Clean Coasts Act

Mr. President, tomorrow marks another somber occasion. Eight years ago, the news ticker came across our televisions saying that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Louisiana, was on fire, the Coast Guard was on the scene, and workers were missing.

It was a Tuesday night. It was nearly midnight on April 20, 2010. By morning light, we knew 11 men would not be going home again. For 87 days, the oil gushed into one of the most productive marine environments in the world. The studies show the oil impacted the deepwater corals and fish at the bottom of the food chain, all the way from the bottom up to the dolphins and sea turtles at the top.

Here is one example. This is one in the bayous. You can see the marsh grasses in the distance. You can see the oil as it is coming up, and it is literally covering everything. They did studies on fish that would be in a bayou like this. A little fish, about as big is this, is called a killifish. LSU professors did this study, and they compared them to the bayous where there was not this kind of oil, compared it to similar killifish. What they found over time was the little fish in bayous like this were stunted. They didn't reproduce. They mutated because of this.

Nearly 5 million barrels of oil gushed for 3 months. A lot of it is still there. Some of it is at the bottom where that well was, and that wellhead on the sea floor below the rig was a mile deep. We worked as one gulf community in a bipartisan way. We passed legislation--it was called the RESTORE Act--to send a message that there were going to be fines and penalties under the Clean Water Act. So many barrels of oil, a figure, and then the culpability of the oil company that allowed it to happen. A Federal judge did an extended trial over several years and came up with that fine and that penalty. The RESTORE Act said that money that was going to be assessed against the oil company was going back to the Gulf of Mexico region, and it was going to aid in the economy and in the environment.

There was another impact. The winds caught that oil slick and started sending it east from Louisiana, and it got over to the white sugary sands of Pensacola Beach in Destin and tar balls as far east as Panama City Beach. Those white sands were completely covered in tar and oil. Those photographs of Pensacola Beach went around the world. What was the result? Our guests, our visitors, our tourists, for an entire season, thought all of the Gulf of Mexico beaches along Florida were covered like Pensacola Beach was, and they didn't come for the entire year. Not only did you have an environmental effect like this, you had an economic effect like the loss of tourist revenue in the hotels, motels, the restaurants, the dry cleaners, the little newspapers, and all the ancillary businesses that depend upon a $60 billion-a-year tourist industry in Florida. Still, I am afraid the oil industry hopes we have forgotten all of this.

This month, the media released documents from 2016 in which BP claims that an oilspill can be a welcomed boost to local economies. Can you believe that? This oilspill was in 2010. In 2016, we have just uncovered documents that BP claimed that an oilspill can be ``a welcome boost to local economies.'' How outrageous and how arrogant. I can assure you, the coastal communities of Florida vigorously disagree, and I bet you the coastal communities that had to put up with that in their bayous would disagree vigorously as well.

All that progress, and yet the industry is relentless in wanting to take us backward. They still want to open up Florida's beaches and offshore to drilling, and we have to fight it every day.

The one thing we also have going for us is, the Gulf of Mexico, off of Florida, is the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world. This Senator just climbed into an Air Force jet to fly part of the training profile for young pilots, knowing they have restricted airspace. That was out of Eglin Air Force Base--the testing and training designee for all of the Department of Defense. We have a range that goes from the Panhandle of Florida all the way south in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Key West. In a one-angle shot, they can shoot sophisticated, long-range weapons 600 miles to do the testing.

Big Oil is now trying to roll back some of the basic safety rules that were put in place after the disaster in order to prevent another tragedy. It is happening in front of our eyes. Two years ago, they said that an oilspill could be a welcome boost to the local economies. Yet they are rolling back safety rules today that were put in place in the aftermath of there being 11 people killed on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. They are rolling that back today in this administration's agencies.

That is why I am joining Senator Cantwell and other colleagues in introducing legislation to codify these sensible safety measures, like those designed to update the standards for blowout preventers and a requirement for a third party to certify the safety mechanisms.

Let me explain what a blowout preventer is. It didn't work in the Deepwater Horizon oilspill. A mile below the surface, where the well comes out of the Earth, there is a thing called a blowout preventer. If, as happened, there is a blowout in BP's oil well, there is a mechanism that is supposed to safely cut the oil line--pinch it and stop it from flowing. It was faulty. It did not work. So there have been new standards for blowout preventers since 2010. In 2018, 8 years later, the oil industry is trying to roll back those safety requirements that were put in place in the aftermath of their spilling 5 million barrels of oil into the gulf.

Do you see the fight that we have? It is almost every week. We can't allow the Department of the Interior to take us backward in time and expose our beautiful beaches and our tourism-based local economies, as well as our military, to another Deepwater Horizon-type catastrophe if they keep pushing back these safety rules.

That is the purpose of introducing this legislation today with Senator Cantwell. If we don't watch it, we are going to be right back in the same place we were 8 years ago. It will be 8 years ago to the day tomorrow that we had that awful experience.

Mr. President, tomorrow marks another somber occasion. Eight years ago, the news ticker came across our televisions saying that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Louisiana, was on fire, the Coast Guard was on the scene, and workers were missing.

It was a Tuesday night. It was nearly midnight on April 20, 2010. By morning light, we knew 11 men would not be going home again. For 87 days, the oil gushed into one of the most productive marine environments in the world. The studies show the oil impacted the deepwater corals and fish at the bottom of the food chain, all the way from the bottom up to the dolphins and sea turtles at the top.

Here is one example. This is one in the bayous. You can see the marsh grasses in the distance. You can see the oil as it is coming up, and it is literally covering everything. They did studies on fish that would be in a bayou like this. A little fish, about as big is this, is called a killifish. LSU professors did this study, and they compared them to the bayous where there was not this kind of oil, compared it to similar killifish. What they found over time was the little fish in bayous like this were stunted. They didn't reproduce. They mutated because of this.

Nearly 5 million barrels of oil gushed for 3 months. A lot of it is still there. Some of it is at the bottom where that well was, and that wellhead on the sea floor below the rig was a mile deep. We worked as one gulf community in a bipartisan way. We passed legislation--it was called the RESTORE Act--to send a message that there were going to be fines and penalties under the Clean Water Act. So many barrels of oil, a figure, and then the culpability of the oil company that allowed it to happen. A Federal judge did an extended trial over several years and came up with that fine and that penalty. The RESTORE Act said that money that was going to be assessed against the oil company was going back to the Gulf of Mexico region, and it was going to aid in the economy and in the environment.

There was another impact. The winds caught that oil slick and started sending it east from Louisiana, and it got over to the white sugary sands of Pensacola Beach in Destin and tar balls as far east as Panama City Beach. Those white sands were completely covered in tar and oil. Those photographs of Pensacola Beach went around the world. What was the result? Our guests, our visitors, our tourists, for an entire season, thought all of the Gulf of Mexico beaches along Florida were covered like Pensacola Beach was, and they didn't come for the entire year. Not only did you have an environmental effect like this, you had an economic effect like the loss of tourist revenue in the hotels, motels, the restaurants, the dry cleaners, the little newspapers, and all the ancillary businesses that depend upon a $60 billion-a-year tourist industry in Florida. Still, I am afraid the oil industry hopes we have forgotten all of this.

This month, the media released documents from 2016 in which BP claims that an oilspill can be a welcomed boost to local economies. Can you believe that? This oilspill was in 2010. In 2016, we have just uncovered documents that BP claimed that an oilspill can be ``a welcome boost to local economies.'' How outrageous and how arrogant. I can assure you, the coastal communities of Florida vigorously disagree, and I bet you the coastal communities that had to put up with that in their bayous would disagree vigorously as well.

All that progress, and yet the industry is relentless in wanting to take us backward. They still want to open up Florida's beaches and offshore to drilling, and we have to fight it every day.

The one thing we also have going for us is, the Gulf of Mexico, off of Florida, is the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world. This Senator just climbed into an Air Force jet to fly part of the training profile for young pilots, knowing they have restricted airspace. That was out of Eglin Air Force Base--the testing and training designee for all of the Department of Defense. We have a range that goes from the Panhandle of Florida all the way south in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Key West. In a one-angle shot, they can shoot sophisticated, long-range weapons 600 miles to do the testing.

Big Oil is now trying to roll back some of the basic safety rules that were put in place after the disaster in order to prevent another tragedy. It is happening in front of our eyes. Two years ago, they said that an oilspill could be a welcome boost to the local economies. Yet they are rolling back safety rules today that were put in place in the aftermath of there being 11 people killed on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. They are rolling that back today in this administration's agencies.

That is why I am joining Senator Cantwell and other colleagues in introducing legislation to codify these sensible safety measures, like those designed to update the standards for blowout preventers and a requirement for a third party to certify the safety mechanisms.

Let me explain what a blowout preventer is. It didn't work in the Deepwater Horizon oilspill. A mile below the surface, where the well comes out of the Earth, there is a thing called a blowout preventer. If, as happened, there is a blowout in BP's oil well, there is a mechanism that is supposed to safely cut the oil line--pinch it and stop it from flowing. It was faulty. It did not work. So there have been new standards for blowout preventers since 2010. In 2018, 8 years later, the oil industry is trying to roll back those safety requirements that were put in place in the aftermath of their spilling 5 million barrels of oil into the gulf.

Do you see the fight that we have? It is almost every week. We can't allow the Department of the Interior to take us backward in time and expose our beautiful beaches and our tourism-based local economies, as well as our military, to another Deepwater Horizon-type catastrophe if they keep pushing back these safety rules.

That is the purpose of introducing this legislation today with Senator Cantwell. If we don't watch it, we are going to be right back in the same place we were 8 years ago. It will be 8 years ago to the day tomorrow that we had that awful experience.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, we are on the nomination of Congressman Bridenstine to be the new Administrator at NASA. I want to tie it into what I will talk about in a moment because it comes down to Presidential appointments and the problems we are running into with regard to them.

I was not enthused by the nomination. It is nothing personal against Mr. Bridenstine. I feel that NASA is an organization that needs to be led by a space professional. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago, the Acting Administrator resigned--or, I should say, retired. His last day on the job is the 30th. So it leaves us with the prospect of this incredibly important agency for Florida and the country with a vacancy in its top job. We are on our second Acting Administrator. If one were to do the math, even if Congressman Bridenstine were to withdraw and a new vetting process were to begin for a new nominee, by the time it would work its way through the administration, the committee process, and the floor, the way things are going here, we could be into February-March, at the earliest, of next year. There is no way NASA can go 2 years and X number of months without having a permanent Administrator.

One makes these decisions always under the context that a President should have significant discretion in picking the team. Whether you like it or not, millions of Americans last year voted for the President. He was elected, and he has a right to govern. In 4 years--in less than 4 years now, in 2\1/2\ years--the American people will have the chance, once again, through our democratic process, to opine on whether or not they will want him to have a second term. Our job here is to provide advice and consent. We are to analyze these nominees and determine whether or not we want to support them.

My view of it is, as has been the tradition of the Senate for the entire existence of the Republic, that we give great deference to the President on choosing the qualifications. We want to make sure that people are qualified and that there is nothing about them that would disqualify them. It is my view that the more important the job the more discretion the President deserves. It is why, although I had significant reservations about the nomination of Secretary Tillerson, I decided to support it, because I believed the President deserved significant discretion. When you get to the subsecretaries and the like, I think that discretion diminishes.

It is what has led me to decide to support Congressman Bridenstine, despite my reservations, and it is what, I hope, will lead my colleagues--at least a sufficient number--to support the nomination of Mike Pompeo to be the Secretary of State.

Let me read you some of the previous votes we have had here in the Senate. All but one of them predates my service.

Colin Powell was confirmed by a voice vote, which is almost unimaginable in a 21st century Senate, but in 2001, on January 20, by a unanimous voice vote, he was confirmed as the Secretary of State.

A few years later, in 2005, Condoleezza Rice was confirmed as Secretary of State by a vote of 85 to 13. Now, it was still 13 noes, but, nonetheless, it was 85 yeses. I assure you that not everyone who voted for her was happy about her nomination. People didn't necessarily agree with her. One of the people who supported her, I believe, was future President Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton was nominated and confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 94 to 2, and I promise you that a significant number of the Members on my side of the aisle may have respected Secretary Clinton but strongly disagreed with her and her views on a number of issues, but, nonetheless, they felt the President deserved to have his nominee.

When she resigned, her replacement was then-Senator Kerry, who was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, with whom I had significant policy disagreements in the Senate and during his time as Secretary of State. Yet I, along with 93 other Members of the Senate, supported his nomination, and he was confirmed.

Madam President, it is hard to believe, but the entire island of Puerto Rico yesterday descended into darkness. An excavation happened to hit a main line that cut out the electricity of the entire island--3\1/2\ million people--an island that is not a small island; it is a large island. It was a total blackout. Now, 24 hours later, a large number of the people on the island are still in the dark.

Tomorrow marks 7 months since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, and yet Puerto Ricans are still dealing with constant setbacks and unreliable power. This is simply unacceptable.

Senator Rubio and I have asked the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Committee to conduct an additional oversight hearing on the overall hurricane recovery and get to the bottom of this. I understand this

hearing will likely take place next month.

In the meantime, this is a widespread power outage. It is the latest example of why so many people who were forced to leave the island after the storm haven't been able to return home, even though they want to. Yet, despite all the island's ongoing troubles, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, said this week it is going to terminate the transitional shelter assistance for more than 1,600 families across the United States, and 600 of them are in my State of Florida. It doesn't make sense. For too many of these displaced families, the only thing keeping a roof over their head right now is the FEMA program, and it is transitional housing assistance. What that means is, they are either in hotels or motels and, in some cases, apartments, where FEMA is providing them temporary shelter because they have been displaced from their homes; in this case, the island of Puerto Rico.

Storms like Hurricane Maria did this to the island of Puerto Rico. We have a responsibility to provide them with all the assistance we can. Senator Rubio and I sent a letter to the FEMA Administrator and to Governor Rossello, the Governor of Puerto Rico, urging them to work together to extend this vital program. At the very least, because there are so many of these families who have children in school, to extend it to the end of the school year so the family doesn't have to be uprooted while their child is still in school.

I am happy to report that Governor Rossello has made that formal request to FEMA. The deadline is tomorrow. Hopefully, FEMA is listening to the Governor and to the pleas of Senator Rubio and me as well because students and families have had endless disruptions and need some semblance of stability so they can finish out the year.

The hard fact is this. The situation in Puerto Rico is far from over. These are our fellow U.S. American citizens, and they desperately need our help. We should be providing them with all the help we can.

Mr. President, I want to speak on another topic.

(The remarks of Senator Nelson pertaining to the introduction of S. 2720 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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