John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, today I want to speak to the issue of our southern border because I think it is a really important and relevant issue with respect to the national security package that we are considering or that we will be, I think, at some point, considering here in the Senate that deals with many of the national security crises we face around the world. And as I think about this issue, I am always reminded that as a one- generation-removed-from-immigrant individual in this country--my grandfather came here back in 1906--I am reminded that we are a nation of immigrants. We have had, throughout our history, a welcoming culture in this country. We are a country that is made up of people from all over the world, and I am representative of that, as I said, one generation removed. It is also important to remember that we are a nation of laws, first and foremost. Ronald Reagan once said: A nation without borders is not a nation. I have heard it paraphrased that a nation that can't control its borders can't control its destiny. And I believe that to be true. I think what we have right now at our southern border is a situation that has just run amok. It really has. You cannot defend what is happening at our southern border if you believe we are a nation of laws or, for that matter, if you believe we are a nation of immigrants because you have to have a legal way to get into this country. All countries do that, and the United States, as I said, is a very welcoming nation. If you look at the number of people who come here every year as refugees, the number of people coming to this country, you add up all the other countries around the world and the number of people they allow into their countries, the United States exceeds that, and that, to me, is a remarkable testament to the welcoming nature of this country. But it is welcoming in the sense that it is done within the context of the rule of law, and that, first and foremost, has to be front and center as we think about this issue. What we have right now at our southern border is essentially a huge welcome sign, a huge green light to come across our southern border and to do it illegally. That is in direct contradiction and violation of everything that our Nation is about as a nation of laws. And so as I talk about this issue, and we talk about it in the context of national security, it has become a national security issue because, once again, there has been another record set when it comes to the border and not the good kind, I should say, of record. This administration now has, during the month of October, seen 240,988 individuals be apprehended attempting to illegally cross our southern border. That is the worst October on record, and that is on top of the three previous months which were historic records; the month of September, 270,000 people apprehended at our southern border trying to come into the country illegally. So the highest October number ever recorded, and those are just the individuals--I would remind people--who were apprehended. The month of October saw an average of 1,000 ``got-aways'' per day, individuals whom the Border Patrol saw but were unable to apprehend. That is another 30,000 people, unidentified individuals, entering our country in just 1 month, and there is no telling how many unknown ``got-aways'' there were during that same period. It suggests a situation at our southern border that is completely and totally out of control. The closing of the fiscal year in September marked the third successive, recordbreaking year of illegal immigration at our southern border under the Biden administration. As the October numbers point out, the end of this crisis is nowhere in sight. If you think about it, the problems here are really too many to count. The men and women of the Border Patrol are under incredible strain and have been for pretty much the entirety of the Biden administration. Border cities are struggling to deal with the ceaseless influx of migrants, and major cities in other areas of the country are now discovering what border cities have been going through. Just as a point of fact, big cities, the city of New York, the mayor of New York announced that he will be freezing the hiring of police officers in New York, closing libraries, and cutting education funding--this is in New York City--to deal with the migrant crisis, absent an infusion of Federal dollars coming in from Washington, DC. So this is creating not problems just on our southern border but for communities all across this country, including the largest communities in the United States of America. The situation we currently have in front of us is encouraging migrants to undertake the dangerous journey to our southern border, sometimes with tragic results. So I say that our national security is in jeopardy because a border security problem is a national security problem. This isn't a matter of speculation. We know, for a fact, that dangerous individuals are attempting to make their way across our southern border every month. During fiscal year 2023, 169 individuals on the Terrorist Watchlist were apprehended attempting to illegally cross our southern border. This is 2023, fiscal year 2023, 169 people on the Terrorist Watchlist trying to come across our southern border--18 in the month of September, another 13 in the month of October. Those are the people who are apprehended at the southern border. That doesn't count the ``got-aways.'' My assumption is, if they are on the Terrorist Watchlist, they are going to be pretty good at evading the authorities, meaning that there are people trying to come into this country on a daily basis who are on the Terrorist Watchlist. On top of that, you have thousands of what they call special interest aliens--and those are individuals who may pose a threat to the United States who have been apprehended at our southern border over the past 2 years--thousands of special interest aliens. Again, the numbers we have refer only to those who have been apprehended. As I said, last month alone, 30,000 identified individuals made their way illegally into our country--I should say unidentified individuals; in other words, the ``got-aways,'' the unknowns. Many of them may simply have been seeking a better life. That is entirely possible, but it is not only possible, but I would say likely, that some of them were dangerous individuals who should not be entering our country. This work period, we expect to take up supplemental spending legislation to address national security priorities, notably, support for our allies like Israel and Ukraine. And one national security priority this legislation must address is border security. As the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel reminds us, national security requires constant vigilance, and our Nation is simply not secure as long as we are dealing with a massive flow of illegal immigration at our southern border. We must get this crisis under control. Senators Graham, Lankford, and Cotton have been working to craft a set of border security measures for inclusion in the national security supplemental focused on the two areas in obvious need of reform: parole and asylum. Under our current asylum system, a large percentage of individuals claiming asylum are released into the interior of the country after initial screening with court dates up to a decade later. The Associated Press reported that in March, 77 percent of individuals claiming asylum passed the initial screening. In practice, this means that thousands of individuals who have entered our country illegally end up taking residence in our country, possibly, for a number of years, given our immigration court backlog. That is a problem. Our parole system is in trouble as well. In fiscal year 2022, the Biden administration granted parole to 417,326 individuals. And that is because the Biden Department of Homeland Security has instituted an overly permissive application of parole, which means that, again, tens of thousands who have not been granted legal status and who may not have a case for remaining in the United States have been taking up residence in our country with instructions to report back a year or more into the future for further review of their status. Now, given the backlog and overwhelmed nature of our parole system, this ends up being de facto permanent residence. Needless to say, this invites abuse, and individuals are availing themselves of these flawed policies to gain entry to our Nation. Any supplemental legislation must not only deal with border security generally but with our asylum and parole system specifically, if we want to get the crisis at our southern border under control. Our porous southern border is a massive national security vulnerability. Republicans know it, and while they may not always admit it, I think my Democrat colleagues know it as well. It is time for them to act on that knowledge and join Republicans to pass real border security measures as part of the national security supplemental. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, artificial intelligence--or what is referred to as AI--has been with us for quite some time now. And whether it is the chatbot providing help on Amazon, or personalized recommendations on Netflix, or the algorithms that are curating your social media feeds, these days, most of us interact with artificial intelligence on a daily basis. But as the release of ChatGPT to the public last year demonstrated, artificial intelligence is about to take a giant step forward. The AI applications I have mentioned, like chatbots and personalized recommendations, are examples of so-called narrow AI, which is AI trained to perform specific tasks. But ChatGPT is an example of the next generation of AI--artificial intelligence systems set up to imitate the human brain and produce original content based on the assimilation of vast sets of data. This next generation of AI--so-called foundation models which underpin systems like ChatGPT--offers tremendous possibilities: advances in medicine, in farming, in manufacturing, the automation of routine tasks, new ways to manage infrastructure, better and more resilient supply chains, advances in national defense. And the list, literally, goes on and on. But as with any sophisticated technology, this next generation of AI presents risks as well. And those risks are heightened by the enormous capabilities of AI and the potential for this technology to pervade every corner of our society. And our goal needs to be encouraging the promise of AI while putting safeguards in place to minimize potential dangers. The light-touch approach the United States has taken to internet regulation is a good model to follow as we approach AI regulation. The explosive growth of internet innovation in the United States is, in large part, a result of the fact that the government has not weighed down this sector of the economy with heavyhanded regulation. And we should maintain a similarly light touch when it comes to AI to encourage innovation and keep the United States at the forefront of the next generation of artificial intelligence. Leadership in AI will benefit our economy. And there are also serious security reasons why staying at the forefront of the AI revolution is important. There is no question that AI will come to play an important role in national defense, and falling behind adversaries--like the Chinese Communist Party--could put our country at a serious disadvantage when it comes to our national security. So we need to start establishing some basic rules of the road that will allow AI innovation to flourish, while at the same time minimizing the dangers that it presents. The race to regulate AI has already started. President Biden has released a sweeping Executive order that empowers multiple government Agencies and Departments to regulate all AI systems, and even the algorithms that recommend our next movie on Netflix or remind us that we need to order more paper towels. And internationally, the European Union has continued to press forward with a heavyhanded regulatory regime. It is time for Congress to ensure that innovation in the United States continues. Regulating AI by Executive order is not the way to go about things. Even if the President's Executive order on AI weren't overly broad and heavyhanded, Executive orders are, by their very nature, not permanent, since they have the potential to be reversed or amended at any time--and stand a good chance of being reversed or amended when a new administration comes into office. This creates uncertainty for companies, which can stunt expansion and innovation. The right way to approach AI regulation is to pursue a bipartisan, nationwide approach in Congress that will protect innovation while putting in place the necessary safeguards for the riskiest applications of this technology. To that end, shortly before Thanksgiving, I introduced bipartisan AI legislation with Senator Klobuchar and several of our Commerce Committee colleagues from both parties. Our bill is intended to establish some basic rules of the road for artificial intelligence while protecting the ability of companies to innovate and advance this technology. Our bill focuses on two things: transparency for consumers and a tiered, risk-based framework for oversight of the highest impact applications of AI. On the transparency front, our bill would require any large-scale internet platform that uses generative AI to create content to clearly inform consumers of that fact. One of the risks presented by generative AI is the difficulty distinguishing AI-produced content from human-produced content. Now, that may not be a huge issue if the content we are talking about is an amusing meme, but it is a real issue if a consumer is trying to figure out whether information or an image is real or whether it has been generated by AI. So requiring transparency about whether content is being produced--or at least partially produced--by generative AI needs to be a priority. The second part of our bill deals with high-impact and critical- impact AI, that is, AI applications used to make significant applications in particularly high-risk sectors. Our bill establishes a two-tiered system for overseeing these applications. Critical-impact AI applications--for example, like those used to make significant decisions in the operation of critical infrastructure-- would be required to self-certified compliance with testing evaluation, validation, and verification standards. What does all that mean? High-impact AI applications will be subject solely to transparency reporting requirements. Importantly, this part of the bill is carefully tailored to apply only to AI applications making complex decisions in high-risk sectors and is meant to respond directly and narrowly to the recent leap in capabilities of foundation models that power them. I believe that the bill Senator Klobuchar and I have introduced is the right first step when it comes to AI technology. Unlike the White House's Executive order, our bill doesn't instantly assume that artificial technology is bad and that it should be subject to heavyhanded government intervention, nor does our legislation rush us into regulations before we have a clear idea of what aspects of this technology need to be regulated and in what way. Instead, our bill puts in place guardrails to mitigate the dangers posed by the highest-impact AI application, while leaving American innovators and entrepreneurs free to move forward with innovation. I am grateful to Senator Klobuchar and our other cosponsors for working with me on this bill, and we will continue to welcome ideas to further improve our legislation. Legislation on this issue of this magnitude calls for the deliberation of the committee process and regular order consideration, and I will work to ensure that we take it up in the Commerce Committee in the coming months. This bill will probably not be the last bill that Congress needs to consider when it comes to AI, but I believe it is the right place for us to begin. And I look forward to working with colleagues from both parties to getting this bill through Congress and across the finish line. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio). Further, if present and voting: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday morning, the monthly inflation report came out. Once again, inflation was well above the Fed's target rate of 2 percent. Overall, prices have risen by 17.6 percent since President Biden took office--17.6 percent. Price hikes in certain categories are even worse. Groceries are up 20.9 percent over that same period. Gasoline prices are up 54.8 percent. Electricity is up almost 25 percent. And rent is up 18 percent. Car repairs and maintenance are up 26.5 percent. And the list goes on. The President said the other day that Bidenomics is the American dream. It turns out that Bidenomics is more of a nightmare for the American people. President Biden likes to talk about giving American families ``a little bit of breathing room,'' but that is the exact opposite of what his policies have provided. Wealthy Democrats may not be concerned about a 20-percent increase in the cost of their groceries or a 54- percent increase in the price of gasoline, but for a lot of hard- working American families, those kinds of price increases have meant the difference between having that ``little bit of breathing room'' and having absolutely none. The Joint Economic Committee estimates that Bidenflation is costing American families $953 per month--$953 per month. Even at half that, inflation would be a massive burden on working families. How many families have put off needed home or car repairs, deferred a kid's braces, or eliminated a family vacation because they are paying hundreds of dollars more a month for their basic needs? And how many other families haven't even been able to pay for their basic needs thanks to the inflation crisis that the President helped create? It is no surprise that 65 percent of voters say that they had cut back on their nonessential spending or that 52 percent of voters--more than half--said that they had cut spending on food or other everyday necessities or that 55 percent of voters say they are worse off financially under President Biden. It shouldn't come as any big surprise. Finally, 66 percent of Americans rate the economy as fairly bad or very bad. The fact of the matter is, Americans can't catch a break under President Biden. First, there was the worst inflation crisis in 40 years, a crisis that has been improved from its worst point but is still very much with us. And now there are the heightened interest rates that the Federal Reserve was forced to put in place to help rein in this inflation crisis. You have higher inflation, higher interest rates. So now all Americans are dealing not only with consistently high prices; they are also dealing with these sky-high interest rates on credit cards and mortgages and car loans, which are being driven, in part, by the Fed's rate hikes, which have been done in response to out- of-control inflation. The monthly mortgage payment on a single-family home increased 19 percent since last year. A recent NBC News article reported: [I]n late 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical, newly sold home was around $1,100 in principal and interest. It's now about twice that. Let me just repeat that. [I]n late 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical, newly sold home was around $1,100 in principal and interest. It's now about twice that. If the American dream is owning your own home, it is a dream that has become out of reach for too many Americans in the Biden economy. On the car-buying front, Americans are facing loan rates last seen, as one article noted, during the great recession. And soaring credit card interest rates are making it difficult for Americans to afford their credit card bills, much less make progress at paying them off. It is a situation not helped, of course, by the fact that many Americans had to turn to their credit cards to help them get by under Bidenflation. It has been a rough 3 years for the American people, and I wish I could say that Americans could expect some relief. But with at least 1 year more on the President's time in office, I am afraid that Bidenomics will continue to eliminate American families' breathing room for the immediate future--so much for the President's American dream. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, recent events--notably, Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine and Hamas's deadly October 7 attack on Israel-- have thrown the importance of national security into sharp relief. At its most basic level, of course, national security means having a strong military, a fighting force that can meet and defeat any threat it is called upon to face. But there are other key components of national security as well. There is border security, there is economic security, and there is energy security. Now, what do I mean by energy security? I mean a strong and stable energy supply that does not depend upon imports from hostile countries or unstable regions of the world. You only have to look at the soaring costs and supply challenges countries like Germany have faced in the wake of Russia's attack on Ukraine to realize that relying on energy from other countries, particularly hostile countries, can leave a country in a deeply vulnerable position. The United States has been doing a good job of maintaining our energy security. We developed domestic resources, both renewable and conventional, which meant that we were able to minimize our reliance on other countries. But President Biden upended that trajectory with his singular focus on Green New Deal policies, and now we are at an inflexion point, honestly. President Biden's energy policies have put us on a dangerous trajectory, one that could easily result in significant disruptions to our domestic supply. For starters, there is the President's notable hostility to conventional energy production. Since the day he took office, President Biden has pursued an agenda that is hostile to conventional sources of energy--namely, oil and natural gas. He set the tone on his first day in office when he canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline--a pipeline project, by the way, that was already underway and was to be paired with $1.7 billion in private investment in renewable energy to fully offset its operating emissions. He also almost immediately froze new oil and gas leases on Federal lands, sending a clear signal to oil and gas producers that his administration would be reluctant to work with them to increase American energy production. And he has continued along the same lines ever since, with a recent notable example being his cancelation of seven oil and gas leases in the small portion of the ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that is available for energy exploration and development. The problem with the President's actions, of course, is that our Nation is nowhere near being able to end our reliance on conventional energy. And let me just say, I am a big and longtime supporter of renewable energy, but we are simply not in a position yet where we can rely predominantly on alternative energy technologies. The President himself admitted as much in his most recent State of the Union Address, but that hasn't stopped him from pursuing policies that seem designed to eventually force our Nation to rely on other countries for oil and gas, with all the attendant security and economic risk that brings. And the President's energy agenda isn't limited to canceling oil and gas leases or discouraging investment in conventional energy production. Also of deep concern is the President's apparent determination to force Americans to adopt electric vehicles on a broad scale within the next decade. And why is this so concerning? Because our electric grid is nowhere near capable of supporting that kind of a widespread transition to electric vehicles. Rising electricity demand is already stretching our grid, which has been weakened by the move away from conventional energy sources. In February, the PJM Interconnection, which manages a substantial part of eastern America's electric grid, warned that fossil fuel plants are being forced to retire at a faster rate than new renewables can be brought online--at a rate of roughly 2 to 1. In other words, we are rapidly approaching a situation in which we simply don't have the ability to keep up with our current electricity demand. Add charging for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles on top of that, and we would be looking at a future of widespread blackouts and brownouts, to say nothing of soaring electricity prices. So it goes without saying that a nation that can't reliably keep its lights on or its homes heated is a nation that is less than secure. To make matters worse, the Biden administration has proposed a rule that would severely constrain supply chain for distribution transformers, which is a critical component of America's electric grid. Stakeholders are already facing significant backlogs for these critical components, whether they are trying to recover from a storm, improve the grid, or tie in new development. The Biden administration's proposed rule would guarantee that these problems would get worse. Recent events remind us that we can't take our Nation's security for granted. We have to work constantly to maintain our Nation's strength, both to ensure that we are always prepared to meet any threat and because being strong is the best way to discourage any threat; and energy security is an essential part of maintaining that strength. If we want to maintain our energy security and if we want to maintain the kind of energy supply that can not only deal with all domestic energy demands but will leave us free from overreliance on other countries, we can't keep heading down the path the Biden administration has set us on. I hope the President and his allies will realize this important point before it is too late. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: The Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Mullin), and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance). Further, if present and voting: the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance) would have voted ``nay'' and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance). Further, if present and voting: the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance) would have voted ``nay.''