Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment. This is an amendment, once again, that tries to stack the deck in terms of healthcare choices, and, in this case, the proponents want to make health savings accounts the driving force of the American healthcare system. I think that is a mistake. I urge a ``no'' vote. Vote on Amendment No. 253

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have been advised that inclusion of this amendment in the budget resolution would be corrosive to the privileged status of the resolution. Since this amendment contains material inappropriate for inclusion in a budget resolution, its adoption could jeopardize the privilege of this resolution, which would completely halt, again, efforts to provide this essential, critical pandemic relief. Additionally, this amendment is not germane to the budget resolution as required by law. Accordingly, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 305(b)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this amendment would cut $20 billion from Finance to fund homeland security matters--probably a fence. I strongly oppose it. This amendment would cut funds for unemployment insurance, payments for families, for things like a border wall that have taken our immigration policy backward, not forward. Colleagues, I would urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this now will put the Senate on record as to what the Senate thinks about the 2017 Trump tax law--the $2 trillion bill that overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the wealthy. It opened new special interest loopholes, and it increased incentives to ship American jobs overseas. The Senate needs to fix our broken Tax Code, starting with the proposition that everybody, including those at the top, pay their fair share. Locking in the Trump tax handouts to those at the top would take America in the wrong direction. This is not the vehicle to debate these tax changes. I strongly urge a ``no'' vote. Vote on Amendment No. 55

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President and colleagues, I strongly urge opposition to this amendment. It simply makes no sense to take any tool--any tool--off the table in the existential fight against climate change. Obstructing the fight against climate change costs money due to cleanups from bigger storms, fires, and floods, and it costs America jobs. Move over, this is a budget focused on COVID recovery. This is a separate issue, colleagues, and it deserves its own debate. I would urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the River Democracy Act of 2021, to add 4,702 miles of rivers and streams in Oregon to the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system to protect the recreational opportunities, clean drinking water, fish, and wildlife habitat that they provide from harmful activities. Oregon's 110,994 miles of rivers and streams are an invaluable part of Oregon's livability and an irreplaceable resource that must remain intact for future generations. Currently, Oregon has only protected 2% (2,173 miles) of rivers and streams under the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system--including gems like the Rogue and Deschutes Rivers and many other iconic salmon and steelhead streams. Our rivers and streams are Oregon's lifeblood--they provide clean drinking water to millions of Oregonians, sustain our thriving outdoor recreation economy, nurture the salmon and steelhead that fuel our important commercial and recreational fishing industries, and help maintain the quality of life that brings new investments, businesses, and jobs to our state. Oregon's outdoor recreation industry is an economic engine in Oregon. According to the Outdoor Recreation Industry, it supports 224,000 jobs and generates $15.6 billion in economic activity. Healthy rivers are the foundation for Oregon's outdoor recreation economy. With the climate crisis worsening, access to clean and safe drinking water has perhaps never been more important. America's Wild and Scenic Rivers Act aims to protect and preserve the character of our nation's most important rivers while balancing recreation, multiple use, habitat, and conservation. It encourages public participation in developing goals for river protection, and helps safeguard important waterways as a legacy for future generations. While I am proud that Oregon has 2,173 miles of protected Wild and Scenic Rivers, it is still a small fraction of Oregon's total river mileage. On October 2, 2019, I began a public process to solicit recommendations from Oregonians on rivers and streams that deserve protection under the national Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. I held several open-to-all public meetings specifically to hear from Oregonians and gather feedback. The topic has also come up at most townhalls I've since held. Since then, nearly 2,500 Oregonians submitted over 15,000 nominations. I called on Oregonians to help me develop new legislation to protect Oregon's rivers and they, clearly and loudly, responded. Whether they were a whitewater rafter, a brewer, an elementary school science student, an angler or simply an Oregonian who believes strongly in protecting rivers or streams that provide safe drinking water to their community, they had the chance to speak up for their favorite rivers and highlight the outstanding values that make each river worthy of protection. Today, I am continuing the effort to protect rivers and streams, drinking water, recreation opportunities, and fish and wildlife habitat. The River Democracy Act represents the best of the Oregon Way--when every Oregonian had the chance to nominate their favorite river or stream worthy of protection under America's Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Ultimately, this is the starting point for future conversations about river conservation in Oregon. Based on the suggestions of Oregonians, the River Democracy Act would add 4,702 miles of rivers and streams in Oregon to the national Wild and Scenic Rivers system with the goals of creating a flexible land management tool that expands recreation access, protects drinking water, reduces wildfire threats, maintains cultural and historic land management practices, and sustains endangered fish and wildlife species. The bill requires federal land managers to assess wildfire risks in Wild and Scenic River corridors, implement a plan to reduce wildfire risks to homes and businesses near Wild and Scenic Rivers, assist local governments to mitigate wildfire risks, and restore water quality should a fire strike near a Wild and Scenic River. The River Democracy Act encourages Federal land managers to develop river management plans in collaboration with Native American tribes, and ensures Tribes have a say in how rivers are managed. The bill ensures that only Federal lands are affected by Wild and Scenic designations, while protecting private property rights, water rights, and existing permits and rights of way on Federal lands. It is important to note that each river segment in this bill was selected for specific outstanding remarkable values. A chart that shows the specific outstanding remarkable values for each one can be found at https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ORVs%20chart%202-2-2l.pdf. Oregonians know their rivers provide more than just electricity. They are the spawning grounds for some of the nation's richest runs of salmon and steelhead. They provide extraordinary trout fishing and unparalleled recreation. They are the source of safe, clean and delicious drinking water. Oregon's rivers are, most of all, an important part of our very special quality of life that needs to be preserved for future generations of Oregonians.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, we have already begun to hear a little revisionist history with respect to this crucial issue. There was exactly one amendment on the CARES Act, and that amendment, supported by almost every Senator on the other side of the aisle, basically would have blown up the law that I put special focus on because it was deemed the only way to get expanded unemployment benefits out to folks in a timely way. We were told that there was all this bipartisanship. Yet on the crucial issue, that wasn't the case because that benefit, in particular, is what helped scores and scores of communities all across the country stay afloat because that money was spent locally. It was spent on rent. It was spent on groceries. And most of all, it was weekly. Yet there was exactly one amendment on the original legislation, and that one amendment was to blow up the only way to get checks out to folks relatively quickly--point No. 1. Point No. 2, these were not folks who didn't want to work. They were told by their government--told by their government--that they really needed to be at home to deal with the virus. These folks want to work; there is no question about it. We are going to talk about this, I imagine, in this debate, but study after study has shown that the expanded unemployment during this period was not a disincentive to work. There is just no evidence of that. In fact, when we look at crucial periods of time when people might have stayed home, they were rushing to get back to work. We are going to discuss this, and I am going to start the debate now on where we are at this moment because I think this discussion comes down to a simple proposition; that is, whether millions of workers and their families should have to spend years and years living in the wreckage of the COVID economy. The jobs recovery for millions is going in reverse. Millions of Americans have lost jobs through no fault of their own. Maybe they were working at the airport. Maybe they were tending bar. Maybe they were teaching our kids when the worst pandemic--the worst pandemic in a century--swept the United States. They didn't do anything wrong. The question now is whether the U.S. Senate is going to step in with big policies to actually be of help to them or whether it is going to quit on those workers when they need a modest amount of assistance until everybody gets vaccinated. President Biden has a strong, focused plan that is going to meet the moment, get relief to workers in the middle class, and kick-start the jobs recovery. The plan that was brought forward yesterday by 10 Republican Senators doesn't come close to meeting that bar. The debate isn't a whole lot more complicated than that. I am glad that there is some agreement on both sides for funding vaccines. Yet the economic divide in this debate is very clear. Here are the key facts as we start this discussion. The independent experts at the Congressional Budget Office released a new report yesterday that shows how long-lasting this jobs crisis is really going to be. According to the Budget Office, it could be more than 5 years before the unemployment rate even begins to approach where it was a year ago. Millions of workers could stay stuck on an economic tightrope, worried about eviction, worried about going hungry, wages to flatline for the better part of the decade. Americans know what happens when Congress takes its foot off the gas, slows down the recovery, because that is what happened a little bit over a decade ago--12 years exactly. The great recession hit, but in early 2009, the Senate decided, we are going to go small. I was around. Everybody was told: You know, not so bad if you go small because the Senate will get a second bite at the apple. Nobody ever got a second bite at the apple, and workers suffered and suffered some more. In my home State, it took 7\1/2\ years in Oregon for the unemployment rate to fall back to where it was before the recession. Recent history tells us you have to go big. We are hearing from economic experts telling the Senate to go big. Treasury Secretary Yellen, fresh off her unanimous, 26-to-0 vote in the Finance Committee, and Fed Chair Powell are saying: Go small and you make a big mistake. That is why the outline that a group of my Republican colleagues brought forward this week just does not get the job done. It is the same playbook as 2009, and it leaves too many workers on the economic tightrope for years to come. The budget resolution before the Senate has some big solutions on the economy and for our workers. Right off the top, it makes investments in vaccines and care that is needed to end the pandemic as quickly as possible. This is the No. 1 way to get the lives of Americans back to normal. It is not going to happen overnight. In the meantime, our economy needs another rescue package. That is what the resolution, the budget resolution, essentially sets up. It is hard to figure, when you are at home, all of the legalese and lingo, but now we are really dealing with the lives and the well-being of the American people, and this is what starts us in the right direction. Here are three examples of why this resolution is so important. First, it sends big financial support to jobless Americans. There is not going to be a full jobs recovery as long as it is unsafe to go to restaurants indoors or go to conventions or pack fans in the basketball arenas. Those workers need help. As I mentioned when we heard a little revisionist history on the expanded unemployment earlier, as the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, I negotiated the $600-per-week boost and expansion of unemployment insurance last year in the CARES Act. It was an economic lifesaver for workers who used that money to pay rent, to buy groceries, and to cover the cost of medicine. I still have those workers come up to me and say: Ron, I heard about what was going on in the Senate. You all gave me the money to pay for my car insurance, because if I didn't have that car insurance, life in our family would just fall apart. So contrary to what we heard earlier--and during the course of this debate, I am going to put several studies into the Record. There has never been hard evidence that enhanced, expanded unemployment benefits in any way held back the recovery. In fact, when enhanced unemployment benefits expired last summer, the job recovery actually slowed down. In December, our colleagues on the other side extended unemployment insurance just to mid-March, and they cut the additional benefit in half. I believe that was also a big mistake. Between the worst economy since World War II and the pandemic entering its second year in America, you couldn't find a worse time for Senators to start nickel- and-diming workers--hard-hit workers--out of the relief they so desperately need. As I noted, there was just one vote, only one vote in the original CARES package, and that vote was led by my colleagues who would have blown up the only way to get benefits in a relatively quick way out to millions of workers. In my hometown, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,750. Traditional unemployment insurance benefits don't come anywhere near paying that rent. If you are a single parent trying to raise one or two kids, even with the expanded benefit, you are barely making ends meet. If you are a two-income household, it can also be a big struggle. Nobody is going out buying boats with their unemployment insurance benefits. They are spending it at corner stores, local markets, going to the pharmacy, paying for medicine for kids who aren't feeling well. The budget resolution before the Senate calls for a 6-month extension with an extra boost of $400 per week. It is a proposal that I support. In later packages, I want colleagues to know, I am going to keep pushing for the full $600. And I believe that Congress ought to tie the extension of unemployment benefits to economic conditions in our communities, to economic conditions on the ground. It is just common sense. Unemployment insurance works best when it covers all workers, when it pays an adequate benefit, and when Members of the U.S. Senate can't politicalize it by setting arbitrary dates and setting up cliffs when people are going to get cut off of those benefits. Second, the budget resolution helps bring back jobs. The RESTAURANTS Act is a vital jobs program. It will save a lot of jobs in one of the industries hardest hit by the pandemic, and it is particularly important because a lot of restaurants weren't able to take advantage of the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program. Another key jobs proposal that is part of this resolution is help for States and localities. I want to make something clear for the record about State and local funding because this has been attacked by our colleagues on the other side since last March. I would bet my last dollar that somebody will come down to the Senate floor this week and rail about the so-called blue State bailout and say it is all waste. That is nonsense. State and local funding is first and foremost about jobs that are a lifeline. It is about firefighters. It is about road crews. It is about sanitation workers. It is about public health employees. It is about teachers. It has nothing to do with red States or blue States; it is about saving people's jobs in communities across the country, and those are jobs where they are out saving people's lives. Nearly 1.5 million of these essential workers have already lost their jobs since the pandemic began, and unless Congress provides funding to States and localities, even more will be laid off this year. Third, the budget resolution is going to put money into the pockets of working families and the middle class. The fact is, tens of millions of American families are literally one financial setback away from devastation. That should have been clear before the pandemic. There is certainly no denying it today Increasing relief checks to $2,000 is going to help, especially because so many workers have lost hours or taken lower paying jobs than they had a year ago. But the budget resolution also includes fresh ideas from President Biden and colleagues on this side to increase family incomes--first and foremost, expanding the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. In my view, this is long overdue. People always ask, well, what is it really going to do? What is it going to do that is meaningful to our country? What we are told is that effort is going to cut child poverty in half. Just try to put your arms around that. When you go home to talk to folks and they ask, hey, what is going on there, you can say, I am part of an effort--a sensible effort which for many years had some real Republican support--I am supportive of an effort to cut child poverty in half, give millions and millions of families a chance to get ahead. It sure sounds to me that a policy like that is a no-brainer. I am going to close by briefly addressing arguments I have heard coming from the other side. First, I heard a number of Members say that the price tag is too high. Well, I will tell you, if you voted for Donald Trump's deficit- financed handouts to multinational corporations and billionaires, you cannot credibly argue that the relief for workers is fiscally reckless. And the fact is, the deficit isn't going to get better until unemployment comes down and the economy gets back to strong and consistent growth. Second, I have heard some Senators suggest that the budget resolution is bad for unity. My answer to that is, the only place where big, bold economic relief is a divisive proposition is within the four walls of the U.S. Senate. We have seen the polls--overwhelming support for these key positions, the key policies that are part of this budget resolution. I would submit to my colleagues, the only place where there is really a strong division on the value of this budget resolution is within the four walls of the Senate. The last point is a little bit personal. The President of the Senate and I have known each other a lot of years. We worked very closely in the other body and here. I, over time, have gotten a fair amount of flak for sometimes being too bipartisan, doing too much to try to bring both sides together. I always will say--always--it is better if you can find common ground. But calls for unity aren't supposed to be a political baseball bat where you club somebody. They are supposed to be real. They are supposed to be about finding common ground, not about stalling for the sole purpose of stalling. What you see in this budget resolution is exactly the kind of plan that Americans voted for and the overwhelming majority of Americans support. That is why I am strongly behind this resolution. As a senior member of our party on the Finance Committee, I am looking forward to a lot of debate on this issue. That is why I felt it was important to step in when we heard some revisionist history from the other side that there hadn't been any partisanship. There sure was on that very first vote on the CARES Act. This is an important debate. What is really most important is that while we continue to listen to our colleagues on the other side, while we continue to reach out, which I am committed to do, the U.S. Senate get this job done because there is too much economic hurt in America to do otherwise. We have another unemployment cliff coming in just a few weeks. Technically, the date is March 14. That is when the next round of unemployment expires. I really think we have to get this done by the beginning of March. There is no time to waste. I urge my colleagues to support the resolution, as I will. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have a request for one committee to meet during today's session of the Senate. It has the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committee is authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate: Committee on Foreign Relations The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Monday, January 25, 2021, at 6 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, it is a pleasure tonight to be making the case for Janet Yellen, former Chair of the Federal Reserve, to be the next Secretary of the Treasury. It is an awfully easy case to make. Chair Janet Yellen deserves to be in the Senate confirmation hall of fame. She has already been confirmed four times for key economic positions. Tonight, the Senate can deliver an especially important economic judgment: Confirm Janet Yellen a fifth time and know that she will work with every single one of us to get our workers, our small businesses, and all Americans, from sea to shining sea, back on solid economic footing. Tonight, I am going to spend just a few minutes discussing several important matters we learned from Chair Yellen's confirmation hearing. First, Chair Yellen is an exceptional economist who has a rare gift. She can take complicated economic theories and put them into understandable language, all while showing a real heart for the millions of Americans who are hurting through no fault of their own. I asked Chair Yellen at her confirmation hearing: What will give Americans the most bang for the economic recovery buck? And Chair Yellen simply walked through the priorities, particularly going to bat for our small businesses. I come from a State where we have only a handful of big businesses. We are an overwhelmingly small business State. At her confirmation hearing, she spoke clearly about those small business needs, and she talked about the concerns she has for innovative and important approaches to expanding unemployment benefits to make sure that we are meeting the needs of our people. She also focused on reducing hunger and approaches that will help stretch anti- hunger dollars Second, Chair Yellen knows that it would be a big mistake for the Congress to go small on economic relief. She is acutely aware of what happened in 2009, when the government took its foot off the economic gas pedal too soon, and recovery was compromised as a result. She also understands that emergency economic relief, like unemployment compensation, needs to last as long as the emergency. It cannot be tied to arbitrary expiration dates, where potential political agendas come before human needs. There is a reason why the Finance Committee approved her nomination unanimously on Friday morning. I touched on some of those factors, and I am going to amplify a little bit. For example, nobody deserves more credit than Chair Yellen for the longest economic expansion in American history. It lasted until the pandemic hit. As Federal Reserve Chair, she led an important change to the status quo in economic policy. Previously, there had been too great a focus on inflation and deficit. Chair Yellen said: Let's zero in more on unemployment, income, and inequality, and she believed that the economy could run a bit hotter. The record shows that the Yellen approach was right on. Unemployment went down, wages went up, and a lot of people were better off than they were before. That is exactly the kind of thinking America needs again because confronting the COVID economy is hammering working families, in particular. Again, another clear reason why Janet Yellen is the right pick to be the next Treasury Secretary. The most recent economic data shows that 1.4 million people nationwide had filed new claims for unemployment benefits in the last full week of the previous administration. So it is not hard to figure out what that means. It is an economic catastrophe. It is more than twice the highest figure from any single week in the great recession. That means 1.4 million people--so, so many working families--are suddenly walking on an economic tightrope every single day, balancing the food cost against the fuel cost, the fuel cost against the rent bill, worried about finding a new job, getting a badly needed shift at work, falling behind on rent or the mortgage, feeding their kids, paying the electric bill, paying medical bills--worried that the economy is headed in reverse and worried about whether the Congress will be gridlocked. The country lost 140,000 jobs last month. My home State lost more than 25,000, in part because the Senate, in something that just defied common sense, waited around for the recovery to peter out before passing any more relief. Thousands and thousands of neighborhood restaurants and bars and mom-and-pop businesses have been shuttered. Nearly 11 million workers are out of a job. Another 4 million Americans have fallen out of the labor force entirely since this time last year. Unless the Congress acts boldly and quickly with more relief, the damage from the COVID economic crash will long outlast the pandemic itself. That must not be allowed to happen. The key, of course, is for the Senate to get down to work, and one of the best ways you can do it is to confirm someone who is eminently qualified, Chair Janet Yellen, to be Treasury Secretary. As I touched on, we are looking at working with her on a host of key economic issues. As I have said as the new chair of the Finance Committee, my first priority will be to make sure that this Congress does not commit again the mistake of 2009. In 2009, the sense was, well, maybe we are getting there on economic recovery. We will be able to come back later if maybe we didn't do enough. Well, we all know that a missed opportunity is a missed opportunity, and, in 2009, the Congress said, All right. We can take our foot off the gas now. It was too early, and there wasn't any next effort to make up for the damage. I am committed to making sure that doesn't happen again. Suffice it to say, it took 7\1/2\ years for the unemployment rate in Oregon to return to its prerecession levels. This time around, the Congress has been warned. The warning I am giving about making sure that Congress doesn't take its foot off the economic relief pedal too soon is not the first warning. Chair Powell, for example, made it clear that the biggest danger lies in not doing enough. Increasing relief checks to $2,000 is key. The Congress needs to increase and extend unemployment benefits for the entirety of the COVID crisis, and you do that by, in effect, tying the benefits to the real world, to economic conditions on the ground. That has been my proposal for some time. Other colleagues have long advanced similar ideas. It is not a revolutionary proposition to say that emergency relief should last as long as the emergency. Simply stated. And it should not be held hostage by the arbitrary political agendas of Members of Congress. If you don't do it, dysfunction and gridlock in Congress creates still more havoc for people who have done nothing wrong and just need help. A decade ago, that help went away too quickly because benefits expired arbitrarily, and Congress did not keep up with extensions. The Congress needs to do better, and I believe that should include important upgrades as well to unemployment insurance, which was created in the last century. I don't think it is too much to say we at least bring this critical safety net program into the relevant century. Now, sometimes these programs look a little rusty in the modern economy. Sometimes it is because of outright sabotage. But workers suffer, particularly Black and Hispanic workers. So there are steps that need to be taken, in addition to modernizing the benefits, increasing base benefits, bringing all workers into the system, and ensuring it can hold up in a crisis. Finally, Chair Yellen had some important comments on fixing America's broken Tax Code. I will tell you, Madam President, I start with the proposition that a nurse who is treating COVID patients and paying taxes with every single paycheck should not find themselves in a disadvantaged position when compared to billionaires who, in effect, do no such thing and can postpone and postpone and postpone paying their taxes. Now, there is a lot of work we need to do to repair the 2017 bill. The previous administration actually increased the incentives for corporations to ship jobs overseas. I want to fix that mistake. I want to work with Secretary Yellen on energy policy because so much of it deals with the Tax Code. Suffice it to say, those are just some of the challenges Chair Yellen will face when, I believe, she is confirmed tonight as Treasury Secretary. She is supremely qualified--a member, in my view, of the Senate Confirmation hall of fame--and a proven economic policymaker. Finally, I say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, it is long past time to have a woman lead the U.S. Treasury Department. Chair Yellen has my full support. As colleagues come for this vote--and it is a significant economic policy vote, make no mistake about that--I would just ask my colleagues to reflect on the fact that Chair Yellen was approved by the Finance Committee 26 to nothing. Sometimes I say about this place--I have questions about whether you can get a simple decision like ordering a sandwich decided on a 26-to-nothing. She was approved unanimously because she gives public service a good name. I urge my colleagues to support Janet Yellen for Secretary of the Treasury when we vote in just a few minutes. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

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

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, a few minutes ago, Chair Janet Yellen was approved by the Senate Finance Committee to be Secretary of the Treasury by an extraordinary 26-to-0 vote. I have seen times around here in the Senate where you come away convinced you couldn't get 26 to 0 among Senators to buy a soda. I want to thank Senators Grassley and Crapo for working very closely with me and Senate Democrats to achieve this remarkable vote this morning. The fact is, Janet Yellen has been confirmed by this body four times. She really belongs in the Senate confirmation hall of fame, and the reason that she has been confirmed all of these times is because of what we saw at her confirmation hearing on Tuesday. She did a superb job. After the hearing, she responded in a substantive way to hundreds of questions that came from colleagues and has made a real commitment to transparency. Now, I know that Senators are working on a variety of issues now, but I would like to say that I think, given the urgency of the economic challenge our country faces, in a truly perilous economic time, I would very much like to work with all of my colleagues, particularly Senators Crapo and Grassley, to find a way to, today, bring up Chair Yellen for confirmation to be our Secretary of the Treasury. I want to say I very much appreciate the conciliatory way this was discussed today, and I really hope the Senate can vote on her nomination today. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the nomination of Avril Danica Haines to be Director of National Intelligence. I think my colleagues know that in a few minutes, the Senate will be voting on her nomination for this key position. I briefly intend to outline where I think things stand on several sensitive issues with the 18 agencies that make up the intelligence community. The Biden administration and Ms. Haines have an opportunity and a duty to turn the page on the coverups and lawlessness of the outgoing administration. That is why I asked Ms. Haines at her confirmation hearing whether she would abide by a law that I authored requiring an unclassified report on who was responsible for the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Jamal Khashoggi was a U.S. resident who was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and brutally murdered. Despite press stories that the Saudi Arabian leader was responsible for the killing, the Trump administration stayed mum, just stonewalled. For a whole year, the Trump administration just ignored the law that I wrote. So I asked Ms. Haines at our hearing whether she would follow the law and provide that unclassified report on who was responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's murder. Ms. Haines' response was straightforward. She said she would provide the report and comply with the law. That statement, frankly, as modest as it was, was a sea change, colleagues, from the obstructionism and stonewalling of the Trump administration. The Trump administration had basically taken the position on laws like this transparency measure that it was kind of optional for the executive branch to comply. So Ms. Haines' direct commitment to making that key report on the role the Saudi leaders in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, in my view, was a real step forward for the rule of law, for accountability, and for human rights. And I will say as a journalist's kid that it was a real step forward for the freedom of the press everywhere. The second subject I discussed with Ms. Haines was a particularly troubling aspect of the CIA's recent history. The CIA spied on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee when the staff was writing the torture report. As Deputy Director, Ms. Haines didn't hold anyone accountable. In my view, this abuse, this spying on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, basically, colleagues, turns the whole concept of oversight on its head. The U.S. Congress is supposed to do oversight on the executive branch and not visa-versa. In response to my questions at the hearing, Ms. Haines admitted that the spying on the committee was wrong. She also agreed that she supported recommendations to expand accountability and would apply that expanded accountability to the intelligence community at large. And when she was asked about the CIA's baseless efforts to have committee staff prosecuted, she agreed that there ought to be guardrails against that happening again. The third area I explored with the nominee was the need to rebuild trust in the intelligence community, which, in my view, requires a new focus on transparency and openness. For example, there ought to be transparency so that the American people know what kind of surveillance is being conducted on them. The President of the Senate knows about the important vote we had on that amendment that I offered, the bipartisan amendment with Senator Daines, because we ought to get transparency on whether the government is spying on the browsing history of the American people. So this is really a critical and growing concern because we are all seeing data brokers and others selling people's data, and it is especially important that the American people are told if the government is using a legal loophole in the law in the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment So I asked Ms. Haines about circumstances in which the government, instead of getting an order, just goes out and purchases the private records of Americans from these sleazy and unregulated commercial data brokers who are simply above the law--literally above the law. I believe this practice is unacceptable, and soon I will be introducing legislation to make it clear that the Fourth Amendment is not for sale. Now, for Congress to tackle the topic, it is vitally important that there be an informed public debate about what the government is collecting right now and what it believes is a legal basis for the collection. And I was encouraged by how Ms. Haines responded to that question I asked. She said it was critical that the American people have an understanding of when and under what authorities the government is buying their private data. Now, Ms. Haines made a number of other commitments related to transparency issues, many of which relate to a problem that I have come to describe as ``secret law.'' To my colleagues--I see our new Members here--people think when a law is written, they go to a coffee shop in Atlanta or Athens or Tucson, and they read about a law, and they think that is what the public law says. But secret law is based on the proposition that after the public law is put in place, the government often reinterprets the public law in secret and keeps the new interpretation secret under the pretext that this secrecy is just so key to keeping Americans safe. The reality is that the interpretation of public law ought to be transparent and public as well, and it comes down to a very straightforward principle. I am a strong opponent of secret law. I am a strong supporter of transparency. And I intend to remind Director Haines what she told me just a few days ago about transparency and to push hard for the public release of as much information as possible when Americans deserve to see it, and they can see it when it is consistent with the safety and well-being of their households and their loved ones. I also intend to push the Director of National Intelligence to fix a broken declassification system. For years, a flood of new, digitally classified information has overwhelmed the obsolete, paper-based declassification system. This system is so out of whack that in order to get a document declassified, government officials actually have to walk the document around Washington from agency to agency. I actually said at our open hearing that I wonder if it is getting to the point that to get a document declassified, someone who works for the government has to pack a lunch, put the document in a big black briefcase, and then make their way all over the Nation's Capital. So I have introduced with Senator Moran bipartisan legislation to authorize the Director of National Intelligence to fix the problem. Ms. Haines has acknowledged the seriousness of the problem and the DNI's role in fixing it. It is my intent to make sure that this also is not allowed to just continue as business as usual. Some of the starkest differences between the actions of the outgoing administration and the positions taken by Ms. Haines here a couple days ago relate to the crucial area of whistleblowers. The outgoing administration broke the law when it withheld from Congress the complaint of the Ukraine whistleblower, the whistleblower who identified abuses that resulted in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. This lawlessness undermined both the whistleblower system and the independence of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who had determined that the complaint ought to be submitted to Congress. Ms. Haines has been clear--the law requires that when the inspector general determines that a whistleblower complaint is urgent, the Director of National Intelligence cannot keep it from the Congress. She made other commitments to whistleblowers. There are whistleblower protection laws--including some that have been approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee--that need to be enacted. There are procedures already required by law that the outgoing administration just didn't issue. They just stonewalled. After all the damage done by the Trump administration with respect to trampling on the public's right to know and transparency where the information can be made public to the American people without compromising sources and methods, I will state that the Biden administration has a lot of work to do to repair and improve whistleblower protections. They are going to have a lot on their plate. The country has massive cyber vulnerabilities that we saw just a couple of weeks ago. There is more to do in terms of preventing foreign interference in our elections. We have to ensure that other surveillance programs provide security without sacrificing our constitutional rights. I am going to close by way of saying I don't assume that I will always agree with the incoming administration. That has been true for me with Democrats and Republicans on these issues. When we disagree, we will have a vigorous debate--as vigorous as when I disagreed with the Trump administration. Ms. Haines as DNI and Ambassador Burns as CIA Director are beginning to shape up as a team that will be more open with the public, respect the law, and work with the Congress to repair the vast damage of the outgoing administration and respect what Ben Franklin talked about so many years ago. Liberty and security are not mutually exclusive. Smart policies get you both. Not-so-smart policies get you less of both. And that is our challenge. So tonight, because of her answers to me at the open Intelligence hearing a couple of days ago, I want to say I am going to be supporting Ms. Haines' nomination to be Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, with just a few minutes to speak, I am going to get right to the point. Gunfire in the halls here, IEDs on the Capitol grounds--I will say to my colleagues, with the domestic terrorists roaming the halls just a few hours ago, I have been stunned that this debate is actually going forward, and that is because, colleagues, this is a fake debate on electoral certifications; that is because it lends credibility to the bogus idea that the Congress can actually toss out the results of the election, and, as we saw today, it serves to fuel insurrection. Contrary to what some of my ``aye'' voting colleagues believe by votes cast just a few minutes ago, this debate has never been about setting up some kind of routine election tribunal. This isn't about election security. If the Republic majority for the last 2 years had actually been interested in election security, they would not have worked relentlessly to block my legislation to secure our 2020 elections with hand-marked paper ballots and post-election security audits. By the way, those are the kinds of approaches that are part of the Oregon system, where for 25 years we voted by mail. I am the Nation's first mail-in U.S. Senator. The second--and I see my colleagues from Maine and Alaska here because they are very fond of him, like I am-- Gordon Smith, a Republican, was the second mail-in U.S. Senator in our country. That is because we do the job right. It is efficient. Our late-Republican secretary of state, Dennis Richardson, actually told President Trump there was no evidence of fraud. So if Republicans had been interested over the last 2 years in actually working with me and colleagues on both sides of the aisle and secretaries of state, we could have had an approach that would have empowered the Oregon idea to go national. Instead, we are now debating tonight the idea of--a discussion grounded in total fiction, brewed in cauldrons of conspiracies online. These, colleagues, are fever dreams-- fever dreams laundered by people with election certificates and real power. And I will tell you, it has been painful to watch colleagues sidle up to some of those conspiracies that would inflict so much damage on the American experiment. Colleagues, I am going to close with one last point. We saw today an effort by domestic terrorists to try to punch our democracy to the ground, to the ropes. I am going to close by simply saying something that hadn't been said tonight, and that is that Donald Trump can do enormous damage to our country in the next 2 weeks. In the next 2 weeks, colleagues, Donald Trump can do enormous damage to our wonderful country. This afternoon--I don't know if my colleagues saw it--the National Association of Manufacturers--an organization with thousands of businesses, thousands of companies, and not exactly a leftwing outfit-- they called for moving forward with the 25th Amendment. That was all over the news already this afternoon, colleagues. The National Association of Manufacturers. That is what we are seeing in our country with respect to the fear of Americans, having watched what happened here. I am just going to close by way of saying that I believe that for the next 2 weeks, we have an enormous responsibility to watchdog Donald Trump day in and day out, to do everything possible to prevent the kinds of abuses that we saw today, where an American lost her life, and we saw the fear among our citizens at what went on. Let's do everything we can as leaders, Democrats and Republicans, to make sure that in the next 2 weeks, Donald Trump's abuses are checked and we do everything we can to protect this wonderful Nation of ours. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I would say to my colleague, I am always interested in working with him in the future. After we pass this bill, with these important provisions to meet our immediate needs, let's set as our lodestar reducing carbon emissions. When you and I served on the Energy Committee together, that was an approach that brought together Republicans and Democrats. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President and colleagues, I will be brief. I want to give the Senate a sense of where we are with respect to this issue. In front of us right now is a bipartisan agreement to extend a variety of provisions to promote clean energy and reduce carbon emissions. When I talk to colleagues on both sides of the aisle, there is enormous support for the effort to reduce carbon emissions. Now, I can look around this Chamber and point out colleagues who have worked with me on the renewable energy provisions that are part of this bipartisan agreement, which includes not just the credit for wind but also solar and other renewable energy. I would submit this is the best approach we have today, which is to make sure that we don't miss out on critical investments right now. For the future, I have a plan to move to a technology-neutral system that would avoid picking winners and losers, take this mess of a Tax Code, with more than 40 separate energy provisions, throw it in the trash, and say we are going to focus on one thing--reducing carbon emissions. We aren't there today. What is here today is climate change. That is why it is so important that we pass this bill and reject this amendment. With that, I want to thank my colleagues from North Dakota. I remember enjoying going to North Dakota with the sponsor of this amendment. I will tell you, if you are over 6 feet tall, make sure to exercise before you go to North Dakota because you will be in the smallest airline seat in the history of aviation. John Hoeven is a very good and caring man. I am looking forward to working with him on these issues in the future. And with that, I would object.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. I thank the Senator from Virginia. On another topic, the vice chairman and I worked together to include in the IAA a number of critically important provisions protecting whistleblowers. Again, at the insistence of the House Intelligence Committee minority, those provisions were taken out. The latest was the removal of a provision that would help whistleblowers whose security clearances have been revoked as a form of reprisal. Those provisions need to be passed into law.

Mr. WYDEN. That is correct. COVID-19 has shuttered small businesses across the Country. This is especially true in Oregon, where small businesses are the backbone of our economy. Ensuring businesses can access relief from both the Paycheck Protection Program and the Employee Retention Tax Credit is critical. The legislation before us today would allow businesses who took out a PPP loan to access the retention credit in two instances. First, those businesses that have had or will have their loan forgiven can claim the credit for any wages that were not paid for with PPP loan proceeds. Second, a business that does not have its PPP loan forgiven can claim the credit for any wages. As this change will be retroactive, does the Chairman agree that it is equally as critical that these small businesses are able to quickly and easily claim these past credits they will now be eligible for?

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Virginia, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, for his work on the Intelligence Authorization Act, which is now part of the omnibus appropriations bill. I wish to address a few provisions that have been removed or modified. First, the IAA, as reported by the Senate Intelligence Committee in June, included a provision requiring the DNI to submit a report to the congressional intelligence committees on the implementation of Presidential Policy Directive 28. That report covers the classified annex referenced in section 3 of PPD-28. This report is extremely important. It will allow the committees to conduct oversight of signals intelligence collection conducted pursuant to Executive Order 12333. It will also provide the committee the ability to understand how the government interprets and implements PPD- 28, which has broad legal, policy, and diplomatic implications. In response to the outrage from our European allies regarding U.S. signals intelligence operations revealed by Edward Snowden, President Obama issued PPD-28 in January 2014. PPD-28 covers topics that are directly relevant to both Americans and foreigners, such as bulk collection. The directive, and its classified annex in particular, is designed to evaluate the benefits and risks of signals intelligence operations. It was intended to reassure our allies about the scope of U.S. signals intelligence collection and to serve as a cornerstone for data-sharing agreements, which are still ongoing. Unlike FISA collection, however, there is no judicial oversight of collection conducted pursuant to EO 12333 and governed by PPD-28. For all these reasons, therefore, it is absolutely critical that there be serious congressional oversight of PPD-28. The PPD-28 reporting requirement was not merely part of the IAA reported by the committee. It was in the version of the IAA that was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act that passed the full Senate in July. That version was never passed into law, however, because the IAA fell off the NDAA, which is why the IAA is now part of the omnibus appropriations bill. Unfortunately, during the negotiations leading up to this bill, the House Intelligence Committee minority insisted that this bipartisan, Senate-passed provision be modified so that the portion of the report on the classified annex of PPD-28 is submitted to the chairmen and ranking minority members of the congressional intelligence committee. To the extent this language could be misinterpreted to limit access by the full committees, it is unacceptable and unprecedented. Congress should not be in the position of passing legislation that could be seen as limiting its ability to fulfill its own oversight responsibilities.

Mr. WYDEN. Yes. That language was not intended to limit retroactive compensation for individuals who were previously advised by a State, that they were ineligible for PUA, nor was it intended to limit retroactive compensation for individuals who have a regular unemployment insurance claim in adjudication and later find out they need to apply for PUA.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to make a unanimous consent request on a piece of legislation on which my Eastern Oregon constituents have done an extraordinary job with respect to building a coalition that brings people together on a contentious issue. It deserves enormous credit, and I will describe their efforts here shortly. I also want to thank, as we begin, Senator Barrasso. Senator Barrasso will be taking on a new role in January on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He and I have worked together often, and I have appreciated his talking with me on this matter as he begins to look to his new duties in January. Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Energy and Natural Resources Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 2828, the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I know my colleague does have other business that he has to get to, but before he attends to that, I just want to thank him for spending time with me already on this issue. I am going to outline the extraordinary effort that was made by my constituents. I think we all know--and I am going to discuss it--that in the West, very often, citizens feel nobody is listening to them, that nobody cares about them. The Senator and I have talked about this. This is kind of a question of, How do you empower them with a framework that can help them but also serve as a model for the country? So a big thanks to my colleague, and I am looking forward to working with him on this and other matters next year. What Senator Barrasso and I are discussing is the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act, known in our part of the county as the Malheur CEO Act. The bill has been in the works since late 2018. Back then, when a group of ranchers and business people who live in Malheur County, OR, came to see me, they came to talk about this incredible part of Oregon they call home. It is wide open country, and not many people live there, but those who do want to make sure they have a say in how it is going to be preserved and managed for the future. When I say this bill has been in the works since 2018, that is not the whole story, because the fact is that the groundwork for this bill has been in the making for decades, and it is only recently that an incredible coalition of Oregonians from across the political spectrum has come together to make it possible for us to propose this legislation. As I touched on with Senator Barrasso, in rural areas of the West, like Malheur County, there is often a feeling that people from thousands of miles away, particularly in DC, think that they somehow know better than rural citizens about what is good for those rural communities. I guess I would sum it up as: In rural areas, there is the sense that somehow, often, elites just look down on them; that nobody is listening; that people in power consider them kind of simple cowboys who care little about saving land, air, and water. Now, I have townhall meetings in every county in Oregon. I had 970 of them until earlier this spring when we couldn't do them in person due to the pandemic. So we started doing them virtually. I know from all of those townhall meetings that constituents in Eastern Oregon are actually working every day to try to propose commonsense, practical policies to preserve special places for their kids and their grandkids. They know that they are working for all Americans because all Americans own public lands. Eastern Oregonians believe--and I think it is a very powerful point--that nobody cares more about protecting Oregon's natural treasures than those who live every day in those communities and are always thinking about what the future is for their kids and their grandkids. I will repeat that. Folks in rural Oregon know that the land is public land, that it belongs to all Americans, and they know that their communities' futures depend on keeping the lands healthy and usable. The ranchers of Malheur County want to be active participants in improving and keeping the ecological health of our public lands, and with this legislation that we are discussing today, they will have a real shot at doing just that. The fact is that, in some parts of the West, there have been bad actors who have abused the land for their own gain and flouted the law in a dangerous way. For example, in 2016, a heavily armed group of extremists that was not from Oregon, led by members of the Bundy family, stormed the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and occupied it for weeks. There was a standoff that people all over the country saw, between them and Federal, State, and local law enforcement. There was one death. Further south, in Nevada, the Bundys have not only stolen millions of dollars' worth of grazing fees from the American people, they also basically pushed aside basic environmental standards laid out by the Taylor Grazing Act, leading to degraded landscapes. Now, in Malheur County, just a few hours of wide open spaces east of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge that the extremists took over, our ranchers and our small business people, to their great credit, said: We are going to take a different path, a better path. In Malheur County, you don't have the Bundys breaking the law. Our Malheur County ranchers are committed to being better and doing better, but that doesn't mean they aren't skeptical of people coming in and changing the rules when it comes to public lands surrounding their communities. So, in 2018, the Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition from Malheur County came to Washington to meet with me. Senator Barrasso will be interested in this. This group of ranchers and small business people came to me with a very improbable request for a Democratic U.S. Senator: Would I be willing to work with them to pass land management legislation that could serve as an alternative to a designation as a national monument? I thought this would be the point my colleagues would be interested in: I asked one member of the group if they had come to me because they thought I might take leave of my senses and say yes to their request. When I asked them, the person who was looking at me said: Yes, that is what we thought, Ron. Looming over the discussion was the history of this wonderful part of Eastern Oregon. I am not going to take my colleagues through a long discussion of the history of the Taylor Grazing Act, as it goes all the way back to 1932. So I will just start with the fact that in this area, Malheur County makes up most of the Vale District of the Bureau of Land Management, which, of course, is part of the Department of the Interior. The Vale District was the poster child for ``scientific grazing management'' in the 1960s and early 1970s under the Taylor Grazing Act. Did it live up to its potential? I would say it didn't because its efforts really were not adequately funded, and it lacked the consistent monitoring or the adaptive management needed to make it work on the ground, and that raises the question: What results are really at issue? The Taylor Grazing Act is about turning cattle out onto public lands and attempting to assure they don't destroy the land, but where is the act when it comes to fighting invasive weeds and actually improving soil health and responding to climate change and the effects of rangeland fires? In looking at what happened over the decades--the 1930s, the 1960s, the 1970s--this bill says we are going to answer those questions for 2020. The Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition from Malheur County wanted to work together. I was glad that they came with their improbable request. I said we have got one chance here on our watch to bring people together, to come up with a sensible proposal. And when they indicated they wanted to work with me, I basically said: How could I refuse? Knowing the violence that can erupt in the West when people become closed off, when people just refuse to talk, that is when you have a prescription for trouble. As long as we are talking, as long as we are coming together, as long as we are sitting with each other and maybe just having a coffee, a tuna fish sandwich, you have an opportunity to come up with solutions. That is why I agreed to this. I agreed, in effect, to try to match the courage of these ranchers and business people in coming forward, and I said: If they are going to be willing to think through how to do this, I am going to join them. Now, the other area I want to touch on is--I said at the get-go and I think this has implications for dealing with public lands in the West. I said that there has got to be three requirements to help us all protect the land and preserve the ranching way of life. First, we would have to bring everybody to the table-- environmentalists, ranchers, local folks, and we would have to bring some of the folks from the more metropolitan area as well. That is because, in effect, when I said that, they said: OK. You know your way around legislation. We will try to find common ground. And there is common ground on the key question. In every nook and cranny of Oregon, there are people who care about our natural treasures in the Owyhee Canyonlands. Malheur County may keep its clock on Idaho time, but it is enormously loved all across our State. In my view, that alone ought to be a reason, after decades and decades of differences with respect to how to manage these treasures, that alone is a reason to work together. The second rule of our discussions was all about we weren't going to litigate this with the press and outside groups every time somebody had a little question, any kind of a dispute. So, in effect, we had set it up so that other groups, environmental and ranchers, there was going to be a lot of opportunity for folks to have their say. And the third rule was that there would be an understanding that we would respect our environmental laws. That was also very pivotal. So, in March of 2019, we got our group together in the conference room at the National Guard Armory in Ontario, OR, and those were the things that we wanted to start with that we thought gave us a chance to build this coalition that could lead to passing legislation to manage these treasures. So we got ranchers, environmentalists, local businesses, and we meet, essentially, every other Monday for months and months. I also want to thank the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon State parks, fish and wildlife management agencies, local Tribe representatives, all of whom put in enormous amounts of time offering information, expertise, and good will. I met with local county officials, as well, relearning their thoughts with respect to roads and water infrastructure and their most important local economic needs. So that is what really led to this legislation. Finally, what we said is that we have to make sure that people have an opportunity to also talk, sort of, a little bit offline. So after these sessions, we always found a way to make it to a gathering place somewhere where people could just have a soda, perhaps something a little bit stronger, and we could just take the time informally to talk about what we thought the future was for this incredible part of the world. Now, in closing up, I want to mention that I think land designation discussions pit people against one another in the West if you do it the traditional sort of way. We needed some unity if we were going to come together on a bill. So that is why we wanted to make sure everybody had a shared understanding of how this would be addressed. I particularly want at this time to commend Sarah Bittleman, who is sitting here with me, who, month after month after month, call after call after call, email after email after email, always tried to keep this on focus. I also want to mention at this time our inspiration was the late Mary Gautreaux, who was in our office for over two decades. She was the spirit of this effort. She lived in Portland. Yet she was beloved-- beloved--by the people of rural Oregon, the people of Malheur County. So with Sarah and Mary as the energy behind this, we really set out to build this coalition, which has gotten us to this point. It was a coalition driven on the fact that people would take the time to do this right. When I brought it to the attention of Senator Barrasso, who obviously will play a key role in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee next year, the first thing he wanted to hear about was the kind of groundwork that had been laid for local input, for local stakeholders. I described to him much of what we have been talking about. So I introduced the Malheur CEO Act in November of 2019. It was part of a legislative hearing in 2020, and let me just very quickly describe a couple of elements of it. It works this way: It includes range land management enhancements, loop roads to focus tourist travel and build the local economy, and about a million acres of wilderness designation. It also moves around a million acres of land now being studied into multiple-use management. The bill implements a few key strategies: a plan to let ranchers do range improvements, irrigation systems, removing water-sucking juniper, and replacing invasive weeds with native grasses and improve the ecological health of the range land. So here are the pictures to my left. The first is a picture of rangeland being overrun by weeds. The second shows rangeland in a native, healthy condition. Now, the bill also establishes a Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee advisory group so on an ongoing basis it can advise BLM on land management. And the bill also provides substantial funding for the BLM so it can finish environmental soil surveys and carry out environmental policies associated with this bill and monitor the implementation of the bill. The bill includes funding for the study and designation of three loop roads designed to improve the visitor experience, keep visitors out of trouble, and drive more traffic to the small retail businesses, which I think we all understand desperately--desperately--need our attention. I also want to thank at this point, while I am on floor, Senator Grassley. He and I have led the bipartisan effort on the Finance Committee. I see Senator Manchin here. He knows how strongly we feel about getting the small businesses the deductibility associated with these PPP loans. I bring this up only by way of saying that we are grateful to Senator Grassley for working with me. He is the chair of the Finance Committee. I am the ranking Democrat, but Senator Manchin and others deserve credit for helping us get that proposal moving, and we made it clear we have to get that in before we go home. Part of it is our concern for the small retail businesses that we saw in the Owyhee. Finally, the bill provides for amenities at the Owyhee Reservoir with a marina. That is also good for the local economy. Recreation is a big economic engine in our part of the world. And the last point I will just mention is the bill is a compromise. Everybody had to make some concessions. There are folks who feel that the environmental groups got too much here. There are folks who feel the ranchers and the small business people got too much. But the fact is, all sides said: We have some core values and some core priorities. Let's see if we can address the core values and core priorities on both sides of this so that this spectacular portion of Eastern Oregon could be protected and preserved and we could respect and empower the people who call it home and work so hard to make a living there. Finally, I ask unanimous consent to put into the Record the names of all the people who worked so hard on this effort--our Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition. They are ranchers; there are folks on various kinds of environmental organizations and groups; and they deserve incredible credit for being willing to put in the time and effort on something that seemed so improbable. Finally, I want to thank my partner here in the Senate, Senator Merkley. He has been terrific as we worked on this. We both share a love of the land in Eastern Oregon. Now it is up to the U.S. Senate to get this passed. It isn't going to happen today, unfortunately, but I want the Senate to know I am going to stay at it until this gets done. I think it will be of enormous benefit for rural Oregon. I think it will be of enormous benefit for our State, and I think it will be a model for how our country brings people together, particularly as it relates to issues where we have been polarized in the past

Mr. WYDEN. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am proud to be able to recognize Oregon's first female Eagle Scouts, the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouts of America, or BSA. Evelyn Becker, Juliana Cimral, and Anya Kramer have demonstrated remarkable leadership, skill, and perseverance to earn this important distinction and have done it through an unprecedented pandemic. For more than 100 years, the Eagle Scout rank has represented a tremendous accomplishment that is recognized in Oregon and across the country. To earn Scouting's highest honor, a Scout must demonstrate mastery of numerous skills and obtain a merit badge for each one, earn a position of responsibility within their troop, and complete a service project that will directly benefit their community. Until recently, girls and young women were not allowed to join BSA, but that finally changed for the better in February of 2019. Evelyn, Juliana, and Anya, Oregon's first three female Eagle Scouts, received their rank in October and will join others in receiving their official Eagle title in February 2021. We can see examples of their skills and dedication to improving their community in the Eagle service projects they tackled. Juliana, a senior at Jesuit High School, employed her knowledge of and interest in bees and the importance these pollinators play in the food supply chain to build 25 bee houses that have increased the pollination and production of nearby gardens. Evelyn, a sophomore at Scappoose High School, built a fence to separate her local school from a busy highway and a bioswale to prevent children from falling into the water and to help improve the safety of her community. Anya, a freshman at Western Oregon University, spent months building a partnership between the West Linn Food Pantry and Period.org so that women in need would have access to feminine hygiene products, an often overlooked essential. It has been exciting to see the BSA finally welcoming the other half of the population into their ranks. Each of these three women watched their brothers succeed in Boy Scouts while growing up. When finally given the chance, they continued that family tradition of achievement. I am excited to see what new heights these outstanding Eagle Scouts and community leaders will reach. Many more will come after them, and our communities will be better for it. Oregonians always take pride in serving our State and this great country, and these three Eagle Scouts are a great example of that. Today I say congratulations to the first women from Oregon to earn the rank of Eagle Scout, and I wish them many more years of success.