[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 37 (Thursday, March 14, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1829-S1837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND
FULL-YEAR CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2013
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 933.
The clerk will report the bill.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 933) to make appropriations for the Department
of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other
departments and agencies for the fiscal year ending September
30, 2013, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Reid (for Mikulski-Shelby) modified amendment No. 26, in
the nature of a substitute.
Harkin-Cardin amendment No. 53 (to amendment No. 26), of a
perfecting nature.
Inhofe amendment No. 29 (to amendment No. 26), to prohibit
the expenditure of Federal funds to enforce the spill
prevention, control, and countermeasure rule of the
Environmental Protection Agency against farmers.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland is
recognized.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I have a unanimous consent request
that I understand has been cleared on both sides of the aisle.
I ask unanimous consent that it now be in order for Senator Coburn to
call up his amendment numbered 66; that there be 60 minutes equally
divided in the usual form for debate on the Harkin and Coburn
amendments to run concurrently; and that upon the use or yielding back
of time, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Harkin and
Coburn amendments in the order offered; that there be no amendments in
order to either amendment prior to the votes; and both amendments to be
subject to a 60-affirmative-vote threshold.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? Without
objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I note that the Senator from Oklahoma
is on the floor.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Amendment No. 66 to Amendment No. 26
Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask that the pending amendment be set
aside and amendment No. 66 be called up.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the
amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn], for himself and Mr.
McCain, proposes an amendment numbered 66.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To temporarily freeze the hiring of nonessential Federal
employees)
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. __. FREEZE ON HIRING OF NONESSENTIAL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES.
(a) In General.--Except as provided in subsection (b), none
of the funds made available under division A, B, C, D, E, or
F of this Act may be used by any Executive agency (as defined
under section 105 of title 5, United States Code, except that
such term shall not include the Government Accountability
Office) to hire any new employee.
(b) Exception.--Subsection (a) shall not apply to the
hiring of an excepted employee or an employee performing
emergency work, as such terms are defined by the Office of
Personnel Management.
Mr. COBURN. Madam President, this is a fairly straightforward
amendment. It actually follows the guidelines of the recommendations of
the Office of Management and Budget. The administration claims that
during this sequestration period we will have to furlough essential
workers, which will negatively impact the daily lives of the American
people.
Despite dire warnings to cut TSA agents--by the way, Director Pistole
thinks they will be just fine, which is totally opposite of what the
rest of the administration has said. Air traffic controllers, food
inspectors, and thousands of new Federal jobs have been posted since
the sequester went into effect.
Let me spend a minute on this issue. Since the sequester has been in
effect, the Department of Treasury is looking to hire a leadership
development specialist with a salary of $182,000. The FDA advertised
for a social media management service to streamline management of
multiple social media platforms. There are 23 openings on the Federal
jobs list for recreation, which includes: recreation aide, recreation
specialist, and recreation assistant. The Air Force is looking to hire
several full-time painters. There is a search to pay $165,000 for a
director of history and museum policies and programs.
The list continues: The Department of Treasury is currently
advertising for an outreach manager. The Department of Labor is looking
for a staff assistant at $81,000 a year to answer the phone. There is a
search for a policy coordinator for the Department of Health and Human
Services to attend and facilitate meetings at $81,000 a year. There is
an opening for a director for the Air Force history and museums
policies and programs at $165,000 a year. There is another opening for
an analyst for the Legislative Affairs Office at the Marine Corps for
$90,000 a year. The Department of Agriculture is looking for a director
of the government employee services at a range of $179,000 a year.
There is an opening for counsel for the Morris K. Udall Scholarship
Foundation at $155,000 a year, an opening for an executive assistant at
the Department of Agriculture Forest Service to prepare itineraries for
travel plans, an opening for an executive staff officer for the Air
Force to represent the director of staff at meetings to write draft
reports and memos at $93,000.
These are all nonpriority hirings at a time when we are in sequester.
What this amendment would do is simply implement OMB's guidance and
freeze hiring for nonessential Federal positions during sequestration
but still allow hiring of employees defined by the Office of Personnel
Management as exempted or emergency personnel.
If this amendment does not freeze hiring of exempted or emergency
employees as defined by OPM--and we all know what that means--there is
also an exemption in here that gives agencies the flexibility to know
which positions are critical to performing duties and allows their
progression.
Right now the agencies are not following OMB's guidance. We hear
about possible furloughs, but a good portion
[[Page S1830]]
of those furloughs would never be necessary if, in fact, the agencies
would follow OMB's guidance. The government is seeking to hire travel
specialists, recreation aides, public affairs specialists, outreach
managers, librarians, historians, administrative assistants, and many
other nonessential positions.
The Department of Health and Human Services has posted a job opening
for a travel specialist with a salary of $97,000 a year, and the job is
to obtain domestic and international travel for HHS officials. It is
not essential to their overall mission and actually facilitates more
travel, which is one of the things also recommended by OMB in their
guidance that they are not to do.
All we are saying is follow the OMB guidance in freezing nonessential
new hiring and we could prevent furloughs to the government workers
carrying out essential services and mission-critical duties today.
I have no question that some of these positions can be helpful to the
agency which they have advertised for, but they are not necessary at
this time until we get past this pothole in the road. Canceling job
openings at the FAA of two community planners and four management
program assistants would spare 1,000 air traffic controllers from
furlough. Let me say that again. Just canceling and not hiring these
four people at FAA could affect 1,000 Federal employees. Canceling just
one job opening for a librarian at the Department of Agriculture could
offset one furlough a day for as many as 750 entry-level workers at the
Department of Agriculture.
What we are asking is simply for the agencies to follow the guidance
that has already been out there, and we would mandate that as part of
this continuing resolution omnibus appropriations bill.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schatz). The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Coburn
amendment. I am not going to go into the process of wanting to keep the
bill as free of amendments as possible which has been something the
House has requested us to do. This is the continuing resolution. It is
not the authorization legislation and so on. We have to get this funded
for the rest of the fiscal year 2013.
I wish to comment about the Senator from Oklahoma in that he is often
on to something very good. Sometimes we are so worried about clinging
to party positions we don't listen to one another. He has been a big
help to me on my Commerce-Justice-Science bill, where we uncovered just
ridiculous catering situations, and we had a very good amendment one
time that addressed an agency paying $4 for each meatball at some
reception. I mean, truly folly, truly stupidity. So at this time,
whether it is big government or small government but smart government,
we do have to have a sense of frugality.
However, I will come back to this: The Coburn amendment would propose
a hiring freeze on all Federal employees except those deemed essential.
In late February, OMB issued guidance instructing agencies to apply
increased scrutiny to areas such as new hiring and to ensure that such
actions were taken only when vital to carrying out the agency's mission
as a result of the uncertainty in terms of agencies facing a possible
government shutdown on March 27 and the Draconian sword of sequester
that is already underway. The Coburn amendment would force agencies to
rely on contracting out functions the Federal Government should be
handling or that are more expensive to outsource simply because they
are not allowed to hire necessary staff.
We can debate essentials, but we are not going to do that this
morning. What is an essential Federal employee? I have close to 300
people working as Federal prison guards in Garrett County this morning.
They have increasingly violent prisons. We are increasingly overcrowded
because of the skimpy funding that even I and the Justice Department
have to put into the prisons. We had a prison guard killed just a few
weeks ago in our neighboring State of Pennsylvania.
In any organization, whether it is a Federal agency or Microsoft,
there might be a position we don't want or need or when we hear about
it, it seems to have no value. Let's take the travel specialist. I am
not standing here with a manual of all the civil service jobs, but here
is what I think a travel specialist does.
The Department of HHS has to travel, whether it is the CDC, whether
it is NIH. They are involved with other agencies in other parts of the
country and they are involved with counterparts in other parts of the
world. They have to get the best deal when they travel. How many of us,
when we have tried to book an airline--booking an airline is similar to
commodity trading; one day it is this, one minute it is that if I call
Delta. Maybe American is going the way I want to go, but they only land
at 7:17, when I have to be there at 12:14. So it is akin to being a
commodity trader. Should Sebelius be doing that on her own? I don't
think so. Should the head of CDC be doing that? No. They need a travel
specialist who knows how to work it and maybe, in the long run, provide
safe travel.
I support the direction the Senator is going in. He told me something
I didn't know about, where some of these VA international conferences
take over 50 people, for which I don't know what more than 50 people
would do. So he is on the right track with many things. I think we have
to be very careful when we are dealing with the entire civil service--
millions of people, 2 million people who work for the Federal
Government--and put a freeze on them. Some Federal agencies have had a
hiring freeze for some time. The Department of Defense is already under
a civilian hiring freeze.
It is important to recognize a hiring freeze would only have limited
savings. A hiring freeze does not solve these problems, and it is just
one more blow to a battered civil service. Remember, we have had civil
service pay freezes in effect. So we have now frozen their pay for
several years. They are facing increased costs in their pension program
and now they are going to face furlough, and then we are going to tell
them we don't think a lot of you are essential.
I come back to what I said a few days ago. If we are going to have a
democratic government, we need to have an independent civil service. We
might not always like what they do. We might not like every position
that is in an agency. We need a civil service that goes beyond party,
goes beyond the administration, and performs their jobs based on
educational qualification and a skill set, and one that is meritocracy
based. We then can focus on making sure we have the best civil service
in the world so we can point to what a real civil service is; thereby,
encouraging new, emerging democracies to be able to follow our lead.
I hope we do not accept the Coburn amendment. I hope if we are going
to talk about the size of the government, we should do that next week
on the budget bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. First of all, I am so excited with the chairman and
ranking member of the Appropriations Committee. I have to say, since I
have been in the Senate, I have found these two individuals more than
capable to work with and more than willing to work with me and I wish
to congratulate them on bringing their bill to the floor.
I have to very adamantly disagree because I think the chairman of the
committee has missed my point. Every American family over the last 5
years has been making tough decisions about priorities. By not hiring
some of what most Americans--a wall can get painted 6 months later. It
doesn't have to be painted today. As a matter of fact, if we go over to
all the Senate and House office buildings, we see the Architect of the
Capitol repainting all the walls, with wet signs out there, while we
can't let the visitors into our buildings. There is something wrong
with us in the way we are managing. We are painting walls that don't
have to be painted at the same time we make citizens wait in line for
an hour and a half to get into our buildings.
It is about priorities. The fact is, if we don't fill some of these
superfluous positions that are not absolutely necessary right now, many
Federal employees will not get furloughed. That is the point I am
making. I can't believe
[[Page S1831]]
we have to have a research librarian right now at the Air Force at a
time when we don't have the money to put our pilots in the air to keep
them trained.
So we are not talking about essential employees. By the way,
essential and excepted employees are prison guards. Not one of them
will be furloughed. So if we care about Federal employees, we do not
want to spend money on positions that are truly not necessary right
now, given the priorities, so the rest of the Federal workforce can be
there.
Let me go back through this list again. Is it important to hire a
lawyer for the Morris K. Udall Scholarship Foundation at a salary of
$155,000 right now? Is that important? How many people in the Federal
Government would that keep from being furloughed and the services
continue if we don't fill that position? How about an executive
assistant to the Department of Agriculture Forest Service to prepare
itineraries and briefing and information material packages at $57,000.
What we don't get is all the rest of America is doing this already
and now the OMB has recommended we do it and the agencies will not do
it. We ought to tell them to do it for the benefit of the Federal
employees who are working for us right now because they are the ones
who are going to get furloughed. By not hiring these absolutely--I
don't doubt they are positions we can use and are effective in many
areas, but they are not a priority right now. I would think the
priority right now would be having the people we have employed working.
How about a leadership development specialist at Treasury; is that
really a priority right now, at $182,000 a year? That is a priority,
while laying off IRS employees so people get their refund back? Tell me
which one is more important. I would think the American taxpayers would
rather get an answer than a busy signal when they call the IRS versus
us hiring a leadership development specialist. There are 23 openings
related to recreation at the FDA right now--for recreation. Is that
truly a priority for us right now?
We have a 60-vote limit on this. I am fine with a 60-vote threshold.
But America is going to vote 80 percent or 90 percent with what I am
recommending. We have a 60-vote threshold so we can make sure it
doesn't happen, so we don't apply priorities, so we don't apply common
sense, and everybody knows that if this was at a 50-vote margin, it
would fly through here. The reason it is 60 is so we can protect people
politically and not do the best right thing for America.
This bill is going to go through here. We are going to pass it. The
government isn't going to be shut down. We are going to conference it
and get it worked out. Senator Shelby and Senator Mikulski will get
that job done. We have absolute confidence in them.
This isn't a deal killer; this is common sense. This is what every
business, every family in America is doing right now. They don't spend
money they don't have on things that aren't absolutely necessary, and
that is all this amendment does.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. COBURN. I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to
speak for up to 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the first amendment vote today will be on
the amendment I laid down yesterday on the Labor-HHS part of this so-
called continuing resolution.
As I pointed out yesterday, the amount of money I am dealing with in
my amendment is exactly what is in the CR. There is no additional money
in there, but you need to understand whoever negotiated this package
kept Labor-HHS, NIH, and others in a CR rather than in a bill form.
Interestingly enough, in the package before us Defense receives a
full-length appropriations bill, as well as Homeland Security,
Agriculture, Military Construction, Commerce-Justice-Science. They
receive a full appropriations bill but not Labor, Health and Human
Services, Education and Related Agencies. Interesting.
The one bill which speaks to educating our young, ensuring working
families have adequate childcare protection, increasing our medical
research to NIH, protecting food safety and drug safety through the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--this must be on autopilot
from last year and the year before. Therefore, my amendment costs
exactly what is in the underlying CR.
What is in this amendment was agreed upon by the House Democrats and
House Republicans, Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats in our
negotiations last December in the Appropriations Committee.
There is a lot of talk about being bipartisan around here. We engaged
in bipartisan negotiations last fall. It took us months, and we reached
an agreement in December. That is bipartisan work. My amendment mirrors
exactly what that agreement was. I am told now all Republicans are
going to vote no. Why? Why, I ask?
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act under the CR contains
no increase. Under my amendment, there would be a $125 million
increase.
Title I for poor kids in school has a $107 million increase in my
amendment and no increase in the underlying bill.
NIH in the underlying bill contains a $71 million increase and under
my amendment a $211 million increase.
Childcare in the underlying bill is $50 million and my amendment is
$107 million.
AIDS drugs, there is no increase in the underlying bill but a $29
million increase in my amendment.
These are things we hammered out through tough negotiations last
December.
I know the Senator from Alabama has said there were some open items
we didn't include. No, of course I didn't include open items, because
they weren't agreed to. What I have in my amendment is what we agreed
to, with one exception. As I said yesterday, there is no additional
funding for health care reform, which Republicans are objecting to. It
is not in my amendment, and still they are objecting.
Republicans say this amendment will kill the whole package. I must
ask why funding these and keeping within the same dollar level as in
the underlying bill kills the bill?
Chairman Rogers, a Republican on the House side, helped negotiate
these numbers last December. I hear a lot of talk on both sides of the
aisle about how much they support NIH, how much they support biomedical
research. I say to my Republican friends, here is the time to prove it,
$211 million versus $71 million. There is no increase in my amendment
of the underlying bill at all. Because we did a bill rather than a CR,
we may move numbers around a little bit.
I want to know, where are the champions of NIH? Where are they? This
is the chance to vote on it and not increase spending one single dime.
I would point out a number of medical groups and research groups have
endorsed this amendment: the American Cancer Society, the American
Dental Association, the American Diabetes Association, the American
Heart Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, BIO,
Parkinson's Action Network, and more. Almost 300 patient advocacy
groups and scientific societies support this amendment.
I ask unanimous consent a list of these groups be printed in the
Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Groups Supporting Harkin Amendment
Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research Funding, AIDS Institute,
AIDS United, American Association of Community Colleges,
American Association of School Administrators, American
Cancer Society, American Dental Association, American
Diabetes Association, American Federation of Government
Employees, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers
American Heart Association.
Association of American Medical Colleges, Association of
Assistive Technology Act Programs, Association of Community
College Trustees, Association of Farmworker Opportunity
Programs, BIO, Center for Law and
[[Page S1832]]
Social Policy, Child Care Aware of America, Coalition on
Human Needs, College Board, Committee for Education Funding,
Community Action Partnership, Council for Adult and
Experiential Learning, Council for Advancement of Adult
Literacy.
Corporate Voices for Working Families, Corporation for a
Skilled Workforce, Council for Exceptional Children, Council
for Opportunity in Education (TRIO), Council of Chief State
School Officers, Council of the Great City Schools, Early
Care and Education Consortium, First Five Years Fund, Friends
of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
(FNIDCR), Great City Schools, Insight Center for Community
Economic Development, Jobs for the Future, National
Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC).
National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS),
National Association of State Alcohol & Drug Abuse Directors,
National Association for the Education of Young Children,
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, National
Coalition for Literacy, National College Transition Network
at World Education, Inc., National Council for Workforce
Education, National Education Association, National Head
Start Association, National League of Cities, National
Network to End Domestic Violence, National PTA.
National School Boards Association, National Skills
Coalition, National Title I Association, National Transitions
of Care Coalition, National Women's Law Center, Ovarian
Cancer National Alliance, Parkinson's Action Network, PACER
Center (Minnesota), Sargent Shriver National Center on
Poverty Law, Teach for America, The Corps Network, Trust for
America's Health, Wider Opportunities for Women, Zero to
Three.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, again I say why would this amendment kill
the bill? It was agreed to by the distinguished chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee, Chairman Rogers, last December. This is what
we agreed to. Why is it the one bill in Appropriations which speaks to
the human needs of our country, the educational needs of our kids, the
scientific and research needs we need for addressing some of our
chronic illnesses in this country--why is this bill singled out? Why is
it singled out to not have a full-standing bill but must be in the
continuing resolution at the same level on autopilot as last year? I
submit we can make these decisions. We can decide we are going to do
these kinds of increases, keeping within the same dollar level as we
have in the underlying bill.
I don't believe this will kill the bill. I believe those who don't
want these increases, who don't want to see an increase in NIH will
hold us up and say, yes, it will kill the bill. This is an idle threat.
That is what it is, simply an idle threat. This is the third year now
where they have put these programs on autopilot.
I daresay if we don't do this, this will be the last, we have seen
the last of the Labor-HHS appropriations bills ever passed in this body
or the other body for many years into the future. We will still be on
autopilot. Now is the time to step up, break that trend of putting us
on autopilot every year. Now is the time for us to make these
decisions. I hope the champions of NIH, who say they are champions of
NIH, will step up and support this amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on
agreeing to amendment No. 53 offered by the Senator from Iowa, Mr.
Harkin.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr.
Lautenberg) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 54, nays 45, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 36 Leg.]
YEAS--54
Baldwin
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coons
Cowan
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--45
Alexander
Ayotte
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Fischer
Flake
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
Kirk
Lee
McCain
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NOT VOTING--1
Lautenberg
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). Under the previous order
requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is
rejected.
Vote on Amendment No. 66
Under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment No. 66,
offered by the Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Coburn.
Mr. COBURN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr.
Lautenberg) is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 45, nays 54, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 37 Leg.]
YEAS--45
Alexander
Ayotte
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Enzi
Fischer
Flake
Graham
Grassley
Hagan
Hatch
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
Kirk
Lee
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Moran
Paul
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Scott
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NAYS--54
Baldwin
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Boxer
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Coons
Cowan
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Harkin
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--1
Lautenberg
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order requiring 60 votes
for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is rejected.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. LEAHY. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up
to 2 minutes. After my remarks, I ask that the senior Senator from
Arizona be recognized.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask that I be recognized when the
senior Senator from Arizona has finished his remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the modified request?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I don't yet want to call up my
amendment--I have been working with Chairman Mikulski on this--until
they get an agreement. However, I will discuss for a moment amendment
No. 83, which I am cosponsoring with Senator Isakson of Georgia. It
does help us restore what Senator Mikulski has been working toward,
which is regular order in this Chamber.
This is an amendment having to do with some language dealing with a
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pilot project with customs and privatization that Senator Landrieu has
supported. I have spoken to Senator Landrieu about this issue, and we
need to talk through some other things. If we are going to do regular
order the way we need to, this language should come in front of the
Finance Committee to work out these issues, where Senator Isakson and I
sit. I think we should not succumb to the temptation to legislate
through appropriations, and this would be one way of doing that.
Later I will ask my colleagues to support amendment No. 83, sponsored
by me and Senator Isakson. I appreciate the forbearance of Senator
McCain.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. BROWN. I yield the floor.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I thank the chairwoman, Senator
Mikulski, for allowing me to speak as if in morning business.
Syria
On March 15, 2011, thousands of Syrian men, women, and children in
the city of Deraa gathered together in a public square that is known
today as Dignity Square. They came together to peacefully protest
against the Syrian regime's decision to arrest and torture a group of
15 teenagers whose crime had been exercising their universally
recognized rights to free speech. Their crime was speaking truth to
those in power in Syria. They sketched on the wall of their school a
statement that remains true in Syria today: ``The people want the
regime to fall.''
Since these peaceful calls for change were first heard in Syria 2
years ago, more than 70,000 men, women, and children have been
massacred by the Assad regime. More than 1 million refugees have fled
their country at a rate of 8,000 people each day as of last month, and
2.5 million people have been displaced within their country. Only the
genocide in Rwanda and the first Iraq war have driven more people to
refugee status over a similar period of time.
These facts and figures are startling. Behind each statistic is a
profound human tragedy to which we cannot grow numb as the conflict in
Syria presses on into a third year. I certainly cannot.
Last April Senator Joe Lieberman and I visited a Syrian refugee camp
in southern Turkey, and earlier this year I traveled together with
Senators Whitehouse, Ayotte, Blumenthal, and Coons to the Zaatari
refugee camp in Jordan. I have seen my share of suffering and death,
but the horror I saw in those camps and the stories I heard still haunt
me today. There were men who had lost all their children, women and
girls who had been gang-raped, children who had been tortured, and none
of these were the random acts of cruelty that sadly occur in war.
Syrian Army defectors told us that killing, raping, and torture was
what they were instructed to do as a tactic of terror and intimidation.
So if I get a little emotional when I talk about Syria, that is why.
The cost--both strategic and humanitarian--of this conflict has been
and will continue to be devastating. Earlier this week UNICEF released
a report detailing the impact of Syria's 2-year conflict on the
children of Syria. The report states:
In Syria, children have been exposed to grave human rights
violations, including killing and maiming, sexual violence,
torture, arbitrary detention, recruitment and use by armed
forces and groups, and exposure to explosive remnants of war.
. . . As millions of children inside Syria and across the
region witness their past and their future disappear amidst
the rubble and destruction of this prolonged conflict, the
risk of them becoming a lost generation grows every day.
The conflict in Syria is breeding a lost generation--a whole new
generation of extremists. Earlier this year I met a Syrian teacher in
the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan who told me that the generation of
young Syrians growing up in these camps and inside Syria will take
revenge on those who did nothing to help them in their hour of greatest
need. We should be ashamed of our collective failure to come to the aid
of the Syrian people. But more than that, we should be deeply
concerned. As much as I want to disagree with that Syrian teacher, I am
haunted by the belief that she is exactly right.
As the conflict of Syria enters its third year, we cannot lose sight
of the clear trend toward escalation both in the nature and quality of
the killing. In recent months the use of SCUD missiles against
civilians fits into a pattern of forced escalation by the Assad regime
over the past year.
In January 2012 the regime began to use artillery as Syrian
opposition forces became more capable against regime ground forces. In
June 2012 Assad escalated his use of air power because the rebels were
gaining control of the countryside. Today the regime is intensifying
its air campaign by firing SCUD missiles at civilian populations, which
is taking a deadly toll, particularly in the north where thousands of
civilians have been killed over the past several weeks.
The regime's escalation to Scud missiles--which can be used as
delivery vehicles for chemical weapons--should be alarming to us all.
According to a recent report from the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, Scud missiles can deliver a 1,000-pound, high-explosive
warhead or a chemical agent and, as the report states:
The rebels have no means of knowing when the missiles have
been fired, where they are going, or what kinds of warheads
are on board. In fact, even with good intelligence
collection, there is no reliable way to know which Scuds have
been uploaded with chemical warheads.
Let there be no doubt that the threat of chemical weapons is real. I
note this morning's headline from the Associated Press: ``Israel's
Military Intelligence Chief says Syria's Assad readying to use chemical
weapons.''
I ask unanimous consent that this article from the Washington Post be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Israel's Military Intelligence Chief says Syria's Assad Readying to Use
Chemical Weapons
(By Associated Press)
[From the Washington Post, Mar. 14, 2013]
Jerusalem.--Israel's military intelligence chief says
Syria's embattled president, Bashar Assad, is preparing to
use chemical weapons.
Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi told a security conference in the
coastal town of Herzliya that Assad is stepping up his
offensive against rebels trying to oust him.
Kochavi claims Assad is making advanced preparations to use
chemical weapons, but has not yet given the order to deploy
them.
He did not disclose information about why he thinks Assad
is preparing to use them.
Israel has long expressed concerns that Assad's stockpile
of chemical weapons could end up in the hands of groups
hostile to Israel like Hezbollah or al-Qaida inspired
organizations.
Israel has kept out of Syria's civil war, but it is
concerned that violence could spill over the border into
northern Israel.
Mr. McCAIN. This is a dangerous and unfair fight, and the costs to
the United States are significant. Russia and Iran are Assad's
lifelines in this brutal fight. Iran continues to use Iraqi airspace to
fly fighters and large quantities of weapons to Syria to help Assad
with the killing. As many as 50,000 Syrians, militiamen, in Syria are
being supported by Tehran and Hezbollah, according to a Washington Post
report. Meanwhile, Russia continues to ship heavy weapons to Assad--
including, as senior Obama administration officials have stated, the
very helicopter gunships the regime is currently using to bomb and
shatter civilians.
As the United States and the international community stand idle, the
consequences are clear. Syria will become a failed State in the heart
of the Middle East, threatening both our ally Israel and our NATO ally
Turkey. With or without Assad, the country will continue to devolve
into a full-scale civil war that is increasingly sectarian, repressive,
and unstable. In the meantime, more and more ungoverned space will come
under the control of al-Qaida and its allies. Violence and radicalism
will spill even more into Lebanon and Iraq, fueling sectarian conflicts
that are still burning in both countries. Syria will turn into a
battlefield between Sunni and Shia extremists, each backed by foreign
powers which will ignite sectarian tensions from North America to the
gulf and risk a wider regional conflict. This is the course we are on
in Syria, and in the absence of international action, the situation
will only get worse.
Although Secretary Kerry and other administration officials have said
our goal in Syria is to ``change Assad's calculus'' and make room for a
negotiated transition, the truth is, in the absence
[[Page S1834]]
of a shift in the balance of military power on the ground, that is a
hopeless goal. What the administration does not seem to realize is what
President Bill Clinton came to understand in Bosnia--that a diplomatic
resolution in conflict such as this is not possible until the military
balance of power changes on the ground. As long as a murderous
dictator, be it Slobodan Milosevic or Bashar al-Assad, believes he is
winning on the battlefield, he has no incentive to stop fighting and
negotiate.
Our European powers--led by the French and British--seem to
understand this clearly, which is why they are urgently working to
persuade their allies to lift an embargo to supply arms to the Syrian
opposition. They understand that only a change in military power will
bring this conflict to an end.
The same is true for the regime's foreign supporters. Despite
destroying Russia's reputation in the Arab world, the Russian
Government has stuck with Assad for nearly 2 years now. What makes us
think President Putin is about to change course now, when Assad is
still a dominant power on the ground?
The Syrian opposition needs our help to change the balance of power
on the ground. I have had the honor of meeting one of the key leaders
of the Syrian opposition led by a man named Sheikh al-Khatib, the
President of the Syrian National Coalition. Sheikh al-Khatib and the
national coalition are doing everything the international community
asks of them. They have worked to bring together credible moderate
members of the Syrian opposition. They are building institutions, both
civilian and military.
While the United States and our partners deserve credit in helping
and pushing them to do so, when the opposition coalition asks
responsible nations for support--when they ask us to help them in
coordinating the distribution of aid, governing the liberated areas,
and ultimately forming a transitional government--when they have asked
us for this assistance, what have we done for them? Next to nothing.
Sheikh al-Khatib and the other moderate leaders of the Syrian
opposition are struggling desperately to be relevant to their fellow
citizens who are fighting and dying every day inside the country. I
believe most Syrians do not support al-Qaida. But many of us in the
West are still mired in our own internal debates about whether to
provide nonlethal assistance or whether to continue to provide
assistance through international NGOs--many of which, I would add,
still function with the permission of the Assad regime and deliver most
of their aid in Damascus--the fight in Syria is being won by
extremists.
Al-Qaida fighters are showing up in greater numbers in the liberated
areas of Syria with capable fighters and food and medicine and other
aid. Is it any wonder, then, that extremists are gaining ground in
Syria?
It is this simple: What is left of the moderate Syrian opposition is
in a race against time to survive the radicalization of this conflict
and, right now, the world is failing them. The longer we fail them, the
worse the outcome will be for us all.
The time to act is long overdue, but it is not too late. I know many
wish to avoid this reality by telling themselves and others there is
nothing we can do in Syria, that our only options are to let the
Syrians fight it out alone to the bitter end or to launch a massive and
costly military intervention. But the truth is there are many options
that we have the capability to undertake that would save lives and
protect our important strategic interests in Syria.
First, the fact that the opposition in Syria is doing better
militarily thanks to external support seems to validate what many of us
have been arguing for months; that opposition forces have enough
organization to be supportable and that our support can help them to
further improve their organization and command and control. This is an
argument for doing more, not less, to aid the rebel fighters in Syria,
including providing responsible members of the armed opposition who
share our goals and our values with the arms they need to succeed.
In a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, I
asked Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey whether they agreed with a proposal
reportedly developed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
former CIA Director David Petraeus last summer to have the United
States arm and train members of the Syrian opposition. I was very
pleased to hear both Secretary Panetta and Chairman Dempsey state that
they supported this proposal which, unfortunately, was refused by the
White House. What this means is that the President overruled the senior
leaders of his own national security team who were in unanimous
agreement that America needs to take greater action to change the
military balance of power in Syria.
Beyond providing arms to the opposition, we have other capabilities
at our disposal that could make a decisive difference on the ground and
save lives. I will give just two examples. NATO has deployed PATRIOT
missile batteries in Turkey that are capable of shooting down Syrian
aircraft as far south as Aleppo. We could establish a limited no-fly
zone using these systems and, believe me, after the first few Syrian
aircraft are shot down, I doubt Assad's pilots will be lining up to fly
missions anymore. Another option would be to destroy Assad's aircraft
on their runways with cruise missiles and other standoff weapons.
Either way, we can take Syrian air power off the table.
Once defended, these safe havens could become platforms for increased
deliveries of food and medicine, communications equipment, doctors to
treat the wounded, and other nonlethal assistance. They could also
serve as staging areas for armed opposition groups to receive
battlefield intelligence, body armor, and weapons--from small arms and
ammunition to antitank rockets--and to train and organize themselves
more effectively, perhaps with foreign assistance. The goal would be to
expand the reach of these safe havens across more of the country.
Would these actions immediately end the conflict? No. But would they
save lives in Syria? Would they give the moderate opposition a better
chance to succeed and marginalize the radicals? Would they help the
West regain the trust of the Syrian people? Do we have the capability
to make a difference? To me, the answer to all these questions is
clearly yes. Yes, there are risks to greater involvement in Syria. The
opposition is still struggling to get organized. Al-Qaida and the other
extremists are working to hijack the revolution, and there are already
reports of reprisal killings of Alawites. These risks are real and
serious, but the risks of continuing to do nothing are worse.
What is needed is American leadership. What is needed is a reminder
of the words Abraham Lincoln spoke in his annual message to Congress in
1862: ``We--even we here--hold the power, and bear the
responsibility.''
As we mark 2 years of this horrific conflict, if there were ever a
case that should remind us of this responsibility, it is that of Syria.
A few months ago, The Washington Post interviewed a young Bosnian man
who had survived the genocide of Srebrenica in 1995. This is how he
sees the ongoing slaughter in Syria:
It's bazaar how ``never again'' has come to mean ``again
and again,'' he said. It's obvious that we live in a world
where Srebrenicas are still possible. What's happening in
Syria today is almost identical to what happened in Bosnia
two decades ago.
He could not be more correct. The conflict in Syria today is nearly
indistinguishable from that in Bosnia during the 1990s. As Leon
Wieseltier wrote earlier this week in ``The New Republic''--I ask
unanimous consent that the complete column by Leon Wieseltier be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Syria, Bosnia, and the Old Mistakes
(By Leon Wieseltier)
``One could never have supposed that, after passing through
so many trials, after being schooled by the skepticism of our
times, we had so much left in our souls to be destroyed.''
Alexander Herzen wrote those words in 1848, after he
witnessed the savage crackdown on the workers' rebellion in
Paris. Having been disabused by history of any illusions
about the probabilities of justice, the great man was
surprised to discover that he had not yet been completely
disabused--that his belief in the betterment of human
affairs, however mutilated by experience, was still intact;
and what apprised him of his irreducible idealism was his
broken
[[Page S1835]]
heart. In 1995, I cited Herzen's pessimistic optimism, or
optimistic pessimism, in an angry article about Bosnia and
the Western failure there, and glossed the lacerating
sentence this way: ``They did not suppose that they had so
much left in their souls to be destroyed! What basis for
bitterness do those words leave us, who have witnessed
atrocities of which the nineteenth century only dreamed, who
have watched totalitarian slaughter give way to post-
totalitarian slaughter, and the racial and tribal wars of
empire give way to the racial and tribal wars of empire's
aftermath? But bitterness is regularly refreshed . . .''
Forgive my quotation of myself, but I have been reading in
the old Bosnian materials, in the writings of the reporters
and the intellectuals who campaigned for American action to
stop a genocide. I have been doing so because my Bosnian
bitterness has been refreshed by Syria.
I am finding crushing parallels: a president who is
satisfied to be a bystander, and ornaments his prevarications
with high moral pronouncements; an extenuation of American
passivity by appeals to insurmountable complexities and
obscurities on the ground, and to ethnic and religious
divisions too deep and too old to be modified by statecraft,
and to ominous warnings of unanticipated consequences, as if
consequences are ever all anticipated; an arms embargo
against the people who require arms most, who are the victims
of state power; the use of rape and torture and murder
against civilians as open instruments of war; the universal
knowledge of crimes against humanity and the failure of that
knowledge to affect the policy-making will; the dailiness of
the atrocity, its unimpeded progress, the long duration of
our shame in doing nothing about it. The parallels are not
perfect, of course. Only 70,000 people have been killed in
Syria, so what's the rush? Strategically speaking, moreover,
the imperative to intervene in Syria is far more considerable
than the imperative to intervene in Bosnia was. Assad is the
client of Iran and the patron of Hezbollah: his destruction
is an American dream. But his replacement by an Al Qaeda
regime is an American nightmare, and our incomprehensible
refusal to arm the Syrian rebels who oppose Al Qaeda even as
they oppose Assad will have the effect of bringing the
nightmare to pass. Secretary of State Kerry seems to desire a
new Syrian policy, but he is busily giving our side in the
conflict--if we are to have a side by the time this is over--
everything but what it really needs.
We must mark an anniversary. It has been two years since
fifteen teenagers in the town of Dara'a scrawled ``the people
want the regime to fall'' on the wall of a school, and were
arrested and then tortured for their temerity. The protest
that erupted in Dara'a, in the area in front of a mosque that
was dubbed ``Dignity Square,'' was a democratic rebellion,
and it swiftly spread. In Dara'a it was met by a crackdown
whose brutalities were documented in an unforgettably
chilling report by Human Rights Watch a few months later.
Dissolve now to Aleppo in ruins, where the dictator is
hurling ballistic missiles at his own population. Two years.
The Obama administration may as well not have existed. Though
two years into the Bosnian genocide Bill Clinton was still
more than a year away from bestirring himself morally and
militarily, so what's the rush? Clinton acted after the
massacre at Srebrenica. But Syria has already had its
Srebrenicas, and Obama is still elaborate and unmoved. He
also worries about a Russian response to American action,
when Putin's obstructionism in fact perfectly suits Obama's
preference for American inaction. People around the White
House tell me that Syria is agonizing for him. So what? It is
hard to admire the agony of the bystander, especially if the
bystander has the capability to act against the horror. Obama
likes to drape himself in Lincoln's language, so he should
ponder these words, from the Annual Message to Congress in
1862: ``We--even we here--hold the power, and bear the
responsibility.'' Obama wants the power but not the
responsibility. Unfortunately for him, the one brings the
other.
Not even the advent of Barack Obama can abrogate what was
learned in Bosnia in the antiquity of the twentieth century:
that in the case of moral emergencies, those with the ability
to act have the duty to act; that even justified action is
attended by uncertainty; that military force can do good as
well as evil, and that war is not the only, or the worst,
evil; that the withdrawal of the United States from global
leadership is an invitation to tyranny and inhumanity; that
American foreign policy must be animated by principle as well
by prudence, though there is nothing historically imprudent
about setting oneself resolutely on the side of decency and
democracy. ``How do I weigh tens of thousands who've been
killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are
currently being killed in the Congo?'' Obama recently told
this magazine, as an example of how he ``wrestle[s]'' with
the problem. Do not be fooled. It is not wrestling. It is
casuistry. He has no intention of coming to the assistance of
Congo, either. Obama is a strong cosmopolitan but a weak
internationalist. And he is, with his inclination to
disinvolvement, and his almost clinical confidence in his own
sagacity, implicating us in a disgrace, even we here.
Mr. McCAIN. Again, as Leon Wieseltier wrote earlier this week in the
New Republic:
I am finding crushing parallels: A President who is
satisfied to be a bystander, and ornaments his prevarications
with high moral pronouncements; an extenuation of American
passivity by appeals to insurmountable complexities and
obscurities on the ground, and to ethnic and religious
divisions too deep and too old to be modified by statecraft,
and to ominous warnings of anticipated consequences, as if
consequences are ever all anticipated; an arms embargo
against the people who require arms most, who are the victims
of state power; the use of rape and torture and murder
against civilians as open instruments of war; the universal
knowledge of crimes against humanity and the failure of that
knowledge to affect the policy-making will; the dailiness of
the atrocity, its unimpeded progress, the long duration of
our shame in doing nothing about it. The parallels are not
perfect, of course. Only 70,000 people have been killed in
Syria, so what's the rush?
We must ask ourselves: How many more innocent people must die before
we take action?
Amidst these crushing parallels, there is one key difference. In
Bosnia, President Clinton finally summoned the courage to lead the
world to intervene and stop the killing. It is worth recalling his
words upon ordering military action in Bosnia in 1995:
There are times and places where our leadership can mean
the difference between peace and war, and where we can defend
our fundamental values as a people and serve our most basic,
strategic interests. [T]here are still times when America and
America alone can and should make the difference for peace.
Those were the words of a Democratic President who led America to do
the right thing in stopping mass atrocities in Bosnia, and I remember
working with my Republican colleague Senator Bob Dole to support
President Clinton in that endeavor.
The question for another Democratic President today, and for all of
us in a position of responsibility, is whether we will again answer the
desperate pleas for rescue that are made uniquely to us as the United
States of America, and whether we will use our great power, as we have
done before at our best, not simply to advance our own interests but to
serve a just cause that is greater than our interests alone.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, may I take this opportunity to thank
Senator McCain for his call to our consciences on the massacres in
Syria by the tyrant Assad. I thank him for his reminder to us all that
in the case of moral emergencies, those with the ability to act have
the duty to act, and I thank him for his efforts to call us to that
duty.
While he is here on the floor, I would like to also take this chance
to join in the warm remarks from colleagues on both sides of the aisle
on this 40th anniversary of his release from captivity in North
Vietnam--an anniversary that could have come a good deal sooner had he
not been so courageously stubborn in refusing to leave his comrades in
captivity.
Order of Procedure
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess
following my statement until 2:15 p.m. and that the first-degree
amendment filing deadline be at 3 o'clock today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Climate Change Obstructionism
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I rise today, as I have at least two
dozen times in the past year, to say again that it is time for us to
wake up to the stark reality of the climate changes carbon pollution is
causing.
Elected officials bear a responsibility every once in a while to
escape the grip of the polluting special interests and to act in the
interests of regular Americans. We need to wake up and start talking
about the negative consequences, the harms of climate change. We need
to wake up and mitigate--take steps to protect ourselves--and adapt to
the consequences that are already hitting our coasts and our forests,
our cities and our farms, our economy and our way of life.
[[Page S1836]]
But, of course, the climate deniers and the polluters do not want
that. The deniers want to prevent discussion of climate change
altogether. In the past few years, in this body, climate science has
become a taboo topic.
I watched, when my back was out in the last few days, one of the
Harry Potter movies on television. Lord Voldemort was called ``He-Who-
Shall-Not-Be-Named'' in those Harry Potter stories. Well, carbon
pollution is the ``Pollution Which Shall Not Be Named.'' Climate
change--the harm that is caused by that pollution--is the ``Harm That
Shall Not Be Named.''
The obstructionists want to squelch any discussion of the ``Pollution
Which Shall Not Be Named'' so as to let big polluters continue dumping
carbon and other greenhouse gas into our oceans and atmosphere.
Take, for instance, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence
and Global Warming, created in 2007 as a forum for confronting the
economic and security challenges of our dependence on foreign fuels.
When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2011,
they disbanded that committee. End of discussion.
Between May 2011 and December 2012, our colleagues in the House of
Representatives, Henry Waxman and Bobby Rush, who were the Democratic
ranking members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and of the
Subcommittee on Energy and Power, wrote 21 letters--21 letters--to
Chairmen Fred Upton and Ed Whitfield requesting hearings on climate
change. To date, there has been no response, no hearings. End of
discussion.
House Republicans have tried to prevent the Department of the
Interior and the Department of Agriculture from funding their climate
adaptation plans--commonsense efforts to preserve our resources,
protect our farmers, and save taxpayer dollars. But, no, end of
discussion.
I am sad to say that it is not just the House of Representatives. In
the Senate, in the Environment and Public Works Committee, Democrats
have been informed that there will be opposition to any legislation
that mentions climate change. It is one thing to want to oppose any
legislation that does anything about climate change. This is a further
step. The mere mention of climate change is enough to provoke
Republican opposition. End of discussion.
The taboo is being applied elsewhere in this Chamber. Just this week
a Republican Senator demanded that the following language be stricken
from a noncontroversial Senate resolution. We pass resolutions here in
the Senate all the time by unanimous consent. A Republican Senator
said: No, I am going to withhold my consent. I am going to deny the
ability of the resolution unless this offending language is removed.
What was the offending language? I will quote:
[W]omen in developing countries are disproportionately
affected by changes in climate because of their need to
secure water, food, and fuel for their livelihood.
This body unanimously approved identical language in the last
Congress, but today that mention of climate change in an otherwise
noncontroversial resolution draws automatic Republican opposition.
Again, end of discussion.
And they are not just trying to squelch the legislative branch. In
the executive branch, they have tried to defund salaries for White
House climate advisers and withhold U.S. funds from the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Again, end of discussion.
Now, you might think that in these efforts to attack funding, at
least they are motivated by a desire to cut spending. But then what
would be the motivation behind House Republicans blocking a no-cost
restructuring of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
that would have created a National Climate Service that is akin to the
National Weather Service--a simple reorganization that would have
centralized information about climate change, information which is in
high demand by State and local governments and by the business
community? Again, the purpose is obvious: try to end the discussion.
I would remind my colleagues who are trying to silence this
discussion with political power that history teaches, quite plainly,
that in contests between power and truth, truth always wins in the end.
The Inquisition tried to silence Galileo, but the Enlightenment
happened anyway, and the Earth does still spin around the Sun.
Chris McEntee, who is the executive director of the American
Geophysical Union, said:
Limiting access to this kind of climate information won't
make climate change go away.
And shareholders and directors of corporations should consider what
it will mean for the corporations that used their power to suppress the
truth once that truth becomes inescapable, once it is undeniable and
the denial campaign is seen as a fraud.
This Republican policy of climate change denial is alive and well at
the State level too. In 2010 Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli
used his powers of office to harass former University of Virginia
climatologist Michael Mann and 39 other climate scientists and staff.
As a UVA grad, I am proud that the university fought back against this
political attack on science and on academic freedom.
Said UVA:
[The attorney general's] action and the potential threat of
legal prosecution of scientific endeavor that has satisfied
peer-review standards send a chilling message to scientists
engaged in basic research involving Earth's climate and
indeed to scholars in any discipline. Such actions directly
threaten academic freedom and, thus, our ability to generate
the knowledge upon which informed public policy relies.
The victim of this harassment, Professor Mann, was more blunt. He
called out this witch hunt as ``a coordinated assault against the
scientific community by powerful vested interests who simply want to
stick their heads in the sand and deny the problem of human-caused
climate change, rather than engage in the good faith debate about what
to do about it.''
I would note that the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Attorney General
Cuccinelli's so-called investigation groundless. But that was not
enough for obstructionists in Virginia. Last year the Republican
Virginia Senate struck from a joint resolution titled ``Requesting the
Virginia Institute of Marine Science to study strategies for adaptation
to relative sea-level rise in Tidewater Virginia localities''--they
struck from that title the phrase ``sea-level rise'' both in the title
and again in the text of the resolution. News outlets reported--get
this--that this was because ``sea-level rise'' was believed to be a
``left-wing term.'' Add ``sea-level rise'' to the ``Harms Which Shall
Not Be Named.''
In North Carolina, you can still say ``sea-level rise,'' but you
cannot predict it or plan for it. That is because last year North
Carolina's Republican-dominated legislature passed a bill requiring, as
a matter of law, that North Carolina coastal policy be based on
historic rates of sea-level rise rather than on what North Carolina
scientists actually predict. This means that even though North Carolina
scientists predict 39 inches of sea-level rise within the century,
North Carolina, by its own law, is only allowed to prepare for 8. King
Canute would be so proud.
Further down, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
wrote a report more than a year ago on the risks climate change poses
to the Palmetto State, but it was never released to the public. The
State newspaper managed to obtain a copy of that study. The report
calls for South Carolina to prepare for increases in wildlife disease,
loss of prime hunting habitat, and the invasion of non-native species.
But to Republicans, these are more ``Problems Which Shall Not Be
Named.''
In South Dakota, the Republican legislature, in 2010, even passed a
nonbinding resolution calling for teaching in public schools that
relies on a number of common and thoroughly debunked climate denier
claims--in short, bringing climate denier propaganda into public high
school science classes.
Who might be behind this concerted effort to make climate science and
climate change taboo subjects--``Problems Which Shall Not Be Named''?
Well, look at ALEC, the conservative American Legislative Exchange
Council, which peddles climate denier legislation and undermines local
and national efforts to protect against climate change. Look at ALEC's
board of directors, comprised of lobbyists from ExxonMobil, Peabody
Energy, and Koch Industries. Look at the array of
[[Page S1837]]
bogus denial organizations propped up to create doubt in this debate.
Against this tide of propaganda and nonsense stands States, including
Rhode Island, that already cap and reduce carbon emissions. Nineteen
States have climate adaptation plans completed or in progress. Thirty-
one States have a renewable and/or alternative energy portfolio
standard.
Twenty-three States require State buildings to meet Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design or LEED standards.
The obstructionists may be well funded by the polluting special
interests, but the majority of the American people--the vast majority
of the American people--understand that climate change is a very real
problem. They want their leaders to take action. Americans want their
leaders to listen to the climate scientists. They want us to plan and
to prepare, to limit, to mitigate, and to adapt to the changes that are
coming.
Here in Congress it is long past time to move forward with meaningful
action. That is why I am working with several colleagues to establish a
fee on carbon pollution. As I said in my remarks last week, the idea is
a simple one. It is basic market 101, law 101, and fairness 101. If you
are creating a cost that someone else has to bear, that cost should be
put back into the price of the product.
The big carbon polluters should pay a fee to the American people to
cover the cost of their dumping their waste into our oceans and air. It
is a cost they now happily push off onto the rest of us, allowing them
an unfair and improper market advantage, in effect to cheat against
rival energy sources. The deniers want to make this the problem which
shall not be named. But I am here to name it, as are many others. I am
here to shame them if I can, if shame is a feeling a big corporation
can even have. I am here to see to it that we wake up and that we get
to work.
I yield the floor.
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