[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9360-9362]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                            2016--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be 
in a period of debate only for the next 30 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


 Remembering the Victims of the Mother Emanuel AME Church Mass Shooting

  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, when I started preparing 
to give this speech, I must admit I was overwhelmed with emotion. One 
year ago tomorrow, a brutal attack, fueled by hate, led to the deaths 
of nine parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in my hometown of 
Charleston, SC.
  A year later, the idea that someone's heart could be filled with so 
much anger and venom is still jarring.
  Then, over the weekend, we saw it again. In Orlando, FL, a brutal 
attack, fueled by hate, led to the deaths of 49 people at the Pulse 
nightclub. This was an assault against the people of Orlando, the State 
of Florida, and the United States as a whole.
  We can, and we will, have a much longer discussion on ISIS, Islamic 
terror, and the steps that must be taken in those areas. But today, as 
Orlando mourns and Charleston remembers, I want to return to 365 days 
ago and show how, with the world watching, love overcame hate.
  On the night of June 17, 2015, I was here in Washington. Much like 
this week, we were debating the NDAA and our military priorities. But 
in Charleston, there was a Bible study. Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, 
Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel 
Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson, Felicia Sanders and 
her 5-year-old granddaughter, Polly Sheppard, and my friend, the 
Reverend Clementa Pinckney, had gathered together for a Bible study at 
Mother Emanuel.
  Among them was a young man who was new to Emanuel--a young man they 
welcomed into their presence with God's love. While they did not and 
could not possibly see the darkness in his heart, they showed him the 
loving nature of their own hearts--so much so that he later told police 
that he almost, almost did not go through with this vicious, vile 
attack because everyone was so nice to him. But, tragically, almost was 
not enough.
  In an instant, the horrors unleashed by this young man changed South 
Carolina forever. I remember getting a phone call about 9 o'clock p.m. 
on that Wednesday night from one of my friends at the Sheriff's office 
about the shooting at Mother Emanuel. Reports continued to come in, and 
so I texted my friend, Clementa Pinckney, hoping that he would respond 
and tell me what was going on at the church.
  I am looking at my texts from June 17, 2015, at 10:31 p.m. I asked 
him: Are you and your parishioners OK? It was met with silence--silence 
that is still deafening, silence that I will never forget.
  He should have been able to text back. He should have been able to go 
home and see his family, raise his daughters. He should have been able 
to have gone on and finished his work as a State senator in the 
statehouse and to continue spreading God's love. As we people of faith 
know, sometimes things simply don't go as they are planned. But as the 
families of the Emanuel nine showed you, God had a plan.
  Within 48 hours, these men and women set the tone for my grieving 
city, my grieving State, and my grieving Nation. On Friday morning, 
about 36 hours later, looking into the killer's eyes, they said to the 
killer of their family members: ``I forgive you.''
  Family member after family member, nine consecutive times, to the 
shock and the amazement of the world that was watching, said: ``I 
forgive you.'' Your life can be better in God's hands.
  Those of us here today cannot even imagine how hard that must have 
been--how in their immense grief, these families chose to take this 
unique path. But they did. We as a nation, as a State, and certainly as 
a city are forever thankful.
  I am fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to talk to many and 
all of the families at some point. I continue to be amazed at their 
grace, their dignity, and their righteousness. They have truly been the 
rock on which we all stand. In the days and weeks after the shooting, 
Charleston and South Carolina came together like never before. As the 
clergy and parishioners at Mother Emanuel said after the attack: 
``Wrong church, wrong people, wrong day.''
  It was the wrong place to try and sow the seeds of discord. It was 
the wrong people to try and break their faith and the wrong day to try 
and bring down the people of South Carolina.
  Last summer, we saw chapters of history close and new ones open. 
While the debate over the Confederate flag may be the most widespread 
symbol of Emanuel's aftermath, the actions and words of folks across 
Charleston and South Carolina are the most enduring.
  Looking ahead, we have come so far, but we certainly still face many 
challenges. It is going to take a lot of effort and strength to stand 
together in times of division. It is going to be hard sometimes in a 
world that is too often so full of hate to know that we are still 
taking steps forward, and it is going to require a continuing 
conversation on issues that are uncomfortable for some but necessary 
for all.
  So where are we headed from here? Three words show where I believe 
that we, as a nation, are headed. These three words show where I 
believe we, as a nation, must head. They are simple words--words found 
in 1 Corinthians 13: faith, hope, and love. We saw these in abundance 
throughout South Carolina over the past year, and they remain our final 
goal.
  As I head back to Charleston tonight, I will be thinking about the 
events honoring the Emanuel nine tomorrow. I am certain there will be 
tears--lots of tears. There will be moments, as there have been in the 
last few minutes, when it will be hard to speak, to truly show what all 
of this means to all of us, but the world will also see this from 
Charleston, SC: They will see that you can cannot destroy love with 
hate and that you cannot kill the spirit. We have not been torn down by 
this fury of hate, but instead we will continue to build a bridge, 
brick by brick, to a future without hate, a future filled with faith, 
hope, and love.
  I will close by asking one more time, as I did a little more than a 
year ago in this very same place for a moment of silence to remember 
Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, 
Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra 
Thompson, and my good friend and former State Senator, the Reverend 
Clementa Pinckney.
  You are forever in our hearts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to thank Senator Scott for his 
eloquent words on behalf of our State and the leadership he has 
provided since this horrible tragedy a year ago.
  What can I add? I will just remind people who might not remember why 
he did it that his goal was to start a race war. Well, he failed 
miserably. Quite the opposite happened in my State. I have never seen 
anything quite like it.
  We have had our fair share of problems in South Carolina, and still 
do, but churches all over the State were filled. Black, White, rich, 
poor--all

[[Page 9361]]

came together to help each other. So this young man's dream of starting 
a race war was a miserable failure.
  I am sure this guy who attacked the nightclub in Orlando wanted to 
break our will and try to get us to kowtow to a radical form of 
religion. Well, you are not going to break a will. We will all stand 
behind the folks in Orlando and come together as a nation as best we 
can.
  Senator Scott said it is hard to understand the hate that someone has 
to do what these two people did. What blows my mind is how someone can 
go and sit in a Bible study for an hour, after being welcomed in off 
the street to discuss the Word of God, and then get up and shoot the 
people you have been praying with. I don't know how you get there. Only 
God knows that. And what this man did in Orlando was beyond vicious.
  Here is a question that I have asked myself a thousand times, and I 
am beginning to understand the answer: Why was it different in South 
Carolina? We have had shootings throughout the country where people 
took to the streets. There were riots, sores were exposed, and scabs 
were pulled off old wounds. What was it about South Carolina that was 
different? I promise you that we are not a perfect people. I promise 
you that under the right circumstances, what you saw in other places in 
the country would have happened in South Carolina.
  Here is the difference: We were all in such a state of shock that 
somebody could come into a church and just randomly kill the people 
they prayed with. It was hard to get our heads around the thought of 
somebody being able to do that. But what woke us up was the way the 
families behaved.
  Senator Scott indicated that within 48 hours of the killing, there 
was an arraignment of the accused, and all the family members appeared 
in court. Instead of taking to the streets and showing their 
frustration with a system that I am sure can always be made better and 
is far from perfect, they decided to channel their grief into something 
constructive, not destructive, and I promise you I could not have done 
this. If this had been one of my family members, I know Lindsey Graham 
well enough to know I could not have done this. I consider myself a 
person of faith but lacking when it comes to folks at Mother Emanuel 
AME Church. Nadine Collier, the daughter of Ethel Lance, who was 70 
years old, said the following, as her voice was breaking:

       You took something very precious from me. I will never talk 
     to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I 
     forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.

  That is what is different. That is why the people of South Carolina 
followed her lead. She and the victims touched our hearts. They 
appealed to our better nature and reminded us of what humanity is all 
about. It is about love and forgiveness. Politicians--we can take all 
the credit we want, but if these people had not done this, it would 
have been a different result. I could have talked until I was blue in 
the face. If people had chosen to be angry, there was no way in hell I 
could have talked them into not being angry because they have every 
right to be angry. But because these people did what they did in open 
court, the rest of us followed behind and followed their lead.
  A year later I am here to tell you that the reason South Carolina 
handled this so well, in my view, is that the people in that church 
chartered a path for the rest of us, and we were smart enough to follow 
their lead. It would be nice if, in the future, when we get mad at each 
other here in this body and other places throughout the country over 
something maybe not as important as losing a loved one, we could slow 
down for just a moment and try to imagine how things would be different 
if we could draw upon the example of the families of the fallen.
  Look what we argue about. Look how we interact in America today over 
things not quite as significant as having your loved one gunned down. 
If you really want to honor what happened in South Carolina, as an 
individual and a society, whenever you can, remember what the people in 
that church did after losing their loved ones, and try to follow their 
lead. That would be the greatest respect you could pay to those 
families and the greatest honor you could give to those who died for no 
good reason.
  I need to follow my own advice. There is no better feeling in the 
world than being petty and thinking of a reason you were wronged. It 
feels good. But every now and then I catch myself. I go back to last 
year and wake up and realize that there is a better way.
  To those who showed us that better way, I know your pain is as real 
as it was on the day this happened. I know you will never get over it, 
but I hope you realize that your loved ones did not die in vain 
because, through their tragic deaths, you gave us--not just in South 
Carolina but throughout the world--the way forward. Whether we choose 
it or not is up to us. You have done all you could do and then some.
  To the people of South Carolina: I am proud of the way we handled 
this tragedy, but we have a long way to go. This weekend will be tough 
throughout our State, and as we look back, let's make sure that we 
learn from the past and apply it to the future. If we can take that 
love and forgiveness and apply it in a constructive way to future 
problems in South Carolina, then we will have honored these victims and 
their families. If we go back to our petty ways, they will have died 
for nothing.
  Here is my bet: South Carolina is never going to go back because the 
people of Mother Emanuel AME Church showed us the way. It is up to us 
to follow them, and I will do my best to follow their lead.
  To the people throughout the country who have been generous to this 
church, thank you for the dollars that have been raised. It is 
appreciated. Thank you for your prayers and the support you have given. 
It was essential. You helped us in our time of greatest need.
  On behalf of the people of South Carolina to the people of this great 
land, thank you for having us in your prayers and for your support and 
for being there for us a year ago when we needed you the most.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.


                               PIPES Act

  Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, this week I was pleased that the Senate 
acted unanimously to pass a pipeline safety bill that will help ensure 
the safety of our Nation's vast energy pipeline network.
  The bipartisan bill, known as the PIPES Act of 2016, now heads to the 
President's desk to be signed into law. Safely transporting energy to 
our communities and businesses is a goal that we all share. It was 
encouraging to see my colleagues come together on both sides of the 
aisle and on both sides of the Capitol, as well, to come up with a 
final product that will improve pipeline safety and oversight.
  With more than 2.6 million miles of oil and gas pipelines across this 
Nation, the energy industry must work together at all levels of 
government in order to protect lives, communities, and our environment. 
Pipelines can be one of the safest ways to move oil and gas products; 
however, we have seen truly devastating explosions and spills with 
pipelines, including in my home State of Michigan. The cost to clean up 
an oil spill from a pipeline break near Marshall, MI, into the 
Kalamazoo River has totaled over $1.2 billion. A similar spill in the 
Great Lakes would be devastating to our economy, environment, and 
drinking water supply.
  The transition to a clean energy economy is one of my top priorities, 
but in the meantime, as we push this transition forward, we cannot 
accept that pipeline spills are simply the cost of doing business. Our 
safety regulators must be equipped with the tools and equipment to 
better prevent pipeline accidents, protect public safety, and demand 
accountability when things invariably go wrong.
  Our pipeline transportation system must be more transparent, and 
technology will continue to provide better insight into the pipeline 
network without compromising national security and proprietary 
information. Our land,

[[Page 9362]]

air, water, and wildlife must be safeguarded against leaks and spills. 
By enhancing safety standards, we can reduce waste and cleanup costs 
while making sure we can proudly pass down a strong outdoor heritage to 
the next generation. We can also create jobs for our construction 
workers, pipefitters, steelworkers, and utility workers as we upgrade 
pipelines and fit them with state-of-the-art technology.
  The PIPES Act will make strides in these and many other areas. I was 
especially focused on creating measures to safeguard against the 
catastrophic consequences of an oil spill in our precious waterways, 
especially the Great Lakes. Thanks to a provision I originally worked 
on with my colleague Senator Stabenow, the entire Great Lakes Basin 
will be designated as an unusually sensitive area. This will make any 
pipeline that could spill in and around the Great Lakes area subject to 
higher standards for operating safety. The bill also adds coastal 
beaches and maritime coastal waters as areas that should be considered 
when making an ``unusually sensitive'' determination.
  We also must recognize the unique regional challenges our Nation's 
far-reaching pipeline network present. In Michigan, we get serious 
winters. Lakes and rivers freeze, and even the Great Lakes end up under 
very thick ice cover. To address these challenges, I worked to include 
a provision requiring pipeline operators to prepare response plans that 
address cleanup of an oilspill in ice-covered waters. The Coast Guard 
has stated that it does not have the technology or the capacity for 
worst-case discharge cleanup under solid ice and that its response 
activities are not adequate in ice-choked waters. We need to address 
this problem now before a spill under ice-covered water happens.
  Any oil pipeline that is deeper than 150 feet underwater will be 
required to undergo an inspection every year as a result of this bill. 
This requirement would be especially relevant for pipelines running 
through the Great Lakes, especially the twin oil pipelines resting on 
the lakebed in the Straits of Mackinac. The bill also establishes 
emergency order authority so that PHMSA can take quick action to ensure 
safety when pipelines pose an imminent threat.
  This bill goes beyond just addressing pipelines; it also directs the 
Department of Transportation to issue minimum safety standards for 
underground natural gas storage facilities. The dangers of a leak from 
an underground storage facility was illustrated in a massive methane 
leak at a facility in California just a few short months ago which 
resulted in evacuations and an emergency declaration. These new 
standards are especially important for my home State of Michigan 
because we have more underground natural gas storage facilities than 
almost any other State in the Union.
  Other sections of the PIPES Act encourage collaboration on research, 
development, mapping, and technology between Federal agencies, public 
stakeholders, and industry leaders. All of these constituencies were 
key to providing input into this bill.
  I would like to thank Senators Fischer, Booker, and Daines, and of 
course Chairman Thune and Ranking Member Nelson for their hard work on 
the PIPES Act. The Energy and Commerce Committee and the Committee on 
Transportation and Infrastructure in the House were also instrumental 
in making changes and important improvements.
  As we continue to move forward and find better ways to meet our 
energy needs, it is my hope that we can learn from past catastrophes 
and prevent future ones before they ever occur.
  The bipartisan PIPES Act can be a model for how we work together to 
improve performance and raise our standards in the energy sector.
  Mr. President, 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. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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