Shelley Capito

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, we yield back our time. Vote on Amendment No. 1472

Mrs. CAPITO. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address this for a minute.

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, this week on the Senate floor, my colleagues and I have explained how the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021 would make significant improvements to our country's water infrastructure. After a bipartisan, regular order legislative and amendment process, we move to final consideration. This legislation makes meaningful progress on our drinking water and wastewater challenges that will benefit the States represented by every single one of us. It invests heavily in the State revolving loan funds to give our States that flexibility they need in their funding. It creates a new grant program specifically for small and disadvantaged communities to upgrade their systems, fix leaky pipes, and prevent water loss. It helps connect low-income households to public water systems or helps them to get new and better septic tanks. It supports water infrastructure projects on Indian reservation lands and in Alaskan Native villages. It provides assistance to remove and replace lead pipes, as well as lead testing in schools and childcare centers. It encourages the next generation to be a part of that water infrastructure workforce that is so critical. All of the investments represent the EPW's shared goals of improving public health and fostering economic growth in all of our communities. These are just a few of the provisions which I wanted to highlight and which are informed by particular challenges facing our water systems in the State of West Virginia, but based on the feedback from all of our colleagues in both parties and the groundswell of support we have seen from various water advocacy groups, it is clear that these provisions will have broad applicability to help communities all across the United States. It is why we have such a diverse and growing coalition of more than 70 supporters, from water systems to local governments, to industry, to labor, to environmental organizations. Before I wrap up, I would like to thank my colleague and chairman of our committee and West Virginia-born Chairman Tom Carper. This legislation represents, I think, a fantastic first effort for our ongoing work together to address the major concerns of the American people when it comes to infrastructure and the environment, and in a thoughtful and fiscally responsible fashion. His staff has been engaged and candid with mine throughout this entire process. So, in particular, I would like to thank John Kane, the lead for Chairman Carper's water team, and his colleague Annie D'Amato, as well as Tyler Hoffman-Reardon and Mackie McIntosh, who provided support throughout these negotiations. So thank you. Chairman Carper's team is led by staff director Mary Frances Repko, who brought her wealth of experience to bear on this process as well. I would certainly like to take time to highlight the members of my team, who worked long hours, nights and weekends, to deliver this legislation--Jess Kramer, EPW Republican water counsel, and Travis Cone, who is here with me today, my Republican deputy staff director and lead for our environmental team. They led the negotiations on our side and brought us to where we are today. They had strong assistance from our staff director, Adam Tomlinson, as well as chief counsel Elizabeth Horner, as well as Max Hyman, one of our policy staff who contributed to the language we see today in this bill. I would like to also thank and congratulate Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife Subcommittee Chair Tammy Duckworth and Ranking Member Cynthia Lummis and their staffs for their hard work on this bill. They are two of my colleagues from my House days, and I am so glad that all of us are working together again on the same committee, no less, here in the U.S. Senate I also appreciate Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee Chair Ben Cardin, whom I have worked with on a lot of these issues previously, and also my good friend Ranking Member Kevin Cramer for providing a lot of input into this legislation. This has absolutely been a team effort. It is what we are here for, to work together. I look forward to our team racking up a lot more wins in infrastructure and beyond over the course of the 117th Congress. In closing, I just want to reiterate again that passing this bipartisan bill in a bipartisan way is also very important. We know it is more than symbolic, but there is symbolism, I think, here because it shows the American people what we hear all the time when we go home: that their elected officials in Congress can work together and collaboratively on issues such as infrastructure. The bill represents the solid work that comes out of good-faith negotiations. Chairman Carper and I worked together and never took our eye off of the mutual goal--a bipartisan bill that can pass both Chambers and be signed into law. We are here today with that bill. I am proud to be Chairman Carper's partner, and I appreciate his leadership. I hope that as we move forward with other infrastructure packages, we remember this moment. We know the next couple of weeks and months are going to be tough, but we can do tough things to deliver for the American people. That is what we were sent here to do. So, again, I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this legislation, and I hope we continue in this spirit. I yield the floor, or I yield to my partner, Chairman Carper.

Mrs. CAPITO

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

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the resolution of disapproval on the Trump EPA's methane policy rule. This resolution we have in front of us today is nothing more than political posturing, I believe. Ironically, the Democrats are targeting natural gas for blame when methane emissions have actually fallen. According to EPA data, natural gas systems in the United States reduced their overall methane emissions by nearly 16 percent between 1990 and 2019. It is widely recognized that the shale gas boom led to significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions across our power sector. Some climate change advocates, including those in Washington, want to ban oil and gas production and use, and they oppose the maintenance and expansion of our pipelines in this country. The CRA is part of that effort, I believe. The CRA is part of a plan to double down on an industry that the Biden administration--obviously, from the day the President took office--does not support. Just yesterday, the Biden administration's Office of Management and Budget issued a Statement of Administration Policy on the resolution we are considering today. The statement does not hide the disdain that the administration has toward the oil and gas sector. The statement presents a laundry list of alleged harms to Americans from the oil and gas industry and none of the benefits. It doesn't mention that, as our natural gas production and use have gone up, our country's overall greenhouse gas emissions have gone down. It does not talk about the wage gap between natural gas sector jobs and so-called green jobs. As POLITICO reported this week, ``The median wage for solar workers is $24.48 an hour compared with $30.33 for those employed by the natural gas sector, which amounts to a roughly $12,000 annual wage gap.'' In yesterday's statement, the administration showed its cards for its next step. The passage of this resolution would lay the groundwork for a planned regulatory war on oil and gas. According to the administration, today's resolution ``clear[s] the pathway for EPA to evaluate opportunities to promulgate even stronger standards under section 111 of the Clean Air Act to address dangerous methane and other pollution from both new and existing sources across the oil and gas sector.'' That is right. They want to come forward with even stronger clean air regulations on the sector than the Obama administration did. But before even starting a rulemaking to ask for public comments, the Biden administration has made up its mind to regulate much more aggressively. I guess I am not really surprised. Now it is time; it is just waiting to identify the best opportunities to do so. We shouldn't demonize an industry that is part of the lifeblood of our economy. We should celebrate the emission-reduction accomplishments and look for ways to further incentivize those. Let's focus on solutions that address our climate challenges without destroying the economic engines of growth, solutions that don't pick winners and losers. The market is pushing industry to lower its methane emissions. And for those still flaring gas, one way to reduce flaring is to build out our pipeline infrastructure so they can get the gas--the very commodity they are trying to produce and sell--to the market. So let's come up with solutions that actually help protect our planet and don't overregulate industry for political points, solutions like improving the environmental review and permitting processes so that we can complete these pipeline projects more efficiently and cleaner. I urge my colleagues to vote against the resolution, and I urge my colleagues to focus on real, unifying solutions. I yield the floor.

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote for this motion to proceed to the bipartisan Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021, otherwise known as DWWIA. As the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I have been working closely with Chairman Carper and Senators Duckworth, Lummis, Cardin, and Cramer to craft meaningful legislation that addresses our country's aging drinking water and wastewater systems. Every city and town can tell you all about it. This bill authorizes more than $35 billion for water resource development projects across the country, with a focus on upgrading aging infrastructure, addressing the emerging threats of extreme weather events, including those resulting from climate change, and cyber security vulnerabilities. This bill also includes measures to invest in innovative technologies, and it provides assistance to marginalized communities. All of these things will help our communities keep their water safe and clean. Something I am particularly proud of is how this bill provides flexibility to both rural and urban areas and lets them decide how they can best address their needs. The most significant investments in this bill are in the drinking water and clean water State revolving funds. We know them as SRFs. The SRFs maximize authority for the States to determine how best to address drinking and wastewater challenges, utilizing a revolving loan fund to facilitate additional future investments. For rural States like West Virginia, we offer several solutions to unique water challenges. I will add here that we have a lot of great water in West Virginia. First, the bill invests $50 billion for those currently being served by intractable water systems. Those are the systems that service fewer than 1,000 people and that have typically been abandoned by the operator. We have quite a few of those. Towns in the southern coalfields of West Virginia, like those in McDowell County, have historically struggled with this. Since many of these households cannot connect to municipal water systems in an economic or technologically feasible way, the funding will go to a grant program to help them install environmentally sound, decentralized wastewater systems. This language is something that I worked on previously with my colleague from New Jersey Cory Booker when he was on the committee in the last Congress. The most pressing water issue, from a human health and environmental perspective in Appalachia, is undoubtedly straight piping. This practice is common in other exceptionally rural and remote areas around the country. So with new septic tanks installed, the grant program is working to improve quality of life and addresses public health and environmental concerns about straight piping waste into rivers and streams. Infrastructure resiliency and sustainability is also a priority in this bill. In rural areas especially, some of the pipes are nearly 100 years old. I have actually heard about wooden pipes. Small towns often don't have the revenues to spend on expensive drinking water and wastewater infrastructure upgrades. That is why this legislation creates grants for small public water systems to replace components, to identify and prevent leaks, and to install meters. This is based off of language I introduced last Congress in the Assuring Quality Water Infrastructure Act. I was joined there by my colleague Ben Cardin of Maryland to address the needs of small water systems that are facing operational challenges in maintaining drinking water services. Every State has them. In West Virginia, that is often the result of old infrastructure or the lack of adequate mapping of where these assets actually exist. It is hard to fix leaks when you can't find them. Reports have shown--this stunned me when I saw this--that only one- quarter of the water that West Virginia water systems pay to have treated and pumped even reaches a faucet--one quarter. That is how much water leaks out. I think about other States that have water shortages, and here we are wasting so much water in a State like ours, which has an abundance of water. Water is a precious resource, and wasting that much of it because of leaky pipes and faulty infrastructure is absolutely unacceptable. The $250 million grant program will help provide the technical assistance and infrastructure investments that these small systems, serving 10,000 people or fewer, need to address to get those challenges off their backs and to get on sure fiscal footing as they better serve their customers. Of course, we don't want to forget about our midsize and large drinking water systems. Another program that I worked on last Congress, again, with Senator Cardin, addresses the resiliency of drinking water and wastewater systems. Adapted from the Clean Water Infrastructure Resilience and Sustainability Act, these programs, totaling $370 million over 5 years, will help to protect public water systems from a host of threats, both natural and manmade. In West Virginia and in many other parts of the country, the greatest threats to drinking and wastewater infrastructure come from flooding. These investments will harden infrastructure against these threats and protect taxpayers from paying for the same infrastructure again and again. I just discussed physical resilience, but we must also ensure the resilience of our water utility workforce, those workers who ensure the continued operation and maintenance of drinking water and wastewater systems every day. Section 211 of DWWIA focuses on the resilience of America's water utility workforce by addressing recruitment, training, and retention challenges. This is a topic very important to me, and I worked, again, with my colleague from New Jersey Senator Booker, on this issue I cannot help but think that we regularly take for granted the public health services provided by this Nation's water utility workforce. We just don't really think about who is actually working there and providing the service that we sometimes take for granted. Unfortunately, a large portion of the men and women who are in our water treatment facilities are getting older and they are retiring, and that is why we need to make sure that we have the next generation of water workers ready. This bill increases funding authorized to $25 million over 5 years for the program that helps water systems grow their workforce through apprenticeships, through training programs, and it also helps with their retention efforts. This program has been extremely popular with water systems around the country, and Congress has recognized this by funding it beyond the authorization level. It is critical that we provide the tools and investments necessary to help our drinking water and wastewater systems face these challenges head-on. After all, this is the workforce that will ensure the operation and maintenance of all the other infrastructure investments this package creates. Additional technical assistance can also help systems with operations--it is much more complicated than what it used to be--and prevent outages and costly compliance issues. Section 206 establishes and authorizes a circuit rider program designed to help owners and operators of small- and medium-sized publicly owned treatment works. We have heard from the water community that other circuit rider programs have been a tremendous asset in providing technical assistance. It only makes sense for the EPA to similarly provide technical assistance since they implement the relevant regulations. This can be tremendously helpful where a system may be struggling with an insufficient workforce and also must be a part of the resilience discussion. Another concern for us was the alarming trend in cyber security threats in water systems. In February, you all might remember, hackers accessed a Florida water treatment facility computer system and were able to remotely raise the level of sodium hydroxide in the water. That is not just scary; it is alarming. This has huge national security implications on top of the obvious public health concerns. Thankfully, that hack was detected and the system was returned to normal before the public was ever at risk. But in this day and age, water infrastructure resiliency also has to include addressing these cyber security issues. So we made sure that these vulnerabilities could be addressed under resiliency grants. While water infrastructure investments are critical to ensuring we are not wasting water and our water is clean, it is also critical from an economic development perspective. Berkeley County--close here to Washington, DC--in West Virginia made huge investments into their water infrastructure system to ensure the system could handle the volume of water that the brand-new Procter & Gamble plant needed. And it is massive amounts of water, and it is a massive plant. We are very happy that they are there employing over 1,000 West Virginians. So with that upgraded water system, P&G was able to operate more efficiently and even to expand--and they are still expanding--and that meant more jobs. That kind of opportunity needs to be available everywhere, not just in my home State but in Connecticut and in other places around the country. These are just a few of the provisions that address and are informed by the particular challenges that face my State. But based on the feedback of my colleagues in both parties and the groundswell of support from various water advocacy groups, it is clear these provisions have broad applicability to help communities all across this beautiful country. It is why we have such a diverse and growing coalition of more than 70 supporters--from water systems to local governments, to industry, to labor, to environmental organizations--who are supporting this legislation, not to mention that we had a unanimous vote out of committee. These organizations recognize the value of this legislation and its commonsense and responsible approach to addressing our water infrastructure issues. We will be discussing more of the valuable provisions of this bill on the Senate floor this week, and I look forward to that debate. In closing, I just want to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of advancing this bill and, later, for final passage. I mentioned it passed unanimously out of committee. There is a big debate in the broader sense: Can Congress get together on infrastructure? This is what I would define as basic, core infrastructure. This, I think, is a good test case for us, and this, I think, is one in which we all have a great interest. Conservatives, moderates, and liberals all came together on this. I would like to thank my counterpart and my chairman, Senator Carper, and his staff for their work, as well as our Water Subcommittee counterpart chairman, Senator Duckworth, and Ranking Member Lummis. This bill is proof that we can work together on infrastructure. This is a bipartisan, responsible, meaningful investment. We are taking care of pipes, we are looking out for our environment, and we are putting special emphasis on helping rural and disadvantaged communities. At the end of the day, this bill is really about helping people. This is a bipartisan bill that we can all be proud of. Again, I ask my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to proceed and again on the underlying bill. I yield the floor.

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Carper and I be allowed to speak for 1 minute each before the next cloture vote.

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, we are about to vote cloture on Janet McCabe, the No. 2 at the EPA, and I vehemently oppose her nomination to this position. She is the architect of the Clean Power Plan that basically racked my economy in West Virginia, and she has not backed down from that in her testimony. She is very supportive of that plan and even more. Her boss at the EPA at the time was Gina McCarthy. Guess where she is now--in the White House. She, again, will be Janet McCabe's boss in the White House, dictating from there. During her time at the EPA before, she didn't listen, she wouldn't come to West Virginia, and she basically showed very little interest in what happens to the people most deeply affected by the policies that she put forward. So given her past actions and present statements, I cannot support someone who would work to destroy a State's economy, such as ours was destroyed, and our communities and their livelihoods.

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I rise today to honor John Shepler, an outstanding public servant who has served both my office and the citizens of West Virginia well in his 21-year career with the Internal Revenue Service. John is retiring from his position as taxpayer advocate in order to spend more time with his family and enjoy the next stage of his life. During his 10 years as taxpayer advocate, John was a valuable resource to my office and West Virginia's citizens. He was well informed, quick to respond, and straightforward in his dealings as he advocated on behalf of his clients. He was a dedicated employee, fully committed to his many responsibilities. He was a pleasure to work with, and my staff were always confident that John was providing top-level service, regardless of the issue. John also served his country through his military service with the U.S. Air Force, serving 6 years as a missile facilities specialist. A dedicated public servant, John has served his country and his community continually throughout his adult life. John is the proud parent of daughter and a son, living in Little Hocking, OH, and Houston, TX, respectively. I am sure he is looking forward to spending more time with his five grandchildren, as well as with his favorite pastimes: hunting deer and turkey, fishing, and camping. I would like to thank John for his service and wish him well in his next phase of life. My staff will miss working with him at the IRS, but we are all happy that we had him as long as we did to provide excellent service to the citizens of West Virginia. Good Luck, John. Thank you again for your commitment to our State.

Mrs. CAPITO

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

Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I rise today to discuss my opposition to the nomination of Michael Regan for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, before I begin, let me be very clear. I really liked meeting and getting to know Michael Regan. He is a dedicated public servant and an honest man. He had a beautiful family with him, and he answered the questions as straightforwardly as I think he thought he could. I have enjoyed getting to know him through my role as the ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and I appreciated the willingness he expressed to visit my home State of West Virginia. But this vote is not based on what Mr. Regan might do if he had his say; this vote is about confirming someone to execute President Biden's agenda, which Mr. Regan said he would faithfully do, and I cannot support that agenda. I cannot support that agenda that Secretary--if confirmed--Regan would be tasked with implementing. Throughout his confirmation process, Secretary Regan did not commit to a different policy agenda than that of the Obama administration--an agenda that absolutely devastated my State and other energy-producing States. In his nomination hearing, Secretary Regan, because he is secretary of North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality, would not comment as to whether the so-called Clean Power Plan or something worse would be reinstituted. He did not rule out a return to the WOTUS rule. He could not say whether the EPA would again claim overarching authority to force States to shift their electricity generation sources. He could not commit to real changes, and that is because the agenda is already set. Climate czar Gina McCarthy and others have already set the table. InsideEPA recently reported: Administration observers are questioning whether Michael Regan . . . could face a diminished role if he wins Senate confirmation due to the large number of Obama-era officials who have returned to the agency and the White House to work on implementing Biden's environmental agenda. The article went on to say: [T]hese sources also say that because there are so many officials now working on climate change policies across the Biden administration, this could lead to ``turf wars'' between EPA and the White House on this issue. Well, I share those concerns. For almost 2 months now, unaccountable czar Gina McCarthy has been working both behind the scenes and in front of the press to lay the groundwork for the Biden administration's agenda. She is wielding her power publicly to make it clear who is calling the shots and directing the troops. McCarthy herself said recently: I've got a small stronghold office, but I am an orchestra leader for a very large band. She is operating this ``stronghold'' office with no transparency outside of the Senate confirmation process. It would be bad enough with just a turf war between an equally matched White House and EPA, but we know that McCarthy is poised to have influence within the EPA too. In addition to the Obama EPA alums already in place, the nomination of Janet McCabe to serve as EPA Deputy Administrator has only increased my concern and made it worse. In 2019, McCabe, McCarthy, and another alum of the Obama EPA wrote an op-ed fully backing the overreaching Clean Power Plan. They admitted that their Clean Power Plan was a War on Coal. They stated: The best way to cut emissions is to shift electricity generation from the dirtiest plants, which happen to use coal. So they were willing to say it outright once they were out of public office. They are willing to admit to their War on Coal. It upsets me because they wouldn't say it to the people of my State when they were in the office. They didn't have the courage to look the people in West Virginia--they didn't even come to our State to talk about it--to look them in the eye and admit they wanted to wipe coal off the map. Had they come, they would have had to hear in person, eye to eye, the harm, the devastation that workers in our coal industry and many other associated industries in West Virginia were facing. WVU economist John Deskins put that harm into perspective in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at a hearing in 2015. He observed: In Central Appalachia, coal production has fallen by 51 percent since 2010, compared to a decline of 10 percent from the nation's other coal-producing regions. . . . [N]early all of the coal job losses that have occurred in West Virginia have come from our state's southern coalfields. The concentration of these job losses has created a Great Depression-- Great Depression-- in six southern counties--Boone, Clay, Logan, McDowell, Mingo, and Wyoming [Counties]. Job losses over the past four years range between-- Remember, this is in 2015-- 25 and 33 percent in each of these counties. That is how many jobs were lost. John Kerry stood alongside Gina McCarthy in the Oval Office in January and talked about how workers in the fossil fuel industry can just become wind turbine technicians or solar panel technicians. John Kerry doesn't really know what it actually means to be any type of these workers. Brad Markell, a representative from the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, explained some of the differences to the Washington Post. He said: You get guys that are coming off of fossil jobs in the Dakotas or the wind belt, and are making, you know, eighty, ninety, a hundred thousand a year. [To put wind turbines up], they're looking at thirty to thirty-five thousand, with either no or substandard benefits. In President Biden's White House, we have unaccountable--and either misguided at best or uninformed at worst--czars trying to do what they think is best for this country. So let's go back to Secretary Regan. In his hearing, he talked in depth about his work with Republicans in North Carolina and his commitment to transparency, and both of the Republican Senators from his home State came and introduced him to our committee and spoke very well of his ability to work across the aisle. I appreciate that greatly, and I welcome that, but the fact remains that I can't support Secretary Regan when Gina McCarthy is the self- described orchestra leader for the Biden administration and Kerry is basing so-called ``transition'' policies on a fantasy world that does not exist. I am very skeptical that the next 4 years will be any better than the 8 years of economic devastation brought on by President Obama's EPA. So, without commitments to different policies than what were pursued in the Obama EPA, I cannot support Secretary Regan today. But, you know what? I hope he proves me wrong. I hope he makes good on his promise to work with Republicans to help address climate issues. As ranking member of the EPA Committee, I stand ready to just do that. We have so much common ground on climate issues. I hope Secretary Regan can cut Gina McCarthy out of power and let her know who is calling the shots for environmental policy in the Biden administration. I hope Secretary Regan embraces President Biden's mandate of unity and works with both red and blue States to take care of our planet. Until then, I will continue to look out for my State and practice aggressive oversight on what I think may be coming. I yield the floor.

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I have a motion to commit at the desk, and I ask that it be reported.

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided.

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, one of our top priorities will be the surface transportation reauthorization bill. Our EPW Committee has already kicked off bipartisan efforts to meet our Nation's transportation needs. Every State needs the certainty of a long-term reauthorization plan to complete projects. Paying for infrastructure is a difficult challenge. A status quo reauthorization bill would require at least $70 billion in new funding for the highway trust fund, which we all know falls short, and we all want to make sure that we make robust investments in our roads and bridges. The bill on the floor provides $350 billion to State and local on top of the $150 billion that was provided in the CARES Act. This motion instructs the Finance Committee to divert some of that $350 billion to, instead, help pay forward for a bipartisan surface transportation reauthorization bill. Funds would still go to our States and localities, but the dollars would be better spent on road and bridge projects that create a safer and more efficient transportation system. I urge my colleagues to support the motion to commit.

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, today I rise to speak on a couple of topics, but first, I want to take this opportunity to thank really an icon in our State, and that is West Virginia State Senate Pro Tempore Donna Boley. She is a good friend of mine, and she is now in her 10th term. She is the longest continuously serving member in our State's State senate. At one point in history, Donna Boley was the only Republican. She was the ranking member on every single committee and the lead Republican, as she was the only one in the early nineties. I want to thank her for her service, for her service to our State, which began in 1985, and wish her all the best as she presides today-- she is presiding today--over the West Virginia State Senate. So, Donna, way to go. Really proud of you. You are a role model for every woman who is watching and certainly young girls as well

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from the great State of Iowa for bringing forth her three r's. I think they are very succinct. They are the message that certainly I want to convey with my colleague from the great State of Florida here today: respect the science, reopen the schools safely, and return students, teachers, and learning to the classroom. A year ago, we were only just starting to realize what COVID-19 was about, almost a year to this date practically. Yet no one could have foreseen that many children would leave their classrooms in 2020 and still not have returned in March of 2021. Fortunately, during these past few months, we have come a long way in our knowledge of COVID-19. We knew little about how the virus spread when most schools closed last March, but now experts have had the opportunity to learn more about the spread of the disease, specifically as it would spread in a K-12 school environment. At the end of January, the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published data showing that in-person learning for K-12 students with limited in-school COVID-19 spread is, indeed, possible. The schools studied adhered to the public health practices many of us have followed--wearing a mask, social distancing, washing hands, avoiding large groups, and quarantining after exposure to the virus. Since this data was released, CDC has gone on and issued additional guidance for reopening our schools. This guidance focuses on many of the same public health strategies as well as cleaning facilities and additional ventilation. In addition to the improved knowledge of how COVID-19 affects our schools, we also have safe and effective vaccines. By enabling our teachers and other education professionals to have the vaccine on a priority basis, we continue to forge ahead with reopening our schools. Yesterday, Dr. Clay Marsh, who is our State's coronavirus czar--he has done an incredibly great job. He has also led our efforts in our successful vaccine efforts. And I want to remind the Nation that West Virginia is No. 1 in vaccine distribution per capita. We have done a fantastic job. Dr. Marsh said yesterday: The classroom is a safe place to be. He continued by saying: The K-8 classroom--there is a tremendous amount of really good data to suggest that it is even a safer place to be than staying in your community. Following these comments, our State's board of education voted in favor of our students in kindergarten through eighth grade returning to a full 5-day, in-person learning. It had some blended, some in class, and some at home. While data we have seen makes a very compelling case for why we can get children safely back into the classroom with the right mitigations, other realities make it even more necessary. With the option of remote learning at home, there are still many children--especially in States like mine, West Virginia--who struggle with connectivity. Despite robust funding from Congress to attempt to address these issues, the digital divide is very real, and it begins to exacerbate the have-and-have-not phenomenon. As a result, these children can be affected for years. I hear concerns from parents all over my State. Last year, I had a Mercer County principal tell me that many of the students' parents in their class had to drive their students to a parking lot of a fast food restaurant so they could get Wi-Fi so they could do their homework. A constituent from Lewis County recently wrote to my office expressing her frustration with balancing her work with also the remote learning that her children are doing. To make matters worse, they can't get on the internet at the same time in their home. Another parent from Berkeley County wrote to me with a heartbreaking story about how her daughter cries at the computer because she requires extra help on certain assignments. Parents helping their children on schoolwork can only go so far. In-person attention is absolutely necessary and something that the internet can't solve through a Zoom meeting or a video meeting or what a lot of this is--going to certain assignments on your computer where there is nobody to interact with whatsoever. These are very real concerns that parents have, a fear that their children will fall behind and are falling behind without access to their schoolwork. Even more disturbing are the concerns I have heard from child abuse advocates throughout our State. The heightened stress, school closures, loss of income, and social isolation from this pandemic have increased the risk of child abuse and neglect. Yet, without the safe space of the school and the watchful eyes of our teachers and other caring professionals, I fear too many children are falling through the cracks and would have nowhere to turn Last week, our West Virginia DHHR deputy secretary said there were 8,000 fewer referrals to child protective services this year in our State. Sadly, we know it is not because it is not occurring; it is because teachers and school employees aren't there to notice the abuse and neglect and report it. This is where our teachers are so incredibly caring and invaluable. According to data from the CDC, between April and October of 2020, emergency departments nationwide have experienced a rise in the share of total visits from children with mental health needs. In my State of West Virginia, our State board of education has reported a spike in attempted suicides in Cabell County. In addition, parents have had to make hard decisions as they attempt to balance their careers with their children's education, especially more difficult for those parents of younger children who can't leave their child at home for any period of time as they are doing their schoolwork. As more workers are being asked to physically return to their workplaces, the lack of in-person learning and adequate childcare is hindering many from returning to work. This is especially true for many women who work outside the home. In fact, many women are having to quit their jobs as a result. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the January jobs report showed that some 275,000 women left the workforce, while about 71,000 men left the workforce. Overall, approximately 2.4 million women have left the workforce since last February. This has been a common and unfortunate trend we are seeing as a result of the pandemic, and I know for certain it is definitely tied to the fact that schools have not reopened. West Virginia's State superintendent said recently: There is absolutely no substitution for a teacher in the lives of a child. He continued by saying: There is no substitution for what that means to the community and the families--not just for the academics but for the social, emotional, [and] physical well-being. He is absolutely right, and this is just another reason why it is so important for our children to return to school safely. At the same time, I know there is no one-size-fits-all solution. State leaders, local governments, school administrators, and parents must take this data and these recommendations and apply them to the realities they see in their own communities. Congress has provided $68 billion in resources for K-12 schools that they could use last year, which schools could use to implement these strategies. For these, this may mean continuing some form of remote learning. For others, including my State of West Virginia, it means bringing every K-8 student to a 5-day school week. Before I conclude, I want to take a moment to thank the teachers, the parents, and the students who have adjusted and readjusted over the past years. Despite the many challenges--whether they are technical, logistical, or emotional challenges--you have tried to make it work the best you can, and for that we are all very grateful. But now we have to do the three r's. We must look at the data, listen to the stories, and look at the realities in our classrooms and in our communities. Get our children back to school. Respect the science. Reopen the schools safely, and return students, teachers, and learning to the classroom, where it should be. I yield the floor.

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I call up my amendment numbered 655 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, we know the burden that implementing the 2015 WOTUS rule would have had on farming, agriculture, energy production, and construction activities across this country and in our State of West Virginia. The legal challenges that followed resulted in years of uncertainty and confusion. Finally, in 2020, the EPA announced the Navigable Waters Protection Rule as a replacement. It is clear, commonsense policy, and States like it. As a matter of fact, the Navigable Waters Rule is now in effect in 49 States. President Biden has revoked President Trump's executive order that led to the Navigable Waters Rule, making it likely the rule will be revisited in this administration. Replacing this Navigable Waters Rule with something like the 2015 WOTUS rule would completely redefine and reframe all water policy and devastate farmers, manufacturers, and small business owners. We have had enough uncertainty. Let's not create more. This amendment would preserve the continued implementation of the Navigable Waters Rule. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this amendment.

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. CAPITO

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

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, it is nice to see you in the Chair, Mr. President. I haven't seen that for a while. Congratulations to you. I feel like yesterday I was in the movie ``Back to the Future.'' I rise today to voice my deep concern with the lengthy Executive order that President Biden issued yesterday pertaining to climate, and my larger concerns about where the Biden administration is moving with regard to their energy and environment agenda. President Biden, very passionately, as we sat out on the steps, called for unity in his January 20 inauguration speech. But as his first actions, President Biden managed to kill thousands of jobs and paralyze America's industry--the energy industry. His order yesterday put a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on Federal lands. This is an economic, energy, and national security disaster, in my view. This order moves America from energy independence back to relying on foreign sources for fuel--and a lot of times these are the countries that have much more lax environmental policies than we have right here in the United States. The order also usurps our States' rights--the States' rights which are to manage their own energy industries. As you know, I come from an energy-producing State. We have a proud heritage of that. So what about the States that rely on tax revenues from the energy industry to fund education? We see what has happened with education now under the pandemic. More headwinds into how do we deliver a great education product is a question we are going to be answering over the next several months and years. So any ideas? I wonder if President Biden actually talked to any of the Governors of these States to see what the impact of what he was doing might have. But what we saw yesterday in the press conference was President Biden and Gina McCarthy and John Kerry's ultimate goal, which is to ban fossil fuels. They were pretty upfront about that. So my skepticism, when I hear that the administration is going to give industry time to transition and give workers a clean energy job-- that is where I found myself thinking: I am in ``Back to the Future.'' I have heard this before because I vividly remember the empty promises of the past. This is a deeply personal issue for me because I have lived through this. I have seen this playbook before. So we are back to the future. The Obama administration said the very same things to West Virginians. In fact, I remember the same people saying the same things, and I remember the utterly unachievable regulatory requirements that Gina McCarthy created in her position as head of the EPA that decimated my State. I remember the thousands of jobs lost--and still lost--and the hopelessness and then the succeeding opioid epidemic that followed. I remember begging the Obama EPA to come to West Virginia to see how the regulations, with no time to transition, were destroying more of our State's economy. They were destroying our families. They really didn't seem to care. The only response I got in one of my hearings was, well, they will come to Pittsburgh. Well, that is not coming to West Virginia. Look, I am not here to just put down the Biden administration. I want to work with the administration, and I am going to be in a position to do that as ranking member on EPW. I want to be a part of the solution. I am not a climate denier. We all need to take care of our planet. We must be good stewards of our Earth, of our water. We know it is the right thing to do. The free market is already moving in that direction, which was part of the presentation yesterday. Private companies are cutting their emissions. That is awesome. And as we see the emission figures, they have gone way down over the last 15 years. Consumers moving toward greener products? That is great. I find myself doing that in my everyday living, and it is great. I feel like, in some ways, I am doing my small part at home. But a national energy transition really needs time, and the Biden administration needs to be very clear about what their timetables really are. They also need to be very clear about who is really in charge here. This is another one of my concerns. President Biden's nominees--Michael Regan; Jennifer Granholm; Brenda Mallory, at CEQ, Janet McCabe; and even Pete Buttigieg--have all been tasked with addressing climate. They are going to be tripping all over each other, before you even consider those avoiding Senate confirmation, process all of this together-- McCarthy, Kerry, and a whole host of other czars who aren't accountable to Congress. So who is really going to be making the decisions? I think, from yesterday's press conference, it is pretty clear what the answer to that question could probably be. Will this Cabinet actually wield any power or will the decisions be made in the White House in an effort to avoid public and congressional scrutiny? The American people really need to know. West Virginians need to know. New Jerseyans need to know. I will definitely be asking those questions in the upcoming hearing. In closing, I would just like to say that America is a great and very proud energy producer. West Virginia has powered the country for decades, and we are incredibly proud of that fact. Coal, natural gas, oil, solar, wind, nuclear, biomass--our country has been incredibly blessed with energy resources, and using all of them keeps Americans safe and keeps our country running. Eliminating fossil fuels from our energy mix will lead to higher utility costs and less reliability. So whom does that really hurt? It hurts those in the lower and mid-income category--the ones that are hurting right now because of this pandemic. And you can just ask California about the rising cost and the rise in unreliability of the grid. Renewables can't power our country at 100 percent all the time right now. Maybe in the future, but right now they can't, and battery technology hasn't been able to fill that gap. But we can address climate change together through innovation and technology. We already have new markets for coal and carbon products. We know investing in carbon capture and utilization and storage is critical. For a lot of reasons it is a win-win on both sides. We know new technologies are progressing every single day, and we have been working on this issue in a bipartisan way. Senator Whitehouse and I were the main proponents of the 45Q credit for capturing carbon and reusing it. But I am very concerned that President Biden's Executive order yesterday really alienated some of the key players in the conversation, and I don't think that is the way to build unity. Here we go--back to the future, picking winners and losers. That is pitting American jobs against one and the other, and that can create and will create resentment across the country. So I urge the President--let's tackle these climate challenges together, not through overreaching Presidential orders and Federal regulations. This country has risen to every single challenge that we have had. This climate challenge is no different. I understand the urgency. I understand the issue. But with our American ingenuity, we can find these solutions together. So let's make our future one that we build together. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. CAPITO

Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I would like to thank, first of all, the preceding speaker, Senator Klobuchar, for her efforts to help those venues in those entertainment areas that at this point have been left out. We certainly have some of those in West Virginia, and I am pleased to say that the coronavirus package we are putting together today will help those folks and hopefully get them over the hump. Before I begin, I would like to wish everybody, as much as they can, a happy holiday and a joyful new year. Turning the page of 2020 is something I think we are all pretty anxious to do. Sometimes it seems like the longest year, and sometimes it seems like the shortest year, but it definitely seems like ``Groundhog Day'' a lot of the year. I am very pleased that we have this relief package in front of us. While I am glad an agreement has been reached, we certainly should have done this earlier and could have done this earlier. We have been working since July to deliver targeted additional relief through efforts such as we put forward in the CARES Act, and it has been voted down twice--once in September and once in October. To date, we, the Republicans, have offered targeted relief legislation, voted in favor of enhanced employment benefits, more money for our schools, which would have been great to have had in early September and should have had in early September. We voted in favor of stand-alone emergency funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, which we know is exceedingly important, and more dollars for vaccines and testing so that we could get the great news of the vaccine that we see coming forward out to everybody in this country. We offered all kinds of ideas to the other side, but they blocked it--all of it. I am glad to say that after all this, we have finally joined together, realizing that, yes, a deal is better than no deal. Last week, unfortunately, a very good friend of mine passed away after battling coronavirus. At one point in her life, she was a small business owner. I thought so much about her over the last several weeks. I thought, what would she say if she knew that months ago, as a small business owner, we could have delivered the same help to her that we are delivering today. We have to do better by the people we represent. It is disappointing that politics has gotten in the way. It is disappointing and, quite frankly, insulting, in my view, when I see the Speaker of the House admitting to holding out on this relief because she thought it would be beneficial politically in the end. We can do much better than this. I am also a proud member of the Appropriations Committee. We have worked hard to get these funds and resources where they are most needed, especially in a year like this one. But due to delays, critically needed resources to combat the opioid epidemic have had to wait; investments to improve broadband have had to wait; research dollars into Alzheimer's have had to wait; and the list goes on. This is so frustrating to me, as it should be to every American, and I know they are frustrated because they tell us they are. But here now, we were able to include funds for things that are important to me in my State of West Virginia, such as fossil energy research, our universities, and the many Federal facilities that call West Virginia home. I encourage my colleagues to support this important legislation that reflects our Nation's priorities and funds the government, which is our responsibility as Members of Congress. Within the Omnibus appropriations act is the fiscal year 2021 Homeland Security appropriations bill. I chair that subcommittee, and it is with great pride that I can report to the American people and to West Virginians that this title invests billions of dollars to protect our homeland. We maintain our commitment to border security through a border wall system to include physical barriers and enhanced technologies. We avoided a drastic cut to our cyber security capabilities that we see we need now more than ever after all of the reports and the vicious cyber attack that we uncovered that has been launched against many of those in our country, not just the government but the private sector as well. We continue our commitment to use every resource at our disposal in the effort to prevent those opioids that are killing our people. We see overdoses going up and deaths from overdoses going up during this pandemic. We tried to get the resources to our Homeland Security folks to prevent those drugs from entering into this country at all. The men and women at the Department of Homeland Security work constantly against threats both old and new, traditional and emerging, and deserve the support this legislation gives them. So while this is great news in the end, I will repeat what I said earlier, and that is, Congress can do better. We could have done this earlier, and it should have been done earlier. So there is no reason we should be standing here several days before Christmas discussing the items that were ready to go several months ago, but we are where we are. As we turn the page gleefully into 2021, I think we should all pledge to one another and to the country that we will do better, that we will work better with each other and prevent politics from infecting every decision that could positively impact so many people in this country. Lastly, I give a hat tip to my friend, whom I will miss seeing and who was a great friend to our family, a longtime friend of our family. Godspeed. I know she is dancing up there with her mom and dad because they loved to dance.

Mrs. CAPITO

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