Process. He was overwhelming confirmed in the committee process. I look forward to him transitioning from him being a great attorney in our state to being a great judge, to be able to serve the people of oklahoma and of the United States on the federal bench. So im looking forward to that vote be completed. In the days ahead, we will celebrate decoration day. Decoration day was first declared locally in 1866 after the civil war. It was a day to remember those who gave their lives in battle for our country by decorating the graves and remembering their sacrifice. Now we call it memorial day. We remember all those who have given their lives for our nation. Its, unfortunately, not those who just gave their lives long past. Unfortunately, its still in the painful present. Last weekend i sat in an agonizing funeral for tec sergeant roberts, who was killed by rocket fire just two and a half months ago. He was in the process of getting others to safety when a rocket took his life. He is the first oklahoma air guardsman to ever lose his life in battle, and this memorial day will be very different for his wife, his daughter, their family in and the state of oklahoma. Because i. T. Not just a day because its notious a day about sleeping in and sales on dishwashers and cars. It will evoke the memory of Tech SergeantMarshal Roberts and hundreds of thousands of others like him. They gave their everything for the sake of our liberty. Those men and women are not forgotten. They are our heroes. And this memorial day, we will remember. And this time, its interesting to note with all thats going on, america is still eating, america is still moving because there are essential workers that are still serving. Theyre health care workers, theyre Grocery Store workers, theyre trucking, folks at Convenience Stores and gas stations, sanitation workers and power generation, theyre farmers and ranchers, theyre even in government, public safety, law enforcement. While the news every day covers folks that are at home waiting to return to work, we at times forget the people that are working twice as hard right now to be able to make sure thats even possible. And were grateful for the what theyre doing. Were grateful for the sacrifices of their family and of the hours that theyre putting in. But i want to be able to highlight a couple different groups that are unique in this mix. Some of the folks that are really truly behind the answer is that we really dont see a lot but we see the end result of their product. Let me start with farmers and ranchers there are folks taking care of making our food because as we well know food does not grow in the Grocery Store. It has to happen somewhere by folks putting the work out in the sun and getting a chance to be able to bring that crop in. Were watching it happen across my state and across the country right now. Wheats coming in and in oklahoma it looks beautiful. Its green still, but in the days ahead as it comes in it will be very important to us. But it will be interesting to be able to see this crop, if its not taken out by the hail coming in this weekend. This crop, as it comes in, will be very important to us. But the challenge will be that this year the h2a workers that typically come in from all over the world that do custom cutting are not able to come in this year because of the coronavirus. The challenge will be will americans step up when literally the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Will americans step up and say i will not let that harvest go to waste . I will engage in bringing the harvest in. Folks that are in forestry, forestry and logging is a crop in oklahoma. For those of yall that havent been there, its the eastern side of our state. Its incredibly important to us, and were seeing a boom in that area, thanks to things like a great need for boxes for everyone getting all their materials shipped to their house right now, in this small commodity we call toilet paper, there seems to be a run on it going on right now. Cotton, corn, sorghum, beans, so many things that are so important that are behind the scenes that if we lose track of the fact, well just miss it. One of the things that has been in the news lately has been livestock and the processing of those livestock. Its been news about how coronavirus has spread in some of those facilities, and i have one of those facilities in my state. Its a tremendous operation where folks have worked for decades in a tremendous place to be able to harvest those hogs, to be able to turn them into fabulous things like bacon and pork chops. In this location in texas county in guyman weve seen an outbreak in texas count. The folks at seaboard farms stepped up to it. 95 of their workers have been tested and theyre in the process of doing a different test all over again to be able to track and find the people that were negative if theyll show positive the next time but theyre running at 60 operation right now. That may not seem like a big deal to you but thats about over 700 hogs a day not being be harvested. They are being whats euphemistically called depopulated. Thats a tremendous loss to everybody in the entire food chain. Were seeing major issues that are also happening with our beef production. Weve had enormous issues on trying to be able to harvest those animals. As we go through the process and all the challenges, it becomes extremely personal to a lot of folks in my state. In my state, this is not just a theory. In my state this is actually happening to real people. Its jim howard, a fourth generation rancher who rarnlingn jefferson county. His whole family is involved in the operation. They have feed lot operation. Theyve got it all. But at this point theyre facing between 35 and 40 loss in the prices of cattle. Literally he loses money on every single cow. Its robert friedmeyer, a Third Generation wheat and cattle farmer. Using todays wheat prices even with that crop coming in, he will lose 150,000 this year on his wheat crop, not to mention whats going to happen on beef cattle. Theres a reason that were trying to be able to put solutions in the cares act. Theres a reason we put 19 billion there to be able to help our food supply. 3 billion of that has gone towards providing for our food pantries and nonprofits and places to be able to get food out to people so food doesnt go to waste. But there is direct aid going to farmers and ranchers to be able to keep those organses alive keep those organizations alive long term and were grateful to be able to come alongside with them. There are challenges on the packing operations that are not new. They have been around for awhile. And were pushing in a couple of areas to say weve got to solve a couple of these problems. Our small packinghouses that are out there, they pay almost 80 an hour for overtime fees. 80 an hour for each inspector to do overtime seas. If we have a location like seaboard farms that goes down and they want to go to another location to ramp up, theyre financially punished from being able to do that and they cant make the math work. We have to solve that so were not punishing small to medium size operations from being able to ramp up. We have to solve the issue of the c. I. S. Program. 27 states including my own have state inspection programs that equal to the usda program. They have to be equal to it but theyre still not allowed to sell over state lines until they get the c. I. S. Program and only three states have been able to complete that. This should be logical. We should be able to solve this. Those two things would allow longterm fixes for the packinghouse operations, something that weve complained about for a long time. We should solve in this moment because its become even more obvious. The issues about energy continue to rise for us. We as a nation are finally energy independent. Finally. We choose to buy energy from places we want to buy energy because we can produce it ourselves. But we cannot go backwards to a time period when were dependent on the middle east again because of whats happened in covid19. Weve got to be able to Pay Attention to this. There are Commonsense Solutions that i understand full well. There are some folks that dont like fossil fuels. I get it, but those same folks fly on planes and we drive cars and trucks and we like wearing clothes and we like having paint, and all of those things that are disposable now like p. P. E. , guess what theyre made of . Petroleum. This challenge of lets try to get away from petroleum, its been interesting to me to how many people say lets get rid of everything to say lets get disposable now. Those disposable items are made with petroleum products. We can do it clean but weve got to keep this part of the industry open and still functioning. If the whole system collapses we will not be able to do that. Many of you know my state is a production state. We at times will have hundreds of wells for oil and gas that are happening. Right now in the entire state of oklahoma, there are 12 rigs working. 12. Thats the collapse of thousands and thousands of jobs. And if those jobs and those companies go away, that does not recover, and were suddenly dependent on the middle east again. We cannot go there. We have to be able to resolve that. Its why the Paycheck Protection Program was opened up to small businesses, yes, even energy companies, to help sustain them for a couple of months to be able to get through this, but its going to be a very big challenge for them. Quite frankly, something thats news to this body that i want to just be able to raise, in 2007, long before i was in congress, Congress Passed an act dealing with ethanol, mandating a certain number of gallons of ethanol to be used every year. Guess what . America wasnt driving in march and in april. That means were not going to be close to the number of gallons of gasoline that we normally use, but we still have a requirement sitting out there for the number of gallons of ethanol that have to be used this year. We literally have an energy ticking time bomb based on a bad law that was written years ago dealing with ethanol. And if were not careful, were going to cause even bigger challenges in energy based on that law on ethanol and the number of gallons that are required when there is literally no way even if we poured it on the ground, we can use the gallons required in that law. Thats going to be an issue for us. And its one that we need to be able to work cooperatively and in a nonpartisan way to be able to say lets have some common sense in this moment to be able to solve how we deal with our energy. Less the prices of gasoline explode at the backside of this, not because of undersupply, but because of ethanol regulations. We should not allow that to be able to occur. And we should be able to not only solve that for this year, but solve it long term. Im grateful for the folks that are farmers and ranchers and work in the energy, folks that work behind the scenes that make america move because in the days ahead well start moving. As my state has already reached phase two of reopening, and we continue to see a decline in the number of cases, but those folks that were working behind the scenes the whole time are making the dif duly noted. Mrs. Blackburn thank you, mr. President. Last week i received the very sad news that the fifth special forces group, which is stationed