Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, American history was made last night. The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl. This triumvirate of Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady continues this historic journey to being recognized as the greatest single football team in the history of the United States. Even as the Falcons were ahead by 25 points, even as the rest of the country thought the game was over, we in Massachusetts, we in New England, we have our own motto: In Belichick we trust. In Brady we trust. We knew it was not over. We knew there was still hope. We knew there was a plan that could be implemented that would ensure that the Patriots once again would prevail. I thank the Presiding Officer for giving me this opportunity to be recognized on this most important of all subjects. This incredible Patriots victory has brought joy to people all across New England. It has brought dismay to people in other parts of the country. They still continue to be mystified by this incredible team and the incredible leadership those three great leaders provide. But for us, we realize we are in the presence of greatness. We know how spoiled we are to have such a great team. I just wanted to rise and congratulate the New England Patriots, their leadership of Bob Kraft, Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, but all of this team, because their motto is a very simple motto. It says: Do your job. That is what every Patriot did last night. Because they stuck it out through every single play, at the end of the day, they were able to enjoy that historic victory. For my part, I can't be more proud of any group of New Englanders. It was just a fantastic victory. As a season ticket holder, when I was 19 years old, when it was seven games at $6 apiece--$42 as a season ticket holder at Fenway Park. You can imagine how almost impossible it is to believe that we have reached such a stage where even those who have been critics of the Patriots now are forced to recognize that Bill Belichick is the greatest coach of all time; Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time; and the Patriots, led by Robert Kraft, is the greatest franchise of all time. We are very proud that victory last night cemented that place in history. Once again, I just want to congratulate each and every one of them and especially the Patriots fans who, through thick and thin, have been with that team every step of the way. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I have heard from literally thousands of my constituents who have contacted my office in unprecedented numbers with fears about a Justice Department headed by Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General of the United States. My constituents and Americans all across the country are concerned about the independence and integrity of the Justice Department under President Donald Trump. We are only 3 weeks into the Trump administration, and what we have seen so far has been alarming. We have 3 years and 49 weeks left to go in President Trump's term of office, and we have already seen in 3 weeks President Trump issue an illegal and immoral ban on Muslim refugees. We then saw President Trump fire Acting Attorney General Sally Yates from her job overseeing the Department of Justice--an action reminiscent of Watergate's infamous ``Saturday Night Massacre''--because she refused to defend in court his unconstitutional and un-American Executive order. Sally Yates's job and the job of the entire Justice Department is to uphold the rule of law. The Attorney General of the United States is the lawyer for the people of the United States--not Donald Trump's personal lawyer. It is called the rule of law, not the rule of Trump, but it is the rule of law that is at stake when the nomination of Senator Sessions is in question to run the Department of Justice. I have told my constituents that Senator Sessions must be judged based on the totality of his record: as a U.S. attorney, as Alabama's attorney general, and as U.S. Senator. A review of that record, including 2 days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, demonstrates anything but the commitment to the equal and impartial administration of justice and an independence from the President that we must demand from the Nation's top law enforcement officer. Senator Sessions' record spanning decades in public office reflects hostility to important constitutional rights, hostility to laws intended to protect people of color, hostility to laws intended to protect women, hostility to laws intended to protect the LGBTQ community, and hostility to laws intended to protect immigrants against discrimination and violence. Senator Sessions has fought against civil rights efforts. He has fought against protecting voting rights, and as a U.S. attorney, Sessions tried to prosecute three civil rights workers who were helping elderly and disabled African-American voters to cast absentee ballots. During his 1986 judicial nomination hearing, he called the Voting Rights Act ``an intrusive piece of legislation.'' And in his testimony to the Judiciary Committee, Senator Sessions would not commit to continue the Justice Department's efforts to challenge restrictive State voter ID laws. Senator Sessions has fought against comprehensive immigration reform, against criminal justice reform, and against commonsense gun control measures. As for a woman's right to choose, Senator Sessions has said: ``I firmly believe that Roe v. Wade and its descendants represent one of the worst, colossally erroneous Supreme Court decisions of all time.'' At his confirmation hearing, Senator Feinstein pressed him on his statement, asking him whether it was still his view. ``It is,'' Senator Sessions replied. It is simply unimaginable that we would have an Attorney General of the United States holding such a view of Roe v. Wade and the rights of women to control their own reproductive health. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and it should remain that way forever. Mr. President, I would also like to address the actions last night by the Senate majority leader to silence the remarks of my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Elizabeth Warren. Coretta Scott King was attending the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston when she met a divinity doctoral student at Boston University in 1952, in Boston. One year later, Coretta Scott married Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as they took their degrees from Boston to begin a cause found in the South that became a national and international movement. The two shared their life, a cause that would change the world. The voices and legacy of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., are as much a part of Massachusetts history as the American Revolution, John Adams, and President John Kennedy. What Senator Warren was doing last night was standing up for equal justice the way Massachusetts has always stood up for equal justice, the way Senator Ted Kennedy stood up for equal justice. We have a deep and proud history in Massachusetts of fighting for what is right. The abolitionist movement was born in Massachusetts. In past generations, when young women wanted the right to vote, a group of committed activists in Massachusetts formed the Suffragette movement, and they changed the U.S. Constitution so women can vote. When young people in Massachusetts were upset with the voting rights laws for minorities in America's southern States, they became the Freedom Riders, and they changed the laws of the United States. I make these remarks from the desk once held by Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke. Senator Brooke was the first African American elected to the Senate. He was a Republican. He was also a civil rights activist, and he also received his law degree at Boston University, in Massachusetts. From the Founding Fathers to the movement for universal health care, to the first same-sex wedding in the United States, and to the Senate floor last night, Massachusetts has always been at the heart of America's quest for equal justice. Leader McConnell used an arcane Senate rule to silence Senator Warren, but the people of Massachusetts and all people of good conscience will never be silenced when confronted with our moral responsibility to speak out. Senator Warren deserves an apology for being silenced when she attempted to share this very relevant, very powerful part of our national history last night. The American people deserve to hear the important words of Coretta Scott King. So here they are: Dear Senator Thurmond: I write to express my sincere opposition to the confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district court judge for the Southern District of Alabama. My professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and lasting. Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship. I regret that a long-standing commitment prevents me from appearing in person to testify against this nominee. However, I have attached a copy of my statement opposing Mr. Sessions' confirmation and I request that my statement as well as this letter be made a part of the hearing record. I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Sessions. Sincerely, Coretta Scott King Coretta Scott King was right in the 1960s. Coretta Scott King was right in 1986. Coretta Scott King is right today. Based on the totality of Senator Sessions' record, I have no confidence that he shares a commitment to justice for all Americans. I do not believe he will fight to defend the most vulnerable in our society. I do not believe he will stand up to President Trump when the time comes, as it surely will come. The great Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. Attorney General himself, once said ``that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.'' We must insist that our top law enforcement officer upholds the law for all Americans. I do not have assurance that Senator Sessions will meet that challenge. I will be voting no on Senator Sessions' nomination this evening, and I urge all of my colleagues to do likewise. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Washington State for her tremendous leadership on all of these environmental issues, which are now on the table in our country for the first time in a generation. Tribute to Bill Bonnavillian Before I turn to the resolution the Senate is debating, I want to take a minute to recognize the contributions of Bill Bonnavillian to advancing America's science and technology policy. Last month, Bill stepped down as the head of the Washington office of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after 11 years. Bill's leadership of the office continued MIT's historic role of providing a vision for advancing science policy and ensuring that knowledge generated at MIT was relevant and available for policymakers in Washington, DC. His leadership will be missed at the MIT Washington office, but I am glad to know he will be staying engaged with the MIT community. I hope he will continue to provide guidance to this body since now, more than ever, we need science to inform the decisions we are making on the Senate floor. Today, Madam President, congressional Republicans are beginning the process of going one by one to overturn commonsense rules that have long been opposed by the oil and gas, coal, and other industries in the United States of America. The majority is trying to undo these rules by deploying a rarely used procedural tool known as the Congressional Review Act. In fact, the majority is talking about using the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, so often that it could actually get hard to keep track of which industry is benefitting from week to week to week from the Republicans' use of the CRA. I brought down a helpful tool so the viewers at home can keep track of which industries are benefitting each week from Republicans using the CRA to roll back protections for public health, for clean air, for clean water, for clean soil, for the health of the families in our country. So let's consult our wheel to see who is the big winner of the GOP giveaway this week. Up first are the mining and the coal industries. They are the first big winners of the GOP Congressional Review Act wheel of giveaways. That is right. First up for repeal by the Republican Congress are public health protections against the toxic practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. These protections were put in place by the Obama administration because a Bush-era rule was thrown out by the courts. These commonsense rules to monitor and ultimately restore streams impacted by coal mining are despised by the coal industry. Those that created the problem despise any rules that would require remedying the problem, as it affected public health--no surprise. Mountaintop removal mining is one of the most environmentally destructive practices on Earth. Mountains are turned into barren plateaus. Streams in the bottoms of nearby valleys are filled with debris and buried. Heavy metals destroy water quality for nearby residents and ruin ecosystems. The rule that the Republicans are attempting to repeal today protects the public health and drinking water of millions of American citizens in Appalachia and elsewhere across our country. The rule requires that lead, arsenic, selenium, and other toxic pollutants are monitored. It requires that streams that are damaged or destroyed must be restored. Now, the majority likes to say that there is a war on coal, but the only war that coal is losing is in the free market to natural gas, to wind, to solar. These are the sources of electricity that the utilities of our country, that the citizens of our country have been moving to over the last 10 to 15 years. There is a war going on in the marketplace. Adam Smith is spinning in his grave as he listens to the Republicans trying to protect an industry from market forces. Adam Smith is actually spinning so fast in his grave that he could qualify as a new energy source for our country. That is how shocked he would be about this attempt to undermine the public health and safety in our country on behalf of an industry that is losing a battle in the marketplace. It is the free market that ultimately is causing these changes, and the coal industry is saying: Please protect us from having to protect the public health and safety--clean air, clean water. Please protect us from having to protect families affected by our industries. A few years ago, we generated roughly 50 percent of our electricity from coal. Now it is down to 30 percent of all electricity generated in our country from coal--50 percent to 30 percent of all electricity in a handful of years. Coal has been replaced in the free market by natural gas, which has grown from a little over 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation a decade ago to 35 percent today. That is coal's big problem--natural gas, another fossil fuel, but one that emits one-half of the greenhouse gas pollutants as does coal. Coal has also been replaced by clean energy, by wind, especially, which has grown by 5 to 6 percent of our generation, and by solar, which is now 1 percent of our generation. In other words, if you go back to 2005 and you look at our country, natural gas was a relatively small percentage of electrical generation, and so were wind and solar. As we debate this issue here today, wind and solar are now up to 7 percent of all electricity generated in our country, up from 1 percent just a little bit more than 10 years ago. It is growing so fast as a preference for American industry, American utilities, and American homes, that it poses a marketplace threat. So what we need to do now, finally, is to have the big debate out here as to what are the implications for public health and safety and what do we have to do in order to maintain the high standards that we have created for the protection of families over the last generation. Last year, electricity generation from natural gas surpassed that from coal for the first time since 1949, when data collection began. Why? To quote the Department of Energy: The recent decline in the generation share of coal, and the rise in the share of natural gas, was a market-driven response to lower natural gas prices that have made natural gas generation more economically attractive. Between 2000 and 2008, coal was significantly less expensive than natural gas. However, beginning in 2009, large amounts of natural gas produced from shale formations changed the balance. While the cost of coal has risen by 10 percent since 2008, the cost of natural gas has fallen by more than 60 percent. For a power producer considering new generation capacity, the lifetime cost of electricity from a new coal-fired powerplant is 67 percent higher than from a new natural gas powerplant and 17 percent than from a newly constructed wind farm, according to the National Academy of Sciences. The reason no one is building coal-fired powerplants is very clear: It is the free market. Coal cannot compete in the free market. In 2016, we added more than 14,000 new megawatts of solar. We are going to add 7 to 8,000 new megawatts of wind. We are going to add nearly 9,000 new megawatts of natural gas, and we added virtually no new megawatts of coal-fired generation in our country. We are projected to add no new coal generation this year as well. It will be more natural gas, more wind, and more solar. The marketplace is rejecting coal as a source of electricity. The marketplace is doing that. This isn't a conspiracy. It is competition in the free market. Lest my colleagues think that this is just happening in the United States, it is not. More than half of all electrical generating capacity added in the world last year was renewable. Let me say that again. More than half of all new electrical generating capacity added in the world last year was from renewable energy--wind and solar--across the planet. China recently announced that it intends to invest $360 billion on renewable energy by 2020. They intend to create 13 million Chinese jobs in renewable energy in that time. This isn't a conspiracy. It is competition, and the competition for those clean energy jobs is global. When we started carrying iPhones, it wasn't a war on black rotary dial phones; it was a technological revolution. When we started using Macs and PCs, it wasn't a war on typewriters; it was a technological revolution. The horseless carriage wasn't a war on horses; it was a technological revolution that moved us to automobiles. The move away from coal and oil toward clean energy and natural gas isn't a war; it is a revolution--an American-made free market revolution. We now have more than 400,000 Americans employed in the solar and wind industries. By 2020, there are projected to be 600,000 Americans working in these clean energy industries. It is not a war. It is a revolution. Now, next there is going to be another industry to win in the CRA, the Congressional Review Act giveaway game. That is right. The next winner will be the oil and gas industries. Republicans intend to move to overturn a bipartisan requirement under the Dodd-Frank bill that publicly traded oil, gas, and mining companies disclose to their investors when they make payments to foreign countries, but that requirement is vigorously opposed by ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, and the oil and gas industry. Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was a bipartisan provision authored by Senators Cardin and Lugar. It requires oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments, and that is now in jeopardy. The Dodd-Frank disclosure rule goes to the core of the Securities and Exchange Commission's mission of investor protection. Secret payments can easily be expropriated by corrupt governments. They can also be a signal that a company is involved in risky business overseas--risks that investors need to know about when making investments. By eliminating this disclosure requirement, using the Congressional Review Act, we are potentially allowing for oil companies to make secret, undisclosed payments to foreign governments. Those could include payments intended to gain an advantage over other companies or even bribes to foreign officials. Eliminating this disclosure requirement could allow for oil companies to make secret payments to foreign nations that could have serious implications for these nations and for investors. I urge my fellow Senators to reject these resolutions and keep in place the commonsense protections for public health, clean water, and financial disclosure. Earlier today, the Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee reported out the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt. Democrats on the committee have grave concerns about his ability to uphold the EPA's mission to ``protect human health and the environment.'' So what we are talking about here is the totality of a picture. The use of the CRA to--one by one by one--go after these environmental protections that have been put in place to increase the health of Americans, to reduce their exposure to arsenic, to lead, and to other dangerous chemicals. This first one that we are debating goes right to the heart of that issue. What the coal industry is doing is using the justification of their need to be competitive with the natural gas, wind, and solar industries, a battle they are losing in the financial marketplace, as a justification for undermining the public health of our country so they can be more competitive. In other words, the price to be paid to make the coal industry more competitive with other industries to which they are losing market share in the electrical generation market is that the public health has to be compromised and we have to turn a blind eye to the impact on the children and the families in our country who are being exposed to these dangerous chemicals. That is the price we have to pay as a nation? It is unacceptably high. So Adam Smith looks on, and Adam Smith judges us here today. This marketplace defeat of coal by natural gas, wind, and solar is one that is being used to hurt children and hurt families in our country. I do not think it is an acceptable position for our Nation to take. I urge a rejection of that motion. I yield back to the leader of this effort on the Senate floor, the great Senator from Washington.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, will the Senator from Delaware yield?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, the Senate's advise and consent role is one of our most important duties as Senators, and the Secretary of State is one of the most important nominations we will consider. The Secretary of State is America's chief diplomat, and he should project America's values to the world. Yesterday, I joined Senator Schumer in calling for a delay on Mr. Tillerson's vote on the Senate floor until we hear from him about President Trump's Muslim ban. Turning away refugees based on their nationality and religion is un- American, it is illegal, and it is immoral. This Muslim ban is propaganda for ISIS. It is a recruiting gift to terrorist groups around the world and in our own country. It will increase the risk of harm to Americans everywhere, including here at home. Donald Trump is sending a message to Muslims around the world that they are all suspects. This has profound implications for our ability to work with governments in the Middle East in the fight against terrorism. One of the countries named in this Executive order is Iraq, our closest ally in the fight against ISIS. Conflict and war is forcing millions around the world from their homeland. Donald Trump's Muslim ban directly undermines our historic commitment to international cooperation and international refugee aid. That is why world leaders have joined the chorus of millions of Americans who do not support the Muslim ban. America has always been a beacon to those fleeing persecution and violence. We are a refuge for those seeking a better life. The poetic inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty does not say: Send back ``your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'' As our top diplomat, Mr. Tillerson will be in a position to work directly with the nations named in this Executive order, and we need to hear how he believes it will impact our standing around the world. With respect to Mr. Tillerson's nomination, I have very serious concerns. Rex Tillerson could have enjoyed his retirement after spending more than 40 years at ExxonMobil. Instead, he answered the call to enter public service, and I commend him for that. His record at ExxonMobil is one that clearly has received accolades. He did a good job for ExxonMobil. He is highly respected in the oil industry. But public service requires the public's trust, and Mr. Tillerson will not have that trust unless he agrees to recuse himself from participating in decisions that would affect ExxonMobil for the entirety of his term. So far, he has refused to do so. Our laws require Federal officials to recuse themselves when a reasonable person could question their impartiality. Before President Trump nominated him to be Secretary of State, Mr. Tillerson worked for one company--ExxonMobil--for virtually his entire adult life. As he rose to become a senior manager and then CEO, Mr. Tillerson was personally involved in getting lucrative oil deals in a number of countries, including Russia. In fact, during Mr. Tillerson's time as CEO of ExxonMobil, the company expanded its drilling rights in Russia to 63 million acres. That is an area the size of Wyoming and nearly five times the size of Exxon's holdings in the United States. But Mr. Tillerson didn't just deepen the relationship between his company and Russia. He also tried to protect that relationship by speaking out against sanctions on Russia. As a reward for personally cementing Exxon's relationship with Russia, President Vladimir Putin awarded Mr. Tillerson the Russian Order of Friendship. The stakes with U.S.-Russia relations could not be higher. Russia has invaded the Ukraine, annexed Crimea, bombed innocent civilians in Aleppo, and attacked our elections with cyber weapons. Our next Secretary of State will be negotiating with Russia on some of the most critical foreign policy issues facing the world. Mr. Tillerson's decades-long history at ExxonMobil and Exxon's vast holdings in Russia clearly create a conflict of interest. How can the American people be sure Mr. Tillerson will be objective when he participates in matters relating to sanctions on Russia or in any matters that could affect Exxon in the dozens of other countries in the world where Exxon operates? As the top ethics lawyers for Presidents Bush and Obama have said, these conflicts could require Mr. Tillerson to recuse himself from any matters affecting ExxonMobil, irrespective of his financial divestitures. When I asked Mr. Tillerson during his confirmation hearing whether he would commit to recuse himself without waiver or exception from matters affecting Exxon for the duration of his tenure as Secretary of State, he refused. That is unacceptable. The American people and the national security of the United States demand a Secretary of State whose impartiality is unambiguous. Make no mistake, the stockholders of ExxonMobil would have serious questions about hiring the leader of the Sierra Club to be the new CEO of Exxon. We, too, should have questions about hiring ExxonMobil's former CEO to be America's chief diplomat. If he agreed to recuse himself, Mr. Tillerson would be following a tradition that is longstanding and bipartisan. Secretary of State James Baker recused himself from participating in any matter that could affect the price of oil and gas. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson promised not to participate in any matter where Goldman Sachs was a party. And all of President Obama's appointees recused themselves from any matters related to their former employers or clients. Mr. Tillerson's refusal to follow their example will call into question his impartiality, and it could undermine his effectiveness as Secretary. During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Tillerson displayed an alarming lack of understanding of oil's role in geopolitics--clearly a consequence of having worked solely at Exxon--that disqualifies him from being Secretary of State. When I questioned him, Mr. Tillerson told me that he never had supported U.S. energy independence. He told me that he didn't agree that reducing America's demand for oil and our reliance on foreign oil imported from the Middle East would strengthen our negotiating position with oil-producing nations. We as a nation still import 5 million barrels of oil every single day into the United States. Three million of those barrels a day come from OPEC members, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Nigeria. ExxonMobil has energy interests in each one of those countries. And we are still exporting our own young men and women in uniform overseas to defend those energy interests every single day. Mr. Tillerson is looking at the world through oil-coated glasses. He may have gotten rid of Exxon's stock, but he hasn't gotten rid of Exxon's mindset. Mr. Tillerson's answers to questions about climate change--the global generational challenge of our time--are a cause for extreme concern. Although he recognized that climate change is real and human activities influenced it, he would not commit to continuing action on it as a foreign policy priority. Throughout his hearing, Mr. Tillerson would only say that he wanted to keep a seat at the table of climate negotiations. The United States needs to have more than a seat at the table; we need to be at the head of the table. In December 2015, 150 heads of state gathered in support of finalizing the Paris climate accord. It represents a global solution to the problem of global warming in which all countries commit to doing their fair share. Instead of strengthening this historic accord, Mr. Tillerson indicated that all treaties and agreements to which the United States is a party would be up for review by President Trump. America needs a Secretary of State who will lead the world to fully realize the clean energy revolution that will help us avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change while creating millions of jobs. To abandon the Paris climate accord would be to abandon our clean energy future. We cannot roll back years of progress cutting dangerous carbon emissions or deploying clean energy solutions. For 41 years, Rex Tillerson's world view has been to advance the interests of one place and one place only--ExxonMobil. Confirming Mr. Tillerson as Secretary of State would be turning over the keys of U.S. foreign policy to Big Oil. Big Oil's interests are not America's interest. If Mr. Tillerson were to negotiate with Russia and President Putin, whose interests will he represent--those of Big Oil or those of the American people? I still do not have satisfactory answers to that critical question. For those reasons, I cannot vote for his confirmation. I thank you for allowing me to speak at this time on the Senate floor. I yield to the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Clerk, I wish to be recorded no for the millions--

Mr. MARKEY.--who will lose opioid coverage for their addiction.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. I yield to Senator Daines.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about this impending attack upon the Affordable Care Act and the impact it can have on the hospitals of our country, in terms of draining revenue from them; on the issue of the impact on community health centers across our country and the impact it can have upon them; upon the impact that the repeal of the Affordable Care Act would have on the access of those who are addicted to opioids who need help for opioids, who are in a situation where they are going to need the Affordable Care Act, the access to coverage, so their problems can be taken care of. So this is no small threat. In fact, this goes right to the core of what started in Massachusetts back 10 years ago when we as a Commonwealth decided that care for people who needed health care was going to be made available to them. We have proven in Massachusetts that we are able to provide health care for 98 percent of our population, at the same time having an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent, while simultaneously having the highest scores for kids in the 4th, 8th, and 10th grades in math, verbal, and science, while having the strongest protections for the environment in the United States, while having an energy efficiency standard that is the tops in the United States. We have proved conclusively that it is possible to ensure that people do, in fact, receive access to the health care which they need while simultaneously discharging our responsibilities to the economy, to education, to the environment, to all of the other interests, all of the other important stakes that we have in our country to ensure that they are given the attention which they need. It would be tragic if what we did as part of the Affordable Care Act was to once again flood the emergency rooms of America with people who otherwise would have had health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act. That is a system we have used for 100 years, and it doesn't work because it winds up with the insurance rates of people who do have coverage going up in order to cover it. It winds up with the whole rest of the medical system, in a very chaotic way, being forced to deal with the consequences. If we begin simultaneously to defund the community health centers across the country and their ability to provide health care, then what we have is a cascading impact that ultimately hits those people who are the poorest, those people who are the most vulnerable. They are the ones who are caught in the crosshairs of this incredible, almost unbelievable attack which the Republicans are waging upon a health care system that has already transformed the lives of 22 million people in the United States. It is unimaginable to me that we could be in that kind of discussion right now on the floor of the Senate, but I understand it. This is ideological. It is something that is completely and totally detached from the reality of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, as they have in fact already positively affected tens of millions of families inside the United States. This week we are about to have an incredible battle waged against the Affordable Care Act. Understand this, right in the crosshairs are the hospitals of our country, not just the famous, big hospitals we all know the names of but Catholic hospitals across our country, hospitals that provide the service for people now under a much more orderly system than they would have done if we had never put the Affordable Care Act on the books in the first place. At the forefront of all these issues, though, is this largest of all public health epidemics that has ever faced the country, the heroin and prescription opioid epidemic, like OxyContin, which is claiming the lives of more than 90 people every single day across this country. In Massachusetts alone, when all the final numbers have been gathered, 2,000 people will have died in the State of Massachusetts in the year 2016, and 1,500 of them will have been found to have had fentanyl in their blood system. This is an epidemic of unbelievable proportions. Fentanyl is the Godzilla of opioids. It is powerful and deadly and knocking people down the streets all over Massachusetts, all over New England, and all over our country. People are being robbed of their potential and God-given abilities from this epidemic that knows no socioeconomic, ethnic, or political boundaries, and Congress has recognized the importance of tackling the Tsunami of heroin and prescription opioid addiction that is laying waste to these communities. Just 1 month ago, on the Senate floor, Republicans and Democrats came together and passed a bill to provide $1 billion in new resources to States to address the opioid crisis, resources that can be and are being dedicated to increasing access to treatment for opioid use disorders. Yet, today, pending before the Senate is a Republican budget whose entire premise is to repeal coverage for the exact same vulnerable people who need access to treatment. Not only is that nonsensical, it is downright cruel for all those families and individuals who finally felt a sense of hope, the hope that new resources could mean the difference between life and death for their loved ones. If you kicked this policy in the heart, you would break your toe. That is how heartless it is going to be in terms of its impact upon ordinary families. With this budget, Republicans are repealing the hope that has given families a reason to ensure that they will have the coverage. This is going to make the problem even worse. Medicaid pays $1 out of every $5 for substance use disorder treatment in the United States. Without Federal investment in the Medicaid program, States like Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky, which are bearing the brunt of the opioid epidemic today, will have to find even more money in their already dwindling State budgets to aid those who need treatment. We all know what happens in this scenario when States cannot find that money. The most vulnerable among us, the ones who don't have a voice, are the ones who will suffer the most. The repeal of Medicaid expansion would rip coverage from an estimated 1.6 million newly insured individuals with substance use disorders. At the same time, repeal will put big insurance companies back in charge. If the Republicans have their way, insurance companies would be able to discriminate against people, including individuals with a preexisting condition like an addiction disorder. OxyContin, heroin, fentanyl coverage--gone under the proposal the Republicans are making on the Senate floor this week. Let's recognize that the Republicans are not just repealing ObamaCare; they are repealing hope. Those suffering from addiction don't have time for Republicans to come up--possibly, maybe, potentially soon, sometime, in the indefinite future--with a replacement plan. There are 1.6 million people who have insurance for substance disorders right now for heroin, for OxyContin, for fentanyl. These are the people who could potentially die because they don't have medical coverage. What is the plan the Republicans have to deal with these 1.6 million people who are already under a substance disorder medical coverage plan? What is their plan for these families who are already desperate for the medical help they are going need in order to stay alive, in order to get the help they and their families need? Those families know that any delay in a replacement being put on the books could be the difference between getting clean or getting buried. This repeal effort is the worst kind of bait and switch. It is happening at a time when the American people can least afford it. Repeal is being done at the same time the Republican budget gives billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations and to the wealthy in tax breaks. So look at that as the balance we are talking about: 1.6 million people who have an addiction, a substance abuse problem, lose their coverage, but billionaires and corporations get the money through tax breaks that are going to be saved from cutting those programs for those who have a medical problem. That is immoral, ladies and gentlemen. That is plain and simply immoral. You cannot give tax breaks to the wealthiest in our country until you take care of those who are the sickest, until you take care of those who are most in need, until you take care of those with substance abuse disorders in our country. It is immoral to cut the programs so you can give tax breaks to the wealthiest within our society. We will not save lives and stop this scourge by paying lip service to providing treatment, but this is not the only casualty of this misguided budget before us. The hospitals that each and every one of our constituents depends upon are also at risk. The Affordable Care Act became law in no small part due to the support of those hospitals across the country. During that debate they knew full well the impact that a lack of insurance had not just on individuals but on the entire health care system. The hospitals are on the frontlines of witnessing the financial burden that uninsured patients have on the system. We tell them they can never turn away a patient in need; then, when these patients cannot afford to pay for the care, it is up to the hospitals to foot the bill. So the hospitals told us that if we worked to reduce the number of uninsured they had to care for, then they would help us pay for improving the entire system. They did pay, in no small part. That is why we have a new system in our country. As part of the ACA, the hospitals agreed to give up over $150 billion in payment reductions between 2010 and 2019. Those payment reductions came largely from Medicare and were attacked relentlessly by opponents of ObamaCare as an act to destroy the program, but the prophesied destruction did not occur, and the impact on Medicare has been quite the opposite. Since passage of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare has seen its lowest per-member rate of spending growth in its 50-year history. Premiums paid by enrollees in Medicare Parts B and D have gone down. Perhaps most importantly, the savings have contributed to keeping our promise to America's seniors by ensuring that the program will continue to be there for them. Medicare's projected insolvency in the year 2017 has been extended for over a decade. All of this is possible, thanks to America's hospitals. Here is what the Republicans are saying to Grandma and Grandpa: Yes, the Affordable Care Act extended the solvency of Medicare 10 years beyond 2017. We are repealing that bill. So, insolvency comes almost immediately to the Medicare system. What a great signal to send to Grandma and Grandpa this year with this bill on the Senate floor: insolvency of the Medicare system, the one thing that Grandma and Grandpa, and, by the way, everybody else inside every family in America is depending upon to take care of Grandma and Grandpa. So will the budget before us return the savings they are expecting from this bill to the hospitals to help them cover the cost of Grandma and Grandpa? No. For that to happen, Medicare costs will go up. Higher costs will lead to higher premiums for every enrollee in Medicare Parts B and D. These higher costs will also be realized in the entirety of the Medicare Part A program, reducing the time of insolvency from 2028, down to 2024, 2023, 2022, or even earlier. Those results are unacceptable to the Members of this Chamber and to their constituents, so it is now going to be a historic debate that we have. We can decide instead to simply not cut off the 20 million Americans from the insurance they need. We can ensure that hospitals have the resources to focus on the care for patients when it matters most. We can keep the promise to America's seniors that Medicare will be there to cover their needs when necessary. I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to follow up on the statements made by the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Blumenthal, and the Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Schatz. They have laid out in eye-watering detail the problems that the Republicans are creating by their attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What Senator Schatz and Senator Blumenthal did was just get to the heart of this matter. What the United States did for 100 years was to not run a health care system but to run a sick care system--a system that spent 97 cents on what happens after people got sick and only 3 cents of every dollar on trying to prevent people from getting sick. For the first time in American history, that changed in the Affordable Care Act. What President Obama did, what America did was to create a Prevention and Public Health Fund, and that fund in the Affordable Care Act is spent on prevention programs. It is spent on looking at people who could get asthma, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, stroke, or die from too much smoking and just say for the first time, in a comprehensive way, that the United States was going to put programs in place that would prevent people from getting the diseases that every preceding generation of Americans have suffered from. That is what the prevention fund is all about. That is what the Republicans are going to repeal, take off the books--this fundamental change to the direction toward prevention, toward wellness that all Americans of all generations want to see remain on the books. In Massachusetts, if you are in New Bedford or Fall River or if you are in Springfield, those programs target racial minorities, they target low-income families, they target seniors who would otherwise be vulnerable to diseases that these programs can help to prevent. That money is just going to be sliced out of the Federal budget. What will be the consequences? Well, quite clearly, it will cost America a lot more money. For example, my father died from lung cancer, smoking two packs of Camels a day. How many other fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers die from a totally preventable disease? Well, ladies and gentlemen, this prevention fund put into place the kind of funding on a consistent basis not just for antismoking programs but for all programs across the books. I will give you a good example. Back in the 1930s, no women, for the most part, died from lung cancer in the United States. But in the 1950s and 1960s, the tobacco industry hired the smartest PR person in America. This campaign basically said: ``You've come a long way, baby.'' You have an equal right to get cancer, as your husband, boyfriend, father, or brother has, and 20 years later, unbelievably, women began to die in the United States from lung cancer at a rate that was higher than the number of women who were dying from breast cancer. Now that is a public relations success of the first and highest magnitude. We didn't have prevention programs in place. We didn't have a warning system to say to women, to say to kids: This is dangerous to your health. What did we see? We saw just about every family in America with somebody who died from lung cancer--pretty much every family--and it was totally preventable. Well, inside of the Affordable Care Act we have this huge, great, innovative breakthrough--a health and prevention program that could be used in every city, every town, and every State across the whole country, targeting the most vulnerable, the most likely to be targeted, the ones most likely to be engaging in dangerous behaviors that are otherwise preventable. We have cured most of the diseases that our grandparents died from. The diseases that people die from today are the diseases that they give to themselves. They are behavioral choices. They are environmental situations into which they are placed that then result in them, unfortunately, contracting the chronic diseases that wind up first harming them and ultimately killing them. What is a good example? Well, a good example is opioids. Opioids are now a killer of a magnitude that is almost incomprehensible. In Massachusetts, 2,000 people died in 2016 from opioid overdoses. Now, we are only 2 percent of the population of the United States of America. If you multiply that by 50, it is 100,000 people dying from opioid overdoses if they die at the same rate as the people who are dying in Massachusetts--100,000 a year, two Vietnam wars of deaths every single year from opioid overdoses. If ever there was a preventable disease, if ever there was something that was completely and totally subject to having programs put in place that could help people avoid ever getting into that addiction situation--or, once they did, giving them the program money which they need--then opioid addiction is it. Well, what the Republicans are doing here is just wiping it out. They are wiping out that prevention fund. Moreover, just for the sake of understanding how incredible everything they are considering is going to be in terms of prevention of opioid disease, Medicaid right now pays $1 out of every $5 for substance use disorder treatment in the United States of America. In other words, without these prevention funds, without Medicaid funding, the only choice for these families is either getting help or getting buried. That is the bottom line. What the Republicans are doing is just wiping out the help. So the option is going to be not just 2,000 in Massachusetts multiplied by 50,000, 100,000 deaths a year, we are just going to see this number skyrocket because without public health, without prevention programs, this is an inexorability, it is an inevitability. This is the future. This is just a repetition of everything America did for the preceding 100 years before we put the Affordable Care Act on the books. It doesn't make any difference whether you come from Connecticut or Hawaii, from Virginia or Michigan, from Massachusetts or from any other State in the Union, there are no barriers to opioid overdose, tobacco deaths, obesity, all of these preventable diseases. It is all coming as a preview of coming attractions to families all across the country. Here it is. This is what the Republicans are promising you: your family, once again, exposed. Listen to this number. When the Affordable Care Act gets repealed by the Republicans, if they are successful--listen to this number: 1.6 million people who right now are covered for substance use disorders will no longer have coverage. Let me say that again: 1.6 million people who have coverage for substance use disorders will no longer be covered. So we have the prevention fund over here, we have the insurance over here--both gone. I say to my colleagues, these Republicans--it is almost unbelievable. If you kick them in the heart, you are going to break their toe. We are talking about the most vulnerable people in our country. We are looking at the children. We are looking at people who have substance abuse disorders. We are looking at people who otherwise would never have smoked a day in their life if prevention programs were in place. We are looking at people who would never have to suffer through a life of obesity because the programs were put in place. What are they saying? They are saying we are going to substitute and create a new program. When? Maybe soon. Maybe just around the corner. Maybe next year. Maybe whenever we get to it. What do you say to those families? What do we say to them? This isn't just health care; this is also hope. This is also hope for these families who have chronic diseases, these families who have diseases that were otherwise preventable. What the Republicans are saying is, we are just going to pull a bait and switch on you. We are going to repeal right now and replace at some point of our choosing in the future, even though we have harbored an ancient animosity toward the creation of a national law in the first place, and the American people are supposed to gullibly accept that argument. Well, we know what they have always wanted to do: leave all of these health care programs, from Medicare to Medicaid, to Social Security, as death-soaked relics of the programs as they have been created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by Lyndon Johnson, by Bill Clinton, by Barack Obama. They have always harbored that animosity toward those programs. This is just the beginning of an assault upon generations of promises to American families who have been transformed by these programs. Let us fight hard, I say to my colleagues, to make sure these prevention funds are not taken off the books. It is the transformative way of looking at health care which the Affordable Care Act introduced into our society. I thank my friend Senator Blumenthal for leading us on this charge and Senator Schatz. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, in 1972 I was a young man in my last year at Boston College Law School, and I decided to run for State representative. I had a cousin who worked at NASA, an older cousin, the smart one, the physicist. He said: Well, there is a young man in Delaware who is running for the Senate. So what is his name? Joe Biden. From that moment on, I was following the career of this Irishman, this latter-day descendent of Hubert Humphrey, a happy warrior, the man who stands up for the common man and woman in our country. In 1972 you had this great campaign team led by John Marttila--the great John--who captured your spirit, your soul, what you represented now in this half century of American politics. In 1976, when I ran for Congress, just 4 years later--the same as you, age 29--saying ``I think I can run,'' I walked into the office of this man, John Marttila, in Boston, and it looked like a museum to Joe Biden with all the Joe Biden literature and messages on his wall. So from that moment on, from John Marttila, through Larry Rasky, through Ron Klain--through all of these people who worked for me and worked for you, I have been privileged to be able to chronicle your journey of work and inspiration for our country. I think it is just perfect that you are the commander in chief of this rocket ship to the Moon to find the cure for cancer because that is a mission that has the right man who is going to be leading it. I think that each and every one of us out here knows that one of the reasons this bill is receiving such an overwhelming vote today is because of you, Mr. President. It is because of the respect we have for you. It is the knowledge that when you were negotiating this bill, at the end of the day, you were going to put the American people first, you were going to make sure that bill reflected the highest aspiration of every American. So I want to speak briefly because there is a reception after this, and many people are still waiting to say hello to you. I think every Member wanted to come out here, and you inspired them to speak a lot longer than they may have intended on speaking, but it is because of the incredible respect and admiration they have for you. My best to you. My wife Susan's best to you. There has never been a better public servant in American history. All my best.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, last year the world came together in Paris to support a truly historic agreement on climate change. And 2015 was also historic for another reason: It was the hottest year in an observational record that stretches back to the 1880s. In fact, 15 of the 16 hottest years on the planet have occurred since 2000. Recently, July and August 2016 tied the global record for the hottest month, and 2016 is on track to be the warmest year yet. The evidence on climate change is overwhelming. Scientists have understood the fundamental physics for over a century. And the world agrees that we must take action to curb dangerous carbon pollution and reduce the effects of climate change. A majority of the United States agrees that we must take action. The swiftness with which the Paris Climate Accord came into force demonstrates the global commitment to addressing the serious concerns of climate change. It is also a testament to the leadership of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. This year, the world again came together at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, to begin forging the path towards a lower-emissions world and clean energy future. And while there is much work to be done, we are heading in the right direction. We have seen the price of solar energy reach record lows and the rate of new solar installation reach record highs. We have seen States, regions, and countries reduce their carbon pollution while growing their economies. These positive steps will not only curb carbon pollution, but also create good, well-paying clean energy jobs. Climate change is a challenge for the entire world. Through the Paris Climate Accord, the international community has decided to face this challenge head on, and the United States must continue to be the global leader. Under the leadership of Sectary of State John Kerry, the United States has carried this mantle. In the speech that Secretary Kerry delivered last month in Marrakesh, Morocco, at the 22nd meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nationals Framework Convention on Climate Change and first session of the Conference of Parties to the Paris Agreement, Secretary Kerry shared his vision for our future: a brighter, cleaner, healthier and more prosperous one. He said: Thank you so much, everybody. I apologize for being a few moments late. There was a fire and then there was some traffic backed up, and so here I am and here are you, and thank you for being here. Let me begin by thanking our terrific U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing. I couldn't be luckier than to have him in this job. He was over at the Energy Department for a while. We stole him from Ernie Moniz, who is a great colleague and was gracious in my theft. And he has done a spectacular job working with all of our international partners as we begin the hard work of implementing the Paris Agreement. And I also want to thank Ambassador Jennifer Haverkamp, who, along with Jonathan and a lot of the team that I see sitting here, has done an absolutely terrific job in leading the State Department's efforts to advance our climate goals this year. And I have to tell you--well, let me just divert for a minute. I also want to thank Brian Deese--I don't know if he's here--but I'm grateful for President Obama's senior advisor on climate issues and the entire intrepid U.S. delegation to the COP, whom I had a chance to meet with earlier this morning, but we've kind of traveled this road together. I also thank our international partners, and particularly the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, Patricia Espinosa; the outgoing president of the COP, Minister Segolene Royal of France; and the incoming COP president, my friend and our host this week, Minister Salaheddine Mezouar, the foreign minister of Morocco. And I also want to thank our partners from Fiji, who will serve as president for the next COP, which I intend hopefully to attend as Citizen Kerry. It's a great pleasure for me to be able to be here in Marrakech. I'm reminded of one of the 20th century's most outsized figures whose connection with this city is so famous--Sir Winston Churchill. He loved to paint the landscapes here and to absorb the beauty and the culture. And in fact, at the very height of World War II, as he and President Franklin Roosevelt and Allied leaders gathered in Casablanca to plan the strategy for the European Theater, Churchill was absolutely stunned to learn that Roosevelt had never been to this part of Morocco. So in a move that perhaps only Winston Churchill would get away with in the middle of a global war--world war--Churchill convinced Roosevelt to extend his visit and drive through what was still, at the time, a country engulfed in active combat. So after several hours on the loose, and because we're talking about Winston Churchill, plenty of Scotch-- (laughter)--the two leaders arrived in Marrakech in time to see the sun set on the Atlas Mountains. And Churchill said it was the loveliest view on Earth. So I think it's fitting, therefore, that almost three- quarters of a century later, friends and allies meet again in Marrakech in order to undertake a very important discussion-- a discussion about the natural world that surrounds us and the importance of preserving it for generations to come. As Jonathan mentioned, climate change is deeply personal to me, but it's personal to everyone in this room. I know that. And we obviously want it to be just as personal for everyone in every room: men, women, children, businesspeople, consumers, parents, teachers, students, grandparents. Wherever we live, whatever our calling, whatever our background must be, this is an imperative. Now, I know the danger of preaching to the choir--and, obviously, all of us here are the proverbial choir. But I'm actually grateful for that, because here at the 22nd COP, no one can deny the remarkable progress that we have made-- progress that actually was pretty hard to imagine even a few years ago. The global community is more united than ever not just in accepting the challenge, but in confronting it with real action, in making a difference. And no one should doubt the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the United States who know climate change is happening and who are determined to keep our commitments that were made in Paris. (Applause.) None of us will forget the moment last December at Le Bourget, when the former foreign minister of France, with Segolene and a bunch of you there, led by our friend Laurent Fabius, who gaveled in the strongest, most ambitious global climate agreement ever negotiated. It was an accord that took literally decades to achieve--the proud work product of principled diplomacy, and ultimately, a deeply held, shared understanding that we're all in this together. And when we left Paris, no one rested on their laurels. Instead, the world--unified--moved expeditiously to begin the--to pull the agreement permanently into force, crossing the thresholds of 55 countries representing 55 percent of global emissions, and doing so far faster than even the most optimistic among us might have predicted. In a powerful statement of the whole world's broad commitment to this agreement, in less than a year, 109 countries representing nearly 75 percent of the world's emissions have now formally committed to bold, decisive action--and we are determined to affirm that action and to stick with it out of Marrakech. Now, we have in place--(applause)--so we have in place a foundation, based on national climate goals--109 nations, each of them have come up with their own plan, each of us setting goals that are based on our own abilities and our own circumstances. This agreement is, in fact, the essence of common but differentiated responsibilities. It provides support to countries that need help meeting the targets. It leaves no country to weather the storm of climate change alone. It marshals an array of tools in order to help developing nations to invest in infrastructure, technology, and the science to get the job done. It supports the most vulnerable countries, so they can better adapt to the climate impacts that many of those countries are already confronting. And finally, it enables us to ratchet up ambition over time as technology develops and as the price of clean energy comes down. This is critical: the agreement calls on the parties to revisit their national pledges every five years, in order to ensure that we keep pace with the technology and that we accelerate the global transition to a clean energy economy. This process--a cornerstone of our agreement--gives us a framework that is built to last, and a degree of global accountability that has never before existed. But I want to share with you that the progress that we've made this year goes well beyond Paris. In early October, the International Civil Aviation Organization established a sector-wide agreement for carbon- neutral growth. Why is this so important? Because international aviation wasn't covered by what we did in Paris, and if that aviation was a country, it would rank among the top dozen greenhouse gas emitters in the world. A few weeks later, I was pleased to be in Kigali, Rwanda, when representatives from again nearly 200 countries came together to phase down the global use and production of hydrofluorocarbons--which has been expected to increase very rapidly with a danger that is multiple of times more damaging than carbon dioxide. The Kigali agreement could singlehandedly help us to avoid an entire half a degree centigrade of warming by the end of the century--while at the same time opening up new opportunities for growth in a range of industries. All of these steps combine to move the needle in the direction that we need to. And in large part because global leaders have woken up to the enormity of this challenge, the world is now beginning to move forward together towards a clean energy future. Over the past decade, the global renewable energy market has expanded more than six-fold. Last year, investment in renewable energy was at an all-time high--nearly $350 billion. But that only tells you part of the story. An average of--that 350 billion is the first time that we've been able to see that money outpacing what is being put into fossil fuels. An average of half a million new solar panels were installed every single day last year. And for the first time since the Pre-Industrial Era, despite the fact that you have global prices of oil and gas and coal that are lower than ever, still more of the world's money was invested in renewable energy technologies than in new fossil fuel plants. And like many of you, I've seen this transformation take hold in my own country. That's why I'm confident about the future, regardless of what policy might be chosen, because of the marketplace. I've met with leaders and innovators in the energy industry all across our nation, and I am excited about the path that they are on. America's wind generation has tripled since 2008 and that will continue, and solar generation has increased 30 times over. And the reason both of those will continue is that the marketplace will dictate that, not the government. I can tell you with confidence that the United States is right now, today, on our way to meeting all of the international targets that we've set, and because of the market decisions that are being made, I do not believe that that can or will be reversed. (Applause.) Now, much of this is due to President Obama's leadership, and our Congress also moving in a bipartisan fashion on things like tax credits for renewable energy. This leadership has helped to inspire targeted investment from the private sector. Today our emissions are being driven down because market-based forces are taking hold all over the world. And that's what we said we would do in Paris. None of us pretended that in Paris, the agreement itself was going to achieve two degrees. What we knew is we were sending that critical message to the marketplace, and businesses have responded, as I just described. Most businesspeople have come to understand: investing in clean energy simply makes good economic sense. You can make money. You can do good and do well at the same time. Now, significantly, the renewable energy boom isn't limited to industrialized countries, and that's important to note. In fact, emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil invested even more in renewable technologies last year than the developed world. China alone invested more than 100 billion dollars. Ultimately, clean energy is expected to be a multitrillion dollar market--the largest market the world has ever known. And no nation will do well if it sits on the sidelines, handicapping its new businesses from reaping the benefits of the clean-tech explosion. My friends, we are in the midst of a global renewable energy surge, and as a result, in many places, clean energy has already reached cost parity with fossil fuels. Millions around the world are currently employed by the renewable energy industry. And if we make the right choices, millions more people will be put to work. So good things are happening. The energy curve is bending towards sustainability. The market is clearly headed towards clean energy, and that trend will only become more pronounced. Now, for those of us who have been working on this challenge for decades, this really is a turning point. It is a cause for optimism, notwithstanding what you see in different countries with respect to politics and change. In no uncertain terms, the question now is not whether we will transition to energy economy--to a clean energy economy. That we've already begun to do. The question now is whether or not we are going to have the will to get this job done. That's the question now--whether we will make the transition in time to be able to do what we have to do to prevent catastrophic damage. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not a Cassandra. You can tell from what I've said. But I'm a realist. Time is not on our side. The world is already changing at an increasingly alarming rate with increasingly alarming consequences. The last time that Morocco hosted the COP was in 2001, and the intervening 15 years have been among the 16 hottest years in recorded history. 2016 is going to be the warmest year of all. Every month so far has broken a record. And this year will contribute its record-breaking heat to the hottest decade in recorded history, which was, by the way, preceded by the second-hottest decade, which was preceded by the third hottest decade. At some point, even the strongest skeptic has to acknowledge that something disturbing is happening. We have seen record-breaking droughts everywhere--from India to Brazil to the west coast of the United States. Storms that used to happen once every 500 years are becoming relatively normal. In recent years, an average of 22.5 million people have been displaced by extreme weather events annually. We never saw that in the 20th Century. Communities in island states like Fiji have already been forced to take steps to relocate permanently, because the places they have called home for generations are now uninhabitable. And there are many, many more who know it's only a matter of time before rising oceans begin to inundate their cities. I know this is a lot for anyone to process--hard to process. That's why I have found that whenever possible, the best way to try to understand and to see whether people are pushing the envelope of thinking on this or not is to see for oneself what is happening. That's why this summer I went to Greenland to visit the incredible Jakobshavn glacier. Scientists pointed out to me the lines many meters above the water today that mark the glacier's retreat which it has done more in the past 15 years than it did in the entire previous century. And while I was there, I boarded a Danish naval vessel and I traveled through the ice fjord. I saw the massive ice chunks that had just broken off from the glacier to melt inexorably into the sea. And because they come off Greenland, which is on rock, every bit of that ice contributes to the rise of the ocean. Since the 1990s, the painful pace of that melting has nearly tripled. Every day, 86 million metric tons of ice makes its way down that fjord into the ocean. And the total flow that comes off that glacier in a single year is enough water to meet the needs of New York City for two decades. But experts in Greenland and elsewhere have always warned me, and they warned me on this trip this summer, if you really want to understand what's happening and what the threat is, go to Antarctica. Nowhere on the planet are the stakes as high as they are on the opposite end of the globe. For half a century, climate scientists have believed the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a sword of Damocles hanging over our entire way of life. Should it break apart and melt into the sea, it alone could raise global sea levels by four to five meters. And the scientists down there described to me how the pressure of the ice and the weight of the ice pushes the entire continent down so that it's grounded on the base of Earth's crust and rock. But that allows warmer sea water to creep in under the glacier and speed up the process of the melting and destabilize the glacier. Antarctica contains ice sheets that are, in some places, on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet three miles deep. And if all that ice were somehow able to melt away completely because we are irresponsible about climate change, in the coming centuries, sea level would rise somewhere over 100 to 200 feet. That's why I flew last week to McMurdo Station in Antarctica to meet with our scientists and to understand better what is taking place. I flew by helicopter over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. I walked out onto the Ross Sea ice shelf. And I talked with the scientists who are on the front lines, not people involved in day to day politics, but people who are making scientific judgment and doing extensive research. And they were crystal clear: The more they learn, the more alarmed they become about the speed with which these changes are happening. A scientist from New Zealand named Gavin Dunbar described what they're seeing there as the quote, ``canary in the coal mine'' and warned that some thresholds, if we cross them, cannot be reversed. In other words, we can't wait too long to translate the science that we have today into the policies that are necessary to address this challenge. These scientists urged me to remind my own government and governments around the world and everyone here that what we do right now--today-- matters, because if we don't go far enough and if we don't go fast enough, the damage we inflict could take centuries to undo--if it can be undone at all. I underscore today: We don't get a second chance. The consequences of failure would in most cases be irreversible. And if we lose this moment for action, there's no speech decades from now that will put these massive ice sheets back together. There's no magic wand in any capital in the world that you can wave to refill all of the lakes and rivers that will dry up, or make farm--arid farm land fertile again. And we certainly won't have the power to hold back rising tides as they encroach on our shores. So we have to get this right, and we have to get it right now. The scientists in Antarctica told me that they are still trying to figure out how quickly this is all happening. But they know for certain that it's happening, and it's happening faster than we previously thought possible. The alarm bells ought to be going off everywhere. As an American glacial geologist told me down there, a fellow by the name of John Stone, he said, ``The catastrophic period could already be underway.'' That's why wise public policy demands that we take precautionary measures now. Still, despite the real-life changes that are being done and the threat of more to come, it's important to remind ourselves that we are not on a pre-ordained path to disaster. This is not pre-ordained. It's not written in the stars. This is about choices--choices that we still have. This is a test of willpower, not capacity. It's within our power to put the planet back on a better track. But doing that requires holding ourselves accountable to the hard truth. It requires holding ourselves accountable to facts, not opinion; to science, not theories that haven't been proven and can't be proven; and certainly not to political bromides and slogans. For all the progress that we are making, at the current pace we will not meet our goal. I said that earlier. We knew in Paris that what we were doing was trying to start down a road. But we also knew it doesn't get us to the end of the journey. Yes, renewables make up more than half of all the new electricity installation last year. That's progress. But the reality is because of the existing energy infrastructure already in place, that new energy only generated a little more than 10 percent of the world's total energy. That is nowhere near what we need in order to achieve our goals. If we're going to have the ability to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, we have to dramatically accelerate the transition that is already starting. We need to get to a point where clean sources are generating most of the world's energy, and we need to get there fast. Certainly experts tell us by the middle of this century we have to get there. Now, I've said many times, and I'll say it again today: It is not going to be governments alone, or even principally, that solve the climate challenge. The private sector is the most important player. And already we are seeing real solutions coming from entrepreneurs and academia. It's going to be innovators, workers, and business leaders, many of whom have been hammering away at this challenge for years who are going to continue to create the technological advances that forever revolutionize the way that we power our world. But make no mistake, government leadership is absolutely essential. And because today is the last opportunity I will have to address the COP as Secretary of State, I just want to take a moment to underscore the work that government leaders can do and should do, especially the 200--almost 200 nations represented here. Now, we know that we have not come to Marrakech to bask in the glow of Paris. We've come here to move forward. In doing so, we cannot forget that the contributions we've each made thus far were never meant to be the ceiling. They're a foundation on which we expect to build. And unless our nations voluntarily ratchet up our ambition, and unless we continue to put sustained pressure on one another to act wisely, we will have difficulty meeting the current mitigation needs, let alone holding temperature increases at 2 degrees warming, which science tells us is a tipping point. And if we fall short, it will be the single greatest instance in modern history of a generation in a time of crisis abdicating responsibility for the future. And it won't just be a policy failure; because of the nature of this challenge, it will be a moral failure, a betrayal of devastating consequence. Now, I know not--that's not what any of us here signed up for. As Pope Francis said, ``We receive this world as an inheritance from past generations, but also as a loan for future generations, to whom we will have to return it.'' Now, I fully recognize the challenges that a number of countries face because they have a big population, they have a growing economy, they have a lot of people in poverty, they're determined to maintain stability and pull those people into the economy. And of course, they're concerned about stability--we all are. Access to affordable energy is a key part of providing that stability. And the dirtiest sources of energy are, unfortunately, some of the cheapest. But I emphasize this: Only in the short term. In the long term, it's an entirely different story, folks. In the long term, carbon-intensive energy is actually today, right now, one of the costliest and most foolhardy investments any nation can possibly make. And that is because the final invoice for carbon-based energy includes a lot more than just the price of the oil or the coal, or the natural gas; it--or the price of building the power plant. The real cost accounting needs to fully consider all of the downstream consequences, which, in the case of dirty fuels, are enough to at least double or triple the initial expenses. That's the kind of accounting that we need to do today. Just think about the price of environmental and agricultural degradation. Think about the loss of an ability of farmers in one area because of the lack of water or too much heat to be able to grow their crops today. Think of the hospital bills for asthma and emphysema patients, and the millions of deaths that are linked to air pollution caused by the use of fossil fuels. In 2014, a study found that up to six million people in China have black lung because they lived and worked so close to coal-fired power plants. There are nearly 20 million new asthma cases a year in India linked to coal-related air pollution, and in the United States, asthma costs taxpayers more than $55 billion annually. The greatest cause of children being hospitalized in the summer in the United States is environmentally induced asthma. These are real costs, and they need to be added to the tally. We also have to include the price tag of rebuilding after devastating storms and flooding. Just in the first three quarters of this year alone, extreme weather events have cost the United States--have cost American taxpayers $27 billion in damage. In August alone, Louisiana experienced flooding that resulted in roughly $10 billion worth of damage. So none of us can afford to be oblivious to these expenses, and these initial costs are in reality just a glimpse of what the future could hold in store for us if we fail to respond. Just imagine: Sea barriers that have to be built. Go down to Miami--in south Miami, they're building--they're raising streets to deal with flooding that's already occurring, building new storm drains and assessing people additional tax in order to do it. Massive increases in cost of maintaining infrastructure to control flooding, withstand storms. Power outages. All of this and more has to be added to any honest assessment of high-carbon energy sources. And in an age of increasing transparency and public demand for accountability, citizens in the long run will not accept phony accounting or an obfuscation of the consequences of the decisions. So everyone needs to make smarter choices--with the long game, not the short game, in mind. Coal, unfortunately, is the single biggest contributor to global carbon pollution. It provides about 30 percent of the world's energy, but it produces nearly 50 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. The unprecedented investments that we are now seeing in clean energy will mean very, very little if, at the same time, new coal fire plants without carbon capture are coming online and at a rate dumping into the atmosphere more and more of the very pollution that we're all working so hard to reduce. Some of these projections, I have to tell you, are deeply troubling. For example, between now and 2040, the demand for electricity in Southeast Asia is likely to triple--and the bulk of that demand is currently expected to be met by growth--where? In the coal-fired power sector, rather than clean energy. That threatens everything we're trying to achieve here. We literally cannot use one hand to pat ourselves on the back for what we've done to take steps to address climate change, and then turn around and use the other hand to write a big fat check enabling the widespread development of the dirtiest source of fuel in an outdated way. It just doesn't make sense. That's suicide. And that's how we all lose this fight. Make no mistake: People all over the world are working for victory in this. And this issue is increasingly capturing the attention of citizens everywhere, and certainly the private sector. The private sector welcomed the signals that we sent in Paris, but they are demanding even stronger signals now-- the private sector--so that they can invest clean energy solutions with even greater confidence. One of the strongest signals that government can send, one of the most powerful ways to reduce emissions at the lowest possible course--cost--is to move toward carbon pricing that puts basic, free-market economics to work in addressing this challenge. Now obviously, this is not a new idea. Many have come to this conclusion already. The share of global emissions that are covered by a carbon price has tripled over the last decade. Last year, more than 1,000 businesses and investors-- including sectors that might be surprising to some of you-- all came together to voice their support for carbon pricing. The long list of supporters includes energy companies like BP, Royal Dutch Shell, utilities like PG&E, transportation companies like British Airways, construction firms like Cemex, financial institutions like Deutsche Bank, like Swiss Re, and consumer goods corporations like Unilever and Nokia. These companies all believe that carbon pricing will establish the necessary certainty in the marketplace that helps the private sector to move the capital that helps to solve the problem. Carbon pricing allows citizens, innovators, and companies-- it allows the market to make independent decisions free from the government to be able to best drive their emission reductions. And this is also, by the way, the chief reason that carbon pricing has received support from leaders and economists on both sides of the aisle in the United States of America. A price on carbon, coupled with government support for innovation in key sectors, is easily one of the most compelling tools for the world to accelerate the clean energy transformation that we are working to achieve. Now, while it may be some time before we see this ideal outcome, the effort to improve carbon markets ought to be a priority going forward. The bottom line is that there are many tools at the world's disposal. The COP itself is an important tool, in a sense. It has become much more of a--much more than just a gathering of government officials. It's really a yearly summit, 25,000 people strong this year from all over the world, for all sectors to showcase their commitment to climate action and to discuss ways to expand shared efforts. It's a regular reminder of exactly how much this movement has grown--and how many people, in how many countries, are committed to action. Walking around the conference here before I was coming in here and seeing this site in Marrakech, and seeing the delegations and the business leaders, the entrepreneurs and the activists who have traveled from near and far to be here, it's abundantly clear we have the ability to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. But again, we're forced to ask: Do we have the collective will? Because our success is not going to happen by accident. It won't happen without sustained commitment, without cooperation and creative thinking. And it won't happen without confident investors and innovative entrepreneurs. And it certainly won't happen without leadership. For those in power in all parts of the world, including my own, who may be confronted with decisions about which road to take at this critical juncture, I ask you, on behalf of billions of people around the world: Don't take my word for it. Don't take just the existence of this COP as the stamp of approval for it. I ask you to see for yourselves. Do your own due diligence before making irrevocable choices. Examine closely what it is that has persuaded the Pope, presidents, and prime ministers all over the world, leaders around the world, to take on the responsibility of responding to this threat. Talk to the business leaders of Fortune 500 companies and smaller innovative companies, all of whom are eager to invest in the energy markets of the future. Get the best economists' judgment on the risk of inaction, of what the cost would be to global economies, versus the opportunities that are to be found in the clean energy market of the future. Speak with the military leaders who view climate change as a global security concern, as a threat multiplier. Ask farmers about--and fisherman about the impact of dramatic changes in weather patterns on their current ability to make a living and to support their families or on what they see for the future. Listen to faith leaders talk about the moral responsibility that human beings have to act as stewards of the planet that we have to share, the only planet we have. Bring in the activists and civil society, groups who have worked for years with communities all over the world to raise awareness and to respond to this threat. Ask young people about their legitimate concerns for the planet that their children will inherit in reducing emissions worldwide. And above all, consult with the scientists who have dedicated their entire lives to expanding our understanding of this challenge, and whose work will be in vain unless we sound the alarm loud enough for everyone to hear. No one has a right to make decisions that affect billions of people based on solely ideology or without proper input. Anyone who has these conversations, who takes the time to learn from these experts, who gets the full picture of what we're facing--I believe they can only come to one legitimate decision, and that is to act boldly on climate change and encourage others to do the same. Now, I want to acknowledge that since this COP started, obviously, an election took place in my country. And I know it has left some here and elsewhere feeling uncertain about the future. I obviously understand that uncertainty. And while I can't stand here and speculate about what policies our president-elect will pursue, I will tell you this: In the time that I have spent in public life, one of the things I have learned is that some issues look a little bit different when you're actually in office compared to when you're on the campaign trail. And the truth is that climate change shouldn't be a partisan issue in the first place. It isn't a partisan issue for our military leaders at the Pentagon who call climate change a threat multiplier. (Applause.) It isn't a partisan issue for those military leaders because of the way that climate change exacerbates conflicts all over the world and who view it as a threat to military readiness at their bases and could suffer the consequences of rising seas and stronger storms. It isn't a partisan issue for our intelligence community, who just this year released a report detailing the implications of climate change for U.S. national security: threats to the stability of fragile nations, heightened social and political tensions, rising food prices, increased risks to human health, and more. It isn't a partisan issue for mayors from New Orleans to Miami, who are already working hard to manage sunny-day floods and stronger storm surges caused by climate change. It isn't partisan for liberal and conservative business leaders alike who are investing unprecedented amounts of money into renewables, voluntarily committing to reduce their own emissions, and even holding their supply chains accountable to their overall carbon footprint. And there's nothing partisan about climate change for the world scientists who are near unanimous in their conclusion that climate change is real, it is happening, human beings for the most part are causing it, and we will have increasing catastrophic impacts on our way of life if we don't take the dramatic steps necessary to reduce the carbon footprint of our civilization. Now, whether we are able to meet this moment is a big test--probably as big a test of courage and vision as you'll ever find. Every nation has a responsibility to do its part if we are going to pass that test--and only those nations who step up and respond to this threat can legitimately lay claim to a mantle of global leadership. That's a fact. More than his love of Marrakech, Winston Churchill was known for his hard-nosed insight and the way that he expressed it. He once argued, tellingly: ``It's not always enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what is required.'' We know today what is required. And with all of the real- world evidence, with all of the peer-reviewed science, with all of the plain just old common sense, there isn't anyone who can credibly argue otherwise. So we have to continue this fight, my friends. We have to continue to defy expectations. We have to continue to accelerate the global transition to a clean energy economy. And we have to continue to hold one another accountable for the choices that our nations makes. Earlier this year, on Earth Day, I had the great privilege of signing the Paris Agreement on behalf of President Obama and the United States. It was a special day. And because my daughter lives in New York, I invited her to join me at the UN. She surprised me by bringing my 2-year-old granddaughter, Isabelle, along as well. And that morning, I had been thinking about the history that had brought us to that day. I thought about the first Earth Day in 1970 that I mentioned earlier, when I joined with millions of Americans in teach-ins to educate the public about the environmental challenges we faced. I thought about the first UN climate conference in Rio, which is actually where I met my wife Teresa, and I thought of the urgency that we all felt way back then in 1992. And of course, I thought about that December night at Le Bourget, when it seemed--for the first time--that the world had finally found the path forward. But as I sat and I played with my granddaughter, waiting for my turn to go out and sign the Agreement, I thought, not of the past, but I thought of the future. Her future. The world her children would one day inherit. And when it was time for me to go up on that stage, I scooped her up and I brought her out with me. I wanted to share that moment with her. And I'll never forget it. But to my surprise, people responded to her presence that day, and since then so many people have said to me, they've conveyed to me how that moment conveyed something special and moved them. They told me they thought of their own children, their own grandchildren. They thought of the future. They were reminded of the stakes. Ladies and gentlemen, here in Marrakech, in the next hours, let us make clear to the world that we will always remember the stakes. Let us stand firm in support of the goals that we set in Paris and recommit ourselves to double our efforts to meet them. Let us say that when it comes to climate change, we will commit not just to doing our best, but as Winston Churchill admonished, we will do what is required. I look forward to working with you in this important work for whatever number of years ahead I have a chance to. Thank you.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, we are going to vote on a very important piece of legislation later on this afternoon. This is a bill that is going to move revenues from 46 States to 4 States. This is no small thing. Let me just tell you a little bit about what this bill will do. The revenue generated from oil and gas drilling on Federal lands offshore is one of the largest nontax revenue streams for the Federal Government. These oil and gas resources on public lands offshore belong to all of the American people. They are public resources that belong as much to someone living in Massachusetts, Kansas, or California as they do to someone in Louisiana or in Texas. These are resources that should help every American, not just a select few. The revenue generated from these public resources goes to the Federal Treasury to help pay for Medicare, Medicaid, education, our Defense Department. It helps to pay for everything, including reducing our Federal deficit. However, in 2006, the four Gulf States--Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas--succeeded in passing a law that is going to direct an ever-increasing share of these offshore drilling revenues away from the Federal Treasury to just those four States. By redirecting this revenue, that 2006 law is going to take money that should benefit taxpayers in all 50 States and send it instead to just 4 States. How much money are we talking about? In that 2006 law, over the next 60 years, it is projected to send $190 billion away from the Treasury, away from the 46 other States, other than the 4 that are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. That is the problem. Those are the numbers from the Department of the Interior--$190 billion. Now the Gulf States are coming back for more. The legislation we will vote on today would divert an additional $5.4 billion over the next 40 years away from 46 States and to the 4 Gulf States. That is on top of the $190 billion, which they are already going to get. If you come from one of these four States, you should absolutely vote for this bill today. You should put out a press release today touting your support for this legislation. If you can pass legislation to take an additional $5 billion directly from the pockets of the taxpayers in the other 46 States and send it to your States, that will be one of your greatest legislative victories of your career. If you come from the other 46 States, there is no reason in the world that you should support this legislation to take even more money from your taxpayers and send it to Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi. That is all we are talking about--a massive wealth transfer from 46 States to those 4 States. At a time when my friends on the other side of the aisle are saying we need to cut spending to crucial programs that help our seniors, help low-income Americans, and help students, we simply can't afford to divert $190 billion away from our national priorities and to the Gulf States. We certainly can't afford to divert $5 billion more as the legislation before us today would do. The proponents of this legislation argue this revenue is needed to pay for past and future infrastructure demands and to ensure the resiliency of natural resources. The Gulf States have already been getting revenue from offshore drilling in waters near their States for decades, and now most of the fines--$20 billion from the BP oilspill-- are, rightly, going to the Gulf States that were affected by this catastrophe. We should fund coastal restoration and climate resiliency as a big issue for all States, but this legislation is not about our eroding beaches and wetlands; it is about eroding our ability to pay for our national priorities. This legislation would go even further by trying to bribe other cash- strapped States into allowing expanded drilling off the east coast and in other areas offshore. We haven't passed a single law to improve the safety of offshore drilling following the BP oilspill, but this legislation would try to incentivize new areas to drill in and to risk ultimately a spill off one of those States' coasts. Fishing off the east coast produces roughly $1.75 billion in direct value for our States and more than $4 billion in total economic activity each year. Tourism on the east coast generates hundreds of billions of dollars in additional economic activity and supports an estimated 800,000. That is what we would be putting at risk on the east coast, as this bill would do. As we learned from the BP oilspill, offshore spills don't respect State boundaries. We would have no protections whatsoever. Opiod Crisis Mr. President, I would like to take the remainder of my time and talk about what I believe is the most important task facing this Congress in the lameduck session--providing funding to combat the opioid crisis that has spread all across our country. Last year, Senator McConnell of Kentucky and I called on the Surgeon General of the United States to issue a Surgeon General's report and a call to action on prescription opioid and heroin abuse. We both believed the Federal Government needed to document and outline a national effort to address this opioid crisis. Today, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a new report, ``Facing Addiction in America,'' and I thank him and his staff for their efforts. This report should serve as a call to all Americans to change the way we address substance misuse and substance use disorders in America. As a nation, we must approach and treat addiction like the disease it is. The physical toll addiction takes on Americans makes this a health imperative. The costs of addiction to society make this an economic imperative, and the human duty to provide care and hope for those suffering from addiction makes this a moral imperative punctuation. In order to get help for all of the families who are suffering from opioid addiction, the Federal Government needs to invest in funding treatment and recovery programs now. So far, I am sad to report that Congress has failed in this task. When I am home in Massachusetts, I hear enormous frustration from people who don't feel adequate resources are being brought to bear on this epidemic of prescription drug, heroin, and fentanyl addiction. Countless individuals and families suffering with addiction cannot find a bed for detox. Then, when they are at their most vulnerable, they cannot find a place, a provider, or a behavioral support team for long- term treatment and recovery. To our everlasting credit, this past May, my colleague Senator Jeanne Shaheen introduced legislation to infuse a one-time payment of $600 million in emergency funding to combat this crisis. We were denied. Then, again in July, I and others argued on the Senate floor for the need to invest $1.1 billion into opioid treatment and recovery programs over 2 years. Again, we were denied. We passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA, but a vision without funding is just a hallucination. We will not save lives and stop this scourge of addiction with just words and promises. I stand here again today to call on my colleagues and both parties to come together and pass legislation that includes immediate, massive funding to combat this ever-worsening opioid crisis. Nearly 30,000 people in the United States died from an opioid overdose in 2014. Over the last few years Massachusetts, which is mirrored in numbers across the rest of the country, has seen a dramatic increase in the number of deaths related to opioids. In 2014, 1,400 people were estimated to have died in the State of Massachusetts from an opioid addiction. Last year the number went up to 1,700 people who were estimated to have died from an opioid addiction. In 2016, it is estimated that that number is going to go up to 2,000 people who will die this year from opioid overdoses, heroin, fentanyl, carfentanil. Here is the interesting number. Just from last year to this year, the number of deaths that are estimated to be related to fentanyl has risen to 1,500. Out of those 2,000 people, it is estimated that 1,500 people in Massachusetts alone will die from opioid overdoses. That is a dramatic rise to 75 percent of all opioid deaths in our State in 1 year. That is up from 57 percent of the deaths last year that would be related to fentanyl in the blood system of those who had toxicology exams after they died from an opioid overdose. Let's take those numbers and project them. If 2,000 people die in Massachusetts this year--and Massachusetts is 2 percent of the population of the United States of America--and all you did was multiply that number by 50 to get the entire country, that would mean that 100,000 people will die this year from an opioid overdose in America--100,000. This problem is not as huge in the rest of the country as it is in Massachusetts and several other States, but we are a preview of coming attractions. We have to make sure we put in place the programs that are going to help these families deal with this issue. Let's put that number in context for the entire country. We have 41,000 women who die each year from breast cancer. If we don't stop this, we are on pace to having as many as 100,000 people die from opioid overdoses every single year, which is the same as having two Vietnam wars worth of people dying in our country every single year. We need to declare war on this epidemic. We need to put the treatment and prevention programs in place. Thus far we have not provided the resources to the States, cities, towns, families, and community health care centers to be able to deal with this issue. Right now in America there are more than 2.5 million people who are dependent upon opioids, but only a very small percentage of them will get the treatment they need and deserve. Our country should be providing for those families. I believe history is going to judge this Congress on the question of how well we responded to this epidemic, on whether or not we heard the cries of these families across the country to provide them with the treatment they need. This is an epidemic that began because the pharmaceutical industry sold a bill of goods to the Food and Drug Administration and the American people that these prescription drugs were not, in fact, addictive. Physicians across our country turned a blind eye, and, in fact, rejected mandatory training so they could correctly prescribe opioids. Now it is 20 years later, and this prescription drug epidemic that morphed into a heroin epidemic has now morphed into a fentanyl epidemic, and fentanyl is infinitely more dangerous than heroin and prescription drugs. We have a moral responsibility here on the floor to provide massive new funding in any legislation we pass over the next 3 weeks that leaves this Chamber. We cannot, on a bipartisan basis, ignore the magnitude of this challenge. Otherwise, we are going to come back here next year and the year after and the year after, and we are ultimately going to see millions of people die from this epidemic, and history will wonder why we did not do enough to deal with it. It is the job of this Congress to begin to provide the massive funding that the States, cities, towns, and families need to deal with this issue. I thank the Presiding Officer for my time on the floor, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I am proud to be a steadfast ally of the LGBT community. This week is Transgender Awareness Week, during which we seek to raise the visibility of transgender and gender nonconforming people and to bring awareness to the issues this community faces, from prejudice and discrimination to acts of violence that have claimed too many lives. Eighteen years ago, Rita Hester, an African-American transgender woman was murdered in Boston, MA. Rita's death ignited fear in the transgender community. Her murder also sparked the founding of the Transgender Day of Remembrance. On November 20, we remember Rita and the all too many transgender individuals who have lost their lives to hate-based violence. Sadly, the fear that the transgender community feels has not subsided in the last 18 years. For the transgender community, and even more so for transgender women of color, the fear of violence is still all too real. In 2015, at least 21 transgender individuals in the United States were victims of fatal violence. This year, we have already reached that same number of transgender deaths attributable to violence, reflecting more such deaths than in any other year in which advocates have kept records. This is both saddening and maddening. Too many of these victims' stories go untold, but through the Transgender Day of Remembrance, many of these individuals silenced by violence get a small voice. This day is a reminder that no person's life is worth less than another's because of who they are or whom they love. We must continue to do all we can to stop the marginalization of the transgender community, to stop the discrimination, and to stop the violence. In 2009, President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. It was the first Federal law to provide civil rights protections for transgender people, and it was a step in the right direction. But it has not been enough to stop the ongoing discrimination and violence against the transgender community. We still have work to do and need as many voices as possible convey that message. This week in particular, but every week as well, we must remember all the transgender individuals who have lost their lives to violence at home and abroad and continue to work towards a more inclusive society, free of violence and discrimination.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, today I wish to recognize and thank Mr. Clarence M. Ditlow III for his commitment to protecting the American people. Through a lifetime of work improving automotive and safety laws, Mr. Ditlow has helped save thousands of lives and prevented many more injuries than would otherwise have occurred. A tireless champion for consumers, his work has resulted in better government oversight of automakers, the installation of key safety features, and the exposure of safety defects in millions of cars, SUVs, and other trucks. A 1965 chemical engineering graduate of Lehigh University, Mr. Ditlow pivoted to the legal profession following the completion of a JD from Georgetown University in 1970 and an LLM from Harvard Law School in 1971. Since then, he has been instrumental in improving auto safety, reliability, and efficiency as executive director of the Center for Auto Safety. Mr. Ditlow's discovery of numerous automotive defects, combined with his persistent pressure on safety agencies and automakers alike, led to the removal of many unsafe vehicles from the road. His direct efforts led to the automotive recalls of 6.7 million Chevrolets with defective engine mounts, 15 million Firestone 500 tires, 1.5 million Ford Pintos and 2 million Jeeps with exploding gas tanks, 3 million Evenflo child seats with defective latches, 7 million Toyotas because of sudden acceleration defects, 2 million GM vehicles with defective ignition switches, and over 30 million Takata airbag inflators. He also led consumer efforts to get ``lemon laws'' passed in all 50 States. I offer my sincere appreciation to Mr. Clarence M. Ditlow III and the Center for Automotive Safety for indefatigable dedication to auto safety and vigilance in uncovering automotive safety threats. Clarence demonstrates the impact a devoted industry watchdog can have on informing the public and saving lives. I am grateful for his years of collaboration with and assistance to Members of Congress, Federal and State safety agencies, and a myriad of other stakeholders, to improve automotive and public safety.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, in recognition of Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week, I am here to convey the urgency of responding to this crisis. We are coming to the point of no return in this national discussion of opioid addiction. Between 2013 and 2015, the United States saw an increase of more than 8,000 percent in the amount of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Wait; it gets worse. The Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory tells my office that from 2013 to 2015, the number of items seized by law enforcement that tested positive for fentanyl increased by 10,000 percent. We are watching as this category 5 hurricane is making landfall. Unless we do something to stop it, we will watch fentanyl lay waste to community after community all across the United States of America. Fentanyl is the Godzilla of opioids. It is stronger, it is deadly, and it is coming to every family in our country unless we do something now. Between 2013 and 2014, more than 700 deaths in the United States were attributed to fentanyl and its components. That is for the whole country, but according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, as of last month, unintentional opioid overdose deaths in my State since January have skyrocketed. From January to the end of June, there were 488 confirmed cases of fentanyl overdose opioid deaths in my own State alone. There were only 700 deaths in the whole country from fentanyl between 2013 and 2014. Fentanyl has now been confirmed in two- thirds of all of the overdosed deaths in Massachusetts so far this year. It was 57 percent of the deaths last year in 2015 and now it is up to 66 percent of the deaths. Many drug users overdose on fentanyl because they have no idea it is mixed into whatever substance they are injecting or whatever pills they are swallowing. They do not realize how deadly it is. It also poses a serious threat to the men and women who are first to respond to the scene of an overdose. If the powder is absorbed into the skin or accidentally inhaled, it can be deadly, making our first responders especially vulnerable to the drug's harmful effects. Just last week, 11 members of a SWAT team fell ill after a bust in Connecticut where they encountered deadly fentanyl. We know Mexico and China are the primary sources of illicit fentanyl and for the chemical building blocks from which it is made and then trafficked into the United States. The business model for those who manufacture and sell fentanyl is simple: fentanyl is cheaper, more potent, and more addictive than heroin. We must make stopping the trafficking of fentanyl into the United States from Mexico and China one of our highest foreign policy priorities. We must elevate it up to what we are trying to put together as a plan to fight ISIS. We must put it up there with a plan to ensure that we protect our jobs from copyright or trade infringement. We must elevate this importation of fentanyl to the very highest level of foreign policy concern in our country. I was pleased to see reports of recent cooperation between the United States and China in combating fentanyl trafficking, including a commitment by China to target U.S.-bound exports of substances controlled in the United States and an agreement to increase the exchange of law enforcement and scientific information that can lead to coordinated actions to control substances and chemicals of concern. We are improving information sharing on heroin and fentanyl between our government and Mexico. Next month, Mexico, Canada, and the United States will meet for a North American drug dialogue and focus on commitments to develop a North American approach to combatting illicit opioids, including fentanyl and its precursor chemicals and analogs, but there is so much more we must do. Fentanyl is an overseas invader of a different kind, but it is equally deadly. We must continue to elevate the fight against fentanyl and make it one of our highest national and international priorities. I have introduced a Senate resolution calling for cooperation to stop the trafficking of illicit fentanyl from overseas. It is a bipartisan resolution with the support of Senator Rubio, and I thank my friend Senator Shaheen for cosponsoring this legislation as well. Our resolution expresses the sense of the Senate that the U.S. Government and the Governments of Mexico and China have a shared interest in and responsibility for stopping the trafficking of fentanyl into the United States, and all three countries should develop joint actions to attain that goal. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this resolution and to recognize the grave seriousness of the challenge illicit fentanyl poses to our country and to make stopping the trafficking of that drug into the United States a national priority. Let's be clear. Stopping the overprescription of opioid pain medication that is fueling addiction to heroin and fentanyl and countless overdoses starts with the prescribers. We need to require anyone who prescribes opioid pain medication and other controlled substances to undergo mandatory training on safe prescribing practices and the identification of possible substance use disorders. We need to make sure people who enter the judicial system don't arbitrarily have their Medicaid coverage terminated, making it more difficult to access treatment once they are released and thereby fueling the vicious cycle of reincarceration. We need to make sure all opioids approved by the Food and Drug Administration are first reviewed by independent experts to ensure that those drugs are not only safe and effective but also will not continue to fuel the epidemic of addiction in this country. We need to make sure prescription drug monitoring programs are fully utilized and nationally interoperable in order to prevent doctor shopping, where one doctor doesn't know another doctor has already prescribed a medication or a person moves from one State to another State with multiple doctors prescribing the same prescription drugs. That must end. We must let Big Pharma know their army of lobbyists will be matched by an army of advocates who work every day to raise awareness and save lives. In Boston, there is an area of our city called the Methadone Mile. It is approximately 1 square mile. It is the location of methadone clinics, safety-net hospitals, and homeless shelters. It is also home to those struggling and receiving treatment for addiction and the litany of saints and angels who are providing the desperately needed services for those suffering from mental health and substance abuse disorders. It is a 1 mile, one-stop shop for hope and ground zero in the battle against addiction in Boston. Here in Washington, we are at the epicenter of the Money Mile. It is both an area where Big Pharma's lobbyists toil with the task of ensuring that even during this storm of prescription drug, heroin, and fentanyl overdose deaths, the deluge of prescriptions for opioid-based painkillers goes unabated. According to a story that came out this week from the Associated Press and Center for Public Integrity, the pharmaceutical industry spent more than $880 million nationwide on lobbying and campaign contributions from 2006 through 2015. That is more than eight times what even the NRA and the gun lobby recorded for activities during that time period. When pitted against the Money Mile, the Methadone Mile doesn't stand a chance. The Money Mile and its army of Big Pharma lobbyists are the reason mandatory prescriber education is not the law. It is the reason the Food and Drug Administration has been complicit in many instances in the worsening of this epidemic. Without real funding for opioid addiction treatment, the Methadone Mile and all the other areas in cities across the country will continue to drown in overdoses and deaths. Our cities are fighting a war, and we need to help them. Throughout Massachusetts, people are growing angrier and angrier by the day. They are frustrated by Congress's lack of response to this, and frankly so am I. The deaths caused by this epidemic are growing exponentially every single year, but the only thing that outpaces those deaths are the empty promises of funding made by this Congress. I believe history will judge this Congress by how we responded to the prescription drug, heroin, and fentanyl epidemic that is devastating this country. We have little more than 100 days left in this Congress to do the right thing--100 days to show the American people that partisan politics will not impede our responsibility to respond to what may ultimately become the greatest public health crisis of the 21st century in the United States. The U.S. Congress has an opportunity to let all those who are struggling with addiction know we have heard their stories, help is on the way, and we will not forget them. We must let them know that no matter how dark life seems right now, there is hope, and sunlight will grace them once again. Treatment works, recovery is possible, but this Congress must provide the funding for that treatment and recovery. We must fund the $1.1 billion the President is asking for the opioid crisis in our country. We can no longer turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to that request. Families all across our country desperately need this help. There is a terrorist that is across the streets of every city and town in our country, and it is this opioid epidemic. It is a terrorist that is more deadly for those families in America than anything that is going on in Aleppo. It kills 30,000 people a year, and the numbers are growing on the streets of our country. We know what the cause of it is. We know more treatment is needed for those who are already affected. It is the responsibility of this Congress to provide that funding. As we now talk about a continuing resolution, the Republicans still refuse to talk about funding for this opioid crisis. If we do not deal with this issue, we do not deal with the public health crisis on the streets of our country right now. I urge every Member, regardless of party, to listen to the families of this country, listen to those who are suffering, need help, and are looking to us to give them the assistance they need. These family members are heroes, but heroes need help. They are turning to us, and so far we have not given them the help or the treatment and recovery programs they need. At this point, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, President Obama has issued a proclamation that this week is Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week. As the President explained, we pause to remember all those we have lost to opioid use disorder. We stand with the courageous individuals in recovery, and we recognize the importance of raising awareness of this epidemic. In recognition of Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week, I am here with my colleagues to convey the urgency of responding to this crisis. I want to start my remarks with a story I heard yesterday from a wonderful man named Patrick Byrne. I met yesterday with Patrick, as he was awarded the 2016 Education Award and Hero of the Year Award by the National Association of Letter Carriers. Patrick is from Lynn, MA. He lost his son James Byrne to heroin addiction. Here is their story. James Byrne lived a fairly normal life in many ways. The son of Lynn, MA, Branch 7 president and Army vet Patrick Byrne, James had a good upbringing and strong family ties. He had a master's degree in computer science and made a good living in IT, but throughout his adult life, James had been hooked on heroin, a drug easily found on Lynn's post- industrial streets. James had periods of sobriety, but circumstances always seemed to steal them from him eventually. James had enjoyed 7 months clean of drugs when an old friend and fellow addict called him one day in January of 2014 to beg James to find heroin for him. After first refusing, James gave in and bought some for his friend and apparently couldn't resist using it himself instead. The friend called James on the cell phone over and over as James lay dying of an overdose on the floor of his sister's house just down the street from his father's home. That is where Patrick found him. After making his story public, Patrick heard from many other letter carriers about their own struggles with addiction, depression, or mental illness in their families. Patrick said: ``I was shocked at how many people are dealing with similar problems.'' Inspired by Patrick's experiences and his efforts to educate fellow letter carriers and the broader public about the need to remove the stigma of addiction, the Postal Service Employee Assistance Program launched the Silent No More Initiative. The program is designed to help postal employees or their families break through the stigma and shame to share personal stories. I thank Patrick for his leadership and service, and I pray for his family and for all the parents who are relying on hope and strength as they look for the support to achieve long-term recovery. None of us can be silent anymore in the face of this epidemic. In order to get Patrick and all the families who are suffering the help they need when they need it, the Federal Government needs to invest in funding treatment and recovery programs. So far Congress has failed in this task. In Massachusetts, I am hearing enormous frustration from people who don't feel adequate resources are being brought to bear on this epidemic of prescription drugs and heroin addiction. Countless individuals and families suffering with addiction cannot find a bed for detox. Then, when they are at their most vulnerable moment in recovery, they cannot find a place or provider for long-term treatment. In May, Senator Shaheen from New Hampshire introduced legislation for $600 million in emergency funding to combat this crisis. Then again in July, I and others argued on the floor for the need to invest $1.1 billion into opioid treatment and recovery programs, but both times when Senator Shaheen made the case and others joined on the floor asking for additional funding, all of that was blocked so we could not in fact provide real funding that cities and States need to fight this epidemic. We will not save lives and stop the scourge of addiction with just words and promises. We will not save lives with legislation that pays only lip service to providing treatment. So I stand here during Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week to pledge that I will not stop fighting for funding. In Boston, there is an area of our city called the Methadone Mile. It is approximately 1 square mile. It is the location of methadone clinics, safety net hospitals, and homeless shelters. It is also the home to those struggling with addiction, those receiving treatment for addiction, and the litany of saints and angels who are providing the desperately needed services for those suffering from mental health and substance abuse disorders. It is a 1-mile, one-stop shop for hope and ground zero in the battle against addiction in Boston. Here, in Washington, we are at the epicenter of the Money Mile. It is an area where Big Pharma's lobbyists toil with the task of ensuring that even during the storm of prescription drugs, heroin and fentanyl overdose deaths, the deluge for opioid-based painkillers goes unabated. When pitted against the Money Mile, the Methadone Mile doesn't stand a chance. The Money Mile and its army of Big Pharma lobbyists are the reason mandatory prescriber education is not a law. It is the reason partial-fill prescriptions is not a law. It is the reason the Food and Drug Administration and other Federal agencies and State agencies across our country have not done the job over the years and have in fact been complicit in the worsening of this epidemic. Without real funding for opioid addiction treatment, the Methadone Mile and all the other areas in cities across this country will continue to drown in overdoses and death. Our cities are fighting a war, and we need to help them. With that, I will yield the floor to the Senator from Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar, who has worked tirelessly to stem the oversupply of prescription opioid drugs in this country.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota. Many have already heard these statistics: Our Nation is experiencing more deaths from drug overdoses than from gun violence or auto accidents. Nearly 30,000 people in the United States died from an opioid overdose in 2015. Approximately 1,300 of those were in Massachusetts. Fentanyl, the drug that killed the musician Prince from the State of the Senator from Minnesota, is flowing in from China and Mexico and is laying waste to our communities. It is 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. Approximately 2.5 million Americans abused or were dependent on opioids in 2012, but fewer than 1 million received treatment for their condition. If we do not provide the resources and enact the policies required to change the momentum of this epidemic, we are poised to lose future generations to addiction and death. We need the money for treatment. With that, I would like to yield the floor to my good friend and great Senator from New Hampshire, who has led the fight here on the Senate floor for funding for opioid use disorder treatment and recovery, Mrs. Jeanne Shaheen.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, today we recognize the 25th anniversary of Armenia's independence. On this day each year, we come together to celebrate the strength and indomitable spirit of the Armenian people. For the last 25 years, Armenia has been a key friend and trusted ally of the United States. It is an alliance between our two nations that will only continue to deepen in the years ahead. Armenia has come a long way to free itself from terror and tyranny-- from the Soviet Union and from the horrors of genocide. This journey continues today, with our shared responsibility to ensure that the Armenian people are able to build their own independent and prosperous future. It is our duty to continue to stand with Armenia and with all Armenian people around the globe as they continue this fight. We must keep pushing for truth and never allow the forces of denial to succeed in suppressing our collective memory. We have a responsibility to ensure that the evil that was perpetrated upon the Armenian people is never concealed nor denied. We must heed the words of Pope Francis that it is our duty to continue to honor the memory of those Armenians who perished in the Armenian genocide. I am proud to stand with my colleagues in the Senate to commemorate Armenia's independence and continue to support the Armenian people.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, we are in a race against time. The number of confirmed locally acquired Zika infections in Florida now total 56. In Puerto Rico, it is estimated that 50 pregnant women are infected with Zika each day. There are now 67 countries and territories around the world reporting Zika cases. The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that the agency has exhausted its current funds to combat the Zika virus, but thus far the Republicans have refused to work with the Democrats to actually provide the new funding in the race to find a vaccine. This is simply unacceptable. Last month, I visited Cabo Verde off the coast of Africa. I saw firsthand the devastating impacts of the Zika virus. Through a Catholic Relief Services program, I met with mothers and their infants suffering from microcephaly, the birth defect which causes smaller brains and other developmental defects in newborns. I was able to meet with two loving mothers: Dunia, the mother of Dara; and Suely, who is the mother of Senilson. Both babies were born on June 5, 2016. The first case of microcephaly associated with the Zika virus on Cabo Verde was detected in March, just 6 months after the disease was declared an epidemic in the country. Now there are more than 7,500 reported cases of Zika on Cabo Verde, and the number continues to grow. Zika is a terrifying virus. It is the only known mosquito-borne virus that can cause birth defects and also be sexually transmitted. In addition to microcephaly, Zika also has been connected to neurological effects in individuals of any age, including a link to the onset of Guillain-Barre syndrome, which can cause paralysis for months. One bite from an infected mosquito could damage the course of a life forever. We need only look back a few chapters in our own history books to understand how important it is for humanity to find a vaccine for a virus like Zika. In 1953, there were 35,000 annual cases of polio in the United States. Mothers and fathers all across America were frightened that their children would be next to contract the debilitating disease. Two U.S. researchers, Dr. Albert Sabin and Dr. Jonas Salk, were locked in a historic race to develop a safe and effective polio vaccine. Fortunately, they were both successful. Today, those vaccines have virtually eliminated polio around the world. Now, in 2016, millions of parents and dozens of countries around the world are once again praying that the medical community can be catalyzed to develop a solution for today's global disease threat--the Zika virus. We are fortunate that in today's new race for a cure, there are at least three leading Zika vaccine candidates. Last month, I toured the laboratories at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, which is collaborating with Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Their vaccine candidate has been found to offer universal protection against the Zika virus in laboratory tests. The results were so promising that the vaccine will be tested in a small group of individuals--human beings--this fall. There are two other vaccine candidates also showing positive results. One is made by the National Institutes of Health and the other by Inovio Pharmaceuticals. Both are far enough along that they are already utilizing human subjects, but if the current trials involving just the small groups are successful, we will need to provide much more funding to cover the costs of expanding this research to thousands of participants. That next step in the Zika clinical trials, if both of these candidates that I just mentioned are successful, could cost upward of $100 million to $200 million, beginning as soon as this January, if these clinical trials are successful with small numbers of human beings. That is a small amount of money when one considers that the cost of caring for one infant born with Zika-caused microcephaly will cost potentially up to $10 million through the life of that baby. Six months ago, knowing the impeding and impending threat of Zika once we entered the warm, mosquito-loving, hot summer months, fueled further by climate change, President Obama requested $1.9 billion in emergency funds from Congress to combat Zika, but instead of approving emergency funding at the start of the summer, Republicans, unfortunately, did not finish the business that we should have finished before they recessed Congress for 7 weeks. Families cancelled their summer vacations out of fear, while Republicans made Congress go on a vacation. Meanwhile, cases of Zika on our own soil, in Puerto Rico, and around the world ticked higher and higher. Whether it is Zika, Ebola, SARS, or the next global pandemic, we simply cannot treat every global health threat like a game of Whac-A- Mole. We need a sustainable and comprehensive emergency medical system that is put in place so we can respond to all emerging infectious disease threats. First, we need a Federal fund that is readily available for use when a global disease represents itself. Second, we need a single person at the White House responsible for organizing domestic efforts as well as liaising with our international partners in the face of an infectious disease pandemic. We did this on Ebola. We should do it for every global health threat. The truth is, though, that if on Ebola we had already had a pandemic response team in place, we probably could have cut the amount of death and harm that was done by that disease by a dramatic amount, but the most important thing we need right now is we need the congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and work with Democrats to pass a real and serious response to the Zika crisis, including emergency funding. The fastest way to do this is for the House to bring a bipartisan, Senate-passed $1.1 billion compromise bill to address the Zika epidemic and bring it up for a vote. We have already passed that through the Senate. House Republicans should just take it up, vote on it, and we will get it done. It is only a matter of time before the fear of local transmission in Florida becomes the reality for nearly every State in this Nation. That is why immediate funding is a critical component of the U.S. and global fight against the Zika virus. We have the intellectual capacity to develop faster diagnostic tests, efficient vaccines, and advanced therapeutics with Zika, but what we need now is the financial certainty to support this kind of work in an accelerated way. The next pandemic that awaits the global community is just one frequent flier account away. This crisis demands that Congress pass a Zika funding package as soon as possible. The continuation of vaccine development depends on it, our ability to stop the spread of the virus depends on it, and the lives of millions of people around the world depend on it. We won the race against polio in the 1950s. With accelerated funding, we have the opportunity today with these three vaccine candidates and others on the way to find a safe and effective solution to combat Zika by 2018. It is time to recognize the threat to humankind and the impact such a harmful disease will have on an entire generation of children by ensuring our 21st century scientists--our Sabins and Salks--have the funding they need to banish this virus to the history books. Mr. President, I yield the floor.