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Floor Speech

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Mr. CRUZ. I agree with the policy goals of this bill, and I am strongly committed to curtailing Russia's ability to use nuclear energy as a geopolitical tool.

Indeed, I have repeatedly introduced sanctions targeting Rosatom activities, and I am currently working on legislation that would go even further. We should absolutely end our dependence on Russian uranium, and the United States should not be dependent on any nation for our energy--nuclear or otherwise.

I know that my friend from Wyoming shares my conviction on American energy independence, and as the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, he understands better than most anyone how the zealots in this administration have shackled our domestic energy producers.

And let me just say, I understand and appreciate how important this bill is to you, and I commit to work with you on this bill to get it passed into law.

But this bill is also important to the House. That was made clear by just how quickly they took it up and passed it on suspension with only a voice vote last week--even as, at the same time, the House stripped out and disregarded a number of the priorities of this Chamber which had been included in the Senate NDAA. One provision, which I worked very hard on with Senator Kelly, was to streamline permitting requirements for new semiconductor plants, and which 120 Senators and House Members--a little over a sixth of the entire Congress--had signed a letter supporting. That was one of the casualties of their casual disregard.

The House even stripped out of the bill my bill with Senator Cantwell--the Senate version of the Informing Consumers About Smart Devices Act--despite the House having already passed their version of the bill earlier this year by a vote of 406 to 12.

Neither of these were partisan measures, and they are not wild policy changes. Instead, they are broadly bipartisan, widely supported priorities of Members of the Senate, and they have enormous impact. Unfortunately, our House colleagues--in particular, the leadership of the Energy and Commerce Committee--decided that they did not matter, and they insisted they be stripped from the bill.

Now we have come up with an important priority that they care about-- and, to be clear, a policy with which I agree--asking for the blessing of the Senate.

The consequences of their stripping that legislation from the NDAA is they hurt thousands of jobs across this country. They have benefited communist China at our expense, and they have hurt our national security by making us more vulnerable to China, and they undermined the privacy of Americans across this country.

I hope and believe the House and Senate should work together cooperatively. I am eager to do so. I have extended an olive branch to the House for us to work cooperatively, but it is a two-way street. Until the House begins to take seriously the priorities of the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support and until they change course on the Senate priorities they disregarded arbitrarily, this bill and potentially others from the chairman of this House committee will not be moving in the Senate by unanimous consent.

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