[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 46 (Thursday, March 11, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1502-S1504]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTION

      By Ms. ROSEN (for herself, Mr. Portman, Mr. Carper, Ms. 
        Murkowski, Mr. Coons, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Moran, Mrs. 
        Feinstein, Ms. Klobuchar, Ms. Duckworth, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Van 
        Hollen, Mr. Warnock, Ms. Smith, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Cardin, and Mr. 
        Padilla):
  S. 697. A bill to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint 
commemorative coins in recognition of the Bicentennial of Harriet 
Tubman's birth; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
Affairs.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise to celebrate Harriet Tubman, one of 
the most notable individuals in Maryland's history. Congress began 
officially recognizing March 10th as Harriet Tubman Day in 1990 and I 
am always grateful to speak to her accomplishments. Throughout her life 
she served as an abolitionist, soldier, spy and, most famously, as a 
conductor on the Underground Railroad. I would like to reflect on her 
contributions to human rights, civil rights, and women's rights in our 
Nation and to renew my commitment to addressing the shameful legacy of 
slavery in Maryland and across the U.S.--particularly as it pertains to 
environmental justice.
  Harriet Tubman was born Araminta Ross to enslaved parents in 
Bucktown, Maryland in 1822. After emancipating herself, she dedicated 
her life to the advancement of freedom and the fight against slavery. 
Araminta adopted the name ``Harriet'' at the time of her marriage to 
John Tubman, a free Black man, around the year 1844. Tubman and her 
husband continued to live in Dorchester County until her escape from 
slavery in 1849, at the age of 27. She would courageously return to 
make over thirteen dangerous trips to lead nearly 70 enslaved people 
seeking freedom, repeatedly risking her life in pursuit of our Nation's 
highest aspirational ideal.
  Throughout the American Civil War, Tubman served the Union at various 
times as a cook, nurse, scout, and even spy. She helped orchestrate the 
Combahee River raid in South Carolina that freed over 700 enslaved men, 
women, and children. After the war's end, Harriet focused her efforts 
on women's suffrage. In 1908, Tubman established the Harriet Tubman 
Home for the Aged in Auburn, New York. Five years later, she died of 
pneumonia on March 10, 1913. Although she spent her final decades in 
New York, the marshes and forests of Maryland's Eastern Shore are where 
Harriet Tubman first grew spiritually and physically strong.
  Harriet Tubman made an indelible impact on my State and our Nation's 
history and I am proud to have played a role in memorializing her story 
to future generations. I worked to secure the authorities and funding 
for the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, which tells the 
story of her life in Dorchester and Caroline counties, and for the 
Harriet Tubman Underground National Historical Park. The National Park 
Service administers the national historical park Congress created in 
December 2014 and the national monument authorized by President Obama 
in 2013 as a single unit. The Park Service works in partnership with 
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the Blackwater 
National Wildlife Refuge, and the State of Maryland, which owns and co-
manages the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center, to 
commemorate and interpret Tubman's remarkable story. Visitors can 
access the marshlands, largely preserved since her time, at the Visitor 
Center and nearby Refuge. The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad 
National Historical Park centers her life's work not in physical 
structures, but instead through the landscape in Tubman's native 
Dorchester County, which we must defend against the social and 
ecological hazards of climate change.
  While climate change is a global issue, it is felt on a local scale. 
Dorchester County's low-lying landscape of

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tidal marshes, narrow peninsulas, and country roads linking isolated 
communities is threatened by sea level rise and land subsidence. Over 
one-half of the county lies in the 100-year floodplain, much of it in 
the tidal floodplain; even minor storms and routine high-tide events 
can flood vast portions of the county. In addition to flooding, 
saltwater intrusion threatens the failure of rural septic systems, and 
damage to roads, bridges, and other critical infrastructure. Climate-
driven changes to the coastal ecosystem are also making it harder to 
earn a living through the primary local sources of income: agriculture, 
forestry, and the seafood industry.
  Local communities are at the frontline of adaptation, and initial 
social inequality causes the disadvantaged groups in those communities 
to suffer disproportionately from the adverse effects of climate 
change, resulting in greater subsequent inequality. Dorchester County 
is no exception. After the Civil War, freedmen and women settled the 
land, which was often less arable and therefore more affordable. Today, 
the county has a population of 32,000, 26 percent of whom are Black. 
Black individuals are almost twice as likely to be unemployed or live 
below the federal poverty level as their white neighbors, attributable 
to systemic racism that has roots in Harriet Tubman's time of 
enslavement. The Union of Concerned Scientists developed a Climate 
Equity Tool to identify communities that face conditions that heighten 
their vulnerability to harm and are therefore high-risk environmental 
justice areas, including Dorchester County. UCS projects that the 
county will see a six-inch rise in sea level by 2030 and 13-inch rise 
by 2045.
  Absent national or international climate policy direction under the 
Trump administration, cities and towns on the Eastern Shore and around 
the world have been focusing on solving their own climate problems. 
They are working to build flood defenses, plan for heatwaves and higher 
temperatures, install water-permeable pavement to better deal with 
floods and stormwater, and improve water storage and use. Dorchester 
County has a flood mitigation plan that identifies projects to protect 
resources at risk of being lost, including historic and cultural sites. 
However, implementation of such plans requires significant funding. It 
is essential that Congress enhance the resilience of vulnerable 
communities in Dorchester County and across the Eastern Shore--and the 
Nation--whose residents have been forced to manage periodic flooding 
and other climate impacts in relative social and political isolation. 
Frontline communities in Dorchester and neighboring Eastern Shore 
counties with strong historical and cultural ties require sufficient 
federal financial and technical assistance now to help plan for the 
future and make choices about how best to protect themselves from tidal 
flooding, saltwater intrusion, and coastal disasters.
  Environmental justice is an essential component to carry on with 
respect to the anti-racist work that Harriet Tubman pioneered. The 
American Rescue Plan Act will provide debt relief and assistance to 
socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers who have faced 
disproportionate impacts from the pandemic as a result of longstanding 
discrimination, as well as $50 million in funding to reduce the air 
pollution that is linked with contributing to COVID-19 deaths, targeted 
to low income communities and communities of color. These provisions 
present only a small down payment on the types investments needed to 
address inequality, and have yet to squarely address climate change.
  The local communities on the Eastern Shore that served as Harriet 
Tubman's training ground in resistance are rarely credited for their 
outsized influence on Maryland's maritime industry, culture, and 
environment. We must do better to enshrine their place in our 
historical consciousness and provide them with the tools necessary to 
prepare for climate change. I am grateful for the opportunity to 
showcase the exceptional efforts of one particular Marylander and honor 
her by pursuing climate and environmental justice policies.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Ms. COLLINS (for herself, Mr. Cardin, and Mrs. Shaheen):
  S. 723. A bill to amend the Small Business Act and the CARES Act to 
extend the covered period for the paycheck protection program, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Small Business and 
Entrepreneurship.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the PPP Extension Act 
of 2021. I'm pleased to be joined in introducing this bill by my 
colleagues, Senators Cardin and Shaheen. Last March, the three of us, 
along with Senator Rubio, formed a Small Business Task Force that 
crafted the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)--a forgivable loan 
program designed to help keep small employers afloat and their 
employees paid during the pandemic. The bipartisan bill that we are 
introducing today would simply extend the current application deadline 
for new PPP loans from March 31st to May 31st of this year, and then 
provide an additional 30-day period during which time the Small 
Business Administration may continue processing applications received 
prior to the new May 31st deadline. Representatives Velazquez, 
Luetkemeyer, Bourdeaux, and Kim (CA) have introduced a companion bill 
in the House.
  The PPP has been hugely successful in helping our Nation's small 
businesses and nonprofits survive the pandemic and continue paying 
their employees. In 2020, more than five million small employers 
received forgivable PPP loans, helping to sustain upwards of 50 million 
American jobs. This includes more than 28,000 Maine small businesses, 
who received nearly $2.3 billion in forgivable PPP loans.
  Recognizing the importance of this program for our Nation's small 
employers, the bipartisan December 2020 COVID-relief law provided an 
additional $284.5 billion to reopen the Paycheck Protection Program and 
allow the hardest hit small employers to receive a second forgivable 
loan. The December law also made other improvements to the PPP, such as 
expanding forgivable overhead expenses to include supplier costs and 
investments in facility modifications and personal protective equipment 
needed to operate safely.
  Since reopening in January, more than two million additional 
forgivable loans--totaling nearly $165 billion--have been approved for 
small businesses across the Nation. In Maine, more than 10,000 small 
employers have been approved for more than $692 million in forgivable 
loans since PPP's reopening. In total, Maine small employers have been 
approved for nearly $3 billion in forgivable loans since the program 
was created last year.
  I have heard from countless small employers about the impact this 
program has had on them and their employees. The owner of Shipyard 
Brewing Company in Portland told me that without the relief that PPP 
provided, his company would be bankrupt. The Ecology School, a non-
profit environmental education program in Saco, would have had to lay 
off the majority of its staff without the support of two forgivable PPP 
loans. I've heard from the owners of Jeff's Catering in Brewer, the 
Poland Spring Resort, and the Hamilton Marine in Searsport that PPP 
helped keep their businesses alive and their employees paid.
  With the ongoing distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and the promise of 
warmer weather throughout the Nation, there is a light at the end of 
the tunnel. We're not there yet, which is why we need to extend the 
deadline to apply for new loans. Extending the deadline would also help 
address concerns I continue to hear from Maine small employers about 
delays in the processing of new loan applications because of difficulty 
in resolving error messages generated by the Small Business 
Administration computer system.
  By extending the PPP for another two months and then providing an 
additional 30 days after that time for the SBA to process applications 
that are still pending, this bill would help our Nation's small 
employers retain access to forgivable PPP loans. I urge my colleagues 
to support this legislation.
  Thank you, Mr. President.

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