Dan Sullivan

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 unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes prior to the vote.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, the next vote is going to be a motion to discharge from the Judiciary Committee Judge Holly Thomas for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. I am going to vote no because I have not had the opportunity to actually meet Judge Thomas. In a remarkable undermining of senatorial tradition, the Biden administration White House is now saying that no Senator is allowed to meet a circuit court judge prior to the confirmation vote of that judge. The Presiding Officer might be tilting his head at me like that seems crazy. Well, it is crazy. Every Ninth Circuit judge--a court of appeals that has enormous power over my State--who has been nominated by any President since I have been a U.S. Senator, I have met with to discuss issues. This is part of our advice-and-consent role. Yet this White House is now saying no Senator can meet with a circuit court judge, even for an hour, prior to the vote despite the fact that they are getting ready to have life tenure. This is in line with this administration and with, unfortunately, some of my Democratic colleagues who are just smashing institutional norms in this body that have significant bipartisan support. We saw the junior Senator from Massachusetts yesterday saying she wants to pack the Supreme Court. I am sure that is going to lead to a charge of other Democrat Senators. My colleagues are all very focused on getting rid of the filibuster despite the fact that more than half the Democratic conference, in April of 2017, wrote a letter to the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, saying: Don't get rid of the filibuster. Now only Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema seem to be the ones defending it. I would love it if the press asked questions of the other 26 of my Democratic colleagues who, just 4 years ago, said: Don't do this. But this norm that is being undermined right now--of Senators being able to meet with nominees to circuit courts--is a new low. I raised this with senior Biden administration White House officials just last week, and they said they would look into it. They seemed a little confused. The White House Counsel for the President finally called me back after I had been trying to get ahold of her because I had heard it was her idea. Then I asked her ``Why are you doing this?'' By the way, the Trump administration didn't do this. To the contrary, their White House Counsel actually tried to get Republican and Democrat Senators to meet with circuit court nominees to help maybe get bipartisan votes. So it wasn't the precedent of the previous administration. The White House Counsel actually told me--she used this language: ``We are doing it to protect the judges''--``to protect the judges.'' From what--Senators doing their constitutional duty? What are they hiding? Are they really that unimpressive that they have to have their own nominees being protected from us here in the Senate? So the bottom line is that all of this is patently absurd, and I think many of my Democratic colleagues actually agree with me. I have talked to a number of them, and I don't think this is a precedent that anyone who is a U.S. Senator should want, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. Remember, these judges are going to have enormous power over the people we represent, and they are going to have life tenure. It is not like voting for an Assistant Secretary who will be 2, 3, 4 years on the job. This is life tenure, and they can't take an hour out of their time prior to the vote to meet with Senators. I asked these judges in a speech just last week: Hey, give me a call. You don't have to get permission from the White House. This is actually a first test of your judicial independence. Call me. I want to talk to you. We didn't hear back from any judges, and the White House is still blocking it. What is really surprising is that the current President is the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I wonder if he actually knows what is going on with his senior staff of his White House Counsel where, right now, no Member of the U.S. Senate who is trying to do his advice-and-consent constitutional role can even meet--can even meet-- with a circuit court judge. I am pretty sure most of my colleagues don't agree with this. What I am hoping for is to get the White House to change its outlook on this, to follow the example of the Trump administration--I know that might be a hard swallow--and have these judges meet with us. When I meet with them, I talk about Alaska legal issues, and if you are a judge who grew up in L.A. and you are an L.A. judge, you don't know anything about Alaska, but you will have an enormous impact on the people I represent. So I think what you are going to see until we get some cooperation with the White House is that I hope most of my colleagues, Republican colleagues, whether they think these nominees are qualified or not, are going to vote no. They are going to vote no, and the reason is a core principle: We should be able to do advice and consent. If there were a Republican President in the White House and if some of my Democratic colleagues said ``Hey, can you help me get a meeting with a circuit court nominee who is going to have big impacts on my State?'' I would certainly do it. Like I said, we didn't have to do it the last time because that was the Trump administration's standard operating procedure. I hope we can get to an agreement on this, and I hope all Senators can agree with this. I am hopeful that you are going to see, at least with my colleagues, that there are going to be no ``yes'' votes on any of these nominees, and that is not good. These circuit court judges want a bipartisan confirmation. Well, they are not going to get it until we are able to do our constitutional duty of advice and consent for judges, life-tenured judges, who have enormous power over the people we represent. I am hopeful that every Member of this body can work with us, work with me, work with the White House, maybe even call the President and say: Do you know what? This is probably a standard principle that you guys want to get rid of. Making sure U.S. Senators cannot meet with judges who are going to have lifetime tenure is smashing a bipartisan institutional norm. That is not going to serve this body well at all. I yield the floor, and I encourage my colleagues to all vote no in the upcoming vote to discharge this nominee until we can actually talk to her and see what kind of judge she would be. This is a very, very reasonable position, so I strongly urge a ``no'' vote from all of my colleagues.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to come down to the Senate floor and commend a number of Senators, but I want to particularly commend the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Reed, and the ranking member, Senator Inhofe, and their staff, and all the staff on the Armed Services Committee for the exceptional work they have done over the last several months to produce the strong National Defense Authorization Act that just passed in a very strong bipartisan vote here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. That vote was 88 to 11. I think it is a prime example of something that I mention a lot back home; and that is that there is a lot more bipartisan work that gets done here in the Senate that isn't often recognized, and there is nothing more important than having Senators from both sides of the aisle come together with regard to national defense and supporting our troops and their families. We have been doing that over 60 years in a row, where we have passed the National Defense Authorization Act--one of the most important bills that comes to the floor of the Senate and the House and the Congress. And, once again, we have passed it. And I think Chairman Reed and Senator Inhofe--Ranking Member Inhofe--deserve a lot of the credit. So I just want to touch on a couple of the key provisions here, a lot of what was in it, and then mention a few things. A lot of times it is important to recognize, actually, what is not in a bill because that can be just as important as what is in it. But I would start with the No. 1 issue here, and it is the top-line budget increase for the Department of Defense. I have been outspoken on the disappointment and damage that President Biden's budget, which he proposed, with regard to the Pentagon, supported, unfortunately, by many here--the majority leader, the budget chairman--that that was unacceptable--unacceptable. Why was it unacceptable? Because our Nation is facing many threats right now. Just read the paper every day--China, Russia, Iran. Yet that budget that was actually provided by the White House was a cut--a pretty dramatic cut-- if you look at it as adjusted for inflation. The Armed Services Committees in the Senate and in the House thoroughly rejected the Biden budget to cut defense spending. We have in this bill a 3-percent real increase. That is a little over $25 billion. This amendment, which I cosponsored with Senator Inhofe and others, to increase our defense spending, when it came to a vote in the committee, every Senator on the Armed Services Committee voted for it, with the exception of one. That is about as bipartisan as it gets. There are many important things in this bill in terms of the significant increase to the top-line budget, but readiness, in my view, of our military is one of the most important things we do here as U.S. Senators, and now is certainly not the time to cut defense spending. I think today's vote was a strong bipartisan showing that this body does not agree with the Biden budget, and that was one really important aspect of today's NDAA. Second, I want to talk a little bit about the great State of Alaska and its role in our military and some of the provisions in this bill that relate to Arctic security. I like to say that Alaska constitutes three pillars of America's military might. We are the cornerstone of missile defense. Almost all the radar systems and all the ground-based missile interceptors protecting the whole country are located in Alaska. We are the hub of air combat power for the Arctic and Asia Pacific. By the end of this year, we will have over 100 fifth-generation fighters--combat-coded, fifth-gen fighters. That is F-35s, F-22s, stationed in Alaska--over 100. There is no place on the planet Earth that has over 100 fifth-generation fighters. Supersonic stealth can get anywhere--anywhere--very quickly: Russia, China, Taiwan. That is another area of Alaska's pillars of military might. And, finally, we are a platform for expeditionary forces, the 4-25, the only airborne brigade combat team in the entire Asia Pacific; the First Striker Brigade; and many others that can get to places all over the world, because of our strategic location, very quickly, and also because of our strategic airlift in Alaska. But this NDAA is going to add another element of Alaska's military might to our Nation, and that is the center of gravity for America's Arctic security operations. Last year in the NDAA, we were able to get the first and only and much needed Department of Defense Center for Arctic Security. The Department of Defense named it the Ted Stevens, after the great, late Senator. The Center for Arctic Security is going to be in Anchorage, AK. And now, in this year's NDAA, we have what is called the Arctic Security Initiative. I was honored to cosponsor that with my good friend Senator King from Maine. And this gets the Pentagon to focus on a 5-year strengthening of our national security in the Arctic region. As you know, that is becoming an area of great power competition, and America has very strong, strategic national security and economic security interests in the Arctic. And this NDAA will cement not just the Arctic as an important national security imperative of our country but Alaska as the focal point for Arctic security endeavors for the United States and our allies. The other element here in the NDAA which is so important, of course, is taking care of our troops and their families. This bill authorizes a pay raise of almost 3 percent for both military members and Department of Defense civilians. It has numerous initiatives relating to military health and housing leave policies. One that I was proud to get into this bill is an important provision that allows the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration to do facility sharing. What does that mean? It enables both the Pentagon and the VA to work on agreements to plan, design, and construct facilities to operate as VA and DOD shared medical facilities. That is going to help with readiness. That is going to help train our young Active-Duty medical forces. It is going to help with taking care of our veterans. And it is going to save money. These are the kinds of provisions that we need. They are win-win-win between the VA and our veterans and the Active-Duty and Reserve forces that also need healthcare. And we are looking forward to taking advantage of that in Alaska and in other places in the country. As I said at the outset, oftentimes what is not in a bill is as important as what is in a bill, and some of our Members--some of the far-left Members of the House--tried to plug into the NDAA--and they did so over in the House--a number of bills that really didn't have a lot to do with the military, but they were trying to move forward on a far-left agenda that they tried to attach in the NDAA. Ironically, many of these Members really have no intention of ever voting for a strong NDAA, but they tried to plug things in, in the House bill. They did that in the House bill, but we were able to get rid of pretty much all of those--again, things like redflag laws that would confiscate firearms without due process. There is another provision that I am really glad was not in there. There has been this narrative on the far left that somehow the men and women of our military--that our military institutions--are filled with a bunch of extremists. There are news reports that say this. None of it is based on data. None of it is based on data. And I have been pressing officials, saying: Give me data. You make these charges, which I dislike. I happen to know many, many members of the military. They are some of the finest people in the country. So we were able to get rid of some of the provisions in the House bill that--one was going to set up an office in the Pentagon on essentially trying to, in my view, do witch hunts on so-called extremists. It is an issue that the Pentagon needs to come up with data on and not make these false charges. So, overall, this is a good day for our troops, for their families, for the Senate. It is a very bipartisan bill, with people coming together--Democrats and Republicans--on, in my view, one of the most important issues, if not the most important issue, we deal with here in the Congress: the national security of our Nation; keeping a strong, lethal military. And when we do that, like we did today, that also sends a message to our adversaries: The United States, despite some challenges, still has the best, most lethal military force in the world, the most professional military force in the world. And this bill is going to help enhance that, and our adversaries need to take notice. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I work very closely with my colleague from Rhode Island on many, many issues, and there is a pretty simple solution for my objection here, and it is related to judges, and it is related to the Senate working with the White House to get judges confirmed. I gave a speech on the Senate floor just about an hour ago, talking about a remarkable breach of Senate protocol, where the White House won't let certain Senators from the Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit States to meet with the nominees for the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. That is an outrage. In my entire time in the U.S. Senate, every time I have requested to meet with a judge who is going for confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, I have had the opportunity to meet with that judge, and it is really important. I am not going to repeat the argument I made just an hour ago, but there is a simple solution here: We get to meet with the nominees whom we are debating on the Senate floor this week, and I certainly will lift the objection that I am about to make on these two nominees for the Court of Federal Claims. But I do want to just push back on my good friend from Rhode Island a little bit. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle forced votes on the Court of Federal Claims nominees during the Trump administration, including Judge Solomon, who literally wrote the book on the Court of Federal Claims. So here is the thing. What often happens in the Senate is that what goes around comes around. But what happened today, when I was requesting what I have always been requesting--what my constituents in Alaska expect me to do is to interview, meet, discuss issues with the judge who is going to get life tenure, who is going to have enormous power over my constituents--Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges. I don't know anybody who has heard this--that the White House Counsel says: No, you are a Senator doing advice and consent, a constitutional duty, and we are forbidding you to meet with a judge going through the confirmation process who is going to have enormous power over your constituents. That is unheard of since I have been here. And, by the way, I talked to the Trump administration's White House Counsel, and they said they never did that. But here is the point. This could be easily solved. I am sure Mr. Bonilla and Ms. Lerner are qualified. All I need is a call from the White House Counsel's office saying: You know what, Senator, you can meet with the nominees for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. We are going to let you do your constitutional duty. Well, thank you--pretty simple. And I think working closely with my colleague from Rhode Island, as I have done throughout my career--and he is on the Judiciary Committee. So maybe he can help convince the White House to take a bit of a different stand when a Senator wants to meet with a judge who is going to have enormous power over his constituents and have lifetime tenure. And they can't take an hour out of their time? Heck, in my speech just an hour ago, I put out my office's phone number and said to these judges: Look, you don't have to have permission from the White House Counsel. Just call me. Let's have a discussion. I am trying to do my constitutional duty here. So with that, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I have a simpler solution here, and I have already mentioned it. The White House has denied my ability to meet with one Ninth Circuit judge who just got confirmed. Let me meet with the next two, and then we will UC these. We will UC these nominees whom Senator Whitehouse has been trying to move forward tonight. I also want to mention to my colleague from Rhode Island that I am certainly more than amenable to working with him on a principle that, I think, all Senators should agree on--all of us--to strengthen this institution, whether you are a Democrat, a Republican. That is this simple idea, which I thought existed here because I have certainly been able to do it: If a judge is up for confirmation, a circuit judge, and if you are a Senator representing one of the States in the circuit and that judge is going to have enormous power over your constituents for life, we should, as a general rule, as a general principle, say always: Of course, you get to meet with that judge. Of course, you can do your constitutional advice and consent duty. I would be for it for any Democrat who wants it if there is a Republican. Again, I talked to some folks from the Trump administration today. They said that they always offered that. So maybe there is a misunderstanding. I don't want to say that my Senate colleague from Rhode Island is not right or those guys. I don't know. That is what they mentioned to me. I just think, as a principle, every Senator here should agree with it. Why wouldn't you want to do that? Like I said, until today, I have met with every single Ninth Circuit judge whom we voted on in my entire career here. Now, it has been a relatively short career, but this is really important to the people I represent because that court is really important to the people I represent. The Ninth Circuit so frequently gets the law wrong as it relates to Alaska, and it negatively impacts my constituents. This is important. So I object to this date certain request, but as I mentioned, if I can meet with these--two more--Ninth Circuit judges, Senator Whitehouse can come down here and UC these two Court of Federal Claims judges, and I think he can move it. It is a real simple ask. And the fact that the White House Counsel hasn't even called me back--a U.S. Senator trying to do his constitutional duty, advice and consent of the Senate? The Senator from Rhode Island and I are of the Senate. So why don't we work on this principle that, if there is a nominee, a circuit judge nominee, and if a Senator from a State in that circuit wants to meet with that nominee--to do his constitutional duty--that we should all agree to do that no matter who is in the White House. I would agree to that principle in a heartbeat.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, this week, the Senate is going to take up three Ninth Circuit judges, three Federal judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. And in the process, the Biden administration is going to smash an institutional and constitutional norm between the executive and legislative branches, particularly the executive branch, the White House, and the U.S. Senate that every U.S. Senator--all 100 of us-- should be concerned about. Let me explain. This is a really important issue. Article II, section 2, of the U.S. Constitution says the following: [The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States. Now, that includes Federal circuit court judges, Throughout this, article II, section 2, provision of the Constitution, it says: ``[W]ith the Advice and Consent of the Senate.'' We are ``of the Senate,'' right here. And this week, we will be voting on three U.S. court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Now, this provision in the Constitution, like so many which gives the U.S. Senate the exclusive right for the advice and consent power, was the result of compromise. If you look at the history in Federalist Nos. 75 and 76, Alexander Hamilton argued that this provision afforded a necessary means of checks and balances against the executive branch, against the President. The Constitution--according to the U.S. Senate history that I am quoting from--``also provides that the Senate shall have the power to accept or reject presidential appointees to the executive and judicial branches.'' This was born of compromise, as I mentioned: In debating the issue, the framers addressed concerns that entrusting the appointment power exclusively to the president would encourage monarchial tendencies. Additionally, as the Senate was to represent each state equally, its role-- The advice and consent role in the Constitution-- --offered security to the small states, whose delegates feared they would be overwhelmed by appointees sympathetic to larger states. For these reasons, since I have been in the U.S. Senate, I have taken this advice and consent role very seriously for all nominees: during the Obama administration, when I was here for the last 2 years of that administration; all of the Trump administration; and now the Biden administration. And as you can imagine, whenever I have asked for a meeting of any nominee so I could meet with them under this constitutional provision for a Senate-confirmed position, every single administration I have dealt with--the three I just named--has said: Of course, Senator. That is your constitutional role. Of course you should meet with them. Why is that? Why has every White House said yes? Because, as I just mentioned, they know that that is literally our constitutional role, as I just mentioned. So every time I have asked for one of these meetings for a Senate- confirmed nominee of any administration, it has always been granted, until today--until today. As I said, the Senate's business--a lot of the business this week is actually going to be focused on the advice and consent constitutional role that we have, especially as it relates to judges. But I have been told by this White House, specifically the White House Counsel, I guess--to be honest, it is often difficult to figure out who is in charge over there--that I can't meet with any of these Ninth Circuit judges that we are going to vote on this week before the vote. This is a shocking breach of constitutional norms between the White House and the Senate that every Senator here--every Senator, regardless of party--should be concerned about. Why? As I mentioned, the advice and consent role is really important for every Senate-confirmed position, mandated by the U.S. Constitution, but it is particularly important for judges--judges who will get life tenure. By the end of this week, it is likely that these three Ninth Circuit judges will be on the bench for the rest of their lives, and right now I can't get a 1-hour meeting with them. They have enormous power over American citizens. And I am going to talk about the Ninth Circuit and the power it has over my citizens. So my experience as a Senator is that I meet with as many judges as possible, and whenever I have requested a meeting of any administration to meet with a judge, it has always been granted. But I always, always, always meet with the Ninth Circuit judges. As I mentioned, until now, I had interviewed every single Ninth Circuit judge that this body has voted on for the last 7 years--every single one--during my entire time in the Senate. Why is it so important to me? Why is it so important to everybody? Well, specifically, as it relates to the Ninth Circuit, if you can look at this map, as many Americans know, our Federal court systems are divided into what are called circuits. The Ninth Circuit, which is this dark brown, is the biggest Federal court of appeals in the country. It is huge. Look at all the States that are under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit: California, Idaho, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii. It is enormous. Almost one in five Americans are under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit. It has enormous power, especially over my constituents in the great State of Alaska. But here is the thing. If you look at the number of judges that each Circuit Court gets, another reason why the Ninth Circuit is so important and so powerful is that it gets an enormous number of judges. The Ninth Circuit is listed here on the far left. Out of 29 active judges, one judge comes from the great State of Alaska. One judge comes from the great State of Alaska. So, as you can imagine, discussing legal issues with any judge from the Ninth Circuit is very important to me and, more importantly, to the people I represent. Here is something else about the Ninth Circuit. On so many issues that matter to my constituents, the court gets the legal issues wrong. The court gets the legal issues wrong. Now, I have seen this firsthand. Almost 25 years ago, I had the honor of being a Ninth Circuit law clerk for the only Ninth Circuit judge we have in Alaska, Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, a phenomenal judge. I watched panel after panel in the Ninth Circuit get cases related to the great State of Alaska wrong. Now, look. In some ways it is not their fault. Yes, they had different views and a legal outlook. But if you are a judge and you grew up in LA and all you know is LA and California laws, and now you are a Ninth Circuit judge and you are supposed to rule on all these Alaska-specific Federal laws, you really don't know what you are doing. You don't really know what you are doing, and I saw that as a young lawyer. But don't take my word for it. In the last 4 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up three specific Alaska cases, two of which were from the Ninth Circuit and one of which was from the DC Circuit. These big, important circuits all got them wrong. They are cases that would have changed the history and future of my State. So when I meet with nominees for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, it is usually always very cordial. I walk them through a lot of issues, legal issues of which they know very little about-- again, not their fault--and to explain why these are so important to the people I represent. Again, if you are an LA lawyer or a lawyer from Phoenix, you don't know about Native Alaskan law. You don't know about the Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act, called ANILCA--a Federal law, 1,000 pages--that the U.S. Supreme Court, in the last 3 years, twice smacked down the Ninth Circuit, 9 to 0--9 to 0--because the Ninth Circuit continually gets these Alaska-focused statutes wrong. So I walk them through these issues. That is all I do. It is not a big deal. It is actually trying to help the judges. I think every Ninth Circuit judge I have met with appreciates it. Let me give you a couple of examples of what I would do if I could meet with these judges. Like I said, ANILCA, or the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, is a hugely important Federal law that was passed in 1980. We didn't want it, by the way. It federalized almost 100 million acres of land in Alaska. Imagine that. Most States aren't even as big as 100 million acres. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9 to 0 in favor of a moose hunter who wanted access to Federal land. His name is John Sturgeon. He is a very famous Alaskan right now. It went back to the Ninth Circuit. They misinterpreted it. It went back up to the U.S. Supreme Court--9-zip--they smacked it down again. Justice Kagan, who wrote the second opinion, said: ``If [John] Sturgeon lived in any other State, his [law]suit would not have [had] a prayer of success. . . . Except that Sturgeon lives in Alaska. And as we [the U.S. Supreme Court] have said before, `Alaska is often the exception, not the rule,' '' when it comes to these kind of Federal laws in Federal parks. Do you think it would be good to have a Ninth Circuit judge getting ready to get on the court to understand the Sturgeon case? It would be. So that is what I do. I have the judges read Sturgeon. I have them read other cases. It is all advice and consent. It is our constitutional role. Until today, I have done it with every Ninth Circuit judge. Like I said, I was over at the White House on Friday, really kind of banging the table on the Biden administration's war on Alaska. Some of you may have seen a speech I gave last week. There are 20 Executive orders and Executive actions singularly focused on my great State--20-- crushing working families. And I said: You know, one thing I would like to do is continue my record of meeting with every Ninth Circuit judge. I am available Sunday, Sunday night, all day Monday. Give me a call. I haven't heard anything back. Something else I do with these judges when they come before me is I talk about Indian law. Now a lot of lawyers think, ``Hey, I really know Indian law well.'' And my advice and counsel in the advice-and-consent process, when it comes to Indian law in Alaska, is ``If you think you are an expert, throw out everything you know about lower 48 Indian law when it comes to Alaskan Indian law. The Native Alaskan law, in Alaska--the Federal law--is 100 percent different than it is in the lower 48. This is just advice I give judges who are going on the Ninth Circuit. They don't know this. An LA lawyer doesn't know this. This week, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Congress's passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, what we call in Alaska ANCSA, the largest settlement of indigenous land claims, certainly, in America, and probably in the world. It is a really successful act, not perfect, very innovative. But it has been litigated like crazy. We had a case from the Ninth Circuit several years ago that essentially said: ANCSA created reservation land throughout the entire State of Alaska. That would have changed the history of Alaska forever. Of course, the Ninth Circuit got it wrong. That case went up to the Supreme Court. Nine-zip, the Supreme Court smacked down the Ninth Circuit. They said: ANCSA doesn't do that. That is not what Congress intended. Do you think it would be good for these judges this week, if I could sit down with them, to understand that? It would be really good, really important. It would help them for their job. Just this year, the DC Circuit on another ANCSA-related case, the Chehalis case, got ANCSA wrong again. And guess what. It went up to the U.S. Supreme Court again. They just ruled on it 4 months ago. It was a huge victory for my State, again. We wrote an amicus brief--Senator Murkowski, Congressman Young, and I. But it was enormously important. This wrong case of the DC Circuit would have changed the history of Alaska forever. The Supreme Court, 6 to 3, said: No, you are misinterpreting Alaska. Do you think these judges on the Ninth Circuit who we are debating to confirm this week would learn a little bit about that if I could meet with them? They would. Finally, the other thing I always do with circuit judges is I talk about the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is really, really important to the people I represent. We use firearms for food, for self-defense in the wild. Well over 60 percent of all the homes in my State have firearms for these reasons. If you are an LA lawyer, you don't know this stuff. But, all of a sudden, you are going to be ruling on cases that deal with Alaska or Idaho or Montana. And here is the thing: They might not know these issues, these judges. I have looked at their background. I wanted to interview them. Remarkably, I can't get an interview with them. And here is the thing: As soon as they get confirmed, they are going to get these cases before them, in my State and other States, to rule on these kinds of issues. Do you think a meeting would help them? ``Boy, I should really think about that. I remember Senator Sullivan talked about ANILCA and the Sturgeon case. I am really glad I read the Sturgeon case.'' This is why these advice-and-consent constitutional meetings are so important. And, as I mentioned, I have been doing this my entire time in the Senate. I have never not had a meeting with a Ninth Circuit judge. It doesn't matter where they are from--Montana, Arizona, Washington State. They are going to rule on issues that relate to my State and my constituents. And these judges don't mind it. They actually, I think, enjoy it. They learn. But this White House says: You can't meet with them. This is absurd. Here is the question: What are they hiding? What are they worried about? Are they hiding something? Are the judges hiding something? Again, this is a precedent that Democrats and Republicans should all be against, because we know what goes around comes around in this body. And this just doesn't make sense. All three of these Ninth Circuit judges will have life tenure and enormous, enormous power over everybody in the Ninth Circuit. That is 20 percent of all Americans, and, certainly, enormous power over the people in Alaska, whom I am privileged to serve and represent. These judges are likely to know very little about these issues that I just talked about. Well, I believe I have a constitutional role to help them understand these issues better, and that is the way it has always been. Nobody has complained. Absurdly, the White House has said: Well, Senator Sullivan, you can meet with a Ninth Circuit judge if they are from Alaska. What? We have one judge, and she is not going to be retiring any time soon. That is it. Now, here is the thing. I just talked to the previous administration's White House counsel this morning, when I called the Biden administration's counsel this morning. I am still waiting for that phone call, by the way, because I said: Look, if the White House Counsel is saying no to a U.S. Senator to do his constitutional duty, I would like to hear it directly from her. So she hasn't called me back yet. But I talked to the previous administration's White House Counsel, and I asked: By the way, did you guys do this? I am just double-checking. I mean, I got to meet with all the Ninth Circuit judges President Trump put forward. But did you blackball Democrats? Did you do that? And they said: Absolutely not. I made a few phone calls to other people in the White House Counsel's office. They said: To the contrary, when any Senator wanted to meet with any circuit judge, we always made it happen. So this is a new precedent. And, again, it doesn't matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat. This is just a bad precedent. And the notion that ``Well, Senator, you get to meet with a Ninth Circuit judge from Alaska,'' when, by the way, California, I think, has close to 20 Ninth Circuit judges--but the notion that you can only meet with the one who is from your State is actually moronic. The people who need to be educated are the ones who aren't from your State, because they are all going to rule on issues from your State. So I am still waiting for the White House Counsel to call me back--or whoever is in charge in the White House. But I am going to conclude with this. I am going to go around them. I am going to go around them. Here is what I am going to do, and I hope someone is watching from the White House. But, more importantly, I hope someone is watching from the judge's chambers. So, Judge Koh, we are getting ready to vote on your nomination tonight. Judge Sung of Oregon, we are getting ready to vote on your nomination tomorrow. Judge Sanchez of California, the rumor is, the majority leader is going to file cloture on your nomination. Those are three Ninth Circuit judges. Judge Holly Thomas of California, you might get voted on this week too. Four. Here is my ask: Give me a call. Give me a call. Give my office a call. I will meet with you tonight. Let's do a phone call. Do you want to learn about ANILCA? Do you want to learn about the Sturgeon case? It will make you a better Ninth Circuit judge. Here is the number: (202) 224-1026. Give my office a call. I am ready to meet anytime. Here is the thing for the judges: It is 1 hour of your time. You are going to have lifetime tenure. It is 1 hour to talk to a U.S. Senator who is doing his constitutional duty for the people he represents. It shouldn't be that hard. As a matter of fact, this is probably your first test of judicial independence. A U.S. Senator of the Senate--of the Senate; read the Constitution--wants to undertake his advice and consent, his constitutional role, with you, OK? You guys have read the Constitution, those four judges I just mentioned, but an unelected bureaucrat in the White House--I guess the White House Counsel, but who the heck knows; it is hard to tell who is in charge over there--is blocking this. So, again, give my office a call at (202) 224-1026. I am ready to meet and talk to you anytime before the vote. Don't worry--I don't think President Biden is going to yank your nomination if you call me. Heck, he probably doesn't even know this is going on. But you know this is the right thing to do, Judges. You have read the Constitution. Heck, if our meeting goes well, I might even vote for you. But here is the thing: You will learn more about the issues that you are going to have to deal with very soon in your tenure that you probably don't know anything about--no offense to you. I have read your backgrounds. You don't know anything about Native Alaskan law. You don't know anything about ANILCA. You probably have very different views than I and my constituents do on the Second Amendment. But you need to hear these issues because you are going to be life-tenured on the Ninth Circuit, and you don't have time to talk to me, a U.S. Senator, who is a Senator representing a State from the Ninth Circuit? You know it is wrong. By the way, my colleagues in the Senate know it is wrong. So I hope my Democratic and Republican colleagues realize that this is not a good precedent. This is not a good precedent. It has never happened as long as I have been here. You know, from big things to small things, this administration has really focused in many ways on smashing political and institutional norms that have enjoyed strong bipartisan support. It is not good for this body, and it is not good for the government. The Wall Street Journal, today, had an article about Biden's Federal regulators staging a coup against the Director of the FDIC on bank mergers. One of these regulators doesn't even have the power over bank mergers, and now he is trying to be in charge. I serve on the U.S. Naval Academy's Board of Visitors. It is a huge honor. The President comes in, President Biden, and fires everybody on the service academies who was appointed by President Trump. Nobody has ever done that before--no President. Everybody on the Board of Visitors of the Naval Academy is furious--the Democrats, the Republicans. The No. 1 thing they are saying is, this President is the first one to politicize the service academies. Then, oh, by the way, he hasn't appointed anyone yet to replace the people he fired, so we didn't have a quorum for our meeting last week. He is just smashing institutional norms. Yet this institutional norm of advice and consent, when it comes to circuit court judges with life tenure, is something that we have all agreed upon. The previous administration certainly allowed for it. Yet, right now, I can't meet with Ninth Circuit judges who are going to have enormous power for their entire lives over my constituents. So, to my colleagues, we shouldn't allow this. You guys know it is wrong. To the judges--like I said, Judge Sanchez, Judge Koh, Judge Sung, Judge Thomas--give my office a call. Do the right thing. Your first test of judicial independence is before you of the Senate. The U.S. Senate--of the Senate, of which I am a part--wants to do our constitutional role. Give us a call so we can do it. Ignore the very bad advice you are getting from the White House Counsel or whoever is in charge over there. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, today, I wanted to rise on the Senate floor and talk about a topic of utmost importance to my State, the great people I have the privilege of representing, and what the Biden administration is doing to good, hard-working American families in Alaska. It is what I call the anti-Alaska agenda, or the Biden administration's war on working families. I know that Americans all across the country have felt pain--economic pain, health pain, unfortunately, too many deaths as a result of the pandemic. Right now, we are seeing high energy prices and empty shelves. There has been a lot of suffering in America. We are a resilient people, however. My State, like many, has been hit very hard by the pandemic, particularly economically--our energy sector, our fishing sector, our tourism sector. And as we are coming out of this pandemic and everybody trying to work together--we all want growth and opportunity in America--we have now been hit with this--with this. This administration has issued, in its first 9 months in office, 20 Executive orders for Executive actions solely focused on Alaska. I came down to the floor 2 weeks ago to talk about this. It was 19 then. You wait a week or 2 with the Biden administration in Alaska, and it is up to 20. I am sure they have a lot more ready to go. Twenty-- there is no State in America that is getting this kind of attention from the Biden administration, and we don't want it. What I am going to be continuing to ask my Senate colleagues to do-- and I am going to start with the President of the United States, who was a U.S. Senator for many years, decades--put yourself in the shoes of the people I represent. Let's imagine that a Republican administration comes into office and issues 20 Executive orders or Executive actions focused on Delaware-- tiny, little Delaware. The Senators from Delaware, including the former Senator, now-President, would be down on the floor of the U.S. Senate raising Cain, raising heck--I don't think I am allowed to swear here-- because of this, because they want to stick up for the people they represent. Imagine that. These Executive orders and actions are not some kind of simple abstractions; they are 20 orders and actions that go to the heart of what Alaskans do in terms of our economy: work, keeping food on the table, keeping lights on in their homes, paying the mortgage, keeping their kids in college, keeping their cultures thriving, keeping our communities from crumbling, particularly in rural Alaska. Some of the poorest communities in America is where this administration is targeting the people I represent. Very few people in my State--Democrat, Republican, Native, non- Native--support this war against Alaska. This is not a partisan issue back home, and here is why: because real people, real families, real communities are being hurt--your fellow Americans. It has got to stop. I have demanded a meeting with the President and his team to just walk him through this. Mr. President, do you know what you are doing to one of your States that you are sworn to defend? These orders threaten the well-being of my entire State, but they particularly threaten the people who live in rural Alaska, who are dependent on the land and natural resources for so much of their economy, so much of their tax base. Here is the thing, I know what some of my colleagues or those who are watching are saying: Oh, it is just resource development issues in Alaska. Well, I will talk about that. It is some of that, but it is not just resource development issues that are happening here. Let me give you one that really burns me up. We had a bipartisan bill last year, last Congress, to provide what you will now call racial justice, racial equity, to Alaskan Native Vietnam veterans who served their country when most Americans were avoiding service and missed out, because they were overseas fighting for their Nation, on the opportunity to apply for what is called a land allotment. There was a deadline that happened, a complete injustice. Native Vietnam veterans coming home, not treated well because they are Native, not treated well because they are Vietnam veterans, and then told: Oh, by the way, the land you were supposed to get, you don't qualify. So we got a bill to pass to say that is an injustice. The previous administration signed it. They were implementing it. And when this administration came into office, the No. 1 issue I asked Secretary Haaland to commit to was to finish getting the Executive order out on these land allotments to implement this bipartisan bill because these Native Vietnam veterans aren't living that long. The administration delayed it for 2 years. Why? It has nothing do to with oil and gas or mining. Why? These Vietnam vets, many aren't going to live for 2 more years. They did it anyway. That is 1 of 20. Let me give you another one. We have had, down in southeast Alaska, the issue of the Tongass--that is the largest national forest in the country. Every elected official-- Governor, Senator, Democrat, Republican--in Alaska, the last 30 years, has pressed with the roadless rule, an exemption to the roadless rule, so we can have an economy there; roads for southeast communities. Every elected Governor or U.S. Senator, didn't matter the party, that is how important this was. We were able to get an exemption in the last administration. I appreciate what President Trump did on that. This administration comes in, and they reverse it. One of the 20. Guess how we, the Alaska delegation, found out about that reversal. A front-page story in the Washington Post. The Secretary of Agriculture wanted to brief the Washington Post and all the extreme environmental groups who wanted this before they let the people of Alaska or their representatives know. These are the examples. And, yes, the list also includes resource development projects. But here is the thing on that--I have a folder full of letters. These are letters from the elected leaders, Tribal leaders, borough leaders, Alaska Native Corp. leaders, Native leaders in my State--dozens of letters. Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation, Native village of Kaktovik--that is a Tribe--City of Utqiagvik, City of Atqasuk, City of Wainwright, Inupiaq Community of the Arctic Slope--that is another Tribe--the Voice of the Inupiat Arctic, these are all Alaskan Native leaders who live in the North Slope, some of whom live in the Arctic National Wildlife area. Every single one of these great leaders in my State, every one, was writing, even begging, this administration not to do this--not to do this. And they ignored them--they ignored them. This is a letter from Edward Rexford. He is the President of the Native Village of Kaktovik. He wrote to Secretary Deb Haaland after she suspended oil and gas leases in the ANWR, which we passed. What the Secretary did, in my view, was clearly illegal. Edward Rexford wrote: ``You have changed our future with one stroke of a pen without any explanation or consultation with us--the tribe that lives within the Coastal Plain.'' His village, Kaktovik, is the only village within the coastal area of ANWR. That is it. There is no group of Americans who should have a greater voice in the development of this area than them. But they didn't even get a phone call--not a phone call, not consultation, Tribal consultation, which is required by law--none of it. That is all part of the 20 Executive orders and actions that I said are hurting people, hurting communities, hurting families, hurting Native cultures. I will tell you this: The Biden administration loves to talk about how they are committed to environmental justice and racial equity, but it is with a caveat. Here is the reality: They want to help unserved minority populations around the country. And I think this is a good goal, but it comes with a caveat. Unless, of course, they are indigenous people of Alaska, then the Biden administration targets them. Look at this folder. These are communities of color in my State, and all they do is get targeted, not helped; targeted, their economic opportunity. And then the things that most Americans take for granted that don't exist in these communities--clinics, flushed toilets, gymnasiums--all of that comes with economic opportunity. And when you shut it down, you are really hurting indigenous people in some of the most impoverished communities in the country. But I guess they seem OK with that. I want all of my Senate colleagues to do just a quick thought experiment. Imagine what it would be like, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican--but just think about it: A Democrat and a Republican administration comes in or you are a Republican and a Democrat administration comes in and changes the future of your State with a stroke of a pen, as Edward Rexford said, for the people you represent. Imagine an administration coming in with 20 Executive orders in 8 months, shutting down your economy as you are trying to get out of a pandemic. Every Senator here would be mad. Every Senator here would be mad. And the one thing I very much enjoy about serving in this body is we are a collegial body. We have our differences, but I certainly have friends on both sides of the aisle, try to work with everybody, try to be respectful with everybody. The Presiding Officer and I chaired committees together, worked together on a lot of things. And here is the thing, if a Republican administration came into power and targeted one of my colleague's States with 20 Executive orders in 8 months and whoever it was came to me and said: ``Hey, Dan, you know this is unfair. My constituents are really being attacked, really being hurt. Could you reach out to the Republican administration and say: Hey, come on. Tone it down. Geez, Louise, 20 Executive orders in one State,'' I would help, and I think almost every Senator here would help. That is what we do here. And I want to say that some of my Democratic colleagues here, when I have talked about this, when I have told them about this, when I have spoken about this, a number of them have come to me and said: ``Hey, Dan, give me the list. Give me the list of 20. Maybe I can't help you on every one of them, all of them. Maybe there are some I actually like. But I do want to try and help.'' That is what has happened. That is what makes this body a good place. To those Senators, I really want to thank you. And I am going to ask for your help because I would do it for you. And this is unacceptable. Tens of thousands of people I represent are being hurt by the Federal Government, by the President and his White House. So I appreciate that from my colleagues. And this is, in general, how this body works. It makes this a special place. But I will say this. Not all Senators have been so gracious and senatorial and collegial. To the contrary, a few of my colleagues are helping lead the charge in the war on Alaska's working families. They seem to be putting a ton of effort into it themselves. I am not sure why, but they spend a lot of their time and energy focused on doing this: shutting down the Alaska economy, hurting working families, and ridiculously and absurdly acting as if they speak for the very people I am privileged to represent, as if they don't have enough to do in terms of helping their own constituents. So I am going to make an example and give an example of one. The leader of this small group is the senior Senator from New Mexico. Here is a sampling--three letters in the last year and a half he has written, signed, or led, focusing on shutting down Alaska's economy and hurting the great people I have the privilege of representing. Two of these letters deal with the 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--controversial, no doubt. In 2017, we voted to provide the opportunity for development in that small area, what we call the 1002 area. The President signed it. It came into law. Now, I know most of my colleagues on the Democratic side didn't agree with that. We have legislation we don't agree with. I accept that. I am still very good friends with so many. But, afterward, the senior Senator from New Mexico led letters to all the top banks in America and all the top insurance and financial institutions in America and didn't just say don't invest in the ANWR but said ``don't invest in any oil and gas development project in the Arctic.'' What is that, the Arctic of America? That is my State. So now you have, as opposed to collegiality, a small group, led by this Senator, writing the biggest banks in America, the biggest financial institutions in America, trying to muscle them, saying: Don't invest anything in Alaska. That is not what this body is all about. I would never do that to a colleague. I would never write all the banks of America and say: Don't invest in poor communities, Native communities in New Mexico or in the New Mexico oil and gas industry. I wouldn't do that. Who does that? Well, unfortunately, a few--not many, a few--Senators are doing that. Absurdly, this Senator had the audacity, in one of his letters, to try to speak for the people I represent. He put in the letter: The people dependent on the Arctic Refuge don't want you to invest there. That is patently absurd. Just read the letters from all the people who actually live there, all the people who live there, who overwhelmingly want opportunities for oil and gas development and for jobs and economic opportunity. You would think, with all of New Mexico's problems, this Senator would focus on his own constituents. So I reached out to him and the few others who wrote these letters. I have reached out. I wrote my own letter to them saying: Hey, I was disappointed to see you do that. Why didn't you come talk to me? I wouldn't do that to you. And, by the way, what you are doing is really going to hurt my constituents. This is a letter I wrote to this Senator and a few others: I would appreciate the courtesy of talking about this before you go do it. You clearly don't understand the indigenous communities that I represent. I even provided a Wall Street Journal op-ed from the mayor of the North Slope Borough, Harry Brower, the Inupiaq mayor, who had a lot to say to the banks who weren't going to invest in his community. But I got no response. To the contrary, just a few months ago, this same Senator led a letter to the Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, asking her to shut down a very important energy development in Alaska called the Willow Project. This is that letter--just about 4 months ago. Let me talk about the Willow Project. The Willow Project is not in a controversial area; it is in the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, set aside by Congress decades ago for oil and gas development. Every Native group in Alaska supports this project, all the unions do, 2,000 direct jobs, billions in revenues for some of the poorest communities in America, the lowest emissions of any major oil and gas development project in America. This is a huge win-win-win for everybody--not even controversial. Yet the senior Senator from New Mexico wrote Deb Haaland saying: Shut down the Willow Project in Alaska. Why is he doing this, literally trying to kill thousands of Alaskan jobs and impoverish Alaska Native communities? Do the people in New Mexico know that their senior Senator spends so much time trying to give Alaska oil and gas workers pink slips and impoverish Native communities? I wonder. I wonder. I thought, for just a moment, maybe I should do something against New Mexico, but then I was like, no; you know what, that is not my style. I wouldn't want to hurt New Mexico oil and gas workers or Native communities. They are all great Americans, I am sure. We are a great country. I wouldn't want to target them the way this Senator is targeting my State, trying to hurt thousands of Alaskan working families. And it should be emphasized and I want to emphasize, that is not how we work here. That is not what I have seen in my almost 7 years in the U.S. Senate, Senators trying to attack other Senators' States, specifically focusing on hurting working families. The vast majority of the Senators I know wouldn't do that at all. That is not how business is conducted here in the U.S. Senate. To the contrary, most of us generally try to help each other. We don't always agree; that is for sure. But particularly when States have unique challenges that could hurt their citizens, when my colleagues would come to me, ``Hey, Dan, can you help out on this,'' I usually try to help. But I certainly don't go on offense and try to hurt like this administration is doing and the senior Senator from New Mexico. But I thought the better course to fight back--because I am going to fight back, OK. I am going to fight back. These are my constituents who are hurting. The better course to fight back against these attacks on Alaskan working families was not to try to hurt New Mexicans but just show this, the rank hypocrisy of what the senior Senator is actually doing and saying. One of his main reasons, in this latest letter, to shut down Alaska, in trying to deny Federal permits for the Willow oil and gas project, is to ``achieve climate goals.'' OK? That is in his letter to Deb Haaland. But if you do just a little digging, this Senator seems fine with trying to achieve these goals on the backs of Alaskan workers and Alaska Natives but not on his own constituents, not on the backs of his own constituents--to the contrary. Guess which State in America has gotten way more Federal oil and gas drilling permits than any other State in the country--guess which one. It is certainly not Alaska. It happens to be New Mexico. It just so happens to be New Mexico. Guess where the Secretary of the Interior is from. New Mexico. Hmm. Is that a coincidence? I wonder, in their frequent phone calls, when they talk about concerns of climate and shutting down oil and gas in Alaska, if shutting down oil and gas in New Mexico ever comes up. I am pretty sure it doesn't. How do I know that? Because close to half of all oil and gas drilling permits issued by the Department of the Interior, by New Mexican Deb Haaland, in 2021 have gone to one State. What State is that? New Mexico--2,286 Federal oil and gas drilling permits; almost half of all the permits in the country to one State. So here is the bottom line. Here is their view. Shut down Alaska, hurt working families in Alaska, supposedly, to help America's climate goals, but then quietly say ``drill, baby, drill'' in New Mexico, with more permits by far than any other State in the country--almost 2,300. If that is not rank hypocrisy, I don't know what is. So I am going to start asking questions about this and, by the way, so should the press. I sure hope our friends in the press think that, hmm, there is something a little strange going on here. Clearly, there is hypocrisy happening. But, you know, that happens here occasionally-- or maybe more than occasionally. But is there anything else going on? And I hope the press in New Mexico ask their senior Senator why he is so darn focused on hurting the good people of Alaska--because I wouldn't do that to New Mexican oil and gas workers or New Mexican Native communities. And finally, I am going to ask questions in another area. The Biden administration is clearly trying to shut down my State. It is there for everybody to see. Everybody back home knows it. But here is the thing. They can't do it illegally, and they can't do it unethically. And right now there is strong evidence that they are doing just that. What do I mean? Today, I sent this letter that I would like to be printed in the Record to the inspector general of the Department of the Interior.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Here is what I am asking in this letter. There is very strong evidence that at least four senior political appointees at the Department of the Interior who have been involved in many of these 20 Executive orders and Executive actions shutting down my State were actually, in their previous jobs, working on the very same issues and advocating for the very same outcome--meaning they are working with a special interest group to say shut down the Willow Project. And then when it came to the Interior, they are working on whether or not to shut down the Willow Project. Now, most of us know, if that is true, that is clearly illegal and clearly unethical. We have documented this letter--four senior Department of the Interior officials, all of whom who are trying to shut down my State--and I think there is strong evidence that they are violating ethics laws and violating the law. So I have asked for a detailed investigation by the Department of the Interior Inspector General into whether or not these individuals have violated Federal ethics laws in their quest to hurt working families in my State. Let me conclude with this. I am a supporter of responsible resource development in America of all of the above: energy, wind, solar, oil-- in every part of our great country, in Alaska, of course, in New Mexico--all across our great land. And I am a supporter of the great men and women who do this in Alaska and New Mexico and Texas and North Dakota. What is happening in my State right now, this is just wrong, and I am going to fight. And any other Senator who would be going through what my State is going through, with your constituents being harmed, you would be down on the floor fighting, too. The vast majority of the U.S. Senators here--Democrats and Republicans--I think deep down in their hearts know that this is just wrong. You don't come in with a new administration and say, Hey, let me target one State and beat the heck out of their working families. It is just wrong. And I am hopeful that my colleagues here--and I am asking them because we need the help. I have great people I represent--proud, tough people, but I can't fight the whole damn Federal Government when they are focused on shutting you down. So I am hopeful that my colleagues-- all of my colleagues; I will share the list of the 20--that you can help me get the Biden administration and some misguided hypocritical U.S. Senators to enact a cease-fire in their war on working families and Native communities in the great State of Alaska. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, it is Thursday, and it is usually the day I get to come down to the Senate floor. Usually, the Senate is kind of wrapping up things; we are still pretty busy right now. But it is the day I love to come down to the Senate floor and talk about somebody in my State, the great State of Alaska, who is making a difference either for their community, for their State, for the country; you name it. We call this person the Alaskan of the Week. We have done it a lot. I usually like to give a little bit of an update. The pages typically really like this time of the week because we get to tell stories about Alaska, about the adventure of Alaska, but also about--typically, a little update about what is happening in the State. Right now, we are in a bit of a cold snap pretty much throughout the State. We are getting a lot of snow throughout the State. We have seen some record low temperatures all across Alaska, from Homer, King Salmon, Bethel. Monday in Fairbanks--so this is not even into December yet--it was 26 below zero. They are tough in Fairbanks, very tough. You get down to 50, 60 below in Fairbanks. My wife is from Fairbanks. She is a wonderful volunteer for this organization called Covenant House. They did their annual ``Sleep Out.'' It is a homeless shelter for teenage youth. This was in Anchorage just a couple of weeks ago. It was 15 below for the ``Sleep Out.'' You get a cardboard box and say: Good luck. So, boy, she is tough. Alaskans across the State are rugged, tough, individualistic, and we bond all the more for it. We are in it together when it is that cold. And it frequently is. And like one big community, one of the many things that brings us together--actually, one of the many things that brings Americans together--is bonding over sports: local sports, State sports, national sports, and your local newspaper as it relates to sports reporting. It is actually a universal instinct. One of our most famous Supreme Court Justices, Earl Warren, said it best: I always turn to the sports section first [in the morning]. The sports page records people's accomplishments. The front page [usually] has nothing but [people's] failures. I am not sure that is always true, but it is a good anecdote in terms of what binds us with regard to sports. You know, over the holidays, in particular, everybody in America watches great football, other sports activities. I had a good chat over lunch today with Coach Tuberville about the really incredible Alabama Auburn game that just happened last week. But sports is also the place in our local papers where we see the names of our children, our loved ones, our neighbors, our friends. In fact, it might just be the only time their names appear in the paper at all, when you think about it. So our Alaskan of the Week this week is somebody who knows sports and sportswriting in Alaska better than anybody. We are talking about Beth Bragg, who recently retired after 35 years as a sportswriter for the Anchorage Daily News. She understood all of these attributes about sportswriting better than anybody. During her 35 years at the paper, Beth always told cub reporters there was one rule they must always follow, no matter what. She said: Even if the person's name is something like Cindy Jones, ask that person for the spelling. It might be the only time their name appears in the paper, and it is very important that name is spelled correctly. Now, let me talk about Beth, about her reporting and about her work and how it has added to our communities across the great State of Alaska. Beth grew up in Billings, MT. Her father worked for the Billings Gazette. And she, too, while still in high school, joined the paper as a sports clerk so this is in her blood. Now, it wasn't so much that she was crazy about sports back then, but it was a job, a good job. And then she said she began, bit by bit, to fall in love with newspapers and sports reporting. She liked the irreverence, the strict deadlines, the energy. Importantly--and it is almost counterintuitive--covering sports allows more fun in the writing, the opportunity as a writer to take a little bit more in terms of chances and to be more creative than maybe on other beats. And throughout the years, Beth has brought so much of this kind of creativity, so much heart to her stories. Without looking at a byline in Alaska, you always knew when you were reading a Beth Bragg story. So, in 1986, when she was 27 years old, she came to Alaska to write for the Anchorage Daily News. That is our State's biggest paper. She thought she would stay for a few years, then move on. Her dream was to cover professional sports, maybe even Major League Baseball in a city that has got a Major League Baseball team, but as the years progressed, she stayed in Alaska. She fell in love with Alaska, and her ambitions as a sportswriter changed. But, in some ways, they got even bigger. She discovered that, in her words, ``the real reward, and the real challenge, is to find stories that resonate with everyone. And you don't have to be at the Super Bowl to do that.'' In fact, Beth said she found more interesting, more unique stories to cover in Alaska than probably anywhere else. Now, we don't have big-time professional sports teams in the great State of Alaska, but we do have sports, loads of sports. And just like so much about Alaska, we have expanded the meaning of what it means to partake in sports. Let's take one very famous sport in Alaska, the Iditarod--the famous 800- mile sled dog race--as one big example. There is also heli-skiing, ice climbing, curling, and snowboarding. It didn't get its start in Alaska, but it reached its apex in Valdez, for those who participated in that incredible sport. Beth is likely one of the few, if only, reporters in the country who reported on this incredible sport in Alaska at 3 a.m., seal-skinning. Yes, that is a sport. It goes along with the ear pull and other sports in terms of competition at the World Eskimo Indian Olympics, which are incredible to go to and watch in Alaska--great athletes, by the way. She covered seal skinning, the competition. At 3 a.m. she was tired, but the excitement and the smell of the seals--first frozen, then thawed for the competition--kept her wide awake. We may not have professional sports teams, but we certainly have athletic stars galore in Alaska. For 35 years, Beth has written about these stars and some of the toughest athletes anywhere in the world. Let me give you a couple examples. She wrote about athletes running Mount Marathon. Now, I gave an ``Alaskan of the Week'' speech several months ago about Mount Marathon. It is what Outside magazine calls ``the toughest 5K on the planet''-- straight up a mountain and straight back down. We always do it on July 4 in Seward. She wrote about the Alaska Wilderness Classic, the 150-or-so-mile ``secret race'' up mountains and across rivers in the Alaskan wilderness. Here are the rules of the Alaska Wilderness Classic: No outside support, nothing human-powered, leave no trace, and rescue is up to the racer. Pretty tough. Pretty tough. She wrote about the Arctic Man, another incredible Alaska event that has been described as one of the world's toughest downhill ski races and an exciting snow machine race, all combined together. You want to see something amazing? Go to the Arctic Man. She has written about swimming heats and cross-country track and field matches; skiing, lots of stories about skiing in Alaska; ice hockey; high school football; basketball games; and, as I mentioned, the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics, with the ear pull and the blanket toss. She wrote a great story about a mother and son literally tied by rope together for 2 weeks climbing Denali, North America's tallest peak, in Alaska. There was a story about a sled dog that was cut loose and ran away from her Iditarod sled dog pack. Miraculously, this dog found her way home to her kennel through mountain ranges and hundreds of miles of tundra in the dead of an Alaskan winter. Pretty amazing. She wrote a great story about an event I attended this past June, an inspiring USA Patriots-Amputee Softball Team event where almost every player on that team were some of our greatest American heroes. Almost all of them had lost a limb--all of them had lost a limb, mostly in combat. Always at the center of Beth's stories are the people, even when those people are sled dogs. She has written about their victories; their struggles; their heart for the game, for their teams, for their communities, for their State, for their country, and for life itself. Thinking back on her long career, a few events stay with her. She talked a lot about what it was like to watch Alaskans compete in the Olympics, four of which she attended--Olympic Games. Now, we are a huge State. I talk about that a lot. We have a pretty small population relative to other States--730,000 people. But Alaska is really good in terms of Olympic athletes. We punch way above our weight, sending some of the top American athletes to especially the Winter Olympics but also the Summer Olympics. Beth remembers, for example, the electricity in the Olympic stadium in Norway in 1994 when a little-known Alaskan named Tommy Moe shocked the world by winning the gold in the downhill and then, 4 days later, a silver, becoming the first American skier ever to win two medals at the same Olympics. She remembers writing stories about the legendary and beloved cross- country skier from Alaska Kikkan Randall when Kikkan was just 13 years old. Then, like so many Alaskans, Beth swelled with pride and cried when Kikkan Randall won the gold in 2018. Beth said she also cried just this summer when 17-year-old Lydia Jacoby from Seward, AK, shocked the world by winning the gold medal in Tokyo this summer in the 100-meter breaststroke. Remember that? Seward, AK, doesn't even have an Olympic-size swimming pool. And I will say, Lydia Jacoby is the only person in U.S. history to be Alaskan of the Week in the U.S. Senate twice. That is unbelievable. Of course, there are heartbreaks, too--the losses, the illnesses, the injuries, and sometimes the deaths--all of which Beth has handled with the utmost sensitivity. Because she was at it for so long and has so much history with Alaskan athletes, she understood something about them that a new reporter might not. It takes a certain kind of grit to be an athlete in Alaska, to wake up at 6 a.m. and head off into the dark, subzero weather to train. It takes a certain kind of grit to travel outside of Alaska for competitions, often thousands of miles away from your home, to get noticed. As Beth said, ``You have to work hard to make it big'' in Alaska. As a result, she thinks Alaska athletes have a sense of home in a way a lot of other athletes don't. As I said, Beth recently retired. She is going to clean her home; maybe travel some; of course, watch some sports, as a fan now, not as a reporter. She leaves behind a great legacy, thousands of stories charting some of our State's greatest moments in athletics, times when we all cheered and cried and came together to support the best of our people and competition and grit and determination--the reason Americans across the country love sports so much. So, Beth, thank you for your great job. Congrats on an incredibly stellar career, and, of course--I am sure one of your biggest honors ever--congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week. John Kerry Madam President, we are working on the NDAA. Is anyone watching what is happening on the Senate floor right now? It has been stalled in terms of amendments, and it has been stalled, reportedly, because of an amendment--a simple amendment that I think the vast majority of Americans would agree on--that Senator Rubio is trying to get a vote on. But, as there are with so many stories in the last 6 months, there is something about the climate envoy John Kerry, who keeps coming into different stories, and he is in this story as well. He seems to show up everywhere, always when somebody in this administration is doing something to undermine American interests. There is something about John Kerry. Let me give you the latest. Senator Rubio is trying to move forward with regard to an amendment on his bill, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. It is essentially a pretty simple bill. Human rights communities agree with it. I think everybody in the Senate agrees with it. It, in essence, just says that we shouldn't be importing solar panels and other products made in China that are produced with forced labor or slave labor. What American wouldn't agree with that? What American wouldn't agree with that? I think every Senator agrees with that. But evidently there is one American who disagrees with that. Here is an article today from the Free Beacon that talks about senior Biden officials are worried that this bill stopping slave labor products from China coming into America will undermine ``the White House's climate agenda'' and, unfortunately, ``limit solar panel imports from China.'' Presidential climate envoy John Kerry, among others, has been lobbying House members against the bill. Wow. Wow. That is remarkable. Why would he do that? Why would he do that? Someone needs to ask John Kerry that. That is just one example. Something about John Kerry--always in the mix undermining American interests. This is an article from the Washington Post just about a month ago: ``In advance of climate summit, tension among Biden aides on China policy.'' In essence, it said John Kerry was in Beijing--a very dangerous proposition, by the way; you want to talk about selling out American interests-- and he was begging the Chinese to cooperate on climate change, but they said they are not going to commence--I am reading from the Washington Post--cooperation until the United States tones it down on human rights, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and trade. So the Chinese are saying: Hey, we are not going to do anything on climate, John Kerry, unless you go tell the President to tone it down on Hong Kong, Taiwan, human rights--slave labor, probably. Dutifully, John Kerry came back to DC and delivered the message. It is all in the Washington Post right here, October 25. To their credit, Jake Sullivan and others were pretty furious, according to this article, about John Kerry undermining U.S. interests. But, hey, there he goes again. Remarkable. I mean, whose side is this guy on? Let me give you another example. One of the great things that have happened in America over the last two decades is this incredible revolution in terms of American energy. For decades, it has been the bipartisan policy of every administration--pretty much every Senator-- for America to become energy independent. Until the Biden administration came into office, we have achieved that. Again, every administration since World War II, Democratic or Republican: Being energy-independent would be good for us. One of the ways we have done this is this incredible revolution in the production of American natural gas. It has made us the leader in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions in the world, by far. Since 2005 to present, the United States has reduced emissions by almost 15 percent--more than any other major economy in the world. China's emissions have gone like this. So you would think the export of American LNG all around the world, which is happening, would be great for our workers--it is; great for our national security--it is; and really good for the environment--it is. In fact, we are even exporting to India and China. That will help them reduce emissions. This is a win, win, win, win, win. So imagine my surprise when I met with foreign officials--I won't name them--who have said to me: John Kerry is telling us in our country, in Asia and in Europe, don't buy American natural gas. What? Don't buy American natural gas. Why? I don't know. But there he goes again, undermining U.S. interests, undermining American workers, and, by the way, undermining the global environment on that one. If you don't buy American natural gas, you are going to be producing coal in China. This is what I have heard. And then let me give you one more. I came on the floor several months ago, only about 5 months ago, and called for the resignation of John Kerry after the interview of his friend the Foreign Minister of Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism, Foreign Minister Zarif, who was recorded in an interview that was leaked that said John Kerry told him a couple years ago, when Zarif was the Iranian Foreign Minister, about covert Israeli actions against Israeli interests in Syria. Now, think about that. According to news reports, Zarif is heard saying--and we all heard the video--``It was former US. . . . Secretary John Kerry who told me Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces in Syria,'' selling out and betraying our biggest ally in the Middle East, Israel. There is something about John Kerry, and every time that guy goes on a mission, you can be assured that American national security interests are being undermined. So here is a Christmas present I think the whole country would benefit from. For the good of this country, this former Secretary of State, former U.S. Senator, needs to ride off into the sunset in his private jet and retire, or resign, or maybe the President can just fire him. We don't need him to undermine American interests anymore. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I object.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, in reserving the right to object, I am requesting a vote on my amendment No. 4329. I am very disappointed that my Democratic colleagues will refuse to vote on this very simple, very important, very constitutionally correct amendment that also dramatically could impact military readiness, which is why it is so important to discuss it here as we are debating the NDAA. My amendment is simple. It prohibits the Department of Defense from enforcing President Biden's vaccine mandate on contractors and subcontractors. That is it. Why is this important? Well, look, we all want to put the vaccine behind us. There is no doubt about that. We have all been vaccinated here. I think most of us have encouraged our constituents, in consultation with their physicians, to do the same. First and foremost, as to this vaccine mandate, it is becoming increasingly clear it is not constitutionally based, and it is not based in statute, and I think the American people are seeing that on a daily basis. So it is an issue of not just the constitutional authority of the President, but it is an issue of the principle that got us all through the pandemic last year. If you will remember, one of the most important principles that we had as we were working on COVID relief--whether in the CARES Act or other aspects of legislation that we had with regard to COVID relief for our citizens--was this: If you got relief, whether you were a small business, from the PPP, or were an airline or a defense contractor, the law said you had to keep your employees--that you had to keep them together--employers and employees together. That was the principle that all of us--Democrats and Republicans and the Trump administration-- agreed on during the pandemic, and it worked. Many of these workers were on the front lines, helping us get through the pandemic. This President, with his mandate, has taken a sledgehammer to that principle. Not only are we now saying employers and employees stick together; he is saying to employers: If you don't listen to the President, employers in America, you have to fire your employees. Think about that. That is exactly the opposite of what we all agreed on last year as we were trying to get this Nation through the pandemic. So it is fairness. It is the principle that matters. And here is the final thing--and I think we are going to see this. It is a readiness issue for our military. I have been talking to the White House. I am trying to get them to rescind this mandate. They have consistently said: Well, it is only going to impact about 1 percent of the workforce. We can't afford anybody getting fired from their job, but they think it is about 1 percent. I was home in Alaska last weekend. This could impact contractors, and 10, 15, 20 percent of their workforce might not be working--defense contractors--hurting readiness. Again, during the pandemic, we were asking these Americans to show up at work and make sure our defense industries were strong, and now the President is telling these same contractors: Go fire your employees-- oh, by the way, over the holidays. So I think this is a very simple, reasonable amendment that will help readiness. Therefore, I ask to modify the request to include my amendment No. 4329.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to commend my colleague from Oregon and his comments. As a matter of fact, I don't disagree with pretty much anything he said. I had my first good meeting with Mr. Sams this morning, and I would agree, I think he is qualified. I am particularly impressed with his background as a Native American, as a veteran. One thing I like to talk a lot about is how our Alaskan Native American populations serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country--special patriotism. Mr. Sams certainly carries that tradition on quite well. And I have already talked to Senator Wyden. I intend to work with him and Mr. Sams just on a few more issues, a few more discussions. Again, we had a very good conversation this morning. This is nothing about his qualifications, but I wanted to make sure the administration is aware of some issues, at very high levels, as it relates to this position, this job. And, again, I agree with my colleague from Oregon; this is an extraordinarily important Federal Agency. As a matter of fact, it is so important for my State that I want to explain a little bit to my colleagues, many of whom don't really know what the National Park Service does. But to my State, it is enormously important; it is powerful; and it can touch on people's lives in huge ways. Let me just give you a little bit of the numbers. The Federal Government manages roughly 66 percent of the lands in Alaska. Of that, the Park Service controls 55 million acres. Two-thirds of all National Park Service land--two-thirds of the land that Mr. Sams will be in charge of is in my State. A lot of people don't recognize that. A lot of people don't understand that. Alaskans understand that--two-thirds. So he is one of the big, important landlords of the great State of Alaska. And, as you can imagine, this Agency has outsized influence in Alaska beyond what these numbers represent--for hunting, for fishing, for transportation, for culture, and for people's livelihoods. And this has been an Agency, to be quite frank, that has been abusing its power in Alaska for decades--Democrat administrations and Republican administrations. In 1980, this body passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act--what we call in Alaska ANILCA. The Congress took 100 million acres of Alaska lands. We weren't supportive, by the way, Alaska--100 million acres. That is bigger than almost any State represented in the U.S. Senate, bigger than two Minnesotas. And a huge part of ANILCA laid out how the National Park Service would interact with Alaskans. For decades, Alaskans were saying that the way in which the National Park Service was treating Alaskans--by the way, Alaska Natives in particular--was not according to the law, was not according to ANILCA. And it wasn't just Alaskans saying this. In the last 4 years, there have been two U.S. Supreme Court decisions--they are referred to as the ``Sturgeon'' decisions--where an Alaskan who wanted to go hunting sued the National Park Service, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. And the U.S. Supreme Court twice in the last 4 years, 9 to 0--9 to 0--agreed with Alaskans that the National Park Service was not following the law as it related to ANILCA. As Justice Kagan, who wrote one of the opinions, said, ``Alaska is often the exception, not the rule'' to issues relating to Federal lands and access. Now, as you can imagine, the National Park Service did not like getting slammed by the U.S. Supreme Court twice 9-zip, but we liked it. It was a vindication of what Alaskans, for decades, have been saying about the abuse of power of the National Park Service. So I want to work with Senator Wyden and Mr. Sams on further conversations, soon--we are not trying to block this; I know the National Park Service needs leadership, and I think he would be a good leader--but to look at making sure the implementation of these two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, 9 to 0, are followed through by the entire bureaucracy. It is not much to ask. These are topics I raised with Mr. Sams today. He seemed to be in agreement with me. But these issues are enormously important to the people I represent. And I am going to mention one final thing, and it is not really in Mr. Sams' area of expertise, but I mentioned this to him as well. All Americans have been experiencing economic, pandemic-related pain over the last 20 months. My State, I think, has been hit as hard as any other State, particularly on the economic side. And I want to just raise this topic right now because I am going to come down on the Senate floor and talk about it a lot more here. But it relates to some of these issues. This administration, the Biden administration, in the last 10 months, has issued 19 Executive orders or Executive actions solely focused on my State--19. There is no other State in the country--not Maryland, not Oregon, no other State in the country--that is getting this kind of attention from the new administration, and it is attention that we don't want because almost every one of these Executive orders and Executive actions is hurting working families, is hurting our economy, is hurting access to our lands at a time when we are already hurting. I just want to ask my colleagues, respectfully, especially on the other side of the aisle, could you imagine a Republican administration coming in and saying, ``We are going to issue 19 Executive orders and actions targeting Maryland or Delaware or Oregon or Massachusetts''? Senators would be on the floor, rightfully, sticking up for their State and their fellow citizens. This is a challenging time right now. Working families are hurting with inflation, high energy costs, and we have an administration in the White House that thinks it is fine to target the great State of Alaska. Well, it is not fine. It is not fine. It is a war on working families in my State, and I would hope all of my colleagues would recognize that this isn't appropriate. This isn't appropriate. And it is not just these actions. The White House has made it known that it has gone to financial institutions throughout the country-- banks, insurance companies--saying: Don't invest in American energy projects in the Arctic--also known as Alaska. So I am not going to hold this against Mr. Sams. My colleague from Oregon I have a lot of respect for. But, literally, every major project that is resource development, employs people, helps working families-- by the way, there are some that aren't economic. There is a law that we passed in the U.S. Senate 3 years ago to help Alaska Native Vietnam veterans. It was my bill. I care deeply about these great warriors who were really screwed by their country when they came home from Vietnam. The administration has delayed the implementation of that bill for 2 years. There will be Vietnam veterans--Alaska Native Vietnam vets--in my State who will die before they get the benefit because they just thought they could do another hit on Alaska. So I ask my colleagues to just put yourself in my State's position. None of you would accept that. And I am going to start talking about it, and I am going to start raising these issues. And I hope I can get some of my colleagues--Republicans and Democrats--to maybe reach out to the White House, going: Hey, this really isn't appropriate. Alaska has had a rough time. Everybody has had a rough time in America, but really? Nineteen Executive orders and actions? These are just the Alaska-specific ones. There are broader Federal ones that impact us too. But I want to work with Senator Wyden. I want to work with Mr. Sams, particularly on that issue I raised earlier. I think he is going to be very well qualified. I admire his desire to serve, his background, and especially his Navy background. And I intend to lift my hold very soon, but right now I am objecting. But my goal would be to have this nominee, who is qualified, after further discussions with me and Senator Wyden, moved to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. But, for now, I object.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Oregon, and I will commit to working with him to try and get this done before we head out to recess. We know the treasures of Alaska. As I mentioned, two-thirds of all the Park Service in the country is in my State, which is why I want to make sure I am having followup conversations--I had a good one already with Mr. Sams--to get commitments on a few additional issues that matter deeply not just to the Park Service and for America but, really, to my State. But you have my commitment to work with you and Mr. Sams on a few more of these issues. And, if I may, for all my colleagues, right--and I am glad to hear Senator Wyden mention this--this shouldn't be happening with one State. There is a Biden White House war on the State of Alaska. No one is getting treatment like this, and it shouldn't be this way. If a Republican President were in attacking Maryland or Oregon like that, I would call the White House going: Hey, lay off, guys. Lay off. So I sure hope some of my colleagues--Republican and Democrats--can send the message to Joe Biden, the President, that you know, the war on working families in Alaska is not really a good idea. They are Americans, too, and they have got a lot of resources to produce for our great Nation, which we need right now. So with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I just want to thank Senator Wyden for his cooperation working on this nominee. Mr. Sams, I do agree, is qualified. We had a long discussion this afternoon about some of the big issues that are impacting my State as it relates to the National Park Service. You know, a lot of people love the National Park Service. Two-thirds of all National Park Service land in America is in Alaska--tens of millions of acres. It is bigger than almost every other State represented here on the Senate floor. That is just the National Park Service. For decades, that Federal authority--the National Park Service authority in Alaska--has been abused. How do we know that it has been abused? Well, we recently had two--two--U.S. Supreme Court decisions that were 9-to-0 decisions, by the way, that essentially said the Park Service was not following the law in Alaska--two. So my discussions with Mr. Sams and the commitments he made to me, I think, are going to help Alaska. I think they are going to help the National Park Service, and it is related to the National Park Service authorities. After these two decisions--they were called the Sturgeon decisions-- two in a row, at the U.S. Supreme Court, 9 to 0, by the way, and the U.S. Supreme Court telling the National Park Service: You are not following the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. We call it ANILCA in Alaska. You are not following the Federal Government. You need to follow it. So the commitment I got from Mr. Sams was there was a recent regulation from the Federal Government in November of 2020 providing specifics of how the National Park Service was going to implement these two U.S. Supreme Court cases--the Sturgeon case. And he committed to me to be true to these regulations and to faithfully execute these regulations in the National Park Service on implementing Sturgeon. That is a very big deal in Alaska. He also committed to have all of his senior Alaska staff and senior staff here in Washington, DC, take ANILCA training. This is a giant statute. The Federal Government often screws it up, and it has a negative impact on my State. So he committed to me that he will have his top leadership at the National Park Service take training to understand this complicated law. That will also help my constituents and the country very much. So I want to, again, thank Senator Wyden for working with me on these issues. These are important commitments that Mr. Sams has made, and I have no further objection to this nominee's confirmation.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to spend a few minutes talking about the President's nominee to be Comptroller of the Currency and her recent comments on those of us who were asking questions about her background, because they are pretty outrageous, and I think it is time. In some ways, we need to put an end to this notion that you can't criticize someone for their ideas without being charged with things like, maybe, racism, which kind of gets me a little bit riled up, since I think I was one of the targets of her remarks. I have been down on the floor talking about some of the nominees that this administration has put forward. Some are so radical, far left. The ATF nominee was actually against the Second Amendment. He got withdrawn. The BLM Director was an ecoterrorist. She got voted in. Now she is in charge of 60 percent of my State--remarkable. I think a lot of Senators are going to regret that vote. And now we have a nominee to be the Comptroller of the Currency: Saule Omarova. She is charged with chartering, regulating, and supervising all national banks--a really important position, for a capitalist economy, in particular. There is a problem, though, Mr. President. It doesn't seem like she much likes banks or, for that matter, the free market or, for that matter, capitalism or the financial system in America. So Senators have been coming down to the floor and in committee, asking questions, doing our due diligence on this nominee. I want to commend Senator Toomey, in particular, who has been doing that, and I have been joining him. So I am going to talk a little bit more about her background and her ideas, which, by the way, have nothing to do with her race or her sex-- nothing. I just want to know what her ideas are. So I am going to talk a little bit about that. A 1989 graduate of Moscow State University, where she received the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship--that is the Vladimir Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship. And from what we know about her writings, yes, she was raised in a communist country. That is nothing against her. But sometimes you get notions of capitalism, socialism, communism, Marxism. And her writings are something that are of interest to the committee--certainly to me, certainly to Senator Toomey--about what she believes in terms of the financial system, socialism, communism. Here is what she tweeted in 2019, just 2 years ago: Until I came to the U.S., I couldn't imagine things like the gender pay gap still existed in today's world. Say what you want about the old USSR, but there was no pay gap there. Markets don't always work best. That is a tweet 2 years ago. Say what you want about the old USSR, about Stalin and Lenin and the roughly 100 million people killed during their reign. Say what you want about the old USSR, the famine, the human degradation, the ill-fated, violent attempts to snuff out freedom and liberty, there and all across the world. She clarified: I never claimed men and women were treated absolutely equal in every facet of the old Soviet Union. But people's salaries were set by the state in a gender-blind manner. Those things are still a pipe dream in American society. I mean, listen to her. This is just 2 years ago, still talking about the golden days of the USSR. There was gender equity, all right. Both sexes starved equally, and if you complained, you were sent to Siberia, regardless of if you were a man or a woman. But her nostalgia for socialist, communist policies doesn't end with pay disparities. She has advocated for expanding the Federal Reserve's mandate to include the Federal Reserve people's ledger she has written about--a people's ledger. By separating the lending function from the monetary function, the proposed reform that she has talked about will effectively ``end banking as we know it.'' This was written in 2014, as a professor. These are radical, radical ideas. These are ideas, and this person is supposed to be charged with being in charge of the financial system of America--capitalism. Some of us still believe in capitalism here. Some don't. But it is OK to question these ideas. She has put them out there. The ranking member of the banking committee has asked for a copy of her thesis. Now, every member going through confirmation in the Senate is supposed to give up any writings that she had. This used to be on her CV until a couple of years ago. Then she deleted it. It is called ``Karl Marx's Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital.'' So Senator Toomey has asked for that. She is required to give it. And, as of now--this is a letter I would like to have printed in the Record. This is October 5. Senator Toomey asked for this. She still hasn't responded and provided it. She is required to.

Mr. SULLIVAN. But again, Mr. President, these are ideas. These are her ideas. It is very fair for U.S. Senators to ask for these things, to evaluate these things. Do we want someone who doesn't believe in the financial system and capitalism in charge of American banks? I don't. So I would like to learn more. And so we have been pressing. That is our job. That is our job. So she hasn't responded to Senator Toomey. As I mentioned, in a reference to a 2014 book entitled ``The End of Banking,'' she wrote: ``By separating their lending function from their monetary function, the proposed reform''--for the Fed--``will effectively `end banking' as we know it.'' That is a really interesting, radical idea. That is 2014. These are her ideas. These are her ideas. And if there is any doubt about her continued interest in Marxist ideology, it was recently reported that she joined a Facebook group called ``Marxist Analysis and Policy,'' which, according to the group, ``stand[s] for the self-emancipation of the working class and Socialism.'' Recent--this is recent. This wasn't when she was at old Moscow State University--recent. She has not said that story was wrong about her Facebook group. So we can only assume it is true. Did she join that group to espouse democracy and the free market? Here are the group's rules: ``Support for the Tory party is not acceptable. A culture of diverse Marxist, Socialist and radical views is the framework for the group.'' Again, these are ideas--radical ideas, socialist ideas--that are coming from the woman who has been nominated by the President of the United States to be in charge of all the banks, the Comptroller of the Currency, a really important job. So we have been asking about this. We have been asking about this. We want to see her writings. This is completely legitimate that the American people want the Senate to be doing this--advice and consent. What do you really think? Do you believe in capitalism? Do you believe in banks? You want to end banking as we know it? Well, how is that going to work if you are Comptroller of the Currency? So we are asking for these things, asking for her thesis. Then, Mr. President, sadly, because I think Americans are finally getting tired of this, she was asked about this Republican criticism. It is legitimate criticism. And the quote was, well, ``I am an easy target''--this is quoting from her now--``an immigrant, a woman, a minority.'' And asked if she thought if some of the criticism of her that I am just describing--I am one of the critics--was criticism based on her critics being ``racist,'' she said, ``I think that is true.'' So here is my point, Mr. President. I think the American people are getting a little tired of this. I think the American people are getting a little tired of this. I and other Senators have been asking very legitimate questions about this woman's beliefs, about what is in her head, about how would she be the Comptroller of the Currency. And the response is, from her: My critics are ``racist.'' Let me be a little more blunt. This is patently absurd. The U.S. Senators are allowed to ask questions--sometimes pointed questions--of nominees. The Presiding Officer certainly has done that in his career, and I respect that. But every time someone asks a pointed question, if you come back and say, ``Well, they are doing it for these nefarious reasons, like racism,'' it really doesn't advance the discussion now, does it, especially here on the floor of the U.S. Senate? I really hope my colleagues here, whether you are a Democrat or Republican, can maybe tell the nominee: Hey, don't do that again. Right? Don't do that again. These Senators are asking--I think I am asking--very legitimate questions; like, No. 1: Do you believe in capitalism? Do you believe in the financial system of America? You are going to be put in charge of it. I think it is quite legit to ask her that. Her writing indicates she doesn't. This nominee has some very troubling views. We are allowed--in fact, we are required--to fully vet nominees. And calling Senators racist or sexist for doing so--this vetting--is actually a disgraceful tactic that they might have used in the Soviet Union, that they might have used at Moscow State University, in other eras, to silence voices, but it is not going to work here on the Senate floor. So the nominee needs to drop that tactic. You are not going silence me. You are not going to silence Senator Toomey. And I would just say this more generally--and we all know it, and we all feel it: Americans--men, women, Black, White, Brown, Native, non-Native--people are starting to get tired of this tactic that, when you criticize someone on their beliefs, they try to silence you or cancel you or end the discussion by bringing out ``you are the racist'' criticism. Let's not do that here. This nominee needs to come forward, needs to answer questions, needs to provide us with her thesis, which is about her beliefs on socialism and capitalism, and we are going to continue to do our business in the vetting. But I can tell you, I am one Senator who is not going to be silenced by a woman who is being criticized--the nominee; it doesn't matter if it is a woman or man--who is being criticized for very legitimate reasons and then turns around and tries to slander her critics. It is not going to work. As a matter of fact, I think it is going to make it much harder for this nominee to be confirmed. I hope my colleagues look hard at her record, and I hope those who are advising her tell her to tone it down. Those tactics might work in the Soviet Union, which she seems to have a lot of affection for still, but they are not going to work in the United States of America, and they are really not going to work in the Halls of the U.S. Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is Thursday afternoon, and it is one of my favorite times in the Senate because it is the time I have the opportunity to come down on the Senate floor to talk about an Alaskan who is making a difference in their community or the State or maybe the country, you know, sometimes maybe the world. And I think we have one today. This is an individual we call our Alaskan of the Week. I really enjoy doing this. It is just really a good opportunity to recognize people who often don't get a lot of recognition. You know, Alaska is known throughout the world for many things: our physical beauty, the size of our State, giant mountains, great fishing, great place to take a vacation. By the way, if you are watching at home, come on up to Alaska. We would love to have you--summer, winter, it doesn't matter. All of these things, of course, about the State are true, but there are so many other great things about our State. The No. 1 thing is our people: strong, resilient, kind, tough American citizens--great people. Nowhere is this spirit of the people of Alaska and their patriotism more apparent than in our veterans across the State. In Alaska, we have the highest number of veterans per capita of any State in America, veterans and their families everywhere. Everyday heroes, I like to call them. It is amazing. In every city, village, community--it doesn't matter how big, how small--you will find proud American veterans, many of them working tirelessly together to make sure they help other veterans get the support that they have earned, the care that they have earned, and to support their families. Today, as our Veterans Day approaches, I want to highlight one of these heroes, one of these Alaska veterans whose service is so inspiring that for those who are watching, I think you are going to have a hard time actually believing it is true. This person, our Alaskan of the Week, is 94-year-old Jim Schmidt--husband, grandfather, great-grandfather, combat veteran, Alaskan, American hero. Let me tell you about this incredible, remarkable story, for which somebody should buy the movie rights right now. While you are watching, you better go buy the movie rights of Mr. Schmidt. Jim was 14 years old in 1942. Of course, the United States had already entered and was fighting in World War II. It wasn't going well in 1942, by the way. He was living with his parents in the San Francisco Bay area. Jim slipped out one day to see a movie. It was called the ``Parachute Battalion.'' That was the name of the movie, starring the beautiful Nancy Kelly. It was then, watching this movie, right then and there, he said: I am going to enlist. I am going to enlist in the Airborne. Now, he was a big guy, a big young man--actually, he was a young kid--200 pounds, 6 feet tall. A big kid, as I mentioned, but just think, he was 14 years old. He went to the recruiter and said he was 18. He looked it. The Army didn't ask for IDs back then, so off he went, assigned to the 504th Infantry Regiment of the world-famous 82nd Airborne at the tender age of 14. His father was also in the Army, stationed at Fort Campbell, KY. And when there was a little confusion about where Jim was, when he didn't come home for days and weeks, his mother assumed he had gone to stay with his dad. His dad assumed he was still with his mother. Wires got crossed, and later his mom got a letter from Corporal Schmidt, CPL Jim Schmidt, who was now 15. He wrote: From somewhere in North Africa. Actually, it was near Tunis, which had just fallen to the British and General Patton, the American general, in the battle against the Germans in North Africa. He wrote his mom: How are you [mom] and the girls? He was referring to his sisters. He talked about the hot weather. He sent her $30. Fast forward a few months later. It is now July 9, 1943. Jim is jumping out of an airplane onto the island of Sicily, a combat jump. In Sicily, it was the largest airborne offensive in U.S. history--a military airborne operation providing support for what was called Operation Husky, more than 170,000 Allied troops that would descend onto the island, drive the Axis powers--mostly the Germans--from the island and open up the Mediterranean front of the European theater. Combat operations, airborne operations, and Jim is 15. Now, mistakes were made in this very big operation. Communications were sporadic. Friendly fire happened, no doubt killing American servicemembers--ferocious combat. Some of these brave paratroopers--many were killed, many missed the landing spot--were scattered all over the island. When Corporal Schmidt, 15 years old, landed, he came under attack by the Germans. He lost one of his best friends and mentors, fighting together in a foxhole, hand-to-hand fighting. He engaged in combat, killing the enemy. He remembers one young German, a messenger about his age. He actually found the boy's wallet because he wanted to get in touch with his family after the war to tell them how brave the young German soldier was--tough stuff. During the battle, he was wounded, but he continued to fight. But because he was wounded, a telegraph was sent home by the Army to his mom. And at that point, he and his battalion, which was part of the 504th Infantry Regiment, Airborne Regiment in Salerno, Italy, were fighting to hold off a major German counterattack. You can imagine Jim's mother was beside herself. Her 15-year-old son was wounded in combat in Italy. So guess what she did. You can tell what kind of stock Jim comes from. His mom wrote the President of the United States directly, President Roosevelt. She said to the President she was glad to have her husband serve in the Army, but it was a bit much that her 15-year-old son was fighting in Europe and ``lying wounded and unattended in a Sicily field.'' That is Jim's mom to President Roosevelt. Remarkably, she received a response. The letter has since been lost, but those who saw it said that President Roosevelt himself wrote Jim's mom and said: I am sorry the military didn't know that Jim was only 15--14 when he joined--and that he would make sure he was located as soon as possible and sent back to the United States. Sounds a little bit like ``Saving Private Ryan,'' the movie. So that happened. Shortly before he turned 16, Corporal Schmidt was put on a ship, pretty much at the direction of the President of the United States, and sent back to the United States. Jim later recalled that when his mom saw him, of course, she was happy, but she ``chewed me out. What would any other mother say to their son'' for enlisting at the age of 14 and not telling the mom? A local newspaper heard about Jim and wrote a story. Here is what it said: Fifteen year old [then] Pfc James O. Schmidt . . . left his desk in the Eighth Grade at Ross Grammar School . . . to enter the Army, [he] has retired from active duty [at the age of 15] after seeing action with the [Airborne unit and] Paratroopers in [North] Africa and being wounded in the Battle of Sicily. He was 15. The newspaper wrote about how Jim had received an invitation to his own grammar school graduation when he was in Sicily. He wrote back to his grammar school and said: It will be impossible [for me to attend eighth grade graduation] as I am rather busy with the job of hunting Germans and Italians. This alone makes a great story. Grade school graduation was missed because he was fighting in Europe and North Africa and Italy. But there is more to this story. Shortly after being home, you guessed it, Jim walked into a Navy recruiting office. Again, nobody in the Navy asked how old he was. The recruiter said: Congratulations. You're now in the U.S. Navy. So off to boot camp he went at the age of 16, already a veteran, a serious combat veteran--16 years old, unstoppable, American patriot, wanting to fight for his country in World War II. Six months later, Jim is on a Navy destroyer deployed. But his age finally caught up with him. The Navy found out, figured out he was 16, and sent him back home. Here is an Airborne combat veteran of World War II, he is 16, and he has already been kicked out of the Army and the Navy because he is too young. Obviously, this young man was hell-bent on serving his country so he found another organization where age didn't matter. He joined the Merchant Marines, where he remained for the remainder of World War II, serving on an ammo resupply ship in the Atlantic, participating in the war until the war was won and wound down. So the war is over. He is a little older. What do you think he does? Eight months after he turned 18, he reenlisted in the U.S. Army. Now, the Army was gracious and recognized: Hey, we got a combat vet. Yeah, he was only 14. So they brought him in as a sergeant, a D5. And guess what. By luck, he was assigned to occupation duty in Germany with the 508th Infantry Airborne Regiment that he had fought with in North Africa and Sicily. So he did that duty; then he went to Japan for occupation duty. And then what happened in 1950? The Korean war breaks out. So he is sent to Korea. As if his service in World War II wasn't enough, this remarkable story of James Schmidt continues. He went alongside the U.S. Marines to fight in one of the most brutal, ferocious battles of the 20th century--the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. It was 30 below zero, 120 communists, People's Liberation Chinese soldiers, surrounding 20,000 marines and the Army, soldiers and marines. It was incredible, horrible odds. And yet the Marines and the Army persevered, despite brutal combat situations, relentless Chinese communist troops attacking, attacking, attacking. He was wounded, broke his shoulder again, led his men in many counterattacks, and got the rest of his men out of the Chosin Reservoir. So, Mr. President, you are seeing that this is remarkable, but we are not done. He survived Chosin Reservoir. He survived the rest of the Korean war. He survived World War II. Fast-forward another decade, another American conflict in Southeast Asia, and now Jim Schmidt is a master sergeant, Special Forces, in Laos, charged with raising local forces to fight the communist Lao guerillas. Now he has been in combat in three wars, presented his third award, a Combat Infantry Badge, for his actions in Laos. And, then, it was on to Vietnam, where Jim was the sergeant major in charge of the 7th Special Forces A-Teams and then the 5th Special Forces Group, one of the most famous units of all of the Vietnam war--5th Special Forces, an airborne unit--until he returned to Fort Bragg in 1965. So here is what he has done so far for his country: two Silver Stars for heroism, three Bronze Stars for heroism, two Purple Hearts. He wanted back in the action, but the Army said: Nope. You are going to go into recruiting. According to one of his daughters, he was never much of a handshaker and did not like the idea of riding a desk. So, despite the heroism, despite the service, he opted to retire from the military, and then he joined Air America, which was doing covert operations in Vietnam, until 1967, when he finally decided to settle down with his wife Peggy and focus on another critically important task for our country: raising three strong, wonderful, beautiful daughters. Mr. President, that is something I can certainly relate to. Now, I want to say that this is an amazing story. Unfortunately, Jim was not always treated like the hero he was. During his Vietnam service, his father died--the World War II veteran I mentioned earlier--and so he rushed home through the San Francisco airport to attend his father's funeral. And, unfortunately, he was in uniform and, unfortunately, was jeered and booed by many in the airport. Can you imagine that, America? Think about that. What a shameful period for our Nation that so many failed to honor obvious American heroes like Jim. But, fortunately, that didn't last long for our country. But we should never forget that. But I am digressing because he wasn't just an American hero in uniform but, according to his daughters, a great father. He was engaged in their activities--his three daughters--taught them to be determined, independent, hard-working young women where the sky was the limit. He didn't let them sleep in. That was the military dad, I am sure. He and his wife Peggy, a registered nurse, came to Alaska in 1993 to be close to one of their daughters, who is now a renowned chef-- actually, one of the best chefs in all of Alaska, and a lodge owner in Alaska, Kirsten Dixon. His other daughter Katherine is now a successful real estate broker, and his other daughter Jami lives in the DC area, who is also working in the intelligence field, kind of like her old man did. What a great legacy for Jim and Peggy and the whole family. So Jim loves Alaska, the freedom in Alaska, the frontier spirit, the fact that he is in a State with more veterans per capita than any State. And he is certainly one of the great ones that we have in our State. At 94 years old, he is surrounded by his children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren. According to his family, like most heroes in our country, he doesn't talk much about the war--still really doesn't-- and his full story was only fully revealed when one of his grandchildren, Henry, began to get interested and did a podcast about his grandfather and shared it on social media--his amazing grandfather. Since then, the letters have flooded in, people wanting to know about this incredible American hero who missed his grade school graduation because he was doing airborne operations in Sicily. Just the other night he was on a Zoom with a 15-year-old because he always has time for veterans, and he gives advice to young people who are interested in serving in the military and hearing his story and getting advice. Jim says that he doesn't believe the military is for everybody, but if you have the calling, then you should follow the calling, even if you are young--but, I would caution, not 14. But Jim should know. Mr. President, this is a remarkable American story, one for the history books, and it is one of the reasons, many reasons, that so many people in my State have served and sacrificed for their country-- everyday heroes we call them--in Alaska. There are heroes all around us, and certainly Jim is one of the most important, one of the most prominent, one of the most humble. We are proud to have him in our State. We thank him and his wife Peggy and his wonderful three daughters and their whole family for sharing Jim with us, and we want to thank Jim for his incredible tenacity, patriotism, remarkable service, and example. And, Jim, we want to thank you once again for being our Alaskan of the Week. Happy Veterans Day to you and all the veterans back home in Alaska. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, a number of us are down on the Senate floor here talking about the disastrous Biden administration policies that from day one--day one--have sought to increase energy prices and put American workers out of work. How have they been doing that? Well, they are shutting down the production of American energy. All over the country, they are going after infrastructure, particularly pipelines, not allowing those to be built. They have energy or climate czars not confirmed by the Senate--John Kerry, Gina McCarthy--who are going to financial intuitions in America saying: Don't invest in American energy. And then we are hearing reports that John Kerry is going to countries in Asia, saying: Don't buy American LNG. You can't make this stuff up. Two days ago in the Washington Post, another story. John Kerry was saying to President Biden: Hey, we have to be softer on China so we can get them to maybe commit a promise that they will never keep in Scotland. You can't make this up. Let's be soft. The Chinese are mad about us raising issues about Hong Kong and Taiwan. John Kerry is saying maybe we should tone that down to get the Communist Party of China to agree to some empty promises on climate. You can't make this up. So what we are seeing is spiking energy prices at the pump for working families. Here is the question everybody should be asking--I hope our friends in the media ask it, certainly--of the Biden administration: Is this intentional? Are you really trying to drive up energy prices that is hurting working families? My view is, I think the answer is yes. The President had a townhall last week. He seemed to not have a clue about a bunch of issues, but particularly on energy prices. And just yesterday, there was an article about how Gina McCarthy was quoted as saying there will be opportunities with these high energy prices: Soaring commodity prices stemming from a surge in energy demand and limited supply, should accelerate the move to renewables around the world. This is a senior Biden administration official saying: Hey, we are actually trying to drive these prices up. Sorry, working families in America. Winter is coming. You are really going to be hurting. Maybe the world will move to renewables. You can't make this up. To me, this is one of the biggest betrayals of working families and working men and women in U.S. history: an administration coming in on purpose to drive up energy prices--Gina McCarthy says so--knowing it is going to hurt working families. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if President Biden will be calling on our citizens to wear a Jimmy Carter-style cardigan soon. What they are doing is building back better to the seventies: high inflation; gas lines; high energy prices; empty shelves; lack of workers; energy-producing adversaries, like Russia, empowered; begging OPEC to produce more oil. That is literally what is going on. Madam President, we have a much better plan. In the next few weeks, some of my colleagues--Senator Cramer, Senator Lummis, and a number of others--we are going to be putting forward a plan on what is working. We need to build on what is working in America. Let me give you a couple of statistics that matter. Since 2005, the United States has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by almost 15 percent, more than any other major economy in the world. That is a fact. You don't hear it from President Biden. Heck, the Secretary of Energy thinks we are the sinner. They don't recognize China as producing almost three times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions than we are. Estimates are that 100 percent of the increase in global greenhouse gas emissions are going to come from nonindustrialized countries--China, India, others--yet they are putting all the pain on Americans. If we export and continue to export clean-burning American natural gas as we currently do to India, to China, to Korea, to Japan, that could have a huge impact on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. So what we are going to be doing is we are going to be working with others--we certainly want some of our Democratic colleagues to join this commonsense approach. The American Energy, Jobs, and Climate Plan is focused on all-of-the- above energy using technology--yes, building out the renewable sector in conjunction with our other energy that we currently have; empowering American workers; not giving him and her pink slips, which is the Biden way; enacting reform; knowing that we need other resources, like critical minerals that we have in abundance in Alaska and America, for the renewable sector; permanent reform so we can bring all energy projects online--oil, gas, renewable, nuclear, all of the above. That is the power; and, of course, using our resources to leverage our foreign policy advantage over our allies. As we start rolling out our plan, we need to compare it with the Biden Green New Deal. We need to compare it with the Biden Green New Deal. Just look at the comparison, what we are going to be doing over here in the blue with our plan and what the President and his team--no offense to some of my colleagues, led by a number of them--on the Green New Deal. We will create millions of jobs. They are putting people out of work as we speak. We have the ability to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. They are going to China to get empty promises from dictators--not going to work, no matter how much John Kerry kowtows to the Communists. We are going to restore energy dominance. They want to crush it. We want to invest in manufacturing and other elements that will produce millions of jobs for working-class Americans. Right now, they want to rely on China to source everything we have in America. And, of course, we want reasonable energy prices. And, as I already mentioned, Gina McCarthy and others are trying to drive up American energy costs on Americans' backs so they can go to Europe, drink a glass of wine, and tell them how well they are doing in terms of crushing our energy sector. The American people don't want that. Our plan is what is supported by the American people, not these crazy Green New Deal policies that are hurting men and women, particularly working families and energy sector workers, more than any other policy of any administration in the history of the country. I am glad a number of my colleagues are down here to continue this discussion. I look forward to participating with them.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to address a topic this afternoon here in the U.S. Senate that I believe not enough people are talking about. It is something that I certainly heard a lot about when I was back home in Alaska, and I think it is something that millions of Americans are talking about. But nobody here on the Senate floor is talking about, but we should be because this goes to constitutional authority, and it goes to what I believe means to be an American--freedom, liberty, and it is this: the Executive order that the President--President Biden issued mandating vaccinations for both Federal contractors and private employers. In essence, what he has said in this Executive order--we are still waiting on the rule--is that employers need to have people who are vaccinated--all their employees by a certain date or they are going to be fired. That is the President of the United States saying he has that power to force employers to make their employees decide between a vaccination or putting food on the table for their families. Vaccination or you are fired. We are not talking about that, and this is unprecedented-- unprecedented. Never before has a President claimed the authority to actually do this. The military is a different exception. Private employers who have some connection to the Federal Government or otherwise, tell your employees: Get vaccinated or you are fired. And the President of the United States is claiming the constitutional authority to do that. I don't even think it is a close call. I don't even think it is a close call. Never been done before, and I don't even think it is a close call whether the President has the constitutional authority to do this. Think about, if he did, what this could mean for power in other realms that the executive branch or President would have. Now, I will stipulate right here, I am vaccinated. I have encouraged others to get a vaccine in consultation with their doctors. We all want to put this pandemic behind us, no doubt about it. The vaccinations help with that. But that doesn't mean there should be an excuse to look the other way when the President is acting in an unconstitutional manner. And there are many reasons, certainly with regard to my constituents, that people might be hesitating with regard to a vaccine. Some of them have health conditions that preclude them from taking a vaccine. Some of them may have serious religious objections to the vaccine. Some of them have histories of abuse and don't trust the Federal Government or the medical establishment. Some of them have dug in their heels and believe the government simply doesn't have the right to tell them what substance to put in their bodies. The President of the United States is taking this unprecedented--and it is unprecedented--action: Get a vaccine or the Federal Government will mandate you get fired. It is not just in my view unconstitutional, but it shows contempt for hard-working Americans; contempt that I see percolating again and again among some in the far left. Think about it. You don't say what you think we should say, you are fired. You work for an industry that used to power America but now is out of favor with some on the left--oil, gas, coal, especially in Alaska, as the Presiding Officer knows--we will shut down your business and we will make sure your employees are fired. You speak your mind about an issue, you are fired. You don't take a vaccine, you are fired. Oh, by the way, I think the Federal deadline on the vaccination put out by the President is December 8. So you are going to be fired right before the holidays. Now, as you know, this is a 180-degree turn--180 about-face--with regard to what this body did last year. What do I mean? So we worked in a bipartisan way during 2020, when the pandemic hit, particularly the CARES Act. I think every U.S. Senator voted for that. But the other relief that we worked hard on, Democrats and Republicans--when the historians look back at 2020, there are going to be a lot of things, but I think one good thing is they are going to say the Congress of the United States came together, no playbook--we certainly had never seen this before--came together to help the American people; Democrats, Republicans, the President--that was President Trump--on relief. And here is the thing. This is why I mean it is a 180-degree turn. One of the core principles of all the relief packages that we passed last year--the aviation relief packages that helped our airlines, the PPP--throughout all the relief bills that passed this body in a bipartisan way, one critical component was we need to make sure employers and employees stay connected. Almost all the relief said: All right. Airline industry, we can't let you go under. You have got to stay safe in terms of the ability to fly for the American people. You are going to get billions and billions and billions in relief, but you can't fire your employees. You have to keep them connected. The PPP, the estimates are tens of millions of Americans kept their jobs because of that program. You got relief, small business in America, but you can't fire your employees. That was the agreement. That is what we worked on. That was the core principle that helped us get through the pandemic economically. Joe Biden is taking a sledge hammer to that connection. It is actually the exact opposite. We are still challenged by the pandemic. Our economy is still challenged. But what is he doing? If you don't listen to Joe Biden, private employers in America, you have to fire your employees. That is exactly the opposite of how this body worked across the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, and the previous President. The approach was this: We are going to help you, but you have to keep your employees. That is the right approach. That is the right approach, and yet no one is talking about this new approach from the new President: Do what I say, even though I don't have the constitutional authority. You have to get a mandate, even though I don't have the constitutional authority. And if you don't, I am going to make sure private employers fire their employees--oh, right before Christmas. Doesn't anyone have a problem with this? Well, I have a problem with this. And, again, I think people should get vaccinated. I just don't think the President of the United States has the constitutional authority to tell Americans: Do it or you are going to get fired. So here is what I hope. I have been reaching out to some of our business leaders to make a respectful request, and it is this: You don't want to fire your employees. Heck, this country doesn't have enough people who are working right now. You have the Biden economy, which is long lines, superhigh energy prices, people who aren't working, and empty shelves. We need more workers. We certainly don't need the President of the United States telling employers: Fire your people prior to Christmas, but that is what he is doing. So here is what I think, respectfully, our business leaders should be doing. They should be looking and remembering what we did last year. For example, if you are an airline executive, we all worked really hard to make sure we continued to have air service for America and it was safe and that you kept your employees. So what our business leaders should be doing is saying respectfully: Mr. President, it is highly unlikely you have this authority, and I don't want to fire my employees. The best business leaders I know are very loyal to their employees. So hold off. Don't fire them because Joe Biden says you have to. In the litigation that is going to play out in this country, he almost certainly is going to lose--almost certainly. I don't think there is a court in America that says that the President of the United States, without Congress's permission or passing a law--that the President of the United States on his own--has the power to go to private sector employees and say: Your employees have to get vaccinated or you, Mr. Employer, have to fire them. I think the President is going to lose that case in every court in America. So if you are a business leader, here is my respectful request: Hold off. Wait for the litigation to play out, and don't fire your employees because the President has told you to because they haven't gotten vaccinated before Christmas. You know, we are already starting to see this. Some business leaders are taking a different approach, not this ``Do what I said or you are fired.'' They are offering financial incentives, hiring medical advisers to talk to their employees. They are allowing medical and religious exemptions. They are offering testing as an alternative to forcing the vaccine on their workers. And I read about one today. I have had discussions with others who are saying: Look, it is not our intention to fire employees right before Christmas. These are the leaders who are saying they value and trust their employees, like what we did last year. Here is significant relief, businesses in America, but don't fire your employees. As a matter of fact, you can't if you accept this aid--which they didn't. So these are the leaders who value their employees. And, at the end of the day, this is the approach that is going to work. It is going to work better for all of us--for these businesses, their workers, their communities, and our country. I wish the President would take note of this, but right now he seems hell-bent on doing a 180 from what we did last year, and that was encouraging businesses to work through the pandemic while keeping their employees, not ordering in an unconstitutional manner the firing of employees because Joe Biden said so. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, there is a lot going in the Senate, as we have been debating and voting on a number of things--important matters, no doubt--for the country. But that doesn't mean that we are going to forget other important matters that we regularly take up here in the Senate. And what I am talking about, of course, is the Alaskan of the Week. Now, our pages are back, which is such great news. But you need to know this is one of the most exciting times in the Senate. Usually every Thursday I get an opportunity to come down here on the Senate floor and talk about somebody in Alaska who is making a difference. In fact, we talked about a Gold Medal Olympic athlete just a couple of weeks ago, making a huge difference for Alaska, her community, the world, America. So we really enjoy this. We kind of have a cult following. But the pages really enjoy it because it is stories and adventure, all for the people who are doing wonderful things in my State. This week, on the actual day of her retirement from a long and rewarding career with the Alaska State Troopers, our Alaskan of the Week is Anne Sears. So before I talk about Anne and her extraordinary service to Alaska, about her being the first and only Alaskan Native female trooper, let me tell you a little bit about what is going on back home. In Wasilla, AK, where Anne recently moved--she was actually born in Nome; we will talk about that--the temperature has been in the midforties, twenties at night. The sun rose today at 8 a.m., sets at 7:30 p.m. You know, it moves fast in Alaska. We have already had several pretty good size snowstorms. So winter is coming. Winter is coming--definitely coming to Alaska right now. But let's get back to Anne. After decades of hard work as an Alaska State Trooper, it is time for Anne to settle into a new home, to rest, get some sleep, and think about her next steps--all of which she is planning on doing starting tomorrow because, today, she is retiring. So Anne Sears--well, let's start with her mother Gladyce, who is from Nome. Gladyce actually left Nome for a little bit of time, moved to the lower 48. And among other things, Gladyce, Anne's mom, worked here in DC. She worked for Alaska Congressman Ralph Rivers. Most people don't think we ever had any other Congressman but Don Young because he has been there forever, but this was Congressman Ralph Rivers. And Gladyce, Anne's mom, met her husband Cary, Anne's father, who was an electrician in the Navy. But Cary and Gladyce decided to move back to Nome because they wanted to make sure Anne was going to be born in Nome, which she was. So Gladyce, obviously, is a woman of ambition, and so was her daughter Anne. She passed that down to Anne. So after Anne was born and Cary, her father, left the Navy, he got a job as an electrician with the Federal Aviation Administration in Alaska, which took him and his family all around the State: Bethel, Kotzebue, Unalakleet--so many great villages in our rural part of Alaska. Now, eventually, they settled in Juneau. And after high school, Anne got a job as a clerk for the Juneau Police Department. All through her younger years, she knew she wanted to do something to help people. But it wasn't until the tender age of 31 that her calling came. As the clerk at the Juneau Police Department, she decided: Hey, I can do this. So she took the test required to become a police officer. Of course, a woman of this intelligence passed with flying colors, and she was offered the job. On the first day of on-the-job-training, Anne was in a police car, speeding to a site where a woman was hurt. She got there. She helped that woman. And her desire, motivation, to be a police officer was cemented. She was hooked. She met her future husband Jay at the police academy, and eventually, they became Alaska State Troopers as a couple--both of them working in rural Alaska together, where they had worked for over 15 years. It didn't take Anne long to realize she was actually really good at her job. That is not being arrogant. She just knew. ``I could talk to people,'' she said. ``Not being big and being a woman, you've got to use your words [in this job].'' Anyone who has watched the reality show ``Alaska State Troopers''-- now, there are a lot of Alaska reality shows, but anyone at home watching right now, if you have seen ``Alaska State Troopers,'' you will have seen Anne featured prominently in that series, and you will understand what she means when she talks about using her words. She is articulate. She is tough. She is firm. She is very clear, but she is also calming, which is what you need from a good officer. She is able to bring calm and ease to the most volatile situations and situations that can be extraordinarily challenging for our law enforcement officers. Now, as some might have heard me talk about here on the floor, the hundreds of small, rural villages in the hub communities of rural Alaska are literally the spiritual and cultural soul of my State. Like many areas across America, both urban and rural, rural Alaska also has many challenges. And one of them is that there is not enough public safety officers present in rural Alaska. We have dozens of communities with nothing--no sheriff, no police officer, no trooper, no VPSO--nothing. It is a big issue. It is something I am certainly passionate about that we are all working on, more law enforcement presence in our rural communities. So being a law enforcement officer in rural Alaska, particularly in the hundreds of villages that don't have roads to get in and out of, can pose unique challenges. Anne has seen those challenges throughout her career. What are some of those? Well, first, you have to get to the village, especially if it doesn't even have an officer in the village when this is a crime or a challenge. That often requires flying in a single-engine plane to a remote place in a giant State, in tough weather. Then when you get there, you have to figure out where you need to go. Sometimes, there is no facilities, no jail, no holding cell, no place to take people--maybe one city office, at the most. And then you have to figure out how to get into those offices, which can be particularly challenging, particularly in the winter. When it is cold and dark, it might be 50 below zero with the wind howling. So these are many, many of the challenges that Anne has dealt with. As she says: This is not ``NCIS'' or ``Law and Order.'' In rural Alaska, we have to do it all. Indeed, as a trooper, she has played many roles: a protector, an enforcer, a trooper, a friend, a confidant, a social worker. And she loved it all, and she was really good at it. Here is what she said: It was the best job I could have ever had and the hardest job I could have ever had. But I couldn't have done it without my husband, Jay, my sons, Hunter and Zachery, and my brother, Perry. Anne also credits the health aides and public safety officers, VPSOs, VPOs in these villages who have really, really important roles. One of the most difficult aspects of her job was handling cases of domestic violence and sexual assault. Now, I love my State. We are a great State. I come down on the floor once a week and brag about it with our Alaskan of the Week. But this is something we don't like to brag about in Alaska: the horrific problems we have with domestic violence, sexual assault, and the challenges that brings particularly with young people, too many people. But she has been very focused on these issues. Anne teamed up with local health providers to go into high schools, to give presentations about these horrible crimes, and talk about why it is wrong--this kind of abuse--and to try to change the culture of our State, which we need to keep focused on. She had groups and gatherings for parents too. She said mostly mothers would come and, heartbreakingly, almost inevitably tell stories of some of the victims and survivors of abuse that we have in our State. But she was undeterred. She said: If I could just touch one child on these kinds of crimes, to help them, I know I made a difference. Anne has made a difference--I would say a huge difference--for Alaska. Here is what fellow Trooper Bryan Barlow said about Anne's service: ``Her legacy as a caring, compassionate, and dedicated trooper and investigator has without a doubt made our State''--the great State of Alaska--``a much safer place.'' James Cockrell, the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Public Safety, said that Anne's dedication to rural Alaska was an extraordinary asset to the department's mission to keep Alaskans safe. As I have said, Anne was the first female Alaskan Native trooper, but I guarantee you, she will not be the last. She has proved a role model for so many, a true trailblazer, an example that we need in Alaska and so many people look up to. Now, she hasn't decided what the future holds, but she is still young and still has the urge to help out. I have no doubt she is going to make a big impact in other places, helping Alaskans. For now, though-- you can tell this is a tough job--I think she needs a little rest and some sleep. So, thank you, Anne, for all you have done. Congratulations on your retirement today. From the Alaska State Troopers: Thank you for being an inspiration, an example to so many in our great State. And, of course, congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, you see some of my colleagues are down here. We are a little bit fired up. Right? And this is not some kind of partisan game. We are fired up for a reason--that the U.S. Senate is getting ready to confirm a nominee who has no business being even considered on the Senate floor. No business being considered on the Senate floor. And with all due respect to my colleague from Montana, this isn't-- what did he say--attacks against somebody. These are facts that we are going to talk about. These are facts--someone who is still continuing to not even tell the truth about her past as a violent ecoterrorist. Now, look, we know this administration has put forth far-left individuals. I am going to talk about a few. But to put forward a far- left, violent nominee--I think we all should recognize--is kind of a bridge too far for the U.S. Senate. But that is happening right now, and I am really hopeful that at least some of my Democratic colleagues, at the last minute, will go: Maybe we shouldn't do this. Maybe we shouldn't set this standard. So I have been on the floor a number of times talking about Tracy Stone-Manning's nomination. It is actually the first time in my Senate career that I asked the President to withdraw a nominee, and for good reasons--because of all the things you have heard from my colleagues from Wyoming, Idaho; colleagues from mostly Western States. And I am going to ask my Democratic colleagues from Western States: Do you really want to set this precedent? How are you going to go home and tell people who harvest timber legally for a living that you were good to go with this; good to go with someone who put hundreds of these kinds of tree spikes in trees for people--our fellow Americans--to get hurt? But that is what we are seeing right here. You know, I think that maybe the Biden administration, after I and many others requested that they withdraw this nominee, that maybe they thought: Well, look. With all the noise going on around here--a reckless $3\1/2\ trillion tax-and-spend extravaganza, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, the crisis on the southern border, inflation going through the roof, the price at the pump hurting working families in my State and those across America, the shutdown of the energy sector unilaterally and then going begging Russia and Iran for more oil that they can import to the United States--I mean, you can't make this stuff up. But I think the Biden administration thought, with all this chaos that they are creating, maybe nobody will notice Tracy Stone-Manning's confirmation process and vote. Well, they are wrong. As you see here, there are some really strong feelings about this nominee--a past ecoterrorist; a member of Earth First!, an extreme group that performed violent acts as part of their platform for getting attention in America. In fact, she is so extreme that the Director of BLM from the Obama- Biden administration, Bob Abbey, made a statement saying that if her violent ecoterrorist past activities were true--and they were. They were. I am going to talk about them. Senator Risch has already talked about them; Senator Barrasso has; Senator Lummis has--if these were true, then President Obama's BLM Director said she does not deserve the job. So this isn't just Republicans. This is the former Democrat Director of the Agency that we are going to vote on that she wants to lead. So before I talk a little bit more about her--and I know we have had a number of Senators do it--I want to make another point. The reason I have been down here so much, focused on this nominee, is that BLM to some states--heck, if you live in Connecticut, probably nobody knows what that is. But the Bureau of Land Management in my State is one of the most powerful Federal Agencies there is in the great State of Alaska. The Alaska BLM manages more surface and subsurface acres in my State than in any other State in the country, by far. The BLM Director in Alaska is our landlord, and I don't want an ecoterrorist as my State's landlord, and neither do my constituents. Let me give you some numbers. The BLM manager in Alaska manages over 70 million surface acres of land and 220 million subsurface acres of land in Alaska. A little context: That is the equivalent land of about one-fifth of the entire lower 48. Do you see why this is really important to me and my constituents? Most States can't even comprehend land that size. One- fifth of the lower 48 of the United States of America is about the amount of land BLM manages just in my State. This is a huge amount of land, and, of course, by definition, a huge amount of power that this Federal Agency has over the people I am privileged to represent--their work, their jobs, their hunting activities, their subsistence activities. And that is why I have been down here talking about this nominee. I know to some in East Coast States--forget it. We don't know who she is. No power. She doesn't have any power over New Jersey or some of these other small States on the East Coast. But in my State, massive power, and it is imperative that the Director of this Agency, the Bureau of Land Management, with so much power and so much control over the future of Alaska and its economic opportunity for working families, that the manager of BLM be trustworthy, be honest, be fairminded, beyond reproach, and certainly not someone who was involved in ecoterrorism earlier in their career. Is that too much to ask, my colleagues in the Senate? What we know about Tracy Stone-Manning is, she is none of these things. She hasn't been trustworthy with the Senate, fairminded. Well, let's go back to a little bit of her background because people need to know this. People need to know this. My colleagues have already done a good job, but I hope the American people are watching this. She was not only a member of Earth First!, a radical far-left group that has engaged repeatedly in what is defined as ecoterrorism, she, herself, was complicit in putting metal spikes--see this--big, thick, metal spikes, by the hundreds, in trees that were meant either to hurt or gravely injure American citizens who were legally harvesting trees. We are OK with that, Senate Democrats? We are OK with that? Americans who were cutting down trees legally as part of their job to help their economy, to help their family, who were putting trees in saw mills legally. All the while, she and her buddies--comrades, I call them-- were acting illegally, putting these spikes, by the hundreds, in trees. This was a common technique--tree spiking is what it is called-- developed by ecoterrorists in the 1980s and early nineties. Now, Ms. Manning's group, Earth First!, began in the 1980s by disaffected environmentalists who thought their movement wasn't radical enough: ``So how can we get more attention? Let's perpetrate violence against fellow Americans.'' That is how they could get more attention. Their slogan was ``No compromise in the defense of Mother Earth.'' In their view, ``no compromise'' meant destroying property, putting steel spikes in trees that could kill someone who harvested a tree. And they celebrated and even encouraged such actions. The group even put out a manual detailing tree spiking and instructions on how to do other sabotage activities: cutting down power lines, flattening tires, burning machinery--all directed at those who were trying to legally harvest trees. David Foreman, the founder of Earth First!, described all these activities as ``fun.'' ``This is where [you] can have fun.'' Let me talk a little bit about ``fun.'' I have an article from the Washington Post during that time. They were talking about a tree- spiking incident, and I am going to quote from it: George Alexander, a third-generation mill worker, was just starting his shift at the Louisiana-Pacific lumber mill in Cloverdale, Calif., when the log that would alter his life rolled down his conveyor belt toward a high-speed saw. Now, we have some of these saws in these mills in Alaska--not nearly as many as we used to have. They are huge. They are giant. They are the size of people. They spin at incredibly fast speeds with huge teeth. They are dangerous to work with normally. But when you put a steel spike in a tree that is going through a fastly spinning saw, you can imagine the explosion and the violence. I will continue the article: It was May 1987, and Alexander was 23 [years old]. His job was to split logs. He was nearly three feet away when the log [he was working on] hit his saw and the [giant] saw exploded. One half of the blade [struck] . . . the log. It exploded when it hit one of these. The other half hit Alexander in the [forehead, with the giant saw] tearing through his safety helmet . . . [tearing through his]face shield. His face was slashed from eye to chin. His teeth were smashed and his jaw was cut in half. Good job, Earth First!--a fellow American, trying to kill a fellow American. These were the kind of activities that Tracy Stone-Manning once conspired in. I wonder if that disturbs anybody? I was up at our fish camp on the Yukon River this summer over the Fourth of July clearing some brush, trees, working a chain saw--a smaller chain saw--and I literally was thinking, ``Boy, I wonder what would happen if my chain saw hit one of these?'' It wouldn't have been good. So I think if you are not disturbed by this, you really should be. So I know that some of my colleagues have already read the letter on the floor that she wrote, a profane, anonymous letter from this member of Earth First!, about the 500 pounds of tree spikes--500 pounds-- hammered into trees in Idaho. She rewrote the letter on a rented typewriter because, she later told a reporter, her fingerprints were all over it. So she didn't want to be caught. So, obviously, she knew she was engaging in criminal activity. She didn't just handwrite it; she typed it and then sent it to the FBI. Now, I know some of my colleagues have already read it. I am just going to notice a couple of highlights: This letter is being sent to notify you that the Post Office Sale in [the great State of] Idaho has been spiked heavily. . . . The project required that eleven of us spend nine days in God awful weather conditions spiking trees. We unloaded a total of 500 pounds of spikes measuring 8 to 10 inches in length. . . . Five hundred pounds of these. That is a lot of spikes. The majority of trees were spiked within the first ten feet, but many, many others were spiked as high as a hundred and fifty feet. Again, why would they go that high? That is not where you are going to cut it down. So when it goes to the mill, you injure and kill the mill workers. She goes on further. Mr. President, I don't know if I am allowed to swear, but you can call me out if I am not supposed to: P.S. You bastards go in there anyway and a lot of people could get hurt. That is real nice. Now, she kept quiet for many years on what she did. She later received immunity for her part in this tree spiking when prosecutors went after other members of Earth First!, and she testified about it. But in her narrative, she has always tried to portray herself as a victim. She wasn't a victim. The investigator of this disputes that characterization dramatically. The U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Michael Merkley described her as vulgar, antagonistic, and extremely anti-government. She was uncooperative. It was also clear that only after she knew she was going to get in trouble that she began to cooperate. ``Let me be clear,'' Special Agent Merkley said recently, ``Ms. Stone-Manning only came forward after her attorney struck the immunity deal, and not before she was caught.'' In testimony to the Senate, she claimed that tree spiking was alleged. It wasn't alleged. And that it was never investigated. That is not true. We know that is not true. So that was recent. So it is not just the tree spiking. She hasn't been honest, but she is still clearly a radical. Let me give you another example. Her husband wrote an article for Harper's Magazine--Senator Risch already talked about this--in 2018, claiming wildfires were a political issue and that such an issue should be solved by letting houses in forests burn. Think about that. Perhaps the solution to houses in the interface is to let them burn. Those are his exact words. Now, look, that is her husband. We can't blame her for her husband's radical views. But here is what she did. She weighed in herself in 2020--last year-- retweeting the article and basically endorsing his views. Here is what she said: Not a bad time to revisit this piece from my husband, Richard Manning, from two years ago. Clarion call . . . [on climate action]. So think about that. So I was in charge of our lands in Alaska. We worked--including fighting wildfires--we worked really closely with the Federal Government, the State of Alaska, Federal officials, on fighting our wildfires. We have big wildfires in Alaska, always have had them, always will have them. Never ever, ever, in any time I was involved in issues relating to fighting wildfires, have I heard a State official or Federal official say, ``Hey, if there is a fire near a bunch of homes, let them burn.'' But do you see the problem? She is going to be in charge of that in Alaska. ``Let them burn.'' You know what our Federal firefighters do? They save structures. They save houses. They are very heroic. ``Let them burn,'' she said last year. In a nutshell, this is potentially, if we don't stop this vote tonight, the new head of the BLM. She was a member of an ecoterrorist group who had a goal to actually threaten to hurt or actually hurt American citizens, hard-working Americans doing something legal. She has clearly been dishonest recently. With all due respect to my colleague from Montana, these are not some kind of ad hominem attacks. These are facts. Last year, she said: Hey, I agree with my husband's article. Let it burn. Let the homes burn in these wildfires. That is not going to work in my State. She is going to head up an Agency with enormous power over my State and its future. So, look, we have differences on issues of resource development, energy for America, certainly on issues of jobs. In my State, unfortunately, the Biden administration seems to, weekly, want to shut down resources just in Alaska. I think we are up to almost 20 Executive orders or related actions from this administration focused just on my State--to shut down jobs. I gave a speech here a while ago asking, not the President of the Senate, the President of the United States: Can you imagine if a Republican administration came in and issued almost, who knows, 10, 15--it is hard to count--Executive orders shutting down Delaware's economy? What would you do, Mr. President, if you were a Senator? You would be furious. Well, I am furious, and I am furious because we have got another radical who is going to be in charge of my State's future. ``Let it burn.'' Tree spikes. But here we are, unfortunately, about to confirm this individual as the Director of BLM. But here's the thing I want to know. If you are a western Senator--say, Arizona, Nevada, California--good luck going home and explaining this to your constituents. Good luck with that. I am going to just mention another nominee to speak about briefly. If Tracy Stone-Manning weren't radical enough, I would like to mention another Biden nominee from the far-left socialist fringe. This is Saule Omarova, who was nominated by the President to be Comptroller of the Currency. So what does the Comptroller of Currency do? It charters and regulates and supervises all national banks--another very serious position. Not a lot of Americans, you know, highlight this or think about it a lot. It is like BLM, but it is important and powerful. And you would think you would have somebody in that position who would understand or value and respect free markets in our financial system, particularly our banks. Ms. Omarova doesn't value our system and doesn't seem to much like banks. She has other ideas. According to the Wall Street Journal today, they said that it might even make our colleague Senator Sanders blush. So who is Ms. Omarova? First, she is a 1989 graduate in Moscow State University, where she received the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship. Yeah, you heard me right. I am not talking Moscow, ID. I am talking the real Moscow in the Soviet Union. Let me say that again. A graduate of Moscow State University, where she received the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship. You can't make this stuff up. From her writings, it appears that she still significantly believes in what she learned at old Moscow U, particularly about our free market system and communism and socialism. Here is what she tweeted in 2019--2019, 3 years ago--2 years ago: Until I came to the U.S., I couldn't imagine things like gender pay gap still existed in today's world. Say what you want about the old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there. Markets don't always know best. That is a tweet 2 years ago: Say what you want about the old USSR, about Stalin and Lenin and the roughly 100 million people killed during their reigns. Say what you want about the old USSR, the famine, human degradation, about the ill-fated violent attempts to snuff out the flame of freedom and liberty all across the world. Say what you want about the old USSR, the gulags, pogroms. At least there is no gender gap. There is no food either, by the way; and there is no freedom. So she is like: Hum, maybe I should clarify this. So here is her clarification: I never claimed men and women were treated absolutely equal in every facet of the old Soviet Union, but people's salaries were set by the State in a gender-blind manner, and all women got very generous benefits, but those things are still a pipe dream in our American society. Wow. That was her clarification. Oh, the golden days of the USSR, a mere pipe dream now. Her nostalgia for socialist communist regimes and policies doesn't end with pay disparities. She has advocated for expanding the Federal Reserve's mandate to include draconian controls over financial institutions, wages, and consumer bank deposits. How would she do this? Through ``a people's ledger, a national investment authority, a public interest council.'' Sounds like a modern-day version of the system set up by the Bolsheviks that I am sure she learned about at Moscow U. Plainly put, she is another radical who will have sweeping powers over the institutions of our United States Government. So I am going to conclude with this: If you are watching America, I hope you are seeing a theme here. The Biden administration, unfortunately with the help of some of my Senate Democratic colleagues, is trying to make us comfortable with far-left fringe radical appointments who will take over very significant posts in our government and will push us towards the path of socialism. They are pushing a radical left lurch for our country that the vast majority of Americans don't want. Just look at what my colleagues are coming up with, with their $3\1/ 2\ trillion tax-and-spend bill written by the chairman of the Budget Committee, an avowed socialist. It is not an insult. That is a fact. All this is being done with no hearings, no markups; the biggest social spending bill in decades with zero transparency. Even the House had a markup. But the Senate, once known as the most deliberative body in the world, is not having one hearing or one markup on a $3\1/2\ trillion reckless tax-and-spend bill. But mainstream middle-class America does not want socialism, and they don't want far-left radicals to run our Federal Government. My Democratic colleagues keep thinking they can ram through this far-left agenda without anyone noticing, but the American people are noticing. The American people are wise, and they are already starting to feel the pain of the Biden administration's far-left, anti-energy, anti- capitalism agenda, especially at the pump. They will remember which Senators are enabling this, and they will remember the Senators who have no problem voting for nominees who have a record of being part of organizations that sought to perpetrate violence against their fellow Americans. I hope my Democratic colleagues have a change of heart and vote against Tracy Stone-[Spike]-Manning because our country and my State really don't need her in charge. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to use a prop on the Senate floor, a tree spike.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, the tragic story of 22-year-old Gabby Petito, whose body was recently found at the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, has captured the attention of our Nation. It is an awful story that is still playing out. We pray for her parents and her loved ones, and we hope that they soon will receive justice. As we watch the story unfold, we empathize with her family and her friends, and we mourn with them, and we think about how this horrible crime hurts all of them, their neighbors, our fellow citizens, the result of such a brutal murder. We think of our daughters and think of the daughters of others, all of our Nation's daughters. And all of this reminds some of us of another terrible tragedy in America, and it is this: Native and indigenous women in America are murdered and sexually assaulted at rates as high as 10 times the national average. Think about that. Horrendous. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that murder is the third leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native women. However, this issue rarely, if ever, receives much coverage or awareness. But awareness often results in additional resources--something that has unfortunately been lacking in our criminal justice system on this issue, the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women. According to the FBI's National Crime Information Center, there are roughly 1,500 unsolved cases of missing and murdered indigenous women in America--1,500. Alaska has about 300 of these unsolved cases. Experts think there are many more such cases that don't make it into the Federal database. There has been some progress. Under the previous administration, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, Tara Sweeney, who did such a great job, began an initiative throughout the Federal Government called Operation Lady Justice, the whole point of which was to bring light to this horrible issue of missing and murdered indigenous women, to bring justice and hope and closure to their families. Operation Lady Justice, the task force, has opened up numerous offices across America, including one in Alaska. Last year, we in a bipartisan way here in the Senate passed Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act to address the crisis of missing, murdered, and trafficked indigenous women in our country. Progress is being made, but we need to continue to keep this issue front and center. As we pray for the family of Gabby Petito, we also offer our thoughts and prayers to the families of these missing and murdered indigenous Americans and commit to continue to focus on all of these issues to make our country a better place. I yield the floor.