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Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to ask the Senator from Oregon a question.

I appreciate my Northwest colleague being here to bring attention to these important issues, and I--so much has transpired in the last few weeks, and so I just appreciate the fact that you are trying to bring part of the awareness.

If we made a long list, there would be many, many things here in this list of authoritarianism that we do not like, and I appreciate you bringing specific attention, although I do find some musings that people find a bicycle protest somewhat threatening, which it is just not. You know, we are kind of famous for our bicycle events in the Northwest, so don't know why somebody finds that threatening when authoritarianism is really the threat.

But I have been so involved with my colleague Senator Grassley in making a really important point, and that is the President is abusing his power on tariffs. When you think about the actions of proposing tariffs, this is exactly why people said, ``We don't want kings to have this authority.''

Why? Because it is such an important constitutional authority given to Congress. It is not something that we think that the President of the United States should have to usher in economic impact in this dramatic way.

And the IEEPA tariffs, the lower courts have already said, ``Yes, we don't think that he has this authority.'' He has been abusing this authority. Now, he is going to try to say there are other emergency powers, and hopefully, the courts will continue to do their job.

But when I think about all of the things he has done, and lots of them are big issues, to me, this one--to basically wield an economic impact on the cost of affordability for Americans, for housing, for food, for transportation cost, a whole myriad of things--when it is only the authority of Congress to do this.

I think of how big this economic stick is that he is wielding. So all we have said here, collectively, a bipartisan group of Senators, is that you should--if you think these things are so great, you should come to the Congress. But the constitutional authority is that only Congress has this authority.

So I think it is a very dangerous precedent. I think, in a global economy with a lot of economic activity to be had, I don't think it is a good idea to have somebody in the office of the Presidency acting as if these tariff policies are their domain.

And clearly, the cost of this on goods and services--particularly those that are really, really hurting us, like I said, affordable housing and things of that nature--are really the impacts. And I don't know to what degree--sorry to say I didn't stay up with you and watch all night, so I don't know what degree you covered tariffs. But I don't know what you think about this particular point in this debate of yours about the authoritarian power and how much its being abused on tariffs.

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, if I could--the Senator from Oregon, if he had time for another question on this point.

You know that the Pacific Northwest has a big export economy. We have many ports. People may not know, but we probably export a significant amount of soybeans. And I don't know if the Senator is aware that this is a crisis now. These growers, particularly in the Midwest, are on their heels over this.

This is having huge economic impact, and it is a constitutional authority by Congress. And instead of our colleagues dealing with this authority and dealing with the fact that their own constituents are getting run over, they are still ignoring the fact that the President is abusing these powers.

So I don't know how much you are aware of this, but it is these kinds of activities that lose you shelf space, go to some other country, and then when you try to get it back, the country is already in business with somebody else. So this is affecting our growers across the United States. It is time for our colleagues to admit that this is an abuse of power and help us reign it back in.

And so, I so appreciate your efforts here to talk about authoritarianism, and I appreciate your comments on tariffs specifically, but this is--one side of it is the consumer impact, and the other side of it is the economic impact to growers who wonder why they send people here to vote and take care of their interests if you are going to have somebody at the White House who is just going to run over them. And I hope that we can continue to emphasize this.

And of course, obviously, on the healthcare costs, we put out a report last--well, now, I think 4 weeks ago--about the high cost of healthcare being implemented because of the lack of the ACA tax credits.

But, oh, by the way, guess what was in that report? That tariffs were also having an impact on the cost of healthcare. So it is impacting us on healthcare, the very underlying issue of why we are here and trying to get some relief for the American consumer, as now they start to see these bills and see the choices that they are going to have, but tariffs are affecting our economy in a very significant way, and it is time for our colleagues to say this is the authority.

They have a chance to sign on to our bill. They certainly could sign on. There are seven Democrats, seven Republicans. They certainly could sign on and say that they support that. I don't see anybody on the other side of them making a case that the President has this constitutional authority; it is more that they are just silent, and America needs to know that our economy is being hurt by tariffs, and it is an abuse of power by the White House.

So thank you.

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