A joint resolution calling on the United States and Congress to take immediate action to address the challenge of climate change.

Mr. President, before the Presidents Day recess, I announced that I would introduce legislation if the tax extenders weren't included in the legislation that we passed at that time that would keep government open.

Today I am following through on that promise with a bill that I am introducing with Finance Committee ranking member Senator Wyden of Oregon.

It is fitting that I am taking this step in the same month as Groundhog Day, as the subject of my remarks is something that Congress has had to deal with too many times already.

Next to me is a depiction from the movie ``Groundhog Day,'' which is about a man named Phil who must relive the same day over and over until he gets everything right. While we still need to break the cycle of repetitive short-term extensions, the right thing to do right now is to extend these already-expired provisions for 2018 and 2019.

As I have said before, the tax extenders are a collection of temporary tax

incentives that have required extension on a very regular basis in order to keep them available to the taxpayers. Currently, there are 26 provisions. At one time there were as many as 50-some. We have done away with some of them and made some of those laws permanent, but these 26 provisions expired at the end of 2017. They need to be extended, as well as three others that expired at the end of last year.

Today we are in the middle of filing season for 2018 tax returns, and taxpayers affected by these expired provisions need a resolution so that they can file. I want to stress that I want to find a long-term resolution so that we don't have to have temporary tax policy, but it is critical we make it clear to the taxpayers that these provisions are available for the 2018 filing season and extending them for this year will give us room to take a needed long-term view of this temporary tax policy.

Many of the tax extenders are intended to be incentives, and to be successful, then, these incentives need to be in effect before decisions can be made. That is why we should provide extensions for at least 2 years, to maximize that incentive effect. But it is also important that we extend these provisions for 2018, even though the year has obviously already ended. We have developed a very bad policy and a very bad habit of extending these tax provisions year after year, and people and businesses have come to expect that the extension will happen.

As a result, decisions were made by various businesses in 2018 based upon the expectation of extension, and that is a reasonable expectation because we have done it over decades. In other words, people did what we wanted them to do in their business decisions when these provisions were created. We should not retroactively punish these businesspeople for Congress's inaction.

Today, a diverse group of organizations, including the National Biodiesel Board, the American Trucking Associations, and the National Corn Growers Association, among others, sent a letter to congressional leaders requesting that the expired provisions be extended through 2019 as quickly as possible. I want to quote a few sentences from that letter:

Providing taxpayers with a predictable planning outlook as

it pertains to tax rules is conducive to increased private

sector investment and economic activity. Accordingly, we

respectfully ask that you act to retroactively extend these

expired tax provisions through 2019 on the first appropriate

legislative vehicle.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the complete letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, another very important point I want to make has to do with the question about whether an extender package should be offset or not. Around here, the word ``offset'' means if you have tax provisions that might lose revenue, then do you have other revenue coming in to take its place? The House has decided that is what you should do--pay as you go, or PAYGO, as they might call it. It is a rule of the House.

I have a long record of promoting budget responsibility, and I am as concerned about the deficit and debt as anyone. However, we also have bipartisan precedent for treating the extension of temporary tax policy, like these extenders, just as we treat the extension of annual spending policy. In neither case do we need offset for such extensions. In other words, it is all right to spend more money or continue to spend the same amount of money after a program has expired, and you don't have to offset it when you have tax law that has been on the books for a couple of decades, and it is sunset. Why should you have to sunset that? There are a few people around here who think it is all right to spend money without offsets, but it is wrong to do tax policy unless you have offsets.

There are a few specific items in this legislation that I want to take time to mention. Significant work has already been done to provide long-term solutions on two extenders--the short line railroad tax credit and the biodiesel tax credit.

The bill I am introducing extends those credits at their current levels for 2018 and 2019. I want my colleagues to

know that I still remain committed to enacting the compromises that several of our colleagues and I worked with the stakeholders to achieve.

The bill also includes an extension of a proposal adopted last Congress that would extend the 7.5-percent floor for itemized deductions of medical expenses. Without this provision, the floor on deductions will be 10 percent for 2019. This means that without this provision, individuals with chronic illnesses and high medical expenses would have to pay more for healthcare before that excess can be deducted in the expenses on their 2019 tax returns.

This proposal is a very important priority for one of our best colleagues, Senator Collins. She deserves a lot of credit for getting what has turned into a bipartisan proposal to help many Americans facing catastrophic medical expenses.

Finally, the legislation includes provisions to assist Americans who have been affected by natural disasters in 2018. This package includes proposals that we have adopted in prior years to help Americans recover from natural disasters across our country. For example, the package would allow increased access to retirement funds and relax restrictions around charitable giving. I am sure everyone here would like to help people affected by these natural disasters as soon as we are able to.

I don't want my comments today to imply that each tax extender should be permanently extended, but the right thing to do now is to provide extensions for at least 2018 and 2019. In the long term, Congress needs to decide if these provisions should be allowed to expire or if they should be phased out or if they should be made permanent as current tax policy or modified in some way beyond expiring, phasing out, or being made permanent.

Those decisions need to be made after we resolve the short-term crisis caused by the current lapse. These provisions have support of Members on both sides of the aisle. For people who think that things around here get done only with Republicans fighting Democrats or vice versa, these provisions have wide bipartisan support.

There is a solid foundation for a long-term package consisting of many of these provisions in one form or another. We need to get past today so that we can chart the course for a reliable future for the tax extenders and give business some certainty.

Just as Phil wants to stop living the same day over and over again, I think all of us want to break the cycle of short-term extensions of, in many cases, very popular tax policy. The legislation I introduce today with the ranking member, Senator Wyden of Oregon, is a critical first step toward helping taxpayers complete their 2018 returns and helping us begin work on a long-term solution to temporary tax policy.

I have asked our majority leader to rule XIV this bill onto the calendar, and I urge the House to send us a tax bill to address the extenders without further delay.

Just this morning, I had discussions with Iowa Congressmen of both political parties about this issue to contact the leadership of the House and the leadership of the Ways and Means Committee on the importance of moving legislation since the Constitution doesn't allow the Senate to move tax legislation in the first place.

Madam President, when we yielded to accommodate the majority leader, I was talking about the episode on the Senate floor with the Republican Senators coming to bash the Green New Deal. I wanted to go on to say that the USA Today editorial--the one saying climate change is ``a true crisis facing the United States and the world''--also said this about the Green New Deal critics:

Republicans in the White House and Congress are having a

grand old time mocking the Green New Deal. . . . But the

critics owe this and future generations more than scorn; they

have an obligation to put better ideas and solutions on the

table.

So far we have not seen much from my Republican colleagues by way of better or, indeed, any solutions.

Madam President, I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude and appreciation to Senators Murkowski and Manchin for the joint piece that they wrote in the ``Washington Post'' recently.

I ask unanimous consent to have that article printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

So we get that my colleagues don't like the Green New Deal.

Let's consider other proposals. We have lots of them on the Democratic side. We have had cap and trade. We have had ``keep it in the ground.'' We have had Green New Deals. We have had revenue-neutral carbon fee proposals.

Senator Van Hollen, of Maryland, is here to discuss his ideas. We are ready here.

Republicans said last week they wanted innovation to address climate change--great, me too. But you can't count on the innovation fairy to fly down and wave innovation fairy dust on the problem and make it go away. One of the reasons that Senator Barrasso's and my bipartisan carbon capture bill was necessary is because there was not enough innovation. There was not enough innovation because, quoting the USA Today article, ``fossil-fuel polluters keep using the atmosphere as a free waste dump.''

It is really hard to spur innovation when there is no revenue in the business model. So our bill put revenue in the business model. We did it in the form of tax credits.

But the big driver for developing innovation and for developing innovative, new technologies would be a price on carbon, just like Senator Schatz and I have in our American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act--a revenue-neutral, border-adjustable carbon fee. This bill passes all the major Republican tests. It is a market solution that fixes a market failure. It does not grow government or regulation, and it does not put American industry at a disadvantage against foreign competitors. It will drive innovation: Put a $50 per ton price on carbon emissions, and every polluter paying the price has an incentive to spend up to $49 per ton on solutions. That is how you get innovation.

This carbon pricing idea has support from a swath of senior Republican officials, including seven Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, six current and former Members of Congress, four EPA Administrators, three Secretaries of State or Treasury, two Chairs of the Federal Reserve, and one Congressional Budget Office Director--all Republicans. Some of these Republicans were members of a group of prominent economists, including 27 Nobel Prize winners, who recently published this statement in the Wall Street Journal editorial page supporting just the kind of carbon fee model that is the basis of Senator Schatz's and my legislation. Since then, over 3,500 U.S. economists have signed this statement, and that is because it is pretty obvious how you have to solve this problem, once you want to.

Former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis has been very active in this area. He said of our carbon fee proposal: ``Democrats . . . have offered Republicans an olive limb, not just an olive branch.''

We are trying to reach out. We are trying to get to yes, and that olive branch will remain extended as long as it takes.

If you think all of our bills are no good, come up with something better, for Pete's sake. Give it a try. I am ready to work with Republicans on passing a carbon fee or other climate change legislation. I think I have proved that by working in a bipartisan fashion. But when Republicans will not propose anything and will not agree to anything--even an olive limb offered to them--then, that is a pretty strong sign that there is something more going on than objections to a Green New Deal. If you don't like the Green New Deal, tell us what you do like. Go the carbon fee route. Go ``leave it in the ground''--whatever. But please, let's get together and solve this problem.

As USA Today said, ``the American people are getting impatient.''

Madam President, I am now honored to yield the floor to my distinguished colleague from Maryland who has been working on this issue in the House before he came to the Senate and has become a real leader in our Senate caucus, Senator Van Hollen.

If I may, Madam President, I would like to remark on the figure that Senator Van Hollen used of the recent measurement in our atmosphere of a carbon dioxide concentration of 411 parts per million. Standing on its own, that may not seem particularly significant, so let's put that into context.

NASA, which Senator Van Hollen mentioned and which has important facilities in Maryland, has been measuring this for a long time.

By the way, I think NASA's scientists have demonstrated they know what they are talking about. They have rovers driving around on Mars right now, so they know what they are talking about.

The scientists have gone back and determined what the carbon dioxide levels were on Earth over a period of 400,000 years. If you look back, there is a graph that NASA has that shows the carbon dioxide levels ramping up and down, up and down, over 400,000 years. For that entire time, the levels have stayed between 180 parts per million and 300 parts per million. That was the range within which the entire human species experienced our development--180 parts per million at the low and 300 parts per million at the high. At 411, we are now out of that range by almost the entire range. We are not out by a little; we are out of that range by a lot.

Also, 400,000 years is a very long time. If you look at how long humankind has been farming--kind of the basic, organized activity of our species--the common view is that we really started farming about 12,000 years ago. Some people push that number further, more towards 20,000 years. We invented the wheel a little over 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. If you think about the first people who put seeds in the ground and planted farms, you only go back 12,000 to 20,000 years. If you think about the first people who rolled a wagon or a chariot on a wheel, you only go back about 5,000 years. This record goes back 400,000 years. They know it because you can go into ancient ice, and you can find bubbles of air from tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago, and you can test them. I have been to the freezer at Ohio State University, which is where they keep the cores they have drilled out of glaciers, and I have seen how they go back and do these micro measurements that let you know what the carbon dioxide levels were. So we are not off by a little, folks; we are off by a lot.

When you consider the known scientific effect of carbon dioxide concentrations, we have known what it has done. This has been a greenhouse gas since Abraham Lincoln rode around in his top hat. This is not scientific news; we know this stuff.

When you consider that we are that far out of the range that has made human life and development comfortable on this planet throughout the entire duration of our species--that we are out of that range for the first time in 400,000 years and are out of that range by an amount that is practically equal to the entire range itself--if that is not a signal for us to wake up and pay attention, I don't know what is. The fact that the fossil fuel industry can drown out that signal with its political signal in this body is astounding.

Arsenic, too, is a naturally occurring substance, but you don't want too much of it.

I thank Senator Van Hollen for joining me in this colloquy and for speaking today on the floor.

I see the distinguished ranking member of the Finance Committee here.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the resolution that I am joining Senator Udall in introducing. It would reverse the President's ill-advised decision to declare a national emergency and commandeer funding provided for other purposes by Congress and instead redirect it to construct a wall on our southern border.

I thank Senator Udall for his leadership and also recognize the support we have received from our cosponsors, Senator Murkowski and Senator Shaheen.

Let me be clear. The question before us is not whether to support or oppose the wall. It is not whether to support or oppose President Trump. Rather, it is this: Do we want the executive branch now or in the future to hold a power that the Founders deliberately entrusted to Congress?

It has been said that Congress's most precious power is the power of the purse set out in plain language in article I, section 9 of our Constitution. It reads as follows: ``No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of Appropriations made by law.''

Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 72, made clear the Founders' view that only the legislative branch commands this power, not the judiciary and not the executive. James Madison, in Federalist 58, called the power of the purse ``the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the [ . . . ] representatives of the people.''

Congress's power was jealously guarded in the early days of our Republic. No less an authority on our constitutional framework than Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, in his famous ``Commentaries,'' explained that ``[i]f it were otherwise, the executive would possess an unbounded power over the public purse of the nation, and might apply all its monied resources at his pleasure.''

Throughout our history, the courts have consistently held that ``only Congress is empowered by the Constitution to adopt laws directing monies to be spent from the U.S. treasury.''

I strongly support protecting the institutional prerogatives of the U.S. Senate and the system of checks and balances that is central to the structure of our government.

I support funding for better border security, including physical barriers where they make sense. I understand the President is disappointed that the funding he requested did not pass, but the failure of Congress to pass funding in the amount the President prefers cannot become an excuse for the President to usurp the powers of the legislative branch.

This is not the first time I have made this argument against Executive overreach. In 2015, I authored the Immigration Rule of Law Act, legislation that would have provided a statutory basis for the Dreamer population, while rolling back President Obama's 2014 Executive orders expanding that program.

As I explained at the time, even though I supported comprehensive immigration reform and was disappointed that it had not passed, I rejected the notion that its failure could serve as the justification for President Obama to implement by Executive fiat that which Congress had refused to pass, regardless of the wisdom of Congress's decision.

I would now like to turn to a discussion of the National Emergencies Act. This act was passed in 1976 to standardize the process by which the President can invoke national emergency powers and Congress can terminate the declaration through a joint resolution such as the one we are introducing today.

The act is procedural in nature. It lays out the process the President must follow to declare a national emergency but does not provide the President with any additional powers. Instead, it requires the President to specify where, in existing law, he has been granted the authority for the powers he intends to exercise.

By itself, the National Emergencies Act does not give the President the power to repurpose billions of dollars to build a wall. The President must look elsewhere for that authority.

In his declaration, the President cites the authority provided by title 10, section 2808 of the U.S. Code, which relates to ``Construction authority in the event of a declaration of war or national emergency.'' But that authorization applies only to ``military construction projects'' that are ``necessary to support [the] use of the armed forces.'' I do not believe this provision can be fairly read to bootstrap the presence of troops along the southern border into the authority to build a wall as a military construction project.

The question isn't whether the President can act in an emergency but whether he can do so in a manner that would undermine the congressional power of the purse.

Here, I think we need a better understanding of what should qualify as an emergency. One place we could turn is to a five-part test originally developed by the Office of Management and Budget in 1991, under former President George Herbert Walker Bush, to determine whether requested funding merited an ``emergency spending'' designation under our budget rules.

Under that test, a spending request was designated as an ``emergency'' only if all five of the following conditions were met:

First, expenditures had to be necessary; second, the need had to be sudden, coming into being quickly, not building up over time; third, the need had to be urgent; fourth, the need had to be unforeseen; and fifth, the need could not be permanent.

I raise this test only by way of analogy, but it is fair to say that whether or not you agree with the President that more should be done to secure the southern border--and I do agree with the President's goal-- his decision to fund a border wall through a national emergency declaration would not pass this five-part test.

The President's declaration also has practical implications for the military construction appropriations process, as my colleague has pointed out.

Last year, in testimony before the Appropriations Committee, the Department of Defense said that the President's budget request for military construction funding was crucial to support our national defense, including construction projects to improve military readiness and increase the lethality of the force. This includes missile defense, improved facilities in Europe to deter Russian aggression, and infrastructure to operationalize the F-35 stealth fighter.

This also included several important efforts at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine that are vital to the Navy conducting timely maintenance and refueling of our Nation's submarines. Shifting funding away from these vital projects is shortsighted and could have very real national security implications.

We must defend Congress's institutional powers, as the Founders hoped we would, even when doing so is inconvenient or goes against the outcome we might prefer.

The gridlock we have experienced on difficult issues like border security and immigration reform is not simply a failure to get our work done but a reflection of the fact that we have yet to reach a consensus.

The President's emergency declaration is ill-advised precisely because it attempts to shortcut the process of checks and balances by usurping Congress's authority. This resolution blocks that overreach, and I hope, regardless of our colleague's position on the construction of the border wall, that we will join together to assert Congress's constitutional authority in the appropriations process.

I urge our colleagues to support this important resolution.

I would be happy to.

Mr. President, I would thank the Senator for his gracious comments. As always, it has been a great pleasure to work with him, and I know he cares deeply about the constitutional principle that brings us to the floor today. Let us defend the Constitution.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 6 minutes, please.

Thanks very much.

Madam President, I rise again today to speak on an upcoming vote later on the majority leader's Green New Deal resolution.

To my colleagues, I would just say that I think we have a serious choice to make. Either we can acknowledge the climate crisis that our planet faces and confront it head-on, or we can turn our backs to it and walk away. I think the clock is ticking, and we need to not walk away.

While it is clear that a majority of Americans are calling on Congress to work together to address climate change, a number of our Republican colleagues--not all--have chosen to devote their time to deriding the Green New Deal instead of acknowledging the 800-pound gorilla in the room and crafting an action plan to do something about it while we still have time.

Madam President, I will ask unanimous consent to offer a very simple resolution here in a few minutes. I think my friend from Wisconsin is probably here to reserve the right to object to that, which is his right.

It is a pretty simple resolution. There are three parts to it. The first part of the resolution that I will be offering is that climate change is real. The second part of the resolution is that we as human beings have a lot to do with this problem. The last part of it is that we ought to do something about it. ``We'' includes the U.S. Congress.

I have been asked a fair amount today: Well, what should we do about it? What should we do about it?

If you look at the Green New Deal, the first part of the Green New Deal--especially the findings--gives a pretty good roadmap that I think we ought to seriously consider. I would just suggest that some items that have come up before the Environment and Public Works Committee in recent weeks and months--hearings that we held--could also help us figure out what the Congress might want to do about it.

If you think climate change is real--and I do, and I think most of us do. It is becoming a more urgent matter, not a less urgent matter. What are some of the things we can do? I will mention a few.

I think most people believe that carbon dioxide contributes to climate change, and that is true. With respect to climate change, there are other pollutants that are a lot worse than carbon. I want to mention a couple of them.

One of them is black carbon. Where does black carbon come from? It comes from diesel engines--think of trucks, cars, locomotives, trains, and boats. If you have ever been at a traffic intersection and have seen those big diesel trucks that pull away from the traffic intersection and the huge plumes of black smoke that appear as they pull off, they include black carbon. Black carbon is more than 100 times more dangerous than regular carbon dioxide in terms of its climate potential.

We have American-made technology that can be used on diesel engines-- all diesel engines; there are millions of them--to reduce those emissions by 90 percent.

We have a program called the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, which helps to fund and make monies available for States and local governments and private businesses to reduce their diesel emissions, especially black carbon. That is one.

Two, think about our National Highway System in this country. Through most of our National Highway System, we don't provide charging stations for electric vehicles that have batteries. We don't have fueling stations for vehicles that are powered by hydrogen in conjunction with fuel cells that create movement for all kinds of vehicles.

We need to put money into tax credits and grants for fueling stations for hydrogen and charging stations for electricity. We have an electric vehicle credit that has expired or is about to expire. It needs to be extended so that when people in this country are thinking about buying a vehicle, they will consider buying an electric vehicle, which doesn't put out any carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, or CO2.

Another thing we could do is provide an investment tax credit, which Susan Collins and I have proposed doing for some time, where, for the first 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind that is deployed, the business gets a 30-percent investment tax credit. That is one thing we can do.

The chairman of our Environment and Public Works Committee is here. He and I believe another good idea--and we are joined in this by Republicans and Democrats--is to develop technology, which we think is very promising, that would literally pull

carbon out of the air--not out of a smokestack but literally out of the air--and turn it into something more useful. That is something we can do.

We had a hearing on legislation called the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, the NEIC. Part of what we want to do is, instead of running nuclear powerplants and ending up with a whole lot of spent fuel, we want to have technology where, when the heat is so high, those nuclear plants would use most of the spent fuel. Instead of having it stacked up around the country, we use it up and we create electricity from it.

Two more things, and I am done. There are HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons, which replaced CFCs. CFCs put a hole in the ozone. They are a coolant. They are a refrigerant. CFCs put a hole in the ozone. They were replaced by HFCs. HFCs didn't put a hole in the ozone. They are better for the ozone layer but not good for climate change. Now we have a follow-on product, a successor to HFCs. They are good for the ozone layer and good for climate change. We ought to make sure that we pass a treaty here in this body so we can actually use that technology.

Finally, the last thing we can do is provide for our auto industry. It is something they are asking for.

I ask for 30 more seconds, please, Madam President.

Thank you.

The last thing we can do is--the auto industry has been saying, with respect to fuel efficiency standards, CAFE and so forth, that we ought to give them some near-term flexibility in terms of meeting more efficient fuel requirements, more efficient mileage requirements, and more stringent requirements going forward in the future. That is what they are asking for to provide certainty. It is a 50-State deal. California is at the table. We ought to do that.

Those are just a couple of things we can do in Congress to actually address this, and we ought to do them. While we successfully help do good things for our planet, we are also going to create jobs and economic opportunity.

I think that is something the chairman of our committee and I might just agree on.

Thank you, Madam President.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Environment and Public Works Committee be discharged from further consideration of S.J. Res. 9 and that the resolution be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

This resolution says that climate change is real; that as people on this planet, we have something to do with it; and three, that Congress is part of the solution.

That is my resolution.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the Cybersecurity Disclosure Act along with two members of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Collins, and the ranking member, Senator Warner, in addition to Senator Kennedy and Senator Jones, who also serve with me on the Senate Banking Committee. In response to data breaches of various companies that exposed the personal information of millions of customers, our legislation asks each publicly traded company to include--in Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, disclosures to investors--information on whether any member of the board of directors is a cybersecurity expert, and if not, why having this expertise on the board of directors is not necessary because of other cybersecurity steps taken by the publicly traded company. To be clear, the legislation does not require companies to take any actions other than to provide this disclosure to its investors.

In Deloitte's 11th Global Risk Management Survey of financial services institutions, published last month, ``sixty-seven percent of respondents named cybersecurity as one of the three risks that would increase the most in importance for their business over the next two years, far more than for any other risk. Yet, only about one-half of the respondents felt their institutions were extremely or very effective in managing this risk.'' According to the 2018-2019 National Association of Corporate Directors Public Company Governance Survey, only 52 percent of directors ``are confident that they sufficiently understand cyber risks to provide effective cyber-risk oversight,'' and 58 percent ``believe their boards collectively know enough about cyber risk to provide effective oversight.'' Indeed, Yahoo, in its 2016 annual report, disclosed, ``the Independent Committee found that failures in communication, management, inquiry and internal reporting contributed to the lack of proper comprehension and handling of the 2014 Security Incident. The Independent Committee also found that the Audit and Finance Committee and the full board were not adequately informed of the full severity, risks, and potential impacts of the 2014 Security Incident and related matters.'' The 2014 Security Incident here refers to the fact that ``a copy of certain user account information for approximately 500 million user accounts was stolen from Yahoo's network in late 2014.''

This is particularly troubling given that data breaches expose more and more records containing personally identifiable information. Indeed, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, the number of these types of records exposed by data breaches in the business industry grew from 181,630,520 in 2017 to 415,233,143 in 2018 and in the medical and healthcare industry from 5,302,846 in 2017 to 9,927,798 last year. Across all industries, the number of records containing personally identifiable information exposed by data breaches rose 126 percent, from 197,612,748 in 2017 to 446,515,334 in 2018.

Investors and customers deserve a clear understanding of whether publicly traded companies are prioritizing cybersecurity and have the capacity to protect investors and customers from cyber related attacks. Our legislation aims to provide a better understanding of these issues through improved SEC disclosure.

In testimony given to the Senate Banking Committee last June, Harvard Law Professor John Coates, who also practiced securities law as a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, expressed support for our legislation by stating that ``[the Cybersecurity Disclosure Act] is well designed. It does not attempt to second-guess SEC guidance and rules regarding disclosures generally, or even as to cyber-risk overall. The bill simply asks publicly traded companies to disclose whether a cybersecurity expert is on the board of directors, and if not, why one is not necessary. To be clear, the bill does not require every publicly traded company to have a cybersecurity expert on its board. Publicly traded companies will still decide for themselves how to tailor their resources to their cybersecurity needs and disclose what they have decided. Some companies may choose to hire outside cyber consultants. Some may choose to boost cybersecurity expertise on staff. And some may decide to have a cybersecurity expert on the board of directors. The disclosure required would typically amount to a sentence or two.''

While this legislation is a matter for consideration by the Banking Committee, of which I am a member, this bill is also informed by my service on the Armed Services Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence. Through this Banking-Armed Services-Intelligence perspective, I see that our economic security is indeed a matter of our national security, and this is particularly the case as our economy becomes ever more dependent on technology and the internet.

Indeed, General Darren W. McDew, the former commander of U.S. Transportation Command, which is charged with moving our military assets to meet our national security objectives in partnership with the private sector, offered several sobering assessments during an April 10, 2018 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He stated that ``cyber is the number one threat to U.S. Transportation Command, but I believe it is the number one threat to the nation . . . in our headquarters, cyber is the commander's business, but not everywhere across our country is cyber a CEO's business . . . in our cyber roundtables, which is one of the things we are doing to raise our level of awareness, some of the CEO's chief security officers cannot even get to the see the board, they cannot even . . . see the CEO. So that is a problem.''

In my view, this is a real problem because, if we are attacked, the first strike will likely not be a physical one against the military but a cyber strike against the infrastructure of movement, logistics, and other critical assets in the civilian space.

With growing cyber threats, we all need to be more proactive in ensuring our Nation's cybersecurity before there are additional serious breaches. This legislation seeks to take one step towards that goal by encouraging publicly traded companies to be more transparent to their investors and customers on whether and how their boards of directors and senior management are prioritizing cybersecurity.

I thank the bill's supporters, including the North American Securities Administrators Association, the Council of Institutional Investors, the National Association of State Treasurers, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the Bipartisan Policy Center, MIT Professor Simon Johnson, Columbia Law Professor Jack Coffee, Harvard Law Professor John Coates, K&L Gates LLP, and the Consumer Federation of America, and I urge my colleagues to join Senator Collins, Senator Warner, Senator Kennedy, Senator Jones, and me in supporting this legislation.

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

Madam President, I stand today with my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle to talk about the real impacts of climate change.

Climate change is real. It is happening in our communities, and it is harming our country. It is impacting our economy, and it is threatening the future of our kids.

You can see it clearly in my home State of Nevada. The last 4 years have been the hottest ever on record, and we are on track to break that record again in 2019. In Nevada, we are seeing longer, more dangerous heat waves, prolonged droughts, and more severe wildfire seasons. Just this past year, more than 660,000 acres of private, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Forest Service land burned in 138 fires starting in June of 2018. The biggest fire in our State's history and also one of the biggest in our country's history happened just this past year. The Martin Fire burned more than 439,000 acres. That is an area about five times the size of Las Vegas.

I have heard from Nevada ranchers who are facing the tough choice to abandon the land their families have worked for generations due to the cost of recovery and the threat of even worse fire seasons. I have met with parents in Las Vegas and Reno who are worried about the impact that worsening air quality, because of climate change and these wildfires, will have on the health of their children.

It is not happening just in Nevada; throughout our country, Americans are being displaced and communities are being ravaged by devastating hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and floods that are causing millions of dollars in damage to homes, businesses, and local economies. Worldwide, carbon emissions levels reached a record high last year, increasing 3.1 percent in the United States alone, despite evidence that high emissions are driving changes in our climate and fueling extreme weather patterns. Yet this administration and the Republican leader have done nothing to act despite overwhelming support from Americans who want us to protect our planet and our communities.

In my home State, Nevadans know the stakes. In 2016, Colorado College polled voters in six Western States about their views on climate change. At the time, 58 percent of Nevadans expressed concerns that climate change was a serious problem. In January, Nevadans were polled again. This time, almost 75 percent of Nevadans expressed serious concerns about climate change. That is a 16-percent jump in 3 years and comes months after 60 percent of Nevadans supported a ballot initiative to expand Nevada's renewable energy portfolio to 50 percent by 2030.

Across the country, Americans are worried about the impacts of pollution and carbon emissions on our climate, health, and our economy. They have seen the harm it has caused just over the last decade, and they are afraid it is getting worse.

You don't have to look far to see that our climate is changing. It is already happening in our own backyards. We have the evidence. There is scientific consensus. This isn't a fringe theory or a hypothesis asking to be debunked; it is a serious crisis that must be met with serious action. It is clear to younger generations of Americans who

actually walked out of schools this month to demand climate action from their representatives in Washington.

Despite overwhelming evidence that climate change is currently threatening our country, Leader McConnell and this administration are sitting on their hands. This administration has repeatedly tried to scrub climate change information from Federal Agency websites, supported Agency officials with deep ties to fossil fuel industries, and pulled the United States out of a critical international agreement that we need to collectively work together to avert climate disaster.

In the Senate, instead of working to find bipartisan solutions to one of our country's greatest threats, Leader McConnell is setting up a vote designed to be nothing more than a political stunt. My Democratic colleagues and I take the threat of climate change seriously. We won't support the Republican leader's newest political game to address climate change. We call it a sham vote. This isn't a vote about legislation; it is a cynical attempt to distract from the challenge confronting our country.

The fact is, Democrats all agree that we need to take urgent action to protect our environment and avert climate catastrophe. Senate Democrats have put forth many new ideas on how to grow our economy and support American prosperity, while addressing our world's growing climate crisis. We would be happy to work with our colleagues to debate them on the floor.

From my seat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I am continuing to fight for legislation to tackle climate change by supporting renewable energy production, protecting workers, and creating good-paying, green jobs in Nevada and across the country.

I call on Leader McConnell and my Republican colleagues: If you are serious about addressing climate change, then join us. Senate Democrats will continue to fight for commonsense policies that reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and combat climate change, and we will continue to call on our colleagues across the aisle to work with us to tackle this challenge in both the House and Senate.

Democrats are working every day to craft smart and effective policies that will help safeguard our planet and help grow our economy. By forcing a vote now, Senator McConnell is denying us all the chance to come together to craft bipartisan, comprehensive climate change legislation through the legislative process. The American people want action now.

I won't stand for Republican leaders using this vote in a cynical attempt to divide Democrats and stall progress. I intend to keep my promise to fight on this issue and to protect the most vulnerable and marginalized, who often bear the brunt of the effects of unchecked climate change.

The American people continue to speak out for action on climate change, and Senate Democrats will keep fighting because our planet and our future depend on it.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, would my friend from Wyoming, who mentioned my name, yield for a question or three?

My friend from Wyoming said I said: ``Bring on the vote on the Green New Deal.'' I did, not because I think it is a smart thing to do--it is a stunt--but it will finally get us to talk about climate change, something the other side has not done.

I would ask my colleague three questions. I was gratified to see Leader McConnell answer them for the first time in his press conference. Does the Senator from Wyoming believe climate change is real? Does he believe it is caused by human activity? And does he believe Congress ought to do something about it? Those are my three questions. I hope I can get a direct answer, since my name was invoked.

Madam President, first, I thank my colleague from Wyoming. Now he knows why I said: ``Bring it on.'' We are finally getting even people like the Senator from Wyoming to admit that climate change is real, that it is caused by human activity, and that we should do something about it.

If we could have an open debate on climate change, that would be great. That is not what is happening today. The Senator from Wyoming talked about the contradiction of the Senator outside. How about the contradictions of the Republican Party and the Senators here putting a bill on the floor that they are going to vote no on.

Let's put the bill that the Senator from Wyoming asked for and let there be an open amendment process and let's see where people fall. All we are asking for is not a sham vote where people who put the bill on the floor are voting no because they don't want to have a debate, but rather a real discussion, a real debate, and real amendments.

I would say this. Earlier today, even better than having the Senator from Wyoming finally admit that climate change is real and caused by human activity, the Republican leader did, when asked by the press at his gathering.

The whole plan of the Republican leader here is backfiring.

We want a discussion on climate. We haven't had one major bill on the real issues of climate come to the floor led by the leader where we can have open debate--not one. So now we are finally beginning to debate. That is great. We are not going to stand for sham bills that the other side is all voting no on. They know what a trick and joke and sham that is. So do all the American people. We are finally talking about the issue, and that is great. Climate change is not a joke. It is not a hoax. It is a crisis. That is why we are doing these things.

So right now, here is something else we could do. Let's see where our Republican colleagues are if they want to have a real debate. I am calling for the creation of a Senate select committee on climate change. It is a crisis. Ask the farmers in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas if they think it is a crisis. Ask the people who have been subjected to so many changes in the weather because the globe is heating up. They believe it is a crisis. The very least we can do is to do what the House did and set up a select committee on climate change that is bipartisan. The committee can be partnering with the House committee. We might actually get something done, not sham votes that everyone knows are a joke--a political joke.

I am hopeful that we can do that. The reason for the select committee is clear. If there ever were an issue that demanded focus from this Chamber, this is it. Climate change is an existential threat to our country and our planet. The last 4 years have been the warmest on record. Sea levels are rising and marine life and fishing communities are being destroyed. Record flooding is inundating parts of the country, most recently the Midwest, and more and more powerful hurricanes have buffeted our coasts. Over the next decade, climate change will continue to negatively impact every part of American life, our health, our economy, our national security, and even our geography, and the threats will only grow.

We can't run into our ideological corners anymore. I am gratified to hear a growing number of Republicans admit it is real, admit it is caused by human activity, and that we should do something about it. That is great news, but let's do something real. Let's do something real.

The Senator mentioned a few bills. I would be happy to look at them. I hope he will look at ours, and I hope he will ask his leader, the Republican leader, to allow an open debate on the floor with amendments. We would welcome that. We would welcome it. Some in the oil and gas industry will not like it. That is for sure. Some in the coal industry will not like it. That is for sure. But most Americans will.

So let's do it. The time for partisanship on this issue is long over. The time for one party to block any change and not offer anything that they believe in is over. We need to act quickly and boldly to confront this challenge before it is too late. It is time to stop the nonsense.

As I said, we welcome this debate because we are talking about climate change for the first time, and the hypocrisy of putting a bill on the floor and then voting against it is becoming so clear to the American people. But, as a byproduct, we are getting a debate and we are getting some of our colleagues for the first time to admit that climate change is real and caused by human activity and that we ought to do something about it. We welcome it. This committee will help bring the kind of bipartisan discussion that my good friend from Wyoming has asked for. So let's do it.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 97, a resolution establishing the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the resolution be agreed to; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we be given 2 minutes so that the Senator from Rhode Island can ask a question of the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. President, during the debate on the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency I came to the floor to express concerns on a number of issues, including EPA's regulation of per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances--PFAS.

PFAS are a class of man-made chemicals developed in the 1940s. PFAS can be found across industries in many products, including food packaging, nonstick pans, clothing, furniture, and firefighting foam used by the military. These chemicals have a long and tragic history-- suffice it to say that their widespread use resulted too many Americans without access to safe drinking water.

This very issue is a matter of some controversy as EPA has failed to provide meaningful and swift action on these chemicals under this administration. That is why I am here today to introduce a bipartisan bill to designate PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances under the Federal superfund law. The Carper-Capito-Peters-Tillis-Stabenow-Rubio- Merkley-Gardner-Reed-Murkowski-Shaheen-Burr-Bennet-Manchin bill will force EPA to begin the rulemaking process to protecting Americans from overexposure to these harmful chemicals and hold polluters accountable. It is very similar to legislation that has already been introduced in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Debbie Dingell.

In his confirmation hearing, Andrew Wheeler said, and I quote:

It is these Americans that President Trump and his

Administration are focused on, Americans without access to

safe drinking water or Americans living on or near hazardous

sites, often unaware of the health risks they and their

families face. Many of these sites have languished for years,

even decades. How can these Americans prosper if they cannot

live, learn, or work in healthy environments? The answer is

simple. They cannot. President Trump understands this and

that is why he is focused on putting Americans first.

One would think those words might mean that there could be some common ground at least on addressing PFAS. After all, who wouldn't agree that we should be acting with urgency to address contamination from these hazardous chemicals?

According to one 2017 study, drinking water supplies for 6 million U.S. residents have exceeded the EPA's lifetime health advisory for these chemicals.

Another 2018 study performed by the Environmental Working Group reports that up to 110 million Americans could have PFAS-contaminated water.

In 2016, the Department of Defense announced that it was assessing the risk of groundwater contamination from firefighting foam at dozens of fire and crash testing sites across the country. It is likely that they are all contaminated.

Just last year, the town of Blades in my home State of Delaware alerted its 1,250 residents, as well as businesses and schools that use public water, to stop using public water for drinking an cooking because PFAS chemicals were present at nearly twice the Federal health advisory level. Reportedly, 36 of 67 sampled groundwater wells on Dover Air Force Base showed dangerously high levels of PFOA and PFOS. And it is not just Delaware--contamination is widespread, in red States and blue States, in small water systems and large ones, on military sites and in residential areas, from Maine to Alaska.

It is essential that we legislate to require EPA to designate PFOA and PFOS as ``hazardous substances,'' which means that polluters could be held responsible for cleaning it up under the superfund law. In its recently released PFAS Action Plan, EPA has said again that it would issue this proposal in the future but did not indicate how long it will take to complete. Unfortunately, it has no sense of urgency to address these emerging contaminants and to protect American's from harmful levels of contamination.

EPA had an opportunity to take action to address PFAS chemicals in a real and comprehensive way; however, time and again, it has failed to move in an expeditious and meaningful way. That is why this bill is so important. Designating these chemicals as hazardous substances will, at a minimum, start the process to getting these contaminated sites cleaned up. This not the silver bullet to the broader contamination problems, but it is a start.