Christopher Coons

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. I now ask for a second reading en bloc, and I object to my own request en bloc.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the upcoming recess or adjournment of the Senate, the President of the Senate, the President pro tempore, and the majority and minority leaders be authorized to make appointments to commissions, committees, boards, conferences or interparliamentary conferences authorized by law, concurrent action of the two Houses or by order of the Senate.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the Senate's recess, committees be authorized to report legislative and executive matters on Tuesday, August 26, 2014, from 10 a.m. to 12 noon.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, before I conclude I simply wanted to thank the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and our chair, Senator Bob Menendez, for hosting--along with the House Foreign Affairs Committee--yesterday a very successful reception in the Russell Office Building where 50 African heads of state and heads of government were received. It was a successful event and an important kickoff to a 3-day U.S.A.-Africa summit currently being led by the President and Secretary of Commerce.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. I ask unanimous consent the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I wish to recognize the National Basketball Association's Developmental League team, the Delaware 87ers and their impact on my community. In April 2013, Delaware sports fans rejoiced when the Philadelphia 76ers acquired an NBA Development League team, the Utah Flash, and chose to relocate the franchise to Delaware. The Delaware 87ers are named in recognition of Delaware's place in United States history as the first state to ratify the United States Constitution on December 7, 1787, as well as in a nod to the franchise's parent team, the Philadelphia 76ers. The Sevens promised and delivered a fast-paced, high-scoring NBA brand of action with the fan-friendliness and affordability for which the NBA Development League is known. During their inaugural season, the Sevens' success grew, drawing a steady and passionate fan base to the Bob Carpenter Center as they squared off against D-League teams from around the country. Rivalries were built with the Canton Charge, Erie BayHawks, Fort Wayne Mad Ants and the Maine Red Claws. The passion of the players and coaches, their connection to the community, affordable ticket prices and family-friendly amenities drew thousands of fans to Newark. Head coach Rod Baker and his team, led by fan favorites Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Kendall Marshall, Lorenzo Brown and Vander Blue, finished their first season displaying flashes of brilliance and leaving fans with high hopes for greatness to come. Even more important than their on-court accomplishments was the team's off-court impact on the community. Prior to their inaugural season, the Sevens unveiled their SEVENS STRONG community initiative, which included revitalizing seven basketball courts in seven days, as well as each of their employees pledging 87 hours of community service throughout the year. Basketball courts that received makeovers included Adams Court, Fraim Boys & Girls Club, Kosciuszko Park, Helen Chambers Park, Tatnall Park, Woodlawn Park and Judy Johnson Park. Throughout the 2013-14 season, the Sevens attracted more than 38,000 fans and averaged over 2,100 fans for the last eight contests. The attendance increase can undoubtedly be traced back to their commitment to the community and their tireless grassroots presence in Newark, Wilmington, Christiana, Hockessin, Newport, Elsmere and Elkton. Players and the front office staff participated in countless community-based activities including visiting Christiana Care and AI Dupont/Nemours Hospital for Children monthly, partnering with Stubbs Elementary School for a Green Week Challenge, volunteering at the Delaware Food Bank, hosting four non-profit promotions at games: Lyme Disease Awareness Night, B+ Foundation Night, Christiana Care NICU Night and USO Night, participating in more than a dozen community events, and donating over 8,000 tickets to Delaware-based community organizations and charities. The team truly embraced the meaning of community and civic engagement. We congratulate the Delaware 87ers on a successful season, both on and off the court, and wish them continued success in their second season. We look forward to supporting them as they work to inspire their fans and better our community.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, on behalf of Senator Tom Carper and myself, I wish to recognize two special occasions in Wilmington, DE happening on September 5, 2014: the 45th anniversary of the Latin American Community Center, LACC, serving the Hispanic community of Delaware as well as to honor the service, dedication and passion of a name synonymous with the service to Delaware's vibrant Hispanic community: Maria Matos. The LACC's continuum of care promotes education, life skills, and an enhanced quality of life while celebrating diverse Hispanic cultures. The LACC was founded in 1969 in the Hilltop section of Wilmington serving and supporting the community and people that surround it. Over the last 45 years, the LACC has focused on lifelong learning that concentrates on the educational needs of client families, from quality pre-school programs to adult education; and life empowerment, focusing on the immediate life needs families and individuals may face, from short term case management to a job placement or English language skills. Since 1994, Maria Matos has been the executive director and driving force behind the LACC. Her impact has been felt not just in the Hispanic community, but throughout Wilmington and New Castle County. She has contributed her leadership skills to such boards as the Medical Center of Delaware, Grand Opera House, Delaware Community Foundation, and Advisory Council for the Fund for Women, as well as at the grassroots level supporting the Hilltop Working Group, an alliance of residents and legislators who work to promote the community's well- being. In conclusion, we would like to congratulate Ms. Matos on her years of service to the LACC as well as the LACC on its 45 years of service to the community, and wish each of them luck in the future.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, on behalf of Senator Tom Carper and myself, I wish to honor the exemplary service of the executive director of the Delaware League of Local Governments, George C. Wright and recognize his recent retirement. For over five decades, he has been a tremendous and courageous leader serving in many positions throughout our great State. His hard work, perseverance, and dedication will truly be missed. Since the 1960s, George has played an active and integral role within Delaware. For six terms, he served as councilman in the town of Smyrna before serving as its mayor for 14 years. Since then, George has been a crucial member and leader of the Delaware League of Local Governments. As he steps down from his position as executive director, we join the many Delawareans he has worked with in thanking him for his diligent efforts to improve and assist local governments through legislative advocacy. Born in Chesapeake City, MD and educated in the public school system there, George studied at several distinguished universities including Maryland State College in Princess Anne and the University of Delaware. After his graduation, George began his career during the turbulent 1960s as Head Start director in Smyrna, a town that was once denounced by former Attorney General David Buckson as having the worst race relations in the State. George later went on to serve on the town's council and as the chief of staffing at the Dover Air Force Base. In 1981 he was able to overcome many racial barriers in order to become the town of Smyrna and state of Delaware's first African-American mayor. Most recently, as the executive director of the Delaware League of Local Governments, George has successfully worked with 57 municipalities in Delaware to help forge a common voice across the State. George's work has been nothing short of inspirational and we are sincerely grateful for all that he has done on behalf of the towns, cities and counties in Delaware. We wholeheartedly thank George for all of the work he has done for local governments of Delaware. His model leadership and dedication has truly touched every corner of our great State. We offer our sincerest congratulations on a job well done and wish him many happy, healthy, and successful years to come.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I have never been more optimistic about Africa and about the potential for a U.S. partnership with Africa than I am today. Every year I host a conference in my home State of Delaware called ``Opportunity: Africa'' that brings together Delawareans and Africans, leaders from across our country and from the continent interested in building and strengthening new ties. Every year it has grown in participation, in the scope of issues we have looked at, and in the number of Delaware businesses interested in the opportunities in this continent of 54 countries. At this past March's conference, President Clinton delivered the keynote. The hunger to build new relationships between business, government, the faith community, and those in the African diaspora is undeniable. What is required of us is to think anew and dedicate ourselves to building partnerships of mutuality and that last. In this Chamber that will mean passing a reauthorized African Growth and Opportunity Act that does more to encourage and facilitate real two-way trade than the current law and to take up and pass the bipartisan Power Africa law that will strengthen investment in infrastructure and in electricity across the continent. Next week it means coming together with Africa's government and business leaders to forge new relationships built on mutual respect and the opportunities we share. I urge my colleagues and my friends throughout the business community to seize this opportunity and focus on the bright future it could create. An Africa that trades with us, that can defend itself, that can secure itself, and that empowers its citizens is the Africa we see, and that is an Africa which we in the United States are uniquely suited to help its people build. We have already built a powerful foundation for partnership through our investments in public health and education, clean water, democracy, and good governance. After 50 years in the Peace Corp and more than a decade of PEPFAR-- President Bush's groundbreaking commitment to combating HIV and AIDS-- we are better regarded in Africa than in anywhere else in the world. From our universities, to our businesses, to our military training and partnerships, to the vibrant Africa diaspora community spread throughout this land, we have tools no other Nation has. The opportunity for progress is extraordinary. By helping to build a broad and sustainable middle class across this continent, American workers and businesses will have more people to sell their products to and more markets in which to invest. The more we partner with African businesses, the stronger they will become. Genuine partnerships such as this must be the foundation for our relationships with Africa going forward, and we have a lot to gain as well. As many have commented, in the last decade 6 out of 10 of the fastest growing economies in the world have been in Africa, and that number will only rise. Other countries have noticed the opportunity. China's exports to Africa, for instance, have outgrown ours 3 to 1 since 2000, and 5 years ago China eclipsed us as Africa's largest trading partner. So it is no surprise that since 2000, China has hosted five summits with African heads of state. Let's be clear, the Chinese, in seeking opportunities for this century, will not miss the ``next China.'' So we have a lot of ground to make up. It is also critical we recognize that we should not just mimic the ways in which the Chinese are seeking opportunity in Africa. They bring a policy of nonintervention in domestic affairs. We bring American values--a focus on democracy, on governance, on human rights, as well as the attractiveness of our technology, our resources, and the relationship with our diaspora community. This week we have had remarkable opportunities for our President, our Secretary of State, and several of us from this Chamber to meet with young African leaders as part of a program that brought 500 inspiring young African leaders to Washington. Next week we will welcome more than 40 heads of state from across the continent--a summit that I hope signals the next big step in building strong and sustainable partnerships throughout the continent. President Obama, leaders from this Chamber, leaders from the Cabinet, and from across America's corporate community will join for 3 days to allow us to refocus our efforts on the continent, to seize this moment, and to move forward. It is my hope that this Chamber, this Congress, will take advantage of the opportunity to enact the African Growth and Opportunity Act on a longer reauthorization and to open it to truly balanced trade, and pass the bipartisan Power Africa Act to significantly improve our investment in infrastructure. The opportunities are limitless. It is my hope that we will but seize them. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Akunna Cook be granted floor privileges for the duration of the consideration of the Bring Jobs Home Act.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about jobs, about manufacturing jobs in particular. As we in the Senate get ready to leave Washington and return home to our States for August, it has become popular in the media to say our legislative work is done; that it is mostly about campaigning from here on out, for the weeks, the months remaining until the election in November. After all, we hear reported this is a body so divided, so riven by gridlock and partisanship that we haven't gotten a lot done, and the prospect for getting more done is even less. Although I have certainly been frustrated by the pace of progress at times, this story not only gets a lot of things wrong, it is counterproductive and at times even self-fulfilling. Let me start with the fact that we can, and we have, gotten important things done for manufacturing and for our economy and for our States as a whole. Last year 26 of my Democratic colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, joined an initiative called Manufacturing Jobs for America, or MJA. The goal of Manufacturing Jobs for America has been simple: put together a collection of our best ideas--our best ideas--to spur manufacturing, job creation, to work with Republicans to find common ground, and to get these bills passed. We are focusing on manufacturing as a group of Senators because it is the foundation of our economy. It is the foundation of the pathway toward a middle class. Manufacturing jobs pay more in benefits and contribute more to the local economy than any other sector, fueling growth in other sectors. Manufacturing is also incredibly innovative. Manufacturers invest the most in research and development of any industrial sector. We have focused on four different broad areas in the MJA initiative: training a 20th century workforce; expanding access to capital for businesses looking to expand and invest in growth; leveling the global trade playing field and opening markets abroad; and focusing our government behind a national manufacturing strategy. These are the four main areas of focus for Manufacturing Jobs for America, and together we have introduced over 30 bills, nearly half of which are bipartisan bills, with Republicans joining us in advancing these ideas. Together, we have made real progress in moving the ball forward. Already, five of these bills have passed out of committee. Three of them would take further steps to give startups and small businesses access to the research and development tax credit which came out of the Finance Committee. Two others passed as part of a single package to create a national manufacturing strategy and improve STEM education in our high schools and colleges that came out of the commerce committee. There is no reason that, working together, we can't get these bipartisan bills passed through the full Senate before the end of this Congress. This isn't just wishful thinking. We have already seen seven provisions from Manufacturing Jobs for America bills enacted into law as well. In last year's Defense Authorization Act we included an MJA amendment that streamlines regulations and makes it easier for small businesses to do work with the Federal Government. Recently, as a result of our work to ensure innovative small businesses and startups can access the research and development tax credit, the administration took executive action to implement another MJA provision, and just last week the House and Senate came together to pass the broad bipartisan Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to reform and streamline our Nation's job training programs--a bill that ultimately included five separate MJA provisions within it, and a bill that has now been signed into law by our President. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act was years in the making, and its success is in no small part due to the relentless efforts of my colleagues Senators Murray and Isakson--Democrat and Republican--as well as Senators Harkin and Alexander, who have worked for years to get this over the finish line. Their success in crafting this bill and in building bipartisan support for it is a lesson for all of us, and it is a large example of what we have tried to do, bit by bit, for other manufacturing bills. To me, it is really about determination. We have shown it is possible to get things done if we relentlessly seek common ground, if we engage outside groups, if we strengthen the quality of the ideas, and if we build bipartisan paths toward success. One of our country's biggest challenges is the rapid pace of change in our globally interconnected economy. The middle-class jobs of today and tomorrow require higher skill levels than ever before as the economy continues to evolve. America needs a system that emphasizes lifelong learning, learning on the job, and constant adjustment. This is a challenge that Members of both parties are well aware of and are dedicated to stepping up and meeting. That is what the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act is all about. To put it in some context, by 2022 we are projected to have 11 million fewer workers with postsecondary education than our economy will need. But by consolidating 15 outdated or redundant Federal job training programs, by creating new board accountability standards, and by giving cities and States the flexibility to meet their economy's unique local needs, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act will help us make up that shortfall. I was at the bill signing last week at the White House, along with the Senators whom I cited who led the charge on this, and it was uplifting to see the positive impact that came out of uniting in such a broadly bipartisan way on such an important issue as job skills for the modern manufacturing workforce for America. On a week when Congress came together to improve our investment in America's workers, Vice President Biden also released a critical report that had great contributions from the Secretaries of Commerce, Education, and Labor--a critical report that details a number of other steps the administration is taking as a complement to that new law, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, to equip our workers for the 21st century economy. As we get ready this week to return to our home States and to hear from our constituents in August, there is no reason to stop legislating this week and when we return in September. That is why I am introducing another bill as part of Manufacturing Jobs for America, a bill called Manufacturing Universities Act of 2014. This bill will take on a simple but important challenge. Because today's manufacturing jobs require higher skill levels than ever-- higher skill levels than yesterday's assembly line jobs, our schools and in particular universities need to be equipping students with those skills. Since innovation and research and development keep leading to new materials and new technologies that are critical to keeping American manufacturing at the cutting edge of the global economy, we also need to connect our universities with our manufacturers. The manufacturing universities bill would create a competitive grant program that would ultimately designate 25 American universities as manufacturing universities. The competition would incentivize schools to build engineering programs that are targeted, that are focused on 21st century manufacturing and the skills our workers need to thrive. This would allow the cycle of innovation that can begin in the laboratory, that can mature in a factory, and that can produce more competitive products of the market to be fully harnessed around the challenge of meeting the 21st century manufacturing environment. That would build on important work that is already being done to link universities all the way to the shop floor but where we are not doing as much as we can and should with Federal grant funds that go to universities for research, to make them relevant and to make them current and to make them competitive. For example, in my home State of Delaware, this bill, if enacted into law, could help the University of Delaware bolster its work with the private sector, focus its work with the Delaware Manufacturing Extension Partnership, focus the partnership between Delaware Technical and Community College, Delaware State University, and our manufacturing community in Delaware, to ensure that manufacturing becomes a larger part of the University of Delaware's engineering curriculum and the training and research and outreach conducted by Del State and Del Tech. The competitive challenges of the 21st century are big, but we have every reason to be united around meeting them. Manufacturing Jobs for America, like the Manufacturing Universities Act, take simple steps to invest in America's workers so they can drive our innovation and growth today and tomorrow, and take simple steps to make sure we are being as competitive as possible, that we are growing the best jobs possible for our home States and for our whole country. Let's come together in a bipartisan way. Let's build on the success we have already seen across the different skills initiatives I have discussed. Just because elections are coming up this fall doesn't mean we can't continue to get behind great ideas--whether Democrat or Republican, whether from the House or the Senate--to move our Nation forward, and to create great jobs for all our States and all our communities. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, as you do now, I recently had the honor of presiding over this Chamber and had the opportunity in the hour I just finished presiding to listen to our colleagues as they have come to this floor, as you just have, Madam President, to speak to the humanitarian crisis unfolding on the southern border of our country. And sadly--I think truly sadly--I have listened to a whole series of our Republican colleagues use this opportunity to line up on the floor and to whale upon our President and claim that this humanitarian crisis is his fault, that it is solely the fault of the President that there are tens of thousands of children coming to the American border unaccompanied, seeking refuge in this country, that it is solely his fault. It is tough to even know where to begin in responding to these suggestions, but let me try. Let me start from my perspective as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It is important first to remember that this is no ordinary issue of border security or of immigration enforcement. This is a humanitarian and a refugee crisis. The tens of thousands of children--young children--presenting themselves alone at the border of the United States are not dangerous criminals who threaten our national safety. They are so often children who have traveled thousands of miles from their home countries at enormous risk and expense, and they have come not because our border is wide open, not because it is unsecure. In fact, virtually all of them are being interdicted at the border by our effective border security. The challenge is that these children are being sent on these incredibly long and expensive and dangerous and difficult trips in the first place. Our Republican colleagues have suggested that this is solely caused by our President's lawlessness, that somehow either a law that was proposed and passed here in the Senate, a comprehensive immigration reform bill, or the President's deferred action program with regard to those who are so-called DREAMers is what is causing this flood of child refugees to this country. But as has been said by other of our colleagues just in the last hour, neither of those two things--neither the comprehensive immigration bill passed on a bipartisan basis by this Chamber nor the deferred action program of the administration--would create really any legal opportunity for these child refugees to stay in the United States. Neither of them applies. In order to get access to the benefit and the opportunity to be in the United States under those two provisions, you would have to have been here years ago. The problem is really instability, violence, the tragic collapse of governance and safety in three Central American countries. If the magnet drawing thousands of refugees to this country were the actions or inactions of the President, would not we see a huge surge in refugees from elsewhere in Central America, from Panama or from Belize or from Costa Rica or everyone closer to us from Mexico as well? But we have not. In the last 5 years child migrants from Mexico have stayed relatively flat, while children from the three countries that are the focus of current violence--El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala--have surged out of control. In 2009 child migrants from those three countries made up just 17 percent of all the children trying to come across the American border. This year, three-quarters are coming from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Why are they coming from these three countries? Why these three countries? Well, if you ask them, they will tell you. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees surveyed, last year, 404 child refugees and asked: Why have you made this long and dangerous and difficult trip to the American border? Only 9 of 404 surveyed said because they believed the U.S. would ``treat them well.'' More than half said they came out of fear because they were ``forcibly displaced.'' They are refugees, not criminals. We need to deal with the source of the problem in these three countries, not make this a partisan game on the floor of this Chamber. I think the evidence is clear that these children are being sent on this difficult, long, and expensive trip by their parents in desperation--because they have no other choice. If they stay in their home countries, the levels of violence, of gang activity, of murder have skyrocketed off the charts. They are fleeing not just to America but to Mexico, to Nicaragua, to Costa Rica as well. Children are fleeing the violence in these three countries in every direction--not because they are drawn by the magnet of some failure of immigration policy here but because they are driven by the centrifugal force of violence in these three countries. In fact, asylum applications from children are up by more than 700 percent in the countries of Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Belize--the countries immediately around these three that are at the very center of the violence. It is my hope that with the emergency supplemental request submitted by the President, as we consider it and debate it in a hearing in the Appropriations Committee tomorrow and as we debate it here on the floor, we will see more and more ways in which this emergency supplemental provides resources needed to ensure that these children are given the fair hearing they are entitled to under the law--a law signed by President Bush, passed unanimously by this Chamber; that we will honor our international commitment and allow these children their day in court, and if they have no legitimate claim to refugee status, they will be deported, but if they have a legitimate claim, that they are treated fairly. Families and children are fleeing these Central American countries because conditions have become unbearable. Gangs, narcotics groups, and corrupt officials have weakened security situations and created an environment where innocent civilians are targeted by gangs. In Honduras, for example, as has been mentioned earlier today, in the city of San Pedro Sula, the murder rate is four times higher, the chance of dying through murder is four times higher than faced by American troops in the highest years of combat deaths in Iraq. It has one of the highest murder rates on the planet. In Guatemala, a weak government lacks the capacity to address insecurity and poverty, and these forces continue to drive Guatemalans to flee and to send their children to seek some peace outside their country. In El Salvador, after a failed truce, gangs have divided up territory and are challenging control of the state, while bringing violence into every neighborhood. Despite these significant issues, we can and we should contribute and invest more in partnership with these three countries to hold them accountable for delivering on stability for their citizens. Visits by the Vice President, by the Secretary of State, and meetings with the leaders of these three countries have laid out a path forward and a plan, and funding in this emergency supplemental will help contribute to the prosecution of the coyotes and the criminal gangs who are profiting off of the trafficking of these children, to increasing the capacity of these countries to receive back those children and adults who are being repatriated, and to leading a media campaign to make sure parents understand that children sent to the United States are not automatically entitled to stay in the United States. We have to strengthen our efforts to counter corruption, to hold these governments accountable, and to assist in building stronger security, judicial, and governing institutions in these three Central American countries. I am also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee. From those seats, I know how important it is that we make sure resources are available to our badly overstretched immigration enforcement system. This provides additional resources for immigration judges, for the Legal Orientation Program, and for providing counsel to minors. As has been mentioned earlier today on this floor, we have an international obligation, when children fleeing violence present legitimate claims for refugee status, to make sure they have their day in court before either repatriating them to their country of origin or allowing them refugee status here. This emergency supplemental would increase the funding so there would not be such an enormous backlog of cases, so there would be a Legal Orientation Program, which has a proven record of success. While it does not provide personal counsel to everyone awaiting trial, it gives out basic information so legitimate claims can be made and illegitimate claims do not waste the time of our immigration courts. Last, providing counsel to minor children it is a small portion of this total supplemental, but if you have a child who is a victim of child trafficking, who has a valid asylum claim, they have to be given the opportunity to present a valid claim. We already know funding in these areas is insufficient to meet this surge in refugee minors seeking the relief of the American country and court system, and I think we have to do both: invest in ensuring stability in the three countries in Central America from which tens of thousands of children are fleeing and invest in ensuring that our border security, our immigration courts, and the reasonable and appropriate process for separating out those who are legitimate refugees from those who are seeking access to our country illegally is done in a fair and an appropriate way. A refugee crisis is not the time for us to abandon our laws or our values. It is the time for us to enforce and abide those laws--fairly and efficiently. To do so, I think, frankly, our best solution would be to have the House take up, consider, and pass the comprehensive immigration bill, the bipartisan immigration bill that was taken up and passed by this Chamber over a year ago. Frankly, I think this crisis is in no small part because of a critical opportunity that we missed a year ago to legislate in a responsible, bicameral, and bipartisan way to invest more in the border, to invest more in stabilizing the region, and to invest more in ensuring that we have the resources in our courts to deliver justice in this country appropriately. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. I object, and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, last Friday was Juneteenth, which marks four of the most important days in our Nation's long and continuing march toward racial justice and civil rights in this country. First, on June 19, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery in all U.S. territories. Then 3 years later, a month after the end of our Civil War, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, TX, to free the last of our Nation's slaves. Nearly a century later on June 19, 1963, with Jim Crow laws still a stain on the moral fabric of our country, President John F. Kennedy sent his Civil Rights Act of 1963 to Congress. And the following year, as the Nation mourned JFK's loss, President Johnson shepherded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to final passage. As we mark these days in our Nation's history, from the end of our darkest period to some of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation passed, we know we still have farther to go. It is appropriate that we do so this year especially, that we mark June 19 and these five moments across our Nation's history, because as a result of the Supreme Court's decision last year, the Shelby County case, a key piece of President Johnson's Voting Rights Act of 1965 stands in bad need of repair and revision; and, in fact, the Voting Rights Act itself is at risk of becoming a dead letter in the future of voting in our country. Two years ago I had the opportunity to join many of my colleagues in the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, in returning to Selma to the site of Bloody Sunday, to the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Many Members of Congress got a chance to hear again from Congressman Lewis about the events of that day, that day that was etched into the consciousness of this country and mobilized millions to speak out to their representatives and Senators and move this Congress finally to enact legislation that would unlock the key to the ballot box across the country. I was so proud earlier this year to join with Chairman Leahy of the Senate Judiciary Committee and with Senator Dick Durbin, Congressman Lewis, icon of the Civil Rights movement, Congressman John Conyers, and Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, to introduce a bill that would restore the core protections made possible in the original Voting Rights Act. The bill we introduced doesn't look at discrimination through the lens of the past. It focuses on modern-day violations, not the things that happened 50 years ago. It takes up the challenge laid down by the Supreme Court and comes up with a new formula and a new approach that makes voting rights and elections more transparent and has been carefully crafted to be both effective and to pass this Congress. It is a voting rights bill that is modern, to confront modern voting rights challenges. As a country we have come a long way since 1965, but we are not where we need to be yet. As much as we don't want to admit it or confront it, racial discrimination in voting is not a relic of the past, but a tragic reality of today. Just yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on what to do to address the loss of a key part of the Voting Rights Act that is known as preclearance. In 2013 the Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, a bill that each and every Senate Republican voted for in 2006. Let me be clear about that. Again, in 2006 this body unanimously reauthorized the Voting Rights Act. Yet in 2013 the Supreme Court struck down an essential provision of that very act. The Voting Rights Act and leadership to address the challenges of civil rights in this country have long been bipartisan in nature. My own family and friends who are Republicans are justifiably proud of their party's leadership role in addressing the darkest days and the biggest challenges in civil rights in the last century in this country. But today we are struggling in this body to find a single Republican cosponsor for this important and necessary bill. I ask my friends: Is this because there is nothing that remains to be done? Is that 2006 act, unanimously passed by this body, so obsolete that there is no legislative response necessary to Shelby? I think a response is necessary. A month after the Supreme Court's decision, North Carolina passed a restrictive, a deeply restrictive, voting law that in addition to a strict photo ID requirement reduces early voting and forbids local jurisdictions flexibility in setting hours for early voting, among other restrictions. After the Shelby County decision, in Pasadena, TX, that city's voters adopted a plan to reduce the number of single-member districts from eight to six, adding two at-large representatives, a change nearly certain to reduce Latino representation on their city council. Hours after the decision, the State of Texas announced plans to implement its photo ID law that had long been blocked under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Again and again, shortly following the Shelby County decision, jurisdictions moved to implement discriminatory voting changes that had previously been blocked under section 5. Something needs to be done. I would suggest to my colleagues, if you don't like this proposal, please come forward with something you can support, with something that looks forward, not back; that has a formula that protects voting as the most sacred and foundational right of our Republic and allows us to come together. History will not look kindly on our inaction. Two days ago we honored the memory of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King with a Congressional Gold Medal. What better way to honor their legacy than to come together and strengthen the rights they fought so hard to secure for every American? Voting is fundamental, and ensuring that every American has the right to vote is at the core of what makes our democracy vibrant. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together and to find a way forward for us to put voting rights first and to restore the important legacy of June 19 from across so many incidents in so many years and to move us forward on a positive path. Thank you. Mr. President, could I ask my colleague's indulgence for one last 2- minute speech?

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

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, when we send American Ambassadors to nearly every country around the world, we are able to strengthen democracy and protect our national security. Ambassadors are voices for American values and the interests we share with other nations. Simply put, they are critical to promoting our foreign policy, our economic and security interests, and our leadership in the world. Yet when--because of partisan politics and gridlock at home--we fail to confirm ambassadors, we send a dangerous message about our lack of interest in the world and our lack of interest to diplomacy. I have the privilege of chairing the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Through my work as chair, as well as time I spent earlier in my life in Africa, I have seen up close both the incredible opportunities in the continent of Africa as well as the stark challenges. For instance, today, this decade, 7 of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa. Yet right now 1 in 5 American embassies of the 54 countries on that continent lacks a confirmed ambassador. Africa faces serious security challenges. Boko Haram in Nigeria, which has recently kidnapped hundreds of girls and burned down churches and schools is just one example. Yet as the countries bordering that troubled area of Nigeria try to coordinate a response to ensure that conflict doesn't spill over borders, we lack confirmed ambassadors in the adjacent nations of Niger and Cameroon. In Namibia, where we also don't have a confirmed ambassador, the United States is dedicating $50 million to combat HIV and Aids. We need an ambassador to oversee those funds and make sure they are appropriately used. I will briefly review some of the numbers and facts. Our nominees to the countries of Namibia, Cameroon, and Niger have waited for a vote for 330 days--almost a year. Our nominee to Sierra Leone has waited 352 days, our nominee to Mauritania has waited 289 days, and our nominee to Gabon has waited 287 days. In the long absence of ambassadors, professional career Foreign Service officers, capable and competent Deputy Chiefs of Mission assume this role on an interim basis. I am deeply concerned that with the August turnover for Foreign Service officers quickly approaching, many of our embassies will also be left without a DCM at the helm. This is inexcusable. It hurts our economy, our national security, and our leadership to leave these posts unfilled and the ambassadorial nominees unconfirmed for so long. I have great hope for Africa's future. Across the continent there are emerging democracies, growing economies, and although there are some security challenges, I am optimistic we can meet them in partnership with Africa's leaders. When we fail to send career public servants to serve as our ambassadors, we send the message that we are not serious about these challenges and are not willing to invest in these partnerships. I urge my colleagues to work together across the aisle to devote ourselves to getting our ambassadorial nominees to Africa confirmed. This transcends partisanship, and it is a task we should turn to promptly. I thank the Presiding Officer and I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, something important, something unusual, something worth noting happened this week, happened yesterday in this Chamber that I don't want to let pass without a few moments of comment. Yesterday a broad bipartisan majority of this Senate came together to pass the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. First, I congratulate Senators Murray, Isakson, Harkin, and Alexander who led so capably on this bill. Senators Murray, a Democrat of Washington, and Isakson, a Republican of Georgia, spent years working through the details, policy, and language, and months making sure that they got this bill to a point where the Senate and the House in a bipartisan, bicameral way could adopt legislation. What is this about? It is about something simple, important, and powerful: investing in America's workforce so we can compete with anyone around the world in the 21st century. This is an area I have focused on a lot here in the Senate which I believe is critical to our Nation, our competitiveness, to strengthening our middle class, and to growing good jobs. In manufacturing, it is a core challenge for us to ensure that our workers have the training employers are looking for, and that our manufacturing companies are globally competitive. Manufacturing is important to America, to our future, to our middle class, to our communities, and to our families because it pays well, it drives innovation, it contributes greatly to other sectors in our economy and in communities. That is why a few months ago I launched the Manufacturing Jobs for America initiative that has brought together dozens of Senators. We initially pulled together Democrats from across my caucus to introduce 34 bills, some of the best and broadest ideas we could bring to the table about how to accelerate America's recovery of employment and steady growth in manufacturing. Roughly half of these bills are bipartisan. Part of the goal of this Manufacturing Jobs for America initiative was to put good ideas out on the floor and get them in the mix as we debate things going forward. So I wish to take a moment today and celebrate that the ideas of many of our partners in this campaign, ideas drawn from many of the bills that are part of this initiative, ended up being important parts of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act that was passed this week. Let me briefly touch on the five most important who contributed ideas that were embedded in this bill that passed. First, the Adult Education and Economic Growth Act which was sponsored by Senators Reed and Brown. In our rapidly changing economy, ensuring we can train Americans of all ages for all jobs is critical. Senator Reed's bill takes an important step in that direction by investing in adult education, expanding access to technology and digital literacy skills and improving the coordination of State and local programs. A bill that was endorsed by the National Association of Manufacturers is the AMERICA Works Act, sponsored by Senators Hagan and Heller. Another challenge we face is ensuring employers can quickly recognize whether a worker has the skills they need. So Senator Hagan's bill helped solve this by ensuring we prioritize programs that invest in training that delivers portable national and industry-recognized credentials. This encourages job training programs to match the skills of workers with the needs of local employers, training individuals for the jobs currently available in their communities right now. A third bill that contributed importantly to this bill that was enacted here yesterday, adopted by the Senate yesterday, was the Community College to Career Fund Act, sponsored by Senator Franken and Senator Begich. Senator Franken came to the floor yesterday and gave another passionate, important floor speech in support of these ideas. It is something that as I presided--and I have been with Senator Franken in caucus and have heard him speak many times. It is about equipping workers with the skills they need by investing in partnerships between our community colleges and our employers. Senator Franken, Senator Begich, myself and others have seen this work in our home communities. We have seen community colleges learn from manufacturers what today are the actual relevant modern manufacturing skills they need and then deliver customized training courses that make a difference in the skills, in the lives, in the college affordability and access of those who seek to join today's manufacturing workforce. The fourth bill, the On-the-Job Training Act, cosponsored by Senators Shaheen and Cochran, contributes to the idea that we need to invest in on-the-job training. Because of Senator Shaheen's leadership on this bill, we will now make new and important investments so workers can learn what they need to do in the job that needs to be filled, rather than in an academic setting and then search the skills that may match the skills they learn. On-the-job training in this bill sponsored by Shaheen and Cochran is an important contribution to modernizing America's workplace skills. The last, the SECTORS Act, cosponsored by Senators Brown and Collins, is a provision that helps meet the fundamental challenge of connecting our schools with our businesses by requiring State and local workforce investment boards to establish sector-based partnerships. With all of these bills there is an important and common theme. In the 21st century, rapid economic change is a given. In order to compete, in order to grow our economy and grow employment, in order to be productive and to have a successful and growing workforce, we need to be able to adapt as quickly as our economy does and we need to invest in modernizing the skills of the American worker. With the passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act yesterday, we have made a strong statement that in a bipartisan way we are willing to invest in America's workers, the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. This is just one of many encouraging moments here in the Senate that sometimes go without note or commentary in our communities at home, but I thought it was important to bring to the floor today this range of five different bills, three of them bipartisan, all of them strong, whose ideas were part of the package adopted on the floor yesterday and that I am confident will be adopted by the House and signed into law by our President. This Senate can, will, should continue to make bipartisan progress in investing in American manufacturing. I thank the Chair.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon because this week the Senate has a chance to take another crucial step away from the political cliffs and manufactured crises of previous years and to get back to the regular order--to get back to the considered, measured, orderly process on this floor that for so long was characteristic of this body, in the past considered the greatest deliberative body on Earth, but in recent years it has ground to a halt. It is critical that we return to regular order and that we return to the steady consideration of appropriations bills in a way that will move not just the Senate and this Congress but this country forward. I thank the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, Senators Mikulski and Shelby, for their leadership and their steadfast determination to work in a bipartisan manner and bring us back to regular order. We are considering today a collection--or what is called today a ``minibus'' instead of an omnibus--of three appropriations bills: Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration; Commerce, Justice, and Science; and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development--an unbelievable scope across these three appropriations bills that could in combination make a real and significant difference for our communities, our States, and our country. This is an opportunity for this Congress to carry out its duties to provide oversight and direction and to help all the different agencies I just named move forward and address some of our most important priorities. As a member myself of the Appropriations Committee, I have advocated for some of what are our Nation's top priorities embedded in these three important bills. So I wish to speak for a few minutes about how these bills will, first, help my home State of Delaware; second, help our country; and then, third, the important obligation we have as Senators to return to regular order and to use the appropriations process for oversight and for management of this whole Federal project. For Delaware, these three bills invest in a number of areas. I could talk about literally dozens of matters critical to my home State, but let me focus on two--public safety and infrastructure. When we think about it at the local level--where I served for a decade in county government--these are the foundation of what government does and does well: Keep our people, homes, communities, and families safe, and provide for the sewer water, drinking water, and the highways and tollways and bridges and ports that are critical to moving commerce and our country forward. This bill extends children's advocacy centers. Let me talk for a few minutes about what children's advocacy centers are and why it is so vital to public safety. Children's advocacy centers allow communities to bring child abusers to justice without retraumatizing their victims. Children's advocacy centers are unique because it is a model that brings together, under one roof in one place, law enforcement, prosecutors, counselors, and child service professionals--all focusing on how to best care for and move forward with a child who has been a victim of abuse. In Delaware we have three centers--one in each of our three counties. And although I wish we didn't need them, the fact is they are indispensable. In my experience in a decade of local government, I was exposed over and over to the critical role they play in helping law enforcement secure critical evidence and move forward to conviction against the monsters who commit abuse against our children. Since the creation of these centers, they have transformed our Nation's response to child abuse, giving families hope and guidance in their darkest moments and delivering justice to those who have endured the worst. As we work together to continue to try our best to keep our children safe, this bill allows us to continue to fund child advocacy centers so we can have a more efficient, more effective, more federally sponsored and coordinated way to deliver at a very modest cost this vital resource for our children. Second, as we work to keep our children safe, this bill also allows us to protect those who protect us. Every day more than 1 million law enforcement officers across this country accept risks to their personal safety. As they leave their families at dawn and head off to their jobs, they know that what they accept as part of their mission is the risk they may not come home that night. That is why it is so important this bill also funds the bulletproof vest partnership. In Delaware we know its value all too well. Last February at the New Castle County Courthouse in my hometown of Wilmington, DE, a gunman unleashed a hail of bullets into a courthouse lobby, tragically killing two. On what was a difficult morning in Wilmington, two lives were also saved--those of Sergeant Michael Manley and Corporal Steve Rinehart-- members of the Delaware Capitol Police--officers who were wearing bulletproof vests funded by the Federal Bulletproof Vest Partnership. This is a partnership launched by my predecessor, now-Vice President Biden. It has been sustained on a bipartisan basis for many years, but without this appropriation, this vital Federal-State-law enforcement partnership would grind to a halt. Vests work. They save lives. They save officers' lives, and with this bill we will be able to ensure even more officers all across this country have lifesaving bulletproof vests. Those are two areas where in law enforcement and public safety this bill continues critical investments in partnership from the Federal Government to State and local governments. In recent weeks in Delaware we have also been reminded of just how critical our infrastructure is--our bridges, our roads, and highways. There is a bridge on I-495 that goes across the Christina River. This is a vital highway for Wilmington and for the whole mid-Atlantic region. It carries 90,000 drivers a day, but 2 weeks ago it was closed indefinitely when workers nearby noticed four of its pillars were off plumb, were slanted, and then upon further investigation discovered there were cracks in the very foundation holding this bridge 50 feet in the air. Its closure is hurting families, businesses, and commuters, and it is just one in a string of recent emergencies all across our country that demonstrate the need for investment in fixing America's roads and bridges. The funding we are considering this week in this bill recognizes that and takes steps to address some of our most urgent needs across this country. It continues to invest in two innovative funding vehicles: One called TIGER grants and another called TIFIA loans. These are acronyms, but they are inventive ways to mobilize private capital in partnership with States and the Federal Government, to get us moving again in repairing and upgrading the roads and bridges of America. They help State and local governments pay for new highways and bridges, public transit projects, railways, and ports. In Delaware, the Port of Wilmington--a critical economic engine for our State and region--secured a $10 million TIGER grant last year to renovate facilities built in 1922. On U.S. 301, a little south and west of Wilmington but still in Delaware, TIFIA grants are helping us to do critical work to relieve congestion. In southernmost Delaware at Georgetown, at the Sussex County Airport, we have also seen the vital role and the value of Federal investment. Since 2012, the Sussex County Airport has received $4 million in airport improvement grants to expand its runway and improve safety and to help grow manufacturing jobs at that Georgetown Airport. With this week's bill, we will be able to continue making these kinds of critical improvements at airports in Delaware and across our country. I relatively rarely get to fly, but I commute virtually every day back and forth from Wilmington, DE, to Washington, and I ride on Amtrak when I do so. Today, ridership levels are at a record high, and Delaware's region in the Northeast corridor brings in $300 million in profits alone. So it is good this bill maintains Amtrak's national operations and investments in its capital needs, but I believe we need to do more. We need to step up and do more federally to invest if we want to keep these results, not just in the Northeast but across the country. We have a more than $6 billion backlog to reach a state of good repair for Amtrak. As our bridges, tunnels, and rail lines get older and older, fixing them will only become more expensive. That is why I intend to offer an amendment to this bill to further increase our investment in the capital needs of Amtrak. This is critical. It is something we need, and we need to start chipping away at this long overdue debt we have, this unaddressed infrastructure debt, if we are going to continue to serve our communities. There are many other great provisions in these incredibly broad bills that are of national and international importance. Let me just briefly reference a few. At home manufacturing continues to be critical to our economy and our future, and biomanufacturing plays an increasingly important role; the manufacturing of products and materials from renewable sources, from plant-based sources rather than petrochemicals. For the first time, through this bill, we will dedicate $15 million to the National Science Foundation's budget for new biomanufacturing initiatives that will allow us to deploy in the marketplace new inventions and innovations. Our competitors aren't holding back on doing so. Countries from the United Kingdom to China are ramping up their investments in new biomanufacturing. In my view it is time for the United States to refocus our research, to reprioritize our investments, and to stay competitive in this vital field. Finally, I am proud these appropriations bills also support in the housing area funding for Community Development Block Grant--CDBG-- Programs. We used them when I was in county government in Delaware to help rehabilitate homes, to help provide for affordable homes, and to help strengthen and sustain jobs in our communities. In 2013, so-called CDBG, or Community Development Block Grants, helped 225 families. Some in this body have tried to cut CDBG, but I am thrilled we have been able to successfully move forward and sustain its support in this bill. While we invest at home, these appropriations bills also make important investments abroad. One I would like to briefly highlight is in our international food aid program, where we feed millions but can do more. This bill provides for flexibility of our food aid that will allow it to be delivered more efficiently, more quickly, and to feed more who hunger around the world. As businesses also look abroad from the United States, we are doing more to open new markets for them. One of the investments I most value that is in this bill in this regard is the expansion of the Foreign Commercial Service at the Department of Commerce--in particular, its expansion in Africa, where 7 out of 10 of the fastest growing economies in the world are currently growing but where the United States isn't doing enough to take advantage of these burgeoning export markets for our products. As chair of the African Affairs Subcommittee, I have had a chance to see up close the great opportunities for growth and partnership that Africa offers. There will be four new Foreign Commercial Service offices in Angola, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, as well as expansion in Kenya, Ghana, Morocco, and Libya. Now we can make investments in them jointly so our growing partnerships in the Sub- Saharan countries I listed can thrive. As I close, I also make one brief point about why this whole process is important--why we need to pass these appropriations bills rather than just continuing resolutions, which go on from year after year, that sustain funding but do not engage the minds and skills of the Members of this body in doing oversight of the Federal Government. As the Federal Government changes, as our Nation's needs change, we need to be able to ensure that our spending and our focus adapts as well. A great example from this particular minibus bill that is on the floor today is the Crude By Rail Safety Initiative. Within the last year there have been a number of accidents on our rail networks that demand our action. America is moving more and more oil and hazardous products by rail every year, so we are putting in place an approach to do it safely. The Department of Transportation and Transportation Secretary Foxx have done a great job responding with the resources and tools they have, but Congress needs to do more. That is why this bill adds 20 new rail and hazardous materials inspectors, adds $3 million to ensure that oil routes are safe and sound, creates a new short-line safety institute, improves classifications, and extends training for first responders. Without this appropriations bill and regular order, new and timely investments such as these that are responsive to conditions of the world wouldn't happen. Thus, if I might say in closing, while our economy changes, we need to change, and we need regular order and regular appropriations bills to be able to do that. I again thank the chair and vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, Senators Mikulski and Shelby, for their leadership and their efforts to shepherd a bipartisan process forward. It is critical to our country, our economy, and our future. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I come to the floor of the Senate to speak about an issue that is of urgent concern to me and should be of urgent concern to all of us. That issue is global warming or climate change. This is a personal issue for me. As the father of three, along with any other parent, my kids are never far from my mind and my heart. This is true for me as a father as well as a Senator, where every day I have to ask the question: What kind of example am I setting? What kind of a world are my actions going to lead to? What sort of a world will I leave my children, and will it be better than the one my parents left to me? Last summer I experienced one of the great joys of parenthood--a family trip. My wife Annie and I took our three children Maggie, Michael, and Jack on a visit to one of our Nation's most spectacular places: the mountains and glaciers of Glacier National Park in Montana. There was one hike in particular on our summer trip that I will never forget. It was our hike up to visit historic Grinnell Glacier. If we had taken this hike more than 60 years ago, here is what we would have seen, as this picture shows: mountains deep in glaciers, thick with ice and snow, covered in the glaciers that gave this national park its name. Yet last year as we took a long and winding hike up the trails, we came up and over the last rise, and what we saw was noticeably different--strikingly so--because most of what is left of the iconic Grinnell Glacier in the summer is a chilly pool of water in a largely empty valley pool. We can see the difference in these two pictures, and this is just in one lifetime. Since 1966, Grinnell Glacier has lost half its total acreage, and as we continue to warm our planet, these changes will only accelerate. My children--our children--will not just lose the chance to see beautiful glaciers and an iconic national park but the chance to live in a world as robust and safe and healthy and vibrant as the one their parents were born into. As our global population keeps growing toward 9 billion and developing nations keep seeking higher living standards and climate change accelerates, this is the foundational challenge of the 21st century. Climate change impacts everything: human health, agriculture, national security, migration patterns for animals and fish and birds. As parents and as a nation, I think it is our responsibility, our challenge, and our opportunity to lead the way, to show that prosperity does not need to mean doom for our future. I also think in my view that, simply put, there is no alternative to action. The world where we don't act isn't a world of vibrant economic growth, it is a world with more frequent and extreme natural disasters, with increased droughts and famine, with displaced populations and cities--even regions and in a few cases even nations--plunged under water. I represent the lowest mean elevation State in America, the State of Delaware. It has been documented in a broad study led by our Governor's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control that rising sea levels could put up to 11 percent of my home State of Delaware under water by the end of the century. We know these changes are coming. They are slow. They are gradual. They are cumulative. At times they are hard to perceive, but they have already started and will only get more extreme and more expensive the longer we wait to act. The cost of our inaction will be borne by our children and generations to come. We are not the only ones seeing these impacts, and although the debate over science raged for many years, and I think is settled, I have also had an opportunity to hear from folks who live well outside the Western scientific world but have a profound insight into what these impacts are and how they are seen in the world. Several years ago, along with the senior Senator, a friend of mine, our President pro tempore, Senator Leahy, I visited the Kogi tribe in the remote Santa Marta Mountains of Colombia. These equatorial mountains have massive glaciers up at the very top of very high mountains but are also right at the edge of the Caribbean Sea. The folks who make up this pre-Colombian tribe, the Kogi tribe, don't have sophisticated technology that monitors and tracks climate change, but as they sat with us they shared with us what they see as starkly as our best weather-monitoring satellites. By observing changes in migratory patterns and weather and the snowpack on the glacial mountains they worship, they see, more every year, that there is a fundamental change happening in our environment, in our climate. Their purpose in calling us to meet with them was to warn us that climate change is impacting the way of life that has passed down from generation to generation for centuries in their people, and it has moved them to speak out to the world, to tell their story, and to urge the rest of us not to hurt Mother Earth and to understand the consequences of the changes we are making. Whether the voices we listen to come from our own children, from our science community or from remote corners of the world, all of them call us to act, to act in a way that prevents the worst from happening and to ensure that the benefits outweigh the costs. This isn't just wild-eyed or rosy thinking. It is possible for us to make meaningful change in a bipartisan way. We have done it before. Back in 1990, when acid rain was a real and pressing challenge that was threatening the vitality and the vibrancy of many of the lakes and the mountain places in the American West, I remember well that under then- Republican President George H.W. Bush, Congress came together in a bipartisan way and passed the Clean Air Act amendments. These were designed to reduce the contributing elements to acid rain: powerplant emissions that produce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide that in combination caused acid rain, damaging historic property, monuments, injuring forests and lakes and ecosystems all over our country. So Congress came together to create a novel, market-based, flexible cap-and-trade program that allowed powerplants to find cost-effective alternatives, solutions to limit pollution. Rather than tanking our economy, that cap-and-trade plan to fight acid rain ended up finding new ways to power our country and to improve energy efficiency without so much pollution. We adapted, we changed, and in some ways we thrived. As a study done 13 years later shows, those standards adopted in 1990 have saved lives at a cost well worth it: $70 billion in health benefits every year, cumulatively, compared to $1.7 billion in costs--a 40-to-1 tradeoff that I think most Americans would take any day of the week as a return on their investment. More recently, in my own State of Delaware and eight of our northeastern neighbors, we showed how we can act together to begin to curb climate change and grow our economies at the same time. In 2003, a bipartisan group of regional leaders, this time led by New York State's Republican Gov. George Pataki, built a regional cap-and-trade system, similar to the Acid Rain Prevention Program I just referenced. But the one in our region was called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI for short. It is flexible, market-based, and it has been effective. States choose to cut pollution in a number of ways, from closing older coal-fired powerplants or opening renewable energy projects to investing in important and valuable energy efficiency. As the New York Times reported just last week, since that program started in 2009, our economies in these regional States have actually grown more than the 41 other States that are not part of RGGI--by several percentage points--while we have cut our emissions over four times more than the rest of the Nation. We have created jobs, we have invested in innovation, we have cut pollution, and we saved millions of families money on their energy bills. That is why I think we should feel optimistic about the important steps the administration has just taken. The President's strong standards for vehicle fuel efficiency were a great start. At first many argued that pushing car companies to make cleaner, more efficient cars would end up costing a huge amount of money with little to show for it. But the opposite has happened. We set more aggressive national standards. Engineers have gotten to work. They have innovated. They have invented. America's leading car companies have met the challenge, and the improvement in fuel efficiency has been dramatic. Although there is a cost in upfront research and development, it is well worth it, as drivers save money at the pump, America becomes less dependent on foreign oil, and we all get to breathe cleaner air. Just last week the Obama administration took another step and proposed our Nation's first rules to limit carbon pollution from existing powerplants. Although they will not be finalized for another year, these limits represent the most significant action that any country has taken to halt the devastating warming of our planet. They will have real and lasting health benefits. By cutting powerplant pollution over the next 15 years, we will be able to prevent 100,000 asthma attacks in children, 2,100 heart attacks, and thousands of premature deaths. That will mean nearly 500,000 fewer missed days of school and work and will save $7 in health costs for every $1 required of new investment. Over the long term, curbing climate change will make large, lasting, and meaningful differences--from reduced hunger and heat waves, to reducing the spread of infectious diseases or conflicts over scarce resources. Cynics will argue that even with these limits we will not stop climate change, and that is true. They will point out that renewable energy technology is not yet ready to fully replace fossil fuels. They will say that America acting alone cannot solve the problem, and that is true. We need global action, especially from large developing nations such as China and India that are on pace to pollute the most going forward. As an exercise in cynicism, they get a lot of things wrong. These rules alone, yes, will not halt our rising seas. But, then again, no one is claiming they will alone. But they are a crucial step, and we owe it to posterity, to our country, to our future to take what action we can to send a powerful signal to America's entrepreneurs and engineers, our innovators and inventors, that this is a challenge we intend to take on. By acting now, we can begin to birth the innovations that will be at the heart of our planet's clean energy future. Innovation in America has never stood still. We have done incredible things that even a few years before we might not have predicted. Remember, just a few years ago, natural gas prices were volatile, unreliable, and solar power was too expensive for most households. Yet in just the last few years new technologies have flipped those on their head and we are seeing remarkable changes. Solar prices have fallen 60 percent in just the last 3 years, and natural gas is today cheaper than coal. There are dramatic changes in our energy future going on because of a huge resurgence in natural gas production in this country. We have every reason to believe that by focusing our greatest minds on this challenge, American ingenuity can change and even save the world. If the United States is going to lead the 21st century, we have to be at the forefront of combating climate change. Although we know meeting this challenge will take global action, the United States needs to lead the way. This is our responsibility. We cannot expect other poor nations to act if a leading, wealthy nation such as the United States is not willing to take even the most minimal responsible actions. We are the second largest polluter of greenhouse gases on the planet, only just eclipsed by the Chinese in the last decade. For more than a century our economic growth and our strong middle class--built on American industry and innovation--made us the envy of the world, but they have also contributed to putting our planet in a dangerous position. As developing nations work to lift hundreds of millions of people out of desperate poverty, they are looking at us to show that it is possible. Also, a great but urgent opportunity here lies before us. We have a moral obligation to lead because others are looking at competing examples and are not waiting around. China, our greatest economic competitor, now and into the future, is itself choking on the byproducts of coal and investing heavily in cleaner air and cleaner energy. The country that figures out how to prosper without deadly pollution is the country that will dominate the technologies that our world uses and depends on in the decades to come. Are we really going to miss out on this chance to be the country that makes the clean cars, the clean powerplants, the clean technologies of the future? I hope not. We in Congress have the opportunity and the obligation to pull together and to act responsibly as well. We can pass the bipartisan Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill today, create great jobs, and make it easy for families to spend less on energy and save money while doing it. We can put clean energy on a level playing field by passing the bipartisan Master Limited Partnership Parity Act, of which I am a cosponsor, to stop giving coal, oil, and natural gas a leg up without an even playing field for renewables and energy efficiency. We can invest in the research that will unlock the energy innovations of the future. These are actions we could take today. There will be costs. But if we act now, they will be far outweighed by the benefits today and into the future. If we wait, these costs will only grow. I understand this is a difficult issue politically for us to take on. Many of the most dire consequences of global warming are still into the future. As I know, as a person who struggles to make long-term, delayed decisions--whether it is investing for retirement or losing the weight my doctor keeps suggesting would help improve my long-term health-- humans are not really good at taking the small but powerful steps today that over time will lead to a healthier, more secure future. Even if the costs are low, when the benefits are farther out, it is so hard for us to take action. What will we say--what will we say--when our children ask, what did we do, when the science was clear, when the options were before us, and when we had the chance? Just as we rightly worry in this Chamber about the financial debts we are going to leave to future generations, leaving this debt, leaving the burdens of unaddressed, unresolved global warming and climate change to our children and future generations is a debt too deep for us not to address. We are in danger--if we do not act--of leaving behind not only a worse off world but of leaving ourselves a future where we cannot look our children in the eye and say that we stepped up to the greatest global challenge of this century. What will it mean when my own daughter, at some point in the future, goes to Glacier National Park with her future family? Will it even have glaciers? How will she explain to them how that amazing national park has changed? And what will she say about what this Senate and her own father did to take action? It is my hope, my prayer, that on that future trip they will reflect on how we found the will, how we found the determination, to act together to change the trajectory of our future and to save it for everyone's future. With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COONS

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

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Mr. President, in my home State of Delaware today we have a problem. Just this week the critical I-495 bridge over the Christina River in Wilmington--which carries more than 90,000 drivers each and every day, north and south on this critical artery on the east coast of the United States--was closed indefinitely. While engineers and workers were on an unrelated project in the area, they noticed that four of the key pillars holding up the bridge were alarmingly slanted, causing widespread concerns about the bridge's safety and prompt action to shut it down. Now as the Delaware Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration do everything they can to get to the bottom of this problem and to work to make this bridge safe again, tens of thousands of commuters are forced onto already crowded streets and highways, creating even worse traffic for everyone in our area, hurting our economy, and taking people away from where they need to be. It is, sadly, yet another example--one that hits particularly close to home for me--in a string of major infrastructure emergencies, some due to unforeseeable events, and some due to a long-term critical lack of investment that signifies why investment in our infrastructure is so important. Every day when Americans drive to work or drop off their kids at school, they make a simple bargain, an unconscious bargain with their government: They assume the roads will be safe to drive on. They expect that if they drive safely, they will be able to get to where they need to go in a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, it has been quite clear that while Americans keep doing what they can to move our Nation and our economy forward, we here in Congress aren't holding up our end of the bargain. We aren't meeting our responsibilities to invest in critical areas that we all know need work. We have a lot of infrastructure needs, but we simply aren't keeping up with them today. This is about the end of the school year for most families with kids in school around the country. Like many other parents, I was going over with my kids what they think their grades are at the end of the year. Well, the country also gets a grade. We get a grade from the American Society for Civil Engineers. These are the folks whose job it is to manage and supervise and survey the health and capabilities of our infrastructure--our bridges and roads and highways. This group, the American Society for Civil Engineers, gave our roadways a D. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that we are dramatically behind in investing in keeping our highways and bridges and tunnels up to speed. They say we need $170 billion more in capital investments every year to improve road conditions and performance. That group of civil engineers, the ASCE, has also determined a quarter of our bridges are functionally obsolete or structurally deficient. In little old Delaware, that comes to 175 bridges that fail to meet what we would all expect of our government--Federal and State and county and local governments--that we maintain bridges to the highest level of safety that we would expect. We will always face unforeseen crises and challenges, but this is one we can see coming. There may be hurricanes such as the great Superstorm Sandy that wiped out a lot of infrastructure in my region or there may be other unforeseeable events that impact our transportation infrastructure. But this one we have been seeing coming for years. This inconvenience in Delaware--the closing of the critical bridge on 495 that has put so many at inconvenience--was nowhere near the biggest transportation disaster we have had in recent years. Just last year in Washington State, the Skagit River Bridge, built in 1955, literally collapsed after a truck drove into its framework. Seventy-one thousand drivers were using that bridge on a daily basis. I think many of us remember, way back in August of 2007, tragedy struck Minneapolis when its I-35 West Bridge, which extends over the Mississippi River, literally collapsed under the rush hour traffic weight. More than 100 cars were thrown into the water, 13 people lost their lives, and 145 were injured. If we don't act soon--together--we are going to face many more such tragic incidents like these. We have to address this problem and get over our unwillingness together to invest in infrastructure that we all depend on and value. The simple fact, as I have said, is current Federal investments are not keeping pace with our needs. We are, sadly, months away from exhausting the Federal highway trust fund--the trust fund that finances much of the highway, bridge, and tunnel work around the country on the Interstate Highway System--because the gas tax that funds it hasn't risen in 20 years, but the amount of gas being consumed and thus gas tax revenue generated has gone down. Yet we don't seem here to have the political will to implement a solution to this basic problem that folks have been saying is coming at us, hurtling like an oncoming truck for years. We talk a lot about our children--about the kind of world we want to leave them, about our hopes for the future, and it is just one of the reasons I am so concerned about our Nation's long-term balance sheet. Many of us talk about our Nation's deficits and our potentially crippling Federal debt. It is irresponsible of us to continue to rack up debt on our national balance sheet and leave it to our children and grandchildren. But I highlight today that when we neglect our transportation infrastructure--our highways and tunnels and roads and ports and bridges--these are things we use every single day in transporting our families and ourselves or goods to and from work or to and from home, to school, to soccer, to vacation. These are critical pieces of the American infrastructure. We are also racking up a huge debt there too. These investments have to be made one way or the other. I know we value these systems because we depend on them every day. So if we can't come together in the short term to fix the highway trust fund, I am left to wonder how we are going to come together on the much larger problem of meeting our broader infrastructure needs, of which that trust fund is one small but crucial part. We face short- term, medium-term, and long-term problems. As I said, we have to fix this highway trust fund before it runs out of funding this summer. It is what often funds 80 percent of State highway work. It is a critical part of construction projects already scheduled to go on this summer. We have kept it funded by transferring money from the general fund for the last few years, but that is not how it is supposed to work. So we have got to come to terms with a solution that is responsible and meets this challenge. We have a range of options, but none of them are appealing: Increasing the gas tax, putting a surcharge on vehicles, charging for vehicle miles traveled. All of these are unappealing politically, but it is essential that we come up with something to solve this long-term problem. I thank Chairman Wyden of the Finance Committee, who is working hard with other members of that committee even today to find a path forward and a solution. Second, in the medium term, we have to reauthorize--we have to approve--ongoing work for highways, roads, and bridges, and we need to have a reauthorization for surface transportation by this fall. The Chair and ranking member of the relevant committee--Barbara Boxer of California and Dave Vitter of Louisiana--have shown, as has my senior Senator Tom Carper from Delaware, who also serves on this committee, that Federal infrastructure investment is a bipartisan value. They have been able to come out of that committee with bipartisan reauthorizations a number of times over the last couple of years, and that is encouraging to me. We also, a few minutes ago, came out of the transportation subcommittee markup on appropriations, the committee that says: Here is how much we will spend. That came out with a very strong bipartisan vote earlier today and will come to the floor in the next few months. This progress is encouraging, but it doesn't mean anything if we don't have a way to pay the bill when the bill comes due. We need to figure out how to finance infrastructure for the long term in this country. There are several bills with good ideas that have been put forward in this committee and in this Chamber. I have supported two bills. One is called the BRIDGE Act and the other is called the Partnership to Build America Act. These bills will provide the critical steps we need to bring private sector money in off the sidelines and facilitate a real partnership between government money and private sector money. These bills have been led by Senators Warner, Blunt, and Bennet, are genuinely bipartisan, and enjoy support from groups who often don't work well together--from industry to labor, from the AFL-CIO to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. There are several strong bipartisan bills that show the way forward, but we don't seem to be able to get them to the floor, get them approved, and get them moving forward. Right now, the truth is that the debate on this floor comes nowhere close to matching the reality of the scope of the problems in front of us. As I mentioned earlier, we have an enormous infrastructure debt. By 2020--in just the next 6 years--it is estimated that our Nation will need $3.6 trillion of new infrastructure investment so we can fix and maintain our roads, bridges, rail, transit, drinking water, ports, sewers, wastewater treatment, and beyond. This is an enormous debt which is unpaid and for which we currently have no path forward. I know many of us who serve on the Budget Committee and pay attention to the balance sheet of our country are concerned about our structural national debt. I wanted to take a minute today--on a day when everyone in my hometown and home State is concerned about how we will tackle the problem of the I-495 bridge--and remind all of my colleagues of the scale of this national infrastructure debt. At the heart of this problem and at the heart of so many of the problems we have is our unwillingness to pay for what we want, to pay the bill that is long overdue for our long-overdue improvements to the infrastructure of this great country. Fixing this problem is going to take a great deal of revenue. We can reform taxes, we can involve the private sector, we can reprioritize funding, and we can reform the way government works. We don't lack for innovative ideas, but at the end of the day what we currently lack is our will. The people of the United States, through us, need to step up to the challenge of paying the bill. In my hometown, just in the last few hours and over the last few days, we have become more engaged in this debate than we have been in a long time because a bridge that is critical, a vital artery for our community, has stopped. It is closed indefinitely. We need to work together to find the resources to fix this bridge and get America moving together again. It is my hope and plea that my colleagues will step up to this challenge, which I know every community in our country faces. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

Mr. COONS

Mr. COONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all remaining time on both sides.