Floor Statements

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 157.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 25.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 171.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 41.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions filed today, June 8, be waived.

Mr. President, today our democracy held firm against voter discrimination. The Supreme Court has ruled that Alabama's Republican-drawn congressional districts discriminate against Black voters, violating the Voting Rights Act and must be redrawn.

This case is a message to every American who has struggled to cast a ballot or felt like their vote does not matter. Our democracy is worth fighting for. We can make change happen, and that is what the Voting Rights Act represents.

But today's case also reminds us that Jim Crow and racial disenfranchisement live on to this day in ways both subtle and explicit. Discrimination at the ballot box is very real in today's day and age.

Alabama State lawmakers intentionally tried to dilute the voices of Black voters through discriminatory districts. It is a good thing for democracy that the efforts of the Alabama lawmakers to disenfranchise Black voters have failed in this case.

So, once again, the democracy held firm, but the struggle for equal representation, of course, continues.

We must fight to make redistricting much fairer throughout the country. We must do more at the State level, and we must do more in Congress to pass legislation that will strengthen the Voting Rights Act and fight back against racial discrimination at the ballot box.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this morning, our Nation's Capital and much of the Northeast, including almost the whole of my State of New York, woke up once again under a veil of smog. As we speak, wildfires of unnatural strength continue blazing in Canada, sending toxic air and smoke over the border and over American cities. Today, I am sad to say, New York City, which usually has good air quality, has some of the lowest air quality in the world thanks to these wildfires, and the problem is even worse in Upstate New York.

I urge every single American and Canadian impacted by the smog to take precautions to stay safe and to follow public safety guidelines in their communities.

These Canadian wildfires are truly unprecedented, and we cannot ignore that climate change continues to make these disasters worse. Warmer temperatures and severe droughts mean forests burn faster, burn hotter, and burn bigger. And the warming is happening at a faster pace in countries with higher latitudes. None of this--none of this--is a coincidence.

This smoke and fog over New York and the rest of the Northeast is a warning from nature that we have a lot of work to do to reverse the destruction of climate change. Every time we see a wildfire in Canada or in the West or a monstrous hurricane in the Southeast or a blizzard in Texas, it is a reminder that time is short to reverse the impacts of a warming planet.

Democrats are proud of the progress we have made to accelerate America's transition to clean energy through the Inflation Reduction Act, but both parties--both parties--have an obligation to do more. The work to protect our climate is far from over, and we are dangerously behind.

Again, I am proud of the historic work Democrats did last year to move us in the right direction, but I implore my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to look up at the smog today and recognize we must-- we must--do more.

At the top of the list is a good transmission bill, which will greatly enhance our Nation's ability to bring clean energy, like wind and solar, to large population centers and reduce the carbon that is thrown into the atmosphere.

Now, Mr. President, on trains and safety on the tracks, after the tragic derailment in East Palestine in February and several other derailments in recent months, I called on the FRA to launch an investigation into the safety practices of all class I freight railroads.

I have good news. The FRA has just announced that they will heed my call and do a thorough investigation of safety practices within all class I freight railroads. They will investigate the culture of misconduct within the class I rail companies and issue a report on their findings just as they did for Norfolk Southern.

I thank them for their attention on this very critical issue. These assessments by the FRA will be a good first step to identifying the problems in individual rail companies as well as the endemic problems permeating across the industry. In the last 5 years alone, there have been over 26,500 accidents and incidents, almost 13,000 injuries, and over 2,750 fatalities attributed to rail incidents--2,750 fatalities. That is close to 10 a day. But instead of prioritizing--no, it is not close to 10 a day, because it is over the last 5 years, but it is a lot. OK.

But, instead of prioritizing safety, the rail industry has cut over 30,000 employees from the workforce--roughly 20 percent. Instead of prioritizing safety, the rail industry has prioritized stock buybacks to wealthy stock shareholders and lobbied for loosened regulations-- billions of dollars in stock buybacks instead of money going to safety, instead of money going to hire the necessary employees to keep the rails safe.

So it is clear that there is an alarming trend of the rail industry's putting profits over people, which reinforces the need for a full audit of industry practice. I hope that the rail companies will take heed of the FRA's assessment and make the changes needed to protect our communities.

In the meantime, I want to thank my colleagues Senators Brown and Vance, as well as Senators Casey and Fetterman, for their work on the bipartisan Railway Safety Act. This legislation was reported out of committee last month, and I look forward to working with colleagues on both sides to move it forward.

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