Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``Extension of Deadlines in Standards of Performance for New, Reconstructed, and Modified Sources and Emissions Guidelines for Existing Sources: Oil and Natural Gas Sector Climate

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, with me today is one of my colleagues from my office Mr. Nick Ayers.

Every time I look at or read an article about the One Big Beautiful Bill, I am shocked--though that sounds pejorative, maybe ``impressed'' is the right word--at its breadth. It is such an expansive piece of legislation.

On the airplane flying back from our last break, I sat down with some of my notes and just made a quick list off the top of my head of some of the things that we did in the One Big Beautiful Bill. And I hate to read to people, but I will just read you from my notes--and I won't even read all of them--but this is what we did in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

We extended the 2017 tax cuts. We saved $1.3 trillion for the American people. We made them permanent. We cut taxes on tips. We cut taxes on overtime. We cut taxes on Social Security. We provided deductions for car loans. We increased the standard deduction. We continued the 20 percent income deduction for LLCs. We repealed the IRS reporting requirements for gig workers. Nobody ever talks about that. That was huge.

We passed school choice tax credits--first time Congress has ever done something like that. We enhanced 529 education savings accounts. We provided full expensing for research and development.

I mean, I could keep going here.

We reformed Medicaid. We ended Federal payments for abortion and gender surgery and sex change operations through Medicaid.

I could go on for 20 more minutes. It is just an extraordinary piece of legislation.

My only regret with respect to the bill is that we did it without Democratic votes. We did it with all Republican votes. I wish that hadn't been the case. I wish we had been able to convince some of our Democratic colleagues to join with us.

The obvious question while I make my statement is: How did you do that? How did you get past the filibuster? It takes 60 votes. You don't have to be an astrophysicist to know that about the U.S. Senate.

Well, as you know, Madam President, we did it under reconciliation.

Under reconciliation, only a majority vote is required--60 votes aren't required. You can do it with a majority vote. That is how we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill.

That is how President Biden passed much of his legislation. Reconciliation, as we know, is a creature of the Budget Control Act. I think of reconciliation as sort of a minibudget. That is a gross exaggeration and oversimplification, but I think of it as a minibudget.

Madam President, could we ask for order?

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Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I think of reconciliation as more of a minibudget. Now, that is an oversimplification and exaggeration, and we can't do everything in reconciliation, but we can do a lot--we can do a lot.

We passed the reconciliation bill on July 1, about 5 months ago. And something that even members of the media are not aware of is we have the authority before the midterm elections to do two more reconciliation bills.

The first one that we did--we can do two more--the first of three potential reconciliation bills we passed 5 months ago.

You know, you can do a lot in 5 months. Five months around here is a long time ago. In 5 months, you can learn a language. You have to work at it every day. In 5 months, you can learn how to play a musical instrument. In 5 months, you can write a book. In 5 months, you can start a small business.

In 5 months, during World War II, the United States defeated the Japanese in the Guadalcanal invasion. In 5 months, the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon after he escaped from Elba. In 5 months, a baby goes from gurgling and crying to saying mama and dada.

Five months is a long time.

How have we used that 5 months? Now, I am not putting anybody down. I want to say that. I am not criticizing any of my colleagues. I love my colleagues. I don't hate anybody. I love every one of my colleagues. And I am labor; I am not management.

But one of the reasons I came to the floor is to suggest to all of my colleagues--both my Democratic friends and my Republican friends--that time is wasting. The President has been pounding us. He has been criticizing us like we stole Christmas--like we stole Thanksgiving--for not getting rid of the filibuster.

Why does he want to get rid of the filibuster? Because he thinks we can pass a bill with 51 votes. We can already pass a bill with 51 votes. We just did it with the One Big Beautiful Bill, and we can do two more.

So why have we sat around for 5 months and not started on the second reconciliation bill? I just don't get it. I don't get it. I mean, in my opinion--and really I am not--I am just making an observation--to me, it is a 12-piece bucket of stupid not to do another reconciliation bill and to waste 5 months before we even start on a second reconciliation bill, assuming that we get started tomorrow.

I mean, humans are supposed to have evolved as a species. Why wouldn't we not do a second reconciliation bill? Think of what we could do. I mean, moms and dads all across America tonight are going to lie down to sleep, and they won't be able to.

What are they worried about? Well, they are worried about the cost of housing for one thing. They are worried about the cost of home insurance. They are worried about the cost of flood insurance. They are worried about the cost of health insurance.

We all know that.

They are worried about the cost of living. Now, I think President Trump has done a good job on inflation. At one point under President Biden, we experienced 9 percent inflation. We have got it down to 3 percent, and I think that is extraordinary.

But the American people don't understand--nor can they be expected to understand because they are too busy earning a living--they don't know the difference between deflation and disinflation.

What we have experienced is disinflation. When we went from 9 percent to 3 percent, all that meant was that prices were going up at 9 percent. Now they are only going up at 3 percent.

They are still going up.

What the American people are interested in is deflation, getting the high prices that we have as a result of the policies of President Biden's administration, getting those prices down, not stopping them from growing as quickly--getting them down. And the American people are worried about it.

And again, I applaud President Trump and his economic team for doing as well as they have, but we have got more work to do.

And reconciliation, assuming it could survive the parameters of the Budget Control Act, we could address rules and regulations. We spend almost $2 trillion a year--we, I say ``we,'' the business community does. It spends almost $2 trillion a year complying with Federal rules and regulations. They pass that cost on.

Why do you think goods and services cost more today? In large part, in substantial part, it is the result of rules and regulations. Through a reconciliation bill, we could pass measures to get the cost of those goods and services down and actually reduce those prices by getting a little government off the backs of businesspeople.

We could do all those things through reconciliation.

And so, the first reason I came to the floor tonight is to say to my colleagues: Pretty please, with sugar on top--I will even add a cherry, I will even throw in a coupon for a personal pan pizza--please, let's do another reconciliation bill.

And when I say ``we,'' I am saying the Republican majority. Let's invite our Democratic colleagues to join with us--and I hope after inviting them, I sincerely hope they will take us up on it.

But if they don't--and they don't have to; it is a free country--it only takes a majority to pass the reconciliation bill. And after we do the second one, we can do a third one before the midterms.

If we do not take advantage of this opportunity to lower the cost of living for the American people through reconciliation when we only need 51 votes to do it, it is legislative malpractice. It is legislative malpractice. It is dumb as a bowl of noodles.

So that is my plea to my colleagues tonight. I am not saying we have done nothing for 5 months. We have done a lot of other things in 5 months, but we haven't done anything to lower the cost of living for the American people, and we can't look back. We have lost 5 months, but we should get started tomorrow. BBC

Madam President, the second topic I want to talk about--gosh, I wish I started with this first. I hate to end with a negative note, but the second thing I want to talk about makes me want to stick my head in the oven.

British Broadcasting Corporation, we have all heard of it--BBC. It is the United Kingdom's version of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The BBC is the United Kingdom's state-owned, state-paid- for, state broadcast corporation. I think they call it ``Beeb.'' I think that is the slang term for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

And everybody in the United Kingdom pays for it. You know, we were paying--the American people were paying a lot for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting before we stopped the subsidies. The American people were paying about $500 million a year. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, they were pikers compared to the BBC.

In the United Kingdom, every citizen, whether they watch BBC or not, every citizen has to pay $230 a year--everybody. It doesn't matter whether you watch the BBC or not. You may just have nothing but streaming services. You still have got to pay $230 a year to the BBC.

They collect billions of dollars a year. Somewhere here in this mess I have got the exact figure. I think it is something like $4 billion a year. Our national broadcasting programs were just pikers compared to theirs.

And they have tentacles like an octopus.

I mean, the BBC is everywhere, not just in the United Kingdom. It is omnipresent.

I was doing some research today. I mean, they broadcast four entertainment-oriented television channels. They broadcast two children's channels. They broadcast Parliament. They have local language channels in Scotland and Wales. They have a domestic 24-hour news channel. And these folks are everywhere. They run dozens of radio stations. They operate their own video and audio streaming services.

I mean, I could go on and on and on. Why am I mentioning that? Well, the BBC is a big deal. They reach a lot of people--millions and millions of people--not just in the United Kingdom but across the world. It is important that they be fair, and it is important that they be balanced, and it is important that they be accurate. And they are not, and it has been a problem for a long time.

Five or six years ago, at the suggestion of Parliament, which was very upset with the BBC's bias, they hired a consultant--a smart gentleman--and he did a report on how to improve the BBC and make it fairer. It was a huge report. Here is just part of it right here. This isn't even all of it. This is just some of it right here.

He spent hours and spent a lot of money preparing this report. He sent it to the BBC. Do you know what the BBC did? Nothing. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. They just continued on doing what they always do, sucking on their teeth, publishing whatever they want.

And nothing would have happened except that the report issued by the consultant leaked. Somebody leaked it to a newspaper in the United Kingdom, the Telegraph, and they published it. And the whole world got to see what the BBC's own consultant had found.

I will give you a couple of examples.

We all remember January 6. President Trump gave a speech. We have all seen it. It was a long speech. It was about an hour, maybe longer.

A week before the last Presidential election in America, the BBC did a documentary on President Trump. And do you know what they did? They took his hour-plus-long speech, and they took two snippets from that speech--one snippet at the beginning and one snippet at the end.

The excerpts that the BBC took were 50 minutes apart. So they took them totally out of context, and they spliced those two excerpts together to make it look like one speech. And they had the President of the United States calling, making a direct plea, for violence. The way the BBC edited the President's speech, he was telling the people at his speech to march on the Capitol and invade it.

Well, that is not what his speech said.

Now, reasonable people can disagree all they want to, but no reasonable person can listen to the President's speech and conclude that he told people to go out and riot and break into the Capitol.

But the BBC took these two snippets and put them together. I defy you to listen to it. They pulled it down now, but it is on the internet. It sounds like the President is telling his supporters: Go to the Capitol and raise fresh hell and invade it and hurt people.

And then you know what they did on top of that? After they edited the President's speech--he didn't say what they said he said. They showed a clip of the Proud Boys--we all know who the Proud Boys are--marching on the Capitol, as if the Proud Boys were acting in response--in direct response--to the President's speech that the BBC edited.

One problem, the footage that they aired of the Proud Boys, it didn't happen after the President's speech. It happened--the footage of the Proud Boys marching along was way before he ever gave the speech. And they packaged this junk together and ran it on television.

And this consultant called them out, and the BBC ignored it.

Do you know what else the consultant found? The consultant found that one of their news--he pointed out that a reporter on one of the BBC News channels reported this to the world. I am going to quote this news reporter from the BBC:

Trump is out there on the campaign trail saying he wants people to shoot Liz Cheney in the face. Is that the sort of thing that women react well to?

This is a reporter for the BBC. The President of the United States never said that. He never said it. They just made it up. They were either lying or they need to put down the crack pipe.

Another reporter for World News America, which is part of the BBC, reported, and I quote again, that Trump ``appeared to suggest that Liz Cheney should face a firing squad for her stance on foreign policy.''

They attributed that to the President. He never said that. The consultant for the BBC sent this report to the BBC and said: What planet are you living on? You are supposed to be a news reporter. You can't just go make news up.

The consultant's report for the BBC also talked about the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. And the consultant pointed out that the reporting by the BBC was heavily, heavily biased in favor of Hamas. It wasn't balanced. It wasn't presenting two points of view. It was heavily weighted in favor of Hamas.

For example, in February, the BBC produced a documentary on Gaza, and it was narrated by a young man, a 13-year-old man. What the BBC forgot to tell its audience is that the 13-year-old's dad was a Hamas senior official.

Balanced reporting? Gag me with a spoon.

In June of that same year--you probably read about this--the BBC broadcast a live music performance featuring calls for the deaths of Israeli soldiers. The consultant pointed this out to the BBC. They totally ignored him.

The consultant also pointed this out. He said: Your coverage, BBC, of transgender issues is controlled--it is completely biased, and it is controlled by a certain group within BBC. And that group within BBC is a group of reporters called the LGBTQ Desk. They are reporters within the newsroom. They have their own--their own--what is the term I am looking for? Their own caucus. It is called the LGBTQ caucus--these reporters.

And the consultant said: Look, your own reporters, the members of the LGBTQ caucus, are not reporting anything contrary about transgenderism to what you say. You are not being balanced. In fact, the United Kingdom--Great Britain--they have outlawed transgender surgery and transgender treatments for minors. The BBC never bothered to mention that.

Now, look, you might be thinking: You know, what is the big deal? This is another country.

But it is not all right. We may not be brothers and sisters, but we are certainly first cousins with the United Kingdom, and the BBC broadcasts worldwide. And this is simply not right when the good people of our cousin country are having to pay 200 bucks a year.

Now, President Trump has said he is going to sue the BBC. Do you know what? I hope he does. I hope he does.

This is a disgrace, and it is why I said that it makes me want to stick my head in an oven.

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