[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 107 (Wednesday, June 10, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2861-S2872]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TAXPAYER FIRST ACT OF 2019--Continued


                        Justice in Policing Act

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, something is happening in America. 
People across our country and in my home State of Michigan are coming 
together for the cause of racial justice in a way that we have not 
really experienced in a generation.
  From Holland, to Bad Axe, to Marquette, to Detroit, people of all 
ages and faiths and backgrounds have been marching together, singing 
together, praying together, and kneeling together. In one voice, people 
are demanding change, imploring our Nation to finally be that place 
where all men and women are truly created equal. Unfortunately, we know 
that, far too often throughout our history and even today, our Nation 
has failed to live up to our highest ideals.
  Eight minutes forty-six seconds--that is how long a Minneapolis 
police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on the neck of George Floyd, an 
unarmed, handcuffed Black man lying on the pavement. For 8 minutes 46 
seconds, George Floyd pleaded for his life. He said, ``I can't 
breathe.'' He cried out for his mother. He suffered. Then he was 
silent.
  Millions of Americans watched the video in shock and horror. Why 
didn't the officer just lift his knee off of Mr. Floyd's neck? Why 
didn't he just lift his knee up for just a minute--just lift it up? Why 
didn't one--just one--of the other officers push his knee off of Mr. 
Floyd's neck?
  What is happening in America that someone--let alone police 
officers--thought this was OK? Of course, we know it was not OK. It was 
not OK. It was a crime. It was murder.
  Watching those images has awakened something deep in the souls of 
Americans across the country. We know that racial disparities in every 
part of our society--from healthcare, to housing, to jobs, to 
education, to the air we breathe and the water we drink--have existed 
in our country since its very beginning. We have known for a long time 
that experiences with the police are different for Black Americans than 
for White Americans. Yet, despite all of the other times, this time--
this time--there the violence was, right in front of us, in a way that 
people have decided cannot and will not be ignored.
  There is much to do. For each of us, we have a personal journey--a 
personal journey to take concerning our own behavior with one another, 
and then we have a public journey to take together, to change laws and 
policies and work together toward the day when what happened in 
Minneapolis and across our country never happens again. That is the 
goal of the Justice in Policing Act. I am honored to cosponsor it, and 
I want to thank my friends Senator Booker and Senator Harris for 
leading us in this introduction.
  The Justice in Policing Act takes important steps to improve 
transparency by collecting better and more accurate data on police 
misconduct and the use of force. This will help ensure that problem 
officers aren't simply getting a job with a police department in 
another city or State to avoid being held accountable for their 
previous actions.
  The legislation improves police training and practices by ending 
racial and religious profiling, requiring officers to receive training 
on racial biases, banning no-knock warrants in drug cases, limiting the 
transfer of military-grade equipment to police departments, and banning 
chokeholds like the one that ended George Floyd's life. It finally 
makes lynching a Federal crime--something that I would have thought we 
would have done a generation ago. It makes important changes within our 
criminal justice system to hold police officers and departments 
accountable for their actions.
  This legislation is not about defunding the police. It is not about 
defunding law enforcement. It is about funding the right kind of law 
enforcement, the kind of law enforcement that protects all of our 
neighborhoods and the people who live in them; the kind of law 
enforcement that officers I know in Michigan--including in my own 
family, across Michigan--do every day; the kind of law enforcement I 
know the majority of police officers believe in.
  In short, this legislation is about treating people as professionals, 
with high standards, and expecting them to meet those standards. In any 
professional setting, including law enforcement, we should expect high 
standards and accountability for meeting those standards. We have a 
right to expect the best from our police officers.
  Firing dozens of bullets into a Louisville apartment under a no-knock 
warrant, killing a 26-year-old emergency medical technician and 
aspiring nurse who grew up in Michigan, did not meet the high standards 
we have a right to expect. Breonna Taylor deserved the best from our 
police. She did not get it.
  Shoving a 75-year-old man at a protest in Buffalo hard enough that 
his head cracked open while hitting the ground, creating a pool of 
blood, and then watching officer after officer walking past him without 
offering any help does not reflect the high standards we have a right 
to expect. Martin Gugino deserved the best from our police, and he did 
not get it.
  Kneeling on the neck of a man who is lying on the ground for 8 
minutes 46 seconds, as he cries out for his mother and the life leaves 
his body, is not meeting the high standards he had the right to expect. 
George Floyd deserved the best from our police. He did not receive it.
  The U.S. Senate needs to pass the Justice in Policing Act now. I 
would love it if there was strong bipartisan support. Wouldn't that 
send a wonderful message across our country if we could do that?
  However, holding law enforcement to high professional standards is 
only the first step in becoming the Nation we all want to be. Racism 
has been with us since slaves were brought on ships to this country. It 
is an immoral thread that is woven deep in the fabric of our Nation's 
history.
  It is simply not enough to end racial inequalities in policing 
because the inequalities in our society don't end there. The pandemic 
has shone a brutal light on this truth.
  Our Democratic caucus released a report on April 30 that showed that 
Black Americans are more than twice as likely as White Americans to die 
from COVID-19, and in some communities, this disparity is even greater. 
In Michigan, 14 percent of our citizens are African Americans. Yet 
African Americans make up 41 percent--41 percent--of the deaths from 
COVID-19. It is not hard to see why, if you look. Because of 
generations of structural racism, Black Americans are less likely to 
have health insurance, more likely to have preexisting health 
conditions and higher risks for Black moms during labor and delivery, 
more likely to be exposed to air pollution because of where they live, 
and less likely to live in housing where social distancing is even 
possible.
  Black families also face challenges in accessing healthy food. While 
around 12 percent of American families overall are food secure, we know 
that more than 22 percent of African-American families are food 
insecure--more than one out of every five families.
  At the same time, in this health crisis Black Americans are more 
likely to

[[Page S2862]]

be the ones working on the frontlines--these are the frontline jobs 
that can't be done at home--even though their children are home from 
school or childcare because they have had to close. They have more 
costs, but they are on the frontlines, and they are the ones still 
working. In fact, 41 percent of our essential workers are people of 
color. The majority are women. That is exposing them to both COVID-19 
and now layoffs.
  While more than 12 percent of White Americans are out of work, nearly 
17 percent of Black Americans have lost their jobs so far. No single 
piece of legislation, no matter how good, is going to solve these 
systemic issues all at once. We know that, but our continuing actions 
can do that, if we are aware and our eyes are open and we are paying 
attention and we are doing the best we can on everything that we do.
  That is why we need to pass the Heroes Act, passed by the House, as 
soon as possible. It has been weeks now since the House took action, 
and it is critically important that we get that done. This bill gives 
premium pay to our frontline workers, so we are not just applauding 
them. That does not pay for their childcare while they are working or 
for food or for keeping a roof over their own heads. We need to provide 
hazard pay, premium pay, for the people who are working when we have 
the luxury of working at home. The House bill extends unemployment 
benefits that are critical, strengthens emergency paid leave, and 
offers food and rent and mortgage assistance to families who need it.
  That is why it is so important to pay attention every time 
legislation comes to the floor and that we evaluate through the lens of 
how this affects everyone. How does this affect the poor? How does this 
affect communities of color? Are we doing everything we can to make 
sure we are not adding to the racial disparities or economic 
disparities that have lived with us for way too long?
  Senate Democrats, looking at every piece of legislation, paid 
attention on the Paycheck Protection Act, and we were successful in 
amending it to ensure that minority-owned businesses and underserved 
communities would receive the same business help and the same access to 
capital as majority-White businesses.
  It was a real fight to get that done. It was a struggle. It should 
not have been. When people say racial disparities are in the past, I 
say it is right here, right now. When we look at moving forward on 
legislation, we need to see who is helped, who is impacted, is it fair, 
and does everybody have a fair shot?
  Today, once again, we see in Georgia why it is outrageous that Mitch 
McConnell has been blocking a vote on the Voting Rights Advancement Act 
that the House passed 187 days ago. It was 187 days ago that they 
passed a bill to restore the Voting Rights Act, with no action here in 
the Senate. This needs to be passed immediately. It is another piece of 
what is happening in terms of the racial inequality in this country.
  Racial disparities are not in the past. Racism is not in the past. We 
are seeing it every day right in front of our eyes. Now is the time to 
keep our eyes open. Now is the time to lift America up to the best we 
can be. We need to pass the Justice in Policing Act, and we need to 
pass the Heroes Act to put people ahead of profits in this pandemic and 
close the gaps in investments in our communities that have created the 
racial disparities we see today in every part of our society and in 
every community, and we need to pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act 
right now. That would be a great thing to get done this week.
  There is not much happening on the Senate floor right now. It would 
be great if we could come together and all stand behind something as 
basic as making sure that everybody fully has the right to vote in this 
country.
  One of George Floyd's high school friends, Jonathan Veal, remembered 
that on their last day of 11th grade, George turned to him and said: 
``I want to touch the world.''
  George Floyd has touched the world. He has touched the hearts of 
people around the world. His horrific murder has inspired a worldwide 
movement against systemic racism and police brutality. I know that is 
cold comfort for his family and his friends who are missing him so 
much.
  It is time for us--all of us--to set high standards for law 
enforcement and the quality of life we want for all of our families. It 
is time to hold each other accountable to live up to our highest and 
best ideals as Americans. George's last breath cannot be the last word.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma


                               H.R. 1957

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, the Federal Government currently owns 
about 640 million acres of land in the United States, which means 640 
million acres is owned by the American people, and that is about 28 
percent of all the land mass of the United States. If you round the 
number up, let's say, a quarter of all the property in the United 
States is owned by the Federal taxpayers. When you can break that down, 
people immediately think it is all the National Park Service. Actually, 
the National Park Service is a small amount of that.
  The Bureau of Land Management holds about 244 million acres, followed 
by the U.S. Forest Service with 192 million acres, Fish and Wildlife 
Service with 89 million acres, and then the National Park Service right 
at 80 million acres. The Department of Defense and some other agencies 
hold another 34 million acres. All together, there are 640 million 
acres and growing.
  This doesn't even account for all of the land that is controlled by 
the Federal Government. That is the amount just owned by the Federal 
Government. That 28 percent of all the property in the United States 
that is owned by the Federal Government doesn't take into account the 
27 million-plus acres that are also controlled by the Federal 
Government. Those are areas where they do conservation mitigation. 
Those are areas where they have land in trust for other aspects.
  All told, around 30 percent of the United States is owned or 
controlled by the Federal taxpayer, by the Federal Government. That 
would all be fine and good if we were managing it well, but we are not. 
On those properties right now, we have almost $20 billion in deferred 
maintenance backlog. That is almost $20 billion just in things that 
haven't been done and where the Federal Government has proved to be a 
bad land manager.
  There is a bill that is coming this week. It is on the floor now 
being debated. The conversation is about this: How do we get better at 
maintaining the land that we have and how can we actually purchase 
additional property?
  There is something that has been around a long time called the Land 
and Water Conservation Fund. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has 
dollars set aside from offshore oil revenue to be able to purchase 
areas of property. That has happened for decades now. The problem is we 
haven't maintained that. Even with the property that we buy that has 
maintenance issues, we don't fix the maintenance issues when we 
purchase the property.
  The proposal on the table this week is to double the amount of land 
acquisitions that we have and to be able to solve the maintenance issue 
that we have had for a long time. This conversation about the backlog 
and maintenance has been an ongoing issue. There is finally a 
resolution to it.
  Here is the resolution. After years and years of debating a 
resolution about how to reduce spending in one area so we can make sure 
we can do the maintenance we need to do, the final decision was made to 
be able to put a bill together that just says: Forget it; let's just 
all add it to debt. Let's just completely do debt purchasing of all of 
our maintenance stuff. We will figure out some decades in the future 
how to be able to pay for that, rather than discerning how to pay for 
it now because there is not an offset on how to be able to pay for the 
maintenance.
  The maintenance needs to be done. It is not a shock to anyone. I 
brought proposals to this years ago, saying: Why don't we split the 
dollars we have in the land and Water Conservation Fund, use half of 
those dollars to purchase new properties and half of it just to be able 
to work on maintenance?
  That was denied. They said: No, that is an irrational approach. We 
want to buy more land and figure out later how to maintain it.
  We are at that point where we have to figure out how to maintain it 
because an almost $20 billion backlog in

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maintenance is rising up and screaming at us all over the country. 
Instead of actually deciding how we are going to do it, this is a punt 
saying we will figure it out later.
  Here is the fiscally responsible portion of it. We are not going to 
do this forever just to work on maintenance backlog. This is just for 
the next 5 years that we will have additional debt. Every single year 
we will spend about $2 billion, all in debt money, to be able to do 
this, and then we will figure out in the sixth year how to be able to 
take care of the rest. The fiscally responsible portion of this is to 
say we are not doing infinite amounts of debt. It will just be the next 
5 years.
  The problem is that in the sixth year we will still have a 
maintenance backlog. We will still have issues, and there is still not 
a plan to pay for the first $20 billion for what is still coming.
  My challenge is figuring out what we can do with a bill that we need 
to fix. We need to be better managers of our land, but we are managing 
our land by not managing our debt and not making the hard decisions 
that people have to make. At your home, you can't just say: Everything 
needs to be fixed, but I can't afford it; so I will take out more debt, 
and I will fix everything.

  We have to make decisions on what is going to have to wait so we can 
do this because it is more important. That is the kind of thing I would 
like to be able to see with this.
  Let me run through basic ideas. They are all amendments that were 
already brought up that say: Here are logical ways to be able to fix 
this, beginning with the most basic of them. Take part of the money 
that already exists for the Land and Water Conservation Fund to 
purchase new land, and then split it, saying we are going to dedicate 
dollars to maintenance and also have dollars to buy new properties. We 
will not be able to buy as many as fast as we want. We will not be able 
to fix as many things as we want, but we are not adding additional debt 
spending to do it. These are the same decisions that families make all 
the time. I would love to have the nicer car. I can have the nicer car 
if I just save up for several years to get it.
  That is one recommendation.
  There is a second recommendation to this. There is a portion of this 
that gets into the budget scheming of everything that goes on. Part of 
what is happening to the Land and Water Conservation Fund is moving 
it--brace yourself from budget gimmicks here--to what is called 
appropriated dollars that we vote on every year to mandatory dollars 
you only vote on once and every year it keeps going. Think of it like 
Social Security. Social Security was voted on a long time ago and keeps 
going year after year. We don't vote on it each year. It happens 
because it is mandatory.
  The idea in this bill was to move the spending from being 
appropriated each year like we do with the Department of Defense or 
Department of Education or Health and Human Services, to take it out of 
that area and move it toward mandatory. Then they still left the funds 
over in the appropriated side and said: We are also going to spend 
those dollars as well.
  The gimmick that this sets up is it allows those funds that were 
spent last year to be spent on the mandatory side this year and leaves 
a big hole on the normal side that will just plus-up to spend for other 
things.
  My second idea is this: If we will not split the dollars we normally 
use for half of the purchase and half to maintain, at least dedicate 
the dollars that were left and aren't spent on something else and spend 
those on maintenance, because then we will only have half a billion 
dollars of new deficit rather than what this does at $2.5 billion of 
new deficit spending.
  The first challenge is to split it.
  The second challenge is take the dollars that were ``left over'' in 
appropriated dollars and just dedicate that to only doing the 
maintenance funds that need to be done.
  The third idea is pretty simple, as well. This has a 5-year tail on 
it on the maintenance, at about $2 billion a year of additional debt 
spending. I would just say that if we are only going to do maintenance 
for 5 years, we should only do the purchasing, which is the big chunk 
of this, for 5 years, as well, so that we sunset both of them. We are 
not going to have this big plus-up and more and more purchasing at the 
same time we have no plan to maintain it long term. As long as we are 
going to maintain it, we will also do purchasing. Just sunset it. That 
seems common sense as well.
  Here is a fourth idea. When you purchase new properties, make sure 
that with the dollars that are used to purchase it, there are also 
dollars set aside to fix what is broken on it.
  We often find that when people want to sell property to the Federal 
Government, it is because there are major problems on the land already, 
and they can't get another private seller. So they want to sell it to 
the Federal taxpayer, knowing there are problems in infrastructure on 
that property.
  We buy property with major maintenance needs already on it, and it 
just backs up our backlog of maintenance even more. Put a requirement 
in that says when we buy property, part of the purchase of it is also 
setting aside dollars for maintenance, so we have to fix it right then, 
rather than add it to the backlog of maintenance issues. That makes 
common sense.
  That also is not getting a hearing right now. I think that is a 
problem. There are commonsense things that don't drive us further into 
debt, that aren't going to cause years and years of problems in our 
budget, that maintain the properties that we have--maybe not as fast as 
we want to, but its starts getting after our backlog of maintenance--
that continue to allow us to purchase new properties, but to make sure 
that we are actually managing the properties that we purchase.
  It is a frustration for me that we are not having amendments in this 
process, that we are not having the opportunity to be able to fix some 
of the things that are wrong with this bill--because we do need to have 
Federal lands, we do need to maintain the lands that we have, but we do 
need to honor our budgets for the future, as well.
  Why would we say we really need to maintain all of this and purchase 
this, but we don't have a plan for how to do it now and so we will just 
wait 6 years? We will have 5 years of debt spending, and then we will 
somehow figure it out 6 years from now.
  Five years ago we were talking about this very same issue. We haven't 
come up with an answer in the past 5 years because no one has been 
willing to say we have to do less so we can take responsibility for 
what we have. We just want to do more and not have the accountability. 
So from 5 years ago to 5 years later now, to 5 years from now, when 
this bill ``expires,'' we will still have maintenance issues.
  We need to start making hard decisions. Some of those hard decisions 
deal with the budget and making choices and saying that there aren't 
any options to instead saying: There are options that I may not like as 
well as the ``just do everything all at once'' option.
  But there are options on how to do this, and we should have this 
debate to be able to figure out how to manage these dollars better. 
Maybe we will 5 years from now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.


                       Unanimous Consent Request

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, a free society depends on the rule of law, 
which is the foundation for public order and peace. Police are the 
indispensable guardians of that law. We rightfully honor them for the 
risks they assume every morning when they put on the badge and 
sometimes the bulletproof vest, knowing they may not come home at night 
to take them off.
  But the police have a sworn duty to wield their power with justice. 
They take an oath never to betray their character or the public trust. 
They must hold themselves to the highest standard and overwhelmingly do 
so.
  But in the cases when they do not, the consequences can be 
devastating. What happened last week to George Floyd in Minnesota was 
horrific. He was killed by police officers--dying at the hands of men 
who pledged to protect and serve their communities.
  I am glad that justice appears to be moving swiftly in George Floyd's 
case. The officers who participated have been terminated from the 
department, and the criminal process is well underway.
  But this is little consolation to many Americans, including many 
Black

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Americans, who feel they have experienced unjust, unequal interactions 
with law enforcement. Many have protested peacefully for change in the 
finest tradition of our country. And in sharp contrast to the rioters 
and looters, who have exploited this tragedy for their own purposes, we 
must now seek to reveal national unity from the wreckage of broken 
trust and broken glass on our streets. To do this, we will need to be 
guided by our Nation's noblest principles, while rejecting the anti-
American suggestions of radicals who want a revolution.
  Every American deserves to be treated equally by their government, as 
guaranteed by our Constitution and our country's most fundamental 
principle that all men are created equal. There is no greater bulwark 
to tyranny and injustice than that old, simple proposition. But we must 
reject efforts to scapegoat and demonize all police for the actions of 
a few, and we must reject radical proposals to dismantle and defund 
police departments, as some have suggested.
  These proposals are offered in the spirit of revenge that would lead 
only to more crime, more lives lost, and more sorrow. The communities 
that would be hit the hardest by the disappearance of police would be 
the most disadvantaged. When police are understaffed and undertrained, 
there is greater risk of mistakes and misconduct, not to mention higher 
rates of crime.
  By contrast, a well-staffed, well-trained, and well-respected force 
is a blessing to its community and a scourge to criminals who threaten 
it. Defunding the police would be deadly. It isn't a solution but an 
insult to good officers, and a threat to law-abiding citizens.
  Americans are not blind to injustice. We all understand the hard work 
that is needed to repair trust in this country, but defunding the 
police is not the answer. We need the rule of law and equal just under 
law. We need them both.
  I urge my colleagues to join with us in passing this resolution, 
which calls for justice for George Floyd and other victims of excessive 
use of force, while also honoring the law enforcement officers who keep 
us safe.
  Therefore, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of a resolution that is at the 
desk, calling for justice for George Floyd and opposing calls to defund 
the police. I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be 
agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. SCHUMER. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, there are millions of people in America 
marching in the streets to reform our police practices, to ask for 
equality, to ask for racial justice.
  We have seen in the savage death of George Floyd, we have seen with 
Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, and in so many other 
instances that our police departments need real reform.
  There is a demand of Americans that we act--and act soon. The 
resolution my colleague offers is rhetoric, not action, and the great 
worry so many Americans have is that so many on the other side will 
feel rhetoric and then try to let this go away.
  We demand action, and we demand it now--real action, not rhetoric--to 
reform our police departments in a fair and comprehensive way. That is 
what the Justice in Policing Act does. We need it on the floor now, as 
soon as the House passes it.
  Very few of us believe that Leader McConnell will put it on the 
floor, but we want him to. We demand he does.
  Again, the resolution by my friend will do nothing--nothing. It is 
rhetoric. We demand action.
  And so in a minute, I will be asking unanimous consent that upon 
receipt of H.R. 7120, the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, the pending 
business here in the Senate, after it passes the House, be that bill, 
so that we are forced and required to debate it.
  And at that point, my friend from Arkansas or anyone else can do 
whatever they want, but not in an empty field of rhetoric and no 
action, when Americans demand action.
  We need justice. We need racial equality. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Arkansas is recognized
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, if the Senator from New York would like to 
enter into a colloquy, I did not hear an objection to a single sentence 
of that resolution, to a clause of that resolution, to a word in that 
resolution, which calls for justice for George Floyd and other victims 
of excessive force and also says that the Senate opposes radical ideas 
to defund the police.
  So if the Senator from New York would like to explain to the Senate 
what part of that resolution he opposes and why he is objecting, I 
would welcome to hear his answer.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I have a resolution at the desk.
  Mr. COTTON. Reclaiming my time, I have not yielded the floor.
  So I would just point out this. Let's be clear what just happened 
here. We have a resolution. It is a couple of pages long. The Democrats 
have had it for 24 hours. Until just moments ago, we had no indication 
that they planned to object or that they had any other contrary 
resolution.
  We have heard objection from the Senator from New York not to a 
single word of that resolution itself--a resolution which, I will say 
again, calls for justice for George Floyd and for all victims of 
excessive force, as well as opposes radical efforts to defund the 
police.
  So I will only conclude that the minority leader is here to speak on 
behalf of the Democratic Party and defend this radical idea to defund 
the police, since he is unwilling to cite what part of that resolution 
he opposes.
  And now, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, as the gentleman heard, we need action, 
not rhetoric. That is the objection because we believe that too many on 
that side of the aisle will not want to act and, therefore, for them to 
be content with rhetoric will not serve any good purpose.
  We can debate all of these issues when we have a real bill on the 
floor and we are moving forward to bring justice. My resolution does 
just that. It says very simply--very simply--that the minute the House 
passes the Justice in Policing Act, the pending business here in the 
Senate is that act, so we can debate it and we can hopefully pass it. 
Some may choose to modify it in whatever way they choose, but rhetoric 
is no substitute for action when the American people, overwhelmingly, 
in the streets, peacefully, proudly, strongly demand action.


                       Unanimous Consent Request

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of a resolution at the desk that would make 
H.R. 7120, the Justice in Policing Act, the pending business upon 
receipt from the House. I further ask that the resolution be agreed to 
and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the 
table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am a bit 
mystified about what has happened here. We had a resolution on the 
floor, a couple of pages, calling for justice for George Floyd and 
victims of excessive use of force, as well as condemning the radical 
idea of defunding the police.
  Now, the minority leader wants to offer a resolution that would 
immediately make the pending business of the Senate--at some distant, 
speculative time in the future--a piece of legislation which, if I am 
not mistaken, hasn't even been written and filed yet in the House of 
Representatives. Now, maybe it has been written in the last day or two 
and I am not aware that they filed that bill, but it certainly hasn't 
been debated and voted on in the House of Representatives.
  There is all the time in the world to decide what is going to be the 
pending business in the U.S. Senate when the Senate acts, but we have a 
resolution

[[Page S2865]]

right in front of us that condemns the unjustified killing of George 
Floyd, calls for justice for his death and all those victims of 
excessive use of force, and also--since the Senate opposes the radical 
idea--of defunding the police.
  Yet, the Democratic leader, on behalf of his party, objected to that 
without citing a single word, a single clause, a single sentence that 
he finds objectionable. I assume it is because they do, in fact, want 
to defund the police.
  I know he keeps talking about rhetoric versus action. I will just 
remind you that the Senate, on almost every day we are in business, 
passes multiple resolutions by unanimous consent. If I am not mistaken, 
I think the Democratic leader was on the floor last week trying to pass 
a resolution condemning the President once again. So the idea that we 
don't pass resolutions expressing the sense of the Senate or, for that 
matter, there is a choice between passing such a resolution and taking 
action is simply foreign to the way the Senate acts every single day.
  I will just say again that what we are seeing here is the Democratic 
leader apparently objecting on behalf of the Democratic Party in 
defense of the radical idea that we should defund the police. I object 
to the Democratic leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Democratic leader.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the gentleman from Arkansas has made my 
point. He talks about business as usual. This is not business as usual. 
The typical rhetoric, the kind of avoiding action which has been so, so 
endemic in this Republican Party is showing itself again. If they 
wanted to act, they could have supported our resolution. They are 
trying to avoid it. We will not let that happen.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, if the Democratic leader, again, would 
like to engage in a colloquy, I will ask him, is the bill that he wants 
to make the immediate pending business of the Senate even written in 
the House of Representatives?
  Since he has departed, I guess the answer to my question is, no, that 
bill is not even written and filed in the House of Representatives, and 
certainly it has not been voted upon in the House and sent to the 
Senate for us to make it the pending business.
  So the objection you just heard, again, didn't object to a single 
word in our resolution, much less a clause or a sentence--a resolution 
that calls for justice for George Floyd and the victims of the 
excessive use of force, while at the same time opposing radical 
Democratic proposals to defund the police. I can only infer, since I 
didn't hear a single objection to the language of our resolution, that 
the rub of the matter is that the Democrats really do support defunding 
the police.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana


                               H.R. 1957

  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, it is an honor to stand here today in 
support of one of the most historic pieces of conservation legislation 
in decades--some are saying 50 years.
  The Great American Outdoors Act will have a lasting impact on 
generations to come. That is why, as Montana's voice in the Senate, I 
am standing here today to make the Great American Outdoors Act a 
reality.
  Over the last few days, we have seen very strong bipartisan support 
both here in the Senate and around the Nation. Senators from both sides 
of the aisle, representing States all across our great Nation, have 
been coming down to the floor to share stories and photos and to show 
support for the bill. It is a very personal piece of legislation 
because we all love the outdoors.
  At this point, plenty of us have spoken in support of this bill, but 
today I want to share some quotes from Montanans who are also in 
support of the Great American Outdoors Act.
  David Brooks from Montana Trout Unlimited says:

       As the Senate takes up the legislation this week, we are 
     also excited to see progress on addressing decades of 
     maintenance backlogs on our public lands that benefit our 
     wild and native fish and their habitat.

  Speaking of trout, this picture was taken at the Yellowstone River. 
The main channel is over here. There is a little side channel as well. 
That is Emigrant Peak. That is in a valley called Paradise Valley. It 
is appropriately named. It is south of Livingston--between Livingston 
and Gardiner. If you were to come visit Yellowstone National Park, one 
of the entrances is in Gardiner, and that would be on the way to 
Yellowstone Park.
  As I mentioned before, that is, in fact, where in 1979 we had our 
high school homecoming dinner, and I proudly took a date in a Griswold 
station wagon with some couples, and we drove down to Chico's. It is 
right by where this picture was taken. There are a lot of memories when 
I see a picture like that. There was a lot of fish caught as I fished 
that river many, many times. I do it several times a summer.
  Ben Horan with Mountain Bike Missoula says:

       There is a good reason the Land and Water Conservation Fund 
     has enjoyed bipartisan support since the 1960s. It is just 
     good policy. For more than 55 years, LWCF has supported and 
     funded open spaces and public lands that we in Montana rely 
     on for our work, for our play, and for our way of life.

  Kyle Weaver from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation had this to say:

       This important conservation program allowed the Rocky 
     Mountain Elk Foundation to complete more than 80 land 
     protection and access projects that conserved more than 
     152,000 acres of habitat for elk and other wildlife. RMEF 
     strongly urges Members of the Senate and House to rally 
     alongside Senator Daines, pass this measure, and forward it 
     to President Trump's desk so it can be signed into law.

  Land Tawny with the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers said this:

       Sportsmen and women have been the leading voices in this 
     effort to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund as 
     well as providing maintenance funding for the agencies that 
     manage places critical for public access and fish and 
     wildlife. Our public lands and our waters have traditionally 
     been places of refuge, of solace, and of adventure.

  Never has this been truer than right now when we need to recenter and 
get our minds right. Now is the most strategic time for investing in 
these places of refuge by funding shovel-ready projects that sustain 
important habitat, increase public access opportunities, and get people 
back to work.
  Mayor Bill Cole of Billings said:

       Over the years, Billings has received almost $2 million to 
     fund construction repairs on our parks. The Great American 
     Outdoors Act will be a great help as we plan future projects 
     that address the backlog of maintenance needs. Parks and 
     trails are critical to our Western quality of life, they 
     attract visitors, and they support our economy.

  The city manager of Great Falls, Greg Doyle, said this:

       For many years, the city has utilized the LWCF 
     appropriations to complete a wide variety of projects. These 
     projects help support and develop park land and recreational 
     facilities for Great Falls residents and visitors.

  Alex Kitchens with the Mystery Ranch. The Mystery Ranch--that sounds 
kind of mysterious, doesn't it? They actually make some of the best 
backpacks in America. In fact, when my wife and I and children get out 
in the wilderness area every summer, we all are carrying Mystery Ranch 
backpacks. They are some of the very best. In fact, in the early days 
of this company, back in the seventies when I was going to high school 
in Bozeman, I had a Kletterworks pack. Kletterworks was the precursor 
to Mystery Ranch. In fact, the book bag that I then took to Montana 
State University and carried my books in throughout my college 
experience in Bozeman--I took that same pack to the top of Granite 
Peak, our highest point in Montana, and the summit of the Grand Teton, 
just south of Montana there--beautiful country outside of Jackson, 
WY. It was a small pack. We went very ultralight with bivy bags, kind 
of a sense of a quick up and down because of weather. We wanted to get 
up there quickly on both peaks, and we made it. That was the precursor 
to the Mystery Ranch, which are the packs we have today. They are 
larger packs. You can carry more weight into the backcountry.

  Alex said this: The Great American Outdoors Act is landmark 
conservation to protect our public lands. The full funding of the LWCF 
is a benefit to our parks and our forests at the local and State level.
  We have Glenn Marx with the Montana Association of Land Trusts. I 
will quote Glenn:

       Passage of the Great American Outdoors Act means LWCF 
     funding and tremendous rural community, national park, and 
     outdoor recreation economic benefits for Montana and the 
     nation. More legislative steps to go. Let's finish the 
     journey.


[[Page S2866]]


  I couldn't agree more, Glenn.
  Finally, I want to highlight a letter. It is a letter signed by every 
former Secretary of the Interior, from Secretary Babbitt, who served in 
1993, to Montana's very own Secretary Ryan Zinke.
  In fact, Ryan and I were Boy Staters together back in 1979. Ryan was 
a junior, soon to be a senior, at Whitefish High School, and I was a 
junior, soon to be senior, at Boozman High in 1979. Little did we know 
when we were Boy Staters then that Ryan, after a distinguished military 
career in the U.S. Navy as a Navy SEAL, would go on to be our Secretary 
of the Interior.
  The letter says this: ``The Great American Outdoors Act will help 
ensure a better, brighter future for nature and for all of us.''
  By the way, if you look at those Secretaries, those are Secretaries 
who served under Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents.
  Needless to say, Montana has its fair share of support for the Great 
American Outdoors Act, and the list of support goes on.
  Montanans know what it takes to conserve their public lands. Ensuring 
full mandatory funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund will 
make sure our public lands are managed correctly and that Montanans and 
Americans around the country will have better access to share public 
lands.
  Dealing with the $12 billion maintenance backlog in our national 
parks will be so beneficial for the employees who are working so hard 
in national parks. We are seeing record visitation levels in many of 
our parks, but our employee housing in many cases is terrible--
crumbling infrastructure, wastewater treatment systems that are in 
desperate need of repair and upgrades. That maintenance backlog needs 
to be addressed, and that will improve the visitor experience.
  When I think about our national parks, I think of these parks as the 
office of first impression. For visitors who come to our great country 
from around the world, when they visit our national parks, they leave 
with a profound impression. It is what sets America apart from any 
other country--our national parks, our outdoor heritage, and preserving 
and protecting that for generations to come.
  The Great American Outdoors Act will directly impact everybody who 
visits, who recreates, and who enjoys our public lands. This will be 
truly one of those defining moments for conservation that so many will 
remember for generations to come. It is one of these laws that we will 
pass, and when the President signs it, it will truly be a legacy for 
future generations. It makes me smile just knowing that so many others 
will be able to have our public lands to enjoy, just as my wife and I 
and my children all have done and continue to do, once we pass the 
Great American Outdoors Act.
  Thank you.
  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware


                           Free File Program

  Mr. CARPER. Good afternoon, Mr. President and colleagues. I rise 
today to highlight some recent work that we have done on the Senate 
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that could help not hundreds, 
not thousands, not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but 
millions of Americans save some money when filing their Federal income 
tax returns this year and in future years.
  As the ranking member of the subcommittee called the Permanent 
Subcommittee on Investigations in the Senate, my staff and I worked 
closely with a fellow named Rob Portman of Ohio, who is the chairman of 
our subcommittee, and with his team. He put us all in a room together--
Senator Portman's team, Republicans; our team, Democrats--and wonder 
who is who and whose side they are on. You wouldn't know one side from 
the other. It is sort of like the Presiding Officer and I working 
together on recycling issues, with his team and mine.
  Senator Portman and I, along with our staffs, studied big problems 
and big challenges facing Americans in America. We tried to identify 
commonsense solutions in a truly bipartisan, almost nonpartisan 
approach. That has characterized the work of the subcommittee not just 
for a couple of years but for decades.
  For years, I have heard the following question over and over again 
back home, and the Presiding Officer probably has too. People in 
Delaware and I am sure in the Presiding Officer's State asked this 
question: Why can't you all work together in Washington and get 
something done? That is what we do on our Permanent Subcommittee on 
Investigations. We work together, and I think we get a lot done. It is 
our bread and butter. I want to talk for a few minutes today about some 
of the work here on the Senate floor.
  Over the past year, our subcommittee has examined a whole bunch of 
issues, and one of those issues is relating to the IRS Free File 
Program. Earlier this week, we released a short staff memorandum laying 
out our findings.
  Over the next couple of minutes, I want to explain the genesis and 
the importance of the Free File Program, what our subcommittee learned 
about it, and some of the things Congress and the IRS could do to 
improve the program and better serve taxpayers.
  I say to the Presiding Officer, I don't know if back in your home 
State you do townhall meetings, but I guess you have done a bunch of 
them. I did a bunch of them especially when I was a Congressman--
hundreds of them--and as Governor and even now.
  When I was a Congressman, every year we used to--we only have three 
counties in my State. The Presiding Officer has a lot more in his. Once 
every year, a month or so before the tax-filing deadline, usually 
March, I would host townhall meetings in each of our counties, and we 
would invite the IRS to come, along with the State Division of Revenue, 
to participate. We would offer to the people of Delaware the 
opportunity to ask questions not just of me and my staff but of the IRS 
and the State Division of Revenue about tax returns that were being 
filed. It was something I loved. I love helping people, and I know the 
Presiding Officer does as well. It was a real chance to help people in 
a timely way.
  If you take that idea--and that was an idea for, I will say, the 20th 
century, a 20th century idea, and it was a good idea. But we have a 
21st-century idea, and it is called the Free File Program. That is what 
I want to focus on now.
  Some people might be asking: What in the heck is the Free File 
Program anyway? Going back to 1998--I was Governor then, and I think 
our Presiding Officer might have been a House Member. I am not sure. 
But Congress directed the IRS to work with the tax preparation industry 
to create a way for Americans to file their taxes electronically.
  This is around the time when the first version of search engines like 
Yahoo! and Google were being developed and coming forward. Email 
addresses and web portals, like America Online, were rapidly expanding 
the availability of internet services not just for homes but for 
schools and other places too. Suddenly, it was possible to do a whole 
lot of things on the internet for the first time, including filing our 
taxes electronically.
  Free File is the program that grew out of a mandate Congress issued, 
and taxpayers were first able to take advantage of the program in 2002. 
So my guess is the mandate from Congress to the IRS to make this 
program available was about two decades ago, and the first time 
taxpayers were able to take advantage of that was a couple of years 
later, in 2002.
  The program is really a partnership between the IRS on the one hand 
and tax preparation companies, like H&R Block and Intuit, to offer 
complete and free online tax preparation and filing services--not to 
all Americans but to most. Sixty percent was the original goal, the 
original target. Today, it is available to about 70 percent of all 
Americans.
  This year, most taxpayers earning less than $69,000 could use Free 
File to file their taxes for free. That is why we call it Free File. I 
will say that again. This year, most taxpayers earning less than 
$69,000 could use Free File to file their taxes for free.
  A lot of times, when you hear somebody offer you something for 
nothing, for free, you say: Well, I am not sure I would want to do 
that. This is one that a whole bunch of taxpayers--about 100 million of 
them, in fact--can take real advantage of because according to the

[[Page S2867]]

IRS, over 100 million taxpayers are eligible to use this program, Free 
File.
  Over 100 million taxpayers can file their Federal taxes for free. One 
might ask: Well, how do they do that? All they have to do is to visit 
this website to get started. The website--I am looking to see where 
that website is listed. I don't see it here. Maybe it is on the back. I 
don't think it is back there either, but I will just say it. Here it 
is. All they have to do is visit this website to get started: IRS.gov/
FreeFile. That is it. That is a mouthful, isn't it? That is IRS.gov/
FreeFile.

  As much as I do it--it is this close. There it is: IRS.gov/FreeFile. 
I am blind. There it is.
  To my staff who prepared this for us, thank you.
  From there, whoever clicks on this address can choose to visit the 
individual Free File website of one of several companies offering this 
service and choose the one that works best for them. It sounds pretty 
simple, even to me. But only a few million taxpayers out of 100 million 
who are eligible use the program every year. Clearly, we can do better 
than this.
  On our subcommittee, we started looking into Free File about a year 
ago, after reading news reports alleging that some of the companies 
that participated in the program were making it harder, not easier, for 
taxpayers to find their Free File websites. This is important, 
colleagues. This is important because very few taxpayers go directly to 
the IRS.gov address that I mentioned right here--website. Instead, when 
most taxpayers are ready to file their taxes, they use search engines 
like Google, and they type in phrases like ``free online tax filing'' 
or ``free tax return.'' For search terms like these, Google might 
return thousands, maybe millions, of results. Those results could 
oftentimes be confusing. Imagine that you are trying to get some 
information, and you get thousands of ideas from searching on Google. 
That can often be very confusing or just too much for a lot of us to 
try to wade through.
  On top of that, we were able to confirm that 5 of the 12 companies 
that participated in the Free File Program in tax year 2018, 2 years 
ago--that includes H&R Block, Intuit, TaxHawk, Drake Software, and 
TaxSlayer--apparently took steps to actually prevent their Free File 
websites from even appearing in search results. So when someone 
searched on Google last year for free tax help, they were likely to 
land on the website for one of the heavily advertised commercial tax 
filing products.
  Some of those commercial products have names that are similar to the 
names companies have given their Free File offerings. For example, H&R 
Block has a commercial product called Free Online, and Intuit has one 
called Turbo Tax Free Edition. These names sound a lot like the names 
given to the IRS Free File products, but they are not the same. In 
fact, there is no guarantee that they will actually be free, despite 
their names.
  I want to be clear. There is nothing wrong with Free File partner 
companies having their own successful commercial products and 
continuing to innovate. There is nothing wrong with that. I am told 
there are legitimate reasons someone might want to prevent a website 
from appearing in a Google search result. However, it is important that 
we make sure not to confuse taxpayers any more than they might already 
be confused when it comes to preparing their tax returns.
  It is also imperative to Senator Portman, his staff, and my staff 
that the lowest income taxpayers are able to access the free filing 
services that Congress wanted to be sure were available for them. It is 
too easy for a taxpayer to click on a search result that looks like a 
free filing option and wind up being charged for extra services they 
didn't want and, frankly, didn't need.
  In fact, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration 
estimates that more than 14 million taxpayers who qualified for the 
Free File Program used commercial software offered by a Free File 
partner company and may have paid a fee to file their 2018 Federal tax 
return when they did not need to do so. Just think about that. Fourteen 
million taxpayers could have filed their Federal tax returns completely 
free but instead ended up paying a fee.
  While it is entirely possible that some of those 14 million people 
knew they were using a commercial product and chose to pay more, many 
simply didn't know they might have a better option. We have an 
obligation to make sure they know about it. Both Congress and the IRS 
need to do more to make certain that taxpayers who are eligible for a 
free product and want a free product don't end up paying for something 
they should not have to pay for. It is that simple.
  So how did this happen? Well, we have learned that part of the blame 
belongs to the IRS, which apparently has designated only three full-
time employees--think about that--for how many people we have in this 
country? Three hundred-plus million? The IRS has designated only three 
full-time employees to work on Free File and, I am told, has not 
conducted sufficient oversight over the program for years. For example, 
our Subcommittee on Investigations learned that the IRS has not 
completed a customer satisfaction survey for the Free File Program 
since 2009. That is 11 years. That is right--since 2009, even though 
the Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration 
recommended greater use of customer satisfaction surveys not last year 
or the year before that but as far back as 2007.
  Despite Americans' growing tendency to use search engines like Google 
to navigate the internet, the IRS and its Free File partner companies 
apparently never discussed online search practices until very recently. 
This allowed individual companies to make their own choices about how 
their Free File websites could be accessed.
  There is also the fact that the IRS has not had a marketing budget 
for the Free File Program in more than 6 years. When we asked IRS 
officials to explain the lack of marketing, they told us a couple of 
things. Here is one of the things we heard. They said: ``Well, it may 
have been an IRS budget decision as part of the broader reduction in 
spending the agency received over the last several years.'' He said 
``as part of the broader reduction in spending.'' Actually, it was the 
broader reduction in appropriations the Agency received over the last 
several years.
  The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration came to pretty 
much the same conclusion. Here is what we got from the Inspector 
General of the Treasury: The IRS was trying to ``save money and be more 
efficient.''
  Well, we should make sure that we save American taxpayers money, no 
doubt, especially at a time when every dollar counts for our family 
and, frankly, for our government.
  With that said, what can Congress do? What is our role here in the 
Senate, in the House, in the Congress, and in the White House, in the 
executive branch of our government and Treasury?
  As senior members of the Finance Committee, Senator Portman and I 
have listened to former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, a great leader, 
and to the Government Accountability Office led by Gene Dodaro, a 
wonderful Comptroller General. We listened to them lament the fact 
that, for years Congress has appropriated the IRS with far less money 
than it needs to provide adequate tax enforcement and good customer 
service, as well as to better ensure that all Federal taxpayers are 
paying their fair share to fund our government and meet our many 
obligations.
  Despite a recent bump up in funding for the IRS in the past year, 
since fiscal year 2010--so over the last decade--funding for the IRS 
overall has declined by $3.1 billion, after accounting for inflation, 
while the number of individual taxpayers has increased by 13 million. 
That makes no sense to me. My guess is it doesn't make much sense to 
most people. Let's listen to that again. Funding for the IRS--our job 
is to appropriate money, among other things. Funding for the IRS, 
overall, has declined by over $3 billion, after accounting for 
inflation, while the number of individual taxpayers who need to be 
served, who have questions to ask and tax returns to submit--that 
number has gone up by 13 million people.
  These IRS budget cuts have impaired both tax enforcement and taxpayer 
service operations. For example, reduced funding has led to a reduction 
in

[[Page S2868]]

the number of employees assigned to answer telephone calls. The 
inevitable result is fewer taxpayer calls answered, longer wait times 
to get through to the IRS representative, and a lot of needless 
frustrations from the people we and the IRS are serving, the people who 
have sent us here to work for them.
  All of this was before the coronavirus pandemic forced the IRS to 
send thousands of its employees home.
  So as I prepare to wrap up here today, let me say to all of our 
colleagues, those who are gathered here and those who are not--our 
colleagues both here in the Senate and in the House of Representatives 
at the other end of this building--while it is important that we ask 
why the IRS didn't do a better job of overseeing the Free File Program 
and make clear that it must do more, it is equally important that we in 
the legislative branch of government and in the administration--this 
administration and future administrations--provide the IRS with the 
tools and resources it needs to do the important job it does.
  The last time the IRS had a marketing budget for their Free File 
Program, it spent between $750,000 and $1.5 million marketing the 
program annually to, gosh, probably 200--over 100 million--we will say 
close to 200 million taxpayers. That sounds like a lot of money, but 
when you are talking about over 100 million taxpayers, it doesn't go 
that far. I am not sure that is a big enough budget given the large 
number of taxpayers who seem to be unaware of Free File. Even a modest 
amount of funding would go a long way toward ensuring that millions of 
eligible taxpayers do not have to pay a dime to file their taxes 
online.
  Well, colleagues, my staff and my other colleagues often hear me say 
these--I think they are called aphorisms. One of my favorites is, find 
out what works and do more of that. Think about it. Find out what 
works. Do more of that. Well, we found out on our subcommittee how we 
can strengthen and support this Free File Program. Let's do it. Let's 
not just talk about it. Let's not just complain about it. Let's do it. 
Let's begin by doing our part to provide--this year and in the years 
that follow--the IRS with the resources it needs and, where necessary, 
the additional guidance it needs to make Free File work the way we 
intended it to work almost two decades ago.
  Another thing I would like to say is that in adversity lies 
opportunity. Think about that. I wish I could claim that as my own. 
That is Einstein. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the filing 
deadline for taxpayers has been pushed back, as we know, to July 15--
not April 15, a month or a month and a half ago, but July 15. Here is 
what that means. It means we have--taxpayers have--we have more time to 
get the word out, the IRS has more time to get the word out to eligible 
Americans that they can file their taxes for free--more time to get the 
word out to eligible Americans that they can file their taxes for free. 
Get the word out to whom? To tens of millions of American taxpayers.
  I want to encourage all eligible taxpayers to visit IRS.gov/
freefile--right here--IRS.gov/freefile--to ensure that they have access 
to the free resources that are available to them.
  I would also ask everyone to help spread the word. Talk to your 
friends. Talk to your family. When you are cooped up at home and you 
can't go anyplace, you are still locked down in quarantine, what will 
you talk about? Talk about Free File; say: Here is a way we maybe could 
save some money, and our friends could too--instead of taking a 
different course.
  That is it. I will close with this. I like movies. I know the 
Presiding Officer likes movies. One of my alltime favorite movies and 
our colleague who has joined us, from Alaska, one of his alltime 
favorite movies--he has talked about it many times--is ``Back to the 
Future.'' This is, in a way, back to the future.
  Back when I first got to the House, we used to do this--as I said 
before Senator Sullivan and Senator Cruz came to the floor--I talked 
about how every year, in every county in Delaware, we would do--there 
are only three counties--we would actually do townhall meetings, and we 
would have folks in from the IRS and from the State Division of Revenue 
to actually help people prepare and file their taxes. We don't do that 
anymore. Actually, we have something that is even better, a whole lot 
better, and it is this Free File Program that the IRS has. It is 
available, if people just knew about it.
  I will close with these words. I wish I could claim this as well. I 
wonder who said this. Maybe one of our smart pages--if our pages were 
here, I would ask one of the pages to figure it out. Have you ever 
heard the saying: If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody 
there to hear it, is there really a noise?
  Think about that. If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody 
there to hear it, is there really a noise? Well, if we have a great 
program through the IRS to help millions and millions of people file 
their taxes for free and they don't know about it, is there really a 
benefit? I think, arguably, not. We can do something about that. Let's 
do it.
  I yield the floor to my friend from Alaska.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). The Senator from Alaska.


                                 Racism

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, there is no doubt that there is a lot of 
anger in our country right now. We have seen that anger being given 
voice all throughout our communities and small towns and big cities. We 
have seen it in our households, among our families, our children, our 
friends.
  The killing of George Floyd has shocked us all. The video of a police 
officer so nonchalantly kneeling on George's neck as he begged to be 
released and three other officers standing by as if nothing was 
happening, as if it weren't a human being's life being taken--this 
shocked us.
  By now, we all know how George Floyd called out, calling out for his 
mother, who had passed years ago, a mother who loved him, whom he must 
have seen coming to him in his final moments. ``I can't breathe,'' he 
said--the last words of a man on a street in Minneapolis that have 
rocked the Nation. They are three simple words that mean so much and 
have so much resonance throughout our history; words that, at their 
very heart, have helped to define the moral issue of our country, and 
that is slavery and the struggle--the long struggle for civil rights.
  The freedom to breathe and your life as your own are what were taken 
from men and women and their children when they were ripped from their 
countries and brought, in slavery, into this Nation. That is what was 
taken away from Native Americans and Alaska Natives when they were 
forced off their lands.
  The freedom to take the full breath of life is what is taken away 
from people when they are denied a quality education or housing in safe 
neighborhoods; when they are denied jobs or promotions when they get 
those jobs; when they are viewed, because of the color of their skin, 
as less deserving or as less able.
  I applaud those who have peacefully taken to the streets throughout 
our communities to protest against racism, and I also applaud the brave 
police officers and National Guardsmen all across the country who are 
protecting those who need protecting and reaching out to constructively 
engage peaceful protesters. The vast, vast majority of these law 
enforcement officers are honorable and risk their lives daily for their 
fellow citizens, and we need to remember that.
  We are witnessing something that I believe is an important moment, 
one that has potential to move our country in a direction toward a more 
perfect Union. This moment has promise.
  Senators are discussing with each other what kind of legislative 
action should be taken. For example, we had a very good discussion on 
these issues just yesterday led by my friend and colleague Senator Tim 
Scott of South Carolina. State and community leaders are also having 
these discussions.
  Of course, we are a big country, and what might seem to be a good 
idea in one place wouldn't be a good idea in some other place. For 
example, one of the enormous challenges in the great State of Alaska 
that I have been focused on for years is not enough law enforcement, 
particularly in our rural and Native communities, dozens of which don't 
have any law enforcement officers at all. So this is a huge problem in 
Alaska that can create horrible situations, particularly when it comes

[[Page S2869]]

to violent crimes like sexual assault and domestic violence.
  So I am not a proponent of defunding the police, but something else 
that is happening in America right now at this moment are discussions--
not just in the halls of government but around dinner tables, among 
families and parents and their kids and their friend groups--on what 
can or should be done at the individual level, the individual American 
level. This is certainly happening, for example, in my family.
  That was the main point of a powerful and wisdom-filled op-ed by my 
former boss, friend, and mentor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice 
last week, in the Washington Post
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this op-ed be printed in 
the Record following my remarks.
  It is entitled ``This Moment Cries Out for Us to Confront Race in 
America.'' Condoleezza Rice was the daughter of the segregated South, 
raised in Birmingham, AL, during the height of the struggle for civil 
rights, with sit-ins, riots, and even bombings happening in her city.
  When she was 8 years old, the Ku Klux Klan bombed a local church in 
Birmingham, killing four school-aged girls. One of those girls, Denise 
McNair, was a friend of Condi's. They used to play dolls together.
  Over five decades later, through hard work, grace, dignity, and 
supreme intelligence, she rose to become one of the most powerful 
people in the world as Secretary of State of the United States, and I 
had the honor of a lifetime to work for her for 5 years.
  She recounts some of her journey in this op-ed, which I encourage all 
of my colleagues and all Americans to read. She reminds us:

       Our country has a birth defect: Africans and Europeans came 
     to this country together--but one group was in chains. In 
     time, the very Constitution that counted slaves as three-
     fifths of a man became a powerful tool in affording the 
     descendants of slaves their basic rights. That work has been 
     long and difficult, but it has made a difference. We are 
     better than we were.

  She notes one harsh indicator of progress. In Jim Crow Alabama, in 
her youth, she says:

       [N]o one batted an eye if the police killed a black man. 
     There wouldn't have been even a footnote in the local press.

  Yet now we are seeing hundreds of thousands across America take to 
the streets peacefully to protest such injustice.
  In her piece from last week, she emphasizes that finger-pointing at 
this moment will not help the cause:

       And if we are to make progress, let us vow to check the 
     language of recrimination at the door.

  Very wise words. We all need to focus on emphasizing unity and 
empathy at this moment--all of us. Senators, Governors, the President, 
the media--all of us have this responsibility, and it is what the vast 
majority of our fellow Americans want. It is what they want and what 
they want us to do and to see and hear from us.
  Perhaps most importantly, Condoleezza Rice, in her op-ed, emphasizes 
something seemingly so obvious but not spoken much: individual action 
and responsibility. She ends her piece with this challenge that I put 
up here on the posterboard. It is a really important challenge for 
every American:

       So I ask my fellow Americans: What will each of you do? My 
     personal passion is educational opportunity, because it is a 
     partial shield against prejudice. It is not a perfect shield, 
     I know, but it gives people a fighting chance. In my 
     conversations, I want to discuss why the learning gap for 
     black kids is so stubborn and what can be done about it. What 
     is your question about the impact of race on the lives of 
     Americans? And what will you do to find answers?

  Those words in her op-ed--the challenge--really struck me, and I have 
thought long and hard all week about them since reading those words in 
the Washington Post.
  Of course, as a Senator, I, with many of you, my colleagues, am 
taking part in discussions which I hope will lead to collective action 
by our Federal Government to address some of the challenges our Nation 
certainly continues to have regarding race. But Condoleezza Rice's 
question and challenge is about personal passion and action, and it is 
a question for every American to consider.
  I have an amazing Alaska Native wife from whom I have learned much 
about the serious issue of racism in my State against indigenous 
Alaskans and among the first peoples in our great Nation, but I have 
never experienced the kind of racism that many across our country have.
  I am a colonel in the Marines, an institution I am very proud to be a 
part of, an institution that--like the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast 
Guard--at its very heart, it isn't supposed to matter what the color of 
your skin is, what religion you practice, or what part of the 
socioeconomic ladder you come from. The fundamental ethos of the Marine 
Corps and our military is supposed to be this: It doesn't matter what 
race you are. You are just a U.S. marine.
  Now, of course, the Marines and the rest of the military don't always 
meet this ideal, but they strive for it, even in ways that might seem 
puzzling to those who haven't served.
  There is the story of the tough Marine Corps drill instructor 
shouting at his raw recruits on day one of boot camp:

       There is no racial bigotry here. In my eyes, every one of 
     you are equally worthless. My orders are to weed out all non-
     hackers who cannot serve my beloved Marine Corps. Do you 
     maggots understand that?

  That is the drill instructor. Again, it is the ideal--equality in the 
U.S. military--but it is not always met.
  I remember how the first rifle platoon I commanded as a young second 
lieutenant was literally about one-third White, one-third Black, and 
one-third Hispanic. My platoon sergeant was an African-American marine 
named Willis Towns. He was outstanding in every way, Sergeant Towns. I 
learned so much from him about leadership.
  His dream in life was to be the first African-American sergeant major 
of the entire Marine Corps. He never reached that goal. A few weeks 
after I attended a Martin Luther King, Jr., ceremony with him in which 
he received an award for his leadership in the community, he was killed 
in a training accident. That was the worst day of my life. Just a few 
years later, the Marine Corps named another outstanding African 
American to be Sergeant Major of the entire Marine Corps. I remember 
thinking when the announcement came out: Congratulations, Willis. You 
did it. You did it.

  I believe that the military--desegregated in 1948, nearly 20 years 
before the passage of civil rights legislation by this body--is one of 
the most important civil rights organizations in America. I am 
passionate about our U.S. military, but it can improve in terms of 
race. There are questions that need to be asked about the record of our 
military on these important issues.
  Yesterday was an important day in the Senate with the unanimous vote 
to confirm Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., to be Chief of Staff of the U.S. 
Air Force. For a whole host of reasons, I was probably more involved in 
his confirmation than any other Senator. I had the opportunity to come 
to the floor yesterday to speak strongly in support of his Senate 
confirmation.
  I have had many discussions with General Brown over the past year, 
but what surprised me was that I learned recently that yesterday's vote 
was actually a historic vote for America. His confirmation, 98 to 0, 
was so historic because General C. Q. Brown was just confirmed 
yesterday by this body as our first African-American service chief in 
the history of the United States of America.
  Let me explain a little bit more about that. The Joint Chiefs of 
Staff consists of the service chiefs, the top four-star generals of the 
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Coast Guard, as well as the Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs, with the notable exception of GEN Colin Powell, 
who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the early 1990s. General C. Q. 
Brown, whom we confirmed yesterday, will be the first African-American 
service chief ever for any military service. Of course, this is good 
news in terms of racial progress for America, but it also begs an 
important question: Why did it take so long for this to happen, 
especially in one of America's institutions with probably one of the 
best, longest records on positive civil rights in our Nation?
  Some of the answers are surely hinted at in General Brown's very 
moving video address that he gave last week when he talked about what 
was on his mind in the wake of the horrible

[[Page S2870]]

George Floyd death. I would recommend that everybody take a look at 
that. In the Air Force, he says he was often the only African American 
in his squadron, and as a senior general officer, the only African 
American in the entire room. What is he thinking about during these 
challenging times? ``I'm thinking about wearing the same flight suit 
with the same wings on my chest as my peers and then being questioned 
by another military member, are you a pilot?''
  What else is he thinking?
  ``I'm thinking about my mentors and how rarely I had a mentor who 
looked like me.''
  ``I'm thinking about the pressure I felt to perform error-free, 
especially for supervisors I perceived had expected less of me as an 
African American.''
  He continues saying he was thinking about the conversations he was 
having with his sons and the immense responsibility that comes from his 
historic nomination. He was thinking about how with this confirmation, 
he could make things better in the Air Force and America.
  Here is how I am going to take up Condoleezza Rice's challenge, as 
she put forth for each individual American. I am going to ask 
questions--as she prods us to do in this piece--on why, until 
yesterday, no African-American four-star had ever been confirmed to be 
a service chief in the U.S. military in the history of our country.
  We are introducing an amendment to this year's NDAA to get data on 
minorities and senior enlisted and officer billets in the military--
African Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans 
and others. We know these are very patriotic segments of our 
population. For example, Alaska Natives and American Indians serve at 
higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the 
country--what I refer to as special patriotism.
  Is this patriotic service reflected at the highest leadership ranks 
of our military? If not, then, why not?
  I suspect that a lot of our military leaders who have risen to the 
general officers ranks--like General Brown or other outstanding 
African-American generals whom I have gotten to know or have the 
privilege of serving with, like Army GEN Vincent Brooks, former CENTCOM 
Commander GEN Lloyd Austin, and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Ron Bailey--will 
have insightful views on these important matters.
  Our military is something I am very passionate about, not only 
because it protects and defends our Nation, but because for decades, it 
has provided Americans of all colors and creeds with the opportunity to 
rise up individually and as a collective force for good in our society 
and to enable members of the military to achieve their full potential 
and have a promising future after their service is completed.
  If there is some kind of obstacle for minority advancement that 
stifles opportunities at the highest ranks of our military, then we 
need to know why and we need to work on addressing it together. As a 
matter of fact, I just came from a full day of marking up the NDAA with 
Democratic and Republican Senators, and we will be trying to look at 
this issue, which we had a great discussion on in our markup today. We 
need our military--like we need the rest of the country--to be a place 
where everyone who joins can breathe freely. This is one of the ways I 
am going to take up Condoleezza Rice's challenge to her fellow 
Americans--this important challenge--and I hope my fellow Americans 
will find their own individual ways to do this, as well
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, June 4, 2020]

        This Moment Cries Out for Us To Confront Race in America

       Condoleezza Rice was secretary of state from 2005 to 2009. 
     She is a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School 
     of Business and a senior fellow on public policy at the 
     Hoover Institution, where she will become director on Sept. 
     1.
       Words cannot dull the pain of George Floyd's family. Like 
     many black families before them, they find themselves in the 
     spotlight for reasons that every parent, sibling and spouse 
     dreads. While his death has catalyzed a symbolic call to 
     action, he was not a symbol to his loved ones--he was a 
     father, brother and son. I can only pray that they find the 
     ``peace that passes understanding.''
       In the wake of Floyd's death, Americans and people around 
     the world are experiencing shock, grief, outrage--a set of 
     emotions that too often are repeated. If the past is a guide, 
     these feelings will fade and we will return to our lives.
       But something tells me--not this time. Floyd's horrific 
     death should be enough to finally move us to positive action.
       Perhaps this is like the moment in 1955 when Rosa Parks 
     refused to move to the back of the bus. Or perhaps this is 
     like that fateful Sunday in September 1963, quite personal to 
     me, when a bomb in a Birmingham church killed four girls from 
     my neighborhood and shook our nation to its core. Some six 
     decades later, perhaps all of us--regardless of skin color--
     are, to quote Mississippi sharecropper and civil rights 
     activist Fannie Lou Hamer, ``sick and tired of being sick and 
     tired.''
       Our country has often moved forward and been made better 
     through peaceful protests. But our cities must stop burning. 
     Innocent people, including many minority and immigrant 
     business owners, are watching their livelihoods go up in 
     smoke. There is no excuse for looting and criminality, and 
     offenders must be stopped. But a call for calm is not enough, 
     either. This time, we must remain vigilant and maintain our 
     determination to make a difference.
       Beyond justice for Floyd, systemic change is necessary to 
     make our institutions more just. Yet all the structural 
     reforms in the world are insufficient to remove the shadow 
     hanging over every incident of this kind. To be black is to 
     be forced to overcome implicit and explicit reactions to the 
     color of your skin. It might be dismissiveness or 
     underestimation or presumption of how you think. In some 
     circumstances, it might be fear. We encounter these responses 
     even among decent people who sincerely do not want to react 
     that way. The good news is that these emotions can be 
     overcome--and often are--with the respect that builds when 
     people know one another as human beings--as friends, 
     neighbors, co-workers and teammates.
       Still, we simply must acknowledge that society is not 
     color-blind and probably never will be. Progress comes when 
     people treat one another with respect, as if we were color-
     blind. Unless and until we are honest that race is still an 
     anchor around our country's neck, that shadow will never be 
     lifted. Our country has a birth defect: Africans and 
     Europeans came to this country together--but one group was in 
     chains. In time, the very Constitution that counted slaves as 
     three-fifths of a man became a powerful tool in affording the 
     descendants of slaves their basic rights. That work has been 
     long and difficult, but it has made a difference. We are 
     better than we were.
       I grew up in segregated Jim Crow Alabama, where no one 
     batted an eye if the police killed a black man. There 
     wouldn't have been even a footnote in the local press. So it 
     is a source of pride for me that so many have taken to the 
     streets--peacefully--to say that they care: that they, too, 
     are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yet protests will 
     take our country only so far. The road to healing must begin 
     with respectful but honest and deep conversations, not 
     judgments, about who we were, who we are and who we want to 
     become. Let us talk with, not at, each other--in our homes, 
     schools, workplaces and places of worship. And if we are to 
     make progress, let us vow to check the language of 
     recrimination at the door. As united Americans, we can then 
     turn our fears into faith, hope, compassion and action. And 
     then we can accept and carry out our shared responsibility to 
     build ``a more perfect union.''
       Yet, any call to action will be empty if it does not move 
     us to individual responsibility. We all have a role to play 
     in moving our country forward, in ensuring that our democracy 
     delivers not just for those who have but also for those who 
     seek and for those in need.
       So I ask my fellow Americans: What will each of you do? My 
     personal passion is educational opportunity, because it is a 
     partial shield against prejudice. It is not a perfect shield, 
     I know, but it gives people a fighting chance. In my 
     conversations, I want to discuss why the learning gap for 
     black kids is so stubborn and what can be done about it. What 
     is your question about the impact of race on the lives of 
     Americans? And what will you do to find answers?

  Mr. SULLIVAN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.


                              Coronavirus

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I have been thinking about the last time I 
was in an airplane. It was mid-March. One of the many great things 
about my State is I can drive back and forth in the car for 6 hours. 
The last time I was in an airplane was mid-March. That day in mid-
March, South Korea had 90 diagnosed cases of coronavirus. On the other 
side of the world, in the United States of America, we had 90 cases of 
coronavirus.
  Since then, fewer than 300 South Koreans have died. Their 
unemployment rate is under 4 percent. More than 110,000 Americans have 
been killed by this virus, and our unemployment rate is the worst since 
the Great Depression. This isn't because South Korea has smarter 
scientists or because

[[Page S2871]]

South Korea has better doctors or because South Korea has harder 
workers. It is because of leadership.
  Of course, Mr. President, you know because you ran against him. You 
know the President is going to deny responsibility. He is going to 
point fingers. He is going to blame others. It is what he did as a 
failed businessman. It is what he did as a TV celebrity. It is what he 
did as a Presidential candidate running against you, and it is what he 
has done as President. It is his whole life. He has denied 
responsibility. He pointed fingers. He has blamed others. My colleagues 
all know that the buck never stops in this Oval Office.
  But what is disappointing is the whisper-in-the-woods silence and 
feet-in-concrete inaction on the part of so many of my friends this 
side of the aisle. We know the President's playbook is to divide, to 
distract, to play to race, to divide the country and distract from his 
failed leadership. So far, it has marginally been ``like President, 
like Senator.''
  Yesterday, the President started attacking a private citizen whom he 
is supposed to serve, spreading conspiracy theories about a 75-year-old 
man peacefully protesting for change. What was my colleagues' reaction? 
It was the same whisper-in-the-woods silence, the same feet-in-concrete 
inaction, the hiding behind a column, behind a desk, hiding behind a 
post, hiding from the media. When the free press tried to ask them 
about it, when one journalist even printed out a copy of the 
President's statement, some of my colleagues physically refused to look 
at it.
  You might be able to escape to your office in this building, but you 
can't ignore the people in cities and towns and neighborhoods in your 
State--in all of our States--who are demanding change. You can't ignore 
the people whom we serve. I implore my colleagues to listen to the 
calls for change. The President may ignore them. When he is not 
dividing, he is ignoring what citizens want to do, but we can do better 
in the Senate. We can step in to fill that leadership void. We can 
answer those calls for change. We can tackle the problems we face as a 
country.
  We can start with the proposed solutions my colleagues and I have 
introduced to help people get through this pandemic. We have a rental 
assistance bill to help people pay their bills and stay in their home. 
Can you imagine anything worse than when the unemployment benefit runs 
out at the end of July?
  In the State of Texas, there are twice as many. In my State alone, 
there are more than a million people unemployed. They are not all going 
to get called back to work by the end of July. If the unemployment 
benefit stops, as a number of people and Senator McConnell seem to want 
it to, there will be evictions. There will be a wave of evictions and 
people losing their apartments. Can you imagine anything more ludicrous 
in the middle of a pandemic than that people are put on the streets or 
people are forced to move in with a cousin in an already-crowded second 
floor apartment? Do you think that is not going to spread this pandemic 
even worse
  We have to have a rental assistance bill. We have a plan to put more 
money in people's pockets so they can stay afloat and keep spending in 
our communities. We have a plan to actually protect workers on the job 
so they feel safe going back to work.
  Yesterday, in committee, the Secretary of Labor told us there have 
been 5,000 workplace complaints against employers by employees saying 
their workplace wasn't safe. Do you know how many citations the 
Department of Labor issued? One. There were 5,000 complaints and 1 
citation. The Department of Labor is supposed to represent--surprise--
labor, not corporate interests who have corporate leaders who have no 
interest in keeping their workplace safe.
  We have a plan to truly scale up testing in this country so we can 
begin the real test-trace-isolate plan we need to reopen safely. Leader 
McConnell, the leader of this body, the Republican leader--elected, I 
assume, unanimously by his Republican caucus--says he sees no urgency. 
Those are his words. He sees no urgency on any of this.
  We also have solutions to begin to finally tackle systemic racism 
that puts Black and Brown American lives at risk. This week my 
Democratic colleagues and I joined Senator Booker and Senator Harris to 
introduce legislation to make real meaningful reforms on how we do 
policing in this country. Americans of both parties agree we need to 
rethink the role of the police and how we invest our tax dollars in 
education, healthcare, and housing, and so much else.
  I am also introducing a resolution declaring racism a public health 
emergency. Let's be clear: This pandemic and racism in America are not 
separate problems. They are intimately connected. A headline in the 
Atlantic put it well: ``The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump 
Found Out Who Was Dying.''
  It is disproportionately Black and Brown Americans dying of this 
virus. It is Black and Brown workers who have been on the job for 
months, exposing themselves to the virus so grocery stores stay stocked 
and packages keep getting delivered and hospital linens keep getting 
changed. It is Black and Brown communities grieving the losses of their 
friends and neighbors.
  Here is what I wish more of my colleagues would understand: They are 
our neighbors too. Breonna Taylor was our neighbor. George Floyd was 
our neighbor. The 110,000 Americans who have died of this virus were 
our neighbors.
  Some of you expressed words of sympathy. Thank you for that. Some of 
you issued statements saying you want to see reform and you will not 
tolerate racism. All of you wish the President would stop tweeting. But 
those words aren't good enough. People are dying. Platitudes and press 
releases don't get us very far. They are not enough. You need to put 
actions behind your words.
  It is time for colleagues to join us to pass real solutions. It is 
time to stand up to Leader McConnell and say: Let us do our jobs.
  President Trump is not doing his job; that is for sure. Leader 
McConnell is not doing his job; that is for sure. It is time for all of 
us in this body to do our job.
  It is time to stand up to the President, to use every ounce of 
leverage we all have to stop the racism, to stop the division, to stop 
inciting violence. There is a leadership void in this country. I am 
waiting for my colleagues to join us to fill it.
  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. CASSIDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                               H.R. 1957

  Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, right now we are debating the Great 
American Outdoors Act, which would be great if only it were balanced. 
My problem with the Great American Outdoors Act is that it spends 
billions on places where we vacation, but the authors of the bill would 
not allow a few million to be spent to protect the places where we live 
and we work and we help create livelihoods for many.
  There is an amendment that would do that that is bipartisan and that 
would not take any money away from the billions that the bill is 
already allocating for those places where we vacation.
  First, let me kind of make my point. Forty-two percent of Americans 
live in a county or parish adjacent to a coastline--42 percent. Eighty-
five percent of Americans live in a coastal State. But of the billions 
that go into the Great American Outdoors Act, of those billions, 50 to 
close to 60 percent are spent in seven States, seven localities, and if 
you exclude Washington, DC, and areas around Washington, it is not 
spent on coastal areas.
  We are spending billions on places where we go to vacation, but the 
authors of the bill will not allow millions to be spent to protect 
where we live. That is foolish public policy. We should be investing in 
coastal resiliency.
  Now, of course, the irony is, we are going to spend billions on the 
coast. Why? We have seen it. Harris County flooded--that is Houston; 
Florida flooded, the panhandle, other parts of Florida; Puerto Rico; 
the American Virgin Islands; North Carolina; South Carolina; Georgia; 
Hurricane Sandy in New

[[Page S2872]]

Jersey and New York; Hurricanes Rita and Katrina on the coast of 
Louisiana; also Mississippi and Alabama.
  We are going to spend billions. We are going to spend billions, but 
we are going to spend those billions in the wrong way. We are going to 
spend those billions on the coast repairing damage that could have been 
prevented if we had spent millions now.
  I draw attention to a flood wall, a levy, in Terrebonne Parish, LA, 
which was recently completed. So we had a high-water event where 
flooding came off the Gulf of Mexico. Ten thousand homes were not 
flooded because that flood protection had been erected. Ten thousand 
homes were not flooded.
  All I am asking is for the authors of this bill to allow a few 
million to be spent where people live, where people work, where people 
help others earn their living, and they can still have their billions 
to spend on the places where we vacation.
  I don't want to minimize the need to take care of our national parks. 
When someone speaks of a leaky roof, and if you fix it early, then 
fixing it early keeps the damage from getting greater--that makes 
sense. We should find a way to pay for it, but it makes sense that you 
would do that. How much more so when we are speaking about coastal 
resiliency?
  I was told recently that the Army Corps of Engineers wants to build a 
$3.5 billion floodgate in Miami to prevent Miami from flooding--$3.5 
billion. We are going to spend billions on the coast; it is just a 
question of whether we do it in reaction, or whether we do it in kind 
of ``we have to fear the worst,'' or whether we do it like in 
Terrebonne Parish--building a flood wall now so that 10,000 homes don't 
flood.
  It is my disappointment that the authors of this legislation will not 
allow this bipartisan amendment to be added.
  By the way, we have heard that Democrats are OK with the amendment, 
but for whatever reason, the authors will not allow it.
  Let me show you one other thing, just to make the point. The Great 
American Outdoors Act actually has two pots of dollars, if you will. 
One is for deferred maintenance--again, 50 to 60 percent of that goes 
to seven States. But this shows where the Land and Water Conversation 
money goes.
  These are the coastal States. This is where people live, and these 
States, on average, per capita, get $7.53 from the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund. These blue States in the interior--some of them 
populated, some of them not--on average get $17.66 per capita. We are 
sending money to where people don't live to fix vacation spots, which 
are important, but it is not where we live, and we are not spending 
money where people do live, where their homes are, where their cities 
are, and where, if we don't enhance resiliency, we are going to spend 
billions when the hurricane hits. This is foolish public policy.
  By the way, some of my fiscal conservative colleagues--and I consider 
myself a fiscal conservative--have weighed in against the Great 
American Outdoors Act, saying that we are not paying for it; we are 
pretending to pay for it. We are taking dollars that would otherwise go 
to the Treasury--otherwise go to the Treasury--and pretending like they 
are new dollars. That is actually true. But what we can also say is 
that if we add the amendment, the Coastal Act, which I worked on with 
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse--he has been a great partner to work with--
we actually would be paying for it. We would be paying for it by 
putting in the coastal resiliency that will prevent the future billions 
from having to be paid to pick up the pieces after a hurricane hits a 
populated area.
  I will speak again on the floor tomorrow, but I just want to make the 
point that the Great American Outdoors Act spends billions where we 
vacation, fixing things that we don't wish to get worse. The Coastal 
Act does not take away from these billions--these billions that are 
spent on places where we vacation; these billions spent where people do 
not live--it just spends millions, a paltry few million trying to add 
resiliency to where we do live, to where we do work, to where we do 
create livelihoods not just for ourselves but for others, and that is a 
fiscally sound, fiscally conservative way to spend dollars. That would 
save Treasury money, and it would save lives and maybe give people a 
little extra money to spend in these parks we are spending billions to 
fix up.
  Mr. President, I thank you, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.

                          ____________________