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Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I notice the arrival of Senator Hawley. I think we are both prepared at this point for me to make a unanimous consent request, and I would like to do so now. 599, 477, and 472; that the nominations be confirmed; the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nominations; that any related statements be printed in the Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate resume legislative session.

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I think one of the messages that the Senator from Missouri was trying to convey is ``do our job.'' One of our fundamental jobs is to review, vote on, and confirm or not confirm nominees to critical positions in the Department of Defense, and this effort has completely frustrated that goal of doing our job.

We have seen repeated blockage of nominees who are fully qualified, forcing votes--and the gentleman from Missouri is talking about we should have had votes this week--forcing votes because one or two people object. And, of course, the final outcome is 90 votes, 85 votes in favor of the nominee.

The will of the Senate was very clear: These people should be in their office, doing their jobs, helping us maintain our security, not subject to the whims and the will of one or two people.

The nominees I just referred to are three individuals nominated to critical positions within the Department of Defense. The Armed Services Committee held hearings on all three of these nominations months ago, and all three were reported out of the committee by voice vote. I am unaware of any objections to these nominees relating to their qualifications for the positions for which they have been nominated.

I need not remind my colleagues that with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a war of choice against a modern, functioning democracy, how critical it is to have people in place in the Department of Defense.

It is very difficult to complain about the policy of the administration when there has been a deliberate attempt for more than a year to delay critical nominees from taking their position in that Department.

And, more importantly, I think this is a trend that was observed by the Commission on the National Defense Strategy under President Trump. It said:

The implementation of the National Defense Strategy must feature empowered civilians fulfilling their statutory responsibilities, particularly regarding issues of force management. . . . Strong civilian oversight is an essential hallmark of civil-military relations codified in the Constitution and embraced throughout the nation's history.

What is frustrating that principle? Actions like today, where fully qualified individuals who pass by voice vote through the committee are held up. If there is a weakness--that has been identified by other sources in the National Defense Strategy at the Department of Defense-- it is in one case the lack of sufficient civilian leadership and continuity, and that is exactly what this action today will continue to foster.

For example, Mr. Ashish Vazirani was reported out of committee on December 8 and would become the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, the No. 2 official in the Department in charge of military and civilian policy and the readiness of our Armed Forces.

Mr. Alex Wagner was reported out of the committee in October of last year, and he would become the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, the senior official within the Department of the Air Force with responsibility for military and civilian personnel policy and the readiness of Air Force and Space Force personnel.

Ms. Rachel Jacobson was reported out of the committee in October of last year, and she would become the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Energy, Installation, and the Environment. She will be responsible for managing the Army's physical footprint and, particularly, she will oversee contracts that would increase installation resilience and the modernization of Army infrastructure, particularly with regard to energy, which is one of the issues that we are talking about with great emphasis today and in the proceeding several weeks.

All of these positions are critically important to the Department of Defense. And I am unaware of any substantive objection to these nominees on the basis of their qualifications. The sooner they assume their offices, the better for the Department's ability to tackle the challenges on behalf of servicemembers and their families.

I also think it is important to recognize some of that discussion about the situation in Ukraine. The Biden administration sent $650 million in aid--military assistance and aid--to the Ukrainian Government in the last year, far surpassing anything that was done in the Trump administration. In fact, we spent many hours here on the floor of the U.S. Senate in an impeachment proceeding based on what many of us thought was the attempt by then-President Trump to use military aid to extract a political concession from President Zelenskyy. That is quite a stark difference than what President Biden's administration has been doing for the last year.

There was a reference made to dealing with Saudi Arabia. Well, President Trump's first trip overseas was to Saudi Arabia to cavort with his friends, the Kings and Princes of Saudi Arabia. His son-in-law made multiple trips over there, and it wasn't in the spirit of condemnation; it was in the spirit of businesslike behavior, I would say. Khashoggi was killed by agents of MBS, the Crown Prince, but the details of the report were never released by the Trump administration. President Biden released those details, earning, I think, the enmity of the Crown Prince. So this story of the ineffectuality of the Biden administration is completely, in my view, without basis.

What we have seen--and I think the Presiding Officer recognizes it as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee--is probably the most sophisticated development of an alliance to oppose tyranny that we have seen in many, many years.

When the whole world is united by the diplomacy of this administration to stand up against Vladimir Putin-- and I must say practically the whole world. That is an amazing demonstration of diplomacy and statesmanship. And it happened because of the leadership of the President, the leadership of Secretary Blinken, the leadership of Secretary Austin. And, again, when you have Switzerland joining in sanctioning a country--the greatest neutral nation in the world--that is a remarkable accomplishment.

We still have a long way to go. The outcome is still very much uncertain, but to date, the President and his administration has done an extraordinary job.

Afghanistan is an issue that we have dealt with for 20 years. One of the first things we did was to ensure that in the National Defense Authorization Act, there was an independent study which will be conducted, but it is not going to focus on the last 2 weeks; it is going to focus on 20 years. It is going to assess whether the decision to invade Iraq was a critical strategic mistake--which I think it was. That is why I opposed it originally.

It is going to look at the Doha agreement, in which the Trump administration basically said, ``We are leaving,'' which gave the Taliban one of their greatest psychological and, indeed, in a way, military weapons because they went from village to village and said: Here it is, signed, sealed, and delivered. They are going. And when they go, who are you going to be with, Ghani or us?

So in any way to estimate the culpability, the responsibility of our role in Afghanistan, it will take that kind of 20-year look by independent experts who are concerned to find the truth, not to find a political argument.

I am just very disappointed that we are going to continue to avoid our duty to ensure that there are civilians in the Department of Defense who are able to carry out the policy of the United States, which is the basic principle of civil and military relations in the United States and in the Constitution of the United States. Energy

Mr. President, retaining my time, I would now like to resume my comments with respect to the energy situation and the United States.

As I indicated previously, the invasion of Ukraine has revealed the vulnerability that our dependence on oil creates for our economy and for average Americans trying to fill up their cars and pay their heating bills.

The fact is, the United States has sufficient domestic production to meet our energy needs today. We are producing more oil and refined product than ever before. Oil production was up more than half a million barrels a day from January to December of last year and is expected to rise even more this year, which I would assume would mean that more and more Americans are working in the oilfields and elsewhere. In fact, I believe, last year, the workforce grew about 6.6 million jobs, which we hadn't seen in the last year or two of the Trump administration.

Unemployment now is hovering around 4 percent. Gross domestic product has been significant and much more so than the preceding several years. But we do have problems economically, and some of those problems are related to the international oil supply. Now, we certainly don't need Russian oil and I have said we should stop importing it and I am glad that this morning the President announced the United States will officially ban the importation of oil from Russia, denying Putin a key revenue source for his illegal war. This is something both Democrats and Republicans have called for, and the American people should know this policy choice will likely affect the price of gasoline.

But even if we don't use Russian oil, everyone needs to know that petroleum is traded on the world market, and the United States is part of that world market. The chaos Putin is sowing in Europe will continue to have an effect here regardless of where we get our oil. Our energy policy of overreliance on fossil fuels is a matter of national security, and it is time we embrace all that it entails.

The reality of a world market, combined with the impact on regular Americans who need to fill up their cars, means the United States will have to make some tough choices on whom we buy from if we are not buying from Russia. We will have to more carefully consider what we are exporting, how we will prevent profiteering, and what pain people should expect at the pump.

If the climate crisis, raging fires, historic droughts, and flooding aren't enough to convince our colleagues on the other side of the aisle of the need to kick our oil addiction, I hope the national security and economic vulnerabilities exposed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine will be enough. As long as we base our energy future on oil, we choose to make ourselves vulnerable.

Unfortunately, many of my Republican colleagues don't seem to recognize that reality. Instead, they focus on never-built pipelines geared toward exporting our oil, not using it here in the United States. Most of the oil that was going through the pipeline that President Biden--I think, because of many, many considerations--decided against was destined for exportation, not for use here in the United States, or they make claims about energy production under Democratic Presidents that either contort or suspend reality. It is time--to borrow the phrase from my Rhode Island colleague, Senator Whitehouse-- it is time to wake up. Indeed, their solution to higher gas prices is more oil dependency.

The bottom line is that we need to accelerate the transition to clean, renewable energy sources that aren't subject to worldwide scarcity and manipulation by our adversary. There are, however, things we should do in the short term to help consumers.

Again, the advocates for the oil companies, the advocates for special tax arrangements, the advocates to continue to pump oil and pump oil and pump oil are playing right, in my sense, into the hands of Putin because if our world economy is based on hydrocarbons, then Russia is going to make some money. If our world economy is based on other sources of power--alternative sources of power--then his cash register is going to ring close to zero.

I am pleased that President Biden listened to me and others in Congress and decided to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help bring down the price of oil. He wisely coordinated the release of 60 million barrels with our international partners. The action sends a reassuring signal to markets, but we may need to release more to tamp down prices. We also need to insist that our Middle East partners do more to increase production to help stabilize prices and meet demand in Europe.

We should also ask domestic oil and gas producers to pitch in. Despite the other side of the aisle's claims about the economy, Big Oil is earning some of its highest profits in years. They are not simply passing on the cost--additional cost--to the consumer reluctantly and grudgingly and sadly. ExxonMobil and Chevron, for example, reported a combined net annual profit of nearly $38.6 billion in 2021, but are they investing those profits in new production, particularly when they have 14 million acres in unused leases? No. Instead, they are issuing higher dividends and buying back stock to boost share prices. These windfall profits should be used to help consumers, not their billionaire investors.

Of course, the easiest way to insulate ourselves from higher costs is to become more energy efficient. When we consume less, we pay less. That is why I have long advocated better fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, something that the last administration worked against. Yes, the Trump administration tried to derail an increase in gas mileage that the automobile companies were in favor of. Even when automakers said we should keep the tougher standards, Trump said no. Why? Let's be more dependent on gasoline. It is not only to this country's oil-producing benefit. Guess what. Putin benefits and others benefit.

Fortunately, the Biden administration has a broader vision for a clean energy future that eases the burden on consumers.

While there is much more to do, the bipartisan infrastructure law took important steps on this front. It invested $7.5 billion to build out a national network of electric vehicle charges, $5 billion for electric buses, and $90 billion to improve public transit systems.

It also includes $65 billion to upgrade our power infrastructure, including by building thousands of miles of new, resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy. And we can't just look at transportation because consumers are also facing the pinch on home energy prices.

Now, last year, I worked to secure $4.5 billion in the American Rescue Plan for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program to help consumers pay their energy bills. In the coming days, we will pass an omnibus appropriations bill to provide base funding for that program, which still lacks the resources to help all who qualify for assistance. But we need to do more.

We also need to make other long-term investments. In his State of the Union Address last week, President Biden emphasized the need to weatherize homes and businesses to be more energy efficient, which in turn lowers energy costs and reduces greenhouse gases and emissions, and I cannot agree more.

It is why I have led the fight to fund the Weatherization Assistance Program, which received $3.5 billion in the bipartisan infrastructure law. This program has helped more than 7 million low-income families reduce their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient.

It saves participants nearly $300 in energy bills a year, and a Department of Energy study found that in 1 year, it reduced carbon emissions by more than 2.2 million metric tons, the equivalent to taking more than a half a million cars off the road.

To make the most of this investment, this week, I introduced the Weatherization Assistance Program Improvement Act along with Senators Collins, Coons, and Shaheen. Our bill would make critical updates, including increasing eligibility, raising the per unit funding level for weatherization projects, and setting aside funding to make critical health and safety repairs in conjunction with weatherization projects. Together, these reforms will make the program more effective and will help it serve even more households across the country.

These are significant steps, but we need the full package of climate energy reforms that the President has been calling for, including tax credits and grants that would make clean energy, clean vehicles, and other clean technologies more affordable and better.

If we do these things, we will make a huge difference in the lives of Americans today and for generations to come.

Just a final thought, I think one of the greatest nightmares that Vladimir Putin has is a world that is powered by electricity, not generated by hydrocarbons, a world in which the gasoline and oil that he has in Russia is not worth $150 a barrel but $1.50 a barrel.

We can do it, and it will be one of the most significant national security endeavors when we accomplish that.

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