Floor Statements

Mr. President, before I go to the closing script, I just want to take a moment to express my sorrow and dismay that we appear to have walked away from doing anything serious about our energy posture and the hazard that carbon pollution is creating in our climate and in our atmosphere during the remainder of this Congress.

People will tell you differently, and there clearly has been a massive campaign of misinformation and disinformation funded by very powerful special interests. But I think the facts are pretty clear. History will judge us whether we are right or wrong. But I feel safe in history's judgment that if we do not act seriously to do something about our energy picture, there are real consequences coming. There are real consequences coming.

In my home State, you can go to Johnston where there are nurseries, and some of them have been owned for generations. For the first time a few years ago we had a winter bloom. A cherry tree in my yard in Providence bloomed in January. It has not happened before. I spoke to some of the nursery owners, again, going back generations; no recollection of that ever happening. Of course, you start blooming fruit trees out of season, you can put that crop in peril.

If you go out to Narragansett Bay you will see that the winter water temperature of Narragansett Bay has climbed about 4 degrees. That may not seem like much to us who do not live in those waters, but as Perry Jeffries, who is a very distinguished marine biologist at the University of Rhode Island, told me years ago, that is an ecosystem shift. Our fishermen have seen

that ecosystem shift. They used to trawl for winter flounder, a very productive crop in Narragansett Bay. That is almost gone. The population has crashed 90 percent, by press reports. Now they catch scup instead. There is nothing wrong with scup, but it does not pay what winter flounder does, and it has had a real effect on that industry.

If you go out more broadly into our oceans, you go up to the Presiding Officer's home State of Alaska, into the far North, and you see ice caps that have been there for as long as the memory of the Native Alaskans runs. They have been there for as long as the memory of man runs. Now they are receding and disappearing and changing the entire arctic ecosystem.

If you go down to the Southern Ocean and the tropical coral reefs that are the nurseries of the oceans, they are bleaching, they are dying, they are going. Many are gone. If you go way offshore, you find garbage gyres in the Pacific the size of Texas and things we have dumped that are trapped out there.

You find a dead zone in seas around the world, where there simply is not the oxygen left to support life. Wherever you go, you find the acidification of the ocean. The ocean is more acid right now than it has been in 8,000 centuries, and 8,000 centuries is a long time.

We are gambling with some very dangerous consequences when we are not doing something about an ocean whose acid level is the highest it has been in 8,000 centuries. Science tells us that there have been ocean die-offs before. Very bad things can happen.

We need to take prudent action now, and it is not as if this is a choice just between a dangerous future that we need to guard against and costs that we need to impose on society now to protect against those dangers. I would be happy to have that conversation. I think it is still important because those outyear concerns for our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren are so serious that it merits a little bit of effort now and maybe even a little bit of economic pain now to spare them disaster.

But, in point of fact, when you make these investments in a new green, renewable economy, you actually win. It is not lose now to win later, it is win-win because we advance our green economy, we claw back the advantage that the Chinese, the Indians, and others--the European Union--are running away from us right now because we have not adapted our policies to the needs of the moment. You create jobs, thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of jobs.

You reduce our deficit; that was the calculation. You clearly enhance our national defense--there is literally no dispute about that--and you take a vital step toward energy independence so we are not in that terrible cycle of funding people who wish us harm and do us harm. Those are all wins.

There are people on this floor who would come and object. We did not have one Republican vote. Not one. Not one. But I think we should have had the fight anyway. I think it is an important fight to have. I think history will look back on this day, and when they are looking at the consequences of our heating planet, of all of the changes in our economy and our habitat in our home States that will accrue, and they look back and say: Why did you do nothing, it will be very hard to have an answer.

I think it would be better to answer: Well, at least we tried. Frankly, I think because the American public is so clearly behind this, if we had taken this to the Senate floor and we had a real fight, if we had the White House behind us and ready for a fight, if the environmental community was willing to put their resources behind this moment and stand up at the same time and join that fight, and if all of the hundreds and thousands of green businesses out there were willing to go to their elected officials and say: This is good for the economy, good for our jobs, good for development, it will help put us back in the fight against China and India and the European Union, I think we could have won. I truly think we could have won.

We probably would have started with maybe 50 Democratic votes. I would hope a few more, but I think once we engaged and all of that pressure came and the logic of the debate began to happen and the magic of the Senate of real debate, of ideas clashing, of back and forth right here in the Chamber began to happen, I think we could have gotten to it.

But even if we had not, we should not have walked away. We should not have just rolled up our tent, given up, and walked away because some fights are worth having even when you lose.

There is a plaque near the pass at Thermopylae where, many years ago, a very small band of Spartans held off the Persian Army for a while. Eventually, they were all killed. There is a burial mound where their bodies rest. On the burial mound there is a plaque. The plaque says: Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, faithful to their laws, we lie.

It has been 2,000 years since those Spartans died at the Thermopylae Pass. Today on the Senate floor, a Senator from Rhode Island can talk about what they did that day. If they had said: Gosh, there are an awful lot of Persians there; I do not know if this is such a great idea; we probably are not going to win today; we will just head up into the hills for a while and see how this all works out, well, maybe they would have lived another 10 or 15 years, but they would have lived in shame. They would have lived with a little cloud of disgrace on their consciences for the rest of their days. And 2,000 years later, no one would ever have heard of them. No one would ever have thought of them. There is sometimes value in having a fight even when you cannot win. And if there is value in having a fight when you cannot win, my God, there is value in having a fight when you can.

I think it was worth trying. So I am going to keep pushing and coming to the Senate floor and urging my colleagues to ramp up and let's take on this fight. We have to do it together. We need to have a strong majority of our caucus because not one Republican is prepared to join with us on this issue. Not one.

We have to have the support of the White House. They have to be ready to have a fight. They have to be willing to enter into a fight in which they are not guaranteed a victory. But the principle I believe is, if you set as your own limit that you will not get into any fight you are not guaranteed to win, you are going to miss out on the most important fights of your day. That is no place to be when the stakes are high. So here we are, and there the plaque lies: Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, faithful to their laws, we lie.

We could have had a moment. It brings a little bit of goose bumps to my skin to say those words. To think that the sacrifice of those men that many thousands of years ago is still something in our minds, in our history, and in our consciences, I would hope that the day will soon come when we have a similar fight right here and, win or lose, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren, looking back on this day when we let them down, will at least know that we tried; that faithful to their benefit, faithful to their good lives, we tried.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a fellow from my office, Ms. Anna-Marie Laura, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. President, I ask the chair to lay before the Senate a message from the House with respect to S. 1749.

The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message:

Resolved, That the bill from the Senate (S. 1749) entitled

``An Act to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit

the possession or use of cell phones and similar wireless

devices by Federal prisoners.'', do pass with the following

amendment:

Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert:

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate concur in the House amendment and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 598, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 599, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 600, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand that S. 3663, introduced earlier today by Senator Reid, is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. President, I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., on Thursday, July 29; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two

leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 5297, the small business jobs bill, with 1 hour for debate prior to the cloture vote, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees and with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the final 10 minutes reserved for the two leaders or their designees, with the majority leader controlling the final 5 minutes. Finally, I ask consent that the filing deadline for second- degree amendments be 10 o'clock a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. President, I am advised to inform my colleagues that at approximately 10:40 a.m. tomorrow, there will be a cloture vote on the Baucus-Landrieu substitute amendment No. 4519 to the small business jobs bill.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Madam President, I will speak about a topic that is central to our national security and economic prosperity and which gets far too little notice and attention; that is, the vulnerability of America's network information systems, and the economic danger and national security risks we face from cyber-theft, cyber-piracy, and cyber-attack.

We live in a wired society. If we sever those wires and the social, economic, and communications linkages that make our way of life possible, we will cease to function. I am gravely concerned that we are not taking the necessary steps to guard against this threat, which I believe is the greatest unmet national security need facing the United States.

Earlier this month, the Intelligence Committee Cyber Task Force submitted a classified final report to the chair and vice chair of the Intelligence Committee. It was an honor to chair this bipartisan initiative and to serve with my distinguished colleagues, Senator Mikulski and Senator Snowe. I thank them for their diligence, their leadership, and their important contributions to this effort. They were excellent and we made a good team.

We spent 6 months investigating cybersecurity threats and our current posture for countering those threats, with a particular focus on the intelligence community. It was a very sobering experience.

There is a concerted and systematic effort underway by nation states to steal our cutting edge technologies. At the same time, criminal hacker communities are conspiring to penetrate financial industry networks, rob consumers of their personal data, and transform our personal computers into botnet zombies that can spread malware and chaos.

It is difficult to put a precise dollar figure on the damage and loss these malicious activities are causing, but it is safe to say it numbers in the many tens of billions of dollars--perhaps as high as $1 trillion.

I believe we are suffering what is probably the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in the history of mankind.

In addition, we face the risk of attacks--attacks designed to disable critical infrastructure, with grave potential harm to our national security and to our financial, communications, utility, and transportation sectors.

The intelligence community is keenly aware of the threat and is doing all it can within existing laws and authorities to counter it. The bad news is the rest of our country--including the rest of the Federal Government--is not keeping pace with the threat.

I am encouraged by the growing interest in Congress, where there are now more than 40 bills pertaining to cyber. I want to commend Senator Rockefeller and Senator Snowe, in particular, for being at the leading edge of the Senate's efforts. They have spent more than a year fine- tuning their legislation, which speaks of their commitment to protecting the country and their recognition that we cannot reduce our vulnerabilities without careful study and thoughtful engagement.

Much of the current debate on cybersecurity in the Congress focuses on executive branch organization dealing with this threat. This is obviously an important issue, and it is one that we must resolve sooner rather than later. But the question of how this all gets organized within the executive branch is merely one of the many problem areas we saw during the course of the work of the task force.

What are these other areas? Well, first of all, an overarching issue, we must raise the public's awareness about cyber-threats; otherwise, we face an uphill battle trying to legislate in this challenging and sensitive policy sphere.

What is the problem? Well, threat information affecting the dot.gov and dot.mil domains is largely classified--often very highly classified--and entities in the dot.com, dot.net, and dot.org domains often consider threat information to be proprietary and disclosing it could be a risk to their business. So the result overall is that the public knows very little about the size and scope of the threat their Nation faces.

If the public knew the stakes--knew the cyber-criminals, for example, have pulled off bank heists that would make Willie Sutton, Bonnie and Clyde, and the James Gang look like a bunch of petty thieves, they would demand swift action. If they knew the extent of the cyber-piracy against our intellectual property, and the economic loss that has resulted, the public would demand swift action. If they knew how vulnerable America's critical infrastructure is and the national security risk that has resulted, they would demand action. It is hard to legislate in a democracy when the public has been denied so much of the relevant information.

The first key point is public awareness. We have to share more information with the public about what is going on out there.

Second, we need to establish basic rules of the road. One of the signal features of our cybersecurity risk profile is that the overwhelming majority of malicious cyber-activity could be prevented if some computer users installed simple antivirus protections and allowed automatic updates of their software.

If we followed basic rules of the road, there would be a national security advantage: The Federal Government could focus its cybersecurity efforts on that narrower subset of threats that can evade commercial, off-the-shelf technology. There would be economic advantage from the potentially massive reduction in cyber-crimes, such as identity theft and credit card fraud.

Third, we need to empower the private sector to adopt a more proactive stance against cyber-threats. I am from Rhode Island. My State was founded as a sea trading State. When our traders were attacked by pirates, they got out their guns and fought back. Under current law, companies under cyber-attack can do little more than batten down the hatches. We need to look for more ways to help American companies better defend themselves.

Our courts provide one option. Creative technical experts and smart lawyers at Microsoft were able to mount a very impressive counterattack against the Waledac botnet by obtaining a Federal court order requiring that VeriSign, the domain name registrar, cut off domains associated with the botnet. This disrupted the botnet's command-and-control function, and it highlights an important possible role for our judicial branch.

Additionally, we need to establish lawful and effective means for industry sectors to band together with one another and engage with each other in

common defense strategies and information sharing where appropriate with the government. There are some early examples, such as the defense industrial base, that merit commendation, which we should encourage. But it is still pretty primitive.

Fourth, we must ensure that the Federal Government has the authorities and capabilities necessary to protect our American critical infrastructure against cyber-attack. If a bank, for instance, runs into a solvency problem, there is an established and widely accepted procedure for Federal intervention to protect the bank depositors, stand the bank back up, get it back on its feet, and move back out again.

There is no similar procedure if that bank or American critical infrastructure, such as an electric utility, is failing due to an ongoing cyber-attack. There needs to be clear, lawful processes for the private sector to request technical assistance and clear authority for the government to act when a cyber-incident raises significant risk to American lives and property.

It gets a little bit more complicated than that because you cannot just call 911, such as when there is a fire, and have the government come and put out the fire when it is a cyber-attack. Cyber-attacks happen literally at the speed of light.

The best defense against cyber-threats, particularly the most dangerous cyber-threats, requires speed-of-light awareness and response. For this reason, it is worth considering whether some defensive capabilities should be prepositioned in order to better protect the Nation's most critical private infrastructure.

During medieval times, critical infrastructure, such as water wells and graineries, were inside the castle walls, protected as a precaution against enemy raiders. Can certain critical private infrastructure networks be protected now within virtual castle walls in secure domains where those prepositioned offenses could be both lawful and effective?

This would, obviously, have to be done in a transparent manner, subject to very strict oversight. But with the risks as grave as they are, this question cannot be overlooked.

Fifth, we need to put more cyber-criminals behind bars. Law enforcement engagement against cyber-crime needs to be considerably enhanced at multiple levels, reporting, resources, prosecution strategies, and priority. A lot more folks need to go to jail.

Finally, we must more clearly define the rules of engagement for covert action by our country against cyber-threats. This is an especially sensitive subject and highly classified. But for here, let me simply say that the intelligence community and the Department of Defense must be in a position to provide the President with as many lawful options as possible to counter cyber-threats, and the executive branch must have the appropriate authorities, policies, and procedures for covert cyber-activities, including how to react in real time when the attack comes at the speed of light. This all, of course, must be subject to very vigilant congressional oversight.

Uniquely in the world and uniquely in our own history, America's economy and government now depend on networked information technologies for Americans to communicate with each other, keep the trains running on time and the planes flying safely, keep our lights on, and power our daily lives.

The expansion of this powerful new technology across our great country also makes us uniquely vulnerable to cyber-threats. We have to do a lot better as a nation on cybersecurity. I believe we can do better. I know we must do better. Frankly, we cannot afford not to do better.

I hope these remarks and the structure they have provided helps provide assistance to my colleagues as we begin debating and resolving these important issues.

I yield the floor. I see my distinguished colleague from Minnesota prepared to speak.

Mr. President, I know my friend and colleague, Senator Snowe, is about to deliver some remarks. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized at the conclusion of her statement. I wish to take a moment to thank her for her work with me on the bill I am going to be talking about. She will be talking about something else, but I will be discussing the National Endowment for the Oceans. While we are in the Chamber together, I express my gratitude for the collegial, thoughtful, helpful way we worked together on this bipartisan piece of legislation.

Mr. President, I have the floor by virtue of a previous unanimous consent, but I understand the Senator from Louisiana wishes to say something briefly while Senator Snowe is still on the floor. So I would be happy to yield. I would be happy if I could have the floor returned to me at the conclusion of their exchange.

Mr. President, into this arena of discord and division, I rise to bring happy news. But first I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss bipartisan legislation coauthored by my friend and fellow New Englander, Olympia Snowe, to establish a national endowment for the preservation, conservation, and restoration of our Nation's oceans, our coasts, and our Great Lakes. I also wish to take a moment and say a particular thank-you to an original cosponsor of this legislation, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia.

The National Endowment for the Oceans, along with the President's recent Executive order establishing our country's first ever national ocean policy, represent a long overdue and badly needed commitment to our great waters. While the President's national ocean policy specifies national objectives and outlines processes and government structures to restore, protect, and maintain our ocean and coastal resources, the National Endowment for the Oceans will provide the funding to actually achieve those public purposes. The endowment would make grants available to coastal and Great Lakes States, local government agencies, regional planning bodies, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations so these entities could embark on projects to learn more about and do a better job of protecting our precious natural resources.

Author C. Clarke once said:

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is

quite clearly ocean.

Oceans cover three-quarters of our planet's surface, contain 90 percent of our planet's water, and produce more than two-thirds of our planet's oxygen. For as long as mankind has lived on the lands of this planet, oceans have sustained our survival and been part of our identity.

Speaking at a dinner in Newport, RI, in 1961, President Kennedy said:

We are tied to the ocean . . . and when we go back to the

sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back

from whence we came.

My State, and indeed our country, always have kept a special bond with those great waters.

As a practical matter, my State's economy, as do many others, relies on Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound to provide the jobs for fishing, shipbuilding, tourism, and soon, we hope, wind farming. Across America, coastal waters generate over 50 percent of our Nation's gross domestic product and support more than 28 million jobs.

So we don't call Rhode Island the Ocean State just because of its beautiful coasts and beaches. Although as a sailor and proud ambassador for Rhode Island's tourism industry, I will tell my colleagues that Rhode Island's coast is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. We are the Ocean State because from our earliest days we have relied on the ocean and our beloved Narragansett Bay for trade, for food, for jobs, for recreation, and for solace and inspiration.

In part, it is Americans' love of the oceans that drives the need now to protect and restore them. Coastal America is experiencing a huge population boom, leading to more and more construction that puts significant pressure on our natural coastline and our wetlands. Worldwide demand for seafood grows at a pace that our fish stocks cannot keep pace with, and our demand for energy leads us deeper and deeper into the ocean in search of fuel.

For too long, we have been takers from our oceans rather than caretakers of our oceans, and the evidence of our peril is mounting.

From the Arctic Ocean, where ice sheets that have been part of Inuit lore as far back as memory and oral tradition go, are now disappearing, to the tropic seas, where coral reefs that serve as nurseries for ocean life are bleaching and dying, warnings are ringing.

From the far-off waters of the Pacific, where a garbage gyre of accumulated marine litter has grown larger than the State of Texas, to our near coasts such as Rhode Island's own Narragansett Bay where the water temperature has risen 4 degrees in the winter in the last 40 years, an ecosystem shift displacing our historic fisheries, warnings are ringing.

From the top of the oceanic food chain, where pollutants are turning our marine mammals into swimming toxic waste and major pelagic species have suffered a 90-percent population crash, to the very bottom of the food chain where greenhouse gases change the fundamental chemistry of our oceans until they may become too acidic to support the plankton base of the food chain, real warnings are ringing.

Our present day ocean is more acidic today than it has been in 8,000 centuries. A change in ocean chemistry

happening so quickly, we don't know if species will be able to adapt in time to survive. Even if we were to act immediately to curb our carbon pollution, the stress on these ecosystems will certainly worsen for some time from what we have already put into our atmosphere.

So from the far Arctic to the warm tropics, from the far ocean to the near coasts, from the top of the food chain to the bottom, real warning bells are ringing.

We can't begin to know what the total effects on our oceans will be, but what we have observed so far must be deeply troubling to any prudent, thoughtful person.

If you have been to the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Providence, you have seen a large plaque on the wall in the lobby marking the high water mark of the great hurricane of 1938 when a massive storm surge filled downtown Providence and the hotel lobby to a depth of about 5 feet. Sea level rise, another ocean threat, could mean that future storm surges crest much higher, wreaking far worse devastation.

That is a threat that is not unique to Rhode Island. Island nations around the globe are currently preparing for the possibility--really, the inevitability--that they will literally be engulfed by the ocean.

The National Intelligence Council reports that at least 30 American military installations around the world will be underwater if sea levels rise as projected. There is a dangerous feedback loop. The more ice that melts, the greater the danger. As darker ocean water traps rather than reflects the Sun's rays, melting accelerates and leaves us with less and less time to act, less and less time to spare our grandchildren the consequences of our generation's selfishness and folly.

Even seemingly modest changes in temperature, such as the 4 degree increase in Narragansett Bay, wreak havoc on marine ecosystems, causing what amounts to a full ecosystem shift. Anybody who relies on marine life for food, recreation, or a paycheck may soon find their lives changed by the disruption of the ocean's delicate ecosystem.

As a member of the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works, I find myself habitually frustrated that this ``tragedy of the commons'' continues to play out, while we stand idly on the sidelines and fail to intervene.

As a source of jobs and economic opportunity, a key element of our American tradition and, truly, the origin of life on our planet, our oceans, and our responsibility for them, ought to occupy a more prominent place on our national agenda.

Yet, our commitment to ocean and coastal preservation is unreliable at best--subject to the volatility of the yearly budget and appropriations process. None other than Robert Ballard, the famed ocean explorer who discovered the Titanic and is current president of the Ocean Exploration Trust, recently lamented that available funds for ocean research often fall far short of desired goals.

As we stand here and BP's oil poisons our Gulf of Mexico, it is time to ask our political system to put the stewardship of our natural resources, our ocean resources, at the forefront of our national agenda. In the past, Congress had established lasting endowments to protect other important American priorities.

Because we believe that a great society must cherish artistic expression and study closely the lessons of history, we established-- through the wisdom of Senator Claiborne Pell--the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Because we believe that a great society must connect communities to each other, we established a national highway trust fund. Because we believe that a great society must guarantee its elders a dignified and comfortable retirement after a lifetime of work, we established Social Security. Because we are indeed tied to our great waters, we should now act to establish a national endowment for the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes.

This legislation, as I said, is bipartisan. I thank Senator Olympia Snowe for joining in this effort. This legislation is science based, with much of the money made available through a competitive grant program that will award funding to research undertaken by academic institutions, on-the-ground conservation by nonprofit organizations, and local governments, and protection of critical public infrastructure.

This legislation is cost effective, coordinating existing efforts of Federal, local, and private programs, reducing duplication of research efforts, and crossing political borders to ensure that every dollar is spent with the greatest possible effect.

This legislation is appropriately paid for with revenue generated from the oilspill liability trust fund, Outer Continental Shelf drilling, offshore renewable energy development, and fines collected for violations of the Federal law off our coastline. Put simply, a small portion of the revenue extracted from our oceans and great waters must be reinvested to now protect their long-term viability.

The ocean provides us with great bounty, and we will continue to take advantage of the ocean's bounty, as we should. We will fish, we will sail, and we will trade. We will dispose of waste. We will extract fuel and construct wind farms. We will put pressure on our oceans. Navies and cruise ships, sailboats and supertankers, will plow their surface. We cannot change that part of our relationship with the sea.

What we can change is what we do in return. We can, for the first time, give back. We can become stewards of our oceans--not just takers, but caretakers.

My wife, Sandra, is a marine biologist. We have watched as the University of Rhode Island, home of the Graduate School of Oceanography, has become a world leader in understanding our oceans and how to conserve them.

We are watching GSO's researchers struggle to keep up with rapid changes reshaping the ecosystems they study. This endowment will help science keep pace with change.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration received $167 million for coastal restoration projects under the Recovery Act last year. More than 800 proposals for shovel-ready projects came in, totaling $3 billion. But NOAA could only fund 50. This endowment will help us move forward with those projects that protect our oceans and drive our economy.

The oceans contain the potential for new discoveries, the potential for new jobs, and the potential for new solutions to the emerging crisis off our shores.

But it is time to act. I urge my colleagues to join Senator Snowe and myself in support of this legislation. Let ours be the generation that tips the increasingly troubling balance between mankind and the oceans, from whence we came, a little bit back toward the benefit of our oceans.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss bipartisan legislation coauthored by my friend and fellow New Englander, Olympia Snowe, to establish a national endowment for the preservation, conservation, and restoration of our Nation's oceans, our coasts, and our Great Lakes. I also wish to take a moment and say a particular thank-you to an original cosponsor of this legislation, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia.

The National Endowment for the Oceans, along with the President's recent Executive order establishing our country's first ever national ocean policy, represent a long overdue and badly needed commitment to our great waters. While the President's national ocean policy specifies national objectives and outlines processes and government structures to restore, protect, and maintain our ocean and coastal resources, the National Endowment for the Oceans will provide the funding to actually achieve those public purposes. The endowment would make grants available to coastal and Great Lakes States, local government agencies, regional planning bodies, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations so these entities could embark on projects to learn more about and do a better job of protecting our precious natural resources.

Author C. Clarke once said:

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is

quite clearly ocean.

Oceans cover three-quarters of our planet's surface, contain 90 percent of our planet's water, and produce more than two-thirds of our planet's oxygen. For as long as mankind has lived on the lands of this planet, oceans have sustained our survival and been part of our identity.

Speaking at a dinner in Newport, RI, in 1961, President Kennedy said:

We are tied to the ocean . . . and when we go back to the

sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back

from whence we came.

My State, and indeed our country, always have kept a special bond with those great waters.

As a practical matter, my State's economy, as do many others, relies on Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound to provide the jobs for fishing, shipbuilding, tourism, and soon, we hope, wind farming. Across America, coastal waters generate over 50 percent of our Nation's gross domestic product and support more than 28 million jobs.

So we don't call Rhode Island the Ocean State just because of its beautiful coasts and beaches. Although as a sailor and proud ambassador for Rhode Island's tourism industry, I will tell my colleagues that Rhode Island's coast is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. We are the Ocean State because from our earliest days we have relied on the ocean and our beloved Narragansett Bay for trade, for food, for jobs, for recreation, and for solace and inspiration.

In part, it is Americans' love of the oceans that drives the need now to protect and restore them. Coastal America is experiencing a huge population boom, leading to more and more construction that puts significant pressure on our natural coastline and our wetlands. Worldwide demand for seafood grows at a pace that our fish stocks cannot keep pace with, and our demand for energy leads us deeper and deeper into the ocean in search of fuel.

For too long, we have been takers from our oceans rather than caretakers of our oceans, and the evidence of our peril is mounting.

From the Arctic Ocean, where ice sheets that have been part of Inuit lore as far back as memory and oral tradition go, are now disappearing, to the tropic seas, where coral reefs that serve as nurseries for ocean life are bleaching and dying, warnings are ringing.

From the far-off waters of the Pacific, where a garbage gyre of accumulated marine litter has grown larger than the State of Texas, to our near coasts such as Rhode Island's own Narragansett Bay where the water temperature has risen 4 degrees in the winter in the last 40 years, an ecosystem shift displacing our historic fisheries, warnings are ringing.

From the top of the oceanic food chain, where pollutants are turning our marine mammals into swimming toxic waste and major pelagic species have suffered a 90-percent population crash, to the very bottom of the food chain where greenhouse gases change the fundamental chemistry of our oceans until they may become too acidic to support the plankton base of the food chain, real warnings are ringing.

Our present day ocean is more acidic today than it has been in 8,000 centuries. A change in ocean chemistry

happening so quickly, we don't know if species will be able to adapt in time to survive. Even if we were to act immediately to curb our carbon pollution, the stress on these ecosystems will certainly worsen for some time from what we have already put into our atmosphere.

So from the far Arctic to the warm tropics, from the far ocean to the near coasts, from the top of the food chain to the bottom, real warning bells are ringing.

We can't begin to know what the total effects on our oceans will be, but what we have observed so far must be deeply troubling to any prudent, thoughtful person.

If you have been to the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Providence, you have seen a large plaque on the wall in the lobby marking the high water mark of the great hurricane of 1938 when a massive storm surge filled downtown Providence and the hotel lobby to a depth of about 5 feet. Sea level rise, another ocean threat, could mean that future storm surges crest much higher, wreaking far worse devastation.

That is a threat that is not unique to Rhode Island. Island nations around the globe are currently preparing for the possibility--really, the inevitability--that they will literally be engulfed by the ocean.

The National Intelligence Council reports that at least 30 American military installations around the world will be underwater if sea levels rise as projected. There is a dangerous feedback loop. The more ice that melts, the greater the danger. As darker ocean water traps rather than reflects the Sun's rays, melting accelerates and leaves us with less and less time to act, less and less time to spare our grandchildren the consequences of our generation's selfishness and folly.

Even seemingly modest changes in temperature, such as the 4 degree increase in Narragansett Bay, wreak havoc on marine ecosystems, causing what amounts to a full ecosystem shift. Anybody who relies on marine life for food, recreation, or a paycheck may soon find their lives changed by the disruption of the ocean's delicate ecosystem.

As a member of the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works, I find myself habitually frustrated that this ``tragedy of the commons'' continues to play out, while we stand idly on the sidelines and fail to intervene.

As a source of jobs and economic opportunity, a key element of our American tradition and, truly, the origin of life on our planet, our oceans, and our responsibility for them, ought to occupy a more prominent place on our national agenda.

Yet, our commitment to ocean and coastal preservation is unreliable at best--subject to the volatility of the yearly budget and appropriations process. None other than Robert Ballard, the famed ocean explorer who discovered the Titanic and is current president of the Ocean Exploration Trust, recently lamented that available funds for ocean research often fall far short of desired goals.

As we stand here and BP's oil poisons our Gulf of Mexico, it is time to ask our political system to put the stewardship of our natural resources, our ocean resources, at the forefront of our national agenda. In the past, Congress had established lasting endowments to protect other important American priorities.

Because we believe that a great society must cherish artistic expression and study closely the lessons of history, we established-- through the wisdom of Senator Claiborne Pell--the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Because we believe that a great society must connect communities to each other, we established a national highway trust fund. Because we believe that a great society must guarantee its elders a dignified and comfortable retirement after a lifetime of work, we established Social Security. Because we are indeed tied to our great waters, we should now act to establish a national endowment for the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes.

This legislation, as I said, is bipartisan. I thank Senator Olympia Snowe for joining in this effort. This legislation is science based, with much of the money made available through a competitive grant program that will award funding to research undertaken by academic institutions, on-the-ground conservation by nonprofit organizations, and local governments, and protection of critical public infrastructure.

This legislation is cost effective, coordinating existing efforts of Federal, local, and private programs, reducing duplication of research efforts, and crossing political borders to ensure that every dollar is spent with the greatest possible effect.

This legislation is appropriately paid for with revenue generated from the oilspill liability trust fund, Outer Continental Shelf drilling, offshore renewable energy development, and fines collected for violations of the Federal law off our coastline. Put simply, a small portion of the revenue extracted from our oceans and great waters must be reinvested to now protect their long-term viability.

The ocean provides us with great bounty, and we will continue to take advantage of the ocean's bounty, as we should. We will fish, we will sail, and we will trade. We will dispose of waste. We will extract fuel and construct wind farms. We will put pressure on our oceans. Navies and cruise ships, sailboats and supertankers, will plow their surface. We cannot change that part of our relationship with the sea.

What we can change is what we do in return. We can, for the first time, give back. We can become stewards of our oceans--not just takers, but caretakers.

My wife, Sandra, is a marine biologist. We have watched as the University of Rhode Island, home of the Graduate School of Oceanography, has become a world leader in understanding our oceans and how to conserve them.

We are watching GSO's researchers struggle to keep up with rapid changes reshaping the ecosystems they study. This endowment will help science keep pace with change.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration received $167 million for coastal restoration projects under the Recovery Act last year. More than 800 proposals for shovel-ready projects came in, totaling $3 billion. But NOAA could only fund 50. This endowment will help us move forward with those projects that protect our oceans and drive our economy.

The oceans contain the potential for new discoveries, the potential for new jobs, and the potential for new solutions to the emerging crisis off our shores.

But it is time to act. I urge my colleagues to join Senator Snowe and myself in support of this legislation. Let ours be the generation that tips the increasingly troubling balance between mankind and the oceans, from whence we came, a little bit back toward the benefit of our oceans.