Mr. President, today it is my honor to introduce a bill that would create the U.S. Citrus Disease Research and Development Trust Fund. I am joined in this effort by my good friends, and fellow…
Mr. President, today it is my honor to introduce a bill that would create the U.S. Citrus Disease Research and Development Trust Fund. I am joined in this effort by my good friends, and fellow ``Citrus State Senators''--Sen. John Cornyn of
Texas and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.
By introducing this bill, it is our collective goal to create a guaranteed source of funding for scientific research aimed at addressing diseases, invasive pests, and other challenges faced by the U.S. citrus industry. Most importantly, the scientific research supported by my bill would benefit all citrus producers, regardless of where the citrus is growing.
Citrus growers in the U.S. shouldn't have to ask themselves if this is the year a disease or a pest will wipe them out. That's why having a permanent fund to help combat these threats just makes a lot of sense.
The most serious of these threats is citrus greening, a disease which kills the citrus tree and is spread by the Asian citrus psyllid, an insect no bigger than my fingernail. Because it attacks the tree and because it is so easily spread, this disease has the ability to wipe out the entire citrus industry.
My bill does not require new funding or create any new taxes--it is funded by a portion of the existing import duties collected from imported citrus products. Specifically, the total amount of the fund may not exceed $30 million dollars annually, which is only about half of the total duties presently collected on imported citrus products.
My bill is based on the model established by the Wool Trust Fund and adopts oversight and administrative controls for similar programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
I look forward to working with my colleagues to see that this bill is signed into law.
Mr. President, we are now on the 84th day of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Along with the over 175 million gallons of oil and natural gas that have gushed into the gulf, over 1 million gallons of dispersants have been applied, with 700,000 gallons applied under the surface of the water. This is a method of using dispersants that has been likened to a science experiment.
With each passing day, we see new images of oil washing up on the shores, onto our beaches, into the wetlands, coating the wildlife. We have all seen it on television, and it is heartbreaking. But I worry more about something else, something we do not see. For 2 months now, academics, the media, and the public have asked about the possibility of vast amounts of oil miles away from the location of the spill.
Independent scientists from research institutions in my State, such as the University of South Florida and Florida State University, took to the water early on. They sent their own research vessels out there to find the answers. What they found confirmed the fears we have--what we do not see, and that is detectable amounts of oil and hydrocarbons impacting areas away from the spill. These hydrocarbons may not look like what we imagined. We imagined ominous black clouds. But, in fact, what scientists pulled up from different depths in their water samples often came up clear, but just because you can't see the oil doesn't mean it is not there and it doesn't mean it is not having an impact.
A few weeks ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its first report on subsea oil. Our top ocean science agency has been working to understand the impacts of subsurface hydrocarbons. While there is now some publicly available information on subsurface oil, many unanswered questions remain. Is the subsurface oil down there, and especially that which you can't see? Is it there because of the use of dispersants? Does the large amount of pressure caused by the weight of the water column at such depths--as far as 5,000 feet--lead to these plumes of oil being subsurface? What is the effect of having oil and gas throughout the water column as opposed to the oil floating on the surface?
I believe it took so long to get any information because this is something we simply have not seen before. The last time this country dealt with a spill even near this magnitude was the Exxon Valdez spill. But that was a tanker that leaked in a bay where all the oil was in the upper layers of the water column. The oil basically stayed afloat. Here, we have a situation where the oil is being released 5,000 feet below the surface of the gulf. It is being sprayed with dispersants, and that keeps much of it down in that fragile environment and away from view. But, of course, the many organisms that live down at those depths are the base of the food web, and the impact of the dissolved and dispersed hydrocarbons on these critters is simply unknown.
We haven't even begun to deal with the question of the natural gas that is also spewing out of the well. Some have estimated that as much as half of the volume coming out of the well is actually natural gas. Some of that is very probably dissolving, and it is possible that most of it is dissolving. But who knows how these chemicals are interacting with it? If any of the natural gas is bubbling to the surface, it could pose a threat to the health and the safety of wildlife, and it could pose a health hazard to humans on the surface of the gulf.
As a result of all of this and so that we learn from this situation so we don't keep doing this same thing over and over, I am introducing the Subsea Hydrocarbon Imagery and Planning Act. This bill will address some of these gaps in our knowledge and understanding of what happens when oil and natural gas are released under the ocean.
This bill will direct NOAA to review its current protocols for detecting and mapping subsea hydrocarbons. It would require them to develop priorities and to adopt a plan for the future by implementing a program within the Office of Response and Restoration dedicated to mapping subsea hydrocarbons and releasing what their trajectories are. State and local governments and the American people should have access to this information so they can plan accordingly. NOAA itself needs this information for incorporation into its protocols for closing and opening fisheries. And the people in charge of managing this crisis need this information so they can make informed decisions about how to proceed.
We are in the midst, as we know, of hurricane season. While we have not seen this subsea oil with our eyes yet, a hurricane could make that worst-case scenario a reality.
Last week, during the recess, I spent some time with some of Florida's best and brightest scientists who are studying this spill.
I spoke with researchers from Florida Gulf Coast University, Mote Marine Laboratory, and the University of Miami's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing. These institutions might have the technology and expertise that could be used to detect and monitor subsea oil and gas and measure its impact on fragile marine environments.
As we look to the future and as we are getting NOAA to adopt a plan, that is a plan we need. This legislation--the Subsea Hydrocarbon Imagery and Planning Act--will ensure that days in the future we will not wonder how much oil and gas is out there, where it is, where it is going, and what its impacts will be because we will know.
I hope my colleagues in the Senate are going to support this effort. Clearly, with what is going on, this well needs to be killed. There are 60,000 barrels of oil a day gushing into the gulf, and this has been going on now closing in on 3 months.
Until the time the well is killed, they will continue to try to siphon off as much as possible, and that is the process they are doing now. They took off that one cap. All of that oil is gushing. They are going to try to put on another cap that will have a tighter seal that they can get more to the surface.
In the meantime, all that oil on the surface--we have the skimmers-- we need to skim off and keep it from reaching the shore. If it gets on the beach, that is one thing. We can get it off the beach. It harms all of the industries. It harms tourism. Clearly, the perception that there is oil harms fishing. But the real ecological damage is when it gets past the beach and it gets into the bays, the estuaries, and the marsh grasses. Then it is so difficult to get out and it all the more compounds the impact on the critters.
No. 1, kill the well. No. 2, scoop as much as we can get off the surface to
keep it away from the shore. But No. 3, the big unknown is how much oil is underneath the surface and what is its long-term effect on the health of the gulf and on the entire ecological balance of the Gulf of Mexico and, indeed, other waters that could be affected, such as the Loop Current that turns into the gulf stream and that goes into the Atlantic.
That is the big unknown, and that is what we are asking NOAA to do. That is why I am introducing this legislation.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
