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RECOGNIZING THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST
MEMORIAL MUSEUM
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to recognize the 30th anniversary of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and then I will say a few words about it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Res. 167, submitted earlier today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 167) recognizing the 30th anniversary of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolution.
Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 167) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
(The resolution, with its preamble, is printed in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
Mr. SCHUMER. First, I want to thank Senators Cardin, Rubio, and many others for introducing this legislation, this recognition.
The Holocaust Museum is an amazing place. I hope every American and every citizen in the world gets to visit it. It reminds us of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, harms ever inflicted on man, the horrible Shoah, the Holocaust, where 6 million people, 1 million children, died, were exterminated, were murdered.
Every time I go to the Holocaust Museum, something new strikes me. There is so much, so many people lost. You see the faces and the families and why they were killed--just because they were Jews. It reminds us of two things--one, to always remember. The Hebrew word is
``zakar,'' remember. If we remember those who died, we keep their flame alive, and by remembering, we will also prevent future holocausts from occurring because if we realize the horror that can occur, it will importune men and women throughout the world and throughout this country to prevent any occurrence like this and make sure it is stopped.
Second, there is an increase in anti-Semitism in America and in the world today. We must do everything we can to fight that, as we must fight all forms of bigotry. This memorial will remind us that we can never sweep things like this under the rug, that we must remember and we must fight as hard as we can to snuff out anti-Semitism and all other forms of bigotry and prevent the kind of evilness that occurred in the Holocaust from ever occurring again.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Nuclear Deterrence
Mr. WICKER. Today, I call on my colleagues to join me in supporting the effort to rebuild America's nuclear deterrent. For most Americans, this may seem like a relic of the Cold War, but to those of us tasked with funding our national defense, nuclear threats are not a thing of the past; nuclear threats are a present-day issue.
America successfully deterred nuclear attacks during the Cold War. Back then, we had one clear foe, but today's national security situation is the most complex we have faced since World War II. Russia, China, and North Korea are rapidly growing their nuclear stockpiles, and Iran stands on the brink of building its own arsenal. Facing multiple nuclear-armed enemies at the same time requires us to rethink how we plan to modernize our nuclear capabilities.
Let me first briefly outline the nuclear threat posed by our primary adversaries and then list four steps Congress can take in response.
In the past, the Soviet Union and the United States possessed nuclear weapons stockpiles that dwarfed China's. Beijing has set out to change that. China has so rapidly expanded its nuclear arsenal that it may be a match for our own by the end of this decade.
With breathtaking speed, China completed a nuclear triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, long-range bombers, and ballistic missile submarines. China's pace and sophistication took us by surprise, frankly. We were slow to respond as China built hundreds of new ballistic missile silos. Then they developed a fractional orbital bombardment system--orbital. That is as startling as the name sounds. With this system, China can place a nuclear warhead into the Earth's orbit and then drop it anywhere in the world with little warning. This is a fact.
The United States and the Soviet Union negotiated away these types of weapons during the Cold War. Russia and the United States did so in part because of the extreme danger such systems posed to global stability. As Xi Jinping develops this system for China, he makes it clear that causing international instability does not keep him up at night. In fact, Xi seems to thrive on it.
The situation with Russia is hardly any better. Vladimir Putin still owns the world's largest, most modern, and most diverse nuclear arsenal and is willing to threaten the use of nuclear weapons to get what he wants. He did this to try to keep NATO from intervening as he invaded Ukraine and has repeatedly done so since then to register his displeasure with our aid to the Ukrainian people.
On their own, China and Russia represent bad news for our interests, but there is still worse news. Moscow and Beijing have decided to work together. Earlier this year, China purchased over 28 tons of highly enriched uranium from Russia. This will likely be used to produce plutonium for additional nuclear weapons.
Two other nations present significant threats to the United States. North Korea may now possess enough missiles to overwhelm our homeland missile defenses. They have expanded their nuclear forces with little pushback from the Biden administration. Worse still, Iran may be only weeks away from building its own weapons, putting regional stability and our ally Israel at grave risk. The administration has shown little resolve to thwart Iran's nuclear program before it is too late.
Surveying these nuclear threats prompts us to examine our own nuclear capabilities. When we do, we find them lacking.
The last time the United States made real investments in our nuclear arsenal was the 1980s, and almost all the nuclear forces we have today are from that decade. These systems hold together only because of the hard work of our servicemembers. The National Nuclear Security Administration's industrial capabilities for maintaining our nuclear weapons stockpile are so antiquated that they are literally falling apart. For example, the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN, is in a state of disrepair. Y-12 is a symbol of the broader issue, and the broader issue is this: Because we have not kept our nuclear capacity up to date, we are the only nuclear armed country in the world--nuclear armed country in the world--that cannot build a single new nuclear weapon.
Around 2010, the Obama administration and Congress, to their credit, agreed to begin replacing our aging nuclear forces and revitalizing our nuclear infrastructure, including programs such as the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, the B-21 bomber, and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile. I commend the Obama administration and the Congress for doing that at the time, but I can tell you now, more than a decade later, we are still waiting for these efforts to come to fruition.
The Biden administration has seen the same news we have. We are all watching Russia fully update its arsenal. China continues its historic nuclear breakout. Yet the administration does not seem to take these threats seriously enough and does not hold anyone accountable for missing program development target dates. Instead, every single U.S. nuclear modernization program has been delayed, reduced in scope, or canceled. Amazingly, despite over $500 million in additional funds for the National Nuclear Security Administration last year to help restore our ability to build plutonium cores for our weapons, we see no real progress.
Considering the rising threats from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, our complacency is unacceptable. I want to commend Senator King and Senator Fischer on both sides of the aisle, chairman and ranking member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee. They have led bipartisan efforts to advance our overdue modernization programs, and I applaud them for their leadership--Senator King from Maine and Senator Fischer from Nebraska.
Now Congress needs to come together to take even stronger actions to ensure the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration urgently prioritizes the modernization of our nuclear forces. Specifically, I believe we should take the following steps:
First, increase investments to accelerate the building of our nuclear forces and restore the basic capabilities needed to maintain our nuclear stockpile and do this as soon as possible.
Secondly, remove regulatory barriers hindering the success of our nuclear modernization programs, and also hold the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration leadership accountable for performance.
Third, immediately commit to expanding and diversifying our nuclear forces. An essential first step is establishing and funding a formal program to build the sea-launched cruise missile.
Fourth, reposture U.S. forces to bolster deterrence and reassure our allies in NATO and Asia of U.S. commitment to deterring Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
These are significant but necessary steps.
In today's world, we must deter multiple adversaries at once. That is just the reality now. This demands the preparation and investment I have just outlined.
During the Cold War, we understood what it meant to face down existential threats. We prevented nuclear conflicts then by remaining true to President Reagan's ``peace through strength'' doctrine. We would do well to return to that vision today.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.
Pacific Allies
Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, recently I visited--as a matter of fact, this past week I was in South Korea and Taiwan, and I just want to describe what I learned there and talk about some ideas for advancing our interests in East Asia.
The trip convinced me even more that our highest priority should be to cultivate close security and economic relationships with our fellow Democratic and free market allies and partners in the region. This is the best way to deter conflict and advance prosperity both in the United States and across the region.
Let me start by addressing security. There is no shortage of threats to peace and stability in East Asia, from Kim Jong Un's missile program to China's threats to Taiwan. And we need to do three things in response.
First, we need to work closely with our allies and partners in the region to understand what they need to enhance deterrence and improve their ability to defend themselves. In South Korea, this means deepening our 70-year alliance and focusing on new challenges. In particular, we should look closely at expanding our efforts at missile defense--missile defense--for South Korea and also for Japan.
In Taiwan, this means accelerating delivery of critical systems that Taiwan has purchased through our Foreign Military Sales Program. Right now, they have almost $19.5 billion worth of military hardware that they have ordered and they are paying for that they are waiting to receive. Think how important that is. We are talking about F-16s. We are talking about missile-to-air defense. Think about how important those things are right now in terms of Taiwan's defense and deterrence--deterring the PRC's aggressive action in the Taiwan Strait. It also means thinking creatively with Taiwan's leaders about how we can jointly develop and produce near-term capabilities that will deter Chinese aggression as well and also providing training opportunities for Taiwan's defense forces.
Second, we need to emphasize the importance of a regional strategy that links like-minded allies, partners, and friends to preserve peace and stability and support a free and open Indo-Pacific region. We have longstanding bilateral security alliances with South Korea as well as Japan, the Philippines, and other countries in the region. Right now, we are conducting military exercises with the Philippines. So we have these longstanding relationships and a longstanding defense relationship with Taiwan as well.
We need to build these alliances. These alliances support U.S. interests in the region and ensure that we are not forced to operate from North America when we seek to secure and stabilize the western Pacific because we have these allies working with us in the region. We should make every effort to turn our system of bilateral alliances into a broader network of freedom-loving people across the Indo-Pacific region.
We applaud the efforts of the Yoon government in South Korea to reach out to Japan. President Yoon was just recently in Japan to further strengthen ties between South Korea and Japan. We look forward to opportunities for trilateral relationships between South Korea, Japan, and the United States.
And we should look for other ways to work with countries in the region to deter conflict and secure the seas for trade, including interoperable military hardware, information sharing, and coordinated strategies to deter aggression and to secure stability.
Third, we need to continue efforts to modernize our forces, not because we seek a war in the Pacific but because the best path to peace is through strength. That is how we deter aggressive actors like the PRC.
When we are strong, our partners and our allies will find it easier to strengthen themselves and work with us to keep the region secure. This means we need to build advanced capabilities that allow our forces to operate at long distances and in close coordination with our allies and our partners.
It also means continuing efforts to modernize our nuclear forces, which are foundational to our national security and which allow our allies and partners to focus on developing conventional capabilities rather than being tempted to build nuclear arsenals of their own. Our goal is deterrence, and improving the capabilities of our allies and partners, developing a regional approach to security and modernizing our own forces, that provides the best chance to avert future conflict.
In addition to security, I also want to address economic relationships in the region as well. My trip reinforced my belief that coordination with our regional allies and partners should not be limited to military cooperation. We need to maintain strong economic relationships with our East Asian friends, both because it benefits the people of the United States and because strong economic relationships in the region also enhance deterrence and support peace. So it is not just a military strategy, it is an economic strategy as well.
In particular, we ought to prioritize trade and economic resiliency. First, we should take steps to advance free-trade agreements in the region. We all know that China has a large economy and needs markets for its products, so our ability to cultivate trading relationships in East Asia not only provides an opportunity for U.S. producers and manufacturers to make money overseas by exporting their products, it also ensures that China does not dominate those local economies--and China needs those markets. So it also puts pressure on China to stop the aggressive behavior.
Fortunately, we have a bilateral free-trade agreement with South Korea right now, and it is working very well. When I first visited South Korea in 2011, we were working to complete the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement which went into force in 2012. I am pleased to say that after more than a decade, the benefits of this agreement are very clear. South Korea is our sixth largest trade partner, and of particular importance to my State, South Korea is the largest export market for U.S. beef, the second largest export for U.S. soybeans, and the fourth largest U.S. export for U.S. wheat. Taiwan was the eighth largest overall trade partner in the United States in 2022, and our seventh largest ag export market. This is a trade relationship that I worked on for almost 20 years. When I was Governor of North Dakota, I sent a trade delegation to Taiwan to open markets for North Dakota products. Today, Taiwan imports significant quantities of U.S. wheat, soybeans, and corn, much of which, again, comes from my home State of North Dakota and obviously greatly benefits ag States across America.
The United States does not have a free-trade agreement with Taiwan, but I believe this is something we should work on, both because it would enhance an already robust trading relationship with a fellow market-based economy, and it would provide additional support to Taiwan during a time of great tension with China.
Next, we should take steps to increase the economic resilience of our East Asian partners, particularly with respect to energy and food supplies.
On energy, both South Korea and Taiwan would benefit from better access to U.S. liquefied natural gas. Stable sources of LNG would help both of their economies enormously in terms of self-sufficiency. Taiwan is attempting to get 50 percent of its energy from LNG, and it will need better LNG supplies as well as an enhanced capacity to store that LNG. We should also see how we can partner with South Korea to deliver the benefits of U.S. LNG in the region as well.
On food security, it is important to note that neither South Korea nor Taiwan are likely to produce adequate supplies of food for their people because they are a limited land mass, obviously, and will remain dependent on overseas supplies for ag products. Our ag products do well in both markets, which is obviously good for our producers and brings economic stability to the people of South Korea and Taiwan. For them, secure sources of food truly contribute to their overall security and are very much a focus on what they are working on right now.
The bottom line is that we face significant challenges in East Asia, but we should not face them alone. We need to work with our allies and build this strategy of regional cooperation and regional coordination to create deterrence, not only in terms of defense but also in terms of our shared market-based economies.
We actually are celebrating the 70th anniversary of our alliance with South Korea right now, and in South Korea they refer to it as
``friends, allies, and partners for 70 years.'' And I think in a recent poll, the United States in South Korea has an approval rating of about 80 percent. Think about that. That is pretty fantastic. With the security that we have worked to provide on their economy, it has grown to be one of the largest, really, in the world.
We have maintained strong defensive ties, and we have maintained strong economic ties with Taiwan for a decade. And as I say, this is a tremendous relationship, and it shows, and we are celebrating the 70th anniversary.
And that should be instructive to us. That should be instructive to us as to what we can do with other partners in the region. Standing together with other free market democracies to defend our people and our values is key to peace and prosperity in the years and decades ahead for ourselves, for our allies in the Pacific. Standing together, we are strong. Peace and stability through strength.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Delaware.
Fire Grants and Safety Act
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I am honored to be here on the floor with the Presiding Officer today.
I rise this afternoon to share my gratitude--and I know I speak for our Presiding Officer and every Member of this body, all 100 of us--for those who helped to ensure the passage of the Fire Grants and Safety Act through the Senate today and the weeks leading up to today.
As we all know, a bunch of us as kids, probably, like my sister and me, wanted to grow up and be firefighters. We ended up finding other ways to serve our States and communities, but, in the beginning, we wanted to be firefighters. I might add that our two sons, who are now grown and off into the world, wanted to be firefighters. Those were the role models they emulated and wanted to be more like. I think, maybe, one of the reasons why is that it is widely known that firefighters put their lives on the line for us not just occasionally or, maybe, during holidays or on weekends but every day--every day.
So, today, we honor them by passing this legislation and sending it to our colleagues in the House of Representatives. I think the final vote, if I noticed, was, I believe, 95 to 2. It is not every day we pass a bill with 95 votes. That means that just about every Democrat and every Republican in this body voted for it.
I know I hear a lot from people not just in Delaware but in other States that I have visited. People will say: Why don't you just work together? Why can't you guys and gals just work together and get something done? I would present this as a great example of what we can accomplish when we do work together.
I especially want to thank a couple of people among our colleagues whose hard work actually enabled us to work together and to pull together and to craft this bipartisan compromise.
Let me just start with our fellow Members of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus and the colleagues on this bill. They include Senator Gary Peters, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Senator Susan Collins, and, the last time I checked, yours truly as well.
I also want to thank the entire Congressional Fire Services Caucus for their bipartisan work on this issue, including the chair of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, Senator Jon Tester of Montana.
There were also many organizations that helped us better understand the needs of our firefighters, and I want to thank them too. Let me just mention them briefly, if I may: the Congressional Fire Services Institute, the International Association of Firefighters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Volunteer Fire Council, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, and the National Fire Protection Association. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that we could never have done this without their hard work and their encouragement even today.
I just want to say that most of us in this body will go to bed tonight--turn off the lights and go to sleep--and not have to worry about being awakened in the middle of the night to go out and save somebody's life. We are not going to have to be disrupted in our own families or in our own personal lives to go out and lend a hand if there has been an auto accident or a truck accident and put our lives at risk. We are not going to be drawn into a situation with a house on fire.
We had, not too long ago, in Delaware, a situation wherein firefighters literally rushed into a house that was on fire with the feeling that there were people literally in the basement of the house. The floor of the house collapsed, and we lost the lives of several firefighters.
But none of us have to worry about that--making that kind of sacrifice and undertaking those kinds of risks.
None of us will have to worry about being the young woman who was a volunteer firefighter. She worked in the healthcare field, as I recall, and was a volunteer firefighter. She worked late at night and was literally driving home on I-95 in Wilmington. It was when we were doing a reconstruction of I-95 right through the middle of our city.
There was an accident at about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, and the volunteer firefighter, the woman, pulled off. She stopped to provide help to those who were impacted. The volunteer firefighter was killed. She was struck by a passing vehicle and lost her life.
None of us have to worry about any of that happening and having to put ourselves or members of our families in that kind of jeopardy.
The reason is that there are literally tens of thousands of people from all corners of this country--all different sizes and colors, men, women, young, and old--who understand that we all have an obligation to serve and look out for other people even when it puts us in danger and at risk with our own lives.
So, in passing this legislation--and it goes to the House of Representatives now; it is not a done deal--our hope is that the House of Representatives will see fit to embrace it and pass it and send it on to the President.
I presume that most Presidents--and I have had the privilege to have known quite a few of them--have great affection for the firefighters in their own States, where they come from. Nobody has greater affection in Delaware than does our President. He and I and Chris Coons, as well as Mike Castle and Pete du Pont, who came before us, share that affection and that high, high regard.
I heard our President, when he was a mere Senator, say that there are actually three political parties in Delaware. One of those is Democrat; one is Republican; and the other is of the folks who are the firefighters and their families. They stand out in the crowd.
I will just close with this.
I have asked people why they are willing to put their lives in danger to help save our lives and the lives of others who are in jeopardy. I have heard from hundreds of men and women who have said that the reason they do it is that it gives them joy. It gives them joy to know that they are making a difference with their lives and that they are serving other people.
One or two, every now and then, will actually invoke the Golden Rule: to treat other people the way you want to be treated. How would I want to be treated if my house were on fire? How would I want to be treated if my son or my daughter were in a traffic accident? If there were a forest fire surrounding our community, how would I want to be treated? Well, that is the way I would like to be; so why don't I treat other people the same way.
With that, this has been a good week, and we are ending here on a very high note. I want to thank the Presiding Officer for all of his good work. It has been a pleasure working with him this week and every week. To the neighbor right across the Delaware River, I am looking forward to many, many happy trails in the days to come.
We have these young pages who are sitting down here at the foot of the Presiding Officer and the floor staff. I don't know if any of them, when they were little kids, had the desire to be a firefighter. My guess is--actually, some of them are nodding their heads that, yes, they did. Hopefully, we will never outgrow the spirit that compels and encourages people to stand up and play the role of a firefighter whether it is in the middle of the night with a fire or an accident or whatever it might be. Hopefully, their example and that spirit will be contagious and infect all of us in a very, very good way.
With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 169, No. 66
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