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CHIPS ACT OF 2022--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Affordable Housing
Mr. REED. Madam President, among the many financial worries for average Americans, particularly young families just starting out, is finding a safe, affordable place to live. The simple fact is that we don't have the supply of housing to meet demand. Indeed, we have a shortfall of 7 million affordable housing units according to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.
Certainly, the COVID-19 pandemic reduced housing production and created kinks in the supply chain for important raw materials like lumber, but the truth is that we were lagging when it came to building and maintaining affordable housing long before COVID-19.
Back in 2020, a Rhode Island family earning the State's median income could not afford to buy a home at the median price anywhere in the State. It has only gotten worse since then. Across the country, home prices have risen 13.4 percent from last year, with the national median price now at $416,000.
In my State, the Rhode Island Association of Realtors reports that the median price of homes sold in June 2022 reached an alltime high of
$430,000. That is 11.7 percent higher than a year earlier.
A large reason that home ownership is out of reach for many Americans is the inventory levels are so low. In recent months, sales have dropped as interest rates have increased, but we are still nowhere near a balanced market. In a healthy housing market, there is usually a 6-
month supply of homes available for sale at any given time. Right now, our country has less than a 3-month supply of homes, and Rhode Island has less than a 2-month supply.
As potential home buyers are priced out of the housing market, they remain in the rental market, adding additional pressure to rental prices. According to apartmentlist.com, rent has grown 14.1 percent nationally from last summer. In Providence, RI, rents have jumped 23.8 percent from last year.
When supply is tight and rents go up, it is harder for our more vulnerable community members to afford housing. That is our seniors, people with disabilities, and the unhoused. People who have been a part of the fabric of our communities for decades are no longer able to afford staying. It is a scary prospect that is facing too many Americans.
This didn't happen overnight. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the number of homes with low monthly rents declined by 4 million between 1991 and 2017.
And the underbuilding of starter homes for decades has caught up to us, creating a major housing supply crunch that has led to soaring rents and home prices. Developers have more incentives to build six-
bedroom ``McMansions'' and luxury apartments. That doesn't help folks who just need a safe, affordable place to live in their community, and it doesn't meet the needs of young families who just want about 1,800 square feet, four walls, and a roof. We now have a housing market where police officers, firefighters, teachers, and nurses cannot afford to live in the communities that they serve. Simply put, our current housing stock does not have homes to match what families want and what families need.
Also contributing to the problem, our housing market has been flooded with speculators, private equity firms, and large institutional investors who are starting to come in looking for big profits. This is why Chairman Brown, Senator Warren, and I have called on HUD to stem the flow of single-family homes to institutional investors and help level the playing field between families and large investors.
In this kind of market, it is hard for everyone, especially first-
time buyers.
Over the last 2 years, the Federal Government has made substantial investments in affordable housing, helping people experiencing homelessness, and keeping people stably housed. Without the measures we adopted, the housing situation for millions of Americans would be even worse.
I was part of the bipartisan working group that negotiated the CARES Act, which was a step toward keeping people safe, protecting public health, and preventing an affordable housing crisis from becoming an eviction disaster.
But, clearly, the CARES Act wasn't enough. That is why I introduced a bill to provide rental assistance and homeowner assistance to families. That legislative initiative led to the influx of more than $46 billion in emergency rental assistance to help renters who have struggled to pay their rent and utilities during the pandemic. Those funds have also been used to help with housing stability, particularly for unhoused individuals. In total, emergency rental assistance has helped over 34,000 families in Rhode Island alone.
And I also worked with colleagues to deliver nearly $10 billion under the Homeowner Assistance Fund to help homeowners who experienced COVID-
19 hardships keep up with house payments and stay in their homes. Over
$50 million in this fund is helping homeowners in my State.
Rhode Island and other States are also committing their American Rescue Plan dollars toward building new affordable housing. It is hard to overstate the impact that this cushion of support has had for families in our State and across the country.
Putting a historic emphasis on housing support helped eliminate a major potential economic hardship that could have been catastrophic for millions of Americans. Without the worry of how to make rent or mortgage payments, families didn't need to scramble to find shelter and uproot themselves from their support systems. Kids had safe homes and could stay in the same school. It helped parents keep their jobs, helped seniors stay connected to their communities, and kept all of us healthier and safer. We need more of this kind of support for families, not less.
Measures like the Emergency Rental Assistance Program and the Homeowner Assistance Fund were temporary, and those programs are going to be wrapping up in the next few months. As we look ahead to the future, it is time for us to think, What have we learned? What are the acute needs of housing today?
There is no question we need to build more affordable housing. We need to invest in rehabilitating old homes but also in building new homes, specifically for low-income families.
We need to fortify the Federal programs that incentivize private investment in affordable housing, like the National Housing Trust Fund, the Capital Magnet Fund, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, and HOME Investment Partnerships. That includes extending available low-income housing tax credits by reinstating the 12.5-percent boost that expired at the end of 2021. It also means passing the bipartisan LIFELINE Act introduced by Senators Leahy, Collins, Wyden, myself, and many others so that we can maximize the impact of the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds from the American Rescue Plan when States put those funds toward building and maintaining affordable housing.
We need to invest in apprenticeships and training programs to create a more skilled construction workforce with a focus on attracting more diverse workers.
We need more innovation, with quicker building techniques and high-
tech materials. This is not a pipedream. Rhode Island has already shown the world how to get innovative in the housing space with ONE Neighborhood Builders' Sheridan Small Homes and Bowdoin Street Rowhouse. These are innovative construction projects--small homes with many energy-saving aspects. They are the future, and we have to invest in that future.
And as I said, we have to build to focus on a green future that includes the effects of climate change. That means we need to pass the Green Retrofits Act, which I introduced with Senator Collins. This bill would boost energy efficiency in thousands of multifamily residential homes nationwide by bolstering public-private partnerships to make healthy home upgrades and creating a new program to distribute energy efficiency grants and loans.
We need to increase our assistance and our commitment to homeless assistance grants. That includes funding for the Continuum of Care Program, which serves over 750,000 people experiencing homelessness each year, and for emergency solution grants, which support over 350,000 who are in emergency shelter each year.
We need to fully fund housing choice vouchers, make them easier to use in communities, and incentivize landlords to take these vouchers, which is being done presently in Rhode Island.
Investing in housing will not fuel the fire of inflation; it will tackle one of the key contributors to rising costs and help stabilize family budgets.
On many of these fronts, State and local action is also needed to move the ball forward. State and local governments must address the issue of exclusionary zoning. In far too many places, there are barriers to building multifamily homes or townhouse and too-high minimums for lot sizes, making it very challenging to build affordably.
It should be easier for people to convert their garage into living space for a family member, such as an in-law suite above a detached garage. And that is just one example.
Some of these challenges can be traced back to ``not in my backyard'' attitudes, which we must all do our part to overcome.
Every family should have a decent, affordable place to live, and we need to commit ourselves to making the investments and adopting policies to make that possible.
And emphasizing, once again, investment in housing will lower costs to families, which will be an effective way to help overall--not immediately--but overall to lower inflationary pressures on our working families.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, joining me today on the floor are Mr. James Shea, Mr. Woody Daigle, and Ms. Bernadette Breslin--three very able members of my staff.
Energy Policies
Madam President, I want to talk for a few minutes today about electricity and, more specifically, about how to pay for it.
My people are really struggling right now. Folks in my home State of Louisiana--and I know this is true in your State, Madam President, and across the country--are facing some of the largest energy bills, electricity bills, in the history of ever.
In the past month, I have learned about a woman in Shreveport in my State whose electricity bill went from $182 to $243, a Baton Rouge resident whose bill went from $65 to $353, a citizen from my city of New Orleans whose bill went from $140 to $280 in 1 month.
As one of my people put it, ``Your electricity bill should not be one-third of your paycheck.''
Now, I realize that to some Americans who are fortunate enough to be wealthier, these increases may seem insignificant, but many of my people in Louisiana live from paycheck to paycheck. And put very simply, many of the people in my State and many of their fellow Americans simply cannot afford this.
Now, look, I understand it is hot. I understand it is hot in Louisiana. Here is a news flash: In the summer, it is always hot in Louisiana. Some days, I think that God gave Louisiana a choice between good food and good weather, and we chose good food. I get that.
But heat is not the main reason that these electricity bills are soaring. It is not. The main reason that electricity bills are soaring is because of President Biden's profoundly foolish energy policies which have depleted America's natural gas inventories.
Because of this, natural gas prices have increased 75 percent from 2020--not 9.1 percent that you read in the newspaper or attributed to inflation in general, not 20 percent--75 percent, and they continue to climb.
Entergy is one of the largest electricity providers in my State, particularly in South Louisiana--actually, all over my State. Entergy just sent a letter to its customers, and I want to quote from it. This is what Entergy told its ratepayers and my people:
[T]he cost of natural gas, which we use to operate numerous power generation facilities, continues to rise. Natural gas prices in April of 2022 were more than double those in April of 2021 and three times higher than April 2020. As a result, these higher-than normal costs will be seen on customer bills.
That is why my people are so scared. That is why the American people are so scared.
Louisianans are not alone in this. A recent survey--and this is a very reputable research firm called HelpAdvisor--just found that 24 percent--a quarter--of all Americans have reduced or gone without paying basic expenses so they can pay their energy bills, pay their electricity bills.
What country are we living in?
Now, the current energy crisis--and that is what this is--is a sucking chest wound for Louisianans and for Americans. Yet President Biden refuses to budge from his war on affordable energy that got us here.
I will say this: President Biden has been true to his word. On day 1 of his campaign, he said he would destroy America's energy independence. By God, he has done it. He said that. By God, he has been successful. He killed the Keystone Pipeline. He has canceled our country's mineral leases. He stalled our country's pipelines. He has told his banking regulators to dry up capital and loans for energy production. He has put the full force and weight of the U.S. Government behind this effort to destroy oil and gas. In doing so, he has intentionally forfeited America's energy independence, and that is why electricity bills are so high.
I will give you one example, but I am not going to beat this to death. Earlier this month--I guess just before July 4--President Biden's Department of the Interior released its 5-year Federal leasing plan. That plan contains a maximum--it doesn't even mean they will do this amount--of 11 lease sales for oil and gas producers. Do you know what the last plan proposed was under the prior administration? Forty-
seven.
It is clear. I mean, I get it. President Biden does not want the United States of America to produce its own fossil fuels. He just doesn't. His new plan is we are going to forfeit our energy independence.
We have to have oil and gas to run the greatest economy in all of human history. Where are we going to get it if we forfeit our energy independence? Well, we are going to buy up natural gas and oil from countries--foreign countries--that hate us. So those foreign countries will have more money to buy weapons to try to kill us. That is what we are doing.
Now, what is the answer? How do we fix this? Well, the answer--duh--
is to have the American people produce their own oil and gas. We can do it, and we have done it before. We were energy independent. My people in Louisiana know how to produce clean, affordable energy and so do other people in other States.
This is what else my people would tell President Biden if they could speak to him directly. They would say: Mr. President, with all due respect, we can produce natural gas; we can produce oil.
They would go further. They would say: Mr. President, we want you to understand that we don't hate wind, and we don't hate solar. We, the people of Louisiana, want to explore all alternative forms of energy: wind, solar, nuclear, clean hydrogen, hydroelectric.
But they would go further and say: Mr. President, we want a balanced energy policy. Ours is the greatest economy in all of human history, and it uses a lot of energy, and 80 percent of our energy comes from fossil fuels. Do we work every day to make those fossil fuels cleaner? Yes, but we can't do without them. When we try, this is what happens in terms of electricity bills.
There are ways that people can get help. They are struggling right now in my State. For example, for customers in New Orleans, Entergy has created a program called Energy Smart Program. Entergy, the electric power company, will send an employee out to your residence for free and make suggestions about how you can lower your bills.
There are other entities that are trying to help. There is a group called Share the Light and another group called SMILE. These are local nonprofits in Lafayette that will try to help people in their areas who are having trouble paying their electricity bills.
SLEMCO is also offering a terrific utility assistance program that would provide a one-time $300 grant payment for people who can't pay their electricity bills.
Of course, there are also programs under my State's Louisiana Housing Corporation, such as LIHEAP and the Weatherization Assistance Program, that can help folks reduce their electricity bills.
Let me close in this way. Two years ago, I was on this same floor and in this very same spot--right here. I was able to talk about how our economy was soaring. Two years ago, I was able to proudly say that we in America were energy independent, that unemployment was at record lows, and that Americans had more money in their pockets. We can have that again. The American people deserve it. We can have it again but not if President Biden continues to double down on what, in my judgment, is his bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow, foolish energy policy, which, when you scrub away all the rhetoric, amounts to this: wind, solar, and wishful thinking.
You can't produce electricity with wishful thinking. My people's bills are way too high, and they don't have to be that high if President Biden would just listen.
I yield to Senator Marshall.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Honoring Amelia Earhart
Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, this week, after waiting more than 20 years, Amelia Earhart's statue will replace fellow Atchison, KS, native and former U.S. Senator John Ingalls in the National Statuary Hall Collection.
Amelia will join President Dwight D. Eisenhower, our Nation's 34th President and Abilene, KS, native, as one of Kansas's two tribute statues in the Capitol Building. President Eisenhower's statue was placed in the Capitol Rotunda in 2003, but Amelia's journey to our Nation's Capitol has taken much longer. Kansans, and especially the people of Atchison, persevered, just as Amelia did in her pursuit of flight, to coordinate and create a bronze statue and limestone base--an appropriate nod to our State's signature natural stone.
It was 85 years ago this month that Amelia Earhart vanished over the vast Pacific Ocean. She had already completed more than three-fourths of her trip, which would have made her the first pilot ever to circle the Earth at its equator. Amelia had already made history before this flight. She was the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, and the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States. In defying odds and expectations with each new accomplishment, she became a global superstar and one of the most accomplished pilots in history.
While Amelia was a pioneer for aviators everywhere, she is still today a role model for every person but especially for women and young girls who strive to break barriers and achieve their dreams despite the odds being against them.
In my home State of Kansas, Amelia's legacy lives on and continues to know no limits. Kansas is home to the Air Capital of the World for good reason. Our State has been home to many aviation manufacturers over the course of a century, and on any given summer's day, with eyes to the sky, you can see crop dusters flying low, dodging trees and power lines, diving upon acres and acres of cropland. Looking farther upward, you might see hobby pilots or executive jets, and often, you will hear screeching fighter bombers and giant jet refuelers, but to see them, you have to strain your eyes forward of the booming sound. Indeed, our spacious land is well fitted for spacious runways, and our faraway horizons that provide endless visibility go on for miles on end, signaling Kansas will remain the Nation's leader in aerospace and drone development.
I want to go back for a moment to a young Amelia being brought up in the heartland. Yes, Kansas is where 9-year-old Amelia first took to flight. Listen to this story.
Inspired by an exhibit she saw at the 1904 World's Fair, she built by herself a makeshift roller coaster. Recall again she is 9 years of age in this story. She launched her coaster off the roof of her house. After tipping over the edge of the roofline, she said: ``It felt like I was flying.'' Sixteen years later, she purchased her own plane and flew to new heights.
Today, I also want to honor the people of Atchison, who have taken great lengths to preserve and tell Amelia's story for all Americans to hear. My wife and I not too long ago enjoyed a great day visiting her perfectly preserved birth home, but the star of the show for our visit--a ``must go see'' for everybody but especially for American history buffs--was the new Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum, which honors Amelia's aviation legacy and inspires all generations in the pursuit of flight. The centerpiece is Muriel, the world's last remaining Lockheed Electra 10-E, an aircraft identical to the plane Amelia flew on her final flight. Muriel is named for Amelia's younger sister, Grace Muriel Earhart Morrissey.
What I am really excited about at the museum is the immersive STEM exhibits, which take visitors through Earhart's adventurous life, from growing up in Atchison, KS, to the height of her worldwide fame as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Every school within busing distance has to plan a field trip to Atchison in the coming year. Parents should be fighting for the chance to chaperone.
Finally, I want to salute Atchison's annual festival in honor of Amelia, which I attended just a couple of weekends ago, celebrating her life and achievements with history lessons, concerts, downtown arts and crafts, a world-class fireworks extravaganza, and a luncheon honoring the Amelia Earhart Pioneering Achievement Award recipient. It was there for the first time that I connected with the legend of Amelia and why the hometown folks, nearly 130 years after her birth, fight to preserve her legacy and especially how much she means to the ladies of the community.
Amelia flew to new heights and traveled longer distances than ever before, and today, Americans everywhere are joining Atchisonians and Kansans as we all honor Amelia this week out of a shared admiration for her innovative, pioneering spirit.
Her fellow Atchison native and statuary predecessor, John Ingalls, coined the motto for our State, ``Ad Astra per Aspera,'' which means
``to the stars through difficulties.'' Amelia Earhart personified that motto by pushing against social boundaries set for women and breaking new records in flight not just for a woman but for all aviators.
For generations to come, her spirit and her likeness in Statuary Hall will inspire not only Kansans but also visitors from around the world.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MORAN. Madam President, this week, the U.S. Capitol will welcome a bronze statue of a determined young woman with short-cut hair, a curious smile, and a bomber hat in hand. For almost everyone around the country, this young woman is easily recognizable as the adventurer and aviator Amelia Earhart.
Amelia Earhart, the most famous woman in aviation, soared into the history books, setting flight records and breaking barriers. But before she became known worldwide as the Queen of the Air, she was the daughter of a small town in Kansas, Atchison.
Amelia Earhart was born in 1897 in Atchison, KS, a rural community that had a population then of about 500 people. As a young girl, Amelia kept busy with her sister Muriel. The girls were constantly exploring their own neighborhood, climbing trees, and playing with animals. During her high school years, Amelia excelled in chemistry, which inspired her to go to medical school--a goal unthinkable for woman at the time. Her independence and ambition were evident from a very young age.
Amelia's go-getter attitude propelled her to become an innovative entrepreneur--working as a stenographer, an author, a social worker, a truckdriver, and even a fashion designer.
Later in life, when Amelia was asked how she maintained such a fervent work ethic, she stated:
The most effective way to do it is to do it.
This can-do spirit was the catalyst for Earhart's daring and fast-
paced career as an aviator. Amelia fell in love with flight when she took a plane ride at a California airshow in 1920, and it wasn't long after that experience before Amelia started her first pilot lessons.
She completed her aviation courses in 1921, making her only the 16th woman in the world with a license to fly. Earhart quickly purchased her own plane and wasted no time in becoming one of the world's most notable aviators.
Following Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic, interest grew to see a woman fly across the Atlantic. On June 17, 1928, Earhart took off but only as a passenger. After landing in Wales some 20 hours later, she recalled how she felt like she was ``just baggage, like a sack of potatoes,'' and added, ``Maybe someday, I'll try it alone.''
Shortly after that trip, Amelia announced she would fly the same path that she did in 1928 but this time on her own, solo. When the pilot was asked what prompted her to reattempt this flight, she stated:
There's more to life than just being a passenger.
In 1932, Earhart became the first woman to complete a solo transatlantic flight in a record time of 14 hours 56 minutes, despite being faced with a number of challenges during the trip.
Earhart continued to break records by completing the first-ever solo flight from Hawaii to California, from Los Angeles to Mexico City, and reaching the highest altitude a female pilot had ever reached at the time.
Her spirit of adventure led her to attempt the greatest feat: a flight around the world. Amelia would be the first person to attempt this by taking the equatorial route, starting in the west and making her way east. This was an astonishing 29,000-mile route, with the last 7,000 miles occurring over the Pacific Ocean.
She left with her navigator, Fred Noonan, on June 1, 1937, making stops in South America, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. Every stop on her journey, she came closer and closer and closer to achieving her goal.
On July 2, 1937, the day of the longest leg of her journey, her quest ended too soon in radio silence somewhere over the Pacific. Intensive searches continue to this day, most recently by the renowned oceanographer and Kansan Dr. Bob Ballard, but have left the world continuing to wonder what ever happened to Amelia.
She captivated the hearts and the minds of many and inspired the next generation of pilots to love the sky in the same way she did.
Undeniably, the State of Kansas has a long history steeped in the aviation industry, but without pioneers like Amelia Earhart, our State would not be the epicenter of aviation that it is today.
Now, in celebration of her accomplishments and legacy, Amelia Earhart will join President Dwight D. Eisenhower as bronze beacons representing Kansas in our Nation's Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. Tomorrow, this Wednesday, we will unveil Amelia's statue to the world, just 3 days after what would have been her 125th birthday.
This week would not have been possible without the efforts of Jacque Pregont, Karen Seaberg, and Reed Berger, all with the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation.
Thank you for your extensive and determined efforts. This partnership has made so much progress to get us to the day that we now arrive at.
I look forward to the dedication ceremony on Wednesday and seeing Kansans fill Statuary Hall to honor and preserve Amelia Earhart's legacy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
National Whistleblower Appreciation Day
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I don't know how many years in a row I have been doing this, but this week in July, I always come to the Senate floor to honor whistleblowers.
I expect this week that the Senate will unanimously pass my resolution designating this Saturday, July 30, as National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. This year the resolution has 21 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle, more cosponsors than this resolution has had ever before. Now, that should serve as a very important reminder that protecting and celebrating whistleblowers is not a partisan issue. It is just as simple as it being good government.
This Congress, I have been working on several pieces of whistleblower legislation that also have bipartisan support. One of those bills, which I introduced last December along with Senators Warren and Warnock, relates to money laundering. In 2020, Congress established the first-ever anti-money-laundering whistleblower program. Under this reward-based program, whistleblowers who provide actionable information to the government that exposes money laundering may receive a percentage of the funds recovered as a result of their disclosure.
While that is an important step forward, the current program has its issues. First, there is no minimum award amount, so the government isn't obligated to pay a whistleblower anything at all, even if the information that the whistleblower provides leads to a successful enforcement action. Second, the program doesn't provide the Treasury Department with a mechanism to pay whistleblowers and, instead, relies on yearly congressional appropriations.
My bill addresses these issues. It raises the cap on whistleblower rewards from 25 to 30 percent, and it sets a 10-percent base minimum on rewards to ensure that if the government collects as a result of the whistleblower's disclosure, the whistleblower isn't left holding the short end of the stick. It also establishes a funding mechanism to ensure that the Treasury Department has funds readily available to pay whistleblowers independent of congressional appropriations.
These improvements will ensure that whistleblowers have the confidence to come forward and assist law enforcement in cracking down on money laundering.
The bill also expands the whistleblower disclosures that are eligible for the award. Current whistleblower laws don't offer anything to whistleblowers who report violations of sanctions against individuals. That would include sanctions placed on Russian oligarchs following Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. That is a missed opportunity. I have it on good authority that there are some whistleblowers who might have come forward to report sanction violations associated with the Russians if only the reward system were in place to cover their disclosure. My bill fills the gap by expanding the list of covered disclosures to include sanctions violations.
Another bill which I am introducing this week strengthens the FBI whistleblower protections. For years, the FBI has argued that the FBI and the Justice Department should retain tight control over FBI whistleblower-retaliation cases. The FBI has its own separate whistleblower law that leaves authority for settling FBI whistleblower-
retaliation complaints to the FBI and to the Department of Justice.
The bill that I introduce will allow FBI employees to appeal their whistleblower retaliation cases to the Merit Systems Protection Board. This bill gives them outside review by a neutral third party. The bill also includes a kickout provision. That will mean that, if the FBI doesn't act in a timely manner, the whistleblower can take their cases straight to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
This bipartisan bill is cosponsored by Senators Durbin, Hawley, Whitehouse, and Blackburn. I want to thank each of those cosponsors for their support.
Those are just two of several legislative initiatives before Congress that will ensure whistleblowers remain protected. I urge Congress to consider and pass this legislation before the end of the year. Support for whistleblowers is something that we can all get behind. It can and should unite every Member of the Congress who believes government needs to remain transparent and accountable to people. This week, I encourage my fellow Senators to remember that important fact.
Let's renew our shared commitment to strengthening the Nation's whistleblower laws by taking up and passing this important whistleblower legislation.
H.R. 4346
Madam President, now on another subject--and it is the subject that is before the Senate right now that I assume will be brought up for final action yet this week--which is the vote on a stripped-down China competition package.
Now, gone is language combating China's unfair trade practices. Gone are provisions preventing fentanyl and narcotics from entering the country. Gone is my proposal to stop subsidizing China through the low-
cost World Bank loans. Gone are provisions that I championed preventing the flood of counterfeit Chinese merchandise. And gone are condemnations of the Chinese Communist Party for the ongoing genocide of the Uighur minority.
Last year, I supported an earlier version of this bill, in large part because it included these very tough-on-China policies that I just mentioned are missing from this piece of legislation that the Senate will soon be voting on. But now these policies are out, and more spending is in.
It includes more than $76 billion of subsidies earmarked for a single industry: the semiconductor manufacturers. Semiconductors, or chips, are important, but that doesn't mean that we should write these companies a blank check. If incentives to encourage more semiconductor investment in the United States are necessary, they should be targeted.
I understand the national security concerns, but simply mentioning the words ``national security'' isn't the end of the discussion.
Proponents must show how these subsidies will accomplish their objectives. These subsidies are not targeted at domestic production of the advanced chips produced almost exclusively by our allies in Asia. Furthermore, these subsidies fail to include adequate safeguards to prevent companies receiving subsidies from turning around and--you know what?--possibly investing in China.
A lot has changed since Congress began talking about these subsidies more than a year ago, and the Senate passed this bill a long, long time ago. According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, the semiconductor industry has already announced $80 billion of U.S. investment by 2025. Moreover, there is growing evidence that a chip glut is down the road, coming along.
Yet, instead of looking to trim back or better target the subsidies, this bill actually doubles down on corporate welfare. This bill now includes an expansive tax credit that will subsidize semiconductor manufacturers to the tune of about $24 billion.
In total, American taxpayers will pay up to 40 percent of the cost of a semiconductor facility. That means individual companies are in line to receive billions in taxpayer funds. For example, Intel has announced plans for a $20 billion facility. Taxpayers will write a check from a low of $4 billion to possibly a high of an $8 billion check for this one facility.
I am dumbfounded that my Democratic colleagues can justify this, and I say that because President Biden and his allies in Congress rant and rave about profitable corporations paying little or no tax. And yet, under this bill, some of the largest and most profitable companies in the world are poised to pay zero tax.
In fact, unlike typical tax credits that reduce a company's tax bill, this one will allow a company to receive the credit as a cash payment, exceeding any taxes that that company might pay.
Outside of Senator Sanders, Senate Democrats seem very unconcerned with making these large profitable corporations--as you hear them say all the time--``pay their fair share.''
I hope that they keep this in mind when liberal groups inevitably point to more profitable multinationals not paying taxes. Don't try then and blame Republicans or the 2017 tax bill, which has resulted in record revenues coming into the Federal Treasury. In fact, the 2017 tax bill should be the model for how we should be competing with China. Instead of targeting specific industries for lavish subsidies, we reformed our Tax Code to eliminate special interest loopholes while helping all industries compete on a global scale, including against China.
A competitive tax code, pro-growth policies, and rule of law allow Americans to do what Americans do best, and that is innovate. That is how we will outcompete China.
In contrast, onshoring wasteful and inefficient Chinese industrial policies will only stifle innovation and weaken our dynamic economy, which is our great advantage.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Affordable Care Act
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I thought that the Republicans wanted to cut taxes, but when it comes to American families' health insurance, they want to raise taxes. Now, why?
Well, there is one simple explanation: Barack Obama. You see, it was Barack Obama who came up with the ACA--the Affordable Care Act--where millions of Americans have access to health insurance--affordable health insurance--35 million, 1 out of 10 Americans.
But in the efforts of the Republicans to end the Affordable Care Act, they are basically trying everything. There was a time when there was this historic, tension-filled moment on the floor when three Republican Senators saved the Affordable Care Act. Senators Murkowski, Collins, and John McCain--and I will still remember that image as long as I am alive--walked on the floor and saved the Affordable Care Act.
But ever since then, the Republicans have been trying to do away with it every way they can think of. There are millions of Americans who have better health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. They cannot be denied coverage because of a preexisting condition. They don't have annual or lifetime limits on coverage. They have free preventive healthcare, and young adults can stay on their parents' plans until they have reached the age of 26--all positive things, wildly popular. Still the Republicans resist the idea that this is going to be the law of the land, if they have anything to say about it.
There is no disputing that ACA is one of the greatest public policy accomplishments of a lifetime. But as I mentioned, this lifesaving policy is once again under threat from the Republicans. Why?
Last year, Congress passed and President Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan, which, among other things, made ACA health plans more widely available and more affordable for millions of Americans.
That package increased the size of ACA's tax credit, which eliminated or reduced out-of-pocket premiums for millions of people.
It also expanded eligibility, so that more lower- and middle-income Americans are now eligible for tax credits.
As a result of these improvements, a record 14-and-a-half million people signed up for the ACA plans during the 2022 open enrollment period. And I understand nearly one-third of these enrollees found a plan that costs $10 per month or less.
Millions of enrollees selected a plan that didn't cost anything. In the midst of this once-in-a-century pandemic, the American Rescue Plan provided families across the Nation with peace of mind that they have continued access to health insurance.
Here is the problem: If Congress doesn't do something--and soon--
these enhancements lowering the cost of premiums for American families will end. That causes millions of people to lose their health insurance or to have to pay more.
If you are in a time of inflation, where the cost of living is going up, wouldn't you want to be on the train that says ``lower health insurance premiums''? The Democrats are. The Republicans are not.
Millions of people will either lose their insurance or pay more if we don't do something. Not one single Republican Senator will join in our efforts, but those families in every State are going to be benefited by this.
Let's not forget how hard Republican Senators have fought to come down on the side of insurance companies and take away health insurance for Americans. It has been their top priority for decades.
So it falls on Democrats, once again, to fix this problem. And fix it we must. It is my understanding that all 50 Democratic Senators are on board with providing a multiyear extension of these ACA tax credits. I know that House Democrats are with us.
Let us get it done soon by August when insurers start notifying customers of their 2023 premiums. People nationwide have a lot on their plates these days, from rising costs to fears of gun violence to increasing COVID cases to new restrictions on women's rights.
Let us not add to the burden of tax-paying families by hiking their health insurance premiums next year. The Democrats want to fix it. We invite the Republicans, who give many speeches on the cost of living for families, to join us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
Unanimous Consent Request
Mr. PAUL. Over 6 million people died worldwide from COVID; over a million Americans died from COVID.
Last year, we passed unanimously an amendment I had to ban any U.S. tax dollars from going to Wuhan, China, to the lab. There was a great deal of evidence that this pandemic arose out of the lab.
Gain-of-function research enhances the severity of transmissibility of existing viruses that may infect humans. The dangers are so acute that, from 2014 to 2017, the National Institutes of Health suspended funding for all gain-of-function projects.
The emergence of COVID serves as a reminder that this dangerous research, conducted in a secretive and totalitarian country, is simply too risky to fund.
I, therefore, ask my colleagues to restore this crucial provision that would prohibit the funding of gain-of-function research in China.
I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up my amendment No. 5159. I further ask that there be 30 minutes of debate, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; and, finally, that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on adoption of my amendment with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, no one could be more disappointed than myself in the fact that we don't have a conference report before us at this point in time.
With so many different committees and the four corners working to resolve so many issues, I had hoped that we would get over the goal line and be here with that conference report.
Unfortunately, events overtook us and objectives of the calendar and a variety of issues that narrowed the discussion we have before us today to two focus points: one, the Science Committee's work with the Commerce Committee in the Senate and language that basically would incent the semiconductor industry.
And our colleagues voted to proceed on those two measures, and there was a lot of discussion on what the definition of a ``skinny bill'' was. Not sure, exactly--I mean, I know a lot of the events that got us to that discussion.
But I will say to my colleague that he is correct. When USICA left the U.S. Senate, it included this language, and this language was very much debated in conference, and it was part of the jurisdiction of several committees, but primarily the HELP Committee, whose content is now not part of the legislation we are considering.
So I am hopeful that we will get those committees that have jurisdiction over this language to rectify their differences between the House and the Senate, but that is what four corners is. It is rectifying these issues between the House and the Senate, and I hope that my colleague will work with me on a conference that will continue after this point.
I hope that we get this legislation done, and then I hope that we literally return to finish up the rest of the conference work because there are so many important issues, like this, that we should include in the legislation.
So I hope my colleague will continue to work with us, knowing that these are not all of the issues that had been discussed, but a more narrow issue.
So, therefore, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). Objection is heard.
The Senator from Ohio.
Unanimous Consent Request
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am coming to the floor today to offer a very straightforward, commonsense amendment that is noncontroversial, that has met all of the requirements set out by the Democratic leadership--by the majority leader--by the chair of the conference, and by the ranking member of the conference to be accepted. This is language that must accompany the research dollars that are part of the CHIPS+ legislation that we are considering right now.
When you add it all up, when you add up CHIPS and the CHIPS+ language, which includes research dollars to NSF, NIH, Department of Energy, and so on, we are talking about $200 billion of taxpayer money.
As part of this process, when we passed the underlying bill, USICA, here in the U.S. Senate, we included language that said: You know what, we ought to protect that language. We ought to protect that research.
It is like we are buying a really expensive new car, and if we don't protect it, it means we are not buying the insurance that goes with it. The insurance is needed for a very simple reason: We know that for the past two decades, that U.S. taxpayer-paid research--just like the research that we are about to both appropriate and authorize in this legislation--has been subject to being taken by our adversaries, particularly China. So that is why we need to protect it.
We worked painstakingly over the last 4 years on a bipartisan basis to come up with this legislation. Again, it has been fully vetted.
There was discussion a moment ago about the four corners. What does that mean? That means that the chair and ranking members of the committees of jurisdiction--the four corners--are asked to approve anything that goes into this legislation.
Well, everything I am going to talk about today is approved by the four corners.
By the way, everything that is in the underlying legislation--some of the plus in the CHIPS+ Act--has not gone through the four corners process. This has.
To my colleagues who say: Well, if we put this amendment in, how about these other amendments? Look, I have five or six things in the USICA bill I would love to have be part of this final agreement. I have wonderful trade legislation that should be part of this. It is not. That is with Senator Brown, by the way. I have wonderful legislation that deals with worker retraining that is absolutely related to competitiveness. That is with Senator Kaine. It should absolutely be part of this final agreement. It is not. I get that. There are a lot of things that had to be left out when this conference did not succeed, even though I, like others, worked very hard to get that conference to come to agreement--not just in my areas. I am the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee. We cleared all of ours but also worked with other committees and other Members, Republican and Democrat alike.
But I said from the start that we have to have this research security language in place if we are going to put out billions of dollars of new taxpayer dollars in terms of research; otherwise, it is irresponsible.
So the amendment I am offering today is a skinnied-down version of what passed in USICA already. It is a skinnied-down version of what I was proposing because some people thought there were some concerns in the House--actually among Republicans, interestingly--about some of these aspects, so we have just taken those out. We have made this totally noncontroversial. Four corners. Fits like a glove with what we are talking about, which is the new research dollars. That is what this is all about.
It should not be surprising that there is a lot of bipartisan support for this. There has been from the start. Why? Because everybody knows this is a grave threat to our national security if we do not protect American research.
The Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, recently warned:
The greatest long-term threat to our nation's information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China. It's a threat to our economic security--and by extension, to our national security.
He characterized China as the largest threat to ``our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security.'' He noted that the FBI now has over 2,000 open cases focused on China, with a new case being opened approximately every 12 hours. This is reality. This is what is happening right now.
After our bipartisan investigation, we had a hearing. The FBI showed up, and we said: Do you know what? We have learned in our investigation the shocking news that for two decades China has been systematically targeting the best American researchers and the best American research to be able to take that research, leapfrog us, and it has helped to create an ascended China--the rise of their military and their economic progress--by taking our research, taxpayer-paid.
The FBI, testifying, said: Do you know what? You are right. We have kind of been asleep at the switch, and we are going to change that. And they have, and that is why you have seen many, many arrests being made. But they said to us: We need some legislation. We need a cause of action that actually fits what is going on here because there is not one now. We have to come up with other ways, like mail fraud or other--
tax evasion or other ways to bring people to justice. That is what this legislation does.
We also heard from the State Department, and this was career people at the State Department, including now in the Biden State Department. They desperately want new authority to be able to avoid people coming into our country to steal our technology. They desperately want it, and that is part of this legislation today.
We found out that China uses these so-called talent recruitment programs--the most prominent one, you have heard of, probably; it is the Thousand Talents Plan--to target science and technology sectors just like the ones we are funding. They target academics, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and finance experts. The plans provide monetary benefits and other incentives to lure experts into providing proprietary information or research to China, in violation of our laws and conflict of interest rules.
Again, the cases go on and on.
China, in turn, exploits American research, intellectual property, and open collaboration for their own benefit--again, often U.S. taxpayer-funded.
In just one of many, many cases, a chemist was sentenced recently by a Federal judge in Tennessee after being convicted of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, possession of stolen trade secrets, economic espionage, and wire fraud. The chemist received millions of dollars in Chinese Government grants, including a Thousand Talents Plan award, to steal American innovation to fund the rise of China's economy.
This is just one of the researchers we have been able to stop. Think of how many have slipped through the cracks since we have not yet implemented the grant and visa reforms included in this amendment I am offering today.
In fact, the Department of Health and Human Services' IG recently released a report that found that more than two-thirds of the National Institutes of Health's grant recipients failed to meet the Federal requirements regarding foreign financial interests, including instances of U.S. taxpayer-funded researchers failing to disclose ties to the Chinese Government. That is NIH. We are funding NIH through this--some of this money is going to go to the NIH. Yet we are not providing the protection to keep this from happening.
The skinnied-down version of the amendment today goes directly to the root of the problem. It is the minimum we have to do.
First, the amendment makes it punishable by law to knowingly fail to disclose foreign funding on Federal grant applications.
Researchers should not be able to lie to grant-making Agencies about the money they receive from our adversaries. Pretty simple. Who could be against that?
Second, it allows the State Department to deny visas to foreign researchers coming to the United States to exploit the openness of our research enterprise.
Currently, the State Department can deny a visa to a foreign researcher they know is coming here to steal export-controlled technology, but what if that technology someone is coming to steal is not export-controlled? How about artificial intelligence? How about quantum computing? Well, if you can believe it, in that case, the State Department's hands are tied even though they know it is happening.
This amendment gives the Biden State Department the authority they have sought from Congress to deny visas to those seeking to come to the United States expressly to steal our emerging technology. Sometimes they are members of the Chinese Communist Party. Sometimes they are members of the Chinese military. Yet they cannot stop them.
As we know, there are more provisions in the full Safeguarding American Innovation Act, but again, after talking to my colleagues, I agreed to scale back the amendment. Doing so will ensure our research is protected and guarantee its passage in the House.
These provisions reached four corners agreement in the conference, as I said, and include additional changes beyond that made at the request of everybody who had any objection, including the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. We solved their issues.
This skinny version of the Securing American Innovation Act is a significant concession, and I urge my colleagues to respect the fact that we spent years going through this and, more recently, hours to deal with everybody's issues to meet them more than halfway.
I will remind many of my colleagues in this Chamber, they voted to begin consideration of the CHIPS package last week because they believed this language was in the bipartisan proposal. I know that because Democrats and Republicans alike have come up to me and said that. I thought your language was in there, they said. Why wouldn't we want to protect this research, they said.
One reason they think it is in there is because all Republican offices, at least, were told that it was in there. In fact, the email sent right after the vote late on Tuesday afternoon reiterated that these provisions were included. So the whip that we sent out--the whip information on what was in this legislation included the Safeguarding American Innovation Act. That is how we got the necessary Republican votes.
Now, I support the underlying bill, and I have restrained myself and shown respect for the process by helping to get us to the point we are today. But my understanding was that people would work with me to ensure that we were able, if it was four corners, to be sure that, again, this insurance on this new car that we are buying would be there.
It fits like a glove. This is where the legislation must be included. If not, we find ourselves irresponsibly spending taxpayer dollars that are not protected. So we are going to invest about 200 to 250 billion hard-working American-taxpayer dollars in research and innovation.
Again, I support the underlying bill, but we have got to protect that intellectual property, that taxpayer-funded research, from being stolen by our competitors and used against us. Without these protections, I believe this legislative package, with significant levels of Federal funding, is a giveaway to some of our adversaries, including Beijing. It is not like there is any secret out there. China has made no secret of its goal to supplant the United States as the global economic leader and to do it by getting the best research and the best researchers.
Today, we released a report on how China has also targeted the U.S. Federal Reserve in addition to our science and innovation. Our economic policies are in China's crosshairs now, and this body cannot stand idly by and allow it to continue. We must act, and that means including, at a minimum, this skinny version of the Safeguarding American Innovation Act's provisions. Failure to do so will harm our national security and our economic strength in the face of an ascendant China.
To my colleagues, please do not block this very simple request. We have done everything right. We have gone through the process of a bipartisan investigation, of bipartisan hearings, bipartisan legislation, and four corners agreements--working with everybody to address their concerns--and this is where this legislation must be.
Again, I have four or five other very important bills in USICA that I am not asking for today because they don't fit perfectly with this new research money; but this does, and it has to be there. So I ask unanimous consent. That is all I need. With unanimous consent, the Senate can do anything, to include what everybody says they want, what everybody says is important.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up my amendment No. 5158. I ask further that there be 30 minutes of debate, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, and finally, upon the use or yielding back of that time, that the Senate vote on the adoption of my amendment with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, I say to my colleague from Ohio that I know how hard he and Senator Peters from the Homeland Security Committee have worked on this language. I know because I have consulted with them many times over the last month and a half, wondering about its progress and wondering about various issues involving people on both sides of the aisle to resolve what they were concerned about in definitions. I, too, felt like the Senators' hard work and language had gotten to a point where it could be included in a package of legislation.
We were very, very hopeful that the various committees' work--that of the Finance Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the HELP Committee--the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee--the Intel Committee work, and the work that we just discussed from the Homeland Security Committee--could all be included in a conference report. So the words ``pins down'' did not come from my side of the aisle. The words ``pins down'' did not happen. For me, I have been doing nothing but diligently working with all of my colleagues--most of the time when they don't agree--in trying to get them to agree.
I very much appreciate the subject at the heart of what Senator Portman's work is. He is trying to say to us that we have to understand the reality of the world that we live in now and make sure that we are protecting all of our research dollars as we move forward.
Again, it wasn't my decision to decide the narrowness of this bill. It wasn't my decision to say that these are the two subject areas that people are going to include. I know because I thanked the Senator for his help in getting the Science Committee's legislation included in this package. But you could see that even that was a very tough lift in that there were a lot of people around here who didn't want to do that.
So I say to my colleague from Ohio that I am going to work with him in whatever capacity to get this language accepted.
Now he is saying that he has streamlined this language from, probably, what the four corners has agreed to. I do know that the Senator worked very hard trying to get a four-corner agreement from the Science Committee, which we didn't have, to include this language. And why? Because there had been a big fight in the House between the Science Committee and their Homeland Security Committee about what this language said. Then you had the Judiciary Committee weighing in in both the House and the Senate as to what this language said. Since all of those people have been part of that discussion, that part of the four corners did not happen.
My colleague is earnest, and his work is real. The reports that he is referring to in the Homeland Security Committee are real, and we should honor them and honor that work. I am committed to getting that legislation passed, and we will confer with the Senator from Ohio about where that goes and if it goes in the conference report because I am committed to finishing the conference report, because as I said, the Finance Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the HELP Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and your Homeland Security Committee--five committees--would still all like to have language as part of this conference report.
While we aren't able to cover every aspect of this jurisdiction, I am very hopeful that our colleagues will take the impetus of this legislation's passing and double down on getting the rest of the conference report done and signed and on the President's desk. Then we will have a robust policy, not just the incentives, not just the R&D but a variety of issues addressed as they relate to our competitiveness.
So I will continue to work with my colleague from Ohio on this important language and with all of my colleagues on those various committees who have asserted their interest on this subject, but at this time, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Washington.
Order of Procedure
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if Senator Scott of Florida makes a budget point of order and a motion is made to waive, at 4:55 p.m. today, the Senate vote on a motion to waive the budget point of order; further, that if Senator Sanders raises a budget point of order and a motion to waive is made, that at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, July 27, all postcloture time expire and any remaining amendments except Senate amendment No. 5135 be withdrawn and the Senate vote on the motion to waive the Sanders point of order and the motion to concur with respect to H.R. 4346, with an amendment; further, that following the vote, the Senate resume consideration of the message to accompany S. 3373, the PACT Act, and notwithstanding rule XXII, at 4:30 p.m., the Senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to concur, all without further intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Florida.
H.R. 4346
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, Florida families hear a lot of talk up here in Washington about inflation. Right now, inflation is raging over 9 percent across America.
I was warning about the coming inflation crisis back in February of last year, but now basically everyone in the Senate--Republicans and Democrats alike--have joined me in talking about just how horrific this is for families in each of our States.
In Florida, inflation is costing families nearly $800 more every month. Imagine being a family on a fixed income and having to pay double rent each month or adding a luxury car payment to your monthly expenses. That is essentially what families in my State are dealing with since Joe Biden took office.
It is a new tax on families at every income level, a tax created by the sheer incompetence of Joe Biden. It hurts our poorest families--
like mine growing up--the very most.
Now, we know what causes this inflation. It is reckless government spending. On this side of the political aisle, we aren't afraid to tell this truth, but our Democratic colleagues, with the exception of one or two, won't do it.
It is fine. You would probably imagine that, in a 50-50 Senate, we would still be able to hold the line and stop reckless spending in its tracks. Nope, not in broken Washington. Here in Washington, the only thing we can seem to get bipartisan consensus on is digging America deeper and deeper into debt. It happens again and again. And with each dollar of debt and each new round of reckless spending, we throw gasoline on the raging inflation fire burning across America.
As I speak here now, it is about to happen again. This week, the Senate will very likely pass the so-called China bill that spends $280 billion we don't have. We are not burning our savings here; we are borrowing $280 billion to do this.
This is why the American people hate Congress. They see politicians stand up in their neighborhoods and pledge to fight the waste in Washington and then watch as those same politicians become the very problem they vowed to fix. It is disgusting, and it is happening up here all the time.
So let's talk about this bill that we are set to vote on this week. Democrats and some Republicans will suggest that it will help combat the threats we face from Beijing. There is just one problem. This bill doesn't help us combat communist China at all.
On Monday of last week, this bill cost $76 billion and was 73 pages long. Two days later, Senator Schumer turned it into a $250 billion version. Now it is more than 1,000 pages, a $280 billion monster chock-
full of reckless spending and bad policy that gives Joe Biden a wide-
open door to push his radical policies.
The bill ballooned in size and price because Chuck Schumer--Senator Schumer--inserted massive slush funds for the National Science Foundation. This same entity has burned billions of taxpayer dollars on insane projects like creating a towel-folding robot or studying how shrimp run on treadmills. I wish I was making this up, but I am not.
This bill doubles the National Science Foundation's budget over the next 5 years and gives millions to universities that already have a problem with spies from communist China stealing intellectual property and data. Does the bill increase protections to stop this or better protect tax dollars? No.
No wonder the debt is surging over $30 trillion and inflation is over 9 percent. Washington is broken. It just can't stop wasting your money.
So what else does this bill do? A huge part of it is a massive giveaway to chipmakers like Intel. You know Intel, the world's largest semiconductor maker that saw $20 billion in profit last year and paid its CEO $180 million. They are not exactly struggling these days, but politicians in Washington want to give them billions of your money with no strings attached.
There are no requirements to see a return on investment. There are no provisions to claw back dollars if they don't do what they are supposed to do. There is nothing for accountability.
What is worse, these large chipmakers have lobbied hard to weaken the bill so they can keep doing business in communist China. And--guess what--Washington caved, and they got exactly what they wanted. Massive, multibillion-dollar corporations like Intel will get Americans' hard-
earned tax dollars to build manufacturing plants, get tax writeoffs for those plants, and get a tax credit. These chipmakers are getting paid three ways with your tax money, and they will still be allowed to work and expand in communist China.
There is nothing stopping them from moving funds around to increase their business in communist China or any other market, for that matter. There is no requirement for them to build a certain number of plants here in the United States. There are no quotas that they need to hit so Americans can be sure we never have to rely on risky supply chains.
And even if communist China invades Taiwan, which supplies nearly two-thirds of all the world's semiconductors, the companies that get your tax dollars in this bill will still be allowed to operate in communist China while receiving your money.
This bill isn't anti-China; it is pro-China. It is going to cause more inflation, more debt, and create more deficits. There is absolutely no accountability. It doesn't make any sense.
Now, there is a heck of a lot we can do to reshore our supply chains and ensure Chinese spies don't steal our technology, all things this bill purports to do but doesn't.
For more than a year now, I have been fighting this bloated bill while at the same time introducing other legislation with my colleagues to economically decouple from communist China, strengthen our defense networks, and stand up to Xi Jinping's abuses.
We all want to solve problems. I want to solve problems. I am open to good investments. They have to be done with accountability to the American people. That is why I introduced an amendment to this bill to ensure that no tax dollars are going to go to benefit communist China.
My amendment would do four things. First, my amendment would eliminate all the exemptions that are currently in the bill that allow semiconductor companies who take U.S. taxpayer dollars to expand and continue their operations in communist China. Money is fungible, and we should make perfectly clear that these American tax dollars should only be benefiting Americans.
Some have called this a national security investment. If that is true, then we should make sure it builds up American security, not communist China's.
Second, my amendment will require the Secretary of Commerce to certify to Congress that the Department has completed a return-on-
investment analysis of a proposed grant. That announcement must show the grant will be a net positive for taxpayers and prevent distribution of that grant until the Secretary certifies the analysis and makes it public.
In business and in government, I have made countless deals. I never want to make an investing deal when I am unsure whether I am getting a return on my money. Americans understand this. If we are going to be investing taxpayers' dollars, we need to make smart investments that will get a real return.
Third, my amendment will require companies receiving funds disbursed from the CHIPS Act to enter into a three-part agreement with the Commerce Secretary specifying that they will, one, not engage in any transaction involving the expansion of chip manufacturing capacity in communist China; two, refuse to cooperate with the Communist Chinese Government moving forward; three, commit to immediately ceasing all operations in communist China if it invades Taiwan.
As I mentioned before, the bill in its current form does nothing to stop chipmakers from expanding operations in communist China and has loads of exceptions specifically allowing these companies to keep working there. That is insane. We should not allow it.
If people want to call this an anti-China bill, then let's make it an anti-China bill and stop doing business in communist China.
Fourth, my amendment will ensure that all U.S. tax dollars are clawed back if any company breaks that three-part agreement with the Commerce Secretary, and it would require the Commerce Secretary to ensure that the company will repay the money if they break the agreement. If you break a contract, there are consequences. Everyone knows this, and it is crazy that this bill doesn't already have those provisions in it.
If we don't change this bill, a vote for this bill is a vote for higher inflation. It is a vote to help communist China and a vote to add to our already $30 trillion debt.
My amendment isn't controversial. This is commonsense stuff. It will improve the bill and add the kinds of safeguards Americans should expect from legislators handling their hard-earned tax dollars. We are a fiduciary for the American taxpayer.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the Democratic majority leader is interested in having a vote on my commonsense amendment, but that shouldn't surprise the American public. They have come to expect this sort of dysfunction under Democratic leadership.
The Democrats love to pretend that they are fighting against corporate special interests, but what the majority leader is pushing forward right now is one of the grossest gifts to corporate America I have ever seen. The families in each of our States deserve and expect better than what this delivers.
Our Nation is in the midst of a historic inflation crisis that is destroying the dreams and hard-earned savings of millions of families across our country. Our answer to that crisis cannot be to throw gasoline on the fire and walk away. We can and must do more to combat the threats posed by communist China.
Members of this body, on both sides of the aisle, have great ideas that can do that, but this bill isn't one of them. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill or, at a minimum, join me in demanding that my amendment be adopted so we can better protect the massive amount of tax dollars being spent here.
I also urge my colleagues not to turn a blind eye to the new debt this bill creates. As I said earlier, this bill borrows $280 billion we don't have. We have to stop this.
That is why I am raising a budget point of order. When we keep borrowing and spending money we don't have, it is terrible for our country and our families. A vote to waive my point of order is a vote to approve more debt, which means more inflation.
Point of Order
Mr. President, the pending measure, Senate amendment No. 5135, violates section 404(a) of S. Con. Res. 13 of the 111th Congress, the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution, as amended by S. Con. Res. 11 of the 114th Congress, because it would increase the short-term debt by more than $10 billion in one or more of the fiscal years that comprise the current budget window.
Therefore, I raise a point of order against this measure pursuant to section 404(a) of Sen. Con. Res. 13, the fiscal year 2010 concurrent resolution on the budget.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Motion to Waive
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, pursuant to section 404(b) of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 13 of the 111th Congress, as amended by S. Con. Res. 11 of the 114th Congress, I move to waive section 404 of S. Con. Res. 13 for purposes of the pending measure and ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays are ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), and the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Manchin) are necessarily absent.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Hawley), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 63, nays 32, as follows:
YEAS--63
Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Booker Brown Burr Cantwell Capito Cardin Carper Casey Cassidy Collins Coons Cornyn Cortez Masto Durbin Feinstein Gillibrand Graham Hagerty Hassan Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Kaine Kelly King Klobuchar Lujan Markey McConnell Menendez Merkley Moran Murphy Murray Ossoff Padilla Peters Portman Reed Romney Rosen Sasse Schatz Schumer Shaheen Sinema Smith Stabenow Sullivan Tester Tillis Van Hollen Warner Warnock Warren Whitehouse Wicker Wyden Young
NAYS--32
Barrasso Blackburn Boozman Braun Cotton Cramer Crapo Cruz Daines Ernst Fischer Grassley Hoeven Hyde-Smith Inhofe Johnson Kennedy Lankford Lee Lummis Marshall Paul Risch Rounds Rubio Sanders Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Shelby Thune Toomey Tuberville
NOT VOTING--5
Duckworth Hawley Leahy Manchin Murkowski
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). On this vote, the yeas are 63, the nays are 32. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to and the point of order falls.
The Senator from Michigan.
Tribute to General Joseph M. Martin
Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the service, accomplishments, and retirement of Michigan native GEN Joseph M. Martin.
Joe will pass on the mantle of leadership after 36 years of service and completes his highly decorated career as the Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.
Joe is a proud son of Michigan. Born and raised in Royal Oak and Dearborn, his family is deeply rooted in the area, with strong ties to the Ford Motor Company. Joe's grandfather, Leonard Martin, worked there for 43 years. Joe's father, Leonard Martin Jr., worked there for 42 years.
It was from his father and grandfather that General Martin learned the Michigan values of honesty, hard work, and service to his community. And it is these values that General Martin has carried with him throughout his 36 years in the U.S. Army.
As a child, Joe attended Henry Ford Elementary and Woodworth Junior High. Before high school, the Martin family moved to the west side of Dearborn, where Joe attended Clare Bryant Junior High and Dearborn High before college.
And although Joe's family has a tradition steeped in naval aviation, Joe took a different path and chose to attend West Point and join the Army.
General Martin graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1986 and was commissioned as an armor officer. Throughout the next 30 years, General Martin would serve in support of America's most significant large-scale operations and fight in some of the Army's most storied divisions.
He deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm, twice for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and as the Combined Joint Force Land Component Commander for Operation Inherent Resolve.
Among other assignments, Joe served with the 1st Armored Division, the 4th Infantry Division, U.S. Army Operational Test Command, and served as the commanding general of the National Training Center and the commander of the 1st Infantry Division.
Following his command of the Big Red One, General Martin was appointed as the Director of Army Staff and later confirmed as the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army.
Joe credits his success to his wife, Leann; and the Martins have two children, Joey and Kylie.
To General Martin and to his family: On behalf of a grateful Nation, thank you for your incredible service and sacrifice over the last three-and-a-half decades. We are glad to welcome you back to your home State of Michigan as you begin your next chapter.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
American Innovation and Choice Online Act
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to address my colleagues on the topic of competition policy, just as I did last week, and I will continue to do until we take action.
Now, I want to start out speaking briefly about one part of competition policy that is very important, and that has to do with prescription drugs.
As we all know, brand-name prescription drugs in the U.S. are more than 250 percent of those in other industrialized countries. In many cases, Americans pay the highest prices in the world for these drugs. Yet it is our country, our taxpayers, that have put in the money for the research.
The high price of prescription drugs has put treatments out of reach for many Americans, even those with insurance, and driven up the tab for taxpayers.
Examples: One of my constituents, Ramae, from Bemidji, was diagnosed in 2018 with an incurable blood cancer, multiple myeloma. She relies on a drug called Revlimid that costs about 15,000 a year. Ramae depleted her life savings, cashed out her 401(k), and sold her house in order to afford this drug she needs to survive.
Actually, nearly 20 percent of older adults have reported not taking their medicines as prescribed because of the cost.
The good news--and this gets to competition. Years and years ago, as you know, Mr. President, the pharmaceutical industry installed in law a provision that said Medicare was banned from negotiating less expensive prices for drugs--banned from negotiating.
Yet, we know from the VA, which is allowed to negotiate on behalf of our Nation's patriotic veterans, that we can get much less expensive but as high quality drugs for our veterans. Our 46 million seniors deserve the same kind of deal.
That is what we are coming into in this next week, finally. And I have led the bill that has over 30 cosponsors in the Senate to allow for negotiation of prescription drugs for a long, long time. Finally, we are going to get this done.
It is not going to cover all the drugs as I would, but it is a big beginning. We have enough votes in the Senate to pass a bill to fix that. Democratic votes--all Democratic votes. But it is the fight worth fighting. You see the Pharma ads running against this bill. They have got every incentive to stop this. Why?
Well, it is going to save taxpayers 288 billion over 10 years. Taxpayers are going to be able to get that money, instead of the prescription drug companies. That is why this is so important. It is going to allow Medicare to finally negotiate prices under Medicare Part D.
In addition to that, it will stop drug companies from price gouging drugs that are already on the market, stop price hikes, and make sure the price of your drugs doesn't increase more than the rate of inflation.
As I said, we have the votes in the Senate--all Democratic votes--to make life easier for so many people. We stand with AARP. We stand with the seniors of this country to finally allow Medicare to negotiate less expensive drugs for our seniors.
So that is one part of competition policy. That means allowing negotiation. That is part of what competition is. But there is something else we need to do, and last week I talked about what is happening with the tech companies. I talked about the fact that for years and years, in the beginning of this Nation's inception, our country has always believed in capitalism and in a free market, and we have always understood that you have got to have antitrust laws in place, which I explained the history last week. Antitrust laws, at the time, it got that name because it was about breaking up trusts. Trusts--steel trusts, copper trusts--trusts that controlled the economy, brought up prices, made it hard for individual small businesses to compete.
And over time, this Senate, this Chamber right here, the Senators--
they finally stopped just doing everything these trusts want. They stopped just giving in to the Big Money, and they actually did something to protect capitalism. That is when they passed the Sherman Act. Senator Sherman was a Republican from Ohio. They passed the Clayton Act. Through history, rose to the occasion.
We are at another moment in history right now, and that is a moment focused on too much consolidation in our economy. What is at stake is the very idea that drives our economy forward--competitive markets.
Today, too many areas of our economy are highly concentrated and controlled by a few corporations. These are the corporations of old. These are the trusts of old, but we have our modern-day ones as well.
So when this happens, you have a lot of problems, and one of them is corporations stop competitors from moving ahead and from innovating and finding better ways to serve customers because they have all the customers, so they don't have the incentive.
We have seen consolidation in everything from cat food to caskets. Our digital markets are now controlled by a few Big Tech titans that have grown into the largest corporations the world has ever known.
It is well past time to put some rules of the road in place to make sure that these dominant digital platforms work for consumers and allow American small businesses to innovate and compete.
That is why I have been working across the aisle with Senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican lead of this bill, and a bipartisan group of Senators that Samantha Bee once called an ``Oceans 11 of cosponsors,'' including Senators Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Richard Blumenthal, John Kennedy, Cory Booker, Cynthia Lummis, Mazie Hirono, Mark Warner, Josh Hawley, Steve Daines, and Sheldon Whitehouse--are all cosponsors of this bill. There are many, many other Senators who are going to support it as well.
It is why, as the chair of the Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, I have held a series of hearings with Senator Lee about online markets and abuses of power by the largest digital platform. Senator Lee and I have a number of other bills together on this subject.
We have heard about how the small number of extraordinarily large digital platforms--based on the 18 months of House hearings--18 months of House hearings--still, we have passed nothing in this Congress, not one bill since the dawn of the internet involving internet competition and competition policy.
What we have learned is they act as gatekeepers that control how smaller companies reach their customers. As a result, online marketplaces lack the hallmarks of robust competition, fierce price competition, game-changing new products, and customers switching back and forth among products.
Instead, we have what started as exciting when everyone started accessing Amazon, Google; but the market is becoming increasingly calcified, one where the biggest gatekeepers have little or even no fear of competitive threats, one where they feel no pressure, where they can put themselves at the top of the search results regardless of quality or price. That is what we have right now--no rules in place.
So when you look at Amazon, you see all these Amazon products at the top. You look at Google when this all started out, they didn't have their own products. Well, now they do--Google products at the top. Apple products at the top.
They can extract monopoly profits from consumers, and the small businesses rely on them because there is really no other way to access their own market.
If we don't act now, we will entrench those companies further, making it even more difficult for innovators to bring new products to market and for small and medium-size companies across America to grow online.
Let me be clear. We have monopoly problems that go far beyond digital giants like Facebook and Google, and there is more that we need to do to restore competition to markets throughout the economy. We have a big task in front of us to rein in unchecked power and bring the benefits of consumer competition to all.
Last Tuesday, I talked about the cost of inaction, how other countries are attacking this problem way before us, how the European Parliament has just passed a major bill that is much more aggressive than anything that we are looking at here.
Great Britain, what they are doing. Australia, what they just did. There are many examples throughout history, of course, where Congress stepped in and didn't bow to the bloated monopolies but actually did something to further competition and rejuvenate the competitive market.
When I talk about the dominant digital platforms, I am talking about some of the most powerful companies in the world, with armies of lobbyists and lawyers, with thousands of lawyers and lobbyists. They are everywhere--in every corner of this town, at every cocktail party, and all over this building. I tell my colleagues that they don't even know, sometimes, when someone is trying to influence them because they think they are just talking to a friend because they have hired everyone they can see.
But once they start talking about antitrust and Big Tech, I tell them they should at least ask the person if they are being paid by the tech company or if they are on one of the boards of one of the groups that supports the tech companies because, time and time again, they have been surprised to find the answer is yes.
The tech companies aren't just lobbying my colleagues; they are also lobbying the American people with ``astroturf'' campaigning and dishonest PR tactics. At the same time that I have been working with my colleagues in good faith on commonsense solutions to our online competition problems, these companies have been telling anyone who will listen that acting to protect competition in our digital markets will somehow cede our national security or outlaw Amazon Prime--something for which Senator Grassley and I came to the floor of the Senate because it was such a lie. Together, we noted that their own lobbyists had said that it wasn't true. Their own lobbyists for Google had said, Yes, the bill wouldn't really get rid of Amazon Prime. But that is what they are running ads for.
Then, of course, is the money. I think this is actually the best evidence of just how big and dominant and bullying these companies are, running ads in the States where people are in tough races. That is what they are doing. How obvious can it be? Message received: We are out here. We can hurt you. We may not be putting your name in these ads right now, but we can do it. We have got the money to do it because we are the dominant monopolies.
By the way, they wouldn't be spending millions and millions and millions of dollars to stop us if we didn't have some momentum. Let me give you some numbers.
In 2021, Big Tech companies spent more than $70 million combined lobbying Congress.
In the first quarter of this year, Facebook--now known as Meta--
Amazon, Alphabet--which is Google--and Apple spent more than $16 million lobbying Congress.
In just 1 recent week in May--1 week--one industry group, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, spent $22 million in 1 week on TV ads against this bill. That is $22 million against one bill in 1 week, and the numbers keep getting worse.
Since I last took to the floor to discuss this issue, it was reported that Amazon reached an alltime high in lobbying spending in the last quarter, and that is only what the company spent directly. It doesn't include what Big Tech directed others to spend, using contributions to spread misinformation about the bill.
So that is what we are up against. And there is me, and there is this poster. There is our lawyer--one lawyer, Keagan. We have another lawyer, Avery. We have a third person. That is it. That is our team. Of course, Senator Grassley and the other Senators involved in this have great attorneys. We have the endorsement of the Justice Department. That is a whole lot of lawyers. We have support from Secretary Raimondo over in Commerce and their team in doing this bill because they get that this is about competition moving forward.
I would like to share two examples of the misinformation campaign against this bill.
Just a few months ago, you may have read a letter from people outside of the Senate who were criticizing the bipartisan bill that Senator Grassley and I had worked on. It was signed on by a little-known group--actually, it was not that little-known if you watch TV because it is in the disclaimers on the ads--called American Edge. Here is what the Washington Post wrote about American Edge:
Backed by millions from Facebook-parent company Meta, American Edge has launched a full-throated campaign to combat antitrust legislation in Washington, placing op-eds in regional papers throughout the country, commissioning studies, and collaborating with a surprising array of partners, including minority business associations, conservative think tanks, and former national security officials.
This is The Washington Post talking.
It's a political playbook more common to other industries, including pharmaceuticals [and] tobacco. . . .
This is the playbook we have seen time and time again: Distort the truth, and distract people from the key issues by raising sideline potential concerns that aren't even in the bill's scope. Look over here, not at the real problems we face with real solutions to address them.
Amazon tried something similar, but they didn't get away with it because small business owners are too savvy to fall for silly tricks. As CNBC wrote in an article last month, Amazon is so worried that Congress will finally do something, not to get rid of Amazon and not to stop Amazon Prime, but to simply say, when you do your searches on Amazon, at least you should have a fair shake at getting whatever are the most affordable or best products in what you are looking for at the top and not just what Amazon wants you to see because that is what they own.
They placed a senior executive in charge, we now know, to recruit third-party sellers to oppose the bill, the small businesses. The Amazon executive posted to a forum used by sellers and directed them to a website that included a form to contact their Senators with a prewritten email opposing the legislation. But get this: They weren't fooled. These sellers knew the power that Amazon had to affect their businesses. They are monopolies, right? According to the CNBC report, hundreds of sellers replied to the post and actually expressed their support for the legislation.
I am not sure this would have happened 10 years ago, honestly, but now they have realized what the game is, what the rig is, what is really happening. Here are some examples of what the small businesses posted. This is after the request from the Amazon executive to write letters to people like me and the Presiding Officer opposing the bill.
Here is what someone wrote:
Any informed seller is going to support massive action taken against Amazon in the antitrust arena. I am personally sick of the condescending posts by Amazon management directed at us. We are not morons and know how to read and think for ourselves.
That one got more than 100 likes in the forum.
Here is another one:
Yes, I'm going to oppose that Amazon will be prohibited from undercutting, manipulating the Buy Box, and instituting restrictions on certain listings that unfairly bar me from selling an item. Yup, writing to my senator right now.
We will call that a sarcastic post.
Others got straight to the point:
Thanks for the reminder!
One seller wrote:
I've asked my senators to support the bill.
Another wrote:
If Amazon is against the Bill, it must be good!
And my favorite:
I'm highly allergic to corporate propaganda and fear mongering. Therefore, for the sake of my health, I will be encouraging my senators to fully support this legislation.
I think these are pretty good examples of how resilient and clever our American small businesses actually are.
Since I am a Senator and not a tech-based industry group, I don't get to spread my message with a multimillion-dollar ad campaign, but Big Tech lobbyists can't stop me from standing here right now on the Senate floor and telling you the truth--the people who are watching at home--
since there are actually no other Senators out here right now except the Presiding Officer.
We cannot let these companies use their monopoly profits to scare the Congress from doing its job. Some have said that this is the biggest political fight that Big Tech has ever fought. The truth is that they are not fighting on terms that anyone would think are fair. They are not fighting with truthful representations or factually grounded arguments. They are spending millions and millions of dollars on ads that distort the truth because they are scared. They are scared about what is going to happen if we have honest, robust, American style competition.
``It's better to buy than compete.'' ``It's better to buy than compete.'' Do you know who said those words? That is what Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a 2008 email around the time of the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions. Facing competition from new upstarts, Facebook decided to take them out--to stop them from innovating in ways that might win over users from Facebook. It makes sense, right? Who knows what Instagram would have developed for their bells and whistles in terms of privacy and other things if they had been able to fairly compete?
When the FTC sued Facebook, it wrote on--by the way, that was under the Trump administration and now continues on through the Biden administration. It wrote on page one of its antitrust complaint:
Facebook has maintained its monopoly position by buying up companies that present competitive threats and by imposing restrictive policies that unjustifiably hinder actual or potential rivals that Facebook does not or cannot acquire.
As another Facebook employee wrote, quoted in the FTC's complaint:
We're scared that we can't compete on our own merits.
As of last week, we have new evidence showing the same from other companies from documents that were obtained by Chairman David Cicilline and Ranking Member Ken Buck, over in the House, during their bipartisan investigation into Big Tech.
One of the documents quotes an Amazon executive discussing the potential threat from Ring, a video doorbell company it later bought for $1 billion.
The executive said:
I'm supportive of Ring. I don't know how we can get big fast without acquiring someone.
In the same email chain from another Amazon executive:
There's a lot of overlap with what we want to do . . . and very little that we don't want to do.
There it is in black and white. They wanted to enter the market, but they couldn't innovate fast enough, so they just bought up the competition. That is what they have been doing. The dominant platforms will stop at nothing to protect their profits, even if it means stifling the innovation and ingenuity that has made our Nation's economy second to none. We see the campaign to try to torpedo this bill for what it is: an obvious effort to protect their market power and monopoly profits.
Adam Smith--the godfather of capitalism, the guy who talked about the invisible hand--loved capitalism, but he always said this:
Always watch out for the standing army of monopolies.
And that is why, over time, we have developed law that allows us to ensure that the big guys don't always control the marketplace--so that you can have new forms of competition developed.
I want to be clear on this point. These are highly successful companies that have given us incredible innovations. I don't want these companies or their innovations or their beneficial products or services they offer to go away, and they won't go away with this bill. What we will do is make sure that they are creating the conditions on their dominant platforms--because that is what we are dealing with, four different ones--for the next new thing to be developed and to thrive. That is why we have antitrust laws.
As Senator Sherman--a Republican from Ohio and for whom our central antitrust law, the Sherman Act, was named--famously said:
If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life.
Let me speak specifically about antitrust and innovation. There is a persistent myth out there that antitrust law is about prices and nothing else. That is not true. Although prices are, of course, an extraordinarily important component of competition policy and analysis--and by the way, you are seeing more and more small businesses so concerned about what is going on--and big businesses because these platforms are charging them more and more and more just for the pleasure of being on the platform or for getting their names up at the top or for using their services, but it isn't all about pricing; it is also about innovation.
Through competition and innovation, there are new products, services, apps, and ideas that are hard for us to even fathom that will be developed by clever engineers, smart business people, and thoughtful marketers. Innovation is part of the American spirit. Innovation generates new opportunities and new hopes for businesses. Breakthroughs in science and technology have given us the vaccines that are getting us through this pandemic and driving the development of clean energy solutions. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence are driving innovation across our country.
I think the Presiding Officer from the great State of Michigan knows a little bit about innovation there with what we have seen as its emergent. When everyone was writing off the American car companies, they innovated and moved ahead.
Of course, some of our economy's largest companies began as startups with new innovation, and some of these companies--now small and large--
are starting to say: Wait a minute. These four Big Tech companies can buy anything they want. There are no rules of the road. They can put their stuff at the top. Yet this is where customers go and buy things. We just need an even playing field in the marketplace.
Innovation that is vital to our American economy cannot thrive without open, competitive markets. It is competition that pressures manufacturers to invest in research and development and to constantly innovate to improve their products and introduce new products. It is competition that provides opportunities for entrepreneurs to develop new ideas and to start new businesses.
This topic is so important that I held a hearing with Senator Lee last December on innovation. In his opening remarks, Senator Lee shared his thoughts about this important topic, noting that when competition suffers, so does innovation. One might say that competition is itself the mother of innovation. Competition really can't occur without a lot of innovation.
As one of our witnesses at the hearing, Dr. Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute, testified, dominant firms face fewer economic incentives to innovate. It is one thing to create new products that can win over customers from a rival. It is another to create new products that might undermine your existing business.
When you have got all of the customers, let's say, in the App Store--
all Apple phones have one kind of app, and all other phones have another kind of app, Google--they are a duopoly. There you go. So they can do what they want. That is why they are charging 30 percent to Spotify--just for the pleasure of competing against Apple Music. That is what is happening.
The path to future innovations is through the crucible of competition. What makes companies innovate is not just a desire to please their customers but also the healthy fear that others might please them instead and win customers in the competitive landscape.
If the largest digital gatekeepers do not face any meaningful competition, they will continue to extract monopoly profits from customers and the small businesses that depend on them to reach their customers. If the largest digital gatekeepers have the power to avoid competition, we should expect that they will not innovate at the same pace as when they face stiff competition.
So to my colleagues I say, as I did last week: Yes, you can love the products. You can love the CEOs, if you want. You can love the companies. But you also have to love competition and understand the unique place of the U.S. Senate to take on what has happened time and time again in history: the bloated monopolies that sometimes come up. You don't get rid of steel or copper. Of course, we didn't. We created a more competitive marketplace.
That former chairman of AT&T said himself, after the breakup of AT&T, when we saw long distance rates go down through Democratic and Republican leadership, when we saw the cell phone industry, which had been nothing, when cell phones were the weight of bricks and this big in your briefcase--we saw all that changed, and he actually said we are a stronger company because of what happened.
Here are the facts today. Here are our new bloated situations: Google--pretend that is now Google--has a 90-percent market share in search engines. In Australia, when the Australian Government was taking them on and said you have got to charge a fair rate for media links, Google--and Facebook, by the way--literally said: OK, we are going to leave your country. We are going to leave an industrialized nation.
Then, there was so much pressure on the world that they backed down and negotiated rates.
A 90-percent market share--that is what you get to do. Great product, OK. If we are going to tolerate that, I guess the Justice Department will look at it.
That is not what our bill does. It doesn't break them up. It doesn't do anything. It is just that when we have a 90-percent gatekeeper, at least we have some rules of the road for what they put on there.
Apple controls 100 percent of app distribution for iPhones. Together, Apple and Google, as I noted, have a duopoly on app distribution on all smartphones. Three out of every four social media users--there are 4 billion of them--are active Facebook users. Amazon is expected to seize half of the entire e-commerce retail market this year.
What do they do with that power? As the New York Times reported a few years ago, back in 2018, if you opened up the App Store on an iPhone in May of 2018 and typed the word ``podcast'' in the search box, the first result, after an ad, would have been an app made by Apple: Apple Podcasts. The next result would have been Apple's Compass app, then Apple's Find My Friends app.
Amazon does the same thing.
ProPublica reported:
We looked at 250 frequently purchased products over several weeks to see which ones were selected for the most prominent placement on Amazon's virtual shelves--the so-called ``buy box'' that pops up first. . . .
And so many of us have had that experience, right? You are in a hurry. You want to buy something. What pops up first?
About three-quarters of the time, Amazon placed its own products and those of companies that pay for its services in that position, even when there were substantially cheaper offers available from others.
This obviously puts small businesses in a bind. The need for action is clear. All they have to do is treat people fairly, have a reason to put people up first, and treat the people who are advertising on their sites fairly.
The way our bill works, if they do that, they stay out of trouble. If they don't do it, the Justice Department, the FTC, and the State AG can look into doing something about it. They are, obviously, not going to bring some big case over one mistake. We are talking about a consistent effort here, which is exactly what they have been doing to make more money by putting their stuff at the top.
Since the founding of this country, people across the country and across the political spectrum have recognized and taken on the issue of monopoly power. That is why we have worked across the aisle--Senator Grassley and myself--to build bipartisan support for this bill, the bipartisan solution to the problem of anti-competitive self-
preferencing by dominant digital gatekeepers. That is how we found our common ground. That is how Ken Buck, a conservative Republican out of Colorado, found common ground with Representative Cicilline, a liberal progressive Congressman from Rhode Island.
Our bill creates the rules of the road for these platforms so they can't abuse their gatekeeper power by favoring their own products or services and disadvantaging rivals in ways that harm competition.
In other words, examples are that Amazon won't be able to misuse small business data in order to copy their products. The best example of that is the Wall Street Journal reporting about a four-person luggage company out of Brooklyn, NY, advertising innocently, giving them the data they need to advertise, and, bam, a few months later, Amazon has the identical product in Amazon Basics.
Apple won't be able to stifle competition by blocking other companies' services from interoperating with their platforms, and Google won't be able to bias their platform search results in favor of their own products and services without merit. These platforms will no longer be able to put their own products and services automatically first. That is what we are talking about. Amazon should rank products based on price and quality, not based on their own profit margins.
In those new House Judiciary documents that I mentioned earlier, there is one from a Google executive that illustrates this point as well. It is an email about Amazon saying:
Amazon has a built-in incentive to partner with Alexa, since they will pull you from their store if you don't support it.
Again, that is an amazingly honest statement of the situation where rampant self-preferencing is allowed: A product might be great for consumers, but if it doesn't ``partner with Alexa''--forget it. They will pull it from the store to solidify their emerging power in voice assistants.
Second, the world's largest and most powerful platform shouldn't be allowed to copy small businesses' private data that they get from their sellers, as I just mentioned, to create knock-off products.
Third, in the bill, platforms shouldn't require companies, especially small companies, to buy a bunch of stuff from the monopolies, like ads or distribution services, in order to be listed at the top. They can offer those services. They can sell those services. But the only way you get to the top, so that when our pages here, sitting in the Chamber, are trying to look at the best deal for a fan, if they don't have air conditioning in their room--it was really hot in Washington, DC. Well, the best product should come up or the least expensive product. That is what should come up, not just something that Amazon Basics can make money off of. That is what the bill does.
It is not a breakup bill. It is not a ban on mergers, but it would put some commonsense rules of the road in place. If we can get these reforms in place, we will ensure a fairer, more competitive marketplace for small and medium businesses. This bill gives them more options, more flexibility, and more access to the markets.
Just today, the National Federation of Independence Businesses wrote to Senator Grassley and me to say that 84 percent of their members support Congress taking action--that is about the kind of numbers I would like to see around here, 84 percent--``to control unfair and anticompetitive practices of large tech companies.'' That is why they are formally endorsing the bill, writing:
Most small businesses have no choice but to rely in some capacity on these large technology companies for a variety of business needs, ranging from driving business traffic through search to online advertising to accessing key digital marketplaces.
For small business sellers using marketplace platforms, competition between the operator's own products and third- party sellers creates conflicts of interest and has been shown to lead to unfair business practices.
By the way, it is not just small business. There are a whole bunch of big businesses supporting it, too, only because they are not going to compete against the big titans. A lot of them don't want to say it out loud because they don't want to be punished. They just call us and tell us. That is what you deal with when you deal with monopolies. You are not going to out people who don't want it out there. But the truth is, there are a whole bunch of businesses that support this bill, in addition to a whole bunch of working people, in addition to my colleagues from all sides of the political spectrum.
What did the Justice Department say? They said:
Vesting the power to pick winners and losers across markets in a small number of corporations contravenes the foundations of our capitalist system, and given the increasing importance of these markets--
And that is very key here--
the power of such platforms is likely to continue to grow. .
. .
That is what we are seeing right now with the small business rebellion.
This puts at risk the nation's economic progress and prosperity, ultimately threatening the economic liberty that undergirds our democracy.
That is the business group. Now, I will go to the consumer group. The Justice Department you just heard.
The Consumer Federation of America wrote:
We need to incentivize more competition and more innovation.
A group of legal scholars said:
It is an appropriate expression of democracy for Congress to enact pro-competitive statutes to maintain the vibrancy of the online economy.
Monopoly power, consumer choice, reduced innovation--these aren't topics that came up for the first time when we marked up and passed the bill. In fact, we got it out of committee 16 to 6, the first time since the advent of the internet, in a highly polarized, at times, Senate Judiciary Committee, for anyone who watched the Supreme Court hearings. We got that bill out 16 to 6, the first bill to advance to the Senate floor--the competition bill--since the advent of the internet.
We cannot stand by and do nothing while digital giants entrench their power to gobble up more businesses, gobble up bigger and bigger slices of the economy. I guess we can. I guess we can turn into this situation. But even these Senators, way back--they were all in here, unlike what I see right now. But they were all here, and they actually got something done. And this is our moment right now.
I urge my colleagues to bring this bill to the floor. I have gotten the commitment to get a vote on this bill. We have got to get this bill on a vote.
I appreciate Senator Grassley's patience and bipartisan support, but we know that we are up against a lot. But if they think that I am going to get scared by that, think again. I am ready to roll.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Peters). The Senator from Pennsylvania.
PACT Act of 2022
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise because I want to express concerns that I have about a particular provision in the PACT Act. It is my understanding that the Senate is considering this later this week. We could be voting on cloture as early as tomorrow afternoon.
My concerns with the provision of the bill as drafted are--well, I and many of my colleagues share this concern. What we want to do is ensure that the PACT Act is not used as a vehicle to dramatically increase spending outside of the objective of the bill, which is to cover specific healthcare and benefits for veterans.
As it is written, as we are currently considering it, the PACT Act includes a budget gimmick that is designed to do exactly that. This gimmick was not in the House bill, but some Senators found it necessary to add this. This gimmick is not necessary to achieve the underlying purpose of the legislation. The purpose of the legislation is to expand VA healthcare benefits and certain other benefits for veterans.
I have a very simple proposed fix for this problem that will not reduce veteran benefits by a single dollar. It would allow the bill to fully achieve its original intent.
To explain this a little bit, I have to explain a little bit about how the Federal Government spends money around here.
As you know, Mr. President, we have two big categories of Federal spending. We have what we call discretionary spending, and that is the spending that is appropriated annually by Congress. That spending is limited every year. There is a cap on how much can be spent in that category. That is the first category.
The second category of Federal spending, we call mandatory spending. This is different from discretionary spending in the sense that it is kind of automatic spending. It occurs not by appropriation; it is driven by eligibility for various programs. People are eligible; so they get the payment. And it does not depend on a congressional appropriation. Those are the two big categories of spending.
Now, the PACT Act, as I said, addresses veterans' healthcare. Now, of course, as we all know, current law already obligates the VA to spend a great deal of money on veterans' healthcare and benefits, as it should. In particular, there is about $400 billion over the next 10 years that the VA will spend on veterans' toxic exposure care and benefits--about
$400 billion. That is existing law. That is going to happen no matter what we do with this bill. That $400 billion has always been categorized in the discretionary spending category of Federal spending, and, therefore, it is subject to caps, limits.
Now, what the PACT Act does is it expands this obligation on the part of the VA. And it expands it a lot, by about $280 billion over the next 10 years. And it takes all of that new spending, the $280 billion of new spending that the VA will spend under the PACT Act, and it puts it in the mandatory spending category--not the discretionary but the mandatory spending category.
Now, we can argue about whether or not that was a good idea, but that is not my issue on the floor this evening. I have no quarrels with the
$280 billion being in the mandatory category. That is not the issue at hand.
Here is the problem with this bill. Here is the budgetary gimmick. This is what is outrageous. The bill takes the $400 billion that I mentioned earlier, the $400 billion that is obligated to be spent by the Veterans' Administration, by legislation passed many years ago, money that is going to be spent; it enables that spending to be shifted from the discretionary category to the mandatory category of spending.
You could say: Well, so what; the government is still going to spend the money either way. That is true. It is going to go for the same purpose, to the same people who need it. That is all true.
So why does it matter? Why did the Senate authors of this bill, unlike the House, decide it is necessary to take this big category of spending that is already in existing law and move it from the discretionary spending category to the mandatory category?
Well, here is the reason. As I said earlier, there are caps on how much discretionary spending can occur in any given year. By moving this big category of spending, this $400 billion, out of the discretionary category and putting it into mandatory, you create this big hole under the cap. That is what is going on here. Now, when you create that big hole, guess what happens with that big hole? It gets filled with spending on who knows what. That is what is going on here. This is unbelievable.
Now, again, I want to stress that my quarrel here is not with the underlying purpose of the bill or the substance. And, sure, we could talk about ways it could be improved, but that is not what this is about. It is about a budget gimmick that is designed to allow hundreds of billions of dollars in additional, unrelated spending having nothing to do with veterans. It could be anything. It is this big, gaping hole that some folks around here created by design in our discretionary spending category.
You know what it really comes down to. It is about Congress hiding behind an important veterans' care bill a massive, unrelated spending binge. That is what this amounts to. Now, that would be objectionable at any time, under any circumstances, as far as I am concerned, but it is unbelievable that this provision is snuck into this bill at a time like this.
What I am referring to is the obvious fact that our entire economy--
American families, virtually all of them, are being racked by out-of-
control inflation. Inflation is at a 40-year high--40 years. I mean, roughly half of all Americans have never been alive with inflation this high. And there is no avoiding it. It is at the gas pump. It is at the grocery store. It is at the rent. It is everywhere.
Well, how does inflation come about? Well, a big part of it came from too much government spending and lax, easy-money monetary policy. That is always a very dangerous combination. And sure enough, it gave us this out-of-control inflation. Well, this gimmick is going to make it worse. It is going to add $400 billion over 10 years in totally unrelated, unnecessary spending.
Again, we are not talking about veterans' healthcare. That is not what I am here to talk about. We are talking about the other $400 billion that we haven't seen exactly what that is going to consist of. Who knows. But you can be sure that a big hole under the spending caps is not going to left as a big hole.
So this is terrible policy. So, here, I have got a simple suggestion. Here is all we need to do. We leave the $280 billion, the new spending for veterans' healthcare that the bill contemplates--leave that in mandatory spending. That is fine. But we simply would modify the bill to keep the $400 billion that we are going to spend anyway in the category where it has always been, the discretionary spending category. This doesn't cut a dime in veterans' spending, but it would avoid creating this huge hole for all kinds of new and unrelated spending.
So, again, I will stress one more time for the people who might choose to listen, this doesn't reduce spending on veterans' healthcare or benefits of any kind by a single penny. And the change that I am looking for would not in any way impede the ability of veterans to get the healthcare that they are going to get under this bill as a result of toxic exposure. It is not about any of that. It is only about preventing this excessive, unrelated spending in we don't even know yet what categories, which was inserted in this bill.
So I think this is a simple fix. Unfortunately, it appears we are still not in the business of contemplating amendments in this Chamber. We were promised there would be amendments at the beginning of this process. Amendments have always historically been a fundamental way that we litigate our differences and iterate our way to solutions, but we are not allowed to do this. I have not been allowed to offer an amendment. Nobody has.
So I intend to vote against cloture, which, as you know, Mr. President, is the procedural vote that ends debate and ends the amendments and allows the body to get on to final passage. I am not going to vote for cloture because we haven't had this debate yet. We haven't had this vote on this outrageous budget gimmick that has nothing to do with the underlying purpose of the bill.
So I am going to urge my colleagues to join me in voting against cloture. And what will happen if we deny cloture? What if we succeed, and the Chamber, the body, is unable to achieve cloture? Well, then I think I know what happens. Our Democratic colleagues would work with us to fix the gimmick. That is what would happen. Then the bill would move forward with all the same benefits for veterans that it has and that it has always had as a bill, and we would do this without introducing this massive, unrelated spending.
Now, why am I confident that that is what the outcome would be? Because I think our Democratic colleagues are very unlikely to forgo passing a really important veterans health bill for the sake of their unrelated spending blitz. I think, as much as they want to go on that spending binge, they would take a pass on that if that is what they have to do to get this veterans bill done. So that is how this would end.
That is why, Mr. President, once again, I urge my colleagues, join me in a simple fix for a terrible budget gimmick, and let's do this quickly. And if we are not allowed to do this any other way, then let's deny cloture tomorrow on the cloture vote, and then we will be able to fix it promptly thereafter.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
H.R. 4346
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, as the Presiding Officer knows, the United States of America has long been at the vanguard of global scientific and technological innovation, and that leadership has helped power our economy and strengthen our leadership position in the world.
That competitive edge is now at risk. It is at risk because we have failed to renew our national commitment to one of the key tools that has brought us that success in the past: making robust Federal investments in scientific research and development.
The bill before the Senate, called the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, aims to stop this downward drift and propel us forward again in the area of discovery, in areas of innovation and manufacturing. It honors a long, long tradition of American excellence in research and invention.
If you look back over our history, America has always been on the leading edge of science, of technology, of engineering, and mathematics. That spirit has been with us since our founding, but it truly flourished in the decades following the Second World War, with new inventions springing from American minds every year and moving us forward at an accelerated pace.
American astronauts took humanity to the Moon for the first time. American computer scientists invented the internet and changed the world. In fact, it was during this explosion of discovery that an American engineer created the first integrated circuit in 1958, and that invention would pave the way for the microchips we use today and which are a big part of the legislation before us.
In the 20th century, the United States was the innovation capital of the world. In 1960, America generated 69 percent of all research and development on the entire planet. This golden age flowed from the ingenuity of American visionaries, and it was fueled by our system of free enterprise and private investment.
But we cannot ignore another key ingredient in the success of that period, and that is the very large investment in cutting-edge research and development made by the Federal Government on behalf of the American people. Federal funds accounted for two-thirds of all American research and development investment in 1968--two-thirds from the Federal Government. In fact, all three of the American-made inventions and innovations I just mentioned--from building the rocket and the systems to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth to inventing the internet, to creating that first microchip--those were fueled, in large part, by Federal Government investment, taxpayer investment, to strengthen the entire country.
For example, if you look at the history of the microchip, you will see that between 1987 and 1997--that decade--the R&D arm of the Department of Defense, what we call DARPA, disbursed around $870 million in Federal funding to 14 ship manufacturers across the country, which, in turn, made the American ship industry more competitive than ever.
That was then. Today, we see a changing story. We are still a leader in innovation, but we are at risk of falling behind and falling behind quickly. And, in doing so, we are ceding ground to our global competitors and adversaries. This is a time where standing still means going backward and going backward fast.
The U.S. share of global research and development has dropped by half, by a full 50 percent, in the last six decades, and the most recent figures available reveal that the Federal investment in R&D as a share of our gross domestic product has dropped by one-third over the last 40 years.
While we have been slipping, other countries are dramatically boosting their investments in these critical areas, fueling huge resources toward innovation. China's most recent 5-year plan calls for ramping up investments in research and development by more than 7 percent every year. China has made no secret of its desire to corner the market in AI, in quantum computing, in clean energy tech, and much more. And the Chinese Communist Party is putting resources where their plan is, mobilizing the investments needed to try to achieve that goal.
This is not only an issue of falling behind in the areas of innovation and discovery because, even if Americans are inventing new technologies, the benefit to the American worker of leading in the invention of new technologies is much diminished if the manufacturing of essential products that use those technologies simply goes offshore.
We spend a lot of time inventing new technologies here, but over the last many decades we have seen the offshoring of those technologies and the manufacturing of products with those technologies to other parts of the world, at the expense of the American worker. We have seen that dramatic offshoring of jobs for decades, including in many areas that are critical to the success of our entire economy and to the needs of our national security.
An American may have invented the microchip, but today we produce only 12 percent of the world's microchips. And that is at a time when these chips are absolutely essential to almost every aspect of modern life, from running our washing machines to powering our military. At the same time, competitors like China are pairing their rising R&D investments with major funding for manufacturing, putting the money in for invention and putting the money in to make sure those inventions stay and are manufactured in China. China has put $150 billion toward manufacturing microchips over the last 8 years. And today, 19 of the world's 20 fastest growing microchip firms are in China.
So you can see how this creates an enormous challenge for America's competitiveness, for our economic strength, and for our national security. The technology we need today for our cars, our homes, our businesses, and our military is, in large part, produced overseas.
We have already fallen way behind in the manufacturing of strategically important technologies, and now we are also at risk of losing our edge in developing the critical technologies of the future.
This has got to change. In the face of these challenges, we have to ask ourselves two fundamental questions: One, how can we ensure that we continue to invent the key technologies of the future; and, second, how can we make and manufacture key products using those technologies right here in America?
That is why it is time for us to take a page out of our own history and reignite a golden age in American research, development, and manufacturing through robust Federal investments. And the bill before the Senate begins to take us down that road.
First and foremost, it includes $53 billion to supercharge microchip manufacturing in America. That will bolster our economic security and our national security.
For American families, more American-made microchips means we will be able to ease some of the strain on our supply chains that are leading to increased wait times for everything from cars to smartphones, to dishwashers. And in the long term, boosting our domestic production of chips will help spur homegrown manufacturing jobs and lower the prices of a wide range of goods and services.
More American-made chips also means we will be less reliant on foreign manufacturers to meet our military needs. Today, 90 percent of the high-end microchips--the most sophisticated microchips--are made in Taiwan. These are advanced chips on the market that power everything from consumer electronics to sophisticated military software and hardware. These microchips are in our jets. They are in our radar systems and much more.
So with this additional funding, America will have increased capacity to produce these high-end microchips right here at home so we are not relying on foreign countries to power the things our communities and our country rely on every day.
But while supporting the manufacturing of chips here at home is important, it is not enough to keep us competitive on other key fronts. As I said earlier, we need America to get back on the leading edge of research and development in a whole range of areas on technology's frontier.
Now is the time for us to boost innovation and to sharpen our edges across every technological front, from quantum competing to artificial intelligence, to so much more. And that is why this legislation calls for significant new investments in major scientific institutions. It would authorize an increase of $36 billion for the National Science Foundation, an increase of $5 billion for the National Institute of Standards and Technology in my home State of Maryland, and an increase of $12.9 billion for the Department of Energy's Office of Science. These increases represent roughly a doubling--a doubling--of the Federal resources dedicated to these important Agencies. It also includes an increase of $11 billion for the Department of Commerce over 5 years to develop regional technology hubs around the country so that every part of the United States and communities in every corner of the country can benefit from these investments.
These are major increases. These are authorized increases--these parts with respect to future technologies as opposed to the chips portion of the bill. So, No. 1, we need to make sure these funds are actually appropriated; and, second, we need to ensure that these funds are deployed in the most strategic and effective way. That is why our bill includes a bipartisan provision that I authored with Senator Blunt of Missouri to ensure that the United States has the tools it needs to monitor and address new frontiers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
This portion of the bill includes two elements: First, it directs the National Academy of Sciences to identify the critical emerging technologies before us; and, second, it directs the National Academies to assess how well the United States is meeting those science and technology challenges through our global leadership and through the investments we are making here at home. I think we all recognize that we can't determine the path that we should chart as a country without getting a good look at the terrain and the horizon and even try to peer over the horizon. And charting that course is only helpful if we monitor our progress along the way to see if we are meeting our goals.
That is about developing a national early warning system for technologies in which our country's best minds are focused on the technologies of the future so that we don't get caught flat-footed in the face of emerging opportunities.
We have seen in the case of 5G technology what can happen when we are not tracking the possibilities, and we get blindsided. The reality is China beat us in the transition from 4G to 5G networks, and it wasn't because we lacked the talent or the skill or the resources or the drive to win the 5G race. We failed to build a comprehensive system for 5G deployment fast enough because we did not have a national strategy. We had blind spots. The market didn't fill them. It requires a national plan of action. That provision in the legislation will address that shortcoming.
And as we revitalize innovation here at home, we have got to get all of our talent on the field. We need to deploy all of our brainpower in order to fuel this renaissance in American technological leadership. This bill will provide major investments in our 21st century workforce to create jobs and inspire the next generation of our innovators.
I am pleased that a bipartisan provision is included in here that was authored by our colleague Senator Warnock, which will direct additional Federal funds toward emerging research institutions of higher education, including our Nation's historically Black colleges and universities and our minority-serving institutions.
On top of that provision, I am pleased that this bill includes a bipartisan measure that I wrote with Senator Tillis of North Carolina. Our provision would help advance the research classification of HBCUs around the country that already have strong research programs and make them competitive among the highest caliber of research universities for more Federal funding--to take them from R2s to R1s. This will open the doors of opportunity for more students, faculty, and staff across the country. In my State of Maryland, we have two HBCUs that would directly benefit from this provision: Morgan State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. This is an investment in our future.
These are just some of the elements in this bill that will help foster a sustained American leadership in emerging technologies into the future. But even when this bill is passed--and I urge all my colleagues to vote for it--our work is not over. The Senate and the House have spent the last 2 years working on a package to sharpen America's competitive edge on the world stage. The bill before us does not include many of the other important measures that also enjoy bipartisan support and are still part of the conference committee. So we need to get to the remainder of those provisions and get them over the finish line.
For example, one of the pieces of that larger bill that is not included in the measure before us would help protect American intellectual property and protect our technology secrets against theft by foreign companies or other countries. We know that in today's high-
speed, fast-paced economy, where information zips around the world at the speed of light, it is easier than ever to steal someone else's technology for your own purposes. At a summit in London earlier this month, FBI Director Chris Wray warned companies from across Europe that Beijing is developing more advanced strategies to ``ransack'' Western companies, pillaging intellectual property, and stealing inventions from Americans and others around the world in the high-tech sector. We have to do everything we can to protect ourselves against that malign conduct.
For example, if you are an American company and a foreign company in China steals your intellectual property, the only recourse you currently have at your disposal is to file a lawsuit--file a lawsuit and go to court. It is like taking a peashooter to a knife fight, especially when you are dealing with a foreign government, like the Government of China. That is why I introduced a bipartisan bill with Senator Sasse to arm the U.S. Government with the authority to impose tough sanctions on companies that systematically plunder U.S. technology secrets and intellectual property.
That measure, as I said, is part of a larger package, and we need to get that done by the end of the year. For now, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the bill that is before us this week. It is a key step forward to ensure that America remains the world's leading developer of key technologies and will help bring that important high-tech microchip manufacturing back here to the United States.
We have the brainpower. We have the institutions. We have a system that can fuel tech entrepreneurs. We need to match those very important assets with a willpower for national success and progress.
History tells us that a key ingredient in America's innovation success story has been Federal investment in R&D--much of the R&D that companies will not invest in because it is sometimes too risky. It is an investment that we make on behalf of the American people to ensure our national success and our global leadership. We are today witnessing the efforts of our competitors and, in many cases, our adversaries to overtake us in these key areas. And we should not and we must not surrender our leadership in those places that shape our economy and shape our world.
We must harness the full power of American innovation, as we have done in the past, to meet the challenges of our time. And this bill is an important part of that effort. And I urge my colleagues to support it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hassan). The Senator from Michigan.
____________________
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 124
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
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