Floor Statements

Mr. President, thanks very much. Before I talk about the auto industry, the strength of our economy, and climate change, I want to say a word about socialism.

I am a Democrat. I am not a socialist. I was a naval flight officer for 23 years, plus 4 years as a midshipman before that. I had three tours in Southeast Asia, and I am the last Vietnam veteran standing.

I have no interest in supporting a socialist agenda--none at all, none at all. In fact, I don't know if many of my colleagues feel that way, either.

I do know this, though. I know an election was held in November of 2008. We were in the worst recession since the Great Depression. Banks stopped lending money. The unemployment rate reached 10 percent. Banks were not lending money to people to go to school, to start businesses, to buy cars. It was a terrible time.

We had an election. The voters of this country decided to change horses, and Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush. Joe Biden was elected Vice President.

They started at the bottom. It hadn't been that bad in this country in terms of our economy since the Great Depression. Eight years later, we had another election, and the new administration inherited the longest running economic expansion in the history of this country.

I will say that again. The Trump administration inherited in January of 2017 the longest running economic expansion since the Great Depression.

Add to that the tax bill that pumps up the economy, and now we are 10 years into an economic recovery. That is the good news. It has been 10 years.

The unemployment rate is low. I think one of our earlier speakers said that GDP growth from last year was 3 percent. That was actually a little bit under 3 percent. He said it hadn't been that low for a long time. I think that low was reached maybe in a couple of quarters of the last year or so of the Obama administration.

But what I am concerned about are two things. One, a lot of money that goes to businesses through the tax bill--a lot of it--has been used for stock buybacks. It pumps up the value of stocks. It pumps up the value of the stock exchange, and it gives us a feeling of elation and jubilation. But we need to temper that a little bit with something else, and that ``it'' is called a deficit.

We had 4 years of a balanced budget. We hadn't been able to balance our budget from 1968 to about 1998. We couldn't balance our budget. The last 4 years of the Clinton administration, we had four balanced budgets in a row.

We also had a great recovery from an economic recession inherited in 1993, beginning with the Clinton administration, and we turned over a strong, robust economy to the George W. Bush administration in 2001. He also turned over to him a balanced budget--about four in a row.

Eight years later, we didn't have a balanced budget anymore. We had a huge deficit, and we were in the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Sometimes we reimagine history. I just want to set the record straight.

I used to be the treasurer for the State of Delaware when we had the worst credit rating in the country. We were at 29. We couldn't balance our budgets for nothing. We had the worst credit rating, tied with Puerto Rico. We were dead last. The people in Puerto Rico were embarrassed to be in the same shoes as us in terms of our credit rating. So I have some idea of what it is like to be in debt and some idea of how to get out of debt.

We are looking at debt right now in this country, coming off of the debts of the last fiscal year, of $750 billion--``billion'' dollars. This year's deficit is expected to reach $850 billion--``billion'' dollars. Next year, it is expected to reach almost $1 trillion in 1 year--in 1 year.

That is no way to run a business, no way to run a government.

As a guy who is the senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee and viewing what is going on at the Department of Homeland Security, when we worked so long on a bipartisan basis to stabilize that Department and to enable them to do their job and to have the resources they need, to see the kind of turmoil that is going on in that Department breaks my heart. It breaks my heart.

That is the bad news.

The good news is that we had a markup today in the Environment and Public Works Committee. My colleague Sheldon Whitehouse was there. We passed three pieces of legislation, all with bipartisan support. I think all of them passed unanimously.

One is called the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act. What does it do? It reduces emissions from diesel engines. The good thing about diesel engines is that they are in cars, trucks, vans, trains, boats, and locomotives. There are probably several million diesel engines in this country. They last a long time. A lot of them are really old, and a lot of them put out a lot of pollution.

Did you ever watch a diesel truck at a stoplight? The light changes and the diesel truck starts out, and black plumes of smoke come out of the back of the diesel truck. That is called particulate matter, and some of that particulate matter is called black carbon.

What does that black carbon do? It is about 1,000 times worse for our climate and our atmosphere than carbon dioxide. There is actually an American-made technology that will reduce emissions from those diesel trucks by as much as 90 percent.

If we are serious about doing something about climate change and reducing the impacts of climate change--extreme weather and all kinds of things--and if we are interested in doing that, we can reduce black carbon. Again, unanimously, our committee supported bipartisan legislation to do just that.

We have been doing this since 2005--using American technology and creating American jobs to do good things for our climate and our atmosphere. Those are the kinds of things we can do and we ought to do. Those are the things we can do and we ought to do.

It shouldn't all be blaming one side or the other. Let's find things we can work on together. I think for me the Holy Grail in terms of public policy, as the senior Democratic Senator serving with Mr. Whitehouse and John Barrasso, our chairman, is this: How do we clean up our air? How do we clean up our water? How do we do good things for climate change and reduce the extreme weather?

How do we do those things and create jobs? By doing those three things, we do create jobs. Today in this country about 157 million people went to work. Three or four million of them went to work on jobs that have something to do with sustainable energy, clean energy, climate change, and holes in the ozone--prohibiting them and fixing

them. Three to four million people went to work on those kinds of jobs. That is a good thing.

The point I am trying to make is, Is it possible to do good things for our planet? Well, President Macron of France, down the hall about 1 year ago, spoke to a joint session of Congress and he said these words: We only get one planet. There is no planet B.

He was right. This is our planet, and it is going to belong to these young people--these pages sitting down in front of me this afternoon. It is your planet. It is already. We want to make sure that we turn it over to you in better shape than we found it.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my friend and colleague, Senator Barrasso, to speak on behalf of the nomination of Nicole Nason to serve as Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration.

Ms. Nason is currently serving as the Assistant Secretary for Administration

at the State Department. Right now, though, there is no Administrator leading the Federal Highway Administration. In fact, it has been more than 2 years since we had an Administrator in charge at that important Agency. The last time our country went this long without top leadership at the Federal Highway Administration was more than 100 years ago, back when the Agency was known as the Bureau of Public Roads. Henry Ford had just introduced the Model T, and the idea of speedy and safe transcontinental travel was still outside of our imagination and even further from being realized.

Today the Federal Highway Administration oversees more than 220,000 miles of our National Highway System and some 145,000 bridges. The sad truth is, many of these roadways and many of these bridges are in poor, in some cases, even dangerous condition, having been in use far beyond the intended duration of their original design.

Moments from now, when Ms. Nason is confirmed--and I hope she will be confirmed--to be our Administrator, I think she is going to inherit responsibilities and political realities far more challenging and complex than perhaps all of her predecessors.

As our next Administrator, Ms. Nason will find herself at the center of a national crisis because our highway trust fund is going broke, and the system of paying for it is broken.

Last year, we spent about $11 billion more from the highway trust fund than we collected in revenues. When that happens, the highway trust fund turns to the general fund, Treasury, and says: How about $11 billion? The general fund doesn't have $11 billion, so what Treasury does is it issues debt in order to finance the hole in the trust fund, the general fund, so we can actually fund the hole in the highway trust fund. It is crazy. In fact, to pay for the FAST Act, we took $70 billion from the general fund and other programs.

For the next Transportation bill, we need to find an additional $68 billion--$68 billion--just to prevent the highway trust fund from going broke for 5 more years and to keep our programs at the current funding level.

We all know that the current funding isn't sufficient, either. Despite spending more than we collect, we still aren't spending enough. The backlog of money to rehabilitate and improve highways and bridges in this country has grown to $800 billion. The backlog for roads, highways, and bridges is $800 billion. The 800-pound gorilla in the room is really an $800 billion gorilla.

We have to figure out how we are going to pay to maintain or better yet rebuild and modernize our roads, highways, bridges, and transit systems. That should be near the top of our to-do list. It is not just the Senate, not just the House, not just the Congress, not just the administration, but all of us together.

Whether or not it is fair, Ms. Nason's job as Administrator will be made either easier or all the more difficult by Congress's ability or inability and the administration's ability or inability to responsibly address that 800-pound gorilla.

On the topic of paying for infrastructure, I was encouraged to hear from Ms. Nason at her confirmation hearing that she believes that ``all options are on the table.'' Those are her words: ``All options are on the table.'' I welcome those words.

We also discussed several other policy-related concerns Ms. Nason will need to begin addressing on day one at the Federal Highway Administration. Too many pedestrians, too many bicyclists, and too many drivers put their lives at risk when they use our roadways.

In 2017, 2 years ago, there were more than 37,000 fatalities on our Nation's roadways. In that same year, nearly 7,000 nonmotorized users were killed. That is unacceptable.

I was encouraged that during her confirmation hearing, Ms. Nason promised that she would have a focus on safety at the Agency and work closely with NHTSA and others to improve information-sharing with States, localities, and Tribal communities.

Too many Americans lack access to reliable transit or safe places to walk or to bike. In my State, we have done a lot in the last 20, 25 years. There is a lot more to do, and, frankly, we can learn from other States, and maybe one or two of them can learn from us.

Meanwhile, our country's public safety networks should connect people to commerce and opportunity in every ZIP Code--not just some of them, in every ZIP Code. In too many instances, disadvantaged communities are spatially disconnected from commerce and opportunity. Lower income neighborhoods are often far from good-paying job opportunities, or safe and dependable transit options don't exist for those working outside of an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule. Our country's public transportation networks should lift up disadvantaged communities--lift them up. The Federal Highway Administration must be a strong Federal partner in that effort.

Too many drivers lack access to charging stations for electric vehicles and hydrogen fueling stations for fuel cell vehicles. This is especially frustrating for those who have made investments in this technology but may not have feasible options to use those investments.

That brings us to the glaring reality of climate change and its worsening impact on our infrastructure. Our vehicles and travel patterns exacerbate the impacts of climate change, and mobile sources are our Nation's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. I want to say that again. Our vehicles and travel patterns accelerate and exacerbate the effects of climate change, and mobile sources--our cars, trucks, and vans--are our Nation's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in this country and on the planet.

Meanwhile, increasingly frequent and extreme weather events are continuing to erode our transportation networks. We see it in my State. My guess is that we see it in every other State that is represented here.

Sea level rise threatens the structural integrity and longevity of our roads and bridges. Delaware is the lowest lying State in America, and seas are rising. That is not a good combination.

The challenges are great, but here is the good news: so are the opportunities. The challenges are great, but so are the opportunities.

Today, I am supporting the nomination of Ms. Nason because I believe the key to success at any organization--any organization I have ever been a part of--is its leadership--the Navy, the State of Delaware's Governor, and here. Right now, the Federal Highway Administration needs a top leader, and I believe that in Ms. Nason, they will have one. I hope--more than just hope, I believe she is going to prove to be a partner with Congress and work with us to address some of the many challenges I have laid out and the many challenges before us in the months and years ahead. I call on all of our colleagues--Democratic, Republican, and a couple of Independents--to rise up later today when the vote is taken and vote in favor of her nomination.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 6 minutes, please.

Thanks very much.

Madam President, I rise again today to speak on an upcoming vote later on the majority leader's Green New Deal resolution.

To my colleagues, I would just say that I think we have a serious choice to make. Either we can acknowledge the climate crisis that our planet faces and confront it head-on, or we can turn our backs to it and walk away. I think the clock is ticking, and we need to not walk away.

While it is clear that a majority of Americans are calling on Congress to work together to address climate change, a number of our Republican colleagues--not all--have chosen to devote their time to deriding the Green New Deal instead of acknowledging the 800-pound gorilla in the room and crafting an action plan to do something about it while we still have time.

Madam President, I will ask unanimous consent to offer a very simple resolution here in a few minutes. I think my friend from Wisconsin is probably here to reserve the right to object to that, which is his right.

It is a pretty simple resolution. There are three parts to it. The first part of the resolution that I will be offering is that climate change is real. The second part of the resolution is that we as human beings have a lot to do with this problem. The last part of it is that we ought to do something about it. ``We'' includes the U.S. Congress.

I have been asked a fair amount today: Well, what should we do about it? What should we do about it?

If you look at the Green New Deal, the first part of the Green New Deal--especially the findings--gives a pretty good roadmap that I think we ought to seriously consider. I would just suggest that some items that have come up before the Environment and Public Works Committee in recent weeks and months--hearings that we held--could also help us figure out what the Congress might want to do about it.

If you think climate change is real--and I do, and I think most of us do. It is becoming a more urgent matter, not a less urgent matter. What are some of the things we can do? I will mention a few.

I think most people believe that carbon dioxide contributes to climate change, and that is true. With respect to climate change, there are other pollutants that are a lot worse than carbon. I want to mention a couple of them.

One of them is black carbon. Where does black carbon come from? It comes from diesel engines--think of trucks, cars, locomotives, trains, and boats. If you have ever been at a traffic intersection and have seen those big diesel trucks that pull away from the traffic intersection and the huge plumes of black smoke that appear as they pull off, they include black carbon. Black carbon is more than 100 times more dangerous than regular carbon dioxide in terms of its climate potential.

We have American-made technology that can be used on diesel engines-- all diesel engines; there are millions of them--to reduce those emissions by 90 percent.

We have a program called the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, which helps to fund and make monies available for States and local governments and private businesses to reduce their diesel emissions, especially black carbon. That is one.

Two, think about our National Highway System in this country. Through most of our National Highway System, we don't provide charging stations for electric vehicles that have batteries. We don't have fueling stations for vehicles that are powered by hydrogen in conjunction with fuel cells that create movement for all kinds of vehicles.

We need to put money into tax credits and grants for fueling stations for hydrogen and charging stations for electricity. We have an electric vehicle credit that has expired or is about to expire. It needs to be extended so that when people in this country are thinking about buying a vehicle, they will consider buying an electric vehicle, which doesn't put out any carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, or CO2.

Another thing we could do is provide an investment tax credit, which Susan Collins and I have proposed doing for some time, where, for the first 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind that is deployed, the business gets a 30-percent investment tax credit. That is one thing we can do.

The chairman of our Environment and Public Works Committee is here. He and I believe another good idea--and we are joined in this by Republicans and Democrats--is to develop technology, which we think is very promising, that would literally pull

carbon out of the air--not out of a smokestack but literally out of the air--and turn it into something more useful. That is something we can do.

We had a hearing on legislation called the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, the NEIC. Part of what we want to do is, instead of running nuclear powerplants and ending up with a whole lot of spent fuel, we want to have technology where, when the heat is so high, those nuclear plants would use most of the spent fuel. Instead of having it stacked up around the country, we use it up and we create electricity from it.

Two more things, and I am done. There are HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons, which replaced CFCs. CFCs put a hole in the ozone. They are a coolant. They are a refrigerant. CFCs put a hole in the ozone. They were replaced by HFCs. HFCs didn't put a hole in the ozone. They are better for the ozone layer but not good for climate change. Now we have a follow-on product, a successor to HFCs. They are good for the ozone layer and good for climate change. We ought to make sure that we pass a treaty here in this body so we can actually use that technology.

Finally, the last thing we can do is provide for our auto industry. It is something they are asking for.

I ask for 30 more seconds, please, Madam President.

Thank you.

The last thing we can do is--the auto industry has been saying, with respect to fuel efficiency standards, CAFE and so forth, that we ought to give them some near-term flexibility in terms of meeting more efficient fuel requirements, more efficient mileage requirements, and more stringent requirements going forward in the future. That is what they are asking for to provide certainty. It is a 50-State deal. California is at the table. We ought to do that.

Those are just a couple of things we can do in Congress to actually address this, and we ought to do them. While we successfully help do good things for our planet, we are also going to create jobs and economic opportunity.

I think that is something the chairman of our committee and I might just agree on.

Thank you, Madam President.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Environment and Public Works Committee be discharged from further consideration of S.J. Res. 9 and that the resolution be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

This resolution says that climate change is real; that as people on this planet, we have something to do with it; and three, that Congress is part of the solution.

That is my resolution.

Mr. President, I rise to speak this afternoon on the upcoming vote on the majority leader's Green New Deal resolution, a resolution that, ironically, he apparently does not support.

First I want to say this about the Green New Deal: Even our Republican friends cannot deny that this resolution has sparked a national conversation and generated a great deal of enthusiasm among the American people, especially among younger Americans.

It reminds me of the time when I was a young naval flight officer stationed at Moffett Field Naval Air Station just south of San Francisco, waiting to be deployed to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam war. I joined millions of Americans across our country that year and celebrated our Nation's very first Earth Day.

As I listen to the rising chorus of voices calling for climate action today, I hear the sounds of that day in Golden Gate Park. I remember the urgency we felt then to address the environmental challenges facing our Nation and our world, and I feel an even greater sense of urgency today. That is why it is so disappointing to me that our Republican colleagues--not all of them but a number of them--are trying to make a mockery of the very real concerns and the passionate calls for action we are hearing from people all across this country and, indeed, all around the world.

This is not a time for derision. This is not a time for division. On an issue as serious as this one, we ought to be serious about addressing it. However, it has become clear that some--not all but some--of our Republican friends would rather have some fun and talk, maybe, about hamburgers and cheeseburgers and that kind of thing. Worse, some have conflated meaningful action on climate change with socialism.

With the death of our late colleague John McCain, I am the last Vietnam veteran serving in the U.S. Senate. I served 5 years in a hot war in Southeast Asia to oppose the expansion of communism. Shortly after we celebrated that first-ever Earth Day in 1970, I was sent on the first of three deployments in Southeast Asia before eventually serving another 18 years until the end of the Cold War as a Navy P-3 aircraft mission commander in the Naval Reserve and retiring as a Navy captain after chasing Soviet submarines in all of the oceans of the world.

I am not a socialist. Like most of our colleagues here, I am an American patriot and proud to be one. I care deeply about this planet, and I know we can have cleaner air and water while creating jobs. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Our Republican colleagues know better than that, and they owe our country better than that.

In recent weeks, our Republican colleagues have thrown around a $93 trillion number. That wildly overestimated number primarily refers to provisions in the Green New Deal that are not directly related to climate change.

At a time when our country is looking to Congress for leadership on climate action, hiding behind political games, deception, and scare tactics is irresponsible. It is cowardly when we ought to be brave.

Right now a clear majority of Americans want us, in Congress, to address the growing climate crisis that is facing our country and our planet. We should be having a fact-based, policy-driven conversation about tackling this crisis, and we should be talking about the real costs that confront us, including the cost of inaction.

I live in Delaware, the lowest lying State in our country. Our State is sinking. The oceans around us are rising. According to our Nation's leading scientists, climate change unchecked means more sea level rise, costing coastal communities up and down the east coast--like my State-- trillions of dollars in economic damages over the next 80 years.

In the Northeast we are experiencing rain events in which we are measuring rain by the foot, not the inch. Not too far from where we stand today, Ellicott City, MD, has experienced not one but two 1,000- year floods. They have withstood not one but two 1,000-year floods in less than 2 years.

Today, our hearts go out to our neighbors along the Missouri River Basin as they are suffering through catastrophic flooding. As of Friday, the cost of damage to Nebraska alone had already surpassed $1.3 billion, and the damage to Iowa alone was estimated at $1.6 billion. Some cities are currently without fresh water. In Missouri, entire communities have been evacuated. In Northwestern Missouri, roughly 40,000 acres of farmland was still underwater this past Friday.

Our Nation's scientists tell us that climate change unchecked means more frequent and more intense storms, meaning bomb cyclones. I didn't even know there was such a thing as bomb cyclones, but there are. Intense rainfalls and category 5 hurricanes are becoming the new normal.

Last year, we witnessed the tragic devastation caused by wildfires fueled by drought and heat, like the California wildfires. Imagine what we could face in 2050 when, according to our Nation's scientists, wildfire seasons burn up to six times more forest area each year.

The extreme weather events we see are already taking a toll on American lives, on American livelihoods, and our Nation's budget. According to NOAA, in 2017 alone, extreme weather cost Americans $300 billion in economic damages--a new record. That same year, the Federal Government spent $120 billion in Federal disaster spending for just four extreme weather events--just four.

Earlier this month, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office released its biennial high-risk list and once again identified climate change as a significant fiscal risk to the Federal Government and, I might add, to taxpayers.

According to GAO, since 2005, Federal funding for disaster assistance has reached $430 billion--nearly one-half trillion dollars--and those costs will continue to rise. GAO says: ``Disaster costs are projected to increase as extreme weather events become more frequent and intense due to climate change.''

NOAA and NASA tell us these numbers will be a drop in the bucket compared to our new climate future if we do not act on climate change. If we do not change course, just about every major economic sector in the United States will be negatively affected by climate change by the turn of this century. Some sectors could see hundreds of billions of dollars of losses every year.

Add it all up, and climate change could slash up to 10 percent of our gross domestic product, GDP, by 2100. I like to say, compared to what? Well, for context, that would be more than double the losses incurred during the great recession of the last decade. However, all of these costs are woefully underestimated. How can we put a pricetag on the toll of this destruction? What is the cost of our fourth-generation farm family who loses their land and their livestock? What is the cost of a bridge inundated by water, separating a community from a hospital or

other emergency services? What is the cost of the family who loses a child to an asthma attack on a high particulate matter day?

The circumstances I have laid out are dire because that is the crisis we face, and we cannot evade it into oblivion. This poster says it all: ``No matter where we live, we can't ignore the reality of climate change or its effects.'' We have to accept and address this crisis.

As Albert Einstein once said, in adversity lies opportunity. The opportunity before us is even greater. More than 3 million people have gone to work in the clean energy sector in the United States in recent years, and those jobs are in renewable energy generation, energy efficiency, smart grid and storage, cleaner fuels, and lower emission vehicles.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes to complete my remarks.

Nearly 500,000 of these clean energy jobs are in the solar and wind industries, and one out of every six construction workers in this country now make their living in emergency and energy efficiency. One out of every five companies involved in making motor vehicle parts makes their money from products that make our cars, trucks, and vans cleaner.

Our clean energy revolution did not happen by accident. We put smart policies in place, and we had leadership that believed climate change was a threat. During the Obama administration, starting with the Recovery Act, the Federal Government provided economic incentives and smart regulations to support market investments and clean energy. We must build on this progress and continue to support policies that reduce our Nation's carbon footprint, help create a more robust economy, and support those most vulnerable to climate change.

Yet instead of pursuing any ideas to address climate change and protect Americans from its effect, the Trump administration has sadly decided to ignore climate change, decided to defund clean energy research and roll back any meaningful climate action, decided to walk away from provisions that would help protect Americans from rising floods and other extreme weather events.

Our President's failed leadership on climate change threatens our health, our economy, U.S. competitiveness, and our future. Sadly, most of our--not all--but most of our Republican friends have been applauding the President with every action.

In conclusion, let me just say to the American people, don't be fooled or distracted by the political games. We cannot allow cynicism to win. We can reduce our Nation's carbon footprint; we can strengthen our economy; and we can support those most vulnerable among us--indeed, we must. Climate change is real. Human activity is the dominant cause. Congress needs to act. Stop the political theater and start to address the climate change before us today while we still have time, and we do.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2019, or DERA, which I am introducing today with Senators Inhofe, Barrasso, Whitehouse, Sullivan, Booker, Capito, Gillibrand, Cramer and Van Hollen.

In today's hearing, we will be focusing on legislation that reauthorizes a program that is near and dear to my heart--the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, or DERA. I would like to say thank you to my DERA co-pilot, Senator Inhofe. Senator Inhofe has been a staunch supporter of DERA since day one. I greatly appreciate his continued support and the hard work of his staff on this legislation. I also thank our cosponsors from last Congress who have joined us again this year, Chairman Barrasso and Senator Whitehouse. Chairman Barrasso and his staff teamed up with us last Congress to make DERA work even better, and I appreciate his strong support. I also would like to say thank you to our new cosponsors this year, Senators Sullivan, Booker, Capito, Gillibrand, Cramer and Van Hollen.

In all my years of public service, it's not every day that I've seen programs that generate this much bipartisan support--but, then again, not many programs are as effective and commonsense as DERA.

Our Nation still relies heavily on diesel power to transport commuters and kids, harvest our crops and build our infrastructure. Today diesel engines are found everywhere, from our schools to our ports, and from our highways to our agricultural fields.

Many of my colleagues have heard me say that the great thing about diesel engines is that they last a long time. And the bad thing about diesel engines is that they last a long time. Diesel engines are reliable and efficient, but older diesel engines are big polluters. Dirty diesel engine emissions are some of the biggest contributors to our Nation's smog, soot and black carbon air pollution. These dirty diesel emissions harm our health and our climate.

Because of smart emission standards, new and retrofitted diesel engines using American technology are now much cleaner than older diesel engines--over 90% cleaner. Unfortunately, diesel engines run forever and there is little incentive for a diesel engine owner to replace an engine before it breaks down. That's why today, more than a decade after diesel emission standards were implemented by the EPA, millions of older diesel engines that lack the latest pollution control technology are still in use and will remain in use for decades to come.

Back in 2005, my very good friend, the late-Senator from Ohio, George Voinovich, came to me with an idea to help solve this problem--he came to me with the idea for DERA. Senator Voinovich said to me, let's provide financial incentives for people to replace or retrofit their older diesel engines with American-made clean vehicle technology. He told me that we can dramatically reduce diesel emissions, protect our health and create jobs here at home. I said ``Sign me up!'' And I've been DERA's strongest supporter ever since. In 2005, Congress passed DERA faster than I think we've passed any EPA program ever before. This simple idea has turned into one of EPA's most effective clean air program on the books today.

For every dollar spent in the DERA program, our Nation sees $13 in economic and health benefits. The emission reductions have helped States meet clean air standards and resulted in more than $12.6 billion in health benefits alone since the program's inception.

From requests for electric school buses, to replacement ferry engines, to simple diesel retrofits, EPA tells us that the requests keep coming in--but, unfortunately, funding for DERA far exceeds the program's available funds. With millions of dirty diesel engines on our roads, DERA is as important today as it was when it first started. Now, we must work together to ensure that every State, Tribe and territory can still benefit from this unique program.

At a time when our Nation is looking for ways to create jobs, have healthier air and a better climate, cleaning up dirty diesel engines through DERA stands out as a prime example of what works.

Today, I'm proud to continue the bipartisan tradition that started more than 15 years ago with my good friend, Senator Voinovich. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass reauthorization of DERA this Congress.

Thank you Mr. President.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2019, or DERA, which I am introducing today with Senators Inhofe, Barrasso, Whitehouse, Sullivan, Booker, Capito, Gillibrand, Cramer and Van Hollen.

In today's hearing, we will be focusing on legislation that reauthorizes a program that is near and dear to my heart--the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, or DERA. I would like to say thank you to my DERA co-pilot, Senator Inhofe. Senator Inhofe has been a staunch supporter of DERA since day one. I greatly appreciate his continued support and the hard work of his staff on this legislation. I also thank our cosponsors from last Congress who have joined us again this year, Chairman Barrasso and Senator Whitehouse. Chairman Barrasso and his staff teamed up with us last Congress to make DERA work even better, and I appreciate his strong support. I also would like to say thank you to our new cosponsors this year, Senators Sullivan, Booker, Capito, Gillibrand, Cramer and Van Hollen.

In all my years of public service, it's not every day that I've seen programs that generate this much bipartisan support--but, then again, not many programs are as effective and commonsense as DERA.

Our Nation still relies heavily on diesel power to transport commuters and kids, harvest our crops and build our infrastructure. Today diesel engines are found everywhere, from our schools to our ports, and from our highways to our agricultural fields.

Many of my colleagues have heard me say that the great thing about diesel engines is that they last a long time. And the bad thing about diesel engines is that they last a long time. Diesel engines are reliable and efficient, but older diesel engines are big polluters. Dirty diesel engine emissions are some of the biggest contributors to our Nation's smog, soot and black carbon air pollution. These dirty diesel emissions harm our health and our climate.

Because of smart emission standards, new and retrofitted diesel engines using American technology are now much cleaner than older diesel engines--over 90% cleaner. Unfortunately, diesel engines run forever and there is little incentive for a diesel engine owner to replace an engine before it breaks down. That's why today, more than a decade after diesel emission standards were implemented by the EPA, millions of older diesel engines that lack the latest pollution control technology are still in use and will remain in use for decades to come.

Back in 2005, my very good friend, the late-Senator from Ohio, George Voinovich, came to me with an idea to help solve this problem--he came to me with the idea for DERA. Senator Voinovich said to me, let's provide financial incentives for people to replace or retrofit their older diesel engines with American-made clean vehicle technology. He told me that we can dramatically reduce diesel emissions, protect our health and create jobs here at home. I said ``Sign me up!'' And I've been DERA's strongest supporter ever since. In 2005, Congress passed DERA faster than I think we've passed any EPA program ever before. This simple idea has turned into one of EPA's most effective clean air program on the books today.

For every dollar spent in the DERA program, our Nation sees $13 in economic and health benefits. The emission reductions have helped States meet clean air standards and resulted in more than $12.6 billion in health benefits alone since the program's inception.

From requests for electric school buses, to replacement ferry engines, to simple diesel retrofits, EPA tells us that the requests keep coming in--but, unfortunately, funding for DERA far exceeds the program's available funds. With millions of dirty diesel engines on our roads, DERA is as important today as it was when it first started. Now, we must work together to ensure that every State, Tribe and territory can still benefit from this unique program.

At a time when our Nation is looking for ways to create jobs, have healthier air and a better climate, cleaning up dirty diesel engines through DERA stands out as a prime example of what works.

Today, I'm proud to continue the bipartisan tradition that started more than 15 years ago with my good friend, Senator Voinovich. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass reauthorization of DERA this Congress.

Thank you Mr. President.

Mr. President, last month, just hours after Congress passed bipartisan legislation to fully fund our Federal Government, I was privileged to join with Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and four Members of the House of Representatives, including our at-large Congresswoman from Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester, to lead a congressional delegation to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador--three countries that are oftentimes collectively referred to as the Northern Triangle.

Our delegation was on a factfinding mission. We wanted to drill down on the root causes of illegal immigration from Central America and assess the effectiveness of a new approach in recent years to help improve conditions on the ground in those three countries.

On our flight to Guatemala, several of us watched as President Trump--in order to build his long-promised wall--declared a national emergency, even though while illegal immigration spiked in the last couple of months across our southern border, if you go back to 2001 through the end of 2018, it has actually dropped by, believe it or not, 80 percent.

As former chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I understand the need for secure borders, and I have supported efforts to enhance border security over the last two decades that I have served in this body.

I have been down to Central America any number of times with people like Gen. John Kelly, when he was the SOUTHCOM commander, with Jeh Johnson, with Ron Johnson, both of whom served as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and John McCain. We went into that part of the world and along our border with Mexico to better understand what our needs are for border security.

Since 2003, the United States has spent, believe it or not, $263 billion--that is almost one-quarter of a trillion dollars--on border security.

We have doubled the number of border agents. We have deployed hundreds of miles of barriers and roads in places where they are most effective. We have funded highly sophisticated surveillance aircraft, equipment on drones and airplanes, helicopters, mile-high dirigibles, along with motion detectors, high-speed boats, tunnel detectors, and a lot more.

The approach on border security at our border with Mexico needs to be multilayered, and it is. There are some places barriers do make sense-- a lot of places, in fact. There are some places that actually walls-- the kind President Trump has envisioned, think San Diego and maybe Juarez--make sense, but there are a lot of other places where different kinds of barriers make sense. In some places, roads alongside of barriers make sense.

We have deployed aircraft. We have deployed fixed-wing aircraft. We have deployed helicopters. We have deployed drones. If you just put them out there by themselves, they are not going to do much good, but if you put highly sophisticated equipment on each of those platforms, they give us the ability to see from our border into Mexico as far as 20, 25 miles in all kinds of weather--people as small as children who are approaching our border--and then we know where to deploy our Border Patrol to meet them and intercept them.

We can put the same kind of sophisticated surveillance equipment on dirigibles that go up 5,000 feet, 10,000 feet into the air. We can put them on towers that are mobile, towers that are stationary along the border as well.

We can put people on horseback. We can put, believe it or not, some of our Border Patrol officers on horseback. The reason we do that is, in areas with high vegetation, the Border Patrol officer on a horse--a big horse--can see over the vegetation and pick up people trying to come across the border illegally.

In some places, boats make sense, high-speed boats. In other places, boat ramps make sense. If you don't have boat ramps, you can't put the boat in, and you don't have much mobility.

Those are some of the things we have done in terms of providing better border security.

The encouraging news is, a lot of it has worked. A lot of it has worked, but we could build a wall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and if that is all we do, people are still going to come to this country--not so much from Mexico. People used to come in huge numbers from Mexico.

If you look back in the history of the last especially 15 years, most of the folks who were coming here illegally were coming from Mexico across our borders. Today, it is quite different. There are more Mexicans going back into Mexico than there are Mexicans coming into the United States. Most of the illegal immigration is not coming from Mexico. It is coming from Guatemala. It is coming from Honduras. It is coming from El Salvador.

The trek from the Northern Triangle--these countries right here--up through Mexico to our border is over 1,000 miles, probably closer to 1,500 miles, depending on how you want to get there.

The spike in immigration we have seen in the last several months is mostly from Guatemala's mountainous highlands. They have a lot of indigenous people, and they don't have a very good lifestyle. They have a lot of malnourishment, a lot of stunted growth, and not a lot in terms of encouragement and economic opportunity. Let me tell you a quick story of the reason why these people are trying to get out of there.

In the southern part of our State, Sussex County is our biggest county. We raise enormous numbers of chickens there. For every person that live in Delaware, there are 300 chickens. I know the Presiding Officer has a lot of chickens in his State, too. We have a lot of folks who come up, including from Guatemala, and work in poultry processing plants. They are good workers. They work hard.

We have a nonprofit in southern Delaware, in Georgetown, DE, called La Esperanza, which means ``hope.'' They work with indigenous populations, illegal and legal migrants, who have come to southern Delaware. A couple years ago, I was visiting La Esperanza, and they told me the story about a young boy and his younger sister who fled Guatemala. They came to the United States and, ultimately, to Delaware.

This is why they came. The 15-year-old boy in Guatemala was approached by gangs in his community. They said: We want you to join our gang.

He said: Let me talk to my parents first before I do that.

He knew his parents wouldn't be too excited with that. He talked to his parents, who said: You are not going to join a gang. We don't want you to do that. Just tell them no.

He avoided the gang members for a while, but they finally caught him and said: Are you going to join our gang?

He said: I talked to my parents, and they don't want me to do that, so not now. I am not going to do it now.

They said: We have a message for you and your parents. If you don't join our gang, somebody in your family is going to die.

He went home and told his parents, and their message to him was: Join the gang. Just don't do anything stupid.

So he joined the gang. They have to go through an initiation ritual, and as part of that ritual, he was called on to rape his 13-year-old sister. He reported what was expected of him to his parents, and within a week he and his sister were on their way out of that country.

The gangs in these countries, especially in Guatemala, are entrepreneurial. They may be involved in trafficking people. They may be involved in trafficking drugs. They are really good at extortion-- extorting money from small businesses and going to a business and saying: I want you to pay me protection money. If you provide protection money, I will see that you are not harmed.

The merchant says: Who are you protecting me from?

You are actually being protected from the guy who is trying to extort money from you, and if you don't pay the money, they will kill you. It is just like that. As for the rate of extortion in these three countries from gangs who do multiple kinds of crimes, that is one of their favorites.

The reason why people live lives of misery has a lot to do with us-- because we are addicted to drugs. The drugs are trafficked through these three countries, and we are complicit in their misery.

A Catholic priest testified before the Homeland Security Committee a couple of years ago. He described a situation where our drug addiction makes life miserable in these three countries. Then, when they try to get out, we make it difficult to impossible to get into our country.

The priest who was our witness that day said: It is a little bit like the fire department visiting a house down here. The fire department goes into the house. There is no fire. The fire department goes into the house, and they start a fire. When the people try to run out of the house, the fire department leaves the house, locks the door, and drives away.

That is really a pretty good example of what we have done in Central America. We have lit the fire. We have left the family in the house. We have locked the door and driven away. I think that is morally wrong, and we can do better than that.

As it turns out, aside from spending $263 billion along the border for security in the last 18 years or so, someone has come up with a better idea. It is not a new idea. It is an idea based on something called Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia was developed 20 years ago, when in Bogota, the capital of Colombia, you had the FARC, the leftist guerillas trying to take down the government, and drug lords and drug gangs trying to take down the government of Colombia. One day, a bunch of gunmen rounded up the supreme court justices of Colombia, took them into a room, and shot them to death.

Colombia was teetering, and there were questions: Are they going to be able to make it? Some very brave Colombian leaders stood up and said: We are not going to let this happen. We are not going to let these guys take down our country. Our President then, Bill Clinton, and a fellow who was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, found common cause with the leaders of Colombia. Basically, the Colombians developed a plan that would help to stabilize their government and enable them to restore order, rule of law, and economic prosperity, and we helped them. I will give one example of what we did.

The Presiding Officer spent a lot of time in the military. One of the things we did is that we provided helicopters so that the military of Colombia and the police of Colombia had mobility. They could go over the mountainous rivers and country and track down the bad guys. That is what they did with our help.

We helped them to figure out how to collect revenues. They didn't collect many revenues, and the wealthy people of that country didn't pay much taxes at all. We taught them how to do a better job in revenues and to use that to help to develop their government institutions. The people in Colombia did the heavy lifting. We helped. It is like they say in Home Depot: You can do it; we can help.

The Presiding Officer has heard me say many times in the Environment and Public Works Committee: Find out what works, and do more of that.

Plan Colombia worked. It took a long time. I am an old Navy guy. It reminds me of trying to change the course of an aircraft carrier. You stick with it, and you can make sure to change the course of an aircraft carrier. It doesn't happen fast. Plan Colombia has taken years to work, but it has worked.

About 3 or 4 years ago, when we were starting to see a real surge-- again, not from Mexican immigration illegally into our country but from these three countries--President Obama called on Joe Biden to take off- the-shelf Plan Colombia, and see if it might be possible to develop a Central American version of Plan Colombia. The idea would be to focus on three or four areas. We would provide some of the money, but these countries would provide a lot more because it is their country. It is not our country, but we are complicit in their misery. So we have an obligation to help them--a moral obligation.

These are the three areas of focus of the Alliance for Prosperity-- the modern-day, Central American version of Plan Colombia. One is economic hope and economic opportunity. That is one. That is one of the major drivers of people getting out of there--lack of economic opportunity. Two is violence and the lack of rule of law. Three is just corruption. Corruption is endemic in their Federal government--the national government--in State and local governments, and in business. It is just endemic. Those are the three buckets that the Alliance for Prosperity was designed to address. We put up some of the money. The other countries put up a good deal more.

One example is El Salvador. For every dollar we put up, they put up $7. We used that money in El Salvador to, among other things, target the cities with the most crime. We used some of our resources but a lot more of their resources. The crime in those 50 cities is down dramatically in the last couple of years.

In Honduras the murder rate is down by about 35 percent. These three countries vie for murder capital of the world and have for some time. The murder rate in Honduras is down by 35 percent or 40 percent. The murder rates in Guatemala and El Salvador over the last 3 years are down by half. Would we still feel comfortable in those neighborhoods? Probably not, but it is better than what it was.

In Honduras, one of the things they did is basically that they fired one-third of their police officers and replaced them with vetted units. With that in mind, they did a much better job on extortion. They did a much better job on kidnapping and actually bringing to trial and sentencing the folks who are committing the crimes.

USAID is working down there in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, and in the capital of Guatemala, creating almost like tech centers where young entrepreneurs can start their own businesses. They get some help from us and some coaching from us, and they are starting to lead an economic recovery.

These are beautiful countries--lush and with beautiful beaches in some places. So they are attractive for tourism. They have, for the most part, very fertile soil, and with the right kind of help, coaching, and mentoring, they can do a much better job feeding themselves and exporting a lot of what they raise.

Things are starting to happen. Again, it is like that aircraft carrier I talked about. It is slow at first and, then, more perceptible as time goes by.

In San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, we used Federal-- American--money in order to leverage the Howard G. Buffett Foundation to go--literally, in the middle of the city--into 17 acres of what used to be a beautiful park and was later riddled with crime, and to clean it up and make it beautiful again for the people of that city.

One multinational company has come down into one of these countries and put millions of dollars into creating a DNA facility to help in solving crimes.

Little by little, things are getting better. There are still problems in Guatemala and among the highlands indigenous people who are still trying to get out of there. Ninety percent of the immigration right now is out of that part of Guatemala.

The last thing I will say is this. They just had an election in El Salvador 4 weeks ago. The current President is a 75-year-old guerilla leader who was a close friend of Venezuela's leader and was at Maduro's inauguration a month or so ago. He is friendly with the Chinese and friendly with the Cubans. He is leaving. He is stepping down as the President of that country in a couple of months.

Who is going to succeed him? It is the 38-year-old mayor of San Salvador, who gets economic development. He is free of corruption. He is someone who has a good relationship with our embassy there, and he is highly regarded by our folks. He is an honest guy, full of energy. In his campaign, he was the first candidate for President in the history of the country who has gotten over 50 percent. It didn't have to go to a runoff. It is an amazing development. He harnessed social media to get elected.

Meanwhile, there is going to be a Presidential election in Guatemala in June. Jimmy Morales is the President there. He is somebody whom Vice President Biden and I tried to mentor. Initially, it started out very promising. Then, more recently, there are real concerns about corruption involving his family. His time as President will expire about the middle of this year, but in Guatemala the three frontrunners to run for president are

all women. The person who is believed to be the frontrunner of them all is a woman named Thelma Aldana, who is the immediate past Attorney General. She is tough on crime and tough on corruption. She has been in this country some this month and had the opportunity to talk with Vice President Biden to get some encouragement from him.

Joe Biden is beloved in Delaware and in some other places around the country, but they really love him there because he has been interested in root causes--not just in treating the symptoms of the problems and challenges on the border but actually helping to address the root causes.

The fellow who has just been elected President of El Salvador is a 38-year-old millennial. His social media people have now started to help the former Attorney General who is running for President of Guatemala.

As the Presiding Officer and my colleagues know, the most important ingredient in the success of any organization I have ever seen is leadership. It is leadership.

We are seeing a changing of the guard not only in terms of age but also in terms of just where they come from, on a scale of 1 to 100.

The last thing I want to mention--if I could find my spot here in my notes--is that none of this is easy, but it basically says that we have a moral obligation to the folks down here. We make their lives miserable because of our drug addiction, and we ought to help them. They have to do most of the work, but we have to help them. We can't just help them for a couple of weeks or a couple of months or a couple of years, as we found out in Colombia; we have to stick with this a good deal longer to help change the culture of these countries.

I am encouraged to say that change is happening, and we should keep it going. There is a sense of optimism that is beginning to emerge in these countries. I think there are some reasons to be encouraged that a plan modeled after Plan Colombia and tailored especially for this part of the world can actually succeed. If we don't give up and especially if they don't give up, it very well will.

P.S. The cost of actually capturing somebody on our border who is starting to come in illegally, detaining them, putting them in a holding camp or a detention center, feeding them, providing healthcare, and eventually deporting them and sending them back down to wherever they came from, I am told is $27,000 a person--$27,000 a person.

These people love their countries, and given a chance, they would much rather stay down there. They would much rather stay down there. They might like to come up to visit and maybe do some work sometime and go back home. But they want to have a decent life. Frankly, if we will help them realize that, they will stay down there. They may come up as tourists, and maybe we can go down there as tourists. We heard that over and over.

The last thing we heard down there is that they love America. They love America. They are mindful of what we are trying to do to help them. They are grateful for the help we are providing. I know a bunch of them. I met a lot of them down there. Some of them live in my State. For the most part, they are good and decent people. They deserve our help. I am proud of the support this Congress has provided for the last 4 years for their lives and prosperity. My hope is that we will continue to do that and continue to use that money to leverage a lot of good work not only for those countries but for nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and private companies, and that together we will get the job done. I am encouraged.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I really want to say to my friend, Senator Jeff Merkley, who went down to this part of the world any number of times as a young man and went back again last month still as a young man, that he has provided a lot of great insight. It has been a joy going with him and now working with him on this as we go forward.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, before I rise to speak on behalf of the nomination of Dr. John Fleming to be Assistant Secretary for Economic Development at the Department of Commerce, I remind my Republican friends that the pot calls the kettle black once again.

Whatever harm or abuse has been done to this nominee or other nominees pales by comparison to what happened to one of the most distinguished judges in America, Merrick Garland, who was nominated, literally, a year before the end of the last President's administration. He never got a hearing, never got a vote, no committee--none of that. There are no clean hands.

Mr. President, I am pleased to rise in support of the nomination of John

Fleming to be our Assistant Secretary for Economic Development at the Department of Commerce. In that role, Dr. Fleming would oversee the Economic Development Administration--we call it the EDA. In my home State, we benefited a great deal from EDA in recent years. We are grateful for them. EDA provides money used to leverage other moneys for economic development purposes. If I had more time, I would be able to give you some good examples.

When Dr. Fleming was a Member of the House of Representatives, he voted repeatedly to eliminate the Economic Development Administration. That is why I initially held deep reservations about his nomination. When Dr. Fleming and I met before his hearing last year, he assuaged most of my concerns. In the end, I decided to vote my hopes over my fears and voted to approve his nomination out of committee. Today I will again vote in support of his nomination.

As the senior Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee in the Senate, I will work to ensure that EDA programs are protected and promoted, and I hope Dr. Fleming will be leading in those efforts. Today I will be leading the efforts to get him confirmed for his post and put him to work.

The last thing I would say, if I have a few more seconds--I think I may. One of the things I do is customer calls, and I suspect the Presiding Officer does this back in his home State of Indiana. I do them often. I visit businesses large and small. I ask three questions: How are you doing? How are we doing? What can we do to help?

One of the questions I asked once while visiting a large auto dealership was, how are you doing?

He said: Well, you know, we sell plenty of vehicles, but we have a hard time attracting and getting people to work as technicians to maintain the vehicles we sell.

I said: Maybe you need to pay them more money.

He said: No, we start people at about $50,000 and pay them up to $80,000, $90,000 a year.

I said: You are still having a hard time attracting people?

He said: Yes, we are.

We worked with EDA to get a Federal grant to create a center for automotive excellence in the middle of Delaware, in the Delmarva Peninsula. They are working with Delaware Technical and Community College, and a year from now they expect to open that Center for Automotive Excellence and provide the workforce that is needed not just in Delaware by our auto dealers but by companies that have large trucks and similar kinds of employers throughout the Delmarva Peninsula, in the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Virginia, and throughout the State of Delaware. That is the kind of thing EDA can do to help.

We are excited about this prospect and looking forward to meeting our workforce needs and grateful for the assistance of this Federal Agency, which Dr. Fleming has been nominated to head. I hope he will have that opportunity. We will vote in just a few minutes.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I am happy to yield back. I think we have 1\1/2\ minutes left. I am happy to yield it back.

Mr. President, before I was elected Governor of Delaware in 1992, I served in the House of Representatives for five terms. We have one congressional seat. Alaska is one of those States, as the Senator from Alaska knows, that also has one congressional seat.

I got to the House on January 3, 1983, and one of the first people I met there was Don Young. We ended up on the same committee together, not the Environment and Public Works we serve on today but the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, which has a lot of the same jurisdiction as the Environment and Public Works Committee.

So I remember going to Alaska with him and a bunch of our colleagues and just going through Prudhoe and just seeing all kinds of places around the Senator's beautiful State and going back with my family years later.

My colleague is also a colonel in the Marines. I call him ``colonel.'' He knows that John Barrasso and I like music and that every now and then, we will find some way to work some music lyrics into what we have to say. In listening to the Senator talk about Don Young, it reminds me of a great song by Bob Dylan, called ``Forever Young,'' which is a classic song. You can find anything on the internet these days, and someone was nice enough to pull up the first verse of the lyrics of ``Forever Young'' by Bob Dylan.

It goes something like this:

May God bless and keep you always

May your wishes all come true

May you always do for others

And let others do for you

May you build a ladder to the stars

And climb on every rung

May you stay forever young

Forever young, forever young

May you stay forever young

Don Young, congratulations from your Delaware buddy and former colleague. Thank you.

What I really think we need to do is to join hands here in the Senate and sing ``Kumbaya'' and get our act together now that things have calmed down a little bit from earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, Today I am introducing the ``Clean Corridors Act of 2019.'' This legislation authorizes $3 billion in grant funding to public entities for installing electric vehicle charging infrastructure and hydrogen fueling infrastructure along designated corridors.

Earlier this week, Chairman Barrasso and I sent a letter to the full Senate requesting Senators' priorities for a surface transportation bill reauthorization this Congress. The surface transportation bill is the primary authorizing legislation for the programs of the Federal Highway Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation, among other programs related to surface transportation.

As the Ranking Member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, this legislation is a reauthorization priority of my own.

Nearly two years ago, the Rocky Mountain Institute published a report that said re-installing electric vehicle charging infrastructure should be, quote, an ``urgent priority in all states and major municipalities. Getting it right will require unprecedented cooperation by many stakeholder groups. The time to act is now.''

I agree. This legislation would provide grants for the installment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure and hydrogen fueling infrastructure along the National Highway System. This bill is the product of remarkable collaboration between stakeholders, and it will take us one step forward in reducing emissions, improving air quality, and enhancing energy security and fuel choice. This legislation is endorsed by stakeholders from across the electric vehicle supply chain, including the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, Electric Drive Transportation Association, Edison Electric Institute, Auto Alliance, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the American Highway Users Alliance.

As I have stated before, the threat of climate change is greater than any one state, or region or country--we all have to do our part, and the federal government has a leadership role to play. By deploying necessary electric and fuel cell vehicle charging infrastructure, and supporting growth of these needed technologies, doing so will help us lower the rate of emissions of carbon into our atmosphere.

Even better yet, this legislation will help us in our efforts to put the United States back in the driver's seat of the world's clean energy economy, while creating green manufacturing jobs here at home. This legislation is a true win-win for our environment and our economy, and it is my hope that the Senate will support this legislation and that it will be enacted this Congress.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, Today I am introducing the ``Clean Corridors Act of 2019.'' This legislation authorizes $3 billion in grant funding to public entities for installing electric vehicle charging infrastructure and hydrogen fueling infrastructure along designated corridors.

Earlier this week, Chairman Barrasso and I sent a letter to the full Senate requesting Senators' priorities for a surface transportation bill reauthorization this Congress. The surface transportation bill is the primary authorizing legislation for the programs of the Federal Highway Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation, among other programs related to surface transportation.

As the Ranking Member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, this legislation is a reauthorization priority of my own.

Nearly two years ago, the Rocky Mountain Institute published a report that said re-installing electric vehicle charging infrastructure should be, quote, an ``urgent priority in all states and major municipalities. Getting it right will require unprecedented cooperation by many stakeholder groups. The time to act is now.''

I agree. This legislation would provide grants for the installment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure and hydrogen fueling infrastructure along the National Highway System. This bill is the product of remarkable collaboration between stakeholders, and it will take us one step forward in reducing emissions, improving air quality, and enhancing energy security and fuel choice. This legislation is endorsed by stakeholders from across the electric vehicle supply chain, including the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, Electric Drive Transportation Association, Edison Electric Institute, Auto Alliance, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the American Highway Users Alliance.

As I have stated before, the threat of climate change is greater than any one state, or region or country--we all have to do our part, and the federal government has a leadership role to play. By deploying necessary electric and fuel cell vehicle charging infrastructure, and supporting growth of these needed technologies, doing so will help us lower the rate of emissions of carbon into our atmosphere.

Even better yet, this legislation will help us in our efforts to put the United States back in the driver's seat of the world's clean energy economy, while creating green manufacturing jobs here at home. This legislation is a true win-win for our environment and our economy, and it is my hope that the Senate will support this legislation and that it will be enacted this Congress.

Madam President, today I am pleased to join with Senators Schatz, Merkley, Markey, and others who have spoken to highlight the need to act on climate change.

I said on the floor earlier this week that the Democrats may not yet agree on exactly how we must address climate change, but we all agree on at least three things: One, climate change is real; two, we as human beings are the primary cause of the climate crisis we face today, and it has been building for the last almost 100 years; and, three, the U.S. Congress--us, the House--should take immediate action to address the challenges of climate change.

That is why I am introducing a resolution today that says those three things: Climate change is real. Humans are leading to this crisis we face. We have an obligation in this body and the House to do something about it.

Democrats believe in our hearts and our minds that it is possible to have a healthy climate and a vibrant, growing economy, and anyone who says otherwise is preaching a false choice.

Sadly, with President Trump in the White House and this administration, many of our Republican friends across the aisle have chosen to ignore the clear science and threat that climate change poses to our children and to their children.

As we speak about climate change today, this Senate is considering the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to lead EPA. Under Mr. Wheeler's leadership, EPA is rolling back climate regulations that will lead to more carbon pollution in the air while increasing other air pollution that triggers asthma, lung disease, and, in some cases, death.

Mr. Wheeler claims these actions are needed to provide more business certainty. He believes industry is stuck in on old world order. I would just say to Andrew Wheeler, as Bob Dylan once said, ``the times they are a-changin.''

Things have changed a lot in the last 15 years. Industry knows where the future lies, and that future is in cleaner technologies. Companies are making investments now for the next 10 and 20 years down the road. They see where the global markets are going. They need to invest in clean energy or be left behind.

Yet, even when industries ask this administration to support climate policies that will help the bottom line of those businesses, in too many instances, Mr. Wheeler seems to turn a blind eye. In fact, there are policies that this administration could support today, right now; policies that would dramatically help our climate and our economy.

One of those policies is the ratification of something called the Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol. You say stuff like that, and my colleagues' eyes glaze over. So I want to take a minute to talk about what they mean.

The Montreal Protocol, ratified by the United States in 1988, is a global environmental agreement mainly focused on phasing down emissions that contributed to the hole in the ozone layer. It was not that long ago--about the time our pages here were born--that it was a burning issue.

Ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons--we call them CFCs for short--were often found in the coolants used to cool food in household refrigerators and the air-conditioners in our homes and in our cars. CFCs are also found in foams and solvents used in industrial processes.

If there was a poster child for a successful global agreement, I think the Montreal Protocol--which most people never heard of--has to be that poster child. This agreement has led to a 97-percent reduction in the global consumption of ozone-depleting substances with little, if any, economic disruption. Think about that.

Over the years, every administration since the Reagan administration has supported the Montreal Protocol and the four amendments associated with it.

However, it turns out a majority of the ozone-depleting substances are actually being replaced by something called HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons. Those HFCs are easy to use. They are efficient. They are safe for the ozone layer. That is good.

Unfortunately, there is a catch. The HFCs have a global warming potential that is thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide. On the one hand, they are good for the ozone layer; on the other hand, they are a killer when it comes to carbon dioxide. So some really smart people decided to see what they could do about this, and what those smart people did is they came up with a follow-on product to HFCs.

It is estimated that left unchecked, HFCs could account for approximately

20 percent of greenhouse gas pollution by 2050, and that ain't good. So by using HFCs, we are fixing one global environmental problem--the hole in the ozone--but we are contributing to another, and that is just as serious.

To address this negative side effect, on October 15, 2016, in a place called Kigali, which is in Rwanda--that is why they call it the Kigali amendment or Kigali treaty--more than 170 countries agreed to amend the Montreal Protocol, including ours.

The goal of this agreement is to achieve more than an 80-percent reduction in global HFC production and utilization by 2047. It doesn't say you have to stop using it tomorrow. This is a phaseout and a phasedown. If we don't do anything by 2047, we will see an increase of about half a degree Celsius--that is almost a full degree Fahrenheit-- in global warming by the end of this century. We can't afford to do that. Our planet can't afford to do that. Our kids, our grandchildren cannot afford for us to do that.

U.S. industry strongly supports the Kigali amendment because U.S. companies have already invested billions of dollars in order to be able to produce the next-generation technologies that are going to replace, over time, HFCs. Phasing down HFCs allows U.S. companies to capture a large portion of a global market that is--listen to this--$1 trillion in size, which will create 150,000 new direct and indirect American jobs in less than a decade.

These new jobs are expected to generate close to $39 billion dollars--$39 billion--in annual economic benefits for our country; again, in less than a decade.

Industry also believes ratification of the Kigali treaty will mitigate unfair Chinese dumping of HFCs in the United States, hurting our businesses.

Ratification of the Kigali amendment is a no-brainer, and even those who are skeptical about climate change ought to be able to admit that it would be great for U.S. competitiveness and good-paying American jobs.

This is a real win-win situation. If we don't seize the opportunity, we should have our heads examined. That is why we have some pretty strange bedfellows supporting the Kigali ratification.

There is a chart behind me. Among others, we have the National Association of Manufacturers, Natural Resources development folks, the spirit of enterprise, FreedomWorks, the American Chemistry Council, Business Roundtable, and Sierra Club.

They are not all wrong. They are right. I say to my colleagues across the aisle: Listen to these folks, and let's use our heads and our hearts.

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

Madam President, I say to our colleagues that I stand before you today as a Vietnam veteran--5 years of naval service during the hot war in Southeast Asia, trying to make sure that the force of communism was stopped. I served another 18 years beyond that, right to the end of the Cold War, as a naval flight officer and retired as a Navy captain.

I am not a socialist. I am somebody who cares deeply about this planet. I am someone who believes it is possible to have clean air, clean water, better public health, and to foster economic growth.

As it turns out, there are a lot of companies in this country that believe the same thing. They believe the same thing. A lot of them build cars, trucks, and vans. They want a 50-State deal on fuel efficiency standards, CAFE standards, and tailpipe standards. They want a 50-State deal so they don't have to build a car for 13 or 14 different States and then a different kind of car or truck for the rest of the country. They don't want to do that. They want certainty and predictability so they can build one model for one car. They want to be able to be successful in competing in the world marketplace in the next 10, 20, or 30 years.

We need someone leading the Environmental Protection Agency who believes that it is possible to have cleaner air and, frankly, to foster economic growth in the auto companies. That is what the auto companies want. They are not socialists. They are free-marketers.

There is something called HFCs, or hydrofluorocarbons. It is a terrible pollutant for the environment. It is 1,000 times worse than carbon for our global warming challenges. There are a bunch of American businesses that have new technology to replace HFCs. They want to be able not just to develop it, but they want to able to sell it all over the world. The marketplace is $1 trillion, and we are holding it back.

Unfortunately, the person whom we are going to be voting on here today to be our EPA Administrator is part of holding us back because he will not agree to a treaty that the administration wants to put forward. It is crazy.

Those companies that developed the follow-on products to HFCs-- Honeywell, Chemours, and others--are not socialists. They are business people. They want a piece of the international market, and they want to do good things for the climate at the same time.

I just want to say to my colleagues: We can do both. We can have clean air. We can have clean water. We can have strong economic growth. We need somebody running the EPA who actually believes in that too. I am sorry to say here today that right now I don't believe it is Andrew Wheeler, and I say that with no joy.

Thank you very much.

Mr. President, during the debate on the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency I came to the floor to express concerns on a number of issues, including EPA's regulation of per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances--PFAS.

PFAS are a class of man-made chemicals developed in the 1940s. PFAS can be found across industries in many products, including food packaging, nonstick pans, clothing, furniture, and firefighting foam used by the military. These chemicals have a long and tragic history-- suffice it to say that their widespread use resulted too many Americans without access to safe drinking water.

This very issue is a matter of some controversy as EPA has failed to provide meaningful and swift action on these chemicals under this administration. That is why I am here today to introduce a bipartisan bill to designate PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances under the Federal superfund law. The Carper-Capito-Peters-Tillis-Stabenow-Rubio- Merkley-Gardner-Reed-Murkowski-Shaheen-Burr-Bennet-Manchin bill will force EPA to begin the rulemaking process to protecting Americans from overexposure to these harmful chemicals and hold polluters accountable. It is very similar to legislation that has already been introduced in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Debbie Dingell.

In his confirmation hearing, Andrew Wheeler said, and I quote:

It is these Americans that President Trump and his

Administration are focused on, Americans without access to

safe drinking water or Americans living on or near hazardous

sites, often unaware of the health risks they and their

families face. Many of these sites have languished for years,

even decades. How can these Americans prosper if they cannot

live, learn, or work in healthy environments? The answer is

simple. They cannot. President Trump understands this and

that is why he is focused on putting Americans first.

One would think those words might mean that there could be some common ground at least on addressing PFAS. After all, who wouldn't agree that we should be acting with urgency to address contamination from these hazardous chemicals?

According to one 2017 study, drinking water supplies for 6 million U.S. residents have exceeded the EPA's lifetime health advisory for these chemicals.

Another 2018 study performed by the Environmental Working Group reports that up to 110 million Americans could have PFAS-contaminated water.

In 2016, the Department of Defense announced that it was assessing the risk of groundwater contamination from firefighting foam at dozens of fire and crash testing sites across the country. It is likely that they are all contaminated.

Just last year, the town of Blades in my home State of Delaware alerted its 1,250 residents, as well as businesses and schools that use public water, to stop using public water for drinking an cooking because PFAS chemicals were present at nearly twice the Federal health advisory level. Reportedly, 36 of 67 sampled groundwater wells on Dover Air Force Base showed dangerously high levels of PFOA and PFOS. And it is not just Delaware--contamination is widespread, in red States and blue States, in small water systems and large ones, on military sites and in residential areas, from Maine to Alaska.

It is essential that we legislate to require EPA to designate PFOA and PFOS as ``hazardous substances,'' which means that polluters could be held responsible for cleaning it up under the superfund law. In its recently released PFAS Action Plan, EPA has said again that it would issue this proposal in the future but did not indicate how long it will take to complete. Unfortunately, it has no sense of urgency to address these emerging contaminants and to protect American's from harmful levels of contamination.

EPA had an opportunity to take action to address PFAS chemicals in a real and comprehensive way; however, time and again, it has failed to move in an expeditious and meaningful way. That is why this bill is so important. Designating these chemicals as hazardous substances will, at a minimum, start the process to getting these contaminated sites cleaned up. This not the silver bullet to the broader contamination problems, but it is a start.