Floor Statements

Mr. President, the Senate has a solemn duty to exercise and fulfill U.S. Federal trust responsibility. This duty is the guiding principle for all our work on behalf of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. So as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, it is my job to prioritize and push Tribal and Native communities' legislative priorities toward the finish line and ultimately to actually enact legislation.

The Indian Affairs Committee has a strong tradition of bipartisanship going back decades. Committee Members on both sides of the aisle routinely work together to achieve their own Native communities' goals. When there are disagreements, we do everything we can to work them out internally and to find common ground so that Members aren't forced to air their disagreements when bills get to the floor.

In fact, just last night, the Senate passed eight Indian Affairs bills unanimously. Those bills would, among other things, promote economic development, protect Native children, honor Tribal self- determination--goals that we all agreed take important steps toward fulfilling our shared Federal trust responsibilities. Time and again, we have shown that the Indian Affairs bills can rise above partisan logjams. That compromise can be found. But here we are.

H.R. 478, which passed the House on May 12, 2021, under suspension of the rules, would help to rebuild Tribal homelands; and S. 789, which passed the Senate unanimously in late November 2019, would repeal 11 obsolete, racist, unenforced laws that are inconsistent with the current government-to-government relationship enjoyed by the United States and Indian Tribes.

Both bills would likely be laws by now if the COVID-19 pandemic had not disrupted our legislative work last year. These bills are good policy. That is why both Republican and Democratic administrations support them.

And the Senate should have passed these bills last night, but because there was an objection to their inclusion in the 10-bill package, we find ourselves here again. The Indian Affairs Committee, as is tradition, has negotiated in good faith to clear up any concerns there may be, but those efforts were not successful, which leads me to this moment.

When it comes to fulfilling the U.S. trust responsibility, there is no room for partisanship.

So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills en bloc: Calendar No. 59, H.R. 478, the Blackwater Trading Post Land Transfer Act; and Calendar No. 53, S. 789, the RESPECT Act; further, that the bills be considered read a third time and passed en bloc and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table en bloc, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, a couple of points. On taking 55.3 acres into trust, this is not like the Federal Government is going to have new land management responsibilities. This is a matter of principle for the Senator from Utah, and I recognize that; that he thinks, basically, no additional land should be taken into trust, even though this government-to-government relationship--this authority over these government relationships are enshrined in the Constitution of the United States and this government-to-government relationship has already been established by statutory law and the process for putting land into trust is already a well-established pathway. But what the Senator from Utah is saying is no more or we are going to have to do a one-for-one swap or even sometimes a two-for-one swap. You cannot have a net increase in the acreage, even if it is 53 acres, even if there is an established process.

And so, I do find that difficult to work with. I know that the Senators from Arizona are in discussions with the Senator from Utah.

We will find our way forward. This is 53 acres. It is important, obviously. We are going to enact this legislation.

I like the Senator from Utah. We will find a way on this one.

But if he would entertain an amendment to the request, then I would be pleased to pass the RESPECT Act by voice vote, if that is something that the Senator from Utah would be amenable to.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 53, S. 789.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

I know of no further debate on the bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Rules for the 117th Congress be printed in the Record.

Madam President, we are 1 year into the worst pandemic in a century, and it is clear that Native Americans have felt some of the most severe impacts of COVID.

Here is what we know: The number of confirmed cases per capita among Native Americans is 3\1/2\ times that of White Americans; they are almost twice as likely to die from COVID than White Americans when they contract it; and over a third of all Native Americans are at high risk of serious COVID-19-related complications--the highest percentage of any group in the United States. Native Americans need help now, and it is our job to deliver.

President Biden has proposed a bold plan, one that meets the moment and one that helps our most vulnerable communities. The President's plan includes more than $28 billion for Native people, making it the largest investment in Indian Country in American history. From Hawaiian homelands to villages, pueblos, rancherias, and other Native communities, our fellow Americans who live on or near these lands need immediate relief, not half measures, not delays.

As the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this resolution and delivering critical relief to all Native Americans--Native Hawaiians, Alaska Natives, and American Indians.

First, to help slow the spread in Native communities, we have to invest in healthcare, and that is why this resolution includes millions of dollars in critical resources to support the Native Hawaiian Healthcare Systems and more than $6 billion for the Indian Health Service, which is the primary vaccine distributor for more than 330 Tribes and urban Indian organizations across the country.

These funds are going to help enhance healthcare services, particularly by improving the IHS's telehealth infrastructure. The IHS and Tribal healthcare facilities are overwhelmingly located in rural and isolated settings, with little access to specialty services, like cardiology. So expanding telehealth so that more people can get the specialty care they need wherever they are is a game changer for Native communities. Finally, these healthcare funds will support the medical workers who are on the frontlines every day, caring for Native families and fighting the virus.

We also need to shore up Tribal governments and Federal programs and services that Native people rely on with an infusion of resources. That kind of historic, critical investment is exactly what President Biden proposes to do. Because Tribes are uniquely dependent on their business enterprises to fund essential government services for their citizens, this budget resolution calls for $20 billion to support Tribal governments. To put a fine point on it, the gaming operations are mostly closed, and that is how they fund health and education in many instances. These funds will enable Tribes to continue to provide services like elder care and the deliveries of medicine and food that are particularly critical during the pandemic, and it will help us to keep the lights on at their businesses.

There is also $750 million to address overcrowding in homes and homelessness--circumstances that disproportionately affect Native Americans because housing stock tends to be scarce, and this problem compounds with people living in tight quarters and being unable to avoid the spread of COVID-19. Ensuring Native Americans have access to safe and affordable housing is essential to stopping the spread of COVID and crushing this pandemic.

The plan also includes $900 million for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to support critical programs that keep people safe, protect kids, and help to deliver water to Native families. Now, especially during this pandemic, the BIA should step up, own its fiduciary responsibility, and help the Tribes fight the negative impacts of COVID in their communities.

There is also $850 million for the Bureau of Indian Education's schools, colleges, and universities to address critical education infrastructure and to enhance distance learning capabilities and, hopefully, bring kids back into the physical classroom. Yet you can't do that without money. You can't do that without crushing the pandemic. You can't do that without safety. We must make sure that Native students don't get left behind and that we protect the health and safety of students and teachers.

We all need to work together and support Native families and communities across the Nation. I think about the history of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and I think of my two predecessors, Senator Daniel K. Inouye and Senator Daniel Kahikina Akaka, and the legacies that they built of bipartisanship.

I understand we are about to have a fight this week around a very silly process called vote-arama, but we need to remember what this is all about. This is not about a goofy 10-hour or 12-hour or 15-hour process where we stack amendments and try to set each other up that will somehow trick someone into taking a bad position that can be turned into a campaign advertisement. That is tomorrow, and it is nonsense, and everybody should ignore it if they can. Do anything to not watch vote-arama. It is boring, and it is the worst part of the U.S. Senate, but it is a very important means to an end.

It is a very important means to an end because we were elected to deliver COVID relief. Once we get through this goofy process tomorrow night--or maybe it is Friday morning or whenever it is--we are going to be in a position to deliver COVID relief. Then we are going to be in a position to talk to our Republican colleagues on and off the committee representing Indian Country, representing Alaska Native communities, and representing Native Hawaiian communities and figure out how to make sure that the people who are suffering the worst during this pandemic get the help they need and deserve, and that is something we can come back together on as we move forward on this legislation.

With that, I yield to the senior Senator from Nevada, a member of the Indian Affairs Committee, Ms. Cortez Masto.

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

I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes, followed by Senators Whitehouse and Heinrich for 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I yield the floor to the majority leader.

Mr. President, last year, the United States weathered 14 different disasters costing $1 billion or more, including 2 hurricanes that cost more than $25 billion in damages. Just in the past 3 years, the annual average of billion-dollar disasters has doubled compared to what it has been over the long term. These numbers give us a sense of what extreme weather and climate inaction will cost us, but the hundreds of billions of dollars of damages we have seen from extreme weather over the past few years do not capture the full costs.

An economist named Gary Yohe recently pointed out in a Washington Post article that extreme weather doesn't simply damage or destroy property. These events require people, businesses, and government to take money they would have spent elsewhere and put it toward rebuilding. So instead of promoting growth or investing in business or communities, we are treading water by putting billions of dollars into just rebuilding the status quo. Yohe calculates that if we have similar extreme weather events over the next 10 years, the U.S. GDP will be 3.6 percent lower. So, in 2029, our economy will be $1 trillion poorer because of extreme weather and climate change. This is why actuaries have named climate change the No. 1 risk to North American insurers. This isn't the Conservation Council for Hawai'i. This isn't the Sierra Club. This is not the League of Conservation Voters. These are actuaries. They named climate change the No. 1 risk to North American insurers. That is why insurance executives are warning that the world will be uninsurable if climate change accelerates.

Risks that come with climate change--extreme fires and droughts, sea rise and hurricanes--threaten economic growth and financial instability across sectors. This is no longer in the future tense. This is no longer hypothetical. Climate change is happening right now and is forcing businesses to change their approach right now. In Europe and the United States, insurance companies have publicly announced they will no longer do business with mining and coal companies. Alliance, Chubb, AXA, Zurich, Swiss Re, and others have all decided they can't insure coal anymore. They can't underwrite or invest in the industry without taking on too much risk.

This is part of a trend across the private sector and across the world. Farmers, private equity groups, shareholders, and regulators are all looking at the economic risks of climate change and changing their strategies to mitigate these risks. They are worried about the cost of goods, the profitability of businesses, the stability of the market. They are worried about the new and growing risk of droughts, floods, storms, wildfires, and sea level rise because these events reduce the value of assets. They decrease investment income. They increase insured and uninsured losses. In other words, they are disrupting our financial institutions. The health of our financial system is at stake, and the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of action.

The U.S. Government cannot be alone. Like the private sector and other countries, it is in all of our best interests to deal with climate change and to invest in an energy system for the future. The best thing we can do that will make the biggest difference is to put a price on carbon.

The carbon fee is straightforward and it is simple: unleash the markets to tackle climate change by requiring companies to pay for the emissions they are responsible for. Senators Whitehouse, Heinrich, Gillibrand, and I have introduced a carbon pricing piece of legislation that will allow us to address nearly all greenhouse gas emissions.

Our bill establishes a set of incentives for businesses to stop using dirty fuels so the free market can compete, innovate, and make money building the energy future we need.

We also give businesses something they say they crave, which is certainty. It is challenging to make investment choices when the private sector is subjugated to the idiosyncrasies of politics. The last administration had a Clean Power Plan and Paris Agreement and now there is no Clean Power Plan and no Paris Agreement. In the meantime, companies are trying to plan a business strategy beyond an election cycle. A price on carbon put in place by Congress is much more certain than an Executive order and cannot be overturned or not enforced.

You don't have to take my word for it. The business community is organizing for a carbon fee for this very reason. Oil companies with big name brands have joined together to support a carbon pricing proposal by something called the Climate Leadership Council. One of the top benefits they cite is predictability.

There are many other things we can do about climate. We can invest in clean jobs. We can invest in nuclear. We can work on carbon capture. We can certainly fund innovation. We can do solar and wind. I am for conservation and efficiency. The point is there is no silver bullet, but there is silver buckshot. In other words, we are going to have to do all of these things, and the best way to get all of these things done is to simply assign a price to carbon and let the market take over. That is why we should move forward with our legislation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following legislative fellows in my office be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress: Allison Hutchings, Chris Thaxton, and Sarah Eccleston.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Robert Yu and Laura Cannon, who are legislative fellows in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

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

Madam President, climate change is already wreaking havoc on the American economy, and anyone who cares today about having a strong economy in 10, 20, or 30 years needs to be committed to acting now.

We are already seeing the economic risks related to climate change. Temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe.

Ask families in California whose homes and businesses have been burned to the ground in record-setting fires or construction workers in Texas who have to cut their hours because of the heat or farmers in Nebraska, where the State Farm Bureau estimates that this spring's flood will cost ranchers $500 million and will cost grain farmers $400 million. Farm bankruptcies were already at a 10-year high even before the flooding.

We are getting closer to long-term tipping points. Within 30 years, which is a typical span of a mortgage, nearly 400,000 existing homes in the U.S. coastal areas are at risk of being uninhabitable. These homes collectively are worth about $210 billion. That is more than four times the estimated insured losses of Hurricane Katrina.

The ``National Climate Assessment'' says that $1 trillion worth of coastal real estate in the United States is threatened by the effects of climate change. The assessment also shows that labor productivity will take a hit. Under one scenario, the Southeast United States alone could lose $47 billion in productivity each year.

The ``National Climate Assessment'' also predicts that maize and soybean yields will each be down as much as 25 percent across the Midwest by midcentury, mostly due to hot temperatures. In other words, we are looking at a real estate bubble, massive changes in productivity, and increased disaster costs for State and Federal governments.

It is no wonder that experts say that climate change is the top economic risk facing our planet today. The World Economic Forum has warned us that we are ``sleepwalking into catastrophe.'' Citigroup estimates that world economies could lose at least $44 trillion in economic activity between now and the year 2060. Actuaries name climate change the No. 1 risk to insurers in North America.

All of those individuals and institutions and companies and agencies that just described the risks related to climate change--I have no idea how they feel about birds and butterflies. I have no idea if they care about conservation on a personal level. I don't know if they surf or they snowboard or they hike or they bird-watch. I don't know how much they care about the natural environment. I do know they care about money, and they are paid to care about money, and they are very worried about the impact that climate change will have on our economy.

You will notice that this is not a traditional climate speech. I got involved in climate because I care, but I understand that not everybody has the luxury of worrying about the birds and the butterflies and the creatures in the ocean. A lot of people worry every day about whether they are going to be able to put food on the table, and a lot of people worry about the value of their home and value of their 401(k) and whether the government is going to be consumed with these disaster costs.

You should be worried about the new and growing risks of droughts, floods, storms, wildfires, and sea level rise because these events reduce the value of assets. They decrease investment income. They can increase insured and uninsured losses. In other words, they promise to disrupt financial institutions. That means the health of our financial system is at stake.

There are now 36 central banks and financial regulators around the world who are worried about climate's economic impact and how to plan for it, including the UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and China. They have come together to work on developing the tools to assess climate change risk to the financial system. This is not the ecological system, and these are not communities. This is about money and how much money is at risk when it comes to climate change.

The Bank of England is planning to include climate impacts in its bank's stress tests as early as next year, and the central bank of the Netherlands is doing more to include climate-related risks in its financial supervision. Yet guess who is not part of this group of 36 countries that is trying to develop the analytic tools to figure out what impacts climate change is going to have on our economic system-- the United States.

The three Federal Government Agencies that oversee the financial system are taking a unique approach to this problem by putting their heads in the sand. I know this because I asked them. I was part of a group of 20 Senators who sent a letter to the Federal Reserve, the OCC, and the FDIC, and asked them how they are accounting for climate change risks to our financial system. Their response was basically--listen, extreme weather shocks happen all the time. As for the risks of climate change, since they are so far out and hard to quantify, our regulators book that risk at zero. Now think about the absurdity of this. It is not that they are saying the risk doesn't exist. They are conceding that it exists. They are just saying it is so hard to quantify that they have decided it is nothing.

There are all kinds of risks that all of these supervisory institutions evaluate on a regular basis. That is their job. They have these big manuals that they use--these thick manuals--to supervise banks and financial institutions. They can look at how much excess capital you have, how much exposure you have to a real estate bubble, or how much exposure you may have to a downturn in the economy. They have decided the risk related to climate change is nothing at all.

This is in direct contrast to almost every other industrialized country and its regulatory agency. It doesn't matter what their politics are--whether they are run by rightwing or leftwing governments; everyone else is taking the financial risk related to climate change seriously except the United States. Everyone--the insurance industry, the defense community, the intelligence community, the international community--knows that climate is at increasing risk. They all know that climate change is real and that it is impacting our financial system right now, that it is impacting the finances of publicly held corporations and banks and the government itself. The U.S. financial community needs to join them.

Let me end by saying this: We don't have to agree on the many ways in which we should be acting on climate change. It is OK if you hate my bill, with my good friend Senator Whitehouse, on a carbon fee. It is OK if you think we should do the Green New Deal or not do the Green New Deal. It is OK if you think the Paris Agreement is bad or good. You get to think what you want, but you cannot ignore the risk that climate change is imposing on our financial system. You don't get to think that this cost--that this risk--is

not material. You don't get to think that we should do nothing.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, due to a clerical error, the senior Senator from Alaska, Ms. Murkowski, was not added as an original cosponsor and co-lead of the Compact of Free Association Veterans Review Act when we introduced the bill together on April 29, 2019. Senator Murkowski has been a tireless advocate of veterans from the Compact States and a strong partner in our effort to expand Department of Veterans Affairs care to those veterans still living in the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Republic of Palau. I thank her for her partnership to fulfill our commitment to provide veterans everywhere with the access to high- quality care they have earned and deserve. Thank you.

Madam President, it gives me no pleasure to say this, but this administration is actively doing terrible things for women and their families. They have rolled back protections for workers. They have made it easier for companies to pollute the air and the water. They have cut investments in public education. They have literally taken children away from their parents and made zero effort to reunite them. They are working as hard as possible to prevent women from having access to the healthcare they need. These are not rhetorical statements. They are policies that hurt people. They are hurting moms.

The Centers for Disease Control came out with a report just this week showing that hundreds of women die every year from pregnancy-related complications and that many of these deaths are preventable. The report finds that one of the key ways to prevent these deaths is access to proper medical care. Yet this administration has made taking away people's access to healthcare a top priority. They have put legislation in to end the Affordable Care Act. They filed lawsuits to take away protections for people with preexisting conditions. They have issued regulations that allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide care to someone based on their personal beliefs and keep healthcare providers from giving their patients full and accurate information. As we all know, they have gone after Planned Parenthood--one of the leading sources of healthcare for women--with everything they have.

I remember when I first became a Member of this body, I visited a clinic in Honolulu. I remember meeting with the staff, who told me that clinic was the only source of healthcare for most of their patients. This was the one place women could go for family planning services, counseling, and breast cancer screenings.

Planned Parenthood's entire reason for being is to help families. In a single year, they cared for 2.4 million people and provided almost 10 million individual healthcare services, including 300,000 breast cancer screenings and over 200,000 well-woman exams--all in a single year. Yet a highlight of this administration's policy on women is to attack women's health and specifically Planned Parenthood.

But we know it is not just healthcare. As I said, it is workplace safety and fairness. It is investment in public education. It is clean air and clean water. These are things that all of us care about but moms in particular.

Whatever your political persuasion, everyone has a mom. Lots of people are moms or are married to a mom. This administration is inarguably bad for moms and bad for motherhood. Moms in this country deserve better.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I got my first taste of politics when I was 16 years old. I was worried that my favorite surf spot was going to be turned into condominiums, so I joined the Save Sandy Beach Coalition. Adults around me told me that I was too young to take action. They told me that the adults had it under control, but I didn't listen. It took several years, but with lots of grassroots energy, the Governor of the State of Hawaii eventually signed legislation that preserved the Sandy Beach coastline for generations.

America's proud history of social change is about young people who don't take no for an answer; they take action. Some of the most inspiring movements in our history have been led by young people. They were the ones who first refused to leave their seats in segregated lunch counters, who filled campus squares demanding an end to apartheid, who marched in the streets against police brutality, and staged walkouts to protest gun violence.

Once again, young people are standing up because the adults are blowing it. On March 15, tens of thousands of kids walked out of school in hundreds of cities and 130 countries demanding action on climate. This isn't a school project for them. It is a fight for the world they will inhabit. They see what is happening around the world. The climate is changing, and it is getting worse, and we need to take action.

In 2017, the United States experienced 16 disasters that cost $1 billion or more: 9.8 million acres burned by wildfire; 30,000 people homeless; 200,000 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Harvey; the Florida Keys devastated by Irma; thousands dead, and an entire island's infrastructure destroyed by Hurricane Maria. The year 2017 set a new record for the cost of extreme weather events.

Last year was not better. There were 14 separate disasters that cost $1 billion or more, including the largest, deadliest wildfires that California has ever seen. According to NOAA, the wildfires did more than $40 billion worth of damage. So in these two record-setting years, climate change has cost billions in personal property and taxpayer dollars. And they have cost lives.

Now the Midwest is flooding. I don't mean that as a political statement or a rhetorical flourish. The Midwest is

flooding. In another once-in-a-lifetime storm, which is happening more and more frequently, the levees and systems built to deal with flooding have failed because they were built for a climate that no longer exists. Communities are underwater, and people are stranded in their homes right now, at this very moment. In Nebraska alone, the damage is already more than $1 billion. Livestock, crops, infrastructure have been destroyed. Soil that is needed not just for this season but for the future has been destroyed. This is the moment at which Congress should be examining the costs of climate change and what to do about it.

I have to say something about the senior Senator from Utah. That was appalling. I understand that we want to make jokes and that we want to be clever and that we want to have a clip to put on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, but that was appalling. This is the crisis of our generation, and it is not a joke. He spent time creating images not of what we ought to do--not of his conservative proposals around climate change--but in being consistent with what Leader McConnell wants the Republican Party to do, which is to not engage in the substance and to turn this into a joke.

I have to say, on behalf of everybody in Hawaii, on behalf of the young people who care about this, and on behalf of the people across the planet who want climate action, this isn't funny. This requires the party in charge of the U.S. Senate to take it seriously.

The good news is, we are starting to have an engagement about climate change. I saw the senior Senator from Tennessee engage a bit and say we should have a Manhattan Project for solving climate change. Good enough. I saw Senator Isakson, 3 or 4 weeks ago, talk about how we ought to take climate action. I also know the chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee cares about this issue. So there is an opportunity for engagement but not so long as Leader McConnell thinks this whole thing is worthy of nothing more than being a joke.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.