Wednesday, May 20, 2026

The Senate met at 10 a.m. and was called to order by the Honorable Alan Armstrong, a Senator from the State of Oklahoma.

The Chaplain, Dr. Barry C. Black, offered the following prayer: Let us pray. Holy God, Creator and Sustainer of life, thank You for the inward prompting that draws us closer to You. Bless our Senators today. Make them leaders who are committed, competent, and courageous. Lord, empower them to live lives that are above reproach. Give them self-control, gentleness, and humility. Remind them that You do not ask for success but faithfulness. Help them to set exemplary standards in their speech, conduct, and purity. Give them a productive persistence that will keep them from weariness as they fulfill Your purposes. Bless their families, and surround their loved ones with Your favor. We pray in Your mighty Name. Amen.

The Presiding Officer led the Pledge of Allegiance, as follows:

The senior assistant legislative clerk read the following letter:

Mr. ARMSTRONG thereupon assumed the Chair as Acting President pro tempore.

The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

The senior assistant executive clerk read the nomination of Evan Rikhye, of the Virgin Islands, to be Judge for the District Court of the Virgin Islands for a term of ten years.

The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant executive clerk called the roll.

The nomination was confirmed.

DESIGNATING THE GENERAL GEORGE C. MARSHALL HOUSE, IN THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, AS AN AFFILIATED AREA OF THE NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM REDESIGNATING THE NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAILS INTERPRETIVE CENTER IN CASPER, WYOMING, AS THE "BARBARA L. CUBIN NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAILS INTERPRETIVE CENTER"

The bill clerk read as follows:

There being no objection, the committee was discharged of the bills, and the Senate proceeded to consider the bills, en bloc.

There is a lady on our team that is not just a member of our team--she is an Oklahoma institution. Her name is Ramona Taylor. She was born in Oklahoma City, but if you ask her, she is going to claim Burns Flat, OK. You have got to be from Oklahoma to know where Burns Flat is--or use Google Maps. But Burns Flat is a small town in Western Oklahoma. She brought those small-town, Western Oklahoma values to our team as well. She has served the Nation for 41 years--41 years of Federal service. And, unfortunately, she is retiring, and my State has no idea what is about to happen in the loss of Mona Taylor. She graduated from Burns Flat in 1979 and then she went to Central State University--which is now called the University of Central Oklahoma--got a bachelor's degree in business administration and then began her Federal career serving with Congressman Mickey Edwards. Now, this will tell you how long ago that was. At the time, Mickey Edwards was the only Republican Member of Congress from Oklahoma. We had one, and it was Mickey. She served with Mickey Edwards there. She met her husband in 1992--Andy--who was an air traffic controller who has been a terrific leader. They have now been married for 34 years. I have to tell you, she has done remarkable work in ways that people will never know, but just the story of her life is also significant as well: Being the girl from Burns Flat and then finding ways to be able to serve that the country will never forget. She and Andy, when they were married in 1992, they ended up, with his career in air traffic control, moving up to Washington, DC. They just had their first son Clay in 1994, and they moved up to DC to have this job up here to be able to work alongside Andy. It was a painful day on April 19, 1995, when the Murrah Building bombing happened in Oklahoma City. It was a painful day for the entire country, but especially for those of us from Oklahoma. But she realized that day that if she had not been with her husband here in Washington, DC, that their young son Clay would have actually been in the Murrah Building bombing in that daycare that day. It never leaves you. She, in her constituent work, did a remarkable amount of constituent work to be able to walk alongside families during that time period because, as you can imagine, there was a lot to do. At the time, she had come up to be able to work with Frank Lucas and was serving alongside him in his office here. She returned to work with a guy named J.C. Watts and to be able to serve with J.C. Watts and then with the person after him, Tom Cole. Along the way, her second son Sam was born in 1996, and they continued to be able to build their family. Mona really sunk into what some people call constituent services. She just calls it ministry to people. She wants to help in every way she possibly can. Mona was the one--when people want to call and to be able to yell on the phone, and they are just angry at whatever is going on in government, Mona was always the calming voice to be able to listen. In fact, our team calls it "getting Monaed" because this angry person would rage, and she would listen and listen and calm them and calm them, would take notes. And I will tell you, if she couldn't calm them down and they just wanted to be able to continue to scream and cuss at her endlessly, she would just say, "God loves you. Thank you. Goodbye" and just hang up because she wants to be able to help people just to be able to see that things can get better. And she has helped make it that way over and over again. She had a short stint working with the FAA. In her leadership role at the FAA is when I was actually elected into the House of Representatives. I will never forget how I met her. I knew her husband Andy before I knew Mona. We were planning to go on a mission trip together, and I had to sit down with Andy and say: Hey, I can't go on this mission trip. You don't know it; I have not announced it yet, but I am going to be running for Congress, and so I am not going to be able to leave with you and go on this mission trip because that is going to be a distraction to what is going on. I remember him saying to me: Do you know who my wife is? I said: No. He said: My wife is Mona Taylor. I remember distinctly saying to him: The Mona Taylor is your wife? I said: I would love to be able to pick her brain. Everybody wants to know Mona Taylor because she knows so much of behind the scenes about how Federal offices work from working with so many different Federal offices and actually finding ways to not just do the job but to actually serve people in that role, to set an atmosphere on this. I was honored in 2011, when I came into the House of Representatives, that Mona agreed to leave FAA, come back into congressional service, and to be able to serve as my district director. Then, when I was elected into the Senate, she then took the role as the State director for me. I will never regret that. She has an absolute heart of gold and loves people. She has often said that she wants our office to be known for our casework, how we take care of people, and it is. Mona has also mentored countless staff from all over the Federal delegation in our State. Literally, there is no caseworker in any of the seven Federal offices in our State that Mona has not impacted in some way. Mona was the congressional staffer when the Edmond Post Office shooting happened in 1986. She was the one working with all of those families and trying to be able to help them through years ago. She was the one doing a lot of the casework, as I mentioned before, in 1995, with all the victims and families around the Murrah Building bombing. She was the one that was actually taking care of a lot of these issues and coordinating the work behind the scenes to make sure we helped each person. Mona even, notoriously in her family, as she drives into work, prays for the task and what she is going to do that day. We have never forgotten the day that Mona, on the way in to work, saw two French bulldogs just on the side of the road and determined those French bulldogs were probably somebody's. So she just picked them up, put them in her car, and then started working to try to figure out--because they had to be a constituent--try to figure out how to be able to take care of a constituent that lost two French bulldogs. You know what. She figured it out and got the dogs back to them. So apparently Mona not only loves people, but she loves dogs as well because she knows they are attached to people. I will tell you, Mona was also that person, always, that you don't ever tell her you like something she has because if you tell her--if one of the staff members would say to her, "I really like that jacket that you are wearing," she would just take it off and give it to them. If she brought something for lunch one day and they would say, "That smells delicious," well, guess what, she would actually bring it to them the next day to be able to make sure they had it because Mona's mission was always to take care of people. It has always been that way. That is why I think Oklahomans have no idea how hard this is going to be for our State because the person in the middle of our Federal delegation has had that heart for four decades and has impacted the way we take care of people. I don't fault Mona for retiring. Her best job is her job of being "Momo" to her granddaughter Georgia Marie. She is the biggest cheerleader for her two boys, and she loves taking care of Andy. She dedicated early on, according to their agreement, that their house will never ever, ever run out of ketchup--ever--because Andy loves ketchup. And she, early on in their marriage, said: Our house will never ever run out of ketchup. Mona is also the person that keeps the "mom" drawer in her desk. She is the one in our office--if you need a bandaid or if you need something else, Mona has got it. And she is going to take care of everybody else. Her recordkeeping is a gift to us because we are going to be able to go through and see the cases and the things--and the people--that she has done, but, really, her heart for service will be the legacy for Mona Taylor. I know, again, we talk about a lot of policy issues here, but I just didn't want to miss a moment for us to remember that our policy issues are all connected to people. Mona never forgot that--ever--and I have been honored to be able to serve with her this decade and a half. I am grateful for the gift of her time to our State and her mentorship to so many different staff across our State. So, to Mona, I would just say to this body, we owe a lot to her, and she will be missed. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, with me today are two of my colleagues--Mr. John Lowery, my executive assistant. You have met John before. But the star of the show today--for me, anyway--is Ms. Kailyn Sheehan. Kailyn is also an executive assistant to me. Her job includes scheduling. It is the worst job in America. All scheduling jobs are tough because you have to tell a small percentage of people yes but a whole lot of people no, and some people don't take no well. Kailyn is leaving me. I say that with joy and sadness. As I said before, I try to hire the best people I can, and when you do that, as the Presiding Officer knows, you hire good people, and they are ambitious and they want to move up. And so it is just the price you pay. Kailyn is very, very smart. She has an undergraduate degree and an M.B.A. degree. In college, she really was a good student, but she was also a student athlete. She played soccer in college and was very good at it. Kailyn never loses her composure. She is steady. She never panics. That doesn't sound like a big deal, I suppose, but being a scheduler up here is hard. It is really, really, really hard. Kailyn is going to work for Congressman Riley Moore in West Virginia. She has gotten a fancy title there: "director of operations." Congratulations, Congressman. You are getting a good one in Kailyn. I hate to lose her, but it is a step up for her, and she will be not just doing scheduling but doing other things in the office. So, Kailyn, I wanted to ask you to come down and to say thank you. Thank you for your good work.

Mr. President, I just want to talk for a few minutes about what I think should be obvious. I know the cost of living is a problem in America today. We all know that. I like to say, when moms and dads go to sleep at night and can't, one of the things they are worried about is the cost of living. I get that. What could we do to help? Well, obviously, one thing we could do would be to lower taxes. We have to be careful how we do that because we don't want to increase the deficit. We don't want to just borrow money to do that. Another thing we could do to help would be to lower interest rates. If we lower interest rates, people would pay less interest on their credit cards and on their car loans and on their house notes. Well, what can we do--and the Presiding Officer knows this--to spend less so we can cut taxes and also lower interest rates? One of the things we could do is stop fraud. One of the things we can do is stop the outrageous fraud in our Medicaid Program. Now, look--I want to be very clear here--I am proud of Medicaid. I am proud of the fact that in our country, if you are too poor to be sick, we will pay for your doctor. That is not true in every country, as the Presiding Officer knows. In some countries, they will just let you die in a ditch. We don't do that in America. We will pay for your medical care. But that is outrageously expensive. That is OK. Money well spent, but it is very, very expensive. One of the ways we pay for people's care--particularly for low-income Americans but also, now even more so, for middle-class Americans since ObamaCare passed--is through Medicaid. We spend almost $1 trillion on Medicaid every year. Once again, I am not speaking against the concept of Medicaid. We don't want people to die in America. That is one of the things that separate us from other people. But we spend almost $1 trillion a year. And the Federal Government--some people don't know this--pays for 67 percent of all Medicaid spending. Some people refer to Medicaid as a Federal-State program, and it is. The State puts up some of the money, but the Federal Government puts up most of the money. We pay for about 67 percent of all the spending in Medicaid. Medicaid keeps going up. I have seen studies that show it is going up anywhere, consistently, between 6 and 8 percent every single year. When you are spending $1 trillion and it goes up 6 to 8 percent, you are talking about real money. What we also know is that there is an enormous amount of fraud in Medicaid. We know that. There are a lot of studies out there. And not everyone can agree on how much, but I have seen studies from reputable think tanks that show that Medicaid fraud--stealing in the Medicaid Program--runs between $1.1 trillion and $1.2 trillion over a 10-year period. Can you imagine what we could do to lower interest rates or to reduce taxes if we could save $1.2 trillion in our budget? Now, how does this happen? Well, first of all, why don't States do a better job of controlling the fraud? You say, why am I blaming the States? Well, because it is a Federal-State program, and the Feds put up 67 percent of the money, but States administer that program. And some States do a pretty good job. Some States do a very good job. Some States are terrible at it. I don't know exactly why that is, but every State--I want to make this clear--has fraud. I saw an audit done by our inspector general in Louisiana, a few years ago, and he talked about the incidents of fraud in the Medicaid Program in Louisiana, the people who were getting Medicaid that didn't qualify. And I said, can you send me a list of all the people you found in the Medicaid Program who didn't qualify or were making too much money? I don't want names. I just want the amounts of money that they were making and how they have been on Medicaid. He sent me the list. And if I stacked it up here, I could stand on it and paint the ceiling. I mean, we had people making $150,000, $200,000, $250,000 a year getting Medicaid. Now, that was the State's fault for not checking. Some people say the States don't have any incentive. That is a cynical view. I prefer not to believe that is true. But they see Medicaid as free money, since the Federal Government is picking up most of the tab. I prefer not to think that is true, but it is probably true to some extent. The point is that if our States would do a better job of administering the Medicaid Program and stopping the stealing, we could save $1.2 trillion, over the next 10 years, to help people reach the point where they don't have to sell blood plasma to go to the grocery store. You probably think I am going to talk about Minnesota, and I am not. We all know what happened in the Medicaid Program in Minnesota. The State of Minnesota basically declared that Medicaid was an open bar. Just, come on down, and if you want Medicaid and you want the Medicaid money and you want to steal some, you are welcome to it. I hate to say that, but that is what happened. And I hope every single person who is involved in that stealing up there goes to jail--every single one. But what I wanted to talk about was--and again, every State has its problem. But some have it worse than others, and one of the ones, besides Minnesota, that seems to have a problem with controlling stealing in the Medicaid Program is California. Now, California spends an enormous amount of money on Medicaid. They spend about $220 billion a year. The Fed puts up--the Federal Government, the Federal taxpayer--puts up $140 billion of that. So the taxpayers that pay money to the Federal Government put up most of the money--not all of it, but most of the money. How much does the Federal Government put up vis-a-vis the State government? Well, in the ObamaCare portion of Medicaid, the Federal Government puts up 9 bucks. So for every $1 that the State government puts up for the Medicaid Program, the Federal government puts up $9--wow. And some of the public officials in California have started to look at this as free money--just free money. And they don't try to fight the fraud. Now, how do you stop the fraud? One thing a State can do is investigate people who claim they are healthcare providers. We saw this as a problem in Minnesota. If you claim to be a home health provider, you are supposed to have a minimum level of qualification. If you claim to offer--to provide--after-school services, you are supposed to have a certain level of qualification. I don't think the government--the State government of California--even checks. I mean, we have got every fly-by-night artist in America, it seems, going to California to become a healthcare provider to get some of the money. And a lot of the times, when they get that money, the money never makes it to the patient. They steal it. California, for example, has 12 percent of the population. In the last decade, they have been responsible for 50 percent of all of the new healthcare providers formed in America. Most of them are social assistance and so-called healthcare establishments. And there is an enormous amount of fraud there. We saw that once again in Minnesota, which has been publicized more, where people say: I am now a healthcare provider. Give me the money so I can help people. You give this fly-by-night healthcare provider money, and they never help anyone. So that is one way. The other way that you can control the spending in Medicaid is to be careful about the services you offer. You want to spend the Medicaid money on the people who need it. You want to spend the Medicaid money on people who need it because they are sick. That is why we passed Medicaid. But States, once again, administer their own Medicaid Programs, and, for the most part, they get to decide which services their Medicaid Program pays for. Now, supposedly, the Federal Government has to sign off on it. And, clearly, we have got to do a better job there. I will save that topic for another day. But what got my attention about California, despite the fact that they have thousands and thousands of these fly-by-night, so-called healthcare providers, who the State government of California happily gives money to, and sometimes some of that money gets to a patient, but most of the time it gets into their pocket--what got my attention were the services that California's State government will pay for in its Medicaid Program with money from the Federal Government, which has been provided by the American people. Here is an example, and this came from an article. This isn't my research. This came from an editorial in the Wall Street Journal--a recent editorial, on May 16, 2026. In California, under its State government's definition of Medicaid, the California Medicaid Program will pay for Tribal prayers. The California Medicaid Program will pay for exorcisms. The California Medicaid Program will pay for herbal medicines. The California Medicaid Program will pay for meal deliveries. In some cases, the California Medicaid Program will pay for in-home chefs. Thousands of businesses have popped up in California that literally cater to Medicaid patients. The Medicaid Program in California will pay for sports club fees. The Medicaid Program in California will pay for a gym membership. The Medicaid Program in California will actually pay for student loans. They do it under the guise of: Well, we want to encourage people to become healthcare providers, and they can't do it if they have onerous financial burdens. So we will pay for their healthcare. Now, once again, Medicaid is supposed to be for sick people. When you are spending other people's money, it is really easy to expand beyond that. The Medicaid Program in California will pay for scooters. I get that. Sometimes, that might be necessary. Bicycles. But it will also pay for music lessons. The Medicaid Program in California will also pay for art lessons. This money didn't just fall from Heaven. We all thank Heaven for it, but it came out of people's pockets. And that is how we end up having $1.2 trillion, over a 10-year period, stolen from the Medicaid Program--money that was put up by the American people. It happens in every State. Some are worse than others. Minnesota is an example, but so is California. When you are taking American taxpayer dollars and spending them on an exorcism or a gym membership, something is wrong. And if we want to lower the cost of living in America, if we want to be able to find the money to give people a tax break, if we want to lower interest rates in America, one of the easiest, best ways to do it is to try to fight the fraud in our Medicaid Program. It is as simple as that. Mr. President, $1.2 trillion over 10 years of fraud--this didn't just happen, as you know. This has been going on for a long, long time, and I want to give credit where credit is due. Dr. Oz, our new CMS Administrator, and the Department of Justice are both working to try to stop this fraud. But it has been there since God was a baby, and it has got to stop now. That is what I wanted to--it is out in the open, and this is not something I am accusing anybody of unfairly. These are just the facts. So with that, I thank you for your attention. I thank Kailyn for her great work. And peace out. I want to thank the Parliamentarian too. She didn't rule me out of order one time. Thank you, Madam Parliamentarian.

So the first part of our hearing was in Anchorage. We heard from elected Tribal leaders and representatives from the Native villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok. Sometimes we just call them Kip and Kwig. Sometimes it is easier to say "Kip and Kwig." But I will tell you, so much of what we heard on that first day was really heartbreaking. Lucy Martin, who is Kwig's Tribal resilience and planning assistant, described what it meant and what it felt like to be floating along the river in her home after it was detached from its foundation. Again, you are floating in a current. It is dark. There is nothing to see outside except dark. But what she did see were floating caskets of dead relatives going by her window. She said it was like living through a horror movie. In his recounting of the evening that the storm hit, Kipnuk chief Paul J. Paul just choked up. He had such a hard time describing being in the house with his family, in the dark, trying to be the strong adult, when his young granddaughter, his 6-year-old granddaughter, said: Grandpa--or Upa--can we sing "Silent Night"? She wanted to bring some quiet to the horror they were living in as their home floated away. When I came before this Chamber last year after the storm--directly after it--I knew how resilient the people of Alaska were and how community members--the National Guard, the Coast Guard, everyone--everyone worked tirelessly in preparation, rescue, and recovery efforts. I will tell you, no doubt about it, these communities are resilient, and we saw that on display in our field hearings as leaders recounted their personal traumatic experiences but at the same time advocated for their communities and urged what the path forward should look like for their communities and also for others that may be threatened. But here we are, 7 months after the storm, and it is clear that evacuees are just kind of in this limbo place. They have clearly expressed their preference to relocate, but they continue to grapple with a Federal response system that can only facilitate their assimilation to a community that they are uncomfortable with, Anchorage or Bethel--it is just not home; it is different--but also a Federal Government that says: We will help you, but you have to return to the site of the tragedy. So FEMA says: We are there for you, but you relocate where you are. You rebuild where you are. And in this case, it is a site that is now unstable, likely highly, highly contaminated. Lucy Martin, again, she described the ground there as "like walking on a Jell-O pad." She also said it felt like walking on a waterbed. So how do you reestablish a home in an area like that? These should not be the evacuees' only options. But we know, firsthand in Alaska, how challenging it can be to actually help communities relocate. It was actually the very first bill that I ever got signed into law here in my time in the U.S. Senate, and it was a land exchange that authorized or helped to facilitate the relocation of the Western Alaska community of Newtok. They wanted to relocate because, again, low-lying, marshy, very much on the coast, threatened by just the land around them. And so they had voted to relocate to a new site 9 miles upriver, a new site called Mertarvik. And we introduced the land conveyance bill, the land exchange bill. It was signed into law by President Bush back in 2003. I wish that I could take credit for all the origins of this, but, quite honestly, they go back to the seventies and the eighties when Newtok community members first became alarmed by the nearby riverine erosion. But it took until 2019 for the first Newtok residents to actually be able to relocate to Mertarvik. And, to this day, the residents, now relocated, they are dealing with substandard housing, housing that perhaps went up too quick. I am not going to assign blame for it, but the housing is still a challenge. Community facilities that are still--still--not what we would like them to be. It has been painstakingly slow, and that is probably the best way to describe this process. Relocation also requires local communities to work together and to engage with Federal, State, and regional partners for success. And my view on this whole issue of relocation, as hard as it is, is that we have got to figure out how we can be responsive to community needs, especially if these communities--like Kip and Kwig--have experienced a disaster so destructive that the environment around them has fundamentally changed to the point of being unlivable. So if relocation is a community's top priority, how do we respect that? How do we ensure that there is a path available for it? We also need to do a better job supporting all communities that are affected by natural disasters. So the second day of our hearing kind of underscored that. In Bethel, we heard more about ex-Typhoon Halong and about the effects of Typhoon Merbok. This was a 2022 storm that, again, had pretty much ripped through that entire region--through the Bering Strait, all the way down to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. And in between 2022 and 2025, they had a massive flooding event just this last year. So, again, consecutive disasters that are coming through these regions. And what we heard on the second day of that field hearing was a lack of rural emergency response infrastructure. There are barriers to accessing FEMA and State assistance, and the fact that there is no coordinating entity at the Federal level for disaster response and relocation efforts. We have, in the State of Alaska, a regional commission, the Denali Commission. It is well-positioned in Alaska. But truth of the matter is it lacks the funding to address every need associated with relocation. And utilizing the Denali Commission alone would not solve similar issues that are faced by lower 48 communities. After the field hearing on that same day--it was a long day, but it was an important day--we hosted a listening session for Tribal leaders and their designees. And what I heard was, even in the communities that were not hit by ex-Typhoon Halong or were just hit mildly, the effects of recent disasters and ongoing ecological changes are just dramatic in the region and are stretching into these out years, maybe decades into the future. We heard, for example, the Native village of Chefornak's Tribal President, Janet Erik. She shared that the community is combating a combination of riverine erosion, permafrost degradation, and overcrowding. And so Chefornak is not just sitting and waiting. They are pursuing a managed retreat strategy. They are building new homes on higher ground. They are putting them on pilings. They are putting them away from the adjacent river, while they are also working to remediate and remove buildings that are just literally close to falling into the waters there. In contrast, Kipnuk and Kwigillingok residents did not evacuate from Chefornak in the wake of Halong. Only about 10 homes sustained damage, and the community actually took in several evacuated families. So I think it shows that when you look at this through the lens of how can we be proactive to put ourselves in a safer situation like they were doing--in the process of doing in Chefornak--it can make a difference. But even there, in Chefornak, the sewage lagoon, the landfill were washed out, contaminating land where community members pick their berries, gather their greens, and hunt, as well as the waterways where they fish. And the land has changed. The waters have changed. An entirely new waterway has formed near the land along the road to the airstrip; and their boardwalks are sinking, again, due to the melting permafrost. So these are realities on the ground for Alaskans living in coastal and riverside communities. It is not a question of if the next typhoon will hit but really a matter of when. And, Mr. President, I know we all have disasters that impact our States and communities. You come from a State where you see tornados coming through that bring about massive destruction. And I think we have to appreciate what happens in our respective States and the challenges, then, that we all have in responding. Alaska's challenges, perhaps, are a little bit accentuated because our geography is so--so--massive and our communities are so isolated. When I describe an evacuation, it is not just getting in your car and being able to move to safety. You have to wait for a C-130 to be able to land and do a mass evacuation of your village in the situation of Kip and Kwig and some of the others. And we also know that what happens is these communities were in the news, certainly in Alaska when all this was going on--small community, big impact. But we have this tendency to just move from what we are seeing unfolding on our screens to the next disaster that has hit somewhere else. And the people who are living with that trauma and looking at the disaster still in their area, they can't look away. And I can't look away, you know, when arctic typhoons--arctic typhoon. Just think about "arctic" in the same space as "typhoon." There were no typhoons when I was growing up in Alaska, regardless of where I was living. But we are seeing these phenomenons impact us growing more frequent. Mr. President, 50-year floodplain estimates are now being reached in closer to 2 or 3 years, and so it is just hard to move away from the growing reality. We have got an emergency response manager. He is an extraordinary professional, Bryan Fisher. He has been with the State of Alaska--30-year career in emergency services. And he testified to us in that hearing that out of 198 disasters that he had led the State response to, Typhoon Halong, he said, has been "by far the most catastrophic." We know increased community threats from natural disasters, again, are not just a problem in Western Alaska or in Alaska in general. We have heard the stories from colleagues from North Carolina, from Tennessee, from Georgia who were here to talk about the devastation following Hurricane Helene and the challenges that those communities have faced with Federal disaster relief and recovery. There were also stories of Tribal communities in Southwest Washington State and Louisiana that face worsening extreme weather events and sea level rise. So after our field hearing, it is even more clear to me that the systems in place to protect our communities don't work as we need them to. Going back to my example of Newtok moving to Mertarvik, people want to view that relocation and say "success, we have relocated a village." And I suppose it is if you want to consider the simple idea that the community wanted to move, voted to move, and they have since moved. But a closer look reveals many difficult, expensive lessons learned along the way. That relocation was a generation-plus in the making. Its great success is now arguably measured in the lives not lost during ex-Typhoon Halong. And I just think about that, and I think that we have got to have a higher bar than that. Success cannot be measured only in terms of life or death. It also must include the dignity afforded to communities that our constituents call home. So where does this put us? What do we do going forward? We all need to pay attention, show up for the people we serve and for each other. And in the coming months, my team and I will continue working with Alaska communities, the State, and other Federal Agencies to chart a path forward. And our goal is to establish a more nimble system for the communities facing environmental threats, one that works with them and for them. So a couple suggestions here: First, I think you need a lead agency. Back in 2004, witnesses from the State of Alaska expressed that this is just too much for the State to take on alone. That was true back in 2004; that is still true. And with the communities threatened across the country, there is a Federal nexus.

And we will do better if we can pool experience and lessons learned and work from a centralized vantage point. Next, we need to take another look at the way that we have siloed community resilience away from disaster response. We need to ensure that all parties are communicating, they are pulling together on infrastructure hardening, predisaster planning and mitigation, disaster response, recovery, and relocation efforts. And we also need to ensure that these systems are easier to navigate. I hear this all the time. These systems have to be easier to navigate for the communities that--they are strapped for resources. So narrow grants that have to be pieced together--oftentimes over the course of years--are not the most cost-effective way to address the problem, especially for Tribal communities that are already struggling with low capacity. Right now, Tribal leaders like Janet and her fellow council members in Chefornak, they are being asked to choose between building new homes for families that have moved in with relatives since their old homes were literally leaning into the river or decommissioning and decontaminating old buildings that are also about to fall into the river. I do want to acknowledge, and we are very grateful for the $16.7 million that the BIA just awarded to Chefornak through the Tribal Community Resilience Program, but this is just a start because those are impossible choices that are facing too many of our communities. It is not just Chefornak. In the meantime, I promise not to look away and to keep bringing folks up to Alaska to see, to understand, to hear. As conversations continue about the best way to structure our disaster response system, I want to work with colleagues--both sides of the aisle, wherever you are--to address not only the unique needs in my home State, but of all our States and make sure that they are adequately addressed. Our disasters and the response to them may look different. I get that. But our people all deserve the same access to safety and disaster response. And I don't think--we just can't lose sight of that. I also want to acknowledge Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Billy Kirkland. Assistant Secretary Kirkland and his staff showed up for the people of my State. He sat with me for hours as we heard from the people of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok when we had our field hearing in Anchorage, and then he travelled with me to Bethel as we heard from Tribal leaders across the YK Delta on these very important issues. As we listened, I was struck by some words from Charlotte Nayagak. She is from the Chevak Native Village, and she has worked on disaster recovery and prevention in the region for many years. She went up to the mic, and she had like 2 minutes to speak, but she started off by saying:

So imagine spending decades watching, as Charlotte described, the erosion of your land getting worse and worse each year, happening faster and faster, and just feeling like nobody from outside your community, nobody from outside your State is listening. We should all be listening. We should all be working together to provide a better future--even after the darkest disasters--for the people we serve no matter where they live. So I look forward to working with all of my colleagues to do just that.

I also want to acknowledge before I close that I have a member of my Indian Affairs team that has been with me now for a couple years. She started off at a very junior level and has worked her way up to a level of trust and responsibility within the committee. She is going off to pursue dreams of higher education in significant institutions. She has been a true asset to the committee and to me, and so I want to acknowledge the good work of Sarah on my team and wish her well. I yield the floor.

Last June, we lost CW3 Dustin Wright. He was a pilot assigned to the 101st Airborne Combat Aviation Brigade, and he was lost during a helicopter training accident at Fort Campbell. His brigade commander said that he "cherished every opportunity to be outside and support ground troops . . . with strength and honor." He was a member of the Mosaic Church in Clarksville, TN, where he served on the security team. His awards included the Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal with "C" Device, the Army Commendation Medal with three oak leaf clusters, and the Army Achievement Medal with three oak leaf clusters. He had many other awards also. We must never forget his legacy and the legacy of each of these that have served across our State and have lost their lives in service to our Nation. We can never repay that sacrifice, but we must always honor their service.

For our Nation's veterans, we must ensure they receive the benefits and the timely access they have earned so that they are getting the quality care they deserve. On the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, we are working on several pieces of legislation to ensure that veterans' needs are going to be met in a timely manner. My Veterans Health Care Freedom Act would place veterans at the center of the community care referral process and empower them to seek care from providers right in their home communities. They wouldn't have to rely solely on VA facilities. They could go there at home when it was convenient for them. This is important to us in Tennessee because 78 of our 95 counties are considered rural, and many vets face challenges when they are trying to access care through the VA facilities. As warfare becomes increasingly complex, the veteran population will require more sophisticated care than previous generations, and community care will be essential in meeting these needs. Also, earlier this year, I introduced the Veterans' Bill of Rights Act. This would ensure veterans are clearly informed of their existing rights regarding their VA healthcare, benefits, and services. Too often, complex statutes, regulations, and internal policies can leave veterans unsure about the resources that are available to them, which they have earned through their services. This legislation would address it by requiring the Department of Veterans Affairs to clearly inform our veterans of their existing benefits and services and healthcare and to make certain they know their rights. In March, I also introduced the bipartisan Women Veterans Specialty Care Access Act to improve access to specialty care--including gynecology, obstetrics, maternity, and postpartum care--for our female veterans. What we do know is that female veterans are one of the fastest growing populations that are served by the VA, and we need to do everything in our power to ensure they receive the care they have earned in a timely manner. To expand access to evidence-based mental health care for our veterans, my RECOVER Act would strengthen partnerships between the VA and community-based mental health care providers. To cut redtape and improve care for our veterans and servicemembers, I am working on legislation that would require the Department of War and VA to establish a uniform credentialing service for medical providers. Right now, clinicians who transfer between Department of War and VA facilities can face monthslong approval delays before they are able to treat patients again. This makes absolutely no sense at all. Why would we delay the clinicians from being able to move from a hospital in the DOW system to a VA facility? So our legislation would help create a streamlined process so that providers can get where they are needed at the fastest possible moment and deliver the care for our vets and our servicemembers. I hope this Memorial Day provides an opportunity for each and every American to reflect on the service of our fallen heroes and to commit ourselves to ensuring that our servicemembers and our veterans receive the care, honor, and respect they have earned. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

The bill was passed unanimously, 42 to nothing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and then passed by a voice vote on the floor. In a moment, I am going to ask unanimous consent that we pass this bill here on the Senate floor, but before I make that request, I want to defer and yield my time to the Senator--fellow Senator from Virginia Senator Kaine.

The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

There being no objection, the committee was discharged, and the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.

The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill, which was reported from the Committee on the Judiciary.

(The remarks of Mr. DURBIN pertaining to the introduction of S. 4608 are printed in today's Record under "Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.")

The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5, UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION RELATING TO "WILLIAM D. FORD FEDERAL DIRECT LOAN (DIRECT LOAN) PROGRAM"--Motion To Proceed

The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The motion was rejected.

The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Messages from the President of the United States were communicated to the Senate by Mr. Hanley, one of his secretaries.

In executive session the Presiding Officer laid before the Senate messages from the President of the United States submitting sundry nominations which were referred to the approprrate commIttees. (The messages received today are printed at the end of the Senate proceedings.)

At 12:25 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered by Mrs. Alli, one of its reading clerks, announced that the House has passed the following bill, without amendment:

The message also announced that the House has passed the following bills, in which it requests the concurrence of the Senate:

The following bills were read the first and the second times by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated:

The following bill was read the first and second times by unanimous consent, and placed on the calendar:

The following communications were laid before the Senate, together with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as indicated:

The following reports of committees were submitted:

The following bills and joint resolutions were introduced, read the first and second times by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated:

The following concurrent resolutions and Senate resolutions were read, and referred (or acted upon), as indicated:

At the request of Mr. Moran, the name of the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Blumenthal) was added as a cosponsor of S. 410, a bill to amend titles 10 and 38, United States Code, to improve benefits and services for surviving spouses, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Tillis, the names of the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. McCormick) and the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono) were added as cosponsors of S. 475, a bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to ensure appropriate access to non-opioid pain management drugs under part D of the Medicare program. At the request of Mr. Bennet, the name of the Senator from Delaware (Ms. Blunt Rochester) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1202, a bill to amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to permit supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits to be used to purchase additional types of food items. At the request of Mr. Tillis, the name of the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1296, a bill to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to strengthen disclosure requirements relating to foreign gifts and contracts, to prohibit contracts between institutions of higher education and certain foreign entities and countries of concern, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Kelly, the name of the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1541, a bill to support the national defense and economic security of the United States by supporting vessels, ports, and shipyards of the United States and the U.S. maritime workforce. At the request of Mrs. Britt, the name of the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1630, a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide more opportunities for mothers to succeed, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Moran, the name of the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1712, a bill to authorize peace officer standards and training agencies to access criminal history records, and for other purposes. At the request of Ms. Cortez Masto, the name of the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) was added as a cosponsor of S. 3041, a bill to allow the U.S. Marshals Service to assist in certain Tribal criminal matters, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Cornyn, the name of the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch) was added as a cosponsor of S. 3332, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the exclusion of gain from the sale of a principal residence, and for other purposes. At the request of Ms. Murkowski, the name of the Senator from Montana (Mr. Daines) was added as a cosponsor of S. 3518, a bill to amend the Federal Power Act to address certain alterations in, and the maintenance and repair of, project works, to provide for the licensing of micro hydrokinetic energy projects, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Banks, the name of the Senator from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin) was added as a cosponsor of S. 3538, a bill to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to eliminate origination fees on Federal Direct loans. At the request of Mr. Boozman, the names of the Senator from Wyoming (Ms. Lummis) and the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Alsobrooks) were added as cosponsors of S. 3572, a bill to amend title 23, United States Code, to allow recipients of certain grants to improve highway safety efforts through the integration of predictive data analytics, telematics, and other advanced technologies, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Daines, the name of the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto) was added as a cosponsor of S. 3940, a bill to amend the Community Development Banking and Financial Institutions Act of 1994 to require the Secretary of the Treasury to testify before Congress, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Banks, the name of the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin) was added as a cosponsor of S. 3992, a bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to codify authority for the Joint Medical Facility Fund of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes. At the request of Ms. Warren, the name of the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee) was added as a cosponsor of S. 4212, a bill to require contractors of the Department of Defense to prioritize meeting warfighter needs over the purchase of their own securities and executive compensation, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Justice, the name of the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. McCormick) was added as a cosponsor of S. 4367, a bill to amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to modify the definition of food. At the request of Mr. Cornyn, the name of the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto) was added as a cosponsor of S. 4394, a bill to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to improve the COPS program with respect to training command-level personnel, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Bennet, the name of the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Hickenlooper) was added as a cosponsor of S. 4455, a bill to amend section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to designate provisions resulting in the sale, disposal, or transfer of Federal lands as extraneous under the Byrd Rule. At the request of Mr. Ricketts, the name of the Senator from Wyoming (Ms. Lummis) was added as a cosponsor of S. 4464, a bill to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act to ensure that consumers can make informed decisions in choosing between meat and poultry products and cell-cultivated protein products, and for other purposes. At the request of Mr. Cornyn, the name of the Senator from Montana (Mr. Sheehy) was added as a cosponsor of S. 4542, a bill to disqualify aliens from establishing good moral character, maintaining eligibility for asylum, and retaining lawful permanent resident status if they engage in activities in opposition to the United States Constitution, our form of government, or support Sharia law. At the request of Mr. Coons, the name of the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Kim) was added as a cosponsor of S.J. Res. 191, a joint resolution to direct removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress. At the request of Mr. Marshall, the name of the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker) was added as a cosponsor of S. Res. 710, a resolution recognizing Maternal Mental Health Day to raise awareness about maternal mental health. At the request of Mrs. Fischer, the name of the Senator from Delaware (Ms. Blunt Rochester) was added as a cosponsor of S. Res. 727, a resolution supporting the designation of May 29, 2026, as "Mental Health Awareness in Agriculture Day" to raise awareness around mental health in the agricultural industry and workforce and to continue to reduce stigma associated with mental illness.

When I was first elected to Congress many years ago, I was part of the majority of Americans who supported the death penalty for the most heinous crimes. Over the years, my views began to change for a number of reasons. First, there have been numerous cases of potentially innocent people who have been executed, including as recently as 2024, and over 200 people who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973. One study found that more than 4 percent of the individuals on death row were likely innocent, and this figure does not include those who pled guilty to crimes they didn't commit to avoid execution. For many on death row, their punishment stems from their inability to afford counsel and their struggles with mental illness. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, approximately 90 percent of people facing capital charges cannot afford an attorney. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that 43 percent of individuals executed between 2000 and 2015 had been diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lives--43 percent. The death penalty is not a punishment reserved for the worst of the worst; it is one reserved for the poorest of the poor. In addition, it is a penalty disproportionately faced by Black Americans. Despite being 13 percent of the U.S. population, Black people make up 41 percent of all the prisoners on death row. A coincidence? Numerous studies have found that Black defendants are more likely than their White counterparts to face the death penalty. On top of all this, it is far from clear that the death penalty even serves its primary purpose. There is yet to be conclusive evidence to demonstrate that the death penalty deters people from committing heinous crimes compared to the threat of spending life in prison. Faced with all of this, 15 years ago, I announced that I could no longer support the death penalty. Luckily, I was in good company. I was not the first public official whose thinking about this issue changed. Supreme Court Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens had a similar journey to my own. While both initially ruled in favor of the death penalty, they eventually came to the same conclusion: that after decades of trying to make it fair, we had largely failed as a nation. In the year 2000, in my home State of Illinois, George Ryan, a Republican Governor, instituted the first statewide moratorium on executions in the Nation. In 2003, Governor Ryan cleared death row by commuting the sentences of 167 inmates to life in prison. In 2021, in his first year in office, President Biden instituted a moratorium on the Federal death penalty. Then, in December 2024, in response to a request from me and 11 other Senators, President Biden commuted the sentences of most individuals on Federal death row to life in prison. Today, I am reintroducing the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act. This legislation would prohibit the imposition of the death penalty as punishment for any violation of Federal law and require the resentencing of those previously sentenced to death row. This bill is particularly important today. Last month, President Trump's Department of Justice announced that it was bringing back firing squads and seeking to return to the use of electrocution and lethal gas for executions. Meanwhile, the State of Alabama became the first government in the world to carry out executions by nitrogen suffocation, an untested and inhumane death penalty method. The Supreme Court has declined to intervene, over the dissent of Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. Listen to what Justice Sotomayor wrote:

These barbaric tactics will be remembered as a stain on our Nation's history. We must not engage in the very conduct we seek to punish. My bill would ensure we do not. I understand this subject brings up people's strongest emotions. When faced with the horrific acts of some of the people on death row, the hatred they hold, and the pain they caused, it is understandable to want them to face a punishment commensurate with their crimes. But how many innocent people must be put to death to feed a feeling of vengeance? How many Americans must be denied justice in the name of grief? State-sanctioned killing is not an effective way to make our country safe. It is not guaranteed to only punish the guilty. It is not who we are. I hope my colleagues will join me and together end this cruel and unusual punishment in America once and for all. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

The Job Corps Shipbuilding-Defense Industrial Base Pipeline Act is a win-win-win piece of legislation. Our national security will be strengthened by providing more skilled workers to address critical defense sector needs; young people will get life-changing career opportunities that will put them on a path to economic security and personal success; and the taxpayer will benefit from greater government efficiency in leveraging existing programs to address national priorities. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this legislation.

When I was first elected to Congress many years ago, I was part of the majority of Americans who supported the death penalty for the most heinous crimes. Over the years, my views began to change for a number of reasons. First, there have been numerous cases of potentially innocent people who have been executed, including as recently as 2024, and over 200 people who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973. One study found that more than 4 percent of the individuals on death row were likely innocent, and this figure does not include those who pled guilty to crimes they didn't commit to avoid execution. For many on death row, their punishment stems from their inability to afford counsel and their struggles with mental illness. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, approximately 90 percent of people facing capital charges cannot afford an attorney. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that 43 percent of individuals executed between 2000 and 2015 had been diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lives--43 percent. The death penalty is not a punishment reserved for the worst of the worst; it is one reserved for the poorest of the poor. In addition, it is a penalty disproportionately faced by Black Americans. Despite being 13 percent of the U.S. population, Black people make up 41 percent of all the prisoners on death row. A coincidence? Numerous studies have found that Black defendants are more likely than their White counterparts to face the death penalty. On top of all this, it is far from clear that the death penalty even serves its primary purpose. There is yet to be conclusive evidence to demonstrate that the death penalty deters people from committing heinous crimes compared to the threat of spending life in prison. Faced with all of this, 15 years ago, I announced that I could no longer support the death penalty. Luckily, I was in good company. I was not the first public official whose thinking about this issue changed. Supreme Court Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens had a similar journey to my own. While both initially ruled in favor of the death penalty, they eventually came to the same conclusion: that after decades of trying to make it fair, we had largely failed as a nation. In the year 2000, in my home State of Illinois, George Ryan, a Republican Governor, instituted the first statewide moratorium on executions in the Nation. In 2003, Governor Ryan cleared death row by commuting the sentences of 167 inmates to life in prison. In 2021, in his first year in office, President Biden instituted a moratorium on the Federal death penalty. Then, in December 2024, in response to a request from me and 11 other Senators, President Biden commuted the sentences of most individuals on Federal death row to life in prison. Today, I am reintroducing the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act. This legislation would prohibit the imposition of the death penalty as punishment for any violation of Federal law and require the resentencing of those previously sentenced to death row. This bill is particularly important today. Last month, President Trump's Department of Justice announced that it was bringing back firing squads and seeking to return to the use of electrocution and lethal gas for executions. Meanwhile, the State of Alabama became the first government in the world to carry out executions by nitrogen suffocation, an untested and inhumane death penalty method. The Supreme Court has declined to intervene, over the dissent of Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. Listen to what Justice Sotomayor wrote:

These barbaric tactics will be remembered as a stain on our Nation's history. We must not engage in the very conduct we seek to punish. My bill would ensure we do not. I understand this subject brings up people's strongest emotions. When faced with the horrific acts of some of the people on death row, the hatred they hold, and the pain they caused, it is understandable to want them to face a punishment commensurate with their crimes. But how many innocent people must be put to death to feed a feeling of vengeance? How many Americans must be denied justice in the name of grief? State-sanctioned killing is not an effective way to make our country safe. It is not guaranteed to only punish the guilty. It is not who we are. I hope my colleagues will join me and together end this cruel and unusual punishment in America once and for all. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

The Job Corps Shipbuilding-Defense Industrial Base Pipeline Act is a win-win-win piece of legislation. Our national security will be strengthened by providing more skilled workers to address critical defense sector needs; young people will get life-changing career opportunities that will put them on a path to economic security and personal success; and the taxpayer will benefit from greater government efficiency in leveraging existing programs to address national priorities. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this legislation.

SENATE RESOLUTION 741--DESIGNATING MAY 2026 AS "NATIONAL WILDFIRE PREPAREDNESS MONTH" Ms. HIRONO submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary:

Ms. HIRONO (for herself and Mr. Schatz) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry:

Mr. HUSTED (for himself and Mr. Fetterman) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions:

Ms. COLLINS submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary:

Mr. THUNE (for himself and Mr. Schumer) submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to:

SENATE RESOLUTION 746--DESIGNATING MAY 2026 AS "NATIONAL BRAIN TUMOR AWARENESS MONTH" Mr. DAINES (for himself and Mr. Markey) submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to:

SA 5443. Mr. CASSIDY submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 2, to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of S. Con. Res. 33; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

SA 5444. Mr. BARRASSO (for Mrs. Blackburn) proposed an amendment to the bill S. 3023, to limit liability for certain entities storing child sexual abuse material for law enforcement agencies, and for other purposes; as follows:

SA 5445. Mr. BARRASSO (for Mr. Rounds) proposed an amendment to the bill S. 1473, to amend the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 to establish a whistleblower incentive program and provide protections to whistleblowers; as follows:

SA 5443. Mr. CASSIDY submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 2, to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of S. Con. Res. 33; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

SA 5444. Mr. BARRASSO (for Mrs. Blackburn) proposed an amendment to the bill S. 3023, to limit liability for certain entities storing child sexual abuse material for law enforcement agencies, and for other purposes; as follows:

SA 5445. Mr. BARRASSO (for Mr. Rounds) proposed an amendment to the bill S. 1473, to amend the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 to establish a whistleblower incentive program and provide protections to whistleblowers; as follows:

The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:

There being no objection, the committee was discharged, and the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.

The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:

There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill, which had been reported from the Committee on the Judiciary with an amendment to strike all after the enacting clause and insert in lieu thereof the following:

The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:

There being no objection, the committee was discharged, and the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.

There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolutions en bloc.

(The resolutions, with their preambles, are printed in today's Record under "Submitted Resolutions.")

There being no objection, the Senate, at 5:59 p.m., adjourned until Thursday, May 21, 2026, at 10 a.m.

Executive nominations received by the Senate:

Executive nomination confirmed by the Senate May 20, 2026: