Floor Statements

Madam President, it is an honor to join my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Tom Udall, in celebrating the life and service of Chester Nez, the last of the original 29 Navajo code talkers, who passed away this last Wednesday, and to honor the historic role the Native American code talkers played in the allied victory in World War

Mr. President, as an engineer one of the things I learned early in my education was that science does not care if you believe in it or not; you can deny science as much as you want, but the data suggests that the scientific method works pretty darn well.

The corollary to that fact is whether you believe in climate change has no bearing on whether it is actually occurring. Unfortunately, the data shows a warmer and warmer planet, characterized by weather fluctuations that are more extreme and oftentimes more destructive. In my home State of New Mexico, too often we find ourselves dealing with the impacts of climate change today, not at some theoretical future date.

For example, we are already seeing the effects of climate change and how it manifests itself in more extreme drought conditions, larger and more intense wildfires, shrinking forests, and increased flooding when it finally does rain. The longer we wait to act, the more difficult and expensive the solutions will be, and the more unpredictable our weather will become.

2012, as the Senator from Vermont mentioned, was our Nation's second most extreme year for weather on record. In my home State of New Mexico, we experienced the hottest year in our entire historical record. With humidity levels lower and temperatures higher, we are dealing with fire behavior in our forests that is markedly more intense than in the past.

We also see climate change take a toll directly on our economy, especially in my State. That is an important point, because inaction has its costs too. The costs already being borne in New Mexico are substantial. With less snowpack, communities that rely on winter sports tourism take an economic hit. Fewer people lodge in hotels, shop in stores, eat in restaurants.

Climate change is also having a devastating impact on New Mexico's agricultural industry, where farmers and ranchers are often the very first to see the direct impact of extreme weather. The agricultural sector is highly vulnerable due in large part to the sustained threat to the water supply, the soil and vegetation from continuous drought.

Things are only going to get worse if we do nothing. If we take our moral responsibility as stewards of this Earth seriously, it is imperative that we face the challenge of reversing the effects of climate change head on and have a sober discussion about what actions we will need to take now and in the future. America clearly has the capacity to become energy independent. But we also need to transition from our current energy portfolio to one that produces as much or more power with substantially less carbon pollution per kilowatt hour.

That will require innovation, something that historically our country has done better than any country in the world. But additionally, we will need political will, something we have grown short of as climate denial and pseudoscience have made their way into the halls of Congress.

If history is our guide, we should know that investing in cleaner energy will not be without cost, but little of value is ever free. The question is, are we willing to make the modest investments now necessary to create the quality jobs of tomorrow and to protect our Nation from the serious economic and strategic risks associated with our carbon reliance, our reliance on both foreign and carbon pollution- intensive energy sources?

Since we are looking at history, let's take a moment and look at the Clean Air Act of 1990, and compare the rhetoric of debate with the reality of its implementation. In 1989, the Edison Electric Institute predicted a significant rise in energy costs due to the Clean Air Act. Yet the reality, according to a recent study by the Center for American Progress, actually showed a decrease of 16 percent over those years. In 1990, the U.S. Business Roundtable claimed that passage of the Clean Air Act would cost a minimum--a minimum--of 200,000 jobs. But a recent study released by the EPA revealed the reality. The Clean Air Act resulted in a net creation of jobs and new industries created to reduce pollution, good-paying jobs in industries such as engineering, manufacturing, construction, and maintenance.

By 2008 the environmental technology sector supported 1.7 million jobs in this country.

The time has come to address climate change rather than embracing the pseudoscience and denial that is embraced by far too many in Washington today. The Nation has never solved a single problem by denying the facts. Let me be clear. Inaction is not a solution to this very real crisis. Denial is not a strategy.

Consequently, if my Republican colleagues have a better way to address carbon pollution than what the President has proposed, I would ask them to join the debate. If they have a pollution solution that is more efficient or more effective, now is the time to have that discussion.

Through American ingenuity we can slow the impact of climate change and unleash the full potential of cleaner energy. We can create a healthier, more stable environment for future generations, but we must have the will to recognize the facts as they are. We will need to make the investments that are necessary, and we will have to find the political will to act.

Mr. President, I can still remember my first job as though it was yesterday. I worked as a busboy at a local family restaurant during our small-town fair. While that job only lasted a few days, I still remember how incredibly proud I was to have earned a few dollars myself. The next year that same family hired me to bus tables and wash dishes year-round at their family restaurant. I soon went from busing tables to bagging groceries and then stocking shelves at the local grocery store.

I grew up on a small farming and ranching operation. So whether it was drying dishes after dinner or helping my dad with the cattle, hard work was simply a requirement for every single member of my family. In addition to tending cattle, my dad worked as a utility lineman. And my mother worked in a factory inspecting wheels on the assembly line.

Like a lot of Americans, I learned the dignity of work long before I ever held a job. I learned at home.

Everyone deserves a fair shot at success in this country. That is at the heart of why raising the minimum wage truly matters.

Minimum wage workers are not just teenagers. They are single parents working two jobs to make ends meet. They are women working a minimum- wage job at a movie theater for 8 years waiting for a raise. They are students working toward a degree that they hope will make all the difference in their lives. They are mothers and fathers working 40 hours a week--sometimes many more--to support their families.

These are the Americans who work hard and earn the Federal minimum wage and still find it difficult--some would argue impossible--to get ahead.

At $7.25 an hour, the Federal minimum wage has lost more than 30 percent of its value over the past four decades. Groceries and housing, education and energy costs all continue to rise, but the minimum wage simply has not kept pace.

This financial hardship is especially felt by women who make up a majority of minimum wage workers in this country. And stagnant wages hinder a family's chance to work their way into the middle class.

For many, raising the minimum wage means the difference between poverty and dignity. It can mean the difference between a trip to the food bank and a trip to the grocery store. It means the difference between earning enough to just barely get by and earning enough to at least think about the future.

That is why I am supporting the Minimum Wage Fairness Act to raise the Federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour by 2015.

According to recent estimates, more than 100,000 New Mexicans would receive a direct raise from this legislation, and another 43,000 would see their pay increase as overall wages improve, dramatically increasing economic opportunities for New Mexico families.

Raising the minimum wage is not just good for those workers; it is good for business and it is good for the economy at large. A higher minimum wage helps reduce turnover, increases productivity, and boosts consumer demand.

A higher minimum wage puts more money in the pockets of people who spend locally and helps create a ladder of opportunity into the middle class.

Americans are no strangers to hard work and embrace the belief that if you work hard and you play by the rules, you should be able to get ahead, you deserve a fair shot.

There are cities in New Mexico that are already taking the initiative and raising the minimum wage on their own. The city of Santa Fe's minimum wage is $10.51 per hour. As a city councilor myself, I fought to raise the minimum wage in Albuquerque. And today Albuquerque's minimum wage is still $1.25 more than the current Federal rate.

In Las Cruces, there is a growing grassroots effort to raise that city's minimum wage.

I know this fight. We need to raise the national minimum wage so that all workers have a fair shot to get ahead. Because, the truth is, the deck has been stacked against working families for some time now. Too many working families are forced to make decisions that hurt the progress and strength of our Nation as a whole--such as taking on an extra shift instead of pursuing their education, or having to choose between paying the heating bill or the phone bill.

Raising the minimum wage is key to making this economic recovery work for all of us. But raising the minimum wage alone is not enough to constitute a middle-class economic agenda.

We need to put preschool within the financial grasp of every working family, and we need to address the outrageous increases in college tuition and loan costs. We must invest in vocational training and help build the modern American manufacturing economy of the 21st century. We must close the gender wage gap to ensure that women are paid what they deserve--paid equally with men.

Fair, livable wages, together with educational opportunities for middle-class families--that is a formula for a real opportunity agenda.

It is time to ensure that every New Mexican, every American has a fair shot. It is time to raise the minimum wage.

Mr. President, as a member of the climate change task force, I am pleased to join my colleagues in calling for action on tackling one of our Nation's greatest challenges. I wish to start by thanking Senator Whitehouse, Senator Schatz, and Senator Boxer for their leadership on this issue.

Tonight we will illustrate that climate change is not theoretical and cannot be ignored. We will discuss how sound science can be used to better understand and manage climate impacts. We will highlight the moral imperative that we have in Congress to implement real solutions.

In my home State of New Mexico we are seeing bigger fires, dryer summers, more severe floods when it finally does rain, and less snowpack in the winter. Our Nation's second most extreme year for weather on record was in 2012, but in New Mexico we experienced the hottest year on record. Over the last 4 years alone, we have seen the two largest fires in New Mexico's history.

The reality is that things are only going to get worse if we don't act. If we have any hope of reversing the effects of climate change-- and we truly must--it is critical that we embrace this challenge now and lead the world in innovation, efficiency, and clean energy.

Speaking through the Chair to the Senator from Hawaii, I am happy to get started and give an opening statement and focus on the State of New Mexico and some of the climate impacts we have seen in the last decade, and then perhaps engage in a conversation with my colleague the Senator from New Jersey.

I think it bears saying that this is a historic evening. This is an incredible

first step in recognizing the challenge that lies ahead. I am here tonight as a member of the climate change task force. I join my colleagues in calling for action on tackling what is unquestionably one of our country's greatest challenges but a challenge we are up to meeting.

We are here to illustrate, for starters, that climate change is not theoretical. We are here to discuss how sound science can be used to better understand and manage the very real impacts of climate change that we are seeing and to highlight the moral imperative we have in Congress to implement real solutions.

I thought I would start tonight with something that is just about anywhere in the United States. If you are a gardener, if you are a farmer, if you are a horticulturist, if you have an orchard of fruit trees, you probably know these maps. They are the U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zone maps.

When I hear people deny our climate is changing and how much our climate has already changed, I think it is very helpful to look back to the year 1990--the year I graduated from high school--and to look at the USDA plant hardiness zone map for the United States and to compare it to the one that came out in 2006. What you see when you look at this map is literally every single plant hardiness zone. If you are a gardener, you take these to the bank. This tells you whether a certain crop can grow in your zone. If you are in Minnesota, the answer to what is going to thrive in your garden is going to be very different than if you are in Arizona or New Mexico. What you see when you look at these maps is all of these zones have literally moved north.

In the case of my home State of New Mexico, there are zones that existed in the northern part of the State--up around Taos and Chama, and at a high elevation, where the Sangre de Cristo mountains reach up to over 13,000 feet. There are zones that existed in 1990 that exist nowhere in the State today because it has warmed so much. In fact, those zones only exist at the highest elevations in the State of Colorado to our north.

I don't think you can look at this map and say our climate is not getting warmer. It captures year after year of real-world experience of the people who rely on these maps to make sure our food supply and all the plants we use for other purposes as well are safe and productive.

In my home State of New Mexico, one of the other impacts we are seeing we have heard from other Western States tonight, as well as up and down the intermountain West and the Rocky Mountains, has been the impact of forest fire. We are seeing bigger fires and drier summers. We are seeing more severe floods when it does rain and less snowpack in the winter.

In 2012, looking back just 2 years ago, it was our Nation's second most extreme year on record for weather. In New Mexico, it was actually the hottest year we have experienced since we started collecting temperature records. With humidity levels lower and temperatures higher, we are dealing with fire behavior in the Southwest that is markedly more intense than anything we have seen in the past.

When people think of the State of New Mexico, and if they have not been to New Mexico, they often think of it as one of the southwestern arid desert low-elevation States. The reality that I grew up with was the high elevation forests of New Mexico. We literally have millions of acres of mountains and forests. If you just saw a photo, you might say: Well, that looks like Colorado or that looks like Montana. Those are all up and down our mountain ranges from the southern part of the State. We have the Gila. Up in the northern part of the State, we have the Santa Fe National Forest, the Carson National Forest, the Jemez mountains, and the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

One of the things that has evolved over the years which exists in the high elevation western forests is the ability to deal with forest fire, in particular, our Ponderosa pine forests. We used to have a regime where every 10 years or so we would have a fire in those forests. That fire would not burn the forest down. It would move through the Ponderosa pine. It would burn fine fuels, as we call them, such as the needles that fall from the canopy of the Ponderosa pine forest, the small pieces of woody debris, and the grass that grows in between the Ponderosa pine trees, and it would sort of clean out the understory and it would leave this incredible cathedral of high elevation Ponderosa pine forest with grass in between the trees, but that is changing.

This incredibly sad photo is exhibit A on what happens when the temperature increases just a little bit. We are seeing fire behavior in New Mexico that is like nothing in the historical record and nothing within the context of normal behavior. We are seeing what they call stand-replacing fires. I believe this was a couple of months after the Las Conchas fire a few years ago. If I remember correctly, the Las Conchas fire was in 2011 in the Jemez mountains. It was the single largest fire in our State's history at the time. Since then, we have had a bigger fire, the Whitewater-Baldy fire.

What was particularly concerning about the Las Conchas fire is how it burned--how intensely it burned, how it burned down slope with stand- replacing flames, and how it literally didn't leave behind any of those big fire-protected trees. Those Ponderosa pines are built to survive fire after fire throughout the course of their lives. They may live to be 300 years old. They have such thick bark that typically in the past they survived dozens and dozens of fires in the course of their lifetimes.

As we can see from this, almost nothing survived large parts of this fire, and that is what we are seeing as temperatures increase. As those temperatures increase, the humidity level in the fuels goes down, and the fuels burn hotter. The fuels are able to jump up into the canopy and literally burn out the entire forest. We can see a few patches of green here. This is one of the most destructive fires in our State's history.

Over the last 4 years alone, as I mentioned, we have seen the two largest fires in our State's history. With elevated temperatures, studies by Los Alamos National Labs predict that three-quarters of our evergreen forest in New Mexico could be gone by 2050. In my lifetime, three-quarters of our high-elevation conifer evergreen forest could be gone.

These are places we rely on for our economy. They hold snow in the winter. They produce an enormous number of jobs. We have approximately 68,000 jobs that are tied to public lands recreation in the State. Many of those are centered around these high-elevation forests where people hunt for elk in the fall. They produce the waters that allow people to raft in the Rio Grande during the summer. They are the places where people cross-country and alpine-ski in the winter. They are under direct threat from a changing climate.

We now know that the extreme weather we are seeing comes at an enormous economic cost. There was a new study produced in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Environment that reveals the trend and how much ignoring this problem has cost the American taxpayer over the course of the last couple of decades. They went back and looked at firefighting in the early 1990s, around 1993. The average cost of fighting fires in our national forests at that time was $350 million a season. That is a lot of money; that is real money; and that is spread over many different States. Fast forward to today, and on average we are spending $2 billion, with a B, a fire season fighting fires.

Yesterday the Washington Post reported that the study's conclusions ``underscore what the agencies responsible for fighting wildfires--the Interior Department, the Agriculture Department's Forest Service--have said for years. Global warming is accelerating climate change in the West, resulting in winters with less precipitation and a drier landscape. The wildfire season that historically started in June and ended in September now starts in May and ends in September.'' I would say that in New Mexico we haven't been lucky enough to have it begin in May and end in September; we have actually had some fires that were completely outside of that window.

I remember a few years ago as I was running for Congress in the fall of 2007, leading up to the 2008 elections, I watched as the Monzano Mountains near my home in Albuquerque burned in November, around Thanksgiving time. We saw extreme fire behavior

there--fires once again burning down slope, in November, and fire behaviors even in the middle of the night that we normally wouldn't see except in the middle of the day in the middle of summer.

It has been something that has touched our State dramatically. It happens now with such regularity that we are almost used to it, but it puts lives at risk. It puts property at risk. Many people in this Chamber probably remember all of the brave firefighters who literally lost their lives in Arizona last year fighting these fires. In fact, those firefighters helped on a New Mexico fire before in the very area we saw with the picture I showed of how the Las Conchas fire burned.

One of the related issues is the relationship between the economy of my home of New Mexico and the impact of snowfall and how snowfall has changed as a result of a changing climate.

This is a map of the Four Corners States. This is Albuquerque, NM, here, Santa Fe; this is the Four Corners area where Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico all come together. Historically, our economy relies very much on not just rainfall and precipitation but the value of a strong snowpack. Agriculture in the Southwest does not work as it does in other parts of the country where crops are literally watered by rain. We store our snowpack in reservoirs. We rely on the fact that snow lasts longer and is released slowly from the high elevation forests and mountains. It gets stored in reservoirs and then is used to irrigate hundreds of square miles up and down the Rio Grande Valley throughout the heart of New Mexico, as well as other valleys in the State, such as the Pecos Valley. We have seen dramatic changes in the extent of both snow cover as well as the amount of water that is stored in that snow.

These two images show snow cover in 2010 and in 2014. They illustrate a trend that is becoming all too common with the current drought conditions and with warming winter temperatures. So 2010 was a relatively good year for us. We had snow cover, as my colleagues can see, across much of the northern part of the State. As we move into even higher elevation areas up in Colorado, very intense snows in the San Juans that drain down into the Rio Grande, the San Juan rivers in New Mexico. If we look at the Mogollon Rim, which goes all the way from Gila, NM, up through Arizona on its way toward the Grand Canyon, just a long, high-elevation geologic feature that stores snowpack for both Arizona and New Mexico, we can look over at the 2014 image and what we see is a dramatic reduction in the amount of snow cover. As a result, the runoff we have experienced in this drought has been a fraction of what we used to think of as normal. It is sort of the new normal.

In December of 2012, two researchers affiliated with the University of New Hampshire unveiled a study around snow and winter tourism impacts called ``Climate Impacts on the Winter Tourism Economy in the United States.'' That report, completed for the Natural Resources Defense Council and Protect Our Winters, an organization founded in 2007 by professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones, concluded that the economies that rely on winter sports tourists have a lot to lose if we fail to take action on climate change.

The Presiding Officer probably heard some of the recent stories around the Sochi Olympics--stories I couldn't have imagined as a child--of literally covering up huge amounts of snow to insulate it from the elements so it didn't melt, so it could be used in some of those sports. The report states that December 2011 through February 2012 was the fourth warmest winter on record since 1896 and the third lowest snow cover extent since 1966 when satellites began giving us images just like these.

When it doesn't snow in the Intermountain West, communities that rely on winter sports tourists take an enormous economic hit. Fewer people lodge in their hotels, fewer people shop in their stores, and fewer people eat in their restaurants. If we were to ask the businesses in places such as Taos, NM, or Ruidoso in the south central part of the State, Red River and others spread across the high-elevation portions of my State, they will tell us when there is no snow; they see an enormous reduction in the amount of business activity, in the gross receipts in those small towns, and it ripples through the entire economy.

That report points out that ski resorts in the northern part of New Mexico are the primary drivers of New Mexico's $182 million ski industry. Winter tourism in New Mexico provides more than 3,100 jobs. We are a State of only 2 million people, but 3,100 jobs has a $104 million impact on our economy. In low snowfall years, New Mexico lost out on an estimated $48 million in ski resort revenue and had nearly 600 fewer jobs compared to higher snowfall years. Winter sports tourists are an extremely important part of my State's economy, and I am very concerned that if we continue to do nothing about climate change, we will lose those tourist dollars.

Climate change is very real and it is impacting our bottom line in the State of New Mexico. Climate change is also leaving a devastating imprint on our agricultural industry in the State of New Mexico. These images are striking to me, and these are satellite images from NASA.

This is the largest reservoir in the State of New Mexico. It is called Elephant Butte Reservoir. It is in the central part of the State. If a person is used to growing up in a State such as New Mexico and a person knows there are certain crops that are just iconically connected to the State, including green chili being at the top of the list, red chili--they are actually the same plant, but we will save that for another day--pistachios, pecans, all of these things are tied to irrigation and the ability to irrigate hundreds of square miles of agricultural land along the Rio Grande throughout the State.

In 1994, in the midnineties, Elephant Butte Reservoir was functioning as it had since the early 1900s, storing all of that snowpack we talked about a few minutes ago, making sure it was released to serve agriculture, to extend the irrigation season, to make sure those crops were realized. Then we began to get into this long-term, persistent drought. My colleagues have probably heard the stories about California and its drought and its impact on agriculture. New Mexico has experienced just as intense a reduction in snowpack, in predictability of summer precipitation. We get a lot of our moisture in the summer monsoon, the wettest time of the year outside of the winter. So we get some in the wintertime in snowpack typically and then in the summertime we have the summer thunderstorms, and the predictability of that has all changed now. But as we can see, so has the quantity.

Elephant Butte Reservoir is about 2 million acre feet in capacity. An acre foot of water is literally taking an acre of land and covering it in water 1 foot deep. It is about 325,000 gallons, if my memory serves me well. This is about 2 million acre feet. People can do the math. But it is literally the largest single body of reservoir water for agriculture and other uses in the State of New Mexico.

Fast forward to 2013. These were both taken in the same month, the month of July, which is kind of the height of the irrigation season. Three percent is what was left in Elephant Butte Reservoir. It literally doesn't even look like the same place. The northern extent of the reservoir has been dry land for much of the year in this photo. This has enormous ramifications for agriculture in our State and for other industries that use and rely on that water.

Farmers and ranchers are often first to see the effects of extreme weather. A 2012 study found that by 2020, New Mexico agriculture and ranching will lose $73 million annually due to climate change. We can layer that on to the $48 million we talked about a little while ago from impacts to the winter ski season. We start to see the very real cost of not doing anything about climate change.

The agricultural sector is incredibly vulnerable due to the sustained threat to the water supply, to soil and vegetation from sustained drought. Livestock levels in many areas of New Mexico were one-fifth of normal levels last year due to the scarce forage. So year after year of drought--not just 1 year but over and over again--is what leads to this incredible inability to even manage water. We don't have the water in the reservoir to be able to deal with the fact that we are not getting enough

precipitation. We have over the years sort of used our savings account, and now we are down to a very small amount of water that has to be stretched as far as we can in summer irrigation season. We have seen a number of parts of the Rio Grande run dry in the summer as a result.

Things are only going to get worse if we don't act and begin to address some of these conditions. If we have any hope of reversing the effects of climate change--and we truly must--it is critical we embrace this challenge now and that we lead the world in innovation, in efficiency, and in clean energy.

As our colleagues Senators Portman and Shaheen know, there is no cleaner source of energy than the ones we don't use in the first place. Energy efficiency and conservation should be the centerpiece of any strategy to address climate change. The easiest way we can reduce the amount of carbon pollution, methane pollution, and other greenhouse gases that make it into the atmosphere is to not use those in the first place.

Conservation pays enormous dividends. I remember when my wife and I bought our first home, we decided we wanted to make it as sustainable as we could, but it was a retrofit, so where do we start. Well, we have had solar on the roof of that home in Albuquerque for many years now, but that is not where we started. That wasn't the first place we put our investment. It wouldn't have made sense. The first thing we did is we insulated a home that had been built without insulation. We replaced windows that were leaking warm air to the outside all through the wintertime, not keeping cool air inside during the summertime. Efficiency is absolutely critical if we are going to begin to address our overall energy usage in this country and to reduce the amount of carbon pollution in particular we are putting into the atmosphere.

Getting the most out of each unit of energy, kilowatt, Btu should be a concern at every level of our government. The U.S. Federal Government is the largest energy consumer in our country, and the Federal Government has an obligation to lead by example when it comes to energy performance.

We heard a lot about the transportation sector and the advances we have made due to the fuel economy standards. But buildings are also an enormous part of our carbon and our pollution footprint in this country. They account for about 40 percent of our energy use, and they offer the greatest opportunities for savings. Investing in energy efficiency in those buildings isn't just good for our environment and for reducing air pollution; it is literally one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to grow our economy.

We have seen business energy efficiency take off in recent years and produce high-quality jobs all across this country. Energy efficiency is a large, low-cost, underutilized U.S. energy resource. Increasing our energy efficiency in the residential sector, commercial sector, industrial and governmental sectors offers Americans savings on their energy bills, opportunities for more jobs, improves our Nation's competitiveness, and it stretches every tax dollar further.

To help the Nation transition to cleaner and renewable sources of energy, I am also supporting efforts to streamline permitting for renewable energy projects on our public lands, while protecting access to those public lands for families and sportsmen to enjoy.

Another key to further development of renewable energy is to alleviate the bottlenecks in our electric power grid. Much of our power grid was developed decades ago, some of it nearly 100 years ago, and I am working in New Mexico to help tap our renewable resources by adding new transmission capacity and smart grids to an aging infrastructure.

We need to find better ways to make sure new transmission projects are well planned to protect the environment but can also move forward in a reasonable timeframe. Whether for our national security, our energy independence or our Nation's ability to compete in the global economy, our efforts and our solutions should be rooted in fact and driven by the best available science.

As we heard earlier tonight from our friend and colleague from Oklahoma, not everyone agrees. There are some who deny that climate change exists. There are some who are simply paralyzed by how big the problem is--the fear of the economic or political costs along the way. But one of the things that has bothered me the most, as we have had this debate, is too often we see scientific integrity undermined. We see scientific research politicized in an effort to advance ideological or purely political agendas or to protect certain industries and interests. Too often we see that some in Washington believe they are not just entitled to their own opinions but believe they are somehow entitled to their own facts. Frankly, none of us are entitled to our own facts.

No area of innovation in science will be more important than our Nation's ability to tackle climate change and lead the world in clean energy technology. We saw a lot of information earlier in the evening about the incredible growth we have seen in renewable sources of energy in recent years, particularly in wind and solar. The cost of solar has come down precipitously in recent times. It reminds me that in 1961 President John F. Kennedy made a bold claim that an American would walk on the Moon by the end of the decade. To many people that seemed absolutely ludicrous.

This is a similar challenge we face. Eight years after President Kennedy made that claim, Neil Armstrong did just that. It did not even take a decade. We need that kind of effort to be able to address the incredible challenge we have with a warming globe. We need to think big, we need to execute, and we need to innovate, as the Presiding Officer said.

Innovation is going to be so important as we deal with this issue. Frankly, in the United States we have met issue after issue that people said could not be solved or was too big or would cost us too much. We turned those around and into opportunities to grow new jobs and grow new industry.

As we look at this particular challenge, the real question is, is the economic activity that is going to be associated with solving these challenges--are we going to get the benefit of those technologies? Are we going to get the jobs from manufacturing, installing, developing those things or are we going to cede that leadership to other countries around the world?

Even the sleeping giant in China, with all of their policies over the years that have led to the incredible, dangerous pollution levels we see--where students actually put masks on statues in China to make a political point that there is no clean air to be had--even China is realizing they have to invest in this innovation, that they have a national interest in it.

We have the most innovative folks in the world. We have our National Laboratories. We have scientists and entrepreneurs who can come up with solutions that will take us further than we have seen with the incredible growth in wind and solar in the last few years. We need to make the commitment and move from just having a debate about these issues to employing the policy changes that will drive that innovation.

(Mr. SCHATZ assumed the Chair)

Mr. President, I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Rhode Island.

The Senator from Rhode Island brings up a very good point because obviously the Chinese have come to the conclusion that it is in their best interests to innovate and

to do it as rapidly as possible. He brings up some issues that, frankly, are not necessarily what I would call the most responsible or moral ways to move rapidly through that ladder of innovation. But, nonetheless, it is unmistakable that they are realizing just how important this is.

I think it is important for us to come to the same conclusion. I think it is important for us to realize if we cede these industries to China, they will be selling us the products of the future. We have seen this already with their ability to undercut the price and artificially lower the cost of producing solar panels and how deleterious that has been to our domestic manufacturing base for those technologies.

We need to make sure we are making the technologies of tomorrow's clean energy economy here and installing those technologies ourselves and getting the jobs, all the way from the innovation to the manufacturing, to the supply chain, to make sure we see the opportunities in this as well as other challenges.

I think what motivated me to be part of tonight is that, similar to the Presiding Officer, I have a couple of young kids at home--a 7-year- old named Micah, a 10-year-old--soon to be 11 years old--named Carter.

When I think of some of the issues the Senator from Rhode Island brought up and the briefings I receive on the Intelligence Committee-- and not only the intellectual property theft that has been reported in the open media but also the impacts we are seeing in places such as Central Asia, the glaciers that an enormous part of the world's population relies on for their fresh water, a place that has inherent and sometimes volatile conflicts right below the surface, where Pakistan and India and other countries come together--when we look around Southeast Asia and realize there is an enormous amount of the world's population living just a few feet above sea level who are exposed to those superstorms in a way that even those of us who have had to deal with superstorms such as Sandy cannot imagine because they did not have a home to shelter in or at least a home that looks like the places we have, it certainly sobers one.

I see the Senator from New Jersey is here.

Absolutely.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with the Senator from New Jersey who knows firsthand what some of these superstorms are capable of.

I thank my friend the Senator from New Jersey. These issues have such a profound impact on individual people and communities. When I think back to that Las Conchas fire that I talked about a little bit in my comments, I cannot help but think about Santa Clara Pueblo. Actually, maybe we can put up this other image too, because normally the fires lie down at night. That is what they used to do, at least. Here you can see the fire burning north of Los Alamos in the Jemez mountains in the middle of the night. You can imagine, this was sort of a scene from Espanola and Santa Fe across the valley. Everyone I talked to at the time had never seen a conflagration in the northern part of the State quite like it.

One community that was particularly impacted and is still recovering today is Santa Clara Pueblo. They have this incredible, beautiful canyon that is tied to their identity and their religion and who they are as a people. Unfortunately, this fire burned the headwaters of that canyon, and that produces the water for their irrigation, as well as with the Rio Grande. It is more than just economics. It is an identity. It is a place that cannot be separated from the community and the people there.

The impact of that, unlike a typical disaster we think about, such as an earthquake, where you have the disaster and then you have the recovery from the disaster, these fires in these communities happen multiple times. You have the fire, and it is usually in May or June, which is the driest time of the year in the State of New Mexico. It is the time when the snowpack is long gone and we have not had precipitation, oftentimes in months. Then you get these early lightning strikes that do not actually have rain associated with them.

You have the fire. Finally, the fire goes out when the rains come, and then you have the thunderstorms that come and flood these communities and take their farmland and bury it under 6 inches of cobble and gravel or a foot of everything but topsoil, so they cannot use it. You have roads literally impassable and infrastructure destroyed, irrigation ditches that have been in place for hundreds of years blown out or filled with sediment so they cannot be used.

It happens not just that first year, but until these places recover with some sort of vegetation--I have to say that they are not coming back as the same kind of forest in many cases. But as the vegetation does recover, you finally get a more moderated situation where you do not get those floods.

But I just have been too many times now with people at the Pueblos Nambe across the valley, same situation, different fire. It is touching everyone and their communities. It is really a struggle, when we cannot even recognize the problem here in Washington, DC, to look at my constituents, you know, and say: Hopefully, through FEMA and other measures, we can address the emergency. But we have to start addressing the problem.

I want to ask the Senator from New Jersey--I mean, your State just came through one of the most unbelievable superstorms in our country's recent

history with Superstorm Sandy. I can only imagine--we have very different States. My problem is usually not enough moisture. Oftentimes in extreme weather events you have too much. We certainly do not have coastal issues. I would love to hear more about the direct economic impact of what it meant--the Senator from New Jersey is someone who comes to this Chamber with something that I value enormously, which is the experience of governing at the local level where you are close to the people. I was a city councilor. You were a mayor of a huge city. You know what those impacts are to infrastructure and economy and to small businesses when a storm such as that hits your State. I would love to have a little bit of that perspective because I think it is important, as this grows and grows and the challenge faces us head-on, to understand how it is impacting your constituents and their small businesses and all of the things you have direct experience with from your local government work.

Through the Chair, I thank the Senator from New Jersey in particular for sharing those stories, because we need to take some inspiration from people all across this country, and certainly in New Jersey, who have faced up to incredible challenges such as Superstorm Sandy and shown that when we put our minds to it Americans can accomplish just about anything. We need to take that inspiration and find the will in this body to move forward on what we know are the facts and to start to have a conversation about what are the policies we are going to put in place to make sure we do meet that challenge. How are we going to do it in a way that recognizes what the Senator from New Jersey had said a number of times tonight, that right now people care so much in this country about the fact that we need jobs and we need economic development. Even though one can look at the stock market and say there has been some sort of recovery in this country, most of our constituents will tell us they are not feeling it.

We have an opportunity to create a whole new generation of jobs. The question is are we going to create them in the United States or are we going to let someone else create them somewhere else in the world.

One of the speakers earlier tonight, the Senator from Massachusetts, brought up the incredible innovation that has happened in recent years in the auto industry with hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and even electric vehicles. Certainly my State is one of the Southwestern States competing, if you will, to try to get Tesla, a disruptive technology manufacturing company, to possibly put their battery manufacturing facility in the State of New Mexico. They are looking at a number of States in the Southwest, but we think with our combination of two national laboratories, Los Alamos and Sandia, the rail lines that we have in the State, the innovativeness around renewable energy that is part of their values, that we offer something unique we hope they will look at as their site and where to put that facility. But think of all the jobs in an industry and a company that a few years ago a few people wouldn't have believed in.

College.

Before there was a Tesla, when I was in college in the early 1990s--and this is one of the things that makes me such a strong believer in innovation and really gives me the optimism to say that we can do just about anything as a country when we set our mind to it--my fellow students and I joined the Sun race in 1993. At the college I attended, a number of my colleagues who were studying electrical engineering--I was studying mechanical engineering, and we had people who were studying material science--we all got together and we designed and built a car, a solar car, that we raced across the United States. We raced from Dallas, TX, up to Minneapolis, MN.

People were asking us along the way: When are we going to be driving solar cars? That really wasn't quite the point, but it was a great opening to say this isn't about having solar cars. We are not going to have solar cars because you need a pretty big car to get enough sunlight to do the job. But it is about driving that innovation and engaging the best--and we have the best--education system at the collegiate level in the world and putting that to work to make sure we are growing the next generation of jobs and the opportunity that represents.

While there are not solar cars riding around in the United States today, there are now electric cars, and many of the fundamental innovations we made are now showing up throughout the auto industry. In fact, one of the things, if you look at how disruptive the Toyota Prius was a few years ago, one of the reasons why it was so efficient was a little thing called regenerative braking, where when you step on the brakes, instead of all that energy being wasted, the heat through the brakes is turned into electricity and put back in the batteries in the car. Now you are seeing that in hybrids throughout the auto industry. That is something we used in the early 1990s in this contest with our solar car.

We had LED lights long before anybody had LED lights in their cars. We were making turn signals and lights on the solar car with LEDs. We built our car out of carbon fiber. It kind of looked like an upside- down wing. All of these kinds of innovations are now standard fare. They are things that get used in the American auto industry in cars built right here in the United States to make all of our cars more efficient and to create some really good jobs along the way.

I believe we ought to be able to do that more broadly with clean energy technology to help address some of these climate issues.

Right here at home.

Please do.

Absolutely.

If the Senator would yield, we have heard time and time again that when we allowed the market to innovate and deal with these same kinds of challenges--whether it is NOX and SOx or other pollutants we have been able to address in the past; whether it is the hole in the ozone layer--I mean, talk about a global issue of pollution--the market was able to solve those.

I think I read it in a book somewhere.

It reminded me of growing up as I did. My mother worked in the auto industry, and there was a time when we had a great debate. My grandfather complained based on something he heard on the radio about these catalytic converters which were going to ruin the American auto industry.

What happened is when we decided to clean up emissions from the auto industry, we actually created an entire new industry around catalytic converters, which for many years afterward was an export industry for the United States. Since we took the first step, none of the other countries understood the technology well and could manufacture it well. So as the rest of the world followed our lead to clean up their pollution, they were importing our catalytic converters.

We can look at example after example where this has been the case. When we allow the market to innovate, we can solve the most challenging pollution problems.

I do. And I think it is worth noting that when we speak about the four Republican Administrators of the EPA, they have all looked at the history of this argument and how it really reflects on a conversation we have had since the 1960s--and I think the Senator put it so eloquently--that it is not about jobs or quality of life; it has to be about both.

Those Republican Administrators of the EPA have watched as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act and the work done on the Montreal Protocol--all those debates were fundamentally identical to this one. People said that this was going to cost too much, that we were going to lose jobs if we made these decisions to clean up our environment. And what happened? If we look back at 1980 and today and the policy changes made, we have a GDP twice as big as what we had in 1980. We have doubled our country's economic output at the same time we have cleaned up our air and water and said we are going to have the cleanest country in the world. We are not going to be like China, where kids walking to school have to wear masks and can't play outside.

When we think about young people in this country, the thing that always strikes me is that when we talk about climate change and when I go home, people are concerned about impacts and the things we talked about before--not the fact that forest fires are happening but that they are happening too often and with such extreme fire behavior now; the fact that drought is getting to be the norm, not the exception. But kids understand this issue, young people understand this issue in a way that calls out for action. I think that is why it is so important that we are doing this tonight, to send a message that we are hearing that because when I talk to high school students or kids in junior high or at college campuses, they understand they are inheriting all the weight of inaction.

I remember as a kid hearing explanations of how the greenhouse effect works and what this is going to do long term. Here we are close to 35 years later, and we are seeing the impacts.

Our kids and our grandkids are going to see impacts a whole lot more extreme than even what our constituents have already shouldered. We can't wait anymore. We have a moral obligation. We can argue about what the best way to address these challenges is and we should. We should find a way to address these challenges that gets the buy-in of a majority of this deliberative body. But we can't step aside any longer and say we are not going to act. That would be irresponsible.

I am learning everyday, but I am looking forward to visiting too.

I think the Senator has hit the nail on the head when he said that those among us with the least economic means often bear the highest cost.

That is certainly true in New Mexico. We have enormous economic challenges. We have communities where people cannot afford to get up and move because the climate situation changed. We have literally cities where wells are dry and there is no water. Reservoirs run dry, and there is no water. Las Vegas has come within--Las Vegas and New Mexico has come within a month or two, several times now, of their reservoir literally going dry. A town such as Magdalena, NM. Their well lost water to the town for a number of weeks and they had to come up with a plan for how to deal with that and diversify their water supply again at huge costs to local residents and the State.

These are real challenges being borne by people who do not have discretionary income to be throwing at these challenges. We have people who live a very traditional lifestyle, who are living in these forests. When there are wildfires, they are the first to bear the economic brunt of that.

We see the impact drought has had. The Senator mentioned fishing off the coast of New Jersey. That is kind of how many of our traditional communities view mule deer and elk and wild game that have always called New Mexico home. We see direct impacts to our rival population when people--when the mule deer population crashes or there is a fire that literally you cannot hunt in the same places because this year it is closed due to the damage by fire and they are not letting anyone in.

There are people who rely on that activity to literally get them through the winter. Those impacts are always felt by the people who have the least need to be in control of that situation, and that is an enormous challenge. We should do a better job of illustrating some of those stories and making sure we make clear what the impacts are to the people who have the least means.

They cannot stay in a hotel simply because there is an extreme weather event on the coast of New Jersey or there is a fire in New Mexico.

There are many of my constituents who could not afford to stay in a hotel, and they are the ones bearing the brunt of the challenges. Traditional farming communities that used to be able to grow, they are cut off from the irrigation season. If they get cut off from water halfway to a crop that produces--some sort of production that is not like growing grass or alfalfa, but they literally cut off the water before their crop comes in, they lose it all. Even if they got to 90 percent but didn't quite get to where their crop actually produces, they can lose it all. It is those kinds of impacts my constituents feel when we have some of these extreme weather events.

You see it now.

The amazing thing is that in our conversations we have sort of educated each other on these two States that are kind of close to each other in the alphabet----

But miles and miles apart. New Jersey has a coastline. New Mexico does not have anything resembling an ocean anywhere near us. Our States have incredibly different histories and yet so many of the same kinds of issues. I think another State that could have a different set of issues, yet many of the same threads run through it, is obviously the State of Hawaii. Our colleague Senator Schatz of Hawaii took it upon himself to help organize this. I have been amazed at the things that my home State of New Mexico has in common with the State of Hawaii. I wonder if the Senator would maybe spend a little time talking about what with regard to his constituents inspires him when the Senator sees how they are stepping up and doing what we need to do in the Senate, recognizing there is a problem that we as a nation or at least in our communities have the potential to solve.

The Senator didn't drive to Hawaii.

Mr. President, lest we forget, more than 30,000 brave Americans are still serving in harm's way in Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform are serving around the world. They all volunteered. In return for their volunteerism, we made a number of promises. The ability to maintain the strongest and most dedicated military force in the world depends on our Nation's ability to keep those promises.

I am a proud cosponsor of the legislation being debated this week, S. 1982, which is perhaps the most significant veterans legislation to come before Congress in many years. This legislation has the strong support of virtually every veterans organization in the country, including the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Disabled American Veterans, the Vietnam Veterans of America, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. These organizations support the bill because it renews our promise to our veterans.

I am very fortunate to represent the State of New Mexico, which has one of the highest rates of military volunteerism in the Nation. New Mexico, a small State of 2 million people, is home to more than 170,000 veterans, and 2,000 New Mexicans endured the Bataan Death March during World War II.

New Mexico is home to many of our Nation's finest military installations: Kirtland Air Force Base, the Air Force's sixth largest base, with over 100 partners and a strategic role in ensuring our Nation's safe, secure, and reliable nuclear weapons complex; Cannon Air Force Base, the fastest growing Air Force base in the country, leading the fight in special operations; Holloman Air Force Base, an indispensable Air Force base with unparalleled airspace now and into the future; and White Sands Missile Range, the largest military installation in the Nation, with a testing and training environment that is unmatched anywhere in the world.

Additionally, New Mexico's National Guard employs roughly 3,800 full- time and part-time military personnel.

Collectively, there are 18,000 military personnel serving today in New Mexico. Volunteerism is not simply a career choice for New Mexicans; it is a way of life. It is ingrained in our State's rich history of putting community and country first.

The bill before us today renews our promise to all of them and to all of those who are willing to lay down their lives for their country. It provides benefits to all generations of veterans and their families, and it eliminates the cost-of-living adjustment penalty on military retirees.

The legislation incorporates bills and ideas from both Democrats and Republicans to address the disability claims backlog, including one of my own. Across New Mexico I have heard from too many veterans who are frustrated with the delays they experience in receiving their disability benefits.

Last June Senator Heller of Nevada and I introduced the Veterans Benefits Claims Faster Filing Act, which requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to ensure that every veteran is informed of the vast differences in times for processing compensation claims when filing a fully developed claim versus a non-fully developed paper claim.

It takes, on average, 113 days for veterans to receive a final disability rating if they file a fully developed claim online. Compare that to over a year if they file a non-fully developed paper claim. Filing claims online through the Fully Developed Claims Program accelerates turnaround time and makes processing more efficient. Doing so also provides an additional year of retroactive benefits as an incentive to veterans who file a fully developed claim.

The Faster Filing Act and other legislative efforts represent a collective effort to reduce the backlog and ensure that our veterans receive the benefits they have earned.

I am also proud to have cosponsored legislation introduced by my colleague from Alaska Senator Begich to provide advanced appropriations for all--all--VA spending accounts. This would ensure that veterans receive uninterrupted access to the benefits they have earned, even in the midst of a government shutdown such as the one that so irresponsibly occurred last fall. It is unacceptable that veterans would fall victim to the partisan politics of a government shutdown. The legislation today includes a fix to ensure that never happens again.

The bill also helps put veterans back to work. It reauthorizes a 2- year extension for the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program, which retrains unemployed veterans for high-demand occupations. It requires the VA to establish a 3-year program to provide young veterans under 30 the opportunity to serve in an internship that would pair veterans with private sector employers so they can gain civilian work experience.

The bill expands the VA's successful caregivers program to provide caregiver benefits to veterans of all generations, in a similar manner as post-9/11 veterans.

America's service men and women consider our Nation's principles important enough to defend them against all enemies and at any cost. They volunteer to do so. But volunteerism only works if we fulfill our promises. Few sacrifices are as selfless as those our military men and women make in defense of this Nation. We owe them more than a debt of gratitude; we owe them action in both our words and our deeds. This bill backs our word with action. It fulfills our promises. I hope we see it pass this week.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, in the midst of the current crisis there have been some who have questioned the relevance of the Federal Government to our overall economy. Some have even called the current shutdown just a slimdown. But in my home State of New Mexico, there is no question that this government shutdown has been irresponsible, it has been reckless, and it has been absolutely devastating to our economy.

New Mexico serves the Nation in many ways, through our national labs and our military bases, with Federal lands and monuments that host Americans from every corner of the Nation. As a result, Federal dollars in 2010 were nearly 36 percent of our State's gross domestic product. This figure includes veterans' benefits, Social Security, and student financial aid.

Federal dollars go toward grants to help fund State and local health care, transportation, education, and housing. Many of us who have served as either city councilors or mayors, legislators or Governors realize the role Federal passthrough dollars play in keeping our States and municipalities solvent.

In New Mexico, Federal contracts are also critical for our small business community. Defense purchases account for almost two-thirds of total procurement spending. We are home to nearly 27,000 Federal workers--workers who want to go back to work, workers who just want to do their job.

Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory employ an additional 18,000 New Mexicans as contractors, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad employs 1,000 more. That is out of 2 million people. So it is an understatement to say that shutting down the Federal Government strikes at the heart of my State's economy.

Between sequestration furloughs, the shutdown, and the current impasse over averting a catastrophic default on the Nation's's debt, hard-working, middle-class families across New Mexico are the ones who are saddled with uncertainty and hardship. These manufactured crises have very real consequences for these families.

Since the shutdown began, I have heard time and again from constituents who are paying the price for this reckless debacle. They say they feel like the collateral damage in the ongoing ideological battles in Washington, DC. Hard-working civil servants dedicated to their jobs and their country have been sent home without pay, while many others have to work through the shutdown without a paycheck.

Yesterday I spoke with a Rio Rancho resident named Chad Didier, a former marine who is now an air traffic controller in Albuquerque. During the shutdown he has been reporting to work every day to help keep our airspace safe, but he does not know when he will start getting a paycheck again. This comes on the heels of forgoing pay earlier this year due to sequestration.

As the father of four young children and the sole breadwinner in his family, he is worried about making rent next month and making his car payments on time. He is frustrated because he is doing everything he has been asked of him, everything he is supposed to do to take care of his family, to serve his country, but he feels his government has failed him.

Last week, because of the shutdown, the National Nuclear Security Administration ordered that Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs should be ready to shut down by October 21.

Katy Korkos with the Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce told the Los Alamos Monitor that the impact of the shutdown at LANL could hit subcontractors twice as hard as other entities because they will never be able to recover the income they are currently losing.

EnergySolutions, a subcontractor that processes and ships transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, has already had to lay off 154 workers.

The general manager at a department store in Los Alamos was quoted in the newspaper as saying: ``Anytime the lab sneezes, we catch cold.''

In southern New Mexico, Crysta Quintero told the Las Cruces Sun-News that she was immediately worried for her 3-year-old son after hearing about the Federal Government shutdown. That is because she relies on the Federal WIC Program to supply a prescription baby formula for her son who has a disability. Unfortunately, Crysta is not alone. Tens of thousands of women and children in New Mexico who receive assistance from this program every month could be left without vital nutritional support if the shutdown continues to drag on.

What is also at stake is the incredible work being done at New Mexico's colleges and universities. These first-rate research institutions rely heavily

on Federal grants to fund staff, training, and projects, including clinical trials for cancer treatment. I am told those trials--and years of hard work--will have to pause or even stop if the government stays closed. Scientists will see their salaries reduced, and research students who want to dedicate their lives to finding the next cure will have to wait even longer just to earn their degree.

Because of the shutdown, important job-creating investments in small business--the very engine of our economy--are delayed. On average, over $300,000 in Federal loans are approved for small businesses in New Mexico each and every day--but not today. Because of this reckless and irresponsible shutdown, those small businesses are not getting the loans to grow their business. They are not hiring new workers.

New Mexico is home to many of the Nation's most treasured public conservation lands, including national parks such as Carlsbad Caverns, BLM monuments such as the newly created Rio Grande del Norte, and national forests such as the Gila and Carson that are unstaffed during the fall hunting seasons. More than 4,000 men and women work on these public lands, and they are being forced to stay home.

Andrew Graves is an entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Albuquerque. Specifically, Andrew is in a program called Forest Health Protection that works across agency lines providing expertise and assistance to Federal and tribal land managers, foresters throughout New Mexico so they can deal with outbreaks of disease or insect infestations. Andrew says they have already canceled or postponed meetings and training because of the shutdown.

Each day the government remains closed, thousands of people who planned to visit our national parks and our wildlife refuges will be turned away. That does not just hurt the government. Restaurants and hotels, tire shops, and grocery stores feel this pain in towns such as Socorro, Taos, Grants, Alamogordo, and Las Cruces.

Because of the shutdown, the Bureau of Land Management has stopped processing energy leases on Federal land. A lengthy delay in the permitting process will not only take its toll on New Mexico's oil and gas industry but also on the revenues generated for New Mexico's public schools. The 8,000 New Mexican children enrolled in Head Start are feeling the impact of the shutdown on top of the cuts sequestration has already imposed on that critical program.

The shutdown also endangers the benefits that we owe over 170,000 veterans in New Mexico, people who served this country with distinction. The VA will run out of money to pay mandatory benefits by the end of October if we do not act.

Americans are fed up. Other debates in recent years have been just as heated, just as partisan, but this crisis is far more dangerous for our country. The American people--my constituents in New Mexico--want their Federal Government to function again. The Federal workers in my State want to go back to work. Our constituents want us to move past the gridlock and actually govern. They want economic security and to be able to take care of their families.

It is time to reopen the government, it is time to take the threat of default off the table, and it is time to stop playing games with the livelihoods of hard-working Americans.

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

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

Mr. President, we are here today with our government doors shuttered because of a failure to understand basic civics. Frankly, this ``my way or the highway'' brinkmanship has been building so long here in Washington that I would not be surprised if the American people say ``a pox on both your houses, Republican and Democratic.''

Why are we in this fix? How did we get here? Sometimes when you are lost in the woods, it helps to retrace your footsteps so you can find the way back out. We are here because some of our colleagues have forgotten their middle school civics lesson. They have forgotten the ``I'm Just a Bill'' episode of ``Schoolhouse Rock'' that some of the folks in the seventies and eighties remember that reminds us all that to pass a bill or repeal a bill, you have to meet certain tests. You need a majority of the House of Representatives. You need a majority in the Senate. If someone is going to filibuster, you need 60 votes. And you need the signature and the support of the President.

We are here because my colleagues who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act do not have a majority of the Senate. They certainly do not control the White House despite waging an entire election over the health care law. Since they cannot repeal the health care law the way we all learned about in middle school, they decided to try something new. They have taken the government hostage. They have said: If you do not give us what we want, we are going to close down the Federal Government.

Can you imagine what it would look like if Democrats employed this kind of reckless and irresponsible tactic? What if we said: Unless you raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, we are not going to pass a spending bill. Remember in 2009 when our party tried to pass a cap-and- trade bill? We did not have the votes to overcome the filibuster in the Senate, so I guess the lesson here is that we should have refused

to fund the government until Republicans relented and passed a cap-and- trade bill. Can you imagine. That is not how our democracy works, it is not what our Founders envisioned, and it is not compromise. It is extortion.

It is our job to pass a spending bill every year. We can fight about how big that bill is. We can fight about how small that bill is going to be. But constitutional duty is not optional. Some are saying there needs to be further compromise on the spending bill, but it is clear that sometimes the Republican House does not know when to declare a victory. They actually got the spending levels they asked for. In the interests of keeping the government open, the Senate accepted House spending levels, sequester levels, in our funding resolution. I do not like those spending levels. Most Democrats do not support those spending levels. But we are not willing to risk the entire economy or well-being of our constituents just to get our way.

The bottom line is this: It is time to reopen the government--no strings attached, no policy riders, and no more hostage-taking, just a clean funding bill that stops hurting our public servants, our communities, and our economy, a clean funding resolution that keeps the lights on while we negotiate over a long-term budget. The Senate had the votes to pass such a bill, and we did. The House also has the votes to pass a clean funding bill, but Speaker Boehner will not bring it to the floor. He will not put it up for a vote because the most extreme Members of his caucus want to play hostage politics instead.

It is time to end this. It is time to drop the hostage politics and simply pass the one plan that has the votes to pass both Chambers--a clean funding bill.

Speaker Boehner, let them vote. Let your Members vote their conscience on a clean funding resolution. It is your duty, Mr. Speaker. Just let them vote. That is all we ask.

I yield.

Madam President, I wish to commend my colleagues Senators Shaheen and Portman for their work to bring this legislation to the floor. I commend as well Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Murkowski for their leadership in the energy committee.

Fully half of the energy we use in this great country is wasted. That is a fact we can no longer afford to ignore. Each one of us is able to make changes in our daily lives to increase our energy efficiency. There is no kilowatt hour, no Btu more valuable than the ones we do not actually use in the first place. But it is clear that we are going to have to do a lot more than turn the lights out when we leave home to be a leader in the world in this field.

As the largest energy consumer in the United States, I think the Federal Government has not only an obligation but also an opportunity to lead by example when it comes to energy performance. We know that buildings are the largest energy consumers in the United States today. Accounting for over 40 percent of our use, they offer the greatest opportunities for energy savings.

Over the summer I had the opportunity and the privilege of joining the Department of Energy in presenting the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility--that is a mouthful, I know. It is an important research facility in New Mexico, in my home State. We presented them with a Better Buildings Award on behalf of the DOE. The Federal Energy Management Program designed those awards, the Better Buildings Awards, to encourage significant reductions in energy usage in Federal buildings all across the country--reductions that go above and beyond the current codes and mandates that exist.

What the team at the desalinization research facility accomplished was nothing short of truly impressive and an example of what is possible with legislation such as this and in the field of energy efficiency. They were able to save approximately 300,000 kilowatt-hours per year--an annual savings of $42,000. That is a remarkable 53.6 percent of their former energy footprint at a time when that research facility was actually increasing the amount of research going on. They did this through thoughtful analysis, by implementing both active and passive energy conservation techniques, and with a capital investment of literally less than $800. For $800 and some engineering expertise, this research facility was able to save the taxpayers over $40,000 last year--$40,000 next year, $40,000 the year after that and into the future. That is a window into why this kind of legislation is so important and why we ought to be able to find common ground when it comes to energy efficiency.

I would also like to touch on another area of rapid energy innovation that is relevant to this legislation--the lighting sector. Lighting consumes 22 percent of the electricity that is generated in this country. That is $50 billion per year for consumers across the United States. In Albuquerque, Sandia National Laboratories is accelerating advances in what is called solid state light, or SSL, which is a rapidly evolving technology with the potential to reduce energy consumption in lighting by a factor of three to six times. My colleagues may have seen some of the new solid-state lights if they have been to Home Depot or Lowe's or their locally owned hardware store. These light bulbs are so efficient that when I was installing a couple in my son's bedroom a few weeks ago, I could literally put my hand on the light bulb because they make such good use of the energy they use.

Sandia has worked in solid-state lighting for a long time and their SSL Science Center is exploring new energy conversion techniques in tailored photonic structures. Drawing on their long history of research and development in this area--and, frankly, working closely with both university and private sector partners--they are working to understand the mechanisms and the defects in SSL semiconductor materials so they can make these already incredibly efficient light bulbs even more efficient.

Sandia is also investigating the basic conversion of electricity to light using radically new designs that can take these things even further--things such as luminescent nanowires, quantum dots, and even hybrid architectures that may be the bright light bulb of the future. This is progress driven by basic research and science--the kinds of investments that, frankly, have made our country great and made our economy so strong.

The Shaheen-Portman bill will spur the use of energy efficiency technologies such as these, where all of us live and work and, in turn, will lower utility bills for consumers and save money for taxpayers. Furthermore, this bipartisan bill will strengthen U.S. competitiveness by stimulating significant private sector research and development investments in manufacturing innovation and productivity.

Investing in energy efficiency is one of the fastest as well as the most cost-effective ways we can grow our economy. It is estimated that this measure alone--just this piece of legislation--would help create 136,000 new jobs by

2025 and, by 2030, the bill would net an annual savings of over $13 billion--billion with a ``B''--for consumers, and lower CO2 emissions and other air pollutants by the equivalent of taking over 20 million cars off the road.

My home State of New Mexico is already capitalizing on a highly diversified but rapidly transforming energy sector. It stands to benefit from leveraging investments and efficiency projects and native technologies.

Through American ingenuity we can slow the effects of climate change and unleash the full potential of cleaner homegrown energy, creating a stable and healthier nation for future generations of Americans.

So instead of transforming this debate about what is fundamentally supposed to be a debate about energy efficiency into another tired battle over ObamaCare, I urge my colleagues to embrace the fact that this bill truly represents the culmination of years of bipartisan work to craft a smart, effective energy bill with a good chance of actually becoming law.

I know when I go home--and I have spoken to many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who say the same--one of the complaints we hear the most right now is: Why can't you guys just get something done? Why can't you work together on something? This is an opportunity to show we can still legislate, we can come together on the things we agree on, even while agreeing to disagree on many other issues.

Again, I thank Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman for working so tirelessly on this bill, I thank the chair and ranking member of the energy committee for making it a priority, and I thank all of the Senators who serve on that committee for working together on both sides of the aisle to see this move forward. I hope as a Senate we will seize this opportunity.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize David J. Hayes, who stepped down on June 28, 2013, from his position as Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior, and I ask consent that the following remarks about him and his service be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, fixing our broken immigration system is an urgent priority. As the son of an immigrant myself, I understand how important this is for families across the country and in my home State of New Mexico. I know how hard immigrants work in this country, how much they believe in America, and how much they are willing to give back to this Nation.

New Mexico's remarkable spirit is rooted in our diversity, our history, and our culture, which has always been enriched by our immigrant communities and family members. At the same time, the laws that govern our country's immigration system are antiquated and ineffective. I am encouraged that we are finally making progress toward a solution and finding some common ground on this critical issue.

We need a solution that includes a visa system that meets the needs of our economy, a tough but fair path to earned citizenship for the estimated 11 million people in our country who are undocumented and a plan that ensures the security of our borders.

Our broken immigration system does not match the realities of our Nation's economy. The H-2A program makes it difficult for farmers to hire the workers they need.

The H-1B program sends some of our most talented students back to their countries of origin, where they find themselves competing against American jobs rather than helping to create American jobs.

The labor pool, comprised of millions of undocumented workers, allows for worker exploitation and low wages. We must ensure that our laws enable our companies to retain the highly skilled foreign graduates of our universities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, the STEM field, in order to harness their skills, their creative activity, and their entrepreneurial spirit to create jobs in America.

A commitment to reform our country's immigration system also requires a commitment to our students. As a strong supporter of the DREAM Act, I am glad this legislation acknowledges that students should be treated differently. I wish to especially thank Senator Durbin for his work seeing this through to the end.

Thousands of students across the country will gain more education and training, which translates into better and higher paying jobs. All these extra wages will circulate through the economy, spurring economic growth and new job creation.

I have met many DREAMers in New Mexico, and they are incredibly bright, hardworking, and, frankly, most of them don't know how to be anything but an American. DREAMers represent much of what is best about our Nation--hard work, motivation, and a willingness to serve this country in uniform. I believe it is time to make the DREAM Act a reality.

Finally, those of us who represent border communities understand there are a number of challenges they face that are unique. We have made great advances in border security in recent years. Illegal border crossing apprehensions are at historically low levels and have fallen in New Mexico by more than 90 percent since their peak back in 2005. We have more agents, more technology and infrastructure devoted to our border than ever before. Our challenge moving forward is to continue to ensure our Nation's safety while balancing the need of our border communities to thrive and benefit from their unique binational culture and economy.

The mission of Customs and Border Protection is to both safeguard our Nation's borders and facilitate lawful international trade and commerce. However, in the Paso del Norte region, which includes both west Texas and southern New Mexico, not all of our ports of entry are operating at full capacity. The high volume of commercial vehicles attempting to cross at the El Paso port makes it extremely difficult for CBP to efficiently service all the would-be crossers while also maintaining security.

My amendment to extend the hours of operation at the nearby Santa Teresa Port of Entry will lead to more efficient trade between the United States and Mexico, will help to grow our economy, create new jobs, and invest in border security efforts at our Nation's ports.

On the subject of increased commerce and the Paso del Norte region, I want to thank Secretary Napolitano for doing her part. Earlier this month she announced a plan to extend the border commercial zone in southern New Mexico. This initiative was spearheaded by former Senator Jeff Bingaman at the Federal level, and it received bipartisan unanimous support back at home in the New Mexico State Legislature. Increasing the number of visitors traveling to the region will help U.S. businesses, local economies, and bring in more tax revenue.

New Mexicans are eager for a solution. DREAM Act students deserve a solution, and, frankly, our economy requires a solution. With this in mind, I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure we achieve accountable immigration reform that works for New Mexico and for our Nation.

Este es el ano.

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

Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to also speak about the nomination of Kenneth Gonzales to be a Federal district judge for the District of New Mexico.

Ken, as he is known back home to many of us, is truly a standout nominee. I wish I could take credit for his nomination, but that credit belongs to our former U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman and to our senior Senator Tom Udall. But I want to thank both of them for putting forward such a great candidate for this position, and I am very pleased to be here today to support him.

Ken has a long and distinguished record of public service, including more than a decade of service in our military. Ken has served as the U.S. attorney for New Mexico since April 2010. His elevation to lead that office followed more than a decade of service there as an assistant U.S. attorney. I would like to highlight at least one of his many accomplishments that I find particularly important.

I think Ken's efforts as U.S. attorney demonstrate not only his character and his intellect but the dedication that he has to serving his home State and making it a better place for all our residents.

Much of New Mexico is Indian Country for which the U.S. attorney has the responsibility to prosecute criminal activity. Ken has taken the initiative to reorganize and focus the U.S. attorney's resources to more effectively combat the higher-than-average rates of violent crime, sexual assault, and sexual abuse that have plagued Indian Country.

This includes creating the first Indian Country Crime Section within any U.S. Attorney Office. This section includes a team of lawyers responsible for pursuing felony offenses on tribal lands. The office is also collaborating with tribal prosecutors to investigate and prosecute domestic violence in more than 20 pueblos and tribes located throughout the State of New Mexico.

This is just one example of Ken's work, but throughout his career Ken has shown a dedication to serving the people of New Mexico. It is the sum of all his efforts and accomplishments that make me believe he will make an outstanding addition to the Federal bench, and I am pleased that today we are at the final step toward getting him here.

The process for getting to the Federal bench is a long road to travel. The Judiciary Committee's leadership from both sides of the aisle takes seriously its responsibility to ensure that every nominee is fit to serve. I want to say a special thanks to Senator Leahy and Senator Grassley for working together and with Senator Udall and myself to get Ken through this process.

As the vetting process surely showed, Ken has the knowledge, temperament, and integrity to serve on the Federal bench. I have no doubt that he will distinguish himself there, as he has throughout his entire legal career.

I strongly support his nomination, and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to address the Chamber today.

Mr. President, I am a strong believer that innovation is what America does best, that boundless wonder and curiosity can lead to revolutionary discoveries, and that diligence and optimism can break down barriers. I am a believer that technology and, more importantly, the scientific method are how we can best meet many of our 21st-century challenges. And this is, indeed, a time of great challenge for our Nation.

There is no question that it is easier to legislate in a time of peace and prosperity than in a time of economic recovery and global conflict. But Americans, Mr. President, are no strangers to adversity. Time and again we have shown our ingenuity and our perseverance. In fact, the very character of our Nation has been shaped by hard work and innovation. That is America's story. I am certain our capacity to deal with the challenges we face rests heavily on our ability to make policy that is driven by facts, by data, and, yes, by science.

Historically, America has responded to challenges with transformative innovations--electricity, radio, television, transistors, silicon computer

processors, and the rise of the modern distributed Internet. In my own State of New Mexico, we have built our economy around some of the greatest innovations of the modern era.

New Mexico Tech, the University of New Mexico, and New Mexico State University offered advanced degrees in chemistry and engineering as early as the 1890s. After World War I, Kirtland, Holloman, and Cannon military bases in our State provided supreme training conditions for the new flight wing of the Army that would eventually be called the U.S. Air Force.

During World War II, New Mexico was home to the Manhattan Project, which installed Los Alamos National Laboratory, White Sands Missile Range, and Sandia National Laboratories.

Through the collaboration of its major defense and research installations, New Mexico has become the birthplace of technologies that have changed the world. Over time, our National Labs, our universities, and our defense installations have proven to be invaluable to research and development not only for our State but for the entire Nation. They led key research efforts during the space race and continue to develop modern defense and computer technology in the digital age, often partnering with private sector innovators such as Intel Corporation.

As innovators in technology transfer, Sandia National Labs and Intel came together on the development of radiation-hardened microprocessors for space and defense applications. With the help of our State universities, New Mexico will continue to lead the way in low-carbon energy technology.

The University of New Mexico Taos Campus is a prime example of the public and private sectors working together to employ cleaner energy. Their campus is home to one of the largest solar arrays in the State--a project that was successful thanks to a partnership with Los Alamos National Lab and Kit Carson Electric Cooperative.

On the research front, Santa Fe Community College and New Mexico State University are developing algal biofuels as a source of liquid renewable energy. In addition to our universities benefiting from technology transfer, Los Alamos National Lab's Labstart Initiative is also promoting growth in the private sector. This program encourages future entrepreneurs to start businesses using technologies first developed within our National Labs. So far, the lab-to-market strategy has brought $20 million in revenue for the 19 companies that have started under this initiative.

Today, the technology industry, both public and private, supports nearly 50,000 jobs in our small State at over 2,000 technology establishments throughout New Mexico. It is our history of innovation and new technology that drive New Mexico's economy and our contributions to this great Nation.

As our country faces the challenges of bringing our economy back from a devastating recession and reversing the effects of climate change, we must embrace the challenge and lead the world in innovation and clean energy, using science as our guide to setting public policy. Yet during my time in Washington, too often I have seen scientific integrity undermined and scientific research politicized in an effort to advance ideological or even purely political agendas. I have watched as too many of us in elected office moved from being entitled to our own opinions--something which our democracy relies upon--to embracing the belief that somehow we are entitled to our own facts. None of us are entitled to our own facts.

As someone who began my adult life studying engineering, I believe we must better use science as a guiding tool in our deliberations on how to set public policy. Whether for our national security, our energy independence, or our Nation's ability to compete in the global economy, our efforts and our solutions should be rooted in fact and driven by the best available science but also with a keen eye to the innovations that are transforming our Nation before our very eyes.

By investing in education, in research, engineering, in our teachers, and in our professors, we will lead the world in scientific and technological innovation. Even in this challenging fiscal environment, we must make the investments that have paid dividends for our Nation time and time again.

My own path to scientific inquiry began in the first grade. I had a teacher named Mrs. Taylor, who saw in me a thirst for knowledge and discovery. She fed that desire, even when it meant considerable extra work and planning a supplemental curriculum that wasn't part of her normal work plan. She was the kind of teacher--and I hope some of you have had one--who would take the extra time to make sure a student hungry to read never ran out of new books to explore or that a student interested in fossils and dinosaurs had extra projects and materials to feed their interest.

I can honestly say, if it weren't for Mrs. Taylor, my own life would have taken some very different turns. When we ensure that every student has a Mrs. Taylor, we ensure that our children will not just spend their afternoons playing on tablets and smart phones, but they will have the education to grow up designing and building the next generation of technology and devices. We should harness their natural intellectual curiosity to solve humankind's greatest challenges.

From the classrooms of our elementary schools to the research labs of our universities, to the grounds of our National Laboratories and research institutes to the offices of venture capital firms and innovative tech startups, the frontiers of human knowledge can be boundless. If we harness it, we will continue to fuel our Nation's prosperity.

No area of innovation and science will be more important in the coming years than our Nation's ability to tackle climate change and to lead the world in clean energy technology. America can and must become truly energy independent, and we must move from traditional carbon- intensive energy sources to ever-cleaner alternatives. Investing in cleaner energy will create quality jobs and protect our Nation from the serious economic and strategic risks associated with our reliance on foreign energy.

I must take the opportunity to say how impressed I have been with the current bipartisan efforts to embrace energy efficiency.

Whether your goal is job creation, economic vitality, saving consumers money, or lowering your carbon footprint, conservation is not only conservative, it is effective. Getting the most out of every unit of energy we use should be a concern for all of levels of government-- State, Federal, and local--and for community organizations as well.

I have spent a lot of time traveling across my home State of New Mexico highlighting how innovation and investment in new energy technology can help create good jobs and grow our economy. New Mexico is home to innovators such as EMCORE Corporation, a leading provider of compound semiconductor-based components, which recently deployed a system that uses solar cells with a conversion efficiency of sunlight to electricity of 39 percent, a remarkable feat; Sapphire Energy in Columbus, NM, which is producing drop-in crude oil from algae, sunlight, and CO2; and, energy storage projects in Los Alamos and Albuquerque that are demonstrating smart-grid technology with solar PV storage fully integrated into a utility power grid. These are just a few examples. It is clear New Mexico is already capitalizing on a diversified but rapidly innovative energy sector.

To help the Nation transition to cleaner sources of energy, I am supporting efforts to streamline permitting for renewable energy projects while still protecting access to our public lands for families and sportsmen to enjoy.

Another key to further development of clean energy is to alleviate the bottlenecks in the electric power grid. New Mexico is an energy exporter, and I am working to spur substantial renewable energy development by adding the transmission capacity that will allow us to export clean energy to markets in Arizona and California. Through American ingenuity, we can unleash the full potential of cleaner homegrown energy and put Americans to work while we are at it.

At the same time, we can, and we must, lead the world in addressing our climate crisis. Climate change is no longer theoretical. It is one of those stubborn facts that doesn't go away simply because we choose to ignore it. In New Mexico we are seeing bigger fires, drier summers, and less snowpack

in the winter. And as I speak these words, too many of our high elevation forests are burning. With humidity levels lower and temperatures higher, we are dealing with fire behavior that is markedly more intense than we have seen in the past. Over the last 3 years alone, we have seen two of the largest fires in New Mexico's history. With elevated temperatures, studies at Los Alamos National Labs predict that three-quarters of our evergreen forests in New Mexico might be gone as early as 2050.

At the same time we are experiencing our driest 2-year drought since recordkeeping started in the mid-19th century. Flows in the Rio Grande are less than 20 percent of normal. Since the first of the year, central New Mexico, where I live, has seen less than 1 inch of rain. This is a tragedy, and we must start taking active steps to reverse it. We owe that to our children. We owe that to the next generation.

In 1961 President John F. Kennedy made a bold claim that an American would walk on the Moon by the end of the decade. Eight years later, Neil Armstrong did just that.

Today we face a similarly audacious challenge when it comes to addressing climate change. We need to think big and we need to execute. We did that when President Kennedy said we would go to the Moon--and we made it happen as Americans. Climate change is our greatest future challenge, and we must commit to solving it within the decade.

I am by nature an optimist. I have seen this great Nation defy the odds again and again. And, yes, I believe compromise and even bipartisanship are still possible. Our country is strong because of rigorous debate, but debate doesn't mean endless gridlock. Despite our differences, there are issues where both parties can come together and find common ground. Using science to rise to our Nation's challenges, whatever those may be, should be one of those areas. It is one I am committed to, and I look forward to working with my colleagues so our Nation and my home State of New Mexico can achieve the greatness and future all of our children deserve.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor one of New Mexico's great leaders, New Mexico Speaker of the House Ben Lujan, who passed away Tuesday night after his battle with lung cancer. Speaker Lujan is the father of our colleague, and my friend, Congressman Ben Ray Lujan.

First elected to the State legislature in 1974, Ben Lujan served as speaker of the house from 2001 until 2012. Throughout his tenure in the House, Speaker Lujan showed that he was a champion for working families, a tireless advocate for his constituents, and an absolute master of legislative strategy.

At the beginning of this year, when Speaker Lujan spoke to the legislature of his battle with cancer, he encouraged everyone to make their time on Earth worthwhile and to ``make a difference for the children, our working families, and for the elderly.'' Speaker Lujan has inspired me and so many New Mexicans to do just that. Our good thoughts and prayers are with his wife Carmen, with Ben Ray, and with the rest of the Lujan family.

Mr. Speaker, on September 20, 2012, I unfortunately missed one vote, rollcall No. 588. If I had been present, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall vote 588.