[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 108 (Thursday, June 11, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2911-S2921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TAXPAYER FIRST ACT OF 2019--Continued


                               H.R. 1957

  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, as we continue our debate today on the 
Great American Outdoors Act, I thought I would come to the floor one 
more time to talk about the benefits of this historic conservation 
package and what it means for the great State and the people of 
Colorado.
  Several years back, this Congress worked in a bipartisan fashion to 
pass legislation by Senator Shaheen and me that required the Commerce 
Department, for the first time in our country's history, to break out 
the outdoor economy as a part of our economic numbers, to determine how 
many jobs this country had in the outdoor industry in recreation, and 
to determine the overall revenues generated by the recreation economy. 
What we discovered was what we knew intuitively: that the recreation 
economy is a huge part of jobs in this country, with over 5 million 
jobs.
  In Colorado, you are looking at about a $28 billion part of our 
economy. If I could, I just want to talk a little bit more about what 
that means for Colorado and what this bill means as applied to our 
State, the benefits environmentally of this legislation and the 
economic impact it will have.
  I talked on the floor about the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Right 
around the year 2000, this legislation turned this national monument 
into a national park. Hundreds of thousands of people come to the 
valley to visit every year. What is neat about this is that it is not 
just a national park, the Great Sand Dunes National Park, but it is 
also an example of how the Land and Water Conservation Fund works 
together because it established the Great Sand Dunes National Park to 
make sure that the water resource was protected that is so instrumental 
to keeping the sand dunes in place. We used the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund to purchase elements of land around it, like the Baca 
Ranch and Zapata Ranch and other areas, to make sure we had this great 
resource maintained for future generations to come.
  Of course, Rocky Mountain National Park is the third most heavily 
visited park in the Nation. Almost 5 million visitors come to Rocky 
Mountain National Park every year. A few years back, there were 2.8, 3 
million people. We have almost doubled the visitors in recent times, 
which has caused a lot of challenges for Rocky Mountain National Park. 
It has benefited as well from the Land and Water Conservation Fund 
because some of the last remaining inholdings within Rocky Mountain 
National Park have been purchased using the Land and Water Conservation 
Fund.
  If you look at the Restore Our Parks Act, the money in the Great 
American Outdoors Act that will go toward catching up with the 
maintenance backlog, this park has about $85 million worth of needs in 
terms of that backlog. It has $85 million worth of projects, from 
visitors centers to roads and trails.
  Let me show you one of those trails right here. You can see this is 
what it looked like. You can see the erosion and washouts. This is what 
happens over time with heavy use and weather.
  You can see the work we have been able to do to maintain and to catch 
up with the needs in Rocky Mountain National Park. We can do this 
across our Park System thanks to the Restore Our Parks Act. We will put 
$1.9 billion a year--paid for by oil and gas revenues--into our 
national parks to catch up with the maintenance and backlog needs at 
places like Rocky Mountain National Park.
  It is $85 million in Rocky Mountain National Park. It is $7 to $8 
million in the Great Sand Dunes National Park. In Mesa Verde National 
Park, it is almost $75 million. I will show you Black Canyon of the 
Gunnison right now. Black Canyon of the Gunnison is in need of nearly 
$7 to $8 million as well for its backlog needs.
  This is a picture I actually took on my iPhone. This is a picture I 
had taken while attending a press conference to celebrate a Land and 
Water Conservation Fund purchase. You can see Park Superintendent Noble 
is pointing across the canyon to the land that was purchased using the 
Land and Water Conservation Fund. The canyon is right here. It is not 
over the horizon; it is right here. This land was on the rim of the 
canyon. It was not a part of the park. You can imagine, if somebody had 
decided to build something there and said ``Why don't we develop that? 
Why don't we do something else?'' what that would have meant to the 
national park and enjoyment of that park. Using this, they were able to 
get the entire rim of the canyon for the National Park System. That is 
where that is.
  If you go to this next picture, you see it is not just about national 
parks. The Great American Outdoors Act is not just about Land and Water 
Conservation Fund. It is about our forests. It is about our national 
forests, our Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife, and it is 
about the Bureau of Indian Education.
  This is actually a national monument. This is Dinosaur National 
Monument. If you go to Northern Colorado, Dinosaur National Monument 
straddles both the State of Colorado and the State of Utah. Some of the 
best white water rafting in the country goes through Dinosaur National 
Monument. This is amazing. This is absolutely cool.
  You can see these archaeologists who are actually hanging on to a 
wall as they do their work. This is known as the fossil wall. Hundreds 
of millions of years' worth of fossils are in this long wall at 
Dinosaur National Monument. You can see the fossils and the bones in 
this picture, layer after layer. It is a remarkable resource in one of 
the most truly unique areas of Colorado. The needs here are tremendous, 
too, as they face erosion and challenges from visitors and access needs 
to some of these resources.
  If you go to Mesa Verde National Park, this is truly spectacular. If 
you look at Mesa Verde--for those who never had a chance to go there, I 
hope people will have a chance to visit. This park was established in 
1906. Look at this beautiful ridge. Look at the plateau. Look at the 
cliff dwellings. It is remarkable. It was established in 1906 to 
preserve and interpret the archaeological heritage of the ancestral 
Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years. The park 
protects nearly 5,000 known archaeological sites, including 600 cliff 
dwellings--some of the best and most notable preserved dwellings in the 
United States.
  In 2019, they had about 556,000 visitors. This is in the Four Corners 
area of the State, surrounded by towns like Cortez, CO; Mancas, CO; 
Durango, CO--areas that rely on tourism and recreation and farming and 
ranching for their jobs.
  In 2018, visitors spent about $58 million in these local gateway 
regions. This supported nearly 1,000 jobs, $22 million in labor income, 
$40 million in value added, and about $72 million in economic help in 
the gateway economy surrounding the Mesa Verde National Park. They 
operate about $700 million worth of facilities, and they have about 10 
percent of that in need of deferred maintenance. So $76 million is 
their total deferred maintenance needs.

  They need to rehabilitate the Chapin Mesa Civilian Conservation 
Corps. They need to replace the water, electric, information, and sewer 
systems. They need to replace the campground, water, and road systems. 
They need to improve the historic maintenance operations buildings. 
That is just some of the need at Mesa Verde National Park.
  When we talk about the Great American Outdoors Act, we talk about 
national parks, national forests, and BLM land and monuments, but we 
should also talk about recreation, because so many times this gets lost 
in our conversation on the floor, because it is not only recreation in 
terms of parks and the National Forest Service, but it is sports 
complexes, baseball fields, soccer fields, tennis courts--the ability 
for

[[Page S2912]]

States to determine how to use these dollars. It is not just the 
Federal Government that takes all of this money; 40 percent goes back 
to the States.
  This is in Runyon Park in Pueblo, CO, another southern Colorado city. 
Look how beautiful that is and the work we can do with the Land and 
Water Conservation Fund.
  Look at the total economic impact. I think it is important that we 
recognize that before coronavirus, we were working on the Great 
American Outdoors Act, this package that presented two great American 
values: the crown jewel of our conservation program, the Restore Our 
Parks Act, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund, to catch up with 
our maintenance backlog, both of which are paid for by oil and gas 
revenues. We talked about them, and we talked about how good it would 
be for our environment and the conservation and preservation for future 
generations. We also acknowledged, then, that there was a great 
economic benefit. We talked about the numbers. We talked about the 
recreation economy. But now that economic benefit becomes even more 
important because the first industries that were hit by the shelter-in-
place orders and the economic shutdowns were the travel industry, 
hotels, restaurants, tourism, outfitters, and ski areas. In Colorado, 
they closed down the ski areas months ahead of time. The summer 
recreation start has been delayed because of lingering effects of 
phases in restoring our economy. So the economic benefits of the Great 
American Outdoors Act become all the more important.
  Some of the hardest hit communities by the coronavirus in Colorado in 
the first wave have some of the highest unemployment levels in the 
State. Hotels emptied early, and restaurants emptied early. But this 
bill will create thousands and thousands of jobs, according to a report 
that was just released by the National Park Service. In Colorado, 
thousands of jobs will be created--in Colorado alone.
  Look at the Land and Water Conservation Fund. For every $1 million 
spent in the Land and Water Conservation Fund, it supports between 16 
and 30 jobs. Support for 16 to 30 jobs--do you know what that means in 
a community that may have 20 to 22 percent unemployment? Surrounded by 
public lands, the Great American Outdoors Act will help to put them to 
work while doing what we love in Colorado, and that is protecting our 
environment. If you look at the overall numbers that the National Park 
Service provided, we are going to create and help to support over 
100,000 jobs through this legislation, and, again, this is legislation 
that is paid for through oil and gas revenues.
  It was a commonsense approach back in 1965 when the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund was put together so that we access one resource. We 
deplete a resource in oil and gas. They pay a severance tax and royalty 
to the Federal Government, and the Federal Government turns around and 
uses that to protect our other resources in other areas, national parks 
and national forests. That is what the bill does through the Great 
American Outdoors Act. It creates opportunity.
  John Gayle, conservation director of the Backcountry Hunters & 
Anglers and a Colorado resident says: ``The Great American Outdoors Act 
not only creates permanent certainty for the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund, America's most successful conservation and access 
program, it also ensures sound stewardship of our public lands and 
waters.''
  Carlos Fernandez, Colorado State director of the Nature Conservancy 
says:

       The Great American Outdoors Act is critical to Colorado's 
     recovery from this crisis.

  Of course, he is talking about COVID-19.

       Our mountains, trails, fields and streams have been a 
     welcome respite for many during the pandemic, but local 
     economies have struggled. Fully funding the Land and Water 
     Conservation Fund and investing in our national parks will 
     put Coloradans back to work, protecting important landscapes, 
     investing in their care, and creating more outdoor recreation 
     opportunities throughout the State. These are time-tested, 
     effective investments in conservation that will strengthen 
     Colorado's economy and amazing outdoors.

  Larry Selzer, the president and CEO of the Conservation Fund said 
that the ``momentum to bring a vote on the Great American Outdoors Act 
to the Senate floor is critical to the future vitality of America. 
Advancing legislation in both houses to fully fund LWCF, as well as to 
address the maintenance backlog on our public lands, is a huge step to 
support our public lands and rekindle and grow local outdoors and 
recreation economies.''
  Will Shafroth, president and CEO of the National Park Foundation--
Will's family is legendary in Colorado politics--says this:

       The National Park Foundation is thrilled that the Great 
     American Outdoors Act is moving closer to becoming law. Years 
     in the making, this bipartisan bill would go a long way 
     toward addressing the critical maintenance needs of our 
     national parks. With the funds made available through this 
     bill, we will ensure that these special places are even more 
     special, remain accessible to all Americans, and continue to 
     serve as economic engines for local communities.

  Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership:

       The Great American Outdoors Act is smart conservation. 
     Senate passage of this historic and bipartisan bill will 
     improve our natural resources and enhance access for American 
     hunters and anglers. It also makes lasting investments in our 
     outdoor recreation economy at a time when we need to get 
     Americans back to work.

  Benji Backer, president and founder of the American Conservation 
Coalition:

       Our national parks and public lands are part of our 
     heritage as Americans. By protecting and investing in them we 
     will ensure that generations to come will benefit from 
     America's best idea. The American Conservation Coalition is 
     proud to support the Great American Outdoors Act because it 
     will protect this heritage and support the hundreds of 
     thousands of Americans whose livelihoods are connected to our 
     national parks.

  This list goes on and on, from the Archery Trade Association to the 
Outdoor Industry Association. The Outdoor Industry Association said:

       The outdoor industry applauds the U.S. Senate for seizing 
     the opportunity to pass the Great American Outdoors Act, a 
     landmark piece of bipartisan legislation. Along with the 
     social and health benefits that being outdoors provides, 
     there is also a strong economic case for doing this now. The 
     outdoors are bipartisan, and investing in LWCF means 
     investing in local economies and creating thousands of jobs, 
     both of which we desperately need right now to help the 
     country bounce back from COVID-19.

  There is the Corps Network, the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, and 
the RV industry also. The Presiding Officer has a significant RV 
industry in the great State of Indiana.
  The National Marine Manufacturers Association--believe it or not, we 
have marine manufacturing in Colorado, even though we are a pretty dry, 
landlocked State.
  Look at the Motorcycle Industry Council, the Specialty Vehicle 
Institutes of America, the Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle 
Association, and the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation. Jeff Crane 
said: ``The Great American Outdoors Act represents the largest 
commitment to public lands in our lifetime.''
  ``The Great American Outdoors Act represents the largest commitment 
to conservation and public lands in our lifetime.''
  The National Wildlife Federation: ``Now when we need it most, the 
Great American Outdoors Act will put hundreds of thousands of Americans 
to work restoring public lands infrastructure, expanding healthy 
outdoor experiences, and restoring wildlife habitat, all of which will 
help local economies recover across the country.''
  Suzanne O'Neal--I know Suzanne well--the executive director of the 
Colorado Wildlife Federation, said: ``This commonsense legislation is 
long overdue to help our national parks and other public lands meet the 
burgeoning demand of increased numbers of hikers, anglers, campers, and 
wildlife watchers who have been flocking to Colorado's outdoor spaces 
in recent years.''
  I talked about that, the fact that Rocky Mountain National Park has 
gone from 2.8 million to nearly 5 million visitors. It is the third-
most visited national park in the country.
  What happens when one area of the State gets heavily visited? It is 
not like they just stay in one area. They actually start going to other 
areas of the State. For instance, if you are in Colorado, you go to the 
national park, and maybe it is busy one day. So you decide to go a 
little bit farther. You go over toward Walden or you go over to the 
North Sand Dunes area or maybe

[[Page S2913]]

you spend a little bit of time in the White River National Forest, one 
of the most heavily visited forests in our State. The Arapaho and 
Roosevelt National Forest and the Pike and San Isabel National Forests 
are also some of the most heavily visited forests in the country. They 
are seeing more and more visitors because all of the other public lands 
are under pressure. When they are under pressure, that means they are 
more used, and when they are more used, they are experiencing more wear 
and tear and they are being loved to death. So we need to provide a way 
to fund it. That is what the Great American Outdoors Act does.
  There is the National Parks Conservation Association, the American 
Horse Council, and the Trust for Public Lands.
  Teresa Martinez, the executive director of the Continental Divide 
Trail Coalition, said: ``In the Rocky Mountain West, public lands and 
trails are vital to our region's economy and our quality of life.''
  The Nature Conservancy's Sally Jewell, former Secretary of the 
Interior, signed a letter with six other Secretaries of the Interior to 
talk about the importance of this bill. Two of them are from 
Colorado. Secretary Ken Salazar and Secretary Gale Norton are talking 
about the need for this legislation.

  The American Society of Landscape Architects--the list goes on and on 
of people who support this legislation. They support it because we 
value the outdoors. We value our environment, and we value our public 
lands.
  Colorado has long been the gateway to public lands in this country, 
but now it is the headquarters to our Nation's public lands with the 
Bureau of Land Management headquartered in Grand Junction, CO.
  So these two bills put together represent that chance in a lifetime, 
as we have heard from many of the supporters of this legislation. In 
Colorado it was called ``the holy grail of conservation legislation'' 
by the Durango Herald this morning.
  It is an opportunity for every State to benefit. I have a list of 
every State in the country right here and the work they have done. I 
will just pull one out. In Alabama, if you look at Alabama, the 
national parks backlog is nearly $30 million. The Land and Water 
Conservation Fund has provided Alabama with $165 million in funding 
over the last five decades. Alabama National Forest, Blowing Wind Cave 
National Wildlife Refuge, Clear Creek Recreation Area--that is just 
Alabama.
  Let's just pull another one out and see: Florida. Florida has 
received $1.06 billion in funding from the Land and Water Conservation 
Fund over the last five decades. There is the Big Cypress National 
Preserve, Everglades Headwater National Wildlife Refuge, Apalachicola 
National Forest--I hope I got that one right--and the Canaveral 
National Seashore, plus 27 other areas. They have a $240 million 
backlog in deferred maintenance projects, with $75 million in the 
Everglades National Park. The Dry Tortugas National Park is $63 million 
in need. Gulf Islands National Seashore is $60.6 million in needs.
  All of these States have benefited from coast-to-coast, from sea to 
shining sea, from Hawaii to Maine and Florida to Alaska. Those are the 
States that have benefited from the legislation covered by the Great 
American Outdoors Act.
  In Colorado alone, the popularity of our outdoor recreation and 
public lands continues to grow. Over the last 5 years, visitation 
numbers in national parks has continued to increase. National park 
visitation in 2019 overall surpassed 2018 visits by more than 9 million 
visits. That is 327 million recreation visits across the country, over 
1.4 billion recreation visitor hours, 13.8 million over the United 
States. That is 2019.
  And 2020, of course, is going to look a little different. Some of our 
national parks are not opened yet. Some of them are staging their 
openings. Rocky Mountain National Park is open, but its reservations 
are reduced, and the entries are reduced to accommodate the need to 
protect people during this pandemic. These numbers are going to be 
different.
  So that means that places like Estes Park are going to have fewer 
people in their restaurants and fewer people in their hotels. Fewer 
people are stopping at the saltwater taffy shop on Main Street in 
Estes, and fewer people are doing things like bumper boats and putt-
putt golf along the way.
  The Great American Outdoors Act is one of those pieces of legislation 
that brings everybody in the Chamber together for a bipartisan 
opportunity to help these communities at a time that they need it the 
most. By helping the land, we are helping the communities, because it 
is there for future generations and because it belongs to future 
generations.
  This really is an opportunity for this Nation to come together at a 
time of great need economically and spiritually, and, quite frankly, to 
succeed.
  I am reminded also at this time about something I read on the floor 
earlier this week by one of the moving leaders of Rocky Mountain 
National Park. He talked about how in our national parks and trails and 
forests, we find the space we need to think, the space we need to hope, 
to provide courage, and that they can provide a little bit more 
kindness, that what they give to us is a little bit more kindness. I 
said often throughout the COVID-19 experience that we have to keep in 
mind, as we learned in Sunday school, that our struggles and 
tribulations give us perseverance, and that perseverance leads to 
courage, and courage leads to hope.
  So as we think about what Enos Mills, the father of national parks, 
said about the trails bringing back kindness that we all need, I think 
about other areas of our National Park System and some of our land 
areas and our national historic sites that maybe someday can benefit 
from the Great American Outdoors Act. I think about a specific site in 
southeastern Colorado known as Amache. I have legislation in that is a 
resource study on whether or not Amache, CO, should be considered as 
part of the national park system.
  Let me tell you the history about Amache. There is a monument down 
the road from this building, just a couple blocks away from here. It 
was the site in 1943 of a Japanese-American internment camp. With 
Executive order 9066, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that Japanese 
people would be ripped from their homes unconstitutionally and put into 
these camps.
  In 1943, there was a high school established at Amache, and a woman 
by the name of Marion Konishi Takehara became a valedictorian of the 
high school that they had created. In the speech she wrote for her 
valedictorian speech, she talked about what the country meant to her 
today. Did the country mean the same things it meant to her before she 
was behind the searchlights, removed from her home? Did it mean justice 
and equality and fairness? Did she believe in America? She went on to 
talk about all of the challenges and struggles and things in our 
history that we know are the darkest moments of our Nation--the 
original sin of slavery, the continued discrimination faced by African 
Americans in our communities, the treatment of others in our society, 
waves of immigrants. She talked about how the United States has learned 
from every one of those moments, and we can overcome them all because 
America is where we learn from our mistakes in the past, and we take 
the actions to correct them, and we get back to the idea of justice and 
fairness and equality.
  I don't know about you, but I think that is the kind of spirit and 
the kind of hope and the kind of belief and faith in this country that 
we need right now as we face some of the biggest challenges this 
generation has ever seen, confronting the issues of racism, confronting 
the issues of inequality.
  Our national parks, our historic areas, and our public lands provide 
us with one more opportunity, one more chance to not forget the dark 
moments as we look for greater inspiration ahead, as we use this to 
learn from the past, to reach our highest peaks as a nation. That is 
the inspiration of the Great American Outdoors Act--the work we can do 
with the Land and Water Conservation Fund to bring our parks up to 
snuff for future generations.
  I know my colleague from the great State of Iowa is on the Senate 
floor. I thank him for his support in the work we have been doing.
  I yield the floor.

[[Page S2914]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                       World Health Organization

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on Wednesday, June 3, this year, the 
Associated Press released an article detailing China's stonewalling and 
delay tactics in withholding crucial data from the World Health 
Organization. That information that was held was about the novel 
coronavirus that caused COVID-19.
  Now, this article gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of the World 
Health Organization, and there are a lot of questions raised about the 
World Health Organization today in regard to their relationship with 
China. The political leaders at WHO pursued a strategy of placating 
China in a seemingly haphazard attempt to coax China's leader into 
cooperating more fully.
  Now, despite red flags raised by medical experts within the 
organization about the lack of data coming out of China and also 
serious doubts about the Chinese Government's claim that human-to-human 
transmission was not of any concern, WHO leadership, through all of 
that, continued lauding China's approach and transparency on this whole 
virus issue.
  Many career officials openly voiced their frustration with how the 
World Health Organization leadership lacked the willingness to push 
China to hand over vital information about the virus. Remember, the 
World Health Organization did publicly push China when it withheld 
information on the SARS outbreak in 2003 but didn't seem to be as 
interested pushing China as much this time.
  The Chinese Government then refused to share data about COVID-19 test 
results that would have allowed researchers around the world to make 
independent assessments of the virus's spread.
  Now, weeks passed before the Chinese Government allowed the World 
Health Organization to see the map of the virus genome, and that genome 
was created by Chinese researchers. So they had the information where 
other people could start out to try to find a vaccine. By that time, 
the virus was already spreading around the globe, which has led to 
countless needless deaths and immeasurable economic damage globally 
that now rests on the shoulders of the Chinese for that happening.
  I am glad that the World Health Organization member countries 
approved an investigation as to how the organization handled COVID-19. 
I hope this will be a truly independent investigation that will prevent 
future mishaps.
  Now, in the meantime, we already know enough about the actions by the 
World Health Organization management to warrant immediate changes. 
Politics must never again get in the way of those medical professionals 
in the organization who are actually dedicated to fulfilling the World 
Health Organization's mission to share accurate and timely public 
health information and at the same time save lives.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered


                                 Racism

  Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, last week I attended a memorial service for 
my constituent Mr. George Floyd, who was murdered by Minneapolis 
police. Like so many Minnesotans, my heart is broken for Mr. Floyd and 
his family and for a Black community that has been here too many times. 
I will once again add my voice to the chorus demanding that the police 
officers responsible for his death face justice.
  But I keep finding myself thinking that Mr. Floyd's death wasn't just 
a tragedy and it wasn't just a crime. It was a failure. It was our 
failure. Systemic racism is built into every level of our society, and 
for 400 years, Black and Brown and Indigenous people have paid its 
price.
  Racism isn't just evil, though it is. It is dangerous. And racism 
isn't just a moral issue, though it is. It is a public health issue. 
And the death of Mr. Floyd, like the deaths of so many Black and Brown 
people before him, is an indictment of our failure as policymakers to 
fulfill our first and most important duty, which is to protect the 
lives of the people whom we serve.
  Black lives matter. We need to say it loud and often, with strength 
and with purpose, and if we truly mean it, then we need to be very 
clear about why it is that so many Black and Brown lives are being 
stolen, and that means we can't just point to systemic racism writ 
large. We have to talk about the police.
  This is about the impunity with which police officers are allowed to 
kill Black and Brown Americans. This is about a society in which police 
departments have become fundamentally unaccountable institutions. This 
is about the fact that law enforcement in America does not deliver 
equal justice for all.
  The institutional racism that plagues American law enforcement is 
real. This is not just a few bad cops. It is the entire culture of 
policing--a culture that far too often encourages violence, condones 
abuse, and resists reforms and accountability at every turn.
  This culture kills, and it will continue to do so unless we stop it. 
If we can't see that, if we can't say it, if we aren't ready to use our 
power and our privilege to address this unforgiveable failure, well, 
then we might as well say nothing at all.
  So why is it so hard for us to talk about these issues? Why is it so 
hard to even admit that there is something dangerously wrong about the 
role that police play in our society?
  Well, I think, in part, it is because of the respect that we have for 
police officers themselves. We ask these men and women to put their 
lives on the line every single day. Their job is to run to trouble, and 
hundreds of thousands of police officers in my community and in all of 
yours fulfill their duty with skill and with courage every day.
  But I think there is something else lurking behind our inaction. The 
vast majority of policymakers, especially here in Washington, are 
White, and the vast majority of the interactions that White people have 
with police officers are positive.
  When we are scared or threatened or hurt, well, police officers come 
to help. And when we hear the siren or we see a blue uniform, we 
breathe a sigh of relief, and it is uncomfortable for White people to 
acknowledge that this feeling of relief is really about privilege. It 
is uncomfortable to imagine giving up some piece of that privilege.
  After all, we all want clean, safe streets. We all want quiet, 
orderly neighborhoods. We want to be able to call 911 when we are in 
danger and know that the police officers will rush to our aid.
  We may even catch ourselves worrying that a police force held 
accountable for its abuse of power against Black and Brown bodies will 
be a police force a little less empowered to protect us.
  Often, when White people talk about racism, we define it as a hatred 
that lurks within people's hearts, and then we search within ourselves 
and we can feel satisfied that we are free from prejudice. But racism, 
colleagues, is manifested as behavior--behavior that hurts, that kills. 
Who even knows what is in ``how to change hearts and minds''? But we do 
know, I think, let's say: Let's start with changing behavior.
  So this is something that I think about a lot as a Minnesotan. In my 
home State we pride ourselves on our legacy of progressive activism. We 
believe deeply in civic participation, and we are proud to have the 
highest voter turnout in the whole country. We are home to a diverse 
array of communities--African American, Somali, Hmong, Latinx, Native, 
and more--all people who belong here just as much as anyone else.
  And we are home to some of the Nation's worst racial disparities. It 
is not just that Black men are more likely to be stopped, more likely 
to be searched, more likely to be assaulted and killed by police 
officers. A Black or Brown or Native child growing up in the 
neighborhood where George Floyd was murdered can expect worse education 
outcomes, worse health, fewer opportunities than a White child that 
lives just a few miles down the road.
  The truth is that for all of the progress that we have made in 
America over the course of my lifetime and for

[[Page S2915]]

all of the hearts and minds that have changed, racism was built into 
our systems from the very beginning. While it is still present in 
everything from healthcare to education, to housing and environmental 
policy, it jumps off the page when you look at our Nation's criminal 
justice system.
  Consider this. African Americans make up less than 14 percent of the 
population, but they account for 23 percent of fatal police shootings 
and nearly one-third of our prison population.
  Studies repeatedly show that Black people and White people use drugs 
at roughly the same rate, but Black people are more than twice as 
likely to be arrested for drug offenses and nearly four times as likely 
when it comes to marijuana.
  No matter where you look, our criminal justice system unfairly 
targets Black and Brown and Native people, threatening their freedom 
and often their lives, and you can't just blame that on racist cops. 
That is us doing that. Even if we harbor no hatred in our hearts, we 
are responsible for the racist impact of a system that was built 
historically by White Americans to serve White Americans.
  We are the beneficiaries of a system that killed George Floyd, 
Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Atatiana Jefferson, Sandra Bland, Aiyana 
Stanley-Jones, Rekia Boyd, Jessica Hernandez, Eric Salgado, Philando 
Castile, Jamar Clark, and so many others.
  So that is a hard thing to admit, but right now hundreds of thousands 
of our fellow citizens are demanding that we face this ugly truth.
  The people marching in our streets have watched us forgive ourselves 
time and again for failing Black and Brown Americans, like George 
Floyd, and they are angry, they are grieving, and they are exhausted, 
and this time they will not be denied.
  It may make us uncomfortable to hear this anger, to see the images on 
television, to experience this turmoil when our country is going 
through so much already, but that is the whole point of protest. This 
crisis has long deserved our attention, and because we withheld that 
attention, these protesters are demanding it now.
  We cannot claim to support the goal of justice if we object to being 
confronted with the reality of injustice. We cannot walk away from this 
moral crisis. We have done that too many times after too many deaths, 
and every time we do, we fail the next Black or Brown American who dies 
in police custody.
  I just can't live with that. We have to make a change, and this time, 
White people have to get past our discomfort. Black and Brown people 
have been trying for too long to tell us that systemic racism isn't 
just limiting their opportunities. It is killing their children.
  To the communities of color in Minnesota, whom I am proud to 
represent, I want you to know that I hear you and that I will do 
everything I can to make sure that everyone here in Washington hears 
you too.
  Most of all, we have to devote our time, our energy, our resources, 
our platforms, our power, and our privilege to helping this movement 
succeed.
  As Pastor Billy Russell from the Greater Friendship Missionary 
Baptist Church in Minneapolis said to me, ``we need to make it right. 
It's not right now, but we need to make it right.''
  I want to tell my Minnesota community, my colleagues, and the 
American people exactly how I want to use my power and my privilege to 
help make it right.
  In the coming weeks, my office will be moving forward with 
legislative action focused on three priorities: first, fundamentally 
transforming the role of the police in our society from the way we fund 
and train and equip officers to the relationships between departments 
and the communities that they serve. We must rethink the 
responsibilities we assign to the police and the authority we give them 
to fulfill those responsibilities. We need to imagine and reinvent 
American policing from the ground up.
  Second, we must fix the systems in police departments that obstruct 
accountability and transparency at every turn. Our system effectively 
puts cops above the law by insulating them from civil and criminal 
liability for their actions. This leads people of color to conclude 
that they can't trust the police, and it leads the police to conclude 
that they will never face consequences for crossing the line. They are 
both right, and this means something is wrong. If we want to change the 
way officers act, we need to change the rules that shield them from 
accountability. Accountability and preventing this misconduct from 
being ignored will not only hold police departments responsible for 
perpetuating violence and unequal justice, but it will help prevent 
violence and injustice the next time.
  The Justice in Policing Act, led by my colleagues Senator Harris and 
Senator Booker, is an important step forward. I am proud to support it, 
and I urge all of my colleagues to join in. Racism is about behavior. 
We can't legislate what police officers believe, but we can and we must 
legislate how they behave.
  Third, restoring the communities that have been torn apart by 
injustice--in the Twin Cities, neighbors are already coming together to 
clean up the damage sustained by the unrest and upheaval of the last 2 
weeks, but the task of making our communities whole goes far beyond 
repairing the physical damage. We need a new and sustained push for 
racial and economic justice, not just law enforcement but in healthcare 
and education and in housing and in environmental policy.
  The people I spoke to when I was home last weekend are grieving, they 
are angry, and they are hurt, but most of all, they are exhausted. 
Communities of color have spent years fighting to be heard, fighting 
for justice, fighting for resources, fighting for survival. As their 
Senator, it is my job to carry that fight here to Washington in the 
Senate.
  Four hundred years of structural racism cannot be overcome with a 
single piece of legislation or even by a single generation of 
legislators, but we can't let the enormity of the task blind us to the 
urgency of this work.
  The last 2 weeks have been extraordinarily difficult for Minnesotans 
and for our country. But, throughout history, the hardest times have 
always been the times of the greatest progress. I choose to find 
purpose in making sure that, in this moment, we lead to real progress 
towards justice and equality.
  That is why I came to the floor today. No statement of intent, no 
matter how thoughtful, will change the reality of this crisis, but I 
want this statement to be on the record, part of my record as a U.S. 
Senator. I want to be accountable for these commitments. I want 
Minnesotans to hold me accountable. I want to be a part of holding this 
body and all of us in the Senate accountable.
  This, then, will be the first in a series of floor speeches I intend 
to deliver examining the systemic injustice that plagues American 
policing and plagues Native, Black, and Brown communities more broadly. 
It will be about the steps we need to take to address this injustice: 
redefining the role of the police, reinforcing accountability for 
police officers, and restoring the communities I am so blessed to 
serve.
  This is a big fight. The scale of the injustice is overwhelming. It 
can be hard to know where to start, but the people who took to the 
streets last week--in the Twin Cities, in communities large and small 
across Minnesota, and in cities across this country--are a movement for 
change, and they are showing us the path forward. This path requires us 
to be courageous, requires us to be humble, and requires us to be 
uncomfortable, but it is a path rooted in love and in trust and in 
hope.
  We saw it in the way the protesters brought joy to the most serious 
of fights they faced. We saw it in the way they stood up to those who 
would do damage to their communities and to their cause. We saw it in 
the way they kept their focus, even in the face of unimaginable 
brutality.
  So many Minnesotans have shown such courage and grace. I am proud to 
be your Senator, and I am proud to be your neighbor. I am committing 
myself to the path that you are forging. I hope my constituents, my 
colleagues in the Senate, and all of my fellow Americans will do the 
same.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Braun). The Senator from Maine.


                               H.R. 1957

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues in 
supporting the Great American Outdoors Act, a bill to provide full 
funding for

[[Page S2916]]

the Land and Water Conservation Fund and to address the deferred 
maintenance backlog for our national parks.
  Under the expert leadership of Senators Gardner, Manchin, and Daines, 
59 bipartisan Senators have cosponsored this bill that will allow 
landowners, States, local communities, and conservation partners to 
plan for the future and to restore our national parks.
  More than 50 years ago, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act 
established America's most successful conservation and outdoor 
recreation program. There is truly nothing else like it. The fund was 
designed to ensure that outdoor recreational lands would be secured for 
future generations.
  I remember, in one of my first years in the Senate, working with my 
colleague from Colorado, Senator and later Secretary of the Interior 
Ken Salazar, as we sought to boost the funding for the stateside part 
of the program.
  If you look at a map of the United States and put a pin in every 
place where there was a Land and Water Conservation Fund stateside 
supported program, you would find that every single county in the 
country had at least one project. Oftentimes, people do not realize 
that local ballpark or the trails that run along a local stream or lake 
are the result of funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, 
and those are projects that are designed by local people, selected by 
local people, and then the Federal Government helps in the funding to 
acquire and maintain the land.
  Just last year, this important program was permanently authorized, 
and now we have the opportunity to ensure for the American people that 
this program will have consistent funding to play the strongest 
possible role in preserving open spaces, special lands, and 
revitalizing communities for years to come.
  Investments in this landmark conservation program support access to 
the outdoors for all Americans, as LWCF, as I have mentioned, has 
invested in literally every county in our country. Its funding has been 
used to open up key areas for hunting, fishing, and other recreational 
access; to support working forests and ranches and protect them from 
development; to acquire inholdings and protect critical lands in 
national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forests, Civil War 
battlefields, and other Federal areas; and, as I mentioned, my favorite 
part of the program, which is the stateside part of the program, which 
supports State and local projects, from ballparks to recreational 
trails.
  Over the past five decades, Maine has received more than $191 million 
in funding from LWCF. Examples of this funding include the Cold Stream 
Forest, a Forest Legacy Program project in Somerset County to preserve 
a beautiful area that continues the long and proud Maine tradition of 
conservation, public access to recreation, and working forests.
  In addition, we have the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in 
southern Maine, where a once-undeveloped 110-acre tract along the coast 
in Biddeford was preserved for natural habitat and expanded 
recreational access.
  Of the more than 850 Land and Water Conservation Fund sites in Maine, 
650 are community-based projects, from Riverside Park in Fort Kent in 
northern Maine to Haley soccer fields in Kittery, right near the New 
Hampshire border.
  I want to repeat that statistic again. Out of the 850 Land and Water 
Conservation Fund sites in the State of Maine, 650 are community-based 
projects, like the park in Fort Kent that I mentioned and the soccer 
fields in Kittery.
  In its more than 50-year history, however, this program has been 
funded fully only twice at the authorized level of $900 million. I 
believe that Congress should fully fund this program to deliver on the 
promise that was made to the American people back in 1964 to take a 
portion of the proceeds from natural resource development, such as 
offshore oil drilling, and invest a portion in conservation and outdoor 
recreation.
  I do want to recognize two of my colleagues who have other ideas--
Senator Cassidy and Senator Whitehouse--for bringing up the issue of 
funding for coastal States. Representing a coastal State, I agree that 
we need to do more for our coastal States, and I support their efforts 
to ensure additional funding that can be directed to coastal States and 
coastal communities. I believe, however, that that issue, regrettably, 
is going to have to be dealt with at a later time, but I do support 
their effort.
  Furthermore, another important piece of this bill addresses our 
deferred maintenance backlog on our Nation's public lands. Now, what I 
am most interested in here is our national parks. Our national parks 
have a huge maintenance backlog, and that includes at Acadia National 
Park, a true gem of a park on the coast of Maine where we have seen 
record numbers of visitors in recent years. This bill will help Acadia 
National Park tackle the more than $60 million of maintenance backlog 
work--on trails, roads, bridges, buildings--to ensure that every 
visitor can experience the absolute beauty of this true gem of a 
national park on the Maine coastline.
  I would urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important 
legislation
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.


                       Unanimous Consent Request

  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, it is telling that the bill we are 
considering this week called the Great American Outdoors Act was 
written behind closed doors and has now been hermetically sealed, 
walled off from amendments, by the people's elected representatives.
  Forget the theatrics in Seattle; this bill is the real Capitol Hill 
autonomous zone. In its current form, this bill enables the Federal 
Government, if it is enacted, to purchase new lands in perpetuity, 
without accountability and without oversight or any measures to make 
sure that it can actually care for the land that it owns, perpetuating 
and worsening our already highly problematic Federal public lands 
policy.
  This policy will have one overarching impact: to make life easier for 
politicians and bureaucrats and harder for the American people whom 
they, ostensibly, serve.
  This is not the way the Senate is supposed to run. The point of this 
body, its whole reason for existence, is to take imperfect bills, bring 
them to the floor of the Senate, and then come together so that we can 
hone and fine-tune them, so that we can debate them and discuss them, 
so that we can identify their weak points and make them stronger--or at 
least less weak.
  The Senate is supposed to have an open debate and amendment process 
precisely so that we can raise concerns and we can find solutions and 
arrive at genuine, rather than forced, compromise and consensus. This 
week, I have been encouraged to discover just how many of my colleagues 
want to do just that. Many of my colleagues from different States and 
from both parties are filing amendments in response to this bill. Some 
of those amendments would significantly change it; others would present 
simply small tweaks to tighten up the language or to provide for better 
congressional oversight so that the American people are guaranteed that 
what it says in the law is going to reflect what happens on the ground. 
These amendments have already been written. They are waiting for 
consideration.
  Anyone watching C-SPAN 2 today will notice there is nothing else 
happening on the Senate floor--I mean, literally nothing else happening 
on the Senate floor. In fact, I would note for the record that there 
are exactly three Members of the Senate in the Chamber right now--two 
on the floor and one at the Presiding Officer's desk. There is 
literally nothing else happening on the Senate floor. There is 
literally no other business with pressing deadlines pending before this 
body right now. The House of Representatives is adjourned and is 
apparently set to remain adjourned until June 30, so it is not as 
though we have any realistic deadline with the other side of the 
Capitol.
  The Senate, right now, would simply rather do nothing than vote on 
amendments that those of us from the West, Senators from the gulf coast 
and from various States around the country, would like to propose and 
have, in fact, proposed.
  I myself have proposed several. One of my amendments would require 
State legislative approval for any land acquisition proposed in that 
State so that

[[Page S2917]]

land acquisition would be something Washington does with the States 
rather than to the States.
  Many people don't realize there is a big disparity among and between 
the States with regard to how much Federal land is owned. In every 
State east of Colorado, the Federal Government owns less than 15 
percent. In every State Colorado and west, the Federal Government owns 
more than 15 percent. The average is more like 50 percent in the 
Western United States, and in many of those States, including my own, 
it is more like two-thirds of the land.
  In these States and particularly the rural communities and those 
rural communities in particular where there is the highest 
concentration of Federal land, there is also poverty--poverty that is 
not just correlated with or coincidental to the Federal land ownership, 
but it is causally connected to its widespread existence.
  Another of my amendments would require the Federal Government to 
dispose of current Federal lands before acquiring new ones, forcing 
land agencies to exercise fiscal responsibility and prioritize which 
lands they want to keep under their control.
  So getting back to referring a few minutes ago to those areas, 
particularly those rural areas in my State, places like San Juan 
County, UT--San Juan County, UT, happens to be the poorest county in 
the State. It is also a place where the Federal Government owns 95-plus 
percent of the land. This is not a coincidence.
  So there ought to be something in place that requires an offset so 
that when the Federal Government buys new land under the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund or otherwise, it has to offset it by disposing of 
land elsewhere.
  There also ought to be some mechanism in place so as to give the 
State's sovereign lawmaking body, the State legislature, the ability to 
accept or reject the proposed expansion of the Federal land footprint 
in that State.
  It is really easy for my colleagues from certain parts of the 
country--particularly those living east of the Rocky Mountains--to 
suggest that, you know, Federal land ownership is a great thing. First 
of all, a lot of people who say that do live east of the Rocky 
Mountains, and a lot of people who say that also incorrectly imagine 
that Federal public lands are more or less just national parks or 
declared wilderness areas. They are not.
  In my State, most of the Federal land is not a national park, is not 
a national recreation area, is not a declared wilderness area; it is 
just garden-variety BLM or Forest Service land that is chronically 
environmentally mismanaged, and that leads to chronic environmental and 
economic problems.
  I also have a number of other amendments that would reform the NEPA 
process--the process under the National Environmental Policy Act--to 
help address the maintenance backlog on neglected land that Washington, 
DC, already owns and controls from its perch generally thousands of 
miles from the land in question.
  Finally, I have an amendment to support Utah's interests under the 
Antiquities Act. Right now, other States have received protection and 
are protected from unilateral land grabs by the Federal Government for 
designation of national monuments. This is important, you see, because 
when they designate Federal land as a national monument, that changes 
the way that land can be accessed, the way it can be used. It goes from 
one Federal land classification to another. It is one of the strictest 
classifications in the sense that it is very, very difficult to use 
that land or for local affected populations to have influence over that 
land once it becomes a monument.

  This is significant for Utah because 28 percent of the national 
monument acreage designated within the 50 States over the last 25 years 
has been in Utah. My State is due for the same types of protections 
that are already in place in Wyoming and in Alaska. Those States in 
years past have received far too many monument designations against 
their will. Eventually, they received statutory protection.
  Utah has borne far more than its share of the burden in the 
designation of national monuments--monuments designated that way, by 
the way, by Presidents who were acting in open willful defiance of the 
will of the locally affected populations.
  I believe that this is one of the most important changes we need to 
see in Federal lands policy. I will continue to fight for it until we 
achieve justice for Utah. In fact, this change could be achieved 
through a single 1-page bill, one mostly consisting of two words. 
Inserting the words ``Or Utah'' enables Utah to receive the same 
protection from hostile designation of national monuments by a 
President not interested in the will of the local population.
  As important as all of these amendments are to me and my State, I am 
not even asking for the right to propose all of them this week. I am 
willing to set aside some of my priorities in order to help my 
colleagues pursue theirs and, most of all, to help the Senate as an 
institution to get back to the essential work that the Senate and the 
Senate alone can do. The Senate was created to be the place--the one 
place in our constitutional framework--where our diverse, divided 
Nation could come together, where we could air our disagreements and 
find common ground.
  Every time we have a national controversy, a lot of people throw 
around the word ``conversation.'' We need to have a conversation about 
race, about police brutality, about freedom of speech, about the 
environment, about the national debt. The list goes on and on. These 
are all things about which we need to have conversations. This isn't 
just a media trope. Senators say it too. I agree. We need to have 
conversations about each of these and so many other important national 
issues.
  Guess what. This, right here, is literally the room where America is 
supposed to have these conversations. This place right here, within 
these four walls, is where these conversations are supposed to happen. 
It is not supposed to be done only on Twitter. It is not supposed to be 
done only on cable news shows. It is supposed to happen right here on 
this floor.
  Yet here we are on a Thursday afternoon at 4:23, 4:24 p.m. Look 
around. Three Members are in the Chamber--two on the floor, one in the 
Chair. That is it.
  This is where the conversation is supposed to happen. It is not 
occurring--not this conversation, nor any other, not on the Senate 
floor, not in the middle of the week. With a whole lot of things going 
on in the world, we are not having it.
  We are not even having it on this piece of legislation, which, 
significant as it is, is dwarfed in comparison to the magnitude of many 
other issues that we have to deal with. That doesn't mean we don't need 
to deal with this legislation. We do. But as long as we are going to 
deal with it, as long as we are being asked to pass it, we need to at 
least have a conversation about it, and we are not doing that.
  The only reason that the U.S. Senate was given the powers that we 
have in this body by the Founders and by our constituents is to 
facilitate those vital conversations. This isn't the New York Times op-
ed page. We are not supposed to be afraid of debate here. The Senate is 
here to provide the venue where all Americans and all views can be 
heard, to hash out our differences and arrive at a consensus and 
compromise in the public eye.
  It is especially important to do this in the Senate because this is 
the place where each State has equal representation. Big, heavily 
populated States have two Senators. So do small, sparsely populated 
States have two Senators. This, by the way, is the one type of change 
that cannot be made to the Constitution. It is the one type of 
constitutional amendment that is, itself, preemptively 
unconstitutional. You can't pursue article VI of the Constitution or 
amend the Constitution in such a way--even if you follow the article V 
amendment procedures, you cannot amend it in a way that changes the 
principle of equal representation in the Senate among and between the 
States.
  It is especially important to have these debates and discussions when 
it comes to legislation like this one, like the Great American Outdoors 
Act, that, while important to the entire Nation in many respects, 
affects some States differently than it does others. This bill has a 
very different impact in Utah than it does in Colorado or in Montana or 
in Tennessee or in Maine. It is very, very different.

[[Page S2918]]

  This is why we have the Senate--so that we can air out these 
grievances, so that we can air out our differences, so that we can make 
improvements to legislation.
  Perhaps we can't improve it. There are a lot of things about this 
bill I don't like. There are other things about it I can live with. Yet 
if we can't have the conversation, we don't have the ability to amend 
or improve the legislation. As a result, the conversation doesn't 
happen. And most of the American people are excluded from this debate 
and this discussion and this conversation entirely.
  This is where these conversations are supposed to occur, where we can 
arrive at consensus and compromise in the public eye. And this, I 
should note, is not for our convenience and comfort. Rather, the 
Senate's purpose as a deliberative body is to add another layer of 
republican and democratic legitimacy to the very laws we pass. The 
House exists to assert immediate public opinion on the basis of the 
proportional representation they have on that side of the Capitol.

  The Senate exists to identify broad-based compromise and consensus 
that is essential to the political legitimacy in a nation as diverse as 
ours, and to do so in a way in which each State is equally represented. 
That is why we require supermajorities to end debate here. That is why 
we have 6-year terms. It is not to serve us. It is, rather, so we can 
serve everyone else.
  But right now, we are abusing our constitutional privilege. We are 
willfully taking the powers of the American people--the powers that 
they gave us, that they have given us--to deny them their right to a 
diverse, deliberative, transparent, accountable process. We are doing 
this for no other purpose than for our own convenience. No wonder they 
can't stand us.
  But it is not too late. It is not even too late for this week. There 
is still plenty of time to salvage this process, to flex our badly 
atrophied legislative muscles and to get to work.
  After speaking with my colleagues all week, and, frankly, all of last 
week on these topics, I believe the consensus concerns about this bill 
are as follows: one, the inequity of natural resource revenue-sharing 
between the Federal Government and the States; two, the cost of the 
National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund; three, the cost 
of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, or LWCF; four, the 
implications of an ever-expanding Federal land ownership; and, five, 
transparency for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
  We could pick just one amendment for each of the aforementioned 
categories--just one for each of those categories. We could have just 
five amendments all together. By so doing, we could make significant 
progress on this legislation. More than that, we could strengthen our 
legislative muscle memory and take a step toward restoring the vital 
deliberative powers of this body.
  The Senate has long called itself the world's greatest deliberative 
body. These days, when it doesn't debate, when it shuts out amendments 
from individual Members--keeping in mind that this is supposed to be 
one of the two fundamental rules of the Senate, where each Member has 
access to unlimited debate and unlimited amendments--when it does this, 
it is neither great nor deliberative. It is not living up to its name, 
to its history, to its traditions, to its capacity, nor to its 
constitutional purpose.
  Five amendments are not a lot, especially considering this 
legislative text bypassed the committee process all together in the 
first place. This bill, as a bill, was never even processed by the 
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on which I serve. It 
bypassed that committee all together. It didn't go through it. Even if 
the Senate votes on these amendments and votes them down--
notwithstanding the fact that we bypassed the committee--it is here 
now. There is nothing in the Constitution that says it has to go 
through committee. It is better if we do. We didn't here. We can still 
deal with some of the concerns that individual Members have. This is 
the appropriate place to do that, after all, with or without committee 
action.
  Regardless of the outcome of those votes, even if the Senate votes 
those amendments down--every one of them--at least we will then be on 
record about our priorities and about our positions. At least then we 
have a chance to weigh in and say: Here is what I liked about the bill, 
and here is what I didn't like about the bill.
  That, in turn, helps us to communicate to the public about why we 
either do or don't support whatever legislation is intact at the end of 
that process. That, in turn, would strengthen the bonds of 
accountability between the government and the governed, and, I would 
hope, restore some of the public trust that Washington, DC, has 
squandered for the last several decades.
  If we require Senators to speak on their amendments and then move to 
a vote, we could dispose of all five of these amendments in just a few 
hours. We could do this today. We could have done it earlier today. We 
could have done it at any moment yesterday. It is just not too much to 
ask. We have to give this, like all legislation, the due consideration 
and the careful deliberation that it deserves and that the American 
people deserve.
  Now, more than ever, our country needs us to be able to come 
together, work together, and find solutions to the problems that we 
face. I believe this bill presents us with an opportunity to do 
precisely that. I am hopeful that my colleagues and I will get the 
chance to take it. This is what we need to do.
  We know that the Senate in the past has functioned in such a way as 
to allow every Member of this body to represent his or her State. We 
also know that can't really happen in a way that our system has always 
contemplated unless every Senator has a chance to weigh in on and to 
propose improvements to each bill and not be shut out of a process. 
What we get when we jettison that is, instead, a process by which a 
small handful of individuals will write legislation, that legislation 
gets airdropped on to the Senate floor in a hermetically sealed 
Chamber, and then Members are told: You have to vote for this entire 
package or against this entire package. You have a simple binary 
choice: Take it all or leave it all.
  That isn't fair. The American people deserve better. We have settled. 
It is time for us to no longer settle, but to expect more, to expect 
the Senate to do its work.
  Consistent with that, I think it is important for us to propose 
alternatives. I have nothing but a desire to see these things debated 
and discussed. In order to do that, I am proposing a solution
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending 
amendments and call up the following amendments en bloc: Kennedy 
amendment No. 1599, which would allow Gulf States to receive a greater 
portion of revenues produced from energy sources off their coast; Cruz 
amendment No. 1651, which would reflect honest budgeting practices, 
direct the Secretary of the Interior to sell off excess Federal lands 
to the public as the ``pay for'' for this legislation, subject all 
Trust Fund spending to congressional oversight through the 
appropriations process, and strike the provision that allows the Trust 
Fund to receive credit for interest that will not really be earned 
based on money that does not really exist; Braun amendment No. 1635, 
which would prevent unrelated spending increases in the future by 
reducing the discretionary budget limit by $450 million; Lee amendment 
No. 1647, which would prohibit the Federal Government from making 
acquisitions using LWCF funds until they have received from the State, 
where the proposed acquisition would be located, notice that the State 
has enacted legislation approving the acquisition; and finally, Lee 
amendment No. 1639, which would require reports to Congress on costs of 
acquisition, maintenance, and administration of lands obtained under 
the LWCF, reports to States and local units of government regarding 
lost property taxes due to LWCF land acquisitions, and reports to 
Congress on Restoration Fund projects to be funded, currently being 
funded, and the amount of money expended for that project, as well as 
an estimate of expenditures needed to complete each project.
  I further ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on the 
amendments in the order listed with no intervening action or debate, 
and that the amendments be subject to a 60-affirmative

[[Page S2919]]

vote threshold for adoption; finally, that following disposition of the 
amendments listed, the remaining pending amendments be withdrawn, with 
the exception of the substitute amendment No. 1617, and the Senate vote 
on the motion to invoke cloture on the substitute amendment No. 1617.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection.
  The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I would like to note now for the record that 
there are exactly two Senators remaining in the Senate Chamber. It is 
now 4:38 p.m. Now we are three again--now four. We have four Senators 
in the Chamber at 4:39 p.m. on a Thursday. This is not the end of the 
week, unless perhaps you are in the U.S. Senate.
  There is no reason why the Senate shouldn't be convening and debating 
amendments right now in order to do this. There is no valid reason why 
Members who understand and appreciate the legitimate concerns that are 
the focus of this or any other piece of legislation ought not be able 
to raise concerns with that legislation and offer up amendments to 
improve the legislation in question, especially as is the case here.
  There are particular States, including my own, that would be 
disproportionately disadvantaged and harmed by this legislation. It is 
interesting to note that the Federal Government owns more of my State 
than in almost any other State, than it does in any of the States of 
any of the sponsors or prominent cosponsors of this legislation. Some 
of the cosponsors, in fact, are people who live in States where the 
Federal Government owns very little land. Look, I don't complain--no 
fault. In some cases our disagreements here represent differences in 
our background or differences in the preferences of our constituencies, 
but as much as anything, I think they stem from and reflect differences 
in the States that we represent, not just the preferences of the 
voters, but also the way the public land is owned--the extent to which 
Federal public land is owned and the impact that it has on our local 
economies. This is a big deal.
  So like I say, I don't fault them. I regard each of the people behind 
this legislation as beloved friends and colleagues and as people who I 
deeply respect and trust and admire. They are people with whom I have 
agreed and cooperated with on countless instances on many wide-ranging 
topics.
  They are not wrong to want to pass legislation that they believe is 
correct. They are, however, grossly mistaken in believing that it is 
appropriate in this circumstance to shut out Members of this body who 
have a different point of view, to exclude them from the debate 
process.
  One could argue and some might argue in connection with this: Fine, 
let's debate it. We are debating it right now. What is debate after all 
other than giving speeches in a legislative body?
  That is what we are doing, and that statement is true as far as it 
goes. Nevertheless, in order for that debate to have full meaning, we 
need to follow our own rules, and we need to allow Members, pursuant to 
our rules--and not just our rules, but also our precedents--our time-
honored traditions and the spirit of comity that once inhabited and 
pervaded every corner of this room. It is that spirit of comity, those 
traditions, and those rules that really contemplate a much more 
collegial environment, one in which we don't come to the floor with 
legislation and say: That is it. There is no more. That is it. This 
legislation was written as if on stone tablets. There is no more to be 
written. This book is sealed. You can't have anything more to say.
  That is not how colleagues treat each other. That is how one would 
treat a subordinate, and frankly, I think it is insulting--not to me 
but to those I represent and to those represented by my colleagues 
doing it.
  What I find also offensive is the notion that it is so important 
somehow and so urgent to pass this legislation that we do so now, and 
that we not wait until next week to consider it. But it is apparently 
not important enough to allow individual Members to introduce 
amendments--even amendments crafted in good faith, amendments that 
wouldn't do any structural damage to the bill, amendments that may or 
may not pass, but that haven't been written by the principal authors 
and principal proponents of this legislation. This institution is 
better than that, and I thought we were. I think we owe each other more 
than that.
  Look, this isn't always going to be the case in every single piece of 
legislation. There are a number of things that are passed by this body 
by unanimous consent. Others that come to the floor will receive an 
overwhelming vote one way or another and don't necessarily, in every 
circumstance, trigger the need for amendments. Those are, in some 
cases, matters that are relatively noncontroversial. I see no reason 
for an open amendment process if we were, for example, to declare June 
2020 to be National Sofa Care Awareness Month. I don't think anybody is 
going to care that much about that legislation, certainly not enough to 
care deeply about filing amendments. In other cases, some legislation 
might have been adequately vetted through a process of committee action 
and public debate to the point where maybe no one really sees the need 
for additional amendment by the time it gets to the floor. But that is 
not always going to be the case. It should come as no surprise with a 
piece of legislation like this one, sweeping in its effect, adding to 
our already unaffordable mandatory spending, putting Federal land 
acquisition on an equal footing with programs like Social Security and 
Medicare by making it mandatory. Any time you trigger any of these 
alarm bells, it ought to send a signal that this is not an appropriate 
moment to expect that no Member from any State will have any different 
perspective. It is not right. Deep down they know it is not right.
  I have seen each of my most vocal proponents of this legislation on 
the receiving end of this very kind of strategy. I have stood with them 
as they have stood against it, even when I don't agree with their 
substantive policy agenda, even if I don't agree perhaps with their 
strategic plan in question, but I stand with them anyway because they 
are my colleagues. They are my friends. It is what colleagues do for 
each other. You see, the difference between a colleague and a 
subordinate is that you don't purport to tell a colleague what he or 
she can do if you don't have the authority to do that. You don't act 
offended if your colleague doesn't agree with you, and you don't try to 
silence your colleague. That is how you treat a subordinate.
  It has happened for far too long here. I have been here for 9\1/2\ 
years, and I have seen it under Democratic leadership and I have seen 
it under Republican leadership. It is not how it used to work here. It 
is not how it should ever work. I find it revolting. It is one thing to 
say: I want to vote on this legislation. It is quite another thing to 
have the gall to say: I want to vote on this legislation, but I don't 
want anyone else to have any say on what this legislation says, and I 
don't care what this does to another State. I don't care that there are 
other parts of other States in the Union, represented by my friends and 
my colleagues, where people will suffer in this legislation. I don't 
care--not my problem. I so don't care that that is a problem for 
somebody else, that I am going to make sure that the other person can't 
care and that he can't even make changes to this legislation.

  If I were their subordinate, perhaps I would understand. As their 
colleague, I don't. This isn't how you treat a colleague. This isn't 
how colleagues interact in a body that considers itself deliberative 
and collegial. So say what they want about this being bipartisan, about 
there having been a collegial process about this bill's creation--let 
them say what they want about that. Make no mistake. This is wrong, 
what they are doing. I am not even talking right now about the merits 
of the bill. I disagree with the bill. I don't like the substantive 
policy end that it seeks to achieve, but I am not talking about that 
right now. What I am saying is wrong and even outrageous is the gall, 
the temerity that they have to tell colleagues that they don't have an 
equal seat at this table, that their election certificate somehow 
matters less.

[[Page S2920]]

  Sooner or later, I believe that our best days lie ahead of us. I am 
an optimist at heart. Optimism is something that is hard to have at a 
moment like this, when you have been completely shut out of a 
legislative debate. But the reason I am optimistic here has to do with 
a very simple reality. Sooner or later, in a system like this one, 
Members will find a way with the system of rules of the Senate and as 
authorized by the rules and procedures and traditions of the Senate. 
They will find a way to get around it, and I think you will see a 
growing dynamic in which Members will reach across the aisle in order 
to solve this very problem.
  This problem is not a Republican problem distinctively. It is not a 
Democratic problem distinctively. We have seen it under the leadership 
of both parties, regardless of who has the majority. This is a problem 
that Senators have among and between themselves, and I think in time 
you will see more and more Members coming to each other's defense, 
regardless of political ideology and regardless of the substantive ends 
that we achieve in a piece of legislation. I think the sun is setting 
or at least preparing to set on the days of locking out individual 
Members from the amendment process. It isn't right, and deep down we 
know it is not.
  I will note that other than the Presiding Officer, at 4:53 p.m. on a 
Thursday, I remain the only Member of the U.S. Senate within this 
Chamber--just the Presiding Officer and me. That is it.
  We could be voting now. We could have started voting hours ago. We 
could have started voting yesterday. We could have voted on all of 
these amendments. For all I know, all of the amendments that I am 
proposing could have been considered and voted down and they would have 
had their way. So what difference would it make? I am not certain 
whether they would all fail. It is not up to me for all to fail. 
Thirdly, even if they did all fail--every last one of them--at least 
then Members of this body would be able to face their constituents at 
the end of that process and be able to say: Look, I liked this 
legislation. Even though it had these problems, the reasons to support 
it outweighed those for opposing it.
  Or they would be able to say: Look, I tried to make it better. I 
failed. These problems remained. So I voted against it.
  That increases accountability, rather than decreasing. That is good. 
That is good for a constitutional republic like ours. It is essential 
for the U.S. Senate. It is how it is supposed to work.
  So we could have done that yesterday. We could have done that this 
morning. We could still do it right now. We could start that process 
right now in a matter of hours. We would have debated, discussed, and 
voted on these amendments. Then we could move on. We could put this 
whole thing behind us. We could do it right now.
  They are hearing nothing of it, which begs the question: Why? Who 
benefits from this? The only people who benefit are the small handful 
of individuals who, on any particular occasion, happen to be involved 
in this decision making and become more powerful. But they do so in a 
dishonorable way, at the expense of all of their colleagues, at the 
expense of their relationship with their colleagues, but most damning 
of all, at the expense of their relationship and obligations to the 
voters who elected them--and I mean those in every State.
  I am sure they think they are doing the right thing, that the end 
justifies the means. Nobody is immune to that line of thinking. It is 
something we have to be conscious of. The circumstance doesn't make it 
OK. This is wrong. We can do better. We can, we must, and together, we 
will.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.


                         Issues Facing America

  Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, we have a lot of problems in America 
today--a pandemic, a recession, a surge of violence in our major cities 
drowning out a nationwide call for justice and hope. We have work to do 
in this body and this city to solve these problems and to heed that 
call.
  Our voters sent us here to make things better, to rebuild, to heal, 
but that is not what we are doing. No, for the last several weeks, my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle and their allies in the media 
and some professional political activists on a payroll have been trying 
to divide us against each other, to paralyze us, to stoke resentment of 
our fellow citizens and hatred of this Nation that we call home.
  It is really remarkable, if you think about it. Just a few short 
weeks ago, we were united in outrage at the murder of George Floyd. We 
were united in impatience for justice for his family. And nothing has 
changed about that. All people of good will still want justice to be 
done. I do. But the call of the marchers has been weaponized by 
partisans who want nothing more than to say that only some Americans 
really support equal justice under the law; only some institutions of 
government are really committed to that cause; only one party can be 
trusted to govern in good faith; only one political coalition is 
righteous enough to rule over the other.
  You don't hear talk of unity when watching MSNBC or reading the New 
York Times these days. Instead, those outlets are drawing up a new list 
of villains--not Floyd's killer. No, not him. We are way past George 
Floyd now, I guess. No, we are talking about new grievances, structural 
evils endemic to America itself--the police, the military, the flag, 
oh, and of course the President. It is always about the President.
  Actually, what it is really about is the President's voters. It is 
about the people who elected him. It is about the red States, like 
mine. It is about the people who live there. The elite media, the woke 
mob--they don't like these people, and they want the rest of America to 
dislike them too. This is why they are telling us that it wasn't a 
homicidal cop who killed George Floyd. No, his death now is the product 
of systemic racism, we are told, and anyone who doesn't acknowledge 
their role in his death, anyone who doesn't bend their knee to this 
extreme ideology, is complicit in violence.
  It is not enough, apparently, to bring Derrick Chauvin to justice for 
his crimes. No, now we have to defund all the police. There is no scab 
they will not pick at, no divide they will not exploit, no controversy 
they will not gin up to make us hate each other. Well, we cannot take 
their bait.
  In the last weeks, we have seen a professor put on leave for quoting 
the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. Not woke enough. We have seen the 
New York Times fire its opinion page editor for daring to publish the 
words of a Republican Senator. He forgot the party line. We have seen a 
literal insurrection in the streets of Seattle, a breakaway Antifa 
enclave ruled by a self-described warlord--you cannot make this stuff 
up--lauded now, in some quarters at least, as an experiment in post-
police governance.
  We have had a bill introduced in the House to bring that experiment 
in chaos to our cities and towns all across the country and to demonize 
the fine men and women who put their lives on the line day and night to 
protect protesters' rights to demand justice.
  The madness is accelerating this month, but the radical left has been 
at this for a while.
  The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for the 1619 Project--a 
propaganda campaign designed to recast America's founding as an evil 
event and American democracy as a system of violent racial oppression. 
It won that prize despite wide criticism by historians who objected to 
its historical revisionism.
  Now, with the Pulitzer's seal of approval, the Times is developing a 
1619 grade school curriculum so that our children will be indoctrinated 
to hate this country at taxpayer expense. They want to do to our public 
schools what they have already done to the universities.
  What does any of this have to do with healing our Nation? What does 
it have to do with bringing about that more perfect union, whose 
achievement is our shared ambition and shared obligation as Americans? 
The answer is, nothing. And that is the point.
  As has been widely reported, this week one of my Senate colleagues 
introduced a measure to strip all military installations and bases in 
this country of reference to Confederate soldiers or Confederate 
history. And for what purpose? To achieve justice for

[[Page S2921]]

George Floyd? To bring our Nation together? No, I don't think so. The 
purpose was to erase from history--erase every person and name and 
event not righteous enough--and to cast those who would object as 
defenders of the cause of slavery, to reenact in our current politics 
that Civil War that tore brother from brother and divided this Nation 
against itself.

  You would think, the way some in the media talk about this country, 
that they are sad we are still not fighting the Civil War. They would 
like us to fight a new civil war in our culture day and night, without 
end.
  I would suggest to my colleagues that the Civil War not only gave us 
villains, it also gave us heroes and a more perfect union to love. 
Maybe we should learn from those heroes.
  We should learn from Lincoln, who called our Nation to unity at 
Gettysburg. ``It is for the living,'' he told us, ``to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so 
nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great 
task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take 
increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full 
measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall 
not have died in vain--that this nation shall have a new birth of 
freedom and that the government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth.''
  If you visit Gettysburg, you will find monuments to the dead of free 
States and slave States alike, and you will see children who are 
brought there by their parents after long car drives from their homes, 
drawn in by these old symbols and memorials to the lessons those teach 
about our Nation's new birth of freedom.
  The Americans who visit these hallowed grounds all across our country 
want to know why this Nation fought a war against itself, why brothers 
could not live under one flag together. We teach them there in those 
places how we became a better nation through the crucible of that 
terrible war, and we teach them there to be proud that we did so.
  That hard-fought pride in the shared struggle that unites us is now 
fading. That story is being erased. A nation united in the cause of 
justice is dividing, and we are increasingly at war with ourselves. 
This cannot continue. This great Nation and its good people cannot 
continue our life of freedom together if we vilify and destroy each 
other from within.
  Now, before we vote on this floor on the National Defense 
Authorization Act, I will offer an amendment to undo this effort at 
historical revisionism. I will offer it not to celebrate the cause of 
the Confederacy but to embrace the cause of union--our union, shared 
together as Americans.
  It is time for our leaders to stop using their position here to 
divide us. Let us work together instead to build on the history and the 
responsibility that we share as Americans to continue that unfinished 
work of this Nation that we call home.
  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. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I just want to make sure that people 
understand we are tracking a 1 a.m. vote before I get into some of 
these bills. Again, we are tracking a 1 a.m. vote.

                          ____________________