Bill Nelson

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, on the morning of October 1, the El Faro cargo ship--a container ship almost 900-feet long--was carrying 33 men and women, and on that fateful day it sent its final communication, reporting that the engines were disabled. This left the ship drifting with no power, with an oncoming category 3 hurricane. Despite search- and-rescue attempts by the Coast Guard, the El Faro and her crew were not heard from again. One month later, the National Transportation Safety Board, working with the U.S. Navy, has found the sunken El Faro at the bottom of the ocean in waters that are 15,000 feet deep. At nearly the same time, the ship's owner, TOTE Maritime, began its attempt to limit the company's liability for this tragedy. News reports have indicated that the company filed a complaint last week stating that the company did everything in its power to make the ship safe and that the company ought to be exonerated from any and all claims for all damages. Well, this is clearly hasty decisionmaking. It clearly is a matter of concern to me because most of these mariners were from my State of Florida. Their families are grieving and hoping for any answers as to what happened to their loved ones. Well, right now, we don't have all of those answers. The NTSB only just found the ship with the help of the U.S. Navy, and yet somehow the company is able to definitely declare that they weren't at fault and that they bear no responsibility for the loss. It seems that this is an attempt to limit any liability of the company. So this is a time when we need reflection for figuring out what happened to the El Faro, for finding the ship's recorder, which the U.S. Navy is now in the process of trying to find, and then once you have that black box, for piecing together the ship's last minutes before the ship sank. So instead of being split apart, it is a time to come together as a community and to support those who have been so tragically impacted. I have some leadership responsibility on the commerce committee, which has jurisdiction over maritime matters. It is my intention to see that there is a thorough and honest investigation to try to find answers for the families and to find answers so that we can prevent a tragedy such as this from happening again. That is where we should be focused. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I rise to discuss a very troubled part of the world, the Middle East, a region that is experiencing perhaps the greatest turmoil it has seen since the end of the First World War. After more than 4 years, with over 200,000 people killed and 4 million forced to flee, Syria's civil war and humanitarian crisis continues to drag on. President Assad still clings to power, and he clings to that power with the help of Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah. Opposition groups remain divided, and they are weak, while terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda's al-Nusra Front exploit the chaos. ISIS also exploits sectarian tensions across the border in Iraq, where its fighters battle Iraqi and Kurdish forces, as well as Shia militias, for control of large parts of the country. And, according to press reports, a Saudi-led coalition meanwhile battles Iranian-backed Houthi rebels for control of Yemen, home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In addition to its support for Assad and terror and proxy groups, Iran continues other hostile activities, such as testing ballistic missiles, attacking in cyberspace, and violating human rights. I think this is an important thing to remember, as the expectations of the Iranian joint nuclear agreement--this was not a panacea for all of the things that Iran is doing. As a matter of fact, it specifically was a negotiation to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon, which I think has been achieved for at least 10, if not 15 to 25, years. Then, to add to the complications regarding Iran, there are still four Americans detained or missing. One that is missing, of course, is our Floridian Bob Levinson, a former FBI agent. These are tough challenges that reflect a changing balance of power, and we have already taken important steps to meet them. I am talking about steps other than the Iranian nuclear joint agreement. American and coalition air strikes against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria and the training and equipping of Iraqi and Kurdish forces in Iraq have blunted ISIS's momentum, and we are starting to see some reverses there. As the Secretary of Defense just a few days ago told our Armed Services Committee, we are changing our approach to supporting the moderate Syrian opposition and equipping those forces already on the battlefield against ISIS. It is much more difficult in Syria, and we have not had a lot of success in training and equipping those so-called moderate forces in Syria. So now the changing strategy is that the United States is focusing on what the Secretary of Defense referred to as the ``three R's''--the ISIS strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Ramadi in Iraq and then targeted raids in both to build battlefield momentum. We saw such a raid that tragically took the life of a senior enlisted Special Forces Special Operations sergeant the other day, but that raid was particularly successful in that it rescued 70 people who were about to be executed the next morning. In those raids, the three R's the Secretary mentioned are underway. Turmoil and violence in the Middle East may seem distant to everyday Americans, but the consequences extend far beyond those regions. We see it daily on our television screens. Tens of thousands of Syrians have sought refuge in Europe. ISIS, we are reminded, uses the Internet and social media to spread its propaganda and radicalizes young people far from Iraq and Syria and even some in the United States. So in this whole perplexing problem, as we try to get our arms around it, meeting these challenges, protecting our national security and interests, including those of our allies like Israel, is going to take strong and patient leadership on the part of our country. I wanted to share these thoughts with the Senate. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Absolutely.

Mr. NELSON. The Senator is very gracious, but I stood to comment upon the characteristics he has exemplified in his public life that is a role model for all of us. I was about to say, here we are seeing tonight that the U.S. Congress is going to be able to move ahead without falling off the fiscal cliff because there is going to be a bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives. My goodness gracious, isn't this what it is supposed to be all about? The Senator from Vermont can remember well over 30 years ago when this Senator was a young Congressman, and the role models in the House of Representatives at the time were Tip O'Neill and Bob Michel--the Democratic speaker and the leader of the Republicans. They had their fights, and at the end of the day they were personal friends. They had a personal relationship. They then could work out all the thorny problems and build consensus in order to govern. I thank the Senator from Vermont.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to reflect on the comments the senior Senator from Vermont has shared. I want to say to Senator Leahy that what he has reflected in the course of his career of casting 15,000 votes, spanned over four decades in the Senate--some would say the courtliness, the gentlemanliness, the bipartisanship, the deference, the respect, the honor--some would say these are old- fashioned ideas. This Senator happens to feel they are American values, and how often have we seen those characteristics not on display? Tonight the House of Representatives is going to pass not only raising the debt ceiling so we can pay our bills but also a budget template--a blueprint--under which we can then appropriate the specifics.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, it looks like there has been a resolution between the House and Senate on a commercial space bill which includes an update. This goes way back 31 years ago. When this Senator was a young Congressman, I actually participated in and sponsored the first Commercial Space Act. Very few people could have envisioned what would happen 30 years later with this legislation, for indeed commercial companies are delivering launch services not only to commercial customers, such as all of our satellites, GPS systems, and some communication satellites, but also government payloads for the U.S. Government, obviously Air Force payloads, and various other intel satellites and satellites for foreign countries. Our American space launchers are putting these satellites up into space, and of course it has revolutionized our daily life. How many among us are so accustomed to using this device to look up the location of an address? How do you think that is happening? It is happening because we have hundreds of satellites up there in the GPS system-- scores of satellites--that give you precise locations of any point on the globe where one might want to visit. These devices have gotten so sophisticated that they talk to you and say: Go 600 feet and turn right on such and such street and then turn left. It is just amazing. This doesn't just happen. It happens because of our space industry and in particular our commercial space industry. Since this Senator, as a young Congressman, got into this in the beginning, which was about 31 years ago, we have had to update this legislation. A lot of things have happened, and now there are very significant things that are happening. For the past decade, we have had a national laboratory in space, which is one component of what is happening, and it is known as the International Space Station. There are six human beings up there. There is an international crew, which includes American astronauts, and one of them, by the way, has now completed 6 months of a 1-year stay so we can study the effects on the human body after a long duration in space. That will help us so we can be ready to go to Mars with human beings in the decade of the 2030s. There are other activities on the space station that are commercial activities. There are all kinds of pharmaceutical experiments that are going on. As a matter of fact, there are drug trials right now, and the FDA, having used the properties of zero G on the International Space Station, is developing vaccines for salmonella and MRSA. If using the properties of zero G may help us to develop vaccines that help us with diseases and bacteria on Earth, then that is a significant accomplishment. Those are some of the commercial activities that are taking place in space. As we think way into the future, we could be mining other planets, and we could certainly be mining asteroids. Wouldn't it be nice if we found an asteroid that was suddenly full of diamonds. We don't even have to stretch our imagination that far. There are all kinds of elements on these asteroids. This legislation should be cleared later on tonight and in the morning by both sides. Once it has been cleared, we can take the House bill that is down here, amend it on the Senate bill, and send it back to the House. The House has agreed with the far-reaching thought of mining on asteroids, which will be considered intellectual property so it is preserved for the commercial sector and that would be their property. This whole commercial space business today, including launching and some of the other activities, unbelievably, is a $330 billion industry. The commercial launch industry started out on American rockets. Over the course of the last three decades, our launchers were more expensive, and so international competitors came into this--the Russians, in some cases using old Soviet rockets, and the European Space Agency launched the Ariane rocket, which they developed. Other nations also have rockets that offer fierce competition to the American rockets. The need for this legislation to be passed at this time--by updating the Commercial Space Act--is because we are now seeing commercial enterprises that are set on a road in the NASA authorization bill of 2010 and are becoming so efficient and effective that they are bringing down the cost of launching payloads into orbit. That is also benefitting the U.S. Government, which is buying these launch services in order to get government payloads into orbit. Because of that, we are now seeing some of that international business which went to other countries starting to come back to us. Orbital Sciences has a commercial rocket, and SpaceX has a very successful program. Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has a rocket company called Blue Origin and is likewise getting into the commercial space business. There are many others as well. This is an exciting time for us to be bringing a lot of this activity back to America. Therefore, at the end of the day, what does that mean? More industry, more high-tech, more research and development, more exploration, and more jobs. So we are seeing increasingly the U.S. Air Force cooperate on their installation, the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, using government property but leased through State or local space authorities, which are then, in turn, leasing to these commercial operators. A good example that has been tremendously successful for the past several years is an Elon Musk company called SpaceX. They contracted with Space Florida, which had worked out an arrangement with the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for launch complex 40, for that to be the SpaceX launchpad. They have been enormously successful. They have not only launched government payloads--the NASA cargo to and from the space station--but they have also launched other commercial payloads, government payloads of foreign countries, as well as government payloads of the U.S. Government. Eventually, that commercial space company, along with the Boeing Company, will be the ones that, in just 2 years, will launch American astronauts on American rockets for the first time since the shutdown of the space shuttle back in 2011--American astronauts on American rockets to and from our international space station. Those two companies are competing for it, but it doesn't mean that just one of the two necessarily wins the competition. Both could be the providers for NASA of ways for us to get Americans on American rockets to our own international space station instead of having to rely on the Russian-- very proven and very dependable--Soyuz rocket, which is the only way to get our astronauts there at the moment, until we start flying these other new rockets. So I wanted to alert the Senate that this is happening as we speak. I hope we get all of the clearances in the Senate later tonight--if not, early in the morning--so that we can get this amended, onto the House bill. It would basically be this: ``Strike all after the enacting clause,'' put the Senate bill on, which we have already negotiated with the House, get it to the House, let them pass it, and get it to the President for signature. I wanted to bring the Senate up to date on what is happening. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I came to talk about the Transportation bill. We have it in front of us. Transportation has laid the foundation of our country's success, whether it was Henry Ford, who showed us how to do mass automotive manufacturing, revolutionized the manufacturing of cars, whether it was Henry Flagler, who built a railroad on an unsettled land along the East Coast of Florida, brought in the development of my State, whether it was the Wright brothers--these guys were much more than bicycle shop owners. These guys were geniuses who studied the movement of birds. They were the first ones to be able to figure out how--what they called it in the day--a heavier-than-air flying machine could do that. These ideas, and over the years the investments, helped make this country become a global leader in almost everything. With regard to transportation, we have gotten off course. Rather than making big investments, we keep kicking the can down the road. Today's extension--short-term extension, I might say--of the highway trust fund is one more example of this because it is just putting off what we have to do, which is improve our roads, our rails, and our port infrastructure. That means we have to increase the investments in our infrastructure and focus on the area that will not only create jobs and support our economy but will rehabilitate this infrastructure. Our roads are crumbling. Our bridges are crumbling. Remember a few years ago when the bridge collapsed on the main interstate highway in Minnesota--killing a number of people, injuring others. Our infrastructure is crumbling. We need to do these investments in our transportation infrastructure to make sure it is safe. In July the Senate stood tall. We had a Republican chairman and a Democratic ranking member, Senator Inhofe and Senator Boxer, and they came together just like that--like it is supposed to be around here-- and they passed the highway bill. We call it the highway bill, but it includes a lot more: ports, rail, highway safety, all the things that go on with building a new road, such as sidewalks. We passed that. It passed overwhelmingly. It passed overwhelmingly bipartisan--but then you get to the point of how in the world are we going to pay for it. That bill included many important provisions that will keep workers on the job. For the first time, the bill included a freight rail program that aims to improve freight across all types of transportation--not just freight but trucks, ports. Of course, what this is going to do is it is going to help us move goods more efficiently, whether they are traveling through a port or on rail or on the highways. For the first time, this highway reauthorization was a bipartisan reauthorization of Amtrak. Amtrak was last reauthorized 2 years ago-- way back in 2013. With a strong commitment from the commerce committee chairman, Senator Thune, all of us on the committee were able to include provisions that will improve our passenger rail systems. In the commerce committee, we fought to improve safety and increase investments in our infrastructure. There were many provisions-- especially on trucking and vehicle safety issues--that needed to be improved. What we put in the bill was to prevent rolling back safety improvements in transportation. Here we are. Today we need to pass this bill so we can quickly get to work on the final bill. This is a stopgap temporary message. I urge the House to work toward a bipartisan compromise like the Senate bill rather than weigh the bill down with a whole bunch of ideological things, safety rollbacks and giveaways to industries. This highway bill is too important to get mired in partisan politics. For us to maintain the safety, efficiency, and growth of our transportation system, Congress must put an end to the instability caused by what we are going to have to do today, which is a short-term extension. We can only do this by working together to find commonsense and bipartisan solutions. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, since I see no one is waiting to speak, I might offer a couple of comments about the proposed budget agreement. We are still evaluating this, looking at the details, but first things first. This seems to me to be something we should agree to. It certainly gets us past this artificial debt crisis that would cause the United States to go into economic cataclysmic fits. If we do not raise the debt ceiling, America cannot pay its obligations it has already incurred. It would be the first time the U.S. Government went into default. That time has already run out, but through extraordinary measures the Secretary of the Treasury has been able to keep the cashflow going, but he is running out of all of his tricks of the trade next week, November 3. That is the first thing it would do most immediately. The second thing it would do is it would get us over this budgetary impasse of a budget that lays out the blueprint--for the flushing out of that blueprint, which are the appropriations bills. So in the case of the budget, what had been brought forth was a budgetary gimmick of saying we were going to raise the amount of money we needed for defense, but it was not going to meet this arbitrary budget cap that had been set 3 years ago by the cuts across the board called the sequester. But oh, by the way, we were going to increase that defense spending a little more by creating an additional account over and above what we spend overseas called the overseas contingency fund, OCO, and therefore money was going to be supplied--the increases we need in defense--with in fact not increasing the budgetary caps on spending. Well, that was budgetary fakery. That was budgetary sleight of hand. That was not budgetary truth. This agreement stops that for the next 2 years. Two years from now we will have to face the same thing and get rid of this artificial cut across the board. That is no way of dealing with trying to cut the budget. You ought to be cutting the budget with a scalpel, not with a meat cleaver, where you come across the board on every program. Indeed, what this agreement does is it raises the caps on defense in this first year $25 billion. It allows an OCO increase of $23 billion-- and that is considerably less than what had been proposed earlier. Indeed, as you get into fiscal year 2017, it raises the budgetary caps on defense by $15 billion, also a $23 billion OCO, or overseas contingency fund, for the war effort over in Central Asia. This is a good program, but the other thing this agreement corrects-- in the Republican budget, they had only raised money for defense spending, and all the other needs of government that need to be appropriated--nondefense discretionary spending--were kept artificially low. If you are talking about grants from NIH, that was all being limited. If you are talking about money for NASA as we get into the program of going to Mars, all of that had been cut. If you are talking about agricultural programs, all of that had been cut. No matter what program--education, the environment, you go on down the list--all of that had been cut. This budget agreement that we will vote on hopefully in the next 2 or 3 days does, in fact, raise those budgetary caps for nondefense spending as well as for defense spending. So where the caps were raised in this first year of fiscal year 2016 by $25 billion for defense spending, so too $25 billion for nondefense discretionary spending. Likewise, in the next fiscal year, 2017, where the caps had been raised $15 billion for defense spending, likewise, nondefense discretionary and all those other needs of government, the same amount--$15 billion. I will have more to say about this later, but while I have the opportunity, I wish to commend to the Senate that I think it is certainly in the interests off of our country to move forward and approve this new budgetary agreement. By the way, I might add as I close that an agreement has been hammered out between the Republican and the Democratic leadership in both Houses, along with the White House. I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I want to talk about the financial crisis that is going on in Puerto Rico. We have all heard about the current situation that Puerto Rico finds itself in. They are suffering. They are having trouble paying their bills and their economy is in shambles. Some people have the attitude ``Well, that is not our problem,'' but they are forgetting the fact that Puerto Rico is part of the United States. It is a territory. It is not a foreign country. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. If a problem exists in Puerto Rico, it exists in the United States. It is not something we can just ignore. It impacts the entire country. If the economy continues to suffer in Puerto Rico, the people there will just move to another part of the country. I want to repeat that. If things are bad in Puerto Rico economically, they--Puerto Ricans--can move to another part of the country. This is not immigration; this is a move to the mainland. Many Puerto Ricans are leaving Puerto Rico because of it is troubles. Happily, many of the people who live on the island are moving to Florida. They are adding to the diversity and immense fabric of Florida that reflects the entire country, but our gain in Florida is Puerto Rico's loss. There are more than 1 million people in Florida alone who may have preferred to stay at home on the island with their friends and their families. People who otherwise would be opening small businesses or new doctors' offices in San Juan are opening them in Orlando. This only hurts Puerto Rico's economic future. We need to give Puerto Rico the tools it needs to get its economy back on track. Puerto Rico cannot do that alone. Congress needs to pitch in. I have joined a number of our colleagues--Blumenthal, Schumer, and Menendez--in being a sponsor of the Puerto Rico Chapter 9 Uniformity Act. It fixes a glitch in the Federal bankruptcy law that stops Puerto Rico's municipalities and public corporations from restructuring their debt through the Federal bankruptcy court, something that is law in all of the States. That is why we have a bankruptcy law, but there is a glitch that you cannot do that in Puerto Rico. That is simply unfair. The people of Puerto Rico should get equal protection under the law. Both the Finance Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee have held hearings in the past few weeks about the economic crisis in Puerto Rico. Two of Puerto Rico's elected officials, Governor Garcia Padilla and Congressman Pierluisi, have testified at these hearings. Both said that Puerto Rican public corporations need access to Chapter 9 debt restructuring. It is this Senator's strong desire that we see them treated equally under the law and that this legislation to fix this glitch comes to the floor soon. We also need to help Puerto Rico's health care system. The Medicaid Program in Puerto Rico serves nearly 1.7 million residents. It is in terrible shape. In 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, which provided Puerto Rico with a $5.4 billion one-time payment to cover health care costs. That money is set to expire in 2019, but it could even run out sooner. Under Medicare Part D, Puerto Rican residents are being treated like second-class citizens. They don't get the same financial support that State residents get for prescription drug coverage. This has an effect on their economy, stifling their ability to emerge from the crisis, not to speak of the fact that they are not getting the health care other American citizens have. I remind you, Puerto Ricans are American citizens. So this kind of treatment under Medicare flies in the face of the most basic American value--equality. That is why several of us have joined Senator Schumer on a bill to improve the way Puerto Rico is treated under Medicare and Medicaid. Last week, thankfully, the White House released a set of legislative proposals to help Puerto Rico. Included in that list were some of the bills I have mentioned here that I support. I urge our colleagues to give this problem the attention it demands. We should move the proposals that we can move in this legislative body. We should do it with haste. There are more than 3\1/2\ million people in Puerto Rico. They are U.S. citizens who, unlike most U.S. citizens, have no one to represent them in this Chamber and only have a nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives. They have no voice here, but even with no voice, there are some of us in this Chamber who will make sure that their voice is heard. We cannot turn our backs on fellow Americans. By the way, when it comes time to defend this country and our national security, look at the percentage of Puerto Ricans who sign up for the military. They are fellow Americans. I ask my colleagues to look deep in their hearts and find a way to come together to help the island of Puerto Rico, a territory, our fellow American citizens, to get through this troubled time. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. To Members of the Senate, this is a deflated airbag that has already exploded. If you can see, this part is the center of the steering wheel. In this case, this happens to be a Honda; here is the letter ``h.'' This would be sitting right in front of you in the steering wheel. When you have an accident, if it is of sufficient impact, it is going to cause the airbag to inflate. This is designed as a lifesaver. This explosive device inside the airbag, and the gas compound in there is ammonium nitrate. If it is defective, when the explosion occurs, the hot gases that are released from the compound come out through these little holes around the side, and that inflates the airbag. But what has happened and has caused almost 20 million cars to be recalled is that the hot gases are exploding in this device with such force that it is causing the metal to break and come out in the inflated bag with such force, tearing through the bag, as this particular bag shows--it has a big hole in it. Here is the hole where the metal came out. It is like a grenade exploding in front of you, in your steering wheel, with shrapnel going into the people who are driving or who are in the passenger seat with the dashboard airbag. We are finding out now that a few months ago there was the explosion of side airbags in some of the cars, in the doors. Lo and behold, that is throwing out shrapnel as well. I want to show the Senate what it is like when these inflators explode. This is an inflator that was inside the device I just showed you. This photograph is a blowup by the Battelle Institute for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This is a blown-up photograph of the inflator starting to inflate. What it is supposed to do is shoot the gases out here, which inflates the bag I showed you, but look what has happened. It is being ruptured in the side, throwing out metal. This is what it looks like under very fast photography. Metal fragments are coming out when it should have been just gas coming out to inflate the bag. This is what one of those pieces of metal looks like. It is a shard of metal that is part of the inflator. Can you imagine that hitting you in the neck? Well, that is what happened to one of my citizens in Florida, in the Orlando area. She ran into a fender bender in an intersection at a traffic light. Lo and behold, when the police got there, they found her slumped over the wheel, and they thought it was a homicide because her neck was slashed. They found out that what happened was a piece of metal like this had lacerated her neck and cut her jugular vein. Another one of my constituents, a fireman--a big, hulking guy, the kind who will pick you up, if you are disabled and in a house that is burning down, and carry you out safely to save you--well, he won't be a fireman anymore because one of those metal fragments hit him in the eye and he is blind in one eye. Those are just two incidents of scores across the country, of which there have been a handful of deaths. If a jagged piece of metal can cause severe injury because it is coming at you at high speed, don't you think that if you have one of these vehicles that are under recall, you had better get it to the dealer to have it replaced? Check to see if your car is under recall because sometimes people don't get it in the mail or they don't open the mail. Go to www.safercar.gov and put in your car's vehicle identification number-- the VIN number--and then you will see if your car is on a recall list. Those that are on the recall list that I mentioned earlier unfortunately may not be the last to be recalled. The New York Times just reported that a study commissioned by Takata with Penn State University shows larger issues with the use of ammonium nitrate in the airbag inflators. In addition, there was another incident just this past June where a Takata side airbag ruptured in a relatively new 2015 Volkswagen. And just a week ago, General Motors recalled vehicles that also had defective Takata side airbags. It raises the question, are any of the Takata inflators safe? Last week Senator Thune and I sent a letter to Takata asking for additional documents and information regarding these side airbags. We also asked more questions about the use of ammonium nitrate. Also, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it may expand its recall to all the model year vehicles with Takata airbags. NHTSA must use all of its tools under the law to maximize consumer protection. These potential hand grenades, stored in the steering wheel or dashboard, must get off the road. The American driving public cannot afford any more wasted time. Don't we think these corporations that are causing this outrageous situation that has killed seven people in the United States and severely injured dozens more--don't we think that they ought to be held accountable? If executives at Takata knew about their defective products, if they knew that and did nothing, or worse, if they covered it up, then they ought to go to jail. Not another fine, not another settlement, somebody ought to be going to jail. Lying about a danger of this magnitude is a criminal act. We have a crisis of consumer confidence in the vehicle-safety area. Certainly that has been demonstrated with these Takata airbags. What about General Motors' misinformation, lack of information, and outright deception about the defective ignition switches? And now what about Volkswagen's deliberate efforts to lie about--and to cover up-- emissions from its diesel vehicles? A few weeks ago I sent a letter to Chairwoman Edith Ramirez of the Federal Trade Commission, asking them to crack down on Volkswagen's unfair and deceptive practices in connection with its ``clean diesel'' vehicle claims, and today I received a response. The Chairwoman of that Commission told me they are investigating the claims against Volkswagen, along with the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency. In her response she said: ``No reasonable consumer would knowingly purchase a vehicle that he or she could not legally drive.'' I agree. Don't we all agree? So it is time to get tough and to hold these folks and these corporations accountable. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I rise today to speak about the Takata airbag recall and the continued need for urgency in this area. Last week the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that they currently had--this figure will blow your mind--19 million vehicles and 23 million airbags under recall. So far, the completion rates for this recall are not very good. There is a national completion rate of some 22 percent, and for States such as Florida where there is high heat and humidity--that is suspected as part of the reason the components break down--the completion rate is just under 30 percent, meaning that people are not taking their cars in to fix the problem that caused the recall in the first place. Takata started running ads through the print media and social media, and Honda is running ads to get consumers to a dealer to replace their defective airbags. I am also aware that to boost replacement inflators, three other airbag manufacturers are helping to manufacture them. So this Senator wants to take this opportunity to state that wherever this message can be delivered to consumers, you better take your car if it is under recall and get it in to the dealer in order to get a replacement airbag; otherwise, you are walking around with, in effect, a grenade in the middle of your steering wheel or dashboard. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to show a number of items in the Senate to illustrate what I am talking about with the airbags.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Will the Senator share her thoughts with the Senate about how the Nation's national security defense depends on us being able--we have the guns, the tanks, the airplanes, the missiles, and all of that, but there is a new type of threat against the very security of this Nation, and this legislation is a first step.

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

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I will vote for the cyber security bill. Obviously, this is a whole new era of attack on our country. On September 11, 2001, we certainly realized that the two big oceans on either side of our country that had protected us for centuries--the Atlantic and the Pacific--no longer provided that protection because we could see, in the case of 2001, an attack from within. Thus, that revised so much of our defense strategy. Now we see the other kind of attack from within that is stealthy, insidious, and it is constant because the cyber attacks are coming to the U.S. Government as well as the U.S. industry, the business community, and U.S. citizens. The threat of cyber attack is vast and it is varied, from cyber criminals who steal personal information such as credit card and Social Security numbers, to foreign governments or state-sponsored groups that steal sensitive national security information, that steal our intellectual property, and that put at risk our economy and critical infrastructure. I want to give one example of obtaining Social Security numbers through cyber attacks or through other means. What we found in Tampa, FL, is that street crime actually subsided because the criminals had figured that either by cyber attacks or by other means of getting Social Security numbers, they could file false income tax returns and request refunds. So with a laptop, they could do what they had done previously by breaking into and entering someone's home to steal money, and it was so much easier. And that is just one small example, but just the theft of security numbers, which they use on false income tax returns--we think that is an attack which is costing the U.S. Government, in income tax, at least $5 billion a year. We have heard all about these attacks. Some of us in the Senate have been affected by these attacks. How many times have we heard that hackers have stolen our names, our addresses, our credit card numbers? Look what the hackers did to 40 million Target customers and 56 million Home Depot customers. They accessed checking and savings account information of 76 million J.P. Morgan Bank customers. They stole the personal information of 80 million customers of the health insurance company Anthem. Those are a few examples. Target, Home Depot, J.P. Morgan, Anthem--that is just a handful of examples. Also, remember that North Korea hacked Sony. Iran hacked the Sands Casino. China hacked the U.S. Government Office of Personnel Management. They have your information and they have my information because our information is with the Office of Personnel Management. The attacks keep coming. We are hearing from homeland security, defense, intelligence, and private sector leaders that we have to take this threat seriously and do something about it. I must say that it was one of the most frustrating things for this Senator, as a former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, when we were trying to pass this very same bill 3 and 4 years ago and the business community, as represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wanted nothing to do with it because they thought it was an invasion of their privacy. Times have changed, and the hacking continues. We see that finally we are able to get through and put together a bill on which I think we can get broad support from many different groups that are concerned about privacy and about sharing of information in the business community. This bill provides the means for the government and the private sector to share cyber threat information while taking care to protect the personal information and privacy of our people. We all face the same threat, and our adversaries use similar malware and techniques. Sharing information is critical to our overall cyber security. What this does is it directs the Director of National Intelligence, working with other agencies and building on the information sharing that is already taking place, to put cyber threat information in the hands of the private sector to help protect businesses and individuals. It authorizes private companies to monitor and defend their networks and share with each other and the government at all levels the cyber threats and attacks--all levels of government: State, local, tribal, and Federal. This is a point of contention because these activities are strictly voluntary. That is part of the problem we had 3 and 4 years ago in trying to enact this legislation. It is strictly voluntary, limited to cyber security purposes, and subject to reasonable restrictions and privacy protections. The bill also creates the legal certainty and incentives needed to promote further sharing of information. So what the legislation does is it sets up a hub or a portal inside the Department of Homeland Security where cyber threat information comes in, it is scrubbed of irrelevant personal information, and then it is shared inside and outside the government quickly and efficiently because, after all, if you have a cyber attack somewhere in America that suddenly has the opportunity to explode in its application, you have to have a central point at which you can coordinate that cyber attack. That is what this portal, this hub in the Department of Homeland Security is set up to do. This Senator feels that this bill balances the urgent need to address the threat of continued cyber attacks with privacy concerns. As the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee said yesterday, this bill is just the first step. I am delighted that Senator Feinstein just walked onto the floor of the Senate. I am quoting what the Senator said yesterday: We can and we ought to do more to improve our Nation's cyber security. I say through the Chair to the distinguished senior Senator from California that I have shared with the Senate my frustration over the last 4 years, as a former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that it was so hard to get people to come together. But now, finally, even though it is voluntary, we at least have a point at which, when a cyber attack comes somewhere in America, we can centralize that, it can be scrubbed of private information, and then it can be shared in our multiplicity of levels of government and the private sector to help defend against the cyber attacks. These cyber attacks are coming every day. They are relentless. If we don't watch out, what is going to happen has already happened to someone and it is going to be happening to innumerable American businesses. I strongly urge the Senate to pass this legislation. Since the senior Senator from California is on the floor, I wish to take this opportunity to thank her for her perspicacity, her patience, and her stick-to-itiveness. Finally, 4 years later, it is here, and we are going to pass it this week. I thank the Senator from California. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, on September 29, an almost 800-foot cargo container vessel, the El Faro, a cargo ship carrying 33 men and women from Florida, left port in Jacksonville, FL, bound for Puerto Rico. There is a regular trade route between San Juan and Jacksonville, and a lot of the goods the Puerto Rican Commonwealth receives are shipped by cargo container from the Port of Jacksonville. Three hours before it left port, the tropical storm that had been brewing had changed its status from a tropical storm to a hurricane, and over the course of the next 2 days, with communications from the ship, that hurricane started to intensify, starting out as a category 1, category 2, and later a category 3. On the morning of the third day, October 1, at 7 a.m., there was a communication from the captain of the ship, first left on a voice mail and then he immediately called back the person in the communications department of the shipping company who talked to the captain. The captain, in a very calm voice on both the telephone message voice mail and his communication with the person, said they had taken a position where the ship was leaning 15 degrees. They were in rough seas, and they had lost power. Apparently in that communication, his voice was very calm and had some degree of confidence that he was going to be able to get the ship back underway, under power. It is not good to have a ship that is tilting 15 degrees in the middle of a storm, much less an oncoming hurricane, and with no power because that does not allow you to keep it directly into the waves or going away from the waves. Instead, the ship is going to turn broadside, with the full force of the waves hitting the side of the ship, and the ship was already listing 15 degrees to one side. Well, that was the last communication. The hurricane had turned in a southwesterly direction, and eventually, according to the forecast, it finally made that turn to the right to start taking it north, and as a result it did not hit the continental east coast of the United States. It was out to the east of the Bahama Islands. The hurricane was still in the vicinity, so it was another 2 days before the hurricane subsided enough that the U.S. Coast Guard could get in there, supplemented by the U.S. Navy, to start looking for survivors. Let me say something about the Coast Guard. We have the Coast Guard in our jurisdiction in the Commerce Committee. It is an extremely professional military operation. I spent time this past summer with the Coast Guard up in Alaska. They are so good at what they do that the U.S. Navy can take its resources and use them elsewhere on the Alaska coast, which includes the Bering Sea and the Bering Strait, which we share with Russia, and the Coast Guard does an extraordinary job. Of course, throughout the Caribbean and all around my State of Florida, the Coast Guard stands tall. They rescue folks. It took them some time before they could get their C-130s flying in-- and some of those may well have been Air Force. Until the Coast Guard could get their C-130s and H-60 helicopters with the swimmers who propel down from the helicopter to rescue survivors--it took them that long, and they started seeing debris. I have seen a picture of the lifeboat. It is an old lifeboat, an open lifeboat. If you saw the movie ``Captain Phillips,'' Captain Phillips and the people who had taken over the ship went in that covered orange lifeboat. They propelled it off the back of the ship, and it dove into the water. These were just plain lifeboats. They found a life preserver floating. Indeed, they found a life preserver suit, which is a body suit that inflates when in the water. When the helicopter finally got there and checked it, they found no survivor in it. They saw remains. They were still actively searching for any survivors. In this particular case, when the swimmer went into the water, there were only remains left in the body suit, partially decomposed and so forth. This Senator cannot say enough about the Coast Guard. Those who were on that ship were from the State of Florida. Maritime work is a part of our culture, and we know the extreme importance of these jobs and the very real risk mariners face in their tough jobs. They are taken away from home for weeks and months to do hard work. Without our maritime efforts, we could not survive. That is where the biggest part of our shipping from other places is, on the sea, and our mariners provide this critical service. They move products and cargo that drive our economy. Look at the economic engines of the seaports. This has been a tremendous loss for us--not the loss of the cargo, which was certainly an economic loss, but the loss of 33 lives. It is especially a loss for the families and friends who knew and loved the crew of the El Faro. We share their grief. The loss of this ship raised many questions, so over the recess I went to Jacksonville. I went to the port. I talked to the National Transportation Safety Board. I talked to the Coast Guard. They have opened an investigation. I am giving these remarks to the Senate at this time because tomorrow we expect a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board. In dock is the sister ship, the El Yunque. One ship would be in one port and the other ship in the other port, and they would cross. In fact, those two ships crossed in the Caribbean within sight of each other before the El Faro, heading southeast, got into trouble. So I wanted to go there because it is our Commerce Committee that has the job of seeing that these agencies are doing as thorough a job as possible. We expectantly await that report. I know we want all of the answers right now. It is important that a thorough examination is conducted to find out exactly what happened. For the families and friends of those lost on the El Faro, and for the safety of all mariners, we are going to make sure that we get the answers. What would I speculate? Well, I certainly do not have the expertise in the sea. But if you get a call and the captain's voice is calm, and he says that we are listing 15 degrees, then there has been some breach of the ship. Likely, there is water inside of the ship. If in that same phone call that you get he is saying that we have lost power, then we know that there is the making of a disaster. Why didn't the captain and the crew know that the hurricane had become a hurricane that was announced by the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center 3 hours before they left the Port of Jacksonville? What caused the captain to think he could sail, and sail in the direction of an oncoming hurricane, and that he would not get into its effects? Why did the engines cut off so that he lost power? All of these things we don't know, but we expectantly look forward to getting some answers maybe in this preliminary report tomorrow. So, in honor of those lost on board the El Faro, I would simply conclude my remarks by asking for a moment of silence. Thank you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Madam President, a few weeks ago I brought to the attention of the Senate the continuing new challenges that we have with the Internet and the fact that so much material is available to all of us, including our youngest citizens, indeed, our toddlers. The question is: What is appropriate content for our toddlers? Google has put up a YouTube application for kids. They call it YouTube Kids. I have some pictures here that show some of the content on that application. First of all, I think this picture is self-explanatory. It says: How to open a beer with another beer. Mind you, this is a YouTube Kids application. Toddlers can access this information. It says: How to open a beer, and it goes through the sequence. This is another fairly graphic picture of how to open a beer with a beer. Is that appropriate for young children? It is readily available and promoted by Google. I doubt that we would conclude that it is. Here is another one. This one has wine-tasting tips. What is tannin in wine? Identifying acidity in wine. Here is the cutest baby song in the world, ``Everybody Dance Now.'' That doesn't look too bad. Here is Alvin and the Chipmunks. This has nursery rhymes for babies, but when you play it, there are some unusual words in there, and so forth and so on. You get the picture. This is for children. This is for little ones. Now here is a picture that shows how to make sulfuric acid two ways. Is that appropriate for toddlers? I have another example. This shows how to make toxic chlorine gas. Is that appropriate for young children? I don't think so. I wrote to Google, and fortunately Google responded. I wish to share with the Senate what I believe are steps in the right direction, but not enough. For example, I asked: What policies and procedures govern the inclusion of the videos on this app? The answer in the Google letter is that Google uses algorithms that govern the automated system. Parents can notify Google of problem videos. Google will be informing parents on how to change its settings to allow parents to be more restrictive with the range of videos their kids can access. Well, why should parents have to intercede when their algorithms--if you type in a search for beer--come up with what I showed you? It shows us how to open a beer with another beer. That seems contrary to common sense. Then we ask: What factors determine whether content is suitable for children? Google's answer is: An automated system and parental complaints. I ask in my letter: For what age range must content be suitable? Google did not answer that question. I additionally ask: What steps, such as filtering, does Google take to ensure unsuitable content does not appear in search results on YouTube Kids? Do these steps apply to new content uploaded to YouTube Kids? Google's answer was: Google uses algorithms in the automated system. Google will soon be informing parents on how to change settings and restrict the range of videos. That is the same answer that applied to a previous question. So I ask: How long after content is flagged does Google assess its suitability? The answer is quite unclear. The statement in this letter was: Google personnel quickly manually review any videos that are flagged. So I additionally ask: How does Google remove content that is deemed unsuitable for YouTube Kids and ensure that it continues to be inaccessible to YouTube Kids? The answer from the letter is: The video is manually removed by Google employees. That is the automatic way of what is deemed unsuitable to ensure that it continues to be inaccessible. So I ask: What policies and procedures govern how Google determines the suitability of advertisements and whether they can appear on this app? The answer is: Advertising must abide by three core principles which include that ads maintain an appropriate viewing environment, that they not be based on data tracking, and that they are formatted to enable exclusive YouTube Kids control. That is nice. How do we get those beer advertisements off of there? Then I ask: What policies and procedures does Google use, if any, to distinguish advertisements and paid content from unpaid content on YouTube Kids? The answer is: Paid advertisements are clearly labeled. We have constantly had this tension with any publication as to what is appropriate content. The movie industry years ago went through this with the rating system. But now we are in the age of the Internet and, as such, it is ubiquitous and it is available to very small children who want to know how to use a device that they see everybody else using. On an application that is specifically designed for children, if we allow this kind of stuff to go on, then where are our commonsense values? We don't want to be teaching a toddler about beer and wine and about how to open a beer bottle with your teeth, and we certainly don't want to be throwing out pictures such as these for toddlers to see. Maybe there is a time and place for that under parental discretion and guidance--but not available on an app for children. I want to thank Google publicly for making a first step, but it is only that. It is a first step. Since this is an app by Google for small children, Google has a responsibility. If there is a privilege of doing an app like this, then there must be accountability, and Google has to accept that responsibility to be accountable. Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

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

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, would the Chair like to buy a used car from a used car dealer that was on the recall list because it had a defective Takata airbag in the steering wheel; so that if you had a fender-bender and it suddenly exploded, it might send shrapnel into your face and into your jugular in your neck. The answer is obviously, no; that you would not want to buy such a used car. Well, to the credit of a major used car dealer, as well as new car dealer, AutoNation, headquartered in Florida but with hundreds and hundreds of dealerships all over the country, they have set as company policy that they will not sell a used car on the recall list for defective products until that recall problem has been corrected. All dealers do this with regard to new cars because it is the law. In fact, in the highway bill we passed a couple of months ago we put in an additional provision, which if you are a rental car company such as Avis, National, and so forth, you cannot rent to a customer if it has a recall on that vehicle until the recall item is fixed. That just makes common sense. You certainly wouldn't want to put a defective product out there for the consuming public. So then why is the National Association of Automobile Dealers fighting us as we try to extend the law for new cars to used cars when it comes to the sale of a used car with a defective item? It defies common sense. This is what it is: What is the economic interest versus what is the safety interest--the economic interest of the used car salesman versus the safety interest of the consuming public that would buy that used car? I hope the national association will reconsider. This is an argument that cannot stand on all fours that they are making--that they comply with the sale of new cars but they don't want to comply with the sale of used cars. What we ought to be looking out for in light of all of these revelations of all of the defective automobiles--look what happened with General Motors and the ignition. Look what has happened to Toyota and Honda with the Takata airbags. By the way, in airbags we are talking some 20 million recalls worldwide. It is huge. If we are going to protect the consuming public, we ought to make sure that recall items are taken care of before those vehicles are sold. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NELSON

Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, I am certainly going to help Senator Boxer. On the question about guns, I am an old country boy. I grew up on a ranch and grew up with guns, but guns should be for hunting, not for killing. One of the most commonsense measures is a measure that you ought to have background checks, such as in gun shows, where guns are sold to get around the background check law.

Mr. NELSON

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