Brian Schatz

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, I want to thank the Senator from Virginia and ranking member of the Intelligence Committee and also thank Senator Kim, the Senator from New Jersey, both of whom have real expertise in this area and as it intersects with public policy. This is really about one simple thing, and that is, humans in control of the code and not the code in control of the humans. We are at a seminal moment in world history, not just in American history, where it is possible for this code to escape human control. That is not an apocalyptic statement from a person who wants to make a point in a political context; that is a fact that is new to all of us. This code is capable of escaping our control, and it is potentially capable of something they call recursive self-improvement, which means the code can write its own code and that humans would find the code that was written by AI so inscrutable as to not be able to control it at all. So what we are proposing--and I want to reiterate what Senator Warner said. When we were in private conversation, he said: Nobody can bring their pet rock to this conversation. What do I mean by ``pet rock''? Everybody has got a bill on AI. By the way, they are really important things--energy use, the safety of children, the future of work, the future of intellectual property--but we are not going to solve that in a 10-day period. So what we sat down on a bipartisan basis to do with AI safety groups, with companies that are in the business--with experts--is to say: How do we reduce the acute risk now, not the societal risk over the long run, not to balance the equities between whatever it may be 2, 3, 4 years from now. How do we take down what some people are calling civilizational risk? Some people find that too apocalyptical. Fine. Let's not call it risk of extinction. Let's not call it civilizational risk. Let's just call it a high risk of something very terrible happening, and that should be enough for us to be on the floor to say: Well, why don't we try to take down that risk? There is a very straightforward pathway. First of all, it is predeployment testing, but one of the things, I think, we have all learned is that, by the time a company is ready to deploy what they call a frontier model, it has been through some testing. So it is important to test it before it is commercially available, but the truth is that the Hugging Face incident, in particular--that thing jumped the fence way, way earlier than when you would do the predeployment testing. So we need third-party review from the jump. And the thing about a sandbox--and I was taught this term of art about 10 years ago, and I remember talking to my tech expert in my office: What is a sandbox? And they said: You should think of it like an actual sandbox, sort of where you experiment, where there are no wrong answers, where it may get a little messy. So the configuration of these sandboxes has been like that--for experimentation, almost casual, very entrepreneurial. But the problem is, these things can escape control at the sandbox level so it is not enough for predeployment testing. We also need third-party review of the process at every stage because we don't know at which point an agent--an AI--or a swarm of agents could escape human control. Then, at the end of it, we need postdeployment breach notification, analysis, transparency so that, if there are big, dangerous events, we know how to prevent them from happening in the future. So that is all this bill does. It says: Let's get third-party review all the way through the process and then all the way up to predeployment testing. Then, if something goes badly, we have transparency on the back end. We threw out all of our ``pet rocks''-- nothing partisan, nothing like my longtime priority on AI, but rather the very narrow question, which is: Don't we have an obligation, if there is any risk of a power grid going down, if there is any risk of a financial system buckling, if there is any risk at all, don't we have an obligation to take down that risk and fight about the rest of the stuff at some other time? The kind of ironic thing about this Congress right now is that the private sector is begging to enshrine what they are starting to promise to do in Federal statutory law because they are about to say: Here are all of the safety measures we are doing. But there is a reason you don't regulate toxic chemicals or biomedical research or aviation by voluntary agreement. You need a Federal statute, and then the private sector can work toward compliance on that Federal statutory standard. But you don't want 90 percent of the AI companies--the frontier models, the hyperscalers--complying and then the other 10 percent saying: Wait, I don't have to do that, do I? I don't have to do that, do I? So all we are asking is that this bipartisan proposal--and it is bipartisan. We are working on it in very, very good faith to try to narrow the scope of disagreement but not narrow it to the point that we pass nothing but, rather, narrow it to the point where we pass something that takes down the immediate risk and allows us to look our constituents in the eye and say: We did something on this very, very serious and urgent matter. With that, with the permission of the ranking member, I want to bring in the Senator from New Jersey, who has a background in tech and has a background in national security that I think adds a lot to this conversation.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, when the people building AI warn us about the potential for their models to cause serious harm, we must take them seriously. And this is not a question of whether you like progress or even how likely you think the worst-case scenario is. This is a question of who is in charge of this technology, whether we are going to ensure that people remain in control or if--for some inexplicable reason--we are going to allow machines to rapidly and continuously get more powerful than us, knowing full well the risks. The good news is that nothing is inevitable at this stage. What we do or don't do right now will decide what happens next with this technology. And so Congress must not leave town without taking action to reduce catastrophic risk. We can argue about everything else later--what to do about AI's energy use, what to do about the future of work, what to do about intellectual property, and all of that. But, first--first--we need to address the risk that is right in front of us. I know my colleagues have proposals in this space, and I am also working on legislation with Senator Warner. But the bottom line is this: We have to act now. And I want to be clear, if there is no movement in the coming days to seriously address this issue, Senator Warner and I will be back on here on the floor, attempting to pass bills to get this done. People are counting on us to protect them, and there is no excuse for inaction. Hawaii Mr. President, in recent weeks, Hawaii experienced two separate hurricanes, which destroyed homes and roads, closed schools and offices, and left thousands of people in the dark. Ninety percent of the island of Kauai lost power during Hurricane Lala earlier this month--that is how extensive the damage was--and crews are still working to restore people. People on Hawaii Island, meanwhile, are still picking up the pieces from Hurricane Lala last month, which damaged 267 homes; washed out roads, bridges, and even a cemetery; and left people without power and water. And, now, the State is bracing for yet another storm. According to the National Hurricane Center, this one could bring life-threatening, catastrophic flooding and mudslides across parts of Hawaii Island and Maui. It has been one storm after another this year. We grieve those who died in the storms, and, as always, we are so grateful to the neighbors, the first responders, the linemen, the State and local officials who have been working together to help people in need. In the hours after the storm--in the hours after the storm--people brought over shovels to clear debris from streets and driveways and checked in on neighbors, while their own power was out. And in the days following, crews worked around the clock to restore power as quickly as possible. That is what we do in Hawaii. We take care of each other. That is the aloha spirit. And as response gives way to recovery, we will do everything we can to make sure Federal support is available for as long as it is needed. But, today, I want to talk about something that I have been reluctant to raise in my 14 years in the U.S. Senate, and that is that there is a reason these destructive disasters are piling up, one after another, leaving communities exhausted and governments depleted. It is the warming planet. Now, look, when someone is sitting in the dark without power for days or worse, and they have lost a loved one or their home, they don't want to hear about how dryer fields and warmer oceans are the culprit of their pain. And they are right. In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, our collective obligation--but especially the government's obligation--is to set politics aside and to help, not to make a point that you always wanted to make or to say, ``I told you so,'' but to help. And so I have always hesitated to talk about disasters in this context. But the reason for the change, the reason I feel so strongly that it is time that we name the problem, as uncomfortable as it is, is that we can't go on like this. Disasters used to be an unfortunate reality you had to deal with from time to time, and now we're getting back-to-back hurricanes on top of historic floods that dumped more than 2 trillion gallons on the State earlier this year and catastrophic fires that leveled Lahaina 3 years ago. This is not normal. Now, it is true that we are in an El Nino year--and particularly a bad one at that--but this is not isolated to just this year nor is it limited to the great State of Hawaii. For 3 years in a row, now, we have had more than 20 disasters nationwide, each costing over a billion dollars in damages. And the world's eight hottest months ever on record have all been in the last 3 years. You can chalk that all up to being a terrible coincidence or maybe it is the weather fairy acting up; or you can trust your own eyes because we all see it and feel it. You feel it when you go to the park and your kids can't breathe because of the smoke from a wildfire that is burning hundreds of miles away. You feel it when you have to board up your windows and gather up supplies, as yet another storm approaches. You feel it when you move to a new State and find out that you can't get home insurance anymore. You do not need a fancy science degree to understand what is happening nor do you even need to love the outdoors to want to do something about it, because we are all paying the price for our inaction. And so what do we do about it? The most obvious answer is to scale up clean energy and reduce pollution as aggressively as we possibly can. But let's be clear: That will not happen overnight, and that will not stop the warming planet overnight. And so we need a plan to help communities to prepare for and respond to disasters in the here and now. We have to improve evacuation routes. We have to harden powerlines. We have to pre-position equipment and supplies. We have to make sure that people have access to air conditioning and heating. Clearing underbrush to slow or stop the fires, building infrastructure to reduce the risk of flooding--these are the kinds of steps that we need to be taking right now to protect people. Most of my colleagues here know that disasters are not a partisan issue. Hurricanes and floods and tornadoes and fires do not pick and choose their targets based on how the last election went. This week, it is Hawaii. It was Texas and Indiana earlier this summer. It will be somewhere else next. There, but for the grace of God, go I. And so we need to step up here. States and localities are lurching from one disaster to the next, and they need help. And every day Congress pretends like we don't know what is happening, more and more people get hurt. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the nomination of Kenneth Sorenson to serve as U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii. Mr. Sorenson has devoted four decades to the Department of Justice, serving with distinction as an assistant U.S. attorney, first assistant U.S. attorney, criminal chief, senior litigation counsel, and most recently as acting and interim U.S. attorney. Throughout his career, he has successfully prosecuted complex cases involving espionage, terrorism, public corruption, narcotics trafficking, and violent crime, earning multiple awards from the Department of Justice and the FBI, including the prestigious J. Michael Bradford Award recognizing the Nation's most outstanding assistant U.S. attorney. His extensive experience, steadfast commitment to the rule of law, and record of public service make him well qualified to continue leading the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Hawaii, and I support his nomination.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, the price of everything is up, and that is on purpose. It is on purpose because Donald Trump made it so. We are not in the middle of a pandemic or a recession or a national emergency, but the President of the United States has decided that Americans should pay more for everything--food, gas, electricity, healthcare, housing, clothes, everything. So while he is busy lining his pockets with crypto schemes and insider-information subscription programs, regular people can't afford their lives. Now, I say he is doing this on purpose because these are deliberate policy choices he has made. First, it was the tariffs that jacked up the prices of goods across the board. Tomatoes--tomatoes--went up 40 percent. Coffee went up by 20 percent. Clothes and car seats went up by 20 percent. Electronics shot up by hundreds of dollars. So it wasn't as if you could avoid the hit by not shopping at a particular store for a particular thing. People in Hawaii are very expert at figuring out ``OK, turkey is high; let's get chicken. Pork is high; let's get beef.'' The difference now is that there is no escape. Literally everything is up. That is because the President of the United States has decided, through this Iran war, through the tariffs, through the energy bans, through the Medicaid and Medicare cuts, through the ACA cuts, through the nutrition cuts, to make literally every aspect of your life more expensive. Then came the One Big Beautiful Bill where, in order to cut taxes for billionaires, Trump and the Republicans slashed subsidies for affordable healthcare and food assistance. I want you to understand. This sounds like the kind of thing a partisan would say, and it is, but it is also true that the way they paid for tax cuts for the wealthiest people and the wealthiest corporations on this planet--the way they literally paid for it--was to take away people's healthcare. Without the enhanced premium tax credits, ACA premiums went up by close to 60 percent. As a result, millions of Americans are living without healthcare this year. Millions of Americans are living without healthcare this year not by choice but by force. I want to read some of what those people had to say about it. A man in Texas said: The prices are simply too high. I don't think we could afford our mortgage if I had to pay for health insurance. If I have a catastrophic health event, it makes more sense for me to just declare bankruptcy than it would to be delinquent on other payments. Here is another one--a 38-year-old from Alabama: [I] can't afford insurance, [I] can't afford health care without insurance, so basically just hoping and praying I don't get sick . . . People are having to gamble on their health so that the richest people to ever live can pay even less in taxes. And the price hikes aren't over yet because premiums are set to rise by double digits again next year according to proposals from insurers. Aside from healthcare, the Republican tax bill also compounded Trump's ban on wind and solar energy. They are banning wind and solar energy, which is not only clean and helps us to address the climate crisis, it is just the quickest and cheapest energy that we could possibly get on the grid. It is not like we are in 1970 and we are arguing with the climate crisis versus the price that people pay on their utility bills. The way to address the climate crisis is to do a lot more wind and solar, and the benefit is that it is the cheapest form of energy. Yet, this President has banned wind and solar energy through their administrative actions, and that is spiking the price of utilities across the country. This is all before you factor in the war in Iran. In addition to being a spectacular failure that has achieved very little of Trump's own stated goals, it has also caused gas and energy and food prices to spike everywhere. Gas is over 4 bucks, right now, nationally, and it is even higher in Hawaii at $5.45. Diesel is $1.60 more than it was a year ago, which means that we are all paying more at stores for deliveries and transportation. In Hawaii, electricity bills went up 20 percent in 1 month--20 percent in 1 month--because of skyrocketing oil prices. Food prices continue to climb everywhere as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz extends a global fertilizer shortage. It is common for Presidents to have to deal with the problems related to the economy. Specifically, what can be a real political killer is the question of inflation, but this is very unusual, and it may be unprecedented in American history. You have a President of the United States whose stated policy on tariffs, on energy, on Iran, on healthcare, and on food is to raise the price of everything. That is not a sort of accidental outcome of his economic policy; it is his economic policy to raise the price of everything. People are going broke, and they are doing it to you on purpose. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I am heartbroken on behalf of everybody in Hawaii and everybody across this country about the death of 1LT Tyler Feehan of Ewa Beach, HI, who was among those killed in Jordan this past weekend while serving our country. His courage, his dedication, and his unwavering commitment to duty reflect the very best of our Armed Forces. We extend our deepest condolences to his family, his loved ones, and to his fellow servicemembers.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to an exceptional noncommissioned officer in the U.S. Army, SGM David J. Marshall, who currently serves as the deputy chief for the Army's Senate Liaison Division and will retire from Active Duty after 20 distinguished years of active Federal service at the end of this year. Throughout his career, Sergeant Major Marshall has personified the highest standards of Army professionalism and the soldierly values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage to the Army and our Nation. Many of us on Capitol Hill have enjoyed the opportunity to work with Sergeant Major Marshall and it is my privilege to recognize his achievements. Sergeant Major Marshall is a distinguished leader whose career in the U.S. Army has been marked by unwavering dedication and exceptional service. Born and raised in St. Louis, MO, Sergeant Major Marshall embarked on his military journey with a commitment to excellence that would define his decades-long career. Enlisting as a combat documentation production specialist in 2006, Sergeant Major Marshall began his service as a combat photographer at 55th Signal Company (Combat Camera) and completed one combat deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He held various tactical and operational positions, including roles at American Forces Network Livorno, the Army Entertainment Detachment, the Cyber Center of Excellence Noncommissioned Officer Academy Detachment, the Defense POW/ MIA Accounting Agency, and 9th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne). Sergeant Major Marshall was competitively selected to serve as an Army congressional fellow for the fiscal year 2023 and was assigned to my office. During his fellowship, he gained valuable insights into the workings of Congress and its relationship with the U.S. military, while also advising our team on defense and veterans' issues. His dedication and professionalism were evident in every task he undertook. For the past 3 years, he has served in the Army's Senate liaison office, where he has played a crucial role in answering congressional requests for information, staffing engagements between Army senior leaders and Members of Congress, and leading congressional delegations abroad to conduct defense oversight. Sergeant Major Marshall's lengthy and diverse career was filled with experiences that have enriched him both as a soldier and a person. It is no surprise that he has been honored with numerous military awards and decorations including the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, several Army Meritorious Service Medals, the Combat Action Badge, and the Signal Corps Bronze Order of Mercury, among others. His exemplary service and steadfast leadership have earned him the respect and admiration of colleagues and superiors alike. Any tribute to Sergeant Major Marshall would be incomplete without acknowledging the unwavering support of his wife Jillian and the joy brought by their son Miles. Jillian has stood by Sergeant Major Marshall at every step of his journey, providing love, care, and wisdom. On behalf of the U.S. Senate and a grateful nation, I thank Sergeant Major Marshall, his wife Jillian, son Miles, and their entire family for the commitment, sacrifices, and contributions they have made throughout his honorable military service. Congratulations on completing an exceptional and successful career.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, Donald Trump is dragging us back into war again, and no one is exactly sure why. He achieved almost none of his objectives that he set out at the beginning of war, while spending tens--if not hundreds--of billions of dollars and forcing Americans to pay more for everything, especially gas and groceries. It has been only a few days since the fighting resumed, and gas is already up to $4.89 nationally and $5.44 in Hawaii. And the President can't be bothered to explain why we are at war again and what we are supposed to be getting out of it. So let's just go through his own stated objectives at the start of the war and see where we stand today. No. 1, regime change: ``There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER''--all caps--Donald Trump said in the first week of war. He told the Iranians: When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. How did that work out? The regime is intact. The regime is led by a younger ayatollah with the same last name, emboldened by the knowledge that they survived months of war against the world's greatest superpower. The Iranian opposition is weaker than it was before the war, and the Iranian people are no freer today. Look, regime change wars rarely ever end well. And the idea that Trump was going to be able to go in and quickly topple the regime, much like he did in Venezuela a month earlier, was always absurd. But he did it anyway. OK. Goal No. 2, no nuclear weapons: ``We will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. . . . They will never have a nuclear weapon,'' Trump said on the day he launched the war. Now, it is true that heavy strikes last summer and the first phase of the war this spring have set back Iran's nuclear program. It is also true that in the memorandum of understanding--that has since fallen apart--Iran agreed to the same thing it agreed to under the JCPOA. Under the Obama nuclear agreement, we got all of this without having to go to war. And the criticism of the Obama agreement--and I was on the floor defending it--was that it didn't last long enough--not that it wasn't any good, but that it didn't last in perpetuity; that it was only good for 10 years. Now we have got nothing. Now we have got nothing. To that point, having repeatedly ruled out allowing any uranium enrichment and demanding that Iran turn over its uranium stockpile, Trump has changed his tune on both: ``It is a little hard''--``it is a little hard''--``when other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you're not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that.'' This is Trump on uranium enrichment. On acquiring stockpiles, he said: You could make the case, why even bother? It's not very valuable stuff. Why even bother? And that is the story of this war in a nutshell. Trump sets before us an impossible goal. And when it fails, he then moves the goalposts or backs down completely. The next goal, obliterating Iran's missiles: We're going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally . . . obliterated. He said that on February 28. But according to press reports, U.S. intelligence Agencies estimated that roughly 70 percent of Iran's pre- war missile stockpile was still intact as of May. And just this week, Iran started firing missiles again at tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and at military bases across the Middle East, demonstrating both its leverage and its ability to continue fighting. OK. Well, what about the goal of cutting off Iran's funding for proxy groups? The administration has mostly stopped talking about it, and there was no mention of Iran's support for Hezbollah or other groups in the MOU. In fact, the MOU allowed Iran to sell its oil freely, even though Trump's own State Department told Congress that oil exports are a primary revenue source for Iran's financing of proxies. So all of the stated objectives of this war have not been met. Finally, how are they doing on keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and free? Well, it is closed again, and Trump and Iran are back and forth going at it over who gets control and who gets to charge tolls. To be clear, this was never a problem prewar. And so now the objective in ending this war is just to get to the status quo before the war. We went to war to eliminate their ballistic missile capability--not on the nuclear side. Not a success. We went to war to change the regime. Not only not a success, but a terrible failure. We have got a younger and more radical and entrenched Ayatollah in the regime of Iran. And now they know they can withstand our best hit. We went to war to eliminate their nuclear program; and not only did we not do that, but Donald Trump himself is kind of characterizing it like it is no big deal. And so now we are negotiating not for any of the reasons that were stated to put our servicemembers in harm's way and to spend tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer funding for this war and to raise the price of gasoline by a buck, buck fifty a gallon, to raise the price of fertilizer and plastics and natural gas and electronics--to raise the price of almost everything. We met none of our objectives, and now our objective is just to keep sea lanes open. Sea lanes were open. Sea lanes are always open. That is not a foreign policy objective of the United States of America in the sense that we have to work really hard to do it. Freedom of navigation is a basic principle that we enforce around the world, but we don't have to bomb anybody to get it. And so now the endgame is: Let's try to get the strait open and pretend that the reasons that we went to war were not the reasons that we went to war. And I think what is the most disgusting about all of this--you know, someone used to say: Armies don't go to war. Countries go to war. Now, why does that matter? You cannot go to war without the support of the American public. You cannot go to war without explaining to the American public what you are up to. And what happened many months ago was Donald Trump woke up one morning and said: I guess we are taking kinetic action against Iran. And people are finding: OK, sorry, what? What exactly are we doing and why? There was no buildup; there was no explaining; and most importantly for us as U.S. Senators, there was no vote on the authorization of the use of military force. Now, they are going to say that under the War Powers Resolution, they have this ability to basically take military action if there is an imminent threat to the safety of the United States of America. And then they would have 60 days, and it is kind of complicated exactly how it works. But what they have said now is that ``No, this isn't a war.'' That is No. 1. ``Oh, yeah. Sorry. It is a war, but we have 60 days.'' ``Oh, the war is off because the MOU for the cease-fire is now being implemented.'' And now the war is back on, and they are acting as if, as a legal matter, this new kinetic engagement is a second and separate war and the clock starts again and you have got 60 days again to delay Congress from weighing in. And this is not some procedural nicety. This isn't me as a politician, like, protecting my prerogatives. The reason this matters is the people's representatives in the Congress have to vote before we go to war. And there are some narrow exceptions. If we are in danger, you don't want to have to, like, assemble Congress if we are in immediate danger. Fine. We are not in immediate danger. We were never in immediate danger. If you want to claim that the ICBM array that the IRGC had was a danger to the United States, come down, at least testify before the Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee, and then at least have a debate on the damn floor of the U.S. Senate. And it is worse than that because to the extent that we have had any votes at all, we actually have prevailed. A majority of Members of this body have said that this war should come to a conclusion. And so my Republican colleagues are saying: Hey, why don't we pass the Defense authorization? After all, it is a big bipartisan bill, and we always do it. That is true. We always do it. And I think 13 out of 14 years or 12 out of 13 years, I voted for the National Defense Authorization Act. And the reason I voted no yesterday is because I am not voting for a defense bill until this war is over, and I am not voting for a defense bill until we get to debate the most important thing happening in terms of our national defense. We are at war, and we are being prevented from even overseeing it. We are just asked to fork over tens and tens of billions of dollars without so much as weighing in on this is an authorization of the use of military force. The President, as the Commander in Chief of our military, may engage kinetically with another country. We have decided that. We have been elected. We have decided that. None of that happened. Why? Because they don't have the votes for that. Why do they not have the votes for that? Because this war is stupid, and the public knows it. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, for every American who is wondering what on Earth the war in Iran over the past 3\1/2\ months was for, the answer is relatively simple: next to nothing. Thirteen American servicemembers are dead. Thousands of Iranians have been killed. We spent tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Gas shot up to $5.70 in Hawaii. Grocery bills and energy bills spiked everywhere. We depleted our stockpiles of critical weapons systems. We alienated even our closest allies, who understandably wanted nothing to do with this regime-change war of choice. And what was it all for? What did we get out of it? Well, if you take one look at the memorandum of understanding that Donald Trump signed last week, what is plainly obvious is that not only was this war reckless and illegal and unnecessary, but it also didn't get us anything. It has made a lot of things worse. We don't have a nuclear agreement yet, only a framework to try to reach something close to the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. So to be clear, pre-Trump, we had a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. We had the ability for the IAEA to go into Iran and do intrusive inspections. We had the plan to dispose of the fissile material in a third-party country and to be able to verify it. And now, what we have is an MOU to negotiate. And if we are very fortunate, if things break absolutely in every correct direction, we will get back to where we were 12 years ago. The same regime is still in place, but now it is younger and more radical, and they have demonstrated that they have substantial leverage in the Strait of Hormuz. The opposition in Iran is weaker. One of the hopes of this regime-change war was that they were going to see the destruction coming from the American and Israeli military, and it would rally the opposition, and the Ayatollahs would collapse and give up, and there would be a regime change and a new era in Iran. It has gotten worse. They are younger and more radical, and they have more leverage. Now, I want to be really clear here. The mistake is not ending the war; it was starting it in the first place. Every day this war went on only compounded that catastrophe, and so we ought to be relieved that it may be over and that diplomacy is being given another chance, because it is the only viable path forward. But none of that obviates the fact that we are suing for peace because it is the least bad option; that a diplomatic solution was within reach all along, before a single bomb was dropped; that after several months of a deadly and costly war, things are worse, not better. On February 27, the day before the war started, the Strait of Hormuz was open. Oil and other commodities like fertilizers flowed freely to all of the places around the world. Now, under the MOU, the strait is open again but only for 60 days, after which Iran is reserving the right to charge a fee for ships to pass. Do you understand how unprecedented it is in terms of international law, in terms of international commerce, in terms of the way this planet works with the freedom of navigation, that one belligerent country now gets to charge a fee if you want to move something through international waters? That is not a ``w.'' That is not good for this country or regional stability. Under the original Iran agreement that President Obama signed and Trump later ripped up, Iran promised not to develop a nuclear weapon. It was right there on the first page of the JCPOA. And what it meant was that Iran would not produce the kind of highly enriched uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon. They have renewed that commitment in the MOU, except for a much higher price this time. Under the JCPOA--and I remember. I was on the floor. I was a baby Senator here, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said: Oh, my God, you are unfreezing Iranian-sanctioned money, assets to the tune of many billions of dollars. Can you believe how much money we are giving to Iran in exchange for this pause in the development of their nuclear program? Can you believe that you are giving money to Iran? Look at how belligerent they are in the region. That was the argument. OK, I thought it was worth it because it was basically buying us 15 years of them not being capable to develop a nuclear weapon. But under this--and, by the way, not in exchange for a nuclear agreement, in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days. So I want you to understand, what they are getting is enormous, but it is also not even for a nuclear agreement. It is for an agreement to stop choking the global economy, not only where their assets will be unfrozen, but they will be able to sell their oil freely on the open market for the first time in 30 years. That is not some $1.7 billion concession. That is not some $10 billion concession. That changes generations of bipartisan policy against the Iranian regime. One of the reasons that they were not even more belligerent, even more powerful was that we were heavily sanctioning their oil. And we are lifting it in exchange for not a nuclear agreement but just for them to take their boot off the necks of the global economy. And so, I reiterate this point: Keep two thoughts in your head. First of all, the main error was in starting this stupid regime-change war in the first place, and that you don't have to be some member of the Foreign Relations Committee or some fancy foreign policy expert or some professor at some school that studies the Middle East to say: Hey, you know what, these same dudes keep asking for a new regime-change war in the Middle East about every decade. They usually get it, and it always fails. And they did it again, and it failed again. And that is a different thing from me demanding that they continue this idiocy. I am not demanding that they continue this idiocy. I am glad that they are finally folding. But make no mistake. They are folding, and they are folding because they played a terrible hand, as terribly as you could possibly play it. And so, all I am asking--if you are an Iran hawk, if you are a dove, if you are anywhere in between--is let's have a logical foreign policy. Let's understand that Iran is a belligerent country--they are not our allies--and that almost every single time--not every time, but almost every single time--kinetic engagement without any kind of strategy doesn't work. It always backfires. And, by the way, that is, generally speaking, true. It is, extraordinarily, predictably true in the Middle East. And I want to make one final point: It is the same people every time. It is the same foreign policy think tanks. It is the same people in the media. It is the same nonprofits. It is the same Members of Congress. They just look around the planet for a place to remake with force. And there may be a couple of examples in human history where you can remake a place with force, but usually it backfires spectacularly. And it did here again. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I join everyone in Hawaii in congratulating chefs Rhoda Magbitang and Lee Anne Wong on their recent wins on ``Top Chef'' and ``Last Chef Standing.'' Both chefs displayed incredible skill and perseverance in their respective competitions and showcased what makes Hawaii's food scene so special, with our unique blend of cultures and cuisines. I continue to think Hawaii is among the best eating places on the planet. I am so proud of both of them. Chef Magbitang, who was born and raised in the Philippines and now lives in Waimea on the Big Island, paid tribute to her roots, sharing her take on classic Filipino dishes that she grew up eating. Meanwhile, Chef Wong completed 24 challenges in 24 hours, winning with an ahi tuna dish prepared in a French-Japanese fusion style. Chef Wong's restaurant, Papa'aina at the Pioneer Inn in Lahaina, was destroyed in the fires 3 years ago, but her cooking, infused all over with local ingredients and produce, lives on at Koko Head Cafe on O'ahu. We are so lucky to have her and Chef Magbitang and so many other outstanding chefs who make Hawaii, Hawaii. Congratulations on your wins. You have made Hawaii proud.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, $600 million to build a ballroom at the White House, $100 million to build a triumphal arch, $250 million to renovate the Kennedy Center, $60 million to host a UFC fight on the south lawn of the White House--these are the things Donald Trump is putting his time and energy into right now, along with a whole lot of taxpayer money. Meanwhile, gas is more than 4 bucks a gallon nationally and $5.58 in Hawaii, grocery prices keep going up, electricity bills are through the roof, millions of Americans don't have health insurance at all this year, and rents and mortgages are almost impossible to keep up with. This is not a question of whether you like sports or monuments. I like sports. I like UFC. I think the Capital City of the most powerful Nation in the history of the world should be beautiful and modern and vibrant. But that is not the point. This is a President who is so thoroughly distracted with his own personal pet projects that he has no time to do anything to lower prices and fix people's actual problems. It is not that these are events that have overtaken his agenda--this is his agenda. These are his initiatives that he came up with that he is excited about. It is plainly obvious that Donald Trump is distracted with things that have nothing to do with regular people's lives, but you don't have to take my word for it. Last week, after inflation reached the highest level in 3 years, he said: I love the inflation. After a few weeks, as a war of his own making was ravaging people's paychecks, he said: I don't think about Americans' financial situation. ``I don't think about Americans' financial situation.'' This is not making a partisan accusation; those are his words. People all across the country are eating less and driving less and saving less and seeing the doctor less because of his actions--wars, tariffs, tax cuts for billionaires paid for by cutting working people's healthcare--and yet all he can think about is where his next military adventure might be or what new monument he can build for himself. It is not hard to imagine a focused and energetic President who exerts their authority to make people's lives better, easier, more affordable, more fulfilling. And in the past, even when we didn't agree with the President from the other party on solutions, at least we agreed on the problems; at least we agreed on what a Presidency was for--but not this President. The problem was never that the Kennedy Center was too woke. The problem was never that gas was too cheap. No one woke up thinking ``Gee, I wish we were involved in more wars'' or ``Man, I really ought to be throwing bigger parties for the President's 80th birthday.'' No one asked for this. I want to be clear. No one asked for this--not the people who elected Donald Trump the second time, not the people who voted against Donald Trump the second time. No one asked for this. No one wants this. But we do have a President who is at the end of his political career, and with nothing to lose electorally, all he can think about is himself and his legacy--not you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SCHATZ

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

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. If the Senator from Florida is ready to deliver her remarks, I would defer. I don't have enough time to give my remarks before the 2:15 vote, so just to keep the Senate on time, I will defer and try to land another time. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Moody be permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes before the previously scheduled rollcall vote.

Mr. SCHATZ

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

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, a billion dollars goes a very long way, especially in a State like Hawaii. With a billion dollars, we could cover out-of-pocket costs for insulin for every person in the State who relies on it for almost 20 years. We could help to provide healthy meals to women, infants, and children in need for almost 40 years. We could cover the cost of childcare for nearly every child under 3 in Hawaii for an entire year, or we could cover tuition for every instate undergraduate student at the University of Hawaii for close to a decade. But instead of doing any of that, this week, Republicans plan to give Donald Trump a billion dollars for, of all things, a ballroom. Now, let's be perfectly clear, I have no problem investing in our great Capital City or its infrastructure. I was the top Democrat on the legislative branch appropriations subcommittee when we provided funding to restore this Capitol's dome. We are the greatest Nation on Earth, and our physical infrastructure should reflect that. So if you want to clean up the parks or turn on the fountains or restore the monuments, count me in. But that is not what this is. This is not a normal beautification project in the District. This is a President who is about to turn 80 and nearing the end of his political career, and all he can think about is building monuments to himself. Other leaders in this position might be thinking about their legacy in policy terms, but not this President. He is single-mindedly focused on building ballrooms and arches and golf courses, while the rest of the country struggles to put food on the table or to even see a doctor. The ballroom started out in Trump's own words as ``taxpayer free.'' I will fund it, he said, I am not going to ask the government for money. A year later, he has realized that he needs government money, taxpayer money. And because the administration lost a court case on the basis that this project was never authorized by Congress, they are now looking for any statute that they can use to defend themselves in the future. This is a priority for one person and one person only, and I know my colleagues are in a very tough spot because it is their President. They agree with him about a bunch of stuff, and it is really important to him. But I can tell you, I have not met a Republican Senator who likes this idea. I have met lots of them who are going to vote for it anyway. Why are we spending a billion dollars on a ballroom when gas is at $4.53 nationally and $5.64 in Hawaii? What possible justification is there for, on the one hand, ending subsidies that help 22 million Americans to afford healthcare and then turning around and bankrolling a new building just so Donald Trump can throw fancy parties for his rich friends? And that sounds like something that I am making up, but that is literally what this is. It is a billion-dollar ballroom so he can throw fancy parties for his rich friends. People in Hawaii and all across the country are struggling just to get by. Grocery prices are rising at the fastest rate in years because Trump's war in Iran is driving up shipping and fertilizer costs. Electricity bills continue to outpace inflation with no end in sight, leaving 1 in 3 Americans struggling to pay their utility bills. More than 900 hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities are at risk or have already reduced services or shut down altogether because Republicans gutted healthcare last year; and because of those very same cuts, 1 in 5 Americans who used to get their healthcare through the ACA Marketplace no longer have coverage. Millions of others are paying thousands more for the same plan. We could be working to solve any of those issues, but we are not. Now, here is the thing, the way this weird place works is that in order to enact most statutes, you need a combination of Democrats and Republicans. You need 60 votes. However, there is this weird thing called reconciliation where basically twice a year, if it is budgetary, if it adds to the deficit or it reduces the deficit, so spending counts, you get to do something without the other party. The majority party basically gets to ignore the minority and pass what it wants. And so when we were in power, we used this unique tool to reduce the cost of prescription medicine. We enacted a corporate minimum tax. We took climate action. We gave people cash benefits so they could survive during COVID. Look, you can argue about what we did or how we did it. That is fine. That is fair. But it certainly reflected the priorities of the day. But given the chance to do the same, you get these two kind of golden tickets where you get to ignore us, you would think that when you are passing major legislation, one of your two big opportunities, that it would address the cost of healthcare or the cost of fuel or the cost of food or the cost of prescription medicine or the cost of gasoline. But they are using this golden ticket, this twice-a-year opportunity to increase funding for ICE at nearly four times their normal levels and give the President a ballroom. People are struggling everywhere in red States and blue States, but there is not a dime for you in the bill they are about to pass tomorrow, and it is not by accident. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

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

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 730, submitted earlier today.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, on Monday, the University of Hawaii men's volleyball team won the national championship, prevailing over the University of California at Irvine in a four-set thriller. Every player played his part, and the win caps off one of the most successful seasons in the team's history. It also marks the third NCAA championship in men's volleyball. As head coach Charlie Wade said after the game, ``Volleyball is a big deal in our community, it just is.'' For many at home, volleyball is life. If you didn't grow up playing the sport yourself, you had a cousin or a friend or an auntie or an uncle who did. And every person in Hawaii--and I mean everybody--has been to a middle school or high school or college volleyball game. That kind of love for this sport is what has made UH a volleyball powerhouse, and it is why we continue to attract and produce some of the best players in the world. Monday's win wasn't just for the incredible athletes on the court. It was a win for the coaches, the staff, the family, the friends, and the fans who supported them along the way. And it was a win for the entire State of Hawaii. This victory belongs to Hawaii. So congratulations to the `Bows on their well-deserved victory. We are all so proud of you. Aloha. Now, I would like to yield the floor to my great partner representing Hawaii in the U.S. Senate, Senator Hirono.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, Hawaii experienced its worst flooding in more than 20 years last month. Two storms, less than 2 weeks apart, whipped up hurricane force winds of up to 135 miles per hour and dumped more than 62 inches of rain in parts of the State. All told, nearly 2 trillion gallons of water fell from the sky statewide, enough to fill 3 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, and the resulting damage was widespread and it was severe. It all started on March 10 when the first storm known as a Kona low brought close to 10 inches of rain over 4 days and broke daily rainfall records on Oahu, Maui, Hawaii Island, and Kauai. The powerful winds and heavy rain flooded homes, toppled power lines, and shuttered schools and businesses. Over 100,000 people lost power, but before people could even begin to recover, a second storm quickly followed just days later delivering more than a foot of rain. But the ground was still saturated from the previous storm and drainage capacity was overwhelmed, and so flooding got worse across the State. More than 5,000 residents were forced to evacuate and seek cover in shelters and schools. Homes were lifted off of their foundations, cars floated out of driveways, roads and highways became inaccessible, crops washed away on farms and fields. But amid the devastation, rocked by relentless rain, Hawaii's aloha spirit prevailed. We saw it in the heroic emergency responders who rescued hundreds of people who were stuck in danger with no way to get out. We saw it in all the people rushing to check in on their neighbors, sharing information on social media in realtime, and helping to clean up the debris and the mud once the rain passed. Farmers who lost their own fields instead went to help their neighbors to rebuild. Businesses spring into action to hand out supplies and hot meals, despite losing sales and incurring damages of their own. That is Hawaii. No one is a stranger, especially in time of need. And everybody pitches in. Recovering from a disaster of this magnitude will take months and years. Homes, roads, schools, and hospitals were flooded and badly damaged and will need to be rebuilt. And doing so requires resources, which is why the Trump administration's approval of Governor Josh Green's disaster declaration request was so important. As with disasters in the past, these Federal dollars will support cleanup and repairs, as well as help residents to get back on their feet through individual assistance. The State and county governments are doing everything that they can to help people recover fully and quickly, but they cannot do it alone. They need help. The Federal Government has a responsibility to share the burden of rebuilding. And while the approval of a disaster declaration is a very important and good first step, it is just that. It is a first step. In the months and the years ahead, we will need to be there to provide support and resources in any way we can, until the affected people and communities are made whole once again. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

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

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, there is a lot going on in the country and the world. Gas is at 4 bucks a gallon nationwide, and it is 5.65 at my corner Shell station in Honolulu. Groceries are expensive. Electricity bills are rising at double the rate of inflation, and millions of Americans have lost their health insurance this year. People really are struggling just to get by, and we, in the U.S. Congress, have got to be focused on helping them. We have this very limited tool called reconciliation, and it is a way to circumvent the filibuster. It is a way to do things on just a purely partisan basis, and both parties have used this tool. It is really only available once every fiscal year. And without getting into the terribly boring details, it is basically spending or tax cuts. And that is the tool that we can use without having to compromise with the other side. Now, when we had the House and the Senate and the Presidency, we used that tool for the American Rescue Plan. In the middle of COVID, mass unemployment, we decided to stabilize everybody's salary so they wouldn't be unable to make their rent or their mortgage or put food on the table. And then we did the Inflation Reduction Act, which focused on reducing the cost of prescription medicine and attacking the climate crisis and providing tax credits for those who are working but not wealthy but not poor enough to qualify for an array of government programs. And so the most important thing to understand about what is happening today and tomorrow is not that Republicans are about to spend $70 billion to fund an Agency that already has 7 years of prefunding, not that they are trying to make ICE--and will make ICE--more well-funded than the U.S. Marine Corps; it is not that Republicans refuse to make even the most reasonable reforms to hold ICE to the same standard that every local police department is held to--that you have to get a warrant before you conduct a search, that you have to introduce yourself, that you have to have a name and badge number, that there are very, very rare circumstances under which an officer should be permitted to wear a mask and conceal their face, and that there should be training in excess of 47 days. I want everybody to understand the reason ICE trainees were given 47 days of training is to match up with the fact that this is the 47th President of the United States. It used to be many months of training. There used to be use-of-force training. They used to be treated like a normal law enforcement agency. Now, we can have a disagreement about the degree and extent of immigration policy and who should be in this country and who shouldn't, but I think what happened was they mistook people's dissatisfaction with the Biden border policy for license to go and terrorize communities. Everybody now agrees: Get the bad guys who don't belong here out of the country. Deport people who are committing violent crimes or dangerous crimes. Get them out of here. But everybody also understands that what ICE has done over the last year has been inhumane and made all of us less safe. And so we were at a negotiation about--again, these are not like some progressive wish list full of reforms; these are literally the things that the Honolulu Police Department, that the New York City Police Department, that any police department in a rural State or an urban State or anywhere across the country has to adhere to. And most law enforcement officers--Federal, State, county--are perfectly fine being well-trained, are perfectly fine having to get a warrant, are perfectly fine when there is an officer-involved shooting to have an independent investigation. All of that is normal, and most law enforcement officers say: Yeah, these guys are unusually poorly trained. And so we were in a negotiation to provide funding with reforms, but the Republicans ran out of patience. And so what we said was: Why don't we just go ahead and fund the Agencies that we all agree on--FEMA, the Cybersecurity function, the Coast Guard. So we passed this over on a bipartisan--not just a bipartisan basis, a unanimous basis out of this Chamber, and then the House killed it. And so they are stuck now trying to figure out how they are going to fund this Agency. So they are using their one legislative opportunity that comes only once every fiscal year to fund ICE and CBP for 3 years going forward. Why does that matter so much? First, it is a failure of just, like, basic legislating to solve a problem that everybody saw with their own eyes. When Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed by Federal employees, it transcended politics; it transcended immigration policy. That is for sure. Nobody wanted to see that. But they didn't have the appetite to enact the most basic reforms, and so here we are. But that is not the most important part. The most important part is this: People are paying more for gas, for utilities, for food, for lumber, for housing, for healthcare, for every single aspect of their lives. And you would think even if--I am not accusing anybody of anything--but even if you didn't care about the actual material condition of your constituents, you would care that they were mad at you that everything was up. You would care that everything has gotten more expensive during Donald Trump's second term, especially since, by most accounts, he was elected because everything was too expensive. And so you would think these guys--they have the trifecta: They have the House; they have the Senate; they have the Presidency. And so they are going to go charging up the mountain and try to reduce the cost of living. That is what you should do with this reconciliation opportunity. That is what you should do. And, instead, they are spending $70 billion on this rogue Agency. So over the next couple of days, we are going to give them opportunities to enact good policy that would reduce the cost of living. There are a number of ways we could do that: We could restore the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. We could reverse the tariffs that are attacks on every consumer across the United States of America. We could end this preposterous war, which is costing about $2 billion a day and raising the price, by the way, not just of gasoline but of diesel, and not just of diesel but of fertilizer, which is an input for our agricultural industry. So everything is getting more expensive at the same time that we are spending $2 billion a day. Just to give you context, last year when the government was shut down over a healthcare fight, the amount in question was $23 billion for a year's worth of the Affordable Care Act tax credits. That is about 11 days' worth of this war. And so don't let anybody tell you that there is not enough money. There is enough money. They are spending $2 billion a day on this war that nobody asked for, nobody expected. It is not even working out--$2 billion a day. No end in sight. And then $70 billion prefunding a Federal Agency that has already been prefunded. And so don't let anybody tell you there is not enough money. What there is not enough of is moral clarity. People are going broke, and we are, in fact, lighting money on fire in the government. It is just for all the wrong things. I yield the floor.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. I object.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SCHATZ

Mr. SCHATZ. I object.