Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object, let me make sure we are clear with my friend because we do a lot of work together, and I am looking forward to continuing it. I don't see much to object to this afternoon. We both want to be all in on the fight against fraud. Those were the first words out of my mouth: Let's go all in on fighting this horrendous fraud. That is why we worked so long in a bipartisan way, because you are not the only Republican from the committee who worked with me and it is a large bill and it deals with a big problem. And, for the life of me, I can't figure out why we aren't dealing with the big problem and not creating innocent victims--more of them. At this point, I guess there is gridlock today, but I want to extend the olive branch again, which I have been doing from day one. I want a big bill that goes after big-time fraud in a very aggressive way. I am still baffled by why we are not out here with a whole lot of Republicans who are cosponsors of my bill, with the Senator from Idaho as the chair, and saying: This is the way we ought to be governing. But I object. I hope we are back.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, just very briefly, my colleague says nothing is going to happen in the House to fight fraud. I have got to tell you that I don't see any fraud caucus out there in either the Senate or the House. There are no rallies for people who are committing outrageous fraud. I think we ought to move. We ought to move here. We have done the hard work. We have done the heavy lifting. My colleague from Oklahoma knows what it is like when he is trying to put together a bipartisan bill. We have done that work. I think we ought to move here and then talk to our colleagues in the House. Why don't you now pick up on the hard work we have done and we will get serious about fraud. So we are going to continue this conversation. I always wanted to work with my colleague from Oklahoma on these kinds of issues, and we are going to stay at it until we deal with big-time fraud in a big-time way, in the U.S. Senate, in a bipartisan way. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Will the Senator from New Jersey yield for a question?

Mr. WYDEN. I thank my colleague. I have been listening to this, a Herculean presentation, for hours and hours. Your remarks reflect the urgency of our times, Senator Booker, and I thank you for it. Let me frame the question this way: I hold open-to-all townhall meetings in every county in my State each year. I have had more than 1,100 of them. And since Donald Trump took office, what we have seen in these townhall meetings is fear and terror, and, I might add, record turnouts. I was in a small town in central Oregon recently, Sisters. We had almost 1,400 people there. And what people asked about and you have touched on this morning, is, of course, Medicaid and Social Security because these are programs involving healthcare and retirement that are really the connective tissue between the government and our people. These programs make it possible for people to pay for essentials. They are not going to fancy places. They are buying groceries. They are paying rent. They are buying medicine. We had one separate townhall meeting, I say to my colleague, just with Federal employees whose goal is to get out in the woods and help prevent fire in Oregon. I organized this meeting. They, too, are terrified. They have dedicated their lives to trying to help. We serve the American people. And I am telling you, I have seen service in action over the last few hours with your reflecting the urgency of our times. Our salaries are paid for by taxpayers, and I am particularly troubled by the fact that we are getting all these reports that many Senators are saying: I am not going to do townhall meetings. They are on the other side of the aisle. As I said, I have had 1,100 of them, 10 of them so far this year. It seems to me, that is refusing to answer to constituents. You have been here all night, and you are setting a very clear example about what it means to push back against authoritarianism. So just like I have townhall meetings, my question to my friend from New Jersey is, What are you hearing from home? It is a pretty straightforward question, but it sure as heck is what the times are all about because people are saying: What are you doing back there? What is important to you? I talk about town meetings. I had a tele-townhall, I say to my friend, during the speech that was being made on the floor of the House. I had 30,000 people participating. That is a lot for my small State. So I know what I am doing, and I think the American people would like to hear a bit about what my colleague is hearing from his State and why it is so important that he is out here mopping his brow today trying to stay on his feet, making the case for the urgency of our time. What are you hearing?

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, 4 years ago, I kicked off an investigation of Big Pharma's tax practices, the dodges and tricks these hugely profitable, multinational companies use to winnow down their tax bills. This was not very long after Trump's first tax breaks for corporations went into effect. My Democratic colleagues on the Finance Committee and I wanted to know exactly how sweet a deal Trump gave the biggest drug companies and what changes needed to be made to ensure these corporations paid a fair share. So far, in the course of my investigation, I have released information on the tax practices of five major drug companies: AbbVie, Abbott Laboratories, Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Merck. The questions that I asked these companies were not very complicated. Essentially, what I asked came down to questions like: How big were your sales? Where did you make them? Where did you report your profits? Where did you stick your intellectual property? Did you actually pay taxes? Last year, I expanded my investigation with an inquiry to the company Pfizer. Pfizer initially resisted, but my staff and I were not going to let up. Finally, the company provided some answers to our questions. We are going to get into those issues now, and I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record a memorandum outlining records of my investigation relating to Pfizer's tax-avoidance schemes, which will also be available immediately on the Finance Committee's website. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the report printed into the Record now. There being no objections, the material was ordered to be printed in

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to take a few minutes to walk through these findings and discuss why they are so important. I am very pleased to be joined by several of my colleagues who are also outraged about this tax-dodging. Here is the upshot. My investigation has found that Pfizer carried out what could be the largest tax-dodging scheme in the history of Big Pharma. The United States is the largest market for Pfizer's products. In 2019, the company sold $20 billion worth of drugs to American patients. If you are following along on this discussion, you might be hoping to hear that Pfizer paid a reasonable rate of tax on those profits. I have got bad news for you and the American people. In that same year, Pfizer reported zero--not one red cent--in taxable U.S. profits. Through various tricks and games, Pfizer was able to shift 100 percent of its U.S. profits to foreign tax havens. This means that Pfizer dodged billions of dollars in Federal income tax on its U.S. drug sales. There is every reason to believe it continues to do so. Thanks to the tax law Trump and Republicans passed in 2017, Pfizer doesn't need to keep the money stashed overseas. Pfizer can take this cash and pocket it with tax-dodging schemes and turn it into stock buybacks, dividends, executive compensation--the list goes on. There is an additional matter that is so disturbing. The company appears to be keeping some of its tax schemes hidden from view with what has been described to me as a confidential arrangement with the Governments of Puerto Rico and Singapore. It is enough to leave you slack-jawed. So this is a Senate investigation that will have a direct impact on tax legislation, and Pfizer is hiding relevant tax information behind nondisclosure agreements. So colleagues, this is the sixth Big Pharma company where my investigation has found a staggering level of tax dodging. And these rip-offs don't happen by osmosis; they happen because Republicans have allowed them to happen. With the tax law they passed back in 2017, Republicans delivered to Big Pharma a tax break of more than 40 percent. From 2014 to 2016, the industry paid 19.6 percent, on average. In 2019 and 2020, it paid 11.6 percent. Now, reasonable people watching at home might be thinking about how Republicans always claim to be worried about deficits and debt. Surely those Republicans would dial back what they did in 2017 and ask these huge, profitable corporations to pay a little bit more to ease our fiscal challenges. If you think that is the case--wrong. So I want to bring my colleagues into this discussion momentarily, and I will close by looking at the big picture as Congress moves forward with this debate on taxes, health, child hunger, and more. Republicans are in control of the Congress and the White House, and they have locked Democrats out of the discussion. Somewhere here on Capitol Hill, there is a group of Republicans meeting right now, behind closed doors, quietly planning the outline of their gigantic bill. Nobody in that room is talking about how to protect people who work for a living or how to get more fairness in the economy. The discussion they are having comes down to how big the handouts are going to be for billionaires and multinational corporations, how many tens of millions of Americans they are going to kick off Medicaid to pay for it, how many millions of kids are going to go hungry, how many hundreds of thousands of workers are going to lose their jobs. Republicans are doubling down on a broken system. And if you want to see that system in action, read our report, because you couldn't find a better example than Big Pharma's tax dodging. These are huge corporations that rake in enormous profits in U.S. sales because they charge astronomical prices in America, and then their stables of lawyers and accountants get to work on a whole bunch of fancy financial wizardry, taking advantage of loopholes and rip-offs planted by Republican lawmakers. Suddenly, the record profits get shipped overseas. Often, the factories get shipped overseas, the jobs get shipped overseas, and the companies aren't paying anything close to a fair share of taxes. Typical Americans who pay taxes out of every paycheck get ripped off. Republicans are not going to fix this broken, unfair system. In fact, they are gearing up to give tax-dodging corporations like these and their billionaire shareholders even bigger handouts. It is a scam. It is a rip-off on a national scale. The American people see it for what it is. Senate Democrats are going to keep calling it out, because this must not stand. So I am very appreciative that my colleagues are joining me here on the floor. We have a very important member of the Senate Finance Committee to start, Senator Whitehouse, and I want to send this over to him.

Mr. WYDEN. Well said, Senator Whitehouse. And I want to get my colleagues into this. Next in order of appearance is Senator Van Hollen. Once again, I want everybody to understand that the four of us are going to continue to go after this colossal tax avoidance until it gets fixed, because the American people are getting ripped off. Senator Van Hollen.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. Once again, you can hear his expertise in the Ways and Means Committee and the body on these issues, and I thank him for his leadership. A new member of the Finance Committee, Senator Welch, is here and he will have some remarks and then I will wrap up. Senator Welch.

Mr. WYDEN. Senator Welch, thank you for your leadership. It is great to have you on this committee. Mr. President, to wrap up, our investigation has found that Pfizer has carried out what could be the largest tax-dodging scheme in the history of Big Pharma. This Big Pharma rip-off is exactly what Republican Senators should be rooting out in their upcoming tax bill. Instead, it looks like Senate Republicans may lock this outrage in permanently. All Americans who believe in tax fairness should join us in fighting any extension of this tax boondoggle. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. The Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 5 minutes after 5.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President and colleagues, the Senate will soon take a vote on the nomination of Michael Faulkender to serve as Deputy Treasury Secretary. I urge my colleagues to oppose the nomination. I am going to take just a few minutes to explain why he got zero support from Democrats in the Finance Committee, and I am going to start with the big picture. For the last 2 months, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have let loose a pack of cronies who, in my view, are looting the United States of America. They are violating laws, they are blocking accountability, and they are breaking key programs in ways that are going to hurt a lot of Americans. All the while, there has been a parade of Trump nominees marching through the Senate, and one after the other they pretend that they know nothing about what I just said. They all swear up and down that they follow the law. Under their watch, everything will be on the level. The reality is, in nearly every case, it is just not true. Just yesterday, in the Finance Committee, the nominee to head up Social Security told me that he was not involved in any discussions regarding DOGE personnel at Social Security. I asked him directly. That was his response, and his response was a lie. The committee had received whistleblower testimony from a senior official who worked at Social Security and has recently left. The whistleblower said this nominee had personally intervened to get key DOGE officials installed at Social Security. This is happening again and again. Trump nominees show up in the Senate, and they always say: I am a choir boy. But they are directly involved in the ransacking of the country, and Americans are outraged from coast to coast. Dr. Faulkender is another example. He has been in the building at Treasury since January 21, working in an unofficial capacity. So he knows what is going on there. He knows that DOGE personnel showed up at Treasury with the intent of violating our constitutional authority over Federal funding. Yet, when he was asked about DOGE's activity at Treasury and at the IRS, he, too, had nothing to say--just a bunch of dodging and ducking. I asked him, as well, directly whether the President has the authority to impound funds, which is a constitutional breach. His answer was: I do not know the legal authority of the President when it comes to impoundment. However, during a television interview last year, he actually said he supported impoundment and talked about how the President should use it to trample over congressional appropriations and our article I authority. If confirmed, he will be the No. 2 official at the Department that oversees the IRS, but he had nothing to say about the fact that the administration is intent on violating taxpayer privacy laws and weaponizing the IRS against American taxpayers. But it wasn't all bobbing and weaving during the hearing. In fact, the most telling moment was when Dr. Faulkender decided to give an awfully revealing answer to a question he probably could have avoided. Here is what happened. Everybody understands that the Treasury Department's big job under Donald Trump is giving huge handouts to billionaires and corporations. They plan to pay for it, in part, by slashing Medicaid and kicking tens of millions of Americans off their healthcare. Senator Warnock, our colleague, asked Dr. Faulkender a pretty simple question. He asked: Do you think that it's a good idea to take families off of Medicaid? The funny thing is nobody would have blamed him for saying that the Treasury doesn't have jurisdiction over Medicaid so he wouldn't have to take a position, but that is not what he said. Dr. Faulkender went out of his way to defend the Republican plan to slash Medicaid and kick tens of millions of Americans off their healthcare. He answered with the same traditional Republican spin--that it was all about ``self-sufficiency and getting off of government dependency.'' We are talking about a program that covers nearly 40 million kids, half of all kids with special needs, and two-thirds of all nursing home beds in America. Without Medicaid, rural America would become even more of a healthcare desert. Dr. Faulkender's nonsense about self-sufficiency is basically what I call trickle-down economics for healthcare. It is a talking point that papers over an agenda that benefits the very affluent at the expense of everybody else. So, colleagues, this is another case of a nominee dodging nearly all the tough questions and misrepresenting his role in what is going on in the Trump administration. The most forthcoming answer we got during his nomination indicated that he is totally on board with the agenda that is going to put people's lives in danger by kicking tens of millions of Americans off their health insurance so that those at the very top, like Elon Musk, can afford bigger yachts and probably some kind of island. Dr. Faulkender has been at Treasury since January 21. He is already tied up with DOGE. He has already made himself a part of the harm that the Trump administration, through DOGE, is inflicting on the American people. That is why he got zero support from Democrats in committee. I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination when the Senate votes on it in a little bit. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Wyden, Senator Sanders, and Senator Scott be recognized for up to 25 minutes, and that following their remarks, the majority leader be recognized.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor with my colleague from Vermont Senator Sanders to pass a set of critical improvements to America's healthcare system. This legislation is overwhelmingly bipartisan, fully paid for, and targeted at two objectives every Senator ought to support: improving healthcare for Americans and cracking down on the middlemen who take advantage of the system. Mr. President, 597 days ago, the Senate Finance Committee passed the most comprehensive legislation in history to address the pharmacy benefit managers' predatory business practices, and it was passed by a vote of 26 to 1. And 493 days ago, the Senate Finance Committee passed another piece of healthcare legislation that improves mental healthcare for Americans with Medicaid, expands and strengthens telehealth, and more PBM policies, by a vote, again, of 26 to 0. Since that time, negotiations about how to sign these policies into law have been fatally intertwined with the dysfunctional debate over congressional appropriations, as the public can see on full display this week. These policies are too important to leave behind due to an unrelated disagreement. Community pharmacists are counting on this legislation. Doctors who don't want to see a pay cut are counting on this legislation. Seniors and working families who want better care at a lower cost are counting on this legislation. So the time to act is now. In December, Democrats and Republicans struck a deal on this bill. I have the press release on my website to prove it. It was introduced in the House and set for passage. But along came Elon Musk and his now familiar wrecking ball. With one tweet, he killed the entire package for reasons that had nothing to do with the bill before the Senate today. Musk even had the gall to tweet, ``What is a `pharmacy benefit manager'?'' less than 2 weeks after he single-handedly killed the bill. While this unelected billionaire rifles through Americans' private information and earned benefits, claiming to be looking for waste, fraud, and abuse, he doesn't even know about the middlemen who skim billions off the Federal Government. Since Musk's tweeting adventure, 237 independent pharmacies have closed their doors. That is nearly three small businesses closing every day. Our bill includes critical protections that stop the giant PBMs from bullying even more local pharmacies into the abyss. Every day matters. That is why it is critical to act now. Now, I would like to yield to the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Sanders, so he can explain the important pieces of this bill that are in his committee's jurisdiction that also need to pass as soon as possible.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, very briefly, I want to thank my colleague. We have been working, as we have indicated, for months and months, because Americans, with respect to healthcare, feel like they are getting hit by a wrecking ball here in terms of the costs and inability to get quality care. So with that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 891 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the Wyden substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Senator from Florida.

Mr. WYDEN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today to talk about the importance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in defending typical Americans against scams and multinational banks. This Agency's entire purpose is standing up for regular people as a watchdog against the powerful and the corrupt. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are attempting to close the CFPB, and they are demonstrating their priorities. They have systematically kneecapped every part of the government that can stand in the way of their spree of looting the government to make themselves and their wealthy friends even wealthier. This unlawful freeze threatens Oregonians' economic opportunity and our country's economic stability. Donald Trump pledged to the American people to level the playing field and lower prices. His actions and the actions of many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do the opposite. Just yesterday, my office heard from veterans who served our country and now go to college in Oregon. These are brave young people who are not wealthy. They shared details about how veterans routinely face predatory, for-profit, fake colleges that just want to target their post-9/11 GI benefits. If not for the work of the CFPB, many young veterans would have been robbed of tens of thousands of dollars each in earned benefits. My constituents shared that they are really worried about what is going to happen in terms of our student veterans if Donald Trump and Elon Musk succeed in shuttering the CFPB. Either Donald Trump and Elon Musk didn't know that the CFPB has an entire office dedicated to protecting veterans and servicemembers from bad actors. Or possibly, they just didn't care. Since the Bureau's start just 13 years ago, it has returned over $21 billion to consumers, and through its oversight, it has prevented billions more in losses. In a choice between fraudsters and scamsters and those who serve our Nation in uniform, Donald Trump and Elon Musk protected the fraudsters and the scamsters by illegally sending CFPB staff home and freezing the Agency's work. Now my Republican colleagues are attempting to repeal the CFPB rule that protects consumers from frauds and scams on payment apps like Venmo. Under this rule, the CFPB would be allowed to look at the books of payment apps to ensure they are following the law. This rule doesn't impose new requirements on these services like Venmo. This type of supervision is important to stop illegal activity before it is too late. In the case of payment apps, this supervision is crucial to combat frauds and scams. Frauds and scams on payment apps are only getting more common, so why are my colleagues pushing to overturn the rule now? Republicans are trying to roll back the rule. I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Elon Musk wants to start a payments app. That is a lot harder to do when you have to follow any pesky laws or rules. And anybody who has used the site formerly known as Twitter recently knows that Elon Musk doesn't seem to care about the proliferation of fraud or scams. Trump, Musk, and my colleagues across the aisle seem to be working to destroy the CFPB because it enforces consumer protection and data privacy laws, which I have been working to strengthen. Elon Musk has already trampled into Americans' sensitive data at the IRS. It should be clear to all of us by now that Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the rest of this billionaire crowd seem to have no regard for the law or for the Constitution. Those who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted lower prices and a fairer economy really ought to be concerned about what I have just described this economic sabotage. And anybody who plays by the rules has a right as well to feel betrayed by Trump and Musk's contempt for the rule of law. I am glad to be here with my colleagues to blow the whistle on Trump and the Republicans' dangerous and chaotic agenda and to work with Senator Warren, who has led the effort on this issue for so many years. I will vote to oppose this resolution. I urge my colleagues to do the same. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, my colleague from New Hampshire is being way too logical for some of what passes as trade debate here. And it is my hope that her excellent proposal will be back on this Senate floor sometime soon for unanimous consent to pass a very important bill protecting Americans from tax hikes on imported goods. This is, as she has stated, a straightforward proposition. All it does is clarify that the President's emergency powers can't be used to put tariffs on the things Americans buy from other countries. Now, Donald Trump calls himself a ``tariff man''--his quote, not mine. It is the only answer he seems to have to any problem under the sun. Instead of taking time to think through actual solutions, he is willing to use any authority he can find to slap tariffs on our trading partners. Just today, he announced he was slapping 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which are two of our three largest trading partners and closest allies. That alone is going to raise costs for Americans on gas, on cars, on fruits and vegetables, and many other products. It is also going to cost America jobs because Canada and Mexico have announced plans to retaliate against our exports. That is the opposite of what Donald Trump pledged to the American people. It is disturbing that Donald Trump is going rogue and using emergency powers to pursue his tariffs. The American people voted for lower--not higher--prices. Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that he would lower costs on day one of his Presidency. But just a month in, all Trump has managed to do is gut the agencies in charge of protecting consumers and going after predatory corporations, and he's landed us in trade wars that are going to drive up the cost of goods people use every day. Whether it is to punish a country that he doesn't like or to settle scores with foreign leaders, the only answer Donald Trump has ever had is tariffs. And as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, I have heard him play that card again and again, no matter how many times we have said: Look, tariffs should be one of the tools in the trade toolbox, but it shouldn't be the universal answer to everything. Trump's approach is going to drive up prices and costs for American families, businesses, and farmers in the process. He does it, in my view, because he and his billionaire friends aren't going to feel the impacts, and they don't care about the millions of Americans who will. These higher costs essentially add up to a Trump Tax on everything from food to clothes and cars. And to those who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted lower prices and a fairer economy--it sure seems to me that these policies are a betrayal. The Shaheen bill that we are trying to pass today would rein in some of Donald Trump's worst impulses and clarify that the laws on the books were never meant to be a blank check for the President to abuse tariffs by using them as a punishment against any country that hurts his feelings. A number of our Republican colleagues have supported the Shaheen proposal in the past because putting a check on the President's power to land us in trade wars should not be, as my colleague has said, partisan or controversial. It is Shaheen common sense. I want to thank her for an excellent bill, and for her leadership that I have watched from my vantage point on the Finance Committee. And when we can get this bill back on the floor for unanimous consent, I hope it will be met with a resounding bipartisan showing of support, and I look forward to working with her until that day comes to be. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Jamieson Greer to serve as U.S. Trade Representative. If confirmed, he would be the top official on one of the President's signature issues: trade and tariffs. Donald Trump was elected President largely on the promise of lowering prices for American families and remaking the global economy to America's benefit. Six weeks into his Presidency, what he has shown is a willingness to impose staggering costs on our families, workers, and businesses in order to settle scores on issues that have nothing to do with trade or the economy. He gets headlines; his wealthy friends get tax breaks; and American families get stuck with higher prices and bigger bills. I oppose this nomination. I certainly have nothing against Mr. Greer personally. I just believe, in this position, he will be a rubberstamp for the Trump tax, the knee-jerk decision to slap tariffs on nearly everything Americans buy, and make high prices even higher. Mr. Greer has embraced the Trump chaos strategy, which is a slap in the face to farmers, manufacturers, and communities across the country. They are sounding the alarm about how the Trump program is already costing them sales overseas and jobs here at home. Our country needs a U.S. Trade Representative who will be the point person on trade for this administration, and I just don't have the confidence in Mr. Greer for that job. Let me start with the first key point. The Trump administration's across-the-board tariffs are going to cost Americans big time--up to $2,600 a year, according to one estimate. That could devastate American jobs. One appraisal is that they could destroy 344,000 American jobs. Donald Trump has already ordered tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. The China tariffs went into effect last month. Now, he is promising that 25 percent tariffs on everything Americans buy from Mexico and Canada will go into effect next week. Get ready for gas prices to go up, power prices to spike, auto supply chains to be thrown out of whack, and fresh fruits and vegetables to get more expensive. And there is more. Donald Trump has promised new tariffs on steel and aluminum, which go into everything from soda cans to cars. Yesterday, he proposed tariffs on copper, which is used in everything from housing to medical devices and cars. They largely come from Chile and Canada. And he is pushing something called reciprocal tariffs on . . . maybe . . . everything. The only thing we can be sure about with Trump's tariffs is that they are going to hit working Americans the hardest. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their billionaire friends are barely going to notice the price hikes. If you ask people at a Fred Meyer's store in Gresham, OR, or who are buying groceries in Charlotte or in Kalamazoo, they don't need an economist to know that Donald Trump isn't helping prices. Less than a third of Americans approve of the job Donald Trump is doing on inflation, according to a poll released this week. Consumer sentiment-- a particularly important measure--fell by 10 percent this month. More and more Americans are rightly worried that tariffs are going to drive more inflation. If this trade war continues, there is no doubt many U.S. workers, farmers, and ranchers are going to lose their jobs when our trading partners retaliate and slap tariffs on ``Made in the USA'' products. That is what happened the last time Donald Trump was in office. American producers of everything from rice to bourbon to motorcycles got hammered. They sold less overseas, made less money, and workers ended up paying the price. There is a right way to approach tariffs that punishes bad actors like China and targets the products that will change other countries' behaviors while minimizing the cost to American families. Donald Trump is doing the opposite. He is maximizing price spikes for regular Americans, with no plan or strategy. One other point with respect to trade chaos: Mr. Greer has endorsed this, and it is already hurting farmers and small businesses. Now, I had four townhall meetings in my State recently and talked with lots of small businesses and farmers. I am hearing one message over and over again: They are already losing sales and losing markets to Donald Trump's bluster. Last year, our State exported $34 billion in blueberries, hazelnuts, and other goods overseas--almost an alltime high. Now, instead of building on that success, our producers and innovators prepare for the worst. This story comes up again and again. The Washington Post quoted an Iowa farmer who has seen prices of seed, fertilizers, and equipment increase while prices for soybeans are flat. ``Our goal is to make Iowa and U.S. soybean farms profitable,'' said this Iowa farmer, ``and to do that, we need these international markets. We need to keep growing demand.'' The State economist in Georgia said this month that the greatest threat to that State's economy--and I will repeat that--the greatest threat to the economy is Trump's trade threats. Tariffs mean higher prices for consumers while trade wars mean other countries buy less of what Georgia makes, including aerospace components, pulp and paper, and auto parts. Pittsburgh-based aluminum manufacturer Alcoa said Trump's tariffs will cost 100,000 jobs in the United States and won't lead to more production here. ``This is bad for the aluminum industry in the [United States]. It's bad for American workers''--not according to some Member of the Senate, but that is what the Alcoa CEO said. There are similar reports of communities fearing the worst in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and all across America. One final reason I oppose the Greer nomination: It is not clear to me that he will be the final voice in the room with Donald Trump on trade. There are an awful lot of trade cooks in that kitchen. Peter Navarro, Treasury Secretary Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Lutnick all have claimed responsibility for trade. It reminds me of an old saying that gets attributed to John Madden: If you've got two quarterbacks, you have none. Well, if you have four chief trade officials, you have none. Unfortunately, Mr. Greer did little in his confirmation process to build confidence that the buck stops with him on trade. He said it is not a trade matter when Donald Trump uses tariffs to settle scores about the border, immigration, and diplomatic issues. So Mr. Greer said these decisions aren't something he would expect to be involved with if confirmed. If the U.S. Trade Representative isn't going to be in the room when tariff decisions are at stake, it is not clear to me what influence over critical trade decisions Mr. Greer will have in the Trump administration. Americans need a trade policy that puts workers and families first and a chief trade official who has the authority to deliver actual results for our workers and families. Unfortunately, neither of those is on offer today. That is why I oppose this nomination. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank Senator Kaine for his extraordinary leadership on this. I think America is at a crucial time on energy policy, and Senator Kaine cuts right to the heart of the debate. Donald Trump wants more tax cuts for the ultrawealthy, and he is willing to pay for those tax cuts by raising your energy bill. Here is how the flawed idea goes down. Clean energy today is plentiful. Clean energy today is cheap. Clean energy today is generating thousands of good-paying jobs. I was involved deeply in writing the Inflation Reduction Act. I developed this law that created the clean energy tax credit package, and it is making progress in communities across the country. What Donald Trump is talking about doing--and Senator Kaine has spelled this out--is defying the reality of the marketplace. For example, we are constantly seeing people in the fossil fuel business saying that this isn't time for ``drill, baby, drill.'' They have been very blunt about saying that doesn't make sense from a marketplace standpoint. What we want to do as it relates to clean energy is to build on the progress we have made--making sure clean energy is part of an ``all of the above'' program that is technologically neutral and competing in a marketplace with choices. Under the Kaine legislation, we can have that reality and not the flawed idea that we would somehow benefit from having more tax cuts for the ultrawealthy and somehow that will take care of people's energy situation. It won't. If you go with tax breaks for the ultrawealthy and this program that is based on ``drill, baby, drill,'' it is going to create rising energy costs for working families across the land. I urge my colleagues to support the Kaine proposal. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1156 and ask that it be reported by number.