[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 218 (Monday, December 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7908-S7910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, this is the time of year when we all 
look forward to wrapping things up, as they say.
  Many around the country, when they think about wrapping things up, 
think about presents that they are going to put under the tree for 
their family. We think about it as closing up business for the balance 
of the year, and that is really where we are.
  Hopefully, in a couple hours here, the House will proceed in taking 
up the omnibus bill, along with the COVID relief package, along with a 
host of other matters that the Congress has been working to address in 
this past year.
  I would like to speak this evening for a few moments on the 
significance of where we are, but I want to start with just a story 
that I just now received from one of my staff people back in Alaska, 
and she got a video from the medical staff at the Sub-Regional Clinic 
there at St. Mary's. St. Mary's is a small community up on the Yukon 
River, and probably, I would say, 500 people, maybe more, in St. 
Mary's. But it is just a reminder to me that, regardless of where you 
are, hope is coming with the vaccine.
  The comment that she shared is this video, a pictorial of the health 
aides, the PA--the physician's assistant--and personnel getting their 
COVID shots.
  It was 13 degrees out. And the mobile office where the vaccine was 
administered was inside a chartered Cessna 208 Caravan sitting on the 
airport tarmac there in St. Mary's. After the shot, she and her staff 
hung out in their heated trucks for about a half an hour to see if they 
had any allergic reactions. When none showed signs, the Caravan took 
off to the next village airport.
  It is just an example that no matter where you are, how remote you 
may be, the logistics that may be required to provide for this hope 
that comes by way of the vaccine.
  People around the country are hopeful. Our job now, as we wrap up, is 
to make sure that we deliver this relief quickly.
  I mention the COVID relief. I have been fortunate to be teaming with 
a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers for the past 5 or 6 weeks to 
see if we couldn't come up with a proposal that could kick-start the 
COVID talks.
  We have had an opportunity for many of us to come to the floor to 
speak to not only how that came to be but the ultimate result, which 
was a multihundred-page document, legislation, that totaled $908 
billion. But it addressed everything from vaccine development and 
distribution to what we are going to do to assist our small businesses 
with additional rounds of PPP, to extensions to unemployment insurance, 
to what we can do with food assistance, nutrition assistance, and what 
more might be done to help with rental assistance. It was truly 
responsive to the need.
  Where we are today is having moved that conversation and that debate 
forward, I think, in a constructive, in a positive way. We are here 
with a proposal that looks different than what we had produced, but 
that is the nature of what happens in a body where you have to come 
together to sort out the issues.
  And what we will have is legislation that, again, like the CARES Act, 
is likely going to be proven imperfect, but we have to respond to the 
situation on the ground, whether it is in Alaska or whether it is in 
Arkansas, and we cannot do it too soon. So this is going to be key, and 
it is going to be critical.
  I am very pleased that legislation that I had introduced that would 
extend the coronavirus relief funding--the opportunity for States and 
localities and Tribal governments to be able to spend those funds down. 
Running up against the deadline here of the end of this year was a real 
concern for so many, and so that has been included as part of this 
bigger package, in addition to so much that is good.
  The carrier for all of this is the Omnibus appropriations bill. I 
have been really pleased to be a member of the Appropriations 
Committee. For some years now, I have been chairing the Appropriations 
Interior Subcommittee. This is significant, certainly, for our State, 
with oversight of our public lands, and also of Native affairs, 
including the EPA. It is a pretty broad portfolio.
  We have been working on this dutifully as a subcommittee all year--
all year. I certainly wish that I had had the opportunity to be able to 
bring my bill--our bill--to the floor for full debate by all Members, 
and then we could move to the Ag bill, to the T-HUD bill, to the 
Defense bill--do them all separately.
  But for a host of different reasons--most of them all come back to 
politics--unfortunately, we have not been able to do that. That is 
something that I regret. That is something that I would hope that we, 
as Members of the Senate, can say: We can do better.
  We pledge to do it better every year. We put our colleagues in a heck 
of a spot. Not all of us are on the Appropriations Committee. Not all 
of us have the privilege to be a chairman or a ranking member and know 
the guts and the insides of each aspect of these bills.
  But we come here with a process like this at a late hour, and we say: 
This is one where you need to know that we have been working it hard. 
We have taken into account all the priorities and considerations on 
both sides. We worked it back and forth. We worked it with the House, 
and here we are. But this is not a good process. We can and we must do 
better with that.
  Now, having said that, I am very proud of the Interior bill that we 
have built. I am proud of my staff. We were a little bit leaner this 
year in terms of our staffing, but with good leadership, led by Emy 
Lesofski and Nona, as well as Lucas on the team, we were able to do the 
work that we needed to do and in a way that I am proud of and proud of 
their efforts.
  There is so much that is wrapped up in this bigger, broader bill, and 
I think it is going to almost be gaspworthy when you see the 5,000-
some-odd pages I am told that we will have.
  It is not only the appropriations. It is the COVID bills. It is the 
water resources development bill, the WRDA bill--very, very 
significant. There are good bills from the Indian Affairs Committee 
that I have participated in, water bills that we have been working on.
  But the one that I want to speak to a little more in detail this 
evening--and I was hoping that my ranking member, Senator Manchin, 
might be here on the floor, but not yet--but I wanted to speak about 
title Z in the omnibus bill.
  Z, I just imagine that they put it at the end because they figured it 
was the best or maybe because they knew that the process that the 
Energy Act had gone through had probably been more rigorous and lengthy 
than just about anything out there. But Z we are at.
  I begin my comments with regard to this Energy Act that is contained 
in this bill by acknowledging that I am probably speaking on the floor 
for the last time as the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee because I have hit my limit, if you will. I have had the 
honor and the privilege to be both the chairman and the ranking member 
on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee now for a total of 12 
years, which is pretty good.
  It is pretty good to be in a position to be able to advance 
legislative policy. I have been very, very fortunate to work with great 
members. Senator Bingaman was the chairman when I was his ranking and, 
of course, I was with Senator Wyden as the ranking member when he was 
chairman. I have had the great privilege to work with Senator Cantwell 
when I was the chairman and now Senator Manchin. I think about these 
past 2 years and what we have been able to accomplish and just kind of 
the recap of where we have been and how productive we have been as a 
panel.

[[Page S7909]]

  We started this Congress with passage of the John D. Dingell, Jr., 
Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act. This is a bipartisan 
package of more than 120 different measures focused on public lands, 
natural resources, and water.
  We had worked on a lands package throughout the last several months 
of 2018. I want to give former Ranking Member Cantwell a real big 
shout-out here because her leadership was very key in that process. We 
weren't able to get it across the finish line at the end of the last 
Congress, but we reintroduced it in January of 2019. We passed it 
through the Senate in February, and the President signed it into law in 
March. That was a pretty good start--120 bipartisan bills.
  These were bills, when you think about it, that related to national 
parks, to forests, to sportsmen's access. We delivered on the Federal 
Government's promises to Alaska Natives who served during the Vietnam 
war. We permanently reauthorized the Land and Water Conservation Fund, 
and we provided new authorities to help protect from natural hazards 
such as volcanic eruptions. I will note that the Kilauea just erupted 
on the Big Island of Hawaii. I believe it was yesterday or the day 
before. So it is important to be addressing our natural hazards.
  We did that at the beginning of the Congress. Then Senator Manchin 
and I set our sights on something that hadn't been done in a long time, 
and that was modernization of our Nation's energy policies to make real 
reforms and bring them in line with our current challenges and our 
opportunities. So we started with some very broad--very broad-based--
hearings and then took a very specific and deep dive into some of the 
issues and the technologies.
  Then we started moving bills. We were negotiating and we were 
reporting dozens of bills as part of our regular order committee 
process. Knowing how things work around here, we knew we weren't going 
to be able to move them each individually as stand-alone bills, so we 
wrapped them up into a broader bill. We called it the American Energy 
Innovation Act.
  We brought that bill to the floor in February. We were going just 
great. We were working through, and it was kind of nice, again, to be 
the first bill on the floor when we began our legislative business. And 
we stalled out. We were interrupted. We were taken off the track by an 
unrelated dispute over a measure that is jurisdictional to another 
committee, and this was just at the start of the global coronavirus 
pandemic.
  But I said: We are not done. We are not stopping just because we hit 
a roadblock here. We are going to keep working.
  We kept working. We kept working, and we kept looking for a way to 
pass the first major Energy bill since 2007--and 2007 is a long time 
that we hadn't updated and reworked our energy policy, so it was worth 
working on. I kept saying: Don't count us out. Don't write us off.
  Over the past few months, we found that opening. We worked with 
really good partners over on the House side over at Energy and Commerce 
and the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and we wrote 
what we have called simply the Energy Act of 2020--pretty simple, 
pretty beautiful, in my opinion.
  But our Energy Act is included now as division Z in the year-end 
omnibus. It provides for reforms and new authorities related to a range 
of emerging technologies, including advanced nuclear; carbon capture, 
utilization, and storage; carbon removal; renewables; and energy 
storage. It reauthorizes programs that many of us are supportive of and 
want to advance: Weatherization Assistance and ARPA-E. It features the 
bulk of my language related to critical minerals and materials to help 
us rebuild our domestic supply chains, which we know are so critical. 
It reflects our strong commitment to cleaner energy to help us address 
climate change without raising the cost of energy or imposing divisive 
mandates.
  So I would suggest to the Presiding Officer that this Energy bill is 
just the perfect bookend for this Congress. What started as a major 
lands package is now going to end with a major energy package. Again, 
as I mentioned, it has been since 2007. It is the first Energy bill--
the energy side of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee--the 
first Energy bill in almost 13 years. It was President George W. Bush 
who signed the last one on December 19, 2007.
  So I want to thank Ranking Member Manchin for his leadership on the 
energy package, as well as all of the committee members who contributed 
to it. We had great help within our committee. We had great help within 
this body. At last count we were looking at input and contributions 
from some 70 different Members.
  I also want to acknowledge the extraordinary work of the staffs. I 
had the opportunity to give a tribute to my staff director, Brian 
Hughes, who is leaving after many years on the committee. He did a 
fabulous job of advancing this, as did Spencer Nelson, Pat McCormick, 
Annie Hoefler, Lucy Murfitt. There were so many others. That team was 
extraordinary.
  But they were joined by an extraordinary team that Senator Manchin 
had, led by his staff director, Renae Black, and other individuals 
there who really helped us advance this--Sam Fowler and so many. We 
can't thank them enough.
  I also want to really give sincere thanks to our House partners 
because they were this ``six corner'' working group here: Frank 
Pallone, the chairman at Energy and Commerce and the ranking member,   
Greg Walden; the Science chairwoman, Bernice Johnson, and the ranking 
member, Frank Lucas. We could not have reached an agreement without 
their leadership and their willingness to work together.
  I also want to acknowledge and thank Leader McConnell and Senator 
Schumer for agreeing to work with us and help us secure this opening 
and this commitment.
  I can't remember how many times Leader McConnell had said: You know, 
Lisa, you are probably going to figure out a way to pull a rabbit out 
of the hat here. And I don't know if this is a rabbit out of the hat, 
but I think persistence certainly has paid off. So I want to thank the 
teams who really helped to make this happen.
  In addition to a good energy bill, the year-end omnibus also includes 
the bipartisan water package featuring nine provisions that are 
important to Western States, such as Colorado, Montana, and Arizona. 
Lane Dickson on my Energy Committee staff was fabulous there. We added 
a few more lands bills into the final package. Lucy and Annie helped us 
on that. We really have worked to advance so much out of the committee.
  All of these accomplishments--our lands package, our energy package, 
our water package, the lands bills that we tried to add to everything 
that moved and occasionally passed by UC, and measures I haven't spoken 
to, including the Great American Outdoors Act--these are all the 
hallmarks of a highly productive Congress and the Senate Energy and 
Natural Resources Committee. I am pleased to have been able to shepherd 
these measures into law.
  But what I am proud of--more than any piece of legislation, more than 
anything out there in the time that I have been able to lead this 
committee, what I am most proud of is the bipartisan way in which this 
committee has operated. Our commitment to bipartisanship has produced 
continually good results for our country.
  What I found as ranking member and now as chairman is that there is 
simply no substitute for working together and across party lines to 
find agreement wherever it is possible.
  So I thank Senator Manchin for following that same approach, to our 
committee colleagues for their own bipartisanship and collegiality, to 
our House colleagues who have helped us with that.
  I see that my friend from the great State of Washington and Pacific 
Northwest is here, and I want Senator Cantwell to know that as I have 
spoken of the accomplishments of the Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee, I am very thankful and appreciative of her leadership and 
what she has provided over the years. Working together with her team, 
we have accomplished good things for the right reasons.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, if I can just congratulate my colleague

[[Page S7910]]

from Alaska and the ranking member, Senator Manchin, for their great 
work of getting these energy provisions that have been--I don't know 
how many Members, but I am sure just about every Member in our body has 
had something to do with it and a lot of actual individual legislation. 
So this was a long effort by our colleague, the chair of the committee, 
and I thank her for her diligence on this. She has had many of us up to 
Alaska to look at hydropower and alternative resources and how their 
grid needs better connectivity and products that can withstand and 
provide energy in subzero weather and all sorts of challenges that they 
face.
  But, clearly, these tools that will be in this legislation will move 
us forward. So thank you and thanks to Senator Manchin for working so 
diligently to get this finally over the goal line. It is a big moment. 
Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.

                          ____________________