Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Relating to ``Protection of Marine Archaeological

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. The American people voted to get spending under control.

Two in three Americans say that a major problem that we face today in this country is government inefficiency. And I agree. Three in four Americans support eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending; and there is plenty of it.

We need to review how much money we spend. We need to see where it is going. We need to see what is effective and what is not. This is common sense. Families have to do it. States do it. Washington ought to do the same thing.

Every family audits their own budgets, their own spending. Every CEO audits their business operations.

President Trump and Republicans are doing exactly the same thing, and it is something that the Federal Government has not done for a long time.

Let me be clear. I am a doctor; I support so much of the good work being done by the National Institutes of Health and through the universities around the country. It is essential that America continues to lead the world in medical innovation.

I am a strong supporter of continuing smart investment in our National Institutes of Health. Americans deserve better care. Americans deserve better prevention and, of course, better transparency.

So the total budget for the NIH is almost $48 billion. Hard-working taxpayers deserve smart scrutiny and serious transparency over that kind of money.

There is indisputable evidence that there is wasteful overspending of administrative costs associated with medical research, and this is why I am here saying this must stop. In 2024, Harvard University spent $135 million of government grant money on overhead costs. Clearly, we can do better. They used hard-working taxpayer dollars to pay for heating bills, electricity bills, for maintaining buildings. They used it to cover payroll for people not involved in research. This is money that should have been spent on advancing researching for cures.

Harvard's overhead costs related to the National Institutes of Health research--69 percent of the money goes for overhead. That is taxpayer money, Mr. President. That is one university, one year. Clearly, we can do better--if you look at that all across the country.

Imagine all the new cures we could find if we just spent the money efficiently. That is what is at stake today, and that is why I am here on the floor of the Senate.

Democrats don't want to have a serious debate about wasteful Washington spending. Instead they are wasting the Senate's time on predictable distractions like this one.

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Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer) and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Tuberville).

The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 44, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 92 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--44 Alsobrooks 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 Van Hollen Warner Warnock Warren Welch Whitehouse Wyden NOT VOTING--2 Cramer Tuberville

The joint resolution (S.J. Res. 11) was agreed to, as follows: S.J. Res. 11 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management relating to ``Protection of Marine Archaeological Resources'' (89 Fed. Reg. 71160 (September 3, 2024)), and such rule shall have no force or effect.

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