Angus King

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Madam President, I rise to address the bill that has been recently--and I emphasize the word ``recently''--introduced in the House of Representatives. I believe it was introduced Monday. It is having not a hearing but a markup today, and may be on the House floor as soon as tomorrow or early next week. As the President said recently, healthcare is complicated. To me, to introduce a bill that was not available to any Members of Congress before Monday, mark it up in committee 2 days later, attempt to pass it on the floor of the House, and then I understand it may come directly to the floor of the Senate without any committee consideration, it just seems to me is a disservice to the process and a disservice to the traditions and practices of this institution. This is complicated. It is difficult. The ramifications and implications of this bill, just as any other major change in our healthcare system, are incredibly important. This is not about ideology. This is about people. This is about the impact on people. I want to talk about the impact of this bill, as we have thus far been able to assess it, on the people of Maine. When I look at a piece of legislation down here, I start with Maine. How will it affect the people who live along our coast or inland, in the small towns, and particularly people who are above the age of 50? Maine happens to be the oldest State in the country. Therefore, anything which negatively impacts seniors doubly negatively impacts the people of my State. I feel this bill is a disaster for seniors. I define seniors in this case as anybody over 50 because it does several things. One of the things it does, and there should be a great deal of discussion about this, under the Affordable Care Act, which recognizes the fact that seniors and people who are older tend to have more medical needs than those who are younger, it caps differential at three times. In other words, a senior can only pay three times what a younger person pays, and even that is burdensome in many cases. This bill changes three to five. It will be a very substantial increase in the payments and the costs of insurance and healthcare to senior citizens. Now, the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is, I find, the most nonpartisan and informative source of information on all of these issues, has created a handy tool on their website, where you can put in information, such as family income and age, and determine what you would have paid under the Affordable Care Act and what you would pay under this new bill. What they found was--I wanted to look and see what somebody in my State will pay. If you are a 60-year-old in Aroostook County Maine with an income of $30,000, the subsidy--the support for the premium for individual insurance--would fall by 70 percent. The support for your insurance policy under the Affordable Care Act would fall by 70 percent. Throughout our State, the average decrease would be 48 percent-- almost half. So we are talking not about some theoretical, ideological, political thing here, we are talking about people's ability to afford health insurance. It is about as clear as it could be. That is why it is frustrating to me that we collectively--the Congress--are going to be asked to consider this bill with literally no hearings, no input from the public, no discussion of how all the pieces fit together or don't fit together. Yet we are going to be asked--I believe, my understanding is, we are going to be asked to vote on this bill sometime on the floor of the Senate, without any committee consideration, in the next week or so. This is too important to people's lives to give it such short shrift. It is just not right to make changes of this magnitude that are so vital to people's well-being and literally their health and their survival in some cases. It is unthinkable to me that we would do this without a round of hearings and discussions and the regular order that we supposedly honor around here as to how major legislation is to come to the floor. I received a letter just recently: ``Hi, Angus.'' I like it when my correspondents say ``Hi, Angus'' instead of ``Senator.'' Hi, Angus [he says]. I have worked in the pulp and paper industry for close to 30 years. It was a good industry up here, supported middle-class families in northern Maine. But we have had layoffs and closures of our mills. After every closure, I had to obtain health insurance for my family on my own. Before ObamaCare, this was a disaster. I could only obtain catastrophic insurance from one of two providers. There was no way I could pay $1,500 a month for a decent plan. After ObamaCare, I could obtain decent insurance at a decent price. While there may have been problems for some, it was a godsend for my family. Please help ensure we don't go back to the old days. We are self-employed by our small business and would not be able to pay more for less. That is what the bill that is in the House would do, pay more for less. By the way, how does the money work in this bill? Well, one of the things the bill does is, my understanding, and, again, I am only operating on what we have seen in the last 24 hours because of no hearings, but one of the things it does is eliminate a tax on people who make over $250,000 a year in order to cut coverage for people who are not making that kind of money. It is a tax cut, and shifting the cost to our citizens, particularly our seniors. The pattern is, shift and shaft. Shift the cost, and shaft the people who need the coverage. This is supposed to be a substitute. It is supposed to be coverage for everyone. You have to be careful. When people talk about access, they are talking about: Yes, you can buy it, but if you can't afford it, that is not really access. This bill dramatically decreases the support for health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act. The reality is, and I hear a lot of talk about how ObamaCare is collapsing. It isn't. More people signed up this year than last year. Yes, it is true the rates went up, but that was because younger people were not signing up in significant numbers. We need to deal with that issue because that makes the risk pool older and sicker and therefore more expensive. I have been told by insurance officials that if something like this bill that is in the House passes and the subsidies disappear and the Affordable Care Act goes away, the private health insurance market for individuals, the so-called individual market, will essentially collapse. The reality is, the uninsured population of this country has fallen virtually in half since the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Twenty-two million people have coverage now who did not before and we can take it away. The other piece I don't like about this bill is it phases things out so the impact will not be felt until after the next election or sometime in the future. Well, the future comes. In this case, the future is going to be pretty desolate for people who have health insurance now and are not going to have it 2, 4, or 6 years from now. It is just not right. I am one who has been saying, since I entered this body now 4-plus years ago, that there are problems with the Affordable Care Act. We should be working on those problems. We should be working on repairing it, not destroying it. We should not be talking about taking healthcare coverage away from people in this country. I am sure I and many others will be addressing more comprehensively the provisions of this bill as it becomes more clear, even though we are going to have to ferret those provisions out because we are not going to have the benefit of expert testimony and views from a variety of points of view of how this is actually going to work. The reality is, I don't think there is much question that this proposal will hammer Maine and my people. I can't stand for that. I hope the House will have a more vigorous process, they will understand what the implications are, and take a more judicious approach so we are not tearing insurance out from under people, we are not going to make the cost be driven up, we are not giving a tax break to people who make over $250,000 a year, and at the same time taking coverage away from people who make $30,000 a year. That is wrong. We should be repairing, not repealing. I think this bill is not the right place to start. I stand for the people of Maine. I stand for the people who are going to be harmed by this, whether they are seniors or working people or self-employed people or people who have been able to start businesses because they could get, for the first time, insurance under the Affordable Care Act. I believe that is our obligation. We have an opportunity to work together. I am willing to work with anyone who wants to work on improving and dealing with some of the issues that have been raised by the Affordable Care Act. Let's stop talking about repealing. Let's talk about fixing, strengthening, and meeting our commitment to our fellow citizens in Maine and across our country. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, I rise to oppose S.J. Res. 13, which is a Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the regulations which protect title X health centers. I believe this resolution, although well meaning, will have the opposite effect of its intention. I particularly want to discuss the organization known as Planned Parenthood, but, more generally, these women's health centers, these title X health centers, No. 1, provide many healthcare services to women, particularly low-income women. They are the choice of those women. They are a place they have chosen to go to receive their healthcare treatment. I do think that one of the problems with this whole debate is the use of the term ``funding'' of Planned Parenthood. What we are talking about here is not funding, as in a budget line or a budget provision that says: Planned Parenthood gets $58 million or $100 million or $10, whatever it is. That is not the way it works. What we are talking about is reimbursement for women's healthcare services provided on an individual, case-by-case basis, and this does not include abortion. It does not include abortion. These organizations in Maine--Planned Parenthood, for example, serves 10,000 people. Ten thousand women choose to get their healthcare services from Planned Parenthood. The other piece of this debate I have never understood is why those who are opposed to abortion would be so opposed to organizations that allow women to make choices about pregnancies and provide contraception and contraception advice, which statistically we know reduces abortion. In Maine, because of the access to organizations like Planned Parenthood and other women's healthcare clinics, we have seen our teen pregnancy rate drop 58 percent in the last 20 years or so--58 percent. That is a significant reduction, and it is attributable, at least in some significant part, to the availability of the services provided by these organizations. It has always struck me as ironic, in the extreme, that someone who says they are against abortion should be against an agency that provides contraception and family planning services that prevent pregnancy and therefore prevent abortion. I subscribe to President Clinton's formulation that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. It should not be something that is chosen just casually--and of course it isn't. This is a terribly difficult decision for a women, but that is not the subject today. The subject today is curtailing the reimbursement for women's healthcare services to an organization or organizations that may also provide abortion services. It is contrary to the very idea of trying to prevent abortion, but it is also denying healthcare services of choice to thousands of women in Maine and millions across the country. I have sat in this body for 4 years and heard people talking about how consumers and patients should be able to choose their physicians, they should be able to choose their healthcare options. This was a basic principle. It is one of the arguments we have heard as we have been discussing other healthcare issues in this body. This Congressional Review Act provision would take away that choice. I think that is a great disservice to those citizens, many of whom are low income, many of whom are covered by Medicaid, many of whom do not have private health insurance. To take this step that this resolution would entail would be very shortsighted, and I believe it is a violation of the rights of those people to choose their healthcare providers. It also does not achieve the ends that the sponsors want to achieve. That is why I believe that this resolution--although it may be denominated as something to do with being anti-abortion, I think it is just the opposite. If this resolution passes and these healthcare centers under Title X, including Planned Parenthood, are unable to deliver these services, there will be more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions. I think that is a sad and unfortunate outcome to be perpetrated by people who say they are trying to oppose abortion. Planned Parenthood provides women's healthcare services. It provides contraceptive services. I know the people in Maine who work for this agency, and I know this is a terribly controversial issue, but I believe that if what we want to do is minimize the number of abortions, then it makes no sense whatsoever to somehow indiscriminately strike out at the funding of the agencies that provide healthcare services. Nobody in this body is talking about Federal funds for abortion. That is not what the issue is. If that were the issue, this would be an entirely different debate. The issue is taking reimbursement away from the Planned Parenthood clinic or Title X clinic for mammograms, cervical exams, or other women's healthcare services. Why would we want to do that in the name of achieving some other goal that won't even be achieved? In fact, it will be made a more widespread issue. I hope the Senate will realize that whatever the motivation behind this provision is, it just makes no sense. It makes no sense from the point of view of preventing abortion. It makes no sense in terms of the taxpayers. Preventive services, contraceptive services, cost about $200 a patient; a Medicaid birth costs about $10,000. If it is a Medicaid patient, those are taxpayer dollars. We are talking about saving taxpayers money. This goes to the healthcare system in general: Why would we want to undo prevention, whether prevention of unwanted pregnancies or prevention of a disease? Prevention is part of the solution to the healthcare crisis in this country because of the excessive cost. Here is a specific case. Again, we are not talking about funding abortions. We are not talking about funding Planned Parenthood. We are not talking about funding these Title X health centers. We are talking about protecting them in terms of their reimbursement for women's health services delivered. That is what this vote is about. If you vote for this, you are voting to take away reimbursement for health services that are necessary to protect the health and well-being of women across this country. I hope my colleagues will vote no on this resolution, and I believe it will serve the public and it will even serve those people who are concerned most deeply--and I understand--about abortion. If you want fewer abortions, fund Planned Parenthood. It seems to me that is a fairly clear correlation, and it is one we should respect. But we also should respect the rights, needs, and choices of those millions of women who rely on these clinics for their healthcare needs aside from the issue of reproductive rights, just straight healthcare needs. That is what this vote is all about. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Madam President, I rise today in one sense as a former Governor. In looking at nominations of Cabinet members by the Executive, I start with a position of deference to the Executive because I think he or she should be able to choose the people who surround them and give them advice. I understand that. I did that as a Governor, and I understand that principle. Indeed, in the proceedings before this body thus far, I think I voted for 7 or 8 or perhaps 10 of the nominees for Cabinet members who advise the President. But today we are considering a nominee who is hostile to the fundamental purpose of the Agency to which he is being appointed. We are appointing a person to be the head of an Agency that is called the Environmental Protection Agency. All you need to know about the mission of that Agency is contained in the name, the Environmental Protection Agency, and we are considering a nominee who has no record that I have been able to discover of protection of the environment. None. Zero. No history of actions on behalf of the environment, on behalf of the health and welfare and well-being of the citizens of his State or of the United States. It is bizarre, to me, to be appointing people to an office where they are hostile to the mission of the office to which they are being appointed. In fact, not only has he no record of positive environment activity, his record is completely to the contrary where he has opposed activities of the Environmental Protection Agency. As everybody knows, as attorney general of Oklahoma and leading other attorneys general around the country, he sued the Environmental Protection Agency numerous times; I think something like 20 times. And some of those rules--all of those rules were put into place to protect the health and well-being of the American people. There are several of them that I am particularly sensitive to. When I was the Governor of Maine, we had an issue of air quality. We still do. The reason we have an air quality issue in Maine is because of the air that is coming in on the prevailing westerly winds from the rest of the country. At one point, we had a time where we did the calculations, and we could have taken every car off our highways, closed every one of our factories, and we still would have had air quality violations on the coast of Maine. Pollution doesn't respect borders. It doesn't respect State borders, and it doesn't respect international borders. That is why it has to be a national responsibility. Of course, each State can also have, as we do in Maine, its own department of environmental quality, its own department of environmental protection. Each State could and should and will do that and has done that, but we also need to have national standards because otherwise the States will race to the bottom: How friendly are you to business? Come on in; we have no rules. This was realized almost 50 years ago by a Senator from Maine, a Senator whose seat I occupy, a Senator whose desk I have in my office, Edmund Muskie. Edmund Muskie was the father of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and he came from a State where this was not politically easy. The rivers in Maine had been grossly polluted by industrial waste. Yet he took the lead on this important issue. Here is something extraordinary: The Clean Air Act, one of the most important environmental laws of the 20th century and very controversial, widespread impact around the country, passed this body unanimously. It is unbelievable looking back to that day. We couldn't pass the time of day unanimously in this body today, but there was bipartisan consensus that protecting the environment for ourselves and for the future of our citizens was not a political issue. It was an issue of responsibility. It was an ethical issue. And Ed Muskie, a giant in this body, created the groundwork and the legislative basis for the work we are still doing today. In Muskie's time, the pollution was obvious. You could see it, and you could breathe it. I live on the Androscoggin River in Brunswick, and when I first went there 35 years ago, you could smell the river in the spring. You could smell it. You knew it was spring; you could smell the foam and waste that was coming down the river. That is gone today because of the work of people like Ed Muskie. By the way, people like Howard Baker, Republicans--and in our State of Maine, the environmental movement was led by Republicans in those days. Hoddy Hildreth, David Huber, Ken McCloud, Harry Richardson--those are all prominent Republican leaders in our State who also led the environmental protection movement in our State. As I said, it was easy. You could smell it; you could see it. The smog in Los Angeles was so bad that it was ridiculous, and it was unhealthful, so we took some steps that dealt with that. We are facing an environmental threat today that is somewhat less visible--although I will argue that it is actually quite visible--but it is no less profound. In fact, I believe it is more dangerous, more threatening, more important to the future of this planet and our country and our people than those obvious threats that were faced back in 1970 and beyond. Environmental protection, in my view, is a moral and an ethical issue; it is an intergenerational ethical issue; and it can all be summarized by what I call the main rototiller rule. The main rototiller rule goes like this: If you borrow your neighbor's rototiller in the spring in order to plow up your garden and get ready to plant, you have an obligation to return it to him in as good of shape as you got it and with a good tank of gas. That is all you need to know about environmental stewardship, because we have the planet on loan. We don't own it. We own it temporarily. We own plots of land temporarily, but we don't own the planet. We have it on loan from future generations--from our children and our grandchildren and seven generations hence. Yet our age, our generation, is acting like it is all ours, like everything is ours. It took millions of years, for example, to create the fossil fuels that are underneath the Earth. The word ``fossil'' has a meaning. They are there because they are from fossils. It goes back literally millions of years for the Earth to distill the plant and animal matter into this miraculous substance called oil--millions of years. Yet we are using it up. Forget about the pollution for a moment; just think about the idea that we are using an asset that the Earth produced over millions of years, and in a matter of--I don't know--200 to 300 years, we are going to use it all. It is as if on Thanksgiving the turkey comes to the table, all of the family is sitting around, and Dad says: OK, I am going to eat this whole turkey. You don't get any. What do we tell people when they look back on us in 20, 50, 100, 200 years? What are they going to think of our generation? What is our defense going to be? We know it is not infinite. There is argument about how much is there, but it is not infinite. There is no machine in the center of the Earth that is creating these substances; therefore, we have a responsibility to future generations, as my friends in Maine would say, not to pig out on what we have and just forget about who comes next. Of course, as it becomes more rare, it will become more expensive, so we are passing those costs off as well. Beyond that is the environmental cost. I mentioned the obvious environmental problems back in the seventies and eighties of when you could see the air, when you could smell the rivers, but today the problem is what we are doing to the planet, which is climate. What bothers me about this nominee is he basically says: Well, it is a controversial issue. The sciences differ. No. The science is clear. Before I get to that, I have one more point about the ethical and moral responsibility. Last year, we had Pope Francis here. Pope Francis has talked a great deal about this issue and the ethical and moral and, indeed, religious obligation we have to be good stewards of our environment and of our planet. People criticized the Pope. They said: Let the Pope stick to religion and stay away from science. It turns out that the Pope is a chemist. That is an unfortunate fact. When the Pope was here, I did a little act of Jesus in the Good Book and found a number of references to the responsibility we have to protect the environment and the land. Indeed, in the Old Testament--and we all know about the Sabbath, that on the seventh day, He rested. There is a provision in the Old Testament whereby every 7 years the people were instructed to let the land lie fallow for a year--a Sabbath for the land in order to preserve its productivity. I believe this is fundamentally an ethical issue. What do we owe our children--to just forge ahead in the face of overwhelming science and all of the predictions? What is happening in the world around us is selfishness. It is unethical. It is wrong. It is unfair. As I said, we are talking about a nominee for this body who says the debate about climate change is just that--it is a debate. There are scientists that agree, and there are scientists that don't agree to the extent of man's contribution and whether it is even harmful at this point. Give me a break. The scientific community is virtually unanimous, and, indeed, the data is unanimous. I carry a little card around with me. This is a blowup of it. I am a visual person--I like to see things, and I understand them better. To me, this is what you need to know about what is going on. By the way, what this is, is CO2 in the atmosphere, parts per million, for 800,000 years. People say: Well, it has varied over time. It goes up and down. It is just a natural cycle. It does vary over time. Here is 850,000 years, and you can see that it varies from a low of about 180 parts per million up close to 300 parts per million, and that is the variation. Absolutely true. That is the variation until you get to about 1860, and that is when it starts to go up. Now we are at 400 parts per million, which is 25 percent higher than it has been in 5 million years. Was it a coincidence that it started to happen when we started to burn fossil fuels in such vast quantities? Of course not. Was there a big outburst of volcanos in the mid-1800s? Of course not. This is not debatable. These are measurements. These are scientific measurements. Debating this is like debating that water boils at 212 degrees: Oh, no. I think it boils at 214 degrees. No. It is 210. It is 212. Light travels at 186,000 miles a second. That is not debatable. Neither is this. We are in a very dangerous place. Scott Pruitt calls it an argument and doesn't want to do anything about it. Not only does he not want to do anything about it, he wants to undo the things that have been done to try to protect us. You can look at this chart and say CO2 is going up. It is invisible gas. You cannot taste it. You cannot smell it. It does not poison us. It is in the atmosphere anyway. Who cares? What difference does it make? Here is what difference it makes. This is the other side of my little card. This is the correlation of over 800,000 years between temperature and CO2. Of what you can see, the blue is the CO2, and the temperature is red, and what you see is an almost exact correlation. It is beyond coincidence. When CO2 goes up, the temperature goes up. When CO2 goes down, the temperature goes down. You can see it over the time. Do you know where we are now in CO2? Here. The correlation is unmistakable, it is powerful, and it is dangerous. The nominee for the Environmental Protection Agency denies this. He says it is a debate. Just for a moment, let's take him at his word. Let's say it is a debate. Let's say it is not entirely settled. If the risk is so catastrophic, wouldn't it be prudent to try to take some measures to prevent it even if you are not sure? By the time we are sure--by the way, we are sure now. By the time Scott Pruitt is sure, it will be too late. It may already be too late. We may be beyond the tipping point, and all we can do is mitigate the danger, not stop it altogether, because we have been heedless of the consequences of the results that will impact the next generation of Americans and of people around the world. What are the consequences going to be? What if it gets a little bit warmer? We will be able to play golf longer in Maine--hey, not bad--but the consequences in many cases are going to be catastrophic. There are many already affecting Maine in terms of where our lobster population is moving. I had a sea farmer in my office 2 days ago, a fellow who has a great business. He has grown it for years. It is really a serious business of growing oysters, and he has always grown them in the Damariscotta River. In fact, if you go to a fancy restaurant and ask for Damariscotta River oysters there, they are the top-level oysters in the world. He has always grown them in the river. He puts in the little seed. They start in little, tiny shells, and then they grow out. He can no longer grow them initially in the river because the water is so acidic from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is absorbed by the ocean, that the shells don't grow. He had to move the incubation part of his business onshore and treat the water to lower the acidity so that the shells will grow, and then when they get a certain size, he puts them back in the river. This is a real, direct, obvious, observable effect of global climate change and of too much CO2 in the atmosphere. It is not theoretical. It is not debatable. It is not that scientists differ. This guy is trying to make a living, and he can only do it by treating the water because the acid that has been created by the ocean in its absorbing the CO2 is making it impossible for the oysters to develop. That is a direct impact. Probably the most direct impact we are going to be able to see and identify and not avoid is sea level rise. Last summer--as a matter of fact, in August--I went to Greenland. Let me just put that in context. It is the continent of Greenland. The ice on Greenland, if and when it melts--and I think it is when, not if-- will add 61 feet to the ocean depth. The ice in Antarctica has 212 feet of sea level rise contained in it. Just think about that for a minute. Greenland is melting at a rate no one has seen before. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw these big things in the ice. We helicoptered out over the ice sheet, and you could see these big holes in the ice called moulins. Into those moulins are flowing, rushing rivers of meltwater. You can see them. They are blue, and they run across the ice and down into the hole, and they go all the way down to the bottom, 2 miles thick, where they lubricate the space between the ice and the land and accelerate the ice in its moving toward the ocean. ``Accelerate.'' That is an important term. That is a term I heard at the University of Maine from their climate scientists. That is a term I have heard from scientists in other parts of the country. ``Accelerate.'' ``Abrupt.'' We all think of things changing very slowly; as a matter of fact, the very term glacial means ``moving slowly.'' Not anymore. We went to the Jakobshavn Glacier, the largest glacier that is draining the ice sheet of Greenland, and it has retreated as much in the past 10 years as in the prior 100 years. It has retreated as much in the past 10 years as in the prior 100 years. Do the math, and that is 10 times the rate that the ice is flowing off the Greenland ice sheet into the ocean and raising sea levels. One of the problems with what is going on now is the process of acceleration. For example, everybody knows that the ice in the Arctic Ocean is disappearing at an unprecedented rate. A cruise ship went through the Arctic Ocean last summer. The Arctic Ocean has been closed throughout human history. It has been unavailable for commerce. You couldn't get through. It was always covered with ice. In the summer it would clear a little bit. Now we are talking about international trade through the Arctic Ocean. What happens, though, scientifically, when the sun's rays hit the ice and the snow, 85 percent of the energy of the sun is bounced back. That is science. When the ice is gone and the dark ocean is available, 85 percent of the sun's energy is absorbed into the ocean. That is called a feedback loop. That accelerates. The more it melts, the more it gets melted, and that is the kind of thing that is happening in Greenland, in Antarctica, and, indeed, all over the world. Here is something I learned on my trip to Greenland that I really hadn't absorbed. If there is anything we think of as a constant, it is the ocean. You walk down to the beach in Maine or on to the dock in Portland, you look out, and you see it. There it is. It is the way it has always been. It turns out it has always been that way for only 8,000 years. It happens to have always been that way when people have been around and keeping records and taking pictures, but it hasn't always been that way. Here is an amazing bit of science that, frankly, I wasn't aware of. This is the ocean depth 24,000 years ago. This is the ocean depth today. So 24,000 years ago, it was 390 feet shallower than it is today. It was 390 feet shallower 24,000 years ago. Why 24,000 years ago? Because all the water was locked up in the glaciers. In one sense, Greenland and Antarctica are the last remnants of the glaciers, and they are now melting. This period, 24,000 years up to today, is how the oceans have risen. You can see coincidentally, it has been pretty fixed for 8,000 years, and that is why we think it is going to always be that way. I used to teach about the recency effect. All human beings tend to think that what happened last week is going to happen next week. But this tells us that the ocean level is variable. Here is the amazing spot, right here. It is called the meltwater pulse 1A; all geologists know about this. And if you do the calculation on this period, the ocean gained about a foot a decade. It got deeper. The sea level rose about a foot a decade during this period, and this is what we are facing right now. The best estimates I have been able to obtain are that we are facing about a foot to a foot and a half of sea level rise in the next 15 years, and a foot a decade thereafter for the rest of the century. If you do the math, that is an additional 6 to 8 feet. In fact, there was an estimate just released last week that says it is more like 9 feet, 3 meters. Nine feet? Miami is gone; New Orleans, gone; New York, under deep threat; Bangladesh--we are talking about national security here because the people who are going to be pressed into migration because of this are going to create a national security and a migration crisis, the likes of which this country and the world has never seen. We are talking about 1 million or 2 million people out of Syria, and it has caused great uproar here and in Europe. The estimates are for the migration from climate change in the reasonably foreseeable future to be 200 million to 500 million people. Think of the national security implications of that. And here we are debating a nominee for the Environmental Protection Agency who says: Well, it is debatable; maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It is not debatable. This is happening. And for us to ignore it and to approve this nominee who is hostile, who has sued the Agency, and who has never done a thing in his life to protect the environment, is just outrageous. It is a dereliction of our responsibility, and we are going to look back on this moment and say: What were we thinking? I understand that the President won. Elections have results. He can move in the direction he wants to on policy, but this is beyond policy. This is just fundamentally irresponsible to our children, to their children, and the future of this country. So I hope, after this debate and after this discussion, the people of this body will come together--just as they did with the Secretary of Labor nominee, who really wasn't appropriate--and say the same thing. Plus, finally--I will just note this as a parenthetical--there is the issue of the emails in and out of this fellow's office when he was attorney general that they have been hiding for 2\1/2\ years or 3 years that may well become available in a week. If I were someone contemplating voting for this fellow, I sure as heck would want to wait until I saw these emails because there may be things there that are going to be profoundly embarrassing, if not worse. So there is no reason to move this nomination today, and there is no reason, in my view, to move this nomination at all. I understand that the EPA can overreach--any agency can overreach-- and there should be control on regulations. I have worked on regulatory reform since I have been here, but there is a difference between regulatory reform and a wrecking ball to the fundamental protections that have made so much difference to the people of this country. So I hope we will consider the future in our vote today--not just ourselves, not just the regulations, not just a few people who may be profiting by the exploitation of these resources, but think about our kids, our grandchildren, and our ultimate responsibility to this country. Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize and congratulate Kevin Concannon on his retirement and distinguished career. The fact that Kevin Concannon retired is not news--he has done that several times before, and each time, he moved onto more exciting and challenging positions. In 2016 Kevin Concannon retired from the USDA as the Undersecretary of Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services after 8 years of service. Kevin is a tireless advocate of people--all people. His work to assure that every effort was made to address hunger in this country is an indicator of his compassion, understanding of both the issues and solutions, and his unwavering faith in the ability of this great country to care for those who are struggling--whether it is food insecurity or earlier in his career on mental health issues, long-term care, and child welfare. At USDA, Kevin worked tirelessly to increase options for SNAP beneficiaries to access fresh local foods at Farmers Markets; he was determined that children should have more access to nutritious foods in WIC, schools, and childcare. While Kevin and I agree on that goal, I must add that, as a native Mainer, Kevin may have missed the mark on where white potatoes fit into those meal plans. Kevin Concannon came to USDA with an amazingly broad spectrum of experience. From 1987 to 1995, he served as the director of Oregon Department of Human Resources; after having served commissioner of Maine Department of Mental Health and Corrections. In 1995, I was fortunate to be able to bring him back to his home State of Maine to serve as the commissioner of Maine's Deparment of Human Services. At the time, I commented that he was the Dan Marino of commissioners and welcomed him back. I would point out that Dan Marino is now serving as the VP of the Dolphins, and I expect that, in the same way, Kevin Concannon will find ways to continue his public service--and that will benefit us all. Kevin led efforts throughout his career to improve child welfare, expand Medicaid and child health insurance, integrate programs of public health and medical care, and improve systems for long-term care for elders and people with disabilities. Many of those efforts were national in scope, and he was selected by his peers to serve as the president of the American Public Welfare Association from 1994 to 1995. In every role, in every effort, Kevin Concannon has been an exemplary public servant and leader. Margaret Chase Smith said it best: ``Public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation.'' Kevin Concannon is the personification of total dedication, honesty, and determination to make the world a better place; that has been the hallmark of his work each and every day. Congratulations and best wishes to Kevin Concannon, and welcome home.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, I am a former Governor, and as such, I have an inclination to support the Executive's nominees for their Cabinet-- for their Secretaries or Commissioners in my case, in Maine. I think that is an important principle, and it is how I start when I approach the analysis of any nominee to any position put forward by the Executive, whether the Executive is Donald Trump or Barack Obama or anybody else. That is a kind of starting point, and that is how I started this January. And, indeed, thus far, as we have voted here on the floor, I have supported five of the seven nominees who have come before us, plus I supported two additional nominees in committee which have not yet come to the floor, but whom I will support on the floor. So I am not in total opposition: Don't vote for any nominees. I don't think that is the way our system works, and it is certainly not the way I intend to approach these issues. I have approached them one at a time, looking at the position of the nominees, their policies, their views, their hearings. I have tried to follow the hearings as closely as possible, including their answers to questions. Again, I start with a bias toward approval, perhaps because of my experience as a chief executive myself. But I can't support nominees who are fundamentally opposed to the mission of the agency they have been asked to lead. To me, that just doesn't make sense. That is why I voted against Betsy DeVos 2 days ago because I didn't believe that she had the best interests of American education--particularly public education--at heart. Her whole career has been about attacking and undermining public education by trying to, in effect, voucherize it, provide vouchers to people to use in other schools which, by the way, in a rural State like Maine, simply wouldn't work as a practical matter. So I could not support her because I felt she was hostile to the very premise of the agency that she was being asked to lead. Today, I come to the floor to talk about Dr. Price. I think he falls into the same category. I understand policy differences, and I understand the election took place, and I understand elections have results and that there are going to be different policies, but his policies on the fundamental mission of the Department of Health and Human Services are just inimical to what that Department was established to do for the American people. The title is Health and Human Services, and that is the role that Department has played and should play and will play in the future of America. Now, my problems with Dr. Price and his positions--and there is no doubt about his positions on various issues. He has a long record in the House of Representatives writing and legislating and advocating, so there is not much argument about where he stands, and there are really three areas that I want to touch on tonight. One is Medicare, one is Medicaid, and one is the Affordable Care Act. I want to try to put these all in the context of my home State of Maine. Health care in Maine is an enormous part of our economy. It is somewhat higher, actually, as a percentage of our GDP than it is nationally. We are at about 20 percent of GDP. One-fifth of our economy is health care. In part, that is because we have a great number of seniors who, of course, require more health care expenditures, but it is a very important part of our economy, which I will touch on a little bit later. But let's talk about Medicare. First, Medicare in Maine: 306,000 people in Maine are Medicare beneficiaries. The expenditure in Maine by Medicare is $2 billion. Now, when we are talking about cutting or changing Medicare, of course we focus, as we should, on those 306,000 people--and I will talk about them--but we also need to talk about that $2 billion. If we are talking about savings--savings don't just evaporate, they occur in real life, and those are funds that don't go to support medical care for seniors in Maine and don't go to our hospitals and don't go to our practitioners. So $2 billion is a very significant part of our GDP, and that is just what Medicare spends in Maine, 306,000 people. Now, I want to touch on an aspect of this that I don't think has been discussed much in these debates; that is, the burden of anxiety about health care and the cost of health care that was lifted from generations of seniors in this country by the passage of Medicare, now some 50-plus years ago. As you get older, there is anxiety about retirement, there is anxiety about income, there is anxiety about your health, but there is also anxiety about the cost of health care. The miracle of that Medicare was that it lifted that burden of anxiety from our seniors. It was one thing they didn't have to worry about. ``I have Medicare'' have been the words that have comforted thousands and millions of people in this country since 1965. To change the fundamental premise of Medicare, which is what Dr. Price has advocated for vigorously and continuously, from the current system, which is, if you get sick, if you have hospitalization, if you need medical care and you qualify for Medicare, it is paid for. To change that to a system which is essentially a voucher, which is capped at some level of inflation but not the health care level of inflation, is a cruel trick on our seniors. What it will do is, through compounding of interest, if inflation is 2 percent a year, and medical inflation--the cost of medical treatment--increases at 4 or 5 or 6 percent a year, which is typical of what has happened in the last 15 or 20 years; there have been ups and downs, but 4, 5, 6 percent is about where medical inflation has been. So if inflation is at 2 percent, and that is what your voucher is going to increase to, and medical costs increase at 6 percent, that gap is going to grow to the point where we are back where we were in 1964, before the passage of Medicare. Then, seniors suddenly have to worry about how they are going to pay for their health care. They are going to have an added burden of anxiety, and they are going to have an added burden of money, of finance, of cost. You can call it all kinds of highfalutin things. You can call it a voucher program, whether or not it is privatization. There are all kinds of ways to paper it over, but what it really is, is shift and shaft. It is shifting the cost from Medicare to seniors, and over time that shift and shaft is only going to increase. I think that is unconscionable, and there is no reason for it. Yes, the cost of Medicare is going up as a percentage of our budget. That is because we are getting older. That is because we have a demographic bulge going through our society for people who were born in the 1940s and 1950s--the baby boom generation--but that is anticipated, that is understood. There are things we can do to deal with that issue without the radical solution of essentially shifting the cost over to the seniors. It makes the Federal books look good, but it is not going to make the household books in Maine look good. That is what really bothers me about this policy. We are trying to improve our miserable budget situation by shifting a great deal of these costs off to individuals. That is just wrong. Medicare is too important financially, emotionally, psychologically. It is too important as an essential part of the promise that we have made to each generation of Americans for the past 50 years. And to fundamentally change that and realize, I believe cynically, that as the gap increases over time, the percentage of the premiums that is being shifted onto seniors is going to grow over time, until at some point--and you can do the arithmetic--it is going to eat the whole thing. And the Federal share, yes, will be capped--or capped at some lower level, and the share that is paid by the individual, by the family, by your mom, by your dad is only going to be greater. That is wrong. That is a breaking of the promise that we made to our seniors. The second piece where Dr. Price, I believe, is fundamentally at odds with the premise, with the mission of the agency, is in Medicaid. He has talked about various programs. First, let's get rid of the expansion of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and then let's block- grant Medicaid and send it to the States. It is the same principle: It is shift and shaft, only this time you are shafting the States. You are taking a program which now says, if you have medical expenses and you are qualified, they are paid for, and you are saying, OK, in the future, we will give you a fixed amount of money, but if the medical expenses go up, it is on you, Mr. State; it is on you, State of Maine or Michigan or California or Georgia or Florida, or anywhere in this country. It is simply, again, repairing the miserable books of the Federal Government because we are not facing up to our responsibility to pass reasonable budgets. It is fixing those books at the expense of somebody else. Those moneys they are talking about: a $2 trillion cut in Medicaid. Great, Medicaid is going to look a lot better, but that $2 trillion doesn't evaporate and doesn't go anywhere. It is not like everybody is going to say: Well, they are cutting Medicaid so we are going to charge less for our hip or for our surgery or for our treatment of drug abuse. It is going to have consequences. It is going to come out of treatment. It is going to come out of health. There is something about Medicaid that often isn't observed. I learned this as Governor. People think of Medicaid as a kind of welfare program, and there are these people who are taking advantage of it, and perhaps there are. There are always people who take advantage of programs. The truth is, the majority of the funds for Medicaid go to people in nursing homes--your parents, your uncle, your aunt. Nursing home expenditures for the elderly are a significant cost for Medicaid. Medicare doesn't pay nursing home expenses except for a limited period of time, but a great deal of Medicaid expenses go to nursing homes. You are going to cut Medicaid? You are going to have people who aren't going to be able to afford to stay in nursing homes. That is going to shift that cost back on to the family. The other majority of people on Medicaid are children. They are children who are covered who wouldn't have coverage otherwise. One of the best things in this country is the combination of Medicaid and CHIP, which has resulted in an enormous increase in the covered health coverage of children. And it is so important because health problems in children that can be dealt with when they are young, when they are children, when it is covered by insurance, can save us enormous costs later on. So, again, what does Dr. Price want to do? Cap, eliminate ACA expansion of Medicaid, and block-grant it. Let's not kid ourselves. Block-granting is shifting and shafting to those elderly people who would lose coverage for nursing homes, to the children who need the coverage, but most especially, to the States. As a former Governor, I can see the impact of this on my State of Maine. It is a difficult issue, and if we limit it, the only option will be to limit coverage or to cut back. Of course, Medicaid is one of the places we are covering the treatment of opioid addiction. The greatest public health crisis in this country in my lifetime is the opioid crisis. We are losing 1 person a day in the State of Maine to overdose deaths--1 person every day. I met a young man at Christmastime at a treatment center. I went to the Christmas party and met his family and he was hopeful and he was under treatment. I learned this week that he is gone. He is gone, taken by the scourge of drugs. These are real people. These are real people. These aren't just numbers and statistics. In the next hour, as we are here debating this nomination, four people in America are going to die of overdoses--four people an hour. And when you think of how we mobilized this country and the money we spent to deal with Ebola where one person died--one person in the whole country--and yet we have this horrible disease and scourge that is just decimating our societies and we are talking about cutting back one of the basic props for providing treatment. We have cases where we--there is a huge backlog of treatment beds. I have been working on this problem in Maine for a long time. One of the things I have learned is that once a person who is addicted reaches a stage where they are willing to ask for help, we have to be there-- then. To say to that person there will be an opening in 3 weeks or 3 months is akin to a death sentence because they might not be able to make it 3 weeks or 3 months; yet that is the situation in much of the country today. That is the situation, and we are talking about knocking one of the props out from under our ability to deal with this horrible public health crisis that is devastating this country in every State, but particularly in rural States. It is taking people out of the workforce that we need, it is tearing families apart, and it is affecting everybody. It is not just certain people in certain places. It is everybody. It is middle-class families. It is people of all ages. To blithely talk about we are going to block-grant Medicaid and fix the amount--it is the same as what I said about Medicare; the iron law of the percentage changes. If you fix it today and inflation continues, then ultimately it withers away, and it is not going to meet the needs of our people. Yet that is what the nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services wants to do. I don't get it. Finally, there is the Affordable Care Act. I have talked on this floor before about the Affordable Care Act and why I feel so passionately about it, how having insurance when I was a young man saved my life, how not having insurance costs lives. The mathematics is pretty clear. There have been a number of studies: For every million people who don't have insurance, there are a thousand people who die prematurely. The Affordable Care Act now covers something in the neighborhood of 22 million people, so here is the arithmetic: 22,000 premature deaths a year. This isn't ideology. These are people. To ignore that and say we want free markets and free choice--free choice means death for a lot of people. It meant death for a young man who had what I had 40 years ago and didn't have insurance, didn't get a checkup, didn't have surgery, and he is gone and I am here, and that is not fair. That is not fair. I have said since I got here that the Affordable Care Act isn't perfect. It can be changed; it can be fixed. I hear every now and then that my colleagues are saying: Let's repair it. I am all for it. Let's repair it. Let's get over this talk about repeal. But Dr. Price has been one of the leading voices, if not the leading voice, in the Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I don't know his exact voting record, but I suspect he voted for every one of those repeals in the House 60, 70 times over the last couple of years: Repeal, repeal. Well, you are repealing people's health care. He doesn't want to have the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act, the ones that keep it so that you can't discriminate against women in health insurance because they are women. And there have to be preventive services. Preexisting conditions--he says: They have to insure; they have to keep you on for the preexisting condition. But if you lose your health insurance for a few months, sorry. The clock stops, and you can't get it again because of a preexisting condition. That is one of the most important and fundamental promises of the Affordable Care Act, yet he wants to get rid of it. Here is the reality in Maine. We are a rural State. We have a lot of rural hospitals. I urge every Member of this body to talk to their hospitals. I have done it. I have gone to the hospitals and sat down with them. I did it as recently as 2 weeks ago with a small rural hospital, the Penobscot Valley Hospital in Lincoln, ME. They told me the repeal of the Affordable Care Act would cost them $1 million a year, and they can't afford it. I have been to the Bridgton Hospital. I have talked to people from--not all, but many of our small hospitals, and 50 to 60 percent of our rural hospitals are running in the red right now. The Affordable Care Act has provided insurance coverage to people who are the customers of those hospitals, and the estimates are that repeal of the Affordable Care Act without a reasonable replacement would reduce their revenues anywhere from 5 to 8 to 10 percent. These hospitals can't stand that kind of cut, and they have told me there are only two choices: One is to shrink their services to their communities, and the other is to close their doors. In Maine, in our rural State, we have only 16 counties. In 8 of our 16 counties, the hospital is the largest employer in that county. I am sure that is true in all of the States in our country that have these small rural hospitals; the hospital is the major employer. So again, when we are talking about cutting the Affordable Care Act and all these policy things and ideological things, what we are doing is cutting jobs in small towns that can't afford to lose them, and they are good jobs. If that is what you want to do, fine. But fess up and understand that is the consequence of policies that are espoused enthusiastically by this nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services. It doesn't make sense to be putting someone in charge of an agency that is supposed to be looking out for the welfare and the health of our citizens who is diametrically opposed to maintaining the health and welfare of our citizens. In Maine, we have 75,000 people on the Affordable Care Act. I know people who have it who couldn't have coverage otherwise without those subsidies. But he is not going to allow those subsidies anymore. It is every man for himself. Every man for himself means a lot of people fall by the wayside, and that is wrong. That is wrong in Maine, and I can't vote for somebody who is going to put a dagger in the heart of these citizens of Maine. I cannot do it. My conscience will not let me. So on Medicare, shift and shaft to the seniors. On Medicaid, shift and shaft to the States. On the Affordable Care Act, shift and shaft to those people who need health insurance and the hospitals in our communities, the hospitals in those communities. If you take paying customers away, it is a double whammy: You lose the revenues from the customers, and then you have to treat them as charity care. It makes the bottom line in these hospitals even worse. As I said, they have told me in my State--and I suspect this is true practically everywhere--50 to 60 percent of our hospitals are skating on the edge. They are in negative territory. They are in the red, and we are going to cut their revenues by 8, 10 percent? It is unconscionable. It is truly unconscionable. That is a word used around here sometimes, but this is it. All in the name of some kind of ideology, we want to go back to the health care--I can't believe we are debating Medicare, a program that has been so successful and so important to seniors throughout the last three to four generations. We are now debating it? It doesn't make any sense. To put somebody in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services that is inimical to Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act--this guy is a wrecking ball. He is not a Secretary. He is going into this agency to destroy it. He wants to undercut and diminish and, in some cases, literally destroy some of the major underpinnings of providing health care to people in this country. If we were sitting in this body and somebody walked by me and was stricken by a heart attack and fell on the floor, I would help him. Every one of us would help him. I suspect Dr. Price would help him. He would be the first one there. But by these changes, what we are doing is having people fall by our side and ignoring them in large scale across the country. It is just as real as if it is happening right before our eyes. Twenty-two thousand people will die if health insurance is lost prematurely. Seniors will take on a burden of anxiety and fiscal drain that they can't afford that they have avoided for 50 years. The final point is that this man's policies are at odds with those of his boss. Through the campaign, President Trump issued pretty much ironclad guarantees to seniors that he was going to maintain Medicare, maintain Social Security, but then he appoints a guy whose whole professional career has been aimed at undermining Medicare. I think they had better get on the same page. I don't always agree with President Trump, but in this case I think he is right. I wish he would whisper into the ear of his nominee: You can't have it both ways. You are either for it or you want to gut it. That is what we are facing in this vote. This is a vote of conscience for me. It is also a vote about my State. I love those people. I know them. I started out as a legal services attorney in a small town in Maine. My first boy was born in that town, in a little, rural hospital that is struggling. I can't stand by and see someone take over this Department who is going to do harm. That is the medical creed, isn't it? Do no harm; that is the oath. But we are talking about harm to seniors, to children, to people with insurance who will not have it. We are talking about real harm. That is why I come to the floor tonight to urge my colleagues to reject this nominee. If the President wants to put somebody forward who is conservative and has ways of fixing some of these things and thinks some improvements should be made--and we don't have to do everything the way we have always done it. I'm not arguing that. But goodness, gracious, don't give us a nominee whose whole career has been spent aimed at undermining and diminishing and gutting the very programs that have meant so much to the people of America. I am voting no on this nominee. I believe my colleagues should do so as well. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, that Kevin Concannon retired is not news--he has done that several times before--and each time he moved on to more exciting and challenging positions. In 2016, Kevin Concannon retired from the USDA as the Undersecretary of Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services after 8 years of service. Kevin is a tireless advocate of people--all people. His work to assure that every effort was made to address hunger in this country is an indicator of his compassion, understanding of both the issues and solutions, and his unwavering faith in the ability of this great country to care for those who are struggling--whether it is food insecurity or earlier in his career on mental health issues, long-term care, and child welfare. At USDA, Kevin worked tirelessly to increase options for SNAP beneficiaries to access fresh local foods at farmers markets; he was determined that children should have more access to nutritious foods in WIC, schools and child care--while Kevin and I agree on that goal--I must add--that as a native Mainer, Kevin may have missed the mark on where white potatoes fit into those meal plans. Kevin Concannon came to USDA with an amazingly broad spectrum of experience. From 1987-1995, he served as the director of the Oregon Department of Human Resources, after having served as Commissioner of the Maine Department of Mental Health and Corrections. In 1995, I was fortunate to be able to bring him back to his home State of Maine to serve as the commissioner of Maine's Department of Human Services. At the time, I commented that he was the Dan Marino of commissioners and welcomed him back. I would point out that Dan Marino is now serving as the vice president of the Dolphins, and I expect that, in the same way, Kevin Concannon will find ways to continue his public service--and that will benefit us all. Kevin led efforts throughout his career to improve child welfare, expand Medicaid and child health insurance, integrating programs of public health and medical care, improving systems for long-term care for elders and people with disabilities. Many of those efforts were national in scope, and he was selected by his peers to serve as the president of the American Public Welfare Association from 1994-1995. In every role, in every effort, Kevin Concannon has been an exemplary public servant and leader. Margaret Chase Smith said it best: ``Public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation.'' Kevin Concannon is the personification of total dedication, honesty, and determination to make the world a better place; that has been the hallmark of his work each and every day. Congratulations and best wishes to Kevin Concannon and welcome home.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. In the opinion of the Chair, would one Senator calling another Senator a liar during debate on the floor of the Senate be a violation of rule XIX?

Mr. KING. Mr. President, Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield back.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my post closure debate time to Senator Feinstein from California.

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

Mr. KING. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize and congratulate RADM Craig Faller on his outstanding service to our Nation as the Navy's chief of legislative affairs from June 2014 through January 2017. During that time, he was the Navy's lead advocate on Capitol Hill and had the challenging job of communicating with all 535 Members of Congress, handling their constituent inquiries, and properly representing the Navy while taking into account military, political, and budgetary priorities. Admiral Faller selflessly devoted the last 2 and a half years of his life to ensuring our Nation's sailors were represented in Congress, and he excelled in that role. He established warm and lasting relationships with my colleagues, garnering respect and admiration in both Chambers of Congress and on both sides of the aisle. He worked with us to establish the first-ever Senate Navy Caucus and broadened the Navy's outreach beyond members of defense committees. His efforts, along with those of the Chief of Naval Operations, introduced the Navy to Senators who would not otherwise have had exposure to the great work our sailors are doing around the globe. On behalf of my colleagues and the U.S. Congress, I thank Admiral Faller for his dedicated service to the Navy and our Nation. I also thank his wife, Martha, for her support and sacrifice. I wish them fair winds and following seas as he moves on to his next assignment as the senior military assistant to the Secretary of Defense.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Madam Clerk, how am I recorded?

Mr. KING. My conscience compels me to vote no.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive section 305(b) of that act for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. KING. Mr. President, I call this the Protect Workers in Rural America amendment. One of the lesser known provisions of the Affordable Care Act is that it doesn't allow insurance companies to discriminate against people because of their occupations. Before the Affordable Care Act, if you were a logger or a farmer, a fisherman, a miner, you could get exorbitant rates decided by some bureaucrat at an insurance company somewhere, and this is wrong. So what I am trying to do is prohibit discrimination by occupation. We are trying to save an important part of this law. My distinguished chairman said this isn't germane. I don't see how it cannot be germane since the stated purpose of this bill is to begin the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act. I ask my colleagues to vote with me. This is protecting workers in rural America.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Madam President, I rise this afternoon to supplement some remarks I made on the floor last evening about the Affordable Care Act. Last night, I talked about my own experience as a young staff member in the U.S. Senate 43 years ago when, because I had an insurance policy provided by my employer--that policy had preventive care as part of the policy, just as Affordable Care Act policies do today--I had a routine physical checkup. It was the first I had in a number of years, which caught malignant melanoma, a particularly virulent form of cancer. Because it was caught early and because I was treated, here I am today. As I mentioned last night, it has always haunted me that someone who didn't have insurance, a young man or a young woman somewhere in the country who was in exactly my situation, because they didn't have insurance, they didn't have preventive care, didn't get the checkup, the disease wasn't caught, and they are gone. I find it very hard to justify that, to understand that. It doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem ethical. It doesn't seem moral. Today I wanted to also bring to the attention of the Senate some stories from today about the effect of the Affordable Care Act in Maine, where we have over 80,000 people enrolled, many of whom had never been able to have insurance before. A young woman, Whitney, who graduated from college in 2013, said: I graduated . . . with a degree in wildlife ecology, [but it was very difficult to find a job.] Thanks to the ACA, I was able to stay on my family health insurance plan through this period of unemployment. I did finally get employed in my field, but permanent, year-round jobs with benefits are the equivalent of winning the lottery. Many young people are in that situation. It even has a name. It is called the gig economy, people who work gigs, who work short periods of time, several months here, several months there, but there are no benefits attached to those jobs. She said: Many of us work seasonal jobs, building trails on the Appalachian Trail, rescuing lost hikers, managing volunteers, and running programs for veterans to reconnect with Maine's woods. We do good work in this state. Before the ACA we worked dangerous outdoor jobs that only provided minimum worker's comp. . . . But with the ACA and the tax credit, I could afford a silver plan, I could get dental for my teeth, could go to the doctor again, get flu shots and get my joints looked at. It is important to realize that without the ACA, this young woman would have literally no options. A health savings account is unrealistic for somebody who is making $15,000 to $20,000 a year. Buying insurance across State lines isn't going to help this young woman. She said getting the ACA coverage ``was life changing. I know it is not perfect but I am terrified of going back to [where we were] before, where health and financial ruin was one wrong step away.'' Another letter from an older adult: My wife is sixty-three years old she is no longer able to work full time. She has had major back surgery and has arthritis in her neck. Because of these health issues she had to reduce her work hours. Here is the catch-22. She had to reduce her work hours. Therefore, her employer dropped her from her health care coverage. We were fortunate [enough] to obtain coverage for her through the Affordable Care Act. It is expensive and is not the best coverage-- Nobody in this body says it is best possible result and that the law is perfect. We all agree it needs to be repaired and fixed and modified. The writer goes on to say-- but it is good enough for us to know that a major health issue will not bankrupt us. We are appealing to you as our representative to insure that a reasonable replacement will be put in place when the Affordable Care Act is ended. Better yet, improve it, don't destroy it. I couldn't have said it better myself. Donald, in his letter to me, says: ``Better yet, improve it, don't destroy it.'' That is what we ought to be talking about. This letter is from a fellow named Ryan in North Central Maine. He also makes an important point about the Affordable Care Act. The term that I refer to is ``job lock.'' There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in this country who are locked into the jobs they have that they don't really like, that isn't giving them the satisfaction they want because they can't afford to leave their health care. One of the hidden benefits of the Affordable Care Act is it has allowed those people to follow their dreams, to start a business and not have to worry about having health insurance. This is an entrepreneur in Maine, a small business person. He said: Affordable healthcare is a major roadblock to those calculating whether they can take the leap to become self- employed. As we prepare for next year's ice cream season, I am about to leave my benefit-providing job in order to commit to making the volume of ice cream we need. This is a scary and questionable decision given our financial situation and the fact that we are raising our two small children of four and seven years old. The first comment I hear from everyone who finds out I am leaving my job is, ``Are you sure? What are you going to do about health insurance??'' The answer is, the Affordable Care Act. It enables this young man, this gentleman, to follow his dream, to start his business, to commit to his business, and this is good for the country. This is a hidden benefit that is rarely discussed about the Affordable Care Act to allow people to give vent to their dreams and their innovation and their contribution to the economy. Here is how he ends his letter. He says: Please don't let me down. Please don't let my family down. Please don't let down the millions of families who really are on the bottom of this country and are the very ones that all of you from every party claim to support. I don't care about the details of how it gets done, whether the ACA is thrown out, or just revised, or what compromises have to be made by either party, but please make sure there is a health care option available and that it is at an affordable price for those of us with the guts to take a stab at our own small business. The key is ``Affordable Care.'' It matters. As in my own case, health insurance also saves lives. There was a study done by the Journal of Public Health in 2009, which basically concluded that for every million people without health insurance, there are a thousand premature deaths. It is pretty easy math. Before the Affordable Care Act, we had 45 million people without health insurance in this country. The calculation in this extensive study was that 46,000 deaths were attributable to not having health insurance. I am living proof of that. If I hadn't had health insurance, I would be gone. With the disease that I had, either you catch it in time or you are a goner. That is why I am so passionate about this. We would not let people die in our front yards. If we saw somebody who was in danger of losing their life, we wouldn't stand by. Nobody in this body would stand by and say: Sorry, we can't help you. But not providing health insurance to people is a death sentence to 10, 20, 30, 40,000 people. The Affordable Care Act is now covering something like 25 million people. That is 25,000 lives saved. If we take it away, it will be 25,000 lives lost. Here's the letter: I am a Maine woman in my late 30s, who works 2 part-time jobs and also run my own business. Because we were on [ACA] health insurance that had an affordable deductible, after not feeling well for a while, my husband went to a doctor and had a CT scan of his lungs. . . . It turned out he had a very rare form of an illness, even though he was only 38 at the time. Had we not had this insurance and such an affordable premium and deductible, he would never have gotten that CT scan done. This insurance saved his life and covered every expense we've had over the last 2 years with multiple stays at MidCoast Hospital and Maine Med, 2 surgeries, pick-lines, medications, therapies, the list goes on. There is no cure for what he has but he's doing better now, thanks to the ACA. Another person from Maine: My sisters and I watched my mom die. We were physically in the room when it happened. We cried for probably half an hour straight. Before the Affordable Care Act, most of her illnesses were considered pre-existing conditions. She survived cancer three times . . . but had to pay exorbitant monthly premiums just to have to pay most of her treatment out of pocket. He said: I don't care about the ACA because of some theory or ideology. I watched my mom die, sooner than she needed to, because she couldn't afford to get preventative care early enough. I watched my mom die because market solutions refused to solve her problems. An open insurance market actively refused to compete to cover my mom. The insurance market before the ACA is one of a number of factors that led to my mom's death. This is a real, physical, immediate memory for me whenever someone talks about healthcare, and it always comes to mind when people talk about it in vague terms and market forces. I am crying even as I write this, and it has been years. He writes to me: I am begging you, as a son who watched his mom who was younger than you-- Than me-- die in a hospital because she couldn't afford the care she needed, please protect the Affordable Care Act. Protect it as a legislator, protect it by recognizing how appointments you choose to confirm or deny will affect my family's ability to stay healthy and alive. Through grants and research, you've worked to improve access to health care. Please, protect the

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, my colleagues have spoken tonight eloquently about a number of consequences that would follow from the repeal of the Affordable Care Act: increasing drug costs for seniors, a devastating impact on rural hospitals, elimination of consumer protection in everybody's health insurance--not just those on the Affordable Care Act--and limitations on mental health coverage and substance abuse. All of those issues have been presented eloquently and passionately. I want to do something a little different. This isn't easy for me, but I want to tell my own story and why I feel so strongly about the issue of health insurance for all of our people. Forty-three years ago--I think it was just about this week--I was a young staff member here in the Senate. I was a junior staff member who was covered by health insurance provided by my employer, the U.S. Senate. I paid a share, and the Senate paid a share. The health insurance that I had, as part of it, had free preventive care--exactly like that required by the Affordable Care Act. The other thing the plan I chose had was a Wednesday night doctor's session. So because I had a free checkup and because it was on Wednesday night and I didn't have to miss any work, in late January or early February of 1974, I went in for a checkup--the first one I had had in 8 or 9 years. Everything looked fine. As I was putting my shirt back on, the doctor said: Well, you have a mole on your back, Angus, and I think you ought to keep an eye on it. That night, I went home and mentioned it to my wife. The next morning, she said: I don't like the looks of that thing. Let's have it taken off. I went back in the following Wednesday night because they had Wednesday night hours and I didn't have to take off from work. I had coverage so I didn't have to worry about what it was going to cost me, and the mole was removed. When they called me to come back in--I will never forget this moment as long as I live--the doctor said: Angus, I think you had better sit down. He told me that I had what was called malignant melanoma. At the time, I didn't know what it meant. I thought it was simply a skin cancer. You hear about those all the time. You have them taken off, and it is no big deal. No, malignant melanoma is one of the most virulent forms of cancer. One of its characteristics is that it starts with a mole, but if you don't treat it, it then gets into your system and goes somewhere else. If you don't catch it in time, you will die. I caught it in time. I had surgery. They took out a big hunk of my back in surgery and up under my arm. To this day, my shoulder is still numb from that surgery, but here I am. It has haunted me since that day that I was treated and my life saved because I had health insurance. I know to a certainty that had I not had that coverage, had I not had that free checkup, I would not be here today. It has always stayed with me that somewhere in America that week, that month, that year, there was a young man or a young woman who had a mole on their arm or their back or their neck, couldn't do anything about it, didn't really think about it, didn't do anything about it until it was too late, and they are gone. And I am here. I don't know why I was saved. Maybe I was saved in order to be here tonight. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out why anyone would want to take health insurance away from millions of people. It is a death sentence for some significant percentage of those people. In 2009, the American Journal of Public Health did a study--a comprehensive study. What they concluded was that for every million people who are uninsured, you can predict about 1,000 premature unnecessary deaths. So the math is pretty simple. Right now, we are talking about over 20 million people who have been afforded health insurance, either through the exchanges or through the expansion of Medicaid, who didn't have it before. If we take that away, that is 22,000 deaths a year. How can we do that with good conscience? How can we sentence people to death? We are talking about bankruptcies. We are talking about all the kinds of stories we have heard. They are all valid. They are all important. But for me, this is personal. This is about life itself. It is about our ethics, our morality, and our obligation to our fellow citizens. Like all the other speakers, I know there are lots of problems with the Affordable Care Act. I wasn't here when it passed. It isn't exactly the way I would have worked on it or written it. I am ready to sit down with anybody who wants to talk about finding a solution, but let's not talk about the solution being ripping coverage away from people who desperately need it. It is just wrong. I understand the political impulse. Folks on the other side of the aisle have been talking about this for 6 years, and, by golly, they are going to repeal it and get rid of it, and people cheer and all of that kind of thing. But now it is real. This isn't rhetoric anymore. This isn't a bumper sticker anymore. This isn't a rally anymore. This is real people's lives. So let's just slow down. If people want to come up with a different solution, if they want to modify the current system, if they want to try to make changes that make it easier for small businesses and change the hours of work and the definition of full time--all of those things can be discussed. I don't care who leads it. I don't care whether we call it TrumpCare, McConnellCare, or RyanCare. We can call it whatever we want, but the fundamental principle here is that health insurance is a life or death matter, and we should honor the commitment that has been made to those millions of people--including over 80,000 people in Maine--who have taken advantage of this program, many of whom have never had health care before, many of whom have had tragic stories that we have heard all night about children born with birth defects or children that had some disease at a young age or an adult who, as we just heard a few minutes ago, finds they had cancer and if they hadn't had the coverage and gone in, they wouldn't be here. This isn't politics. This is people's lives. I can't believe that the good people that I know in this body on both sides of the aisle can't figure out a way to say: Let's slow down. Let's slow down and talk about how to fix it, how to change it, how to replace it. But put that before repeal because once repeal occurs, there are all kinds of bad results, even if they are grandfathered. People say we are going to repeal and delay. That is repeal and chaos. The insurance industry is going to start to pull back. The health care industry is going to say: Well, we don't know what the situation is going to be. We are going to have to slow down. We are going to stop hiring. We are going to lay people off. All those changes are going to start happening right away. They can't be prevented. To tell people don't worry, we are going to cover you-- that is cruel. I don't think my colleagues intend to be cruel. There is not a mean-spirited person in this body. We just have a different view of how to achieve these results. But the fundamental results should be people have health insurance so they don't have to risk their lives every day and live under that threat. That is what this discussion is all about. That is why I am here. I view this as much more than a political issue. I understand the differences, I understand the history, and I understand the politics of it, but I just think that now that it is real, let's slow down and find another way to solve this problem that protects the gains that have been made and sands off the rough edges of the law but allows us to protect the fundamental idea of helping people to find health insurance they can afford and keep them from being denied health insurance for reasons through no fault of their own. I think this is a moral and ethical issue, and I go back and I feel so strongly about this because of my own experience. I feel I owe it to that young man in 1974 who didn't have insurance, who didn't have the checkup, who had melanoma, and who died. I have an obligation to that young man to see that doesn't continue to happen in the wealthiest, most developed society on Earth. This is something we have within our power to do. I deeply hope that we can take a deep breath, back away from this idea that we have to repeal, and talk about fundamental principles of helping people to cope with this most serious and personal of issues. I have confidence in this body. I have confidence in the good will of this body and of the American people. If we can get away from talking about it in the abstract as a political issue, we can talk about real people. That is what I hope we can do over the next weeks and months, and I am convinced we can come to a solution--not that will make everybody happy but that will save lives and make our country a better place. I yield the floor.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the eight Maine hospitals being awarded the Leapfrog Group's Top Hospital Award. I am proud of the work that our State's medical institutions have done to attain the highest standards of hospital quality and safety. St. Mary's Regional received the Top General Hospital Award, and Bridgton Hospital, Charles A. Dean Memorial Hospital, LincolnHealth, Mayo Regional Hospital, Pen Bay Medical Center, Sebasticook Valley Health, and Stephens Memorial Hospital received the Top Rural Hospital Award. The Leapfrog Group is an independent hospital watchdog group, working with hospitals around the country to discover and recognize the top performers. The surveys they conduct compare hospitals' performance ``on national standards of patient safety, quality, efficiency, and management structures that prevent errors, providing the most comprehensive picture of how patients fare at individual institutions.'' These rigorous standards have been used to vet thousands of hospitals across the Nation, and these eight Maine facilities have proven themselves worthy of recognition. The standards, quality, and safety that these hospitals have exhibited is emblematic of the work ethic and of the values that make Maine such a great place. As such, they contribute to Maine business's storied legacy of dedication to quality and high standards. The people of our country depend on the efficient and quality functioning of health centers, and these eight Maine hospitals have proven their great commitment to quality care. Thanks to their continued efforts, individuals and families across the State of Maine have access to much-needed services--and the entire State is stronger because of it. The work of these hospitals serve as a shining example that I hope will be emulated across the State of Maine and the Nation, as all Americans deserve access to health care facilities with a strong track record of quality service and commitment to excellence. I congratulate these eight Maine hospitals for their work providing high quality crucial health care services to the people of Maine and thank them for their pursuit of excellence. I am proud of these great Maine institutions and look forward to their continued success.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, today I would like to join with my colleagues to honor Vice President Joseph R. Biden. Though I did not have the privilege to serve with Vice President Biden while he was a Member of the Senate, I have long admired Joe and his sincere commitment to the people of this country and especially to those in his beloved home State of Delaware. The details of Joe's early years are well known to this body and to the Nation, but because they are so central to his character, they bear repeating. After an upset win of a U.S. Senate seat at just 29 years old, Joe experienced a tragedy that most of us cannot even begin to fathom--the death of his wife, Neilia, and his young daughter, Naomi, in a car accident just weeks before he was set to take office. A now- iconic photograph shows a young Joe being sworn into office at his sons' hospital bedside. A tragedy of that magnitude, so early in Joe's career, would have been reason for most to put on hold--or even end--a promising future in public service. Indeed, no one would have faulted Joe had he decided that the demands of the work he was set to undertake were not worth pursuing after the unimaginable loss he had just experienced. But, from the depths of his sorrow, Joe summoned the courage to press forward, committing himself to his two sons and to his work fighting for Delaware in the U.S. Senate. Committed to caring for his young family in the wake of such loss, Joe would take the train from Wilmington to Washington each day the Senate was in session. During his 36 years as a member of this body, Joe distinguished himself as a thoughtful, principled leader on a number of critical issues. Joe's leadership on the Senate Judiciary Committee put him at the center of some of the most consequential debates in recent years, from passage of the 1994 Crime Law to the enactment of the Violence Against Women Act. In his role on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe garnered the respect of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as he helped to shape U.S. foreign policy. His leadership in both of these areas, as well as the respect of his colleagues in Congress, made Joe a natural pick to join then-Senator Obama as his running mate in 2008. As Vice President, Joe has been a trusted adviser to President Obama and has been tasked with overseeing significant initiatives within the administration. From his work on the economic stimulus package in 2009 to his continued leadership in the fight against sexual assault and domestic violence, Joe has brought to the White House his characteristic dedication and charisma. It has been a pleasure to observe the real friendship that the Vice President has forged with President Obama, one grounded in mutual respect and admiration for one another. We saw again last year Joe's strength in the face of adversity when cancer claimed the life of his son, Beau. Like his father, Beau Biden was a gifted communicator, and the Nation mourned alongside Joe at the news of his passing. In the aftermath of Beau's death, Joe accepted the President's charge to lead the Cancer Moonshot initiative to accelerate cancer research--yet another shining example of Joe channeling his experience with loss into advancement for the public good. It is a fitting testament to Joe's leadership that the cancer provisions in the bill currently under consideration in the Senate, the 21st Century Cures Act, were renamed in honor of Beau. I know of few people who have endured the magnitude of loss that Joe has over the course of his life, and the fact that he carries on every day with a full heart and renewed dedication to fighting for the American people is an inspiration. Beyond his accomplishments--which are many--Joe is perhaps best known for his good humor and genuine ability to connect with people. In a city associated more with political rancor than authenticity, Joe has long been a breath of fresh air, an homage to a more amicable past. His ability to get things done while making steadfast friends on both sides of the aisle is a model for all of us and an inspiration to me. I wish Joe and his wife, Jill, nothing but the best as they move onto their next adventure. I know in times of trial, I will look to Joe's leadership and example for the wisdom to make the right decision. Mr. Vice President, on behalf of the people of Maine, I thank you for your service to our country.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, today I join my esteemed colleague, Senator Collins, in recognizing the 20th anniversary of Loring Jobs Corps Center in Limestone, ME. This center is a subsidiary of the Department of Labor's national Jobs Corps program, which provides vocational training, education, and opportunity to our Nation's at-risk youth. Over the past two decades, the Loring Jobs Corps has been an important part of that noble effort. Throughout our great Nation, young people face roadblocks to their personal and vocational success. Recognizing that every member of society has potential if given opportunity, Jobs Corps gives people the skills they need to overcome these problems and create better engaged members of society. Through their efforts, they have inspired self- confidence and a sense of commitment to the community in the lives of their members. Through military service, higher education, or the workforce, graduates of the Jobs Corps have been able to make a difference in the world and been an inspiration for countless others. Since its opening in 1996, Loring Jobs Corps Center has been at the forefront of the effort to improve the lives of disadvantaged young people and provides them with the skills necessary to thrive in their communities. Through career training and education, Loring Jobs Corps has helped over 10,500 students to a brighter, fuller future and stands poised to help thousands more. A testament to the program's success, the Loring Center has even become one of the highest military placement Job Corps centers in the country. I like to think of Maine as one big small town. As such, we all have a responsibility to help disenfranchised youth in our communities, and the Loring Jobs Corps has gone above and beyond in accepting this responsibility. I thank the center for its consistent dedication to at- risk youth, commend them for their long record of service, and wish them the best of success for years to come.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, last March this body passed CARA, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. Unfortunately, at the same time, we didn't fund it. We didn't provide any additional funds to support the treatment and recovery of people throughout the country. Since we passed that bill and failed to fund it, 15,000 people--78 a day, 3 an hour--have died because we haven't acted on funding. A group of us got together on March 2 and brought forth an amendment to provide $600 million of emergency funding to give some substance to this bill, which had so much promise, and to provide support for recovery and treatment. That amendment was defeated. Passing that bill without funding is like sending the fire department to a five-alarm fire with no water. We don't have the means to do what has to be done to defeat this scourge, which has taken the life of a constituent or more in every State in the Union. Every one of us has lost lives in our State because of this. Treatment works. Recovery is possible. It is hard, but the greatest tragedy--the greatest tragedy--is when someone struggles with this awful disease, is ready to seek help, seeks help, and is told: Sorry, there is a 3-month waiting list. That is unconscionable. This is something that is taking lives right now. This isn't an abstract, ``maybe this will happen in the future.'' This is right now, today, in Maine, in Florida, in California, in Arizona, in Washington, in Nebraska, in Texas--all across this country. It is the greatest public health crisis of my lifetime. Seventy-eight people a day are dying, and it is preventable. There are three legs to the stool of dealing with this: One is law enforcement, one is prevention, and one is treatment. And without all three of those legs, the stool collapses and people die. These are real people. I have had roundtables in Maine. I sat next to a deputy sheriff who lost his daughter and one woman who said she hoped her son would be arrested so maybe then he could get into treatment. These are regular, ordinary Americans that are being affected by this, not only young people. These are older people, middle class, middle-aged people. This is a major crisis. There are lots of aspects to it, and I can talk about the fact that opioid prescription drugs lead to heroin and other drugs, but the real subject today is funding. I was told back in the spring: Don't worry, we are going to take up CARA in appropriations. We are going to have appropriations bills, and it will all be dealt with. Well, now we are talking about a continuing resolution that would not have any additional funding unless we find a way to do it, and that is my plea today. I have written to the President; I have written to the chair of the Appropriations Committee saying: Let's find a way to at least fund the $181 million that is authorized in CARA. At least do that, even if we are doing a continuing resolution. By the way, I don't understand why we are doing continuing resolutions when the agreement has been reached on the amount of the budget, the amount of the appropriations. The Appropriations Committee has done their work. Why aren't we doing appropriations? That is another subject. But however we do the funding this fall, let's deal with this terrible problem that is taking lives, tearing families apart, and deeply wounding the heart of America. I ask the consideration of this whole body for this urgent problem and that we take real steps to deliver help to those people who are asking for it. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. KING. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 5 minutes.

Mr. KING

Mr. KING. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the town of Kingfield, ME, which has recently been designated by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy as an Appalachian Trail Community. This will provide better economic development opportunity for Kingfield and contribute to its cherished position in Maine and along the Appalachian Trail. I am pleased to congratulate Kingfield on this well-deserved designation, which also coincides with the community's bicentennial celebration on September 10. Kingfield's roots go back to 1807, when William King, later to be Maine's first Governor purchased land in the relatively uncharted Carrabassett River Valley. Over the next 10 years, the humble settlement grew into a vibrant industrial town, including several mills and factories. Through the early 20th century, Kingfield became an anchor town in the western foothills and has maintained its sterling reputation as a small, but strong, tight-knit community to this day. Today Kingfield is known for its picturesque scenery and the plethora of outdoor recreation opportunities it provides. The recreation industry has brought revitalization to the western foothills of Maine, and Kingfield stands at the forefront of that effort. Nearby Sugarloaf Mountain is one of the most popular skiing destinations on the East Coast, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the area every year. During the rest of the year, Kingfield is a haven for fishing, hunting, and wildlife watching, as well as a popular stop along the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail has brought tens of thousands of people through western Maine, and many have stopped in Kingfield for respite from the challenging terrain. Through the official designation of Kingfield as an Appalachian Trail Community, visitors will now have access to the best resources to help them complete their journey, and residents can benefit from the engagement with trail visitors and trail stewards that this designation allows. The town will be able to gain a fuller partnership with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, while implementing environmentally and culturally sustainable practices. This is the dawn of a new era in the partnership between the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the town of Kingfield and is sure to have a lasting and meaningful impact for years to come. I commend all that the people of Kingfield have done to make their town such a special place to live and experience nature. Their shared love for their hometown has made them one of Maine's great communities, and I am confident that this designation as an Appalachian Trail Community will further the town's reputation. I thank the ATC for their recognition of Kingfield's important role in supporting hikers along the trail. I am proud to recognize this historic milestone, and I wish the town many more years of success.