[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 134 (Friday, July 30, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5201-S5203]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                National Whistleblower Appreciation Day

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, each year on July 30, we take time to 
celebrate whistleblowers and the very hard role that whistleblowers 
play in keeping our government transparent and accountable.
  But the task of supporting whistleblowers doesn't start and stop on 
July 30; it is a year-round job. And here in this Congress, it is 
something that we have been working on for decades.
  When I first came to Washington in the 1970s, most of the 
whistleblower laws we take for granted today didn't even exist then.
  I like to tell people, anyone who dared to blow the whistle back at 
that time was about as welcome as a skunk at a picnic.
  People in government would often retaliate by trying to run the 
whistleblower off and make them out to be the problem instead of the 
problem the whistleblower was trying to present.
  I still hear about that kind of retaliation going on this very day in 
far too many cases. But, today, we have better whistleblower 
protections in place than we did years ago, and whistleblowers have 
important advocates in their corner to support them.
  The Nation owes a special thanks for many of the key whistleblower 
protections that we have in place this very day to my former colleague 
and good friend, Senator Carl Levin, who died yesterday at the age of 
87.
  Carl was the original sponsor of the Whistleblower Protection Act 
back in 1989, and a cosponsor of the Whistleblower Protection 
Enhancement Act of 2012.
  I was proud to have worked with Carl on those foundational pieces of 
whistleblower legislation. I know that if Carl

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were still here in the Senate this very day, he would be continuing to 
lead on whistleblower issues.
  Carl understood that whistleblower protections are not just important 
to Members of Congress and a small network of interest groups in 
Washington, DC; they are important for the entire Nation because 
whistleblowers play a critical role in our government. They call 
attention to the problems of waste, fraud, abuse, and inefficiency.
  And if you have the sort of transparency that comes because 
whistleblowers are ready to stand up for what is right, that 
transparency brings accountability to our government, and you can't 
have a democratic government that is not accountable.
  These whistleblowers help those of us in Congress to identify 
problems in the government so we can fix them through oversight and, if 
necessary, passing legislation.
  And so whistleblowers help keep government transparent and 
accountable to the people, and they help us find ways of saving 
taxpayers' dollars.
  As much as Carl accomplished during his Senate career helping 
whistleblowers, and as much as we have accomplished together over the 
years, there is still more that needs to be done to ensure that 
whistleblowers remain protected.
  One important resource for whistleblowers is the Merit Systems 
Protection Board, where whistleblowers can go if they face retaliation 
for blowing the whistle.
  And let me tell you, too many whistleblowers face retaliation for 
doing just what is right. We ought to see them as partisans for good 
government.
  Now, this Merit Systems Protection Board has been without a quorum 
for more than 2 years, and it has developed a significant backlog of 
cases. I am not sure what is keeping President Biden from sending us 
nominations for that board. I certainly believe he needs to do that 
without delay.
  There is also still work to do to make whistleblower protections 
stronger and more robust. I am working on several pieces of 
whistleblower legislation in this Congress. One of my bills will 
strengthen incentives and protections for whistleblowers who report 
potential money laundering.
  And I also have legislation to further strengthen the False Claims 
Act and an act entitled Program Fraud Civil Remedies by giving Agencies 
more resources to directly take on people who defraud the government.
  In addition, I am working on legislation that will establish stronger 
whistleblower protections for our FBI employees. Wherever there are 
still gaps in our existing laws, I am working to fill those gaps.
  This year, on Whistleblower Appreciation Day, the Senate 
Whistleblower Protection Caucus welcomes two new Members: Senators 
Collins and Hassan.
  As chair of the caucus, I am pleased to welcome my colleagues. I look 
forward to working with these new colleagues and our caucus co-chair, 
Senator Wyden of Oregon, as we continue our joint effort to make sure 
the whistleblower laws and protections we have in place next year and 
the year after are even stronger than the ones that we have in place 
today.
  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. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               H.R. 3684

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it is 2 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, and 
it looks like we are going to grind through this bipartisan 
infrastructure bill this weekend, as Senator Schumer has ordained, but 
we have now had a couple of votes--actually, three votes now--to 
proceed to a bill that hasn't even been written yet in totality, and 
indeed the reason we were delayed this morning was because some of the 
text that was written did not comport with the agreement between the 
negotiating parties.
  I have said this from the beginning; that Senator Schumer should not 
rush a bill to the floor before it is ready. It is simply not a good 
practice. And we are talking about more than $1 trillion in spending 
that will affect every man, woman, and child in America. It is more 
important to get things right than to get it done fast.
  For weeks now, the bipartisan group of Senators who have been 
negotiating this bipartisan infrastructure package have been engaged in 
intense negotiations with the White House to find common ground. Over 
the last several days, in particular, colleagues have logged countless 
hours to nail down specific provisions and how it would be paid for.
  I want to commend all of them for their efforts on both sides of the 
aisle. It has been a long road, but we still have a long road ahead, 
and I appreciate both sides working in good faith to try to reach an 
agreement.
  Like all my colleagues, I am eager to see the text in the bill to 
understand the specifics and how it impacts my State, what is included 
and what is not included. To gain my support, this legislation must 
accomplish two things: First, it must send sufficient resources to 
Texas to build and maintain our vast network of infrastructure 
projects. We are the fastest growing State in the Nation, with 29 
million people, and we need to make sure our infrastructure is up to 
the need. We have the largest network of roadways of any State in the 
country, with more than 680,000 lane miles. We are also home to more 
than 55,000 bridges, far more than any other State.
  We have water ports along the gulf coast, as the Presiding Officer 
knows, having lived in Houston, and ports of entry along the border 
with Mexico and Canada, all of which are critical to our economy, as 
well as airports, levees, waterways, and countless other infrastructure 
projects that are vital to our communities across the State.
  The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of broadband, 
including the need to expand access in unserved parts of the State. It 
is figured that we have about a third of our State without adequate 
access to broadband, and, of course, that became critical when our 
children were studying remotely from home or when people attempted to 
see their doctor using telehealth. Broadband has gone from a 
convenience to a necessity.
  It is going to take a little while to comb through the specifics of 
this massive bill--I think at last count it was 2,600 pages long--to 
see if it meets my two criteria. But that is my priority No. 1.
  But my second criterion is this bill must include a real plan to pay 
for these infrastructure investments in a responsible way. We have had 
to spend a lot of money in the last 18 months. A lot of this money was 
borrowed money because we were engaged in an emergency, a pandemic. But 
now our debt to gross domestic product is really roughly to what it was 
after World War II, and I agree that most of that was necessary, at 
least the bipartisan bills that we passed. I think there were a total 
of five last year.
  But now is not an emergency when it comes to infrastructure. Now, 
this is the bread and butter of legislating, and we have got to come up 
with a responsible way to pay for the money that we intend to spend.
  The current draft of the bill, I think, is lacking in adequate pay-
fors. Senator Portman, the Senator from Ohio, said that the 
Congressional Budget Office would not give the writers of the bill 
credit for some of the money that is in fact real, some of the 
repurposed money from COVID-19 that was not used for Federal bonuses to 
State unemployment, which was, at one point, rejected by the Governors 
because people were being paid more money not to work than to work. So 
there wasn't a pot of money to offset some of the spending.
  But I think there are additional pay-fors that have been overlooked. 
So I am in the process of drafting amendments to this bill, including 
new pay-fors, and I hope these amendments will come to a vote on the 
Senate floor.
  I support the efforts of our colleagues on a bipartisan basis to 
negotiate the current package. I think they have done us a great favor. 
But the fact of the matter is, the rest of us, the 80 of us who did not 
participate in those negotiations, have a right and a duty to 
participate in writing this legislation too. So it would be a terrible 
mistake for the majority leader to refuse to

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allow Members on both sides to offer amendments which could pass and 
could improve the underlying bill.
  It goes without saying that this bill did not go through regular 
order, which is nothing more than saying it didn't go through the 
normal committee process. But the benefit of going through the normal 
committee process is that both majority and minority Members get a 
chance to participate in writing a bill in the committee even before it 
comes to the floor.
  So now that we have a bill that was negotiated and which, I suppose, 
at some point we will see in the light of day, but one that was 
negotiated by only a small fraction of Senators, it is even more 
critical that we have an open amendment process.
  As I said earlier, a transportation infrastructure bill ordinarily 
would go through an arduous process, through, I think, at least three 
standing committees--through the Banking Committee, through the 
Commerce Committee, and through the Environment and Public Works 
Committee. But that did not happen here.
  The bipartisan group of Senators did find common ground among 
themselves, and now it is time for the full Senate to have the 
opportunity to offer changes that will improve this legislation and 
allow all Senators a chance to participate in shaping them.
  Our friend, Senator Portman, the Senator from Ohio, said the 
bipartisan group is committed to having a fair process that allows both 
sides an opportunity to amend the bill. Senator McConnell has also 
called for a robust, bipartisan floor process. So I would encourage 
Senator Schumer, the floor leader, to accept amendments from Members of 
both sides of the aisle to strengthen the legislation and ensure that 
it meets the needs of our constituents.
  There is no question that the roads and bridges across the country 
are in need of repair. Every year, the American Society of Civil 
Engineers evaluates the state of our infrastructure and issues a report 
card to let us know how we are doing.
  Well, America is barely passing with a C-minus. Texas is faring 
slightly better than the rest of the class, with a C. But it is time, 
as you can tell, for us to invest in our roads and bridges and the 
ports and waterways that fuel our economy and the broadband that keeps 
us connected.
  I have been disappointed that Senator Schumer has seen fit to try to 
force us to vote on a bill that does not yet exist in its entirety, but 
I hope we can now pump the brakes a little bit and take the time and 
care to evaluate the benefits and the costs of this legislation, and I 
hope that there will be an amendment process available to both sides of 
the aisle to ensure that our infrastructure investments are made fairly 
and they are paid for responsibly.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Peters). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.