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Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, while we are waiting, I understand, for one of our colleagues to come and do a live UC, I just want to echo my colleague Senator Blackburn's thanks to all of our friends and colleagues in this body for their support.

We have reached 70 cosponsors, and I anticipate with gratitude an overwhelming bipartisan majority in favor of this bill. I want to thank in particular Senator Schumer, who has provided leadership on this bill that I think is going to be long remembered. Certainly, it will be remembered by the parents and children who have driven advocacy for this measure. They may be in the gallery now. I don't know for sure. But I think on behalf of all of us, we owe them a great debt of thanks.

And, again, this bill addresses a long-standing problem for this Nation. We can no longer rely on the promises of Big Tech. We can no longer take at face value the promises of ``trust me.'' ``We will take care of it.'' We are giving choices, and we are empowering young people and their parents, providing safeguards, tools to disconnect from the blackbox algorithms, more transparency for those algorithms, and a duty of care and accountability for social media--for the first time, a real duty of care and accountability for them so they have to prevent harms that are destroying lives, literally destroying lives. And I think we are on the road, and we are going to keep pursuing this measure as long and hard as it takes to impose that accountability on Big Tech.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. 2073 with amendment No. 3021; further, that if cloture is not invoked on the Neumann nomination, the vote on the motion to concur in the House amendment to S. 2073 with amendment No. 3021 occur at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday, July 30.

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