Floor Statements

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Whitehouse and I be allowed to speak in a colloquy with other Members or to yield time during that 30 minutes.

I was listening to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about the proposed rule for the waters of the United States, and I am somewhat curious as to where they get a lot of their information because if they read the proposed rule--and I point out that this is a proposed rule--it specifically excludes from waters of the United States certain ditches, wastewater treatment plants, ponds, et cetera. I am going to get into the specifics. But if you listen to their points on the floor, you would think all ditches are covered under the proposed rule--which is now subject to comment--and that is not the case.

I would urge those who are interested to please read the proposed rule and determine for yourself the fact that it does not include many of the examples given by the opponents in clarifying the waters of the United States.

Last week I had a roundtable discussion with a group of scientists and concerned citizens dealing with the progress we have made in the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay is critically important--not to just those who live in the watershed; it is the largest estuary in our hemisphere. There is more coastline on the Chesapeake Bay than on the entire west coast of the United States. It is a national treasure and has been declared that by many Presidents. It is iconic to Maryland and supports a diversity of aquatic life which is important to our lives and to our economy. Mr. President, $1 trillion of our economy is based on the Chesapeake Bay.

Starting in the 1980s, we recognized that we had a responsibility to do what we could to preserve and clean up the quality of the water within the Chesapeake Bay. Starting with Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and now expanding to Delaware, West Virginia, New York, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Government, we have a Chesapeake Bay agreement. The most recent, the fourth one, was recently signed. It recognizes that we have a real challenge to deal with the quality of the water in the bay.

We have asked our farmers to do more, and we have provided help to them in the farm bill for conservation practices. We have asked developers to do more by preserving more pervious surfaces and dealing with the loss of acreage of forest land. We have asked local governments to do more as far as dealing with wastewater treatment facility commitments. We have had a partnership between the government and private sectors. All stakeholders are involved because we believe we all have responsibilities. We are not asking one segment to do it alone. All of us are working together.

But, quite frankly, the regulation of the waters of the United States directly affects the success we are going to have in cleaning the Chesapeake Bay. So the issue we are talking about with the waters of the United States and clarifying that has a direct impact.

I might also tell you that climate change has a direct impact. Those of us who live in the watershed area, yes, we can do our responsibility for reducing our carbon footprint, but we need to get our country engaged in reducing our carbon footprint. We need to do that for many reasons--we need to do that for public health; we need to do that for national security.

Let me remind my colleagues that the Naval Academy, the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Pax River--all critically important to our national defense--are located on our coasts in Maryland and are subjected now to more flooding as a result of sea level increases which, in part, are the result of our activities with climate change. All we ask is that we follow the science.

Le me talk for a moment about waters of the United States because I heard what my colleague said. I have to take us back to 2001 when the Supreme Court issued two decisions concerning the navigable waters and the waters of the United States and added confusion. What this administration is trying to do, what we are trying to do is restore the authority that we all thought was in the law before the two Supreme Court decisions. That is all we are doing--trying to go back to what everyone understood were the regulations of the waters of the United States because the freshwater supply coming into the Chesapeake Bay is critically important to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. So if water goes into the streams, it goes into the bay, and that is of concern to us, and that needs to be regulated under the Clean Water Act.

I will quote from the preamble of the proposed regulation that has been submitted. The preamble says:

The SWANCC and Rapanos decisions resulted in the agencies

evaluating the jurisdiction of waters on a case-specific

basis far more frequently than is best for clear and

efficient implementation of the CWA. This approach results in

confusion and uncertainty to the regulated public and results

in significant resources being allocated to these

determinations by federal and state regulators.

That is why we had this proposed rule--to clarify the law that gives certainty. How many times have I heard from my constituents: Let us know what the rules are so that we can do our business. That is exactly what this proposed rule is all about.

The National Farmers Union issued this statement:

NFU has long advocated for increased certainty surrounding

Clean Water Act requirements for family farmers and ranchers

in the wake of complicating Supreme Court decisions. Today's

draft rule clarifies Clean Water Act jurisdiction, maintains

existing agricultural exemptions and adds new exemptions, and

encourages enrollment in U.S. Department of Agriculture

conservation programs.

That is their quote. The reason that is--there are 56 conservation practices that are specifically exempt from this regulation, so if farmers are participating in these conservation practices, they don't have to worry about the issues to which some of my colleagues referred.

Let me quote from the proposed regulation itself. The regulation says that the following are not waters of the United States: waste treatment systems, including treatment ponds or lagoons; prior converted cropland; ditches that are excavated, and it gives certain conditions; ditches that do not contribute flow, either directly or through another water, to the waters of the United States, so we have exempted ditches; certain artificially irrigated areas are exempted; artificial lakes or ponds created by excavating and/or diking dry land; artificial reflecting pools or swimming pools created by excavating and/or diking dry land; small ornamental waters created by excavating and/or diking dry land; water-filled depressions; groundwater, including groundwater drained through subsurface drainage systems; and gullies and rills and non-wetland swales.

If you listen to my colleagues, they would tell you that if, as a farmer, you have a ditch on your property that is just on your property, that you are using for irrigation on your property, it would be subject to this regulation. It would not be. It is specifically exempt.

Here is the point.

Let me finish my point.

Here is the point. This is a proposed regulation. So if you think further clarification is needed, there is an extended comment period. If you think we need to make further clarifications on issues--what we are trying to get at are practices that affect water that will go into our streams and rivers and in my case end up in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which in trying to clean up the bay we have to deal with.

The success of the Chesapeake Bay Program is that all stakeholders are involved. We use the best science. We need everyone doing their fair share. Therefore, if your activities contribute to water flowing into the Chesapeake Bay watershed through our streams and rivers, yes, you are regulated under the Clean Water Act. But if you have a self- contained ditch that is not involved in that and are using it for irrigation, absolutely not. If you participate in the conservation programs, you don't have to worry about a new set of regulations. That is what this does.

Our true leader on this has been Senator Whitehouse. I thank him very much on the climate change issues, on the environmental issues. He has been on the floor every day.

I want to make sure my colleagues have a chance to express their views on this issue. It is critically important.

I yield for my colleague from Rhode Island.

If the Senator will yield for one moment, I also want Senator Hoeven to understand the history.

Shortly after the Supreme Court decision many of us filed because there needed to be clarification. We had urged Congress to do that. But it was opposition from the Republicans that prevented us from considering that legislation. They blocked us from considering a congressional clarification as to the Supreme Court decision, and now we are faced with a situation in which the administration is doing what it must do; that is, to provide, under its own authority, where it can act, clarification that it so desperately needed.

As Senator Whitehouse has said, what this regulation is about is clarifying the confusion by the Supreme Court decision as to what is regulated or not. As a result, landowners don't know whether they can do this or not. They don't know. That is the worst of all worlds, when you don't have certainty as to how you need to act, and that does cause speculation that in many cases is not true. But they don't know what the rules are.

So, quite frankly, what the administration rule is patterned after is a lot of discussion we had in the Congress of the United States shortly after the Supreme Court decision as to trying to codify the practice before the Supreme Court decision. There didn't seem to be a lot of people upset with the manner in which the EPA was regulating the waters of the United States prior to the two Supreme Court decisions in 2001. That is what the regulation is aimed at--getting us to before the point of the Supreme Court decision and where Congress was trying to legislate but blocked by Republicans shortly after the decision.

I think Senator Whitehouse is exactly right. What we should be doing now if we have concerns is expressing them. First, it might be helpful to read the regulation and see what is in it and what is not in it, what is regulated and what is not regulated. If there are things in here we think are wrong, that

is what a comment period is about. Let's wait until we get the final regulation and then, yes, we will have a debate, I am sure, at that time, which is appropriate, and then we can debate exactly what the regulation says.

Senator Whitehouse is exactly right. We were together in the hearing in the Environment and Public Works Committee, where we had many previous administrators from the Environmental Protection Agency. There were those who served under Democratic administrations and Republican administrations.

Four from Republican administrations--and as was pointed out in the hearing where we were talking about the Clean Air Act, it was passed by bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law by President Nixon, and it was a proud moment.

We have done many analyses that show the regulations issued under clean water and clean air pay back dividends far in excess of compliance costs, such as 40 to 1. There are people who can breathe and not have to worry about an asthma attack because we have clean air. There are those who don't get sick because of pathogens that may be in our drinking water or people getting sick just bathing on our shores. We reduced that, and the number of premature deaths we have eliminated.

The public health benefit of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act pays back multiple dividends to people of this country, and that is why this has never been a partisan issue. Quite frankly, the Chesapeake Bay Program--the partnership--has never been a partisan issue in Maryland.

Some of our strongest benefactors--the people who have caused us to have this type of unity--have been Republican leaders in our State, along with Democratic leaders. We don't even know the party it ought to be. This has been a public calling because we know the seriousness of the issue.

The Environmental Protection Agency has a long history of nonpartisan activities in order to protect the public health of the people of this country, and it is extremely disappointing that there is no cooperation at all.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business.

Mr. President, about 2 weeks ago I had a chance to meet with the leaders in the agricultural community to go over certain issues that are available to our farmers. I met with the NRCS chief Jason Weller. I met with the Maryland State agriculture secretary Buddy Hance and Lee McDaniels, who is a Harford County, MD, farmer and president of the Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

We were talking about ways in which the agricultural community, and those citizens who are concerned about our environment, can work together so we can have a clean environment and a healthy agricultural industry in our State. I found the discussion to be extremely helpful. We talked about the Regional Conservation Partnership Program.

I thank Senator Stabenow for her incredible leadership on the farm bill. When we reauthorized it, we consolidated a lot of the conservation programs--particularly for specific great water bodies-- into the Regional Conservation Partnership Program. It provided new energy and tools available for conservation within agriculture so we can have a clean environment and also have sustainable agriculture in our country.

Recently, the Chesapeake Bay watershed was designated as one of the critical conservation areas. That becomes important because that allows a certain amount of the funds under the Regional Conservation Partnership Program to be available to the critical conservation areas in our country and will be used by our farmers to conserve their land, and to be better stewards of the land and our environment, and at the same time have a sustainable agricultural program.

The Chesapeake Bay Program first started many years ago under the leadership of then-Governor Harry Hughes of Maryland, who worked with the Governors of Pennsylvania and Delaware and then expanded to include the States of New York, West Virginia, and of course Virginia, to establish the Chesapeake Bay Program. They understood that in order for the program to be successful, they had to deal with development issues and storm runoff, the hardened surface, the loss of forestry land in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and the causes of the pollutants in the soil and our environment through

surges which rush into our water system, our streams, and rivers, and into the Chesapeake Bay. We have to do a better job of development in dealing with storm runoff.

It also recognized the responsibility of local governments. They are the primary entity responsible for how we treat our waste with the wastewater facility plants and how we can do a better job of preventing pollutants from entering our water system.

We also dealt with business growth and the pollution coming in through business activities.

One of the major focal points was how do we deal with agriculture. In one sense agriculture is very positive for our environment. Maintaining open space is important, and agricultural activities are generally open space. That can be good because it gives us a larger tract of land in order to filter rainwater, to filter the pollutants from perhaps never entering the bay but, if they do enter the water system, they enter in a way that has already been filtered. So in that sense agricultural preservation is important for the conservation of the bay, but because of farming activities that use nitrogen and phosphorus, it can cause significant challenges for the bay.

I think Maryland farmers have done a good job. They have done a good job for many years. But I wish to speak about one farmer particularly because I was very pleased--before this meeting, I had a chance to meet Hank Suchting. He is a farmer in Baltimore County, MD. That is pretty close to the urban centers. The Presiding Officer was referring to me as being the Senator from Baltimore. I am a proud resident of Baltimore, and Mr. Suchting's farm is only a few miles from my house. It is interesting. He has a beef-farming cattle activity. It is in the Oregon branch of the Gwynns Falls River, which has been dammed to provide for the Loch Raven Reservoir to deal with our water supply. In other words, that stream, which is part of his cattle production, is in the watershed that goes into the drinking water that the Presiding Officer and I drink in the Baltimore region. So we all have a significant interest in making sure that water supply is kept safe and that when we turn on our tap and when we drink our water, it is fresh water.

Mr. Suchting's farm activities produce about 30 beef calves a year. That is an important number because in order for that cattle population to be properly grazed, it needs to have a water supply, and it needs to have a place where the cattle can cool off, particularly on a hot day like we had yesterday. So the traditional farming activities for this cattle production were to allow the cattle--as I said, the stream goes right through his property--to use the stream for the purpose of cooling off and for the purpose of the drinking water for the cattle. However, that was not the best way to do it for the purposes of protecting the water supply of Baltimore and to deal with the Chesapeake Bay and to deal with our environment because, as the Presiding Officer knows, free access for the cattle to the river meant that the cattle manure, the phosphorus would go into the waters, causing a challenge for the water system, and it caused significant erosion to the streambed itself.

So Mr. Suchting felt a commitment to help the environment, so he said: Look, why don't I look at fencing in the riverbed so my cattle do not get direct access to the stream and producing a supplemental water system through a water trough--as we see in the photograph. It works through gravity. It uses the aquifer, works through gravity, and produces direct water for the cattle to drink.

Here is the interesting part. His principal motivation was that he wanted to do something that would help the environment, but he still wanted to be able to produce his cattle. He felt an obligation to do this.

The State of Maryland had help for him. In partnerships with the Federal Government and conservation programs, there were funds available to help him fence in the property to have a sensible crossing--because he was on both sides of the creek--so that he could have a way for the cattle to cross safely and still protect the water bed itself. That program made it more financially advantageous for him to put in the fencing so the cattle did not have direct access to the stream and to put in the water trough so they could get fresh water.

But guess what. He put a pencil to it and found out it was better economically for him to do this. It actually made his farming practices more financially viable. How did that happen? Well, he was losing calves every season to storms when there were water surges and they would get caught in the stream and they would actually drown. He was losing calves because of extreme weather. Being in the stream caused hypothermia for the calves, and they would die. Every time he lost a calf, he also lost about $1,000. This was a sound investment from the point of view of the financial viability of his cattle production.

Also, he found it was healthier for his cattle in two respects. First, the water supply did not include the pathogens that can be found in the streams, so he found it was healthier for his cattle to get water through the trough rather than through the stream itself. Secondly, he said the growth around the stream increased dramatically because the cattle were not in the stream, and it gave better shade on the property to allow the cattle to be able to cool off in the shade in a more efficient way than going into the stream itself.

My point is this: This is just one example. I could give hundreds of examples where conservation makes sense for agriculture and our environment.

My reason for being at this farm and my reason for bringing together the leaders in agriculture in Maryland is to talk about this new program that is now available. It is the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which is available under the farm bill, which makes hundreds of millions of dollars available competitively--it is not earmarked--for farmers to be able to do what Mr. Suchting did through similar types of programs to help themselves and help our environment so we can have a safer environment for our community.

Working together, we can have a cleaner environment and successful agriculture. There are now new tools available. We want people to know about them. We want farmers to know about them. We want conservation districts to get this information out to our farming community because, quite frankly, agriculture is critical to Maryland, it is critical to New Jersey, it is critical to this country. It is the largest single part of our local economy, and I expect it is the same in New Jersey and around the Nation. We want viable agriculture. We outcompete the world in production. We want to be able to continue to do that, but we also want to pass on a cleaner environment to our children. We can do both.

Thanks to the leadership of Senator Stabenow and thanks to the leadership of this body, we now have new tools available to help our farmers in conservation. I hope they will take advantage of them for the sake of our environment and for the sake of agriculture.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I wish to commend the Senate for unanimously passing S. Res. 474 last week. I am a proud co-sponsor of the resolution authored by Senator Levin, which designates today as Juneteenth Independence Day for 2014. The resolution includes specific recognition of Frederick Douglass who was born in the State of Maryland in 1818, escaped from slavery and became a leading writer, orator, publisher, and one of the United States' most influential advocates for abolitionism and the equality of all people.

On this 149th anniversary of Juneteenth, America celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth--or June 19--is the day in 1865 when MG Gordon Granger and Union soldiers enforced `General Order No. 3', finally freeing the remaining slaves in the United States.

Thanks to the hard work of Americans committed to living up to our highest ideals, we have come a long way since that first Juneteenth. This is a time for joy but also reflection for African Americans. We should use our collective history, and days like Juneteenth, to grow, learn and become more connected to one another. We owe it to those who endured the brutal institution of slavery and to those who dedicated their lives to ending such an injustice.

Today, our children study Marylanders like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, both former slaves who helped deliver freedom to millions. As we observe Juneteenth in Maryland and across the country, we also reflect on the reality that human bondage has not been abolished worldwide. The continued existence of slavery anywhere is an affront to the progress made since that first Juneteenth and a cause for action.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Global Development Lab and the legislation I am introducing along with Senators Boozman, Coons, and Isakson that codifies the Global Development Lab and provides the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, with the flexibility it needs to make the Lab the gold standard in global development innovation.

This year, the Office of Science & Technology and the Office of Innovation & Development Alliances at USAID were abolished to pave the way for the Global Development Lab--a new approach to invest, test, and bring to scale more effective solutions to the world's biggest development challenges.

The Global Development Lab partners with entrepreneurs, experts, nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, universities, and science and research institutions to solve development challenges in a faster, more cost-efficient, and more sustainable way. The lab utilizes a pay-for- success model, which uses science, technology, and innovation-driven competitions to expand the number and diversity of solutions to development challenges. This means that instead of issuing grants or contacts, USAID can give a competitor an award only after the objectives of the competition have been achieved.

The lab already has an impressive 32 cornerstone partners. These partners are businesses, NGOs, foundations, universities, and governments--all of whom are committed to sharing information and expertise and to bringing innovative development projects to scale. I am pleased that two Maryland-based organizations, Johns Hopkins University and Catholic Relief Services, are cornerstone partners of the Global Development Lab. Catholic Relief Services intends to work with the lab on food security, global health, climate change, energy, and information and communications technology, and it is already using geographic information systems in Haiti to map schools and education programs across the country to better improve education interventions. Johns Hopkins University plans to partner with the lab on improving health care and access to clean and affordable water and energy.

The Global Development Lab makes sense: America has a proud history of achieving unprecedented gains for humanity through science and technology. Evidence has shown that when we harness American science, innovation and entrepreneurship, we achieve the greatest leaps in social and economic development.

For example, ninety percent of new HIV infection in children is a result of mother-to-child transmission at birth. When newborns receive antiretroviral drugs at a clinic or hospital within 24 hours of birth, their chances of contracting HIV go from 45 percent to less than 5 percent. In regions where pregnant mothers do not have adequate access to medical facilities, getting newborns antiretroviral treatment is challenging. In response to this challenge, Dr. Robert Malkin and his students at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and Duke's Global Health Institute--also Cornerstone Partners--designed the Pratt Pouch, a low- cost foil pouch that preserves a premeasured dose of antiretroviral medication for up to a year without requiring refrigeration. The pouch ensures accurate pediatric dosing and can be given to mothers to take home with them before birth. Mothers then simply tear open the pouch and squeeze the medication directly into their newborn's mouth, eliminating the need for a syringe and a health professional and ultimately reducing the likelihood of mother-to-child transmission of HIV at birth.

This type of innovation is exciting and is exactly what we hope to see more of as we scale up the Global Development Lab and empower it to be the world's most innovative incubator of global development projects.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Global Development Lab and the legislation I am introducing along with Senators Boozman, Coons, and Isakson that codifies the Global Development Lab and provides the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, with the flexibility it needs to make the Lab the gold standard in global development innovation.

This year, the Office of Science & Technology and the Office of Innovation & Development Alliances at USAID were abolished to pave the way for the Global Development Lab--a new approach to invest, test, and bring to scale more effective solutions to the world's biggest development challenges.

The Global Development Lab partners with entrepreneurs, experts, nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, universities, and science and research institutions to solve development challenges in a faster, more cost-efficient, and more sustainable way. The lab utilizes a pay-for- success model, which uses science, technology, and innovation-driven competitions to expand the number and diversity of solutions to development challenges. This means that instead of issuing grants or contacts, USAID can give a competitor an award only after the objectives of the competition have been achieved.

The lab already has an impressive 32 cornerstone partners. These partners are businesses, NGOs, foundations, universities, and governments--all of whom are committed to sharing information and expertise and to bringing innovative development projects to scale. I am pleased that two Maryland-based organizations, Johns Hopkins University and Catholic Relief Services, are cornerstone partners of the Global Development Lab. Catholic Relief Services intends to work with the lab on food security, global health, climate change, energy, and information and communications technology, and it is already using geographic information systems in Haiti to map schools and education programs across the country to better improve education interventions. Johns Hopkins University plans to partner with the lab on improving health care and access to clean and affordable water and energy.

The Global Development Lab makes sense: America has a proud history of achieving unprecedented gains for humanity through science and technology. Evidence has shown that when we harness American science, innovation and entrepreneurship, we achieve the greatest leaps in social and economic development.

For example, ninety percent of new HIV infection in children is a result of mother-to-child transmission at birth. When newborns receive antiretroviral drugs at a clinic or hospital within 24 hours of birth, their chances of contracting HIV go from 45 percent to less than 5 percent. In regions where pregnant mothers do not have adequate access to medical facilities, getting newborns antiretroviral treatment is challenging. In response to this challenge, Dr. Robert Malkin and his students at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and Duke's Global Health Institute--also Cornerstone Partners--designed the Pratt Pouch, a low- cost foil pouch that preserves a premeasured dose of antiretroviral medication for up to a year without requiring refrigeration. The pouch ensures accurate pediatric dosing and can be given to mothers to take home with them before birth. Mothers then simply tear open the pouch and squeeze the medication directly into their newborn's mouth, eliminating the need for a syringe and a health professional and ultimately reducing the likelihood of mother-to-child transmission of HIV at birth.

This type of innovation is exciting and is exactly what we hope to see more of as we scale up the Global Development Lab and empower it to be the world's most innovative incubator of global development projects.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 19, 2014, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 19, 2014, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 19, 2014, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirkse,n Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 19, 2014, at 11 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``Treaties.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 19, 2014, at 2 p.m., to hold a hearing entitled ``CLOSED/TS: Iraq Update.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 19, 2014, at 9:30 a.m., in SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 19, 2014, at 2:30 p.m.

Madam President, first, I thank Senator Menendez for his incredible leadership on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. What Senator Menendez did not bring out is the number of hours our committee has had hearings on each one of these nominees.

We take the nomination process very seriously--the committee does-- under Senator Menendez's leadership. We have a complete record on the background and experience of each of President Obama's nominees. We have vetted them, gone over everything, and we have had hearings.

As Senator Menendez pointed out, today I chaired a hearing where we considered the nominations for our Ambassadors to Algeria, Vietnam, and the Republic of Korea as well as an Assistant Administrator for USAID for Asia. That hearing lasted an hour and a half, many questions were asked. The record is open through Thursday so members of the committee can ask additional questions.

Many times additional questions are asked for the record. We get those responses, and we then analyze all of that information and go to a committee markup where every member of the committee has a chance to debate each nominee. As Senator Menendez has pointed out, in most cases they have been approved by our committee by unanimous votes, and many times it is not recorded because there is no controversy.

In many cases these are career diplomats, and in other cases they are people who have an extraordinary background to add to the service of their country, and we are very blessed that they are willing to step forward to take on the ambassadorship or membership in a key national organization to further U.S. foreign policy. That is the record.

So what happens after we act? Senator Menendez has expedited these nominations as quickly as he could do it in carrying out the responsibilities of the Senate to advise on these nominations. But what has happened afterward is that they cannot get a Senate vote and not because of any meritorious objections to the confirmation. They are just being backlogged in order to gum up the operations of the Senate. There is no policy reason or substantive reason for the delay in the consideration of these nominations.

This is foreign policy for the United States. This is in the best interests of the United States. It is hard for the public to understand and it is hard for this Senator to understand why we would hold up having a confirmed ambassador heading up our embassy in any country in the world but particularly those countries that are critically important to U.S. interests. We should have a confirmed head of our embassy in every country.

As far as it is affecting U.S. interests, let me give you what I think is obvious, and the Presiding Officer understands this. Our national defense strategy depends upon not just our soldiers and our weapons, it depends very much on diplomacy and development assistance. The diplomacy--and to a large extent the development assistance--is managed by our embassy in the host country and the CEO of that embassy is the confirmed ambassador, and in many cases we don't have a confirmed ambassador. We don't have an ambassador because the Senate has not confirmed that position.

For months we have gone without confirming an ambassador after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has recommended a confirmation, and that is why we have come to the floor to talk about that. This does affect our national security interests.

Senator Menendez pointed out a very obvious fact; that is, the face- to-face interchange of our ambassador and the country he or she is representing that gives the United States the best opportunity in that country. That is how you do diplomacy. You don't do diplomacy through letters; you don't do diplomacy through long exchanges from one country to another; you do it by being in that country--by your personal commitment to that country. That is why we have our embassies and our ambassadors. When we don't have a confirmed ambassador--when we don't have the CEO of that embassy there--we miss that personal face-to-face interchange which is critically important.

Just think for a moment. Here we are trying to make an important contact in a foreign country, and we may meet with the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister, and we don't have an ambassador to be our representative or to be there to supervise the diplomacy that is taking place.

What many people are not aware of is that our embassies are more than just the ambassador dealing with current foreign policy issues. We have a host of functions that are carried out under the supervision of our ambassador who, as we pointed out in many cases, is not there because we have not acted. Maybe we are interested in what is going on with U.S. business. We have a lot of economic interests around the world.

We are in a global economy. American businesses depend upon our embassy being there for them to fight for the government contracts on a fair, level playing field so they can conduct their business internationally. They depend upon an embassy to be at full strength. Because of global competition, we are fighting every day for job opportunities for Americans and American companies.

In too many countries we don't have that person there fighting for our businesses because the Senate is not active because those on the other side of the aisle have prevented us from taking up these ambassadors for confirmation, even though there has been no controversy surrounding their individual confirmation, and that is hurting U.S. business interests.

There are many citizens who travel abroad. They expect to have the full service of their embassy if they need it or if they get sick or they need the services of our embassy for whatever it might be. They depend on that embassy, and they want the CEO to be present in that embassy in order to fight for their interests.

That confirmed ambassador is not there today because the Republicans have denied the vote in the Senate to confirm that position. We are not at full strength to protect Americans who are traveling abroad. Our participation in environmental opportunities is very much dependent upon the functioning of our embassy.

Our humanitarian efforts depend upon the functioning of the embassy. Our eyes and ears on the ground depend upon the functioning of the embassy. Our development assistance programs are run out of the embassies. In many cases the CEO is not there because of the obstruction by the Republicans in the Senate who are not allowing a vote on noncontroversial nominees. Because these nominations have not taken place, we are not at full strength.

We are hurting our country. We are hurting our interests. We are hurting our business interests, our security interests, and our leadership on environmental issues. As Senator Menendez

pointed out, they are not just ambassadors to countries, they are ambassadors to international organizations.

We are not at full strength on economic international organizations. We are not at full strength on arms control negotiations because we don't have our key person there--not because that person is controversial, not because the President has elected someone who is controversial but to the contrary. Almost all of these nominations are noncontroversial and waiting for months because the Republicans will not allow a vote.

Somebody said: OK. Don't we need a lot of floor time to debate this? Look at the record. Look how much floor debate has been spent on approving these nominations. I am willing to wager--although we can't wager on the floor of the Senate. I am willing to point out that if we bring these nominations to floor consideration, in almost every case there will be virtually no debate, and they will be approved by an overwhelming majority, if not a unanimous vote.

We are hurting our country. We are hurting the reputation of the United States. We are supposedly the major power. Yet we can't get a CEO confirmed to head our embassies abroad.

It is also unfair to the people who are making a sacrifice for public service. As Senator Menendez pointed out, a large number of these nominees were ambassadorships or career diplomats. These are not political appointments, these are career people who have made their career serving their country.

Many have young families. What do they do about school enrollment in September? Do they enroll their children in the school where they are now or do they wait to see if they will be confirmed and enroll them in the country in which they will be serving? Why are we putting people who are serving their country through that type of uncertainty and anxiety? But we are. We are, by failing to move in a timely way the nominations that have been brought forward to us.

I will just mention one other example. I started with the hearing I chaired today on behalf of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee dealing with four nominees. One was the Ambassador to Vietnam. I was just recently in Vietnam. I met with our current Ambassador, Ambassador Shear. I mention that because he has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia, so he is leaving Vietnam. We had a hearing today on the next Ambassador to Vietnam--a well-qualified career diplomat. The question is: Are we going to have the orderly change of command in Vietnam, a country critically important to U.S. interests? We are negotiating a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Part of that involves good governance changes that we expect in Vietnam. We expect our Ambassador to be there to negotiate these issues. The question is: Will we have that orderly transfer?

Two career people seeking to move forward in their careers are being held up by inaction on the floor of the Senate.

I come to the last point I wish to make. Yes, we are hurting the United States in not having these confirmed CEOs. It is creating unfairness to the families of people who want to serve our country--and the uncertainty that is there. But it is also hurting the Senate because it is our responsibility to act on Presidential appointments. It is our responsibility to act in a timely, thoughtful way. We are not carrying out that responsibility. By the Republicans obstructing votes on the President's nominations on key foreign policy positions, we are not carrying out our responsibility--an oath that we took to serve in the Senate to protect the interests of this country. It is our responsibility to act on these nominations in a timely way, and we have not done that because of the obstructionism of the Republicans.

I urge my colleagues to put our national interests first. Let us move forward with our responsibility. The committee has carried out its responsibility and, quite frankly, the chairman has carried that out in a very bipartisan way. We have had cooperation between Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We have carried out our responsibility. Now it is time for the Senate to carry out its responsibility, for the Republicans to allow us to vote in a timely way on this backlog of nominees for critical foreign policy positions. I urge my colleagues to allow us to move forward in the best interests of our country and in respect for those who have stepped forward to serve our country, to carry out the responsibilities we all swore to uphold in the Senate.

With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, this Saturday--June 14--marks the Army's 239th birthday. For 239 years, the Nation has entrusted the Army with preserving freedom and defending our

democratic values. Commencing on June 14, 1775, the Continental Army led our historic revolution and has continuously served America at home and abroad defending the cause of liberty. As the greatest land force this world has ever known, I firmly believe that the U.S. Army will maintain this proud duty.

The Continental Army had humble beginnings. It was originally comprised of rebellious colonists who had little to no experience in soldiering. Under the leadership of GEN George Washington, the soldiers of the Continental Army overcame overwhelming odds against them to defeat the more seasoned and well-equipped British military and mercenary forces. Since then, our Army has become the standard that all other nations use to measure their forces.

The Army's birthday coincides with Flag Day, a holiday that commemorates our Nation's adoption of the U.S. flag. This is a fitting marriage, as our Nation's flag would not exist were it not for the bravery and sacrifice of our Army; and since the adoption of our flag in 1777, the Army has always carried the flag, the symbol of our most sacred values, into battle. I am reminded of Francis Scott Key's hallowed words after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships in the Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812. In describing the sight of Old Glory still flying after the bombardment, Key wrote, ``Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.''

In celebrating the Army's birthday, I would like to highlight a particular Army unit that served our Nation with distinction under the most challenging of circumstances. The unit that I am referring to is the segregated 726th Transportation Truck Company, a part of the Maryland National Guard. The 726th existed as a segregated unit within the Guard well after President Truman integrated the U.S. armed services in 1948 because Maryland, like many other States at the time, had not yet integrated its National Guard units. The 726th was the only Maryland National Guard unit that served in Korea during the Korean war. While in Korea, the 726th Transportation Truck Company was attached to the 70th Transportation Truck Battalion as an integrated unit and served with distinction.

Upon returning to Maryland, the members of the 726th Truck Battalion learned that their unit would be reverted back to its original segregated status. Unwilling to return to segregation, the officers and enlisted personnel of the 726th Truck Battalion resisted, and worked to end segregation within the Maryland National Guard. In November of 1955, the men of the 726th achieved their goal when Maryland's then- Gov. Theodore McKeldin issued an order to end racial segregation in the Maryland National Guard. This order made Maryland the first State below the Mason-Dixon line to integrate its National Guard. The united efforts of the men of the 726th Transportation Truck Company marked an important step towards realizing equal rights in our military and in our society.

With the withdrawal of our military forces in Iraq and the departure of those forces in Afghanistan by the end of 2016, I am concerned that our heroes who have recently entered or who are about to enter-- civilian life will not be provided with the tools they need to adapt to life here at home. My concerns have been exacerbated by the recent discoveries of substandard care in the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). Millions are helped each year by the VA health care system, but more than a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has overwhelmed a system already bursting at the seams. Veteran unemployment, post- traumatic stress, and suicides continue to be serious issues that require immediate action. Maryland is home to over 30,000 military members and 460,000 veterans. The Army gives our soldiers the focus and diligence to excel in any and every field they choose, but we have to provide our servicemen and women with the tools they require to recover and adapt to civilian life. Doing so is not just a good idea, but rather our solemn obligation that strengthens our great Nation. As these heroes serve and defend our citizens, rights and values, it is our duty to return the service, as it is the least we can do. Ultimately, we have to continue to give these men and women a stake in their own country, the country they are so willing to dedicate their lives to serving.

I am eternally thankful for our brave men and women, both active and retired, for their willingness to serve domestically and internationally. For 239 years these patriots have been the strength of the Nation. Their steadfast dedication to duty, to our country, and to all Americans is embodied in the Army motto, ``This We'll Defend.'' For 239 years, our Army has lived by these words, protecting our most revered values: freedom, equality, independence, and democracy. Let us remember and celebrate our Army soldiers for this achievement today, and wish them a happy 239th birthday.

Let me thank Senator Warner for his leadership on this issue.

The bills Senator Warner is bringing forward will help deal with the incredible burden American families are confronting today in order to get quality education. His story is a story told about the opportunities of America. Education is the great equalizer in this country.

My grandparents came to America for a better life for their children. My parents benefited from education. They are products of the Baltimore City public school system and the public colleges and universities in the State of Maryland. As a result of the educational tools given to them, the grandson of those immigrants now serves in the Senate. That is the story of America. Education is the great equalizer.

That is why we were so disappointed that we couldn't proceed with an important tool to make education more available to families; that is, the bill we just recently voted on to try to at least break the filibuster so that we could help those who currently have student loans.

Education has been the great equalizer in a growing middle class, which has led to the strength of America. It has been key to global competition. We all talk about the fact that other countries are doing a better job in STEM education or catching up to America--in some cases surpassing America. Well, education is a great equalizer.

We should make it easier for families to be able to afford a college education.

The truth is that it is more expensive here than it is in other countries. Yet we expect our country to be able to compete globally.

We are hurting ourselves. It is important for a growing economy, a growing middle class. Trained workers will strengthen America's economy, creating more jobs and more opportunity. So it is in our collective interests, not just that one family who is debating whether they are going to send their child to college or which college because of costs. It is in all of our interests to make it easier for Americans to afford a higher education.

The cost of higher education today is just plain too expensive. It is just too costly. It is the single most important investment a family can make. Yet today college debt is around $1.2 trillion--greater than all of the credit card debt held by American families. Is that putting a priority on education? I don't think so. We can do a much better job.

In Maryland, 776,000 students have Federal student loan debt totaling over $21 million. Over 50 percent of those graduating students are borrowing money in order to attend college, but here is the problem. For too many families it is a decision of whether they are going to college or not going to college--the cost. For too many families it is going to a school of their second, third, or fourth choice rather than the school they want to go to, and they are making that choice not because they couldn't get into the school they wanted but because they can't afford the school they want, their first choice.

The debt they have when they leave college, it is clearly affecting their career choice. We may have a brilliant future researcher or a brilliant future teacher. What is more important than being a teacher? But they choose to go into a different profession because they have student loans, and they choose for immediate pay considerations for their jobs rather than the career they really want because they know it is not fair to their families to continue these large student debts with which they are graduating.

That is the situation we confront. We know the numbers. I will tell you some real stories about real Marylanders.

Last year I visited one of our 4-year colleges and had a roundtable discussion with students. There was a second-year student there. She told me she was going to drop out of school after her second year. This is, by the way, in a very challenged community.

I said to her: I guess you are not doing well. She said: I am a straight-A student. I love the opportunities I am being given here. I love the knowledge I am getting, but I can't do it to my family to incur more debt. I look at my classmates from high school who have graduated and they are making money for their family and here I am a burden to my family by incurring more debt. I can't do it. I don't know where I am going to be 2 years from now, but I know I can't do this to my family. So I have to go out and work. I can't incur more debt.

That is a loss for that student and for our community.

I met another student named Becky last week at one of our Southern Maryland colleges. She told me the story about wanting to become a pediatric dentist. She is brilliant. She is doing great. But Becky is working full time and going to college. She is not going to be able to go to her first choice. She has her first choice, but she is not going to be able to do that because she is working full time and incurring debt in order to go to college. So it is going to take her a lot longer. She is not going to get through undergraduate in 4 years. It is going to take her 5 years or 6 years to get through, and whether she will ever become the pediatric dentist she wants to be, I don't know.

That is what is happening in America today, and millions of others can tell you similar stories of career decisions they have made, giving up the most important investment in their life because of the financial considerations. The bill we have on the floor right now can do something about it.

I would be the first to acknowledge there is a lot we could do to help in this regard, but I thank Senator Warren for her leadership in bringing forward a bill that will make a difference for millions of students who hold debt. It will make it less costly for them to take out the loans they have taken out. It would affect millions of students.

I think Americans would be upset, disappointed, and outraged to learn the Federal Government is making money off of student loans. The interest rates are higher than what the cost of the student loan is. Taking into consideration defaults, taking into consideration administrative costs, taking into consideration the cost of borrowing, between 2007 and 2012 $66 billion was made off the backs of students who can't afford the loans they currently have.

What Senator Warren's bill does is allow those who hold student debt to refinance and take advantage of lower interest rates. It is not going to be subsidized loans. There will be no cost to

the taxpayers to do this. This seems like a no-brainer, quite frankly. It would make it easier for them. We let homeowners refinance their mortgages and we passed special legislation to allow that. We allow businesses to refinance their loans to the lowest competitive rate. Why can't students do this? That is what the bill before us does. It lets us move forward at no cost because we are not subsidizing the loans.

Just because of our unusual scoring reasons here, she provides an offset, which I don't think is necessary, but I certainly support the bill, and the offset is certainly one that has millionaires paying their fair share and it makes sense. So this will save thousands of dollars for those who currently holds loans. That is important.

Some say: Don't we need more accountability from higher education? Yes, we do. Don't we need more transparency from higher education? Yes, we do. Don't we need to have better consumer information? Yes. I agree with all of the above, but today we can do something about the interest costs and correct an injustice of government, making money off of student loans, and do this in a way that makes it more affordable for families. We can do something that truly helps. It will provide help to families.

President Obama has acted. I thank him for doing that. Five million families will benefit from his Executive order or clarification which says no more than 10 percent of your income will be used to pay student loans and caps the number of years. That is going to help. He is also doing more to promote awareness of repayment options. That is good, but we in Congress have an opportunity to act and act today.

I hope we get bipartisan support to help middle-income families and to help our country. I urge my colleagues to allow us to get on the bill and to pay to help the middle class of America.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of the 470,000 Maryland veterans in order to thank my colleagues for making veterans health care a priority by passing S. 2450, the Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014. I specifically applaud the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Sanders, and Senator John McCain for developing this bipartisan agreement and demonstrating to the Nation that the Congress can work together to meet our greatest challenges.

I want to thank President Obama and Acting Secretary Gibson for taking preliminary action and holding senior Department of Veterans Affairs, VA,

leadership accountable. Now the hard work begins of renewing and meeting our commitments to our veterans, who have sacrificed so much for our Nation. I support this bill's efforts to provide immediate authority to refer veterans to non-VA care and its provisions addressing commonsense long-term reform. Much of the treatment our veterans need is already provided in world-class facilities that are closer to their homes than the nearest VA Hospital, and they stand ready to support them today.

I am concerned that the expedited firing provision for Senior Executive Service employees creates a separate process for VA staff employee. Let me be clear: Anyone guilty of fraud, malfeasance or criminal negligence must be held accountable. But current law and Office of Personnel Management policy provide measures to address such acts. Federal employees deserve the appropriate due process.

This bill is an exceptional step in the right direction and will begin to address some of the concerns we all have with respect to the VA, beginning with access to care. But there is still much work to do to help our veterans return to civilian life after they have served. A mere thank you is of little comfort to a veteran who cannot find meaningful employment, who is struggling to provide for his or her family or who is dealing with post-traumatic stress. Their sacrifices are often made in stressful, frustrating, and dangerous conditions. Yet these brave men and women do not shy away from committing themselves to serving our country.

Disability claims at the VA are continuing to take far too long to be processed, and the backlog is denying support to veterans who are in critical need due to service-related injuries. I will continue to push for an amendment that will make the Fully Developed Claims Program permanent. The Fully Developed Claims Program is an optional new initiative that offers veterans and survivors faster decisions from the VA on compensation, pension, and survivor benefit claims. Veterans and survivors must simply submit all relevant records in their possession and those records which are easily obtainable, such as private medical records, at the time they make their claim and certify that they have no further evidence to submit. Then the VA can review and process the claims more quickly. This program is realizing much improved processing time due to the extraordinary partnership with numerous Veterans Service Organizations, but I propose we make a guarantee to our veterans that if they utilize this program, the VA will provide their final rating in an expedited manner or they will receive a provisional rating at 180 days. This is the level of commitment from Congress that the American people expect and our veterans deserve.

A true marker of our Nation's worth is our willingness to serve those who have served us. As we continue to wind down our commitments in Afghanistan after 13 years of war, we need to gear up our commitment to our veterans. Our veterans deserve every possible tool we can provide to help ease their transition to civilian life. I am committed to making sure that our veterans receive the services and benefits they have earned and the support they were promised and deserve. The United States is the strongest Nation in the world because of our veterans, and we owe them and their families our gratitude and our respect and, most important, our support.

Mr. President, today I come to the floor to discuss the introduction of my latest legislative proposal to better control the harmful and volumes of polluted stormwater that is generated from our Nation's Federal aid highways. Highway stormwater is a growing threat to water quality, aquatic ecosystems and the fish and wildlife that depend on the health of these ecosystems. Moreover, the high volumes and rapid flow of stormwater runoff from highways and roads poses a very serious threat to the condition of our Nation's water and transportation infrastructure as well as personal property particularly in urban and suburban communities.

The Environmental Protection Agency has recognized that pollution from point-sources have been steadily declining since the enactment of the Clean Water Act. Likewise, we have seen reductions in pollution from certain non-point sources like agriculture which are attributable in part to the success of a wide variety of USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service Programs and farming innovations in soil conservation and nutrient pollution management.

One non-point source sector where we are unfortunately seeing an increasing impact on water quality is from impervious surface that create rapidly moving high volumes of untreated polluted stormwater that rush off of road surfaces, erode unnatural channels next to and ultimately underneath roadways comprising the integrity of roadway infrastructure, and increases the stress on storm sewer systems shortening the useful life of this infrastructure and ultimately lead to the discharge of untreated pollution that is carried off roadways and into our lakes, rivers, streams, and coastal waters.

Impervious surfaces include most buildings and structures, parking lots and of course the nearly 9 million lane miles of roads across our country. The total coverage of impervious surfaces in an area is usually expressed as a percentage of the total land area.

The coverage increases with rising urbanization. In rural areas, impervious cover may only be 1 percent or 2 percent, however road surfaces comprise 80 percent to 90 percent of a rural area's total impervious surfaces. In residential areas, impervious surface coverage ranges between 10 percent in low-density subdivisions to over 50 percent in more densely developed communities, where the composition of the impervious surface area coverage works out to be 50 percent roads. In dense urban areas, the impervious surface area is often over 90 percent of the total land area, with roads comprising 60 percent to 70 percent of that coverage.

According to EPA, urban impervious cover, not just roads, in the lower 48 adds up to 43,000 square miles--an area roughly the size of Ohio. Continuing development adds another quarter of a million acres each year. Typically two-thirds of the cover is pavement, roads and parking lots, and 1/3 is buildings.

According to the Chesapeake Bay Program, impervious surfaces compose roughly 17 percent of all urban and suburban lands in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The greatest concentration of impervious surfaces in the Bay watershed is in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Areas of DC, Maryland and Virginia. The Virginia Tidewater area, Philadelphia's western suburbs, and Lancaster, PA, are also regions in the watershed where impervious surfaces are greater than 10 percent of the total land area.

Rainfall on hard surfaces like roads and highways has a very destructive and turbulent affect on nearby waterways and infrastructure. For example, the rain events that occur over a week long period at the end of April brought nearly 8 eight inches of rain to the Baltimore-Washington region. The urban runoff from roads in Baltimore caused an embankment above the CSX railroad track along East 26th Street, between St. Paul and Charles Street, to collapse. Fortunately no one was injured though homes had to be evacuated for more than a month, nearly a dozen parked cars were destroyed and moreover movement of freight along CSX railroad was disrupted for more than a week. This event shows just how destructive and disruptive poorly managed stormwater from transportation infrastructure can be.

Some may chalk this up to a freak storm of unusually large proportion. It's true this storm was unusual, but so were the polar vortexes and all of the snow we had in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast, and last year's 3-mile wide tornado in Alabama, and the California drought and wildfires, and baseball sized hail in Nebraska just last week. ``Unusual'' weather seems to becoming a lot more usual. As extreme weather events triggered by our changing climate become more frequent it is imperative that we incorporate better designs into our infrastructure to be better handle these types of events.

Under the Clean Water Act, stormwater is considered a non-point source and there are no requirements that stormwater be collected or treated. The exception being for localities where in order to meet the standards

set in an MS4, Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, permit a region may include its transportation infrastructure in its MS4 permit.

However, in most cases stormwater that falls on roadways washes oil, grease, asbestos brake-dust, nitrogen deposits from tailpipe emissions, trash, road salt and de-icing agents, and sediment into nearby waterways. Highway stormwater runoff is most often not treated or adequately managed.

While these organic and inorganic contaminants are legitimate threats to water quality, the greater concern with roadway runoff is the sheer volume and rapid flow rate in which stormwater leaves these hard surfaces and enters our waterways. Flows and volumes that cause roads to collapse in Baltimore.

Roads are designed for stormwater to flow off of the driving surface quickly, for safety reasons. When stormwater rushes off of road surfaces into storm drains it is usually piped straight into the nearest river or stream without removing contaminants, detaining any of the volume, or slowing down the flow. This creates an enormously destructive set of circumstances for our waterways.

Another example of the destructive force that persistent unmitigated and poorly managed highway runoff can have on the condition and safety of highway infrastructure is in Mobile Alabama along Highway 131 in the Joe's Branch Watershed. The Mobile Bay Estuary Program, part of the National Estuaries Program, in coordination with Alabama Department of Transportation is having to spent millions of dollars to reinforce a highway embankment to keep the highway from slipping down a hill and into the Joe's Branch Creek, restore the hydrology of the river, and help protect private property from the dangerous erosion that's been caused by poorly managed stormwater from Highway 131.

The Mobile Bay Estuary Program described the problem this way: ``In the Joe's Branch watershed, on the property of Westminster Village adjacent and parallel to Highway 131, a head cut stream is eroding at an accelerating rate, an ominous condition as ALDOT prepares to undertake improvements to the highway. Identified as a high priority stabilization area in the D'Olive Creek, Tiawasee Creek and Joe's Branch Watershed Management Plan, MBNEP has submitted a funding request to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management on behalf of its partners in Spanish Fort, Daphne, ALDOT and Westminster Village to undertake restoration of the stream using a cutting-edge technology called Regenerative Step Pool Storm Conveyance.''

The four entities involved are spending large amount money to repair a problem caused by stormwater damage that could have been prevented at a lower cost by incorporating better stormwater mitigation facilities into the design of the highway.

These high-volume/high-speed flows also hasten the deterioration of water infrastructure. A 2001 study on the erosive power of urban stormwater flows examined how excessive stormwater volumes and flow rates off of urban surface infrastructure caused more than $1 million in roadway and water infrastructure damage in the Cincinnati metropolitan areas in Ohio and Kentucky in a single year.

While there are serious water quality concerns with not adequately controlling roadway infrastructure runoff, there are serious infrastructure costs, that are ultimately passed on to taxpayers and ratepayers, that can be avoided if transportation authorities do more to control and manage stormwater runoff with the infrastructure assets they manage and build.

The increased incidence of flash flooding events that occur even during seemingly mild and routine storm events is a direct result of the growing percentage of impervious land cover in urban and suburban communities. Replacement of the ``greenscapes'' that are lost to pavement is essential to restoring hydrological balance to our urban and suburban communities and impaired watersheds.

According to USGS: an inch of rain on one square foot of pavement produces 1.87 gallons of stormwater, Scaled up, 1 inch of rain on one acre would produce 27,150 gallons of stormwater. Using FHWA design standards for interstate highway lane and shoulder widths, 12 feet per lane, 10 foot right shoulder, 4 foot left shoulder, 10 miles of a four lane interstate highway generates nearly 2.5 million gallons of polluted stormwater for every inch of rain. To put that into perspective for the Potomac and Anacostia River Watersheds: The Capital Beltway, not including its 48 interchanges, generates nearly 30 million gallons of polluted stormwater for every inch of rain that falls on the 64 mile 8 to 12 lane interstate highway loop. It is volumes of stormwater like that which cause dangerous streambank erosion.

Gillies Creek is an urban waterway located East of Downtown Richmond. It is a tributary of the James River which flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Gillies Creek is surrounded by industrial and residential development and also receives stormwater from State highway 33, Interstate 64, US 60, and hundreds of city streets including Stony Run Parkway which directly adjacent to the creek for several miles. The banks and bed of this creek have eroded so badly as urban development around the creek has added more impervious surfaces to the watershed that streambed sheering has created cliffs more than ten feet tall at spots along the creek. Trees supporting the bank continually fall into the creek and nearby roadways and other infrastructure as well as homes and business are at risk. Reducing the impacts of the storms by mitigating the flow and volume of stormwater in this watershed will protect against further erosion and save the cost of repair and eventual replacement of the assets located along this endangered creek.

The aim of this legislation is to improve highway designs to better manage stormwater to avoid the costly damage that poorly managed stormwater causes to infrastructure and nearby streams, rivers and coastal waters.

I held a hearing on this issue in the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee on May 13. I heard many ideas from both the minority and majority witnesses that were invited to present testimony at this hearing. I listened to the concerns of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and I have incorporated provisions into this bill that should alleviate concerns they may have had with previous attempts to better control highway stormwater.

My bill's approach to highway runoff management is one that I hope my colleagues of both parties can support. First of all it puts states in the driver's seat for developing hydrological analysis and implementation of best management practices to control highway runoff. The objective of the legislation is to control and manage flow and volume of stormwater from highways not to treat runoff in order to meet water quality standards. By taking this sort of approach we avoid EPA's involvement in the process. Lastly, States would only need to apply these procedures to new construction on major reconfiguration projects that significantly increases the amount of impervious surface in the project area.

Title 23 of the U.S. Code states: ``transportation should play a significant role in promoting economic growth, improving the environment, and sustaining the quality of life'' through the use of ``context sensitive solutions.'' In 2008, the Government Accountability Office issued a report examining key issues and challenges that needed to be addressed in the next reauthorization of the transportation bill. That report highlighted the clear link between transportation policy and the environment. With 985,139 miles of Federal aid highways stretching from every corner of the US, polluted highway runoff is no small problem facing our Nation's waters. I would urge my colleagues to join me trying to address this problem facing America's waterways and infrastructure.

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

Mr. President, today I come to the floor to discuss the introduction of my latest legislative proposal to better control the harmful and volumes of polluted stormwater that is generated from our Nation's Federal aid highways. Highway stormwater is a growing threat to water quality, aquatic ecosystems and the fish and wildlife that depend on the health of these ecosystems. Moreover, the high volumes and rapid flow of stormwater runoff from highways and roads poses a very serious threat to the condition of our Nation's water and transportation infrastructure as well as personal property particularly in urban and suburban communities.

The Environmental Protection Agency has recognized that pollution from point-sources have been steadily declining since the enactment of the Clean Water Act. Likewise, we have seen reductions in pollution from certain non-point sources like agriculture which are attributable in part to the success of a wide variety of USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service Programs and farming innovations in soil conservation and nutrient pollution management.

One non-point source sector where we are unfortunately seeing an increasing impact on water quality is from impervious surface that create rapidly moving high volumes of untreated polluted stormwater that rush off of road surfaces, erode unnatural channels next to and ultimately underneath roadways comprising the integrity of roadway infrastructure, and increases the stress on storm sewer systems shortening the useful life of this infrastructure and ultimately lead to the discharge of untreated pollution that is carried off roadways and into our lakes, rivers, streams, and coastal waters.

Impervious surfaces include most buildings and structures, parking lots and of course the nearly 9 million lane miles of roads across our country. The total coverage of impervious surfaces in an area is usually expressed as a percentage of the total land area.

The coverage increases with rising urbanization. In rural areas, impervious cover may only be 1 percent or 2 percent, however road surfaces comprise 80 percent to 90 percent of a rural area's total impervious surfaces. In residential areas, impervious surface coverage ranges between 10 percent in low-density subdivisions to over 50 percent in more densely developed communities, where the composition of the impervious surface area coverage works out to be 50 percent roads. In dense urban areas, the impervious surface area is often over 90 percent of the total land area, with roads comprising 60 percent to 70 percent of that coverage.

According to EPA, urban impervious cover, not just roads, in the lower 48 adds up to 43,000 square miles--an area roughly the size of Ohio. Continuing development adds another quarter of a million acres each year. Typically two-thirds of the cover is pavement, roads and parking lots, and 1/3 is buildings.

According to the Chesapeake Bay Program, impervious surfaces compose roughly 17 percent of all urban and suburban lands in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The greatest concentration of impervious surfaces in the Bay watershed is in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Areas of DC, Maryland and Virginia. The Virginia Tidewater area, Philadelphia's western suburbs, and Lancaster, PA, are also regions in the watershed where impervious surfaces are greater than 10 percent of the total land area.

Rainfall on hard surfaces like roads and highways has a very destructive and turbulent affect on nearby waterways and infrastructure. For example, the rain events that occur over a week long period at the end of April brought nearly 8 eight inches of rain to the Baltimore-Washington region. The urban runoff from roads in Baltimore caused an embankment above the CSX railroad track along East 26th Street, between St. Paul and Charles Street, to collapse. Fortunately no one was injured though homes had to be evacuated for more than a month, nearly a dozen parked cars were destroyed and moreover movement of freight along CSX railroad was disrupted for more than a week. This event shows just how destructive and disruptive poorly managed stormwater from transportation infrastructure can be.

Some may chalk this up to a freak storm of unusually large proportion. It's true this storm was unusual, but so were the polar vortexes and all of the snow we had in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast, and last year's 3-mile wide tornado in Alabama, and the California drought and wildfires, and baseball sized hail in Nebraska just last week. ``Unusual'' weather seems to becoming a lot more usual. As extreme weather events triggered by our changing climate become more frequent it is imperative that we incorporate better designs into our infrastructure to be better handle these types of events.

Under the Clean Water Act, stormwater is considered a non-point source and there are no requirements that stormwater be collected or treated. The exception being for localities where in order to meet the standards

set in an MS4, Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, permit a region may include its transportation infrastructure in its MS4 permit.

However, in most cases stormwater that falls on roadways washes oil, grease, asbestos brake-dust, nitrogen deposits from tailpipe emissions, trash, road salt and de-icing agents, and sediment into nearby waterways. Highway stormwater runoff is most often not treated or adequately managed.

While these organic and inorganic contaminants are legitimate threats to water quality, the greater concern with roadway runoff is the sheer volume and rapid flow rate in which stormwater leaves these hard surfaces and enters our waterways. Flows and volumes that cause roads to collapse in Baltimore.

Roads are designed for stormwater to flow off of the driving surface quickly, for safety reasons. When stormwater rushes off of road surfaces into storm drains it is usually piped straight into the nearest river or stream without removing contaminants, detaining any of the volume, or slowing down the flow. This creates an enormously destructive set of circumstances for our waterways.

Another example of the destructive force that persistent unmitigated and poorly managed highway runoff can have on the condition and safety of highway infrastructure is in Mobile Alabama along Highway 131 in the Joe's Branch Watershed. The Mobile Bay Estuary Program, part of the National Estuaries Program, in coordination with Alabama Department of Transportation is having to spent millions of dollars to reinforce a highway embankment to keep the highway from slipping down a hill and into the Joe's Branch Creek, restore the hydrology of the river, and help protect private property from the dangerous erosion that's been caused by poorly managed stormwater from Highway 131.

The Mobile Bay Estuary Program described the problem this way: ``In the Joe's Branch watershed, on the property of Westminster Village adjacent and parallel to Highway 131, a head cut stream is eroding at an accelerating rate, an ominous condition as ALDOT prepares to undertake improvements to the highway. Identified as a high priority stabilization area in the D'Olive Creek, Tiawasee Creek and Joe's Branch Watershed Management Plan, MBNEP has submitted a funding request to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management on behalf of its partners in Spanish Fort, Daphne, ALDOT and Westminster Village to undertake restoration of the stream using a cutting-edge technology called Regenerative Step Pool Storm Conveyance.''

The four entities involved are spending large amount money to repair a problem caused by stormwater damage that could have been prevented at a lower cost by incorporating better stormwater mitigation facilities into the design of the highway.

These high-volume/high-speed flows also hasten the deterioration of water infrastructure. A 2001 study on the erosive power of urban stormwater flows examined how excessive stormwater volumes and flow rates off of urban surface infrastructure caused more than $1 million in roadway and water infrastructure damage in the Cincinnati metropolitan areas in Ohio and Kentucky in a single year.

While there are serious water quality concerns with not adequately controlling roadway infrastructure runoff, there are serious infrastructure costs, that are ultimately passed on to taxpayers and ratepayers, that can be avoided if transportation authorities do more to control and manage stormwater runoff with the infrastructure assets they manage and build.

The increased incidence of flash flooding events that occur even during seemingly mild and routine storm events is a direct result of the growing percentage of impervious land cover in urban and suburban communities. Replacement of the ``greenscapes'' that are lost to pavement is essential to restoring hydrological balance to our urban and suburban communities and impaired watersheds.

According to USGS: an inch of rain on one square foot of pavement produces 1.87 gallons of stormwater, Scaled up, 1 inch of rain on one acre would produce 27,150 gallons of stormwater. Using FHWA design standards for interstate highway lane and shoulder widths, 12 feet per lane, 10 foot right shoulder, 4 foot left shoulder, 10 miles of a four lane interstate highway generates nearly 2.5 million gallons of polluted stormwater for every inch of rain. To put that into perspective for the Potomac and Anacostia River Watersheds: The Capital Beltway, not including its 48 interchanges, generates nearly 30 million gallons of polluted stormwater for every inch of rain that falls on the 64 mile 8 to 12 lane interstate highway loop. It is volumes of stormwater like that which cause dangerous streambank erosion.

Gillies Creek is an urban waterway located East of Downtown Richmond. It is a tributary of the James River which flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Gillies Creek is surrounded by industrial and residential development and also receives stormwater from State highway 33, Interstate 64, US 60, and hundreds of city streets including Stony Run Parkway which directly adjacent to the creek for several miles. The banks and bed of this creek have eroded so badly as urban development around the creek has added more impervious surfaces to the watershed that streambed sheering has created cliffs more than ten feet tall at spots along the creek. Trees supporting the bank continually fall into the creek and nearby roadways and other infrastructure as well as homes and business are at risk. Reducing the impacts of the storms by mitigating the flow and volume of stormwater in this watershed will protect against further erosion and save the cost of repair and eventual replacement of the assets located along this endangered creek.

The aim of this legislation is to improve highway designs to better manage stormwater to avoid the costly damage that poorly managed stormwater causes to infrastructure and nearby streams, rivers and coastal waters.

I held a hearing on this issue in the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee on May 13. I heard many ideas from both the minority and majority witnesses that were invited to present testimony at this hearing. I listened to the concerns of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and I have incorporated provisions into this bill that should alleviate concerns they may have had with previous attempts to better control highway stormwater.

My bill's approach to highway runoff management is one that I hope my colleagues of both parties can support. First of all it puts states in the driver's seat for developing hydrological analysis and implementation of best management practices to control highway runoff. The objective of the legislation is to control and manage flow and volume of stormwater from highways not to treat runoff in order to meet water quality standards. By taking this sort of approach we avoid EPA's involvement in the process. Lastly, States would only need to apply these procedures to new construction on major reconfiguration projects that significantly increases the amount of impervious surface in the project area.

Title 23 of the U.S. Code states: ``transportation should play a significant role in promoting economic growth, improving the environment, and sustaining the quality of life'' through the use of ``context sensitive solutions.'' In 2008, the Government Accountability Office issued a report examining key issues and challenges that needed to be addressed in the next reauthorization of the transportation bill. That report highlighted the clear link between transportation policy and the environment. With 985,139 miles of Federal aid highways stretching from every corner of the US, polluted highway runoff is no small problem facing our Nation's waters. I would urge my colleagues to join me trying to address this problem facing America's waterways and infrastructure.

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

Mr. President, first let me comment on Sylvia Burwell, the nominee who is before us. She has done an excellent job as the Director of OMB. Her credentials are incredible. She is acknowledged by both Democrats and Republicans as being an outstanding manager, a person who is fully capable to manage HHS, an extremely important agency that has over 70,000 workers who work for Health and Human Services, has a

budget of over $1 trillion, and 11 Federal agencies. Sylvia Burwell is the right person to manage that agency and to move it forward in carrying out the very important work of our country.

For Maryland, I take pride because some of the agencies are headquartered in my State. The National Institutes of Health--world class. The best research in the world is done right here as a result of U.S. leadership, and that comes under HHS.

The FDA, which insures us safe products in food and drugs, is headquartered in Maryland. But, again, that is world class--the best in the world. It is important that we get the very best person as our Secretary, and Sylvia Burwell is that person.

CMS is headquartered in Baltimore, with Medicare and Medicaid--over 100 million people. Again, it is the best in the world. So I am very pleased that Sylvia Burwell is willing to step forward at this time to head that agency. I encourage my colleagues to confirm her nomination. We will have that vote a little later today.

I wanted to take a moment to thank Secretary Sebelius for her service to our country. Through very difficult times--and these have not been easy political times--she has steered a very steady ship at HHS and did this country proud. I thank her very much for her service to our country and for helping the hundreds of millions who have benefited from the services at HHS.

But a significant part of the mission at HHS is the implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. I have heard my colleagues talk about it, so let me point out how much progress we have made. What a difference the Affordable Care Act has made. I would urge the people in this country to look at the facts. My colleagues make comments that just are not true. Look at the facts. The growth of health care costs has gone down. The projected expenses are less today than they were in 2010 when we passed the Affordable Care Act.

We have bent the cost curve of health care. Yes, the Affordable Care Act has helped us do it. One of the reasons is we have more people who have health insurance today and who have third-party payment. They go to doctors rather than emergency rooms. That brings down the growth rate of health care costs. We are keeping people healthier. That was the whole concept of the Affordable Care Act.

Unfortunately, for my friends on the other side of the aisle, their answer is: Repeal, repeal, repeal. They have no plan for health care. We have seen under the Affordable Care Act that we have implemented delivery system reforms that keep people out of hospitals, keep readmission rates down, that provide preventive health care, so that we keep people healthy. That was the concept of the Affordable Care Act. Now that we are implementing it--and it takes time to implement it because it is a complicated law when you are dealing with health care.

It would have been more helpful if we had had support to look at ways that we could make it even better. But we have not had that type of cooperation in the Congress.

So more people are insured. The cost rates have been brought down. We reduced the debt and deficit of this country. But for the passage of the Affordable Care Act, our deficits would be larger today. That is not one Member saying that. Look at what those who are charged with doing the projections for this country have said. They have said that the debt today is smaller as a result of the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

As far as those who pay the costs, the consumers who pay the health insurance premiums and pay the doctor bills and hospital bills, they have seen relief under the Affordable Care Act. There is guaranteed value for their insurance premium. At least 80 to 85 percent of that premium dollar must go to direct benefits. As a result, millions of Americans in 2012--over 8 million Americans--received rebates from their insurance company. They actually got checks back equaling about half a billion dollars.

Consumers are getting better value for their dollars. We know it is not easy at times for actuaries to be able to predict the exact costs of health care. But now we have protection in the code. If the premium they charge you is too much, you will get a rebate for the excess that you paid--real protection.

I must tell you, as I go around the State of Maryland--I know the Presiding Officer finds the same thing in the State of New Jersey-- families are happy they can keep their adult children on their insurance policies until the age of 26. Millions of Americans have taken advantage of that provision in the Affordable Care Act. They are very happy about that.

I cannot tell you how many people I have talked to in Maryland who have benefited from the elimination of preexisting conditions or the fear of losing their insurance policy because someone has gotten sick. Insurance companies can no longer do that. So if you have a child with asthma and you are trying to get insurance, before the Affordable Care Act they would not have covered the cost of taking care of that child's asthma. Today you get full coverage.

We have eliminated preexisting conditions because that is what insurance should do. It should cover your needs. Now it does. Before the Affordable Care Act, there were limits, caps--no longer caps. People had insurance and still had to file personal bankruptcy. Those days are over thanks to the Affordable Care Act. It is being implemented in a way that Americans are benefiting from the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

In regard to our seniors and our disabled population who are covered under Medicare, they are very happy the preventive health care benefits are now without any copayment. They can take care of their health care needs. They can get the care they need.

As the Presiding Officer knows, when we passed the prescription drug plan, we had what is known as the doughnut hole, which is a coverage gap. After you incurred a certain amount of cost, then 100 percent was your expense. Many seniors had to leave prescription drugs on the counter at the drug store because they could not afford to pay for the cost of prescription drugs, even though they thought they had coverage.

Thanks to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, that is being eliminated today. We are providing full coverage. Despite the claims on the other side of the aisle, take a look at the facts. Medicare is more solvent today than it was before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. We helped ensure the future of Medicare by the passage of the Affordable Care Act. That is the fact. That is the record.

We are on this path to improve our health care system. It is working. We have reduced hospital readmissions. The accountable care organization is a provision where we take the creativity of private operators where they can work together to figure out how they can help people be healthier. In my State of Maryland, there are several that are working, that are figuring out ways they can use community facilities and health care to keep people healthier and to reduce the cost of health care and make it more efficient by delivery system reform. It is working. It is working.

We strengthened the primary care network. We all talk about that. We knew we had to provide more primary care doctors and nurses. We have done that under the Affordable Care Act. It takes time. But we are already seeing the benefit of that. We have increased dramatically community health center budgets. I have visited the community health centers in my State. I now see where they have mental health services being provided in the community that was not being provided before the Affordable Care Act.

They now have dental services that are being provided in underserved areas that were not being provided before the Affordable Care Act. We now have prenatal services that are being provided in communities that did not have that service before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. What is the result? For low birth-weight babies we have reduced that number. Infant survival rates are increasing.

I take pride that in supporting the Affordable Care Act I helped bring about those results. We are providing more resources in our communities. That is the record of the Affordable Care Act. That is what we have been able to do. I am particularly proud of the fact that under the essential health benefits, we now provide pediatric dental benefits. That is a little personal to

us in Maryland, because in 2007 we lost a youngster, a 12-year-old, Deamonte Driver.

He lived not more than 10 miles from here. His mom tried to get him to a dentist. He had a tooth problem. She could not get him to a dentist. Nobody would treat him. He had no insurance. His tooth decay became an abscessed tooth. That problem went into his brain. He had two emergency surgeries costing a quarter of a million dollars. He should have had $80 of dental care. That would have taken care of his needs. As a result of that, he lost his life.

This bill is making a huge difference. My point is this. For small businesses, they have greater choice and they have credits available to make it easier. We have expanded Medicaid. We have done a lot. We have the best health care in the world that is provided right here in the United States. We are now on the path of having the best health care system in the world. The Affordable Care Act helps us get there. We can take a giant step in that direction by approving the nomination of Sylvia Burwell as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

I yield the floor.