Floor Statements

Mr. President, for the Committee on Armed Services I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the Records on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I object for the reason I previously stated. I want to thank the Senator for the courtesy of presenting the unanimous consent immediately. I appreciate that very much.

I am the first chairman to endorse the type of changes the Senator from New York has proposed as they apply to sex-related offenses under the UCMJ. It is my intent to include the administration's proposals in the base markup of the Defense bill next month, subject to amendments. And I anticipate numerous amendments being offered by Members on both sides of the aisle. Further, as I have already committed, the committee will consider these proposals to include a vote on them, in committee, if that is what any Senator desires. That is, in fact, the tradition of the committee. If a member wants a vote on an amendment, we will vote.

I would note that, according to committee records, there has not been a vote on this proposal in the committee since 2013, 8 years ago, and has not even been introduced as an amendment in committee since that time.

I look forward to having this debate when the committee meets to mark up the fiscal year 2022 Defense bill.

With that, I would reiterate my objection and again thank the Senator for her willingness to introduce the unanimous consent initially.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the Corporate Management Accountability Act, which asks each publicly traded company to disclose its policies on whether senior executives or shareholders bear the costs of paying the company's fines and penalties.

In 2014, William Dudley, then the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, gave a speech titled ``Enhancing Financial Stability by Improving Culture in the Financial Services Industry.'' In this speech, President Dudley said, ``in recent years, there have been ongoing occurrences of serious professional misbehavior, ethical lapses and compliance failures at financial institutions. This has resulted in a long list of large fines and penalties and to a lesser degree than I would have desired employee dismissals and punishment . . . The pattern of bad behavior did not end with the financial crisis, but continued despite the considerable public sector intervention that was necessary to stabilize the financial system. As a consequence, the financial industry has largely lost the public trust.''

Since 2009, banks around the world have paid $394 billion in penalties, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). This is an increase of $22 billion from the last time I introduced this legislation. It has been evident that simply fining and penalizing financial institutions at the corporate level is not enough to deter bad actors. Senior executives, many of whom are all too eager to take credit for a company's good news, must also take more responsibility for the bad news, especially if it is true that the buck stops with them.

According to Professor Peter J. Henning, who also writes the White Collar Watch column for the New York Times, ``a problem in holding individuals accountable for misconduct in an organization is the disconnect between the actual decisions and those charged with overseeing the company, so that executives and corporate boards usually plead ignorance about an issue until it is too late.''

The Corporate Management Accountability Act I am reintroducing today is one attempt at helping to solve this problem. The bill simply asks publicly traded companies to disclose whether they expect senior executives or shareholders to pay the cost of corporate fines or penalties. This proposal has been supported by University of Minnesota Law School Professors Claire Hill and Richard Painter, who also served as President George W. Bush's chief ethics lawyer, as well as Americans for Financial Reform.

I urge all my colleagues to join this legislative effort to hold senior executives accountable for their actions.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing the Stronger Enforcement of Civil Penalties Act along with Senator Grassley and Senator Leahy. This bill will help securities regulators better protect investors and demand greater accountability from market players. Even in the midst of an unprecedented public health and economic emergency, we continue to see calculated wrongdoing by some on Wall Street, and without the consequence of meaningful penalties to serve as an effective deterrent, I worry this disturbing culture of misconduct will persist.

The amount of penalties the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can fine an institution or individual is restricted by statute. During hearings I held in 2011 as Chairman of the Banking Committee's Securities, Insurance, and Investment Subcommittee, I learned how this limitation significantly interferes with the SEC's ability to execute its enforcement duties. At that time, a Federal judge had criticized the SEC for not obtaining a larger settlement against Citigroup, a major actor in the financial crisis that settled with the agency in an amount that was far below the cost the bank had inflicted on investors. The SEC indicated that a statutory prohibition against levying a larger penalty led to the low settlement amount. Indeed, then SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro in 2011 also explained that ``the Commission's statutory authority to obtain civil monetary penalties with appropriate deterrent effect is limited in many circumstances.''

The bipartisan bill we are reintroducing aims to update the SEC's outdated civil penalties statutes. This bill strives to make potential and current offenders think twice before engaging in misconduct by raising the maximum statutory civil monetary penalties, directly linking the size of the penalties to the amount of losses suffered by victims of a violation, and substantially increasing the financial stakes for serial offenders of our nation's securities laws.

Specifically, our bill would broaden the SEC's options to tailor penalties to the particular circumstances of a given violation. In addition to raising the per violation caps for severe, or ``third tier,'' violations to $1 million per offense for individuals and $10 million per offense for entities, the legislation would also give the SEC more options to collect greater penalties based on the ill-gotten gains of the violator or on the financial harm to investors.

Our bill also seeks to deter repeat offenders on Wall Street through two provisions. The first would authorize the SEC to triple the penalty cap applicable to recidivists who have been held either criminally or civilly liable for securities fraud within the previous five years. The second would allow the SEC to seek a civil penalty against those who violate existing federal court or SEC orders, an approach that would be more efficient, effective, and flexible than the current civil contempt remedy. These updates would greatly enhance the SEC's ability to levy robust penalties against repeat offenders.

According to the SEC's FY 2022 Congressional Budget Justification, ``the SEC is responsible for reviewing the disclosures and financial statements of more than 7,400 reporting companies.'' The SEC further notes that a ``record 67 million U.S. families held direct and indirect stock holdings in 2019, up 13 percent from 2010,'' and the agency is ``charged with overseeing approximately $100 trillion in annual securities trading on U.S. equity markets and the activities of more than 28,000 registered entities.'' All of our constituents deserve a strong regulator that has the necessary tools to go after fraudsters and pursue the difficult cases arising from our increasingly complex financial markets. The Stronger Enforcement of Civil Penalties Act will enhance the SEC's ability to demand meaningful accountability from Wall Street, which in turn will increase transparency and confidence in our financial system. I urge our colleagues to support this important bipartisan legislation.

Mr. President, once again, I object to the request from the Senator from New York for the reasons I previously stated. I will repeat again: I support removing prosecution of sexual assault and related crimes from the chain of command, but we must take care that we do it thoughtfully, in a manner that does not stress the military justice system or distort it in a way that would affect the efficiency and operation of the military. The best way to do that, in my view, is to consider these matters in the context of the annual Defense bill, which we will be marking up in a month.

Mr. President, I would also point out that this week, Jeh Johnson, who served under President Obama as the Department of Defense general counsel, and then Secretary of Homeland Security, wrote an article addressing the scope of Senator Gillibrand's bill, urging caution that we focus on legislative solutions tailored to address the problem we are trying to solve. And to remind my colleagues, as the DOD general counsel, Secretary Johnson oversaw all legal services performed within the Department of Defense. He advised the Secretary and all government officials on military justice matters and oversaw the annual review of the Manual for Courts-Martial. He is an informed and expert voice on these matters.

During his tenure as DOD general counsel, he was no stranger to momentous change, leading the implementation of the repeal of don't ask, don't tell. As he states in his article, he has long supported moving charging decisions over sex offenses out of the chain of command.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this article

I think given the wise comments of not only Mr. Johnson but also the pending recommendations by the Department of Defense concerning this issue, again, the best place to have a thorough, lively debate and amendments, by the way, which are precluded in this unanimous consent, would be in the Armed Services Committee in the

context of the annual defense authorization bill. That is where we have confronted and decided these issues historically.

And with that, I would reiterate my objection to the Senator from New York's request.

Madam President.

Madam President, once again, I object to the request from the Senator from New York for the reasons I have previously stated, and I will repeat again what I have said publicly and what I have committed to.

I support removing prosecution of sexual assault, the types of crimes that Senator Gillibrand discussed, from the chain of command. But her bill goes further to include crimes not related to sexual assault. The removal of sexual assault crimes from the chain of command will be an historic change in the military justice system and one which Senator Gillibrand can claim great responsibility for effecting. We must take care, however, that we do it thoughtfully, in a manner that does not break the military justice system.

The worst thing we can do to victims of sexual assault is to move a bill through that can't be implemented effectively or on time, creates too large a workload for too few qualified military judge advocates, imperils prosecutions, leads to convictions being overturned on appeal, or results in neglected cases because the necessary attention cannot be devoted to them.

According to the Department of Defense, the number of full-time colonels, lawyer disposition authorities required to execute the system as proposed, which would take effect 180 days from enactment, exceeds the number of judge advocates in that senior grade. And this doesn't account for her bill's requirement that these O-6 judge advocates have significant trial and criminal law experience or that they would not then be available for other important assignments reserved for O-6s, such as military judges and division, corps, or combatant command judge advocates.

The heads of the service Judge Advocate General's Corps have previously raised concerns about the implementation timeline, the resources necessary to execute, and a host of other inconsistencies with the current system that would have to be addressed to be sure of successful implementation. These are the very military lawyers that Senator Gillibrand's bill would empower to make prosecutorial decisions, which includes an evaluation of a far greater number of cases than simply those that end up in court-martial. These are the issues that we need discuss in the committee and not dispose of in an amendment on the floor. The committee will do this and do it faithfully. And I am very confident that we will be able to move legislation that does remove any crimes related to sexual misconduct from the current command to a system that Senator Gillibrand is proposing.

With that, I would reiterate my objection.

Madam President, reserving my right to object, the legislation that the Senator from New York proposes, particularly with respect to the issue of crimes involving sexual misconduct, is something that I support. But without a thorough, careful review in the Armed Services Committee, which is the traditional means of making these decisions, particularly when

they affect the entire Uniform Code of Military Justice, is something that is necessary, in my view, and will be done--and I hope promptly-- so that we can move forward with this legislation, not only to ensure that it passes but that it works for the benefit of the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen in our Armed Forces.

Passing something that sounds good but has not been thoroughly reviewed and thoroughly vetted and will not be implemented effectively for the benefit of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen is something I don't think we should do.

I think, rather, we should wait for the committee hearings. I am confident that this legislation, with respect to crimes involving sexual misconduct, will emerge from the committee. There are other issues that we will consider.

With that, I would reaffirm my objection.

Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Mr. Inhofe, as the chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the cochairs of the Senate Army Caucus, it is our honor to pay tribute to a great leader and an exceptional officer of the U.S. Army MG Brian S. Eifler, the chief of legislative liaison for the Office of the Secretary of the Army, as he prepares to leave this position for a new post in the Army of even greater importance to our Nation. Major General Eifler provides outstanding leadership, advice, and sound professional judgment on numerous critical issues of enduring importance to the Army, Congress, and this Nation.

Major General Eifler has served our Army and our Nation for more than 30 years. A native of Michigan, Major General Eifler was commissioned in 1990 as an infantry officer from Central Michigan University. He has been a true professional, dedicated soldier, leader, and officer. Throughout his career, he has commanded our great soldiers at many levels and deployed to

combat numerous times in defense of the Nation. He has served in various command and staff positions over deployments to Haiti, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He was a platoon leader and civil-military officer in Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, served multiple combat tours to Afghanistan as a battalion commander during Operation Enduring Freedom, and a battalion operations and executive officer, battalion commander, as well as a division deputy commanding general in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Inherent Resolve.

Major General Eifler's other assignments include service in the 1st Armored Division, 2d Infantry Division, 4th Infantry Division, 10th Mountain Division, 25th Infantry Division, 38th Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne Division, and the 75th Ranger Regiment. In addition to Infantry training, he is a graduate of the United States Command and General Staff College and the United States Army War College.

For the past 30 months, Major General Eifler has implemented and enhanced strategic partnerships with Congress. Through his leadership, the Army significantly advanced relationships with both legislative chambers and improved and broadened congressional support for Army priorities. Major General Eifler managed complex issues through multiple legislative cycles, enabling the Army to receive the necessary resources to take care of its most precious recourse, its people, improve readiness, and accelerate modernization to support combat operations, sustain the All-Volunteer Force, and improve the quality of life for soldiers, Army civilians, and their families.

On behalf of Congress and the United States of America, we thank Major General Eifler, his wife Sherry, and their entire family for their continued commitment, sacrifice, and contributions to this great Nation. We join our colleagues in wishing him future successes as he continues to serve our great Army and Nation.

Mr. President, today, most jobs require some kind of postsecondary credential, whether a certificate, an associate's or bachelor's degree, an advanced or professional degree, or an apprenticeship. Moreover, the workplace is changing with automation, artificial intelligence, and the so-called gig economy transforming the nature of work. These trends have only accelerated in the wake of the pandemic and its economic fallout. That is why I am proud to be introducing the bipartisan Partnerships for Affordability and Student Success (PASS) Act with my colleague, Senator Collins.

The pandemic has upended educational opportunities for this generation of students. Unlike previous economic downturns when college enrollment climbed, the National Student Clearinghouse is reporting the largest decline in college enrollment in over a decade, with low-income and community college students experiencing the sharpest declines. For too many Americans, postsecondary education seems increasingly risky or out of reach.

The Federal government cannot solve the crisis on its own. States are critical partners in making college accessible, affordable, equitable, and accountable. However, State funding for higher education is lower today than it was before the onset of the Great Recession. According to the latest State Higher Education Finance report published by the State Higher Education Executive Officers, public colleges and universities have become more reliant on tuition dollars for their operations. Today, in half of the States, tuition accounts for more than half of all higher education revenue. Moreover, the only Federal-State partnership program for need-based financial aid--the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership (LEAP) program--has not received appropriations since Fiscal Year 2010

It is time to renew the Federal-State partnership for higher education, first enacted in 1972 on a bipartisan basis. The PASS Act will revitalize the Federal-State partnership through a formula grant to States with a focus on need-based aid, grants to institutions to improve student outcomes and reduce college costs, and public accountability.

In exchange for this new Federal investment, States must make a commitment to maintain their investment in higher education and have a comprehensive plan for higher education with measurable goals for access, affordability, and student outcomes. At least half of the funding must be dedicated to need-based student financial aid. States also have the option of awarding grants to colleges and universities or partnerships between institutions of higher education and non-profit organizations to improve student outcomes, including enrollment, completion, and employment, and to develop innovative methods for reducing college costs. I am pleased to have the support of the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the Association of Community College Trustees, and the Bipartisan Policy Center.

This generation is facing a crisis in college affordability and student loan debt. With the PASS Act, we seek to provide the resources and incentives for States to take more responsibility to address college affordability and student loan debt and improve student outcomes. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation and look forward to working with them to include these and other key reforms in the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

Madam President, reserving my right to object.

Madam President, like the Senator from New York, I believe that we should transfer crimes regarding sexual misconduct to a special prosecutor, as the Senator of New York has outlined, and that is a decision that many of my colleagues have made over the last few months. In the past, they have been opposed, as I have opposed that approach.

The difficulty is the transfer of other crimes like burglary, arson, financial mismanagement, misappropriation of government funds or properties. Those issues have not been carefully studied, and they should be studied, and that is the purpose of the committee.

We will take this up. We will study it very closely. We will also look at something that I think has to be looked at seriously: How do we implement this reform, and how much time do we need? The last time that we made a major change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, we allowed the Department of Defense 2 years, and they took all of it. The present legislation would allow 18 months. This is something we have to look at.

We also have to look at the resources that are needed. This involves a change in the structure of the military legal system, and the committee is a place where we will get the best views of people who have dedicated themselves in the Senate to thinking hard and thoroughly about issues of military justice, issues of military preparedness, and all of these things.

Looking forward to a debate, but looking also forward to, I think, what

is becoming increasingly secure--the transfer of responsibility for sexual assault and crimes of that nature to an independent prosecutorial approach--it is something I think that we can anticipate going forward.

And with that, I would object.

Mr. President, I object.

We look forward to having a very healthy and serious debate on this issue in the Armed Services Committee so that we can resolve many claims by both sides about the best way to deal with this.

I think, through Senator Gillibrand's great efforts, we have moved a long, long way in terms of addressing the issue of sexual assault through the UCMJ, but there are still significant issues that have to be thoughtfully discussed. In the context of that discussion, I object.

Mr. President. the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) Enforcement Transparency Act, which I reintroduce today with Senator Grassley, will bring needed transparency to the disciplinary proceedings the PCAOB has brought against auditors and audit firms earlier in the process.

Nearly two decades ago, in response to a series of massive financial reporting frauds, including those involving Enron and WorldCom. the Senate Banking Committee held multiple hearings, which produced consensus on various underlying causes, including weak corporate governance, a lack of accountability, and inadequate oversight of accountants charged with auditing public companies' financial statements. Later, in a 99 to 0 vote, the Senate passed the Sarbanes- Oxley Act of 2002 to address the structural weaknesses revealed by the hearings. Among its many provisions, this law called for the creation of an independent board, the PCAOB, responsible for overseeing auditors of public companies in order to protect investors who rely on independent audit reports on the financial statements of public companies.

Today, the PCAOB, under the oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), oversees more than 1,700 registered accounting firms, as well as the audit partners and staff who contribute to a firm's work on each audit. The Board's ability to begin proceedings that can determine whether there have been violations of its auditing standards or rules of professional practice is a crucial component of its oversight. However, unlike other oversight bodies, the Board's disciplinary proceedings cannot be made public without consent from the parties involved. Of course, parties subject to disciplinary proceedings have no incentive to consent to publicizing their alleged wrongdoing and these proceedings typically remain cloaked behind a veil of secrecy. In addition, the Board cannot publicize the results of its disciplinary proceedings until after the appeals process has been completely exhausted, which can often take several years.

This lack of transparency invites abuse and undermines the Congressional intent behind the PCAOB, which was to shine a bright light on auditing firms and practices, deter misconduct and bolster the accountability of auditors of public companies to the investing public.

Our bill will restore transparency by making hearings by the PCAOB, and all related notices, orders, and motions, transparent and available to the public unless otherwise ordered by the Board. This would more closely align the PCAOB's procedures with those of the SEC for analogous matters.

Increasing transparency and accountability of audit firms subject to PCAOB disciplinary proceedings bolsters investor confidence in our financial markets and better protects companies from problematic auditors. I hope our colleagues will join Senator Grassley and me in supporting this legislation to enhance transparency in the PCAOB's enforcement process.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, first of all, let me commend Senator Gillibrand. No one has been as relentless in terms of trying to improve the Uniform Code of Military Justice, particularly with respect to sexual assault. And I agree: These crimes involving sexual assault can be properly moved out, done so in a way that does not impede good order and discipline in the U.S. military.

The issue that is emerging is an issue of the scope. The Senator's bill includes felonies like burglary and larceny that do not involve sexual assault. The Senator has pointed out, and I think correctly, that Congress has risen to the occasion. In fact, I was with people who wanted to repeal ``don't ask, don't tell.'' I was fighting for those things, along with other provisions that she cited.

But Congress has done the right thing only after careful consideration, and we have that opportunity in the committee. That is the way we have done every piece of major legislation since I have been here over a couple decades. There will be an opportunity to vote on all these issues in the committee with men and women who have great insight and knowledge--combat veterans, others who have served for a very long time. And they have invested, as I know the Senator has invested, time and effort and can perhaps improve the bill and perhaps point out areas of the bill that have not been thoroughly analyzed.

So I think it is incumbent upon us to move forward to consider this bill in committee and then to bring it to the floor of the Senate. There will be opportunities for amendments, and at the end of the day, we will have, I think, one, a better bill, perhaps. But, two, we will have a bill that people can embrace because it has been thoroughly vetted by the committee of jurisdiction.

So for those reasons, I would object to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. For the reasons I articulated on Monday and remain, I think, accurate, I would object.

Mr. President, I am disappointed that my bipartisan amendment with Senators Moran and Murkowski is not receiving a vote today.

Our amendment has a simple purpose--to protect taxpayers. It seeks to do so by providing the administration the discretionary authority to negotiate for warrants, which are like stock options, as part of the $50 billion we are appropriating in this bill for the CHIPS for America Fund.

A warrant is the right to purchase one share of common stock at a preestablished price, known as the strike price. Warrants, just like stock options, are exercised when the stock price is greater than the strike price. The idea is that if taxpayer dollars are necessary to invest in a company, then taxpayers should also benefit from some of the upside when the company grows.

I worked on a bipartisan basis to secure warrants when Federal funds were needed for private companies as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, and in the CARES Act. As a result of the warrants provision in TARP, nearly $10 billion in profit was generated for taxpayers. And according to new Department of Treasury estimates, taxpayers stand to gain more than $1 billion for the CARES Act warrants.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who also has prior private sector experience as a venture capital investor and as a former treasurer of Rhode Island, said this week at a CJS Appropriations Subcommittee hearing that she would ``support'' having this authority as a ``good way to stick up for American taxpayers.''

So if companies are receiving taxpayer funds to make investments in semiconductors, U.S. taxpayers should also be able to get some of the upside when these investments pay off. We should be striving to ensure that we get the best possible deal for our constituents' money.

I appreciate Leader Schumer's commitment to get this concept included in the bill as it moves forward in the

process, and I will continue working with him and all of our colleagues to make that commitment a reality.

Mr. President. as many of my colleagues know. the transition from military to civilian life can be very difficult. To address these kinds of challenges. Vet Centers were created in the wake of the Vietnam War to provide critical services for veterans. service members. and their families in community-based settings separate from other Veterans Health Administration facilities. Today. there is a need to enhance these Centers to continue to realize that original vision-- which is why I am reintroducing the Vet Center Improvement Act.

This legislation is the product of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation that Senator Tester and I requested into allegations that changes to performance metrics at Vet Centers may have negatively impacted quality of care as well as additional concerns that we had about their staffing practices. The GAO report concluded that recent changes ``have the potential to negatively affect care and create undue burden and stress on counselors providing that care at some Vet Centers.'' This report included recommendations to improve care, transparency. and hiring and staffing methods that are the foundation for our legislation.

Specifically, the Vet Center Improvement Act requires periodic review and reform of performance standards at Vet Centers; the creation and periodic reevaluation of a staffing model, along with standardization of position descriptions and responsibilities across Vet Centers; the creation of a working group to implement changes to improve quality of care for veterans and recruitment and retention of staff; and the GAO to review Vet Center infrastructure and examine what future investments are needed. Additionally, our legislation creates a $50 million pilot program to provide grants to combat food insecurity and provide necessary heating and cooling assistance to veterans and their families. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has further underscored the need for this legislation--to ensure that we are providing high quality counseling services and offering programs that help our veterans meet their daily needs, like feeding their families and heating their homes.

I would like to thank Senator Tester for joining me in introducing this important legislation and the attention he has paid to this issue as Ranking Member and now Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Our legislation has received support from such organizations as the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), American Veterans (AMVETS), National Community Action Foundation (NCAF), National Association for State Community Services Programs (NASCSP). the National Energy & Utility Affordability Coalition (NEUAC),

and the URI Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America. I look forward to continuing our partnership on this and other measures to improve care for our veterans. and I hope our colleagues will join us in this endeavor.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to reauthorize the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor for the next fifteen years. This legislation will continue to preserve the industrial, natural, and cultural heritage of the Blackstone River Valley for generations to come.

In 1986, Congress designated the Blackstone River Valley as a National Heritage Corridor, recognizing the region's critical contributions to the American Industrial Revolution. Indeed, in 1793. Samuel Slater initiated the American Industrial Revolution in Rhode Island when he built his historic mill along the Blackstone River, Today, the mills and villages throughout the Corridor reflect the legacy of this key chapter in American history.

Encompassing both Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor links twenty-four communities along the Blackstone River from Providence to Worcester. The Corridor has also served as a critical partner to the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park, resulting in the recovery of dozens of historic villages, waterways, and rural landscapes throughout the Blackstone River Valley, which includes thousands of acres of beautiful lands and waters that are home to diverse wildlife.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation to ensure the continued preservation of the Blackstone River Valley for the benefit of our natural resources and our country's history.