[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 16 (Wednesday, January 27, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S224-S240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENERGY POLICY MODERNIZATION ACT OF 2015--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Tribute to Federal Employees
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, in 2014, I began coming to the Senate
floor almost every month. I came here to highlight some of the great
work done each and every day by the men and women who serve us in the
Department of Homeland Security. I continued that effort throughout
much of last year and plan on coming to the Senate floor every month in
2016 with a new story to share. There is simply so much good being done
across the Department by the employees, our public servants who work
there. I don't think I am going to run out of material anytime soon.
As you know, the Department of Homeland Security is made up of some
22 component agencies and employs over 200,000 Americans. These men and
women work around the clock to protect all of us, our families, and our
country.
[[Page S225]]
One part of the Department is called the Federal Emergency Management
Agency. We call it FEMA. It has the unique task of keeping Americans
safe when everything around them has been thrown into chaos. In times
of crisis, the men and women at FEMA coordinate rescue operations,
provide emergency medical care, and give shelter to those who lost
their homes. Simply put, they bring hope back to Americans whose towns
and cities have been swept away by floods, destroyed by a fire or torn
apart by a tornado.
Ten years ago, in the days after Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed
the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act. That law completely
overhauled FEMA from top to bottom. It increased its authority and
stature within the Department of Homeland Security and provided it with
needed new resources. This legislation also required FEMA to bolster
its regional offices and to build stronger relationships with State,
local, and tribal governments. Taken together, these reforms have
improved our capability at all levels of government to respond to
disasters, while also improving FEMA's capacity to support State,
local, and tribal governments as they rebuild.
Over the past 10 years, the men and women of FEMA have worked
countless hours to improve our preparedness for, response to, and
recovery from disaster. Bad things still happen. In the aftermath of a
tornado, wildfire or even a snowstorm like the nor'easter we saw on the
East Coast this week, we still see the images of destruction and lives
turned upside down on our television screens. Most of the work that the
men and women at FEMA do 365 days a year to prepare for these events
and make them less damaging rarely ever get discussed.
Every day the men and women at FEMA create evacuation plans, stock
emergency shelters with food and medical supplies, and they partner
with law enforcement and first responders in every state to improve
preparedness through exercises and drills. In addition to training
first responders, one of FEMA's top priorities is to educate and train
all of us on what to do in case of disaster. The more you and I and our
families know, the more likely it is that we will be safe and will stay
together during a disaster.
Milo Booth
One FEMA employee charged with helping some of our most vulnerable
communities prepare for disaster is a fellow named Milo Booth who
serves as FEMA's tribal affairs officer. Milo is an Alaskan Native from
Metlakatla, AK. It is an Indian community on the southernmost tip of
Alaska.
After graduating from Oregon State University with a bachelor of
science degree in forestry and minor in economics, Milo returned home
to serve as the Metlakatla Indian community's director of forestry and
land resources, working to protect his hometown for the next 16 years.
After 2 years with the U.S. Forest Service, Milo moved to FEMA to
serve as the National Tribal Affairs Advisor, and that is what he does
today. In this role, Milo works to communicate disaster preparedness to
reservations, Alaskan Native villages, and tribes across the country.
These communities, some of the most remote and isolated in the country,
are also most at risk in times of disasters. Ensuring that these
communities are educated in preparedness helps some of the most
vulnerable among us.
As a FEMA liaison and an advisor to Indian Country, Milo doesn't just
help the communities prepare for disaster. He also educates senior FEMA
officials in the Department of Homeland Security tribal affairs staff
on how FEMA could better prepare for and respond to hazards. In times
of planning, Milo leads workshops and trains FEMA staff. He advises the
senior leadership on tribal policy, and he works every day to build
strong relationships between FEMA and tribal leaders and their
communities. In times of crisis, when disaster strikes, Milo
coordinates with tribal emergency managers and FEMA regional managers
on the best ways to help and support these communities. In only 2 years
at FEMA, Milo has visited more than 2 dozen reservations and Alaskan
Native villages and has met with more than 100 tribes at trainings and
regional tribal meetings.
Perhaps more important than any of this technical work that Milo does
in planning is the work he has done in building relationships and
earning the trust of tribal leaders.
When asked their thoughts on Milo, tribal leaders described him as
accessible, responsive, and understanding, but most importantly, they
described him as trustworthy. They trust that in Milo, their
communities have a voice at FEMA.
When Milo isn't working in Washington, DC, he returns home to Alaska
with his wife and two children, where he enjoys spending time with them
outdoors. One of his favorite activities these days is going trout
fishing with his young son, who says he wants to grow up to be just
like his dad.
Milo is just one shining example of the thousands of dedicated men
and women at FEMA who work to protect hundreds of communities across
our Nation, treating every one of them as if it were their own
hometown.
The Presiding Officer will remember that Pope Francis addressed a
joint session of Congress last September at the other end of this
Capitol Building. He invoked the words of Matthew 25, which call for us
to help the least among us, saying:
I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was
thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger
and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I
was sick and you looked after me.
These have become known as the works of mercy or the acts of mercy.
Milo Booth and all of his colleagues at FEMA perform these acts of
mercy each and every day. They protect our children and our homes,
saving lives and doing truly remarkable deeds. And for the thousands of
civil servants at FEMA and the tens of thousands of others across the
22 components of the Department of Homeland Security, these acts of
mercy are their life's work.
For all these things you do, for all these things all of you do, to
each and every one of you, I wish to say thank you from all of us. God
bless you.
The Senators from Alaska and Wyoming are on the floor. Good to see
them both.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. I thank my colleague.
Amendment No. 2953
(Purpose: In the nature of a substitute)
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, at this time, I call up amendment No.
2953.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Alaska [Ms. Murkowski] proposes an
amendment numbered 2953.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in the Record of January 26, 2016, under
``Text of Amendments.'')
Amendment No. 2954 to Amendment No. 2953
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up
Cassidy amendment No. 2954.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Alaska [Ms. Murkowski], for Mr. Cassidy,
proposes an amendment numbered 2954 to amendment No. 2953.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide for certain increases in, and limitations on, the
drawdown and sales of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve)
At the end of subtitle B of title II, add the following:
SEC. 2102. STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE DRAWDOWN AND SALE.
Section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (Public
Law 114-74; 129 Stat. 589) is amended by adding at the end
the following:
``(d) Increase; Limitation.--
``(1) Increase.--The Secretary of Energy may increase the
drawdown and sales under paragraphs (1) through (8) of
subsection (a) as the Secretary of Energy determines to be
appropriate to maximize the financial return to United States
taxpayers.
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``(2) Limitation.--The Secretary of Energy shall not
drawdown or conduct sales of crude oil under this section
after the date on which a total of $5,050,000,000 has been
deposited in the general fund of the Treasury from sales
authorized under this section.''.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, at this time, we will resume the
consideration of S. 2012, which is the Energy Policy Modernization Act.
Senator Cantwell and I have had an opportunity to speak, as well as the
Senator from Texas, and now the Senator from Wyoming has joined us. He
has been a leader on these issues. He sits next to me on the energy
committee and has worked on so many of the issues we have contained
within this good bill, but the piece on which he has probably been most
aggressive and shown his leadership is what we have done to help
facilitate the export of our resources with regard to liquefied natural
gas.
I am pleased to turn to my colleague from Wyoming.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of
the energy committee. She does a remarkable job, and she has brought
many people together on this bipartisan piece of legislation. It passed
the committee 18 to 4. People are energetic about this Energy bill
because it is so critical and important to our communities and our
economy.
As the Senate is discussing this important energy legislation, I come
to the floor today because energy is one of those issues on which we
should actually all be able to agree in terms of the basic idea. The
basic idea and my goal for this Energy bill is that we make energy in
America as clean as we can, as fast as we can, and do it in ways that
don't raise costs on American families. I think most of us would
consider that to be a worthy, commonsense goal. That is why the Energy
bill before the Senate today is so important and why it has such broad
bipartisan support. As I said, the bill passed the committee 18 to 4.
And this is a bill that actually takes concrete steps to help our
country produce the energy we need.
I think one of the good ideas in the bill is a provision to speed up
permitting for the exportation of liquefied natural gas. Six Democrats
have cosponsored this language on the LNG exports as a separate piece
of legislation, which is now incorporated into this Energy bill. That
is because Senators on both sides of the aisle recognize the importance
of natural gas to our economy and to our national security.
America has the world's largest supply of natural gas in terms of
what we are able to produce today. We also have the resources to be a
major exporter of this clean and versatile fuel. It is estimated that
liquefied natural gas exports can contribute up to $74 billion to
America's gross domestic product by the year 2035. All we need is for
Washington to give producers some regulatory certainty--certainty that
is not there today.
To liquefy and to export natural gas requires special production and
special export terminals, places to get it done. Under President Obama,
the Department of Energy has been very slow and very unpredictable
about approving these projects. The Energy bill would expedite the
permit process for LNG exports to countries around the world and
countries that right now do not have free-trade agreements with the
United States. It opens it up to new markets, new customers, people who
are friends and allies who want to buy a product we have right here for
sale.
This legislation would require the Energy Secretary to make a final
decision on an export application within 45 days after the
environmental review process is completed. It would also provide for
expedited judicial review of legal challenges to the LNG export
projects because things can get tangled up in legal challenges that can
go on for months and years.
Finally, the bill requires that exporters publicly disclose the
countries to which the LNG is delivered so the American people know
whom we are selling to.
This legislation doesn't force the administration to approve the
projects, it doesn't shut down the environmental reviews, and it
doesn't take away anybody's right to voice their opposition; it just
says that the Obama administration should do its job in an accountable,
timely, and predictable way.
This legislation would help create jobs. It would help to reduce our
trade deficit, which is something President Obama has said is a
priority of his. It would also help the security of America and our
allies. That is something which should be a priority for all of us in
this body. Speeding up American exports of liquefied natural gas will
give our allies an alternative for where they can get the energy they
need. It would help our allies reduce their dependence on gas from
hostile places, many of whom are now getting it from Russia. Remember,
Russia invaded Ukraine largely to get control of the gas pipelines
there.
Now Iran wants to step up its natural gas business as well--Iran. The
Iranians have been working on a liquefied natural gas export plant that
is almost complete. Construction had stalled a few years ago because of
the economic sanctions against Iran. Now that the Obama administration
has lifted the sanctions against Iran, Iran can start construction
again. The managing director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company
says that it could start shipping liquefied natural gas to Europe in 2
years. That was in an article in the Wall Street Journal today. The
headline is ``Iran Seeks Ways To Ship Out Gas As Sanctions Ease.'' This
is today. What we are discussing on the floor of the Senate is
incredibly timely. When you read through the article, it says that
European companies are promising billions in new deals in Iran as
Iranian President Ruhani visits Europe this week to revive trade and
political ties. So Iran is on the move.
The Obama administration, as of right now, is shackling American
natural gas, shackling the production, shackling the export. At the
same time, the President, through his agreement with Iran, is enabling
Iran to move forward and seek ways to ship out gas as sanctions ease.
If our allies are dependent on gas from Russia or from Iran or from
both, how does that make the world a safer place?
This administration has been dragging its feet on approving liquefied
natural gas exports. It has blocked North American energy projects in
the past, such as the Keystone XL Pipeline. That would have created
thousands of jobs. Then, earlier this month, the Secretary of the
Interior halted all new leases on mining coal on Federal land. This
action by the administration is alarming, it is drastic, and it is
destructive. Forty percent of all the coal produced in the United
States comes from Federal land. The Interior Secretary wants the coal
to stay in the ground, wants it to become a stranded asset. With this
new rule, she took one more step toward wiping out the jobs of
thousands of Americans, and then she staged a press conference to brag
about it. If that weren't bad enough, last week the administration
announced new restrictions on oil and gas operations on Federal land
and on Indian land.
The unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats of the Obama administration
have been relentlessly attacking American energy producers with new
rules, new regulations--costly--hurting our economy, hurting jobs. They
are costing American workers and families billions of dollars, and they
will do great damage to American energy reliability. Reliability is
key. We need a different approach.
It is essential that we create as much energy as possible here at
home, and it is essential that we be able to export American energy to
our allies as well, people who want to get it from us. That is why
energy is called the master resource, and that is why this Energy bill
is so important.
This legislation is a good start toward making sure America has the
energy we need to keep our economy growing. There are things we could
do to improve this legislation. We could use this bill to protect
Americans from President Obama's reckless attempt to end coal leases on
Federal lands. We can also make sure the Obama administration stops its
unwise new rule on natural gas and oil operations. We can actually
capture more energy while we reduce waste and emissions from this kind
of oil and gas production.
I have introduced bipartisan legislation that is going to expedite
the permitting process of natural gas gathering lines on Federal and
Indian land.
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These are pipelines that collect unprocessed natural gas from oil and
gas wells and ship it to a processing plant and then on to interstate
pipelines. Today a lot of that gas is flared off right at the well. You
can see that at the well, the flames. One of the reasons that is
happening is because the Obama administration has been so slow in
granting the permits for the natural gas gathering lines on Federal
land. People want to build them; they want to use this natural gas. The
President opposes the flaring. More gathering lines would mean less
flaring. It is good for energy producers, it is good for the
environment, and it is good for taxpayers.
We need the energy. Keeping it in the ground is not the answer. The
answer is making energy as clean as we can, as fast as we can, without
raising costs on American families. I believe that is a better
approach. A bipartisan group of Members of this body knows it is a
better answer. It is time for the Obama administration to join us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Energy Policy
Modernization Act. Along with a broad, bipartisan group of my
colleagues, I supported this bill as a member of the Energy and Natural
Resources Committee. I thank Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member
Cantwell, and their staff for their commitment and hard work in
producing a bill that could earn a strong bipartisan vote in the
committee.
There were other proposals that I would have liked to have seen
included in the bill, such as the national Renewable Electricity
Standard introduced by Senator Udall, which I cosponsored, and there
were other proposals included in the bill that I would not have
supported on their own. However, I was willing to support a compromise
that provides positive direction for our country in the midst of an
energy transformation.
Now that the full Senate is considering the bill, I would like to
remind my colleagues of the effort that went into reaching this
compromise. We should not squander the opportunity before us with
amendments that will simply erode bipartisan support for the bill or
draw a Presidential veto.
So much has changed in how energy is produced and consumed since the
Senate passed its last energy bill in 2007. Our country is in the
middle of a transformation toward cleaner sources of energy and greater
energy efficiency in our vehicles, homes, and businesses. Hawaii is
leading the way on many fronts in this transformation. Hawaii has
already set the most ambitious electricity standard of any State, and
that is 100 percent renewable electricity by 2045. Our State has
already more than doubled its use of renewable electricity in 6 years
to 21 percent.
Making sure that we have clean and affordable power for families and
businesses will require a more modern and reliable electricity system.
The Energy Policy Modernization Act tackles research, job creation, and
innovation on a number of fronts. Let me highlight some of the bill's
important provisions.
This bill includes provisions from my Next Generation Electric
Systems Act that would establish a Department of Energy grant program
for projects to improve the performance and efficiency of electrical
grid systems. These grants could assist efforts in Hawaii and around
the country to make greater use of renewable energy, energy storage
systems, electric vehicles, and other innovative energy technologies.
The bill also provides $500 million over 10 years to support the
energy storage research, demonstration, and deployment program from
Senator Cantwell's Grid Modernization Act, which I cosponsored. Energy
storage will help smooth the delivery of power from renewable sources
so that it is available even when the sun is not shining or the wind is
not blowing. Greater use of energy storage systems could help cut
energy bills by reducing the need to build expensive powerplants that
operate only at times of highest demand and avoiding blackouts.
Thanks to Chair Murkowski, the bill also promotes the development of
microgrid systems for communities that are not connected to the grid,
so that isolated communities in places like Hawaii and Alaska can also
use alternative energy and energy storage to secure more reliable and
affordable sources of power.
The bill includes my amendment to ensure that the U.S. Territories
and the District of Columbia can join Hawaii and other States in being
eligible to participate in a Department of Energy loan guarantee
program to help States support new investments in clean energy
projects. For instance, Hawaii could expand its Green Energy Market
Securitization--or GEMS--Program to make rooftop solar systems and
other clean energy improvements more affordable for renters and other
underserved consumers.
The bill authorizes research and development in promising renewable
energy technologies like marine and hydrokinetic energy, which harness
the power of the ocean's waves, heat, and currents. In partnership with
the U.S. Navy, the Hawaii National Marine Renewable Energy Center at
the University of Hawaii-Manoa is one of three federally funded centers
for marine energy research and development in the Nation, including a
wave energy test site at Kaneohe Bay on Oahu.
The bill will help people find well-paying jobs in the energy and
energy efficiency fields by establishing a $10 million grant program
for nonprofit partnerships that train workers to earn energy efficient
building certifications. It also creates a $20 million energy workforce
training grant program for colleges and workforce development boards.
This program will focus on helping workers earn industry-recognized
credentials. I will be offering amendments to ensure that our veterans
can take full advantage of these programs to speed their transition
into the civilian workforce.
The bill will also help boost energy efficiency. Hawaii set a goal
requiring a 30-percent improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.
According to the Hawaii State Energy Office, that standard has resulted
in the equivalent of $435 million in energy savings for Hawaii's homes,
farms, and businesses.
Finally, the bill strengthens our protection of public lands by
permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund--LWCF--a
fund that, throughout its 50-year history, has financed over 40,000
projects across all 50 States and protected public lands that support
our Nation's $646 billion outdoor recreational industry. In Hawaii
alone, the LWCF has directly provided $195 million to our local
conservation efforts, and, as most people know, we in Hawaii go to
great lengths to protect and conserve our native ecosystems. LWCF funds
will support Hawaii's ``Island Forests at Risk'' proposal. These funds
will expand Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Hakalau National
Wildlife Refuge by a total of 12,000 acres. These two locations host a
total of nearly 2 million visitors each year and protect some of
Hawaii's most beautiful and sensitive habitats. The bill also
permanently reauthorizes the Historic Preservation Fund and creates a
new National Park Maintenance and Revitalization Fund. The new national
park fund will help reduce the backlog of $11.5 billion in repairs and
maintenance needed in our national parks, including the $127 million
backlog of maintenance at Hawaii's national parks. This much needed new
fund will ensure that people can enjoy the beauty of our parks for
generations to come.
In addition to improving energy usage in our homes and businesses, we
must ensure that government takes full advantage of new energy and
energy efficient technologies. For the fourth consecutive year, the
State of Hawaii led the Nation in per capita use of energy performance
contracting for State and county buildings, resulting in the creation
of over 3,000 jobs and an energy savings of over $989 million.
I would like to expand the use of energy contracting at the Federal
level to save taxpayer dollars and support the use of cleaner sources
of energy. I will be offering an amendment to allow all Federal
agencies to use long-term contracts to reduce their energy bills, as
the Department of Defense is allowed to do under current law.
I also plan to offer an amendment to establish a pilot project to
expand the use of Federal energy savings performance contracts to
mobile sources such as federally-owned aircraft and vehicles. The
guaranteed energy savings will mean taxpayer savings.
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With oil accounting for 80 percent of the energy needs of our State,
the people of Hawaii are acutely aware that there must be new
alternatives to the volatile prices and vulnerable supply of the global
oil trade. Hawaii, which for too long has been paying the highest
electricity rates in the country, recognizes that we have renewable
resources in our own State that should be developed so that we keep at
home more of the $5 billion per year we currently spend to import oil.
That is more money circulating in Hawaii's economy, creating jobs,
raising wages, and helping families make ends meet.
For all the reasons I have mentioned, I urge my colleagues to support
this bill and those amendments that will be offered that move our
country forward, not backward, to a future with affordable, clean, and
reliable energy.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Solitary Confinement
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I believe it was in April of 2009 that I
picked up a New Yorker magazine and read an article that had a real
impact on me. It was an article written by Dr. Atul Gawande, a
practicing surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, an
amazing man. In addition to his medical responsibilities, he is a
person with a very inquisitive mind and a real knack when it comes to
investigating challenging issues.
The article that I read in the New Yorker by Dr. Gawande examined the
human impact of long-term solitary confinement and asked, ``If
prolonged isolation is--as research and experience have confirmed for
decades--so objectively horrifying, so intrinsically cruel, how did we
end up with a prison system that may subject more of our own citizens
to it than any other country in history has?''
Dr. Gawande's article inspired me--motivated me--to begin to look
into the issue of solitary confinement in prisons. I was amazed to
learn that the United States holds more prisoners in solitary
confinement--about 100,000--than any other democratic nation in the
world. So in 2012, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on
the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, I held the first-ever
congressional hearing on solitary confinement.
At the hearing, we took a look at the serious fiscal impact of
solitary. We learned that it costs almost three times more to keep a
Federal prisoner in segregation than in the general population. We also
discussed the significant public safety consequences of widespread
solitary confinement, given that the vast majority of inmates held in
segregation will ultimately be released to the community someday. And
we heard testimony about the human impact of holding tens of thousands
of women, men, and children in small, windowless cells 23 hours a day--
for days, months, even years--with very little, if any, human contact
with the outside world. Clearly, such extreme isolation can have a
serious, damaging psychological impact. I will never ever forget the
compelling testimony of Anthony Graves. In the year 2010, after 18
years in prison--and 16 of those years in solitary confinement--Anthony
Graves became the 12th death row inmate to be exonerated in the State
of Texas.
At the hearing, Mr. Graves testified about his experience. The room
was silent. He stated:
Solitary confinement does one thing, it breaks a man's will
to live. . . . I have been free for almost two years and I
still cry at night, because no one out here can relate to
what I have gone through. I battle with feelings of
loneliness. I've tried therapy but it didn't work.
In 2014, I held a follow-up hearing on the issue. I called for an end
to solitary confinement for juveniles, pregnant women, and inmates with
serious mental illness. At the hearing, we heard from Damon Thibodeaux.
He had spent 15 years in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State
Penitentiary before being found not guilty and released. Mr. Thibodeaux
testified:
I do not condone what those who have killed and committed
other serious offenses have done. But I also don't condone
what we do to them, when we put them in solitary for years on
end and treat them as sub-human. We are better than that. As
a civilized society, we should be better than that.
In recent years a number of experts and State and Federal officials
across the country have questioned our Nation's overuse of solitary
confinement. In 2014, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy testified
to Congress: ``Solitary confinement literally drives men mad.''
Last year, Justice Kennedy again brought up the issue in a powerful
concurring opinion. He wrote: ``Research still confirms what this Court
suggested over a century ago: Years on end of near-total isolation
exacts a terrible price.''
He went on to say:
The judiciary may be required . . . to determine whether
workable alternative systems for long-term confinement exist,
and, if so, whether a correctional system should be required
to adopt them.
Pope Francis, who spoke to a joint session of Congress a few months
ago, has also criticized solitary confinement. In a 2014 speech at the
Vatican, he referred to the practice of extreme isolation as
``torture'' and ``a genuine surplus of pain added to the actual
suffering of imprisonment.''
The Pope went on to say:
The lack of sensory stimuli, the total impossibility of
communication and the lack of contact with other human beings
induce mental and physical suffering such as paranoia,
anxiety, depression, weight loss, and significantly increase
the suicidal tendency.
In light of the mounting evidence of the dangerous and harmful
impacts of solitary confinement, several States have led the way in
reassessing the practice. Colorado has implemented a number of reforms,
including no longer releasing offenders directly from solitary to the
community, and ensuring that inmates with serious mental illness are
not placed in solitary confinement. As a result of the reforms, inmate-
on-staff assaults are at the lowest levels in Colorado in 10 years,
incidents of self-harm have decreased among the inmates, and most
inmates released from solitary do not return.
In the State of Washington, a focus on rehabilitation and programming
for inmates in solitary confinement has led to a reduction of more than
50 percent in the segregated population.
The Association of State Correctional Administrators--a group
representing the heads of all 50 State prison systems--recently called
for limits on the use of long-term solitary confinement. In a
statement, they said:
Prolonged isolation of individuals in jails and prisons is
a grave problem in the United States. . . . Correctional
leaders across the country are committed to reducing the
number of people in restrictive housing. . . .
Progress has been made at the Federal level since our first hearing.
A substantial percentage of those in solitary confinement are no longer
serving in that situation. After my first hearing on the issue, I asked
the Bureau of Prisons to submit to the first-ever independent
assessment of its solitary confinement policies and practices.
The assessment, released last year, noted that some improvements have
been made since the 2012 hearing, the initial hearing we had on the
subject. The Federal Bureau of Prisons has reduced its segregated
population by more than 25 percent and continues to look for more
reductions.
Despite this, there is a lot of work to be done. That is why I was
pleased to see President Obama's announcement this week that he has
accepted a number of recommendations from the Department of Justice to
reform and reduce the practice of solitary confinement in the federal
prison system.
In an op-ed published yesterday in the Washington Post, the President
explained how the Department of Justice's review of solitary
confinement policy led to the conclusion that the practice should be
used rarely, applied fairly, and subjected to reasonable constraints.
The President's recommendations included: banning solitary
confinement for juveniles, diverting inmates with serious mental
illness to alternative forms of housing, diverting inmates in need of
protection from solitary confinement to less restrictive conditions,
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reducing the use of disciplinary segregation, and improving the
conditions of solitary confinement by increasing inmates' out-of-cell
time and access to services.
I welcome these changes. I commend the President for his actions. I
look forward to working with the Bureau of Prisons and the Department
of Justice on this issue.
In the course of studying this issue, I decided I had to see it
firsthand. I went to Tamms prison in Southern Illinois. It was the
maximum security State prison in the State. I went in, met with the
warden, and I took my tour. Then I said to her: I want to see the most
restrictive solitary confinement. She took me into an area where five
men were in solitary confinement. I had a chance to speak to each of
them. One of the men I will never forget. I asked him: How many years
are you in for?
He said: Originally 20, but they added 50 to that.
I said: Fifty additional years?
He said: Yes. He said in a very calm voice: I told them that if they
put another prisoner in my cell I would kill him, and I did.
I thought to myself, be aware, Senator, there are ruthless and
vicious people and violent people who really need to be carefully
scrutinized and carefully imprisoned in a situation where they can't
harm other inmates or the personnel, but still, even in that
circumstance, we have to look to the most humane way to treat them in
the course of their imprisonment.
The President's decision to address the use of solitary represents a
major step forward in protecting human rights, increasing public
safety, and improving fiscal responsibility in our federal prisons.
Still, we have the highest per capita rate of incarceration in the
world--the United States, the highest rate of incarceration in the
world.
President Obama noted yesterday that changing our approach to
solitary confinement is just one part of a larger set of reforms we
must pursue. Last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Chuck
Grassley of Iowa, and I worked with a bipartisan coalition of Senators
to introduce the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act. The bill passed
the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 15-to-5 bipartisan vote several
months ago.
In order to comprehensively address the problems facing our Federal
prisons, we should bring this bipartisan criminal justice reform
legislation to the Senate floor and work with our colleagues in the
House to send a bill to the President this year.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Barrasso). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Climate Change
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, today marks the 125th time I have come
to the Senate floor to ask this body to wake up to the threats of
climate change. This week is a little different because we are
currently debating the bipartisan Energy Policy Modernization Act. The
bill was crafted by my colleagues, Senators Murkowski and Cantwell, and
it may become our first comprehensive energy efficiency legislation
since 2007. While the base bill is a good start, we have much work to
do before we come anywhere near meeting the challenges we face as a
result of our decades of carbon pollution.
As we begin debate on this legislation, calls for bold action on
climate continue to mount. The World Economic Forum released its
``Global Risks Report 2016,'' which for the first time ranked an
environmental risk--climate change--as the most severe economic risk
facing the world. The report found that a failure to deal with and
prepare for climate change is potentially the most costly risk over the
next decade.
Cecilia Reyes, chief risk officer of Zurich Insurance Group, said:
``Climate change is exacerbating more risks than ever before in terms
of water crises, food shortages, constrained economic growth, weaker
societal cohesion and increased security risks.''
Some of my Republican colleagues have begun to wake up to these
risks. It was just last year that Chairman Murkowski said: ``What I am
hoping that we can do now is get beyond the discussion as to whether
climate change is real and talk about what to do.'' The chairman
deserves credit for reporting a bill that has solutions a broad
majority of the Senate can support; however, she has been handicapped
by the fact that many in her party still refuse to take seriously that
human-caused climate change is real and that it presents a significant
and growing risk to our economy, our national security, and our way of
life.
Many of the provisions in this bill are not new. We saw much of it in
the Shaheen-Portman Energy bill that Republicans twice before have
filibustered. With so many Republicans seemingly incapable of
supporting responsible energy legislation, those of us who want to
promote energy efficiency and a clean energy economy sometimes feel a
little bit like Charlie Brown, hoping that this time Lucy won't yank
the ball away yet again. These issues are too important, and I am
hoping this time will, in fact, be different.
The bill contains commonsense reforms, such as reforming building
codes to improve energy efficiency and directing the Secretary of
Energy to establish a Federal smart building program to demonstrate the
costs and benefits of implementing smart building technology. It
reauthorizes the weatherization and State energy programs that States
such as Rhode Island rely on and the Advanced Research Projects
Agency--Energy. That has shown the importance of government investment
in new energy technologies. It will modernize and secure our electric
grid and enhance cyber security safeguards.
My State, Rhode Island, is a national leader in promoting energy
efficiency, so we know how programs like these are good for consumers,
businesses, and the environment. In fact, I came here to the floor
after a meeting with our grid operator. She said Rhode Island was the
leading State when it comes to efficiency. Rhode Island has had energy
policies guiding electricity and natural gas efficiency standards since
2006. We have consistently ranked in the top five States when it comes
to energy efficiency. We do this as one of the founding members of the
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative--or RGGI for short--the Northeast's
carbon pollution cap-and-trade program. States that belong to RGGI are
proving that we can grow our economies at the same time we cut our
emissions. Between its founding in 2005 and the report of 2012,
emissions in the RGGI States decreased by 40 percent, while the
regional economy grew by 7 percent, so we won on both sides. Putting a
price on carbon and plowing that money back into clean energy projects
is, in fact, saving us billions of dollars while helping to reduce
carbon pollution.
I hope this bill will be a small step forward toward solutions that
will begin to help reverse the devastation carbon pollution is wreaking
on our climate and particularly on our oceans.
I have to ask my Republican friends, what is your best bet on whether
this climate and oceans problem gets better or worse in the next 20 or
40 years? I ask this seriously because a great party's reputation is on
the line here. How are you going to bet--with the 97 to 98 percent of
the scientists and 100 percent of the peer research? Do you want to bet
the reputation of the Republican Party that suddenly all of this is
going to magically get better?
Right now the American public sees what is going on. The American
public knows that the Republican Party in Washington has become the
political wing of the fossil fuel industry. There has always been a bit
of this within the Republican Party, but since the Republican
appointees on the Supreme Court gave the fossil fuel industry that
great, fat, juicy gift of its Citizens United decision, the fossil fuel
industry menace looming over the Republican Party in Congress has
become near absolute.
Trapped by the fossil fuel industry, the Republican vision for energy
policy has been stuck in the past. Most of the time, it is just
complaints and obstruction: Oh, the President's Clean Power Plan is no
good. Oh, the States should engage in massive civil disobedience
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against the President's Clean Power Plan. Oh, we should defund the EPA.
It will be no surprise if they try to block the Department of
Interior's plan to reform a coal leasing program that has not been
updated in over 30 years. It doesn't matter to them that the way we
price the extraction of fossil fuel on Federal lands is a massive
taxpayer giveaway to fossil fuel companies and it is based on a market
failure that ignores the costs those fuels impose on taxpayers and our
climate. Conservative and progressive economists alike agree on that
market failure point. Indeed, Republicans defend all the subsidies we
give to the fossil fuel industry. There is no subsidy to the fossil
fuel industry that does not earn constant Republican support.
Rather than gambling on more oil and gas production, I suggest we
make the safe bet on a strategy that cuts emissions, encourages
American investment in American clean energy, saves taxpayers billions
of dollars, and creates and supports millions of jobs.
There is an old hymn that the Presiding Officer probably knows. It
says: ``Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways.'' Well, it is time
to turn back and forswear our foolish fossil fuel ways. If we don't,
there will be a day of reckoning and a harsh price to pay.
Remember what Pope Francis told us:
God always forgives. We men forgive sometimes, but nature
never forgives. If you give her a slap, she will give you
one.
We have given our Earth one heck of a slap.
I will leave the Chamber with this: Last week, NASA and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2015 was the
warmest year on record globally. That is not a fluke. Fifteen of the
warmest 16 years recorded occurred during this century, which, by the
way, has had 15 years. They are all in the warmest 16 years ever
recorded. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the most
recent 5-year period--from 2011 to 2015--was the warmest 5-year period
ever recorded. You can see that the long-term trend is going in one
direction and one direction only--hotter. There is no pause. The pause
was a trick. These changes are primarily driven by the excessive carbon
pollution we continue to dump into our atmosphere and oceans.
By the way, for all of this measured heat, 90-plus percent of the
heat actually goes into the oceans. There is little change in the
oceans but big changes here. As the oceans stop absorbing as much
warmth, I don't know where that will lead.
As we bring our ideas to the floor during our discussion about
modernizing our electric grid, we have an opportunity to also have a
real conversation on climate change. We still have a real
responsibility to act.
It is time for this body to wake up.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Donald Trump
Mr. REID. Mr. President, there are some things I shouldn't joke
about. I tried to be funny an hour ago at my weekly stakeout and I
guess it wasn't very funny--at least I don't think so.
The danger Donald Trump's candidacy poses to our country is not a
joke. Since he launched his bid for the Republican nomination, Donald
Trump has proven over and over again that he is a hateful demagogue who
would do immeasurable damage to our country if elected. I have come to
the Senate floor many times to decry his hateful comments.
Donald Trump threatens to diminish the integrity of our democracy
around the whole world. If he wins the nomination of the Republican
Party to run for President of the United States, the Republican Party
will never recover from the damage he will inflict on conservatism.
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. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Nomination of Robert Califf
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise to voice my opposition to Dr.
Robert Califf, the President's nominee to be the Commissioner of the
FDA.
I do this with all respect for Dr. Califf, his expertise, and all the
work he has done. He is a quality human being. I am sure the
administration is going to be able to find a position for him that
suits his background better than being the head of the FDA, and I say
that with all due respect. We had a thoughtful conversation when he
came to visit with me.
I do not believe he can be the leader we need to change the culture
of the FDA. I say that coming from a State that has been ravaged by
this opiate addiction. It is going to take someone who is totally
committed through and through to make the changes that need to be made.
The No. 1 priority of the FDA and its Commissioner should be public
health. It is inappropriate for the FDA Commissioner to have such close
financial ties with the pharmaceutical industry. I will give a little
bit of background on this because what he has done I think is what most
of them do.
Between 2010 and 2014, Dr. Califf received money through his
university salary as well as his consulting fees from 26 different
pharmaceutical companies, including opioid manufacturers. Dr. Califf
has described FDA regulations as a ``barrier''--not a safeguard--to
public health. That is troubling in itself.
In 2008, the FDA's approval of new marketing claims for existing
drugs was 56 percent. In the first 8 months of 2015, it was 88 percent.
This includes just last year approving OxyContin for children as young
as 11 years old. At a time when opioid deaths are killing tens of
thousands of Americans every day, our FDA would like to give these
dangerous drugs to kids. Someone at the FDA needs to change this way of
thinking. They are giving all of the excuses in the world, and it makes
no sense whatsoever to me.
Dr. Califf's past involvement with the pharmaceutical industry shows
that he will not be able to be this person--the person of change who is
needed. He will not have the impact or leadership capabilities that
this Nation needs to stem the tide of the opioid crisis.
These are the facts of what this horrific pain reduction, if you
will--pain suppressor, opiates--does to Americans. With 51 Americans
dying every day due to an opioid overdose--51 Americans die every day--
the FDA, now more than ever, needs a champion who is committed to
dramatically changing the way this agency handles opioids. Every other
Federal agency is fighting to address opioid addiction.
Let me tell my colleagues about addiction. There is not one of us in
the Senate, there is not one person who works here who doesn't have
someone in their immediate family or extended family or a close friend
who has been affected by prescription drug abuse or illicit drugs, but
the FDA continues to approve stronger and more dangerous opioid drugs,
endangering the public.
In 2014, 18,893 people died due to a prescription opioid overdose.
Again, as I have said, that is 51 people every day. That is a 16-
percent increase from 2013 and it increased every year before that. We
have lost almost 200,000 Americans to prescription opioid abuse since
1999.
The FDA Commissioner is an important figure in the fight against
prescription drug abuse, and he or she must be a public health official
whose top priority is stopping the opioid abuse epidemic.
We need to change the culture of the FDA to make them address the
crisis seriously. That will not happen if the person at the helm is not
a strong advocate--and I say a very strong advocate--who is committed
to pushing back against the pressure to continually approve new opioid
medications given the significant risks to public health, just for
meeting a business model or a business plan.
I believe the FDA needs new leadership, a new focus, and a new
culture. This is not disparaging anybody who is there or who wishes to
be there. When I talked to Dr. Califf, I found him to be most qualified
and will do a good job in some other position, I am sure.
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I believe the FDA must break its close relationship with the
pharmaceutical industry and instead start a relationship with the
millions of Americans impacted by prescription drug abuse. It is just
human nature for a person that basically has had all his research
funded for many years from this industry, and it is going to be hard to
change.
It is because of this that I will filibuster any effort to confirm
Dr. Califf instead of voting to confirm a nominee who will not address
the concerns of the people of West Virginia and all of America. I will
come to the floor and read letters from those who have had their lives
devastated by opiate addiction. I will read letters from children who
have seen their parents die from an overdose. I will read letters from
grandparents who have been forced to raise their grandchildren when
their kids went to jail, rehab, or the grave. I will read letters from
teachers and religious leaders who have seen their communities
devastated by prescription drug abuse. I will read letters from West
Virginians who need help from the FDA--not by putting more of these
opiate killers on the market.
I urge all of my colleagues to examine the financial support Dr.
Califf has received throughout his research career and ask themselves
if he is the right person to change the culture of the FDA. This
Senator is confident that when looking at all the facts, you will agree
that we need a new nominee, one who will join us in the fight against
this horrible epidemic affecting every nook and cranny of this country.
I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I know we are waiting for other
colleagues to come to the floor to speak to the Energy bill itself or
perhaps to offer amendments. I certainly would encourage that, as we
are trying to get the process going with the Energy Policy
Modernization Act.
Before my colleague from West Virginia leaves the floor, I want to
thank him for his leadership on this issue. We have had conversations.
I traveled to West Virginia at his invitation to view how West Virginia
deals with its energy issues. They have a little bit of everything
there in West Virginia, and I was able to see that.
One of the sad stories I learned, though, is what we were seeing in
his State as it relates to opioid abuse--OxyContin and meth at that
time. Our States share some similarities in that there are very rural
characteristics in both West Virginia and Alaska. Even though we are
far removed from most of the other States in this country, we are not
immune or insulated from what we are seeing with this epidemic of
opioid abuse brought on initially by access to prescription drugs and
now being replaced in a horrible way with heroin that is impacting our
kids, young people, and folks who are ages that would surprise many. It
is deeply troubling.
When you use words like ``epidemic'' or ``pandemic,'' those are very
strong words, but I think that is what we are seeing in this country,
and it is reaching from one end of the country to the other.
I want to acknowledge my colleague for the issues he has raised.
Mr. MANCHIN. If I may, Mr. President, let me first of all thank the
Senator from Alaska for her leadership on the Energy bill. It has been
a long time since we have had one on the floor, working in a most
rational, commonsense approach trying to bring all parties together.
She has done a great job working with Maria Cantwell, the Democrat on
our side from the State of Washington.
I think we are finding there is a little bit of something for
everybody, understanding that the energy policy should be an all-in
policy. I come from a fossil fuel State and she comes from a fossil
fuel State, and people think they can live without it. I think they can
live better with it if we use technology, and that is what we have
tried to push in this piece of legislation.
On the opiate issue, I have a passion. I have watched it, and it is
devastating. When you have young kids coming to you and telling you
that they have watched their parents die of overdose, they have watched
their families split up, with the kids taken in different directions,
it makes your heart bleed and makes you think about future generations
and what we are going to face.
Then to have the Food and Drug Administration--I will give one
example. It took them working 3 years to get all opiates to be
reclassified from a schedule III to a schedule II. It took 3 years to
get that done. To show the success we have had, millions of
prescriptions have been reduced because now it is a 30-day mandatory,
but let me tell you, it is still a problem that we have. Not everybody
needs 30 days. Unless we start doing a whole reeducation of the doctors
who basically write the prescriptions to understand sometimes you need
it only for 1 or 2 days of assistance, we are over-prescribing and the
pharmaceuticals are over-enticing, if you will, with stronger and
stronger medications.
This Senator believes we need an FDA cultural change. That is it. I
think if we can't do it here, if we don't drive it on the inside, then
there is no one expected to do it on the outside.
In States that do the heavy lifting--Alaska, West Virginia--people
are going to get injured from time to time. They have pain, and they
need help. There are other methods. We are trying to go in a different
direction.
I thank the Senator for recognizing that, but I also thank the
Senator for coming to our State. We enjoyed having her, and I enjoyed
being in her State.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, my colleague from West Virginia is
always welcome to come back and learn more.
On the issue of Dr. Califf, let it be known that I, too, have
concerns about his nomination, and it has nothing to do with opioids.
It has everything to do with fish, and basically what we have referred
to as a fake fish, a genetically engineered fish. All this Senator is
looking for is an assurance from the FDA that if they are going to put
this genetically engineered product out there for human consumption
then there should be an appropriate labeling. I do not think that is
too much to ask. I have asked for that, and the difficulty is getting
folks within the FDA to have a full and important conversation about
the import of that. So it is a different issue from what the Senator
from West Virginia has discussed, but I think it goes to the issue of
needing to have some communication within the FDA.
The FDA is an agency that has considerable authorities, and we in the
Congress need to know that we can have a good level of dialogue and
discussion going back and forth. I think we have seen a real lack or
shortfall, and until I get certain assurances from the FDA as well, I
am not planning on removing the hold that I currently have on this
nominee, and we will be working with other colleagues on this.
My friend, the Senator from Colorado, has arrived to the floor, and I
know he wishes to speak on the Energy Policy Modernization Act. The
Senator from Colorado has been a great Member of the U.S. Senate since
he came. He was a leader on energy issues when he was over at the
House, and he has continued that in a very constructive and robust way.
We can talk about energy matters that come from producing States like
ours, but a recognition that Senator Gardner's approach is not just
that he comes from a fossil-fuel producing State; he is also looking to
make sure that we move to a clean energy future. He is also very
conscious and considerate about what we do with conservation. His
leadership has been greatly appreciated.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alaska for her
leadership on the bipartisan Energy bill. It is a bill that came out of
committee with an 18-to-4 vote, strong support on both sides of the
aisle.
This is a bill that has components in it from grid reliability, to
transparency, accountability, and clean energy. On the floor there are
opportunities for amendments that will be discussed and brought out,
including an amendment that is important to Senator Shaheen and I that
will be discussing the impact the recreation economy has--the amount of
dollars raised and generated through the recreation economy, spending
money in the great outdoors, how it impacts our States, and the jobs it
creates.
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We know people come to States such as Colorado, New Hampshire, and
Alaska to hike, fish, climb, ski, and partake in all of the great
incredible recreational benefits we have year-round in Alaska,
Colorado, and the rest of our many States with so many recreational
offerings. I look forward to these discussions, and over the next few
days I look forward to coming back to the floor to discuss other ideas
in the bill right now, such as renewable energy, energy efficiencies,
including my legislation to expand the use of energy savings
performance contracts which could save this country $20 billion without
spending a dime of taxpayer money. These are incredible opportunities.
At this time, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Remembering U.S. Capitol Police Officer Vernon Alston, Jr.
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I rise today in memory of Vernon Alston.
Vernon Alston, Jr., was a member of the U.S. Capitol Police. On Sunday,
January 24, Officer Alston passed away after suffering from a heart
attack. As was so common for Officer Alston, his concern had been for
others that day. He spent the morning by serving those around him,
helping those in his community shovel the incredible amounts of snow
the area received.
Day after day, the men and women of the Capitol Police work to
protect us all, not just the Members and staff, but anyone who comes to
the Nation's Capitol to share in the history, heritage, and traditions
of this place.
For two decades, Officer Alston dedicated himself to his work, and I
am grateful for his many years of dedicated service on the Capitol
grounds. This building stands as a representation of the values our
Nation was founded on, and it is in this building that we continue to
uphold the values of democracy.
The Capitol Police are often called America's police. They protect us
as we carry out this work and safeguard those who travel from around
the world to experience this living piece of American history which
serves as the stage for our future. Their support for us is invaluable
and unwavering, and this week it is our turn to support them as they
mourn the loss of a dear colleague and friend.
Whether it is September 11 or the ricin attacks or anthrax or
somebody who is here visiting who has a health issue, we know the
support and the pride that every member of the Capitol Police Force
brings to the job each and every day. They are never the first to flee,
they are the last to leave, and for that we are eternally grateful.
My deepest condolences go to Officer Alston's wife Nicole, their
children, and his family members. We will always honor his work and
legacy. He is a member of our Capitol community, and he will truly be
missed.
I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). The Senator from Minnesota.
Tribute to Canadian Ambassador Gary Doer
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to honor the outgoing Canadian
Ambassador to the United States, Gary Doer. Soon Ambassador Doer will
return home to Manitoba, but, lucky for us, he will be a frequent
visitor to Washington, DC, as the new cochair of the Wilson Center's
Canada Institute Advisory Board. We are glad the Ambassador will
continue to be an influential voice in shaping U.S.-Canada relations.
Over the last 6 years, I have had the privilege of getting to know
the Ambassador. I knew we would get along well when I learned he was a
longtime fan of Bud Grant, an incredible athlete who became the head
coach of the Minnesota Vikings. From a Canadian perspective, he first
coached the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League.
Bud Grant is adored in Minnesota and is still adored many years after
he left coaching. In fact, it was during a recent playoff game that we
remember well--in Minnesota versus the Seahawks--where Bud Grant came
out in 17-below-zero weather and flipped the coin with no jacket on.
What I will also never forget is attending an event at the
Ambassador's home. I walked in the door, and he had a framed photo of
Coach Grant right next to a framed photo of the Prime Minister of
Canada. We like that in Minnesota.
The Ambassador served for 6 years--or double-overtime, as he likes to
call it. This is longer than his two predecessors combined. Ambassador
Doer's long tenure and the fact that he served Prime Ministers from
different political parties are testaments to his professionalism and
character. Ambassador Doer is also well known in Washington for his
humor and good nature, and I am sure that helps.
Minnesota shares a long border with Canada--in fact, about 547 miles.
As I like to say, I can see Canada from my porch. That must be why
early on in my Senate career Leader Reid asked me to head up the
Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group, along with Senator Mike
Crapo of Idaho. Together we have come to understand what an important
geopolitical partner Canada is to the United States. I am a Minnesotan
who is proud to share a border with Canada. I appreciate the country's
friendship, culture, and beauty.
Not only is Canada America's biggest trading partner, but it is the
only country with an embassy that at one point draped a sign that said
``friends, neighbours, partners, allies.'' I will never forget how
gracious Ambassador Doer was for hosting my swearing-in celebration at
the Canadian Embassy in 2013. I am the only Senator in recent history
to choose the Canadian Embassy as a site for my Senate reelection
swearing-in party, and a lot of that had to do with the Ambassador.
President Kennedy said this to the Canadian Parliament in 1961:
Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us
friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has
made us allies.
During his tenure in Washington, Ambassador Doer has been a strong
champion for Canada and Canadians and an effective diplomat who gets
things done. Through his successful 10 years as Premier of Manitoba and
his efforts as Ambassador to engage leaders and citizens across the
United States, the Ambassador has strengthened the already robust
friendship and partnership between our two great nations.
His list of accomplishments is impressive. He has worked tirelessly
on tourism and trade while ensuring the safety and security of the
border between our two countries.
The Ambassador championed the agreement on the new bridge that will
link Detroit and Windsor. This bridge is destined to become the most
important border crossing between our two countries. For too long there
has been complete gridlock on the bridge linking our countries. I know
how hard the Ambassador has worked on the Windsor bridge, and for a
while it looked as though it wouldn't get done. But the Ambassador
never stopped fighting for it and refused to be satisfied until the
deal was done, often using an old Gordie Howe saying that ``you don't
put your hands in the air until the puck is in the net.'' That is a
hockey analogy between Minnesota and Canada. The Ambassador made sure
the puck was in the net.
The Ambassador was also instrumental in the U.S.-Canada preclearance
agreement, a new agreement that will facilitate travel, create jobs,
and encourage economic growth in both countries, while ensuring a
secure border. This initiative reaffirms the commitment of the United
States and Canada to enhancing security, while facilitating economic
activity, and will help move more than $2 billion in goods and services
and an estimated 300,000 people across the longest border in the world.
I know that the Ambassador considers it an accomplishment that he
helped to eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic redtape, making it easier
for businesses and agencies to operate by working to align regulatory
systems and practices in health, safety, and the environment.
The Ambassador also strengthened Canada's role as a world leader in
renewable energy when he worked to harmonize vehicle emission standards
between our two countries, which will ultimately improve air quality on
both sides of the border. In addition, the Ambassador fought for the
Environmental Protection Agency Clean Power Plan, which provides
Canadian hydroelectricity as a renewable energy that U.S. States can
import and use to
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comply with new Federal emission rules.
Ambassador Doer ensured that the surviving members of the World War
II joint American-Canadian First Special Service Force, nicknamed the
``Devil's Brigade,'' received the Congressional Medal of Honor for its
part in ending World War II.
Like all friends, sometimes our nations have differences, but with
his experience, tact, and plain-spoken pragmatism, Ambassador Gary Doer
has ensured that these differences are bridged so that our two
governments can move forward together.
In a 1943 address, President Roosevelt said this to the Canadian
Parliament:
Your course and mine have run so closely and affectionately
during these many long years that this meeting adds another
link to that chain. I have always felt at home in Canada, and
you, I think, have always felt at home in the United States.
Ambassador Doer, your service has added another strong and important
link in the chain that connects our two countries. And as you have said
many times in the past in Gordie Howe hockey terms, it is only safe to
put your hands in the air after the puck is in the net.
Ambassador, you have put a lot of pucks in the net, and now you
deserve a moment to put your hands in the air to celebrate your work.
In hockey parlance, you have scored for your great country of Canada.
I am proud to have worked with the Ambassador during his time in the
United States, and I hope he will always feel at home in our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a
colloquy with a number of Members.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Nuclear Agreement With Iran
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, today I come again to the floor to speak
about the ongoing challenges that we face in our relationship with
Iran, about some of the benefits that we have seen through the JCPOA--
the joint comprehensive agreement on the nuclear program that Iran has
now significantly set back--and some of the challenges that we face
going forward.
We will hear from a number of my colleagues in the next 45 minutes,
and I am grateful that they, too, are coming to the floor today to talk
about the balance, what there is that we can recognize about the
progress we have made under the JCPOA and what there is that remains to
be done and that remains as a challenge.
There are some who believe that having reached so-called
implementation day means that we have settled our scores with Iran,
that there are no more concerns we have, and that we can now expect a
complete and positive change in its behavior. But in my view this
couldn't be further from the truth. Now more than ever, we cannot
afford to take our attention away from Iran.
My colleagues and I are on the floor today to explain why we must do
more to strictly enforce this deal and to aggressively push back on
Iran's bad behavior outside of the parameters of the nuclear deal. My
personal concern is that if we don't, if we don't do this effectively,
this important landmark nuclear agreement may not survive even into
next year.
Let me at the outset say that there have been some encouraging
developments in recent days. It is hugely encouraging to see an
American, a U.S. citizen such as Jason Rezaian from the Washington
Post, return to United States soil and be reunited with his family. He
is someone who had been unjustly detained and sentenced without
foundation. He is now once again free. A journalist--the best and
brightest of American journalism--is now free and back in the United
States.
I also want to recognize former marine Amir Hekmati, who was arrested
while visiting his grandmother in Iran. He was also unjustly arrested
and detained and is now also free in the United States.
I wish to move to another topic by way of introduction. In the past
week alone, the Iranians have signaled that Iran is open for business
again as Iran's leaders have hosted Chinese's President Xi Jinping, and
Iranian President Ruhani has traveled to Europe to meet with the Pope
and with leading officials from the French Government and the Italian
Government.
Just a few weeks ago, Iran was still an international pariah.
Business deals with the Iranian Government were illegal. Today, some
foreign governments--some who are supposed to be our vital partners in
enforcing the JCPOA--at times seem all too eager to resume business
ties with the regime. At the outset I might caution those allies of
ours to be mindful that American sanctions remain in place against
Iranian bad behavior--whether it is their support for terrorism, their
human rights violations, such as arresting and detaining Americans
without foundation, or their illicit ballistic missile program.
So to further expound on the challenges that we face and the
importance of having the resources in the U.S. Government and in the
international monitoring agency called the IAEA that we need to be
successful in enforcing this deal, I wish to invite my colleague from
the State of New Hampshire to rise for a few minutes and to share with
us her thoughts, having served on the Foreign Relations Committee,
having closely studied this deal, and having looked forward to what the
opportunities and challenges are for us in the weeks and months ahead.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am delighted to be able to be here to
join my colleague from Delaware to talk about what is happening with
enforcement of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
If we want this to succeed, one of the things we need to do is to
make sure we support the IAEA, the international agency that is charged
with monitoring and verifying Iran's compliance with the agreement. I
want to address that first, and then I wish to talk about some national
security nominees who are also critical as we think about how we
enforce this deal.
First, we all know that the IAEA is absolutely critical to the
international nonproliferation system and to the enforcement of the
JCPOA. Their employees are working day in and day out to verify
critical aspects of the implementation of the agreement that prevents
Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
For example, on December 28, Iran shipped more than 12 tons of low-
enriched uranium to Russia, where the fuel is stored in a facility that
is guarded by the IAEA. The IAEA has increased the number of its
inspectors on the ground in Iran. They have deployed modern
technologies to monitor Iran's nuclear facilities, and they have set up
a comprehensive oversight program of Iran's nuclear facilities.
The IAEA is constantly enhancing and improving its efforts. For
example, earlier this month they installed the online enrichment
monitor, or OLEM, to verify that Iran keeps its level of uranium
enrichment at up to 3.67 percent, as they committed to under the JCPOA
to keep it at that 3.67-percent level. This prevents Iran from
enriching uranium to a point where it could conceivably be used in a
nuclear weapon.
This is new technology. It was developed by the IAEA with significant
support from American scientists at our Department of Energy national
labs.
As a result of the JCPOA, this new system can be used in Iran.
The IAEA resources devoted to verification and monitoring are also
increasing considerably with personnel devoted to monitoring Iran's
nuclear program increasing by 120 percent and the number of days
monitors spend in the field by 100 percent. If we want the IAEA to be
successful in making sure this agreement is successful, we need to
provide robust financial support so that they can deploy the best
scientists in the world for inspections and so that they can deploy the
best equipment to monitor Iran's compliance.
IAEA Director General Amano has called on member states to provide
long-term funding for the IAEA's additional activities in Iran that are
estimated at approximately $10 million a year. If we think about this
cost, that is a very good investment for America as we prevent Iran
from getting a nuclear weapon.
I have other colleagues on the floor who wish to speak. So I can wait
and talk about nominees after they have had a chance to speak, if that
makes sense.
[[Page S234]]
Mr. COONS. That would be fine. I think there is a strong point being
made by my colleague from New Hampshire that I will just briefly
expound upon and then invite my colleague from New Jersey to join in
this conversation.
Earlier this month, I traveled with a number of my Senate colleagues
to the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency and heard
from them directly the same sorts of concerns my colleague from New
Hampshire just laid down. They are struggling with how to ensure that
they have the resources, the staffing, and the equipment to take on
this remarkably broadened scope of inspections.
One of the underappreciated, positive benefits of the JCPOA is that
the IAEA now has unprecedented 24/7 access not just to Iran's nuclear
enrichment sites but to its centrifuge production workshops, its
uranium mines mills, the entire so-called fuel cycle for the production
of nuclear material within Iran. So I believe, as does my colleague
from New Hampshire, that the IAEA needs and deserves greater funding,
more reliable funding, more robust and long-term funding.
The oversight and monitoring mechanisms of the JCPOA, if strictly
enforced, can serve as a viable deterrent to Iran's cheating and, in a
worst-case scenario, provide the international community with early
warning and enough time to respond if Iran decides to break out and
dash to a nuclear weapons capability. But access to all of these sites
is only valuable if the IAEA has the resources it needs and has asked
for to conduct thorough inspections.
So my colleagues and I will be working together with the
administration and others of our colleagues in the months ahead to
authorize not just an adequate level of funding of 1 year or 2 years in
advance but to put in place a long-term, reliable source of funding. As
my colleague from New Hampshire said, there could be no better
investment than in ensuring deterrence through vigorous and
comprehensive inspections to prevent Iran from ever renewing its dream
of access to a nuclear weapon. We will press the administration to work
with all of us on this and to make this a higher priority going
forward.
The idea that we have world-class nuclear scientists in the United
States and that the IAEA has world-class nuclear inspectors and
together they have developed new technologies and can deploy highly
skilled teams to do this monitoring in Iran is a great opportunity, but
it is only meaningful if we contribute the resources to ensure that
those inspectors do their jobs.
So let me turn to our colleague from the State of New Jersey who
wants to speak about some of the pros and cons of this critical
turning-point implementation.
Mr. BOOKER. I thank my colleague, and Senator Shaheen as well, for
emphasizing what I think needs to be emphasized, which is that we have
in the IAEA an ability to do the most intrusive inspections ever before
seen on the planet Earth. That agency--an important point Senator
Shaheen was making--needs to be funded and funded well. We need to make
sure the international community is standing there, and America needs
to lead in that way.
I anticipate hearing Senator Shaheen also make the point, though,
that it is the height of malfeasance for us here in this country not to
have people in the right places to do the other things necessary to
hold Iran accountable. We can't sound like a hawk around the debate
over the JCPOA and then sound like a chicken when it comes to putting
the funding forward necessary to prevent them from engaging in
destabilizing activities in the region. I am grateful Senator Shaheen
will make that point further, but I just want to review again what has
been accomplished come implementation date because it is still an
extraordinary victory for diplomacy, taking the spectre of a nuclear-
armed Iran and evaporating, eviscerating, pushing it back at least for
15 years.
In that region, we now have the spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran
pulled back, and we have the ability of moving forward with greater
diplomacy. In order to get there, some pretty extraordinary things have
happened. We have now effectively blocked Iran's uranium pathway to a
bomb, with 12 tons of enriched stockpile--virtually all of its
stockpile--shipped out of its country, and two-third of Iran's
centrifuges have been taken offline. So there has been a significant
removal of Iran's pathway.
In addition, we have blocked the plutonium pathway. The heavy water
reactor in Iran has been filled with concrete. It is no longer
operational. It has been permanently disabled. This makes sure that
pathway to producing weapons-grade plutonium has been eliminated for
the foreseeable years in the future.
Again, it has established unprecedented monitoring. The IAEA has
gained unprecedented 24/7 access to all of Iran's nuclear facilities,
including the pathway toward a weapon. Now we have intrusive monitoring
and intelligence-gathering capabilities we never had before.
Most recently, Secretary Kerry was able to call upon his Iranian
counterpart to secure the release of sailors. The reason why I say that
is the quick turnaround of the sailors being released shows that these
historic steps of the JCPOA have put us in an environment where
diplomacy works in other critical areas.
Now, let's be clear, and these are important points I want to make.
We must remain vigilant as a Congress and we must be vigilant in this
body to make sure that other areas of Iran's activities are being
watched in every single way and that there are repercussions for any
Iranian violations of its nuclear agreements. This first step is
impressive and historic and has really done a lot of good in removing
that nuclear threat for at least 10 to 15 years, but it must come with
real repercussions for any violations. The only way to ensure that the
path of diplomacy is validated is to hold Iran accountable. It must
meet all of the commitments--not just those for implementation day but
during the whole process of the JCPOA for the many years ahead.
Again, the oversight and engagement of Congress on monitoring
provisions of this agreement are absolutely vital. That is in many ways
a chorus of conviction amongst my colleagues speaking here tonight to
make unmistakably clear that we have eyes and ears on this agreement.
All of my colleagues are saying on the floor today that we expect Iran
to test the bounds of the JCPOA, but if there are signs that Iran is
not abiding by the terms of the agreement, we are firm in our
conviction that Congress must not hesitate to levy new economic
sanctions, isolate Iran diplomatically and financially, and use
security and military measures if that is what it takes to keep them
from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Iran's obligations under the JCPOA are ongoing and must be
continually verified. It is one thing for Iran to cooperate
sufficiently to achieve the transfer of frozen assets and the
dismantling of the international sanctions regime; it is quite another
for it to cooperate in an ongoing basis after these aims have been
achieved. That is the responsibility of the administration and this
Congress.
The JCPOA must serve as one part of a larger strategy with Iran. This
is about the nuclear agreement and pushing back the spectre of a
nuclear-armed Iran. But this is just one part--it must be just one part
of a larger strategy with Iran. The diplomatic success with the JCPOA
is commendable, but tensions between our closest partners in the region
and Iran remain high. I was just there, and we saw the concerns of the
Israelis, of Saudi Arabia, of Turkey. Iran is continuing its
destabilizing activities, testing ballistic missiles, and further
flaming tensions in the region. These events demand that we be even
more attentive and engaged so that our allies and others know that the
United States will not hesitate in the face of Iran's continued
defiance of international rules. The implementation of the JCPOA is
again an important step, but as a stand-alone strategy, it is just not
enough.
In addition, Iran has been a bad actor in nonnuclear areas, and the
United States needs to hold it responsible. Therefore, in addition to
the accountability measures we are taking with the nuclear regime,
there must be an understanding that we cannot allow the Iranians to
grow the shadow of this agreement to cover all their other nonnuclear
destabilizing activities. Congress and the administration must be
[[Page S235]]
prepared and must be willing to levy appropriate economic sanctions
needed to respond robustly to these destabilizing activities.
I believe it is unacceptable for us to move forward in any way that
allows Iran to flaunt international law to violate any of the balance
of the agreements we have made. We need to make sure we meet them. Iran
could try to use the additional funds they receive through this deal to
do things that undermine regional security. That cannot be allowed. We
must continue to work closely with our allies and respond to every
single bit of Iranian aggression that undermines international order
and violates international regions.
With that, I turn back to Senator Coons to continue this dialogue.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New Jersey.
I wish to emphasize a point he made. We need to remain vigilant. We
need to remain ready to impose additional sanctions on those actions by
Iran that are outside the JCPOA. We saw two launches of ballistic
missiles by Iran late last year, designations recently having been made
of those involved in supporting Iran's ballistic missile program.
There is other bad behavior by Iran--violations of human rights that
led to the long and unjust detention of Amir Hekmati and also
potentially their increased support for terrorism in the region.
I invite my colleague from New Hampshire to help us understand what
barriers there might be to the administration vigorously enforcing the
sanctions that remain on the books here in the United States if we as a
body don't act to do our part in making sure the administration has the
resources they need.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. I thank Senator Coons.
As we know, one of the challenges is having people in place in the
various agencies who can enforce this agreement and hold Iran
accountable. That is where I think we have a real challenge because we
have a number of nominees who need to be approved, but there are three
who stand out as particularly important. First is Tom Shannon, who was
nominated to be the State Department's Under Secretary for Political
Affairs. Second is Laura Holgate, who is nominated to be the U.S.
Ambassador to U.N. offices in Vienna. Included in those offices is the
IAEA. The third and maybe even the most important as we think about
future sanctions on Iran is Adam Szubin, who has been nominated as the
Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial
Crimes.
Shannon was nominated on September 18. This nomination is currently
on the floor. Holgate was nominated on August 5. Her nomination is
pending in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Szubin was nominated
on April 16, and his nomination has been held up in the Banking
Committee despite the support he has from the chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee.
I know a number of my other colleagues are going to speak to these
nominees, but I would like to point out that last week we had a hearing
in the Foreign Relations Committee on the implementation of the JCPOA,
and one of the witnesses who had not been a supporter of the
agreement--Michael Singh--was a witness at that committee hearing. I
asked him about Adam Szubin. He described him as a ``good guy who had
done great work for the country'' and as someone whose nomination
should go forward because it would allow us to continue to look at the
sanctions regime and what we need to do.
The reality is--and I am sorry to say this because I think it
contributes to what the American public is concerned about when they
look at us in Washington and what we are doing. I think these
nominations are being held up for purely political reasons. It has
nothing to do with the background of these candidates, with their
expertise, or with what they would do on the job; this is about
individuals within this body who are trying to hold up these people for
their own political gain. I think this delay is harming the national
security interests of the United States. It is something every one of
us ought to be concerned about, and we ought to be yelling about this
because it is long past time that we confirm these individuals, let
them do their jobs, and continue to do everything we can to protect
this Nation's national security.
I thank Senator Coons for organizing all of us to come to the floor
today to talk about what we need to do as we are implementing the joint
plan of action.
Mr. COONS. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire.
I want to emphasize again that these three nominees--Tom Shannon,
Laura Holgate, and Adam Szubin--have been waiting for months. In
particular, Adam Szubin is a nonpartisan career professional, having
served in both the Bush and Obama administrations. Being the lead
enforcer, the lead investigator in sanctions, he has now been nominated
to take on the top role at the Department of Treasury in making sure
our sanctions have bite and stick.
Why wouldn't we proceed on a bipartisan basis to give this
administration the senior officials and the resources it needs to
enforce sanctions, to keep us safe, to make sure this nuclear deal is
enforced? Whether we voted for or against it, supported it or opposed
it, I can't comprehend why any Senator would consent to the ongoing
months-long delay in these vital nominees being confirmed so that the
administration can do the job that I believe all of us want them to do,
which is to enforce sanctions against Iran for its bad behavior.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Will my colleague yield for a question?
Mr. COONS. Of course.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. It is my understanding that Adam Szubin has been held
up and we have never heard a reason why he is being held up in that
committee. Is that the Senator's understanding as well?
Mr. COONS. That is my understanding as well. There is no publicly
articulated basis--certainly no basis that has anything do with his
qualifications, skills, experience or relevance to the job--as is the
case with all three of these nominees.
There are many other nominees we could be talking about, whether for
judgeships, ambassadorships or senior positions. These three we have
chosen to focus on today because they are so directly relevant to
America's national security and to the successful enforcement of this
complex nuclear deal with Iran.
As I said, and Senator Shaheen and Senator Booker said earlier, the
IAEA has incredibly broad scope to investigate what is going on in
Iran, but if we don't have the senior people in our government, in the
administration, that can take action when things are discovered in Iran
that we want to be active in taking on or when there is bad behavior
outside of this nuclear agreement, we have no one to blame but
ourselves as a body for failing to provide our administration with the
senior leadership and the skills and the resources needed to really
defend America.
I wish to encourage and invite my colleague from the State of
Connecticut to add, as he wishes today, both the positives about
implementation day and the concerns he might have going forward, such
as these vital national security nominees whom Senator Shaheen and I
have been discussing.
Senator Murphy.
Mr. MURPHY. Senator Coons, thank you for convening us.
I think it is important to restate the progress we have made. I know
it has been said before, but frankly not enough attention has been paid
to the fact that since implementation day Iran has shipped 12 tons of
enriched uranium out of Iran and kept enrichment at that 3.67 level,
which is significantly below what is necessary to create a bomb. They
filled the core of the Iraq plutonium reactor with concrete, preventing
them from producing weapons-grade plutonium. They started to allow the
IAEA access to the entire nuclear fuel cycle or uranium enrichment,
including their centrifuge production shops and uranium mines and
mills.
Of course, as has been stated before, the IAEA has been given an
unprecedented level of access to the entirety of the supply chain
leading up to any future potential development of a nuclear weapon.
That is an unprecedented level of access that will require an
unprecedented level of support. We are talking about an additional
$10.6 million per year that the IAEA is going to
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need to carry out these oversight responsibilities. The United States
puts up a percentage of IAEA's funding, but it is still the minority of
funding.
One development that we need to guard against are attempts in
Congress to undermine this agreement in very quiet, subtle ways. There
is a bill that has been introduced in the House of Representatives that
would disallow the United States from funding the IAEA unless it grants
the United States access to the contents of proprietary bilateral
arrangements. That would have the results of stripping the funding
necessary to carry out this agreement. If the IAEA doesn't get U.S.
funding, it simply can't have the purview it has been granted, by
virtue of this agreement, of the entire field cycle throughout the
country.
As important as it is to get the personnel in place who can enforce
this agreement, who can root out the ways in which Iran may take money
they get by virtue of this deal and support terrorism in the region, it
is also important to make sure the IAEA is properly funded as well.
Senator Coons, the only comment I would add to this discussion is
this. I think for those of us who supported this agreement--I will
speak for myself. I supported it because this was the most effective
way to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon--period, stop. With
this agreement, we were much more likely to prevent Iran from obtaining
a nuclear weapon than we were without this agreement, but we certainly
accepted the premise that it is in our long-term security and strategic
interest as a country to facilitate the transition of power within Iran
from the hardliners who have chosen a path of Iranian foreign policy to
be simply a provocateur and an irritant in the region to the more
moderate elements who would like to see Iran reengage on big questions
of both regional and global security.
I don't think you can count on that happening. I don't think anybody
should have voted for this agreement or supported this agreement
because they were counting on that being the end result, but you have
started to see a different level of engagement, whether it is with the
release of the prisoners as you spoke about, whether it was about the
resolution of the detainment of U.S. personnel, and we will shortly see
whether this battle that plays out almost every day inside Iran is
ultimately accruing to the benefit of the moderates. We will have
elections next month in Iran.
I think we should support this agreement because it strips from Iran
the ability to rush to a nuclear weapon, and you see the evidence
already in the steps they have taken since the implementation
agreement, but I think we should read with some level of positive
interpretation some of the resolution of crises that we have seen just
in the time passed over the course of 2016. That doesn't mean there
aren't still enormous issues still at stake, but it is in our security
interests, and it was part of the discussion of this agreement to
ultimately bring Iran to a place in which the will of the vast majority
of that country be expressed in the leaders who speak to the world
community.
I thank Senator Coons for continuing to bring us down to the floor. I
think as important as it is to talk about the positive steps that have
been taken since implementation day, it is also important to note that
we have a lot of work undone--whether it be funding the IAEA,
confirming these important positions--and we have a lot of work to do
in terms of remaining vigilant about the quiet, subtle ways that may be
undertaken in this body and across the hall in the House of
Representatives to try to undermine this deal that is working.
Thank you very much.
Mr. COONS. I wish to thank my colleague from Connecticut for his
active leadership role on the Foreign Relations Committee and his deep
interest in this topic.
By way of transition to my colleague from Pennsylvania, I briefly
want to point out this picture of the Arak heavy water reactor in Iran.
To me, it is a symbol of both what implementation day and the JCPOA
letter promises positively and the unresolved risks it presents.
Implementation day has only been reached because the IAEA--the
International Atomic Energy Agency--certified to the world that Iran
had taken the very core of this reactor, capable of producing weapons-
grade plutonium, and filled it with concrete, rendering it useless for
the production of significant quantities of plutonium. That is a
significant step forward, but when a reporter asked me the other day:
Does Iran still pose a nuclear threat to the United States and our
vital ally Israel, I said: Of course. When asked why, I said because
they still possess the knowledge, the resources, the engineering, the
uranium in the ground, in the mines, in the mills of their country, and
the engineers and the facilities to at some point enrich once again to
weapons grade. If we don't stay on this, if we don't fund the IAEA
effectively to conduct this oversight and these inspections, if we
don't stay attentive to this issue, we will simply wake up again at a
point 5, 10, 15 years from now and discover that what we have in Iran
is a nation that has translated its natural resources, its rich uranium
deposits, and its engineering know-how into once again being in a place
to threaten the world.
I wish to invite my colleague from Pennsylvania to talk about how our
regional vital allies perceive the path forward and what concerns he
has and how he sees implementation day.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I first of all thank Senator Coons and my
other colleagues who are working on this. It is very important to walk
through where we are in the process. If I had to step back at this
moment and say: Well, now that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
is moving forward and we are beyond implementation day, what do we have
to look for over time? If I had to boil that down to three words--
really three goals we must work toward every day. On some days it has
to be the United States on its own and other days working with allies,
those who participated in this agreement and signed it and partners in
the region--but the three words I guess would be as implementation is
going forward, we have to focus on three goals: enforce, counter, and
deter. Enforce, making sure the agreement is enforced at every step. I
will get to the issue of the consequences for violations of the
agreement. Counter, meaning countering the Iranian aggression in the
region. That is why it was so important that the President and the
administration he leads was very clear about the designation and the
sanctioning of the Iranian regime as it relates to ballistic missile
launches and their activity. The third is deter. We have to have a
deterrence policy that stays in place and, if anything, is strengthened
over time.
If we do a good job on those three things over the next several
decades--literally--enforcing the agreement, countering the aggression,
and deterring them--we will have the result we want years from now.
First of all, on the question of consequences, similar to a lot of
Members of the Senate when I made a decision about the agreement, I
wrote down page after page walking through my reasons. At the time I
wrote the following: ``We have to prepare for the possibility that the
Iranian regime may violate the agreement and may even engage in
activity constituting significant non-compliance with the JCPOA.''
That is what I wrote several months ago. That still holds true today.
We must not trust in Iran's compliance. In fact, some may say that
using President Reagan's old formula, which was ``trust but verify''--
and I will be blunt about this, these are my words--in this case, until
proven otherwise, we must mistrust and verify, mistrust the regime and
verify. That is the nature of where things are right now.
We have to vigorously verify any asserted reason or action the
Iranians would take. Also, in the process of doing that, we have to
work with our partners to ensure that any violations will be met with
swift multilateral consequences. That means we need other nations to
help us. We can't do this on our own.
We cannot know whether and how the Iranian regime might violate the
agreement. For example, we might see them drag their feet on allowing
the IAEA access to certain nuclear sites, especially ones where covert
activity may be suspected.
I firmly believe hardliners in Iran will be watching how we respond
to
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any violation. The best way to condition behavior, the best way to
impact what they might do, the best way to cause them a second thought
down the road is to aggressively enforce violations of the agreement.
It is important we work in lock step with our European partners to
prepare for these violations. I hope it doesn't come to pass, but I
think we have to assume, and I will assume, that they will violate the
agreement. Many of us met with our European friends before making
decisions about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. We need to
continue these conversations to ensure that as businesses and business
ties increase between the Iranian regime and Europe and other parts of
the world, we have to remain unified in our stance on the potential
Iranian violations of the deal. That is about violations.
The second and final point, briefly but so important to our
deliberations and our actions, our friend and ally Israel, the
relationship between the United States and Israel is unbreakable. We
have to make sure that as we move forward with the implementation of
the agreement, we insist that our policy reflects that unbreakable
relationship and also continues what has been very strong support for
Israel for many years, if not generations, now. We have to recognize at
the same time that Israel faces significant threats from Iran and its
proxies, especially Hezbollah and Hamas. We also have to assume that
Iran will continue its aggression in the region. That is why I talked
about countering that aggression before. And we have to assume that
Iran will try to expand its support for terrorism.
We have already taken some initial steps to expand cooperation with
Israel on defense and homeland security, including beginning
consultations toward a new 10-year memorandum of understanding, or MOU.
That memorandum of understanding on defense cooperation is vital in
initiating new efforts to address, among other threats, the terror
tunnels Hamas has constructed, which threaten Israel all the time.
I urge the administration to focus on the capabilities Israel
requires to face both conventional and asymmetric threats and to ensure
that the new memorandum of understanding constitutes a transformational
investment--not just one budget year to the next budget year or
appropriation to appropriation year--in our bilateral relationship with
Israel going forward. We should all meet with Israeli leaders to hear
their firsthand assessments of the threats and to reassert our mutual
interests in countering Iranian aggression.
I yield the microphone to my colleague Senator Coons again, but first
I wish to thank the Senator from Delaware for his leadership and for
what I believe is a bipartisan determination that we have to do
everything possible to enforce this agreement aggressively, with
consequences when there is a violation, counter Iranian aggression in
the region and beyond, and deter, deter, deter over what will be more
than one generation.
I yield the floor.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for
his clear-eyed assessment of the challenges that lie ahead as we try to
move past implementation day and into a positive world where together
we might be able to provide the administration with the resources they
need to enforce the agreement, counter Iran's bad behavior, and deter
Iran from any further illicit or bad behavior.
I wish to invite my colleague on the Foreign Relations Committee,
Senator Kaine of Virginia, to offer any thoughts he might care to share
at this point before we bring this colloquy to a close.
I know Senator Kaine has followed the importance of the inspections
regime under the JCPOA closely. As Senator Shaheen and I both
referenced earlier, full and robust funding of the IAEA is the only way
to ensure they really have the ability to enforce this agreement and
make sure this heavy water reactor does not somehow get redesigned,
reengineered, and restarted in the future.
I invite my friend and colleague from Virginia to offer his thoughts
on how to make sure we are effectively enforcing this deal.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for taking the floor
on this important matter. While I serve on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, I actually want to talk about this issue from my standpoint
on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
I happen to believe that one of the most valuable military assets we
have as a nation is information intelligence. In that capacity, what we
have under the JCPOA is the dramatic ability to learn, sadly, from
tragic mistakes.
After more than a decade of war in Iraq and thousands of lives lost,
we know that operating in an environment where we base national
security decisions on what we don't know rather than what we do know
can be tragically costly.
Over the weekend, there was press about a recently declassified
report from the Joint Chiefs of Staff on weapons of mass destruction.
It was submitted to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in
September of 2002, around the time Congress and the administration were
trying to decide whether to invade Iraq. The report that was given to
the Secretary of Defense--and it was not widely shared with the
administration or Congress at the time--confirmed that our officials at
the very top levels of the intel and military community knew very
little about the actual status of Iraq's WMD program. The report
concluded that what we suspect is ``based largely--perhaps 90 percent--
on analysis of imprecise intelligence.''
While the national security apparatus was acknowledging that it was
operating in the dark, it was nevertheless planning for war.
On March 7, 2003, 2 weeks before the beginning of the Iraq invasion,
the IAEA presented to the U.N. an updated report on Iraq's nuclear
activities. The report stated that they had conducted 218 nuclear
inspections at 141 sites and concluded at the time that there was no
indication of resumed nuclear activities since 1998, no indication that
Iraq had attempted to import uranium since 1990, no indication that
Iraq had imported aluminium tubes, and no indication that they had
sought to import magnets for use in centrifuge enrichment. The IAEA
said they had no information suggesting that Iraq had a WMD program
specifically with nuclear weapons.
We ignored what the IAEA told the U.N. the world, and us, and instead
we went to war based upon a national intelligence estimate that said we
didn't know what they were doing. That decision locked us into a decade
of combat operations which resulted in a tragic cost. We know the rest
of the story: 4,484 Americans lost their lives in connection with the
war in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 and another 32,246 Americans were
wounded. We also know that it turned out the IAEA was right. Once the
war was waged and we got in and had our own ability to gather
intelligence and information, we found out that Iraq didn't have a
program of weapons of mass destruction, so we went to war based upon a
faulty assessment and we didn't have the information we needed.
Let's contrast what happened in 2002 and 2003 with the opportunity we
now have before us as a result of the JCPOA. The agreement of Iran to
follow for the next 25 years an enhanced inspection regime and be
inspected by the IAEA to a standard that no other country in the world
must follow is very unique. It will provide us and all of our
international partners with significant intelligence about Iran's
program. After year 25, Iran has also agreed to submit and follow the
additional protocol of the IAEA, which also guarantees significant
intelligence and inspections.
What does that give us? It arms us with information. It arms us with
facts. It arms us with intelligence. Those are some of the best
military assets we can have. With intelligence, we obviously hope that
Iran never makes a move to develop nuclear weapons, but if they do,
with intelligence we can blow the whistle and inform the world that
they are violating paragraph 1, page 1 of the agreement where they
pledged never to seek, acquire, or develop nuclear weapons. With
intelligence, we can make a wise decision rather than a blind decision
as to whether we should send American men and women into war to try to
stop a nuclear weapons program. With intelligence, we can even target
military action to be more effective. That is what the JCPOA gives us
that we
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didn't have before. That is what it gives us that we didn't have in
Iraq, and we regret that we didn't have it.
I say to the Senator from Delaware that I noticed during our recent
visit to Israel that the tone seems to be changing a little bit as far
as our dialogue with our Israeli allies about this deal because the
dramatic nature of the intelligence is now being seen by our strong
allies in Israel as something that is potentially transformative.
Two days ago, the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces gave a
speech in Tel Aviv. Gadi Eizenkot spoke on Monday at a national
security conference in Tel Aviv and basically said that the nuclear
deal with Iran constitutes a strategic turning point. He didn't
whitewash it; he said ``many risks but also opportunities.'' What are
the opportunities? He said the deal reduces the immediate Iranian
threat to Israel because it rolls back Iran's nuclear capabilities and
deepens the monitoring capabilities of the international community.
After all the drama about how it was a historic mistake, how
refreshing it was to go to Israel a few weeks ago and hear security and
intel officials talk about what this enhanced intelligence meant with
respect to Israel's security.
We know there is no guarantee that a diplomatic deal will work out,
and my colleagues have laid out the need for strict implementation, but
we also know--and we have the scar tissue, so this is painful
knowledge--that we are much safer if we have better information, we are
much safer if we have better intel, and we will make much better
decisions.
I certainly pray that we will never again send American men and women
into war based on a false intelligence assessment. The only way we can
guard against that eventuality is to have stronger intelligence. The
IAEA inspections will give us better intelligence and should help us
make better military decisions in the future.
With that, I yield the floor back to my friend from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Virginia. We had a
terrific experience traveling together to Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia,
and Vienna. In Vienna, we met with the leadership of the IAEA. We asked
tough questions and learned more about their needs and plans for
thoroughly inspecting every aspect of Iran's nuclear program. We heard
about the concerns of our close regional allies in Turkey and Saudi
Arabia.
We need to strengthen our partnership with regional allies who are
uncertain about the future with ISIS but who were, frankly, grateful
for the increased intelligence partnerships between the United States,
Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, but most importantly with our vital ally
Israel, as the good Senator from Virginia has recounted. We heard from
the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, opposition leadership, and
intelligence and defense community leaders that the partnership with
the United States is stronger than it has ever been and that they view
this path forward with Iran as having challenges and opportunities--
opportunities in terms of intelligence to be gained, opportunities in
terms of pushing back on what was a rapidly advancing Iranian nuclear
infrastructure and program, and now a challenge--a challenge to work
together and provide exactly the sort of oversight and engagement that
only a duly-empowered and active Congress can take.
Let me close out the colloquy of six Senators by making a few simple
observations, if I might. Congress has an essential role to play in
ensuring that this nuclear deal with Iran moves forward and moves
forward in our best national interest. Congress should not only provide
oversight but also take action. The simplest is a point about which
Senator Shaheen spoke at length--the importance of securing key
national security nominees essential to the enforcement of sanctions.
We can also take proactive action here in this Chamber by passing the
Iran Policy Oversight Act. Its drafting was led by Senator Cardin of
Maryland, but a dozen other colleagues--some who opposed and some who
supported the deal--joined in as initial cosponsors. It is a bill that
would clarify some ambiguous provisions of the JCPOA, establish in
statute America's commitment to enforcing the deal, engage us in more
comprehensive efforts to counter Iranian activity in the Middle East,
and provide increased support to our allies in the region, especially
our valued ally Israel. This is a step this body can and should take,
and to do so would be much in the bipartisan spirit we saw in the
Foreign Relations Committee between Chairman Corker and Ranking Member
Cardin that produced the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.
I think passing the Iran Policy Oversight Act would be a strong and
important contribution by this Chamber.
Speaking for only myself, I will also say that I think we should
reauthorize the Iran Sanctions Act, which is set to expire this year.
Having that law reauthorized would provide a viable framework through
which the United States could snap back sanctions if Iran violated the
JCPOA.
Each of the ideas we have outlined--confirming vital national
security nominees; passing enforcement legislation; and fully funding,
reliably and for the long term, the IAEA, the inspections watchdog that
is supposed to keep a close and persistent eye on Iran's nuclear
facilities represents critical--these represent critical, concrete
steps Congress can take.
If the United States alone cannot enforce this complex deal, we have
to keep building international support for the imposition of new
sanctions to punish Iran for its ongoing human rights abuses, its
illegal ballistic missile activity, and its support for terrorism in
the Middle East.
If we are going to be serious about our constitutional role to
provide for the common defense and general welfare, I would argue that
we here in the Senate have a sacred obligation to provide not only
oversight of this deal but to also take action and enforce its terms
and push back on Iran's bad behavior and to demonstrate to the world
that the United States is serious about securing a peaceful, nuclear-
free future, as difficult as that may be, for the Middle East.
With that, I thank my colleagues who joined me here on the floor and
yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I wish to talk about the bill we have on
the floor and how important I think it is not only to my State but to
our United States in terms of our energy security and energy policy
modernization.
I rise to support the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016. I
think this legislation recognizes the critical need to improve our
Nation's energy infrastructure and how we can use our natural
resources.
I commend Chairman Murkowski and Ranking Member Cantwell for their
hard work to get this bill on the floor. I am honored to be a member of
the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The open process they led
in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as the Presiding Officer
knows, resulted in a strong bipartisan vote of 18 to 4 in support of
this bill.
I think it goes without saying, but this country needs an updated,
comprehensive policy that brings an ``all of the above'' approach to
the way we utilize energy. This is the first major energy legislation
to be considered by the Senate since 2007. This bill will help make our
homes, our cars, our public buildings--think about how old and
inefficient a lot of our public buildings are, including our schools--
more energy efficient. It will help improve our parks and lands through
the reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
This bill will enhance our ability to fully utilize our vast natural
resources so that we remain and become even more energy secure in the
years to come.
There are few people who know energy potential better than the people
of West Virginia. West Virginia's Marcellus region has the largest
shale gas reserves in the United States. It is really a magnificent
thing to watch as it is developing. It is a job creator, an excitement
creator, and a revenue generator. It is a reason to have a revitalized
part of our State come alive as we participate in the energy economy.
Coupled with the nearby Utica region, these two shale formations have
accounted for major increases in natural gas production since 2012.
West Virginia's natural gas production has nearly quadrupled between
the
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years 2008 and 2014. As I said earlier, it has happened fast and quick,
and it has really exploded throughout the region in terms of job
creation.
Unfortunately, despite this unprecedented increase in natural gas
recovery, our producers have been underserved by a lack of pipeline
capacity. Nobody knew this existed until just in the last 10, 12 years.
Our current permitting process for pipelines can take years. It is slow
and uncertain, which means delayed construction, if we get to
construction, and, in turn, delayed manufacturing projects and access
to affordable energy. Many manufacturers across this country rely on
cheap, affordable natural gas, not just as an energy producer but in
our chemical industries as feedstock to create.
Last spring, the Charleston Daily Mail editorialized that ``the big
gas boom that has increased employment and tax revenue in West Virginia
has slowed considerably less due to slowing markets than a lack of
pipeline infrastructure to carry the burgeoning supplies.''
Earlier this month, the Clarksburg Exponent Telegram, another fine
newspaper in West Virginia, editorialized that ``the promise of more
than 18,000 jobs tied to the construction of six interstate gas
pipelines is the last hope for prosperity for a generation of Mountain
State residents.'' The paper continued that regulatory delays are
slowing these important projects.
West Virginia has been hard hit by job loss in the energy sector.
Just this week, more than 850 West Virginia coal miners received
notices that their jobs may be at risk. They join more than 500 other
West Virginia miners who were informed after the start of this year
that they would be losing their jobs, not to mention that the whole
total job loss in the coal economy in my State has been 10,000 direct
jobs, as miners as well as some other indirect jobs that contribute to
the mining industry, most recently CSX and Norfolk Southern, are
announcing cutbacks.
Moving forward with improvements to our energy infrastructure will
create construction jobs and economic opportunity in my State, where
both are desperately needed. That is why I am pleased that this bill
includes language that I introduced, along with Senators Heitkamp and
Cassidy, that would address the fragmented and prolonged permitting
process for pipelines. This provision will streamline the application
process so pipelines can be constructed in a more timely and efficient
manner and will meet our energy transportation needs, along with
meeting the environmental requirements that we feel are proper in order
to site the pipelines.
The provision establishes FERC as the lead agency for the permitting
process. This helps to address any interagency squabbles or disputes
that can lead to project delay.
We must make use of our natural resources to grow our domestic
manufacturing. We should also use our abundant gas reserves to export
liquefied natural gas to our allies. A strong export policy will bring
jobs and revenue to producing States such as my State of West Virginia
and to many others across the country. It will also help with energy
security for our allies in Europe and Japan at a time of growing
instability around the globe.
This bill includes Senator Barrasso's bill to expedite LNG export
permitting so that natural gas produced here in America can be sold to
our allies around the world. Going forward, innovation will be a key
component in powering West Virginia's energy economy.
In addition to our rich natural gas reserves, West Virginia has been
one of the major producers of coal for energy generation in this
country for decades--centuries. My State and our Nation have faced an
uphill battle in the administration's war on coal, despite the fact
that coal still remains America's baseload energy source. We need a
commonsense approach to coal-fired energy generation, one that doesn't
simply try to eliminate it but instead incorporates it into a modern,
innovative energy policy.
That is why I cosponsored language included in this bill, with
Senators Manchin and Portman, that will revitalize the fossil energy
program at the Department of Energy. This program is critical to the
research and development of new technologies that make fossil energy
more efficient and more reliable, while at the same time reducing
emissions.
One of the most promising advances in fossil energy technology is
carbon capture utilization and storage. Not only will this technology
ensure that our significant coal reserves are part of an overall
strategy, but it could also be used for enhanced oil recovery that will
further strengthen our energy security.
A modern energy policy must recognize that coal and natural gas will
remain a key part of our Nation's energy portfolio for decades to come.
I think everybody agrees that the baseload needs to be there. By acting
now to support infrastructure and innovation, we can support jobs and
grow our economy for future generations.
I started out my speech talking about the way this bill moved through
the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and how bipartisan it was
and how we worked out the wrinkles. I, again, wish to thank Chairwoman
Murkowski and Ranking Member Cantwell for the way they wove through a
very complicated procedure.
This bipartisan legislation is critical to all Americans and their
families. It means more efficient, affordable, and reliable energy for
millions of people. It makes us energy secure and more competitive with
other countries in innovative energy and efficiency technologies.
These are the reasons why I support this important piece of
legislation, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak about an
amendment I have filed and that will soon reach the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, we don't yet know the exact number of the
amendment because we are refiling a minor correction to it. However, I
wish to talk about a very critical amendment that I and a number of our
colleagues on both sides of the aisle are bringing to the legislation
today dealing with nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is one of the key
elements of our national energy policy, and it must be one that is
strengthened and improved as we move forward into the new global energy
climate that we are dealing with in this country.
I wish to start out, however, by going back in time. Sixty-four years
ago, in a desert plain near Arco, ID, the Idaho National Reactor
Testing Station used the Experimental Breeder Reactor, known as EBR-1,
to light four lightbulbs. This was the first time in the history of the
world that a nuclear reactor was used to generate electrical power.
This singular event proved that atomic energy could be used to create
commercial electricity.
After this momentous event, EBR-1 went on to serve its real purpose,
proving it was possible to build a reactor that could create more fuel
than it consumed. Breeder reactors were possible. Another reactor at
the National Reactor Testing Station named BORAX-III went on to power
the entire town of Arco, ID. Now, Arco is not a huge metropolis like
New York City, but there, once again, a nuclear reactor was used to
provide the electrical needs of an entire city--another energy first
for nuclear energy in our history. So began the legacy of what would
become the Idaho National Laboratory, which is now the home of over 50
one-of-a-kind nuclear reactors.
Everything the lab did was new. Everything was innovative. The lab in
Idaho went on to achieve tremendous breakthroughs--breakthrough after
breakthrough. The imagination, ingenuity and hard work of the
scientists in Idaho's lab now, along with the same ingenuity of
scientists at Argonne and Oak Ridge, ensured that the United States was
the leader in the development and commercialization of nuclear energy.
Today, many in the industry are focusing on what it takes to keep a
current fleet of reactors alive and operational. Industry leaders are
worried about waste issues, the economics of operation, and navigating
the requirements of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Understandably,
many are not focused on the future of nuclear energy
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and what lies beyond the current generation of reactors.
Congress must find a way to help deal with the very real challenges
that the current generation of nuclear reactors face. Congress must
also address the waste issue, and we must evaluate the safety and cost
benefits of regulations the government has placed on this industry.
Many of the burdens on the nuclear industry are government created, and
so they must be government solved. I look forward to working with my
colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee to do our part
in providing sound solutions.
Congress needs to find a way to multitask. Again, we can't ignore the
challenges of the current fleet of reactors, but we must not allow
these challenges to keep us from looking forward. The nuclear industry
in America is, for better or worse, completely controlled by the
government. Congress must lead in preparing government agencies to move
forward into the future and to prepare for the next generation of our
nuclear reactors. If our government is not able to create an
environment in which the industry can grow and advance, companies will
take their technologies overseas. We have seen this begin to happen
already. Companies are now going to places such as China, Russia, South
Korea, and India. These countries want to develop exportable nuclear
technology. If we continue down our current path, these countries will
take the lead in establishing nonproliferation norms and safety norms
in the advanced nuclear industry. I would prefer that America continue
to lead in this area.
Today, Senators Whitehouse, Risch, Booker, Hatch, Kirk, Durbin, and I
introduced the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, or NEICA, as
an amendment to the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016. This
measure is the Senate companion to the House measure of the same name,
introduced by Representatives Randy Weber, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and
Lamar Smith. I wish to thank my colleagues for their hard work on this
measure. As my colleagues can tell from the list I gave, it is highly
bipartisan. There is broad support for this legislation on both sides
of the aisle and on both sides of the Rotunda.
We are all very excited by this legislation, and we all agree that
innovation within the nuclear industry must continue. America's
preeminence in all things nuclear must endure.
The Senate version of NEICA would do four very important things to
encourage innovation in advanced nuclear.
No. 1, the bill directs the Department of Energy to carry out a
modeling and simulation program that aids in the development of new
reactor technologies. This is an important first step that allows the
private sector to have access to the capabilities of our national labs
to test reactor designs and concepts.
No. 2, the measure also requires the DOE to report its plan to
establish a user facility for a versatile reactor-based fast neutron
source. This is a critical step that will allow private companies the
ability to test the principles of nuclear science and prove the science
behind their work.
No. 3, NEICA directs the Department of Energy to carry out a program
to enable the testing and demonstration of reactor concepts proposed
and funded by the private sector. This site is to be called the
National Nuclear Innovation Center and will function as a database to
store and share knowledge on nuclear science between Federal agencies
and the private sector. The Senate version of NEICA encourages the
Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to work
together in this effort. We would like to see the DOE lead the effort
to establish and operate the National Nuclear Innovation Center while
consulting with the NRC regarding safety issues. We would also like to
see the NRC have access to the work being done by the center in order
to provide its staff with the knowledge it will need eventually to
license any new reactors coming out of the center. If these reactors
are ever to get to the market, the NRC must be able to understand the
ins and outs of the science and work behind their development. The NRC
needs the data in order to make data-driven licensing requirements.
No. 4, the Senate version of the NEICA requires the NRC to report on
its ability to license advanced reactors within 4 years of receiving an
application. The NRC must explain any institutional or organizational
barriers it faces in moving forward with the prompt licensing of
advanced reactors.
As I said earlier, this bill is an important step forward in
maintaining the United States' leadership in nuclear energy. It is my
hope this bill will enable the private sector and our national labs to
work together to create new mind-blowing achievements in nuclear
science. This bill encourages the smartest, most innovative and
creative minds in nuclear science to partner together to move the
industry forward.
The NEICA is an exciting piece of legislation. I look forward to
working with my congressional colleagues to help the American nuclear
energy industry thrive today and prepare for the future.
Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.
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