Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I have introduced the Encouraging Americans to Save Act (EASA). This legislation makes common sense reforms to the saver's tax credit by making the credit refundable and restructuring it as a government matching contribution that is directly deposited into a worker's retirement savings account. This bill would offer matching contributions for the first time to millions of middle and lower income individuals not covered by an employer-sponsored retirement plan, including those who save through an IRA under a State or local government savings program-such as workers in my home State of Oregon under the OregonSaves program. The government match is also available to middle and lower income savers who participate in an employer-sponsored plan. The government match provided by the bill would both encourage saving and help middle and low income earners build assets by providing an immediate, meaningful return on their personal contributions. The legislation would also establish a coronavirus bonus recovery credit that would provide an additional government match of up to $5,000 to workers on their retirement saving for a five year period beginning in 2022. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. WYDEN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, millions and millions of people will breathe a bit easier on January 20. That relief will be especially sweet for those who suffered under Donald Trump's coldhearted approach to immigration and asylum. The President has built a wall to immigrants, but it is not made of fencing or brick and mortar. The President has rebuilt the infamous paper wall, like that of the 1930s, which kept too many Jews out of the United States, trapping them within the murderous regime of Nazi Germany. The paper wall was built on anti-migrant regulations, including one targeting anybody who might become a so-called public charge. It was reinforced by racism, anti-Semitism, and nativism. It created bureaucratic roadblocks that had no purpose other than to frustrate applicants, block visas and refugees, and slow immigration to a trickle. That is awfully familiar to those who watched Donald Trump succeed horribly at repeating some of America's worst immigration mistakes. In the last 4 years, I have often thought about my late mom and dad who were refugees to America. My parents were German Jews who fled the Nazis. Not all of our family got out. My great-uncle, Max, was one of the last to be gassed at Auschwitz. When my father arrived here at 13, he barely spoke any English. He studied hard. When the war came, my dad, who wasn't exactly built like Captain America, wanted more than anything to wear the uniform of the U.S. Army. My dad essentially talked his way into the service. He joined the Army's psychological warfare division because, with his fluent German, my dad wrote propaganda pamphlets that our planes dropped on the enemy soldiers that were retreating further and further back toward Berlin. I have seen those pamphlets, and--with a little son pride--they were smoking. They just told the Nazis they didn't have a chance. In contrast, the materials their military dropped on our soldiers was written in mangled English--comical stuff. My dad has really been singled out. He is in the Holocaust Museum for his contributions for helping our Army beat the Nazis, and after the war, he became a journalist and an author. My mom came in 1939, a few years after my dad. During the war, she served in the Women's Army Corps. She was in England, France, and Germany, and on the wall at home is a picture of my mom in her WAC uniform. You can look at that picture, and you can see pride in serving our country from every single pore. After the war, my mom had a long career as a research librarian, and she worked even harder raising her oldest son, who mostly wanted to play NBA basketball instead of hitting the books. Both my parents felt so blessed that they could get out of Germany. They made it over the paper wall. They had a chance to become Americans. Most Jewish families in the United States have stories just like these. Some were able to get out; others were left behind, and some were lost. Many remember the MS St. Louis, a ship with nearly 1,000 refugees-- mostly Jewish--fleeing Germany in 1930. Originally, they sailed for Cuba, but they were turned away when they reached Havana. Then they tried to come to America. They got so close. They could see the lights shining in Miami, but again they were turned away and sailed back to Europe. Hundreds of them died in death camps. Many more lives like those aboard the St. Louis could and should have been saved, but the paper wall--that paper wall--kept too many people out. In 2020, caring people looked back and recognized that paper wall and our failure to save more people from execution at the hands of the Nazis. It was a staggering humanitarian disaster, a real stain on American history. Donald Trump and his advisers, on the other hand, must look back and see the paper wall as a big success, a playbook for their administration. Under Donald Trump, the policy of the United States on immigration, asylum, and refugees--sum it up in one word: cruelty. Trump's worst legacy on asylum and refugee policy, without a doubt, is the kidnapping and abuse of youngsters--children--locking them in cages, losing track of them, and losing track of their parents. It is the forced sterilization of women in the custody of the U.S. Government. It is violating U.S. law and international treaties to turn asylum seekers into criminals. I went to the border to see for myself what Trump's family separation policies looked like in practice. When you see it, you never forget. I met a migrant woman who was almost 9 months pregnant and suffering complications. A pediatrician from Oregon who came with me was concerned that this woman's life was in danger, as well as her unborn child. She had been stopped at the border, along with her husband and their 3-year-old son, even though she had a legal right--a legal right--to make an asylum claim. Our pediatrician, who worried that the woman was going to go into labor right there, had to make a judgment call about what we ought to do. So, fortunately, we got her case before the right border authorities. She was able to make her asylum claim, get medical care, and keep her family together. At the time, I saw a little boy who had been detained for several nights in a cold, cramped cell--they call them iceboxes--and then sent back to Mexico. This youngster was so traumatized at the border that he became entirely nonverbal and afraid of adults. His father held my hand and cried, and he told us how helpless he felt as a parent. I will never forget that experience. Children and parents on the southern border are experiencing the worst of Donald Trump's hostility, but it doesn't end there. His administration has relentlessly attacked and squeezed the traditional systems of immigration and humanitarian assistance and refugee resettlement as well. A lot has gone into this paper wall. Anti- immigration policies have bookended the Trump 4 years. One of their first new policies out of the gate was the Muslim ban, which was a nightmare for many immigrants and immigrant families. Now, in Donald Trump's final days, his administration has made the citizenship exam twice as hard and twice as long. Reportedly, questions were rewritten with Trump-friendly political bias and tricky language designed to trip people up. There wasn't any discussion about any exams here in Congress. When you read the old version of the test that existed before the Trump meddling, it was pretty darn challenging. There is no good-faith explanation for the changes. It was only about making it harder--making it harder to become an American. Through his years in office, Donald Trump steadily lowered the cap on refugees allowed in the country. For 2021, he set it at the lowest number ever. Then there is the DACA Program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival. We talked here in the Senate about the Dreamers, and when the program was created, there was a promise made that it would be OK for the Dreamers to come out of the shadows. You could apply without fear and have your application renewed in 2 years. I think the government has a moral obligation to keep the promise. Not on Donald Trump's watch--if not for court orders, DACA would be dismantled by now. There are more than 11,000 hard-working young people in my home State that are DACA recipients. I have talked with a lot of them. They come to my townhall meetings. We meet on campus and meet in coffee shops. Not long after the pandemic hit, one young Oregon DACA recipient started working with COVID patients. She just wanted to help during the pandemic--coordinating tests, working on followup, contact tracing. What a wonderful person doing essential work during the pandemic, but her temporary DACA status ran out just when the Trump administration blocked renewals. Fortunately, my staff and I were able to help her reapply and retain her status so she could keep working in the only place she ever called home. The harsh reality is there are thousands and thousands of young Dreamers who have been faced with the same panic of losing their status, being ripped from their homes and deported. The fact is, Donald Trump has used these Dreamers like pawns. Recently, he dusted off the public charge rule, using the past to discriminate against Jewish refugees. I consider it a wealth test for immigrants--a cruel system that pushes vulnerable immigrant families into destitution. In Oregon, right now, it means that there are families who are just afraid to seek assistance they are entitled to receive, afraid to seek emergency medical assistance during a pandemic, and afraid to seek disaster relief after huge wildfires. These families--we talk to them-- they desperately need help. They are members of Oregon's collective community, but they can't get it because they are fearful they will be labeled a ``public charge.'' Donald Trump revoked protected immigration status from hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents originally from countries ravaged by war, famines, and epidemics. Many of those people who have lived here for decades had planted deep roots. Nothing is accomplished by revoking their status and deporting them, other than shattering their lives and weakening their communities. Then, the Trump administration adopted a ``no blanks'' policy so they could reject applications for visa and asylum if there were just simple paperwork errors. For example, let's say an only child filling out a visa application leaves a blank where it asks for details on siblings-- they could be rejected. Even simple errors that mean nothing--writing in a dash instead of an ``N/A'' for an inapplicable question--leads to rejection. The policy, here again, has resulted in huge cuts to immigration and asylum. During the pandemic, the Trump administration denied COVID relief to tax-paying, law-abiding American immigrants who secure America's food supply or save lives as frontline healthcare workers. Next, there is a sabotage of the system of printing documents for immigrants, including green cards that allow residents to work and go to school. This affected tens of thousands, again, who did nothing wrong. Some of them were newly approved applicants, many others were longtime U.S. residents replacing green cards that were expired or lost. If an immigrant's green card expires, and they don't have the replacement, they are out of luck and technically in a kind of legal never-never land. It is all because Donald Trump wanted to break the system just to cause harm. Now let's talk about those who work alongside our military overseas. You would think that if there were any group--any group--whose immigration status got a special level of care from our government, it would be those whose lives are in danger in their home country because they served courageously alongside our forces. That has not been the case under Donald Trump. For example, there have been reports on an Afghan pilot on the run from the Taliban because his clearance to relocate in the United States was reversed. The U.S. Army pilot who trained him said: He's marked as a dead man. He's done all he can there. . . . If anyone needs to be a U.S. citizen, it's him. But the Trump administration, which initially approved his relocation, went back on its word. This pilot is now reportedly in hiding with his wife and their 4-year-old daughter. They are among tens of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis whose lives are in danger waiting for the U.S. Government to decide on their immigration status. The number of these courageous individuals brought to the United States has plummeted under Donald Trump, again, because of this anti- immigrant bias. I remember the late-Senator John McCain speaking often about why our country needed to protect those who helped our men and women in battle. John McCain said it wasn't just a moral issue but also a national security issue. He said: Won't it be harder to get people to help our soldiers in the future if America abandons those who have helped us in the past? For Donald Trump, it seems hostility toward immigrants overrides even America's national security. Donald Trump has often claimed he supports immigration. He once hijacked a naturalization ceremony, which is supposed to be a solemn event, no politics. He stole that moment from the group of people becoming citizens so he could go on and on about false claims about his position on immigration. He said he wanted ``tremendous numbers of people to go in.'' Over the last, I guess, 8 or so minutes, I have proved that sure is not true. The reality is, Donald Trump cut legal immigration in half. If I were to walk through every cruel and inhumane thing this administration has done to immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, we would be standing here until the beginning of January. It is going to be hard work dismantling Donald Trump's paper wall, but it is a must-do for the President and Vice President-elect. I know they agree. I want to close my remarks by talking a little bit about why immigration matters. As an Oregonian, I can tell that you that Oregon is clearly stronger today because of our openness to immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers. We call it, at home--people hear me talk about it here--the Oregon Way. It is about fundamental decency. There is no other way to describe the Oregon Way than those two words, ``fundamental decency.'' Here is an example of how the Oregon Way collides with the Trump policies pertaining to visas. Twelve years ago, an Iraqi boy named Mustafa came to Oregon to receive badly needed medical care. He was very injured. He lost a leg during the U.S. bomb strike. He needed complicated surgeries that couldn't get done in Iraq, so a group of Oregonians worked with a nonprofit to bring him to my hometown of Portland. Mustafa got good care and was able to go home. The plan was for him to come back to Oregon, periodically, for ongoing treatment. Back home in Iraq, however, communication was difficult, and his family was displaced by Islamic State militants. Miraculously, in 2016, Oregonians recognized Mustafa on the TV news from a refugee camp outside Fallujah. It was clear he still dealt with serious health problems. Again, Oregon citizens and nonprofits went to bat for him. Again, they worked to bring him to the United States for care, except this time--this time, the Trump administration closed the door to Iraqis. They were out of luck. My staff and I got involved, and together with all of these dedicated Oregonians, we were able to work with the Embassy and get key officials to get a temporary visa for Mustafa and his mom. He got the lifesaving care he needed. The Oregon Way actually beat back Trump's hostility to immigration. Now, supporting immigration is not just the decent thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do for our economy. My State is a perfect example. From the high-tech economy in the ``Silicon Forest'' to our wonderful family farms all across the State, immigrants contribute every day to our economy. Nationwide, on average, communities with more immigrants have stronger and more dynamic economies. Immigrants are more likely than those born in the United States to participate in the labor force. Immigrants are more likely to own a small business. Immigrants are more likely to move for employment and take jobs that otherwise go unfilled. Those immigrants, plug gaps in our economy. They plug gaps in our job market. Immigrants are more likely to be entrepreneurs. Their kids are more likely to want to just work and work and work, and they have shown that they are more likely to climb the economic ladder. Immigration has also proven to be a big economic and population boost for our rural communities, which too often, in too many parts of the country, somehow look like people just are willing to turn them into economic sacrifice zones, compared to the focus on the cities and suburbs. Our colleges and universities desperately need more foreign-born students. Most foreign-born students pay full sticker price and subsidize the students born in the United States. Due to COVID and anti-migrant policies, fewer and fewer international students come to study in American schools. They are choosing to study in other countries instead. And you can bet those other countries are happy to welcome the bright minds at our expense and let them find a way to help their economies. Our schools struggle to keep the doors open under these conditions. They have managed to block some Trump policies that are particularly harmful to students. I am very proud that my alma mater, the University of Oregon, led one of those lawsuits. But still, many schools are likely to close. And if there are fewer international students coming here who are subsidizing Americans, the price that American-born students pay for a college education goes up. It is legislative malpractice for the lawmakers to allow that to happen when it is a crisis you know is headed this way. It is, obviously, in our interest to be a magnet for the best and the brightest. Immigrants also protect vital safety net programs that Americans care so deeply about. With 10,000 people reaching retirement age every day, our country needs more workers, more people paying into Social Security, more people paying into Medicare, welcoming into the country more working-age people who can help shore up those trust funds. It can help to protect the Medicare guarantee and help ensure that Social Security pays full benefits. It is a big mistake to pass up that opportunity. Finally, the economic boost isn't the biggest reason to support immigration. The biggest reason is immigration is about our national character; it is about our common history. Our country was founded by people with courage and audacity, people who picked up their lives and crossed oceans to start something new. Who are we to turn away all those who would follow in their footsteps? Welcoming immigrants from around the world makes us more youthful and resilient. It honors our founding. America has always been a land of opportunity. It is why my parents loved the United States so deeply after they arrived here as frightened youngsters fleeing the worst of humanity. Decades later, because of the opportunity this country handed my parents, their son--a first- generation Jewish kid--has the honor of standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate, the honor of representing Oregon in the U.S. Senate. And what an honor it is to be able to be here this morning to talk about why the Wyden family is so grateful to the United States of America. If someday people around the world no longer see the United States as a land of opportunity, we will have strayed from America's character and purpose. For now, the good news is that Donald Trump's Presidency ends next month. The attacks on our immigration system and on people who dream of becoming Americans will be nothing more than the angry tweets from a man voted out of office. With the end of the Trump era, the United States can tear down the Trump paper wall and rebuild the coalition of Americans from all across the political spectrum who value the contributions of immigrants and who care for asylum seekers and refugees. It is an important part of what makes America so special. I yield the floor, and I believe we have another speaker.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate will soon vote on the conference report for the annual defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA. Like all conference reports, this is a product of negotiations between the Senate and the House of Representatives. Producing a conference report takes dedicated negotiators who are willing to make tough compromises. I commend them for their work, and I particularly want to thank my friend, Senator Jack Reed, who has shown strong leadership as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I hope these negotiations will be a good omen for how Congress will work under the incoming Biden administration. But supporting the process that produced this conference report is very different from supporting the report on its merits. I have voted against the Senate version of this defense bill twice now, once during the rollcall vote in July and then during a voice vote last month. House negotiators have managed to improve the bill since then, but not so significantly that I am able to support it now. I want to be clear that I support plenty of provisions in this NDAA. I even wrote or negotiated some of the language to improve the bill. The bill includes anti-money laundering provisions, which I strongly support. I have twice introduced bipartisan legislation to end the abuse of anonymous shell companies, and I am happy to see the NDAA expand upon my efforts. The conference report will also set in motion a 3-year process to remove Confederate names from military assets. I would have preferred a shorter timeline, but I am glad that Congress will be taking this overdue step to ensure that military bases do not honor traitors who fought to defend the horrific institution of slavery. And the conference report also includes my amendments to push the Pentagon toward encrypting its computers and to require the Army to provide a plan to finish cleaning up the former Umatilla Army Depot within 3 years. But I cannot in good conscience authorize $740 billion in military spending--including roughly $70 billion to continue the forever wars-- while Senate Republicans are offering mere crumbs to help folks stay safe from a raging pandemic and help small businesses stay afloat during this unprecedented time. I said previously that I could not vote for a defense bill with Federal agents actively occupying Portland and treating peaceful protestors like foreign enemies. Donald Trump may have removed much of his occupying force but this bill does nothing to prevent him or any future president from ordering similar abuses. And I have serious concerns about a provision that will permit the Secretary of the Treasury or the Attorney General to issue subpoenas, with indefinite gag orders, to foreign banks that maintain a correspondent account in the United States. There may be some limited instances where it may be appropriate to restrict bank employees from notifying account holders about a Federal subpoena to obtain their records, but as a general rule, I oppose indefinite gag orders. I worry this section grants dangerous powers to the executive branch to regulate speech, raising very serious First Amendment and due process concerns. That is why gag orders should not be included automatically with every subpoena and should have an expiration date, so that any restrictions on speech apply no longer than necessary. I regret that these and other flaws mean that I must continue to oppose this NDAA at this time. I yield the floor with the hope that Republicans will be as willing to provide real help for everyday Americans suffering--particularly during this tough holiday season--as they are to greenlight ever-higher levels of military spending.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate recently voted to move forward on the National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, the annual defense policy bill. The Senate took this procedural step by what is known as a voice vote, a process that does not record the final vote tally or how each Senator specifically voted, but a voice vote is not a sign of unanimous support for a measure, and I am submitting this statement to mark my opposition to this year's NDAA and to this process. When the Senate debated and passed this bill for the first time, earlier this year, I voted no. I said at the time that I could not go along with a Republican plan to greenlight $740 billion in military spending while providing almost nothing to help Americans impacted by this unprecedented global pandemic. I said that I could not vote for a defense bill with Federal agents actively occupying Portland and treating peaceful protestors like foreign enemies. Donald Trump ordered these occupiers into my hometown, uninvited, to crack down on Oregonians peacefully demanding an end to systemic racism. Senator Merkley and I introduced an amendment to the NDAA that would have required Donald Trump to remove these unwanted forces from our State. The Senate majority blocked our amendment and told us that we were making things up while Trump's goons were shooting protestors with tear gas, rubber bullets, and other crowd control munitions. I want to be clear that I support plenty of provisions in this NDAA and wrote or negotiated some of the language to improve the bill, but I must oppose the NDAA due to its flaws and its timing, in light of the lack of help for everyday Americans suffering from the economic downfall brought about by Donald Trump's inept response to a global pandemic. For this reason, I have no choice but to oppose.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, everything that has happened since the untimely passing of the legendary Justice Ginsburg is a clear reminder that much of what goes on in Washington, DC, is simply not on the level. Right now, our country is hurting--mass death, mass unemployment, mass hunger, and suffering among children. The two sides in Congress ought to be addressing those challenges together. Now more than ever, while so many are so fearful about tomorrow, the rules the Senate goes by and the agreements the Senate makes need to stand for something. That is how I felt when I negotiated for the $600- per-week unemployment insurance boost in March. The Treasury Secretary for the Republicans agreed to it, but then, at the last minute, Republican Senators pretended otherwise and tried to vote it out of the bill. Think about that. There was an agreement between both sides, and the one thing that Senate Republicans wanted to do was to break the agreement and keep workers from getting that extra money to pay the rent and the food bill at a time when they had been laid off through no fault of their own. Another example is unfolding right before our eyes. Until a few weeks ago, Leader McConnell and Chairman Graham would have told you it was essentially the 11th commandment, carved in stone: No election-year Supreme Court appointments. Again, Republicans went back on their word. If the cure to COVID-19 was partisanship and rule-breaking, then Senate Republicans might be onto something with their low stunt on the high Court, but it is not. The American people have a much more sensitive radar for unfairness than Senate Republicans. When I was home during the 2-week period here recently, I went to counties that Donald Trump won decisively and counties that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Folks I talked to in both communities, in both areas, said the person who wins the 2020 election should be the one who chooses the Court nominee. In this case, the American people know what is at stake for them because they see the consequences of rule-breaking. If Judge Barrett is confirmed and does what Donald Trump has repeatedly said he requires of a nominee--help him throw out the Affordable Care Act--here is what will happen: Tens of millions of Americans will suddenly lose their healthcare during a pandemic. COVID- 19 will become a preexisting condition used by insurance companies to once again discriminate against consumers. It will take America back to the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy. Even the nominee herself shows this process on judicial nominees is so dysfunctional and so broken, it doesn't come close to being on the level. Amy Coney Barrett may have established herself as the Babe Ruth of saying pretty much nothing. Now, everybody understands that nominees typically clam up during these hearings. I don't expect Judge Barrett to disavow Trump healthcare policy. I wouldn't expect to agree with all of a Trump nominee's positions. But unfortunately for our country, this hearing was a new low. For example, one of my colleagues asked whether Judge Barrett was aware that the President had committed to nominating judges who would throw out the Affordable Care Act--a statement that was part of news accounts all across the country again and again and again and again. Back in 2015, Donald Trump said: ``If I win the presidency, my judicial appointments will do the right thing, unlike Bush's appointee John Roberts on ObamaCare.'' The day after Judge Barrett's nomination, Donald Trump tweeted: ``ObamaCare will be replaced with a much better and far cheaper alternative, if it is terminated in the Supreme Court.'' But Judge Barrett answered, when my colleague asked about whether she had heard about anything resembling Donald Trump's views on this, she said: ``I don't recall hearing about or seeing such statements . . . that wasn't something that I heard or saw directly by reading it myself.'' She also said she couldn't recall whether Senators brought it up during their conversations with her. I say to the Senate today, does anybody think that was an authentic answer? Everybody who occasionally looks at the news knows that Donald Trump wants to tear down the Affordable Care Act. He famously promised the far right that his judges would take all the far-right positions. He routinely attacks Republican-appointed Justices for opinions he dislikes. The ``never heard it, never saw it'' argument advanced by Judge Barrett, that she doesn't follow the news, apparently, at all; didn't talk with anybody about the healthcare debate that has been front and center in American politics for a long, long time, is hard to mesh. I understate this with reality. You don't reach the heights of the academic and legal profession by ignoring the news of the day for years and years and years on end. If you watch Judge Barrett's hearing, it is clear what this ``never heard it, never saw it'' argument is all about. It is about denying that there is any real threat to the Affordable Care Act to protections for preexisting conditions, to cheaper medicines for seniors. Judge Barrett certainly put on a hall of fame performance in ducking and dodging and weaving her way out of even the simple routine questions about existing law, stuff that is guaranteed to come up in every nomination hearing. For example--this one just stunned me when I heard it. She wouldn't say whether Griswold v. Connecticut was decided correctly. That was the landmark 1960s case that affirmed the right of married women to have access to contraception. It is one of the key Supreme Court decisions that gets directly to the right of privacy and to the rights of women to make decisions about their own bodies and their own lives. The decision in Roe v. Wade follows directly from the decision in Griswold. Even Justices Thomas, Roberts, Alito, and Kavanaugh--not exactly the leftwing of the American judicial systems--said Griswold was decided correctly. Judge Barrett refused. That matters because there is a far- right campaign working to undo both of those decisions, which would be devastating to a woman's fundamental freedoms in our country. She dodged serious questions on the legality of in vitro fertilization, which has helped millions of parents achieve their one dream: having a family. She refused to say whether she believes the landmark decision on marriage equality was decided correctly. The one case she was asked about enshrined marriage equality. She dodged a question on whether U.S. Presidents should even commit to a peaceful transfer of power. She went on to say on the issue of voter intimidation that she wouldn't answer whether it was illegal. That is not an open question. It is a case of black-letter law. She was given what I thought was a slam-dunk opportunity to confirm that a President cannot unilaterally change the date of the election. That one is not open to interpretation. The law is clear that he cannot. Judge Barrett wouldn't say so. It is not like this nominee has been shy about sharing her views. For example, she bashed the opinion by Chief Justice Roberts that upheld the Affordable Care Act. She said it ``pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.'' That decision is the reason that 130 million Americans with preexisting conditions are protected today, why insurance companies can't impose caps on people who need costly healthcare, why seniors no longer get stuck in the prescription drug doughnut hole bankrupting their savings. Judge Barrett put her name on a letter that talked about overturning Roe v. Wade because of what it called its ``barbaric legacy.'' She also lectured on the subject. She failed to disclose the letter and some of her lectures in her disclosure to the Judiciary Committee. Again, I understand that nominees are always careful in these hearings, but nomination hearings are providing less and less substance. That has been the case for a long time. Over the last few weeks, Judge Barrett set a new low. Years ago, Chief Justice Roberts talked about the job of the Supreme Court Justice and said it was about ``calling balls and strikes.'' My question is, How can you be trusted to call ``balls and strikes'' if you spend your nomination hearing playing ``hide the ball?'' This rush job doesn't qualify as advice and consent. In my view, you look at Donald Trump and Republicans rushing this confirmation, you look at all the ducking and dodging of basic questions, and it is not hard to see the politics behind it. At a moment when there are millions of Americans across the country wondering how they are going to pay their rent, how they are going to afford medicine, whether they are going to be able to safely hug their elderly parents again, Senate Republicans are laser-focused on locking in political power over the courts. That is what this is all about. Senate Republicans somehow think this is a Houdini act, suddenly making the threat of the Affordable Care Act disappear. It is not working. My view is the American people understand that the rush to fill the Ginsburg seat is about a lot more than healthcare. Republican nominees for the Court always come before the Senate and talk about how it is the text of the laws as written, respecting precedent, respecting the original meaning of the Constitution. What happens when they join the Bench? They throw out longstanding precedents, restrict individual rights, push forward with an agenda that favors special interests and the powerful. For example, Judge Barrett gutted a consumer protection law from the bench by essentially ignoring the text of the law itself, making it easier for debt collectors to prey on the vulnerable Judge Barrett threw out precedent to deny $332 in damages to a woman who was injured in a medical procedure. The woman was actually unable to afford a lawyer, and she mistakenly used the wrong word to describe the money she was owed. Judge Barrett used that mistake against her. She ignored another existing precedent, taking away a jury award from a teenager who was repeatedly raped by a prison guard. She sided with a company that segregated employees by race. In another case, she came up with a twisted interpretation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to allow discrimination against older job applicants. None of that had anything to do with ``calling balls and strikes'' or respecting the laws as written. Those rulings favor the powerful and corporations over people who don't have clout and don't have vast sums of money to protect themselves. The President and Senate Republicans have packed the courts from the top on down with far-right judges who excuse these kinds of ideological rulings. They blocked Democratic judicial nominees for years. They had a plan to remove seats from the DC court rather than considering the sitting Democratic President's nominees. Now, this President has pushed through an immense number of nominees, given how many seats Republicans left open through obstruction. Some of these judges have been deemed not competent for the job by nonpartisan legal groups. It has done incredible damage to the legitimacy and the independence of the judiciary. Virtually all of them tell the same story about originalism and sticking to the text in the tradition of Justice Scalia. Justice Scalia is considered to be the ultimate example of what is considered originalism. Judge Barrett recently said ``his judicial philosophy is mine, too.'' Judge Scalia, in fact, packed his opinions with ideology. He wrote that the decision granting same-sex couples the right to marry was a ``threat to American democracy,'' that ``robs the People of . . . the freedom to govern themselves.'' He wanted to throw out the Affordable Care Act. He helped gut the Voting Rights Act in a ruling that led to massive voter disenfranchisement. What is behind all this talk about originalism and sticking to the text of the laws as written is a political agenda, plain and simple, taking away people's healthcare, disenfranchising voters and entrenching minority rule, giving corporations more power over their employees, legalizing discrimination against the LGBTQ community and against Black, Hispanic, Asian, and other groups of Americans. It is about cementing government control over women's bodies. Republicans could never enact these deeply unpopular policies through legislation, so they want the Supreme Court to enact their agenda for them. I want to close by way of saying that all of this is contrary to what Justice Ginsburg spent her career fighting for. It is exactly what the big rush to fill the Ginsburg seat is all about and how this process torpedoes any opportunity for the Senate to come together on other big issues. My Democratic colleagues and I have been pleading with the majority, essentially going and saying, Look, let's work together on a major COVID package--virtually pleading that we work in a bipartisan way to help people on what I have heard again and again at home is their No. 1 concern. Mitch McConnell said, however, that it was too complicated to get done. Last week, I brought forward a bill on enhanced unemployment insurance, a lifeline for jobless workers. It was blocked. Two days ago, Democrats brought forth a series of bills, including proposals addressing domestic violence, election security, and childcare--all blocked. This nomination to Senate Republicans comes first, and absolutely everything else is on hold, has to wait. We see, really, no genuine interest to do the hard work of putting it together. This nomination and this process are not on the level. Republicans are, again, breaking their word to hand the Supreme Court to the far right. I know that because I have heard from so many Oregonians about it, Oregonians who are worried about losing their healthcare, their vote, and so many of their fundamental freedoms. They are worried about what this means for the future of the country. This debate is about the Ginsburg seat. Justice Ginsburg was not just an iconic fighter for the rights of the powerless and the vulnerable. She always said what she meant, and she meant what she said. We did not get that from Judge Barrett. I oppose this nomination.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I would like to talk about a genetic condition called Usher syndrome. Usher syndrome is a rare genetic disease that affects at least 25,000 people in the United States. Usher syndrome causes deafness or hearing loss, as well as a retinal disease that progressively leads to blindness. Some children may be diagnosed at birth, while others are diagnosed at later stages of adolescence, affecting education, employment, and quality of life. Usher type 1 individuals are born deaf and then learn, often before adolescence, that they are also losing their vision. Usher type 2 individuals are born with moderate to severe hearing loss and then in the prime of their adolescent lives are told that they are losing their vision. Usher type 3 are usually diagnosed during adolescence, leading to the slow loss of both hearing and vision. At present, there are no treatments or cure for Usher syndrome, but that could change with awareness and support. Finding a cure has never been more urgent or more achievable. Promising research and positive clinical trials are occurring right now at universities, medical centers, and private laboratories across the country. Even though there is currently no cure for Usher syndrome, I am proud that Oregonian researchers are leading the way searching for treatments and therapies. The Casey Eye Institute at Oregon Health & Science University--OHSU--is conducting the first human study of gene therapy for Usher syndrome, and researchers at the University of Oregon are generating animal models that represent the genotypes of the major Usher patient groups--both necessary steps towards the development of effective treatments. It is a privilege to serve a State that is home to such cutting-edge research into Usher syndrome. To accelerate this research, the Usher Syndrome Coalition, including Emily Creasy from Oregon, is raising public awareness. Last month, on September 19, they helped recognize the 6th annual Usher Syndrome Awareness Day. The day fell near the autumnal equinox, which marks the start of days that contain more darkness than light, a powerful metaphor for the threat of Usher syndrome. I am proud to support the Usher syndrome community and am committed to doing what I can as Oregon's senior Senator to support researchers hard at work finding treatments and, hopefully, a cure. I am committed to working with my colleagues to raise awareness regarding this disease, and I applaud the hard work of the Usher Syndrome Coalition in making Usher syndrome research a priority at the National Institutes of Health.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, just very briefly, my friend from South Dakota said I had called Republicans ``heartless.'' That was not my word, but when Americans who have a great work ethic and believe, as my friend from Ohio has always talked about, in the dignity of work but can't get jobs and can't make rent and can't pay for groceries, I don't think we should say, when they need a loaf of bread: Well, we will just settle for a slice. The people I met in Oregon all through last week desperately want to work. They know that it is the path of upward mobility in the private economy. Yet, as we have seen, lots of jobs are gone. You can go down Main Streets, and there is barely a car moving. That is why we have said, as my friend from Ohio always talks about, when those workers believe deeply in the importance of work, and they know, by the way, that it is the only way they can secure upward mobility in the private economy. When they can't do it as a result of this pandemic, which is spiking again, we don't think it is wrong to make sure people get a sufficient benefit to pay rent and buy groceries. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, shortly, I will offer a unanimous consent request on legislation to extend enhanced unemployment insurance for folks in America who are out of work. I am going to begin with a quick check-in on the economic reality in our country. Here is where we are in a sentence: Only half of the jobs lost earlier this year have actually come back; the other half may never come back. There is substantial evidence that many of these jobs will be lost forever. The permanent layoffs are stacking up. Right now, 25 million Americans are receiving unemployment insurance. Their insurance payments were slashed when Republicans let enhanced unemployment insurance expire at the end of July. Here is a particularly important fact. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment insurance is still higher than any single week during the great recession. Upward of 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty over just the last few months. In the month of September alone--just September--nearly 1 million women dropped out of the workforce. To make matters worse, the pandemic that is causing all of this economic carnage is just getting worse as the fall coronavirus wave begins to rise across the country. The restaurant and bar industry has been hurt, and the travel industry, the live entertainment industry. We are talking about millions and millions of workers who are out of a job right now, plus millions more who are worried that they are going to get laid off this winter as COVID-19 infections rise. The fact is, despite what Donald Trump says, our economy isn't anywhere near fully recovered--not even close. This jobs crisis won't be over until the public health crisis is over. That is why, in the meantime, the only reasonable and logical thing to do is to bring back enhanced unemployment insurance and keep those benefits for the duration of the emergency. That is what I am calling for this afternoon. That is what I believe Members of Congress should be for. The proposal that I offer extends the crucial programs from the CARES Act--the extra $600 per week, what we developed in the Senate Finance Committee. I see the distinguished Republican leader, Senator Thune, who serves on our committee. We work together often. We developed it there--the extra $600 per week, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for the self-employed, and additional benefits for them. My God, the unemployment system was actually brought into this century. The old system was close to 100 years old. Nobody ever heard back then of a gig worker, but we got them covered. So we want to extend those programs until January 31, 2021. In addition to the enhanced unemployment benefits, what this does is it avoids throwing millions and millions of Americans over a financial cliff, essentially, at the end of the year. It is my judgment that this is just basic economic fairness. This is about making sure that tens of millions of Americans who walk an economic tightrope during this pandemic will be able to pay the rent, put food on the table, and buy medicine. Tens of millions of Americans, from sea to shining sea--from Portland, OR, to Portland, ME-- desperately need this lifeline. Continuing to block an extension of enhanced unemployment insurance, in my view, is the economic equivalent of going for herd immunity with COVID-19--telling the most vulnerable people out there that they are, in effect, on their own; that their government has no interest in standing up for them. From the beginning of this pandemic, my colleagues on the other side have opposed the enhanced unemployment insurance concept that I am talking about. Back in March, Senate Democrats said replacing people's lost wages was going to be right up at the top of our priorities list for the CARES Act. I consider it one of the most important efforts I have been part of during my time in public service, and we were all able to get it in the bill. It turned out it was the only provision that the Republican majority attempted to remove. Just process that for a moment. We had a debate on the floor of the Senate. There was only one thing Senate Republicans wanted to remove. They wanted to remove the provision I am describing that would give millions of Americans who are hurting the opportunity to make rent and buy groceries and get their kids sneakers and pay for medicine. I am still incredulous about this, but, actually, one Member of the minority came up to me before we voted and said: Ron, what you are talking about is going to cause nurses to leave their jobs now during the pandemic and go into retirement and get unemployment. And I said: You have to be kidding. I handed the Senator the article from the local paper that described how nurses were actually coming out of retirement to work during the pandemic because they cared so deeply about their community. Fortunately, that Republican effort that night to gut the expanded unemployment benefits failed, and now I think we have people from across the political spectrum saying that that program has turned out to be one of the most successful safety net programs in decades--in decades. For months, Republicans have been repeating the same story about why they oppose the expanded unemployment insurance. They say it is because what we did is holding back the economy--that it is a disincentive to work and lazy workers are choosing to sit at home collecting insurance. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It was wrong from the beginning, and it now should be obvious. Enhanced unemployment insurance expired at the end of July--July 31. If those insurance payments were really shackling our economy and being a disincentive to work, then, why wasn't there a megaboom in hiring in August? The fact is that job growth shot down immediately after enhanced unemployment insurance expired, and it plummeted in September. The reasons to bring back enhanced unemployment insurance ought to be clear: It is the right thing to do in terms of economic fairness for workers. And the main argument against enhanced unemployment insurance has been proven wrong. Finally, renewing enhanced unemployment insurance is absolutely key to protecting our public health. The pandemic is raging now. Cases are going up. There are hotspots all over the map. We are in what so many of the experts say is the tip of the third wave of the virus: cold weather coming up, folks being indoors. And in some parts of the country, mayors or Governors may soon face the possibility that certain areas could go back into lockdown. Business owners might begin to wonder if staying open is too dangerous a prospect--particularly, if you are talking about places like restaurants and cafes. Taking the steps needed to crush the virus is going to be a lot easier if workers have the backstop of enhanced unemployment insurance so they have the money--in South Dakota, in Oregon, and every part of the country--to make rent and pay for groceries. Blocking enhanced unemployment insurance creates a disincentive to crush the virus with strong action and will lead to more people spending more time in more hotspots, perpetuating both the tragedy of the pandemic as well as the tragedy of our anemic economic recovery. I will close with this. It does not have to be this way. There is a lot more work to be done. State and local governments need more funding for hospitals and testing. We need support for our schools. We need support for basic municipal services. There ought to be more opportunities to talk about those issues in the days ahead. Right now, passage of enhanced unemployment insurance is long overdue. I see my friend from South Dakota, with whom I have worked often in the Finance Committee. We have been on this floor again and again over the last few months talking about this. I offered a proposal with the distinguished Democratic leader, Senator Schumer. We thought that was something that would be appealing to both sides. But the bottom line is for this Chamber, as we are looking at the coronavirus spike again, to say that we are not going to stand up for people who are just trying to make rent and pay for groceries. Somebody asked me at home. I was just at home. I got into virtually every nook and cranny in my State over the last couple of weeks in a socially distant way. People said: What do I see people spend the unemployment money on? They said: They all seem to be in the grocery store. I said: They are paying for rent and groceries and essentials. They sure aren't using unemployment money to buy scarves or fancy things from overseas. They are using it for essentials. My view is, the Senate has no choice but to extend the enhanced unemployment insurance. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of my bill to provide continued assistance to unemployed workers, which is at the desk; I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read three times and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, just to respond to the Senator from South Dakota, it has always been a bedrock argument from Senate Republicans that somehow unemployment insurance is a disincentive for people to work. If that were the case--unemployment benefits expired in July, July 31. If somehow those unemployment benefits were shackling the economy, creating disincentives to work, why wasn't there a mega boom in the workforce in August? The reason is pretty obvious: Those unemployment benefits were not a disincentive. That has been the case as well into September and October. The one thing I do want to take exception to with respect to my colleague's remarks is--he said Republicans never sought to gut the $600. That is just not accurate. On the floor, the Republicans wanted to take out that amount, which everybody was going to get, and replace it with something that was completely unworkable and wouldn't have gotten benefits to unemployed workers quickly. You don't have to take my word for it. Eugene Scalia, the Secretary of Labor, during days and days of negotiations, as we talked about the concept the Senator from South Dakota has raised, the whole notion of wage replacement, the Secretary of Labor said, can't be done. The States don't have the technology to do it. Those discussions went on for days because Republicans were insistent on going with this wage-replacement idea, which has now been characterized by a Republican labor official in Georgia as one of the dumbest ideas he had heard of because it was so unworkable. Finally, I said that we are not going to stiff these workers, so we will take an average. Some people will get more than they normally would; some people would get less than they normally would from their wage and benefits. We will take an average, but, by God, the checks will get out quickly to people who had been sent home through no fault of their own. They were quarantined, as we all know, because we were desperate to beat the virus. People would have that money for groceries and rent. That is why we went with $600, because the idea that my colleague from South Dakota has spoken about today and that Republicans always talk about was declared by the Republican Secretary of Labor, Eugene Scalia, as being unworkable, and if we were going to get a check to people in a timely way, we had to go with the $600. My staff and I put it together. We used this smartphone to make the calculations. We showed it to Secretary Mnuchin because it stayed within the budget limits. And that was how we got to $600. It was the only way to get an unemployment check out to people quickly. Thank goodness the Republican motion to strip it was defeated because had the Republicans won, there would have been a lot of people during those 4 months--essentially ending July 31--who couldn't have made rent, couldn't have paid for groceries. That is just plain old wrong. We are going to continue to work in a bipartisan way. My colleague and I agree on the point that we want to do big things in the Finance Committee. We have to work in a bipartisan way. I just say to the Presiding Officer and my colleagues, to go back to what my friend from South Dakota says is the way to go even though the Secretary of Labor said it couldn't be done is a mistake. That is why we have advocated going with something that we know worked and provided an awful lot of relief to people and does not create a disincentive to work. If it did, when it expired, we would have had a hiring boom in August. That wasn't the case. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this bill is, on its surface, a privacy bill. It appears to have been introduced 2 days ago, and the sponsor has arrived on the floor of the Senate and says that this bill ought to be passed immediately and without debate. My guess is that a small circle of beltway insiders have seen the text, but I just want the Senator to know that passing this bill this way would just make a mockery of the proposition that we ought to have open, public debate on significant laws. We are dealing with a rush job here. I will just tell you that based on what we have picked up, the legislation certainly leaves more questions than answers. First, who does the Senator from Louisiana intend to target with the bill? On a first reading, it could apply to anybody, from Glassdoor, to Spotify, to Cloudflare, to my neighbor's blog, to local media outlets. At a higher level, if my colleague wants to protect Americans' data from collection and abuse, this bill certainly doesn't do that. On the contrary, his legislation would push the platforms to simply force users to consent to their data being collected and used as a condition of using their service. That is already being done now, and this bill wouldn't change a thing for Americans' privacy. Very significantly, our reading is that the Kennedy bill only requires consent if user data is both collected and used by the same company, and it has a massive loophole for data brokers and other shady middlemen who are already compiling dossiers of Americans' sensitive data and selling it to just about anybody with a credit card. For the last several years, I have been blowing the whistle on these data brokers and these shady middlemen. We have investigated sector after sector where we are seeing these people who really adhere to some of the sleaziest business practices engaging in these tactics where they can get their hands on Americans' sensitive data and basically just sell it to anybody with a credit card. I guarantee you, there is not a Senator in this body who is going to go home this weekend and tell their constituents: Gee, I want those data brokers and those middlemen to be able to sell my sensitive data to hither and yon, whatever nefarious purposes somebody might want to buy it for. The Facebooks, the Googles, and the Twitters of the world have all the resources to pay these guys to outsource their data collection and be A-OK. Yet again, as I have said for some time, it is the startups and the little guys who are going to be left behind. I have been working on these issues since I came to the Senate, and the only person here, really, who knew how to use the computer was the wonderful Senator from Vermont, Senator Leahy. So as we began to write these formative laws, I said that my interest is the startup and the little guy because the big guys always do great. That is why, when we were on the floor talking about the change to 230 before, who sold out the little guys? Facebook. And all that happened was the bad guys went off to the dark web. So this is another bill where the Facebooks and the Googles all have the resources to pay the guys to outsource data collection, as I have been talking about, and the little guy is going to be left behind. This bill does not require consent to collect your data. It doesn't require consent to use it and follow you around the internet. It wouldn't stop Chinese companies from harvesting American data and selling it to the Chinese Government. If the Senator from Louisiana wants to protect Americans' sensitive data, I have a bill for doing that. I have comprehensive privacy legislation. It is called the Mind Your Own Business Act. We have been soliciting input on it literally for years. It is the toughest bill in terms of holding the executives actually accountable, for example, if they lie about their privacy policy, if an executive of one of the major companies, generating billions in revenue, lies about their privacy policy. The Mind Your Own Business Act is the bill that is the toughest in terms of protecting the consumer. It sets tough privacy and cyber security standards for companies that collect Americans' private data, gives the Federal Trade Commission more authority to issue serious fines, and it is backed up with the strongest enforcement provisions on offer if a CEO lies to the government. It is not as if you can't write tough privacy proposals. It certainly can be done, and others have ideas on how to do it. But based on everything I have read, and particularly this provision that is going to be a holiday for data brokers and shady middlemen to be able to get people's sensitive data, for all of those reasons and, frankly, others that are too numerous to mention, I object.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I just want to say in the Senate, in my time in this body, this is one of the most stunning abuses of power I have seen in my time of public service. I think my colleague knows that I was sitting until 5 minutes ago in the Ways and Means Committee, where I was invited to testify about Social Security, and I was given a message that the Senator from Missouri was going to stand up and basically try to throw in the garbage can a bipartisan law that I and a conservative Republican, former Congressman Chris Cox--well known to conservatives--wrote because as we thought about the formulation of technology policy, our big concern was for the little guy, for the person who didn't have power, the person who didn't have clout. We were picking up accounts that if they were just trying to come out with their invention--might be something they put up on a website or a blog--they could be held personally liable for something that was posted on their sites that they had no idea about. So we said: We can't do that to the little guy. We can't strip them of their voice. By the way, my concern about the little guy that led to the passage of this law is something I continue to focus on today. This law is hugely important to movements like Me Too and Black Lives Matter because it gives Americans the opportunity to see the messages they want to get out. We all see the videos. Frankly, establishment media wouldn't even run a lot of it because they would be sued. So the original interest in this was making sure that the little guy had a chance to be heard. That is the interest today. That is what the Senator from Missouri wants to throw in the trash can. That is No. 1. No. 2, the effect of what the Senator from Missouri wants to do--and for colleagues who have just come in, I just learned about this 5 minutes before the Senator from Missouri came to the floor. The net effect of this is that Donald Trump can force social media--and he is already working the refs--to print his lies. The thing that concerned me right at the outset was the lies about vote-by-mail. He wanted to force Twitter to print his lies about vote- by-mail. That, too, is something that we sought to constrain in the bipartisan law. And many people think the 26 words really began a policy of empowering the little guy to be heard. Now, I am going to wrap up with just one point. Colleagues, the Senator from Missouri talks about how he wants to take on Big Tech. That is his concern. Let's take on Big Tech. If you want to take on Big Tech, you can go on my privacy bill. It is called the Mind Your Own Business Act. It is the toughest bill on the table with respect to Big Tech. It says that if an executive, a CEO, of one of the big companies, lies and lies repeatedly, they could be held personally liable, including the prospect of prison time So if the Senator from Missouri is serious about taking on Big Tech, I have a bill to do it. That is not what the interest is here. This is all about Donald Trump wanting to force social media to carry his political water and to print his lies. For that reason--and I would have more to say had I been given some semblance of a courtesy to be able to prepare remarks on this, I would speak in more detail, but for those reasons, at least those three, I object.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am told the Senator from Arkansas is up, and I will be very brief. I appreciate his courtesy. Once again, the Senator from Missouri is getting it all wrong. He talks again about how this law--this bipartisan law--is basically not for the little guy, but he is taking on the big guys. Well, the reason that is factually wrong is that on this floor, a previous effort was made to deal with sex trafficking. It was called SESTA and FOSTA, and the desire was--we are all against this horrible smut online. We are all against it. The desire was to block it. As the debate went forward, I and others said: You are not going to be able to block it. You are going to be able to block Backpage, like what eventually happened under existing law, which I supported--not under this new thing. Well, guess who supported this SESTA-FOSTA deal that is pretty much like the Senator from Missouri--it was Facebook. Facebook supported the last effort. Last time I looked, they are a pretty big company. So the Senator from Missouri is just getting it all wrong here. I come back to the proposition--I see my friend from Vermont, who has been really the tech expert here--that what we have always been about is the little guy, and you see it every day with Me Too, Black Lives Matter, and so many voices from the community that, because of this law, can be heard. I do not--not just on this, because I have objected, so it can't go forward--I do not accept this idea that this somehow is the path to solving problems in communications, because under SESTA-FOSTA, which is really the kind of model the Senator from Missouri is talking about, the only thing that happened was the horrendous people involved in sex trafficking went to the dark web, and so now we have an even bigger problem. Mr. President, I don't expect this will be the last time we talk about it, but I would like to repeat to the Senator from Missouri that if the roles were reversed here and I had an idea that I wanted to advance, I would extend a courtesy to give him an opportunity to prepare remarks. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, as our colleague just said tonight, you can't even remember any other member of the Federal judiciary who became a cultural icon, recognized only by their initials. RBG did, and she earned her recognition and her place in history through an astounding career fighting for gender equality, for the rights of LGBTQ individuals, and for the rights of everybody who had been pushed to the margins of American society. Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump have now, unfortunately, made it very clear that they are going to pull out all the stops to unravel the exceptional work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and they are going to break their own rule--their own rule. It is not something that was debated on the other side. They decided to break their own rule pertaining to election-year appointments to undo the historical record of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. For a moment, I want to compare this to another time. When I was a young man right out of law school, I served for a number of years as codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers at home. Back then, just like now, there were a lot of issues that were on people's minds. Just like today, where there have been lists of issues miles long--from the rights of LGBTQ Americans to workers' rights, to the ability of every eligible American to vote, and much more--there was a similarly long list of issues back when I worked with the senior citizens. I made the judgment then, because of spending that time with older people, that healthcare was far and away--far and away, colleagues--the most important issue because if you and your loved ones don't have your health, then pretty much everything else goes by the board. You can't spend time with family. You can't achieve all you want in your job. You can't even have a chance to walk about outside on a pleasant evening like this. So healthcare to me and to millions of Americans is far and away the most important issue in front of this body. Now, this is the one issue--the one issue that will come up immediately with the Trump-backed lawsuit going before the Court soon after the election. So make no mistake about it, and I know it is awfully hard to follow all the legalese and the procedural motions. At one point my wife said--I think Senator Merkley may have heard this. When my wife said she would marry me, she said: You are a lawyer, not probably a particularly good one, but I am sure glad you did a good job for the senior citizens. It is hard to follow all the legalese and all the procedure. When you set aside all of that surrounding the fact that healthcare will be the one issue coming up immediately with the Trump-backed lawsuits soon after the election, tonight we say to the American people that healthcare in America is at stake. The Affordable Care Act is at stake, and coverage for 130 million Americans with preexisting conditions is at stake. If you don't trust Republicans with your healthcare, you cannot trust Republicans with this Supreme Court seat. Donald Trump and the Justice Department are suing to have the entire Affordable Care Act thrown out--every last bit of it thrown out. So I just want to walk through what this means from sea to shining sea. If they are successful, the ironclad guaranteed coverage for preexisting conditions is gone; the ban on discrimination against women is gone; the ban on annual and lifetime limits, gone; coverage for young people on their parents' plans, gone; guaranteed essential benefits for all with coverage, gone; no-cost contraceptives for women, gone; cheaper prescription drugs for seniors on Medicare, gone; Medicaid coverage for millions and millions of Americans, gone. Most importantly, colleagues, because of the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans can go to bed tonight knowing that they will have secure, decent healthcare when they wake up in the morning. If the Trump lawsuit is successful, that, too, will be gone. That is the Trump agenda on the Affordable Care Act-- ripping it out by the roots no matter how much pain is inflicted on the American people. By the way, I made mention of the Gray Panthers. Let's understand. In this country, we always love to move forward. This is a direct trip back. The Affordable Care Act locked in protections for those with a preexisting condition who had faced discrimination. A victory for Donald Trump in court means you turn back the clock to the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy because that is what you have if you allow discrimination against those with preexisting conditions. In 2017, the President tried and failed to get the Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, so he couldn't get it done. My colleagues here, Senator Schumer and Senator Merkley--we all remember that night and John McCain's hugely consequential role. Donald Trump couldn't get the Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, so now he is trying to do it at the Supreme Court. Donald Trump's Department of Justice is bringing to the Court--along with dozens of Republican State attorneys general--what I think is a lot of legal nonsense, but that might not matter to far-right activist judges who would seize this opportunity to hand a big, big win to the insurance companies, the drug companies, and other special interests at the expense of Americans who are vulnerable. Particularly after Justice Ginsburg's passing, there is a real chance that the Supreme Court will hand down a partisan ruling giving the President the win he wants so much over the Affordable Care Act. If he gets to choose the person who takes the seat held by the revered RBG, the Affordable Care Act will be gone, and the Republican healthcare agenda is coming, and it is coming after vulnerable Americans from sea to shining sea. Donald Trump might tell you something different, but the American people know he doesn't often tell the truth about healthcare. Once in a while, the truth does come out. That is what happened one day back in May, the last day he had the opportunity to pull out of this anti-ACA lawsuit before the Court. The President was asked whether he might have a last-minute change of heart, but he made his goal clear. He said: ``We want to terminate healthcare under ObamaCare.'' That was in May. Hospitals in COVID-19 hotspots around the Nation were full of Americans at that time who were dying alone amid a global contagion that had shut down our country. Not even a nationwide public health disaster could get Donald Trump to reconsider his position on the Affordable Care Act If Donald Trump wins the Supreme Court case, having had the coronavirus will be a preexisting condition, and insurance companies can use it to discriminate against you. It obviously goes without saying that the Trump agenda would leave American healthcare in ruins. He has fraudulently promised a new and comprehensive healthcare plan. We stopped counting after 9 or 10 times, but it is all a fraud because all this administration has done since day one is make healthcare worse and more expensive for Americans. I have tried to point out that even Medicare is headed for a crisis because of Donald Trump and his incompetent administration. He knew the coronavirus was highly contagious and a lethal pandemic, but he denied it for weeks and weeks while the virus spread nationwide. When the pandemic eventually exploded, the economy shut down, and that has been devastating, as I have pointed out, to the finances of Medicare. The Medicare trust fund will be insolvent within 4 years during the next Presidential term. So we have said on the Finance Committee, where we have jurisdiction over Medicare, that whoever wins this election is going to be in charge during the biggest crisis Medicare has ever faced. If Donald Trump is in charge, I believe it will be the end of the Medicare guarantee of defined, secure, and high-quality benefits for the older people of this country. Seniors may have to figure out some other way to pay for healthcare, prescription drugs. The bottom line is, wiping out the guarantee of healthcare is what the Trump agenda has always been about--gutting the Affordable Care Act through regulations, bringing back junk insurance, and cutting access to women's healthcare. If Donald Trump fills the Ginsburg seat and has the Supreme Court totally on his side, you can bet the courts will be siding against typical Americans and for special interests with every opportunity. Let me close simply by touching on one other vital healthcare issue. Women's healthcare--particularly reproductive healthcare--is right at the center of this debate about the future of the Ginsburg seat. Republican lawmakers have been trying to throw that away after more than 45 years of settled law. They have been fighting to go against the majority opinion of the American people and overturn Roe v. Wade, denying a woman's right to access to healthcare that woman--that woman--says she needs. Even today, just a few hours ago, Senate Republicans dusted off a decades-old anti-science battle against the safe and mainstream reproductive health medication formerly known as RU486. The bill they proposed, which Democrats have blocked, comes down to a backdoor ban on safe and legal medication for reproductive healthcare. Major new regulations restrict women's access to essential, time-sensitive medications, putting the government right in between women and their doctors. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. It was wrong when Republicans were waging the same ideological battle 30 years ago and wrong when you now try to take away women's reproductive healthcare choices, because more women will die. What sense does it make to bring this anti-science and anti-women's health proposal forward in the middle of a raging pandemic? Today, the country crossed a horrendous milestone--200,000 American lives lost to COVID-19. All that mass death and suffering. Republicans aren't working across the aisle to close the shortage gap on personal protective gear or expand access to care; they are busy spending time waging an endless campaign against women getting healthcare. With the passing of Justice Ginsburg, the campaign reaches a new stage. In my view, it is not just a question of what happens to Roe v. Wade or access to therapies and drugs; it is about a much bigger and more dangerous proposition--government control over women's bodies. Donald Trump and the Republican Party are working toward that kind of government control, and it means government control over women's futures. That is what is at stake. That is what Justice Ginsburg fought so hard against. She has left, as I call it, an astounding legacy of fighting on the side of fairness and equality again and again for so many people who didn't have power, didn't have clout, and didn't have lobbies. What an American hero. In my view, she has made it clear for all of us here that now, to protect her legacy, we have an immediate, five-alarm, DEFCON issue, and that is healthcare, healthcare, healthcare. As I have been saying since late Friday night, if you don't trust Republicans with your healthcare, you cannot trust Republicans with this election or this Supreme Court seat. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the election is only weeks away. Voting has already begun in some places. I know that folks at home in Oregon, where some of our communities are literally reduced to ashes, are already thinking about how they are going to vote. They will have a lot on their minds when they fill out their ballots, obviously, and I hope all Americans will fill out their ballots early as a raging pandemic and catastrophic fires in Oregon and across the West have taken a huge toll on our communities. What I want to do this morning--and I am going to use public records to sound an alarm--is talk about another issue that isn't getting nearly the attention it deserves--not even close. A Medicare crisis is headed our way and fast. Whoever wins the next Presidential election will be in charge during the biggest crisis Medicare has ever faced. Based on these public records, I want to warn the public-- particularly seniors--about something I believe they already know: You cannot trust Donald Trump to protect Medicare, so you have to protect Medicare from Donald Trump. Donald Trump has proposed extreme budget cuts to Medicare for 3 straight years. In 2018, he proposed cutting $500 billion, and in 2019, more than $800 billion. In 2020, Donald Trump proposed cutting $450 billion from Medicare. The Democrats blocked him from making those cuts, but in another Presidential term, he could undermine Medicare on his own. Here is how the situation comes to be. Our economy melted down earlier this year because the President downplayed the coronavirus. Millions were out of work, and businesses shuttered--whole sectors of our economy mothballed. The economy collapsed. Again, I base this on public records. It has been devastating to Medicare's finances. According to the nonpartisan experts in charge of Medicare's books, the Medicare trust fund is going to be insolvent within 4 years. These funds are essential to Medicare as we know it. They pay for basic services that millions of seniors need each day--treatment for heart attacks and strokes, care for a broken bone or a bout with the flu that lands an older person in the emergency room, and access to skilled nursing care. Once you reach insolvency, you are sending this country's seniors out into no man's land. Whether Medicare is going to continue to function the way it does today is a big unknown. If Donald Trump is in a position to be in charge, these Trump budgets are going to be the end of the Medicare guarantee. Ever since I was the director of the Oregon Gray Panthers, we had always looked at that Medicare guarantee as sacred. It meant that there would be defined, secure, high-quality health benefits for America's seniors and that they would be available under any type of Medicare that older people received. Based on some of these Trump budget proposals, older Americans are going to have to figure out some other way to pay for their healthcare and their prescription drugs. That includes the millions and millions of seniors who have very modest incomes--many who are just scraping by on Social Security. What we know based on the policies of Trump's favoritism for the insurance lobby, they could be at the mercy of insurance companies and be stuck with huge premiums and bills they couldn't afford to pay. The reason I wanted to put this into the Record today and sound this alarm is that this is not some far-off crisis that Americans and particularly seniors can ignore and can afford to ignore. If you are on Medicare now or if you plan on getting on Medicare anytime soon, these are direct threats to your healthcare. Whoever is sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office on January 21 is going to be in charge when this crisis hits. Everybody ought to understand that the special interests that want to see Medicare crumble will have an advantage this time around. This isn't like repealing the Affordable Care Act or slashing Medicaid, where Trump can't act without Congress. If he has his way, he won't need Congress to help him undermine Medicare; he would be able to just sit back in front of the television, forget about his obligation to protect that sacred Medicare guarantee, and let Medicare just drift into a crisis on its own. Any attempt to fix it then would have to happen on his terms, and, for seniors, good luck with that. The Trump administration has spent years doing the bidding of healthcare's special interests. In my view, there is no question they would seize on this Medicare crisis as another way to let those special interests make a buck, and there would be no way for Americans to know what kind of financial interests Trump and his cronies would have in undermining this program that tens of millions of American seniors rely on every day. Now, if you were the President and you were to ask him ``Well, what about these comments that are being made?'' and you were to ask about the budget documents that I have cited today that would unravel the Medicare guarantee, he would probably tell one of his bold-faced whoppers. He would probably say he would be the only person who could fix Medicare's challenges and would mislead the public about the agenda of those of us on this side of the aisle, who want to uphold and expand on the Medicare guarantee, who want to make sure, for example, that there will be affordable medicine for senior citizens, that we are using the bargaining power of the Federal Government to get seniors a fair shake and are protecting Medicaid, which is a lifeline for millions. We will also unravel the damage Donald Trump has done to the Affordable Care Act, such as trying to let the insurance companies discriminate again against those with preexisting conditions. The fact is that Donald Trump has not been straight with the seniors of this country about his Medicare policies. He hasn't told the truth about them, and in the days ahead, I intend to make sure that this truth gets out and that seniors really understand what is on the line in the weeks ahead. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am very disappointed that my colleague has objected. I just want to make a brief response reflecting on my role as a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Again, as I indicated earlier, I can't get into anything classified or sources and methods, but before we leave this subject, I just want to remind the Senate that the Russian disinformation campaign is going on now. It is not some abstract issue. The Russian disinformation campaign is going on now. The Russians have attempted to rewrite the history of the 2016 campaign. It is the conclusion of the intelligence community--this is not Democrats; it is not Republicans; it is the intelligence community--that they are trying to interfere again, this time in the 2020 election, including with these attacks on Vice President Biden, and they are saying this now. And active Russian agents, like Mr. Derkach, apparently are having press conferences. I heard a report that he may have had one today. So Members of the Senate--again, this is a matter of public record-- have been presented with specific warnings about these Kremlin-backed conspiracies and lies again and again, including in classified settings. As I wrap this up, I would only ask that Members of this great institution reflect on that. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise in support of this resolution offered by the Democratic leader. We are calling for an end to a horribly flawed congressional investigation. The foreign threats to our democracy--attempts to poison it with disinformation and to sow distrust--are an established matter of fact. It is especially troubling because for periods over the last year, two Senate committees have conducted an investigation involving Ukraine, former Vice President Biden, and his son Hunter: the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, led by our colleague from Wisconsin, Chairman Johnson; and our colleague from Iowa, Chairman Grassley, of the Finance Committee, in which I am the ranking Democrat. My staff has joined in interviews and received documents pertinent to the investigation. Given my Finance Committee role and my position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, I am unable to discuss classified information or details of an ongoing inquiry. However, I can discuss public information about the spread of Russian propaganda and the pathway it is following from Russian agents, through the U.S. Senate, to the American people. The Russian Government is again interfering in our election. This has been confirmed by our intelligence community. Its interference campaign includes disinformation about Vice President Biden and the work he was doing to fight corruption in Ukraine. To spread this disinformation, Russia enlists the help of characters like Andriy Derkach and Andriy Telizhenko. Derkach has been identified by American counterintelligence as an active agent for Russian intelligence. This agent, instead of being treated as a foreign enemy, has met personally with the President's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to further his task of undermining elections in America. I am not sure, colleagues, what you should call an American who aids a Russian agent, but counselor to the President is certainly not it. In August, the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center issued a threat assessment on foreign threats to our election. It identified Derkach as a Kremlin-linked actor involved with attempting to denigrate former Vice President Biden. On September 3, Senator Schumer and I wrote a letter, along with several of our Democratic colleagues, urging the Treasury Department to issue sanctions against Derkach. It did so the following week, describing his role in what it called ``a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election.'' Telizhenko is yet another Giuliani associate who, according to press accounts, American counterintelligence has identified as a conduit for Russian attacks on our elections. He has also been a star witness in the Johnson-Grassley investigation Derkach and Telizhenko have released what appears to be heavily edited portions of phone calls Vice President Biden held with Ukrainian officials in the course of his anti-corruption work. Some were released on the very same day. Telizhenko is promising further releases. Telizhenko also told the Washington Post that he forwarded more than 100 emails to staff on Senator Johnson's committee and answered their questions. Our colleague from South Carolina, Senator Graham, was involved in the earliest stages of the Johnson-Grassley inquiry in 2019, but in February of 2020, Chairman Graham said: ``I called the attorney general this morning and Richard Burr, [then, of course] chairman of the Intel Committee, and they told me take very cautiously anything coming out of the Ukraine against anybody.'' The disinformation that these two have spread--Derkach and Telizhenko have spread--the disinformation these two have spread, largely a collection of unproven allegations and wild conspiracy theories, has obviously made it into many media outlets in the country all too willing to spread the products of Russian intelligence. It has been circulated by the President's own legal team. From there, that disinformation became the basis of much of the work of the Johnson-Grassley inquiry. I am going to have more to say on the details of that investigation in the days ahead, but for now, I will say this: Chairman Johnson has repeatedly claimed in the media that he has uncovered new and damaging information about Vice President Biden's activity in Ukraine. This is simply not true. Nothing I have seen--not one bit of evidence--could lead to the conclusion that Vice President Biden did anything wrong in Ukraine. What I have seen is a monthlong investigation that still has no legitimate basis, burning through an incredible amount of manpower and taxpayer-funded resources. Neither of these committees, by the way, under the rules of the Senate, have any jurisdiction over our diplomatic ties with Ukraine. It has no legislative purpose. This investigation, as I have pointed out on a number of occasions, also is happening under a clear double standard that has favored Republicans in the Senate and stonewalled oversight by Democrats. In my view, that is a sign that the flimsy accusations made against the Vice President can't stand up to real scrutiny. The real nature of this inquiry has been clear all along. It began as a counterprogramming during the impeachment trial, and the urgency behind the investigation really almost seemed to die out when the trial ended. It only returned--and again, these are facts. All of these are facts. It only returned when the Vice President established himself as the Democratic frontrunner. The day after the Biden victory in the South Carolina primary, Chairman Johnson sent a letter to the committee announcing his intention to kick-start the investigation with a subpoena. So now what I am going to do is outline what Senator Johnson said in his own words, because I think that is also very important as Senators consider this resolution. These are Senator Johnson's words specifically. My colleague said in March: ``[I]f I were a Democrat primary voter, I'd want these questions satisfactorily answered before I cast my final vote.'' The chairman said in August: ``I would think it would certainly help Donald Trump win reelection and certainly be pretty good, I would say, evidence about not voting for Vice President Biden.'' He said in September: ``Stay tuned. In about a week we're going to learn a whole lot more of Vice President Biden's unfitness for office.'' Furthermore, the chairman, in my view, looking again at the public record, cannot credibly take issue with the work the Vice President was doing because he supported it publicly at the time. In June 2014, at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Ukraine, Chairman Johnson stated: ``If we have to tie aid or help to make sure that anti-corruption laws are passed, I think we should do it.'' In 2016, Chairman Johnson wrote a letter with a bipartisan group of members of the Senate Ukraine Caucus to former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The letter reads: Succeeding in these reforms will show Russian President Putin that an independent, transparent and democratic Ukraine can and will succeed. It also offers a stark alternative to the authoritarianism and oligarchic cronyism prevalent in Russia. As such, we respectfully ask that you address the serious concerns raised-- And we are talking here about the Minister of Economic Development and Trade. We similarly urge you to press ahead with urgent reforms to the Prosecutor General's Office and Judiciary. So these are the words, colleagues, the words of the chairman of the committee. That is why Senator Schumer and I believe this investigation, the Johnson-Grassley investigation, is baseless. We have brought forward a resolution that we believe is important to defending our democracy. It comes down to a question of what we want campaigns and elections to be all about. In my view--and I have always said this--right at the core of my being, I want elections about our best ideas. That is why I serve on the Finance Committee, to try to come up with the best ideas in healthcare, taxes, trade, and the like. Elections ought to be about our best ideas and having real debates and not attacking the other side with farfetched foreign misinformation, especially at a time when the American people are dealing with the crushing weight of one crisis stacked on another. There are 200,000 Americans who have died of COVID-19. I couldn't disagree more with the President's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. We have seen so much economic hurt. I championed on the floor and, for a while, we had bipartisan support for basically bringing unemployment into the relevant century and getting an extra $600 per week to people and covering gig workers and all kinds of other people. Yet, still, the economy has collapsed, and millions are out of work. My Oregon neighbors--a number of them--have seen their communities reduced to ashes. Thousands and thousands of homes and businesses have been lost. There has been a national outcry against racism and violence against Black Americans. Our elections are supposed to be about those kinds of issues, and in all of them, what I have tried to do is devote my public service to bringing people together and getting parties to find common ground on the best ideas of how to make changes in these areas. Now, that sure seems to me to be what the Senate should be all about rather than baseless attacks and foreign disinformation. I urge my colleagues to support the resolution that Senator Schumer and I have championed. It is long past time for this badly flawed investigation by our colleagues to end. As in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of a resolution opposing efforts to launder Russian disinformation through the Congress, which is at the desk. I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, because of raging fires in my home State of Oregon, many communities in my home State have been reduced to ashes. A number of others are experiencing what is known as the ice box effect, where, in effect, smoke blocks out the Sun, and it gets quite cool. Virtually all of Oregon is now choking on smoke--that is whether you are inside or outside at this point. Countless thousands of Oregonians are under evacuation orders. Many are quite literally fleeing for their lives and abandoning their homes as the flames approach. When I was home this weekend, I initially thought that a number of my communities had been hit by a wrecking ball. That really understates the situation because usually when you get hit by a wrecking ball, there is a little bit left that is not just ashes. Now thousands of people in my State have lost their homes. They have lost their businesses. They have lost lifelong memories. I brought a flag to a family who lost in one of the fires the service flag of a loved one that they had cherished, and it just struck me that it is those kinds of memories, and losing them, that are as painful in many instances as losing houses and businesses. The death toll has been rising. Others are still missing and unaccounted for. Amid all the panic and loss, one of the aspects that left me, as I came back to Washington, with a bit of hope is that we lost so much, but we didn't lose our spirit. We didn't lose what we call the Oregon Way--neighbor helping neighbor, volunteers helping evacuees get food and water and shelter. Everybody steps up when a crisis arrives; nobody cares a whit about anybody's politics. I have come to the floor today with a specific purpose, and that is to ask the Senate to match the same standard I saw of volunteers, neighbors, and Oregonians helping Oregonians this weekend, to show the same kind of can-do spirit. The Presiding Officer of the Senate is new to this body. He has a State with a lot of rural terrain. I am going to be asking him and every Member of the Senate, all 100 of us, to say: Let's make today the day when the Senate chose to finally get serious about fire that has harmed so many these last few weeks. Let's make this the day when the Senate chose to take a dilapidated and out-of-date fire policy and replace it with a modern strategy for the real, on-the-ground conditions that have caused fires to magnify the pain that is being felt by millions today. The reason I am making this request of the Senate--that the Senate replace the way forest policy has been made in the past--is that those past processes--and, as my colleague already knows since he has been here now, the Senate moves often with glacially slow Senate processes, and those processes are now being totally overwhelmed by the massive infernos that are blanketing our communities and blanketing the West with smoke that is literally up to our eyeballs. The Presiding Officer in the Senate is a tall fellow. I am 6 feet 4 inches. That is what I felt this weekend. I and everybody else had smoke up to our eyeballs. The process the Senate has for dealing with these new kinds of forest calamities--and there is no other way to describe it--those old procedures lack the urgency, lack the speed, lack, frankly, the resolute discipline for the incredibly big job that needs to be done and done quickly. So today I want to begin by offering three policies that I believe could be supported by every Senator, Democrats and Republicans. The first is that Congress should pass a 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps Act. I have actually seen press in Missouri calling for this kind of approach, where young people are involved, securing jobs where they pay a living wage, and they can go in and shore up these communities threatened by fire. I want to emphasize that, having served on the Energy Committee now for several years, having authored the two major bills in the forestry area--the bill with Senator Crapo--so we no longer waste so much money not budgeting for fire, brought about the end of fire borrowing so the big fires get taken care of in the disaster fund--don't shortchange prevention--and then secure rural schools, which I think is also a policy that benefits people all over the country in rural forested areas. I will just offer the first. All over America, there are millions of acres of overstocked timber stands. They are hazardous fuels. It is urgent that we go in there, and we can use these hard-working young people to clean out those overstocked stands and reduce the risk of fire. Fire is inevitable. I know of no bill--none--that can abolish fire. The question is, Can we take concrete steps to reduce the suffering and the damage of these big fires? (Ms. ERNST assumed the Chair.) I just gave one example of what the 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps could do. In my home State, there are more than 2 million acres backlogged in terms of these hazardous fuels that need to be reduced. You could have the 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps--thousands of young people--going into every State and taking action to reduce these risks. There are a lot of other things that could be done by the 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps. I learned this weekend that we are going to need to deploy new cell phone connectivity because a lot of people have lost those connections. In fact, one of the challenges in trying to determine how many people we have lost is that we believe when the fires first hit, a lot of people went to a friend's house and then the friend is not able to communicate because they lost cell phone connectivity. This is about having young people work on communications, having them clean out hazardous fuels, and having them work on stabilizing soils to prevent massive flooding, because, make no mistake about it, all over the West--in Oregon, Washington, and California--we are going to need those soil stabilization projects to prevent massive flooding this spring. As sure as the night follows the day, it will be a problem. Using the 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps, we can deploy folks into the forest and into our wildland-urban areas, where there is a connection--an interface--because we have a lot of fires in those areas, and the Civilian Conservation Corps can reduce hazardous fuels, prevent catastrophic fires, and they can do it on a grand scale. An ideal part of it and one of the reasons I think this will appeal to Democrats and Republicans is there doesn't have to be a fight over carrying out our nation's environmental laws. As I mentioned, in Oregon alone, there was already a backlog of more than 2 million acres that need to be treated. Without those treatments, a lightning strike or a carelessly dropped match can start yet another inferno. Just picture that. After everything that we had over the last few days, you have all of these hazardous fuels built up and you have a lightning strike or a carelessly dropped match and, all of a sudden, you have ripped through thousands of other acres in the blink of an eye. Oregon's forests and the forests of the West badly need this care and investment. It would really be an updated version of one of the most popular programs the government has ever pursued, that came out of the New Deal, and it would be a huge economic boost to rural communities--I see the Presiding Officer from the State of Iowa--rural communities that feel like government has left them behind. That is my first proposal--the first of three--that I believe can help us come together as a Senate to reduce the devastating toll of these fires that are not your grandfather's fires. They are bigger and they are hotter and they are more powerful. We can do it together. The second area that I want to see the Senate focus on is addressing that the fires mean a lot more than spending all your money on just putting big fires out. Forest science has shown that wildfires are a part of the natural life cycle of certain parts of the Nation. If all you do is focus on putting out fires all the time, you disrupt the cycle and that can lead to bigger fires down the road. But America no longer gets just manageable natural fires. Instead, we get these huge infernos like the ones we have in Oregon, fires that are hot enough to melt a car and sterilize the soil. I ask the Presiding Officer to imagine how hot it has to be to melt a car. There is a need for another tool to help reduce the devastating effect of these great fires. It is supported by scientists who have been looking at the various tools for dealing with these horrors-- Democrats, Republicans--and it basically involves a prescribed fire that can be done safely in the off-seasons, say, in the winter months. During those months, there is less risk of spread. You can limit the smoke. Civilian Conservation Corps workers working with the scientists at the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Oregon Department of Forestry, collaboratives, and our counties can carefully target these prescribed fires during the off-season and help prevent catastrophic fires in the summer and the fall by using the concept to clean out the dead and dying undergrowth. Here is the essence of my second proposition. If you use prescribed fire to burn a little when it is safe in th off-season, you can save a whole lot later on by preventing catastrophe during those hotter months of summer and fall. I have a bill that I have been developing with the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. I would say to my colleagues that this approach, like the 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps, will be ready for cosponsors later this week. I am going to be going to all of my colleagues to ask for support for this second commonsense approach to catastrophe avoidance. The third proposal brings it all together. Congress must finally kick its aversion to making long-term budget investments in treatment and fire prevention. Managing our forests requires an investment that we essentially look to beyond the next 36 hours. Managing our forests for wildfire resilience needs to be approached as a longer term proposition, one that can make our communities safer while generating jobs--timber for mills, improving recreation opportunities. And yet this has been an investment the Senate has been unwilling to spend. Clearly, not enough has been done to deal with fire prevention. The fact that the Congress has constantly been shorting fire prevention is contributing to what is being seen in Oregon and throughout the West right now. Shorting fire prevention is the wrong way to go, and this item, No. 3, is literally a matter of life and death. Somehow, this Senate can produce hundreds of billions of dollars for tax breaks for special interests. There are outrageous, indefensible subsidies for fossil fuels that compound the climate crisis. Senator Crapo and I--my colleague who sits just a few feet away, the Republican of Idaho--worked for years in a bipartisan way to end what is called ``fire borrowing.'' This is actually the first year when our bill has gone into effect. It got to the point where we needed over 300 citizens' groups to pass this bill because so often the big fires were fought with prevention money--money borrowed from the prevention accounts, and then the fire just got worst. Senator Crapo and I said that is foolish, even by Washington, DC, standards. We were able to get a special fund created where the big fires would be fought from the disaster fund. But still, even with the beginning that Senator Crapo and I have made on a bipartisan basis, the budget for fire preparedness and prevention is still so woefully short. More has to be done to limit the damage from staggeringly powerful forest fires, and one of the best ways to do it is to start building up that prevention fund that Senator Crapo and I started here in the U.S. Senate. We laid the foundation, but it is clearly not enough. I checked, actually, a couple of days ago. There are $3 billion now in the fund for fire suppression. We are sure going to need that because we have scores of fires still burning in Oregon, but we are going to need to build up preventive funds. And still, prevention as of today, September of 2020, is woefully underfunded. The Forest Service has the technical tools it needs to improve forest health and to reduce the risk of fire, but, as I mentioned, there is a 2 million-acre backlog just in Oregon. Multiply that all over the West or all over the country where there are forests that are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government and it is pretty clear that America has to decide it is urgent business to build up the budget for fire prevention. By allowing the fire prevention backlog I have described to build, Congress is just racking up more debt--dangerous debt--and the devastation and the smoke in Oregon and across the West today is the debt coming due. For those of us in the West who fear it is going to be impossible to pay the enormous bill that we have been handed through a combination of lousy forestry science and a disinterest in real policies that reduce climate change, we know the job is going to be hard, but we can and must do it by coming together like I saw Oregonians do just this last weekend. Before I wrap up, I want to mention that there sure have been some misguided priorities on all sides of the political spectrum. On one side, some of the timber industry skipped past active management to pursue the golden calf of eliminating environmental laws. On the other side, misguided nonmanagement priorities beat back every attempt to manage our forests based on science. Now add to that the ridiculous new lies and delusions you are seeing online about the causes of these fires, and you have a recipe for distraction as to how the Senate must move forward. Just today, while visiting California, the President was asked about climate change and fires. He said: No problem. The President said, ``It'll start getting cooler,'' and then he blamed ``explosive trees.'' Sending that kind of nonsense across the land is cold comfort to the families who are mourning the loved ones they have lost in the fires or the thousands of Oregonians who barely made it out before their homes and businesses went up in flames. The Senate has an obligation to act because around this country--and it is not just in my State but across the West--big-hearted neighbors, animal lovers, county employees, city administrators, local U-Haul businesses, teachers, nurses, and retirees--all of them--are stepping up and pitching in. They are bringing food and clothes and towels, and they are helping with mental health services. Before I wrap up, I particularly want to thank the incredible firefighters who are working on hardly any sleep, and I thank the first responders, the police and others who are doing so much. One issue they are helping with is cell phones and service. My staff and others in the delegation have been working with these folks. I see my friend from Virginia, who knows a lot about what it takes to maintain communications networks, and that is what we are working on this afternoon. One problem that has come up is networks and equipment burn. There is a major strain on the resources for the people on the frontlines who are fighting the inferno--for example, with the repeaters that can amplify a signal and keep our firefighters connected. I am hearing that this country doesn't have enough repeaters in stock to begin to address such a crisis that the West is experiencing. It is another example of what happens when, year after year, you ignore the urgent need for serious fire prevention. Before I left Oregon, I told some friends that I was going to come back and try to bring the Senate together around fire prevention. One said: Well, you are going to be Mr. Fire Prevention. I said: No, that is not how it works. I would like to make this the Senate that is known for fire prevention and the Senate that said, between there and here, there are 100 U.S. Senators, and we have differences of opinion. Lord knows that this is the case. But I offered concrete proposals, 21st Century Conservation Corps-prescribed changes in the budget that Democrats and Republicans can come together on. The reason I say that is that we have already done it. That is how Senator Crapo and I ended fire borrowing. I close with this: What I saw this weekend was heartbreaking-- thousands of families mourning unthinkable loss, trying to figure out how to move forward when their homes and their possessions had been reduced to ash. Yet, when you talk to them, they will tell you that they also know that the problem is not going to get better all by itself--I know there are Senators who want to debate this--and that is because the climate crisis is here, right now, today. It is no longer a far-off hypothetical danger for Senators to debate in comfortably air-conditioned buildings. The American West--my State-- is on fire. Whole neighborhoods and whole communities are being reduced to ashes. Our air quality has had the dubious recognition over the last couple of days of being some of the worst in the world. The climate crisis is happening now to us and to our kids. America and the Senate ignore it at our peril. I brought today three concrete proposals that I think make a serious contribution to reducing the pain and suffering that have been seen across Oregon and across the West over the last couple of days. I want this to be the day the Senate gets serious about fire prevention as part of a comprehensive effort to fight the climate crisis. The ideas I have outlined--the three major proposals--ought to become law soon, and they ought to have bipartisan support. They are policies that will protect our communities and the families who live in them and that will protect jobs, protect homes, and protect businesses. They sure are a lot cheaper because they will prevent fires rather than force a bigger pricetag when we need to rebuild communities out of the ashes. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the Senate Republicans have spent much of this week offering this idea of a 1-week extension of the $600 unemployment insurance supplement. They have done this as an alternative to spending the week doing real negotiating, which is what I and many Senate Democrats have been calling for, for not just days but weeks and weeks--literally, months--as we called for an advanced proposal. In my view, the only thing worse than what the Republicans have done, cutting off desperately needed unemployment insurance to millions of families and communities, would be to allow a bill to pass that promises money without actually delivering it. That is snake oil, and I am going to be very specific in describing why that is the case. Even if this short-term extension were to pass, experts and State agencies have said in very clear terms that States don't have enough time to reprogram their systems and avoid a lapse in benefits. A lot of them just have, as my colleague from Ohio knows--I was talking about it for days in the Finance Committee room--that these State unemployment systems are not equipped to switch the benefits on and off. These short-term extensions won't work and don't work administratively. Nobody following this debate has to take my word for it. That is what the National Association of State Workforce Agencies have said. I think there was a comment about, well, this is an image problem. It is a problem of the national media. Well, I would say, colleagues, the national media has been repeating what I just said, which are the exact views of people who aren't Democrats or Republicans, they are the administrators of this crucial program. A short-term extension isn't enough for the hard-working Americans relying on this lifeline who don't have jobs to go back to. What about next week and the week after? There is going to be promises for week after week that also can't get the money to people so they can make rent and buy groceries. The only responsible route is to agree to the extension that really looks to economic conditions, ties these benefits to economic conditions and then lower the payments only when it is appropriate to do so, and that means when the economy is in recovery, not when it is facing the kind of dramatic contraction that we all were so concerned about last week. To me, this is all part of an effort to deflect the fact that when I--and I am just going to talk about myself specifically--but Senator Schumer, the Speaker sent letter after letter calling for negotiations because everybody knew there was a cliff. I said it repeatedly. I said: Don't go home, Leader McConnell. Stay here. This cliff is coming, end of July, last weekend, when people got the checks. So there was a comment about unemployed folks being pushed off the cliff. Well, I am here to tell you, it was Senate Republicans by their inaction who pushed those workers off the cliff. Now, what is needed is a long-term solution that ensures the extra $600 remains available for as long as this devastating crisis continues. I heard my colleagues talk about workers. A lot of workers who were laid off once and then brought back have been laid off again. That is really representative of the challenge. I also want to mention, as we talk about ideas--I heard my colleagues talk about it--another big snake oil idea coming out of the White House that somehow an Executive order is going to accomplish all of this. We hear the words ``Executive order.'' That sounds like it is going to be fast. Man, that sounds good. Executive order; let's move fast. In actuality, it would throw the States in chaos. It would be tied up in the courts. It would slow everything down, just like each of the Senate Republican legislative proposals so far. For example, they all still try to drive the idea of wage replacement. We have seen problems with getting the amount out initially, the $600. Wait until you see what happens with the Republican wage proposals. There is a path here, and that is to negotiate in good faith. My Republican colleagues have been stalling on negotiating in good faith because they thought somehow--and I find this a real head-scratcher-- they could win a war of words by insulting the American worker and claiming that they are kind of lazy, that they don't want to work and the like. I will tell you, on the Finance Committee, I hear continually from my friend from Ohio who talks about the superior work ethic of Ohioans. Now he is out here talking about how everybody is not willing to work and unemployment benefits are causing folks to stay home rather than work because they are too generous. I think that is just a bunch of hogwash. I believe Americans believe deeply in the dignity of work. We just had a nationwide townhall meeting about the unemployment issue, and people were saying: I can't believe they are calling us lazy and saying we don't want to work. I get a job offer on Monday night, and I will be up there at the crack of dawn on Tuesday. That is what workers are saying. So this idea that they are staying home because they don't want to work--besides, it is a violation of the rules of the program as well--I think is just hogwash. I would also like to put into the Record right now the latest assessment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics about what is really going on out here, because the issue is not workers being lazy; the issue is scarcity of jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics--again, not a political operation--has reported that there are four unemployed Americans for every job out there. Let me repeat that. Not politicians. Not anecdotes. Not somebody who said something to somebody else. Those are the facts, colleagues. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there are four unemployed Americans for every job out there. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis showing the paucity of jobs

Mr. WYDEN. I will just say that I am stunned that colleagues are saying that American workers are out trying to scam the system and really don't want to work and all of these things that I think suggest a very different picture than what I hear from workers and, by the way, what I hear from my friend from Ohio when he is in the Finance Committee. I have a final point. The Republicans knew the cliff was coming in May when the House passed the Heroes Act. They knew the cliff was coming in June. I am just going to walk this through because I heard: Oh my goodness, all of the Democrats are involved in pushing workers off the cliff. The Republicans knew the cliff was coming in May. That is when the House passed their bill. They knew the cliff was coming a few weeks after that when Senator Schumer and I introduced and tried to get passed a piece of legislation that was really based, I say to my friend from Ohio--and something I heard our friend from South Dakota, Senator Thune, talk about--Senator Thune said: You know, I get it. When folks are hurting, the benefits have to be used to pay the rent and buy groceries. But when unemployment goes down, the benefit should taper down. That is essentially what the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, and I offered--to tie unemployment insurance to the realities of what is on the ground in the American economy. Republicans knew the cliff was coming in May. They knew a few weeks later that Senator Schumer and I tried to actually pass a bill that, as I developed it and brought it to our leadership and showed it to colleagues, was really to a great extent sparked by what our friend from South Dakota, a Member of the Republican leadership, said: Well, let's kind of recognize that when the economy gets better, the benefit tapers off. Republicans knew the cliff was coming in July when again Leader Schumer and I tried to provide certainty for American families and communities by passing our bill. Did they come to the table with earnest proposals? Senate Republicans have spent the week on this idea of a 1-week extension, which the people who run the programs--the people who are the most knowledgeable, who don't have election certificates, who are experts in the field--are saying would not deliver to the people who are desperate to buy groceries and pay rent. It would not deliver the funds they so desperately need for quite some time. These proposals are not serious. They are political theater. The cliff is here. As Americans families fall over it, I am just stunned that we are hearing Republicans say: You know, it is OK to offer these proposals. I have seen a number in elevators, leaving town. I am going to be here. I am going to be here because I think when workers are hurting and they can't make rent and they can't pay groceries, you stay at it. The Senator from Ohio knows that is how we got to $600, because when Secretary Scalia folded his arms and said he couldn't really do anything that would present a real benefit, we spent 3 days--3 long days--and we said on our side: You are not going to stiff the workers, and we will just average the benefit. Some would get more, some would get less, but we would give everybody in America who, through no fault of their own, has been laid off a chance to pay the rent, buy groceries, and at the same time keep the economy afloat. For all of those reasons, and especially reflecting my disappointment that after--and I just walked everybody through it--one effort to go and negotiate; a couple of weeks later, another effort; then in July, another effort. But nothing happened. In fact, I stood right where I am, as benefits were about to expire, and I said: How can the Republican leader basically say we are going home? When they asked him about moving anything to really meet the needs of the workers, the press reported--everybody was quoting the press--that the Republican leader laughed. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, excuse me. I object.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Senator Stabenow said some time ago that this is not just another Thursday. She and my eloquent colleagues, Senator Coons and Senator Hassan, who has just left the floor, have shown how painfully true Senator Stabenow's statement is about letting this not be just another Thursday here in the Senate. With Republican colleagues headed home for the weekend, perhaps for weeks, I want to take stock for a moment of all of the very crises the country faces while American families and communities don't have the luxury of a weekend. There is the COVID crisis, which Senator Stabenow and Senator Coons just talked about, with more than 50,000 newly confirmed cases and 1,000 or more deaths a day with a total of 4\1/2\ million cases in our country to date. There is the joblessness crisis. Enhanced unemployment benefits have expired. Tens of millions of Americans are out of work, with millions walking on economic tightropes. My colleagues are reading the letters. This is not based on some kinds of media reports. They are reading directly from what their constituents are saying, and I want to make sure everybody knows this, having listened now for days to our colleagues saying that the big problem is that somehow the American worker doesn't actually want to work. Senator Stabenow and I have heard that repeatedly in the Finance Committee room. I think it is insulting to the American worker. We had a nationwide townhall sponsored by the Town Hall Project on unemployment issues recently, and people would say things such as this: If I heard about a job on Monday night, I would be there at the crack of dawn on Tuesday morning to get that position. So, as we take stock of these crises, the COVID crisis, the joblessness crisis, I think what we ought to do is add the crisis of legislative malpractice that we are seeing with this Senate Republican walkout today, heading home instead of working, as Senator Coons has said, in a bipartisan way to get the coronavirus rescue bill. I have not seen anything like this in my time in public service: The biggest public health disaster in over a century, the worst level of unemployment since the Depression, an economy that barely holds on, and tomorrow's jobs report will almost certainly show that any hope for a V-shaped recovery that Donald Trump talked about is long gone. Republicans delayed and sat on their hands for months. I think the Presiding Officer heard me walk everybody through the calendar, how weeks passed, months passed. We made offer after offer for negotiation. Senator Schumer and I developed a proposal that to a great extent was based on some of the thinking of Senator Thune. I always think of my friend from Delaware, who is the champion of bipartisanship. That proposal was based on Senator Coon's--excuse me, Senator Thune's thought that, you know, if unemployment is high, people need a benefit so they can make the rent and pay for groceries. Then Senator Thune said: But, you know, when unemployment goes down, the benefits should reflect that as well. He said that. So Senator Schumer and I wrote the unemployment insurance bill to reflect that. The unemployment benefits would be tied to economic conditions on the ground. Yet what we have seen is that somehow Senate Republicans can now leave in good conscience for the weekend, possibly the August recess, when the Senate hasn't passed a bill to help all of those Americans who are sick and jobless. Our job is to legislate on the big issues, not to run home and campaign. Our job is to sit down, negotiate, and find solutions. Mitch McConnell, on the basis of this morning's newspaper, doesn't seem to even show up at the negotiating table. Now, as I mentioned, we have been warning for days and weeks and months that enhanced unemployment benefits were going to expire at the end of July. Republicans sat on their hands. Earlier, we heard Senate Republicans talk about how they had a 1-week proposal which, of course, wouldn't--based on the unemployment experts--get any real help to people who need that money for rent and groceries anytime soon. The Senate Republicans said: You know, workers are going over the cliff. Well, the fact that Republicans have sat this debate out is what pushed those workers over the cliff--pushed them over the cliff--as we warned week after week after week that the economy was cratering and permanent layoffs are increasing. Senator Merkley has joined us. We hear all the time at home and in the Pacific Northwest about people who got laid off once, things seemed to be getting better, they got brought back, and they were laid off again. So it seems--when Senator Stabenow points out that this is not just another Thursday in the Senate--that the economy is headed in the wrong direction. I am just going to spend a couple of minutes, as we talk about this issue of how things are definitely not right here on this Thursday in the Senate, on the question of what would it take for Senate Republicans to get serious about working with us on a coronavirus bill now? How bad would it have to get? One-quarter of a million Americans' lives lost? Half a million? How many jobless? 40 million? 50 million? Does the economy need to contract even more than it did in the second quarter before Senate Republicans say they are going to work with Democrats to help the economy and help the Congress? Back in March, there was a basic deal between the American people and the government to try to make sure that there was an effort to try to provide help for people as the pandemic took hold in this country. Senator Stabenow and I were sort of the point people as it related to the big issues in the Finance Committee. Senator Stabenow, doing her usually terrific job on the big health issues, and I spent days and days hearing essentially from the Labor Secretary, Secretary Scalia, about how he really wasn't going to push hard for much of anything except business as usual. But after that difficult period that went on for days and days in the Finance Committee, we actually got the $600 extra per week, each week, and modernized the unemployment program. As Senator Stabenow knows, back when the program began in the 1930s, nobody knew about a gig worker or the self-employed, or the independent contractor, or freelancers, and the like. There was a sense that we would be working on unemployment for a long time, particularly the way it was administered, because the States have these kinds of bronze-age technologies. One of the frustrating parts of this period is that even though millions and millions of Americans have gotten those extra benefits, that is really cold comfort to the many people who haven't been able to get through the system and who haven't been able, call after call after call, to get their claim resolved. Yet there was the beginning, based on that vote, of a strategy to help people get through the economic hardship. Right now, the Trump administration and Republicans in the Congress are breaking that deal. The virus is out of control, spiking in so many States. The key economic lifeline for jobless Americans is getting yanked away. It is just unconscionable. And, now, just in the last few hours, there is talk that Donald Trump is looking at possibly tomorrow, Senator Stabenow, tearing up the Constitution and ordering a cut in the Social Security and Medicare tax on his own. This will not give a dime to the millions of families who have lost jobs during the pandemic but will put thousands of dollars in the pockets of every lawyer and wheeler-dealer who can pay themselves a salary while sitting at home. What really concerns us--and I have been involved in these issues since my Gray Panthers days--is one thing that Donald Trump is talking about, Senator Stabenow, and that is draining the Social Security trust fund and bringing closer the day when Social Security benefits will be cut. So for all of those people who are, say, in their late fifties, and they have worked so hard and done difficult labor year after year after year just hoping--hoping--to be able to get Social Security, now Donald Trump is talking about draining the Social Security trust fund, cutting the Social Security and Medicare tax on his own. It sure seems like he has a monopoly on bad ideas. He is also talking about some kind of Executive order on enhanced unemployment benefits, which he actually doesn't have the authority to issue--one more Donald Trump ``con'' oil, an additional bit of snake oil. With respect to the unemployment issue and his idea of an Executive order, what he would do there is throw State workforce agencies into chaos. As we talked about, so many States have faced real challenges in getting benefits out to all the deserving Americans. We have been trying, on the Finance Committee. Senator Stabenow has been a big champion of improving technology. We got $1 billion for the State agencies. We are trying to get more. Donald Trump's proposal would just end up hurting the jobless Americans counting on benefits even more. If Donald Trump were serious about extending enhanced unemployment coverage, he would be working with Democrats on extending the benefits instead of fighting them. I am going to close with this, and it is a response to something I have heard from many of my Republican colleagues who seem to have recovered their sense of fiscal conservatism that disappeared when Donald Trump was inaugurated. I heard some of them say that passing another COVID bill would amount to sacrificing our children's futures. Here is what is worse for American children: growing up at a time when their parents can't find good-paying jobs because of double-digit unemployment, getting evicted from their homes in the middle of a pandemic and becoming homeless, having to skip meals because their family can't afford enough food each month, going to school in a district that laid off teachers and staff due to the coronavirus recession, which means packing too many kids into classrooms, which can be dangerous. Let's forget about all of that same old Republican deficit talk. It is the same old routine from a decade ago and a decade before that and a decade before that. The Republican deficit talk was nowhere to be found when they passed--over the opposition of Democrats on the Finance Committee--a $2 trillion tax handout overwhelmingly benefiting multinational corporations and the wealthy. Americans struggle with the pandemic and the joblessness crisis right now. The Senate needs to deal with it right now. As Senator Stabenow said--she eloquently launched this important discussion, and I know my friend from Oregon is here to be part of it-- it is certainly not another Thursday in the Senate, not another garden- variety, end of the week when you have enhanced unemployment benefits expiring, and 160,000 Americans dying. It is unthinkable--unthinkable-- that anybody could be going home when there are so many challenges right in front of us. I hope the majority leader, Senator McConnell, and my Republican colleagues understand the power of what Senator Stabenow has basically outlined, because there are times on a Thursday afternoon in the Senate where I think you could say you wouldn't have the kinds of challenges we are talking about. This is not one of them. This is one where, on issue after issue, there are crises: the COVID crisis, the joblessness crisis, and now we have a legislative malpractice crisis by Senator McConnell leading his Senators. I urge him to come back, work with us, bring about the negotiations we need, as I said again and again, on unemployment. I am not going anywhere--not anywhere. This is one of the most important causes I have ever had the opportunity to be a part of. Even with all of the challenges with unemployment, I can only imagine, Senator Stabenow, how much more hurt there would be in America without those millions of people getting the money for groceries and rent and paying medical bills and car insurance and keeping the lights on. We need the majority leader and Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate to work with us. There is no time to waste. They ought to be recognizing the power of what Senators have said here today. That negotiating needs to take place now rather than having yet another break for Senators to pursue other kinds of matters I thank my colleagues. I yield the floor.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object.