Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise today in memory of the late David Harrington for his lifetime of service and contributions to Prince George's County and the great State of Maryland. Mr. Harrington's distinguished 16-year career in public service began as mayor of the Town of Bladensburg. After 7 years as mayor, Mr. Harrington went on to serve as county councilmember for 6 years and as State senator for 3. Following his tenure as an elected official, Mr. Harrington kept his focus on the growth and success of his community, assuming the role of president and CEO of the Prince George's Chamber of Commerce, where he cemented himself as the chamber's most impactful leader. Under Mr. Harrington's leadership, the organization increased its membership to 600, and revenue grew by 20 percent; he helped spearhead 6 consecutive years of job growth in the county. Mr. Harrington's legacy and commitment to fostering a better community is further embodied by the Prince George's Junior Achievement Finance Park located in Landover, MD. Mr. Harrington was pivotal in helping to establish the facility, which provides local youth access to financial literacy and other educational programs, nurturing their future financial and academic success. Mr. Harrington's efforts are beyond worthy of recognition through the dedication of the Prince George's Junior Achievement Finance Park's Auditorium in his name. I offer my heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Harrington's family for his service. Mr. Harrington was passionate leader, mentor, and advocate. Mr. Harrington was not only a revered public servant, but also a dear friend. My thoughts are with Mr. Harrington's family, and may the memory and name of Mr. David Harrington be remembered daily through his dedication and the lasting impression he has made on the lives of others.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise today to spotlight the courageous spirit of Dylan Cronkhite, a 15-year-old in dire need of a kidney transplant. Dylan's journey began at just 19 months old when his mother, Leslie Cronkhite, rushed him to the hospital, sensing that something was gravely wrong. There, they received the devastating news that Dylan required a lifesaving operation to receive a kidney transplant. Dylan's life was saved by the selfless act of his uncle, who became a living kidney donor. But today, Dylan confronts another formidable challenge as his transplanted kidney faces failure, like most young transplant recipients, compromising his health. Living donors play a pivotal role in saving lives, offering a glimmer of hope to those desperately in need of an organ donation. Nevertheless, I remain hopeful that there are individuals who are willing and able to step up for the greater good, just as Dylan's family has. I commend the remarkable efforts of individuals like Philip Piety and his congregation in Silver Spring. Their initiative to organize an organ donation forum is an honorable step towards raising awareness about the dire need for organ donors. Encouraging people to select organ donor status on their driver's licenses can make a substantial difference in the lives of those like Dylan, who are fervently seeking a second chance at life. Dylan's story serves as an urgent reminder that there are actionable ways we can support one another through even the most challenging times. Today, I ask my colleagues to assist in raising awareness of the importance of organ donation so we can ensure that more individuals like Dylan receive the lifesaving organ transplants they so desperately need.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise today in tribute to the late Thomas Hugh Seymour for his service to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights. Mr. Seymour's illustrious career spanned two decades as the OCWR Fire Protection Engineer and Safety and Health consulting expert. His journey was marked by the highest levels of dedication, expertise, and passion for workplace safety, and his work has helped to save lives. Prior to his role at OCWR, Mr. Seymour had a distinguished career at OSHA, where he ascended to the position of Deputy Director for the Directorate of Safety Standards Programs. During his tenure at OSHA, Mr. Seymour played an instrumental role in shaping and drafting critical safety standards that have since become integral to safeguarding workplaces nationwide. He was an advocate for safer working conditions and a guardian of fire safety. This year, Mr. Seymour received a posthumous Safety Advocate Award from the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights and National Safety Council. I offer my heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Seymour's family for his service and also recognize all the distinguished recipients of the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights' 2023 Safety Recognition Awards. May their dedication continue to guide us as we strive to create workplaces that are safe and accessible.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a dedicated public servant and champion of our agricultural community, Jeremy Criss. With over 30 years of unwavering service to Montgomery County, Mr. Criss has proven himself to be an indispensable asset not only to his community but also to the State of Maryland as a tireless advocate for our farmers. What sets Mr. Criss apart is not just his deep understanding of what our farmers do but, more importantly, why they do it. He has always recognized that agriculture is not just an occupation; it is a way of life, a vital pillar of our society. As the director of agricultural services for Montgomery County, MD, Mr. Criss's commitment to the betterment of our society through agriculture has been nothing short of exceptional. Under Mr. Criss's leadership, the Montgomery County Office of Agriculture has been a beacon of support for farmers, offering invaluable resources and guidance, allowing our agricultural community not only to survive but also to thrive. Mr. Criss's personal commitment to the cause of agriculture is evident to anyone who knows him. He has not only been a director but also a friend and mentor to many in our farming community, offering guidance and a listening ear during both good times and challenging ones. His kindness and unwavering support have made him a beloved figure among our farmers and greater community, and his absence will be keenly felt. I commend Mr. Criss for the invaluable contributions he has made to our agricultural community. His legacy is one of dedication, passion, and a deep love for the land and the people who work it. Montgomery County, the State of Maryland, and our farmers are stronger today because of Mr. Criss, and I congratulate him and wish him a well- earned, enjoyable, and fulfilling retirement.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I concur with many of my colleagues that spending on defense is important to meet our national security needs and support our allies like Ukraine. My State of Maryland plays an important role in bolstering national defense, advancing critical research, and supporting our military, and I strongly support the work of our bases. However, it is clear to me that we as a country are not spending our money wisely. The defense budget has grown considerably and, despite its size, has not passed an independent audit. Admiral Mike Mullin, the former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in reference to defense spending that ``with the increasing defense budget, which is almost double, it hasn't forced us to make the hard trades. It hasn't forced us to prioritize.'' While I do not believe that across-the-board cuts are ever the best way to reduce spending, I voted in favor of the Sanders amendment to send a message that we need to put our defense dollars to much better use and make the hard choices necessary to right-size our defense spending.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, with regards to Rounds amendment No. 813 to S. 2226, the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act, I share the sponsor's national security concerns, especially in reference to the purchase of agricultural lands by companies affiliated with the People's Republic of China, and appreciate the sponsor's effort to improve review of these sales. However, I am also deeply concerned by issues that have been raised with respect to civil liberties and want to ensure that no one is discriminated against or viewed as a national security threat simply because of where they were born. As written, the language seems to equate individuals from the specified countries as synonymous with their governments. Under this provision, if an individual with a valid visa, who has no connection to one of the governments listed, seeks to buy agricultural property above a certain threshold, the U.S. Government would deny them the ability to proceed with the purchase simply because of their national origin. While the national security concerns this amendment seeks to address are real, we must not discriminate on individuals based on national origin, race, or ethnicity. I voted in favor of my colleagues' amendment in order to continue the conversation on this important issue, but will not support any final provision that does not resolve these civil liberties concerns.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I rise today to honor the career of Kurt Newman, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Children's National Hospital on the occasion of his retirement. For nearly four decades, Dr. Kurt Newman has made outstanding contributions to pediatric healthcare for children and families in Maryland, the greater DC metropolitan region, nationally, and internationally. Dr. Newman joined Children's National Hospital as a surgical fellow in 1984 and became surgeon-in-chief and senior vice president for Joseph E. Robert, Jr. Center for Surgical Care in 2003. Inspired by the bold vision of making surgery for children minimally invasive and pain- free, Dr. Newman was instrumental in developing the vision for the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children's National where he served as founding vice president in 2009. In 2011, Dr. Newman became president and chief executive officer of Children's National Hospital, a 323-bed pediatric acute care hospital. Under his exemplary leadership, Children's National has risen in the ranks of U.S. News & World Report to be consistently ranked among the very best children's hospitals in the Nation. Under Dr. Newman's leadership, Children's National led the critical COVID-19 response by opening one of the Nation's first drive-thru and walk-up COVID testing center for children, offering a critical resource for children in the region and beyond. Through a culture of patient-centered care, Dr. Newman has championed innovation in research, operations, and clinical care. He has strengthened and diversified the economy of the region by growing pediatric medical research at Children's National and the high-wage jobs that support that field by turning Children's National into one of the top-funded pediatric institutions in terms of National Institutes of Health funding. Additionally, Dr. Newman has worked tirelessly to draw more funding and attention to the youth mental health crisis through robust advocacy efforts. As the majority of Children's National Hospital's patient population hails from Maryland, Dr. Newman has continuously expanded care into our State, including the opening of Children's National Prince George's County on July 23, 2020. This facility, among more than 20 care locations throughout the State, makes it easier for Maryland patients and families to receive high-quality care. I want to personally thank Dr. Newman for keeping members of Congress, especially those of us in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, informed about critical healthcare needs in our region and throughout the country. Children's National and its many supporters will celebrate Dr. Newman on his retirement on June 30, 2023, and Children's National will continue to build upon his legacy to provide high-quality pediatric healthcare across the Washington, DC, metropolitan region. As a nationally recognized leader in pediatric health, I commend Dr. Kurt Newman for his exemplary leadership and dedication to Children's National over nearly four decades. I congratulate him and wish him a well-earned, enjoyable, and fulfilling retirement.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, this week, May 15-21, 2023, marks U.N. Global Road Safety Week, with a focus this year on sustainable transport. As governments look to tackle the issues of climate change, some of the answers lie in making it easier for people to walk, cycle, and use public transport as a way to navigate our cities, but in order to do that, we need to prioritize making these options safer. I recognize the tremendous contributions of our partner organizations in this global effort, including the Association for Safe International Road Travel ASIRT. More than 1 million people die from road crashes every year, and tens of millions are seriously injured. Road traffic crashes are leading cause of death among young people between the ages of 15 and 29 and the eighth among all people worldwide. It is time to draw attention to the need for improved legislation, awareness, infrastructure, and technology to save more families from the tragedy of losing a loved one. On this seventh anniversary of U.N. Global Road Safety Week, it is critical to recommit to the goals of raising awareness about road safety and the importance of taking steps to end these preventable deaths. The World Health Organization, in collaboration with partners including governments, NGOs, businesses, and individuals, organizes periodic U.N. Global Safety Weeks. It was initiated in 2007 and, as of 2019, has become an annual event. In September 2020, the U.N. General Assembly announced the ambitious goal of halving road deaths within 10 years through the adoption of the resolution ``Improving global road safety,'' proclaiming the Decade of Action for Road Safety from 2021-2030. The Global Plan for the Decade of Action provides a roadmap for achieving these goals through improving the design of roads and vehicles, enhancing laws and enforcement of road safety measures, and providing timely and lifesaving emergency care for those injured. Using these policies can help promote walking, cycling, and public transit. Additionally, the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 3.6 calls on governments and their stakeholders, including NGOs and private citizens, to address the personal, medical, and financial burdens associated with road traffic deaths and injuries. We must improve the safety of our roads for all who wish to use them, be it for walking, cycling, or driving. As we continue to shift towards more sustainable modes of transit, it is imperative that our laws enable us to curb dangerous behaviors and keep people safe. It is our responsibility to protect our citizens through designing road networks with the most at-risk in mind, and doing the utmost to prevent untimely death or injury due to crashes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the achievements of Mr. Paul Casasco, a senior audio operator for the Senate Chamber, on the occasion of his retirement. Maryland is home to a robust Federal workforce that serves our country with pride. Federal employees work day-in and day-out to provide vital services to the American people, and I have the honor of representing many of these dedicated individuals. A native of Howard County, MD, Paul Casasco has served the U.S. Senate with distinction for 37 years. Hired in April 1986, Mr. Casasco was a member of the original team that piloted live national coverage of the Senate floor. Within weeks, the U.S. Senate voted to make this coverage permanent, cementing public access to and transparency of its procedures and activities. Mr. Casasco's contributions have ensured that the Senate Recording Studio has become a modern facility that caters to the body of the Senate. He is the last serving member of the original 1986 team. Paul Casasco's dedication will be sorely missed in the U.S. Senate. His colleagues and I join in wishing him all the best for a fulfilling and enjoyable next chapter in retirement.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I think everybody in this body now knows that, yesterday, President Biden convened a meeting at the White House to discuss how the United States would avoid a default--a default on the country, a default on our debt, a default which would be something that has never happened before in the history of the country. The 14th Amendment, section 4 says: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services . . . shall not be questioned. ``Shall not be questioned.'' Throughout our history, in good times and bad times, we have always met our obligations as a country, and that is why President Biden wanted to bring together the congressional leaders to discuss making sure that we don't do that for the first time. He was joined, of course, by Speaker McCarthy. He was joined by the minority leader from the House, Congressman Jeffries. From the Senate, he was joined by Majority Leader Schumer and Republican Leader McConnell. I was asked earlier today whether I felt better in the aftermath of this meeting having taken place. And I said: I am glad that the leaders planned to meet again on Friday, but, no, I don't feel more comfortable or confident today than I did before the meeting, and the reason is this: because Speaker McCarthy continues to threaten to default on America's debts unless he and the MAGA Republicans in the House can impose big parts of their agenda on the country, impose their agenda on the American people. I just want to unpack for a moment what exactly that means. What exactly is Speaker McCarthy saying to the country? And he is saying this: that if the Senate doesn't go along with the very extreme proposals passed by the House Republicans and if the President doesn't agree to sign on to those extreme proposals, he will allow the United States, for the first time in our history, to default on our obligations. And what does that mean? It means he is threatening economic catastrophe, because there is no dispute among Republicans--I don't care if you are a Democratic economist or a Republican economist-- economists across the board will tell you that a default would be catastrophic for our economy--massive job losses. We saw an estimate the other day of 8 million jobs lost in the country--retirement nest eggs that people have been working a lifetime to build up imploding, interest rates rising, the credibility of America around the world shattered, the dollar as the world's reserve currency being called into question. I can tell you who will be celebrating if this happens, and that is the folks in Beijing, the PRC. They will be very happy if the United States undermines its credibility on the world stage, and they will be very happy if we lose our position of having the dollar being the world's reserve currency. So what was President Biden's response? So what the President is saying--and I want to be clear about what he is saying. He is saying: Hold on, Mr. Speaker. Hold on, Speaker McCarthy. Paying our bills on time is not just a Democratic obligation. It is not a Republican obligation. It is not an Independent's obligation. It is an obligation of Uncle Sam. These are obligations the United States has built up during Democratic Presidencies and Republican Presidencies. In fact, if you look at the record during the 4 years of the Trump administration, we accumulated one-quarter of the total debt owed by the United States today. Yet, during those 4 years, the House and the Senate, without drama, said: Yes, the United States is committed to paying its debts, and we will do so, and we will address the debt ceiling in that manner. Just to emphasize once again, what we are talking about is obligations the United States has already incurred, that we have already said as a country: We will do this. We will pay your Social Security. We will pay your Medicare. We will pay our veterans. We will pay our obligations as a country, including those who have purchased U.S. Treasury bonds. That is what we said when we passed those things, and it is important that we keep our word. So what President Biden says is, look, these are Uncle Sam's obligations. Mr. Speaker, you don't get to come in here and threaten the health of the American economy if you and House Republicans don't get to enact your policies, don't get to enact your agenda. So take your finger, Mr. Speaker, off the default detonator, and then we should talk about issues of common concern. We can talk about the budget. We can talk about the deficit and debt. We can talk about spending. We can talk about revenue. In fact, President Biden has submitted to the House and Senate his budget proposal. I serve on the Senate Budget Committee. We as a Senate have received that. President Biden has proposed a budget that achieves $3 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. The proposal passed by Speaker McCarthy and Republicans in the House achieves about $4.5 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. So what the President is saying to Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans is: We are happy to sit down as part of the normal budget process. We are happy to talk as part of the normal appropriations process about how we can address the deficit and the debt. I put forward my proposal. You put forward a proposal. Let's sit down. But President Biden is not saying this to Speaker McCarthy: You have to reduce the deficit by $3 trillion the way I, President Biden, have done it, and if you don't agree to my proposal for reducing the deficit by $3 trillion, then I am not going to sign a bill to raise the debt ceiling. If President Biden said that, people would say he is crazy, and it would be very irrational. But that is exactly what Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans are doing. They are saying: Mr. President, if you don't reduce the deficit our way, we are going to blow up the American economy. So let's step back from the brink here. Speaker McCarthy, take your finger off the default detonator, and let's have a discussion about how to reduce the deficit and debt, because when you do that, you understand that many of our Republican colleagues really don't care that much about the deficit and debt. Why do I say that? Because if you say ``Let's reduce the deficit and debt by increasing revenue by asking some of the wealthiest people in the country--billionaires, people who make hundreds of millions of dollars every year--if you say ``Let's reduce the deficit by asking them to pay more in terms of taxes,'' you won't get any support from our Republican colleagues, the same folks who say it is absolutely urgent that we reduce our deficit and debt. But we know there are two sides of the equation. There is spending, and there is revenue. In fact, if you go back to the last time the United States balanced our budget, which was around the year 2000, you will find that revenues as a share of our GDP, revenues as a share of our economy, were about 20 percent. Today, if you look forward to the next couple of years, the projections are that total revenues will be about 18 percent of our economy. The difference between 18 percent revenues as a share of our economy and 20 percent may not sound like a big number, but 2 percent of a very big American economy is a lot of revenue. So what President Biden is saying is: You know, the last time we actually balanced our budget, revenue as a share of GDP was 20 percent, so at least let's look at that as a contribution. Let's look at raising the top rate on corporations to a level that would still be lower than it was just 10 years ago but higher than it is today. All this talk about the IRS agents--you know, Republicans say: Let's get rid of the additional funds to support IRS agents. These are IRS agents who are going to go after very rich tax deadbeats. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projects that if you invest in that effort to go after very rich tax deadbeats, you actually raise revenue. So the action the House took in this regard actually increased the deficit and is just protecting folks who make a boatload of money from paying the taxes that are already due and owed. What President Biden has said is: OK, sit back. Let's talk through the normal budget appropriations process, but don't threaten to blow up the American economy. President Biden's budget also has cuts in it. In fact, what the President has proposed is that the Medicare Program pay Big Pharma--pay the pharmaceutical industry a little less for the drugs that the Medicare Program purchases. After all, all of us in this room and every American citizen contribute billions and billions of dollars every year to really important work done at the National Institutes of Health, which is headquartered in my State of Maryland. It is an American treasure. It is an amazing place, and it is a great engine of invention. We spend billions and billions of dollars in taxpayer money every year for them to do research that has uncovered really important cures and really important treatments and helped the pharmaceutical industry develop a lot of the drugs. Yet, Big Pharma uses the research developed with taxpayer dollars and then often turns around and sells those drugs at prices that American taxpayers can't afford. So what President Biden has proposed is that they take a little less. We give the Medicare Program even more negotiating authority so we can reduce those costs to Medicare and to the taxpayer. So he has proposed those kinds of cuts. I know a lot of our Republican colleagues don't like those ideas, but that is why you come to the table. That is why Speaker McCarthy should accept President Biden's invitation to come to the table to discuss, in the normal course--in the budget and the appropriations process--how we can address issues of the deficit. What are our priorities? What should we do on the revenue side? What should we do on the spending side? But don't, Mr. Speaker, continue to threaten to blow up the American economy if you don't get your way. I am just going to end with a story from 2011 because that is the last time we really faced this kind of crisis. I am especially worried this time. It was very bad in 2011. We came very close to going over the waterfall. The markets got very jittery. Interest rates did begin to creep up. It cost the U.S. Government more to meet our obligations. I am more worried this time because we apparently have a lot more folks in the House of Representatives who don't seem to fully appreciate and understand the disastrous consequences of default for American families, for our economy. So I remember back in 2011. It was right after the 2010 elections. Republicans had won a big majority in the House of Representatives. President Obama was in the White House. And they were threatening early on to hold the issue of default and threatened to use it for budget purposes. It is true and we have heard it said that Vice President Biden at the time came down to the Hill, and they formed what was called the Biden group. They met in an office right around the corner here on this floor of the U.S. Senate. I was one of the House Members who participated in that. There was a total of about 10 from the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats. We had at least 10 meetings. Vice President Biden would begin each meeting this way--he would say: I know today we are going to talk about the cuts that are being proposed by House Republicans, and we will do that. But I want you to know two things. One is, nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to, and after we go through these proposed cuts, we are going to go through proposed revenue increases. We are going to close tax loopholes for very wealthy people. We are going to attack the deficit from both sides of the equation. We will do some cuts, but you also have to be prepared to talk about revenue. Everybody at the table nodded their head--Senate Republicans, House Republicans, Democrats. Well, after 10 meetings of discussing cuts, a lot of us were getting concerned that we hadn't really begun to dig into revenues. Vice President Biden said: You know, I said at the beginning of every meeting that we have to get to revenues. We are going to do that. At that moment, the talks broke down. Eric Cantor, who was the majority leader in the House at the time; Speaker Boehner was Speaker; Kevin McCarthy walked out of the talks, largely because he was afraid he was going to be fingered by his House Republican colleagues for having agreed to talk about revenues. Imagine that. You care about the deficit, but you won't talk about any ways to raise even a penny of revenue from very wealthy people. That sort of exposed the whole charade at the time. Now Joe Biden is President of the United States. I am sure he is thinking about those days when he served as the head of that budget group, and I am sure he is thinking back to the fact that our Republican colleagues came to the table and said they cared about deficit reduction and all nodded their heads and said ``Yes, after we talk about cuts, we are going to talk about revenues'' and then walked out of the room when that moment came. That just shows that what we are dealing with here is not a commitment to deal with the deficit and debt. What we are talking about is a power play to threaten the health of the American economy in order to impose the MAGA House agenda. President Biden is absolutely right to say: I am more than willing to talk about the budget and deficits and fiscal policy, but first, Mr. Speaker, take your finger off the default detonator. That is what Mr. McCarthy needs to do, and then we can deal with this in a way that the country deserves. I yield the floor.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I have 10 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders. Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: committee on agriculture, nutrition, and forestry The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on a nomination. committee on armed services The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet in closed session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 9:30 a.m. commitiee on commerce, science, and transportation The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet in executive session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 10 a.m. committee on environment and public works The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on a nomination. committee on foreign relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 9:45 a.m., to conduct a hearing. committee on health, education, labor, and pensions The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 1 p.m., to conduct a hearing. committee on rules and administration The Committee on Rules and Administration is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 2:45 p.m., to conduct a hearing. select committee on intelligence The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a closed briefing. subcommittee on national parks The Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing. subcommittee on strategic forces The Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet in closed session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 8:30 a.m.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from Connecticut for his words in support of the Equal Rights Amendment and for his fight for justice. Let me also thank my colleague, my Maryland partner and friend Senator Cardin, for teaming up with Senator Murkowski to push for passage of this legislation year after year. It is long overdue that we take this up and that we pass it in the U.S. Senate. If you look at our history during the darkest of times and against the longest of odds, Americans from all backgrounds have stood together to insist that America live up to its promise--the promise of equality, the promise of equal rights for all. In fact, if you think about the story of America, it really is the story of the struggle to make good on that fundamental promise to ensure that every individual receives equal dignity. We talk about how we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that is true. There are not more rights for men and not supposed to be more rights for any particular group. It is supposed to be about equal dignity, and equal dignity should include equal treatment under the law. In their fight for voting rights, our Nation's suffragettes faced unjust arrest. They faced persecution. They faced resistance from a nation that was not yet willing to fulfill that full promise when it came to voting rights. Despite it all, through protests, through demands, through arrests, the suffragettes prevailed and made sure that we passed the 19th Amendment, at least fulfilling the right to vote for women. But we have a lot of unfinished business. It is not just all men who are created equal; it is all people who are created equal. We have accomplished that when it comes to the ballot box. Although, as we in this body know, we also have a long way to go to make sure that that is made real in practice on the ground. That is why we have been fighting to pass voting rights legislation. But we also need to make sure that, when it comes to women's rights, we enshrine it in the highest law of the land in order to give the rhetoric legal teeth and legal backing. Alice Paul, who really is the founder of the movement for the Equal Rights Amendment, knew that a century ago when she said: I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me, there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality. There is great truth in the simplicity of that statement, and that is what equal rights is all about. It is not a lot of words, but they are the rightly chosen words: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. That is it; a simple statement but a powerful statement because it is a true statement if we really want to live up to our full promise. That is why the overwhelming majority of the American people support it. Seventy-five percent of our fellow Americans support the ERA. Thirty-eight States have ratified it, enough to make the ERA our 28th Amendment. Yet 100 years after the proposed amendment was first introduced to Congress, despite this broad support and the ratification of a necessary number of States, we have not yet made that part of our Constitution. The results are painfully clear every day. My colleagues have talked about some of them: the persistent pay gap, which disadvantages not only women but also the families that they support. Recent rulings by the Supreme Court on reproductive rights have shown that the lack of an explicit protection against gender discrimination puts women's fundamental rights at risk and on the chopping block. So this is the moment to finally get this done. I, again, want to thank Senator Cardin and Senator Murkowski for their efforts to move forward on this. I want to thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. As I close, I do want to say a few words about my friend and colleague from Maryland's long-term fight for this and applaud him for over a decade of working to make sure that we get the ERA across the finish line. It has been one very important aspect--in fact, the cornerstone of many of his efforts here in the United States--but it is a reflection of his fights for civil rights, for women's rights, for racial rights, and for human rights around the world. I want to thank him for his persistence on this and so many issues that call upon us to be what we say we are as Americans--people who believe in the equal dignity of every individual and the rights of every individual. I want to thank my colleague. I want to thank him for teaming up with Senator Murkowski from Alaska and thank her for her efforts. I said at the beginning that we have been defined as an American story by our struggle to make good on that original promise, the idea of equal rights. Many people have tried to interpret it in different ways, but I think we all understand, at the end of the day, the North Star is equal rights. It means equal rights for everybody, not just equal rights for some people over here, because that is not equal rights. That is as simple as what brings us here to the floor. I want to thank my colleague, again, from Maryland for keeping this fight going. I really hope my Republican colleagues will take this moment, despite what we expect, to enshrine that simple proposition into the Constitution of the United States. I yield the floor.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 85 as provided under the previous order, and I ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, our firefighters put their lives on the line every single day, charging into danger whenever duty calls. That is why we have a duty to back them up--not just in words but also in deeds by providing them with the resources and facilities they need and deserve. The underlying bill today extends critical programs to provide training, equipment, and personnel, and I commend the chairman of the committee and the full committee for their action on this. But there is also an urgent need to repair crumbling, insufficiently safe firehouses. Nearly half of the fire stations across the country require major repairs. Forty-six percent of them do not have systems that prevent our first responders from being exposed to mold or cancerous carcinogens. Some have proposed that we address this by taking funds from the assistance to firefighters grants for station construction, but that program is already overprescribed. In fact, in 2020 alone, over $2 billion in requests competed for just $319 million. That is why the firefighters oppose the amendment to poach moneys from the underlying fund. This measure--this amendment does not poach those moneys. It adds an authorization so that we can have additional funds, when appropriate and if appropriated by the Congress, to provide for fire stations that are crumbling. This is based on a bill, a bipartisan bill I introduced with Senator Murkowski, and I appreciate her support for this amendment. In the House, this is also a bipartisan bill led by Congressman Bill Pascrell. So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I rise to acknowledge Bernard E. ``Bernie'' Doyle, who is retiring on 20 April 2023, after more than 40 years of combined military and Federal civil service to our country. After graduating from the George Washington University with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism and speech, Mr. Doyle received his Air Force officer commission in April 1979 as a public affairs officer. With unbounded ambition, Mr. Doyle was selected for the Air Force's Funded Legal Education Program and attended the University of Maryland Law School from 1981 to 1984. Upon his graduation from law school in October 1984, Mr. Doyle entered the second chapter of his military service as a judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps and never looked back. Rising through military ranks and responsibilities through the years, Mr. Doyle was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and oversaw 11 attorneys in the Air Force Legal Service Agency's Employment Litigation Branch. He also personally conducted over 200 trials and appellate litigation in Federal employment discrimination cases and trial and appellate litigation before military courts martial and the appellate courts for the Air Force and the Armed Forces. Among the highlights of his military legal career was his experience defending the accused in three capital murder courts martial. With humility, he would share the profound impact that this experience had on his formative years as a military officer and an attorney in finding courage and compassion within the military justice system. After his retirement from the Air Force in December 1998, Mr. Doyle continued his public service as an administrative judge with the Merit Systems Protection Board--MSPB--an appeals counsel in the MSPB's Office of the Appeals Counsel, and then as an assistant general counsel for the MSPB Office of the General Counsel. To no one's surprise, Mr. Doyle's managerial skills and legal acumen were quickly recognized by his leaders and peers, which led to his selection as the chief counsel to the vice chairman in a non-career Senior Executive Service position. During Mr. Doyle's 11-year tenure at MSPB, he worked extensively on MSPB precedential opinions and successfully defended MSPB final decisions before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Several of his cases, such as Ward v. U.S. Postal Service, Kirkendall v. Army, Butterbaugh v. Department of Justice, and Becker v. Department of Veterans Affairs, continue to serve as the guiding principles on due process rights for Federal employees and employment benefits and protections for veterans and military servicemembers. Mr. Doyle joined the National Guard Bureau Office of the General Counsel as an associate general counsel in the Litigation and Employment Law Division in September 2014. His leadership and dedication to excellence was critical in managing and advocating for the National Guard's interests in the most complex novel litigation against the National Guard. Specifically, he worked tirelessly with the Office of the Solicitor General on several cases concerning National Guard members' State and Federal military service, benefits, and employment protections before the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Doyle was also instrumental in drafting and implementing key reform legislation that improved the workplace conditions and benefits for 54,000 National Guard military technicians and civil service employees in the 54 States, Territories, and the District of Columbia. He also led the effort to overhaul the National Guard Discrimination Complaint Program, the first in the program's 21 years of existence, to ensure that the National Guard in the 54 States, Territories, and the District of Columbia maintains a workplace free of unlawful employment discrimination. Mr. Doyle has dedicated his entire career to public service, improving the quality of employment conditions for Federal civilian employees and Air Force and National Guard servicemembers. He did so by changing minds person by person, by litigating case by case, and by providing technical assistance for statutory drafting line by line. Throughout his career, Mr. Doyle also mentored countless employment and labor relations military and civil service attorneys nationwide. For many attorneys, Mr. Doyle was often their first port of call when facing a complicated employment law case or when they just needed words of encouragement. Because of his legal advocacy and effect on those whom he influenced, Mr. Doyle's impact on labor and employment law will be felt for many years to come, as will his impact on the many, many lives he changed for the better.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the resolution by Congress to overturn a law that was duly passed and enacted by the elected representatives of the people of the District of Columbia. I support self-determination. I support self-governance. I support full democracy for the nearly 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia. Citizens who pay more Federal taxes collectively than the people in 21 States, citizens who serve their country in the Armed Forces, citizens who live in the Capital of the oldest democracy deserve the same rights to full democracy and self-determination as the citizens who live in any other State or any other city in the United States of America. That is why I have long championed and supported the cause of DC statehood. But I want to point out, that is a fight not only for voting representation in the House and the Senate but also for the principle of local economy, the principle of self-determination also known as home rule. In my view, this resolution is an attack on the democratic rights of the people of the District of Columbia, which has its own duly elected democratic representatives: the Mayor and the DC Council. Its residents and citizens are fully capable of deciding their own law and deciding their own future. The Congress should not be overriding the will of the people of DC as reflected in their elected representatives. This process of directly overruling a law passed by the District of Columbia has not been used for 30 years--not for 30 years--and we should not start it now. This bill was passed by the DC Council. It was vetoed by the Mayor. And I share some of the concerns that have been expressed by the Mayor. But then, the city council overruled the Mayor's veto by a vote of 12 to 1. And here is what the Mayor of the District of Columbia says; that while she had differences with what the council did, she strongly, strongly encourages this Senate to uphold the larger principle of democracy for the people of the District of Columbia. Here is a letter she sent to all of us on February 23. [A]s Mayor and the Chief Executive Officer of the District, I call on all senators who share a commitment to basic democratic principles of self-determination and local control to vote ``NO''-- Vote no-- on any disapproval resolutions involving duly enacted laws of the District of Columbia. The Mayor points out in this letter that she is in a back-and-forth with the council to try to address some of the concerns that she has expressed, concerns which I understand and which I share. But she is very clear that the U.S. Congress should not be bigfooting the decisions made by the elected representatives of the District of Columbia. No other jurisdiction in the United States of America has its laws subject to veto by the U.S. Congress. We all have Governors of our State. We all have State legislators. We have cities with mayors and elected councils. No one here would appreciate the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives interfering and overturning decisions made by their State representatives or their local representatives, even if we might disagree with some of those decisions from time to time. And yet that is what we are doing to the people of the District of Columbia having elected their representatives, the Mayor and the council, to represent them. We must ensure that the people who live in the Capital of the world's oldest democracy have the same democratic rights as the people who live in every other part of the country. Now, I do want to address some of the particulars here because we have heard from lots of people, especially our Republican colleagues, that what the DC Council did and the DC government did was so egregious that we have really no alternative but to make a decision we haven't made for 30 years, which is to overturn a law that was duly passed by the DC government. So let's take a look at it. Even opponents within the District of Columbia acknowledge that the majority--the great majority--of the revised Criminal Code is noncontroversial, providing essential updates and clarification to a criminal code that is in desperate need of modernization. The Mayor herself who vetoed the legislation says she supports 95 percent of it and has offered concrete proposals to address the other concerns that she points out that even though she disagrees with 5 percent, that is no reason for the U.S. Congress to overturn a law that was passed by the government of DC. Why did the District of Columbia revise its code? Because it is hopelessly outdated and confusing. It was written in 1901, more than 120 years ago. Many of our States have updated our laws since then-- most of them, if not all of them--but in DC, while they made some changes to some parts over that 120 years, they had never taken a comprehensive look at the DC Criminal Code. We all know a lot has changed since 1901. And so the revised DC Criminal Code is the result of an exhaustive effort led by the Criminal Code Reform Commission, an independent DC agency established in 2016 and comprised of nonpartisan experts. The commission drafted the code over nearly 5 years in a fully public process that included 51 public meetings, extensive public feedback, and robust negotiations. The advisory group that unanimously approved the recommended changes included representatives from the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. The new code removes some obsolete provisions. It ensures that sentences are more proportionate to the actual sentencing. It simplifies overlapping charges and addresses missing and inconsistent laws that create legal loopholes that people have been able to slip through. Now, while I may not have supported every one of these hundreds of provisions in the revised Criminal Code if I were sitting on the DC Council--I am not sitting on the DC City Council and neither is any Senator in this Chamber. None of my 99 other colleagues were there to hear all the testimony that was heard by those who made these decisions on behalf of their constituents as elected representatives. Let's dig a little deeper into some of the changes that were made because listening to some of the public discourse, you would think--I know my friend, the Senator from New Jersey, has heard this--you would think that, boy, the DC Council just went wild with this leftist effort to loosen the laws and let criminals run free. Well, let's take a look at what they did. They raised some penalties. In some cases, they looked at actual sentences, not just in DC but other States, and lowered them, and in some cases, they closed legal loopholes. Here is where they raised penalties: attempted murder. The current maximum sentence in the District of Columbia is 5 years in prison for attempted murder; the maximum under the new DC law, 23\1/2\ years for attempted murder. How does this compare to other States? Well, there are at least seven of our States that have maximum penalties for attempted murder below the new DC maximum penalty for attempted murder. I see the Republican leader is not on the floor. The State of Kentucky has a lower sentence for attempted murder than the revised DC Code has. Maybe tomorrow I should introduce a piece of legislation to raise the penalty for attempted murder in the State of Kentucky because I just don't think that theirs is good enough for the people of Kentucky. That is what we are doing here. We are substituting our judgment for the considered judgment of the people of the District of Columbia. Let's look at another area: attempted sexual assault. The DC government increased penalties for sexual assault from 5 years to 15 years. Again, I surveyed some of our other States. You know, we have Senators from a number of States--at least six--that have lower penalties for attempted sexual assault than the current, new, proposed DC law, including, once again, the State of Kentucky. The State of Kentucky has a lower maximum penalty for attempted sexual assault than the new, revised DC law has. For Federal assault on a police officer, they raised it from the current max of 10 to 14 years. For misdemeanor sexual assault, the maximum will now be 2 years, up from 180 days. The statute also includes new offenses. As I say, we are modernizing the code, including nonvehicular negligent homicide and reckless endangerment with a firearm and new penalties, such as for offenses against vulnerable adults, in order to strengthen public safety in the District of Columbia after having listened to their constituents. It also includes increased penalty enhancements for aggravating factors--such as the presence of a firearm, such as property damage or having prior convictions--in addition to the base penalties that are established for various crimes. Now, that is where they increase penalties, and that is where they close loopholes, but when you are doing comprehensive reform, you look at everything. You don't necessarily measure justice just because a maximum penalty for something goes up. Sometimes you measure justice by making sure that the penalty is proportionate to the crime. We have had lots of debates on this floor, and the Senator from New Jersey, my friend Mr. Booker, has been front and center in leading the charge when it comes to criminal justice reform because we have an absolute scandal in the United States of America about the mass incarceration of people of color. So when the DC Council passes some of these laws, people apparently ignore all of the cases they are increasing penalties for--things like attempted murder--and zeroing in on some areas where they are actually bringing sentences in line with what judges are doing based on their discretion. A lot of attention has been given to the issue of armed carjacking because, in this case, the DC government lowered the maximum penalty for armed carjacking. They did that to bring the maximum penalty more in line with what the actual sentencing was. The current carjacking maximum after the change is 21 years. It went from 40 years down to 24 years. Now, here is the thing: I looked again, as I know my friend from New Jersey did, at what other States' laws are for armed carjacking, their maximum penalties. Once again, in many cases, they are lower than the new DC statute, the new DC penalty. In fact, a lot of States don't even have armed carjacking statutes. So if you want a point of comparison for those States, you would look at armed robbery. When you look at States with armed carjacking statutes and when you look at the penalties they apply for armed robbery in carjacking cases, you will find that 15 States have lower penalties than the new, lower DC maximum penalty for armed carjacking. Fifteen States represented by Senators in this Chamber who want to override DC law have sentences for armed robbery or armed carjacking lower than what DC's new penalty is. Those States include Alaska; they include Kansas; they include North Dakota; and yes, once again, they include the State of Kentucky. The State of Kentucky seems to be an outlier here in terms of low sentences for many violent crimes, lower than the newly revised code passed by the DC government. I am not going to go into all of the other details here. I think my colleagues get the picture, which is that the elected representatives of the District of Columbia, after an exhaustive review, made some decisions about criminal justice reform. I don't agree with every single one of them that they made, but I will tell you this: What they did is entirely defensible, and it certainly doesn't rise to the level of the U.S. Congress, for the first time in 30 years, bigfooting their decisions. That is also the testimony we received from a number of attorneys general of our States. Everyone--including, I am proud to say, my attorney general, Anthony Brown, a former Member of the House--wrote to us all. They pointed out in their letter that the question of public safety is best left to those who are closest to the community and who are in the best position to decide these laws. They say: We know from experience that each of our jurisdictions is very different and at times requires different policy approaches. A law that makes sense for one community may not make sense for another. If the State of Kentucky wants to have lower criminal penalties than the District of Columbia, that is their decision. As I said, based on today's action, maybe I will get up tomorrow morning and introduce a bill to change the criminal penalties in the State of Kentucky. The bottom line is this: The people who live in the District of Columbia deserve the same right as the people who live in every other part of our country--the right to self-determination and democracy. That is what they did in passing this new law, and we should not be substituting our judgment for that of the duly-elected representatives of the people of the District of Columbia. I now yield to the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Booker.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, let me begin with a simple statement which I hope every Senator in this body agrees with: that the United States of America pays its bills on time. We have since our Nation was founded. We never default on our debts. We always pay what we owe. We honor our financial obligations to all Americans and all those who invest in the American economy. And because we pay our bills on time, the United States has earned a reputation as a reliable, credible, and trustworthy partner around the world, and that helps every single American and our entire economy. Now, as everybody in this Chamber knows, in order to maintain the full faith and credit of the United States, we have to raise the debt ceiling. And this is not about new spending. This is about paying the bills that are already due and already owing under the laws that we have already passed in this country and that have already been signed by Presidents of both parties. When Donald Trump was President of the United States, Republicans voted with Democrats to raise the debt limit three times, and the U.S. Congress has raised the debt limit a total of 78 times since 1960, under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. If the Government of the United States had failed to raise the debt ceiling in the past, we would have faced an economic catastrophe. Think about it this way: You wouldn't just wake up one day and decide not to make your mortgage payment or not to make your car payment. You pay what you owe. It is as simple as that. And you know that, if you were to wake up one morning and say that you are not paying your mortgage or you are not paying your car payment, you will face consequences. If you don't pay your mortgage, you could have your home foreclosed on. If you don't pay your car payments, your car can be repossessed. The same logic applies to the U.S. Government, but the consequences are not confined to just one individual or one homeowner or one car owner. If the United States fails to pay its bills on time, every American--everyone inside this room and everyone outside this room-- will suffer the consequences. We are not talking about risking foreclosure on one house or losing one car. We are talking about the economy of our country grinding to a halt. If the United States stops paying our bills, our economy takes a nose dive. It is as simple as that. When I talk to my colleagues here on the Senate floor, both Republicans and Democrats, they agree that it is a no-brainer. You pay what you owe. You raise the debt ceiling. You don't default. It is common sense. In fact, I was listening just the other day to Republican leader Senator McConnell, who said: America must never default on its debt. He said that a few days ago. I agree. But across and on the other side of the Capitol, in the House of Representatives, Speaker McCarthy and the new majority, composed of some very rightwing and extreme Members, are taking their orders from former President Donald Trump, the same Donald Trump who as President signed three debt limit increases into law. Now he wants Republicans to use the debt limit as a club against President Biden. House Republicans are stalling our efforts right now to pay our bills on time, even though they know--just as Senator McConnell knows, just as every Senator here knows--that failing to do so would result in chaos and calamity for the country. It is a threat designed to force the rest of the U.S. Congress into enacting an extreme rightwing agenda. So let's be very clear. Here is what House Republicans are saying. They are saying: You do what we want or else we will tank the American economy. I think anybody hearing that proposition would recognize it for what it is--a form of economic terrorism. But MAGA Republicans are holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to impose their agenda on the American people. They have decided to politicize what should be a nonpartisan issue because Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate have voted for programs to require us to raise the debt ceiling in the past. In fact, I think it would be important to know that we would not be here at this time, on the Senate floor, having hit the debt ceiling and trying to work to make sure we avoid actually going over the cliff--we would not be here--if it was not for the tax cuts that were passed during the Trump administration. We would not be here at this particular moment. And, in fact, 25 percent of the total national debt was accumulated during the Trump administration--25 percent of the total debt of the United States, during the Trump administration. Now, I want to be clear, I am not saying this is all Republican debt, but it certainly is not all Democratic debt. This is the debt of the country. This is the debt owed by Uncle Sam. And what does the Constitution of the United States tell us about how we treat America's debt? Well, here is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution right here, and what it says is this: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. The Fourteenth Amendment passed shortly after the Civil War, and it is crystal clear that the obligation to pay America's debts is not a Democratic obligation; it is not a Republican obligation. It is an American obligation, and beyond being the right thing to do, it is in the Constitution of the United States. It is a national duty and a constitutional duty. So, as I listen to Speaker McCarthy and his Republican House colleagues, they want us to ignore the Fourteenth Amendment. They want to impose their reckless policies on the rest of us under threat of our doing what they want us to do. So I do want to be clear about what the consequences of this would be. I talked in general terms about economic catastrophe. Here is what it would mean. It would mean seniors going without Social Security benefits. It can mean troops going for weeks or even months without pay--the men and women in uniform who are out there protecting our country. Medicare may not be able to cover the costs of a doctor's visit. Those are just some of the governmental functions that could come to a grinding halt if we don't pay our debts on time, and we don't know the full extent of what would happen because, as I said, we have never been there before. This is uncharted territory. Economists estimate a very dire toll: 3 million jobs lost; $130,000 added to the cost of your average 30-year mortgage. I want everyone to hear that. The mortgage costs for homeowners would go up. And, of course, as the mortgage costs for homeowners go up, the value of everyone who has already got a House also goes down. Retirement accounts in free fall, skyrocketing borrowing costs on car loans, and we would be hit by this catastrophe just as we are recovering from the economic hit we took during the pandemic. And it would trigger an increase in costs just as we are beginning to turn the corner on inflation. So why would anyone do this? Why would someone threaten to do this? I have been listening very carefully to Speaker McCarthy and Republicans in the House, and they say that they want to reduce the deficit and the national debt. That is what they say, but this is one of those situations where you always say: Watch what they do, not what they say. The reality is that Republicans, through their actions and their records, don't care about the deficit and the debt. That is not their priority because, if they really cared about the deficit and the debt, they would not have passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts without a plan to pay for them--a tax cut, by the way, which disproportionately benefited the very, very rich and big multinational corporations--because that tax cut, that giveaway to the very wealthy and big corporations, it increased the deficit by $2 trillion over 10 years, added to our national debt. As I said, we wouldn't even be here today, at this point in time, but for the fact that Republicans increased the deficit by $2 trillion. By the way, that is not my estimate, that $2 trillion. That is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, they could have joined us, just last year, when we closed a number of loopholes for big corporations, a measure that reduces the deficit by $238 billion over the next 10 years. That is something Democrats did. We didn't have a single Republican vote here in the Senate or in the House for that. And if Republicans really cared about reducing the deficit and debt, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would not, as one of their very first measures, have passed a law to slash the funding that the IRS desperately needs to enforce the law against wealthy tax cheats. Let me say that again. They cut the moneys that the IRS needs to enforce current tax law against very wealthy Americans and big corporations that are not paying what they owe today. They are getting away with cheating on their taxes, and Republicans cut the money that the IRS needs to go after them. And this is very explicitly, as the Secretary of Treasury said, talking about Americans who earn more than $400,000 every year, including lots of multimillionaires and billionaires in the country. So when you say the IRS can no longer have the funds to go after wealthy tax cheats, what happens? You collect less revenue from very wealthy people. And what happens when you collect less revenue from very wealthy people? You increase the deficit. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the action the House already took would increase the deficit by over $114 billion. This is from the Republicans in the House who are now threatening the United States not pay its bills, claiming that they care about the deficit and debt, when one of the very first actions that they took was to increase it. So that is just not the case. Their actions indicate that they don't care about the deficit. What is it really about? So what Republicans are really after is attacking critical investments that support the American people and that help strengthen our country. As one Republican strategist, Grover Norquist, once said, it is about shrinking the government down to the size where you can ``drown it in the bathtub.'' This House Republican majority is desperate to cut and decimate programs that Americans need and that our future requires. So, for example, they want to cut some of the new initiatives we undertook to supercharge American innovation. We passed legislation, the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to maintain our technological edge over China and others. They want to cut it. They want to roll back investments that we made that are already bringing more high-tech manufacturing jobs back to the United States. We want to ensure those manufacturing jobs. They want to continue to offshore those good jobs. They want to cut investments we are making in clean energy that will help us fight the climate crisis, strengthen the American workforce, and, yes, also help us better compete around the globe, where China has a huge headstart when it comes to things like electric batteries. They want to cut Pell grants, which help millions of Americans pursue a college degree. They want to cut investments we are finally making to modernize our national infrastructure--something that was very bipartisan here in the U.S. Senate. That is important for our roads, our bridges, our transit systems, our ports, our airports. They want to cut it. Some are talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security. That is just a partial list of what the House Republicans are threatening to do, and they are saying that if we don't all agree to that, they are not going to allow the United States to pay its bills on time. The bottom line here is, when you look at the Republican playbook, it is cutting investments that are important to the American people and important to the success of our country while pushing for more tax cuts for the superwealthy. This is not a new movie; this is a rerun; this is trickle-down economics. It is the same old playbook, and here they go again. But here is the thing: We have been here before. Some of us were here when this threat was last made. I vividly remember the year 2011. It was another moment when the Republicans were fresh--fresh--after winning a majority in the House of Representatives. I was in the House at the time. Then, as now, the Republicans said they really cared about the deficit and the debt. Then, as now, they threatened that they wouldn't pay the bills on time. They wouldn't vote to pay the country's bills on time. I remember back then that we sat down with them in good faith. President Obama tapped Vice President Biden to lead the budget negotiations, and a small bipartisan and bicameral group of us was selected to try to hammer out a plan. I was part of those discussions. They took place just off the floor here, down the hall, less than 15 yards away. We worked week after week after week, and we negotiated to try to hammer out an agreement. But here is what became very clear: The Republican objective then, as now, was not to reduce the deficit and the debt. The Republican objective was simply to cut investments in important areas. They didn't want to raise one penny--not one dime--to reduce the deficit or debt by closing tax breaks for very wealthy people. That was then. This is the same story today. If you look at the list of things they did back then--no cutting tax breaks for the wealthy, cutting important programs, including Medicare, were very much part of their agenda--we got very close to tripping over the final cliff of the debt ceiling. Like today, we had already hit the debt ceiling, and the Treasury Department was taking extraordinary measures to prevent us from actually defaulting on our debts. In fact, we got so close to actually not paying our bills on time that the S&P downgraded America's credit for the first time in our history. They said: You are getting very close to the place where creditors of the United States aren't going to anymore support the United States. They are not going to buy U.S. bonds. In fact, interest rates began to creep up just because of that when we got so close to the cliff. We came very close to going over that waterfall and crashing the economy. So many of us learned a valuable lesson that day. I learned it, and I know that then-Vice President, now-President Biden learned it, and that is that you don't negotiate over whether or not the United States pays its bills on time, because all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, have an obligation and a responsibility to do that. We also learned something I want to be equally clear about. We are not against negotiating about the budget. We are happy to sit down anytime with Republican colleagues and the Speaker of the House to negotiate all aspects of the budget. We can talk about spending levels, and we can talk about revenue levels. In fact, we have a budget process here. If Speaker McCarthy and his colleagues want to do this under the regular process and do it in a bipartisan way, they have to pass a budget resolution. They outline where they want to make cuts. I don't expect them to outline any proposed increases in revenue, but that is the place they would do that. Then we will have a debate. I serve on the Senate Budget Committee. I would look forward to that. I do look forward to that. I serve on the Appropriations Committee where we decide on expenditures. That is the forum for negotiation. The Democrats are for negotiating on the budget. We welcome that. Then the American people would see exactly what everyone's budget priorities are. They would see that the Republicans want to protect tax breaks for the very wealthy while they want to cut investments that are very important to middle America. They would see all of that during the budget process, but they want to short circuit that process. They, instead, want to say that they are not going to vote to pay our bills on time unless we all agree to their radical agenda. We are saying we are happy to negotiate--let's have a budget negotiation--but the negotiation isn't that you get everything you want in exchange for the Democrats' joining you to vote to pay our bills on time. We didn't do that when President Trump was in office. As I said, we voted three times to raise the debt limit. We didn't say: You have got to accept all of our proposed efforts to get rid of tax breaks for the very wealthy. Yet what they are saying is that we have got to accept their approach to deep cuts to important investments in order for them to do what all of us have an obligation under the Constitution to do, which is to pay our bills on time. So I hope all of us will do the simple thing--mandated in the Constitution--as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans. As Americans, let's pay our bills on time, and let's not crash our economy. Yes, as part of the normal budget process, let's have a conversation about spending and about revenue, but don't do it while, at the same time, you are saying you are not going to let the United States pay our bills on time. As I said in my opening remarks, we have always paid our bills on time. If you don't do it, really bad things happen to all Americans. So let's get that done, and then let's have our conversation about budget priorities. I yield the floor.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President. I rise today to honor the career of Doug Bibby, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council--NMHC--on the occasion of his retirement. For the past 30 years, Mr. Bibby has been a positive force in the housing sector, working to support families' pursuit of safe and affordable housing across this country. More than two decades ago, Mr. Bibby became the president of the National Multifamily Housing Council, one of the Nation's leading associations representing the multifamily housing sector. Throughout his tenure, Mr. Bibby has led with empathy, clarity, and dedication. Early in his presidency, he outlined goals for the council and the apartment industry at-large, highlighting the benefits of this housing option for families. With that in mind, Mr. Bibby made housing affordability and safety a top priority through legislation, partnerships, and programming. His leadership was essential during the pandemic as he helped advocate for passage of bipartisan legislation that led to over $50 billion in rental assistance going to households in need amidst the crisis. At the helm of the council, Mr. Bibby formed their diversity, equity, and inclusion commitment strategy, recognizing its significance to the future of the multifamily industry. He took on the role of mentoring the next generation of leaders as a top priority. In addition, Mr. Bibby was committed to introducing a pipeline for new talent to enter the industry, which led to the formation of NMHC's Emerging Leaders Program. Mr. Bibby left a productive, positive and enduring mark on the apartment industry, a sector that provides homes for almost 37 million Americans and contributes $3.4 trillion to the economy annually. His legacy will be felt for generations to come. Having delayed his well- deserved retirement more than once, I commend him for his many years of dedication and wish him the best in this next chapter of his life. I congratulate him and wish him a well-earned, enjoyable and fulfilling retirement.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I, too, rise to thank Senator Toomey for his distinguished public service. I first got to know Pat Toomey back in 2011. For those who have been around here a long time or at least a medium amount of time, you may remember the budget impasse in 2011 between the House and the Senate. At that time, there were constant threats of government shutdowns. There was, of course, the issue of the debt ceiling. What finally happened was that a piece of legislation or an agreement was reached that said: We are going to create what was then called a supercommittee to try to work out some of these budget issues, and if the supercommittee did not reach an agreement, then this Rube Goldberg machine would take effect, providing automatic budget cuts both to defense and nondefense spending. Everybody agreed that having this automatic sequester take place would not serve the best interests of the country and hoped that this supercommittee would be able to come up with a solution. Senator Toomey was new to the Senate then, but because of his great expertise and because of the fact that he was trusted by Leader McConnell, he was appointed as one of the very few people--about three or four people from the Senate--to participate on the supercommittee, and I was appointed by Speaker Pelosi to serve on the supercommittee. We did not, in the end, succeed in reaching an agreement, but one of the really good things that came out of that supercommittee from my perspective was getting to know and work with Pat Toomey. We disagreed on a lot of those issues, and, of course, ultimately the disagreements in the supercommittee overwhelmed our ability to get to some kind of yes. But what I learned during that process was, when you are talking to Pat Toomey, you are talking to somebody who is incredibly knowledgeable and presents his perspective very well. You also found somebody who was trustworthy. Pat Toomey never said anything in that process where he went back on his word. He was always very clear about where he stood. Once he said he was for something, he would stick with it, and if he was against it, you would know he was against it. You also knew he was someone you could trust in terms of confidence because when you are in a situation like the supercommittee--and we worked for weeks. It was a good-faith effort. We worked for weeks. But you have to learn to trust each other because you are talking about different proposals that ultimately would require a compromise, and we all know that compromise can sometimes be very difficult and politically charged. So during that period of time, I recognized that Pat Toomey was someone you could trust. Because of that, when I came to the U.S. Senate, it was a great privilege to work with my by then friend Pat Toomey on a range of issues. Senator Toomey talked today about his passion and conviction for expanding freedom. That passion extends to extending freedom to people around the world. We were able to team up on a number of measures to try to do exactly that. One was the Otto Warmbier BRINK Act, which was legislation that has been passed into law to try to make sure that we hold North Korea accountable for its nuclear program and also hold them accountable on human rights. It is named after an American who was mistreated in North Korea and then came home and died. We worked on that legislation, and, again, it was always a back-and- forth. It was secondary sanctions legislation, which has now been used by multiple administrations to apply sanctions to try to advance our policies to try to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and bring more pressure on the North Korean regime. In that same vein, we worked together on the Hong Kong Autonomy Act after we saw China violate its commitments and agreements with respect to Hong Kong. That empowered the executive branch to apply sanctions on officials in China who were participating directly in depriving citizens in Hong Kong of their freedom, and that legislation passed as well. Now, even in the closing days of this session, we are working together with respect to our efforts to cut off Putin's bank account that funds his war machine against Ukraine by backing up the Biden administration and G7's proposal for the oil price cap, which many have heard more about recently since this just took effect. We believe that in order for it to be effective in the long term, we need to be sure we have global compliance. To do that, that also should be backed up with a measure to provide more teeth and the prospect of sanctions. I just wanted to come to the floor to say that, Pat, it has been great working with you on these issues. As others have said, we can always disagree, but you know how to disagree agreeably. You know how to argue your point in a respectful manner, and you have found common ground wherever you could. I am grateful. I said a few good words about Pat Toomey the other day that were picked up in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Pat said: You know, you might have gotten yourself in trouble. I said: I have probably gotten you in just as much trouble. Of course, you are now stepping down after 12 distinguished years. But that is the kind of trouble we should all be willing to get into, working together for the good of the country and the people of our States. Pat, to you and Kris and your three children, as you leave here, we give you all our very best wishes, and I know and I am confident you will remain engaged in the public debate going forward. But you have earned this departure from the United States Senate. Thank you for your distinguished service to the people of Pennsylvania and to the people of the United States of America. Godspeed.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, November 20, 2022, marked the 27th World Day of Remembrance--WDoR--for Road Traffic Victims, commemorating the millions of people killed and injured on the world's roads. It is also a day to thank emergency responders for their role in saving lives, to reflect on the impact of road traffic deaths and injuries on families and communities, and to draw attention to the need for improved legislation, awareness, infrastructure, and technology to save more families from the tragedy of losing a loved one. More than 1 million people die from road crashes every year, and tens of millions are seriously injured. Road traffic crashes are the No. 1 killer of young people aged 15-29 and the eighth leading cause of death among all people worldwide. Rochelle Sobel, president of the Association for Safe International Road Travel, highlighted the gravity of this issue and the imperative to fix it: ``Every 27 seconds, somewhere in the world, a person dies in a road crash.'' On this 27th anniversary of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, it is important to remember the history and recommit to the goals of this day. It was initiated in 1995 as the European Day of Remembrance and quickly spread around the globe to countries in Africa, South America, and Asia. In 2005, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 60/2, recognizing November 15 as the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Since that time, the observance of this day has continued to spread to a growing number of countries on every continent. Last year marked the start of the new Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, during which the WDoR will highlight the reasons for all of the necessary actions to be taken during this coming decade. Indeed, the day has become an important moment to focus international attention on this preventable epidemic and as an advocacy tool in global efforts to reduce road casualties. As a result of the growing awareness and global call to action that World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims has generated, in September 2020, the United Nations passed a resolution declaring the years 2021 to 2030 a new Decade of Action for Road Safety. The declaration affirms the UN's commitment to work vigorously to implement a new, ambitious agenda to halve road crash deaths by 2030. Additionally, the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3.6 calls on governments and their stakeholders, including NGOs and private citizens, to address the personal, medical, and financial burdens associated with road traffic deaths and injuries. The devastation of losing a child, parent, sibling, partner, friend, caregiver, or caretaker is immeasurable, as are the challenges of caring for a permanently disabled loved. Road traffic crashes are preventable, and so we owe it to our communities to work together so that the hopes and dreams of our loved ones are not shattered on the roads of the United States and the world. We must all take action to prevent these avoidable tragedies and save lives.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. As the majority leader said, I rise to honor the stellar public service of Joan Kleinman, a senior member of my office team, who retired in February after 19 years of working on behalf of the people of Maryland and the United States. Today, I would like to share with the Senate the depth of her commitment to the people of Maryland and her extraordinary legacy of good works, and have her story inscribed in the pages of the Congressional Record so that it might be a source of wisdom and inspiration for all time. I first met Joan Kleinman in 1990, when I started working at the Washington, DC, law firm of Arent Fox. Joan was also a fellow lawyer, who was in charge of managing the staffing of cases in the litigation department. For those of us who were litigation associates, that meant we had better be on Joan's good side. While I was practicing law at Arent Fox, I was also serving 3 months a year in Maryland's part-time legislature. I knew Joan and her husband Sam were raising their family in Montgomery County, and that Joan had a keen interest in what was happening in our community. At the time, I needed someone to be treasurer for my State senate campaign committee, somebody who was really well organized, someone who cared about our community, and somebody who I could trust completely. Joan fit the bill. But would she do it? I will confess that I was a little scared to ask her. I finally mustered up the courage to knock on her office door, and luckily for me, Joan had no idea what she was getting into, and she said yes. The rest is history. In 2001, with Joan's encouragement, I launched my campaign for the House of Representatives. That campaign started at the kitchen table in our home in Kensington and with my wife Katherine and a small cadre of friends and dedicated volunteers, including Joan. We knew it would be a tough fight, but we thought we had a shot. Our campaign grew quickly. It was powered by hundreds of volunteers and thousands of small contributions that kept coming in. And, now, as treasurer of my congressional campaign, Joan would keep track of the flurry of small contributions that arrived every week. It was a ton of work. And Joan also worked on other aspects of the campaign at the same time. As another veteran member of that congressional campaign recently told me, ``for Joan, 3 a.m. was as much a part of the normal workday as 3 p.m.'' We won that campaign, and Joan was key to our success. So when the campaign ended, I had some very big decisions to make, including who would run our congressional district office? I wanted someone who was dedicated to our community, someone who could manage that important job, and, again, someone whom I could trust completely. The person who met all those requirements was Joan Kleinman. I will admit--and we would all admit--that in those early days, we were flying by the seat of our pants, and Joan was charged with building out our constituent services program from the ground up. She had to do all of the big picture things, like building relationships with community stakeholders and forging bonds with Federal Agency officials. She also had to bring on our entire constituent service team and our community outreach team and develop an intake and tracking system for constituent cases to make sure nothing would fall through the cracks. Joan built out our Maryland offices day after day, week after week, month after month, until we became the gold standard in constituent services. She instilled an ethic of persistence in our casework team to ensure that we did everything--and I mean everything--in our power to deliver results for our constituents. I started receiving buckets of handwritten thank-you letters from folks across our congressional district. People would stop me in the street to thank me for our help. In fact, under Joan's leadership, our office became so well known for our top-notch constituent services that we started getting calls from people in all the other congressional districts in our State. We solved that challenge when I ran for the U.S. Senate, and, after that campaign, Joan assumed responsibility for maintaining excellent constituent services and outreach for all Marylanders. And that she did. The letters of appreciation we received from constituents are now kept in large binders that filled up whole bookshelves. And now people across our entire State stop me on a regular basis to acknowledge their appreciation for something that Joan and her team did to help them, which leaves me with one big question: How does that happen? How did we grow from that empty office space after my congressional election in 2002 into an operation that is renowned for delivering amazing services to people throughout our State? And the answer is Joan Kleinman. Our story of success is the story of Joan Kleinman and the team that she built, and I would like to reflect on the qualities that made that happen. And there are many, but three big ones jump out. No. 1, follow the golden rule. Joan established an ethic in the office that every constituent--every one--was to be treated the way we would want to be treated, with respect. She told our team that when someone calls our office, handle the case like it is your mom calling or your dad or your brother or sister. And it did not matter if the problem related to a Federal issue, a State issue, a county issue, or anything else. We were there to deliver results. Joan knew how frustrating it could be to pick up the phone, call a government office asking for help, only to be told to call a different government office. So even if the issue fell in someone else's jurisdiction, we connected them to ensure they could get the help they needed. Joan constantly reminded her team that if someone is calling us, it is because they need help, and they had likely tried and exhausted all other avenues to resolve the problem themselves. Another of Joan's sterling qualities is real leadership. Now, leadership can mean different things to different people, but you know it when you see it. Joan is a strong leader and an excellent manager because she leads by example. Like a good general who leads their troops into battle from the front, Joan was always willing to take on any task, large or small, for the success of the team. She worked crazy hours. She read every letter. There was nothing that she would ask others to do that she would not do first. Her exemplary leadership also flowed from her emphasis on detail and determination, a good combination. Good intentions about helping our constituents are great, but good intentions without implementation and accountability are empty promises. And good advocacy on behalf of constituents requires constant coaxing and constant followup. So let's be clear. Joan's team has always been civil in pressing agencies and organizations to help our constituents, but her team has also been firm, polite, but always persistent. And Joan's leadership powered a sense of common purpose and joint accomplishment. She would always highlight the achievements of members of her team who served our constituents, from helping our veterans and seniors obtain their benefits, to getting a passport approved so a constituent could visit a sick loved one, to getting student loans forgiven, to reuniting entire families, to helping folks avoid foreclosure, and hundreds and hundreds of other matters. Joan ensured that the success of our office belonged to everyone on the team. She lifted everyone up. And on those days when this job can be frustrating and discouraging--and the Presiding Officer knows we face our share of those--on those days, reading the notes of appreciation that Joan would circulate from constituents thanking us for helping them in their greatest hour of need, or about how our work had changed their life for the better, reminded me and everyone on our team of the importance of public service and the good that we can do. A third quality Joan has in abundance is compassion for those she worked with. Like the good Jewish mother she is, Joan brought that same sense of caring and nurturing to members of her family away from home, her office family. She was often the first to reach out to new staff, inviting them to lunch or coffee. She would circulate cartoons from the New Yorker that particularly resonated, which mostly got chuckles. She would laugh generously at other's jokes, even if they weren't all that funny. And she spent hours mentoring and coaching each member of our team. As a senior member of my staff remarked recently, ``Joan believed in me more than I believed in myself.'' Her good counsel helped guide staff members while they worked in our office and also served them well in their future endeavors. We are especially grateful that Joan helped groom one member of our staff who started as an intern under Joan's tutelage and then worked as a staff member in our office before going to practice law, as Joan had once done. This member of our team later returned to our office well prepared to take on Joan's job when Joan left the office in February. And Joan wasn't just a mentor on professional matters. She was also there for staff members navigating the ups and downs of life. She has been a consoler-in-chief in times of loss and a cheerleader-in-chief in times of joy. Her warmth radiated in moments of hurt and of happiness. And my office hasn't been the only beneficiary of Joan's love. It also extends to members of her wonderful family, who have joined Joan in the Senate Gallery this evening: her husband Sam, their daughter Molly, their son Ari, and their son Ben, with his wife Saryn. It is a joy to have them here for this special occasion. I also want to give a shout-out to Joan's grandson, little Miles, who is at home. And I want to salute Joan's late father and her amazing mother Evelyn. Both of her parents helped raise her to be the woman she is today, and her mother, in particular, has always been very vocal about her thoughts about my cable TV appearances. Thank you all for sharing Joan with us all those years. And Joan's commitment also extends to her family of faith. Joan isn't just a good Jewish mother to everyone. She is also a devoted member of her synagogue. Her life has been driven by the spirit of ``tikkun olam,'' repairing the world. And this year, for Rosh Hashanah, Joan was invited by her congregation to speak from the pulpit and offer an interpretation of religious text. In her remarks, Joan shared this reflection: I know we all want to be remembered for the personal qualities that we value. But I think it's important that we also seek to be remembered for how we respond to the challenges of our times. That isn't just a meditation on faith; that is a meditation on service. In Joan's eyes, each of us has a responsibility to match our strong words with even stronger deeds. We honor our values only through our action. It isn't enough to envision a more perfect world. We need to build it ourselves--brick by brick, hour by hour, good deed by good deed. Joan has spent her life realizing the promise of that creed, and because of it, she leaves behind a legacy of good works that not only fill up bookshelves but also fill up the lives and hearts of countless people in our State of Maryland. She has helped guide people in need. She has met the moment. She has changed lives for the better. She has done so much good for so many Marylanders for so many years that our State will always be better because of it. So on behalf of me and my entire family, on behalf of our entire staff, past and present, on behalf of all the people in the State of Maryland, we thank you, Joan Kleinman. Your legacy of good works has left the world a much better place. Joan, we love you. Even though Joan has retired from our office, I will continue to seek her counsel and relish her friendship for years to come. I yield the floor.