Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I would like to recognize the accomplishments and service of Becky Pringle as she concludes her final term as the president of the Nation's largest labor union, the National Education Association, NEA. Throughout her tenure, Becky's passion and purpose has united 3 million educators and their allies across the country to use their collective power to fight for the respect and dignity our educators deserve and to protect the promise of public education for all students. Becky has worked with the national union for more than 30 years. She first joined the NEA in 1981 as an eighth grade science teacher from Philadelphia and began her leadership journey as a local union president. She then served on the board of directors for NEA and the Pennsylvania State Education Association. During her tenure as NEA president, she helped focus the Nation's attention on how the pandemic impacted our students, schools, teachers, education support professionals, and school leaders. Becky's determination also strengthened the labor movement and expanded worker power, fighting to grow NEA membership at a time when workers and public sector unions are under attack. She has been recognized for her leadership by the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, National Action Network, American Association of University Women, and President Barack Obama's Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. Becky understands that public education is the backbone of American democracy, where all people come together to learn and grow. Thank you, President Pringle, for your tireless dedication to our Nation's teachers, students, and school leaders across the country.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize and thank Jim Macrae for his extraordinary career of public service and for his contributions to expanding access to primary care for all Americans. As he retires from the Health Resources and Services Administration after decades of dedicated leadership, he leaves behind a legacy that has made our healthcare system stronger. Throughout his career, Jim has been a tireless champion for community health centers and the millions of patients who rely on them for high- quality, affordable primary care. As Associate Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration's Bureau of Primary Health Care, he oversaw a huge expansion of community health centers, leading and strengthening one of our Nation's most successful healthcare programs and ensuring that community health centers can continue providing high-quality care in underserved communities across this country. Primary care is the backbone of our healthcare system. Community health centers make up a major portion of that backbone. While we have made great progress towards ensuring all people have access to the primary care they need, there is much more to be done. Community health centers provide affordable, quality primary medical, dental, and mental health care as well as access to low-cost prescription drugs to over 32 million people. In Vermont, nearly one out of every three people receive their primary healthcare through a community healthcenter across over 90 sites--something that I and my fellow Vermonters are very proud of. I thank Jim for his support of Vermont's work to build a vibrant network of community health centers across our State. Over my years in the Senate and as chair and ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I have worked hard to expand community health centers. Jim has been an effective partner in these efforts throughout the years. As Jim begins this well-earned retirement, I extend my deepest gratitude for his dedication to improving our healthcare system and the health of millions of Americans. We owe him our thanks and respect.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, a couple of years ago, as you may recall, there was a movie--a film--that came out called ``Don't Look Up,'' starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio. The film was about a large comet heading to Earth that would destroy the entire planet, and the astronomers who discovered the comet kept trying to gain the attention of people and explain to them what was happening and the need for immediate and bold action to save the planet. In that movie, they failed, and the planet was destroyed. That was a movie. Now, let me tell you about something that is not a movie, not fiction but reality. I fear that we are living through the same scenario that existed in the movie. People, especially their elected representatives, are not paying attention, and the results could be catastrophic. This time, we are not talking about a fictional comet. What we are talking about is artificial intelligence which will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of humanity. It will profoundly impact the life of every man, woman, and child in our country. The scale, scope, and speed of this transformation will be unprecedented. Nearly every day, there is a news story about how AI is already transforming the world--from our economy to its impact on our kids, to our privacy rights, to our political institutions, to the existential threat that it poses to the entire world. Let us take a deep breath. When we think about AI, the first question that we have to ask ourselves is a pretty simple one: Who is pushing this revolutionary transformation of society? Who is going to benefit from it? And who is going to get hurt by it? And the answers to those questions are not complicated. At a time in American history when we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had before, the AI revolution is being pushed by the very wealthiest people in our country, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Larry Ellison. And why are these multibillionaires investing many hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars into AI and robotics? Is it because they want to improve human life? Is it because they want to address the economic struggles facing the 60 percent of our people who are living paycheck to paycheck--Americans who are struggling to pay for groceries, healthcare, housing, and education? Is it because they want to make sure that all Americans have access to healthcare as a human right and that we successfully address the crises we face in housing, education, and so many other areas? Is that why these multibillionaires are pushing this revolution? Maybe, but I doubt it. I think the answer is quite obvious, and everybody in America knows it. These multibillionaires are investing in AI and robotics because they want to become even wealthier and even more powerful than they are today. That is what is motivating these investments. I think it is enormously important that we take a hard look at what an uncontrolled AI push by the wealthiest people in our country will mean to ordinary Americans. Over the past year, I have spoken with workers and union leaders, computer scientists, psychologists, religious leaders, environmentalists, and privacy experts about AI and robotics. And while each of these people may be focusing on a different aspect of the overall situation, they all agree that the unregulated race to develop more and more powerful AI represents a profound threat to humanity. This is exactly what the average American today is telling us. Recently, a poll came out from the publication Heatmap which expresses an enormous change in sentiment with regard to data centers. Whereas, a year ago, Americans were evenly split on whether they supported building a data center near where they live, there is now a 50-point gap, with 71 percent of Americans opposed to building a data center near where they live. And it is not just data centers. When pollsters ask how people feel about AI, there is enormous and growing apprehension. A recent Quinnipiac poll found 55 percent of Americans think AI will do more harm than good, and only 5 percent think AI development is being led by people and organizations that represent their interests. Let me give you some of the reasons--just some--as to why the overwhelming majority of Americans are deeply concerned about the rapid development of AI and robotics. The American people feel, with 70 percent numbers in a recent poll, that AI will lead to fewer jobs, and they are quite right about their concerns. Elon Musk, who has invested hundreds and billions in AI and robotics, recently said that ``AI and robots will replace all jobs.'' Bill Gates, who has also made huge investments in these technologies, predicted that humans ``won't be needed for most things.'' Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, said most white-collar work ``will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.'' And it is not just white-collar jobs that we are talking about. Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Jeff Bezos is seeking to raise $100 billion to purchase factories all over America. His goal? Replace the millions of workers who are employed in these plants with robots. Recently, I took a trip in a self-driving Waymo car in San Francisco. There was nobody behind the wheel. Waymo is already operating self- driving cars in 10 major cities and, along with other driverless car companies, intends to expand rapidly. What does that mean? Well, say goodbye to taxicab drivers, Uber drivers, truckdrivers, and busdrivers all across the country--those jobs, gone. As the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I released a well-researched report finding that AI automation and robotics could replace nearly 100 million American jobs over the next decade, including 40 percent of truckdrivers, 64 percent of accountants, and 89 percent of fast-food workers, among many other occupations. These are not just theoretical concerns. We are already starting to see the impact of AI and robotics on workers. Amazon and Oracle have laid off 30,000 workers each. Microsoft has laid off 20,000 workers. Meta has laid off 18,000--et cetera, et cetera. Researchers have found that new companies using AI have about 25 percent fewer employees than comparable companies. In other words, the AI revolution is already making it harder for people to find decent- paying jobs, and we are only in the beginning stage of this revolution. Let me be clear. The AI oligarchs do not want to just replace specific jobs. They want to replace workers. That is the goal. According to OpenAI's charter, its mission is to build ``highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.'' If OpenAI is successful in building ``highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically value work,'' I have a very simple question: What happens to those workers who are replaced? How will they be able to find new jobs if there are no jobs to find? If AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have no income? If people are not employed and if they are not paying taxes, what happens to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other essential government services funded by these taxes? But it is not just employment that I am worried about and that the American people are worried about. AI and robotics threaten our emotional well-being, who we are as human beings, how we relate to each other. In many cases, work is one of the ways that we connect to each other. Whether we are doctors or taxicab drivers, we all want to serve our community, and we want to be productive members of society. That gives our lives purpose. And what happens when millions of people lose their jobs, their meaning, and their purpose, and their source of connection to each other? And work is just one aspect of what we are talking about. What happens when people live through their screens? Their major form of social interaction is not with other people but with screens and artificial intelligence, talking to chatbots, instead of other people. Further, AI and robotics are threatening the very well-being of our kids. Let us be frank: Even before the widespread deployment of AI, children in our country are struggling. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the evidence is clear. They are struggling. Today, high school kids have the lowest reading scores in 30 years. The writing skills of our children are in decline, as are their cognitive capabilities. College professors tell us their students cannot do middle school math or read long texts. That is where we are now. What got us here? Where are we going in the future? Experts increasingly point to the role of screens and technology. In America today--this is really--I keep questioning my staff about this, but they tell me that this is accurate. In America today, about 40 percent of children have a tablet by age 2. Forty percent of children have a tablet by age 2. The typical 5-year-old spends over 3\1/2\ hours per day on screens. Nearly all schools now provide devices in classrooms. What is going on here? Let us be clear: The extraordinary amount of time our young people spend on screens and the impact that that time on screens is having on them, all of this is not an accident. We have testimony from employees at the major Big Tech companies-- like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram--that the algorithms they developed were designed to addict kids to screens--addict kids to screens. A senior researcher at Meta, for example, called Instagram ``a drug.'' In other words, the Big Tech oligarchs are addicting our kids to screens so that they can make more and more money. They are sacrificing the health and well-being of our children for their increased wealth. And now, Big Tech companies are pushing AI and robots to replace teachers in our classrooms. Apparently, it is not good enough for them to addict our kids to screens, now they want to push AI and robots to replace teachers in classrooms. Do we, as a nation, really want AI robots teaching our kids? Does anyone have any evidence whatsoever that this new technology will help our kids learn better? And it is not just the intellectual abilities of our kids that we should worry about; AI is also impacting their mental health. It is no great secret that millions of our children are struggling emotionally, and loneliness and depression are on the rise. There are many kids in America today whose best friends are not other children they know but AI bots. What does it mean for young people to form friendships with AI and become increasingly isolated from other human beings? Does anyone in America think the past 20 years of social media have been good for children's mental health and cognitive capabilities? Does anyone really think we should now entrust these same companies with even more power over our children's well-being and development? But it is not only our kids' health; it is not only the economy. AI is threatening the very concept of privacy rights. You know, we hear on the floor of the Senate, time and time again: We are a free country; we are a free people. Well, let me give you the bad news. We are not quite as free as people think we are. For decades, companies have been collecting our personal information, what we search for online, where we visit, who we talk to, what we buy. Now AI-powered surveillance companies like Palantir make it possible for someone to quickly analyze all that information, find patterns, and create profiles of us. And by the way, it is not just the economy; it is not just our mental health; it is not just what is happening to our kids. AI is threatening our democracy. We are back to the film ``Don't Look Up.'' Well, maybe we should look at what is going on on the internet right now--right now--this minute. The rise of deepfakes, convincing fake images, videos and audio, make it possible for bad actors to distort what elected officials and candidates are saying. And I suspect this is personal for many Members of the Senate who have had experience with this issue. And let me tell you, if you don't think this will ever happen to you, you are very mistaken. In a recent Republican congressional primary in Kentucky, a super PAC opposing Thomas Massie released an ad with deepfakes depicting him in a romantic relationship with female Members of Congress. It was a lie, but there were voters in Kentucky who believed that. Bottom line, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to differentiate truth from fiction. How can people make informed political decisions if that occurs? As we speak, all over this country, people are rising up against data centers in their own communities. They don't want to pay higher electric rates. They are worried about the impact of water. They are worried about the impact of noise and heat. And we are seeing people, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Progressives saying no to these data centers. I hope very much we don't do what people did in that movie ``Don't Look Up.'' I hope while this massive revolution is taking place, which is going to transform our lives, I hope that we look up. I hope that people in Congress have the guts to say that the future of humanity should not be determined by a handful of the wealthiest people on Earth. Maybe in a democratic society, the people should determine where we want to go. And I know that AI is spending tens of millions of dollars on campaign contributions, and if you speak up against them, hey, they are going to put millions of dollars of 30-second ads against you. But maybe just now in this moment in American history we have the guts to tell AI where they should go, stand up for our kids, stand up for democracy, stand up for privacy, stand up for workers, and utilize AI and robotics to benefit all of us, not just to make a handful of billionaires even richer.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, in the United States today, 42 million Americans are drowning in $1.7 trillion in student debt--42 million Americans, $1.7 trillion in student debt. Further, a recordbreaking 9 million Americans are now in default on their student loans. Instead of providing financial relief to these Americans, the Trump administration is about to make a bad situation even worse. As we all know, President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill--to my mind the worst piece of legislation passed in modern history--made the largest cut to education in the history of the United States in order to pay for the largest tax breaks for billionaires in American history. Not only did we throw 15 million people off the healthcare they had; we devastated Federal funding for education. If Congress allows these education cuts to take effect, beginning on July 1, just 6 days from now, 7 million Americans will be thrown off of their low-cost student loan repayment plan, known as the SAVE plan and into a much more expensive plan. What does that mean in real terms? It means that the average college graduate will be forced to pay $4,000 more each year on their student loan payments, about $244 a month. At a time when tens of millions of Americans--working-class Americans--are struggling to pay for the outrageous cost of housing, groceries, prescription drugs, healthcare, and other basic necessities, the last thing in the world we should be doing is driving up the cost of student loans by $4,000 for the average student loan borrower in America. It has been estimated that if these cuts go into effect, one out of every four student loan borrowers will be in default by the end of this summer. So what does it mean to be in default? It means that workers could have their wages garnished to pay back their student loans. They can't pay their student loans because they are not earning enough money, and then they get their wages garnished and it will be an even worse situation. It means that seniors who took out student loans for themselves--and I know many people don't appreciate it. They are thinking about student loans, and they are thinking about young people. Well, guess what. There are grandparents who are still paying off their student loans. And it means that these people or their family members could have their Social Security checks garnished. Imagine going to college, paying off a student debt for 30 or 40 years, and you can't continue to do it; and they are going to take your Social Security payment. In my view, that is unconscionable. We cannot allow that to happen. And that is why I am very proud to cosponsor S.J. Res. 196, which we will be voting on this evening. And I want to thank Senator Merkley for his outstanding work on this issue. This resolution would ensure that millions of Americans are not forced to pay thousands of dollars more each year on their student loans. Two weeks ago, I held a roundtable with four student loan borrowers from across the country who shared their stories about the struggles they are having with their student loan debt. I spoke with a gentleman named Jordan, from my own State of Vermont, who is a veteran and a father of two young boys. He was told that his student loan payment will increase to $1,300 per month after July 1. And other Members who talked with me had very similar stories. Geraldine, who is 71 years of age, has student loan debt from when she went to college in the 1980s, and decades later, she is still struggling with student loan debt. Geraldine is retired and on a fixed income, and she was told her payments will be over $500 a month after July 1. And on and on it goes. If Congress does not pass this resolution today, working-class people all across this country will be priced out of necessary graduate training in programs like nursing, medicine, dentistry, and social work because of new restrictive arbitrary loan limits. What this means is that working-class students will either be unable to get the education they need or they will be forced to take out loans from predatory lenders that charge interest rates as high as 26 percent. Now, at a time when we desperately need nurses and other healthcare professionals, how insane is it to force students to pay interest rates as high as 26 percent in order to do the important work we desperately need? At a time when we have a shortage of nurses, doctors, and dentists in this country, it has been estimated that 21 percent of nursing students, more than half of medical students, and three-quarters of dental students will be priced out of a degree altogether. In my own State of Vermont, 40 percent of students pursuing graduate education will exceed the new loan limits and will be forced to resort to private loans to make up the difference. In the richest country in the history of the world, no one should be saddled with a lifetime of debt for the crime of getting an education. No American should enter retirement with the burden of student loan debt or be pushed into default because they can't afford their payments. So let us prevent student loan payments from going up by an average of $4,000 for 7 million Americans. Let us prevent working-class students from being priced out of pursuing degrees in nursing, medicine, and dentistry. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I want to say a few words about what I consider to be one of the most important issues not only facing our country but facing the world, and that is the advent of artificial intelligence, which most experts agree will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of humanity. It will profoundly impact the lives of every man, woman, and child in our country. Before I go further, I find it rather odd that, whereas everybody agrees that artificial intelligence is going to have a huge impact on our society, as of today, there has not been one significant piece of legislation passed in Congress to address the impacts of AI. Why is that? Why is it that when all of the experts say AI is going to impact the economy, it is going to impact privacy, it is an existential threat to humanity, not one piece of legislation. And the answer is, we have a corrupt campaign finance system, and the AI industry, like a number of other industries, is prepared to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars against any Member of Congress that says: Do you know what? Maybe we should protect our kids. Maybe we should protect our workers of AI. So, as of today, despite all over the country people expressing very real and deep concerns about AI, not one significant piece of legislation has been passed. Leading experts in the AI industry tell us that AI will radically change our economy and, quite possibly, result in the disappearance of tens of millions of jobs over the next decade. Psychologists tell us that the mental health challenges facing our young people are unprecedented and are resulting in increased isolation as kids experience AI. If left unchecked, our children's ``best friends'' may not be other kids but AI bots. Civil libertarians worry that AI will be able to analyze every email that we send, every text, every phone call, every website visit, every purchase that we make, every visit to a doctor's office or a hospital; and that, as a result of all of that, absorbing all of that information, our privacy rights may very well become eviscerated. Political scientists worry that AI could threaten the integrity of our elections and political institutions, where, as a result of so- called deepfakes, voters will find it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between truth and fiction. We are already seeing it. We are already seeing words being put into individuals' mouths that they never said, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell truth from fiction. Military experts worry that AI will transform the nature of warfare, making it easier for government leaders to go to war, kill whole lots of people, with less political consequence because they are replacing human soldiers and military personnel with robots and drones. Further, Nobel Prize winners like Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, who is considered to be one of the godfathers of the creation of AI, as well as many other experts, worry that, as AI becomes smarter than humans, it could eventually function independently of human control, with potentially catastrophic consequences. As everybody knows, the AI industry is dominated by a handful of huge corporations owned by some of the very wealthiest people on Earth. As we speak, multibillionaires--including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, and others--have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the development and implementation of AI. Further, through their super PACS, as I mentioned a moment ago, they are spending huge amounts of money to defeat candidates who dare to suggest that AI should be seriously regulated. Make no mistake about it. The question is not whether AI will change the world. It will. The question is, Who will own and control and determine the future? Who will benefit from AI, and who will be hurt by AI? Will AI be used to improve the quality of life for working families? Will it help us eliminate poverty and extend our life expectancy? Will it give us more time to spend with friends and family? Or will the future of humanity be determined by a handful of the wealthiest people on Earth, who are only concerned about more wealth and more power for themselves? That is the question before us. Let us be clear. AI was not created out of thin air. It was not a brilliant idea that just popped into Mark Zuckerberg's head or Elon Musk's imagination. The foundation of AI is our collective intelligence. Let me repeat that: The foundation of AI is based on our collective human intelligence--our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images, and ideas spanning generations. It is our tweets, our Facebook posts, our TikTok videos, our Reddit comments. It is everything that human beings produce and that is absorbed into the digital world. And that is not just the opinion of Bernie Sanders. According to Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, AI models were trained on our ``collective experience, knowledge,'' and ``learnings of humanity.'' The reality is that Big Tech oligarchs have fed all of this knowledge, based on tens of millions of hours of labor, into their AI models without permission--without permission--without acknowledgment, and without compensation. In other words, the creative work of many millions of people--writers, artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, scientists, and ordinary citizens--has been stolen by the wealthiest people on Earth. The time has come for us to take back what was stolen from us. As a society, we can no longer sit back and allow a handful of Big Tech oligarchs to determine the future of this revolutionary technology with no democratic input--with no input from the people of our country. Since the foundation of AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the American people must be able to control the future of this technology, not just the wealthiest people on Earth. Further, the wealth that is generated by AI must be used to benefit ordinary Americans, not just Mr. Musk or Mr. Bezos, Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Ellison, and the other Big Tech billionaires; not just the venture capitalists in Silicon Valley or the vulture funds on Wall Street, who see AI as the next great wealth-extracting machine. And that is why I have introduced two very important pieces of legislation dealing with AI. The first bill I introduced with Representative Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez and would impose a moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers. This moratorium would remain in effect until: One, strong national safeguards are in place to ensure that AI is safe and effective. That means the government reviews and approves AI products before they are released. Two, the economic gains of AI and robotics must benefit workers, not just the wealthy owners of Big Tech. And, three, AI data centers must not increase electricity costs or utility prices, harm communities, or destroy the environment. When Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and I first introduced that legislation, 3 months ago, the response from many in the establishment was: This is radical. This is crazy. What are you doing? Well, guess what. According to a recent poll from Data for Progress, 63 percent of the American people now support a national moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers for at least 1 year, including 67 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of Independents, and 58 percent of Republicans. If you want bipartisanship, take a look at the support we are getting for a moratorium on the construction of new data centers. And according to Gallup, 71 percent of the American people oppose the construction of new AI data centers in their local communities. To date, as it happens, more than 50 cities, towns, and local communities have enacted a moratorium on new data centers. The legislatures in two States, Maine and New York, have also passed moratoriums. And at least 75 data center projects, worth $130 billion, were successfully blocked or delayed across the country during the first quarter of this year alone. In other words, a moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers is not such a radical idea. It is, in fact, what is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people. A moratorium will give us time--time to understand the risks, time to protect working families, time to defend our democracy, and time to ensure that this technology works for everybody, not just the billionaire owners. One important step we can take to make AI work for all of us is through the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, and that is why, just last week, I introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. This legislation would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America. It would allow the American people, through their government, to own 50 percent of the stock of the major AI companies in our country. And, if passed, this legislation would do three very important things. First, it would give the American people a direct role in determining the future of this technology. No longer would the future of AI and the transformation of human life that it will bring be dictated by fewer than a dozen Big Tech oligarchs. Under this bill, an independent commission would have the power, through its voting shares--and that is 50 percent of the voting shares on every major AI company. So the public would have the ability to block decisions that hurt ordinary people and to push for policies that help them. This independent commission would consist of seven members nominated by the Congress, selected by the President, and confirmed by the Senate. Second, it would require large companies that operate both AI and non-AI businesses to break up those businesses, ensuring the public receives an ownership stake in the AI business. Third, this bill would guarantee that the economic benefits generated by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us, not simply to make the very richest people in the world even richer. The sovereign wealth fund that would be created under this legislation would be worth an estimated $7 trillion. What would we do with it? What would we do with the $7 trillion? Well, we would require this fund to pay an annual dividend of 5 percent directly to the American people. Eventually, if these AI companies continue to grow as rapidly as some analysts expect, the wealth that this bill generates could be used to not only provide direct payment to every man, woman, and child in the country, but it could be used to ensure that every person has a decent and dignified standard of living, including the right to healthcare, education, housing, and a healthy and habitable environment. And let me be very clear, if the value of these companies goes down, as some have suggested, the companies would bear the losses, not the Federal Government. Under no circumstances would these companies receive a bailout from U.S. taxpayers. The idea of a sovereign wealth fund is not an original idea. In fact, over 100 sovereign wealth funds exist all over the world. Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, was funded from the country's abundance in oil and is now worth more than $2 trillion. Instead of a few oil executives pocketing all the benefits of this national resource, Norway made the decision that the wealth created from it should be used to improve life for all of its people. This concept also exists right here in the United States. Fifty years ago, Alaska--the State of Alaska--created a sovereign wealth fund from the State's oil revenues, and for decades it has paid dividends directly to Alaskans. In 2022, that check was over $3,000 per person, and it has gone up and down since. The principle behind this legislation is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth. In this case, artificial intelligence is being built on a public resource far more valuable than oil: the accumulated knowledge, creativity, and labor of humanity throughout human history. The bottom line: The future of AI and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors by a handful of Big Tech CEOs who are the wealthiest people on Earth. It must not be dictated by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and profit. It must be decided by workers, parents, teachers, artists, scientists, communities, and the American people. It is our future. We must decide it. Now, I understand that the opposition to this concept is going to be very, very strong from the AI industry, but I think the time is long overdue for Members of the Senate, Members of the Congress to begin standing with the American people and not just with the billionaires and their super PACs. This is an enormously consequential issue. Let's stand with the American people. Let's do it.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act and all budget resolution disciplines that apply, I move to waive all points of order for purposes of the pending measure. I ask for the yeas and nays. Vote on Motion

Mr. SANDERS. Let's support democracy and pass this amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the American campaign finance system is not only broken, it is corrupt. It allows billionaires to undermine our democracy and buy elections through their super PACs, and the American people want that to change. Why are we the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all? Why do we have an economy in which the top 1 percent gets richer and richer while 60 percent of our people live paycheck to paycheck? Why do we have a tax system in which billionaires are often paying an effective tax rate lower than truckdrivers or nurses? And I think we all know the answer. When Members of Congress stand up for working families and take on oligarchs, they will face millions and millions of dollars of ugly 30-second ads from billionaire-funded super PACs, from the AI industry, from crypto, from AIPAC, from the military industrial complex, and from other special interests. Let's get billionaire-funded super PACs out of our elections.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, could we have some order in the Chamber, please. I call up my amendment No. 5451 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, artificial intelligence will almost certainly be the most transformational technology in the history of the world. It will profoundly impact the lives of every man, woman, and child in our country and, in fact, throughout the world. It will bring and it is already bringing unimaginable changes to our economy, to our democracy and political system, to our emotional well-being, to the health of our children, to our environment, and to how we educate and raise our kids. Further, there is a very real fear that as AI becomes smarter than humans, it could eventually function independent of human control with potentially catastrophic consequences. That is not me; that is what Nobel Prize scientists and experts are saying. The question, then, is not whether AI will change the world. It will. The question is: Who will own and control the future? Who will benefit from AI, and who will be hurt by it? Will AI be used to make life better for working families? Will it enrich our quality of life? Will it help us eliminate poverty, extend life expectancies, and help us solve the climate crisis? Or will the future of humanity be determined by a handful of some of the wealthiest people on the planet who have promoted and developed AI, with no democratic input, in order for them to become even richer and more powerful than they are today? That is the choice before us. Let us be clear. AI was not created out of thin air. It was not a brilliant idea that just popped into Mark Zuckerberg's head or Elon Musk's imagination. The foundation of AI is our collective human intelligence. Let me repeat that. The foundation of AI is based on our collective human intelligence: our books, songs, artwork, journalism, computer code, scientific research, videos, conversations, images, and ideas spanning generations. It is our tweets, our Facebook posts, our TikTok videos, our Reddit comments. It is everything that human beings produce and that is absorbed into the digital world. That is not just my opinion. According to Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, AI models were trained on our ``collective experience, knowledge'' and ``learnings of humanity.'' That is Mr. Altman, the head of OpenAI. The reality is that Big Tech oligarchs have fed this knowledge into their AI models without permission, without acknowledgement, and without compensation. In other words, the creative work of many millions of people--writers, artists, musicians, journalists, teachers, scientists, and ordinary people--has been stolen--has been stolen--by the wealthiest people in the world. The time has come for us to reclaim what was stolen from us. Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity--not just Elon Musk, not just Jeff Bezos, not just Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Ellison and the other multibillionaires who have invested hundreds of billions into the development and implementation of AI, not the venture capitalists in Silicon Valley or the vulture funds on Wall Street who see AI as the next great wealth-extracting machine. That is why in the coming weeks, I will be introducing the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. This legislation would give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in our country. How would it do that? Through a one-time, 50-percent tax not on the profits of the largest AI companies in the United States but something that is far more valuable than that: the stock. If passed, this legislation would do two critical things: First, it would give the American people a direct role in determining the future of this technology. No longer would the future of AI and the transformation of human life that it will bring be dictated by a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. These people do not have the right to determine the future of humanity. Under this bill, the Federal Government would have the power, through its voting shares and an equal representation on each company's board, to block decisions that hurt the public and to push for policies that help them. Secondly, this legislation would guarantee that the trillions of dollars potentially created by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us, not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer. Further, if these AI companies continue to grow as dramatically as many analysts expect, then the value of the sovereign wealth fund created under this bill would grow as well, and the benefits to the American people would grow along with it. Let us be clear. This is not an original idea. In fact, it is an idea that has been endorsed by some of the leading AI companies in America. For example, OpenAI recently proposed creating a ``Public Wealth Fund that provides every citizen--including those not invested in financial markets--with a stake in AI-driven economic growth.'' Anthropic also proposed the creation of ``national sovereign wealth funds with stakes in A.I.'' Elon Musk, the owner of xAI, went further and said that ``Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI.'' Let us not forget, over 100 sovereign wealth funds exist all over the world. Again, this is not a new idea. Norway's sovereign wealth fund-- the largest in the world--was funded from the country's abundance in oil and is now worth more than $2 trillion. Instead of a few oil executives pocketing all the benefits of that natural resource, Norway made the decision that the wealth created from it should be used to improve life for all of their people. This concept also exists right here in the United States. Fifty years ago, Alaska created a sovereign wealth fund from the State's oil revenues, and for decades, it has paid dividends directly to Alaskans. In 2022, that check was over $3,000 per person. In 2023, it was $1,300 per person. In 2024, it was $1,700. Last year, it was $1,000. This is a direct check coming from a sovereign fund in Alaska to the people of that State. Even President Trump, in an Executive order, has proposed establishing a U.S. sovereign wealth fund. The billions, if not trillions, of dollars generated by this legislation would provide direct payments to the American people. Further, as the fund generates more and more wealth, the proceeds would be used to ensure that every man, woman, and child in our country has a decent and dignified standard of living, including healthcare, education, and housing. The principle behind this legislation is simple: When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share in that wealth. In this case, artificial intelligence is being built on a public resource far more valuable than oil: the accumulated knowledge, creativity, and labor of humanity throughout history. That is what AI is all about. Bottom line: The future of AI and the fate of humanity must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley by the wealthiest people in the world. It must not be dictated by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and their profit. It must be decided by workers, parents, teachers, artists, scientists, communities, and the American people. It is our future. We must decide it. Let's get it done.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the point of order, and I ask for the yeas and nays. Vote on Motion

Mr. SANDERS. Let's stand with the American people, not with the pharmaceutical industry. Please vote yes.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the American people pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. As a result, one out of four Americans cannot afford the prescriptions that their doctors write, and thousands die every year as a result, and many become sicker than they should. During his State of the Union Address, President Trump asked us to codify a most-favored-nation drug policy to ensure that the American people pay no more for prescription drugs than people in other countries. Well, the amendment that I am offering now calls on Congress to do exactly that. This amendment is very simple. It would prevent pharmaceutical companies from charging more for prescription drugs in the United States than they do in Canada, the UK, Germany, France, and Japan. Researchers at Yale University estimate that this bill would cut the cost of prescription drugs in America by half--a 50-percent reduction-- so we are not paying the highest prices in the world.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask for order. Could we have order?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I call up my amendment 5159 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me thank Senator Van Hollen, Senator Merkley, Senator Markey, Senator Kaine, and, before that, Senator Kelly for their remarks. The American people increasingly are sick and tired of spending billions of dollars in support of illegal, horrific military actions on the part of the Netanyahu government. We have spent tens of billions of dollars already. Gaza has been destroyed--10 percent of the population dead or wounded. Netanyahu got Trump into a war in Iran. Thousands of civilians are now dead, including many children, and now Netanyahu is at war in Lebanon--thousands of civilians dead, civilian neighborhoods bombed, a million people displaced from their homes, and 14 percent of Lebanese territory occupied by Israel. What the American people are saying is: Enough is enough. By the way, this is bipartisan. It is not just Democrats, and it is not just Independents. It is a significant number of Republicans who remember President Trump talking about ``America First'' and talking about the need to invest in this country, not in bombs and bulldozers to destroy people in the Middle East. With that, I would hope that we would have a very strong vote in support of these resolutions to tell Netanyahu and to tell the world that enough is enough. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Oregon Mr. Merkley.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Senator Kelly not only for his remarks and his work as a U.S. Senator but for his service to our country in the military, and I very much appreciate his support for these resolutions. Mr. President, 60 percent of our people here in the United States live paycheck to paycheck. They are struggling to pay for groceries, for housing, for healthcare, and, increasingly, the ability to fill up their gas tanks in their cars in order to get to work. We also have a $37 trillion national debt. Bottom line: The American people--whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, conservatives, moderates, or progressives--want to make certain that their tax dollars are spent responsibly. And in strong and growing numbers, they do not want us to continue spending billions of their taxpayer dollars in support of the illegal, horrific, and expansionist war policies of the Netanyahu Government in Israel. Since October 7, 2023, the United States has provided over $21 billion--$21 billion--in military aid to Israel. And today, we are saying loudly and clearly: Enough is enough. We all know that on October 7, 2023, Hamas, a terrorist organization, attacked Israel. They killed more than 1,200 innocent men, women, and children and took hundreds of hostages. I believe that there is no disagreement in this Chamber that like any other country on Earth, Israel had the absolute right to respond to that barbaric Hamas attack. But Israel did not have the right to violate international law and wage an all-out war of unspeakable destruction against the entire Palestinian people in what experts have correctly concluded is a genocide. Israel did not have the right out of a population of 2.2 million to kill more than 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wound over 170,000. That is more than 10 percent of the population. If that happened here in America, that would be over 30 million Americans dead or wounded. And in Gaza, a strong majority of the dead and wounded are women, children, and the elderly. By the way, that number is likely an underestimate as to the tragedy as bodies are literally being pulled out of the rubble every single day. Israel did not have the right to destroy virtually all of Gaza's infrastructure, including its water and sewer systems and its supply of electricity. They did not have the right to demolish every one of Gaza's 12 universities, along with hundreds of schools, dismantling their entire educational system. A vast majority of the children in Gaza today are not in school. Israel did not have the right to indiscriminately bomb civilian neighborhoods and damage or destroy over 90 percent of the housing units in Gaza--over 90 percent damaged or destroyed--resulting in the vast majority of the population there now sleeping in tents. That is where they are today. Israel did not have the right to bomb over 90 percent of the hospitals in Gaza--hospitals--and kill 1,700 healthcare workers. And Israel did not have the right to impose a blockade which prevented food, water, and medicine from entering Gaza, resulting in thousands of Palestinians being diagnosed with malnutrition and hundreds actually starving to death. But, today, we are not just talking about Gaza. In the West Bank, in direct violation of international law that protects Palestinian territory, Israeli soldiers and settlers, since 2023, have killed over a thousand Palestinians, including 233 children. During that period, they have demolished more than 6,000 Palestinian homes and established more than 200 new illegal settlements and outposts in Palestinian territory. And let us be clear, because I think there is some confusion about this. These actions are not just the results of some extremist, out-of- control settlers who are just doing whatever they want. Those actions are consistent with Israeli Government policy. Netanyahu's Security Cabinet has approved the most sweeping changes to the West Bank's legal status since 1967, removing nearly all constraints on settlement expansion. Netanyahu himself declared: There will never be a Palestinian state. And I say that to some people here who still say: Well, we are in favor of a two-state solution. That is not Mr. Netanyahu's position. He said: ``There will never be a Palestinian state.'' His Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, bragged that new settlement construction in the West Bank would ``bury''--that is his word-- ``bury'' the idea of a Palestinian state. But it is not just Gaza and the West Bank. We now know that Netanyahu convinced President Trump to start an unprovoked and unconstitutional war on Iran. For 40 years--for 40 years--Netanyahu had wanted the United States to participate with Israel in a war against Iran, and, finally, after 40 years of effort, he finally found in Trump a President willing to go along. He couldn't get Democratic Presidents in the past and couldn't get Republicans in the past. In Trump, he finally found a President willing to go along. This war, in violation of international law, has resulted already in the deaths of thousands of civilians, including hundreds of children in Iran and Lebanon, including 26 Israeli civilians who are now dead and 13 American soldiers who have lost their lives so far in this conflict. All over the world, certainly including the United States, hundreds of millions of innocent people are suffering the economic consequences of this war, with higher prices and growing scarcity of basic goods. I believe that in Vermont, now, the price of regular gas is about $4 a gallon, and in parts of the country, it is even higher than that. But for Netanyahu, Gaza was not enough. Attacking Iran was not enough. Netanyahu is now waging a full-blown war of expansion against Lebanon. That war in Lebanon has not only killed more than 2,000 people but has resulted in Israel occupying 14 percent of Lebanese territory. Let me repeat that. The war in Lebanon has not only killed more than 2,000 people but has resulted in Israel occupying 14 percent of Lebanese territory. The Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has announced that all Lebanese border villages will be demolished--will be demolished--his exact words, following ``the model in Gaza''--demolish border villages. Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, has warned that Dahieh, a suburb of South Beirut, will look like Khan Yunis, a city in Gaza that Israel reduced to rubble. In other words, what they did in Gaza is now what they intend to do in parts of Lebanon. And these are not threats. They are promises. For all of the reasons that I have given and more--and you are going to hear more from some of my colleagues, in a few moments--support for Israel in this country has plummeted. Today, according to a recent Pew poll, 80 percent of Democrats now have an unfavorable opinion of Israel, and 41 percent of Republicans share that view. And the numbers in all parties, among young people, are even higher. Young people, whether they are young Democrats, progressives, or conservatives, do not want us to continue to fund the horrific war policies of Netanyahu. A recent Quinnipiac poll also found that 60 percent--including three- quarters of Democrats, two-thirds of Independents, and 37 percent of Republicans--I say that to my Republican colleagues: 37 percent of Republicans do not want the U.S. sending more military aid to Israel. And that is why I am offering, today, two joint resolutions of disapproval, the only formal mechanism Congress has to block an arms sale. The first resolution would block the sale of $151 million in 1,000- pound bombs. The second would block $295 million in bulldozers, the machines used to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza and make a Palestinian state physically impossible. The time is long overdue for Members of the U.S. Senate to start listening to the American people and not to AIPAC. The time is now for us to end all U.S. military aid to the extremist Netanyahu government, and a ``yes'' vote is an important way forward. Mr. President, with that, I yield to my colleague from Maryland, Senator Chris Van Hollen.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, pursuant to section 36(b)(1), I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 138.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, pursuant to section 36(b)(1) of the Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 32.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. This is totally sincere. I think you are a good man. I really do. I am probably not supposed to say that.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we are at the beginning of the most profound technological revolution in world history, a revolution which will bring unimaginable changes to every aspect of our society. Artificial intelligence and robotics will impact our economy, our political lives, our privacy, our emotional well-being, our environment, and even our survival--the survival of humanity on this planet. The scale, scope, and speed of this change will be unprecedented. That is not the view of Bernie Sanders. That is the view of some of the most knowledgeable people in the world who have developed AI, who study AI. According to Demis Hassabis, the head of Google's DeepMind--the head of Google's DeepMind--the AI revolution will be 10 times bigger than the industrial revolution and 10 times faster. In other words, the AI revolution will have 100 times the impact that the industrial revolution had. People left the farms. They went to work in factories. People left factories. They went to work in offices. According to the head of Google's DeepMind, this revolution will be 100 times more impactful. Mr. President, it is not just what the leaders of the AI companies are saying. Take a look at what they are doing. This year, four--four-- AI companies are spending almost $700 billion to build out data centers across this country. As a percentage of GDP, that is 10 times greater than what we spent each year on Moon landings, going to the Moon. Despite the extraordinary importance of this issue and the speed at which it is progressing, AI has gotten far too little discussion here in Congress. I fear very much that while the American people are deeply concerned about the economic, the spiritual, the political impact of AI, Congress is totally unprepared to respond to the existential changes that are taking place. We are way, way, way behind where the American people are in terms of their concerns. Here are, in my view, a few questions, just a few, that Members of Congress and the American people should be asking. Question No. 1, a rather obvious question: Who is pushing the AI and robotics revolution? Ordinary people going up and saying: Hey, we got to automate factories. We got to do that. Who is pushing it? Well, I think we all know what the answer is. The answer is Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Ellison. These are some of the wealthiest people in the world, and they are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI and robotics. Okay. Fair enough. Why are they doing it? Why are these multibillionaires investing huge sums of money into these new technologies? Do you think it is because they are staying up nights and they are saying: My goodness, 60 percent of the American people are struggling economically? They are living paycheck to paycheck. Can't afford groceries. They can't afford housing. They can't afford healthcare. And that is why we are going to push these technologies, to improve life for ordinary Americans. Well, maybe, but I doubt that very much. I think the answer is obvious. These multibillionaires are investing in AI and robotics because those investments will increase their wealth and power exponentially. They will make massive profits. In other words, the richest and most powerful people on Earth will become even richer and more powerful. And another question I think that we obviously should be asking is: What will the impacts of AI and robotics be on our society? How is it going to impact us? Pretty obvious question. In my view, and according to the people who have studied this issue extensively, including Nobel Prize winners, AI and robotics will bring about the most rapid societal transformation in human history. Let me repeat. AI and robotics will bring about the most rapid societal transformation in human history. Among other things, AI and robotics will transform our economy with massive job displacement. It will impact our emotional well-being and how we relate to each other as human beings. It will lead to a massive invasion of privacy. It will threaten our democratic institutions, and it will bring severe harm to our environment. Further and frighteningly, some very knowledgeable people fear that what was once seen as science fiction could soon become a reality, and that is superintelligent AI could become smarter than humans, could become independent of human control, and pose an existential threat to the human race. In other words, this is what they used to make science fiction movies about. But some of the most knowledgeable people on Earth, including people who have helped develop this technology, actually believe human beings could lose control over the planet to artificial intelligence. Question No. 4: What happens to working people, to ordinary Americans during this revolutionary upheaval? Well, don't take my word for it. I am not an expert on it. Let's hear what the leaders in the industry are saying in their own words, not Bernie Sanders. This is what the people who have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the industry are saying. Elon Musk, who has made massive investments in AI and robotics, recently said: AI and robots will replace all jobs. Now, is Mr. Musk exaggerating? Is he wrong? I don't know. But I think you might want to take a listen to one of the most powerful people on Earth, who is investing very heavily in these technologies. Bill Gates, another multibillionaire investing heavily in AI, he predicted that: [H]umans won't be needed for most things. Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI--the CEO of Microsoft AI-- said most white-collar work: [W]ill be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months. Not 12 to 18 years, 12 to 18 months. That is the CEO of Microsoft AI. Somebody might be a little concerned about that here in Congress. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Jeff Bezos, the fourth richest man alive, who is worth over $200 billion, is seeking to raise $100 billion to purchase factories all over America. OK? One of the richest guys in the world is seeking to raise $100 billion to purchase factories all over the country. His goal: Replace the millions of workers who are employed in these plants with robots. Maybe somebody here might be raising some concerns about the fact that we are on the beginning of the end of manufacturing jobs in the United States. And for Mr. Bezos, this is not just an idle threat. According to The New York Times, Mr. Bezos plans to fully automate Amazon operations. He owns Amazon. He wants to fully automate Amazon operations, beginning by replacing at least 600,000 workers with robots. So this is a guy who has a track record. That is what he is doing right now; and he wants to expand that vision all across the country, basically wipe out manufacturing jobs in America and get rid of millions of workers. Why does he want to do it? Well, the answer is fairly obvious: Because AI and robots will cost employers far less than human labor. Robots work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Robots do not need sick days or healthcare. They don't take Christmas or New Year's Day off. They will end up costing employers a fraction of what human labor costs. As Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, has said: AI isn't a substitute for specific human jobs but rather a general labor substitute for humans. And according to Open AI's charter, its charter, its mission is to build: [H]ighly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work. In other words, what these guys are working toward is creating an AI which can do virtually any job better than a human being can do. What are the impacts of that? Well, you know, we might want to have a discussion about that here in the Congress. As the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I released a number of months ago a well-researched report, finding that AI automation and robotics could replace nearly 100 million jobs in America over the next decade--100 million jobs-- including 47 percent of truck drivers, 64 percent of accountants, and 89 percent of fast-food workers, among many other occupations. There are towns and cities in America we are already seeing a lot of driverless vehicles. In Texas now, you have 18-wheelers going down the road, and nobody is driving those trucks. And everything being equal, that will be the future unless we begin to start talking about it and figure out how we make AI robotics work for workers, not just the richest people on Earth. We are already--not next year, not 10 years from now--we are already starting to see the impact of AI on the working class in this country. Researchers at Stanford released a paper in November called ``Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence'' that found that there has already been a 16- percent relative decline in employment for younger workers in jobs exposed to AI like computer programming and customer service. Further, 42 percent of new college graduates are underemployed. At the same time, for every new job posting, there are now, on average, 242 job applicants. In other words, for our young people, getting a job is going to be increasingly difficult. If OpenAI is successful in building what they want to build--``highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work''--I have a very simple question that we might be discussing here on the floor of the Senate: What happens to those workers? How will they be able to find new jobs if there are no jobs to find? How are they going to feed their families? How are they going to buy healthcare? How are they going to stay alive if AI robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment? How will people survive if they have no income? How do government programs like Social Security and Medicare survive if workers are not paying taxes? If you don't work, you don't pay taxes. Another question that we must be discussing: What impact will AI have on our ability to relate to each other as human beings? What impact will it have on our emotional well-being? Well, work is one of the ways we connect to each other. In many cases, work also gives our lives meaning and purpose. We all, whether we are doctors or janitors, scientists or snowplow operators, want to serve our communities and be productive members of society. We want to give back. What happens when millions of people lose their jobs, their meaning and purpose, and their source of connection to each other? I am also concerned--and it is not just me; parents all over this country are deeply concerned--about the impact AI is having on the emotional well-being of our kids and, in fact, of all people. According to a recent poll by Common Sense Media, 72 percent of American teenagers say they have used AI for companionship, and more than half do so regularly. So let's take a deep breath and ask ourselves a simple question: What does it mean for our young people to form friendships and become emotionally dependent on AI while at the same time becoming increasingly isolated from other human beings? Does anyone in America think that the past 20 years of social media have been good and healthy for children's mental health and cognitive capabilities? I suspect most people understand that is not the case. The statistics are quite clear. Mental health among young people is in crisis. According to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, one in five young people has a diagnosed mental health condition such as anxiety or depression. From 2016 to 2023, the prevalence of anxiety has increased by over 60 percent. Further, and very importantly, studies indicate that there has been a cognitive decline in young people in our country and, in fact, in countries all over the world. In America today, more students are reading below a basic level than 20 years ago. It appears that the more time kids spend on screens, the worse it is for their brains. Does anyone really think we should now entrust the same big tech companies that have gotten our kids hooked on screens and social media with even more power over our children's well-being and development? That is a question we need to be discussing long and hard. Here is another question that I think we should be asking: Will AI result in a massive invasion of our privacy and our civil liberties? For decades, companies have been collecting our personal information--what we search for online, where we visit, who we talk to, what we purchase. Now AI makes it possible for someone to quickly analyze all of that disparate information, find patterns, and create profiles of us. Larry Ellison--the second wealthiest person on Earth and a major investor in AI--predicts an AI-powered surveillance state is coming wherein ``citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on.'' Last week, in my office, I had an extremely interesting experience. I spoke with Anthropic's AI Claude about the privacy risks posed by AI. Here is what Claude told me: When companies and governments have detailed profiles of millions of people, they have power over those people in ways most Americans don't fully grasp. They can manipulate your choices, predict your behavior, and influence your thinking. That is from Claude. I don't know if you are supposed to quote AI, but that is what AI said. In other words, with AI, we will reach the stage where every phone call, every email, every text, and every bank and medical record could be analyzed in a matter of minutes. Do we trust companies that have made billions of dollars in selling our information with this extraordinary power to instantly know everything about us? My fear is that if we allow the current situation to continue, privacy as a human right will disappear. Here is another question that needs to be seriously discussed: What impact will AI have on our democracy? We are already facing enormous threats from a corrupt campaign finance system, et cetera. What impact will AI have on our democracy? AI will mean that images, statements, and videos you see from public officials and candidates may be totally false. In other words, words can be put into the mouths of individuals in a way that it is virtually impossible to detect. Let me give you one rather personal example. Here is an image of a guy named Bernie Sanders, a Senator from Vermont. In this image or on this video, Senator Bernie Sanders is promoting a website that provides a government rebate. There is just one problem: I never said the words that they have coming out of my mouth. There is no government rebate. This whole thing is a total scam. Well, I must say the picture is not all that bad. But this is something we are going to see more and more of. This is obviously not something just known to me; the so-called deepfakes have been created of many well-known people. Sometimes you are seeing people whom you know who say things that sound a little weird. Why are they saying that? Well, do you know what? They are not saying that. It is a fake. I want you to appreciate that if 2 days before an election, a candidate gets up there and says all of these wild and crazy things and you say ``Wow. Why is that guy saying that?'' Well, do you know what? He or she may not be saying that. It may be a total fake. The line between reality, which is what is true, and misinformation, which is the distortion of truth, is increasingly being blurred. We are seeing that every day on the internet. If we cannot distinguish between reality and misinformation, what will, in fact, happen to our democratic institutions? It is an issue I think we need to be thinking about. Further, what impact is AI having on our environment? AI requires zillions of calculations. Those calculations require huge data centers, which, in turn, require a massive amount of electricity and water. For example, Meta is building a data center in Louisiana that is the size of Manhattan that will use as much electricity as 1.6 million homes. One data center will use as much electricity as 1.6 million homes. The increased demand for electricity is leading to higher electricity rates. Over the past 5 years, wholesale electricity costs have increased by up to 267 percent in areas near data centers. Further, this increased demand will drive a massive expansion of fossil fuels when we are already seeing the devastating impacts of the global crisis of climate change. A further question: Does AI pose an existential risk to our planet and to the survival of humanity? It is rather a fundamental question that I think we might want to be discussing, so let me pose it again. Does AI pose an existential risk to our planet and to the survival of humanity? This guy is named Dr. Geoffrey Hinton. He is considered by most people to be the godfather of AI. He did the groundbreaking work which led us to where we are today. He received a Nobel Prize in Physics a few years ago. What Dr. Hinton says is that there is a 10- to 20- percent chance they wipe us out. Many of the most knowledgeable people on this issue of AI believe that AI will become smarter than humans. It is not a question of whether that will happen; it is a question of when that will happen. AI has already developed concerning patterns. AI, today, can lie, it can cheat, and it can blackmail. In other words, we already are beginning to lose control of AI. What happens when AI becomes smarter than we are? This concern about superintelligence is why leading experts like the godfather of AI, Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, have warned there is a real chance that AI could wipe out humanity. I don't want to get people too nervous, but that is what some people are saying. It is not just Hinton; there are a number of leading people. I was in California last month, talking to a number of people in the industry. The idea that humans can lose control of AI and that AI can act independently and cause extraordinary damage to the human race is not just science fiction; it is what many of these guys believe. That leads to my final set of questions: Where is the Congress? Now, it is hard not to imagine that these issues we are talking about are of enormous consequence to every man, woman, and child in this country. And this is not new news. Poll after poll shows the American people are deeply concerned about the economic impacts on their kids, the existential threats, et cetera. So where is Congress? What exactly have the House and the Senate done so far to address the extraordinary challenges posed by artificial intelligence? The answer: Not much. Well, why has Congress been totally ineffective on this issue? The answer will not surprise the American people: We have a corrupt campaign finance system, and too often, Members of Congress are worried about their campaign contributions rather than the needs of their constituents. The AI oligarchs, some of the wealthiest people in the country running enormously profitable and well-funded companies, have already spent over $150 million buying influence, $150 million telling Congress: Leave us alone. We got it. Don't get involved in these issues. We will determine--we, the wealthiest people on Earth--will determine the future of humanity. Meanwhile, last week, the Trump administration put out a ``comprehensive'' legislative framework on AI that is all of four pages long--not quite so comprehensive. In the midst of a massive and unprecedented attack on the working class of this country, the Trump administration's solution says: Congress should not create any new federal rulemaking body to regulate AI. Leave the multibillionaires running the industry alone. They make a lot of campaign contributions--the rich are getting richer. Leave them alone. In the midst of a massive and unprecedented attack on our humanity, the Trump administration's solution says: States should not be permitted to regulate AI development. In other words, instead of the U.S. Congress representing the interests of ordinary Americans, the Trump administration and many Members of Congress--in both parties, by the way--want to allow a handful of billionaires to race forward to develop AI for increased power and wealth for themselves. That is the bad news, and it is pretty scary news. Now, here is the good news: The American people--despite the inactivity of Congress, the American people are fighting back. In community after community, Americans are organizing against data centers that are powering the AI revolution, and they are winning, taking on very powerful corporations. And many of these communities are deeply red, conservative; some are progressive. But ordinary people look around them and say: You know what. We don't think these data centers are going to do our community any good. They are going to raise our rates, put pressure on our water, destroy the local environment. We don't want them. In fact, more than 100 local communities around the country have enacted moratoriums on data centers, and 12 States are pushing forward with statewide moratorium proposals. And here is an important point that I think has not gotten anywhere near the discussion that it deserves. Three years ago, in March of 2023, more than 1,000 leading AI experts, including Elon Musk, Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell, and many, many others--these are leaders in industry--called for AI labs to ``immediately pause for at least 6 months,'' and if such a pause were not enacted, called on governments to ``step in and institute a moratorium.'' They recognized that ``advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources.'' And then these experts--again, these are some of the most knowledgeable people on AI in the world--they asked a series of questions: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? These are some of the leading and most knowledgeable people in the AI industry 3 years ago. They concluded: Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable. And I agree with what these scientists and industry leaders said. We need to slow down the development of AI to give democracy, to give ordinary people, a chance to catch up. Unfortunately, several years have come and gone since this letter has come out, and there has been no pause, and there has been no action of significance on the part of Congress. And that is why I will be introducing legislation tomorrow to ban the development of new AI data centers. A moratorium will give us the chance to figure out how to make sure that AI benefits the working families of this country, not just a handful of billionaires who want more and more wealth and more and more power. A moratorium will give us the time to figure out how to ensure that AI is safe and effective and prevent the worst outcomes. A moratorium will give us the time to figure out how to make sure AI does not harm our environment or jack up the electric bills that we pay. Bottom line: A moratorium will give the American people the time to determine how we can make AI and robotics work for them, not just a few wealthy people. We need to pass this moratorium here. We need to slow down the development of AI around the world, and we need to bring the international community together to address the risk posed by AI. And I can tell you that, in China, in Europe, in countries all over the world, there is deep concern about the safety of AI and the possible loss of human control over AI. So we are looking at the most sweeping and impactful technological revolution in the history of humanity. It will impact all of us in so many ways. Yet Congress remains too busy raising contributions from the industry rather than standing up for the needs of the working people. That has got to change. I look forward to working with my colleagues to make sure that we finally pass a moratorium, slow this down, and make AI robotics work for all of us, not just the few. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, at a time when our country faces unprecedented crises, the U.S. Senate has spent an entire week debating a problem that essentially does not exist. The goal of the SAVE Act, which is on the floor right now, is to make certain that noncitizens do not vote in American elections. I don't know that anyone disagrees with that. The good news is that noncitizens do not vote in American elections. Study after study has shown that the number of undocumented immigrants voting in American elections is virtually nonexistent. We are debating a problem that does not exist. The conservative Heritage Foundation found that over a recent 24-year period--24 years--there have been a grand total of 77 confirmed instances of undocumented immigrants voting in the United States--24 years with 77 undocumented immigrants voting. Hundreds of millions of people voted in a 24-year period, and there were 77 instances of noncitizens voting. That is according to the conservative Heritage Foundation. What about individual States that have looked at this issue? What have they found? Well, the State of Utah found that, of the State's 2.1 million registered voters, in 2025 and in 2026, a grand total--all right, here we go--a grand total of 1 noncitizen registered to vote in that State, and that individual never cast a ballot--2.1 million registered voters in Utah and 1 noncitizen registered to vote. In 2024, Idaho reviewed its 1 million registered voters and found 36 possible noncitizens registered to vote. In 2024, Georgia--the State of Georgia--audited its 8.2 million registered voters and found 20 noncitizens registered to vote. Overall, not only are there a tiny number of people undocumented who are registered to vote, but most of those citizens have never even voted. They just registered to vote for whatever reason and were properly removed from the voter rolls. Let us be clear: Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in Federal elections, and no State--not one of our 50 States-- allows noncitizens to vote in State elections; but if this legislation were to be passed, it would create a whole lot more problems than it would solve. Under this bill, every American would be required to have a passport or a birth certificate in order to register to vote. Now, what is wrong with that? Well, as many as 69 million married women have last names that do not match their birth certificates and would need to provide additional documentation proving their name changes in order to register to vote. Further, an estimated 4 million Americans have had their birth certificates or other necessary documents stolen or destroyed. If you are watching this out there, just think: Do you have a birth certificate? How are you going to get a birth certificate? How many weeks or months will it take? How much does it cost? You will have to go through all of the bureaucracy to get your birth certificate. Even worse, do you have a passport? Well, half of Americans--146 million people--don't have a valid passport. Those who would need a passport to vote under this bill would have to spend $130 to renew a passport or $165 for a new one. By the way, you are going to have to wait up to 6 weeks to get it. So make no mistake about it, this legislation is nothing more than a modern-day poll tax that would deprive millions of low-income and working-class Americans from being able to vote. So what is this bill really about? Well, the good news is President Trump has told us what it is about. Trump has said that, if this legislation were signed into law, Republicans would ``never lose a race . . . For 50 years, we won't lose a race.'' Well, my understanding of election reform would be to make sure that the United States makes it possible for more people to participate in the political process and makes sure that we have one of the highest levels of voter participation rather than one of the lower rates of voter turnout in the world. In other words, we want to strengthen our democracy, not throw millions of people off the voting rolls so, to quote President Trump, Republicans would never lose a race. Instead of spending a week on a nonexistent problem, maybe it is time we started to focus on some of the enormous crises facing our country, and let me just take a moment to mention a few. Trump Administration Mr. President, never before in American history have so few individuals had so much wealth and so much power. During the Gilded Age in this country, with Rockefeller and Carnegie, you had a handful of people who had enormous wealth and enormous power--nothing--nothing-- compared to what exists today. Today, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of this country. Do you think that might be an issue that we should be talking about? Do you think we might be suggesting that there is something wrong when the top 1 percent in America now owns more wealth than the bottom 93 percent? Do you think we might be talking about making some changes in an economic system in which 60 percent of our people today are living paycheck to paycheck and families are struggling to feed their kids? to pay for healthcare? to pay for rent? to pay for childcare? to pay for the basic necessities of life? There are 60 percent of our people who are living paycheck to paycheck, and one guy--Elon Musk--owns more wealth than the bottom 53 percent of American households. Do you think maybe that might be an issue that we should be talking about? But one of the reasons we don't talk about that issue and many other vital issues that impact working families is the reality that Congress today is much more concerned about protecting the needs of its campaign contributors--the billionaires who are putting an unprecedented amount of money into the political process--rather than representing the needs of working families throughout America. It is no great secret. As a result of this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the billionaires in this country--Democrats but more Republicans--are putting huge amounts of money into the political process, and Congress is quickly becoming a corporately owned entity. Maybe we might want to talk about how we get rid of Big Money in politics and create a democracy in which every person has one vote, not where billionaires can spend unlimited amounts of money to elect candidates who represent their interests. I should tell you that one way I believe that we begin to tackle the massive level of income and wealth inequality that exists is by imposing a wealth tax on the 938 billionaires in America who are worth some $8.2 trillion. Legislation that I have proposed--the wealth tax on billionaires--would not impact anybody in America who is not a billionaire, but over a 10-year period, this legislation would raise $4.4 trillion strictly from the people on top--the one-tenth of 1 percent minuscule number of people who are doing unbelievably well. And what would we use that $4.4 trillion for? Well, let me just briefly tell you. For a start, in the first year, at a time when working-class families are struggling to put food on the table and pay their rent, this legislation would provide every man, woman, and child in the country in a household making $150,000 or less a $3,000 direct payment, $12,000 for a family of four. So at a time when the billionaires have never had it so good, when many of them are paying virtually nothing in taxes, we are going to demand that they start paying their fair share so that working-class, low-income families can get some help--$3,000 for every man, woman, and child in families of less than $150,000. This legislation would end homelessness in America and address the affordable housing crisis by building 7 million units of low-income and affordable homes and apartments. Twenty million households in America should not be forced to spend half of their limited incomes on housing. We should not have 800,000 people sleeping out on the streets. Instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires, we should be building low-income and affordable housing. This bill would expand Medicare. In Vermont and all over this country, you have got elderly people who can't afford dental care, can't afford hearing aids, can't afford vision care. This legislation would expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing. In the last poll that I saw on that, only 90 percent of the American people supported it. Maybe, we may want to pass it. This legislation would provide universal childcare in America and make sure that no one in our country pays more than 7 percent of their limited income on childcare. At a time when school districts in Vermont and around the country are having a hard time attracting good teachers because the pay scale is much too low, we would make sure that no teacher in America earns less than $60,000 a year. This legislation would also make sure that seniors and people with disabilities receive the home healthcare they need through Medicaid. And, by the way, this legislation would prevent 15 million Americans from losing healthcare by repealing Trump's $1.1 trillion cut to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. And we do all of that just by asking the very wealthiest people in this country, the fewer than 1,000 billionaires, to pay 5 percent of their wealth in taxes. And you know, after that, I know people--editorial writers--all over America are very worried about what happens to poor Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos and Mr. Zuckerberg. The good news is they will still have enough money with their hundreds of billions of dollars left to feed their families. I don't want anybody to think that the Musk family or the Bezos family will go hungry. We leave them with hundreds of billions of dollars.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask to have printed in the Record some of the finalists' essays written by Vermont High School students as part of the 16th annual State of the Union Essay contest conducted by my office. The material follows: