Federal Reserve Accountability Act of 2009

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act. I am joined in this effort by original cosponsors, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Carper, and Mr. Kaufman. Together we are committed to giving our states and

municipalities the tools they need to finally restore water quality in the Chesapeake Watershed and return this national treasure to its rightful position as one of the world's most important ecological regions.

Yesterday morning I stood on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, near Annapolis, Maryland, to outline the provisions of this legislation. I was joined by Martin O'Malley, Governor of Maryland and a tireless champion of the bay. Standing with him was Preston Bryant, Virginia's Secretary of Natural Resources, representing Governor Tim Kaine. Both states, which embrace the entirety of the Chesapeake Bay, were there to lend their support to this legislative effort. Two of my colleagues from the other body, Congressman Elijah Cummings and Congressman Chris Van Hollen, also joined us, noting that they intend to introduce a companion bill in the House of Representatives today. A powerful coalition of more than 100 local watershed organizations was there, too, to lend its support. And finally, we were joined by Mr. Luke Brubaker, a dairy and poultry farmer from Pennsylvania who is already demonstrating how local actions can result in real water quality benefits.

Today we take a major step forward in writing the next chapter in the history of one of America's most cherished and celebrated bodies of water--the Chesapeake Bay. The original English colony in Jamestown was settled on its shores. George Washington built his home overlooking one its great rivers. The War of 1812 was fought on its waters, and generations of Americans came to live off its bounty of oysters and blue crabs and rockfish. Harriet Tubman led a life of slavery and heroic freedom among its vast marshes, and James Michener wrote a saga celebrating its majesty.

Today, 17 million people live in its watershed. Its tributaries are home to three state capitals as well as America's center of government. The bay has been called a ``National Treasure'' by American Presidents ranging from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama. The United Nation's Ramsar Convention recognizes the bay as an ecological region of global significance. In Maryland it is the economic, environmental, cultural and historic heart of the state.

But, the bay and its watershed are in trouble.

By every scientific measure, the ecological health of the Chesapeake Bay is poor. The Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries are unhealthy primarily because of excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment entering the water.

These pollutants threaten not just the legacy we have inherited but also our future. The multi-million seafood industry is suffering from chronically small harvests. That is not all. Recreational fishermen, duck hunters, sail boat and power boat operators, bird watchers and others bring tens of millions of dollars into our economies annually. Business leaders and realtors tell us that healthy rivers and a healthy bay add immeasurably to their ability to attract a quality workforce and add value to homes.

At least one estimate suggests that the Bay's economic value to the region tops $1 trillion. The challenge before us is great, but so is the opportunity.

The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act gives the states strong new tools to restore the Bay and for the first time sets a firm deadline of 2025 for all restoration efforts to be in place.

The internal and final deadlines for action coincide with the Chesapeake Executive Council's timeline for Chesapeake restoration. Unlike earlier, missed deadlines, this one will become a legally binding part of the Clean Water Act.

The bill also significantly expands federal grants. The Chesapeake Restoration bill authorizes a new $1.5 billion grants program to control urban/suburban polluted stormwater, the only pollution sector that is still growing. Grants to the states, small watershed organizations, and for comprehensive monitoring programs are all newly created or expanded in the legislation. At least 10 percent of State implementation grants are set aside for Delaware, New York, and West Virginia. These headwater States have never been guaranteed any access to these funds in the past.

At least 20 percent of the implementation grants will go for technical assistance to farmers and foresters to help them access Farm Bill funds and implement conservation practices. The bill also requires the Environmental Protection Agency to build on the positive experiences of Virginia and Pennsylvania by establishing the framework for an innovative interstate trading program. As Mr. Brubaker recounted for us yesterday, farmers can partner with those who need to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus that they are releasing into the Bay. These groups can meet their legal obligation to reduce pollution by giving farmers the extra financial support they need to implement additional conservation practices on their agricultural lands. It is a classic win-win situation, and by 2012 it will be available throughout the six state watershed.

The bill codifies President Obama's Chesapeake Bay Executive Order, which requires annual Federal Action Plans across all federal departments to restore the Bay.

The basics of this bill are very simple, as most good ideas are. Scientists are telling us what the maximum amounts of pollution that the Bay can withstand and still be healthy. The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act sets a hard cap on pollution, and then we give the states until 2025 to reduce their proportional share of the pollution load. The states have maximum flexibility to reach these goals, but it still won't be easy. In the 25 years since the Chesapeake Bay program started, the number of people living in the watershed has exploded.

The population of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed has grown from 12 million when the Program started to over 17 million residents today. That is a 40 percent increase. And it is not just more people producing more pollution. The amounts of impervious surfaces, the hardened landscapes that funnel polluted water into our streams and rivers and eventually the Bay, have increased by about 100 percent over the same time frame. We are losing an astounding 100 acres of forest lands every day in the Bay watershed. Simply put, there are millions more of us, and the size of our impact on the Bay watershed has grown twice as fast as our population rate. Without the Bay Program, the health of the Chesapeake would undoubtedly be worse than it is.

As I have said before, barely holding our own is not good enough. So merely fine tuning the Bay Program will not be good enough either. Fortunately, Federal, State and local governments, in cooperation with community organizations are standing up around our region to help renew the region's precious water resources.

We are focused on three major sources of water pollution: runoff from agricultural lands, effluent from wastewater treatment plants, and polluted stormwater runoff from the developed lands in our cities, towns and suburbs.

Last year we passed a Farm Bill that today is providing Chesapeake farmers with unprecedented financial support in putting conservation programs into practice. Two years ago we provided our farmers with about $8 million in conservation funding. In the past year, that figure went up to $23 million. This year it is growing to $43 million and next year it reaches $72 million--nearly a ten-fold increase in just 3 years.

Eight years of chronic under-funding for wastewater treatment plants changed dramatically in January. President Obama and the new Congress have teamed up to provide a 350 percent increase in Federal funding this year to up-grade and repair sewage treatment plants. The EPA funding bill that is now nearing final action will sustain that record investment into 2010. We need to make a major investment in our cities and towns, too, to combat the growing problem we have with polluted stormwater. That is why this bill authorizes $1.5 billion to provide the federal funds needed to really attack this problem.

All of us, States and cities, farmers and foresters, sewage treatment plant operators and new home builders, ardent environmentalists and average residents, want to do our part to have clean water flowing through our streams and rivers. All of us want a healthy Bay.

The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act gives all of the Bay States a clear and fully enforceable goal to clean up our waters

and restore our Bay by 2025. The bill also gives us the resources to get the job done and the tools to do so in a way that is flexible and cost effective.

The Chesapeake Bay is the heart of our region. It is where we work, play, farm, and enjoy the beauty and abundance of the natural resources that surround us. But as anyone who has experienced the shortage of blue crabs and oysters or read about ``dead zones'' in the water knows, the Bay continues to be in trouble. We've made great strides in the last few decades through the EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program. But we remain far from attaining the goals necessary to restore the Bay to a healthy state, one that can sustain native fish and wildlife and maintain the viability of our farmland and regional economy for the near- and long-term future.

Accomplishing these goals starts with the local implementation of the most innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective strategies for restoring and protecting water quality and vital habitats within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Everywhere I go there is a strong desire to see local streams returned to good health and the Chesapeake Bay restored to its former glory. People are ready to take action to control pollution, restore water quality and see the living resources of the Bay return in abundance.

The Chesapeake is a region steeped in history. Today, we add our own contribution to that storied past. With the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act, we are proposing the most sweeping legislative effort in the history of the Clean Water Act. With the firm commitments and cooperation from the communities across the 64,000 square mile watershed, we will restore the health, productivity and beauty of the Chesapeake Bay for generations to come.

Today marks the beginning of that legislative effort. It will not be easy, and we will need all of our best efforts if we are to be successful. But we cannot and will not come up short.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am delighted to be joined this afternoon by my colleague, Senator Kaufman, from Delaware. Today, he and I are going to do something I don't think has ever been done in the Senate in the 200 years since this institution has been together. We will be introducing legislation which will establish the First State National Historic Park within the State of Delaware.

There are, as we all know, 50 States, and 49 States have national parks. In all, there are 58 national parks. There are something like more than 300 units of national parks. The first State to ratify the Constitution--that would be Delaware--was the entire United States of America for 1 week beginning December 7, 1787, and it still has no national park--not that we don't have historical and cultural heritage that is noteworthy in Delaware.

Think back roughly 400 years ago when the first settlements in this country from Europe were that of the Dutch in what is now Lewes, DE. And 372 years ago, the Swedes and Finns sailed across the Atlantic Ocean up the Delaware Bay and the Delaware River, took a left turn on the river they decided to name after the child queen of Sweden, Christina, and established the colony of New Sweden and what is now known as Wilmington, DE.

To the south in Dover, DE, at the Golden Fleece Tavern for roughly 3 days in December 1787, 25 or so men holed up in the Golden Fleece Tavern drinking what I describe as hot chocolate in order to decide whether the State of Delaware was going to be the first State to ratify the Constitution.

A few miles south of there is the childhood home of John Dickinson,

who worked with folks in Connecticut at the Constitutional Convention to come up with a grand compromise which says every State will have two U.S. Senators and we will apportion the seats in the House of Representatives in accordance with the population of the States.

From one end of the State of Delaware to the other, there are any number of things that are important to our Nation's heritage and I think certainly to the people of Delaware. Yet we have no national park commemorating any of that at all. Roughly 8 years ago, shortly after I came to the Senate, we went to work to see whether we could change that situation. A lot of good people in my State submitted ideas, from one end of the State to the other, what they thought might be reasonable, acceptable, appropriate items or places to designate as our national park. We created a wonderful citizens group about 3 or 4 years ago. They went the length and breadth of the State, led by professor emeritus Jim Solis of the University of Delaware. They came back with a wonderful group of ideas they collected from people from all over the State.

They said: This is what we think the national park should be--a unique concept. If you can imagine four bicycle wheels, each has a hub, and from the hubs emanate the spokes. The vision of our working group was to have four hubs--one in northern Delaware, Wilmington; one maybe in Delaware City; another in Kent County, the central part of our State; and another in Lewes, DE, the southern part of our State. From each of those hubs--think of the spokes emanating--is a variety of attractions to which people could come. Each hub would be a hub established with some presence by the National Park Service.

These were the ideas we submitted to the National Park Service roughly 3 years ago. The National Park Service went to work on it. To their credit, they came to our State. They covered our State and met with all kinds of people from one end of Delaware to the other and came up with another idea. They said: We like what you came up with, but here is what the National Park Service would like you to do. It is this: Create a national park that focuses on Delaware from the early settlement of the Dutch, the Swedes and the Finns and the English--a national park theme to run from that period of time until first statehood, December 7, 1787, roughly 130, 140 years.

The idea is to place in old New Castle, colonial New Castle, about 10 miles south of Wilmington, DE, on the Delaware River, a national park site that would be colocated and located in an existing structure that is suitable for that purpose. That spot will be populated by park rangers, who will be there to serve as interpreters and help welcome people to the site and help inform them, share with them other ideas and places to visit.

We are excited about what the National Park Service has decided. Is it everything we had hoped for? No, it is not. Is it a whole lot better than being the only State in the country without a national park? It sure is a lot better than that.

I express great thanks to all the men and women in my State who for almost 8 years worked on this concept, created and gathered good ideas and suggested those to the Park Service. I thank the Delaware Division of Parks and Recreation, the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, the National Park Service, former Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne; and certainly our current Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, for their steadfast support for this initiative.

About half a dozen or so years ago, my family and I--my boys are now 19 and 21, but when they were younger, we liked to travel in the summers and visit national parks. We visited national parks from Pennsylvania, the second State in the Union, to Illinois, the Lincoln sites. We went to Alaska, to Denali, the great one, a huge national park that is two to three times the size of Delaware. We loved to visit national parks. This summer, our boys took a cross-country tour to the west coast for a summer job for one of our boys. They drove all the way across the northern part of our country and got to spend time in the Badlands, Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone and other sites along the way.

National parks were described as--I think it was Wallace Stegner who said our national parks are America's best ideas. Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker whose series on national parks was on National Public Television--beautifully done, beautifully videographed, and the story told of our national parks and how the first national park began about 140 years ago. Here we are 140 years later. They are a national treasure. People come from all over the world.

When we went on the national park Web site 6 years ago to look for a place to go as a family, do you know what we ended up with? Nothing. There was a lot of stuff to visit from Alabama to Wyoming, A to W, but when we got to Delaware, nothing.

We have a lot in our State of which we are proud. We have a lot in our State of which our country can be proud. We want not only people in Delaware to know but people throughout the country and the world. When they are looking for a good place to visit for some culture and history and, frankly, for a good time, we want them to know that Delaware-- little Delaware--is on the map. We are ready. The doors are open. The ``welcome'' mat is out. We are ready to receive them.

I want to say a big thanks to everyone who got us to this point. We are delighted to introduce the legislation that will designate and establish the first national park in the State of Delaware. Fortunately, I am not introducing the bill by myself. I am joined by my colleague, Senator Kaufman, and in the House by Congressman Mike Castle. This will be a bipartisan, bicameral initiative.

I yield to Senator Kaufman.

Mr. President, in conclusion, I say a special thanks to Senator Kaufman. I thank members of our staff who worked on this bill-- not just us--literally for years in Delaware and here as well.

I want to thank my colleagues who earlier voted with us to authorize a study, and to the National Park Service to fund that study, which came back to us with the recommendations of the National Park Service literally earlier this year.

I also want to say that in this proposal we give a nod to the fact that these are trying fiscal times in which we live, and we don't have the ability to spend boatloads of money for a national park anywhere, including the First State. The proposal that we have before us is one that recognizes that and is, I think, responsible, and fiscally responsible, too.

So with all that having been said, we are delighted to say that while this is not the end, this may be the beginning of the end, we hope, of the journey that will lead us to a national park, and we are delighted to stand here together to get us on the last part of that journey.

Mr. President, fiscal responsibility is a Wisconsin tradition and it has been a major priority of mine throughout my years in the Senate. In 1992 when I first ran for the job I hold now, I put together an 82-point plan to save hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful, inefficient or unneeded government spending. Back then, the country was facing huge budget deficits and Americans were understandably concerned about the debt we were piling up. Fortunately, we took some strong steps in the 1990s to clean up that fiscal mess-- including passing some of the reforms I championed in my 82-point plan--and we were able to get the country back on the right track.

Unfortunately, we face a similar crisis today. In fact, in many ways it is worse because the deficits are even bigger while the economy is in such bad shape. The reckless fiscal policies of the past eight years, combined with the current recession those policies helped create, have dug a deep hole, and we need to start filling it in. Some may argue that we can't cut government spending now because that would make the recession we are in even worse. I don't agree--while we shouldn't be slashing, say, unemployment insurance or education funding, we should absolutely be targeting the waste and fat in the federal budget. That's the message I am consistently hearing as I travel around Wisconsin. My constituents are rightly concerned about the burden that their children and grandchildren will be forced to shoulder.

That is why I am introducing the Control Spending Now Act. This bill consists of dozens of different initiatives that would collectively reduce the deficit by over $\1/2\ trillion over 10 years. It includes procedural reforms that would make it easier to eliminate funding for pet projects slipped into larger spending bills, as well as cuts to spending that isn't working or needed, from $4 billion for C-17 aircraft the Department of Defense didn't ask for and doesn't want to $30 million for a program that sends a radio and TV signal to Cuba that nobody gets. The bill also would save $244 billion by rescinding unobligated TARP payments and returning them to the Treasury--I opposed the Wall Street bail-out from the start, and it's high time we brought it to an end.

The ideas I am proposing are not all new--for example, I have been fighting to end earmark abuses and give the president a line-item veto for some time. And not all the ideas were thought up by me--there are a lot of good proposals out there, and I have tried to bring them together in one comprehensive bill. I have included legislation drafted by Senators Byron Dorgan and Jeff Bingaman that would save the Federal Government and consumers money by bringing down prescription drug prices, as well as biennial budgeting reforms that former Senator Pete Domenici championed, and that Senator Johnny Isakson is now seeking to advance. I also included provisions crafted by Senators Kit Bond, Jay Rockefeller and Dianne Feinstein and included in the Senate-passed intelligence authorization bill for fiscal year 2010 that would help eliminate wasteful spending in the intelligence budget. I am grateful to my colleagues for the work they are doing to return the country to the path of fiscal responsibility.

Not everyone will agree with every one of my proposals--in fact, for every proposal, there is probably one or more entrenched group committed to preserving the status quo. But the status quo isn't good enough--we need to make tough spending choices, which is why I am proposing this legislation, and why I will continue working to control spending now.

Mr. President, this has been a great journey for me, before I came to the Senate, watching my present senior Senator, Tom Carper, then junior Senator--I am proud to say one of my greatest accomplishments as a Senator was to promote Tom Carper from junior Senator to senior Senator--to watch him work on this bill for a national park for Delaware for 8 years.

I think if you were trying to do a case study on what it takes to make an accomplishment in the Senate, his efforts would be an excellent case study. He has been working for 8 years to bring a national park to Delaware. It is the only State in the Nation that does not have a national park, and yet it has so many wonderful things to see. I think people who visit Delaware will know that.

I am proud to be a cosponsor of a bill that really my senior Senator has worked so hard on. He already explained much of the history of how we came to this point, so I want to simply say again that I appreciate how he has worked with the National Park Service to design a national historical park for Delaware.

Earlier this year, when we were discussing the Travel Promotion Act, I discussed many of Delaware's attractions, from the colonial history dating back to before it became the first State to ratify the Constitution, to the beautiful beaches. We have a wealth of opportunities for tourism. However, until this bill is signed into law, we will not have a national park.

No one needs to be told about the value of national parks, the way they offer recreational opportunities, support local businesses, and protect natural and cultural heritage. What is perhaps most important about them, however, is the way they define and preserve our relationship with possibility. They speak of a quintessential American world view that everyone has a right to share in what is greatest and magnificent in our world, in this case our national parks.

Since the creation of Yellowstone and Yosemite over a century ago, millions of Americans have had their eyes opened by breathtaking vistas and the rich history of our wonderful country. The park in Delaware will play an important role in preserving our colonial history. Remember, Delaware was a crossroads for early Dutch, English, and Swedish settlers. Our State has a rich endowment of colonial landmarks.

Bringing these together the way Senator Carper has proposed in a national historical park, this bill will allow all Americans to appreciate our history leading up to the signing of the Constitution. That is why I am glad to join

with my senior Senator, Tom Carper, in cosponsoring this bill. It is high time Delaware has a national park, and I believe this bill will create one that preserves Delaware's rich pre-Constitution history for generations to come.

I thank my senior Senator for what he is doing, not just for me, not just for the people of Delaware, but for the country. This will be a great place for people to come from all over the country and all over the world to see the glorious history that is in Delaware.

Mr. President, today Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee and I come together to introduce the Federal Reserve Accountability Act. Over the course of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has taken extraordinary actions to stabilize our financial system. In doing so, it has departed significantly from its traditional relationship with markets. It is essential, therefore, that we bring greater openness and transparency to the Federal Reserve.

We are introducing the Federal Reserve Accountability Act because we believe that it strikes the right balance in making the Federal Reserve's new emergency lending activities subject to a robust financial audit by the Government Accountability Office, GAO, without disturbing the Federal Reserve's monetary policy independence or its role as emergency lender of last resort. The Federal Reserve Accountability Act would require the GAO to audit the accounting, financial reporting, and internal controls of all Federal Reserve emergency credit programs that are not already subject to audit. To protect against the risk that disclosure of the participation of particular institutions could disrupt markets, the GAO would be required to redact the names of specific institutions. Names would, however, be made available 1 year after each emergency program is no longer used. For additional transparency and public accessibility, the legislation would also require that the Federal Reserve place these GAO audits along with additional audit materials under a new ``Audit'' section on its website.

The many emergency lending programs created over the past year have certainly helped bring the financial markets back from the brink of collapse. But it is now time to set up a process for each lending facility to be fully audited by the GAO and reaffirm our commitment to openness and transparency whenever taxpayer dollars are used.

I am hopeful that we can move quickly to enact this important legislation, and I urge my colleagues to join us in this effort.