[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 70 (Thursday, April 22, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2153-S2161]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DRINKING WATER AND WASTEWATER INFRASTRUCTRE ACT OF 2021--MOTION TO
PROCEED--Continued
SEACOR Power Lift Boat
Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, the year 2020 was a year filled with
sadness and grief for me, but, unfortunately, that sadness and grief
struck again in the year 2021.
Last Tuesday, 100-mile-per-hour winds capsized a lift boat with a
crew of 19 off the coast of Grand Isle, LA, just south of Port
Fourchon. The U.S. Coast Guard and a group of Good Samaritan boats
rescued six crew members as winds continued between 80 to 90 miles per
hour and waves were 7 to 9 feet high.
The Coast Guard credits those Good Samaritans with saving four of the
six rescued crew members. So, fortunately, in the midst of a terrible
tragedy, it turns out a crew of Coast Guard men and women were on a
boat doing a trial run when the SOS went out. And although technically
not Coast Guard, they were coastguardsmen, and they went out and aided
in the rescue. We are eternally grateful for their efforts, their hard
work, and for the risk they took to themselves to bring those crew
members back to shore safely, who returned safely.
In this tragedy, which affects us in Louisiana but, in a sense,
affects us all, any loss of life is heartbreaking. But there are some
who may not be found, and we pray their families find closure. To date,
six have been confirmed dead, including Anthony Hartford of New
Orleans, James ``Tracy'' Wallingsford of Gilbert, Captain David Ledet
of Thibodaux, Ernest Williams of Arnaudville, Lawrence Warren of
Terrytown, and Quinon Pitre of Franklin.
Seven are still missing. Each day that passes, the prognosis--the
chance of finding them--obviously decreases. I would like to take a
moment to recognize those still missing:
Jay Guevara, Dylan Daspit, Gregory Walcott, Chaz Morales, Jason
Krell, Darren Encalade, and Chris Rozands.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the crew members of the capsized
vessel, their loved ones, and their communities.
While we mourn this loss, we also rise to recognize the heroic
efforts of the Coast Guard, the Good Samaritans, and all involved in
the search-and-rescue efforts that continued for 6 straight days.
In just 40 hours, the Coast Guard covered more than 1,440 square
miles of the Gulf of Mexico, searching for missing crew members. To put
that in perspective, that is an area larger than the State of Rhode
Island. By Friday, this area grew to a size larger than Hawaii,
searching through sea and air.
Late last week, the National Transportation Safety Board announced
they will open an investigation. The team arrived in New Orleans on
Thursday, and a preliminary report will be released within the next 2
weeks.
We deeply appreciate the volunteers who assisted the men and women
from the Coast Guard and many others in the search and rescue,
particularly during the terrible weather. In the light of this tragedy,
this team effort demonstrates the best of humanity.
We grieve with the families. We shall always remember the lives of
those we lost.
May God watch over their souls. May they find eternal peace.
Thank you, Mr. President.
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.
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Coronavirus
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I bring news back from Oklahoma to this
body and a request for dialogue. The COVID bill that was passed a
little over a month ago--that bill provided all kinds of relief. As
this body knows, we were deeply divided on that bill and some of the
issues within it.
One of the issues stretched out the debate all the way to the last
moment, and it was the additional unemployment assistance. The
conversation about the additional unemployment assistance is this: The
economy is reopening. Is this the time to extend additional money above
and beyond State unemployment assistance, what we normally do? With
unemployment rates going down, should we add more money on top of it?
No one really knew what would happen when that occurred, but we had
some suspicions. The 2 weeks I spent traveling around the State, the
week before Easter and after Easter, in town after town after town
after town after town, I heard the same thing from employees and
employers.
Employees would tell me that somebody who used to work next to them
is now at home because they are making as much money at home on
unemployment assistance as they would when working. So the person
standing there working at the factory, the person standing there
working at the restaurant is ticked off at the person who is at home
watching TV, making as much money as they are.
[[Page S2154]]
The employer is just as frustrated or more because they have all
kinds of orders coming into their business, saying: Can you send us
more of this? And they could, except they don't have enough labor.
An additional $300 a week was added on top of the unemployment
assistance and extended out all the way to the first week of September.
At the same time, checks were sent out to every individual. Then they
were told they would get a $10,000 tax break. The combination of those
three things together has caused some folks to do what people do in a
free market: They look to see where they are going to work based on
where they can make the most money at that moment. That is what a free
market is like. That is why employers continue to pay a little more to
get good employees. But the problem is, in Oklahoma, where there is a
low cost of living, many of our employers are struggling to find
workers because they are competing against this body.
The employees are ticked because they are at work working, paying
taxes, and the person who used to work next to them and probably will
return this October got several months off and is making the same,
except for the person working is paying for the person not working, and
they are a little ticked off about it.
I bring this to you because this is not hypothetical. In Oklahoma,
our unemployment rate dropped again to 4.2, but we still have 100,000
people. Our rates continue to rise for people filing first-time claims,
but I promise there is not a town you can go to in Oklahoma that
doesn't have ``help wanted'' signs all over town. I heard it from every
single town that I went to, from employers in every single place that
they cannot compete with what the government is just mailing to people
for staying at home.
The very first day I was out a couple of weeks ago, I was in Tulsa at
a business there that does manufacturing. He told me that for the first
time ever--and he has owned the business a long time--for the first
time ever, one of his managers came to him and said: You are not going
to believe what just happened.
They had an employee who came up to them and said: I would like for
you to fire me.
He said: Well, why in the world would I do that?
He said: Well, I just figured out, with the tax break and what I
would get on unemployment assistance, I could make as much staying at
home as I could working. But I need you to fire me so I can go file for
unemployment.
He literally said to him: I am not going do that. Go back to work.
So the next day, the guy showed up 30 minutes late to work, and at
lunchtime, he took an hour and a half off. He did the same thing the
next day. The third day, according to protocol in their company, they
called him in, talked to him, and wrote it all up. The fourth day, they
did the same thing again--called him in, wrote it up. By the fifth day,
they fired him.
His exact words to his manager on the floor: What took you so long?
There is a restaurant in Oklahoma City that told us they were
preparing to reopen. Finally, the pandemic is over. We have a very high
percentage of folks in Oklahoma who have received the vaccine. We are
one of the top 10 States in the country for distributing the vaccines.
Our State, our county, our local offices, our hospitals, and our
Tribal areas have done a fantastic job getting the vaccine out. We are
open.
One of the restaurants trying to reopen in the Plaza District of
Oklahoma City, a beautiful cultural district, couldn't reopen because
they couldn't hire people because they got larger unemployment
benefits, and they remain closed.
The mayor of Muskogee told me that most employers in their town are
struggling to be able to get employees to get back to work.
In Northern Oklahoma, in Perry, there is a restaurant that was
talking to one of my staff this week that said they are having to close
early because they can't get enough business.
I would tell you, a couple of Sundays ago, my wife and I drove to go
eat lunch after church, and we went to two restaurants before we had to
go to a third to find a restaurant that was open. The second restaurant
literally had a sign on their door: ``Closed Due to Labor Shortage.''
This is a real issue that was created in this room that is impacting
my State trying to reopen. I have no idea if my Democratic colleagues
will acknowledge this as a real problem or will just say: That is a
hypothetical issue; it is not real. But this is going to continue all
the way through September, and my State is not going to be able to
reopen. This will get even worse in the days ahead when additional
money will start being shipped out to families in the change in the
child tax credit, when people will literally start getting checks in
August on top of the other checks they are receiving.
I bring this to this body because I would like for us to have a
conversation about it and for somebody in this body to acknowledge that
a mistake was made and we need to fix this.
We all agreed last year to be able to help during the time of the
pandemic. People needed help. Everyone was out of work, and there were
no options for work. That is not true anymore; yet these larger
benefits are still coming out.
This needs to be addressed. For the sake of getting our economy going
again, this needs to be addressed. I would hope we could have a
reasonable, rational, fact-based conversation about it.
U.S. Supreme Court
Madam President, for most of the history of the United States, we
have had nine Supreme Court Justices--nine. Now, we started out
originally with six, and then it dropped for just a little while to
five and then went right back to six again.
When we added a seventh circuit court in 1807, it popped from six to
seven, and there was some discussion about whether it would just
continue based on the number of circuit courts. It was determined that,
no, that was a bad idea.
Then it went to nine in 1837. Lincoln actually added 1 to make it 10,
and they determined that was really too many and brought it back down
to 7, actually.
In 1869, we went back to nine again, where we were most of the time
before that and where we have remained, nine Supreme Court Justices.
That is not just a random number; it seems to be a pretty good number--
nine--to be able to open up debate.
I don't just think it is a pretty good number. There is a rather
famous and some would say ``notorious'' Justice named Ruth Bader
Ginsburg. She made this statement in 2019 when asked about Court-
packing and asked about increasing the size of the Court. In 2019, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg said:
Nine seems to be a good number. It's been that way for a
long time. . . . I think it was a bad idea when President
Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court. . . . If anything
[it] would make the court look partisan.
That is not just one Justice. Early in April this year, Justice
Breyer was speaking at the Harvard Law School, and he addressed this
issue of Court-packing while this body is in the middle of a
conversation about Court-packing--extremely rare for that to occur.
Justice Breyer stated:
I'm an optimist. The rule of law has weathered many
threats, but it remains sturdy. I hope and expect that the
Court will retain its authority, an authority that my stories
have shown was hard-won. But that authority, like the rule of
law, depends on trust, a trust that the Court is guided by
legal principle, not politics. . . . Structural alteration
motivated by the perception of political influence can only
feed that latter perception, further eroding that trust . . .
There is no shortcut. Trust in the courts, without which our
system cannot function, requires knowledge, it requires
understanding, it requires engagement. In a word, it requires
work. Work on the part of all citizens. And we must undertake
that work together. . . . What I'm trying to do is to make
those whose initial instincts may favor important structural
change or other similar institutional changes--such as forms
of court-packing--think long and hard before they embody
those changes in law.
That was so well received, by Justice Breyer, that progressive
activists started calling for him to take early retirement.
Court-packing is not a new conversation in this body, but it has not
been well received in the past.
The Court has always ebbed and flowed in its liberal or conservative
bents. President Obama spoke openly when he was President about the
Court
[[Page S2155]]
in the 1960s. That was a very progressive Court in the 1960s that drove
conservatives crazy with some of the decisions they made, but there was
no packing of the Court to try to change the direction of the Court in
the 1960s and 1970s. There was a frustration but a realization that
nine was the right number.
Over time, the Court, as it does, as it ebbs and flows over the
decades, has flowed to be more conservative. In the days ahead, at some
point, it will flow to be more liberal. It just will. But the rule of
law is important. It is not a new concept that is being addressed, but
it is one this body should think long and hard about.
Quite frankly, I agree with Joe Biden on this concept, but not the
President Joe Biden, the Senator Joe Biden.
With this body's permission, let me read Joe Biden's speeches when he
was in the U.S. Senate and he stood right over there and spoke on this
floor or spoke in committee hearings when he was in the Judiciary
Committee, speaking often about this issue.
Joe Biden, once speaking, made this statement. He said:
President Roosevelt clearly had the right to send to the
U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress a proposal to pack the
Court. It was totally within his right to do that. He
violated no law; he was legalistically absolutely correct.
But it was a bonehead idea. It was a terrible, terrible
mistake to make. And it put in question, for an entire
decade, the independence of the most significant body--
including the Congress, in my view--
The most significant body in this country--
--the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
The President had the right to do that. He was totally
within his power, and his objective was seen clearly.
Well, the President clearly has the right to do what he is
doing, in my view.
But he also called it ``bonehead.''
Joe Biden, as Senator, also continued with this statement. He was
discussing the same issue. He said: ``The Senate again stood''--by the
way, this was two decades later, after Joe Biden made that statement I
just read. Two decades later, Joe Biden still has the same passion. He
stated this:
The Senate again stood firm in the 1937 court-packing plan
by President Franklin Roosevelt. This particular example of
Senate resolve is instructive for today's debates, so let me
describe it in some detail. It was the summer of 1937.
President Roosevelt had just come off a landslide victory
over Alf Landon, and he had a Congress made up of solid New
Dealers. But the ``nine old men'' of the Supreme Court were
thwarting his economic agenda, overturning law after law
overwhelmingly passed by the Congress and from statehouses
across the country.
In this environment, President Roosevelt unveiled his
court-packing plan--he wanted to increase the number of
Justices on the Court to 15, allowing himself to nominate
these additional judges. In an act of great courage,
Roosevelt's own party stood up against his institutional
power grab. They did not agree with the judicial activism of
the Supreme Court, but they believed that Roosevelt was wrong
to seek to defy established traditions as a way of stopping
that activism.
In May 1937, the Senate Judiciary Committee--a committee
controlled by the Democrats and supportive of his political
ends--issued a stinging rebuke. They put out a report
condemning Roosevelt's plan, arguing it was an effort ``to
punish the Justices'' and that executive branch attempts to
dominate the Judiciary lead inevitably to an autocratic
dominance, ``the very thing against which the American
Colonies revolted, and to prevent which the Constitution was
in every particular framed.''
Our predecessors in the Senate showed courage that day and
stood up to their President as a coequal institution. And
they did so not to thwart the agenda of the President, which
in fact many agreed with; they did it to preserve our
system's checks and balances; they did it to ensure the
integrity of the system. When the Founders created a
``different kind of legislative body'' in the Senate, they
envisioned a bulwark against unilateral power--it worked back
then and I hope it works now.
Said Joe Biden during that time.
The noted historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.--
Joe Biden, continuing as Senator--
has argued that in a parliamentary system President
Roosevelt's efforts to pack the Court would have succeeded.
Schlesinger writes: ``The Court bill couldn't have failed if
we had a parliamentary system in 1937.'' A parliamentary
legislature would have gone ahead with their President,
that's what they do, but the Founders envisioned a different
kind of legislature, an independent institution that would
think for itself. In the end, Roosevelt's plan failed because
Democrats in Congress thought court-packing was dangerous,
even if they would have supported the newly-constituted Court
rulings. The institution acted as an institution.
In summary, then, what do the Senate's action of 1795,
1805, and 1937 share in common? I believe they are examples
of this body acting at its finest, demonstrating its
constitutional role as an independent check on the President,
even popularly elected Presidents of the same party.
That was from Senator Joe Biden. His challenge to this body was to
think long and hard before they destroyed an institution of our
government. It was right then; it is right now.
In a final statement from Joe Biden, he spoke about the filibuster--
often, actually, about the filibuster. Senator Biden stated this:
The Framers created the Senate as a unique legislative body
designed to protect against the excesses of temporary
majority, including with respect to judicial nominations; and
they left us all the responsibility of guaranteeing an
independent Federal judiciary, one price of which is that it
sometimes reaches results Senators don't like.
It is up to us to preserve these precious guarantees. Our
history, our American sense of fair play, and our
Constitution demand it.
Joe Biden continued. As Senator, he said:
I would ask my colleagues who are considering supporting
the ``nuclear option''--those who propose to ``jump off the
precipice''--whether they believe that history will judge
them favorably. In so many instances throughout this esteemed
body's past, our forefathers . . . stepped back from the
cliff. In each case, the actions of those statesmen preserved
and strengthened the Senate, to the betterment of the health
of our constitutional republic and to all of our advantage.
Our careers in the Senate will one day end--as we are only
the Senate's temporary officeholders--but the Senate itself
will go on. Will historians studying the actions taken in the
spring of 2005--
When Joe Biden stated this in the Senate--
[Will they] look upon the current Members of this Senate as
statesmen who placed the institution of the United States
Senate above party and politics? Or will historians see us as
politicians bending to the will of the Executive and to
political exigency? I, for one, am comfortable with the role
I will play in this upcoming historic moment.
Then he stated this, from Senator Joe Biden:
I hope . . . my colleagues [will] feel the same.
So do I. Less than the days ahead, history will look at the unwinding
of the judiciary based on a season in the Supreme Court, as we have had
seasons and cycles before. Don't unwind the judiciary for a season.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Opioid Epidemic
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I appreciate the thoughtful comments
from my colleague from Oklahoma of the need for us to have an
independent judiciary.
I am on the floor to talk about a different issue, and it is the
latest, very troubling information that we are receiving regarding the
addiction epidemic and specifically drug overdose deaths in the United
States. I am also going to talk about some of the steps we can take
right now to address that reality.
One of the top priorities I have had in this body and in the House
has been this drug addiction issue. Frankly, this is a moment of
frustration because we were making progress, and then COVID-19 hit.
Unfortunately, the drug epidemic has hit my State of Ohio particularly
hard. The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the CDC, show that it is a pretty grim picture right now,
and it should be a wake-up call to all of us. Overdose deaths rose
nearly 30 percent nationwide from September 2019 to September 2020.
During this time period, you can see the overdose deaths numbers going
up dramatically.
This is heartbreaking for me because we were making progress. After
literally decades of increases in drug overdose deaths every single
year--decades--going back to the 1990s, we finally here in the 2017,
2018, 2019 periods began to make progress in reducing overdose deaths.
In fact, in Ohio, we had a 24-percent decrease in overdose deaths
during 1 year, 2018, but, right now, the numbers are getting higher and
higher, and it is everywhere.
As you can see from this chart, if something is in any of these
colors, this means that there is an increase in overdose deaths. If it
is in blue, it means there is a decrease, and this was just during this
period of September
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2019 to September 2020, the latest data for which we have good
information. It doesn't even include all of 2020, and as we know, the
pandemic, unfortunately, went all the way through 2020 and into 2021.
All of the data show that, as you got further into the pandemic, we had
higher rates, so we expect, when the final data come out for 2020, it
will be even higher.
Here is where we are now. Look at this. Other than the State of South
Dakota, every single State has seen an increase--and a substantial
increase in many cases--in overdose deaths. This is in 49 of 50 States.
In my own State of Ohio, there has been about a 25-percent increase in
overdose deaths during this period.
Only a few years ago, again, we were making progress. One reason that
we had begun to turn the tide was because of work that had been done
here in the U.S. Congress. Right around this time period, we passed
legislation called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. We
also passed legislation called the 21st Century Cures Act. Both were
signed into law in 2016. So it would have been in this period. It
became effective in this period and actually helped to reduce overdose
deaths for the first time in decades.
I commend my colleagues for that legislation. It was the first time
we had ever funded recovery, as an example. We also funded prevention
and treatment and provided our law enforcement with more naloxone, this
miracle drug that reverses the effects of an overdose. Many of my
colleagues have had the opportunity to speak with their local addiction
boards or have been with law enforcement or other first responders--
firefighters--who have used this naloxone effectively to save lives.
So things were getting better until we saw this big increase in
connection with the coronavirus pandemic. The stresses of this
unprecedented time, clearly, have contributed to the spike in drug
abuse. People have felt lonelier. People have felt more isolated.
Specifically, people have not been able to get access to recovery
programs. Being in person with a recovery coach is a whole lot
different than being on a Zoom call. That is what I hear from
recovering addicts, and it makes sense.
I will say that people have turned to drugs to cope during this tough
period, but also, many of those who are in recovery have been stalled
in their progress because of their inability to be with other
recovering addicts. So part of the best practices and best scientific
evidence we have is that an effective way to help people overcome their
addictions is to be with other people who also have those addictions.
We have known this for years in terms of alcohol treatment programs--AA
and so on--but this has been one of the problems.
Another issue I am going to raise, which apparently is somewhat
controversial, but I hear it from the experts--and those are the people
on the ground, in the field, who are dealing with this issue--is that,
when we here in Congress provided lump sums to all Americans under a
certain income--and you will remember the individual payments--they
didn't go out right away because our State offices couldn't process
them quickly enough, particularly with regard to unemployment
insurance, wherein our workers' comp and our unemployment offices could
not get the money out the door on a weekly basis but could
retroactively provide those funds.
We had individuals getting--instead of $300 a week or $600 a week--
$10,000 a week because it was an accumulation of many weeks. People
were owed that, but getting these big lump sums was not helpful in the
context of many people who were in recovery because it led to their
purchasing drugs and it led to what we are finding out--again, back
home--in talking to the experts, were some of the reasons you had this
spike. So there are a lot of reasons here.
I guess what we need to focus on now is, How do we get beyond this?
These deaths are happening away from the national headlines because
the coronavirus is taking the national headlines, understandably. A
story just last week, from a news station in Dayton, OH, summed it up
perfectly with a quote from Lori Erion, who is the founding president
of Families of Addicts.
She said:
During the pandemic, addiction and families struggling with
it haven't gone anywhere. We have been here the whole time.
But they have not gotten much notice. There were 87,000 people who
died from overdoses in the September 2019 to the September 2020 period
we talked about. There were 87,000 Americans who died. If not for the
COVID-19 pandemic, I don't think we would have seen this increase--from
everything we are hearing if the correlation is almost precise--but
also we would be hearing a lot more about the addiction crisis and
doing more about it here.
We did put some funding into the CARES Act and into the two most
recent COVID-19 packages to help with behavioral health, people's
mental health, and also with addiction. That has been helpful, but we
need to go much broader and do something much more comprehensive to
take this moment to recommit ourselves to fighting addiction and
ensuring that more Americans don't continue to lose their lives to
overdoses. We have bipartisan legislation that has been introduced that
we have been working on with a lot of people on the outside to try to
come up with some new ideas, some ways to address this problem.
In the 5 years since this Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery
legislation has become law, which was in part the reason we saw this
reduction--also, a lot of great work was done at the local level and
the State level--the substantial, several billion-dollar commitment we
made here in this Chamber for more prevention, treatment, and longer
term recovery with naloxone and so on, made a difference, but it has
been 5 years.
During that time, I have visited with literally hundreds of different
organizations in my home State. I have also just talked to a lot of
experts about this. I have been to a lot of nonprofits, from Cleveland
to Cincinnati and from Portsmouth to Toledo. I have talked to literally
hundreds of recovering addicts about what works and what doesn't work
for them.
There is legislation that we are introducing now, which we call CARA
3.0. We had the first Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, and we
had a second one back in 2018, a smaller one. Now we have this new,
bipartisan CARA 3.0 legislation. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is my
coauthor, but we have a number of Members who have joined up to help,
and it addresses three major areas.
One is research and education. We still need to find out more, and we
still need to get better research and better alternatives to opioids to
deal with pain because much of this is being driven, as you know, from
opioids--both heroin and prescription drugs but also these new
synthetic opioids, which are the deadliest of all.
Second, we focus on education. Getting the prevention message out
there is incredibly important to keep people from coming into the
funnel of addiction in the first place, which is incredibly powerful
and effective.
Third, of course, are treatment programs.
The fourth is recovery. Again, Congress had never funded recovery
before; yet all of the best science shows that these recovery programs,
when done properly, can be incredibly helpful, and longer term
recovery, unfortunately, is needed, which is costly, but the
alternative is worse.
Finally, there is criminal justice reform, which I will talk about in
a moment.
It will bolster our work to prevent drug abuse before it happens
through funding for research and education. A new national drug
awareness campaign is part of this legislation, and the research and
development of alternative pain treatment methods that don't lead to
addiction is part of it.
CARA 3.0 will also take the important step of addressing the
disproportionate effect the addiction crisis has had on people in
poverty and communities of color. Unfortunately, during this increase,
we have seen a higher percentage of overdoses in communities of color.
A national commission has been formed to look at this issue to better
develop treatments and best practices to avoid overdoses.
Second, our bill will build on what works and how we treat addiction.
It will double down on proven, evidence-based addiction treatment
methods
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while expanding treatment options for groups that are particularly
vulnerable to addiction, including young people, new and expecting
mothers, rural community residents, and communities of color--
individuals who live in those communities. One of the things that we
have learned through, again, evidence-based research into what works
and what doesn't work is that medication-assisted treatment, when done
properly, can be very effective.
It will also make permanent the current expanded telehealth options
for addiction treatment that were created temporarily in response to
the social distancing required by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is really
important. Telehealth is one of the few silver linings in an otherwise
very dark cloud of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, for many individuals,
telehealth was effective, particularly with regard to behavioral health
and addiction services. So we want to be sure that the temporary
ability to pay for those telehealth visits, as an example, through
Medicaid as an example or Medicare, can continue past the pandemic.
CARA 3.0 will also bolster the recovery options for individuals who
are working to put addiction behind them through funding to support
recovery support services and networks. It will enable physicians to
provide medication-assisted addiction treatments, like methadone, to a
greater number of patients and change the law to allow these drugs to
be prescribed via telehealth for a greater ease of access. This will
require a change in legislation to allow people to provide these kinds
of treatments.
Our bill will also destigmatize addiction recovery in the workplace
by ensuring that taking one of these medications--again, medications to
get people over their addictions--will not count as a drug-free
workplace violation. This may seem like an obvious change, but,
unfortunately, it will take a change of law to be able to make that
happen.
Finally, CARA 3.0 reforms our criminal justice system to ensure that
those who are struggling with addiction, including our veterans, are
treated with fairness and compassion by the law, putting them on a path
to recovery instead of into a downward spiral of drug abuse.
Importantly, CARA 3.0 funds a Department of Justice grant program to
help incarcerated individuals who are struggling with addiction to
receive medication-assisted treatment while they are still in the
criminal justice system. Again, that may seem like a pretty obvious
solution, but there are people who go into the system addicted, and
they come out addicted. They are not given the treatment options when
they are incarcerated, and they simply go back to lives of addiction.
Those people have high rates of recidivism, clearly. Most are
rearrested and are back in the system within a relatively short period
of time.
So this will reduce recidivism, repeat offenses. It makes sense for
the person addicted, and it certainly makes sense for the community,
with fewer crimes being committed. It also makes a lot of sense for the
taxpayer because that treatment, although there is an additional
expense while in the criminal justice system, will have a much better
chance of getting those people back to lives wherein they can go back
to work, back to their families, be in recovery, and not be back in the
expensive criminal justice system. So it is a win-win-win.
CARA and CARA 2.0 gave States and local communities new resources and
authorities to make a real difference in my State and others. CARA 3.0
renews and strengthens those programs, and given the recent spike in
addiction we see here, it provides a significant boost in funding as
well. When added with the existing CARA programs that were authorized
through 2023, we will be investing well over $1 billion per year to
address this longstanding epidemic, putting us on the path toward a
brighter future free from addiction.
Another important part of CARA 3.0 is our bipartisan legislation to
build on this expanded telehealth option for addiction services.
It was necessary during the pandemic to have it because of social
distancing. We found out that, although there is no substitute for
face-to-face interaction, telehealth has kept patients in touch with
their doctors and allowed physicians to prescribe medication-assisted
treatment remotely.
It doesn't make sense to get rid of these options once the pandemic
goes away, so again, CARA 3.0 included legislation we had previously
introduced separately called the Telehealth Response for E-Prescribing
Addiction Therapy, or the TREATS Act, to make permanent a number of
temporary waivers for telehealth services and bolster telehealth
options for addiction treatment services.
Specifically, it does a couple things. First, it allows for a patient
to be prescribed these lower scheduled drugs, like SUBOXONE, through
telehealth on their first visit. You can't do that now. Current law
requires you to go in person for a visit when needing an initial
prescription for controlled substances, but this has been a deterrent
to patients in crisis and in urgent need of treatments from schedule
III or schedule IV drugs, like SUBOXONE or certain other drugs for a
co-occurring mental health condition.
It also limits abusive practices by both audio and visual
capabilities to be able to interact with the treatment providers to
reduce fraud and abuse when it is your first visit, and it would also
keep the existing requirements for in-person visits when prescribing
schedule II drugs--these are the harder drugs, like opioids and
stimulants--which are much more prone to being abused through these
telehealth visits.
So we have a provision in there to avoid abuse, but it is also
important to continue this telehealth when other options aren't there.
I think it is a balanced approach that makes sense.
Second, our bill will allow for Medicare to bill for audio only or
telephone telehealth visits for mental health and substance abuse if it
is not the patient's first visit. Due to access to the broadband or
distance, in-person or even video appointments aren't always possible,
particularly for our seniors.
We need to focus on safety and robust treatment options, but in order
to balance the needs of patients, we have proposed to allow our
Nation's seniors under Medicare to use phones for subsequent mental
health or behavioral health visits when they don't have access to the
internet and where fact-to-face interaction isn't possible and isn't as
necessary.
I believe the TREATS Act will make a difference in the addiction
treatment space and will help us prevent more untimely overdoses.
So the legislation I have laid out so far--CARA 3.0 and the TREATS
Act--cover an important aspect of the addiction crisis: the addiction
treatment efforts that help lessen the demand for drugs, which is the
single most important thing, reducing that demand.
But there is also more we have to do on the supply side because as
drugs are pouring into our country, they are at a lower price on the
streets of Cincinnati or Columbus or Cleveland or Dayton or Toledo. So
we do need to do more to curb the supply of these dangerous substances.
This is especially true right now because there is such a critical
crisis ongoing, and there is a looming deadline to keep one class of
very dangerous drugs illegal and off the streets.
I am talking about the kinds of opioids that are--like fentanyl, that
are synthetic opioids but have a slight molecular change. So unless we
act here in Congress, they will no longer be scheduled, no longer be
illegal.
Data from the CDC, again, shows that the biggest driver to this surge
in overdose deaths that we see here comes from fentanyl, comes from
these synthetic opioids. They are often far more deadly than
traditional opioids, like heroin. In fact, fentanyl is 50 times more
powerful than heroin. A pound of fentanyl is lethal enough to kill a
half a million people. And fentanyl, as you will find out talking to
your law enforcement folks and others in the treatment space, it is
often now being laced with other drugs, like cocaine, like crystal meth
or heroin.
Most of this synthetic opioid is being illegally manufactured in
China and then smuggled across our borders, either coming in through
the mail system or going to Mexico and then being smuggled across.
There is also evidence now that it is also being produced in Mexico,
which is a change and a major concern.
In order to avoid prosecution, prior to 2018, scientists in China--
evil scientists in China--and drug traffickers started making slight
modifications to fentanyl, sometimes adjusting a single
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molecule and creating what are essentially fentanyl copycats.
While these fentanyl-related substances have the same narcotic
properties as fentanyl, their tiny variations allowed them to evade
prosecution. But oftentimes, these similar substances, like
carfentanil, which some of you are aware of, are even deadlier than
fentanyl itself.
To address this, the Drug Enforcement Agency in 2018 used its
authority to temporarily classify all fentanyl-related drugs as
schedule I substances, which allows law enforcement to aggressively
intercept and destroy these substances. Unfortunately, this designation
was only temporary. That is all DEA could do.
So, in 2019, Congress extended that designation until May 6, 2021, so
a 2-year extension until 14 days from now.
If that deadline lapses 14 days from now, criminals who run labs in
China and Mexico will be able to avoid law enforcement as they flood
the United States with unlimited slight variants of fentanyl that are
just as deadly. We can't let that happen.
Let me say that again. At a time when we are experiencing an alarming
rise in overdose deaths that we see here, and fentanyl is the major
culprit, the No. 1 killer, we may face a situation where law
enforcement will lose the ability to aggressively stop these fentanyl
copycats in the United States unless Congress acts in the next 14 days.
Fortunately, we have legislation to do that. Our bipartisan FIGHT
Fentanyl Act, which I introduced with Senator Joe Manchin, will fix
this problem by permanently classifying fentanyl-related drugs as
schedule I drugs. It would give our law enforcement certainty to go
after synthetic opioids in all their forms and show we are committed to
addressing the threat posed by this dangerous class of drugs.
Our proposal is the one bipartisan approach to this in the Senate. We
structured it to address concerns from the criminal justice community
and made sure it does not impose mandatory minimum sentencing under
criminal charges brought under our bill. That has been one of the
concerns expressed, particularly by some on the other side of the
aisle. So we took that out.
I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come to the table
and support this urgent legislation.
The House just passed a 5-month extension this week. That is, to me,
very sad. Let's make this permanent. There is no reason to do a short-
term extension and to create the uncertainty with law enforcement, and,
frankly, to tell these evil scientists in places like China, in 5
months, you are going to be able, potentially--to be able to sell this
substance again without worrying about the law. This makes no sense.
Let's make it permanent. Let's give the DEA the authority to do what
they need to do. And by doing so, let's reduce the amount coming in,
which increases the cost on the street, which is an important step
toward rededicating our efforts to stop these drugs from stealing
thousands of lives and causing so much pain.
In conclusion, I urge my colleagues--our Nation faces a crisis. It is
the coronavirus pandemic that is finally winding down, but it is also
the addiction crisis. It has been happening underneath the coronavirus.
As was said by my constituent--this woman who unfortunately has faced
addiction in her own family--we have been here the whole time, and it
hasn't gotten better; it has gotten worse.
Many of its victims are suffering in silence. We know a lot about
what is going on with COVID. We don't know a lot about what is going on
with this pandemic, this epidemic of drugs.
So let's act now, without delay. We have 14 days until DEA loses the
authority to go after dangerous fentanyl copycats, but we can do
something about it. We can pass legislation right now that will help
people at their point of pain, as well as provide law enforcement the
tools to cut off the source of their suffering--both the CARA 3.0
legislation to deal with the demand side and the legislation to be sure
this poison can't come into our communities freely.
As the CDC data shows, this is an issue that affects every single one
of us. Forty-nine States have seen a big increase. We know we need to
do it. Let's not wait any longer to get to work once again turning the
tide on our addiction crisis.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Tribute to Beth Trowbridge
Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, it is Thursday, and by now many know--
particularly our members of our press corps--that it is time for what I
feel is probably one of the best moments in the Senate each week. It is
time for the ``Alaskan of the Week.''
We get to talk about Alaska, talk about somebody who is doing
extraordinary things for our State, for our country a lot of times, and
I like to give an update when I do my ``Alaskan of the Week'' speech on
what is going on in Alaska.
It is spring, of course. The Sun is high in most parts of the State--
actually, in all parts of the State. Spring--we call it breakup,
actually, relating to the ice on the rivers--it is upon us.
Now, of course, it can still snow, and it still gets pretty cold in a
lot of places in Alaska, but winter is on the run. The promise of
summer is in the air, and what a glorious summer it is going to be.
We aren't out of the woods yet on the pandemic in Alaska, but we have
managed--we are proud of it, I am proud of my fellow Alaskans--the
pandemic, the virus, as well as possible.
One of the things that is happening right now, our vaccination rates
have been, almost from the beginning when we got the vaccine, the
highest per capita in the country. Despite our huge challenges in terms
of size, limited population, it is really kind of a minimiracle--No. 1
vaccination rates in America in Alaska. We did it by dog sled, snow
machine, small airplanes to make that happen.
So if you are watching, America, please come on up to Alaska. It is
safe. It is open for tourism. This summer we want you to come on up.
By the way, not only will you have an amazing experience, our State
just announced a few days ago you will get a vaccine if you come to
Alaska. If your State is too inefficient or bureaucratic to actually
get a vaccine, come on up to Alaska. You can have the trip of a
lifetime, and you and your family can get vaccinated. We want you up
there. We are open for business. We want to see Americans come on up
and enjoy our great State as we are getting through this pandemic.
It is a naturally beautiful place, you will see, but the people in my
State work hard to keep it pristine and are really what makes it such a
great place.
So, today, in honor of Earth Day, I wanted to honor Homer, AK,
resident Beth Trowbridge, who has spent her career--about 40 years,
four decades--working to keep our waters in Alaska and our beaches
clean and pristine.
So let me tell you a little bit about Beth. Originally from St.
Louis, Beth first came to Alaska in 1981 as a college student to work
on the Youth Conservation Corps in Fairbanks, AK, the interior.
She only intended to stay a year or so--by the way, this is a very
common story--only intended to stay a year or so, but as so many do,
she got to Alaska and fell in love with the State so she transferred to
the University of Alaska in Fairbanks where she got her degree in
Northern and Alaska Native studies.
Now, Beth loves the wilderness. She loves living off the land,
studying the plants, studying the animals. She said: ``There are
beautiful and amazing people and amazing resources'' in Alaska. She
said she always loved the sense that, while we can all live there,
nature in Alaska is always in control--the earthquakes, the volcanoes,
the extreme weather, the coldness. They are a constant reminder that,
in her words, in Alaska ``there are the bigger forces out there''--a
lot bigger, and she wants to keep it that way.
So she became a steward of her environment and dedicated her life to
educating others so that they, too, could become stewards.
With all the talk about climate change, I fear that not nearly enough
attention is given to those outside of politics, like in this town, who
work day in and day out to care for the environment in the place they
call home--in their communities, in their States, every day on the
ground at home, making a difference.
[[Page S2159]]
That is what Beth has done. After college, she got a job as the
education coordinator for the Prince William Sound Science Center,
where she authored the ``Alaska Oil Spill Curriculum.''
Then, in 2000, she began her work--in many ways, her life's work--for
the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, or CACS, in the drop-dead
gorgeous community of Homer, AK, surrounded by the beautiful Kachemak
Bay. Some people call Homer ``the place where the land ends and the sea
begins''; others, ``the cosmic hamlet by the sea''; and others, ``the
halibut capital of the world.''
If you haven't visited Homer, America, you have got to go to Homer.
My goodness, it is beautiful. In Alaska, we just call it awesome, in
part because of people like Beth and organizations like hers that keep
it that way.
In 2012, Beth became the organization's executive director and helped
expand the good work that CACS has been doing since 1982.
Now, this organization is primarily an educational organization and
offers people of all ages, really from across the globe--not just
Alaska, not just America, everywhere--opportunities to connect with the
outdoors, learn about coastal environments through guided walks, tours,
educational programs, overnight school programs, and so much more.
So think about this impact. Homer, where CACS is located, is a town
of about 6,000 people. CACS educates roughly 16,000 people through
these science-based programs every year. That is a big impact. They
have camps for everyone, and I would encourage anyone who is listening
who is going to go to Homer to sign up for one of these camps to
explore the unique marine ecology, the tidal pools, and the abundant
sea life; to watch whales, seals, and sea lions; to swim against the
backdrop of the Kenai Mountains; and to go into the forest and learn
about the forest, wildlife, and adaptation in the forest. There is so
much to do.
One of the big initiatives of this important organization is to deal
with marine debris. So today, on Earth Day, let me put a plug in for
the marine debris programs in my State and across the country. This is
an issue that I have been very focused on since my time as a U.S.
Senator, working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We have
gotten a lot done.
We passed the Save Our Seas Act a couple of Congresses ago, and we
passed the Save Our Seas Act 2.0, which the Congressional Research
Service called the most comprehensive ocean cleanup legislation ever in
the history of the Senate. It was just passed and signed into law in
December. So we are making progress.
I do want to give a shout-out to one of my good friends, Senator
Sheldon Whitehouse. You know, some of us miss his weekly ``Wake Up''
speeches. I think mine is the only weekly speech anymore. Senator
Whitehouse, I am not sure what happened. But Senator Whitehouse and I
have worked closely on this kind of legislation--ocean debris, ocean
cleanup, and to help organizations like CACS with marine debris cleanup
and to call attention to this issue that is solvable. We can solve
this--marine debris, ocean plastics--and it is bringing a lot of people
in America and across the world together.
One of CACS's biggest annual events is the annual Kachemak Bay Coast
Walk. It involves more than 200 volunteers who adopt a section of
Kachemak Bay shoreline. And, again, you have got to visit Kachemak Bay,
one of the most beautiful places on the planet Earth. Trust me.
Surveying changes, collecting data on marine life and human impact and
cleaning up beach litter and marine debris is what people do every year
with the Kachemak Bay Coast Walk. It is the kind of great local work
that really makes a difference. It brings people from all across Alaska
together--people who know how special and beautiful Kachemak Bay is--
and it creates community. It creates community, and that is so
important, not just for our State but for our oceans and the coastline.
So that is one of the many things Beth has done.
Beth and her husband, Charlie, who is a retired shellfish biologist
with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game have four children. The
youngest is finishing eighth grade, and the oldest is 33.
Beth develops environmental curriculums for schools. She is a
Rotarian, a Girl Scout leader, and keeps CACS running seamlessly. She
says she does all of this because she has a passion for sharing the
outdoors with people--Alaskans, Americans, people from all over the
world, but especially the next generation--and she hopes that her work
not only will have an immediate impact on the environment but helps
people to understand the challenges of our oceans and to focus more on
cleanup, because who doesn't want to clean up our oceans?
Local businesses, she is noticing, are using more recyclable
material. People are leaving less trash behind. People are talking more
about cleanup and ownership, and that is how you make a difference at
the local level, and it spreads out all over the State and the country.
Beth said:
I hope that, through my work, we can provide the
opportunities to understand and appreciate nature. I am proud
of where I live. I love Homer. I want to take care of it. I
hope that others [in the community] feel that way too.
Beth, that is a great sentiment, and it is also one of the many
reasons we are proud to honor you today with this very prestigious
award, being our Alaskan of the Week. Congratulations.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
(The remarks of Mr. CORNYN, pertaining to the introduction of S.
1358, are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. CORNYN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Warnock). The Senator from Maine.
(The remarks of Ms. Collins pertaining to the introduction of S. 1345
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
Ms. COLLINS. 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. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Earth Day
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, today is a special day. It is Earth Day. I
had the privilege of actually being at the first Earth Day, at Golden
Gate Park, a million years ago. The speaker there that day was Ralph
Nader, and there was a huge crowd. Hundreds of thousands of people were
there.
Ralph Nader made a lot of fame and fortune writing a book called
``Unsafe at Any Speed,'' about the Corvair Monza. That was my first
car, a Corvair Monza. And as he was there speaking that day, I couldn't
help but think about how much I loved my Corvair Monza and couldn't
believe he wrote that book about it.
He actually made a lot of sense and, certainly, it was a rallying
point for people in this country who realized that we were going the
wrong way in terms of the cleanliness of our air and the cleanliness of
our water.
I had gone to Ohio State and was a Navy ROTC midshipman there, and I
ended up in Southeast Asia. I remember being over in Southeast Asia on
one of our deployments, and the Cuyahoga River, up the road from Ohio
State, in Cleveland, OH, caught on fire. They had too many people
drinking the dirty water.
I liked to run outside. I know our Presiding Officer is a big athlete
as well. I know there were days that I would run outside, in the 1960s
and 1970s--and in some places, even now, around the world--and I was
doing more damage than good by breathing the air in those places.
But some amazing things happened in 1970, right around 1970. We saw
the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. I don't think it
was done initially as a bill. I think it was actually done sort of as
an Executive order. Richard Nixon was the President then.
I think the Congress came along a few years later and sort of passed
legislation to implement the Executive order. The Clean Air Act was
signed into law. The Clean Water Act was passed. I think Richard Nixon
initially
[[Page S2160]]
vetoed the Clean Water Act. But they had huge support--overwhelming
support, Democrat and Republican--for both measures.
We didn't give a whole lot of concern in those days to climate
change. Nobody really talked, in the 1960s and the 1970s or the 1980s,
about climate change. But something started happening on our planet.
People said: I think it is getting warmer. The weather seems to be a
bit more extreme as time goes by.
Then scientists reported that a hole was being formed in the ozone
layer over the North Pole, and it started off small and got bigger and
bigger and bigger. And people a lot smarter than me said: This is not
good. We have to figure out what is going on here.
They finally figured out that it was something called CFCs, or
chlorofluorocarbons, which were actually found in our air-conditioners,
our freezers, and refrigerators. They did a really good job in keeping
things cool, including us, but, unfortunately, it led to the hole in
the ozone.
So some really smart scientists got to work, and they came up with
something called HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons. HFCs did a really good job
keeping us cool. They also did a good job in terms of the hole in the
ozone going away. But the bad thing about HFCs, or hydrofluorocarbons,
is that they are a thousand times worse for climate change, the warming
of our climate, than carbon, carbon dioxide. So some good but some bad
as well.
We passed the legislation, and it was signed--I think unbeknownst to
him--last December, by the President. It is legislation that phases
down HFCs, or hydrofluorocarbons. So now we are going to have American-
made products that will keep us cool and will be good and positive with
respect to climate change, and will create a lot of jobs--tens of
thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of jobs, American jobs with
American technology--and strengthen our economy in a variety of
different ways.
So on this Earth Day, there is a lot to be concerned about, but the
HFC phase-down that I just talked about was signed into law and was
part of a much bigger package in December, that is worth a half a
degree Celsius.
Scientists will tell you that what we want is to be careful to not
see the Earth temperature go up by more than 2 or 3 degrees Celsius,
and if we do, it becomes sort of irreversible and we are in real
trouble then on this planet.
But this one thing that we did, voted on here in this Chamber,
phasing down HFCs, is worth about a half a degree Celsius. There is
still more to do, but that is a good start.
The greatest source of carbon dioxide on our planet is not HFCs, but
it is the emissions from our cars, trucks, and vans--our mobile fleet.
About 28 percent of carbon emissions come from our cars, trucks, and
vans. About another 25 percent comes from utilities, powerplants that
provide electricity for us, a lot of them powered by coal or natural
gas--mostly coal. And another large source of carbon emissions is from
industries. Think of cement plants, if you will. If you add those three
together, it is about 75 percent of the carbon emissions in our
country--just those three sources.
There used to be a guy, a bank robber, whose name was Willie Sutton.
You may or may not have heard of him. He lived during the Depression,
before either of us. But he robbed a lot of banks. He finally got
caught and ended up in trial before the judge.
And the judge said: Mr. Sutton, why do you rob all those banks?
And Willie Sutton replied, famously: That is where the money is, your
Honor. That is where the money is.
Well, one of the reasons why we focus on carbon emissions and global
warming emissions coming from mobile sources is that that is 28 percent
of the emissions. That is not where the money is, but that is where the
emissions are, where a lot of them are coming from.
And we are getting really exciting announcements from American
companies, auto companies. GM has announced this year that starting in
2035, they will not be manufacturing cars, trucks, or vans that are
burning gasoline or diesel fuel. They are just going to be electric.
They will be using hydrogen and fuel cells. That is huge--by 2035. That
is only like 14 years away.
Ford has made similar kinds of pledges. I think Volkswagen and a
number of other companies have made similar pledges. And they are not
pledges for things that will take place in like 40 or 50 years. We are
talking about right down the road, right down the road. That is great
news because the threat of climate change is imminent, and we don't
have a lot of time to meet it.
I was in a hearing this morning. One of the committees I serve on is
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. One of the issues that we
have that we are responsible for is the Postal Service. I think, maybe
for reasons that go back to my time in the Vietnam war, of being
overseas in the war and how, every week, when we would get the mail
over there, it was the best part of the week. You would hear from your
families, loved ones, friends, newspapers, magazines, care packages. It
was a great day.
So I have great affection for the Postal Service, even today. I love
the idea of mail-in voting, and I know my friend from Georgia has some
affection for people being able to participate and exercise their
constitutional rights through the mail. And, hopefully, we will do more
of that in smart ways like that in the future.
But the Postal Service still provides a valuable service. We were
reminded of that during the election last year. But the Postal Service,
the men and women who drive around and deliver our mail, they drive
around in vehicles that are, on average, 25 years and older. Almost all
of them are diesel or gasoline powered.
The Postal Service realizes that they need to upgrade their fleet,
and they need to do that sooner than later. It is not cheap. It is not
a cheap thing to do--165,000 mail trucks that need to be replaced in
the next several years.
There is a 10-year plan that the Postal Service has put out--how they
plan to, sort of, and return to, if not to profitability, at least to
improve over time to a break-even situation. One of the things that is
in their plan is to buy and replace their existing fleet of cars,
trucks, and vans--mostly trucks and vans.
They are apparently in a contract with a company up in Oshkosh, WI,
called Oshkosh, and the idea is to build a bunch of vehicles, tens of
thousands of them, over the next decade or so.
We had three nominees today before us who have been nominated to be
members of the Board of Governors of the Postal Service. In all, there
are nine members of the Board of Governors, nominated by the President,
confirmed by the Senate. They have three vacancies, and we had three
nominees to fill those vacancies before us.
I wished them all a happy Earth Day, and then I talked to them about
what lies ahead in terms of replacing 165,000 vehicles. And,
apparently, originally, the first couple of thousand vehicles that will
be produced will be gas and diesel, and then, after that, the vehicles
could be gas, diesel, or electric--or hydrogen, for that matter.
There is an extra cost when we switch to electric, extra costs when
we switch over to, say, hydrogen, if that is the technology that is
chosen, because you need electric charging stations and you need the
hydrogen fueling stations.
It is easy to take your gasoline-powered vehicle or your diesel-
powered vehicle to a gas station. It is on the corner. It is in your
town. But if you need to get the electric charger for your battery or
you need the hydrogen for your fuel cell vehicle, then that costs some
money. And it can't all be on the Postal Service. It can't all be on
the Postal Service.
As we put together this next infrastructure package for our country--
and we are going to be debating here legislation that Senator Capito
and I on the Environment and Public Works Committee have been working
on with our bipartisan team next week, a big package on wastewater
treatment and on drinking water, clean drinking water. That will be the
first big infrastructure bill that we pass, I think, in the Senate--
hopefully, next week. But there will be, hopefully, a lot more. And
part of that will be roads, highways, and bridges coming down the road.
And part of that will be charging stations in densely populated
corridors all over the country--charging stations for electric vehicles
and fueling stations
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for hydrogen vehicles, which have a lot of potential, too.
I just want us to keep in mind, when that day comes--I want the
Postal Service to keep in mind that we need for them to set an
example--for the Postal Service to set an example. If they go out and
two-thirds of the new vehicles they buy are gasoline- and diesel-
powered, shame on them, and, frankly, shame on us in this body for
allowing that to happen.
But we have to remember that the Postal Service is fighting for its
life, and we need to be there and be helpful in terms of helping to pay
for the infrastructure that they will need when they buy these new
vehicles.
I will close with this. Mr. President, I am not sure where Home Depot
is headquartered. Are they not headquartered in Georgia? If they are,
nod your head. I think they are. I love to talk about Home Depot.
Whenever I go down to Central America, to places like Honduras,
Guatemala, and El Salvador--we call them the Northern Triangle
countries--we have something in place called the Alliance for
Prosperity program. It is designed to help fight corruption, their
crime, their violence, and their lack of economic opportunity there.
And we provide money--taxpayer money--to help these countries down
there, so people will stop feeling like they have to come up here to
escape the violence, the corruption, the crime, and the lack of
economic opportunity. So we provide some money, and then we expect
them, for every dollar we provide, to provide four or five dollars on
their own. We want foundations to put up money. We want businesses to
put up money to help produce this as well.
I say to the people of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, who live
in some really terrible situations, when I talk to them about the
Alliance for Prosperity, which has been in place now for several years:
You can do it. You, those three countries--Honduras, Guatemala, and El
Salvador--you can do it. We can help, and I think we have a moral
obligation to help.
I think at the Postal Service, they can do it. They can update their
fleet. They can do so in a way that is sustainable and is actually good
for this planet. This is the only planet we are going to have. We have
to take care of it or, otherwise, face huge, huge challenges.
So I would, on this Earth Day, say to my colleagues that the
anniversary provides opportunity. The Postal Service is going through
its share of adversity, as well, but there is real opportunity, as
well, to help the Postal Service and the men and women who work there
to do a better and a more reliable job of delivering the mail to all of
us but, also, to do so in a way that is good for our planet.
That would be a very, very good thing and make this Earth Day
especially memorable.
Mr. President, with that, I am going to bid you adieu. Great weekend
to you and the staff. God bless you. Thank you so much.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Wisconsin.
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