Arctic Policy Act of 2018

Mr. President, there has been a lot of discussion this evening by my colleague from New Jersey and by my colleague from Rhode Island about the issue of climate change and its impact. I come from a part of the country where climate change is there; it is with us; it is real. It is something that we look to as Alaskans with a reality of this world view.

I spend a lot of my time here in the Senate focused on not only the U.S. Arctic but the Arctic as a whole, the eight Arctic nations that we intersect with. So I would like to take a few minutes this evening to speak about the happenings in the Arctic--our new reality--as we are seeing greater opportunities but also greater challenges in an area that I find to be an extraordinary place on our globe.

It was maybe a little more than 150 years ago when Massachusetts Senator and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, Charles Sumner, argued the geostrategic importance of Alaska to our young Nation at the time. Senator Sumner spoke about how the Aleutians represented this gateway to Asia. This was a maritime route to the west coast that was roughly 1,000 miles shorter than the southern route through the Sandwich Isles, which was popular at the time.

It was about 70 years later that Gen. Billy Mitchell, who was the father of the Air Force, testified before Congress and said that he believed that in the future, whoever controls Alaska controls the world. He thought it was the most strategic place in the world.

Then we had World War II, the Japanese, who also recognized the strategic importance of the Aleutians, and they briefly seized and occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska.

While the war in the Aleutians may be forgotten by many here at home, the world continues to remember the strategic significance of the North.

Although General Mitchell saw the strategic geographic location of Alaska, he could not have imagined the environmental changes that would make sea routes accessible to commerce year-round, nor could he have imagined the rich mineral wealth beneath the Arctic. He might have been able to have imagined that Russia would take a major interest in the Arctic. Given its proximity from the Bering Strait region of Alaska, one can indeed see Russia from one's window. There are not too many people on Little Diomede, but I have been there. Big Diomede sits just about 2\1/2\ miles across the water, but I doubt that General Mitchell would ever have been able to have imagined that nations like China or India would have taken an interest in the very remote and often forbidding North, less that they would be fielding icebreakers in 2019 and 2020, as China and India are. He might also wonder why Singapore would take such an interest to justify observer status on the Arctic Council.

While places like Singapore seek observer status, the United States has passed the chairmanship of the Arctic Council and, with it, most of our diplomatic efforts towards the Arctic. The

Arctic Executive Steering Committee and other institutions within the executive branch that are focused on the Arctic have, in my view, just kind of wasted away just when the rest of the world has redoubled its focus on the Arctic.

The Department of Defense clearly gets it. It is starting to recognize what General Mitchell did back in 1935. Before the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee back in May 2016, I asked Secretary Carter whether we were doing what we needed to do from a defense standpoint to address changes in the Arctic. His response was pretty frank and, I think, very revealing. He told me that the Arctic is going to be a major area of importance to the United States strategically and economically in the future.

I think it is fair to say that we are late to the recognition of that, but I think we have the recognition. Now you are asking what comes in behind that recognition. I think a plan that is more than aspirational is needed, and I would be happy to work with you toward that end.

At that time, Secretary Carter's candor was refreshing, if not long overdue, but I have to tell you that we are still waiting for a plan that is more aspirational in the Arctic--not just a plan but a plan that is fully resourced. As an appropriator, I know full well how difficult that is to achieve.

Sometimes around here, like a tree that falls in the forest when there is nobody there to listen, it seems like official Washington doesn't recognize that something new and very real is occurring until it reads about it in the New York Times or perhaps in the Washington Post. Well, on Thanksgiving Day of this year, the Washington Post really laid it out. It had a special section--some 16 pages--which is entitled ``The New Arctic Frontier.'' I would like to quote from the cover of this special section.

It reads:

As the Arctic slowly thaws, the United States, Canada,

Russia, China and other interested nations are reconsidering

how they strategically approach the region. Corporations have

launched new missions to search for oil. Commercial fishing

continues to evolve. Shipping and luxury cruise lines alike

are planning to send more vessels north. Coastal erosion has

prompted questions about how some Alaskan villages will

survive and how the U.S. government should react. Against

this backdrop, militaries are increasingly preparing for

potential conflict in the Arctic. The United States is

shifting forces to the north, planning to build a new class

of icebreaker ships and cultivating stronger relationships

with Nordic militaries. Russia, meanwhile, is investing in

ice-capable vessels and infrastructure improvements, and

China has declared itself a ``near Arctic state.''

This really sums up where we are today.

Truth be told, General Mitchell has been proven to be correct in ways that he probably could not have imagined when he said Alaska was the most strategic place in the world. For example, right now, here today, Anchorage has the fifth busiest cargo airport in the world--not in the country but in the world. So we are sitting here in Anchorage, AK. We are less than 9\1/2\ hours from 90 percent of the industrialized world. So whether you are going to Singapore, London, Mexico City, we are less than 9\1/2\ hours from 90 percent of the industrialized world. So many carriers, such as FedEx, UPS, Alaska Airlines, Atlas Air, and others, are already using Anchorage as a cargo hub because of this very, very central location and these very real opportunities for commerce. We are also looking to regain the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport position as a hub for international passenger travel.

Now we are getting ready for the holiday season, for Christmas. I think Santa had this figured out a long time ago. He knew that the shortest way to get around the globe, whether you were going to Fiji or to London or to Los Angeles or to Seoul, was over the Pole. Even Santa understood the geostrategic position of the Arctic. But it is Alaska. It really is Alaska, sitting right up there, which is the gateway to America's Arctic, that is at the center of all of this. That is not just bragging, not just my being parochial about it as Alaska's Senator. It is real, it is compelling, and it is demanding of attention and action. I know it is not easy.

The Washington Post's editors observed that the Arctic portends great opportunities and great challenges, so let's get to work on this. That is my central message today. It is time that we get to work and move ahead with a plan that fits the challenge that the Arctic represents for America. We talk a lot about aspiration. The time for aspiration is over--it is time for action. That starts by fully funding the first of the Coast Guard's Polar Security Cutters, whose purpose is to provide assured, year-round access to our polar regions. These are platforms that can project sea power anywhere, at any time, and are fully interoperable with interagency and international stakeholders to carry out national defense operations. These cutters will include sufficient space, weight, and power to conduct multimission activities that support our Nation's current and future needs in the Arctic.

The Polar Security Cutter will allow us to continue to engage with our fellow Arctic nations and our allies and our strategic competitors.

I share with you a picture of our existing Polar icebreaker, but when you look around the world at the various flags, here we are sitting in the United States--one of eight Arctic nations--and we have two icebreakers. I say two--maybe that is all we need. One of them is currently in dry dock in the Seattle-Tacoma area. She is never going to see activity again. The other one, Polar Star, is on her second life. She is working hard, but she is down in Antarctica, and she will be in Antarctica until she, too, is retired. Then where does that leave us? Where does that put us?

We have a medium-strength vessel, the Healy. She does great work, but that is what the United States has.

Canada has nine government-owned, either operating or under construction. China has four--China, which has just determined they should be a ``Near-Arctic State.'' Russia has 34, and when you count those that are nongovernment-owned, it is well over 40.

Here we are, the United States of America, an Arctic nation, and we are down to about one icebreaker. We have some work to do here.

Over the past several years, funds have been secured through the Navy to get started on building a new Polar Security Cutter. This year, the administration wisely decided--and I thank them for working with us-- that it is time to lock in the project by budgeting the remaining funds necessary to complete the project. It is about $750 million. That is a lot of money. That is a lot of money, but I would submit that this investment in the Polar Security Cutter is a small price to pay for the ability to project U.S. sea power in the Arctic.

The question of whether we follow through on this very important step is going to be determined this week, or perhaps next week, as we complete the fiscal year 2019 appropriations project. I would dare to suggest that our competitors in the Arctic are watching very, very closely whether we have the resolve to follow through on the first of these Polar Security Cutters.

Bringing the Polar Security Cutter online will give us capacity--we appreciate that--but the next and perhaps even more difficult challenge is to build the infrastructure to support the next phase of U.S. sea power in the Arctic. Most critical for that is the development of a deepwater port in the Bering Sea.

Our reality right now is that the Alaska deepwater port nearest to the Arctic is located in the Bering Sea. Dutch Harbor is almost 1,000 miles away from the Arctic. I am looking at my imaginary Alaska map here, but when you are down in the Aleutians--that is the nearest deepwater port--it is 1,000 miles to get to Point Hope, to Barrow, and that area.

A port is a critical piece of infrastructure that is needed, and it will serve many, many uses. It can support the Navy, the Coast Guard, and NOAA's research missions. It will support search and rescue activities that may be necessitated by increasing commercial vessel traffic in the Arctic, and it will provide a platform for the United States to harvest some of the economic upside of the vessel transits. RADM Jon White, U.S. Navy, retired, is President and CEO of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership. At a recent event, which was sponsored by the Wilson Center, he characterized the requirement for a deepwater port in the Arctic as a ``no-brainer.'' He went on to

say: ``Unfortunately, it's not a no-coster.''

Last summer, Navy Secretary Spencer looked at various sites, potential sites for a deepwater port. He is very engaged in seeing how we can work together to bring the funding partners to make this happen. We look forward to working with him toward this endeavor. His engagement is so greatly--greatly--appreciated. He clearly understands the potential here.

All of these developments are very, positive, far more positive than we have seen in recent years. I am grateful for that. They are building blocks.

The race to protect America's strategic interest in the Arctic demands attention on more than just defense; it will take coordination. That is why I am going to introduce today two pieces of legislation that are designed to reinvigorate America's national and commercial strategic efforts.

For well over a decade now, you have heard me talk about how the diminishing Arctic sea ice presents both opportunities and concerns. If you look at this map here, you are looking at planet Earth from the perspective that most of us in Alaska view, which is from the top on down. You have the U.S. Arctic here with Alaska. You have the Canadian Arctic here. Here is Russia coming all the way around to Iceland, and Greenland is down in this area.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, we recognize the impact that climate change is having on the Arctic--rapid impacts, clearly--more so than in any other part of the United States.

The latest report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program underscored this fact. Since the early eighties, the annual Arctic sea ice extent has gone down by about 4 percent per decade. The decrease for September sea ice extent--this is the time of year where we have had the least amount of ice. This time period has been even more pronounced at somewhere between 10.7 and 15.9 percent per decade in terms of the decrease in the sea ice.

What does all of this mean? According to that report, it means we are likely to experience a sea ice-free Arctic summer before this century is out.

Again, when you are looking at the top of the globe, looking at the Arctic here, all of the area in the light blue--you can't see the red around it--was all of the extent of the September sea ice back in 1979. In 2015--3 years ago--the extent of that September ice is here in the pink. As you can appreciate, as you are losing this throughout more parts of the year, it does point to a reality that we are likely to see in the not too terribly distant future--a sea ice-free Arctic summer.

Loss of sea ice in the Arctic, of course, goes hand in hand with overall temperature warming. Over the last several years, it has been somewhat common to refer to the Arctic and include the fact that it is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the country. This latest climate report shows us that this is not exactly right.

In fact, the North Slope of Alaska--this corner right there--is warming at 2.6 times the rate of the continental United States. Much of the rest of Alaska is warming at more than twice the continental U.S. rate as well. So it is not just twice as fast; it is more than twice as fast. Again, we are paying attention.

I face this reality. I hear about this reality every time I step off an airplane in a rural community. I listen to the people there, particularly the elders, as they share their knowledge. Record low extent of Arctic sea ice threatens many of our indigenous communities because of threats of coastal erosion. With less ice, waves build up, beat against the shore, and erode it. It is more than just coastal erosion; it is the impact on their traditional ways of life--food security issues, hunting, access to resources to basically exist.

We are very in tune. It is not just through the eyes of the people who are living there; this is abundantly clear in both the scientific data that is collected by our State and our Federal Agencies, as well as the experience of rural Alaska Natives.

According to this most recent report, the cost of infrastructure damaged from a warming climate in Alaska alone--we had our own chapter in the report--could range from $110 to $270 million per year. So changes to our air, our water, our soil, our food security, our disease ecology directly and directly resulting from our warming climate are going to impact the lives and the health of every Alaskan.

On the one hand, the future in the Arctic looks increasingly challenging for our rural communities. Then, on the other hand, the future also represents a new frontier. There are opportunities out there, whether they are in construction, in tourism, in energy, in minerals, in shipping, or in community development. You have challenges, and you have opportunities.

For some time now, my team and I have been working on two pieces of Arctic legislation to support responsible investment and development in the U.S. Arctic. It hasn't been easy to meet the expectations and the needs of rural and indigenous communities that are most impacted by climate change in the U.S. Arctic, while, at the same time, focusing on economic development, environmental stewardship, human security, but we have really been trying to mesh these all together. I believe these two bills that I am introducing, along with Senator Sullivan--the Arctic Policy Act of 2018 and the Shipping and Environmental Arctic Leadership Act of 2018; that is, the SEAL Act--I think are steps in the right direction, helping us move closer to meeting these objectives.

The first bill, the Arctic Policy Act of 2018, will statutorily establish the Arctic Executive Steering Committee under the Department of Homeland Security and provide the coordination necessary to advance a truly integrated plan for the Arctic.

By reinvigorating the central coordinating body for Arctic issues, the legislation will provide a venue to deliver the type of plan America needs and, more importantly, a place to work that plan into action across Agencies.

As it stands now, everybody has a little bit of a piece of something when it comes to the Arctic, but it doesn't really seem as though there is any coordinating entity. When you don't have anybody who ultimately has that responsibility, oftentimes, it is hard to see the progress.

We know Federal policy does not exist in a vacuum, so in addition to establishing the Arctic Executive Steering Committee, the legislation would also establish an Arctic Advisory Committee to ensure that residents of the Arctic and Alaska Native people have a seat at the table for the development of policy. They don't want to be sitting back and being told what is happening; they want a seat at the table. As the indigenous peoples of the region, they fully have that right.

Further, the legislation calls for the establishment of regional Tribal advisory groups, starting with the Bering Sea Regional Tribal Advisory Group to advise the Federal Government as it shapes national priorities within the region. These Tribal advisory groups will be empowered to provide advice on specific challenges or regionally important issues.

I would like to say that if you go to rural Alaska, if you go to a small village, you are not going to find a lot of Ph.D.s out there, but what they do have is a Ph.D. in Arctic living. They know what is going on. Their very lives and survival depend on understanding and appreciating the world around them.

In the Arctic, we have an opportunity to show the world how to integrate indigenous knowledge and voices into policy and science. That is why the legislation will also update the Arctic Research and Policy Act of 1984. This was legislation my father introduced when he was here in the Senate. We will update this to include more Native voices at the Arctic Research Commission and thereby push to include traditional knowledge and community coordination in our Nation's scientific efforts in the Arctic, especially our efforts to study and understand climate change.

Mr. President, the second piece of legislation I am introducing is the Shipping and Environmental Arctic Leadership Act of 2018--the SEAL Act--which establishes a congressionally chartered seaway development corporation in the Arctic.

So this Arctic Corporation will work with representatives from NOAA, from the State Department, from the Coast Guard, and from DOT, as well as representatives from the State of Alaska, the Alaska business community, Alaska coastal and subsistence communities, and the Alaskan Maritime Labor Organization to help to develop an Arctic shipping union whose leadership will advocate for safe, secure, and reliable Arctic seaway development and further ensure that the Arctic becomes a place of international cooperation rather than competition or conflict.

The capacity to get maritime and shipping services funded by means of international cooperation is not a new concept. We have seen it done, and it exists with the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation in the United States. This is one example where countries that share a large maritime border--the United States and Canada--are able to develop a seaway system--one that is safe, secure, and reliable for its users.

I have people stop me and say: Well, this is so many years off from when we are going to see levels of commercial activity in the Arctic. There is no real need to move on this, is there?

Well, again, I will just remind you of some of the charts we have seen. The multiyear ice that once made the Arctic impassable and shielded our northernmost border year-round is diminishing, again, due to climate change. Because of this, shipping in and around the Arctic traffic will increase. So when you appreciate where we are with the Northwest Passage here, the Northwest Passage, by 2025, is intermittently open, but the for pathway, if you are going from the Bering Strait, right off of Alaska here and through Rotterdam, you are going to have an opportunity to basically be cutting through there.

For the northern sea route, following through Russia, by 2025, they anticipate that this sea lane will be open for a full 6 weeks.

The transpolar route, going more directly over the pole, by 2025 will have 2 weeks of open shipping.

So, yes, shipping is going to increase. When you can figure out a quicker way to get from Asia to Europe, when you can shave off days, when you can use less fuel, you are saving money. So this is, from a trade perspective, hugely significant.

But this looming increase in commercial vessel traffic also translates to greater demand for services and processes necessary to ensure that Arctic shipping can be reliable and safe for shippers that need to transport goods from one place to another on a timetable.

This last chart that I am going to share is just a reminder of not today's reality, but this is the number of vessels that were tracked between year 2014 and 2015. So this is the Aleutians right down here. This is where the Great Circle route ships come through. It is so black here that you can't even tell that these are lines, but this demonstrates the level of existing traffic that we have here. Even 3 years ago, the number of vessels that transited up to the Arctic, whether it was to go over into the Beaufort or the Chukchi in the Arctic Ocean or to go through the northern sea route in that direction--this is here, and this is now. This is what is happening in the Arctic.

So what we are seeking to do with this SEAL legislation is to help to fund a system of Arctic ports--not just one port but a system of Arctic ports--ports of refuge for ships in trouble and ports to send, receive, and transship goods and people, private aids to navigation, all-weather tugs that can help ships that may have lost power or steerage, and to provide a commercial architecture to support the private sector investments in and use of icebreakers that can help ships that may be boxed in because of the ice. That happens.

So as we talk about this proposal that we are laying down in this legislation, I have likened it to Uber for icebreakers. It helps people kind of understand what it is that we are looking at here.

Port infrastructure will also benefit rural Arctic communities and bring down costs for delivering fuel, groceries, and other necessities which, in my State at this time, are just extraordinarily high. I think this legislation can help the United States to organize and attract investment opportunities for ports and icebreakers, for our own safety and for that of commercial vessels that are venturing into the Arctic, as well as, again, for those who live there.

So these two bills, building on the strategic efforts of the Department of Defense and the strides that have been made in the NDAA, can provide the legislative direction needed to help to develop that aspirational plan that Secretary Carter recognized that we need.

While I will be introducing these now, I am also going to be reintroducing them in the next Congress, and I certainly look forward to working with any and all of my colleagues and interested parties, as well as the executive branch, to refine them in the hopes that we can truly reclaim America's leadership role in the Arctic in this next Congress.

Mr. President, there has been a lot of discussion this evening by my colleague from New Jersey and by my colleague from Rhode Island about the issue of climate change and its impact. I come from a part of the country where climate change is there; it is with us; it is real. It is something that we look to as Alaskans with a reality of this world view.

I spend a lot of my time here in the Senate focused on not only the U.S. Arctic but the Arctic as a whole, the eight Arctic nations that we intersect with. So I would like to take a few minutes this evening to speak about the happenings in the Arctic--our new reality--as we are seeing greater opportunities but also greater challenges in an area that I find to be an extraordinary place on our globe.

It was maybe a little more than 150 years ago when Massachusetts Senator and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, Charles Sumner, argued the geostrategic importance of Alaska to our young Nation at the time. Senator Sumner spoke about how the Aleutians represented this gateway to Asia. This was a maritime route to the west coast that was roughly 1,000 miles shorter than the southern route through the Sandwich Isles, which was popular at the time.

It was about 70 years later that Gen. Billy Mitchell, who was the father of the Air Force, testified before Congress and said that he believed that in the future, whoever controls Alaska controls the world. He thought it was the most strategic place in the world.

Then we had World War II, the Japanese, who also recognized the strategic importance of the Aleutians, and they briefly seized and occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska.

While the war in the Aleutians may be forgotten by many here at home, the world continues to remember the strategic significance of the North.

Although General Mitchell saw the strategic geographic location of Alaska, he could not have imagined the environmental changes that would make sea routes accessible to commerce year-round, nor could he have imagined the rich mineral wealth beneath the Arctic. He might have been able to have imagined that Russia would take a major interest in the Arctic. Given its proximity from the Bering Strait region of Alaska, one can indeed see Russia from one's window. There are not too many people on Little Diomede, but I have been there. Big Diomede sits just about 2\1/2\ miles across the water, but I doubt that General Mitchell would ever have been able to have imagined that nations like China or India would have taken an interest in the very remote and often forbidding North, less that they would be fielding icebreakers in 2019 and 2020, as China and India are. He might also wonder why Singapore would take such an interest to justify observer status on the Arctic Council.

While places like Singapore seek observer status, the United States has passed the chairmanship of the Arctic Council and, with it, most of our diplomatic efforts towards the Arctic. The

Arctic Executive Steering Committee and other institutions within the executive branch that are focused on the Arctic have, in my view, just kind of wasted away just when the rest of the world has redoubled its focus on the Arctic.

The Department of Defense clearly gets it. It is starting to recognize what General Mitchell did back in 1935. Before the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee back in May 2016, I asked Secretary Carter whether we were doing what we needed to do from a defense standpoint to address changes in the Arctic. His response was pretty frank and, I think, very revealing. He told me that the Arctic is going to be a major area of importance to the United States strategically and economically in the future.

I think it is fair to say that we are late to the recognition of that, but I think we have the recognition. Now you are asking what comes in behind that recognition. I think a plan that is more than aspirational is needed, and I would be happy to work with you toward that end.

At that time, Secretary Carter's candor was refreshing, if not long overdue, but I have to tell you that we are still waiting for a plan that is more aspirational in the Arctic--not just a plan but a plan that is fully resourced. As an appropriator, I know full well how difficult that is to achieve.

Sometimes around here, like a tree that falls in the forest when there is nobody there to listen, it seems like official Washington doesn't recognize that something new and very real is occurring until it reads about it in the New York Times or perhaps in the Washington Post. Well, on Thanksgiving Day of this year, the Washington Post really laid it out. It had a special section--some 16 pages--which is entitled ``The New Arctic Frontier.'' I would like to quote from the cover of this special section.

It reads:

As the Arctic slowly thaws, the United States, Canada,

Russia, China and other interested nations are reconsidering

how they strategically approach the region. Corporations have

launched new missions to search for oil. Commercial fishing

continues to evolve. Shipping and luxury cruise lines alike

are planning to send more vessels north. Coastal erosion has

prompted questions about how some Alaskan villages will

survive and how the U.S. government should react. Against

this backdrop, militaries are increasingly preparing for

potential conflict in the Arctic. The United States is

shifting forces to the north, planning to build a new class

of icebreaker ships and cultivating stronger relationships

with Nordic militaries. Russia, meanwhile, is investing in

ice-capable vessels and infrastructure improvements, and

China has declared itself a ``near Arctic state.''

This really sums up where we are today.

Truth be told, General Mitchell has been proven to be correct in ways that he probably could not have imagined when he said Alaska was the most strategic place in the world. For example, right now, here today, Anchorage has the fifth busiest cargo airport in the world--not in the country but in the world. So we are sitting here in Anchorage, AK. We are less than 9\1/2\ hours from 90 percent of the industrialized world. So whether you are going to Singapore, London, Mexico City, we are less than 9\1/2\ hours from 90 percent of the industrialized world. So many carriers, such as FedEx, UPS, Alaska Airlines, Atlas Air, and others, are already using Anchorage as a cargo hub because of this very, very central location and these very real opportunities for commerce. We are also looking to regain the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport position as a hub for international passenger travel.

Now we are getting ready for the holiday season, for Christmas. I think Santa had this figured out a long time ago. He knew that the shortest way to get around the globe, whether you were going to Fiji or to London or to Los Angeles or to Seoul, was over the Pole. Even Santa understood the geostrategic position of the Arctic. But it is Alaska. It really is Alaska, sitting right up there, which is the gateway to America's Arctic, that is at the center of all of this. That is not just bragging, not just my being parochial about it as Alaska's Senator. It is real, it is compelling, and it is demanding of attention and action. I know it is not easy.

The Washington Post's editors observed that the Arctic portends great opportunities and great challenges, so let's get to work on this. That is my central message today. It is time that we get to work and move ahead with a plan that fits the challenge that the Arctic represents for America. We talk a lot about aspiration. The time for aspiration is over--it is time for action. That starts by fully funding the first of the Coast Guard's Polar Security Cutters, whose purpose is to provide assured, year-round access to our polar regions. These are platforms that can project sea power anywhere, at any time, and are fully interoperable with interagency and international stakeholders to carry out national defense operations. These cutters will include sufficient space, weight, and power to conduct multimission activities that support our Nation's current and future needs in the Arctic.

The Polar Security Cutter will allow us to continue to engage with our fellow Arctic nations and our allies and our strategic competitors.

I share with you a picture of our existing Polar icebreaker, but when you look around the world at the various flags, here we are sitting in the United States--one of eight Arctic nations--and we have two icebreakers. I say two--maybe that is all we need. One of them is currently in dry dock in the Seattle-Tacoma area. She is never going to see activity again. The other one, Polar Star, is on her second life. She is working hard, but she is down in Antarctica, and she will be in Antarctica until she, too, is retired. Then where does that leave us? Where does that put us?

We have a medium-strength vessel, the Healy. She does great work, but that is what the United States has.

Canada has nine government-owned, either operating or under construction. China has four--China, which has just determined they should be a ``Near-Arctic State.'' Russia has 34, and when you count those that are nongovernment-owned, it is well over 40.

Here we are, the United States of America, an Arctic nation, and we are down to about one icebreaker. We have some work to do here.

Over the past several years, funds have been secured through the Navy to get started on building a new Polar Security Cutter. This year, the administration wisely decided--and I thank them for working with us-- that it is time to lock in the project by budgeting the remaining funds necessary to complete the project. It is about $750 million. That is a lot of money. That is a lot of money, but I would submit that this investment in the Polar Security Cutter is a small price to pay for the ability to project U.S. sea power in the Arctic.

The question of whether we follow through on this very important step is going to be determined this week, or perhaps next week, as we complete the fiscal year 2019 appropriations project. I would dare to suggest that our competitors in the Arctic are watching very, very closely whether we have the resolve to follow through on the first of these Polar Security Cutters.

Bringing the Polar Security Cutter online will give us capacity--we appreciate that--but the next and perhaps even more difficult challenge is to build the infrastructure to support the next phase of U.S. sea power in the Arctic. Most critical for that is the development of a deepwater port in the Bering Sea.

Our reality right now is that the Alaska deepwater port nearest to the Arctic is located in the Bering Sea. Dutch Harbor is almost 1,000 miles away from the Arctic. I am looking at my imaginary Alaska map here, but when you are down in the Aleutians--that is the nearest deepwater port--it is 1,000 miles to get to Point Hope, to Barrow, and that area.

A port is a critical piece of infrastructure that is needed, and it will serve many, many uses. It can support the Navy, the Coast Guard, and NOAA's research missions. It will support search and rescue activities that may be necessitated by increasing commercial vessel traffic in the Arctic, and it will provide a platform for the United States to harvest some of the economic upside of the vessel transits. RADM Jon White, U.S. Navy, retired, is President and CEO of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership. At a recent event, which was sponsored by the Wilson Center, he characterized the requirement for a deepwater port in the Arctic as a ``no-brainer.'' He went on to

say: ``Unfortunately, it's not a no-coster.''

Last summer, Navy Secretary Spencer looked at various sites, potential sites for a deepwater port. He is very engaged in seeing how we can work together to bring the funding partners to make this happen. We look forward to working with him toward this endeavor. His engagement is so greatly--greatly--appreciated. He clearly understands the potential here.

All of these developments are very, positive, far more positive than we have seen in recent years. I am grateful for that. They are building blocks.

The race to protect America's strategic interest in the Arctic demands attention on more than just defense; it will take coordination. That is why I am going to introduce today two pieces of legislation that are designed to reinvigorate America's national and commercial strategic efforts.

For well over a decade now, you have heard me talk about how the diminishing Arctic sea ice presents both opportunities and concerns. If you look at this map here, you are looking at planet Earth from the perspective that most of us in Alaska view, which is from the top on down. You have the U.S. Arctic here with Alaska. You have the Canadian Arctic here. Here is Russia coming all the way around to Iceland, and Greenland is down in this area.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, we recognize the impact that climate change is having on the Arctic--rapid impacts, clearly--more so than in any other part of the United States.

The latest report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program underscored this fact. Since the early eighties, the annual Arctic sea ice extent has gone down by about 4 percent per decade. The decrease for September sea ice extent--this is the time of year where we have had the least amount of ice. This time period has been even more pronounced at somewhere between 10.7 and 15.9 percent per decade in terms of the decrease in the sea ice.

What does all of this mean? According to that report, it means we are likely to experience a sea ice-free Arctic summer before this century is out.

Again, when you are looking at the top of the globe, looking at the Arctic here, all of the area in the light blue--you can't see the red around it--was all of the extent of the September sea ice back in 1979. In 2015--3 years ago--the extent of that September ice is here in the pink. As you can appreciate, as you are losing this throughout more parts of the year, it does point to a reality that we are likely to see in the not too terribly distant future--a sea ice-free Arctic summer.

Loss of sea ice in the Arctic, of course, goes hand in hand with overall temperature warming. Over the last several years, it has been somewhat common to refer to the Arctic and include the fact that it is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the country. This latest climate report shows us that this is not exactly right.

In fact, the North Slope of Alaska--this corner right there--is warming at 2.6 times the rate of the continental United States. Much of the rest of Alaska is warming at more than twice the continental U.S. rate as well. So it is not just twice as fast; it is more than twice as fast. Again, we are paying attention.

I face this reality. I hear about this reality every time I step off an airplane in a rural community. I listen to the people there, particularly the elders, as they share their knowledge. Record low extent of Arctic sea ice threatens many of our indigenous communities because of threats of coastal erosion. With less ice, waves build up, beat against the shore, and erode it. It is more than just coastal erosion; it is the impact on their traditional ways of life--food security issues, hunting, access to resources to basically exist.

We are very in tune. It is not just through the eyes of the people who are living there; this is abundantly clear in both the scientific data that is collected by our State and our Federal Agencies, as well as the experience of rural Alaska Natives.

According to this most recent report, the cost of infrastructure damaged from a warming climate in Alaska alone--we had our own chapter in the report--could range from $110 to $270 million per year. So changes to our air, our water, our soil, our food security, our disease ecology directly and directly resulting from our warming climate are going to impact the lives and the health of every Alaskan.

On the one hand, the future in the Arctic looks increasingly challenging for our rural communities. Then, on the other hand, the future also represents a new frontier. There are opportunities out there, whether they are in construction, in tourism, in energy, in minerals, in shipping, or in community development. You have challenges, and you have opportunities.

For some time now, my team and I have been working on two pieces of Arctic legislation to support responsible investment and development in the U.S. Arctic. It hasn't been easy to meet the expectations and the needs of rural and indigenous communities that are most impacted by climate change in the U.S. Arctic, while, at the same time, focusing on economic development, environmental stewardship, human security, but we have really been trying to mesh these all together. I believe these two bills that I am introducing, along with Senator Sullivan--the Arctic Policy Act of 2018 and the Shipping and Environmental Arctic Leadership Act of 2018; that is, the SEAL Act--I think are steps in the right direction, helping us move closer to meeting these objectives.

The first bill, the Arctic Policy Act of 2018, will statutorily establish the Arctic Executive Steering Committee under the Department of Homeland Security and provide the coordination necessary to advance a truly integrated plan for the Arctic.

By reinvigorating the central coordinating body for Arctic issues, the legislation will provide a venue to deliver the type of plan America needs and, more importantly, a place to work that plan into action across Agencies.

As it stands now, everybody has a little bit of a piece of something when it comes to the Arctic, but it doesn't really seem as though there is any coordinating entity. When you don't have anybody who ultimately has that responsibility, oftentimes, it is hard to see the progress.

We know Federal policy does not exist in a vacuum, so in addition to establishing the Arctic Executive Steering Committee, the legislation would also establish an Arctic Advisory Committee to ensure that residents of the Arctic and Alaska Native people have a seat at the table for the development of policy. They don't want to be sitting back and being told what is happening; they want a seat at the table. As the indigenous peoples of the region, they fully have that right.

Further, the legislation calls for the establishment of regional Tribal advisory groups, starting with the Bering Sea Regional Tribal Advisory Group to advise the Federal Government as it shapes national priorities within the region. These Tribal advisory groups will be empowered to provide advice on specific challenges or regionally important issues.

I would like to say that if you go to rural Alaska, if you go to a small village, you are not going to find a lot of Ph.D.s out there, but what they do have is a Ph.D. in Arctic living. They know what is going on. Their very lives and survival depend on understanding and appreciating the world around them.

In the Arctic, we have an opportunity to show the world how to integrate indigenous knowledge and voices into policy and science. That is why the legislation will also update the Arctic Research and Policy Act of 1984. This was legislation my father introduced when he was here in the Senate. We will update this to include more Native voices at the Arctic Research Commission and thereby push to include traditional knowledge and community coordination in our Nation's scientific efforts in the Arctic, especially our efforts to study and understand climate change.

Mr. President, this morning the majority leader announced that the Senate will soon take up a revised version of the FIRST STEP Act, which will provide a number of long-needed reforms to our criminal justice system.

I have long been a supporter of these reforms after I saw the positive impact in my home State of Texas back in 2007. Then, in response to a steadily growing prison population, Texas began enacting reforms to reduce recidivism through programs like job training and vocational education. This, of course, allows prisoners to spend their time in prison preparing themselves for life outside of prison. The results were pretty significant. We saw a reduction in both incarceration and crime rates by double digits at the same time. Let me say that again. We saw a reduction in both incarceration and crime rates by double digits at the same time. Not only does this lead to massive savings of taxpayer dollars, it is an investment in the men and women who are committed to turning their lives around.

What we like to say is that Texas has long been known for being tough on crime. But in 2007, we finally decided to be smart on crime, too, recognizing that people who went to prison almost entirely got out of prison at some point. The question is, How prepared were those who were willing to work to turn their lives around for life on the outside?

For years, I tried to bring this successful Texas model to Washington, DC, and now we have a piece of this legislation before us that will take these reforms nationwide. More than 75 percent of the bill we will be voting on is my prison reform legislation that I originally introduced with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

The great thing about the laboratories of democracy known as the States is that we can actually test some of our theories at the State level to see whether they work. In the case of prison reform, when they do work, we can then scale it up so it applies to the entire Nation.

Today, there are more than 180,000 inmates in the Federal criminal justice system. The Federal Bureau of Prison's budget has doubled to approximately $7 billion over the last decade. We have an opportunity to save lives by reducing the crime rate for each of those prisoners who does not recidivate when they get out of prison and conserve tax dollars, as well as to create a criminal justice system that works for, not against, the American people.

Let me be clear. This is not about letting people out of prison who shouldn't be let out of prison; this is about people who have served their time and are going to be leaving prison and making sure that they at least have available to them some of the tools they need in order to transform their own lives. I am not so naive as to think that every person will take advantage of that opportunity, but we know from experience at the State level that there is a significant percentage of offenders who will take advantage of the opportunity to turn their lives around. That is why I was proud to work with the White House and my colleagues here in Congress--especially, as I mentioned, Senator Whitehouse and Congressman Doug Collins in the House of Representatives--to advance these reforms.

Earlier this year, we passed the bill out of the House with strong bipartisan support, and I have worked with my colleagues here in the Senate as the bill has changed and developed--and, I believe, for the better. Unfortunately, some members of the law enforcement community have raised concerns about the bill. Out of my respect for our law enforcement organizations, I spoke with many of my Republican colleagues about the bill. Originally, they said they were unable to support it or were undecided because they wanted to make sure we were doing everything we could to address the concerns raised by law enforcement organizations. So we went to work trying to make improvements in the bill, which I believe we succeeded in doing.

I want to express my gratitude to Senator Durbin, who is the principal Democratic sponsor, Senator Lee, Senator Grassley, and others who worked on this and say how much I appreciate their willingness to try to get to yes and come up with something we can pass with strong bipartisan support.

I also wanted to make sure we talked to the stakeholders--the police officers who patrol the streets, the sheriffs who work in each of our States and counties--about their concerns. I believe we have worked hard and successfully to address many of them. I don't necessarily believe all of them will agree with every single piece in this bill, but I think, on the whole, it does balance the interests of our law enforcement personnel with the needs of our society to better prepare people so that when they come out of prison, they will not likely repeat their mistakes, in every case that is possible.

As I say, I think we made some big improvements. The revised legislation will keep dangerous and violent criminals who use guns to commit crimes from being released from prison early. They will not be eligible for any sort of earned time release. It will also limit the amount of time that offenders can spend on supervised release and ensure that the Bureau of Prisons will revoke prerelease custody for offenders who violate the terms of their supervision.

I appreciate all of the work of our colleagues in the Senate who chose to

roll up their sleeves and get to work rather than just complain about what was or was not in the bill. I am proud to announce that I will cosponsor this new and improved version of the bill, and I encourage all of my colleagues to review it and hopefully join me in supporting this legislation. I look forward to working with everybody in this body, as well as our colleagues in the House, to get this bill over the finish line.

I know, when we produce the bill in the House and the Senate, President Trump will sign it. He has encouraged the majority leader, Senator McConnell, to put this bill on the floor even in this short window of time we have during the lameduck session, and the majority leader has accommodated the President's request by saying that we will address this before we go home for Christmas

Funding the Government

Mr. President, on another matter, the clock is ticking, of course, and we are quickly approaching the deadline to fund the Federal Government. My Republican colleagues and I stand ready to advance our remaining appropriations bills, but it really depends on what our Democratic colleagues decide to do.

Seventy-five percent of the government is already funded through bipartisan cooperation on the passage of appropriations bills, and that is something we haven't done for a long time. But there is still critical funding--particularly for the Department of Homeland Security, for the FBI, and for the Department of Justice--that needs to be taken care of before we break for the holidays.

Earlier today, we know that Democratic Leader Senator Schumer and Minority Leader Pelosi met with President Trump to figure out whether there is any room for agreement to resolve the dispute between them. The question is, really, What is the appropriate amount of money in this bill to fund border security? The President said he wants $5 billion. Senator Schumer has said $1.6 billion ought to be enough. Obviously, there is a gap between them.

Some people have said: Well, we ought to just shut down the government over this dispute. I don't see the wisdom in that because when you shut down the government because you are unable to resolve a dispute, when you reopen the government, usually what happens is that same problem is staring you in the face. What we need to do is to work together with the administration to come up with a solution rather than resort to tactics like a government shutdown with all the complications that involves. I don't think shutdowns play well for either Republicans or Democrats, for the White House or the Congress.

The problem, it seems to me, is that our Democratic friends are listening to some of the fringes of their own political party who are now telling them: Don't do anything that President Trump wants. Anything President Trump wants, the answer is no.

Well, that is more about politics than it is about doing our job as legislators trying to solve problems.

It also appears that they seem to think that the continued status quo along our border is good enough, and they are more than willing to gamble with a partial government shutdown than work with the President to ensure that our border is secure.

Somewhere along the way, our friends across the aisle have forgotten that border security should be about protecting the American people from the drugs that come across the border--90-plus percent of the heroin consumed in the United States comes from Mexico--or the children and women who are trafficked for sex or the migrants who come from Central America, up through Mexico, and into the United States, and the cartels charging roughly $8,000 a person. It is a huge moneymaking business, but the people who are getting rich are the transnational criminal organizations and drug cartels.

We have seen before what happens when the government shuts down. It affects millions of people across the country and often yields no different result. We have seen what happens when we fail to secure the border. That is why we need to finish our work funding the government and, by doing that, also recognize the importance of a secure border. This should not be about partisan politics or listening to your political base; this ought to be about doing our job. We had the midterm elections; now is the time to govern.

Just a few weeks ago, our friends across the aisle wanted to magnify the migrant crisis by focusing narrowly on the news coming out of Tijuana, Mexico, across the border from San Diego. Some talked about the crisis as if it were a one-off event, an isolated event.

They wanted us to look at this like we were looking through a soda straw and ignore all of the context and the consequences of failing to secure our border. They wanted to ignore how we find ourselves with this humanitarian crisis in the first place.

The caravans of men, women, and children who left their homes in Central America and made the long, dangerous journey to the United States are sadly symptoms of a far greater problem. Our border has been exploited for years, contributing to this crisis. That is why ensuring additional resources for border security is an essential piece of the puzzle.

My home State of Texas is on the frontline--1,200 miles of common border with Mexico. Texas is home to many vibrant border communities that greatly benefit from having some of the busiest land ports in the country, across which legitimate trade and commerce travels. As I said, we are also on the front row of the many challenges that come along with an unsecured border when it comes to public safety.

Yesterday I talked about some of those challenges: striking a balance between a secure border and a completely closed border. A secure border maintains the flow of legitimate goods and services while deterring cartels from shuttling illegal contraband across our borders. A closed border would cut off trade and commerce that is the lifeblood of our economy, which brings me to another challenge--something that I think in Washington there is simply not enough awareness of; that is, the cartels, gangs, and the transnational criminal organizations that get rich exploiting our porous borders.

Some like to think of these organizations as a ``them, not us'' problem because they have taken control over large parts of Central America and even Mexico, but the business of these groups does not stay there. What happens in Central America, what happens in Mexico does not stay in Central America and Mexico. It comes flooding across our borders.

These gangs and cartels are very shrewd and adapt to changing circumstances. They found, the more our borders and ports of entry are clogged with migrants and migrant families, the easier it is to traffic people, drugs, and contraband into the United States. That has a reciprocal effect, too, causing legitimate trade, travel, and commerce to slow significantly at our ports of entry.

It is not only exploitation of our border that poses a threat, it is the violence and the instability caused by the cartels and gangs. That makes it not just a border security issue but a national security issue as well.

My friend and fellow Texan, Representative Henry Cuellar--a true blue dog Democrat, as he says--has a great saying for how we should think about this. He likes to say that border security starts in Central America and ends at our border. I think that is exactly right. In other words, you don't mount a goal line defense at a football game. You actually start contesting the game farther down the field. In this case, the game needs to be contested in the places where these migrants and the drugs emanate, from where they start.

We are going to have to work more closely in partnership with Mexico and other Central American governments to address the violence these groups spread by restoring public trust in law enforcement and stabilizing the economy and these countries.

I spoke with my friend, the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein. She represents a border State. She and I have partnered on a number of national security law enforcement matters. She said she was interested in working together in a bipartisan way to address the challenges presented by Central America and Mexico. I said: Absolutely. Sign me up.

Representing a border State, as you might suspect, I make it a point to talk to those who live and work in our

border communities. It is a unique part of the United States. I like to say, the concept that people in Washington, DC, have about the borders has been learned from movies and novels; it is not from talking to people or visiting with the communities along the border. That is not a criticism. That is just a fact of life.

When I hear from people like Manny Padilla, who is the Border Patrol's sector chief for the Rio Grande Valley, I can better understand how much is required to maintain situational awareness and operational control of the border, not to mention personal safety of the Border Patrol, who more and more are frequently assaulted with rocks and other makeshift weapons that endanger their safety and their lives.

For those who may not be at the border every day, it is hard to grasp the range of topography across the 1,200-mile border that Texas shares with Mexico. It can be hard to imagine how many resources are actually needed. In some places, there are high mountains and cliffs and others, there is thick brush. In the urban areas that surround our ports of entry, there is plenty of opportunity to race across the border and blend in, never to be heard from again.

There will be places where physical infrastructure will make the most sense. In some places, technology or personnel is more effective than a fence. The point is, the border security is complex. Better enforcement of our border will require a combination of infrastructure, technology, and personnel. That begins with ensuring we have the resources we need to implement a border enforcement strategy. That is what this issue is all about--the discussion Ms. Pelosi, Senator Schumer, and President Trump had today.

My question for our Democratic colleagues is, Why will you not help us secure the border? Are you satisfied with the status quo of drugs coming across the border through these transnational criminal organizations? Are you satisfied with the status quo of these caravans--thousands of migrants from Central America trying to storm our ports of entry and literally closing them down so legitimate trade and commerce cannot occur?

Securing our border and protecting our country should not be a partisan issue; it is something we ought to be able to work out and agree on. We know the challenges our friend Senator Schumer has--the Democratic leader on the other side. He has a cadre of people auditioning for the Presidential nomination in 2020, and they are trying to outdo each other in their impending runs for President. I think, in many ways, his hands are tied. Like every leader, he has to decide when to say yes and when to say no to the people in your conference.

Minority Leader Pelosi has a delicate task of trying to cajole her new and emboldened Members of the far-left wing of her caucus. They are both trying to fend off outside groups that think that even talking to President Trump on this issue may mean it will be subject for the next attack or perhaps a primary campaign. I don't envy the spot they are in, but it is a game of political chicken, and they are playing it among themselves.

The reality is, President Trump is in the White House, and our Democratic colleagues need to work with him and us to try to move the country forward, to try solve these problems, as hard as they may be. The American people are the losers when their elected officials decide their political image and their political aspirations matter more than the people they represent in their respective States.

As I said, so far, the Congress has worked together in a bipartisan manner to pass roughly 75 percent of the government funding. We shouldn't let that bipartisan spirit fail us now. Finishing our work and securing our border shouldn't be an occasion to turn the end of the year into a political sideshow. I think the American people do not need any more sideshows and circuses in Washington, DC. They want results, and they want us to own up to our responsibility and do our duty.

Border security is an issue where we should be able to find common ground, and funding the government is, of course, one of our most basic responsibilities. The point should be made that we have already found common ground on many of these issues before. Several of our colleagues on the other side who are still serving in this Chamber, including Senator Schumer, supported passage of the Secure Fence Act in 2006. How that is different from what President Trump is requesting now is lost on me, when they agreed that 700 miles of border should be secured by a fence.

I should also note that the Secure Fence Act was also supported by then-Senators Obama, Biden, and Clinton. This should not be a partisan issue. I hope all of our colleagues will choose to get to work, roll up our sleeves, and do our duty. Not only do we have the chance to fund the government and keep the lights on but we also have a chance to put ourselves that much closer to a secure border and helping end the migrant crisis.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, while the distinguished senior Senator from Texas, deputy leader, is still on the floor, let me thank him for his kind remarks and express a word of appreciation for his patience through the long process of getting to a conclusion that we appear now to have finally reached on bringing criminal sentencing reform to a vote on the Senate floor.

This is at least the third Congress in which the Cornyn-Whitehouse bill to improve the preparation of Federal prisoners for release, when they are going to be released, has been with us, and it has been a long process. I think the bill we are going to go to is, in majority, our original bill. For a long time, it has been the engine that I think all sides have seen as the means to solve the sentencing piece, which was much more difficult.

Over and over again, our efforts to move our bill have been held up in order to try to make a package, which is a pretty strong sign that our bill is a pretty good thing to get on board with. I want to thank Senator Cornyn for his patience through all of this.

Then I want to say a quick appreciation to Representative Collins and Representative Jeffries, whose bill on the House side was basically started like ours, and then they were able to negotiate what Senator Cornyn and I both agree were improvements--so that we adopted our bill to incorporate the improvements from the House side.

Other than that, we are about where we began with the sentencing improvements that have been added, and it has been a long trip, but I am indebted and appreciative of my colleague in all of this, Senator Cornyn, for having kept the faith through these many years and many Congresses in getting to this point.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the senior Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, be recognized at the conclusion of my remarks, if he is on the floor.

Mr. President, this week, Nations of the world are gathering in Katowice, Poland, to review--and we hope amplify--their commitments to reduce carbon emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement and to discuss how they will report and verify reductions in carbon pollution.

The United States of America is technically present in Poland in the form of a small delegation, but American leadership in Poland is decidedly absent. Why? It is pretty simple. The Government of the United States of America has fallen under the political control of the industry most responsible for this mess.

American leadership was essential to forging the global consensus on carbon emissions in the original Paris Agreement. I know because I was there in Paris in 2015 as Secretary Kerry and the U.S. negotiating team worked to seal the landmark pact.

What a pathetic difference a few years make. In 2017, President Trump announced that the United States would become the only country in the world to turn its back on this global agreement. The United States abdicates its leadership, just as the scientific warnings of the dangers of climate change grow clearer and

grimmer. In October, came a new report from the world's scientists working through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Just last month, our own Federal Government released its own sobering news about the worsening risks climate change poses to our Nation and our economy.

Our National Climate Assessment warned of hundreds of billions of dollars in losses we can anticipate due to climate change if we don't act to curtail carbon emissions. Trump responded first by describing his own--and I will quote him on this--``very high levels of intelligence.'' Then he went on to simply deny all the science. He said: I don't see it.

Well, guess what. Pope Paul V didn't see it when Galileo demonstrated the Earth revolved around the Sun, but that didn't change the astrophysics.

The climate science--laid out in black and white by Trump's own government agencies--is that our planet is heating up due to our use of fossil fuels.

The science is even more incontrovertible than when Donald Trump said that climate science was incontrovertible back in 2009. Saying that he now doesn't see it is the very definition of climate denial.

So many people who are engaged in climate denial actually know better but, for a variety of motives, will not act, will not admit it. As to the President's not seeing it, ``willful blindness'' would be another term.

This takeover of our government by fossil fuel forces is having very real consequences in U.S. emissions numbers. After years of decline, U.S. carbon emissions rose in 2018, increasing by 2.5 percent.

This, of course, coincides with the Trump administration's efforts on behalf of its industry benefactors to delay, repeal, and weaken rules limiting carbon emissions from powerplants, from oil and gas wells, from industrial facilities, even from vehicles.

Of course all of these industries share a measure of the blame for not cleaning up their own mess on their own, and you can add to that their culpability for pushing the Trump administration to weaken the safety regulations that, in some cases, the industry had actually agreed to. The auto industry had actually agreed to the CAFE standards and then fought to undo them through its trade group so that they could keep their own hands clean.

Chinese carbon emissions increased in 2018, as did Indian emissions. Among major economies, only the European Union saw its emissions decline in 2018.

This is why international summits like Poland are so important. The world urgently needs to correct course, and we can best do so if countries together do their part to reduce emissions.

According to the IPCC, to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change, we need to cut carbon emissions to 50 percent below 2010 levels by 2030, which is just 11 years from now. We have to be 50 percent below our emissions in 2010, 11 years from now, in 2030, and we have to hit net zero emissions--carbon removed for all carbon added--by 2050. That is not that far away.

The IPCC report calls pricing carbon the central policy that will allow us to hold the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius or less. This is not some fantasy of the environmental community. Some of the world's biggest investors--$32 trillion worth of investment represented by these groups--stood up in Poland to say: We need to fix this problem or there will be economic catastrophe ahead. They also said that a price on carbon and an end to the subsidy that the fossil fuel industry enjoys and is at the heart of its political intervention, which has prevented us from taking on climate change, needs to go.

You have to add a price on carbon, and you have to get rid of the fossil fuel subsidies. That is their prescription for avoiding economic catastrophe.

Well, maybe they don't know what they are talking about, but $32 trillion worth of money thinks that they know what they are talking about because they put their money in the hands of these people to make wise investments for the future. A lot of people have bet their savings and resources behind these groups that are now saying: No price on carbon, no end of the fossil fuel subsidies, watch out--watch out for catastrophe.

On an ideological level, if you are sincere about market capitalism, where the costs of a product need to be in the price of the product for the market to work, this is pretty obvious stuff. The only reason this gets difficult is if you are a fake free marketeer who is really fronting for the fossil fuel industry.

But if you are not a fake on market economics when it is the industry that funds your party involved, it is pretty straightforward stuff. It is basic economic market principles.

You put the public harm externalities of a product--those costs--into the price of the product for the market to work--econ 101.

It shows the priorities around here when market capitalism and the principles of free market economics are so readily thrown under the bus by our friends once they cross the interests of big, big donor industries.

The good news is that many governments--from cities, States, and provinces to countries and regions--are already pricing carbon. This chart shows all of the various governments that have set a price on carbon, either through emissions trading--those are the green ones--or through a carbon price, a carbon fee--the various purple ones--and some do both, which is where they are mixed.

The carbon fee involved will vary. Sweden, for example, charges almost $140 per ton of carbon emitted, covering nearly 50 percent of the Nation's emissions.

The Canadian Province of British Columbia enacted a carbon fee in 2008, which has risen over time to its current price of $35 per ton. In the 4 years following the British Columbia carbon fee, fossil fuel use decreased by 17 percent in the Province, compared to increasing by 1 percent in the rest of Canada. So it works at decreasing emissions, and British Columbia's economy grew faster than that of any other Canadian province.

Why would it not? One hundred percent of the revenues raised from British Columbia's carbon fee are returned to taxpayers in the form of other tax cuts. And it is popular; 70 percent of British Colombians support the policy.

So what about the United States? Well, California has put a price on carbon via an emissions trading system, as have the nine Northeastern States, including Rhode Island, that are members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. For the moment, the prices in California and the RGGI are still relatively low--around 5 bucks for us in Rhode Island for RGGI.

Senator Schatz and I have introduced our American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act again to assess a carbon fee starting at 50 bucks per metric ton of emissions in 2019. It is the midrange of the Office of Management and Budget's 2016 estimates of what they call the social cost of carbon. The social cost of carbon is the name for the long-term damage that is done by carbon pollution, which the fossil fuel industry is fighting so hard to be a public subsidy rather than to be put into the price of their product.

Our market-based proposal is an appeal to true conservative Republican colleagues. As one Republican former legislator said: It is not just an olive branch; it is an olive limb that we have offered. But the fossil fuel industry keeps a stranglehold on the Republican Party, preventing climate action--even climate action using market principles.

Axios just did this chart. I saw it today and had it reproduced for the floor. This is the number of times climate change was mentioned in Congress in press releases, floor statements, and online by Members of Congress. This is how often the Democrats have mentioned it from 2013 to 2018. I am afraid I am probably a measurable piece of those blue columns.

But if you look over here, this is how often Republicans have mentioned climate change. Their best year was 678 mentions. For all Republicans in Congress, in all of their press releases, floor statements, and online communications, the grand total is 678 mentions--I mean, seriously--and it has gone down as it has gotten worse because I think it is difficult to talk about if you are a Republican.

Everybody is looking around at the wildfires; everybody is looking around

at the sea level rise coming up; everybody is looking at the storms; everybody is looking around at the science now, not only warning of climate change but being able to connect specific weather events to climate change, most recently, the massive heat wave that wiped out so much of the Great Barrier Reef.

So here is how often Republicans talk about it, and here is how often Democrats do. We should probably do better. But, anyway, that is where we are.

If that doesn't show the effect of the industry squelching debate and driving Republicans into alignment with their industry welfare, then I don't know what could express that much more clearly.

So I wanted to show that, and this is unlikely to change as long as millions of fossil fuel industry dollars slosh around Washington, protecting this corrupting industry from having to account, as economics would suggest, for the actual economic cost of its pollution.

America is called the indispensable Nation, and American leadership is indispensable if we are to achieve a global response to this global challenge. But American leadership is sorely lacking because the dark money and sleazy operatives of the fossil fuel industry today control the Trump administration and swaths of the Republican Party.

There used to be a guy in this body who said ``Country First.'' We could use a little of that now in this tragic, climate-denying Trump sleaze-fest.

I yield the floor, and per the previous order I think Senator Menendez is here, to be recognized momentarily. I saw him come to the floor a moment ago.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss--and I appreciate the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island and the work he has done on this critical question of climate change. I am pleased to join him today on the floor in pursuit of what he has been doing.

I rise today to discuss the negotiations taking place in Katowice, Poland, to finalize the rule book on implementing the Paris climate change agreement. There is an immediate urgency for global action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution as emissions continue to increase. The longer it takes for us to fully accept and acknowledge the problem, the more aggressive the world will have to be to avoid the worst effects of climate change from becoming a reality.

For decades, the science has yielded increasing causes for concern. Today, the connection between manmade greenhouse gas emissions-- primarily fossil fuel combustion--and climate change is undeniable. Three major reports on the growing climate crisis have been published in the last 30 days alone. That includes reports from the world's top climate scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.N. Environment Programme. That includes the National Climate Assessment, which was assembled by 13 Federal agencies and 300 government experts--our Federal agencies and our government experts.

What the scientists are telling us is that robust and immediate action is necessary to prevent catastrophic changes in the Earth's climate--changes that have already begun to affect every single American.

There is a tendency to dismiss scientific reports as abstract, as hard to understand. The President seems to simply not believe them. So let me speak plainly: The consequences of climate change are anything but abstract--regional food and water shortages, inundation of island nations and coastal communities that are home to billions of people around the world, mass migration, and refugee crises.

Our own National Climate Assessment makes clear that the United States--with all our wealth and good fortune--is far from immune from the effects of climate change. If we fail to confront this challenge, the United States will experience effects that will cost American lives and billions in losses to our national economy.

While we shouldn't point to any single event as evidence, the changes in trends depicting climate change's harsh reality are undeniable. It is a fact that the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8 degrees Celsius--1.4 degrees Fahrenheit--since 1880, and two- thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975. It is a fact that the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in many regions of the United States are increasing, including conditions that heighten wildfire risks. It is a fact that sea level has been rising over the past century, and the rate has increased in recent decades. In 2017, global mean sea level was 3 inches above the 1993 average--the highest annual average in the satellite record. None of these facts are new. None of these fact are deniable. The science predicted these climate change effects 20, even 30 years ago.

To echo a common sentiment among climate change leaders on the urgency of the situation, ``We are the first generations to experience the effects of climate change and the last that can act to prevent the worst.''

This urgency is fueling the negotiations in Poland this week. Deliberations on the various elements of these rules began shortly after the Paris Agreement's entry into force in November 2016, and the agreement requires that the rules be completed this year, making the COP in Katowice the most consequential conference of parties since COP21 in Paris.

The Paris Agreement establishes firm, albeit nonbinding, global emissions reduction goals--reductions sufficient to prevent a 2 degrees Celsius increase in global average temperatures. The Paris Agreement also clearly outlined robust and transparent reporting so that parties can hold each other accountable via diplomatic engagement as opposed to binding legal punishment.

Of course, success comes down to execution. That is what makes the development of the implementation rule book so consequential and President Trump's decision to abandon the Paris Agreement so antithetical to our own interests.

The current administration's wholesale rejection of meaningful engagement with the global community is disturbingly naive and is bound to result in repeating past mistakes with detrimental outcomes.

China is emboldened by President Trump's plan to abandon the Paris Agreement. China effectively slowed progress at COP23 and will continue its efforts. In the leadership vacuum that President Trump has created, China is stepping in to write the rules.

It is completely absurd to assume that the United States, by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, is somehow immune to the global economic implications of climate change.

The President couched his decision to abdicate American leadership regarding the Paris Agreement as putting ``America first'' in a June 2017 announcement riddled with inaccurate characterizations of the Paris Agreement and alternative facts on climate change.

There is no truthful, factual, or reality-based argument to justify how allowing every country in the world except the United States to build the clean energy economy of the future and confront our most pressing global challenge puts America first.

Continued U.S. leadership and climate diplomacy can only yield economic benefits for U.S. workers. More than 900 U.S. businesses support keeping the United States in the Paris Agreement, including more than 20 Fortune 500 companies.

Acting to prevent the worst effects of climate change holds tremendous economic and job-growth opportunities for New Jersey and our Nation. I am proud to say that New Jersey is a national leader in deploying clean energy technologies, creating clean energy jobs, and planning and investing in climate change resilience.

New Jersey is home to 417 solar energy manufacturing and installation companies employing more than 7,000 workers.

New Jersey is also competing hard to become the first Mid-Atlantic State to produce offshore wind energy, supported by the recent enactment of legislation establishing a 3,500-megawatt production goal for offshore wind energy.

New Jersey has also recently increased its renewable energy standards to 50 percent by 2030 and set a new State carbon emissions reduction goal of 80 percent by 2050.

New Jersey's leadership among the States working to combat climate change is rooted in our vulnerability to the effects of climate change. The fact is, if we continue on our current emissions trajectory, the world could see global average temperature increase by 3 degrees Celsius. This would devastate New Jersey, risking $800 billion in coastal property value, along with the health, security, and livelihood of millions of residents. The potential losses from sea level rise and increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather associated with climate change would cost my State's economy billions in economic losses.

Just yesterday, the Star-Ledger--a statewide paper--published a column by Robert Kopp, the director of the Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, highlighting many of these consequences, as outlined by the recent National Climate Assessment.

Our winters have been warming faster than our summers. Pests like pine beetle and ash borer are no longer kept in check by winter freezes. Perhaps even more alarming, we have seen our crops begin to bud earlier and earlier, only to see them decimated by cold snaps later in the season. In the Garden State--famous for our tomatoes, cranberry bogs, blueberries, and other specialty crops--that is a big deal.

As temperatures rise, we also expect to see a surge in heat-related deaths and illnesses due to allergies and asthma, while disease- carrying bugs like mosquitos and ticks thrive in increased seasonal moisture.

Our fisheries--the life blood of so many of our coastal communities-- have already begun to see how changing water temperatures are changing migrations, making it harder for us to manage historic fisheries and harder for our fishermen to earn a living.

Of course, perhaps the clearest threat to New Jersey from climate change comes in the form of coastal flooding from sea level rise and extreme weather events. We saw it with Superstorm Sandy, and we understand the devastating consequences it can have for our families, our communities, and our infrastructure.

There is no convincing me that ignoring climate change and walking away from the world's only mechanism for holding countries like India, China, and Russia accountable for their emissions puts New Jersey first.

The Trump administration's failure to recognize this potential and its refusal to recognize the growing market demand for clean energy is a stunning example of the transactional relationship this President has with the fossil fuel industry. He is putting wealthy, politically connected corporations ahead of the best interests of the American people. Proof of the administration's political favoritism for fossil fuels is exemplified by the only U.S. Government-sponsored event at COP24 in Poland, titled ``The Future of Coal.''

Never mind how insulting and tone-deaf it is to sponsor an event to promote dirty, coal-powered energy at a climate change conference while countries like the Marshall Islands, the Maldives, Mongolia, and Mozambique, which face existential crises from climate change, look on--even more than that, this public forum flaunts the administration's wholesale sellout to the industries the government is tasked with regulating. It also shows us this administration's contempt for the booming renewable energy sector in the United States, which, according to Trump's own Department of Energy, employs more Americans than the U.S. fossil fuel industries by a 5-to-1 reality. All told, nearly 1 million Americans work in the energy efficiency, solar, wind, and alternative vehicles sectors. That equals nearly five times the number of workers employed in the fossil fuel electric industry, which includes coal, gas, and oil workers.

As the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I believe that climate diplomacy must be a priority for U.S. foreign policy. Climate change poses an imminent and long-term threat not just to U.S. national security but also to the long-term prosperity of this country and of our world. Addressing the crisis requires collective action and cooperation by local and national representatives, small and large businesses, and every one of us.

If the United States is to maintain our status as the world's superpower, it is in our best interest to lead the global cooperative effort to address the serious challenges posed by climate change and to promote stability and resilience by helping developing countries reduce their vulnerability to the effects of climate change. If we stand alone on the sidelines as these changes and international economics take shape, we will ultimately be the loser.

I urge my colleagues to join me in calling on the administration to advance continuing U.S. climate diplomacy and reconsider the decision to withdraw. It is essential to U.S. national security interests, as defined by our own Department of Defense, and growing U.S. economic opportunity.

Congressional Review Act

Mr. President, I want to take one moment to speak to a different topic, which is to support the Tester-Wyden Congressional Review Act.

This is an administration cloaked in secrecy and deception. It is an administration that doesn't want the American people to know what it is doing. So it is no surprise that in July, the Treasury Department issued their dark money rule. They don't want the American people to know that behind every bill, amendment, and Executive order is a big- money special interest. They want to make it easier for big corporations, billionaires, and even illegal foreign money to influence our elections. These special interests know that so long as the money keeps flowing, there will be someone in Congress to do their bidding.

At a time when Americans want transparency from their government, this rule would allow special interests to hide their donors from the