[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6287-6300]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2013--Continued

  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, what is the order?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. S. 601 is now pending.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I want to speak now on a bill that 
Senator Vitter and I are very proud of. But, first, I ask unanimous 
consent to withdraw the committee-reported substitute amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 799

                (Purpose: In the nature of a substitute)

  Mrs. BOXER. Now I call up the Boxer-Vitter substitute amendment No. 
799 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from California [Mrs. Boxer], for herself and 
     Mr. Vitter, proposes an amendment numbered 799.

  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that further 
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I will make an opening statement and 
then turn it over to my colleague, Senator Vitter, for his opening 
statement.
  I want to just say this is a good day for the Senate to get on a bill 
that is a bipartisan bill, where we have had unanimous support in the 
Environment and Public Works Committee. This is a bill that will create 
or save half a million jobs for our Nation, and it has been a long time 
in coming. The last WRDA bill--the Water Resources Development Act--was 
in 2007. It took a lot of work to get here. The reason for that is we 
had to deal with changing the culture of the Senate away from earmarks 
in a bill like this where projects were named and figure out a way we 
could move forward with these projects without earmarks. It was 
difficult.
  Senator Vitter and I and our staffs have worked hard to get to this 
point. I particularly want to say to both staffs that we couldn't have 
done it without your amazing focus. We are so appreciative.
  Our bill did make it through EPW without a single ``no'' vote. Since 
then we have been working with almost every Senator to hear their 
ideas, to get their reactions, and to see if there were ways we could 
change the bill. This substitute Senator Vitter and I have put forward 
incorporates the views of a whole array of Senators, and they know who 
they are. There are many of them, and we are very happy we were able to 
work with them. Of course, we will continue to work with them if there 
are ways we can improve this bill even more.
  So this is long past time. As I said, it was 2007 when the last WRDA 
bill became law, so we have an infrastructure that is critical, and 
part of it is the water infrastructure. That is what we deal with.
  Now, what does this bill do? We focus on flood control. We focus on 
ports and environmental restoration projects where the corps has 
completed a comprehensive study. Then we also incorporate 
authorizations for projects that need modifications, and the 
modifications don't add to the overall cost of the project. For the 
future, we have developed a system that allows local sponsors to make 
their case directly to the corps because we are fearful that as new 
needs come up, there is no path forward. So we do all that in this 
bill.
  I am proud of a lot of provisions in this bill, but one of them is 
what we call WIFIA--the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation 
Act. It is a way to assist localities in need of loans for flood 
control or wastewater and drinking water infrastructure to receive 
these loans upfront.
  Let me explain that. We expanded a program called TIFIA in the 
Transportation bill dealing with transportation infrastructure. We said 
where a local government or a region came forward with, say, a sales 
tax or bond for a series of transportation projects, and they wanted to 
move quickly and build them in a shorter timeframe, as long as they had 
that steady stream of funding, the Federal Government, with virtually 
no risk, could advance these funds and let them build these projects 
quicker, creating jobs and improving the infrastructure quicker.
  So we did this same thing with water. It is a small project, and it 
is not a replacement for our existing funding through the corps and 
EPA, but it is a supplement. It is a supplement that would help 
existing programs leverage more investment in our infrastructure. So 
WIFIA will allow localities an opportunity to move forward with water 
infrastructure projects in the same way TIFIA works.
  This bill is critical. I mean, let's just say what it is. I know 
there are people who will offer amendments on subjects ranging--well, 
let's just say broad-ranging subjects. And it is their right to do it. 
Senator Vitter and I know that, and it is what it is. It is the Senate 
and people will come forward. But we hope we will not get bogged down 
on these nongermane amendments because so much is at stake.
  I think this would be a good time for me to mention some of the 
supporters of our bill: the American Association of Port Authorities, 
the American Concrete Pressure Pipe Association, the American Council 
of Engineering Companies, the American Farm Bureau, the American 
Foundry Society, the American Public Works Association, the American 
Road and Transportation Builders Association. This list goes on and on.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the list of 
these supporting organizations.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


                National Organizations Supporting S. 601

       American Association of Port Authorities, American Concrete 
     Pressure Pipe Association, American Council of Engineering 
     Companies, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Foundry 
     Society, American Public Works Association, American Road and 
     Transportation Builders Association, American Society of 
     Civil Engineers, American Soybean Association, Associated 
     General Contractors of America, Association of Equipment 
     Manufacturers, Clean Water Construction Coalition, Concrete 
     Reinforcing Steel Institute, Construction Management 
     Association of America, International Liquid Terminals 
     Association, International Propeller Club of the United 
     States.
       International Union of Operating Engineers, Laborers 
     International Union of North America, Management Association 
     for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (MAPPS), NAIOP, the 
     Commercial Real Estate Development Association, National 
     Grain and Feed Association, National Ready Mixed Concrete 
     Association, National Retail Federation, National Society of 
     Professional Surveyors (NSPS), National Stone, Sand & Gravel 
     Association, National Waterways Conference, Inc., Plumbing 
     Manufacturers

[[Page 6288]]

     International, Portland Cement Association, The American 
     Institute of Architects, The Fertilizer Institute, U.S. 
     Chamber of Commerce, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and 
     Joiners of America, Waterways Council Inc.
       Letter signed by 160 organizations to Members of the United 
     States Senate (April 29, 2013).

  Mrs. BOXER. I will say that we are looking at the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce supporting this bill, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and 
Joiners of America, the Waterways Council, Inc., and the Plumbing 
Manufacturers, International. Wherever we look, whether it is business 
or labor, whether it is governmental entities--even the American Farm 
Bureau Federation, as I said, and Laborers International Union of North 
America--it is a really important bill. Even the Commercial Real Estate 
Development Association. Why? Because they know if you are going to 
sell a house in an area that gets flooded, you need to address the 
flooding problems. So we do address flooding problems.
  We do address port deepening. Believe me, without these port 
deepenings in a lot of our ports--not all our ports need to do it--
commerce could come to a halt, and I would say almost a screeching 
halt. There may be better terminology, but you have to dredge those 
ports to a certain depth so those vessels can move in and out.
  Let me talk about just one area in my home State. Senator Vitter and 
I often say we see the world a little differently--or a lot differently 
when it comes to a lot of issues, but when it comes to infrastructure, 
we have a lot in common. He had to face the horrific catastrophic 
situation during and after Katrina, and I look at that issue and say: 
Oh, my Lord, if we had something like that happen in Sacramento, what 
would happen? We have so many more people than they have in his State. 
We have more commerce there. We have the seat of the State government 
in the Natomas Basin. So we have to strengthen the levees, and we are 
talking about $7 billion in property. So we are talking about a need to 
prevent terrible flooding.
  Now, that is just one area of my State--and I want to thank 
Congresswoman Doris Matsui for all the work she has done over on the 
House side, and the many others who have helped her over there. I just 
mention her name because she has been so involved in representing 
Sacramento.
  Our bill provides lifesaving flood protection for more than 200,000 
residents of Fargo, ND, and Moorhead, MN, who have been fighting rising 
waters in recent weeks, just as they do most years after the spring 
thaw. The bill will restore the viability of the levee system that 
protects Topeka, KS. These levees protect thousands of homes and 
businesses, and this project will return over $13 in benefits for every 
dollar invested.
  I know our current Presiding Officer is a fiscal conservative. We are 
talking about a bill that invests $1 and gets $13 back. So flood 
control and flood protection are critical. All we have to do is look at 
Sandy to see what happened and look at the cost--one event, $60 
billion. So if we were to invest a portion of that into trying to 
mitigate these problems before they start, that is what the WRDA bill 
is all about and why it is so important and essential. So I hope it 
doesn't get bogged down in extraneous amendments.
  I talked about the ports. One of those projects is in Texas, to widen 
and deepen the Sabine-Neches Waterway, which will have over $115 
million in annual benefits. It transports 100,000 tons of goods every 
year. It is the top port for the movement of commercial military goods.
  Whether you are in a red State, whether you are in a blue State, 
whether you are in a purple State or, frankly, any other State if there 
are any, you are protected in this bill. You are covered in this bill.
  Look at Florida, the Port of Jacksonville, with safety concerns there 
for ships entering and exiting this port because of dangerous cross 
currents. This bill will make it possible to protect that port.
  Critical ecosystem restoration: The Florida Everglades. If you have 
never been to the Everglades, you should go to the Everglades. It is a 
miraculous place, a God-given treasure. We have to restore it. It needs 
our attention. We definitely have four new Everglades restoration 
projects that will move forward in this bill.
  For the Chesapeake Bay and the Columbia River Basin, we enable the 
Corps to work with States along the North Atlantic coast to restore 
vital coastal habitats from Virginia to Maine, and allow the Corps to 
implement projects to better prepare for extreme weather in the 
northern Rocky Mountain States of Montana and Idaho.
  In addition--this is important. I talked a little bit about 
Superstorm Sandy--we have a new extreme weather title I am very proud 
of. This will enable the Corps to help communities better prepare for 
and reduce the risks of extreme weather-related disasters. How does it 
do it? For the first time, the Boxer-Vitter bill allows the Corps to 
conduct immediate assessments of affected watersheds following extreme 
weather events. For example, if this had been operational right after 
Katrina, the Corps would have gone right in there. They would not have 
had to wait for an authorization. They would not have had to wait for 
an emergency supplemental. They would have identified and constructed 
small flood control projects immediately, such as building levees, 
flood walls, restoring wetlands, and would not have to go through the 
full study process and receive authorization.
  After an extreme weather event--Senator Vitter and our whole 
committee believe it is an extraordinary circumstance--if you can move 
in there and mitigate the damage right away, you should do that with 
these smaller type projects. In this extreme weather title we also 
require the Corps and the National Academy of Sciences to jointly 
evaluate all of the options for reducing risks, including flooding and 
droughts, including those related to future extreme weather events 
because as far as we can tell, there is no specific study that looks at 
the future.
  The cost of this bill comes in well below the last WRDA bill and we 
move toward a better use of the harbor maintenance trust fund. Let me 
be clear. Senator Vitter and I both believe it is a critical issue to 
use the harbor maintenance trust fund for harbor maintenance. It seems 
to me to be fair and it seems to him to be fair. But what has happened 
over the years, because we have these budgetary problems, is the harbor 
maintenance trust fund is used for other uses. We wanted to totally 
take that fund away and save it for harbors. It was not going to 
happen. There was too much controversy around it.
  What we were able to do, though, is to make sure the appropriators 
knew our concerns. Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby worked with us 
on a letter and it commits to helping us move toward the new 
authorization levels in this bill which ratchet up spending on the 
ports.
  We also make sure that some of our ports that are donor ports--let's 
say the one in LA and Long Beach, that do not have issues of deepening 
of the channel, that need to use those funds for other uses--get a 
chance, when those moneys come in, to get it back. Some of my people 
are paying in pennies on the dollar. It is not fair.
  We do try to address the issue of the larger ports, even the smaller 
ports, Great Lakes, the seaports that are large donors to the fund. We 
make important reforms of the inland waterways system, which is 
critical for transporting goods throughout the country. Expediting 
project delivery is something we do.
  I want to take a moment here. I want to be unequivocal on this 
project delivery piece. I stand here with credentials going back 
forever. In my case it is a long time. I can say very proudly that 
every single environmental law stays in place in this bill. As a matter 
of fact, we have a savings clause which specifically says all these 
laws stay in place.
  Senator Vitter and I have a little disagreement over environmental 
laws. We have to work together. He stepped up and said: Look, some of 
these agencies are holding up projects for years

[[Page 6289]]

and we are not getting our projects done. I thought he had a point. So 
together we worked on a compromise. It is not everything he wanted; it 
is not everything I wanted. But we are moving forward while saving all 
the environmental laws by making sure that when the Corps has a project 
and they complete their work, they issue something called a ROD, a 
record of decision. We make sure all the agencies now are involved in 
setting the timetable for that ROD. Then the agencies have an 
additional 6 months after the date they approved of to get their 
comments in. If they do not, yes, they will get a penalty.
  Frankly, I think that is important. We do cap those penalties, but 
the fact is we are here to do the people's business. As long as we 
protect everyone's rights, which we do, and we bend over backward to 
make sure all the agencies are involved, making sure the timeframes 
around a ROD are fair and they are involved, we say, yes, you have to 
step to the plate.
  I have examples in my State where the agencies have taken such a long 
time--whether, frankly, it is an environmental project or a 
construction project, flood control--where agencies are not talking to 
each other. Senator Vitter and I believed it was important to send a 
message.
  Look, the administration doesn't love this and we understand it. But 
that is why we have separation of powers here. We say it is only right 
to work together. Our bill is not perfect, we know that, but I will 
tell you we support 500,000 jobs, we protect people from flooding, we 
enable commerce to move through our ports, we encourage innovative 
financing and leveraging of funds, and we begin the hard work of 
preparing for and responding to extreme weather. I defy anyone to tell 
us another bill that does those things--protects jobs, protects people 
from flooding, enables commerce to move through our ports, encourages 
innovative financing, even more jobs, and preparing for and responding 
to extreme weather.
  I want to talk about a couple of people by name here. I will do more 
people later. I want to mention, of course, first and foremost Senator 
Vitter, who has been a pleasure to work with. We have had our moments 
where we have not agreed. Our staffs had their moments when they did 
not agree. We never got up in anger. We never walked away from the 
table. We stayed at the table. To me that is so important. We did it on 
this bill. I wish we could do it on others, but that is another day. 
But we are certainly doing it on this bill. First and foremost, I thank 
him.
  Next, I thank Senators Mikulski and Shelby for writing a letter to 
us. It is not all we want but it is a show of good faith and I think it 
is precedent setting, that we have this letter saying they are going to 
do everything in their power to help.
  I thank Senator Vitter's colleague, Senator Landrieu. She has worked 
behind the scenes with me since Katrina, and I know the two of them 
have worked together. I think her efforts matched with Senator Vitter's 
are very important for Louisiana.
  I have been to Louisiana many times. I have warm relationships there. 
I certainly helped when it came to the RESTORE Act, and I certainly 
intend to remember everything the people there went through and to 
follow through on my commitments to them.
  In this bill we are fair to Louisiana, we are fair to California, we 
are fair to the Great Lakes, we are fair to the small port States, we 
are fair to the medium port States. We have done everything. We are 
fair to the States that have ports that now have competition from 
international ports. I do believe if we can get through some of the 
sticky wicket of some amendments that don't have anything to do with 
this, if we can get through with that, we will have a very good, 
strong, bipartisan bill. I honestly also believe Chairman Shuster in 
the House will move forward as well. He is a terrific person to work 
with and I enjoy working with him as well. If we produce this work 
product and we can get it done this week--which I hope we can--it will 
make a big difference.
  Before I turn it over to Senator Vitter, let me say for the interests 
of all Members, we are working on an agreement that will allow us to go 
to a couple of amendments a side. One of them will be the Whitehouse 
amendment. A couple will be by Senator Coburn. We are looking at other 
amendments. We hope we can have votes this afternoon. We don't know at 
this point. That is certainly the hope of Senator Vitter and myself. We 
would very much like to proceed.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I join my colleague in rising in support 
of this strong, bipartisan, reform-oriented Water Resources Development 
Act bill. In doing so, I thank and salute Senator Boxer for her 
leadership. More than anyone else, she got us to the floor today with a 
strong, solid bill.
  As Senator Boxer mentioned, very early on in our discussions about 
the work of the EPW Committee in this Congress, we set a good, solid, 
bipartisan, reform-oriented WRDA bill as our top immediate goal in 
terms of something the committee could produce and actually pass into 
law. In fact, those discussions even started between her and myself, in 
particular, before the start of this Congress. Of course they continued 
and they ramped up in a meaningful and substantive way. Through that 
give-and-take and through that real commitment to work in a bipartisan 
fashion on infrastructure, on jobs, on issues on which we can agree, 
this bill resulted.
  Again, as she mentioned, we do not agree on everything. We do not 
agree on everything in the committee, and that committee is often very 
contentious and divided along ideological lines. But this is a subject 
where we can agree and work productively together because this bill is 
about infrastructure and jobs. Certainly we can come together around 
that. That is what it is fundamentally about--water infrastructure, 
commerce, and jobs. That is why the Alliance for Manufacturing said 
almost 24,000 jobs will be created for every $1 billion invested in 
levees, inland waterways, and dams. This bill does several billion 
dollars of that. That produces jobs because it is building the 
necessary infrastructure we need for waterborne commerce. Ultimately 
that core, that theme, that common goal is what brought us effectively 
together.
  The proof of that is seen in the committee consideration of this 
bill. As you may know, the EPW Committee is a divided committee. On 
many key issues before us we are very divided between Republicans and 
Democrats. Yet because of this focus in the bill on maritime commerce, 
jobs, infrastructure, we won an 18-to-0 committee vote to report the 
bill out favorably and bring it to the floor.
  Let me talk for a few minutes about exactly what is in the bill. I 
want to go through the highlights. I think they can best be summarized 
by focusing on 10 specific points, what is in the bill, what the bill 
does, sometimes, just as importantly, what is not in the bill and what 
the bill does not do.
  First of all, the bill does not increase deficit and debt in any way. 
There is no negative impact on deficit and debt. Related to that, No. 
2, there are no earmarks in the bill. The current rules of both 
conferences are not to support and sponsor earmarks. There are no 
earmarks in the bill.
  What does the bill affirmatively do? No. 3, it authorizes 19 
significant projects for flood protection, navigation, and ecosystem 
restoration. Yet at the same time, even on the authorization side, we 
create a mechanism--I thank Senator Barrasso for contributing this 
important element to the bill--we create a BRAC-like commission to 
deauthorize some old projects which are not being acted upon, which are 
not getting built. Because of that new BRAC-like deauthorization 
commission, even on the authorization side, we should have a net-
neutral impact on authorizations. The way we have structured it, we 
should not be increasing overall net authorizations.
  No. 4, we have made substantial progress and reforms to the Harbor 
Maintenance Trust Fund and spending

[[Page 6290]]

on dredging and other Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund projects.
  As Senator Boxer mentioned, it has been an enormous frustration to 
many of us that this so-called trust fund is raided every year so that 
even in a good year, half of the supposedly dedicated revenue from the 
industry in those trust funds is used for other purposes. Again, this 
is revenue from the maritime industry. It is supposed to be protected 
and dedicated for dredging and other delineated purposes, but even in a 
good year, half is used for other things, with deficit spending.
  We have negotiated with all Members of the Senate, including the 
leaders of the Appropriations Committee, and I think we have made 
substantial progress. I think we have made a big move in the right 
direction so we ramp up harbor maintenance trust fund spending for 
dredging and other delineated purposes.
  In a few years--between now and roughly 2019, 2020--we have a steady 
ramp-up. We spend more of that trust fund on the agreed-upon delineated 
purposes every year. We are building toward full spend-out of the trust 
fund. Again, this is a product of a lot of discussion and goodwill 
negotiation with other Members of the Senate, including leaders of the 
Appropriations Committee, which is a major and positive element of this 
bill.
  No. 5, we also made important reforms and changes to the Inland 
Waterways Trust Fund. Again, there has been real frustration that those 
inland waterways trust fund projects have been languishing and have not 
properly received the resources they need to be completed and get off 
the books. We have made real reforms on the Inland Waterway Trust Fund 
side that will have important and positive impacts to get those 
important projects built.
  No. 6, we provide non-Federal sponsors of many of these projects more 
project management control in both the feasibility study and the 
construction phases of projects. This has been an idea in a stand-alone 
bill of Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and myself. We incorporated that 
reform--that pilot project--into this WRDA bill.
  In several significant cases, on a sort of experimental basis, we are 
going to ask the non-Federal sponsors to take over project management 
control. We think that is going to allow these projects to get built 
quicker and more efficiently for less money.
  No. 7, we require more accountability of the Corps of Engineers on 
project schedules. We increased public disclosure of internal Corps 
decisions, and we actually penalized the Corps for the first time ever 
when they missed significant deadlines. Again, Senator Boxer mentioned 
this.
  We had discussions right out of the box and came to the agreement 
that we are not going to lower the bar about environmental review; we 
are not going to substantively change any environmental or other 
requirements. What we are going to do is make sure that agencies which 
are involved do their work in a timely and expeditious way, and that 
has to start with the Corps of Engineers in terms of these projects. We 
do that with much heightened Corps accountability.
  No. 8, in a similar vein, we accelerate the NEPA and project delivery 
process to ensure that projects are not endlessly held up by government 
bureaucracy, tangles, and redtape. Again, it is exactly the same 
approach and agreement I mentioned with regard to point No. 7. We are 
not changing standards or lessening our requirements. We are 
appropriately streamlining the process and saying: Everybody works on 
deadlines, and the Federal agencies involved have to work on and 
respect those deadlines as well. If they miss them over and over and 
over, there will be negative consequences, and that is an important 
reform element to this bill.
  No. 9, as Senator Boxer mentioned, we provide an innovative financing 
mechanism for water resource projects as well as water and wastewater 
infrastructure projects. It is called WIFIA because it is modeled on 
the TIFIA Program on the transportation side, and it is very much the 
same basic idea. TIFIA has long been a model to build public-private 
partnerships and has helped to finance important transportation 
infrastructure projects.
  On the last highway bill last year that I helped work on and Senator 
Boxer led on, we expanded the TIFIA Program. Here we are using the same 
positive model for a WIFIA program.
  Finally, No. 10, we provide more credit opportunities for non-Federal 
sponsors either in lieu of financial reimbursement or cross-crediting 
among projects so they can more reasonably meet their wetlands 
mitigation and other needs.
  Wetlands mitigation requirements have grown much more onerous and 
expensive over time in a lot of places of the country, including 
Louisiana. This is simply intended to give people, local government, 
private industry, and others, more options. It is not to lower the 
standard for that mitigation, but it allows for more options to meet 
the standard and goals in a more efficient and less costly way. So we 
do that through these credit opportunities.
  Those are the important and 10 key highlights of the bill. Again, I 
think it is a genuine bipartisan reform-oriented effort that is, at its 
core, about water infrastructure, waterborne commerce, jobs, and 
hurricane and flood protection.
  As I mentioned at the beginning, the clearest proof of that is 
committee consideration and committee vote. There are not many things 
that ever get an 18-0 vote in the Senate EPW Committee, but this did. 
Strong conservatives and strong liberals voted with a result of 18-0. I 
am very proud of that, and I think that gives us a very productive path 
forward.
  Speaking of the path forward, let me underscore and emphasize what 
Senator Boxer has laid out. We want to have votes; we want to process 
amendments. There is no goal here to frustrate that in any way by me or 
Senator Boxer or anyone. In my opinion, to get that ball rolling, the 
best way to get there is to start taking up amendments and having votes 
so we can build on that momentum. What we are going to propose in the 
very near future is that our substitute amendment be adopted by 
unanimous consent to be the underlying bill. It is noncontroversial. It 
incorporates the ideas and suggestions of dozens of Senators. There is 
nothing controversial in it. In fact, the only thing it does is remove 
some potential controversy in the bill. So we are going to ask the full 
Senate allow us, by UC, to adopt that as the underlying bill.
  We are also going to immediately ask to have debate and votes on 
three or four beginning amendments. I believe those, in fact, are going 
to be nongermane amendments. I think that underscores and illustrates 
our goodwill about processing amendments, getting it going, taking 
amendments, having votes, and getting through this process.
  I would suggest, as Senator Boxer did, that we try to continue to 
focus on the important subject matter of the bill and not endlessly or 
needlessly go far afield. But I do think that proposing these amendment 
votes straight out is an important gesture of goodwill to set the right 
precedent and tone for a full and open debate on the floor, and so that 
is what we are going to do.
  As soon as that UC request is drafted and ready, I will come to the 
full Senate with that. If we can gain consent for that, I think it will 
start us on a very productive path, both to consider the bill and to 
process amendments and have votes.
  Clearly those amendments would not be the end of it, by far. We are 
already keying up some amendments to come forward right after that so 
we can debate those maybe tonight. If we do that, we can vote on those 
as soon as possible, perhaps in the morning, and go from there. That is 
my goal and expectation in terms of the near future, which Senator 
Boxer shares. Hopefully we will return to the full Senate quickly with 
that request.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield to the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, let me thank the distinguished Senator 
from Louisiana for his hard work,

[[Page 6291]]

along with Chairman Boxer, to get us to this point, which I think is a 
very auspicious point with a very bipartisan bill on the floor and with 
the Senate on the cusp of an agreement that will allow us to implement 
the managers' amendment and call up the first tranche of Senate 
amendments.
  I thank him and the Chairman for agreeing that an amendment of mine 
will be one of that first tranche of amendments. I am not going to call 
it up now because the agreement is not finalized, but I will discuss it 
so we can save time later on once the bill is pending.
  My amendment would establish a national endowment for the oceans, 
coasts, and Great Lakes. Our oceans and our coasts face unprecedented 
challenges. Our coastal States, including our Great Lakes States, badly 
need this endowment. Water temperatures are increasing, the sea level 
is rising, and ocean water is growing more acidic.
  Right now, we as a country and we as States and local communities are 
ill prepared to engage in the research, restoration, and in the 
conservation work that is necessary to protect our coastal communities 
and our coastal economies.
  The noted ocean explorer Bob Ballard, who famously discovered the 
wreckage of the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic, has said:

     a major problem . . . is the disconnect between the 
     importance of our oceans and the meager funds we as a nation 
     invest not only to understand their complexity, but to become 
     responsible stewards of the bounty they represent.

  Just how large is that bounty our Nation reaps from our oceans? Well, 
in 2010, marine activities such as fishing, energy development, and 
tourism contributed $258 billion to our U.S. gross domestic product and 
supported 2.8 million jobs. Along our coasts, shoreline counties, which 
actually include many of our biggest cities, generated 41 percent of 
our GDP, which is $6 trillion.
  Coastal communities are the engines of our economy, and changes in 
the oceans put that economy at risk. We must find ways of using these 
vital resources without abusing them.
  Last month the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee heard from 
scientists and industry leaders from across the country who are deeply 
worried about threats to our oceans. On the Pacific Coast, ocean 
acidification is killing off the oyster harvest--a major cash crop for 
that region. They are being killed off by sea water too acidic for the 
larval oysters to form their shells.
  Live coral in some Caribbean reefs is down to less than 10 percent, 
which is bad news for Florida, which usually sees over 15 million 
recreational dives every year. Think of what those 15 million dives 
mean for Florida's economy. This not only affects the dive boats and 
trainers who take people out for scuba diving, but for hotels, 
restaurants, and retailers.
  Evan Matthews, the port director for the Port of Quonset in my home 
State of Rhode Island, spoke on behalf of America's port administrators 
to tell us that rising sea levels make port infrastructure more 
vulnerable to damage from waves and storms.
  Virtually all of our economy is touched by what goes through our 
network of coastal ports, and damage to any of them--since they work as 
a network--could disrupt the delivery of vital goods not only to 
coastal States but to inland States as well. So it affects all of us.
  But for the coastal States, this is very big. We have work to do 
preparing for changes in our oceans and preventing storm damage such as 
we saw in Superstorm Sandy. We need to reinforce natural coastal 
barriers such as dunes and estuaries that help bear the brunt of storm 
surges as well as acting as nurseries for our bounty of fish. We will 
need to relocate critical infrastructure such as water treatment plants 
and bridges, which are increasingly at risk of being washed away. We 
need to understand how ocean acidification and warming waters will 
affect the food chain and our fishing economies. We need to know where 
the high-risk areas are so coastline investors can understand the 
geographical risks.
  These are coastal concerns, but they have implications for all 50 of 
our States. If you eat seafood or take a beach vacation in the summer, 
this concerns you. If you have purchased anything produced outside the 
United States and imported through our network of coastal ports, this 
concerns you. According to 2011 data from the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, 75 percent of U.S. imports arrived on our 
shores through our ports, so they probably should concern you.
  The National Endowment for the Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes can 
help coastal States and communities protect more habitat and 
infrastructure, conduct more research, and clean more waters and 
beaches. The need is great and we must respond.
  This amendment will just authorize the National Endowment for the 
Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes. We will have to figure out how to fund 
it later. When we have figured out how to fund it, the endowment would 
make grants to coastal and Great Lakes States, to local governments, to 
planning bodies, to academic institutions, and to nonprofit 
organizations to learn more about and do a better job of protecting our 
coasts and oceans.
  It would allow researchers to hire technicians, mechanics, computer 
scientists, and students. It would put people to work strengthening or 
relocating endangered public infrastructure. It would help scientists, 
businesses, and local communities work together to protect our working 
oceans, and it would protect jobs by restoring commercial fisheries and 
promoting sustainable and profitable fishing.
  How great is the need for these projects? We know because a few years 
ago NOAA received $167 million for coastal restoration projects through 
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. When they asked for 
proposals, more than 800 proposals for shovel-ready construction and 
engineering projects came in--projects totaling $3 billion, seeking 
that $167 million in funding--projects from Alaska to Florida to the 
Carolinas to Maine. But NOAA could only fund 50 of the 800. The 
National Endowment for the Oceans will help us move forward with more 
of these key projects to help protect our oceans and drive our economy.
  We will continue to take advantage of the oceans' bounty, as we 
should. We will trade, we will fish, and we will sail. We will dispose 
of waste. We will extract fuel and harness the wind. We will work our 
working oceans. Navies and cruise ships, sailboats and supertankers 
will plow their surface. We cannot--we will not--undo this part of our 
relationship with the sea. But what we can change is what we do in 
return.
  We can, for the first time, give a little back. We can become 
stewards of our oceans--not just takers but caretakers--and we must do 
this sooner rather than later, as changes to our oceans pose a mounting 
and nationwide threat.
  Let me quote Dr. Jeremy Mathis of the University of Alaska, who said 
this recently:

       This is going to be a shared threat. . . . [I]t's not 
     unique to any one place or any one part of the country. And 
     so we're going to have to tackle it as a nation, all of us 
     working together. . . . Whether you live along the coast of 
     Washington or Rhode Island, or whether you live in the 
     heartland in Iowa, this is going to be something that touches 
     everybody's lives.

  So today I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment 
to authorize the National Endowment for the Oceans, Coasts, and Great 
Lakes. It will not obligate any funding. We will figure out later an 
appropriate way to fund it. But at least help our Nation take this 
important step protecting our oceans and coasts; protecting the jobs 
they support through fishing, research, and tourism; protecting the 
stability of our national economy, which depends on ports and maritime 
activity; and, of course, protecting the property and the lives of the 
millions of Americans who live and work near the sea.
  Colleagues, you can help us become, as Dr. Ballard said, 
``responsible stewards of the bounty [the oceans provide].''

[[Page 6292]]

  For those who are not sure, let me add one further consideration for 
my colleagues, a Senate consideration. This endowment, together with 
funding--indeed, permanent and directed funding--was part of a 
negotiated package with billions of dollars in benefits to America's 
gulf States. For reasons that are not worth discussing and are no one 
side's fault, that agreement was broken and this part of that deal fell 
out. If you believe people should keep their word around here, if you 
believe agreements forged in the Senate should stick, then I would ask 
my colleagues, just on those grounds, to support this partial repair of 
that broken agreement.
  I look forward, for that and other reasons, to having bipartisan 
support for this amendment, and I hope we can make a strong showing in 
this body to carry it forward as part of this important water resources 
development legislation.
  With that, I will take this opportunity to yield the floor. Seeing no 
one seeking recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Boxer). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I would like to talk about an amendment 
to this bill that could be offered later. I am not offering it at this 
time. I am being joined in this amendment by my good friend from 
Florida, Senator Nelson.
  This amendment would be a suggestion about what we can do to be sure 
the things we build have a better chance of lasting, construction that 
meets real stress.
  In both of our States, in Missouri and Florida, we have some 
significant experience with weather conditions that are damaging to 
people and property. On May 22, 2 years ago, 2011, in Joplin, MO, right 
on the Arkansas and the Oklahoma border, we had an EF5 tornado hit that 
community. It killed 61 people. It destroyed 7,000 homes, 500 
businesses, and damaged others. This was a huge impact on people and 
the homes they had, the businesses they had. As they rebuilt, the 
cities tried to focus on rebuilding in a way that would protect lives 
and save money if something like that happens again by creating 
structures that can withstand the most severe storms there and in other 
places in our State.
  We have had many stories over the years. There are people who 
literally got in the freezer in the garage or in the utility room or 
people who got in the bathtub and then pulled a mattress on top of 
themselves and tried to ride out the storm, and they would just as soon 
not do that.
  I think the term that is used that we are going to be talking about 
is ``resilient construction''--construction that has the potential to 
substantially reduce property damage and loss of life resulting from 
natural disasters, homes and businesses that can withstand disasters, 
that can protect people during storms. As more disaster resilient 
building is done, there is less to clean up, there is less property 
damage, and the insurance rates are impacted in not as big a way 
because not so much has to be rebuilt because not so much was 
destroyed.
  Those techniques, those resilient building techniques, can be as 
simple as just using longer nails or strapping down the roof so it has 
that one added level of security to the roof before the shingles go on. 
There are many simple and easy steps builders can take to ensure that a 
home or a business has the best chance to withstand these disasters.
  This amendment that we would hope would be offered at the appropriate 
time later would simply add resilient construction to the list of 
criteria the National Academy of Sciences and the Government 
Accountability Office are directed to study. This adds this one thing 
to it from a commonsense perspective. It is obvious why knowing what 
building techniques work and what building techniques do not work makes 
a difference--the ones that minimize damage, that prevent the loss of 
life, that reduce the government disaster aid that has to be expended 
in these disasters, that are too big for families and communities and 
States to handle on their own.
  While we are unable to predict when and why a storm might occur next, 
we do know there will be other problems that need to be dealt with. So 
studying the impact of construction techniques in storm situations is 
something I believe we should do. I think this would be an added 
benefit to this bill. At the appropriate time, I look forward to 
calling the actual amendment up or asking someone else to see that this 
amendment is called up so that my colleagues have a chance to vote on 
it.
  I know my cosponsor, Senator Nelson, is here on the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, indeed I want to talk about this 
amendment and why it is a good thing, but I first want to compliment 
the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who is not 
seated at her desk in the Chamber, but she is seated as the Presiding 
Officer.
  I want the chairman of that committee to know that she must be Merlin 
the Magician because in rapid fashion she brings the bill out of her 
committee and to the floor, along with her ranking member, the Senator 
from Louisiana, Mr. Vitter. This water bill is so important to the 
future of this country, and it is so important to infrastructure in 
this country. I commend the chairman and the ranking member for the 
rapidity with which they have worn out the leadership in order to get 
the leadership's attention to bring it to the floor.
  What Senator Blunt and I are sponsoring is common sense. Anybody who 
has been through a hurricane, tornado, or any other kind of natural 
disaster knows what new building codes have done. There is a fancy new 
term now called ``resilient construction,'' and the resilient 
construction is making it more resilient in withstanding a natural 
disaster.
  I will never forget flying in a National Guard helicopter after a 
monster hurricane in 1982--Hurricane Andrew--that hit a relatively 
unpopulated part of Miami-Dade County, the southern end, and it ended 
up being a $20 billion-insurance-loss storm. Had it turned 1 degree to 
the north and drawn a line on northern Dade County-Southern Broward 
County--in other words, north Miami and south Fort Lauderdale--it would 
have been, in 1992 dollars, a $50 billion-insurance-loss storm. That 
would have taken down every insurance company that was doing business 
in the path of the storm.
  We had that warning, and we saw the results of the lack of attention 
to resilient construction--in other words, the building codes.
  As I flew over that area of Homestead, FL, in the National Guard 
helicopter, everything was wiped out in homeowner areas, completely 
wiped out. They were gone. They were a bunch of sticks. As a matter of 
fact, the trees were sticks. There were no leaves and limbs left. In 
downtown Homestead, there were two things that were left standing: one 
was the bank, and the other one was an old Florida cracker house built 
back in the old days when they built to withstand hurricanes.
  I will never forget going through and meeting the head of Habitat for 
Humanity. He told us stories about how he had a ``Habitat for 
Humanity'' sign on his briefcase, and when he walked through the 
airport, people would come up and say: Oh, you are with Habitat. I want 
you to know that all of your homes survived.
  They would ask him: How did your homes survive?
  He would answer and say: Inexperience.
  They would say: Inexperience? What do you mean?
  He would say: Well, since our homes are built by volunteers, instead 
of driving 2 nails, they would drive 10 nails.
  This is resilient construction--extra straps on the rafters, building 
to the codes that will withstand the wind.

[[Page 6293]]

  Senator Blunt was talking about some of his constituents in Missouri 
and this tornado. Well, my wife Grace and I were in our condominium in 
Orlando, and all of a sudden--did you know that the new smartphones 
beep when there is a national weather warning, and you pick up--I mean, 
I haven't turned it on, and it will beep anyway. It says: Severe 
weather warning. A tornado is en route. Take cover. And I look at our 
condo, and it has all these glass windows, and I am thinking, what 
inner room can I go in? Since we have a two-story, what I decided to do 
was go into the elevator and put it down to the bottom floor as a place 
for taking cover. In Missouri, there are plenty of basements that are 
specifically built for the purpose of taking cover. This is what we 
want the construction industry to do.
  What the Senator from Missouri and I are doing is saying to the 
National Academy of Sciences: We want you to come up with additional 
studies on how our people can save lives and save property with 
resilient construction. That is simply what this amendment does.
  I would conclude by saying, my goodness, do we need another reminder 
of Katrina? Remember, the Katrina problem was not the wind; the Katrina 
problem was the wind on the back side coming across Lake Pontchartrain 
that caused the water to rise. The levees weren't there, and it 
breached the levees, and that became a multiple hundreds of billions of 
dollars storm. We should have learned our lessons there. Sometimes 
resilient construction is not only about people's homes, but it is 
about dikes and levees as well.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I thank my colleagues from Missouri and 
Florida for this very worthwhile amendment. I will certainly be 
supporting it. The plan is to have this in the second set of amendments 
for votes, absolutely, as soon as we can proceed to votes. That is the 
plan, which I fully expect to be executed. I thank them for their work 
and for their contribution.
  In the same vein, we are expecting Senator Inhofe to join us on the 
floor to also present without formally calling up his germane 
amendment. That way, we will have that discussion ahead of time, and 
that also will be all teed up for the second set of amendments we hope 
to have on this bill.
  I hope what this underscores is that we have a pretty good plan to 
move forward quickly, to start having votes. Sometimes around here we 
want to settle every possible discussion about every possible amendment 
vote out there. In my opinion, it is more productive to start because 
you can't finish unless you start. I think we want to start having 
important votes, including nongermane votes, and get to absolutely 
every amendment we can. I think we are on that path. Hopefully we will 
be doing that today and then formally presenting and voting on the 
Blunt-Nelson amendment as well as the Inhofe amendment and other 
amendments tomorrow.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there be a period 
for debate only until 5:30 p.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I want to mention a couple of things. 
First of all, the Senator from Arkansas and I have a very significant 
amendment, and one we will want to talk about. In fact, it is an 
amendment we had during the discussion on the amendments for the budget 
bill at something like 4 o'clock in the morning. At that time we were 
able to get it passed without a dissenting vote, so it is one we should 
be able to get through.
  I will yield to the Senator from Arkansas in a moment, but before 
doing that I want to mention we have a set-aside amendment I am very 
concerned with. I certainly think the Senator in the Chair, as well as 
the Senator from Arkansas will both be very appreciative of this and 
supportive of it since they have a lot of small communities in their 
States, as I do in my State of Oklahoma. It uses the threshold of 
25,000 people--any community that has 25,000 people or less--in order 
to take advantage of this set-aside money that would come within the 
WRDA bill.
  Now, here is the problem we have. A lot of the small communities in 
my State of Oklahoma--and I would suggest the States of West Virginia 
and Arkansas are in the same situation--are not large enough to have an 
engineer or someone who is going to be able to put grants together. So 
we take 10 percent of the total amount and put it in there as a set-
aside for these small communities.
  This is a formula we have used before. We used the 25,000 benchmark 
before in the Transportation bill, in the WRDA bill, and in the farm 
bill, so it is one that is fairly well-accepted, and it provides a pot 
of money--it doesn't cost us; it is not scored--from the overall money 
to be reserved for the small communities, such as my communities in the 
State of Oklahoma.
  I understand we are not to call up amendments right now, and that is 
fine with me, but that is one we will be offering. As I said, in just a 
moment I will be yielding to the Senator from Arkansas. In the 
meantime, I would call on the memories of those in this body back to 
when we had our all-night session about a month ago and the amendments 
that were there on the budget bill.
  One of the amendments we passed was an amendment that would allow the 
SPCC to have farms exempt from the SPCC--the Spill Prevention 
Containment Control Act--so that the farms in my State of Oklahoma and 
throughout America would not be treated as refiners.
  Spill prevention is a very expensive process. It is one that would 
require double containers for farms. This is a good example.
  This happens to be a container on one of the farms in my State of 
Oklahoma, where you have a total amount of gallons of fuel from gas or 
oil or other fuels. If they are less than 10,000 gallons, they would be 
exempt. If they are less than 42,000 gallons, they would allow them to 
not do it through a professional engineer but do it just within their 
own resources--in other words, set their own standards.
  This is my State of Oklahoma. This happens to be the well-discussed 
pipeline that goes through Cushing, OK. This is one of the central 
points where oil comes in and then goes out. It comes from the north 
and goes back down to Texas. But these are containers that should be 
subject to the jurisdiction that is prescribed for refiners for the 
containment of oil and gas. That is what that is about. This is not 
what that is about. This is just a typical farmer.
  I have talked to farmers, and after that amendment passed--and the 
occupier of the Chair will remember this because he was a very strong 
supporter of this particular amendment--we had phones ringing off the 
hook from the American Farm Bureau and all the others saying this is 
something that is reasonable. But here is the problem. That would have 
expired on May 30, and all we did with that amendment was extend that 
exemption to the end of the fiscal year.
  So if that passed without one dissenting vote, and if it is that 
popular, why not go ahead and have the same type of exemption put 
permanently in our statutes. That is what our plan is--to do that with 
the Pryor-Inhofe amendment.
  Our amendment is supported by the American Farm Bureau, the National 
Cattlemen's Beef Association, the National Council of Farmer 
Cooperatives, the National Wheat Growers Association, the National 
Cotton Council, the American Soybean Association, the National Corn 
Growers, and USA Rice.

[[Page 6294]]

So almost everyone having to do with agriculture is very supportive.
  It doesn't totally exempt all farmers because it establishes three 
categories: one with farms where, if you add the aggregate and it is 
less than 10,000 gallons, they would be exempt; if they are in the next 
level up, between 10,000 and 42,000 gallons, they would be required to 
maintain a self-certified spill plan; and anything greater than 42,000 
would have the total requirement, which means they would have to hire 
an engineer and go through all this expense.
  I see the prime sponsor of this amendment is on the Senate floor, so 
I yield to the Senator from Arkansas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from 
Oklahoma. He was doing such a good job of explaining the amendment, I 
didn't want to interrupt him. But I thank him so much for yielding.
  Later this week, all farms in the United States will have to comply 
with the EPA's spill prevention, control and countermeasures rule known 
as SPCC. That takes effect on May 10. But farms are not like other 
regulated entities in the SPCC realm. Farms are unlike other SPCC 
entities the agency has dealt with since 1973. They do not have, by and 
large, environmental manager personnel ready to follow through on these 
regs and to make sure they are in compliance with all the EPA stuff; 
whereas, other businesses with larger financial resources tend to have 
more resources and more people devoted to making sure they comply with 
all the EPA regulations.
  Agriculture actually has a very good track record on fuel spills. Row 
crop farms, ranches, livestock operations, farmer cooperatives and 
other agribusinesses pose a very low risk for spills when we look at 
the statistics. Many of these tanks are seasonal, and they stay empty 
for large parts of the year. But they allow farmers to manage the high 
fuel costs they have to endure. In my State, it is mostly diesel--and 
probably mostly diesel in most parts of the country. In fact, when we 
look at the data, spills on farms are almost nonexistent.
  This is a commonsense amendment, and I want to thank Senators Inhofe, 
Fischer, and Landrieu for joining me in this effort and taking this 
burden off of farmers and ranchers in implementing the SPCC rule.
  Let me cite specifically what the amendment will do. It will provide 
realistic threshold sizes for tank regulation at the farm level and 
allow more farms to self-certify, thus saving time and money that would 
otherwise be spent in hiring professional engineers to develop and sign 
SPCC plans.
  EPA's unusual 1,320 gallon regulatory threshold under the SPCC rule 
is not a normal tank size for agriculture. That may be normal in other 
contexts but not in agriculture. A 1,000-gallon size is much more 
common, and raising the threshold to 10,000 gallons in aggregate is a 
much more reasonable level for farmers and ranchers all over the 
country. So my amendment would allow most Arkansas farms--most farms in 
Oklahoma, and, in fact, most farms throughout the country--to use the 
aggregate storage capacity between 10,000 and 42,000 gallons to self-
certify rather than going through the expense and time of hiring a 
professional engineer.
  I look forward to working with the bill managers on this amendment.
  I also have another amendment. I know these amendments would be 
objected to right now if we brought up the amendments--this is 
amendment No. 801--but at the appropriate time I would like to ask that 
it be made pending.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator yields.
  Mr. INHOFE. I think some people might have an objection to this 
amendment if they thought there were some bad actors out there who, in 
the past, have violated or done something, in which case they would 
still have to comply as if they had over 42,000 in storage. This was 
called to my attention, and I think in the drafting of this amendment 
the Senator took care of that problem, I do believe.
  We discussed this, I remember, the last time at 4 o'clock in the 
morning when we had the amendment for the budget bill, and at that time 
we made it very clear. The SPCC was designed for refiners. It was 
designed for the big operations, such as that big operation we had a 
picture of from Oklahoma. It doesn't affect them. They still should be 
and do have to comply. But the literally thousands of farms that are 
out there that are just trying and barely getting by, they are the ones 
we are speaking of.
  I know the Senator from Arkansas has them as well as we do in 
Oklahoma, and before the Senator moves to another amendment I just 
wanted to be sure that part of the amendment was included in this 
discussion because that would offset some of the opposition that might 
be there to this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for pointing that out. I 
think he is exactly right. I am unaware of any real opposition to this 
amendment. There may be a little bit of opposition, but I am not aware 
of it. But I know we do have at least one Senator--maybe more--who is, 
temporarily at least, objecting to all amendments until his or a group 
of them can be agreed to or made pending.
  I don't think any objection right now would be specific to this 
amendment. I also have another technical amendment that I want to call 
up at the appropriate time. It is not the right time now, but at the 
appropriate time I do have another technical amendment.
  I thank my colleague from Oklahoma for his leadership and thank him 
for his effort, along with Senators Fischer and Landrieu. This has been 
a team effort. It was bipartisan. We want to help American farmers. 
Again, the risk of spill on farms and ranches is just minuscule, almost 
nonexistent. If we look at the track record, there is a very good track 
record.
  This is a good amendment, something we have been working on for a 
long time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I again thank my colleagues from Arkansas 
and Oklahoma. I support their measure. I thank them for coming down and 
laying out the argument explaining their measure even before it is 
formally presented because that will help expedite the process. We are 
absolutely working on that formal consideration and vote as soon as 
possible, just as we are on the amendment we talked about a few minutes 
ago, the Blunt-Nelson amendment.
  I thank them for their work. I thank them for coming to the floor to 
expedite debate. We are absolutely working on proceeding to get to 
formal consideration of their amendment and a vote.
  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. CRUZ. 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 Budget

  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise in praise of Majority Leader Harry 
Reid. He said the following:

       My friend from Texas . . . is like the schoolyard bully. He 
     pushes everyone around and is losing, and instead of playing 
     the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball 
     home with him but he changes the rules.

  Today Leader Reid continued his demonstration of civility by 
referring to me as the ``very junior Senator from Texas.''
  As I noted yesterday, the Senate is not a schoolyard. Setting aside 
the irony of calling someone a bully and then shouting them down when 
they attempt to respond, today I simply wish to commend my friend from 
Nevada for his candor.
  Yesterday I expressed my concern that sending the budget to 
conference could be used to pass tax increases or a debt ceiling 
increase through reconciliation--a backdoor path that would circumvent 
the longstanding protections

[[Page 6295]]

of the minority in the Senate. And I observed that I would readily 
consent to the leader's request if he would simply agree that no such 
procedural tricks would be employed. It is perhaps rare for a so-called 
bully to offer to waive all objections if the other side will simply 
agree to abide by the rules, but I commend the majority leader for his 
response.
  He did not disagree that he hoped to use reconciliation to try to 
force through tax increases or a debt ceiling increase on a straight 
party-line vote. He did not pretend that his intentions were otherwise. 
When the economy is struggling so mightily, as it is now--for the past 
4 years our economy has grown at just 0.9 percent a year--it would be 
profoundly damaging to millions of Americans to raise taxes yet again, 
on top of the $1.7 trillion in new taxes that have already been enacted 
in the last 4 years. And with our national debt approaching $17 
trillion--larger than the size of our entire economy--it would be 
deeply irresponsible to raise the debt ceiling yet again without taking 
real steps to address our fiscal and economic crisis.
  If done through reconciliation, the majority could increase taxes or 
the debt ceiling with a 50-vote threshold rather than needing 60 votes. 
The American people already saw ObamaCare pass through backroom deals 
and procedural tricks. It should not happen again.
  The majority leader could have claimed that he had no intention of 
trying to undermine the protections of the minority or of forcing 
through tax increases or yet another increase in the debt ceiling. But, 
in a refreshing display of candor, he did not do so, and I commend him 
for his honesty, so that our substantive policy disagreement can be 
made clear to the American people.
  Let me be explicit. We have no objection to proceeding to conference 
if the leader is willing to agree not to use it as a backdoor tool to 
raise the debt ceiling. If not, he is certainly being candid, but the 
American people are rightly tired of backroom secret deals to raise the 
debt ceiling even further. And we should not be complicit in digging 
this Nation even further into debt on merely a 50-vote threshold.
  Finally, I would note that the leader made a plea to regular order, 
and yet he was seeking unanimous consent to set aside regular order, 
granting that concept could open the door to even more tax increases 
and crushing national debt, and in my judgment the Senate should not 
employ a procedural backdoor to do so.
  For reasons unknown, the majority leader deemed my saying so out loud 
as somehow ``bullying.'' Speaking the truth, shining light on 
substantive disagreements of our elected representatives, is not 
bullying; it is the responsibility of each of us. It is what we were 
elected to do. All of us should speak the truth and do so in candor. 
All of us should work together to solve the crushing economic and 
fiscal challenges in this country. All of us should exercise candor, 
and I commend the majority leader and thank him for his willingness to 
do so.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Warren). The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, just for the interest of all Senators, 
we are looking at some amendments which hopefully we can vote on 
tonight or early in the morning. It is one of those surprises to the 
American people that we are on a water infrastructure bill that deals 
with building absolutely necessary flood control projects and making 
sure our commerce can move through our ports--and we have money to 
deepen the channels and make sure our ports are working; they take 
those imports, they get those exports; it all works; critical 
infrastructure--and the first two Republican amendments are about guns.
  Let me say it again. We are working on a critical infrastructure 
bill, and the first two Republican amendments are not about jobs, not 
about business, not about commerce--about guns. So we will deal with 
that. We will deal with those amendments.
  But I think the American people have to listen. When our colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle get up and talk about the economy, 
straight from the heart: This economy is not creating enough jobs, oh, 
my goodness, the first two amendments they offer on a critical 
infrastructure bill--that is so critical to business that the chamber 
of commerce has endorsed it, that every business that is involved in 
construction has endorsed it, that every worker organization has 
endorsed it, the National Governors Association has endorsed it--the 
first two amendments are not about jobs, they are not about commerce; 
they are about guns. So let's understand what we are dealing with.


                           Budget Conference

  Now, I want to say to my friend from Texas--and I welcome him to the 
Senate--for 3 years his party has been following Democrats all over the 
country, yelling at us: Where is your budget? Get your budget done. For 
shame on you; no budget.
  And what has he done, starting from yesterday? Objected to this 
country having a budget because he thinks maybe--he does not know this; 
he is guessing--that in a conference, where we try to negotiate the 
differences between the sides, something might happen that he does not 
like. Maybe we will wind up saying: Yes, there ought to be a penalty on 
companies that ship jobs overseas. Maybe we will tighten some tax 
loopholes that allow the most successful companies to pay nothing in 
taxes while the middle class pays through the nose. Maybe he does not 
like the fact that Warren Buffett--one of the most successful 
entrepreneurs in our Nation--got up and said: You know what, I am 
embarrassed. I pay a lower effective tax rate than my secretary. Maybe 
he thinks that is good. Fine. But do not stop us from getting a budget.
  Anyone who knows how a bill becomes a law--whether they are here 15 
minutes or more than 20 years, as I have been--everyone knows that the 
way we operate here is that the House does a budget, the Senate does a 
budget.
  We did a budget. Republicans demanded it, and we did it for sure. And 
we took care of 100 amendments. We remember being in until 5 in the 
morning. I certainly remember that. Now the next step is that you go to 
conference.
  So I am saying here that I will be on my feet. Every time the good 
Senator from Texas comes, I will come and I will say: Senator, let the 
process work, do not be fearful of the process, because, you know what, 
when you have power--as the Senator does and as I do--do not be afraid 
of the process. If you want to make the point that the Buffett rule 
does not make sense, make your point, but do not stop us from getting a 
budget.
  I do not understand how any conservative could stop us from getting a 
budget, but yet that is what we have.
  So I would urge my friend to work with his colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle. Let's get to the conference. Let's make sure the chairman 
of the House Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, who I am sure is very 
competent, and our chairman, Senator Murray, who I know is very 
competent--get them in the room with their conferees, and let's let 
democracy work. This is the way a bill becomes a law.
  They have stopped us from appointing conferees for a budget 
conference. I could tell you, having been here for a while, it is 
essential that we get to conference--whether it is the WRDA bill that 
we are so anxious to do because it is so important for jobs or whether 
it is the budget or whether it is an appropriations bill. Do not be 
afraid of the process. This is a democracy. We take our differences 
into a conference room, and we work together. If you do not like the 
outcome, that is fair enough. I could truly say I have not liked the 
outcome of a number of conferences, but I do not stop people from going 
to the conference because that is stopping democracy. That is a 
dictatorship. I decide something is going to happen in conference that 
I do not like. Now, what if I say that what could well happen in the 
conference is they make the sequester permanent. That could happen in 
the conference. I

[[Page 6296]]

think that is devastating, to make the sequester permanent. I want to 
stop the sequester. I do not like the fact that 70,000 kids cannot get 
Head Start. I do not like the fact that people cannot get their 
chemotherapy. I do not like the fact that Meals on Wheels is being cut 
back and senior citizens who cannot afford meals are not getting them. 
I do not like the fact that people are not getting HIV screenings or 
breast cancer screenings. That is what is happening. So I do fear, 
frankly, that if there is a conference, the Republicans will prevail 
and they may come out of this with a permanent sequester. So I could 
stand here and say: I object to the process because I am fearful that 
they will get in there and they will make the sequester permanent, and 
that would hurt my people in California. But you know what, I have more 
faith in us. I have more faith in the American people. I have more 
faith in the process.
  So I would urge my friend to stand down on this--and his allies. I 
know he is sincere, but I am saying that it is against progress. We do 
not know if there will be a tax increase or a tax decrease. Frankly, I 
have some really great ideas for tax decreases that I would like to 
see--decreases for the middle class, decreases for the working poor. I 
would like to see that in a conference. But I do not know what our 
colleagues will come back with.
  But I use this time as the manager of the water infrastructure bill 
to tell colleagues that we should come together, not only on this bill. 
Instead of offering controversial amendments on guns to a water 
infrastructure bill, why cannot we just focus on what is before us? 
Finishing this WRDA bill--getting it done for the 500,000 jobs that 
rely on this, getting it done for the thousands of businesses that rely 
on it, getting it done for organized labor and the chamber of commerce 
coming together here. Get it done. And on the budget front, get it 
done.
  With that, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period of debate 
only until 6:30 p.m. and that at that time the majority leader or his 
designee be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is this objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Budget Conference

  Mr. LEE. Madam President, what the majority leader requested 
yesterday was not regular order. What would be consistent with regular 
order would be to send the Senate-passed budget over to the House of 
Representatives. And what the majority leader requested unanimous 
consent to do yesterday did not involve sending the American people to 
conference; it involved sending a small number of people to conference. 
And what the majority leader requested unanimous consent to do 
yesterday did not involve simply getting to a budget on which both 
Houses could agree. I do not think there is anyone here who would 
object to that--not one of us whom I am aware of.
  What we do object to--what I strongly object to--is any procedural 
trick that could be used to negotiate, behind closed doors in a 
backroom deal, an agreement to raise the debt limit or to raise taxes. 
The American people do not want that. They will not accept it, and 
frankly they deserve better.
  I have to admit I stood in a state of disbelief for a moment 
yesterday as I heard the majority leader say something to my friend, my 
colleague, the junior Senator from Texas. I at first assumed I must 
have misunderstood him because I thought I heard him utter words 
consistent with the suggestion that my friend, the junior Senator from 
Texas, was a schoolyard bully. I was certain the majority leader could 
not have meant that. He probably did not say that.
  Unfortunately, as I reviewed news accounts later on yesterday, I 
discovered that is exactly what he had said. Only the majority leader 
can tell us exactly what the majority leader meant by that. It is not 
my place to malign his motives. If I were do so, it would run me up 
against Senate rule XIX. Part 2 of Senate rule XIX says that no Senator 
in debate shall directly or indirectly by any form of words impute to 
another Senator, or to other Senators, any conduct or motive unworthy 
or unbecoming a Senator.
  Certainly that would have been in violation of rule XIX, part 2, had 
the majority leader actually said that and intended to do that, because 
when you accuse a colleague of being a schoolyard bully, it certainly 
is not a compliment. It is, in fact, accusing them of doing something 
or being something unbecoming. I, therefore, will leave it to the 
majority leader to tell us what exactly he meant. Things happen on this 
floor. Things happen in the legislative process. Things happen when we 
get into heated discussions about matters of important public policy 
that probably should not happen. Sometimes we say words we did not 
intend to say. Sometimes we say things that in the moment of weakness, 
perhaps we intended to say but should not have said.
  If, in fact, the majority leader slipped and said something he did 
not mean to say or recognizes now that he should not have said, then I 
invite him to come forward. I am confident my friend, the junior 
Senator from Texas, will promptly and frankly accept his apology.
  If, on the other hand, this was something else, then I think we need 
to examine this more closely. It is important to reiterate there 
certainly could not have been any legitimate basis for making this 
accusation about the junior Senator from Texas. All the junior Senator 
from Texas was asking is that if, in fact, we are being asked to give 
our consent, our unanimous consent, that means the consent of every 
Senator present, to send this budget resolution to conference 
committee, that it carry one important but simple qualification; that 
is, that this conference committee not be used as a ruse, whereby we 
create an environment in which you could develop a secret backroom deal 
for raising the debt limit or raising taxes without going through the 
regular order.
  That is the furthest thing that I can think of from being a 
schoolyard bully, simply making a very reasonable request that we go by 
the normal regular order rules of the Senate in order to do that. If 
there is any reason why my friend, the junior Senator from Texas, could 
ever be accused of being a schoolyard bully, I am not aware of it. It 
certainly was not evident in yesterday's debate and discussion on the 
floor. We are owed an explanation, to the extent that anyone was making 
the suggestion and, in fact, meant that.
  At the end of the day, I do not think any of us can dispute the fact 
that we face very difficult challenges in our country and that many of 
those challenges weigh heavily on us as Senators. That is why sometimes 
people say things they later regret, but that is what apologies are 
for.
  At the same time, we can speak with absolute certainty and 
unmistakable clarity in saying that while different Americans might 
approach this issue differently, while different Americans might take a 
different approach to raising taxes or raising the debt ceiling, one 
issue on which almost all Americans are united is the fact that these 
things ought to be debated and discussed in open and not through a 
secret backroom deal.
  The dignity of this process, the dignity of this body, our commitment 
to honor the constitutional oaths we have all taken as Senators demands 
nothing less.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.

[[Page 6297]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Sequestration

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I think 2 weeks ago the American public 
understood one of the consequences of the sequester cuts, these across-
the-board, mindless cuts, when they saw what was going to happen with 
furloughs with the air traffic controllers and the air traffic service 
in this country.
  I never supported sequestration. These are mindless across-the-board 
cuts. I certainly did not want to see what would have happened to the 
FAA happen. That was mindless across-the-board cuts. We provided system 
flexibility to be able to avoid that circumstance. But what we need to 
do is replace sequestration for all agencies that are affected because 
similar occurrences are happening in other agencies.
  The reason is these are across-the-board mindless cuts. They are deep 
cuts. To the agencies that are affected, it is equivalent to about a 
10-percent cut. This is on top of 3 years of reduced appropriations for 
these agencies. So it is affecting the core mission of the agencies. 
They have no flexibility, and therefore they have to cut back on their 
mission. That is what happened at the FAA. Of course, we provided some 
flexibility so they can do some other things. But we have not done that 
as far as providing relief from these across-the-board cuts in other 
agencies.
  So we are going to see many Federal agencies having to fundamentally 
change what they do. Let me give a couple of examples. I was recently 
at the National Institutes of Health and saw firsthand the great work 
they are doing. I could tell the Presiding Officer many of the missions 
they are doing are critically important to our health.
  I was briefed on the work they are doing for an influenza vaccine 
that will help us deal not with every season having to deal with a 
different type of influenza and not knowing whether we get it right but 
looking at one that will work for multiple years. That is the type of 
work that is done at the National Institutes of Health, the kind of 
work in dealing with finding the answers to cancer. I remember when I 
was young, if you got cancer, it was a death sentence.
  Now we reduce the fatalities of cancer. The survival rates are much 
higher. That is the work that is done at the National Institutes of 
Health, NIH. That work is being compromised by these across-the-board 
cuts that affect the grants NIH can give to the institutes around the 
country, including in Massachusetts and in Maryland.
  What is happening with Head Start is 70,000 children who could 
benefit from Head Start will not be able to this fall. Why? Because of 
these across-the-board cuts. Head Start is a program that works. We 
know that. The children who have participated in Head Start do much 
better. We have waiting lists now. Do we want to tell 70,000 families 
they are not going to be able to send their children to Head Start this 
fall?
  Senior eating together programs are being cut. Do we truly want to 
reduce our commitment to seniors in this country so they can get a 
nutritional meal? The border security protections we are going to be 
debating on the floor in a short period of time, how we can deal with 
comprehensive immigration reform. We want to do what is right, but we 
want to protect our borders. Do we truly want to cut back on border 
security in this country?
  Food safety. The list goes on and on and on to basic missions that 
will be affected by these across-the-board cuts. Why? I have heard 
people say this is not such a big deal, about 2 percent of the budget. 
The difficulty is it applies to only a small part of the budget; that 
is, basically our discretionary spending accounts. These discretionary 
spending accounts have already gone through several years of freezes 
and cuts. They have been really stretched. So the cut is condensed into 
a short period of time. There is no flexibility that is given in order 
to deal with it. It is going to have a negative impact on our economy.
  I used the example at a forum I had 2 weeks ago with a group of 
business leaders; that is, if you had trouble in your business, you 
knew you had to cut back, you would look at your budget, your money 
planned for rent or your mortgage payment, you have some money planned 
for your family for the food budget, maybe you had some money put aside 
for a weekend vacation or trip with your family.
  You do not cut every category the same. You are going to save your 
house and make sure there is food on the table. We have to do the same 
at the Federal level. We have to make the tough decisions as to where 
the priorities of this country need to be. I saw the impact on our 
Federal workforce. I am honored to represent a large number of Federal 
workers who are very dedicated people working to provide services to 
the people of this country. Many are going to go through what is known 
as furloughs. Furloughs are nothing more than telling you you are going 
to get a pay cut.
  Now, they have already had 3 years of a freeze. They have seen a lot 
of vacant positions go unfilled so they are being asked to do more with 
less. Now they are being told they have to go through furloughs. That 
is not right. We can do better than that. This country can do better 
than that. What we need to do is replace sequestration and we need to 
do it now.
  The majority leader made a unanimous consent request. I am sorry it 
was not agreed to. What it said, very basically, is we can find other 
ways to get the budget savings, but let's not do this meat-ax, across-
the-board approach that compromises the missions of this country. 
Unfortunately, that was objected to. I have spoken on the floor before 
about areas we can reduce spending.
  I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle talking about 
mandatory spending. I agree. We can save money in health care. As the 
Presiding Officer knows, the work being done in Massachusetts, and I 
can tell you the work being done in Maryland, we see how we can reduce 
hospital readmissions, how we can deal with individuals with 
complicated illnesses and treat their conditions in a more 
comprehensive way, saving on less tests that need to be done, saving on 
hospitalizations.
  We know how we can reduce hospital infection rates. There are ways we 
can cut back on health care costs that will reduce Medicare and 
Medicaid and health care costs. That is what we need to do. That will 
save money. Let's implement some of those cost savings.
  I am honored to serve on the Senate Finance Committee. Our committee 
has jurisdiction over the Tax Code. We spend $1.2 trillion a year in 
tax expenditures. That is not touched at all by sequestration. We need 
to take a look at the Tax Code. There are parts of the Tax Code that 
are not efficient. Let's get rid of those provisions and we can save 
money and use that to help balance the budget without these across-the-
board cuts.
  Then we are bringing our troops home from Afghanistan. I hope we can 
do that at a more rapid rate for many reasons. But those savings can 
also be used to close the gap on the budget problems and to allow us to 
replace sequestration.
  The bottom line is what my constituents want is for Democrats and 
Republicans to work together and to come up with a responsible budget 
plan for this country. They want that for many reasons. First, that is 
the way business should be done. Secondly, it gives predictability; we 
know what the budget is going to be. People can plan if they know what 
the Tax Code looks like and they know what the Federal budget looks 
like. They can plan and our economy will take off. Predictability is 
very important.
  Bottom line, what I urge us all to do: Let's get rid of these across-
the-board cuts as soon as possible. We never should have been in this 
position. We have seen it in a couple agencies where the public was 
outraged and they flooded our phones. We are going to see that happen 
more and more because these are irrational cuts. We have a 
responsibility to act. The sooner we do, the better it is going to be 
for the American people, the better it is going to be for our economy. 
It is the responsible thing for the Senate to do.

[[Page 6298]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, let me first associate myself with the 
comments of the Senator from Maryland. We are engaging in a bit of 
theater of the absurd on the floor of the Senate, as we have been 
chided for years now that the Senate would not and could not adopt a 
budget.
  Having finally done that, Republicans are refusing to allow us to 
move forward with the process that would finally get us out of this 
crisis-by-crisis mentality and do what the American people have wanted 
us to do for a long time, which is to sit across the table with 
Republicans, two parties in one room, with the TV cameras on, trying to 
find some settlements, somewhere where 70 percent of the American 
public can find agreement with us.


                              Gun Control

  I am here, though, to turn back the clock about 3 weeks to another 
day that I would argue is amongst the saddest this Chamber has seen in 
a long time. That was the day in which we went against the wishes of 90 
percent of the American public and refused to adopt a measure that 
would have applied background checks to the vast majority of gun 
purchases in this country, that they also would have for the first time 
made gun trafficking, illegal gun trafficking, a Federal crime.
  During those days I came down to this floor four or five times to 
tell the stories of victims, the victims of Sandy Hook, but also the 
victims of, frankly, countless other mass shootings and routine gun 
violence mainly in our urban corridors. I said no matter what happens 
on that vote that I wouldn't stop, that I would come down here and 
continue to tell the real stories that should matter.
  We didn't get that bill passed, even though we had the support of 55 
Members of the Senate. Our fight isn't over because the plight of gun 
victims and the surviving of relatives of gun victims are not over 
either.
  This is an old chart. It is one I had up here for a number of hours 
during that week. It displays the number of people who have been killed 
by guns since December 14, 2012, when my State was witness to one of 
the worst mass shooting tragedies this country has ever seen.
  We would have to now have two charts up here to simply display the 
same thing, because this number, which was somewhere in the 3,000s, has 
now easily cleared 4,000, maybe even up close to 5,000--the number of 
people who since Sandy Hook have been killed across this country by gun 
violence.
  I wanted to come back down here to the Senate floor this week, as I 
will next week and the week after, to continue to tell the stories of 
who these people are, because they deserve an answer. The status quo is 
not acceptable to the mounting legions of families who have lost loved 
ones due to gun violence that could have been prevented if we had the 
courage to stand up and do something in this Chamber, if we had the 
courage to take on the gun lobby and make some commonsense changes the 
majority of Americans, the vast majority of Americans, support.
  Let me tell you a few of these stories today, because I know we have 
other issues on the floor today to talk about. Let me tell you about 
Shamari Jenkins. She was 21 years old, and she lived in Hartford. About 
a week ago, on April 29, she was gunned down while driving in a car 
through the city of Hartford with her boyfriend. She was driving 
through the city when someone shot a couple of bullets through the back 
of the vehicle. It hit her and killed her. It went through her torso 
and her shoulder. She was 4 months pregnant when she was shot and 
killed. She was just a couple days away from that magical day many 
parents have experienced when they find out whether they are having a 
boy or a girl. That appointment was just a couple days away when she 
was killed. Close friends and family describe her as sweet and upbeat, 
with a lot of energy. Shamari was killed in Hartford at age 21 on April 
29. Every single day in this country, on average, 30 people are killed 
by guns, many of them stories just like this.
  The ages of all of the people I have been talking about on this 
floor--you get a couple who are in their forties or their fifties, a 
few, as I will talk about later, even younger--the majority of these 
kids are 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 years old. It is a cruel moment to take 
somebody from this world, because when you are 21 you have a vision as 
to who this person is going to be. You can sort of see the greatness. 
Her friends described her as someone who always had a smile on her 
face. Yet you steal so much of their life. Shamari Jenkins, 21 years 
old, killed a week ago.
  There are younger victims such as Caroline Starks, who, 1 day after 
Shamari Jenkins was killed, was killed in Cumberland County, KY, by her 
5-year-old brother. She was 2 years old, and she was killed in an 
accidental shooting by her 5-year-old brother. She was killed by a .22 
caliber Crickett rifle. They were messing around in the little bit of 
time that their mother had stepped outside onto the porch. Her brother 
picked up this little Crickett rifle, one he used to go hunting with 
his family. He was 5 years old, and he shot his 2-year-old sister. She 
died. It was a Crickett rifle. It is a cute name, right? It is a cute 
name because it is marketed to kids and sold as ``My First Rifle.'' It 
is made by a company that also makes another line of guns called 
Chipmunk rifles.
  I certainly understand that in a lot of families there is a long 
history of hunting together as a family. The reality is that some of 
these shootings are malicious, with the number of guns that are out 
there. A gun lobby organization that used to spend a lot of time on gun 
safety now spends most of its time simply arguing for laws that 
perpetuate the number of guns in society. These accidental shootings 
are happening more and more.
  Another one happened 3 days before Caroline Starks was killed. 
Michele Wanko of Parkside, PA, lost her husband William this year when 
she accidentally shot and killed him in the basement of their home. He 
was giving her lessons on how to use a semiautomatic pistol. As he 
demonstrated to her how to use one, she picked up another gun and 
accidentally fired it into his upper chest. Her screams awoke their 5-
year-old son, who was sleeping alongside their 2-year-old son upstairs. 
It is not just mass shootings, it is not just urban violence, it is 
also this rash of accidental shootings taking the lives of mothers and 
children that we have seen as well.
  We still should talk about these mass shootings because our inaction 
almost guarantees it is going to happen again. A lot of people said the 
law that we had on the floor of the Senate a couple of weeks ago had 
nothing to do with Newtown, so why are we talking about a piece of 
legislation that ultimately wouldn't have prevented an Adam Lanza from 
walking into that school and shooting 26 people.
  That is true, but we know from experience that a better background 
check system could have prevented at least one mass tragedy in this 
country, and that is the Columbine tragedy. The guns that were used to 
perpetuate that crime on April 20, 1999, were bought at a gun show, the 
Tanner Gun Show, by a friend of the assailants. She bought the guns at 
a gun show because she knew if she bought them at a federally licensed 
dealer, she wouldn't have been able to do so. She would not have been 
able to walk out of that store with a gun. She went into a gun show 
where she wouldn't have to go through a background check.
  Perhaps if we had a stronger background check system on the books on 
April 20, 1999, Rachel Joy Scott would still be with us today. Rachel 
was an aspiring actress. Her father said she was just made for the 
camera. She wasn't just acting, she was writing plays. She had written 
one already, and she was getting ready to write another one. She was a 
devout Christian and she kept diaries where she wrote about her hope 
for living a life that would change the world with small acts of 
compassion.
  Maybe if we had had a better background check system in 1999, Daniel

[[Page 6299]]

Lee Rohrbaough would still be alive today. He worked in his family's 
car and home stereo business. He loved electronics, and he had real 
talent for it. He would make a little bit of money working at the 
store, but he would never spend it on himself. He spent almost all of 
the money he earned on Christmas presents. His father remembers Danny's 
generosity by saying he didn't spend any of the money on himself, and 
he was upset because he came up $4 short on the last present for 
Christmas.
  Maybe we would still have Daniel Conner Mauser with us today. He was 
a straight-A student. He was the top biology student in his sophomore 
class. He was shy, but he knew he was shy and he wanted to overcome it, 
so he joined the debate team to become more confident about public 
speaking. He was as compassionate as Daniel was. When a neighbor became 
ill, he went down there, raked leaves, and asked how he could help his 
neighbor. He loved swimming, skiing, and hiking. He was on the school's 
cross-country team, a straight-A student, and the top biology student 
in his class. We will never get to know what Daniel Conner Mauser would 
have been.
  If we had a better background check system, maybe Matthew Joseph 
Kechter would still be alive today. He was another straight-A student 
but a student athlete as well. He was a starting lineman on Columbine's 
football team. He was a great student athlete but also a great older 
brother. His younger brother looked up to Matthew and would wait at the 
mailbox for Matthew to come home from school every day. Matt hoped to 
attend the University of Colorado where he wanted to study 
engineering--a straight-A student, a student athlete who wanted to be 
an engineer. Doesn't that sound like the type of kid we need in this 
country today?
  These are another half dozen of the thousands of victims we have read 
about in the newspapers and watched news about on TV since December 14, 
2012.
  One of the arguments I have heard repeated over and over, both during 
the debate on the floor and since then, is that even if we passed these 
laws, it wouldn't matter. Sure, you say the guns were purchased outside 
of the background check system for the Columbine shootings. Even if the 
background checks were required, these kids would have found another 
way to get the guns.
  Another way of putting the argument is criminals are going to violate 
the law, so why pass the law in the first place? That is as absurd an 
argument as you can muster in this place. Frankly, that is an argument 
not to have any laws at all. People drive drunk and they kill people. 
Republicans aren't coming down to the floor of the Senate and saying we 
should get rid of drunk driving laws because there are people who still 
go out and drink and drive. There are, unfortunately, other men out 
there who beat their wives, but nobody is coming down to the floor of 
the Senate or the House and arguing we should get rid of our domestic 
violence laws because some people don't follow them.
  The fact is we make a decision as a country what standards we are 
going to apply to conduct. We trust that is going to funnel some 
conduct away from the kinds we don't want into the kinds we want. It is 
also going to allow us to punish those who act outside of the 
boundaries we have set. That is why we still have drunk driving laws 
and domestic violence laws, even if some people ignore them. It is why 
we should have an expectation that criminals in this country shouldn't 
have guns, even if some criminals are still going to ignore the law and 
get the guns anyway. That way we can punish those people who do wrong, 
and we can have some comfort in knowing that some people will choose to 
do right because of the consequence of the law being in place.
  There was no consequence for that young lady, the friend of the 
Columbine shooters, when she went outside the background check system 
to get guns for her friends. We will never know if she would have made 
a different decision, but why not have the law to test out the theory. 
For the thousands of people who have died since December 14, they would 
take that chance that the law will work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I first of all thank my friend, the 
Senator from Connecticut, for his comments today and for his leadership 
on this issue which is of such enormous importance.
  I have been a long-time supporter of the second amendment, but like 
so many other Americans after Newtown, the status quo just didn't cut 
it. The Senator and so many others have continued to come down and 
raise the issue. At least we ought to make sure we have a system in 
place in this country to prevent criminals and those with serious 
mental impairment from purchasing firearms. I think it is the most 
reasonable of all proposals. I thank the Senator for not letting us on 
the Senate floor forget that tragedy and that issue. I have a sense, 
and I am sure it is the same in Connecticut and it probably is the same 
in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the American people haven't 
forgotten. There is not a day that goes by when I don't have somebody 
coming up and saying, you have got to bring that back up.
  I again thank the Senator for his good work. I think those of us who 
want to put in place appropriate, reasonable restrictions that the vast 
majority of law-abiding gun owners support will have another day in 
this hall.


                               The Budget

  Madam President, I note a lot of my colleagues have also been down 
today talking about the budget, an issue some would say I have been a 
little bit obsessed about in the 4 years I have been here.
  I want to come and talk about that tomorrow, but at least 
tangentially I want to raise that same issue in my comments today.


                      Tribute To Federal Employees

           Timothy Gribben, Christine Heflin, Michelle Silver

  Madam President, this week we celebrate Public Service Recognition 
Week to honor public servants at all levels of government for their 
admirable patriotism and contributions to our country. We talk about 
budgets sometimes and we forget that a lot of the resources we pay in 
taxes that go to budgets actually hire Americans who go to work every 
day trying to make our country a safer place to live and a better place 
to live. Quite honestly, the vast majority of folks who work in public 
service go about doing it with very little recognition for the work 
they do.
  Since 2010, when I had the opportunity as a freshman Senator to 
preside more often than I would have liked to, I used to see then-
Senator Ted Kaufman, who would come down to the floor almost every week 
and talk about a Federal employee. When Ted, who had served as staff 
director to Joe Biden for close to 30 years, left the Senate, I 
inherited that responsibility from him. While I have not been quite as 
conscientious as Senator Kaufman, I have tried to make certain to come 
down on a regular basis and call out Federal employees who deserve 
recognition, including even certain Federal employees who work in the 
Senate.
  Today I want to take a moment to recognize three Federal employees 
who particularly are relevant to the debate we are having about budgets 
because one of the issues we all have to recognize is we have to find 
ways to make our Federal dollars go further. So I want to recognize 
three Federal employees who happen to be Virginians, who are working to 
make our government use data better to improve accountability and 
transparency. These are individuals whom, as chair of the Budget 
Committee's Government Performance Task Force, I have followed in some 
of their actions.
  First, I want to recognize Timothy Gribben. Tim is the Director of 
Performance Management at the Small Business Administration, and in 
this role he developed SBA's quarterly performance review process that 
is now considered a best practice among other

[[Page 6300]]

agencies. Because of Tim's commitment to transparent and accessible 
performance metrics--I know that doesn't get everybody's eyes shiny, 
but performance metrics is something I am pretty interested in--the 
American public can now more clearly track the support provided to 
small businesses from SBA to see where our tax dollars are headed.
  Tim has been recognized by the White House's Performance Improvement 
Council and the American Association of Government Accountants for his 
leadership.
  Next, I want to recognize Christine Heflin. Christine is the Director 
of Performance Excellence at the Department of Commerce and has 
established the Performance Excellence Council to bring together 
performance leaders from across the Department to exchange best 
practices. Because of Christine's expertise, she is sought by other 
agencies for advice, and she leads performance management 101 training 
across the Department to educate staff on the benefits of data-driven 
decisionmaking, the use of analytics, and performance improvement 
techniques.
  Finally, I would like to recognize Michelle Silver. Michelle served 
as the program manager for the Bank Act IT Modernization Program. Under 
her leadership, the program was able to successfully modernize the 
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's IT infrastructure. This 
significantly improved the ability of law enforcement, regulatory, and 
intelligence agencies to access and analyze financial data to detect 
and prevent financial crimes. It is important to note that Michelle's 
management ensured the modernization program was delivered on time and 
within budget. Because of people like Michelle and many other hard-
working Federal employees at the Department of Treasury, our country's 
financial system is at least safer now than it was before from emerging 
threats.
  I know performance metrics, data analysis, and IT improvements aren't 
necessarily the subject of debates every day on the floor of the 
Senate, but regardless of how we get our country's balance sheet back 
in order, I believe that will require both additional revenue and 
entitlement reforms so we don't keep coming back to the small portion 
of our budget which is discretionary programs. Even with all of that, 
we still need to make sure we use those dollars in the most effective 
and efficient process possible.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in honoring Mr. Gribben, Ms. 
Heflin, and Ms. Silver, as well as all government employees at all 
levels around the country for their commitment to public service. 
Again, I remind all of my colleagues that as we debate budgets and we 
debate the future of our country, there are literally millions of folks 
at all levels of public service who go to work every day to make our 
country safer, to make our country more efficient, and to provide 
services for those who are in need.
  A few minutes earlier today I was with seven DEA agents who had just 
received the Congressional Badge of Bravery. They had been recently 
deployed to Afghanistan. These are all people who represent the 
commitments we fight for on the floor of the Senate.
  With that, Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 11:30 
a.m. on Wednesday, May 8, the Senate resume consideration of S. 601 and 
the following amendments be the first amendments in order to the 
pending Boxer-Vitter substitute amendment No. 799: Coburn amendment No. 
804 on ammunition; Coburn amendment No. 805 on Army Corps lands and 
guns; and Whitehouse amendment No. 803 on oceans; that there be no 
second-degree amendments in order to any of these amendments prior to 
votes in relation to the amendments; that the Coburn and Whitehouse 
amendments be subject to a 60-vote affirmative vote threshold; and that 
the time until 2 p.m. be equally divided between the two leaders or 
their designees for debate on their amendments; that Senator Coburn 
control 40 minutes of the Republican time; that at 2 p.m. the Senate 
proceed to votes in relation to the Coburn and Whitehouse amendments in 
the order listed; that there be 2 minutes equally divided in between 
the votes and all after the first vote be 10-minute votes; further, 
that upon disposition of the Coburn and Whitehouse amendments, the 
substitute amendment, as amended, if amended, be agreed to and be 
considered original text for the purposes of further amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.

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