Maria Cantwell

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of our time.

Ms. CANTWELL. The discharge from the long-abandoned Boston Gas Mine in Pennsylvania turned a 4-mile stretch of the Monongahela River orange. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said the plume likely contained iron, aluminum, and manganese. A geologist at West Virginia University who studies abandoned mine discharges said the abandoned mine is a large mining complex that has approximately eight outcrop discharges and created this large plume. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an AP story dated January 28, 2017.

Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I think my colleague from Massachusetts is here on the floor to speak. I will let him have some time. I would say to my colleague from Alaska, the real bait-and-switch is the side of this aisle that allows the Finance Committee to pretend like it is going to do something on the pension program and votes a month before the election, and then after the election, fails to act on such an important issue. I hope people are not advocating pollution as an economic strategy because it will not work.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I can read others, but these are the people who are concerned about this rule. These are the individuals who want to know whether we are going to do our job and to say that polluters must pay. I believe that if we have the technology and the rules to do that, why would miners object? Why would the mining industry object to having the correct information? I will read another letter from a Montana rancher this time. As a long-time rancher of north of Billings, water supply has been a 70-year-old struggle for my ranch. The coal industry has posted a threat to my water supply since the 1970s, and more recently increased mining, spurred by fast- growing markets and the export to Asia, which has sparked water damage across the West. The limited water we are talking about in the West makes it doubly valuable and in need of protection. As the saying goes: ``Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting.'' So it is absolutely essential that we protect the water we have, and sometimes that means a stronger rule from the Federal Government. Most cattle ranchers in the Bull Mountains where I live rely on a combination of wells and natural springs to water our livestock. And like other nearby operations, my ranch is currently being literally undermined by coal mines using massive and destructive long wall machines that make it difficult for efficient mining because of surface disruptions, impairing coal aquifers, subsiding recharge areas, and they pull surface streams underground. I can think of no industry that degrades water in such a reckless and cavalier way as the coal industry. From acid mine drainage and thousands of mines' buried headwaters across Appalachia, to eating streams on the prairie that are destroying wells and springs in Montana's Bull Mountain. While Montana surface mining laws require reclamation of the area over long mines, reclamation is a slow and uncertain process, and water in the existing mines in Montana has not been reclaimed, according to the bond-released statistics. These proposals for mining are to be included along these rivers and even moving along tributaries, to get it out of the way of coal mining. In Wyoming, Angelo Creek is slowly being eaten by a coal mine. With all of it as a backdrop, I am happy to see the proposal by the Department of the Interior to update this regulation put in place over 30 years ago. So the proposed Stream Protection Rule would safeguard communities from destructive coal mining practices and keep pace with our current science and modern mining practices. These new rules would minimize impacts to surface and groundwater such as springs on my property by requiring companies to avoid mining practices that permanently pollute and diminish streams, requiring coal companies to test and monitor the conditions of streams that their mining might impact before and during and after operations. The proposed rule would also require companies to restore streams and other waters that they were using and that were capable of supporting, like in the ranching area, prior to the mining activities. The Department of the Interior could also improve parts of the stream protection rule by providing technical assistance. It is very well to have good standards and test these out in rules, but if they are poorly implemented on the ground and over time, the results will be like no rule. So the Interior Department's work to update and modernize these decade-old rules and regulations is absolutely essential if we are going to keep a bad situation from getting worse. Clean water in the West is too precious to let coal companies pollute it or diminish it. This happens to be from a woman named Ellen Pfister who has a cattle ranch in the Bull Mountains area of Shepherd, MT. So these are just two examples of people who really want to see us do something. Why? Because clean water is so important to them. It is so important to the outdoor economy, and it is important to this particular rancher who wants to make sure that clean water is an aspect of their farming. There are a couple of other points I wanted to make about the rule and this notion that somehow overregulation has destroyed the pension program. It is so amazing that here in the Senate, somebody thinks that overregulation could blow that big of a hole into the pension program. The pension program had a more than 23-percent drop in the implosion of the economy in 2008 and 2009. So that kind of hole was there before this process. It is sad that now miners who are going to reach a retirement age won't have a pension to retire on. I think it is appalling that we bailed out Wall Street and we don't want to help with a pension program that basically took a major hit during the downturn. What are we saying to people? We don't care about those pensions, but we will turn over the keys to the Treasury to someone else? So the notion that, somehow, standing up for clean water is equated with the pension program is just not true. We support those workers. We will do anything to help them from all aspects of that picture, including giving them a pension and making sure they have health care and retirement. We have had that discussion, and many of my colleagues had that discussion here late into the night just at the end of last year. I am sure that we are waiting for a response from Leader McConnell as to when he is going to put that kind of legislation on the Senate floor. But, unfortunately, what we have instead is a rule trying to hold back making sure that we have safe drinking water, safe fishing water, and an outdoor economy that can count on these things. I thank my colleague from Hawaii for being here earlier and talking about this issue, as well as my colleague who is the ranking member from the EPW committee, Senator Carper from Delaware, making an eloquent statement and talking about the West Virginia economy, as he is a native of West Virginia, and now my colleague from Oregon, who is also addressing this issue. I appreciate their coming to the floor tonight and being part of this discussion. This is so important to all of us and really to all of our country. I think making sure that people understand how important clean water is to various aspects is so important. So I thank my colleague from Oregon.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I know my colleague from Oregon is around somewhere and wanted to speak on this rule, and when he shows up on the floor, we will certainly give him the time to do so. I want to make a couple of points while we are waiting for him. First, in this discussion here with my colleagues, there is some discussion and I guess the start of what will be a continuing theme that somehow, if you get rid of regulations, we are going to restore competitiveness to the U.S. economy. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you ask businesses what we need to do to be competitive as a country, they will say: Make sure we have a great education system. Make sure we invest in R&D. Let's develop new technology. If we look at where businesses are locating, they want to locate in beautiful, pristine places because they know that is where their employees will want to locate. So, first of all, that somehow the government is going to restore the economy by deregulating and letting polluters pollute is just not correct. It is not what America wants. What people want is to have safe drinking water, and they want an outdoor economy that is supported by having a great environment. So I want to say a couple of other things. Obviously, this rule that we are talking about and that has been developed over a long period of time is an improvement over the 1983 rule because it gives us a better idea on the pollution that is happening. Now, if people don't want to know that information, I guess that is OK. The court, counter to what my colleague from West Virginia said, did not say that it was suspending the rule. It said that it was still in effect, that the pollution had to be cleaned up. It said: Come back and look at the economic impact. But somehow, some are saying that the Supreme Court decision on the MATS rule gave EPA and others a get-out-of-jail-free card; you don't have to look at pollutants. They have to look at pollutants. So what is this issue about? It is about clean water. Mr. President, I wish to enter into the Record a couple of articles that I have seen from constituents. My colleague from West Virginia mentioned a few people. These are the real people in America who want this. One of them is a gentleman named Ben Kurtz, who happens to be from Grand Junction, CO. This is what he says: It's often said that drag is a fly fisherman's greatest enemy. The truth, however, is that a wet fly or heavy drag is irrelevant if you don't have clean water to fish. Our lakes, rivers, streams and the fish that inhabit them are all extremely sensitive to pollution. And right now, many of these streams all across our country are being threatened by dirty groundwater stemming from coal mines. Despite this, it's been nearly a decade since the Department of Interior has updated its Stream Protection Rule--an inadequate, Reagan-era regulation governing impacts to waterways from coal mining which was weakened even further under the Bush administration. For the last six years, DOI has been engaged in the process of updating and gathering input on the rule, with the ultimate goal of revising it to make it more effective, in line with the challenges our waters face today as well as the law Congress passed in the 1970s to create it. While it has been a long time coming, that process now appears to be coming to a close. Once finalized, the revised rule would establish common- sense new protections that would safeguard the health of our waterways, and by extension, the communities that are impacted by them. For example, the rule would strengthen baseline requirements for water quality testing to ensure that coal mining operations are not polluting streams in a manner similar to that of the old hardrock mines throughout the West. In addition, the revised standards would require coal mines to develop a plan for how to protect fish and wildlife while also putting in place measures that will reduce impacts on habitats and improve reclamation of mines that have shuttered. I mentioned earlier as a side note to this letter that we have 250 such mines in our State. These proposed changes are just common sense: The rule is low-cost (independent analysts have calculated that the safeguards would cost between 1 and 60 cents per ton of coal that's mined) and while the revisions are expected to result in cleaner waters and improved public health, its impact on jobs will be slim to none. Still, the issuing of a strong final Stream Protection Rule is not a foregone conclusion, as the coal industry is intent on maintaining the status quo. Were that to transpire it would mean streams that are at greater risk of being polluted with coal mine waste and runoff. Taking all of this into account, it's clear that whether you're a fly fisherman or not, the revised rule is something we should all support. Cleaner waters not only mean better fishing but cleaner and healthier communities too. Speaking on behalf of my fellow fly fishermen, I applaud the Department of the Interior for its ongoing efforts to enact sensible safeguards that protect the federal lands we all support and enjoy. It's time for DOI to push the Stream Protection Rule update across the finish line so we fishermen-- Obviously, this letter was written before that-- can go back to worrying about the little things--like what color fly to cast--rather than fretting over groundwater pollution that threatens our vibrant ecosystems and jeopardizes our health. Well, I think Mr. Kurtz said it the best. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor tonight to start debate on what is called the Congressional Review Act of the stream protection rule. For people who are probably saying ``I don't understand any of that; could you explain it to me?'' what we are going to do tonight is to start this debate, which is really about clean water, and it is about making sure that polluters clean up their messes, particularly when it comes to streams and the beauty we have in our country that is used by many people. And it is about making sure that rules for polluters paying are enforced in law and, clearly, agencies which have developed those rules in conjunction with laws that are already on the books continue to have those laws in effect. We are in a new administration, and already the debate is starting where people would like this end result to be clean water, 0; Donald Trump, the new President, 1. That is because this administration is starting a war on clean water, and tonight that debate is coming to the Senate floor. It is coming to the Senate floor because the last administration worked for more than 5 years on producing something to make sure that we had safe drinking water and safe stream water for fishing and to make sure that industries that are known for polluting ensure that their level of pollution is cleaned up. After more than 5 years in the implementation of that rule, after thousands and thousands of hours of discussion and debate, as it has become a rule, now there is one thing that can stop it. There is one thing that can stop it; that is, if Congress uses its authority under the Congressional Review Act to repeal it within the 60 days of legislative action that it has become effective. What is happening is that the Trump administration and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trying to say that we want to repeal more than 5 years of hard work of clearly outlining a stream protection rule to protect streams in the United States of America from pollution caused by certain types of mining activity. Let me show you a picture of what I am talking about. This stream could be anywhere in America. It could be anywhere in the United States of America. It is probably a good picture. Why? Because it shows the great outdoors. Probably for me, it is somewhere I would like to hike. It shows a stream, but it shows the degradation of that stream with the pollution in the stream. Whether you are Trout Unlimited, which supported this rule, or you are the Wilderness Society, or all the hunting and fishing groups that supported this rule, or you are just one of the many citizens in a State where mining exists and you are happy that it exists there but you also want them to be clean up their messes--these are the people who do not want to see this level of degradation in the streams. Why don't they want to see it? Because first and foremost they obviously don't want to see it, but if you are a fisherman and you are out fishing, you certainly don't want to see the impacts that selenium is causing on fish. There are a couple of incidents here where the impacts of selenium on fish are shown in this diagram. Deformation both here in the tail and here in the mouth of fish are impacts from selenium in streams. We do not want to see selenium having that kind of impact on our fish. What do we want to do? We want to make sure that we are measuring selenium in the streams and that we are cleaning it up. That is what we want to do. The notion that somehow people have described a rule for stream protection that is about having safe drinking water and having safe fishing water is about a ``war on coal'' is just wrongheaded. This is about making sure that we don't overturn something that took over 5 years to get in place. And I should say, it is the first time in 33 years that we have updated this rule. For 33 years, the Department of the Interior has said that the hydraulic impact of mining on a stream should be mitigated. What has changed in the last 33 years is that we now have better technology and we have more information about selenium. We know that it impacts fish, and we want mining companies to measure their impacts on headwaters and make sure they are doing something to minimize this selenium impact. I know people think that maybe in this process for 5 years--somehow that created a decrease in the amount of coal in the United States of America, even though the rule was just getting started. Let's look at the real issue. The real issue is that natural gas becoming cheaper in the United States of America has pushed down the demand for purchasing coal, a more expensive product that had nothing do with this rule. I have been in business and, yes, you plan for the future. And if you think your business is going to have to increase its insurance or change its business practices, yes, you consider all of that, but this chart clearly shows that our electricity grid has gone from having 50 percent of it supplied by coal now down--as this line is crossing here--to about 30 percent of our electricity grid from coal. This rule was not in place. Saying that you want to have safe drinking water has nothing to do with what has happened in the marketplace as natural gas has become a more viable option than coal. This chart shows it. We have another chart that also shows this 23-percent decline in coal. Why? Again, because of natural gas consumption going up. For those on the other side who would like to say this is somehow about a war on coal, I will tell you, we should not denigrate anybody for the job that they have done to support their families. In fact, I believe we should make sure they have a pension, make sure they have health care. It is a tragedy that we bailed out Wall Street from the U.S. Treasury, and as pension programs all across America imploded, nobody wanted to bail out the pension program for miners so they could retire with the kinds of health benefits that other people do. If we want to help individuals who are suffering in coal country, I suggest that we take care of their pensions. In the meantime, what we should do is make sure we are preparing for the health and safety of people who depend on these streams for multiple uses; that is to say, there are those in an outdoor economy who count just as much on those streams and count on them not being polluted because of certain mining activities. This chart can be shown in just about every State of the United States. The outdoor economy in our States--the people who like to go fishing, the people who like to go hunting, the people who like to navigate our rivers and want to do so when they are not polluted--is 6.1 million direct jobs in the United States. That basically dwarfs the coal industry. This isn't about saying one job is better than the other, but the notion that somehow we are hurting our economy because we want to have clean streams and we want people to be able to safely catch fish without selenium in them is basically ignoring the facts. By not regulating the coal industry to make sure they are cleaning up their mess, you are hurting the 6.1 million jobs that depend on having clean streams. I know people here probably understand that Montana is full of streams. That movie, ``A River Runs Through It,'' is iconic in the Northwest as an example of why people love the outdoors because they want to fish. They want the experience of going and being outdoors and having the wonder of that. I personally have been in the streams of West Virginia and have had a fabulous time. I want other people to understand that these streams are worth protecting all over the United States of America. But the movie is not called ``A River Runs Through It and a Mine Sits on Top of It.'' We don't have people moving to Montana and buying ranches, making investments, hiring people, and diversifying because they want to see the mines in Montana. They want to see the beauty of the outdoors. They want it to be pure and pristine, and they want people to clean up their pollution. If we are talking about an economy and you want to talk about jobs, do not ruin the $80 billion in tax revenue that comes from an outdoor industry because you want to allow an industry to continue to pollute. I am going to continue for the next year to make this point to my colleagues in the West who are going to try to overturn every rule they don't like because they think somehow that they want to claim it impacts jobs. We are going to have this discussion, and we are going to show that the outdoor economy is just as important and is actually producing more jobs and producing more revenue. The only point of conflict, I think, is when one impacts the other to the degree of creating pollution and then taking a beautiful stream away from us-- because no one wants to fish in a stream with that level of pollution. Why are we here? We are here because certain types of mining-- particularly, mountaintop removal mining--make it way more challenging to protect those streams. As I mentioned, for the last several years, people have been discussing what to do to make sure that these companies are making sure the environmental impacts are minimized. The production of these mines has actually fallen a great degree in the last several years. We have been working, as I said, during this time period to make sure that we implement the right kind of regulations so that people will clean up this mess. As I mentioned, it has been basically since the early eighties until this level of attention was given to a new rule. Why do we want to change a rule that was from 1983? Because it says that you must minimize the disturbances to the prevailing hydraulic balance at the mine site and offer areas and quality of water and ground water systems, both during and after the mining operations. President Trump did not invent that. That has been in law all along. The notion that somehow that has changed is not correct. It has been in the opening days of the Trump administration that people are trying to say that stewardship doesn't matter, that somehow, yes, we want to have immaculate water and immaculate air--as President Trump said--but it is OK if regulations cause a problem for business. What business? The outdoor industry or the coal industry? Because right now, you are talking about making a change to what is protection of those streams and repealing a law that is about safe drinking water. We don't want to eliminate that. We want to make sure that we use the best technology available to minimize the disturbances, address the impacts on fish and wildlife, and any other related environmental issues. We know a lot more about mining and fishing. As I showed you one picture, I will show you another impact of selenium. Basically, it is showing the deformation. What we now know much more about is how selenium does impact these areas. What is at stake if you kill the stream protection rule? Our sportsmen--groups like the National Wildlife Federation and Trout Unlimited--say this: The resolution is an ill-conceived tool for jettisoning a very useful rule that protects mountain head water streams and communities throughout the coal country in Appalachia. We urge you to oppose striking this rule, and to instead work with the Department of Interior to protect these streams, and make necessary improvements to improve the CRA, instead of using it as a cleaver. They go on to say: 150,000 passionate trout anglers work to conserve, protect and restore our Nation's trout and salmon fisheries and their watersheds. And our members give back to the resources they love by investing dollars and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours to conserve streams. So you can see that they feel passionately about this. They feel passionately because this is part of our outdoor economy and what people have passion about. In my State, people would say: Well, you have these other jobs. No, actually, in our State, there are 250 abandoned mines in Washington. Yes, if we don't clean them up, and if we don't make sure there is reclamation, there is still pollution. We have had a mine history in our State, but we want responsible mining and we want responsible cleanup. With today's rule that is in place and that you are trying to repeal--to repeal safe drinking water, basically--that would take those tools away and allow pollution to continue. What is the cost of that? It is very small. You would think that the way some people go on about this, that somehow this is astronomical amounts of money. Basically, it is about 0.1 percent of the industry's annual revenue. When you are in business, you think about your costs. You think about your cost of doing business. Yes, the cost of doing business has to include making sure that you clean up pollution. To me, this is an industry that makes way more than this in its annual revenue. Am I empathetic to my colleagues who represent States that are changing in their energy mix and resources? Do you think we need to have a plan for that? Yes. Do I think we need to have a plan for how we are going to diversify? Yes, I do. But this is not an economic debate about how we are going to save jobs. In reality, as I showed in the chart before, the natural gas prices are driving coal to a much lower level of our electricity grid than ever before in our history, and that is not going to change. Let's make sure we clean up our streams. Let's make sure we use the best technology available to make sure we are detecting that pollution and require people to have a minimal amount of responsibility in the cost of what it takes to make sure that selenium is not in drinking water or impacting our fish. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. You are stealing health care from Americans. I vote no.

Ms. CANTWELL. How am I recorded? This is not business as usual.

Ms. CANTWELL

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

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I look forward to having this discussion this afternoon about the Affordable Care Act and the many votes and actions that are going to be taking place. I especially look forward to having this discussion with the Presiding Officer because I know his State is greatly impacted by the health care delivery system and its shortfalls, and I look forward to discussing with him some of the many ideas that our colleagues have. I will say this at the outset of my comments. I am willing to work with anybody to improve our health care delivery system. I am willing to discuss with anybody what we need to do to improve the quality of health care for Americans, and I am specifically interested in making sure that we improve the outcomes of many Americans' health care and that we also lower costs. It has been the hallmark of what the Northwest health care delivery system has been all about. Yes, that is right. We get less money and deliver better outcomes. It is not because we all like to hike, although there are many Washingtonians who like to hike. It is because we have had to make do with less, and we have built a better system. We hope the rest of the country can move forward along similar lines. So I am here to talk about the Affordable Care Act and the many aspects of it that are so important to our Nation in actually slowing health care costs and reducing our deficit. That is one of the cornerstones of why we did delivery system reform and why we did health care reform. We needed to slow the rate of health insurance increases, and we needed to lower the costs for us as a nation as well for the private sector. That was the task at hand. So to my colleagues who are ready to repeal all that, I ask you to wait. I ask you to stop and think about what we are doing, and before you repeal, think about what we are going to put in its place because this is such an important issue. What does the Affordable Care Act mean? One of the aspects that I think is getting lost in this debate is that people are talking about what has happened in a percentage of the individual market. They are talking about the plans as they related to last October and what happened with rate increases. Some people said: Oh, well, a lot of providers went out and offered a lot of low-ball coverage costs and came back with higher rates later. Some people said: Some of the pools aren't big enough. Some people said: Well, the coverage we are going to guarantee is going to help. But the issue is that the Affordable Care Act is much more than just what we tried to do in the individual markets. It is about providing affordable coverage, but it is also about reducing costs, improving the health care delivery system, protecting women's health, and saving the taxpayers money. I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will think about all of these issues--providing affordable coverage, reducing costs, improving the health care delivery system. I warn my colleagues that if you repeal the Affordable Care Act and take away its improvements to the delivery system, you are going to balloon the deficit, and that is something that we cannot afford. What am I talking about when I say ``affordable coverage''? Well, let's take Washington State, for example. I am sure the Presiding Officer could take his State also, but in our State, there are 3 million Washingtonians with preexisting conditions who are guaranteed coverage; there are 50,000 young adults who can keep coverage through their parents' plans; and more than 600,000 Washingtonians have been covered by the Medicaid expansion. To me, the Medicaid expansion is about simple math. Medicaid is expanded because it is the most cost-effective, economical way for that population to get health care coverage and to be part of the health care system, keeping our costs down and keeping that population healthy. Depending on what State you are from and what philosophy you have as an individual, you may not be for Medicaid expansion. There have been many times that across the aisle we have been able to come to terms on Medicaid expansion and on the CHIP program because we believe that having a healthier population is a good economic policy for our Nation. After the Affordable Care Act implementation, we actually have results, studies, and analysis by various States in the Nation that have said that expanding the Medicaid population has helped our economy and has helped our States overall. So I would say to my colleagues, please do not repeal the Medicaid expansion. Please do not put these people back on the street with their health care problems and health care issues and increase the cost of uncompensated care. That is not a strategy. What else do we want to do? We want to drop the rate of uninsured Americans. The Affordable Care Act has done that, decreasing by more than 40 percent the number of uninsured Americans. Less than 9 percent of Americans are now uninsured. In our State, the uninsured rate has dropped to 5.8 percent, which is a nearly 60-percent decrease. For us in the State of Washington, we have more people covered. The Affordable Care Act is covering more people, so we have taken more people out of the uninsured market. The way the other side of the aisle would like to describe this is that the whole thing is falling apart because of some changes and shifts in the individual market, but the facts are there that the law is not only expanding coverage but lowering costs. Looking at what health care costs would have been over the last decade has always been a tricky issue. The rates of health care costs were going up. I like to say that we may want health care costs to keep pace with the rate of inflation--and I will give health costs a little bit of an inflationary bump because of technology and new innovation. It is not the same as the rate of inflation for everything else, but at the same time, we shouldn't be seeing double-digit increases in the costs of health care. Our goal was to change the system to the degree that we would see health care costs more in line or a little bit above the rate of inflation. This chart shows the national expenditures for health care on the dotted line on these actual and most recent projections of what the health care system is doing now compared to what it would have been before the Affordable Care Act. So again, people are debating over what these increases are, when in reality we were seeing double-digit increases, and now we are seeing the cost growth of health care go down. So going back to the chart for a second, this projection is so big because of many factors. This is about changing the delivery system; this is about making sure that there are not exorbitant amounts of uncompensated care; and this is about making sure that we don't overspend on the health care delivery system. I can imagine that for some States this must be the most frustrating issue, particularly if the reimbursement rate has led to a population that is constantly underserved because no one wants to see those patients. We in the Northwest have had that frustration because we get somewhere between $1,000 to $2,000 less--maybe even more--per Medicare beneficiary than many other States in the country. That has led to a situation where people don't even see Medicare beneficiaries in parts of our State. That is right. People have to travel a great distance to find a doctor because they can't find one because of the Medicare reimbursement rate. My solution is, if we are providing health care in my State with better outcomes and lower costs, I shouldn't be penalized for that; I should be rewarded. Every other State should try to practice medicine that actually helps us lower the costs. So why are we working on this issue? The Affordable Care Act has contributed to slower cost growth. Medicare spent $473 billion less in the 5-year period from 2009-2014 compared to the benchmark--compared to what would have been done if we did nothing. So, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I know you are all for repeal. Where will you replace this money? Where are you going to come up with those savings? If you come to the floor and say that you don't want to repeal the delivery system reform that we fought so hard for and crafted, that you are willing to make those changes and keep the delivery system, we will be listening with open arms and great receptivity because there are many people on this side of the aisle who have worked very, very hard on these reforms. In the private sector, we have also slowed the rate of growth in insurance premiums. I am talking now about the employer-based plans. We slowed the rate to one-third of what it was before. Individuals are seeing lower increases than what they would have had to pay before these reforms. So what is the debate about now? What we are trying to do in health care reform is improve health care by decreasing costs, having better patient outcomes, and helping doctors spend more time with their patients than with their paperwork. This is critically important because what we are seeing in the United States is doctors spending more time on the paperwork of the system than on the actual outcomes of their patients. We want everybody to have a medical home. We want everybody to have a delivery system that rewards outcomes, and that is what we are driving for, but the debate in Washington has not been over this issue of where Americans get their insurance coverage. As you can see from this chart, 49 percent of Americans get insurance through work, 34 percent of them through Medicare and Medicaid and other public programs, and then a much smaller percentage are uninsured or in the individual market. The debate now is over the individual market. The debate is over the 7- percent number. In some States, the individual market was out of whack for a variety of reasons. Maybe the risk pool was too small, maybe insurers went too low on their original estimates, maybe they made some changes that didn't work in that marketplace, but that doesn't mean we throw out all of the Affordable Care Act that is doing such great work just because 7 percent of the population in the individual market needs further attention. It doesn't mean that we repeal all of this. It certainly doesn't mean that we give this uncertainty to the American people about whether they are going to have health care coverage and give the illusion that the other side of the aisle is doing anything but taking the system and capping Medicare and Medicaid, giving out a check that never keeps pace with inflation, and then taking the savings from the system and channeling it into corporate tax reform relief. No, no, no, no, no. We need to make the health care delivery system work for the American people, deliver better outcomes, and continue to make reforms. What are the innovations that we are talking about in the delivery system? Well, my colleague, the Presiding Officer, will know, because he understands health care, that the innovation in health care is about everybody having a medical home. Why do you need a medical home? You need a medical home because you need to be seen, not by the emergency room physician but by your doctor and someone who is going to understand your health care needs. We need to make investments in primary care and prevention and wellness. I am sure the Presiding Officer understands that we don't have enough primary care providers in the United States. We need to change our system for the GME; that is, graduate medical education, so we can get more primary care providers. We also need to focus on health and wellness. That is what the Affordable Care Act does. It starts to look at the system and rewards prevention and wellness. The Affordable Care Act says: OK, let's try to do this in a new way. Accountable care organizations aim for a global budget instead of all the paperwork that has to happen. A provision I authored, the Basic Health Plan, which is being used in the State of New York, is showing results in lowering the costs of premiums, giving affordability to people well beyond what they were able to otherwise get. The other idea is rebalancing nursing care to community-based care. Twenty-one States applied for and were approved to do rebalancing. A lot of these States were Republican States in the South that took the money from the Affordable Care Act and bought into this really smart notion. It says: Let's rebalance away from nursing home care into community-based care, and we as the Federal Government will help incent that. So all the Republican Governors that took that money from the Affordable Care Act to try to rebalance their population away from a very expensive delivery system to a new delivery system, are they now going to pay us back? Is that what repeal is going to mean, that we are going to ask them to pay us the money back or that we are going to forgo this notion that moving people out of nursing homes and keeping them in their community homes is more important? I will tell you this. We have a problem of an aging population in the United States of America, and the best thing we can do is help change the delivery system so it is more cost effective for the future. That is what the Affordable Care Act did. The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, which is also a part of the Affordable Care Act, drove in some incredible efficiencies. The Secretary just spoke today at the National Press Club, talking about focusing on better managing care for many people affected with diabetes because they are one of the biggest cost drivers. So all of this innovation is part of the Affordable Care Act. Are we going to repeal that, too? Are we going to repeal all those health care delivery reforms that are helping reduce the cost of health care? So what does repeal actually mean? I am taking it from two different sources here; that is, a full Republican repeal of the Affordable Care Act will increase the deficit by $350 billion over 10 years. Why does the Congressional Budget Office and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget say that? Why do they say that? Why would they make such a claim? Because they know that built into the Affordable Care Act are changes to the health care delivery system that improve access, focus on better outcomes, and change our system for the better. We cannot afford to repeal this as a way to try to say to our base: This is a better way of delivering health care. What does the Affordable Care Act come down to? The philosophy we pushed through is to put the patient at the center of the health care delivery system so that it works for them. The repeal attempt by the other side is nothing more than basically saying we are going to come up with a model where you are not at the center of this, you are going to get a check that no longer pays for your full health insurance costs, you are going to get capitated and so is Medicare and Medicaid--or at least that is all we can get out of the other side right now about their plans. It is very important to me that we do not repeal the Affordable Care Act and that we certainly don't repeal the Affordable Care Act without any idea what it is that we are going to be doing instead. We have millions of Americans who will not be covered, and we are going to throw away our whole system, which has managed to save private employers and individual families millions of dollars--I would say billions of dollars over the time period of this legislation and put us on the right track. If we have to make some changes and adjustments to the system, let's make some adjustments and changes to the system, but let's not throw out the entire legislation, and certainly let us not steal away the Affordable Care Act from the American people. Basically, that is what repeal is. Repeal is stealing away the affordability they have been granted over these last several years and instead taking it for some other corporate interest. I hope it is not to stuff it into a tax reform bill to give relief to corporate America because that is not what we need. We need a delivery system that works for everyone. We need to save those individuals by making sure there is a cost-effective health care option for them and the marketplace, and I look forward to seeing real and serious legislation--not a poster board but a solution. I love working with my colleagues who want to work on these ideas. I do. I will because this is a solvable problem. It is. We have shown that. We have enough results. We have to make some adjustments, but repealing is just stealing health care from hard-working Americans. I urge my colleagues to turn that down. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

Ms. CANTWELL

Ms. CANTWELL. I have a question for the Senator from California because some of our colleagues that were here--my understanding is if you can get water from Northern California by just agreeing to kill fish and not meeting those obligations, then Southern California can take some of that water as well. Then, the consequence is these Western States, which might be supporting this bill, have less obligation to make more conservation efforts. So, in reality, if you are talking about the Colorado River and all the various resources that have to be negotiated, if somebody can be let off the hook because you are just going to kill fish instead, then you have more water. Sure, if you just want to kill fish in streams and give all the money to farmers, of course you have more water. Then, no one in the Colorado discussion has to keep talking about what are we going to do about drought. I think the Senator from California is going to tell me that drought is not going away; it is a growing issue of concern, and so we actually need more people to discuss this in a collaborative way than in an end- run way. Am I correct about the partners and all of that discussion?

Ms. CANTWELL. Has this project been approved by any of those agencies or organizations?

Ms. CANTWELL. The Senator is correct. It was December and the same kind of scenario. Basically, jamming something onto a must-pass bill was a way that somebody thought this body would just roll over. In the end we didn't. We sent it back to the House, and the Defense bill was passed in very short order. In fact, it is the exact same scenario. The House had already gone home, and I think they basically opened up for business again and passed it with two people in the Chamber. So it can be done. It has been done. If people want to resolve this issue and go home, then strip out this earmark rider language and we can be done with it and we can have the WRDA bill and we can be done. So I think that what my colleague is suggesting--because it isn't really even the authority of the WRDA committee--is that she probably would be glad to get language that is not her jurisdiction off of this bill and communicate to our House colleagues that this is the approach that we should be taking. So I would like to ask through the Chair if, in fact, the Senator from California understands that that kind of approach on earmarks is something that she has heard a lot about from our House colleagues, about how opposed they are.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I have a question for the Senator from California. The irony of this situation--first of all, I appreciate the Senator from California, because she is such a stalwart in so many different ways on so many different issues. What people may not know about the colleague we love dearly is that she is greatly theatrical. She has a beautiful voice. She writes music. She obviously lives in L.A. and probably hobnobs with all sorts of people in the entertainment industry. She sang beautifully the other night at our goodbye dinner for the retiring Members. This reminds me of that movie ``Chinatown.'' There was a famous movie that Jack Nicholson was in that was all about the corruption behind water----

Ms. CANTWELL. Yes, and Faye Dunaway. So Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway did a movie a long time ago about the water wars in California; am I correct?

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, as the Senator from California knows, one of the States concerned about this is Arizona because they have kind of been left out of that discussion. It also says to people: You don't have to have these discussions amongst everybody together; you can just write it into law. My understanding is that our colleagues from Florida and Alabama also have a similar concern. People are trying to use the legislative process to unbalance the negotiations so they can legislate instead of negotiate. Not only are they trying to legislate instead of negotiate, they are trying to use earmarks to do it and overrule existing law. So am I correct, to the Senator from California--are we going to get anywhere with getting California more water if, in fact, this ends up in courts and it is stayed, and you really won't get any water in the next few years? I should make a footnote for my colleague from California. Thank you for your compliment. I had to chair a 3-hour hearing once on the San Joaquin River settlement. It was about 18 years of dispute on what to do about the San Joaquin water. Because of that, I learned a lot about the fights in California and all of the problems that California had then. This was at the time my colleague Tim Johnson was the chair of that subcommittee and had been stricken ill, and they asked me if I could step in. I had no idea I was going to spend 3 hours hearing about 18 years of litigation. That is right--18 years of litigation on the San Joaquin River. Basically, people came to that hearing that day--which is now probably 10 years ago--to tell me it was not worth the 18 years of litigation. They had determined that while they could sue each other all they wanted, that getting to a resolution about how to move forward on water had to be a much more collaborative solution to the process. Secondly, I would mention to my colleague from California and see if she knows about this--the same happened on the Klamath Basin, which is legislation we passed out of committee and tried to pass here. The Klamath Basin basically said: Let's negotiate. The various people in that dispute had a dispute and actually went to court, and the regional tribe won in the court and basically didn't have to do anything more on water issues but decided that, in the good interest of trying to have a resolution, it was a good idea to come to the table and try this collaborative approach. I was mentioning my time chairing a 3-hour hearing on the San Joaquin River settlement that people had come to after 18 years of fighting each other in court. They came and they said: Oh, we have a settlement. The point was, we tried to litigate and sue each other for 18 years and we didn't get anywhere, and now we have a settlement and we would like to move forward. My point is, the best way for us to move forward on water issues is to have everybody at the table and come to agreements because there are a lot of things you can do in the near term while you are working on water in a more aggressive fashion to get to some of the thornier issues. But if you basically try to litigate and legislate instead of negotiate, you end up oftentimes just getting litigation, like what happened with the San Joaquin. So you never get a solution and people don't have the water. You end up not having a resolution, and the whole point is to get people water. So does the Senator think that is where we are headed if we end up just trying to tell people: You can legislate. Well, it sounds interesting, and if you get somebody to write an earmark for you, you are in good shape, I guess, if you can get that out of the House of Representatives. But in reality, you are not in good shape if you don't actually get water because you end up in a lawsuit for so many years, like San Joaquin. Is that where we are going to head on this?

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from California for that explanation. I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record another San Francisco story from just yesterday where an attorney, Doug Obegi, basically says, to my colleague's point about the midnight darkness of this, that the densely technical text ``explicitly authorize[s] the Trump administration to violate the biological opinions under the Endangered Species Act.''

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I wish to ask the Senator from California--because there is another element she is alluding to--about how to resolve water issues. While my understanding is your committee is very involved in basically the Federal Government programs that help communities around our country deal with water infrastructure and clean water, the larger issues of how a community settles these disputes about water on Federal land has really been the jurisdiction of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. But my understanding is that this bill is also trying to weigh in on disputes as it relates to the larger Colorado basin. I know my colleague from Arizona is very concerned because his views weren't heard. I know this is a big fight as a result of the language that is in here on the southern part of our country, where there is also a water dispute, and various States are debating this. I remember when our former colleague Tom Daschle was here, and there was a whole big fight on a river issue that the Upper Midwest was concerned about. If my understanding is correct, basically what we are trying to do in this legislation is, instead of having the collaborative discussion among these various States to work together to resolve it, they are basically saying: No, no, no, we can just put an earmark rider in and instead make all the decisions for everybody and choose winners and losers. So it is not just a Pacific Northwest issue--of San Francisco, Oregon, and Washington--but also relates to challenges we have on the Colorado River and challenges in the southeast part of our country. Basically, it sets up a discussion in the future of why would you ever regionally get together to discuss anything if you could just jam it through in the legislation by, basically--as our colleague Elizabeth Warren said--putting a little cherry on top and getting people to say: Oh, this must really be good. Then the consequences of this are that the thorny, thorny issues of water collaboration aren't going to be about the current rules of the road or collaboration. It is going to be about earmarks and riders that Taxpayers for Common Sense, the Heritage Foundation, and all of these people object to as the worst of the worst of Congress.

Ms. CANTWELL. I thank you for your steadfast leadership in the Senate. As to the fact that you are retiring, you are certainly going to be missed. I am sure you would like to have legislation on the water resources pass. I think you brought up a very important point: Strip out language for which there is bipartisan support asking for it to be stripped out. And there is bipartisan support asking for it to be stripped out because people with true water interests have not been allowed to have their say. We could get this done today--be done with this and be on our way. I think, for our colleagues who want us to be done, there is an easy path forward--a very easy path. Just strip out the language on California and send it back.

Ms. CANTWELL. So it was a movie about the fight between Southern and Northern California about who gets water, and then people found out that there was so much corruption behind the deal that basically people were trying to do a fast one. So the subject, if I am correct--that is what the subject of the movie is about. This is not a new subject; it is a very old subject. The question is, are people trying to supersede a due process here that consumers--in fact, I would ask--I hope the ratepayers and constituents of the utilities in Los Angeles would be asking the utility: What are they doing lobbying against the Endangered Species Act? My guess is there are a lot of people in Southern California that have no idea that a utility would lobby, spend their public dollars lobbying against a Federal statute by undermining it with a rider in the dark of night. But I wanted to ask my colleague: This issue is a historic issue in California, correct? And when it is done in the dark of night, as that movie depicts, what happens is that the issues of public interests are ignored and consequently people are shortchanged. Is that the Senator's understanding?

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I would ask the Senator from California then, the question is on this process of deciding the authorization. I notice we had a few colleagues here who were--I don't know if they were coming to speak--but in the Senator's region, there is a lot of discussion among the Western States on how to balance issues on water; is that correct? There are a lot of meetings and discussions?

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, to the Senator from California, I thank her for being here in this discussion today about a very important public policy issue. It is December and most people know that high jinks happen in December around here. People want to go home. People are doing last- minute deals. I don't know if the Senator from California knows, but the whole deregulation of Enron and the energy markets--that whole thing was a December midnight rider kind of activity. All of these things happen because they know that Members want to go home. They think it is the last deal and they can throw something in and everybody will go along with it and blame it on, oh, I didn't read the fine print. There are a couple of things in here that I just wanted to ask the Senator from California about. I am going to talk later. I wanted to get over here and ask her because she is a knowledgeable person on this. First, this rider that was placed in the WRDA bill--is that in the jurisdiction of your committee?

Ms. CANTWELL. So in the dark of night--I think that is the part where the States are going to be told: You are just going to have to build a dam. That is it. We decided. Then everybody calls us and says: Wait a minute, wait a minute, I don't want to dam the river or I want that stream to produce fish or I want that to flow downstream for people further downstream, not right here. All of that has basically now been given over to someone else. I would also like to ask the Senator from California if she is aware of provisions of the bill, as people are referring to it, that jilt the taxpayers? I know there are a bunch of groups, Taxpayers for Common Sense and even the Heritage Foundation--all of these people are basically calling out the ridiculous spending aspect of this California provision. I wonder if the Senator from California is aware that this basically authorizes prepayment on construction obligations that basically are going to take millions of dollars out of the U.S. Treasury. Just by passing this legislation, we would be taking money out of the Treasury, resulting in basically $1.2 billion in receipts that we would have, but giving us a loss of $807 million. This is a provision in the bill that I think has had little discussion, and this sweetheart deal for people is going to rip off the taxpayers, in addition to all of this authorization that is in the legislation. Is my colleague from California aware of this provision?

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, will the Senator from California yield for a question?