Peter Welch

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I move to proceed to S.J. Res. 134, which would restore the CFPB's rule to ensure that consumers are granted critical protections when they are using ``buy now, pay later'' loans.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, the CFPB promulgated a rule to protect whistleblowers. Whistleblowers have historically revealed information about abusive practices and rip-offs in organizations where they had the ability to see what happened and to stand up to protect the rule of law and to stop rip-offs. The biggest proponent of whistleblower protection in this Chamber is our President pro tempore Senator Grassley, and I have such admiration for him in his steadfast commitment to whistleblowers. The corporations that don't like whistleblowers are now forcing them to sign nondisclosure agreements that are overly broad, and it means that a whistleblower has no protections because they are being threatened with lawsuits, and they are being threatened that they are going to be accused of breaking the law or that they are engaged in corporate misconduct if they essentially blow the whistle on bad practices that are hurting the people we represent. I don't know why the Trump administration rescinded that rule. Whistleblowers, as Senator Grassley has eloquently stated over and over again, protect us, protect the taxpayers, and protect us from abuse of practices. I believe, as Senator Grassley believes, it is absolutely critical for Congress to act to protect whistleblowers. I yield the floor. Vote on Motion to Proceed

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I move to proceed to S.J. Res. 135.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, World Press Freedom Day, observed annually on May 3, is not only a celebration of the world's intrepid journalists, but a reminder that journalists and the free press at large are under attack. In 2025, a record number of journalists and media workers were killed, a somber milestone. International humanitarian law provides clear protection for journalists and civilians, including protection from direct attack and the indiscriminate use of force. International law requires that those engaged in conflict take precautions to verify that targets are lawful, avoid attacks in areas where civilians are present, and facilitate the rapid provision of medical care to the wounded. Two-thirds of the journalists who died last year were killed by Israeli security forces. As of April 23, 2026, at least 258 journalists had been killed by Israeli security forces since Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Since then, journalists have been killed by Israel's retaliatory actions in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran. Israel's pattern of targeted killings is not new or unique to Palestinian and Lebanese journalists. Shireen Abu Akleh was a Palestinian American correspondent for Al-Jazeera. She was fatally shot in the head on May 11, 2022, while covering an Israeli Army operation in the West Bank. Multiple investigations concluded that she was killed by a member of the Israeli Defense Forces. Shortly after, the State Department called for an immediate and thorough investigation in addition to full accountability. To date, there has been no such evidence of an investigation and no accountability. Throughout the war in Gaza, Palestinian journalists have been killed with impunity--207 Palestinian journalists killed, to date. The world witnessed the shocking strikes at Nasser Hospital on August 28, 2025, which claimed the lives of 22 people, including five journalists, and drew global condemnation. The attack was three successive strikes--a tank shell hit the hospital, killing a Reuters cameraman and others. Nine minutes later, as health workers and journalists came to the aid of the injured, Israeli forces fired two more times. Israeli forces have been accused of war crimes for utilizing double- tap strikes, which target first responders and journalists. On October 13, 2023, Dylan Collins, an AFP video journalist from Vermont, was fired on by Israeli soldiers in a deadly double-tap attack, despite wearing clear press insignia. The attack killed Reuters journalists Issam Abdallah and wounded several others in the group. Despite repeated efforts by myself and my Senate and House colleagues, there has been no credible investigation or accountability for Dylan or his colleagues. Just last week, Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was killed by an Israeli strike. She, too, was clearly identifiable as a member of the press. She died after 7 hours of being trapped under rubble. Ambulances attempting to deliver medical care were also fired upon. Her case reflects a pattern and practice of the use of force that disregards the rights and lives of journalists protected under international law. These are only a select few of the tragic stories of journalists killed for simply doing their jobs. While the number of journalists killed in Gaza over the past 2 and a half years is overwhelming, journalists have been threatened, imprisoned, tortured, and killed in many countries, including in our own hemisphere. Press freedom is fragile abroad, and fragile here at home. President Trump's rhetoric and attacks on the press must be condemned. Journalists in the United States have been threatened, attacked, and targeted by their own government for doing their jobs: reporting the truth. We take pride in the First Amendment, and the United States has long been seen as a global defender of freedom of expression. But the situation is becoming worse, not better. The very concept of independence of the media is being challenged. Journalists are regularly subjected to ridicule and denied access to the White House and the Defense Department for merely asking hard questions. Being a journalist is more dangerous today than at any time in history. In recognition of World Press Freedom Day, Congress should pause to remember the lives of journalists killed while reporting and recommit to defending press freedom in our own country and around the world.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of the resolution offered by Senator Kaine and others to prohibit the unauthorized use of American Armed Forces in hostilities against Cuba. Now, some may think this isn't a necessary concern, but to quote the President of the United States, our Commander in Chief: Cuba is next. This is urgent, and it requires immediate attention by the U.S. Senate. Cuba is a bankrupt country. It is the size of Tennessee. It has neither the capacity nor the intention to threaten the United States. And even before the Trump administration cut off oil from Venezuela and started illegally blockading oil shipments to Cuba from other countries, Cuba's economy was barely functioning. Today, electricity is unavailable for most hours of the day across the entire island. Think of what that means for everyday life. It doesn't take much imagination. Just think about what it is like in our own communities when there is a power outage for a period of time. In Cuba, where it is sustained, it is catastrophic. Havana's streets are filled with smoldering garbage. The country is facing economic collapse, literally, and the United States is complicit in that economic collapse. So by causing Cuba's economy to fall apart and leaving millions of Cubans without enough food or access to medical care, the White House hopes to create a national security ``emergency'' to justify regime change, including, if necessary, the use of military force. And we have seen that script play out before with the Trump administration. President Trump has said as much. He has repeatedly threatened to use force against Cuba. Without any legal justification, he said: [I]t may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. Wouldn't really matter because they're really are down to . . . fumes. They have no energy, they have no money. The reason Cuba is ``down to [the] fumes'' is due to its own government, its failed policies. And because of the U.S. oil blockade, both, together, have led to this catastrophic situation. But no American President, under any circumstances, ``friendly'' or ``unfriendly,'' should threaten to take over another sovereign nation. It is Congress's responsibility to reject such a flagrant ``might makes right'' abuse of Executive power. There is plenty of blame to go around for how we got to this point. Cuba's leaders, whose priority is holding onto power, do systematically violate the rights of the Cuban people, and they align themselves--the Cuban leaders--with, ideologically, some of the world's worst regimes. Cuba's centralized economy has practically ruined the country, despite its tropical climate and abundance of rich farmland. For our part--we control our part--the United States has tried to overthrow the Cuban Government by armed invasion, by assassination, by financing Cuban dissidents, and imposing a web of punitive sanctions with extraterritorial reach. So after 65 years of an embargo that has not achieved any of its goals but has exacerbated and tested the daily suffering of the Cuban people who are not our adversary, the United States and Cuba need to find a way to peacefully coexist. A few weeks ago, I outlined what I thought such an agreement would look like. I won't repeat that here, but at the very least, the President should, No. 1, remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which has no legal or factual basis and which no other country agrees with. And the President should pressure Congress to repeal the failed U.S. embargo so Cuba's economic reconstruction can begin. And Cuba's leaders--and they have enormous responsibility here-- should abandon central planning of the economy. It has been an absolute disaster for the Cuban people. And the Cuban Government must release all political dissidents and accept the right of the Cuban people to express themselves freely and without fear of prosecution. Political and economic change in Cuba is long overdue. Neither is sufficient by itself. The Cuban people--90 percent of whom were born after the 1959 revolution--they want leaders who accept the need for fundamental changes in how to govern with greater participation of the people, greater transparency, and greater freedom and real accountability. Rather than threats of a ``takeover,'' the United States should negotiate a solution with Cuba that puts U.S. national interests and the needs and aspirations of the Cuban people first, not the interests of the Cuban Government or American billionaires. I urge my colleagues to support Senator Kaine's resolution. The American people do not want to wake up in the morning to learn that we are at war with Cuba, and I urge the Trump administration and Cuba's leaders to take the steps I have outlined to finally put an end to the decades of hostility between us. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Madam President, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, is a lifesaving program with a long history of bipartisan support from its very first days. LIHEAP was started in the administration of Ronald Reagan, and the program helps people in need heat their homes in the winter and cool their homes in the summer. You know, it is a beautiful day here in DC, but across the country, in many places, it is still very cold and still very hot. LIHEAP was established, as I mentioned, in 1981, by President Ronald Reagan, and it provides funding to States to help low-income households with their energy costs. The program originally just covered heating, but in 1984, it was expanded to cooling, as it should be, because people in the Presiding Officer's State, people in Arizona, Nevada, and many other States are threatened by extreme heat, just as those in cold-weather States, like Vermont, are threatened by extreme cold. This program has been reauthorized many times since its inception, and I am so pleased that it has always been bipartisan, because the folks we represent, whether it is in cold- or warm-weather States, know that people need the security that they are not going to freeze to death or that they are not going to die of heatstroke. And that happens; that is real. And the Americans that rely on LIHEAP to heat their homes in the winter and cool their homes in the summer are very scared. They need help, and their neighbors and friends need help and assurance that this program will continue. President Trump, in his budget, has proposed to zero out the budget for LIHEAP--literally, to end what Ronald Reagan began. And when we are talking about those who do get some help with their heating bills, we are talking about folks who are barely able to pay their bills at the end of the month and often can't. And, again, this is in the Presiding Officer's State and in my State. For a family of four, the eligibility limit is $61,000. For a single mother and a child, it is $40,000. For a single person just trying to get by, it is $29,000. So Vermonters who are struggling to pay their bills themselves but are thinking about neighbors across the country are concerned about this. I had a constituent from Essex, VT, urging me to protect LIHEAP because ``I know it gets awfully cold in North Dakota and . . . Minnesota.'' People in all our States understand how their neighbors and, in many cases, they themselves need this. This is not a luxury. It can be a matter of life and death for hundreds of thousands of Americans, from Montpelier to Fairbanks, AK. You know, this year, Burlington, VT, had its coldest weather in 17 years, with more than 20 straight days of below freezing temperatures. In Fairbanks, Alaskans endured more than 89 days below zero, many days below 30 to 40 degrees below zero. And LIHEAP also provides cooling assistance to families in warm weather climates, like Phoenix, AZ, where more than 100 days a year saw temperatures of 100 degrees. You know, I have gone on some fuel deliveries with the fuel dealers who have a program to provide assistance, and what I know is, Vermonters, when they see that fuel truck show up, are terrified because that is a big, big monthly bill. And without the assistance that we have been providing to people around the country to help them with this, they literally are facing freezing or heatstroke. That is also at a time when our heating bills are going up, and our cooling bills. In December, household energy bills were up by more than 13 percent. The war in Iran has absolutely exacerbated that problem. Gas prices are up more than 30 percent, over $4 a gallon. They are approaching $5 a gallon. More and more commentators believe that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed for much longer, indefinitely. We don't know when. And that is also going to continue the pressure on the price of home heating fuel. You know, I do have a real contention with the administration when President Trump, on the one hand, is zeroing out the home heating assistance program, and cooling assistance as well, but on the other hand, is pursuing policies that are driving up energy costs, as we saw and are seeing with the war in Iran, which has closed the Strait of Hormuz and is crippling the economy but is leading directly to higher home heating fuel costs. And that is in contrast with some of the comments that I can only characterize as cruel and totally ``out of it'' by some of his advisers. Kevin Hassett made a very telling remark to CNBC. Here is what he said: While it's very frustrating to go to the pump and see what the price of gasoline looks like . . . the benefit for oil producers is significant. Seriously? What about your constituents and mine, who are paying the price that is of benefit to the oil producers and then find out that the home heating and cooling assistance help that they had last year is going to be zeroed out this year. That is absolutely outrageous. The only people benefitting from this energy crisis are people in Big Oil. They are making an estimated $30 million windfall every hour. The price goes up. It is painful for consumers and for businesses and for farmers, but it is a windfall for the oil companies. So shouldn't this Congress stand up and provide some help to maintain some sense of security for the people we represent? But by proposing a 100-percent cut to Federal LIHEAP funding, President Trump has made it clear what his priority is. It is accelerating the profits for the oil industry at the expense of people who have absolutely no control over what the price is at the pump, what the price is when that home heating gas or oil is being delivered to their homes. All of us are here and believing that we are fighting for the families that we represent in our States, and I am fighting for Vermont families. Last week, Senator Reed and I filed an amendment to the Republican budget resolution that would protect LIHEAP from this zeroing out in the Trump budget. The amendment was not adopted. But I will keep fighting, and I hope many of my colleagues will join me to protect LIHEAP so that there can be some reassurance to the people who are going to be hammered and threatened by the zeroing out of this program. You know, in the past, Congress has, on a bipartisan basis, rejected the administration's attempts to zero out the LIHEAP budget and illegally fire the staff that oversees the disbursement of LIHEAP funding to the States. That is why we included report language in the fiscal year 2026 bill to require that funds that are allocated to States be distributed on a timely basis. And that is true in Alabama, and it is true in Vermont. And I urge my colleagues to join those of us who want to make certain this fuel assistance is available to families, regardless of whom they voted for, regardless of policy orientation, and regardless of politics. This is not a red State or blue State issue. Americans everywhere are paying for the reckless economic policies in this illegal war, and this war is imposing substantial and daily and punitive costs on struggling Americans, struggling farmers, and struggling businesses. But all of us are in need of maintaining this program, and we can if we come together to do it. You know, Texas receives about $181 million in LIHEAP funding, and it helps 65,000 households; in Nebraska, $32 million, 53,000 households. So by attempting to zero out LIHEAP funding, the Trump administration has said it loud and clear. It is plain before our eyes. They are willing to throw Americans out in the cold or in the heat and are quite content with a $30 million-an-hour windfall for the oil companies. My hope is that we in Congress, whatever our differences are, can work together to save and preserve the LIHEAP program, which is a lifeline for so many people you represent and I represent. I yield the floor. (Mr. LANKFORD assumed the Chair.)

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, on March 6 of this year, the Pentagon released a video of what it claimed was the destruction of a drug traffickers' training camp near the village of San Martin in the jungle of rural Ecuador. As reported by the New York Times, ``The video was meant to show that the U.S. military, which for months had bombed boats it says are carrying drugs from South America, was `now bombing Narco Terrorists on land,' '' according to a post by Defense Secretary Hegseth. A thorough, credible investigation of this operation has yet to be carried out. However, based on detailed inquiries by American journalists and Ecuadorian human rights organizations who visited the site and collected testimonies and audiovisual evidence, the official narrative turns out to bear little, if any, resemblance to the facts as they are currently known. Rather than a drug training camp, the Ecuadorian military, relying on U.S. military intelligence, appears to have bombed a cattle and dairy farm, targeting impoverished workers and terrorizing neighboring villagers. According to workers at the farm, Ecuadorian soldiers arrived by helicopter on March 3. After reportedly arresting the workers at gunpoint, interrogating and subjecting them to beatings, suffocation, electric shocks, threats of mutilation, water immersion, and mock executions at an undisclosed military facility before releasing them, they returned to the site, poured gasoline on several structures, and burned them to the ground. Villagers said helicopters returned 3 days later, apparently dropping explosives on what remained of the farm, which the soldiers recorded on the video that the Pentagon released. In addition to releasing the video, the Pentagon claimed credit for carrying out ``target action'' against the supposed traffickers at the request of the Ecuadorian authorities, although no U.S. troops were directly involved in the operation. Ecuadorian officials said the operation relied on U.S. ``intelligence and support'' to identify the farm, which they claimed was a camp for as many as 50 members of irregular armed groups. According to the owner of the farm, he bought it 6 years ago and had a herd of more than 50 cows used for milk and meat. He said the destroyed structures were two wooden shelters, sheds for equipment, a chicken coop, and a place to make cheese. He said, ``It's a lie that 50 people trained here. Where are they going to train? Out in the open? There's no logic.'' He went on, ``Everywhere you look there are animals: the cows I milk, the calves, the horses.'' According to an Ecuadorian human rights lawyer, ``There isn't a single public official who has come to verify what happened.'' This violent operation occurred in a remote, dangerous area along the border between Ecuador and Colombia where armed groups are engaged in illicit mining and cocaine trafficking. But the version of events recounted by the villagers and the farm workers is totally at odds with the version promoted by the Ecuadorian military and the U.S. Department of Defense. It has been more than a month and half since the incident, and the Ecuadorian Government has yet to present any credible evidence to dispute the farm workers' harrowing account. Instead, they have continued to repeat their assertions and vilify the work of human rights organizations. The farm workers and the villagers have also reported acts of harassment and intimidation by the Ecuadorian military against them since the New York Times story came out. This is the same military that is accused of committing at least 43 cases of enforced disappearances in 2024, according to Amnesty International. There is no evidence that, prior to issuing a press release characterizing the attack as a counter ``narco-terrorist'' operation, anyone at the Pentagon had visited the site or spoken with any of the Ecuadorian inhabitants. Perhaps the Ecuadorian Government is reluctant to conduct a credible, thorough investigation, fearing the possibility of having to refute the version of its own soldiers and the U.S. Secretary of Defense. But its responsibility is first and foremost to its own citizens, to the truth, and to the law. If the facts described by the owner of the farm are borne out, the operation violated multiple laws, including arbitrary detention, denial of due process, torture, and the destruction of property. And if this was, in fact, an attack based on faulty intelligence that never should have happened, the owner of the farm and the workers who were abused must be compensated and those responsible brought to justice.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, we are now 46 days into President Trump's war on Iran and Lebanon. This war is wrong. This war is hurting the United States, our citizens, and our security. This war is destabilizing the Middle East and spreading to Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, and, of course, not to mention Lebanon. This war has imperiled our economy, imposing unsustainable burdens on the American family. The average American family will pay $2,000 more for gas each year if prices stay this high. The average Vermont household will pay another thousand dollars to heat their home this year. Farms across rural America are going to pay tens of thousands of dollars extra for fertilizer because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The war is imperiling our world economy. The IMF has concluded that the growth in the economy around the world could drop by 2 percent, risking a global recession. Food prices are increasing around the world. In Sudan, the price for wheat is up 70 percent because of the war, and that is in a country on the brink of absolute starvation. How did this happen? How did it happen? We got here because the President disregarded his own promises of staying out of Middle East wars. He disregarded the American people by not leveling with them about what his plan was and what his intentions were. He disregarded Congress entirely, and he has totally disregarded our allies. So is it any surprise that we find ourselves right now with President Trump stuck dealing with this situation that he created pretty much by himself? Instead of consulting with our allies or even his own administration, the President relied on Prime Minister Netanyahu, inviting him to the Situation Room--never been done before. Netanyahu assured him: No problem. You bomb, we bomb--the regime will collapse. You bomb, we bomb--the Strait of Hormuz will stay open. President Trump accepted that advice and rejected the advice of his own Cabinet officials, who called that for what it was. The Netanyahu advice was farcical. We have seen what happened. Oil has gone from $70 a barrel to a high of more than $120 a barrel. Fertilizer prices have jumped from $400 a ton to $700 a ton. Helium prices, which none of us really thought much about, have gone up 100 percent, and that has created an enormous supply chain crisis for the semiconductor industry upon which all of us are dependent. President Trump is now in the remarkable position of closing the Strait of Hormuz himself, supposedly for the stated purpose of opening it. For those of us who were here in the Vietnam years, that is very reminiscent of the administration position that we had to destroy a village in order to save it. It has just become indisputably clear that the President and Secretary of War Hegseth really had no plan other than, as President Trump put it, to bomb Iran into the stone age. And that is what is happening. The bombing has been among the most intense bombing campaigns in the history of air warfare. The United States has carried out more than 13,000 airstrikes. Israel has carried out more than 10,000 strikes, dropping over 18,000 bombs. In the first 100 hours, the United States and Israel hit more targets in Iran than in the first 6 months of the bombing campaign against ISIS. These strikes have taken a devastating toll on civilians and clearly civilian targets. Just talk about in Iran. U.S.-Israeli strikes have hit 60 hospitals; 44 schools, including that girls school that was horrifying to all of us; the major B1 highway bridge, used by civilians, killing 13 civilians; major pharmaceutical plants that were producing anti-cancer drugs and had associated with them 200,000 jobs; desalination plants; sports stadiums; Tehran's synagogue. While the President says the Iranian people are not our adversary, thousands of civilians have been killed in these strikes. On average, 10 children a day have been killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes. Nearly 40 percent of the attacks have taken place in the heart of Tehran, a dense urban area, and 95 percent of those killed by bombs are civilians. This kind of bombing tells us that President Trump has made the Iranian people--the very people he promised to save--the adversary, the enemy, much more so than the ayatollahs. It is time to end this war of choice, this war that was chosen by a very intemperate decision by our President, this war that is making Americans less secure, and this war that is and will continue to impose extraordinary economic pain on our citizens. It is very clear that President Trump and his negotiators--Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner--have a fundamental misunderstanding of the regime they are dealing with. In the course of this war, President Trump has changed the narrative. Three months ago, we were focused on the violence of the Iranian regime toward its own people. Today, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the economic pain that the ayatollahs have been able to inflict on the world, the narrative is about the ayatollahs standing up to the United States and Israel. Trump's bombing has damaged Iran, and it has hurt the Iranian people, but it has also given everyone and the ayatollahs leverage over our economy and the world economy. The threats that the President makes to the ayatollahs don't particularly move them, and it is something he doesn't understand. This is not a real estate deal. What the ayatollahs have shown--and this is horrifying--is that they are prepared to destroy their own country if that is what it takes for them to stay in power. So these threats the President makes fall on deaf ears. As a first step in ending this war, I urge my colleagues to support Senator Sanders' joint resolutions of disapproval, which we will be taking up later today. Those resolutions would stop the United States from sending bombs--thousands of bombs--and armored bulldozers to Israel. These weapons are paid for by the American taxpayers. We will be sending bombs to Israel at a time when we are in a cease-fire, which I hope will continue. These bulldozers are being used, literally-- literally--to bulldoze entire villages in Lebanon on behalf of Israel's intentions. And I want to note that if this vote is successful on the JRDs, it would simply force a debate. It wouldn't stop anything. It would require those of us in the U.S. Senate, those of us who by virtue of our election have the article I authority to declare war--it would require us to say yes or no on where we stand. It would require us to accept our responsibility under the Constitution to do our job on the most profound question that affects the people of this country, and that is when, whether, and why to commit this country to war. I hope my colleagues will vote in favor of these JRDs, and I am disappointed that we rejected Senator Duckworth's resolution. We need this cease-fire to continue. We need the bombing to stop and stay stopped. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I want to speak on the topic of the war in Iran. As I am standing here, 3,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne are on their way to Iran. These are elite paratroopers who are trained to jump into enemy-held territory. They will join 5,000 marines who are being sent from Japan and California. How did we get here? On February 28, President Trump launched this war--something he is now calling an ``excursion''--with a massive display of U.S. military power and dominance. It was stunning. In the opening days, more than 8,000 targets were struck in Iran. More than 120 Iranian vessels were damaged or destroyed, nearly eliminating Iran's ability to launch drones and missiles. Iran's military and civilian leadership was decapitated, and that includes the then-Ayatollah, who was the leader, now replaced by his son. It was an incredible demonstration of military power and execution of military might, just like Midnight Hammer was in June. Things are different today. We face something completely unpredictable, and we have had no discussion or debate about it. We face what has happened in Iraq and what has happened in Afghanistan, and that is that a country with limited power has asymmetric power. It is confronting us with the limits of what can be accomplished with military power. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, and to the shock of most Americans, there appears to have been very little, if any, planning on the part of the folks who pushed us into the war about what would happen when the strait was closed. The Iranians really don't need massive military power to keep the strait closed. A drone strike or a mine that hits a vessel that is going through, whether escorted or not, means that Iran has a vote: They can attack. It also means international shippers have a vote: Do they want to risk their cargo and their crew when that is an active military combat zone? They have answered that: No. There are hundreds of oil-carrying cargo vessels on both sides of the strait that won't proceed through. The President has to make a major decision. We have to make a major decision. His decision appears to be that he will escalate this war. He will put his faith that there is a military solution to resolving an outcome. That is despite the experience we have had in which we have consistently been shown the limitations of what can be accomplished with our extraordinary military. By all indications, the President has chosen a path of escalation: the marines I mentioned, the paratroopers I mentioned, the massing of our military assets in the region, the attacks I outlined, and the $200 billion request that is coming our way. That is an extraordinary request of the American taxpayer. It is $60 billion more than President Bush requested in his supplemental to fund the opening months of the Iraq invasion in 2003. Escalation at this point--and that is the decision that is upon us-- is going to be irresistible. That is in the context of the President's getting intelligence assessments from our intelligence community, as well as from the Israeli intelligence community, that the hope for the collapse of the Iranian regime will not occur. It is intact. They have lost many of their leaders, and they have replaced all of those leaders whom they have lost. So do we expect that this paratrooper expedition and this marine expedition can change that? That is a question that this body must debate. One of the weaknesses of our position right now is that the President did bypass Congress in making his decision to go on this ``expedition.'' The President also bypassed the American people by not addressing them and outlining with clarity the goals that he seeks to accomplish, the means by which he hopes to accomplish them, and the expectation of the sacrifices that American citizens will have to make in order to achieve his goals. In a democracy, this is not just something that is done because it is nice to do. In a democracy, having public backing for a war is not optional; it is a strategic necessity for success. There has been no effort to engage the public, and, indeed, public opinion of the wisdom of this shows that barely 40 percent of Americans support this war and that more than 60 percent think our military action in Iran has been excessive. This reservation that we are seeing on the part of the American people about this war is understandable. There has been no explanation of the goals and the expectation about an outcome. There has been no candor about what this war will cost. And $200 billion as a supplemental is a downpayment on more to come; $200 billion is literally a $1,400 tax on every single American household. The average American family is also going to pay an extra $2,000 at the pump with the increase in gas prices. Families in Vermont are going to pay $1,000 more to heat their homes. Our small farmers in Vermont and in the Presiding Officer's State are going to pay about 35 percent more for fertilizer just as planting season begins. We owe candor to the American people when it comes to what is going to be required for this war. The other essential obligation we have in making a decision about going to war is to the men and women we will ask to go to war because of our decision or because of our indecision. When I was first in Congress, I attended the funeral of a young Vermont marine. He died at the age of 21 in the siege of Fallujah. He died on Thanksgiving day. We all honor him as a hero, just like the other Vermonters who fell in post-9/11 wars. In Vermont, at that point, we had the highest casualty rate on a per- capita population basis of any State in the Nation. We are so proud of the commitment of service that our young Vermonters give to our country. They step up because they believe in us. They believe that, in a democracy, they serve us by volunteering, and they subjected themselves to the authority of the Commander in Chief, a civilian. And they will show up, and they will serve at the call of the Commander in Chief. We, in Congress, have a role to play, and it is to weigh in on the decisions of where and when we will send young men and women into harm's way. They do their job; we are not doing our job. We have had no hearings. We have had no debate. We have had no discussion. It is just happening. We are sleepwalking passively into a war that could be yet another war in the Middle East. Yes, it is true: The Iranian regime is dangerous. Saddam's regime was dangerous. The Taliban was dangerous. In the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, we did escalate, and we stayed. You couldn't get out because we didn't make a decision. We were there and justified staying because we were there in the first place. We are at that moment with what is occurring in Iran. And, yes, it is an evil regime. Yes, we want them not to have a nuclear weapon. But is diplomacy to be abandoned? Is unilateral action to be chosen? Is that to be done where we have literally no debate and no discussion? It is the wrong decision, and we face very soon a question of whether we will support a $200 billion expenditure for that war. The President calls it an excursion, but we all know better. We must make a decision, and I have made a decision. I will not support $200 billion for a military ``excursion'' in Iran. The burden of war is borne by those who fight it, the young men and the young women who put themselves in harm's way because we sent them there. They are the ones who suffer the loss of life, devastation in their families, lifelong injuries, PTSD. But the true burden of war is borne by those who fight, not by those who decide. Is it not our responsibility--our minimal responsibility--to decide? We are not doing that. We are passively backing into a war with no debate, no discussion, no profound appreciation of what we are asking the young men and women of this country to subject themselves to. We owe them more than that. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I am going to speak about two topics--the SAVE Act and the war in Iraq. I would like to start with the SAVE Act. We are debating the SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act. In my view, that will actually undermine our elections and sow distrust in the elections. But I want to present letters and calls I have received from Vermonters, including our town clerks and their experience and their judgment about what this will do. We are very proud in Vermont that we have a very high voter participation rate and no fraud, and that is a point of pride that is shared among Republicans, among Independents, and among Democrats. These are the words of a town clerk in Vermont: I have serious concerns regarding the SAVE Act, specifically the barrier it creates for voters and the unnecessary administrative and infrastructure burden it will place on election officials. If the SAVE Act is enacted, it will put a disproportionate burden on women, low-income families, and anyone who has changed their name since birth. Requiring the documentation to prove a name change can be difficult. It can be expensive. Many women do not have just one name change, and they may have several due to multiple marriages or divorces, each requiring additional documentation to create a paper trail. Even if the government were to provide a free ID, the underlying documents needed to obtain that ID are rarely free. Consider the practical reality. What if a voter loses their documentation in a house fire or a flood? By the way, we had three floods 3 years in a row on July 14. They lack the time or resources to replace these documents in time to cast their vote. By the way, that matters to Vermonters of all political persuasions. Furthermore, if a voter is struggling to put food on their table and does not have a copy of their birth certificate, they should not be forced to choose between feeding their children and exercising their right to vote. Would voters be forced to use provisional ballots, and if so, how much more time would my office-- This is the clerk's office-- need to spend processing those after the polls close? Recently, I had an 85-year-old woman come into my office, deeply distressed. She doesn't have a driver's license, a passport, or any other documents that are required under the SAVE America Act. Yet she has voted in every election her entire life. She is terrified that her right to vote will be stripped away. In a small community like ours, we know our neighbors. Requiring her to produce a birth certificate she hasn't seen in decades ignores the reality of local governance. And as an election official, I also have significant concerns regarding the logistical challenges this creates. How are we to verify the authenticity of various out-of-state documents? What system will I be provided-- This is the clerk-- to ensure these documents are legitimate? Federal databases are not always updated in real time. If the act requires verification against the federal database, any lag in the system would wrongly flag eligible citizens as ineligible. Managing the nuances of local, primary, and federal elections is already a complex task, even for the most seasoned officials. This act represents yet another unfunded mandate. Our taxpayers are demanding lower taxes, and how can we implement this massive administrative shift without raising taxes or diverting funds for other essential services? Elections are the heartbeat of our community, and as an election official, my priority is ensuring that every eligible neighbor can cast their vote without undue hardship. The SAVE America Act threatens to turn a straightforward civic duty into a costly, bureaucratic nightmare for our town and its residents. We must ensure that our laws protect the right to vote for all citizens, regardless of their age, sex, income, or life circumstances, rather than creating an unfunded mandate that our taxpayers cannot afford. Another former town clerk wrote: I am thoroughly horrified by the onerous requirements for registering to vote. As a former town clerk, I have always believed that a well-functioning democracy should do everything in its power to encourage people to vote, not throw up roadblocks that effectively block millions of people from doing so. Though no one wants noncitizens to be allowed to vote in federal elections, multiple studies have demonstrated that this is an extremely rare event. From a cost-benefit standpoint, the SAVE America Act makes no sense. I believe the risk of harm to millions of current and future voters vastly outweighs the risk of noncitizen voting, which is a relatively minimal issue. Mr. President, that is what is called Vermont common sense. If Congress and the public believe that showing a valid ID at the polling place is something that should be implemented across the country, this should be proposed in new legislation that will be delayed until at least 2028 so that everyone is given the opportunity to obtain a federal identification card, which can be used for the purposes of voting. It is ironic that the Republicans, who have historically been opposed to a national ID card, are now the ones screaming the loudest for documentation. There is absolutely no reason that the bill should specify that a valid driver's license or a REAL ID card should not qualify as sufficient documentation to establish one's eligibility to vote. I believe this is simply a callous attempt to disenfranchise millions of people of color and those of lower socioeconomic status, as well as women who have chosen to change their names upon marriage. Another clerk writes: As a former town clerk who managed many Federal elections over the course of my career, I always felt comfortable with the Vermont registration form that asked a number of questions of people who are required to sign an affidavit as to the accuracy of their residency and citizen status. The penalties for perjury are severe, and there is little to no incentive for a noncitizen to risk their status in the United States by illegally attempting to vote. Many voter registrations take place through the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the creation of the so-called motor voter system has vastly improved the ability of officials to ensure that voter lists are accurate and up to date. Additionally, the Vermont election management system is an online registration system that requires either a Social Security number that can be cross-checked or a valid Vermont driver's license number. Both of these systems are fully functional in Vermont and offer convenience for residents as well as enhanced accuracy in the maintenance of voter lists in the conduct of elections. The clerk continues: I would venture to suggest that the SAVE Act, in its current form, would render those systems obsolete and create a huge problem for town clerks, members of the board of civil authority, and voters by disallowing driver's licenses and REAL ID cards as an acceptable form of identification. Both of these systems would be rendered unusable. Voters in my State, they have called, they have emailed, and they have written to me with their concerns. Another Vermonter, a Vermonter from Stowe: I am writing to voice my concern over the protection of my voting rights and the voting rights of millions of other married women. I recently needed to renew my passport. I, fortunately, have my original birth certificate, but found out I no longer had an original copy of my marriage license. It took me significant time, effort, and money to obtain the original, and then to have the passport expedited in order to get it on time for my trip. We are talking months. I was fortunate that I had my birth certificate and, as I would imagine, that many people do not. In her view, this bill is outrageous. One Vermonter in Hinesburg said: I am hearing rumblings that the Senate will be taking action on the SAVE Act that, unfortunately, passed in the House. In this person's view, this is a voter suppression bill. Personally, I have already purchased copies of my birth certificate and my marriage license, even though I have a passport, because I wanted to be damned sure I can vote. But, obviously, there are many people who won't be able to access their needed proof of eligibility. If this bill goes through, they will therefore be denied one of their basic rights as Americans. ``I am pretty sure you are going to vote no on this,'' she says to me. ``I just wanted to let you know that I am against it too.'' By the way, she is right. I want this Vermonter to know they are right. Another voter in Winooski: Please vote no to the SAVE Act. It's a solution in search of a problem because voting by undocumented people does not happen in any significant degree in this country. It will disenfranchise millions of voters. It is essentially a poll tax on anyone who has changed their name at any point in their life, which means many women, amongst others, will be unable to vote. We have watched SCOTUS erode the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by degrees. The SAVE Act will be a death blow-- in the opinion of this writer-- to the work of so many to enable people to vote, that some even sacrifice their life for. And it is further endangered by the lies about this act. I am listening to my constituents. We all need to listen to our constituents and our local leaders. We cannot advance a bill that will disenfranchise voters. We cannot block access to the ballot box. We cannot limit voices, nor can we stop, nor should we stop, nor should we impede people from voting. I cannot and will not support the SAVE Act.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Madam President, it is time to end the war that the President started with Iran on February 28--3 weeks ago. The war must stop now, not a week from now after U.S. taxpayers spend another $14 billion, another 1,000 innocent civilians are lost, another 500,000 are displaced from their homes, and more economic punishment here at home; not a month from now after U.S. taxpayers spend another $60 billion, another 4,000 innocent civilians are lost, another 2 million are displaced from their homes, and even more dire economic consequences here at home; and certainly not 3 months from now after U.S. taxpayers spend another $200 billion, another 12,000 innocent civilians are lost and the creation of a global refugee crisis affecting millions, and the possibility of a global economic recession. The time to end the war is now--right now. Today, we are heading in the opposite direction. The war is escalating. Netanyahu bombed the South Pars gasfield. Iran retaliated by bombing Qatar's natural gas hub, the Ras Laffan Industrial City. Oil prices are surging to nearly $120 a barrel. The President must act and act now. End this war. The President can end the war that he started, and if he won't, Congress must. President Trump's stated goal was to destroy Iran's nuclear capability, and in his own words, that program was ``totally obliterated.'' President Trump's stated goal was to degrade Iran's missile programs. In his own words, we have ``already destroyed 100 percent of Iran's military capability.'' By President Trump's own account, his objectives have largely been realized. We are now at a very dangerous inflection point: Do we end the war now or do we escalate? Do we escalate to achieve Netanyahu's goal--not ours--of regime change? Do we escalate with no end in sight--an escalation that will put American boots on the ground? an escalation American taxpayers will fund with a $200 billion downpayment on yet another forever war in the Middle East? We must decide. And make no mistake, indecision, not to decide, is escalation, and escalation will lead to failure. President Trump is dragging us toward escalation, and Congress must not allow it. America has been down this road before. In Iraq, Saddam presided over an evil regime. He was deposed quickly. In Afghanistan, the Taliban were an evil regime. They were deposed quickly, but what came after was devastating--trillions of dollars of taxpayer money wasted and thousands of American soldiers killed and injured. The Iraq war cost nearly $2 trillion. In the Iraq war, we lost more than 4,500 American servicemembers. The Afghanistan war cost over $2 trillion, and in Afghanistan, we lost nearly 2,500 American servicemembers. Unless this escalation is stopped, President Trump's Iran war could cost even more. And for what? A regime change war in Iran could be worse--worse than Iraq or even Afghanistan. Regime change is impossible without boots on the ground. Those boots are the boots of brave American men and women who will follow the President's order to deploy should he give it. And regime change is impossible to sustain without a permanent occupying force. Iran--make no mistake--is a proud country with proud people, and they may welcome the riddance of the ayatollahs but will fiercely reject American and Israeli occupiers. Iran is also huge. It stretches as far as the distance from Houston, TX, to New York, and it has as many people as California, Texas, and Florida combined. Iraq and Afghanistan taught us something that we must not forget, and that is the limits of military power. In the early phases of both of those wars, as in Iran now, the extraordinary skills and capabilities of our military won impressive victories, but what followed those early victories in Iraq and Afghanistan is already upon us in Iran, and that is the asymmetric response--the one where the United States, with all its military might, is at a disadvantage. Iran's drone attacks have closed the Strait of Hormuz--something that the Secretary of Energy dismissed as being something that couldn't happen. Nearly one-third of the global oil, fertilizer, and helium supplies that we need--that the world needs--flow through the Strait of Hormuz. You know, in 1973, we had a big oil disruption that involved only 7 percent of oil supplies, but it created a global economic shock that reverberated for 10 years. This one could even be worse. Iran can keep the Strait closed as long as they have access to just enough drones or enough small boats loaded with explosives that keep international shippers, who are fearful of losing cargo and crew, from risking passage. The costs to American families and businesses from the closing of the Strait from this asymmetric warfare are staggering. Across the country, gas prices at the pump are up at least a dollar. The average American family will pay an additional $2,000 this year in gas. As a country, we are paying an additional $2 billion every day--$2 billion--for the war premium that we have to pay at the pump. In Vermont and across the country, our farmers are paying up to 35 to 40 percent more for fertilizer. More than a third of global fertilizer supplies have to come through the strait. Just ahead of spring planting season, farms are facing additional tens of thousands of dollars to do business. Vermont families are also paying a war premium to heat their homes. Heating oil prices are surging from around a little over $3 a gallon to over $4.70 a gallon. An average family is going to be facing a $1,000 additional expense to maintain heat in their homes. As the Presiding Officer knows, the Pentagon's costs are absolutely staggering. The war is costing at least $2 billion a day. The Pentagon has told Congress that the first 6 days cost $11.3 billion, not including many other undisclosed things. The Pentagon, we are told, is going to be requesting a $200 billion supplemental. That, by the way, is triple the cost of all U.S. weapons that were sent to Ukraine. We are spending $15 million apiece for THAAD interceptors to shoot down Iranian missiles. We are spending $4 million apiece for Patriot interceptors that are shooting down Shahed drones that cost $20,000. More than 1,300 civilians have already been killed, including over 100 girls by a U.S. strike that went wrong. More than 1,000 have been killed in Lebanon, where Israel, under Netanyahu, is inflicting a relentless attack. That includes more than 100 children. We have had losses, too, in the United States of brave servicemembers who responded to the call of duty, and I want to acknowledge their service and their loss: MAJ Jeffrey O'Brien, CPT Cody Khork, CW3 Robert Marzan, SFC Noah Tietjens, SFC Nicole Amor, SGT Declan Coady, SGT Benjamin Pennington, Maj. John Klinner, Capt. Ariana Savino, Capt. Seth Koval, Capt. Curtis Angst, TSgt Ashley Pruitt, and TSgt Tyler Simmons. I also want to pay respects and acknowledge the exemplary service of the Vermont Air National Guard's 158th Fighter Wing. Their critical skills were requested by name and unit. Their unique mission means they are often the first ones in. Vermonters are very proud of the Green Mountain Boys, and we pray for their safe return home. One of the great accomplishments of this American democracy for the past 250 years--a legacy the Presiding Officer and I are both proud of--is that the strong military we have serves under elected civilian leadership. Citizens volunteer to serve, accepting that they will be deployed at the will of the Commander in Chief and that they will bravely face all the perils required to defend our freedom. The citizens who serve in the military have accepted their responsibility. The U.S. Senate should do the same--accept our responsibility. Under the Constitution, it is the elected leadership, including the U.S. Senate, that has the responsibility to carefully consider when and whether to commit our citizens to the obligations of war. Our country is now very deep into this war--the biggest in a generation. Yet the U.S. Senate has not held a single hearing, has not had a single debate, and has not demanded a full account from the Executive as to the war in Iran. Now we understand the administration is preparing a $200 billion supplemental funding request for a war that has not even been explained, much less authorized. I will oppose this funding. I will oppose sleepwalking into a forever war. I will oppose funding a war wherein the President has presented no stated objectives or a coherent plan to achieve them. I will oppose funding a war wherein the President has proposed no way to pay for it other than to pile up more debt for our children and grandchildren. The question before us: Does the United States end this war or do we escalate it? I oppose a war and funding a war that will make our country less safe and our citizens economically more vulnerable. This is at the heart of our sworn obligation to uphold the Constitution and fight for the interest of our constituents, of all Americans. This war makes us less safe, less prosperous. This war must end. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I would like to speak about the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act, is part of President Trump's and the Republicans' agenda to disenfranchise voters. You know, I heard my colleague from Oklahoma talk about the Voting Rights Act, and that was really an effort on the part of this Congress to respect and ensure that people who are being denied the vote had the right to vote, and it did take Federal action to make that citizens' right a reality. The SAVE Act is really an effort to interfere with the right of people to vote, and it is based on an assertion that is flatout false about widespread voter fraud. And, of course, that goes back to January 6, after the election defeat in 2020, when President Trump then said that that election was rigged and that it was false; the outcome was not correct. There was litigation. Sixty-three courts ruled that the President had lost to President Biden. The President is now relying on conspiracy theorists like Kurt Olsen, one of the lawyers that pushed Trump's ``Stop the Steal'' efforts in court to now lead the effort, seizing election materials related to the 2020 elections. And those claims have been debunked, even by many Republican elected officials. A lot of our local Republican elected officials care deeply about protecting the right of citizens to vote. Last month, President Trump said that the Republicans should ``take over'' the election administration in 15 States. Any attempt by a President, including this President, to take over elections is flatout unconstitutional, as article I, section 4, of the elections clause of the U.S. Constitution gives States the duty to administer elections and Congress the ability to legislate laws around election administration. The executive branch itself has literally no role in direct election administration. And this system works. It has worked well for 250 years because the States are best positioned to identify and create policies that meet the needs and accommodations of their own communities. There is public reporting that officials in President Trump's White House have been coordinating with far-right activists and operatives like Jerome Corsi to declare a baseless national emergency. We have heard that term used quite a bit in this administration. But to declare a ``national emergency'' surrounding the 2026 election--that term has been used. It has been invoked to justify the imposition of tariffs unilaterally by the President with respect to the IEEPA tariffs. The Supreme Court held that that position was unconstitutional. We haven't had the Court weigh in on a ``national emergency'' that may be declared around voting, but it is worth very much taking seriously. The Trump administration has defunded election security infrastructure while at the same time making false claims that our elections are insecure. The administration has gutted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Act, known as CISA, which Congress created in 2018 to oversee programs responsible for securing our elections, like the cyber threat intelligence. The administration is also trying to seize voters' personal data in violation of Federal privacy laws, despite research proving that noncitizen voting is very, very rare. This is a concerted effort on the part of the President whose ire over losing the 2020 election resulted in January 6 and has also been a sustained campaign on the part of the President to insist that that election was bogus. The SAVE America Act, in any form, as it is drafted, would block millions of U.S. citizens from voting. And we can have reasonable ID requirements like allowing U.S. citizens to register with a driver's license or a military ID. Several States have them. Vermont does not have that, except at the initial point of registering, and we have such good, high-level participation by voters and basically zero election fraud. But voter registration should permit all eligible citizens, and only eligible citizens, to register and vote in Federal elections. That is already Federal law. That is not what this SAVE America legislation does. Your driver's license wouldn't work. That wouldn't be a valid ID. Your REAL ID wouldn't work. It gets us on a plane, gets us through security, but it wouldn't work to get you in to vote. Your military ID--you know, we just had a tribute to our soldiers. But our soldiers with that ID would not be allowed to use that to be able to register to vote. If your passport has your maiden name on it, as millions of American women's passports do, that won't work because it doesn't correspond to their married name. The list of acceptable identification under the SAVE Act to register to vote, such as passports or birth certificates, is stricter than many of the 36 States which do require some identification to vote. And therein lies the problem because the more onerous you make this, the more difficult it is--a person who doesn't have a passport, doesn't have a driver's license, has to do something just for the purpose of voting--the fewer people who are going to be able to do that. So here are some facts that we should not ignore. About 146 million Americans don't have a passport. In 2024, 153 million Americans voted. And, by the way, passports are pretty expensive. A new passport is at least $165 for the passport application and the facility acceptance fee or even more if you want it expedited. And approximately 69 million women have a birth certificate with their maiden name and not the name matching their identification, meaning their birth certificates would be insufficient identification for voter registration under this bill. How can we do that to millions of American women? Eleven percent of registered voters don't have access to their birth certificate; 52 percent of registered voters do not have an unexpired passport with their current legal name; and 9 percent of all eligible voters do not have or do not have easy access to documentary proof of citizenship. These details really matter. You know, it is not just the top-line name ``voter ID.'' It is what is in this legislation that limits what can be a legitimate voter ID for the purposes of voting. And even if voters were to provide documentary proof of citizenship, verifying the authenticity of those documents is an inherently complex task, one that election officials in motor vehicle departments often don't have the resources or the training to perform. The SAVE America Act would disenfranchise Americans of all ages and races. But younger voters, rural voters, poorer voters would suffer disproportionately. Rural voters--and by the way, 60 percent of whom identify as Republican--would face some of the largest hurdles to showing up in person at their election office to register to vote. Many rural voters rely heavily on remote voter registration methods that would be effectively blocked by the SAVE America Act, such as registering to vote online or mailing in an application, and also these voters rely greatly on mail-in voting. This has been an incredible convenience for voters, and reliable. This would become much more difficult under this legislation, with the need to scan and print out copies of their voter ID. By the way, when it comes to seniors, nearly half of all seniors don't have a passport. The SAVE America Act would make it harder for Americans to register and vote in 2026. If the SAVE America Act were signed into law, it would go into effect immediately--overnight--changing the requirements for voter registration for all Americans from the day before the act was signed to the day after. This would effectively block voter registration methods nearly all Americans use and add new restrictions on voting at the polls and by mail in virtually every State. It would be a mess. The bill not only requires proof of citizenship but also proof of residence in order to register. This could block even more voters from voting. Roughly 9 percent of the U.S. population has moved to a new home within their own State in the past year, but many will not update their driver's license until they expire--more people who aren't going to be able to vote who are entitled to vote. Right now, we have protections 90 days out from an election that prevent voters from being removed from the rolls. This bill would end those protections. The SAVE America Act would eliminate mail registration, and it would disrupt online registration. In 2022, more than 7 million Americans registered to vote by mail and almost 11 million Americans registered to vote online without any problem to election integrity. These bills would also require online registration systems to be overhauled to fit the bill's requirements. The bill would also prohibit universal mail voting, requiring all mail voters to submit an application in order to receive a mail ballot--a lot of bureaucracy here being created. This would end the longstanding principal method of voting in eight States and in Washington, DC--and, by the way, in my State of Vermont. The bill would require voters registering to vote by mail to submit documentary proof of citizenship, which States do not currently require. And, by the way, that is without incident. Mail-in voting supports rural communities that local election administrators can't reach well. This is why several of my Republican colleagues' States--Nebraska, Idaho, North Dakota--make mail-in voting possible for certain voters. Arkansas and Louisiana allow digital IDs as valid voter identification. The Trump administration has been on a furious effort to silence citizens and deny them our most fundamental constitutional right: the right to vote. The ``show your papers'' requirement is an attack on the freedom to vote. Congress should stand firm to protect the right of all of our citizens to vote and reject the SAVE America Act. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly, if I may, on another subject. During the war in Gaza, more than 20,000 children have been killed so far. There have been thousands of atrocities in Gaza. Over 70,000 have died, and even more have been gravely injured. The Israelis' own data shows that the overwhelming majority of the people killed by Israeli forces have been civilians, and it is, regrettably, the highest proportion of civilians to combatants killed in any contemporary conflict. Today, I want to speak about one such case, the killing of Hind Rajab. Hind was the beautiful 5-year-old child whose photograph you see here next to me. ``Hind,'' by the way means ``hope.'' Hind's death is the subject of a film that has been nominated for an Academy Award on Sunday. The film follows the killing of Hind, the killing of her four cousins, her aunt, her uncle, and two paramedics who were sent to rescue her. It does feature a recording of Hind's voice pleading for help that never arrives. It is a virtual certainty that the weapons and ammunition provided by American taxpayer dollars were used in this crime. We know this based on forensic investigation of her family's car, where 335 bullet holes were counted. Despite requests from the Biden State Department, Israel has produced no evidence that it has held anyone accountable for this atrocity. That is why today I am introducing the Justice for Hind Rajab Act, along with my colleague in the House of Representatives, Representative Sara Jacobs of California. Our bill raises a simple question. Something must be done about this crime. The U.S. Government must--must--do its part to hold those responsible accountable as some small measure of justice for the thousands of children who have been killed in this war and that continues to this day.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly, if I may, on another subject. During the war in Gaza, more than 20,000 children have been killed so far. There have been thousands of atrocities in Gaza. Over 70,000 have died, and even more have been gravely injured. The Israelis' own data shows that the overwhelming majority of the people killed by Israeli forces have been civilians, and it is, regrettably, the highest proportion of civilians to combatants killed in any contemporary conflict. Today, I want to speak about one such case, the killing of Hind Rajab. Hind was the beautiful 5-year-old child whose photograph you see here next to me. ``Hind,'' by the way means ``hope.'' Hind's death is the subject of a film that has been nominated for an Academy Award on Sunday. The film follows the killing of Hind, the killing of her four cousins, her aunt, her uncle, and two paramedics who were sent to rescue her. It does feature a recording of Hind's voice pleading for help that never arrives. It is a virtual certainty that the weapons and ammunition provided by American taxpayer dollars were used in this crime. We know this based on forensic investigation of her family's car, where 335 bullet holes were counted. Despite requests from the Biden State Department, Israel has produced no evidence that it has held anyone accountable for this atrocity. That is why today I am introducing the Justice for Hind Rajab Act, along with my colleague in the House of Representatives, Representative Sara Jacobs of California. Our bill raises a simple question. Something must be done about this crime. The U.S. Government must--must--do its part to hold those responsible accountable as some small measure of justice for the thousands of children who have been killed in this war and that continues to this day.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, last Friday, President Trump was quoted saying that Cuba ``is going to fall pretty soon . . . They want to make a deal so badly . . . and we'll see how that works out.'' I agree that it is absolutely in the best interest of both countries to negotiate an agreement--a ``deal'' as the President calls them--but it needs to be a deal that puts the national interest of the United States and the national interest of the people of Cuba first. To do that, we urgently need to do what the Vatican has called for, and that is a ``dialogue-based solution to the problems that exist'' between our two countries. It has got to be a solution that stands the test of time, and it should, at a minimum, include the following: One, President Trump can end all restrictions on the right of Americans to freely travel to Cuba. The American and Cuban people should be able to freely interact with one another. The President should offer maximum support for Cuba's private sector by allowing direct foreign investment and development financing for Cuba's struggling, but really essential, small businesses. The President must remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. That designation has no legal basis. No other country agrees that it applies. And the President must call on Congress to repeal the failed United States' embargo of Cuba so that Cuba's economic reconstruction can begin. And President Trump should lift his punitive blockade of Cuban oil imports that has contributed to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis on the island. And what about Cuba's leaders? Cuba's leaders should abandon central planning of the economy. It has been a disaster for the Cuban people, as it has been in every other country where it has been tried. They should take the necessary steps so American companies can compete for contracts to invest in Cuba and help rebuild the country's dilapidated infrastructure--but not like Cuba before the revolution, when the island was run as a corrupt playground for the rich and famous while average Cubans lived in squalor. Contracts must be transparent, and investors must be accountable. Cuba's leaders must release all political dissidents and accept the right of the Cuban people to express themselves freely, without fear of persecution. And the United States' and Cuba's leaders should agree on a mechanism for resolving property claims. Cuba is a small, bankrupt country. It has neither the capacity nor the intention to threaten the United States. And even before the Trump administration cut off oil from Venezuela and started blocking oil shipments to Cuba from other countries, electricity blackouts were common. And, today, electricity is unavailable--unavailable--for most hours of the day and across the entire island. Just think of what that means for homes, for hospitals, for schools, for factories, for farms, trash collection, and public transportation-- all of the essentials of daily life. It is absolutely catastrophic. How does one produce, how does one transport, how does one refrigerate food without fuel? How do you pump and transport water? How do you power ambulances, operating rooms, incubators? You simply can't do it. Faith-based organizations, Cuban entrepreneurs, and concerned Americans are doing their part, but it is not nearly enough. Cuba's economy is collapsing, and millions of people are suffering hunger, disease, and despair. If this continues, thousands are likely to flee the island, seeking refuge in the United States, just as they did in 1994. For many years, people in Washington and Miami have blamed Cuba's leaders for the country's problems. That is valid--to a point. The Cuban authorities have clung to their revolutionary slogans, while other countries with communist governments--and with the support, by the way, of the international community, including the United States-- transitioned to a market economy and more open society. Cuba's centralized economy, after years of absolute mismanagement, dependence on foreign subsidies, and strangled by the U.S. embargo-- that economy is in total shambles. Housing and other infrastructure are decrepit. The health system--something Cubans were proud of--is collapsing due to the very severe shortages. Basic materials and supplies are unavailable, except for those with connections to the outside world. To quell popular anger, Cuba's leaders always blame the United States, and they harass and unjustly imprison those who speak out against the one-party system. That is wrong, and that must stop. But let's be candid. The United States is far from blameless. For fully three-quarters of a century, during Republican and Democratic administrations and with Congress, pressed by Cuban-Americans in Florida, we have tried to overthrow the Cuban Government by armed invasion, by assassination, by financing Cuban dissidents, and by imposing a web of sanctions with extraterritorial reach that are more punitive than what we inflict on even more brutal regimes. You know, the oil blockade now under President Trump--which, if circumstances were reversed, we would condemn as an illegal act of war--is the latest tactic that is attempting to force Cuba's leaders to capitulate to U.S. demands. You know, much of this could have been avoided. After more than six decades of a U.S. embargo that achieved none of its goals but did hurt the Cuban people, President Obama did change course. Supported by my predecessor Senator Leahy and others, President Obama did open travel for Americans to Cuba, supported Cuba's emerging private sector--it was working--and cooperation with Cuba on migration, public health, maritime security, and many other areas--that cooperation increased. During those 2 years, the lives of many Cubans actually did improve-- much more so than during decades of U.S. hostility and punitive sanctions. It was 10 years ago this month that our President then, President Obama, made his historic trip to Havana and offered a new policy of positive engagement to help Cuba modernize its economy and bring new opportunities to the Cuban people. What the President then said: I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people. ``[T]o the Cuban people.'' That official good will was reversed in 2017 when the then-Trump administration restored Cold War sanctions. The deal that the President is now seeking seeks to force Cuba's capitulation with the oil blockade, which is inflicting collective punishment on the Cuban population and creating a humanitarian emergency. By the way, there was no progress built on what President Obama began during the Biden administration, so I don't want this to be seen as just something about one President versus another. This has been sustained policy by the United States over the course of almost 75 years, interrupted only during that moment after the historic trip by President Obama to Havana. Political and economic change in Cuba is absolutely long overdue. That is not debatable. But the way to get there is not by causing more hardship for the everyday Cuban family. Cuba is no threat to us today, but a failed state 90 miles off our shores would be a threat to us today. Cuban leaders have had many opportunities to show they could govern differently, and they did miss those opportunities. Today, countries that came to Cuba's rescue in the past are no longer willing to do that, leaving Cuba's leaders no choice but to negotiate with the United States. So one thing seems certain: Cuba's Government is going to have to change its ways. The Cuban people--90 percent of whom were born after the 1959 revolution--do want leaders who, rather than repeating tired slogans, accept the need for fundamental changes in how to govern, with greater participation of the people, greater transparency, greater freedom, and real accountability. On Monday, in response to a question about Cuba, President Trump said: It may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. Wouldn't really matter because they're really down to . . . as they say, fumes. They have no energy, they have no money. Of course, the reason Cuba is ``down to . . . fumes'' is largely because of the U.S. oil blockade. But despite that--let me be clear--no American President, under any circumstances, friendly or unfriendly, should threaten to take over another sovereign nation, whether Cuba, Greenland, or anywhere else. Rather than threats of a takeover, the United States should--should-- negotiate a solution with Cuba which above all else puts U.S. national interests and, as I have said, the needs and aspirations of the Cuban people first. I urge the Trump administration and Cuba's leaders to take the steps I have outlined to stop the suffering and repression in Cuba and finally put an end to the decades of hostility between our two countries. I believe they would receive overwhelming support from the people of both countries as well as overwhelming support here in Congress. (The remarks of Mr. WELCH pertaining to the introduction of S. 4095 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. WELCH

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

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, we must act. The President has made a decision unilaterally without consultation of Congress to start yet another war in the Middle East. It is a reckless decision that is very detrimental to the well-being of our country and very threatening to the Constitution. There are three issues that are absolutely essential to consider by this Congress. First of all, No. 1, America does not want this war. And I trust the American people. The reason America does not want this war is they have seen it before. They saw it in Iraq where the justification was weapons of mass destruction. They saw it in Afghanistan where the justification was getting rid of the Taliban. They saw it in Libya where the justification was getting rid of Qadhafi. In each case--Saddam, Qadhafi, the Taliban--yes, they were evil people doing bad things--but what was a lie to the American people, and they saw, was that there were no weapons of mass destruction. The Taliban is now back in power after 20 years of war, and the chaos that was sown in Libya lives with us to this day. America understands that it is easy for a President to assert he wants to go to war. He is the Commander in Chief. He can do it, as he has done in this case, by bypassing Congress. But what the American people have seen is that it is easy to start a war, but the consequences and the costs are not avoidable, and they have been very damaging to the well-being of the people of this country; they have been very damaging to our prosperity; and, of course, they have caused immense loss of life of our wonderful soldiers and men and women in uniform. The American people get it. No. 2, we cannot, under our Constitution, go to war on the basis of a decision by one man. The whole point in our Constitution of vesting war-making authority in the Congress was because our Founders saw how Kings abused their powers to go to war, how an autocrat abuses his power to unilaterally decide to go to war. A quote from Abraham Lincoln: The provision of the Constitution [that is, our Constitution] giving the war-making powers to Congress, was dictated . . . by the following reasons . . . Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood [Lincoln said] to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppression and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. Yet, in fact, that is exactly what is happening now. One man--Donald Trump--unilaterally decided to start this war. It is the same person, by the way, with--who as candidate Trump decried, and quite rightly, the rush to war. He decried especially wars of regime change as total failures. He decried the $7 trillion that was spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. So now, we have a new situation where the President woke up one day, announced he is going to war, and abandoned his America First commitment. What is clear here is this war is not necessary. Iran, the Ayatollah, the regime is a threat. We have been containing that threat. There were negotiations about their nuclear capabilities that were making significant progress. Don't forget that this administration is the one that tore up the agreement in the Obama administration where we had eyes on exactly what was happening in the Iran nuclear program and there was compliance. And we have substituted it with bluster and now, ultimately, this war of choice. This is a war that has been pushed hard by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who just before the war started was whispering in the ear of Donald Trump, and it is pretty clear that the President was persuaded by Netanyahu. The President should be more persuaded by the voices of the American people who have learned lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan and even going to back to Vietnam. The third reason Americans don't want this war is they want us in this Congress, in this administration, to focus on the needs of Americans. We have a situation in Vermont now that is similar to what people face all over this country. Healthcare is something that is out of reach for everyday Americans. That is absolutely essential. And you, yourself, and I and others did our level best to try to extend tax credits to working families and farmers and small businesses who depended on them to be able to continue to have healthcare. With the One Big Beautiful Bill, 15 million people are losing Medicaid access. What we are seeing is the acceleration of income inequality where people who work hard, oftentimes two jobs, who don't have more time in their life to even work more, at the end of the month can't pay their bills. And isn't it time that we focus on meeting the needs of Americans? Basic things like healthcare, like affordable housing, like childcare, things that make a family secure, things that make a community strong. There is absolutely no coherent rationale that the President has offered for the end game of this war against Iran. And there is absolutely no explanation from the President about why he has abandoned what he asserted was his longtime opposition to wars of regime change. And this is the question for all of us in this Chamber who serve in the U.S. Senate and who have responsibilities under the Constitution, specifically article I: Will this U.S. Senate allow a single man to plunge this Nation into war when it is our constitutional responsibility to make a decision as to whether to send our men and women into combat? That is our responsibility and vote, as all of us will. We cannot avoid our responsibility to vote, to stand and to be counted. Now, at the close, I want to say something that I know every single one of the Members of the Senate feels very strongly, and that is support for our men and women in uniform. We have brave members of the Vermont Guard that are serving right now, and I speak of my concern for them, their well-being, and their families. But I express that same strong sensibility toward every family who has a servicemember serving in this conflict, and I say that to every servicemember in the conflict: We support you. But, Mr. President, this is a wrong decision. You do not have the right to make this decision unilaterally. And I say to my colleagues in the Congress: We must stand up and do our job and meet our responsibility. And that is why I am a strong supporter of Senator Kaine and Senator Paul's War Powers Resolution. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, today marks 10 years since the murder of Honduran environmental leader Berta Caceres. She lost her life after rallying her indigenous Lenca community to halt construction of the Agua Zarca Dam project. Berta's killers were hired by the corrupt DESA hydroelectric company, financed by national and international banks. Some have been convicted. All are appealing. Others remain at large, while Berta's organization, the Council of indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras, continues to receive threats. Throughout her life, Berta Caceres not only fought for the rights of Hondurans; she also built networks of solidarity across the hemisphere, organizing opposition against destructive policies, including the militarization of law enforcement and resource-extractive projects that harm indigenous communities and the environment. Impunity for killings of Honduran social activists is endemic, but Berta's case shows that accountability is possible. The new Honduran Government can demonstrate that it is committed to truth, justice, and the rule of law by ensuring that all those involved in her assassination are severely punished, as well as those responsible for the hundreds of killings of other human rights and environmental activists in that country. It should study the findings in the recent Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts' report on Berta Caceres' murder and publicly commit to vigorously implement its recommendations.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize John McClaughry, who will serve as the town moderator of Kirby, VT, for the 60th time this town meeting day. John's journey toward this milestone began in 1963, when he first moved to Vermont. In 1965, John built a log cabin in Kirby, a small town with about 500 residents tucked away in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. He quickly became an important member of the community. Though he lived just part of the year in Kirby--he spent the rest of the year in Washington--he was elected town moderator in 1966. As town moderator, John is responsible for facilitating Kirby's annual town meeting. He ensures that voters' voices are heard, and he shapes compromises that keep the town running. John moved permanently to Vermont in 1970, on the same plot of land where he built his log cabin, and has lived there since. John was elected to represent Kirby in the Vermont House of Representatives from 1969-1973, where he advocated for his constituents and every Vermonter in the Northeast Kingdom. After working on President Reagan's 1980 Presidential campaign, John joined the President's team at the White House Office of Policy Development. Despite his busy schedule in Washington, John always made it back to Kirby for town meeting day in March. In 1989, John would return to the Vermont General Assembly, this time in the State senate representing Caledonia County. John later established the Ethan Allen Institute, a think tank named for Vermont's own hero of the American Revolution. Here, John advocated for limited government and free markets. In 2023, he stepped down from the Ethan Allen Institute to allow for a new generation of leadership, but John has undoubtedly left a mark on Vermont. From the moment I met John in the 1970s, I admired him. John represents much of what makes Vermont's political culture unique: a devotion to localism; a belief in strong Vermont values; and a ``live and let live'' approach to governing. John's commitment to local governance and democracy runs through his life's work. From a life that has ranged from hitching rides on railcars, to serving in Vermont's State House and the White House, it is commendable that John has, for 60 years in a row, served as town moderator for Kirby, the beloved home of John and his wife Anne.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I join with Vermonters in celebrating the exceptional Vermont athletes who represented the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Our State's athletes competed with great distinction, earning seven medals. The State of Vermont has a proud tradition of producing world-class athletes, and the 2026 Games were a powerful testament to that legacy. Athletes with Vermont roots and connections won seven medals at the games, representing more than 20 percent of all medals earned by Team USA. Vermont's contribution to American Olympic success this year was historic by any measure. Across alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, and freestyle disciplines, Vermont athletes competed at the highest level and delivered performances that will be remembered for years to come. These achievements did not happen overnight. They are the result of years of rigorous training, personal sacrifice, and an unrelenting commitment to excellence--supported by the world-class coaches and ski schools and training programs that Vermont has long been proud to call its own. I congratulate Ben Ogden, Ryan Cochran-Siegle, Mac Forehand, Jessie Diggins, Paula Moltzan, and Mikaela Shiffrin for medaling. I also applaud Julia Kern, Jess Perlmutter, Jack Young, Sean Doherty, Margie Freed, Maxime Germain, Olivia Giaccio, Deedra Irwin, Lauren Jortberg, and Nina O'Brien for competing and making Vermont proud. The Winter Games are a reminder of why our winter sports and outdoor recreation communities are so vital to the identity and economy of our State. Vermont's ski areas, trails, and training programs are not only excellent athletic institutions, but they are also the reason generations of young Vermonters have grown up with a love of the outdoors. We are deeply proud of all our Vermont athletes have achieved, and we wish them continued success as they pursue the next chapters of their athletic careers and beyond. Their accomplishments will inspire young skiers and outdoor enthusiasts across Vermont for generations to come and serve as a lasting reminder of what is possible when talent and the spirit of the Green Mountains come together on the world's greatest stage.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, we are 1 year into President Donald Trump's second term and 1 year into Secretary Kristi Noem's tenure as head of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. It is time for us to assess and state with clarity what that 1 year has brought us. First of all, the deportation policy is not now about border security--not now. The border is secure, and that is a good thing. Migrant crossings into the United States from Mexico are at their lowest level since 1970. In August of 2024, during President Biden's administration, there were 107,000 encounters at the southern border, but in August of 2025, there were only 9,000. The border is much more secure. I support that. We must maintain it, and we will. So is the deportation policy now about deporting criminals--something we support? There is evidence, and the evidence of what the policy is about comes from a Department of Homeland Security report itself. What it says is that 14 percent--only 14 percent--of the people who have been deported are dangerous criminals. No objection to deporting criminals, but that it is only 14 percent shows that the real purpose is to inflict on this country a policy of mass deportation. And the Trump administration is as good as its word. From day one, with Stephen Miller, it has announced its intention to conduct mass deportation in the United States. It set quotas. It has moved away from focusing on people with serious criminal convictions, and instead, it is focused on getting the highest number of arrests and deportations as possible, up to 3,000 a day. Homeland Security got $75 billion from Congress--not from votes on our side. But it was really what allowed for this mass roundup of people from workplaces, from farms, from schools--all in service of a political agenda that is not about protecting Americans but is serving the political interests of the President and the fiendish design of Stephen Miller, with the implementation of a reckless Kristi Noem. So if only 14 percent of those people deported are dangerous criminals, what are the others? It is about detaining and attempting to deport students who are here legally but said things that the President and the administration didn't like on a campus, folks who spoke out about the war in Gaza: Mohsen Mahdawi from Vermont, Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia in New York City. It is about deporting a student who wrote an article in a student newspaper criticizing the Israeli Government. It is about ripping a preschooler--preschooler--1,300 miles away from his home to sit in a detention facility, and it is about using him as bait to get to his family. That is happening. It is about detaining a U.S. citizen at gunpoint, on that person's front porch, without any warrant to go there and then forcing him to go outside in subfreezing weather wearing nothing but his underwear. It is about detaining a churchgoer delivering groceries to his neighbors in freezing temperatures, and it is about denying him the necessary medication he needed after he had a kidney transplant, while he was in custody. It is about a legal permanent resident, Donna Hughes-Brown. She was locked up for 143 days, threatened with deportation, because she did do something wrong: She bounced two checks that totaled 75 bucks over 10 years ago. It is about Steven Tendo from Vermont, an asylum seeker and a pastor. He was arrested and detained outside the medical center in Shelburne where he works, and he said it was done brutally and it was done at gunpoint. This is not a threatening man. He is currently now being denied medication for his diabetes. ICE is in such a rush to meet its quotas set by Secretary Noem and Mr. Miller that they are literally grabbing anyone and everyone they set their eyes on. What is their accent? What is their color? Where are they located? And ICE does not care who gets hurt in the process. Wilmer Chavarria is a U.S. citizen, and he is the superintendent in the Winooski School District in Vermont. He was detained and questioned for hours by agents in Texas. His technology was seized and searched. He described this as ``the definition of psychological terror.'' A 21-year-old man protesting in California was blinded in his left eye. He told the AP after this he was ``just glad'' to be ``alive to tell my story.'' A pastor in Chicago, a reverend, was praying out loud at a protest, and an agent shot multiple rounds of pepper balls in his face, and he was sprayed by more pepper spray. It was indiscriminate and really vicious. So far in 2026, ICE agents have shot eight people. These shootings happened in Minnesota and across the United States: Arizona, California, Oregon, Maryland, and Illinois. Officers fired on at least nine people who were in their cars, much like the horrible case of Renee Good. Ms. Good, as America all knows, was a 37-year-old mother, and Alex Pretti was a 37-year-old VA nurse. They were killed in Minnesota. We all saw it. No justification whatsoever. We have seen massive ICE deployments in Minnesota and elsewhere: Washington, DC; Illinois; California. These ICE expeditions, with massive numbers of people coming in, are interfering with local law enforcement and creating real terror in the communities. ICE has raided schools and farms and workplaces, including in my State of Vermont, that sow fear and chaos on farms like the Pleasant Valley Farm in Berkshire and construction sites in Hardwick, VT. DHS is also rounding up so many people, they literally don't have places to put them. For the first time in our history, more than 70,000 people are in ICE detention. That is an increase of 75 percent from the previous year. Not surprisingly, the conditions are deplorable. There was no preplanning of how to accommodate the people that the government was taking into custody. Detainees are fed food laced with worms. These are all documented facts. It is not a political argument. This is what is happening. Many places have toilets that don't flush. In a detention center in El Paso, a man named Geraldo Lunas Campos was choked by an officer, and he died. A teen was beat up by officers and now has hearing loss. Just this week, NBC reported that an 18- month-old baby who was detained in south Texas was rushed to a hospital and treated for pneumonia, COVID-19, and RSV in serious and severe respiratory distress. She was described as being at the brink of dying. Thirty-five people died in custody last year, and at least 6 died in detention centers in January of this year alone. ICE is in such a hurry that many of the officers don't get adequate training. Their identities are concealed. Most disturbingly, ICE and Kristi Noem accept no responsibility for the actions of their officers. We are discussing reforms now in Congress, and the basic reforms that should be made are that any Federal Agency, including ICE, should have to abide by the standards that apply in Alabama or in Vermont to our local law enforcement agencies, where there is training, where there is accountability, where there are body cameras, where there are mechanisms in place for training, supervision, and accountability. But the real question, in my view, is this: Do we want to support a policy of mass roundups? That is the policy of the administration right now. When it comes to the question of border security, yes. When it comes to the question of deporting criminals, yes. But mass roundups with untrained people that are meeting quotas and where we have seen the violent overreactions in many cases; where we are seeing suffering inflicted on people who are in detention because there is no capacity to provide humane treatment to the people taken into custody by the government; where we have seen the havoc in communities where there are raids on our farms that need the migrant labor and there are raids in our construction sites; where, when there is an influx of thousands of agents from ICE, it totally disrupts local law enforcement; and where so many of these people who are being rounded up are not a threat to our safety--are not a threat to our safety--what is the benefit to the American people? What is the price that our communities are paying? And what is our responsibility as a U.S. Senate to open our eyes and candidly assess what is the impact of a mass deportation policy? My view is that we have an opportunity to move beyond what has been incredibly partisan rhetoric about the immigration issue. The reason we have the opportunity is because there is now bipartisan agreement about a secure border. There is now bipartisan agreement about deporting criminals. Isn't it time for us to have the discussion about legal ways to have an immigration policy that is safe and secure and benefits the American people, as immigration has benefited us from the onset of our history? I yield the floor.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, on February 13, 2025, President Trump said something few expected to hear. He said, ``There's no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons. We already have so many. . . You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons . . . We're all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive.'' I could not agree more with that statement. It is why I want to speak about the New START Treaty, which expires on February 5, and the very real possibility of a new nuclear arms race--something that, to my knowledge, neither the President, Vice President, nor any other senior U.S. official has meaningfully discussed. The decision to start a nuclear war can be made by a single individual--the President of the United States--with no requirement that he first consult with anyone. A nuclear war could also be started at any moment by Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, or any other leader of a nuclear weapon state. Or it could be triggered by mistake. A single use of a tactical nuclear weapon, either by accident or design, could trigger a flurry of escalating responses with far more powerful strategic weapons that would cause incalculable loss of life, widespread radiation poisoning, and destruction on a scale unlike anything seen in human history. We all, regardless of political affiliation, must reaffirm what Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev said 40 years ago: ``A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.'' For the past 80 years, the probability of mutually assured destruction has deterred the use of nuclear weapons. But in today's increasingly dangerous and unpredictable world, with mercurial leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, we cannot rely on deterrence alone. Existing nuclear arms control treaties are either no longer adhered to by Russia or the United States or, as in the case of New START, are on the verge of expiring. That represents a colossal failure of leadership by both the United States and Russia. There is no greater threat to humanity than a nuclear war, yet there are no negotiations underway to replace the treaty, nor are there discussions to consider a new generation of limits on nuclear weapons. My colleague from Massachusetts Senator Markey and several others here have sought to counter this complacency. But the danger of a new nuclear arms race has received far too little attention from Congress and the administration, and with tomorrow's expiration of the New START Treaty, it is staring us in the face. The United States, and our allies, must urgently seek to reinvigorate negotiations on a verifiable replacement for New START, with more effective mechanisms to prevent the development, proliferation, and use of nuclear weapons. Until then, we and the Russians should agree to continue abiding by the limits under New START, as President Putin has reportedly proposed. Despite our stark differences with the Russians, they have as much interest in preventing an unwinnable nuclear war as we do. We must also invigorate discussions with China, which has some 600 nuclear weapons. That number is expected to more than double in fewer than 10 years. If Putin refuses to replace New START, despite it being in Russia's own national interest, there are other steps that we, Russia, and China should take--short of negotiating a new treaty--to help reduce the risk of a nuclear war, whether due to a false alarm, error, or other misperception. For example: * Creating joint early warning centers to monitor missile launches; * De-targeting, so any accidental launch of a nuclear armed missile lands in the ocean; * Removing all nuclear weapons from high-alert status; * Reducing incentives to respond quickly to an unconfirmed nuclear attack; * Reducing the number of deployed nuclear weapons; and * Renouncing first use of nuclear weapons and eliminating the President's authority to launch nuclear weapons without congressional approval. Since the 1980s, thanks to negotiators in both countries, the United States and Russia curtailed an unrestrained nuclear arms race that had led to the deployment of staggering numbers of increasingly destructive weapons that could not rationally be justified for deterrence or any other purpose. The START Treaty and New START were historic achievements. Twelve months ago, President Trump spoke of the need for the United States, Russia, and China to stop building more nuclear weapons. Yet while his National Security Strategy calls for ``the world's most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent,'' it says nothing about preventing another nuclear arms race. With respect to New START, he reportedly said, ``If it expires, it expires.'' As the New START Treaty fades into history, one commentator has suggested that ``one likely successor to nuclear weapons' sole dominance on the strategic value ladder could be AI technology. . . Either AI technology itself will become the primary strategic weapon-- or it will enable the rapid creation of alternatives that render nuclear arsenals increasingly irrelevant to real-world outcomes.'' It is only a matter of time--and probably far less time than we think--before the application of AI technology to warfare creates a whole new impetus for global instability. But even as AI becomes more versatile as a disruptive and destructive force, nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war are not going to disappear. So I urge President Trump to elevate nuclear arms control to the top of his national security agenda. Even the modest steps I have mentioned to reduce the chance of a catastrophic mistake or miscalculation resulting in the use of nuclear weapons should be among our highest national security priorities.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, first, I want to acknowledge my colleagues from Minnesota Senator Smith and Senator Klobuchar. You have conveyed to us the deep pain and anguish that you feel and that every Minnesotan feels about the shocking shootings that occurred in your State. This follows on tragedies that occurred before this. The pain of your community is the pain of this U.S. Senate. My deep appreciation--and I know I express this on behalf of all of my colleagues--to you for putting this in a human, real perspective. Thank you very much. Second, this is shocking. Two people got shot for no reason-- absolutely no reason. Renee Good was a 37-year-old mom of three kids. She was protesting. That officer walked from the back of her car to the side of her car to the front of her car and shot through the front windshield and then moved to the side and shot two shots in the driver's side window. That is what happened. Alex Pretti was out with his cell phone camera observing what was going on and was shocked, I am sure, to see that an ICE agent was pushing a woman into a snowbank, and he came over to try to get between them. There was a scuffle. He was in total subjugation by the officers who had him on the ground. He was disarmed--never using, by the way, or even threatening to use the gun that he had legally in his possession. ICE officers--2 of them--shot him 10 times. Ten times. That is what happened. Why aren't we all just totally shocked? That is not acceptable. Then that is all done with the authority of the State--with no restraint. Then the Secretary of Homeland Security, who is responsible for the training and the discipline and the mission, blows this off and says that these two people were domestic terrorists--no accountability, no expression of sadness, no expression of remorse. How is this acceptable to any one of us here? How is that acceptable? Yet what we are hearing when we are saying ``Let's look into this. Let's get some reforms in place that allow our citizens to feel safe, for there to be accountability''--we are being told that it is too complicated because we already have a bill and we will have to divide it, and that means procedural hassles; that means, oh, the House will have to come back. Are we serious? That is called doing your job. It is called accountability. It is called taking responsibility. I want to pay tribute to the people of Minnesota. We are actually having a discussion about inconveniencing House Members because they have to get on a plane and come back if we act to do something that every American knows we should do: Pass the bipartisan bills where we have five bills done, and take on the burden of responsibility that we have as a U.S. Senate to put reforms in an Agency that needs reform. Folks in Minnesota--it is 20 degrees below zero--are out in the streets. They are out protesting peacefully. They are out providing coffee and cocoa and some warm soup to each other so they can get through this. Why are they doing it? Do you know what? They care about the right of assembly. They care about the First Amendment. They care about their constitutional rights. But the reason they are doing this is they care about each other. That is who they care about. In this U.S. Senate, our job is to care about every single American. We have an Agency that is totally out of control, with a leader that is--you know, I would say incompetent, but the cruelty of that remark, to dismiss two innocent people who died as ``domestic terrorists,'' tells me there is not an inkling of acceptance of responsibility that goes with the enormously important job of being Secretary of Homeland Security. So I am not going to vote and give a blank check when we are not even willing to have a discussion about what the reforms are. I want to say that I know every one of us here is shocked by what happened. This is not a Republican or a Democrat deal. This is about seeing two innocent people shot when they didn't need to be. You know, one of the things that is so important for us if we have a family and if we live in a community is to act in a way in which the people around us can be confident that we have got their backs; that we won't hurt them or harm them; that we notice what their struggles are and that we will try to help. You know, all of us here have such admiration for law enforcement and the work they do--it is such an incredibly hard job--but more than anyone else, the people who have contacted me in Vermont to express their shock at what happened in Minnesota have been people in law enforcement. They know the job is hard, but they have accepted the responsibility to be a guardian, to be protective. We can accept our responsibility, wherein we are the 100 people in this country who are in this Senate, who have the opportunity to provide some reassurance in safety and in confidence to the people that each and every one of us represents. So, yes, let's do our job. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELCH

Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, on January 2, 2026, after a 15-year battle with multiple myeloma, David Mitchell passed away at the age of 75. After being diagnosed with cancer and experiencing firsthand the exorbitant price of lifesaving medications in the United States, David founded Patients for Affordable Drugs, a national advocacy organization with the goal of lifting up patient voices in the fight to lower prescription drug prices. David was not motivated by attention; he felt a responsibility to speak up for the millions of Americans struggling to afford their medications. With a lifetime of public health and communications experience and his own personal story to tell, David recognized his unique opportunity to take on a system in need of substantial reform. Under his leadership, Patients for Affordable Drugs became a trusted, bipartisan force for reform, centering patient voices in a debate long dominated by corporate interests. And to this day, Patients for Affordable Drugs is one of the only national patient advocacy organizations that doesn't accept funding from organizations that profit from the prescription drug industry. In 2022, after nearly a decade of advocacy and coalition building, David's work paid off. The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA, included provisions that, for the first time ever, empowered Medicare to negotiate drug prices on behalf of patients. David and Patients for Affordable Drugs' fierce advocacy helped bring about this generational policy shift. Known as ``the face of opposition to the pharmaceutical industry in Washington,'' David was a central voice in Congress. He testified before the House and Senate numerous times, and was a go-to, trusted expert. I worked closely with David in our efforts to lower drug prices. I admired his political acumen, his depth of policy knowledge, and mostly, his deep compassion for others going through the same struggle he was experiencing. It was his ability to connect the realities of everyday Americans with policy changes in Washington that made David such an effective advocate. While Patients for Affordable Drugs may have been his crowning achievement, David also worked on some of the Nation's most effective public-health campaigns, including efforts to reduce drunk driving, increase seatbelt and child safety seat use, and improve roadway safety. His advocacy has saved countless lives, often quietly and outside the spotlight. David's special power was knowing how to build lasting advocacy campaigns that led to real solutions. He demonstrated that patients are not passive observers of policy, but essential participants. And when someone told him that high drug prices were necessary, David countered with a simple slogan: ``Drugs don't work if people can't afford them.'' Mr. David Mitchell lived a meaningful life in service to others, and the world is safer, fairer, and more humane because of him. His legacy lives on through his colleagues, family, the laws he helped change, and the many patients' lives he empowered.