[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 192 (Wednesday, December 5, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7304-S7313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair 
lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will 
state.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Bernard L. McNamee, of Virginia, to be a Member of the 
     Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the remainder of the 
     term expiring June 30, 2020.
         Mitch McConnell, Johnny Isakson, Mike Rounds, Thom 
           Tillis, Mike Crapo, Pat Roberts, John Hoeven, David 
           Perdue, Tim Scott, John Cornyn, Roy Blunt, Cory 
           Gardner, Tom Cotton, Jerry Moran, John Barrasso, Roger 
           F. Wicker, John Boozman.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Bernard L. McNamee, of Virginia, to be a Member of the 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the remainder of the term 
expiring June 30, 2020, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 50, nays 49, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 253 Ex.]

                                YEAS--50

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kyl
     Lankford
     Lee
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--49

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Jones
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Reed
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Tillis
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 50 and the nays are 
49.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.


                      Tribute to Major Aaron House

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am here to talk for a few minutes about 
Major House and the work he has done in our office. We have benefited 
for the last several years from a military detailee being on the 
Intelligence Committee and on the Defense Appropriations Committee and 
having significant military installations in our State, as many of us 
do, but we certainly have those in Missouri. It has been valuable 
having MAJ Aaron House with them.
  Major House has been a great resource on a number of important 
national security issues in our office. The knowledge and experience he 
has gained as a U.S. Army Reserve officer have helped inform our 
discussions on defense issues critical to Missouri and critical to the 
country.
  Aaron was born in Plattsburgh, NY, on the shores of Lake Champlain. 
He joined the Army in 2001. He first served as an enlisted soldier for 
3 years and then as a commissioned officer after that. He has served in 
both the Engineer Corps and the Finance Corps. He deployed to Iraq, 
where he conducted rapid crater repair, route clearance, and 
construction operations. His most recent assignment before joining our 
office was with the joint staff working as an analyst for the Office of 
the Comptroller in Defense.
  He is extremely well educated and holds a bachelor of science in 
manufacturing management from Clarkson University in New York, a master 
of science in human relations and business from Amberton University in 
Texas, and he has both a master of business administration and a master 
of public administration from Syracuse University in New York.

[[Page S7305]]

  He comes with all of that background. Combining that with his 
background in finance, he has been critically important to us as we 
move through a number of important projects this year. He has been able 
to devote a lot of time to gathering and analyzing data on historical 
military construction projects as we move forward on those projects.
  He has provided knowledgeable recommendations on a host of foreign 
policy issues as well. He was very involved in the last year in 
Colombia, where Senator Cardin and I cochaired an effort with the 
Atlantic Council to look at moving Peace Colombia to Plan Colombia and 
then looking at that again now that the Colombian Government has 
changed. We have looked at some things that involved Australia and 
China and Russia, just to name a few of the areas where Major House has 
been helpful in our office.
  On veterans issues, he has been helpful as we try to connect veterans 
with the resources they need and the benefits they have every right to 
have, but they sometimes have a hard time accessing those benefits.
  Having him in the office has been an asset. It has been a pleasure 
for me and our entire staff. I certainly wish him all the best in the 
next chapter of his military career.
  He and his wife Mindy have three daughters. They have a newborn son. 
So even in that year he was with us, they added a fourth child at their 
house. His family and friends who support him and the sacrifices he and 
his family--his immediate family--make to serve are deeply appreciated 
by us. He has been a real benefit to the country. He has been a 
particular benefit to the Missourians whom I get to work for. I am 
grateful to have had him this year and will again say that this is a 
program that really is beneficial to the Senate.
  I hear from our past detailees over the years that it was an 
incredible opportunity for them to understand how the Congress works 
from the perspective of each of our offices and makes a valuable 
addition to what they take to their next assignment and every future 
assignment.
  I think the Chief of Staff for the President spent some substantial 
time in this building representing the Army and said he was the most 
knowledgeable guy in the Army when it came to talking about issues that 
he learned right here and how to work with and provide information and 
advice to Congress.
  We are glad Major House has been with us, appreciative of the 
program, look forward to welcoming our next detailee soon, and wish 
Major House and his family great success as they move forward.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.


                    Nomination of Bernard L. McNamee

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here today to express my 
extremely grave concerns about the person we have just begun to move to 
a vote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He would be 
Commissioner McNamee if we were to confirm him. This is in an 
administration that has distinguished itself with terrible energy 
appointments--conceivably the worst. It is too important to our country 
to have an independent and reality-based Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission to allow an industry plant like Mr. McNamee--who will never 
be independent, who will always have his thumb on the scale for the 
vested interests--get onto the Federal Regulatory Commission.
  In addition to the bad decisions he will make because he will be 
trying to throw decisions for the fossil fuel industry, he will also 
create an enormous amount of litigation because people who come before 
a Federal administrative agency are entitled to an honest look at their 
claims, and if the regulatory agency is incapable of giving them that 
honest look, that is grounds for appeal.
  McNamee is a walking failure of any honest look at any question in 
which the fossil fuel industry--and specifically the coal industry--has 
an interest. Sadly, his position isn't just a question of a personal 
failing; he comes out of a system, and I am going to take some time to 
describe the system he comes out of.
  No one less than our late friend Senator John McCain was once asked 
in an interview: Why has it taken so long for Congress to address 
climate change? Katie Couric was the interviewer. She asked:

       Why has it taken so long, Senator?

  Here was John McCain's answer:

       Special interests. It is the special interests. It is the 
     utility companies and the petroleum companies and other 
     special interests. They are the ones that have blocked 
     progress in the Congress of the United States and the 
     administration. That is a little straight talk.

  The way these industries work is kind of interesting. They figured 
out pretty early on that if they are a big power company or a big coal 
company or any big fossil fuel polluter and they come forward into a 
debate and make their argument as ExxonMobil, as Koch Industries, as 
Murray coal, people will immediately discount what they are saying 
because people will understand that the companies have a massive 
conflict of interest, that they have the massive conflict of interest 
of wishing to continue to pollute for free. So they have set up this 
whole array of front groups to disguise that it is truly the fossil 
fuel industry whose hands are pulling our strings.
  We came to the floor some time ago--a considerable number of the 
Democratic Senators--to point out this coordinated, phony, false-front, 
fossil-fuel-funded operation, and we made the phony front group so mad 
that they actually sent a letter disputing that they were a coordinated 
group of phony fronts by putting all their phony names together on a 
single letterhead, arguing that they weren't coordinated together in a 
letter in which they most obviously were coordinated together. That is 
how upset they were when the mischief they are up to was pointed out.
  This was groups like Americans for Tax Reform; ALEC; Cascade Policy 
Institute; CFACT; Competitive Enterprise Institute; I love this name--
the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, which has 
nothing to do with Ben Franklin and even less to do with public 
integrity; Georgia Public Policy Foundation; Heritage Foundation; the 
notorious Heartland Institute, which distinguished itself by putting up 
billboards equating climate scientists to the Unabomber--classy group, 
that Heartland; the so-called James Madison Institute, which has 
nothing to do with James Madison. These groups love to steal the names 
of historic figures to try to give themselves a little bit of initial 
credence. There is also a John Locke Foundation--historians will know 
how important John Locke was to the founding of this country; the 
MacIver Institute; Kansas Policy Institute; Montana Policy Institute; 
NPRI; PRI; Pelican Institute; Rio Grande Foundation; Virginia 
Institute; and, of course, a Yankee Institute for Public Policy.
  This whole piece of public relations and propaganda machinery is an 
ongoing disgrace, and there are some folks who have been looking at it 
pretty hard recently and saying some pretty rough stuff about it.
  I would like to start with two recent articles by Paul Krugman. He is 
no fool. He won a Noble Prize for economics. He begins by noting what 
everybody who studies this already knows:

       Climate change poses a major threat to the nation, and some 
     of its adverse effects are already being felt.

  He goes on to say:

       There are almost no good-faith climate change deniers.

  I think he is accurate about that. I think there are almost no good-
faith climate change deniers because, to use his phrase, ``denying 
science for profit'' has become such a constant activity, as shown by 
this whole array of phony, fossil-fuel-funded organizations.
  He goes on to describe some of the history. ``Climate denial''--I am 
quoting here--``actually follows in the footsteps of . . . the long 
campaign by tobacco companies to confuse the public about the dangers 
of smoking.''
  I have given several speeches about this on the Senate floor. The 
apparatus that the tobacco companies used to confuse the public about 
the dangers of tobacco morphed into a bigger, more cleverly hidden, and 
better funded apparatus but basically started with the same route that 
the fossil fuel industry took to confuse the public about the dangers 
of its product in the same way that the tobacco industry tried to 
confuse the public about the dangers of its

[[Page S7306]]

product. The tobacco scheme was so fraudulent that they were actually 
found liable for fraud in Federal court--not just at the trial court 
level but upheld at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
  He goes on to say:

       Every one of the handful of well-known scientists who have 
     expressed climate skepticism has received large sums of money 
     from these companies or from dark money conduits like Donors 
     Trust.

  And, of course, it also flows through those phony front groups whom I 
described who wrote back to us to deny that they were coordinated phony 
front groups.
  ``Climate denial is rooted in greed,'' Paul Krugman continues, 
because it is paid for by the fossil fuel industry.
  Then he comes back the very next week with a second article, still on 
the same theme, bewailing the fact that the Republican Party has 
``committed itself to denying the facts on climate change; that it is 
now ``completely dominated by climate deniers'' and ``hostile to 
science in general.''
  He describes the importance of climate denial and the weaponized fake 
news and the relentless propaganda as being--to use his words, 
``Climate denial, you might say, was the crucible in which the 
essential elements of Trumpism were formed.'' Denying facts, repeating 
lies incessantly, manipulating the public debate, delivering weaponized 
fake news through unreliable sites, and poisoning the public debate 
with nonsense is how I would generally describe what he was describing.
  He says:

       Conspiracy theorizing has long been standard practice among 
     climate deniers.
       And these are the organizations that propagate those 
     conspiracy theories.

  He goes on:

       Most prominent climate deniers are basically paid to take 
     that position, receiving large amounts of money from fossil-
     fuel companies.

  He says:

       If we fail to meet the challenge of climate change, with 
     catastrophic results. . . . it will be a disaster brought on 
     by corruption, willful ignorance, conspiracy theorizing and 
     intimidation.

  And this question of corruption isn't just coming from the left. 
There is a free market think tank called Niskanen Center, and Will 
Wilkinson from that institute just wrote a piece about what he called 
the ``spiraling crisis of American corruption,'' which includes the 
``failure to require financial transparency of those who would . . . 
fix our fates.'' All of these groups hide who their donors are. There 
is no financial transparency because they are fronts for the fossil 
fuel industry, and if they reported all the money they got from them, 
their purpose as front groups evaporates. Creating, Will Wilkinson 
continues, ``a class of rich and powerful miscreants who profit by 
gnawing away at the rule of law.''
  God forbid we should have real hearings on climate change, that there 
should be legislative rule of law. God forbid that we should get honest 
decisions out of EPA based on the science under rule of law. No. None 
of that. All of that goes under the wind so that rich and powerful 
miscreants of the fossil fuel industry can get their way.
  Their pooled wealth, Wilkinson continues, can be deployed to keep 
them in the money, and that is what is going on, creating--and I think 
this is a really pointed phrase--in our country ``a doom loop of 
corruption, distrust and institutional degeneration.''
  What our friend Senator McCain said was the mischief of the special 
interests in stopping climate action--this is how it is done--through 
secret money, dark money, front groups, phony propaganda, all backed up 
with fossil fuel industry political muscle.
  It is sickening, and this guy McNamee comes smack out of one of these 
groups--the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
  The Texas Public Policy Foundation has received more than $3\1/2\ 
million from Koch-related foundations--this is Koch Industries, not 
Coke the drink; I don't want to disparage the wrong Coke--Koch 
Industries and Koch brothers-related foundations between 1998 and 
2017--$3\1/2\ million. It also received about $1.5 million from Donors 
Trust. Donors Trust is an entity that has no business purpose. It is 
set up to identity-launder donations. So if you don't want somebody to 
know that ExxonMobil is funding you, ExxonMobil gives the money to 
Donors Trust, and Donors Trust gives the money to exactly who 
ExxonMobil told them to because it is donor directed, and now you can 
report: Guess what. I got my money from Donors Trust, not ExxonMobil. 
No business purpose. It simply sells transparency out, brings obscurity 
in, and is a dark money conduit for big special interests. It really is 
a disgrace. This guy comes out of this world. By the way, there was 
$100,000 from ExxonMobil also, because they don't hide all their money, 
which goes into the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

  The last contribution from the Texas Public Policy Foundation to the 
Trump's nominee pool was a woman named Kathleen Hartnett White, who did 
such a horrendous job in the Environment and Public Works Committee, 
showed such ignorance of environmental matters, and had no clue that 
carbon dioxide actually reacts chemically with water and is acidifying 
the oceans--that is science you can do in a high school lab. It is 
incredibly simple. I have done it here on the Senate floor with one of 
those bubbler stones for an aquarium and my own breath and our glass of 
water. To not know that carbon dioxide acidifies the ocean is 
appallingly ignorant. She also didn't know how much climate change and 
the warming atmosphere was warming the oceans. Well, it is more than 90 
percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases that have gone 
into the oceans.
  The oceans are warming at such a rate that if you took the explosive 
power of a nuclear weapon--the Hiroshima nuclear bomb--and converted 
100 percent of that energy into heat, you would have to be setting off 
multiple bombs per second in our oceans to match how fast climate 
change is warming our oceans. You can measure that with thermometers. 
This is not complicated. It was too much for her. She couldn't figure 
it out.
  When oceans warm, they rise, because oceans expand. Warm water 
expands as it warms. This is basic physics--no clue. This you can 
measure essentially with yardsticks. You can measure it at the tide 
gauges that NOAA and the Navy have run in some cases for a century. 
This is the world he comes out of. This is the infiltration of the 
fossil fuel front groups and Koch Industries into what used to be 
legitimate institutions of government.
  What really kills me is that McNamee, at one point talking about 
climate science, said:

       There's an organized propaganda campaign. . . . The problem 
     is, it's taken hold . . . and there is a lot of money behind 
     this.

  Well, he is describing something very accurately, but it is not the 
scientists all across this country, in every one of our home State 
universities, working on studying and teaching climate science. This is 
called projection. It is the rhetorical device where you take the sin 
that you are most obviously guilty of and immediately accuse your 
adversary of it, so that when you are caught, it looks like it is a tie 
of mutual criticisms. As Paul Krugman said in one of his pieces, 
``Projection much?'' Indeed.
  I will close by talking about this guy's effort to prop up coal 
through these completely bogus power protection plans that have come 
out of the Department of Energy on his watch and that he has defended 
here. Even the Trump appointees to FERC threw these dumb things out. 
They were so bad, totally violating the Federal Power Act. But he was 
for them.
  He has said that if you don't preserve coal, you risk resilience and 
security on the grid. That is a question that FERC is going to be 
looking at. He ought to recuse himself on this. He has refused to 
recuse himself on this, but I will tell you there are people who say 
that it is actually working the other way.
  Here is an article: ``Powering into the Future: Renewable Energy & 
Grid Reliability.''

       In addition, renewable energy can strengthen the grid. . . 
     . contributing to capacity and resource adequacy, maintaining 
     local voltage and frequency performance, minimizing grid 
     disturbances, providing grid balancing services, and creating 
     a more flexible and diverse generation fleet.

  Do you think they are going to get a fair chance in front of this guy 
when they come to FERC?
  Here is another headline: ``Renewable microgrids can enhance grid 
resilience.''

[[Page S7307]]

  Here is another one: Against ``physical risk and cyber-attacks . . . 
the electric grid have made renewable energy sources more attractive.'' 
They are more attractive when you measure for protecting against 
physical risk and cyber attacks. They ``can add a layer of protection 
from physical damage to the grid.'' It is not coal.
  Here is a report out of Texas suggesting that the State's power 
production can be made more reliable by the addition of solar and wind 
renewables.
  Here is an article, headlined: ``Solar energy is better than coal for 
national security infrastructure--says Department of Energy.'' I would 
love to know how McNamee let this get by him. This is his Department of 
Energy telling the truth because nobody seems to notice.
  ``Deloitte: The case for renewables has never been stronger''--in 
part because ``wind and solar power are now viewed as a solution to 
grid balancing,'' says Deloitte, ``while placing downward pressure on 
electricity prices.'' Solar and wind are ``placing downward pressure'' 
on solar and wind prices, and they ``have also demonstrated an ability 
to strengthen grid resilience and reliability and provide essential 
grid services.''
  So give me a break about this ``coal needs to defend the grid'' 
nonsense. That was cooked up probably by these phony-baloney front 
groups as an excuse to continue to sell their polluting product.
  The Deloitte report itself, in the executive summary says: 
``[U]tilities are beginning to demonstrate how distributed, renewable 
generation in a microgrid setting can be a cost-effective alternative 
to traditional [transmission and distribution]'' alternatives and 
protect the grid that way and ``that [independently owned utilities] 
are exploring opportunities to enhance resilience through strategic 
renewable integration.''
  Integrating renewables strategically improves grid resilience. Here 
is the clincher: ``Various [independently owned utilities]'' will need 
``regulatory license to innovate.'' ``Whether those reforms will drive 
innovation fast enough to keep consumers' lights on during future 
catastrophic weather events'' is yet to be determined.
  So here they are saying that getting renewables will help to keep 
people's lights on, but how are they ever going to get a fair hearing 
from this guy who pretends, based on phony-baloney front group 
information, that it takes coal grants to keep the grid secure when all 
these reports show that just plain isn't true? It is nonsense.
  The worst of all and the closer for him was that he was on the 2009 
transition team for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli when he was elected 
attorney general of Virginia.
  I am really honored that our departing Senator from Florida happens 
to be here on the floor today, because he and I are both graduates of 
the University of Virginia. There was a scientist at the University of 
Virginia named Michael Mann. He was a climate scientist. He is the guy 
who did what became known as the hockey stick graph, which showed 
carbon emissions and then boom, up it goes--like the blade of a hockey 
stick--at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
  So how did the fossil fuel industry react to that? Did they engage 
him in scientific debate? No, they tried to get him fired. They sent 
their front groups out to attack his emails to try to get into his 
emails so they could mock him and set their trolls to work on him. Our 
university, the University of Virginia, had to fight Attorney General 
Cuccinelli and take him all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court where 
his bogus effort to harass and intimidate a climate scientist was 
finally, once and for all, thrown out by the Supreme Court of the State 
of Virginia. It was one of the lowest points in rule of law in the 
history of this country when an attorney general is using his powers of 
office to flack for an industry that supported him to try to damage the 
reputation and career of a climate scientist because the science was 
not showing what the industry wanted.
  Their solution was to go after the scientist and try to ruin his 
reputation. It was a disgrace, and this guy was on his transition team. 
Give me a break. If we can't do better than this, we should all be 
ashamed of ourselves.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). Would the Senator yield for a 
question?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Of course.
  Mr. NELSON. I say to my friend, the Senator from Rhode Island, would 
it be fair to sum up the Senator's statement of what is happening to 
the planet by saying that the additional heat is prohibited from 
radiating out into space and is trapped by the greenhouse gases, 90 
percent of which is absorbed by the oceans, and as the ocean water 
heats up, the volume rises, and thus, sea levels rise, and there is an 
increased heating up of the entire Earth's temperature; is that a true 
statement?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. That is a very true statement, and I would add that 
there are very few transcendent moments that take place here in the 
temple of mammon, where big special interests throw their weight 
around, but one of them that I have been privileged to be here for was 
the Senator from Florida, Mr. Nelson, talking about his time in space 
in a NASA spaceship and looking down on this Earth, not seeing red 
States or blue States, not seeing sectarian differences or differences 
among countries, not seeing national boundaries, but seeing us as the 
small globe spinning through the void that we are. It is a moment I 
will never forget.
  When you look at that and think of that message that he brought and 
think that we are busily doing everything we can to ruin the balance of 
the systems upon which we depend because we will not say no to the 
biggest and most muscling and remorseless industry that probably has 
ever stalked the halls of this building, it is such a national tragedy 
that this would happen in the United States of America.
  The whole world will suffer for our failing. The finger will end up 
pointing at us because the story will come out--and it is coming out 
already--about fossil fuel money and influence and their threats and 
hidden money and the front groups and the whole piece of stinking 
machinery in which they operate.
  So the contrast between the Senator's transcendent view of the globe 
from space and the foul politics of this industry that we experience 
here every day is one of the great discrepancies that is hard for me to 
take into my heart.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a further 
question?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Yes.
  Mr. NELSON. I say to the Senator from Rhode Island, since it is 
documented over time that the average annual temperature of the Earth 
is rising and we see in statistics the measurements of temperature, is 
it not true that scientists tell us that there is a temperature some 4 
degrees-plus Fahrenheit more beyond which there is no return for the 
Earth continuing to heat? Is that a true statement?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. That is a true statement.
  The scientists of the world have more or less reached consensus that 
that 2 degrees Centigrade increase is one we do not want to go beyond 
because it could set in force further consequences that would 
accelerate the problem--for instance, large amounts of frozen Arctic 
methane or undersea methane letting loose.
  We already see lakes that bubble in Canada and Russia from methane 
melting up through them. They are methane bubbles, not air bubbles. If 
that accelerates, there can be a feedback loop in which the input we 
have done releases more greenhouse gases, which, in turn, makes more 
greenhouse gases and more temperature and more greenhouse gases and up 
you go. Of course, a lot of that goes into the oceans, and nobody knows 
better than Florida what that is doing along your coasts to people's 
property. So you don't have to wait to hit 2 degrees Centigrade. Right 
now the safe opinion is that 1.5 degrees Centigrade is all we can 
afford. The risk that you are wrong is enough to justify trying to stop 
at 1.5 degrees Centigrade. Why not be safe when you are dealing with 
our planet?
  Even well before then, in your State, we are seeing what is going on 
and we are seeing the daytime flooding. You and I have been walking 
around in boots on sunny days as the tide comes washing in where it has 
never been before--these king tides.

[[Page S7308]]

  We have groups like Freddie Mac--which is not exactly a leftwing, 
green organization--warning that because of this, there is a 
significant chance of there being a coastal property value crash along 
our coasts as that danger of sea level rise backs into the insurance 
and the mortgage that you need to be able to buy a house. If you can't 
insure your house or can't mortgage your house--let me put it another 
way; if the next person to buy your house can't get insurance or a 
mortgage, good luck getting a good price on your house. That is it. 
They predicted it could be as bad as the 2008 mortgage meltdown.
  It is happening now, and we think that 1.5 to 2 degrees Centigrade 
that scientists say is a tipping point, with 2 degrees as a clear point 
of no return where these knock-on consequences will begin to move us 
out of control--we can't stop it at that point.
  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, if the Senator will further yield just for 
a concluding statement, the Senator from Rhode Island has outlined 
exactly what is happening in the State of Florida with the rising sea 
levels, the intrusion of saltwater into the fresh water, the ferocious 
and highly intense hurricanes. He has also outlined the threat to 
property values and the normal financial commerce of building buildings 
and houses that now, along the coastline, may well be threatened in the 
near future.
  I thank the Senator for his recitation this evening.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the distinguished Senator from Florida.
  He has been a particularly dear friend in our years here together. We 
sat next to each other on the Intelligence Committee, and I was able to 
see in that classified session his extraordinary skill as an examiner 
and cross-examiner of witnesses. He usually began by saying ``I am just 
a country lawyer from Florida,'' and everybody on the Intelligence 
Committee knew when they heard that, it was time to pay attention 
because something really good was about to happen. This country lawyer 
knew how to get to the bottom of things in a hurry.
  His work to protect his home State has been nothing less than 
inspiring to me, and I appreciate it. If there is one thing we can say 
is hopeful in all of this mess--on the other side of this building, 
there are going to be gavels that go into the hands of a party that is 
not controlled by the fossil fuel industry, and there are going to be 
inquiries and subpoenas and questions and witnesses, and a lot of what 
I am talking about is going to become very apparent to the American 
people.
  The coverup of the role of the fossil fuel industry and putting 
people like McNamee into these positions is going to be exposed.
  I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.


                      Remembering George H.W. Bush

  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I have a couple of subjects to talk about, 
and the first one is that all of us in the Senate have just attended a 
most moving State funeral in the National Cathedral for the late 
President George H.W. Bush.
  There have been many accolades, and so much of it was said so 
beautifully, so eloquently, and so movingly today by the speakers at 
the service. I just want the Senate record to reflect one little 
vignette that I think underscores the kind of compassion and goodness 
of the man, George H.W. Bush.
  Many years ago, when this Senator was a young Congressman, I had the 
privilege of serving with former Senator and then-Congressman Claude 
Pepper, a fellow who had risen to the heights of political power in the 
1930s during the Depression, became a champion of the little people, 
and then, as he transitioned to the House of Representatives, became 
known as ``Mr. Senior Citizen'' and the protector of Medicare and 
Social Security.
  Many times in the Reagan administration, he was a constant irritant 
to the Presidential administration. Those two Irishmen knew they had 
their differences, but they knew when to set aside their differences 
for the sake of the country.
  That, too, was carried over by the then-Vice President who became 
President--President Bush. An example of George Bush's humanity was in 
the late 1980s. The Florida delegation got an emergency call to go to 
Walter Reed army hospital because it was the final hours for Senator, 
then-Congressman, Claude Pepper. By the time we got to the hospital, 
they were proceeding to get Claude into a wheelchair. He had come out 
of a deep sleep--very possibly a coma--and he was being wheeled into 
the waiting room.
  Who should appear but President George H.W. Bush and Mrs. Bush 
because the word had gotten to them that Claude Pepper was about to 
pass on from this life into the heavenly life. The President decided to 
make that a real occasion, so he joined everybody who had gathered 
about Senator Pepper. Claude was actually the master of ceremonies, 
greeting everybody and introducing this one to the other one: Mr. 
President, this is so-and-so. It was an extraordinary scene.
  President Bush, who knew this fellow was his political opponent, but 
he had been such a substantial part of American political history, 
said: Claude, I have something I want to produce and I want to present 
to you on behalf of a grateful Nation, on behalf of your public 
service. President Bush bent down and put around Senator Pepper's neck 
the Medal of Freedom. Naturally, there wasn't a dry eye among those of 
us who were there.
  It is another little vignette in the life of George H.W. Bush that 
shows the humanity, the care, and the concern for his fellow man that 
was exhibited that day in Walter Reed army hospital.
  I wanted to share that little vignette, which is appropriate today 
after such a moving service over at the National Cathedral.


                             Voting Rights

  Mr. President, I rise to speak about the importance of the sacred 
right to vote.
  In the tumultuous days of the 1960s, on a hot afternoon, I watched as 
a law student on a grainy black-and-white TV as Dr. King delivered his 
memorable ``I Have a Dream'' speech on the steps of the Lincoln 
Memorial. His soaring, spiritually laced speech challenged us to commit 
our lives to ensuring that the promises of American democracy were 
available, not just for the privileged few but for ``all of God's 
children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and 
Catholics.''
  ``Now is the time,'' Dr. King urged, ``to make real the promises of 
democracy.''
  He stressed that the central promise made to the citizens in a 
democracy is the right to vote and to have that vote counted.
  Half a century has passed, and our country has changed with the 
times, but one thing has not changed. The right to vote for ``all of 
God's children'' in America is still under assault.
  Unbelievably, we are not so very far from the problems of 1963. 
Despite the passage of time and landmark civil and voting rights 
legislation, five decades later there is still considerable voter 
suppression in this country. In fact, several States have recently 
enacted restrictive laws cutting back voting hours on nights and 
weekends, eliminating same-day registration, and basically making it 
harder for people to vote.
  Standing between a citizen and the voting booth is a direct 
contradiction to the vision of equality put forth by the Founding 
Fathers. In 1776, they declared that all men were created equal, but 
many in our country had to wait another 94 years before the 15th 
Amendment to the Constitution granted citizens the right to vote--
though not all citizens.
  Ratified in 1870, the amendment states:

       The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall 
     not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any 
     State on account of race, color, or previous condition of 
     servitude. . . . The Congress shall have the power to enforce 
     this article by appropriate legislation.

  But it still took another 50 years before women in America were 
allowed to vote. After her arrest for casting a ballot in the 
Presidential election of 1872, Susan B. Anthony delivered a number of 
speeches in Upstate New York on women's suffrage. In those speeches, 
she noted that the right of all citizens to vote in elections is key to 
a functioning democracy.
  Specifically, one line from her speech stands out: ``And it is a 
downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings 
of liberty

[[Page S7309]]

while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them by 
providing the democratic-republican government--the ballot.''
  After the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the ballot, it 
took another 45 years before our Nation belatedly enacted the Voting 
Rights Act of 1965, intended to guarantee every U.S. citizen the right 
to vote. Does this principle really hold true in practice?
  The continued voter suppression of which I speak may not be as 
blatant as it once was with Jim Crow laws and poll taxes and literacy 
tests and the like, but it is still very much with us.
  In recent years, it is obvious that hurdles have once again been 
placed between the voting booth and the young and minority.
  A devastating blow was dealt by the U.S. Supreme Court when it gutted 
the Voting Rights Act as recently as 2013. Our Nation's highest Court 
struck down a central provision of the law that had been used to 
guarantee fair elections in this country since the midsixties, which 
has included the guarantee of elections in my State of Florida since 
that time.
  Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to protect our right to 
vote. It required States with histories of voter suppression to get 
Federal approval before changing their voting laws. For nearly five 
decades, the States had to prove to the Department of Justice why a 
change was necessary and demonstrate how that change would not harm 
voters and their right to vote.
  In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court declared that part of the law was 
outdated. Essentially, it rendered a key part of the law void until a 
bitterly partisan and gridlocked Congress can come up with a new 
formula for determining which States and localities need advance 
approval to amend their right-to-vote laws. The majority of the Court 
justified its ruling by pointing out that we no longer had the blatant 
voter suppression tactics that had been once used to disenfranchise 
voters across the country.
  I vigorously disagree because removing much needed voter protections 
also prevents the Federal Government from trying to block 
discriminatory State laws before they go into effect. In essence, 
States and local jurisdictions are now legally free to do as they 
please. In fact, just moments after that Supreme Court decision, the 
Texas attorney general said his State would begin immediately honoring 
local legislation that imposed, in the words of a Federal court, 
``strict and unforgiving burdens'' on many Texans who attempt to cast a 
ballot.
  As has been noted, the right to vote was not always given to all 
American adults, but our laws adjusted as we became a more mature and 
tolerant democracy, but the reverse is what is happening in America 
today.
  Since the 2010 election, in addition to cutting back on early voting, 
North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida have approved voting 
restrictions that, according to some experts, are targeted directly at 
reducing turnout among young, low-income, and minority voters who 
traditionally vote Democrat.
  In 2011, the Florida Legislature and State officials reduced the 
number of early voting days. It reduced them from 2 weeks down to 8 
days, including very conveniently canceling the Sunday right before the 
Tuesday election--a day that historically had seen heavy African-
American and Hispanic voting. State officials countered that registered 
voters would still have the same number of hours and that they could 
still vote early, only in 8 days instead of in 2 weeks. Well, it didn't 
work out that way.
  Florida also made voting harder for people who had recently moved to 
another county and had an address change, such as college students. It 
also subjected voter registration groups to penalties and fines if they 
made mistakes or they didn't turn them in within a certain number of 
hours. These laws were so burdensome that the League of Women Voters 
challenged these provisions in Federal court, and they won. Judges 
found that Florida's 2011 reduction of early voting ``would make it 
materially more difficult for some minority voters to cast a ballot.'' 
As a result, Florida had to restore 96 hours of early voting.
  Even with these added protections, the next election in 2012 was a 
fiasco. Lines outside polling places were prohibitively long, with some 
people waiting up to 8 hours to cast their votes.
  This year's 2018 midterm election brought added difficulties in 
Florida and across the country. This year, in Broward County, FL, 
ballot design caused over 30,000 people to miss voting in the U.S. 
Senate race because they didn't see it buried in the lower left-hand 
column under the instructions in English, Spanish, and Creole.
  In North Dakota, the Republican State Legislature moved to require 
residential addresses in order to be able to register to vote. This 
move was widely seen as an attempt to prevent Native Americans, which 
is a Democratic-leaning constituency, from voting since many of them 
used post office boxes to get their mail on reservations.
  In North Carolina, nearly 20 percent of early voting locations were 
closed this year because many of them simply couldn't meet the 
burdensome requirements imposed by the State legislature. There being 
absentee ballots that were stolen or missing and were never delivered 
has prompted a Federal investigation for fraud.
  In our neighboring State of Georgia, the Republican candidate for 
Governor was the sitting secretary of State and was responsible for 
administering his own election. His office pursued aggressive policies 
that made it measurably harder for many people to vote, particularly 
African Americans and other minorities.
  So, in light of this evidence and following a widespread public 
outcry, what can we do now? As I had said earlier, it may not be as 
obvious as poll tactics and all of the other blockades to voting. We 
have seen a lot of that in the past, particularly by all of the marches 
and so forth during the 1970s civil rights era. It might not be as 
obvious, but there are all of these subtle attempts. So what should we 
do?
  I submit that though the problem is complex, the solution, the 
answer, is relatively simple. As Americans who cherish the right to 
vote, we must turn to those schemers and say: ``There is a promise of 
democracy that we will not allow you to break.'' We have an obligation 
to keep this promise of democracy for our children.
  There are bright spots we should celebrate. In my State of Florida, 
voters, overwhelmingly this year, approved a ballot initiative that 
will restore the right to vote to nearly a million and a half 
individuals who have been convicted of nonviolent felonies and have 
served their time. This is a positive step. Congress may be 
dysfunctional, but we must continue to push lawmakers for a fix to the 
Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court struck down on a divided 5-to-
4 vote--to the provision that I spoke about. We ought to be making it 
easier to vote, not harder.
  Keep in mind what President Johnson said one-half century ago: ``The 
vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking 
down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men 
because they are different from other men.''
  Also, remember what Dr. King said:

       So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the 
     right to vote, I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my 
     mind--it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic 
     citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact--I can 
     only submit to the edict of others.

  That is what Dr. King said. So don't we owe it to our children the 
right to possess themselves if this is to be a truly free and fair 
democracy?
  I believe that some of the most fundamental rights in our democracy 
are the right to vote, the right to know whom you are voting for, and 
the right to know that the vote you cast is going to be counted as you 
intended it.
  If that were not enough, just as concerning as the ongoing efforts to 
suppress certain votes is the amount of undisclosed and unlimited money 
that is sloshing around in our campaigns. The Supreme Court's 2010 
decision in Citizens United has opened the floodgates and allowed the 
wealthiest Americans to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence 
our elections. Allowing such unlimited, undisclosed money into the 
political system is corrupting our democracy.
  I have strongly supported several pieces of legislation, such as the 
DISCLOSE Act, to require groups that spend more than $10,000 on 
campaign-

[[Page S7310]]

related matters to identify themselves. Tell us who is giving the money 
by filing a disclosure with the Federal Election Commission. The 
American people have a right to know whom they are voting for--not just 
the name on the ballot but who is behind that name on the ballot. The 
Supreme Court itself said: ``Transparency enables the electorate to 
make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers 
and messages.'' That was straight from the Court.
  I believe we as a Congress have a moral obligation--a moral 
obligation--to correct what has happened in our system and to ensure 
that our voters have the information they need to make informed 
decisions in the election process.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                      Remembering George H.W. Bush

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I just want to make a few comments in 
memory of President George Herbert Walker Bush, whose funeral we 
attended today.
  Losing a parent or a grandparent is never easy. I know I speak for 
the people in Louisiana when I offer my heartfelt sympathies to the 
entire Bush family in their time of grief. I want them to know their 
loss echoes in the hearts of all Americans this week. I also want them 
to know their family is in our thoughts and in our prayers as we mourn 
together.
  At an age when most kids are trying to figure out what kind of smart 
phones they want to buy, President George H.W. Bush thought of nothing 
except answering the call of duty. He really was a part of the 
``greatest generation.'' I believe he was a hero and a patriot, not 
because he made the choices that he made to fight for his country but 
because he got up and continued to make the choice to serve the 
American people every single day of his life as a Navy aviator, as a 
Congressman, as an Ambassador, as CIA Director, as Vice President of 
the United States, and, ultimately, as Commander in Chief.

  President Bush, very simply, was a great American, not just because 
he served his country during some of the darkest days in world 
history--although he did, and he did courageously--but because he 
embodied so many of the values that distinguish the American spirit. 
Traits like bravery, selflessness, faith, and kindness are things we 
don't have enough of in the village of Washington anymore and seem to 
be in short supply, but President Bush had them in spades. He was smart 
as a whip. He was a patriot, but he was also a person who deeply 
believed in the importance of working together to try to build a better 
world.
  Upon leaving office, President Bush started the Points of Light 
foundation. Points of Light is a charity whose mission is based on a 
fairly simple premise--that there is nothing more transformative than 
an individual's choosing to be generous with his or her time, gifts, 
and talents. This idea has resonated with millions of Americans across 
the world.
  Since its founding in 1990, Points of Light has electrified the 
American spirit of volunteerism, and each year the foundation supports 
more than 20 million hours of community service--what an extraordinary 
legacy.
  President Bush understood that at its core public service is about--
this is going to sound strange--loving your neighbor. The Points of 
Light foundation is a fitting legacy for this fine American who loved 
his country and his family to the fullest, and he devoted every day of 
his life to serving all 350 million of his neighbors. Without a doubt, 
he was one of the brightest of those thousand points of light, and our 
loss is Heaven's gain.
  A smart person once told me that people don't really care how much 
you know until they know how much you care. President George Herbert 
Walker Bush knew a lot, but he cared a lot too.
  America weeps, both in joy for his life and in sadness because his 
soul is in a better place but not with us. America and the world have 
lost a favorite son.
  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. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               H.R. 6931

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about a very special 
child, whose photo you see here on my left. Her name was Scarlett. 
Scarlett and her mother Stephanie are the people whom I will mostly 
talk about tonight.
  Stephanie was a former staffer in my Senate office, and Scarlett was, 
as you can tell from the photograph, a ray of sunshine for her parents, 
Stephanie and Ryan, and also for her extended family and for her many 
friends. That is how they describe Scarlett. She was their sunshine.
  Tragically, Scarlett passed away on January 8, 2017, at just 16 
months old. Scarlett's mom Stephanie said the following about her 
daughter:

       Our little Scarlett lived up to her name. She was a little 
     spitfire, strong and determined. She took in the world around 
     her with such wonder. Her favorite things were books, 
     blueberries, and our pets. Her favorite song was ``You Are My 
     Sunshine.'' She was our sunshine. We lived and breathed for 
     her, but shortly after midnight, very early on Sunday, 
     January 8, all that ended. It didn't just end; it was 
     shattered. Every shred of happiness we had and any semblance 
     of the lives we knew before was demolished shortly after I 
     entered her room to check on her that night.

  That is what Scarlett's mom, Stephanie, said in that horrific moment.
  In the time since Scarlett's death, as I and my current and former 
staff members who know Stephanie can attest, Stephanie and Ryan have 
been consumed--consumed--by the loss of their little girl. They did 
what any grieving parent would do. They sought answers about what 
caused Scarlett's death. Sadly, despite an autopsy and genetic testing, 
the only answer they got was that her death was ``unexplained''--
unexplained. They still don't know what caused her death.
  Stephanie and Ryan have endured so much pain--first, of course, 
because of their grief over losing Scarlett and, second, because they 
still don't know what caused her death.
  That means that Scarlett's death falls in the category known as 
sudden unexplained death in childhood, known by the acronym SUDC. Many 
people have never heard of sudden unexplained death in childhood, but 
it is estimated to be the fifth-leading cause of death for children 
between the ages of 1 and 4 years old.
  We are not doing enough to learn why these children are dying, and it 
is time that we take action.
  Sudden unexplained death in childhood too often has been ignored. Of 
course, the acronyms can be very confusing. Many of us are already 
familiar with SIDS--s-i-d-s--or sudden infant death syndrome. After the 
``back to sleep'' campaigns of the 1990s that taught parents how to put 
their babies to sleep safely on their backs, we learned a lot more 
about that category as well.
  SIDS is part of a broader category of sudden unexpected infant death 
as opposed to unexplained. Unexpected is the broader category. I will 
be speaking mostly about the sudden unexplained category.
  The most prevalent cause of unexpected deaths in infants--and this is 
children under the age of 1 year old--is SIDS. One in three unexpected 
infant deaths is unexplained, and the remaining deaths are related to 
unsafe sleep.
  Similarly, sudden unexplained death in childhood--as I said before, 
SUDC, what took the life of Scarlett disproportionately impacts 
children between the ages of 1 and 4, beyond the age of 1, such that in 
2016, more than half of all unexplained childhood deaths were in 
children in this age group, like Scarlett.
  We don't know why these infants and children have died, and we still 
don't know how to prevent future deaths. We don't know how many 
children are at risk even.
  As a parent, these numbers are horrifying and terrifying. Each one 
represents a beloved child, like Scarlett, who was taken from their 
family too soon. That is why I introduced the Scarlett's Sunshine on 
Sudden Unexpected Death Act, to shine light on this problem of 
unexpected and unexplained infant and childhood deaths.
  I am grateful to U.S. Representative Gwen Moore of Wisconsin for her 
work

[[Page S7311]]

on this issue. I used her bill as a starting point for this new 
legislation. Representative Moore introduced companion legislation in 
the House of Representatives. I am also grateful that Johnny Isakson 
and Sherrod Brown have cosponsored this new bill.
  The bill, Scarlett's Sunshine on Sudden Unexpected Death Act, will 
bring light to the darkness of these tragic and unexplained deaths. The 
bill provides resources to help standardize and improve investigations 
into and reporting data from sudden unexpected child and infant deaths 
and to enable full medical review of all--all--child and infant deaths. 
The bill also directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to 
commission a study to advise on best practices for genetic testing that 
may identify the cause of death.
  We need this consistent and complete data about unexpected and 
unexplained childhood and infant deaths in order to drive research that 
can find the cause or causes and then to develop interventions and ways 
to prevent future deaths.
  The bill also creates a new grant program to support safe sleep, 
since we know preventable, sleep-related, infant deaths are still 
happening.
  Finally, the bill requires an annual report to Congress on the 
incidence of sudden unexplained infant and child deaths, a summary of 
actions the Department of Health and Human Services has taken, and any 
recommendations that the Department of Health and Human Services has 
developed to reduce these deaths.
  As Stephanie said at Scarlett's funeral: ``There is no measurement 
for the size of our love for you or the hole you leave behind.''
  Nothing we do will bring Scarlett or other precious children, lost to 
unexpected death, back to their grieving families, but this legislation 
will be a big step forward in figuring out why these children are dying 
and what we can do to prevent it.
  Stephanie and Ryan's daughter, Scarlett's younger sister, is named 
Eliana. Eliana's name means ``daughter of the sun,'' and that is a 
tribute to the big sister she never met.
  To Ryan, Stephanie, Eliana, and to all the other families and friends 
of children taken from us too soon, we say to you: Although we cannot 
truly understand the awful gravity of your pain or the depth of your 
loss, we are listening to you, and we are listening to your plea for 
help. We want to bring the bright light of data, medical reviews, 
genetic testing, and other research to this problem. In other words, we 
want to bring some of Scarlett's sunshine to this cause.
  We are summoned by little Scarlett and other infants and children to 
take action. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, the 
Scarlett's Sunshine on Sudden Unexpected Death Act, and I ask for their 
support.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, first of all, I thank my colleague from 
Pennsylvania for his impassioned plea and his work on this legislation. 
I intend to support this legislation. I know the story he just told and 
the notion that SIDS is still such a challenge to so many families are 
a little remarkable.
  I am going to be speaking about a piece of legislation now named 
after another person not quite as young as Scarlett, where there was 
another tragedy that I hope we can act on as well. I intend to have it 
acted on before the end of this Congress. We are dealing with different 
circumstances, but there are times when we can, sometimes with 
relatively small legislative fixes, make a real difference in people's 
lives.

  So I commend the Senator from Pennsylvania for his legislation.


                       Ashanti Alert Act of 2018

  Mr. President, I rise to support H.R. 5075, the Ashanti Alert Act of 
2018. To start, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my 
friend and colleague, the Congressman from the Second District of 
Virginia, Scott Taylor, for introducing this important legislation in 
the House of Representatives and for ushering it through the Chamber so 
now we can take part and pass this legislation or similar legislation 
in the Senate.
  The Ashanti Alert Act seeks to establish a national communications 
network within the Department of Justice to help locate missing adults 
by providing assistance to regional and local search efforts.
  The Ashanti Alert Act of 2018 is named after a 19-year-old Virginia 
resident, Ashanti Billie, who was attending culinary school in hopes of 
opening her own bakery one day. To preserve her dreams, she split her 
time between working at a Blimpie's restaurant at Fort Story and taking 
culinary classes at the Art Institute of Virginia Beach.
  On September 18, 2017, in Norfolk, VA, Ashanti's dreams were cut 
short when she was abducted shortly after arriving at work. 
Unfortunately, Ashanti was found murdered in North Carolina 11 days 
after she was first reported missing.
  Her parents, who were not living in Hampton Roads at that point, 
rushed to the region after she disappeared and spent literally 2 
weeks--almost 2 weeks--trying to get law enforcement engaged and get 
the word out. The truth is, after she was missing for those 11 days and 
discovered in North Carolina, the authorities did later find and arrest 
her killer, but Ashanti's tragic murder raised an important question 
about whether more could have been done to save her life.
  At the time of her abduction, at just 19 years old, Ashanti Billie 
was too old for the issuance of an AMBER Alert and too young for the 
issuance of a Silver Alert.
  This tragic murder made me realize something I hadn't thought of 
before. We have alerts in place named after Amber for young people up 
to the age of 18. We have an alert system in place for seniors called 
Silver Alert for folks over 65. What about everybody between 18 and 65? 
No such alert system exists. So in the case of 19-year-old Ashanti 
Billie, her family had nowhere to turn to get the word out about her 
disappearance.
  The unfortunate circumstance is--and it is again fairly remarkable 
that this issue has not been raised at a legislative level before 
because of this glaring gap of young adults and not-so-young adults, 
including folks who are younger than 65--Ashanti is not an isolated 
case. Families across the country are affected by loved ones who have 
gone missing. Right here in Washington, DC, we are having a 
conversation about the plight of missing teens, many of them young 
women of color and many of them who fall into that same age group as 
Ashanti--19, 20, 21, 22, 23. I think about my three daughters who are 
23 to 29. God forbid if they were ever abducted, where would I turn to 
get an alert out? There is no system in place.
  According to the National Crime Information Center database, over 
55,000 missing adults are and have been recorded as missing. In my 
State, according to the Virginia State Police, there are currently 240 
people aged 18 and older who have gone missing in our Commonwealth.
  Of course, nobody wants to overload this kind of good, functioning 
alert system with too many reports which could take away the 
effectiveness of existing systems like the AMBER Alert Program. So this 
legislation addresses that issue to make sure that in order to issue an 
alert, the missing adult must either suffer from a proven mental or 
physical disability or law enforcement must certify the person's 
physical safety may be in danger or their disappearance was not 
voluntary. In this way, the Department of Justice can help States and 
localities create a system that provides alerts only when a missing 
adult is in real danger.
  What I know is, we need lifesaving protections for missing adults 
between the ages of 18 and 64. While, as Senator Casey mentioned, we 
can never replace the hurt of that family because of that young child 
who died from SIDS, we can also never replace the hole that has been 
left in the Billie family by the loss of Ashanti. By passing this 
legislation and naming it after Ashanti--by calling it the Ashanti 
Alert Act--we may be able to prevent some tragedy like this from 
happening in the future.
  It is past time for Congress to enact legislation that can help save 
the lives of many--many like Ashanti. As I mentioned, while we can't 
bring Ashanti back, her memory can live on by helping save the lives of 
others who may find themselves in this same kind of unfortunate 
situation.
  I had planned to come to the floor today and ask for unanimous 
consent

[[Page S7312]]

to pass the House bill in its current form. However, out of respect to 
some of my colleagues who have raised nonsubstantive but certain 
technical issues that can be corrected, I will hold off for today on 
asking unanimous consent, but this legislation cannot wait. This 
legislation cannot be held up by technical concerns.
  I am anxious to work through these concerns tonight so we can move 
forward, perhaps on a hotline version, so it can get back to the House, 
so this legislation can become law, and so the Billie family knows 
Ashanti's memory will be honored.
  I intend to work with my colleagues tonight on making sure their 
corrections are included, but the spirit and heart of this 
legislation--no one opposes the idea that we have a system for young 
people on alerts under 18 and a system for folks over 65. What about 
the rest of the adults who also fall into these kinds of circumstances? 
We have to make sure they are protected as well.
  I look forward to making these technical corrections. My hope is, we 
can get this passed even with the hotline and that we can then send 
appropriate legislation back to the House and fill in this needed gap.
  I thank folks on both sides of the aisle and the law enforcement 
community for working with us. There is complete agreement that this 
hole needs to be filled. I think it will be filled with this 
legislation, and Ashanti Billie's legacy will be honored by the Ashanti 
Alert Act becoming the law of the land.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Barrasso). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Point Mackenzie Earthquake

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, Senator Sullivan and I have just 
returned to Washington after an almost surreal 24-hour period up in the 
State.
  We went up on Sunday night, Monday morning. We hadn't anticipated 
being there, but the State of Alaska--and more specifically 
Southcentral Alaska--experienced a powerful earthquake on Friday. It 
was certainly an unsettling event, a frightening event to many, and it 
caused significant damage in the most populated part of our State.
  Last Friday, at 8:29 in the morning, we had an earthquake that struck 
the community of Anchorage with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter 
scale. The epicenter was about 7 miles north of Anchorage. It was about 
25 miles deep. That shock lasted anywhere, folks were saying, from 
about 40 seconds to 1 minute; that was the initial hard jolt. Then, 
movement after that depended on where you were and what kind of ground 
you were located on, but it was a very significant earthquake by all 
standards.
  I heard about the earthquake, not because I got an alert on my phone 
but because my phone rang when my son called. He lives and works in 
Anchorage. He had been at his shop, and he called me right after the 
shaking stopped. My son is a pretty calm young man, but I could tell 
that something was wrong, something was different. I could hear it in 
his voice. He was clearly rattled. His comments to me reflected so many 
of the comments I have heard from so many with whom I have had a chance 
to visit.
  As we were speaking on the phone, it was about 7 minutes after the 
initial jolt that we had another earthquake, a 5.7 that followed. He 
literally said: You have to hold on, Mom, because we are having another 
one. These are significant at any time, but to have a 7.0 followed by a 
5.7 and then to know that the aftershocks have been continuing--they 
have continued until today. As of this afternoon, the total number of 
aftershocks we have had is about 2,500.
  Think about that. From Friday morning to midafternoon Alaska time, 
about 2,500 aftershocks, and we have had 14 above 4.5 in magnitude. We 
have had 14 in that time period that were over 4.5. Now, 4.5 is going 
to get anybody's attention.
  Yesterday morning, when I was leaving Alaska to come to Washington, I 
was getting ready in the bathroom, and there was another shaker then, 
and that was a 4.8.
  People have asked me: How are things back home?
  I said: Well, we had the big jolt on Friday, but it is still rocking 
and rolling.
  People are anxious, but the report I would like to share with folks 
today is that there has been an incredible response at so many 
different levels. The initial response was pretty intense.
  After I spoke with my son, I talked to a staff member whose pipes had 
burst in her home, and she was dealing with flooding. One of the main 
arterials in Anchorage, Minnesota Drive, is one of the access roads to 
get to the airport, and parts of that had collapsed. Many people have 
seen the picture of the vehicle sitting in the middle of a depressed 
area where the bottom literally has dropped out the overpass of that 
road.
  Across Anchorage and in the Mat-Su Valley, school had just started 
for the middle schools and the upper grades, and kids were doing what 
the kids have been trained to do for decades now. Since the 1964 
earthquake, believe me, every kid in Southcentral Alaska--I think 
probably every kid in Alaska--knows what the earthquake drill is, to 
duck and cover. But during this quake, they were ducking and covering 
as books from the bookshelves were crashing to the floor and as ceiling 
tiles were coming down. It is extraordinary to think that during all 
that we saw and all of the damage in the schools, there were two 
injuries. There are 48,000 kids in the Anchorage School District and 
about 17,000 or 18,000 in the Mat-Su district--and two injuries. One 
was somebody cleaning up glass; another was a student who was putting 
his arm up to shield himself from a ceiling tile that was falling down, 
and he injured his wrist. It is absolutely extraordinary--nothing short 
of a miracle--that we suffered no loss of life.
  It was pretty dramatic. Transformers blew, and much of the city went 
dark. A tsunami warning was issued for the Kenai Peninsula in the low-
lying areas in the Anchorage Bowl, even down past Kodiak. We got a call 
from friends in Kodiak out on a hunting trip, and they got word that 
they needed to hike to higher ground. Hike to higher ground. Of course, 
there is no communication and no way to know whether it is all safe. 
These stories are coming in from all over the State.
  What we heard in those first hours, the first reports coming in from 
our first responders, who truly jumped into action and were responding 
to calls as they were coming in--the civil engineers were dispatched to 
go out to check on the highways, the bridges, and the essential 
infrastructure, such as the hospitals. We had almost immediate updates 
from the U.S. Geological Survey and NOAA--the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration--about the earthquake and what was happening 
with the subsequent tsunami warning, the aftershocks. All of these were 
in realtime. We kept waiting to hear whether there were any reports of 
serious injuries or fatalities, but fortunately--amazingly, 
miraculously--they never came.
  Meanwhile, the utilities were working to restore power and to test 
the cities' water systems. ENSTAR, which is our natural gas supplier, 
received over 700 requests to check on broken gas lines. They went 
house by house to make sure that they were safe.
  It was extraordinary in terms of the immediate on-the-ground response 
by the Alaskans who were there in place, the teams that are at the 
ready because that is what they are trained to do, and those who were 
just being good neighbors and knew that when you have something hit, we 
are all hands on deck.
  Congressman Young, Senator Sullivan, and I gathered on Friday 
afternoon. We got updates from the Vice President, who was traveling. 
We spoke with FEMA Administrator Brock Long and Secretary of 
Transportation Chao. All of them--all of them--were all in with their 
promises of help from throughout the Federal Government with resources. 
President Trump also--his support in promising to spare no expense as 
we work to recover from this natural disaster went a long way to 
providing levels of assurance there.
  Senator Sullivan and I, as I mentioned, flew up on Sunday evening. We

[[Page S7313]]

waited until the weekend was over to fly back home. We didn't want to 
get in the way of the immediate recovery efforts. I got in at 1 o'clock 
in the morning and went to work cleaning up the glass and broken things 
in my house, as many of my neighbors and fellow Alaskans had been doing 
all weekend long.
  Over the course of the day on Monday, we were able to see some of the 
damage that this earthquake has caused. You think about the words when 
you are trying to describe something that--the scenes are just so, so 
different, and it is words like ``gut-wrenching'' and ``astounding'' 
and then ``remarkable,'' but it was really gut-wrenching being in the 
school.
  We went out to Houston Middle School. This is an area out in the Mat-
Su Valley. This is one of the schools that will not be opened, at least 
not this year and perhaps for longer. But you are standing in a 
building--this is the library there in the middle school, and you see 
all of the books that have fallen to the floor. You see the guts of the 
ceiling that have come out. The sprinkler system is activated, so not 
only do you have the chaos of the books but now you have got the 
saturation.
  There is another picture here of the group of us who went in.
  The ceiling literally disintegrated on top of the library there.
  When you think about the time that this all happened, there were 
students in the library. There were students who were passing in the 
hallway. This school is cinderblock construction, and the actual 
concrete cinders popped out and crashed to the floor and broke. The 
metal struts coming out of the ceiling, the panels--this was all 
happening at 8:29 in the morning. It is dark in Alaska at 8:29 in the 
morning. The lights had gone out, and they had this crashing all around 
them.
  When I use the word ``remarkable'' to describe some of it, how the 
students and the teachers responded was remarkable, the calm. The kids 
knew what to do. They got under their desks. They did what they were 
trained to do. When they got the order that they needed to get out, to 
evacuate, what they did was exactly what they were trained to do. And 
no injuries. No injuries. It is absolutely extraordinary.
  The schools in Anchorage are going to be closed for the entire week. 
Mat-Su is opening some of theirs this week, but more than 85 of them 
sustained damage that clearly needs to be cleaned up, needs to be 
repaired.
  The schools were one aspect of the damage that we saw, but what many 
have seen out there has been the damage to the infrastructure.
  This is a picture of a collapsed road. This is Vine Road, out in the 
valley. This is kind of a boggy area that runs through here, but it is 
just as if there were a big suction that came underneath and literally 
sucked the ground out from underneath that.
  This is an area that we visited. We took this picture from above, in 
the air. This is it up close. As you are standing here on these slabs 
of asphalt, the crevices you are looking down into are extraordinary, 
and you realize the intensity of the action of the Earth.
  You see scenes like this, and you say: How are we going to get 
through all of this? And the work that is ongoing now, whether it is 
the on-ramps, whether it is the bridges, whether it is roads like this 
on Vine Road, our department of transportation is working to firm up 
the roads, to, believe it or not, fill them in, repave them, even 
restripe them, and get folks back on their way. What we saw in just 
those first 72 hours is absolutely extraordinarily impressive.
  The Alaska Railroad is assessing their damage. They are operational. 
They are going to be going much slower than they would like, and that 
is going to cause complications, but they are up.
  The Port of Alaska is undergoing an expansion right now. It has been 
complicated by this earthquake. That is something that, again, is very 
critical. As you look to how goods move around our State, 85 percent of 
them come through that port. So being able to allow for functionality 
is critical.
  We look at our assets. We look at the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. That was 
closed down temporarily just for precaution, but it is up and running.
  You know, when I think about all this, given what happened, the 
visible damage we saw earlier this week, I find myself thinking that we 
are so lucky--not that we were hit by this major earthquake but that it 
could have been so much worse.
  We talk a lot about resilience--resilience of a people. I think we 
learned a lot from the 1964 earthquake, the Good Friday earthquake. 
That registered at 9.2 on the Richter scale and lasted 4\1/2\, almost 5 
minutes. Extraordinary. What we have been doing--we are the most 
seismically active State in the country, so we work to be prepared.
  Again, I mentioned that last Friday's earthquake was deep, and that 
mitigated some of the shaking that was associated with it, but the 
proximity to our State's population center put people and 
infrastructure at great risk.
  The depth of the source and the mechanism of the fault helped reduce 
the damage. That is one part of it. The other part of it is being 
prepared, and this is where I am so proud of the resilience of 
Alaskans. Whether it is at the schools that practice these earthquake 
drills where the students get under the desk, they hold on to the leg 
of a chair or their desk, and they cover their heads to protect 
themselves--I know we have one Alaskan as a page. She has gone through 
this drill. I know you have. So even in the dark, even in the chaos, 
with all the noise and the crashing, students knew what to do, and they 
did it not only for themselves, but they did it for other students as 
well.
  There are some stories of some very young heroes out there, and I 
have a young nephew who not only took care of himself but made sure 
that a fellow student who had severe mobility issues was able to get 
under a desk. I think about the calmness and the presence that so many 
exercised.
  I am going to end by noting again how we have worked as communities 
in our State to be prepared for disasters when they come. We have some 
of the most stringent building codes in the world, and for the most 
part, our buildings held up. Families have earthquake kits in their 
houses. They have batteries, flashlights, nonperishable food--all of 
which came in handy as folks kind of hunkered down over the weekend.
  I will end my remarks by noting how grateful I am for the first 
responders who took action in the aftermath of the earthquake, even 
amid all of the ongoing aftershocks, even with their households totally 
turned upside down--and not only for our first responders but for all 
those who acted as first responders, the neighbors who came together. 
It is Alaska at its finest when we all work together.
  I am very grateful that we had no tsunami. I am very grateful that 
the damages, at least on the surface, are not worse. And we are 
certainly grateful that there have been no reports of major injuries or 
fatalities. I am grateful that we have strong Federal partners who have 
committed to helping us in any way that they can. I also appreciate the 
reach-out from so many colleagues here in the Senate who sent me texts 
and who called and said: Is everything OK in Alaska? Is there anything 
we can do? Thank you for that.
  We know we are tough in Alaska. That is the reputation we have. We 
are kind of proud of that. We know we are hardy and resilient. But 
knowing that others are going to be with us as we go through this 
recovery period makes that much better. I thank so many who have been 
there to help Alaska.
  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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________