Career Ready Act of 2015

Mr. President, today I come to the floor to discuss the introduction of my latest legislative proposal to better control the harmful and volumes of polluted stormwater that is generated from our Nation's Federal aid highways. Highway stormwater is a growing threat to water quality, aquatic ecosystems and the fish and wildlife that depend on the health of these ecosystems. Moreover, the high volumes and rapid flow of stormwater runoff from highways and roads poses a very serious threat to the condition of our Nation's water and transportation infrastructure as well as personal property particularly in urban and suburban communities.

The Environmental Protection Agency has recognized that pollution from point sources have been steadily declining since the enactment of the Clean Water Act. Likewise, we have seen reductions in pollution from certain non-point sources like agriculture which are attributable in part to the success of a wide variety of USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service Programs and farming innovations in soil conservation and nutrient pollution management.

One non-point source sector where we are unfortunately seeing an increasing impact on water quality is from impervious surface that create rapidly moving high volumes of untreated polluted stormwater that rush off of road surfaces, erode unnatural channels next to and ultimately underneath roadways comprising the integrity of roadway infrastructure, and increases the stress on storm sewer systems shortening the useful life of this infrastructure and ultimately lead to the discharge of untreated pollution that is carried off roadways and into our lakes, rivers, streams, and coastal waters.

Impervious surfaces include most buildings and structures, parking lots and of course the nearly 9 million lane miles of roads across our country. The total coverage of impervious surfaces in an area is usually expressed as a percentage of the total land area.

The coverage increases with rising urbanization. In rural areas, impervious cover may only be 1 percent or 2 percent, however road surfaces comprise 80 percent-90 percent of a rural area's total impervious surfaces. In residential areas, impervious surface coverage ranges between 10 percent in low-density subdivisions to over 50 percent in more densely developed communities, where the composition of the impervious surface area coverage works out to be 50 percent roads. In dense urban areas, the impervious surface area is often over 90 percent the total land area, with roads comprising 60 percent-70 percent of that coverage.

According to EPA, urban impervious cover, not just roads, in the lower 48 adds up to 43,000 square miles--an area roughly the size of Ohio. Continuing development adds another quarter of a million acres each year. Typically two-thirds of the cover is pavement, roads and parking lots, and \1/3\ is buildings.

According to the Chesapeake Bay Program, impervious surfaces compose roughly 17 percent of all urban and suburban lands in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The greatest concentration of impervious surfaces in the bay watershed is in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Areas of DC, Maryland and Virginia. The Virginia Tidewater area, Philadelphia's western suburbs, and Lancaster, PA, are also regions in the watershed where impervious surfaces are greater than 10 percent of the total land area.

Rainfall on hard surfaces like roads and highways has a very destructive and turbulent affect on nearby waterways and infrastructure. For example, the rain events that occur over a week long period at the end of April brought nearly 8 inches of rain to the Baltimore-Washington region. The urban runoff from roads in Baltimore caused an embankment above the CSX railroad track along East 26th Street, between St. Paul and Charles Street, to collapse. Fortunately no one was injured though homes had to be evacuated for more than a month, nearly a dozen parked cars were destroyed and moreover movement of freight along CSX railroad was disrupted for more than a week. This event shows just how destructive and disruptive poorly managed stormwater from transportation infrastructure can be.

Some may chalk this up to a freak storm of unusually large proportion. It's true this storm was unusual, but so were the polar vortexes and all of the snow New England and Buffalo received this winter, and 2013's 3-mile wide tornado in Alabama, the ongoing drought in California. ``Unusual'' weather seems to becoming a lot more usual. As extreme weather events triggered by our changing climate become more frequent it is imperative that we incorporate better designs into our infrastructure to be better handle these types of events.

Under the Clean Water Act, stormwater is considered a non-point source and there are no requirements that stormwater be collected or treated. The exception being for localities where in order to meet the standards set in an MS4, Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, permit a region may include its transportation infrastructure in its MS4 permit.

However, in most cases stormwater that falls on roadways washes oil, grease, asbestos brake-dust, nitrogen deposits from tailpipe emissions, trash, road salt and de-icing agents, and sediment into nearby waterways. Highway stormwater runoff is most often not treated or adequately managed.

While these organic and inorganic contaminants are legitimate threats to water quality, the greater concern with roadway runoff is the sheer volume and rapid flow rate in which stormwater leaves these hard surfaces and enters our waterways. Flows and volumes that cause roads to collapse in Baltimore.

Roads are designed for stormwater to flow off of the driving surface quickly, for safety reasons. When stormwater rushes off of road surfaces into storm drains it is usually piped straight into the nearest river or stream without removing contaminants, detaining any of the volume, or slowing down the flow. This creates an enormously destructive set of circumstances for our waterways.

Another example of the destructive force that persistent unmitigated and poorly managed highway runoff can have on the condition and safety of highway infrastructure is in Mobile Alabama along Highway 131 in the Joe's Branch Watershed. The Mobile Bay Estuary Program, part of the National Estuaries Program, in coordination with Alabama Department of Transportation is having to spent millions of dollars to reinforce a highway embankment to keep the highway from slipping down a hill and into the Joe's Branch Creek, restore the hydrology of the river, and help protect private property from the dangerous erosion that's been caused by poorly managed stormwater from Highway 131.

The Mobile Bay Estuary Program described the problem this way: ``In the Joe's Branch watershed, on the property of Westminster Village adjacent and parallel to Highway 131, a head cut stream is eroding at an accelerating rate, an ominous condition as ALDOT prepares to undertake improvements to the highway. Identified as a high priority stabilization area in the D'Olive Creek, Tiawasee Creek and Joe's Branch Watershed Management Plan, MBNEP has submitted a funding request to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management on behalf of its partners in Spanish Fort, Daphne, ALDOT and Westminster Village to undertake restoration of the stream using a cutting-edge technology called Regenerative Step Pool Storm Conveyance.''

The four entities involved are spending large amount money to repair a problem caused by stormwater damage that could have been prevented at a lower cost by incorporating better stormwater mitigation facilities into the design of the highway.

These high-volume/high-speed flows also hasten the deterioration of water infrastructure. A 2001 study on the erosive power of urban stormwater flows examined how excessive stormwater volumes and flow rates off of urban surface infrastructure caused more than $1 million in roadway and water infrastructure damage in the Cincinnati metropolitan areas in Ohio and Kentucky in a single year.

While there are serious water quality concerns with not adequately controlling roadway infrastructure runoff, there are serious infrastructure costs, that are ultimately passed on to taxpayers and ratepayers, that can be avoided if transportation authorities do more to control and manage stormwater runoff with the infrastructure assets they manage and build.

The increased incidence of flash flooding events that occur even during seemingly mild and routine storm events is a direct result of the growing percentage of impervious land cover in urban and suburban communities. Replacement of the ``greenscapes'' that are lost to pavement is essential to restoring hydrological balance to our urban and suburban communities and impaired watersheds.

According to USGS: an inch of rain on one square foot of pavement produces 1.87 gallons of stormwater, Scaled up, 1 inch of rain on one acre would produce 27,150 gallons of stormwater. Using FHWA design standards for interstate highway lane and shoulder widths, 12 feet per lane, 10 foot right shoulder, 2x, 4 foot left shoulder, 2x, 10 miles of a four lane interstate highway generates nearly 2.5 million gallons of polluted stormwater for every inch of rain. To put that into perspective for the Potomac and Anacostia River Watersheds: The Capital Beltway, not including its 48 interchanges, generates nearly 30 million, 29,920,946, gallons of polluted stormwater for every inch of rain that falls on the 64 mile 8 to 12 lane interstate highway loop. It is volumes of stormwater like that which cause dangerous streambank erosion.

Gillies Creek is an urban waterway located East of Downtown Richmond. It is a tributary of the James River which flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Gillies Creek is surrounded by industrial and residential development and also receives stormwater from State highway 33, Interstate 64, US 60, and hundreds of city streets including Stony Run Parkway which directly adjacent to the creek for several miles.

The banks and bed of this creek have eroded so badly as urban development around the creek has added more impervious surfaces to the watershed that streambed sheering has created cliffs more than 10 feet tall at spots along the creek. Trees supporting the bank continually fall into the creek and nearby roadways and other infrastructure as well as homes and business are at risk. Reducing the impacts of the storms by mitigating the flow and volume of stormwater in this watershed will protect against further erosion and save the cost of repair and eventual replacement of the assets located along this endangered creek.

The aim of this legislation is to improve highway designs to better manage stormwater to avoid the costly damage that poorly managed stormwater causes to infrastructure and nearby streams, rivers and coastal waters.

I held a hearing on this issue in the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee on May 13, 2014. I heard many ideas from both the minority and majority witnesses that were invited to present testimony at this hearing. I listened to the concerns of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and I have incorporated provisions into this bill that should alleviate concerns they may have had with previous attempts to better control highway stormwater.

My bill's approach to highway runoff management is one that I hope my colleagues of both parties can support. First of all it put States in the driver's seat for developing hydrological analysis and implementation of best management practices to control highway runoff. The objective of the legislation is to control and manage flow and volume of stormwater from highways not to treat runoff in order to meet water quality standards. By taking this sort of approach we avoid EPA's involvement in the process. Lastly, States would only need to apply these procedures to new construction on major reconfiguration projects that significantly increases the amount of impervious surface in the project area.

Title 23 of the U.S. Code states: ``transportation should play a significant role in promoting economic growth, improving the environment, and sustaining the quality of life'' through the use of ``context sensitive solutions.'' In 2008, the Government Accountability Office issued a report examining key issues and challenges that needed to be addressed in the next reauthorization of the transportation bill. That report highlighted the clear link between transportation policy and the environment. With 985,139 miles of federal aid highways stretching from every corner of the US, polluted highway runoff is no small problem facing our Nation's waters. I would urge my colleagues to join me trying to address this problem facing America's waterways and infrastructure.

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

Mr. President, authorized under P.L. 105-312 in 1998 and reauthorized by P.L. 107-308 in 2002, the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network helps several million visitors and residents discover, enjoy, and learn about the special places and stories of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. Today, I am introducing legislation to permanently authorize this successful 17-year-old program.

For visitors and residents, the Gateways are the ``Chesapeake connection.'' The network members provide an experience of such high quality that visitors indeed connect to the Chesapeake emotionally as well as intellectually, and thus to the Bay's conservation. Through more than 160 of these sites, the Gateways Network partner sites and water trails enable visitors to experience the authentic Chesapeake.

The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure. The Chesapeake ranks as the largest of America's 130 estuaries and one of the Nation's largest and longest fresh water and estuarine systems. The Atlantic Ocean delivers half the bay's 18 trillion gallons of water and the other half flows through over 150 major rivers and streams draining 64,000 square miles within 6 states and the District of Columbia. The Chesapeake watershed is among the most significant cultural, natural and historical assets of our Nation.

The Chesapeake is enormously vast and diverse--to the extent that it is impossible to experience all the culture, history and natural beauty in any one place. That is why the gateways program is designed to connect and use the scores of existing public resources to collaborate on presenting the many chapters and tales of the bay's story. Visitors and residents go to more places for more experiences, all through a coordinated Gateways Network.

Beyond simply coordinating the network, publishing a map and guides, and providing standard exhibits at all Gateways, the National Park Service has helped gateways with matching grants and expertise for several hundred high-quality projects, developing sites to provide fishing, boating, and viewing access to the bay and its major tributaries. This is a great deal for the bay--it helps network members tell the Chesapeake story better and inspires people to care for this National Treasure, in addition to supporting local, State, and national water trails--and it's a good deal for the Park Service. It serves all 170+ gateways and their 10 million visitors. No other National Park can provide such a dramatic ratio of public dollars spent to number of visitors served.

With the National Park Service's expertise and support, gateways have made significant progress in their mission to tell the Bay's stories to their millions of members and visitors, extend access to the Bay and its watershed, and develop a conservation awareness and ethic. It is time to not only reauthorize the Chesapeake Gateways and Watertrails program, but make the annual $3 million reauthorization for this program permanent. It is my hope that the Congress will act quickly to adopt this legislation.

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

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act. More than half of the bird species found in the U.S. migrate across our borders and many of these spend our winter in Central and South America. This bill promotes international cooperation for long-term conservation, education, research, monitoring, and habitat protection for more than 350 species of neotropical migratory birds. Through its successful competitive, matching grant program, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supports public-private partnerships in countries mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean. Up to \1/4\ of the funds may be awarded for domestic projects.

This legislation aims to sustain healthy populations of migratory birds that are not only beautiful to look at but help our farmers by consuming billions of harmful insect and rodent pests each year, providing pollination services, and dispersing seeds. Migratory birds face threats from pesticide pollution, deforestation, sprawl, and invasive species that degrade their habitats in addition to the natural risks of their extended flights. Birds are excellent indicators of the health of an ecosystem. As such, it is troubling that, according to the National Audubon Society, half of all coastally migrating shorebirds, like the Common Tern and Piping Plover, are experiencing dramatic population declines.

The Baltimore Oriole, the State bird of Maryland and one whose song brightens all of the Northeastern U.S., has steadily declined in population despite being protected by federal law under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and the State of Maryland's Nongame and Endangered Species Conservation Act. Likewise, the iconic Red Knot bird, whose legendary 9,000 mile migration centers on a stopover in the Mid-Atlantic states, is decreasing in population quickly. Threats to these beloved Maryland birds are mainly due to habitat destruction and deforestation, particularly in the Central and South American countries where the birds winter. In addition, international use of toxic pesticides ingested by insects, which are then eaten by the birds, has significantly contributed to this decline. Conservation efforts in our country are essential, but investment in programs throughout the migratory route of these and countless other migratory birds is critical. This legislation accomplishes this goal.

The Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act has a proven track record of reversing habitat loss and advancing conservation strategies for the broad range of neotropical birds that populate the United States and the rest of the Western hemisphere. Since 2002, more than $50.1 million in grants have been awarded, supporting 451 projects in 36 countries. Partners have contributed an additional $190.6 million, and more than 3.7 million acres of habitat have been affected.

This legislation is cost-effective, budget-friendly, and has been a highly successful Federal program. This simple reauthorization bill will make sure that this good work continues.

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

Mr. President, today marks an important day in history as our Nation continues to honor the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. There are many landmarks in my hometown of Baltimore that are significant to Civil War history, which I believe are in the Nation's interests to protect for future generations. As our Nation pays tribute to this trying time in our Nation's history, I am proud to reintroduce the President Street Station Study Act, which would initiate the process for preserving one such landmark in the heart of Baltimore. President Street Station played a crucial role in the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, the growth of Baltimore's railroad industry, and is a historically significant landmark to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

The station was constructed for the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore, PW&B, Railroad in 1849 and remains the oldest surviving big city railroad terminal in the United States. This historical structure is a unique architectural gem, arguably the first example and last survivor of the early barrel-vault train shed arches, also known as the Howe Truss. The arch-rib design became the blueprint for railroad bridges and roofs well into the 20th century and was replicated for every similarly designed train shed and roof for the next 20 years.

The growth of President Street Station and the PW&B railroad mirror the expansion of the railroad industry throughout the country in the latter half of the 19th century. This station played an essential role in making Baltimore the first railroad and sea-rail link in the nation and helped the city become the international port hub it is today.

In its heyday, President Street Station was the key link connecting Washington, D.C. with the northeast States. Hundreds of passengers traveling north passed through this station and, by the start of the Civil War, Baltimore had become our Nation's major southern railroad hub. Not surprisingly, the station played a critical role in both the Civil War and the Underground Railroad.

Perhaps the most famous passenger to travel through the station was President Abraham Lincoln. He came through the station at least four times, including secretly on his way to his first inauguration in 1861. President-elect Lincoln was warned by a PW&B private detective of a possible assassination plot in Baltimore as he transferred trains. While it is unclear if this plot existed and posed a serious threat, Lincoln nevertheless was secretly smuggled aboard a train in the dead of night to complete his trip to Washington.

Just a few months later, President Street Station served as a backdrop for what many historians consider to be the first bloodshed of the Civil War. The Baltimore Riot of 1861 occurred when Lincoln called for Union volunteers to quell the rebellion at Fort Sumter in Charleston. On this day in history, April 19, 1861, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania volunteers were met and attacked by a mob of secessionist and Confederate sympathizers. The bloody confrontation left four dead and 36 wounded. As the war continued, the Station remained a critical link for the Union. Troops and supplies from the north were regularly shuttled through the station to support Union soldiers.

It is well known that Maryland was a common starting point along the Underground Railroad and that many escaped slaves from Maryland's Eastern Shore plantations were destined for Baltimore and the President Street Station to travel north to freedom. Last year, Congress acted to honor Maryland's own Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad's most famous ``conductor'' by enacting the Harriet Tubman National Historical Parks Act, establishing the first set of National Historical Parks to commemorate the life of an African American woman. While Harriet Tubman personally led dozens of people to freedom, her courage and fortitude also inspired others to find their own strength to seek freedom. President Street Station was indeed a station on this secret network. Prior to emancipation in 1863, several renowned escapees, including Frederick Douglass, William and Ellen Craft, and Henry ``Box'' Brown, traveled through the Station, risking their lives for a better and freer life.

Others' journeys for a better life also passed through President Street Station. From its beginning and into the 20th century, Baltimore was both a destination and departure point for immigrants. New arrivals from Ireland, Russia, and Europe arriving on the eastern seaboard traveled by way of the PW&B railroads to the west.

For decades, President Street Station has long been recognized as having an important place in history: In 1992, it was listed on the National Register of Historic places and the city of Baltimore has dedicated it a local historical landmark. For many years it served as the Baltimore Civil War Museum, educating generations of people about the role Maryland and Baltimore played in the Civil War and the early history of the city. In recent years, the museum, run by dedicated volunteers from the Maryland Historical Society and Friends of President Street Station, have struggled to keep the station's doors open and keeping the station's character true to its historical roots. The area around President Street Station has changed dramatically over the decades, but the Station has worked to preserve its place in place in history. It has been many years since trains passed through the President Street Station and it is clear that today the best use for this building is to preserve the building and use it to tell station's American story.

President Street Station is an American historical treasure. This bill authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a special resource study of President Street Station to evaluate the suitability and feasibility of establishing the Station as a unit of the National Park Service. President Street Station, a contributor to the growth of the railroad, and a vital player in the Underground Railroad, Lincoln Presidency and Civil War, is part of this history. I urge my colleagues to join me in giving this station the recognition it deserves and support this bill.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the Smarter Sentencing Act, which I believe is a very critical piece of legislation.

I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of this legislation in this Congress, and I thank the bipartisan coalition of Senators who have come together, led by Senator Mike Lee from Utah and Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois. Their leadership on this issue has been absolutely critical.

The Smarter Sentencing Act has essential front-end reforms. These are reforms for when a person gets to the point of incarceration. What they actually do is combat injustices in the Federal sentencing program. They address a real plague in our country; that is, mass incarceration.

Think about this: We are the land of the free. We are a nation that believes in liberty and justice. But we are singular in humanity for an awful distinction: We have 5 percent of the globe's population but we incarcerate 25 percent of the globe's incarcerated people. That is unacceptable unless you believe for some reason that Americans have a higher proclivity for crime, unless you believe we have something in our water that makes us more likely to do wrong, and that is not the case.

The challenge is that we have seen in the past three decades a profound over-incarceration driven by a drug war that has created unfortunate negative consequences to our society. I thank Members of Congress for stepping up in this Congress to speak to this issue. It is un-American that we should hold the largest amount of incarcerated people per population than any other country. It goes against the very strains of our society dedicated to liberty, dedicated to keeping government focused on what it should be doing, not overreaching, not becoming overly aggressive, not surrendering or taking the liberty unnecessarily of other Americans.

I would like to talk for a few minutes about this broken system. What is broken in our criminal justice system? Well, when about three- quarters of our Federal prisoners are actually nonviolent offenders--I am actually one of those people who believe that if you do a violent crime, you should pay a very hefty price for that, that we as a society should have a place where we take stern action against people who promulgate violence, who undermine civil society. But as we look at this mass-incarceration problem where 25 percent of the globe's prison population is in our country, we realize that three-quarters of those people in the Federal prison system are nonviolent offenders.

This is not our history. This is not our tradition. Over the course of all of our Nation's history, we did not have this problem. It has really been the last 30 years where we have witnessed the explosion in the U.S. Federal prison population. In those 30 years alone--think about this--in the last 30 years alone, the prison population at the Federal level has expanded by nearly 800 percent. That is a massive and unacceptable increase, especially when you realize this was driven by the incarceration of nonviolent offenders.

This expansion of our prison population had a harmful effect when those people were released because once someone has a nonviolent felony offense, it is hard to get a job, it is hard to get business licenses, and they cannot get Pell grants. Often those people get caught up and go back to being involved in the drug war. So what happens is that two out of three of those people get rearrested within 3 years.

We are paying for this broken system, this revolving door of arresting nonviolent offenders, releasing them, and bringing them back into our system. It is plaguing the Federal budget and, frankly, State budgets all around our country. Each year more than one-quarter of a trillion dollars is being spent on this broken criminal justice system--money that could be used to empower people to succeed, to repair our infrastructure, or, how about this, it could stay in taxpayers' pockets.

What makes this system worse is that it undermines our American ideals. As I look across the way from the Capitol Building where I stand now and see the Supreme Court, written above the Supreme Court building, at the top, is this ideal of equal justice under law. The ideal that everyone will be treated equally under the law. But this broken criminal justice system has disproportionately impacted certain Americans and not others, which undermines America's core values of fairness and equal treatment for all.

More than 60 percent of our prison system is comprised of racial and ethnic minorities. The painful reality is that if somehow African Americans or Latinos used drugs at different levels than Whites, that might explain the disparate impact. If they dealt drugs at different levels, yes, that might explain it. But that is not the case. African Americans engage in drug offenses at a lower rate than Whites but are incarcerated at a rate 10 times that of Whites.

What is alarming about the mass incarceration is that people are actually not committing more and more crimes. The National Research Council recently released a report confirming what numerous other studies have actually shown: Incarceration rates are actually not tied to crime rates. We have seen incarceration rates going up and up, but now crime rates are coming down.

What is perpetuating this explosion of our prison population? It is the war on drugs that has created over the last 30 years alone an over- criminalization of nonviolent individuals, which stacked our prison population full of Americans, disproportionately minority and disproportionately poor.

Please understand that the people paying the highest price for this are the poor in our country. The New York Times yesterday published an article detailing how our jails have become warehouses made up primarily of people too poor to pay bail or to hire lawyers or too ill with mental health or drug problems to adequately care for themselves. If you look at our prison population, you will see that poverty, race, mental illness--those are the folks who are being disproportionately incarcerated.

If we follow our core ideals of fairness, democracy, and justice-- then we know that mass incarceration is not who we are. That is not right. That the times demand that we examine this broken system and do those commonsense things that are needed to make our justice system just, to work first and foremost for our safety, to not be a gross waste of taxpayer dollars, and to make sure basic ideas of fairness are fulfilled.

This is not just speculation. And what is so powerful about this moment in time, even though all I have said so far is compelling enough, is that we as Federal actors--the 100 Senators here, the 435 Congress men and women, the President and the Vice President--don't need to figure out a way forward, make it up, design legislation based on our own ideas. We actually only have to look at the pathway forward by looking at Governors and legislatures in the States. They are so burdened by the costs of this unruly system, a system that is now plaguing--the Federal Bureau of Prisons is plaguing our country with its cost. What the States are doing to bear that cost is they are finding pragmatic, commonsense, bipartisan ways to move forward.

In fact, what gets me excited as a Democrat is that we just have to look at the red States and what the red States are doing to reduce their prison populations. Let me give an example. States such as Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina are leading on this issue, and the Federal Government should follow.

Texas is a State known for law and order, and known for being tough on crime. Yet Texans realize that being smart on crime means saving taxpayer dollars, using that money efficiently and effectively, lowering crime, and guess what, hey, we can also lower our prison population and empower people to be successful in life and not slip down that slope back toward recidivism. They have made tremendous strides in Texas in adopting policies that are designed to reduce their prison population and lower recidivism.

In 2007, Texas boasted the fourth largest incarceration rate in the country. Faced with a budget projection that estimated by 2012 the State would need an additional 17,000 prison beds--think about that for a second. They saw that they were going to need to build more prisons, house 17,000 more prison beds, and it was going to cost them $2 billion in Texas. The State's legislature said: Enough of this madness. Enough of this craziness.

They enacted bold reforms that would act as a model for us in the Federal legislature. As a result, they passed this broad-based legislation. Texas was able to stabilize their prison population and avert that budgetary disaster.

Texas State Representative Jerry Madden, a Republican, noted in a recent hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations that the crime rate is now at 1968 levels. They were able to close three prisons and six juvenile facilities, and remarkably the Texas prison system is now operating at a 96-percent capacity. Commonsense reforms.

Georgia is another State. They have made remarkable progress. They are showing that reducing the prison population can lead to dividends for taxpayers, and can lower crime. In fact, over the past 5 years, in terms of the racial disparities in incarceration, Georgia has reduced the number of Black men incarcerated in the State by 20 percent. And they haven't seen crime go up--quite the contrary. They have seen it go down.

These States are proving that they don't have to lock up more people to create that safety we desire. States such as New Jersey, Texas, California, Virginia, Hawaii, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Colorado, New York, South Carolina, Alaska, and Georgia have all seen drops in crime rates as they have been implementing commonsense criminal justice reform.

So let's be clear. I am advocating for the Smarter Sentencing Act, but we should also be moving for bold, broad-based criminal justice reforms, copying the successes of red States with Republican Governors. We should be looking at their innovations and following their commonsense solutions and mirroring their success at the Federal level.

I am speaking of reforms at the front end when people get arrested; reforms behind the wall--inside the prison system to address what goes on in prison and helping these people, and reforms on the back end when they come out of prison, to ensure they stay out of prison.

Front-end reforms going on around our country are exciting, such as sentencing reform. What about radical ideas such as letting judges make decisions about sentencing and stop trying to legislate it? Judges are the experts. They know of the brutality of a person's circumstances. They can design sentences.

These policy initiatives should address the entire system. Behind- the-wall efforts should focus on initiatives to change the way prisoners experience life behind bars. To get treatment and job training so they don't commit future crimes. This is commonsense stuff. We shouldn't send people to prison and have them become criminalized or undermine their ability to be successful adults when they come out.

We should also focus on that back end, this idea that we need reentry policies to help people get jobs, reconnect with their families, and become strong, full-fledged American citizens. I am speaking of things such as parole reform.

To move forward we need to think big. This is what I will be advocating for. We can tackle this by taking a systemic approach. We must look at a broad-based reform agenda.

I love the fact that we have conservatives and liberals united on this issue--Republicans and Democrats, red Staters and blue Staters. Criminal justice reform is not a partisan issue, it is an American issue.

In 2010, Senators on both sides of the aisle came together to improve our justice system by passing the Fair Sentencing Act, which the President signed into law. This was a bipartisan piece of legislation that reduced the sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine--drugs that are pharmacologically indistinguishable. They changed it from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1, and I thank Senators Durbin, Grassley, Leahy, and Graham for their leadership on this issue.

Last year I joined with Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky. I don't know how many sentences are used by people that contain the names Cory Booker and Rand Paul in them, but we agree on this issue. We have common ground, and we introduced the REDEEM Act. This legislation aims to keep juveniles out of the criminal justice system. We looked to stop acts that many other countries consider torture, such as taking juveniles and routinely putting them into solitary confinement where they are traumatized and often come out of those circumstances more likely to do harm to themselves or others. We are going to reintroduce that bill this year.

Just last month I sat on a criminal justice reform panel right here in the Halls of the Senate, hosted by Van Jones on the left and Newt Gingrich on the right. In the last few months I have talked to Grover Norquist, I have

talked to the Koch brothers' representative, their chief counsel, and I have talked to conservative think tanks and Christian evangelicals. All of us agree on this issue. This chorus of voices, this coalition, this courageous commitment to our country's ideals lets us know that whether you consider yourself a liberal or a conservative, whether you consider yourself moderate leaning, left or right, this is an area we can agree on. It will save taxpayer money, uphold our ideals of liberty and freedom, create safer communities, and empower individuals to be successful.

Today I am excited to have joined with Senators Lee, Durbin, Leahy, and Cruz to support the Smarter Sentencing Act. We need to have this conversation about reducing Federal mandatory minimums. In fact, I love that the Urban Institute has stated that mandatory minimums for drug offenses is the single largest factor in the growth of the Federal prison population.

Let me repeat that. Mandatory minimums for drug offenses are the single largest factor in the growth of the Federal prison population. A key factor in that 800-percent growth in the last 30 years has been driven by nonviolent drug offenders and mandatory minimums.

This bill also would do other things. It would expand the Federal safety valve, giving judges greater discretion and allowing them to hand out their sentences. Those people who believe in separation of powers, let the judiciary have more space to hand down fairer sentences and not shackle them with laws made by legislators who don't know the particulars of a case. Many Federal judges have spoken out about mandatory minimums being unnecessarily restrictive for them in doing their job.

The bill would also make the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive, which would allow persons convicted under the old crack-powder cocaine disparity to now receive a fairer sentence. With the crack-cocaine law changed in 2010, an individual arrested today would receive a lesser sentence. So making this law retroactive to impact people sentenced for crack cocaine offenses prior to 2010 is only fair.

This bill could save a lot of money--hundreds of millions of dollars. It would give us some freedom not only to return some toward debt relief for this country--Lord knows we need to focus on that--but also to invest in other programs many people on both sides of the aisle support, such as reentry programs to help people stay out of prison and get back to a productive lifestyle. If enacted into law as the bill is currently scored, it would save $3 billion over the next decade alone. This is critically important.

So this is a call to the conscience of the Congress. Every single day we pledge allegiance to our flag. That is not something anybody in this Chamber does as sort of a routine, perfunctory salute. We say those words because they mean something, and we end with this ideal that is a light to all of humanity--this ideal of liberty and justice for all.

If we mean those words, then that, across the board, is what we should be pursuing in this body. We know in our country States are doing things to further uphold these ideals, that they are making commonsense reforms that are keeping people safe and lowering crime, commonsense reforms that are saving taxpayer dollars and relieving the burden on taxpayers and budgets, that they are passing reforms that liberate people from the shackles of an imprisonment that is unnecessary, that is directly addressing the painful disparities of race and poverty, and that it is empowering Americans, our brothers and sisters. In all of our holy texts it talks about the dignity of all people, whether they are behind bars or on our streets, the dignity of worth that empowers people to be successful, to have life and liberty and to pursue their happiness.

So I say I support reforming our criminal justice system. More importantly, I say let's support our ideals. Let's be a nation of liberty and justice for all. Let's follow the lead of courageous governors and legislatures and let's make this Nation even better than it is today. I urge all Senators to promptly pass the Smarter Sentencing Act through the Senate.

Mr. President, I rise, along with my colleague Senator Sullivan, to introduce a bill to open a small portion of the arctic coastal plain, in my home State of Alaska, to oil and gas development. I am introducing this bill today because I strongly believe that whether oil and gas exploration should be conducted on a small portion of the coastal plain is a question for Congress; not one for unilateral action by Federal agency.

The 1.5 million acres of the Arctic coastal plain that lie within the non-wilderness portion of the 19 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are North America's greatest prospect for conventional onshore production. When Prudhoe Bay, the largest conventional oil field in North America and one of the 20 largest fields in the world was discovered in 1968, estimates at the time projected 9.6 billion barrels of oil would be recovered. The U.S. Geological Survey continues to estimate that this part of the coastal plain has a mean likelihood of containing 10.4 billion barrels of oil and 8.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, as well as a reasonable chance of economically producing 16 billion barrels of oil. With potential comparable to Prudhoe Bay, the coastal plain represents an opportunity to ensure the American energy renaissance continues and our domestic energy security is bolstered for decades to come.

Alaska used to provide that foundation for our country. At its peak in 1988, Alaska provided nearly 25 percent of America's domestic production. Today it represents barely 6 percent. Importantly, despite the Federal government owning almost 70 percent of the lands in Alaska, almost all of our oil production is from State lands. The people of Alaska are doing everything they can to contribute to America's energy security by promoting production from State lands. In the past two years the State of Alaska has passed oil tax reforms, improved State permitting and provided more than $1.2 billion in State tax credits to support the exploration and development of oil from State lands. The only production on federal estate comes from the Northstar project, a small man-made island that straddles state and federal waters in the Beaufort Sea.

For more than 30 years, my State has successfully balanced resource development with environmental protection. Alaskans have proven, over and over again, that these endeavors are not mutually exclusive, and with advances in technology, the footprint of development projects is only getting smaller. Yet as the Federal level, there is an astonishing refusal to acknowledge the record.

With new exploration and development projects on Federal lands stalled or outright blocked, Alaska faces a tipping point. The Trans- Alaska Pipeline System, an engineering marvel that has served as one of America's great energy arteries for decades is facing more and more challenges from lower throughput. A closure of TAPS would shut down all northern Alaska oil production, devastating Alaska's economy and deepening our dependence on unstable petrostates throughout the world. Exploration and development in the Arctic offshore and National Petroleum Reserve Alaska depend on the long-term viability of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

The bill I introduce today, would disturb no more than 2,000 acres of the vast coastal plain. To put this in perspective, 2,000 acres is less than \1/6\ the size of the local Dulles Airport, or about \1/10\ of 1 percent of the refuge. Since these areas are less than 60 miles from TAPS, development in the Coastal Plain is the quickest, most environmentally sound way to increase oil production in Alaska and ensure the pipeline will operate well into the future, providing jobs and supporting the economies of both Alaska and the United States.

The bill includes strong protection for fish and wildlife, fish and wildlife habitat, subsistence resources, and the environment. Development would not move forward if it would cause significant adverse impacts to the coastal plain. The bill also ensures these protections are strong because it provides for strict consultation with the residents of the coastal plain; the City of Kaktovik as well as the regional government, the North Slope Borough. The bill also provides important impact aid to the local communities from the State's share of revenues due to it under the Mineral Leasing Act and Alaska's Statehood Act.

As we continue to struggle with long-term unemployment, and an unsustainable national debt, we need to pursue development opportunities more than ever. The shale oil and gas boom on 2 state and private lands in the Lower 48 has been the shining light as our economy struggles to recover from the recession. My bill offers us a chance to produce more of our own energy, for the good of the American people, in an environmentally-friendly way and with the meaningful impact of the local people.

For decades, Alaskans, whom polls show overwhelmingly support development of the coastal plain, have been asking permission to explore and develop the resources located there. Consistent with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, ANILCA, the state of Alaska recently submitted a plan to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct minimal exploration activities in the coastal plain and was rejected. Despite the fact that the State was in court presenting its case, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released an updated Plan for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that puts areas like the Coastal Plain in de facto wilderness status as Wilderness Study Areas.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service states that they did not consider an oil and gas alternative, as requested by the State of Alaska, North Slope Borough, various Alaska Native Regional and Village Corporations as well as a broad spectrum of Alaskans, because they stated that the decision to conduct oil and gas development is one for Congress to make. I hope this Congress will rise to that challenge and have the common sense to allow America to help itself by developing a small portion of the coastal plain. This is critical to my State and the nation as a whole and one more step we can take to push back against the unilateral executive actions that are threatening our economy and very system of government.

With this in mind, Senator Sullivan and I will work to educate members of this chamber about the opportunity we have and the tremendous benefits it would provide. We will show why such development should occur--why it must occur--and how it can benefit all of us and help secure our energy security for decades to come.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss our country's relationship with Cuba. I have long advocated modernizing our relationship

with Cuba. The current embargo has been in place for 50 years, and it has greatly constrained opportunities for American businesses by restricting commerce, by restricting our exports--things that are made in America--from going to a place that is only 90 miles off our shores and has 11 million people.

That is why today I introduce the bipartisan Freedom to Export to Cuba Act with Senators Enzi, Stabenow, Flake, Leahy, and Durbin. This bill lifts the trade embargo on Cuba and knocks down the legal barriers to Americans doing business in Cuba. This bill will help open up new economic opportunities for American businesses, which will mean more jobs. It will also boost opportunities for farmers--something the Chair knows well coming from the State of North Dakota, as we know well in the State of Minnesota. This will also allow Cubans to have access to these products, which we believe is good for their country, good for their people so that they can become a different country.

Freeing our businesses to pursue opportunities for development could greatly help the people of Cuba. Consider for example that Cuba only has a 2G cellular network and that only about one-fourth of the population has Internet access. Ultimately, I believe this legislation will help usher in a new era for Americans and Cubans shaped by opportunities for the future rather than simply a story of the past.

The process the President has jump-started to normalize our ties with Cuba is a positive step forward. My home State of Minnesota exported about $20 million in agricultural products to Cuba in 2013. I think people are surprised by that, but as many of us know, there are humanitarian exceptions to the current embargo. So our country is already exporting, and my State alone exported $20 million in products. With the President's action alone, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture estimates that exports could increase by another $20 million. The United States is already the fourth largest source of imports to Cuba based solely on authorized shipments of agriculture and medical supplies. Over the past decade we have been one of Cuba's top suppliers of food products. So it is not as if we don't already do business there, but unlike every other country, including our own neighbor to the north, Canada, we hamstring our businesses seeking to export their products there. Export and travel restrictions have continued to prevent Americans from seeking opportunities in Cuba, and the embargo prevents Cubans from obtaining food and other goods we take for granted in our country.

Cuban human rights activist Yoani Sanchez wrote:

It is impossible for Cubans to buy staples like eggs or

cooking oil without turning to the underground market.

Rationing forces people to stand in line for hours for

poultry and fish. On the Cuban government's 50th anniversary

in 2009, it provided families with an extra half pound of

ground beef, but that beef was not from the U.S. It was

sponsored by the Venezuelan government . . . a meager gift

nicknamed ``Hugo Chavez's Hamburger'' by everyday Cubans.

I say it is time for America to stop ceding credit for the hamburger to Venezuela. It is time that we made our hamburger accessible in Cuba. The Freedom to Export to Cuba Act will help us do that. It is simply a targeted repeal of the provisions in current law that keep the embargo in place, including restrictions that prevent American businesses from financing their own exports to the island and requirements for American farms to seek special licenses for any transaction with Cuba.

It is also important to emphasize what this bill does not do. There are many outstanding issues that many of my colleagues have discussed between our two countries that must be dealt with, especially our concerns about the Cuban Government's repressive policies. That is why this bill does not repeal provisions of current law that address human rights in Cuba or that allow individuals and businesses to pursue claims against the Cuban Government for property.

None of us is under any illusion about the nature of the Cuban Government. The Cuban Government must take serious steps to reform politically and economically. It must free political prisoners and stop arbitrarily arresting people for political speech. It must also take steps to liberalize its state-centric economic system if it truly hopes to allow its people to prosper and to benefit from growing commerce with the United States.

We do not minimize the importance of those issues, but we also know the embargo has not helped to solve them. Members on both sides of the aisle recognize that continuing along the same path with respect to Cuba has not achieved our objectives and in fact has constrained Americans' freedom to pursue business opportunities abroad. It has hindered our freedom to travel, which is why I also cosponsored the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act recently introduced by Senator Flake.

Both that bill and the Freedom to Export to Cuba Act that I have introduced today with a bipartisan group of Senators shows that we can work together in this new Congress to support a commonsense relationship between the United States and Cuba.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation. It is a chance to build on our current progress and take additional actions to forge a practical and positive relationship with the people of Cuba and the people of America.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Fire- Damaged Home Rebuilding Act.

This legislation is simple. It allows families living in federally- designated flood plains to rebuild their home in the event it is destroyed by a fire.

The bill allows communities to waive requirements that were meant to block reconstruction after floods, but which have been applied to block reconstruction of homes after fires and other natural disasters as well.

I was first made aware of this issue by a constituent from Sacramento, Jennifer Taylor. Her home in the Natomas neighborhood burned down, and she was denied when she applied for a permit to rebuild it. The county informed her that Federal floodplain regulations required her to elevate the home 20 feet above ground level because of existing deficiencies in the levee protecting her neighborhood.

Can you imagine what that would look like? Every house in the neighborhood at ground level, and one home towering 20 feet above the rest?

More importantly though, the cost would be exorbitant, and would not be covered by her insurance. Instead, the cost would be imposed on a family trying to get back on its feet after a personal tragedy.

When the home burned down, the family collected $71,000 from their insurance company. Contractors estimated the cost to restore the home to its original condition was $170,000--a significant burden, but one the family was willing to bear.

But when the family factored in the cost of elevating their home 20 feet, the cost skyrocketed. Contractors estimated the elevation project would cost an additional $200,000.

Just to restore their home to its previous size and condition, the family would owe $300,000 more than what they received from their insurance.

There is a fundamental issue of fairness at stake.

This family tragically lost their home and many of their personal belongings. But instead of helping the family during this difficult time, the Federal Government is instead blocking them from rebuilding. Why? Because the Federal Government has failed to maintain adequate flood protection.

It just doesn't seem fair.

The Fire-Damaged Home Rebuilding Act addresses this issue by allowing local communities to grant variances to federal flood plain regulations without jeopardizing their participation in the program.

The legislation allows waivers to be granted only if all of the following conditions are met: communities must already have taken steps to repair damaged levees, such as seeking Federal authorization of a levee project, and there must be previously existing plans to obtain the requisite 100-year flood protection in the near future.

The destroyed house must be within a deep floodplain where it would be too expensive and unsightly to elevate the home.

The new home must be built within the footprint of the destroyed structure.

The homeowner cannot qualify for new insurance discounts; and the property has never been associated with a claim to the National Flood Insurance Program.

These limitations will only allow families to rebuild very limited circumstances after tragedy strikes that is unrelated to a flooding event. The number of waivers local governments can approve is capped at ten per year so that this authority is not subject to abuse. This limit will ensure that waivers are used prudently and sparingly.

I strongly oppose new development in the flood plain. It is irresponsible to permit new homes or businesses to be constructed without adequate mitigation in an area where you know that flooding is likely.

The Federal floodplain regulations were put in place to block individual homeowners from voluntarily renovating and improving their homes. They were also designed to block homeowners from rebuilding after a flood. By doing so, the Federal Government limits its liability for future flood insurance claims.

Fire-damaged homes clearly represent an exception to these circumstances, however. So we need to adjust the law to eliminate an unfortunate and unintended consequence of an otherwise good policy.

City and county governments must be empowered to make case by case judgments about whether it makes sense to elevate damaged structures by 10, 15, or 20 feet when the rest of the neighborhood remains at ground level.

That is exactly what the Fire-Damaged Home Reconstruction Act does. It provides limited authority to local governments, which will allow them to do what makes sense for their communities and will allow families to rebuild after a fire or other non-flood disaster.

This is a commonsense piece of legislation and I hope my colleagues will work to quickly adopt the bill.