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March 26, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextDEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026—Motion to
Proceed—Resumed
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147, a bill
making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal
year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes.
Department of Homeland Security
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, enough is enough. Republicans have bent over backward to negotiate with Democrats, and now Democrats need to get serious about funding the Department of Homeland Security.
Now, let's just review things for a minute here.
reached an agreement on the Department of Homeland Security funding bill, including a number of reforms: deescalation training for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, increased funding for body cameras, and increased oversight of border security and immigration enforcement funding.
Then Democrats reneged on that agreement.
Republicans said: OK, we will reopen negotiations.
The White House offered up a robust list of additional reforms. The Democrats said no.
to fund the entire Department with the exception of immigration enforcement operations, and we offered them a bill to do exactly that. And Democrats still refused.
It seems that Democrats have no interest in reaching an agreement. Many of them are perfectly willing to leave the Department of Homeland Security unfunded for the long term.
They claim that they want to fund the Department. They claim that they are concerned about TSA officers and others working without pay. But talk is cheap, and their actions belie their words.
Guard employees, if they cared about the vital work of the Department of Homeland Security, then they would be getting serious about closing a deal, not ceaselessly offering up the same unchanging list of demands, like a broken record or a particularly nightmarish version of “Groundhog Day.”
recordbreaking 43 days. Their Department of Homeland Security shutdown is now on its 41st day, which means that, thanks to Democrats, TSA agents have spent almost half—almost half—of the fiscal year working without pay.
Let that sink in for a minute. Thanks to Democrats, TSA agents have spent almost half of this fiscal year working without pay.
article yesterday reported, they have been reduced to things like selling blood and plasma—yes, blood and plasma; that is from an NBC article—just to get by.
unwilling to consider anything other than what they think will serve them politically.
Republicans are at the table. We have been at the table. Now it is long past time for Democrats to get serious. How much worse do things have to get? How many more Americans have to suffer before Democrats do their job and work with Republicans to fund the government?
SAVE America Act
Just where do Democrats stand on voter ID? It is pretty darn hard to tell. I mean, we spent years hearing from Democrats how voter ID is a tool of voter suppression. As recently as mid-February, the Democrat leader was decrying voter ID, and then suddenly Democrats started hedging their bets.
Wait. Of course, Democrats support voter ID, Democrat after Democrat has been claiming—and photo ID specifically. The Democrat leader said last week:
Our objection as Democrats is not to a photo ID.
Except, is that true? Is that really true? Because on Tuesday the Democrat leader came down to the floor and made it very clear that he, at least, does object to photo ID. We need, in his words, “inclusive” voter ID options, like leases or utility bills or debit cards or photocopies thereof. He is apparently OK with a demand for photo ID in a million other situations—from boarding a plane to signing your kid up for school to opening a bank account—but heaven forbid that we ask Americans to produce the same ID they produce all over town when they go to the polls. It is not inclusive.
and photo ID, in particular, but backpedaling the minute actually supporting voter ID legislation comes into question.
he would support a voter ID bill, until he was pressed on that commitment, and then he suddenly started avoiding the question. The junior Democrat Senator from Georgia boldly claimed:
I think you should have to prove that you are who you say
you are before you vote. I support voter ID.
Then he went on to knock the voter ID requirements under discussion.
mean, this actually is quite revealing. Here are quotes from one, two, three, four, five Democrats. This one:
Who could be against that, requiring an ID to vote?
That from a couple of days ago. Here is the Senator from Arizona:
If people want to adopt the Arizona way, which is strict
voter ID, I think that would be fine.
That was about a week ago.
The Senator from Rhode Island:
I represent a State that has a sensible voter ID law and
that regularly reviews its voter rolls. This approach has
been extremely effective.
That, again, just a few days ago.
And as I said, the Democrat leader—and this is 10 days ago:
Democrats support voter ID.
The Senator from Michigan:
[H]opefully all Americans are in agreement about [voter
ID].
That from a week ago.
Here is the other Senator from Georgia:
We have voter ID laws in my State. You should have to prove
that you are who you say you are before you vote. That is
basic.
That also from about a week ago.
So the question is will Democrats vote the way they talk. Well, today, they are going to get a chance to support voter ID without supporting the SAVE America Act. We are going to have an amendment. We are going to have an amendment vote on a clean voter ID bill. The only thing—the only thing—the amendment would do would be to require photo ID at the polls: a driver's license, a Tribal ID, a military ID, a veteran ID, a passport. That is all it would say—and something that a lot of Democrats have been out there openly advocating for.
support the overall SAVE America Act. It doesn't obligate them to vote in any way on the final bill. They can vote for this amendment and vote against the SAVE America Act.
clean on whether or not they actually support voter ID in a real way— not photocopies of debit cards or utility bills, as Democrats once proposed—REAL IDs, with photos, issued by States or the Federal Government; the kind of IDs Americans use all the time in their daily lives; the kind of IDs that polls show Americans overwhelmingly support.
pretending that they stand with the overwhelming majority of Americans, who support photo IDs at the polls, while declining any occasion to put their money where their mouth is and support actual legislation. So here is their chance. If Democrats are being honest, if they really think that showing an ID is “reasonable,” as the Democrat whip
claimed, then they can support this clean photo ID amendment. Clean. No other provisions; just a requirement to show the same kind of photo ID at the polls that Americans show elsewhere on a daily basis. No obligation to vote for the overall bill. No statement on the overall bill—just a clean photo ID provision.
I look forward to seeing where Democrats really stand.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment that we are going to be voting on shortly, but I want to begin by sharing that I am a little confused—not to the substance of the amendment—but to the process.
suggested that it was going to be a clean vote on a voter ID measure, when as I see it, it is a stand-alone amendment with language that is already in the underlying bill. It is also language that is in a substitute amendment as well.
but before I talk about the substance of the bill, let me make one other observation as to what is and what isn't happening here. As prices are going up for families across the country—we have talked about it so many times—healthcare costs, grocery bills, prices at the pump. We are not focusing or debating ideas on how to bring down costs for working families.
harder for eligible Americans to register to vote, to stay registered to vote, and to cast their ballot.
How un-American and how undemocratic that is.
Another observation: As we are going back and forth on negotiations for how to restore funding for TSA and the Coast Guard and FEMA and CISA, we are not talking about that right here and now. We are spending even more time now on an amendment to an amendment to a bill—where the language is already there—on a bill that the American people do not support.
So let's get to the substance. Now, throughout this debate so many of my Republican colleagues have chosen to focus on the topic of voter ID. To be clear: We will always strive for free and fair elections. And, of course, we want to make them safe and secure; and, indeed, they already are.
What does that tell us? It tells us that existing laws, existing safeguards are working. To suggest otherwise is fundamentally inaccurate.
A simple way of saying it is: It is a lie. It is a big lie, a big lie that has been used as a pretext for so many bad things in this country coming out of this administration.
to the bill—same language—what this effort would do is block common forms of IDs. Veterans IDs. Veterans and servicemembers can't use that ID after their service and sacrifice to our Nation. “Sorry. That is not enough to allow you to exercise your right to vote.”
Student IDs, also not good enough. Tribal IDs without expiration dates. Some do, many do not have expiration dates on their Tribal IDs. That is not enough to allow you to participate in our democracy, even though you are eligible.
But wait, there is more. The so-called voter ID amendment would also impose new requirements on the tens of millions of Americans who choose or rely on voting by mail.
The majority leader also suggested that: Well, through this amendment, it is simply a requirement to show a voter ID at the polls. As I read the bill, it is very clear. This would result in requiring voters to include a photocopy of their ID with their mailed ballots.
How popular? In the 2024 election, 48 million voters chose to vote by mail. And in case you missed the breaking news a couple days ago, President Trump once again voted by mail in the special election in Florida.
the rest of us? Secure enough for the President but not secure enough for the American people?
OK. You have your ID. Now, you have got to find a copy machine because most people don't have a copy machine at home. Include a copy of your ID along with your ballots.
that are common to protect their personal information. Be careful with it. And now we are saying: Let's add copies of our ID and put it into the mail.
Give me a break. This is not a requirement in Ohio or in Florida or Texas or South Dakota or not even in Utah where voting by mail is very popular.
States. So why is it now so urgent and necessary to impose this on voters across the country?
The more I think about it, the more it is clear: This is an ongoing concerted effort to make it harder for people to vote.
imposed in our elections. We don't have to speculate. We have seen what has happened in New Hampshire. I spoke to that experience a few days ago here on the floor. We have seen what has happened in the State of Kansas. I spoke to that on the floor of the Senate just a few days ago.
That is the real-world impact of policies and proposals like this: making it harder for eligible Americans to vote.
because if this were to pass and this President signs it into law, this all would go into effect immediately. It is not just about the November midterm elections. There is primary elections that are already underway.
resources to help State and local governments actually implement the new requirements of the law?
all eligible voters to obtain a free, easily available ID so that they don't lose their right to vote. And all of this is being done without the most basic level of review.
That is right. What is before us has not had a hearing in either the House of Representatives or here in the Senate and no input from State and local elections officials who actually administer elections.
from elections officials and experts in this field. And you don't do it in the middle of an election cycle.
determined for weeks now coming here to the floor every single day fighting this bill tooth and nail because we are committed to defending our fundamental right to vote in the United States of America, and we will continue coming here to speak and do everything in our power to stop this Donald Trump election takeover bill.
to pass. This bill is about one thing and one thing only: helping his party win this November's midterm elections and elections for the next 50 years. That is how he has described it—the need and the urgency to hold onto power.
This bill is about more than just voter ID. This bill would ban voter registration drives, voter registration drives in communities on college campuses every election cycle—gone. Banned. Eliminated.
Homeland Security the sensitive information of every voter in America, which would result in voter purges. Again, not speculating. It is happening already.
And before anyone suggests that this is a partisan issue—“Oh, Democrats are just opposed to it because it is a blue State versus red State thing.”
Not true. More than half of a dozen States led by Republicans are refusing to comply with the administration's demand that they hand over their voter rolls.
Colleagues, this is a voter suppression bill, plain and simple. The effect of it would be that fewer people would participate in our democracy. We should be working to have more people participate. We can and we do while keeping it safe and secure.
This bill takes us in the wrong direction. This bill makes more barriers for working families, for seniors, for students, and others. It makes us step backward at a time when we should be making participation easier, not harder.
protect the right to vote in America. And if you are willing to live up to that, join me. I urge you all, vote no on this amendment.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Ohio.
Waiving Quorum Calls
Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the mandatory quorum calls with respect to Husted amendment No. 4732 and the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
SAVE America Act
Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, before I became a U.S. Senator, I spent two terms as the Ohio secretary of state and oversaw Presidential elections, gubernatorial elections, and senate elections, and I know what it takes to run an election where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat.
I listened carefully to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They said that they don't object to photo ID—only the other provisions of the SAVE America Act. I listened. That is what they said.
To quote minority leader Chuck Schumer:
You know what our objection is—our objection, as
Democrats, is not to a photo ID. You'd have to define it
clearly and properly and easily, but not to a photo ID when
you show up to vote.
So that is exactly what I am doing today. We are going to take them at their word and offer an opportunity to turn those words into action. In just a few minutes, the Senate will take a rollcall vote on a clean, simple, straightforward amendment of mine to require a photo ID to vote in American elections—nothing more. Straightforward. That is it. You can use a driver's license, State ID, passport, military-veteran ID, or a Tribal ID—something that everyone has access to. No additional restrictions. No tricks. No games. No prohibition on absentee voting.
there, and don't say that they are. They are not in there. It is simply, straightforward, photo ID.
Thirty-six States already have some form of voter ID law in place. This proposal isn't theoretical. This photo ID legislation has proven the test of elections across the Nation. It works. States across our country have shown that you can simultaneously make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. Georgia, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire, along with my home State of Ohio, have photo ID requirements, just to name a few.
That standard is in this amendment. That is the standard this amendment achieves to adopt.
So the question before this body is very simple: Should you have to show who you are when you vote?
The American people have answered that question as “yes” by an overwhelming margin. Roughly 80-20 Americans support requiring a photo ID to vote.
they start a job, when they board a plane. This is something that people do every single day. It is common sense, and it is a commonsense requirement for Americans to show a photo ID when they vote.
This is a clean vote. If you oppose this amendment, then let's be honest—it is not the other provisions in the SAVE America Act that you oppose; you object to photo ID itself, because that is what this vote is: simply, straightforward, photo ID.
measures like photo ID. It is time to set a nationwide standard for election integrity, and a “yes” vote on this amendment will do that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant executive clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, well, today, Senate Republicans are once again wasting time on voter suppression instead of paying TSA.
they call commonsense voter ID, but let's be very clear what this amendment is: It is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and it is a giant coverup to cover up what their bill really does, which is dramatic voter suppression, kicking 20 million or more people off the rolls without their knowledge or consent.
The point here is not at all about voter ID. In fact, 99 percent of the SAVE Act doesn't talk about voter ID. Most of their bill is kicking people off the voter rolls and making reregistering, once you are kicked off, a bureaucratic nightmare, an almost impossibility for many people.
voter suppression bill. And once that happened, Republicans had to do something. So they cobbled together this amendment as a coverup. It was never in the original bill, and now they pretend it is reasonable policy on voter ID.
But let's get to the facts. The amendment Republicans are pushing today would impose the single strictest voter ID law in America— stricter than Texas, stricter than Florida, stricter than any State in the country.
Republicans are calling this amendment common sense. But if it is so common sense, why is it stricter than what every single red State already offers?
systems, backups to those backups, and redundancies in place to ensure that our elections are safe and secure, but we do. And it is why voter fraud—this whole bill is hidden, covered up because they say they need to stop voter fraud. There isn't any to mention at all. That is how absurd this is.
studied voter fraud and found only 77 cases of noncitizen voting in 24 years. And we are going to upend our whole system of how people register to vote for that because of those 77 cases in 24 years?
Just 0.04 percent of voter verification cases are returned as noncitizens. Now you see what the Republicans are doing. It is what Trump said. They want to determine who should vote. Trump wants people—Noem said this as well that the only people who should vote are people who agree with them. It is disgraceful, disgusting. This radical amendment would toss out every single voter ID requirement in all 50 States for Federal elections and put in an overly restrictive, one- size-fits-all approach except only a handful of IDs.
Let's talk about vote-by-mail. Under this ridiculous amendment—this amendment—voters who choose to vote by mail, which is about one in three Americans, guess what they would have to do? They would have to add a photocopy of their ID with their ballot.
how you voted. The sacred secrecy of our ballots would be undone by this amendment. It is ridiculous.
the envelope, and the board of elections would have to open it up and see how you voted. It is incredible.
It would also leave people susceptible to identity theft. It would violate basic privacy. So let's be clear. Most people wouldn't like the idea of having to stick a copy of their photo ID with their ballot in the mail. This requirement is another Trojan horse for trying to weaken and kill vote-by-mail altogether.
Democrats are supportive of commonsense voter ID standards. Just look at the Freedom to Vote Act, which had the full support of the Democratic caucus. It set flexible, comprehensive standards based on West Virginia's then-law for voter ID requirements.
Their amendment—this amendment—is not about security; it is about exclusion. It is not about security; it is about exclusion. The SAVE Act is not about protecting our elections; it is about suppressing the vote.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I would like to suggest that I go through this again about what is actually in this amendment because it was just misrepresented.
This isn't the SAVE America Act. This is, frankly, me listening to the minority leader, what he said, and how he supports—he doesn't object to photo ID. So all that is in this amendment is five forms of photo ID that people can list to vote, which people have.
I ask the American people: Do you have a driver's license? Do you have a State ID? Do you have a passport? Do you have a military or veterans ID? Do you have a Tribal ID? Because every American has one of those things or has access to it. In Ohio, we will pay for you to have a free State ID. That is all this asks. Show one of those five forms of identification.
ballots, clearly some people don't know how it works. I can explain to you how it works.
When you have a mail-in ballot process, you have the ballot. You have the mail-in envelope. You have two envelopes. You have the mail-in envelope. Then you have a security envelope inside, in which your ballot is contained.
the last four digits of your Social Security, on the outside of that envelope where no one can see your ballot. It validates that the ballot inside is legit, that it is from a qualified registered voter.
the presence of both a Democrat and a Republican, and then the ballots are counted. That is how it works, not that misrepresentation.
The problem is this is too simple. It is simple photo ID. You either believe that we need to know who is voting or you don't. And this simple amendment accomplishes that. The misrepresentation of how it works needed to be corrected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on amendment No.
4732 to the motion to concur in the House message to
accompany S. 1383 with substitute amendment No. 4420, a bill
to establish the Veterans Advisory Committee on Equal Access,
and for other purposes.
John Thune, Jon Husted, John Kennedy, John R. Curtis, Tom
Cotton, Tommy Tuberville, Katie Boyd Britt, David
McCormick, Steve Daines, Mike Rounds, Cindy Hyde-Smith,
Thom Tillis, Ted Cruz, Bill Cassidy, Ashley Moody,
Cynthia M. Lummis, Joni Ernst.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the mandatory quorum call under rule XXII has been waived.
amendment No. 4372, offered by the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Thune, to the motion to concur in the House message to accompany S. 1383, with substitute amendment No. 4420, a bill to establish the Veterans Advisory Committee on Equal Access, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant executive clerk called the roll.
The yeas and nays resulted—yeas 53, nays 47, as follows:
Rollcall Vote No. 73 Leg.
YEAS—53
Armstrong
Banks
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Murkowski
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young
NAYS—47
Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Fetterman
Gallego
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Schumer
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 53, the nays are 47.
The motion was rejected.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147, a bill making further
consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2026, and for other purposes.
John Thune, Bill Hagerty, Marsha Blackburn, Eric Schmitt,
James Lankford, Bernie Moreno, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Steve
Daines, Josh Hawley, Jim Justice, Shelley Moore Capito,
Kevin Cramer, Ashley B. Moody, Jim Banks, James E.
Risch, Tim Sheehy, Joni Ernst.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived.
motion to proceed to H.R. 7147, a bill making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The yeas and nays resulted—yeas 53, nays 47, as follows:
Rollcall Vote No. 74 Leg.
YEAS—53
Armstrong
Banks
Barrasso
Blackburn
Boozman
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Curtis
Daines
Ernst
Fetterman
Fischer
Graham
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Husted
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Justice
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
Marshall
McConnell
McCormick
Moody
Moran
Moreno
Murkowski
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Rounds
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sheehy
Sullivan
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young
NAYS—47
Alsobrooks
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt Rochester
Booker
Cantwell
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Gallego
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
Kim
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Markey
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schiff
Schumer
Shaheen
Slotkin
Smith
Thune
Van Hollen
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
(Mr. MORENO assumed the Chair.)
(Mr. BUDD assumed the Chair.)
(Mr. HUSTED assumed the Chair.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). On this vote, the yeas are 53, the nays are 47.
The motion was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Motion to Reconsider
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is entered.
The Senator from Nevada.
Remembering Sue Wagner
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, today, I recognize my friend and mentor Sue Wagner, who passed away in Reno, NV, on March 17, 2026.
Nevada and is an inspiration not just to me but so many others. She will be remembered not just as the first woman elected Lieutenant Governor of Nevada or as one of the incredible leaders who secured a woman's right to choose in our State but also as someone who you could always count on to stand up for what is right.
She was born in Maine, and she grew up in Arizona. Since childhood, Sue had an appreciation for public service and engagement. Her father was actively involved in Maine politics, and his activism sparked Sue's interest in public service. From a young age, she was inspired by female political leaders, and she was also inspired by Senator Margaret Chase Smith, one of her childhood role models.
Kirk and Kristina. It is there where her political career began. In 1975, she was elected to the Nevada State Assembly, and she served in the assembly until 1980, when she successfully ran for the Nevada State Senate, where she stayed for another 9 years. In 1990, Sue made history as the first woman to be elected Lieutenant Governor in the Silver State.
safe houses for abused women, prison system reform, and governmental accountability. She was also a driving force behind the creation of the Nevada Commission on Ethics and the marriage license fee to fund shelters and strengthen safety services for domestic violence survivors.
She was especially a champion of women's rights. She fought for a woman's right to serve in public office. She worked to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, and, most notably, she was instrumental in the success of a 1990 referendum in the State of Nevada that helped codify abortion rights into law.
She was one of the strongest women I knew. She overcame and survived several personal tragedies. Just months before her election to the Nevada State Senate, her husband Peter died in a plane crash, leaving her a single mother of two kids.
in a plane crash, leaving her with severe injuries to her back and neck. Despite her misfortune, Sue was resilient and continued to serve Nevadans and lead with grit and integrity.
career. In 1981, she established a memorial endowment at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, where her husband had been an atmospheric physicist. Through that endowment and her own work as a member of the DRI staff for nearly a decade, Sue created opportunities for women in science and fought for funding for environmental studies.
served for 12 years. She also served as the associate director of the Great Basin Policy Research Center at the University of Nevada, Reno.
rights and for domestic violence survivors. She increased public and higher education funding, environmental conservation, protections for at-risk children, and, yes, increased governmental accountability.
Sue had a career to be proud of. She blazed trails that will be her legacy and was beloved by all who knew her.
friend and mentor. She empowered me and so many others to become champions for Nevada. I will always be grateful for her friendship, her inspiration, and the decades of service that she gave to Nevada. Her life and legacy have not only left a lasting impression on me but the entire State.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Department of Homeland Security
Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, for 41 days, Democrats have kept the Department of Homeland Security shut down—41 days. This is on top of Chuck Schumer's 43-day shutdown last fall.
working without pay since February 14. No wonder they are quitting: So far, 480 and counting.
Democrats walked out on TSA. Because of them, it hasn't been a surprise that TSA agents have walked out of their jobs.
International Airport have two young children. When faced with no income coming in, the husband started working as a DoorDash driver in his spare time and is considering resigning from TSA.
must be paid each month, regardless of the political games they want to play with government funding, all because Democrats wanted to create chaos under President Trump.
It is sad, folks. They hate this President more than they love America and the men and women who protect our homeland.
It is clear Democrat priorities have been all wrong. My Democrat colleague Chris Murphy said the quiet part out loud the other day. He said:
[T]he people we care about most—the undocumented . . .
for should be their constituents—the American people. But that sums up Democrats' DHS shutdown. They would rather make a political point than to do their jobs.
have created the longest wait times in TSA history and have also caused 660 canceled flights. So, if you have been stuck standing in line at the airport for a few extra hours, call Chuck Schumer. We have literally been waiting on him to pass this bill.
Angry? tired? frustrated because of delays?
Call Chuck Schumer.
Missed a flight?
Call Chuck Schumer.
here, folks—call Chuck Schumer because Republicans presented him with compromises to make sure folks get paid and we can keep Americans safe, but he has been like Lucy with Charlie Brown's football. Democrats have claimed they just want a few reforms, but when a deal is right in front of them, Schumer moves the ball.
Well, not today, Charlie.
Look, folks. We need to get this done not only because it is the right thing to do for hard-working Americans who have earned their paychecks but because safety and security are on the line.
Infrastructure Security Agency, an American company faced a cyber attack from Iran. Meanwhile, teens brought explosives to a New York City protest—Schumer's home State—and were charged with attempting to provide materiel support to ISIS.
If that isn't a wake-up call, I don't know what is. But while Schumer has his own bodyguards and Members of Congress have funding for personal security, Democrats are leaving our homeland and our communities vulnerable.
Enough of the Washington double standards. Republicans have stood ready and willing to fund DHS. We have voted for it—Republicans have voted for it—11 times. Meanwhile, Democrats have voted down our efforts every single time.
unnecessary pain for thousands of Americans, President Trump is pushing through the politics and is paying our TSA agents, bringing wait times down, and keeping our citizens safe.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Department of Homeland Security
Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. President, I rise today to implore my Democratic colleagues one more time: End this ridiculous shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.
world consequences get more severe. Shutting down DHS to make a point on immigration is reckless, and it is devoid of basic, fundamental common sense. It weakens the Agencies that protect the homeland. It punishes—punishes—the men and women across TSA, CISA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the rest of DHS, who stand watch every day over this country, and it burdens Americans who depend on those public servants.
So what has this shutdown accomplished? What has it brought us?
Well, first, it endangers America and endangers Americans. Since combat operations began in Iran, the homeland has seen five major attacks: an ISIS-inspired bombing attempt outside of Gracie Mansion in New York City; a terrorist shooting in a ROTC classroom at Old Dominion; a vehicle attack at Temple Israel in Michigan; a terrorist shooting at a bar in Austin, TX; and a pro-Iran cyber attack on Stryker, one of America's great medical products companies, whose systems support patient care in hospitals across the country.
the Biden administration's disastrous, catastrophic border policies. Just last Thursday, we saw it on the television. Just last Thursday, an illegal immigrant shot and killed an 18-year-old Loyola Chicago student, Sheridan Gorman.
And that is why we must keep DHS fully operational, including ICE. We don't know what threats exist among the 10 million illegal immigrants who entered our country during the Biden administration. But we do know that those risks are growing, and they are made much worse, much more severe because of the carelessness of the Democrats in shutting down and not being willing to fund DHS.
performance theater over the safety of the American people. It is irresponsible. It is callous. It is disgraceful. And it must stop. It must stop. We are 40 days into this. It must stop.
to protect us—to protect all of us. The average TSA agent earns about $50,000 a year. Many live paycheck to paycheck, and those are the paychecks my Democratic colleagues chose to withhold to stage this stunt.
intervened and directed the new Secretary of Homeland Security to find a way to pay these folks.
But, tragically, much of the damage has already been done. Too many Pennsylvanians are already paying the price. TSA officers in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh airports have had to rely on food banks— that is right, food banks—to get by. The men and women standing between the traveling public and the danger that faces us should not have to depend on charity because Congress can't do its job.
The consequences of this shutdown are mounting. Last Sunday—last Sunday—one in four TSA agents in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh airports called out—25 percent. Twenty-five percent didn't come to work because Democrats have forced them to work without pay. They can't do it. They can't protect their families and come to work and not be paid. Not many Americans can.
trained professionals gone out of the TSA force. Replacing them will cost money. It will take time. And until then—until then—the risk, the threat facing the American people has gone up. It is irresponsible. It has got to end.
people, and that creates real vulnerabilities. We have all seen the images: these airport security lines snaking out of the terminal into the parking garages. Families heading out on spring break, workers traveling across the country to see loved ones, people hitting the road for work—all are victims of a politically manufactured crisis.
go far beyond the airports. The World Cup security preparations in cities around the world—including Philadelphia—have already fallen behind. Security grants for houses of worship are tied up. Local communities are without critical DHS threat information sharing. Our cyber security readiness is diminished. And in Pennsylvania, firefighters and first responders have lost access to critical DHS training.
theater putting American lives at risk. It is unacceptable, and it has to stop.
and reforms. We can address the legitimate concerns the American people have had about immigration enforcement, while fully funding DHS. We can secure the homeland and insist on professionalism and competence.
Congress and the administration have put forward: body cameras for ICE, funding for deescalation training, increased transparency requirements, and regular inspections of detention facilities. These are serious proposals. They are commonsense proposals. They have been offered by the administration and Congress in good faith—by Republicans in Congress in good faith—and yet the Democrats have turned their head.
It is because they don't want to find a resolution to this. They want to try to use this as an issue for political advantage in the midterms. And the American people are suffering, and they deserve better. The American people deserve better.
Mullin, whom we confirmed on Monday, will bring the leadership required for DHS at this critical moment. He is the right man to meet this moment.
shutting down the government is never the right answer. It is never the right answer. Our citizens who put us here expect more.
President Obama's DHS Secretary, Jeh Johnson, said last week:
We need to get out of the business of coupling policy
disagreements in Congress with funding the government.
time this Congress amid major combat operations in the Middle East is not merely wrong; it is reckless.
Fetterman agrees that shutting down the government is “wrong.” He and I can always be depended on to walk together on this for a better Pennsylvania.
Democratic Party to fund DHS, protect America, pay the men and women who are defending us—putting themselves in harm's way, defending the homeland—and relieve the American people of these ridiculous, politically instilled, unnecessary burdens.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. McCORMICK). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Climate Change
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the 305th time with my increasingly weathered and battered “Time to Wake Up” chart to warn this Chamber about a corrupt danger to our country—a danger powered by fossil fuel industry money, orchestrated by dark money front groups, and now executed at the highest levels of a corrupted executive branch.
In previous speeches, I described the four phases of climate denial.
Phase 1 was bury the evidence. The fossil fuel industry scientists told them what the science was. They ignored it, and they buried it.
rest of the scientific establishment came on board with what their scientists had already told them.
fuel's pollute-for-free business model. After Citizens United, out poured the money.
weaponizing the government itself to attack clean energy, protect polluters, and steamroll lawful government process.
Today's speech is about a lie. We are now so deep in phase 4 that heads of executive Agencies feel entitled to lie to Congress if it helps carry out President Trump's fossil fuel-captured agenda.
Notice what distinguishes phase 4. Phase 1 involved buried evidence kept secret. Phase 2 involved lies filtered through think tank reports with plausible deniability for the fossil fuel interests behind the front groups. Phase 3 flooded politics with dark money through anonymous front groups—all hidden. But phase 4, using the government itself to execute the polluters' agenda—against the law, against Congress, and against the courts—that must be done out loud, under oath, before judges, and before this body, in plain view. In phase 4, the lying becomes official, brazen, on the record.
There once was a time when lying to Congress mattered; when swearing an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth meant exactly that; when if someone lied to Congress, even Members of the liar's own party would hold them to account. Unfortunately, those days are gone. But truth should still matter.
So this evening, I present to you the story of Lyin' Lee Zeldin. I will show you what happened when EPA Administrator Zeldin came before two congressional committees in May of last year. Our review of thousands of pages of sworn court filings, internal EPA emails, and other communications and documents produced under the Freedom of Information Act proves it. Let me walk you through the sorry saga.
blueprint, instructed Agencies to cut off funding that his fossil fuel donors didn't like. Remember, Candidate Trump had promised Big Oil a massive return on their investment if they donate $1 billion to get him elected. Well, fossil fuel companies indeed donated massively—hundreds of millions, maybe even the full billion—and Trump dutifully provided the payback in innumerable policies benefiting fossil fuel and kneecapping fossil fuel's clean energy competitors. The heavy hand of government was put to work for fossil fuel.
Trump by freezing and then terminating as many as 781 grants with awards totaling over $1.7 billion. These grants were congressionally appropriated and obligated to the grantees to fund projects in clean energy, coastal resilience, lead pipe removal, and improving air quality for children.
programs that had awarded $1.5 billion in canceled funds, that the Biden EPA had done so in a fair, transparent, and legally compliant way.
fossil fuel donors wanted it done. You won't be shocked to learn that it is actually illegal for the executive branch to unilaterally roll back appropriated and obligated congressional grants. So it prompted a swath of lawsuits against the EPA.
Carolina, from Biden judge to Trump judge alike, Federal courts over and over reached the same conclusion: The grant freezes and terminations were likely illegal, and the grant money should go to the recipients.
by-grant reviews and could only cancel grants based on specific findings related to the unique characteristics of a particular grant.
It is a pretty simple rule grounded in separation of powers. The executive branch cannot veto congressionally appropriated and obligated funds outside the veto process, particularly not based on big donors' political resentments. That is the law. To cancel a grant, EPA must review each grant itself, its terms, its conditions, its obligations and have a specific reason for doing so.
reviewing entire grant programs under which may fall dozens or even hundreds of individual grants. The review can't be grant program by grant program; it has to be individual grant by individual grant.
In response to court orders, EPA made a huge production of documents. After sifting through the “thousands of documents” EPA offered up, the court found this:
Not one document showed any individualized review.
Not one document showed any individualized review.
individualized review standards. Instead, what the court found was illegal targeting based on the grant containing general terms that the big donors didn't like, like “climate,” like “greenhouse gas emissions,” like “environmental justice.”
Entire grant programs were canceled en masse. Internal emails said “cancel them all.” It was the opposite of what the law requires. In short, the court found, after extensive review, that Administrator Zeldin did not follow the law.
Administrator Zeldin then made an astonishing move. That same day, May 20, 2025, that the court rejected the EPA's claims as “hard to believe,” Zeldin walked into a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing and repeated the same discredited story he had tried to sell the court, plus an added new twist.
documents, had not bought that story, but Zeldin figured that a Republican-controlled congressional subcommittee just might. The very next day Zeldin came to our Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and—under oath—told me the same false story; that he had personally reviewed every grant, this time adding that his deputy
also individually reviewed every single grant.
The problem with all of this? The evidence shows that the opposite is true. Remember what the court found after reviewing those thousands of pages EPA had produced:
Not one document showed any individualized review.
But wait, there is more. That deputy that Zeldin claimed also reviewed every single grant individually? He filed a sworn declaration to that same court averring only that he had conducted a review of grant programs. Remember the difference between grant programs which contain dozens of potential grants and the individual grants.
not individual grants. Under oath in court, the deputy in charge of coordinating the grant review would only swear his name to a declaration about a review of programs, not of individual grants.
Other circumstantial evidence also cuts against Zeldin. We looked at detailed EPA calendars obtained by FOIA requests showing that the Administrator held five meetings with EPA staff related to grants. Total time across all five meetings: 2 hours and 45 minutes. His calendar showed no entries for other personal time to review grants.
So do the math: 2 hours 45 minutes to review 781 grants individually. That is about 13 seconds per grant. That math ain't “mathing,” as they say.
programs at issue. Every single grant in every single program was canceled except one outlier, a government-to-government grant, the only one to a single State. All the rest, swept clean.
Another tell here was Zeldin's behavior in our committee: his madcap yelling, accusing, fist-banging. It is Trump administration standard operating procedure to yell and shout and accuse when they can't answer a legitimate question. We have seen that play run over and over and over.
So all the evidence points plainly in one direction: Zeldin didn't follow the law, and he lied about following the law. Why? Why lie about that? Well, here is why: Trump demands two things from his Cabinet; one, fawning flattery; and two, slavish implementation of his political instructions.
would batter EPA's chances in litigation. He would be guilty of failure to execute on Trump's big donors' political agenda. He would have to face the White House's ire.
illegal plans alive to carry out the political purge of clean energy grants, all to satisfy that audience of one by rewarding Trump's thuggish fossil fuel Kingmakers.
This kind of gangster and “Gong Show” absurdity, this kind of brazenness, shows what happens when fossil fuel private interests own the executive branch of the U.S. Government.
Follow the money. This is phase four. This is what it looks like when government is captured by polluters and put to their service.
Zeldin's testimony was no inadvertent statement; it was a calculated stratagem to lie and try to shout his way out of the pickle he was in.
Let's be clear who is hurt here, what the real costs are. Lying to a court is bad. Lying to Congress is bad. Lying to frustrate judicial review is bad. Lying to thwart Congress' constitutional power of the purse is bad. All of that is bad.
the other end of those grants that Zeldin lied about and canceled. Those grants funded tangible projects that would cut people's energy costs, protect people from natural disaster, create real jobs for real people. It was real stuff.
up: In North Carolina, residents were relying on a nearly $20 million grant to replace residential water service lines to get dangerous lead out of their drinking water. Other lead drinking projects were canceled in Indiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
Another one, Kipnuk, AK, lost a nearly $20 million grant to stabilize its riverbank. Those consequences were real and immediate. In October of 2025, the remnants of Typhoon Halong swept through, flooded the river, leveled the town, killed 1 person, and displaced over 1,500 people.
A climate specialist at the University of Alaska had noted a pattern. Three devastating ex-typhoon storms hit Western Alaska in 4 years. Zeldin's canceled grant did not just fail to prevent a predictable flood; it may actually have contributed to the permanent erasure of a Native community's home.
their flooded ancestral village. The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe was planning to use nearly $20 million to create a Tribal resilience hub that would have provided essential services during emergencies. Anybody who has had to evacuate in an emergency knows how important that is— gone.
Texas A&M University would have received $14 million to install wastewater treatment systems throughout 17 counties in Alabama that had inadequate plumbing capacity where residents suffer from preventable conditions like hookworm, but I guess that was too woke for Lyin' Lee.
A $500,000 grant for the Childhood Lead Action Project—a project launched in 2018 to reduce lead exposure in children—gone. The list goes on, but the mass cancellations share the same characteristic.
based on ideas and phrases they didn't like and wanted to cancel: “environmental justice,” “DEI,” “climate change.”
pretended to have done. That is the Zeldin lie under oath, the Zeldin lie that is sanctionable, but it is not his big lie. His big lie is Zeldin repealing EPA's 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, the bedrock scientific and legal determination that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. He boasted it was the “single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history.”
What he did not say is this: EPA's own scientists disagreed. The National Academy of Science had just reaffirmed the Endangerment Finding, saying it “was accurate, had stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.”
Clean Air Act does not authorize EPA to regulate greenhouse gases at all, which was an argument the Supreme Court had already rejected back in 2009 in Massachusetts v. EPA.
The science has not changed. The law has not changed. The fossil fuel industry's complete infiltration of our government is what changed.
science, that is big. Even bigger and even more consequential for the American people is the enormous lie which Zeldin, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright spout constantly.
polluting energy; the fact of the matter is that it is not. And the easiest way to prove that it is not is to look at what is called the generation stack of the electric grid. As we all turn on lights and air-conditioners and electric appliances, powerplants get called up to provide the power to meet the demand.
first. Here is what that looks like for two of our electric grids: ERCOT covers Texas; PJM runs westward from the Mid-Atlantic to the Midwest.
their powerplants, least expensive first. And guess what? Solar and wind and hydro come before coal and gas. Same here, solar, wind, and hydro come before coal and gas.
grid, that is how they stack up. Solar, wind, and other renewables come first because they are less expensive. So it is indisputable that Burgum, Zeldin, and Wright are lying.
Here is another proof point. This time series compares costs on the Texas grid ERCOT at various levels of demand in 2018 and in 2024. This line shows the demand cost curve of ERCOT in 2018. This line shows the same information for the same grid in 2024 after a
huge clean energy surge went onto the Texas grid—17.6 gigawatts of new clean energy joined the grid.
gigawatts. What was the price point? Mr. President, $75 per megawatt hour.
that new clean energy on the grid and the price had fallen by two- thirds. It is now $25 per megawatt hour—$75 before the clean energy surge, $25 after. In real life, in real time, Texas saw clean energy press prices down.
electricity. With power costs down when clean energy goes up, this is more evidence that Zeldin, Burgum, and Wright are lying.
Here is another example: Australia. Australia is loading up on clean energy. They are loading up on residential, solar, and other clean energy arrays. And that allows them now to have their grid propose 3 hours of scheduled free electricity every day.
Three hours a day, no matter who you are. If you are using electricity, you plug in, you run your dryer, you run your washing machine, and for those 3 hours you know, that is free electricity. It is free electricity from Australia's abundant clean power strategy. Literally, clean power so cheap it makes electricity free.
One last data point on costs. The court filings of the state attorneys general fighting the illegal Trump stop work orders against offshore wind farms off Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Once operational, Revolution Wind alone will provide
hundreds of millions of dollars each year in energy bill
savings to New England.
Hundreds of millions of dollars each year in energy bill
savings to New England.
online, it would have saved regional production costs by $80 to $85 million over a 2-week cold snap in 2017 to 2018, resulting in $11 to $13 per megawatt hour, less costs in what the grid charged ratepayers.
offered their evidence to the contrary, filed affidavits asserting the cost savings of fossil fuel. It was a great opportunity for them to make that case in court that they were spouting on FOX News and on X. Well, guess what? In the forum where lies are subject to court sanction, they had nothing to say.
big polluter donors, but people, people who already face the Trump affordability crisis, they see their costs go up when clean energy is kept off the grid.
When the Big Oil cartel hikes prices, families pay the cost. When volatile natural gas prices spike, families pay the cost. When cheaper clean energy is blocked from the grid, families pay the cost.
would have paid an additional $50 per megawatt hour. In this Trump clean energy scam, money goes from regular people's pockets, from customers' pockets, straight to Trump's big fossil fuel donors, in billions. In billions. It is the biggest payback for political support that I can remember.
Banning clean energy, it hurts homeowners and renters. And as climate disasters surge, insurance markets falter. They are already staggering in Texas and Florida.
The Economist magazine has warned of a potential $25 trillion collapse in global real estate value as properties become uninsurable and unmortgageable, and in some cases, even unlivable.
cascade. Climate risk makes regions uninsurable, which makes properties there unmortgageable, which crashes property values, which all collapses in a 2008-style economic recession.
Clean energy is where the jobs are. Over 400,000 had been created since 2020, with a faster growth rate than the rest of the energy sector.
America, more in China, and a shrinking economic future for American workers. And, yes, attacking clean energy means more emissions, more disasters, more billion-dollar storms, more hits to communities like Kipnuk.
NOAA shows that Americans suffered over $100 billion per year in disaster costs in each of the past 5 years, half a trillion dollars. And that cost gets worse. And that harm cascades, from the families struggling with a soaring property insurance bill, to the worker whose clean energy job never materializes, to the taxpayer footing the bill for ever more costly disasters.
These are the real consequences of government by falsehood. When truth is denied, when science is ignored, when courts are defied, the public ends up bearing the cost. And that cost grows every day that the polluters' evil machinery is left to run unchecked.
matter than the wholesale lies designed to mislead the public and prop up the failing and polluting fossil fuel industry. But those lies to Congress were under oath—under oath—and that ought to matter.
benefit Trump's big fossil fuel donors. For years, fossil fuel interests believed that they could pollute for free, deceive the public, buy elections with dark money, and do it all without consequence.
operatives like Zeldin to run the Federal Government from the inside. The brazenness of executive branch officials on the polluter payroll is there for everyone to see.
Zeldin's own EPA colleagues are saying so too. Over 1,200 EPA employees, career scientists, lawyers, and enforcement staff have signed a public letter to Zeldin laying out their concerns that he has spread misinformation through official EPA channels; that he has promoted a culture of fear among his own staff; and that he has redirected the Agency's mission from its legal mission to protect public health to the service of big polluters.
after the Agency failed to produce any documentation backing up a Zeldin claim made in front of the President at a Cabinet meeting that EPA employees were absent or were “ghost workers.” Zeldin doesn't just lie to Congress, he lies about his own people at the EPA.
Accountability is coming. The courts are waking up. The public is waking up. Even some in the business community are waking up to the looming peril.
credibility, losing his popularity, losing the illusion of invincibility that cowed so many into silence.
office, to stand up for the Constitution and for Congress as an institution, and to defend our American constituents from Trump and his gangster government.
One place to start is with a really simple rule for our witnesses: You do not lie.
So for that reason today, I am calling on Lee Zeldin to go. It is bad enough that he has weaponized the EPA to do the bidding of the giant fossil fuel and chemical corporations that donated to Trump's campaign.
answer simple questions honestly, how could anybody in this body believe him? Or is the new rule that lying is OK if it is done for big polluters?
Late last year, Moms Clean Air Force and their 1.6 million members called on Zeldin to resign. Earlier this week, a coalition of over 160 organizations, led by the Climate Action Campaign and Moms Clean Air Force, demanded that Zeldin resign or be fired.
movement are fed up with Zeldin flip-flopping on toxic regulations and failing to respect the core mission of EPA to keep Americans healthy and safe.
the dangers of Lyin' Lee Zeldin running a
corrupted EPA. It is time for us here in the Senate to do the same.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I am now going to just continue what Senator Whitehouse has been raising for the consideration of the American people.
Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee and for throughout his entire career focusing upon the corruption which is at the heart of the fossil fuel industry's control of the energy agenda, the climate agenda in our country. That is something which Senator Whitehouse has done insistently, persistently, consistently over the last decade, just rising over and over again to make the very clear, compelling, and undeniable point that the fossil fuel industry controls the energy policy of our country and that it has succeeded for 100 years in squashing the competition until very recently.
in their efforts to ensure that wind and solar and all-electric vehicles and clean energy technologies were, in fact, once again snuffed out after they had seen a great resurgence because of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which really should be called the greatest climate bill ever passed in the history of the world.
corruption, about their ownership of administration after administration which did not, in fact, advance a clean energy agenda for our country.
resignation of Lee Zeldin as the EPA Administrator. When someone's track record is as full of failure as Lee Zeldin's, they should flunk out of the class. He has failed to uphold science, failed to protect health, failed to hold regulated industries accountable.
was appointed to lead. The basic mission he is failing on is to protect human health and to protect the environment of the United States of America. Since he has been in charge, the only thing “EPA” has stood for is “Every Polluter's Ally.” He has spent his first 15 months as the Administrator protecting the polluters instead of protecting the health and the environment of our country.
public's team. They are batting for the Big Fossil Fuel and Big Tech billionaires, not for parents worried about their kids' asthma, not for families worried about whether their water is safe to drink or food is safe to eat, and not for young people worried about their future as climate change continues to cause global chaos.
Agency's brain trust—the dedicated public servants who serve as the engine powering the EPA's core mission. Who are those people? They are biologists. They are chemists. They are climate scientists. They are mathematicians. They are people who have dedicated their lives working at the EPA in order to create the best science which can be used in order to guide American policy to protect the public health and the environment in our country.
the EPA headquarters and all the regional headquarters of EPA in order to peer over the shoulders of scientists, of chemists, of biologists, of climate scientists, and question, as a 25-year-old DOGEr, what the qualifications are for these people, these scientists, to have their jobs. I mean, it is absolutely absurd that in 2026, we would allow for that to happen at the lead environmental Agency for the world, but yet that is what Donald Trump and Elon Musk unleashed—the terrorization of career, brilliant scientists.
How do we know they are brilliant? Because every person in America knows that when they were in high school, the first row—the first row—was filled with all the kids who were going to go to college to study biology and chemistry and physics and mathematics. The second row was filled with everybody else. But everyone knows who the smartest kids are, and they have been the smartest kids since they were in the sixth grade or the seventh grade. They are dedicated to science. They are dedicated to getting the right answer. Yet Donald Trump and Elon Musk unleashed an army of DOGE—mostly young men, unqualified for anything except going in almost as mafia-like hit men to take out these career, brilliant scientists who decided not to go out into the private sector to make 5 times, 10 times more money working for chemical companies, writing algorithms for hedge funds—no. They dedicated their lives to working on the science of public health and the environment, and Trump just unleashed these young DOGE men to go in and terrorize these workers. They pushed out these EPA workers who test our water, who monitor our air, who study how to keep us safe from chemicals, from pollution. All the while, he pushed to keep—to keep—chemicals like glyphosate on the market.
movement wants chemicals like glyphosate to be taken off the market. They want it. They actually ran on that, the Make America Healthy Again movement. That is what Robert F. Kennedy was saying he wanted to do.
Do you know who is more powerful? The chemical industry. The chemical industry wants it legal. The chemical industry wants it on the market. The chemical industry wants families to be exposed to it. So the EPA under Lee Zeldin—he is all on board for something like that. He is not going to be bucking the chemical industry on behalf of the health of the American people.
By the way, Zeldin spent $86 million in taxpayer money to pay EPA staff not to work. Your taxpayer money went to avoiding environmental protection and saying to the workers: You don't even have to show up. We will pay you not to come in, not to protect the public health and safety.
its lowest staffing level since the 1980s—40 years ago—all while we deal with our modern-day challenges like forever chemicals, toxic pesticides, climate change—you name it. All of these issues which have been identified by a new generation of scientists are now all on the back burner at the EPA because of Lee Zeldin, because of the White House, and because they are just completely beholden to these special interest, polluting companies that are in the favored class of Donald Trump acolytes.
But that wasn't enough. Then he came for the rest of the country. He came for projects to plant trees, to shade us on hot summer days, to get water to drink from our taps that is free from lead and build cheap solar energy to power our homes—projects that have been illegally shut down, shut off, shut out of funding in red and blue States alike. That is how ideological, that is how obsessed they are with giving the polluters everything they want.
legislation with Senator Van Hollen, which would have lowered energy bills, created good-paying jobs across the country, and built cleaner, safer, and healthier communities. And why did they come for the green bank, for the climate bank? Well, that had $20 billion in it, and McKinsey, a renowned and respected consulting firm, estimated that that $20 billion would unleash $150 billion of private sector investment in clean energy solutions, and that is an existential threat to the fossil fuel industry.
So Zeldin just said: It is gone. It is gone. I can't, on my watch, said Zeldin, be part of a plan that allows for competition with clean energy technologies to reduce the profits of the natural gas and the oil and the coal industry.
prevented 4,500 premature deaths and 800,000 cases of asthma over just the last 6 years. Under Lee Zeldin, “MAGA”—M-A-G-A—stands for “Make America Gasp for Air.” More asthma, more lung cancer, more disease in our society—that is what the Trump-Zeldin EPA looks like.
exemptions from nine air quality standards, allowing for complete noncompliance and unchecked pollution before any scientific review, public input process, or regulatory consideration.
to ensure we don't breathe mercury or lead or arsenic—all because he wants polluters to make more money while they make us sick.
increase in powerplant emissions after decades of emissions decline. That is not a coincidence. That is a diabolical scheme, written by the Heritage Foundation and its fossil fuel backers, and executed by Lee Zeldin, but that still wasn't enough for Zeldin. Last month, Lee Zeldin moved to repeal the endangerment finding, which is the bedrock of air pollution and emissions regulation in our country.
environmental Court decision in the history of the United States. That case is Massachusetts v. EPA. It was a decision that was rendered in April of 2007, and it was a very simple decision which was made, driven by the devastation that climate change wreaked on my home State of Massachusetts. Massachusetts sued, and the Supreme Court agreed that greenhouse gases were air pollutants, and they made that decision almost two decades ago. The Supreme Court also agreed that the EPA needs to regulate air pollutants if the science shows they endanger our health and our welfare.
Now, that may seem like a no-brainer to you. Climate change is real; the science is clear; and the harm from climate change is more obvious and more damaging every single year. The EPA acknowledged the connection between greenhouse gases and climate harm back two decades ago.
What makes Lee Zeldin think he can change the facts now?
Well, here is why. It is that Zeldin and Trump have taken a page straight out of “1984,” when George Orwell wrote:
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your own eyes
and ears.
Americans aren't stupid. Americans know what this crisis means. We are living through climate change, and we can see it with our own eyes that these extreme weather disasters are here now, making headlines, and making their communities more dangerous than ever before.
extreme weather disasters that cost $1 billion or more. That is over a 10-year period. In the last 5 years alone, we have lived through 116 disasters that have cost $1 billion or more—nearly twice as many disasters in half the time just 10 years later.
Climate change is real; climate change is happening; and the evidence is in the damage that it is inflicting upon our Nation. It is drought. It is storms. It is making groceries more expensive. It is making insurance, as Senator Whitehouse constantly points out, for homeowners and small businesses go skyrocketing across our country. The heat waves are making our air-conditioning bills more expensive. Wildfires and rising tides are making home insurance again more expensive all across our country. Lee Zeldin would rather sell us a lie than make our lives more affordable.
law is clear. The EPA is still beholden to its mission to protect human health and the environment. Trump's EPA might break the law, but they cannot rewrite the law. All they can do is break the law. Greenhouse gases are air pollutants, and the Clean Air Act says the EPA must act. By repealing the endangerment finding, the Trump administration will be creating a clear and present danger to the public because climate denial costs lives. This isn't a deregulatory agenda; it is a deranged agenda.
is not an exaggeration because, under Lee Zeldin, the EPA is valuing human health at zero dollars in its rulemakings. But we know that we matter; that you matter; that every American matters. It is our voices, our lives, our futures that matter in this battle, and the EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment still matters. So that is what we are going to raise from now to the end of this year.
said that the country was going great, but he decided to take a little detour, he said, into Iran. Well, Trump's little detour is coming at a very high price—higher gasoline prices, higher home heating oil prices, higher natural gas prices, higher prices for jet fuel, higher prices as a result for plane tickets, higher prices for groceries because they have to be transported across the country. In fact, there are higher prices for everything in our country which needs oil or gas, which is every other product.
thing. Whenever oil is skyrocketing, that means all of the funding from all of those businesses and consumers is all going to one industry, and right now, their stocks are skyrocketing. Their executives are cleaning up. Their executives are getting the return on investment that they made when they met with Trump in April of 2024, and he said: If you give me $1 billion, I will kill all of your clean energy competition. And, in the IRA, in July of 2025, with JD Vance coming here to cast the deciding vote, that is what they did to the wind tax credits, to the solar tax credits, to the all-electric vehicle tax credits, to all of the incentives that were in the books for a clean energy revolution. Yes, it was pay to play. The oil executives and the gas executives got exactly what they bought when they raised all that campaign cash for Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Yes, that is where we are right now. We have the United States over in a war against Iran. The Strait of Hormuz is, for all intents and purposes, shut down. The price of oil is skyrocketing. The stocks of the oil companies are skyrocketing. The pay for CEOs, you should be sure, is going to skyrocket this year for oil companies, and the whole rest of the stock market is cratering because they are all dependent upon oil and gas to fuel their industries.
East, that he is going to send in the Marines to attack Kharg Island, which is the center for the export of energy out of Iran. So he is going to take what is already a complete mess—what is already one of the most pluperfect violations of the first law of holes—which is, when you are in one, stop digging. He is planning on digging this hole even deeper because what happens in the Persian Gulf winds up at the pump for ordinary consumers and ordinary families. This is Trump at the pump. His picture might as well be on every single pump in the United States of America.
Secretary of the Interior Burgum all going along with this agenda to kill the all-electric vehicle revolution and the solar and wind revolution. They said we have energy independence. There is no energy independence with the price of oil and gas being set on the global market. If it goes up, you are going to see it at the pump in the United States no matter where you live.
administration—that they had achieved energy independence. No, we have not. We are reliving right now what we should have learned over and over and over again, but Trump could not learn it because there is an old saying: It is hard to learn something when you are paid not to understand it.
reality. The oil and gas industry wanted to be able to engage in these predatory practices—in this exploitation of families across our country—for their own self-enrichment. That is what this is all about. Every time you fill up your tank, it is Trump at the pump. He owns it.
What is he asking for right now from my Republican colleagues? He wants $200 billion more for the war. What does that mean? Well, it costs $2 billion a day to fight the war. If you give him $200 billion, which my Republican colleagues seem to want to do, that would be 100 days more of this war. That takes us into the summer.
So, if you are watching the deliberations here in the U.S. Senate, be mindful of the fact that their plan is to fund a war that will go on indefinitely, and as a result the price at the pump, the price for heating oil and the price for natural gas are going to continue to spike.
family member with their car and they are trying to fill it up or if you are a small business person who is basically saying: Oh, my goodness. There has been a 40-percent increase in the price I have to pay for my home heating oil tank or to just keep my business warm or the air-conditioning on. It is everybody in America who is going to pay the price because of what Trump is seeking to perpetrate upon the American people because there is no energy independence when we depend upon fossil fuels.
We need to ensure that we move to real energy independence. That is a renewable energy agenda—an all-electric vehicle future. That is when we will have energy independence. We were heading in that direction before Trump cut the clean energy incentives, the clean energy programs, and these CEOs, you know, are now reaping the benefits of that—the fossil fuel CEOs personally. They are getting the windfall profits. They are able to engage in this profiteering out on the open marketplace.
starts, but it comes down like a feather, very slowly, so that the oil and gas industry can milk every last cent out of every single consumer, tipping them upside down at the gas station and shaking money out of their pockets so that they can enjoy those profits while they are chuckling that they won't have the competition from the wind and solar and all-electric vehicle industries that were moving at the most rapid pace that our country had ever seen, and it was endangering the business model of the oil and gas industry.
And Lee Zeldin? He was at the front of the line saying: We are going to end that threat. We are going to make sure that those oil and gas and coal executives don't have to worry about their business future.
And who is going to pay the price?
ordinary families, in higher prices at the pump by ordinary families to fight this war, and by the families who are going to, unfortunately, lose loved ones who are service people who are serving our country over there. The price is going to be very high for American families.
And who is going to benefit?
It is going to be the oil company executives. It is going to be the natural gas company executives.
That is where we are right now. We need to end this war, and we need to end the war on clean energy technologies because we have no energy independence as long as we are dependent upon fossil fuels. That is the big headline of what has happened over the first 28 days of this war, and that is why Senator Whitehouse, myself, and others on this floor are going to campaign all year long on these issues.
Wright agenda, the Burgum agenda, and, ultimately, the Trump agenda, which is nothing more than the oil and gas and coal industry agenda for our country—making us less healthy, less safe, more dependent upon fuels that get us into more and more danger the more that we allow ourselves to have this law of unintended consequences to its pluperfect form be invoked every single time we go over to the Middle East for a war.
So that is where we are right now. We have got this moment where, as a Senate, we can stand up and fight; or we can be like the Republicans out here, who can see the rising costs for all of these goods— including healthcare; including their tariffs, the sales tax which Trump has imposed on pretty much every product in our country.
Republicans at the polls this year, and they know it. And that is why, for the last several days, they have tried to squash Americans' right to vote, Americans' right to be able to go in and cast a ballot independently and freely without fear.
That is what the SAVE Act is all about. The SAVE Act is all about squashing the ability for minorities, for married women, for transgender folks to be able to vote this year, because they are afraid they are going to lose.
The SAVE Act is really the “Save Their Asses Act.” That is what it is all about. How do they protect themselves from all of these rising costs that are coming from Trump economic policies? That is what this is all about—the bottom line.
coal industry, the insurance industry, all of those industries that are part of that MAGA coalition? Just suppress the vote. Just make sure fewer people show up at the polls.
of the U.S. Senate. We are waiting for the Republicans to finally become responsible, to accept the responsibility of actually responding to the real harm that is being imposed upon American families.
just hope that the Republicans finally—finally—hear the American people, because, otherwise, as Steve Bannon said, having these ICE agents go to the airports right now is only going to be practice for ICE agents at the polls in Georgia, in Ohio this fall, in order to suppress the vote of the American people. And it is all to protect this assault upon affordability, assault upon the budgets of ordinary American families.
American driver is going to have to spend $500 to $600 more this year just to drive their car. And the same thing is true for home heating oil users and natural gas users, and that price is built into that family budget that they are seeking to figure out how to pay right now in every home across our country.
on his energy policy in a way that, in my opinion, requires us now to take this movement, to create the momentum, to create the moment where, next year, once again, we have a vote out here on the Senate floor; and that vote will be to restore all the tax breaks for wind, all of the tax breaks for solar, all of the tax breaks for all-electric vehicles, all of the tax breaks for all of those technologies which were flourishing and were reducing costs and greenhouse gas emissions, while employing hard-working union employees all across our country.
country—this battle for the soul of our Nation, which, at its heart is: How do we protect ordinary American families? And included in that is the protection against the absolute exploitation of them by the most powerful interest in our Nation: the oil and the gas industry.
So with that, I yield the floor.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Budd). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KIM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moreno). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KIM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.