Community Wood Facilities Assistance Act of 2021

Mr. President, as career opportunities and the requisite skills

for success adapt to the demands of the 2lst century, so too must the instruction and preparation educators receive. Educators are tasked with designing educational experiences that rise to the rigorous State academic standards and reflect the needs and interests of our Nation's diverse student population. This past school year with the pandemic was even more demanding our Nation's educators as they were faced with new teaching challenges and adapting to virtual or hybrid learning environments. Prior to the pandemic, school districts were faced with widespread teacher shortages, with nearly every State reporting shortages of teachers in high-need subjects like math, science, ahd special education. Data from the U.S. Department of Education shows COVID-19 has only exacerbated those needs with 43 States reporting shortages in math teachers, 42 in science teachers, and 44 in special education for the 2020-21 school year.

We must find ways to strengthen the educator talent pipeline to ensure our students have access to high-quality educators and school leaders. We also must address the fact that schools in high-need communities are often staffed by a revolving door of underprepared and inexperienced teachers who unable to meet students' needs. According to the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection, in 2016, schools with high enrollments of students of color were four times as likely to hire uncertified teachers as were schools with low enrollments of students of color. This in part due to State teacher shortages.

This is why I am pleased to introduce today with my colleague, Senator Collins, the Preparing and Retaining Education Professionals Act, or PREP Act. As schools across our Nation continue to face growing class sizes, many are struggling with a shortage of qualified teachers. Rural communities in particular are experiencing a dearth of teachers equipped to meet their growing needs. The PREP Act aims to create high- quality teacher residency programs to develop a diverse workforce that is well prepared to provide the educational opportunities students need to be successful in the 21st century.

More specifically, this legislation would expand the definition of ``high need'' districts under the Every Student Succeeds Act, ESSA, to include those experiencing teacher shortages in rural communities and in areas such as special education, English language, science, technology, engineering, math, and CTE, to allow for access to additional support and improvement. It would also encourage school districts to establish partnerships with local community colleges and universities to ensure their education programs are developing future teachers in content areas where there is currently a shortage of educators. It would increase access to teacher and school leader residency programs and preparation training while requiring States to identify areas of teacher or leader shortages by subject across public schools and use that data to target their efforts. Additionally, the PREP Act bolsters support for teacher preparation programs at minority serving institutions, MSIs, or historically Black colleges and universities, HBCUs, to invest in a diverse and well-prepared educator workforce.

Improving our Nation's educational system is contingent on our ability to prepare, support, and retain quality educators. Research shows that better prepared teachers stay longer in the profession and are more likely to remain in their roles and positively impact young people and their communities. As we continue to focus on recovering from the pandemic, I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle see the PREP Act as a commonsense opportunity to help ensure that students in every ZIP Code across the country have the well-prepared teachers and school leaders they deserve.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Community Wood Facilities Assistance Act of 2021. My colleagues Senators Collins, Shaheen, and Kelly are joining me as original cosponsors of the bill.

This bill will assist with the construction of facilities for mass timber, tall wood, and other innovative wood products, in order to make sustainable use of small-diameter timber from forest thinnings and other needed treatments in Eastern and Western forests.

The bill will also help to create jobs in disadvantaged rural and forest-dependent communities, and will help to reduce wildfire risk by removing dangerous fuels that can build up.

The Forest Service reports that 80 million acres of Forest Service lands alone are at risk of catastrophic wildfire or abnormal levels of insect and disease infestations.

While Federal land management agencies are working to increase the pace and scale of restoration activities, clearly we need to do more. In California we are facing a severe drought, and even before the onset of this most recent drought there were 150 million dead or dying trees due to insect damage. We are truly facing a monumental challenge.

A recent comprehensive analysis by The Nature Conservancy and Bain and Company management consultants found that creating a restoration economy can play an important role in expanding the pace and scale of ecologically based forest restoration. The report recommended funding and incentives to ``bridge the gap between the cost of ecological thinning and the economic viability of wood-processing infrastructure.''

As the report explains, ``If more aggressive restoration targets can be met, there will be significant need for additional processing capacity to defray restoration costs and provide valuable end uses for thinned material.''

Our bill responds to the challenge of developing funding measures to improve the economic viability of wood-processing infrastructure to reduce the cost of forest restoration and provide valuable uses for the small diameter material.

Fortunately, we do not need to create a whole new program to improve the economic viability of wood-processing infrastructure. The Forest Service has two existing grant programs that can help: the Community Wood Energy and Wood Innovations Grant Program and the Wood Innovations Program.

These programs would benefit from amendments to increase their utility for improving the viability of wood-processing infrastructure. In particular, the program could benefit from higher Federal cost- shares and an increased ability to provide more funding for each project, in addition to a higher authorization of funding overall.

More specifically, our bill will revise the Forest Service's Community Wood Energy and Wood Innovations Grant Program, which provides assistance to the capital cost of small wood products facilities. Specifically, our bill would:

Increase the authorization from $25 million to $50 million per year;

Increase the maximum grant per facility from $1 to $5 million;

Increase the Federal cost-share from 35% to 50%; and

Increase the maximum size for community wood energy systems eligible for grant funding from 5 to 15 megawatts, among other provisions.

Our bill will also revise the Forest Service's Wood Innovations Grant Program, which provides grants for proposed innovative uses and applications and the expansion of markets for wood products. Our bill would reduce the minimum non-Federal cost-share from 50% to 33.3% and makes other technical changes identified by the Forest Service.

I thank the Senators who have joined me in cosponsoring this bill, and I urge the full Senate to promptly take up this bill and pass it as soon as possible.

Madame President, Senator Cassidy and I are reintroducing a simple bill that can have a big impact: the Know Your Social Security Act. The bill clarifies the law about Congressional intent so that every worker over 25 receives a paper Social Security statement in the mail each year, unless the worker has accessed their statement online or declined to receive the statement in the mail.

The story is well known in Social Security circles, but it bears repeating: the origin story of the Social Security statement all started with the ``powerful'' Committee on Finance. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan spelled out the reasoning: ``All of us pay into Social Security but rarely, until we become beneficiaries, do we ever hear from Social Security . . . in every paycheck, we see money withheld for Social Security, but we hear nary a word from the Social Security Administration. Let us take this simple step [ sending statements] to reassure Americans that Social Security will be there for them.''

After enactment and once fully phased in, every worker aged 25 and

older received an annual statement from Social Security starting in the year 2000. After a few years, Social Security's website allowed workers to access their statement online. At the time, that was a nice feature--and did not impact the mailing of statements. Later--to fund more pressing needs--SSA viewed the online option as ``providing'' the worker with a statement and fulfilling the requirements of the law. SSA stopped mailing the statements in 2011 to everyone over 25. Currently, only individuals over the age of 60 who are not receiving benefits receive statements automatically through the mail.

Paper statements delivered through the mail are desirable because no action is necessary by the worker and the statement is a yearly reminder to the worker to think about the future. Research has shown that workers provided with statements are significantly more likely to save, more certain about their retirement income, and have higher satisfaction with their finances relative to those who are not provided with any type of financial planning materials. Providing Social Security statement through the mail is a simple policy that could help many workers, hopefully leading to better decisions about their financial future.

Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman John Larson and Ways and Means Committee Member Vern Buchanan are reintroducing the companion bill in the House of Representatives. The bill is endorsed by AARP, Alliance for Retired Americans, Envelope Manufacturers Association (EMA), Justice in Aging, NAACP, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Social Security Works, Strengthen Social Security Coalition, The Arc of the United States, and The Senior Citizens League. I hope our colleagues in the Senate will join us and cosponsor the Know Your Social Security Act. Together, we can work towards better retirement outcomes for all workers.

Mr. President, one week from today, on July 1st, Trade Adjustment Assistance will expire.

This is our only tool to support workers who lose their jobs because of countries like China that cheat the rules. And in one week, it goes away. This is an economic problem and a China problem.

All of us, of both parties, recognize the threat that countries like China pose to our economy. It's why just two weeks ago, we came together and passed the Endless Frontiers Act on a broad, bipartisan basis: To secure and expand our domestic supply chains, to support R&D to ensure the next generation of manufacturing is developed in America and made in America, and to finally--finally--ensure that Americans' tax dollars are used to buy American products that support American jobs.

This should not be controversial.

We are working to undo decades of bad trade policy with China, and decades of neglect for our domestic supply chains. That's going to take years. We know corporations won't stop outsourcing jobs on July 1st. We know China isn't going to stop cheating and undermining American industries on July 1st. And we know our manufacturers will still have to compete against governments that prop up their competitors on July 1st.

We owe it to workers, who we know are going to have their lives upended through no fault of their own to unfair trade, to do everything we can to ease the transition. Today, I'm not asking for a complete renewal of the program. I'm not even asking for an extra year of the program.

I, on behalf of my Democratic colleagues and American workers, asked for unanimous consent from this body for a straight 3-month extension of TAA, so that we can keep having the conversations about how best to structure the program going forward. It appears that my friends on the other side would prefer a 1-month extension. I would like more, but in the spirit of compromise--this beats the alternative--letting TAA expire and leaving workers in the lurch.

And while that dialogue continues, workers get the help they need.

We know workers are losing jobs to China all over the country. Sadly, that happens every week, every day.

By extending this program, service workers and people whose jobs get shipped overseas to countries without trade agreements will get help.

Training funds, will continue being provided, at a time when we need to train people for the new jobs that we want industry to create. We all want the US economy to be more resilient in the face of economic shocks. We all want to see fewer communities devastated by unfair trade. We all want American workers' hard work to pay off TAA is part of that.

We came together to extend it in 2011. We came together to extend it in 2015. We must do the same today.

If you love this country you fight for the people who make it work. That's what we do with Trade Adjustment Assistance.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the ``Lead-Free Drinking Water for All Act.'' This legislation would authorize $45 billion to replace every lead pipe and service line in America over the next 10 years, ensuring clean water for all.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most common sources of lead in drinking water are lead pipes, faucets, and plumbing fixtures. Nationwide, there are 6 to 10 million lead service lines serving up to 22 million Americans, affecting Americans living in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The only way to guarantee lead-free drinking water is to remove and replace every lead pipe and service line in America--and that's precisely what this legislation calls for.

The Lead-Free Drinking Water for All Act would reauthorize EPA's lead reduction projects grant program and increase the authorization to $4.5 billion per year for 10 years. It would prioritize disadvantaged communities and set a ten-year deadline for projects to complete the lead service line removal. It would also guarantee that funded projects pay a prevailing wage.

Epidemiologic studies have consistently demonstrated that there is no safe level of exposure to lead. According to the EPA, lead is particularly harmful for young children: low levels of exposure have been linked to damage to the central and peripheral nervous system, learning disabilities, impaired hearing, impaired physical development, and impaired formation and function of blood cells. EPA has set the maximum contaminant level goal for lead in drinking water at zero because lead can be harmful to human health, even at low exposure levels.

This problem is particularly prevalent in California's Central Valley, where, for example, in 2017 approximately 25 percent of schools in Fresno County reported lead in their drinking water while statewide, almost 1 in 5 kids attended a school that served drinking water with lead contamination.

The Lead-Free Drinking Water for All Act would protect public health by guaranteeing that all Americans have access to lead-free drinking water. By providing funding for grants and prioritizing disadvantaged communities, this legislation would also reduce disparities in access to clean water and ensure that the burden of paying for lead service line replacement does not fall on disadvantaged communities.

I thank my co-lead, Senator Stabenow, for her tireless leadership fighting for clean water for her constituents in Michigan and all Americans. I also thank the cosponsors of this bill for championing this vital effort with us in the Senate.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact the ``Lead-Free Drinking Water for All Act'' as quickly as possible.

Thank you, Mr. President, I yield the floor.