Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I join our colleague from Texas in asking the Senate to take up and pass the Space Frontier Act of 2019. We are asking to expedite consideration of this bill in order to allow for the House to take it up and pass it tonight. I thank Senator Cruz, Senator Markey, and the chairman of the Commerce Committee, Senator Thune, for working with all of us on this bipartisan issue. It updates the commercial launch and Earth observation regulations. It extends the International Space Station through 2030. This is no minor task to get that national laboratory that is orbiting high above the Earth--six human beings are on board right now doing research. All the people participating, including the commercial sector, know they will have that national laboratory all the way to the end of the decade of the 2020s, which is going to allow them to plan and invest. Who knows what discoveries they will make in this unique environment of zero gravity. The act also expands opportunities for partnerships with NASA under the Agency's enhanced use authority. Reforms in this bill will help commercial space companies, very likely in the near future, to have two launches a day. As a result, jobs will continue to soar as the rockets soar off the launchpads. Extending the life of the station well through the next decade, as this bill does, will also ensure that America remains a leader in space exploration. Now, we know our goal is to go to Mars with humans, and what this bill does today furthers that goal by giving us a research outpost in zero gravity--the International Space Station--by continuing to improve and perfect America's launch capability. I remind you, it was only a few years ago that we only had about one- third of the world's launches each year. The United States only had one-third. We now have upward of two-thirds. A lot of this is occurring right at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. So as we set our sights on Mars with the way station at the Moon and build the technologies and the systems in order to carry humans all the way to Mars, land, and to return them safely, this bill is another step, building on the NASA Authorization Act that we passed 1 year ago. So indeed it is my privilege to be here and to be a part of the passage of this legislation.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, my concluding remarks are about an early Christmas present that I received this past Monday at a staff going- away party that occurred in Florida, where all of our Florida staff came together to wish each other well. Little did I know that a special guest was going to appear. He was none other than one of the chefs of the catering company that was catering this holiday going-away party. Let me tell you the story of this 34-year-old chef and what happened 34 years ago. At the time of the middle 1980s--1985 to be exact--this Senator was a young Congressman. A husband and wife, who were constituents of mine in East Central Florida, came to me in great distress because their infant boy had been born with a defective liver. The advance of medicine at that particular time was that there was no known cure except to do a liver transplant. Thirty-four years ago, organ transplants were still in their infancy, and 34 years ago, there was no organ registry being maintained in order to try to find a family who had lost a loved one so that a loved one's organs could be harvested and then be available for those who were on a registry waiting for them. None of that existed 34 years ago. Only since then have we seen this miraculous organization set up whereby people who need organ transplants can get on the list. Then, whenever an organ becomes available, no matter where it is in the country, that match--that organ--is immediately packed in ice and is flown to the receiving hospital where the organ transplant is going to occur. None of this existed. It was a catch-as-catch-can to find an organ to transplant. This was especially true with a liver transplant because a liver transplant, at the time, had to have the identical blood type, and it had to be the identical size of the recipient's liver. Here was a few-months'-old child who was desperately clinging to life and needed a liver transplant to survive. At the time, we were in session. There was a particularly major bill that was up, and its passage in the House of Representatives was in the balance--within just a handful of votes. The bill was proposed by President Reagan. I had already decided that I was going to vote for the bill, which was in favor of the President's position, when I saw an opportunity to maybe save this child's life. So I held out and declared my position as ``undecided'' in my knowing that the votes were coming down to just one or two at passage. Actually, we must have been out for the weekend before this vote was to have occurred, because I received a phone call from President Reagan while I was at my home in Florida. The President greeted me and told me what he was asking me to do. I said to him: Mr. President, I have already decided that I am going to vote for the bill, and I know that it is welcome news to you. I wish you would do something for me--possibly save a child's life. I then told him the story of the need of a liver of a certain blood type and of a certain size for a transplant in a minor child. The President said he would do that. Shortly thereafter, the Secretary of Health and Human Services called, who was a former colleague from the House--Secretary Margaret Heckler of Massachusetts. She said: At the President's request, I am going to have a press conference to put out this information that this child is in need of this specific type of transplant. Margaret Heckler did that. A donor was found because of that press release in 1985 in California. They raced that harvested organ, by jet, to the hospital in Pittsburgh. Ryan Osterblom, with his parents, was then flown to the hospital. The successful transplant occurred 34 years ago. Early last Monday, you can imagine the Christmas present I received when there at our going-away party for our staff, the chef of the catering company was none other than 34-year-old Ryan Osterblom. That was the best Christmas present I could have. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, Syria has been a mess and a concern for quite a number of years. By putting in a small footprint now of a little over 2,000 special operations troops, the United States has been considerably successful when you think of what a chaotic place it was and still is and that it was especially inimical to the interests of the United States just a few years ago. Remember the horrible images of U.S. citizens being executed by ISIS. Remember all of the trauma we have seen the Syrian Government perpetrate on its own people. Remember the successful efforts of a combination of forces that ultimately took on ISIS, that removed it from its headquarters of its caliphate and caused it to disperse if it were not eliminated at the time. A lot of that was led with Kurdish fighters who were fighting alongside U.S. special operations advisers. Even though complicated because of the Russians' being there and the Turks' having interests and Assad's trying to hang on to power, the United States has been successful in not eliminating but in lessening the influence of ISIS. Then came the shocker--the shocker of the President's announcing unilaterally that, all of a sudden, he was going to pull the special operations troops, as advisers, out of Syria. This would likely cause immediate instability. It would certainly allow for ISIS to reconstruct itself, and it would cause chaos with the Kurdish troops who fought alongside the Americans, with the Turkish Government's going after a number of them. This is an ill-advised and probably a non-advised decision by the President, and it should be reversed. This Senator calls on all of the national defense, national security, and national intelligence professionals who are within the administration to get the President to reverse this unilateral decision that he has made. Otherwise, U.S. interests are going to be ill-served.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, it is my understanding that Senator Schumer wants to speak, and then I will seek recognition later.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I add my congratulations.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I will conclude my remarks by just bringing you back to the vision that I had in the window of a spacecraft orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes. An hour of that was in the daylight of the sun and about a half-hour of that in the shadow of the Earth, which is the nighttime, looking at how beautiful the Earth was, and yet it looked so fragile. You could look at the rim of the Earth, that bright blue band, but right underneath it you could see that very thin atmosphere that supports all of our life. With the naked eye, from that altitude in the spacecraft orbiting the planet, you could actually see how we are messing it up. You could see this in flight 34 years ago. As a matter of fact, our first launch attempt, 34 years today, took us five tries to get off the ground, but once we did, we could see with the naked eye how we are messing it up. Coming across Madagascar, the island nation off the southeast coast of the continent of Africa, you could see they had cut down all the trees. You could immediately see the effects because when the rains came, there was no vegetation to hold the topsoil, and the topsoil was all running down. From that altitude, looking down, you could see that silt going out into the bright blue waters of the Indian Ocean. With the naked eye, you can see that. It is such a beautiful planet. We best take care of it. Indeed, that was the effect upon me of having gone into space. I decided I wanted to be a better steward when I came back to Earth. Here we are, 34 years later, still fighting--fighting and fighting--to try to get people to understand what we are doing to ourselves. I thank this Senator, and I thank all the Senators who have spoken here, and I want your voices to keep strong and keep consistent and keep at it because sooner or later--hopefully, not after a catastrophe--the world's population is going to come around and understand that we have to be better stewards of our home. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I have been listening to our colleagues with rapt attention at the excellence of their presentations and the depth of their understanding of this problem. I couldn't help but notice on the charts of the Senator from Oregon, often the source was NOAA or NASA, two Agencies where we have had to worry, in the last 2 years, about the attempted muzzling of science, of scientists, and the seeming putdown of science--not by the Agencies themselves because they are such great experts. As matter of fact, when I have held several hearings at ground zero, which is South Florida, where we are seeing the effects of climate change in the rising of the seas and now are seeing a mean high tide and the water sloshing over the curbs of South Florida cities--having these hearings there, it is often NASA scientists and NOAA scientists who testify. So I want the Senator from Oregon, the Senator from Delaware who preceded him, several others, and the Senator from Massachusetts to know how much I appreciate their taking up the banner and keeping on this matter. I also want to say that if we do not change our processes of putting a lot of carbon into the air--and, as the Senator said, it is often methane, it is often carbon dioxide--the Earth will continue to heat up. If it gets heated up to something over 4 degrees Fahrenheit more than the average annual global temperature, that is the point of no return. At that point, you can't stop the heating up. If we know the disaster now that we see in the sea level rising, the greater cost to government with the additional infrastructure, the moving of water wells further inland to keep away from the encroaching sea water and saltwater intrusion--if we know that, why in the world would we not contemplate the ultimate destruction of the planet if it gets too hot? I would love to get the Senator's comments.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, Dr. Thomas Kent ``T.K.'' Wetherell was a distinguished public servant, educator, and a great man who leaves behind a tremendous legacy of service to the State of Florida. Dr. Wetherell is recognized as one of the best speakers in the history of the Florida House of Representatives, as well as a transformative and effective president of Florida State University, FSU, and Tallahassee Community College. He loved the State of Florida and worked his entire career to improve higher education in the State. As a student at FSU from 1963 to 1968, T.K. was a star football player. In fact, he still holds the record for the longest kickoff return in the school's history. Off the field he succeeded in academics, earning bachelor's and master's degrees in social studies education in 1967 and 1968 and a doctorate in education in 1974. A third-generation Floridian, T.K. became the first alumnus to serve as the president of his alma mater. His tenure as president of FSU from 2003 to 2010 marked a transformative time for the university. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Wetherell launched the Pathways of Excellence initiative, which elevated the research profile of FSU and brought hundreds of millions in investments to campus. He brought the Applied Superconductivity Center to FSU, where it became the materials research division of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. FSU's brand new College of Medicine graduated its first class under Dr. Wetherell's tenure and opened six new regional campuses. He established the Office of National Fellowships and the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors, both of which improved the national academic profile of FSU. Even this University of Florida Gator can appreciate that he made FSU a stronger university. His time in the Florida House of Representatives was no less impressive. He chaired the Appropriations and Education Committees, where he transformed the lessons he learned working at State universities into commonsense legislation that improved the State's university system for all students. It's no wonder the Miami Herald named him one of the Top Ten Legislative Leaders in the body for five straight years. Beyond T.K.'s many professional accomplishments, I counted him as one of my best friends. He was a man of integrity who didn't shy away from challenges and was passionate about improving higher education in our fine State. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Ginger, and their children and grandchildren.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I rise on behalf of S. 756, the FIRST STEP Act. It is a first step, and it is a mighty important first step. Hopefully, this bill is going to pass later today. This revised FIRST STEP Act is long overdue. I am proud to see that the House, the Senate, and the President are all working together, as they should, to pass this important bill. This country of ours incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. The Federal prison population has grown by over 700 percent since 1980, and it consumes one quarter of the Department of Justice's budget. No one questions that some people deserve to go to prison for the crimes they commit--sometimes for a long time. Yet it is time to bring some common sense back into our criminal justice system. This legislation will allow judges to do the job that they were appointed to do--to use their discretion to craft an appropriate sentence to fit the crime. There are numerous stories of judges who are forced, by strict mandatory minimums, to sentence people to decades in prison for low-level drug offenses. How many times have we heard of a judge who says, ``I don't think that this sentence ought to be imposed, but I have no other choice for this is what the sentencing guidelines say''? We have seen examples of people who have been sent to prison for more than 50 years for selling $350 worth of marijuana--a drug that is now legal in some States. In my State of Florida, the use of marijuana for medical purposes is legal. It was passed by three-quarters of the people in a constitutional amendment. These rigid sentences that do not fit the crimes ought to be turned around, and that is exactly what this legislation does. If we don't start this first step of turning it around, it will be so wasteful, so unfair, so costly. It is not how our criminal justice system was intended to work. I am sure the senior Senator from Illinois has already told you about the wide swath of groups, people, and organizations from across the political spectrum who understand that the system is broken and want it to be repaired. In addition to the much needed sentencing reform, this legislation includes prison reform ending cruel and inhuman practices in our Federal prison system. It is Federal juvenile solitary confinement, a practice that now the psychiatrists tell us gives long psychological damage. It also prohibits the shackling of pregnant prisoners. Doctors have told us about the harm that can come to a pregnant female and serious harm to the fetus if she is not appropriately looked after, and shackling can interfere with that appropriate medical care. The American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists strongly oppose the shackling of women who are pregnant. This FIRST STEP Act also requires prisoners to be incarcerated closer to their home so family members can visit them. After all, don't we want to rehabilitate prisoners? It provides opioid treatment to inmates that suffer from addiction-- something that probably led to their incarceration in the first place. There is more to do certainly. That is why this is just a first step. It is a bipartisan first step. It is a concrete improvement of our current system. I am proud to support this legislation. This Senator gave his farewell address last week, but because of this very important legislation, which this Senator has wanted to see come to life and be enacted into law for such a long time, it was important for me to come to this floor and to speak on its behalf, as well as to thank the managers of the bill who have brought it through this long and torturous path. It is finally going to become a reality. This, indeed, is an example that when people of goodwill put their minds to it and come together in a bipartisan fashion, in fact, you can get something done. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I just wanted to address the Senator from Missouri to tell her that she has been a wonderful colleague for this Senator. As someone of more moderation in her politics who comes from a Republican-dominated State, she has negotiated the political winds so well and has always kept her eye on representing her State. This Senator from Florida particularly appreciates that, because being a Democrat in a Republican State is not an easy task, and she has done it with such dignity, looking out for her people, looking out for the people who are voiceless. I just want her to know she has the appreciation of this Senator from Florida. 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, this is my farewell speech, and I thought it would do me well to think back to the very first speech I gave on the floor--my maiden speech. My maiden speech was about a couple of months after my first time being sworn in. I had waited back then--this is 18 years ago. It was appropriate for freshmen Senators to wait a while, don't speak up right away. So I waited 2 or 3 months until it felt like it was the appropriate time, and I remember there was nobody out here. It was an empty Chamber. I picked a topic of the day. I think we were trying to balance the budget at the time--something that 18 years later we are still trying to do. Then, in the course of the speech, I mentioned that it was my maiden speech. Nobody was out here except the Presiding Officer. All of a sudden, those doors swung open, and right then and there, in strides Senator Robert Byrd. I was standing at a desk over there on the other side, and Senator Byrd's seat was either here or here. So I finished my speech and he said: Will the Senator from Florida yield? I said: Of course, I will yield. Senator Byrd, for 30 minutes, gave an oration on the history of maiden speeches in the Senate. So you can imagine, nothing I said was memorable, but it was certainly memorable to this Senator that all of a sudden I would be treated to the corporate knowledge from one of the lions of the Senate in looking back on the history of this body. I wanted you to know I am a Florida boy. My family came to Florida from Denmark in 1829. So many people come to Florida from the Northeast. Well, my great-great-grandfather was a sailor--a teenager on a sailing ship--and he ended up in New York in a barroom brawl. He was frightened that he was going to be arrested, so he ran to hide. He ran down to the wharf. He hid in a ship, and the ship cast off for Port St. Joe, FL, in 1829. So you see, my family came to Florida from New York also. Five generations--on the other side of the family, I have a deed signed by Woodrow Wilson in 1917 to my grandparents after they had worked the land for the required 4 years. Under the Homestead Act, the government would deed you 160 acres of land. It is the act that pushed the frontier so much farther into the hinterlands, and we especially think of it westward, but that was also southward. That 160 acres of land is, today, in the north end of the space shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Center. I cannot imagine, in that 4-year period, my grandparents swatting mosquitos and fending off alligators and rattlesnakes, scratching out a living they could survive on out of the hard earth of the land. Yet that is the hardy stock from which this Senator comes. Grace and I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support. I stand before you today, and I don't think anyone could have been more blessed. It is not easy when you take your leave from the people you love and the work you love, and it causes a time of intense reflection. So I reflected back to the time in late 1985 and a series of events over the course of the next few weeks. It was a tense time in the first launch attempt of the 24th flight of the space shuttle. We went down to T-minus 8 seconds. I had braced my body for the ignition of the main engines at T-minus 6.6, and all of a sudden I heard them calling over the intercom: We stopped the count. We are recycling. That launch was scrubbed that day. There was an indication by a sensor that a gimbaling motor on the thrusters of the solid rocket boosters was malfunctioning. Had that been the case, 9 seconds later, we would not be going straight up. We would have been cartwheeled. So we were let off for Christmas, came back into quarantine in the latter part of December, and tried the next launch attempt, only to go down to 31 seconds, and the count stopped. An alert supervisor on the consoles of the launch center had noticed the locks line was getting too cold. They checked, and a mistaken override of the computer had occurred and 18,000 pounds of liquid oxygen had been drained. Had we launched 31 seconds later, we would not have had enough fuel to get to orbit, and it would have taken the greatest ability of our commander, Navy Captain--now retired--Robert Gibson, to land a fully loaded spacecraft on a short runway at Dakar, Senegal, or Moron, Spain. So we tried the third time. This time, the count was called off for some external reason. Each of these times, we were in the spacecraft strapped in, ready to go. At this point, I think the weather was not cooperating over in Africa and Spain. You have to have clear skies there in case you get into that transatlantic abort. So it was called off. Well, that night, when they drained the tanks, they found that a temperature probe on the ground support equipment had flowed through the oxygen line and flowed into the vehicle and was stuck in a prevalve right next to one of the three main engines. Had we launched that morning--in this case, the third try--we would have gotten to orbit, it would have been time for the main engine cut off, and one of the three engines would not have cut off. It would have blown the rear end of the orbiter apart. A few days later--it was a Friday--we tried for the fourth time. This time we are in the middle of a driving Florida rainstorm. We ran from the crew van to the launch tower to get into the elevator and out of the pouring rain. We were strapped in, ready to go, waiting for a hole to punch through. Now, the rainstorm had turned into a driving Florida lightning storm, and we were sitting on top of all that liquid hydrogen. They finally called off the launch the fourth try. The fifth try was a Sunday morning. It was a beautiful day. We launched into an almost flawless 6-day mission, only to return to Earth, and 10 days later, the Challenger launched and blew up high in the Florida sky, under circumstances of cold weather that almost exactly duplicated the first launch attempt back on December 19. Intense reflection. Why was I spared? Now, upon intense reflection, I think I am beginning to see because it has been the great honor of my life to serve our country and the people of Florida--first in the Army, then in the State legislature, then in the Congress, then a State treasurer, and now, 18 years as Senator. I have tried to serve our country admirably and with integrity because I believe a public office is a public trust. Through this journey, I have been so fortunate to have experienced so many neat corners of this country that all of us here love. I have seen the Sun shine through the pine trees, the oaks, and the orange groves of Florida. I have hunted alligators and pythons in the Everglades. I have jogged the sands of just about every Florida beach from Pensacola to the Keys. Of course, I strapped into a rocket, weighing 4\1/2\ million pounds, to launch to the heavens and see our planet from a way that very few others have. You have heard me talk about that as I describe our environment and how beautiful this planet is from the window of a spacecraft. Of course, these experiences in this country--the American people, every one of us and our fellow citizens, the teachers, the soldiers, the factory workers, the moms, the dads, the students, the farmers, those are the ones who have inspired me to dedicate a life to public service. Those folks have been my strength as they are often your strength. It is the American people who have kept me going for the past 46 years of public service. While I have experienced the highs and lows of serving in the Senate, it is often the small, unnoticed steps toward progress that have made this journey worthwhile. I am most happy with some of the work that has been done to help individuals. I want to mention just a few. To Christine Levinson and her family, we have worked tirelessly to bring Bob Levinson home. I have come to this floor for 11 years and said that if Iran does not have Bob, they know where to find him. It is our responsibility to see that Bob--a man who served this country in the FBI for 30 years--is finally reunited with his wife and seven children and grandchildren. In another example, it has been a pleasure to work with Rochelle Hamm, of Jacksonville, and with the families of the 33 crew members of the El Faro who perished at sea when their cargo ship sank while they sailed into the path of a hurricane in 2015. As a result of that terrible tragedy, we were able to enact into law key maritime safety reforms, including requiring oceangoing vessels to be outfitted with distress beacons and equipment to locate lost seafarers. There are many ways to get things done around here. Sometimes it requires taking the bully pulpit and confronting people to correct an injustice. You will notice, as I said, that these are often little things that people don't notice. Take the case of Bob ``Peach Head'' Mitchell, of Tampa, who was a part of the Negro leagues of baseball. For years, he fought to get Major League Baseball to provide compensation to former Negro leagues ballplayers, who were excluded from the majors because of their race. Yet they were some of the best players. When Jackie Robinson integrated the majors in 1947, the rest of the majors were not integrated until 1959. All of those Negro leagues players had still been playing and had never gotten the compensation. It took 3 years of cajoling and haranguing to get the Major League Baseball Commissioner to do the right thing and give the elderly former ballplayers their due. Sam Snow also comes to mind, who, for most of his life, had paid a terrible price for the injustice done when the Army had wrongfully convicted him and 27 other Black soldiers who had participated in a 1944 riot in Seattle that had resulted in the lynching of an Italian prisoner of war. Some decades later, when the Army had finally admitted its mistake, it had refused to give those soldiers compensation for their lost pay and for the time they had spent in prison. Once I heard about it, I kept on the Army until it paid the veterans their back pay plus interest. We all deal in legislation. As for the business of legislation, think about some of the things that we wrote. We in Florida wrote legislation to protect Florida's beaches, our tourism-driven economy, and our wildlife from the dangers of offshore oil drilling. We, the Democratic caucus, passed groundbreaking legislation that medically insured 22 million Americans in this country. In my State, it was over 1.7 million people. We ensured that they had healthcare and health insurance. Interestingly, because of our protecting preexisting conditions coverage, just in the State of Florida alone, 8 million people who have preexisting conditions are protected because of the law. It also eliminated the lifetime caps on coverage. You know the fights that we have had ever since we started that day on the Finance Committee. It was after the dog days of August, when you couldn't have a townhall meeting in 2009 because of the disruptions. In September, we on the Finance Committee wrote that bill. It took every member of the Democratic caucus--60 strong then--to be able to pass it. Now millions and millions of people have health insurance who have never had it before, and untold millions more who have preexisting conditions are protected. We wrote the blueprint that has reinvigorated our space program and brought new space companies and high-paying jobs to our country and to Florida. In our lifetime, we are going to see humankind set foot on other celestial bodies besides the Moon--legislation that could not have been passed without there having been a bipartisan effort. We fought to help folks get the resources they needed to recover in the aftermath of the major hurricanes that savaged people's lives and property. We worked to make higher education more affordable by capping interest rates on student loans. We also secured billions of dollars in funding for projects all over America to preserve the environment and to help restore--and it is restoring--Florida's environmental treasure, the Everglades. The list goes on and on. The setbacks temper the successes in that we have seen constant attempts to disenfranchise voters and to make it more difficult for all Americans to have their voices heard at the ballot box. Then, of course, the Court's 2010 decision opened the floodgates and allowed the wealthiest Americans to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections and corrupt our democracy. Also, what in the world has happened to civility and to humility in our Nation's public discourse? Where are our servant leaders who seek to serve instead of to be served? So we still have much work to do. We need now, more than ever, to focus on building the kind of relationships here in Washington that can solve the great problems that our Nation faces. I caution our colleagues and caution those who will join this body to resist the pulls of partisan acrimony and the forces that seek to divide us. Tribalism is our problem, and if not corrected, it is going to take our country down. I know I am just another Senator who is saying what a lot of Senators who are departing are saying. We all here remember--right over at that desk there--John McCain, in one of his last Senate addresses during which he could stand, saying the same thing. Some of my fondest memories in the Senate have been with those who have sat on the other side of that center aisle. Because of this, I know that while Republicans and Democrats may disagree on policy, we have a lot to unify us in our values and principles that we share. My parting words are that there is no greater challenge for this Senate than to have the moral courage to choose country over party or over power, to choose justice for all instead of justice for the few, and to give others respect instead of condemnation. Those of us who are fortunate enough to serve in this Senate are also confronted daily by a set of obligations that we have when we take on this title of U.S. Senator. We have an obligation to the people of this Nation to do everything in our power to uphold the country's democratic institutions and to insist that the truth guide our public discussions even if doing so comes at the cost of short-term political loss. As Senators, we have been uniquely given the responsibility to provide advice and consent to the executive branch, and we must take this charge seriously and with independence from another branch. We must uphold the rule of law. In doing so, we must affirm that no one person is above the law. There are a great many challenges that our country faces. I call upon all of you who serve in this Senate to act with moral courage when these obligations come calling in the future. As I depart, I am putting my trust in you. I trust you to work on behalf of the countless numbers who do not have a voice in this Chamber. I count on you to give a voice to our brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico, who are long overdue for representation. I trust you will fight to make healthcare more accessible and more cost-effective, keep rigs off of our coasts, and make higher education more affordable for everyone. I trust you will work to protect our environment from pollution and will continue the restoration of our Everglades. Above all, I trust you will act with integrity in uniting Americans for the common wheel. For the people of America, you in this Senate must be a beacon of light at a time when it seems that darkness is increasingly gathering in our politics. You must remember that your voices and your actions will help to shape the future. You have the power to make our discourse more civil and to create change. To our staff, both in the office and the Commerce Committee, you all are like family. You are like family to Grace and me, and I am grateful for the work you do day in and day out for the people of Florida. You are all hard-working. You are dedicated. You are loyal public servants. None of what we do around here would be possible were it not for each of you. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of all staffers who have been a part of our Senate family over these 18 years be printed in the Record.

Mr. NELSON. To my wife Grace and my children Bill and Nan Ellen, I am so grateful for the support you have provided throughout the years. The journey has been a joy. I leave this Senate today filled with hope for the future and the fondest memories of my fellowship with great friends here, but I admit, it is hard to leave the friends and the work I love. I intend to keep fighting for all I have talked about in this short, final speech, and I intend to keep fighting for Florida. When it comes down to it, I am just a country boy who has loved serving my State and our country for all of my life. It has been an incredible honor. I yield the floor. (Applause, Senators rising.)

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I rise to speak on a subject that our colleagues know is very dear to my heart--America's space program. Although this is the last of many, many floor speeches I have made on the subject, I stand before the Senate with a heart that is full of gratitude, joy, and hope for the future of our space program. I have been extremely privileged to have witnessed and in some cases to have participated in the extraordinary triumphs of our Nation's 60- year quest to explore the heavens. I flew to orbit and marveled at the beauty, fragility, and seemingly peacefulness of Mother Earth, our planet. I had the honor of making that trip with one of the finest crews to have ever flown in America's space program. There was CAPT Robert ``Hoot'' Gibson, our commander, as well as Maj. Gen. Charlie Bolden, Retired, our pilot, who flew five missions--four as commander. Of course, General Bolden ultimately became the Administrator of NASA for the entire time of the Obama administration. There was Dr. George Nelson, otherwise known to all in the astronaut office as Pinky. There was Dr. Steve Hawley, Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz--the first Hispanic- American astronaut--and Bob Cenker, who was an engineer at the time with RCA, which was the satellite that we launched while in orbit. It was a profound and humbling experience that reinforced my belief that we needed to not only be good stewards of our planet but that we should always try to treat others with whom we may differ culturally, ethnically, or socially with dignity, compassion, and respect. In looking back at Earth from the window of a spacecraft, you don't see political divisions, racial divisions, religious differences. You don't see the suffering or the injustice that face those back home on the planet. Instead, you quickly realize that we on this planet, our planet Earth, are all in this together. I have been filled with wonder over some of the greatest scientific discoveries of our age--the discovery of the signs of water; the discovery of, perhaps, even life on Mars; the discovery that our galaxy is full of countless planets--many of them, very possibly, inhabitable; and the discovery that our universe is being driven apart by mysterious forces known as dark energy and is filled with a mysterious material known as dark matter. Along with my fellow Americans, I grieved when, tragically, we lost two space shuttles and the brave astronauts aboard. I have grieved as we have lost astronauts along the way, even in the Apollo 1 fire. I grieved with America as we thought Apollo 13 was lost and how, miraculously, in one of NASA's greatest success stories--with three humans on the way to the Moon when the explosion occurred and not having any idea how we could get them back--the whole NASA team came together. The engineers, the mathematicians, the astronauts on the ground, the controllers, and the contractors all devised a way to bring back Jim Lovell's crew. As everyone in NASA's family is keenly aware, navigating the heavens is as dangerous now, if not more so, than the crossing of the oceans was 100, 200, 300 years ago. Leaving the relative safety and comfort of home to explore new frontiers is every bit as important now as it was then. We must proceed with caution lest we foolishly put the lives of the explorers at risk, but we must also proceed with courage lest we risk remaining stuck on the ground. I have also had the honor of collaborating with heroes like John Glenn, Tom Stafford, and Neil Armstrong on the future of our space program. I have been very proud to have played a little part in the establishment of our thriving commercial space industry with the drafting and passage of the Commercial Space Launch Acts of 1984 and 1988, back when I was a young Congressman, and to have witnessed the rise of and contributions of present-day space entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. At the same time, I appreciate the steady hand and transformative contribution of the NASA leaders, like Charlie Bolden, Bill Gerstenmaier, and Bob Cabana. I can't help but remember the guiding hand of George Abbey--that was so strong--at the Johnson Space Center, and I have celebrated the long overdue emergence of female superstars, like Marillyn Hewson and Gwynne Shotwell, amongst the space industry leadership. It has been a pleasure working in Congress with a number of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to advance the space ambitions of our country because, as I have said many times before, space is, and should always remain, a nonpartisan issue. NASA is a nonpartisan Agency. I am also encouraged by NASA Administrator Bridenstine's leadership in his early tenure at the helm of this Agency, and I wish him much success. I applaud him for continuing to make good on his promises to keep NASA out of partisan politics and to heed the advice of the Agency's talented and experienced space professionals and scientists. NASA is a unique Agency, the head of which is like the Department of Defense. The Secretary of Defense is not looked upon as partisan; neither is the Administrator of NASA. I could not be more gracious and humbled to be here today and to tell you, as we celebrate NASA's 60th birthday this year, our space program has a spectacular and an exciting future. It is a future full of opportunity, and it is a future that will require everyone--industry, Congress, and the Agency, as well as our international partners-- pulling in the same direction to make it a reality. If you go back a few years to 2010, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and I recognized back then that we had set NASA's human space flight program on its current dual path, to build private sector capabilities in low-Earth orbit and a government-led program for deep space and, ultimately, Mars. We recognized some of the misdirection and lack of direction the space program had; it needed direction. Once Kay Bailey Hutchison and I passed the NASA authorization in 2010, that dual-path approach started to bear fruit, including our recapturing of a majority of the global commercial launch market--a market we had almost completely lost to overseas competitors. We are also constructing the building blocks of the systems that will take us to Mars. In the last administration, President Obama said: We are going to Mars. Within a year, we should have two different U.S. vehicles safely transporting our astronauts to and from the International Space Station, which will allow us to increase the number of crew aboard the station and dramatically bolster our research there. It is research that will ultimately help us on our journey to Mars with humans. I remain confident that we will continue to operate the ISS well past the middle of the next decade. As a matter of fact, Senator Cruz and I are still trying, in this Congress, to get the date for the International Space Station extended to the end of the decade. It would be foolish to dispose of the orbital laboratory--designated a national laboratory, which is our toehold on the space frontier--just as it is reaching the most productive period, and that is what it is doing in its research on orbit. There is still a lot more work to be done. We must focus our technology investments to ensure that the journey to Mars is safe, productive, and affordable. We need new propulsion systems to get us to Mars faster. Those are in the stages of research right now. As we begin conducting human missions farther and farther from Earth, we must ensure that each activity gets us closer to achieving the goal--which President Obama laid out for the decade of the 2030s--of ``boots on Mars.'' We also need to prepare workers for the high-tech, good-paying jobs of the 21st century. It has been one of my singular achievements to have worked with other leaders in government and in industry to help bring about the dramatic modernization of the historic launch infrastructure at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. All of these exciting developments would not have been possible without the talent, dedication, and commitment of the thousands of workers who poured their hearts and souls into the space shuttle and the space station. That same dedication and pride of accomplishment continue today with the building of new spacecrafts like Dragon, Starliner, and Orion. A few short years ago, business at the cape was much different than it is today. Commercial launch companies were looking elsewhere to take their business, despite all of the available infrastructure and the amazing workforce on the Space Coast. Too much bureaucracy stood in the way of progress. To address the problem, I convened the top leaders from the Air Force, NASA, and the FAA in Chairman Rockefeller's office. I brought an aerial photo of all of the abandoned launch pads at the cape and got their commitment to work together with the private sector to bring these pads back to life. It is just amazing from that photograph to see all of those launch pads--all of which the older generation will remember gave so much inspiration to America in its early space days-- abandoned. They are now roaring back to life with launches and landings on those very same pads. I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge, as I already have, Senator Cruz and his leadership, along with many of my colleagues here, for joining me in the fight to pass legislation to force the Agencies to reduce the overlap and duplication in regulations. I am grateful to have worked with so many to pave the way for the exciting future that lies ahead for commercial space endeavors. I thank the Appropriations Committee, and I thank the leadership of the Appropriations Committee, including the Senator here on the floor, the Senator from Vermont. The proof is in the pudding how, over the years, they have provided the appropriations as we have brought NASA back to life on this dual track of commercial launches, going to and from low-Earth orbit, as well as exploring the heavens, which is NASA's mission. I can also say that proof is in the pudding of the space launches coming back to life because Cape Canaveral hosted two-thirds of the nearly 30 American launches last year. The day is fast approaching when we will see multiple launches on the same day, as well as the largest, most powerful rocket ever assembled lifting off from the launch pad, beginning our journey to Mars. Quite simply, jobs and ingenuity are soaring because rockets are soaring. As go Florida's Space Coast and the Houston area, so goes the U.S. space industry as a whole. As we continue to move forward, it is also imperative that we continue our world-leading science and aeronautics activities. NASA pursues some of the most challenging and enduring questions facing humanity: How does life come to exist? Are we alone? What is to become of us and our planet? Engaging and empowering the U.S. science community should remain a top priority, enabling us to find new discoveries and to inspire and motivate future generations of scientists and engineers. History has shown us that the nations that cease to explore begin to decline and collapse. It is our very nature, as Americans, to explore. Would humanity still exist if humans had not spread from Africa, to Asia, to Europe, to the Americas, and eventually to the remote reaches of the Arctic and the isolated islands of Polynesia? Would we, as a nation, have fulfilled our destiny if we did not push our frontier forward? I think not. Will humanity still exist far in the future if we choose to stop exploring now? The cosmos offers us limitless opportunities to expand--not just to survive but to thrive. Imagine the first baby boy or girl born away from planet Earth. Imagine the first artist to paint a sunset on Mars. Imagine our solar system inhabited by 100 billion dreamers, innovators, and creators. Imagine a future where those people--perhaps the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of those in primary school today-- look back on our era as the time when humanity began to journey outward. I believe that as we discover and experience the wonders of the cosmos, we will achieve the greatest outcome of all. We will find that our home planet Earth and all of the life and love that inhabits it have become even more beautiful and all the more precious to us. With that I say, resoundingly, onward and upward. As the command given from the ground after the space shuttle has passed through maximum dynamic pressure, as the main engines have throttled back and the shuttle has ascended into the atmosphere and the mission can press forward to orbit, the command is given: Go at throttle up. 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. President, I wish to speak about one of the world's great natural treasures, the Florida Everglades. Eighteen years ago, there was an anniversary; as a matter of fact, it was in December of 2000. One of the major water bills that Congress passes, usually about every 5 to 7 years, was enacted, and they typically contain Army Corps of Engineers' projects for water handling, water channeling the great rivers and lakes of America. All of these water projects are so vital to the economic functioning of this country. This water bill was passed back in December of 2000 to provide funding for projects on ports, dams, and beach renourishment projects all across the country. It also authorized for the first time the comprehensive restoration plan for America's Florida Everglades. It was a 30-year, multibillion dollar effort to restore the Everglades. What had happened, ever since the beginning of the previous century-- in the early 1900s--as Florida started to be discovered and as people increasingly had come, the way it was paved in the late 1800s, with Henry Flagler building his railroad, the railroad went down the east coast of Florida. He would build it as far as he could get, first to St. Augustine, where there was built a big hotel. That hotel today is the administrative building of Flagler College in downtown St. Augustine. Then Flagler extended it further to the Daytona-Ormond Beach location, where another big hotel was built. Taking it further south, all the way to West Palm Beach, the famed Breakers hotel in Palm Beach was built, as well as a Biltmore hotel. Finally, Henry Flagler took it on to Miami and then did a feat thought impossible and went through a string of islands called the Florida Keys. He took the railroad all the way to Key West. This was a means of travel that opened up to Americans in the Northeast this beautiful land called La Florida in Spanish, the name given by the Spanish conquistadors who came to Florida. Indeed, they came and they loved this land. As more and more people came and started settling, they found that sometimes Mother Nature was harsh. When Mother Nature came in its full display of fury, hurricanes would come; quick rainstorms would come; quick changes of temperature occurred, from warm to suddenly freezing, even with--albeit, not a lot of snow, but I have seen parts of Florida with the ground covered in snow and other parts that were pelted with freezing rain. As people tried to adapt to this land of contrasting environments, all of a sudden, they started to see nature, and along in the late 1920s came a hurricane of such magnitude that when it hit the coast around West Palm Beach and then went inland to Lake Okeechobee, 3,000 people drowned. As a result of that experience, the governmental structure said: We have to do something about flood control. Thus, the diking and draining for three-quarters of a century commenced under the rubric of flood control that would get the water off the land when too much water came at one time. But what happened was, suddenly they had a plan to reverse what Mother Nature had intended. Mother Nature intended for water as far north as southwest of today's Orlando to slowly flow south all the way into the big lake, Lake Okeechobee, and continue on into the Florida Everglades. What happened with all this diking and draining was it was taking away that natural flow of water. In order to get the water off the land in times of flooding, they created big dikes and canals that would send the water out into the tidewater of the Atlantic in the east and the Gulf of Mexico in the west. Take, for example, coming south of Orlando in the Kissimmee chain of lakes into what was a meandering stream called the Kissimmee River, where it slowly wandered southward through the oxbows with all the marsh grasses, cleansing the water as it went south and then entering into that big lake called Okeechobee, which did not have defined boundaries but, instead, marshy grasses all around the lake. The water, by gravity, continued to flow south into a natural extension of the marshy grasses, into the miles and miles of river grass that Marjory Stoneman Douglas had declared so beautifully as the ``river of grass,'' the Florida Everglades. So Lake Okeechobee had a way of taking care of its water and keeping it clean. After losing 3,000 people in that hurricane, the idea was to control the water--dike and drain it; dike the lake and drain it to the east and to the west, eventually into the St. Lucie River to go into the Atlantic and into the Caloosahatchee, to go into the Gulf of Mexico. So meandering streams like the Kissimmee River were suddenly diked and dug into a straight ditch. It was catastrophic for the sensitive estuaries that were cleansing the water as it moved south. It was catastrophic for the estuaries, where so many of the critters had the nursery grounds for their young, as well as the many fish species. Lo and behold, across the entire southern peninsula of Florida, a dike was built called Tamiami Trail, a paved road from Miami over to the west coast, just south of Fort Myers and Naples. That, in effect, became a dike across the southern peninsula of Florida that did not allow the water to flow further south into what, ultimately, as a result of President Harry Truman's signing it into law, became the Everglades National Park. Consequently, the Everglades National Park was then starved of freshwater. The consequences of all of those actions over almost a century are painfully visible in years like this one. Because of the pollution of that water, instead of the grasses cleansing it, toxic blue-green algae chokes the rivers and spreads all the way out to the Atlantic Ocean to the east and to the Gulf of Mexico to the west. People have seen in this past year the dramatic images of dead fish covering the water's surface, covering the beach on the west coast and, lo and behold, ultimately that phenomenon of red tide being supercharged with green algae. Ultimately, it went around the peninsula and up the east coast, and we saw dead fish on the beaches of the Atlantic coast as well. We need to return the waterflow to the flow that Mother Nature intended. That is what the restoration of the Everglades is all about, and that is how that started 18 years ago this month, with a comprehensive plan to turn around that flood control--that diking and draining of all of the southern half of the peninsula of Florida, which has now caused so many of the unintended effects. If you think about it, when the ecosystem is healthy, the Everglades are healthy. When the ecosystem is sick, all of the rest of that beautiful ecosystem is going to be sickly as well. What we have seen with the little bit of cleaning up we have done is that the Everglades are amazingly resilient. The environment and the Everglades are the heart and soul of Florida. These precious natural resources deserve our protection and stewardship because now they provide drinking water for millions and millions of people in South Florida who have moved there and for a major agricultural industry. The Everglades also provide storm protection. That is why the ongoing Everglades restoration effort is so important. We need to ensure that the Everglades are there to provide a buffer the next time a hurricane rolls through. We understand there is a link between warming ocean temperatures and hurricane intensity. If the climate trends continue--and I will reference my speech on climate change and global warming and the rising of the seas that I gave last week. As that climate trend continues, if we don't reverse it, then it is all the more important to fortify Mother Nature's best defenses. Not only are beaches and the preservation of them as one of those defenses important, but so are the Florida Everglades. Beaches, wetlands, coral reefs, mangroves all protect us against storm damage. We saw that during Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast and Hurricane Matthew in Florida. We are learning that proved true again during Hurricane Irma. That is why it is so critical that we preserve our natural infrastructure and conserve the undeveloped lands. As that famous Floridian, Marjory Stoneman Douglas said: There are no other Everglades in the world. . . . The miracle of the light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slow-moving below, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades of Florida. It is a river of grass. Since I have been privileged to be a Member of the Senate, the Federal Government has spent almost $5 billion on Everglades restoration. We have some great things to show for it, but we have a long way to go. Wading birds is an example. They are returning to the Kissimmee River floodplain. Water is finally flowing under that dike that was built in the 1920s--the Tamiami Trail. Now there is a breach of a mile-long bridge, and there is another 2\1/2\-mile bridge that is under construction to allow that water to flow south into the Everglades National Park. We are seeing the return of native wildlife in areas where projects are still underway. I referenced the Central Everglades Restoration Project that was passed in the water bill 18 years ago. It was originally envisioned as a 30-year plan because we knew we couldn't reverse all of the drainage and the engineering overnight. Out of 30 years, we are into the 18th year, with 12 more to go. It is a long-term effort, and it requires two things: diligent oversight over the ongoing work and an unwavering dedication to achieving Florida's goal of a restored Everglades. This Senator, whose family came to Florida in 1829, is a fifth- generation Floridian. I understand this is an important project to protect our beautiful natural treasures, but what happens if we don't? We have all seen the environmental and economic wreckage, for example, from an oilspill. We have seen NASA images from space of mangroves flattened after a hurricane. As the hurricanes get stronger, more ferocious, and more intense, that will be a result, as well as the wiping out of beaches. All too often in recent years, this Senator has seen the devastating impact of toxic algae blooms on communities all over the Peninsula of Florida and even into North Florida. When you take a body of water and throw a sack of fertilizer in it, the combination of heat and the nutrients are going to grow algae in most any light but especially in the warm climate of Florida. As a result, by that same example, if you take our freshwater in Florida and allow pollution to go into that because the pollution is not properly regulated, it puts the nutrients into the freshwater that will grow the algae. The algae will suck the oxygen from the water, and that becomes a dead river or a dead lake. All those extra nutrients then, when they hit the saltwater on the Atlantic coast or the Gulf of Mexico, supercharge other phenomenon that lives in saltwater, such as the red tide. We have seen that devastating impact. There was a Floridian whom we recently lost, Nat Reed. He was particularly attuned to the needs of Florida's environment. We are going to honor his legacy in a memorial service this coming weekend. We are doing that because Nat Reed was one of the great defenders of Florida's natural bounty, especially the Everglades. In the 1970s, he served both Presidents Nixon and Ford. He returned to Florida, and he worked under seven different Governors in many different environmental capacities, including as chairman of the Commission on Florida's Environmental Future. Back in the 1980s, that commission was instrumental in the land acquisition projects we now know as Everglades Restoration. For Nat Reed, his children and his grandchildren, for all of the current and future generations of Floridians, let's honor the legacy of Nat Reed, and let's stay the course over the next 12 years of this Central Everglades Restoration Project. Let's complete it and restore America's Everglades. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. NELSON. I say to my friend, the Senator from Rhode Island, would it be fair to sum up the Senator's statement of what is happening to the planet by saying that the additional heat is prohibited from radiating out into space and is trapped by the greenhouse gases, 90 percent of which is absorbed by the oceans, and as the ocean water heats up, the volume rises, and thus, sea levels rise, and there is an increased heating up of the entire Earth's temperature; is that a true statement?

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a further question?

Mr. NELSON. I say to the Senator from Rhode Island, since it is documented over time that the average annual temperature of the Earth is rising and we see in statistics the measurements of temperature, is it not true that scientists tell us that there is a temperature some 4 degrees-plus Fahrenheit more beyond which there is no return for the Earth continuing to heat? Is that a true statement?

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, if the Senator will further yield just for a concluding statement, the Senator from Rhode Island has outlined exactly what is happening in the State of Florida with the rising sea levels, the intrusion of saltwater into the fresh water, the ferocious and highly intense hurricanes. He has also outlined the threat to property values and the normal financial commerce of building buildings and houses that now, along the coastline, may well be threatened in the near future. I thank the Senator for his recitation this evening.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I have a couple of subjects to talk about, and the first one is that all of us in the Senate have just attended a most moving State funeral in the National Cathedral for the late President George H.W. Bush. There have been many accolades, and so much of it was said so beautifully, so eloquently, and so movingly today by the speakers at the service. I just want the Senate record to reflect one little vignette that I think underscores the kind of compassion and goodness of the man, George H.W. Bush. Many years ago, when this Senator was a young Congressman, I had the privilege of serving with former Senator and then-Congressman Claude Pepper, a fellow who had risen to the heights of political power in the 1930s during the Depression, became a champion of the little people, and then, as he transitioned to the House of Representatives, became known as ``Mr. Senior Citizen'' and the protector of Medicare and Social Security. Many times in the Reagan administration, he was a constant irritant to the Presidential administration. Those two Irishmen knew they had their differences, but they knew when to set aside their differences for the sake of the country. That, too, was carried over by the then-Vice President who became President--President Bush. An example of George Bush's humanity was in the late 1980s. The Florida delegation got an emergency call to go to Walter Reed army hospital because it was the final hours for Senator, then-Congressman, Claude Pepper. By the time we got to the hospital, they were proceeding to get Claude into a wheelchair. He had come out of a deep sleep--very possibly a coma--and he was being wheeled into the waiting room. Who should appear but President George H.W. Bush and Mrs. Bush because the word had gotten to them that Claude Pepper was about to pass on from this life into the heavenly life. The President decided to make that a real occasion, so he joined everybody who had gathered about Senator Pepper. Claude was actually the master of ceremonies, greeting everybody and introducing this one to the other one: Mr. President, this is so-and-so. It was an extraordinary scene. President Bush, who knew this fellow was his political opponent, but he had been such a substantial part of American political history, said: Claude, I have something I want to produce and I want to present to you on behalf of a grateful Nation, on behalf of your public service. President Bush bent down and put around Senator Pepper's neck the Medal of Freedom. Naturally, there wasn't a dry eye among those of us who were there. It is another little vignette in the life of George H.W. Bush that shows the humanity, the care, and the concern for his fellow man that was exhibited that day in Walter Reed army hospital. I wanted to share that little vignette, which is appropriate today after such a moving service over at the National Cathedral. Voting Rights Mr. President, I rise to speak about the importance of the sacred right to vote. In the tumultuous days of the 1960s, on a hot afternoon, I watched as a law student on a grainy black-and-white TV as Dr. King delivered his memorable ``I Have a Dream'' speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. His soaring, spiritually laced speech challenged us to commit our lives to ensuring that the promises of American democracy were available, not just for the privileged few but for ``all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics.'' ``Now is the time,'' Dr. King urged, ``to make real the promises of democracy.'' He stressed that the central promise made to the citizens in a democracy is the right to vote and to have that vote counted. Half a century has passed, and our country has changed with the times, but one thing has not changed. The right to vote for ``all of God's children'' in America is still under assault. Unbelievably, we are not so very far from the problems of 1963. Despite the passage of time and landmark civil and voting rights legislation, five decades later there is still considerable voter suppression in this country. In fact, several States have recently enacted restrictive laws cutting back voting hours on nights and weekends, eliminating same-day registration, and basically making it harder for people to vote. Standing between a citizen and the voting booth is a direct contradiction to the vision of equality put forth by the Founding Fathers. In 1776, they declared that all men were created equal, but many in our country had to wait another 94 years before the 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted citizens the right to vote-- though not all citizens. Ratified in 1870, the amendment states: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. . . . The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. But it still took another 50 years before women in America were allowed to vote. After her arrest for casting a ballot in the Presidential election of 1872, Susan B. Anthony delivered a number of speeches in Upstate New York on women's suffrage. In those speeches, she noted that the right of all citizens to vote in elections is key to a functioning democracy. Specifically, one line from her speech stands out: ``And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them by providing the democratic-republican government--the ballot.'' After the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the ballot, it took another 45 years before our Nation belatedly enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, intended to guarantee every U.S. citizen the right to vote. Does this principle really hold true in practice? The continued voter suppression of which I speak may not be as blatant as it once was with Jim Crow laws and poll taxes and literacy tests and the like, but it is still very much with us. In recent years, it is obvious that hurdles have once again been placed between the voting booth and the young and minority. A devastating blow was dealt by the U.S. Supreme Court when it gutted the Voting Rights Act as recently as 2013. Our Nation's highest Court struck down a central provision of the law that had been used to guarantee fair elections in this country since the midsixties, which has included the guarantee of elections in my State of Florida since that time. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to protect our right to vote. It required States with histories of voter suppression to get Federal approval before changing their voting laws. For nearly five decades, the States had to prove to the Department of Justice why a change was necessary and demonstrate how that change would not harm voters and their right to vote. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court declared that part of the law was outdated. Essentially, it rendered a key part of the law void until a bitterly partisan and gridlocked Congress can come up with a new formula for determining which States and localities need advance approval to amend their right-to-vote laws. The majority of the Court justified its ruling by pointing out that we no longer had the blatant voter suppression tactics that had been once used to disenfranchise voters across the country. I vigorously disagree because removing much needed voter protections also prevents the Federal Government from trying to block discriminatory State laws before they go into effect. In essence, States and local jurisdictions are now legally free to do as they please. In fact, just moments after that Supreme Court decision, the Texas attorney general said his State would begin immediately honoring local legislation that imposed, in the words of a Federal court, ``strict and unforgiving burdens'' on many Texans who attempt to cast a ballot. As has been noted, the right to vote was not always given to all American adults, but our laws adjusted as we became a more mature and tolerant democracy, but the reverse is what is happening in America today. Since the 2010 election, in addition to cutting back on early voting, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida have approved voting restrictions that, according to some experts, are targeted directly at reducing turnout among young, low-income, and minority voters who traditionally vote Democrat. In 2011, the Florida Legislature and State officials reduced the number of early voting days. It reduced them from 2 weeks down to 8 days, including very conveniently canceling the Sunday right before the Tuesday election--a day that historically had seen heavy African- American and Hispanic voting. State officials countered that registered voters would still have the same number of hours and that they could still vote early, only in 8 days instead of in 2 weeks. Well, it didn't work out that way. Florida also made voting harder for people who had recently moved to another county and had an address change, such as college students. It also subjected voter registration groups to penalties and fines if they made mistakes or they didn't turn them in within a certain number of hours. These laws were so burdensome that the League of Women Voters challenged these provisions in Federal court, and they won. Judges found that Florida's 2011 reduction of early voting ``would make it materially more difficult for some minority voters to cast a ballot.'' As a result, Florida had to restore 96 hours of early voting. Even with these added protections, the next election in 2012 was a fiasco. Lines outside polling places were prohibitively long, with some people waiting up to 8 hours to cast their votes. This year's 2018 midterm election brought added difficulties in Florida and across the country. This year, in Broward County, FL, ballot design caused over 30,000 people to miss voting in the U.S. Senate race because they didn't see it buried in the lower left-hand column under the instructions in English, Spanish, and Creole. In North Dakota, the Republican State Legislature moved to require residential addresses in order to be able to register to vote. This move was widely seen as an attempt to prevent Native Americans, which is a Democratic-leaning constituency, from voting since many of them used post office boxes to get their mail on reservations. In North Carolina, nearly 20 percent of early voting locations were closed this year because many of them simply couldn't meet the burdensome requirements imposed by the State legislature. There being absentee ballots that were stolen or missing and were never delivered has prompted a Federal investigation for fraud. In our neighboring State of Georgia, the Republican candidate for Governor was the sitting secretary of State and was responsible for administering his own election. His office pursued aggressive policies that made it measurably harder for many people to vote, particularly African Americans and other minorities. So, in light of this evidence and following a widespread public outcry, what can we do now? As I had said earlier, it may not be as obvious as poll tactics and all of the other blockades to voting. We have seen a lot of that in the past, particularly by all of the marches and so forth during the 1970s civil rights era. It might not be as obvious, but there are all of these subtle attempts. So what should we do? I submit that though the problem is complex, the solution, the answer, is relatively simple. As Americans who cherish the right to vote, we must turn to those schemers and say: ``There is a promise of democracy that we will not allow you to break.'' We have an obligation to keep this promise of democracy for our children. There are bright spots we should celebrate. In my State of Florida, voters, overwhelmingly this year, approved a ballot initiative that will restore the right to vote to nearly a million and a half individuals who have been convicted of nonviolent felonies and have served their time. This is a positive step. Congress may be dysfunctional, but we must continue to push lawmakers for a fix to the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court struck down on a divided 5-to- 4 vote--to the provision that I spoke about. We ought to be making it easier to vote, not harder. Keep in mind what President Johnson said one-half century ago: ``The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.'' Also, remember what Dr. King said: So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote, I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind--it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact--I can only submit to the edict of others. That is what Dr. King said. So don't we owe it to our children the right to possess themselves if this is to be a truly free and fair democracy? I believe that some of the most fundamental rights in our democracy are the right to vote, the right to know whom you are voting for, and the right to know that the vote you cast is going to be counted as you intended it. If that were not enough, just as concerning as the ongoing efforts to suppress certain votes is the amount of undisclosed and unlimited money that is sloshing around in our campaigns. The Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United has opened the floodgates and allowed the wealthiest Americans to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections. Allowing such unlimited, undisclosed money into the political system is corrupting our democracy. I have strongly supported several pieces of legislation, such as the DISCLOSE Act, to require groups that spend more than $10,000 on campaign- related matters to identify themselves. Tell us who is giving the money by filing a disclosure with the Federal Election Commission. The American people have a right to know whom they are voting for--not just the name on the ballot but who is behind that name on the ballot. The Supreme Court itself said: ``Transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.'' That was straight from the Court. I believe we as a Congress have a moral obligation--a moral obligation--to correct what has happened in our system and to ensure that our voters have the information they need to make informed decisions in the election process. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, 30 years ago, a gentleman by the name of Dr. James Hansen was the Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He testified to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that he was 99 percent certain that the year's record temperatures were not the result of natural variation. That was 30 years ago. It was the first time a lead scientist drew a connection between human activities, the growing concentration of atmosphere pollutants, and a warming climate. This Senator was a young congressman at the time representing East Central Florida and Florida's Space Coast. Just 2 years prior, I had flown for 6 days on the 24th mission of the space shuttle. In this case, our orbiter was the Space Shuttle Columbia. Growing up on the Indian River on Florida's Atlantic coast, it is easy to think that nature's bounty is endless, that the sand beaches, the crystal clear water, the blue sky, and the warm Sun will continue forever. It would be like Camelot. But peering out the window back at the planet from the window of a spacecraft, when I looked, all of the Earth suddenly took on a new meaning. I realized how thin the line was between our protected shared home--the planet--and uninhabitable space. When Dr. Hansen testified about the greenhouse effect and how that thin layer of atmosphere was becoming polluted, it got my attention because I remembered looking at the rim of the Earth and seeing that thin film as we orbited the Earth every 90 minutes. Since his 1988 warning, the evidence has unfortunately confirmed Dr. Hansen's 1988 prediction. Extreme events in 2017 and 2018 alone included back-to-back, record Atlantic and gulf hurricanes and unprecedented and devastating wildfires. Global temperatures are rising, and so are the seas. Why? The extra heat is absorbed by the oceans, which cover two-thirds of the Earth. That extra heat, when absorbed in water, causes water to expand. Also, 2016 and 2017 had two of the highest global temperatures ever recorded since we began measuring in 1880, and 2018 is on track to be the fourth hottest year on record. Warmer air and water make the environment more hospitable to toxic algae blooms, mosquitos that carry deadly diseases, and things like poison ivy. These are three things that I think we can all agree that we need less of, not more. The oceans are warming, and they are fueling the intensification of hurricanes--as we saw recently with Irma and Michael--and that warming water is creating the conditions that bleach coral reefs and feed toxic algae blooms. My beautiful home State of Florida, which I have had the great privilege of serving, is ground zero for these impacts. According to the fourth National Climate Assessment report released by the administration just last week--the day after Thanksgiving--climate change is expected to make South Florida more vulnerable to diseases like the Zika virus. Florida could see more than $346 billion in lost property value over the course of this century. But this stretches beyond property values. A Florida Department of Health assessment determined that almost 600,000 people in South Florida are going to face extreme or high risk from sea level rise. Warming water, nutrient enrichment, overfishing, and coastal development are all contributing to the dire situation of one of our Nation's crown jewels--the coral reefs of the Florida Keys. The real question is, What are we going to do about it? I think there are three things we ought to consider. First, we truly cannot afford to politicize the air we breathe. The science is not up for debate. The greenhouse gas emissions are heating the atmosphere, which in turn heat our oceans, supercharging the hurricanes, leaving us vulnerable to drought and threatening the water we drink and the food we eat. Reports of political censorship or political interference with science--that is unacceptable and foolish. If we ignore the science, we do so at our peril. Second, I think we are going to have to stop putting so many greenhouse gases into the atmosphere so fast. This is called climate mitigation. It means that we must invest in new technology, in the economy of the future, things like wind and solar, electric vehicles, and more efficient buildings. Each one of them would have a huge impact in lessening the amount of derivatives of carbon that we put into the atmosphere. Third, I think we should consider that we are going to have to make our communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change-- climate change that is already upon us and climate change that, in the future, we are not going to be able to avoid. You can't just cut off the greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere and the warming that results therefrom that is already in the system. You talk to the scientists. There is something just beyond about 4 degrees Fahrenheit more than the average annual global temperature-- that if it rises beyond that, there is no return. We have a chance, but time is of the essence. We ought to consider climate change adaptation. You don't have to agree with climate science to know that it makes sense to do that. I want to urge our colleagues on both sides of this aisle that separates Republicans from Democrats. You need to take this seriously. For the sake of your States and mine, for the good of our planet, for the good of our children, for the good of future generations, take climate change seriously. Listen to the experts, and come together to work on solutions. Instead of saying ``I am not a scientist,'' listen to the scientists. Don't try to censor their warnings or hide from the truth. Instead of saying that making changes could cost money, think about the cost to our economy and our society if we don't act. Coastal communities inundated with catastrophic flooding, midwestern droughts that raise food prices, and soaring health costs--these are some of the costs that are coming to our country--indeed, to our society--indeed, to the civilization of planet Earth. We must act, and we must do it now. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Nebraska, this Senator has had too many opportunities to give the same kind of speech in remembrance of fallen Floridians just like her constituent who gave the ultimate sacrifice in protection of his country, and I thank the Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to talk about trickle-down economics and give my colleagues an example of why it doesn't work, particularly in parts of the country that have long been neglected by the power structures in those communities. Let's take, for example, South St. Petersburg, FL. St. Petersburg is a part of Pinellas County. It is one of our major cities in Florida. It is at the tip of a peninsula that wraps around Tampa Bay. South St. Pete is riddled with poverty. According to the Census Bureau, 16.4 percent of the people who live there live below the Federal poverty line, 6.7 percent of which have jobs, but they still live in poverty. Now, there is something wrong with that. If you have a job, you shouldn't be living in poverty. What we know, as a result of a survey by the United Way, is that 44 percent of people in Florida, according to this survey taken in 2016-- 44 percent of the people in Florida, almost half--do not earn enough money to make ends meet. That means they don't have enough money for food, for housing, for healthcare, for transportation, and for child care--essentials for someone who is working to be able to have enough to live day to day. So there is something wrong with this. We find people living in pockets of poverty all across this country, but I want to give an example of it in South St. Petersburg, FL. Many people there don't make enough to make ends meet and, of course, that means that you have to have both spouses working. Forty-four percent of the people do not have an economic situation that enables them to make ends meet. So what do they do to compensate? They work two, three jobs in order to compensate. So in South St. Petersburg there are a lot of people who don't even have a job. It is not because they don't want jobs. It is because a lot of the established financial power--including banks, corporations, and big investors--in areas that are depressed like this one see it as a lost cause. They don't believe it has the economic potential to support new business. I want to tell you a great success story about what a husband and wife team, Elihu and Carolyn Brayboy, found out when they tried to open a restaurant on 22nd Street in South St. Pete, an economically depressed part of the town that was long overlooked by those at the top of the economic ladder. I want to show my colleagues a picture of them. This is the Brayboys. In fact, the building the Brayboys wanted to use for their restaurant sat idle for the previous 35 years. It was basically wasting away. When the Brayboys went looking for a loan to buy the building, every lender they went to said: No, it is too depressed. It sat vacant for 35 years. Everywhere they went, they heard the same thing: The community will not be able to bring in enough business, and you will not be able to get enough customers from outside the community to visit that area. Most people would have given up after receiving so many noes or given in to the pressure to put the restaurant in a more acceptable part of town, but like most people in South St. Pete, the Brayboys are a different cut because they are not easily deterred. If there is one thing my colleagues should know about the people of South St. Pete, it is this: Don't test their resolve, because you are in for a surprise. Undeterred, Mr. and Mrs. Brayboys took money out of their 401(k) accounts and poured all of their life savings into buying that hulk of a building on 22nd Street. After gutting the inside and pouring in their blood, sweat, and tears into remodeling the property, Chief's Creole Cafe opened in November of 2014 and has been going strong ever since, creating jobs and changing the way people think about South St. Pete. This is a picture of how the restaurant looks today. Despite the warnings of all of those doubtful lenders, they have been able to sustain the business by attracting both locals and customers from outside of the area of South St. Pete. Does that not look like something that is a well-run, growing, successful business? So the old saying stands: If you build it, and if you really try, they will come. Now, this is a great story of stubborn determination triumphing over fear and adversity and rejection after rejection, but this type of story is few and far between in too many parts of Florida and across the country. So let me show you another picture. This is the Three Oaks Plaza. The Three Oaks Plaza used to be the location of a Dollar Tree store, but the store closed last year. This is how it used to look, and this is how it looks now. The closing of the Dollar Tree store came on the heels of the closing of the local Walmart nearby. Unfortunately, this is all too common in South St. Pete and too many other parts of Florida. The problem isn't new, but we need a new way to think about it. We need economic policies that rely less on outside investors and outside companies to come in and remake the image of the area and rely more, instead, on empowering local residents to create their own businesses. They are more likely to keep profits in the community, creating a more sustainable loop of economic activity. That is what I want to recommend that this Senate and future Senates do with legislation. Consider the example of legislation that I introduced earlier this year called the Economic Modernization Act. That bill does a lot of things, but one key thing it does is to create a new tax break for local businesses that move into buildings that have long sat idle and vacant. Under a piece of legislation such as that, if a business moves into a building that has been vacant for 2 or more years and renovates the property, the business would be able to get a tax deduction worth many more times than what it put into it. Any profits earned at the property, for the first 3 years in that building, would be a tax deduction. The deduction would be capped. It could be, in legislation, at 50 percent of the business's wages to make sure that the employees are also getting a benefit, and the more the business pays its employees, the more the business saves with that tax deduction and, therefore, saves in taxes. Simply put, the bill, or legislation like it, will make it easier for local entrepreneurs to rebuild their community, helping to turn more places like this first photo into places like Chief's Creole Cafe. Now, that is what we ought to be doing, not digging out old policies from the 1980s and calling it something new like our colleagues here in the Congress did last year with the tax bill. The tax bill added trillions to the national debt and made it easier for big corporations to game the tax system and put Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, our infrastructure, and all other sorts of priorities at risk because the entire national debt is run up $2 trillion over a 10-year period. Where is the money to do all of these other priorities--Medicaid, Medicare, infrastructure, Social Security? When big corporations see places like South St. Pete, they don't necessarily see the financial opportunity that Mr. and Mrs. Brayboy saw and turn it into a going concern. They don't necessarily want to empower places. Sometimes it just goes over their heads, and they miss the opportunity. We need to incentivize local people to revitalize a community and, in the process, to be economically successful. We need to create more stories like the successful story of the Brayboys. We need to make it easier for locals to take old, abandoned buildings and turn them into new, thriving businesses that value their people and employ local residents. We need to encourage local communities, which understand their own needs, to be financially successful and have an opportunity to do that. Despite what others say, instead of a tax bill that raises the national debt by $2 trillion, wouldn't you believe that if we could do this all over America, it would help so much of the economic underpinnings of our country? Let's think of a way that it should be, and this is one way. We need to do more to lift up those at the bottom and help them help themselves. I hope our colleagues will agree, and I hope our colleagues will consider legislation like this in the future. I yield the floor.