Bottom of it so we can assure that it never ever happens again. Madam president , i yield the floor. In a few minutes this senate will vote on a nomination for john hile, serving as a District Court judge for oklahoma. We have three areas, northern district, eastern districts, western districts in oklahoma and this judge covers all three of those and moves to wherever there is the greatest need and we are in great need. This is a position weve needed for a while and im proud that john has gone through this process. He was overwhelmingly confirmed in his nomination process through committee. I expect him to have wide bipartisan support when he passes this floor in a few moments and forward to him transitioning from 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 looking forward to that vote being completed. In the days ahead, we will celebrate Decoration Day. The Decoration Day was first declared locally in 1866 after the civil where. War. It was remembering those in battle and decorating the graves and remember 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 Tech SergeantMarshall 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 was 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, and the state of oklahoma. Its not just a day about sleeping in and sales on dishwashers and cars. It will evoke the memory of Tech SergeantMarshall Roberts and the 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. In this time, its interesting to note that 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, Grocery Store workers, theyre trucking. Folks at Convenience Stores and gas stations, sanitation workers and power generation. Theyre farmers and ranchers, theyre refineries, yes, 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 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 of different groups that are unique in this mix. Some of the folks that are really truly behind the scenes that we really dont see a lot, but we see the end results of their products. We start with farmers and ranchers. There are folks on farm and ranch and taking care of our food because as we know well, food does not grow in the Grocery Store. It actually has to happen somewhere by folks putting in 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. Wheat is coming in in oklahoma. Green still, but in the days ahead it will be important to us. It will be interesting 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 h2b excuse me, h2a workers that come in literally from all over the world and do custom cutting are not able to come in 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 and bring the harvest down. Folks that are forestry, forestry and logging is a crop in oklahoma for those of you all 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 of their materials shipped to their house right now in this small commodity called toilet paper that seems to be a run on it now. Cotton, corn, soregum, beans, 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. Theres been news about how coronavirus has spread in some of those facilities and i have one of those facilities in my state, seaboard, 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 geiman, weve seen an outbreak in texas county. Now, the folks at seaboard farms 95 have been tested and theyre doing an entirely different test all over to track and find the people that were negative if theyll show positive the next time to be able to make sure theyre on top of it, but running at 60 operation right now and that may not seem like a big deal to you. Thats about 7,000 hogs a day that are not being harvested. Theyre having to be what is 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. As weve had enormous issues on trying to be able to harvest those animals. As we go through the process and the challenges its become extremely personal to a lot of the 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, had a fourth generation rancher who ranches in jefferson county. His whole family, his brother, his wife, his grandson, sons in law, everyone is involved in the operation. Theyre ranch and stockers have feed lot operations, theyve got it all. At this point theyre facing between 35 and 40 loss in the prices of cattle. Literally, he loses money on every single cow. Trevor frymeyer from custer county. And even with the wheat prices crop coming in, hell lose 150,000 on his wheat crop not to mention whats going to happen on beef cattle. Theres a reason were trying to put a solution in the cares act, 19 billion to help the food supply. 3 billion has gone for providing for our food pantries and nonprofits and places to be able to get food out to people so that food doesnt go to waste, but there is direct aid thats going to farmers and ranchers to be able to make sure that we keep those operations alive longterm because we need them to exist at the end of this and were grateful to come alongside them. There are challenges on the packing operations that are not new. Theyve been around for a while and were pushing in a couple areas to say, weve got to solve a couple of the problems. Our small packing houses that are out there. They pay almost 80 an hour for overtime fees, 80 an hour for each inspector to be able to do overtime fees. So if weve got a location like seaboard farms, if they want to go to another location and ramp up. Theyre financially punished to be able to do that. They cant make the math work. We have to solve that so were not punishing small to medium sized operations to ramp up in times when we need them and ramp up and grow larger and we have to go to the cis program, allowing them to sell over state lines. States like my own, have programs equal to the usda programs, have to be equal to it, but theyre not allowed to sell over state lines until they get the cis done, and only three states have completed that. We should be able to solve. Those two things would allow longterm fixes for the packing house operations. Something that weve complained a lot about, we should solve them because its become more obvious. The issues about energy continue to rise for us. We as a nation are finally energy independent, finally. But 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 with covid19. Weve got to Pay Attention to this. There are Common Sense Solutions i understand full well and some folks dont like fossil fuels. I get it. But the same folks fly on planes and driving cars and trucks, and like buying clothes and paint. And the disposal things like ppe, guess what theyre made of . Petroleum. And trying to get away from petroleum, and gone from say, lets reuse everything, to now, lets dispose of everything. The disposables are made from petroleum products. Weve got to be clean. Weve got to keep this part of energy open and if the system collaps collapses, we will not be able to do that. Many of you know my state as a production state. We at times will have hundreds of wells for oil and gas happening. Right now in the entire state of oake, there are 12 rigs working. 12. Thats the collapse of thousands and thousands of jo 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. Thats 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 and quite frankly, something thats news to this body that i just want to 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. Well, 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 written years ago dealing with ethanol. And if were not careful, were going to cause even bigger challenges in energy based on that law and 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 at that we need to be able to work cooperatively and nonpartisan way, lets have some common sense and solve how we deal with our energy, les schslest the gasoline prices explode on the other side of this, not because of supply, but because of ethanol regulations. We should not allow that to occur, we should solve it not only for this year, but longterm. Im grateful for the farmers and ranchers and those who work behind the scenes that make america moves. And my state has reached stage two of opening and we see the decline of cases, but the folks working behind the scenes the whole time are making the difference for us. Mr. President , this Week Congress submitted to the president the bipartisan Congressional Review Act resolution that overturned education secretary betsy devos borrower defense rule, the rule she came up with the department of education for student loan borrowers, including many, many veterans defrauded by their schools, these are usually forprofit schools to have their federal student debt discharged because