Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I am very confused. Yesterday there was an agreement there would be a vote. What is my colleague's understanding? OK, we just need to have some more time. So I recommend the Senator stay on the floor so we can get a colleague on the floor. That would be great. After we do that, I am going to encourage my friend to take some time and go into why it is so critical we pay attention to the oceans of our country, what is happening to the state of our oceans, and what is happening to the quality of our oceans, given so many factors, including the changes we are experiencing in climate, because he is a great expert on that. Does my friend want some time now? I would like to see if I can get us to the yeas and nays. I yield the floor.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have up to 5 minutes to speak before the vote. Am I correct in assuming the vote is at 2 o'clock?

Mrs. BOXER. Thank you very much, Madam President. I wish to again let Senators know where we are. At 2 o'clock, we will be voting on a gun amendment. I would hope this gun amendment would not get the 60 votes required because I believe it is dangerous. Even though Senator Coburn says it would not allow guns to be carried on critical infrastructure such as dams and locks and reservoirs, we now have two studies that say, in fact, it would allow that. According to the Bush administration, this critical water infrastructure is a target for terrorists. We are now entering into a stage when our leaders are talking about homegrown terror, and we do not have to look too much further than Boston to understand this is a problem. Why would we want to have on a water infrastructure bill an amendment that allows people to come in with guns and go right to the heart of those critical water infrastructure projects--those dams, those reservoirs, those locks, et cetera--particularly since the corps already allows, for recreational use, the use of guns for hunting, target practice or fishing. That is already allowed. There are rules. This is not comparable to the National Park Service. We could get into another debate on that. That one--I know some people here voted for that, to allow extensive guns being carried on parkland. That change was made. The corps is a different situation. The Park Service act like police. They can come in. They can quell a disturbance. They are armed. They are trained. The corps is not a law enforcement entity. That means what they would have to do, if there was a violent outburst, is call the local governments, the State governments, and we do not know how long it would take to have those law enforcement people arrive at such a situation. So I am pleading with my colleagues, this is a water infrastructure bill. This is not a gun bill. This is not the place to add these types of amendments. We have a very bipartisan bill. It is supported by the chamber of commerce, it is supported by the unions, it is supported by local governments, by the Governors Association. I could go on and on. There is a list of literally 150 organizations. It came out of the committee with a bipartisan vote. I hope when the clock strikes 2 we can have a vote that keeps us on track, that does not turn the WRDA bill into a gun bill. It is not necessary. It is not appropriate. The fact is, there is nothing in the amendment that would stop people from carrying guns onto critical water infrastructure. It sets up a national security threat. It endangers people. I just want to be clear: I am not going to allow a bill to move forward that endangers the lives of the people I represent. I owe them a lot more than that, let alone the entire country. We all serve this Nation. So I hope we will not pass this amendment. I ask for a ``no'' vote on the Coburn amendment. With that, I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mrs. BOXER. I ask for the yeas and nays on the Whitehouse amendment and urge its passage.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

Mrs. BOXER. I understand there are some asking for a voice vote. Would that be all right with Senator Whitehouse?

Mrs. BOXER. All right. I think we should go on with the vote then.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Change of Vote

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request. I will make it in a minute. We are making good progress. We have three amendments in order now: the Blunt amendment No. 800, Pryor amendment 806, and Inhofe amendment No. 835. I ask they be the following amendments in that order to be considered; further, that no second-degree amendments be in order to these amendments prior to votes in relation to the amendments. That is my request.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we are well on our way to getting this bill done, I hope. The Whitehouse amendment was one that was overwhelmingly supported. I hope that will set the tone for this particular bill; that we will come forward together; that we will not have contentious issues that divide us and divide the American people on a bill that is so motherhood and apple pie as this one is, which is to make sure our ports are dredged, that our flood control projects are done, that our environmental restoration of wetlands is done. It is a very simple, straightforward bill. Order of Procedure I further ask unanimous consent that immediately following my remarks here Senator Whitehouse be recognized for up to 5 minutes to thank the Senate for this vote--I know he has worked exceedingly hard on this-- and then there be a period of morning business for up to 30 minutes, with each Senator allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, can I ask what the order is at this time?

Mrs. BOXER. OK. So this is my understanding: I ask Senator Blumenthal, do you have more to say on this matter with the resolution?

Mrs. BOXER. OK. I know Senator Coats has some very important remarks to make about the death of a figure whom he cares about very much. What I wish to propose, if I can, is to talk a little bit about this little back and forth we had going between my two friends here, and then immediately following what will only take about 2 or 3 minutes is to yield the floor to Senator Coats for 10 minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. Less than that. For the benefit of all Senators, we think we are going to have a vote tonight on the Brown amendment. So everyone stay around. We are hoping to have that in the next half hour or so. That is our plan. We hope it will happen. But I wanted to say in this back and forth we heard between two Senators why I was very strongly for the resolution that was put forward by Senator Blumenthal. Clearly, what we have in our society today are callous, abusive, unsanitary, or illegal health care practices. These horrible, callous practices turn into tragedies. They produce tragedies. As Senator Blumenthal said, it goes across a wide array of various health care settings. We do not come down here every day to call out one horrific problem after another. Certainly what has happened in Pennsylvania--and, again, I would take the admonition of Senator Blumenthal, who was a prosecutor, we have to be careful when a jury is deliberating--but certainly if these allegations are true, the individuals involved should be punished to the full extent of the law--and the toughest kind of punishment--and I believe in other cases too. I know my colleague has talked about a horrible situation in southern Nevada, where 40,000 patients were exposed to hepatitis C. Hepatitis C is a serious and life-threatening condition. Mr. President, 40,000 people were exposed to it. They did nothing. That is deserving of condemnation as well. He talked about a nursing home in California, where we had the death of a patient because the nurse in that particular case--and nurses are some of the most extraordinarily wonderful people, but in this particular case she had her own convenience ahead of the situation. She improperly medicated patients using antipsychotic drugs, and we know one patient died. Whatever the setting is--if it is a reproductive health care clinic, if it is a dentist, if it is any type of doctor, any kind of clinic-- where there are willful violations of the law and violations of human dignity and violations of standard of care, we should call them out. What I thought was so important about Senator Blumenthal's resolution is that he took the spirit of Senator Lee's resolution. He did. He actually included in that what occurred in Pennsylvania. And we did get it to the Republicans 2 hours ago, so it was not a few minutes. I think that is a case in point where we could come together, where we say: Absolutely what happened in Pennsylvania is an outrage, it is a violation of everything we hold dear; and here are some other cases. As long as I have the floor, I will conclude with this: I have been getting involved in issues that deal with medical errors. I was stunned to find out, as I think are my colleagues--as a matter of fact, I met with a doctor from a Texas hospital where they have improved very much where they were losing patients, dozens of patients every month, because of medical errors, terrible errors that are preventable errors: the wrong prescriptions, the lack of monitoring, infections, terrible infections in hospitals. These are all horrible deaths that are preventable. I think my colleague's resolution was very statesmanlike. I think what he did was he said to our colleagues who wanted to pass their resolution: Of course we will work with you. Let's broaden it. Let's include condemnation of other horrible tragedies that are occurring throughout the Nation, not just this one case, which is tragic and despicable and every word I could think of, but all these other cases, so we do not every day come here with another example. This is a broad problem in our country. We do the best out of most developed countries, but we still have a long way to go. I wanted to explain why I supported my friend when he opposed the narrower resolution and support his broad resolution. I would urge my colleagues to work with us. With that, I yield the floor to my friend from Indiana.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his very warm remarks. I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the previous order, the Brown amendment No. 813, as modified with the changes that are at the desk, also be in order; that there be no amendments in order to the Brown amendment prior to a vote in relation to the amendment; that at 5:45 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the Brown amendment No. 813, as modified; further, that all other provisions of the previous order remain in effect.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I just asked unanimous consent to vote on the Brown amendment. I am going to be supporting that amendment. I think it is an important amendment. I just want to say to colleagues, we are making progress. It is not as fast as Senator Vitter and I would like, but considering the Senate it is not bad. We have moved through a number of amendments already, one particularly contentious amendment. We are moving toward the finish line. I urge everyone to get their amendments in. I urge them, as best I can, to stay away from nongermane amendments that are controversial, that cause us to pause in our work. This is an important bill. This bill was last done in 2007. You would ask, why does it take so long? We used to do these bills every 2 or 3 years. But the reason it has taken this long, in the interim we decided we would no longer have earmarks. That made this bill particularly difficult because normally we would mention the projects by name. We could not do that. So we had to figure a way to move forward by making sure we never listed any particular project. We did it in a good way. We said if there is a completed Army Corps report, the project runs forward. If there is a modification that has to be made that did not add to the cost of the project, it goes forward. In the future the local governments can come forward and pitch to the Corps directly. We need flood control in this country. We know that. We knew that before Superstorm Sandy. We certainly know it now. We need port dredging in this country to move our goods. Our goods must be moved, and goods to our country have to come into our ports. We need environmental restoration. We need to take care of the Everglades. We need to take care of the Chesapeake. I have a place called the Salton Sea that is drying up. We need to take care of these kinds of challenges. We are going to turn to the Brown amendment. I am going to give up the floor now and hope he will explain it. I will be strongly supporting it. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. I just want to say to Senator Whitehouse before he leaves the floor how much I appreciated his remarks tonight and how much I learned from his remarks. I wish to say to the Senator that I think he put forward the most cogent argument from a religious perspective as to why we have to take action to make sure we don't lose this planet. We are in a planetary emergency. As he said, this is the last place in the world, almost, that doesn't get it. I wish to say to the Senator from Rhode Island that the reason so many religious leaders are in our coalition to call attention to climate change, to call attention to global warming, to call attention to the rising waters, to call attention to the terrible droughts, to the terrible fires, to the terrible storms, to the extreme weather and all the things we are seeing around us--the Senator from Rhode Island has laid it out chapter and verse, we can truly say, chapter and verse, and I so appreciate what he is doing here. I so appreciate his consistent voice, his passionate voice. I so appreciate that he is on the committee I am so proud to chair, the Environment and Public Works Committee. We are on a bill that deals with the public works side of the committee. We have good camaraderie there. But when it comes to protecting the environment, it is as if there are just two totally different species of humanity--the deniers and the believers. I am proud to be on the side of the believers. I believe America is built on facts. It is built on, yes, religious beliefs and scientific proof. I think the Senator from Rhode Island laid it out tonight in such a magnificent way that I intend to send the Senator's remarks, with his permission, to all of our colleagues, to put them up on my Web site because I am so proud to stand with the Senator from Rhode Island in this fight. This is a fight, and as my friend from Rhode Island said it is a fight that puts on one side the special interests, the polluters, the money, versus those who just say we have to save this planet. It is our responsibility. It is our God-given responsibility. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island so much, and I yield to him.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I wish to say to my friend, today was a great day for the Senator from Rhode Island, not only because of the speech that I think is quite memorable but also because of the amendment he passed with the help of our Republican friends, to set up an oceans trust fund. I think this is a good, positive day, and I am very pleased about that. I would ask the staff if we are ready to make the unanimous consent request. We will be in 2 minutes. So I would say to my colleague that we are going to dispose of about six amendments very quickly on the floor, with the indulgence of the Senator, and we should be free and done with this business in a few minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Senator. So we will put in a quorum call. I ask unanimous consent to complete my remarks after the remarks of Senator Hoeven.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the previous order, the following amendments which have been cleared on both sides be considered and agreed to en bloc: Pryor amendment No. 801, as modified, with the changes at the desk; Pryor amendment No. 806; Inhofe amendment No. 835, with a modification to the instruction lines; McCain amendment No. 833; and Murray amendment No. 832; further, that all of the provisions of the previous order remain in effect.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 8, 2013, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. The Committee will hold a hearing entitled, ``The Role of Immigrants in America's Innovation Economy.''

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 8, 2013, at 11:30 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 8, 2013, at 10 a.m. in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Curbing Federal Agency Waste and Fraud: New Steps to Strengthen the Integrity of Federal Payments.''