Floor Statements

Madam President, before I begin my prepared remarks, I just want to acknowledge Leader Schumer for his extraordinary, personal, compelling, and essential remarks on the rise of anti- Semitism across the country and across the planet. It was needed; it was accurate; and it touched me. So thank you, Mr. Leader.

Madam President, we are about to see the beginning of COP28. That is the annual international meeting to take climate action. This one is a little different because America finally took historic action on climate, and it is working.

And so the message that America will be bringing to this COP--COP28, which begins in Dubai tomorrow--is that we finally did it. We finally took the biggest climate action in human history. Is it enough? No.

Is it more than we have ever done before? Absolutely, it is more than we have ever done before.

And the COP is a unique opportunity for governments across the world to work together and coordinate their response to what is the greatest challenge of our time: the climate crisis. Climate change is getting worse by the year, and it is affecting more and more people in every corner of the planet, including all of us in the United States. Recognizing that, Congress took the biggest climate action in American history a year ago with the Inflation Reduction Act, in addition to setting

targets to dramatically reduce carbon emissions in the United States, the IRA also made historic investments to accelerate the transition to a clean energy future. It was an ambitious piece of legislation. But the truth is, the IRA's impact in just a year--just a year--has surpassed even the most hopeful projections. And none of the parade of horribles that the fossil fuel industry articulated ended up happening: Prices did not go up for regular consumers; the economy didn't crash; and all of the things that, frankly, the clean energy side said was going to happen--and some of it, in my view, was aspirational, like hundreds of thousands of new union clean energy jobs--it actually is happening. So everything we said was going to happen, happened. None of the things that they were fearing would happen did happen, and it is working faster and better and more powerfully than even our experts were able to project. But there is still more to come.

The IRA has proof that big, bold climate action is not just possible, but it benefits everyone, and it offers a roadmap for the rest of the world. As my dear friend and family member--may she rest in piece-- Madeleine Albright always said that ``We are the indispensable nation.'' The United States is the indispensable Nation.

And I look at the presiding officer, and I think you know this: When we go abroad, it is a little shocking the extent to which people are hanging on tenterhooks wondering, What does the United States think? You don't need to be the head of state for people to still be especially tuned in to, What is the United States going to do? What are they going to say? What actions are they going to take?

And, finally, after the first COP, where we organized through President Obama's leadership global climate action and we had some momentum, and then we lost our momentum. Federal action on climate basically ground to a halt. So we were going to these COPs to say: Hey, we are still in. We are still committed to climate action. Yes, it is true that we weren't able to do something this year or last year or the year before, but we are still in. And it was hard to make that case year over year over year as the indispensable Nation while we try to tell everybody to take climate action and we hadn't yet done it at the scale that was necessary.

Well, this is different. Now we have done it. It is working. It is equal to the task in front of us. And every other nation should capitalize on this opportunity and do their own version of the Inflation Reduction Act. This is a real chance for us to put words into action. We have been talking about what to do about climate for years. It is time to finally put the resources and the money behind those pledges as time runs out.

What absolutely cannot happen in this conference is that it cannot be co-opted by fossil fuel interests. Too many oil and gas companies are paying lip service to addressing climate change, all the while actively expanding their fossil fuel enterprise.

Just this week, we saw alarming reports that the host of the COP was looking to cut deals with countries on oil and gas projects. Now, I know that he denied that. I know that the reporting is somewhat mixed, and I don't begrudge UAE chairing this COP. It is a rotating COP. It goes by region. UAE gets to chair it. That is not the problem.

The problem is the extent to which fossil energy companies, the American Chamber of Commerce, and other international corporations have decided to bear-hug this process to undermine it. And we have to be very, very wary. If there are fossil companies or energy companies that are both on the clean and the fossil side that want to be constructively engaged in how to take climate action, that is great. But we will be damned if we allow these companies to bear-hug the COP process to the point where it becomes meaningless.

And so myself, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Cardin, Senator Heinrich, Senator Markey, and others will be watching this like a hawk.

Mr. President, in reserving the right to object--and I will be pretty quick here--I have rarely seen such a cynical piece of legislation on the Senate floor. I have rarely seen it.

The point that Chris Van Hollen and Chris Murphy made, I think, is the first point, which is, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So whenever there is an opportunity to legislate-- even in the foreign policy space, even when we are in a global fight against fascism--the first thing that comes to the mind of many people on the other side of the aisle is, How can we make life easier for the wealthiest among us? Like it has literally got nothing to do with Israel aid or Ukraine aid or Indo Asia-Pacific security matters. Just, whenever you get a chance, throw in an opportunity to enrich the wealthiest among us who are already not paying their fair share of taxes.

So that is the frame, right?

This is where we start, which is, I have got an idea: We should cut taxes again. I have got an idea: Let's gut the IRS so that they don't have the ability to audit these billionaires, many of whom don't pay taxes in the first place.

So that is how you should understand this from the jump.

The second thing you should understand is, we really are in a global fight against fascism and authoritarianism. And if there is one thing that I think the last 2 or 3 years--frankly, the last 7 years--has taught us is: Believe what the authoritarians say they want to do. Believe Hamas when they say they want to wipe Israel off the map and that they are not done. Believe Putin when he says that the biggest mistake that the Soviet Union ever made was perestroika and glasnost and all of that. Believe him when he says that after he takes Ukraine, he will turn his eye to the Baltics. Believe all of these people. They do exactly what they have been saying they would do. And here we are hoping--hoping against hope--that maybe they don't mean it; that maybe their ambitions aren't so murderous. They do it every time.

And the idea that we would separate these two fights even though these people are aligned--these Fascists are aligned, this authoritarian movement is increasingly aligning itself perhaps because of the internet, perhaps because of globalization--but, whatever it is, there is an actual global Fascist, authoritarian movement, and they are on the march. And the idea that we would fund Israel's security needs and leave Ukraine behind because--what?--Ukraine is in Europe? because Donald Trump doesn't like Ukraine aid? because it is getting hard? because it is getting tiring? because it is getting expensive? Listen to those arguments. My God. This man wants to take Europe and has a plan to do so.

As Senator Bennet said--and this is a key point--God bless these Ukrainian fighters. They are the ones fighting and dying. They are the ones spilling blood to keep Europe peaceful, to establish that nobody can change the boundaries of a country using violence only. God bless them for doing this. God bless them for their sacrifice, for their ingenuity, for, frankly, exceeding everybody's reasonable expectations. God bless them for their sacrifice.

All they need from us are resources. We are the wealthiest country in the history of humankind, and we are saying: It is a little too long. We haven't won yet. Trump doesn't like it. This is kind of getting expensive.

What a bunch of terrible arguments in the scheme of things. What a bunch of terrible arguments. When we look back 20, 30, 50 years from now at this debate, no one is going to ask whether this was emergency spending or in a supplemental or in the regular appropriations process or in a CR or in a CR and omnibus. They are just going to ask: Did we stand with the free world like Americans always do?

So this has gotten me a little angry. This has gotten me a little frustrated because I just thought--I really did think--and I am not naive--but I really did think that on an issue like this, we could put our partisanship aside; we could put our fealty to either our current President or to the former President aside and just say: Look, this is good for the free world; we are just going to do it together.

I now, with the Presiding Officer's permission, through the Chair, defer to the President pro tempore.

Mr. President, this is a personal attack on a public servant, and it should be rejected.

To be clear, Ann Carlson is legally authorized to serve as the Acting Administrator of NHTSA under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. But what this amendment would do is set an alarming precedent in the Senate that, if you have a political or policy disagreement with a particular administration policy, you can take the public servant who is in charge of implementing it and take their salary hostage.

And if the issue is that she hasn't been confirmed by the Senate, let's remember that in the last administration we had two different Acting Administrators working for months without being Senate confirmed, and it is no surprise that the ranking member of the Commerce Committee didn't object to them because he agreed with their policy.

It is fine for you to disagree with fuel efficiency incentives. It is fine for you to never want to move on from the internal combustion engine and to oppose the electric vehicle revolution. That is fine. What is not OK is the U.S. Senate coming in and defunding a position of an Administrator with whom you disagree.

And I want you all to think about this, Republicans. I want you all to think about this, Democrats. There will be times, as Claire McCaskill used to say, that ``the door swings both ways in Washington.'' So let's think very carefully about whether we want to set a precedent where the U.S. Senate defunds public servants with whom we disagree.

This amendment should be rejected.

Vote on Amendment No. 1296

Mr. President, Republicans need to leave the kids alone-- leave the kids alone. Right now, they are trying to deny food to LGBTQ kids because they have disagreements about policies concerning trans people. Instead of debating those disagreements among adults, they are holding school lunches for kids hostage.

I want to be really clear about what this proposal would do and the message that it would send to millions of Americans. It would overturn a policy that prevents LGBTQ kids and adults from being discriminated against while accessing Federal nutrition assistance like school meals, food banks, SNAP benefits.

You have an issue with high school sports? I think you are wrong, but have at it. You have a view about trans people? I think you are wrong, I think it is terrible, but have at it. But leave the kids alone. Let them eat. Let the children have a lunch. Every kid deserves a square meal. Leave them alone.

Most people are fortunate enough to not have to worry about where their next meal will come from. It is just a routine part of life. But that isn't the case for many queer Americans who are twice as likely to experience food insecurity, according to the Census Bureau. And trans people are three times as likely to be food insufficient compared to cisgender individuals.

This policy is not just another line in the rule book; it is the difference between people having a meal and going to bed hungry. If we can't hold kids harmless--if we can't hold kids harmless--what the hell are we doing here? Can't we have some boundaries to the culture wars? Can't we have some disagreements without looping in the children? They are kids; we are adults. We are responsible for their health and safety. Let them have a square meal.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, just to point out, this amendment only applies to surface transportation, Amtrak and passenger rail in particular. I think it is counterproductive. I understand the point that the Senator from Ohio is making. But the problem right now--look, I don't think President Biden or the head of Amtrak or Secretary Buttigieg or anyone else is, at all, planning to implement any kind of mask mandate in the foreseeable future.

But he said something that I agree with, which is that COVID is going to be with us for the foreseeable future and there will be new variants. And if it looks the same, it looks same. But if

it is, say, 10 times as virulent, 100 times as deadly and airborne, then I do think public health officials should be able to consult with Agencies to try to figure out what measures ought to work.

And for those reasons, I oppose this amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 1210

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

Madam President, a quick note about the business pending before the Senate: leadership at the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration.

It has been more than 18 months since the FAA last had a Senate- confirmed leader, and in that time, we have seen an alarming number of close calls on runways and operational challenges, including the outage of the critical Notice to Air Missions system. Compounding these issues is a shortage of air traffic controllers that has led to flight delays and cancelations.

The FAA urgently needs a permanent leader to address these concurrent challenges and guarantee the safety of travelers. Michael Whitaker is that leader, and I am glad that the Senate is going to confirm him over the next day or so.

The President pro tempore.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, no one wins in a shutdown--not Republicans, not Democrats, and certainly not the people of Hawaii or Americans across the country. I have been here for three previous shutdowns, in the majority and in the minority, and I have seen the same thing over and over again. Shutdowns don't work. The government eventually reopens, and neither side has accomplished a single thing.

No one wins, but Americans have a lot to lose. Millions of Federal workers, including military personnel, will be forced to work without pay. Children most in need will lose access to food and early education programs. Tens of millions of people can't get care at community health centers. The food that we eat will go uninspected. Relief for disaster- stricken communities will grind to a halt. Loans for small businesses will not get processed. Seniors will have to wait to get new Medicare cards. Travelers will face the risks of more delays.

We have the ability and the responsibility to prevent all of this unnecessary pain and disruption, which is why, Tuesday and today, the Senate has a solution. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to advance a bipartisan bill that will keep the government open.

Look, this is not the Civil Rights Act. This is not that big of a legislative accomplishment. It is a 47-day stopgap measure to prevent a really ridiculous, terrible thing from happening. But we do need to pass it.

Anyone that is serious about governing knows that the only way to prevent a shutdown is through bipartisanship. And let me just repeat that: The only way to prevent a shutdown is through bipartisanship.

This bill is a compromise. No one will get what they really wanted, but it is the only viable path to keeping the government open as we work on passing appropriations bills in the regular order for the full year. It is really that simple.

I just want to point out one thing about shutdowns. We don't have to do this to ourselves. Shutdowns are a uniquely American tactic. We are not more prone to polarization or partisanship than other governments across the world. But you look around the planet, and you won't find other legislatures pulling the plug on the government itself and the critical services that people need because they couldn't resolve a policy dispute. It just doesn't happen because it is that ridiculous, it is that insane, it is that counterproductive. Only we do this to ourselves. But here, some House Republicans are openly inviting a shutdown that we know will exact pain on millions of American families.

Representative Norman has said:

We are going to have a shutdown. It's just a matter of how

long.

Representative Rosendale agreed, saying:

I will not vote for a CR. It doesn't matter what you attach

to it.

What a weird thing to say:

It doesn't matter what you attach to it.

``It doesn't matter what you attach to it''--I am for a shutdown.

And this from Representative Bob Good, who sums up their warped view:

We shouldn't fear a government shutdown.

Well, maybe a Member of Congress is not afraid of a government shutdown, but all of the people who work for the Federal Government and all of the people who rely on Federal services do fear a government shutdown.

One of their Republican colleagues agrees with me:

This is not conservative Republicanism. This is stupidity.

. . . These people can't define a win.

That is the problem. The only thing these people know is that they want to shut the government down. They haven't even articulated their policy demands, and we are 48 hours out.

So we need to act like grownups and do our job. And I just want to be clear:

We are acting like grownups and doing our job. This is not a criticism of the U.S. Senate--so far, so good.

And listen, even though it is 48 hours, we have a long way to go. We have a lot of negotiating to do, and we have a lot of bumps in the road. As I like to say, it will get worse before it gets better. So I am not suggesting that we are done here, but I am suggesting that we are behaving like grownups.

For the people of Maui and those in so many other communities across the country that have had the misfortune of being struck by disasters, this bill provides funding that will allow recovery work to continue uninterrupted. The ongoing recovery effort on Maui alone will require enormous Federal resources, in addition to what is needed in dozens of other States that have been slammed by hurricanes, floods, and other extreme weather. And while this funding by itself won't ever be enough to cover everything in each one of these communities, it is an important downpayment.

Whatever our disagreements or our personal politics, we can all agree: No one wins in a shutdown. We have lived through this before and know how this ends.

There is an alternative. We can continue what we started earlier this week and just did right now on the floor--pass this bill with bipartisan support and keep the government open.

Let's get it done.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for the last week, we have seen chaos and dysfunction in the House of Representatives as they try to come up with a single bill to fund the government to avert a shutdown. We are now 9 days away from a lapse in funding, and even though it is their responsibility under the Constitution to originate an appropriations bill, they have got nothing. They have no plan to pass a bill that can be signed into law.

I want to be really clear about this because when we had this debt ceiling fight earlier in the year, the bar was lowered so much for the House of Representatives that passing anything was considered a legislative victory. All the political pundits and newsletters out there were lauding the House of Representatives for passing a legislative vehicle--not one that could pass, not one that was well thought through, not one that was bipartisan, not one that was on its way to the President's desk, but just like passing something is like a huge victory. I was irritated back then because if Chuck Schumer passed something on a partisan basis that couldn't be enacted by the House and wasn't going to be signed by the President of the United States, nobody would be giving him credit.

The point here is to make a law. The point here is to make a law. But they haven't even cleared the bar that was so low in the spring that even if you pass something that is largely symbolic, you have united your caucus and you have shown you can legislate. They have not. They have not shown that they can legislate.

But let's be clear. The consequences in the next 9 days are dire.

A few of my colleagues on the Senate side stopped us from being the legislative body that we ought to be. So let's back up a second.

Every year at the end of the year, we usually pass an appropriations bill. It is called an omnibus. It takes all 12 individual appropriations bills and piles them up into one, and everybody gets very irritated because it is so much, right, that it is difficult for a legislator to sort out what they like about a bill and what they don't like about a bill. It is hard to do amendments.

So lots of Members--mostly on the Republican side--said: You know what. We need to do the regular order.

What is the regular order? Well, it is a little bit in the eye of the beholder, but the basic idea is, we should have committee markups; we should vote on stuff; we should have amendments; we should behave like the legislative body we grew up learning about.

The regular order. We demand it.

So Patty Murray, the chair of Appropriations, and Susan Collins, the vice chair of Appropriations--Democrat and Republican--together said: Let's do the regular order.

So we do a committee markup on Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development. It happens to be my subcommittee. Unanimous, bipartisan vote. Then we do MILCON and VA. Unanimous, bipartisan vote. Then we do ag approps. Unanimous, bipartisan vote. Because people--correctly, in my view--demanded no more omnibuses. So we are going to do this. We are going to do it old school, right? How we should.

So we put together this process and, again, unanimous, bipartisan vote. So we tried to bunch these together, and then Republicans stopped us from pursuing the regular order. Three bills, each of which passed out of committee with unanimous, bipartisan support, 13 Republican votes--we couldn't even begin debate on the Senate floor.

What are we doing here? Americans across the country are counting on the Federal Government to help them, and right now, Congress is not getting it done. I get that there is plenty to argue about between Democrats and Republicans, particularly during this time of year, but we have to do our jobs.

Americans impacted by disasters are the ones that are most desperately in need. That includes the people on Maui who are just beginning the recovery process from last month's devastating wildfires, but also people in States across the country--in Vermont, in

Florida, in California, in Texas, and in many other States. In each case, the need for recovery is so big that the local county or State can't manage the recovery.

That is what it means when the President declares a national disaster. It, sort of, just means it is a really big disaster. But at a technical level, what does it mean? It means that this thing is too big for county government. This thing is too big for State government.

So the President declares the disaster, and then we fund the disasters. We put money in the Disaster Relief Fund, and then FEMA can access it on behalf of whomever needs the help.

As it stands, without Congress providing additional funding to Federal Agencies that are working to respond to these disasters, aid to communities will dry up. For instance, FEMA just said that there is only $2.4 billion remaining in its Disaster Relief Fund, and, as a result, it is delaying funding for over 1,000 long-term projects, totaling $1.8 billion, in past disaster recovery zones in order to continue urgent work on Maui.

What do they do? When they run low, they prioritize current disasters. So they are servicing the problem on Maui, as they should be.

But anybody who had a disaster in the last couple of years-- Louisiana, Texas, New Jersey, New York, California, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida--all of them have their disaster recovery money frozen. Why? Because the House of Representatives adjourned for the week without having passed a single appropriations bill, because the Senate--Senate Democrats are ready to roll and many Senate Republicans are ready to roll--and we have blocked our own request. We asked for the regular order. We did it in regular order, and then they said: Actually, no, let's not do that.

I want us to all feel a collective sense of urgency, not just because the end of the Federal fiscal year is coming shortly and there does not appear to be a viable plan from the House of Representatives, but because there is special urgency as it relates to disaster response.

I know the Presiding Officer is working so hard to get resources for his home State and the terrible floods that he experienced. Obviously, Mazie Hirono and I are working very hard with our colleagues to try to get the funding that we need for Maui. But this isn't just a Maui or Vermont problem. This is an across-the-country problem.

By the way, the way the Disaster Relief Fund works, you prefund it. You don't fund individual disaster responses. You just put money in this pile--the Disaster Relief Fund--and then, wherever there is a disaster, you have access to it.

I have never seen--I have only been here 11 years, but I have never seen us decide not to fund disaster relief.

Let's fight about everything, except whether or not our fellow Americans get the help that they need from the Federal Government. This is one of the core responsibilities of the Federal legislature. This is one of the core things we have to do, not just as a matter of public policy but morally. What are we here for other than to help our fellow Americans when they are in desperate situations?

In Hawaii, in West Maui, you have hundreds of kids still not in school. You have an elementary school that was destroyed. You have sewer and water treatment facilities that have been not destroyed but deeply damaged. You have Lahaina Harbor that is not operable. You have telecom services that are not operating at full capacity. You have roads that are trashed. And that is to say nothing of the 1,800 homes burnt to the ground, 2,200 structures--2,200 structures--and, very likely, between 100 and 200 dead.

We have to stop messing around here.

I have been known to be partisan sometimes. I have been known to get into it with my colleagues on the Republican side. But part of the beauty of the American system of government, when it works, is that you can fight about all the stuff that you are supposed to fight about and not fight about the stuff that you are not supposed to fight about. We are not supposed to fight about whether people on Maui or people in Vermont, or people in Florida or people in Texas or Louisiana or California get the help that they need.

We have to get our act together and get this money out.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise in support of the package of bills on the Senate floor.

But first, I want to share a brief update on the situation on Maui. We are now a month on from the devastating wildfires that killed 115 people and leveled the town of Lahaina.

After a weekslong search and recovery effort for remains, we have entered a new phase of the response. The Environmental Protection Agency has begun removing toxic household materials and waste so that residents can return to their homes safely. It is a painstaking process that is likely to take several months to complete.

Life in Lahaina is still not normal. Forty-two people are still missing. That is down from an initial count of nearly 3,000. More than 7,000 people are living in temporary housing like hotels and Airbnbs. Three thousand students are displaced from their schools.

And the local economy is reeling without tourism. Small businesses are struggling to stay afloat. Hundreds of people--restaurant workers, hotel workers, helicopter tour operators--are being laid off.

More than 10,000 people filed for unemployment in the 3 weeks following the fires. In total, the economic impact of the fires is estimated at nearly $2 billion through next year. That is not counting the damage. That is the economic impact.

It is hard to overstate how much help the people of Maui need. To date, more than 15,000 survivors have applied for FEMA assistance. That is just a narrow snapshot into what is needed now and in the months and years to come.

People urgently need basic items like phones and new IDs. Long term, they are going to need permanent solutions for housing and schools. In the meantime, damaged infrastructure like roads, highways, schools, and healthcare centers will need to be rebuilt.

The road to recovery will be long, and it will require billions of dollars in Federal aid to get the job done. Congress has a responsibility to provide relief and to deliver it quickly.

Appropriations

Mr. President, now, I want to turn to the appropriations bills under consideration. These bills make critical investments to advance our Nation's health and safety by ensuring affordable housing for 10 million people, protecting the integrity of our food supply, supporting the readiness of our Armed Forces, and more. And so it is vital that we pass them.

Each of these bills was developed through a collaborative, bipartisan process, and each bill was unanimously passed out of committee by a vote of 29 to 0--unanimously passed out of committee by a vote of 29 to 0.

I want to thank Chair Murray, in particular, and Vice Chair Collins, as well as Majority Leader Schumer and Minority Leader McConnell, for their leadership in helping to restore the appropriations process to regular order.

I am looking at the Presiding Officer, my good friend from Connecticut. We entered the Senate, I think, only 13 days apart from each other. And people have been talking about regular order for a long time, to the point where it actually sometimes results in an eye roll: We should do regular order. We should do regular order. Easier said than done. But it took the two women chairs--chair and vice chair--of the Appropriations Committee to get us onto the floor to have not an omnibus but a minibus, to have just a couple of bills that were actually marked up on a bipartisan basis and then to have amendments. And so this is a significant moment for the Senate in trying to restore its reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body.

The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies, T-HUD, portion of this minibus package, where I am the chair and I work so closely with my friend and vice chair, Senator Hyde- Smith, provides $99 billion for affordable housing and homeless assistance, infrastructure development, the operations of the FAA and Amtrak, and safety oversight of our transportation systems.

While it does not include everything we wanted because it was negotiated to be in line with the spending caps set by the debt ceiling budget agreement, it still makes meaningful investments to improve housing access and the reliability and safety of transportation nationwide.

So I want to thank again my counterpart on the T-HUD Committee, Ranking Member Cindy Hyde-Smith, who has been a collaborative partner throughout this process. And I want to thank the committee members and our staff on both sides of the aisle--the subcommittee staff, the whole committee staff, the leadership staff, our personal office staff. We come out here and it is our name on the door and it is our name on the bumper sticker and we are going talk about the work that has been done, but anybody who knows the legislative process knows that we are not the ones actually executing. We are not the ones drafting the legislative text. It doesn't mean we don't play a role, but there are dozens and dozens of people who make personal and professional sacrifices to be here and do this work and produce an incredibly strong bill.

It is no secret that we have a housing crisis in America. It affects millions of Americans in every State. And day by day, more and more people are falling into homelessness. The homeless population is also aging with more complicated medical conditions that make it harder to serve. That is why we are protecting existing rental assistance programs and increasing efforts to reduce homelessness. Specifically, we are targeting resources to improve coordination between housing and health services, building the capacity of communities and service providers, and creating more permanent supportive housing opportunities.

The bill also maintains funding levels for the HOME Investment Partnerships and Community Development Block Grant Programs. Both of these are popular and important tools that enable State and local governments to support the construction of more housing and the community needs around it.

And in the second year of the Yes In My Backyard Program, we are incentivizing jurisdictions to remove regulatory barriers and unlock private investment to increase housing stock. We need to continue to use every tool at our disposal to address this national housing shortage.

One more thought on the Yes In My Backyard initiative: There is no amount of money that we could put in this bill that will solve our housing problem unless we deal with the barriers. We are creating shortages of housing at the State and county level.

We are creating shortages of housing. It is the only thing I have ever thought of in the government where the government creates a shortage and then the policymakers sort of stroke their chins, going, What should we do about this shortage? Well, you have made it harder to build housing for people. And so the YIMB Program is designed not to control but to incentivize jurisdictions to try to figure out how to unleash private sector investment and increase the supply of housing. Yes, LIHTC is important; yes, permanent supportive housing is important; yes, the housing voucher program is important; yes, HFA is important; yes, HUD-VASH is important. All of that matters, and we should fund it at as high of a level as we can possibly stomach. But the truth is, even that won't be enough until we allow people to do what they wish with their property and build more housing.

We have included record-level funding for Native American housing programs--something I am particularly pleased about, as the Senator from Hawaii and the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Native residents are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty and three times more likely to live in an overcrowded condition compared to other U.S. households. Given the scope of this challenge, this funding is just the start, and we are going to need a lot more to address it fully.

And for transportation, the bill is focused on supporting the operational needs of the FAA. We have fully funded the FAA's budget request on operations, staffing, facilities, and equipment in order to restore hiring and modernization efforts that were frozen during the pandemic.

My colleagues and I are separately working to reauthorize the FAA, and this funding is complementary to those efforts. This bill also maintains our commitment to building on the historic investments in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to improve our aging transportation systems across America. For instance, it aims to address the rail safety deficiencies identified in the East Palestine, OH, train derailment by fully meeting the request for rail safety inspectors and research into wayside detection technologies.

Tens of millions of Americans across the country, including our veterans, will benefit from the investments that we made in these bills, in terms of where they live, how they get around, and the food that they eat. It is critical that we pass these bills.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, last month, on August 8, people on Maui experienced one of the worst days of their lives. What started as a bright, sunny, windy summer day turned into a long, hellish nightmare as wildfires burned down the town of Lahaina.

There was little sign of the tragedy to come. People showed up to work as usual. Children enjoyed their summer vacation. Tourists strolled down Front Street. Snorkeling charters set out for the day. Surfers hit the waves. And all of that changed in an instant.

By now, people around the world have seen the photos and the video from that horrific day.

But the devastation up close, on the ground, is even more chilling. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. Whole neighborhoods are levelled. Piles of ash and debris sit where homes once stood. Hollowed- out cars, burnt to a crisp, cover the streets.

To date, 115 people have been declared dead, and many more are still missing. For a tight-knit community like Lahaina where everyone knows each other, these losses are crushing. They were mothers and fathers, aunties and uncles, friends and neighbors, kids as young as 7, and seniors who couldn't escape in time. We mourn every one of them and the lives they lived and would have gone on to live.

Even for those who were lucky enough to survive, their lives will never be the same again. They are grieving the loss of their family and their friends and confronting the loss of their homes and their livelihoods. They are wondering where their kids will go to school and how they will get healthcare. Those who still have jobs are trying to figure out how to get to them without their cars.

The people of Maui have had their lives turned upside down, and it will be years before their lives return to some semblance of normalcy again.

To understand the scale of this tragedy and how it happened, we need to go back to the beginning because what happened in Lahaina on that day was not normal. Hawaii is no stranger to natural disasters. We have seen floods, and we have seen hurricanes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, even small-scale wildfires, but nothing like this.

The conditions for a disaster had been slowly building. Over the past several decades, Lahaina's old sugar plantation land had been replaced by dry, invasive grass that was prone to fires. As the area got hotter and saw less rain, the grass dried up even more. The air got drier too.

Under normal circumstances, these conditions are manageable, but the final piece of this awfully perfect storm came from hundreds of miles away. See, usually in Hawaii when the public is told that a hurricane is passing to the south and we won't get any rain, we are grateful to avoid the direct hit. No rain, just heavy winds--a good outcome. But Hurricane Dora was different. Without making landfall or producing a single drop of rain, it whipped up the powerful winds that spread the deadly fire. Flames barreled down the hillside, crossed the highway, and plowed into town, fueled by 70-mile-an-hour winds. With that kind of force, the fires only needed an hour or two to decimate Lahaina town.

The winds also left the fire department without a critical tool: helicopters to fight the fires from the air. So all they had were the standard firetrucks and water hoses. But this was a whole town on fire--not a block, not a home. That wasn't going to cut it.

The fires spewed ash and embers in every direction. The afternoon skies darkened until they were pitch black. The air was heavy with thick smoke. Cars exploded, power lines fell, engine blocks melted, and homes were ripped apart.

People were not prepared for this because no one watching a fire a mile and a half away from their home thinks that it is going to reach their street and, worse, that it can happen in 10 or 15 minutes.

For those of us who weren't there in that hour of panic and chaos, it is hard to fully understand the kind of split-second decision that people were forced to make. Many grabbed their kids, their pets, whatever they could physically carry, and took off. It was the last time they saw their homes.

In a race against the fires, some of them jumped in their cars to get out of town, but the one road out of Lahaina was blocked because of downed power lines. So hundreds of cars piled up bumper to bumper on the streets with nowhere to go. Many people abandoned their cars to escape on foot, but others didn't make it. An entire family and a man trying to protect his dog died in their cars. Dozens of people jumped into the ocean to escape the flames. They stayed for hours, struggling to breathe through the plumes of smoke. Others were crouched by the seawall, using wet blankets to shield themselves from the flying embers.

People didn't know how long they would be there or even if they would be rescued at all. But many found help in strangers, people like Benny Reinicke, who saw an elderly woman, Noni, unable to cross the seawall, and he carried her on his back and stayed with her and her daughter in the water for hours and hours, or Jubee Bedoya, who found a family of seven from California on the shoreline and carried their 2-year-old on his shoulders for hours in the water as they floated on a piece of plywood. They were among the 17 people the Coast Guard rescued that night.

All across town, heroic first responders put their own lives on the line to fight the inferno and bring people to safety. Eighteen firefighters lost their own homes while they were fighting the fires, and in the weeks since, they have worked around the clock to contain fires across Maui. We can't thank them enough. But even a thank-you from me or anyone else feels inadequate. They didn't do it for us; they did it for each other. They were fighting--they are fighting--for their friends, for their families, for their neighbors, for their town.

Rescue teams have worked day and night to search for remains and identify victims using DNA evidence. It is a painstaking process. For friends and family, it is an agonizing wait to hear something, anything about what happened to their loved ones and where they might be.

Lahaina was known as a historic town that had been the seat of power for the sovereign Hawaiian Kingdom in the 19th century. It had also served as a major hub for whaling, with hundreds of ships from around the world anchored there. Later, its sugar plantation brought immigrants from China, Japan, Portugal, and the Philippines who came to work on it and made Lahaina their home.

Before the fires, you could see symbols of that rich history throughout town--Nagasako General Store, Pioneer Inn, Waiola Church-- but it looks like a war zone now. Ash and debris stretch for miles. Streets still reek of burnt metal and chemicals. Smoke lingers in the air. Two thousand two hundred structures were destroyed. Most of them were homes, some of which were passed down through generations. Roads and bridges, schools and health centers, historic buildings, the harbor--all of it destroyed.

The people of Maui are mourning unimaginable losses, but they are also confronting an uncertain future. How long will it take to find a permanent

home? When will they find a stable job again? Where will their kids go to school this fall? But if there is any reason for hope in all of this devastation, it is that people aren't carrying this burden alone.

Anyone who knows Hawaii knows that in a crisis, we all pitch in and we help each other. When the fires engulfed the town that terrible day, people from the island of Lainai saw the clouds of smoke and drove their boats 16 miles across the channel to rescue people. In the days and weeks since, even those who have lost their homes or jobs or loved ones have given everything they have got to each other to make it all a little less painful.

Everyday people are taking it upon themselves and springing into action to help. At the Hawaiian homestead of Leialii, the community came together and converted homes into supply distribution centers for necessities like water and gas. Another center in Napili set up a power and satellite internet station in the back of a truck so that people without power or cell service could get in touch with loved ones. At the University of Hawaii's Maui College, dozens of volunteers gathered to prepare meals for people in shelters. A crew from Oahu brought supplies on the sailing canoe Hikianalia, and a group of tour boat operators delivered supplies from Maalaea Harbor, while surfers on jet skis helped to bring them to shore. These people were not led by a nonprofit organization; they just saw the community in crisis and mobilized, and that is what Hawaii is all about.

While the individual stories of generosity and community give us some heart, the reality is that everyone in Lahaina needs and deserves help. People of every age and every background have been devastated by these fires, and their needs are so enormous, they simply cannot do it alone. So it is our responsibility here in Congress to provide relief in any way that we can for as long as people need it.

In the past few weeks, following the President's quick disaster declaration, we have seen the most robust mobilization of Federal resources in Hawaii's history. Over 1,000 FEMA personnel have been on the ground assisting survivors, and nearly every Federal Agency, from the Small Business Administration, to the Department of Transportation to HUD, has taken steps to deliver aid and bring relief to the people of Maui.

My staff and I are in daily communication with our Hawaii congressional delegation, State and local officials, senior administration officials, and dozens of Federal Agencies who are all-in to help Maui recover. Last month, the President and First Lady came to Maui to show their support and hear directly from survivors. Speaker McCarthy and several bipartisan Members of Congress have also come to see the devastation firsthand. Many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have reached out asking how they can help. It has meant a lot, and I want to thank everybody for that.

But given all that was lost, it will take years for Maui to fully get back on its feet, and more help will be needed from Congress in the months ahead. Nearly 1,900 homes were destroyed, including an affordable housing complex. Over 5,000 people have been displaced and are living in temporary housing like hotels and Airbnbs. They will need help finding permanent homes.

Three healthcare clinics, including a federally qualified health center's satellite office, were destroyed. They provided critical healthcare access to all of West Maui. Adult medicine, pediatric care, OB/GYN services, dental and behavioral health--all totally lost. Providers are doing the best they can using hotel ballrooms or tents in parking lots to get people care. But people need more than just urgent care; they need comprehensive care like checkups and counseling, and they need to get it in a real clinic.

King Kamehameha III Elementary School, which educates over 600 K-5 students, was damaged beyond repair. The cost of a new campus is estimated at $175 million. Three other schools in the area are still closed and under inspection for air, soil, and water safety. Under normal circumstances, we would already be a few weeks into the school year by now, but as of last week, 1,200 students have not enrolled in another public school. We need resources to get them back into schools in-person and quickly.

Some people still don't have access to clean drinking water, and the wastewater treatment plants were knocked offline, creating environmental and health risks for the community. We don't yet know what the cost of repair for these critical services will be.

Roads and bridges were torn apart and will also need to be repaired so that people can move around. Over 1,000 electrical poles and 500 transformers are being replaced, and high-speed internet access has still not been fully restored to West Maui. Before any of that can happen, FEMA will need to complete one of the most complex debris- removal operations in its history. We are talking about tons and tons of waste that we will need to safely clean up off the streets and transport out of Hawaii. It may take up to a year and cost up to $1 billion.

This is just some of the work ahead, and none of this will be easy. While the full extent of the damages is still being assessed, we know that the Federal share of costs for recovery will be in the billions of dollars.

Americans all share the responsibility of providing relief to these survivors because, while Maui is today's victim of extreme weather, it may very well be another State tomorrow. We have already seen so much damage this summer in Florida, California, Vermont, Louisiana, and more. These catastrophic events are unfortunately becoming more common and more severe.

In the weeks after the fires, I visited Maui every 3 days, and I talked to first responders and survivors about what it was like on that harrowing afternoon and in the days since. Their resilience and determination in spite of their pain and their grief was striking.

When I asked people ``How are you doing?'' I was struck because I often get the same response: ``I lost everything, but I am alive.''

``I lost everything, but I am alive.''

They know that they are the lucky ones, and they are trying to find a way to get through this disaster.

I know that the people of Maui can recover and chart a new future, but they cannot do it alone. They need help from everyone--in Hawaii, here in Congress, and across the country. With time, scars will heal; Lahaina will be restored; and we will be there to support them every step of the way. Mahalo.

I yield the floor.