Congressional Record, Volume 162 Issue 20 (Wednesday, February 3, 2016)

[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 20 (Wednesday, February 3, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S539-S570]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

ENERGY POLICY MODERNIZATION ACT OF 2015

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of S. 2012, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 2012) to provide for the modernization of the
energy policy of the United States, and for other purposes.

Pending:

Murkowski amendment No. 2953, in the nature of a
substitute.
Murkowski (for Cassidy/Markey) amendment No. 2954 (to
amendment No. 2953), to provide for certain increases in, and
limitations on, the drawdown and sales of the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve.
Murkowski amendment No. 2963 (to amendment No. 2953), to
modify a provision relating to bulk-power system reliability
impact statements.

Building Consensus

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday the Speaker of the House and the
majority leader met at the White House with President Obama. This
meeting was the first time that these three leaders sat down together
to discuss the Nation's business since the beginning of the new year
and to look for some opportunities to advance bipartisan priorities
during President Obama's final year in office.
This Senator knows that some might view such a meeting with
skepticism and say: What incentive do people have to actually work
together when they come from such polar opposite points of view
politically and ideologically? But this Senator believes there is an
opportunity to build on some of our success that we had in the Senate
last year.
While many eyes are focused on Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina,
and Nevada, I want to assure my constituents and anybody else who
happens to be listening, that we actually have been trying to get the
people's work done here in the U.S. Congress. Some people might not
want to hear that, some might not believe it when they hear it, but I
would hope that fair-minded people might look at the evidence and say:
Yes, there is actually some important work being done.
In the process, in 2015, we actually--I know this sounds improbable--
reduced the role of the Federal Government in education and sent more
of

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that responsibility back where it belongs to parents, teachers, and
local school districts in the States.
We reformed Medicare, which provides important health services to our
seniors.
We provided for the long-term stability of our Nation's
infrastructure. We passed the first multi-year Transportation bill, I
think, in 10 years, after having made about 33 different temporary
patches, which is a terribly inefficient way to do business. Where I
come from in Texas, since we are a fast growing State--and I expect
most States feel the same way--providing for transportation
infrastructure is important. It is important to our air quality, to
commerce, to our economy, and to public safety.
We also did something that this Senator is proud of: the first
Federal effort to provide meaningful support to victims of human
trafficking, a bill that passed 99 to 0 in the U.S. Senate. One doesn't
get more bipartisan and consensus-building than that.
The way these measures happened, as well as the other work we have
done, is by Republicans and Democrats working together. We are stuck
with each other whether we like it or not. Republicans can't get things
done by themselves. Democrats can't get things done by themselves. The
laws can't be passed under our constitutional framework unless both
Houses of Congress pass legislation and it is actually signed by the
President. We have to work together if we are going to make progress.
A lot of the credit for last year's production in the Senate should
be laid at the feet of the majority leader, Senator McConnell, who said
that after years of dysfunction where we were stuck in gridlock and
nothing seemed to happen--he said: We are going to return to the
regular functioning of the Senate. We are going to have committees
consider legislation. We are going to have hearings to figure out how
to pass good legislation, which is going to be voted on in the
committee before it comes to the Senate so that we can see what pieces
of legislation have bipartisan support and thus might be able to be
passed by the Senate. In the Senate we call this regular order, but all
it means is that everybody gets to participate in the process.
It is important to all of us that we be able to offer suggestions,
that we be able to debate and offer amendments both in committee and on
the floor. It might seem like pretty basic stuff, and people may think
that happens as a matter of course. But, unfortunately, it didn't.
In 2014 the Senate had 15 rollcall votes. As the Presiding Officer
knows, the Senate was stuck in a ditch and couldn't seem to get out. To
give a number to demonstrate how dramatically things have changed in 1
year with the new majority leader, last year we had 200 rollcall votes
on amendments. There were 15 in 2014 and 200 in 2015. So we could talk
about the substance, but I think those numbers tell part of the story.
So I am glad there is open communication between our Congressional
leaders and the President. I hope we can find some ways to get some
things done, because, again, no matter whether you are a conservative
or a liberal, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, we actually
are not going to be able to get things done unless we find a way to
build consensus. That is the way legislation is passed.
We have more work to do this year. So we need to keep our focus not
on what is happening in Presidential primaries but on our job here in
Congress and continue to try to work in a bipartisan way and deliver
for our bosses, namely, the American people.
The bipartisan energy bill we are working on now is a good start to
2016. I congratulate Senator Murkowski, the chair of the energy
committee, and Senator Cantwell, the ranking member, for getting the
bill this far. I think part of what demonstrates to me the wisdom of
Senator Murkowski in handling this particular bill is that some of the
more controversial issues, such as lifting the ban on crude oil
exports, were handled separately and dealt with at the end of last year
rather than in this bill.
This bill does represent one with broad bipartisan support. Coming
from an energy State, as the Presiding Officer does, we understand the
importance of energy to our economy. We produce more of it, we use it
more efficiently, and, hopefully, it benefits consumers in the process.
This bill will update our energy policies so that they reflect the
enormous transformation we have observed in our energy sector. I have
said it before, and I will say it again: I chuckle to myself when I
heard people in the past talking about ``peak oil.'' That was sort of
the talk in the oil patch. People said: Well, we have discovered all of
the oil there is, and there is no more. So we are now going to be in a
period of perpetual decline. We might as well get ready for that.
But thanks to the innovation in the energy sector with things like
fracking--which has been around for 70 years but which some people have
just discovered, it seems--along with horizontal drilling, what we have
seen is this shale oil and gas revolution, which has been a boon to our
country and particularly in places such as Texas, North Dakota, and the
like.
Now, because of the glut, literally, of oil being produced, natural
gas prices are much lower, which actually benefits consumers. If you
have looked at the price of a gallon of gas lately, you have seen that
gasoline is pretty cheap relative to historic levels.
Another important issue beyond energy that I think we need to deal
with this year is to get back to a regular appropriations process. We
saw at the end of last year--because our friends across the aisle
blocked voting on appropriations bills, including funding our military,
which I just found to be incredible and really disgraceful, frankly--
that we found ourselves in a position where in order to fund the
functions of government, we had to do an Omnibus appropriations bill.
I have said before that you might call it an ``ominous''
appropriations bill. It is an ugly process. It is a terrible way to do
business because what it does is it empowers a handful of leaders to
negotiate something that Members of the Senate ought to be involved in
through the regular process, through voting bills through the
Appropriations subcommittees, through the Appropriations Committee,
through the floor, where we have transparency in the process and where
any Senator who has a good idea can come to the floor and offer an
amendment.
That is the way it ought to be done. We need to restore that sort of
regular order this year so that each of the 12 separate funding bills
can be considered and voted on by the Appropriations Committee and then
here on the Senate floor and then matched up with the House bill before
it is sent to the President. Again, this is legislation 101, pretty
basic stuff.
But unfortunately, the Senate and the Congress have not been
operating as they should. That is something that we would like to
change. So last year, all 12 appropriations bills were sent out of
their respective committees--the first time since 2009 that has
happened. But, again, because of the blocking of the legislation, we
ended up in a bad situation at the end of the year, where the only
thing we could do was pass an Omnibus appropriations bill.
So now we look to the President's budget, which will be sent over
here in short order. We will take up that matter up through the Budget
Committee, and we will look at the appropriations process ahead of us.
I would like to suggest to our Democratic friends that they have a
choice to make. They can try to force this Chamber back into the same
dysfunction and the same sort of partisan bickering that has
characterized it for years when they were in charge or they can decide
to work with us--as we would like to do--to move forward principled
legislation, including appropriations bills, in a transparent, open
process that allows every Senator--Republicans and Democrats alike--a
chance to participate and allows our constituents to watch, as they go
across the floor, and to ask the appropriate questions, to raise
concerns if they have those concerns.
That is the way our democracy is supposed to work. Passing massive
stopgap funding bills is not doing the best for the people we
represent. It can be avoided, but it is going to take a little bit of
cooperation. But I have to think that whether you are in the majority
or the minority, most Senators like to work in a Senate that actually
functions according to regular order, because, as the Presiding Officer

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knows, even being in the majority does not mean we have a chance to
vote on amendments to legislation.
Indeed, for a period of time, his predecessor did not even have a
chance to vote on an amendment--a rollcall vote on an amendment--
nevertheless being in the majority party at the time. That is not the
way this body is supposed to function. That is not doing our best to
serve the interests of the people we represent. So we have a choice to
make. I hope we choose the higher ground and perhaps listen to the
better angels of our nature rather than the other one on our shoulder
to whom we should not pay attention.
I yield the floor.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise to address several amendments that
I hope we will have an opportunity to vote on before this bill is
completed.
The first amendment is amendment No. 3131, research and development
for secondary use and innovative recycling research of electric vehicle
batteries.
Electric vehicles, as folks generally understand, run almost entirely
on lithium ion batteries, which are commonly considered to have reached
the end of their useful life when the capacity diminishes by 20 to 30
percent. The range of the vehicle diminishes in a corresponding
fashion. At that point, it is time for a new set of batteries. But the
battery still has a lot of useful life. It still has 70 to 80 percent
of its original capacity. So it has the capacity to be utilized in many
other potential roles, including, possibly, stationary electric
storage.
This amendment instructs the Department of Energy to conduct research
on possible uses of a vehicle battery after its use in a vehicle, to
assess the potential for markets for those batteries, to develop an
understanding of the barriers for the development of those markets, and
to identify the full range of potential uses.
That would be very useful to diminish the flow of potential batteries
into recycling, to get the most out of the investment we have made in
them, and also to diminish the cost of batteries, because the residual
use means that they have residual value, and the overall initial cost
would reflect that. So that is an important research goal. It is
clearly one of the strategies to enhance our activity from a fossil
fuel industry to the utilization of more clean, renewable electricity.
Second, I want to turn to amendment No. 3178, the Federal fleet
amendment. The General Services Administration currently procures about
70,000 vehicles a year for various agencies. The total inventory of the
Federal fleet is now almost 700,000 vehicles. These Federal vehicles
are used for a wide range of purposes, some of which may well be
appropriate for electric vehicles and others that may not be.
But in order to consider the applied role, the General Services
Administration needs data on vehicle reliability and maintenance costs
to understand what would be a fair and appropriate use and to calculate
the lease terms. So this amendment provides GSA with the authority to
reach out to other agencies to collect the information on the vehicles
the agencies use, to do an inventory of what uses may be suitable for
different types of electric vehicles and the numbers that could
possibly be deployed, and to use that information to develop a 10-year
plan for GSA to submit a report back to Congress so that we can
understand what the potential is and make sure that we well position
our policies to exploit that opportunity.
The third amendment that I want to draw attention to is amendment No.
3191, sponsored by myself, Senator Schatz, and Senator Markey. This is
a resolution of the sense of the Senate. It notes that global
temperature increases will lead to more droughts, more intense storms,
more intense wildfires, a rise in sea levels, more desertification, and
more acidification of our oceans, and that these impacts will result in
economic disruption to farming, fishing, forestry, and recreation,
having a profound impact on rural America.
Now, we know this to be the case because we can already observe these
impacts on the ground right now. In my home State of Oregon, we have a
growing red zone caused by pine beetles--pine beetles that previously
were killed off in colder winters that now survive in greater numbers
and attack more trees. We have a longer forest fire season. It has
grown by 60 days over 40 years. The amount or the acreage consumed by
forest fires is increasing. We have a diminishing snowpack in the
Cascades, which is resulting in smaller, warmer trout streams, as well
as affecting our winter recreation industry. I know that anyone who
loves to fish for trout does not want to have a smaller and warmer
stream because of its adverse impact.
Over on our coast, we are having an impact on the baby oysters, which
have difficulty forming their shells in the more acidic Pacific Ocean,
an ocean that is now 30 percent more acidic than it was before the
Industrial Revolution. This amendment simply points to the fact that
already we see all of this. But as the temperature rises, disruptions
increase. The impact on our farming, fishing, forestry, and recreation
is greater, and it is doing a lot of damage to our rural economies and
a lot of damage overall to the United States of America, and it is
doing so throughout the world as well.
We must work together to transition to a clean energy economy. But
there are important first steps in place. Our future President,
whomever that might be, must work to build upon the foundation we have
put in place with our Clean Power Plan, with increased mileage for our
vehicles and increased mileage for freight transportation. Let's build
upon those steps in order to work in partnership with the world to take
on this major challenge.

So I hope these three amendments have a chance to be debated and
voted on here on the floor. We are clearly in a situation where we are
the first generation to see the impacts of our fossil fuel energy
economy, see the destructive impacts on our forests, our fishing, our
farming, and our winter recreation. Therefore, we have a responsibility
to work together to take this on. Our children, our children's
children, may they not look back and say: What happened? Why did our
parents and grandparents fail to act in the face of such a massive and
important global threat?

Our ``We the People'' Democracy

Mr. President, I am now shifting to my regular ``We the People''
speech, a series of speeches in which I try to raise issues that go to
the heart of the framing of our Constitution and the vision of creating
a republic that has a government responsive to the concerns of citizens
throughout our Nation.
Our Founders started the Constitution with three powerful words, ``We
the People.'' They wrote them in a font 10 times the size of the
balance of the Constitution as if to say: This is what it is all about.
This is our goal, as President Lincoln summarized, a ``government of
the people, by the people, for the people.''
It was not the plan of our Founders in writing the Constitution to
have a government designed to serve the ruling elites. It was not the
design of our Constitution to serve the titans of industry and
commerce. It was not the intention of our Founders to build a
government to serve the best off, the richest in our society--quite the
contrary. So I am rising periodically to address issues related to this
vision, this beautiful Revolution, the American Revolution, that sought
to have a form of government that served the people, not the elite.
This week I am using my speech to recognize the anniversary of two
Supreme Court decisions, two decisions which have driven a stake
through the heart of our ``We the People'' democracy. One ruling,
Buckley v. Valeo, marked its 40th anniversary last Saturday on January
30, and Citizens United marked its 6th anniversary on January 21. These
two decisions have forever altered the vision of our government. They
have turned our government on its head. They have changed it from ``We
the People'' to ``We the Titans.'' It is my hope that visitors will
rally together in this country, that Senators and House Members will
rally together to defend the Constitution that they are sworn to uphold
that was not a ``We the Titans'' Constitution, it was a ``We the
People'' Constitution.
Central to the promise of ``We the People'' is the right to
participate in an equal footing, to contribute one's opinions and
insights on elections and on issues.
President Jefferson called this the mother principle. He summarized
it as follows: ``For let it be agreed that a government is republican
in proportion

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as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of
its concerns . . . by representatives chosen by himself, and
responsible to him.'' Let me emphasize again, ``republican in
proportion as every member composing it has his equal voice in the
direc-
tion. . . . ''
The decisions of Buckley and Citizens United are a direct assault on
this fundamental understanding that to have a ``We the People''
republic, you have to have citizens participate in a roughly equal
footing.
These two decisions bulldozed the ``We the People'' pillar on which
our government is founded.
President Lincoln echoed Jefferson's equal voice principle. He said:
``Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government, and that,
and that only is self-government.''
Is there anyone in this Chamber who believes that today all the
governed have an equal voice in the government? I am sure no one among
our 100 Senators would contend that principle--so eloquently laid out
by President Jefferson, so resoundingly echoed by President Lincoln, so
deeply embedded in the founding words of our Constitution--is true
today. It is not true because Buckley v. Valeo found that individuals
could spend unlimited sums to influence issues and the outcomes of
election. That decision and Citizens United destroyed the notion that
all citizens get to participate on an equal footing. By green-lighting
the spending amount of unlimited sums in combination with the high cost
of participating in the modern town square--that is, to secure time on
radio, time on television, time or space on the Web--these decisions
give the wealthy and well-connected control of the town commons and the
ability to drown out the voice of the people.
Certainly a situation where the top 10 percent can overwhelm, can
drown out the 90 percent, is not ``We the People'' governance.
Certainly a situation where the top 1 percent can drown out the 99
percent is not ``We the People'' governance. It is the opposite.
As President Obama said, ``Democracy breaks down when the average
person feels that their voice doesn't matter.'' That is how people feel
when they are drowned out by the few under the framework established by
Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United.
The most basic premise of our Constitution is that influence over
elections means influence over governance. That is the whole point.
Influence over elections is not limited just to being in the booth and
pulling a lever. When you enhance the voices of the wealthy relative to
everyone else, you fundamentally shift the outcome of legislative
deliberations. Despite the arguments of the plaintiffs in Buckley v.
Valeo, the wealthy do not have the same concerns about this Nation,
about their lives that everyone else has. They don't have the same
concerns about the cost of college. They don't have the same concerns
about paid family leave. They don't have the same concerns about the
solvency and adequacy of Social Security. They are not worried. They
are not staying up nights about the health of their child and concern
over the cost and quality of health care, and they are not disturbed
over policies that shift our manufacturing jobs overseas and eviscerate
the working middle class in America.
Yet here we have it. Buckley v. Valeo takes this small percentage of
folks who do not have concerns that reflect the vast majority of
Americans and gives them overwhelming power in elections and issues.
Let me ask you, is it any wonder that the middle class is doing
poorly while the wealth of America has grown exponentially? Isn't that
what one would expect in a system favoring the wealthy over the
workers? Are we, can we be a government of, by, and for the people if
individuals at the very top have vastly greater influence over
elections and policy than others? Our Constitution says no. Our
Founders said no, but Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United said yes--
and they are wrong.
With a campaign finance system that gives the most affluent massive
influence over elections with concomitant control over laws, we don't
have a government that embodies President Jefferson's mother principle;
that is, one that reflects and executes the will of the people.
So it is time to change this. It is time to recapture the genius of
American governance, and it is time to restore the ``We the People''
principles so eloquently and powerfully embedded in the framing of our
Constitution.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Islam

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about two
topics that often make this body and sometimes my side of the aisle
uncomfortable. I want to talk about the fight that is on across the
world--or particularly in the Middle East for the soul of Islam and how
it matters to the United States--and I want to talk about our
relationship with Saudi Arabia and the connection to the former issue.
We frequently hear this criticism of President Obama that he doesn't
have a strategy to defeat ISIS. I fundamentally don't believe that is
true. He does have a strategy, and it is largely working when you look
at the metrics on the ground. You see that ISIS's territory in Iraq and
Syria have been reduced by about 30 percent over the course of the last
year. We have tightened our immigration policies here to make sure the
bad guys don't get in. We have stood up a more capable fighting force
inside Iraq. We have clamped down significantly on ISIS's sources of
revenue and financing. Listen, it is hard to win when only one
spectacular and deadly strike can erase all of your good work, but the
President does have a strategy on the ground right now inside Iraq and
inside Syria.
The problem is that it is still a relatively short-term strategy. As
we debate how to defeat ISIS or groups like it, our strategic
prescriptions are all relatively short term. We use military force. We
try to retake territory. We try to take out top terrorist leaders. We
clamp down on sources of financing. These are necessary and important
measures to combat a serious threat to the United States, but they
don't address the underlying decisions that lead to radicalism.
Addressing those issues is the only way to ensure that the next
iteration of ISIS--whoever it is, whatever it is, wherever it is--
doesn't just simply emerge in its place.
So my argument is that one of the reasons no one has a particularly
credible long-term strategy is that it would involve engaging in some
very uncomfortable truths about the nature of the fight ahead of us and
about the imperfections of one of our most important allies in the
Middle East. To make this case to you, I want to first bring you to
northwest Pakistan and ask my colleagues to imagine that you are a
parent of, let's say, a 10-year-old boy. You are illiterate, you are
poor, and you are getting poorer by the day. Unemployment in your
village is sky high. Inflation is robbing you of any wealth you may
have. Your crop yields have been miserable, but one day you get a visit
that changes your perspective. A cleric from a nearby conservative
mosque offers you a different path. He tells you that your poverty is
not your fault but simply a punishment handed down to you because of
your unintentional deviation from the true path of Islam. Luckily,
there is a way to get right to God, to submit your only son to Islam.
It gets even better. This cleric is going to offer to educate your
son at his school. We call them madrassas. Not only will you not have
to pay for the education, this school is going to actually pay you
maybe $6,000 just to send your son there. When your son finishes
school, this individual promises you that he will find him employment
in the service of Islam. Your 10-year-old, previously destined to lead
a life that was perhaps more hopeless than your own, is now going to
get free housing and meals, religious instruction, the promise of a job
when he is older and you get money that you badly need and improved
favor with God.
For thousands of families in destitute places such as northwest
Pakistan, we can see how it is often a pretty easy choice. But as the
years go on, you lose touch with your son. The school cuts off your
access to him. And when you do get to see him every now

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and again, you see him changing. Then one day it is over. He is not the
little boy you once knew. He is a teenager. And he is announcing to you
that the only way to show true faith with Islam is to fight for it
against the infidels who are trying to pollute the Muslim faith or the
Westerners who are trying to destroy it. He tells you that he is going
off to Afghanistan, Syria, or Iraq with some fellow students and that
you shouldn't worry about him because God is on his side.
You start asking questions to find out what happened in the school
and you start to learn. You discover the textbooks he read that taught
him a brand of Islam greatly influenced by something called Wahhabism,
a strand of Islam based on the earliest form of religion practiced
under the first four caliph. It holds that any deviation from Islamic
originalism is heresy. In school, your son was therefore taught an
ideology of hate toward the unbeliever--defined as Christians, Jews,
and Hindus, but also Shiites, Sufis, and Sunni Muslims who don't follow
the Wahhabi doctrine. He is told that the crusades never end; that aid
organizations, schools, and government offices are just modern weapons
of the West's continuing crusade against his faith; and that it is a
religious obligation to do ``battle'' against the infidels.
I tell my colleagues this story because some version of it plays out
hundreds of times every day in far-flung places, from Pakistan to
Kosovo, Nigeria to Indonesia, the teaching of an intolerant version of
Islam to hundreds of millions of young people.
Think about this: In 1956 there were 244 of these madrassas in
Pakistan; today there are 24,000. These schools are multiplying all
over the globe. Yet, don't get me wrong, these schools, by and large,
aren't directly teaching violence. They aren't the minor leagues for Al
Qaeda or ISIS. But they do teach a version of Islam that leads very
nicely into an anti-Shia, anti-Western militancy.
I don't mean to suggest that Wahhabism is the only sect of Islam that
can be perverted into violence. Iran's Shia clerics are also using
religion to export violence as well. But it is important to note that
the vicious terrorist groups whom Americans know by name are Sunni in
derivation and greatly influenced by Wahhabi Salafist teachings.
Of course, the real rub is that we have known this for a very long
time. Secretaries of State, ambassadors, diplomats, and four-star
generals have all complained over and over again about it. Yet we do
very little to stop this long, slow spread of intolerance. We don't
address it because to do so would force us to confront two very
difficult issues.
The first is how we talk sensibly about Islam. Right now we are
caught between two extremes. Leading Republicans want to begin and end
this discussion with a debate over what we call terrorists. Of course,
the leading candidate for President often equates the entire religion
with violence. I think this debate over nomenclature is overwrought,
but I certainly understand the problem of labeling something ``radical
Islamic terrorism'' because it gives purchase to this unforgivable
argument that all Muslims are radicals or terrorists. So many
Republicans don't want to go any deeper into the conversation than just
simply labeling the threat. But Democrats, frankly, aren't that much
better. The leaders of my party often do back flips to avoid using
these kinds of terms, but, of course, that forestalls any conversation
about the fight within Islam for the soul of the religion.
It is a disservice to this debate to simply brand every Muslim as a
threat to the West, but it is also a disservice to refuse to
acknowledge that although ISIS has perverted Islam to a degree to make
it unrecognizable, the seeds of this perversion are rooted in a much
more mainstream version of that faith that derives in substantial part
from the teachings of Wahhabism.
Leaders of both parties need to avoid the extremes of this debate and
enter into a real conversation about how America can help the moderate
voices within Islam win out over those who would sow the seeds of
extremism. Let me give an example. Last fall, I visited the Hedayah
Center in Abu Dhabi, a U.S.-supported, Arab-led initiative to
counterprogram against extremist messaging. When I pressed the center's
leadership on the need to confront Wahhabi teaching and the mainstream
roots of extremism, they blanched. They said it was out of their lane.
They were focused on the branches of extremism, not the trunk. But, of
course, by then it is probably too late.
America, frankly, doesn't have the moral authority or weight to tip
the scales in this fight between moderate Islam and less tolerant
Islam. Muslim communities and Muslim nations need to be leading this
fight. But America--and most notably, sometimes the leaders of my
party--also can't afford to shut its eyes to the struggle that is
playing out in real time.

Saudi Arabia

That brings me to the second uncomfortable truth, and I present it to
you in a quote from Farah Pandith, who was President Obama's Special
Representative to Muslim Communities. In a moment of candor, she
commented that in her travel to 80 different countries in her official
position, she said, ``In each place I visited, the Wahhabi influence
was an insidious presence . . . funded by Saudi money.''
The second uncomfortable truth is that for all the positive aspects
of our alliance with Saudi Arabia, there is another side to that
country than the one that faces us in our bilateral relationship, and
it is a side we can no longer afford to ignore as our fight against
Islamic extremism becomes more focused and more complicated.
First, let me acknowledge that there are a lot of good aspects in our
relationship with Saudi Arabia. I don't agree with cynics who say our
relationship is just an alliance to facilitate the exchange of oil for
cash and cash for weapons. Our common bond was formed in the Cold War
when American and Saudi leaders found common ground in the fight
against communism. The unofficial detente today between Sunni nations
and Israel is a product, in part, of the Saudi-led diplomacy. There
have been many high-profile examples of deep U.S.-Saudi cooperation in
the fight against Al Qaeda and ISIS. More generally, our partnership
with Saudi Arabia--the most powerful and the richest country in the
Arab world--serves as an important bridge to the Islamic community. It
is a direct rebuttal of this terrorist idealogy that asserts that we
seek a war with Islam.
But increasingly, we just can't afford to ignore the more problematic
aspects of Saudi policies. The political alliance between the House of
Saud and the conservative Wahhabi clerics is as old as the nation, and
this alliance has resulted in billions of dollars funneled to and
through the Wahhabi movement. Those 24,000 religious schools in
Pakistan--thousands of them are funded with money that originates in
Saudi Arabia. So are mosques in Brussels, Jakarta, and Paris. According
to some estimates, since the 1960s the Saudis have funneled over $100
billion into funding schools and mosques all over the world, with the
mission of spreading puritanical Wahhabism. As a point of comparison,
researchers suggest that the Soviet Union spent about $7 billion--a
fraction of that--during the entire period of 1920 to 1991. Less well-
funded governments and other strains of Islam just can't keep up with
the tsunami of money behind this export of intolerance.
Rightfully, we engage in daily castigations of Iran for sponsoring
terrorism throughout the region. But why does Saudi Arabia largely get
off the hook from direct public criticism from political leaders simply
because they are a few degrees separated from the terrorists who are
inspired by the ideology their money helps to spread? Why do we say
virtually nothing about the human rights abuses inside Saudi Arabia,
fueled by this conservative religious movement, when we so easily call
out other countries for similar outrageous behavior?
Second, we need to have a reckoning with the Saudis about the effect
of their growing proxy war with Iran. There is more than enough blame
to be spread around when it comes to this widening Saudi-Iranian fault
line in the Middle East. I would argue that the lion's share of the
responsibility lies with the Iranians, who have been a top exporter of
terrorism and brutality for decades. It is primarily Iranian-backed
groups who have destabilized places such as Lebanon and Iraq. It is the
Iranians who are propping up a murderous regime in Damascus.

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But in the wake of the Iran nuclear agreement, there are many in
Congress who would have the United States double down in our support
for the Saudi side of this fight in places such as Yemen and Syria
simply because Saudi Arabia is our named friend and Iran is our named
enemy. But the Middle East doesn't work like that anymore, and there is
growing evidence that our support for Saudi-led military campaigns in
places such as Yemen are prolonging humanitarian misery and, frankly,
aiding extremism.
Ninety billion dollars in U.S. arms sales money has gone to Saudi
Arabia during the Obama administration to help them carry out a
campaign in Yemen against the Iranian-backed Houthis. Our government
says its top priority in Yemen is defeating AQAP, which is arguably Al
Qaeda's deadliest franchise, but this ongoing chaos has created a
security vacuum in Yemen in which AQAP can thrive and even expand. No
expert would dispute that since the Saudi campaign began, Al Qaeda has
expanded in Yemen and ISIL has gained a new territorial and recruitment
foothold. To make matters worse, Saudi Arabia and some of their GCC
allies are so focused on this fight against Iran in Yemen that they
have dramatically scaled back or in some cases totally ended their
military efforts against ISIS. Under these circumstances, how does
military support for Saudi Arabia help us in our fight against
extremism if that is our No. 1 goal?
Here are my recommendations. The United States should get serious
about this. We should suspend supporting Saudi Arabia's military
campaign in Yemen, at the very least until we get assurances that this
campaign does not distract from the fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda or
until we make some progress on the Saudi export of Wahhabism throughout
the region and throughout the world. And Congress shouldn't sign off on
any more military sales to Saudi Arabia unless similar assurances are
granted.
If we are serious about constructing a winning, long-term strategy
against ISIS and Al Qaeda, our horizons have to extend beyond the day
to day, the here and now, the fight in just Syria and Iraq. We need to
admit that there is a fight on for the future of Islam, and while we
can't have a dispositive influence on that fight, we also can't just
sit on the sidelines. Both parties here need to acknowledge this
reality, and the United States needs to lead by example by ending our
effective acquiescence to the Saudi export of intolerant Islam.
We need to be careful about not blindly backing our friend's plays in
conflicts that simply create more instability, more political
insecurity vacuums which ISIS and other extremist groups can fill, such
as what is going on in Yemen today.
We need to work with the Saudis and other partners to defeat ISIS
militarily, but at the same time, we need to work together to address
the root causes of extremism. Saudi Arabia's counter-radicalization
programs and new anti-terrorism initiative are good steps that show
Saudi leaders recognize some of these problems, but they need to do
more. Tackling intolerant ideologies, refusing to incentivize
destabilizing proxy wars--these are the elements of a long-term anti-
extremism strategy, and we should pursue this strategy even if it on
occasion makes us uncomfortable.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to
speak as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Iran

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, today I want to talk about the President's
recent dealings with Iran and the serious questions the
administration's actions have raised.
Let me begin by saying first of all that I welcome--as do all
Americans who have been watching this--the release of the three
American hostages who were wrongfully detained in Iran. We are all glad
to see the return of Pastor Saeed Abedini, Jason Rezaian, and Amir
Hekmati. That they have been freed and that they have been reunited
with their families is important. Our prayers--my prayers and the
prayers of so many Americans--remain with those families and with the
family of Robert Levinson, a former FBI employee about whom we have not
been given the kind of information we need to have. If he is alive, we
should demand his release. If he is not alive, we should demand and
find out what happened to Robert Levinson.
In return for these three hostages being released, the United States
released seven Iranians or Iranian Americans who had been convicted of
transferring technology, which included nuclear dual-use technology, to
Iran. The administration also agreed to take 14 Iranians off the
Interpol arrest list as part of this effort to get Americans unfairly
held back. If clearing the way for 21 convicted or indicted enemies of
the United States wasn't enough, then the United States, in my view,
also agreed to pay $1.7 billion to Iran. In everybody's view, they paid
that $1.7 billion at the time of the swap. The administration, I guess,
would want us to believe it is coincidental that the day after the
American hostages were released and the day after the Iran deal went
into effect, Secretary Kerry announced that the United States had
settled a claim at the World Court at The Hague dating back decades.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Iranian General Reza Naqdi
said: ``Taking this much money back was in return for the release of
the American spies and doesn't have to do with the [nuclear] talks.''
Whether it had something to do with the nuclear talks or not, I don't
know how significant that is. I submitted an amendment when we were
debating the Iran agreement that it shouldn't be finalized in any way
until all of these hostages were returned. In fairness, I didn't think
it should be finalized in any way, no matter what, but I definitely
couldn't understand why we wouldn't insist that these innocently held
Americans were returned. It becomes more and more obvious all the time
that the Iranians had a plan. Not only did they want to further
humiliate the United States, but they simply wanted money.
Under this settlement at The Hague, the United States will be paying
Iran--and has already paid Iran--$1.7 billion. This is supposedly $400
million in principal stemming back to a former military sale before the
fall of the Shah of Iran and then $1.3 billion in interest--$400
million in principal, and $1.3 billion in interest.
The timing of the swap and the announcement of the breakthrough in
the settlement--this had been at the World Court for 35 years, and we
are supposed to believe that it is just another coincidence in the
Obama State Department.
Peeling back the details of this settlement is even more troubling
because the money had already been spent. This was Iranian money from a
foreign military sale that had been held in what is called the FMS
account--the foreign military sale account. It was originally placed in
that trust fund, but then it was spent.
Why was it spent? It was spent because the Congress in 2000 passed
legislation that the President signed that directed the Secretary of
the Treasury to use that money to compensate victims of Iranian
terrorism. In cases like Flatow vs. Iran and four other related cases,
Iranian terror victims all received compensation from this fund,
effectively wiping out the balance of the fund. The trust fund that the
administration is referring to has already been spent.
How do you give money back that has already been spent? You can't
give money back that has already been spent. I suppose you can take
taxpayer dollars, which is what happened here, suggest that somehow
this was money of the Iranians all the time and give those taxpayer
dollars to Iran in return for, as their own general said, the release
of the people he called the American spies.
Did the administration essentially agree to ransom to get these
Americans released? It certainly appears so.
I think you and I and every Member of the Senate should continue
pressing the administration for answers. If they want to spend taxpayer
money, there may be some legal way they can do that, but there is
really no legal way they can say they are giving money back that the
Congress already told them to do something else with, and they did.

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In addition to that money we have now given to Iran, the Iranian
agreement allows somewhere between $100 million and $150 million held
by countries all over the world since the late 1970s to be returned to
Iran. Just last week, Secretary of State Kerry said that some of this
money will ``end up in the hands of the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps] or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists.''
Well, of course that is where that money is going to wind up. There
was an argument made during the Iranian agreement that there are so
many needs in Iran that they are going to spend this on other more
worthwhile things. But no matter how many needs there were in Iran,
Iran is, by the administration's own determination, the No. 1 state
sponsor of terrorism in the world. Of course when you give them money
back, they are going to use that money for what they are already using
their money for. They are just going to have over $100 billion more at
their disposal.
The world's largest state sponsor of terrorism--whether it is backing
Palestinian terrorists in Gaza or supporting Hezbollah's attacks
against Israel from Lebanon, the regime will now have more resources to
do that with. Iran, of course, has made no secret of its nuclear
ambitions nor of its willingness to flout the treaty obligations in
order to achieve those ambitions. It recently launched two ballistic
missile tests in the past 3 months. It is a direct violation of the
U.N. resolution which prohibits them from engaging in activities
related to ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead,
but they have done it twice in the last 90 days. Even Members of the
President's own party who have supported the Iran agreement have
criticized the administration's lack of response to these violations.
What is the world to think? What are the American people to think
when we are transferring money at the time we get American hostages
back, when we are allowing missiles to be launched near the U.S.S.
Harry Truman, when we are allowing ballistic missile tests to occur,
and acting as if we have made some great breakthrough with Iran?
The recent detention of U.S. sailors in Iran is another example of
how little we have gained in this Iranian policy agreement. The
administration has gone out of its way to accommodate the demands of
this regime that is hostile and sponsors terrorists. Enough is enough.
It is time that the Congress stood up, and I urge my colleagues in the
Senate to utilize every tool at our disposal to hold the Iranian regime
accountable.
One important step will be to secure Iranian assets owed to victims
of terrorism who had been awarded judgments by our courts and other
courts. Why would we give money to Iran when there are Americans who
are victims of terrorism that courts have said have a right to that
money? They found Iran liable for sponsoring fatal attacks against
American citizens, including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy and
the Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, and the 1996 bombing of the
Khobar Towers in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
According to the Congressional Research Service, about $43.5 billion
in unpaid judgments from Iran to Americans are due. Iran should not
receive any sanctions relief until those claims have been paid. We
ought to look at how we can secure Iranian assets to provide some
measure of justice for victims of these terrorist activities. That
should include assets held by foreign countries, foreign companies, and
countries who do business in the United States.
The idea that the Iranian regime is now our partner is dangerously
naive and one that undermines our global leadership. It confuses our
friends, and it emboldens our enemies. I urge the President to quit
bending to this regime and start putting the interests of the American
people and our allies first. I urge the Congress to continue to look at
this recent exchange of money for hostages.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.

Lead In Our Drinking Water

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the effort by
Senator Stabenow and Senator Peters to amend S. 2012 for Federal
response to the ongoing crisis in Flint, MI. We know about the lead in
the water supply, the fact that it was known, and the fact that many
children today have suffered the consequences. It is incumbent that the
Federal Government be a partner in finding a way to correct that
circumstance as soon as possible.
I come to the floor urging our colleagues to find a way that we can
move forward with such an amendment to help the families in Flint, MI.
I congratulate my colleagues, Senator Stabenow and Senator Peters, for
their leadership.
I hope we don't lose sight of the big picture, and that is that this
is happening in cities and towns all across America. In Michigan, it is
not only Flint but parts of Grand Rapids, Jackson, Detroit, Saginaw,
Muskegon, Holland, and several other cities that have seen high lead
levels in their children. Sebring, OH, just this week closed schools
for 3 days because of lead in their tap water. In Toledo, officials
have long treated the water with phosphates to prevent leaching of
lead. Eleven cities and two counties in New Jersey had higher
percentages of children with elevated lead levels than Flint, MI, State
lawmakers and advocacy groups said on Monday of this week. Here in the
Nation's capital, in Washington DC, in the early part of the last
decade, lead leached into the water of possibly 42,000 children.
Let me talk about my State of Maryland. In the city of Baltimore,
high lead levels in schools prompted officials to turn off drinking
fountains and pass out bottled water instead in every school in
Baltimore City. They are not hooked up to the fountains because it is
not safe. Across the State of Maryland, every 1- and 2-year-old in the
entire State will be tested for lead--that is 175,000 children--because
they are at risk.
This is a national problem. In Flint, MI, it is estimated it cost
about $800 million for remedial costs alone. That is about two-thirds
of what we currently appropriate every year for drinking water
infrastructure in the entire country. The amount we appropriate is
woefully inadequate.
Accord to the EPA's most recent estimates, more than $655 billion may
have been needed to repair and replace drinking water and wastewater
infrastructure nationwide over the next 20 years. This comes out to
over $32 billion per year every year for the next 20 years. Yet
currently we spend approximately $3 billion per year at the Federal
level on combined drinking water and wastewater infrastructure State
revolving funds--one-tenth of the total amount that is needed in order
to modernize our infrastructure.
The public expects that when they turn on the tap, the water is safe.
They expect that when they use their bathroom facilities, the
wastewater is being treated appropriately. They expect that the Nation
of the United States can deliver water in a manner that is efficient
and safe. In reality, our water infrastructure is out of sight and is
woefully inadequate, as we have seen in Flint, MI.
I ask my colleagues: If it costs $800 million to fix the pipes in
Flint, MI, are we going to come to an agreement that we need a
substantial increase in the amount of funds appropriated for the clean
water and drinking State revolving funds to help all American cities?
Because the stakes could not be higher.
There are many things that went wrong in Flint, MI. First and most
directly was the failure of the Governor and his appointed emergency
managers to identify and address the problem as it grew more and more
apparent. They knew the problem, and yet they didn't do anything about
it. Second, a declining and increasingly impoverished population, which
has gutted the tax base and eliminated the ability to pay back the
loans the city might receive from the Federal Government to change out
their pipes. It is also a matter of ability to actually afford the
infrastructure at the local level. That is why the State partnership
through the Federal partnership through the State revolving funds is so
critically important.
This has never been a partisan issue. I have served on the
Environment and Public Works Committee since I was elected to the
Senate, and we have recommended authorization levels and changes in the
formula so that we can modernize our water infrastructure in

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this country. It has had nearly unanimous support in our committee.
As I said, there is not nearly enough money in these revolving loan
funds to keep up to date the drinking and wastewater infrastructure in
this country, even if the cities could pay back the loans. The list
goes on and on. This list is not limited to Flint. These demographic
and fiscal physical characteristics are similar to many, many cities of
every size in the United States, in almost every State.
None of these things that have gone wrong in Flint are more
distressing than the possibility that children may have suffered
irreversible damage in their developing brains from the exposure to
lead. Exposure to even a low amount of lead can profoundly affect a
child's behavior, growth rates, and--perhaps most worrying--their
intelligence over time. Higher levels of lead in a child's blood can
lead to severe disabilities, eye-hand coordination problems, and even a
propensity toward violence. Younger children and fetuses are especially
vulnerable to even small exposures to lead--whether it be in tapwater,
lead paint, lead in soil still left from the days of leaded gasoline,
and lead in children's toys and jewelry. The list goes on and on and
on. There is not just one source of lead, and I understand that, but
when we turn on the faucets, we do not expect to have water that
contains lead.

Further, it is impossible to gauge how a specific child will be
affected because the developmental impacts of lead poisoning can take
years to become apparent. So you might have been poisoned 5 years ago,
and the effects will take longer before it becomes apparent in the
classroom or the community. In fact, the health effects are so severe,
our Nation's health experts have declared there is no safe level of
lead in a child's blood--period, the end, zero.
I also want to highlight a quote from an article in the New York
Times on January 29 of this year.

Emails released by the office of [Michigan] Gov. Rick
Snyder last week referred to a resident who said she was told
by a state nurse in January 2015, regarding her son's
elevated blood lead level, ``It is just a few IQ points. . .
. It is not the end of the world.''

There has to be a greater sense of urgency in this country. We know
every child, if they work hard, should have an opportunity in this
country. We shouldn't take away that opportunity by diminishing their
ability to achieve their objectives.
Dr. Hanna-Attisha, the doctor primarily responsible for bringing this
issue in Flint to light, and others have studied lead poisoning and
have sharply different views of lead exposure for which there is no
cure. Dr. Hanna-Attisha said: ``If you were going to put something in a
population to keep them down for generations to come, it would be
lead.''
This is devastating to the individual and devastating to our
country's potential. The work of the institutions in the State of
Maryland to combat lead exposure is exemplary. Baltimore's Coalition to
End Childhood Lead Poisoning is a nonprofit organization dedicated to
services and advocacy on behalf of families affected by lead poisoning.
This organization started as a grassroots effort by Maryland parents
who saw a problem in their community and sought innovative solutions.
The coalition has grown nationally, founding the Green & Healthy Homes
Initiative to provide a holistic approach for safer and greener living
spaces for American families. The coalition has dozens of local
partners, including Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and
the University of Maryland School of Law. Together, I am proud to say,
these Maryland institutions are paving the way to combat lead poisoning
and researching innovative legal solutions to a tragic problem, but we
cannot rely on the nonprofits to fix this problem for us. The stakes
are too high and the solution too costly. We have a duty to these
children to make sure their drinking water is safe. Make no mistake,
massive lead poisoning of an entire city's children from any source
robs our country of an entire generation of great minds--minds which
are core to the futures of these most vulnerable communities.
I urge my colleagues in the Senate to not only act responsibly with
regard to Flint, MI--and we can do that today with the bill that is on
the floor--but to recommit ourselves to find a path forward to provide
safe drinking water not just for one city but for all American cities
and all the people of this Nation.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I have raced to the floor simply because
it has come to my attention that there are some Senators who are
utilizing this Energy bill, which is for a very valued purpose, a
purpose of energy efficiency. Some Senators are utilizing this
legislation for their own purpose by proposing amendments that will
ultimately threaten the environmental integrity off of Florida's gulf
coast and will threaten the U.S. military and its ability to maintain
the largest testing and training area for not only the United States
but for the world.
I want to refer to a map of the Gulf of Mexico and show you
everything. Here is the tip of Florida. This is Pensacola, Naples,
Tampa, and down here are the Florida Keys and Key West. Everything in
yellow in the Gulf of Mexico--and this is the law--is off-limits to
drilling until 2022. It happens to be a bipartisan law that was passed
back in 2006. It was cosponsored by my then-fellow Senator from
Florida, a Republican, Mel Martinez. Why did the two of us make this a
law? The drilling is over here, everything to the west. The first
question is: Where is the oil? Mother Nature decided to have the
sediments go down the Mississippi River for millions of years where it
compacted into the Earth's crust and became oil. The oil deposits are
off of Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and there is a little bit off of
Mississippi. There really isn't much oil out here.
In addition, why did we want this area kept from drilling? Take a
look at that. That is a marsh in Louisiana after the gulf oilspill
which took place several years ago. We certainly don't want this in
Florida. You will notice that there are not many beaches off of
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. But what do you think Florida is
known for? It is known for its pristine beaches all the way from the
Perdido River, which is along the Florida-Alabama line and goes down
the coast to Naples. This area not only includes the Keys, but it goes
up the east coast of Florida. Florida has more beaches than any other
State. Florida has more coastline than any other State, save for
Alaska, and Alaska doesn't have a lot of beaches.
People not only visit Florida because of Mickey Mouse, but they visit
Florida in large part because of our beaches. The gulf oilspill turned
these white, sugary sands of Pensacola Beach black. Even though the oil
spilled way over here, it drifted to the east and got as far as
Pensacola. A little bit more oil reached Destin, and there were just a
few tar balls on Panama City's beach. When Americans saw those white,
sugary sand beaches black from oil, they assumed that had happened to
the entire coast of Florida, and as a result people didn't visit for
one whole season.
So what happened to Florida's economy? What happened to the dry
cleaners, restaurants, and hotels that are all too happy to welcome
their guests and visitors who didn't come? You get the picture of what
happened to our economy.
I am speaking about this as the Senator from Florida, but now let me
speak as the Senator who is the second-ranking Democrat on the Armed
Services Committee. This area is known as the military mission line.
Everything east of that line--indeed, almost all of the Gulf of
Mexico--is the largest training and testing area for the U.S. military
in the world. Why do you think the training for the F-22 is at Tyndall
Air Force Base in Panama City? Why do you think the training for the F-
35 Joint Strike Fighter, both foreign pilots as well as our own, is at
Eglin Air Force Base? It is because they have this area. Why is the
U.S. Air Force training, testing, and evaluation headquarters at Fort
Walton, Eglin Air Force Base? Because they have 300 miles here where
they can test some of our most sophisticated weapons.
If you talk to any admiral or general, they will tell you that you
cannot have oil-related activities when they are testing some of their
most sophisticated weapons. This is a national asset,

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and it is key to our national defense. So for all of those reasons,
Senator Martinez and I put in law that this is off-limits up until the
year 2022, but now comes the Energy bill, with its sneaky amendments
giving additional revenue sharing to these States and upper States on
the Atlantic seaboard. It gives those States a financial incentive to
get a cut of the oil revenue. What do you think that is going to do to
the government of the State of Florida in the future as an excuse to
put drilling out here as well as to have drilling off the east coast of
Florida?
When I was a young Congressman, I faced two Secretaries of the
Interior who were absolutely intent that they were going to drill on
the east coast of the United States from Cape Hatteras, NC, all the way
south to Fort Pierce, FL, and the only way back then--in the early and
mid-1980s--we were able to get that stopped, which this young
Congressman had a hand in doing, was to explain that you can't have oil
rigs off of Cape Canaveral, where we are dropping the first stages of
all of our military rockets that are so essential for us so that we
will have assured access into space in order to protect ourselves with
all of those assets.
Of course, in the early 1980s, I could talk about what was going to
happen for 135 flights of the space shuttle. You can't have oil-related
activities where the first stages--the solid rocket boosters on the
space shuttle--are going to be landing by parachutes in the ocean
because you are going to threaten the launch facilities for the U.S.
military as well as NASA if you put oil-related activities out there.
So, too, in another 2 years we will be launching humans again on
American rockets, some of whose first stages will still be crashing
into the Atlantic and whose military defense payloads continue to
launch almost every month, and those first stages splash down into the
Atlantic. Yet an amendment that is suspected to be offered by a Senator
is going to give incentive in the future--all the more pressure to try
to pull oil out of here.
Ever since this Senator was a young Congressman, I have been carrying
this battle. This Senator supports oil drilling. This Senator supports
it where it is environmentally sound, including fracking in shale rock,
because look what it has done for us. But there are times when there is
tradeoff. But in this case there is not going to be a tradeoff, in the
first place because there is not any oil, in the second place because
it would wreck the economy of Florida with our tourism and our sugary
white beaches, but in the third place because it would threaten the
national security of this country if we eliminated this as our largest
test evaluation and training center.
I can tell my colleagues that this Senator is not going to let that
happen.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I rise to discuss amendment No. 3016. This
is an amendment that would eliminate the corn ethanol mandate from the
fuel standards that we have.
I wish to thank my cosponsors on this amendment, including Senator
Feinstein from California and Senator Flake from Arizona. This is a
bipartisan amendment. I think this is a really important issue.
What this amendment does is it eliminates the corn component of the
renewable fuel standard. The renewable fuel standard, as my colleagues
know, was created in 2007, and this is a Federal mandate that forces
drivers to burn, actually, billions of gallons of biofuels, the vast
majority of it derived from corn, in our vehicles, in our cars. It is
on the order of 100 billion gallons of corn ethanol, and because this
mandate establishes specific and increasing quantities of ethanol that
has to be burned in our cars, when total gasoline consumption stays
flat or declines, then it becomes an increasing percentage that we are
all forced to buy.
Let me be clear about one thing. The amendment I am specifically
addressing, amendment No. 3016, eliminates the corn portion of the
renewable fuel standard mandate, and that is 80 percent by volume. The
optimal policy is to get rid of this whole thing. It was a well-
intentioned but bad idea to begin with. It is now abundantly clear this
is bad policy and we should get rid of the whole thing. But I
understand we don't have as broad an interest in getting rid of the
whole thing as the interest we have in getting rid of at least the corn
component. And since that is, after all, 80 percent, this would be
significant progress.
There is probably not an enormous universe of things on which I have
agreed with Vice President Al Gore over the years, but he got this
right. Vice President Gore has acknowledged that ethanol was a mistake
in the first place.
It was created, as I say, with all good intentions. It was thought
that by forcing people to make ethanol mostly from corn and burn it in
our cars, we would reduce air pollution. It was thought that it would
reduce costs for families. It was thought that it might even be good
for the economy. All three are completely wrong. Factually, that is not
the case. The mandate has failed to achieve any of these goals.
Instead, in fact, it increases air pollution, it increases costs for
families, and it is harmful to our economy.
Let me take the first one, because the real motivation for this was
to do something to improve the environment. The real idea behind
ethanol--the impetus in the first place--was that somehow we would
reduce air pollution if we are burning ethanol derived from corn rather
than gasoline. Well, unfortunately, it hasn't worked out that way. That
isn't just my opinion. There is plenty of documentation.
In 2009, Stanford University predicted: ``Vehicles running on ethanol
will generate higher concentrations of ozone than those using gasoline,
especially in the winter . . .''
In 2011, the National Academy of Sciences observed: ``Projected air-
quality effects from ethanol fuel would be more damaging to human
health than those from gasoline use.'' That is the National Academy of
Sciences.
In 2014, Northwestern University researchers did a little research on
the real world. They went down to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where they had
recently required an increase in the use of ethanol, and what did they
find? A corresponding, significant increase in ground-level ozone,
which we all know is a harmful pollutant at the ground level and causes
smog and other health problems.
So there is no dispute about this. There is no question about this.
Ethanol is harmful to our air quality and our environment.
The Environmental Working Group agrees. The Environmental Working
Group, a group of environmentalists, have said: ``The rapid expansion
of corn ethanol production has increased greenhouse gas emissions,
worsened air and water pollution, and driven up the price of food and
feed.''
I know that many of my colleagues are very concerned about carbon
emissions. So separate and apart from ozone, CO2 that is
being released into the atmosphere is a concern for a lot of people.
Studies show that ethanol creates more carbon dioxide emission than
gasoline. It is just a fact.
The Clean Air Task Force estimates that the carbon emissions from
corn ethanol, over the next 30 years at current projected consumption
rates, would exceed 1.4 billion tons, which is 300 million tons more
than if we used gasoline instead of the ethanol.

So there really isn't any debate that I am aware of anymore about
this. Air quality is better if we are not using ethanol than when we
are. But there are other impacts of this mandate. One is the higher
cost on families.
The fact is that ethanol is more expensive to make per unit of energy
than gasoline. So we need to spend more for our cars to go the same
distance. The New York Times reported that ethanol increased costs to
gasoline purchasers by billions of dollars in 2013. The Wall Street
Journal estimated that in 2014 alone, the RFS mandate--this mandate
that we burn ethanol in our gas--raised the cost of gas by an average
of anywhere from $128 to $320 per year for the average family.
So let's be very clear. This mandate is costing American families
several hundred dollars a year of their disposable income because they
are having to spend to buy the more expensive fuel to move their
vehicles.
It is not just the direct effect of having to pay more when we gas up
our cars. These ethanol mandates take a huge segment of our corn
production off the market and they drive up the price of corn. Again,
this isn't just me

[[Page S548]]

saying so. In 2008, USDA Secretary Ed Schafer and Department of Energy
Secretary Samuel Bodman acknowledged that ethanol increases the food
price. Their estimate is just under 1 percent per year.
In 2012, a study by economist Thomas Elam observed that ethanol
increases food costs for the average family of four by just over $2,000
per year. So the increased food cost is actually multiples of the
increased gasoline costs when we fill up our tanks, and families are
hit by both.
Of course, the food cost goes up not only because of the direct
effect of higher corn--and many of us consume corn directly--but corn
is the principal feed for all livestock. So the price of meat and
poultry is very much correlated to the cost of the feed, and we make
that feed much more expensive than it needs to be because of the
ethanol mandate.
There is another way in which this mandate is harmful to consumers
and to families, and that is that it increases engine maintenance
costs. The EPA acknowledges that ethanol is harmful to engines. They
say: ``Unlike other fuel components, ethanol is corrosive and highly
water soluble.'' Gasoline is not. So gasoline doesn't have this
physical property; it doesn't damage engines. But ethanol does. The
moisture that is dissolved in ethanol is corrosive.
In fact, the EPA warns that fuel blends containing as little as 15-
percent ethanol--which, by the way, this year there will be gas
stations selling gasoline that is 15-percent ethanol--should not be
used in any motorcycle, schoolbus, transit bus, delivery truck, boat,
ATV, lawnmower or older automobile because of the damage that we know
the ethanol will do to these engines.
AAA warns that raising ethanol content--just rising it above 10
percent, which is where we are--will damage 95 percent of the cars that
are on the road today. How can this possibly be good for a family to be
systematically degrading the engines in their vehicles?
There are other ways in which this is damaging to our economy. I
mentioned that part of the reason that food prices for families are
higher as a result of the ethanol mandate is because corn is such an
important source of food for livestock. Well, in fact, the Federal
Reserve and the USDA estimate that the ethanol mandate alone has
contributed to a 20- to 30-percent increase in corn prices, and that
has had a terrible impact on livestock operations and the dairy
industry.
It is also bad for American refineries. There are 137 oil refineries
that operate in 28 States and employ thousands of people with good
family-sustaining jobs, but because the oil refiner has to either blend
in ethanol with the gasoline they make or they have to go out and pay a
fine--a penalty, essentially--if they don't, it diminishes jobs in the
refining sector. Again, this isn't just my opinion. I got a letter from
the Philadelphia AFL-CIO business manager Pat Gillespie, and I will
quote from the letter because he lays it out very clearly. He says:

Our resurrected refinery in Trainer, Pennsylvania . . .
once again needs your intercession. The impact of the
dramatic spike in costs of the RIN credits--

the system by which EPA enforces the ethanol mandate--

from four cents to one dollar per gallon will cause a
tremendous depression in . . . [our refinery's] bottom line.
. . . Of course at the Building Trades, we need them to have
the economic vitality to bring about the construction and
maintenance projects that our Members depend on. And the
steel workers, of course, need economic vitality so they
can maintain and expand their jobs with the refinery. . .
. We need your help with this matter.

I completely agree. This is disastrous policy.
Just to summarize, corn ethanol--ethanol generally but corn ethanol
in particular--is just bad policy. It is bad for the environment, it
increases air pollution, it raises costs for families to drive their
vehicles and to put food on the table, and it costs us jobs. It is bad
for the economy. Let's end this practice. Let's end this mandate. It
was well-intentioned at the time, but now it is clear it is doing harm,
not doing good.
I will close on one other point. We in Congress, in Washington,
should not be forcing taxpayers and consumers to subsidize certain
industries at the expense of others. That is what is going on here. The
magnitude of the consumption of ethanol is entirely driven by the
mandate Congress has required the EPA to impose. That is why this is
happening.
We use the power of the government to force consumers to pay more
than they need to pay to drive their car and to buy their food. This
makes no sense at all.
It seems to this Senator that a big part of what we are hearing on
both sides of the aisle in this very unusual and raucous Presidential
election cycle is voters who are disgusted with Washington. They don't
trust Washington. They don't have a very high opinion of Congress. Part
of it is because they are convinced that Congress goes around doling
out special favors for special industries, special groups, and the
politically well-connected. Well, guess what. They are right, and this
is an egregious example of that. It is a clear example where the
taxpayer and consumer get stuck with the bill so as to benefit a select
preferred industry that has a lot of political clout. It is outrageous.
The American people are right to be angry and tired of this.
Mr. President, we should end the renewable fuel standard entirely. As
I say, it started with good intentions, but the evidence is in and
there is no mystery anymore: This policy is bad for the environment,
bad for families, bad for budgets, and bad for our economy. There is no
reason we should be continuing this, and I urge my colleagues to
support this and any other effort to completely eliminate the renewable
fuel standard, and if we can't do that, at least take the 80 percent
out that is comprised of the corn component.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Second Amendment right to Keep and Bear Arms

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record a document titled ``Just the FACTS'' at the conclusion of
my remarks.
Mr. President, the problem of gun violence is real, but too many of
the proposed responses to this problem would not only represent unwise
policy but would also violate a fundamental constitutional right--the
Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
What does this mean to you and to me as Americans? It means that the
right to bear arms falls into the same category as our other most
closely held individual rights: the right of free speech, the right of
freedom of religion, and the right of due process of law. Basically,
what I am saying is that one cannot separate out any one of the Bill of
Rights or any of the other constitutional rights that come under the
14th Amendment, as an example. You can't separate the right to bear
arms from those because, and this is not emphasized enough, the Second
Amendment, the right to bear arms, is an individual, fundamental
constitutional right. Maybe a lot of us believed that over decades, but
it has been only within the last 5 to 8 years and in a couple of
decisions that the Supreme Court has made that entirely clear, that it
is an individual, fundamental constitutional right.
With that firm foundation, I want to straighten out some of the
rampant misinformation that is used to advocate for stricter gun
control. Correcting these myths is essential so that the issue can be
properly deliberated and properly addressed. Unfortunately, many of
these myths were reiterated over the past 2 weeks during prime time,
nationwide Presidential media appearances.
First, let's debunk the quote ``gun show loophole.'' Were you to
click on your TV, pick up a newspaper, or read certain mailers, you
would be left with the impression that if you buy a firearm at a gun
show, you are not subject to a background check. In fact, all gun show
purchases made from commercial gun dealers require a background check.
These commercial gun dealers--or, as they are called, Federal firearms

[[Page S549]]

licensees--typically make up the majority of the gun vendors at gun
shows.
Let's be very clear. If someone goes to a gun show and at that gun
show purchases a firearm from a commercial gun dealer, that individual
or those individuals are subject to a background check, period. So then
who are these people we hear the President and others speak about who
are not subject to a background check? If you are an individual and you
want to sell your gun to another individual, you may do so, assuming
you don't know or have reasonable cause to believe that such person is
prohibited from owning a gun. It is quite common sense that the
government does not dictate where this sale takes place. It is peer-to-
peer. You can sell your hunting rifle to your neighbors, and you can
make that sale in your home, driveway, or parking lot. You can also
make that sale to another individual at a gun show. That is what is
referred to as a peer-to-peer transaction--simply two adults engaged in
a personal transaction. Just as there is no background check required
in your driveway, there generally is no background check required when
that private, peer-to-peer sale happens to occur at a gun show. Very
clearly, this is not a loophole in the pejorative sense of the word;
this is simply an American lawfully selling their property to another
without the Federal Government involved.
In this same vein, to hear the President discuss it, you would assume
that these gun shows were lawless free-for-alls for felons to obtain
their newest illegal weapon. In fact, local, State, and Federal law
enforcement are often present at gun shows, both in uniform and
covertly in plain clothes. These law enforcement officers monitor and
intervene in suspected, unlawful firearm sales such as straw
purchasing, attempted purchases by prohibited individuals, and the
attempted sale of illegal firearms.

As the Washington Times reported last Wednesday, law enforcement
arrests at gun shows hit new highs last year. I recently attended a gun
show in Iowa, and there was a robust law enforcement presence. So I
want to go on to another point beyond the supposed gun show loophole
that I just showed isn't much of a loophole.
The second point is that we have been repeatedly told by President
Obama, as recently as a couple of weeks ago, that firearms purchased on
the Internet don't require a background check. I have seen media
reports to that same effect. Once again, this is a blatant inaccuracy
and that is an inaccuracy that needs to be corrected. So that is why I
am here.
An individual cannot purchase a firearm directly over the Internet. A
gun purchaser can pay for a firearm over the Internet, but, if
purchased from a firearms retailer, the firearm must then be sent to a
brick-and-mortar location. When the purchaser picks up the gun, a
background check is performed. Assuming the purchaser passes the
background check, he or she may obtain physical possession of that
firearm.
In addition, an individual cannot lawfully purchase a firearm on the
Internet from an individual who lives in another State. Any interstate
sale of a firearm--even between two individuals online--must go through
a gun store which, after charging a fee and running a background check
on the purchaser, provides the purchaser with the firearm that they
bought from another individual on the Internet.
These are two clear instances where Internet purchasers require a
background check.
The one exception where a firearm can be lawfully purchased using the
Internet without a background check is when two individuals living in
the same State establish the terms of a purchase over the Internet and
then meet in person to transfer the firearm.
If the firearm is a rifle or a shotgun, a resident may use the U.S.
Postal Service to mail the firearm intrastate to another individual,
but he may not do so if the item being purchased is a handgun. A
handgun can only be mailed intrastate via a contract carrier and, as
you can see, once you blow away the smoke and pull down the mirrors,
the statement that there are no background checks on Internet purchases
rings hollow.
A third point is that with great fanfare President Obama has stated
unequivocally that firearms enforcement has been a priority with his
administration. This is simply not true. That can be backed up with
statistics.
The Obama administration chose to focus its criminal justice
resources elsewhere rather than cracking down on illegal gun sales.
Federal firearms prosecutions are down at least 25 percent under this
President.
In addition, he suspended successful programs specifically designed
to thwart firearms offenses. Unfortunately, as has so often been the
case with the Obama administration, the rhetoric just does not match
the action. As I have repeatedly called for, we need greater
enforcement of the existing law, which simply has not happened under
this administration.
A fourth point, to set the record straight on the President's
statements, is that despite condemnation from both sides of the aisle
and even from publications that regularly support increased gun
control--such as the LA Times, for example--we have once again heard
the President call for tying America's fundamental Second Amendment
rights to the terrorist no-fly list. As we all know in this body, the
no-fly list is actually multiple lists generated in secret and
controlled by the executive branch bureaucrats. The no-fly list is
intended to thwart suspected terrorists from flying. Flying is not a
constitutional right like the Second Amendment is. So the people who
are put on these lists are not given the chance to challenge their
inclusion on those lists. However, it is blatantly unconstitutional to
deny a fundamental constitutional right without any type of due process
such as notice and the opportunity to be heard.
The fact that the President continues to call for use of the no-fly
list as it relates to a fundamental right calls into question his
repeated assurances that he fully supports the Second Amendment.
Given unprecedented Executive actions regarding sanctuary cities and
a refusal to enforce immigration laws as enacted by this body, we
should not be surprised at those statements. But let me state
unequivocally that using a secret document--which by its nature and
purpose will often be overinclusive or contain errors as a basis for
denying Americans their Second Amendment right--is clearly
unconstitutional.
The fifth point against the President's position is that on multiple
occasions the Obama administration has condemned semiautomatic weapons.
So let's get it straight right here and now. As any gun owner knows, a
semiautomatic firearm is simply a gun that shoots one round with each
pull of the trigger. This encompasses the type of shotgun most often
used for duck hunting and the type of rifle often used for target
shooting. A semiautomatic firearm does not equate to the fabled assault
weapon and, of course, it is not a machine gun. We should be concerned
when this administration makes proposals on guns that fail to reflect
knowledge of even elementary elements of their operation.
I have additional myths that need to be dispelled that I will
submit--and I have had permission from the Presiding Officer to submit
that--but I want to be mindful of other people's times, and I now wish
to respond directly to one of President Obama's challenges.
So let's talk for a moment about bipartisan efforts regarding gun
control. Senator Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in
leadership, and I are working on drafting a bill on which we hope we
can reach agreement and introduce shortly, which prohibits all aliens--
with the exception of permanent legal permanent residents and those who
fall under a sporting exception--from acquiring firearms. In addition,
our bill reinstitutes residency requirements for those noncitizens
attempting to purchase a firearm.
The bipartisan legislation we hope we can agree to introduce would
close real and actual loopholes, such as those that currently permit
refugees or asylees or those from visa-waiver countries to acquire
firearms.
I look forward to the opportunity to work on this issue in a
bipartisan manner. But if we are going to deliberate and debate the
issue, we must clear up the misconceptions and avoid erroneous rhetoric
that seems to be dominating the news out there with all the

[[Page S550]]

false positions and false interpretations of the law, which I have
discussed in a few minutes with my colleagues.
So I am going to end where I started. The Second Amendment right to
bear arms is a fundamental right, and any legislative or Executive
action under any President must start and finish with the recognition
of the fact that the Second Amendment is as important as other
amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
I yield the floor.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Just the Facts

The President's Executive Actions on Firearms and Other
Common Myths.
Myth #1: Firearm purchases at gun shows do not require a
background check due to the ``gun show loophole.''
Facts:
When the President and others refer to the ``gun show
loophole,'' they imply that there are no background checks
being done at gun shows. As a result, much of the public has
been misinformed and are led to believe that individuals who
purchase firearms at gun shows are not subject to a
background check.
In reality, there is no ``gun show loophole.'' If an
individual wants to purchase a firearm from a licensed
firearms retailer, which typically makes up the majority of
vendors at gun shows, the individual must fill out the
requisite federal firearms paperwork and undergo a National
Instant Criminal Background Check System (``NICS'')
background check.
The only firearms that are being purchased at gun shows
without a background check are those being bought and sold
between individuals, peer-to-peer, as opposed to buying a
firearm from a gun dealer. These private sales are no
different from selling a personal hunting rifle to the
owner's niece or nephew down the road. It is a private sale
and no background paperwork is required. The gun is private
property and the sale is made like a sale of the family's
good silver. The one difference is that the locus of a gun
show is being used to make the private sale.
Under current law, an individual is permitted to
occasionally sell part, or all, of their personal firearms
collection. These private sellers, however, cannot be
``engaged in the business'' of selling firearms. ``Engaged in
the business'' means they can't repeatedly sell firearms with
the principal objective of earning funds to support
themselves. Some of the individuals who wish to sell a
portion, or all, of their personal firearms collection do so
at the show and might display their wares on a table. These
``private table sales,'' however, are private, peer-to-peer,
sales and, therefore, do not require a background check. The
President cannot change criminal statutes governing
requirements for which sellers must conduct background
checks. His new actions don't do so and don't claim to do so.
In a peer-to-peer, private firearms transaction, it is
already illegal to sell a firearm to another individual if
the seller knows or has reasonable cause to believe that the
buyer meets any of the prohibited categories for possession
of a firearm (felon, fugitive, illegal alien, etc).
Myth #2: Gun shows lack any law enforcement presence and
are a free-for-all for felons and other prohibited
individuals to obtain firearms.
Fact:
Local, state, and federal law enforcement are often present
both in uniform and/or covertly in plain clothes to monitor
and intervene in suspected unlawful firearms sales such as
straw purchasing, purchases made by prohibited individuals,
including non-residents, and the attempted sale of any
illegal firearms.
Myth #3: Individuals who purchase firearms on the internet
are not subject to background checks.
Facts:
An individual cannot purchase a firearm directly from a
firearms retailer over the internet and have that firearm
shipped to them directly. An individual can pay for the
firearm over the internet at websites and online sporting
goods retailers. The firearm, however must be picked up from
a federal firearms licensee (``FFL'') such as a gun store. In
many cases, this is the brick and mortar store associated
with the website where the gun purchase was made. Once at the
retail store, the internet purchaser must then fill out the
requisite forms, including ATF Form 4473, which initiates the
NICS background check process. Thus, an internet purchase of
a firearm from a firearms retailer does require a background
check.
Individuals, from the same state, are able to advertise and
purchase firearms from one another and use the internet to
facilitate the transaction. It is unlawful, under current
law, to sell or transfer a firearm to an individual who is
out-of-state. Any internet sale, even between individuals,
that crosses state lines would have to utilize a federal
firearms licensee (``FFL''), such as a gun store, and the
purchaser would be required to fill out the requisite state
and federal paperwork and would undergo a background check.
Myth #4: President Obama's January 5, 2016, executive
action on gun control represents landmark change regarding
gun control.
Facts:
With few exceptions, President Obama's executive action on
firearms is nothing more than rhetoric regarding the status
quo. Many senators have long argued for better and more
robust enforcement of existing laws that prohibit criminals
from owning guns.
It is the current law of the land that anyone engaged in
the business of selling firearms must have a federal firearms
license. The President's action does not change current law,
but merely restates existing court rulings on the meaning of
``engaged in the business.''
Myth #5: The Obama Administration has made firearms
enforcement a priority.
Facts:
The Obama Administration has used its limited criminal
enforcement resources to focus on clemency for convicted and
imprisoned felons, the investigation of police departments,
and on civil rights cases. The latter two categories
represent important work, but the Department of Justice lost
track of one of its core missions of enforcing criminal law:
prosecuting violent criminals, including gun criminals.
The Obama Administration is only now making firearms
enforcement a priority. Clearly, enforcing the gun laws is a
new initiative, or one of the President's actions would not
have been informing all of the 93 U.S. Attorneys about it.
Proof of this lack of enforcement is revealed in the
decline of weapons related prosecutions during the Obama
administration. As data obtained from the Executive Office of
United States Attorneys, through a Freedom of Information Act
(``FOIA'') request, reveal, firearms prosecutions are down
approximately 25 percent under the Obama administration
versus the last year of the Bush administration.
Myth #6: Mental health has nothing to do with gun control.
Facts:
People with certain levels of mental illness are not
permitted to own guns. Many of the recent mass killings were
committed by mentally ill individuals. One of the keys to
preventing further mass shootings and violence committed with
firearms is addressing the issue of mental health.
Background checks to prevent the mentally ill from
obtaining guns can only work if states provide mental health
records to the NICS system. Too many states have failed to do
so. Many of the worst offenders are states with the most
stringent gun control laws. For multiple years now, many
members of Congress have repeatedly called for and introduced
legislation that would provide incentives for states to
submit their mental health records for inclusion in the NICS
database.
Myth #7: President Obama's executive action on gun control
will thwart criminals' ability to obtain firearms.
Facts:
The President's executive action regarding firearms is
focused primarily on individuals who attempt to purchase
firearms through the background check process.
Criminals, however, obtain firearms in myriad illegal ways,
including home invasion robbery, trading narcotics for
firearms, burglary of homes, vehicles, and businesses, as
well as straw purchasing.
Grassley legislation, SA 725, was specifically designed to
combat the straw purchasing of firearms as well as firearms
traffickers who transfer firearms to prohibited individuals
and out-of-state residents.
Myth #8: There is a general consensus in America that
greater gun control is needed to prevent mass shootings in
the United States.
Facts:
Despite the President's statement to the contrary, polls
have shown that the majority of Americans do not believe that
stricter gun control would reduce the number of mass
shootings in the United States.
The American public does not believe that making it harder
for law abiding Americans to obtain guns makes America safer.
In fact, polls have shown that a majority of Americans thinks
the United States would be safer if there were more
individuals licensed and trained to carry concealed weapons.
A majority opposes re-imposition of the ``assault weapons''
ban.
Myth #9: The terrorist ``no-fly'' list is a proper
mechanism to bar Americans from purchasing firearms.--
President Barack Obama, January 5, 2016
Facts:
The no-fly list is actually multiple lists, which are
generated in secret and controlled by executive branch
bureaucrats. The Second Amendment right to bear arms has been
determined by the U.S. Supreme Court to be a fundamental
right. This puts the right to bear arms in our most closely
guarded rights similar to the right to free speech and
freedom of religion. It is unconstitutional to deprive an
American citizen of their Second Amendment right without
notice and an opportunity to be heard.
Myth #10: Gun retailers need to step up and refuse to sell
semi-automatic weapons.--President Barack Obama, January 5,
2016
Facts:
There is nothing unlawful about a semi-automatic firearm. A
semi-automatic firearm simply means that a round is
discharged with each pull of the trigger. These include most
shotguns used for waterfowl hunting and rifles commonly used
for target shooting.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page S551]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Amendment No. 3140, as Modified

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am pleased to join some of my
colleagues today to speak about the key role woody biomass can play in
helping to meet our Nation's renewable energy needs.
Last night an amendment that several of us offered was adopted by a
voice vote. I thank the sponsors of that amendment who have joined with
me--Senator Klobuchar, Senator King, Senator Ayotte, Senator Franken,
Senator Daines, Senator Crapo, and Senator Risch--all of whom worked
hard to craft this important amendment.
There has been a great deal of misinformation, regrettably,
circulated about the amendment, which I hope we will be able to clarify
through a colloquy on the floor today. I know the lead Democratic
sponsor of the amendment, Senator Klobuchar, would like to speak on it
and has an engagement, so I am going to yield to her before giving my
remarks. I thank her for her leadership.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank Senator Collins for her
leadership and for her illuminating the rest of the Senate. Maybe not
everyone has as many trees as we do, and biomass. I appreciate what she
has done.
I was proud to cosponsor this bill and be one of the leads on it,
with Senator King. This amendment moves us forward in really
recognizing the full benefits of the use of forest biomass as a
homegrown energy solution. I also thank Senator Cantwell and Senator
Murkowski for their work on this Energy bill and the inclusion of this
amendment--an amendment that encourages interagency coordination to
establish consistent policies relating to forest biomass energy.
We have often talked about how we don't want to have just one source
of energy, whether hydro, nuclear--you name it. So we want to recognize
the importance of this forest biomass energy and talk a little bit
about it today.
I sent letters to the EPA and have spoken with administration
officials, urging them to adopt a clear biomass accounting framework
that is simple to understand and implement. Without clear policies that
recognize the carbon benefits--and I will say that again: the carbon
benefits--of forest biomass, private investment throughout the biomass
supply chain will dry up and the positive momentum we have built toward
a more renewable energy future will be lost.
Supporting homegrown energy is an important part in an ``all of the
above'' energy strategy. Biomass energy is driving energy innovation in
many rural communities. The forest industry in my State and those who
work in that industry are already playing a significant role in the
biomass energy economy. There is always room to do more.
I appreciate the discussions between my colleagues yesterday on the
language of this amendment and am pleased we ultimately--including
Senator Boxer's help and others'--found a solution that moves us
forward. I know there is interest in continuing these conversations,
and I look forward to doing so.
I thank Senator Collins.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for
her leadership.
I, too, want to thank the two floor managers of this bill, the
chairman, Senator Murkowski, and her partner, Senator Cantwell, for
working so closely with us.
The fact is that biomass energy is a sustainable, responsible,
renewable, and economically significant energy source. Many States,
including mine, are already relying on biomass to help meet their
renewable energy goals. Renewable biomass produces the benefits of
establishing jobs, boosting economic growth, and helping us to meet our
Nation's energy needs. Our amendment supports this carbon-neutral
energy source as an essential part of our Nation's energy future.
The amendment, which was adopted last night, is very straightforward.
It simply requires the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of
Agriculture, and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency to jointly ensure that Federal policy relating to forest
bioenergy is consistent and not contradictory and that the full
benefits of forest biomass for energy, conservation, and responsible
forest management are recognized.
It concerns me greatly that some have suggested that our amendment
would somehow result in substantial damage to our forests and the
environment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Forests in the
United States are robust and sustainably managed, and climate science
has consistently and clearly documented the carbon benefits of
utilizing forest biomass for energy production. Moreover, healthy
markets for biomass and forest products actually help conserve forest
land and keep our working forests in this country.
Our amendment also echos the principles outlined in a June 2015
bipartisan letter that was led by Senator Merkley and myself and was
signed by 46 Senators from both sides of the aisle. Our letter stated:
Our constituents employed in the biomass supply chain deserve federal
policy that recognizes the clear benefits of forest bioenergy. We urge
you to ensure that federal policies are consistent and reflect the
carbon neutrality of forest bioenergy.
In response to our letter, the administration noted that ``DOE, EPA,
and USDA will work together to ensure that biomass energy plays a role
in America's clean energy future.''
That is precisely the importance of our amendment, to make sure that
happens.
The carbon neutrality of biomass harvested from sustainably managed
forests has been recognized repeatedly by numerous studies, agencies,
institutions, and rules around the world.
Carbon-neutral biomass energy derived from the residuals of forest
products manufacturing has climate benefits. Scientists have confirmed
that the ongoing use of manufacturing residuals for energy in the
forest products industry has been yielding net climate benefits for
many years. These residuals, such as bark and sawdust, replace the need
for fossil fuels and provide significant greenhouse gas benefits, which
some scientists have estimated to be the equivalent of removing
approximately 35 million cars from the roads.
As forests grow, carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere
through photosynthesis. This carbon dioxide is converted into organic
carbon and stored in woody biomass. Trees release the stored carbon
when they die, decay, or are combusted. As the biomass releases carbon
as carbon dioxide, the carbon cycle is completed. The carbon in biomass
will return to the atmosphere regardless of whether it is burned for
energy, allowed to biodegrade, or lost in a forest fire.
In November of 2014, 100 nationally recognized forest scientists,
representing 80 universities, wrote to the EPA stating the long-term
carbon benefits of forest bioenergy. This group weighed a comprehensive
synthesis of the best peer-reviewed science and affirmed the carbon
benefits of biomass.
A literature review of forest carbon science that appeared in the
November 2014 ``Journal of Forestry'' confirms that ``wood products and
energy resources derived from forests have the potential to play an
important and ongoing role in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions.''
So Federal policies for the use of clean, renewable energy solutions,
including biomass, should be clear and simple and reflect these
principles.
We should not have Federal agencies with inconsistent policies when
it comes to such an important issue. Again, I want to thank the
sponsors and cosponsors of my bill, my amendment, as well as the
chairman and the ranking member of the Energy Committee for their
cooperation in getting the amendment adopted last night.
I would like to yield to my colleague from Maine Senator King, who
made this a tripartisan amendment when we offered it.

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The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. KING. Mr. President, as usual, my senior colleague from Maine has
outlined this issue exceptionally well and covered the important
points. I wish to add and amplify a few.
The first thing I would say is that I yield to no person in this body
in terms of their commitment to the environment, their commitment to
ending our dependence upon fossil fuel, and our facing of the challenge
of climate change. This biomass discussion is a way of helping with
that problem rather than hindering it. The important term in all of
this discussion is the word ``fossil.''
The issue we are facing now with climate change and with increased
CO2 in the atmosphere is because we are releasing
CO2. We are releasing carbon that has been trapped in the
Earth's crust for millions of years, and we are adding to the carbon
budget of the atmosphere.
Biomass is carbon that is already here. It is already in the
environment. It is in the trees. It is simply being circulated, and
there is no net addition of carbon to the atmosphere because of the use
of biomass. I have been in the renewable energy business now for more
than 30 years and have worked in hydro, biomass, energy conservation on
a large scale and wind power. So I have some background in this. A
biomass plant typically burns fuel that would not otherwise enter into
the economic stream of timber. It is often bark, mill waste, ends of
logs, branches--the kind of thing that otherwise lies on the forest
floor, dies and decays and releases carbon. There is no net addition of
carbon.
To be intellectually honest, you have to say that burning it releases
that carbon so much sooner than it would otherwise be released, but in
the overall term we are talking about a renewable resource.
In New England and I suspect around the country--I know in Maine--
there are substantially more trees in the forest today than there were
150 years ago because of the number of farms that have been returned to
their natural state of forestry. That has given us an opportunity to
develop an energy source that is a lot more safe and supportive of the
environment than the other fossil fuel elements we have seen that have
contributed to the CO2 problem in this country.
I think this is a commonsense amendment. It basically tries to get
the Federal Government on the same page on this issue consistently
across the agencies. It makes the point that as long as we are talking
about sustainable management, we are talking about what amounts to a
continuous renewable resource. We are not adding to the carbon burden
of the atmosphere, and therefore I think this is a commonsense
amendment that will not set back our efforts with regard to climate
change but will actually advance them.
I am happy to support this amendment, to support my colleague from
Maine. I think this is the kind of commonsense amendment that actually
belongs. It is a very important part of this bill. It strengthens it
considerably, in my view. I want to again thank my senior colleague for
bringing this bill forward.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from
Maine. He has enormous expertise in the area of renewable energy, and I
very much appreciate his adding his expertise to this debate.
Before I yield the floor, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in
the Record a letter dated June 30, 2015, and signed by 46 Senators, on
this very issue, that was addressed to the Administrator of the EPA,
the Secretary of Energy, and the Secretary of Agriculture.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

United States Senate,

Washington, DC, June 30, 2015.
Hon. Gina McCarthy,
Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington,
DC.
Hon. Dr. Ernest Moniz,
Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Tom Vilsack,
Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Washington, DC.
Dear Administrator McCarthy, Secretary Moniz, and Secretary
Vilsack: We write to support biomass energy as a sustainable,
responsible, renewable, and economically significant energy
source. Federal policies across all departments and agencies
must remove any uncertainties and contradictions through a
clear, unambiguous message that forest bioenergy is part of
the nation's energy future.
Many states are relying on renewable biomass to meet their
energy goals, and we support renewable biomass to create jobs
and economic growth while meeting our nation's energy needs.
A comprehensive science, technical, and legal administrative
record supports a clear and simple policy establishing the
benefits of energy from forest biomass. Federal policies that
add unnecessary costs and complexity will discourage rather
than encourage investment in working forests, harvesting
operations, bioenergy, wood products, and paper
manufacturing. Unclear or contradictory signals from federal
agencies could discourage biomass utilization as an energy
solution.
The carbon neutrality of forest biomass has been recognized
repeatedly by numerous studies, agencies, institutions,
legislation, and rules around the world, and there has been
no dispute about the carbon neutrality of biomass derived
from residuals of forest products manufacturing and
agriculture. Our constituents employed in the biomass supply
chain deserve a federal policy that recognizes the clear
benefits of forest bioenergy. We urge you to ensure that
federal policies are consistent and reflect the carbon
neutrality of forest bioenergy.
Sincerely,
Susan M. Collins; Jeff Merkley; Kelly Ayotte; Roy Blunt;
John Boozman; Richard Burr; Shelley Moore Capito; Bill
Cassidy; Thad Cochran; John Cornyn; Tammy Baldwin;
Sherrod Brown; Robert P. Casey, Jr.; Joe Donnelly;
Dianne Feinstein.
Al Franken; Tim Kaine; Angus S. King, Jr.; Tom Cotton;
Mike Crapo; Steve Daines; Cory Gardner; Lindsey Graham;
Johnny Isakson; Ron Johnson; David Perdue; Amy
Klobuchar; Joe Manchin, III; Barbara A, Mikulski;
Claire A. McCaskill.
Patty Murray; Bill Nelson; Jeanne Shaheen; Debbie
Stabenow; Rob Portman; James E. Risch; Jeff Sessions;
John Thune; Thom Tillis; David Vitter; Jon Tester; Mark
R. Warner; Tim Scott; Richard C. Shelby; Patrick J.
Toomey; Roger Wicker.
United States Senators.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I am delighted to join the two Senators
from Maine--Senator Collins and Senator Angus King--in this dialogue,
as well as Senator Klobuchar. I believe a few other Senators may join
us.
Senator Collins has been a great leader in advancing the debate or
the conversation recognizing the carbon benefits of biomass. Her State
and of course Senator King's State is so much like Oregon. If you fold
the map of the United States in the middle and put east and west on top
of each other, Oregon and Maine end up closely associated. We have
similar coastlines. We have shellfish industries. We have timber
industries. We have salmon runs. We having similar initiative systems
and our largest cities are named Portland.
I know that when I had the pleasure to visit Maine--and I went there
with my wife and children to visit friends from many walks of our two
lives, my wife's life and my life--we went from town to town visiting
these friends who moved to Maine. We picked up a newspaper, and we felt
like we were right at home in Oregon. The same initiatives were being
done at that time in the State as we had on the front page back home.
This issue of biomass is close to our hearts in the forests of the
Northeast and in the forests of the Northwest. When I first came to the
Senate and the conversation was going forward about renewable energy,
Senator Dorgan from North Dakota--now retired--said that his home State
was the Saudi Arabia of wind energy. I heard Senator Reid from Nevada
say Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of solar power. There was a county
commissioner from Douglas County--the county I was born in--which has
the largest concentration of Douglas fir trees, its enormous biomass
area--who referred to how Douglas County can be the Saudi Arabia of
biomass energy. I thought, with all these Saudi Arabians in the United
States, why are we still importing oil from Saudi Arabia? But indeed
these efforts to develop an alternative to pivot from fossil fuels to a
clean energy economy should include solar, should include wind, and
should include biomass.

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When I came to the Senate, I undertook the project of helping the
Environmental Protection Agency recognize that you have to look at the
life cycle. You can't simply look at the moment of combustion. You
can't compare coal being burned in a coal furnace or oil in an oil
furnace and say that is equivalent to wood being burned in a biomass
furnace because, indeed, as you take that biomass, that wood, you are
engaged in a life cycle that doesn't involve bringing more carbon out
of the Earth and adding it to the cycle of ground. Our colleague, Angus
King from Maine, was referring to that difference earlier in his
comments.
It has been an effort to make sure our government takes account of
this significant contribution of forest biomass. In the Northwest, the
biomass is the potential for a win-win as a renewable source and
improving forest health, and Senator Collins was referring to the goals
of responsible forest management and conservation.
Indeed, if you drive along the roads in our national forests in my
home State, you will see slash piles. These piles are there because as
we go through for forest health, we thin the trees. If they are good
saw logs, we take them off to the mill, but the debris remains, and we
put them into piles. The goal is to remove those piles, but often there
is no economical way to remove those piles, and then you have to burn
them in the forest.
A couple of months ago I was in the forest in Southern Oregon with a
torch, lighting fire to these piles. In this case it was an area where
there is often a temperature inversion and you get smog from the smoke.
They only can be burned a couple days a year. It is a big challenge.
Isn't it so much better to be able to take those piles of biomass and
put them to work instead of burning them in the forest? Burn them in a
situation that produces heat and electricity. That is a win-win
outcome.
So when you hear people in the Northwest talk about forest biomass,
there is a lot of excitement about how to grow this market, a market
that has the means of improving the health of our forests while
providing renewable energy. On private lands a growing domestic biomass
market also has the potential to create a new value stream for our
forest landowners. By adding another value stream for forest
landowners, biomass can create incentives to keep forestland as forests
and avoid conversion to a nonforest use.
The modification made to Senator Collins' amendment reflects this
dynamic, that one of the contributions to emissions in the forest
sector is actually the conversion of forestland and nonforest use
because trees are no longer there to sequester carbon. So if we can
help prevent this, that is a beneficial side effect of this overall
effort on biomass, to amplify the role of the forest, not to remove
them.
The most important example that has been brought up as a concern that
doesn't fit this model of conservation or burning the byproducts is
whether entire forests might be ground up and used to create pellets
and so forth. I believe--and I certainly will be corrected if I am
wrong--that certainly is not the framework in which this amendment is
crafted with the dedication to enhancing the health of our forests and
energy and forest conservation.
I think this amendment sends a clear signal to EPA that in many cases
forest biomass is carbon neutral and should be treated as such. It
reinforces the conversation we have been having since I came here over
the last 7 years and earlier with Senator Collins' hard work.
When EPA takes regulatory action, it should reflect the opportunities
where biomass is carbon neutral. In fact, policies like the Clean Power
Plan should provide an incentive for forest biomass that is carbon
neutral.
I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on this topic
because this is a very significant win-win opportunity for energy, for
the environment, and those are the type of opportunities we should
seize.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, yesterday, the Senate passed an
amendment from Senators Collins and Klobuchar to promote biomass
energy.
I would like to take a couple minutes to express my support for
biomass energy.
Using biomass to create energy can be significantly better than using
coal. I think it is great that people use wood to heat their homes,
instead of heating with fossil fuels--like oil--particularly, when they
do so with clean-burning, EPA-certified wood stoves or pellet stoves,
particularly, when the stoves are produced by great companies--like
QuadraFire, based in Colville, WA.
Professors at University of Washington have emphasized the need for
such an amendment to encourage the development of new emission-reducing
energy facilities that use the types of biomass that will achieve our
country's renewable energy and climate mitigation goals.
Last October, EPA recognized that the use of some biomass can play an
important role in controlling increases of CO2 levels in our
atmosphere. EPA stated that the use of some types of biomass can
potentially offer a wide range of environmental benefits, aside from
the important carbon benefits.
We have a wildfire problem in this country, and we need to encourage
markets for the small trees, slash, and brush that we want to remove
from our most at-risk forests. According to the EPA, the growth in U.S.
forests offsets 13 percent of total U.S. CO2 emissions
annually. But the Global Climate Change Office at USDA has reported
that increasing wildfires are transforming our forests from ``carbon
sinks'' to ``carbon sources.'' We clearly need to treat some of our
forests, and we should use the biomass that is generated. We also know
we also need energy.
But I think we need to continue to look at the ``highest and best
use'' philosophy when talking about biomass. Clearly, trees filtering
water and providing wildlife habitat is a best use. Clear-cutting our
forests and burning whole trees for electricity is not a good use. But
burning industrial or harvesting waste for energy is a good use.
I am excited that EPA is currently developing a world leading
accounting framework for biomass-generated emissions, and we are
counting on them to finish this.
I also want to say that cross-laminated timber is a particularly
important ``good'' use of biomass. Building with wood uses less carbon
than concrete, and CLT explicitly stores carbon, which in terms of our
carbon balance is better than simply burning it.
We agree that some biomass is clearly ``carbon neutral'' and some
biomass is not ``carbon neutral.'' A study by the National Council for
Air and Stream Improvement showed that mills using biomass residuals
avoid 181 million tons of CO2 emissions. That is equivalent
to removing 35 million cars from the road.
When we modified the amendment yesterday, we did so to make clear
that the direction to the agencies was to establish biomass energy
policies that are carbon neutral. Regrowing trees to replace those cut
to produce energy is ``carbon neutral.''
But clear-cutting forests and burning them in power plants can lead
to increases in atmospheric carbon levels for decades--especially when
owners then sell their cut forests for housing developments, this is
clearly not ``carbon neutral.'' The trees need to grow back and the
forest to stay working in order to replace the carbon taken. That is
why we specifically modified the amendment, prior to voting on it, to
ensure we are encouraging forest owners to keep their lands in forests.
Senator Markey is another leading voice in our carbon conversation,
and I am looking forward to hearing his remarks.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Cantwell for her
tireless work on this Energy bill and for her help in improving the
biomass amendment that the Senate adopted last night.
Biomass energy is already contributing to the U.S. energy mix in ways
that help reduce carbon pollution that causes global warming.
There are great examples of electricity generation coming from wood
residues like at the Fort Drum Army installation in New York and the
Gainesville Renewable Energy Center in Florida. Both of these projects
have included efforts to ensure that their biomass material promotes
land stewardship and responsible forestry practices. Projects like
these are generating biomass electricity, jobs, and economic value in
their local communities.

[[Page S554]]

These are the type of projects that we need to encourage to meet the
climate change challenge.
But not all biomass energy is created equal. I understand the
amendment's intent to support biomass energy that is determined to be
carbon neutral.
I appreciate the modifications made to the amendment to ensure that
U.S. bioenergy policy is not encouraging conversion of forest lands to
non-forest uses. This protection is important to acknowledge.
But it is also important to acknowledge that the timeframe for any
climate benefits from biomass energy can vary. In many instances that
timeframe can be very long--on the order of 50 to 100 years.
Some practices like clear-cutting forests and burning whole trees for
energy should never be considered carbon neutral.
That is why it is critical to incorporate what science tells us about
forests and their interaction with the global carbon cycle into
policies governing biomass energy.
EPA has a scientific advisory board working on this issue of
bioenergy carbon accounting right now. They will have a meeting in
April to hear from stakeholders about their experience in using biomass
to reduce carbon pollution. The results of the advisory board's work
will be crucial to inform policy across agencies.
It is important to have agencies working together on cross-cutting
issues like this one. But efforts to make policies more consistent
across Federal agencies shouldn't interfere with individual agency's
statutory responsibilities. The amendment should not be interpreted as
enabling one agency to block another agency's rulemaking or guidance.
I want to thank Senators Collins, Klobuchar, King, and the other co-
sponsors of the amendment for working with other concerned Senators
like myself on modifications to improve the amendment. I look forward
to continuing working with them to ensure that the United States has a
smart, sustainable, and scientifically backed policy for biomass
energy.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the U.S. Senate is currently considering
sweeping legislation to modernize the Nation's energy sector. Despite
its laudable goals, it leaves one area unaddressed. The bill does
nothing to stop corporate bad actors, including those in the energy
sector, from simply writing off their egregious misconduct as a cost of
doing business. Today I am submitting a commonsense amendment to close
a tax loophole that forces hard-working Americans to subsidize
corporate wrongdoing.
Under current law, a corporation can deduct the cost of court-ordered
punitive damages as an ``ordinary'' business expense. For the victims
who have already paid the price for extreme corporate misconduct, there
is nothing ``ordinary'' about this at all. It is simply wrong. It
offends our most basic notions of justice and fair play. Punitive
damage awards are designed to punish wrongdoers for the reprehensible
harm that they cause and to deter would-be bad actors from repeating
similar mistakes. Today a company can simply hire a team of lawyers and
accountants to deduct this punishment from the taxes the company owes.
My amendment would end this offensive practice with a simple fix to our
Tax Code.
Let us not forget that our energy sector has been plagued with
companies that have recklessly destroyed environments and harmed
communities with impunity. In 1994, a jury awarded $5 billion in
punitive damages against Exxon for the Valdez spill in Alaska. This oil
spill devastated an entire region, the livelihoods of its people, and a
way of life. After Exxon paid white-shoe law firms to fight these
damages in the courts for 14 years, it successfully brought its damages
down to $500 million. Then, adding insult to injury, Exxon used the
Federal Tax Code to write off its punitive damages as nothing more than
an ``ordinary'' business expense.
In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, and 11
Americans were killed in the worst oil spill in American history. That
same year, an explosion in the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia
claimed the lives of 29 miners. If forced to pay punitive damages for
their misconduct, these companies could also write off that expense.
The Obama administration has requested eliminating this tax deduction
in its budget proposals. Our very own Joint Committee on Taxation has
estimated that closing this loophole would save taxpayers more than
$400 million over 10 years. If we don't change the law, our deficit
will grow by nearly half a billion dollars because we allowed taxpayers
to subsidize the worst corporate actors. By failing to act, we are
sending the message that pillaging our environment is an encouraged,
tax-deductible behavior. This amendment makes fiscal sense, and it is
common sense.
Vermonters and Americans are tired of seeing giant corporations
getting special treatment under the law--and paying for their reckless
mistakes. It should shock the conscience to know that current law
compels taxpayers to effectively subsidize the malfeasance of the worst
corporate actors. My amendment would change this unacceptable status
quo. I urge Senators to support my amendment.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I wish to speak on my amendment No. 3197,
to increase the protection of our critical infrastructure in the
electric sector from a debilitating cyber attack. I am pleased to have
Senators Mikulski and Hirono join me as cosponsors.
Critical infrastructure refers to entities that are vital to the
safety, health, and economic well-being of the American people, such as
the major utilities that run the Nation's electric grid, the national
air transportation system that moves passengers and cargo safely from
one location to another, and the elements of the financial sector that
ensure the $14 trillion in payments made every day are securely routed
through the banking system.
The underlying bill includes several provisions that I support to
improve the cyber posture of the U.S. electric grid. These include
giving the Secretary of Energy new authority to take actions to protect
the grid in the event of an emergency and establishing new programs to
reduce vulnerabilities and improve collaboration among the Department
of Energy, national labs, and private industry.
The underlying bill, however, makes no distinction between the vast
majority of local or regional utilities and the very few entities that
are so key to the electric grid that they could debilitate the U.S.
economy and our way of life if they were attacked.
The Department of Homeland Security has identified the critical
infrastructure entities at greatest risk of resulting in catastrophic
harm if they were the targets of a successful cyber attack.
While the entire list includes fewer than 65 entities across all
sectors of the economy, it warrants our special attention because there
is ample evidence, both classified and unclassified, that demonstrates
the threat facing critical infrastructure, including our energy sector.
Indeed, the committee report accompanying this bill notes that one-
third of reported cyber attacks involve the energy sector.
The amendment I have filed to this energy policy bill would only
affect those entities on the list that are already subject to the
oversight of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC.
Our amendment would require FERC to identify and propose actions that
would reduce, to the greatest extent practicable, the likelihood that a
cyber attack on one of these entities would result in catastrophic
harm.
By ``catastrophic harm,'' the Department of Homeland Security means a
single cyber attack that would likely result in 2,500 deaths, $50
billion in economic damage, or a severe degradation of our national
security. In other words, if one of these entities upon which we depend
each day were attacked, the results would be devastating.
The Director of National Intelligence, Jim Clapper, has testified
that the greatest threat facing our country is in cyber space and that
the number one cyber challenge concerning him is an attack on our
Nation's critical infrastructure.
His assessment is backed up by several intrusions into the industrial
controls of critical infrastructure. Since

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2009, the Wall Street Journal has published reports regarding efforts
by foreign adversaries, such as China, Russia, and Iran, to leave
behind software on American critical infrastructure and to disrupt U.S.
banks through cyber intrusions.
Multiple natural gas pipeline companies were the target of a
sophisticated cyber intrusion campaign beginning in December 2011, and
Saudi Arabia's oil company, Aramco, was subject to a destructive cyber
attack in 2012.
In an incident that is still not fully understood, 700,000 Ukrainians
lost power in December due to an attack that Ukrainian authorities and
many journalists have ascribed to Russian hackers.
In a hearing of the Intelligence Committee last summer, I asked
Admiral Rogers, the Director of the National Security Agency, which is
responsible for cyber space, how prepared our country was for a cyber
attack against our critical infrastructure. He replied that we are at a
``5 or 6.''
Last month, the Deputy Director of the NSA, Richard Ledgett, was
asked during a CNN interview if foreign actors already have the
capability of shutting down key U.S. infrastructure, such as the
financial sector, energy, transportation, and air traffic control. His
response? ``Absolutely.''
When it comes to cyber security, ignorance is not bliss. The
amendment we have filed would take the common sense approach of
requiring the Federal agency responsible for the cyber security of the
electric grid to collaborate with the entities that matter most and to
propose actions that can reduce the risk of a catastrophic attack that
could cause thousands of deaths, a devastating blow to our economy or
national defense, or all of these terrible consequences.
Congress has previously missed opportunities to improve our Nation's
cyber preparedness before a ``cyber
9/11'' eventually occurs. We should not repeat that mistake.
I urge my colleagues to support this vital, bipartisan amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I would be remiss if I didn't rise during
this debate on energy to address the administration's continuing
efforts to wear down America's coal industry. As the Senate considers
reform of our Nation's energy infrastructure, the importance of coal to
America's energy portfolio simply cannot be understated, and
unfortunately neither can this administration's deliberate attempts to
use Executive power to put the coal industry out of business.
This administration has made no secret of its disdain for fossil
fuels and has unleashed a series of policies intended to subvert
reliable, affordable, traditional energy sources, such as oil and
natural gas, in favor of valuable but more expensive and less reliable
renewable resources.
We have a lot of wind in Wyoming. In fact, the first wind turbines
were put in and the rotors blew off until they discovered they couldn't
turn them into the wind at 80 miles an hour. But even though we have a
lot of wind--I guess Wyoming could be called the Saudi Arabia of wind
and solar, coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium--we have found that
sometimes the wind doesn't blow, and we have found that sometimes the
Sun doesn't shine and sometimes the wind doesn't blow when the Sun
isn't shining, and that creates a problem unless you have alternate
fuels.
Coal is at the center of that regulatory battle. The war on coal is
not only an affront to coal producers in my home State of Wyoming but
to energy consumers across America. Let me explain how the
administration's war on coal affects Americans across the country with
this chart.
According to the Energy Information Administration, 39 percent of the
electricity in the United States was generated by coal in 2014. The
only other energy source that comes close to coal for energy production
is natural gas, at 27 percent. We need to ask ourselves: If we allow
the administration to kill the coal industry, what energy source is
going to take its place and provide our constituents with the energy
they need? It is actually the only stockpilable resource we have.
This issue hits close to home for me because approximately 40 percent
of the country's coal is produced in my home State of Wyoming.
Actually, 40 percent is produced in my home county of Campbell County,
WY. According to the National Mining Association, coal supports more
than 27,000 jobs in my State. Now, 27,000 probably doesn't sound like a
lot in California, Washington, DC, New York, or even Texas, but that is
9 percent of our state's workforce. Nine percent of our workforce has
jobs related to coal, and they are good-paying jobs. These jobs pay an
average of about $81,500 a year. Multiply that by 27,000 jobs, and we
are talking about billions. Let me be clear. This isn't just an issue
for Wyoming or other coal-producing States. The Wyoming Mining
Association reported that in 2014, 30 States received coal from
Wyoming's mines.
The area depicted in red on this chart are the States that receive
Wyoming coal, but that doesn't mean some States don't also receive
electricity produced in Wyoming from coal. Those States include
California, Utah, and Idaho. And, of course on this carbon issue,
Wyoming is forced to account for the carbon that produces the energy
these other states consume.
The second chart shows that if you represent Texas, Illinois, or
Missouri, you should be worried about the coal industry because in 2014
each of those States received more than 10 percent of Wyoming's coal.
Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Michigan each got
about 5 percent of Wyoming's coal. Wyoming's coal was also distributed
to Nebraska, Georgia, Alabama, Colorado, Louisiana, Tennessee,
Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, New York, and Arizona. If I didn't list
your State, don't think the stability and success of the coal industry
doesn't affect you. Ten other States and foreign entities also received
Wyoming's coal.
All of these numbers and stats boil down to this: Most of America's
energy is powered by coal, and policies that raise the price of coal
will hurt industries and households across the country. They will cost
jobs in our country and will cause people to have higher utility bills.
Unfortunately, the administration is either oblivious or unconcerned
with this correlation, as evidenced by the Department of Interior's
recent announcement that they will block most new Federal coal leases
in order to conduct a programmatic environmental impact statement on
coal development on Federal lands.
About 40 percent of our Nation's coal is produced by the Federal coal
leasing program. Under that program, which is managed by the Department
of Interior, private entities compete for the right to lease and mine
the coal mineral estate owned by the Federal Government. After a
rigorous multiyear application and land-use planning process, lessees
are given an opportunity to mine coal on public land. Again, that is a
rigorous, multiyear application process that can and does drag on for
years. In return, those companies pay BLM a bonus bid, which is an
upfront fee for the right to mine. Besides that, they also pay an
annual land rental payment and they pay an additional royalty on the
value of the coal after it is mined. Surface mines pay a royalty of
12.5 percent and underground mines pay a royalty of 8 percent. These
revenues are shared by the Federal Government and the States in which
the coal was mined.
This program, which began in 1920, has been a tremendously successful
way to provide affordable energy to the Nation, provide jobs in places
such as Wyoming's Powder River Basin, where 85 percent of all Federal
coal is mined, and it provides value to the government. According to
the BLM--the Bureau of Land Management--the Federal coal leasing
program has generated well over $1 billion a year for the last 10
years: $7.9 billion in royalties and an additional $4 billion in rent,
bonus bid payments and other fees. Again, that is money that coal
leasing earns for the Federal Government--a stark contrast to most
Federal programs. That doesn't even mention the taxes that are paid by
the workers who mine the coal, but if we eliminate their jobs, that
money is not coming in either.
This administration has announced plans to halt new Federal coal
leases while it takes years to study the value and efficacy of the
program. This Department of Interior rule has the potential to
economically devastate my home State of Wyoming and send energy prices
around the country through the roof.

[[Page S556]]

The BLM laid the foundation for this farce last summer when it staged
a series of listening sessions. I went to the session in Gillette, WY,
and based on the administration's recent announcement, I don't think
the BLM was listening very closely. If they were, they would know that
American taxpayers are already receiving a fair return on coal
resources.
One gentleman, who told the BLM his story, moved to Wyoming to be a
coal miner. He spoke with pride about his job. He was worried that the
job that has allowed him to raise three children will no longer exist
if the BLM raises royalty rates.
The owner of a small business not directly related to the coal
industry told her story. She was worried about the ripple effect
raising royalty rates would have on Campbell County and the State of
Wyoming. As a mom, she also told the BLM about the direct support coal
companies provide her community through social service agencies,
community events, and youth activities. She didn't want to see her kids
lose that support.
The benefits she referenced are a reflection of the $1.14 billion in
tax and fee revenues the State of Wyoming collected from the coal
industry in 2014. This is money which the State critically relies on to
fund things such as schools, highways, and community colleges across
the State. Wyoming state lawmakers are going through a process right
now to try to figure out how to make up for the lost revenue just from
last year. They are making drastic budget cuts which we wouldn't even
consider here at the Federal Government even though the State of
Wyoming is in better financial shape than the Federal Government.
I mentioned the Gillette woman who is the owner of a small business
that is not directly related to the coal industry. She said her
business is down by 60 percent. That is almost two-thirds less revenue
than what she would have had, which means, of course, that it affects
some other jobs in the community. So there is a huge ripple effect to
all of this.
Despite these and dozens of similar stories, the administration
announced that they need to shut down Federal coal leases and conduct a
study to determine if taxpayers are getting a fair return on the
Federal coal leasing program. For quite a while now, the resulting
revenue coal producers and companies got to keep was less than what
they were paying in taxes. If the BLM would have truly listened to the
folks in Gillette last summer, they would already know the answer to
this. Instead, they have gone forward with a plan to cripple the coal
industry and make energy more expensive. In the words of Wyoming's
Governor Matt Mead, ``Not only will [Interior's new rule] hurt miners
and all businesses that support coal mining, it will take away the
competitive advantage coal provides to every U.S. citizen.'' When it is
part of the energy mix, it affects the other energy prices as well.
As we debate energy policy reforms in the coming days, it isn't just
the fate of coal that should concern us. Interior's Federal coal
leasing review is just the latest in a string of regulations aimed at
driving fossil fuel industries out of business. The administration has
also proposed a new methane flaring rule aimed at discouraging oil and
gas leasing on Federal lands.
This Chamber has spoken clearly in rejecting rules such as the Clean
Power Plan and the Waters of the United States, but the administration
continues its regulatory war on energy. As we consider energy policy
reforms, we need to make sure we are protecting the resources that have
and can continue to power America, and that has to include coal.
I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask to speak as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MANCHIN. Upon my completion, I ask unanimous consent that Senator
Heller be recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Prescription Drug Abuse

Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak for the millions of
Americans impacted by prescription drug abuse, particularly those in my
home State of West Virginia, where 600 lives are lost every year to
opioids. I believe the FDA must start taking prescription drug abuse
seriously, and that will not happen without a cultural change in the
agency.
The Presiding Officer and I are taking on this issue in the drug
prevention caucus and addressing how opioids have affected South
Carolina, West Virginia, and the effect the epidemic has had on all of
America. We have seen too many examples of the FDA standing in the way
of efforts to address the opioid abuse epidemic.
If you look at this chart, you can see the rise in deaths over the
last 15 years and what it has done to our country and our States. It is
unbelievable and unacceptable. We have been able to face and cure every
other epidemic in this country. We seem to be keeping this one out of
sight and out of mind.
The FDA delayed for years before finally agreeing to reschedule
hydrocodone. My first 3 years in the Senate were consumed by getting
the FDA to come around on this important step. Since the change went
into effect, we have seen a number of prescriptions for combination
hydrocodone products, such as Vicodin and Lortab, fall by 22 percent.
That is over 1 billion pills not being put on the market.
After finally taking that step, to add insult to injury after taking
so long to reschedule this from a schedule III to a schedule II, the
FDA approved the dangerous drug Zohydro even after its own experts
voted 11 to 2 against it. This drug has 10 times the hydrocodone of
Vicodin and Lortab and has the capability of killing an individual with
just two tablets. Can you imagine? Just recently, the FDA outrageously
approved OxyContin for use for children as young as 11 years old. This
decision means that Pharma is now legally allowed to advertise
OxyContin to pediatricians under certain circumstances. We have seen
this story before. We have seen the devastating impact of this type of
advertising, and we have years of evidence that shows that drug use at
an early age will make a child more likely to abuse drugs later in
life. These decisions by the FDA are horrifying examples of the
disconnect between the FDA's actions and the realities of this deadly
epidemic.
Leaders at the FDA, including the director of the division that
oversees opioids, are now actively working against the Centers for
Disease Control's efforts to reform prescribing guidelines, which
represents a reasonable, commonsense approach to help doctors take into
account the very real and prevalent danger of addiction and overdose
when prescribing opioids. We have found out there is very little
education done. Doctors aren't required to cover this as they go
through medical school. Most will tell you they have less than 1 week
of schooling for this.
That is why last week I announced that I will filibuster any effort
to confirm Dr. Robert Califf. This is a good man with a stellar
reputation, but he just comes from the wrong end of this crisis for
which we have to make the changes that need to be made. That is all I
have said: Give us someone who is passionate about the change. The
change must come from the top of the FDA.

We need a cultural overhaul of the FDA. When we have the FDA fighting
the CDC--the CDC is making recommendations for new guidelines of how
drugs are prescribed and how we should protect the public, and the FDA
is really taking the position that, no, what pharmaceuticals are
putting out is something that we need as a product. It is a business
plan. I am sorry, I cannot accept that, and I truly believe there needs
to be a cultural change, and that starts at the top.
Over the past week my office has been absolutely flooded with stories
from West Virginians who want their voices to be heard. And, as I said,
we need to make this real, and it will not be unless I can bring to my
colleagues the real-life stories of the tragedies that people are
enduring because of the prescription abuse that goes on.
These letters have come from children who have seen their parents die
from an overdose; grandparents who have been forced to raise their
grandchildren when their kids went to jail, rehab, and the grave; and
teachers and religious leaders who have seen their communities
devastated by prescription drug abuse. These people need help

[[Page S557]]

from the FDA. They count on this regulatory committee--the Federal Drug
Administration--to do what should be done to protect millions of
Americans across the United States, as well as those who have been
affected.
I am going to read a story and basically bring a person's life to my
colleagues--an opportunity to see what happens in a daily situation in
an abusive scenario. The first story I wish to read comes from a West
Virginian by the name of Haley. Haley lives in Princeton, WV, which is
in the southern part, and she is a teacher in Beckley, WV. She is
married and has a baby who is about to turn 1. This is Haley's story:

Prescription drug addiction destroyed my childhood. Thanks
to prescription drug abuse, I grew up much too quickly and
still have trust issues today. My mom's one true love was
Xanax and I will always come in second or after that, no
matter what.
When I was in fifth grade, my mom went to rehab two hours
away from me. My parents are divorced and my step dad worked
on the road, so I stayed with my grandparents. We visited my
mom on the weekends and I didn't really understand why she
was there. None of it made any sense to me and I just wanted
my mom. One day, we received a phone call stating that she
had checked herself out and we had no idea where she was for
about 24 hours. This wasn't the first time my mom had
unsuccessfully tried rehab and it would not be her last.
There were times when I would get home from school and have
no idea where my mother was, so my grandma and I would have
to drive around and search for her. We would eventually find
her passed out at one of her ``friends'' houses.
There is one particular memory that traumatized me and is
forever engrained in my memory. I was 10 years old when we
found my mom. She was too high to even walk on her own. My
70-year-old grandmother and I had to virtually carry her to
the car. When she got home, I took her shoes off so I could
put her to bed. I remember being sick to my stomach with
worry when I took off her shoe to find a sock completely
soaked with blood. She had apparently stepped on glass and
hadn't even felt the cut because she was too high on pain
pills. This is something no one, especially an innocent 10-
year-old, should have to deal with.
My 12th birthday was the worst birthday of my entire life.
I was supposed to have a pool party, but my mom did not show
up to pay for it, so my 16-year-old sister had to step in.
There was no food or drinks because my mom was supposed to
handle all of that for me. When she finally showed up at the
end of my party, equipped with her unbelievable excuses, her
eyes were bloodshot and rolling around in her head. I was
hurt, but I was mostly embarrassed that people felt so sorry
for me. Everyone knew my mom was a drug addict and everyone
always pitied my sister and me for the life we had to live.
Yet again, my mother chose her beloved high over me.
My mom's battle with drug addiction did not stop there. She
went on to rehab again and jail several more times. When she
wasn't home, I would search her room and find Xanax, Lortab,
Oxycodone, and many other unknown pills. Nearby, I would
always find cut up straws or even parts of a tampon
applicator. She was creative, to say the least. When I was in
9th grade, my mom went to jail for stealing. She would get
super high and then go into stores and steal ridiculous
things like hair scrunchies, makeup, and whatever else she
could get her hands on. I didn't know she was going to jail
until two days before she left. She had been depressed and in
her bed sick (probably going through withdrawal) for several
days. She finally told me that she would be going to jail the
day after Christmas. Once again, I would be without a mom.
She was in jail the remainder of my 9th grade year until the
end of my 10th grade year. I don't know how I passed the 9th
grade. I failed almost every class except English and I would
have failed that one too if it hadn't been for such an
amazing teacher who helped me overcome so much.
My mom went to jail for stealing again while I was in
college, and my ex boyfriend had to bail her out of jail. I
had a baby via C-Section less than a year ago. My mom and I
were starting to have a relationship for the first time in my
entire life, but drug addiction would soon ruin it for the
millionth time. I was given pain medicine after having my
baby and I was terrified to take it because of what I have
lived through. I only took it when I absolutely had to, but I
was in so much pain. My mom had just been to visit and I
never thought to move my pain medication because it was in my
bedroom out of sight. The next day I was lying in bed with my
two week old baby and I was having terrible pains due to my
incision. I reached to the end of the table for my pain
medicine. When I opened the bottle, there was only one pill
left. I had 8 pills when my mother came to visit and she took
7. My mom finally admitted to stealing my medicine and I
refused to talk to her for months.
In November, I received a phone call from my sister telling
me the neighbor called and my mom was having a heart attack.
When the paramedics arrived they couldn't find a pulse or a
temperature. They flew her to the closest town and they had
to shock her because her heart stopped. They found narcotics
in her system and I will forever believe that years of using
drugs is the reason for her heart attack. She spent a month
in the hospital. I believe she may be drug free now, but I
will never fully trust her. I can't. Each time I call and she
doesn't answer, I picture her high somewhere stumbling
around.
I could give endless anecdotes and examples of how drug
addiction ruined my life, but I don't think I can ever
adequately describe what prescription drugs robbed me of. The
only thing worse than not having a mother at all is having a
mother who chooses drugs over you. Something needs to be done
in West Virginia, where the prescription drug abuse is only
going to get worse. All addicts have to do is go to a pain
clinic and fool the doctors to receive medication. I know too
many people who have easy access to drugs because of corrupt
doctors in the area and because the pain clinics are not
effective. I can only pray the problem is addressed and that
my son doesn't have to grow up in an area so overtaken by
drug abuse.
Sincerely, a drug addict's daughter.

I know the Presiding Officer has received these same letters, these
same circumstances we live with every day. If someone doesn't rise up
and say ``Enough is enough; we have to stop this abuse,'' it is going
to be an epidemic that is going to ruin this country.
I go to schools and tell them, there is not another country in the
world that believes they can take on the United States of America
militarily or economically. We are the greatest Nation. We are the hope
of the world. Guess what. They don't believe they have to. They are
going to sit back and watch. If we don't have education and we don't
have skill sets because of a lack of education attainment, and if we
are addicted, if we don't have a clean society, we are not going to be
able to be the superpower.
We can't let this generation down. We can't let it fail. I will be
coming here every chance I get to read letters from West Virginians to
let my colleagues know the epidemic that is going on, the ravaging that
is happening in my State and taking away precious lives, whether
directly or indirectly, through a child or a parent.
I am hoping we can all change the FDA's direction, that we can get
somebody in there that will change the culture of the FDA that will
protect us and fight for us and not for the business plan of
pharmaceuticals.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor to my good friend from Nevada.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott). The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. HELLER. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the bill before
us.
Energy and mineral development has been one of the central pillars of
the Nevada economy, even before it joined the Union. The discovery of
the Comstock Lode transformed the State as miners rushed in and boom
towns like Virginia City and Austin were born.
Today we are a world leader in mineral production while being at the
forefront of national efforts to implement a 21st century ``all of the
above'' energy strategy. The Silver State produces over 80 percent of
the gold and nearly 25 percent of the silver mined domestically. Mining
contributes more than 13,500 jobs in Nevada alone, adding $6.4 billion
for our State's gross domestic product annually.
Nevada's renewable energy resources are among the best our Nation has
to offer. Over 2,300 megawatts of renewable energy projects have come
online, roughly enough electricity to power over 4.6 million homes. In
total, more than 23 percent of the State's total electricity generation
comes from renewables.
Our State is not only leading the way on clean energy production, it
is a hot bed for the research and development on energy efficiency and
other alternative technologies that are critical to our Nation's energy
future. Tesla's development of its battery gigafactory at the Tahoe
Reno Industrial Center and Faraday Future's recent announcement to
build its automotive manufacturing facility in North Las Vegas ensure
that our State will be at the forefront of energy storage technologies
and electric vehicles for years to come.
Energy is not only one of Nevada's but, overall, one of our Nation's
greatest assets. But Congress has not enacted comprehensive energy
legislation in a decade, so it is time to reform Federal policies to
reflect the energy and natural resource challenges of the 21st century.

[[Page S558]]

I commend the majority leader and the chairman of the Energy and
Natural Resources Committee who have made energy policy modernization a
focus for the 114th Congress. In our first week, we advanced the
Keystone XL Pipeline legislation and energy efficiency legislation. In
the final days of 2015, we enacted a tax deal which included important
policies I fought for and which facilitated renewable energy production
while lifting the crude oil export ban. And this week we are focusing
on a bipartisan Energy Policy Modernization Act.
I appreciate the hard work of the bill managers, Energy and Natural
Resources Committee Chairman Murkowski and Ranking Member Cantwell, who
have put the time in to bring this proposal to the Senate floor. My
colleagues all have a wide range of ideas on energy and environmental
policy, and often these debates can become bitterly partisan. So both
Senators should be commended for approving a bill out of the Energy and
Natural Resources Committee by a bipartisan vote of 18 to 4.
In the committee process, I worked with both Senators to incorporate
a couple of my stand-alone bills focused on streamlining mine
permitting and the exploration of geothermal resources, the Public Land
Job Creation Act, S. 113, and the Geothermal Exploration Opportunities
Act, S. 562, into this bill. I thank them for that, and I hope to
continue to process amendments that modernize Federal energy policy.
I have filed a variety of amendments aimed at spurring innovation,
boosting job creation, increasing domestic energy and mineral
production, and rolling back some of these burdensome regulations. One
has already passed the Senate, and I hope the others will be included
as well.
I have put forth two bipartisan proposals with my colleague from
Rhode Island, Senator Jack Reed, focused on energy storage.
Technological developments in energy storage have the potential to be a
game changer for the electric grid, benefiting the reliability and
efficiency of the overall system. Our first amendment simply adds
energy storage systems to a list of strategies that States should
consider in an effort to promote energy conservation and promote
greater use of domestic energy. The second, which passed the Senate by
voice vote on Monday night, enhances the Department of Energy's ability
to use existing research dollars to develop state of the art technology
that can make our electricity grid faster and much more reliable.
Energy storage will play an important role in our Nation's long-term
energy strategy.
My Public Lands Renewable Energy Development amendment, which I filed
along with Senators Heinrich, Gardner, Risch, Tester, Wyden, Udall, and
Bennet, is an initiative I have been working on for many years. It
recognizes that in our Western States, there are millions of acres of
public lands suitable for the development of renewable energy projects,
but uncertainty in the permitting process impedes or delays our ability
to harness their potential. In a State like Nevada, where over 85
percent of our land is controlled by Federal landlords, improving this
permitting process is vitally essential.
Our amendment does just that. It streamlines and improves the
permitting process for utility-scale geothermal, wind, and solar energy
on Federal lands so that the West can continue to lead the Nation in
clean energy production.
To advance this amendment, Senator Heinrich and I had to drop one of
the important components of the proposal--provisions that would
repurpose revenues generated by these projects to ensure our local
communities benefit and to support conservation projects that increase
outdoor recreation activities such as hunting, fishing, and hiking.
In the West, where Federal lands are not taxable and outdoor
recreation is an important part of our way of life, these provisions
are vital, and I hope we can find a path forward for this concept in
the near future.
While recent developments on battery storage, renewable energy
production, and alternative fuel vehicles is exciting, I want to remind
my colleagues that without a domestic supply of critical minerals like
gold, silver, copper, and lithium, they all would not be possible. Far
too often we take for granted that we need these important resources to
manufacture those technologies and devices that are now part of our
everyday lives, such as our smartphones, our computers, and our
tablets.
I have worked with Chairman Murkowski and others on comprehensive
mining legislation over the past few years, and I believe it is key to
our economy and our Nation's security that those policies are part of
this comprehensive package. I appreciate that our American Mineral
Security Act is one of the titles of the bill that is now before the
Senate.
One of the biggest issues facing domestic mining--not just mining but
all natural resource development--is overly burdensome regulations. If
our Nation is truly going to capitalize on our domestic production
potential, we need to rein in the Environmental Protection Agency.
Outside of the IRS, the two Federal agencies that draw the most ire
from my constituents are the EPA and the BLM. Under this
administration, the EPA is continuing down a path of destroying the
balance between appropriate environmental oversight and overreaching
regulations that lead to further economic gridlock. That is why I put
forth an amendment that would block the EPA from finalizing one of
their biggest attacks on domestic resources production, a rule to
impose new financial assurance fees.
If implemented, these requirements would further deincentivize
capital investment in the domestic mining industry. New Federal
requirements would be duplicative of financial assurance programs
already in place at both the State and Federal level.
The EPA has made it clear that their push on hard rock mining is the
first of many of its plans to develop on various natural resources
industries, such as chemicals, coal, oil, and gas development. My
amendment would prohibit the EPA from developing, proposing,
finalizing, implementing, enforcing or administering new financial
assurance regulations on natural resources development.
I have also teamed up with my friend and colleague, Environment and
Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, on my EPA accountability
amendment. This amendment mirrors a bill that I introduced in the first
weeks of this Congress and was adopted by voice vote as part of the
House Energy bill--the North American Energy Security and
Infrastructure Act.
The EPA often ignores longstanding statutes that require them to
improve their own regulatory coordination, planning, and review. Simply
put, my amendment asks the EPA to abide by its own rules. Without
oversight, the EPA has the authority to issue unprecedented regulations
that could wreak havoc on our energy policy and prices. Energy costs
seep into every aspect of American life, and it is past time we stopped
the EPA in its tracks.
Again, I want to thank Leader McConnell. I want to thank Chairman
Murkowski and Ranking Member Cantwell for working with me on my
comprehensive Energy bill policies. I hope we can take up these
amendments and have them included in the final version of the bill,
which I am confident will pass the Senate. These commonsense
initiatives will go a long way toward ensuring an affordable, secure,
and reliable energy supply for our country.
Mr. President, thank you, and I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Unanimous Consent Requests--Executive Calendar

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I take this time as the ranking Democrat
on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to bring to the attention of
my colleagues the number of nominees in important foreign policy areas
that have been acted on by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but
have not been acted on by the floor of the Senate.

[[Page S559]]

There are currently 15 nominees that have been recommended favorably
by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and in most of these cases,
they were unanimous votes in the Committee. I am confident to say that
in each of these cases there has been no question raised as to the
qualifications of the individuals to fill these particular positions.
We are talking about senior members of the State Department diplomatic
team. We are talking about Ambassadors in countries around the world.
We are talking about people who have extremely important positions with
regard to our national security. These positions are critically
important to our country, and they have remained vacant in some cases
for over a year. It has been a long period of time that we have not
acted on these nominations.
The reason we have not acted on these nominations, quite frankly, is
because there is a Member in the Senate, or more than one Member of the
Senate, who has put what is known as a hold on these nominations. What
that means is that a Senator has indicated that he or she is going to
object to the consideration of the nomination on the floor. That is
normally done in order to get a little bit of attention on an issue,
and it is my understanding that in each of these cases, these holds
have nothing to do with the qualifications of the person for the
position to be filled, but it is to give the Member an opportunity to
get some help on other issues or to raise other concerns.
Here is the problem. In some cases these holds have been in place for
over a year. In some cases we are talking about several months that a
position has gone unfilled because of the hold.
How can we overcome that? We can overcome that by a Senator releasing
the hold, allowing a nomination to come to the floor for a vote. In
many cases, I expect, it will be by unanimous consent, since there has
been no objection raised, and we can move forward with the nomination.
Quite frankly, it is the majority leader--the Republican leader--who
controls the agenda of the floor of the Senate. The majority leader can
move to executive session, file a cloture motion, and if 60 Members of
the Senate want to move forward with the nomination--and I expect that
in each one of these cases we are probably talking about almost
unanimous votes in the Senate for these nominations--we would pass a
cloture motion. After the hours have passed, we would have an up-or-
down vote on the nomination.
If the majority leader were to announce that we would have a cloture
vote on a Thursday or Friday and we would stay in over a weekend in
order to finish a nomination, which is typically the case here, we
would get it resolved before we left for the weekend. As you know, we
have been completing our work on a Thursday. There is plenty of
opportunity to take up nominations. We have extensive periods of time
that we are in State work periods. There are plenty of opportunities
for us to take up nominations on the floor for votes. All we need to do
is say: Look, by this date certain, if we don't have your answers, we
are going to a cloture vote. It would certainly move a lot of these
nominations.
This Senator thinks it is unacceptable that 15 of our positions right
now are going unfilled because of holds by Members of Congress. I think
we have a responsibility to act. I am talking about positions on OPEC.
I am talking about the IMF. I am talking about Ambassadors to the
Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Norway, and Sweden. I am talking
about the U.S. representative to the IAEA. I am talking about the Under
Secretary of State. I am talking about Ambassadors to Luxembourg and
Burma. There is a whole list of nominations that have gone unfilled.
What does this mean for our country? Well, if you don't have the
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs--that is the No. 4
person in the State Department. That is the person directly responsible
for all the regional bureaus--for Europe, the Middle East, East Asia
and the Pacific, for our hemisphere, for Africa. We don't have the
principal person in the State Department confirmed for those regional
concerns. That is a national security risk by not having a confirmed
person for Under Secretary of State.
My colleagues are quick to be critical if they don't believe the
administration is responding quickly enough to certain concerns. For us
not to respond for months on critical positions, to me, is compromising
our national security.
But it goes beyond that. In bilateral relationships with countries,
the fact that they don't have a confirmed ambassador speaks volumes to
that country's belief as to how important we think that relationship
is.
So if we are talking about a U.S. businessperson from South Carolina
or Maryland who is trying to do business in Trinidad and Tobago and
there is no confirmed ambassador, that person is at a disadvantage by
not having a confirmed ambassador in that situation. If we are talking
about a family member who is trying to deal with a family issue in
Norway and we don't have a confirmed ambassador, that makes it more
difficult for us to be able to represent our constituents because our
No. 1 person, our head of mission, has not been confirmed. So it
affects our ability to strengthen bilateral relations, it affects our
national security, and it is absolutely wrong.
I want to make one thing clear. It is an honor to serve on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, and it is an honor to be the ranking
Democrat. Senator Corker, the chairman of that committee, and I work
very closely together. I am proud of the record of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee under Senator Corker's leadership. We have reported
out these nominations in a timely manner. We have gathered information
about the person's qualifications. We have questioned the person. We
have gone through the confirmation process to make sure this body
carries out its constitutional responsibility to approve Executive
nominations. We take our work very seriously, but we do it in a timely
way. We act in a timely way. Senator Corker was responsible for these
nominations getting out of the committee promptly, but until the Senate
acts, the person can't take on the responsibility.
Now it is the responsibility of the Senate. That is why I call upon
my colleagues who have made objections to withdraw those objections.
They have been there for months. Let's move forward. If they don't, I
would ask that the majority leader give us time for a cloture vote or
at least announce a cloture vote. If we did that, I would think these
nominations would comfortably move forward.
Some of my colleagues are on the floor, and they are going to talk
about specific nominees. I will yield to them shortly, but if I might,
I am going to raise 2 of the 15 today. I will do others at other
points, but I am going to talk about two of the nominees and I could
talk about a lot more.
I want to talk about Tom Shannon for Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs. I want to tell the American people more about the
qualifications of Ambassador Tom Shannon and the important post for
which he has been nominated.
The Under Secretary for Political Affairs is the State Department's
fourth-ranking official, responsible for the management of the six
regional bureaus of the Department as well as the Bureau of
International Organization Affairs. This is a tremendously important
leadership post on key national security issues.
Ambassador Tom Shannon, a career member of the diplomatic corps--he
is a career diplomat, serving under both Democratic and Republican
administrations--is held in universal respect and esteem by his
colleagues and has been nominated to this position. He is strongly
supported by both Democrats and Republicans on the Foreign Relations
Committee.
I have twice spoken on the floor to ask for unanimous consent for
Ambassador Shannon, and I am proud to again ask for his confirmation
because few diplomats have served our Nation under both Republican and
Democratic administrations with as much integrity and ability as
Ambassador Shannon.
In his current role as Counselor with the Department, he provides the
Secretary with his insight and advice on a wide range of issues. His
previous service is formidable. He was our Ambassador to Brazil, was
Assistant Secretary of State and Senior Director on the National
Security Council staff for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and also

[[Page S560]]

served in challenging posts in Venezuela and South Africa, among
others. He is a career diplomat, giving his life to the Foreign
Service. As I said, he has served different Presidents for over 30
years. He should be confirmed today.
Mr. Shannon has been waiting on the floor of the Senate for
confirmation for 125 days.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to
executive session to consider the following nomination: Calendar No.
375, which is Thomas A. Shannon, Jr.; that the Senate proceed to vote
without intervening action or debate on the nomination; that if
confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon
the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on behalf of the junior Senator from Texas, I
object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, let me now bring to the Chair's attention
John Estrada to be our Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago. John Estrada
has been waiting for confirmation on floor of the Senate for 217 days.
The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean has been used as
a way station for drug smugglers who are shipping their products to the
United States, which has caused steadily increasing violence and drug
activity. We all talk about the War on Drugs. We need a confirmed
ambassador if we are going to have all hands on deck in our campaign to
keep America safe. In 2015, the State Department gave the island nation
the crime rating of ``critical.''
We need an American of impeccable standing who commands wide respect
both here and in the United States and in Trinidad and Tobago itself to
effectively represent our interests there. We are very fortunate that
the President has nominated John Estrada, a leading business executive
and a former 15th sergeant major of the Marine Corps.
Mr. Estrada has a compelling American story. He was born in Trinidad
and Tobago and immigrated to the United States when he was only 12
years of age. Mr. Estrada served in the U.S. Marine Corps for 34 years.
In 2003 he was made sergeant major of the Marine Corps. I want to make
sure my colleagues understand just what an honor that is. It is the
ninth highest enlisted rank in the Marine Corps. The sergeant major is
the senior enlisted adviser to the Commandant of the Marine Corps and a
singular honor. Only one marine is chosen every 4 years to serve as
sergeant major. For Mr. Estrada to be chosen as the 15th sergeant major
of the Marine Corps is a testament to the degree of trust and
confidence the Marine Corps has in his abilities and skills. Mr.
Estrada truly exemplifies the Corps' bedrock values of honor,
commitment, and courage.
While such virtues are their own rewards, Mr. Estrada's achievements
have been repeatedly recognized over the course of his military
service. He received the Distinguished Service Medal in 2007, the
Bronze Star Medal in 2003, and the Meritorious Service Medal in 1998,
2000, 2001, and 2003. There are over 50 more honors he earned that I
could tell my colleagues about.
The qualification of this highly accomplished nominee remains
unchallenged, nor has any objection been advanced due to his experience
for the post he is to take. He has twice been favorably reported from
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by unanimous support. I have
expressed my disappointment and confusion as to why we have not moved
forward with Mr. Estrada.
We all speak whenever we can to say thank you to the men and women
who have worn the uniform of this country to preserve the freedom of
America. Here is an individual who has devoted his entire life to
defending America, his entire life to defending our country. He has
accomplished extraordinary results as a member of the Armed Forces and
now is prepared to serve our country in a very difficult position where
law enforcement is desperately needed. It is for that reason that I
would hope that after 217 days, my colleagues would be prepared to vote
on this nominee.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to
executive session to consider the following nomination: Calendar No.
329, John L. Estrada to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
of the United States of America to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago;
that the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on
the nomination; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be
considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on behalf of the junior Senator from Texas, I
object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I acknowledge that Senator Klobuchar is on
the floor. I know she has nominations that she wants to bring to the
attention of our colleagues. I thank Senator Klobuchar for being on the
floor. She has been very much involved in our nominees, particularly
for Norway but also Sweden. I thank her for her leadership in bringing
these nominations to the attention of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee and for the work she has done to advance these nominations.
She has been steadfast in the need for us to act on these nominations.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cardin and Senator
Corker for their leadership and their bipartisan work to get these
nominees through the Senate, as well as Senator McConnell and Senator
Reid, who have been supportive of getting this done.
In fact, both of the nominees I am going to talk about for the
important allies of Norway and Sweden may be a little bit of a surprise
to everyone in the Chamber. The 11th and 12th biggest investors in the
United States of America come from companies in Norway and Sweden,
which are two of our biggest allies.
What is going on here? Well, this is actually the third time I have
come to the floor this year urging Senator Cruz to remove his hold on
these two nominees so that the Senate can move forward and fill these
two vital diplomatic vacancies. Various reasons have been raised by
him, both to colleagues and then publically.
I was hopeful. I know negotiations are going on, so I always give
room for that. But this is not related to these two countries or these
two people. I think that is important to remember. Often, our fights
are about a particular post because of the post or a particular
nominee. That is not what this is, so I am hopeful that this gives us
more room to negotiate.
So what is going on here? Well, Norway has been without a confirmed
ambassador for 859 days. There was an original nominee who did not work
out, was withdrawn by the administration. Then this new nominee was put
in and went through the committee without a problem, unlike the first
nominee. It still remains that when you are in Norway--and a lot of
Norwegians know about this--you haven't had an Ambassador from the
United States of America for 859 days. You have ambassadors from
Russia, China, but not from the United States of America. In the case
of Sweden, it has been 468 days since the President nominated Azita
Raji to be ambassador--again, someone who came through our committee
without controversy. It is past time to get these nominees confirmed.
We need a U.S. Ambassador in Norway who is deeply committed to
strengthening the relationship between our two countries. Sam Heins is
our nominee. He is from Minnesota. He is the right person for the job,
in addition to being an accomplished lawyer. He has demonstrated his
devotion to leadership in the cause of advancing human rights. He
founded, organized, and served as the first board chair of the
Advocates for Human Rights, which responds to human rights abuses
throughout the world. Obviously, this is something Norway cares a lot
about, so he is a good fit for this country, not to mention that he is
from Minnesota, the home of 1.5 million people of Norwegian descent,
more than any other place in the world next to Norway.
Now we go to Sweden. Azita Raji is also an incredibly qualified
nominee. She is a philanthropist, a community

[[Page S561]]

leader, and a former business leader. She served as a member of the
President's Commission on White House Fellowships, director of the
National Partnership for Women and Families, and a member of the
Bretton Woods Committee, an organization that supports international
finance institutions.
These are qualified nominees, but you don't have to take my word for
it. Here is what Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican colleague of the
Presiding Officer's, said about Sam Heins and Azita Raji:

I believe both [nominees] are qualified . . . and we have
significant interests in Scandinavia. My hope is that both
nominees receive a vote in the Senate sooner rather than
later.

He said this in part because for a while he had a hold. He resolved
those issues. Senator Cotton has said he thinks these two nominees are
no problem. As we know, the other Republicans on this committee have
not raised any objections. They are right. We have significant
interests in Scandinavia, and leaving these key positions vacant is a
slap in the face to Sweden and Norway, which are two of our best
economic and military allies.
In a December New York Times op-ed, former Vice President Walter
Mondale--himself of Norwegian descent--highlighted the U.S. national
security interest in confirming these nominees, saying: ``[I]n a time
of dangerous international crises, we need to work with friends and
allies, using all the tools of diplomacy.'' Vice President Mondale
understands that now is not the time to forsake a 200-year-old
diplomatic relationship.
Norway and Sweden share a vital security partnership. Norway is one
of our country's strongest and most dependable international allies, a
founding member of the NATO alliance, and its military works with the
United States. This is key to my colleagues who care about the
aggression of Russia.
Norway works with us in standing up to Russia's provocations in the
Ukraine and in countering ISIS, the spread of violence, and Islamic
extremism. May I say that Norway actually has a portion of its border
that it shares with Russia.
Norway is also playing an important role in addressing the Syrian
refugee crisis. It expects to take in as many as 25,000 refugees this
year. It has already provided more than $6 million to Greece to help
respond to the influx of refugees seeking a way to enter Europe.
I would also add from a military standpoint that Norway recently
purchased 22 more fighter planes--22 more fighter planes, bringing
their total to over 50--from Lockheed Martin, based in Senator Cruz's
district in Fort Worth. That is where these planes are being built, and
they are worth nearly $200 million apiece. That is what Norway is
investing in the United States. They deserve an ambassador.
Sweden, like Norway, plays an important role in our national
security. Sweden is a strong partner in our fight against ISIS, in our
attempts to curb North Korea's nuclear program, in supporting Ukraine
against Russian aggression, and in promoting global democracy and human
rights.
Sweden is also on the front lines of the Syrian refugee crisis. More
than 1,200 refugees seek asylum in Sweden every day, and Sweden accepts
more refugees per capita than any other country in the EU.
All of us on both sides of the aisle have talked about the importance
of a strong Europe during this very difficult time. Yet every other
major nation in Europe has an ambassador except for Sweden and Norway.
So I ask my friends and colleagues on the other side who are not
obstructing these nominations to help us work this out with Senator
Cruz because this has gone on for far too long. This isn't a joke.
These are two major allies.
We also have economic relationships. As I mentioned, Norway
represented the fifth fastest growing source of foreign direct
investment in the United States between 2009 and 2013--that is in the
world--and is the 12th largest source of foreign direct investment in
the United States overall. Maybe they are too quiet about it and people
don't realize it. We would never think of blocking an ambassador to
England or to France, but right now the ambassadors to these two
countries are being blocked.
There are over 300 American companies with a presence in Norway. By
not having an ambassador in Norway, we are sending a message to one of
the top investors in the country: Sorry, you are not important enough
to us to have an ambassador in your country. But all the other major
nations have an ambassador. In October, as I mentioned, they reiterated
their commitment by buying all those fighter planes from the State of
Texas, from Lockheed Martin.
Norwegian Defense Minister Espen Barth Eide said Norway's F-35
purchase marks ``the largest public procurement in Norwegian history.''
It has been 30 years since Norway ordered new combat planes, and
instead of choosing a European manufacturer, whom did they choose? They
chose a manufacturer in the United States, right in Texas. Do you think
those other European countries don't have Ambassadors in Norway? They
do. I hope Senator Cruz and his friends are listening to this right now
because they chose to buy those planes from the United States, right
from his home State of Texas.
Sweden, like Norway, is also one of the biggest investors in the
United States. Sweden is the 11th largest direct investor in the United
States. Swedish foreign direct investment in the United States amounts
to roughly $56 billion and creates nearly 330,700 U.S. jobs. The United
States is Sweden's fourth largest export market, with Swedish exports
valued at an estimated $10.2 billion. Sweden, like Norway, deserves an
ambassador.
Scandinavian Americans are understandably frustrated by the fact that
Senator Cruz is obstructing these nominees. As the Senator from a State
that is home to more Swedish Americans and Norwegian Americans than any
other State, I know it because I hear it every day. I hear it from
people across the country, and most importantly, I hear it from the
Foreign Minister and others in countries who are waiting to get an
ambassador.
So, again, we have an ambassador in France, we have one in England,
and we have one in Germany. We have an ambassador in nearly every
European nation but not in these two key Scandinavian countries.
There is really no doubt about the important relationship between our
country and Norway and Sweden. We need to confirm Sam Heins and Azita
Raji immediately.
I do appreciate the support of nearly every Republican Senator for
these nominees, the support of the chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, Senator Corker, the great leadership of Senator Cardin, the
leadership of Senator Reid and Senator McConnell on these issues, and
the leadership of my colleague Senator Franken whom we will hear from
shortly. It is time to get these done.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session
to consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 263; that the Senate
proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination;
that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid
upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on behalf of the junior Senator from Texas, I
object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I note that Senator Lee, as I assume he did with the
other objections, was making this objection on behalf of Senator Cruz
and that, secondly, that was the Ambassador to Norway whom I asked
consent for.
I now ask unanimous consent for the Ambassador to Sweden.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session
to consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 148; that the Senate
proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination;
that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid
upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on behalf of the junior Senator from Texas, I
object.

[[Page S562]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I believe we will now hear from Senator Franken, my
colleague from the State of Minnesota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, that is too bad. There is no one else in
this body who believes that Sam Heins shouldn't be Ambassador to Norway
or that we shouldn't be sending an ambassador to Norway, and/or that
Azita Raji wouldn't be perfect to be Ambassador to Sweden. This is
really a shame. It is another sad moment, frankly.
Let me talk a little bit about Sam Heins. Sam is from Minnesota, home
of more Norwegian Americans than any other State. I think we have more
Swedish Americans, as well, than any other State. Norway is an
important NATO ally, as Senator Klobuchar so ably put it. We coordinate
on important security issues. We have important collaborations in
Minnesota among our universities and in the private sector in this
country on research projects, renewable energy, health care, and other
areas.
Confirming an ambassador to Norway--especially such a highly
qualified ambassador--is especially important to the people in my
State. More than 20 percent of Minnesotans trace their ancestry to
Norway. There are more Norwegian Americans living in Minnesota than any
other State.
Sam Heins is a very distinguished Minnesotan who has worked on behalf
of women's rights, human rights, and victims of torture. We have a
center in Minnesota for victims of torture. It is a shining example of
our State and of our country.
Sam has been nominated to serve as our next Ambassador to Norway. He
is being blocked, unfortunately, for reasons that are totally unrelated
to his qualifications. I believe that blocking this nominee from
confirmation is completely irresponsible. As I said, Norway is an
important ally, and it is in our mutual interests to have an ambassador
to Norway who represents the United States. I hope the next time we do
this, we can get unanimous consent.
This is unfortunate, and I think it has not been done in a way that
is consistent with the protocol of the Senate in terms of Senators
creating conditions for the lift of a hold and then changing what that
position is. I think that is too bad.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am here to join my colleagues because
I share the concerns they have expressed so eloquently about the
failure of this body to act on the nominees whom they have been talking
about. But the other nominees, particularly the 27 national security
nominees who are pending on the floor of the Senate--these nominees are
not being held up due to concerns about their qualifications or their
experience. As my colleagues have said, they are being held up for
political reasons--political reasons that are often wholly unrelated to
the nominee, and in most cases they are being held up by just one
Member of this body.
I find it particularly ironic that, in many cases, they are being
held up by a Member of this body who is out on the campaign trail,
campaigning for President. He is not here dealing with the work of this
country and not here fighting to address the national security of this
country by making sure that we confirm these nominees. So I am
disappointed that, once again, we see my colleague from Utah here on
his behalf to object to our efforts to move forward with these
unanimous consent requests for Tom Shannon, John Estrada, Azita Raji,
and Samuel Heins.
As Senator Cardin noted, I want to begin with Ambassador Shannon,
because Ambassador Shannon would fill one of the most senior positions
at the State Department as the Under Secretary for Political Affairs.
He would be responsible for working with the Europeans on
implementation of the Iran agreement, on coordinating the G-7 to combat
Russian aggression, as well as providing daily oversight and direction
to all of the Department's regional bureaus.
We had a hearing this morning before the Foreign Relations Committee,
talking about the strains on the European Union and the implications
for American foreign policy. One of the things our witnesses who were
testifying on behalf of the majority and the minority discussed was the
challenges we are facing from Russian aggression. I am sure we all
appreciate that in this body. The fact that we are holding up
Ambassador Shannon, who would be responsible for coordinating the G-7
response to Russian aggression, is just hard to fathom. I don't get it.
I don't understand why anybody in this body would want to hold up the
appointment of one of the key leaders of the team to fight Russian
aggression.
Ambassador Shannon is clearly qualified for the job. He is a career
Foreign Service officer. He has served with distinction in five
administrations--two Democratic and three Republican. He was nominated
for this position in September. He had his confirmation hearing in
October. He was unanimously approved by the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, and now he has been waiting 98 days for the full Senate to
act on his nomination.
There isn't much I can add to the outrage and eloquence of my
colleagues from Minnesota, Senator Klobuchar and Senator Franken, who
talked about their frustration at the holdup in confirming Azita Raji,
who has been waiting 398 days--over a year--to be Ambassador to
Sweden; Samuel Heins, who has been waiting 265 days to be Ambassador to
Norway.

Again, I would go back and point to the hearing we had this morning
before the Foreign Relations Committee, where one of the issues that
our witnesses testified to was the importance of working with our
Scandinavian allies as we look to combat Russian aggression. Here we
are. And I said: So, what does it mean to Sweden and Norway that we
have been holding up the nominees to be Ambassadors to those two
countries--one for over a year and one for almost a year? And they
said: It sends a very bad message to Europe, at a time when Europe is
challenged, that we don't care what is going on in Sweden and Norway.
In 1914, Norway, a NATO ally, scrambled their F-16 fighters 74 times
to intercept Russian warplanes. They are there on the frontlines
helping to fight Russian aggression. Where are we in the Senate? We
can't even confirm the Ambassador to Norway because we have one person
in this body who doesn't care enough about the national security of
this country to be here to help make sure this person gets confirmed.
That is not acceptable.
I also want to talk about two other nominees whose qualifications are
unquestioned. Yet they remain unconfirmed. Brian Egan is the
President's nominee to be a principal advisor to the State Department
and the Secretary of State on all legal issues, domestic and
international. This role includes assisting in the formulation and
implementation of the foreign policies of the United States and
promoting the development of law and institutions as elements of those
policies. It is something that is very important, especially as we look
at some of the countries that are being threatened now by Russian
aggression--Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova.
Mr. Egan's qualifications to hold this position are clear. He began
his career as a civil servant and government lawyer in the office of
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He subsequently worked at
Treasury, at the National Security Council, and as a Deputy Assistant
to the President.
He was nominated more than a year ago--384 days to be exact. He was
unanimously approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June.
Yet he is still in this ``hold'' position because of one or two
individuals in this body for reasons unrelated to his qualifications.
Mr. President, at this time I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination:
Calendar No. 204, Brian James Egan to be Legal Advisor of the
Department of State; that the Senate proceed to vote without
intervening action or debate on the nomination; that if confirmed, the
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Toomey). Is there objection?
The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on behalf of the junior Senator from Texas, I
object.

[[Page S563]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Again, that is disappointing. Again, it is unfortunate
that somebody who has served so honorably in both Republican and
Democratic administrations is being held up for reasons totally
unrelated to his qualifications and to the job he would do at the
Department of State.

Unanimous Consent Request--Presidential Nomination

I know that many Republicans in this body are as outraged as we are
about the holdup. I hope they will act with us to move these nominees.
One of those people is still being held up, this time by the Banking
Committee, which has refused to schedule a vote on the nomination of
Adam Szubin to be the Treasury Department's Under Secretary for
Terrorism and Financial Crimes. This position leads to policy,
enforcement, regulatory, and intelligence functions of the Treasury
Department aimed at identifying and disrupting the lines of financial
support to international terrorist organizations, proliferators of
weapons of mass destruction, narcotics traffickers, and other actors
who pose a threat to our national security or foreign policy. This
position is critical, as we look at legislation that we are talking
about taking up next week with respect to sanctions on North Korea,
with respect to continued sanctions on Iran, on Russia, to other bad
actors, to terrorists who are out there. Mr. Szubin is extremely well
qualified for this position. He has served in both Republican and
Democratic administrations.
He was nominated 294 days ago. Yet even Banking Committee Chairman
Shelby called Szubin ``eminently qualified'' during his September
confirmation hearing. The fact that the committee has not held a vote
and the Senate has not confirmed him lessens his ability to influence
our allies and to undermine our enemies around the world, which is what
we want to happen. If we are worried about our ability to enforce
sanctions, if we are worried about the national security of this
country and one of the weapons that we have to use to protect this
country, then we ought to be confirming Adam Szubin.
It is very disappointing that my Republican colleagues continue to
object and that my colleague from Utah is here on behalf of Senator
Cruz from Texas, objecting to moving forward. Even though I understand
that he is going to object, I am going to put forward another unanimous
consent motion because I think we need to come back here every day from
now until the end of this session and ask unanimous consent to move
forward on these nominees because it is unacceptable that we are still
here at this time without confirming these people.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to
executive session and the Banking Committee be discharged from further
consideration of PN371, the nomination of Adam J. Szubin to be Under
Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes; that the Senate proceed
to its consideration and vote without intervening action or debate;
that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid
upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further
motions be in order to the nomination; that any statements related to
the nomination be printed in the Record; that the President be
immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume
legislative session.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, on behalf of the senior Senator from Alabama,
I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Again, it is very disappointing that the objection has
been made, this time on behalf of the Senator from Alabama, who is
here, so it is disappointing that he is not on the floor to talk about
what his objections to Adam Szubin are. I believe that refusing to move
these nominations does a profound disservice not only to these
Americans who have sacrificed to serve this country but to the national
security of the United States.
I call on the majority leader to schedule votes on these nominees and
other pending national security nominees to let the Senate do its job
at a time when the world is facing national security challenges on a
number of fronts. When nations are looking to the United States for
leadership, we cannot afford to sideline ourselves by failing to
confirm these important nominees.
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. PETERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Flint, Michigan, Water Crisis

Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues on both
sides of the aisle to come together as we continue to seek a bipartisan
path forward to help the people and the children living in the city of
Flint, MI. Nearly 2 years ago, an unelected emergency manager appointed
by Michigan's Governor changed the city of Flint's water source to the
Flint River in an attempt to save money while the city prepared to
transition to a new regional water authority.
After switching away from clean water sourced from the Detroit Water
Authority, Flint residents began to receive improperly treated Flint
River water, long known to be contaminated and potentially very
corrosive. The result of the State government's actions was and
continues to be absolutely catastrophic. Flint families were exposed to
lead and other toxins that will have lasting effects for generations.
The ultimate cost of this misguided, dangerous decision will not be
known for decades, but we now have a chance to begin to make it right.
Last week, Senator Stabenow and I introduced an amendment that would,
one, provide water infrastructure funding for Flint; two, create a
Center of Excellence to address the long-term public health
ramifications of lead exposure; three, forgive Flint's outstanding
loans that were used for water infrastructure that has now been damaged
by the State's actions; and four, require the EPA to directly notify
consumers instead of going through State and local regulators if their
drinking water is contaminated with lead.
We have spent the last week working with Senator Murkowski and
Senator Cantwell to find common ground and a path forward to provide
some relief to the people of Flint as we consider this bipartisan
energy legislation. These discussions are ongoing. They are happening
as we speak now. But now is not the time to use procedural roadblocks
to justify inaction.
Throughout the United States history, when a natural or manmade
disaster strikes, the Federal Government has stepped in to help those
in need. Hurricanes, superstorms, earthquakes, flooding, and a
fertilizer plant explosion--those types of activities or incidents all
across the Nation have received Federal assistance as communities come
together to rebuild.
While the cause of this crisis and the ultimate responsibility to fix
it lies with the State Government, we need to bring resources from all
levels of government to bear to address the unprecedented emergency
that we face. This is why I urge my colleagues to work with us as we
continue efforts to make a down payment on the years of rebuilding and
healing that Flint needs.
I was in Flint earlier this week, and while volunteering with the Red
Cross to deliver bottled water from house to house, I heard directly
from impacted residents. Months after the public became aware of the
depth of this crisis, families still have questions: Can I use my
shower? When will the water be safe? Will the pipes ever get replaced?
My question for this body is very straightforward. Who will stand up
for the children of Flint? These children have been impacted the most
by this crisis and through no fault of their own. I know we all have
priorities that we care about in this Energy bill, but I simply cannot
agree to move forward on action on this bill until we deal with Flint
and help Flint rebuild to provide safe, clean drinking water.
This should not be a Republican or a Democratic issue. Clean water
is, quite simply, a basic human right. Let's together show the American
people that when a crisis hits any city in this country, we will stand
with them.

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America is a great country, and it is great because at times of
difficulty, we all stand together as one people.
Mr. President, 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. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, later today, at around 5:30 p.m., DC time,
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and representatives from 11
other countries will meet at a ceremony to sign the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, or TPP, Agreement. It is no secret that the TPP Agreement
has the potential to do a lot of good for our country.
Taken as a whole, the 12 countries involved in this agreement had a
combined GDP of $28.1 trillion in 2012, nearly 40 percent of the
world's total economy. In that same year, our goods and services
exports to TPP countries supported an estimated 4 million jobs here in
the United States.
According to the International Monetary Fund, the world economy will
grow by more than $20 trillion over the next 5 years and nearly half of
that growth will be in Asia. This agreement, if done right, will give
the United States a distinct advantage in setting the standards for
trade in this dynamic and strategically vital part of the world.
It is also no secret that many stakeholders and Members of Congress,
including myself, have some doubts as to whether the agreement meets
the high standards necessary to gain congressional approval. I have
expressed those concerns many times here on the floor and elsewhere. I
won't go into any more detail about them today. Instead, I want to talk
about what will happen after the agreement is signed.
Even though there is a signing ceremony in New Zealand today, that is
not the end of the process for TPP in the United States. In fact, in
many ways, we are really just beginning.
In the coming months, we will have ample opportunity to debate the
merits of each and every provision of this agreement and to consider
how it will impact workers and job creators in our country and how it
will affect the health of our economy.
Today I will focus on the process by which Congress will consider and
debate this agreement. I want to do so in part because I believe it is
important that our people--including Members of Congress, the
administration's stakeholders, and the media--have a full understanding
of how this is going to work. All too often when a trade agreement is
concluded or signed, the pundits, commentators, and lobbyists in this
town immediately jump to one question: When will Congress vote on it? I
get asked that question almost every day. While I have offered my own
opinions and occasional speculation about when would be the best time
to have the vote, the fact of the matter is I don't know exactly when
the vote will take place and no one else does either.
As we all know, last year Congress passed and the President signed
legislation renewing trade promotion authority, or TPA, and setting out
a series of timelines for Congress to consider and eventually vote on
signed trade agreements. While I am quite sure that interested parties
and observers have already pored over the text of the TPA statute to
add up all the statutory timelines and have tried to calculate the
exact date when Congress will vote on the agreement, that exercise is
unlikely to yield an accurate result. Let me take a few minutes to
explain why that is the case.
Under the TPA process, there are a number of milestones, checkpoints,
and associated timelines that begin at the outset of negotiations, long
before any agreement is reached. With regard to TPP, we have gone
through several of those already. President Obama has determined--
despite some concerns expressed by a number of sources--to take the
next step in the process and sign the agreement.

Under the TPA statute, once an agreement is signed, the President has
60 days to provide Congress with a description of changes to U.S. law
that he believes would be required under the deal. That is one of the
more specific deadlines in the law. That 60 days is a maximum time
period imposed on the administration, not on Congress.
Assuming the agreement does in fact get signed today, that
information must arrive no later than April 3. On top of that, the
statute requires the International Trade Commission--or ITC--to compile
and submit a report on the likely economic effects of a signed trade
agreement. That report must be completed within 105 days--another
specific deadline of the signing date. For a deal signed today, that
deadline is May 18.
So far I have just talked about deadlines or maximum time periods for
compiling and submitting specific documents and materials, but once
again those maximum timelines are imposed on the administration, not on
Congress. After Congress receives the President's description of
legislative changes and the ITC's economic analysis, the administration
is required to provide to Congress the final text of the agreement and
a detailed plan on how they intend to administer it. The exact date and
timing by which the administration has to submit the final text of the
agreement is not set out in the statute. Under established practices,
the timing of that submission, like other relevant decisions in this
process, is generally determined after close collaboration and
consultation with leaders in Congress.
However, the TPA statute is clear that the final text of the
agreement and the detailed administrative plan must be provided to
Congress at least--and those two words are very important--at least 30
days before formally submitting legislation to implement the agreement.
This is one of the more important timelines in the statute, and it
notably provides a floor, not a ceiling. It sets a minimum timeframe to
ensure Congress has at least--there are those two words again--30 days
to review all necessary information and documents before the
implementing legislation is formally submitted to Congress.
I would like to point out that this minimum 30-day window is a new
requirement. We included this requirement for the first time in the
most recent TPA statute to provide increased transparency and ensure
adequate consideration and debate in Congress. There are many
additional steps that take place once Congress has all of the required
information and before the implementing bill is formally submitted, and
those steps each take time.
First, Congress, in consultation with the administration, has to
develop a draft implementing bill for the agreement. Then the
committees of jurisdiction will hold hearings to examine both the
agreement and the draft legislation. Following these hearings, another
very important step occurs: the informal markups in the Senate Finance
and House Ways and Means Committees. Most people call this process
``the mock markup.'' The mock markup--which once again occurs before
the President formally submits the trade agreement to Congress--is
similar to any other committee markup. The committee reviews the draft
legislation and has votes on amendments, if any are offered. If the
Finance and Ways and Means Committees end up with different versions of
the draft implementing bill, they can proceed to a mock conference to
work out the details and reconcile any differences.
The mock markup process is well established in practice and is an
essential part of Congress's consideration of any trade agreement. It
is the best way for Congress to provide direct input--complete with
vote tallies and on-the-record debates--to the President to demonstrate
whether the implementing bill meets the criteria set out in the TPA
statute and whether there is enough support in Congress for the
agreement to pass.
After those steps are taken, a final implementing bill may be
introduced in the House and Senate. Only after the final implementing
bill is introduced is Congress under any kind of deadline to vote on
the agreement. The votes must take place within 90 session days. You
will notice the word ``session.'' Of course, in this case I am using
the word ``deadline'' pretty loosely. The vote doesn't have to occur
within 90 calendar days. It must take place within 90 session days, and
only Congress can

[[Page S565]]

decide when it is and is not going to be in session. Long story short,
no one should be under any illusions that because the TPP is being
signed today, an up-or-down vote on the agreement is imminent or that
our oversight responsibilities are at an end.
If history has taught us anything, it is that this process can, and
often does, take a very long time to complete. In fact, it is not an
exaggeration or even all that remarkable to say that it can take years
to get an agreement through Congress after it is signed. Historically
speaking, the shortest period of time we have seen between the signing
of an agreement and the introduction of the implementing legislation,
which once again triggers a statutory deadline for a vote in Congress,
is 30 days. That was with our bilateral trade agreement with Morocco.
Needless to say, that agreement is an outlier and quite frankly it
isn't a useful model for passing an agreement as massive as the TPP.
Other trade agreements, like our agreements with South Korea,
Colombia, and Panama, took more than 4 years to see an implementing
bill introduced in Congress, and that was 4 years from the time the
agreement was signed, which is what is happening today with the TPP,
and the time the clock started ticking for a vote in the Senate. Our
trade agreement with Peru took 533 days or about a year and a half. Our
agreement with Bahrain took just over a year. All of these, while
significant in their own right, were bilateral agreements and paled in
comparison to the size and scope of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The closest parallels to the Trans-Pacific Partnership we have in our
history--and they are not really that close at all--are the North
American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, and the Dominican Republic-
Central America Free Trade Agreement, or DR-CAFTA, both of which took
more than 10 months. Once again, that wasn't 10 months between the
signing day and the vote. That was 10 months between the day the
agreement was signed and the introduction of the implementing bill,
which triggers a required-yet-fluid timeline for a vote in Congress.
Of course, none of these timelines for previous trade agreements are
all that illustrative because the TPP is nothing like our other
agreements. By any objective measure, the TPP is a historic trade
agreement without a comparable precedent. Its approval would be a
significant achievement. That is all the more reason to ensure it gets
a full and fair consideration in Congress, however long that process
takes. All of us--on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the
Capitol, and on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue--should be careful
when we talk about timelines and deadlines for votes.
I am quite certain the President wants to get a strong TPP agreement
passed as soon as possible. I personally share that goal, but Congress
has a history of taking the time necessary to consider and pass trade
agreements, and the process set out under TPA demands that we do so.
Despite a number of claims to the contrary, Congress does not
rubberstamp trade agreements, and we will not do so in this case. We
cannot short circuit the process. With an agreement of this
significance, we must be more vigilant, more deliberative, and more
accountable than ever before. We need to take the necessary time to
carefully review the agreement and engage in a meaningful dialogue with
the administration.
If that occurs and if the administration is prepared to engage with
our TPP partners to address new concerns, I am confident the TPP
agreement can be successfully approved by Congress. That may take more
time than some would like, but the process of achieving favorable
outcomes in international trade is a marathon, not a sprint. There are
no shortcuts. To get this done, we have to do the work and lay a strong
foundation in Congress.
As I have said many times, the TPP is an extremely important
agreement, and we need to get it done, but given that importance, we
need to focus more on getting it right than getting it done fast.
Mr. President, millions of Americans depend on coal energy to heat
their homes, power their electronics, and keep their businesses
running. Coal is an indispensable asset in our Nation's energy
portfolio. It accounts for nearly one-third of U.S. energy production
and generates half of all our electricity today. Quite literally, coal
keeps the lights on, but the Obama administration's war on coal could
pull the plug on an industry essential to our energy needs.
America's coal miners have no greater antagonist than their own
President. Ever since President Obama took office, he has deliberately
targeted coal producers, subjecting them to onerous, job-destroying
regulations that threaten our economic future. The administration's
recently announced decision to halt coal leasing on Federal lands is
just the latest assault in a calculated campaign to cripple the coal
industry.
The President's moratorium on new coal leases undermines our ability
to produce one of the least expensive and most reliable fuel sources at
our disposal. The long-term consequences of this rule will be
disastrous not only for coal companies and all of their employees but
for any industry that depends on coal for its energy needs.
Beyond the economic costs of this extraordinary action, consider the
human toll. The U.S. coal industry directly employs more than 130,000
people. These individuals are more than a mere statistic. They are real
people with mortgages, car payments, and children to feed. They are
honest men and women whose very livelihood depends on the future of
coal.
Sadly, the President's moratorium puts their jobs in danger. As the
junior Senator from Wyoming observed, the administration's action
effectively hands a pink slip to thousands of hard-working individuals
across the Mountain West who work in coal production.
As Members of the legislative branch, we have a constitutional duty
to check Executive overreach. With the amendment I have introduced, we
have the opportunity to rein in the President's actions and protect
hard-working American families from overly burdensome Federal
regulations.
My amendment reasserts the authority of Congress in this matter by
prohibiting the Secretary of the Interior from halting coal leases on
Federal land without congressional approval. It also requires the
Secretary to begin leasing Federal assets immediately pursuant to the
Mineral Leasing Act of 1920.
If the Secretary wishes to enforce a moratorium on coal leasing, she
must first provide a reasonable justification for doing so. To that
end, my amendment requires the Secretary to submit to Congress a study
demonstrating that a moratorium would not result in a loss of revenue
to the Treasury. The study must also examine the potential economic
impacts of a moratorium on jobs and industry. Once the House and Senate
have had the opportunity to review this study in full, the Department
of the Interior may suspend coal leasing on Federal lands if and only
if Congress approves the action.

Mr. President, my amendment not only protects middle-class Americans
from harmful government regulations, it also rightly restrains the
President and his abuse of Executive power by restoring authority to
the duly-elected Members of Congress, not unelected bureaucracies. I
strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment as we continue
consideration of the legislation at hand.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Flint, Michigan, Water Crisis

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I want to talk again about the complete
disaster, the catastrophe that has befallen a community in Michigan
called Flint, MI, through no fault of their own.
We assume that when we turn on the faucet, we can make coffee, take a
shower, make breakfast, take care of our children or our grandchildren,
and that we are going to have safe, clean water. That has been a basic
right in America. If you own a business, a restaurant, you assume you
are going to be able to turn on the water and make the food and serve
your customers. If you are a barber, you can turn on the

[[Page S566]]

faucet and clean water comes out. That is basic in our country.
For 100,000 people in Flint, MI, the dignity of being able to turn on
a faucet and have clean water has been ripped away. It started 20
months ago. They were lied to. They were told the water was safe.
Finally, we are told it was not safe. People told them that somehow
this brown water that smelled was safe--clearly not.
We now know that about 9,000 children under the age of 6 have been
exposed in some cases to astronomical lead levels. There was one story
about a home that was tested where the lead levels were higher than a
nuclear waste dump. How would you feel if that were your house and
somebody told you your children had been exposed to that? I can only
imagine. I know how I would feel.
A little while ago I met with some pastors from Flint who are here
desperately trying to get beyond this. They don't want partisanship;
they don't want political fighting; they just want some help. They
said: We are not interested in the back-and-forth of all this; we just
want clean water, and we want to be able to provide good nutrition for
these children who are already impacted.
The scary thing about this lead is that it stays in your body
forever. I am learning more about lead than I ever wanted to know, and
one of the things we know is that it does not leave. There is no magic
pill. It is nutrition, so you have to give them more iron and milk and
calcium and vitamins. There is a whole range of things I am working on
now. I am grateful for the support from the Department of Agriculture
to help us do that.
We have too many children--if anyone saw Time magazine--we have
children with rashes, babies, people losing their hair. I met with
pastors, and after that I met with another group of citizens from
Flint: moms who are trying to figure out a way to avoid mixing this
water with their baby formula. I had been told by the Michigan State
department of WIC that they were giving ready-to-feed formula, and I
just met with a group of moms who said that was not true.
We are talking about children whose brains are being developed and
right now whose futures are being snatched away from them. They didn't
cause it. Their moms didn't cause it. Their dads didn't cause it.
Others caused it, and we can debate who that is. I am happy to have
that discussion. Right now I just want to help those people.
I want people to see the people of Flint. They have not been seen or
heard on this issue for almost 2 years. The folks who were supposed to
care, who were supposed to see them, didn't. We have a chance to say to
them: We see you. We hear you. We know that you as Americans have a
right, if there is a catastrophe in Flint, to have the same sense of
urgency, of support that we give to other things, such as a fertilizer
explosion in West Texas, where we brought in millions of dollars, or
hurricanes in Texas and South Carolina--emergency spending, I
understand. We all know that something can happen beyond the control of
citizens, and they look to us.
I know we all have other issues around aging pipes. We all have
infrastructure issues, and frankly, we should be addressing those.
There are very positive bipartisan proposals to address water and sewer
infrastructure, and I support those. I want to do what we can, and
hopefully this will serve as an impetus for that, but nowhere in
America do we have an entire city's drinking water system shut down
from usage.
We have other situations in other parts of Michigan. I am not
asking--although I would love to provide help in all the cities in
Michigan, I understand that is a broader issue we have to address
together. But this is about a catastrophe, a crisis, something that we
do emergency spending on when there is a situation where we see lead
levels in some parts of this community that are higher than a toxic
waste dump.
Even in areas now where it is OK, we have small businesses--it just
breaks your heart. Downtown Flint has been doing a great job of
rebuilding the downtown. Everyone focuses on the exciting things in
Detroit, but Flint also has done great things, bringing great
restaurants downtown. Even when folks invest in their own water system
so they are absolutely sure their water is safe, people won't come in
because now it is Flint, MI. Nobody believes any of the water is safe.
It is now a joke: If you go to Flint, don't drink the water. So we have
businesses closing. We have a community collapsing that needs help, and
the bottom-line help they need is to fix the pipes.
Senator Peters and I are not suggesting that it is entirely a Federal
responsibility. In fact, it is a joint responsibility. In fact, we
would argue that more of the responsibility be on the State than the
Federal Government. But we do have a shared responsibility to step in
and help and give some immediate help to be able to get this going.
That is what we are asking for.
Up until yesterday afternoon, we thought we had a bipartisan
solution. I appreciate the work that has been done by the chair and the
ranking member. We thought we were there. We found a source to pay for
it. Even though we don't always pay for other emergencies, we found a
way to do it. We go to the Congressional Budget Office. We find there
are a couple of technical things. Lord, help us, we love the CBO. There
is a technical thing that doesn't affect the Senate called a blue slip
to deal with. We do it all the time--another issue around scoring that
we are working hard around. Suddenly, everything stops over procedure,
over bureaucracy and procedure.
I know that when we did a transportation bill, we waived every single
point of order because we wanted to do it. I wanted to do it. I
supported it. But now when we are talking about helping an important
community in the State of Michigan be able to get some help out of a
disaster, all of a sudden, no, no, no; there are all kinds of
procedures and reasons. I don't buy it for a second. I don't buy it for
a second. When we want to help Americans, we help Americans. That is
what we do. It is our job to do those things.
One of the things that I now find such an insult, such a slap in the
face--I don't know if this means that folks aren't--we are still trying
to work this out, Mr. President, and I am hopeful that we will so there
can be an energy bill. But now there is an amendment that has been
filed to pay for helping Flint by taking dollars away from new
development of technologies for automobiles--something Senator Peters
and I have been champions of. Back in the 2007 Energy bill, I was able
to get a provision in, when we raised CAFE standards, to support
companies to create that new technology here in America so the jobs
wouldn't go overseas, they would be here. It is work that has made a
real difference, that brought jobs back from other countries.
Senator Cassidy and I have been working on a provision to expand that
because of trucks because they are getting CAFE standard increases and
so on. I had a commitment and we had a commitment to actually do that
on the floor, to get that done, but now, all of a sudden, the money
from that is being proposed to pay for fixing the drinking water system
in Flint.
Flint is the home of the automobile industry. Flint, MI, is where
much of this started, where the middle class started, where the auto
industry started. General Motors is still there, although they won't
use the water because it corrodes their auto parts. So they won't use
the water.
But now we are hearing in an amendment for the people of Flint: Well,
you have a choice. You can either drink the water and have safe water
or you can have a job.
Well, that is an insult. I personally feel it is an insult. It is
being done to just jam us and trying to embarrass us--that we don't
care about the people of Flint because we are not willing to spend
money from a new technology source that is being used to create new
jobs.
I don't buy it. That is certainly not going to be getting support.
When we are trying to work in good faith to get this done, I am amazed
that this would be offered, which is clearly just an effort to jam us.
I don't know where we are. I still am a very positive person. I tend
to spend most of my time working behind the scenes to get things done--
I am very proud of that--and so does my colleague Senator Peters. We
are people who like to get results. We are not into demagoguing about
this. Lord knows it is ripe for it. We want to do something that will
help people who need help.

[[Page S567]]

So we are going to continue to do that. We are going to continue to
work to try to do that. We are not going to stop, and we are not going
to support moving forward until we have something that is a reasonable
way that we can tell the people of Flint that we have done something to
help them.
At this point in time, I can't look at this child or his mom in the
face--or any other children or parents--and not tell them we did
everything humanly possible to be able to make sure we could help them
as quickly as possible to stop using bottled water and be able to
actually give their kids a bath, cook for them, and have the dignity of
what every one of us has--the gift of clean water, which is a basic in
the United States, or should be.
So we are meeting, and we are doing everything we can. We have agreed
to cut in half the original request we have asked for. We have agreed
to a structure proposed by the Republican majority. We have said we are
going to be flexible here, but we are not willing to walk away from
Flint. We will not walk away from Flint. Too many people in the State
of Michigan have done that for too long, and we are not going to do
that. We are going to continue to do everything we can to fix this
problem.
If clean water in America is not a basic human right, I don't know
what is. I hope in the end we are going to be able to stand up and say
in a bipartisan basis that we did this. That is all we are asking for--
that we actually do something to fix this problem.
I see that face and the face of other children every night before I
go to bed. Every morning when I get up I think about what is happening
this morning, what is happening tonight, what is happening tomorrow in
Flint. We are going to do everything we can to make sure other people
remember and are willing to step up and treat them with the dignity and
respect they deserve as American citizens.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WYDEN. 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. WYDEN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the
Energy bill and, particularly, a very important and missing part of the
Energy bill. But before I turn to that subject, I want to particularly
note, with our colleague Senator Stabenow on the floor this afternoon,
that I think she is doing extraordinary work on behalf of Flint and the
people of Flint. I commend her and also her colleague Senator Peters
for trying to tackle this issue.
It seems almost unconscionable that in this age, when there is all
this information and technology at our fingertips, a community is put
at risk the way Flint has been put at risk. The idea that innocent
children would suffer this way is why it is so important that we move
now to address this issue. This is urgent.
There are questions we deal with in the Senate that if we take
another few months or a half a year even, Western civilization isn't
going to exactly change, but what my colleague from Michigan has said
is that what we know about youngsters--and particularly brain
development--if we don't get there early and we don't get there
quickly, we play catchup ball for years and years to come, everything
we know about neurological development. My friend knows that my wife
and I are parents of small kids. We are so lucky they are healthy and
have what a lot of youngsters in Flint aren't going to have. They are
not going to have the kinds of problems that my colleague has brought
to light here.
I saw one report in the news--it is almost beyond comprehension--that
a State nurse told a Flint patient, ``It's just a few IQ points. . . .
It is not the end of the world.'' The idea that a health professional--
who I guess has been in a number of the national publications--just
highlights how important it is that this Congress move, and move now.
My colleague and Senator Peters, who is also doing a terrific job on
this, have indicated there are some procedural and constitutional
questions for the Finance Committee on which my colleague serves so
well. I want her to know I am with her and the people of Flint every
step of the way--not just this week and this month. This is going to be
a challenge that is going to go on for some time. I just so appreciate
what my colleague is doing. I am with her every step of the way.
Mr. President, I turn now to the Energy bill before us. I also want
to commend the chair, Senator Murkowski, and the ranking member,
Senator Cantwell, who have put together a bipartisan bill in the Energy
Committee, which is something I know something about because I was the
chair of the committee. I think my chairmanship began and ended before
we had the opportunity to work more directly with the Presiding
Officer, the Senator from Colorado. I look forward to working with him
in the committee and very much appreciate our colleagues putting
together this important package.
If there is one backdrop to this debate, it is the extraordinary
challenge of climate change. In order to meet that challenge and beat
back the threat of irrevocable damage that has climate scientists
ringing such loud alarm bells, there are going to have to be some
serious changes in energy policy. The legislation in this bipartisan
bill moves in that direction, the details of which I intend to get into
in a minute.
I do want to first discuss a part of this bill that frankly is
missing. It is missing to this debate. That is because the reality is
the heart of America's energy policy is in the Federal Tax Code. The
last big energy tax proposal to become law passed in 2009. According to
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 5 of the 7 hottest
years in recorded history have come since then. On the books today is
an outdated, clumsy patchwork of energy tax incentives that in my view
is anti-innovation and nothing short of a confusing, incomprehensible
policy that does our country a disservice at a time when we have these
great challenges.
There are 44 different energy tax breaks, and they cost about $125
billion each decade. Some industries--the oil and gas industry in
particular--have some certainty about their taxes with permanent
provisions. The fact is, renewable energy sources don't have that
certainty. Some technologies get a lot of support. Others get little or
none. It is a disjointed system that has far outlasted its sell-by
date, and it is ripe for simplification.
The amendment Senators Cantwell, Bennet, and I submitted replaces
this tattered quilt of tax rules with a fresh approach, an approach I
hope will appeal to colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The
Presiding Officer and I have talked about energy policy being more
market oriented. The kind of proposal we have made here does just that.
It supports innovators with fresh, creative ideas. Particularly, I hope
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, because we talked about
it often when I was chairman of the committee and also on the Finance
Committee--concern about subsidies, a big concern about subsidies, and
I am very concerned about that as well. The amendment we will be
offering cuts the $125 billion pricetag in half. So when colleagues say
we ought to be cutting back on tax subsidies, that is exactly what this
proposal does. It replaces wasteful tax rules with a new, simple group
of incentives that have just three goals: cleaner energy, cleaner
transportation, and greater energy efficiency. Gone would be the system
where oil companies get a direct deposit out of the taxpayer account
each year while expired renewable incentives just sort of hang in
limbo. For the first time, fossil fuel-burning plants would have a big
financial reason to get cleaner by investing in high-tech turbine or
carbon-capture technology. So that means everybody benefits by getting
cleaner. Everybody in the energy sector--renewables, fossil fuel
industries, everybody gets the incentive to be cleaner under the
amendment I am offering.
The amendment is all about harnessing the market-based power of the
private economy to reward clean energy, promote new technologies, and
attack climate change. My view is this Congress ought to be doing
everything it can to fight the steady creep toward a hotter climate.
When we have legions

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of scientists lining up to warn the American people about the dangers
of climate change, and when we have policymakers, business leaders, and
investors worldwide saying that clean energy is the 21st century gold
rush, this is a bold energy policy transformation. The proposal I offer
with Senators Bennet and Cantwell ought to become law.
This may not happen in the context of the Energy Policy Modernization
Act. I think we all understand the rules of the Senate, but I am very
much looking forward to working with my colleagues to build support for
this proposal in the days ahead. In my view the lack of tax provisions
in this legislation is unfortunate. They ought to be in there. Tax
policy is right at the heart of energy policy, but it certainly doesn't
undermine my support for a great deal of what is in the overall
package. That includes several provisions I authored and my colleagues
and I on the Energy Committee included.
One focuses on geothermal energy. It is a proposal that is all about
bringing the public and private sectors together to figure out where
geothermal has the most potential in getting the projects underway.
Another proposal in the package is the Marine and Hydrokinetic
Renewable Energy Act, which says that with the right investments and
innovations, our oceans, rivers, and lakes ought to be able to power
millions of homes and contribute to the low-carbon economy. Note those
words because we talk a lot in the Energy Committee about these issues.
My view is there is an awful lot of bipartisan support for a lower
carbon economy in this country, particularly one that grows jobs in the
private sector, and this legislation does that.
In addition to promoting low-carbon sources of energy, the
legislation will help communities be significantly more energy
efficient. It will spur the development of a smarter electric grid that
cuts waste, stores energy, and helps consumers save money on their
utility bill. Finally, it will permanently reauthorize the Land and
Water Conservation Fund, and that in my view is a win-win for the rural
communities of my State and rural communities across this country. The
Land and Water Conservation Fund brings more jobs and more recreation
dollars to areas that need an economic boost, and it ensures that
future generations of Americans are going to be able to enjoy our
treasures for years and years to come.
I noted my concern about help for the city of Flint. I think it is so
important that in the days and months ahead, when we come back to talk
about important public health legislation--because that is really what
this is, a public health crisis--I hope what we will say is we made a
start, we made a beginning. We said it was too important to just delay
moving ahead to address these enormous concerns that the families and
the children of Flint are dealing with this evening. We have to ensure
that this Congress takes action on this public health crisis quickly. I
am committed to working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and
as a member of both the Finance Committee and the Energy Committee I
will have two opportunities to do it. I think we need to make this bill
bipartisan and bicameral as quickly as possible.
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. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). Without objection, it is so ordered.

Climate Change

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the Senate is still at work crafting a
package of energy legislation that can earn the support of a broad
majority and potentially become this body's first comprehensive energy
efficiency legislation since 2007.
This is my 126th weekly call to arms to wake us up to the duty we owe
our constituents and future generations of Americans, not only to
unleash the clean energy solutions that will propel our economy forward
but also to stave off the devastating effects of carbon pollution.
I commend Energy Committee Chairman Murkowski and her ranking member
Senator Cantwell for bringing us a bipartisan bill that builds upon
some of the best ideas of the energy efficiency legislation championed
not long ago by Senators Shaheen and Portman. According to a report
assessing the emissions reductions related to Shaheen-Portman done by
the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the cumulative
net savings of these provisions would reach around $100 billion over
the years 2014 to 2030, along with a reduction of about 650 million
metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over that 15-year period.
While these are welcomed reductions, they are a fraction of what we
expect just from the clean energy tax credit extensions that were
included in the end-of-year omnibus. Those 5-year incentives for wind
and solar will yield cumulative emissions reductions of over 1 billion
metric tons of CO2. And even then, we are still far from
what we need to do to stem our flood of carbon pollution into the
atmosphere and oceans.

Last year, the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, Senator Cantwell, offered an ambitious legislative vision
for growing our clean energy economy while tackling the growing climate
crisis. Her Energy bill outlines achievable reductions in carbon
pollution. It would repeal oil subsidies and level the playing field
for clean energy. Estimated carbon reductions under her plan would be
34 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, which would help us achieve our
international climate commitment. Our goals in the legislation now
before us should be just as ambitious.
Of course, the big polluters always shout that any steps to reduce
emissions will invariably hobble the economy. They have the nerve to
say this while they are sitting on an effective subsidy every year,
just in the United States, of $700 billion, according to the
International Monetary Fund. It really takes nerve to complain while
sitting on that big of a public subsidy.
In the bill before us, I was glad to add an amendment with my
colleague from Idaho, Senator Crapo, with the bipartisan support of
Senators Risch, Booker, Hatch, Kirk, and Durbin, to strengthen the
development of advanced nuclear energy technologies in partnerships
between the government and our national labs and the private sector.
The Holy Grail here is advanced reactors that could actually consume
spent fuel from conventional reactors and help us draw down our nuclear
waste stockpile.
I know that many of my Republican friends have supported commonsense
climate action in the past. Senator McCain ran for President on a
strong climate change platform. Senator Collins coauthored an important
cap-and-dividend bill with Senator Cantwell. Senator Kirk voted for the
Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in the House. Senator Flake has
written an article in support of a carbon tax that reduces income
taxes. And there are more. So I hold out some hope, but it is hard.
There is a whole climate denial apparatus that helps manufacture
doubt and delay action. The fossil fuel industry players controlling
this machinery of denial use a well-worn playbook--the same tactics
employed by the tobacco industry and the lead industry: Deny the
scientific findings about the dangers their product causes, question
the motives of the scientists they oppose, and exaggerate the costs of
taking action. They tend to look only at the costs to them of having to
clean up their act. They tend never to look at the cost to the public
of the harm from their product. If accountants looked at only one side
of the ledger like that, they would go to jail.
In each case, tobacco, lead, climate change, and other sophisticated
campaigns of misinformation were used to mislead the public. So this is
why I have submitted an amendment declaring the sense of the Senate
disapproving corporations and the front organizations they fund to
obscure their role that deliberately cast doubt on science in order to
protect their own financial interests and urging the fossil fuel
companies to cooperate with investigations that are now ongoing into
what they knew about climate change and when they knew it.

[[Page S569]]

I have also pressed to have the political contributions of these same
polluters made transparent to the American people. The Supreme Court's
awful Citizens United decision flung open the floodgates of corporate
spending in our elections, giving wealthy corporate interests the
ability to clobber, and perhaps even more important, to threaten to
clobber politicians who don't toe their line.
My Republican colleagues have refused to shine the light on this
spending, so since the amendment failed, Americans will remain in the
dark about who was trying to influence their elections and how.
The Koch brothers-backed political juggernaut, Americans for
Prosperity, has openly promised to punish candidates who support curbs
on carbon pollution. The group's President said if Republicans support
a carbon tax or climate regulations, they would ``be at a severe
disadvantage in the Republican nomination process. . . . We would
absolutely make that a crucial issue.'' The threat is not subtle: Step
out of line, and here come the attack ads and the primary challengers,
all funded by the deep pockets of the fossil fuel industry, powered up
by Citizens United.
Unfortunately, a large portion of the funding behind this special
interest apparatus is simply not traceable. Money is funneled through
organizations that exist just to conceal the donor's identity. The
biggest identity-laundering shops are Donors Trust and Donors Capital
Fund. Indeed, these are by far the biggest sources of funding in the
network or web of climate-denial front groups. These twin entities
reported giving a combined $78 million to climate-denier groups between
2003 and 2010. Dr. Robert Brulle of Drexel University, who studies this
network of fossil fuel-backed climate-denial fronts, reports that the
Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund operations are the ``central
component'' and ``predominant funder'' of the denier apparatus, and at
the same time, they are what he calls the ``black box that conceals the
identity of contributors.''
The denial apparatus runs a complex scheme to delegitimize the
honest, university-based science that supports curbing carbon emissions
and to intimidate officials who would dare cross this industry. And,
regrettably, it is working.
Since Citizens United let loose the threat of limitless dark money
into our elections, a shadow has fallen over the Republican side of
this Chamber. There is no longer any honest bipartisan debate on
climate change, nor is there a single serious effort on the Republican
side of the Presidential race.
So, anyway, I have submitted the amendment to require companies with
$1 million or more in revenues from fossil fuel activities to disclose
their hidden spending on electioneering communications, to bring them
out of the dark. The amendment is cosponsored by Senators Markey,
Durbin, Sanders, Shaheen, Baldwin, Leahy, Murphy, Blumenthal, and
Menendez.
Corporate and dark money, and particularly fossil fuel money, is now
washing through our elections in what one newspaper memorably called a
``tsunami of slime.'' All my amendment would have done is show the
American people who is trying to sway their votes from behind the dark
money screen. It is a pretty simple idea. It is, in fact, precisely the
solution prescribed by the Supreme Court Justices in the Citizens
United decision. Moreover, it is an idea the Republicans have over and
over again supported in the past. But now that dark money has become
the Republican Party's life support system, all the opinions have
changed.
Well, I believe fossil fuel money is polluting our democracy, just as
their carbon emissions are polluting our atmosphere and oceans. It
ought to be time to shine a light on that dark money. In a nutshell, we
have been had by the fossil fuel industry, and it is time to wake up.

Student Loan Debt

Mr. President, if I may change topics for a moment, we had a meeting
this morning with a number of students from around the country who came
in to share with us their concerns about the growing burden of student
loan debt in this country, which I would argue has now reached a point
of crisis.
Time and again, we tell young people that the path to the American
dream runs through a college campus. Young people get this, and they
respond to it. They overwhelmingly want to go to college, and they work
hard to get there.
But the cost can be more than many students bargain for, especially
once they leave school, with a degree or without, and get hit with
student loan payments. Young people are graduating with more debt than
ever before. For the past several years, as springtime rolls around and
graduates get ready to cross the stage, we hear reports that average
debt loads have increased yet again. Each new class seems to set a new
record. The average graduating senior in the class of 2014 held $28,950
in student loan debt. Indeed, over the past decade, student loan debt
has quadrupled. Total outstanding student loan debt held by 40 million
Americans is now over $1.3 trillion. That makes student loans the
second highest type of consumer debt after home mortgages. Student
loans are more than both credit card debt and car loans. Rhode
Islanders alone owe upward of $3.6 billion. Students who graduate from
4-year colleges and universities in Rhode Island emerge with an average
of $31,841 in student loan debt.
I asked my colleagues, most of whom graduated many decades ago, can
you imagine starting out in your life that deep in the red? This is the
reality for so many Americans today. It is the reality for so many
Rhode Islanders I have met with.
Tammy is a childcare provider from Warwick, RI. She spoke at a
roundtable discussion Senator Reed and I held in Rhode Island to hear
firsthand from our constituents about the challenges they face in
repaying student loan debt. Tammy has a master's degree in child
development and early childhood education. The original principal
balance on her student loan was $43,530.56. But even with a master's
degree in child development and early childhood education, the pay has
not been great. We went through that Wall Street-caused financial
crisis and now, 16 years later, her balance has grown to $88,000.
Instead of making headway on her debt, she slips further into the red.
Danielle from Narragansett, RI, racked up roughly $60,000 in student
loan debt between her undergraduate and master's degrees from the
University of Rhode Island. Now, she says, the burden of that debt is
affecting the decisions her son, Talin, is making about his own college
education. When a parent works and studies to make a better life for
her child, the last thing she expects is for the cost of her education
to limit her son's opportunities.
Ryan, also from Warwick, is a special education teacher. He was my
guest at the State of the Union Address. He is going back to graduate
school to become an even better educator. ``I've made a conscious
choice,'' he says, ``to invest in my education and my ability to make a
difference in the lives of my students as a teacher.'' But his loans
are a heavy burden on his finances. He works a second job on top of his
teaching job to help cover his expenses and pay down his loans. His
debt is affecting his life decisions about things like marriage or
buying a home. Why should becoming a better teacher mean postponing the
dreams of adulthood?
Young people should enter the workforce ready to get their lives
started--to earn, to create, to invest. College should be a path to
opportunity, not a decades-long sentence of debt and instability, not
deferred dreams of starting a family or buying a house.

The average age of the Senate today is just over 60, meaning most
Senators were in college about 40 years ago. So we have no idea.
Between then and now, the cost of college has increased more than 1,000
percent. According to Bloomberg Business, from 1978, when the records
began, through 2012, the costs have increased by twelvefold--1,120
percent. Going to college in the seventies generally didn't leave
students with insurmountable debt. Today it is a fact of life. We must
work not just to stop but to reverse these trends.
It is because of this crisis in college affordability that my
Democratic colleagues got together to create the Reducing Education
Debt Act, or the RED Act. This important bill would do three vital
things:
First, it would allow students to refinance their outstanding student
debt

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to take advantage of lower interest rates. That would put billions of
dollars back into the pockets of people who invested in their
education. Refinancing would help an estimated 24 million borrowers
save an average of almost $1,900.
Second, the RED Act would make 2 years of community college tuition-
free, helping students earn an associate's degree, the first half of a
bachelor's degree, or get the skills they need to succeed in the
workforce, all without having to take on so much debt. Free tuition at
community college would save a full-time student an average of $3,800
per year and could help an estimated 9 million college students.
Third, the RED Act would help ensure that Pell grants--named for our
great Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell--keep up with the rising
costs by indexing part of the Pell grant to inflation permanently. By
indexing the Pell grant, compared to current law, the maximum Pell
grant award would increase by $1,300 for the 2026-2027 school year,
resulting in larger awards for over 9 million students, helping to
reduce their debt.
We think the RED Act is a critical step toward an essential goal:
debt-free college.
The American middle class was built in part on the opportunity
provided by higher education. Believe it or not, it was once common to
be able to go to college and graduate with no debt. We owe it to
today's college students to be able to leave college and begin to build
their lives free of debt and ready to achieve their dreams.
We look forward to bipartisan participation on this issue in the
Senate, although regrettably it has virtually never appeared in the
Republican Presidential debates as an issue. There are 40 million
students with $1.3 trillion in debt--not interested, not compared to
Benghazi. So I am hoping we will do better than those candidates in
this Chamber and be able to pull a bipartisan solution together that
will relieve that burden of debt on our next generation.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I see the senior Senator of Rhode Island.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, first, I commend Senator Whitehouse, my
colleague from Rhode Island, for his very thoughtful leadership on this
issue of education and particularly the situation where so many young
people are so deeply in debt after a college education.
It was Senator Whitehouse who organized a meeting in Rhode Island. I
was there and I listened to the story he just related. It is
astounding, the debt these young people and in some cases middle-aged
people are shouldering. We have to do something. I would like to
commend and thank him for his leadership and urge a bipartisan effort
in this regard.
Mr. President, I was on the floor last week, and I spoke about a
series of two amendments that I was working with Senator Heller on, and
they are all focused on enhancing energy storage. I thank Senator
Heller for his efforts in so many ways but particularly this bipartisan
effort to enhance the Energy bill that is before us. Indeed, earlier
this week, we were able to pass one of these amendments, No. 2989, that
we introduced together to improve coordination of Department of Energy
programs and authorities in order to maximize the amount of money that
goes toward energy storage research and development.
Let me particularly thank Energy and Natural Resources Committee
chairperson Lisa Murkowski and ranking member Maria Cantwell for their
great efforts overall and particularly for their help in getting the
Reed-Heller amendment through. They have done an extraordinary job on
this legislation.
As I have indicated, we have two amendments. I have also joined
Senator Heller on another amendment. He is the lead author. This
amendment would amend the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act--or
PURPA, as it is known--to require industry and State regulators to
consider energy storage when making their energy efficiency plans. By
encouraging energy storage usage by public utilities, we will help
expand the reach of this needed technology.
There are many technical, financial, and security benefits to energy
storage, including: improving grid utilization by storing and moving
low-cost power into higher priced markets, thereby reducing the amount
we all pay on our utility bills; increasing the value and the amount of
renewable energy in the grid, thereby reducing greenhouse gas
emissions; and enhancing the security of the grid, thereby ensuring
critical access to power in an emergency. We are all each day much more
cognizant of the threat not just through natural disasters but through
particular cyber intrusions which could affect our energy grid. This
would be another way in which we could not only protect ourselves but
respond more quickly in the case of any of these natural or manmade
disasters.
I want to conclude by again thanking my colleague and friend Senator
Heller and urge our colleagues to work with us in a bipartisan fashion
to adopt this amendment.
With that, Mr. President, I thank you.
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. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

____________________