Floor Statements

Mr. President, I first want to thank Professor--I mean Senator Whitehouse for the information he shared. It was compelling, important, and very worthy of our deep consideration.

To talk about renewing the Magnuson-Stevens Act without talking about the effects of climate change and the effects on the water itself would be an enormous missed opportunity.

First, I commend Senator Whitehouse, the Senator from Rhode Island, for his longstanding commitment to the issue of climate change, the well-worn ``Time to Wake Up'' poster, and the work he has done over the years to force us to pay attention to this issue.

I am, as he indicated, going to talk about what is going on in the Gulf of Maine, but I want to broaden the discussion just for a few moments to talk about the issue of climate change as a broader question before us.

This isn't some environmental dream. It is not something that was invented by someone. It was discovered by scientists, and it is dollars and cents. It is the most practical problem that we have to deal with.

I am on the Armed Services Committee. We are talking about military bases all over the world--some as close as right down in this region and then down toward Norfolk, VA--that are under a severe threat from rising sea levels and that are going to cost us billions, if not trillions, of dollars to upgrade and maintain because of rising sea levels. This isn't something abstract. This is something that is happening today, and it is something that we are going to have to deal with that is going to have an enormous cost. The longer we put off preventing and dealing with this issue, the higher that cost is going to be.

There is a second reason this is a national security issue, and that is the aggravation of conflict and the initiation of migration. The number of refugees from Syria--which has disrupted the politics of Europe and disrupted many of the European countries and, indeed, has had a reflection here in this country--is roughly 3 to 4 million people. The estimate for refugees from climate change--from extreme temperature, from drought, from famine--is in the hundreds of millions as opposed to 3 to 4 million from Syria. Imagine the disruption to all of the countries of the world that are destinations for these refugees who are fleeing places that have become uninhabitable.

This is a question we are going to have to address, and, as our military characterizes it, it is a threat multiplier because when you have people moving from one region to another, you have conflict. From time immemorial, conflict has largely been based on things like access to water and access to arable land, and we are talking about an enormous accelerator of that across the world.

Now let me talk about the effects in my home State. First the good news. Lobster landings in Maine are up. We have ridden a lobster boom over the past 30 years. Since the 1980s, the poundage of lobsters harvested in Maine has grown 500 percent. When I was Governor, a good harvest of lobsters was 50 to 60 million pounds; 2 years ago, it was 127 million pounds--more than double. That is the good news.

The bad news is that it is starting to change, and we may have seen the turning point in this boom. We don't know that, but the last 2 years have been down substantially from the peak in 2016. We will see what happens this year. Hopefully, it is a blip and not a trend.

By the way, one of the reasons the lobster industry has survived and flourished in Maine is not only the favorable impact of gradual increases in temperature but because of the conservation ethic of the lobstermen themselves, who voluntarily throw back egg-bearing females. They cut a V-notch in their tails so they won't be caught again. If they are too small or too large, they throw them back. An amazing ethic of conservation has been imbued in the culture of lobstering and also in our laws for many years. So the fact that we still have a lobster fishery and that it is as vigorous and as productive as it is, is due in large measure to the creativity and conservation ethic of our lobstermen.

Here is the bad news. The bad news is, when water temperature gets to about 68 degrees, it is like turning a switch. It stresses the lobster population to the point where they can't survive. The good news is, it gets warmer, and they multiply. The bad news is, once it reaches a certain critical point, the species could collapse. Indeed, that is what has happened, as the Senator from Rhode Island has indicated, to the once-plentiful lobster population of New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

The problem is, over recent years--and I have talked to a lobsterman friend today, just this afternoon--the center of gravity of lobstering along the Maine coast is steadily moving north and east. He told me it has moved about 50 miles in the last 10 years.

The other problem that is occurring is that the lobsters are going further offshore to seek cooler water, which means the lobstermen have to go further. They have to have bigger boats. They have to make more of an investment in order to make a living.

Right now, we are in good shape, but the trend is not good. We are seeing other changes that have magnified both the boom, and what we are worried about is the bust. We have seen changes decline in some fish species like the cod that fed on baby lobsters. Now, as Senator Whitehouse mentioned, we are seeing a growth of a fish that was never seen in Maine in the recent past, the black sea bass.

My friend tells me, today they are catching triggerfish in the Gulf of Maine, which is a North Carolina species. They have even caught seahorses in lobster traps. This is a dramatic change as the waters warm.

As I mentioned, if they get close to the 68-degree level, the lobster population is in trouble. It is not only lobsters. By the way, lobstering is a serious business in Maine--half a billion dollars just in land value, a billion and a half dollars in the overall economic impact of this species to our State.

By the way, before I leave the question of lobsters, I have to acknowledge the comments made by the Senator from Pennsylvania earlier when he was talking about the economy, and he flashed a warning light at the end of his remarks about trade and tariffs. We are already seeing the negative impact of what I consider ill-considered tariffs on China. The first place they retaliated was against lobsters. Twenty percent of the entire lobster catch in Maine is sold and exported to China. It is our fastest growing market. If the Chinese tariffs they have already announced are imposed and fully implemented, it could cut that to zero.

Canada doesn't have those tariffs. Canada is not engaging in a trade war with China. Canada and other countries are moving into the vacuum we have created. The idea that we can impose tariffs on other countries without any ill effects here just isn't true.

Right now, it looks like the lobster industry, soybeans in the Midwest, maple syrup in Vermont, other agricultural products across the country are going to be collateral damage in an incipient trade war that I don't understand where it is going.

I would like to know what the strategy is. What is the end game? Where does this go? So far, I haven't seen any indication of that. What I have seen an indication of is severely dangerous impacts on our economy industry.

Another part of our ocean ecosystem is clams. There is a massive decrease in harvest because of two reasons: One, acidification. As the Senator from Rhode Island indicated, 30 percent of all the carbon dioxide that has been emitted during the Industrial Revolution has ended up in acidification in the ocean and, two, nonnative green crabs, which are exploding because they like the warmer water. They have been around for 100 years, but that population is growing enormously. They are just devastating the clams. Green crabs can consume 40 half-inch clams a day. Those crabs have decimated blue mussels and scallops along the shore. They are going for clams, and we are concerned that maybe lobsters could be next.

Warming water and shifting predators are not the only challenges we face: more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, absorbed into the ocean, and one-quarter of what is emitted goes into the ocean. The ocean then becomes more acidic. Any kind of shelled

animals--lobsters, clams, oysters--expend evermore energy maintaining the pH balance in their bodies, and that means they can't grow and reproduce. The world's oceans have become 30 percent more acidic since the Industrial Revolution.

Oysters have become a great new product for Maine. We are growing them in oyster farms along the Damariscotta River and other places. You can go to fancy restaurants and see Damariscotta oysters. They are wonderful.

My friend Bill Mook, who is one of the pioneers of the oyster industry in Maine, has had to move the incubation of his oysters out of the ocean, out of the natural river, onshore, and into tanks so he can buffer the water to minimize the acidification and then put them back in the water to grow out. That is a pure result of climate change and acidification of the ocean.

Freshwater runoff is another issue that increases the acidification. We have had an enormous increase in the amount of freshwater rainfall in this country, and in Maine that has increased the acidification in the oceans. What do we do? The first thing we do is admit there is a problem. You can't solve a problem if you act like there is nothing wrong. The first thing we have to do is admit there is a problem. I think more and more people are coming to that conclusion.

When this administration was nominating people, the refrain I heard in all of the hearings was climate is changing, man has an impact on it, but we don't know how much.

That is progress. At least it is an admission that something is happening. What do we do? We admit there is a problem. I think we are close to reaching that point.

The second thing we have to do is more research. We have to continue to fund the science to do the research to understand what is happening, to understand what we can do to mitigate these risks. Research and scientific data is crucial. For some of our great agencies that have the people who have been researching this for years, to be suppressing the research or not supporting it or burying it is not a service to our country. Research is crucial. We need the facts. We need the data. We need mitigation strategies. We also need to pay attention to the underlying cause of climate change, which is a combustion of fossil fuels and the enormous amount of carbon dioxide that is being added to the atmosphere.

This is a long-term challenge. It is not something we can solve in the next 1 or 2 years. Some people ask: Well, it is such a long-term challenge, why are we doing it? Because it may not be solved for 50 years.

In my office is Edmund Muskie's desk. I sit behind Edmund Muskie's desk--one of the greatest Senators of the 20th century and one of the greatest citizens Maine has ever produced. Fifty years ago--2 years from now, 1970--Edmond Muskie led the passage of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, which are two of the greatest and most important pieces of legislation passed in this body in the last 100 years; the first real recognition that we had a responsibility to the environment, that we had a responsibility to our children and our grandchildren. By the way, astoundingly, the Clean Water Act passed the U.S. Senate unanimously. Can you imagine? We can't agree on the time of day unanimously in this body. In 1970, under Ed Muskie's leadership, the Clean Water Act was passed unanimously.

The point I want to make is, the steps they took almost 50 years ago have cleaned up our rivers, have cleaned up our atmosphere, have made parts of our country blossom again.

In Maine, we are working on our rivers. The towns that turned their backs on the rivers are now turning back toward the rivers because people can fish, swim, and enjoy the rivers. When Ed Muskie started his lonely crusade in the late 1960s, the rivers were essentially open sewers.

Fifty years ago, Ed Muskie started that work. We see the benefit of it today. We should be doing the same thing. The fact that it may not come to fruition for 20, 30, 40, or 50 years is no reason to not start now. We have to start. This isn't pie in the sky. This isn't somebody trying to impose new regulations. This isn't something that is made up by environmentalists or people who just don't want to see any development. No. This is lives and livelihood. These are families, communities. It is responsible stewardship and just plain common sense.

There is a lot of science, and there is a lot of complexity to this issue. It seems to me we can take inspiration from Ed Muskie, Howard Baker, and all those a generation ago who built the edifice upon which we have a cleaner, healthier, stronger economy and stronger society.

I remember those days. The great debate was payrolls versus pickerel. You couldn't have payrolls if you preserved the pickerel. It turned out to not be true. We have developed the strongest economy in the history of the world. Yet we paid attention to the environment. We have paid attention to our responsibilities, to our children and our grandchildren, and we created the economy at the same time we were able to clean up the environment.

I remember those debates. They were bitter. You can't do it. If you do this, you are going to put everything out of business. There will be no economy. That was the argument. It hasn't happened.

Finally, you can talk about the science. You can get caught up in all the data. To me, there is a really easy rule that makes this easy to understand what our responsibilities are. I call it the ``Maine rototiller rule.'' Many people in Maine have gardens, but it is a small garden. It is in your backyard, so it doesn't make sense for everybody to buy a rototiller--the machine you use once or twice a year to clean your garden and till over the ground and begin to plant. We borrow them. I used to borrow one from my neighbor Peter Cox. The ``Maine rototiller rule'' goes like this. When you borrow your neighbor's rototiller, you return it to them in as good a shape as you got it, with a full tank of gas.

That is all you need to know about environmental stewardship. Do you know what? We have the planet on loan. We don't own it. We own a little piece of land for a generation, but we don't own it. We have it on loan from our children and our grandchildren and their children and their grandchildren. Therefore, we have a sacred responsibility to turn over the planet to them in the same or better shape than we found it. That is our responsibility. It is very simple. When you borrow something from your neighbor, you return it in as good a shape as you found it. That is what we should be doing today.

We can do this. There will be costs, but the costs of not doing it will dwarf the costs we can undertake today to protect the Gulf of Maine, the coast of the United States, the fields of Africa, the forests of North America, and the land and water and air that our children and grandchildren deserve to have passed on to them in better shape than we found it.

We can do this. We can start today. We may not live to see the results, but we will know we have done something important, something meaningful, something that will make a difference in the lives of generations we don't know. They will know what we do or what we don't do. I myself choose the side of action--recognizing the problem, analyzing it, understanding it, and acting to mitigate the harms that otherwise will befall our children.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the town of Falmouth, ME, which is celebrating its 300th anniversary this year. Falmouth is renowned for its jagged coastline, vibrant rural area, and picturesque forest preserve. Located on the coast of southern Maine and spanning approximately 32 square miles, Falmouth is proudly home to roughly 11,000 residents. The town's rich history dates back to 1718, when Falmouth was incorporated as a part of New Casco. For its third centennial, Falmouth community members have dedicated 2018 to honoring their past, celebrating their present, and investing in their future.

Around the time of the Revolutionary War, Falmouth separated from New Casco and became the settlement that we are familiar with today. In 1820, Falmouth was among the towns that voted with an overwhelming majority to secede from Massachusetts and become the State of Maine. At the time of its establishment, the townspeople's primary occupations were forestry, agriculture, and fishing. The original settlers of Falmouth possessed a strong work ethic that ensured their families' survival in the northern wilderness.

Today, the town of Falmouth prides itself on fostering a colorful, modern and ever-changing environment. Town officers effectively balance the scenic atmosphere of the coastal Maine town with the 21st century need for economic development to keep Falmouth a thriving and innovative community. This year, a series of events including charitable fundraisers, outdoor education activities, and historical learning opportunities will be held to celebrate Falmouth's local businesses and organizations as integral members of the community. These efforts create a comfortable environment to live, work, and learn.

In the coming years, this Falmouth community will continue to celebrate

the accomplishments of the town's remarkable schools, stunning geography, and outstanding local businesses. I commend the people of Falmouth for drawing attention to the town's esteemed history and providing a driving force to propel it into the future. A special recognition goes out to the Falmouth 300 planning committee. These dedicated residents have spent the last 2 years planning a mix of educational and entertaining events that will take place in the coming year. The work that the Falmouth 300 committee has done is sure to have a lasting effect that will be felt for years to come.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the 150th anniversary of Gorham Savings Bank, a notable leader of financial services and community engagement in southern Maine. As the only bank headquartered in Cumberland County, Gorham Savings Bank's impressive, locally based economic focus allows the institution to serve as a source of strength for the community.

Founded in February of 1868, Gorham Savings Bank was established by the Maine State Legislature under its first president, Captain Toppan Robie. A few weeks later, the bank began business when the first deposit of 10 cents was made. Over the years, the bank has expanded to multiple locations across southern Maine, incorporating new financial services to meet the expanding needs of its customers. In 1998, during my time as Governor, I attended the opening of the bank's operations center in Gorham, ME, and hosted the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Across its branch locations, Gorham Savings Bank provides a variety of banking services to its customers, including resources for personal and business accounts. Through online banking services, customers have the tools they need to manage their money at their convenience. Today, Gorham Savings Bank has surpassed the $1 billion mark in assets, and last year, the bank began the restoration of the historic Grand Trunk Railway Company Building in Portland, ME, as a new office space. With over 200 employees across 13 locations, the community bank is an important employer in the region.

In addition to serving their customers, Gorham Savings Bank supports the prosperity and growth of the surrounding communities. First, the bank promotes a number of financial literacy programs, including ones for tax preparation and another geared towards high school students. In the education field, Gorham Savings Bank participates in job-shadowing programs and contributes to scholarship opportunities for individuals looking to further their education. Gorham Savings Bank also supports the growth of local business and hosts an annual Launchpad small business competition, where five Maine entrepreneurial businesses compete for $50,000 for business development. Thanks to the teamwork of the bank's employees, Gorham Savings Bank has led efforts to fundraise for nonprofit organizations, including the Boys and Girls Club and United Way.

I applaud Gorham Savings Bank on their achievements over the past 150 years and look forward to their continued success as a force for good for the State of Maine.

Madam President, I rise in advance of the discussion that will be taking place in a very few minutes on the National Defense Authorization Act. I want to compliment and acknowledge the leadership of Senator Reed of Rhode Island and Senator Inhofe and, of course, Senator McCain, for whom this bill is named. They have provided amazing leadership, as the Presiding Officer knows from her membership on the committee, by bringing this bill to the floor. I look forward to supporting it later this afternoon.

Family Separation Policy

Madam President, I do want to take a few moments to discuss a different subject, which is what is going on at our southern border.

Secure borders and limits on immigration are necessary and justified in any country, and that is why there were major border security provisions in the comprehensive immigration reform act that passed this body by two-thirds--67 votes--in 2013. If that bill had even been taken up in the House, I believe it would have passed, it would have been signed, and a lot of the problems we are having today around the issue of immigration would already be solved.

I believe in border security. I believe in necessary limits. This is a difficult issue--I understand that. It is difficult in part because of the proximity of our country to some of the most violent countries in the world, with the highest murder rates, countries from which people are literally fleeing for their lives. But difficult issues are amenable to humane and decent solutions--solutions that take into account our values, that take into account the underlying principles upon which this country is based. And this is one that could be resolved without this drastic policy of separating children from their parents.

I was asked on the way in whether we will do legislation to solve this problem. This problem could be resolved by a phone call from the President of the United States to the Attorney General. This is not the law; this is a policy of enforcement which was adopted by this administration in April, implemented in May, and which has brought us to the place where 2,000 children have been forcibly separated from their parents.

There are just a few points I want to make.

No. 1--and I think this is important; this is lost in the discussion--asylum seekers are not illegal immigrants. They are coming to this country under the law. They are allowed to come to the country and then prove their case, and they should have an opportunity to prove their case. They are not illegal immigrants. They are being lumped in with illegal immigrants. These are almost entirely people who are seeking asylum here because they are fleeing violence in their own country.

This country was based on asylum seekers. The Pilgrims were asylum seekers. The Catholics who came to Maryland were asylum seekers. The Irish who came here as a result of a famine were asylum seekers. The Jews who came here in the thirties and forties, during the period of the Holocaust, were asylum seekers. I should say that one of the darkest periods of this country's history was the turning away of the USS St. Louis in the late thirties, where a third of its population of Jewish people went back to Europe and died in the Holocaust.

This country is based upon some basic principles, some of which are stated very unequivocally on the base of the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

That has been the promise of America from the very beginning. We are not a country like most other countries in the world--based upon one race, one ethnicity, one population that has lived in the same place for 1,000 years, one language. In fact, our secret is the people who have come here from other places, with their ideas and their energy.

I sit in the U.S. Senate seat following four of my illustrious predecessors, all of whom are children of immigrants, every single one: Edmund Muskie, the son of an immigrant polish tailor, one of the great Senators of the 21st century; George Mitchell, majority leader, the son of immigrants; and Olympia Snowe, the daughter of a Greek immigrant. This is who we are as a country, and we are talking about arresting people and locking up their children in cages.

I have heard various justifications for this:

We are just following the law.

No, the law does not require separating children from their parents. This is a policy that was adopted by this administration in April and implemented in May. This is not required by the law. This is a policy decision, and it can be rescinded by a phone call from the President. It can be solved this afternoon by a phone call from the President.

Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor.

So is jaywalking. Are we going to have a policy that says we are going to separate children from their parents because of jaywalking? It doesn't have to be this way.

Children and their parents can be kept together while we go through the legal process of determining whether their asylum claim is valid. That is a process that we have, and, yes, it takes too long. That is on us because we haven't adequately funded the judicial system to have enough judges to hear those claims.

The next justification I have heard is that it is a deterrent, that it will be a deterrent.

It is only a deterrent if the people who are coming from these countries--by the way, very few of them are coming from Mexico. They are coming from Central American countries, some of which, as I have mentioned, have the highest murder rates in the world. And we are going to say: Well, we are going to rip your children away. That word will get back, and then you will not come.

We could do a lot worse. Can you justify anything as a deterrent? Can you justify any inhumane treatment? We will torture you if you come across the border--that would be a deterrent, but that doesn't make it right.

The next one that I heard is that it is a bargaining chip for negotiations. We will bring the Democrats to the table, and that is when we will talk about immigration. But we are not going to change this policy until then because it is a bargaining chip.

We do not take children hostage in legislative negotiations, and that is what this is. Let's call it what it is. It is literally taking children hostage to be a bargaining chip in a legislative negotiation on the broad panoply of issues involved in immigration. That is wrong. It is a basic principle of everything we hold dear that we don't negotiate with hostage-takers. Yet that has been explicitly stated as a motivation for this policy.

The final justification I heard, and frankly the reason I am here today because it just tore it for me, is the Bible; that somehow this is justified by the Christian Bible, by Romans 13, which says you should obey the law. Yes, that is what it says, but it also says the law should be based upon love.

I would add that very provision, Romans 13, was used 150 years ago to justify slavery. Would that provision apply in Germany in 1938, where the law was exclusively directed at punishing the Jewish people? It was legal under the German law. Would that provision say this is OK; we don't have to object to it because it is part of what is in the Bible? No; of course, not.

To say that this is somehow justified by Scripture is just ignoring the whole message of the Bible and certainly the message of the New Testament.

For me, as a Christian, it all comes down to Matthew 25. The King said:

Come, you who are blessed . . . take your inheritance. . .

. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was

thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger

and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I

was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you

came to visit me.

Then, the righteous said:

Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty

and give you something to drink?

They went through the whole list and said: We never did any of those things. And Jesus said:

Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire.

. . . For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was

thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. . . . Whatever you

did not do for one of the least of these, my brothers, you

did not do for me.

I was a stranger, and you took me in. That is what the Gospel talks about. That is what we are talking about here, is talking about strangers and trying to take them in.

Of course, it goes without saying that Jesus and Mary escaped from the Promised Land because of the threat of violence from King Herod into Egypt. What if Egypt had said: No, we are not going to take you in. We will send you back to Herod. That is the law. Herod's law is the law; we are going to send you back.

They were asylum seekers, and Egypt took them in, and our Lord and Savior was born.

So don't come to me and tell me this is somehow justified by Scripture; it just isn't, under any stretch of the imagination, and it can be remedied by a phone call.

We don't have to negotiate a complicated bill here. We don't have to work on something for 3 weeks. A phone call this afternoon from the President of the United States to the Attorney General can end this obscene practice. Then we can talk about asylum seekers and what the rules should be and what the standards should be and how long the policy should be and how many judges we need and how long you should be able to wait until you get your case adjudicated and all of the other complicated issues involved in immigration, but we should not be talking about it in the context of children being held hostage.

So I hope the President will make that phone call, solve this problem this afternoon, and then we can get about solving some of the larger problems that he and I and everyone else in this body are concerned about, but let's not do it with children in cages anywhere in America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to commend the Senator from Texas for his leadership both on the juvenile justice provision of the National Defense Act, and also, very importantly, on foreign investment. We often hear around here testimony about all-of-government efforts. What we are facing is an all-of-society effort from some of our competitors--principally, China. Their private sector and their public sector are sometimes indistinguishable when it comes to investments. That is why this modernization act that the Senator from Texas has taken the lead on and has included as an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act is vitally important to national security.

I just want to thank the Senator for his leadership on a very important issue and commend the work of the committee in including it in the bill. Like the Senator, I look forward to supporting this bill. I think it is important on many levels, but since the Senator is on the floor, I wanted to commend him for his leadership on these issues.

Food Labels

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about a regulatory issue. It would be easy to joke about it, and I will probably not be able to resist a few puns along the way, but it is very serious.

The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing food labels. They want to make them more understandable. They want to make them more informative to people when they are purchasing food in the grocery store. They have increased the font size on the calorie serving size, the number of servings in a container, and this all makes sense. But there is a place where the proposed rule of the FDA goes off the rails, if you will, and that involves maple syrup and honey, which the agency is suggesting should have on its label ``added sugar.''

Well, maple syrup and honey essentially are sugar. And in pure maple syrup, in pure honey, which we produce in our State and other States in the Northern Tier, nothing is added. To add the phrase ``added sugar'' to maple syrup and honey makes no sense and is indeed confusing to the consumer because if you read a label that says ``maple syrup'' and it says ``added sugar,'' your natural assumption is somebody has put more sugar in there. That is what you would take from that.

Indeed, that is what this label requirement that has been proposed would do. It would actually undermine the good work that has been done by the maple syrup industry and the honey industry over the years to explain to consumers the difference between pure honey and pure maple syrup and other products that have other things in them and may have sugar added.

This is a photograph of where maple syrup comes from. This is a maple tree, and the farmer is tapping it. These tubes all lead to a maple house. Making maple syrup is not easy. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. That is why we call it liquid gold. It is a wonderful product. It is a pure product. There is nothing that is added between the tree and the jar that you buy in your grocery store if, indeed, it is real maple syrup. Nothing is added.

Last week, I visited a wonderful guy in Maine who is known as the Bee Whisperer, and he--or rather his bees--makes honey. We were out in a back field where the hives are. I said: How many bees are out there? He sort of scratched his head and said: About 3 million. Bees are in the hives in this back field of the Bee Whisperer up in Maine and when the honey comes into the combs, they scrape the wax off the top. The wax is created by the bees, by the way, so it is a totally natural product. The honey then comes out, and here it is coming out into a jar.

This is pure honey. To add to this label ``sugar added'' makes no sense because it is not. There is nothing added, except what the bees produce.

So this is a case where I think what we are talking about is a well- meaning attempt on the part of this agency, the FDA, to inform consumers, but, in the process, what they are really doing is misinforming them.

Honey comes from the bee to the jar--nothing in between. Maple syrup comes from the tree to the jar--nothing in between. Nothing is added. The only thing that is added by this proposed regulation is confusion, and confusion is the whole thing we are trying to avoid here.

We are not adding sugar. Sugar isn't added into maple syrup and into honey. If you put ``added sugar'' on the label, it will make the consumer think that this isn't a pure product, and it will undo 50 years of effort to make the public understand the difference between pure maple syrup and pure honey and something that may indeed have some added ingredient.

MaryAnne Kinney--by the way, MaryAnne's husband is the guy that was tapping the tree that I showed a minute ago--is a State legislator in Maine, and she is also a maple producer, and she is in Washington this week spreading the word about this issue. I just want to add my voice to it because this would have a significant impact on these industries nationwide. These are important businesses. In

Maine, maple syrup is a $20 million-a-year business.

I have to admit that one day years ago, when I was the Governor of Maine, we used to tap a maple tree in the front yard of the Governor's residence every year. It was a ceremonial event. The press was there. I went out one year to tap that tree, nailed one of these guys into the tree, and then the sap dripped out into the bucket. This is the old fashioned way. The new way is what I showed before; the tubes run right to the sugar house.

The press was there, and they said: Governor, what do you think of Vermont maple syrup? I said: Vermont maple syrup? Are you kidding me? We use that in cars in Maine; we don't eat that stuff. Well, it started a war with the Governor of Vermont, which we settled amicably, I might add.

Maple syrup is important to us. I think this is would be a funny issue if it weren't so serious for producers. As a matter of fact, when you say they are going to put ``added sugar'' on a label for maple syrup, most people think it is kind of funny, but it is not funny to the industry.

So I can't resist, Mr. President: I am hoping for a sweet ending to a sticky mess and that the FDA this week will do the right thing.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor and recognize the Maine Employers' Mutual Insurance Company, MEMIC, a workers' compensation company based in Portland, ME. MEMIC was recently recognized as the best workers' compensation company in the country according to a New York nonprofit that analyzes health insurance companies. A cause for celebration in itself, MEMIC also celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

One of the greatest success stories in Maine's history, MEMIC revolutionized workplace safety by focusing directly on case management and results. Prior to its incorporation, the workers compensation system was in peril, negatively affecting Maine's economy and workplace environment. Insurance companies that offered workers' compensation were steadily bailing, as costs of writing policies increased. Liability costs climbed as work-related injuries reached peak in the early 1990s. MEMIC's mission was founded on a need for change; both employees and employers need to feel protected from mishap and accidents.

By prioritizing fair and equal treatment of all stakeholders, MEMIC helped Maine's economy avert a crisis. In 1993, Governor John McKernan, Jr., signed legislation that reformed worker safety and appointed a board of directors to set attainable goals and accountability. By its third year, workplace injuries in Maine had dropped to the lowest level in over 16 years, leading to a significant drop in premiums. By its fifth year, MEMIC was able to partially return investment capital to its policyholders with a promise to return the rest within the next 5 years. In addition to lowering costs, reducing fraud, and boosting the economy, MEMIC reinforced transparency, social accountability, and market stability for business leaders. That trend continues to this day when, in November 2017, MEMIC announced that approximately 18,000 employers who purchased insurance through MEMIC would share in a $21 million dividend, the highest shareholder return in history, and a true reward for improving workplace safety and helping injured workers get well and back to work as soon as possible. That is money going directly back into Maine's economy through private, public, and nonprofit sectors in all 16 counties. Since 1998, MEMIC has returned more than $240 million to Maine policyholders, a truly remarkable track record and testament to its integral role and value in strengthening Maine's workforce and economy.

With a 25-year foundation of success, MEMIC's current management and leadership team continue this strong commitment to a work environment conducive to innovation, as well as workplace safety and fair claims management. I commend MEMIC for its groundbreaking history, stabilizing Maine's economy and revolutionizing the workers' compensation industry.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the outstanding career of a leader in workforce development in the State of Maine. Michael ``Mike'' Bourret, of Bailey Island, ME, is retiring after 36 years of professional experience in workforce development, most recently in his position as executive director of Coastal Counties Workforce, Inc. From his first days in the early 1980s as an employment counselor in western Maine, Mike has held a number of leadership positions in which he has developed greater access to--and opportunities for individuals in--workforce development programs.

Mr. Bourret dedicated 12 years to the Maine Department of Labor, holding positions from employment and training director to special assistant to the commissioner. as director of the dislocated worker unit while at the department of labor, Mike recognized the flaws of a reactive government approach to plant closings and worker dislocation, leading Mike to promote a more proactive approach. This resulted in Mike assisting with the design of a new strategy to provide services for these workers. His guidance led to the development of the Maine CareerCenters, which provide employment and training services to individuals at no charge. In 1996, during my time as Governor, Mike helped establish the Governor's training initiative, GTI, to provide employers with the financial support to expand training for their employees and improve retention of their workers. GTI was recognized for its success, and the following year, I awarded Mike the Governor's Teamwork Award for his dedication to implementing projects to improve Maine's economy and workforce. To date, GTI has helped over 20,000 Maine workers.

In 1998, the Workforce Investment Act, WIA, was passed, and Mike brought together State and local parties to organize a new regionally based workforce design in Maine, promoting a more customer-focused approach in Federal job training programs. Under WIA, Mike established Coastal Counties Workforce, Inc., in 2000, where he served as executive director for 18 years, administering over $98 million dollars for the organization. The Coastal Counties Workforce Board region today spans six coastal counties and has received over 1.3 million customer visits to its centers. Over 40,000 Mainers have received essential career and training services, with 82 percent entering employment. These services have improved the well-being of Maine residents, including assisting some of our most vulnerable neighbors in finding meaningful employment, while supporting local businesses with skilled workers.

Due to Mike's commitment to workforce development and ability to secure funding for a variety of workforce initiatives and training programs throughout the years, there has been continued expansion of employment and training services for the residents of Maine. His ability to coordinate programs and foster partnerships was a critical factor in his success, whether it be at the local, State, or national level. As a champion of workforce development, I join with his colleagues, friends, and the people of Maine in thanking Mike for his unwavering service to the workforce of our State.

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

Mr. President, every morning, across America millions of people get up, get dressed, and go to work. They all have similar experiences. They are getting ready for a new day. They are getting ready for a new set of challenges. They are getting ready to serve their company and the place where they work to the best of their ability.

There is one group of Americans who get up every morning to go to work, and it is a slightly different experience because when those people report for work, they are knowingly and willingly putting their lives on the line. I am referring to our police officers and law enforcement personnel across the country.

I think it is an important distinction. All of us go to work. We all think about it. But stop and think for a moment that when someone puts on that blue uniform or green uniform, or whatever it is, to serve the public, they are taking a risk with their life. They are literally laying their lives on the line for the rest of us.

Fifty-six years ago today, President John F. Kennedy designated May 15 as a law enforcement memorial day, or Peace Officers Memorial Day, and the week in which May 15 falls is designed and set aside by our country ever since to recognize peace officers. I love that term--peace officers. They are here to protect us.

The Constitution in its preamble lays out the basic outlines for our government, and this is one of them: to ``insure domestic Tranquility.'' What a lovely phrase that is--to ``insure domestic Tranquility.'' That means, in many cases, law enforcement.

I rise today to recognize law enforcement officials across the country but, also, particularly in my State of Maine. As Governor, I spent 24 hours a day with the State Police. I learned in that job the quality of the people we have serving us, the quality of the people, who often could make more money and have more promotions in another line of work but who had chosen to serve the public and put their lives on the line.

In Washington, there is a memorial to our law enforcement personnel, to our peace officers. On that memorial there are engraved the names of those who have lost their lives in the service of their fellow citizens. Two of those names that will be added this year are from the State of Maine.

One was Chris Gardner. He was only 47 years old. He had worked with the University of Maine Police, and then he worked with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. He died November 15, 2016, from complications from a training exercise. He was involved in the Maine Law Enforcement Torch Run. Many law enforcement people across the country are involved with the Torch Run, which raises money and visibility for the Special Olympics. He is survived by his parents, his brother, his sisters, his stepmother, and by many aunts and uncles. He is also survived by other loved ones. Chris Gardner served his public, served his people, and served his State and community, and he lost his life in that service.

Another loss last year that will be going onto the monument this year is Nathan Desjardins. Nathan was a member of the Fryeburg Police Department. He was only 20 years old. He had just begun his career in law enforcement as a peace officer. He died on his first day of water training, responding to an incident of a capsized canoe. The boat he was on hit an object in the river. He was thrown out. Desjardins and another emergency responder were thrown from the boat. He sustained a head injury and died on June 6, 2017.

Again, he is survived by his parents, his brother, his grandmother, and a large extended family. Both Nathan and Christopher will have their names added to the memorial this week.

They got up, they went to work, they served their public, and they served their citizens and their community. They put their lives on the line, and, in this case, they made the ultimate sacrifice.

A name that will not be added to the memorial this year--the additions are from the prior calendar year, but we had an unbelievably tragic event in Maine barely 3 weeks ago--is that of Eugene P. Cole. He was shot and killed in the line of duty on April 25, 2018. He was born in a little town called Skowhegan, ME. He was raised in that area and was the oldest of five. He graduated from high school and went into the Army. He came back to Maine, worked in a repair shop, and then, in the year 2000, he decided to pursue what was really his calling as a law enforcement officer.

In 2006, at the age of 50, he went to the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, and he became a rural patrol deputy for the Somerset County Sheriff's Office. I used to live right across the street from the Somerset County Sheriff's Office. I remember the sheriff when I was there almost 50 years ago--Francis Henderson. Francis Henderson epitomized law enforcement in Maine and then Somerset County, and his followers as sheriffs have done the same.

Gene Cole was in that mold. He was admired in his community. He was well-known in his community. He was respected. He embodied the values of law enforcement, and he was an inspiration to the officers who served with him.

He is survived by his wife Sheryl of 41 years, four children, several grandchildren, his siblings Tom and Sheryl, his mother, and a large extended family.

His funeral was in Bangor, ME, just a week and a half ago, and 3,600 people were there. Law enforcement officers from across the Northeast and from across the country were there to pay their respects to one of their fallen comrades.

Eugene Cole was a hero. He wouldn't call himself that. He would be embarrassed to be called that. From my understanding, he was a modest and unassuming man, but he was a hero because every morning he got up to go to work. He put on his uniform, and he put his life on the line for the people of Somerset County, Skowhegan, and Norridgewock and for the people of the State of Maine.

I rise today to pay tribute to Gene Cole, to Chris Gardner, to Nathan Desjardins, and to all of the peace officers, the law enforcement officers--those across our country in our communities--who every day are willing to put their lives on the line for us. Peace Officers Memorial Day--and the week--is a fitting tribute to those brave people across the country who serve us every day and every night around the clock to ``insure domestic Tranquility,'' in the wonderful phrase of our Founders.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor Dr. Susan J. Hunter. Dr. Hunter, who currently serves as the president of the University of Maine, UMaine, at Orono, will retire from that position at the end of June. I want to recognize Dr. Hunter for her many years of work at the university not only as president, but also as a researcher, professor, vice chancellor of academic affairs, provost, and more.

Dr. Hunter became the university's 20th president in June of 2014 and was the first woman to lead the institution in its 150-year history. Dr. Hunter has led the university to many achievements, including advances in enrollment, fundraising, advocacy, and partnerships. During her tenure, UMaine has welcomed the largest incoming classes and largest number of out-of-State students in the university's history. The school has also seen a 22-percent increase in private giving to its annual fund. Dr. Hunter also continued the implementation of UMaine's innovative five-year strategic plan, which was developed during her tenure as Provost.

Dr. Hunter's influence is not limited to the halls on the Orono campus. On July 1, 2017, she also became president of the University of Maine at Machias. Dr. Hunter also served her community by serving on numerous boards of directors, including the Maine School of

Science and Mathematics, the Bangor Symphony, the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, and on the advisory network for the Olympia Snowe Women's Leadership Institute.

While it is easy to see the impact Dr. Hunter has had on the University and the Orono community, her lasting legacy will be her impact on students. Thousands of students have benefited from Dr. Hunter's knowledge and guidance over the years, and UMaine is lucky to have also benefited from such an experienced educator and administrator. The new programs Dr. Hunter brought to the university have contributed to the region's cultural and economic development. Dr. Hunter's contributions have been so important--to the university, the region, and across the entire State of Maine--and we are so grateful for her decades of service. She will be missed; however, I am confident that the institution she leaves behind, ``the college of our hearts always,'' will continue to benefit from her legacy of service for years to come. In her honor, I ask that we ``fill the steins to dear old Maine'' and ``drink to Maine, our alma mater, the college of our hearts always.''

Will the Senator yield for a comment?

Mr. President, I join in thanking the majority leader for, No. 1, going to see Senator McCain and, No. 2, for the comments he made. I came here 5\1/2\ years ago and had never met John McCain, but I have gotten to know him over that period by serving on his Armed Services Committee and by traveling with him.

Over the weekend, I told some friends in Maine that traveling with John McCain is like a long march with Paul McCartney. You work hard, and everyone in the world knows it. He is an extraordinary leader and one of the most principled people I have ever met. I was speaking to a college graduation in far northern Maine and characterized him, almost spontaneously, as a person whom I consider to be the greatest living American. The audience broke into spontaneous applause because, I think, they agreed.

I thank the Senator for the time he has taken to acknowledge this great American today, and I join my comments with his in recognizing one of the most extraordinary careers in American history. I thank the Senator for his comments.

Mr. President, I love history, and we have been here before. We were in exactly this place in 1886. Let me read you a quote from Senator Thomas W. Palmer of Michigan on this floor in 1886. I am going to try to channel my 19th century Senator voice:

Among the servants of our civilization none have approached

in efficiency the railway. It has annihilated distance; it

has not only made the wilderness blossom as the rose, but

also has enabled the rose to be readily exchanged for the

products of cities. . . . These are the modern highways for

commerce, and should differ only in extent and facilities

from their predecessors back to the days of the Roman roads.

The point is, in the 1800s, the railroads were in a position, because of their unique nature as the highways of the time, to strangle competition and hold small businesses hostage. The situation today with the internet is almost identical, and the Senate is now going to grapple with a rapidly growing but mature industry that is central to economic opportunity in our country. Unfortunately, in both the cases of the railroads and today, the internet, often, there are players who have the means and incentives to engage in discriminatory pricing or prioritization due to the frequent existence of last-mile monopolies. It is the exact same situation.

My favorite quote from Mark Twain is that ``history doesn't always repeat itself, but it usually rhymes.'' In this case, it is repeating itself.

Back in 1886, here is what the Select Committee on Interstate Commerce said about the causes of complaint against the railroad system.

No. 1, ``that . . . rates are unreasonably high at noncompeting points.''

That means small towns--rural America--at noncompeting points, which is the same as what is happening with the internet. We see today, particularly in rural areas, that there is only one provider of the truly high-speed broadband that is needed to run an online business and its expenses.

Here is point No. 2 from 1886: ``The effect of the prevailing policy of railroad management''--you can put in internet management--``is, by an elaborate system of secret special rates, rebates, drawbacks, and concessions, to foster monopoly, to enrich favored shippers, and to prevent free competition in many lines of trade in which the item of transportation is an important factor.''

This is exactly what we are worried about with the internet. It could come roaring back if we don't reimpose net neutrality rules. It is not hard to imagine that if paid prioritization is allowed, which would have a customer on the pipes of the internet be able to get a faster speed, it will cement the dominance of Facebook and Amazon, which are great companies, but it will stifle the development of smaller competitors who can't afford the access fees.

One of the great things about the internet is its low barriers to entry. If, indeed, the major internet providers are able to impose barriers to entry, it will, by definition, stifle small businesses across the country. That has been the glory of the internet; the enabling of the development of small businesses throughout the length and breadth of this country.

Here is another one from 1886: ``Railroad corporations have improperly engaged in lines of business entirely distinct from that of transportation, and that undue advantages have been afforded to business enterprises in which railroad officials were interested.''

In other words, the railroads were getting into other lines of business which they could then favor on the railroads. That is exactly what we are worried about now. Large telecommunications companies are becoming vertically integrated with content companies. There is a clear potential for conflicts of interest. Net neutrality rules are so important for preventing any attempts of existing incumbent carriers to favor the delivery of their own content and degrade the delivery of competitors' content. This is exactly the kind of thing we are worried about.

Right now, anyone with a broadband connection has equal access. General Motors or Amazon or Exxon or Facebook has the same access to the internet as somebody who is starting a new company in his garage, and that is why the internet has been such a dynamic job creator across the country. Yet, in December of 2017, the Federal Communications Commission repealed the idea of net neutrality and basically said to the large providers: It is open season. You can do it. Do whatever you want. They have unenforceable rules, and small businesses and startups will undoubtedly, ultimately, be the losers. This is just the reality.

Quite often, we have issues around here that are in shades of gray, that we have to think about, and that can be argued on both sides. Reasonable people can differ. In this case, the people who repealed net neutrality are all wrong. There is no good argument for repealing rules that simply keep the pipes open for everyone just as the Interstate Commerce Commission in the 1880s was designed to keep the railroads open for everyone.

This is a little complicated because it is the repealing of a repeal. What we are talking about is a CRA that would repeal the repeal by the FCC of net neutrality rules. It is the ultimate small business bill. It will allow small businesses to compete without limitations, and small online companies and low-income consumers will not be left in the slow lane. Innovation will continue to blossom, and opportunity will have equal access to this incredibly important economic engine.

It is important to understand that what this bill does, in my view-- or what net neutrality does--is not government regulation, which is what you hear: ``This is government regulation.'' Somebody is going to have the control of the pipes. The question is, Should it be the people who own the pipes so they can do whatever they want and discriminate against small businesses or other carriers and favor their own content or should the government simply be the referee that says, ``No. This is going to be equal''? I think net neutrality is deregulatory in the sense

that all it does is protect the neutrality and the openness of the internet to competitors across the country.

I had a roundtable in Maine, on Friday, to which I invited small businesses and ISPs, internet service providers. The opinion--the response--was unanimous in that this is absolutely crucial to the survival and the vitality of these businesses. We have a small company in Maine called Certify. It has 150 employees. It is a web-based solution for people who keep track of their receipts for business travel. It is a nationwide business. It has 10,000 clients across the country, but it is all about having equal access to the internet. It has 2 million users around the globe, and it is based in Portland, ME. That is the power of the internet. We don't want that business to be choked off by a large competitor who can pay preferential rates and make my companies in Maine pay higher rates and therefore unable to compete.

A little company called Big Room Studios and Yarn Corporation are two software development virtual reality companies based in Maine. They are dependent on continued access to an open internet. Their founder got in touch with me. He firmly believes that without net neutrality rules, there is a real risk that startup companies like his will face barriers to entry that will keep them from reaching their full potential.

Another great example is Dream Local Digital, a company in Rockland, ME, where the employees and customers are all over the place. It is based in a wonderful town in Maine, on the coast, Rockland. They have customers in 65 cities. It is a digital marketing company serving customers throughout the country, primarily small businesses, all connected through the internet. Led by a visionary named Shannon Kinney, their core existence and business model rely on the open internet enabling a significant number of employees to work from home in 9 different communities in Maine and 10 other States. They have to have open access to the internet.

This isn't a debate about ISPs and consumers. The smaller ISPs that were at my roundtable and that I have heard from around the country feel that an open internet is as important to them as it is to their customers. They support net neutrality.

OTELCO, a rural broadband company, provides voice over internet protocol, or VoIP, services, and they are worried that larger competitors can demand paid prioritization fees in order to maintain service quality, and that would be the end of their business.

This is an incredible moment in the Senate, and I don't think this is a political issue. I think this is a small business issue. This is a public issue. The crucial point is, who is going to control the future of the internet? Is it going to be the owners of the large pipes, or is it going to be the public? Can the internet maintain the quality of service, the openness of service, the fairness of service that has been a part of it, that has allowed it to grow so fast and become so important in our economy?

Again, the idea of net neutrality is really simple. It is that everybody has a fair chance at a fair speed at a fair price and that the owners of the pipes can't discriminate between certain businesses and those that can pay more and those that are bigger or those that are affiliated with the owners of the pipes. It is all about the small businesses of this country.

This is a real opportunity for us to do something important for the small businesses of America, and I believe this resolution is one that will restore us to a place where small businesses will be able to compete and blossom and prosper in the future of this country.

I urge support of the CRA that I understand will come to a vote in about a week. I believe this is absolutely essential to the development of the internet-based economy, in rural areas particularly. To go back to 1886, this body stepped up at that time, controlled the dangerous monopolies of the railroads, established the principle of nondiscrimination and common carry, and that is all we are talking about today.

Mark Twain was right: History doesn't always repeat itself, but it usually rhymes.

Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague. I want to join with the chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Senator Daines, to support this resolution which was adopted unanimously last week recognizing this week as National Park Week in this country.

When I left office as Governor of Maine in January of 2003, my family and I the next day took off in a 40-foot RV to see the country. My children were 12 and 9 at the time, and we basically circumnavigated America over the next 5\1/2\ months.

Just before coming to the floor, I went down the list of the parks we went to. The point I want to make is--and I get a bit emotional about this. This was the greatest experience of my life, to have taken my children to these parks with my wife, Mary; and to have seen and experienced them and experienced the people at the parks was just an unbelievable life-changing experience.

We went to Arches--I am doing them in alphabetical order, not geographically--Bad Lands; Big Bend in Texas, which, by the way, is one of the most beautiful places in the country and one of the least visited national parks; Bryce Canyon; Canyonlands; Capitol Reef; Carlsbad; the Grand Canyon--of course, every American should see the Grand Canyon. No picture, no movie, no helicopter movie, nothing can prepare you for the Grand Canyon; Mesa Verde; Olympic National Park in the State of Washington; the redwoods and sequoias in California; Shenandoah, just a few hours from here; St. John in the Virgin Islands; Yellowstone; Yosemite; and Zion. These are gems.

It has become commonplace to reference Ken Burns' statement that the national parks are ``America's best idea,'' starting with Yellowstone but spreading across the country. They mark our history, they mark our tremendous natural resources, and they are just pure inspiration.

I hope our colleagues can go, if only for 1 day. If you have 1 day, you can leave Washington and be in Front Royal, VA, in about an hour and a half and go down the Skyline Drive of Shenandoah National Park, one of the most beautiful places in the country and within a couple of hours of Washington. These parks are near every place. There are so many gorgeous and extraordinary places among this system.

In Maine, we have two--one is a national park and one is a national monument. We have Acadia National Park, which is the fifth most visited national park in the country, and it is enormously important. These parks are not only important to our spiritual well-being and the ability of our people

to enjoy the wonders of this country, but they are also economically important. Acadia, for example, has about 3.5 million visitors a year. To put that in perspective, Maine has a population of 1.3 million. So almost three times the population of Maine visits Acadia every year. The estimate is $386 million of direct economic benefit to our State, with 4,200 jobs. It is a magnet. It is a national park that draws people into our State, and it is, indeed, one of the most spectacular places in America. I have been there many times. From the top of Cadillac Mountain to the place they call Thunder Hole, it is a gem of a place that is on the ocean. Acadia is on an island just off the coast of Maine. We just had a monument established about 3 years ago called Katahdin Woods and Waters, which is the other side of the coin in terms of attractive places that are important for visitors and are symbolic of the places all over the country. Katahdin Woods and Waters is inland. It is on a river. It has mountain views and forests, it is inland Maine, which represents so much of what our country looked like many years ago.

These places are deeply important to our country. I want to join my colleague in challenging all of our colleagues to visit the national parks. It is not only the physical nature, the physical attraction of a place like the Grand Canyon, but it is also about the people.

I will never forget taking our children to Kitty Hawk on that RV trip. We had a guide who knew everything there was to know about the Wright brothers, and he engaged our kids in a way I hadn't seen. This was education of the highest sort. The people in these parks are dedicated, they know their stuff, and they make the experience so dramatic and real for all the members of the family.

We have work to do in this body. We have a backlog of maintenance on our parks that the Senator from Montana and I are working on, along with Senators Alexander, Heinrich, and others, to try to find a solution to this maintenance backlog. We do have work to do. We are working with the parks to bring their admissions system into the 21st century in terms of online access for park passes. There is plenty of work to be done.

The underlying assets are so magnificent and are so important to our country economically, culturally, socially, and spiritually. I am proud to have joined my colleagues in sponsoring this resolution which was adopted unanimously. I join my colleague and invite all of my colleagues and all Americans to make it a point this year, as the weather gets warmer, to visit one of these magnificent places. You will be rewarded richly and the rewards will stay with you every day of your life.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today, I wish to recognize the 40th anniversary of Coastal Enterprises, Inc., CEI. Headquartered in Brunswick, ME, CEI is a national leader in rural economic development, helping to grow businesses and support communities through providing financing assistance and support for environmentally sustainable practices to increase prosperity in Maine and across the country. CEI provides loans and technical assistance to small businesses and community development stakeholders while simultaneously advancing changes in public policy to promote an environment ripe for economic growth.

Since its founding, CEI has been a mission-driven organization, striving to enable all people, especially those from low-income backgrounds, to reach their full potential. With a joint focus on economic growth and environmental health, CEI has tirelessly worked for 40 years to create a Maine economy that is sustainable both for our citizens and our land.

CEI's immense impact is undisputed; since inception, they have financed $1.32 billion dollars' worth of loans, helping over 2,700 businesses. These companies often provide the backbone of their communities, in total employing over 37,000 people. Furthermore, CEI has been instrumental in the areas of affordable housing and childcare. Through their investments, they have created or preserved 2,075 affordable housing units and 5,818 childcare slots, providing much- needed relief for families.

The success of the last 40 years speaks to the vision of the founders and the dedication of CEI's employees. We are lucky to have Coastal Enterprises, Inc., in our State, and I wish to congratulate them on their 40th anniversary. I am looking forward to watching the positive impacts of CEI's work for years to come.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague from Rhode Island to talk about climate change, but I first want to make a comment about my good friend and an important Member of this body, Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and what he has done.

In the 1930s, a lonely voice stood on the floor of the Houses of Parliament, warning of the impending catastrophe of the rearmament of Germany in the advent of World War II. People didn't listen. Often, he spoke to a lonely House, but his voice was clear, his voice was prescient, and what he said was important. Of course, I refer to Winston Churchill.

Today and over the past many years, Senator Whitehouse has performed that same function of warning us, of trying to wake us up to a challenge that is impending, that is catastrophic, that is significant, and that is also at least somewhat preventable.

Senator Whitehouse has talked about climate change in terms of ocean acidification, temperature changes, sea level rise, drought, famine, and the effects throughout the world. Often this Chamber is empty, but his warnings are important and should be heeded nonetheless.

The first thing I want to do is thank him and compliment him for the work that he has done over these many years and continues to do. I can see his sign--as I see it on C-SPAN and here on the floor--that says ``Wake Up,'' and wake up is what we need to do.

People often talk about climate change as if it were some abstract thing that is going on, and it is in scientific journals, and it is a kind of environmental movement that doesn't really affect real life that much; it is just sort of something that goes on out there and one of the many issues we have to deal with. But it is real. I will tell you how I know. The fishermen in Maine have told me so.

Just this past Saturday, I spent the evening with a man who has been a fisherman for 40 years in the Gulf of Maine. He said that he has never seen the kinds of changes we have seen in the last 10 years. They are catching fish that have never been seen before in the Gulf of Maine. A lobsterman told me of pulling up a seahorse in his lobster trap. Seahorses aren't supposed to live in the cold water of Maine.

This isn't an abstract question for us. Lobstering is a $1.7-billion- a-year industry for Maine. Lobstering used to be a major industry in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and now it is largely gone.

There are multiple explanations, but one of them is that the water is warming, and our species, whether they are lobsters or trees or bears, are sensitive to small environmental changes.

We have had record lobster harvests in Maine in the last 5 to 10 years--although I have to say that in the last 2 years, they have been down. We don't know whether the declines are a blip or a trend. We deeply hope that it doesn't represent a trend, but we can't ignore what happened to the lobster population to our south.

The water is getting warmer in the Gulf of Maine. The water in the Gulf of Maine is warming at the fastest rate of any body of water on Earth, except for the Arctic Ocean, and it has already wrought changes in the nature of our natural resource-based economy.

Maine is a natural resource State, dependent largely upon fisheries, lobster, agriculture, farming, and forestry. That is who we are. Of course, another part of our economy is the millions of tourists who come to Maine each summer to visit our incredible coastline. Climate change isn't an abstract for us; it is a very real phenomenon.

I want to emphasize not only what my friend the fisherman told me this weekend, but also that I have heard from fishermen all over Maine for the last 4 or 5 years about the changes they are seeing. This guy isn't a scientist, but he is out on the water, and he knows what he is catching. He knows he is catching fish he has never caught before. He has never seen the tropical, warm water fish now being caught in the Gulf of Maine.

I think the other factor we need to talk about is a dollars-and-cents question that relates to sea level rise. We are talking about millions of dollars on the part of the U.S. Government to preserve the coastal infrastructure that we have in connection with our Armed Forces.

The city of Norfolk is already experiencing what are called sunny day floods. The city of Miami--the Presiding Officer's hometown--is experiencing sunny day floods. These are floods that aren't caused by great storms, by great perturbations in the atmosphere; they are caused just by a high tide. The cost of dealing with this in Miami, New Orleans, New York, or Maine is going to be enormous.

We tend to think of the ocean as a fixed commodity, as something that has always been the way it is now. It turns out that we have been fooled. We have been lulled into a sense of confidence about the level of the sea because for the past 8,000 years, it has been the same. But this is a chart that shows the depth of the Atlantic Ocean over the past 24,000 years.

It turns out that 24,000 years ago, which was the height of the glacial period, the waters off the coast of Maine were 390 feet shallower than they are today--390 feet shallower. What you see here is the melting of the glaciers and the refilling of the oceans.

From our historic point of view, the problem is that it got to a plateau about 10,000 years ago, and that is all we know. That is human history, right here. We don't remember this very much because it appeared before recorded human history.

Now, there is an interesting moment in this chart, and it is right in this period about 15,000 years ago, and it is

called the meltwater pulse 1A. That is what scientists call it. We see a very steep rise in the ocean level during this period. Interestingly, this rise is about 1 foot per decade. That is what happened during that time about 15,000 years ago.

Well, a year and a half ago I went to Greenland with two climate scientists, one of whom focuses almost exclusively on sea level rise. The estimates vary quite a bit, I will concede, but their estimate was that what we are facing now is 1 foot of sea level rise per decade for the rest of this century. Has it ever happened before? Yes. Is that an outrageous estimate? No, because it has happened before. It can happen again. Why? Because the last remnants of the glaciers are in Antarctica and Greenland, and between the ice sheets on those two areas is 260 feet of additional sea level rise. Greenland is melting at an unprecedented rate, and there is a huge ice shelf in Antarctica that is poised to fall into the ocean. If that happens, it will cause sea level rise, just as dropping an ice cube in a glass of water does.

The indications are overwhelming of what this issue means for the future of this country. This is not an academic question.

Here is another example of what is happening in a relatively short period of time. The volume of ice in the Arctic Ocean has fallen by two-thirds since 1979--a 40-year period. The Arctic Ocean is more clear today than it has ever been in human history. Anybody who says nothing is happening or it is just routine or the weather changes all the time isn't paying attention to the facts. Again, my concern about this is practical: the cost of seawalls, the cost of shoring up our infrastructure, just the cost to the government of protecting the naval facilities in Norfolk. Of course, one of the problems in the State of the Presiding Officer is, the rock is porous limestone so it is very difficult to build a seawall because the water will simply come under it. So we are talking about a very serious practical issue that is going to cost our society billions, if not trillions, of dollars.

Can we stop it? Probably not. Can we slow it? Yes, but it is going to take action today, and every day we wait, it makes the action harder and more expensive. If we wait until the waves are lapping up over the seawall in New York City or over the dikes in New Orleans or over the streets of Miami or along the coast of Maine at our marshes and low points, it will be too late. Then all we can do is defend and not prevent.

I believe we can make changes now that are not totally disruptive to our economy but will be protective of our economy and will be much cheaper now than they will be 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years from now. What we are doing is leaving the problem to our kids, just like we are leaving the deficit to our kids, just like we are leaving broken infrastructure to our kids.

Tom Brokaw wrote a book after World War II called ``The Greatest Generation.'' That was the generation that sacrificed in World War II, and then they built the Interstate Highway System, paid for it, and paid down the debt that was accumulated during World War II. We are just the opposite. We are increasing our debt on all levels at a time of relative prosperity. The economy is at low unemployment. Yet we are passing trillion-dollar tax cuts that add to the deficit that these young people are going to have to pay off.

We are not attending to the problem of climate change. Who is going to have to pay to build those seawalls? Not us; our children and our grandchildren. I believe this is a moral and an ethical issue as well as a practical issue.

So I will return to where I began: to compliment my colleague from Rhode Island for raising the alarm, for pointing out what we can do, how we can do it, the consensus of scientific opinion, and the reality of what we are facing. We can do better. We don't have to avoid and ignore and waste the resources and the time we have now.

The most precious resource we have now to confront this problem is time, and every day that goes by is a day of irresponsibility. It is a day where our children and grandchildren are going to say: Where were you when this was happening? Why didn't you listen to that guy from Rhode Island who told you what was going to happen, who told you how we could do something about it? Why didn't we listen? I don't want to be a person who says I didn't listen because I was too busy or because it was inconvenient or because I was afraid it might change a little bit about how we powered our automobiles or got electricity.

I think it is a question we can face. This body can solve big problems. It has done it in the past, but recently our pattern has been, instead of solving problems, avoiding problems--putting them off until next year, next month, or decades from now when this problem is no longer a problem but a catastrophe.

So I salute and thank my colleague from Rhode Island for keeping the focus on this issue. I look forward to continuing to work with him, as we will continue to urge and plead with our colleagues to join us in reasonable steps that can be taken to ameliorate what is coming at us. This is a moment in time when we have it within our power to do something important for the future of our country and for the future of our children. I hope we can seize that moment and serve not only the American people today but the American people who will come after us and will judge us by the extent to which we confronted a problem and saved them from having to solve it themselves.

I yield the floor.