Thomas Carper

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, 7 years ago, the Government Accountability Office included in its recommendations--something called the High Risk List--a way for us to stop wasting money, which was not to send checks to dead people. It was called improper payments to deceased. The GAO said there was a way to fix this, a way to stop this, and it proposed a way to stop it. I worked with the late Tom Coburn to craft and introduce that idea from the GAO into legislation. It cleared the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee not once, not twice, not three times but, I think, four times. Since the departure of Tom Coburn, it has been cosponsored by other Republicans, including, most recently, by John Kennedy of Louisiana. Improper payments are a huge deal for our Federal Government. The Government Accountability Office tells us that, last year, improper payments, overpayments, mistaken payments, and so forth were about $150 billion. That is billion with a ``b.'' The GAO thinks we ought to do something about it, and it has been thinking we ought to have done something about it for a long time. The person who is the leader of the Government Accountability Office is a fellow named Gene Dodaro. He has been the Comptroller General for, I think, gosh, a decade or more. I was talking to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro the other night. It was right after it was reported last week that Treasury had sent out $1.4 billion worth of checks to people who were deceased. It actually sent out checks with the word ``deceased'' printed on the checks for all of these dead people, and one of the people who got a check marked ``deceased'' was Comptroller General Gene Dodaro's mother who died in 2018. I happened to be on the phone last Thursday--I was talking to somebody on my cell phone--when I got interrupted by a call from a woman in Delaware whom I knew. She was calling to say: I just heard on MSNBC that Treasury sent $1.4 billion worth of checks to dead people. Why don't you do something about it? We have been talking and thinking about doing something about it for a long time, and we are still talking about doing something about it. I think the time has come to do something about it. That is sort of where we are at this point in time. I understand this has been discussed off the floor for a little bit, and maybe one of our colleagues has an objection to the consideration of this bill by unanimous consent. It ain't like it hasn't been out there for people to raise objections to it, to raise concerns. They have had 7 years in which to do that, and for 7 years, the GAO has said to please fix this part of the improper payments program. This doesn't fix $150 billion, but it certainly is a good start. I don't know anybody in his right mind who would say we should send checks and continue to send checks to folks who are deceased. It just makes no sense. It didn't make sense in 2013, when the idea was first presented on the High Risk List by the GAO, and it doesn't make sense today.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his work, his efforts, and his tenacity. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Good afternoon, Mr. President and colleagues. I rise today to highlight some recent work that we have done on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that could help not hundreds, not thousands, not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but millions of Americans save some money when filing their Federal income tax returns this year and in future years. As the ranking member of the subcommittee called the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the Senate, my staff and I worked closely with a fellow named Rob Portman of Ohio, who is the chairman of our subcommittee, and with his team. He put us all in a room together-- Senator Portman's team, Republicans; our team, Democrats--and wonder who is who and whose side they are on. You wouldn't know one side from the other. It is sort of like the Presiding Officer and I working together on recycling issues, with his team and mine. Senator Portman and I, along with our staffs, studied big problems and big challenges facing Americans in America. We tried to identify commonsense solutions in a truly bipartisan, almost nonpartisan approach. That has characterized the work of the subcommittee not just for a couple of years but for decades. For years, I have heard the following question over and over again back home, and the Presiding Officer probably has too. People in Delaware and I am sure in the Presiding Officer's State asked this question: Why can't you all work together in Washington and get something done? That is what we do on our Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. We work together, and I think we get a lot done. It is our bread and butter. I want to talk for a few minutes today about some of the work here on the Senate floor. Over the past year, our subcommittee has examined a whole bunch of issues, and one of those issues is relating to the IRS Free File Program. Earlier this week, we released a short staff memorandum laying out our findings. Over the next couple of minutes, I want to explain the genesis and the importance of the Free File Program, what our subcommittee learned about it, and some of the things Congress and the IRS could do to improve the program and better serve taxpayers. I say to the Presiding Officer, I don't know if back in your home State you do townhall meetings, but I guess you have done a bunch of them. I did a bunch of them especially when I was a Congressman-- hundreds of them--and as Governor and even now. When I was a Congressman, every year we used to--we only have three counties in my State. The Presiding Officer has a lot more in his. Once every year, a month or so before the tax-filing deadline, usually March, I would host townhall meetings in each of our counties, and we would invite the IRS to come, along with the State Division of Revenue, to participate. We would offer to the people of Delaware the opportunity to ask questions not just of me and my staff but of the IRS and the State Division of Revenue about tax returns that were being filed. It was something I loved. I love helping people, and I know the Presiding Officer does as well. It was a real chance to help people in a timely way. If you take that idea--and that was an idea for, I will say, the 20th century, a 20th century idea, and it was a good idea. But we have a 21st-century idea, and it is called the Free File Program. That is what I want to focus on now. Some people might be asking: What in the heck is the Free File Program anyway? Going back to 1998--I was Governor then, and I think our Presiding Officer might have been a House Member. I am not sure. But Congress directed the IRS to work with the tax preparation industry to create a way for Americans to file their taxes electronically. This is around the time when the first version of search engines like Yahoo! and Google were being developed and coming forward. Email addresses and web portals, like America Online, were rapidly expanding the availability of internet services not just for homes but for schools and other places too. Suddenly, it was possible to do a whole lot of things on the internet for the first time, including filing our taxes electronically. Free File is the program that grew out of a mandate Congress issued, and taxpayers were first able to take advantage of the program in 2002. So my guess is the mandate from Congress to the IRS to make this program available was about two decades ago, and the first time taxpayers were able to take advantage of that was a couple of years later, in 2002. The program is really a partnership between the IRS on the one hand and tax preparation companies, like H&R Block and Intuit, to offer complete and free online tax preparation and filing services--not to all Americans but to most. Sixty percent was the original goal, the original target. Today, it is available to about 70 percent of all Americans. This year, most taxpayers earning less than $69,000 could use Free File to file their taxes for free. That is why we call it Free File. I will say that again. This year, most taxpayers earning less than $69,000 could use Free File to file their taxes for free. A lot of times, when you hear somebody offer you something for nothing, for free, you say: Well, I am not sure I would want to do that. This is one that a whole bunch of taxpayers--about 100 million of them, in fact--can take real advantage of because according to the IRS, over 100 million taxpayers are eligible to use this program, Free File. Over 100 million taxpayers can file their Federal taxes for free. One might ask: Well, how do they do that? All they have to do is to visit this website to get started. The website--I am looking to see where that website is listed. I don't see it here. Maybe it is on the back. I don't think it is back there either, but I will just say it. Here it is. All they have to do is visit this website to get started: IRS.gov/ FreeFile. That is it. That is a mouthful, isn't it? That is IRS.gov/ FreeFile. As much as I do it--it is this close. There it is: IRS.gov/FreeFile. I am blind. There it is. To my staff who prepared this for us, thank you. From there, whoever clicks on this address can choose to visit the individual Free File website of one of several companies offering this service and choose the one that works best for them. It sounds pretty simple, even to me. But only a few million taxpayers out of 100 million who are eligible use the program every year. Clearly, we can do better than this. On our subcommittee, we started looking into Free File about a year ago, after reading news reports alleging that some of the companies that participated in the program were making it harder, not easier, for taxpayers to find their Free File websites. This is important, colleagues. This is important because very few taxpayers go directly to the IRS.gov address that I mentioned right here--website. Instead, when most taxpayers are ready to file their taxes, they use search engines like Google, and they type in phrases like ``free online tax filing'' or ``free tax return.'' For search terms like these, Google might return thousands, maybe millions, of results. Those results could oftentimes be confusing. Imagine that you are trying to get some information, and you get thousands of ideas from searching on Google. That can often be very confusing or just too much for a lot of us to try to wade through. On top of that, we were able to confirm that 5 of the 12 companies that participated in the Free File Program in tax year 2018, 2 years ago--that includes H&R Block, Intuit, TaxHawk, Drake Software, and TaxSlayer--apparently took steps to actually prevent their Free File websites from even appearing in search results. So when someone searched on Google last year for free tax help, they were likely to land on the website for one of the heavily advertised commercial tax filing products. Some of those commercial products have names that are similar to the names companies have given their Free File offerings. For example, H&R Block has a commercial product called Free Online, and Intuit has one called Turbo Tax Free Edition. These names sound a lot like the names given to the IRS Free File products, but they are not the same. In fact, there is no guarantee that they will actually be free, despite their names. I want to be clear. There is nothing wrong with Free File partner companies having their own successful commercial products and continuing to innovate. There is nothing wrong with that. I am told there are legitimate reasons someone might want to prevent a website from appearing in a Google search result. However, it is important that we make sure not to confuse taxpayers any more than they might already be confused when it comes to preparing their tax returns. It is also imperative to Senator Portman, his staff, and my staff that the lowest income taxpayers are able to access the free filing services that Congress wanted to be sure were available for them. It is too easy for a taxpayer to click on a search result that looks like a free filing option and wind up being charged for extra services they didn't want and, frankly, didn't need. In fact, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration estimates that more than 14 million taxpayers who qualified for the Free File Program used commercial software offered by a Free File partner company and may have paid a fee to file their 2018 Federal tax return when they did not need to do so. Just think about that. Fourteen million taxpayers could have filed their Federal tax returns completely free but instead ended up paying a fee. While it is entirely possible that some of those 14 million people knew they were using a commercial product and chose to pay more, many simply didn't know they might have a better option. We have an obligation to make sure they know about it. Both Congress and the IRS need to do more to make certain that taxpayers who are eligible for a free product and want a free product don't end up paying for something they should not have to pay for. It is that simple. So how did this happen? Well, we have learned that part of the blame belongs to the IRS, which apparently has designated only three full- time employees--think about that--for how many people we have in this country? Three hundred-plus million? The IRS has designated only three full-time employees to work on Free File and, I am told, has not conducted sufficient oversight over the program for years. For example, our Subcommittee on Investigations learned that the IRS has not completed a customer satisfaction survey for the Free File Program since 2009. That is 11 years. That is right--since 2009, even though the Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration recommended greater use of customer satisfaction surveys not last year or the year before that but as far back as 2007. Despite Americans' growing tendency to use search engines like Google to navigate the internet, the IRS and its Free File partner companies apparently never discussed online search practices until very recently. This allowed individual companies to make their own choices about how their Free File websites could be accessed. There is also the fact that the IRS has not had a marketing budget for the Free File Program in more than 6 years. When we asked IRS officials to explain the lack of marketing, they told us a couple of things. Here is one of the things we heard. They said: ``Well, it may have been an IRS budget decision as part of the broader reduction in spending the agency received over the last several years.'' He said ``as part of the broader reduction in spending.'' Actually, it was the broader reduction in appropriations the Agency received over the last several years. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration came to pretty much the same conclusion. Here is what we got from the Inspector General of the Treasury: The IRS was trying to ``save money and be more efficient.'' Well, we should make sure that we save American taxpayers money, no doubt, especially at a time when every dollar counts for our family and, frankly, for our government. With that said, what can Congress do? What is our role here in the Senate, in the House, in the Congress, and in the White House, in the executive branch of our government and Treasury? As senior members of the Finance Committee, Senator Portman and I have listened to former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, a great leader, and to the Government Accountability Office led by Gene Dodaro, a wonderful Comptroller General. We listened to them lament the fact that, for years Congress has appropriated the IRS with far less money than it needs to provide adequate tax enforcement and good customer service, as well as to better ensure that all Federal taxpayers are paying their fair share to fund our government and meet our many obligations. Despite a recent bump up in funding for the IRS in the past year, since fiscal year 2010--so over the last decade--funding for the IRS overall has declined by $3.1 billion, after accounting for inflation, while the number of individual taxpayers has increased by 13 million. That makes no sense to me. My guess is it doesn't make much sense to most people. Let's listen to that again. Funding for the IRS--our job is to appropriate money, among other things. Funding for the IRS, overall, has declined by over $3 billion, after accounting for inflation, while the number of individual taxpayers who need to be served, who have questions to ask and tax returns to submit--that number has gone up by 13 million people. These IRS budget cuts have impaired both tax enforcement and taxpayer service operations. For example, reduced funding has led to a reduction in the number of employees assigned to answer telephone calls. The inevitable result is fewer taxpayer calls answered, longer wait times to get through to the IRS representative, and a lot of needless frustrations from the people we and the IRS are serving, the people who have sent us here to work for them. All of this was before the coronavirus pandemic forced the IRS to send thousands of its employees home. So as I prepare to wrap up here today, let me say to all of our colleagues, those who are gathered here and those who are not--our colleagues both here in the Senate and in the House of Representatives at the other end of this building--while it is important that we ask why the IRS didn't do a better job of overseeing the Free File Program and make clear that it must do more, it is equally important that we in the legislative branch of government and in the administration--this administration and future administrations--provide the IRS with the tools and resources it needs to do the important job it does. The last time the IRS had a marketing budget for their Free File Program, it spent between $750,000 and $1.5 million marketing the program annually to, gosh, probably 200--over 100 million--we will say close to 200 million taxpayers. That sounds like a lot of money, but when you are talking about over 100 million taxpayers, it doesn't go that far. I am not sure that is a big enough budget given the large number of taxpayers who seem to be unaware of Free File. Even a modest amount of funding would go a long way toward ensuring that millions of eligible taxpayers do not have to pay a dime to file their taxes online. Well, colleagues, my staff and my other colleagues often hear me say these--I think they are called aphorisms. One of my favorites is, find out what works and do more of that. Think about it. Find out what works. Do more of that. Well, we found out on our subcommittee how we can strengthen and support this Free File Program. Let's do it. Let's not just talk about it. Let's not just complain about it. Let's do it. Let's begin by doing our part to provide--this year and in the years that follow--the IRS with the resources it needs and, where necessary, the additional guidance it needs to make Free File work the way we intended it to work almost two decades ago. Another thing I would like to say is that in adversity lies opportunity. Think about that. I wish I could claim that as my own. That is Einstein. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the filing deadline for taxpayers has been pushed back, as we know, to July 15-- not April 15, a month or a month and a half ago, but July 15. Here is what that means. It means we have--taxpayers have--we have more time to get the word out, the IRS has more time to get the word out to eligible Americans that they can file their taxes for free--more time to get the word out to eligible Americans that they can file their taxes for free. Get the word out to whom? To tens of millions of American taxpayers. I want to encourage all eligible taxpayers to visit IRS.gov/ freefile--right here--IRS.gov/freefile--to ensure that they have access to the free resources that are available to them. I would also ask everyone to help spread the word. Talk to your friends. Talk to your family. When you are cooped up at home and you can't go anyplace, you are still locked down in quarantine, what will you talk about? Talk about Free File; say: Here is a way we maybe could save some money, and our friends could too--instead of taking a different course. That is it. I will close with this. I like movies. I know the Presiding Officer likes movies. One of my alltime favorite movies and our colleague who has joined us, from Alaska, one of his alltime favorite movies--he has talked about it many times--is ``Back to the Future.'' This is, in a way, back to the future. Back when I first got to the House, we used to do this--as I said before Senator Sullivan and Senator Cruz came to the floor--I talked about how every year, in every county in Delaware, we would do--there are only three counties--we would actually do townhall meetings, and we would have folks in from the IRS and from the State Division of Revenue to actually help people prepare and file their taxes. We don't do that anymore. Actually, we have something that is even better, a whole lot better, and it is this Free File Program that the IRS has. It is available, if people just knew about it. I will close with these words. I wish I could claim this as well. I wonder who said this. Maybe one of our smart pages--if our pages were here, I would ask one of the pages to figure it out. Have you ever heard the saying: If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, is there really a noise? Think about that. If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, is there really a noise? Well, if we have a great program through the IRS to help millions and millions of people file their taxes for free and they don't know about it, is there really a benefit? I think, arguably, not. We can do something about that. Let's do it. I yield the floor to my friend from Alaska.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, the bill before us today, the Great American Outdoors Act, is landmark legislation. It would fulfill a longstanding promise to the American people to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This measure will also make a downpayment on deferred maintenance plans of our Nation's beloved public lands, which includes over 400 national parks. It also includes more than 500 national wildlife refuges that are under the jurisdiction of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on which I serve as ranking member. While I am proud to support the Great American Outdoors Act, we would be remiss if we did not put the Senate's consideration of this legislation in the context of everything else that is happening in our country today. As we have learned in the 15 days since the death of George Floyd, we also have other longstanding promises to fulfill. Let me mention four of them. The first is a promise of an end to racial violence in this country and a new beginning in the pursuit of racial justice. The second would be the promise of equality. The third would be the promise of a more perfect Union called for in our Constitution's preamble. The fourth, and last, would be the promise of a dream articulated nearly 57 years ago on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, not far from where we are gathered here today, by the late Martin Luther King. Our national and State parks have always been places that bring people from all backgrounds together. Our national historic sites and monuments commemorate the events that have forged and tested us as a nation, as well as the sacrifices that we have made in our quest to become that more perfect Union. They are also places from which people have called on their government, our government, for change and for equality. Yes, our national parks have served as places of protest, protected under the Constitution that Delaware was the first State to ratify on December 7, 1787. In fact, Delaware's national park, one of the newest in the Nation, was created, in large part, to celebrate that history. The recent murders of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville have sparked, as we know, widespread civil unrest. From coast to coast, millions of Americans have come together to protest the deaths of unarmed Black Americans and to call for change, to call for justice, and to call for racial equality. In Washington, DC, some of those demonstrations have taken place in our National Park System. Lafayette Square, the site of gassing and the troubling use of crowd dispersion devices last week in response to a peaceful demonstration, has seen its share of protests and turmoil. In its history, before the marble monuments it now contains, the square served as a slave market, and it housed troops during the War of 1812 when the White House and the U.S. Capitol--this Capitol--were burned. Today, and nearly every day, people are gathered in Lafayette Square in front of the White House, calling for action, as we debate the bill before us. But in January and February of 1917, women staged 2 months of protests out of a row house located on Lafayette Square in the pursuit of women's suffrage--the right to vote, one of our most sacred privileges. Other national park sites in Washington have been front and center of the calls for racial justice in the last several days: the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial, and one of our newest national historic sites, the memorial to Martin Luther King, who taught our country about the power of peaceful protests. These places inspire us. They allow our voices to be heard, but they also give us strength; they give us solace; and they give us the opportunity to heal. The bill before us today helps us to ensure that our public lands remain places where we can remember, where we can reflect, and we can recharge. Sometimes when I speak on the Senate floor, I share anecdotes from my morning runs. A number of them over the years have been on the National Mall as I run from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and then past the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, etched with the names of over 58,000 men and women with whom I served in Southeast Asia. No matter how tired I might be when I get up in the morning, when I begin those runs, as I pass and pause at each of these places, I feel inspired, I feel rejuvenated, and I feel more determined than ever to take up our work in service to the American people who sent us here. Interestingly, I have heard a similar sentiment from the hundreds of Delawareans who have asked me to support this legislation before us today. Many of our parks provide visitors a place to reflect, to reconnect, and to enjoy the beauties of nature. That is, in no small part, because of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Many of our colleagues know that Delaware has a proud history as the First State--the First State National Historical Park, which we worked for a decade to create not long ago, tells the story of the role Delaware played in the establishment of our country. Our national park is unique, with historical sites in all three of Delaware's counties that connect our communities, much like our State parks do What you may not know, though, is that the first land acquisition through the State side of the Land and Water Conservation Program in this country occurred in Delaware. Brandywine Creek State Park, located just north of Wilmington, DE--my hometown--was established in 1965. At the time of this monumental acquisition, there was not much of a State park system in Delaware and certainly not in New Castle County, our northernmost county. Since that time, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has enabled the purchase and development of many additional State parks that are crown jewels in all three counties of the First State. I will mention a few of them: White Clay Creek, Cape Henlopen, Fox Point, Bellevue, Killens Pond, and many more. For us in Delaware, these spaces are places of community. People from all walks of life come to these parks for many different reasons. Some come to fish, others to bike, others to hike, play sports, fly kites, swim, go birding, learn, enjoy picnics, and enjoy concerts. Those are just some of the reasons why people come to our national parks--not just from Delaware, not just from America but from all over the world. Some of the parks I have just mentioned might exist without the Land and Water Conservation Fund, but without it, they would not be the community cornerstones that they are today. When a park is revitalized, it can become the nerve center of a community and create new opportunities to bring us together. In many cases, we have seen just that happen in our State. For example, Bellevue State Park--located not far from our home--has been home to a community garden program for decades, providing a place for families like my own when our sons were young who may not have a lot of land on which to grow their own fruits and vegetables. In 2017, just 3 years ago, the city of Wilmington was awarded an LWCF grant to improve Father Tucker Park, which had been in disrepair for decades. The park is vital for play, for cultural gatherings, and sports activities. It is now a valuable hub of that community. Further, the Land and Water Conservation Fund enabled the first public pool in Kent County at the Killens Pond State Park, 10 miles south of Dover. It is now the Killens Pond Water Park, and it has grown quite popular with residents from across Kent County and well beyond Kent County's borders. This legislation also helps us to bring economic activity to our communities, something that people might not think of at first blush. In Delaware, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has enabled an incredible network of greenways and trails that connect community facilities and institutions with businesses. People come from all over the country to ride, to run, and to walk on them. Basic investment in preservation of land and investment in paths and trails is a tangible community building enterprise. People can get on their bicycle in downtown Wilmington, ride through the city and out into the suburbs and to the Delaware River in Fox Point State Park, just 3 miles from our home. I might add, there is another one, too, from the train station where I caught the train this morning to come down here. There is the Jack Markell Trail that links the riverfront in Wilmington, DE, to New Castle, DE, where Ben Franklin first landed and brought with him the deeds to Delaware and Pennsylvania. Those paths that I just mentioned expand horizons; they connect people to each other; and they create common ground in our communities. The Delaware State Parks Youth Conservation Corps even provides jobs and environmental restoration opportunities throughout our parks for young people from all backgrounds. What is more, our Delaware State parks offer free summer concerts. These concert series attract different generations and diverse audiences. While the 2020 summer concert series was, unfortunately, canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Delaware State parks have remained open, and, get this, our State has waived entrance fees. As it became clear that physical location was key to preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus, Delawareans, especially those in urban areas, sought solitude in our parks. For many, connecting with nature was critical for mental wellness, and, now, making that connection has grown more popular than ever. One example of that is Brandywine Creek State Park. Located just a few miles south of our border with Pennsylvania, it has seen record visitation this year. As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, I have heard from hundreds of constituents in support of the Great American Outdoors Act. Many of them have shared stories about their treasured moments in State and national parks, particularly during troubled times. I want to close my remarks today by sharing one of those stories from a friend, as it turns out, the executive director of Delaware Wild Lands, and her name is Kate Hackett. About a year and a half ago, Kate, along with her family and another family, traveled to a place called Big Bend National Park in the State of Texas. This park is on the U.S.- Mexican border, as some of you know. These two families were distressed by what was happening along our borders and wanted to visit border towns to experience their humanity themselves. As the two families hiked along the Rio Grande River, Kate's friend sang her favorite lullaby, not in English but in Spanish. Her song echoed in the canyon. When she paused, an unknown voice from across the border emerged with the next verse of the same song. These two strangers--divided by the depths of a canyon--alternated verses, savoring a shared experience, regardless of borders, regardless of race, regardless of languages. I was moved at the time to hear how Kate was able to use her family's outdoor experience that day. I am still moved today to hear about how that day taught her children a lesson in compassion, a lesson in humanity, and a lesson in acceptance of us all. As the soul of our Nation continues to be tested, I hope the legislation before us--the Great American Outdoors Act--might somehow provide similar opportunities for others. In fact, I challenge all of us to make sure that it does just that. Most importantly, I also sincerely hope we will soon fulfill at least two other longstanding promises--for equality and justice--that are critical for the future of this country and our democracy. Our public lands can be part of a greater, multifaceted solution that brings equity and opportunity to all of our committees from sea to shining sea. In the midst of all the turmoil we face in America today lies opportunity. It is our job to find that opportunity and to work together to move this country, which we love and revere, as imperfect as we are, forward. That is our challenge, and that is our opportunity I don't know a lot of Latin, but I do know two words, maybe a few more. My two favorites are these: Carpe diem, seize the day. This week we have the opportunity on this floor to seize the day. Right over your head where you are sitting are some other Latin words: e pluribus unum--from many, one. That is what this country is all about. I think this legislation--maybe not something we would have thought of--can actually help make those words not just Latin words carved in stone but a reality. With that, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the Securing America's Clean Fuels Infrastructure Act, which I am introducing today with my good friend, the senior Senator from Tennessee. Our legislation would improve and expand the existing Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Investment Tax Credit, which is commonly known as ``30C.'' The Securing America's Clean Fuels Infrastructure Act is about giving Americans a real choice when it comes to transportation, and it's about economic opportunity at a time when Americans need it most. On America's roads and highways today, gas stations are rarely farther than the next corner or next exit. That's not necessarily true for cleaner fuels. In order to meet our clean air and climate goals and lead the world in clean vehicle manufacturing, Americans must have greater access to hydrogen refueling and electric charging stations. Our legislation improves upon current tax credits to better incentivize companies to make investments today--rather than later--in the construction of clean fuel vehicle infrastructure nationwide. Currently, 30C provides a 30 percent investment tax credit for alternative fuel vehicle refueling property, which includes electric charging stations and hydrogen refueling stations. This tax credit expires on December 31, 2020. Today, the 30C investment tax credit, as it is structured and interpreted by the Internal Revenue Service, only allows the credit to be used on a per-location basis rather than on a per-device basis, which means that only one charging station per public parking garage could qualify for the credit. That current structure and interpretation of the credit makes it difficult to finance multiple charging or refueling stations at one location, or to finance expansions of one location in the future. The Securing America's Clean Fuels Infrastructure Act makes clear that the 30C investment tax credit can be applied to each item of refueling property (such as each charger) rather than per location. Additionally, the current $30,000 cap on business investments does not provide adequate support for the installation of today's fast- charging electric vehicle stations or hydrogen refueling stations. The Securing America's Clean Fuels Infrastructure Act increases the 30C investment tax cap for business investments from $30,000 to $200,000 for each item of refueling property. Finally, this legislation will also extend the credit for eight more years, to December 31, 2028, ensuring that the business community has the certainty needed to make long-term investments in clean fuels infrastructure. Our legislation is a commonsense way Congress can spur economic investments in our nation's aging infrastructure, help reduce transportation pollution, and support the millions of Americans that are considering buying a clean car today or in the future. That is why this bipartisan legislation has won broad support from the business and environmental communities. This is legislation that I commend to my colleagues for their serious consideration.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. My staff was nice enough to put this at the end of this statement. I would get in trouble if I don't include it. Once again, to Cesarina and all of her coworkers at Westside Family Healthcare, as well as the many healthcare workers in Delaware and America--throughout America--working on the frontlines of this pandemic today and every day, we salute you. We are forever grateful for the work you are doing to keep the rest of us safe and healthy. As the Presiding Officer is a military veteran, Army, I am a veteran as well, Navy, and the last Vietnam veteran serving in the Senate now that we do not have John McCain. I am not sure what they say in the Army when people are doing a good job, but in the Navy we say two words, ``Bravo Zulu.'' That means ``good going.'' In your case, grateful. Keep up the good work, Cesarina and all the other viewers across our country, whether they be native- born Americans or folks who become Americans by choice. Thank you for giving me that extra dispensation. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CARPER. Tom Cotton. One of the TCs. We lost a really good TC, Tom Coburn, whom Senator Lankford knows passed away about a month and a half ago. It was a great loss to our country, to his State, and someone whom we will always celebrate here and revere for his dedication and his commitment and the example he set for all of us. We are glad the Presiding Officer is alive and well. I am going to ask him if I can proceed with my comments.

Mr. CARPER. To my colleague James Lankford, who keeps a tab on his colleagues, do you know if any of our colleagues today is celebrating a birthday?

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today following Senator Lankford. I want to say a thing or two about Senator Lankford, who is good friend, good colleague. We sit together in committee. In fact, he succeeded Tom Coburn in the U.S. Senate. When Tom Coburn was leaving, he said: I am leaving, but you are getting somebody better than me, and his name is James Lankford. I don't know if he is any better, but he is a worthy successor. It is a privilege to serve with the Senator. I think he knows that. I spend a lot of my time here trying to find ways not where we differ or disagree but areas where we can agree. I like to say that sometimes we may not see eye to eye on every single policy, but we ought to agree on the principles. Among the principles as we approach 4.0--the next major legislation dealing with this crisis--I hope one of the principles we can agree on is if State and local governments are having massive losses of revenue that are attributable to this coronavirus crisis, then they deserve help in terms of replacing lost revenue. I will give you a couple of examples. Delaware Transportation Trust Fund--we get a lot of revenues from tolls, and I am told by our Secretary of Transportation that our toll revenue is down by over 50 percent. Gasoline sales and moneys that we derive from motor fuel taxes are also down, as I recall, by more than 50 percent. It is not just Delaware, as we try to build our roads, highways, and bridges throughout the country and rebuild our infrastructure, improve our service transportation infrastructure, but States across the country are getting not just whacked but really destroyed with respect to our ability to continue our transportation infrastructure programs as well. I think that is an area that we ought to be able to agree on. The folks at Moody's every month gives us an update on how States are doing--the revenue stream, their spending stream--so we have an idea to compare this May to last May, maybe this past April to last April, and to actually see where the revenue loss is occurring and for us to do something about that. I think we can find agreement there. Another area we can find agreement on is when folks in States and local governments are incurring costs that directly relate to the pandemic--healthcare providers, the doctors and nurses, folks who are like orderlies and all kinds of folks who are in nursing homes, in the trenches. Public health, first responders, firefighters, EMTs are doing that kind of work, and States are spending a lot more money to help put them out on the streets and in nursing homes doing the job. We have an obligation to help States and local governments to deal with those. Another thing I hope we will do is focus on training and retraining programs. Unfortunately, too many businesses that are closed now will not reopen. There are a lot of people who have skills that made them employable to existing businesses that are no longer in existence. We need to be focused on the jobs that are out there that need to be filled and people need to be trained in. Why don't we focus our retraining dollars, Federal dollars, and marry those up with State dollars to address that need? Those are just a couple of ideas that I think we need to focus on. I hope we will work with the Governors and work with State and local officials, including mayors and county executives, and find common ground. I think there is plenty of common ground. I look forward to working with Democrats and Republicans alike here and across the country to identify that. I say that as a recovering Governor, who was once privileged to lead the National Governors Association. My hope is we can work closely with them, bipartisan leadership there. If we can't do that, shame on us. I think we can. That is not why I came to the floor. I didn't come here to join Senator Lankford in celebrating your birthday. Now that I am here, I am happy to note it and salute that Immigrant Healthcare Heroes Mr. President, I came today to honor the immigrant healthcare heroes on the frontlines in this battle against coronavirus. I want to begin by thanking our majority whip, Dick Durbin, a senior citizen. Don't tell him I said that. His staff is right here on the floor. The senior Senator from Illinois, he and I came to the House together a million years ago, in 1982. Maybe someday he will be a senior citizen as well. I want to thank him--all kidding aside--for leading the charge and bringing much deserved recognition for this extra group of Americans. Across this country of ours, every day there are doctors, there are nurses, there are medical support staff, there are healthcare workers, caretakers, and others who are getting up every day, leaving their own families and going to work on behalf of members of other families. Too often, these men and women are doing so at great personal risk to their own health and, as it turns out, to the health of the ones they love. Despite the grave risks to themselves, these heroes and heroines are undeterred. Day in and day out, week in and week out they continue to serve others and continue to demonstrate, by their own courage, what leadership by example is all about. For that, we are deeply grateful. Something that most Americans may not know is that one in six healthcare and social service workers--one in six--in this country are immigrants. When you add them all up, that is 3.1 million people who have chosen to make the United States their home and are giving back to their country, this country now, in profound ways. They are not a number. They are not a statistic. They are caring, courageous members of our own communities and of their own communities. Over the last 3\1/2\ years--and even before that on the campaign trail--we heard Donald Trump and many other people around him demonize immigrants. He has used fearmongering to claim that immigrants and Dreamers--the young people here when they were kids, maybe younger than kids--the President spent a lot of time fearmongering to claim that those immigrants and Dreamers are going to take all of our jobs away. That just isn't true. I know a bunch of those Dreamers. A lot of them are students at Delaware State University. They are students, young people, whom any parent would be proud to claim as their own. They are some of the finest young people I have met here or anyplace around the world. While many Americans are rightly following stay-at-home orders, these men and women are often putting their own health and safety at risk to do some of the most critical jobs every day. I believe it is important that we recognize these immigrant healthcare heroes who are playing a truly critical role in the fight to protect their fellow Americans. I mentioned a minute ago that there are 3.1 million healthcare and social service workers in our country. Today, I want to highlight the story of one of them. Her name is Cesarina Ramirez. She is standing right here over my left shoulder. She is a nurse. She is a nurse at one of Delaware's federally qualified community health centers. It is called Westside Family Healthcare. We only have three counties in Delaware. They are in Northern Delaware, New Castle County, where two- thirds of our residents live, and also in Kent County, which is where Dover is, the capital of our State, and Dover Air Force Base, the finest Air Force base in the world. Westside Family Care, like the nearly 1,400 federally qualified community health centers across the country, helps to deliver quality, primary care services in underserved areas every day. Every day--without a lot of fanfare or acclaim--they do what my mother used to call the Lord's work. That is what she used to call it, the Lord's work. Cesarina and her colleagues in Wilmington have been serving our community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. I want to take the next several minutes to share with my colleagues and the American people a part of her story, why she became a healthcare worker and why she continues this work now, serving a largely--but not entirely--Spanish- speaking population, even during the hardest of times like the times we are living in today. What I am going to do in the next several minutes is share with you Cesarina's story. It is not in my words; it is in her words. This is what she looks like. She works in Wilmington, DE, not that far from where my wife and I live. I probably met her a time or two. I didn't recognize her because she had her mask on here today. Delaware is a little State, so you meet just about everybody. Here is her story--in her words. My name is Cesarina Ramirez, and I was born in the Dominican Republic. My family came to the United States when I was seven years old, and I'm the oldest out of my 3 siblings. My father was a doctor in the Dominican Republic and my mother was a teacher. As my dad got older and started his family, he couldn't help but notice all the corruption and crime that there was in Dominican Republic. He wanted the American dream for his kids. As did his wife. So, he decided to leave everything behind and move to the land of opportunities: the United States of America. My dad became a taxi driver. He was working overnight while going to school in the mornings. After 3 years of hard work, he graduated with an Associate's Degree in Radiology. Both of my parents are deceased now, but their courage and work ethic live on in each [of] their children. My siblings and I could not be more grateful for their unselfish decision they made for us. I have been working for 10 years at Westside Family Healthcare, where I'm a team medical nurse. I educate patients about medical conditions to help them identify lifestyle changes that can benefit their overall health and goals The one thing that I love the most about my job is that I'm able to make a difference in someone else's life. As the years passed, I quickly learned about the Spanish interpretation among our patient population. As a Hispanic and with Spanish being my first language, I recognize that sometimes it is easier for a patient to speak in their native language when it comes to medical concerns. I like that I can be the voice of the patient, and their number one advocate. I have observed instances of patients receiving care from a provider that has the same cultural background and speaks the same language, resulting in positive health care outcomes. In these cases, the patients appear relaxed, are willing to ask necessary questions to obtain knowledge and there is a mutual understanding of goals and plans to improve patient care. Taking care of patients is a privilege. I think it is a privilege to serve the people of Delaware and our country. She feels that way about her patients. Looking at the difference in the amount of help that can be provided to the community has truly been an inspiration to work hard and try to be the best nurse I could be. That is the end, if you will, of what she has said. I wanted to share that with all of you today. I don't know if Cesarina will see these proceedings or hear my words or hear her words through me, but I want to say thank you for that message, Cesarina. Thank you for all you are doing to serve our community in Delaware, even during these most difficult and challenging times. The United States and the first State are more than lucky. We are blessed that you are on our team in this fight against the coronavirus. To all the other immigrant healthcare heroes who are serving their fellow Americans throughout this country--and to those who are fortunate enough to have been born here and serve--we salute you. We salute you. We thank you for looking out for the rest of us so that we might enjoy the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are better for having you here among us. We appreciate the lifesaving care you are providing for so many of us. If you are out there hearing the sound of my voice and you are an immigrant, a healthcare hero, or if you know someone who is, I would encourage you to share your story with us on Twitter or Facebook. Just use the hashtag ``immigrant healthcare hero.'' I am going to say that again. Use the hashtag ``immigrant healthcare hero.'' We would love to highlight your story and thank you as well. I don't see anyone else waiting to salute you on your birthday and commend you. Not seeing anyone, I will 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. President, before the Senator from Oklahoma leaves the floor, may I ask a question of him?

Mr. CARPER. What are his initials?

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Madam President, before our colleague and friend from Missouri leaves the floor, I want to thank him for a very thoughtful presentation. I want to thank him for that and for his leadership. I know he has other places to go. I am glad I was here to hear that. I wasn't sure if I would continue wearing my mask. I saw the Presiding Officer was wearing theirs and I said: Well, I will keep wearing mine, too. All our staff on the floor, including one of the staff who takes down our words for the Congressional Record and folks who accept documents at the desk in front of us are all wearing masks. I was wearing a mask earlier today going into a markup at a business meeting in the Environment and Public Works Committee. They were also wearing masks. As I was about to go into the business meeting, there was a Capitol police officer there. I said to her: How are you doing today? She said: I am doing fine. I said: Any idea how many of our Capitol police officers have been infected and developed symptoms or had the virus at some point in recent weeks? She said: I believe it is somewhere between 15 and 20. This came as a surprise to me. We haven't heard that much about it. I have been here to vote several times this afternoon. I was coming here to say a few words about legislation we passed unanimously out of the Environment and Public Works Committee. I was passing a number of Capitol police officers, people who clean the building, maintain the building, and folks who serve food in the cafeteria so that the people who are working here have something to eat. They were almost without exception wearing masks. The reason why it is important for us to do that is because they are at risk. We, as leaders, need to exhibit and lead by our example. I know my colleagues endeavor to do that. It is important. These are people who serve our country just as we do. They deserve not just our respect and our thanks, but they deserve our protection. For everybody for whom maybe it is something they are uncomfortable doing, not used to doing, like hand sanitizing, washing their hands every other hour or even more, these are good things, not just for us but for the people who are serving this country here with us in our Nation's Capital. I did come here today to say those words from my heart, and I wanted to share them with you and others.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. I have come today to talk about a couple of bills that the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works reported out today unanimously that would vastly improve our Nation's water infrastructure. What does infrastructure include? It includes the pipes that bring us our water or that take our wastewater where it can be treated. Infrastructure includes our dams, includes our harbors, our ports, our waterways--all that and a whole lot more. When we talk about improving our water infrastructure, what we are really talking about is keeping the promises afforded to every American through the Declaration of Independence. Remember those words: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? The legislation that we acted on today--the two bills that will be combined into one later on, on the floor--called the Water Resources Development Act, the underlying message is that our work today directly reflects those words in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Certainly, none of those things--life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness--are possible without access to clean water, whether it is to wash our hands or to drink. We can't have life without clean water to drink. The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us of that too--just how important it is to have access to clean water to wash our hands and soap to wash our hands. We are reminded daily--I would say almost hourly--to wash our hands with soap and water. It is a simple yet effective way to prevent the spread of this deadly, virulent disease. In our committee today, the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Sullivan from Alaska talked about the Native Americans who live in his State who don't have running water. They don't have a spigot to turn on. They don't even have the ability to flush toilets. For them, the idea that you can actually do those things is just a dream that they could never imagine being realized. The thing is that too many communities across our country do not have access to clean water because of harmful contamination in their groundwater or water supply pipes. Sadly, this public health disparity usually goes hand in hand with economic opportunity. While water is the essence of life, it is also an essential part of our economy. More than 99 percent of the U.S. overseas trade--more than 99 percent of U.S. overseas trade--moves through our waterways. Imagine that. Most people would never imagine that. Our Nation's water infrastructure, our ports, our shipping channels, and other related projects support economic growth, facilitate commerce, sustain jobs, and create new jobs as well. Americans cannot truly pursue happiness without the economic opportunity that comes with having strong water infrastructure, a lot of which we can't see--we have been joined on the floor by the chairman of our committee. There are pipes and wastewater treatment plants and the facilities that clean the water for us; we don't see those. Fortunately, somebody does--somebody builds them, somebody maintains them--in order for us to have that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Well, today, our committee, led by John Barrasso, Senator from Wyoming--I happen to have the privilege of being the ranking Democrat on that committee--we approved two bills that are going to help us keep those promises laid out in that Declaration of Independence--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2020 and the Drinking Water Infrastructure Act of 2020 will help the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency make improvements to key water infrastructure systems throughout our country. The programs we passed in our committee today will support the Army Corps of Engineers' operation and maintenance of--listen to this--13,000 miles of commercial, deep-draft ship channels--13,000 miles--and 12,000 miles of commercial inland waterways. I had explained earlier, Mr. Chairman, before you joined, how 99 percent of the cargo that we send to other countries or that comes to us comes by ship. It doesn't come by airplanes; it doesn't come by train. It comes by ships. Those ships don't move without waterways largely maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. These are little known projects that keep our economy moving. They are essential to our way of life as well. What comes into the Port of Los Angeles today will be on shelves in stores in the Midwest a day or so later. In Delaware, we have a port on the Delaware River. It is called the Port of Wilmington, not far from where my wife and I live. It supports more than 19,000 jobs in our region. For a big State, 19,000 jobs is not much. For Delaware, that is a huge deal. The Port of Wilmington is the United States' top seaport for fresh fruit imports. If you happen to live in the eastern part of the United States and you got up and had cereal this morning with some banana on your cereal, there is a good chance that that banana came through Port Wilmington. The Army Corps is working diligently with our port on an expansion project that will open a channel to a new containment facility just a couple miles north of the current port along the Delaware River. The Army Corps is responsible for dredging and maintaining access to this new channel which, over time, will support more commerce, more jobs for our region--not just for our State, but for our region. For such a small State, if you were to stand and draw a circle around the house where my wife and I live, in about a 10-mile radius, you cover New Jersey, you cover Pennsylvania, you get pretty darn close to Maryland as well. So the impact will be regional. In addition to authorizing necessary Corps projects, the two bills that we reported out of our committee today unanimously included authorizing the Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund for the first time since 1987. We used to be able to provide grant programs to fund water projects in States, to help fund water projects, to help fund wastewater treatment projects in our States, and we changed that when Ronald Reagan was President, and then we have these revolving loan funds. The Federal Government replenishes them every now and then. The States invest the money out of those funds, but we haven't reauthorized the Clean Water Revolving Fund which focuses less on drinking water and more on cleaning water, reducing the effluent it is putting out in our community. So many of our communities rely on these funds to improve their wastewater systems. In the drinking water bill, a corollary, we also authorized more than a half billion dollars to provide critical drinking water infrastructure through the Small and Disadvantaged Communities grant program. I just talked earlier, when I spoke of Senator Dan Sullivan's comments at our hearing today, we talked about Native American communities in his State who don't have flush toilets. In a number of cases, they don't turn on the faucets and the clean water just comes out. There are other communities, not just there, in my State at one time, not long ago, in other States where there are disadvantaged communities, and we have a grant program that we are going to use to help more and more of them--not all of them--and this will help us keep the promise of clean and safe drinking water, maybe not for every American, but more Americans, no matter what their ZIP Code is or what kind of bank account they have. I think of Matthew 25--I don't care what our faith is--Matthew 25 starts out with these words: When I was thirsty, did you give me a drink; when I was hungry, did you feed me? Well, when I was thirsty and I didn't have any clean water to drink, what did you do about it? Well, in this bill, we do something about it, and I am proud of what we have done. As we work to ensure clean water for all, our drinking water bill will continue our work to address what are called ``forever chemicals.'' A forever chemical is a chemical that doesn't degrade, and there is a word that is about a mile long--there are a couple of words that describe it--we call it PFAS. That is the acronym. I am not big on acronyms, but I like this one a lot. There are thousands of ``forever chemicals'' that just don't degrade in our environment. For the most part, they are not dangerous, but a couple of them are really dangerous, and they can lead to thyroid and liver disorders. They can increase the risk of cancer. They can adversely affect people's immune systems. We have a pretty good idea of which ones they are, and we need to do something about it. We sought to do that early this year and late last year, through other legislation. We have an opportunity with the bill that we reported out today to do more good work on addressing these forever chemicals. One of the ways is by developing a clean drinking water standard for two of them that are most concerning: PFOA and PFOS. Between today, reporting the bill out of committee, and the time we come back to the floor to debate it here, we have an opportunity, I hope, to do even more good work in addressing that. Madam President, I know you have a military base in your State. I have been to one or two of them. We have one big military base in our State, the Dover Air Force Base. It is the biggest employer in the central and southern part of our State: 6,000 uniformed and civilian personnel. They have some of the biggest planes in the world, C-5, C- 17. It is a cargo base. It has been recognized many times as the best cargo base in the world, best Air Force base in the world too. About 5, 6, 7 years ago, one of our C-5s took off--they fly around the world--they had a full load of fuel, full load of cargo, and as they took off, the flight engineer noticed that an engine light came on from one of the engines--not a good sign--and the flight engineer turned off--not that engine--turned off another engine, and then he had two engines working and two engines not working. Long story short, the airplane came around and tried to land again where it had just taken off. It crashed a mile short of the runway, and fortunately, nobody was killed. The fire department came rushing out and foamed down the area and helped put out the fire. Nobody died. I am sad to say that, when I was on Active Duty as a naval flight officer at a naval air station one morning, driving into work many years ago, there was a huge fire. One NASA airplane, big plane, landed on top of one of the Navy airplanes. It killed everybody. I think one person survived in the whole crash. Again, folks, firefighters rushed out and tried to save lives with this firefighting foam. The true irony is that the firefighting foam which is used to save lives in air crashes actually, when it rains, it gets washed into the ground and a lot of times ends up in wells and groundwater that people drink and consume, and it creates very serious health results for them. At any rate, between today and the time our bills come to the floor, we hope to make a lot more progress in adjusting those for everyone. While millions of Americans rely on the Army Corps projects to safely navigate our waters, stay safe from flooding and storm damage, and reap the benefits of healthy aquatic ecosystems and marshlands, we know impacts of climate change propose a real threat to public safety and to the durability of our infrastructure. I would like to use the example of Ellicott City, MD--not even 30, 40 miles from here. A couple years ago, within 18 months of each other, they had two 1,000-year floods. What is a 1,000-year flood? It is a flood that is supposed to occur every 1,000 years. We had two of them within 18 months of each other, and we are seeing that kind of extreme weather in places all over the country, and not only does it wreak havoc at our homes and our businesses and our transportation system, but also our drinking water systems. One of the things that we do in our bill is to address that. These two bills expand grants that will help small and medium-sized communities increase the resiliency of their water systems to natural hazards and extreme weather, like what was experienced in Ellicott City and any number of places around our country. Before I yield the floor to my friend and colleague, our chairman, John Barrasso, who is patiently waiting for me to stop talking, I want to thank him again. I already thanked him once, but now that he is here, I want to thank him again. I want to thank him for his leadership and helping us to move this legislation through. We have all heard the saying--I think it was Joe Biden that said it--just because somebody is my adversary or somebody is on the other side of the aisle, they don't have to be my enemy. We are actually--don't let this word get out in Wyoming--I think we could say we are friends and we like to work together. Our staffs, most days, like to work together, hopefully. But I want to thank his staff. I want to thank all the Senators. He and I pleaded with our colleagues from all 50 States to give us their ideas of what should go into this bill, and a bunch of our colleagues--a majority of them--did that. So it is not just something we dreamed up in our committee, but had great input from a whole bunch of our colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, and we were able to put together a bill that passed our committee unanimously. I just want to mention the names of a couple of people on both sides of the aisle, and they include Richard Russell, Brian Clifford, Andy Harding, Lizzie Olsen, Susan Lucas, Craig Thomas, Beth Lange, Christina Rabuse, Matt Leggett, who worked for Senator Barrasso; and on my team, Mary Frances Repko, our staff director, Mark Mendenhall, Annie D'Amato, and John Kane, who works harder than just about any person I have ever had the privilege of working with. Lastly, Senator Barrasso introduced me last year or so to a fellow from Wyoming who had been nominated to be a very senior official at the Commerce Department, and he had been nominated for a position where he would be Assistant Secretary of the Interior to handle, among other things, national parks, national wildlife refuges, fish and wildlife-- big job, important job for all of our States--certainly mine and certainly Wyoming. During his testimony, Rob Wallace testified, I thought, so well, and it is hard not to like the guy. I liked him almost immediately, but he said these words to our committee. He said: Bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. That is what he said: Bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. I sat there that day thinking: Boy, he nailed it. I have stolen that line--sometimes, I give him credit for it; sometimes, I don't--but think about that. Bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. We need the lasting solutions. We especially need them with respect to making sure those words in the Declaration of Independence--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--aren't just words on a sheet of paper or old words on a piece of parchment, but they are real words today, and we have renewed our commitment to them, and we have done that with the legislation we reported out of our committee. We still have some work to do. Harbor maintenance, we need to try and resolve that--people have strong views, not always in sync with one another--and the legislation on forever chemicals and how do we deal with that in ways that are smart and respect science and enable us to make sure that we better protect people's health. So these bills, in closing, are a win, win, win, for our Nation's economy, for our public health, and for our environment at a time we desperately need it. As we face down the COVID-19 crisis before us, I hope that these two pieces of legislation will serve as a model for how we can continue to work together, which is what I intend to do with our chairman. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER

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

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of the nomination of Robert Feitel to serve as inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the safety and security of almost 100 nuclear powerplants throughout this country--an important job. This is a nomination I urged the majority to take up and pass, not this week, not this month but before we went into recess on April 8. We are here, and this is a good nomination. I hope my colleagues will support it.

Mr. CARPER

Mr. CARPER. I would be happy to discuss that with you and better understand what you offer. I wasn't here when you spoke. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. CARPER. Happy to yield.

Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, replying to my colleagues, I think the Senators from Nebraska and South Carolina know that I have great affection and respect for them--and I have from the day they got here. I used to be a State treasurer. I was elected at the tender age of 29. Delaware had the worst credit rating in the country. We were dead last and couldn't balance our budgets to save our souls, and we had pretty much no money in the unemployment insurance fund. Over time, we straightened out our finances, elected a guy named Pete du Pont as our Governor. I was treasurer for a while, and we had a Democratic and a Republican legislature--split. We learned how to work together. It is something we call ``the Delaware way.'' Later on, I got to be Governor, succeeded not Pete du Pont but Mike Castle, who was his successor. I was very active in the National Governors Association. They even let me be chairman for a while. I was the lead Democratic Governor on welfare reform when I was a member of the National Governors Association. I was raised in a coal mining town in West Virginia. Parents--not much money, deep faith, hard work. My dad used to say to my sister and me: I don't care if you have to work three jobs to pay your bills, work three jobs. That is really the way I was raised, and I suspect that most of us here were raised that way--a strong work ethic. When I was involved as the lead Democratic Governor on welfare reform, I used to say people ought to be better off working than they are on welfare. Bill Clinton said that often. I really believe that. The thing that was wrong with welfare--our welfare system--was that people were actually better off staying home than they were working. So kind of the same principle we are talking about here. Every State has its own unemployment insurance fund. We have one in Delaware. They have one in Nebraska, one in Texas, one in Illinois. They are different, and different benefits are calculated in different States. I just got off the phone, colleagues, with a fellow named Cerron Cade, who used to be a member of my team when I was early in my time in the Senate. He is now secretary of labor. I said, Cerron--Mr. Secretary--what do we pay people in Delaware on unemployment insurance? What is the replacement rate? He said it is somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of what people were earning. But he said there is a $400 cap per month--excuse me--per week. There is a $400 cap per week on the benefits that we will pay anybody, regardless of what they were making--$400 a week. If you think about it, $400 a week for 4 weeks is like $1,600 a month. Add to that the $600 benefit, and we are talking about $2,200 per month. If somebody is working full time--

Mr. CARPER. Excuse me. There you go. But if you add the numbers, I am not sure we end up with $24 per hour in Delaware.

Mr. CARPER. It might be the case, but I would have to see those numbers. My secretary of labor said he thought that the number that we were looking at here was something like $13 an hour in Delaware, when you add it all in, as opposed to 24. So we will go back to do our math.

Mr. CARPER. I thank the Senator very much. I will go back and will reengage with our secretary and make sure we have the math right. The other point that he made--I asked him: How hard would it be to administer? Is it something we could stand up in a couple of weeks or are we talking about months or what? He said this would not be an easy thing, administratively, to do. And at a time where we are anxious to get the benefit out the door in a hurry, this would not be easy. I would just ask us to keep that in mind. One of the people I talked to last week when I was trying to figure out, really, what kind of big package legislative package No. 3 should be--Leon Panetta is one of the people I talked to. He told me about the three t's: timely, targeted, and temporary. Those are the three that he talked about. Timely means making sure we figure or calculate the right benefit but that we are able to turn around and pay it in a timely way. What I gathered from my secretary of labor is we are not going to be able to incorporate what they are doing at the State level, feed into that the State and the Federal benefit, and do it in a timely way. I think, if we could do that, you would have, probably, a fair amount of bipartisan support. But it is that delay, and we just don't know how long that delay would be Ted Kennedy used to sit behind me when I first came to the Senate. And I noticed that I knew some Senators. Dick Durbin and I served in the House together, and other people, we had been Governors together. I didn't know Ted Kennedy. One day I said to him: I am new here in the Senate, and I don't really know you very well. What I was doing was going to have a cup of coffee with the Senators I didn't know well, and I asked if I could maybe have a cup of coffee with him. He said: We will do better than that. Come to my hideaway, and we will have lunch together. I said: That is great. I didn't think we ever would, but it was a nice offer, a nice idea. Two weeks later, we had lunch together in his hideaway. It was like a Kennedy museum. Some of you have been there before. It is an amazing place. I remember I asked him: How is it that so many Republicans here want you, Ted Kennedy--the most liberal Democrat, maybe, we had at the time--to be their lead cosponsor on their bills? Why is that? And he said: I am always willing to compromise on policy, never willing to compromise on principle. I think that the policy here is that, when people are unemployed and they need help, we want to help them, and we help them in a timely way.

Mr. CARPER. I will just finish my thought, and then I would be happy to. But in a timely way. And I am just concerned--my second concern, along with my first concern: I am just concerned that the idea to deal with this in a timely way is going to be diminished, maybe significantly. We just, honestly, don't know. I am happy to yield.