Disapproving the Action of the District of Columbia Council in Approving the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. I thank my colleague, and I thank both of my colleagues for their very, very powerful remarks. Nomination of Daniel I. Werfel

Madam President, the Senate this afternoon is going to vote on the nomination of Mr. Danny Werfel to serve as the next Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

I want to say that I believe Mr. Werfel is superbly qualified. He is a good-government nominee, and I urge my colleagues strongly to support him.

Mr. Werfel--and this is true of his professional life and at his hearing--has made it clear that he is going to make sure that the IRS does its job consistent with the law and that transparency will be a top priority for his service, which is focused on building trust.

This means a lot because Mr. Werfel has done that at the IRS before. He stepped up when President Obama asked him to serve as Acting Commissioner during a very challenging time a decade ago.

Now, the issues were different then. Danny Werfel came in after the public learned that the IRS had used some very sloppy methods of monitoring the political activities of tax-exempt groups. In the Finance Committee, particularly Chairman Hatch and myself, we did an extensive investigation, and we found that both left-leaning and right- leaning groups were affected.

While Mr. Werfel served in that acting role, he worked effectively with both sides of the Finance Committee. He helped right the ship and improve confidence in the IRS.

The late-Senator Hatch, who was certainly conservative but somebody who always valued fairness and professionalism, spoke to me several times and to our colleagues about his high regard for Danny Werfel. In my view, that is a big reason why Danny Werfel has bipartisan support today.

I have a few comments on the big initiatives he is going to lead when he is confirmed.

After a decade of Republican budget cuts, the Inflation Reduction Act finally gave the IRS the resources it needs to go after tax cheating by too many of the very wealthy and multinational corporations, and it is in a position to improve customer service for everybody else, the vast majority of Americans who follow the law.

I will start with customer service, where the IRS is making significant improvements. Let's go back a few years when the IRS was able to answer only 11 percent of the phone calls it was receiving. In 2022, it was 13 percent. This time last year, there was a backlog of 24 million unresolved tax returns. As of a few days ago, the IRS was answering 90 percent of phone calls. It has processed more than 99 percent of the returns filed so far this season. And the IRS has cut the backlog of individual returns by 92 percent.

Now, they have achieved that by spending about 1 percent of the IRA funding. In my view, that is a record that we ought to put a lot of focus on because, if it continues, it will be an historic return on investment. We expect it to continue. We are counting on Mr. Werfel to maintain that progress.

The long-term initiative is also stepping up the fight against, unfortunately, the fact that there are too many of those wealthy tax cheats and scofflaw corporations that rip off American taxpayers too easily today, and the Republican budget cuts over the years resulted in a double standard in tax enforcement. The IRS' ability to go after sophisticated wealthy tax cheats, who are employing armies of lawyers and accountants, was severely limited for years. The burden of tax audits shifted far too heavily onto working people and the middle class.

The reason that was the case is that for working people in Wisconsin and Oregon--nurses and firefighters and teachers--the government has most of the information about their lives. So it is very straightforward, if there is something to question there.

The wealthy tax cheats use their accountants and the lawyers to pay taxes very differently. Billionaires tend, to a great extent, to pay little or nothing for years on end because they structure their affairs to knock out their annual income.

Democrats have made clear from the very beginning that this isn't about increasing audits of people with incomes under $400,000. In fact, we wrote that limitation into the Inflation Reduction Act.

Republicans struck the language from the bill during the debate. Nevertheless, Secretary Yellen has ensured the Congress and everyone concerned know that the Treasury will stand by that commitment. The plan laying out how the IRA funding will be used is in the works.

I want to be clear this afternoon because I have been asked about this. Colleagues on the Finance Committee, of both political parties, are insisting that we get that report on how the funds are going to be used--that we get it soon.

Frankly, that is one of the reasons to support Danny Werfel this afternoon, because he is experienced in this deal. He stepped in for President Obama. We are convinced that he is going to follow that directive and focus on getting us the plan and ensure that the focus is on better service and on wealthy tax cheats and multinational corporations paying their fair share.

I think he is going to handle his position in a way that is transparent. He made it clear that he would be open to talking to Senators on both sides of the aisle and that he will strongly favor protections for confidentiality of taxpayer data. That is the kind of good-government approach that both sides of the aisle should support.

This is a highly qualified, highly experienced nominee. He is the right choice to lead the IRS. He has earned bipartisan support. A number of our colleagues, both in the committee and here on the floor on both sides of the aisle, support him. I would just urge my colleagues, this afternoon--I think we will vote in a couple of hours-- to strongly support his nomination. Remembering Bill and Dottie Schonely

Madam President, I want to rise today on behalf of all the people that I have the honor to represent to honor the late Bill Schonely, the Portland Trail Blazers' radio voice for the better part of three decades, and his late wife Dottie.

Bill passed in January, leaving a timeless legacy for all of us Blazer fans in ``Rip City,'' the name that Bill coined for my hometown.

Dottie passed last month, leaving her own legacy as an accomplished woman who radiated smarts and kindness to everybody she met in Oregon.

Bill and Dottie were the ultimate teammates, as the ``First Couple of Rip City.'' So perhaps it is fitting they could not be separated for long.

In fact, when Bill and I spoke last, before his passing in January, he made sure to ask me if I was doing my level best to protect Social Security. I have kept the message on my phone with his resonating voice saying: Ron, what are you doing to protect Social Security and the Gray Panthers? I am really concerned about it. And make sure you also do it for Dottie as well.

That will be on my phone forever.

Like storied broadcasters Johnny Most for the Boston Celtics fans or Chick Hearn for Los Angeles Lakers fans, my friend Bill was much more than an NBA play-by-play guy for us Trail Blazers fans in Portland and throughout Oregon. As the Blazers' first broadcaster, starting with the team's inaugural season in 1970--that was a world long before ESPN or even before the team's games aired on local TV--Bill became the soundtrack for generations of Portland fans. He connected our State's first big-league franchise with Oregonians in every nook and cranny of Oregon.

I have logged lots of miles getting around Oregon for 1,040 open-to- all townhall meetings. In fact, I have got two more scheduled this weekend in Jefferson and Deschutes Counties in Central Oregon. But I bet Bill covered just as many miles as the Blazers' ambassador in every part of Oregon.

I can't tell you how many times I would show up at a radio station in a small Oregon town--you know, there are lots of those kinds of towns in Wisconsin--and I would see a photo of Bill there, from back in the day, when he was on a local golf course or some local community function. And any elected official in Oregon will tell you how fortunate we were that Bill Schonely never ran against any of us.

In addition to coining the phrase ``Rip City,'' which is forever tied with my hometown, Bill had an expansive basketball lexicon in his unofficial role as professor of basketball English for Blazers fans.

Unlike me, he had a baritone voice, and he taught all of us how rebounders ``climbed the golden ladder'' and how point guards dribbled ``lickety brindle up the middle.'' As a former player myself, I always nodded my head in agreement whenever Bill would intone, pausing theatrically with each word, ``You've got to make your free throws.''

So as Rip City prepares to say good-bye to Bill and Dottie at a public memorial service in Portland, in which I will be at on Monday the 13th, I will close with this:

Oregon is said to have ``Seven Wonders,'' including Mount Hood and Crater Lake. In my scorebook and the scorebooks of Blazer fans, ``The Schonz'' and Dottie are our State's ``Eighth Wonder.''

So today, on behalf of all Oregonians, I extend my condolences to all Bill and Dottie's loved ones. I will always remember both with a smile and be forever grateful that they leave so many wonderful memories as part of their unforgettable legacy for our community.

On behalf of all Oregonians, today, I close by simply saying: Thank you, Bill and Dottie Schonely.

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I rise in strong support of the Women's Health Protection Act.

This legislation needs to be a centerpiece in the battle to defend privacy rights in America. This is the third week I have stood on the Senate floor to talk about this extraordinary assault on privacy and bodily independence that is taking place in America, and it started, of course, with the horrendous Dobbs decision.

When that decision came down, Republicans all over America said that this was going to be a matter of State's rights. They weren't telling the truth to the American people.

Shortly after the decision, there was a full-court press by Republicans at the local level, State level, and, yes, the national level to claw back the rights of women and deny access to reproductive care. Months after the Dobbs decision, a bill to enact a 6-week abortion ban, to ban abortion before most women even know they are pregnant, was introduced in this body.

That was a national ban--every single State--every single State. So much for State's rights.

Anti-abortion activists are not only working Senate Republicans, they are working the court system as well. I call it court washing. It goes way beyond the issue--and I know we have got an expert lawyer in the Chair. It goes way beyond so-called judge shopping that everybody has heard about in the past. It is not simply a matter of looking at a judge's long record of soundly reasoned opinions and hoping for an outcome.

Republicans--particularly talking about this Texas case, this one in Amarillo, TX. Republicans picked him because he was a lifelong rightwing activist who was planted in a district court to deliver the decision they wanted, the verdict that they have been scheming to deliver. We are talking about banning mifepristone nationwide, a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This is something I care about deeply because I held the first congressional hearing on the role of the FDA, particularly with mifepristone. It has been safe and effective, and it has been the law of the land for years and years. If you throw that out, you take away women's independence, and the government puts itself front and center in the exam room and in the private decisions about whether and when to start a family.

As women grapple with restrictive State laws that take away their right to privacy and threaten their health, they are also facing a crisis of digital privacy and--what I call--the threat of uterus surveillance.

We have long been concerned about location data leaching from phone apps and how ripe for abuse it is. In States where extremists have restricted or banned abortion, the whole issue of women having their personal data weaponized against them is now front and center. Shady data brokers have already tracked women to and from Planned Parenthood health centers and have sold their information, basically, to anybody who has got a credit card. In States where abortion is illegal, anything women say or read online can be used against them. Researching birth control online, updating a period tracking app, or even carrying a phone into a doctor's office may become weaponized against you. It could be evidence for the prosecution--the most personal and private data about women's bodies and their health. Just imagine how much worse it could get if more States pass draconian laws or Republicans get their nationwide ban.

That is why we are here to pass this legislation: to ensure that every woman in every State is in a position to make private medical decisions, where that woman is in the driver's seat with respect to her privacy and her independence. To do otherwise is going to keep healthcare providers from doing their jobs. To do otherwise is going to mean more delaying care for women and more bullying pharmacies out of providing medications that are completely legal and FDA-approved.

These providers ought to be able to do their jobs based on science. That is what the FDA decision was all about. It wasn't a political decision. It wasn't made here on the floor of the U.S. Senate and having people go back and forth about their opinions. It was an FDA decision based on science. These policies are common sense, and they are popular.

I am going to close with just a couple of quick points.

Once women lose the ability to make private healthcare choices about their reproductive healthcare, I think we ought to make sure everybody understands that there will be women who will die.

I think we need to understand that what this is about is whether freedom is going to mean the same thing for women as it does for men. Women do not have the same privacy rights right now. They don't have the same freedom. If women are subjected to uterus surveillance, they don't have true freedom. If Republican politicians dictate what goes on in an exam room, they don't have true freedom. If women can't control their own bodies and make their own decisions about when and whether to get pregnant, they don't have true freedom. If women are forced to give birth--and in some cases, Republicans want to force women to give birth even after cases of rape and incest--those women do not have true freedom.

So if there is one word--one word--that this debate is all about for women as to what is at stake, that one word is ``freedom,'' and our legislation ensures they will have it. I urge colleagues to support it.

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