Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, the President just announced that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. The President says he wants a better deal. So do a lot of us. The fact is, we need to keep pressure on Iran with additional economic sanctions that will stop it from developing ICBM missiles. That was not part of the Iran nuclear agreement. We need to ratchet up the pressure on Iran in order to stop its ICBM missile program. Pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal is a tragic mistake. It will divide us from our European allies, and it will allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon--a nuclear bomb--within a year, as compared to 7 to 12 years in the future if we stay in the agreement. I think keeping an atomic weapon out of a radical religious outfit like Iran, headed by an Ayatolla, is clearly in the free world's interest. Certainly, it is for the free world. Clearly, it is for the United States, as it is for all of our allies. That is why the United States had such broad support in an agreement that Iran not build a nuclear weapon. Pulling out of this agreement risks all of the unprecedented restrictions on Iran's nuclear program that are in place right now--the hundreds of visits by the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and its ability to get in behind locked doors. Before this agreement, we never had that kind of insight into Iran. Now is the time to continue ramping up the pressure on Iran, not to back off, as pulling out of the agreement will cause us to do. First things first, let's keep restrictions on Iran's nuclear program--the lessened enriched uranium, the complete cementing over of the plutonium plant, the ability to inspect and verify. Then what we ought to be doing is doubling down on Iran's ballistic missile program, on its regional aggression, on its support for terror, and on its human rights violations. It was the tough U.S. and international sanctions that brought Iran to the table in the first place, and it was we in this Congress who enacted many of those economic sanctions. To sum up, we need to put more pressure on Iran with additional economic sanctions to stop it from developing its ICBM missiles, and pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement now is a tragic mistake. It will divide us from our European allies, and it will cause Iran to build a nuclear bomb within a year instead of preventing it from building one for at least 7 to 12 years. That seems, to me, to be a choice that we made at the time we entered this agreement. It seems to be all the more clear today that we ought to continue the agreement. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, today marks a special day. It is the 10th anniversary of the designation of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area. This 120-acre site in Palm Beach County, FL, contains invaluable historic and cultural resources, including an archaeological record showing continuous Native American settlement dating back 5,000 years. Every year, tens of thousands of visitors enjoy tours of the restored 1860 Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and historical grounds, which include the 1892 George Washington Tindall House. The Federal designation also protects the area's rich natural environment along the Indian River Lagoon, which provides habitat for over two dozen State or federally listed species, from the West Indian manatee to the Florida scrub jay. A decade ago, I filed legislation to protect this special area, and on May 8, 2008, President George W. Bush signed it into law, Public Law 110-229. To this day, the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area remains the only unit of the 34-million-acre National Landscape Conservation System east of the Mississippi River. I would like to commend the many partners who help the Department of the Interior take care of this heritage landmark, including the Loxahatchee River Historical Society, Palm Beach County, the town of Jupiter, the village of Tequesta, and the U.S. Coast Guard. Together, we have ensured this area will be preserved for future generations.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I have just returned from Puerto Rico. I went there at the invitation of Governor Rossello. I spent time with his Secretary of Housing. I spent time with members of his executive staff. I went up into the mountains to a city named ``Las Piedras,'' a city of some 30,000 people. According to the mayor, who took me around and showed me a number of the residential neighborhoods, 30 percent of that city does not have electricity. It has been 8 months since the two hurricanes--first Maria and then Irma--hit the island of Puerto Rico, our fellow U.S. citizens. There are still major parts of the island that do not have electricity. In this town of 30,000 people, you go to different locations, and in one particular location farther up in the mountains, there is no electricity. I asked the residents: How are you coping? What do you do? They had a generator, but because of the shortage of fuel and the cost of fuel, they can't run the generator all the time. Basically, they use it for necessities, such as cooking and other chores during the day. Therefore, they have no refrigeration. I asked: What do you do? They showed me. A fellow had just come from the grocery store down the mountain. Every day, they have to go get their groceries that are perishable and cook them and consume them that day because they do not have refrigeration. This is 8 months after the hurricane. Can you imagine that happening in any of our States on the mainland? Can you imagine the degree of anger and insistence that there be a full recovery? Yet this is happening to fellow U.S. citizens on the island of Puerto Rico. They are coping. They are a very industrious and inventive people. As they recover, they are looking at new ways instead of just relying on what in the past has been a dilapidated electrical grid. Tesla has come in. I inspected this pilot project up on top of the mountain. It is an array of solar cells--the most efficient that have been produced--and that array of solar panels is supplying electricity full time to 12 houses up on the mountain. We need more of that. We need more of that as a backup to the electrical grid and in some cases a replacement for the electrical grid since it has been so unreliable in the past. I wanted to bring this report to the Senate. Puerto Rico will make it. Although jobs are scarce, although many thousands have fled to the mainland to stay with relatives, although many of those I met--thank goodness FEMA extended the temporary housing assistance to get those families through the end of the school year, as their children would have been uprooted in the middle of final exams and their graduations would have been disrupted had that temporary assistance not been extended through the end of June. Many of them want to go back, but there is no job to go back to, and there is a home that is now completely filled with mold and mildew. So what do they have to return to? I think we will see some number of them make their new life on the mainland. Many of those, of course, have come to my State of Florida. My report to the Senate is that we have to do more. The Army Corps of Engineers has to keep pressing on with rebuilding the electrical grid. We must also go out and try to set up as many alternate electricity projects--like Tesla--as we can, and hopefully we will see some return to normalcy. You would have thought that 8 months after a hurricane, that would have already occurred. It has not, and I am sad to report this to the Senate. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the April 23, 2018, vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Calendar No. 624, the nomination of Stuart Kyle Duncan to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit. I would have voted nay.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, it is hard to believe, but the entire island of Puerto Rico yesterday descended into darkness. An excavation happened to hit a main line that cut out the electricity of the entire island--3\1/2\ million people--an island that is not a small island; it is a large island. It was a total blackout. Now, 24 hours later, a large number of the people on the island are still in the dark. Tomorrow marks 7 months since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, and yet Puerto Ricans are still dealing with constant setbacks and unreliable power. This is simply unacceptable. Senator Rubio and I have asked the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Committee to conduct an additional oversight hearing on the overall hurricane recovery and get to the bottom of this. I understand this hearing will likely take place next month. In the meantime, this is a widespread power outage. It is the latest example of why so many people who were forced to leave the island after the storm haven't been able to return home, even though they want to. Yet, despite all the island's ongoing troubles, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, said this week it is going to terminate the transitional shelter assistance for more than 1,600 families across the United States, and 600 of them are in my State of Florida. It doesn't make sense. For too many of these displaced families, the only thing keeping a roof over their head right now is the FEMA program, and it is transitional housing assistance. What that means is, they are either in hotels or motels and, in some cases, apartments, where FEMA is providing them temporary shelter because they have been displaced from their homes; in this case, the island of Puerto Rico. Storms like Hurricane Maria did this to the island of Puerto Rico. We have a responsibility to provide them with all the assistance we can. Senator Rubio and I sent a letter to the FEMA Administrator and to Governor Rossello, the Governor of Puerto Rico, urging them to work together to extend this vital program. At the very least, because there are so many of these families who have children in school, to extend it to the end of the school year so the family doesn't have to be uprooted while their child is still in school. I am happy to report that Governor Rossello has made that formal request to FEMA. The deadline is tomorrow. Hopefully, FEMA is listening to the Governor and to the pleas of Senator Rubio and me as well because students and families have had endless disruptions and need some semblance of stability so they can finish out the year. The hard fact is this. The situation in Puerto Rico is far from over. These are our fellow U.S. American citizens, and they desperately need our help. We should be providing them with all the help we can. Mr. President, I want to speak on another topic. (The remarks of Senator Nelson pertaining to the introduction of S. 2720 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. NELSON. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, tomorrow marks another somber occasion. Eight years ago, the news ticker came across our televisions saying that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Louisiana, was on fire, the Coast Guard was on the scene, and workers were missing. It was a Tuesday night. It was nearly midnight on April 20, 2010. By morning light, we knew 11 men would not be going home again. For 87 days, the oil gushed into one of the most productive marine environments in the world. The studies show the oil impacted the deepwater corals and fish at the bottom of the food chain, all the way from the bottom up to the dolphins and sea turtles at the top. Here is one example. This is one in the bayous. You can see the marsh grasses in the distance. You can see the oil as it is coming up, and it is literally covering everything. They did studies on fish that would be in a bayou like this. A little fish, about as big is this, is called a killifish. LSU professors did this study, and they compared them to the bayous where there was not this kind of oil, compared it to similar killifish. What they found over time was the little fish in bayous like this were stunted. They didn't reproduce. They mutated because of this. Nearly 5 million barrels of oil gushed for 3 months. A lot of it is still there. Some of it is at the bottom where that well was, and that wellhead on the sea floor below the rig was a mile deep. We worked as one gulf community in a bipartisan way. We passed legislation--it was called the RESTORE Act--to send a message that there were going to be fines and penalties under the Clean Water Act. So many barrels of oil, a figure, and then the culpability of the oil company that allowed it to happen. A Federal judge did an extended trial over several years and came up with that fine and that penalty. The RESTORE Act said that money that was going to be assessed against the oil company was going back to the Gulf of Mexico region, and it was going to aid in the economy and in the environment. There was another impact. The winds caught that oil slick and started sending it east from Louisiana, and it got over to the white sugary sands of Pensacola Beach in Destin and tar balls as far east as Panama City Beach. Those white sands were completely covered in tar and oil. Those photographs of Pensacola Beach went around the world. What was the result? Our guests, our visitors, our tourists, for an entire season, thought all of the Gulf of Mexico beaches along Florida were covered like Pensacola Beach was, and they didn't come for the entire year. Not only did you have an environmental effect like this, you had an economic effect like the loss of tourist revenue in the hotels, motels, the restaurants, the dry cleaners, the little newspapers, and all the ancillary businesses that depend upon a $60 billion-a-year tourist industry in Florida. Still, I am afraid the oil industry hopes we have forgotten all of this. This month, the media released documents from 2016 in which BP claims that an oilspill can be a welcomed boost to local economies. Can you believe that? This oilspill was in 2010. In 2016, we have just uncovered documents that BP claimed that an oilspill can be ``a welcome boost to local economies.'' How outrageous and how arrogant. I can assure you, the coastal communities of Florida vigorously disagree, and I bet you the coastal communities that had to put up with that in their bayous would disagree vigorously as well. All that progress, and yet the industry is relentless in wanting to take us backward. They still want to open up Florida's beaches and offshore to drilling, and we have to fight it every day. The one thing we also have going for us is, the Gulf of Mexico, off of Florida, is the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world. This Senator just climbed into an Air Force jet to fly part of the training profile for young pilots, knowing they have restricted airspace. That was out of Eglin Air Force Base--the testing and training designee for all of the Department of Defense. We have a range that goes from the Panhandle of Florida all the way south in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Key West. In a one-angle shot, they can shoot sophisticated, long-range weapons 600 miles to do the testing. Big Oil is now trying to roll back some of the basic safety rules that were put in place after the disaster in order to prevent another tragedy. It is happening in front of our eyes. Two years ago, they said that an oilspill could be a welcome boost to the local economies. Yet they are rolling back safety rules today that were put in place in the aftermath of there being 11 people killed on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. They are rolling that back today in this administration's agencies. That is why I am joining Senator Cantwell and other colleagues in introducing legislation to codify these sensible safety measures, like those designed to update the standards for blowout preventers and a requirement for a third party to certify the safety mechanisms. Let me explain what a blowout preventer is. It didn't work in the Deepwater Horizon oilspill. A mile below the surface, where the well comes out of the Earth, there is a thing called a blowout preventer. If, as happened, there is a blowout in BP's oil well, there is a mechanism that is supposed to safely cut the oil line--pinch it and stop it from flowing. It was faulty. It did not work. So there have been new standards for blowout preventers since 2010. In 2018, 8 years later, the oil industry is trying to roll back those safety requirements that were put in place in the aftermath of their spilling 5 million barrels of oil into the gulf. Do you see the fight that we have? It is almost every week. We can't allow the Department of the Interior to take us backward in time and expose our beautiful beaches and our tourism-based local economies, as well as our military, to another Deepwater Horizon-type catastrophe if they keep pushing back these safety rules. That is the purpose of introducing this legislation today with Senator Cantwell. If we don't watch it, we are going to be right back in the same place we were 8 years ago. It will be 8 years ago to the day tomorrow that we had that awful experience.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, tomorrow marks another somber occasion. Eight years ago, the news ticker came across our televisions saying that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Louisiana, was on fire, the Coast Guard was on the scene, and workers were missing. It was a Tuesday night. It was nearly midnight on April 20, 2010. By morning light, we knew 11 men would not be going home again. For 87 days, the oil gushed into one of the most productive marine environments in the world. The studies show the oil impacted the deepwater corals and fish at the bottom of the food chain, all the way from the bottom up to the dolphins and sea turtles at the top. Here is one example. This is one in the bayous. You can see the marsh grasses in the distance. You can see the oil as it is coming up, and it is literally covering everything. They did studies on fish that would be in a bayou like this. A little fish, about as big is this, is called a killifish. LSU professors did this study, and they compared them to the bayous where there was not this kind of oil, compared it to similar killifish. What they found over time was the little fish in bayous like this were stunted. They didn't reproduce. They mutated because of this. Nearly 5 million barrels of oil gushed for 3 months. A lot of it is still there. Some of it is at the bottom where that well was, and that wellhead on the sea floor below the rig was a mile deep. We worked as one gulf community in a bipartisan way. We passed legislation--it was called the RESTORE Act--to send a message that there were going to be fines and penalties under the Clean Water Act. So many barrels of oil, a figure, and then the culpability of the oil company that allowed it to happen. A Federal judge did an extended trial over several years and came up with that fine and that penalty. The RESTORE Act said that money that was going to be assessed against the oil company was going back to the Gulf of Mexico region, and it was going to aid in the economy and in the environment. There was another impact. The winds caught that oil slick and started sending it east from Louisiana, and it got over to the white sugary sands of Pensacola Beach in Destin and tar balls as far east as Panama City Beach. Those white sands were completely covered in tar and oil. Those photographs of Pensacola Beach went around the world. What was the result? Our guests, our visitors, our tourists, for an entire season, thought all of the Gulf of Mexico beaches along Florida were covered like Pensacola Beach was, and they didn't come for the entire year. Not only did you have an environmental effect like this, you had an economic effect like the loss of tourist revenue in the hotels, motels, the restaurants, the dry cleaners, the little newspapers, and all the ancillary businesses that depend upon a $60 billion-a-year tourist industry in Florida. Still, I am afraid the oil industry hopes we have forgotten all of this. This month, the media released documents from 2016 in which BP claims that an oilspill can be a welcomed boost to local economies. Can you believe that? This oilspill was in 2010. In 2016, we have just uncovered documents that BP claimed that an oilspill can be ``a welcome boost to local economies.'' How outrageous and how arrogant. I can assure you, the coastal communities of Florida vigorously disagree, and I bet you the coastal communities that had to put up with that in their bayous would disagree vigorously as well. All that progress, and yet the industry is relentless in wanting to take us backward. They still want to open up Florida's beaches and offshore to drilling, and we have to fight it every day. The one thing we also have going for us is, the Gulf of Mexico, off of Florida, is the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world. This Senator just climbed into an Air Force jet to fly part of the training profile for young pilots, knowing they have restricted airspace. That was out of Eglin Air Force Base--the testing and training designee for all of the Department of Defense. We have a range that goes from the Panhandle of Florida all the way south in the Gulf of Mexico, off of Key West. In a one-angle shot, they can shoot sophisticated, long-range weapons 600 miles to do the testing. Big Oil is now trying to roll back some of the basic safety rules that were put in place after the disaster in order to prevent another tragedy. It is happening in front of our eyes. Two years ago, they said that an oilspill could be a welcome boost to the local economies. Yet they are rolling back safety rules today that were put in place in the aftermath of there being 11 people killed on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. They are rolling that back today in this administration's agencies. That is why I am joining Senator Cantwell and other colleagues in introducing legislation to codify these sensible safety measures, like those designed to update the standards for blowout preventers and a requirement for a third party to certify the safety mechanisms. Let me explain what a blowout preventer is. It didn't work in the Deepwater Horizon oilspill. A mile below the surface, where the well comes out of the Earth, there is a thing called a blowout preventer. If, as happened, there is a blowout in BP's oil well, there is a mechanism that is supposed to safely cut the oil line--pinch it and stop it from flowing. It was faulty. It did not work. So there have been new standards for blowout preventers since 2010. In 2018, 8 years later, the oil industry is trying to roll back those safety requirements that were put in place in the aftermath of their spilling 5 million barrels of oil into the gulf. Do you see the fight that we have? It is almost every week. We can't allow the Department of the Interior to take us backward in time and expose our beautiful beaches and our tourism-based local economies, as well as our military, to another Deepwater Horizon-type catastrophe if they keep pushing back these safety rules. That is the purpose of introducing this legislation today with Senator Cantwell. If we don't watch it, we are going to be right back in the same place we were 8 years ago. It will be 8 years ago to the day tomorrow that we had that awful experience.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, before the Senator from New Jersey leaves the floor, I want to say, this Senator has run into few people who are as articulate and passionate to represent the least among us in our country. I want the Senator from New Jersey to know how grateful I am for his advocacy, for his determination, for his civility, for his passion, and for his heart. I thank the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, before this sounds like an admiration society, I will say it is genuinely felt. Nomination of James Bridenstine Mr. President, what I want to do is talk about the leadership of our civilian space program. Traditionally, the NASA administrator has been well qualified and is not controversial. NASA is one of the few remaining areas that has largely avoided the bitter partisanship that has invaded far too many areas of government in our society today--until now. The NASA nominee, Congressman Bridenstine, was nominated to head NASA last fall. His hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee was among the most contentious I have ever been a part of. He was voted out of the committee on party lines, and Senators on both sides of the aisle have expressed doubts, both publicly and privately, to me on his qualifications for the job. The NASA Administrator should be a consummate space professional. That is what this Senator wants, a space professional, not a politician, as the head of NASA. That space professional ought to be technically and scientifically competent and a skilled executive. More importantly, the Administrator must be a leader who has the ability to bring us together, to unite scientists, engineers, commercial space interests, policymakers, and the public on a shared vision for future space exploration. As you know, our goal is going to Mars in the decade of the 2030s. We set the goal first with the Obama administration and now with the Trump administration. What pains me is, I believe the one who has been nominated to head this not partisan, not bipartisan--NASA has always been nonpartisan--agency, I am afraid we are hitting a different standard. My concern comes from having witnessed very directly the tragic consequence when NASA leadership has failed us. When it comes to the ultimate frontier of space, there are always going to be risks involved, but the NASA Administrator bears the responsibility, accountability, and the final decision for the lives of astronauts who explore the heavens on behalf of all of us. I have personally witnessed--in both the Challenger and the Columbia accidents, we learned that engineers at NASA knew of the dangers and tried to sound the alarm, but NASA's management and its structure, while well-intentioned in both of those tragedies, filtered out debate and dissent, and the warnings of the engineers went unheeded with heartbreaking consequences. And so it was, in 1986, with the launch of the Challenger--10 days after this Senator had returned on the 24th flight of the space shuttle to Earth--there was the tragic consequence. Even the engineers out in Provo, UT, who were engineers on the solid rocket boosters, were begging their management the night before the launch to stop the count when they saw on NASA TV the icicles hanging on the launch tower. We learned later in the investigation, knowing as we now know, that they had received back the solid rocket boosters from previous flights in January, where they saw blow-by of the hot gases past the field joints that were supposed to be sealed with the rubberized gaskets, called O rings, but because of the cold weather, they stiffened and did not seal the field joint, and the hot gases escaped. As the Challenger was traveling into the Florida sky, it hit right at the external tank, punctured the tank, and the crew was lost. So, too, engineers in 2003 and before and crew members--like one of the best of the best, CAPT Robert Gibson, U.S. Navy, Retired, five-time shuttle astronaut, four-time commander--had pointed out after each flight, examining the orbiter, that it looked as though it had been shredded. In his words: It was as if you had taken a shotgun out and just shot buckshot into the delicate silicon tile. As a result, on launch, on ascent, pieces of the foam of the external tank were falling off and hitting the delicate silicon tiles of the space shuttle orbiter. Of course, on that fateful day in early February of 2003, that is exactly what happened. A chunk of the insulation foam just about the size of an insulated cooler, on ascent, as the orbiter is accelerating, falls in the acceleration and hits the carbon-carbon fiber of the leading edge of the left wing and knocks a hole in it. Of course, on ascent to orbit, there is no problem; on orbit, there is no problem. The problem comes after the deorbit burn and after the space shuttle falls for 30 minutes through the vacuum of space and then starts encountering the molecules of air in the upper atmosphere. As those upper atmosphere air molecules hit the underside of the space shuttle, the nose of the space shuttle, and the leading edges of the wing, the temperatures grow to over 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and there is a big hole in the leading edge of the left wing. Of course, the left wing burns up, and the crew is destroyed high in the descent over east Texas. NASA's management structure, well-intentioned, filtered out debate and dissent, did not listen to those astronaut commanders like Hoot Gibson, and did not listen years earlier, in 1985 and 1986, to those engineers at Morton Thiokol. The result is the loss of 2 space shuttles and 14 souls, including on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon. In the aftermath of Columbia, NASA was reorganized so that safety concerns from engineering and safety personnel are not squashed like they were, but instead elevated--ultimately, to whom? To the guy at the top, the NASA Administrator. To make those decisions, the Administrator must draw on all of his or her knowledge of the engineering principles and of space flight, all of his or her experience from managing large technical organizations, and every bit of judgment, reason, and impartiality he or she can muster. Leading NASA is a job for an experienced and proven space professional. The success or failure of leadership at NASA is, quite literally, a matter of life and death. I commend Congressman Bridenstine's time as a pilot, and his service to our country in the military is commendable. But it does not qualify him to make the complex and nuanced engineering, safety, and budgetary decisions for which the head of NASA has to be accountable. Furthermore, Congressman Bridenstine's recent public service career does not instill great confidence about his ability to bring people together. His record of behavior in Congress is as divisive as any in Washington, including his attacks on Members of this body from his own party. It is hard to see how that record will endear him--and, by extension, NASA--to Congress and, most importantly, endear him to the American people. Finally, given NASA's mission to study the Earth--that is one of NASA's missions--Congressman Bridenstine's past statements on climate change are troubling, to say the least. Particularly in this administration where words like ``science-based'' and ``climate change'' are being scrubbed from government documents and where some scientists have been restricted from speaking publicly about scientific findings, NASA needs an Administrator--a leader, a strong leader--who understands the critical importance of studying the Earth and is willing to put his job on the line to protect NASA's scientists. Congressman Bridenstine's record suggests that he will do otherwise. I don't come to this decision lightly. I hold nothing against him personally. He is a very likable fellow. My decision is not politically motivated. In fact, I supported the nomination of Chief Financial Officer Jeff DeWit because he was qualified for the job as Chief Financial Officer, and he was confirmed without a problem and is in that job. Of course, if Congressman Bridenstine is, in fact, confirmed, I will work with him for the good of our Nation's space program. My opposition to this nomination comes from decades of experience and an understanding of NASA's history and having lived through some of its darkest moments. I have no doubt that the nominee is passionate about our space program, and I don't doubt his motivation or his intentions. What is not right for NASA is an Administrator who is politically divisive and who is not prepared to be the last in line to make that fateful decision on go or no-go for launch. Therefore, I will oppose this nominee. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to recognize my friend and colleague Senator Cochran of Mississippi. On April 1, the Senate will lose a tremendous public servant. Between the House and Senate, Senator Cochran devoted nearly 46 years of service to his State, and I am sad to hear it is coming to an end. The son of two educators and a fellow 4-H alumnus, Senator Cochran knows the importance of serving his community. In 1973, he answered the call to represent the people of Mississippi and hasn't stopped since. As outgoing chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran leaves a legacy of providing many victories to Florida. From funding the restoration of the Everglades, to ensuring our Nation's military has enough funding to defend our country, Senator Cochran's enduring contributions are to be commended. I think TIME Magazine said it right when Senator Cochran was selected as one of America's 10 Best Senators in 2006, accurately dubbing him the ``quiet persuader'' after he secured nearly $29 billion for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts in our Gulf Coast. His proven bipartisanship will be remembered by the people of Mississippi and by his colleagues here in the Senate. I am proud to have served with Senator Cochran, and we will all miss his leadership. I wish him well on his next endeavor. Mr. CARDIN, Mr. President, while we are all looking forward to the Passover-Easter recess, wrapping up our work this week feels bittersweet because, when we return on April 9, our dear friend and colleague Thad Cochran will not be returning with us. It is fitting, given his retirement, that we passed the fiscal year 2018 Omnibus Appropriations Act since the senior Senator from Mississippi deserves so much of the credit for negotiating that package and getting it to the floor. Senator Cochran was born and raised in Mississippi in a close-knit family that valued academic achievement, civic engagement, and hard work. Both of his parents were teachers. Senator Cochran was an Eagle Scout. He earned varsity letters in football, basketball, baseball, and tennis at Byram High School, where he gave a piano and voice recital his senior year, and he graduated as class valedictorian. Senator Cochran attended the University of Mississippi, where he was student body vice president and earned a bachelor of arts degree with a major in psychology and a minor in political science. After he graduated, he was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve and assigned to duty aboard the USS Macon, a heavy cruiser homeported in Boston, MA. After Senator Cochran completed his tour of Active Duty in the Navy, he attended the school of law at the University of Mississippi. While in law school, he won an award for having the highest scholastic average in the first-year class, served on the editorial board of the Mississippi Law Journal, and argued before the Mississippi Supreme Court as a moot court finalist. He was awarded a Rotary Foundation graduate fellowship and studied jurisprudence and international law for a year at Trinity College in Dublin before returning to Ole Miss for his final year of law school. Senator Cochran's law school grade point average was the third highest of all students who graduated from the Ole Miss law school during the 1960s. Senator Cochran joined the law firm of Watkins & Eager in Jackson, MS, and was made a partner in less than 3 years. It was around this time that he became a Republican, and in 1972, he elected to Congress to represent the Fourth District. He became just the second Republican to be elected to represent Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives since Reconstruction, after Prentiss Walker was the first in 1964. He won reelection twice, in each instance with more than 70 percent of the vote. In 1978, Senator Cochran became the first Republican in more than 100 years to win a statewide election in Mississippi when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He has since been reelected six times. Last March, he became the tenth longest serving Senator in U.S. history. Our Nation and the State of Mississippi have benefited from Senator Cochran's long service. His legislative accomplishments are too numerous to list here, but I will highlight a few. First, Senator Cochran has been a champion of a strong national defense, both as chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the Subcommittee on Defense. Second, he has been a champion of America's farmers and ranchers through his long service on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, which he also chaired. Third, he has been a champion for education and our Nation's cultural institutions, including the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian Institution, serving as a regent. He has a passion for education. I mentioned that his parents were teachers; so, too, is his daughter. Senator Cochran has worked hard to improve educational opportunities for students in Mississippi and across the country. He has advocated for early childhood education, literacy programs, teacher development, vocational education, arts education, year-round Pell grants, and the Promise Neighborhood Program. He has increased funding for title I and to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In 2005, Senator Cochran spearheaded the effort to secure more than $87 billion in supplemental Federal assistance to Mississippi and the other Gulf Coast States devastated by Hurricane Katrina. More recently, he coauthored the `RESTORE the Gulf Coast Act' to help Gulf Coast States recover from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He helped develop, maintain, and improve the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Natchez National Historical Park, the Vicksburg National Military Park, and the Gulf Islands National Seashore. In addition, he authored provisions to promote National Park Service efforts to research and preserve sites associated with the Civil Rights movement. Senator Cochran is a sportsman and a conservationist in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt. He authored the Mississippi Wilderness Act, which was the first Federal legislation ever passed for the perpetual protection of lands in the State of Mississippi. He helped to establish national wildlife refuges as a member of the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, and he authored the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program. He has received numerous awards from conservation groups, including Ducks Unlimited, the North American Waterfowl Federation, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Nature Conservancy. I could go on, but I hope this summary of just some of Senator Cochran's accomplishments is sufficient to illustrate how remarkably effective he has been over a long and distinguished career in public service. Senator Cochran is an exemplary public servant. In 2006, TIME magazine selected him as one of ``America's 10 Best Senators''--a distinction I am sure no one in this Chamber would dispute. TIME called him the ``quiet persuader''--an apt description--and commented on his ``courtly manner.'' We use the term ``gentleman'' frequently here in the Senate, perhaps too frequently sometimes, but Senator Cochran truly is a gentleman, and he is a gentle man. He doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't solicit attention to himself. He goes about his work quietly but effectively. His word is his bond. The Senate is a better place because of his service, and we will miss him. Rather than feel sorrow over his imminent departure, I feel gratitude that we are so fortunate he chose a life of public service and I have had the privilege of serving with him here in the Senate for the past 12 years. I wish all the best for our dear friend from Mississippi, his wife, Kay, and the rest of his family and thank them for their willingness to share him with us.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Ohio for his gracious comments. I just simply want to say my part as to why it is so important that we pass this legislation, because it is very obvious that an untold number of women and children in the United States are being sold into sexual slavery via the internet, and we now have an opportunity to do something about it by passing this legislation. It is so bad. With just a few clicks or a few punches on an iPhone, victims from all walks of life and across all parts of the country are being forced into brutal slavery and unspeakable crimes. I want to repeat that. I want Americans to understand what is going on behind the scenes. Women and children are being forced into sex slavery in modern-day America. It could very well happen to someone you know. We have continuing stories in our history of what happened when slavery was brought to the New World--first, to Arabia, off the East Coast of Africa, and then, of course, the European nations later were going down with their ship captains. The Portuguese actually ended up having the most slaves transported to the New World by way of South America. The English and most European nations got into the act of these unspeakable crimes, slave ships going down the west coast of Africa, enslaving Africans themselves or by agreement with a particular tribe that would go out and capture members of an opposing tribe. We have heard, over and over, the untold stories of the inhumanity of stacking people body-to-body in the holds of these slave ships. It finally took a civil war to settle the issue. That was slavery. That was slavery we opposed and now all of our laws try to protect against, but here in modern-day America, the same thing is happening, and it is happening because of the advances of technology using the internet. If this is not a wake-up call, I simply don't know what is. According to the human trafficking hotline, my State of Florida has consistently ranked in the top five States in human trafficking cases. Florida was third in the country for the number of cases reported in 2016 and 2017, and that is just what we know about. It is just unacceptable, and it is wrong. Tens of thousands of Americans, predominantly women and children, are subjected to this horrific reality. You can imagine the pain and the suffering they are subjected to. No one in the country should have to endure this kind of forced slavery. No child or woman in Florida, in America, should ever be trafficked for sex. To even contemplate that should offend any person's sense of decency and humanity. The question before the Senate today, thanks to the leadership of a number of our colleagues is, Why aren't we going to do everything we can to stop these heinous crimes? The bill we are considering on the Senate floor would help us shut down despicable websites that enable this sex trafficking. Don't kid yourself. These shady and these highly profitable website operators know full well how their sites are being used. What is more, they are hiding behind a decades-old legal shield to immunize themselves from prosecution. We have to change that legal shield that was set up a decade ago for a different purpose. The bill sponsored by Senators Portman, Blumenthal, McCain, Heitkamp, and myself--and now many others--would eliminate the safe harbor in law for sex traffickers, and it would allow State attorneys general, other State and local prosecutors, and the victims themselves to go after the websites that knowingly provide a platform for sex trafficking. It would also make key changes to Federal criminal law to enable law enforcement to better target websites. The purpose of the legislation is simple. Let's get it passed, get it signed into law, and let all of these various law enforcement entities be able to do their job. This legislation is an extensive bipartisan product by our congressional colleagues. It proves, once again, what we ought to be doing around here on almost everything, and yet we rarely do. It proves, once again, that if you cross party lines and put things together in a bipartisan way, you can tackle the important, lifesaving issues, such as this one, and we can get something done. Let's show today that we can get something done that really makes a difference to Americans. It is a privilege for me to be involved in a bipartisan way with this legislation and to have worked with our Commerce Committee to get a unanimous vote out of the committee. I hope this legislation is going to serve as a wake-up call to the morally bankrupt website operators: We are coming after you. It seems like every day there are new ways that many bad actors are exploiting internet content and data to undermine society. Obviously, the internet has been magnificent for so many of us, but now when technology advances, you have to be on your guard about how new technology is used for the bad operators. This bill is going to address that. We can't sit by idly any longer. We have to act today. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Wyden and I be permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each prior to the vote.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, this Saturday, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, are going to lead hundreds of thousands of Americans all around the country in calling for commonsense gun control measures at the March For Our Lives. Since this terrible shooting in Parkland, FL, on Valentine's Day, we have seen students all across the country say: Enough. This is a movement that cannot be stopped, and, frankly, we owe it to the students--the next generation--to get this right in the policies and the laws we adopt. Just a few weeks ago, I went to one of the student's homes in Parkland--a group of them. We talked. Indeed, just last week, a number of the students came to my office here in Washington. It is amazing that at 15, 16, and 17 years old, these students are looking to us in this Congress to, at a minimum, consider legislation that could have prevented the slaughter that happened in Parkland just a month ago. In Florida, we have witnessed these students march on the State capitol and demand action. The legislature listened, in part. They made some changes in the law, like changing the age to 21 to buy an assault rifle. That is the same age in Florida law that says you can't buy a handgun until age 21. It was a small step, but it was a step in the right direction to address the problem we are confronting, but we need to do more. I am so grateful for the resilience of these students, the power of their voices, and the strength of their activism, moving the lawmakers in Washington and in State capitals all across this country to act. The students, the parents, the teachers, all of them we have asked: What do you want? And they say, obviously, we want commonsense things. We can start with universal background checks in the purchase of a weapon. That would then allow, universally, if you have a background check, you couldn't go to a gun show where there is not a federally licensed dealer and acquire a weapon without having a background check. Why is having a background check a commonsense thing to do? Because you not only pick up someone with a criminal record, you would pick up someone who had a restraining order for whatever reason--it could be mental, it could be domestic abuse. You would pick up somebody being on the terrorist watch list or you could pick up someone who had been on the terrorist watch list. That was the case with the killer in the Orlando Pulse Night Club shooting. Clearly, that is a commonsense thing to approach this problem. There is another commonsense thing; that is, these military assault rifles with the long--what I call the banana clips. These are clips that are shaped like a banana or even straight ones that hold 30 rounds. You know, there are State laws in the country that if you are going to hunt wild game, there are certain restrictions on the number of shells or bullets you can put in your gun. My goodness, why wouldn't we want to say there is a limitation on the number of bullets in a clip instead of these long clips that have 30 rounds? It was used even in the shooting out in Arizona that our colleague Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was one of the victims of, and it was when the gunman was reloading with another clip that he was tackled to the ground; otherwise, there would have been more people who would have been harmed that day. So it is another commonsense thing that people are asking for and that these students are bringing to light as they argue this case; that they don't want to be in a school where they have this kind of violence that is threatened. The students, the teachers, the parents just want our schools and our communities to be safe. As we have seen across the country, we have had too much violence with these military-style weapons. Nightclubs, churches, movie theaters, outdoor concerts--it goes on and on. Students want to feel safe, and what some students have witnessed is unimaginable. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. NELSON. The velocity of a bullet fired from an assault weapon compared to the velocity of a handgun is three times the velocity or speed of the handgun bullet. As a result, when that bullet hits its target, the energy is nine times that hitting the target than what a handgun bullet does. They built a movement now that inspires student walks across the country. In just 5 days, they are inspiring marches across the country, and the future is bright because of these students. But it is up to us to make sure that what happened in Parkland never happens again. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, before the Senator from Virginia leaves, since he is the cochairman of the United States-Spain Council, I want him to hear my very brief remarks. As will be officially announced today at 4 o'clock on the new website, La Florida, the following has been discovered by historian Dr. Michael Francis, of the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg, who is one of the eminent Spanish colonial scholars in the world: The first St. Patrick's Day was not in Boston in 1737. Neither was the first St. Patrick's Day parade in New York in 1762. As discovered by Dr. Francis in the Spanish archives in Seville, the first St. Patrick's Day was celebrated by an Irish priest, Richard Arthur, better known as Ricardo Arturo, in St. Augustine in 1600, to be followed by the first St. Patrick's Day parade in the New World, in St. Augustine, in 1601. Needless to say, it is not going to make our friends in Boston and New York happy to hear that they have been eclipsed by well over a century and a half. However, it shows the strong roots of the Irish people in America all the way back to Saint Patty's Day in 1600 in St. Augustine, FL. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, we have a series of Senators who are going to be speaking about what is happening as a result of climate change and sea level rise, which is having its effects in my State of Florida, particularly. Few States are as vulnerable to climate change than what we find particularly in South Florida, Miami Beach being Ground Zero. What is happening as the sea level is rising--and these are not projections, they are not forecasts; these are actually measurements, measurements by NASA and NOAA over the last 40 years that the sea has risen in South Florida 5 to 8 inches. We see the effects of that at the seasonal high tides--now, more increasingly, along with the cycles of the Moon each month. Water, typically, is sloshing around in streets and sloshing over the curves. As a result, the city of Miami Beach has had to spend tens of millions of dollars on huge, expensive pumps and has also had to raise the level of the roadbeds. NOAA's most recent worst-case scenario projections predict a 2-foot sea level rise by 2060 and, if we take it all the way to the end of the century, 6 feet by 2100. Needless to say, in a peninsula that sits in the middle of what we know as Hurricane Highway, 6 feet would inundate so much of the coastal areas. By the way, the population of Florida is 21 million people, and 75 percent is along the coastal regions. That puts all of the entire Nation's low-lying coastal cities at risk of major flooding, not to mention our military installations along the coast. The seas are not just rising; they are also warming, and they are rising because they are warming. Of course, I have explained this several times on the floor of the Senate: As the Sun's rays come in and hit the Earth, some of the heat is absorbed, but some of it is reflected off the Earth's surface and is radiated out into space. When you put up an extra abundance of greenhouse gases--mainly carbon dioxide and methane--and they move into the upper atmosphere, they serve like a glass ceiling of a greenhouse; thus, the term, the ``greenhouse'' effect. Then, as that heat is reflected off the Earth that would normally radiate out into space, it is trapped and, thus, the entire Earth starts to heat. Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans, and 90 percent of that heat is absorbed into the oceans. What happens to water when it is heated? It expands. So we see the reasons that warmer water means the sea levels rise. Do you know what else it produces? More frequent and more ferocious hurricanes. After the back-to-back punch of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, imagine how much we would have to spend in Federal disaster aid if we had a hurricane season like last year every year. That is why it is so critical to continue funding climate and weather research and to keep improving NOAA's hurricane models. This information can make the difference in a life-or-death situation. We saw what havoc the hurricanes visited upon Texas and then Florida after it had already crossed Puerto Rico, but then along comes Maria, and it hits the island directly. As of today, 5, going on 6, months after the hurricane, the poor island of Puerto Rico--our fellow American citizens--17 percent today do not still have electricity. So, indeed, there has been a lot more loss of life as a result of hurricanes. Our coastline in Florida is blessed, as a hurricane is approaching, with a natural breakwater. It is called the Florida Reef Tract. It is along the southeastern coast. Of all the major barrier reefs in the entire world, Florida has the third largest. It starts south of Key West and continues all the way up the Keys, north, up to Fort Pierce, FL. This Florida reef is the only barrier reef in the continental United States. Healthy reefs are able to reduce storm damage by taking a lot of the impact, but climate change, ocean acidification, and an unprecedented coral disease outbreak are hurting Florida's reefs and diminishing their ability to act as a shoreline buffer. I am not even talking about all the other things that reefs do--which is the natural place for all the fish and critters of the sea to gather, swimming in and around and among all of the coral reefs. That is why, last week, I wrote a letter to the Secretaries of Commerce, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services calling for an interagency strike team to be formed to finally diagnose the coral disease in an attempt to save the remaining reefs. I want to show an example of the difference between a healthy reef and a diseased reef. Look at the difference. Here is the healthy coral. Look how the diseased reef has actually been bleached out. So time is running out on this third largest barrier reef on the planet. We have to respond to the causes and effects of climate change now. The longer we put it off, the harder and more expensive it is going to be to mitigate. I thank Senator Whitehouse and my fellow colleagues who are speaking out on this critical mission. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, Florida recently approved the placement of a statue of a truly inspirational woman, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, in the National Statuary Hall here in Washington, DC. Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian, and civil rights activist. In 1904, Dr. Bethune founded Literature and Industrial Training School for African- American students in Daytona Beach, FL, now Bethune-Cookman University. She founded and was the president of the State Federation of Colored Women's Club, where she led the fight against school segregation and healthcare inequality. Dr. Bethune also served as president of the National Association of Colored Women's Club and founded the National Council of Negro Women. Dr. Bethune became the first African-American woman to head a Federal agency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her administrative assistant for Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration. She advised the President on concerns of African Americans and helped deliver his message and achievements with the African American community. Dr. Bethune became known as the First Lady of the Struggle because of her commitment to improve the lives of African Americans. Dr. Bethune maintained high standards and attracted tourists and donors to Bethune-Cookman College. She was president of the college from 1923 to 1942 and 1946 to 1947, one of the few women in the world to serve as a college president at that time.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, so many are still grieving from the atrocious killing of 17 people at the high school in Florida. Indeed, our entire State is grieving. Broward County is grieving. Parkland is grieving. I think we are going to find on March 24, in the rallies and the marches that will occur in 500 cities around this country and will have a focus of the main one in Washington, that a lot of people are grieving, because a lot of people all across this country have been touched by these massacres that continue to occur, starting almost three decades ago at Columbine in Colorado. We have certainly had our fill of it in Florida just in the last 2 years: 49 people gunned down with an assault rifle, a Sig Sauer MCX, at the Pulse nightclub; another assault pistol used to gun down 5 people in the Fort Lauderdale Airport; and now an AR-15 used to gun down 17. He would have gotten a lot more had he been able to open the third-story window overlooking the courtyard from a perch as the students fled across the courtyard to get out of the schoolyard. He couldn't get the window open. He tried to shoot it open, but it was hurricane-proof glass, and it only shattered; it didn't break. It has been almost 1 month since the tragic shooting. Those 17 families--14 students and 3 adults--are certainly grieving, and we have seen in the last few weeks many of the parents, students, families, and community leaders stand up to say that enough is enough. They are asking us, the U.S. Congress, to enact meaningful legislation to reduce gun violence. The action starts in Tallahassee, and the students are going there while the State legislature is still in session, talking about commonsense solutions, such as enacting universal background checks in the purchase of a gun; not allowing a gun show loophole or a private transaction loophole; not allowing a loophole for orders on the internet; universal background checks that would include mental problems; if you have been on the terrorist watch list, that would include, of course, criminal records but also mentally adjudicated records; universal background checks in the acquisition of a gun, particularly an assault rifle. But we can't get that passed here because some folks aren't listening. Take, for example, what was said at the White House just last night. Giving in to the will of the NRA, the White House announced that it would provide Federal funding for firearms training for teachers and other school personnel. This Senator thinks that arming teachers is a terrible idea. It is not what the students are asking for. It is not what the teachers are asking for. It is not what the American people want us to do. Just last week, the Florida legislature passed and the Governor signed into law a bill--a watered-down version, but it is still arming school personnel, and it falls short on what is really needed to reduce gun violence and especially the massacres that are occurring. While what Florida has done is a step in the right direction, particularly with regard to mandating 3-day waiting periods in the purchase of an assault rifle, we are far from where we need to be in addressing gun violence if we are talking about putting more guns in our schools, and if--as the President suggested last night--we arm teachers. The teachers don't want it, and I can tell you who else doesn't want it. The SWAT teams that have to storm the building looking for the shooter don't want to encounter a teacher with a gun and mistakenly think that teacher is the shooter. It is common sense. What studies do supporters of this idea cite, suggesting that arming teachers will reduce gun violence at schools? Why even propose this solution before seeing what policies are proposed by a new Federal commission on school safety, which has now been developed? Why don't we at least see what they are proposing? No, this is to sell more guns by arming teachers. I have spoken to many teachers, students, and families. I haven't found one person who wants teachers to be armed, including the teachers themselves. There is near universal agreement that arming teachers is a terrible idea. Yet such an idea continues to direct Congress's attention away from obvious and commonsense solutions supported by most Americans, which are universal background checks and getting the assault rifles and banana clips that have 30 rounds off the streets. I have supported several bipartisan bills--some with my colleague from Florida, Senator Rubio--that address background check issues and seek to make sure our schools have the resources to keep our students safe. Senator Rubio and I announced last week that if there are red flags, they need to be brought to the attention of law enforcement. We are offering in our bill a Federal incentive program to the States to get those red flags about a problem person to the authorities before it is too late. But ideas like arming teachers and putting more guns in our schools are just plain dangerous. Mr. President, I know you have backed off of certain things because the NRA wanted you to, and I know you are now proposing arming teachers. Let's get down to some real commonsense solutions. Let's work on how to prevent assault weapons from getting into the wrong hands and to stop the massacres that continue to plague this country. The people of America want no less. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I join our colleagues who have spoken about the concern of the Russian cyber attacks on this country. Every day that passes, we gather new information about how Russia, at Vladimir Putin's direction, has gone about interfering by committing cyber attacks on this country, not only in its stealing names and personal information but now in its interfering in our elections. In a long indictment, Special Counsel Robert Mueller spelled out how the so-called Internet Research Agency--a front in Russia--created fake accounts on social media and other internet platforms. It spread divisive content, and it even organized political rallies in the United States with the help of unwitting Americans--all backed by one of Putin's cronies through a so-called catering company. This indictment tells a pretty remarkable and alarming story, and if you are still not sure what this was all about, just read the Internet Research Agency's own words: ``information warfare against the United States of America.'' That says it all. I know there has been a lot of discussion about Russian interference in our elections, and there should be. We have to get to the bottom of this. It is coming fast and furious, and it is going to be happening in the elections this year. We know what Russia did in the last election. Just as the CIA Director and the Director of National Intelligence told us, we know, in their words, that Russia will do it again. The more we learn, though, the more it becomes clear that we are not doing enough to protect ourselves from further attacks. This is not a partisan issue; it is an attack on the very foundation of our democracy. At a time when it is getting harder and harder to come together as a country--when polarization is so rampant, when excessive partisanship is so evident--what Russia is doing is particularly sinister. It is trying to exacerbate our divisions and undermine Americans' faith in their institutions. Months away from an election, the question is, What are we going to do about it? We are just days away from an election in Texas and about 8 months away from the November general election. What are we going to do? One thing we ought to do is to start defending ourselves. Last month, Senator Shaheen, Senator Blumenthal, and I wrote to the Secretary of Defense and urged him to use our cyber forces--U.S. Cyber Command, which is the one instructed with protecting us--to disrupt Russian cyber operations that target our elections. We urged the Secretary of Defense to implement the recommendations of the Department's own task force to deter these cyber operations. Those were the recommendations of the Department of Defense's own task force. Just a few days ago, four-star Admiral Rogers, commander of Cyber Command, told our Armed Services Committee that he had still not been directed to counter these cyber operations and that he needed approval from the White House. The White House, unbelievably, hasn't authorized him to act. Until the Trump administration starts cracking down on Russia, Vladimir Putin is going to continue to get away with his cyber attacks on our elections and all of his other cyber attacks on our country. Admiral Rogers also told the committee that Russia has not paid a sufficient enough price for what it has done to us to get it to change its behavior. This is the kind of thing--defending the Nation--for which our cyber forces were created. This Senator is the ranking member of the Cybersecurity Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee. I can tell you that our cyber forces are growing, and they are getting better and better, but they are only good if they are put to work and given the task of defending us. So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter that several of us sent to the Secretary of Defense be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to take this opportunity to say that all of us have to get to work--the White House, our cyber forces, and the whole of government. When it comes to defending our democracy, many of us have taken up arms, many of us have worn the uniform of this country to defend it, many of us, in civilian performance of the duties of this government, have likewise performed duties to defend this Nation. We now have to defend this Nation against cyber attacks, and more immediately we have to defend against the cyber attacks to undo and undermine our democratic institutions by attacking our elections. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, it has been almost 6 months since Hurricane Irma struck Florida. It has been about a month since we passed the most recent disaster supplemental appropriations bill, which finally included the money for Florida's fisheries, citrus growers, and communities across the State that we have been fighting for since day one, since the storm passed. Today, I spoke to the Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, and I asked him to immediately release this critical funding to help the people of our State. Florida's fishermen are still waiting for their help too. Hurricane Irma caused extensive damage to vessels, facilities, docks, equipment, and gear, especially in the Keys. Many in the spiny lobster industry lost all of their traps. The disaster supplemental appropriations gave NOAA $200 million for Federal fishery disasters like the one that Secretary Ross declared for Florida. Where is the money? Let's talk about the broader impact to the oceans. Did you know that Florida's coral reef tract is the third largest barrier reef in the world? It is a reef that starts south of Key West and goes all the way up the coast, almost all the way to Fort Pierce. The coral supports the spiny lobsters and the stone crabs, which are served in restaurants around the country. This industry is important to Florida's economy. Hurricane Irma tossed all manner of debris around. Monroe County has already spent almost $20 million to remove over 2 million cubic yards of waste--roofs, appliances, bicycles, trailer homes, and boats. The debris was also swept into the water, which is threatening the corals, and into the canals, where it blocks transportation. I want you to take a look at this picture. This is one of the canals in the Keys. Look at what is sitting in the canal--a whole mobile home that was lifted up from the mobile home park on this side of the canal. There it is, in the water. Take a look at this. Do you see what is in the canal? Do you see out here? That is the ocean. This canal is coming right in. What happens is that eventually some of the debris goes into the Atlantic. It gets near the reef. Some of it submerges. The wave action is sending it back and forth. You can imagine any one of those pieces of debris knocking constantly into delicate coral that is already diseased, that is already overheated because the rising temperature of the water. You can imagine what is happening. Whether it is a mobile home sitting in the canal or whether it is all of this junk that is sitting in the canal and that eventually goes out, this is what we need help with. It has been over a month since we passed the disaster supplemental appropriations bill. Why isn't the money flowing? That is what I called the Secretary of Commerce about this morning. I told him: Mr. Secretary, my request is very, very simple. Just get the money out. The money is appropriated. It is there. I said: Mr. Secretary, will you please crack the whip on NOAA so that you can get this money out and we can get this place cleaned up, as well as protect those coral reefs from the damage they have already undergone? Then I said: What happened in this storm is, whether for lobster or stone crab, the traps were all swept away. The poor fishermen don't have any traps. They need help too. That is what this disaster appropriations bill is for. Mr. Secretary, you have to crack the whip to get them going. Unfortunately, this is not the only issue we are facing. Florida's citrus industry suffered over $760 million in losses from the storm. Why? Because the trees were full of fruit that was going to be picked within just a few weeks. Along came the storm; the winds were severe. In Southwest Florida, some of the citrus crops were 100 percent lost. In fact, the winds were so high that they ended up uprooting citrus trees. Further north, in Central Florida, the groves there lost 50 to 60 percent of their crops. The citrus industry cannot survive those kinds of losses, and that is why we have a disaster appropriations bill. There were losses of over $760 million from the storm. The rest of Florida's agriculture took a big hit, too, with an estimated $2.5 billion in total damages. In February, we finally came through with $3.8 billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Of that money, $2.6 billion was supposed to go directly to farmers and ranchers. It is March, and those folks haven't seen a dime. After I talked to the Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, I put in a call to the Secretary of Agriculture. I have called several times today. I have yet to connect with him. If any of his staff are listening, there is a bottleneck at the USDA that is preventing this money from going to the families who desperately need it. I will continue to call Secretary Perdue to ask him to do what I asked Secretary Wilbur Ross to do: Crack the whip on his organization to get the money flowing. That is why we passed supplemental emergency appropriations. Now the Federal agencies need to get the money out the door. This is so frustrating because the administration knew that Congress was discussing a disaster supplemental bill when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August. Then Irma hit, and then Maria hit. Six months later, most of the Federal agencies are just starting to dust off their pencils and figure out how they are going to allocate the funding. What is wrong with you? People are hurting. They are going bankrupt. You have to get that money out. Can you imagine how you would feel if your family's entire citrus crop had been wiped out and you had been holding your breath waiting for disaster assistance funding, which finally came over a month ago, and then you were told by the folks at the USDA that you were going to have to wait for several more months until USDA figures out how to get you the money? It is no wonder that people are fed up with bureaucracy. Additionally, many of our cities and counties have yet to see any reimbursements from FEMA for Hurricane Irma. In fact, many have yet to be fully reimbursed for Hurricane Matthew, which struck almost 2 years ago. Unbelievably, all those counties that were devastated had paid for the debris removal. The State of Florida missed the deadline--didn't turn it in on time. Of course, what we had to do to cover the State of Florida's mistake was to plead with FEMA: Forget the mistake; it is the local counties and cities that need the money. Not getting the money out is totally unacceptable. While we are still waiting for reimbursements from these storms, how can we expect these local governments to prepare for the 2018 hurricane season that will start in just a few months, right around the corner? Let me say it again. This is unacceptable for the slow-walking--the foot-dragging--that is going on in getting the money out the door. I am going to keep pounding on this until the folks in Florida start getting the help they need and deserve. I yield the floor.