Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. My friend is right. But I want to give credit to Senator Inhofe. He is with us. There are many Members on his side of the aisle, however, who are letting this happen. But my friend has it exactly right. The Republicans who are objecting to this are protecting the toxic asset relief program and they are jeopardizing 17,000 jobs across America. I am as stunned as you are, and I guess I am going to try one more time. If I hear another objection, we will leave it for another day. I will try it one more time. Maybe I have convinced my friend. Maybe my friend needs to leave the floor. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 3617, received from the House and at the desk, and that the Boxer substitute amendment at the desk be considered; further, that the Boxer-Inhofe second-degree amendment with an offset be considered and agreed to, the substitute amendment, as amended, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that any statements relating to the measure appear in the appropriate place in the Record as if read, without further intervening action or debate.

Mrs. BOXER. Well, that is easy. If you believe we have a recession, if you believe the unemployment rate is too high, why in God's green Earth would anyone recommend cutting the economic recovery fund, the fund that is providing stimulus and that is putting people to work? I absolutely would not agree to that. That particular fund is giving money back to taxpayers in tax breaks. It is fixing highways and bridges and all the other. Why on Earth would we cut that when we can cut the toxic asset relief program--the TARP money--that went to the wealthiest banks? Why on Earth would we take away jobs from working people and allow the bankers to keep their little fund up there? No way. We will object to that approach.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mrs. BOXER. I think sometimes these debates go off on tangents and they are hard to follow. They get caught up in a lot of rhetoric. But I think this one tonight says it all to me. We have to ask ourselves a question: Whose side are we on? Whose side are we on? Tonight, we know what side the Republicans are on. We are ready to save 17,000 jobs and to do it by paying for it out of the money that was given to the biggest banks in this Nation--the banks that got away scot-free while Americans suffered, whether they were shareholders or workers, taxpayers all. We want to take that money from the big banks; they want to take it from the working people, the working families of America, the ones who are out there getting their hands dirty and building the roads and the bridges. That says more about the differences here than many of the other things we do, and I am stunned. I particularly want to again thank Senator Inhofe for stepping up. He tried his best. He spoke to all his Republican friends, and he couldn't get this. But you know what, we are not going to give up. We will have this battle on the floor. We will. We will get time for this, and we will get agreement on offering these two offsets. You just had a taste of what the debate will be, and it will be a tough debate, and I look forward to it. But I am very stunned that tonight we couldn't cross the aisle that divides us tonight. We should have. We should have done that for all the States--the red States and the blue States, all the States, the United States--because all are going to lose these jobs. We can say we stood here at 7:30 on this night and we had a program that would easily stop those layoffs, easily stop them, but our colleagues on the other side wanted to protect the big banks. I will take that argument back to my home State, but I am not happy we couldn't resolve this.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. I am here to make a few comments addressing the points raised by Senator Thune and Senator Murkowski. They were going to offer an amendment.

Mrs. BOXER. I won't be taking that. At what point would the Senator like me to use the time?

Mrs. BOXER. That is fine. And how long is Senator Landrieu speaking?

Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized following Senator Landrieu.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, thank you very much. I am on the floor, along with Senator Whitehouse--there may be some others--to respond to the remarks made by Senators Murkowski and Thune regarding an amendment they very much wanted to put before this body. That amendment, simply stated, would stop the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing the Clean Air Act as it relates to the pollutant carbon. Some of the things they said are so reminiscent of what was said before the Clean Air Act passed, that: Oh, this is going to be a terrible thing for our people; and the same thing that was said when the Clean Water Act was passed: Oh, this is going to be a burden on business. I have to say to this body, the day we turn our back on these landmark environmental laws is the day the health of our people will suffer. We do not want that to happen. I wish to be clear, I know this amendment will come back again and again. I know there will be attacks on the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. That is an attack on our families. It is particularly an attack on our children and on our vulnerable senior citizens and our citizens who may have disabilities and who are ill. I will fight it with every ounce of my strength every time it rears its ugly head in this Chamber. The interesting thing is, most of these environmental laws started with a Republican President named Richard Nixon. What happened to the days when environmental laws were supported on both sides? Those days appear to be gone. What I would like to do is--I am going to yield up to 20 minutes to the Senator from Rhode Island. He is so eloquent on this point. Before I do, I wish to place some letters in the Record. One letter is from the Environmental Protection Agency, saying they would have a very difficult time making sure the air was clean if that Murkowski amendment had been offered and passed and become law. Interestingly, we have a letter from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, also opposing that Murkowski amendment. We have two more letters to put in the Record--and this just happened in 24 hours--one from a coalition made up of the Alliance for Climate Protection, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Center for Auto Safety, Center for Biological Diversity, the Clean Air Task Force, Clean Water Action, the Defenders of Wildlife, Environment America, the Environmental Defense Fund, League of Women Voters of the United States, National Audubon Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Oceana, the Sierra Club, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Southern Environmental Law Center, and Union of Concerned Scientists-- all saying they oppose this amendment, which concerns not enforcing the Clean Air Act as it relates to carbon dioxide. Lastly, we have a very well put together letter by the National Wildlife Federation, in which they quote a poll that says 75 percent of Americans believe our government should, in fact, regulate global warming pollution, which, of course, is mostly carbon. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent those letters be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. So here we had a situation where I am very pleased the rules of this Senate did not allow this very dangerous amendment to be brought before the body. We would have talked about it for days because, before I would allow a vote on that, I would want to make sure every single Senator understood it is a repeal of the Clean Air Act through the backdoor, even after the Bush Supreme Court said the Clean Air Act covers carbon and greenhouse gases. With that, Mr. President, I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from Rhode Island. He gets us to where we need to be, which is focusing on what happens to our people when we walk away from protecting them from pollution. I know Senator Brown is in the chair. I wanted to share with him the fact that he knows well that after the Cuyahoga River caught fire in Ohio in 1969 and many of our lakes and rivers appeared to be more like sewers, the committee, which I now chair so proudly and on which Senator Whitehouse sits, responded by enacting the Clean Water Act. That was 1972. I don't know if Senator Brown was born yet. The fact is, that incident of a river catching fire really caught the attention of the people of this Nation. Whether it was our water or our air or endangered species, we decided to take control of our communities, of our health, of our environment. There is a lot about America that makes us proud. There is a lot about America that makes us great. I believe one of our values is caring about the health of our families. I thought Senator Whitehouse was very clear that we are not just debating a regulation on page 4 or 5 or 20 or 50. We are talking about the ability of our kids to breathe the air. We are talking about the ability of this planet to survive without the ravages of global warming, which the Bush administration's CDC told us would have unbelievable effects on the health and safety of our people. The laws we passed are the landmark laws. So therefore I just want to be put on record, along with Senator Whitehouse, that if this amendment that wasn't offered today comes back in any other form, we are going to have to open up the debate pretty wide--pretty wide--because a repeal of an environmental law can't be done on an appropriations bill. In essence, when you don't enforce a law--that is what the Murkowski amendment would have done--when you don't enforce it, it is the same as not really having it. But you don't have to look in the eyes of your constituents and say: Oh, by the way, today I repealed the Clean Air Act. What you say instead is: Today I fought to have a pause--no enforcement. Well, let me tell my colleagues, when that child gets asthma, she is not going to ask her mom: Did I get asthma because there was a pause in the Clean Air Act or because they repealed the Clean Air Act? That child will get asthma. I swear to my colleagues that I am not going to let more kids get asthma, not on my watch. It is wrong. It is wrong. Here is the great news. The great news is, if we decide to be the leader in this clean energy revolution, we will see our people get healthy. We will see millions of jobs created. We will move off of these dirty energy sources. We will create American jobs, 21st-century jobs, building wind turbines, installing solar panels, producing a new fleet of electric cars, hybrid vehicles. We see it in Ohio already where they are building solar panels. This is the one area of growth. We are having a tough time in our State--people laid off, terribly high unemployment rate. The stimulus is helping us. We are getting some jobs back, but we are suffering. The one area of growth, I say to the Chair, 125,000 new green jobs that can't be taken away. You can't take a job of putting a solar rooftop on a home in Los Angeles or Riverside or San Bernardino or San Diego or Akron, OH--you can't have that person in China putting on a solar rooftop. They have to be here. These are good jobs. That is what we ought to be doing, not repealing the laws that protect the health of our citizens but trying to figure out a way to work together to have a bill that will create these new clean energy jobs, that will protect our kids from carbon pollution, and that will make sure the ravages of global warming won't occur. At the end of the day, our competitiveness depends on how we face this challenge. I believe Thomas Friedman got it right. If you haven't read his book ``Hot, Flat, and Crowded,'' I think you should read it because he is so eloquent on the point. He is not on the defense on this, he is on the offense. He says that if we don't grab this mantle of leadership on clean energy, then other countries will grab it and they will create the technologies, they will create the jobs, and we will fall behind. America is a leader. We are not a follower. We will have many more opportunities to debate this in the future, but, my goodness, if we are facing legislation that does not move us forward but takes us back to before Richard Nixon was President by not enforcing the Clean Air Act-- I have heard of the party of no, but this is the party of yesterday if those are the kinds of amendments we are going to face, dangerous amendments that will hurt the health of our children. So I wanted to make sure that America takes control of its energy future and that it doesn't cower in the corner and repeal laws that protect our citizens, landmark laws such as the Clean Air Act. I am so glad that today we avoided having to have this long debate. I am glad this amendment was disallowed because it doesn't belong on an appropriations bill. It is a repeal of the Clean Air Act. Let's face it, you don't do that in 15 minutes on the floor of the Senate and call it a timeout. Call it whatever you want, but when you tell an agency: Don't enforce the law that protects the health of our children and our families, that is a repeal through the back door. So I thank you very much for the time. I know I have additional time. I will not be using it. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, tonight the Senate has approved a 3-month extension of the FAA Reauthorization Act. While I understand the importance of passing a short-term extension of this law, I am disappointed that the full Senate has yet to act on the FAA reauthorization bill that was ordered reported by the Senate Commerce Committee in July. That bill, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act, includes long overdue legislation known as the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights. Too often, airline passengers are trapped on airplanes without basic needs such as food, water, medicine, working restrooms or proper cabin ventilation. Just last month, passengers on a flight from Houston to Minneapolis- St. Paul were diverted to Rochester, MN, and forced to spend the night trapped in a small commuter airplane. Two weeks later, a flight carrying more than 100 passengers bound for Minneapolis was forced to sit on the tarmac at JFK airport in New York for 6 hours before finally departing. The passengers, including parents traveling with infants, were forced to endure overflowing bathrooms and had no real food or water to speak of. These are not isolated examples of a few airlines with ineffective policies. USA Today recently reported that since January 2007, 200,000 domestic passengers on 3,000 flights have been stranded in airplanes on the tarmac for 3 hours or more. This is unacceptable. We must pass the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights this year--before the 3-month extension of the FAA reauthorization bill expires. The Passenger Bill of Rights, which I have introduced with Senator Olympia Snowe, would require airlines to offer passengers the option of safely leaving a plane they have boarded once that plane has sat on the ground for 3 hours. Americans deserve a safe and efficient aviation system. We cannot afford to wait another year to pass long overdue legislation that will make our skies safer and protect passengers from excessive tarmac delays. No American should ever be forced to spend the night in a plane on an airport tarmac. We can prevent this and we must. I know the Senate is working to address many important challenges at this time. But, we cannot lose sight of the aviation challenges facing our country. It is time for Congress to meet its responsibility to the flying public.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today is World Alzheimer's Day, a day to raise awareness about this neurodegenerative disease that afflicts over 5 million Americans, including about 600,000 people in my home State of California.

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, what is the order right now? How much time remains before we vote?

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for setting aside some time for me because, as the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I am concerned about the Coburn amendment. I want to discuss why. The particular program that the Senator is going after is the transportation enhancements program, created in 1991, in a very bipartisan way in the transportation bill. The purpose of the program is to encourage investment in some very important priorities for the Nation. I want to talk about that. I particularly want to say that, on average, this program provided $650 million for these important activities each year. I want to point out that if you relate that $650 million to jobs, we are talking about many jobs, because $11.5 billion was made available since 1992, and that translates to 400,000 jobs--good-paying jobs, jobs that do important things, jobs that can't be shipped overseas. And of all the times to come to the floor and go after a program that is a job creator and, in addition, does many important things that actually save lives, I don't think this is the time. Frankly, I don't think there is any time for that. For example, one of the uses of these funds is that we try to stop highway runoff--runoff that has very harmful chemicals and pollution in it, and it goes right into waterways. That is something we should not stop. That is something we owe to our children, to protect them from pollution. We also use the funds to reduce vehicle-caused wildlife mortality. Anybody who has seen the result of a collision with a deer or other large animal, as I have in the county where I have lived for 40 years, knows you are dealing with danger for all the parties involved. Why on Earth would we come down here and strike the funding for a program that protects our kids from pollution and saves lives by making sure that our local people do the right thing and make sure these animals don't have ready access or easy access to our freeways? Let me put this into exact numbers. I know my friend is an exacting debater, and he is a great debater. A study under the National Cooperative Highway Research Program estimated that each year wildlife collisions are responsible for 200 human deaths, 29,000 injuries, and more than $1 billion in property damage. So even with the funding that we have, this is an issue, and we don't want to make matters worse. I am going to be specific. In Washington State, $75,000 in TE funds, which my friend wants to strike, provided in 1999 for radio collars for elk and an alert system for motorists to reduce elk-vehicle collisions on Highway 101 in the Sequim Valley. As a result of the project, elk- vehicle collisions have dropped from an average of 2.5 every year to only 1 in the past 7 years. Why on Earth do we want to pull money from a fund that saves lives? In Colorado, $108,000 in TE funds were provided in 2007 to remove broken one-way deer gates and replace them with escape ramps and extend the fencing, which was first set up in 1980, to guide wildlife off of U.S. 550. So those funds certainly are improving safety and saving lives. Bicycle paths, pedestrian facilities are provided, and the chairman spoke about that. In Georgia, TE funds helped transform the 5th Street bridge span over Atlanta's I-75/I-85 into a pedestrian/bicycle-friendly park, hovering 17 feet above the highway that safely connects buildings of Georgia Tech's campus. The bridge was widened to incorporate bicycle paths, landscaping, lamp posts, trellises, and benches. I guess there is a different view of what is essential. I think saving lives is essential. These funds are used to save lives. Also, if I could say it, because I know my friend doesn't think it should be a priority to beautify our highways, freeways and roads, I point out that the taxpayers of this country care about their communities, care about how their highways and freeways and their roads look. It is a big difference when you have a highway and a freeway that is taken care of, just as we take care of our homes. That is our job. In Illinois, a tunnel was constructed beneath the busy Center Grove Road that will provide safer passage for students walking between their school and a nearby sports complex. The tunnel was constructed with the help of TE funds--the very funds my friend wants to cut. In Plymouth, IN, they can now enjoy 2.2 miles of paved trails that meander throughout the community, connecting schools, parks, rivers, and neighborhoods. And a TE award of $1.2 million helped fund the trail. It was matched by local dollars. In Minneapolis, TE funds helped construct the Midtown Greenway project that provides a safe bicycle commuter freeway for up to 4,500 cyclists a day. In Oklahoma, new and existing businesses and shops are thriving after a streetscaping project in downtown Norman. TE funds helped to renovate the downtown area, which included improvements in historical lighting. I hope we will vote against the series of Coburn amendments. I think they hurt, they will stop creation of jobs, and they will make us less safe.

Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield?

Mrs. BOXER. Yes. I object.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, the Senator does not describe his amendment properly. I ask colleagues to read it. The amendment says: None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to implement section 133(d)(2) of title 23, United States Code. That means none of the funds could be used for this very important part of our transportation program which has created 400,000 jobs since 1992. This is not the time to cut these good jobs. This is not the time to say to the States: In your purpose, you can do whatever you want, but then in the real amendment they cannot get any Federal funds anymore to keep wildlife off the freeways, they cannot get funds anymore to do highway beautification, they cannot get funds anymore to stop runoff from highways that will pollute our waterways. I say the purpose may be what the Senator says, but because he is forced into doing this on an appropriations bill, he says none of the funds can be used for these TE programs, and that will cause injuries and death.

Mrs. BOXER. I move to lay that motion upon the table. The motion to lay upon the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2366, as Modified

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I rise in opposition to Senator Gregg's amendment and I wish to say why I think there are many reasons not to support it. I started off my political career as a county supervisor. It is through that agency that when we are undertaking a major road project, we put up a sign first of all to let people know work is underway and what it is about because a lot of times people don't know if it is going to be a month-long project or a day-long project. We would put up a sign to let people know who is funding the program, to let people know whether it is a State project, a local project. No big deal. We did this--and we do this--under Republican leadership, under Democratic leadership. It is information. I think the true source of this amendment is a frustration. This is my own opinion. I am sure my friend absolutely would not agree with me, but it is my sense that there is a frustration by the people who voted no on the Economic Recovery Act, the stimulus bill; there is a frustration that it is working. They predicted gloom and doom. Let me tell you what is happening in this great Nation of ours. We have a long way to go to get jobs up and running, there is no question about it, but the stimulus bill has already saved or created a million jobs. Let me tell you what else. We are looking at growth for the first time in this economy. When we were faced with the worst recession since the Great Depression--and I know it because the Presiding Officer had the same issue as she looked at what to do--we had to decide whether it made sense to do some job creation here, and we didn't get many Republican votes, but thank goodness we got three. Thanks to those good people for joining us because I can tell you this: In my home State, we are starting to see it happen. We are going to get tens of billions of dollars. So now I think the issue is a frustration with the fact that we won that vote and we got that done and those jobs are being created as we speak. Slowly but surely we are being lifted out of this darkness. Here we have a small amendment, I agree. You know what. If it passes, no harm. But I have to say, why on Earth would you want to hide from the American people the fact that the recovery package we passed is putting people to work? People want to know. Not everybody has a computer. Not everybody is going to follow up on the transparency this administration has put in place. They are showing that every day it is working, where it is happening, and so on and so forth--not by name but how many jobs are created and the like. It seems to me, if you are improving our highways, our transit systems, our water infrastructure, our government buildings, and the source of funding is the stimulus program, the Economic Recovery Act, let people know. Why would we prohibit funds under this act from being used for these signs that simply inform taxpayers that a project is being made possible by taxpayer dollars from the stimulus program? I think it is a question of making our people more informed, giving them information. My friend says it costs money to do a sign. I couldn't agree more. Everything costs money. It costs money to do a sign. Guess what. People work in those places where those signs are made. People proudly work on those jobs and get paid a good amount and can support their families. So this is a jobs program. Part of it is to tell the people, yes, the funding for this project is paid for by the stimulus program, the economic recovery program, and, yes, people were paid to work in places that make these signs. I don't think it is logical to keep this information from the people. What purpose is served? It is going to save a little bit of money, but the fact is, the purpose of the stimulus bill was to create jobs, and you are going to take away jobs from people who are making those signs. I think this is an antijobs amendment we have before us. Look, the Recovery Act is working. I think it is frustrating those who predicted it would never work, and they will predict it will never work until they have their last breath because that is the nature of politics; you have to spin it one way or another. But we know the economy is turning around. We also know we need to create many more jobs, and this amendment will not create one more job. I don't believe it will. The fact that we are doing some good things with this funding, including making buildings more energy efficient, upgrading flood protection, let the American people know that their funds are being spent well. I think that is money spent well. Some people may see a program, by the way, I say to my good friend, and they don't like it. They say: Why on Earth are they using my money to do this particular project? Let them know. Let them know. So if they like what they see, they understand where it came from. If they don't like what they see, they understand where it came from. I urge my colleagues to oppose the Gregg amendment. I agree with my friend, it is not a major amendment, but I think it speaks to the point that the American people should have an easy way of knowing where these funds are going and the projects they are building. We certainly had a big enough battle on the floor of the Senate--oh, boy, did we have a battle--trying to find those three votes. So it passed. It was controversial. Some in America don't support it; others in America do. I think they should have a right to know if a project is being brought to them by way of this important bill that I think is helping turn our economy around. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, this is a most political amendment. I got to thinking, after Senator Gregg said we can't show a sign where economic recovery funds are being put to use on a road or a bridge or highway. We should keep it from the people because he says it is self- congratulatory. It is not self-congratulatory. Some people may not like the project; some people may. It is about transparency and openness. I have to say to you, this makes no sense. Where were Senator Gregg and his friends on the Republican side when George Bush and the Republican Congress spent $33 million to send out a letter telling everyone their Economic Recovery Act was working by way of refunds? I never heard one word out of the Senators from the other side of the aisle. That cost $33 million. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the tax rebate letter that went to every American be printed in the Record.

Mrs. BOXER. I would say to you, this is politics. This is going to save--Senator Gregg's amendment--$4 million. This cost $33 million.

Mrs. BOXER. I yield the floor. I hope we vote ``no.''

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask for a rebuttal. This is not about whether you voted for the stimulus. It is about whether you objected to spending money to tell people what the stimulus does. It seems to me, under Republican leaders we did not hear anything. Now we hear it. I yield the floor.