John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, across the street, this morning, oral arguments are occurring at the Supreme Court in two challenges to the President's reckless student loan giveaway. There are two main parts to the President's scheme. There is the outright forgiveness of $10,000 in Federal student debt and $20,000 for Pell grant recipients, which is set to cost American taxpayers somewhere in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars. Then there is the President's radical revamp of the income-driven repayment system, which would bring the total cost of the President's plan to somewhere close to a trillion dollars. The President's new income-driven repayment plan has probably garnered less attention than his plans for student loan forgiveness, but his new income-driven repayment program is just as problematic because it sets up a system in which the majority of Federal borrowers will never--never--fully repay their loans. One scholar at the Brookings Institution, a left-of-center think tank, estimates that ``the vast majority'' of college students will be eligible for the program and that current and future borrowers enrolled in the program ``[o]n average . . . might only expect to repay approximately $0.50 for each dollar they borrow''--``repay approximately $0.50 for each dollar they borrow.'' The Urban Institute, another left-of-center think tank, estimates that just 22 percent of those with bachelor's degrees enrolled in the President's new income-driven repayment program would repay their loans in full. By contrast, the institute notes that under today's IDR program, we would expect 59 percent of individuals with bachelor's degrees to repay their loans in full. The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates the cost of the President's new income-driven repayment program at $333 billion to $361 billion--the range--over 10 years. However, Penn Wharton notes, ``These estimates do not yet include the effects of students increasing their borrowing.'' ``These estimates do not yet include the effects of students increasing their borrowing.'' Needless to say, students are likely to increase their borrowing. It is common sense. In fact, the Brookings Institution notes that borrowing is likely to become the preferred means of paying for college under the President's plan. And, of course, as student borrowing increases, so does the cost to taxpayers because it is taxpayers who will be footing the bill for all that student loan money that is never paid back. Now, both President Biden's outright student loan forgiveness and his student loan forgiveness masquerading as income-driven repayment are going to cost the taxpayers a lot of money. There are the direct costs of the plan that will be paid for by the Federal Government--in other words, by taxpayers, including those who never went to college and those who have already paid off their student loans. There are the indirect costs, like the fact that the President's student loan giveaway is likely to prolong our current inflation crisis. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, where President Biden's own Treasury Secretary once served on the board, has estimated that the President's plan would ``meaningfully boost inflation''-- ``meaningfully boost inflation.'' Now, you would think that the President might have learned his lesson after helping to set off the worst inflation crisis in 40 years with his massive American Rescue Plan spending spree but apparently not. It is important to remember that taxpayers are going to be footing the bill for student loan cancellation for Americans who, if they graduated from college, enjoy greater long-term earning potential than many of the Americans who will be helping to shoulder the burden for their debts. This isn't a government handout for the needy; this is a government handout that will disproportionally benefit Americans who are better off. Of course, the President's student loan giveaway will do nothing-- nothing--to address the root of the problem, and that is soaring college costs. In fact, it is likely to make things worse. Faced with the knowledge that many of their students will never have to fully pay off their loans, colleges will have zero incentive to cut costs, and students are likely to feel less pressure to choose a more affordable college option since there is a good chance they will only have to pay back part of their student loan debt and might even have it forgiven entirely. It is not hard to imagine a future Democrat President deciding that it is politically expedient to imitate President Biden and just cancel a huge portion of student loan debt outright, especially since college costs and college debt will continue to soar under the President's plan. Whether President Biden has the legal authority to implement the debt cancellation he proposed is really questionable. He used a law called the HEROES Act, drafted to give the President authority to provide student loan relief in times of war or national emergency and specifically to provide relief to the large number of soldiers deployed to the Middle East in the wake of September 11. It was not intended to provide for widespread student loan forgiveness in a time of peace and low unemployment. The President himself raised questions about his authority to forgive student loans in a 2021 townhall meeting. The former Democrat Speaker of the House stated plainly--plainly--that the President didn't have this authority. Between bullying from the far left and the prospect of gaining votes in the 2022 election, the President went ahead anyway. And now--now--taxpayers will be saddled with close to an additional trillion dollars in debt on top of the other reckless spending by the Biden administration and the Democrat Congress. It is not just Republicans who have raised serious concerns about the President's student loan plans. So has the Washington Post and at least one scholar at the left-of-center Brookings Institution and the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, where, as I said earlier, the President's own Treasury Secretary once served. And the list goes on. The President's student loan giveaway is yet another disastrous economic plan coming from the Biden administration, and if it goes into effect, it will be the American taxpayers who once again will be paying the price. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Budd), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis). Further, if present and voting the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Budd) would have voted ``nay'' and the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch) would have voed ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

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

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 Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, it was good to hear President Biden acknowledge in his State of the Union speech last week that we still need oil. He is right. And while I am a big supporter of clean energy, and I am proud to come from a State that gets the majority of our electricity generation from renewables, the fact of the matter is that even in States like mine, conventional energy sources like oil and natural gas are essential to maintaining an affordable, stable, and reliable energy supply. Renewable technologies have come a long way, but they still have a ways to go. And we, literally, wouldn't be able to keep the lights on in this country without conventional energy sources like natural gas and coal. So it was good to hear the President acknowledge that we still depend on affordable and reliable legacy sources of energy like oil. But it would be even better if he pursued an agenda that acknowledged it, instead of an agenda that is actively hostile to conventional energy production. From canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline on day 1 to hiking taxes on oil and gas companies and making it more challenging for companies to make more oil and gas, the President's agenda seems designed to do everything it can to discourage production of the oil the President says that we need. And then there is ESG. The Biden administration has been attempting to use the long arm of regulation to implement ESG policies-- environmental, social, and governance policies--to advance its anti- conventional energy climate agenda. The President's ESG regulations are designed to choke off investment into the oil and gas industries and even to other essential industries like farming and ranching due to their natural methane emissions. Take, for example, the Securities and Exchange Commission's proposed climate disclosure rule. This would require publicly traded companies to disclose information, not only about their own greenhouse gas emissions but, in many cases, about those of their suppliers and even their customers. It would also require companies to determine the effects of climate-related risks on each line item of their consolidated financial statements. There are multiple problems with this rule, one notable problem being the fact that it is a totally unworkable regulation. Companies have zero control over the emissions of their suppliers and customers and little to no ability to accurately gauge those emissions. But leaving aside the unworkability factor, the major problem with this proposed rule is that it is clearly designed to coerce companies to sever or reconsider their ties with certain industries, notably, of course, the conventional energy industry but also with other industries like agriculture. Private companies, of course, have the right to consider whatever factors they want when determining what companies they would do business with and what they will invest in. But the Federal Government should not be putting its thumb on the scale. And the SEC rule is just one of the regulations the Biden administration has put forward designed to encourage investment in industries that aren't part of Democrat's Green New Deal vision. There is the Biden administration's proposed Federal contractor rule, which, like the SEC rule, would require companies applying for certain Federal contracts to disclose not only their own direct and indirect emissions but also, in some cases, related emissions over which the contractor has no control. The Federal Reserve--they are getting in on the act, too--has stepped outside its statutory role and established a pilot program to analyze climate-related financial risks for the Nation's largest banks. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Fed have all put forward principles for large banks on ``climate-related financial risk management.'' And the list goes on. Then there is the Department of Labor. In November, the Department of Labor issued a new rule that would allow pension plan fiduciaries-- these are individuals who manage Americans' retirement accounts--to consider ESG; in other words, environmental, social, governance factors and not just the rate of return when investing their customers' money. In other words, the individuals--think about this--the individuals who manage $11.7 trillion of Americans' retirement will no longer be required to make investment decisions based solely on maximizing return. Instead, they will now be allowed to opt for a less valuable investment if they prefer its environmental profile. I want you to just let that sink in for a minute. The Biden administration has essentially announced that its top goal is not giving Americans a secure retirement; it is giving them a retirement that supports the Biden administration's environmental agenda. The Biden administration is apparently happy to let your retirement money suffer as long as the investments are advancing its Green New Deal goals. The very idea that the government is encouraging fiduciaries to consider anything but maximizing a return on Americans' retirement investments is outrageous. I am very pleased to join all of my Republican colleagues on Senator Braun's resolution to overturn this rule. I also reintroduced legislation earlier this week that would require Federal financial regulators, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, to estimate the impact their rules would have on gas, food, and energy prices, and prevent them from imposing any rule that would drive up these prices when the economy is struggling with high inflation, which gets to the heart of the matter here, and that is the impact the President's ESG rules are going to have on hard-working Americans. Leaving aside the question of whether or not the government has any business using financial regulation to advance its environmental agenda, the fact of the matter is that choking off investment to the oil and gas industries could seriously impair our oil and gas supply. And that would mean two things: higher prices for Americans and a less reliable supply of energy. And that is a big problem. Americans have had a tough 2 years in the Biden economy. The last thing they need is higher energy bills for the long term, and the last thing our country needs is a less reliable energy supply that forces us to rely on foreign energy sources or forces Americans to deal with regular blackouts and other supply problems. President Biden talks about building an economy that works for working families. Unfortunately, so far, his policies have pretty much succeeded in doing just the opposite. And if the President continues to pursue his radical ESG agenda, working families, once again, will be the ones who pay the price. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer).

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 Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) would have voted ``nay'' and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, on Tuesday, President Biden delivered his State of the Union Address to Congress, and in this time of divided government, I was glad to see the President making more than one nod to bipartisanship. I do think this moment, with power split between Democrats and Republicans, provides a real opportunity to work together, to move away from the extreme partisanship of the past couple of years and make some real progress on some of the issues facing us. But the President's speech also left me concerned because the President demonstrated almost no awareness of what actually happened as a result of his policies. Indeed, at times, it seemed as if the President had lived through a different reality from the one most Americans have been experiencing over the past 2 years. The President rattled off a list of his supposed economic achievements, and I say ``supposed'' because he left out some vitally important context. He claimed credit for the historic job creation while leaving out the essential detail that a lot of that job creation was simply a result of the economy naturally adding back jobs temporarily lost during the pandemic. He talked about wage growth while leaving out the fact that real wages have declined--have declined-- because of inflation over his Presidency. And he appeared to take credit for the fact that inflation has declined somewhat in recent months while neglecting to mention that it was his administration and congressional Democrats who helped create our inflation crisis with their American Rescue Plan spending spree. Nor did the President spend any time discussing just how bad inflation still is and how much Americans are still suffering. Inflation in December was 6.5 percent. The last time inflation was that bad was in 1982--1982--40 years ago. I am glad inflation has declined somewhat, but I don't think the President has a lot to be congratulating himself about. Even if prices stopped increasing tomorrow, Americans would still be paying thousands of dollars more over the next year to achieve the same standard of living that they had when the President took office. Again, the President and congressional Democrats and their American Rescue Plan spending spree bear a huge part of the responsibility for this situation. Or to quote former Obama economic adviser, Jason Furman: The original sin was an oversized American Rescue Plan. Another of the supposed economic achievements the President talked about Tuesday night was cutting the deficit. Yes, cutting the deficit. Well, let me just quote CNN on that claim. This is a quote: Independent analysts say Biden's own actions, including his laws and executive orders, have had the overall effect of adding to current and projected future deficits, not reducing those deficits. Let me just repeat that: Independent analysts say Biden's own actions, including his laws and executive orders, have had the overall effect of adding to current and projected future deficits, not reducing those deficits. The President failed to meaningfully address the economic crisis that his policies have helped to create. Instead, he spent considerable time calling for spending proposals that would cost taxpayers trillions of more dollars. He also failed to meaningfully address another crisis that has been raging over the past 2 years, and that is the security and humanitarian crisis at our southern border. It is a crisis that the President has spent 2 years ignoring. On Tuesday night, he essentially ignored it again. In a speech that was notable for being the most wordy State of the Union speech in the past 6 decades--clocking in at 9,191 words--the President devoted just 120 words, approximately 1 minute, to immigration. He spent a good chunk of that minute attempting to suggest that it is Congress and not he himself that needs to act. In fact, the President's brief 120 words on immigration managed to convey the impression the President had been trying to secure the border all along, instead of reflecting the reality that the President ignored this crisis--a crisis, I might add, that he, himself, triggered--for 2 years and only began to somewhat acknowledge it a mere month ago. The President's speech was also strikingly light on a vision for our national security in spite of a war of aggression from Russia, which has made its imperial ambitions very clear, and continued troubling activity from China. There wasn't even a mention of Iran, which continues to be the leading state sponsor of terrorism, or North Korea, which just unveiled an alarming quantity of ICBMs. The President devoted just nine words to the importance of modernizing our military, even though the past year and, indeed, the past week, has underscored the necessity of making sure our military is the top fighting force in the world so that we can deter and, if necessary, confront any threat. While the President's speech was light on immigration and national security solutions and on any recognition of the economic crisis the President's policies helped create, the one thing his speech was not light on was the Democratic playbook on taxes and spending. The President kept bringing up and encouraging Congress to ``finish the job.'' It quickly became clear that was code for ``spend more taxpayer dollars'' or maybe ``expand government,'' even though it was excessive government spending that helped get us into this inflation crisis in the first place. But if there was one thing that became clear Tuesday night, it was that the President wants to have it both ways. He wants to cut the deficit but simultaneously expand and grow government. He celebrates ``Made in America,'' but in nearly the same breath, demonizes businesses. He wants to boost American innovation, but he also wants to raise taxes and impose price controls. Perhaps no example of this wanting to have it both ways was more telling than the President's clear belief that oil companies should increase domestic oil production, despite the fact that the President campaigned on eliminating fossil fuels. The President recounted an exchange with oil industry representatives who told him that they were reluctant to invest because they were concerned the President would shut down oil wells and refineries. The President clearly intended the anecdote to illustrate the selfishness of Big Oil or Big Business, but the anecdote did a much better job of illustrating just how outrageous it is that the President assumes he should be able to get as much oil production as he wants while simultaneously working to sunset--to get rid of--oil companies. The President might like to have it both ways, but he can't because policies have consequences; spending has consequences; taxation has consequences. And the result of the Big Government tax-and-spend policies the President laid out Tuesday night would not be the prosperous future he imagines, but more economic pain for American families and businesses. And any bipartisan work that we do over the next 2 years needs to move away from the failed policies of the past 2 years and toward a more fiscally responsible future. The upcoming debt limit debate represents an outstanding opportunity to take a good, hard look at government spending and see how we can handle taxpayer dollars more responsibly. I was disappointed that despite his calls for bipartisanship, the President decided to call for a ``clean'' debt limit increase Tuesday night. In other words, an increase in the Nation's credit card limit unaccompanied by any effort to stop adding to our bill. The President's attitude was all too reminiscent of Democrats' partisan ``my way or the highway'' approach over the past 2 years. I sincerely hope he will rethink that position. I was also disturbed by the President's attempt to suggest falsely that Republicans are interested in paying for the debt limit increase by cutting Medicare and Social Security. I suspect the President is well aware that is not the position of the Republican Party. And his scaremongering was not reflective of the kind of bipartisanship I hope we can achieve over the next 2 years. What Democrats and Republicans should be doing is working together to put Medicare and Social Security on a more secure financial footing going forward, and that would be greatly helped by addressing excessive government spending and working to rein in our national debt. I appreciated, as I said earlier, the fact that despite trotting out far too many of the tax-and-spend policies Tuesday night, the President did make a real nod toward bipartisanship. I truly believe that we can do a lot together over the next 2 years from passing a farm bill to reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration and improving our Nation's air traffic control system to creating new market access for American producers and securing more transparency and accountability from Big Tech. I hope that the President's words in support of bipartisanship will be borne out by his actions in the coming months and that working together, we can build a record of achievement that will help make life better for the American people. I yield the floor.

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

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

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

Mr. THUNE

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

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 Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate unanimously approved my resolution with Senator Rounds formally congratulating the South Dakota State University football team on their championship season. And what a great season it was for the Jackrabbits. They ended the season 14 and 1 and never lost a game in their conference. They earned the No. 1 seed in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. And they brought home the FCS National Championship for the first time in program history with a 45-to-21 win against the North Dakota State Bison last month in Frisco, TX. I happened to be on hand for that game. It was an extraordinary game and capped off an extraordinary season. I happened to be there for the semifinal game against Montana State, which the Jackrabbits won decisively. In each of those games, and their games throughout the season, they demonstrated on the field not only great skill but just an incredible determination, resilience, and a willingness to play together as a team, which, really, I think, is what distinguished and differentiated their team from many others around the country this year. It really was an extraordinary team to watch on both sides of the ball. And as someone who has been a fan of sports for a long time, it was really exciting to see the success that they had not only throughout the course of the season but ultimately capping it off with the national championship. That championship win was a fitting capstone to coach John Stiegelmeirer's 26-season career leading the Jacks. Coach Stig, as he is affectionately known, is the heart and soul of Jackrabbit football. Like many South Dakotans, he learned his values from his dad. He worked on a family farm in Selby, SD. His dad told him: If you work hard and be a good person, you will have success. Work hard, be a good person, and you will have success. I would say Coach Stig has done all three. His determination transformed SDSU's football team into what it is today. SDSU became a Division 1 program under his leadership, and former Jacks players have gone on to careers in the NFL. His calm, patience, and caring set the standard for the players and made the team a family. He leaves as the winningest coach in SDSU history, the 2022 FCS Coach of the Year, and, of course, with a national title for the team that he has dedicated his career to making great. Huge congratulations to the Jackrabbits on their season and to Coach Stig, and we wish you all the best in your retirement. You have earned it.