Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise this afternoon, along with several of our colleagues, to discuss the need to end the policy of taxation without representation, which millions of Americans in the District of Columbia have endured for over 200 years and hundreds of thousands still endure today.

This policy was wrong in 1776, when 13 colonies took on the mightiest nation on Earth to end it. It is wrong today, and we seek to end it through the enactment of S. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act.

In just 6 days, our country will observe Memorial Day, a holiday often observed to mark the start of summer. We celebrate it to mark the start of summer. But on Memorial Day of this year, many of us will pause to remember the generations of Americans in our Armed Forces who have laid down their lives for our country. That is what Memorial Day is all about. This day means something special in my own family. My own maternal grandmother was a Gold Star mother.

With the death of John McCain, I am the last Vietnam veteran serving in the U.S. Senate.

The names of some 58,000 men and women with whom John and I served are engraved on a black granite wall near the Lincoln Memorial, just a few miles from where we are standing today. The heroes named on that wall include brave men and women from Washington, DC, as well. Since World War I, in fact, over 5,000 Americans from the District of Columbia have lost their lives in service to the United States. And, today, roughly 15,000 DC residents are on Active Duty or serving as reservists or members of the National Guard in the States. That is 15,000 Americans serving dutifully in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or the Coast Guard.

Our Nation's Capital is home to more than just monuments and museums. It is home to Americans who work, who start businesses, and who contribute to America's economy. And just like all 50 States represented in this body, the District of Columbia is home to veterans and servicemembers who risk their lives for our country, even today. But, year after year, they come home to find that they are still denied the ability to have a real say in our Nation's future.

These heroes are among the nearly 700,000 Americans who call the District home and for generations have lived without voting representation in Congress. That is why I view Washington, DC's statehood not as a Republican or Democratic issue, not as a political issue but as an American issue--as an issue of basic fairness and equality.

Earlier this year, the senior Senator from Utah sought to overturn a law passed by the DC City Council, right here on the Senate floor. As U.S. Senators, neither of us should have such an opportunity to intervene in a local matter like that. But in the Senate, we have power over the budget of the District of Columbia--let me just point this out--a city that has a double A-plus credit rating--double A-plus. I am an old State treasurer. That is pretty darned good--better than most States, in fact, if you check.

We also have confirmation power in the Congress over the District's judges, an arrangement that needlessly led to extensive judicial vacancies and delayed justices for weeks, for months, and, in some cases, for years. That is wrong.

I reminded my colleagues that day that no one in this room was elected by the people of the District of Columbia. Nobody in this room was elected by the people of the District of Columbia, and no one here was able to stand up and represent their interests. This should be unacceptable in a 21st century democracy.

However, I believe that the tide is starting to turn. I believe we can finally make DC statehood a reality during this Congress, the 117th Congress.

We have a fearless champion in the House, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. With her leadership, along with that of the Speaker and Leader Steny Hoyer, the House passed their DC statehood bill last month for the second time--the second time ever.

We also have, for the first time, a President who formally supports ending this policy--this modern-day policy--of taxation without representation. And in the Senate, we have a record 45 cosponsors on our bill to make the District of Columbia a State, a number that represents Members from rural and urban areas alike. This number has grown steadily since my friend, our former colleague, Joe Lieberman--a fiercely independent Senator from Connecticut--led this charge in the Senate before passing the baton to me in 2013.

I know that some of our colleagues have said that DC statehood is unconstitutional. To be clear, the District of Columbia has taken the same steps for statehood that 37 other States have taken since 1791-- the same steps--a process clearly laid out in our Constitution. This case was made clearly in a letter to Congress just this week from nearly 40 leading constitutional scholars, who wrote that Congress is well within its rights to grant statehood.

On a different holiday later this summer, we will be celebrating July Fourth to remember those who fought for our independence, and I will remind my colleagues again that the Founding Fathers, the same men who wrote our Constitution, had a rallying cry during the Revolutionary War: There is no taxation without representation.

Yet that is exactly what is happening to the citizens in the District of Columbia today. The reality is that these citizens pay the most--get this, the citizens of the District of Columbia pay the most--in per capita Federal income taxes in the United States, more than any other State, but they have no say in how those dollars are spent, none.

This second-class status must come to an end, and we in Congress are the ones who can do something about it

Winston Churchill once said: You can always count on America to do the right thing in the end, after they have tried everything else.

It is never too late to do the right thing. The right thing to do now is to ensure that nearly 700,000 Americans living in the District of Columbia, serving in our military, voting, actually have a chance to vote on the representation in this body and in the House. The right thing to do is to end this policy of taxation without representation.

With that, I thank you, and I yield the floor to some of my colleagues who, I believe, will be joining us on this call, including the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to complete my remarks before the vote.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the two U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors nominees that are before the Senate this afternoon, as well as a third nominee under consideration later this month.

Like our Presiding Officer, I had the privilege of serving our country in a time of war and a time of peace, with three tours in Southeast Asia and a good deal of time in the Cold War after that. My dad had many years in the Navy, and my uncle, my mom's youngest brother, was an enlisted man, a third-class petty officer on an aircraft carrier in 1944, the USS Suwannee. There was a kamikaze attack, and it never recovered.

I know how important it was to my uncle, to my dad, and to myself when we would receive mail, whether it was in Southeast Asia, whether my uncle was deployed on his aircraft carrier or my dad was deployed around the world--how important the mail was.

I know how important the Postal Service was to tens of millions of people who voted last fall in local elections, State elections, and Federal elections across this country--more than ever, ever in the history of our country.

There are some people I know who think that the Postal Service is a relic and is not something that we need. Ask the people who receive their medicine, not just their mail today, not just the things that they have ordered to come and are delivered by the Postal Service--all kinds of stuff--but also the people who receive medicines, whether they are veterans or other people from all walks of life.

The Postal Service today has had a profoundly challenging year. It has had a profoundly challenging year with the global pandemic. Drastic reforms were made without full knowledge of their service impact, and a busy holiday season created tremendous challenges for this venerable institution.

Delays in mail and package delivery increased last year while employees struggled with the effects of the pandemic on themselves and their families. At a time when reliance on mail and package delivery was perhaps higher than ever, the U.S. Postal Service struggled to deliver mail and packages in a timely and a predictable way.

Delays in the mail service have real world impact in communities large and small. In Delaware, veterans of our Armed Forces had to wait longer for lifesaving medications and delayed packages. Our Delaware congressional delegation heard from literally hundreds of constituents in our State about missed paychecks, credit card bills, and court notices.

``Mom and Pop'' shops in my State--and I guess in Arizona, the home of our Presiding Officer--may have suffered from the delays. ``Mom and Pop'' shops in my State and across the country have suffered from delayed deliveries of important supplies to run their business and to stay in business. Many poultry farmers, particularly in more rural parts of Delaware and on the Delmarva Peninsula, to include the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, too, were shocked to find that baby chicks died in the course of delayed postal deliveries to their farms.

These impacts were unacceptable. They were driven by the pandemic and decisions largely made at the top of the Postal Service.

Further, Postmaster DeJoy released in March a 10-year strategic plan that doesn't do enough to address the significant operational challenges being faced right now at the U.S. Postal Service. The plan limits operating hours and lowers service standards, which would harm many seniors and rural Delawareans up and down our State and across the country. If implemented, such a plan would make it harder, not easier, to restore confidence in the Postal Service.

Fast forward to today. By selecting these nominees to the U.S. Postal Board of Governors, it has become clear that President Biden recognizes the dire need to get the Postal Service back to its core mission-- reliable, affordable, and on-time mail delivery service for Americans across this country.

These well-qualified nominees--and they are well-qualified nominees-- also make clear President Biden's desire to drive innovation at the Postal Service that can keep costs low while boosting revenue opportunities and protecting the livelihoods of the men and women who work tirelessly to deliver our mail.

Ron Stroman, whom I have had the privilege of knowing for more than a decade, is himself a former Deputy Postmaster General, a role he served in from 2011 to 2020, a longtime Federal servant--and he is a servant. Mr. Stroman has intimate knowledge of this institution and how to make long-lasting positive changes in large organizations like the U.S. Postal Service.

Amber McReynolds is currently the CEO for the National Vote at Home Institute and Coalition. What do they do? Well, they work to make it easier for Americans to vote securely, to vote safely, and to vote conveniently. Delivering ballots by mail is one of the most solemn obligations that the Postal Service has. It is the underpinning of our democracy in this country.

Finally, Mr. Anton Hajjar is the third nominee, whose nomination we are considering later in this work period, not today. Mr. Hajjar is the former general counsel of the American Postal Workers Union, where he fought to make sure that mail carriers and other postal employees get the support that they deserve.

At the hearing we had last month in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I was thoroughly impressed with each of these nominees and their knowledge of the needs of the Postal Service. All three nominees exhibited professionalism, the expertise, the leadership, and the commitment--the commitment--that we need at the Postal Service Board of Governors. Think of the Board of Governors almost like a board of directors for a company. They don't run the Postal Service every day, but they help set the tone, policies, and oversee the operations.

Further, these three nominees agree that the Postal Service has tremendous opportunities ahead. The Postal Service is currently in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime update to the postal delivery vehicles, with a prime opportunity to be a leader in the fight against climate change. The Postal Service will replace up to 165,000 vehicles.

So, every now and then, we see postal vehicles--probably every day. We probably look at them sometimes and say: That looks like an old vehicle. The reason it looks like an old vehicle is because it is. Many of them are 25 years old. They run on gasoline. They run on diesel. They pollute, and they break down. We have an opportunity here to replace them with a new fleet of low-emission or no-emission vehicles powered by batteries and powered by hydrogen fuel cells

The nominees we are considering today and later this month also agree that the Postal Service has an obligation to work with Congress to enact important postal reform legislation which would help the agency save tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 years.

How might that happen? One, by better integrating postal retirees' healthcare with the Medicare Program and by repealing a burdensome retiree health benefit obligation that most other large companies don't have to bear.

I often refer to a saying made popular by Albert Einstein. I am not smart like Albert Einstein, but I am smart enough to quote Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein used to say: ``In adversity lies opportunity.'' Think about that: ``In adversity lies opportunity.''

The Bible says something like this: In all things, give thanks.

I think it was Henry Ford who said: ``If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.''

But Einstein said: ``In adversity lies opportunity.'' The Postal Service has faced considerable adversity over the last decade or two. This has been perhaps the most difficult stretch in its long and storied history.

You know, the Postal Service is not an idea that somebody dreamed up 30, 40, 50, or 60 years ago. It was originally outlined in the Constitution and the first Post Master General was a guy named Ben Franklin. After that storied history, we have an opportunity to face

the adversities the Postal Service faces today with an opportunity to confirm three well-qualified Postal Service Board of Governors to public service who will be ready on day one--not a month from now or a year from now, but on day one--to ensure that this invaluable institution is able to meet its vital mission.

I am proud to support them. I am proud to say I know them, and I urge my colleagues to support them as well--two of them later today and another one probably later this month.

With that I yield the floor.

Madam President, the Senator is now considering S. 914, the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021. This legislation was reported unanimously last month by the Committee on Environment and Public Works on a vote of 20 to 0.

I rise today to join Senator Capito to urge our colleagues to join us in voting for the adoption of this legislation. The legislation will help upgrade our Nation's drinking water and wastewater infrastructure--investments that are sorely needed.

So that our colleagues understand the real need for drinking water and wastewater investments, let me just begin today by sharing a bit of my own personal history on these issues and invite our colleagues to maybe recall a bit of their own history.

My sister Sheila and I were born in Beckley, WV, a coal mining town in the southern part of the State. For 2 of the 6 years that our family resided in the Mountain State, we lived outside of Beckley, a coal mining town, and we lived alongside a stream known as Beaver Creek. We lived outside of Beckley by a couple of miles.

Sometimes, my sister and I, along with other kids in our tiny community, would play on the banks of Beaver Creek, chasing frogs, trying to catch the small fish that swam there. We were never allowed to eat fish caught in Beaver Creek, though, and our neighbors didn't eat them either. Why? Because we were told in no uncertain terms by our parents that it wasn't safe to eat those fish.

In time, we learned some of the reasons why it wasn't safe. Some of the septic tanks that nearby residents relied upon were not well maintained, and as a result, raw sewage and other pollution would sometimes end up seeping into Beaver Creek.

My sister Sheila and I would go on to grow up in Danville, VA, located right along the border with North Carolina. Danville, VA, had once been the last capital of the Confederacy. By the time we got there, it had become the home of Dan River Cotton Mills, as well as the world's biggest tobacco market. Even our radio station was WBTM, World's Biggest Tobacco Market. We lived in what I suppose was a middle-class neighborhood just outside of town, and we drank water from a well in our own backyard that was located less than 100 feet from our septic tank.

My senior year in high school, I was fortunate enough to win a Navy ROTC scholarship and attended Ohio State University. There, in Columbus, OH, we drank water provided by the city of Columbus, which also treated the sewage of the city's close to half a million inhabitants.

Several years after graduating from Ohio State in 1968 and while deployed to Southeast Asia as a naval flight officer fighting during the Vietnam war, I would learn that the Cuyahoga River, which flowed through Cleveland, OH, had actually caught on fire. I dubbed it ``the fire heard around the world.'' It served as a wake-up call to our Nation to get serious and begin addressing the air and water pollution that were all too prevalent in much of our country.

Spurred by this wake-up call, our President at the time, Richard Nixon, by Executive order and affirmed by the Congress, created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.

Inspired in part by the burning Cuyahoga River and outrage at the indiscriminate dumping of pollution into rivers, streams, and wetlands around this country, Congress enacted the Clean Water Act in 1972 over the veto of then-President Richard Nixon.

The goals of the Clean Water Act are at the same time simple and profound. These are the words: to ``restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters.''

Let me repeat this: to ``restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters.''

In the Clean Water Act, Congress ambitiously declared that the waters of the United States would be fishable and swimmable by 1983 and that there would be no more pollution discharged into our waters by 1985.

Two years later, in 1974, then-President Gerald Ford signed the Safe Drinking Water Act into law.

In the years that followed, cities and communities across our country applied to EPA for grant funding to help build new drinking water systems and improve existing ones. Similarly, with the help of EPA grants, communities across America built or upgraded wastewater treatment systems to clean up the wastewater being discharged into rivers and streams.

Over time, grant requests greatly exceeded the funding available through EPA grants. During the Reagan administration, a controversial new approach was proposed--the creation of revolving loan funds administered and managed by each State. After considerable debate and compromise, this proposal was enacted into law. I was serving in the House of Representatives at the time and ended up supporting that proposal. Thus, the concept of State revolving funds was born in 1987. The Clean Water Program was an alternative financing mechanism for the construction of wastewater facilities. Congress extended the same revolving loan fund concept to Federal drinking water programs in 1996.

Federal funds seeded revolving funds in all 50 States and in Puerto Rico and provided support for projects in the other territories and in the District of Columbia, right here. This Federal support leveraged State and local funding, along with revenues generated by utilities.

In the years immediately following the creation of these funds, Congress periodically modified them to meet the changing needs in cities and communities across our country and inspire the use of new technologies.

In more recent years, however, the programs languished, and the authorizations for the State revolving funds were in dire need of updating.

In 2018, for the first time in 22 years--22 years--Congress reauthorized the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. It did so for 3 years. The Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund, used for wastewater and other vital needs, has not been reauthorized in nearly--get this-- 35 years, and now the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund is set to expire at the end of this year.

Somebody should do something, and that somebody is us. Needless to say, we have fallen woefully short of Congress's lofty ambitions to create fishable and swimmable waters by 1983 and to eliminate the discharge of pollution in navigable waters by 1985. It is also clear that the system we have now, despite our best efforts, isn't enough to meet the needs of our communities, particularly those who cannot afford to participate in loan programs to upgrade increasingly inadequate drinking water and wastewater facilities.

For far too many families in this Nation, access to safe, clean drinking water and a healthy environment is, frankly, a dream, just a dream, and a lot of folks, too many folks, face a real crisis.

All too often, we see headlines telling of the poor state of water infrastructure in our country and its lack of resilience in the face of severe weather. Not that long ago in Texas, earlier this year, nearly 15 million people--15 million people--lost access to clean water when plummeting temperatures broke water mains and brought power down at drinking water facilities across that State. In Jackson, MS, that same harsh weather caused over 80 water main breaks and left tens of thousands of people without water, particularly in predominantly African-American neighborhoods.

But, as we all know, this goes well beyond a few isolated cases. The problem of water in our Nation runs much deeper. Millions of Americans still lack consistent access to clean drinking water today.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' 2021 report this year reported that America's infrastructure--they give out grades: A, B, C, D, E, F. They gave our water systems a grade of C-minus.

I don't know about my colleagues, but I never got much of a pat on the back when I brought home a C-minus on my report card, and neither did my sister. C-minus is not satisfactory in my family or, I think, for our country.

That same report early this year also revealed that there is a water main break every 2 minutes--every 2 minutes--in the United States and that 6 billion gallons of treated, drinkable water are lost each day to leaks and crumbling water supply systems. That begs the question: How much is 6 billion gallons, anyway? Well, it is enough lost water to fill 9,000 swimming pools. Let me repeat that. It is enough water to fill 9,000 swimming pools--not each year, not each month, not each week--every day. Some communities report losing a quarter or even half of their drinking water to leaking pipes.

In my own State of Delaware, where Senator Coons and I come from, communities like Ellendale, DE, in the southern part of our State, struggled for years to find and afford safe alternatives for increasingly polluted drinking water wells. Ellendale is not alone. Thousands in communities of color and Tribal communities, rural communities, and others struggle, not only with access to clean water and wastewater treatment, but also with the capacity to afford the infrastructure necessary to provide and meet those services.

Let me emphasize: Clean water is an essential part of our healthy lives, healthy economics, and a healthy environment. But for those communities who simply cannot afford to pay back loans for needed water infrastructure, we have to find a better way.

I think by working across the aisle and working hard, our committee-- the Environment and Public Works Committee--is suggesting that by way of this legislation before us today.

I am pleased to report that these are the challenges that we have sought to address head-on with this legislation. This bipartisan legislation that we consider today authorizes more than $35 billion for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure programs at the Environmental Protection Agency over the next 5 years. These programs will create jobs and make our communities healthier by building, by repairing, by upgrading, and by modernizing our Nation's aging drinking water and wastewater infrastructure systems.

Here is how.

First, the measure takes the historic step of reauthorizing the Clean Water State Revolving Fund for the first time in 35 years--35 years. And it does so by increased funding levels for the first time since 1987. This legislation also reauthorizes the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, a program whose authorization expires, I mentioned earlier, at the end of this year. This fund helps to ensure that clean water flows whenever we turn on our faucet--that clean water comes out of it.

Next, this bill makes sure we are helping our fellow Americans most in need--the least of these, the most in need--by boosting funding for programs that fund projects in low-income areas, rural communities and Tribal lands, and communities of color that have historically been left behind by investments in our water infrastructure. According to a recent analysis, water systems with multiyear Safe Drinking Water Act violations are 40 percent more likely to be in places with higher proportions of people of color. Drinking water quality violations are by far the most frequent in low-income rural communities, where local governments struggle to finance the most basic water infrastructure needs.

To help resolve this historic injustice, more than 40 percent of this bill's investments are targeted to help disadvantaged communities. Our bill authorizes more than a billion in new funding to reduce lead in drinking water. And particularly for our country's rural areas, Tribal populations and low-income neighborhoods, our bill invests another billion into programs to connect households to drinking water and wastewater systems and services.

Wide disparities in opportunity and investment are also present in Tribal communities. Our legislation grows the Tribal Drinking Water Program by 20 percent and reforms programs to help

Tribal education agencies remove lead from their drinking water systems, too.

This legislation does far more than just fix what is broken. To borrow a phrase from our President, Joe Biden, this legislation actually does ``build back better'' by fortifying water infrastructure for new and worsening climate realities.

I will be honest with you, Madam President and colleagues. In this country, ours is a future that promises more severe weather events like hurricanes, like floods, droughts, and bitterly cold weather. It is a future, like it or not, with more and more people living on the frontlines of sea level rise, like my home State of Delaware, the lowest lying State in our Nation.

To that end, the bill provides a combined $500 million to make our water infrastructure systems more resilient and adaptable in the face of extreme weather events. Within that historic investment is a new $125 million program which will, for the first time, provide grants to communities seeking to fortify their wastewater systems against climate change's impact.

Finally, with our eyes focused on the future, our bill expands government's role in researching and developing the water technologies for tomorrow, by investing in technologies to improve, for example, storm water control and waste management. By doing so, we can help American companies export innovation while not exporting jobs, rather by creating them right here. This is not just a bill to spend and build on but legislation that would direct our Agencies to build and spend more wisely. We know that investment in innovation, as envisioned in the bill before us, can have a profound positive impact on our economy, creating jobs and fostering growth for our entire Nation. We can, in short, seize the opportunity in the face of so much adversity. As we say in Delaware, ``Carpe diem. Seize the day.'' Actually, we say: ``Carper diem. Seize the day.''

There is an old African proverb that comes to mind that goes something like this: If you want to go fast, travel alone. If you want to go far, travel together. On this bill, I can proudly say Senator Capito and our colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee have chosen to travel together. The Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 passed out of the Environment and Public Works Committee with a resounding vote of 20 to 0.

And from outside the Halls of Congress, this bill has earned praise from across the political spectrum, from big cities to small communities. A group of government officials that includes the U.S. Conference of Mayors wrote that this measure will ``help address the many water infrastructure challenges that communities face. Local leaders support the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act as a reliable, long-term and increased federal investment in water infrastructure.''

Representing our less-populated areas of the country, there are places like Raleigh County in West Virginia. Raleigh County is where I was born, where my sister and I were born. Senator Capito knows it well. Senator Manchin knows it well. His wife is from there. Representing places like Sussex County in southern Delaware, the Rural Community Assistance Partnership says this about our legislation: ``Proud to support this bill because Americans deserve clean, safe, reliable, and affordable drinking water, regardless of the community's size or zip code.'' I could not agree more.

We know that access to safe, reliable and healthful water isn't a blue State or red State issue. It is an issue that goes to the core of the promise afforded to every American in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence--largely penned by Thomas Jefferson--with these words: a promise of ``Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'' If we would be honest with ourselves, none of us can expect to pursue, much less enjoy, this American ideal if we don't have access to clean water to drink, because without water we have no life.

The need for action on this issue is clear. To that end, I have been grateful to the partnership of our ranking member, Senator Capito. I am proud this measure is the very first piece of infrastructure legislation, I believe, to be reported out of a Senate committee in this the 117th Congress. The Environmental and Public Works Committee has a long tradition, as some know, for working across the aisle to get significant legislation over the finish line. This bill is the latest example of the kind of work that we do.

I would like to say we are work horses, not show horses.

This is the first one that Senator Capito and I have been able to work on together, and I am grateful for all that she and her staff have done to help get us here to this day. I oftentimes say that bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. Think about that: Bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. That is how I think we should approach almost all of our work here in the Senate--by reaching out to our colleagues across the aisle, where we can, creating lasting solutions to problems and challenges facing our Nation. This bill before us today is a product of that kind of partnership.

The legislation is the result of tireless, dedicated work by the ranking member, Senator Capito, by her staff, and by my own. I want to thank them and every member of our committee for all their outstanding, bipartisan work and for all their contributions to helping us craft this legislation over the last several months.

I especially want to note on my staff: John Kane, sitting behind me; Margaret McIntosh, known as ``Mackie''; Tyler Hofmann-Reardon; and our fearless staff director, Mary Frances Repko. And I want to thank another member of our team, who used to be a part of our EPW team and is now leaving our staff. This is her last day--Ashley Morgan. We want to thank her for all her help in the last couple of years. I also want to thank Adam Tomlinson for his leadership with Ranking Member Capito and her EPW team, including Jess Kramer and Travis Cone. We thank them all very, very much.

Finally, a big shout out to our Water Subcommittee chair, Senator Duckworth, for taking the lead to introduce this excellent measure, along with Senator Cardin and EPW subcommittee ranking members, Senator Lummis of Wyoming and Senator Cramer. It has been a pleasure to work with each of you and your staffs. I would go so far as to say that it was a labor of love.

With this bill's level of support, it is my hope that we can seize this momentum and pass this measure quickly this week. I urge all my colleagues to join Senator Capito and me in supporting this excellent bill.

Before I yield the floor, I want to reflect on last night and the address that was brought to us by our President from Delaware, Joe Biden, a long-time friend and colleague. I was encouraged by his remarks. He is not a very partisan person, and I think he reached out a hand of friendship to the other side of the aisle, in both the House and the Senate, to try to work together.

I am a retired Navy captain, a Vietnam veteran, and a big believer in leadership by example. In our committee, the Environmental and Public Works Committee, Democrats and Republicans--Senator Capito and, before that, John Barrasso; before that, Barbara Boxer and, gosh, Jim Inhofe, as chairs of our committee--we have sought to provide bipartisan leadership and show by example, and we are trying to do that again here today.

My hope is that, God willing, about a month from now, we will bring another bill up for a vote for debate in our committee on surface transportation, roads, highways, and bridges, and maybe continue to set a good example for this body and for the administration and the House, too.

With that in mind, I am looking for Senator Capito. I don't see her on the floor, but I do see the whip, my friend Senator Thune. I think maybe I should yield to him.

I should tell you guys that Senator Thune and I, almost every Thursday, are joined with the Chaplain of the U.S. Senate, Barry Black, a retired admiral who is Chaplain of the Senate now. He is good enough to host a Bible study in his office space. We usually end up sitting there. It is one of my favorite parts of the week.

Almost every week he reminds us of Matthew 25. Senator Thune knows the Bible better than most pastors. It is true. Senate Chaplain Barry Black will oftentimes remind us of Matthew 25. It starts like this: ``When I was thirsty, you would give me to drink.''

We have, I think, a moral imperative to act on this legislation, to make it better, and to be able to hammer out a compromise with the House and the administration. There is a moral imperative to pass legislation of this nature.

There is also a fiscal imperative. I spoke about filling up how many thousands of swimming pools from one water leakage a day.

There is a health imperative here in the middle of the worst health crisis in 200 years.

There is an economic imperative, as well. It is hard to foster economic growth and development in communities where wastewater is not treated and there is drinking water you can't drink. Who wants to set up a business and go into business in places like that?

There are a lot of reasons we need to embrace this legislation, make it better if we can, and send it off to the House and get it to conference.

We have been joined by a new Presiding Officer. He has just joined us straight from New Jersey. For many years, he, Senator Booker, has joined us in our Bible study. He, Senator Duckworth, and I formed a caucus that is designed to make sure we don't overlook the least of these, and I salute him for his leadership and good work in that regard.

With that, I see Senator Capito here. I am not sure if I should yield to the whip, Senator Thune, or yield to her.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my neighbor, I want to take a few minutes this morning--additional minutes this morning to discuss the water issues facing rural America, and the Presiding Officer comes from the Garden State, and a lot of people who have heard Senator Coons and me talk about our State think of us as the poultry State. We think, for about every person who lives in Delaware, we have got about 300 chickens. We raise a lot of the corn and soybeans to feed those chickens. So almost every State is a rural State in one way or the other.

But the issues facing rural America often do not get the same level of attention or assistance with drinking water and wastewater programs that larger, more urban or suburban areas receive.

As our Committee on Environment and Public Works was drafting the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021, the legislation before us today, many of us focused on the need to invest in small, rural, and disadvantaged communities because they often--to be honest with you, often get left behind.

These communities are overlooked or overburdened when it comes to addressing the drinking water and wastewater needs of their residents too often.

Most of our country's drinking water and wastewater utilities are small. Approximately, 80 percent of the country's almost 17,000 wastewater utilities serve a population of fewer than 10,000 people. More than 90 percent of the country's 43,000 community water systems serve a population of fewer than 10,000 people.

Small and rural communities have more difficulty affording public water service. These communities lack the population density needed to financially support a public drinking water system, and if they have managed to build a system, they often lack the people to properly staff it.

In fact--I was shocked to hear this, but 43 percent of small water systems are operated and staffed by one person, by one single person. Forty-three percent of small water systems are operated and staffed by one person.

These rural towns' and villages' drinking systems face the same challenges as large systems, larger systems, in making sure that water is safe, making sure the water is clean, making sure that the water is reliable.

Complicating matters, these communities have to do it with far fewer resources, in many instances.

I want to share just a couple of examples of challenges facing these communities just from my own home State, and I am sure every Member of this body can provide examples in their own States.

For example, there is a town called Selbyville. It is right on the Delaware-Maryland line, not too far from Rehoboth Beach and Dewey and Bethany Beaches. But Selbyville is currently operating without a fully licensed water treatment operator due to the death of a longtime operator who passed away after a long battle with cancer. The only other licensed operator for the town is currently out on disability, and the remaining two operators are not fully licensed.

Through the Technical Assistance Program that this bill would reauthorize, the town has been able to obtain the required training to prepare the two partially licensed operators for the State licensing exam.

This program has helped to train these individuals in areas like disinfection control, filtration, provide the onsite technical assistance for leak detection and hydrant maintenance.

Another example, the Pepper Ridge Mobile Park in Frankford, DE--not too far away--suffered many years of waterline breakage, low water pressure, no hydrants, valves, levers, and inadequate distribution lines.

The Delaware Rural Water Association, through our State revolving fund, was able to obtain funds to do a full water line upgrade.

And incidentally, we will also reauthorize this program at an increased level of funding.

This legislation before us today specifically helps rural and smalltown America by reauthorizing critical programs like the ones I just mentioned in my own State and by adjusting the cost share for these communities to make these infrastructure upgrades more affordable to ratepayers.

Passing this legislation will be an important step toward addressing the overwhelming infrastructure needs of 43,000 water systems in rural communities, many of which have one person operating that system.

According to the most recent EPA drinking water infrastructure assessment, rural drinking water needs are currently estimated at $74 billion over the next 20 years, including $3.3 billion just for Indian Country.

To help rural communities, this bill expands drinking water technical assistance opportunities for rural communities by authorizing more than $75 million in technical assistance grants.

We have been joined on the floor by the prime author of this legislation, the Senator from Illinois, and I am just going to stop where I am in my discourse on rural American water needs of a lot of our rural communities and to yield the floor, unless Senator Capito-- no. Senator Duckworth.

I just want to thank Senator Duckworth for being the prime sponsor of this legislation, for allowing the rest of us--we have a big racetrack, Dover Downs NASCAR track, we use the term ``drafting,'' when one car gets really close behind the other and kind of holds on, but we want to thank Senator Duckworth for allowing the rest of us to draft on her legislation that she and Senator Lummis from Wyoming have introduced, and we are grateful for her leadership

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, I cannot agree to this unanimous consent request because this is the exact reason why we don't amend complicated formulas on the floor with limited oversight.

This bill was hotlined last night, I think, with the current language from Senator Rubio, and now he would like to change it here literally at the last moment. With all due respect, I just cannot agree to that.

I said to him in a conversation on the floor that I think he knows me well enough that I am willing to work with him and others who would like to see some modifications in this formula going forward. This is not the end of the trail. We will have a conference with the House. We will have negotiations with the White House.

I just want to say to Senator Rubio that I look forward to working with him and Senator Capito to consider the changes that he is proposing but not to do it at the last minute here on the floor. I am unable to do that.

I reluctantly object, but I am going to have to do that. I object

Mr. President, our committee has worked on this legislation all year. We have had hearings. We have had meetings, discussions at the staff level and Member level to try to come to an agreement on all kinds of provisions to the bill, and we are prepared to do more of that once this legislation is adopted.

But we reported this bill unanimously because it will benefit citizens across our Nation, better ensuring that, no matter where they live, they will have access to clean and safe water.

Our bill ensures that every State, territory, and Tribe will receive more funding to make critical investments in clean water projects. But by proposing a formula that only takes population growth into account-- only takes population growth into account--Senator Rubio and Senator Scott's amendment will ensure that many States, including rural States, territories, and Indian Tribes, will lose water infrastructure funding, in some cases as much as 80 percent.

We cannot afford to take money away from these governments when their needs are so great, especially in communities that have historically been underfunded and underserved. That is why more than 50 different organizations, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the League of Conservation Voters and a whole lot of others in between, oppose this amendment.

As a result, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of those organizations--a growing list of those organizations.

I urge my colleagues to join me and Senator Capito in voting no on this amendment--again, looking forward to subsequently working with Senators Rubio and Scott to see if we can come to a consensus on these changes.

I yield time.

Mr. President, the Shaheen-Collins amendment makes changes to the State Response to Contaminants Program. Specifically, the amendment expands the provisions for the State Response to Contaminants Program from covering just underserved communities to also small and disadvantaged communities, to allow communities that are financially unstable, which cannot afford to address contaminants, or small, which means less than 10,000 people in population, to qualify for grants to address contaminants in the drinking water.

This is a good amendment, and we thank the sponsor and also join here in cosponsoring. I urge a ``yes'' vote and a voice vote.

Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Kennedy's amendment because we need to know more about boil orders, something that I, frankly, hadn't heard a lot about. I thank the Senator for bringing it to our attention.

We are in support of this amendment. These are frequently used, and transparency is needed on them.

I yield to the gentlewoman from West Virginia.

Mr. President, I don't want to trivialize this important moment, but I am tempted to say: I am Tom Carper, and I approve this message. But I won't say that, but I certainly do approve this message.

So pretty remarkable. We have three Members of our body who were born in West Virginia, and one is the daughter of a former Governor of our State and maybe the mother of a future Governor of our State. We will have to wait and see.

We have another former Governor of West Virginia who serves here with us and whose wife Gayle actually was in the same high school graduating class with my first cousin Dan Patton. It is really kind of incestuous. But people ask why we get along so well, and I am reminded of the words of Joe Biden. He and I rode the train together a lot of years to Delaware and back when I joined him in the Senate and in the House before that. Joe likes to say--the President likes to say that all politics is personal. He says that all diplomacy is personal as well. And I think you see a little bit of that at work here, and it is just a good reminder for all of us.

Before we vote here in a couple minutes, I just want to express once again my support for the legislation before us, the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021.

I am a firm believer that actions do speak louder than words, so before we move to a vote, let me close by saluting the unanimous action taken by the Committee on Environment and Public Works on this bill.

Every member of the committee, all of us, every one of us, had a hand in crafting the legislation with the help of our staff--half of us Democrats, half of us Republicans.

First of all, the committee members worked together to formulate legislation that would reauthorize critical financing mechanisms for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure across our country.

In bipartisan negotiations, we addressed the fundamental needs of the communities that have been left behind by our past efforts to address clean water, and we have--or at least we sought to try to ensure with this bill that rural and disadvantaged and Tribal communities will have the needed resources they need to access the same safe water that the rest of us really take for granted most of the time.

After all those efforts involving members on both sides of our committee dais and many of our colleagues throughout this body, we reported this much needed legislation to the full Senate by unanimous vote, 20 to 0. That is right, 20 to 0. The bill we hope to take up today passed out of our committee unanimously. In fact, the Republicans like this bipartisan bill so much that they included it in their infrastructure proposal, and President Biden supports this legislation as a good first step forward. He reminded us of that last night in his address.

We just don't see this kind of bipartisanship often enough, and I think--I talked earlier about how we are leaders. We have a responsibility to lead by example. That is what I was trained to do in the Navy and a lot of us as well--lead by example. We are trying to do that here today.

That remarkable consensus is why this bill is so worthy of our support. The benefit that it provides will reach all corners of our Nation. This legislation will be a boon not just to our towns and not just to our cities but also to our rural communities. It will help ensure the healthy environment necessary for our collective happiness, vitality, and long-term success, no matter where we live. You know what it says in the Declaration of Independence. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is part of that. Without water, we just don't have any of those things.

Not only does the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 provide the resources we need to build, the resources we need to upgrade, the resources we need to expand critical infrastructure, but it also ensures that we make a substantial investment in projects that will withstand the increasingly harsh weather events--be they storms, be they floods, freezing cold snaps, droughts--that have plagued places like Texas and Mississippi in recent weeks and months.

As all my colleagues in this body are aware, the ravages of changing climate in the form of devastating weather could hit any of our communities at any time and in many cases already have.

There is a good reason why groups like the U.S. Conference of Mayors on the one hand, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the other hand, and the National Wildlife Federation support this legislation.

I mentioned earlier on the floor the American Society of Civil Engineers, which gave our water systems a D--I think a D-minus average grade on the 2021 report card on the state of our Nation's infrastructure. This is what they say about this bill after giving us I think a D-minus average grade on our Nation's infrastructure. Here is what they said about this legislation. Senator Capito, here is what they said:

. . . critical if we are to improve our nation's aging water

systems and ensure that they continue to provide and protect

public health, welfare, and safety.

There is plenty in it to inspire the Rural Community Assistance Partnership to say the organization is ``proud to support this bill because Americans deserve clean, safe, reliable, and affordable drinking water, regardless of their community's size or zip code.'' Colleagues, I couldn't agree more.

This measure reauthorizes and increases funding for the bedrock Federal water and wastewater infrastructure financing problems--the drinking water and clean water State revolving funds. In the case of the Clean Water Fund, this is the first reauthorization of the Clean Water Fund in 35 years--35 years.

Local government leaders, policy experts, and advocates from all parts of our country and all political stripes also support our bill because it would invest $500 billion to ensure water infrastructure systems are more resilient in the face of extreme weather events.

These leaders are urging us to pass this legislation because it expands the government's role in researching and developing the water technologies of tomorrow, opening the door to economic opportunity and jobs across this country.

Finally, millions of Americans--too many Americans, millions of them--cannot trust the water when they turn on their taps. Most of us turned on our tap water this morning either at our homes or our bathrooms or wherever and maybe in our offices and we drank the water and we didn't think anything of it. We knew it was fine and it was safe. Too many people in this country--millions of them, in fact--don't have that benefit.

I think we have a moral responsibility to help make sure that everyone in our Nation--it doesn't matter what their ZIP Code is. It doesn't matter their race. It doesn't matter what their income is. We have a moral obligation to make sure they have access to clean, safe water.

The Golden Rule--treat other people the way we want to be treated-- very much is part of this and guides, I think, all of us.

With this legislation, we can move forward on that effort and, in doing so, create jobs, foster innovation, and protect our public health all at once.

I am proud of our bill. I am proud of all the work that has gone into it and proud of the bipartisan process to produce it with our colleagues that led us here. I hope our colleagues agree that it is worthy of the same bipartisan support on the Senate floor as it received in committee.

Nothing is perfect. What do they say in the Constitution? What did the Framers say? In order to form a more perfect Union? Well, I have never been part of writing or co-writing a perfect bill. This was not perfect, and there are obviously some changes that--we can make it better--some changes that we

will discuss with our colleagues on the committee, off the committee, and with our friends in the House and the administration. But this is a good start. This is a very good start. And we look forward to the next step in this process, and I would ask everyone to please join us in voting yes.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of S.J. Res. 14, which we will vote on later today. I want to thank Senator Heinrich, Senator Markey, and Senator King for their leadership on this resolution. And I might be mistaken here, but I understand that when the Presiding Officer was Governor of Colorado, the Presiding Officer might have set the precedent for the creation of this point of view that is expressed in the resolution before us. So the Navy salutes Colorado.

The American people rely on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that our Nation has clean air, clean water, a clean environment, and a safe climate. Unfortunately, in 2020, under the previous administration, the EPA strayed from its mission any number of times.

One of those missteps was that Agency's methane rescission rule, which deregulated methane emissions from the oil and gas industry--our Nation's largest industrial source of this dangerous greenhouse gas. By passing this resolution, Congress, today, will reject and nullify this dangerous rule and restore clean air and climate protections from our Nation's largest sources of methane pollution.

Let me explain what methane is and why it is so harmful to our climate and to our health.

Methane is a super pollutant that damages our lungs and our planet. Compared to carbon dioxide, methane is a small part of our overall greenhouse gas emissions. Having said that, though, scientists tell us that methane is responsible for roughly--get this--one-quarter of the manmade global warming that we are witnessing today. Let me say that again: Methane is responsible for roughly one-quarter of the manmade global warming that we are experiencing and witnessing today.

Over a 20-year period, methane is 84 times more harmful to our climate than carbon dioxide--84 times. For a small molecule, methane punches above its weight when it comes to its contributions to climate change.

The oil and gas industry is our Nation's largest source of methane, responsible for nearly 30 percent of total methane emissions. For comparison, this amount of methane pollution has the same climate effect as the emissions from our Nation's entire fleet of passenger vehicles in a year.

In addition to damaging our climate, methane emissions also contribute to ground-level ozone, known as smog. Breathing in smog harms our lungs, and it aggravates lung diseases like bronchitis and asthma. Exposure to smog has been linked to premature death, and children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to these health risks. If we want to meaningfully tackle the danger to our health and our climate, we need to reduce methane emissions from the entire oil and gas sector.

In 2016, as I was alluding to earlier, the EPA acted to do just that. Building on State actions, such as in Colorado, whose former chief executive is presiding at this moment, the EPA put into place commonsense Clean Air Act regulations that required the oil and gas industry to update its equipment. The rule also required the industry to inspect frequently in order to find and repair leaks and malfunctions that are such a big source of our methane problem.

Based on feedback from the oil and gas industry meeting, these new emission requirements did not place an undue burden on companies or raise costs for consumers. In fact, many oil and gas companies and industry groups supported the measures, and they still do. That is why it was so surprising when, in September of 2020, the EPA issued the final methane rescission rule to roll back what so many believed to be commonsense approaches for reducing methane risks.

While the Trump administration moved forward with this damaging policy, the consequences of climate change were roiling--roiling--our Nation. California, for example, experienced its worst wildfire season on record, with historic forest fires covering an area about the size of the State of Rhode Island. Other Western States--including Oregon, Montana, and Colorado--were ablaze with unprecedented damaging wildfires.

At the same time, other parts of our country were being battered by violent, extreme weather. The people of Iowa experienced one of the most costly thunderstorms in history, with hurricane force winds, causing $7.5 billion in economic damage. It flattened, I am told, over half of that State's corn and soybean crops in one day.

Coastal towns in Southern States like Florida, like Louisiana, and like South Carolina were battered by hurricane after hurricane after hurricane. In the summer of 2020, last summer, we saw the most hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean in recorded history.

Despite all of this, the Trump administration took a step to undo one of the key tools available to us to combat methane emissions that contribute greatly to climate change. The methane rescission rule was a stark departure from the widely accepted, science-based, and commonsense view that we should protect people and our planet from the dangers of methane.

In promulgating the methane rescission rule, the Trump administration ignored the global scientific community, including EPA's own Agency scientists, who warned that the extreme weather events of 2020 were just the tip of the iceberg of consequences we can expect if we don't keep global warming below an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius between now and 2040.

The bottom line is that the Trump methane rescission rule would allow more methane pollution, increase public health dangers, and bring us ever closer to the brink of irreversible climate catastrophe. It is this Trump EPA action that my colleagues and I reject today through the resolution before us.

The methane rescission rule stated that methane couldn't be regulated under the Clean Air Act. We reject that. The methane rescission rule stated that EPA couldn't regulate the entire oil and gas sector from wellhead to storage. We reject that. The methane rescission rule stated that greenhouse gasses couldn't be regulated. We reject that. The methane rescission rule also reversed EPA's longstanding position on what is required to regulate a pollutant, making it harder for EPA to implement clean air and climate protections. We reject that as well.

With approval of this resolution, though, EPA can and should still move forward to strengthen methane standards for the oil and gas sector in the future. This effort is also very timely, coming on the heels of President

Biden's climate commitment for our Nation to reduce emissions by 50 percent from 2005 levels by the end of this decade--by 2030.

Passing this resolution will be good for our health. Passing this resolution will be good for our planet. And passing this resolution will be good for America's economy. That is why so many States, so many environmental groups, and even a number of significant oil and gas companies support this resolution.

Joining over 60 environmental groups, as well as 20 State attorneys general, seven major oil and gas companies support today's resolution to reinstate requirements to control methane emissions. From the Environmental Defense Fund to Shell, from the League of Conservation Voters to BP, from the Natural Resources Defense Council to Equinor, there is a broad consensus among stakeholders with different interests--different interests--that Congress should reject and nullify the methane rescission rule.

So why do a number of oil and gas companies want Congress to reject the Trump rule, restore existing regulations, and pursue further regulations? They know the best way to boost growth in their sector and across the economy is to keep methane and other climate pollution in check. With unchecked methane releases in its operations, natural gas production and use become part of the climate problem, not a part of the solution as we endeavor to drive toward lower carbon fuels.

Companies know where the global market is heading. They know regulations will support innovation and technology deployment in their industry, bringing down emission reduction costs for everyone.

I sometimes like to quote Albert Einstein, who said, among other things: ``In adversity lies opportunity.'' Think about that: ``In adversity lies opportunity.'' We can see that in the issue of methane pollution and in climate change. It presents plenty of challenges. Yes, that is true. But it also presents a remarkable opportunity. It is an opportunity for us to protect our planet, improve the air that we breathe, and strengthen our economy.

At the same time, the product that the oil and gas industry is capturing can be sold to fuel more homes and businesses across the country. I want to say that again, too. At the same time, the product that the oil and gas industry is capturing can be sold to fuel more homes and businesses across the country. That is why today I will gladly vote for this resolution, which reaffirms that the Clean Air Act requires EPA to take action to protect Americans from dangerous pollution like methane.

In passing this resolution today, Congress is rejecting the Trump rule's baseless interpretation of the Clean Air Act and, in its place, reinstating commonsense methane public health and climate protections across the entire oil and gas sector. We are also clearing a path for additional protections from methane and other hazardous climate pollutants.

As a Senate, we are making our intent clear: The Clean Air Act gives EPA the authority and the mandate to establish methane emissions standards, even stronger than the ones we reinstate with this resolution. This includes all facets of the oil and gas industry now and moving forward, from production to processing and from transmission to storage.

We are saying to EPA loud and clear: It is your mission to protect the environment, to protect human health and public welfare from the dangers of climate pollutants like methane. And there is a lot of work still to do before that mission can be achieved. It is time that we get to that work. We don't have a lot of time to waste.

I have a couple of unanimous consent requests I would like to offer. One is to place supportive materials into the Record. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record several of my materials in support of S.J. Res. 14 that is before us today; first, the Biden administration's Statement of Administration Policy supporting passage of the resolution; second, two letters of support for passing this joint resolution--one from the 57 leading environmental and advocacy groups and another, the Shell Oil Company.

These letters demonstrate the breadth of support for regulating this harmful pollutant and rejecting the methane rescission rule.

I ask unanimous consent for these to be inserted into the Record as appropriate

Now, Mr. President, I will yield the floor, but before I do, I want to salute you for your role in an earlier day, in an earlier place, your State of Colorado, for helping get this started. We are in your debt. Good work. God bless.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of S. 914 on Thursday, April 29, the following amendments be reported by number and that they be the only amendments in order to S. 914: Rubio-Scott amendment No. 1471, as modified; Shaheen amendment No. 1461; Kennedy amendment No. 1469; and Lee amendment No. 1472.

Further, that at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 29, the Senate vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed, with 60 affirmative votes required for adoption of the Lee amendment and passage of the bill; further, that upon disposition of the amendments, amendment No. 1460, as amended, if amended, be agreed to; the bill be considered read a third time, and at 1:45 p.m., the Senate vote on the passage of the bill, as amended, with 2 minutes for debate equally divided prior to each vote; and finally, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 186, submitted earlier today.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Res. 187, submitted earlier today.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess until 8:25 p.m. today, and upon reconvening, proceed as a body to the Hall of the House of Representatives for the joint session of Congress provided under the provisions of H. Con. Res. 30; and that upon the dissolution of the joint session, the Senate adjourn until 10 a.m. on Thursday, April 29, 2021; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; and that upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 34, S. 914, Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021, as provided under the previous order.

We will gather in the Senate Chamber at 8:15 p.m. this evening to proceed as a body to the House of Representatives for President Joe Biden's address.

Joe Biden is the first Delawarian ever elected President of the United States.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it recess under the previous order.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge our colleagues to join me in voting for cloture on the nomination of Janet McCabe to serve as Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Running an Agency like the EPA requires that person to work with and serve people regardless of their political persuasion. Some people strive to be bipartisan. Janet McCabe has a proven record of being bipartisan. That is one of the reasons why nine former EPA Deputy Administrators and Administrators support her nomination, including four Republicans who served in the Reagan, the George H.W. and the George W. Bush administrations.

Janet has served as a senior EPA manager. She is a pragmatic and a good listener. That trait comes in no small part from her Hoosier background and the time that she spent with pragmatic people who will do the right thing if they understand what is needed. That is what Janet McCabe will bring with her to the role of Deputy Administrator at EPA, if confirmed. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting yes on this nomination.

I yield.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to complete my remarks before the vote.

Madam President, the Senate has invoked cloture, and I just want to thank everybody who supported cloture on Janet McCabe's nomination to serve as Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

I rise now to urge my colleagues to support the confirmation of this outstanding nominee, because Janet McCabe is exactly the leader that Administrator Michael Regan and the rest of the EPA need right now as we tackle some of the most pressing challenges in the Agency and in our Nation's history.

She will do so as one who understands the challenges and opportunities of working as a director of an air program, within a State environmental agency, to create a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment--not just for the citizens of some communities but for all communities and all ZIP Codes in Indiana, but also for the industry throughout her State.

I stand before you today, as my colleagues sometimes call me, as a recovering Governor. I understand how difficult it can be to bring a genuine interest to hear all points of view, to a job where Agency actions have consequences in every home and in every business. Perhaps Janet McCabe's colleague, Fred Cate, vice president of research at the University of Indiana put it best in an interview in the IndyStar recently. I just want to quote him. This is what he said:

``The reason she will be great at EPA is the same reason

she was superb here''. . . . ``It's her ability to get people

behind a common vision and get them to do things and not just

talk about them.''

Janet McCabe is a steady hand who has built a 30-year career of leadership in environmental protection. Her dedication and her know-how will be invaluable in protecting clean air and clean water, addressing the climate crisis, and realizing environmental justice for the most vulnerable among us.

So it is no surprise that she has garnered support from 48 leading environmental organizations. At the same time, anyone who has worked with Ms. McCabe knows that she is a hard-working, pragmatic Hoosier to the core. She works well with Democrats. She works well with Republicans and with Independents. And that is why she has the public support of nine former EPA Deputy Administrators and Acting Administrators, including four Republican former EPA Deputy Administrators who served in the Reagan administration and who served in the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush and who served in the George W. Bush administration.

Her professional experience includes service in both Federal and State government, and that includes impressive tenures in both Indiana and Massachusetts government agencies, as well as years of leadership experience at EPA.

Based on that experience, Ms. McCabe knows that in order for any Federal Agency to be successful, its leaders must work closely and collaboratively with State and local partners, no matter which party is in charge.

Her pragmatic and inclusive style has also inspired support of the electric power industry. The Edison Electric Institute, which represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies, enthusiastically supports Janet McCabe's nomination. This is an organization--listen to this--that speaks for companies that provide power to 220 million Americans. That is right--roughly two-thirds of all Americans.

Let me put it another way. Edison Electric Institute's members generate electricity for two-thirds of all Americans, and they have thrown their support behind the nomination of Janet McCabe for this post.

According to EEI president Tom Kuhn, he says Janet McCabe ``has a strong commitment to public service and a solid track record of engaging with diverse stakeholders, including industry, as demonstrated by her time at the helm of both the Air Program at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and EPA's Office of Air and Radiation.''

That is a quote.

Ms. McCabe has their support because she has demonstrated time and again that environmental and economic progress go hand in hand. Let me say that again. She demonstrated time and again that cleaner air, clean water, environmental progress, and economic progress go hand in hand. They are inextricably linked. That ethic has earned Ms. McCabe the support of the American Chemistry Council, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, and the BlueGreen Alliance, which represents some of our largest labor unions.

Ms. McCabe knows that while working to protect clean air and clean water and address climate change, the Agency must seize the opportunity to protect and create good-paying jobs across our country. She understands that the environmental and climate challenges we face are not just a problem. They offer economic and competitive opportunity.

President Biden's American Jobs Plan embraces these principles, and Janet McCabe has the experience and she has the intelligence to work with her Agency colleagues to translate them into action at EPA. President Biden's American Jobs Plan embraces these principles, and Janet McCabe has the experience and the intelligence to work with her Agency colleagues to translate them into action at EPA.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers put it very well when they wrote last month, and this is their quote:

Ms. McCabe will bring the leadership and collaborative

spirit needed to address difficult environmental challenges

and improve regulatory processes, and ensure we can continue

to build, power, and feed our country in an innovative and

sustainable way.

Ms. McCabe will help ensure that everyone--everyone who has a stake in our environment and our economy--has a seat at the table. She has built a reputation of listening to everyone--everyone--addressing real economic concerns, making sure government policy helps people and communities at the local level.

Ms. McCabe embodies these values in her current role as director of Indiana University's Resilience Institute, where she works every day to help mayors and to help farmers and communities of all sizes and shapes prepare for and adapt to climate change.

I will borrow once again from Janet McCabe's colleague from the University of Indiana, Fred Cate, who said of her career success, and I quote him again:

``She understands that at the end of the day, if you don't

bring along finance and industry and local buy-in, then we

won't get things done.''

I couldn't have said it better.

As Deputy Administrator, Janet's role will be the equivalent of a chief operating officer. She will be primarily focused on EPA internal policies and procedures--the day-to-day running of the Agency--and will not play a significant role in crafting new public policies.

One of her key tasks will be to restore the Agency's organizational health, which suffered during the previous administration, as respect for science and career staff advice declined and morale deteriorated. There is no person better suited to overseeing this internal restoration than Janet McCabe. Under her leadership I have every confidence that EPA will recover and soar.

I am very grateful that Janet has agreed to serve her country again in this new leadership role, and I am grateful to her family for their willingness to share her again with all of us.

Her personal integrity and work ethic is an inspiration to all public servants, and her willingness to engage all points of view is a boon to all who have strong interest in EPA's work.

So in closing, I want to urge my colleagues--all of our colleagues-- to vote to confirm her today so that she can put her robust talents to work for all the American people.

With that, I yield the floor.