[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 154 (Tuesday, September 26, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6122-S6127]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018--MOTION TO
PROCEED--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). The Senator from New Jersey.
Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Recovery Effort
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I appreciate the words from all the
colleagues I have seen. It is great to see bipartisan sentiments about
dealing with the most powerful hurricanes in recorded history. These
hurricanes have left thousands of families homeless, destroying
infrastructure, and leaving most people without power for the
foreseeable future. There are thousands of individual stories of loss
of life, of loss of possessions, of everything people own, devastated
by this storm.
What is important to me now is that we turn these words into action.
I am grateful for the leadership we are seeing from the State of Texas
and the State of Florida, but I want to focus in on what is happening
in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We know, right now, close to
31.5 million American citizens on these islands are on the brink of a
humanitarian catastrophe, including the 3.4 million people who live in
Puerto Rico and over 100,000 Americans on the U.S. Virgin Islands. The
American citizens living in Puerto Rico are part of a population that
is bigger than the States of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, and Alaska
combined, but they don't have eight Senators representing them in this
body--working for them, fighting for them.
When Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey, I know the constant work
Senator Menendez, I, and my predecessor Senator Frank Lautenberg put
into working on making sure our communities could recover. We don't
have direct Senators representing this incredible population of
Americans. They don't have folks here every single day who are pressing
for the interests of these Americans, for their safety, their security,
their lives. We have to--the 100 of us--step up to make sure that we
are focusing on the interests of our fellow Americans after what has
been one of the worst storms in recorded history.
The Americans in Puerto Rico pay taxes. They love this country. They
serve in the military. In fact, they serve in the military at a rate
almost twice as high as the general U.S. population. These are
patriots. They are our brothers and our sisters. These Americans
deserve action from this body and from the President of the United
States.
Puerto Rico's Governor has spoken directly to this crisis, noting
that just 40 percent of the residents of Puerto Rico have access to
drinking water--meaning that 2 million American citizens right now in
Puerto Rico do not have access to clean drinking water. This is a
serious crisis.
More than this, we know the vast majority of Puerto Rican residents
still don't have electricity. They are struggling to access food. They
do not have basic means of communications on the island, even to family
here. They can't access bank accounts. Their sanitation systems have
come to a complete standstill. Access to basic medications--often
urgently needed medication and healthcare--is under threat.
It is estimated that it is going to take months before power comes
back, and recovery and rebuilding will take years for the islands. The
next few weeks of recovery are critically important in the effort to
save lives.
I saw in Superstorm Sandy how it wasn't just the hurricane itself
that took lives; in fact, in my city, it was in the hours and days
after that people lost lives. We know that right now in Puerto Rico,
every minute, every hour, every day we wait to get critical aid--
necessary aid--our failure to act could mean the difference between
life and death or between grave suffering and relieving that suffering
for hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico, as well as the U.S.
Virgin Islands.
We cannot afford to wait any longer to better mobilize support and
resources and help our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico and the Virgin
Islands right now. I hope that over time we are able to develop larger
and more comprehensive aid packages, such as those being discussed for
survivors of the hurricanes in Florida and Texas. The urgency we have
in Puerto Rico right now, the urgency we have to provide vital
security, energy, food, and health needs--we must answer that urgency
with action.
Puerto Rico needs U.S. military, disaster, and humanitarian
assistance to maintain order and provide security, water, food, and
fuel. Puerto Rico needs additional first responders, and they need
generators, emergency vehicles, and fuel. Also, Puerto Rico needs to
see that its government--the U.S. Government--will respond the way we
have for other disasters.
There cannot be a double standard when it comes to Americans. We are
one country. We are one Nation. Whether it was Hurricane Sandy in New
Jersey and New York or Hurricanes Harvey and Irma that ravaged Texas
and Florida, when our Nation sees a natural disaster destroy the homes
of thousands, take lives, knock down power--when a challenge like that
comes to the United States of America, we must be there for our
citizens. Yet I have read so many heartbreaking stories. This shows the
lack of urgency, the lack of being present, the lack of being there
when we are needed.
The Washington Post reported that when journalists were looking to go
and provide coverage--somehow journalists are making it there to report
on the extent of the damage--they were in a remote area of Puerto Rico
when local residents saw them. Their first response was simply to ask:
Are you FEMA? Are you our government? Are you coming to address the
crisis?
Right now Americans are suffering. Right now Americans are facing
devastation and potentially death in these hours and these days.
I worry about this body now heading toward Thursday or Friday. How
can we in good conscience go back to our homes this weekend, knowing
that hundreds of thousands of American citizens in Puerto Rico and the
Virgin Islands may be homeless, may not have shelter, may not have
food, and may not have water? We cannot allow our fellow Americans to
fall deeper into this crisis.
Nosotros somos gente de esperanza; somos gente de fe. Pero nuestra
historia siempre ha sido una que conecta oraciones y palabras con
acciones. Necesitamos actuar ahora.
We are a people of hope; we are a people of faith. But our history
has always been one of matching prayers and words with actions. We must
act now.
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.
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.
Healthcare
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first of all, I rise with a sigh of
relief that the decision has been made not to go forward with a vote on
a very divisive healthcare bill.
More importantly today, I rise to say this is really an opportunity
for us to work together to get something done--something very
positive--as it relates to healthcare costs and healthcare coverage for
the people whom we all represent in our States and the people across
the country. I am hopeful we will see action soon, and I am hopeful it
will be this week when we can come together around very good work that
is being done in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
with our two great leaders--Senator Alexander and Senator Murray.
They have been holding a number of committee meetings and forums, and
I am very pleased to have participated in those. We have had great
bipartisan participation in focusing on how to stabilize the current
insurance marketplace. We know that has to be step one
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if we are going to bring down rates, bring down costs, and create a
path forward so more insurance companies are participating in the
current system. I have great confidence that we can come together and
get that done. It needs to get done immediately because decisions are
being made about rates this week, and I am hopeful we can take action
on that this week.
Mr. President, we have two other things that are very important--open
dates that are looming by the end of the week. One is for the
Children's Health Insurance Program, which covers 9 million American
children across the country. In Michigan, we call it MIChild. We have
children today who can go to the doctor and parents who can take their
children to the doctor because of the MIChild Program. The Federal
funding for that ends on September 30, this weekend, if we do not take
action.
This is another piece of good news because the distinguished chairman
of the Finance Committee, Senator Hatch; the distinguished ranking
member, Senator Wyden; others; and I have introduced a bipartisan bill
that will extend that program for an additional 5 years. It needs to
get done this week. It is a bipartisan effort, and I am hopeful that
can get done as well.
We have community health centers in our country--our federally
qualified community health centers--whose funding runs out, again, this
weekend. Funding health centers has strong bipartisan support. Senator
Roy Blunt and I, along with a total of 70 out of 100 Members of the
Senate, have joined in a letter to continue the funding for health
centers. That needs to get done right away. In addition to that, there
are what we call certain health extenders or policies that are
bipartisan that can be done together as well.
We see a picture of important efforts of stabilizing the insurance
markets to bring down costs, creating more opportunity for competition
in the marketplaces, continuing the Children's Health Insurance
Program, continuing the funding for health centers, which are so
critical in communities in every one of our States, where people are
getting the care they need at their local health centers.
Bringing those things together can be done. Now, it is a lot of work
to do that in a couple of days, but these are bipartisan efforts that
can be done together to show that in fact we can come together and get
things done. I know the people in Michigan want us to do that. They
want us to work together to get things done. They want us to focus on
lowering costs for healthcare and increasing coverage, and they are
anxious to see that we can come together to do that.
I am hopeful. It is only Tuesday, and I am hopeful, with the
remaining days of the week, given the bipartisanship that is there and
the agreements that have been made on legislation already, that we
could go into high gear in the next few days and come together and have
a positive story, a good news story to tell at the end of this week
about what we are able to do, working together, to be able to fix
problems in the healthcare system and to be able to continue very
important programs that provide healthcare for children and for
families in local communities around the country.
Thank you.
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. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Puerto Rico Recovery Effort
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I had the opportunity yesterday, along with
the Coast Guard and the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, Jenniffer
Gonzalez, to visit San Juan, Puerto Rico, to see firsthand some of the
devastation that has impacted this U.S. territory. I would summarize it
by saying that what I saw were more than 3.5 million American citizens
potentially on the verge of a serious and growing humanitarian crisis.
There are a lot of reasons for this. The first is that Puerto Rico
has been in the eye of not one but three storms. The first was
Hurricane Irma, which impacted it a few weeks ago, followed by the
devastation of Hurricane Maria, and preexisting these two things was a
very significant fiscal crisis that placed extraordinary constraints on
the ability of the territory's government both to prepare for the storm
and now to respond to it.
Our traditional model of hurricane response--one that, unfortunately,
because of numerous storms, I have come to know well as a resident of
Florida--is that FEMA basically arrives in support of the State. When
Florida gets hit by a storm and Texas gets hit by a storm, FEMA comes
in to the State and tells the State: We are here to help. Tell us where
to go, tell us what you need, and we will provide those resources to
the places you want. It works that way. The President issues an
emergency declaration, and it opens up FEMA and other disaster relief,
and then the State government directs that assistance and tells them:
This is what we need, this is where we need it, and this is what we can
handle on our own. This model will not work in Puerto Rico. It will not
work foremost because, as I stated earlier, the financial and fiscal
constraints have limited its capacity to build its own internal ability
to respond.
They had just finished repairing the damage from Irma a few weeks
ago. So, literally, there are not nearly enough basic things like those
wooden poles to hold up the electric lines or the transformers that are
attached to them or even the lines themselves, and, in many cases, the
fuel, power, and crews to get to the work sites.
It will not work because, in many cases, the government of Puerto
Rico still does not have a full assessment of the damage of the storm.
While communication in San Juan is severely limited, in most of the
other areas of the big island and smaller islands, communication is
nonexistent.
Something was brought to my attention firsthand yesterday when we
visited one of the Coast Guard centers and watched. Much of the
response they are conducting there is limited to a paper map on the
wall with some sticky note pads and four landlines on which they hope
people can call in and get updates on what they are seeing in the field
from a satellite phone. Hopefully, that has improved over the last 24
hours as more Coast Guard vessels have come in to support
communications. But we still have large parts of Puerto Rico that have
not communicated with the rest of the island, the government, or the
outside world, for that matter, going on to today.
There are also logistical challenges. In most of the 50 States--
certainly in my home State of Florida, we saw the largest power
restoration effort in the history of the world. At least that is what
they are claiming. Literally, we saw hundreds of those bucket trucks
from all over the United States--all 50 States and even Canada--coming
in with prearranged contracts and their crews to restore power. Even
with that dramatic level of response, there were people without power
until late this weekend, and there are still a couple thousand people
in Florida who have no power.
You can't drive a convoy of trucks into Puerto Rico. They have to
come in on a barge, and those barges take 7 days from Jacksonville and
5 days from Miami, plus whatever time it takes to travel and position
those crews to get there. You not only have to deliver the crews, you
have to deliver the supplies in order to be able to restore power.
What is the practical impact of not having power? Having no power is
not simply an inconvenience; for many people it is life and death.
Imagine an area outside of San Juan where someone is a diabetic and
depends on insulin that needs to be refrigerated. That medicine has
gone bad by now if they haven't run out. Imagine someone who needs
dialysis twice a week. It has been longer than that since they have had
it. Imagine if someone needs chemotherapy if they have cancer. That is
not going to happen this week or next unless things change.
These are real challenges, and I raise them only because this is a
disaster that will require an intensity of effort on behalf of the
Federal Government that you would not traditionally see in a storm that
impacts the mainland for the reasons I have outlined--and many more.
Now, the good news is, earlier today you saw the White House engage
even
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more in terms of some of the things they are doing. There are more
Department of Defense assets and, as a result of some restoration at
the airport, the ability to land more planes more quickly. So, again,
more things are coming in. The port opened fairly quickly, but the
challenges remain.
Even if today we could approve $10 billion in assistance and somehow
figured out a way to deliver it to Puerto Rico in the next 24 hours,
they would still be challenged to take it from the airport to the
seaport and deliver it to the places that need it the most because
there are roads that are still not clear, because we still don't have a
full assessment of where the damage is and where the need is most and,
quite frankly, because there are probably roads and bridges in parts of
Puerto Rico that will collapse if one of these big trucks drive over
them.
I say this because there is only one entity in the world with the
capacity to respond to all these various issues; that is, the Federal
Government of the United States. Leveraging the power of the Department
of Defense and an assortment of other agencies, it remains the only
institution certainly in our country--and probably in the world--with a
capacity to respond quickly and effectively to the crisis at hand.
While response to this storm will take a significant amount of
patience, it will also take a significant amount of urgency. For each
day that goes by, this crisis will get worse, not better. I fear that
if, in fact, there is not enough urgency in the response, we will be
talking about a very different set of stories in the days to come.
I hope I am wrong, with all of my heart, but I fear that when
communication lines come back up and when we start getting more access
to some of these areas that have been cut off, we are going to start
learning that the toll and the impact of the storm is far worse than we
had imagined. I pray with all my heart that someone will watch this
video on YouTube one day and say: Oh, look, he was exaggerating. It
wasn't that bad after all. I hope that is what happens, but I fear it
will not, and every day that goes by, it will only get worse.
I don't believe it is fair to say that the response up to this point
is because some people don't care or because they haven't paid enough
attention to it. I honestly think it is just a challenge that is unique
and that requires us to respond to it in ways we wouldn't traditionally
respond, for the factors I have just pointed out.
In most places on the mainland, if not all, the States have a certain
capacity internally to address this, but Puerto Rico, for the
challenges I have just outlined--and particularly because of the storm
that just passed--has already had many of those resources depleted.
There is positive news today. The USS Comfort, a ship that is a
hospital ship, is on its way, but again it will take it a number of
days to get there. The Federal Government has agreed to a 100-percent
Federal match. It usually means the Federal Government paid a portion
of it and the States pay the rest. The Federal Government, for the next
180 days, has agreed to 100 percent payment of these services, and that
will be critical because these restoration crews are going to want to
know how their costs are going to be paid if they show up and begin to
restore power.
I just think it is imperative that we don't lose focus and don't lose
sight of what is at hand because there are over 3 million American
citizens in danger. A number of them--perhaps in the thousands--already
have existing vulnerabilities and are in severe danger of losing their
life and extraordinary human suffering.
I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who, throughout the
day, have expressed a tremendous amount of interest in wanting to know
how they can be helpful and what they can do. I think the most
important thing we need to do now is to continue to drive the sense of
urgency, to do all we can to bring to bear all of the resources the
Federal Government can bring to assist in this recovery. Then we will
be able to work together on not just rebuilding Puerto Rico but helping
her to rebuild so she is stronger, more prosperous, and more stable
than ever.
With that, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I am not sure exactly what those words
mean, but I know it allows me to speak so I am glad to have done it.
I thank you for your leadership on the natural disasters we are
having, particularly in Puerto Rico. There are 3.4 million American
citizens who are living in conditions that nobody in this country
should have to tolerate. They are without fuel, they are without food,
they are without water, they are without energy, and they are without
electricity. Some reports have said it is going to be months before
that electricity is repaired. We have to do everything we can in this
body to make sure these American citizens are supported and that they
can rebuild, and I know the Presiding Officer feels the same way. We
have to work together to do this.
Healthcare
Mr. President, that is not the reason I am coming to the floor today.
I wanted to say a word about healthcare now that the decision has been
made, apparently, to not even have a vote on this latest version of the
repeal and replace bill. This was going to be, I think, the fourth time
we had a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The House of
Representatives, over the last 7 years, has voted to repeal the
Affordable Care Act somewhere on the order of 67 times or almost 70
times. They have gone back to their constituents year after year after
year saying they voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act; that it was a
Socialist takeover of the United States of America that they were
trying to correct. They distorted what the Affordable Care Act actually
was. I am not going to litigate that today.
It is clear, from my perspective in Colorado, whether people support
the Affordable Care Act or whether they don't, it often turns on--not
always--what party they are in or whether they supported President
Obama or whether they didn't. I say not always because I get a lot of
email and have people in my townhalls who aren't Democrats but who have
preexisting conditions or whose children have preexisting conditions
who have health insurance for the first time as a result of the
Affordable Care Act.
Having said all that, whether they support the Affordable Care Act or
whether they don't, in my State--and I bet it is true all over the
United States of America--people are deeply dissatisfied with the way
they interact and their families interact and their small businesses
interact with the American healthcare system. They should be because it
doesn't work very well. I am not talking about the Affordable Care Act.
I am talking about the Affordable Care Act, plus our healthcare system.
They are not the same thing, and we should be addressing that.
We should be addressing the costs in our system. We should be
addressing the lack of transparency in our system. We should be making
sure people in the richest country in the world have access to health
insurance, but they also have to have access to quality care. In too
many rural areas in Colorado--and it is true all over America--there
are not enough primary care doctors, not enough primary care nurses. We
are not delivering healthcare in those places very efficiently, and we
are not delivering it well enough, especially when we know a lot of our
veterans live in those communities, and we know increasingly there is a
profound opioid addiction that needs to be dealt with.
After 7 years of saying repeal, repeal, repeal and then some years of
saying repeal and replace, we have now wasted 7 months of the American
people's time on an entirely partisan effort to try to pass two bills
that could not have been more unresponsive to the critics of ObamaCare
in Colorado, to say nothing of the supporters. So it is not a surprise
to me that the last attempt failed, and it is not a surprise to me that
people weren't even going to vote on this bill because it is such a
terrible bill that they didn't want to vote on it. So they have
withdrawn it, which is
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good for the American people, except the people in Colorado are still
facing challenges in healthcare, including challenges from the
Affordable Care Act. There, I said it. I voted for it.
There are things we should fix, and one of those things is a problem
that is common--I heard both Members of the Republican Party on the
Finance Committee and Democrats on the Finance Committee yesterday at
the hearing talk about it--which is the problem that people have in the
individual market affording insurance. They say to me, as somebody who
voted for the Affordable Care Act: Hey, Michael. You have required us
to buy something--insurance because of the individual mandate--that in
my area is too expensive because there is not enough competition of
insurers, and the deductible is so high it is of no use to me and my
family. Why would you make me buy something like that?
I think that is a completely legitimate criticism of the bill. It is
important to recognize that when we are talking about this group of
people who are very important, it is 7 percent of the population that
is covered in America--7 percent. Ninety three percent of the people
are getting their insurance someplace else--from their employer, from
Medicare, from Medicaid. This is 7 percent we are talking about.
By the way, the issue around that 7 percent--not the people--the
issue around that 7 percent, that is what has consumed our politics for
the last 7 years. It is not how to make it less expensive for 100
percent of the American people, not how to make it more transparent for
100 percent of the American people, more predictable for 100 percent of
the American people but what are we going to do to cover 7 percent. Of
those, the folks who aren't getting subsidies, are about 1 percent of
people who are insured in America. I say that not to diminish those
people at all because they are struggling--and I meet them all the time
in my State--I say it to show just how small that set of issues is and
how easily they could be resolved by the U.S. Congress if we could work
together instead of having this pitched battle about healthcare,
instead of calling each other names and Bolshevik takeover and all the
rest.
Fortunately, there is a solution that is being worked on not in the
Finance Committee but in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee. The two leaders of that committee--Lamar Alexander, who is
the Republican chair, and Patty Murray, who is the Democratic ranking
member, are among two of the finest legislators in this body. Time
after time after time, even when Washington has not worked, they have
managed to lead that committee to what Lamar Alexander refers to as a
result. It has come to the floor after going through a process in our
committee, an amendment process. It has come to the floor for an
amendment process, whether we were reforming the FDA or rewriting the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which used to be known as No
Child Left Behind. That bill actually got a unanimous vote in our
committee--a committee that has on it Bernie Sanders from Vermont and
Rand Paul from Kentucky. That is quite an achievement.
So I have absolute confidence in their ability to deal with this set
of issues related to this 7 percent of our population. And I hope that
bipartisan process will then become a model or a foundation for the
work we need to do on healthcare going forward. We have to turn the
page on the last 7 years or 8 years of these repeal votes.
From my perspective, having failed to repeal, the answer can't be to
say: We will not help you fix the Affordable Care Act because if we
participate in the process to fix the Affordable Care Act, it somehow
legitimizes the Affordable Care Act.
You should not hold the position that if you fail to repeal, you
can't fix it. If you are going to repeal it, repeal it. And I think we
know where that has gone. If you are not going to repeal it, you better
be part of fixing it, or you are going to own the problem.
There are a lot of people on this side who want to address that
issue, and I believe there are a lot of Republicans who want to address
that issue. We are now out of excuses for why we can't do it because
Graham-Cassidy has been pulled, as it should have been because that
bill, far from stabilizing our insurance system, would have actually
made it worse, would have injected even more volatility.
Sometimes people say: Well, don't you think there is already
volatility in the system? My answer to that is yes, I do. That is why
we have to fix it. The last thing we need to do is make it more
volatile. The last thing we need to do is make matters worse. We should
stabilize it, based on the bipartisan testimony we have had in the HELP
Committee.
The other thing it does--and the Senator from Minnesota is here, so I
am going to stop--the other thing it does is it throws millions of
people off of insurance. This is not a healthcare bill. It is not a
healthcare bill; it is ``we are going to take your healthcare away''
bill. It couldn't be sustained in front of the American people. They
wouldn't even vote on it because they knew how bad it was. We had no
hearings before yesterday's Finance Committee. It is like watching
``Veep.'' It is not the way the government ought to work. So they have
an excuse for a hearing. They decide to have the hearing. The
Congressional Budget Office report, which we should have had months to
look at, if not weeks, comes out in the middle of the hearing and tells
us that millions of people are going to lose their health insurance as
a result of this bill--flying completely in the face of President
Trump's promises.
Let's get this short-term thing done, let's stabilize the individual
market, which we need to do, and then let's address healthcare in a
bipartisan way, and I will accept President Trump's goals for what it
should look like. Let's make sure everybody is covered at a lower
price, with higher quality. That is what he promised on the campaign
trail, and we have the opportunity to deliver that if we are willing to
work in a bipartisan way.
I know that is what people in Colorado want out of this place. They
are so tired of the Affordable Care Act being litigated in this way,
and it is clear that the repeal effort has failed. But that is not
enough. We have to continue to fix the system. And I wish Lamar
Alexander and Patty Murray all the best as we try to do this in the
HELP Committee, and then I hope Democrats and Republicans will support
that effort on this floor, and we can actually do something useful,
after all of these years, for the American people and their families
and their small businesses.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I first rise today to thank my
colleague for his comments. I am very pleased that this process may now
move forward--the one that was stymied because of a bill that, as my
friend from Colorado just pointed out, would kick millions of people
off of healthcare, jack up their premiums, and really was an effort to
pass the buck to the States without the bucks. I think that is one of
the reasons we saw our Republican Governors in Nevada and in Ohio
opposing this effort. I thank him for his leadership on the relevant
committees and his passion for this issue.
I would agree with him that people in my State, the State of
Minnesota, just like the State of Colorado--we have a lot of
independent sorts in both our States, and they want to see us get
things done. We now have the opportunity to do that.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, might I interrupt?
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Is there a question?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. I want to observe--I don't know how to phrase this
question, but the Senator from Minnesota made such an excellent point
about dropping this on the States. I hadn't made that point. That was
one of the things that came up over and over again in the Finance
Committee hearing, was that in the name of federalism, we were
basically imposing on all of the States the obligation to decide that
they had to reinvent their healthcare system over the next 2 years
whether that was something they wanted to do or not. I am glad the
Senator raised that. I also want to thank her for her leadership.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Thank you.
As we wait for those bipartisan negotiations--and we hope we will get
something soon, because I have seen reinsurance be a positive force in
my State for bringing some of the rates down in the exchange. The
average for the preliminary rates was 20 percent when our Republican
legislature joined with our Democratic Governor to get this passed--20
percent reduction. We would like to see that rolled out on a national
basis.
(The remarks of Ms. Klobuchar pertaining to the submission of S. Res.
268 are printed in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Climate Disruption
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, climate disruption is the seminal
challenge of our generation. It affects everything from our farms to
our forests, to our fisheries. We see the impact from disappearing ice
sheets and melting permafrost and glaciers. We see it in the coral
reefs. We see it in the moving insect populations. We see it in the
more powerful storms.
In response, communities across our globe are transforming their
energy economies. They are working on energy efficiency, certainly--
more efficient appliances and a little more mileage in their cars. Yet
many are also working to transform their energy economies from a fossil
fuel energy economy to a renewable energy economy.
How much do you know about the changes that are underway? Let's find
out.
Welcome to episode 5 of the Senate Climate Disruption Quiz. Here we
go. Here is the first question.
This August, an electric 500 horsepower Tesla Model X SUV raced a 740
horsepower Lamborghini Aventador SV in a quarter-mile drag race. Who
won? Was it the 500 horsepower electric Tesla or the 740 horsepower
Lamborghini? Was the race called off or did they tie?
Take a moment. Feel free to lock in your answer.
The answer is, the Tesla won the race. The Tesla won the race,
despite the fact that it had far less horsepower. In fact, it set a
record for an SV in a quarter mile. It beat the Lamborghini by about
500ths of a second.
It just goes to help demonstrate the incredible torque and
acceleration that comes with electric power, and if you have ever tried
driving a Tesla and had it accelerate so fast that it pinned you
against the back of the seat, you would know what I am talking about.
OK. Let's turn to question No. 2. Taking a page from the white roof
movement, which city in America has begun painting its streets white in
order to lower temperatures? Is it the city of Phoenix, AZ? Is it
Austin, TX? Is it Kansas City, MO, or perhaps Los Angeles, CA?
The answer is, among those cities, Los Angeles, CA. You may have seen
this in the news. After a heat wave and recordbreaking temperatures,
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced plans to cut the average temperature in
L.A. by 3 degrees Fahrenheit over the next two decades.
One of the keys to doing this is to coat the city's roads in
something called CoolSeal, which is a light-colored paint. Originally,
it was a paint that was developed by engineers for military air bases
so as to keep spy planes cool while they were resting on the tarmac.
CoolSeal keeps streets and parking lots 10 degrees cooler than does
black asphalt.
This is an interesting innovation, and I am sure the work L.A. does
will help create information for other cities because cities are heat
islands. Because of the asphalt, they are often much hotter than the
surrounding countryside.
OK. Question No. 3. In which State do 31 communities face an imminent
threat of destruction from climate disruption? Is it 31 communities in
Utah or in Michigan or in Alaska or in New Hampshire?
The correct answer is Alaska. Alaska is experiencing a tremendous
increase in the vulnerability of towns, which is the result of melting
ice sheets; therefore, the storms closer approach. There are higher
seas and more violent storms so we are seeing a real assault on those
ocean communities. For one community of 600 people, it is estimated it
would cost about $180 million to relocate all of the residents.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is moving to dismantle climate
adaption programs, like the Denali Commission, which have provided
Federal assistance to safeguard or relocate communities that are at
risk from rising sea levels, storms, and disappearing sea ice.
This takes us to question No. 4. Of the following statements, which
statement is not true; that is, which of these four statements is
false? Is it that July 2017 was the second hottest month on record? Is
the false statement that only one country is not signed on to the Paris
climate agreement? Is it statement C, that climate disruption played no
part in the devastation of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma? Is it statement
D, that the United States is now producing 43 times as much solar
energy as it did in 2007?
Three statements are true, and one is false. The false statement is
statement C. It is, in fact, July 2017 that was the second hottest
month on record. In fact, we had a recent period during which each
month was the hottest month on record in the calendar year. That
extended for about 16 months in a row not so long ago.
Then, indeed, only one country is not signed on to the Paris climate
agreement. That country is Syria, which is in the grip of a ferocious
civil war. Nicaragua had not signed on, but it has signed on now.
The United States has withdrawn or expressed its intention to withdraw,
but it will not actually go off the Paris accord until the year 2020.
So there is just one country, and that is also true.
It is true that solar power has increased 43 times in a 7-year
period. We certainly know climate disruption does not cause hurricanes,
but we also know the hotter temperature of the ocean causes the
hurricanes we have to be much more powerful and much more destructive.
In the days leading up to Harvey, the sea surface temperatures in
Texas were 3 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit above average. We saw this same
phenomenon when Hurricane Sandy struck the Atlantic coast, where
temperatures were 5 degrees or more above average.
Let's turn to question No. 5. Some scientists say we need to invent a
device to pull carbon out of the air. Which of the following would
accomplish that task? Would it be permafrost, wind turbines, glaciers,
or trees? We do not think of any of these as an invention by humankind,
but one of these processes that exists currently in nature does have a
big impact in pulling carbon out of the air.
The answer is D, trees. Of course, that is a process we see during
which, every year, the carbon dioxide level in the air surges when the
leaves come off the trees and then decreases in the spring when the
leaves are on the trees because they start pulling more carbon dioxide
out of the air. So we need a lot more force in order to reduce carbon
pollution.
The challenge is, worldwide, we are not adding to our forests. We
are, in fact, losing our forests. In 2015, we lost about 47 percent
more forested land than we did in 2001. The rate of deforestation is
actually increasing so we need to be doing the reverse. We need to be
ending deforestation and adding forests. Unfortunately, that is not the
case.
In 2015, we lost about 49 million acres of forest around the world.
We lost it because of wildfires, because of logging, and because of
expanding agriculture. That is about the size of Nebraska. Picture it.
In a single year, we lost forests that were the size of Nebraska. That
is bad news in the fight against climate disruption because
deforestation accounts for more than 10 percent of global carbon
dioxide emissions, not to mention that forests play an incredibly
important role in supporting diversified ecological systems around the
globe.
So there we have it--this week's episode 5 of the Senate Climate
Disruption Quiz. These are questions ripped right from the headlines.
The facts on the ground are changing rapidly as the pace of climate
disruption increases. This is the single biggest test facing humankind.
It is a test that calls on every one of us to respond.
It is simply a fact that the devastation we have witnessed recently
in
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Houston, TX, is far more dramatic because of climate disruption and
carbon pollution. It is simply a fact that the devastation we just
witnessed in Florida is far worse than the disruption and the
devastation that would have occurred otherwise. That is why we all need
to keep working to tackle this challenge. The United States should be
in the lead in taking on the seminal challenge of humankind in our
generation.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
____________________