanimous consent so that it will be endorsed 100 to 0, echoing the cry for justice from down the hall, let not one voice of objection be raised. Let all 100 of us stand with the victims and stand for accountability and stand for justice. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, hallelujah. Equal justice under law just took an enormous stride forward in this Senate Chamber. It was back earlier this year in July when Senator Lujan and I introduced the Epstein bill--the same bill that just passed the Senate Chamber after passing through the House--and it had 25 sponsors, but we couldn't get a single sponsor from across the aisle, not one. Twenty- five Democrats said: Let's cosponsor this bill because we need transparency; the victims need justice. And yet the President, who said during his campaign he was all about releasing these files, blocked them, did everything possible to stop them. And then in September, under consideration of the Defense Authorization Act, we put forward an amendment. In fact, our minority leader, Senator Schumer from New York, put forward an amendment and said: Let's take the bill--the bill that Senator Lujan and I had introduced with 23 colleagues--and let's vote on it now and put it in the Defense authorization bill. And my good friends across the aisle again blockaded justice. They moved to table the amendment. And with only Republican votes, they created a 51-to-49 vote to kill justice, kill transparency, kill fairness for the victims of this evil--evil-- operation that Epstein headed. But the fight continued. The publicity continued from every part of the spectrum, politically, from the far right and the near right, left of center, far left of center, all saying: This is wrong. The crime is enormous--hundreds of young women, hundreds of girls, raped by powerful men. Every American knows how wrong those rapes were, how much damage they did to the young women involved, often destroying their lives. Every father of a young girl thinks about how evil it would be for a powerful man to rape his daughter. And yet Trump's persistence in blockading the release of these files continued until the House came back into session, and there was a withdrawal petition--a discharge petition as they call it in the House--and a majority of the House Members said: We must vote on this. And the President lobbied the Republicans who were on that discharge petition because Democrat names weren't enough to have a majority. He asked them to get off the petition, and they refused. So it became clear the House was going to vote, and today they did. And when it came to the question of saying yes or no on releasing these files, it was 427 Members of the House strong, 1 opposed, saying today we stand for justice. And so, just moments ago, the minority leader, Senator Schumer from New York, came to this floor, and he asked the Senate to follow the example set by the House. And just earlier today I said: When that moment comes, let's be 100 Senators strong, 100 strong in saying yes to the unanimous consent request, saying yes to discharge of these files from the executive branch. I am struck that the language is very full in saying all the details have to be discharged, and none of them can be blocked because of embarrassment or political sensitivity to the powerful individuals who are currently in office or may have been in office or may never have been in office but may have been involved in Epstein's operation. Let the chips fall where they may. This bill says: Thirty days from a signature being provided by the President, 30 days those files have to be fully released, redacted only to protect the victims' names. So 30 days from now is a long time. And so I say to the President of the United States: You have had plenty of time to have your legal team already redact the names, so release these files now. Release them now. Sign this bill and release the files right away. Today is a victory, a victory for the voices for justice who have pushed and argued that these two Chambers, the House and the Senate, need to fulfill the vision so embraced by the American people, so powerfully felt in their hearts, their sense of right and wrong, their sense that the powerful should not be able to do evil acts and get away with it, and finally their voices were heard today. So I thank my Republican colleagues across the aisle. Every one of them decided not to come to the floor and object, which means they are giving unanimous consent. So all 100 Senators, however much they may have obstructed in the past, today did the right thing, and I applaud them for it. Let's, together, push the President to release these files immediately. They have had plenty of time to redact the names. Let's see no further administrative delays or cleverness and let the chips fall where they may. May there be justice for the victims. May there be accountability for the perpetrators. Equal justice under law should be served. It is our duty to serve it, and we have taken a powerful stride to equal justice today.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, during the course of tonight's debate, we will be voting on whether to table an item in the amendment lineup in order to submit an amendment that would ban pocket rescissions. Well, that is a fancy name. What does a pocket rescission mean? It means the President can steal the power of the purse from Congress, which is assigned to Congress in the Constitution, by submitting a proposal to undo spending for a program in the last 45 days of the fiscal year. And then, because under our rules there is 45 days to consider it, as a grace period, even though Congress never votes affirmatively in support of this proposal, the clock runs out and the funding for the program dies. It is kind of like the clock running out on midnight on Cinderella's stagecoach, and, suddenly, it is a pumpkin. In this case, it is the funding for some key program in healthcare, in housing, or in education. Or maybe it is an investment in infrastructure. Maybe it is something that creates good-paying jobs. Maybe it is the research that keeps our economy humming far into the future. Maybe it is energy policy. But one person--the President--says he doesn't like that program and decides to kill it by submitting a proposal to kill it in the last 45 days, and the clock runs out before Congress can vote. And then, even without Congress voting, the program dies. This is an outright violation of the power of the purse assigned in the Constitution to Congress--to us. So we have a bipartisan responsibility to defend our congressional power--our congressional spending power. Let's consider the difference between a democracy and an authoritarian government. In a democracy, you have folks who are elected from every corner of the country. They come together with their different life experiences. They come together with their different insights. They come together understanding that the needs in one part of the country are different than another. And they create spending programs and spending levels appropriate to address the challenges in every corner of the Nation. That is called a democracy. Well, what about an authoritarian government? What does that look like? That is one person, a Chief Executive, who issues fiats and kills programs, and says things like: I am ending that grant program because it is not in alignment with my priorities. I am killing that program because it is not in alignment with my priorities. That is an authoritarian government, and that is what a ``pocket recession'' is--an authoritarian killing programs when the Constitution gives that power to Congress, not the Executive. So later on, I will ask all of us to stand up and defend our Constitution. I do hope that Members on both sides of the aisle will actually proceed to give that defense to the vision of a democracy, rather than granting authoritarian power to an authoritarian tyrant named Donald Trump. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. MERKLEY

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I want to provide an opportunity tonight for us all to stand up for the Constitution, one of the most important powers that we have here as a Congress, and that is the ability to design a program and to fund a program. And once that has been signed into law by a President of the United States, it is the law of the land. The President has the responsibility to execute that program as designed and funded. But back in 1974, we decided to give the President a fast track to propose that something we have designed and funded should be unfunded. It is called a rescission, a fancy name for us acting to unfund a program we previously had put in place. And here is the thing, that law, the Budget Act of 1974, says that it takes an affirmative vote of the Senate and of the House of Representatives to unfund the program that is already in law. But an unexpected challenge has emerged, and that unexpected challenge is that if the request from the President to unfund the program comes within 45 days of the end of the year, even if we were to act and turn down the rescission, it still means that, under a grace period in the law, the funds evaporate at the end of the year. So in other words, with no approval from the House or Senate, no new law being passed, the existing law is undone on the clock. It is like-- well, it is like Cinderella's coach. It reaches midnight, and the coach becomes a pumpkin. It falls apart. It disappears. That is a threat that goes fundamentally to the difference between a democracy and an autocracy. In a democracy, we come together with all of our varied experiences, with all of our different parts of the country, and we say: Here are programs and funding that fit our Nation as a whole. It is a master compromise. But in an authoritarian government, one person decides what is funded and what isn't. And that is what happens in this special power when it is submitted within 45 days of the end of the fiscal year. So however much one may like or dislike a given President in power, support or oppose, all of us have a responsibility to stand up for our constitutional power of the purse; that all of America will be served by the laws we pass and that if they are to be undone, they have to be voted on by this Chamber and the Chamber down the hall in an affirmative fashion. So I will, at the appropriate moment a minute or two from now, propose at that point to table an amendment that is in the tree so we can submit an amendment that will defend our Constitution, defend article I power, defend our democracy.