Madam President, with me today is one of my colleagues from my office Mr. Nick Ayers. Every time I look at or read an article about the One Big Beautiful Bill, I am shocked--though that sounds pejorative, maybe ``impressed'' is the right word--at its breadth. It is such an expansive piece of legislation. On the airplane flying back from our last break, I sat down with some of my notes and just made a quick list off the top of my head of some of the things that we did in the One Big Beautiful Bill. And I hate to read to people, but I will just read you from my notes--and I won't even read all of them--but this is what we did in the One Big Beautiful Bill. We extended the 2017 tax cuts. We saved $1.3 trillion for the American people. We made them permanent. We cut taxes on tips. We cut taxes on overtime. We cut taxes on Social Security. We provided deductions for car loans. We increased the standard deduction. We continued the 20 percent income deduction for LLCs. We repealed the IRS reporting requirements for gig workers. Nobody ever talks about that. That was huge. We passed school choice tax credits--first time Congress has ever done something like that. We enhanced 529 education savings accounts. We provided full expensing for research and development. I mean, I could keep going here. We reformed Medicaid. We ended Federal payments for abortion and gender surgery and sex change operations through Medicaid. I could go on for 20 more minutes. It is just an extraordinary piece of legislation. My only regret with respect to the bill is that we did it without Democratic votes. We did it with all Republican votes. I wish that hadn't been the case. I wish we had been able to convince some of our Democratic colleagues to join with us. The obvious question while I make my statement is: How did you do that? How did you get past the filibuster? It takes 60 votes. You don't have to be an astrophysicist to know that about the U.S. Senate. Well, as you know, Madam President, we did it under reconciliation. Under reconciliation, only a majority vote is required--60 votes aren't required. You can do it with a majority vote. That is how we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. That is how President Biden passed much of his legislation. Reconciliation, as we know, is a creature of the Budget Control Act. I think of reconciliation as sort of a minibudget. That is a gross exaggeration and oversimplification, but I think of it as a minibudget. Madam President, could we ask for order? The PRESIDING OFFICER. I ask the Senators, please take your conversations off the floor. Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I think of reconciliation as more of a minibudget. Now, that is an oversimplification and exaggeration, and we can't do everything in reconciliation, but we can do a lot--we can do a lot. We passed the reconciliation bill on July 1, about 5 months ago. And something that even members of the media are not aware of is we have the authority before the midterm elections to do two more reconciliation bills. The first one that we did--we can do two more--the first of three potential reconciliation bills we passed 5 months ago. You know, you can do a lot in 5 months. Five months around here is a long time ago. In 5 months, you can learn a language. You have to work at it every day. In 5 months, you can learn how to play a musical instrument. In 5 months, you can write a book. In 5 months, you can start a small business. In 5 months, during World War II, the United States defeated the Japanese in the Guadalcanal invasion. In 5 months, the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon after he escaped from Elba. In 5 months, a baby goes from gurgling and crying to saying mama and dada. Five months is a long time. How have we used that 5 months? Now, I am not putting anybody down. I want to say that. I am not criticizing any of my colleagues. I love my colleagues. I don't hate anybody. I love every one of my colleagues. And I am labor; I am not management. But one of the reasons I came to the floor is to suggest to all of my colleagues--both my Democratic friends and my Republican friends--that time is wasting. The President has been pounding us. He has been criticizing us like we stole Christmas--like we stole Thanksgiving--for not getting rid of the filibuster. Why does he want to get rid of the filibuster? Because he thinks we can pass a bill with 51 votes. We can already pass a bill with 51 votes. We just did it with the One Big Beautiful Bill, and we can do two more. So why have we sat around for 5 months and not started on the second reconciliation bill? I just don't get it. I don't get it. I mean, in my opinion--and really I am not--I am just making an observation--to me, it is a 12-piece bucket of stupid not to do another reconciliation bill and to waste 5 months before we even start on a second reconciliation bill, assuming that we get started tomorrow. I mean, humans are supposed to have evolved as a species. Why wouldn't we not do a second reconciliation bill? Think of what we could do. I mean, moms and dads all across America tonight are going to lie down to sleep, and they won't be able to. What are they worried about? Well, they are worried about the cost of housing for one thing. They are worried about the cost of home insurance. They are worried about the cost of flood insurance. They are worried about the cost of health insurance. We all know that. They are worried about the cost of living. Now, I think President Trump has done a good job on inflation. At one point under President Biden, we experienced 9 percent inflation. We have got it down to 3 percent, and I think that is extraordinary. But the American people don't understand--nor can they be expected to understand because they are too busy earning a living--they don't know the difference between deflation and disinflation. What we have experienced is disinflation. When we went from 9 percent to 3 percent, all that meant was that prices were going up at 9 percent. Now they are only going up at 3 percent. They are still going up. What the American people are interested in is deflation, getting the high prices that we have as a result of the policies of President Biden's administration, getting those prices down, not stopping them from growing as quickly--getting them down. And the American people are worried about it. And again, I applaud President Trump and his economic team for doing as well as they have, but we have got more work to do. And reconciliation, assuming it could survive the parameters of the Budget Control Act, we could address rules and regulations. We spend almost $2 trillion a year--we, I say ``we,'' the business community does. It spends almost $2 trillion a year complying with Federal rules and regulations. They pass that cost on. Why do you think goods and services cost more today? In large part, in substantial part, it is the result of rules and regulations. Through a reconciliation bill, we could pass measures to get the cost of those goods and services down and actually reduce those prices by getting a little government off the backs of businesspeople. We could do all those things through reconciliation. And so, the first reason I came to the floor tonight is to say to my colleagues: Pretty please, with sugar on top--I will even add a cherry, I will even throw in a coupon for a personal pan pizza--please, let's do another reconciliation bill. And when I say ``we,'' I am saying the Republican majority. Let's invite our Democratic colleagues to join with us--and I hope after inviting them, I sincerely hope they will take us up on it. But if they don't--and they don't have to; it is a free country--it only takes a majority to pass the reconciliation bill. And after we do the second one, we can do a third one before the midterms. If we do not take advantage of this opportunity to lower the cost of living for the American people through reconciliation when we only need 51 votes to do it, it is legislative malpractice. It is legislative malpractice. It is dumb as a bowl of noodles. So that is my plea to my colleagues tonight. I am not saying we have done nothing for 5 months. We have done a lot of other things in 5 months, but we haven't done anything to lower the cost of living for the American people, and we can't look back. We have lost 5 months, but we should get started tomorrow. BBC Madam President, the second topic I want to talk about--gosh, I wish I started with this first. I hate to end with a negative note, but the second thing I want to talk about makes me want to stick my head in the oven. British Broadcasting Corporation, we have all heard of it--BBC. It is the United Kingdom's version of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The BBC is the United Kingdom's state-owned, state-paid- for, state broadcast corporation. I think they call it ``Beeb.'' I think that is the slang term for the British Broadcasting Corporation. And everybody in the United Kingdom pays for it. You know, we were paying--the American people were paying a lot for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting before we stopped the subsidies. The American people were paying about $500 million a year. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, they were pikers compared to the BBC. In the United Kingdom, every citizen, whether they watch BBC or not, every citizen has to pay $230 a year--everybody. It doesn't matter whether you watch the BBC or not. You may just have nothing but streaming services. You still have got to pay $230 a year to the BBC. They collect billions of dollars a year. Somewhere here in this mess I have got the exact figure. I think it is something like $4 billion a year. Our national broadcasting programs were just pikers compared to theirs. And they have tentacles like an octopus. I mean, the BBC is everywhere, not just in the United Kingdom. It is omnipresent. I was doing some research today. I mean, they broadcast four entertainment-oriented television channels. They broadcast two children's channels. They broadcast Parliament. They have local language channels in Scotland and Wales. They have a domestic 24-hour news channel. And these folks are everywhere. They run dozens of radio stations. They operate their own video and audio streaming services. I mean, I could go on and on and on. Why am I mentioning that? Well, the BBC is a big deal. They reach a lot of people--millions and millions of people--not just in the United Kingdom but across the world. It is important that they be fair, and it is important that they be balanced, and it is important that they be accurate. And they are not, and it has been a problem for a long time. Five or six years ago, at the suggestion of Parliament, which was very upset with the BBC's bias, they hired a consultant--a smart gentleman--and he did a report on how to improve the BBC and make it fairer. It was a huge report. Here is just part of it right here. This isn't even all of it. This is just some of it right here. He spent hours and spent a lot of money preparing this report. He sent it to the BBC. Do you know what the BBC did? Nothing. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. They just continued on doing what they always do, sucking on their teeth, publishing whatever they want. And nothing would have happened except that the report issued by the consultant leaked. Somebody leaked it to a newspaper in the United Kingdom, the Telegraph, and they published it. And the whole world got to see what the BBC's own consultant had found. I will give you a couple of examples. We all remember January 6. President Trump gave a speech. We have all seen it. It was a long speech. It was about an hour, maybe longer. A week before the last Presidential election in America, the BBC did a documentary on President Trump. And do you know what they did? They took his hour-plus-long speech, and they took two snippets from that speech--one snippet at the beginning and one snippet at the end. The excerpts that the BBC took were 50 minutes apart. So they took them totally out of context, and they spliced those two excerpts together to make it look like one speech. And they had the President of the United States calling, making a direct plea, for violence. The way the BBC edited the President's speech, he was telling the people at his speech to march on the Capitol and invade it. Well, that is not what his speech said. Now, reasonable people can disagree all they want to, but no reasonable person can listen to the President's speech and conclude that he told people to go out and riot and break into the Capitol. But the BBC took these two snippets and put them together. I defy you to listen to it. They pulled it down now, but it is on the internet. It sounds like the President is telling his supporters: Go to the Capitol and raise fresh hell and invade it and hurt people. And then you know what they did on top of that? After they edited the President's speech--he didn't say what they said he said. They showed a clip of the Proud Boys--we all know who the Proud Boys are--marching on the Capitol, as if the Proud Boys were acting in response--in direct response--to the President's speech that the BBC edited. One problem, the footage that they aired of the Proud Boys, it didn't happen after the President's speech. It happened--the footage of the Proud Boys marching along was way before he ever gave the speech. And they packaged this junk together and ran it on television. And this consultant called them out, and the BBC ignored it. Do you know what else the consultant found? The consultant found that one of their news--he pointed out that a reporter on one of the BBC News channels reported this to the world. I am going to quote this news reporter from the BBC: Trump is out there on the campaign trail saying he wants people to shoot Liz Cheney in the face. Is that the sort of thing that women react well to? This is a reporter for the BBC. The President of the United States never said that. He never said it. They just made it up. They were either lying or they need to put down the crack pipe. Another reporter for World News America, which is part of the BBC, reported, and I quote again, that Trump ``appeared to suggest that Liz Cheney should face a firing squad for her stance on foreign policy.'' They attributed that to the President. He never said that. The consultant for the BBC sent this report to the BBC and said: What planet are you living on? You are supposed to be a news reporter. You can't just go make news up. The consultant's report for the BBC also talked about the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. And the consultant pointed out that the reporting by the BBC was heavily, heavily biased in favor of Hamas. It wasn't balanced. It wasn't presenting two points of view. It was heavily weighted in favor of Hamas. For example, in February, the BBC produced a documentary on Gaza, and it was narrated by a young man, a 13-year-old man. What the BBC forgot to tell its audience is that the 13-year-old's dad was a Hamas senior official. Balanced reporting? Gag me with a spoon. In June of that same year--you probably read about this--the BBC broadcast a live music performance featuring calls for the deaths of Israeli soldiers. The consultant pointed this out to the BBC. They totally ignored him. The consultant also pointed this out. He said: Your coverage, BBC, of transgender issues is controlled--it is completely biased, and it is controlled by a certain group within BBC. And that group within BBC is a group of reporters called the LGBTQ Desk. They are reporters within the newsroom. They have their own--their own--what is the term I am looking for? Their own caucus. It is called the LGBTQ caucus--these reporters. And the consultant said: Look, your own reporters, the members of the LGBTQ caucus, are not reporting anything contrary about transgenderism to what you say. You are not being balanced. In fact, the United Kingdom--Great Britain--they have outlawed transgender surgery and transgender treatments for minors. The BBC never bothered to mention that. Now, look, you might be thinking: You know, what is the big deal? This is another country. But it is not all right. We may not be brothers and sisters, but we are certainly first cousins with the United Kingdom, and the BBC broadcasts worldwide. And this is simply not right when the good people of our cousin country are having to pay 200 bucks a year. Now, President Trump has said he is going to sue the BBC. Do you know what? I hope he does. I hope he does. This is a disgrace, and it is why I said that it makes me want to stick my head in an oven. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. SULLIVAN. 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 Alaska. Unanimous Consent Requests

Mr. President, in a few minutes, we are going to vote on my resolution, pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, to overturn a rule promulgated by the Federal Government, specifically, the Department of the Interior. I can't think of a rule that better demonstrates the arrogance, the hubris of the Federal administrative State. It has to do with God's creatures. I talked about this yesterday. This is a barred owl, spelled B-A-R-R-E-D. This is a spotted owl. They are both magnificent animals. If you ever studied them, they both have very soulful eyes. They have incredibly--you probably never had an opportunity to pet one, but they have incredibly soft feathers. They are not enemies; they are cousins. There are 19 species of owls in the United States. These two have been around about 11,000 years. They are not enemies. They both hunt mice and lizards and snakes and insects and mosquitoes. The barred owl is slightly bigger than the spotted owl. The barred owl is a better hunter. That is just the way God made them. Now, the Department of the Interior--this started under President Biden, but I don't want to mislead anyone. Secretary Burgum, our current Secretary of the Interior, very much opposes my CRA and supports this regulation I am trying to overturn. What would the regulation do? Here is what it would do. The Federal Government, as I said yesterday--it was true then and is true now-- which can't even deliver the mail when the stuff has an address right on the front of it and, in particular, the Department of the Interior, under President Biden and now under President Trump--as an aside, it is very hard to piss off both the Biden administration and the Trump administration, but I have managed to do that. That is OK. I think I am right. The Department of the Interior is proposing to kill 453,000 barred owls. Kill them--mamas, daddies, babies. Why? To protect, they say, the spotted owl. You go: Whoa, why does a spotted owl need protecting from the barred owl? They are cousins. They share the same habitat. Sometimes they have sex. It is not unknown that a barred owl will marry a spotted owl. A barred owl marries another barred owl for life, in fact, and sometimes a barred owl will marry a spotted owl. The barred owl doesn't eat the spotted owl. The barred owl doesn't kill the spotted owl. But the barred owl is a better hunter. And the Department of the Interior says because of that, they have to kill 453,000 barred owls to help the spotted owls. That is what the Federal Government has come down to. We now have DEI for owls. According to the Department of the Interior: Bad owl; good owl. But we are not talking about an admission to college. If you are on the wrong end of this DEI proposal, you don't just not get--the owl doesn't not get admitted to college; the owl gets killed. I have been around a little while. I have seen a few vampire movies. This isn't the first one of these, but this is one of the worst examples I have ever seen of the arrogance and the hubris of the Federal Government. This is bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid. Let me tell you why. First of all, it is not going to work. The Federal Government is going to send out a bunch of hunters. Here is one of their hunters. That is what they will probably look like. They are going to send out a bunch of hunters at night with flashlights and shotguns. Because the owls are nocturnal, they live at night; they come out at night. They hide during the day. Both barred owls and spotted owls live about 40 feet up in the trees. So they are going to send these cowboys out there with their little lights and they are going to point up and they are supposed to shoot the barred owl and not shoot the spotted owl. Dream weaver. Dream weaver. So to kill the barred owls, it is inevitable they are going to kill some spotted owls. No. 2, I have been all through the regulation. I see no indication where using lead shot is prohibited. We changed the rules about using lead versus steel shot because we realize how dangerous lead is. So they are going to kill--if they use a lead shot, which is a lot cheaper than steel shot--yes, they will kill some barred owls, and they will also kill some spotted owls. They will also kill some eagles. They are also going to kill a bunch of hawks, and they are going to kill a bunch of other wildlife because they eat the lead and the lead kills them. It is not going to work. The third reason it is not going to work and what the Department of the Interior won't tell you is that the barred owl, which is native to the Eastern United States, started moving west into the jurisdiction of the spotted owl about 100 years ago. It has been steadily moving west because the old-growth forests, where the barred owl lived in the Eastern United States, in northeastern Canada, was cut to make room for people. So the barred owl started moving west, and now the barred owl is in Washington and Oregon and Northern California and British Columbia. Once again, they don't eat each other. They don't kill each other. But the spotted owl that the Department of the Interior says it has to save was losing population well before the barred owl moved in. Do you know why that is? Because what is happening in the West is the same thing that was happening in the East. Because we gained population and people moved to the suburbs, we reduced old-growth forests, which reduces the habitat for both owls. I am not saying that we shouldn't harvest trees appropriately. I am not saying that. We have also had wildfires. That is what is damaging the spotted owl. It is not the barred owl. The final point is that this isn't going to work in that, unlike some of the employees in the Department of the Interior, the barred owl isn't stupid. Once you start shooting the barred owl, the barred owl is just going to move on up to Canada. Then, as soon as the coast is clear, the barred owl is going to come back, OK? So you are not going to do anything to help the spotted owl. The second reason that this regulation is bone-deep, down-to-the- marrow stupid is that it is going to be expensive. In, I think, 2024, the Department of the Interior issued a contract to kill, I think it was, 1,500 barred owls. I don't know how they could do it. I don't know how they had the authority, but they did it. That is the way the bureaucracy works. They hired hunters. They paid them $3,000 a bird-- $3,000 a bird. So, if they went out at night with their little flashlights, looking 40 feet up in the trees, and they killed a daddy barred owl, they got $3,000. If they killed a mama barred owl, they got $3,000. And if they killed a baby barred owl, they got another $3,000. Do you know how they really hit the jackpot? It was when they would catch a mama barred owl in her nest, protecting her baby chicks. With one shotgun shell, you hit all three baby chicks. That is $9,000. That is what we are going to use taxpayer money for. Now, the Department of the Interior wants to send out these folks to kill 453,000 barred owls at $3,000 a pop. That is $1.3 billion--not million but billion dollars--to try to protect the spotted owl, not because the spotted owl is hurting anybody, not because the barred owl is hurting anybody. The barred owl is just a better hunter, and the Department of the Interior will tell you that. The barred owl is better. They both eat the same thing. They are better at catching prey, and they think that is putting pressure on the spotted owl. The spotted owl isn't on the endangered species list. If the spotted owl is in such bad shape, why hasn't the Department of the Interior moved to put the spotted owl on the endangered species list? Do you know why? Because they can't, because they are not in danger. The Department of the Interior likes to use the word ``threatened''-- ``threatened,'' ``threatened.'' Well, hell, the zebras are threatened by lions, but the Interior Department--at least not yet--isn't suggesting we go kill all the lions because they eat zebras. I don't want to mislead anyone. This regulation was promulgated under President Biden, but Secretary Burgum, with whom I have spoken--I have great respect for him--is adamant that this is a good rule and a good regulation. In fact, he told me, as I mentioned yesterday, that by opposing his idea, I was slandering the Trump administration. I am slandering the Trump administration. No, sir, I am trying to help the Trump administration. I am trying to save the Department of the Interior and the Secretary from himself. In a rare moment of candor, let me tell you what one employee from the Department of the Interior said to a reporter. He probably got fired for it, but this is what he said, and he was--and is--a Fish and Wildlife employee and expert. He said: I think all we can really do is try our best to provide a habitat for spotted owls, and in the long run, we are just going to have to let the two species work it out. The final point I will make, and what aggravates me the most about this, is I know the employees at the Department of the Interior are smart and virtuous. I know they are smarter and more virtuous than me. But who appointed them God? Who appointed them Pope? Animals migrate all the time. It happens all the time, not just mammals but all animals. They move location. So we are going to be in the business of telling animals: Well, you can live here, but you can't live there. We are also going to be in the business of choosing which owls can live and which owls can die. I am going to end like I ended yesterday. This is my advice to my friends at the Department of the Interior, and I don't mean any disrespect in saying it: Life is hard. Life is very, very hard, but it is a lot harder when you are stupid. This regulation is stupid, and we will live to regret it, just like China, back when Mao, during the Great Leap Forward, issued a decree--in his arrogance and in his hubris--to kill all the sparrows in China. And they did, just like we are going to kill all the owls. Two million of the Chinese people died. That is what happens when you mess with God and Mother Nature. As a result, they had to import sparrows. We will end up, someday, if they do this, having to import barred owls. We will regret it. I don't know, Mr. President, what I am supposed to say next to start the vote, but I am ready. Here it is. Motion to Proceed Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 190, S.J. Res. 69. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). The clerk will report the joint resolution by title. The bill clerk read as follows: Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 190, S.J. Res. 69, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service relating to ``Record of Decision for the Barred Owl Management Strategy; Washington, Oregon, and California''.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the rollcall vote begin immediately. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Vote on Motion The question is on agreeing to the motion. Mr. KENNEDY. I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The clerk will call the roll. The bill clerk called the roll. Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-Smith) and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker). Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) is necessarily absent. The result was announced--yeas 25, nays 72, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 597 Leg.] YEAS--25 Blackburn Booker Britt Cassidy Collins Cramer Cruz Ernst Gillibrand Grassley Hagerty Hoeven Johnson Kennedy Lankford Marshall McCormick Moody Moran Murkowski Paul Sanders Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Tuberville NAYS--72 Alsobrooks Baldwin Banks Barrasso Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Rochester Boozman Budd Cantwell Capito Coons Cornyn Cortez Masto Cotton Crapo Curtis Daines Duckworth Durbin Fetterman Fischer Graham Hassan Hawley Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Husted Justice Kaine Kelly Kim King Klobuchar Lee Lujan Lummis Markey McConnell Merkley Moreno Mullin Murphy Murray Ossoff Padilla Peters Reed Ricketts Risch Rosen Rounds Schatz Schiff Schmitt Schumer Shaheen Sheehy Slotkin Smith Sullivan Thune Tillis Van Hollen Warner Warnock Warren Welch Whitehouse Wyden Young NOT VOTING--3 Gallego Hyde-Smith Wicker The motion was rejected. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader. Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3071

I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The clerk will call the roll. The bill clerk called the roll. Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer) and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Tuberville). Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Alsobrooks) and the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) are necessarily absent. The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 42, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 91 Leg.] YEAS--54 Banks Barrasso Blackburn Boozman Britt Budd Capito Cassidy Collins Cornyn Cortez Masto Cotton Crapo Cruz Curtis Daines Ernst Fischer Graham Grassley Hagerty Hawley Hickenlooper Hoeven Husted Hyde-Smith Johnson Justice Kennedy Lankford Lee Lummis Marshall McConnell McCormick Moody Moran Moreno Mullin Murkowski Paul Ricketts Risch Rosen Rounds Schmitt Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Sheehy Sullivan Thune Tillis Wicker Young NAYS--42 Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Rochester Booker Cantwell Coons Duckworth Durbin Fetterman Gallego Gillibrand Hassan Heinrich Hirono Kaine Kelly Kim King Klobuchar Lujan Markey Merkley Murphy Murray Ossoff Padilla Peters Reed Sanders Schatz Schiff Schumer Shaheen Slotkin Smith Warner Warnock Warren Welch Whitehouse Wyden NOT VOTING--4 Alsobrooks Cramer Tuberville Van Hollen The motion was agreed to. Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2025) EXECUTIVE SESSION--Motion to Proceed

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. There being no objection, the Senate, at 7:32 p.m., adjourned until Wednesday, February 26, 2025, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, with me today is my colleague from my office Mr. John Lowery, and I appreciate his help. Last week, I spoke a few minutes about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting--we called it the CPB--and the Public Broadcasting Service--most people know what that is, PBS--and the National Public Radio, which most people know is NPR. And I am not going to repeat everything I said last week, but I do want to revise and extend my remarks. The U.S. Congress created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting back in the sixties, 1967, I think. Those were very different times. There was no internet. There was no Facebook. There was no Twitter. There was no cable TV. There were no podcasts. There were basically a handful, maybe a few more, of radio stations throughout America. And the television was still pretty new. There were three main television stations with local affiliates. And many Americans, particularly in rural areas, didn't have access to radio and television for their news because that is all there was. I remember those days. And so Congress decided to start providing money for what it called, at that time, public broadcasting, to make sure that everybody had access to news, radio, and television, even if they didn't live near a big city. And Congress intended that that news be news, factually based. Now, those were the days in America of true journalism. I remember them, perhaps the Presiding Officer does too. Those were not the days that we experience today, opinion journalism, where young journalists are taught to report on who, what, when, where, how, and their opinion. Those were days when the news was really the news, and it was fair and balanced. So the U.S. Congress created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB still exists, and here is its relationship--CPB's relationship--to NPR and PBS. We give CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, about half a billion dollars a year, a lot of money. And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting turns around and picks certain local television and radio stations and gives most of that money to them. And then those local television and radio stations, the chosen few that get money from the American taxpayer through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, buy programming and content from two other organizations. If they are a radio station, they buy that from NPR, and if they are a television station, they buy that content from PBS. So up here you have got Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The American taxpayer, through Congress, gives them a half a billion dollars a year. That money flows down to certain select local television and radio stations, and those local television and radio stations then buy content from NPR, if they are a radio station, or PBS, if they are a TV station, which were loosely affiliated with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Since this scheme was established, the American taxpayer has given all of these entities about--oh, I don't know--$14.5 billion, $14.5 billion. That would be enough to build 2,700 miles of paved roads throughout America. And I based that on--the roads I am talking about are not gavel roads--regular paved roads, 10 feet each lane, actually 12 feet each lane, with a 3-foot shoulder on each side. But instead of building 2,700 miles of roads in our rural areas and in urban areas that need infrastructure, we have decided to give this money to CPB, which gives it to the local stations, which gives it to PBS and NPR. I mentioned the local stations. Only a select few local stations get this taxpayer money. And in my State, we have over 500 radio stations. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in its unfettered discretion, only picks seven to give the money to. The other 493 get nothing. We have over 150 TV stations in Louisiana. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting only gives the taxpayer money for 3 of them, so 147 get nothing. Now, I probably wouldn't object to this if the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR--National Public Radio is what I am referring to, of course--and PBS had been consistent with its original mission, which is to report factually the news to the American people. The government doesn't need to subsidize the media anymore because the world has changed. Ninety-seven percent of the people in America have the internet, but I still probably wouldn't object that much if the reporting by these entities were fair and balanced. But it is not. No fairminded person in America can look at this programming and believe that it is unbiassed. It is decidedly prejudiced in favor of one point of view. That is not just my opinion. I think most Americans would agree with that because most Americans see the headlines that are produced by these three entities. I talked about some last week. This is what Americans' taxpayer money is going to, to provide. Here are just some headlines from NPR. I mentioned these last week. I won't belabor them. ``Michael Avenatti: A Profile Of The Media-Savvy Attorney.'' This is NPR. They love Michael Avenatti, who of course is in jail today. He is a crook. But NPR loved him because he was anti-Republican, and he was anti-President Trump. NPR published another article: ``How racism became a marketing tool for country music.'' Now, you don't have to be Euclid to see the implication here that country music is racist, according to NPR. I don't think any fairminded person would call that factual or fair and balanced. Here is another headline from NPR: ``Donald Trump's Long Embrace of Vladimir Putin.'' I also talked last week about a few other headlines from NPR. Here is one: ``Monuments And Teams Have Changed Names As America Reckons With Racism. Birds Are Next.'' That is what your tax dollars paid for. ``Eating less beef is a climate solution. Here's why that's hard for some American men.'' ``How the Taliban adds to Afghanistan's woes when it comes to climate-fueled disasters.'' No fairminded person with an IQ above a single-cell organism would conclude that this is anything but biased to certain points of view. And there are more. I could do this all night, but I am not. Here are some more headlines from NPR: `` `There is no neutral': `Nice White People' Can Still Be Complicit In A Racist Society.'' That is what your tax dollars paid for. Another one: ``Ibram X. Kendi Says No One is `Not Racist'. So What Should We Do?'' Another one: ``How [artificial intelligence] could perpetuate racism, sexism, and other biases in society.'' Another: ``Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory of Pandemic Emergence.'' Here is another one: ``As Trump Pushes Theory of Virus Origins, Some See Parallels In Lead-Up to Iraq War.'' Your tax dollars at work. ``As U.S. Confronts Russia, Trump's Admiration Of Putin Is Consistent.'' Another headline from NPR: ``The History of Policing And Race In The U.S. Are Deeply Intertwined.'' Another: ``After Biden's debate performance, the presidential race is unchanged.'' This was the debate performance that President Biden gave after which he got out of the race. If you believe that headline, you believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny and that Jimmy Hoffa died of natural causes, but that is what NPR reported with your tax dollars. Here is more: ``Democracy on Trial, Part One: A Blueprint For the Case Against Trump.'' Is that fair and balanced? That is from PBS. ``Racism in the Era of Trump: An Oral History.'' Another headline, January 13, 2020. Another, this one is really special: `` `A Serial Liar': How Sarah Palin Ushered in the `Post-Truth' Political Era in Which Trump Has Thrived.'' Now, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR and PBS have the right, whether I like it or not or whether you like it or not or whether Americans like it or not to publish these articles and to broadcast this news. That is the First Amendment, but they don't have the right to do it with taxpayer money. At least half of America would look at these headlines and be offended. They would be offended, first, because they would--really for three reasons: No. 1, they disagree with opinion journalism; No. 2, they would disagree with the headline; and, No. 3, they would disagree with the fact that these headlines are not fair. They are not objective. They are obviously slanted to one point of view, and they are using taxpayer money. If someone introduced a bill tomorrow--I will just pick a publication--to prohibit the New York Times, I would vote against that bill and argue against it. If someone introduced a bill to get rid of FOX News, I would have the same position. If someone introduced a bill to get rid of the Washington Post, that would be my position as well. Whether I agree with those media outlets or not, we have a First Amendment that we cherish, and I am rather fond of the Constitution. But if somebody introduced a bill to give money to CNN, taxpayer money to CNN or to the New York Times or to FOX News, I would oppose that as well. This is simply wrong, and we are spending half a billion dollars a year, $14.5 billion over time, to give to people at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR and NPS to participate in opinion journalism, which they are entitled to do. But they can't do it on the taxpayer dime. They are doing it on the taxpayer dime, but they shouldn't be able to. I would also point out that the folks at PBS and NPR and PBS are doing pretty well for themselves. NPR just bought a $201 million office space just up the road from the Capitol--$200 million. It came from the American taxpayers so they could publish this stuff. NPR pays its hosts as much as $532,000 a year, taxpayer money. It pays its chief diversity officer about $320,000 a year. And you know what? Despite all this money that the American taxpayers are giving to these left-of-center entities, their viewership has declined because people don't need them anymore. So why are we giving them money? I have introduced legislation, not to eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, not to eliminate the Public Broadcasting Service, and not to eliminate the National Public Radio--they can go exist on their own if they want to, but I do want to defund them. We are running $36 trillion in debt. This is disgraceful in 2025. It is disgraceful whether it is left-of-center opinion journalism or right-of-center opinion journalism. It is disgraceful to the American people to have to fund this rot. It doesn't mean the rot doesn't have a right to exist, but they don't have a right to taxpayer money. It is late. So I am not going to go to my second topic. Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 32 (Tuesday, February 18, 2025) UNANIMOUS CONSENT AGREEMENT--S.J. Res. 10