Dan Sullivan

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Today's opening prayer will be offered by our guest Chaplain, Rabbi Mendy Greenberg, Director of Mat-Su Jewish Center, Chabad-Lubavitch, in Palmer, AK. The guest Chaplain offered the following prayer: Almighty God, Master of the Universe, we stand before You in prayer in these troubling times when innocent men, women, and children have lost their lives and millions fled their homeland due to the catastrophic war in Ukraine. In the words of King David, Psalms, Chapter 121: I lift my eyes to the mountains--from where will my help come? My help will come from the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth. May You, Almighty God, grant the Members of this honorable body wisdom and understanding that the ultimate way to eliminate the cause of war and bring true peace to the world is by embodying the universal values of the seven commandments issued to Noah after the great flood, foremost of which is not to commit murder. Almighty God, I beseech You to bless the U.S. Senate assembled today to fulfill one of Your seven commandments to govern by just laws and in the merit of the global spiritual giant and leader, Your servant, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, whose 120th birthday will be celebrated this coming month on the 11th day of Nissan, Tuesday, April 12. In 1978, this honorable body established the Rebbe's birthday as Education and Sharing Day USA and is proclaimed annually by the President of the United States in recognition of the Rebbe's global campaign to bring awareness and educate our youth about these ethical values of the Seven Noahide Laws as the basis for a just and compassionate society. Almighty God, may it be in the merit of realizing the Rebbe's vision for humanity, we speedily see the fulfillment of Isaiah's promise: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. With the coming of Moshiach, Amen.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, like my good friend and colleague Senator Murkowski, I rise today to recognize a giant, a larger than life man, certainly a legend in our State, and certainly a legend in the House of Representatives, Congressman for all Alaska, Donald Edwin Young. As Senator Murkowski mentioned, we lost this great Alaskan, this great American, while flying home with his beloved wife, Anne, by his side just this weekend. He was flying back home to Alaska, the State he loved so much and served so well. It is a State that loved him back and showed him that love by electing him to office every 2 years since 1973. Think about that. Unbelievable. He was the longest serving politician in Alaska's history, the longest serving Republican Member of the House in U.S. history, our North Star, Don Young. As Senator Murkowski mentioned, he was 88 years young. I just want to say, like all Alaskans, my wife Julie and I, when we heard the news, we were saddened, shocked, devastated by the sudden passing of Congressman Don Young. And we heard this from so many people over the weekend: his spirit, authentic, tenacious, indomitable, a man of the people--a true man of the people--epitomized our State to such a degree that there was this sense that he would always be there, that he would live forever. There was this sense, and the shock back home is so palpable because of that. Think about, almost three-quarters of our State's history, Don Young was our Congressman. So I, too, want to spend a little bit of time talking about this incredible man, this life in full, as Senator Murkowski mentioned. A lot of stories about being raised on a small ranch in Central California, where he began the hard work of ranching as a young, young boy. Don Young once said: My dad was a good man, but he believed when you turned 7, you became a hired man. So he was working at the age of 7, Sun up to Sun down. It was hot, riddled with snakes and poison ivy. Evidently, Don Young did not like snakes or hot weather because he mentioned often about his father reading him Jack London's ``The Call of the Wild,'' a book about a dog, a man, the harsh conditions of the Yukon, and loyalty. Senator Murkowski already mentioned that one of the things--and I love this man so much--but one of the things about him that you always knew was loyal, loyal, loyal. What a great quality. What a great quality. Then, of course, Alaska captured his imagination--no snakes, no poison ivy, snow. Those of us, all of us who saw Don Young over the years carry around that battery-powered portable fan, we knew that, well, Don Young ran hot with that fan. So, as Senator Murkowski mentioned, he got his associate's degree from Yuba Junior College in 1952. He served in the Army--I always loved to give him a little grief about his Army service as a marine--Chico State, and then at an Elks Club in Chico, he heard then-Alaska Territorial Governor Mike Stepovich give a speech about Alaska, talking about the wonders of Alaska, and Don Young was hooked. In 1959, the year we became a State, he heeded the call of the wild, headed up the Alcan--much of it still unpaved--in a brandnew Plymouth Fury, and the great State of Alaska would never be the same. According to Don Young, in Alaska, you could ``do anything you wanted to,'' so he did. As Senator Murkowski mentioned, he fought forest fires. He owned a skating rink for a short time. I would have loved to have seen that, by the way. He owned a movie theater, tried his hand at commercial fishing, trapping, prospecting for gold. Of course, he was a tugboat captain, teacher at a BIA school, importantly, in Fort Yukon, and that is where he always called home. In fact, he still has a home there. He used to joke he is the only Congressman who, when he goes home, uses an outhouse when he goes home. He eventually met Lu, his wife--incredible Lu, who stayed by his side for 46 years until she passed in 2009. Since that time, Don found another wonderful partner in Anne. So, Anne, thank you and the family for sharing him with us. Don, with Lu's prompting, caught the political bug. He served in the State house in Alaska and the State senate. Now, he discovered that he didn't like the senate much. ``All they did was stand around with hands behind their back and talk''--that is what he said about the Alaska State Senate. Well, guess what. His attitude about the U.S. Senate wasn't that much different. ``You Senators are always late,'' he would often growl at me and Lisa--and we were when we had our frequent Alaska delegation meetings. But even as Senators, we always knew our place with Congressman Don Young, dean of the House. All those Alaska congressional meetings were over in his office--were over in his office. One of my favorite things I did with Don Young, as dean of the House, wherever I saw him--particularly in public in Alaska--the first time I would see him at an event or something, I would say, ``It's the dean of the House.'' I would grab his hand, take a knee, and kiss his ring. Now, he always said, ``Stop that. I hate it when you do that.'' But do you know what? I think he actually kind of liked it. I actually think he kind of liked it. So he didn't like the Senate; he liked the House, the place where bills move fast, where elections are right around the corner no matter what--think about that, 25 elections. Jeez Louise. I could never think about that--and where the action was. Mostly, he was a man of the people, and he belonged in the people's House. Along the way, he had two wonderful daughters, Joni and Sister, whom he loved fiercely. He always said the most important thing in his life were those two daughters. Lu was nothing if not persuasive. She was no doubt the boss in the family, and so when she told him he needed to run for Congress, he did. And with the help of many people--and I would like to say my wife's grandmother, her Sitsoo, was an avid Don Young supporter, flew all over interior Alaska during those early campaigns to help him introduce himself to a wider audience. So when Don was appointed to his seat in 1973, the original knock against him, he said back then, was that he didn't know anything about DC. People said: You don't know anything about DC; it is going to take you 2 years until you can find the bathroom in your office building. I am sure some of you heard the story that the first day in office, he combed the Rayburn Building looking for the bathroom, when someone finally said, ``Congressman, why don't you use the one in your office?'' which I don't think he had noticed. So he was learning. But on a more serious note--and I love this story. The day after he was sworn in, there was a hearing on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act. After being held up for years by litigation and studies--imagine that; sound familiar, America?--Don successfully pushed through an amendment--to me, one of the most brilliant amendments ever conceived in the Halls of Congress--that said: No more studies and no more litigation. We are done. We are building the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System now. He said: It was a hard fight. Half of my side was [initially] fighting against me. But when the vote was called, he prevailed. His amendment prevailed by four votes, and Alaska's history was changed forever. America's history was changed forever. And, by the way, what a great idea: Stop endless litigation. Stop studying things. Build infrastructure. The country and the State of Alaska need energy. Practical, commonsense, get it done--this is why Alaskans loved Don Young so much. The day of that vote, when it was successful, 1973--remember--Ralph Nader stood outside the hall and declared Don Young the most powerful Member of Congress--brandnew, baby freshman from Alaska, Don Young. Now, you can say a lot of things about Ralph Nader, but he knew power when he saw it, and Don Young had it, kept it. He went on to win every election after that. And, as Senator Murkowski mentioned, more than 90 bills that he sponsored became law, thousands more that he cosponsored--mostly to help Alaska but to help our whole country. And he became a fierce advocate for helping people--thousands and thousands of Alaskans and Americans. Every 2 years since 1973, Alaskans could count on Don Young, during 1 of his 24 elections, standing on a corner with his supporters--many here today--waving signs in the cold in November back home, wearing his old winter coat. And if you didn't know it then--and few Alaskans didn't know--you wouldn't guess that the man in those clothes had so much power and had done so much to help his fellow Alaskans and fellow Americans. Nearly everything--and I mean everything--that has advanced to benefit our State in the Congress has Don Young's fingerprints on it. The Alaska we know today is only possible because of Don Young. As I mentioned, there is, of course, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which transformed our State and our Nation, as well as many of the victories that Senator Murkowski just mentioned. I always like to talk about the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which, of course, transformed America's fishing industry. Among others things, it created a 200-mile limit to keep foreign fishermen from plundering our fish and sustained our fisheries. It used to be just 3 miles. Now, we all know it is the Magnuson-Stevens Act, but, of course, Don Young moved it in the House with Congressman Gerry Studds of Massachusetts. So I used to like to say, in events with Don Young: Magnuson-Stevens, or maybe a better name would have been the ``Young-Studds Act,'' which, of course, he loved that idea. So I kind of liked calling it the ``Young-Studds Act.'' But here is the thing, the story that is such a great story that a lot of people don't know: The executive branch wasn't thrilled about this bill, wasn't thrilled about it at all, to such a degree that President Ford was considering vetoing it. Why? Because he had a really smart, clever Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, who thought it would raise tensions with our allies--the Koreans and the Japanese in particular--who loved fishing off the coast of Alaska, taking our fish. Two hundred miles off, they were going to lose out. They were mad. So he was encouraging a veto. Whether it was on the racquetball court, in the Halls of the Capitol, or a potlatch in rural Alaska, Don Young knew where to be to get things done for Alaska. And he knew that the President and Kissinger were heading to Asia, stopping over in Alaska. So Don and his two daughters and Lu got a ride on Air Force One. A few martinis later, Don Young, the new Congressman from Alaska, was debating one of the most brilliant men in America--the Secretary of State, former Harvard professor Dr. Henry Kissinger--on Air Force One in front of President Ford: Veto the Magnuson-Stevens Act or not. Well, guess who won that debate: the Harvard professor or the tugboat captain? It was the tugboat captain. Now, Don jokingly credits the martinis, but we all know that he was the one who got that done. And, again, our State and our country's history wouldn't be the same. And, by the way, Henry Kissinger and Don Young were great friends ever since. Mr. President, that is just one example of many, as Senator Murkowski mentioned. Don Young served with 10 Presidents, and he knew them all. President George H.W. Bush called him ``Moose.'' They played racquetball often. He had Dungeness crab flown in to eat with President George W. Bush. He and President Clinton were at the White House together one night when the vote was called. They were having so much fun that President Clinton said: I don't want you to leave, Don. Don said: Well, Mr. President, I will need a hall pass. So he got a handwritten note from President Clinton, writing to the Speaker of the House: Dear Mr. Speaker. Please excuse Don Young from voting tonight. We are having cigars at the White House. And when Don Young went to the White House to sign the ANWR legislation that we had been working on and that he had been working on for over 40 years and were able to pass--again, our small and mighty team working together, 2017, with President Trump--he turned to President Trump and said: So you are the other Don in this town. So Don Young has been great friends with Presidents, world leaders, but what really motivated and moved him was helping people, especially Alaskans. It didn't matter their title, their political affiliation. He just wanted to help people. He said: As long as you respect the other person and their beliefs, you can be successful. Whether in the majority or the minority, I try to work with people to solve problems. My job is to listen to what they want and how I can then help them get it done. Like I said, commonsense, practical--no wonder so many Alaskans loved Don Young. And we all know he could tell a story, holding court. As we know, in the House there isn't assigned seating, but there was one seat in the House that nobody sat in: Don Young's. And, by the way, if you did, you may be taking your life into your own hands. He sat, and Members gathered around him, listening to his stories. The story of the oosik might come up, how he used that in debates, how he sat during a committee hearing with his fingers caught in a bear trap to make a point, and his legendary office Christmas parties. Young staffers and Members from all over the Congress stood in a long line that snaked into the hallway just to have a few minutes to hear him holding court. But his true love was always Alaska. He could have done anything, been anything, but he chose to stay and work for the people up until the last moment of his life. You can make all the money in the world. But if you aren't happy, it doesn't count for anything. And Don Young was a happy man. When we lost Don Young, we lost a piece of Alaska, a piece of ourselves, a piece of his indomitable, irascible spirit. But it will live on forever, and I know that he has an army of loyalists he has amassed through the years in the Gallery, in addition to family, his wonderful family. Dozens of staffers are here to pay tribute. Some of them now work for my office. In fact, early on in my Senate career, I learned something very smart. I frequently stole Don Young's staff to come work for me: well-trained, smart. I still do it. And he never minded. As a matter of fact, he always said: I just want what is best for my people. Larry Burton, Erik Elam, Chad Padgett, Liz Banicki, Scott Leathard-- so many are still here with me. So many cut their teeth at Don Young's office. And like so many who know Don Young, they are intensely loyal to this great Alaskan. His spirit will live on in the House of Representatives and the people's House, and his spirit will live on in everything he has done for our State and every Alaskan from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, to the Ketchikan shipping yard, to the many, many land exchanges, the health clinics dotting our State, the state-of-the-art Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage. And his spirit will live in his wonderful family: Joni and Sister, his 13 grandchildren, Anne, and so many others. Don was a dear friend and mentor to me, to Senator Murkowski, to my wife Julie, and so many others. He was truly a man of the people, a great man of the people. We miss you, Don. Rest in peace. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

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

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, the American people--the world--is watching a really horrendous, barbaric, horrible situation in Ukraine; and we are all praying for the people there, trying to do as much as we can to support them. And this barbarism we are seeing from Vladimir Putin is something I don't think anyone is ever going to forget. We can't let it stand. We need to use all instruments of American power--with our allies--to work to address this long term because this is a long-term problem--the new era of authoritarian aggression led by Putin, led by Xi Jinping--and we need to be able to address it. One of these instruments of American power that we have had until recently, in a bipartisan way--every President has supported being an energy producer, being an energy superpower, being a country that is energy independent. And I don't have to tell the Presiding Officer, but this has been highlighted by the current crisis. What has happened is the American people--really, the world--have awoken to the fact that the Biden administration came into office and, instead of building on what they inherited from the Trump administration, which, again, was a bipartisan goal of American foreign policy, American energy policy, American domestic policy--for decades, every President--every President--wanted America to be energy independent. President Obama used to talk about this, all-of-the-above energy: oil, gas, renewables; Jimmy Carter, of course; Donald Trump; George W. Bush. I mean, it dates back for decades, until the Biden administration. And, of course, they came in and on day one said: We are going to start shutting down the production of American energy. That is a fact. I am going to go through a lot of the facts. I am going to go through some detailed memos that are still in existence that show that this is exactly their policy. Now, what has happened in the last 2 weeks? The American people have started to realize: Oh, my gosh, my own government is trying to make it harder for us to produce American energy. How does that make sense? In what world does that make sense? And the average American--always very smart, by the way, much smarter than the people in DC--is raising the alarm bells, saying: Wait a minute. Why would we do that? It hurts us at home. It drives up energy prices. The President is calling it Putin's energy increases. That is ridiculous. Energy prices have been going up since this administration got into office because of this administration's policies. Good try, Mr. President. That is not going to work. So the American people are saying: It is hurting us at home. It is raising costs on my family. But they are now realizing: Whoa, this is really bad for our foreign policy and national security too, when you have a war like what is going on in Ukraine. So all of a sudden, you see the Biden administration--from the President on down and his whole team--starting to scramble. They are starting to hide their policy that has been driven by a far-left radical agenda and is really hurtful to everybody. By the way, it doesn't help the environment one bit, not one bit. I will come down here in another speech and talk about how it hurts the environment. And it is almost funny to watch this happen if this weren't such a serious topic. It is almost funny. As a matter of fact, to one Cabinet official, it was funny. Go Google the Secretary Granholm interview-- I forget which news station--when she was asked, ``Hey, are you going to help produce more oil for America?'' She literally starts cracking up, laughing. She is laughing. It is not funny, Madam Secretary. So now, the White House is scrambling with made-up stories, made-up rationales. You see the Press Secretary kind of trying to talk about this issue. No offense to her. She is pretty talented, but she doesn't know anything about energy. But they are scrambling because no one is laughing. No one is laughing. The Secretary of Energy might be laughing about this topic, but no one is laughing. Working families in America aren't laughing. The energy workers that this administration has moved to hand pink slips to aren't laughing. Our allies in Europe aren't laughing. Ukrainians aren't laughing. The only ones who might be laughing are the Venezuelans and the Iranians who this administration is now going and begging for oil from. They might be laughing. So it is a really serious topic. And, as I mentioned, the energy price rise that we have seen across the last year--gas prices were almost up 50 percent prior to the invasion of Ukraine by Putin. So we know what is going on because it is no secret. When the President was campaigning--again, I don't think these were really his views but driven by the far-left that he had to get their vote on--he vowed that he would do exactly what he did on day one. Here is the President in a debate in 2019: I have argued against any more drilling. No more drilling--oil or gas drilling on Federal lands. I will not allow it anymore. That is the President of the United States. Now, on day one, he did just that. He did just that. He started out to keep these campaign promises. We know he canceled the Keystone Pipeline. They put a ``pause''--I am going to talk about that--on Federal leasing and permitting, something that really impacted my State. He signed an Executive order to crack down on oil and gas production. He canceled the legally acquired leases that my State has in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because this body voted for it, signed it into law. The President, in a blatantly illegal move, said: I am not going to allow these leases, even though the Congress of the United States and the President of the United States previously passed a law saying they had to be executed. And just 2 weeks ago, the administration froze new drilling permits and stopped issuing new leases on Federal lands because they continue to be driven by a far-left agenda that nobody in the United States is supporting right now. (Ms. SMITH assumed the Chair.) Well, Madam President, I want to dig a little deeper into what happened on day one. So what happened here--I have an order. This is an order--order No. 3395 from the Acting Secretary of the Interior, a guy by the name of Scott de la Vega. I have never heard of him. Never heard of him. Who in the heck is that? It was dated January 20, 2021, so that is day one. That is day one. Some guy named Scott de la Vega--I don't know who he is, but I guess he was Acting Secretary of the Interior--and he lays out in this memo everything that should be suspended, everything in America, to stop producing any natural resources for 60 days. OK? That is your government at work, America, right here: Scott de la Vega hereby temporarily suspends--and then they have a whole list of things that deal with oil, gas, minerals, rights of way--anything on Federal lands--all stopped. If that is not a far-left radical agenda, I don't know what is. It says that people above him--the Secretary, Deputy Secretary--they can rescind that after 60 days. But there is no one above him. This is day one. There is nobody even confirmed. That is why Scott de la Vega was Acting Secretary of the Interior. Don't be fooled. This is an order on day one from the Biden administration to shut down the production of American energy. Your government at work, America. What happened across the country? I can tell you what happened in my State. This set up a mad scramble in Alaska. I was getting phone calls, literally, from this memo. I didn't know anything about it. Why? What was happening here? In my State, because we have the highest environmental standards in the world on oil and gas development, on mineral development, we do our exploration only in the winter--only in the winter. About a 3-month period--January, February, March, April--4 months, because we create ice roads and ice paths. These are giant roads of ice and giant paths of ice that can take out giant drill rigs on the tundra. We do our exploration then, and then we bring it off in 4 months. The ice roads melt, and there is zero impact. It is called zero impact exploration. OK? It is expensive, but we do that in Alaska because we really care about our environment. We know how to do both: protect our environment and develop our resources. We only have about 3 to 4 months to even do this work every winter. So I had a bunch of Alaskans--hundreds, thousands--out doing the work of America--oil and gas development. Old Mr. de la Vega comes out day one of the Biden administration and says, We are going to suspend any lease or permit. When you are in the oil and gas industry, you are constantly having to get additional permits--what they call ATDs, applications to drill-- to build an ice road, to do other things that are way beyond leases-- Jen Psaki--way beyond leases. You have to get these permits reviewed and updated very frequently. They said: No issuing of anything. I get a call--I will give you one example--from a company that almost 300 people do an exploration for. They were just told: You are not going to get anything else for 60 days. They couldn't do anything. They are going to fire all 300 people. We scrambled. We made phone calls. We tried to get this order lifted--tried to get an exception. This was happening all across America. The Federal Government came in--the Biden administration. That was day one, and Mr. de la Vega--again, don't know who he is--issued this order: 60 days and stopped everything. Joe Biden is out there saying: Oh, no, we really care about energy production. No, you don't. You are trying to kill it. That was the mad scramble. Many people were laid off. This is way beyond Keystone--10,000 laid off. Let me go into a little more detail. After 60 days, what happened? This is really important. I really want our friends in the media to dig into this. Again, you have these things called applications to drill on Federal leases. OK? All of that was stalled for 60 days. You couldn't do a thing. This is just a year ago, right--just a year ago from this administration that is now telling the American people: Oh, no, we are fully for energy development. They were trying to kill it. OK. Normally, when you have a lease on a Federal land, you have Federal managers. I will give you the example in Alaska. In the Bureau of Land Management, they will have a field manager, right? So let's say there is a field manager for BLM in Fairbanks, AL. That man or woman has a fair amount of authority. They can issue these applications to drill, to move forward. This is a government that is not centralized, right? You want the decision-makers--who, by the way, are almost all professional career staff--to make science-based decisions--not political decisions--on these applications to drill. That is the way it works. That is the way it has always worked. So you have a field manager, say, in Fairbanks. You will have a district level manager in the interior part of Alaska. Then you will have one State director, the BLM State director, OK? So they usually-- not even the State director. The lower-level Federal officials can issue these permits to keep the country moving, producing oil, gas. What happened after 60 days? After 60 days in 2021--so you have the Biden administration--Mr. de la Vega shutting down all energy production for 60 days in America. That is this order. So after 60 days, what happened? Well, there was another order issued. This was issued by a woman, an official named Laura Daniel-Davis. She is the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Land and Mineral Management. OK. Sounds kind of important. Actually, it is really important. That is the Assistant Secretary of the Interior in charge of all oil and gas and mineral development for America. It is a pretty important job. In the Trump administration, we had a really great Alaskan, Joe Balash. He had that job. Did a great job, by the way. So after 60 days, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Land and Mineral Management--oil and gas, mining--she issues a memo. I have it right here. I will quote from some of it. She issues a memo. What her memo says was: Hey, you have that Executive order--60-day delay by Mr. de la Vega. OK, that is running out in 2 days. This is March 19, 2021. It is not even a year old. What she says in her order is that: You know how you guys in the Federal agencies--a field manager, the district level manager, the State director, all across America--I am giving you one example in Alaska. You know how you all have authority to issue permits to drill, things like that? That is the way it has been going on for decades and decades. Well, I, Acting Assistant Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis, I am taking that away from you. I am taking that away. Her memo says every decision--she lists a bunch--a bunch--OK? Every decision--now, remember, nobody was able to do anything for 60 days. Now, we are saying the 60-day delay is over, but any decision you lower-level people--BLM and others--had to make on applications to drill and permits like that--hundreds and hundreds across the country--she says--I am going to quote from her: For those matters that have been submitted in accordance with S.O. 3395-- She is referencing the Executive order that says stop everything. She now says: If you haven't received any kind of approval for that stuff-- ``If you have not received the final ASLM''--that is her decision-- ``you may not proceed [on any of these permits] without approval from ASLM,'' meaning her. Think about that. This is an administration saying they really care about moving oil and gas on Federal lands forward. In the first 60 days, they say everything stopped. Then they say: All right. You are going to move forward the way it used to work--field managers, district level managers, State directors, in every State in America--no, no, no, you don't have that authority. Me, Assistant Secretary Acting--by the way, she is still not confirmed by the Senate--every one of those has to come to me for my approval--every one. Every one in Alaska, every one in New Mexico, every one in North Dakota--anywhere--by the way, all on the offshore, Gulf of Mexico--anywhere that at the lower levels in the Federal Government you had professional staff who had the authority to grant these applications to drill and other Federal permits, this memo says: No. That will be centralized under me--for America--for America--every darn decision for oil and gas production and mineral production in the country has to be approved by this Acting Assistant Secretary. Guess what? This memo is still in operation right now--right now. When the President of the United States looks at the American people and Jen Psaki: Oh, we are doing everything. No, you are not. You have one person and this order. I am not going to go into her background much, but let's just face it. If you look at it, she spent her whole career trying to take out the oil and gas industry. Now, she is in charge of every decision for every permit on every Federal lease for the production of American energy in the country, and she is still in charge. You have one person. By the way, this is a political appointee. I don't think she is going to get confirmed because I am going to block her; that is for sure. But even some of my Democratic colleagues are like, this is going on right now, OK? My friends in the media, I hope you take a look at this. What is really interesting here is you have someone who is a political appointee--a career trying to take out the oil and gas industry--and none of this is based on science. This is all political. They are removing the career staff, the scientists, saying: Hey, it has to be up to me. One political appointee is in charge of issuing all permits in the United States in the energy sector. It is still going on. This would be like if you wanted to get a loan--right--and you went to your local bank in your hometown. Let's say it was Bank of America. There was a local bank, Bank of America in your hometown. This would be like having to go to headquarters on Wall Street to get approval for your loan. Think about it. That is going on right now. And the President has the audacity to look the American people in the eye saying: Oh, we are trying to do all we can. No, you are not. Why don't you rescind this order? This is part of the Biden administration's obsession from day one with stopping the production of American energy and politicizing it with a political appointee--who, by the way, doesn't know much about the industry either. But there is more to this memo. It gets quite interesting because there is this kind of doublespeak in it. I am going to read from a little bit of it. She says that for matters that have been submitted in accordance with the shutdown--60-day shutdown--but for which you have not received approval from me, you are still not allowed to move forward. You have to come through me, the one political appointee who doesn't like the energy sector. But here is the interesting thing. She says: ``Please [also] provide early notification.'' So flag it if it is an item coming up to me that is part of the administration's priorities. I am quoting right now: ``For example, renewable energy projects [those will go to the front of the line] or other climate related milestones, `30 by 30' initiatives''--that is shutting down 30 percent of all Federal lands. That is not a law by the way; just another radical thing they are doing--``or actions related to racial equity, environmental justice.'' OK. This is in her memo. She is saying: Hey, I get to approve everything--all applications, drill, any permits on any Federal land, anything--one person. But if it is part of a far-left radical agenda, by the way, that has nothing to do with energy production, give me a heads-up. Then she says: As well as early notification on items that are of high local, state, or regional interest. What does that mean, ``early notification''? Make sure she knows items that are of ``high local, state, or regional interest.'' What does that mean? I don't know. It is kind of code for something. Let me give you one example of what I think it is code for. Remember, she is in charge of issuing all these permits, and there have been a flood of oil and gas production permits. Guess which State in America in the first year of the Biden administration has had close to half of all oil and gas drilling permits issued by the Department of Interior approved? Remember, she is approving them all. She doesn't really like oil and gas, but if she has to approve some, it might be related to items that are of ``high local, state, or regional interest.'' I wonder who that is. Who is it? Is it Alaska? No, I don't think so. Trust me. They are delaying us as much as they can. They don't like us. Twenty-two Executive orders and Executive actions solely focused on Alaska by this administration, they really don't like us. Is it Texas, North Dakota? The State that has got close to half of all oil and gas drilling permits that this Acting Assistant Secretary, who is in charge of granting--because, remember, she centralized everything--is New Mexico. New Mexico. Whoa. New Mexico? New Mexico. Do you think New Mexico would be a high State or regional interest if you are her and your boss is from New Mexico? Probably. How about if you have a Senator from New Mexico calling all the time? Probably. All right. So I really wish the media would look into this, right? Because right now you have the President of the United States, Jen Psaki, and others, saying: Oh, we are trying to do everything we can here. You have got this memo that is still in effect by an Acting Assistant Secretary, saying: I am going to control every permit issued in America on Federal lands. It is right here. Read it. And you can't move, you regional directors in BLM, you know, in Fairbanks, AK, you State directors--no, no, no. I am in charge, and I am going to approve them. You can't move without me. But give me a heads-up. If it is regional interest, Deb Haaland might care about the New Mexico ones or climate change or racial equity or whatever else she listed. So if this administration really wanted to do all it could to produce energy--which is what every American knows we need to do and what our allies know we need to do and what Putin hopes we don't do--I think one thing they could do is to get Acting Assistant Secretary Laura Daniel- Davis's boot off the neck of the American energy sector because, right now, she is in charge. Every permit on Federal lands listed in her memo of March 21--I am sorry, March 19, 2021, she is in charge of: final resource management plans, records of decisions, coal leasing, mining operations, R.S. 2477, land sales, exchanges--what else do we have here--applications for permits to drill, oil and gas leases, applications for royalty relief. She is in charge of all of that right now. In this administration, the President, Jen Psaki, and others have the audacity to look the American people in the eye and say: We are trying to do everything we can in our power to produce more. If you were, you would rescind this memo--rescind this memo. So the next time the President or some of his staff or Secretary of Energy or Secretary of Interior try to spin the American people and tell them they are trying to help, I hope my friends in the media go, well, what about this memo? Come on, that is like basic Federal Government 101. If you are telling everybody, stop, halt, and everything in the country has to be approved by her, that is not the way it works normally. But because of their anti-energy agenda, she is making the calls--but make sure that you give her a heads-up, if it is related to some of the far-left agenda that she literally lays out in the memo. I hope my friends in the media ask some questions. I hope they ask the question: Is it related to this memo that New Mexico is getting all the drilling permits? It would be a good question to ask, I think. Don't you think? I think so. Alaska's not getting a lot, but New Mexico is. I wonder why. Maybe that is related to making sure she gets, ``early notification of items that are of high local, State or regional interest.'' This is not a laughing matter. There is so much that we have to focus on in the world today, in America today, and one of the things this administration needs to do is they need a major course correction on their energy policy. You can't let energy be dictated by the far left of the Democratic Party. You can't let national security of America be dictated by the ``woke'' elements of the Democratic Party. And if you really are serious, Mr. President of the United States, you need to call Deb Haaland and say: Rescind that memo. Let the officials, the professional staff of the Federal Agencies, which the President has charged to do their job that they have done with every other administration--rescind this memo and start helping our country produce American energy again. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, obviously, the images coming out of Ukraine and the heroism that we are seeing is inspiring people all across America, all across the world, and it is spurring governments to action, appropriate action. Just the other day, there was a world leader in charge of one of the world's most important countries who was spurred to action. Despite his country and his government having a leftwing leaning, he made announcements--historic, remarkable announcements--that not only stunned his country but stunned his world about the importance of a strong defense, military defense, about the importance of being realistic about energy policies. No, I am not talking about President Biden, unfortunately. I am going to get to that. He missed a huge opportunity to do just that. I am talking about the world leader German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who in the last 2 days has said Germany, because of the current crisis, is going to almost double its defense budget to achieve its 2 percent GDP portion of national defense within the next year or two--a huge, stunning announcement by the Chancellor. A country that is addicted to Russian natural gas is now saying we are not going to have any and we are going to stop the Nord Stream 2 gas line--a huge, stunning announcement. That is global leadership. And, unfortunately, President Biden missed the opportunity last night at the State of the Union to do exactly the same on exactly the same issues. Let me talk about this a little bit more. I think we are starting to fully understand the implications as a nation and as a world of what is happening in Ukraine. We have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression, led by Russia's and China's dictators who are increasingly isolated and dangerous, who are driven by historical grievances, who are paranoid about their democratic neighbors and are willing to use military force and other aggressive actions to crush the citizens in countries like Ukraine and Hong Kong and Taiwan. These dangerous dictators--Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping--are increasingly working together to put forward and implement their vision for the world: spheres of influence that revolve around them. If you saw and read, they joint communicated just a few weeks ago before the Beijing Olympics, Xi Jinping and Putin. It is a wake-up call to the world. It is a scary, darn document. That is what is happening. Again, we need to wake up; this administration needs to wake up to this new era of authoritarian aggression because it is going to be with us, unfortunately, in my view, for years, if not decades. The President had the opportunity to do what the Chancellor of Germany did in the last few days, and he didn't. My view of this situation is that we need to face it as a country with strategic resolve and confidence and recognize that our country has extraordinary advantages, particularly relative to China and Russia. If we are wise enough to utilize and strengthen these advantages, what are they? They are our global network of allies, our lethal military, our world-class supplies of energy and other natural resources, our dynamic economy, and, most important, our democratic values and commitment to liberty. We must always remember that Putin and Xi Jinping's biggest weaknesses and biggest vulnerabilities are that they fear their own people. They fear their own people. We need to remember that and exploit this vulnerability in the months and years ahead. But what happened last night? Again, it was a missed opportunity because the President could have--should have--followed the lead of the Chancellor of Germany, and he didn't. He put forward a few good ideas that, I think, drew bipartisan support in the Chamber, certainly, talking about the brave people of Ukraine. That was something that all Americans are seeing and supportive of. Also, the President's commitment to defend every inch of NATO territory, I think, is an important redline that he drew last night that, again, all of us support, but it was important for him to articulate it. Other topics--opioids, mental health, helping our veterans--count me in on those. But what he didn't do was step up in front of the American people and, like the Chancellor of Germany, say: It is a new world, and we need to recognize it, and the Biden administration is going to make a course correction on some critical issues. What were those critical issues? Well, they are the exact issues that the Chancellor of Germany announced to his people. Yesterday, 23 Senators--we sent a letter to the President respectfully imploring him to address the same issues that the Chancellor of Germany just did in this new era of authoritarian aggression. We need a much stronger, robust military budget that can ensure the lethality and readiness of our forces. If you don't believe that, you are not watching what is going on in Ukraine. What we don't need is another Biden budget like he put forward last year that increases, by double digits, the budgets of literally every Federal Agency in the Government of the United States, with the exception of two: Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. The Biden budget last year cut those, and I guarantee you the dictators in Beijing and the dictator in Moscow noticed. You can't do that. He didn't even mention it last night--didn't even mention it last night. And I guarantee you the dictators in Moscow and Beijing noticed and so did our European allies, which is, again, why what the Chancellor of Germany did was so extraordinary. He announced a budget doubling the budget of the German military--stunning. But the other area that we suggested strongly to the President of the United States to address to the American people in this new era of authoritarian aggression is energy. In our letter to the President yesterday, we respectfully called out the President and said: With respect, Mr. President, you recently told the American people in a press conference that your administration was using ``every tool at our disposal to protect American families and businesses'' from rising energy crisis, but that is not true. It is not true, and the whole world knows it. Heck, the administration knows it. So we suggested 12 actions that the President of the United States could take and announce at the State of the Union that would help us with regard to energy: bring down costs, put American energy workers back to work, and not let Putin blackmail European allies of ours with energy and continue to use it as a weapon. We asked for a course correction on the Biden administration's energy policies, which, from day 1, have focused on restricting, delaying, and, indeed, killing the production of American oil and gas. All of this has had the predictable result, the catastrophic result of driving up energy prices at the pump and in home heating for American citizens--enormous increases, hurting working families, increasing pink slips for American energy workers like those in my State, the great State of Alaska, and again in the current crisis, significantly empowering our adversaries, especially Vladimir Putin, who has used energy as a weapon against our allies for decades. So I am not going to go into each one of the topics or the actions that we suggested the President of the United States take, with the exception of one because it is so apparent that we need to do it and so apparent that the President should have announced it last night that I want to just briefly mention it again here. We called on--and today in a press conference many of us called on-- many Republicans and some Democratic Senators now have called on the Biden administration to undertake sanctions and an embargo against Vladimir Putin's strongest weapon, his export of natural gas and oil. Now, many people are saying: Well, you can't do that as it relates to our European allies. What we are saying is, we understand there are challenges there. We are not talking about Europe. We are talking about the United States of America. I want you to understand these numbers. Right now, we are buying an average of almost 700,000 barrels a day of Russian oil. By the way, that number has increased 35 percent--actually over 35 percent during President Biden's first term. At the same time, the Biden administration is going to States like mine and saying, We are going to try to shut down Alaskan oil production. Does anyone in America, does anyone in the U.S. Senate, does anyone in the Biden administration think that that makes sense--increase imports of Russian oil to the United States while shutting down the production of American energy? They are doing it. We all know they are doing it. Heck, they know they are doing it. It makes no sense. In the last year, imports from the United States paid for that went back--oil imports of Russian oil, paid for in the United States going back to Russia--put $17 billion into Putin's war chest--$17 billion. So a number of us--like I said, Republican and now Democratic Senators--have been saying: This is nuts. We are trying to sanction Putin. We are trying to isolate Russia from the global economy, and there is this giant loophole, and it is coming right to the United States. We are paying for hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of Russian oil going back to Putin, and they are still trying to shut down American energy production. Come on. Of course, some of this is driven by the far left that the Biden administration listens way too much to. Come on, Mr. President, my colleagues here, this is insane, and everybody knows it. Everybody knows it. What are we doing right now? We are subsidizing this war. We are subsidizing--by the importation of 7,000 barrels a day of Russian oil in the United States, we are subsidizing Putin's war on Ukrainians. By the way, our friends in Canada, they just announced that they are not going to import any more Russian oil. Prime Minister Trudeau, well done, sir. By the way, had the Keystone Pipeline not been killed by the President of the United States a little over 12 months ago, we would have up to 700,000 barrels of oil from Canada. I would much rather be getting oil from Canada than Russia right now. If you think that this is an issue that is not impacting Ukraine, here is what the Foreign Minister of Ukraine recently said about this topic: We insist on a full embargo for Russian oil and gas around the world. Buying Russian oil and gas right now means paying for the murder of Ukrainian men, women and children. That is the Foreign Minister of Ukraine. What he is asking for is something we can easily do--block any more Russian oil, Russian natural gas coming into the United States of America. People say: Well, where would we get it, then? I will tell you where we would get it. We would get it from the United States of America. The only thing that the President mentioned last night on this topic in a glancing manner--to be honest, it was a lame glancing manner. It was almost a pathetic attempt to just barely recognize that this giant issue had to be touched upon. He said we are going to briefly release oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We are not going to produce more, which we could. We are just going to release a little more oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Here is my answer to that: Mr. President, there is a much better Strategic Petroleum Reserve than the one you referenced last night. It is called the great State of Alaska. That is America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And you need to let us, as your fellow Americans, help our fellow citizens and the rest of the world by producing. So it was a missed opportunity last night. We have world leaders who, right now, the Prime Minister of Canada on the imports of Russian oil, the Chancellor of Germany on significantly recognizing the new era in which we are all in, saying: I have got to be serious about national defense and our military, and I have got to be serious about energy. We had respectfully asked the President of the United States last night in the State of the Union to do just the same--just the same. The American people were watching, and he had an opportunity to talk about the consequences, long term, of this new era of authoritarian aggression and say: ``And I am going to make some course corrections as the President of this administration because it is going to be what is good for the American people and our allies,'' and he didn't do it. He didn't do it, and it was a big missed opportunity for our country and for the world. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, let me begin with one of the areas of course correction that we are urging the President to undertake, and that is in the area of national defense. There are many lessons that we are going to learn from this Ukrainian invasion, but one of them is certainly that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression, led by the dictator in Russia--that is Putin--and the dictator in China--that is Xi Jinping. When they sense weakness, particularly military weakness, they are acting. As I mentioned, this new era of authoritarian aggression is something we need to be ready for. It is led by the dictators of Russia and China, who are increasingly isolated and dangerous. They are driven by historical grievances, they are paranoid about their democratic neighbors, and they are more than willing to use military force and other aggressive actions to crush the citizens of such countries on their periphery. These dangerous dictators, Putin and Xi Jinping, are increasingly working together to achieve their aggressive goals. We must wake up to the fact, and that is what we are calling the President to do--hopefully he does in his speech tonight--that this new era of authoritarian aggression is likely to be with us for decades. What are the areas which we should focus on and which we are respectfully requesting the President to focus on and announce tonight? Well, first, as I mentioned, our Nation's national defense. Now, unfortunately, this has not been a priority of Democratic Presidents. That is a fact. This has not been a priority often of my Democratic colleagues--some; not all but some. Let me just give you some of the numbers. In the second term of the Obama administration, the Pentagon's budget was slashed by 25 percent-- 25 percent. Our military readiness plummeted. When I got elected to the Senate--in many ways, I ran because of these issues in 2014. When I was elected in 2015, I was on the Readiness Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee. The numbers at the time were classified because they were so horrendous in terms of our military's readiness. Three out of fifty-eight brigade combat teams of the U.S. Army were at the tier 1 level of readiness needed for deployment--3 out of 58. The Air Force was the smallest and oldest in terms of aircraft age ever, and less than half of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps' aviation fleet could fly. That was the U.S. military during the end of the second term of the Obama administration. When you gut defense spending, you gut readiness, you gut lethality. During the Trump administration, when the Republicans had control of the Senate, we worked to reverse this dangerous hollowing out of our military by dramatically increasing funding. Many of the areas I talked about involving readiness and lethality returned back to the levels that the American people expect of their military. Unfortunately, when the President, President Biden, was elected, he reverted back to what Democratic Presidents always do: He submitted a budget that cut defense spending in real terms, inflation adjusted, about 3 to 4 percent cuts. What was remarkable, if you looked at the Biden budget, everywhere else, it was double-digit increases. You name the Agency, it got a double-digit increase, with the exception of two: Department of Defense and Homeland Security. Budgets are an indication of priorities, and this President was not prioritizing his own armed services. So what we are doing with regard to the letter today is asking the President of the United States: You can't do that anymore, Mr. President. We are in a new era. We had a hearing in the Armed Services Committee today. I asked both the witnesses what they thought Xi Jinping and Putin thought when the President of the United States put forward a budget to cut his own military. The witnesses answered today in this hearing: Undoubtedly, it helped embolden Putin and Xi Jinping. So the first thing we are asking the President to make clear in his speech tonight is that he needs to put forward a robust, real increase in defense spending to make sure we have current and future readiness and lethality of our military forces. Obviously, if you turn on the TV and see what is going on around the world, this needs to happen. The President also needs to continue, as every President has done before him, to call out our NATO allies, whom we are acting closely with right now, to meet their obligations that they have committed to for years, which is to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense spending. The good news is, Germany just announced that it was going to do this, that it was going to double its budget. That is remarkable. That is great news. But we can't have Germany leading on the calls for increasing defense spending and lethality. The President of the United States needs to do it, and he needs to do it tonight. The second issue that we raised in our letter on the critical need for a strategic course correction with this administration is with regard to energy. Everybody knows it. Everybody feels it. Everybody understands it. Yet, for some reason--I think driven by the far left of the Democratic Party--this administration won't get real on energy. Let me talk about that for a minute because it is a topic I care deeply about and, by the way, have been pressing the Biden administration on since day 1, that this is bad for our economy, bad for working families, and bad for national security. What am I talking about? Well, first, it is important to understand what President Biden inherited. Over the 4 years of the Trump administration, with Republicans in control of the Senate, we were able to achieve a bipartisan goal of American foreign policy and energy security that we collectively as a nation had been seeking for decades: American energy independence. Before the pandemic hit, the United States was the largest producer of oil in the world, bigger than Saudi Arabia; the largest producer of natural gas in the world, bigger than Russia; and a leader in producing renewables--all-of-the-above energy. At the same time, and I really want my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to listen to this, we led the world in terms of major economies on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2005, we have reduced these by almost 15 percent. No other industrialized nation in the world has a record like that, including our high standards on producing energy. In China, the emissions are going through the roof. In the United States, they are coming down dramatically because of the American energy revolution. Millions of jobs were created because of this revolution in energy, in U.S. manufacturing, in energy sectors, and our energy independence significantly enhanced our Nation's national security. I often recount this story. In a meeting about 4 years ago I had with Senator John McCain--a close friend of mine and mentor in the Senate-- and a very senior level Russian dissident. At the end of the meeting, I asked this brave Russian dissident: What more can the United States do to undermine the Putin regime and to undercut Vladimir Putin's malign influence in Europe and around the world? Without hesitation, this Russian dissident said: It is easy, Senator; America needs to produce more American energy. That is exactly what we did, and our country and our allies benefited enormously. So what has been the policy of this administration? From day 1--and I mean day 1--1 hour into his administration, President Biden has intentionally done the opposite. We are not going to produce more American energy, as that Russian dissident told me and Senator McCain to do to undermine Putin. To the contrary, the Biden administration made the conscious decision: We are going to undercut the production of American energy. Since taking office, this administration has shut down energy production, has made it hard to produce on Federal lands, has killed energy infrastructure like pipelines, has strong-armed American financial institutions and not invested in energy here and particularly in places like my State, the great State of Alaska. All of this restricting, delaying, killing the production of American energy, driven by a far-left agenda that makes no sense, has had the very predictable result of what? Catastrophically driving up energy prices for American working families--we are seeing that every day; my colleagues know that--increasing pink slips for American energy workers. Keystone XL laid off 10,000 workers, a lot of laborers. First day on the job--that was the President's call. Here is the thing that matters right now: This war on American energy has significantly empowered our adversaries, especially Vladimir Putin, who has used energy as a weapon for decades. Again, I see this every day. Think about this statistic if you are an Alaskan citizen. This administration comes up to Alaska and tries to delay and shut down the production of American energy. Guess what. At the same time, year 1 in the Biden administration, we are now importing 700,000 barrels a day of oil from Russia--almost a 40-percent increase in year 1 from the Biden administration. Does any American or any U.S. Senator think that makes sense--killing American energy production in our great Nation and importing hundreds of thousands of barrels more from Vladimir Putin? Because if you do--well, actually, I don't think anyone thinks that makes sense. But that is what is happening right now. In effect, the United States, in many ways, along with countries in Europe, is funding the very war that Putin has launched. The United States still is the world's largest producer of natural gas, but, again, due to the irrationality and hostility toward pipelines, we can't get enough natural gas to the Northeast. So you see places like Boston importing LNG from where? Russia. This is insane. This is insane. This is a colossal, strategic mistake. It is clearly harming American working families. I am sure every Senator hears about it when they go home. But it is also national security suicide. It is being done, supposedly, to lower carbon emissions, but I want to be clear about that, too, because it isn't. In fact, oil produced in the United States has lower emissions than oil produced in most other countries. LNG shipped to Europe from the United States has a 41- percent lower carbon emission footprint than gas piped in from Russia, and we also have some of the most rigorous environmental standards anywhere on the planet in terms of production. So, again, the Biden administration's energy policies are strengthening Putin, increasing costs and hurting Americans, and are actually doing zero to address global emissions. The only conclusion I can come up with is the far left has undertaken some kind of holy war against the production of American energy, and it makes no sense. So here is what we are asking the President. He gave a speech to the American people the other night where he said that he is using all available tools to address these energy challenges. With all due respect to the President of the United States, that is not true. The President knows it; his team knows it; every Senator here knows it, and the American people know it. So in our letter today that we are sending to the President, we are saying, President Biden, if you want to keep your word to the American people on what you just told them, ``all available tools,'' here is what you can actually announce tonight at the State of the Union that will have very significant, real impacts on lowering energy costs in America and increasing our national security relative to Putin. Some of the actions we requested the President to take in the letter we are sending him before the State of the Union. Simple, rescind your decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline and fast-track other similar energy infrastructure projects around the country. Work to rescind the recent decision by the Biden administration's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, that makes it much more difficult to actually approve natural gas pipelines. My understanding is my good friend from West Virginia Senator Manchin is holding a hearing on this very issue on Thursday because he knows that this is national security suicide. Commit to fast-tracking and producing American energy on American lands, particularly where the Congress has told you to do so, like ANWR in Alaska, like the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska--Congress has said produce there; that is the law--like the Gulf of Mexico. We have decades in our great Nation of abundant proven reserves of oil and gas. So why are we importing so much from Putin right now? This brings me to another request. And this is a request of many Senators, and I believe Democratic Senators also. We should be banning the importation of Russian oil into the United States. Canada just announced it was doing it yesterday. Why would we be importing 700,000 barrels a day of Russian oil when we have millions and millions of barrels in Alaska? Can somebody answer that question? I hope the President of the United States looks at our letter and recognizes these are commonsense approaches that are going to be needed to address this new era of authoritarian aggression, not just with Vladimir Putin but with Xi Jinping as well. When you look at what the Communist Party fears more than anything, it is American energy dominance. And yet this administration has come in, in year 1, unilaterally disarmed one of our most important strategic advantages in the world. One other thing we mention in the letter, which makes so much sense, is to issue all pending export licenses and announce an initiative to help surge American liquefied natural gas to our allies in Europe and partners in Europe who right now are being blackmailed and trapped by Vladimir Putin's use of energy. Again, you would think that would be a no-brainer. And we hope the President looks at the American people tonight and goes through this list of good energy ideas that we have given him and says he is going to do it--says he is going to do it. The world is reeling right now. Our country certainly is hurting, in terms of inflation and many other challenges, many of which are self- inflicted like the energy challenges. We can take steps to strengthen our country. And a strong United States, of course, strengthens the world. We have seen this time and time again throughout history. Our country is the beacon of freedom and hope, and the light of that beacon can only shine brightly, can only cast light on all corners of the globe when we are strong. And it shines most brightly when our citizens are not struggling, but when we have strong communities, strong families, bolstered by good-paying jobs that provide dignity. Our light of freedom shines most brightly when our country is on a common mission, and I think the President can call us toward a common mission tonight by listening to some of the things that we as Republicans have implored him to talk about and focus on in his speech. As I mentioned, as a country, it is important that we wake up to the fact that this new era of authoritarian aggression will likely be with us for decades. We need to face it with confidence and strategic resolve. Our country has extraordinary advantages relative to the dictatorships of Russia and China if we are wise enough to utilize and strengthen them. Our global network of allies, our lethal military, our world-class natural resources and energy resources, our dynamic economy, and most important, our democratic values and commitment to liberty. Xi Jinping and Putin's biggest weakness and vulnerability is that they fear their own people. We should remember and exploit this vulnerability in the months and years ahead. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to come down to the floor and talk about the issue that is certainly the focus of America and the world right now, and that is Ukraine, and that is the President's State of the Union Address, which will be a very important one tonight. And I know that Americans all across our great Nation are glued to their televisions, social media streams. And what we are seeing in Europe is quite remarkable, quite unsettling--another major war on the European continent. We are seeing children in bomb shelters singing the Ukrainian national anthem. We are seeing brave young men and women on the front lines taking up arms to defend their country. We are seeing grandmothers take to the streets, foisting upon Russian conscripts the seeds of their country's flower. One of the most effective acts of resistance I have ever witnessed. Mr. President, you and many of us were over in Europe just about a week ago at the Munich Security Conference, where we had the opportunity to meet with many of these brave Ukrainian ministers, the mayor of Kyiv, parliamentarians, young parliamentarians. And our message--my message certainly was a hard one. At the time, the war had not started, but we were seeing increasing intelligence that it would any day. And the message was, if war comes, it will be important for the Ukrainian people, the leaders, to fight. And we are seeing that. All across the country, the people in Ukraine are fighting and willing to die for freedom, for their country. I want to say I think I speak for the whole Senate: Watching these acts of courage and heroism has been truly inspiring, and we all applaud the courage and heroism that we are seeing in Ukraine, and we stand with the people of Ukraine. Given the circumstances in Ukraine and across the globe and in our country, where working families are struggling under increasing energy costs and inflation, I want to talk a little bit about the President's State of the Union tonight and what I certainly hope he is going to tell the American people. I and several of my colleagues here, Republican colleagues in the Senate, will be sending a letter to the President very soon, urging him to announce specific actions that relate to an entirely new world with this invasion of Ukraine by Russia and start to announce a course correction on issues under which the Biden administration has been going the wrong way on two key, key areas. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter to the President.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to commend my colleague and friend from Kansas. He said very, very eloquently that the administration's policies right now, which are anti-energy--they are driving up energy prices on working families. And it is national security suicide to unilaterally disarm energy when Putin uses energy as a weapon. We all know that. Some of the window dressing here on these bills lately from my Senate Democratic colleagues is just that--political window dressing. We all need to go to the White House and say: Get your act together, Mr. President, your team. Produce more American energy. That is what we all need. It will help with inflation and will help with national security. So to my colleague from Kansas, thank you very much. We all come from States that produce energy. And these are great American workers, too, by the way, who sometimes get maligned because they produce energy. Imagine that. Tribute to Doug Keil Mr. President, I want to move on to my favorite time of the week. It is Thursday, so I usually come down on the Senate floor and talk about the Alaskan of the Week. Now, we all believe our States are the best. Each State loves to brag a little bit about their own State. That is great. It is what makes our country competitive, a little bit of competition here in the Senate. But I happen to speak the truth when I talk about how Alaska is the best State, and it is because of the people. I am going to talk a little bit about Doug Keil, who is today's Alaskan of the Week. I always like to start--you know, the pages enjoy this speech a lot because we get to talk a little bit about Alaska and the adventures and what is happening in the great State of Alaska. So I will give a little update on that. On January 22, that was the polar night in Utqiagvik, AK, the northernmost town in all of North America. What happened on January 22 is that polar night--as they call it there--finally ended. That is 65 days of darkness finally ended. That is 65 days of darkness. On January 22, the Sun crept a little over the horizon briefly. Like a long lost friend, the community gathered to say hello to the Sun. It has been cold up North. It has been a cold winter. It is about 20 below in Utqiagvik today. It has been relatively balmy in Anchorage where our Alaskan of the Week lives--warm enough to be sleeting right now. But in all weather, all around the State, people are getting out, gathering, enjoying the Sun that stays in our skies a little bit longer each day. They are dogsledding--training for the Iditarod. They are snow-machining, playing hockey, skiing, snowboarding--so many winter sports. We, in our State, are chockful of excellent winter athletes--great winter athletes. We punch way above our weight in terms of Winter Olympics. Many Alaskans are competing now in Beijing, as we speak, and we are rooting for all of them. Of course, we are rooting for all of America's athletes. We are also preparing to root for the amazing athletes who will be competing in the Paralympics, also in Beijing, starting March 4. Again, many Alaskans will be there competing: cross-country skier, Grace Miller; snowboarder, Katy Maddry, a former Alaskan of the Week alum; and former gold medal Paralympian, Andrew Kurka. He will be competing in Beijing in the sit-ski events. Now, I am mentioning all of this because our Alaskan of the Week, Doug Keil, says every one of these athletes--both in the Olympics and in Paralympics and all of our amateur athletes across the State--are there because of athletes who have gone before them. I think that is true. Paving that path, of course, has been all the more challenging for America's Paralympian athletes. But it is a path that Doug, our Alaskan of the Week, has really paved for Alaska--for America--a deep one. And he has done it through grit and pain and determination. In 1980, Doug Keil brought home two gold medals from the 1980 Paralympic Games in Norway. That was the second-ever Paralympic Games. He was the first American male to bring home gold in those games, and he spent the next 30-plus years building not only the structures and the organizations but, importantly, the culture in Alaska and in America to make sure other athletes with disabilities could come after him. Let me tell you a little bit about our Alaskan of the Week, Doug Keil. Doug was born in Beirut, Lebanon. His parents Don and Margaret, who went by ``Midge,'' were adventuresome. From New York, they were on a 4-year overseas trip. Don, the father, was teaching high school physics and Midge was working at the United Nations in the Palestinian refugee camps when they had Doug, the oldest of what would be five children, four girls and Doug. I know one of the girls really well, Carrie, Doug's sister, who works as part of my team in Anchorage doing constituent casework. She recently hit the milestone of successfully helping 2,000 different Alaskans. Carrie, great job. You are amazing-- just as amazing as your brother Doug. Her success rate is off the charts. I see it every day. When Doug and Carrie's family came back to America, they moved to Alaska. Don's brother--that is the dad, Don--built houses, and Don helped him for a while. Eventually, Don the father--Doug's father--got a senior job with the Federal Aviation Administration. Doug, our Alaskan of the Week, was an active kid. He loved sports, mostly baseball and skiing. His plan was to follow in his father's footsteps and go to Springfield College in Massachusetts. He wanted to be a physical education teacher and to play baseball, but he had some tragedy. When Doug was 15, he took a trip to Juneau to visit a school friend. And on August 28, 1968, he and his friend were exploring an old gold mine in Juneau. Doug got struck by 24,000 volts of electricity-- 24,000 volts of electricity. In the process, he lost an arm and lost a leg. As we can all expect, the next few years were very difficult ones for Doug and his family. As he said, ``When you get hit by 24,000 volts of electricity, it messes you up physically. Mentally, my whole world was gone.'' Talk about grit and determination. He spent about 2 years in the hospital and his dreams, he thought, had died. To make it all the more difficult, his father had to move the family to the DC area for a job with the FAA when Doug was just a sophomore in high school, still learning how to use an artificial arm and artificial leg. But the family stuck together. They had faith, and they pulled through. Back in Alaska, though, something remarkable happened. At this point, Doug hadn't tried to ski again because he thought those days were over without an arm, without a leg. But someone in their church told his parents about a program in Colorado--in Winter Park, CO--where they were training athletes to ski with disabilities. The first day he was there, Doug went to Winter Park. It coincided with the first day of what was then called the National Handicapped Championships. Doug said: I saw amazing athletes. I saw men and women who had come back [many disabled veterans from Vietnam]. . . . I saw them skiing and it opened up my eyes to a completely different world. Doug was inspired in many ways by our disabled Vietnam veterans who helped train him, helped inspire him. He came back to Alaska to train in this area and went back to Winter Park in 1977 to race in the Nationals in the slalom event and did so again in 1979, both of which qualified him for the 1980 Paralympics. Along with two gold medals from those Olympics, he brought a mission back to Alaska: starting a skiing program for people with physical disabilities. He said at the time that skiing was amazing. It would give him a ``feeling of motion. It's like running again. It can be fluid. When it feels good up through your body, your body smiles and when your body smiles, you smile.'' And he wanted others to have that experience. In the 1980s, of course, Alaska had mountains and snow and landscape begging to be played in but did not have a culture that encouraged people with disabilities to be part of those winter activities. Doug explained to a reporter in 1980 that as a one-legged skier, he was an anomaly in Alaska. He said: I've been skiing [there] for 5 years by myself. Up . . . [in Alaska]-- Someone with disabilities-- [T]hey see me coming down the slopes and they say ``What the [heck] is that?'' People just [weren't] used to [seeing] it [in 1980]. And this is where the story moves from one individual, Doug, to thousands. Doug and a handful of others got busy. They formed a nonprofit called Challenge Alaska, and they hit the road. Doug, who had a full-time job in cable, still made the time for starting this great organization, Challenge Alaska. They got people out on the slopes. They trained them. They gathered all the adaptive equipment they could get their hands on, and they dug in. Forty years later, with an expanded mission now including all outdoor activities, including summer activities--kayaking, cycling, wheelchair Frisbee, fishing, camping, and so much more--Challenge Alaska, started by Doug Keil, has helped over a thousand people in Alaska get out into Alaska's great outdoors in winter and summer. Some of the most incredible athletes you have ever met started their careers in athletics with Challenge Alaska. Just two weekends ago, my wife Julie and I had the opportunity to attend Challenge Alaska's 40th anniversary gala dinner. Now, I know a lot of my colleagues here--we go out to a lot of events when we are back home. This was one of the most inspiring events I have attended in a long, long time. Julie and I got to sit with the current executive director of Challenge Alaska, Nate Boltz; his wife, Leah; daughter, Anna; his parents, Jim and Laurie; his grandmother, Adeline. There were amazing speeches. One young man named Ryan Johnson, a recent high school graduate with cerebral palsy, spoke. Incredible. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. And, of course, Doug was there. Doug was there, the founder of Challenge Alaska--40 years of work--and he was honored for this great life achievement. In that 1980 article I mentioned earlier, I talked about when he was talking about skiing on the slopes alone as someone with one leg, he said that if he could have a plaque that said he was instrumental in starting a program to help other people with disabilities in Alaska to learn to enjoy the outdoors--skiing, winter, summer--he would be a happy man. That was 40 years ago when he said that. Well, he should be happy. He has done that and so much more. Thousands of people have been positively impacted by what he has done. Here is another remarkable thing. His inspiration went far beyond Alaska. It has literally touched the globe. He tells the story about how in the nineties, 13 people with disabilities from Japan came to ski with and learn from the people in Challenge Alaska. Doug was working at Challenge Alaska. He, unfortunately, wasn't able to ski with our Japanese visitors. But when they were leaving town, he met them at the airport to say goodbye. One of them, who was also missing an arm and a leg from a construction accident, stepped forward and, through an interpreter, told Doug that after his accident, he thought about taking his own life. Then this young Japanese man said to Doug that he saw a documentary about Doug. And he said to Doug: I vowed that I would learn to ski, [I would] come to Alaska and ski with [Challenge Alaska]. Thank you [Doug] for saving my life. That is pretty powerful stuff right there--one person in Japan whose life was saved by Doug Keil and all the great people at Challenge Alaska. So, Doug, thank you for saving lives. Thank you for your inspiration to so many. Thank you for what you have done for Alaska, for Challenge Alaska, for the State, for the Paralympian athletes we are going to watch and cheer on here in a couple of weeks. And congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues--I think they are all going to do this--to support S. 3614. That is the United States-Russian Federation Seafood Reciprocity Act of 2022, a pretty simple bill that will require reciprocity between Russia and the United States of America as it relates to our seafood industry and seafood trade. Now, let me give you a little bit of background on this because it actually relates to what is going on in the world today. All eyes are currently on the Russian aggression toward Ukraine right now and for good reason. We have seen the stories that the authoritarian dictator Vladimir Putin is going to invade Ukraine. We hope, and I think every one of us hopes, that doesn't happen, but it is looking like it may. But what is less talked about is the last time there was an invasion by Russia of Ukraine, what ended up happening in terms of sanctions and, in particular, American seafood sanctions, and the ramifications of the last Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here is what actually happened. In 2014, when Putin invaded the Crimean Peninsula and eastern Ukraine, President Obama put sanctions on Russia. Now, I wasn't here as a Senator then, but I supported them. Russia then retaliated in terms of sanctions in 2014, and here is one of the things they did. They banned all seafood exports from America-- whether it is Alaska, Massachusetts--into Russia. So that was about 9 years ago. That ban still exists today. Let me repeat this. If you are a big fisherman in Massachusetts or the great State of Alaska, as the Senator from Massachusetts knows, we both have thousands of great fishermen, you cannot export one fish to Russia. Nine years of a ban, and guess what. The United States lets Russia's seafood into America almost duty-free. Let me repeat that. A ban on American exports to Russia, a 9-year blockade, not one Massachusetts fisherman or Alaskan fisherman can export his great American seafood product to Russia. Russia gets to import Russian seafood into America duty-free. That is called unfair by any measure--by any measure. And it certainly is unfair to the great fishermen of my State as well as the fishermen of Massachusetts. Now, I have talked about Alaskan fishermen for--well, as long as I have been a Senator. About 66 percent of all seafood harvested in the United States comes from the great State of Alaska. So we are big exporters. What has happened, though, in this regard, is that as we export--we Alaskans, fishermen from Massachusetts--as we export seafood around the world, we have not been able to export anything in that market, the Russian market, for 9 years, and at the same time the value of Russian seafood imported into the United States--surprise--has skyrocketed because there is no tariff on it. It skyrocketed 173 percent since 2013. That was the year before the embargo was imposed--again, directly competing against American seafood producers, American fishermen. As a matter of fact, the Russians are actually starting to steal market share from American fishermen, whether Massachusetts or Alaska, and we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars. This is unfair by anybody's definition. So my bill is very simple. It says, like we need in all trade around the world, we need just straight-up reciprocity. Right now, we can't export a thing to Russia, and they export their fish to America duty- free. So the bill is simple. It just says, until we can export into the Russian market, they shouldn't be able to export into our market. I can't imagine any U.S. Senator objecting to this. It is called reciprocity. It is called fairness. And it is righting a wrong that has been in the works for 9 years now, whether you are a fisherman in Massachusetts or a fisherman in Alaska. I have raised this issue with the Obama administration, the Trump administration, now the Biden administration. We are still waiting on reciprocity. So it is time to act. The U.S. Senate can act, and I am hopeful that we are going to act on this today. As a matter of fact, I checked with all my Republican colleagues, and every single one of them is supportive of basic reciprocity for fishermen. So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 3614 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I appreciate my friend Senator Markey, his offer to work through this. He and I have worked together on a number of issues, actually a number of issues particularly related to America's fishermen. As he mentioned, Massachusetts has a lot of fishermen, and I have tens of thousands of my fellow Alaskans involved in the industry. And, again, I think he and I certainly agree with this concept. I think every U.S. Senator agrees with the concept of basic fairness in trade, basic fairness, in terms of reciprocity, in trade--all trade but especially the seafood trade. We have had 9 years of no reciprocity from Russia-- Putin, the thug. We shouldn't have to take it anymore, and it is hurting my constituents. Now, my understanding of the issue raised by Senator Markey is that it is primarily Russian pollock that is imported into Massachusetts. As Senator Markey knows, in Alaska, we have a huge number of fishermen engaged in that fishery. So maybe what we should look at is making sure Massachusetts' workers are actually processing American--Alaskan-- pollock, not the authoritarian pollock in Russia. That would be a fair way to resolve this. I appreciate the offer to work together on this, but I will tell the Senator we need to work quickly because it has been 9 years of nonreciprocal seafood trade. I am almost certain that Massachusetts fishermen who once exported to Russia have been hurt by this seafood blockade as well as my fishermen. I take Senator Markey's offer and suggestion in good faith. Hopefully, we can work over the work period in the next couple of weeks and get to a result on this. Alaskans will supply Massachusetts' workers pollock or cod or whatever you are processing, and then we will bring reciprocity in terms of trade, which currently does not exist, between Russia and the United States. It is wrong. It is unfair. It needs to be fixed by us, and it needs to be fixed by the Biden administration as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I would like to talk a little bit about not just Ms. Williams--who as my friend from Montana has mentioned--I actually think she is qualified--but the issues that are in front of the Fish and Wildlife Service, as we speak, that relate to my State, the great State of Alaska. Unfortunately, it has been one Executive order, Executive action, delay targeting Alaska--some from the Fish and Wildlife Service that has had an enormously negative impact on my State. I agree with the Senator from Montana. Fish and Wildlife Service is important. He mentioned that it manages 89 million acres nationwide. Well, 77 million acres of that 89 are in Alaska. Eight-five percent of Fish and Wildlife Service land that is managed is in one State, the great State of Alaska, a size bigger than the State of New Mexico, just for Fish and Wildlife Service land control. So this Agency, this nominee will have an enormous impact on my constituents and, indeed, right now is having an enormous impact on my constituents, and I can't get them to do anything constructive for the people I represent. Let me give you two, and perhaps my colleague from Montana can help me out with this. These are two directly--directly--in the jurisdiction of the Fish and Wildlife Service that we have been asking for support on and haven't gotten it. One is the Russian River land exchange. This is a vital exchange that needs to happen for a highway project on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. Here is the thing about this land exchange. It has been in the works since 1975--44 years, to be exact. We believe it is the longest running federally led environmental impact statement in the history of America, which is actually what happens a lot in the great State of Alaska. Groups come up; they don't want any resource development; they don't want any access to land and they sue and they stop and they try to delay things. This one has been delayed, in one form or another, for 44 years. Now, the previous administration, to its credit, heard the voices of Alaska, responded to the input from different stakeholders, and actually put forward a reasonable land exchange that was approved by the Federal Government. The regional office of the Fish and Wildlife Service sent the approved package to headquarters in Washington, DC, in November, where it sits--where it sits. So one thing I would like to do before this nominee moves forward is get a commitment to approve that. It is very simple--44 years. I don't think we are asking too much, but it is delayed. Let me give you another one. Many of you have heard about the King Cove road. You are going to hear about it again because it is an issue that every Alaskan, even those who don't live out on the Aleutian Island chain, are passionate about. Only in Alaska could this happen. It is an 11-mile, single-lane gravel road that will save lives for people in the community of King Cove--primarily Alaska Native--and they need approval of that through another land exchange. We have been working on that for over 40 years--40 years. People in my communities in that part of the State have died because there is no road to access an airport. There are a lot of storms in that part of the world, the Aleutian Islands. When they need access to get out on a plane, they often don't have it because we can't build a single lane, 11-mile gravel road. We have a land exchange approved by the previous administration. This administration has said they are looking to approve it too. That is great news, but the Secretary of the Interior has said she is not going to fully endorse it until she goes out to King Cove and sees it herself. OK. We have been waiting for that visit for a year--for a year. There is a theme here. With the new administration, if there is something that has been helpful to my State, primarily by the previous administration, the Trump administration, on so many issues, bipartisan issues for Alaska, which has helped us in historic ways--on those helpful things, the new administration comes in, and they say: We are going to delay it. We are going to delay it. We have to relook at it. We don't know. If the Trump administration did it for Alaska, it must have been bad. That is their thing. But on things that harm my State, this administration on day 1 has expedited so many things. Day 1, the President is in office for 1 hour, and he issues an order dealing with ANWR, which this body approved in 2017. If it helps Alaska, they delay it. If it hurts Alaska, they are all over it. What we have in the first year of the Biden administration--first year--are 21 Executive orders and Executive actions negatively impacting my State across the board on every topic you can imagine: access to lands, tourism, fishing--21 Executive orders or actions. I gave a speech on this before the holidays, and it was 20--now it is 21--solely focused on Alaska. There is no other State in the country that is getting this kind of attention from this administration. I am sure the great State of Montana isn't. It is not just about resource development. These actions are hurting the ability of my constituents to put food on the table, lights on in their homes, jobs, cultures. And one area that doesn't nearly get enough attention, these actions, so many of them, are actually negatively impacting the Alaska Native community of the great State of Alaska. The Native people of my State are targeted. Let me give you one example. The previous administration, working with this body in a bipartisan way, finally passed a bill that provided justice to Alaska Native Vietnam veterans who served their country during Vietnam. The Alaska Native community is one of the most patriotic communities in the country. They serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country. When many of them went to fight in Vietnam, they came home, and a law that had been on the books since 1906--the ability to get a Native allotment--had expired. They came home and said: Wait, I can't get my native allotment? So we finally fixed that almost a half century later. Of course, a lot of radical enviros hated it because it is giving land in Alaska to people. The No. 1 issue I raised with Secretary Holland during her confirmation process was to make sure the Executive order to get these lands to Vietnam veterans--Alaska Native Vietnam veterans--stays on track. The Trump administration did all they could to make it happen. All they had to do was hit ``send.'' She delayed it for 2 years-- delayed it for 2 years. She wasn't even going to tell the delegation. I guarantee you, in the next 2 years, as this is being delayed, a lot of these Vietnam vets--Alaska Vietnam vets--will die before they even get their lands. So we are starting to hear it. I want to make one final point. This is very important. This administration talks a lot about racial justice, environmental equity. They talk about it all the time, but it comes with a caveat. They say they want to help disadvantaged communities, minority communities. I think that is a good goal, but it comes with a caveat--racial justice, environmental equity, unless it is for the indigenous people of Alaska, and then they get targeted. A lot of these Executive orders are targeting them. I have a whole list where some of the most disadvantaged Americans in the country are being targeted--in my view, because of their race--by this administration. I have submitted these before, but I am going to submit them again for the Record, several letters from Alaska Native groups talking about this unwarranted lack of consultation and targeting of their interests in my State. I ask unanimous consent to have one of these letters printed in the Record.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Here is one. It is from the president of the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, John Hopson, Jr. In terms of equity [racial equity] we understand that the Biden Administration has made promises domestically and internationally to curb this country's emissions and we, as Inupiat people whose homelands are on the front lines of climate change, can understand the need to move in that direction when it comes to address government policies. What we cannot support, however, is that those efforts are [often] made on the backs of indigenous peoples in Alaska without even a conversation, that is not how more equity is achieved. The federal government must allow us time and resources for a thoughtful, deliberate, and sustainable transition of our economy but instead we have seen secretarial and executive actions [from this administration] that threaten our way of [life and] economic sustainability and therefore our [entire] way of life [in America's Arctic]. Another group: Apparently, consultation with all indigenous groups in the country, except for those in Alaska, is this administration's policy. So, bottom line, I need commitments from the Fish and Wildlife Service on these issues: the Russian River land exchange, the King Cove land exchange. More broadly, I need the administration to end its war on Alaska and our working families. I am happy to discuss with the Senator from Montana on these issues and maybe get his help, but for right now, I object.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, to my colleague, I look forward to working with you on that and those amendments and look forward to moving her nomination forward in that light. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, today I introduce the S.T.A.N.D. with Taiwan Act of 2022, which would mandate comprehensive and devastating economic and financial sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party, key sectors of China's economy, and leaders in the Chinese Communist Party, if the Chinese People's Liberation Army initiates a military invasion of the island democracy of Taiwan. Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin introduced an identical bill in the House today as well. I am hopeful that when my colleagues come back from recess, the vast majority of Senators here, Democrats and Republicans, will end up joining me in supporting this important bill. Last March, in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, I posed this question to the INDOPACOM commander, Admiral Davidson: Given the Chinese Communist Party's recent but long list of coercive and even violent actions--a hostile suppression of freedom in Hong Kong, threatening nuclear war with Japan, hand-to-hand combat with Indian soldiers in the Himalayas, economic blockades of Australia, genocide in its own Xinjiang province, [and aggressive naval actions in the South China Sea]--how do such actions impact your analysis [Admiral Davidson] on if and when China would invade Taiwan? His response to me in this hearing made news around the world. He called these recent actions by President Xi ``alarming,'' and then he said: I think the threat [of an invasion of Taiwan] is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next 6 years. Six years--that is not a lot of time. The Senate needs to focus on this issue much more. Indeed, this issue is not unrelated to the actions of another dictator--Vladimir Putin--who is right now threatening and likely to invade one of his neighbors--Ukraine. Now, some see the defense of Taiwan as a luxury we cannot afford in an age of sharpened and great power competition and China's global economic strength. I reject that view. Importantly, so does American law, particularly the Taiwan Relations Act, which this body passed in 1979 by a vote of 90 to 6. Among other things, it states the following: The United States will consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means . . . a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern. The free world cannot be neutral in the contest between freedom and authoritarianism that is once again underway around the world, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. American alliances, power, and ingenuity helped build a world that provided more freedom and prosperity to more people than ever before. Think about this fact: The U.S. democracy, bolstered by our strong military, has done more to liberate humankind from oppression and tyranny--literally hundreds of millions of people--than any other force in human history. The Chinese Communist Party knows exactly what it wants to accomplish--to make the world safe for its authoritarian government, to export its dictatorship model to other countries, to separate America from its democratic allies, and to erode U.S. leadership around the world. A world governed by Xi Jinping's totalitarian vision would be a world unsafe for America and other democracies around the world. That is why Taiwan is so central to the free world and its future. It is a thriving, prosperous Chinese democracy that holds free elections and bounds its power by the rule of law. For that reason, it threatens the CCP's central premise, which is that one man ruling in perpetuity by crushing all dissent knows what is best for 1.4 billion people. The Chinese Communist Party has already crushed Hong Kong, once a bastion of liberty, and the free world barely raised its voice in protest. Should America and the world stand by as China does something similar to Taiwan, a peaceful democracy of 25 million people who have voted for an entirely different future, that would not simply undermine the security of the Western Pacific, as the Taiwan Relations Act says. A violent military takeover of Taiwan by the Chinese Communist Party would be a sea change in how the world is ordered. It would change the history of the 21st century in ways that the guns of August of 1914 changed the 20th century.

Mr. SULLIVAN

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

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, last week, I gave a long, detailed speech on the topic that was at hand last week and is the topic, right now, that we are focusing on here in the U.S. Senate: voting rights and the majority leader's goal this week, as it was last week, to blow up the legislative filibuster. I believe it would be the first time in U.S. history that a majority leader would actually seek to do this--to blow up the legislative filibuster--which, in and of itself, says a lot. This would, of course, change the Senate and change the country forever. There will be a lot of speeches on that. There will be many more speeches today, tomorrow, and Thursday on these important topics. Now, the President of the United States weighed in on these two topics--the filibuster and voting rights--in Georgia, in a speech last week that is already going down as an infamous speech by a President of the United States. Let's just say it really didn't go very well, the President's speech. I ask all Americans to take a look at it. It is quite disturbing for a whole host of reasons. The President's speech was almost universally panned, on the left even, on the right, and in the center. I have not seen one U.S. Senator come down on the floor, this week, to defend it. It will be interesting, as we debate these issues, if anyone does, but I doubt there will be, and there are many reasons for this. As a speech by a President, it was remarkably divisive--in essence, calling every Senator, Democrat or Republican, who doesn't agree with him a racist and a traitor. Read the speech. It was historically absurd--invoking the sacrifices of the Civil War and heroes like Abraham Lincoln and villains like Jefferson Davis to present-day circumstances. It was profoundly un-Presidential, as Senator McConnell stated, rhetoric, completely unbecoming of a President of the United States, and in an attempt to get Senators, especially Democrat Senators, to vote the way in which President Biden wants them to vote, it appears to have been a monumental failure. Now, I wonder why. Well, of course, here is why. Calling someone a racist and a traitor is not the normal, logical route to try to persuade one to come over to your side--neither is claiming that Republican Senators, Republican legislators, States, and Republican State voting laws are so-called Jim Crow 2.0, when your very own State's laws, in terms of voting, are some of the most restrictive in the country. This is a narrative, I hope, our friends in the media will keep an eye on during the debates this week. What am I talking about? Well, first and foremost, I am talking about Majority Leader Schumer and Joe Biden and their States, New York and Delaware, which have some of the most restrictive voting laws in America. Let me repeat that. Some of the most restrictive voting laws in America come from the majority leader's State and the President of the United States' State. Yet listen to their rhetoric. Listen to their rhetoric: Republicans and Republican States are ``Jim Crow 2.0.'' I was on the floor last week, talking in particular detail about my State's laws. We are all different States here, but I know my State's laws. I know them well as they relate to voting rights. Here is one thing I said last week: On some of the most critical issues, in terms of voting rights legislation--early in-person voting, automatic voter registration, and this chart here of no-excuse absentee voting--the Republican State of Alaska, the great State of Alaska, has voting laws that are significantly more expansive than the laws of New York, than the laws of Delaware, than the laws of Connecticut, than the laws of Massachusetts, than the laws of New Hampshire. It is a long list, a long list. You can see why Senators like me--my constituents, in particular--find it more than just a little bit annoying when you have these smug arguments of Republican States being Jim Crow 2.0. Let me give you another particular one as it relates to New York, the majority leader's home State. My State has no-excuse absentee voting. We have had that for many, many years--many years. Now, the State of New York just had a statewide referendum to have same-day voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting to meet the high standards that we have in Alaska. The people of New York recently rejected that. I don't know why. I am not from New York. I am sure they had what they thought were good reasons to do that, but if the majority leader keeps coming down and calling the Republican States that restrict voting Jim Crow 2.0, is he going to go to Times Square and call his own constituents Jim Crow 2.0, relative to my great State--because they just rejected doing this, restricting voting rights--according to the logic of the majority leader and the President of the United States? There is something really wrong here on these arguments and it is not just New York and it is not just my making these arguments about where other States are. Again, my argument here is not to say: Well, everybody should be like Alaska. In the Constitution, the Founders gave the States the fundamental right and obligation and responsibility to design their States' laws in terms of voting. What is really difficult to swallow is that so many of the arguments we are going to hear this week and that we heard last week and that we heard from the President of the United States come from elected officials-- U.S. Senators and the President, who is a former Senator--who come from States that have some of the most least restrictive voting laws in the country. Again, it is not just me making this argument. This is an article I submitted for the Record, last week, from The Atlantic magazine--not a Republican mouthpiece by any measure. I am going to read extensively from this article, which came out last year, because it really makes the point I am trying to make. Biden has assailed Georgia's new voting law as an atrocity akin to ``Jim Crow in the 21st century'' for the impact it could have on Black citizens. But even once the GOP-passed measure takes effect, Georgia citizens will have far more opportunities to vote before Election Day than their counterparts in the president's home state, where one in three residents is Black or Latino. To Republicans, Biden's criticism of the Georgia law smacks of hypocrisy. ``They have a point,'' says Dwayne Bensing, a voting-rights advocate with Delaware's ACLU affiliate. ``The state is playing catch-up-- The State of Delaware-- in a lot of ways.'' The article goes on: Delaware isn't an anomaly among Democratic strongholds, and its example presents the president's party with an uncomfortable reminder: Although Democrats like to call out Republicans for trying to suppress voting, the states they control in the Northeast make casting a ballot more difficult than anywhere else. I am going to read that again. I am going to read that again because it is an issue that no one is talking about, and it really smacks of hypocrisy when I see some of my colleagues down here making these great arguments about Jim Crow 2.0 in Republican States. Here it is again, from The Atlantic: Delaware isn't an anomaly among Democrat strongholds-- Democratic State strongholds-- and its example presents the president's party with an uncomfortable reminder. Although Democrats like to call out Republicans for trying to suppress voting, the states they control in the Northeast make casting a ballot more difficult than anywhere else. Then the article goes on to say: Connecticut has no early voting at all-- Holy cow, my State has early voting. We have had it for years-- and New York's onerous rules force voters to change their registration months in advance if they want to participate in a party primary. And, by the way, New York just rejected what Alaska has. Jim Crow 2.0 in New York? Who knows? Maybe, according to the President's logic. The article goes on: In Rhode Island, Democrats enacted a decade ago the kind of photo-ID law that the [Democratic] party has labeled ``racist'' when drafted by Republicans. Hmm, a little bit of hypocrisy there. The article goes on: [T]he State [Rhode Island] also requires voters to get the signatures of not one but two witnesses when casting an absentee ballot (only Alabama and North Carolina are similarly strict). The article goes on: According to a new analysis released this week by the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, Delaware, Connecticut, and New York rank in the bottom third of states in their access to early and mail-in balloting. And, as I just said, New York just rejected it again. I really wonder if the majority leader is going to come down and call his citizens Jim Crow 2.0. This is a very important issue, and here is the bottom line: Before any of my Democratic colleagues come to the floor this week with their insults, with their smug, offensive, inaccurate arguments about Jim Crow 2.0 racist traders, mimicking the President of the United States last week in Georgia, I want my colleagues to come and answer this simple question--a very simple question: Why should we listen to you? Why should any American take you seriously, when so many of you come from States with the most restrictive voting laws in America? I wonder if any of my colleagues are going to come down to the floor, particularly those like the majority leader, who love to rant about Jim Crow 2.0 when their States are leading the charge in America on restrictive voting. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to commend my colleague from Wyoming Senator Barrasso, who has been a leader on so many of these issues, and Senator Cruz on his bill, this important piece of legislation that we are going to be voting on here in a couple hours. This Nord Stream 2 sanctions bill is not just about the immediate crisis in Ukraine, but this would be a continuation of long-term bipartisan American strategy as it deals with Russia, energy security, and American security. So I want to provide a little broader context to that bipartisan strategy and put this debate and vote that we are having here today into that context. The U.S. commitment to European security, as we all know, is ironclad. We fought two world wars and a cold war to protect our interests in a free and open Europe. We expanded NATO to secure those gains and to prevent Russia from ever building a new empire that could threaten us or our allies. As we all know, Russian power is not just a function of military power; to the contrary, Vladimir Putin and the Russians for decades have been using energy in terms of power and energy as a weapon. As a matter of fact, it is their weapon of choice in many instances in Europe. Let me provide a few recent examples. If you look at this map, one pipeline that is actually not depicted is the so-called Brotherhood Pipeline from Russia into Ukraine, and it goes into Europe. The Russians have cut off supplies of natural gas on that and other pipelines going through Ukraine in 2006, in 2008, in 2014, and in 2015. In Moldova, shortly after the defeat of a pro-Russian Government and the election of a pro-Western one, Russia did what they normally do. They cut off gas to that country. And it is not just impacting countries like Ukraine. When these gas supplies were cut off by Russia--because Vladimir Putin was angry about something--it impacted over 18 EU countries with regard to those cutoffs. And it is happening even today. Just yesterday, the head of the International Energy Agency in Paris said that Russia is already, right now, strategically limiting natural gas to Europe during this very cold winter to pressure European nations not to support Ukraine as the Russians amass tens of thousands of troops on their border as we speak. For these reasons, it has been the longstanding bipartisan American policy to do two things as it relates to energy security: First, we have sought, dating back to the 1980s, to block implementation of major pipelines from Russia--from the then-Soviet Union into Europe. The Reagan administration did this with sanctions in 1982, and we have continued to work this element of our policy. The other element of American bipartisan policy, as it relates to European energy security, has been to help countries--former Soviet Union countries, particularly in the Caspian and Central Asia area--to provide their own energy outlets, in terms of natural gas and oil, to Europe through the southern corridor--the BTC Pipeline. These are all areas that Democrats and Republicans have been involved with in terms of energy supplies to our European allies that don't go through Russia. Some of the diplomacy here on these pipelines started with the Clinton administration, which did a very good job on this. I had the opportunity, as an Assistant Secretary of State in charge of economic and energy issues in the Bush Administration, to lead efforts on these southern corridor pipelines, and they were successful. Right now, these pipelines are providing energy to our allies in Europe. They don't go through Russia. They start in countries like Azerbaijan, go through Georgia, go through Turkey. This has been very bipartisan, supported by the Senate, and the Russians hate this. They hate it. Why? Because it doesn't give them any control over energy into Europe. So, as I mentioned, today's vote is actually part of a long-term bipartisan American strategy for decades that we have been pursuing because we know the Russians use energy--particularly, natural gas, as a weapon. So how have we been doing on this? Well, at the end of the Trump administration, we were in a very good position on European energy security in two key areas. First, as Senator Barrasso mentioned, we had strong--very strong--bipartisan support with regard to Nord Stream 2 sanctions, on its construction and operations. We had overwhelming Republican and Democrat support for the sanctions that we are going to be voting on today in the 2021 NDAA and in the 2020 NDAA--very big, very bipartisan. Another reason we were set up very well, in terms of Eurasian energy security, is at the end of the Trump administration we had achieved a longstanding bipartisan goal of American national security, economic security, and energy security. What was that? Energy independence. We, once again, had become the world's energy superpower. What do I mean by that--largest producer of oil, bigger than Saudi Arabia; largest producer of natural gas, bigger than Russia; one of the biggest producers of renewables in the world. This is a bipartisan goal. With regard to European security, why was that so important? Because it answered a huge question that the Europeans often said: If we are going to block Nord Stream 2, Russian gas into Germany and other places in Europe, where are we going to get the gas? Well, we had an answer: You are going to get your gas in America. Our exports in LNG, liquefied natural gas, surged to take care of this problem. This is a good thing. In terms of the environment and climate, U.S. LNG exports to Europe have a 41-percent lower emissions profile than Russian gas and pipelines to Europe. So it is good for the environment, climate, national security, energy security. And here is another area. This big production of American energy was something that the people who know Vladimir Putin best knew that it was one of the biggest things we could do. A couple of years ago, I was in a meeting with my colleague whom we miss very much here, Senator McCain, and a Russian dissident--a very famous Russian dissident. And at the very end of the meeting, I asked: What more can we do to undermine the Putin regime? Do you know what he said to me? He looked me in the eye, without hesitation, and said: Produce more American energy. That is the No. 1 thing that you can do to undermine the Putin regime. And we did it. We did it. So these are all things, in addition to strengthening our own military, in addition to giving the Ukrainians Javelin missile systems--all of these things were putting us in a good position. Putin seemed very much in a box and certainly wasn't threatening Ukraine with tens of thousands of troops on the border. Where are we today on these key areas that I just mentioned? Well, we are not in such good shape. In terms of energy independence, this administration seems focused on actually destroying the production of American energy--oil and gas in particular. I guarantee you, the dictators in Moscow as well as in Beijing can hardly believe their luck. It seems like President Biden wants to undermine the very bipartisan goals we had for decades-- American energy independence and the United States as the world's energy superpower again. Just think about what he is seeing: canceled pipelines, the Keystone Pipeline, Canada and United States, and the President is green-lighting Nord Stream 2; killing energy production in great States like mine. Just Monday, there were more obstacles to produce energy in Alaska, and now we are importing two times as much oil from Russia as we were a year ago. That is helping Putin, hurting the United States. What about Nord Stream 2, where we looked so strong just in the past few years, with this body, in a strong bipartisan way, sanctioning that pipeline right there. President Biden has green-lighted it. But we don't have to. That is the point of this vote today. Again, this vote is not just about the current crisis in Ukraine; it is about continuing a long-term bipartisan approach to Eurasian energy security that would make our European allies less vulnerable to Russian energy blackmail, which has not only gone back decades, it is literally happening right now. Just listen, as I mentioned, to the International Energy Agency's report yesterday on this topic. To be honest, it is also about a more political question, this vote today. Many of my Democratic colleagues suddenly became very hawkish against Russia and Putin on these issues and other issues during the Trump years, and I welcomed their conversion to a more hard-line approach. But it always begged the question, was that more hawkish conversion a principled one because they realized being tough on Putin, in terms of energy and our military, was the best way to achieve American national interests or was this conversion more of a temporary one, depending on who occupied the White House? I hope it is not the latter, but today's vote will answer that for some of the Senators who are looking to change their recent votes. But, clearly, some of my colleagues just a few years ago, who were voting to sanction and stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline and were sounding very tough on Vladimir Putin and Russia, are now in a bit of a quandary if they vote differently today. So, not surprisingly, they are making arguments to rationalize this new position, and I would like to review, briefly, just a few of those. Senator Murphy has been down on the floor, the junior Senator from Connecticut, with a lot of these arguments. And I respect him, a thoughtful voice on foreign policy. I don't always agree with him, but he is a serious voice. But his arguments on this issue right now are not very persuasive or powerful. Here is the thing he is saying right now: This isn't about Russia. I am quoting Senator Murphy. This is about ``a Cruz-Trump agenda to break up the Atlantic alliance.'' A Cruz-Trump agenda to break up the Atlantic alliance. Now, look, he is clearly trying to make a boogeyman here, the so- called Cruz-Trump agenda. But serious people who have been working on these issues for decades know that what we are doing today is a continuation of long-term bipartisan support for really important energy security policy for the United States and our European allies. This is continuing that longstanding approach. You know, in his quote on the Cruz-Trump agenda, he said: This is actually about keeping the Atlantic relationship going to ``save Ukraine from an invasion.'' To save Ukraine from an invasion. But where is the President of Ukraine on this issue? What does the President of Ukraine, who knows a little bit about power politics and Putin, think about what we are doing today? He supports sanctions. He supports sanctions on Nord Stream 2. That is where Senator Murphy is starting to dig a little deeper on his weak arguments and trying to provide cover for his colleagues who are going to change their vote. He had to respond on where President Zelensky of Ukraine was. Here is what Senator Murphy said about that: I'm a big supporter of President Zelenskyy. But often he misreads American politics. And I think it would have been better for him to have stayed out of this one. Wow. So, as to the leader of the country, right here, whom many of us think this is all about, who certainly knows what Russian energy power politics are about since he has been on the pointy end of that weapon many times, we now have a Senator saying: President Zelensky, sit down. Be quiet. Stay out of this one. We don't want to hear from you even though this is about ``saving'' your country--unless, of course, you support his position on Nord Stream 2. So these are very weak arguments by the Senator from Connecticut. The most legitimate argument I have heard some of my Democratic friends make on switching their vote on their previous Nord Stream 2 sanctions is that the Germans--a very important ally; we all agree on that--don't want us to apply Nord Stream 2 sanctions. OK. That is an argument we should all consider, and this is what I have heard Secretary Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan have been telling Senators this week as they lobby against this vote we are going to take, although, early in the year, it was reported in the press that both of them actually supported Nord Stream 2 sanctions. Here is the thing on that argument. It is actually hard to tell what the Germans really want. In fact, what the Germans really want seems to be changing by the hour. There was a recent change in government in Germany, and the new Foreign Minister herself has said that the country should not grant Nord Stream 2 regulatory approval in order to resist ``Russian blackmail'' on energy prices. This is the current Foreign Minister of Germany. It is also important to remember where the rest of the European Union is. There is broad opposition in Europe on Nord Stream 2. The European Parliament voted last year, on an overwhelming, cross-party basis--581 to 50--in favor of canceling the entire project in the wake of the arrest of Alexei Navalny, a Russian democracy leader whom Putin first tried to kill before locking away in prison. The European Parliament has voted at least four further times on other resolutions to call on the EU to halt this very project, which is what we are looking to vote on today. Finally, outsourcing this very important foreign policy, national security, American issue to the Germans is simply not wise. The Germans have not always been so clean or levelheaded when it comes to Russian gas, Gazprom, and Nord Stream 2. What am I talking about? Well, of course, I am talking about the former Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schroder--one of the biggest betrayers of the West, certainly, in the last century. He left his chancellorship to become Putin's Gazprom lapdog. He is the main lobbyist who is pushing Russian gas all over Germany and Europe. He is an embarrassment to the Atlantic Alliance. He has been the chairman for many years of Gazprom. This is the former Chancellor of Germany. Of course, he has influenced Germans to say this is good. He has made millions doing it, by the way. He should be sanctioned with other Putin cronies. At the end of the day, this shouldn't be outsourced to Germany. What we need to do is to take a vote on what is right for American national security, and a vote that sanctions this pipeline would be consistent with long-term, very bipartisan, American-Eurasian energy security policy. Make no mistake, my colleagues: Nord Stream 2 is Putin's pipeline. Let's not make it his lifeline. I encourage all of my colleagues to do what they have done recently, in the last couple of years, which is to vote in an overwhelming, bipartisan manner to sanction the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to congratulate the North Dakota Senators, my colleagues, on the great job with their football team. ``Go Bison!'' Well done, North Dakota.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Here is a little bit of what this article says: [President Biden] has assailed Georgia's new voting laws as an atrocity akin to ``Jim Crow in the 21st century. . . . But even once the GOP-passed measure [in Georgia] takes effect, Georgia citizens will still have far more opportunities to vote before Election Day than their counterparts in the president's home state. That is The Atlantic--not known as a Republican magazine or anything. The Atlantic article goes on to say: Delaware isn't an anomaly among Democratic strongholds, and its example presents the president's party with an uncomfortable reminder: Although Democrats like to call out Republicans for trying to suppress voting, the states [the Democrats] control in the Northeast makes casting a ballot more difficult than anywhere else. Than anywhere else. Here is the point I am making. I am not trying to say that every other State should be like Alaska, that we need to federalize elections so every State has the same voting rights issues. I am proud of where my State is, and I am certainly not going to let any smug argument on the other side somehow accuse my Republican State of Jim Crow 2.0. Meet the standards in my State before you make those arguments. But the point is, we are not all going to be the same. I have a State that is one-fifth the size of the lower 48. We have very unique voting issues. And the Founding Fathers strongly believed that election laws, for that reason, should be crafted State by State. This is in the Constitution: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations. Yes, this Congress may make laws and regulations, but a wholesale Federal takeover of every State's elections law is not what the Constitution contemplated, and it is not what would be good for each citizen of each State in our country. My invitation to the President and other Members who are fundamentally demanding that we fundamentally alter this body by getting rid of the filibuster: Save your smug Jim Crow 2.0 insults. Go back to your own States. Undertake voter rights legislation is as expansive as my State. Take care of your own States first before you come here and tell us that you need to fundamentally reorder this body and this country by getting rid of the filibuster--an issue that almost everybody agreed on just a few years ago was not a good idea for the Senate or for America. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I would like to recognize a member of my staff, Erin Stuart, who left the office in July to attend law school at Marquette University. This is an exciting time in Erin's life and all of us with Team Sullivan want to thank her for her contributions to our office, the State of Alaska, and the U.S. Senate. Erin is a born-and-raised Alaskan who grew up fishing with her family in our State's pristine waters. After graduating from South Anchorage High School, Erin attended the University of Portland where she explored her passions for government affairs and trade policy. Erin's time on Capitol Hill began in the summer of 2018 when she was an intern for my colleague, Congressman Don Young. That following summer, Erin joined my DC office where she impressed all of us with her strong work ethic, eventually becoming a legislative correspondent for healthcare issues. We work tirelessly in my office to ensure that the needs of Alaskans are best represented. I tell people who join my staff that it is not easy work. Erin was always eager to learn and to give the job her all, while also spending her evenings and weekends studying for the LSAT and filling out law school applications. We wish her the best as she begins this new chapter in her life. While Erin is currently not on my staff, she is will always be a member of Team Sullivan. Please join me in wishing Erin success in her future. She is missed.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, today I introduced a resolution with Senator Murkowski celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act--ANCSA, as we call it back home in Alaska--which was an enormously consequential piece of legislation that, after years and years of debate right in this body, passed the House, then passed the U.S. Senate, and then was signed into law by President Nixon on December 18, 1971, almost exactly 50 years ago to this day. It was a great day for Alaska. I know Senator Murkowski was on the floor earlier talking about ANCSA and why it is so important and why in Alaska, right now, we have been celebrating 50 years of this important piece of legislation. I want to go back in time a little bit to help explain, because part of what Senator Murkowski and I do here is we are constantly talking about and educating our colleagues about this very unique legislation, which happened right here in the U.S. Senate. If you go back in time to 1867, that is when the United States purchased Alaska from Russia. Within the agreement, there was acknowledgement of the Alaska Native people and their lands, but, still, almost 100 years after the purchase from Russia, even following statehood for Alaska, the claims settlement that the Native people had to their own lands was still in limbo. It got a kick and a turbo charge when oil was discovered on Alaska's North Slope during a worldwide shortage, which created new urgency to develop Alaska for our resources but to do so by settling these land claims. There were allies in the Federal Government who were helpful, but it was truly the Alaska Native people and their determination to themselves and to future generations and their resiliency and brilliance which led to the passage of ANCSA 50 years ago, which became the largest and, certainly, most innovative indigenous land settlement, certainly, in U.S. history, and it is no exaggeration to say probably in the world--44 million acres of land going to the Native people of my State. It brought tremendous educational, social, political, economic, and cultural achievements for the Alaska Native people. It certainly wasn't perfect, but this body played a very important role. Now, there were obstacles, challenges. In fact, when you look back on the history over 50 years ago, it was kind of a classic David-and- Goliath story. Let me spend a few minutes going back in time to set the stage for what was happening in Alaska. In 1954, the U.S. Department of the Interior did a health survey on the Native people of Alaska. Here is a quote from that survey: ``The indigenous people of Native Alaska are the victims of sickness, crippling conditions and premature death to a degree exceeded in very few parts of the world. . . . health problems are nearly out of hand. If . . . Americans could see for themselves the large numbers of the tuberculosis, the cripple, the blind . . . the malnourished, the desperately ill among [this] relatively small [Native] population,'' it would have a profound impact on them. And it did. Even in the face of these crippling conditions, the Alaska Native people joined hands, joined hearts and said: This is our land. We need rights to it. They did this by coming together. In the mid-1960s, they formed the Alaska Federation of Natives--AFN, as we call it back home--an entity that is very important to our communities. Of course, the Native people in our State looked for potential allies. In the lower 48, they gave speeches. They wrote columns. They formed their own newspaper, The Tundra Times, edited by legendary Howard Rock, which was highly read throughout the State, celebrated throughout the globe, and had an enormous impact on bringing people together. A few years ago, my team and I combed through some of the hearings that led to ANCSA. It was many years in development. There were field hearings that took place in Alaska in 1968, 1969--3 years before the passage of ANCSA. Incredibly proud and determined first peoples from all over the State--Tlingit, Haida, Athabascan, Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut--travel to Anchorage, to Fairbanks to give their testimony in field hearings to U.S. Senators. Some of them had never even left their villages. Some of them didn't even speak English. Many were veterans--and I am going to talk briefly about that. Dozens and dozens of young men and women, old men and women, all of them testifying before U.S. Senators and Congressmen, telling their stories of how they lived off the land and the rights that they needed for thousands of years on the land. They told stories of strong and resilient people who had been able to thrive in some of the harshest conditions in the planet. But as I mentioned earlier, they also told stories of health challenges. The first AFN president, Emil Notti, who is still a great leader in Alaska, then only 36 years old, spoke with passion at these hearings and heartbreak about the conditions in rural Alaska. He said to a group of Senators in a hearing: The indigenous people of Native Alaska are the victims of sickness, crippling conditions and premature death to a degree exceeded in very few parts of the world. He told the committee then that life expectancy for the average Native Alaskan was 34 years old. This is in the late 1960s. The average life expectancy in the United States at that time was 69--34 years old to 69. Many spoke of how much they had sacrificed for their country. And this is an issue I never tire of talking about. Alaska Natives serve at higher rates in the U.S. military than any other ethnic group in the country. So they are fighting for their country in World War II and Korea and Vietnam, and they are coming home and they are being denied fundamental rights themselves. Here is what Jerome Trigg, a leader and a marine from Nome, had to tell U.S. Senators who were in Alaska. His testimony was said to have brought tears to the eyes of many. He looked at the U.S. Senators and said this: We have showed our patriotism as proudly as any Americans on Earth. We have answered the call of duty with pride in serving in our military. In World War II, we answered the call 100 percent. Every man--old and young--in every village volunteered with the Alaska National Guard. On Vietnam, which was raging at the time, he said: I have never heard of an Alaska Native burning their draft card or our Nation's flag. We love our land, and we will sacrifice and fight to protect it. He concluded with this thought, which I love: ``Sometimes I think the wrong people are running this hearing and taking our testimony,'' he said to the Senators. ``It seems that [maybe] we should be on the bench and you people should be . . . giving [us] the testimony.'' I love that--strong words from Marine Jerome Trigg, who had a very important point to make. So many in our communities testified in front of Congress. One happened to be a beautiful, young Alaska Native woman in her thirties from the village of Rampart named Mary Jane Fate, who not only worked on this but came to Washington, DC, to lobby U.S. Senators to pass ANCSA. I had the very great privilege of being the son-in-law of that great Native woman who, unfortunately, passed away recently. That was my mother-in-law, Mary Jane Fate, who came to this body and made sure Senators understood what was happening in Alaska and got them to vote for ANCSA 50 years ago. So here is what it did in a nutshell. As I mentioned, it was the largest indigenous land settlement in the history of the country: 44 million acres of land, almost a billion dollars from the State and Federal Government to transfer land in fee simple--not the reservation system like you have in the lower 48, which was a huge innovation at the time. They own this land. It is theirs. It is not held in trust by the United States like it is in the lower 48 on Indian reservations. Congress mandated the creation of for-profit Alaska Native corporations solely owned by Alaska Native shareholders. Twelve of these regional corporations and 200 village ANCs were created by the Congress. Sometimes people talk about ANCs as if they were some foreign entity. They were actually created right here 50 years ago. What did all of this do? It provided economic opportunity. These were not typical entities, but they were more than just corporations. They were kind of a combination: social, cultural, economic. They passed on the values to the different shareholders. One of the great things about ANCSA was that it required, actually, the sharing of revenues. Some of these regional corporations did very well; others didn't. There were provisions early on that said, if these corporations are doing great and these aren't, there is going to be some sharing. It was called the 7(i) provision. These provisions have been critical to the survival of ANCs, which regional ANCs at times, as I mentioned, were receiving more revenue than others. So that day 50 years ago--December 18, 1971--was really an important day for our State. How has it worked out? It has worked out well, but, of course, we always have more work to do. Over the last 50 years, the Alaska Native people have managed their lands to foster sustainable businesses, created employment opportunities for all people--Native and non-Native--in Alaska, across the country, and across the globe. They have become the heart and soul of our economy in Alaska, employing thousands of both Alaska Native and non-Native people. And they have prospered with their own initiative and with innovative approaches to fostering economic development through self- determination. And beyond the economic benefits, these ANCs, these groupings, these shareholders in these Alaska Native entities created right here on this floor, provided benefits in terms of culture, language revitalization, scholarships, burials, funeral assistance, and an enormous focus on education. Over 54,000 individual scholarships were given to younger Alaska Native people. And, importantly, this law, passed by this body, gave the Native people the opportunity to thrive; to continue to live on their land, practice their culture, create leaders throughout the State. In what was once one of the most impoverished places in the country are now, in many areas, strong, dynamic--health, education, housing, food security, and sanitation have all improved immensely. We have a long way to go. There is still a lot of misunderstanding. In Alaska, you have Tribes, Tribal members, you have ANCs, and shareholders. These are the Native people. You have crossover. And sometimes there is a misunderstanding. For example, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act specifically excluded tens of thousands of Alaska Natives because they were members of an organization that Congress created. My own view was that was outrageous. So that is why we need to keep educating our colleagues here. But overall, this was a story of success, of resilience, of what can happen when you allow people to take charge of their own destiny. It is a story of self-determination and, in many ways, heroism, and it is a story for the ages. I am honored to represent these people, wonderful people--many of whom the leaders are still alive who made this happen 50 years ago--and their children and grandchildren. We have more work to do, but 50 years ago, on December 18, 1971, it was the start of a new, positive, innovative chapter in the history of Alaska. And that is why Senator Murkowski and I wanted to celebrate this very important milestone this afternoon.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is Thursday. The Senate is still very busy here. We have a lot of work to do, as we are all trying to get home for the holidays. And I thought it was still the appropriate time to come down and talk about somebody who is making our State such a great State, somebody who is contributing to the community, somebody who I refer to as our Alaskan of the Week. Now, we have been doing this for, gosh, going on almost 6 years, maybe 5 years. But it is always one of my favorite times of week, even when the speech is late. So I appreciate the majority leader and the Presiding Officer letting us stay open here for one more speech. And I know the pages--I mean, they love the Alaskan of the Week. So this is a little bit of a treat. But I always start this speech with a little bit of an update on what is going on in Alaska. So right now, Utqiagvik, formerly known as Barrow--that is Point Barrow. That is the northern most community in North America. They haven't seen the sun in nearly a month. The sun went down, and it is not rising again until January 23. So they get a lot of darkness. There are 66 days of darkness. Great people up there. Wonderful people up there. I love it up there. We have had some pretty significant cold spells already. That, for now, doesn't seem to be lifting. It was 40 below 0 in Fairbanks yesterday. In Anchorage, the high was 4 degrees above 0. Forty below is chilly. Tough people throughout the State. Four degrees above is pretty cold for Anchorage. But everybody is excited because Christmas is right around the corner, and it is, of course, a great time to be in Alaska. We do have a place--I was just talking with the Presiding Officer and the majority leader. We have a great community in Interior Alaska called North Pole, AK. Santa actually lives there. We have a city council member in North Pole named Santa Claus, and a reindeer there. And, of course, I am like everybody else here, looking forward to getting home, going to Midnight Mass, eating my special Alaska seafood Newburg, having friends over, and family, of course. And I think we all know we are very fortunate. I, certainly, believe I am a very blessed man. And we are blessed in Alaska because of people like Shari Daugherty, who is our Alaskan of the Week. And so I want to talk a little bit about Shari because what she has done is literally the definition of the Christmas spirit. For the last month, as she has done for the last 30 years, she has been working pretty much around the clock, volunteering her time for the nonprofit Share the Spirit. Share the Spirit--that is the nonprofit that Shari helped found in 1992--30 years. Share the Spirit's mission is to make sure that hundreds of less fortunate families in Homer, AK, her hometown, get all of the ingredients for a proper Christmas dinner and presents for the kids. Share the Spirit--it sounds pretty simple, but, as you can imagine, this is no easy task. And Shari would tell you that it involves so many others in Homer to make sure that the children in the community, who might not otherwise have anything under the tree, can experience the magic of Christmas that every child deserves. So who is Shari, this great volunteer who has been doing incredible work in Homer? Originally from Chico, CA, Shari and her parents moved to Homer when she was in the 10th grade. Her father was a fisherman. And for those of you who have been to Homer or want to come to Homer, I will tell you, it is one of the most stunningly beautiful places in all of America--really, in all of the world. It is known as the ``Halibut Fishing Capital of the World.'' But anyone who goes there falls in love with Homer. It is surrounded by the glistening waters of Kachemak Bay, jagged mountains, glaciers, snowcapped volcanoes, and a great tight-knit community. After college at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, Shari moved around a little. But in 1991, she came back home with her daughter. She did so because she had family there in Homer. And even if she didn't, as she put it, she had a whole town full of family in Homer. Now, volunteering was in her blood. She said her mom stressed the importance of giving back to the community since she was a young girl. So she almost immediately joined the Emblem Club. That is the unofficial auxiliary of the Elks. And during one of their first meetings, it was announced that a Christian minister's group that every year provided food and presents for people in the community was actually going to disband. A meeting was called. The talking lasted for a very long time--at such volunteer meetings, that can happen, of course--until Shari finally cut in and said: Hey, guys, we are really burning daylight here. Here is what needs to happen: We need to form a committee, form a plan, form a nonprofit, and get busy--get busy. And as such things go, she and another woman, Norma Foust, were put in charge. And boy, did they make a difference. That year, with Christmas only weeks away, a nonprofit was formed and a fundraiser to organize with the help of a strong community. They put together 57 baskets of food: turkey, stuffing, potato, sugar, salt, eggs, celery, pie crusts, cards with recipes on them--all the fixings for a nice Christmas dinner. And then there were the presents for more than 100 children. There were 220 gifts that first year, 30 years ago. And the program has grown ever since. Hundreds of families each year are referred to Shari's program by social agencies, including food banks and anywhere people go for help. The information is passed on to Shari and the whole Share the Spirit team. Each family is identified by their needs: a family of three, say, with a 4-year-old girl who needs boots and would like a princess costume. They are then assigned a number that goes onto a Christmas decoration and put on one of the numerous trees posted by local businesses in Homer. Homer residents pick up a decoration and buy the presents. It is pretty well organized. And Shari and the volunteers then get busy organizing a huge spaghetti feed to raise the funds, and then they go shopping for the food. A few days before Christmas, the group stages the location, normally at the high school. The presents and the food baskets are then disbursed. As I mentioned, Shari has done this for 30 years--30 years--and throughout the years, many stories and people stand out. This is Alaska. So, of course, this was the year of the huge blizzard. Nobody could drive. So they enlisted a club of snow machine riders to deliver the presents and the food throughout the area. There is the woman who now lives in Pennsylvania, who lived in Homer for a while, with a young child. That child, because of the group, was able to experience Christmas. And now, like clockwork, this woman sends a quarterly donation to Share the Spirit. You see how the spirit is literally being shared all over the country: Alaska, Homer, Pennsylvania. There are many people now adults, some with children of their own, who got help, who got presents because of Share the Spirit and are now regular volunteers. Shari knows of many people who got presents as children because of her group's efforts and decided to stay in Homer, have families of their own, and now help out at Share the Spirit. She said: They decided that this is where they were going to live. This is the town they are going to live in and to contribute to, because this is the place that took care of them when they were young and needed it. Shari is retiring this year from both the program and from her job as a medical biller at South Peninsula Hospital. She will be leaving Share the Spirit in good hands, though: Kelly Glidden, who began volunteering as a sixth grader in 1993; John Adams, who started when he was 8 years old volunteering; and Emmy Olsem Drye, who has been involved in Share the Spirit since she was 3, and who is also Shari's daughter. They will take on the mantle of this great volunteer effort, focused on the Christmas spirit, that Shari started. And there are those who have been there since the beginning: DeeDee Shoultz and Fran Van Sandt. And then there is the great community of Homer--a community that takes care of its own. So thank you, Shari, for all you have done throughout the years-- three decades to keep the Christmas spirit alive. Thank you for making our State a much better place, a more generous place, a caring place for all, and touching the lives of so many, and especially for making sure that children in Homer and across Alaska--and really across America--experience the joy and the magic of Christmas. Congratulations, Shari, on being our Alaskan of the Week, and Merry Christmas. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask my friend and colleague from Illinois, who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, if he could actually work with us--I have already reached out to him and some other Democrat Senators--on this very reasonable request. He has been here a lot longer than I have. But every time there is a Ninth Circuit judge who has been nominated, I have met with him because it is so important to my State. Alaska has 1 Ninth Circuit judge, and there are 29 judges on the court. So I would ask, respectfully, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to work with me because this is a precedent that I don't think any Senator, Democrat or Republican, wants. Literally, you are going to have the White House saying ``You know what? You are not on the Judiciary Committee, so your advice-and- consent role under article II, section 2, is null and void'' because the White House Counsel wants to ``protect the judges''? Protect them from what? So I want to work with my colleagues--all of them--particularly the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, as he has a lot of influence, I am sure, with the White House and the White House Counsel's Office, but, again, I encourage my colleagues to vote no until we start getting meetings and are able to do our duty. This is going to benefit my colleagues on both sides of the aisle over the long term, and it will strengthen this body, not weaken it, which is what is happening right now. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 20 minutes and Senator Menendez for up to 5 minutes before the scheduled rollcall votes.