Floor Statements

Mr. President, American history was made last night. The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. This triumvirate of Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady continues this historic journey to being recognized as the greatest single football team in the history of the United States. Even as the Falcons were ahead by 25 points, even as the rest of the country thought the game was over, we in Massachusetts, we in New England, we have our own motto: In Belichick we trust. In Brady we trust.

We knew it was not over. We knew there was still hope. We knew there was a plan that could be implemented that would ensure that the Patriots once again would prevail.

I thank the Presiding Officer for giving me this opportunity to be recognized on this most important of all subjects. This incredible Patriots victory has brought joy to people all across New England. It has brought dismay to people in other parts of the country. They still continue to be mystified by this incredible team and the incredible leadership those three great leaders provide. But for us, we realize we are in the presence of greatness. We know how spoiled we are to have such a great team.

I just wanted to rise and congratulate the New England Patriots, their leadership of Bob Kraft, Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, but all of this team, because their motto is a very simple motto. It says: Do your job. That is what every Patriot did last night. Because they stuck it out through every single play, at the end of the day, they were able to enjoy that historic victory.

For my part, I can't be more proud of any group of New Englanders. It was just a fantastic victory. As a season ticket holder, when I was 19 years old, when it was seven games at $6 apiece--$42 as a season ticket holder at Fenway Park. You can imagine how almost impossible it is to believe that we have reached such a stage where even those who have been critics of the Patriots now are forced to recognize that Bill Belichick is the greatest coach of all time; Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time; and the Patriots, led by Robert Kraft, is the greatest franchise of all time. We are very proud that victory last night cemented that place in history.

Once again, I just want to congratulate each and every one of them and especially the Patriots fans who, through thick and thin, have been with that team every step of the way.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I have heard from literally thousands of my constituents who have contacted my office in unprecedented numbers with

fears about a Justice Department headed by Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General of the United States.

My constituents and Americans all across the country are concerned about the independence and integrity of the Justice Department under President Donald Trump.

We are only 3 weeks into the Trump administration, and what we have seen so far has been alarming. We have 3 years and 49 weeks left to go in President Trump's term of office, and we have already seen in 3 weeks President Trump issue an illegal and immoral ban on Muslim refugees. We then saw President Trump fire Acting Attorney General Sally Yates from her job overseeing the Department of Justice--an action reminiscent of Watergate's infamous ``Saturday Night Massacre''--because she refused to defend in court his unconstitutional and un-American Executive order.

Sally Yates's job and the job of the entire Justice Department is to uphold the rule of law. The Attorney General of the United States is the lawyer for the people of the United States--not Donald Trump's personal lawyer. It is called the rule of law, not the rule of Trump, but it is the rule of law that is at stake when the nomination of Senator Sessions is in question to run the Department of Justice.

I have told my constituents that Senator Sessions must be judged based on the totality of his record: as a U.S. attorney, as Alabama's attorney general, and as U.S. Senator.

A review of that record, including 2 days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, demonstrates anything but the commitment to the equal and impartial administration of justice and an independence from the President that we must demand from the Nation's top law enforcement officer.

Senator Sessions' record spanning decades in public office reflects hostility to important constitutional rights, hostility to laws intended to protect people of color, hostility to laws intended to protect women, hostility to laws intended to protect the LGBTQ community, and hostility to laws intended to protect immigrants against discrimination and violence.

Senator Sessions has fought against civil rights efforts. He has fought against protecting voting rights, and as a U.S. attorney, Sessions tried to prosecute three civil rights workers who were helping elderly and disabled African-American voters to cast absentee ballots.

During his 1986 judicial nomination hearing, he called the Voting Rights Act ``an intrusive piece of legislation.'' And in his testimony to the Judiciary Committee, Senator Sessions would not commit to continue the Justice Department's efforts to challenge restrictive State voter ID laws. Senator Sessions has fought against comprehensive immigration reform, against criminal justice reform, and against commonsense gun control measures.

As for a woman's right to choose, Senator Sessions has said: ``I firmly believe that Roe v. Wade and its descendants represent one of the worst, colossally erroneous Supreme Court decisions of all time.'' At his confirmation hearing, Senator Feinstein pressed him on his statement, asking him whether it was still his view. ``It is,'' Senator Sessions replied.

It is simply unimaginable that we would have an Attorney General of the United States holding such a view of Roe v. Wade and the rights of women to control their own reproductive health. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and it should remain that way forever.

Mr. President, I would also like to address the actions last night by the Senate majority leader to silence the remarks of my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Coretta Scott King was attending the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston when she met a divinity doctoral student at Boston University in 1952, in Boston. One year later, Coretta Scott married Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as they took their degrees from Boston to begin a cause found in the South that became a national and international movement.

The two shared their life, a cause that would change the world. The voices and legacy of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., are as much a part of Massachusetts history as the American Revolution, John Adams, and President John Kennedy.

What Senator Warren was doing last night was standing up for equal justice the way Massachusetts has always stood up for equal justice, the way Senator Ted Kennedy stood up for equal justice. We have a deep and proud history in Massachusetts of fighting for what is right. The abolitionist movement was born in Massachusetts.

In past generations, when young women wanted the right to vote, a group of committed activists in Massachusetts formed the Suffragette movement, and they changed the U.S. Constitution so women can vote.

When young people in Massachusetts were upset with the voting rights laws for minorities in America's southern States, they became the Freedom Riders, and they changed the laws of the United States.

I make these remarks from the desk once held by Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke. Senator Brooke was the first African American elected to the Senate. He was a Republican. He was also a civil rights activist, and he also received his law degree at Boston University, in Massachusetts.

From the Founding Fathers to the movement for universal health care, to the first same-sex wedding in the United States, and to the Senate floor last night, Massachusetts has always been at the heart of America's quest for equal justice.

Leader McConnell used an arcane Senate rule to silence Senator Warren, but the people of Massachusetts and all people of good conscience will never be silenced when confronted with our moral responsibility to speak out.

Senator Warren deserves an apology for being silenced when she attempted to share this very relevant, very powerful part of our national history last night. The American people deserve to hear the important words of Coretta Scott King. So here they are:

Dear Senator Thurmond:

I write to express my sincere opposition to the

confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district

court judge for the Southern District of Alabama. My

professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and

lasting. Anyone who has used the power of his office as

United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free

exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to

our courts. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his

office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly

black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not

be rewarded with a federal judgeship.

I regret that a long-standing commitment prevents me from

appearing in person to testify against this nominee. However,

I have attached a copy of my statement opposing Mr. Sessions'

confirmation and I request that my statement as well as this

letter be made a part of the hearing record.

I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr.

Sessions.

Sincerely, Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King was right in the 1960s. Coretta Scott King was right in 1986. Coretta Scott King is right today.

Based on the totality of Senator Sessions' record, I have no confidence that he shares a commitment to justice for all Americans. I do not believe he will fight to defend the most vulnerable in our society. I do not believe he will stand up to President Trump when the time comes, as it surely will come.

The great Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. Attorney General himself, once said ``that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.''

We must insist that our top law enforcement officer upholds the law for all Americans. I do not have assurance that Senator Sessions will meet that challenge.

I will be voting no on Senator Sessions' nomination this evening, and I urge all of my colleagues to do likewise.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Washington State for her tremendous leadership on all of these environmental issues, which are now on the table in our

country for the first time in a generation.

Tribute to Bill Bonnavillian

Before I turn to the resolution the Senate is debating, I want to take a minute to recognize the contributions of Bill Bonnavillian to advancing America's science and technology policy. Last month, Bill stepped down as the head of the Washington office of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after 11 years.

Bill's leadership of the office continued MIT's historic role of providing a vision for advancing science policy and ensuring that knowledge generated at MIT was relevant and available for policymakers in Washington, DC. His leadership will be missed at the MIT Washington office, but I am glad to know he will be staying engaged with the MIT community. I hope he will continue to provide guidance to this body since now, more than ever, we need science to inform the decisions we are making on the Senate floor.

Today, Madam President, congressional Republicans are beginning the process of going one by one to overturn commonsense rules that have long been opposed by the oil and gas, coal, and other industries in the United States of America. The majority is trying to undo these rules by deploying a rarely used procedural tool known as the Congressional Review Act.

In fact, the majority is talking about using the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, so often that it could actually get hard to keep track of which industry is benefitting from week to week to week from the Republicans' use of the CRA. I brought down a helpful tool so the viewers at home can keep track of which industries are benefitting each week from Republicans using the CRA to roll back protections for public health, for clean air, for clean water, for clean soil, for the health of the families in our country.

So let's consult our wheel to see who is the big winner of the GOP giveaway this week.

Up first are the mining and the coal industries. They are the first big winners of the GOP Congressional Review Act wheel of giveaways. That is right. First up for repeal by the Republican Congress are public health protections against the toxic practice of mountaintop removal coal mining.

These protections were put in place by the Obama administration because a Bush-era rule was thrown out by the courts. These commonsense rules to monitor and ultimately restore streams impacted by coal mining are despised by the coal industry. Those that created the problem despise any rules that would require remedying the problem, as it affected public health--no surprise.

Mountaintop removal mining is one of the most environmentally destructive practices on Earth. Mountains are turned into barren plateaus. Streams in the bottoms of nearby valleys are filled with debris and buried. Heavy metals destroy water quality for nearby residents and ruin ecosystems.

The rule that the Republicans are attempting to repeal today protects the public health and drinking water of millions of American citizens in Appalachia and elsewhere across our country.

The rule requires that lead, arsenic, selenium, and other toxic pollutants are monitored. It requires that streams that are damaged or destroyed must be restored.

Now, the majority likes to say that there is a war on coal, but the only war that coal is losing is in the free market to natural gas, to wind, to solar. These are the sources of electricity that the utilities of our country, that the citizens of our country have been moving to over the last 10 to 15 years. There is a war going on in the marketplace.

Adam Smith is spinning in his grave as he listens to the Republicans trying to protect an industry from market forces. Adam Smith is actually spinning so fast in his grave that he could qualify as a new energy source for our country. That is how shocked he would be about this attempt to undermine the public health and safety in our country on behalf of an industry that is losing a battle in the marketplace.

It is the free market that ultimately is causing these changes, and the coal industry is saying: Please protect us from having to protect the public health and safety--clean air, clean water. Please protect us from having to protect families affected by our industries.

A few years ago, we generated roughly 50 percent of our electricity from coal. Now it is down to 30 percent of all electricity generated in our country from coal--50 percent to 30 percent of all electricity in a handful of years.

Coal has been replaced in the free market by natural gas, which has grown from a little over 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation a decade ago to 35 percent today. That is coal's big problem--natural gas, another fossil fuel, but one that emits one-half of the greenhouse gas pollutants as does coal.

Coal has also been replaced by clean energy, by wind, especially, which has grown by 5 to 6 percent of our generation, and by solar, which is now 1 percent of our generation.

In other words, if you go back to 2005 and you look at our country, natural gas was a relatively small percentage of electrical generation, and so were wind and solar. As we debate this issue here today, wind and solar are now up to 7 percent of all electricity generated in our country, up from 1 percent just a little bit more than 10 years ago. It is growing so fast as a preference for American industry, American utilities, and American homes, that it poses a marketplace threat.

So what we need to do now, finally, is to have the big debate out here as to what are the implications for public health and safety and what do we have to do in order to maintain the high standards that we have created for the protection of families over the last generation.

Last year, electricity generation from natural gas surpassed that from coal for the first time since 1949, when data collection began. Why? To quote the Department of Energy:

The recent decline in the generation share of coal, and the

rise in the share of natural gas, was a market-driven

response to lower natural gas prices that have made natural

gas generation more economically attractive.

Between 2000 and 2008, coal was significantly less

expensive than natural gas. However, beginning in 2009, large

amounts of natural gas produced from shale formations changed

the balance.

While the cost of coal has risen by 10 percent since 2008, the cost of natural gas has fallen by more than 60 percent. For a power producer considering new generation capacity, the lifetime cost of electricity from a new coal-fired powerplant is 67 percent higher than from a new natural gas powerplant and 17 percent than from a newly constructed wind farm, according to the National Academy of Sciences.

The reason no one is building coal-fired powerplants is very clear: It is the free market. Coal cannot compete in the free market. In 2016, we added more than 14,000 new megawatts of solar. We are going to add 7 to 8,000 new megawatts of wind. We are going to add nearly 9,000 new megawatts of natural gas, and we added virtually no new megawatts of coal-fired generation in our country. We are projected to add no new coal generation this year as well. It will be more natural gas, more wind, and more solar.

The marketplace is rejecting coal as a source of electricity. The marketplace is doing that. This isn't a conspiracy. It is competition in the free market.

Lest my colleagues think that this is just happening in the United States, it is not. More than half of all electrical generating capacity added in the world last year was renewable.

Let me say that again. More than half of all new electrical generating capacity added in the world last year was from renewable energy--wind and solar--across the planet.

China recently announced that it intends to invest $360 billion on renewable energy by 2020. They intend to create 13 million Chinese jobs in renewable energy in that time.

This isn't a conspiracy. It is competition, and the competition for those clean energy jobs is global.

When we started carrying iPhones, it wasn't a war on black rotary dial phones; it was a technological revolution. When we started using Macs and PCs, it wasn't a war on typewriters; it was a technological revolution. The horseless carriage wasn't a war on horses; it was a technological revolution that moved us to automobiles.

The move away from coal and oil toward clean energy and natural gas isn't

a war; it is a revolution--an American-made free market revolution.

We now have more than 400,000 Americans employed in the solar and wind industries. By 2020, there are projected to be 600,000 Americans working in these clean energy industries. It is not a war. It is a revolution.

Now, next there is going to be another industry to win in the CRA, the Congressional Review Act giveaway game. That is right. The next winner will be the oil and gas industries.

Republicans intend to move to overturn a bipartisan requirement under the Dodd-Frank bill that publicly traded oil, gas, and mining companies disclose to their investors when they make payments to foreign countries, but that requirement is vigorously opposed by ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and the oil and gas industry.

Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was a bipartisan provision authored by Senators Cardin and Lugar. It requires oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments, and that is now in jeopardy.

The Dodd-Frank disclosure rule goes to the core of the Securities and Exchange Commission's mission of investor protection. Secret payments can easily be expropriated by corrupt governments. They can also be a signal that a company is involved in risky business overseas--risks that investors need to know about when making investments.

By eliminating this disclosure requirement, using the Congressional Review Act, we are potentially allowing for oil companies to make secret, undisclosed payments to foreign governments. Those could include payments intended to gain an advantage over other companies or even bribes to foreign officials.

Eliminating this disclosure requirement could allow for oil companies to make secret payments to foreign nations that could have serious implications for these nations and for investors.

I urge my fellow Senators to reject these resolutions and keep in place the commonsense protections for public health, clean water, and financial disclosure.

Earlier today, the Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee reported out the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt.

Democrats on the committee have grave concerns about his ability to uphold the EPA's mission to ``protect human health and the environment.''

So what we are talking about here is the totality of a picture. The use of the CRA to--one by one by one--go after these environmental protections that have been put in place to increase the health of Americans, to reduce their exposure to arsenic, to lead, and to other dangerous chemicals. This first one that we are debating goes right to the heart of that issue. What the coal industry is doing is using the justification of their need to be competitive with the natural gas, wind, and solar industries, a battle they are losing in the financial marketplace, as a justification for undermining the public health of our country so they can be more competitive.

In other words, the price to be paid to make the coal industry more competitive with other industries to which they are losing market share in the electrical generation market is that the public health has to be compromised and we have to turn a blind eye to the impact on the children and the families in our country who are being exposed to these dangerous chemicals.

That is the price we have to pay as a nation? It is unacceptably high.

So Adam Smith looks on, and Adam Smith judges us here today.

This marketplace defeat of coal by natural gas, wind, and solar is one that is being used to hurt children and hurt families in our country. I do not think it is an acceptable position for our Nation to take. I urge a rejection of that motion.

I yield back to the leader of this effort on the Senate floor, the great Senator from Washington.

Mr. President, will the Senator from Delaware yield?

Mr. President, the Senate's advise and consent role is one of our most important duties as Senators, and the Secretary of State is one of the most important nominations we will consider. The Secretary of State is America's chief diplomat, and he should project America's values to the world.

Yesterday, I joined Senator Schumer in calling for a delay on Mr. Tillerson's vote on the Senate floor until we hear from him about President Trump's Muslim ban.

Turning away refugees based on their nationality and religion is un- American, it is illegal, and it is immoral. This Muslim ban is propaganda for ISIS. It is a recruiting gift to terrorist groups around the world and in our own country. It will increase the risk of harm to Americans everywhere, including here at home. Donald Trump is sending a message to Muslims around the world that they are all suspects. This has profound implications for our ability to work with governments in the Middle East in the fight against terrorism. One of the countries named in this Executive order is Iraq, our closest ally in the fight against ISIS. Conflict and war is forcing millions around the world from their homeland. Donald Trump's Muslim ban directly undermines our historic commitment to international cooperation and international refugee aid. That is why world leaders have joined the chorus of millions of Americans who do not support the Muslim ban.

America has always been a beacon to those fleeing persecution and violence. We are a refuge for those seeking a better life. The poetic inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty does not say: Send back ``your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'' As our top diplomat, Mr. Tillerson will be in a position to work directly with the nations named in this Executive order, and we need to hear how he believes it will impact our standing around the world.

With respect to Mr. Tillerson's nomination, I have very serious concerns. Rex Tillerson could have enjoyed his retirement after spending more than 40 years at ExxonMobil. Instead, he answered the call to enter public service, and I commend him for that. His record at ExxonMobil is one that clearly has received accolades. He did a good job for ExxonMobil. He is highly respected in the oil industry. But public service requires the public's trust, and Mr. Tillerson will not have that trust unless he agrees to recuse himself from participating in decisions that would affect ExxonMobil for the entirety of his term. So far, he has refused to do so.

Our laws require Federal officials to recuse themselves when a reasonable person could question their impartiality. Before President Trump nominated him to be Secretary of State, Mr. Tillerson worked for one company--ExxonMobil--for virtually his entire adult life. As he rose to become a senior manager and then CEO, Mr. Tillerson was personally involved in getting lucrative oil deals in a number of countries, including Russia. In fact, during Mr. Tillerson's time as CEO of ExxonMobil, the company expanded its drilling rights in Russia to 63 million acres. That is an area the size of Wyoming and nearly five times the size of Exxon's holdings in the United States.

But Mr. Tillerson didn't just deepen the relationship between his company and Russia. He also tried to protect that relationship by speaking out against sanctions on Russia. As a reward for personally cementing Exxon's relationship with Russia, President Vladimir Putin awarded Mr. Tillerson the Russian Order of Friendship.

The stakes with U.S.-Russia relations could not be higher. Russia has invaded the Ukraine, annexed Crimea, bombed innocent civilians in Aleppo, and attacked our elections with cyber weapons. Our next Secretary of State will be negotiating with Russia on

some of the most critical foreign policy issues facing the world.

Mr. Tillerson's decades-long history at ExxonMobil and Exxon's vast holdings in Russia clearly create a conflict of interest. How can the American people be sure Mr. Tillerson will be objective when he participates in matters relating to sanctions on Russia or in any matters that could affect Exxon in the dozens of other countries in the world where Exxon operates?

As the top ethics lawyers for Presidents Bush and Obama have said, these conflicts could require Mr. Tillerson to recuse himself from any matters affecting ExxonMobil, irrespective of his financial divestitures. When I asked Mr. Tillerson during his confirmation hearing whether he would commit to recuse himself without waiver or exception from matters affecting Exxon for the duration of his tenure as Secretary of State, he refused. That is unacceptable. The American people and the national security of the United States demand a Secretary of State whose impartiality is unambiguous.

Make no mistake, the stockholders of ExxonMobil would have serious questions about hiring the leader of the Sierra Club to be the new CEO of Exxon. We, too, should have questions about hiring ExxonMobil's former CEO to be America's chief diplomat.

If he agreed to recuse himself, Mr. Tillerson would be following a tradition that is longstanding and bipartisan. Secretary of State James Baker recused himself from participating in any matter that could affect the price of oil and gas. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson promised not to participate in any matter where Goldman Sachs was a party. And all of President Obama's appointees recused themselves from any matters related to their former employers or clients. Mr. Tillerson's refusal to follow their example will call into question his impartiality, and it could undermine his effectiveness as Secretary.

During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Tillerson displayed an alarming lack of understanding of oil's role in geopolitics--clearly a consequence of having worked solely at Exxon--that disqualifies him from being Secretary of State.

When I questioned him, Mr. Tillerson told me that he never had supported U.S. energy independence. He told me that he didn't agree that reducing America's demand for oil and our reliance on foreign oil imported from the Middle East would strengthen our negotiating position with oil-producing nations.

We as a nation still import 5 million barrels of oil every single day into the United States. Three million of those barrels a day come from OPEC members, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Nigeria. ExxonMobil has energy interests in each one of those countries. And we are still exporting our own young men and women in uniform overseas to defend those energy interests every single day.

Mr. Tillerson is looking at the world through oil-coated glasses. He may have gotten rid of Exxon's stock, but he hasn't gotten rid of Exxon's mindset.

Mr. Tillerson's answers to questions about climate change--the global generational challenge of our time--are a cause for extreme concern. Although he recognized that climate change is real and human activities influenced it, he would not commit to continuing action on it as a foreign policy priority. Throughout his hearing, Mr. Tillerson would only say that he wanted to keep a seat at the table of climate negotiations. The United States needs to have more than a seat at the table; we need to be at the head of the table.

In December 2015, 150 heads of state gathered in support of finalizing the Paris climate accord. It represents a global solution to the problem of global warming in which all countries commit to doing their fair share. Instead of strengthening this historic accord, Mr. Tillerson indicated that all treaties and agreements to which the United States is a party would be up for review by President Trump.

America needs a Secretary of State who will lead the world to fully realize the clean energy revolution that will help us avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change while creating millions of jobs. To abandon the Paris climate accord would be to abandon our clean energy future. We cannot roll back years of progress cutting dangerous carbon emissions or deploying clean energy solutions.

For 41 years, Rex Tillerson's world view has been to advance the interests of one place and one place only--ExxonMobil. Confirming Mr. Tillerson as Secretary of State would be turning over the keys of U.S. foreign policy to Big Oil. Big Oil's interests are not America's interest. If Mr. Tillerson were to negotiate with Russia and President Putin, whose interests will he represent--those of Big Oil or those of the American people? I still do not have satisfactory answers to that critical question. For those reasons, I cannot vote for his confirmation.

I thank you for allowing me to speak at this time on the Senate floor.

I yield to the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy.

Madam Clerk, how am I recorded?

Madam Clerk, I wish to be recorded no for the millions--

--who will lose opioid coverage for their addiction.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about this impending attack upon the Affordable Care Act and the impact it can have on the hospitals of our country, in terms of draining revenue from them; on the issue of the impact on community health centers across our country and the impact it can have upon them; upon the impact that the repeal of the Affordable Care Act would have on the access of those who are addicted to opioids who need help for opioids, who are in a situation where they are going to need the Affordable Care Act, the access to coverage, so their problems can be taken care of.

So this is no small threat. In fact, this goes right to the core of what started in Massachusetts back 10 years ago when we as a Commonwealth decided that care for people who needed health care was going to be made available to them. We have proven in Massachusetts that we are able to provide health care for 98 percent of our population, at the same time having an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent, while simultaneously having the highest scores for kids in the 4th, 8th, and 10th grades in math, verbal, and science, while having the strongest protections for the environment in the United States, while having an energy efficiency standard that is the tops in the United States.

We have proved conclusively that it is possible to ensure that people do, in fact, receive access to the health care which they need while simultaneously discharging our responsibilities to the economy, to education, to the environment, to all of the other interests, all of the other important stakes that we have in our country to ensure that they are given the attention which they need.

It would be tragic if what we did as part of the Affordable Care Act was to once again flood the emergency rooms of America with people who otherwise would have had health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act. That is a system we have used for 100 years, and it doesn't work because it winds up with the insurance rates of people who do have coverage going up in order to cover it. It winds up with the whole rest of the medical system, in a very chaotic way, being forced to deal with the consequences.

If we begin simultaneously to defund the community health centers across the country and their ability to provide health care, then what we have is a cascading impact that ultimately hits those people who are the poorest, those people who are the most vulnerable. They are the ones who are caught in the crosshairs of this incredible, almost unbelievable attack which the Republicans are waging upon a health care system that has already transformed the lives of 22 million people in the United States.

It is unimaginable to me that we could be in that kind of discussion right now on the floor of the Senate, but I understand it. This is ideological. It is something that is completely and totally detached from the reality of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, as they have in fact already positively affected tens of millions of families inside the United States.

This week we are about to have an incredible battle waged against the Affordable Care Act. Understand this, right in the crosshairs are the hospitals of our country, not just the famous, big hospitals we all know the names of but Catholic hospitals across our country, hospitals that provide the service for people now under a much more orderly system than they would have done if we had never put the Affordable Care Act on the books in the first place.

At the forefront of all these issues, though, is this largest of all public health epidemics that has ever faced the country, the heroin and prescription opioid epidemic, like OxyContin, which is claiming the lives of more than 90 people every single day across this country. In Massachusetts alone, when all the final numbers have been gathered, 2,000 people will have died in the State of Massachusetts in the year 2016, and 1,500 of them will have been found to have had fentanyl in their blood system. This is an epidemic of unbelievable proportions. Fentanyl is the Godzilla of opioids. It is powerful and deadly and knocking people down the streets all over Massachusetts, all over New England, and all over our country. People are being robbed of their potential and God-given abilities from this epidemic that knows no socioeconomic, ethnic, or political boundaries, and Congress has recognized the importance of tackling the Tsunami of heroin and prescription opioid addiction that is laying waste to these communities.

Just 1 month ago, on the Senate floor, Republicans and Democrats came together and passed a bill to provide $1 billion in new resources to States to address the opioid crisis, resources that can be and are being dedicated to increasing access to treatment for opioid use disorders. Yet, today, pending before the Senate is a Republican budget whose entire premise is to repeal coverage for the exact same vulnerable people who need access to treatment. Not only is that nonsensical, it is downright cruel for all those families and individuals who finally felt a sense of hope, the hope that new resources could mean the difference between life and death for their loved ones. If you kicked this policy in the heart, you would break your toe. That is how heartless it is going to be in terms of its impact upon ordinary families. With this budget, Republicans are repealing the hope that has given families a reason to ensure that they will have the coverage. This is going to make the problem even worse.

Medicaid pays $1 out of every $5 for substance use disorder treatment in the United States. Without Federal investment in the Medicaid program, States like Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky, which are bearing the brunt of the opioid epidemic today, will have to find even more money in their already dwindling State budgets to aid those who need treatment. We all know what happens in this scenario when States cannot find that money. The most vulnerable among us, the ones who don't have a voice, are the ones who will suffer the most.

The repeal of Medicaid expansion would rip coverage from an estimated 1.6 million newly insured individuals with substance use disorders. At the same time, repeal will put big insurance companies back in charge. If the Republicans have their way, insurance companies would be able to discriminate against people, including individuals with a preexisting condition like an addiction disorder. OxyContin, heroin, fentanyl coverage--gone under the proposal the Republicans are making on the Senate floor this week.

Let's recognize that the Republicans are not just repealing ObamaCare; they are repealing hope. Those suffering from addiction don't have time for Republicans to come up--possibly, maybe, potentially soon, sometime, in the indefinite future--with a replacement plan.

There are 1.6 million people who have insurance for substance disorders right now for heroin, for OxyContin, for fentanyl. These are the people who could potentially die because they don't have medical coverage. What is the plan the Republicans have to deal with these 1.6 million people who are already under a substance disorder medical coverage plan? What is their plan for these families who are already desperate for the medical help they are going need in order to stay alive, in order to get the help they and their families need? Those families know that any delay in a replacement being put on the books could be the difference between getting clean or getting buried.

This repeal effort is the worst kind of bait and switch. It is happening at a

time when the American people can least afford it. Repeal is being done at the same time the Republican budget gives billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations and to the wealthy in tax breaks. So look at that as the balance we are talking about: 1.6 million people who have an addiction, a substance abuse problem, lose their coverage, but billionaires and corporations get the money through tax breaks that are going to be saved from cutting those programs for those who have a medical problem. That is immoral, ladies and gentlemen. That is plain and simply immoral.

You cannot give tax breaks to the wealthiest in our country until you take care of those who are the sickest, until you take care of those who are most in need, until you take care of those with substance abuse disorders in our country. It is immoral to cut the programs so you can give tax breaks to the wealthiest within our society.

We will not save lives and stop this scourge by paying lip service to providing treatment, but this is not the only casualty of this misguided budget before us. The hospitals that each and every one of our constituents depends upon are also at risk. The Affordable Care Act became law in no small part due to the support of those hospitals across the country. During that debate they knew full well the impact that a lack of insurance had not just on individuals but on the entire health care system.

The hospitals are on the frontlines of witnessing the financial burden that uninsured patients have on the system. We tell them they can never turn away a patient in need; then, when these patients cannot afford to pay for the care, it is up to the hospitals to foot the bill. So the hospitals told us that if we worked to reduce the number of uninsured they had to care for, then they would help us pay for improving the entire system.

They did pay, in no small part. That is why we have a new system in our country. As part of the ACA, the hospitals agreed to give up over $150 billion in payment reductions between 2010 and 2019. Those payment reductions came largely from Medicare and were attacked relentlessly by opponents of ObamaCare as an act to destroy the program, but the prophesied destruction did not occur, and the impact on Medicare has been quite the opposite.

Since passage of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare has seen its lowest per-member rate of spending growth in its 50-year history. Premiums paid by enrollees in Medicare Parts B and D have gone down. Perhaps most importantly, the savings have contributed to keeping our promise to America's seniors by ensuring that the program will continue to be there for them. Medicare's projected insolvency in the year 2017 has been extended for over a decade. All of this is possible, thanks to America's hospitals.

Here is what the Republicans are saying to Grandma and Grandpa: Yes, the Affordable Care Act extended the solvency of Medicare 10 years beyond 2017. We are repealing that bill. So, insolvency comes almost immediately to the Medicare system. What a great signal to send to Grandma and Grandpa this year with this bill on the Senate floor: insolvency of the Medicare system, the one thing that Grandma and Grandpa, and, by the way, everybody else inside every family in America is depending upon to take care of Grandma and Grandpa.

So will the budget before us return the savings they are expecting from this bill to the hospitals to help them cover the cost of Grandma and Grandpa? No. For that to happen, Medicare costs will go up. Higher costs will lead to higher premiums for every enrollee in Medicare Parts B and D. These higher costs will also be realized in the entirety of the Medicare Part A program, reducing the time of insolvency from 2028, down to 2024, 2023, 2022, or even earlier.

Those results are unacceptable to the Members of this Chamber and to their constituents, so it is now going to be a historic debate that we have. We can decide instead to simply not cut off the 20 million Americans from the insurance they need. We can ensure that hospitals have the resources to focus on the care for patients when it matters most. We can keep the promise to America's seniors that Medicare will be there to cover their needs when necessary.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Thank you. I yield to Senator Daines.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I just want to follow up on the statements made by the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Blumenthal, and the Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Schatz. They have laid out in eye-watering detail the problems that the Republicans are creating by their attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What Senator Schatz and Senator Blumenthal did was just get to the heart of this matter.

What the United States did for 100 years was to not run a health care system but to run a sick care system--a system that spent 97 cents on what happens after people got sick and only 3 cents of every dollar on trying to prevent people from getting sick. For the first time in American history, that changed in the Affordable Care Act.

What President Obama did, what America did was to create a Prevention and Public Health Fund, and that fund in the Affordable Care Act is spent on prevention programs. It is spent on looking at people who could get asthma, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, stroke, or die from too much smoking and just say for the first time, in a comprehensive way, that the United States was going to put programs in place that would prevent people from getting the diseases that every preceding generation of Americans have suffered from. That is what the prevention fund is all about. That is what the Republicans are going to repeal, take off the books--this fundamental change to the direction toward prevention, toward wellness that all Americans of all generations want to see remain on the books.

In Massachusetts, if you are in New Bedford or Fall River or if you are in Springfield, those programs target racial minorities, they target low-income families, they target seniors who would otherwise be vulnerable to diseases that these programs can help to prevent. That money is just going to be sliced out of the Federal budget. What will be the consequences? Well, quite clearly, it will cost America a lot more money.

For example, my father died from lung cancer, smoking two packs of Camels a day. How many other fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers die from a totally preventable disease? Well, ladies and gentlemen, this prevention fund put into place the kind of funding on a consistent basis not just for antismoking programs but for all programs across the books.

I will give you a good example. Back in the 1930s, no women, for the most part, died from lung cancer in the United States. But in the 1950s and 1960s, the tobacco industry hired the smartest PR person in America. This campaign basically said: ``You've come a long way, baby.'' You have an equal right to get cancer, as your husband, boyfriend, father, or brother has, and 20 years later, unbelievably, women began to die in the United States from lung cancer at a rate that was higher than the number of women who were dying from breast cancer.

Now that is a public relations success of the first and highest magnitude. We didn't have prevention programs in place. We didn't have a warning system to say to women, to say to kids: This is dangerous to your health. What did we see? We saw just about every family in America with somebody who died from lung cancer--pretty much every family--and it was totally preventable.

Well, inside of the Affordable Care Act we have this huge, great, innovative breakthrough--a health and prevention program that could be used in every city, every town, and every State across the whole country, targeting the most vulnerable, the most likely to be targeted, the ones most likely to be engaging in dangerous behaviors that are otherwise preventable. We have cured most of the diseases that our grandparents died from. The diseases that people die from today are the diseases that they give to themselves. They are behavioral choices. They are environmental situations into which they are placed that then result in them, unfortunately, contracting the chronic diseases that wind up first harming them and ultimately killing them.

What is a good example? Well, a good example is opioids. Opioids are now a killer of a magnitude that is almost incomprehensible. In Massachusetts, 2,000 people died in 2016 from opioid overdoses. Now, we are only 2 percent of the population of the United States of America. If you multiply that by 50, it is 100,000 people dying from opioid overdoses if they die at the same rate as the people who are dying in Massachusetts--100,000 a year, two Vietnam wars of deaths every single year from opioid overdoses. If ever there was a preventable disease, if ever there was something that was completely and totally subject to having programs put in place that could help people avoid ever getting into that addiction situation--or, once they did, giving them the program money which they need--then opioid addiction is it.

Well, what the Republicans are doing here is just wiping it out. They are wiping out that prevention fund. Moreover, just for the sake of understanding how incredible everything they are considering is going to be in terms of prevention of opioid disease, Medicaid right now pays $1 out of every $5 for substance use disorder treatment in the United States of America. In other words, without these prevention funds, without Medicaid funding, the only choice for these families is either getting help or getting buried. That is the bottom line. What the Republicans are doing is just wiping out the help.

So the option is going to be not just 2,000 in Massachusetts multiplied by 50,000, 100,000 deaths a year, we are just going to see this number skyrocket because without public health, without prevention programs, this is an inexorability, it is an inevitability. This is the future. This is just a repetition of everything America did for the preceding 100 years before we put the Affordable Care Act on the books. It doesn't make any difference whether you come from Connecticut or Hawaii, from Virginia or Michigan, from Massachusetts or from any other State in the Union, there are no barriers to opioid overdose, tobacco deaths, obesity, all of these preventable diseases. It is all coming as a preview of coming attractions to families all across the country. Here it is. This is what the Republicans are promising you: your family, once again, exposed.

Listen to this number. When the Affordable Care Act gets repealed by the Republicans, if they are successful--listen to this number: 1.6 million people who right now are covered for substance use disorders will no longer have coverage. Let me say that again: 1.6 million people who have coverage for substance use disorders will no longer be covered. So we have the prevention fund over here, we have the insurance over here--both gone.

I say to my colleagues, these Republicans--it is almost unbelievable. If you kick them in the heart, you are going to break their toe. We are talking about the most vulnerable people in our country. We are looking at the children. We are looking at people who have substance abuse disorders. We are looking at people who otherwise would never have smoked a day in their life if prevention programs were in place. We are looking at people who would never have to suffer through a life of obesity because the programs were put in place.

What are they saying? They are saying we are going to substitute and create a new program. When? Maybe soon. Maybe just around the corner. Maybe next year. Maybe whenever we get to it. What do you say to those families? What do we say to them?

This isn't just health care; this is also hope. This is also hope for these families who have chronic diseases, these families who have diseases that were otherwise preventable.

What the Republicans are saying is, we are just going to pull a bait and switch on you. We are going to repeal right now and replace at some point of our choosing in the future, even though we have harbored an ancient animosity toward the creation of a national law in the first place, and the American people are supposed to gullibly accept that argument. Well, we know what they have always wanted to do: leave all of these health care programs, from Medicare to Medicaid, to Social Security, as death-soaked relics of the programs as they have been created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by Lyndon Johnson, by Bill Clinton, by Barack Obama. They have always harbored

that animosity toward those programs. This is just the beginning of an assault upon generations of promises to American families who have been transformed by these programs.

Let us fight hard, I say to my colleagues, to make sure these prevention funds are not taken off the books. It is the transformative way of looking at health care which the Affordable Care Act introduced into our society. I thank my friend Senator Blumenthal for leading us on this charge and Senator Schatz.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to speak in support of Michael Botticelli in our effort today to confirm him as Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The State of Massachusetts, like too many other regions of this Nation, is being ravaged by the scourge of prescription drug and heroin addiction that is breaking apart families and burying communities under a mountain of despair. Massachusetts experienced 114 deaths in December, and that doesn't count our biggest cities, such as Boston and Worcester and Springfield.

Drug overdose deaths fueled by prescription pain killers now claim more lives than car accidents nationwide. Approximately 100 Americans die from an overdose every day.

As a Senator from Massachusetts, I have a deep appreciation and respect for Michael Botticelli's accomplishments addressing addiction during his nearly two decades serving in the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. He is a public health and drug policy pioneer, and he lived in my hometown of Malden, MA, while he did this job.

Immediately prior to joining the Office of National Drug Control Policy as Deputy Director, Mr. Botticelli was the director of the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services at the Massachusetts

Department of Public Health. While he was there, he pioneered innovative, effective approaches to substance abuse challenges. He was responsible for launching a program that expanded treatment and recovery opportunities in local community health centers, including a focus on providing a continuum of care for those suffering with substance use disorders. Mr. Botticelli also expanded innovative and nationally recognized prevention strategies. He established and implemented evidence-based jail diversion programs, reentry services for those leaving State and county correctional facilities, and overdose prevention programs.

Although there is always more work to be done, it is because of Mr. Botticelli's efforts and the legacy he left behind that Massachusetts is in many ways a national leader in addressing the prescription and heroin abuse epidemic.

Mr. Botticelli has been very public about his personal history of struggling with an alcohol use disorder as a young professional and seeking help that has led him into long-term recovery. He recently celebrated 26 years of sobriety, and I applaud him for that.

Mr. Botticelli's personal life experiences have provided him a unique perspective on the epidemic facing our Nation. When he joined me at a recent roundtable I convened in Boston about this crisis, he spoke about it in human terms. He reminded us that there is a family, a loved one, a friend, or a child behind each and every one of these statistics. His openness about his own struggles and his path to recovery helped shed much needed light on the issue of addiction, which has lurked too long in the shadows of shame and stigma. I think his story helps others to seek treatment and begin a life of recovery. He truly is leading by his own personal example.

The drug problems facing our country have changed dramatically since the Office of National Drug Control Policy was created in 1988. Mr. Botticelli has an excellent understanding of the mission of this office, the changing needs of the addiction community, and the urgency for solutions to halting the rise of substance use disorders in this country. I believe he is going to make a superlative Director, bringing his strong heart, keen mind, and Malden, MA, roots to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. I am honored to speak in support of his nomination on the floor today and look forward to working with him in the years to come. I recommend in the strongest possible terms Michael Botticelli for the Office of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, my amendment is very simple. It would require that before the Keystone XL Pipeline is deemed approved, we should determine whether carbon pollution, including the carbon pollution from tar sands oil production, will contribute to an increase in more extreme weather events. We should know if carbon pollution is going to put another climate change card in a deck that is already stacked for more extreme rainfall and snowfall and for more dangerously hot summer days.

Since 2010 there have been 49 weather and climate disasters in our country that caused at least $1 billion in damages across the United States. We should not be making energy policy decisions that increase the risk of costly, extreme weather events.

I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. President, right now the Canadian pipeline company is receiving a ``get out of Canada free'' slip. They do not have to pay taxes into the oilspill liability fund.

My colleagues may remember that last week the Republicans objected because they said the amendment of Senator Wyden had a blue slip problem from the House because the tax has to originate in the House. You might remember that last Thursday night Senators on the Republican side objected to my amendments--late at night and, again, on procedural grounds. Well, the good news is we have been able to find a way to have a straight up-or-down vote on the substance of whether the Canadians have to pay into the oilspill liability fund. So this is going to be the vote that determines whether they are going to be able to build a pipeline right through our country--where we are running all the environmental risk--and if a spill occurs, they have not contributed to the oilspill liability fund.

This is a pure vote. It is not procedural. It is yes or no--do they contribute or not to that fund. I urge an aye vote.

Mr. President, throughout my career, I have been proud to stand up for equality for all Americans regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. While I have seen much progress with respect for the rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender, LGBT, community within the United States, the struggle for equality and justice abroad remains significant. Many countries have laws that criminalize homosexuality, prohibit public support of the LGBT community and persecute those who identify as LGBT. To adequately address the challenges posed by these discriminatory laws, the United States must make LGBT rights a priority in all of our foreign policy and there needs to be dedicated position responsible for coordinating that effort. That is why, today, I am introducing the International Human Rights Defense Act of 2015, which directs the Department of State to make international LGBT human rights a foreign policy priority and would establish a Special Envoy position in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor responsible for coordinating that effort.

Over the past few years, conditions have deteriorated for LGBT individuals in many regions of the world. Russia enacted a ban on arbitrarily-defined ``homosexual propaganda,'' endangering the position of many LGBT individuals and their allies. Russia's law has been the basis for similar legislation threatened or introduced in countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus. In December 2013, India's Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling and reinstated the criminalization of homosexuality in the second most populous nation on earth. Nigeria, Uganda, and Gambia have all passed laws that make homosexuality a crime punishable with life imprisonment. While Uganda's law was overturned by its Constitutional Court, leaders have pledged to pursue similar legislation. Conditions for transgender individuals are particularly troubling in Brazil, where 113 transgender individuals were murdered in a 1-year period.

In light of these alarming developments, I am introducing the International Human Rights Defense Act of 2015. It is critical that the United States fight for LGBT equality both at

home and abroad. The Obama Administration has taken great steps in affirming and strengthening the United States' commitment to LGBT equality as a critical component of our international human rights objectives. However, our government does not yet have a comprehensive strategy for addressing LGBT discrimination overseas and we lack a central individual office responsible for inter-bureau and inter-agency coordination to achieve these objectives.

Mr. President, throughout my career, I have been proud to stand up for equality for all Americans regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. While I have seen much progress with respect for the rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender, LGBT, community within the United States, the struggle for equality and justice abroad remains significant. Many countries have laws that criminalize homosexuality, prohibit public support of the LGBT community and persecute those who identify as LGBT. To adequately address the challenges posed by these discriminatory laws, the United States must make LGBT rights a priority in all of our foreign policy and there needs to be dedicated position responsible for coordinating that effort. That is why, today, I am introducing the International Human Rights Defense Act of 2015, which directs the Department of State to make international LGBT human rights a foreign policy priority and would establish a Special Envoy position in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor responsible for coordinating that effort.

Over the past few years, conditions have deteriorated for LGBT individuals in many regions of the world. Russia enacted a ban on arbitrarily-defined ``homosexual propaganda,'' endangering the position of many LGBT individuals and their allies. Russia's law has been the basis for similar legislation threatened or introduced in countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus. In December 2013, India's Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling and reinstated the criminalization of homosexuality in the second most populous nation on earth. Nigeria, Uganda, and Gambia have all passed laws that make homosexuality a crime punishable with life imprisonment. While Uganda's law was overturned by its Constitutional Court, leaders have pledged to pursue similar legislation. Conditions for transgender individuals are particularly troubling in Brazil, where 113 transgender individuals were murdered in a 1-year period.

In light of these alarming developments, I am introducing the International Human Rights Defense Act of 2015. It is critical that the United States fight for LGBT equality both at

home and abroad. The Obama Administration has taken great steps in affirming and strengthening the United States' commitment to LGBT equality as a critical component of our international human rights objectives. However, our government does not yet have a comprehensive strategy for addressing LGBT discrimination overseas and we lack a central individual office responsible for inter-bureau and inter-agency coordination to achieve these objectives.

The amendment offered by the Senator from Texas is

drafted so broadly that it allows just about every nation which is a member of the World Trade Organization to automatically receive natural gas exported from the United States of America. The process is just eliminated--automatic.

What will that do? No. 1, it will increase prices to American consumers. The Energy Information Agency has already determined that the LNG export facilities already approved are going to lead to a 50- percent increase in the price of natural gas here in America. It would jeopardize American manufacturing which has seen 700,000 new jobs created in the last 5 years in America largely because of low-priced natural gas. It is going to increase carbon pollution because it is going to slow the pace of change from coal over to natural gas in the generation of electricity. It is going to undermine our trade negotiations because it is all going to be given away here on the Senate floor. And, finally, it is going to harm our national security, because if we converted one-third of our trucks and buses, it backs out all the oil that we import from the Persian Gulf by using natural gas in American vehicles. We are going to ship jobs along with that gas going overseas. I urge a ``no'' vote on the Cruz amendment.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and call up Markey amendment No. 178.

I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, I have a second amendment, Markey amendment No. 141. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up Markey amendment No. 141.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, the subject matter of these two amendments is, No. 1, the Canadian oil company that wants to build a pipeline through our country right now is exempt from having to pay taxes into the oilspill liability trust fund. In other words, if there is an actual accident in the United States, if the oil pipe breaks or something happens, the Canadians will not have paid into the oilspill liability trust fund the way every American pipeline company has to do.

So my first amendment would just say that they cannot be exempt from that, and the hundreds of millions of dollars which they are responsible for would have to be put into the trust fund.

The second amendment is an extreme weather amendment. That amendment would call for a requirement and analysis of the impact that global warming would have from the tar sands pollution and would require that we have that scientific analysis just so that we can understand it and its impact on extreme weather events in the United States and across the planet.

We would need both of those amendments to be debated in order to make

sure we fully understand the implications of what is being debated here.

Finally, I wish to say that I note Senator Cruz from Texas has an amendment which would almost automatically approve any natural gas exports that were going to any WTO country in the world. I think that is a very bad stance for the Senate to take.

We have to debate what the impact of the exportation of natural gas on a mass basis is going to be on the price of natural gas here in the United States--the price that utilities are going to have to pay for natural gas to generate electricity, the speed with which we will be able to transform our automotive sector from oil over to natural gas, the impact on the petrochemical industry and other industries that are now increasingly using low-priced natural gas in our country. We also have to deal with the fact that the Energy Information Agency says that the already-approved export of natural gas will lead to a more than 50- percent increase in domestic natural gas prices for Americans at home.

I understand why the natural gas industry wants to do it, but I think we have to have a big debate here in Congress over the impact that those natural gas imports are going to have, especially if they are approved automatically if they are heading to any WTO country in the world.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

I thank the Senator from California.

I thank the Senator. I thank the Senator for taking the time to have this very important discussion in the Senate this afternoon.

This past Thursday night the majority leader decided they would not allow for a debate on an amendment I was propounding that would have imposed a tax on the Canadian oil as it is being transported through this proposed pipeline. In the eventuality of an oilspill, the Canadians would have to have contributed to.

The majority did not make it possible for me to speak for even 1 minute on ensuring that the Canadians had to pay the tax in the event there was an oilspill with their oil in the United States of America, while Americans would have to do so.

This is the question I am going to propound to the Senator from California. Right now we know that there is increasing carbon pollution in the atmosphere, which stacks the decks, increasing the chances that our country, our planet would draw an extreme weather joker that would have catastrophic consequences for our country or for any other place in the world. We know that while no one storm can be attributed to climate change, scientists agree there is an increase in the intensity and the frequency of extreme weather events. In fact, in the 2013 consensus report bulletin of the American Meteorological Society said: ``The number of severe regional snowstorms that occurred since 1960 was more than twice the number that occurred during the preceding 60 years'' in the United States of America. So my question to the Senator from California is: Shouldn't we be debating this issue of increased frequency of snowstorms, of rain storms, of droughts, of extreme weather conditions? And isn't this something that Members should be allowed 1 minute, at least, to address, if not a full debate of these issues that have been triggered by the Republicans deciding they wanted to bring this bill onto the floor as their No. 1 priority for the year 2015? Is that not the subject we should be discussing and should it not be an open debate?

That is the question I propound to the Senator from California.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment to call up my amendment No. 25.

I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I ask that the amendment be put in order for debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 1 minute to speak on my amendment before it is voted upon.