Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last week, against the direction and wishes of the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, 17 House Republicans joined every Democrat in the House to vote for an extension of the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits.

Last year, 22 million Americans relied on these tax credits to be able to afford their health insurance, but on January 1, those credits expired because the Republican-controlled Congress refused to extend them. Because these tax credits have lapsed, millions--millions--of Americans are being forced to drop their health insurance or to pay double or triple for their healthcare plans. Families are already struggling with the expenses they face every single day--grocery prices, electric bills, mortgage payments. We shouldn't add health insurance to that list.

The House has done its part. The only barrier to putting a bill on the President's desk is this body, the U.S. Senate.

Last month, Senate Democrats voted to extend these tax credits. Four Republicans joined us, but we fell short of the 13 we needed to get the job done. Now we have another chance. There is no excuse for further delay. We can act this week, before we take a break, to avoid this healthcare catastrophe.

I have spoken to colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have said that they want to make healthcare more affordable. They have spoken to these families. They know the hardship they face with these premiums.

Extending the premium tax credits is the only way to do that immediately. Let's do it on a bipartisan basis and surprise everybody. We can help provide Americans with the peace of mind that their families need, give them coverage so that if there is a bad diagnosis, an accident, a tough hospitalization, they are covered. Crypto

Mr. President, on a separate topic, later this week, the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees plan to mark up and vote on landmark crypto market structure legislation.

While we await the release of the specific bill text, let me be clear. A strong crypto market structure bill must include the following provisions: ensure protection for investors, especially retail consumers; protect victims from fraud, like crypto ATM scams; strengthen our financial stability; provide strong guardrails against money laundering; and prevent the President and his family from further enriching themselves.

In the year 2008, the American people faced the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. This was spurred in large part by risky, subprime mortgages that went belly-up.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has stated that ``financial innovation and deregulation contributed to an environment in which the [United States] and global financial systems became far . . . less stable than in previous decades.''

In the wake of this, we did something to prevent a future crisis: We passed the Dodd-Frank bill, providing much needed reforms to the financial system that protected consumers and increased accountability on Wall Street.

But it has been 16 years since Dodd-Frank was signed into law, and the financial system in America has changed dramatically. Today, it is the rise of cryptocurrency--a risky, volatile, unpredictable investment that requires meaningful--meaningful--regulation.

The crypto industry has wide reach. It was valued in excess of $4 trillion in 2025, and estimates show that the industry has 40 to 70 million active users each month.

Naturally, the crypto industry is calling for rubberstamp regulation of this asset in the name of innovation. Sound familiar? It is the same reason the FDIC gave us as the cause for the great recession. What does this mean? The next crypto crash could wipe out not just the fat cats but a lot of working families--just like in 2008.

President Trump has failed to put in place commonsense guardrails to fend off another market collapse.

Since returning to office, financial regulators like the SEC have dropped lawsuits against some of the largest and most dubious crypto companies, creating an environment of unaccountability.

President Trump has pushed for deregulation of financial markets, including by taking his chain saw to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the name of ``government efficiency.'' He has pardoned crypto executives that have allowed funds to flow to terrorists, drug cartels, and cybercriminals--the worst of the worst.

Trump has personally enriched himself--to the tune of nearly $1 billion in the first half of 2025--through crypto scams like meme coins.

The industry has proven repeatedly that it plays a key role in facilitating fraud. Crypto ATM scams illustrate this perfectly. These scams swindle unsuspecting Americans--usually senior citizens--out of their life savings when they receive phony phone calls telling them that they owe taxes to the Internal Revenue Service or a penalty for missing jury duty. The scammer who calls tells the victim that they can pay what they owe at a crypto ATM machine. They are popping up all over the United States. Little does the victim know that the money they deposit into the crypto ATM is transferred to the criminal's digital wallet. The person putting it in the machine will never see it again.

The FBI estimates that in 2025, last year, victims lost more than $333 million to scams facilitated by crypto ATMs. Congress must meaningfully regulate this industry and address these scams. We cannot make the same mistakes we made leading up to 2008, and we cannot expect taxpayers to support a multibillion-dollar bailout for the crypto industry if there is a crypto crash.

Capitulating to the crypto industry and the self-imposed rush to mark up these forthcoming crypto market structure bills comes at the direction of a President who is trying to enrich himself and his family. I wish I didn't have to say that, but it is true.

As the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees consider cryptocurrency legislation, I advise Chairmen Scott and Boozman to work across the aisle to explore proper protections and regulations in the crypto market. Rushing this process is unwise and poses a serious danger to the U.S. financial system.

We have been warned. We have been through this in recent memory. Let's not do it again to unsuspecting victims.

The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 80, nays 13, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 7 Leg.] YEAS--80 Alsobrooks Baldwin Banks Barrasso Blackburn Blumenthal Blunt Rochester Boozman Britt Budd Cantwell Capito Cassidy Collins Coons Cortez Masto Cotton Cramer Crapo Curtis Daines Duckworth Durbin Fetterman Fischer Gallego Gillibrand Graham Grassley Hassan Hawley Heinrich Hirono Hoeven Husted Hyde-Smith Justice Kaine Kelly Kennedy King Klobuchar Lankford Lujan Lummis Marshall McConnell McCormick Merkley Moody Moran Moreno Mullin Murkowski Murray Ossoff Peters Reed Ricketts Rosen Rounds Schatz Schmitt Schumer Scott (SC) Shaheen Sheehy Slotkin Smith Sullivan Thune Tillis Tuberville Van Hollen Warner Welch Whitehouse Wicker Wyden Young NAYS--13 Bennet Booker Hickenlooper Johnson Kim Lee Markey Murphy Padilla Sanders Schiff Scott (FL) Warren NOT VOTING--7 Cornyn Cruz Ernst Hagerty Paul Risch Warnock

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