Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge our colleagues to come together quickly to pass a clean Homeland Security bill. We are now just 16 days away from a Homeland Security shutdown. The clock is ticking. A shutdown would be wholly unnecessary and, quite frankly, completely dangerous. We know we do not lack for security threats. It was less than 2 years ago that terrorists attacked the Boston Marathon. It was just weeks ago that we witnessed a horrific series of terror attacks on our friends in Paris. We know the brutal destabilizing force known as the Islamic State, or ISIL, is determined to hurt our Nation and our citizens. The world is a dangerous place.

At a time like this, we should be working together on a bipartisan basis to fund and strengthen Homeland Security, but instead we are facing insecurity, instability, and uncertainty because some want to hold the funding for the Department of Homeland Security hostage-- hostage to a partisan political debate.

Is it really more important to hold a fight over deporting children who came to the United States and know no country other than the United States, came here through no fault of their own? Is it more important to hold this fight over deporting those children than it is to protect America against terrorist threats?

Although protecting against these threats is reason enough to oppose this misguided strategy, the resulting fallout would not just be limited to national security. This bill includes

FEMA grants to disaster-stricken areas. This bill includes funding for grants to local fire departments--grants that would not occur.

Thousands of essential public servants--from Homeland Security, to FEMA, to our terrific men and women in the Coast Guard--would be asked to keep on working even though we are not paying them. This is not the way to run a nation. This is certainly not the way to address national security threats that face us.

I think it is telling when a strategy is being criticized from Members on both sides of the aisle. This is a foolhardy game being played with our national security.

A colleague from Arizona said on this floor just yesterday--a colleague from across the aisle--that ``to attempt to use a spending bill in order to poke a finger in the President's eye is not a good move.''

Another colleague from across the aisle, from Illinois, said, ``The American people are pretty alarmed, as they should be, about security . . . the way to go forward is just fund DHS,'' the Department of Homeland Security. He continued, ``We ought to strip the bill of extraneous issues and make it about homeland security.''

That is the path forward, to have a funding bill for Homeland Security, stripped of political riders designed to take on one issue or another when those issues can be addressed in separate bills. If someone really wants to prioritize the deportation of children who came here through no fault of their own and know no country other than the United States, our DREAMers, then they should write that bill, put it through committee, and then the majority should bring the debate to the floor of this Chamber. I can tell you that I would be voting against that bill, but we would have the debate on that issue separate from the conversation about funding Homeland Security.

I found it interesting to read the Wall Street Journal the other day. It refers to immigration restrictionists who want a larger brawl and have browbeat GOP leaders into adding needless policy amendments. That is coming from the Wall Street Journal. They proceed to say in regard to the fight over prioritizing the deportation of folks who are here without legal credentials and who have criminal backgrounds, that the President is ``prioritizing'' those deportations of those with criminal backgrounds. The Wall Street Journal says:

That is legitimate prosecutorial discretion, and in

opposing it Republicans are undermining their crime-fighting

credentials.

So if some of my colleagues want to argue that the President should not prioritize deporting individuals with criminal backgrounds, which I think should be prioritized, have that debate, but do not hold the Homeland Security bill hostage to that particular fight.

In this morning's paper, there was an article about the funding of the Department of Homeland Security. This is in the Washington Post. It refers to the Grand Old Party at impasse as a measure stalls in the Senate. It quotes the Speaker of the House, Mr. Boehner. Speaker Boehner says, ``It is time for the Senate to do their work,'' and he proceeds to give a little lecture to Senators. He says, ``You know, in the gift shop out here, they've got these little booklets on how a bill becomes a law.'' Well, I encourage Speaker Boehner to actually read that book because what that book says is that in order to pass through the Senate, it has to get on the floor and it has to have support to be approved by this Chamber.

So, Speaker Boehner, I encourage you to actually read the pamphlet you recommended because sending over funding for Homeland Security laden with unrelated policy riders is going to make sure that bill dies here in the Senate. Don't take my word for it, take the Senate's version or expression on this. It has come up for three votes in the Senate. We have voted three times to kill this House bill, giving clear instruction to the House: Send us the actual Department of Homeland Security bill free of these political riders, and we will put it on the floor, and we will have that debate, and we will undoubtedly pass that bill. But if you want to play political games rather than looking out for the security of the United States of America, don't expect the Senate to rubberstamp your political games, Speaker Boehner.

So that is where we are now. I do encourage the Speaker to go right down the gift shop--I will be happy to buy him a copy of this, and I will be happy to read the phrases to the Speaker on exactly how a bill becomes law.

It is deeply disturbing to the American people to see these types of political games being played with our Nation's security. We live in a dangerous world, and we need to take seriously our responsibility to fund this Department.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I rise to ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up Merkley amendment No. 174.

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

Madam President, in very brief format, this amendment is about recognizing that global warming is having an impact on some of the poorest countries around the world, and that the United States should work with these nations in terms of helping them address some of those consequences. But the amendment also notes that we have communities in the United States that are poor and struggling with the impacts of climate change and that we should give much attention to helping those communities address the impacts as well and that these two issues--helping poor countries around the world and helping communities within the United States--are not in conflict with each other in that we should be doing both of these things.

Amendment No. 125 to Amendment No. 2

(Purpose: To eliminate unnecessary tax subsidies and

provide infrastructure funding.)

I wish to call up a second amendment, so I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 125.

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

Madam President, this amendment recognizes that construction jobs can play a key role in strengthening our economy, and not just strengthening our economy with current jobs but rebuilding infrastructure or building new infrastructure that will facilitate a very successful economy in the future.

This particular amendment proposes that we not create 4,000 construction jobs in the pipeline but that we create 400,000 jobs rebuilding key infrastructure in a variety of ways across our Nation.

I think as we wrestle with both the current economy and the strength of the future economy, this is an idea well worth considering.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I wish today to address S. 1, which would approve construction of the Keystone Pipeline to transport tar sands heavy oil from Canada to the gulf coast. The key consideration is whether this bill, by authorizing the pipeline, would contribute significantly to global warming, which is already damaging our rural resources and our future economic prospects with profound consequences for families in America and around the world.

Also, are there better ways to create jobs that would enhance rather than damage our economy? In the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, ``Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.''

Let's start by examining the impact of the Keystone Pipeline on atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution and global warming. This chart displays the variations in carbon dioxide that have occurred over time, back through the last 800,000 years. We have seen that carbon dioxide levels have gone up and down within a modest range until modern times and the Industrial revolution.

At that point, where they continued to oscillate as they have in the past, we see a steady, upward progress into a realm not seen within these last 800,000

years. This is the impact simply of human kind pulling up a lot of fossil fuel out of the ground and burning it--whether it comes in the form of coal or it comes in the form of oil or it comes in the form of gas.

Now, let's take a look and see how the temperature of the planet has corresponded with the levels of carbon dioxide. What we find, going back in time, is a very strong correlation with the carbon dioxide in red and temperature change in blue--a very close correlation between carbon dioxide around our planet and the temperature of the planet.

Well, this makes enormous sense since any high school student can establish in the laboratory that carbon dioxide has thermal properties in trapping heat. As less heat radiates from the Earth, the Earth warms. Well, this certainly bears upon our stewardship of this planet. By many estimates, to contain global warming to 2 degrees Celsius--that is just shy of 3.9 degrees Fahrenheit--human civilization must transition aggressively and rapidly away from conventional fossil fuels and toward the use of nonfossil, renewable energy.

Now, this shift is within our power. It is a challenge presented by this circumstance and by our stewardship of human civilization on this planet. But are we up to the task? Do we have the political will to undertake responsible stewardship of our beautiful blue-green Earth? That is the test that stands before this body--this Senate--at this very moment.

Building the Keystone Pipeline, which opens the faucet to rapid exploitation of massive new unconventional fossil reserves--the tar sands--takes us in the exact opposite direction from where we need to go. It locks us into the dirtiest fossil fuels on the planet for a generation. It accelerates human civilization down the road to catastrophic climate change.

That is why building the Keystone Pipeline is a mistake. There is a lot at stake. Global warming is not some imaginary concept based on computer models or something that might happen 50 to 100 years from now. Indeed, global warming is not only present right now, but it is already making vast changes in State after State, and nation after nation.

The warmest 10 years on record for global average surface temperature have occurred in the last 12 years. Let me repeat that. The warmest 10 years on record for global average surface temperature have occurred in the last 12 years. That is pretty powerful evidence that something dramatic is occurring. The effects can be seen in every State. The average forest fire season in the United States is getting longer. Since the 1980s the season has grown by 60 to 80 days. That is 2 to 3 months of additional fire season. The average amount of acres consumed annually by wildfires has doubled to more than 7 million acres.

One study estimates that global warming, through the combined impact of greater pine beetle infestation and the greater number of forest fires and more severe forest fires will decimate the western forests of the United States by the end of this century. That is not the only impact that we are seeing. In addition, the snowpack in our mountains-- in our Cascade Mountains--is decreasing, which means smaller and warmer trout streams. That is not good for fishing.

It means less water for irrigation--not good for farming. The Klamath Basin, a major agricultural basin in Oregon, has suffered through many years and three horrific droughts just since 2001, in substantial part, because of the lower snowpack.

This chart, which shows Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, shows the areas of intensity of the decrease in snowpack. The decreases are circled in red and the increases in the snowpack are circled in blue. As you can see, the decreasing snowpacks vastly, vastly outweigh the occasional spots where there have been reported increases.

This translates to the types of droughts we have been seeing in the Klamath Basin, in this area of southern Oregon, and the droughts we have seen in northern California, a very significant impact on agriculture.

So when some are critical on this floor--some climate deniers who choose to ignore all of the facts on the ground and say there is no impact and no harm--well, they simply are putting forth a myth designed to serve the oil, fossil fuel, and coal industries in order to advance those powerful special interests.

Well, I have a special interest. That special interest is the people of Oregon, who are being impacted by the longer forest fires, who are being impacted by the droughts. I have a special interest. It is called planet Earth. That trumps the Koch brothers, that trumps the coal industry, that trumps the oil industry.

There are other impacts that we are seeing. One is the impact on our oceans. As the high levels of carbon dioxide in the air interact through wave action with the ocean, the ocean absorbs some of that carbon dioxide. As it absorbs that carbon dioxide, it becomes carbonic acid. Here we see some charts from Hawaii. In the purple here we have the change in atmospheric carbon dioxide over a 50-year period.

Then we have measurements of carbon dioxide in blue in the water. Then we have the measurements, over that same period, of the pH or acidic content of the oceans. What we are seeing is that as the pH level drops, that means that the oceans are more acidic. Now, what happens when the ocean is more acidic? It affects the coral reefs, for one. Coral reefs are very sensitive to this. We have seen, from scientists who are studying coral reefs, significant damage both from water temperatures and from increasing acidity.

One scientist from Oregon State University who studies coral reefs around the world came here to DC and presented a series of slides showing the reefs he studied. He said: These are my babies and my babies are dying. Those coral reefs are the basic food chain for a significant amount of sea life that is harvested for human consumption. To put it differently, fishing families around the world often depend on the coral reefs to sustain the foundation of their livelihood.

Off the Pacific coast, we are seeing a big impact on our oysters. The Whiskey Creek shellfish hatchery started having trouble in 2008 with the growth of its baby oysters that are known as oyster seeds. I visited that hatchery 3 months ago to hear their story about what they had faced.

At first they thought: Well, maybe this problem is from a bacteria. Maybe this problem is from a virus. Maybe this is from something else. They brought in Oregon State University to research and they figured out that it was, in fact, the acidity of the water, the very acidity that I just showed you the chart about.

The acidity does not happen in just one place. It is happening broadly across the world. The oyster seed--if they are having trouble fixing their shells because of the high acidity in the water, well then what else is going on? The oysters--here are some headlines related to the oysters.

Up in Washington State, the Seattle Times reported: ``Oysters dying as coast is hit hard.'' In fact, I was flipping through channels a month or 2 ago, and there was the Governor of Washington over at a hatchery on the coast of Washington, just like I visited Whiskey Creek Hatchery in Oregon. It is the same story. Oysters are dying. Why? Because of the acidity of the water.

This is a headline from the Los Angeles Times: ``Oceans' rising acidity a threat to shellfish--and humans.''

From Oregon: ``Researchers scramble to deal with dying Northwest oysters.''

So for my colleagues who want to wreak this kind of harm to our farms, to our fisheries, and to our forests, how about you figure out from the folks of your State how to pay for the damage being done in my State to our forests, our fishing, and our farming. How about you figure out how to pay for the damage being done throughout the United States and throughout the planet. You want to unleash the dirtiest oil in the world from the tar sands and increase this damage? Tell me how you are going to compensate those who are injured across this Nation and across the world.

I hear a lot of comments about responsibility. I hear a lot of comments from my colleagues across the aisle about accountability. Put your actions where your statements are and show us some accountability for the damage you are wreaking by approving this pipeline, by voting for this pipeline.

Does this bill before us, which would open the faucet on a massive new reserve of fossil fuels, advance the stewardship of the planet? Does it advance our rural economy? Clearly the answer is no. Stewardship, accountability, and responsibility would insist that we not open this faucet to further damage of the kind we are seeing right now, that we not unlock the tar sands.

But proponents of the pipeline say: Wait, we have some arguments on our side. Let's examine those arguments.

First they say: You know, this will create 4,000 construction jobs.

Well, let's take a look at this chart. This is a chart that shows the Keystone--roughly 4,000 construction jobs. That represents this little tiny line at the bottom, if you can even see it.

Now let's talk about the Rebuild America Act, which colleagues across the aisle filibustered in order to kill it even though it was revenue neutral. That is how many jobs the Rebuild America Act would create.

If you want to talk jobs, let's talk about a jobs bill. Let's substitute the Rebuild America Act for the Keystone act. Let's have a real jobs bill, a real stimulus bill, a bill that would put people to work in construction across this Nation in a way more intense fashion than would the Keystone bill.

Proponents have a second argument. They say that bringing this additional oil from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico will increase our national security because all that oil will be refined and utilized in the United States.

Well, my colleagues are a little confused about this. They haven't thought about why it is Canada wants to ship it to a gulf port--so that it can have access to world markets, so that it can get the world market price. Our refineries in the gulf coast are largely fully occupied now. An additional supply of crude means additional crude you can export to other countries that have refineries that are short of supply. Well, that is profitable to Canada, but that doesn't mean the oil will get used in the United States.

They say: But wait a minute, some of it might get refined and utilized in the U.S. system.

Well, let's acknowledge that some of it might get refined, albeit it is clear why the oil is being shipped to the gulf coast because it is being shipped there to get into the world market and be available for export to the world. Let's say some of it might happen to be utilized in the United States. That little bit of impact is nothing compared to what we can do by investment in renewable energy that would decrease our reliance on fossil fuels. So a far better solution would be investing in renewable, non-fossil fuel energy that doesn't have the impact on the fishing, the farming, and the forests.

But, say proponents, if the Keystone Pipeline is not built, an alternative pipeline will be built through Canada.

Well, that is certainly highly questionable. If it were easier and cheaper to go through Canada, TransCanada would not be seeking to build the Keystone Pipeline.

Oh, they say, they will figure out a way to run a pipeline west to the Pacific.

But you know that has to pass through First Nation lands, and it has to have all kinds of approvals. And there are folks in Canada who actually feel as deeply and passionately about being good stewards of our planet and not contributing to the assault on our forests, our farming, and fishing as many of us here feel, and there is going to be intense opposition. That is why TransCanada wants to push this through the United States in order to reach the world market and the gulf coast. It is cheaper and easier, and they have no confidence they can build a pipeline to substitute.

Opponents say: If it is not shipped by pipeline, it will be shipped by railroad--which, of course, is again way off the fact track because the railroads are already congested, making additional capacity modest at best. In addition, the price point for shipping by rail is much higher than the price point for shipping by pipeline. If you change the price of the pipeline, you change the supply and demand curve, and you don't end up producing the same amount of oil.

So these arguments made are thin efforts to camouflage a fundamental fact that this is a great deal for TransCanada, it is a great deal for the oil industry, and it is a terrible deal for Americans depending on rural resources, a terrible deal for our oceans and our fisheries, a terrible deal for our forests, and a terrible deal for our farming.

So if you care about the future economy of the United States, if you care about rural America, if you care about all of us who depend on rural America for these wonderful and important resources, then you will oppose this pipeline.

There is no question, this is a sweetheart deal. Talk about accountability? TransCanada won't even have to pay into the oilspill liability fund. They are being exempted from that fund. They do not have to pay into the insurance fund that will help clean up when their pipeline leaks. And they all leak. That is outrageous. You want accountability? Put forward the amendment that says they would have to pay into the oilspill liability fund, the same as any other person or group pumping oil through a pipeline in the United States. Say that they would be fully responsible for every bit of damage that local governments and State governments and the U.S. Government have to pay for to compensate for the damage created by those oilspills. Let's hear some responsibility and accountability from the proponents of this pipeline, not this sweetheart deal for a Canadian company.

Tackling carbon pollution--global warming--is going to take an enormous amount of international cooperation. Just recently, the United States and China entered into an agreement to address global climate change. President Obama announced the goal of cutting American net greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The Chinese President announced that China would invest heavily in renewable energy to generate 20 percent of China's energy from nonfossil sources by 2030 and would seek to decrease China's CO2 emissions thereafter.

These goals will require significant efforts by the United States and massive investments by China. Do they go far enough? No, not in the context of the challenge faced because of our elevated carbon dioxide levels around the world, but this agreement by the two biggest carbon polluters among nations is a significant step forward. It is the type of leadership the world has been asking for.

We cannot simply wish for nations to work together, we have to do our part. That is why we should be talking today not about how to turn on the tap for the dirtiest oil on the planet but how to work with other nations to invest in energy conservation, to invest in non-fossil fuel renewable energy.

Let's turn back to the test President Theodore Roosevelt put before us. He said that there is no more important mission than ``leaving this land even a better land for our descendents than it is for us.'' That is the challenge. Let's rise to that challenge.

Mr. President, let's rise to that challenge. Help lead your colleagues--all of us--in stopping this assault on our farms, our fishing, and our forestry. Stop this sweetheart deal for a Canadian company, and let's substitute a real jobs bill, a rebuild America jobs bill that will create more than a hundredfold more construction jobs than the jobs we have before us.

When we think about the complete lack of accountability and responsibility embedded in this bill, when we think about the enormous damage that comes from turning on the faucet to the dirtiest oil in the world, there really is only one way to vote on this bill, and that is to vote no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to recognize Jeanne Atkins, my Oregon State director, who is retiring from team Merkley this month. Jeanne is a long-serving member of my team, and she is an outstanding public servant, an individual who has dedicated her life to making the world a better place.

Jeanne Atkins and I first began working together a decade ago after I took up the post of Democratic leader in the Oregon State House. It was a challenging but exciting time as my leadership team worked to build our policy agenda and get our caucus operations up to speed. A key component of that effort, of course, was to hire a superb caucus director. Thus, it came to pass that four members of my leadership team were seated in the Old Wives' Tale restaurant brainstorming over candidates for the position. That group consisted, in addition to myself, of Diane Rosenbaum, who is now majority leader of the Oregon Senate; Dave Hunt, who became majority leader of the house and then speaker of the Oregon House; and Brad Avakian, who is now Oregon's labor commissioner. As we were brainstorming, Diane spoke up and said: I know someone who would be tremendous, but I am sure she would never take the position. Dave Hunt encouraged Diane to put the name forward anyway, and when Diane said the person is Jeanne Atkins, Brad Avakian responded: Jeanne? I know her, and she would be great.

We immediately called Jeanne, and by that evening I was sitting in her living room attempting to persuade her that she would be just the right person for the position and that, moreover, she would enjoy the challenge. Fortunately for us, Jeanne did take the position, and thus began a decade of close collaboration.

The leadership, conviction, and hard work Jeanne Atkins brought to our team allowed us to make a big impact as the minority party during the legislature and an even bigger impact when we won the majority 2 years later. At that point I became speaker of the Oregon House and Jeanne became my chief of staff.

Few legislative sessions in Oregon history have seen the passage of as many major bills as that 2007 session, and no individual was more important to the success of that session than Jeanne Atkins.

We passed domestic partnerships and a broad-based civil rights bill that outlawed discrimination against LGBT Oregonians in employment, in housing, and in public accommodations.

We passed legislation setting ambitious renewable energy standards and making Oregon a national leader in the transition to green energy. We cracked down on predatory payday lenders that were bankrupting our working families. We passed the Access to Birth Control Act requiring insurance plans in Oregon to cover contraceptives just as they do other medication, a law that is now helping to shield Oregon women from the misguided Hobby Lobby decision.

Through this all, we worked across the aisle, encouraging bipartisan cooperation, and were able to put together a session that a major newspaper, The Oregonian, deemed the most productive in a generation.

After I was elected to the U.S. Senate and took that office in January of 2009, Jeanne stayed on in the Oregon House as chief of staff to the new speaker, Dave Hunt, who had helped to hire her 6 years earlier. In that role, Jeanne played a pivotal role in expanding health care to Oregon children. As Dave relates, after Oregonians rejected a ballot measure in 2008 that would have raised the cigarette tax to expand health care to low-income children, the Oregon Legislature was seeking an alternative strategy to fund that expansion. Jeanne was the key staff member who brought a contentious dialogue among legislators to a compromise funding strategy that was successfully passed into law. That achievement brought health care to an additional 90,000 children per year. Well done, Jeanne. That was an extraordinary accomplishment.

After the completion of that Oregon legislative session, I was hoping I would have the opportunity to bring Jeanne back onto team Merkley. The stars aligned and she became my Oregon State director in August of 2009.

Oregon's House loss was the U.S. Senate's gain. In her more than 5 years as State director, Jeanne has overseen hundreds of townhalls, thousands of meetings, and has made sure the millions of Americans who call Oregon home have a voice in the U.S. Senate. I wrote the day I hired her as Oregon State director that ``Jeanne is greatly respected by Oregonians of all political stripes for her hard work and her dedication to this State.'' Today, that statement is even more true than 5 years ago.

Jeanne is known across the State as an honest broker who works hard to bring the voices of all Oregonians into our office. She is a tough advocate for our State and has never hesitated to stand up for what she thinks is right and what she thinks is best for Oregon.

Of course, over the last 5 years, we have also had the chance to get into a few adventures--and a few misadventures--traveling around the State. On one memorable townhall swing, we were on our way between rural townhalls when I suggested an impromptu revision of our route. I thought it would be interesting to take a shortcut via a minor semipaved road. That road turned out to have been abandoned so long ago that after a few miles it was no longer even visible. So there we were traveling off-road in a van that was not designed for off-road navigation, wondering if we were choosing the right path through the field or between the trees. To make matters worse, we quickly lost cell phone communication and couldn't alert the advance team that we were going to be late to the townhall. In fact, we were wondering whether we might be out there in the woods for a night or two as we worked to walk our way out should we break an axle or blow a tire.

Through this all, though I could tell Jeanne's blood pressure and distress were elevating, she displayed the same unflappable demeanor that made her so effective in contentious policy dialogues with overwrought legislators. In that moment and in so many others, Jeanne was grace under pressure personified.

Jeanne is not someone who got into politics to be important or powerful. She got into policy and politics because she believed in public service and she believed that each person has the power to make a difference. It is one of the attributes I most value about having her on my team. It is an attribute that has allowed her to make a huge impact in many of the different positions she has held.

Today, as Jeanne looks forward to the next chapter of her life in retirement, it seems only appropriate to reflect back and look at the huge difference Jeanne has made not just in our office but over the course of her career. She has been a longtime advocate for women's rights. This comes from her childhood growing up in Bremerton, WA, in the 1960s. Her own experiences also shaped Jeanne's steadfast determination for equality.

She told me a story about her first job out of college as a bank teller in Seattle, WA. During that first job, the women in the bank, regardless of their position, were required to take turns making lunch for the entire bank every Friday. Jeanne worked hard to shine at this task, just as she worked hard to shine at all her other tasks, but she knew it was wrong that all the women in the office were treated differently than the men, and she carried her passion for that throughout her career.

Jeanne went to work for the Women's Equity Action League here in

Washington, DC, and when she and her husband John went back to Oregon she worked for the Oregon Women's Rights Coalition, the United Way of the Columbia/Willamette, Planned Parenthood of the Columbia Willamette, and then as manager of the Women's and Reproductive Health Section of the Department of Human Services. Her long and storied career has been powerfully connected to equality and an unshakable commitment to women's health.

Along the way, Jeanne also engaged in electoral politics. She ran for the Oregon house twice in the early 1990s, narrowly losing against a well-established incumbent in her second race. As Brad Avakian relates, in the process, she restored door-to-door canvassing and relationship building in Washington County as a political art form.

Jeanne Atkins is an Oregon gem. I wish her the best in retirement and know that she has many more adventures ahead and many more contributions to make.

Thank you, Jeanne, for working hard to make Oregon, our Nation, and our world a better place. We will miss you.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Today we are at the start of a new Congress, and every new Congress provides the opportunity for a fresh start of the work we do on behalf of the American people. Congratulations to our newly elected Members and congratulations to our returning elected Members.

It is appropriate at this moment, at the start of a new, 2-year Congress, that we ponder how to make this institution work for the American people, work well within our constitutional framework and our responsibility for

advice and consent on nominations, and work well in terms of our responsibility for legislation that will address the big issues facing our Nation.

Since I came to the Senate in 2009, it has been a pleasure to work with my colleague from New Mexico. My colleague from New Mexico came to the Senate from the House. I came here from the State of Oregon but with memories of how the Senate worked many years before when I first came to the Senate as an intern in 1976.

I must say, in the 1970s, this body worked very much in the manner that one might anticipate. A bill was put forward. There was no filibuster of a motion to proceed. The bill was debated. A group of Senators would be ready to call upon the President of the Senate to submit their amendment.

Whoever was called on first--that amendment was debated. That amendment was debated, and in a short period of time it was voted on and then the Senators would vie for the opportunity to present the next amendment.

What I saw in 2009 when I came back as a Senator was a very different Chamber, a Chamber where long periods of time would be spent debating what bills to debate. The motion to proceed would be filibustered. So we would waste the energy of this institution not upon delving into the complexities of an issue and how to best address it but simply on the procedural issue of whether we were going to start debate on a particular bill.

This situation has certainly been observed by the American public. The American public's esteem for our institution has declined steadily over the past several decades as the paralysis of this institution has increased.

Observers of Congress report that the past two Congresses have been among the least productive in modern history--too few amendments getting considered, paralysis even after a bill has come to the floor on which amendment to address first, and too many filibusters-- filibusters not of the type of old in which a Senator would delay action on a bill by holding forth as long as his energies would enable him or her to stand on this floor and carry forth, but filibusters of the silent kind, the kind in which there is simply an objection to closing debate. But then this Chamber is filled with silence because no one has anything left to say on it, and no one is willing to spend the time and energy to even declare to the American people: I am here on this floor speaking at length because I want to block this bill. There is no accountability to the public in that fashion--no transparency. So the silent filibuster has come to haunt this hall.

Well, that is a very different Senate than the Senate in the mid- 1970s and one that my colleague from New Mexico and I are determined to change--to restore this Chamber to being a great deliberative body. We can have all the interesting policy ideas in the world, and we can have, certainly, insights on how to make things work better, but if the machinery for this body to consider those ideas is broken, then, certainly, those abilities are not put into their best opportunity or framework. Many folks, when we have been debating the functionality of the Senate, have said: But, remember, it was George Washington who said that the Senate should be a cooling saucer--in other words, saying that the dysfunction and paralysis of the Senate is just exactly the way it was designed to be.

That is certainly a misreading of the comment attributed, perhaps apocryphally, to George Washington. George Washington was referring to the fact that the Senate was designed with a constitutional framework of 6 years, of one-third of the Members rotating every 2 years, of a Chamber that was initially elected indirectly by the States--rather than by popular election--and that this would give it more chance to be thoughtful and reflective on the issues that come before the Nation.

This thoughtfulness, this ability to gain reflexion, is, in fact, exactly what the Senate should be. It is the quality that led to the Senate being described as the world's greatest deliberative body. But the filibuster, and the abuse of it, has changed that. And certainly the inability of the minority and the majority to be able to put forth amendments in a timely fashion and to debate them has changed.

I think back to what Alexander Hamilton said early in the history of our Nation. He said that the real operation of the filibuster ``. . . is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of government, to substitute the pleasure, caprice and artifices of an insignificant, turbulent or corrupt junto to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.''

That phrase, isn't that what we need to restore in this body, the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority?

This is all part of this cycle of a democracy in which citizens vote for an individual who they feel reflects what needs to be done in our Nation, and those individuals come to this [chamber/Chamber] and they proceed to have an agenda. That agenda, if it is part of the majority agenda or a bipartisan majority agenda, gets implemented and those ideas get tested. Those ideas that work well can be kept and those ideas that work poorly can be thrown out. But if this Chamber is locked in paralysis, that cycle of testing ideas and of citizens voting for a vision and seeing that vision implemented and tested is broken. That is much where we are now.

Alexander Hamilton went on to say that when the majority must conform to the views of the minority, the consequence is `` . . . tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.''

I think that is exactly what we have seen too much of in this Chamber, whether it be one party in charge or the other party in charge. As my colleague noted, this is not a partisan issue. The ideas we put forward when in the majority we are now putting forward in the minority. Isn't that the test of whether an idea is in fact designed for the good of this institution, rather than the advantage of the moment?

Our Senate is broken. The American people know that. And it is our responsibility as Senators to work to change that. That is why there should now be a full debate among the Members on the best ideas on how to enable this Chamber to work better. Those ideas should come from the right of the aisle, from the left of the aisle, and ideas in partnership between colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Again, this shouldn't be about the advantage of the moment, it should be about the successful function of our beloved Senate.

One of the things we have seen in the course of this broken Senate is our failure to adequately dispose of our responsibility for advice and consent on nominations under the Constitution. That responsibility is designed to be a check on outrageous potential nominations from the President. It is not designed to be a way for one coequal branch of government--that is the Congress--to seek to systematically undermine other branches of the government, be it the judiciary or the executive. So we need to have a timely and systematic way of considering nominations. That certainly has fallen apart in the course of the poisonous and partisan nature of deliberations here over the last few years. But we can change that.

Indeed, we stepped forward a year ago November to test a rule to close debate on most nominations with a simple majority. The result has been quite spectacular. The number of district judges who have been considered on the floor of this Chamber has more than doubled--has almost tripled. Judicial vacancies have been cut in half--extremely important to a fair and capable judiciary. Executive nominations roughly doubled.

It should not be the goal of this Chamber, whether the majority or the minority, to disable the executive branch by preventing the positions from being filled in the executive branch. If a majority says a person is reasonable, then that nomination should proceed expeditiously.

Senator Udall and I have put forward, as he noted, a resolution that is in keeping with the package of ideas we worked on in 2011 and 2013, so we are presenting those ideas here in 2015. But my encouragement is for people to put forward their ideas, individual Senators, to add their ideas or put forward individual components that will contribute to this dialogue.

One of the ideas we have, and I will be offering to this body, is to create a process to consider rule changes at the start of each legislative session--a detailed way of addressing that, since

currently we have no pattern, no guide, to holding a debate about how the Senate functions.

A second will be to consider the expedited consideration of most nominations. We made a rule change a couple of years ago--well, November a year ago. And also, before that, we made some minor changes in timing in January 2013. That came out of the debate just 2 years ago. Those January 2013 changes are expiring. Those timelines are expiring. So that goes away. Should those be adopted as part of the standing rules rather than simply the standing orders which expire with the change of a Congress?

A third idea is to end the filibuster on the motion to proceed to legislation. Think about how this has changed. If you take the 10-year period between 1973 and 1982, a 10-year period that embraces when I first came here as an intern, there were 14 times there was a filibuster on a motion to proceed. If you take 10 years from roughly 2003 to 2012, that number went up to about 160--more than a tenfold increase in the paralysis of getting bills to the floor to be discussed.

Why should there be filibusters at all on a conference committee? If the House has put forward an idea and passed it, and the same bill has been passed by the Senate, isn't it common sense to enable a delegation from each Chamber to meet together to work out a compromise? We did make a modest improvement in this procedure, but there is much more work to be done on this.

In fact, I was mystified when I came here in 2009 as to why there weren't conference committees going on. First I heard: Well, it is easier for Chairs of committees to get together informally and try to work out something behind the scenes. But then, as I asked more questions, the answer became: Because there are three steps required, and all three of which enable a filibuster, and that paralysis just isn't worth entertaining the time on the floor. Well, let us restore conference committees. Let us get rid of filibusters on conference committees.

And certainly we must improve floor debate by ensuring amendments can be introduced and debated. The minority has said in recent years that this is a deep disadvantage to them. But I can tell you as a Member of the previous majority that it was a disadvantage to majority Members as well not to be able to introduce and debate amendments.

We also certainly must replace the silent filibuster with the talking filibuster so there is transparency and accountability to the use of this instrument on final passage of a bill.

Let us not let this opportunity pass. Let us not continue on autopilot from one Congress to the next. Let us take this moment of opportunity to start on this path to restoring the U.S. Senate to being the world's greatest deliberative body in order to address the big issues before us and for the betterment of our Nation.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Ohio be allowed to speak directly after the conclusion of my remarks.

Madam President, I rise today to address a key unfinished piece of business that is extremely important to the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon.

The Klamath Basin Act has still not been enacted as of the close of this Congress. In that failure, Congress is missing a critical opportunity to put in place a locally developed solution to a longtime water dispute. This failure creates a substantial risk of catastrophic consequences for our ranching and farming families--risks that were entirely avoidable.

Let me start by telling my colleagues what an amazing place Klamath Basin is. Klamath Basin is one of the natural wonders of the American West. It has one of the biggest salmon runs in the Pacific and part of one of the largest continuous blocks of wild rivers and wildlands on the Pacific coast. It is one of the most important migration points in the Pacific coast flyway for bird migration. It is an important place for duck hunters up and down the west coast.

The Klamath River itself charts a path to the south of Crater Lake-- an amazing natural wonder where a crater created by a very large cascade volcanic mountain that blew its top--and the California Redwoods to the south. It connects the Great Basin geology, the cascading volcanos, and the deep and majestic rivers and canyons along its way. Amidst this natural wonder, in its basin lies some of the most fertile and productive agricultural land in the northwest, generating $600 million a year in barley, potatoes, onions, mint, and, as we can see in this photo, beef.

The settlement of the Klamath Basin by pioneers from the east and the subsequent development of farming and ranching in the Klamath Basin has a storied history. The first White explorer thought to enter the area was John Freeman, on his way to play a notorious role in taking control of California during the Mexican-American war. The first White settlers were the pioneering Applegate family, scouting an easier southern route for the final stages of the Oregon Trail. Agriculture was, of course, a major focus of settlement efforts, and even some of the more recently developed agricultural lands played into key moments in American history when part of the Klamath Reclamation Project was developed by the Federal Government and offered as homesteading opportunities to veterans returning from World War II.

Of course, this region had a history long before settlers from the East came to it. It was already inhabited by Native communities who have lived in the Klamath Basin for 10,000 years and who have a deep connection to this amazing place. The Klamath and Modoc Tribes have inherited oral histories of the eruption of Mount Mazama 8,000 years ago, which formed today's Crater Lake. The tribes on the lower river in California--the Yurok, the Karuk, and the Hoopa--talked about having firepits in home sites still in use today that have been carbon-dated as being in human use many thousands of years ago. In the Klamath County Museum, there is on display the oldest sandals in the world that we have ever discovered made of sagebrush.

The early history of settlement from the East led quickly to conflict. John Fremont's expedition led to a violent battle with the Klamath Tribes. The opening of the Applegate Trail through the basin led to conflict between the Modoc Tribes and White settlers along the Lost River. The resulting Modoc War--a dark chapter in our Nation's persecution of tribes--led to a standoff where the Army held a few dozen Modoc families under siege in barren, hostile lava beds for months.

Unfortunately, for too much of recent history, conflict has continued to define the Klamath Basin.

In the 1950s the Federal Government terminated Federal recognition of the Klamath Tribes, converting their 2 million-acre forested reservation into a combination of national forest lands and private lands.

In the 1970s conflict erupted between the lower river tribes and Federal fisheries managers of the tribes' rights to harvest fish they have harvested for thousands of years. Very soon after, farmers, ranchers, and tribes initiated litigation over water rights, and that litigation has been going intensely until very recently. On the one hand, tribes want to be assured of their rights to continue fishing practices they have passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. Farmers and ranchers want to be sure they will have the water they need to sustain the operations their families depend on for success.

For decades the tension over water has been accentuated in times of drought, culminating most famously in a standoff in 2001 that made national news. During that 2001 drought irrigation water for the Klamath Reclamation Project was shut off to protect endangered fisheries. Thousands of people gathered in Klamath Falls in sympathy with the farmers. There was civil disobedience, and people were worried about the possibility of violence.

When Vice President Cheney intervened and guaranteed water deliveries rather than fish protections, the result was the largest fish kill in U.S. history. Meanwhile, agriculture was damaged. Families saw major losses, and some had to sell their farms. There were no real winners.

At the time, many people thought that these issues were intractable and that the arguments and lawsuits would continue interminably, perhaps for generations to come. But a number of years ago a group of leaders in the community had the boldness to start rethinking how they framed their quest for water and the water wars. Their briefing to me was one of the first briefings I received as a U.S. Senator. I was surprised to see individuals representing parts of the community who had often been bitter enemies together. They were talking about sitting down and hammering out a different vision for the future to replace the lose-lose water battles of the past with something different: greater reliability of water for farmers and ranchers and protection for the tribes and their fishing rights and better health for the stream. We had leaders from many different parts of the community sitting down together because--they said to me: Senator, the only folks who are winning right now are the lawyers. They wanted to change that.

I was skeptical that groups who had battled for so long could sit down and work out an agreement. As we say in the West, whiskey, that is for drinking, and water, that is for fighting. But these folks said: We are going to pursue a different path.

I pledged that if they were able to develop a solution, I would do everything I could at the Federal level to help implement it. They defied the expectation of every cynic by coming up with a remarkable plan that solved an array of complex problems. The irrigators committed to reducing the total amount of water they take from the river from a variety of conservation practices. They are working collaboratively with the community and the tribes to restore habitat. In exchange, they get certainty and predictability for guaranteed amounts of water. The tribes and conservation groups and fishing organizations agreed to stop challenging these irrigators' water allocations. In exchange, they get a community partnering to restore natural resources that are of cultural and economic importance to the tribes and to help them reacquire some of the land they lost 50 years ago.

Complementing all of this and augmenting the natural resource restoration is a plan to remove four antiquated dams and open up new habitat for fish. The private utility that owns these dams agrees that the best business decision is to remove these dams. So this is a win- win situation, or actually a win-win-win-win situation.

Let me give an example of this in terms of water looked at from the perspective of the agricultural community. This chart shows, over a variety of years--2010 through 2014--what the actual deliveries were in acre-feet, thousands of acre-feet, 189,000 acre-feet, and what they would receive in the settlement: substantially more; substantially more in 2011 and substantially more in 2013. So this also provides more water for the refuge, and we can see a change of positive water for the refuge as well.

This is why everyone is coming to the table and finding a path that works better during difficult times for all of the major goals of water management in the region.

The deal is a lifeline for farming and for ranching: tens of thousands of additional acre-feet added and in some cases 100,000 acre- feet of water in some areas; at the same time, stream flows for fish, removing obstacles for migration of the fish, improving habitat. It is a truly remarkable deal.

Community leaders not only developed a visionary agreement, they also remained dedicated to this agreement during some difficult drought years in 2010 and 2013 and low water in 2014. So they could have been shattered, the coalition could have been blown up by these difficult drought years, but instead they viewed it as reinforcing why they needed to come to an agreement to save the ranching and the farming and improve the fish and restore important provisions for the tribes. They have continued to work together while we here in Congress have not acted. Also, they worked on an additional agreement to bring in additional ranchers from the upper basin into the agreement, and that worked as well. They worked to dramatically reduce the cost of the habitat restoration investments that the original plan called for. They drafted a bill with no new spending. The entire agreement was challenged by the litigation of the water rights in that the adjudication of these water rights was finally completed and, for the most part, the Klamath tribes were awarded water rights to time immemorial.

That is a powerful tool. The tribes could have walked away from the table. They could have taken this enormous control over water rights and said the agreement hasn't been implemented; we are walking away and going to use these water rights with maximum leverage.

They created partnerships. They pledged to work together, as all of these groups have, advocating not just for themselves but for the collective future of the community and collective stakeholders.

Quite frankly, this is a remarkable development in what is happening with all of these stakeholder leaders sticking together. Congress is key, however, to passing legislation that implements the provisions of this plan.

It is time for Congress to act. The Senate did its work. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee held hearings under the leadership first of Senator Wyden and Senator Murkowski, then under the leadership of Senator Landrieu and Senator Murkowski. Senator Murkowski, Senator Wyden, and I were able to negotiate bipartisan revisions of the bill addressing significant and legitimate concerns that had been raised.

We modified Federal authority related to dam removal and requiring Governors to sign off and giving Congress a 1-year period to veto a decision to take out a particular dam. We removed provisions that the Congressional Budget Office said might contribute to the deficit. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted the bill out of committee on a bipartisan basis.

The community leaders have gone to work getting even broader statements of support. The Klamath County Chamber of Commerce endorsed the bill. The Klamath County Farm Bureau has endorsed the bill. The Klamath County Cattlemen's Association and the statewide Oregon Cattlemen's Association have endorsed the bill. The Klamath Falls City Council has endorsed the bill, and the Oregon Water Resources Congress has endorsed the bill.

The Senate has been ready to act, but the U.S. House of Representatives has not. Here we are in the last days of this Congress unable to complete this bill. So today I am calling upon our leaders in the House and in the Senate to work together to make this an item of immediate action when we start our new session in January.

The tribe is held back on enforcing its water rights, and the stakeholders have stayed together, saying they were

going to support the multiple provisions for themselves and their partners. But that cannot last forever. Congress has to act to seal the deal. Without cooperation, this vision, so carefully, diligently, and painfully constructed over years of involvement of community stakeholders, will fall apart. What that will do is put the entire farming and ranching community in great jeopardy. We can see hundreds of families lose their water in a matter of months due to Congress's failure to act.

This community has done everything right. They have put aside longstanding tensions and conflicts. They sat down time and time again to work out these complicated provisions. They sought the help of the Interior Department which came and signed off on the agreement. They sought the State government and the Governor to sign off on the agreements. They solicited local support. They put aside damaging rhetoric during times of intense drought over the last couple of years, and they hung together. They have done everything we could have ever asked a group to do to prepare for this legislation to be passed, yet it has not been passed because the House of Representatives has not been ready to act.

We must not let this opportunity escape. We must come back in January with support from the Senate and from the House and complete this deal. This opportunity might not come again.

I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to recognize that when in a region great work has been done to resolve a longstanding conflict, they need Congress to step in and seal the deal, make the agreement real, and implement the agreement. We must give it the utmost attention and help make it happen for the health of the stream, for the welfare of the tribes, for the success of the farming community, for the conditions that make ranching a vital component of the Klamath Basin--for all of these reasons.

I certainly pledge to come back and work toward that end and look forward for us early next year to not be here on the floor lamenting the fact we have failed to complete this agreement but to be here thanking all of those who came together to seize this critical opportunity.

I yield the floor to my colleague from Ohio.

Mr. President, I wish to state for the record my support for the Young Marines and their work to help reduce drug abuse in America. The abuse of drugs plagues our communities, disrupts our schools, and has a negative effect not only on the people who use drugs, but their communities as well. Drug abuse devastates our families, children and neighborhoods.

I support programs that demonstrate effective strategies to decrease drug abuse. As one of the largest drug prevention programs in the Nation, the Red Ribbon Campaign educates our youth about the problems and risks associated with drug use. The Young Marines' effort to educate and inform community members through the Red Ribbon Campaign helps increase awareness about drug abuse, and in turn, helps reduce the demand for drugs.

The Young Marines is a national non-profit youth education and service program for boys and girls, age 8 through the completion of high school. The Young Marines promotes the mental, moral and physical development of its members. The program focuses on teaching the values of leadership, teamwork and self-discipline so its members can live and promote a healthy, drug-free lifestyle. This program was brought to my attention earlier this year by Branson Coiteux of Portland, OR who himself is a Young Marine and is working hard to educate his fellow students about the dangers of drug abuse. Each year Brandon and his fellow Young Marines participate in the national Red Ribbon Week and help educate and raise awareness about drug abuse.

We need more groups like the Young Marines and programs to fight drug abuse and bring the discussion about drug abuse out in the open and educate our children about the dangerous effects that drug abuse can have on our families. I thank them for their hard work and service and hope that we can end the devastating effect that drugs have on our Nation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my intern, Jonathan Merkley, be granted privileges of the floor through Thursday.

Mr. President, when I came here in 2009, we were in the middle of an enormous meltdown due to high-risk trading inside our major banks. I wondered whether we as an institution were capable of undertaking this challenge of changing the circumstances around that in order to not have another 2007, 2008 meltdown that would do so much damage to families across this country. So I put out an email to everyone that said, Is anyone interested in taking on this issue for the future stability of our financial system? The next day I came to the floor and Senator Levin said, the email you sent out, I want to talk to you about that. I want to partner in taking this on. Immediately, he basically said: ``We will work together. I am not the senior Senator who wants to take over this effort,'' although I would have been glad for that to happen. There was not the ego in it; there was the intellect and the passion and the determination to fix a problem. To me, the Senate should be about people coming together to fix problems to make this Nation work better.

That event is deeply burned into my mind. The result, because of Senator Levin's efforts, was the Volcker rule that said high-risk trading should not be done on the banks' books, proprietary trading and high-risk instruments. It will make a significant difference in the years to come.

But what I want to thank my colleague for is the attitude of coming together to solve the important problems for America, even if that means taking on very powerful special interests. I hope we will see a lot more of that from this Senate in the years to come, but it will be a much bigger challenge without the Senator here. We will miss him greatly.

Thank you so much, Senator, for your service to our Nation.

Mr. President, I too rise to share a few comments about my friend Tom Harkin who has contributed so much to this fight and to put rungs on the ladder so ordinary people across America have a fair shot to thrive.

When I first came out here as an intern in 1976, you were already over on

the House side--no, not yet. It was about 1974, and I was working away, so I didn't get to meet you then. But there were a series of speeches by Senators when I was an intern here on the Senate side, and one of them was by Hubert Humphrey.

Hubert Humphrey was well known for saying that a society should be judged by how they treat those in the dawn of their lives, children, the twilight of their lives, seniors, and those who are in the shadow, the sick and disabled. When I think of that vision, I see Tom Harkin. I see Tom Harkin fighting for children who are oppressively working around the world under unacceptable circumstances. Tom Harkin carries out the fight for those children and for children's health care.

I have seen him fight for our seniors, and just this week he was speaking passionately about the obligations we have to honor the retirement strategy so people can serve their senior years in dignity. He fights for those who are disabled, which we have heard about so much today.

I thank Tom Harkin for taking his years on this planet and dedicating them to this battle for those in the dawn of their life, for those in the twilight of their life, and for those in the shadows. No one has done a better job.

I also wish to thank Tom for the recent battles I have had a chance to be a part of--the fight to end discrimination in the workplace for our LGBT community, which you shepherded through your committee and got to the floor for the first time in which this bill has been enforced since 1996, and proceeded to pass by a 2-to-1 bipartisan majority because of that firm foundation laid out in the committee.

I wish to thank you for your minimum wage bill and for saying to America: Here is a vision: No one who works full time should live in poverty. That is absolutely right. We didn't win the battle over minimum wage, but we advanced the conversation--you advanced the conversation. I thank you for doing so, and for carrying out battle after battle, and in so many cases, succeeding. And in those cases when the circumstances weren't yet all lined up, you continued the fight, carried the voice so we would find that moment in the future when we could secure a victory for ordinary working people, for those who are disabled, for our children, and for our seniors.

I thank you for your service in the Senate. Well done.

I wish to add a word to honor my good friend Senator Mark Begich. I think there is a special connection with those of us who were elected on the same day.

We share something else in common, which is on that election day in November 2008 neither one of us knew if we had won. We both had to wait some length of time--in my case 2 days and in Senator Begich's case a couple of weeks--but it kind of makes us ponder the future: Are you going to serve or are you not going to serve and how will you utilize that opportunity.

There is another connection that comes from being western Senators. When we talk about salmon--and Mark Begich mentioned a while ago ``Frankenfish.'' Well, we are very concerned. We have a collective concern about the health of our salmon runs.

It is not just a fishing economy, although that is very much a part of the economy of our States, it is about the soul of our States, the traditions of our State, the natural resources of our States.

When we talk about timber, we have a connection. Sitka was mentioned. Sitka spruce is a common tree in our State of Oregon.

When we get concerned about the rescues off the Oregon coast because the water is so cold one can't be in it for very long without dying-- which makes it much more important to have advanced helicopters, and just last night we were able to keep a key helicopter on the coast due to Senator Mark Begich's considerable involvement and advocacy. Thank you so much for doing that.

Why is our water so cold off the coast of Oregon? Because it is coming down with the currents from Alaska. In so many ways our States are tied together.

As I have served this first 6 years, I have turned to my friend from Alaska for advice and counsel time after time. His seasoned policy judgment and his core political instincts are on a par with any other Senator in this Chamber and certainly far in advance of my own.

I say to the Senator, I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate you sharing your judgment, and I appreciate your buoyant spirit that reminds us, when we are discouraged, that so much can be accomplished. What an honor it is to have a seat in the Chamber of just 100 Senators, where we can add our voice to a conversation about truly how to make this a better world.

Thank you, my friend, for your service. We will miss you greatly.

Thank you, Mr. President.

With Senator Mary Landrieu's permission, I want to do a quick interlude to send a bill over to the House.

I ask unanimous consent that the energy committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 2640 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I will just say a couple words before I turn it over to the Chair and to my colleague from West Virginia.

When I think of Mary Landrieu, I think of the most tenacious person in the Senate standing here, holding court, fighting for her cause, fighting for her values, fighting for her State. I think particularly of the hard work she did on flood insurance, on this issue that was so critical to the State of Louisiana and very important to my State of Oregon and to our other States but particularly Louisiana. She was determined. Every time I was on the floor, she would say: Jeff, have you done this and Jeff, have you done that. She would grab someone else, and she would say: And now we have to do this. That is how legislation gets done.

Senator Landrieu really drives things through the Senate. It is one thing to be here and express your ideas in kind of a social manner-- well, wouldn't this be nice or wouldn't that be nice; it is another to stand here and say: I am going to make this happen because it is important to my constituents and important to our Nation. I have seen Mary Landrieu do that on issue after issue, and certainly for all who came in with my class 6 years ago, it has been a wonderful education on how to make maximum use and effectiveness from this privilege of serving in the Senate.

Thank you for everything you have done, Mary Landrieu. It is an honor to serve with you, and we are going to miss you greatly.NOTICE

If the 113th Congress, 2nd Session, adjourns sine die on or before December 24, 2014, a final issue of the Congressional Record for the 113th Congress, 2nd Session, will be published on Wednesday, December 31, 2014, to permit Members to insert statements. All material for insertion must be signed by the Member and delivered to the respective offices of the Official Reporters of Debates (Room HT-59 or S-123 of the Capitol), Monday through Friday, between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. through Tuesday, December 30. The final issue will be dated Wednesday, December 31, 2014, and will be delivered on Monday, January 5, 2015. None of the material printed in the final issue of the Congressional Record may contain subject matter, or relate to any event, that occurred after the sine die date. Senators' statements should also be formatted according to the instructions at http://webster/secretary/cong_record.pdf, and submitted electronically, either on a disk to accompany the signed statement, or by e-mail to the Official Reporters of Debates at ``[email protected]''. Members of the House of Representatives' statements may also be submitted electronically by e-mail, to accompany the signed statement, and formatted according to the instructions for the Extensions of Remarks template at https://housenet.house.gov/legislative/research-and-reference/ transcripts-and-records/electronic-congressional-record-inserts. The Official Reporters will transmit to GPO the template formatted electronic file only after receipt of, and authentication with, the hard copy, and signed manuscript. Deliver statements to the Official Reporters in Room HT-59. Members of Congress desiring to purchase reprints of material submitted for inclusion in the Congressional Record may do so by contacting the Office of Congressional Publishing Services, at the Government Printing Office, on 512-0224, between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. daily. By order of the Joint Committee on Printing. CHARLES E. SCHUMER, Chairman.

Mr. President, I rise to address S. 2280, which would approve construction of the Keystone Pipeline to transport tar sands heavy oil from Canada to the gulf coast.

The key consideration is whether this bill--by authorizing the pipeline--would contribute significantly to global warming, which is already damaging our rural resources and our future economic prospects with profound consequences for families in America and around the world.

Also, are there better ways to create jobs that would enhance rather than damage our world? In the words of President Theodore Roosevelt:

Of all the questions which can come before this nation,

short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great

war, there is none which compares in importance with the

great central task of leaving this land even a better land

for our descendants than it is for us.

Let's start by addressing the vision that President Roosevelt put forward and examine the impact of the Keystone Pipeline on atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution and global warming.

In this chart we see, going back 800,000 years, that the carbon dioxide has gone up and down. In recent years it has been quite steady until the start of the Industrial Revolution, and then it has soared-- soared above levels it has been at for hundreds of thousands of years.

In this second chart, we see that there is absolutely no question that heat--put here in blue--correlates to the carbon dioxide in red. When the carbon dioxide level goes up and down, the heat of the planet goes up and down.

By many estimates, to contain global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, humans can burn only about an additional 500 gigatons of fossil carbon. That is the fossil budget we have to work with to avoid catastrophic global warming. But currently, the world's top 200 fossil fuel companies have identified 2,800 gigatons trapped in their fossil fuel, and that doesn't include the carbon from tar sands and oil shale.

Here is the problem: To protect the planet from catastrophic global warming, we need to leave four-fifths of the identified conventional fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Building the Keystone Pipeline, which would open the facet to rapid exploitation of a massive, new unconventional reserve--the tar sands--would make it much less likely for human civilization to succeed in meeting that carbon budget that is so important to our future economic and environmental world, and that is why building the Keystone Pipeline is a grave mistake.

Global warming is not some imaginary foe embedded in some computer model with effects 50 years from now. It is here and we can see it at this very moment. The warmest 10 years on record for global average surface temperature has occurred in the last 12 years. Moreover, the effects can be seen in Oregon--and actually across the Nation. The average forest fire season is getting longer. Across the Nation, since the 1980s, the national season has grown by 60 to 80 days, and the average acres consumed annually by wildfires has doubled to more than 7 million acres. This sight has become all too familiar in our home State of Oregon.

One study estimates that global warming, through the greater impact of greater pine beetle infestations and larger forest fires, will decimate the western forest of the United States by the end of this century.

In addition, the snowpack in our Oregon mountains is decreasing, which means smaller and warmer trout streams--that is not a good thing if you love to fish--and less water for irrigation. The Klamath Basin-- a major agriculture basin in Oregon--has suffered through many dry years and three horrific droughts since 2001, in substantial part because of lower snowpacks.

The red circles on this chart represent a significant decrease in the snowpack. As we can see throughout the northwestern United States-- Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and stretching into northern California--there is a huge decrease in the snowpack which is resulting in devastating consequences for agriculture.

As the high levels of carbon dioxide in the air are absorbed by the oceans, the carbon dioxide becomes carbonic acid. That acid, as one would expect, makes the oceans more acidic.

This chart, which presents the carbon dioxide and the pH time series from Hawaii, presents the challenge clearly. CO2 in the atmosphere went up from 320 parts per million to about 380 parts per million over a period of about 50 years--a steady increase in carbon dioxide. We then see, with this blue set of data, that there is a parallel trend of the carbon dioxide that is in our ocean, and then we see from the light blue data that the pH level is dropping, which means that the ocean is more acidic. That is a 30-percent increase in the acidity of the ocean over a very short period of time.

The greater acidity is having an impact on sea life. One impact is on coral reefs, which are the ocean's most diverse ecosystem and the base of the ocean's food chain. Fishing families around the world depend on coral reefs as a foundation for livelihood.

Another impact is on the reproduction of oysters. The Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Oregon, which I visited a few weeks ago, started having trouble growing baby oysters--known as oyster seed--in the year 2008. The hatchery almost went out of business, but a scientist from Oregon State University was able to help identify and address the problem. The problem, it turns out, stems from the increase in the acidity of the Pacific Ocean. If the oyster seed, or the canary in the coal mine, is having trouble forming shells, what else is going wrong in the ocean due to rising acidity?

In summary, carbon pollution is having a direct and substantial impact on the vitality of our forests, farming, and fishing. Our rural resources are being damaged now, and the problems will multiply with additional carbon pollution. So as members of the human family on this planet, with the moral responsibility to exercise wide stewardship of our resources for future generations, we must address this challenge of carbon pollution, and we must do so now. Wise stewardship means we must leave four-fifths of the conventional fossil fuels in the ground.

Would this bill before us, which would open the facet to this massive

new reserve of fossil fuels, advance such stewardship? The answer is clear. Stewardship demands that we not build infrastructure to unlock tar sands--the dirtiest source of oil on the planet.

The proponents of the pipeline have come to the floor and made interesting arguments--arguments worth examining to see if they actually hold water. First, they argue that the pipeline would create a tremendous number of construction jobs. Here is a comparison of direct construction jobs created by the pipeline--the little tiny wedge down here represents the pipeline jobs versus the jobs that would be created by the Rebuild America Act, which would create hundreds of thousands of jobs. So just 4,000 or so jobs in construction of the pipeline versus hundreds of thousands jobs from the Rebuild America Act. If anyone on this floor is actually serious about jobs, we would pass the Rebuild America Act today.

The proponents have a second argument. They say that bringing this additional oil into America would increase America's oil independence. We heard that argument just a few moments ago by my colleague from South Dakota. The argument goes that this strengthens America's national security by decreasing America's dependence on the Middle East, but that argument overlooks a fact. This is not American oil, this is Canadian oil. This is not oil destined for the United States, it is destined to be refined in the gulf coast so that it can be exported around the world. These tar sands will do no more for America than if they were exported through Canada to the world market.

In fact, if you want the oil to be used in America, the best thing to do is to not build the pipeline, because that means the area around the tar sands will be the area getting that oil. Shipping Canadian oil to the world market via America adds nothing to America's security.

The next argument from proponents is that the pipeline has no environmental effect--indeed, we just heard this argument as well-- because the oil from the tar sands, it is argued, will reach the market by rail if not by pipeline. This argument is demonstrably false. There is not enough rail capacity to substitute for the pipeline, and the cost of shipping oil by rail is much higher than pipeline, greatly reducing the economic incentive for rapid development of the sands. All the while proponents say if the Keystone Pipeline is not built, alternative pipelines will be built through Canada, but that is certainly not at all clear.

If it were easier and cheaper to build through Canada, TransCanada would not be trying to build through the United States of America. Moreover, there is tremendous opposition within Canada to building such pipelines, and that is part of the reason TransCanada wanted to build it through the United States. The opposition within Canada to additional pipelines is just as fierce as it is in America for the same set of reasons--fundamentally important moral reasons--about the stewardship of our environment and our future economy. It turns out the Keystone Pipeline represents a real risk to our rural resources, our farming, and our fishing. It represents a real risk to the future health of our economy needed to sustain middle-class jobs. The pipeline itself creates very few jobs compared to a serious investment in infrastructure, and it adds nothing to our national security.

There are several other serious problems with this pipeline that have often been glossed over. For one, TransCanada is exempted from contributing to the Oil Spill Liability Fund. That is outrageous. You could call this bill the TransCanada protection act. Why are we doing a special deal for a Canadian company? Oilspills like this happen with these pipelines all the time, and they will not contribute one slim dime to the Oil Spill Liability Fund that American companies have to contribute to. Why would anyone vote for that sort of special deal for a foreign company--that irresponsible failure to contribute a single dime to the Oil Spill Liability Fund?

In addition, we are giving a foreign corporation the ability to exercise eminent domain to seize the lands of American citizens. Since when do we give power to a foreign corporation to take land away from American citizens without their desire? It is fundamentally unfair to American landowners. The legal basis for eminent domain is that there has to be a compelling public good. What is the compelling public good in this situation? Is it the generation of private profits for a Canadian corporation? That doesn't meet the test. Is it the damage from the oilspills that will occur in communities across America? That doesn't meet the test. Is it the contributory damage----

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for a minute and a half more.

Is it from the damage from carbon pollution to our farming, fishing, and forests? That doesn't meet the test.

Frankly, tackling carbon pollution is going to take an enormous amount of international cooperation. Just a few days ago the United States and China entered into an agreement to address the global climate change crisis. The Chinese President announced that China would invest heavily in renewable energy to generate 20 percent of China's energy from nonfossil fuel sources by 2030, seeking to decrease China's CO2 emissions thereafter. That is the type of leadership the world has been asking for.

We can't simply wish for nations to work together. We have to negotiate and do our part. That is why today we should not be talking about how to turn on the tap to the dirtiest oil on the planet, but how to meet the 2025 goals and how to create jobs by investing in energy conservation and renewable energy.

Let's remember the test that President Theodore Roosevelt gave us. There is no more important mission than ``leaving this land even a better land for descendants than it is for us.'' This bill fails the test.