Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I rise to echo the sentiments of the Senator from Washington State. She has absolutely articulated the reasons this Senate should just stop what it is doing and bring these bills to the floor for a vote so we can begin to make it more difficult for the wrong people to be able to buy guns in our country. We have no background checks, no ability to identify who they are. This debate is one that should have already taken place in August after what happened in El Paso and after what happened in Dayton. We should have had the debate out here on the Senate floor. The House has already passed legislation that deals with the background checks of any person who wants to buy a gun in our country. That is the least we should be able to do. By the way, it polls out at 89 percent. There aren't many issues that poll out at 89 percent. The reason it does is that the country is horrified by what it is seeing day after day on its televisions as the carnage continues to rise, as the hemorrhaging of communities continues unabated across our country. The NRA retains a vice-like grip on the Senate of the United States. It is almost as though it is able to put a lock on these doors-- courtesy of the Republican leadership--so that no bill can come down here into the well of the Senate to be debated on background checks. The NRA just refuses to allow those bills to come out here. So we have no debates. We have no votes. We have no accountability. This is the status of the U.S. Senate in September of 2019 as we see an epidemic of violence across our country. Bring those bills onto the floor, Republican Party. Forget the money from the NRA. Forget all of its spending. Let us not put a price on the lives of 34,000 Americans who died just last year on top of the lives of those who died the year before and the year before and those who will be part of a preventable epidemic in our country next year and the year after and the year after into the future. After we finish debating background checks, we should then have a debate on military-style assault weapons and whether they should be sold in our country and a debate on high-capacity magazines and whether they should be sold in our country. Those were the weapons that were used in Dayton. Those were the weapons that were used in El Paso. Let's have a debate here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Let's have people have to be made accountable for allowing these dangerous weapons that belong on battlefields but not on the streets of our country. In fact, when they are on the streets of our country, they turn our streets into battlegrounds, whereby the criminal--whereby the bad person--has a weapon, in many instances, that is more powerful than that of the police. That is just plain wrong. We can do something about it if the Senate allows these doors to open, if the Republicans allow this debate to take place. Of course, it will not because the NRA controls access to the floor of this Senate. Then let's have a debate on the loopholes that allow abusers-- domestic abusers and terrorists--to be able to purchase guns in the United States. Let's have that debate here on the floor of the Senate. Let's have people have to vote on whether or not they want domestic abusers to be able to purchase guns in our country or if they should be able to keep their guns if they have already been identified by the local police as being a danger because they are domestic abusers, and the same thing is true for safeguards against terrorists purchasing weapons. And when are we going to have the debate on research at the Centers for Disease Control on the causes of gun violence in our country? I have introduced that bill for 10 years to have that research done. The House has now moved legislation to deal with that issue, but over here, so far, these doors are locked. That legislation cannot make it to the well of the Senate so that we can have a debate. The NRA guards these doors. The NRA will not give permission to have a debate on whether or not we do research on gun violence in our country. What are the causes? Why are we the highest among industrialized countries? What is it that differentiates us from other countries in the world? So for me, I say it is time for us on this floor to ensure that NRA stands for not relevant anymore in American politics, in senatorial politics, and that the doors are open, that the legislation can come down, and that we can have a full debate here on the Senate floor after all that we have learned in these last weeks and months and years about how unnecessarily easy it is for people to be able to purchase these weapons. This is a debate that the American people want, and we are either going to have that debate in the course of regular Senate business or we are going to have it next year in the Presidential and House and Senate races all across our country, because this issue now is completely changed in terms of how the public views it except among the Republican leadership in our country. So if that is how they want it, then, just be sure that young people especially are outraged across our country. They are outraged that we don't debate climate change in the well of the Senate. They are outraged that we don't debate gun safety legislation in the Senate. So there is a kind of a ``sow the wind, reap the whirlwind'' political consequence that is going to occur, and all I can say is that we can hope and pray that the Senate Republican leadership allows for this debate and does not wait for Donald Trump to give them permission to have this debate. There shouldn't have to be a complete and total excision of senatorial prerogatives to another branch of government. We should be able to do this ourselves--the Senate. This issue goes right to the core of the safety of every family in our country, and if we do it, I actually think that almost every Senator here will be praised for ensuring that we have background checks. That is what the polling says. If we don't, then perhaps a small handful of Republican Senators will be praised by the NRA, but it will be at a terrible price in terms of the lives that are lost. In Massachusetts, we have the lowest gun fatality rate in the country. If Massachusetts' laws were the laws for the whole country, 34,000 people would not have died last year, but only 6,000 people would have died. And what is our key law? If you want to buy a gun and get a license in Massachusetts, you have to go into the police station and talk to the police chief. We have 351 cities and towns. That is how you get a gun license. It is the police. So we know how simple it is to have a background check to make sure that we know who is buying these guns. Down in Parkland, the home of that young man had been visited over and over and over by the police, but he didn't have to go to the police to get a license. He got right around that system. Who knows you best? The local police do. We don't want to keep guns out of the hands of those who should be able to purchase them--hunters and others--but you do want the police to be involved. You do want background checks to make sure that the wrong people can't buy them. We know that is at the heart of this problem. So for me, this is an absolute necessity for the Senate to have to have dealt with before the end of this session. It would be historically inexcusable for us to have avoided having that debate here. I just say that enough is enough. Let's just end business as usual. Let's put in place the process by which this Senate--this greatest deliberative body in the world--reclaims the reputation that it has lost, and let's debate gun safety legislation here on the floor of the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, yesterday the American people finally heard at length directly from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. In his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee, the special counsel gave voice to his report on Russian interference in our 2016 Presidential election and President Trump's obstruction of the investigation into it. What the American people and I heard from Special Counsel Mueller was an explanation and confirmation of the deeply troubling findings and conclusions of his investigation and his written report. He told us that the Trump campaign welcomed the help of a hostile foreign power, Russia, to influence our 2016 election, accepted that help, lied repeatedly about it, and benefited from it. He confirmed that there was voluminous evidence that President Trump had obstructed justice through his efforts to interfere with and impede the special counsel's investigation. Most importantly, contrary to the President's claims, the special counsel confirmed that his investigation had not exonerated the President of the crime of obstruction of justice. When asked, Robert Mueller made this crystal clear, testifying that ``the President was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed.'' In his testimony yesterday, Special Counsel Mueller did not back away from any of his written report's findings. The American people saw and heard him emphatically defend them. Special Counsel Mueller, a decorated war hero, gave every single American cause for deep alarm when he called Russian interference in support of the Trump campaign ``among the most serious challenges'' to American democracy that he had ever seen. He agreed that it was ``unpatriotic'' and ``wrong'' to seek campaign help from a foreign power, and he decried President Trump's failure to acknowledge or respond to the systematic and sweeping Russian interference, warning: ``They're doing it as we sit here.'' Yesterday, Donald Trump tried to defend himself in tweets while Robert Mueller defended our democracy with his testimony. The special counsel's testimony and events of the past few weeks have led to the undeniable conclusion that it is time for the House of Representatives to begin a formal impeachment proceeding against President Trump. I stand here today on the Senate floor, the place where an unprecedented trial would occur, understanding the gravity of this moment in our Nation's history. I stand here today because I believe we have reached the moment where we must stand up for the survival of our democracy. Before I came to this decision, I said that I needed to hear directly from Special Counsel Mueller and other witnesses, that Congress needed to obtain documents, and that we needed to gather all the facts and evidence. I had hoped that the House Judiciary Committee's investigation would get us answers to the questions about the President's obstructive conduct that remained after Special Counsel Mueller issued his report. I had hoped that the President, who continues to insist that he did nothing wrong, would cooperate and that the House Judiciary Committee would receive testimony and other evidence from the Trump campaign and Trump administration witnesses. That has not happened, and that is because of continued and deliberate Presidential obstruction. Just listen to the numerous roadblocks that the President has put in Congress's way since Special Counsel Mueller issued his report in March. President Trump has denied the entire Congress access to the full and unredacted version of the Mueller report and its underlying materials. President Trump has claimed that key witnesses, like former White House Counsel Donald McGahn and former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, are immune from testifying or simply don't have to comply with congressional subpoenas. President Trump has opposed testimony from two of the special counsel's top deputies and restricted the scope of the Mueller testimony, and President Trump has vowed to fight any future congressional subpoenas. What we have seen from President Trump is a pattern of repeated and baseless defiance of the House's constitutional authority to investigate, especially subpoenas seeking evidence that the President obstructed justice and abused his power. The President has engaged in stonewalling that shows an unprecedented disregard and contempt for a coequal branch of government under our Constitution--disregard and contempt that would make Richard Nixon blush with envy. Taken together, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's testimony and the President's obstruction of the congressional investigation compel us to immediately begin a formal impeachment inquiry. I do not come to this decision lightly. An impeachment proceeding against the President of the United States is a matter of the highest constitutional magnitude, but when the evidence demonstrates that the President of the United States obstructed the special counsel's investigation and when the facts and the evidence demonstrate that the President of the United States is continuing to obstruct justice, seeking to derail a legitimate congressional investigation into the lawfulness of his conduct while in office, then Congress must do its constitutional duty and act. The acts of obstruction that Special Counsel Mueller described in his report and in his testimony yesterday to Congress are impeachable offenses--a view shared by myriad constitutional scholars, attorneys, and prosecutors. The President improperly pressed then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and, subsequently, fired Comey because of the Russia investigation--confirmed yesterday by the special counsel's testimony. The President unlawfully demanded that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation and take over the investigation--confirmed yesterday by the special counsel's testimony. The President engaged in witness tampering and falsification of government records when he directed White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller and later pressured McGahn to deny that it had happened--confirmed yesterday by the special counsel's testimony. The President engaged in a coverup when he sought to prevent public disclosure of evidence about the infamous June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting--confirmed yesterday by the special counsel's testimony. The President abused his constitutional authority by holding out the prospect of pardons in exchange for witnesses' silence--confirmed yesterday by the special counsel's testimony. That Robert Mueller found so much evidence that this President committed impeachable offenses might be shocking, but it should not be surprising. After all, look at what we have learned about this President during his 2\1/2\ years in office, what he is willing to say and what he is willing to do. Did an American President put family members in high-level White House policy positions--positions requiring security clearances that should never have been issued? Yes, he did. Did an American President repeatedly show infatuation with and express sympathy for authoritarian figures around the globe, most notably Vladimir Putin, the man who interfered with the 2016 election to President Trump's benefit? Yes, he did. Did an American President face multiple, repeated, and credible allegations of sexual assault by more than a dozen women--sexual assault that he bragged about on tape? Yes, he did. Did an American President become known as individual No. 1, in effect an unindicted coconspirator on charges of Federal campaign finance law violations that were brought against his lawyer, Michael Cohen, in New York? Yes, he did. Did an American President seek to divide Americans based on race, religion, and ethnicity, directing racist language at elected Members of Congress and urging others to celebrate that hate? Sadly, yes, he did. We have watched as Donald Trump has given the Constitution a stress test, the likes of which we haven't seen in 230 years. We have watched him attack judges and seek to intimidate the judiciary. We have watched him disregard Congress's coequal role in government under article I of the Constitution, whether by spending unappropriated money on his border wall, relying on ``acting'' government officials to eviscerate the Senate's advice and consent function, or ignoring legitimate oversight requests. We have watched the President sue Congress in order to block release of his tax returns and refuse to disclose any meaningful information about his business operations, especially sources of foreign investment and loans, raising alarming questions about violations of the Constitution's emoluments clause. This President relishes attacking the freedom of the press and has incited violence against journalists for exercising their First Amendment rights. Donald Trump is tearing at the fabric of our democracy, literally, every single day. And yesterday, the Congress and the American people heard the facts and evidence that Congress can and should act to hold him accountable. In the face of impeachable offenses, it is the Constitution that entrusts the Congress with the responsibility of deciding whether to remove a President of the United States from office for high crimes and misdemeanors. Indeed, in the face of evidence of serious and persistent misconduct that is harmful to the Nation, Congress would be abusing its constitutional discretion and setting a dangerous precedent if it did not begin an impeachment inquiry. If the evidence of obstruction of justice and other wrongdoing that Robert Mueller explained yesterday is not evidence of impeachable offenses, what is? What damage would a future President have to inflict in order to trigger an impeachment inquiry? I have no illusions about where an impeachment inquiry will lead. My Republican colleagues have thus far shown themselves unwilling to hold this President accountable. They believe that everything is ``all over.'' But the evidence in the Mueller report and the special counsel's testimony yesterday explaining it, defending it, and reaffirming it compel us to do what is right and what is necessary, and that is to exercise our authority and begin an impeachment proceeding against Donald Trump. Nothing less than our democracy is at stake. I call upon my colleagues in the House of Representatives to do so. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, what an honor it is to be out here with the great leader from the State of Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse, who has come onto the Senate floor 250 times to say to the Senate and to say to our country that it is time to wake up. His voice is inspiring. His voice cuts through all of the obfuscation that has been paid for by the special interests. It ensures that we hear the truth about the danger climate change poses to our country and to the planet. I came out here just to say how special it is for me and for every other Member who partners with Sheldon Whitehouse on this issue. This is somebody who has dedicated his career to solving this problem. He knows all issues go through three phases--political education, political activation, and political implementation. He has been a one- man tutor in his educating of the American public and the U.S. Senate on not only the technical aspects of climate change but on the political aspects of it because, ultimately, it is not a technology problem; it is a political problem we have. The technologies are ready to go. What Senator Whitehouse has done is to have served as this inspirational center point. He has ensured that the voice of sanity has been heard, that the voice of truth has been heard. Why is it important for him to be this incredible leader? It is that climate change--or the climate crisis--is the national security, economic, environmental, healthcare, and moral issue of our time, of this century. Everything he has been saying is something that, in my opinion, is going to wind up putting him in the history books for the incredible leadership he has shown. There are a lot of times in which you can be right but too soon. People are not ready to hear it. Yet what we are finding across the country is that more and more people are ready to hear it, especially the younger generation, especially people who recognize right now they are going to live their entire lives with this crisis. How do we know that? Back in November, our scientists--13 Federal agencies--who were mandated by a 1990 law, had to present a report to the President on climate change. All 13 agencies--the Department of Energy, the EPA, the Department of State--had to come together. Here is what they concluded: If we do not change what we are doing right now, the planet will warm by 9 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. Let's say that again. The planet will warm by 9 degrees Fahrenheit between now and 2100--81 years from now. In other words, the pages who are here in the well of the Senate right now will live through this entire story as it unfolds if we continue with business as usual. Interestingly, the consequences are not those the deniers want us to know, for all 13 agencies concluded there could be upward of--get ready for this--an 11-foot rise in the ocean in the Northeastern part of the United States. Think about that-- 11 feet higher. The impact would be catastrophic. Our pages will live through this entire story unless we change what we are doing in our country, unless we change what the U.S. Senate does to put preventive measures in place. What Senator Whitehouse is saying is: Wake up. The science is clear, and it is unchallengeable. Our problem is that too many Republicans--especially the denier in chief who sits in the Oval Office--are nostalgic for a time that never existed. They pretend, somehow or other, that all of these climate- related problems are going to magically be solved by policies that don't exist and perhaps we are just in some kind of cycle on our planet that will go away and that these young people will not have a legacy of climate change to have to deal with in their lives. Of course, every scientist in America, with the exception of those who are bought by the Koch brothers, bought by ExxonMobil, bought by the fossil fuel companies, agrees that this is going to happen. From my perspective, what we are seeing is something that is deadly-- the forest fires, the extreme heat waves, the supercharged hurricanes, the Biblical flooding. All of it is happening as a result of what human beings are doing to our own planet. Global temperatures are rising like a runaway freight train. This month is on track to be the hottest month on Earth ever recorded. May I say that again? The month of July in 2019 is on track to be the hottest month ever recorded in the history of our planet. Last month was the hottest June in recorded history. Every month so far in 2019 has been in the top five hottest on record. The last 5 years have been the hottest 5 years ever recorded, and 20 of the last 22 years have been the hottest ever recorded. This is not a drill; this is an emergency, and it is an emergency that has an answer in deploying wind and solar and new batteries and all-electric vehicles and energy efficiency and investing in new technologies that can accelerate the solution even more. It is all there for us to do. Right now, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo mission to the Moon. President Kennedy felt there was an existential threat to our planet that the Soviet Union was posing. He actually said at Rice University that he knew we were behind. The Russians had already sent up Sputnik. The Russians had already sent up Yuri Gagarin. He said we were behind but that we would not be behind by the end of the decade. He made it quite clear that we would have to invent metals that did not exist, invent alloys that did not exist, invent propulsion systems that did not exist; that we would have to return from the mission from the Moon through heat that was half the intensity of the Sun and that we would have to do so within a decade so we would control that existential threat. The U.N. scientists and our scientists have each now said that climate change poses an existential threat to our planet--not ours, not Senator Whitehouse's and mine. Those are the words of the scientists of the planet and our own scientists. So we have to respond in the same way that President Kennedy asked our Nation to respond back in the 1960s. And the young people in our country--they are ready to go. They are ready to do whatever is necessary. But in order to do so, it is going to require us to take the kinds of actions that are necessary. The U.N. special report said that if emissions are not cut by 100 percent by 2050, climate change will lead to natural disasters costing $54 trillion over the next 80 years. A lot of people say: Can we afford to take on this challenge? What our scientists are saying is that we can't afford not to take on this challenge. We can't afford that kind of a price when we can create millions of jobs saving the planet in wind and solar and new all- electric vehicles and buildings, technologies, energy efficiency. We can save all of creation by engaging in massive job creation. It is all there for us. We just did it with the telecommunications revolution. We moved from black, rotary dial phones to the young people who are here in the well of the Senate here today--they have iPhones that they walk around with. Those iPhones have more computing power than the computers on the Apollo mission. How did we do that? We are Americans. We take on these challenges, and we revolutionized the telecommunications industry to move from the black, rotary dial phone. And these young people don't even know what that is. We have moved from having no fax machines in our country 40 years ago to today. There are no fax machines in America. That is how quick the revolution goes when you put a plan together to accomplish it. Well, the same thing is true in the clean energy sector, and what Senator Whitehouse has been leading us on is this explication to the Senate that we can do it. You can't let the special interests dictate it, though. You can't let the dark money control it. That is his lecture to us, that it is incredibly important for us to ignore it. In the same way we ignored the monopolies in telecommunications, we have to ignore the monopolies and the duopolies that exist in the energy sector as well. So I thank the Senator from Rhode Island again, and I will repeatedly do so because he will reach 300 speeches out here on the floor and 500 speeches out here on the floor. You might as well put an infinity sign behind the number because that is how many speeches he will give out here on the Senate floor to wake up this institution. That day is going to come, and I just wanted to come out here and thank Senator Whitehouse for his incredible leadership and to let him know that I am honored to be his partner in this effort. I will be by your side the entire time it takes for us to get a solution for the young people in our country that they deserve and they expect from this institution. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY. The Good Lord and Mitch McConnell.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, you know, Massachusetts is the Bay State, and Rhode Island is the Ocean State. Back 240 or so years ago, Paul Revere got on his horse, and he started riding, warning of great danger. From my perspective, Sheldon Whitehouse is a latter-day Paul Revere, and he is warning that the climate crisis is coming and that it is going to be much worse than it is today. So from my perspective, this latter-day Paul Revere, who is Sheldon Whitehouse, represents the best of New England and the best of our country and the best of our planet because we have to be all in this together, and we can't be leaders by sitting on the sidelines, which is where Donald Trump wants to have us. The Indians, the Chinese, and others--they won't listen to us. You cannot preach temperance from a barstool. You can't tell the rest of the world to do something while you have a cigar in one hand and a beer in the other. That is where we are now with pollution under President Trump. We have to be leaders, not laggers. That is what Sheldon Whitehouse is all about. That is why it is my great honor to be up here with him, and for as long as it takes, he will be out here. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my fellow, Michele Bustamante, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this session.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized for 7 minutes.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Peter Wright for the position of Assistant Administrator of the Office of Land and Emergency Management at the Environmental Protection Agency. If confirmed to this position, Mr. Wright would be in charge of the office that cleans up hazardous waste, contaminated lands, oilspills, and environmental disasters. He would be at the helm of the Nation's Superfund Program, which is critical to keeping our communities and families safe from dangerous chemicals and other toxic substances. As a former counsel for Dow Chemical Company, Peter Wright's resume looks eerily similar to the listing of parties responsible for contaminated Superfund sites across our country. For 19 years at Dow, he was known as the company's dioxin lawyer. He headed negotiations for a massive cleanup of this cancerous chemical at a time when the company was accused of delaying cleanup efforts and misrepresenting scientific evidence. For the past year, Peter Wright worked in an unconfirmed capacity as ``special counsel to the EPA Administrator.'' Despite promising to divest all his equity interests in DowDupont, it was recently revealed that he held on to those stocks until just 4 months ago. Continuing to profit off of a chemical company while working for the primary Federal Agency responsible for regulating that company is unacceptable behavior. Just as our lands need protection from toxic chemicals, our government needs to be kept safe from ethical dangers and toxic nominees--two things that have continually contaminated the Trump administration. Early in my career, I worked with a mother in Woburn, MA, named Anne Anderson. Anne worked tirelessly to expose the link between the industrial chemical TCE and the development of leukemia in Woburn, MA, and the children of Woburn, MA. Her work and the work of other Woburn families helped spur Congress to pass the Superfund law. I was a champion of that bill in the House, and I am proud to continue to defend and strengthen the Superfund Program today in the Senate. Anne Anderson's son Jimmy died from exposure to TCE and other chemicals. She had to do the job because the Federal Government was not doing the job. She had to be the one to put together all the other mothers who had children who were also going to die. You may have seen the movie or read the book ``A Civil Action.'' It is a very good movie, but it is about her. It is about what happens when the Federal Government turns a blind eye to the impact that large chemical companies and others have upon the lives of ordinary citizens if there aren't proper protections. Those sites are cleaned up. Her son Jimmy has passed. The site now has a transportation facility on it. It is named the ``Jimmy Anderson Transportation Center,'' in his name. He died. Superfund is meant to make sure there are no more Jimmy Andersons. Right now, there are tens of millions of acres of contaminated land in America and in places with long industrial histories, like Massachusetts, and we have nearly a century's worth of toxic materials that have accumulated across our State and across the country. That is why we need an Assistant Administrator who will fight to protect American communities from these toxic exposures and make sure polluters pay for that cleanup. Recently, Congress has been debating how to handle a class of chemicals known collectively as PFAS, which are everything from Teflon to firefighting foams and are often called forever chemicals because of how long they stay in the environment, cycling through soil, water, and air, until they build up in our food and in our bodies. Certain PFAS chemicals are associated with a host of dreaded diseases: cancer, thyroid hormone disruption, low infant birth rates, and immune system problems. PFAS should really be ``poisonous for all species'' because it poisons fish and it poisons cows. It poisons the water. Ultimately, it begins to affect human beings as well. PFAS--``poisonous for all species.'' Massachusetts has documented PFAS contamination in Ayer, Barnstable, Mashpee, Shirley, Middleton--all across our Commonwealth. Polluters should pay to clean up their messes, but right now, it is the public that pays. This could change if the EPA would follow up on a promise made by Scott Pruitt to designate PFAS as a hazardous substance under the Superfund law. More than a year later, we are still waiting. We need a champion at the head of the Superfund office. There are many Anne Andersons around this country trying to keep their little Jimmys protected. Mr. Wright hasn't committed to giving our communities the weapons they need to fight back against chemical contamination. That is why today I will oppose his nomination on this floor. Mr. President, with that, I yield back.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, it has been said many times before, but it bears repeating today more than ever, on World Refugee Day--ours is a country built by immigrants. We have a proud tradition of welcoming foreigners to our shores. The first European settlers in North America--those who founded our original Thirteen Colonies--were fleeing religious oppression and persecution. Over the following decades, America became, in the words of Thomas Paine, ``the asylum for the persecuted.'' We welcomed Irish Catholics fleeing starvation and British rule, Germans fleeing political turmoil, Eastern European Jews fleeing the pogroms, and countless others. Over the generations, America welcomed Europeans displaced by war, and later, millions of refugees seeking political asylum from Communism during the Cold War. In 1980, we passed landmark legislation--the Refugee Act--which provided a permanent and systemized procedure for admitting refugees. This law established the concept of a Presidential determination on refuge admissions, by which the President can set the number of refugees that the United States may admit in a given year. For the past 40 years, both Democratic and Republican administrations demonstrated a commitment to robust resettlement. Prior to the Trump administration, the average annual refugee admissions cap was 95,000 refugees. Administration officials of both parties took seriously the Presidential determination and worked to maintain a resettlement rate on par with it. At nearly every juncture in history since its founding, America has been called upon to be a leader in welcoming the persecuted. More often than not, we have answered that call and today, it sounds to us louder than ever. With more than 24 million refugees around the globe, America must step into our historic leadership role, not away from it. Now is the time to increase the refugee admissions ceiling, not cut it. Now is the time to build up our resettlement infrastructure, not decimate it. Now is the time to open our door, not close it. But the Trump administration betrayed the foundational values of this Nation by slashing our annual refugee admissions ceiling to a dismal 30,000 refugees. This was an unprecedented low, both in number and humanity. That is why I introduced the GRACE Act. This bill prohibits any U.S. President from setting an admission ceiling below 95,000 refugees each year and requires administration officials to treat that figure as a goal. We must not be silent. We must continue to meet the global crisis of displaced persons head on, and like our forefathers, we must extend a hand to those fleeing persecution around the word. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise today in defense of net neutrality. In April the House of Representatives took an important step in passing the Save the Internet Act, legislation that would overturn the Trump administration's Federal Communication Commission's wrongheaded decision and restore net neutrality protections. Another way of saying it is that net neutrality is nondiscrimination online. That is what it is. It is the principle of nondiscrimination online so that large companies just can't discriminate against smaller voices, smaller companies, and startups. In the Senate, we have already successfully passed the same proposal last year. In April of 2018, my Congressional Review Act resolution passed in the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 52 to 47. In April 2018, on a bipartisan basis, we debated net neutrality and the Senate decided to join the majority of Americans and support a free and open internet. In that vote we sent a message to President Trump about what that means: an internet, free of corporate control and open to all who want to communicate, engage, and innovate. We made it clear that Congress will not fall for President Trump's special interest agenda and his broadband baron allies who just want to block, slow down, or discriminate against content online just to charge Americans more on their cable bills. Unfortunately, the rules for the Congressional Review Act that allow just 30 Senators to force the majority to schedule a vote is not an option in this Congress. So, instead, on this, the 1-year anniversary of President Trump's net neutrality repeal going into effect, we will call for an immediate vote on the Save the Internet Act. Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues are failing to listen to the voices of their constituents and plan to block the vote from happening. Let's be clear. Net neutrality is just another way in which the Republican Party refuses to side with the ordinary people in our country--regular families, small businesses, and startup software companies. How do they get access to the internet in a way in which they cannot feel that corporate pressure restricting their ability to use this incredible invention to further the democratization of access to opportunity or, at the same time, to innovate in a way which continues to change not only our own country but our own world? We can't let big companies discriminate against individual consumers. We can't let big companies stifle speech. Once you pay your monthly internet service bill, you can go anywhere you want on the internet without your provider slowing down or blocking your path to a website of your choosing. This is a fight. It is a fight for innovation, for entrepreneurialism, for the American economy, and a fight for free speech--the cornerstone of our democracy--and a fight for the most powerful platform for commerce and communications in the history of the planet. The Save the Internet Act does exactly what the American people want. It restores the rules that ensure that families aren't subject to higher prices, slower internet speeds, and even blocked websites because the big broadband providers want to pump up their profits. Under Senator McConnell's leadership, the Republicans are trying to bury this bill in a legislative graveyard. Instead of acting on legislation, which, again, passed the Senate a year ago--it just passed in the House in April of this year--Leader McConnell has been doing little but confirming unqualified, extreme-right nominees for the Trump administration. Just listen to the bills the Senate Republicans refuse to act on: the Violence Against Women Act, no votes out here on the Senate floor; voting on democracy reform, no votes out here on the Senate floor; gun background checks, passed in the House but no vote here in the Senate; paycheck fairness; the Paris climate agreement--no, no, no. But the Senate majority leader and his Republican colleagues can keep populating the legislative graveyard at their political peril because this is the agenda that the American people want to see the Senate debating, and they want to see these laws put on the books to protect families in our country. That is because the issues they are blocking are enormously popular, most with strong bipartisan support. Take net neutrality. Now, 86 percent of Americans do not approve of the Federal Communication Commission's action to repeal net neutrality rules, including 82 percent of Republicans, and we are not going to have a vote out here on the Senate floor. On background checks for gun purchases, 97 percent of Americans support requiring background checks for all gun buyers, but we are not going to have a vote out here on the Senate floor. On staying in the Paris climate agreement, nearly 70 percent of registered voters believe the United States should keep its promise and stay in that historic agreement to combat climate change, but the Republicans will not allow us to even have a vote on that out here on the Senate floor. The only place where these issues don't have Republican support is in Senator McConnell's office. Across the country, there are huge bipartisan numbers on each and every one of those issues. It is time that we do right by the American people, and we can start with the Save the Internet Act to protect the internet as we know it. More than 100 outside advocacy organizations wrote to Senate leadership today urging a vote on the net neutrality legislation. They want action now, and Democrats are committed to fighting on their behalf. I am joined today by some of our greatest fighters for net neutrality in the Senate and across our country. The ranking member of the Commerce Committee, Maria Cantwell from Washington State, will be out here in a few minutes, but now I am joined by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. Senator Wyden and I introduced net neutrality legislation 15 years ago in the House and in the Senate. Nobody understands this issue better than Senator Wyden does. Partnering with Senator Cantwell, we are going to continue this battle. Whether it is on the floor of the Senate or in the House or whether it is in the courts, we will not stop fighting until net neutrality is restored. So, from my perspective, right from the very beginning, Senator Wyden and I have been on the right side of history. We have been fighting for an issue that has overwhelming public support, and we are not going to give up until we have won this fight. At this point, I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I think Senator Cantwell and Senator Wyden have done an excellent job in laying out the parameters of the problems that exist if we do not have net neutrality enshrined as the law of the land. We believe the principles of nondiscrimination--the principles that ensure that the internet is open and accessible to the smallest voices as well as the largest voices. We need laws to protect the smallest voices. We need protections to ensure that they are going to be heard, that they can innovate, that they can take their entrepreneurial zeal, their insights into the additional changes that can be made in this longstanding--now a 20-year history of dynamic changes that have taken place in the online commercial world and that they will be able to innovate. They should not have to get permission to innovate. They should not have to get permission to be able to change the way in which people communicate in our country. We shouldn't have to hire lawyers to negotiate with the lawyers of the biggest companies in the United States in order to ensure that investors aren't going to lose all their money as the small company gets tipped upside down and has all of their resources absolutely devastated by anticompetitive activity. That is what this is all about--democracy and capitalism, entrepreneurial spirit, the ability to innovate, the ability to be able to go to the marketplace. In order for capitalism to work, it has to have a conscience. Capitalism without a conscience allows for unfettered large corporations to take advantage of small companies, startups, and individuals in our society. It has to have a conscience. Net neutrality is the conscience for the online world we live in. It ensures that there is fairness, openness, and it ensures that the apertures that are there cannot be narrowed just because of the corporate agenda of an individual huge company. That is the essence of this whole debate. It is something we believe is at the heart of what this 21st century platform of commerce should include. It will be, in a lot of ways, the defining issue of whether this entire era is one that is characterized by fairness or one that is characterized by monopolistic or duopoly practices.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order of the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, despite the Republican objections today, Senator Cantwell, Senator Wyden, and I, and tens of millions of people across this country will not stop fighting until net neutrality is fully restored. Whether in the Halls of Congress or in the courts of our country, this is going to be a fight that is fought until it is finally won. I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent, but had I been present, I would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 141, the confirmation of Susan Combs to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior. I was necessarily absent but had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 142, the motion to invoke cloture on Ryan T. Holte, to be a judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 143, the motion to invoke cloture on Rossie David Alston, Jr., to be U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of Virginia. I was necessarily absent but, had I been present, would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 144, the motion to invoke cloture on Richard A. Hertling, to be a judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I rise in support of the TRACED Act, a piece of legislation that will help all Americans deal with the epidemic of robocalls, which afflicts them and their families every single day of the year. I thank Chairman Wicker for all of his assistance in moving this legislation expeditiously through the legislative process. I thank my partner, Senator Thune from South Dakota. He and I have worked very hard to reach this moment where Democrats and Republicans can come together on an issue, which we all agree is something that we have to address in a very serious way. So this question of robocalls and their role in American society, well, it is a daily deluge of calls that Americans experience. It is more than a nuisance in 2019. It is a consumer protection crisis. Americans across the country face an epidemic of robocalls bombarding landlines and mobile phones. While our phones were once a reliable means of communication, they have been turned against us and are now mechanisms for scammers and fraudsters who wish to do us harm. The numbers are staggering. In 2018, consumers received an estimated 48 billion robocalls--18 billion more than in 2017. That is 131 million robocalls per day--more than 5 million calls an hour, more than 1,000 calls per second in the United States, and nearly 500 million robocalls to Massachusetts residents alone. The reality is that we no longer have confidence in our phones. What was once a trusted means of communication, our phone has become a tool for fraud, scams, harassment, and an avenue by which individuals with bad intent can access our homes, our purses, or our pockets at any time. Caller ID is not trusted. Important calls go unanswered. Innocent Americans are defrauded. Our seniors, in particular, are targeted. Robocalls are a menace. But today, the U.S. Senate is saying loud and clear that robocall relief is in sight. I am proud to partner with Senator John Thune from South Dakota on the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, or TRACED Act. Our legislation cracks down on scammers that now account for nearly one-half of all of the robocalls in our country. It is an unbelievable number. One-half of all of the robocalls are now being delivered by scammers trying to take advantage of innocent Americans. Years ago, scammers needed expensive, sophisticated equipment to robocall and robotext consumers en masse. Today, they just need a smartphone to target thousands of phones an hour at literally very little expense. So something has changed, and we know it has changed, and this is our opportunity here today to do something about it. These new technologies allow illegal robocallers to conduct fraud anonymously, depriving both Federal regulators and consumers the ability to identify and punish the culprit. By passing this legislation today, we are sending a clear message to these fraudulent robocallers: Your days are numbered. Stopping robocalls requires a simple formula, which we have included in the TRACED Act--authentication, No. 1; blocking, No. 2; and tougher enforcement, No. 3. First, this bill requires telephone carriers to adopt call authentication technologies so that they can verify that incoming calls are legitimate or authentic before they reach consumers' phones. This must be mandatory for every single phone carrier in the United States. Second, the Federal Communications Commission must require callers to block unverified calls--fake calls--something the Commission has yet to do. Third, we need to increase from 1 year to 3 years the time for the Federal Communications Commission to pursue penalties for robocallers that intentionally violate the rules. That is the recipe for success, and that is what the TRACED Act does. This bill we will vote on today has enormous support across the country: 54 State and Territory attorneys general, all of the Commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission and at the Federal Trade Commission, major industry associations, and leading consumer groups endorse the legislation and agree that the TRACED Act is an essential weapon in combating the rise of illegal, fraudulent robocalls. Senator Thune and I are joined by over 80 of our colleagues in support of this bill. This is not a liberal or a conservative issue; it is an ``everyone'' issue. It affects the elderly, the young, the small business owner, and the student. Our grandparents, our neighbors, our teachers, and our coworkers--today, no one is spared from this consumer protection pandemic. Senator Thune and I have worked together, but it would not have been possible without the great work of groups like the National Consumer Law Center, AARP, Consumer Reports, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Action, the National Association of Attorneys General, USTelecom, CTIA, NTCA, and so, so many more. These groups joined the chorus of countless Americans who have raised their voices and called on Congress to pass this bipartisan, commonsense legislation, and we thank each and every one of them. There are no blue robocalls. There are no red robocalls. All there are are robocalls attacking every home in our country and every person walking around with a wireless device on their person. This is something that we finally have a chance today to do something about--to pass meaningful legislation that will begin this process of curtailing this scourge of robocalls that is an abuse of every single American every single day of the year. We thank everyone for all of their great work on this issue. Again, I thank my great partner, John Thune, and his staff for their partnership on this legislation. I thank my staff--Joey Wender, who is sitting out here on the floor; Daniel Greene; and, as well, Bennett Butler, who is sitting right behind me. They worked on a bipartisan basis with Republican staffers to craft this very important piece of legislation. Again, I thank Senator Thune and I thank Senator Wicker for ensuring that America now has a chance to see that this body is going to work to begin an end to this epidemic. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Madam President. Again, I want to thank the Senator from South Dakota for his great leadership on this legislation. I think it is a start. It is a revolution in the telecommunications industry that we are going to be voting on here today. I want to thank you so much for your great leadership. Once again, I thank Senator Wicker and Senator Cantwell for helping to bring this out here to let the American people know we are going to take action to stop this plague from affecting their families. Thank you so much.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, due to a regrettable clerical error, the senior Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, was not added as an original cosponsor and co-lead of S. 1421, the Ghost Army Congressional Gold Medal Act, when we introduced the bill together on May 9, 2019. I wish to clarify that Senator Collins is in fact the lead cosponsor of this important legislation and has been an indispensable partner in this endeavor. I thank her for her leadership in ensuring that the heroic Americans of the 23d Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133d Signal Service Company are appropriately honored for their service as a ``Ghost Army'' during World War II with a Congressional Gold Medal.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I rise today to address the Senate on the nomination of David Bernhardt to head the Department of the Interior. I ask unanimous consent that I may use this chart in order to further my goal of making it clear why he should not be nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Interior.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, under Secretary Bernhardt, the Department of the Interior will come to stand for the Department of Oil Interests, DOI. This wheel of Bernhardt's giveaways makes it very clear what the objective of his tenure as the Secretary of Interior will, in fact, entail. Bernhardt's nomination is just a continuation of the Trump administration's cartel Cabinet. Only a month ago, a former coal lobbyist was confirmed to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Let me say that again. Just last month, a coal lobbyist was nominated and confirmed to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States--unbelievable. But now Republicans want to install a former oil lobbyist to head the Department of the Interior because, in Trump's administration, it is nothing but foxes guarding the henhouse. We need more answers about Mr. Bernhardt's lobbying activities. We need answers on whether Mr. Bernhardt used his position at the Department of the Interior to help former clients. The American people need to see the documents associated with Bernhardt's lobbying activities. Most importantly, we should not confirm a former oil lobbyist to lead the very Agency that is tasked with protecting our public lands from despoliation. Let me now point to the wheel of giveaways for more oil--more oil. And that is the goal of his appointment. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of our national treasures that is under threat from Big Oil and the Trump administration. This is the wildest place left in America, and it should not be turned into a drilling playground. Yet Republicans here in the Senate voted in 2017 to hand this special place--the Arctic Refuge--over to Big Oil. Now this administration is trying to hit the gas on drilling there, in one of the Earth's most pristine wilderness areas. Last year, Mr. Bernhardt said that he would ``expedite'' oil development in the wildlife refuge, and he has worked inside the Department of the Interior to limit environmental review of drilling activities. So let's just imagine gushing oil poisoning the habitat of magnificent creatures like polar bears and caribou, snowy owls and the Arctic fox; rigs and pumps threatening the ancestral homeland of the Gwich'in and Inupiat peoples, which they call ``the sacred place where life begins.'' I have spent my career protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for future generations, and today I will not support the nomination of David Bernhardt to undermine the protections we have worked so hard to put in place. We must stand up for the generations yet to come that cannot yet speak to protect our public lands and our oceans. At the same time, the Trump administration is trying to roll back the fuel economy standards for the vehicles we drive. In other words, since we put 70 percent of all the oil we consume in our country on a yearly basis into the gasoline tanks of the vehicles we drive in our country, if you increase the fuel economy of every one of those vehicles, it will reduce the amount of oil you need to drill for. What do the Republicans want to do? What do the oil companies want? What do the Koch brothers want? What does ExxonMobil want? Well, it is very simple. By not increasing the fuel economy standards of the vehicles we drive, we need more oil because cars will consume more in the course of a year. They then say: Ah, let's turn to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--a sacred place--and find more oil, because the vehicles we drive won't be that efficient. What kind of sacrifice are we going to make in our country because the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil want to have more oil drilled for? We are going to have the Trump administration say: The only way we can justify it is if the cars, the light trucks, the SUVs that people drive are not that efficient; therefore, we need all the oil we can get, even though we are a technical giant and we know we can make these vehicles so much more efficient, so we never have to drill there. That is a sin against the environment and a sin against our country and future generations that should be able to enjoy this pristine area, the wildlife refuge. Let's move on to another part of the wheel of giveaways--even more oil that will be another giveaway during the Bernhardt time at the Department of the Interior. On January 4, 2018, the Department of the Interior announced a plan to revise the offshore drilling plan to eliminate protections for the east and west coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the Arctic Ocean. The plan proposed to open up more than 90 percent of the U.S. coastlines to oil and gas leasing. Since then, the bipartisan opposition has been deafening. All Governors along the east and west coasts have opposed or expressed concerns about expanded oil and gas exploration off their coasts. More than 340 municipalities and over 2,100 elected local, State, and Federal officials have formally opposed offshore oil and gas drilling and seismic airgun blasting in our ocean. But David Bernhardt is not listening to those concerns. Instead, he is listening to his former fossil fuel clients. He is moving ahead with this terrible offshore drilling plan that would threaten State after State with the threat of a spill in the ocean off of those States. We should not confirm Bernhardt to lead the Department of the Interior. Handing the keys to the beaches of our country, the coastlines of our country, and our fishing and tourism industries in our country over to Big Oil is not what our citizens want. That is the opposite of what we need to do to protect our environment, but that is what David Bernhardt and his fossil fuel friends want. There is no reason that we have to drill off of the coastlines of our country right where people who are swimming will be watching these oil rigs that are going to be drilling down into those ocean areas off of our beaches to find oil that we don't need. If we increase the fuel economy standards of the vehicles we drive, we will be able to back out the need for all of that additional oil. That is the sin against the environment that is being committed. That is the agenda of David Bernhardt's at the Department of the Interior. Instead of being the United States of America--a technological giant that invents its way to the new automotive technologies that reduce the amount of oil we need and reduces the amount of greenhouse gasses that go up into the atmosphere--with David Bernhardt as the Secretary of the Interior, partnered with the new coal lobbyist who is running the EPA, we are going to wind up with more greenhouse gasses going up into the air, a reduction in the efficiency of the vehicles we drive, and putting more profits into the pockets of the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil and the auto industry, which also wants to reduce the fuel economy standards of the vehicles we drive. This is a sin against our environment but also our identity as the technological giant of the planet. We can do this. We can make our cars more efficient. We can have plug-in hybrids. We can have all-electric vehicles. We can create a revolution that avoids the necessity of drilling off of our beaches and drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. We can do this, but that is not what Donald Trump wants. He wants fossil fuel industry representatives at the Department of the Interior and EPA running these Agencies. David Bernhardt's ties to Big Oil--the very industry he is tasked with regulating--are as deep as an oil well. Those ties should be disqualifying for anyone nominated to head the Department of the Interior. We need to stop the pollution of our democracy by Big Oil interests. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the nomination of David Bernhardt. I ask my colleagues to consider what we can do to avoid the necessity of despoiling these sacred environmental locations in our country for the oil industry, for the Koch brothers. This is a big moment, this vote we are about to cast. This is one more step by Donald Trump that will result in far more greenhouse gases going up into the atmosphere, far more danger being presented to places that should be put off limits to the oil industry because of the risk of environmental danger that would result from that permission to drill. That is why we should all pause and really consider whether we want to go deeper and deeper into an era that is completely avoidable if we unleash the technological might of our country. When President Kennedy went to Rice University in 1961, what he said was that we were going to have a mission to the Moon and that mission would require us to invent new metals, new alloys, new propulsion systems that did not exist, and that within 10 years, we would have to then bring that mission back safely from the Moon through heat half the intensity of the Sun and do so successfully. Auto mechanics is not rocket science. We already know how to improve the fuel economy standards of the vehicles we drive. We don't need nuclear physics and we don't need aeronautical engineers to help us do this. President Kennedy challenged our country, and we responded. President Trump is like J.F.K. in reverse. He is saying that we can't do it; that, instead, what we have to do is, here on Earth, be the leaders in spoiling our most sacred environmental locations. That is why today is such a monumental opportunity for the Senate to say no on a bipartisan basis to David Bernhardt, who is someone who does not deserve the post of Secretary of the Interior. I once again urge a ``no'' vote from all of my colleagues. I yield the floor. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I wish today to recognize the life of Lilla Weinberger, a beloved daughter, friend, and activist who devoted her life to the causes of democracy and the literary arts. Lilla Weinberger was born in 1941 in Pasadena, CA. She became involved in the women's movement while at CalArts. After college, she worked at the Library of Congress and carried out research and worked on speeches for President Lyndon Johnson's landmark education legislation. She moved to Lenox, MA, and there, she was integral to the building of the first-ever domestic violence shelter in the Commonwealth. In 1991, Lilla moved to Sonoma, CA, and founded Readers' Books, which became a cherished institution. She became deeply involved in the independent bookstore community and served on the board of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association from 1997-2003. Lila was a strong believer in political participation and grassroots democracy. She was an active member of the Barack Obama Presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012. She became the northern California regional head of the Obama campaign in 2012 and later became Obama's field director in Maryland. In 2013, Lilla returned to Massachusetts and became the regional field director for my first U.S. Senate campaign. She was our warrior in western Massachusetts and became an indispensable member of our campaign operation. I am honored to commemorate the remarkable achievements of Lilla Weinberger, a distinguished leader, our dear friend, and a truly great American.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, Samya Stumo, a University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate and resident of Sheffield, MA, was tragically killed aboard Ethiopian Airlines flight 302. Samya, just 24 years old, was a champion of social justice, with a goal of revolutionizing global health. Her undergraduate fieldwork in Peru challenged unjust social services; her master's work in Europe gave a voice to marginalized patient groups living with viral hepatitis; and, most recently, she was working to disrupt the status quo in global health systems to help countries achieve universal healthcare coverage. She strove for all people and patients to be treated as human beings, particularly in context of their culture, family, and individuality. She was a beacon of hope for Massachusetts, the Nation, and all of the lives she has touched.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, this afternoon, the Republican leader is bringing the Green New Deal resolution up for a vote on the floor of the Senate. What the Republican leader, however, is not doing is allowing us to have any hearings, any witnesses, any science, any evidence of the massive destruction in our country. Just from fires and flooding over the last 2 years, there has been $400 billion worth of damage. None of that will ever be heard out here. None of it was heard in a committee because the Republican leader is making a sham of this process. This is not the serious process this incredible issue deserves. The United Nations has made it clear that climate change is now an existential threat to our country and to the planet. Notwithstanding the incredible damage that is being done to our planet, the Republicans' concern is that the Green New Deal is an existential threat to the Koch brothers, to ExxonMobil, and to all of those polluting companies that do not want to end business as usual. The Republican leader does not want a hearing at which we will learn that we now have 350,000 people who are in the wind and solar industries and that we have 350,000 blue-collar jobs--electricians, roofers, steelworkers--in our country. The Green New Deal would supercharge that even more to our having millions of clean energy jobs in our country. We can save all of creation by engaging in massive job creation, which is the core of the Green New Deal, and we can do it in a way that ensures we protect people in our country. We have gone now from 80,000 solar jobs to 240,000 solar jobs in just the last 10 years. We have gone from 2,500 all-electric vehicles to 1 million all-electric vehicles in just 10 years. There have been 500,000 new electric vehicles sold this year in the United States--1 year--after only having 2,000 of them sold 10 years ago. We went from 1,000 megawatts of solar capacity to 65,000 megawatts in 2018. That is a revolution in 10 years. We have gone from 25,000 megawatts of wind to 98,000 megawatts of wind in 10 years. That is the revolution the Koch brothers are afraid of, and that is the revolution the polluters want to stop because it is the existential threat to their business model. That is what the fight is all about out here--the Koch brothers v. the Green New Deal. It is one business model against another, and our business model is the job creation engine of this generation for blue-collar jobs. Now, who paid for the Republican study that they all came out on the floor to use? It was paid for by the Koch brothers. They put together what they believe are the costs of the Green New Deal. This was not some private, independent group. The Koch brothers themselves paid for the study that the Republicans have used out here on the floor. The hearings, if the majority leader had ever ordered them to have been conducted, would have just picked out some of the items regarding how much harm had been done to our planet and to our own country in the last 2 years--$24 billion from western wildfires in 2018, $24 billion from Hurricane Michael, $24 billion from Hurricane Florence, $18 billion from western wildfires in 2017, $91 billion from Hurricane Maria, and on and on and on--Hurricane Harvey, $127.5 billion. This is all climate related. We pay the price for this. There is no exempting America from having to pick up the costs. Shouldn't we be investing in job creation? Shouldn't we be investing in this incredible change that is already taking place in our economy? The Green New Deal is not just a resolution; it is a revolution that is taking place across our country. That is why people are rising up all across our country. It is because they know we can do this and because they know this is a job-creation engine that absolutely can create millions of jobs and that can absolutely begin the process of having America, once again, be the leader on this issue. The denier in chief sits in the White House. The denier in chief addressed the United States at the State of the Union for an hour and 20 minutes just 7 weeks ago, but he did not mention climate change and did not mention clean energy jobs. That is why we are in this fight. We are in the fight because, if we don't lead, the rest of the world will not follow. You cannot preach temperance from a barstool. You can't tell China and you can't tell India what to do if you yourself are not leading. We are the United States of America. President Kennedy challenged our country to have a mission to the Moon. He said in his speech at Rice University that we would have to invent new metals, new alloys, and propulsion systems that did not exist. He said we would have to bring that mission safely back from the Moon through heat that was half the intensity of the Sun and get it completed within 10 years. We did that as a nation. We can do this as well. We can deploy these technologies; we can invent new technologies; and we can create millions of jobs within our country because we are bold--because we are a country that can do it. The President is, for all intents and purposes, John F. Kennedy in reverse. He says we can't do it. He says we should not accept this challenge. Ladies and gentlemen, the Green New Deal is our accepting the challenge, and we are looking forward to this debate today and every day until election day of 2020. We are going to inject this issue into the Presidential and congressional races of 2020 in a way that ensures that unlike in 2016, when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were not asked a single question about climate change, the candidates will be asked every day about what their plans are. We say to the Republican leader: Do you believe in the science? Do you believe it is an existential threat? If you do, where is your plan? Where is the Republican plan to deal with the science of climate change? If you do not believe it is a threat, then, say it. If you do not believe the science, then, say it. But if you do believe the science, then, all we say to you is this: Where is your plan to deal with this challenge? President Kennedy responded to the challenge of the Soviet Union controlling outer space, and we succeeded. What is the plan of this Republican era to deal with the challenge of climate, an existential threat to our planet? We thank you for your attention. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the nomination of Neomi Rao to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Ms. Rao is the latest in a string of ultra-conservative judicial nominees who will rubberstamp Donald Trump's far-right agenda. Her record portends a threat to the rights of women and minorities, to consumer protection statutes and regulations, and to the security of our financial institutions. Moreover, Ms. Rao utterly lacks the experience to serve on the court that many view as second in importance only to the U.S. Supreme Court. She practiced for only 3 years as an associate at a large law firm. None of her practice was in Federal courts or State courts, before administrative agencies, or involved criminal proceedings. These are disqualifying reasons on their own, but I rise to speak about Ms. Rao's record on the environment, and the contempt she has demonstrated for fair, reasonable, and commonsense regulations that protect the health of our communities and the safety of our air and drinking water. Ms. Rao currently serves in the Office of Management and Budget as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA. She is commonly known as the Trump administration's ``regulatory czar.'' This role has her in charge of implementing the Trump administration's anti-environment, climate-change-denying, and polluter-friendly agenda. Ms. Rao has called climate change a ``dangerous orthodoxy,'' led the Trump administration's efforts to gut fundamental environmental protections, and has misused the regulatory review process for partisan political purposes. The attacks on the environment that Ms. Rao has launched from OIRA include rolling back national auto fuel efficiency standards, challenging California's Clean Air Act waiver that allowed it to set higher fuel efficiency standards, removing safety rules for fertilizer plants, and rolling back safety rules put in place for oil rigs after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in 2010. During review of a proposed rollback of the Methane and Waste Prevention Rule, Ms. Rao's office repeatedly pressured the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to adopt fossil fuel industry requests to significantly reduce natural gas leak inspections. This would have doubled the amount of methane released into the atmosphere and, according to the EPA's own determination, conflicted with its legal obligation to reduce emissions. Ms. Rao's office censored language about the impact of climate change on child health when reviewing a proposed rollback of the Refrigerant Management Program, a program that limited the release of greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful that carbon dioxide. Ms. Rao's office approved a proposed EPA rule to roll back public health protections that reduce pollution from wood-burning stoves, despite the EPA's own admission that the new rule would cost nine times as much in harm to public health as it would benefit the industry. Ms. Rao has overseen the Trump administration's repeal of regulations to address climate change, including a repeal of President Obama's historic Clean Power Plan that would have significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions. By comparison, Ms. Rao has approved a proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan with a rule that would lead to increases in carbon dioxide emissions, asthma attacks, and even death from black carbon, mercury, and other dangerous air emissions from power plants. It is bad enough that, with Donald Trump, we have a climate-change denier in the White House, and with Andrew Wheeler, we have a coal industry lobbyist running the EPA. We don't need a judge on the DC Circuit whose record demonstrates that she is a sympathetic ally to their anti-environment agenda. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the nomination of Neomi Rao to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.