Dan Sullivan

Mr. SULLIVAN

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

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 664, submitted earlier today.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Executive Calendar Nos. 776 through 791 and all nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Space Force; that the nominations be confirmed; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is Thursday afternoon, and normally I come down to the Senate floor to talk about the Alaskan of the Week-- what I call that person. It is one of my favorite things to do in the Senate. But I just witnessed something so remarkable and disturbing that I actually want to come down to the Senate floor and explain what just happened on the floor because I think a lot of people probably missed it, if they are watching at home, and maybe didn't understand it. There was a lot of discussion going on here. Let me just say that the Senate minority leader from New York just objected to extending the current level of unemployment insurance in the CARES Act--$600 a week to help American workers who had been laid off due to the pandemic. He just objected to that and stopped legislation that was moving on the floor to extend unemployment insurance for another week. Let me repeat that: The Senate minority leader of the U.S. Senate, when we are moving in good faith, as we are discussing and negotiating bills here, one element of CARES that is going to expire at the end of this month, unemployment insurance in the CARES Act, the Senate minority leader just blocked that from happening. Who knows why, but there will be millions of Americans, in 2 days, who will lose that benefit, and the Senate minority leader just blocked it. I sure hope our friends in the media write this story because that is exactly, exactly, exactly what happened. Let me describe in a little bit more detail. As you would expect in a democracy, in the U.S. Senate, we have been debating, working on, and negotiating a new relief package due to the pandemic. In March, we passed unanimously in this body the CARES Act to try to bring relief to our fellow Americans whom we knew were going to be hurting from this pandemic. We didn't have a crystal ball on how long relief could last or should last for unemployment, for businesses, for small businesses, for families, for hospitals, for schools, or for fishermen. So we are now working on, as you expect in a democracy, what we view as the appropriate next level because this has extended longer than any of us thought, and the impacts are very significant. That is what we are doing here. The Republicans put forward the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection, and Schools Act--HEALS. I think it is a good bill. It is not a perfect bill, but it has very significant--very significant resources for schools, for hospitals, and for families. When I was home in Alaska and taking calls with my fellow Alaskans and heard what their priorities are and heard what they said was really important for them to have in any kind of the next relief package, part of my job is to listen and try to work hard to get that done. There is a lot in the HEALS Act that is exactly what my constituents have been pressing for, what they need, and what I believe they need. Let me give you a couple of examples: more flexibility for States and local governments on how to use the CARES Act funding that they already have, a very high priority; additional funds for our fishermen. The Presiding Officer knows how important that is, being from Florida. The original CARES Act had $300 million. That was a provision I got into the CARES Act for fishermen. It is not enough but something important to this really critical part of the Alaskan, American, and Florida economies. The HEALS Act has $500 million in it because they have been hit so hard. There is economic assistance in terms of another round of paycheck protection for small businesses whose revenues have been crushed, like in the tourism industry. Again, that is something my constituents have been asking about. Allowing 501(c)6s to access the PPP, that is in there. Allowing certain PPP borrowers, like fishermen and seasonal businesses to request an increase in loan amounts due to the changes that were in the interim final rules that came out of the Treasury Department, that is in there. Dramatic expansion of testing, more funding for vaccine development, everyone wants that. Securing supply chains for crucial medical equipment and critical minerals, many of which we have in Alaska, that is all in there. It is a pretty good bill. It is not perfect, but it is a pretty good bill. The competing bill, you may have seen, you may have read in the paper a couple of months ago, came from the House--the so-called Heroes Act. It is a behemoth in terms of the pricetag, and it has some things that, actually, are similar to the HEALS Act: school funding, hospitals. It has other things that aren't in the HEALS Act, some things that I think would be completely unnecessary: a huge tax break for some of the richest Americans in the HEROES Act. Yes, that is in there. Economic impact payments for illegal immigrants--I don't think that is a priority right now, at least not for my constituents. An overt attack on Alaska Native organizations, dozens and dozens of them, Alaska Native corporations, stripping them of any Federal funds they receive in the CARES Act, that is in the House-passed Heroes Act. Trust me, that will never pass on the Senate floor because I will not allow it. But that is in there. It is a highly inappropriate attack on 20 percent of the population in my State. But here is the point: These are starting points. This is what happens in the Senate--or at least I thought these were starting points. But I guess I was wrong because, when my good friend from Arizona came down and said we are having negotiations on these bills, we are having negotiations on how and to what degree to extend unemployment insurance from the Federal Government--she put forward a bill that we all agreed to that said, because we are negotiating right now and the one thing in the CARES Act that expires at the end of this month is unemployment insurance, let's extend it--at the current level. It is right now. Let's extend it so the people who are relying on it can have something for the next week while we continue to negotiate and debate. That is very reasonable. That happens all the time here. The Senate minority leader came down, and he blocked it. He blocked it. If you are not going to be receiving a check next week, there is one person you can blame. What did he say when he blocked it? Remarkably, he said, in essence, if the other side doesn't accept the entire Heroes Act--that bill that I just talked about that attacks Alaska Natives--then I am going to block everything. That is what happened on the Senate floor like an hour ago. No, that is not working in good faith. I am sure that the minority leader believes that the national media will not blame him. He is probably right, but it should. But it should. If you are one of the millions of Americans who are worried about this issue because you are out of work, we just put forward a very simple compromise: As we continue to negotiate, we will continue the unemployment levels paid to Americans that were in the CARES Act for another week, at the levels that currently exist. It was blocked by the Senate minority leader, without a real explanation, essentially saying take our Nancy Pelosi $3.5--actually, $4 trillion bill or nothing. I sure hope the media reports on what just happened. I don't have faith that they will, but that is exactly what happened. We are facing a national crisis. We don't always come together in immediate agreement on everything, but what we have seen in the last several months is that we have come together in the Congress. These bills haven't been perfect. The bills I just described--the HEALS or Heroes--aren't perfect, but what they require is compromise and working together. When you can't get to a spot in a certain amount of time, you look at areas where, OK, this is going to expire right now--that is pretty important--so let's extend it for a week or two. That happens all the time here. People do it in good faith. What we just saw was bad faith. What we just saw, in my view, was the Senate minority leader taking hostage this issue, hoping that his friends in the national media will somehow blame us. I think, if you are telling the truth and you just watched what happened on the Senate floor, that is going to be hard to do. My view is we have to come together in good faith to help our fellow Americans, my fellow Alaskans, many of whom are still really, really hurting. We have a Senator from Arizona who tried to do that just an hour ago on the floor, and it was rejected. There are going to be a lot of people next week who are going to be hurting because of this, and I hope they accurately report why they are hurting, what just happened, and that is not the spirit of compromise that we are going to need to get through this pandemic. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Cantwell amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the committee- reported substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. SULLIVAN

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

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 656.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following interns in Senator Paul's office be granted floor privileges until August 8, 2020: Sean Piwowar and Jessica Zepeda.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is that time of the week where I get to come down and talk about an Alaskan--this time five Alaskans--who is doing great things for our community, our State, and sometimes our country. It is what we call the Alaskan of the Week or Alaskans of the Week. This is one of my favorite parts of the job. I know the Presiding Officer loves these speeches too. When we had pages here, they really loved it. We will get them back here soon, hopefully. In all seriousness, of course, our country is facing very challenging times, and we have been tested as a nation and as a State on so many levels. If you read the newspaper, you think there is nothing going right, but I will tell you one thing I certainly see in my State. I was home for 3 weeks this past State work period, and I noticed this. There is empathy, kindness, understanding, and people working together and coming together. That is the big story, and I think we ought to keep an eye on that. People are putting aside their own interests to help their neighbors, to help the elderly, our elders, our seniors. People are partaking in conversations about the soul of our Nation--sometimes uncomfortable conversations but I think overall constructive, important conversations in trying to help each other, to make our communities better, stronger, and make our country better and stronger as we struggle through an unprecedented pandemic. I certainly see that across my State, and I am certain that the Presiding Officer sees that in his State, and it is really the best of America. It is important to remember that. One of the reasons I love doing this ``Alaskan of the Week'' speech is because we get to highlight this not just for people in Alaska but for the country, people who are working hard for each other--maybe not getting the recognition they deserve but still doing very important work. This week, I am going to honor five very fine, young Alaskans, young heroes who, because of their bravery and instincts and courage, very well likely saved lives. They are our Alaskans of the week. But before I talk about them, I always give an update of what is going on back home. The weather has been glorious in many areas. There has been a lot of Sun--the midnight Sun, of course. There is even more Sun than in Florida right now at this time. The salmon are choking our rivers. I was out in Naknek, in the Crystal Bay region. There are huge sockeye salmon runs happening right now, which is great. There is also struggling in other parts of the State. Fire season is upon us. This is something we have every year. I used to be the commissioner of natural resources in charge of our Division of Forestry--the brave men and women who fight fires in Alaska and all over the country, really. Sometimes we have really challenging fire seasons. Last summer was a really challenging one for us. Firefighters across the country came and helped Alaska with our challenges. They happened primarily by lightning strikes--thousands in a day, you will get in Alaska. In just 1 day, there are thousands. So far, the fire season in Alaska--knock on wood--this summer has not been nearly as intense as last summer, but our firefighters are still out there taking on huge fires. You don't read about them in the lower 48. It is dangerous work--very dangerous work. That brings me to the story of our Alaskans of the week: Dylan Nicholson, who is 13 years old; Trevor Morgan and Mason Dallmann, both 17 years old; A.J. Simeon, who is 19; and Skye Morgan, who is 18. On the afternoon of May 28, just 2 months ago, these five young men from Aniak, AK--a village of about 500 people that sits 300 miles west of Anchorage--were driving in a truck and on a four-wheeler in a gravel pit area a few miles away from the village. On their way back home, they passed a lake by the road and saw a small yellow airplane that was in the lake. It obviously had just crashed. Obviously, it had just crashed. Inside the plane were three emergency firefighters and a pilot. They had been on their way to the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage to support firefighters there. This is late May. To the boys--these young men--the plane seemed to materialize out of thin air. One of them, Trevor Morgan, is quoted as saying: ``I was like, `Dang man, that wasn't there 30 seconds ago,' '' and now there is a plane in the lake. When they heard the shouting coming from the plane and people emerging, the young men sprung into action. The 13-year-old, Dylan, called his aunt, who works at the Alaska State Trooper dispatch office. Then they did something very brave. They jumped into the freezing water. Now, remember, this is May in Alaska. That lake was probably frozen over just a couple of months earlier. They helped two of the passengers out through the mud and onto the shore. They loaded them into a truck and drove them to a nearby clinic. Two of the other passengers, however, were still stuck in the plane in the water because they were too badly injured to leave the plane. So, Mason Dallmann, 17 years old, waded out into the water where he stayed with them to make sure they could hang on until help arrived. Now, remember, this is freezing water. By the way, it was thick with diesel oil coming from the engine, so highly dangerous if somehow this was going to ignite. He was in there keeping them comforted for about 30 minutes. He didn't leave their side. One passenger who was badly injured grabbed onto Mason, and Mason said: Don't worry. I am not going to leave you. Eventually, 30 minutes in the freezing cold water full of diesel, first responders came and helped get the men out of the plane and transported them to a clinic and a hospital. Two of them suffered severe injuries, but, fortunately, all of them are recovering, and they are recovering thanks to these five young men and boys who spotted the plane in the first place, which wasn't a given, since it was miles away from town, and then they reacted and got them help. ``We are very fortunate,'' said Alaska State Forest Director Chris Maisch, whom I know very well. He said: ``You couldn't have asked for a better emergency response in this rural community from [these] young people.'' Aniak City Councilman David Mattson arrived at the crash scene when the rescue was going on. He calls the action of these young men ``heroic.'' Councilman Mattson said: Being a hero means going above and beyond for other people--putting others before themselves. And that is what those boys did--at such a young age. And such a quick reaction time. It is so inspiring. He had lived in other cities across the country, but he gives credit to the way these boys were raised in the valleys of Aniak. He said: We are a big family out here. It doesn't matter what you look like, or who you are or what you do--you're a fellow citizen and if you need help, [people in this part of Alaska in America] we jump in and help [others]. So these are just a few stellar examples of young Americans, young Alaskans, our next generation, who are out there doing their part-- doing their part to help us during these challenging times. With young men and women like these all across our Nation and all across my State, we know we are going to continue to thrive as a country, as Americans, and as Alaskans, no matter what. We know it. So to Dylan, Trevor, Mason, A.J., Skye, and your families, thank you for being an inspiration to us all. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for jumping in a cold lake to save lives. Thank you for your heroism. Thank you for stepping up when your community and people in need really needed you without asking any questions and without hesitating. Congratulations on being our Alaskans of the Week. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, in about an hour we are going to take a vote that our servicemembers around the world will likely be watching. It is a critical vote on the amendment of my colleague from Vermont to blindly cut defense spending, taking a hatchet to the already agreed- upon Bipartisan Budget Act. We have heard from my colleague Jack Reed from Rhode Island, who is part of the strong leadership on the Armed Services Committee and just spoke out against it, and I am going to speak out against it. I am going to spend some time explaining what this means. This is not just one amendment. This has national implications, and if you are watching in America, I want you to think about what is really going on here. First of all, my colleague from Vermont says that it is a 10-percent cut, but it is going exempt military personnel and healthcare accounts--which is true as part of the amendment--but it is actually going to compensate for the other cuts, so it is actually a 14-percent across-the-board cut to the Department of Defense. That is the amendment we are going to vote on. To paraphrase one of our great Presidents, Ronald Reagan: There they go again. There they go again. I chair the Subcommittee on Readiness of the Armed Services Committee. One of the reasons I ran for the Senate in 2014 was exactly this issue of military readiness. As a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, I had a little bit of an up close and personal view on it. The readiness of our Armed Forces in the second term of the Obama administration was plummeting. In the second term of the Obama administration, defense spending was cut by 25 percent, and, with that, the readiness of the men and women in the military plummeted. By the way, at the same time defense spending was cut by 25 percent, Russia was increasing defense spending by 34 percent, and China was increasing by 83 percent So let me just give an example. These numbers actually were classified, and they have been declassified. In 2015, when I arrived in the Senate, these were some of the numbers relating to readiness. Remember, we are supposed to be in charge of readiness here. Three of the 58 brigade combat teams in the U.S. Army--the brigade combat team is the 5,000 men and women deployed block in our military, and 3 of the 58 were at the tier 1 level of readiness that you want for a deployed unit. You can understand why that was classified in 2015 because we certainly didn't want our adversaries to know that. So 5 percent of the U.S. Army was fully ready to fight. Less than half of Marine Corps Navy aviation could fly--another classified number, now unclassified. Training and flight time for all military pilots plummeted. When I arrived in 2015, the Obama administration proposed a cut of another 40,000 Active-Duty troops for the U.S. Army. One of the units they were looking to cut was the 4th Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division--the 4-25 at JBER in Alaska, the only airborne combat team in the Asia Pacific. I put every ounce of my energy into fighting that misguided decision. The 4-25 was not cut, thankfully. All the rest of the 40,000 were cut. We are still digging out of that hole. So I want to throw something out there because people don't think about it. Imagine if there had been a major contingency or, yes, a war in 2015 with these readiness numbers. Sometimes wars hit us when we are least expecting them. I am going to talk about that. I will tell you this: It would have been very ugly--not only for our national security but more importantly for our troops--for the men and women we are supposed to make sure are trained so that they never have to go into a fair fight, so we know they are always going to win. We just celebrated the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean war on June 25, 1950. I am a bit of a Korean war history buff. I will tell you this: What we didn't celebrate was actually what happened in the summer of 1950 at the outbreak of the Korean war. Here is what happened. The greatest military power in the world in 1945 was the U.S. military. We had just won World War II. By 1950, due to dramatic defense cuts, lack of training, lack of readiness, our military had a very difficult time halting the invasion of a third- world army, the North Korean army. For the history buffs who understand Korean war history--the military certainly does--they know what Task Force Smith was. It was the first American unit that went in to stop the North Korean army. Task Force Smith was obliterated. Hundreds were killed in the summer of 1950. As a matter of fact, thousands of young Americans died horrible deaths during the summer of 1950 because the leadership in Congress, the leadership in the executive branch, and the leadership in the Pentagon let the readiness of our Armed Forces plummet. Let me repeat that: 70 years ago right now--if you look back 70 years ago in the summer of 1950 on the Korean Peninsula--thousands of young Americans were being killed because they weren't trained and they weren't ready. This was probably one of the biggest derelictions of duty in U.S. history. Because it is a forgotten war, not many people know about it. But it was a dramatic failure of leadership in the Congress, the executive branch, and the military. The military even has a saying for this: ``No more Task Force Smith.'' We will never ever--ever--let our young men and women go fight a war where they are unprepared, and because of that, they die. I agree we need to do all we can to address many of the social issues that my colleague from Vermont highlights, particularly during this pandemic. But we must never, as a Congress, gut our military readiness to such a degree that our young men and women come home in body bags as opposed to victors. That is what happened in the summer of 1950. We were on a path toward this dangerous lack of readiness during the second term of the Obama administration. I cited the numbers. I chair the Subcommittee on Readiness. I have been all focused on this issue of rebuilding our readiness. Here is the good news. With the Republicans in control in the Senate and the White House, we have begun to dramatically rebuild our military and our readiness. This has been a priority of ours. This has certainly been a priority of mine. Many of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, particularly on the Armed Services Committee, have been working on rebuilding our military. When we were looking at these numbers, so many people on the Armed Services Committee, including Jack Reed, who just gave a very eloquent speech, recognized, whoa--dangerous world, dangerous neighborhood, and a military that is not ready. So we got to work. I enjoy my bipartisan work here in the Senate. Some of my best friends are from the other side of the aisle, but there are principle disagreements on key issues between some on this side of the aisle and the other side. One of them is about the degree to which we support our military and national defense. I know all of my colleagues are patriotic. I don't like doing the patriotism argument. Every Member of this body, all 100--we love our country. But there are some impressions when you look at what goes on here, when you look at the sweep of history with regard to readiness and funding our military. Again, to my Democratic colleagues on the Armed Services Committee, Defense Appropriations, who, like me, attend the hearings regularly, dig into the issues, know the threats our country faces, I think we work together to rebuild readiness. But at the national level, here are the facts. Think about it. Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden--what do those administrations all have in common? They get into power, and they cut our military, and morale plummets, and readiness plummets. Let me go a little bit closer to home. Since I have been elected, the No. 1 bill my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have filibustered--the No. 1 bill when they want to take something hostage-- is the Defense appropriations bill. Ten times, since I have been in this body, the funding for our men and women has been pulled in as a hostage--ten times. No other bill in the last 5\1/2\ years, since I have been here, has been filibustered more than the Defense appropriations bill. Our friends in the media never report on this, but that is one of the issues that really burns me up here because it happens all the time. Trust me, our troops know it. They watch it, and they know it. Now we have a Sanders amendment for across-the-board DOD cuts of 14 percent just as we are digging out of the readiness hole that we all know that we are in. If you don't acknowledge it, you are not paying attention. The Senate minority leader has recently come out in favor of the Sanders amendment. I wonder where Joe Biden is on the Sanders amendment. Of course, as my colleague from Illinois just mentioned, the Pentagon must do a better job of managing waste and cost overruns. I fully agree with that. In fact, the Trump administration was the first administration to finally undertake an audit of the Pentagon. Again, Democrats and Republicans on the Armed Services Committee pressed for it, and we finally got it. It took decades, but an audit of the Pentagon has finally happened. Make no mistake, the Sanders amendment is the first salvo in the national Democratic leadership's goal of defunding the military across the board. If you don't want to take my word for it, here is the POLITICO op-ed from Senator Sanders about his amendment titled: ``Defund the Pentagon: The Liberal Case.'' ``Defund the Pentagon''--there they go again. This is a really important issue. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle defeat this amendment overwhelmingly--overwhelmingly. The men and women of the military are watching this amendment. The men and women of the military know that their readiness 5 years ago was in a really bad state. The vote today and what is going to happen later--literally, if you look at history, we never know when the next conflict is coming. We didn't know that in the summer of 1950, the military was going to be rushed to the Korean Peninsula and would barely be able to hold its own. Thousands died because they weren't ready because of defense cuts by the Congress and the executive branch and the Pentagon. So this is an important vote. The lives of the men and women in our military and their readiness could well depend on this vote, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to strongly reject it. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. I thank my good friend from Tennessee for those kind comments

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about one of the favorite things I get to do all week, and that is to talk about some Alaskans who are making a difference. We call this our ``Alaskan of the Week.'' It means that I get to speak about my State, usually an individual, maybe a couple of people, but every now and then I like to mix things up and keep people on high alert because the people I am going to talk about in Alaska are the ultimate people--Americans--on high alert. As opposed to recognizing one or two, I am going to recognize a bunch of Alaskans, an impressive group, who work day and night, not only to keep Alaska safe but to keep America safe. They will be doing it this weekend, the Fourth of July--24/7, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, always on high alert. As we are heading into the Fourth of July weekend, Russia is once again in the news, and we have been debating the National Defense Authorization Act on the Senate floor, a very critical bill that I am fully supportive of, which funds our military and pay raises for our troops. I thought it would be very appropriate to highlight the hundreds of men and women in my State who stand watch and patrol the northern skies of Alaska and America to protect our Nation. They are unsung heroes. You don't hear a lot about them in the news, but we certainly appreciate them. I think all Senators and all Americans do, which is why I want to talk about them today. They are our brave servicemembers who fly and maintain our F-22 Raptors--this amazing stealth fighter; our E-3 Sentrys, which are also known as AWACS, which are like the quarterback in the sky of aircraft; our Alaska Guard KC-135 Stratotankers; our brave members of the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center, who operate HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters and H-130 Hercules aircraft, should we need a search and rescue mission; and our Active-Duty members and guardsmen, who maintain, monitor, and track threats from other countries for our country, particularly threats coming from Russia. These brave men and women--hundreds of them--are keeping guard day and night over the northern skies of America. When the Russians fly their Bear bombers and fighter jets into or near American air space, these intrepid Americans are on duty to ensure that our F-22s are there to intercept and greet the Russian pilots and aircraft who threaten to move into our air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, as we call it. They are there waiting and intercepting Russian bombers. These airmen keep us all safe. As I mentioned, they are all worthy of the great title Alaskans of the Week. Before I get into exactly what these men and women do to guard our Nation--and they do it round the clock; they are doing it right now, by the way, and will be doing it the Fourth of July, by the way--I would like to talk a little about Russia and Alaska and our close geography. I want to give a little geography lesson. There are actual places in Alaska where you really can see Russia from your house. Russia and Alaska are divided by the Bering Strait, which is about 55 miles at its narrowest point. In the middle of the Bering Strait sit two islands, Big Diomede, which is actually Russian territory, and Little Diomede, which is part of Alaska, part of America. They are less than 2\1/2\ miles apart from each other, nearly touching. In the words of a New York Times reporter, it is the place where ``the two great continental powers reach across the map and all but touch, like the outstretched figures in Michelangelo's `The Creation of Adam.''' It is a little dramatic, but you get the point--Little Diomede and Big Diomede. On a clear day, you can see Russia from St. Lawrence Island, which is also Alaskan, and even from our mainland, in Wales, AK. During the Cold War, the Alaska-Siberia frontier was called not the Iron Curtain but the ``Ice Curtain,'' which we needed to stay closed. Much preparation was put into keeping Russia from invading or infiltrating the United States from its northern flank--from the Arctic, from Alaska. In the early Cold War years, our government recruited and trained fishermen, bush pilots, trappers, and many, many in our patriotic Native Alaskan communities throughout the State to stand guard for America during the Cold War. And so many Alaskans did this for decades. It was their patriotic duty guarding the northern flank of our great Nation. There were the great Eskimo scouts of the Alaska National Guard, who knew the land better than anyone else could. They were so patriotic with their love of this Nation. It is still unclear how many Russians were able to get to our lands, but stories do abound in Alaska about strangers speaking Russian showing up in communities unannounced--five men emerging from the water in wet suits over olive-drab uniforms, the color of the uniform of Soviet Special Forces. Go to any one of our Native Alaska communities, and today, you will still hear such stories. Something that is very clear and very well known is that between 1961 and 1991, the U.S. military intercepted thousands of long-range Soviet bombers and reconnaissance aircraft when they were moving into American airspace. We used our aircraft back then, the F-102s, F-106s, and later, F-4s, F-15s. Then, like now, our aircraft were superior to the Russians and that was certainly one of the reasons we won the Cold War. This is still going on today. This is still a threat. The Russians continue to flex their military muscle, from Ukraine to Siberia, and they have added new Blackjack bombers to the mix and their SU-35 fighters. They still come close to American airspace via flights near Alaska. That is where our F-22 pilots and those who support them come in. Just in the last 6 months, our Alaskan F-22s, shown here, have intercepted 10 Russian Bear bombers. We are starting to see Cold War levels of intrusions into American airspace and, of course, our patriotic men and women--young men and women, by the way--flying these great aircraft, going after these big Bear bombers. There were 10 missions already, and it is just July 2. What are they up to? Air Force Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who commands NORAD and these forces, ultimately, and U.S. Northern Command, linked the uptick in Russian military flights off Alaska's coast to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and Russia's testing of our military readiness. They are testing us, but we are ready for them. In essence, that is what we have been doing all week--debating and getting ready to vote on final passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which is all about our military's readiness. Again, in Alaska--24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year--our brave men and women are guarding the northern flank of America. This is how Lt. Col. Dave Deptula, commander of the 525th Fighter Squadron--this F-22 squadron, the ``Bulldogs''--described it: The Russians will fly their bombers and fighters across the Bering Strait and they will test our ADIZ [Air Defense Identification Zone] airspace--they will try to see if they can come into our airspace. And if they were going to go into it, we would be there every time to say, respectfully, ``Hello. We're here and we're flying with live munitions.'' He said the goal is to make sure the Russians know that they are there to protect our Nation and try to deescalate. By the way, Colonel Deptula is my former Air Force fellow and a great Air Force leader, just like his dad. As an aside, pilots in the military have what are called ``call signs,'' which are essentially their pilot nicknames. As a marine, I know many pilots by their call signs. Lieutenant Colonel Deptula's call sign is ``Ghost.'' Maybe that is because he is an F-22 stealth fighter pilot, able to sneak up on Bear bombers like this without being seen and even heard. But I have also heard that maybe it is because when it is time to pay the tab at a bar, he doesn't seem to be around. Just kidding there, Colonel Deptula, Ghost. I can't think of a better call sign for an F-22 stealth fighter pilot in Alaska, and we are very, very proud of Ghost in the Sullivan Senate office. Here is how it works. Here is what these brave young men and women in the U.S. Air Force do to protect our Nation. We have 15 long-range radar sites across the great State of Alaska, which are constantly feeding information to the 176th Air Defense Squadron, which analyze that information. By the way, I have the honor and pleasure next week of hosting the Secretary of the Air Force in Alaska. She will be able to see our great military members, and we will go out and actually see some of these radar sites. When our military note troublesome activity, they send out a bone- rattling alarm--what is called the KLAXON--to the Combat Alert Cell. This is a group of pilots and maintainers who are always ready. They are like firemen. They literally have a pole where they scramble down to get to their aircraft--what they call a ``hot cocked'' and armed F- 22 at the ready. As these pilots literally race to their jets, so, too, does the aircrew of the AWACs--the long-range eyes and ears for the F-22. They launch very quickly. This is taking place at JBER in Anchorage. Simultaneously, at Eielson Air Force Base, about 350 miles north of Anchorage, the 168th Air Refueling Squadron, a unit of the Alaska Air National Guard, launch the KC-135 tankers to meet the F-22s as they are going to intercept the Russians and to top off the 600-gallon F-22 fuel tanks when they are in the air and then refuel them on the way back. This is all part of one big mission. That is what they are doing. All told, there are hundreds of Alaskans in the air and on the ground involved in operations like this every single time it happens. As I mentioned, it is happening a lot--twice a month in the last half year. Patriotic young men and women are always prepared to defend our country in the sky--24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One thing I want to do for this ``Alaskan of the Week'' is remind Americans when they are celebrating the Fourth of July--which is a great thing to do--to remember that these dedicated warriors will be on guard protecting our Nation. When everybody is barbecuing, celebrating America, think about what they are doing. If you have seen any video of the F-22s flying, it is impressive, but we also have to remember there are real pilots in those planes. Look how close they are in this mission. It can be very dangerous. Think of this to get a sense of how this all works. It is the middle of the night and the klaxon goes off. It is winter in Alaska. It is dark and 20 below zero. A pilot hustles to her airplane--yes, ``her.'' We have F-22 female pilots. One is call sign Contra. We were discussing recently in my office about what a great job she does. She gets in the aircraft and flies nearly 600 miles sometimes--certainly, faster than the speed of sound--to reach the rough Bering Sea to intercept a Russian Bear bomber like this in the middle of the night. She probably had to refuel on the way there. Sometimes Russian pilots can get aggressive. According to Ghost, we do not respond aggressively in turn. We are respectful. We are tough. We are professional. The Russians know it, and the Russians know that they are up against the best Air Force in the world--armed and ready. So the Russians usually behave. But this can be a stressful mission. As I mentioned, it has happened 10 times already in the last 6 months. It is so critical for our Nation. So many young Alaskans are involved in this. Our men and women in the military represent the very best of this country--brave, strong, committed, devoted to our country, devoted to democracy, devoted to the Republic. That is why we have been working on this all week. When we come back from our Fourth of July work period, we will continue to work on and pass the National Defense Authorization Act for them. On this Fourth of July holiday, as I mentioned, I hope we can take the time to thank them and to remember those who have served before. Know that when you are spending time with friends and family this holiday, dozens of airmen in Alaska are on alert and ready to go do this mission in a moment's notice. We have to remember also that the freedoms we are celebrating this weekend have been secured at a price. There is no Independence Day without the U.S. military and our courageous veterans, past and present. Yet it is not just about protecting our Nation. Think about this: American servicemembers have done more to liberate men and women across the globe from tyranny and oppression--literally, hundreds of millions of people--than probably more than any other force in human history. That includes those who are currently serving. Think about that when you are celebrating the Fourth of July. Can any other country say that? Think about the other big countries in the world--China, Russia, Germany. Have they been forces to have liberated hundreds of millions of people? The fact is, they are the kinds of countries that have tried to dominate hundreds of millions. As my friend from Arkansas just mentioned, China is doing it again, as we speak, in Hong Kong. So, yes, our Nation has challenges right now--no doubt about it. Yet I think the vast majority of us recognizes the obvious fact that we are the greatest country in the world and have stood for liberating not just Americans but hundreds of millions around the world. My view is that we are the greatest country in the history of the world. One reason is due to those who stand guard to protect us and our freedoms and our liberty. So a big thank-you to those who fly and maintain our F-22 Raptors-- our AWACS--our Alaska National Guard KC-135s; our HH-60s; our HC-130s; and all of the Active-Duty members and guardsmen who on the Fourth of July, which we are going to celebrate in a couple of days, will be ready to go do this mission at a moment's notice and be ready to protect us. I will be up on the Yukon River, in Alaska, with my wife and daughters, as we always are, to celebrate not only America's birthday but my wife's, and we will be toasting the brave young men and women who are doing this for our country. I encourage the rest of my fellow Americans to do the same. To the Raptor pilots and maintainers and everybody who supports them, thanks for what you are doing. Most importantly, congratulations on being our Alaskans of the Week. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is Thursday, and it is that time of the week that I like to come down to the Senate floor and talk about somebody who is doing something great in my State, someone I get to brag about, a special Alaskan, somebody we refer to as our Alaskan of the Week. Sometimes this person has made big headlines back home, maybe even across the country, and throughout the State, people know them. But oftentimes--and one of the reasons we started this whole series many years ago--this is a person who has worked more behind the scenes day in, day out, year in, year out, doing the kind of public service that is so vital to the health and well-being of our communities throughout Alaska, throughout America, but is not always recognized and certainly not recognized enough. Our Alaskan of the week, Fairbanks police officer Daniel Welborn, is one of those people. He recently retired from the Fairbanks Police Force after 26 years--more than a quarter of a century--and is one of those everyday heroes who we think are important to highlight as an Alaskan of the Week and as an American helping his fellow Americans and Alaskans. Before I get into Officer Welborn's story, let me tell you a little bit about what is going on in Alaska right now. The weather has been glorious in many areas--sunny in a lot of places, rainy in others. We have a very big State. The summer solstice is just a few days behind us. That is the longest day of the year and a huge day in Alaska-- midnight Sun, energy. It is great being in Alaska right now. Most of the State has opened up with precautions, of course, in place, given the pandemic. More and more people are getting out. The salmon are certainly running, beginning to run up our rivers. The bears are fully woke--maybe not woke in that sense, but they are awake. I was home last week in Fairbanks celebrating the amazing life of my mother-in-law, Mary Jane Fate, whom our family put to rest. She was one of the most revered Alaskan leaders and elders who recently passed away, and we had a beautiful, moving ceremony, talking about this trailblazing woman. I can't wait to get back home--get back home to Fairbanks in particular, the Golden Heart City, where Officer Welborn has spent his entire career protecting and defending. As you know, much attention has been spent on our Nation's police forces in recent weeks, but there hasn't been nearly enough attention, in my view, drawn to what it actually means to be a police officer--not an easy job--and to be a good police officer--a critically important job--which the vast majority of police officers--certainly in Alaska but I would say across America--are, good police officers who put their lives on the line every day for us, and Alaskans and Americans should be grateful that they do that. As I have said many times before at police memorial ceremonies back home, every job in our country, every job in my State is important, but there is something special, noble, even sacred about a job that entails protecting others and being willing to put your life on the line to keep your fellow citizens safe. So let me talk about a good police officer, one of many in my State. Dan Welborn and his large Catholic family of seven brothers and sisters moved to Fairbanks in 1988. Dan's father was in the Army, which, of course, draws a lot of people to the Golden Heart City of Fairbanks and to the great State of Alaska. We have more veterans per capita than any State in the country. By his father and mother and probably, I am sure, a bunch of his siblings, he was taught discipline and respect and the importance of giving back to his community. Dan graduated from West Valley High in Fairbanks and then went on to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks--UAF, as we call it. As a student, he began working with the campus police, which piqued his interest in law enforcement as a career and led him--he put himself through the law enforcement academy in Alaska. Eventually, newly married and considering starting a family, Dan got a job at the Fairbanks Police Department, and that is the job he has kept for 26 years, and he has done it very well. He has done nearly every job there is to do on the force. Traffic duty, patrol, oversight of investigations, homicides, sexual assaults, fraud, forgery, computer and internet crimes--you name it, Dan's done it. He helped build a property crimes unit in Fairbanks. He wrote dozens and dozens of grants to help the department get the equipment it needed so they can keep up with the times. His awards are extensive. I was looking at his record. It is very impressive--Officer of the Year, numerous service awards and ribbons. His community service is also extensive beyond just being a police officer--serving on the board of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, starting a project called Operation Glow in Fairbanks, which helps keep kids safe on Halloween when they are out trick-or-treating. In 2016, Officer Welborn was promoted to deputy chief of police where, again, he excelled. He is known throughout the State for his solid decisionmaking, his even temperament, and for the good way that he has with people. He is judicious and stern when needed, but always kind, considerate, and respectful, which is what we want in our police force. Service also runs in Dan's family. I love this part of his life. His brother Doug is also a Fairbanks police officer, and his son Brett was sworn in as a Fairbanks police officer on May 20, a month ago. Wow. That is a family of service. What he tells his son Brett is this: It's important that you understand defensive tactics. [This is not always easy work.] But the most important thing is your people skills. You need to be able to sympathize [empathize] with people, and take charge if you need to. And if you need to take charge and you get someone under control, you must treat them with professionalism and respect. It's a hard thing to remember [sometimes], but it's the most critical thing to remember. That is Officer Welborn. That is sage wisdom. Now, I hear that Dan will be moving to St. Louis to be close to his beloved baseball team, the Cardinals. He will miss the community, his job, and his family. By the way, his sister Patty wrote this great letter to me, which I read all about his community service. Boy, Dan, your sister thinks you are amazing. We hope that you will come back. Actually, we are pretty confident you are going to come back to Alaska because we want you to come back. You are not done serving our community. We know this: Officer Welborn will certainly be missed, and he will miss being a patrol officer. He loved working the traffic beat because of all the people he got to meet and all the times he got to help people on the road. Of course, there are things about the job he won't miss. I am not sure this is talked about enough, images that will likely stick with him and images that, unfortunately, haunt many police officers across the country because the fact of the matter is, people can be difficult. People can be brutal to each other, domestic violence and child abuse. The police see it all. It is not easy, and he has witnessed way too much of that brutality, and he has protected Fairbanks' citizens from a lot of it. Here is what he also knows: Mostly, the vast majority of people are good, and that is so important to remember. Alaskans are good people. Americans are good people. He has witnessed that, too, and he has contributed to that goodness. He recently told a story about a time at the department that will stay with him. He talked about attending a wedding at a hotel. There was a man there setting tables and working at the hotel. He looked at Officer Welborn and said, ``Officer, can I talk to you for a minute?'' He said, ``Sure.'' This man went up to Officer Welborn and said: Officer, you probably don't remember me, but you arrested me years ago for a DUI. [I was having problems then, and] I've turned my life around since then. All these years later, Officer Welborn, I still remember how well you treated me. Think about that. Those are the kind of good memories that will stay with Dan too. So, thank you, Officer Welborn, for all you have done for our community and the great city of Fairbanks. Thanks for your service to Alaska and to America. Thanks for protecting us and for setting the example with respect. We wish you all the happiness in retirement. We really want you to come back to Alaska, so don't stay in St. Louis too long. The Cardinals aren't even that good of a baseball team. Congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week. I yield the floor. (Mr. SULLIVAN assumed the Chair.)

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, there is no doubt that there is a lot of anger in our country right now. We have seen that anger being given voice all throughout our communities and small towns and big cities. We have seen it in our households, among our families, our children, our friends. The killing of George Floyd has shocked us all. The video of a police officer so nonchalantly kneeling on George's neck as he begged to be released and three other officers standing by as if nothing was happening, as if it weren't a human being's life being taken--this shocked us. By now, we all know how George Floyd called out, calling out for his mother, who had passed years ago, a mother who loved him, whom he must have seen coming to him in his final moments. ``I can't breathe,'' he said--the last words of a man on a street in Minneapolis that have rocked the Nation. They are three simple words that mean so much and have so much resonance throughout our history; words that, at their very heart, have helped to define the moral issue of our country, and that is slavery and the struggle--the long struggle for civil rights. The freedom to breathe and your life as your own are what were taken from men and women and their children when they were ripped from their countries and brought, in slavery, into this Nation. That is what was taken away from Native Americans and Alaska Natives when they were forced off their lands. The freedom to take the full breath of life is what is taken away from people when they are denied a quality education or housing in safe neighborhoods; when they are denied jobs or promotions when they get those jobs; when they are viewed, because of the color of their skin, as less deserving or as less able. I applaud those who have peacefully taken to the streets throughout our communities to protest against racism, and I also applaud the brave police officers and National Guardsmen all across the country who are protecting those who need protecting and reaching out to constructively engage peaceful protesters. The vast, vast majority of these law enforcement officers are honorable and risk their lives daily for their fellow citizens, and we need to remember that. We are witnessing something that I believe is an important moment, one that has potential to move our country in a direction toward a more perfect Union. This moment has promise. Senators are discussing with each other what kind of legislative action should be taken. For example, we had a very good discussion on these issues just yesterday led by my friend and colleague Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina. State and community leaders are also having these discussions. Of course, we are a big country, and what might seem to be a good idea in one place wouldn't be a good idea in some other place. For example, one of the enormous challenges in the great State of Alaska that I have been focused on for years is not enough law enforcement, particularly in our rural and Native communities, dozens of which don't have any law enforcement officers at all. So this is a huge problem in Alaska that can create horrible situations, particularly when it comes to violent crimes like sexual assault and domestic violence. So I am not a proponent of defunding the police, but something else that is happening in America right now at this moment are discussions-- not just in the halls of government but around dinner tables, among families and parents and their kids and their friend groups--on what can or should be done at the individual level, the individual American level. This is certainly happening, for example, in my family. That was the main point of a powerful and wisdom-filled op-ed by my former boss, friend, and mentor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week, in the Washington Post Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this op-ed be printed in the Record following my remarks. It is entitled ``This Moment Cries Out for Us to Confront Race in America.'' Condoleezza Rice was the daughter of the segregated South, raised in Birmingham, AL, during the height of the struggle for civil rights, with sit-ins, riots, and even bombings happening in her city. When she was 8 years old, the Ku Klux Klan bombed a local church in Birmingham, killing four school-aged girls. One of those girls, Denise McNair, was a friend of Condi's. They used to play dolls together. Over five decades later, through hard work, grace, dignity, and supreme intelligence, she rose to become one of the most powerful people in the world as Secretary of State of the United States, and I had the honor of a lifetime to work for her for 5 years. She recounts some of her journey in this op-ed, which I encourage all of my colleagues and all Americans to read. She reminds us: Our country has a birth defect: Africans and Europeans came to this country together--but one group was in chains. In time, the very Constitution that counted slaves as three- fifths of a man became a powerful tool in affording the descendants of slaves their basic rights. That work has been long and difficult, but it has made a difference. We are better than we were. She notes one harsh indicator of progress. In Jim Crow Alabama, in her youth, she says: [N]o one batted an eye if the police killed a black man. There wouldn't have been even a footnote in the local press. Yet now we are seeing hundreds of thousands across America take to the streets peacefully to protest such injustice. In her piece from last week, she emphasizes that finger-pointing at this moment will not help the cause: And if we are to make progress, let us vow to check the language of recrimination at the door. Very wise words. We all need to focus on emphasizing unity and empathy at this moment--all of us. Senators, Governors, the President, the media--all of us have this responsibility, and it is what the vast majority of our fellow Americans want. It is what they want and what they want us to do and to see and hear from us. Perhaps most importantly, Condoleezza Rice, in her op-ed, emphasizes something seemingly so obvious but not spoken much: individual action and responsibility. She ends her piece with this challenge that I put up here on the posterboard. It is a really important challenge for every American: So I ask my fellow Americans: What will each of you do? My personal passion is educational opportunity, because it is a partial shield against prejudice. It is not a perfect shield, I know, but it gives people a fighting chance. In my conversations, I want to discuss why the learning gap for black kids is so stubborn and what can be done about it. What is your question about the impact of race on the lives of Americans? And what will you do to find answers? Those words in her op-ed--the challenge--really struck me, and I have thought long and hard all week about them since reading those words in the Washington Post. Of course, as a Senator, I, with many of you, my colleagues, am taking part in discussions which I hope will lead to collective action by our Federal Government to address some of the challenges our Nation certainly continues to have regarding race. But Condoleezza Rice's question and challenge is about personal passion and action, and it is a question for every American to consider. I have an amazing Alaska Native wife from whom I have learned much about the serious issue of racism in my State against indigenous Alaskans and among the first peoples in our great Nation, but I have never experienced the kind of racism that many across our country have. I am a colonel in the Marines, an institution I am very proud to be a part of, an institution that--like the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard--at its very heart, it isn't supposed to matter what the color of your skin is, what religion you practice, or what part of the socioeconomic ladder you come from. The fundamental ethos of the Marine Corps and our military is supposed to be this: It doesn't matter what race you are. You are just a U.S. marine. Now, of course, the Marines and the rest of the military don't always meet this ideal, but they strive for it, even in ways that might seem puzzling to those who haven't served. There is the story of the tough Marine Corps drill instructor shouting at his raw recruits on day one of boot camp: There is no racial bigotry here. In my eyes, every one of you are equally worthless. My orders are to weed out all non- hackers who cannot serve my beloved Marine Corps. Do you maggots understand that? That is the drill instructor. Again, it is the ideal--equality in the U.S. military--but it is not always met. I remember how the first rifle platoon I commanded as a young second lieutenant was literally about one-third White, one-third Black, and one-third Hispanic. My platoon sergeant was an African-American marine named Willis Towns. He was outstanding in every way, Sergeant Towns. I learned so much from him about leadership. His dream in life was to be the first African-American sergeant major of the entire Marine Corps. He never reached that goal. A few weeks after I attended a Martin Luther King, Jr., ceremony with him in which he received an award for his leadership in the community, he was killed in a training accident. That was the worst day of my life. Just a few years later, the Marine Corps named another outstanding African American to be Sergeant Major of the entire Marine Corps. I remember thinking when the announcement came out: Congratulations, Willis. You did it. You did it. I believe that the military--desegregated in 1948, nearly 20 years before the passage of civil rights legislation by this body--is one of the most important civil rights organizations in America. I am passionate about our U.S. military, but it can improve in terms of race. There are questions that need to be asked about the record of our military on these important issues. Yesterday was an important day in the Senate with the unanimous vote to confirm Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., to be Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. For a whole host of reasons, I was probably more involved in his confirmation than any other Senator. I had the opportunity to come to the floor yesterday to speak strongly in support of his Senate confirmation. I have had many discussions with General Brown over the past year, but what surprised me was that I learned recently that yesterday's vote was actually a historic vote for America. His confirmation, 98 to 0, was so historic because General C. Q. Brown was just confirmed yesterday by this body as our first African-American service chief in the history of the United States of America. Let me explain a little bit more about that. The Joint Chiefs of Staff consists of the service chiefs, the top four-star generals of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Coast Guard, as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, with the notable exception of GEN Colin Powell, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the early 1990s. General C. Q. Brown, whom we confirmed yesterday, will be the first African-American service chief ever for any military service. Of course, this is good news in terms of racial progress for America, but it also begs an important question: Why did it take so long for this to happen, especially in one of America's institutions with probably one of the best, longest records on positive civil rights in our Nation? Some of the answers are surely hinted at in General Brown's very moving video address that he gave last week when he talked about what was on his mind in the wake of the horrible George Floyd death. I would recommend that everybody take a look at that. In the Air Force, he says he was often the only African American in his squadron, and as a senior general officer, the only African American in the entire room. What is he thinking about during these challenging times? ``I'm thinking about wearing the same flight suit with the same wings on my chest as my peers and then being questioned by another military member, are you a pilot?'' What else is he thinking? ``I'm thinking about my mentors and how rarely I had a mentor who looked like me.'' ``I'm thinking about the pressure I felt to perform error-free, especially for supervisors I perceived had expected less of me as an African American.'' He continues saying he was thinking about the conversations he was having with his sons and the immense responsibility that comes from his historic nomination. He was thinking about how with this confirmation, he could make things better in the Air Force and America. Here is how I am going to take up Condoleezza Rice's challenge, as she put forth for each individual American. I am going to ask questions--as she prods us to do in this piece--on why, until yesterday, no African-American four-star had ever been confirmed to be a service chief in the U.S. military in the history of our country. We are introducing an amendment to this year's NDAA to get data on minorities and senior enlisted and officer billets in the military-- African Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans and others. We know these are very patriotic segments of our population. For example, Alaska Natives and American Indians serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country--what I refer to as special patriotism. Is this patriotic service reflected at the highest leadership ranks of our military? If not, then, why not? I suspect that a lot of our military leaders who have risen to the general officers ranks--like General Brown or other outstanding African-American generals whom I have gotten to know or have the privilege of serving with, like Army GEN Vincent Brooks, former CENTCOM Commander GEN Lloyd Austin, and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Ron Bailey--will have insightful views on these important matters. Our military is something I am very passionate about, not only because it protects and defends our Nation, but because for decades, it has provided Americans of all colors and creeds with the opportunity to rise up individually and as a collective force for good in our society and to enable members of the military to achieve their full potential and have a promising future after their service is completed. If there is some kind of obstacle for minority advancement that stifles opportunities at the highest ranks of our military, then we need to know why and we need to work on addressing it together. As a matter of fact, I just came from a full day of marking up the NDAA with Democratic and Republican Senators, and we will be trying to look at this issue, which we had a great discussion on in our markup today. We need our military--like we need the rest of the country--to be a place where everyone who joins can breathe freely. This is one of the ways I am going to take up Condoleezza Rice's challenge to her fellow Americans--this important challenge--and I hope my fellow Americans will find their own individual ways to do this, as well

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, this is going to be a historic day for the U.S. Senate, as we come to the floor after the recess, after lunch here, to be voting on the confirmation of Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., to be the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force--Gen. C.Q. Brown. I will be voting for General Brown because he is the right man, at the right time, for this very important job. Let me explain why. General Brown has an impressive academic record and a sterling record of service to our great Nation and, of course, to the U.S. Air Force. He is a distinguished graduate of the Armed Force Reserve Officer Training Corps, with a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Texas Tech--the Presiding Officer might like that--as well as a master's degree in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Currently, General Brown is the commanding officer--the four-star general--in charge of Pacific Air Forces, all Pacific Air Forces. Of course, Mr. President, you know that is really important because he is literally on the frontlines in implementing the national defense strategy, which has a focus on great power competition, particularly China, as the pacing threat to our Nation for the next 50 to 100 years. General Brown is in that battle right now, frontlines, every day, in his current billing. That is really important. Prior to being commander of the Pacific Air Forces, he was the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command for 2 years. He knows all about the national security challenges that we have from that region of the world, which are still very significant--particularly violent extremist organizations, like al-Qaida and ISIS--that continue to threaten the United States. From 2015 to 2016, he served as the U.S. Air Force's Central Command Combined Force Air Component Commander, where he oversaw the strategic bombing campaigns against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, as well as operations against insurgent groups in Afghanistan. With a record like that--pretty remarkable--he understands the threats we are currently facing. He understands the big challenges we are seeing over the horizon with regard to China. And he is ready to lead the Air Force to take on those threats as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Secretary of the Air Force, Barbara Barrett, said of General Brown: He has unmatched strategic vision and operational expertise. His leadership will be instrumental as the service continues to focus on the capabilities and talent we need to implement the National Defense Strategy. That is the Secretary of the Air Force on Gen. C.Q. Brown. In my conversations with him, I certainly believe these qualities, these characteristics, the Secretary of the Air Force describes to certainly be true. I have had many good conversations with him on strategy, on strategic basing, including in the Asia-Pacific region, and I am very confident that, again, he is the right person for the right job at this moment. I also want to mention that he will be the first African-American to serve as a chief in our military's history. I have known General Brown for some time, but I was actually surprised when I realized this. Colin Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and did an amazing job, but we have not had an African-American serve as chief in any other services in the history of the United States. I think that is very important right now. In many ways, this is a historic nomination, particularly, as our country is roiling over the killing of George Floyd and the protests that are taking place-- peacefully now, which is great--to demand justice for him and his family, and as we look at some of the challenges we have in our Nation with regard countering racism across America. In a very moving video address last week, General Brown recently talked about what is on his mind in terms of some of these challenges. He talks about many of the things that are on his mind, many aspects of his career. It is very powerful. I would recommend that people who care about these issues take a look at that very powerful speech. He said that he was thinking about the conversations his wife of 31 years, Sharene, and his two sons, Sean and Ross, have had on these times recently but, also, the immense responsibility that comes from his historic nomination. He was thinking, of course, about how he could make our country better for others from a national security standpoint and with regard to other issues. Think about that. That is a tremendous weight for anyone to carry, but I firmly believe that General Brown's shoulders are broad and strong enough to carry this weight. I am going to be voting enthusiastically yes with regard to the vote we are going to take at 2:15 this afternoon. I want to encourage all of my colleagues to vote yes, to have a 100-to-0 vote for this important, impressive nomination to be the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if my remarks go over the time for the recess at 12:30 that they be allowed to extend beyond that.

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

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I will speak now about the Due Process Protections Act, which was sponsored by myself and Senator Durbin from Illinois and which passed the U.S. Senate last night unanimously. I thank my colleagues for their support for this simple but important bill. In fact, the Due Process Protections Act is so simple that it really probably shouldn't be necessary, but believe me, it is necessary. Unfortunately, it is necessary. I was pleased that this body passed it last night. Let me explain. The due process clause of the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark decision, Brady v. Maryland, requires that prosecutors turn over all material evidence favorable to the defense. That is what a fair trial is about. If the prosecutor has exculpatory evidence, as we call it, you need to make sure the defense has it. This is such a bedrock element of our criminal justice system and constitutional due process that the name of this kind of evidence is simply now called ``Brady evidence'' after the case Brady v. Maryland. Now, the vast majority of Federal prosecutors--and, by the way, FBI agents--who work in our criminal justice system are patriots. Many are veterans, and they work day in and day out to keep us safe and abide by their constitutional duties and obligations. They do turn Brady evidence over to the defense, as they are required to do by the Constitution. The sad fact is, some prosecutors don't do this. Some choose instead to win at all costs by taking shortcuts--not justice, but shortcuts. And when I say shortcuts, I am talking about violating a defendant's constitutional rights. The prevalence of these violations is not easy to quantify--these Brady violations, as we call them. One study--and I am not vouching for the accuracy, and this was a study called the National Registry of Exonerations--stated that from 1989 to 2017, prosecutors concealed exculpatory evidence at trial in half of all murder exonerations. If that statistic is even remotely true, it is outrageous and needs to stop. Such potential Brady violations have, once again, been in the news with the prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn--GEN Michael Flynn. There are all kinds of articles now out there. I recently wrote the head of the FBI on this very issue about the potential Brady violations by Federal prosecutors that appear to have taken place in this prosecution. What that has done in my State is that it has opened old wounds--old wounds--and difficult memories. My colleagues here--every single one of them--remember the late, great Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. As a matter of fact, his portrait is right off of the Senate floor, an incredible new portrait that we just put there recently. He was charged by Federal prosecutors with making false statements and was convicted prior to his reelection, which he lost because of the conviction by prosecutors. Not long after the conviction, it started to become apparent that there was prosecutorial misconduct in that very high-profile case, so the trial judge in that case appointed a special prosecutor to investigate this. There was a report that came out in 2012 by the Justice Department, by the special prosecutor, that was highly critical of the prosecutors' and the FBI's conduct. In particular, they withheld all kinds of Brady evidence. Just 6 months after Senator Stevens' conviction, it was revealed that Federal prosecutors had concealed numerous pieces of evidence that very likely could have resulted in his acquittal. Among the more egregious examples--and there were many--rather than call a witness whose testimony would have supported Senator Stevens, the government flew the witness home to Alaska. That is pretty pathetic. The prosecution also concealed that its star witness, who was testifying against Senator Stevens, had an illegal sexual relationship with an underage woman whom he had asked to lie about the relationship. And to this day--to this very day--there are still questions about whether the Federal Government offered that star witness, in exchange for his testimony, leniency on not prosecuting him for violating the Mann Act. There are still questions to this day. The special prosecutor that the district judge appointed to investigate the prosecutorial misconduct in the Stevens case found that the Justice Department lawyers had committed ``deliberate and `systematic' ethical violations by withholding critical evidence pointing to Senator Stevens' innocence.'' That is the Justice Department special prosecutor determining just how corrupt the Justice Department was in prosecuting and convicting Ted Stevens. Yet the special prosecutor, who investigated all of this also, found that the district court judge was powerless to act against the wrongdoers--the corrupt prosecutors--because the district court had not issued a direct, written court order at the beginning of the trial, requiring the prosecutors to abide by their ethical and constitutional obligations as laid out in Brady v. Maryland. It is a bit remarkable because every law student knows you learn Brady v. Maryland the first year of law school. But somehow these prosecutors across the street over at the Justice Department forgot about it, and they were going to be punished. But the system of justice said that you couldn't punish them because they didn't know because the judge didn't tell them. Again, I am not sure we even need a law to deal with this, but, as I said, unfortunately, we do. As you can imagine, it was maddening to the people of Alaska that those who violated Senator Stevens' constitutional rights--and, by the way, forever changed the political landscape, not just in Alaska but in America; don't get me going about what happened there--these prosecutors couldn't even be held accountable and were not held accountable because they weren't instructed by the district court about the Brady evidence requirements that they learned in law school in their first year. So in response to the Stevens case and due to growing concerns about the unfortunate frequency of Brady evidence violations by prosecutors, a number of Federal district judges began issuing specific local rules or standing orders that explicitly remind prosecutors of what they learned their first year of law school, which is that you have to turn over Brady evidence. But the Federal Judicial Conference's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure--so, essentially, the judges who advise on the rules--has consistently declined to require all Federal courts to do the same. So right now, all Federal courts don't have to issue instructions on Brady evidence. Well, today, Congress is beginning to change all of this. My bill, which passed last night unanimously--the Due Process Protections Act-- codifies this practice and requires it of every Federal judge nationwide by amending rule 5 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to require that a judge ``issue an oral or written order to prosecution and defense counsel that confirms the disclosure obligation of the prosecutor under Brady v. Maryland . . . and its progeny''--that is quoting from my bill--at the beginning of every criminal case. Our bill allows each judicial district flexibility to promulgate their own model rule, but they have to do it. Congress is telling them they have to do it, so they will do it. Having this standing order in place will explicitly remind the prosecution of their obligations--making it a priority to protect the due process of all Americans, including defendants--and it will provide for quicker recourse upon discovering any Brady violations that occur. We obviously can't undo what happened to the late, great Senator Stevens, nor can we undo all the harm it caused to my State, my constituents, and, really, the people across America who have also been victims of these kinds of violations because it undermines trust in our system of justice. But going forward, we can work to stem the corrosive effects to our democracy when prosecutors don't abide by their constitutional obligations. We can work to ensure our system of justice--the foundation of American democracy--is stronger and fairer for all, and that is what the Due Process Protections Act will do. I want to thank chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, for helping to facilitate this bill's passage; my colleague Senator Durbin, who was my original cosponsor of this bill; and the other cosponsors: Senators Lee from Utah, Booker from New Jersey, Cornyn from Texas, Whitehouse from Rhode Island, and Paul from Kentucky. I say to the Presiding Officer, you know those Senators. That is about as broad a political array in terms of the political spectrum in America and the U.S. Senate--Democrats and Republicans who believe in this issue, and that is why I think it is so important. Our system of justice will be fairer once that bill passes the House and is signed into law by the President. I just want to thank my colleagues--all of my colleagues--who voted for this necessary and important and simple piece of legislation that, unfortunately, we need in America today. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is Thursday, one of my favorite times of the week, because it is the time I get to come to the Senate floor and recognize an extraordinary Alaskan whom we refer to as the Alaskan of the Week. Now, Memorial Day is fast approaching. It is certainly one of the most sacred days in our Nation throughout the year. For this week's Alaskan of the Week, Sharon Long, it is a day that is a particularly profound day. Sharon Long is a Gold Star mother who lives in Anchorage, and she remembers her son, Grant Fraser, every day of the year. For her and her family and for so many people who knew Grant and who served with Grant, Memorial Day is a day when his memory is particularly honored. Before I get into Sharon Long's story, as well as the remarkable story of her son Grant, let me talk a little bit about what is going on in Alaska right now as we, in our country, continue to face the challenges of this pandemic. We are doing pretty well in our State, medically, certainly. Things could, of course, change quickly. We remain vigilant as a State, but the number of people infected by the virus is very low. Businesses are starting to reopen. Life, by no means, is back to normal, and there is much that we are going to need to do to recover from this virus and pandemic, which has very, very negatively impacted so many parts of the great State of Alaska's economy--the energy sector, tourism sector, fishery sector. We will get through this stronger and more resilient, but it is a challenging time. As you know, Memorial Day weekend commemorates many virtues in our Nation: service, selflessness, and, of course, sacrifice. But Memorial Day also commemorates and inspires hope. I know hope can be a bit hard to come by during these challenging times, but I don't think we have to go very far to see signs of hope. In our great Nation and in my great State, hope is in the faces of those we love. In Alaska, it is in our mountains and our glaciers and our clear waters. It is also woven into the fabric of our country and the soul of our Nation. It is at the very heart of who we are, and it has been so throughout our history, often manifesting itself in the battles that have shaped our Nation over decades and over centuries that define so much of the American character and the people who fought those battles and died defending their Nation whom we commemorate this weekend. Hope is what Sharon Long and other Gold Star mothers throughout our State and Nation who have lost a child while defending America have to offer us. So let me tell you about Sharon's story and about her son, Marine Corps LCpl Grant Fraser, who gave his life for this Nation. From Seattle, Sharon moved to our State to live with her aunt and uncle when she was just 16 years old. She graduated from West High School in Anchorage, studied political science at Alaska Methodist University, which is now Alaska Pacific University, and embraced the great State of Alaska with everything she had. It was a heady and exciting time in Alaska. Prudhoe Bay Oil Field on the North Slope was just discovered--the biggest oilfield in North America. This is the late 1960s, early 1970s. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, one of the biggest land claims acts in U.S. history, was being debated and then passed right here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sharon said: Alaska was a wide open place that wanted the energy of my generation. She got to work. She worked at the Department of Natural Resources, an agency that I had the honor of being the former commissioner of. She worked for the Joint Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission for Alaska, inventorying the abundant world-class natural resources we have in our State. Then she and a girlfriend traveled the world for a year and landed at the end of her tour in DC. She was young, broke, on a friend's couch, and she came here and asked for and got a job with former Alaska U.S. Senator Mike Gravel. Some might remember Senator Gravel here in the Senate. She worked on natural resource issues for him. Eventually, she made her way back home to Alaska and met her husband, an Air Force anesthesiologist, James Fraser, who made his way into private practice. Sharon helped run the office, and they had two wonderful children, Grant and Victoria. So who is Grant Fraser? Her son. He was popular at Service High School in Anchorage, where he graduated. He was an actor who loved the works of Homer and Shakespeare. He was a mountain biker, a skier, a pianist, a scuba diver, a rock climber, and a tennis player. He was lighthearted and mischievous, and according to his marine brothers, the only thing that could really rile him up was when they talked about his sister the way in which sometimes marines, unfortunately, have the habit of doing. He was a fiercely loyal brother. You could not joke about his sister Victoria, who, by the way, now is a professional soprano singer who has performed all over the world. So Sharon and her husband James assumed that Grant would become an athlete, maybe, or a scholar. He was a very, very smart young man. But shortly after 9/11, like so many patriotic young Americans across our Nation, he surprised his family and his friends when he announced he was joining the marines. ``No, no, no, no,'' Sharon told her son. ``That isn't the plan. You are going to school now.'' He told his mom: ``Mom, this isn't my scholarly time of life. I am ready to serve and fight for my country, if need be.'' He knew he would thrive in the Marines, and he did. He planned on coming back home in Anchorage to work as a paramedic with the fire department. Grant and I briefly overlapped in the Marine Corps unit. We both served in Alaska, Echo Company, 4th Reconnaissance Battalion, which was later deployed to Iraq in 2005. On August 3, 2005, in Anbar Province, Iraq, Grant was on a mission, Operation Quick Strike, to avenge the killing of his fellow marines that had happened just a few days earlier. He was riding in an AmTrac vehicle on an attack into the city, hit a massive improvised explosive device, and was 22 years old when he made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation. Now, I love our military, but let's face it; sometimes it can be bureaucratic and boneheaded. It took 11 years and tenacious work on the part of Grant's amazing mother Sharon to finally get her son an appropriate burial across the street at Arlington. Just 2 days before the funeral, I was sitting next to Gen. Joe Dunford, the Marine Corps Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a dinner. I told General Dunford about Grant's heroism and about Sharon Long's heroic perseverance to get her son appropriately honored with a burial at Arlington. On an overcast day, September 30, 2016, Grant Fraser was put to rest among his brothers and sisters, our Nation's heroes, whom we honor this weekend at Arlington National Cemetery. Family, friends, and especially U.S. marines from all across America came to that service to say goodbye to their friend. I was there, and when I got there, I was honored to see many marines. One, in particular, came to the funeral early and stayed till the very end. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford, attended in his dress blues out of respect for this young Marine Corps lance corporal. He later told me that when he read about what happened with Grant, he couldn't sleep. He wanted to be at the funeral to honor Grant's sacrifice and that of his family, especially his mother Sharon. General Dunford stayed after most others had left to talk to Sharon Long, Grant's mother, and his Marine Corps brothers. ``I don't live very far from here,'' the General told Sharon. ``I will be checking in on Grant from time to time.'' Now, I have been to a lot of funerals in my Marine Corps career, but this was the most moving funeral I have ever attended. It was not because of the presence of a four-star general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford, the most powerful U.S. military officer in America--in the world, really--and not because of the serendipitous presence of the Marine captain in charge of the Arlington burial honor guard, whose twin brother was one of the fallen marines whom Grant Fraser had been sent to avenge the day he was killed 11 years earlier. It was so moving on that day because, on that day, rank didn't matter, and medals didn't matter. That day we were all just Americans grieving the loss of one of our own: mischievous, smart, Marine Corps LCpl Grant Fraser, an actor, an Alaskan, a brother, a son. It was so moving because of the dignity, grace, and beautiful determination exhibited by Sharon Long, who epitomizes the love, suffering, and quiet sacrifice of so many Gold Star mothers across our country, especially this weekend. Sharon stays in touch with Grant's Marine Corps brothers. They call her on Mother's Day. They send her flowers, invite her to their weddings and to their kids' birthday parties. Two of them showed up at their family home when Sharon's daughter, Victoria, whom we already talked about, and her date were headed to prom. They needed to make sure Grant would have approved of Victoria's date. I am sure Victoria appreciated that. Grant would have been in the same place in life as these young men are now. As one of them said to Sharon: I came back home from Iraq to live the life Grant couldn't. Sharon is proud of all the men and women who have served, who served with Grant and continue to serve. She understands their calling. She understands their camaraderie. These incredible warriors in our Nation give her hope. With men and women like these, Sharon said: ``How can you not be proud of this country? How can you not be optimistic about this country?'' The lives of hundreds of thousands of America's sons and daughters have been lost in fighting for our great Nation, and on Memorial Day, they are in the hearts of all Americans. They are in the hearts of all Alaskans. They are in the hearts of all Gold Star families, and they are in the hearts of Sharon Long and her family. Like Gold Star mothers all across the country and in our great State, Sharon was fiercely determined to advocate for her son. She sacrificed much but never gave up, and neither will we ever give up on them, on him, or their memory, which we commemorate this weekend. Sharon Long's actions recalled the Memorial Day words of President Reagan in 1985 after placing a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a place that is not far from Grant Fraser's eternal resting place. As President Reagan said: If words cannot repay the debt we owe these men [and women], surely with our actions we must strive to keep faith with them and with the vision that led them to battle and final sacrifice. Our first obligation to them and ourselves is plain enough: The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice so much, so too must we--in a less final, less heroic way--be willing to give of ourselves [for our Nation]. Thank you, Sharon Long, for your brave sacrifice, for your dignified determination, and for your hope, which gives us hope. As we head into another sacred Memorial Day weekend, thank you for being our Alaskan of the Week

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is Thursday, and I am back on the Senate floor, partaking in one of my favorite times of the week, which is to come down to the floor and talk about somebody who is making a great difference in my State. We call this individual our Alaskan of the Week. To those who watch the floor back home, sometimes we break the rules a little bit and recognize more than one person. We just call them the Alaskans of the Week, with an ``s.'' Pandemic or no pandemic, I think it is still important that we come down and recognize, particularly during these challenging times, people who are making a difference in our State and across our country. As I mentioned last week, this pandemic is definitely testing the character of our Nation. You might remember, right when it was hitting, some reporters from the Washington Post wrote a story, saying that Americans are going to be tested and that they don't think they are going to be able to pass--maybe not like they had in World War II and at other times--that the mettle, the toughness, and the resiliency of Americans might not be able to get us through this. That was the Washington Post--classic, clueless, inside-the-beltway reporting. In my remarks on the floor--this was about 6 weeks ago--I said: You ought to come up to Alaska, Washington Post, and see my constituents, or maybe come out with my marines and see the marines. You have to know America. Alaska is America, and we are going to pass this test as a nation, and we are--all across the country and certainly in my great State. In small, rural villages and in urban centers, from the tundra to the rainforests, all across the State, people are helping each other. They are passing out food. They are helping the elderly, making sure they are not lonely. They are tending to those in need and are displaying generosity, strength, and amazing resilience. The paper should write more about that. Our frontline workers have now become our national heroes. Some of them are working day in and day out to ensure that our grocery stores are stocked, that the goods are transported, that the buildings are maintained, that our telecommunication systems are running, that our airplanes are flying, that our hospitals are open, and that our community healthcare workers can give care. The list, as we all know, goes on and on and on. Because of those back home, because of these great Americans all around our country, and because of what is happening in my State with our State's leadership, Alaska has done well from a health standpoint in terms of this virus. Knock on wood, of course--and I am doing it-- things could change. They could change anywhere. They certainly could change in Alaska, but so far so good. Alaskans are known for their rugged individualism. Alaskans are not naturally people who automatically follow orders without having a good reason to do so, but almost everybody across our State has taken this virus seriously in their helping one another and in their following the guidance that has been given by our State's leaders. I chalk that up to good leadership from our very attentive mayors--city mayors, borough mayors--to our local leaders across the State, to our Governor, Mike Dunleavy, and to the healthcare team he put together in his administration that was ready when this pandemic hit. I am going to talk about the healthcare team. It has been led by the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Adam Crum, and by Alaska's chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink. Both of them are our Alaskans of the week. They have both worked day and night throughout these past several weeks since this pandemic has hit our Nation, has hit my State, and they have been trying around the clock to keep our fellow Alaskans safe. As I mentioned, both are more than deserving of this very, very prestigious award. They have risen to the challenge in so many impressive ways in working for their State and their country. As Alaskans do, both of them have interesting life stories, compelling life stories. Let me tell you a little bit about both of them. Adam Crum lives in Wasilla with Colleen, his wife. He was born and raised in Alaska. He grew up on the Kenai Peninsula and went to Homer High School. He was a graduate there and a good football player. He went to Northwestern and walked on the football team. That is Big Ten football. That takes a lot of guts--center, guard, offensive lineman. He did great there. In fact, look at the Crums, his siblings. They are a big family-- impressive, a big group. There are brains and brawn in that family. Adam's three brothers all played college ball--Joey at Puget Sound, Richie at the University of Idaho, and Cody at West Texas A&M. Their dad also played at the University of Arkansas. Like I said, when you line up the Crum brothers, you look like you have a serious pro- football offensive line right there. It is an impressive family. Adam enjoyed Northwestern and playing ball there, but on his first visit back home from college, he began to realize just how unique the great State of Alaska was where he grew up. He said: ``For me, I really didn't appreciate it until I actually went someplace else.'' Like all of us who love the outdoors, the scenery, the diversity, the opportunities, when he moved back from college, he was committed to coming back to our State to serve our State. He went into his family business. He got his master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. Then, when Governor Dunleavy, whom I mentioned, was elected in November of 2018, Adam was offered the job of commissioner of Health and Social Services. His starting date was going to be December 3, 2018, but in Alaska, there are always adventures and challenges, and on November 30, the south central part of our State got hit with a huge shock, a huge earthquake--7.1. There were cracking and collapsing roads and highways. It damaged buildings, destroyed schools, knocked out power, and sent people scrambling outside and under furniture. It really damaged homes. So Adam, who was going to start this job in 3 days, said: I am going to start now. He moved up the start date and got to work. It was a crash course in health emergency operations. Brand new on the job, his Health and Human Services department was in touch with all the hospitals, all the prisons, the elder care facilities, the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. He watched and led these operations, everybody working together. Here is the miracle: In this huge earthquake during rush hour in Alaska, not one life was lost. It was remarkable--literally a miracle. He learned how to bring people together in emergency operations. That exercise was invaluable with what came next, and we all know what came next--the pandemic which has rocked our State, our country, and really our world. Alaska's chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, appears with Commissioner Adam Crum and Governor Dunleavy nearly every night to address Alaskans and our media in a press conference about where we are with regard to the health of our State and this coronavirus. Versions of this scene happen nearly every night across the country as Governors are addressing their public. But I am willing to venture to say that if there is a marker of success with such briefings, it is this: how much the people are trusting of what is being told to them. I would state that Alaska's healthcare team, Commissioner Crum and Dr. Zink, have passed with flying colors. Dr. Zink is certainly one of the stars of this nightly show as she appears from her yurt in her backyard in Palmer, AK. She has become so popular in Alaska that there is even a Facebook page dedicated to her called ``Think like Zink.'' Rorie Watt, Juneau's city manager, actually wrote an ode in her honor. It is a lengthy poem, and it starts like this: Oh Alaska, I love you and it feels like we are teetering on the brink; who can guide and steer us? The unflappable Dr. Zink! You know if a poem is written about you, you are doing a good job. Dr. Zink was raised in Colorado with physician parents. She was no stranger to Alaska. She worked as a mountaineering guide in Alaska during college. So after getting her M.D. from Stanford, she made her way back to our great State 11 years ago and has worked as an ER doctor in the Matanuska Valley. Last July, she was with her family in Bhutan on a yearlong sabbatical when she got a call from Adam Crum, asking her to come to be the State's Chief Medical Officer. Commissioner Crum, speaking like a true Big Ten football player, said: ``She was my number 1 draft pick.'' So Commissioner Crum made the smart decision to bring on Dr. Zink to the medical team and healthcare team that he leads. Commissioner Crum and Dr. Zink have, along with the rest of the country, been closely watching the virus migrate from China to the United States since the early stages. Remember what happened when the State Department brought our diplomats home from Wuhan. A planeload of our diplomats were coming home, and they had to stop in Anchorage on January 28 for a refueling stop. We later learned that nobody on the plane actually had the virus, but Commissioner Crum and Dr. Zink started to get our State ready. They prepared for the worst, contacting local and Tribal medical facilities. They were in constant coordination with the CDC. They were in communications with all the State agencies and divisions and, very, very importantly, with the public. This began their outreach to our citizens. They have continued that frenzied pace ever since, working day and night with the Governor's office to try their best to keep the virus at bay, to keep our citizens healthy, and so far it is working. Like other places, businesses in Alaska have been shut down and are now slowly beginning to open back up. We need to open back up. We need to keep our citizens healthy, but we need to get our economy open and moving again. Among the other precautions, the Governor established a ban for a time on travel throughout the State and a 14-day quarantine still in place for anybody who comes from outside of Alaska to the State. Commissioner Crum said that mandate was probably the most effective thing they have done so far to keep the virus from spreading. Again, that doesn't mean it can't flare up in Alaska. It has flared up in other parts of our country. For example, we have some 200 villages that are not connected by roads and many of which do not have healthcare facilities. If they do have them, they are very, very limited. These communities were hit very hard by the Spanish flu, so there is a lot of trepidation in rural Alaska. We have a fishing season that will start and will begin to bring people in from out of State--thousands of people--to work in Alaska. This is very important for our economy, but the communities need to feel safe. I have raised this issue with the President, the Vice President, and the Chief of Staff, and to their credit they have responded. As a matter of fact, right now we have a doctor from DHS who is going around the State, with Dr. Zink and others, who was sent there by Admiral Brett Giroir, the HHS Assistant Secretary, in charge of testing. They are all out there. They are going to be in Kodiak, Bristol Bay, and Cordova, trying to make sure that our fishing communities are ready. When the admiral called me, he said: We are working with the State, Senator Sullivan. This direction is from the highest senior officials in the White House to get out there and bring resources to your fishing communities, and I will say, working with Dr. Zink, she is one of the top medical officers in the country. This is Admiral Giroir speaking about Dr. Zink. So as you can tell, the utmost diligence is required and so is planning, communication, and bringing people along, particularly when you are asking them to take extreme measures. Again, because of the leadership we have, it is something that I think so far is going well in our State. Commissioner Crum said: Alaskans are contrarian by nature. They want to be educated. They don't want to be forced. When they were told that it was the right thing to do, to comply with the mandates--that if we do this now, it will hurt less later-- they did it. Alaskans did this. Commissioner Crum continued: It was the most painful thing I've ever done--asking people to close their businesses. But not as painful as it was for the people who actually had to shut down their business. But Alaskans complied and we worked together. True leaders emerge during times of crisis. We are grateful that these two leaders emerged for us in Alaska. They are working, along with the Governor and the rest of his team, to do a very good job for our State. Like I said, we aren't past this. We have enormous challenges in our Nation and huge economic challenges in our State, but we know a few things. We have good people at the top who are guiding us, and we know that Alaskans will do the right thing when they are asked by these people. We also know that we are resilient, our State, our people, and our Nation. In a recent interview, Dr. Zink said that one of her big takeaways throughout this entire pandemic is just how important resilience is and how very resilient Alaska is. She said, ``Adversity can bring out the best and worst in people, and we have a choice to grow in response to the challenges or crumble from them.'' Well, as I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, I am convinced that Alaska will grow from these challenges and that America will grow from these challenges, and I am convinced that what we are seeing all around our State and our Nation is amazing generosity, people working together through these difficult times. We will emerge stronger and more resilient. So I want to thank two leaders in our State who are responsible, in many ways, for getting us through, so far so good, on the health side, Commissioner Crum and Dr. Zink. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your hard work and your sacrifice. Thank you for stepping up and congratulations on being our Alaskans of the Week. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, as we all know, it has been an extraordinarily challenging time for our great Nation, a time that has been painful for so many of our fellow Americans. It has also been a time when people across the country have given so much to their communities, to their States, and to their neighbors. And, as you know, we are a great nation. We are a kind nation. We are a proud nation, and we are a resilient Nation. This pandemic has been testing the character of our country, and I believe that we are passing the test as Americans. I believe that because I see it everywhere. I certainly see it in my State, the great State of Alaska. People are passing out food, doing what they can for the elderly, tending to those in need. We are seeing this all across our Nation. We see millions of our fellow citizens--people whom we all have the privilege of representing here in the Senate--stepping up with purpose and resolve. We see a greater appreciation for the dignity and the value of our workers who are on the frontlines of helping us get through this pandemic. I was recently home in my State. The rule in Alaska is if you travel from the outside, when you get to Alaska, you have a very strict 14-day quarantine. I was quarantined with my wife and three daughters, hunkered down in Anchorage. Yet I was also able to still appreciate what was happening with so many of our fellow citizens, especially frontline workers who are helping Alaska power through this crisis. So many of them are working day in and day out to ensure that our grocery stores are stocked, that the goods are transported, that buildings are maintained, that our telecommunication systems are running, that our airplanes are flying, that our hospitals are open, that our healthcare workers can give care, and that our extraordinary teachers are finding creative ways to teach our kids. The list goes on and on. It is happening in every State across the Nation. Last week, I decided to give an impromptu Alaskan of the Week speech in my backyard. It wasn't here on the Senate floor the way we usually do it and the way we are doing it today. I was highlighting these workers. Many of them are part of the Teamsters Local 959, led by third-generation teamster Gary Dixon. I want to say thank you to them again. We talk a lot about people who are telecommuting. That is great. It is important to get us through this pandemic, but we also know there are a lot of people who can't do that. They are really our national heroes right now--essential workers on the frontlines, keeping our economies and our supply lines open, moving, robust. Now that I am back in DC and the Senate is open again--finally, open again--and the business of the Senate is continuing, so does our Alaskan of the Week series from the floor of the Senate. It is one of my favorite times of the week, when I get to focus on a special Alaskan or a group of Alaskans who made Alaska such a great and unique place. I think the Presiding Officer likes it a lot, too. I had intended, as I mentioned, on my Alaskan of the Week speech here coming back, to focus on more of these frontline workers who are doing so much in our States and so much in our country to get us through this pandemic. However, some really interesting and, I think, exciting news, broke on Monday in our State, as big news born of a tragic situation. And for that reason, I thought we would have a different focus on our Alaskan of the Week. The Alaskan of the Week this week is an intrepid Alaska reporter, Kyle Hopkins, who led coverage in our local paper, the Anchorage Daily News, that earned him the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for public service. It is probably the most prestigious award in all American journalism--the prize of prizes. Kyle Hopkins, an Alaska reporter, won that on Monday. He won it for a 17-story series called ``Lawless,'' about the public safety crisis of rural Alaska and the horrendous issue of sexual assault and domestic violence in our State. As we all know, we are confronting a pandemic in our country. I live in a great State, but we have a lot of social challenges, just like a lot of States. We are confronting this pandemic right now nationally. My State has been confronting an epidemic of domestic violence and sexual abuse that has been going on for years--decades, generations. Kyle's series combined dogged reporting and meticulous fact-checking with the utmost sensitivity that a subject like this requires, which is not an easy task at all. It was, according to the Pulitzer committee, riveting public service reporting. It was so much more than that. I will tell you that it was very, very important to the State of Alaska. Let me tell you a little bit about our Alaskan of the Week, Kyle Hopkins, and what made him very qualified to write this series and why it had such an impact. And I believe--maybe, I should say I hope--it is beginning to bring changes to our public safety system and, most importantly, to the unfortunate culture that we have in our State that spawns this kind of abuse and violence. Kyle was born in beautiful Sitka, AK. That is in Southeast Alaska. His father was a teacher who came from California to teach the children of logging camp workers at a time when the southeast part of our State had a very vital timber industry. The family moved back to California after a few years, but then back to Alaska again, and then away and then back again. Sitka, Kake, Skagway--two small towns, one village-- are all in Alaska's beautifully gorgeous southeast. For Kyle, the towns provided the backdrop of a magical childhood--spruce trees that seemed to rise to the clouds, aquatic universes and tidal basins, fish to catch, towering totem poles. High school was all about basketball for him, as it is for so many Alaskan high schoolers and kids. Traveling for tournaments in Alaska is a unique experience, requiring trips on small bush planes. Kyle remembered seeing the planes and the ferries: ``I remember thinking I was lucky to see and do these things.'' He knew that even as a young man. He went to the University of Alaska Fairbanks for college, searching for a subject that allowed him to read a lot. He had an adviser that recommended a journalism class. Well, the rest, you could say, is history. During college, he had a host of internships across the State in journalism, covering business, politics, sports, and crime--all the usual beats--and with some of our best journalism and media establishments, like the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, before moving to Anchorage to work for the Anchorage Press, a weekly paper; then, to KTUU, Channel 2, our big TV station in Alaska; and, then, to where he is now, the Anchorage Daily News. Throughout all of his reporting, a few things constantly struck him. One is that we are a very big State, but also how few people even in Alaska had ever been to a village in our State. They didn't know the challenges and the beauty of what we call rural Alaska, the soul of Alaska. More than 200 villages dot our State, most of which are not connected by any roads or infrastructure. He was always struck and increasingly disturbed by the challenge that I mentioned at the outset of my remarks--these very high rates of sexual violence that we have in Alaska. Depending on how you measure it, it is at least three times the national average--three times the national average. Just like so many of us in Alaska, he assumed that someday the adults, the people in charge, would do something about it, until he realized at a certain point in his life that he was an adult and he had two children, two girls, with his wife Rebecca Palsha, another intrepid reporter in Alaska, and he wanted to make Alaska a better place not only for his girls but for all other children across our State, a State that he knows and loves. So the time was right to tackle this issue, and the time was right for another reason throughout the State. There was a more open discussion about this dark issue, this black mark on Alaska, the issue of sexual assault. Brave women had started coming forward to tell their stories. A statewide initiative that I was part of called Choose Respect was launched over a decade ago trying to address cultural changes and then the ``Me Too'' movement came, and more and more people were beginning to share their stories of trauma and abuse and to have the courage to do it--because it takes courage. Kyle not only captured many of those voices, he also began to dig into the larger issues of generational trauma and an issue that is so important in our State, the lack of law enforcement in many of these places, in so many small villages across Alaska. He did it all the while by capturing the complexities of a multitiered public safety system in Alaska. Working with ProPublica, he traveled throughout the State, dug through reams of documents, talked to dozens and dozens of survivors, perpetrators, police officers, lawyers, you name it. Let me try to capture the breadth and depth and heartache of his 17- part series told by just a few headlines. These are some of the headlines of the stories in the Anchorage Daily News: one, ``Discussing Alaska's history of sexual violence is one step toward seeking solutions;'' another headline, ``Lawless: One in three Alaska villages have no local police;'' another headline, ``Dozens of convicted criminals have been hired as cops in rural Alaska. Sometimes, they're the only applicants;'' another headline: ``She leapt from a van on the Kenai Peninsula to escape her rapist. Then she waited 18 years for an arrest.'' You get the picture. Let me summarize the opening to one of the stories, a first-person piece headlined, ``Why we're investigating sexual violence in Alaska,'' and it tells Alaskans why this series is delving into this very, very difficult topic. It is a story--a horrible story--of a very young girl in one of our villages who vanished from the playground, found later sexually abused, murdered, and it rips your heart out. These are the kinds of stories that I have certainly heard about and tried to address in my time in public service in Alaska. These are the stories that haunt us as Alaskans. They have haunted countless Alaskans: of course, survivors, victims, their families, leaders, good citizens, good people. They are difficult and shocking stories to tell, but they need to be told, they must be told, and that is what Kyle Hopkins did, and that is why he earned the Pulitzer Prize. These are the kinds of stories that Attorney General Barr confronted when he came to Alaska last May, his first trip to any State in the country after he was confirmed as our new Attorney General. Before his confirmation hearing, Senator Murkowski and I had both invited him to come to Alaska. We talked to him in detail about these challenges, and then we did something that I think mattered, and, again, it gives a sense of why this series was so important. We started sending the Attorney General some of Kyle Hopkins' stories of this 17- part series, the ones that he had written at this time. So the Attorney General knew before he even got here some of the challenges because of this reporting. Attorney General Barr actually came to our State for almost 5 days--a long visit--to hear from survivors, law enforcement, lawyers, meeting dozens of Alaskans throughout the State who have worked on these issues--some without a voice, without help from the Federal Government, many Tribal members. It was a really important trip. He was given a beautiful kuspuk as a gift, and when he left, he took a piece of Alaska with him in his heart. I am convinced of that. As a matter of fact, I talked to him about Alaska yesterday on the phone and this very series. He still wears the kuspuk, by the way. He says it makes him look trim. Shortly after returning to DC, he began to focus with the Department of Justice on some of these big issues, declaring a public safety emergency in rural Alaska and starting to free up significant resources to improve public safety in our State's rural communities. So the funding helps, and it is already being put to good use, but this is a story not just about money. As a matter of fact, that is not even the important issue. The important issue is culture. We desperately need a cultural change on these issues in Alaska that have been going on for way too long, and that is another reason why Kyle's work is so important, because you can't change the culture if you don't know how broken it is. Will it work? Does he think things will change? ``I wouldn't presume to know,'' he said, when my team caught up with him on Tuesday, a day after the Pulitzer Prize was announced, already hard at work on another story, by the way. ``I hope things change,'' he said. ``That's one of the goals of the series . . . But if nothing changes, at least people will know about the injustice in our system . . . and if it's going to continue, if we're going to allow this to continue, it should be with our knowledge.'' That is his quote. ``This is my place,'' Kyle added, talking about Alaska. ``It's an awesome place and I don't want to live anyplace else. But things are wrong. And it shouldn't be for the next generation, for my girls and other girls. If there's something we can do about it, we should do it.'' That is his quote. And of course, he is right. We should do it, and many of us in Alaska--really, thousands of us in Alaska--are committed to this cause and have been committed to the cause for a long time. I believe Kyle's work is going to help a lot in that regard. I want to thank the Anchorage Daily News for supporting this series, to all the staff who worked on the series, to the owners, the Binkleys. Thanks to the Pulitzer committee for recognizing the importance of this series, and thank you, Kyle, for your hard work and determination. Congratulations, again, on winning the Pulitzer Prize, and probably even more prestigious than winning the Pulitzer Prize for the United States, congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week. I yield the floor.

Mr. SULLIVAN

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, we are going to vote here in a minute on the next package that is going to try to help our Nation address these unprecedented challenges. I want to thank the majority leader, the White House, and the Democrats who have come forward to do this. It is very important that we are doing this. In my view, as the leader said, we should have done this 12 days ago. We are facing unprecedented challenges. When we passed the CARES Act 4 weeks ago--and I think Leader McConnell did an incredible job bringing the U.S. Senate together on a vote of 96-0, as Minority Leader Schumer mentioned with regard to this legislation that our Nation needed so desperately and that we are trying to provide more resources because the resources needed had already been spent. After that vote, I came to the floor, and I made a statement that, although I was proud to have voted for that and proud to have been a part of the negotiations for that because our Nation was going to need it--did need it, desperately--that we knew there would be mistakes. We knew there would be areas that weren't covered that should have been. We knew elements of that bill would run out of money, as they have. I made a plea that we should be here working on behalf of the people we represent. Our Governors are back home working hard, doing a good job; but as I mentioned, the evening that we passed the CARES Act, from the perspective of Congress--House and Senate--this should be our duty station as we address these unprecedented challenges, and I still believe that. We have heard about the difficulties that could come with voting and having Members of Congress catch COVID-19, but we can do this safely. We can vote safely. As Senator Lee mentioned earlier, Americans all over the country are on the frontlines--truck drivers, healthcare workers, grocery store attendants--helping their fellow Americans. If they can be doing that, I think we should be here working on behalf of them. There is so much more to do. We need to be nimble. Let me give you an example. The energy sector right now--hugely important to my State--is being decimated because of what is happening globally with regard to energy prices. Great workers are being laid off. Small businesses in many sectors in Alaska like tourism are at a huge risk. Had we been here--you know, there is a lot of talk right now about the delay--the minority leader, Speaker Pelosi, wouldn't have had an excuse to delay the funding for the PPP for 12 days. How many small businesses and jobs were lost because of that delay? We will never know, but I am sure it was in the thousands. I am reading a book right now, ``1776,'' by David McCullough. It is about the incredible challenges that our Nation went through at the birth of our Nation. It is mostly about George Washington and the tough battles he led and fought. He lost a lot of them in New York. One remarkable thing about that book is, for almost the entire year in 1776, the Continental Congress was actually in session directing General Washington. They were in Philadelphia at enormous risk as the British were closing in on them. But as the war was raging for most of that year--that remarkable year of 1776--they were working. We have so much more work to do for our Nation in these unprecedented times, whether it is confirming judges or phase four of an infrastructure package that we should be working on or even confirming key members of the executive branch. I am hopeful that, just in a couple of minutes, we are going to be able to move forward with Rear Admiral Michael Weahkee's nomination to be the Director of Indian Health Service at the Department of Health and Human Services. As our Native communities are being threatened by COVID-19, having this admiral, who has got broad support throughout our Tribal governments, including in Alaska, be able to be confirmed right now is just one example of the work that I am hopeful we can be doing. So this should be our duty station, working around the clock for people we represent, getting through these unprecedented times, being able to address challenges as they arise--and they are arising every hour, every minute. I want to end on a positive note--speaking of duty station--a good news story that involves the people of interior Alaska and our wonderful U.S. military. Right now, literally as we speak, there are two F-35s that have left Texas--brand new--coming to Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. Fifteen years ago, Eielson Air Force Base was on the verge of being shut down. The interior Alaska communities of Fairbanks, North Pole, and so many leaders fought that. They said, No, this is a strategic location for our military, we shouldn't shut this down. Now, these communities today will be receiving the first of 54 F-35s, two squadrons. I want to commend, not just my fellow Alaskans for their grit and determination to make this day happen--a huge day in my State--but the U.S. military. The U.S. military, a year and a half ago, said the F-35s will start coming to Alaska in April 2020. Despite this pandemic, that is what is happening today--remarkable grit and determination of my fellow Alaskans but also remarkable service to our Nation by the U.S. Air Force delivering these F-35s on time. That will make my State have over 100 fifth generation fighters protecting our country. So this is an inspiring story, as we are hearing all kinds of inspiring stories throughout our Nation, throughout these challenging times. But in my view, we should be ready to help these great people that we lead and that we serve to get them through these unprecedented times. I yield the floor.