Thomas Carper

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I just want to say, earlier this week--I am almost at a loss for words. I know I normally am not standing where I normally stand. Earlier this week, you gave your freshman year first speech--your first speech--and not everybody was able to hear it. A lot of people came up. Democrats and Republicans were here. I just want to say again how much I enjoyed it. From an old Navy guy to a not-so-old Navy guy, we are very proud of your service in uniform and also proud of your service here. I am delighted that you are a member of our Environment and Public Works Committee. We have done some really good work on this issue. I thank you for your help and contribution. Disparity Studies

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I have a couple of unanimous consent requests. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of studies presenting a strong basis of evidence for the conclusion that discrimination against minority- and women-owned businesses continues to affect the construction, architecture, and engineering and related surface transportation contracting markets nationwide. These disparity studies contain rigorous statistical analyses to determine whether business discrimination based on--whether it is based upon race or gender, continues to exist, and a review of these studies reveals that the answer, sadly, is a resounding yes, and, therefore, the current Disadvantaged Business Enterprise provisions are still warranted. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record those disparity studies

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I have a second unanimous consent request I want to mention, and that is a request to have printed in the Record letters of support for electric school buses. I would ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record two letters--one from three American school bus manufacturers, and another from 125 nonprofit foundations, businesses, health and scientific organizations, and advocacy groups--in support of investments in electric school buses in this bipartisan package. Both letters highlight the fact that no other school bus technology manufactured today reduces more emissions than electric vehicle school buses; and both letters highlight that investments in electric school buses would drive the demand for new electric buses and promote cost parity between electric school buses and older technologies. The message from these diverse groups to Congress is clear: Investing in electric school buses supports American workers and American manufacturers. Not only that, it cleans up our air, protects our kids and our planet on which we live

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I would like to point out I like to work out. I showed up at Pensacola at the age of 21 right out of Ohio State, invited by the Navy as a midshipman. Before they put us in airplanes, as you may recall, they put us through some really rigorous conditioning. So I worked out, like, 6, 7 days a week then, and I come pretty close to that today. And a couple of days a week I like to run. I always like to run outside. And all this work we were doing this last week--we were doing a lot of work not only on the Senate floor, but behind the scenes on electric school buses, to make sure that we would be able to provide funding for a lot of them going forward. And one morning, I went out running, and it was still almost dark, and I was almost run over by two electric buses, and I said: Don't worry, I am on your side. And I had a nice chat with a couple of drivers. So I came here to present this message and these unanimous consent requests today. I also wanted to say that we did get to work yesterday--Democrats and Republicans working together. A bunch of amendments were adopted; one or two not. But it was a good spirit last night, well into the night, and good work has been done and has continued in through the evening and again this morning on both sides of the aisle to find some additional compromises. I am told that several amendments are ready to be brought to the floor. I would just say to my colleagues: Bring them. If you got something you think is ready for prime time, whether it is Democrat or Republican, and it is a combined bipartisan amendment, bring it. Let's hear about it. Let's have a chance to discuss it and to vote on it. We could be up late into the night. We are going to be up really early in the morning. I think there is a 7 o'clock flight, maybe out of Andrews. At least we leave from here to Andrews to go catch a 7 o'clock flight to attend the memorial service for Senator Enzi in Wyoming tomorrow. I think we would be smart not to stay up half the night, and do as much as we can this morning, and then--oh, it is noon, high noon. Get started now. I think we will be glad that we did. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up to the substitute and be reported by number: No. 1 is Lee No. 2279; No. 2 is Rosen No. 2358; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed, with no amendments in order to the amendments prior to a vote in relation to the amendments, with 60 affirmative votes required for the adoption of the Lee amendment listed and with up to 4 minutes, equally divided, prior to each vote.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up to the substitute and be reported by number: Wicker No. 2146 and Kennedy No. 2210; further, that upon disposition of the Johnson amendment, the Senate vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed, with no amendments in order to the amendments prior to a vote in relation to the amendments, with 60 affirmative votes required for adoption of the Kennedy amendment, 5 minutes for debate for Senator Wicker and 2 minutes for debate for opponents before the Wicker vote, and 4 minutes for debate equally divided before the Kennedy vote.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, there are a lot of folks gathering around our new Senator from Arizona, congratulating him, commending him on his speech. I said to him--I am Navy. We have got a bunch of military people that serve here: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. But in the Navy, when somebody does an especially good job, we say ``Bravo Zulu.'' And that was an exceptional, exceptional address. We are delighted to be joined by Cindy McCain. Before I yield to the Senator from Wisconsin for his amendment, the theme that we just heard from our new Senator from Arizona really focuses on preparing, through the groundwork, plowing the field in anticipation of creating jobs. And we do that in a lot of ways. He has mentioned a bunch of them in terms of technology jobs and so forth. One of the other ways is what we are doing with the legislation before us today, and that is investing in our infrastructure broadly, not just roads, highways, and bridges; not just waterworks; not just broadband; not just surface transportation. All of the above. All of the above. So it is a great way to start our day today. With that, I yield the floor. I think the gentleman, our colleague from Wisconsin, has some comments that he may want to make, unless the leader wishes to go next.

Mr. CARPER. Would the Senator yield?

Mr. CARPER. I object.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, over the years, I have made any number of trips to our Nation's southern border. I have also traveled extensively throughout Central America--and sometimes with the author of this legislation--with many colleagues, Democratic and Republican. One of the people who have been to that part of the world more than me is a guy who used to serve here in the Senate--later, Vice President--and that is our President, Joe Biden. There is a verse in Scripture in the New Testament, Matthew 25, which speaks to the least of these, and one of the things: When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was naked, did you clothe me? When I was thirsty, did you get me to drink? When I was a stranger in your land, did you welcome me? Did you welcome me? To the extent we have looked out for the least of these, then we have a brighter future. But anyway, the reason I raise that, we have this moral imperative to look out for the least of these, and that includes people who end up on our borders looking for safe haven. The reason why so many people continue to come to our borders from Central America--especially Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador--is because they live lives in fear; deprived of economic opportunity and hope; corruption, crime. You know, if any of us lived there with our families, we would want to get out of there, too, and find a place to go to with a brighter future. As a former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, border security is enormously important. We need secure borders; no question about that. There are a whole bunch of force multipliers which help provide more secure borders, including barriers--including barriers-- and I have supported them. So has the Senator, who is also a former chairman of the committee. We have traveled in that part of the world together. One of the things we fully agree on is what I just said. We can spend the next, you know, year, 5 years, 10 years securing our border. That is important. But if we don't address those root causes of why people are coming here, 10, 20 years from now, they will still be coming. They will still be coming. We have to be smarter than that. This is a shared responsibility; it is not all on the United States. I said to my colleague from West Virginia, I like to use the example of Home Depot, which Ron Johnson, Senator Johnson, heard me use more than a few times. Home Depot--their ad line is ``You can do it. We can help.'' In these countries we are getting all this immigration flow from, they can do it, but we can help. One of the things we set up was something called the Alliance for Prosperity a number of years ago, with Democratic and Republican support--I think with support of certainly then-Vice President Biden and Senator McCain, the late John McCain. Among the things that we need to focus on and we are doing under the Alliance for Prosperity are, one, addressing crime and violence; two, addressing corruption; and three, economic hope and opportunity. Those are the three buckets. We put money in those buckets, the expectation is that those three countries put even more money in those buckets, matching us 2, 3, 4, 5 dollars for every dollar that we put up. There are other countries that we have an expectation for them to help. There are private businesses; there is an expectation for them to help. Nonprofits. There is an expectation for all. This is a shared responsibility. As the place where all these illegal drugs are coming from, moving those drugs through these three countries--we have some moral responsibility to do something to help the situation down there, not just at the border. So with that in mind, I am not going to support this amendment. But I would just note, I always look for common ground. The author of the amendment knows full well--I have heard him talk about it eloquently, about the need to go after root causes. For as long as we have been working on this issue, all those years, we have needed to work on root causes, and we still do today as well.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, colleagues, in about 48 hours, about a third of the Senate is going to be on an airplane heading for Gillette, WY, and we are going to go and say goodbye to our friend and colleague Mike Enzi. I will never forget where I was sitting about, I don't know, 20 years ago as the Presiding Officer, and Mike Enzi was literally standing almost right where you are, talking about the 80-20 rule and why they were so successful in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Senator Kennedy and Mike Enzi--Democrat, Republican--how they were able to find common ground and get stuff done: the 80-20 rule. I said to Mike Enzi that day: What is the 80-20 rule? He said: About 80 percent of the stuff, Ted and I agree on, and about 20 percent, we don't. What we do is we focus on the 80 percent where we agree. There is common ground here. I think that the Senator from Wisconsin knows what it is. And I would ask that in addition to talking about our differences, let's talk about where we agree, and let's do good work there. Vote on Amendment No. 2245

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up to the substitute and be reported by number: Peters-Rounds, 2464; Lankford, 2233; Cardin-Wicker, 2478; Daines, 2449; and Scott, 2338, CBO inflation verification; further, that at 4:15 p.m. today, the Senate vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed, with no amendments in order to the amendments prior to a vote in relation to the amendments, with 60 affirmative votes required for adoption of the amendments listed, with up to 4 minutes equally divided prior to the first four votes and up to 7 minutes for Senator Scott of Florida and 2 minutes for opponents prior to the Scott vote. Mr. President, let me amend that request to 4:25--not 4:15 but 4:25. I ask unanimous consent to make that modification.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I ask the clock not start running right away. Senator Capito and I want to just raise an issue with the Chair and our colleagues. That last vote took about 50 minutes--50 minutes--and they are getting longer, not shorter. And Senator Capito and I want to use this as an opportunity just to start a conversation amongst our colleagues, see if we can't do better than that, maybe a lot better than that. So start thinking about it, and we would be interested to hear from you.

Mr. CARPER. You never know. We might do some voice votes. That would be good. All right. We thank you.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, we have had two votes in this tranche; first vote about 50 minutes from start to close and the second vote about 25 minutes. We are going to propound a unanimous consent request--and I am tempted to do it right now--to try to figure out what would be reasonable. My sense is that maybe 15 minutes would be reasonable but a real 15 minutes, and we will start with that.

Mr. CARPER. Any objection? A SENATOR. Without objection.

Mr. CARPER. All right. Madam President, I would ask that we make it a 15-minute vote, a real 15-minute vote. Thank you.

Mr. CARPER. Yield back.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, Senator Capito and I have a couple of comments we would like to offer before we start on this amendment with Senator Lee, and that is we have consulted with both leaders, with Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell. They are in agreement that 15 minutes firm is the vote. So when we start this vote, folks have 15 minutes to get here after we start the vote to vote, and if they are not here, they are too late. So that is the idea. We have spent way too much time waiting for people. We have three amendments lined up, and we are going to vote them and be punctual. Senator Capito.

Mr. CARPER. Thank you. I would just ask any staff and Members who are watching, staff, let your Senators know it is 15 minutes, and that is it. Amendment Nos. 2279 and 2358 to Amendment No 2137

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by our colleague from Utah. This amendment would undermine the National Environmental Policy Act, also known as NEPA, by allowing States to assume responsibility for undertaking complex reviews of Federal action. These are reviews that Congress vested explicitly in the Federal Agencies that permit or license projects that could adversely affect our environment. NEPA is designed to ensure that Federal Agencies consider major actions carefully to ensure those decisions do not unduly impact water quality, endangered species, community well-being, air quality, and other environmental resources. NEPA is a critical analytical tool that ensures that Federal decision makers are better informed and that the affected community has an opportunity to engage and be heard. Today, as the world is in the midst of a sixth great extinction event, and climate change is having ever greater impacts on our natural world, we should be making decisions more carefully than ever, not just to improve outcomes but also to avoid wasting money on projects that are not resilient to withstand climate change. This amendment would instead turn over responsibility for that critical analysis to the States. The bill before us includes many environmental deregulatory provisions--more, in fact, than many of us would prefer. However, it has been drafted in the spirit of bipartisan compromise. This bill, as drafted, includes provisions to set deadlines for project review schedule in order to reduce project review timelines. It provides or expands categorical exclusions from NEPA. It also permanently authorizes the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council. Unlike these provisions, which were the product of committee deliberation and compromise, the amendment that our friend from Utah has offered would significantly alter the process for Federal environmental review without any committee deliberation on such major changes. These sweeping changes are inappropriate and unwarranted, and I urge our colleagues to join me in voting no.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, let me just take a minute from Senator Capito to explain what is going on. OK? So lined up right now, we are going to do three voice votes. Negotiations are going forward on an amendment from Senator Schumer, related to the Commerce Committee's jurisdiction. And after that, I think the last vote will be that of Senator Fischer, and we will be done. And the reason why that is delayed is in order to provide time for negotiation to occur on the Schumer amendment with the Commerce Committee, and I think we are just about resolved. I don't like it. It is what it is. I just want to thank all for your patience. We are close to the end. I would just ask, when we ask for a voice vote on the amendment from Senator Jacky Rosen, that we get a voice vote. And I would ask that when we ask for a voice vote on the Carper-Inhofe amendment, we get a voice vote. And beyond that, we will be halfway home, halfway home. So thank you for your patience. We are almost there.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, let me have order. Let me have order, please.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up to the substitute and be reported by number: Carper-Inhofe 2564, Bennet-Hoeven 2548; further, that the Senate vote in relation to the amendments in the order listed, with no amendments in order to the amendments prior to voting in relation to the amendments, with up to 2 minutes equally divided prior to each vote.