Floor Statements

Mr. President, this week, the Senate has been considering historic infrastructure legislation.

We have seen a lot of positives in this process. Twenty-two amendments have been processed, and 12 of those amendments have been adopted. Many of those are bipartisan amendments that our fellow Senators have worked on together.

On Thursday, we saw the process hit a snag. We have colleagues who sincerely want to debate their remaining amendments, but we had objections that prevented our votes from moving forward. In my view, that is unfortunate. I want everybody's voice to be heard because a number of the amendments awaiting action would actually improve this legislation, and, again, we have consensus on both sides on that. I hope we can reach agreement on a package of amendments that can receive votes before we pass this bill in final.

In particular, I support an amendment that Senator Cornyn from Texas would like to offer to allow States to use previously appropriated COVID funding to finance infrastructure projects.

When I began negotiating with the White House in April and May, this was one of the things that I put on the table with the President, and I know the G-20 has also had this on the table with the President. So it has been a topic of great discussion both here in the Senate but also with the White House as well. The Cornyn-Padilla amendment would unlock tens of billions of dollars--more for highway, transit, and housing infrastructure--without adding to the cost of this legislation.

I plan to vote for cloture at 12 noon because this infrastructure legislation makes important investments in our Nation's future. I am a West Virginian, and all West Virginians and all Americans will benefit from the roads, bridges, water infrastructure, broadband, and other modes of core infrastructure that would be financed through this bill, but I believe something more foundational than infrastructure is at stake here.

We need to demonstrate to the American people that we can work together in this Congress to pass major legislation that benefits our country and, I might add, legislation that we have passed more than a few times in the past. Infrastructure is that perfect place to do that.

Senator Carper and I led the Environment and Public Works Committee with the surface transportation reauthorization bill, and the Presiding Officer is on that committee. We passed that out of our committee with unanimous support, and we also passed a drinking water bill that passed out of our committee with unanimous support but also out of this body with 89 votes. Both of those bills are included in this package in their entirety. Bipartisan bills reported by Commerce and the Energy Committees are also included.

I certainly appreciated Chairman Carper's leadership and partnership throughout the entire process. I appreciate the efforts of our colleagues in the G-22 who have worked with each other tirelessly and with the Biden administration to get us to this point.

We will soon have a chance to advance this infrastructure legislation toward final passage. Is this bill perfect? No--no compromise legislation ever is--but it will make a big difference in modernizing our country's infrastructure. More than that, we will demonstrate that both Republicans and Democrats can come together and do big things that move our country forward.

I have just a bit of a recitation to remind folks what is in this bill. I will try to speed this part up.

The bill provides $303.5 billion over 5 years for Federal highway programs--a 35-percent increase. That investment represents historic funding for our roads and bridges and provides States with the long- term certainty that they need and flexibility that they need to complete projects.

The bill ensures that 90 percent of the funding is distributed by formula--very predictable. It gives the States the certainty they need to prioritize their projects. For West Virginia, that means over $3 billion over 5 years. That is a huge investment for our State and much needed.

This bill also creates something that I am passionate about, the Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program to award $2 billion in competitive grants over 5 years to improve and expand roads and bridges in rural America. I am especially excited that this program has a 25- percent set-aside for projects that support the completion of the Appalachia Development Highway System, otherwise known as ADHS. That set-aside means ADHS projects in West Virginia are eligible to compete for $500 million over 5 years in discretionary grants. This package will move our Corridor H project along significantly because we know that that project will be getting $195 million, and this grant program opens up the possibility of more. This is a vital connection in our State for our tourism and our economy. It also will open us up even broader to the east coast.

West Virginia will receive $506 million to refund and repair our State's bridges, addressing a critical need certainly in our State and across the Nation. This funding is part of the single largest investment in bridge infrastructure since the construction of the Interstate Highway System.

Briefly, the bill recognizes that broadband is core infrastructure and prioritizes unserved communities. This is the area I have gotten really the most questions about: What is this going to do for West Virginia, for the digital divide areas that are still unserved?

Today, education, tourism, healthcare all rely on high internet speeds. I launched my Capito Connect Initiative in 2015 to help expand broadband infrastructure in our State. Many communities that lack adequate broadband are already struggling economically. It is impossible to compete for jobs if a community cannot offer good internet service, causing these areas to fall even further behind. And I will say, since the pandemic, rural America--as we have known who live in rural America--is a great and wonderful place to live. More people in congested areas are realizing there are a lot more pluses in rural America than what, maybe, they might have realized over a year ago.

The bill invests $65 billion to help fix our country's digital divide. That funding would support a formula-based grant program to States and also supports competitive grants, like the USDA's ReConnect Program.

Additionally, this bill makes large investments in clean and safe drinking water; it provides resources that will put West Virginians to work cleaning up our abandoned mines and orphaned wells.

Every Senator could stand here and tell similar stories about the investment that this bill will make in his or her own State. This is the perfect time for us to come together toward the end of a summer that has been full of stops and starts, and we need to pass this legislation that will benefit every American.

I hope my colleagues will join me to advance this important legislation toward its passage.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for several minutes on this amendment.

Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment. I am the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Appropriations for Homeland Security. The President's budget request included a rescission of $2 billion that we, as Members of this body, put, enacted, as the gentleman from Wisconsin has clearly illuminated.

And, at the same time, we are having a tremendous problem at our southern border. We all know this. We don't have the July numbers out yet, but we know that apprehensions are going to be in excess of over 200,000 in 1 month.

The July numbers also indicate that the number of unaccompanied children is the largest ever encountered in 1 month.

There are currently now over 150 miles of wall system projects that we as Congress legally funded that are now in jeopardy of being canceled. When you go to the border, you see millions of dollars' worth of steel slats lying on the ground that were to be constructed until President Biden canceled those projects. Do you know who else sees those border walls on the ground? Human traffickers. Drug smugglers.

I have, as we all have, been to the southern border several times. Customs and Border Patrol agents have told us that a border wall is a necessary part of a system to stop the flow of illegal immigration and illicit drugs.

The border wall is infrastructure. It is infrastructure to keep America safe. It is infrastructure to keep drugs out of this country. It is infrastructure to control illegal immigration.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the Johnson amendment to prohibit the cancelation of contracts to build the border wall.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would just like to add my voice with the chairman of the EPW Committee.

I think, in consideration of everybody's time, we have got four more amendments and maybe more. We could roll through these if we would just be concise with the time and come in and vote on time.

So if we don't, we might look for more punitive measures; right, Mr. Chairman?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am in full support of using the 15-minute deadline that we have anyway and actually enforcing this.

There is a lot of interest in this bill, as there should be. There are a lot of amendments pending. We want to get as many Members in--and have their amendments in the queue--as we possibly can.

But if people don't come down and vote and show courtesy to everybody, I said in my last statement we are going to go to punitive measures. I am not sure voting within the allotted time is really a punitive measure, but that is what we are aiming for, and I am fully supportive of that.

I am in support also as a ranking member.

Vote on Amendment No. 2358

Mr. President, I rise to support this amendment.

This amendment, as we know, would require the Department of Transportation to conduct a highway cost allocation study--the first one since 1997.

Vehicles are different than they were in 1997, and roadway use has increased significantly. This study will help us to analyze the direct cost of highway use by different types of users, and then compare that to user fee revenue contributions to the Highway Trust Fund.

This is about gathering roadway use information to inform decisions to address the Highway Trust Fund shortfalls. I encourage my colleagues to vote yes on the Lummis-Kelly-Cornyn amendment.

Thank you.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 2 minutes.

Madam President, I have great respect for my colleague from Utah, but I am in firm opposition to his amendment.

It would completely undo months of hard work, bipartisan hard work. The two major bipartisan infrastructure bills that Chairman Carper and I and the EPW Committee passed unanimously would be totally undone here. The bipartisan gang spent months carefully and considerably negotiating this agreement with the White House. All of these meaningful investments that I talked about yesterday would be gone: the new bridge program--gone; supplemental funding for the Appalachian Development Highway System--gone; broadband funding needed to help close the digital divide--gone.

We have come too far to throw all of this bipartisan work away on this substitute. Time is of the essence. Let's give our States the certainty that they need.

By the way, there is permitting reform in this bill, right here, as we look at it. Let's get this across the finish line. So I would urge my colleagues to vote no on this amendment.

Thank you

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate for 1 minute on this amendment.

Mr. President, I rise in support of this bipartisan amendment in the spirit in which it has been offered.

The amendment will designate five different States--Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia--as the future Interstate 14 corridor. The sponsors state that this would really be integral for economic development support, to support tourism and also provide an important link to our military facilities.

I encourage my colleagues to vote yes on the Cruz-Warnock amendment.

Madam President, I want to thank the sponsors of the Van Hollen-Rounds amendment, and I am in full support of this bipartisan amendment. As the chairman explained that public-private partnerships under TIFIA would be backed by the surety bond, which would mean that, in the event of a contractor default, the projects could still be completed, subcontractors and workers paid, and taxpayer investments protected. It sounds like a good commonsense amendment, and I am fully in support.

I would also like to say that the progress we had today is more than encouraging. We are all, I think, very excited about the prospects of what the improvements that this bill will make to our transportation and energy sectors and just the guts of our country in terms of the physical infrastructure.

With that, I yield the floor.

Vote on Amendment No. 2354

Mr. President, I want to begin by thanking the chairman of our EPW Committee. We work tremendously well together.

He gave a great speech right there, outlining not only the difficulties that we had reaching consensus but really how the building blocks of what we are embarking on today really came from the bipartisanship that we have shown at EPW with our surface transportation and our water bills.

I think, you know, by having those building blocks in place, it has led us to where we are today.

And I do remember that first meeting with President Biden in the White House. It is not every day you get to go to the White House and sit in the Oval Office and talk to the President of the United States and Vice President. But we started out with basically saying that we can do this, we want to do this, and bipartisanship can work, particularly on areas that we traditionally work together on, but also on areas that are of critical need to our country. And we never really sort of lost our focus on that, and neither did the President.

So here we are today, really meeting that challenge that he sort of laid down before us over 6 months ago. And with the building blocks that us and Commerce and others have put into place, we find ourselves with the great hard work of the bipartisan group and a great place of-- at a point at which we can discuss these, amend these, and look at these on the Senate floor, as we should be doing.

So after months and months of negotiating, the time is finally here. A lot of people, in pun, said we would never get here. As a matter of fact, I had an interview on national TV about 3 or 4 months ago, when I was leading the effort for the Republicans, and the commentator said: Well, I will believe bipartisanship on infrastructure when pigs fly.

So watch out. They are flying.

So we are debating this historic bipartisan infrastructure bill. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is the product of countless hours, as the chairman said; late nights; and more than a couple of tough conversations. And I want to include not just our staff but a lot of staffs throughout the Senate, whether it is the Finance Committee, Approps Committee, Commerce Committee, Banking Committee, EPW Committee, Energy Committee, all-encompassing--a lot of our staffs have been working through the weekends sleeplessly to try to get us to today.

We debated the definition of infrastructure. We actually talked about that at the White House on the day we went to see the President and what that scope should look like and the pricetag and, very important, how to pay for it.

I think that nobody, probably, of the 100 of us thinks this bill is absolutely perfect. It never would be. And there is always a saying going around that, if we all thought it was perfect, there is something wrong with it.

So delivering for the American people is more important than our newspaper headlines today. We can make a historic investment in our Nation's infrastructure with this bill. It reflects our commitment to keeping Americans safe, as the chairman mentioned; improving our global competitiveness; and growing our economy and creating jobs. This legislation gives States both the certainty in funding to plan for big projects, but also that flexibility in spending to cater to unique needs.

What you need in Georgia is different than what you need in Delaware, or my other colleague from Montana would differ from what we need in West Virginia. This bill is a product that the American people can be proud of and one that will benefit them and the next generation. This is not a one-and-done. The impacts of this bill will go on through a generation.

So after we had the meeting with the President--the bipartisan meeting--the President put out his American Jobs Act. He actually challenged my party, the Republican Party, to come up with a reaction to his American Jobs Plan. And I took up that challenge, along with the ranking members of the relevant committees. So that would be Senators Wicker, Toomey, Barrasso, Crapo, and Senator Blunt, and we went back to the White House. And I was talking to Senator Carper the entire time through this process to make sure that our surface transportation bill, which we were in the midst of negotiating, was going to be the building block on which we could formulate a bipartisan agreement. And the Drinking Water and Wastewater bill had already passed out this entire body 89 to 2.

So we decided--and the President was very much in the conversation and the will to get this done. So our Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act had already passed, as I said, unanimously. We passed it on the floor, 89 to 2. And we were making steady progress on our Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill.

At this point, the talks between the President and me and our working group, as Republicans, began to falter, and the bipartisan group picked up with the President. I am really, really glad and proud of their efforts that they were able to come to an agreement that is before us today. As I am going to reiterate again because I think we are going to be saying this a lot, I am glad that the basis of this are the two bipartisan bills that came out of the EPW Committee.

There are several provisions I would like to highlight as we begin this process.

Roads and bridges are what we think of when we think of infrastructure. We talked a lot about this over the last several months. As ranking member of the EPW Committee, one of my top priorities, along with Chairman Carper, is the reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill. We worked painstakingly; and those were a lot of sleepless nights, too, for many of us and our staffs, in particular, to write a bill to meet our transportation needs. And the chairman outlined a lot of what his priorities were, and I am going to talk about some of what the priorities that I had, sharing his priorities as well.

I came to the table with several major priorities for that bill, and I am proud to say that each one of them is in this bill that we are getting ready to consider. I wanted a robust investment in our Nation's roads and bridges. Nothing bugs people more, literally, than driving into a pothole when they know they are paying a gas tax and when they know they are trying to do their best to support their State and local to repair their roads. But it is, I think, the least, I think, that Americans--as they are going to work or going to school or going shopping--would expect that they could be safe as they are traveling.

I came to the table, and we did a robust $303.5 billion over 5 years for the Federal-Aid Highway Program, which, as the chairman said, is a 35-percent increase over current law. That investment represents historic funding. These are historic levels of funding for our roads and bridges and provides States that long-term certainty that they need to plan and complete a project. I am sure the chairman has projects in his State that have been on the burner, waiting to be done or partially finished, and they can't get the investment because they can't get the

long-term investment that we provided in our bill.

So I specifically made funding for our Nation's bridges a priority. West Virginia has so many bridges. It is a small State, but we have got a lot of hills and valleys, so we need a lot of bridges.

One recent report said that 21 percent of West Virginia's bridges are in poor condition. Another report says that 13 percent of our interstate bridges are in poor condition. So that latter figure of the interstate bridges is the highest one in the Nation. Our bill created a new bridge program. We worked hard with our colleagues to make sure that there is a massive infusion, which there is, on top of what we had in our bill in the appropriations package.

The overall package includes $40 billion in dedicated resources for bridges. This is the single largest investment in bridge infrastructure since the construction of the Interstate Highway System. This is money that will make a difference for West Virginia and the rest of the Nation.

Second, I wanted to preserve the flexibility for our States and localities to use Federal funds to meet their own unique transportation needs. That priority is reflected in the fact that 90 percent of the EPW bill's funding will be provided to our States through the formula-- that means the predictability of the formula that every State has relied on over the last several transportation bills. That is important because it lets States use the Federal dollars to address their own priorities. As I said, we have different priorities, from congestion in urban areas to economic growth in small towns.

And third, I wanted to make sure that all parts of our Nation--not just urban areas, but the rural areas--benefit from transportation grant programs. Rural areas can sometimes struggle when it comes to receiving competitive grants.

It is hard to show cost-benefit analysis. It is hard to show how many people are being served. But these transportation corridors are so vital. That is why I am very pleased that the EPW bill creates a new $2 billion rural grant program that will dedicate resources to something very important to me--the Appalachian Development Highway System, or the ADHS--and other critical projects across rural America.

We also worked together to provide additional dedicated funding for the ADHS in the broader legislation.

So what does that mean for my home State?

That means that this funding will aid the completion of Corridor H, which is the connector to the eastern and central parts of our State with the Metro and DC area and opening up more opportunities for economic growth and tourism. So if you are coming from the DC area, you can just slice right through the center of the State where you can ski Whitewater, see the beauty of our State, or bring your business.

How about that?

Finally, we hear a lot--everybody hears a lot--from folks back home that it just takes way too long to develop a project. We sometimes think sometimes the bureaucracy is our worst enemy when it comes to building our infrastructure. So we prioritized improvements for the project delivery process to help road and bridge projects advance from the planning stage to the completion stage much more rapidly.

I am excited about reforms we had in our EPW bill. Particularly, our bill codifies the One Federal Decision policy, making it easier for project sponsors to work through the Federal environmental review process--not skirting any environmental review, but just expediting it so it can go quicker, which means more development, more considerations, but also more efficiency on how you spend your dollars.

The EPW bill makes other commonsense reforms, like allowing States to be reimbursed for utility relocation necessary for a project while the review process is ongoing, or even establishing deadlines for Federal Agencies to make decisions.

These are a few examples of the 19 sections included in the robust project delivery section of our EPW bill.

Additional provisions in the broader legislation will extend the FAST-41 permitting reforms to help us build other types of infrastructure more efficiently.

So my key priorities: Robust investment in roads and bridges, flexibility for--and certainty for--our States; resources for rural communities and especially the ADHS, and project delivery improvements are all reflected in the EPW bill and across the broader package we are considering.

I am extremely proud of the work we did on our committee to produce this, and I think it will make significant benefits to our Nation's infrastructure.

I am also going to talk about our Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act. The chairman went into more detail on it, but you can see it is very far-reaching. It is the largest, most robust investment in new areas around this very crucial area. We have authorized $35 billion for water projects across the country with a focus on upgrading aging infrastructure. It invests in innovative technologies and provides assistance to rural and low-income communities to help them keep their water safe and clean. The bill provides that flexibility I talked about so that both rural and urban areas can best address their needs.

The most significant investments are in the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds, otherwise known as SRFs. Our former Governors in the body would know all about SRFs, how important they are. They maximize the authority to the States to determine how best to address their own challenges with a revolving loan fund to facilitate additional future investments.

When this water legislation was voted on by the Senate, 89 Senators supported it. Senators recognized that the legislation will help thousands of communities to improve their health, safety, and standard of living. I am very pleased that this bill before us again is a part of this package--a part of the larger package--so we can make sure that it gets to the President's desk.

I am glad that the overall package we are considering represents the largest investment in clean drinking water in our Nation's history.

It also has some niche things in there that are important to me. Just what we hear anecdotally in our State, we are wasting water in our State. We have leaky old pipes that just leak out 50 percent of the water from the treatment facilities to the home. What a waste. Think about our friends in the West and how precious water is in certain areas. What a wasteful thing that is. So we addressed some of that into our bill.

There are a number of other provisions in this large package that will be significant wins for West Virginia and the Nation. I launched my Capito Connect initiative in 2015, to help expand broadband infrastructure in West Virginia. Many communities that lack adequate broadband service are struggling economically. And I see my fellow Senator from Montana--we had talked about this endlessly on the Commerce Committee and how absolutely important it is.

Many communities that lack adequate broadband service are struggling. It is impossible to compete for new jobs if a community cannot offer good internet service--I mean, it is just a necessity--causing these areas to fall further and further behind. So, today, education, tourism, healthcare, all require high-speed internet service.

Broadband is core infrastructure, and this legislation recognizes that. It is a major broadband investment that will tremendously help close the digital divide in this country. We will get it to the last house. We will get it to the last business.

Additionally, significant funding is included in this package to improve our Nation's airports.

Funding for the Corps of Engineers will improve our water resources infrastructure, our locks and dams. We rely a lot on that as you are going knew down the Ohio Canal, the Big Sandy in through West Virginia.

Reorganization of the AML Program will provide billions of dollars to clean up abandoned mine sites. Another new program will provide resources to clean up orphaned oil and gas wells. Both programs will have a positive effect in this country and particularly in my State.

The items I have highlighted are major wins for West Virginia and the Nation. They are investments in the next generation, ensuring America continues to compete on the global stage.

I would like to thank Senators Portman and Sinema for their leadership on this legislation and the entire bipartisan working group for their hours and hours of long work.

I would especially like to thank--and we are going to be together a lot here in the next several days--my counterpart, ``Carper diem,'' Chairman Carper of the EPW Committee.

I would also like to thank President Biden for his commitment and his willingness to see this bipartisan work product through. I would like to add that I would like to thank the President's staff because I know that they have committed hours and hours to this effort, beginning with me and ending where we are today.

I hope this isn't the end. I mean, I hope this is the beginning of things that we are going to be doing together. I hope this isn't a one- and-done. I hope this is the beginning of all good things.

The American people elected us to do this tough work. Tough compromises are necessary to develop and pass bipartisan bills, and I believe this legislation is a major positive step.

I look forward to working with my colleagues as we begin the amendment process so that we can advance this package.

I would like to join with Chairman Carper in thanking our staff members who have worked so hard on the EPW bill.

As the Senator mentioned, I see his staff over there and part of my staff over here.

At the risk of picking one of my favorite children off the EPW Committee, I am going to name my entire staff because they all had a hand in this. So I would like to thank Lauren Baker; Murphie Barrett; Libby Callaway; Georgianna Clemmons, who is going to be a mom in about a month; Marli Collier; Travis Cone; Sarah Delavan; Will Dixon; Elizabeth Horner; Max Hyman; Tyler Jenkins; Jess Kramer; Jake Kennedy; Matt Lupes; Kayla McMurry; Taylor Meredith; Jacob Mitchell; Kelley Moore; Katherine Smith; and my staff leader, Adam Tomlinson--I will give him an extra check because he is an amazing person--Travis Voyles; and Andy Zock for their tireless efforts that have helped advance this committee's infrastructure legislation.

On my personal office team, I would like to thank my chief of staff, Joel Brubaker, and JT Jezierski for their leadership.

I say to the Senator that I also want to thank his staff. We have worked really well. You and I work well together, but our staffs really do, I think, rely on one another. And that is the way it should be.

I would like to especially thank Mary Frances Repko because she has devoted many hours and time--she and Adam--I don't know how many times they have talked on the phone, but it is many, many, many--Rebecca Higgins, John Kane, Greg Dotson, Laura Gilliam, Jordan Baugh, Heather Dean, Mackie McIntosh, Annie D'Amato, Kenneth Martin, and Tyler Hoffman-Reardon for their dedication for this process as well.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I don't have an objection. I just wanted to say to the--to Chairman Carper here and others in the bipartisan group and all of us here: We are ready to get this thing started.

This is a great way for Members to say what they like and what they don't like, and the amendment process is on its way.

Thank you.

Madam President, I would just like to join my chairman and thank him again. This will be our third amendment of the night. I think it shows good progress for all of us.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Mr. Edwin Reyes DeQuiros, a dedicated servant to the great people of West Virginia. After a 34 year career, Edwin is retiring as an Immigration Services Officer for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Application Support Center office in Charleston, WV.

Edwin is a joy to work with and has served as a valuable and consistent liaison between USCIS and my office. His goal is to try to assist the customers to the best of his knowledge and experience but not to the extent of compromising U.S. immigration laws and the USCIS policies and regulations.

Born and raised in the Philippines, Edwin is no stranger to the legal immigration process. In January of 1981, he married a young beautiful woman from Charleston, WV. Based upon this marriage and her approved immigration petition, the U.S. Embassy in Manila, Philippines, issued an immigrant visa for him as the spouse of a U.S. citizen.

In September 1982, he and his wife, along with their then 10-month- old son, arrived in Los Angeles, CA. Finding a job in L.A. was difficult and frustrating as a new immigrant with no work experience in the United States in addition to not having a vehicle.

In November 1982, an experience he credits to the grace of God and answered prayer, he was hired by the Broadway Department Store, sister company of Neiman-Marcus, as a merchandise handler. His job was to unload merchandise from the semi-trucks to the stockrooms. A year later, he was promoted to a plainclothes loss prevention officer tasked with arresting shoplifters. Two years later, he became the loss prevention manager of the same store, and one of his duties was to apprehend dishonest store employees. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in July of 1986.

In November 1987, he saw an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times that the legacy INS--now the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services--was hiring a Criminal Investigator/Special Agent. Edwin was hired and became an INS Special Agent, attended the Immigration Officer Basic Training Course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, GA, and was assigned to various units--Fraud, Employer Sanctions, Anti-Smuggling, Criminal Alien Apprehension Program, and the Violent Gang Task Force--within the INS Investigation Branch.

Nine years later, he transferred to the INS Investigation Branch in Charleston, WV, eventually named Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE. During his time as an ICE Senior Special Agent, he was assigned to investigate child pornography cases, import and export law violations, and human trafficking/smuggling cases.

After more than 20 years of combined and exemplary service with legacy INS and ICE, Edwin retired on September 29, 2008. Three days later, he was hired on a government contract as a Special Deputy U.S. Marshal with the U.S. Marshal Service in Charleston, WV. On January 30, 2012, he became an Immigration Services Officer for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services' Application Support Center office in Charleston, WV.

Edwin and his wife of 40 years, Christine, are the parents of two children, Adrian and Jeremy. In retirement, they will enjoy time with family, riding their road bikes, traveling and walking the trail paths along the Kanawha River. Edwin truly believes that wherever God leads him and however he serves Him, he can be used by God to help others shine His light. We thank Edwin for his service and for shining his light for those on the immigration path. It is a pleasure to call Edwin DeQuiros a fellow West Virginian.

Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the nomination of Radhika Fox to be Assistant Administrator for Water at the EPA. I certainly appreciate her willingness to serve, and I have found her to be quite personable and friendly. So this is not a personal statement.

But even though she is not yet confirmed, she is already in place as the lead political appointee in the Water Office of the EPA. In that capacity, her recent announcement of overreaching regulatory proposals under the Clean Water Act cemented my opposition to her nomination.

Ms. Fox's position on the appropriate scope of the Clean Water Act was not clear last month when I voted on her nomination in the EPA committee, of which I am the ranking member. At that markup in May, I noted that I could not support Ms. Fox at that time because she would not commit to maintaining the navigable waters protection rule issued in 2020. As I noted at the time, she would also not state that the 2015 waters of the United States rule was overreaching. So I really couldn't pin her down on any opinion on this very important rule.

I now know why she would not commit to maintaining the navigable waters protection rule when she testified before the committee and avoided providing direct responses in her written responses to my followup questions. The administration did not support the rule and, apparently, the EPA opposed it completely.

Last week, Ms. Fox and EPA Administrator Regan, as well as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, announced their plans to repeal and replace the rule in its entirety. EPA and the Corps of Engineers are going to completely rewrite the regulations that determine whether a business, a farm, or a citizen needs to obtain a Federal water permit. The Federal Agencies announced that they had decided they are not going to keep any part of that rule and that they are going to start from scratch.

That was at odds with what Ms. Fox conveyed to me in a phone call that she did make the previous day to inform me they were going to be making an announcement. She was just very incomplete, and it was extremely disappointing to me and to the many States and businesses that support the navigable waters protection rule, which--unlike the 2015 waters of the United States rule it replaced--is the law presently. The navigable waters protection rule is the law of the land in all 50 States. That made it clear when Federal permits would be needed, and it gave States more control over how to permit water bodies in their borders.

Throughout her nomination process, when I asked Ms. Fox about the administration's plans, she expressed a desire to hear from stakeholders in order to create a ``durable'' rule. Ms. Fox did not conduct any formal public stakeholder process before announcing the decision that was made to repeal the navigable waters protection rule.

The administration has said it plans to repeal the rule and then put in place guidance from the 1980s while we wait and while they come up with a replacement. Changing the regulations three times in a short period of time--2015, 2020, and now 2021--simply does not meet her commitment to develop a ``durable'' definition.

Instead, ever-changing rules create a game of regulatory ping-pong across administrations. These are big far-reaching rules. That permitting uncertainty hurts our economy at a time when we need growth, and it does so without additional environmental protection in my home State.

We often forget that the Clean Water Act allows States to regulate their waters as much as they like. The definition of ``waters of the United States'' only determines Federal jurisdiction. In fact, that is the keystone of the Clean Water Act.

The administration's promises of transparency and creating regulatory certainty simply are not reflected in these actions, and their goals, stated to a briefing of congressional offices during a briefing call, are particularly troubling. They pointed to the prior converted cropland exemption and treatment of ditches under the current rule as ``implementation challenges'' that they want to address.

It doesn't take much to understand what that means. The administration intends to require more Federal permits for prior converted cropland and ditches on private land. That is a gross overreach of the Federal Government's authority under the Clean Water Act, and it is questionable whether the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers could even vet the sheer volume of permit applications that would come their way.

I encourage Ms. Fox to engage with stakeholders from agriculture to mining, to construction, to home building before issuing the official proposal to repeal the navigable waters protection rule, and I urge Ms. Fox to make that engagement meaningful. Simply checking the box that these stakeholders have had the opportunity to talk to members of the administration is not meaningful engagement.

If officials of the administration truly engaged in a transparent process where they took stakeholder feedback into account, they would learn that the best way to provide regulatory certainty is to keep that navigable waters protection rule in place. I cannot support Ms. Fox's decision to undo such a foundational rule without any public engagement and to do so in a way that appears to be more expansive than the overreaching Obama rule called the ``waters of the United States rule.''

So I urge my colleagues to vote against Ms. Fox's nomination on the basis of what she has already done and in most probability will do in the future surrounding this very, very important topic

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank my colleague from Missouri, Senator Blunt, for his leadership on this issue.

We had the hearing and the markup in the Rules Committee. I think that we could tell from the debate that the amount of holes and misinformation that is contained within S. 1 is the reason that I call it the so-called For the People Act.

Ronald Reagan famously said that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are ``I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'' This can be applied to many examples of what we do here.

What seems more pertinent, I think, now is this latest partisan attempt to federalize one of America's most sacred functions, and that is our elections. Advocates claim that this sweeping effort, which comes in the form of legislation ironically called For the People Act, is to get more people to vote. Let's be clear. Everyone--Republicans, Democrats, Independents--we all want to see more people voting. The good news is that we have already been doing that across the country and in my home State of West Virginia.

Remember, last year we were voting under a pandemic, under incredibly difficult situations for everybody. Our State of West Virginia ran a very successful election suited to our State. We had thousands more people vote in 2020 than they did in 2016. In fact, the total number of ballots cast in 2020 was more than any other election in West Virginia's history, with the exception of the 1960 election. The 1960 election, remember, was the Presidential election that President Kennedy won after he had a very successful and a pivotal victory in the primary in West Virginia as the first Roman Catholic running for President. More than 158 million ballots were cast in 2020. That is a 7-percent increase since 2016. This is under a pandemic.

Every State decided the best way to get maximum participation. Last November, every single State saw higher turnout rates compared to the previous Presidential election. If more people are, in fact, voting, what is this Democratic-proposed legislation really about? And that is where it is about the federalization of elections and election power grab. I believe it lacks credibility. It is really about a way to implement absurd and downright un-American provisions in the bill that prioritize power over the will of the people.

I am glad to say that some of my Democratic colleagues are finally acknowledging the concerns with this bill. During the Rules Committee markup, Republicans and Democrats offered a number of amendments, some of which were adopted on a bipartisan basis. That is what we are supposed to do--work it through committee. These amendments have been heralded by some of my Democratic colleagues as an example of how we can work together on this issue.

Despite the bipartisan amendments in the Rules Committee--despite this--the version that the majority leader may bring up for a vote does not include any of the amendments that were adopted during the markup even though they had bipartisan support. To me, that is a clear sign that the majority is not trying to cooperate in good faith but, rather, trying to ram through a partisan bill that will encroach on the States' abilities--my State's ability--to ensure a free and fair election and a well-attended election at the same time.

The legislation would strip States of their constitutional authority to run elections and allow the Federal Government to determine what is best.

It would ban voter ID laws, which are adopted in many States, mine included, which maintain the integrity of elections in my State and the majority of others. Quite frankly, I haven't heard one person in my State complain about having to take an ID to the polls or to submit an ID with their vote.

The bill would also force States to administer same-day voter registration--a cumbersome mandate that many States won't be able to comply with for dozens of reasons. In my State, it is internet connectivity. Many of our polling areas wouldn't be able to accept same-day registration because they can't connect, unfortunately, to the bigger system to find out if this person is fraudulent or not.

It would also require that States mandate the unpopular and dangerous practice of ballot harvesting, which is ripe for fraud. Now, I will tell you, some States have made ballot harvesting legal. Some States have same-day voter registration. Good for them. They decided what is good for their State through the constitutional duty of States to run elections.

Speaking of fraud, this bill would mandate absentee ballot boxes, drop boxes, and force county clerks to accept regular ballots filed in the wrong precinct without proof of residency, both of which leave the door open to voter fraud.

If that is not enough, if signed into law, West Virginia's e-voting system and others like it--this is the e-voting system that allows our Active military who are deployed overseas to be able to vote safely by their mobile phone, and the legislature opened that up to people with disabilities to be able to use an e-voting system. This bill would severely curtail that and negate it in many cases. That is an expansion of voting rights that this bill would take away.

This legislation would allow government funding of congressional campaigns, with small donations being matched with Federal funds. Now, we heard from our friend Senator Cruz in our committee. He talked about, if his contributions were matched for the first 3 months of this year, he would get millions of dollars, over $20 million of public financing for his campaign. I highly doubt my Democratic colleagues would want the Federal Government to help Senator Cruz in the financing of his campaign. As a matter of fact, he himself, Senator Cruz, said he doesn't want that at all either.

The bill also would make the FEC, the Federal Election Commission, which oversees our elections and our finances, which is now a neutral three Republicans, three Democrats on the Commission, as it always has been--it would make it into a partisan majority vote. Well, if you are going to be making decisions on my colleague from Florida's election or my election on financials, or the Presiding Officer's election, do we really want a political organization making those? Not when we have had a nonpartisan FEC for years and have enforced our campaign laws and put them above party politics. But remember, this is only about getting people to vote, so don't worry.

The disaster doesn't stop with politicizing the FEC; it would also remove the authority of States to draw district maps and would mandate how you do that. Our States can figure out how best--some of them have commissions. Some of them do it by the legislature. Some of them do it by the supreme court. Let's let the States make that decision.

I just think that the biggest demonstration of opposition to this bill has come from the West Virginia County Clerk's Association. It adopted a resolution in opposition to S. 1 that 54 of the 55 county clerks in my State signed. These are Republican and Democratic county clerks.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this letter from the West Virginia County Clerk's Association

Madam President, they raise numerous grievances, many of which I have talked about. They talk about the voting machines they have right now, which they have spent a lot of money on, that would all be taken offline. You would have to fully replace all of that. They also fully reject the usurping of what is their constitutionally based responsibility to run elections safely, securely, and on time. So I appreciate the letter from our clerks and certainly understand their deep, deep concerns. The right to vote is a constitutional right, and on that, we are in agreement.

I got to go to a citizenship ceremony wherein 20 new citizens joined our country after having waited to get into our country. After becoming citizens, the best and most precious right they get is that right to vote. Yet S. 1 is merely a partisan power grab that includes all kinds of unrelated, harmful provisions. It strips the States of their authority to run their elections. To put it simply, States do not need the Federal Government to strip them of their authority and impose burdensome requirements to fix problems that do not exist. That is exactly what this bill does, and it is why the For the People Act does not live up to its name.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address this for a minute.

I just want to join with Senator Carper in opposition to this amendment. While I think it is well-meaning for the State of Florida, and I think that both Senator Rubio and Senator Scott have made us aware of this issue, I think that in order to update these formulas, we should have hearings. We should actually do this in a more studied, more detailed way than this amendment presents for us to do.

With that, I join my colleague and my chair in opposition to this amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 1471, as Modified

Mr. President, I would also join in the positive comments to say this meets two issues that I care deeply about and certainly hit my State, which is the PFAS issue and also small and disadvantaged communities. It very much helps with safe and clean drinking water

Mr. President, I thank Senator Kennedy for this. I pull up my local newspaper, and the first thing that comes up is listing the boil water advisories. This is absolutely needed. I think it is a great idea. I am very much in support of this.

Vote on Amendment No. 1469

Mr. President, we yield back our time.

Vote on Amendment No. 1472

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, this week on the Senate floor, my colleagues and I have explained how the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 would make significant improvements to our country's water infrastructure.

After a bipartisan, regular order legislative and amendment process, we move to final consideration.

This legislation makes meaningful progress on our drinking water and wastewater challenges that will benefit the States represented by every single one of us.

It invests heavily in the State revolving loan funds to give our States that flexibility they need in their funding.

It creates a new grant program specifically for small and disadvantaged communities to upgrade their systems, fix leaky pipes, and prevent water loss.

It helps connect low-income households to public water systems or helps them to get new and better septic tanks.

It supports water infrastructure projects on Indian reservation lands and in Alaskan Native villages.

It provides assistance to remove and replace lead pipes, as well as lead testing in schools and childcare centers.

It encourages the next generation to be a part of that water infrastructure workforce that is so critical.

All of the investments represent the EPW's shared goals of improving public health and fostering economic growth in all of our communities.

These are just a few of the provisions which I wanted to highlight and which are informed by particular challenges facing our water systems in the State of West Virginia, but based on the feedback from all of our colleagues in both parties and the groundswell of support we have seen from various water advocacy groups, it is clear that these provisions will have broad applicability to help communities all across the United States. It is why we have such a diverse and growing coalition of more than 70 supporters, from water systems to local governments, to industry, to labor, to environmental organizations.

Before I wrap up, I would like to thank my colleague and chairman of our committee and West Virginia-born Chairman Tom Carper.

This legislation represents, I think, a fantastic first effort for our ongoing work together to address the major concerns of the American people when it comes to infrastructure and the environment, and in a thoughtful and fiscally responsible fashion.

His staff has been engaged and candid with mine throughout this entire process. So, in particular, I would like to thank John Kane, the lead for Chairman Carper's water team, and his colleague Annie D'Amato, as well as Tyler Hoffman-Reardon and Mackie McIntosh, who provided support throughout these negotiations. So thank you. Chairman Carper's team is led by staff director Mary Frances Repko, who brought her wealth of experience to bear on this process as well.

I would certainly like to take time to highlight the members of my team, who worked long hours, nights and weekends, to deliver this legislation--Jess Kramer, EPW Republican water counsel, and Travis Cone, who is here with me today, my Republican deputy staff director and lead for our environmental team. They led the negotiations on our side and brought us to where we are today.

They had strong assistance from our staff director, Adam Tomlinson, as well as chief counsel Elizabeth Horner, as well as Max Hyman, one of our policy staff who contributed to the language we see today in this bill.

I would like to also thank and congratulate Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife Subcommittee Chair Tammy Duckworth and Ranking Member Cynthia Lummis and their staffs for their hard work on this bill. They are two of my colleagues from my House days, and I am so glad that all of us are working together again on the same committee, no less, here in the U.S. Senate

I also appreciate Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee Chair Ben Cardin, whom I have worked with on a lot of these issues previously, and also my good friend Ranking Member Kevin Cramer for providing a lot of input into this legislation.

This has absolutely been a team effort. It is what we are here for, to work together. I look forward to our team racking up a lot more wins in infrastructure and beyond over the course of the 117th Congress.

In closing, I just want to reiterate again that passing this bipartisan bill in a bipartisan way is also very important. We know it is more than symbolic, but there is symbolism, I think, here because it shows the American people what we hear all the time when we go home: that their elected officials in Congress can work together and collaboratively on issues such as infrastructure. The bill represents the solid work that comes out of good-faith negotiations.

Chairman Carper and I worked together and never took our eye off of the mutual goal--a bipartisan bill that can pass both Chambers and be signed into law. We are here today with that bill. I am proud to be Chairman Carper's partner, and I appreciate his leadership.

I hope that as we move forward with other infrastructure packages, we remember this moment. We know the next couple of weeks and months are going to be tough, but we can do tough things to deliver for the American people. That is what we were sent here to do.

So, again, I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this legislation, and I hope we continue in this spirit.

I yield the floor, or I yield to my partner, Chairman Carper.

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

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the resolution of disapproval on the Trump EPA's methane policy rule.

This resolution we have in front of us today is nothing more than political posturing, I believe. Ironically, the Democrats are targeting natural gas for blame when methane emissions have actually fallen. According to EPA data, natural gas systems in the United States reduced their overall methane emissions by nearly 16 percent between 1990 and 2019. It is widely recognized that the shale gas boom led to significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions across our power sector.

Some climate change advocates, including those in Washington, want to ban oil and gas production and use, and they oppose the maintenance and expansion of our pipelines in this country. The CRA is part of that effort, I believe.

The CRA is part of a plan to double down on an industry that the Biden administration--obviously, from the day the President took office--does not support. Just yesterday, the Biden administration's Office of Management and Budget issued a Statement of Administration Policy on the resolution we are considering today. The statement does not hide the disdain that the administration has toward the oil and gas sector. The statement presents a laundry list of alleged harms to Americans from the oil and gas industry and none of the benefits. It doesn't mention that, as our natural gas production and use have gone up, our country's overall greenhouse gas emissions have gone down. It does not talk about the wage gap between natural gas sector jobs and so-called green jobs.

As POLITICO reported this week, ``The median wage for solar workers is $24.48 an hour compared with $30.33 for those employed by the natural gas sector, which amounts to a roughly $12,000 annual wage gap.''

In yesterday's statement, the administration showed its cards for its next step. The passage of this resolution would lay the groundwork for a planned regulatory war on oil and gas.

According to the administration, today's resolution ``clear[s] the pathway for EPA to evaluate opportunities to promulgate even stronger standards under section 111 of the Clean Air Act to address dangerous methane and other pollution from both new and existing sources across the oil and gas sector.''

That is right. They want to come forward with even stronger clean air regulations on the sector than the Obama administration did. But before even starting a rulemaking to ask for public comments, the Biden administration has made up its mind to regulate much more aggressively. I guess I am not really surprised. Now it is time; it is just waiting to identify the best opportunities to do so.

We shouldn't demonize an industry that is part of the lifeblood of our economy. We should celebrate the emission-reduction accomplishments and look for ways to further incentivize those. Let's focus on solutions that address our climate challenges without destroying the economic engines of growth, solutions that don't pick winners and losers.

The market is pushing industry to lower its methane emissions. And for those still flaring gas, one way to reduce flaring is to build out our pipeline infrastructure so they can get the gas--the very commodity they are trying to produce and sell--to the market.

So let's come up with solutions that actually help protect our planet and don't overregulate industry for political points, solutions like improving the environmental review and permitting processes so that we can complete these pipeline projects more efficiently and cleaner.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the resolution, and I urge my colleagues to focus on real, unifying solutions.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Carper and I be allowed to speak for 1 minute each before the next cloture vote.

Mr. President, we are about to vote cloture on Janet McCabe, the No. 2 at the EPA, and I vehemently oppose her nomination to this position.

She is the architect of the Clean Power Plan that basically racked my economy in West Virginia, and she has not backed down from that in her testimony. She is very supportive of that plan and even more.

Her boss at the EPA at the time was Gina McCarthy. Guess where she is now--in the White House. She, again, will be Janet McCabe's boss in the White House, dictating from there.

During her time at the EPA before, she didn't listen, she wouldn't come to West Virginia, and she basically showed very little interest in what happens to the people most deeply affected by the policies that she put forward.

So given her past actions and present statements, I cannot support someone who would work to destroy a State's economy, such as ours was destroyed, and our communities and their livelihoods.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote for this motion to proceed to the bipartisan Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021, otherwise known as DWWIA.

As the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I have been working closely with Chairman Carper and Senators Duckworth, Lummis, Cardin, and Cramer to craft meaningful legislation that addresses our country's aging

drinking water and wastewater systems. Every city and town can tell you all about it.

This bill authorizes more than $35 billion for water resource development projects across the country, with a focus on upgrading aging infrastructure, addressing the emerging threats of extreme weather events, including those resulting from climate change, and cyber security vulnerabilities. This bill also includes measures to invest in innovative technologies, and it provides assistance to marginalized communities. All of these things will help our communities keep their water safe and clean.

Something I am particularly proud of is how this bill provides flexibility to both rural and urban areas and lets them decide how they can best address their needs.

The most significant investments in this bill are in the drinking water and clean water State revolving funds. We know them as SRFs. The SRFs maximize authority for the States to determine how best to address drinking and wastewater challenges, utilizing a revolving loan fund to facilitate additional future investments.

For rural States like West Virginia, we offer several solutions to unique water challenges. I will add here that we have a lot of great water in West Virginia. First, the bill invests $50 billion for those currently being served by intractable water systems. Those are the systems that service fewer than 1,000 people and that have typically been abandoned by the operator. We have quite a few of those. Towns in the southern coalfields of West Virginia, like those in McDowell County, have historically struggled with this.

Since many of these households cannot connect to municipal water systems in an economic or technologically feasible way, the funding will go to a grant program to help them install environmentally sound, decentralized wastewater systems. This language is something that I worked on previously with my colleague from New Jersey Cory Booker when he was on the committee in the last Congress.

The most pressing water issue, from a human health and environmental perspective in Appalachia, is undoubtedly straight piping. This practice is common in other exceptionally rural and remote areas around the country. So with new septic tanks installed, the grant program is working to improve quality of life and addresses public health and environmental concerns about straight piping waste into rivers and streams.

Infrastructure resiliency and sustainability is also a priority in this bill. In rural areas especially, some of the pipes are nearly 100 years old. I have actually heard about wooden pipes. Small towns often don't have the revenues to spend on expensive drinking water and wastewater infrastructure upgrades. That is why this legislation creates grants for small public water systems to replace components, to identify and prevent leaks, and to install meters.

This is based off of language I introduced last Congress in the Assuring Quality Water Infrastructure Act. I was joined there by my colleague Ben Cardin of Maryland to address the needs of small water systems that are facing operational challenges in maintaining drinking water services. Every State has them.

In West Virginia, that is often the result of old infrastructure or the lack of adequate mapping of where these assets actually exist. It is hard to fix leaks when you can't find them.

Reports have shown--this stunned me when I saw this--that only one- quarter of the water that West Virginia water systems pay to have treated and pumped even reaches a faucet--one quarter. That is how much water leaks out. I think about other States that have water shortages, and here we are wasting so much water in a State like ours, which has an abundance of water.

Water is a precious resource, and wasting that much of it because of leaky pipes and faulty infrastructure is absolutely unacceptable. The $250 million grant program will help provide the technical assistance and infrastructure investments that these small systems, serving 10,000 people or fewer, need to address to get those challenges off their backs and to get on sure fiscal footing as they better serve their customers.

Of course, we don't want to forget about our midsize and large drinking water systems. Another program that I worked on last Congress, again, with Senator Cardin, addresses the resiliency of drinking water and wastewater systems.

Adapted from the Clean Water Infrastructure Resilience and Sustainability Act, these programs, totaling $370 million over 5 years, will help to protect public water systems from a host of threats, both natural and manmade.

In West Virginia and in many other parts of the country, the greatest threats to drinking and wastewater infrastructure come from flooding. These investments will harden infrastructure against these threats and protect taxpayers from paying for the same infrastructure again and again.

I just discussed physical resilience, but we must also ensure the resilience of our water utility workforce, those workers who ensure the continued operation and maintenance of drinking water and wastewater systems every day.

Section 211 of DWWIA focuses on the resilience of America's water utility workforce by addressing recruitment, training, and retention challenges. This is a topic very important to me, and I worked, again, with my colleague from New Jersey Senator Booker, on this issue

I cannot help but think that we regularly take for granted the public health services provided by this Nation's water utility workforce. We just don't really think about who is actually working there and providing the service that we sometimes take for granted.

Unfortunately, a large portion of the men and women who are in our water treatment facilities are getting older and they are retiring, and that is why we need to make sure that we have the next generation of water workers ready.

This bill increases funding authorized to $25 million over 5 years for the program that helps water systems grow their workforce through apprenticeships, through training programs, and it also helps with their retention efforts. This program has been extremely popular with water systems around the country, and Congress has recognized this by funding it beyond the authorization level.

It is critical that we provide the tools and investments necessary to help our drinking water and wastewater systems face these challenges head-on. After all, this is the workforce that will ensure the operation and maintenance of all the other infrastructure investments this package creates.

Additional technical assistance can also help systems with operations--it is much more complicated than what it used to be--and prevent outages and costly compliance issues. Section 206 establishes and authorizes a circuit rider program designed to help owners and operators of small- and medium-sized publicly owned treatment works.

We have heard from the water community that other circuit rider programs have been a tremendous asset in providing technical assistance. It only makes sense for the EPA to similarly provide technical assistance since they implement the relevant regulations. This can be tremendously helpful where a system may be struggling with an insufficient workforce and also must be a part of the resilience discussion.

Another concern for us was the alarming trend in cyber security threats in water systems. In February, you all might remember, hackers accessed a Florida water treatment facility computer system and were able to remotely raise the level of sodium hydroxide in the water. That is not just scary; it is alarming.

This has huge national security implications on top of the obvious public health concerns. Thankfully, that hack was detected and the system was returned to normal before the public was ever at risk. But in this day and age, water infrastructure resiliency also has to include addressing these cyber security issues. So we made sure that these vulnerabilities could be addressed under resiliency grants.

While water infrastructure investments are critical to ensuring we are not wasting water and our water is clean, it is also critical from an economic development perspective. Berkeley County--close here to Washington,

DC--in West Virginia made huge investments into their water infrastructure system to ensure the system could handle the volume of water that the brand-new Procter & Gamble plant needed. And it is massive amounts of water, and it is a massive plant. We are very happy that they are there employing over 1,000 West Virginians.

So with that upgraded water system, P&G was able to operate more efficiently and even to expand--and they are still expanding--and that meant more jobs. That kind of opportunity needs to be available everywhere, not just in my home State but in Connecticut and in other places around the country.

These are just a few of the provisions that address and are informed by the particular challenges that face my State. But based on the feedback of my colleagues in both parties and the groundswell of support from various water advocacy groups, it is clear these provisions have broad applicability to help communities all across this beautiful country.

It is why we have such a diverse and growing coalition of more than 70 supporters--from water systems to local governments, to industry, to labor, to environmental organizations--who are supporting this legislation, not to mention that we had a unanimous vote out of committee.

These organizations recognize the value of this legislation and its commonsense and responsible approach to addressing our water infrastructure issues. We will be discussing more of the valuable provisions of this bill on the Senate floor this week, and I look forward to that debate.

In closing, I just want to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of advancing this bill and, later, for final passage. I mentioned it passed unanimously out of committee. There is a big debate in the broader sense: Can Congress get together on infrastructure? This is what I would define as basic, core infrastructure. This, I think, is a good test case for us, and this, I think, is one in which we all have a great interest. Conservatives, moderates, and liberals all came together on this.

I would like to thank my counterpart and my chairman, Senator Carper, and his staff for their work, as well as our Water Subcommittee counterpart chairman, Senator Duckworth, and Ranking Member Lummis.

This bill is proof that we can work together on infrastructure. This is a bipartisan, responsible, meaningful investment. We are taking care of pipes, we are looking out for our environment, and we are putting special emphasis on helping rural and disadvantaged communities. At the end of the day, this bill is really about helping people. This is a bipartisan bill that we can all be proud of.

Again, I ask my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to proceed and again on the underlying bill.

I yield the floor.