Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, since I see no other Senator who seeks recognition, I thought I would take the occasion to bring the Senate up to date on what is happening down in Florida in the aftermath of 17 people being gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. As we know, we have seen those students speak out with a boldness and clarity that is rarely seen, and they are not being intimidated at all as to what needs to be done. As a matter of fact, in the aftermath of the shooting--and while some of the funerals have still been going on-- since our Florida State Legislature is in session, over the course of 2 weeks, the students have gone to the capital city of Tallahassee and have held individual meetings with State legislators. They have held a rally outside of the capital and insisted that maybe--just maybe--this might be a time that the State legislature should confront this issue head-on: that, in fact, there was something to the fact that a weapon that was originally developed for the military, an AR-15--the semiautomatic version of a military weapon--could do such damage and quickly go about killing so many people. It was 17 in the case of the high school. Just 2 years earlier, it was 49 people in Orlando at the Pulse nightclub. In between, we saw several mass killings with high-powered, military-style assault rifles in Texas, as well as 59 people being gunned down in Las Vegas. Last week, I talked about the assault weapon, and I have since had, over the weekend, constituents in Florida ask me to come back and speak on the floor of the Senate about the difference in the damage--the mayhem, the carnage, the slaughter--that occurs as a result of an assault rifle as compared to a handgun. You don't have to take it from this Senator. You can talk to the trauma surgeons. You can talk to the radiologist in the trauma center. As a matter of fact, several articles in the past week have been written in various publications in Florida and in the national press, along with there being photographs to show the difference. Let me paraphrase the words of one of the trauma surgeons in Broward County who attended to some of the victims. He cited that on any normal night, particularly on a weekend, they have to treat gunshots. If that gunshot is from a handgun--say, a .22 pistol or, say, a .9 millimeter pistol--the bullet will enter the victim, and unless that bullet goes to a critical organ, such as the heart or, for example, to the blood supply going into the liver, that bullet will continue through. If it comes out the other side, it will come out with a hole that is the same size as when it penetrated the body in the first place. It is not so with a bullet from an assault rifle because those weapons, which are developed for the military, are clearly for killing. The bullet, first of all, comes out at three times the speed--three times the velocity. Therefore, when it hits its target, it hits with three times the energy. Often, the bullet is designed so that when it hits the target, it will tumble and just tear through and destroy any flesh in its path, including bone and organs. The trauma center's radiologist explains that if a handgun's bullet, such as a .9 millimeter, goes through the liver, they can usually save the patient's life. They point out that of almost all handgun wounds, they can save the life unless the bullet hits a major artery or organ, like the heart, or a major blood supply. It is not so with the bullet from an assault weapon. The bullet enters at three times the velocity, with three times the energy. It starts tumbling, ripping away flesh. If it goes, for example, to a kidney or to the liver, it pulverizes that organ and comes out the other side of the victim with a hole as large as an orange. That is the difference between a handgun wound and a wound from a high-velocity assault rifle, whether it is a semiautomatic or whether it is an automatic. It was made automatic, with what we saw in Las Vegas, with the bump stocks. He made a semiautomatic, which was legal to purchase, into an automatic rifle. It is because of that carnage that one has to ask oneself: Would any American citizen want to have those kinds of assault rifles loose on the streets for people who want to use them for dastardly purposes? I think the answer is no. This Senator grew up on a ranch. I have hunted all of my life. I still hunt with my son, but an AR-15 is not for hunting; it is for killing. It is an understanding of the difference of these weapons that is causing the American people to gradually understand that these kinds of weapons have no place on the streets of America. One can imagine the SWAT team. Had they been there while the shooter had still been inside and had they entered that school and tried to find the killer and known that what they were going to come up against was an AR-15 instead of a handgun, that would have been a terrible thing. One can imagine, if there had happened to be an armed guard with a pistol and he had gone after the shooter but the shooter had had an AR-15, that would not have been a fair firefight. With a pistol against an AR-15, one can imagine who is going to win that fight. These are the questions that the American people need to have answered as we go through these discussions about what to do. Thus, when these students all gather in Washington and in 100 cities around this country on March 24--a Saturday--and start marching in untold numbers, they are going to be asking: Isn't enough enough? Haven't we come to the point at which we ought to reexamine that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms but if these are the arms we want borne on our streets I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, as the Senator from Pennsylvania is leaving, those are the people whose names he just read. That is why I am here to tell you that teachers, students, and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School returned to school for the first time since that shooting 2 weeks ago. Some were ready. Some who returned were scared. Some didn't go back; they are going to a different school. What happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 2 weeks ago should never happen anywhere in this country, ever, ever, never again. Look at those faces so full of promise. Here is the coach. He saved some of the kids' lives. He jumped in front of them. This is another adult who tried to save lives. Here is another adult who tried to save lives. It shouldn't happen in a school. It shouldn't happen at a nightclub, like Pulse. It shouldn't happen in an airport or a church or an outdoor concert. It shouldn't happen. So why does it happen? Why does this keep happening over and over again? Well, I am going to tell you why. It is because of us. It is because all 100 Members of this Senate and all 435 Members down the hallway in the House of Representatives--it is our refusal to act. It is our failure to convince one another that there are some things that should be done regardless of party politics or polls or what the special interests want. They ought to be done simply because they are the right things to do. What about a commonsense approach, like a background check every time somebody buys a gun? What about a comprehensive or universal background check that would expand if there is a restraining order? How about if there is a mental problem other than just an adjudicated mental order? How about the terrorist watch list? If you are on that list, you can't get on an airplane because you are suspected to be a terrorist. Why should they be able to buy a gun? How about if you had been on the terrorist watch list and are no longer? That would have caught the shooter in Orlando because Omar Mateen had been on the terrorist watch list and was no longer when he walked in and bought that Sig Sauer MCX and mowed down 49 people. It is our refusal to act. It is our failure to convince one another that there are some things that should be done. If you take the commonsense approach of requiring a background check, that is the right thing to do. Banning the military-style assault rifles, that is the right thing to do. People get confused. There is a difference between a semiautomatic rifle and an assault rifle. Ever since I was a little boy, I had a .22 semiautomatic rifle with a clip. That is not an assault weapon. Even a bullet coming from a handgun--as one of the trauma surgeons who tended to some of the victims in Broward County points out--that handgun bullet will go in and come out through a victim the same size as it went in. If it goes through an organ such as the liver, they can save that person. That is in contrast to an assault rifle weapon--a bullet that has three times the speed of a handgun bullet and that has three times the energy when it hits the victim. So if it goes into an organ such as the liver, it doesn't go through like a handgun bullet. It pulverizes the liver, and when it comes out on the other side of the body, it is as big as an orange. That is what an assault rifle is. Listen to the trauma surgeons. They will tell you. We could take up commonsense legislation right now and enact these simple, commonsense measures to make our communities safer and help prevent another mass tragedy, but unfortunately I think it is going to be very difficult. For weeks now, even in the face of parents, students, and teachers across this country calling for action, we have done nothing. We have seen an entire community turn its grief and its outrage into a massive call for change, and we have done nothing. Across this country we have seen gun owners destroy their own assault weapons. We have seen major corporations distance themselves from groups like the NRA and their discounts. Just today, we heard announced that private companies such as Dick's Sporting Goods are taking it upon themselves to stop selling these weapons of war. They are not going to sell AR-15s anymore. They are not going to do it because they were told to, because Congress passed a law, but because it was the right thing to do. So if Congress fails to act now, when will we act? If these brave, young students who lost their fellow students and faculty aren't enough to break through the gridlock in Congress, what is it going to take? If this tragedy doesn't spur us to action, lead us to change, what will? When will enough finally be enough? I say to my colleagues, the time to act is now. Let's not let what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High fade into memory like so many other tragedies. Let's take this tragedy and make it a pivotal moment in our Nation's history. Let's not have to go through these massacres again. Let's let this be the last one. Let's come together as a Senate and do what needs to be done. Let's do what so many before us have been unable to do--let's take action. Let's let this massacre be the last massacre. I yield the floor.

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, it is with a heavy heart that I bring a report to the Senate from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale. The teachers and staff of the school returned to work today, which is less than 2 weeks after a former student walked on to the campus with an AR-15 and opened fire on all three floors of a classroom building. I have spent time the past couple of weeks in Parkland, visiting with some of the families. Those of us who are parents can only imagine the grief and anger that they are feeling, just like the grief and anger after every one of these massacres. I have also spent time meeting with some of the courageous students who have turned this tragedy into a call for action. As I have suggested to them, their hope gives me hope. Their determination gives me all the more determination. These students have told us over and over that they don't plan to stop until Congress and the State legislators around the country start enacting commonsense gun reform. They have said that they are not going to stop, and neither am I. What happened at that high school shouldn't happen anywhere in this country. It shouldn't have happened in Columbine. It shouldn't have happened in Newtown. It shouldn't have happened in Orlando. It shouldn't have happened at the Ft. Lauderdale airport or Parkland. It shouldn't happen, period. Now it is up to us to make sure that it never happens again. This Senator grew up on a ranch. I have always had guns. I have hunted all my life. I still hunt with my son. An AR-15 or a SIG Sauer MCX, the gun that was used at the Pulse nightclub, is not for hunting; they are for killing. Yet, despite these horrific events, these devastating tragedies are occurring throughout our country over and over, and Congress refuses to act. Why is it that we can't enact the most commonsense measures to protect the people we represent? We need a comprehensive background check on the purchase of a weapon, a commonsense background check that would not only include if there is a criminal record or if someone has been adjudicated mentally incompetent but all the other myriad reasons, all the other things surrounding mental health. Was the shooter on the terrorist watch list? Had Omar Mateen, the shooter, been on the terrorist watch list, he would have been caught. He was the shooter in Orlando. We need to get assault rifles off the streets. Protecting our fellow citizens should be a top priority. If making it more difficult for someone to walk into a store and purchase a weapon of war will do that, why can't we get that done? Why? I will tell you why. Because there are folks who are more concerned about an A-plus rating from the NRA than they are about providing those commonsense solutions to the problems. I want to read something that appeared in a national magazine, reprinted in the paper that is published in Broward County, where the shooting occurred. It is from a radiologist who is in the trauma center at Broward Health, which is a hospital chain organization in the area of Broward County. Her name is Dr. Heather Sher. She was working the day of the school shooting, and she went to work in the trauma center on some of the victims. She has treated countless gunshot wounds in trauma centers throughout her career, but this one was the second time that she had treated someone shot by an assault rifle like the AR-15. Here is what Dr. Sher had to say: Routine handgun injuries leave entry and exit wounds and linear tracks through the victim's body that are roughly the size of the bullet. If the bullet [from a handgun] does not directly hit something crucial like the heart or the aorta . . . chances are, we can save the victim. The bullets fired by an AR-15 are different. She continues: With an AR-15, the shooter does not have to be particularly accurate. The victim does not have to be unlucky. If a victim takes a direct hit to the liver from an AR-15, the damage is far graver than that of a handgun bullet injury. Handgun injuries to the liver are generally survivable unless the bullet hits the main blood supply to the liver. An AR-15 bullet to the middle of the liver would cause so much bleeding and tissue loss that the patient would likely never make it to a trauma center to receive our care. She continues: As a doctor, I feel I have a duty to inform the public of what I have learned as I have observed these wounds and cared for these patients. It's clear to me that AR-15 or other high-velocity weapons, especially when outfitted with a high- capacity magazine, have no place in a civilian's gun cabinet. . . . Banning the AR-15 should not be a partisan issue. The senseless shootings are not going to stop until we change ourselves as a culture. I believe, with these students who have been so strong in their statements, so determined to make a change, that time might be now. It didn't happen after Sandy Hook Elementary. Nothing happened. It didn't happen after the myriad of others. It didn't happen just 2 years ago after the Orlando nightclub shooting. Again, it did not happen after the Ft. Lauderdale airport shooting. Is it different now? It certainly is time for us to come together and enact commonsense gun measures to keep our communities safe. It is time for us to come together--not as Republicans or Democrats but as human beings--and to say that this time it is going to be different. You hear so many different things. You hear about mental health, and that is certainly a part of it. You hear about school protection, and that is certainly a part of it. You hear about the miscues not only in the FBI, and that is certainly a part of it, but the miscues in the Florida Department of Children and Families a year prior that had noted that this shooter--all of those things ought to be a part of the solution. If you get right down to it, we ought to come together, not as Republicans or Democrats but as human beings, and say that if we want to solve the problem, the solution is commonsense background checks in order to purchase a weapon and getting assault rifles off the streets. Let's do this. Let's use this tragedy as the catalyst to enact real change in our society--changes that are going to have a real impact. Let's make what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School a significant moment in this country's history, not because it was one of the largest mass shootings but because it was the last. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Georgia: Hallelujah that you have expressed that heartfelt concern and that your constituents in the State of Georgia have been very emotionally touched by this whole incident, this terrible incident that we have gone through again in this country. I am grateful for the comments of the Senator from Georgia.

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, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate observe a moment of silence for the victims of the school shooting in Florida.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, those were all our children. Those of us who are parents, you can imagine the parents of those children wondering what else can be done because yesterday a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Northern Broward County, Parkland, FL, walked onto the campus with a gas mask, smoke grenades, carrying an AR-15 assault rifle. He pulled a fire alarm, waited for students to come out into the hallway, and he opened fire. As a result, 17 families are grieving. Their worst fears have become reality. More than a dozen other students who were injured are in the hospital, and some of them are in critical condition. At some point, we have to say enough is enough. At some point, we as a society have to come together and put a stop to this. This Senator grew up on a ranch. I have hunted all my life. I have had guns all my life. I still hunt with my son, but an AR-15 is not for hunting; it is for killing. Despite these horrific events that are occurring over and over, these tragedies have led so many of us to come to the floor and beg our colleagues to take commonsense actions that we all know will help protect our children and our fellow citizens from these kinds of tragedies, and we get nowhere. When is enough going to be enough? Sandy Hook Elementary, 20 students killed--that wasn't enough. The Pulse nightclub in Orlando, 49 people killed by a terrorist--that wasn't enough. Las Vegas, 58 people killed--that wasn't enough. Just a year ago in the same county as the Parkland murders, Broward County's Fort Lauderdale airport, five people killed--that wasn't enough. Now this high school, 17 were killed. Some were as young as 14 years old. When is enough going to be enough? This Senator has spoken to local officials on the ground. I have spoken to the superintendent of the school, who, in his own way, is going through the grieving process; I have spoken to the FBI; and I have spoken to the sheriff's department to make sure they have everything they need. When we are finished with the Dreamer legislation today, I am headed there. When I go to the hospital and see the families and the hospital victims, all I can think is, How many more times are we going to have to go through this? And those families are going to ask me: When is enough enough? To those who say now is not the time to talk about gun violence because it is too soon, we don't want to politicize right after a tragedy--that is what is said over and over--I would ask: When is the time? If now is not the right time, when is the right time--after the next shooting or after the one that is going to come after that? Because these are not going to stop unless we change ourselves as a culture. How many more times do we have to do this? How many more folks have to die? When is enough going to be enough? Let's not hide from it. Let's have a conversation about this right now, not just about mental illness--that is part of it--and not just about protection in our schools, and that is part of it. Let's get to the root cause. Let's come together and help end this violence. Let's talk about that 19- year-old carrying an AR-15. Let's do what needs to be done. Let's get these assault weapons off our streets. Let's accomplish something on background checks. My State passed a constitutional amendment--Florida, 1998--background checks have to be done in the purchase of a gun. It has never been implemented totally, and it has never been enforced--a simple background check. The terrorist who killed 49 people in Orlando at the Pulse Nightclub had been on the terrorist watch list. If we had a background check there--he wasn't on it, but maybe in a background check we ought to include those who have been on the terrorist watch list. Let's have a conversation about this. Do you remember a couple of years ago there was a proposal on the floor that if you are on the terrorist watch list, you can't buy a gun? That is pretty common sense. We will not let them get on an airplane because we don't want them taking down a commercial airliner, but they don't have a restriction on buying a gun. Let's get at the root cause of this issue. Let's do what we all know needs to be done. Let's do it now, not later. Let's not just talk about it, let's do something about it. Let's make what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School a pivotal moment in this country's history, not because it was one of the largest mass shootings but, hopefully, because it was the last. It is with a heavy heart I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I am looking forward to this debate. As Senator Hatch has indicated, it is going to be a robust debate, and it could produce the best of what the Senate can produce: a bipartisan agreement, which it will have to be in order to get to 60 votes. I am glad to come here to the floor to support the Dreamers. Six months ago, the President said he was eliminating protections for Dreamers, and some of them have already lost that status. These young people, of course, were brought here sometimes as infants, they grew up here, and they only know America as their country. We owe it to them to enact permanent protection and a path to citizenship. It is long past time for Congress to act and to make sure this becomes law. This week presents a very good opportunity to do that after we have been waiting for almost two decades. This Senator is a sponsor of the Dream Act, and I have supported Senator Durbin in his efforts ever since I came to the Senate. Now, this is the third term. I have always been inspired by the story of Elisha Dawkins. I found out about him because I read a news clip that he was in jail. Here was a fellow who grew up in America, only knowing that he was American because he was brought to America from the Bahamas at age 6 months. He served two tours in Iraq. He came back and joined the Navy Reserves. He had a top secret clearance. His Reserve duty was in Guantanamo, with that top secret clearance. Then, because of an application for a passport, he was suddenly swept up and put in jail. Fortunately, we found out about it and started raising a stink about it. It was brought to the attention, in one of the court hearings, of a Federal judge, and the Federal judge said to the assistant U.S. attorney: What in the world are you doing putting a fellow like this in jail? Of course, after that tongue-lashing from a Federal judge, we got involved with Elisha. I am happy to report that today Elisha is a U.S. citizen. Elisha is a productive member of the Jacksonville community, he is educated, and he is contributing to his community. Our country is so much better off having the Dreamers. They are our people. They are among the best and the brightest. The Senate has voted overwhelmingly to pass a bipartisan bill that includes victories and concessions from both sides. That was the comprehensive immigration reform in the past, about 5 or 6 years ago, but of course the House wouldn't take that up. So the only way to achieve a solution to the DACA crisis is to keep it simple: on one side, a path to citizenship for Dreamers, and on the other side, what is required by the White House--a path for funding for border security. I have been working with the next Senator who is going to speak in what we call a bipartisan group that has been carefully trying to put together a balanced approach to find a solution. Neither side is going to get everything they want, but that is why it is called a negotiation. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to come together to achieve a reasonable and bipartisan agreement as soon as possible--I hope by the end of this week. The Dreamers need to know we appreciate them, and now we are going to turn that appreciation into law. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I expect Senator Rubio to be joining me here on the floor as we talk about some of the legislative fixes to some of the problems that have come about as a result of these devastating hurricanes. It has been 5 months since Hurricane Irma hit Florida, and it has been 4 months since Maria hit Puerto Rico. Irma hit Puerto Rico as well. Of course, before Florida's Hurricane Irma, you had all of the problems with the flooding from another hurricane in Texas and then, later on, from the wildfires in California. So I am happy to finally say that we have a path forward now on a disaster aid bill for all of these natural disasters. I can't count on the fingers of both hands how many times I have been out here. I could say the same of the letters written and the speeches that Senator Rubio and I have both given together about this disaster aid and the need for it. Finally, we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel in that there is a good possibility this is going to happen in the Senate within the next 2 days. The problem is that, in Puerto Rico, American citizens have been living without power, and schools and businesses are closed. The Federal Government has been dragging its feet to help them. People have been waiting, and they have been suffering. Right now, over one-third of the people in Puerto Rico are closing in on 5 months after the hurricane and are without electricity. Potable water is still a problem in Puerto Rico. Can you imagine in any other mainland State, nearly 5 months after a hurricane, one-third of its people not having electricity restored? I mean, there would be such outrage and demonstration. This is what is going on in Puerto Rico. Finally, I think we are able to see in this disaster bill some assistance to the island, as well as to the Virgin Islands, and especially to our State of Florida, which was hit so hard. I will outline some of this and tell Senator Rubio that I have been talking about all of the things that we have done together ad infinitum in trying to get this disaster aid package finally to the point at which we can say we are so thankful we see a path forward. We have discussed over and over with Senate leadership Florida's agriculture industry, which needs help. Our schools need additional funding to deal with the influx of students from Puerto Rico into Florida. Our critical infrastructure, such as the Lake Okeechobee dike, needs funding to withstand a future storm. The agriculture industry in our State sustained significant damage after Irma. Citrus growers have suffered approximately $760 million of loss. Why? Because, right after the hurricane, half the crop of the citrus grove in central Florida that Senator Rubio and I visited was on the ground. If you go further south in Florida, there are groves where, actually, 100 percent of the oranges have ended up on the ground because of the ferocity of the wind. That crop was a total loss, and the wind was so severe there that it uprooted some of the trees. The loss was crippling to the industry. Of course, this is an industry that has been battling to keep its lifeblood flowing because it has been battling this bacteria called greening, which will kill a tree in 5 years. We have another program going on by the Citrus Research & Development Foundation that is trying to find the magic cure. In the meantime, they have found some way to keep the trees and some different varieties of trees living longer than the 5 years, but we have to address the problem right now. If the poor citrus growers didn't have enough trouble with all of the citrus canker from years earlier, they are now producing 46 million boxes a year. By the way, 10 years ago, that used to be in excess of 200 million boxes a year of citrus harvest. The funding in this disaster bill will be essential in helping the citrus industry to recover. Additionally, Senator Rubio and I, many times before, have called for Florida school funding in the aftermaths of Irma and Maria. We now know that, as of today, about 12,000 students who evacuated to Florida are enrolled from Puerto Rico. Others from the Virgin Islands have enrolled in Florida's schools. Every child has a right to a quality education, but that can't happen without the appropriate resources. The schools need help. No child should have their education hindered by a natural disaster. This disaster aid bill is going to be crucial for schools' funding in order for them to do their best in ensuring that those students receive the educations they deserve. This deal also includes $15 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers. It is for mitigation and resiliency projects. Likewise, the two Senators from Florida have been working to ensure that some of those funds are used to expedite the construction of the Lake Okeechobee dike. It is a critical public safety project, and it should be completed as quickly as possible. We want to see its completion accelerated by 3 years, from 2025 to 2022. If the Army Corps of Engineers will take $200 million a year out of these additional resources for the next several years, it will speed up the construction of that dike. We are going to be continuing to have sessions with the Army Corps of Engineers to try to accomplish just that. There is a long list--an exhaustive list--of Florida's needs after the hurricane, and as we see so many of our fellow U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico, you just can't keep treating U.S. citizens like this. Hopefully, this is going to speed up the recovery efforts. That is why, when the news broke last week that FEMA reportedly planned to end--get this--its distributing of food and water, there was, obviously, outrage, and there was outrage by the two Senators here. We appreciate FEMA making clear the next day that it would continue to provide aid to the people, which includes that food and water. We have discussed with the Senate leadership what is essential in this disaster aid bill, and it is an important step in the recovery of the people of Florida and Puerto Rico. There is another thing that I have to mention. Can you believe that the Medicaid money that was given to Puerto Rico in a lump sum, called a block grant, is going to end? It is going to run out next month. Yet, with the $4.8 billion in supplemental for Puerto Rico's Medicaid Program, along with the 100-percent Federal match for 2 years, we can guarantee that 1 million of our fellow U.S. citizens on the island will not be denied healthcare coverage when they need it the most. Otherwise, it is going to run out next month. It is long overdue. We can finally provide some much needed relief for disaster affected areas. So, please, let's pass this aid bill this week and let's send it to the President. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I make an announcement and then defer to Senator King and then that it come back to me for my statement about offshore drilling.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I have been involved in a number of elections over the years. I love campaigns, and I love campaigning. I have always campaigned in a situation in which you have your opponent, and the people have a chance to make a judgment between you and your opponent as to who can best serve the people. Little did I ever think that I was going to have to fight against the Russians in a campaign. Yet that is what I fully expect, and that is what I expect a number of us who are up in November of this year will be having to do because, in the midst of all of the disinformation that we have seen that the Russians are very good at--all of the fake accounts on Twitter and Facebook, the internet trolls, the botnets--it is critically important that the American people understand this is a fundamental attempt by Russia to influence our very democratic institutions and our critical infrastructure; and our elections, indeed, are a part of that critical infrastructure. Last year, the intelligence community assessed that when Putin sees his attempt to influence the last election as a success, he is going to do it again. That is what the intelligence community's conclusion was. Then, just last week, the Director of the CIA said that he had every expectation that Russia will meddle in the 2018 midterm elections. As the Senator from Maryland just said and as the Senator from Rhode Island has already said, this is not a partisan issue. It could happen to both sides. Attempts to influence our elections are attacks on the very foundation of the democracy that we so cherish. That is really what the Russians are trying to do. They are trying to divide us, and they are trying to undermine faith in our democratic institutions. Ultimately, they are trying to undermine American leadership in the world community of nations. The bottom line is we have to do more to protect ourselves, and we have to make Mr. Putin feel enough pain to deter future attacks or else he is going to keep doing it. Now, this Senator has the privilege of being the ranking member of the Cybersecurity Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee. I must say that this Senator has sat through hearings with people who ought to know, and I have been appalled at how little we have or will have the capability of responding. It is going to take some resolve not only in this Senate, in this Congress, but in this administration, as well, to let Mr. Putin know that he is going to have pain if he continues the attacks that he has already made. Of course, there is another aspect to this threat, which is that Russia didn't just attack our democracy in America, as has been stated so effectively by previous speakers, but he is in Europe and in Latin America too. Look at what the Russians have done with the Spanish language propaganda television, RT. There is an RT en Espanol that has already targeted upcoming elections in Mexico and Colombia--two of our important partners in the hemisphere. The President's National Security Adviser, General McMaster, said recently that there was already evidence of Russian meddling in Mexico. Of course, this points to the Russian effort to destabilize the region. It has sought to gain influence through propaganda, arms sales, trade, and other means to challenge the United States in the Western Hemisphere and to undermine our partnerships, which are critical to our national security. Look at Russia's friends Cuba and Nicaragua. How about Venezuela? The reality is that Russia is propping up the Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela. For years, the Maduro crowd has stolen and used the state- owned oil company Pe De Vesa to launder money, and Russia has bailed them out. Russian money has helped Maduro to avoid defaulting on debts and payments to bondholders. Meanwhile, look what is happening to the poor people of Venezuela. They are hungry, and they don't have basic supplies. Their children are malnourished, and inflation is rampant. Maduro has undermined any remnants of Venezuela's democracy. He jails opponents and has a corrupt Congress and cracks down on protesters. It is all part of the Russian influence campaign. As you can see, countering Russian influence is critical for the United States and for the world. It is also important to remember that Putin can't beat us on the ground, that he can't beat us on the sea, and that he can't beat us under the sea. He can't beat us in the air, and he can't beat us in space, but he can beat us in cyber in his propaganda campaign. Yet Putin--that Russian bear--is not 10-feet tall. As a former Secretary of State just testified last week to our Armed Services Committee, Putin is playing a weak hand, but he is playing it very aggressively. It is time for us, the USA, to push back. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Thank you, Mr. President. Falcon Heavy Rocket Just a few minutes ago, the largest rocket since the Moon program, the Saturn V, launched from the Kennedy Space Center. People across the world saw it on TV, as well as over the internet. Thousands of people lined the beaches at the Kennedy Space Center. Perhaps even more impressive is that this rocket, with three Falcon 9s strapped together--27 engines--took a payload for its first test flight. It was so successful that the two side Falcon 9s, with the center core of the Falcon 9--we watched in amazement as they returned to Earth, 100 yards apart on two landing zones at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. At liftoff, the Falcon Heavy generates 500 million pounds of thrust and is twice as powerful as any other rocket currently flying. Especially with the ability to land and reuse the boosters, it promises to be a very affordable way to get to space. The test launch of the Falcon Heavy is a spectacular demonstration of the comeback of Florida's Space Coast and of the U.S. commercial launch sector, which is succeeding in a big way. Last year, we tied the all- time record for the number of U.S. commercial launches. That is good news for the civil space program; it is good news for national security; it is good news for employment in the United States; and it is great news for jobs and the economy. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I see my good friend the Senator from New Jersey here, and I just want to make a few comments, since I have been at the center of this firestorm. I am here again to talk about the mess that has been created by the 5-year drilling plan. Some of the reasons I have talked about it so much go beyond the fact that it is disastrous and dangerous, not only for all the coastal States but for our State of Florida, which has more beaches than any other State and is surrounded by test range. Indeed, just today, the largest rocket since the Apollo program to the Moon has brought back two of its boosters that didn't have to fall into the ocean. But some may, and you simply cannot have oil rigs out there in the Atlantic where we are testing our military rockets, such as today-- a commercial rocket, the Falcon Heavy, has dropped its initial stages. The same is true with the military on the west coast. The largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world is the eastern Gulf of Mexico off of Florida. That is why it is off limits in law for another 5 years, until the year 2022, and we need to expand that. Well, my colleagues have endured me so many times as I have talked about how disastrous it would be, but now we have a different wrinkle with the Department of the Interior. They first published a proposal that would open up nearly every inch of coastline of the entire United States. You are hearing all of these coastal Senators speak against it. They pick up on the eastern gulf off of Florida; since it is off limits in law until year 2022, they pick up there and start wanting to drill out there. Can you imagine what that would do to the U.S. Air Force, which runs the eastern gulf test range? Well, look what happened. They published this, and then the very next day--24 hours later--the Secretary of the Interior jetted off to Tallahassee for a 20-minute press conference at the Tallahassee airport and announced that Florida was off the table. It was an obvious, transparent, political stunt, but it created enormous uncertainty about what was truly under consideration for drilling. What did ``off the table''--in order to try to satisfy Florida's incumbent Governor--mean? Does it apply to the Atlantic coast of Florida, as well, or just to the gulf coast? Is it the whole moratorium area of the eastern gulf? Does it include the Straits of Florida off the delicate Florida Keys, or will it be carved in half to appease the oil industry in the eastern Gulf of Mexico? The administration--specifically Secretary Zinke--is playing fast and loose with a process that affects millions of people in the State of Florida, and Floridians deserve to know what is going on. That is why I sounded the alarm immediately, within 10 minutes after Secretary Zinke's announcement. I have been through this process before--ever since I was a young Congressman representing the east coast of Florida--with a Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, who wanted to drill off the east coast of Florida. In fact, back then, in the mid-1980s, we were launching our military rockets, just as we do today, and the space shuttle was dropping its solid rocket boosters. These 5-year plans are supposed to be developed over the course of 1 or 2 years with extensive input from the public, agency staff, the industries involved, and the environmental community. Five-year plans aren't supposed to be a goody bag of political favors, and they can't be undone by the Secretary's press conference or a tweet. That was confirmed by a career employee, Walter Cruickshank, the Acting Director of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. He said that at a House committee hearing. It is no wonder the attorneys general from 12 coastal States wrote to the Secretary to warn him that he should terminate the draft proposal--terminate it entirely--or else they were going to pursue their appropriate legal avenues. The whole process has been fraught with confusion because it was a political stunt, and as a result, we have a bunch of Senators out here fighting to make known what is happening. At the same time, the Interior Department is trying to open up America's entire coastline to drilling. They are also working to undo all the commonsense safety standards that were put in place after the Deepwater Horizon oilspill that spilled 5 million barrels of oil into the gulf and killed 11 workers on the rig. Those safety standards include requirements like making sure an independent third party, such as a professional engineer, certifies the offshore drilling safety equipment, such as the blowout preventer. That malfunctioned 5 miles below the surface of the gulf when it did not cut off the oil at the wellhead on the floor of the ocean, and it allowed those 5 million barrels to be spilled. Now Secretary Zinke wants to go backward in time and reverse all of those safety standards. The American people deserve better than this. Floridians certainly deserve better than this. I want to thank my fellow Senators for getting out here and raising such a ruckus so that we can get the American people to focus on what is happening and the political stunts that are being done by the Secretary of the Interior. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I am absolutely shocked that FEMA has announced that on Wednesday it will stop distributing food and water to Puerto Rico. Cutting this aid to the people of Puerto Rico, while still almost a third of them do not have electricity, is unconscionable and a travesty. I urge the administration to reverse this disastrous decision immediately and to continue providing the people of Puerto Rico with the help they need as they are trying to recover from two disastrous hurricanes. This Senator has been speaking on the floor over and over of their desperate needs, but here I am again to remind our colleagues that Puerto Ricans are American citizens, that they are just like the people of any State, including those in the States of Kentucky, Texas, Wyoming, and in so many of the other States where needs might be forgotten. They are our fellow countrymen, and they deserve the same care and protection that we would provide any other citizen in his time of need. They have supplied some of the greatest warriors of our U.S. military in World War I, World War II, Korea, and on up to the present. If the people of any other State were being neglected like the people of Puerto Rico have been in the wake of this storm, there would be an absolute outrage in this Senate. The people of Puerto Rico need help, but they are not the only ones. Millions of people were affected by the storms that hit last year in my State of Florida, in the State of Texas, in, of course, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and in Puerto Rico, and many were affected by the wildfires in California. Right now, many of them are desperately waiting for the Senate to act on a disaster supplemental package to help them recover. We are trying to pass it, and it keeps getting shuffled off into the future. We are trying to add to the supplemental--the necessary disaster aid that is needed in agriculture, particularly for the citrus industry in Florida--the financial assistance that is needed in Puerto Rico. I hope our colleagues in the Senate will understand the urgency of this matter. We cannot keep pushing this off into the future. The need to act is now. In addition, people in Florida are struggling. We should not neglect what is happening on the mainland. It is true in Texas. It is true in California. It is true in Florida. It is true on the islands. The storm destroyed homes and damaged apartments all around Florida, but we haven't seen any real attempt to address the housing needs of the hurricane victims in the State--by the way, including those coming to Florida from Puerto Rico. Florida received about $600 million out of the $7.4 billion, which was made available in the CDBG-DR, in the September supplemental. What percentage is that of $7.4 billion? It is much less than 10 percent. It defies comprehension. Florida was one of the places that was the hardest hit last year. Hurricane Irma virtually covered up the entire peninsula of Florida. It wreaked havoc all across the State. Add to that the aftereffects of Hurricane Maria, with thousands fleeing Puerto Rico and going to Florida, and we have a real housing crisis on our hands. The $600 million, which is to help those who have been left bare by two of the most devastating storms to hit the country in decades, is a drop in the bucket. We should be able to get people the help they need in the time they need it. It is required now--not a year later, not 6 months later, but now. Schools in Florida have been stretched thin in their having enrolled nearly 12,000 students who have evacuated Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Every child has a right to a quality education, but the school systems cannot do it on their own, not after a natural disaster. Dealing with such a large influx of students in a short period requires extra resources. The House has passed a package that includes $2.9 billion for education funding. We desperately need it. The schools and students need this aid now. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road. Their educations cannot wait. You cannot keep relying on teachers to go out and get the extra supplies for them. I mentioned our citrus growers. The industry has already been devastated by a bacteria called greening. When it gets into the phloem sap of the tree, it kills the tree in 5 years. We are not going to have a citrus industry if we can't find the cure for that. With the extra care of the groves, they have been able to nurture back crops. So here are all of these crops of oranges and grapefruit on the trees, and along comes Irma. In some groves, not only have 100 percent of the crops been blown off the trees, but the trees have been uprooted. That is why we desperately need the money--to clean up and replant. The farmers in Florida suffered at least $2.5 billion in losses when Hurricane Irma tore through the State, and that included a lot of our citrus. Citrus alone experienced $760 million in losses. That is on top of the difficulties that they were having already with the bacteria. The USDA is estimating that Florida growers will only harvest 46 million boxes this season. Get this: 10 years ago, there were 203 million boxes of citrus harvested. A decade before that, there were 244 million boxes of oranges harvested. For months our farmers have been told to wait their turn. Some of them are going bankrupt. They have waited long enough. They need the help now. We just have to act on this disaster bill. Additionally, it has been over 100 days since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Over 30 percent of the island remains without power, and parts of the island still lack running water. Some people have running water still, but they cannot drink it. They have to boil it. When I was there in the little mountain town of Utuado, the source of water about 2 weeks after the hurricane--with the roads cut off, the only source of outside help was by helicopter, and the running water that they had was from a pipe that was coming out of the mountain, the mountain water draining down. I don't want to mince words here. We have a full-blown humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico right now. My colleague, Marco Rubio from Florida, has been there also, and he is here to testify to the same thing. As a result, recent estimates suggest that over 300,000 Puerto Ricans may have moved to Florida. Some are fortunate enough to move in with relatives, but others are living in motels that line the I-4 corridor. Some are living out of their cars. This is absolutely heartbreaking. How can we fail fellow American citizens like this? Yet, given the current situation, the administration thinks that now, today, is the appropriate time to cut off food and water for the people of Puerto Rico. There is no common sense here. FEMA needs to continue to provide food and water to the island until, at the very least, all of the island has access to potable water and electricity. They are suffering, and while the administration is trying to abandon the responsibility of the United States to Puerto Rico, the House aid package shortchanges recovery efforts on the island. We must enhance it in the Senate package. For instance, it fails to address the current Medicaid crisis that is just a month away. If nothing is done, Puerto Rico's Medicaid Program is going to run out of money. Congress must act; otherwise, over 1 million U.S. citizens will be denied healthcare coverage when they need it the most. It has been over a month since the House passed the disaster bill. We haven't seen any action. The longer we wait, the more people suffer. It is clear the government is not working the way it should. We need to turn the corner, and it needs to start with this disaster bill being bumped up in the Senate and then quickly passed. I beg our colleagues, and Senator Marco Rubio joins me: Let's take up this bill. Let's fix the deficiencies, and let's pass it immediately. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the January 29, 2018, vote on calendar No. 294, motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2311, the Pain-Capable Unborn Children Protection Act. I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the January 29, 2018, vote on Executive Calendar No. 622, motion to invoke cloture on David Ryan Stras, of Minnesota, to be U.S. circuit judge for the Eighth Circuit. I would have voted nay.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I wish to talk about Alex Azar's nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services. I wish to explain how I am going to vote no by virtue of what I asked him in his hearing in front of the Finance Committee. Needless to say, programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, the Federal marketplace for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and the Children's Health Insurance Program are all healthcare programs that are absolutely essential not only to my State of Florida but to all States. Since we have a higher percentage of the population who are senior citizens, obviously, Medicare is an extremely important one to that segment of our population, who depend on Medicare for their healthcare. When you look at the Affordable Care Act, which brought healthcare through health insurance to millions and millions of Americans who had not had it before, my State of Florida signed up more people than any other State. Some 1.7 million Floridians signed up for coverage through healthcare.gov. That was despite the Trump Administration's efforts this past year to undermine the health law by doing such things as not allowing people to get out and give the counseling. So it was on a much lower scale than what had been done before. My worry is, looking out for the people of Florida, that Mr. Azar will continue to support the administration's efforts to destroy the law and all of the good things it has done, where it has now provided health insurance for so many people--so many people that never had health insurance before. The 1.7 million Floridians who signed up again for health insurance through healthcare.gov is a good example. One of the statements that Mr. Azar has made--and people in the Trump Administration have been trying to undermine the ACA--is that, in effect, there is no way to fix the law. Let's turn to Medicaid and CHIP, or the Children's Health Insurance Program. Mr. Azar, I am told, supports changing the structure of the Medicaid Program into a block grant. Ever since the Medicaid law was passed, it sets up, according to whether or not a State has a poor citizenry, a formula that shares money from the Federal Government, and the State matches a certain percentage. In Florida, that is anywhere from 55 percent to 60 percent Federal to approximately 45 percent to 40 percent from the State of Florida. For other States, like Mississippi-- with a poor, rural population that needs healthcare but can't afford healthcare--their Medicaid formula is much more paid for by the Federal Government with a lower match from the State. If you put Medicaid into a block grant, that means the State is only going to get so much money, regardless of whether the population swells. If the needs are greater, that money is it. It is not flexible with the eligibility of people because of their income status. I simply don't think that is right. It is these kinds of issues that concern me greatly about Mr. Azar. Look at Medicare. As I mentioned, we have a higher percentage of the population that is made up of senior citizens. In Florida, that translates to 4 million senior citizens who depend on Medicare. They are over 65 years of age, and they are eligible for Medicare. That is the way they access their healthcare. When I asked Mr. Azar about his perspective on changes to the Medicare Program, his answer was deficient. This is what I asked: Do you support raising the Medicare eligibility age? In other words, a senior would not be eligible for Medicare-- healthcare--at age 65; the age requirement would be increased. He did not give me an answer. I asked: Do you support turning Medicare into a voucher program? According to CBO estimates, privatizing Medicare would increase premiums by 30 percent, so I wanted to find out whether, as Secretary of HHS, he would want to turn Medicare into a voucher program. He dodged that question. I tried a third time with another question to give him a chance to give a straight answer on the record in the Finance Committee. I asked him whether he supports allowing Medicare providers to enter into private contracts with patients instead of the set benefit that a senior knows he is eligible for under the law to get those Medicare benefits. The practice of entering into private contracts between doctors and other Medicare providers is prohibited under Medicare because it would place seniors on the hook for the difference between what an insurer would pay--an insurance company--and what the doctor or the other provider would charge. That would result in a higher out-of-pocket cost for the senior citizen. Remember, the question was, do you support allowing Medicare providers to enter into private contracts with patients? This is what he said: ``The mission of HHS is to enhance and protect the health and the well-being of all Americans, through programs that touch every single American in some way, every single day. As Secretary, my job would be to lead HHS in its work toward its mission.'' That is not what I asked. I asked specifically whether he wanted to privatize the Medicare benefits and the mechanism by which those benefits would be delivered. That does not give me assurance on behalf of our senior citizens in Florida. To the contrary, if you were to talk to a group of our senior citizens and say that you want changes to Medicare, I can tell you what that would do. That would put a ripple of chills down the spines of senior citizens, for them to think their Medicare would be taken away from them. Thus, Mr. Azar is a gentleman who is delightful and obviously skilled in the pharmaceutical drug industry. Yet, when we got right down to how he was going to run the HHS as Secretary, I was not assured that our seniors were going to be protected in their healthcare or that poor people were going to be protected in their Medicaid or that the 20-some million people--including the almost 2 million in Florida--who now have healthcare on the private insurance exchange, offered through the Affordable Care Act, were not going to be undermined. There is just no way that I think this is the appropriate person to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services; therefore, I will vote no.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, we are on the eve of a new era of space exploration. We are constructing the world's largest rocket and a deep space capsule to send humans to Mars. Two new commercial crew capsules are under construction to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station starting later this year. Huge industrial complexes to manufacture and process new rockets and satellites are being built in record speed to further advance America's leadership in space. The successes of space exploration today are built upon the brave efforts of NASA's past pioneers. I am saddened to note that, on January 5 of this year, we lost one of those national heroes, astronaut and retired U.S. Navy CAPT John Young. Captain Young has been called the astronaut's astronaut. Indeed, if you ask around the astronaut corps who they most looked up to, my guess is John Young's name would come up quite a bit. Captain Young was among the second group of astronauts chosen for the early space program. He flew to space six times, the only astronaut to fly in the Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle programs. In addition to walking and driving a rover on the surface of the moon, Captain Young commanded the very first space shuttle mission. Taking off like a rocket and landing like an airplane, the space shuttle could not be tested in space without a crew. It was perhaps the riskiest flight, spaceflight ever endeavored; yet whether it was landing on the Moon or rocketing off the pad in the space shuttle, Captain Young was the essence of cool, his heart never topping 90 beats per minute. By the time John Young retired, he had spent over four decades at NASA. First at the Navy and later at NASA, Young dedicated his entire career to public service. Throughout his career, Captain Young was a tireless advocate for safety at the agency. He was a brilliant and intuitive engineer. He was known for writing scathing memos regarding safety problems at the agency, asking penetrating technical questions at reviews, and doing it all with a simple ``tell it like it is'' country-boy mentality that he never lost from his central Florida upbringing. It may seem a contradiction that the man who commanded perhaps the riskiest space mission in history was also one of the agency's most outspoken advocates for safety, but it is not. Captain Young strongly believed we must explore the unknown and push further out into the cosmos, but he also believed the men and women who bravely venture into space on all our behalves deserve the very best we can do to bring them home safely. We are seeing the fruits of nearly a decade of transformation and renewal, while at the same time reverently marking the passing of the first generation of space explorers. Just in the last few years, in addition to John Young, we have lost John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Gene Cernan, Dick Gordon, Edgar Mitchell, and Neil Armstrong. We have also lost the great Sally Ride. While we mourn the loss of these American heroes, we are forever indebted to them for their extraordinary contributions to humanity. I am so grateful NASA has had over the years the kinds of wisdom, experience, and technical skills in its leadership that were so embodied by heroes like Captain Young. We are extremely fortunate to have, in NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot, a leader who is universally acclaimed for his competence and professionalism. I have the utmost confidence in Acting Administrator Lightfoot and am thankful to have his steady hand on the tiller. I will continue to fight to see that NASA has leadership that carries on the tradition of having true space professionals at the helm of such an important agency.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, many of us have participated over the last few hours in several conversations trying to bring the parties together, and, indeed, a lot of movement has occurred. There seems to be one substantial issue remaining in which things could come together. So I am going to ask that we delay the shutdown for at least 1 day. Most of us on this floor do not want a shutdown. Since there were discussions here in earnest in a bipartisan way, we ought to give those discussions a chance to bear fruit. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 36, H.R. 1301; that the amendment at the desk that would provide for a continuing resolution to fund the government through Saturday, January 20, 2018, be considered and agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I must say, I have seen political games being played with trying to drill off of the coast of Florida. Not only am I appalled--I have recoiled at this political game--but unfortunately I am not surprised because of what we have seen happen in the last 15 hours. It all started late last week when the Department of the Interior released a new 5-year drilling plan. It virtually had all of the coastal waters--the Outer Continental Shelf of the entire United States--included in this plan, including that area of Florida that is off limits to drilling in law--a law that Republican Senator Mel Martinez and I passed back in 2006 that keeps drilling off of the gulf coast of Florida until the year 2022. This new proposal would open up nearly all of the Federal waters to drilling, including all of the coastal waters of Florida, both the west coast--gulf coast--and the east coast--the Atlantic--and also the Straits of Florida, those waters that come around the Florida Keys, which is the Gulf Stream that comes right up the southeast coast of Florida. The Gulf Stream then goes out across the Atlantic, past Bermuda, and ends up in Northern Europe. Well, our colleagues have heard this Senator many times come and talk about how keeping oil rigs away from Florida's coast is an issue that is important to our State because of our tourism economy but also because of the military missions on the west coast--the gulf--as well as the Atlantic. As a Floridian, this Senator has been fighting this fight ever since the mid-1980s when Secretary of the Interior James Watt intended to drill off the east coast of Florida where we were launching our space shuttle, dropping the solid rocket boosters, and where we were launching our military rockets, taking our clandestine satellites into orbit and dropping the first stages. That is how I beat it back in the 1980s, but lo and behold, here we are again in the same place. We know you can't allow drilling in the Straits of Florida right off the Florida Keys because an oilspill there would be in the Gulf Stream, and that Gulf Stream hugs the coast of southeast Florida. Can you imagine what it would do to the beaches of the Florida Keys, Miami Beach, and all up the Gold Coast of Florida, all the way to Palm Beach, all the way north to Fort Pierce, where then the Gulf Stream heads farther in a northeasterly direction out into the Atlantic? Well, let me show you what is happening in the gulf coast. All of this in yellow is what is off limits in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the 2006 law. There is an obvious reason for all of this--because this line is known as the Military Mission Line. Everything east of here is the largest testing and training area in the world for the U.S. military. That is why we put this off limits to oil activity. Oh, by the way, the testing and training mission for the entire Department of Defense is located right here at Eglin Air Force Base, which is where they brought all the pilot training for many nations for the F-35, the new super stealth jet fighter. Guess what is going on down here in Panama City at Tyndall Air Force Base. That is where we have all the pilot training for our F-22, another one of our stealth fighters. Down here in Key West, we have the Key West Naval Air Station. They bring in the squadrons of F-18s for the Navy at Boca Chica, which is where the airbase is, and within 2 minutes of lifting off the runway, they are over restricted airspace to do their testing and training. By the way, what about the rest of the Navy? They bring their amphibious ships in here, going onto the beaches up there by Eglin Air Force Base. And all of the activity is not just on the surface; the testing and training mission is also subsurface because that is part of the Navy's mission as well. There is ample opportunity to test because from here to here is 300 miles. From here to here is about 300 miles. So there is plenty of room to do this testing. This is the largest testing and training area in the world. But painfully, over time, we have found another reason, and that was over here off of Louisiana. A little over a decade ago, there was an oilspill. It wasn't any little oilspill; it was the Deepwater Horizon, the BP well that spewed at the surface. At the bottom of the ocean, which was a mile below the surface, it spewed out 5 million barrels of oil before they got it stopped. That was a rig that did not work. There was supposed to be what is called a blowout preventer that was to go in and clamp off the well, and there was a blowout. It was defective. It didn't close off that well at the wellhead 5,000 feet below the surface of the gulf. As a result, 5 million barrels of oil spilled. What happened to Florida's economy, not even to speak of all the fishing over in Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi? I will tell you what happened to Florida's economy. Oil came as far east as Pensacola Beach. Photographs of oil completely covering the sugary white sands of Pensacola Beach went around the world. So what did people do? For an entire tourist season, they didn't come to any of the beaches of the gulf coast because they thought there was oil on the beach. Painfully, that experience--not even to speak of what has been done to our environment and how much oil is still sloshing around down there on the bottom of the gulf--painfully, that experience got in the minds of the businesses all up and down the gulf coast of Florida. By the way, over on the east coast--had that oil ever gotten into a current called the Loop Current that comes down and becomes the Gulf Stream, that oil would have ruined the tourism industry all along Florida's southeast coast, from the Keys to Miami Beach, and all the way up to Fort Pierce, FL. Floridians feel fairly strongly about this. That is why we were fortunate, over a decade ago, in a bipartisan way, to pass a law to keep all of that area I just showed you off limits. We knew what would happen to our tourism--what people subsequently found out with the Deepwater Horizon oilspill--and we knew what would happen to threaten our national security by hampering our ability to do our training and testing. So, voila, all of a sudden, the Trump administration announces last week that it is going to drill off all of Florida. I have sponsored legislation in the past. I have introduced bills to expand the moratorium on the gulf coast. I have sponsored other legislation to protect Florida. And today I am introducing another bill that would be a permanent ban on drilling off of Florida's coast for exactly the reasons I have just said. Last week, when the Secretary of the Interior, Secretary Zinke, announced that they were opening up nearly all Federal waters, including all of those around Florida, we, of course, went into fighting mode again. We will fight this, and it will be defeated. It turns out that was just a political stunt because late yesterday--1 day after officially publishing the plan in the Federal Register--Secretary Zinke flew to Florida, met with the Governor of Florida for 20 minutes at the Tallahassee Airport, and suddenly announced that he had now decided to take Florida ``off the table.'' That sounds like a political stunt. While many in Florida have seen right through this shameless political stunt, it has opened up a long list of other questions that I have now asked Secretary Zinke to answer in a letter I sent today. What exactly does ``off the table'' mean? Is it the whole Eastern Gulf? Half of it? Is it 125 miles off the coast? Does it mean both coasts of Florida? Does it mean just one? What about the Straits of Florida, Secretary Zinke? What about the seismic surveys? You all have said you are proceeding with that. Are those off the table too? If you are going to take Florida waters ``off the table'' in this little political stunt that was done 1 day after the Federal Register published this proposed rule, does that mean you are going to eliminate the seismic surveys? There is no reason to expose marine life and endangered species to the harmful impacts of seismic surveys if there aren't any actual plans to drill in the area. So, Mr. Secretary, are you taking those off the table? What about your statement--it also included another caveat, Mr. Secretary. You said you were ``removing Florida from consideration for any new oil and gas platforms.'' Well, all of us know that platforms are different from wellheads. So tell me, Mr. Secretary, does that mean there will still be drilling off the coast of Florida, but the platforms themselves might be located just to the west of the Military Mission Line, and the wellhead is going to be underneath and far from that prohibited line? Mr. Secretary, does your change of heart mean that the administration now supports the bipartisan efforts of the Florida delegation to extend the moratorium on drilling in the Eastern Gulf? That is the bill that I am introducing today, and it has been introduced by Congressman Castor in the House of Representatives. For every day that goes by without answers to these essential questions, the Secretary needs to add that much more time to the public comment period. The Secretary's promise last night at the Tallahassee Airport, one day after publishing in the Federal Register that Florida is off limits--right now those are just empty words because the only real thing out there that exists is the law that prevents drilling off the gulf coast of Florida for the next 5 years. The Secretary has proposed a 5-year plan to drill the rest of Florida and to start drilling in 2023 off the gulf coast of Florida. There is also a law called the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which spells out a very specific process for developing lease sales in Federal waters. With all of this rush, and now saying that Florida is ``off the table,'' I fear this announcement of Secretary Zinke's is going to discourage Floridians from commenting on the proposal that was published just this Monday--the one that opened up Florida's entire coastline to drilling--because Floridians have been given false assurances that they are all in the clear. That brings us back to this political stunt: Design a plan for the entire United States, publish it on Monday, and take it back on Tuesday for Florida for political reasons. Floridians should be aware and they should make their objections known because if they don't, then the administration will try to say that they never heard objections from Floridians. It goes on and on-- more political games. Floridians aren't the only ones who need to know what this means. What about all the other States that have been affected? Did you hear that there is an uproar among the Governors of other coastal States that are in this drilling plan of the administration? They asked: Why, one day later, would you go to Florida and say ``We are eliminating it,'' but, Secretary Zinke, you didn't exempt my State--all the way from Maine in the North, all the way to Florida on the Atlantic coast, all the other Gulf States, and then to the west coast of the United States, California all the way up to the State of Washington? It is more games. People in Maryland, people in Massachusetts, people in the Carolinas are really upset. They ask: Why don't you eliminate the drilling that you are proposing off my State? What about out in California and Oregon and the State of Washington? The administration and Secretary Zinke shouldn't be playing politics with an issue that is so important to all of our futures, especially so to Florida's future.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I must say, I have seen political games being played with trying to drill off of the coast of Florida. Not only am I appalled--I have recoiled at this political game--but unfortunately I am not surprised because of what we have seen happen in the last 15 hours. It all started late last week when the Department of the Interior released a new 5-year drilling plan. It virtually had all of the coastal waters--the Outer Continental Shelf of the entire United States--included in this plan, including that area of Florida that is off limits to drilling in law--a law that Republican Senator Mel Martinez and I passed back in 2006 that keeps drilling off of the gulf coast of Florida until the year 2022. This new proposal would open up nearly all of the Federal waters to drilling, including all of the coastal waters of Florida, both the west coast--gulf coast--and the east coast--the Atlantic--and also the Straits of Florida, those waters that come around the Florida Keys, which is the Gulf Stream that comes right up the southeast coast of Florida. The Gulf Stream then goes out across the Atlantic, past Bermuda, and ends up in Northern Europe. Well, our colleagues have heard this Senator many times come and talk about how keeping oil rigs away from Florida's coast is an issue that is important to our State because of our tourism economy but also because of the military missions on the west coast--the gulf--as well as the Atlantic. As a Floridian, this Senator has been fighting this fight ever since the mid-1980s when Secretary of the Interior James Watt intended to drill off the east coast of Florida where we were launching our space shuttle, dropping the solid rocket boosters, and where we were launching our military rockets, taking our clandestine satellites into orbit and dropping the first stages. That is how I beat it back in the 1980s, but lo and behold, here we are again in the same place. We know you can't allow drilling in the Straits of Florida right off the Florida Keys because an oilspill there would be in the Gulf Stream, and that Gulf Stream hugs the coast of southeast Florida. Can you imagine what it would do to the beaches of the Florida Keys, Miami Beach, and all up the Gold Coast of Florida, all the way to Palm Beach, all the way north to Fort Pierce, where then the Gulf Stream heads farther in a northeasterly direction out into the Atlantic? Well, let me show you what is happening in the gulf coast. All of this in yellow is what is off limits in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the 2006 law. There is an obvious reason for all of this--because this line is known as the Military Mission Line. Everything east of here is the largest testing and training area in the world for the U.S. military. That is why we put this off limits to oil activity. Oh, by the way, the testing and training mission for the entire Department of Defense is located right here at Eglin Air Force Base, which is where they brought all the pilot training for many nations for the F-35, the new super stealth jet fighter. Guess what is going on down here in Panama City at Tyndall Air Force Base. That is where we have all the pilot training for our F-22, another one of our stealth fighters. Down here in Key West, we have the Key West Naval Air Station. They bring in the squadrons of F-18s for the Navy at Boca Chica, which is where the airbase is, and within 2 minutes of lifting off the runway, they are over restricted airspace to do their testing and training. By the way, what about the rest of the Navy? They bring their amphibious ships in here, going onto the beaches up there by Eglin Air Force Base. And all of the activity is not just on the surface; the testing and training mission is also subsurface because that is part of the Navy's mission as well. There is ample opportunity to test because from here to here is 300 miles. From here to here is about 300 miles. So there is plenty of room to do this testing. This is the largest testing and training area in the world. But painfully, over time, we have found another reason, and that was over here off of Louisiana. A little over a decade ago, there was an oilspill. It wasn't any little oilspill; it was the Deepwater Horizon, the BP well that spewed at the surface. At the bottom of the ocean, which was a mile below the surface, it spewed out 5 million barrels of oil before they got it stopped. That was a rig that did not work. There was supposed to be what is called a blowout preventer that was to go in and clamp off the well, and there was a blowout. It was defective. It didn't close off that well at the wellhead 5,000 feet below the surface of the gulf. As a result, 5 million barrels of oil spilled. What happened to Florida's economy, not even to speak of all the fishing over in Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi? I will tell you what happened to Florida's economy. Oil came as far east as Pensacola Beach. Photographs of oil completely covering the sugary white sands of Pensacola Beach went around the world. So what did people do? For an entire tourist season, they didn't come to any of the beaches of the gulf coast because they thought there was oil on the beach. Painfully, that experience--not even to speak of what has been done to our environment and how much oil is still sloshing around down there on the bottom of the gulf--painfully, that experience got in the minds of the businesses all up and down the gulf coast of Florida. By the way, over on the east coast--had that oil ever gotten into a current called the Loop Current that comes down and becomes the Gulf Stream, that oil would have ruined the tourism industry all along Florida's southeast coast, from the Keys to Miami Beach, and all the way up to Fort Pierce, FL. Floridians feel fairly strongly about this. That is why we were fortunate, over a decade ago, in a bipartisan way, to pass a law to keep all of that area I just showed you off limits. We knew what would happen to our tourism--what people subsequently found out with the Deepwater Horizon oilspill--and we knew what would happen to threaten our national security by hampering our ability to do our training and testing. So, voila, all of a sudden, the Trump administration announces last week that it is going to drill off all of Florida. I have sponsored legislation in the past. I have introduced bills to expand the moratorium on the gulf coast. I have sponsored other legislation to protect Florida. And today I am introducing another bill that would be a permanent ban on drilling off of Florida's coast for exactly the reasons I have just said. Last week, when the Secretary of the Interior, Secretary Zinke, announced that they were opening up nearly all Federal waters, including all of those around Florida, we, of course, went into fighting mode again. We will fight this, and it will be defeated. It turns out that was just a political stunt because late yesterday--1 day after officially publishing the plan in the Federal Register--Secretary Zinke flew to Florida, met with the Governor of Florida for 20 minutes at the Tallahassee Airport, and suddenly announced that he had now decided to take Florida ``off the table.'' That sounds like a political stunt. While many in Florida have seen right through this shameless political stunt, it has opened up a long list of other questions that I have now asked Secretary Zinke to answer in a letter I sent today. What exactly does ``off the table'' mean? Is it the whole Eastern Gulf? Half of it? Is it 125 miles off the coast? Does it mean both coasts of Florida? Does it mean just one? What about the Straits of Florida, Secretary Zinke? What about the seismic surveys? You all have said you are proceeding with that. Are those off the table too? If you are going to take Florida waters ``off the table'' in this little political stunt that was done 1 day after the Federal Register published this proposed rule, does that mean you are going to eliminate the seismic surveys? There is no reason to expose marine life and endangered species to the harmful impacts of seismic surveys if there aren't any actual plans to drill in the area. So, Mr. Secretary, are you taking those off the table? What about your statement--it also included another caveat, Mr. Secretary. You said you were ``removing Florida from consideration for any new oil and gas platforms.'' Well, all of us know that platforms are different from wellheads. So tell me, Mr. Secretary, does that mean there will still be drilling off the coast of Florida, but the platforms themselves might be located just to the west of the Military Mission Line, and the wellhead is going to be underneath and far from that prohibited line? Mr. Secretary, does your change of heart mean that the administration now supports the bipartisan efforts of the Florida delegation to extend the moratorium on drilling in the Eastern Gulf? That is the bill that I am introducing today, and it has been introduced by Congressman Castor in the House of Representatives. For every day that goes by without answers to these essential questions, the Secretary needs to add that much more time to the public comment period. The Secretary's promise last night at the Tallahassee Airport, one day after publishing in the Federal Register that Florida is off limits--right now those are just empty words because the only real thing out there that exists is the law that prevents drilling off the gulf coast of Florida for the next 5 years. The Secretary has proposed a 5-year plan to drill the rest of Florida and to start drilling in 2023 off the gulf coast of Florida. There is also a law called the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which spells out a very specific process for developing lease sales in Federal waters. With all of this rush, and now saying that Florida is ``off the table,'' I fear this announcement of Secretary Zinke's is going to discourage Floridians from commenting on the proposal that was published just this Monday--the one that opened up Florida's entire coastline to drilling--because Floridians have been given false assurances that they are all in the clear. That brings us back to this political stunt: Design a plan for the entire United States, publish it on Monday, and take it back on Tuesday for Florida for political reasons. Floridians should be aware and they should make their objections known because if they don't, then the administration will try to say that they never heard objections from Floridians. It goes on and on-- more political games. Floridians aren't the only ones who need to know what this means. What about all the other States that have been affected? Did you hear that there is an uproar among the Governors of other coastal States that are in this drilling plan of the administration? They asked: Why, one day later, would you go to Florida and say ``We are eliminating it,'' but, Secretary Zinke, you didn't exempt my State--all the way from Maine in the North, all the way to Florida on the Atlantic coast, all the other Gulf States, and then to the west coast of the United States, California all the way up to the State of Washington? It is more games. People in Maryland, people in Massachusetts, people in the Carolinas are really upset. They ask: Why don't you eliminate the drilling that you are proposing off my State? What about out in California and Oregon and the State of Washington? The administration and Secretary Zinke shouldn't be playing politics with an issue that is so important to all of our futures, especially so to Florida's future.

Mr. NELSON

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