I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for comments on behalf of my friend from North Dakota. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection.

I rise today to speak on behalf of Senator Heitkamp and to thank her for her service on behalf of the people of North Dakota, as well as the people of this great Nation. We have served together for the past 6 years, not only in the Senate…

America benefits every day from our farmers and ranchers, with the highest-quality, lowest-cost food supply in the world.

I am a true believer in all-of-the-above energy development.

I would ask for your commitment to help us in that effort and also ask a little bit about how you might approach it?

baseload is crucially, vitally important to this country. It really is a national security issue.

It is critical that we support the sovereignty of tribal nations.

I want to thank Chairman Lamborn, Chairman Bishop, and the ranking member for their cooperation and for helping me move this important legislation that was sponsored, as Chairman Lamborn said, by Senator Hoeven, and for working on my…

It strikes me that those two bills show the incredible diversity we have in Indian Country, right?

I find some regret that you have to come here, given the fact that you are all sovereign and that you have the ability to run your own business.

We need to work together to address the challenges facing our tribes.

If we cannot protect people, we are not doing our job.

This bill would right that wrong.

We need advocacy within the Department of the Interior, within OMB. We need advocacy to actually correct these problems.

The time has long passed since we have taken up this issue.

We can't keep doing what we are doing and getting a better result. It is just not going to work.

the primary responsibility of any sovereign is to provide for the safety of its people.

We all agree that the worst thing for these families is to migrate north. It is a dangerous journey.