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Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. 167, S. 2882, and Calendar No. 168, H.R. 5371.

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Senator Murkowski for her remarks on the vote that we are getting ready to take on the CRA that deals with the Central Yukon plan.

I am going to be a little bit more brief since she covered a lot of material and did a great job of doing it, but I want to give my colleagues just a little sense of the elements of why this plan-- ``plan''--needs to be repealed by the U.S. Senate as part of a CRA.

By the way, Mr. President, this is going to continue in the vein of what we did with your great State of Montana and North Dakota the last 2 days on the Senate floor with these CRAs.

What is going on here? We all know what is going on here both with regard to Montana and with regard to North Dakota and, of course, with regard to Alaska. The previous administration came in and said: Even though it is probably illegal, we are going to try to lock up these States because we don't want resource development in these States.

Imagine, Mr. President, as Senator Murkowski mentioned, the Central Yukon plan that the Biden administration issued--we didn't want it. Nobody really wanted it in Alaska. It is almost 56 million acres. That is the size of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania combined, just that one plan. It gives you a sense of how big my State is. But can you imagine a President of the United States, if you are a Republican, telling the people of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania that they are going to be saddled with a plan they didn't want to large swaths of their land, destroying thousands of jobs, which is what this plan would do? Nobody would accept that.

This planned scheme of the Biden administration disregards local voices, ignores protections guaranteed under Federal law--ANCSA and ANILCA--and undermines the ability of Alaska Native corporations, which did not want it, to access and responsibly develop their lands, which Congress gave them in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971.

These are the key elements of why it is a problem. It is also part of a long pattern with the Biden administration that I never tire of reminding people.

This is the chart we call the last frontier lockup. The last administration issued 70 Executive orders and Executive actions singularly focused on Alaska--7-0. I confronted President Biden in the Oval Office respectfully when we were at 48. Here is the list of them, by the way, of the 70. That is each one, 7-0--only against Alaska.

I said: Mr. President, why are you doing this? Why are you going to war with my people--working families, Americans? You are sanctioning Alaska more than you sanctioned Iran and Venezuela, and they are terrorist regimes.

He didn't know. I don't think he knew what was going on. But it was wrong.

This, by the way, this Central Yukon management plan, was one of the 70 that we didn't want; that the vast majority of the Native people didn't want; certainly that the Native corporation Doyon--most of their land--they didn't want it.

What we need to do instead, as opposed to locking up Alaska--I said to President Biden: It is not good for Alaska, sir, but it is also not good for America--is we need to do this: unleash Alaska's extraordinary resource potential.

By the way, thank you, President Trump.

This is a day-one Executive order, one of the first Executive orders President Trump issued when he came into office in January and said: We are not going to lock up Alaska; we are going to unleash it.

In his Executive order, we also have essentially getting rid of this Central Yukon management plan from the Biden administration.

So thank you, Mr. President.

Now, my colleagues--I am asking all of them, and I am particularly asking my Democratic colleagues, because I want you guys to show that you are not so anti-Alaska.

The Democratic Party at the national level has become the anti-Alaska party, and that is the anti-Alaska Native party. So many things that we care about in my State in the interest of the Native people--all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle make it a point--a point--to try to crush us in our opportunity and cancel Native voices--yes, indigenous voices. They are always working to cancel them.

Here is your opportunity, Democrat colleagues, to vote yes on this CRA. Listen to me and Senator Murkowski, the people who represent the people in the great State of Alaska. Listen to President Trump. That is what we want.

I am going to mention just one final thing on why this is so important, why I get really animated about this with all of my colleagues.

A lot of people have seen this chart, but I like showing it because it is a really important issue. This is a chart from the American Medical Association from 1980 to 2014. It has life expectancy in America. The places that are blue, darker blue, and purple, if you look at the chart, these people are living longer. Purple is 13 years. So in 24 years, in certain parts of America, the life expectancy of Americans increased by 13 years.

Unfortunately, in our great Nation--look at the yellow, orange, and red on this chart. That is actually life expectancy decreasing. Of course, nobody wants that. A lot of that was the opioid epidemic and things.

But guess which State had the greatest increase in life expectancy of anyplace in America from 1980 to 2014 according to the American Medical Association. Alaska--especially the North Slope region, interior Alaska, the Aleutian Island area, southeast Alaska.

So what happened from 1980 to 2014 in that part of Alaska? I will tell you what happened. Responsible resource development happened, and people started living longer. They got jobs. They got water and sewer, flushed toilets, gymnasiums, health clinics--things that the lower 48 just takes for granted that we didn't have in a lot of our State. Because we had responsible resource development--mining oil and gas on the North Slope, fishing out on the Aleutian Island chains--all because of laws we made here in Congress, the people of Alaska, particularly the Native people, started living longer--living longer.

I have asked my colleagues--and I have used this chart a lot--to give me an indicator of policy success more important than the people you represent living longer. There isn't one. That is the most important. The people you represent are living longer. Why? Because of responsible resource development. There is no doubt. Here is the chart. Alaskans are living up to 13 years longer.

Now, Native people in my State, unfortunately, started at a really low level--some of the lowest levels of life expectancy--but because we are developing our resources responsibly, my constituents are living longer.

So when you have these groups and you have the Biden administration and, no offense, you have a lot of my Senate Democratic colleagues trying to shut down my State, which they always do, do you know what you are doing? You are actually impacting people's lives and how long they live.

This is really important for me and the people I represent. This is a good opportunity to tell the Biden administration: Hey, you are not going to do this. You are not going to do it to Montana, you are not going to do it to North Dakota, and you certainly are not going to do it to Alaska because you are going to negatively impact people's lives.

I really hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and I really hope at least one or two Democrats have the courage to come and say: Do you know what, Dan, you have been talking about this for 10 years. I agree with you. I am going to vote to rescind this Biden CRA or this Biden Yukon management plan that nobody wanted, to help your State and help America.

One more thing. In this part of the State where that Central Yukon management plan is--like I said, 56 million acres--51 of the 56 critical minerals that our country needs are in this area.

I was in an Armed Services hearing recently, and everybody, including a lot of my Democrat colleagues, said: Gosh, we are so reliant on China for critical minerals. What can we do?

I can tell you what you can do: Quit shutting down my State. Let us develop critical minerals in Alaska as opposed to relying on them from China.

That is another reason this is important--for the national security of our country.

With that, I ask all of my colleagues to support this CRA.

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