Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. No, I can't modify my request because his bill has not cleared, and he knows that.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Ohio for his good work on this bill. He helped to improve this legislation and make it more effective. It is about having the EPA play a bigger role on not only how we monitor but also how we treat the water and how we establish when there is a problem. This is needed, it is needed now, and it is immediate. This is a photograph that was taken about 8 days ago--not this past week but the weekend before--on the lake. The jar in the photograph was collected by the charter boat captain. He is actually one of the charter boat captains who go out every day and collect samples that are then used by the experts to determine not just where the algal blooms are but the level of toxicity. This is what we found. As you can see, that doesn't look very appetizing. It is thick and green. It is filled with the kinds of toxins that can affect people in very negative ways if they get in the drinking water. We know that people are getting rashes right now from some other freshwater reservoirs in our area, from being in contact with the water. If we don't deal with this issue, we know we are going to have more of this. We know it has already cost our communities a lot to mitigate it. In Grand Lake St. Marys, as I mentioned earlier, they have already shut down some of the beaches because of this. The city of Celina spends $450,000 annually to deal with this. So this is also a taxpayer issue. Columbus was recently forced to spend $700,000 to mitigate an outbreak in their reservoir. This is happening right now as we speak. We just want this legislation to be out there as one of the tools in the toolbox to deal with it, and it is a very sensible one. It gets the EPA engaged in a way so that Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate can agree on it. Let's get this done tonight. Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 212 Mr. President, I ask that we get this legislation done now by asking unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to H.R. 212, which is at the desk, and that the bill be read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the bill with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. PORTMAN. I am sorry to hear that. I will be back again tomorrow and the next day. I will be back again and again because we want to get this done. This is simple. There is no real mystery here. This is an opportunity to get something done that helps people not just in my State but around the country deal with a very real problem they are facing this summer, now.

Mr. PORTMAN. So this is all about leverage--to leverage me to be able to help you on your bill, which I told you I support, in order for us to get something done that has been on the floor for over 40 days. Look, I am happy to talk to my colleagues. I am the one who started clearing this on our side of the aisle. You guys didn't. I am happy to talk to colleagues who have concerns. But they get a chance to look at it, just as you had a chance to look at our bill over the last 45 days. So if this is all about leverage, you got me. You have leveraged me. You have already done it. You have succeeded. I already started clearing it. I support it. I am happy to help, and I am sure Senator Brown is happy to help also, but let's not block this in the meantime. We will be able to get your bill done; I am sure of it. I am sure, if it is as popular as you say it is, we can get it done in the House too. It has not cleared the House at this point. In the meantime, let's not block this legislation. This is ridiculous. This is not the way this Senate ought to operate. We have a smart bill on the floor that has been looked at over 40 days. It is ready to go. It has been cleared by both sides. There are no substantive concerns. And it is time that we deliver for the people we represent. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I have come back to the floor again this afternoon to plead with my colleagues to pass legislation that deals with the toxic algal blooms that affect many of our States, including my State of Ohio. It turns out this is the 1-year anniversary of the water crisis that occurred in Toledo, OH. I see my colleague from Ohio is now on the floor also. He will remember this well. But it was a year ago when we found that there were toxic algal blooms around the intake valve in Toledo, OH, making the water unsuitable. There was an advisory sent out to 500,000 people that said: Do not drink the water. You can imagine the chaos that occurred. You can imagine how difficult this was for the people who live in the Toledo area, who rely on this water. By the way, there are about 3 million Ohioans who rely on Lake Erie water and more than twice that many around the country and in other States, such as Michigan. This is a critical issue. Last week it turned out that there were algal blooms that were moving within a few miles of this same intake valve--the same kind of blue-green toxic algal blooms. I was on the lake the weekend before last to see some of this. Within a couple of days, the city of Toledo changed the city's water quality status from ``clear'' to ``watch.'' We are on a ``watch'' status right now because of the amounts of toxins that have drifted closer to the intake valve. We have a problem right now. We know that the toxic algal blooms prediction for this year in Lake Erie is projected to be worse than it was last year, almost as bad as it was during another crisis period in 2011, when a lot of the beaches were closed down and people weren't able to take their pets to the water and when fishing was pretty much shut down because of the algal blooms. This is a huge issue. It is an economic development issue. It is a health and safety issue. It is an issue that goes to the heart of the economy in this part of Ohio where we have relatively high unemployment and where Lake Erie is the single biggest driver of economic activity. In fact, it is the biggest destination in the State of Ohio. It is our biggest resource for tourism. It is not just Lake Erie. We now have this in Grand Lake St. Marys. There is an advisory out on water in Grand Lake St. Marys, which is a reservoir that is inland that is a freshwater reservoir south of Lake Erie. It is the same thing--toxic algal blooms. We had a lot of rain earlier this spring and summer, as those of us in the Midwest will remember, and that washed a lot of effluent into the lakes, a lot of nitrogen, a lot of phosphorous--the things that cause algal blooms to grow. Then we had some hot weather. That is a bad combination. Again, I see my colleague Senator Brown is on the floor too. We drafted legislation to get the EPA more engaged in this issue, to help Ohio more, and to help all of the States represented here. We have had this legislation on the floor of the Senate for over 40 days--45 days, I think. We have had it cleared on both sides of the aisle. In other words, there is no substantive concern about it. It took a while to do that. We had to work with some people on my side of the aisle who thought maybe EPA didn't have a role here. But EPA does have a role. It is a really important role. It can bring best practices, and it certainly can bring the best research done in the country. It happens to be done in Cincinnati, among other places, at EPA. We have required EPA under this legislation to come up with a plan to deal with this issue immediately for Lake Erie, working with the other agencies, such as USGS, NOAA, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and USDA, and to come up with a plan that helps us to deal with this issue right now. If you live in the Toledo area this evening, you are worried. There is a watch on. Once again, you are worried that you are not going to have water supply that is safe for you and your kids. If you live somewhere else along the lake--say, in Cleveland or Sandusky--you are worried too because these same toxic algal blooms know no barriers, know no boundaries, and they move around the lake. All we are asking tonight is that we be able to pass legislation that is straightforward, that is nonpartisan. It is not just bipartisan. I would say it is nonpartisan. It is very sensible, and it highlights the need for us to take immediate action because it talks about some of the issues that are involved. There are 42 water systems in Ohio that are now susceptible to harmful algal blooms, for instance. It talks about the fact that we have to be sure that we are not just protecting Lake Erie but other bodies of freshwater, and it forces the EPA to come up with a plan that helps us deal with this issue right now. This legislation passed the House already. It didn't just pass the House; it passed the House with a vote of 375 to 37. Not many pieces of legislation pass the House with those kinds of numbers. Again, Senator Brown and I have been trying for more than 4 months to get that House- passed bill passed here in the Senate. We have worked through the substantive problems. I tried to do this on Thursday evening, and I was told I had to stop and I was going to get blocked from doing it because the other side had other legislation they wanted to consider that had not been passed in the House--much less passed in the House 375 to 37. If we pass this legislation tonight and if we are able to get it through with a voice vote and get it done, it will go to the President and he will sign it. In other words, it will become law. That is what the people I represent are looking for. Again, I notice my colleague Senator Brown is on the floor. If he is interested, I would certainly yield to him. Any comments he has, I would appreciate hearing.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the Drinking Water Protection Act. This is commonsense, bipartisan legislation. Nobody opposes it on the merits, and it is urgent we get it done for my home State of Ohio and States all around the country. What could be more important than having access to clean drinking water? There are a lot of pollutants in the water that contribute to not having clean drinking water. Of particular concern to us right now in Ohio are the toxins in the harmful algal blooms. This is blue-green algae that appears in both fresh water and saltwater. In the case of drinking water, unfortunately, it is finding its way into more and more fresh water bodies that provide drinking water. This is something that is a big concern, not just for drinking water, but it can also cause illness or death in humans, pets, wildlife, and it is doing so, unfortunately, in my State of Ohio and around the country. If not confronted, these toxins will continue to contaminate our lakes and other fresh water bodies. Unfortunately, in Ohio we are all too familiar with this. About a year ago, last summer, Toledo had to actually shut down the use of their water supply. They had to tell people there was a ban on drinking water. It was a big deal. Up to 500,000 people were affected. I was actually back home in Ohio because this happened over a weekend, and I filled up my pickup truck with bottled water and made a beeline for Toledo because people were desperate. I was able to pass out bottled water and also work with the local officials to try to get the testing done by EPA and to be sure that we could clean up the water supply. It took a while, and you can imagine the impact on Toledo and the impact on so many other people now all over the northern part of Ohio who depend on Lake Erie for their water supply because they are wondering--again, this year we have a heavy toxic algal bloom forming. What is going to happen to their water supply? Unfortunately, it not just Cleveland, Toledo, and cities along the lake. Celina, OH, which is further south but gets its water from Grand Lakes St. Marys, which is another fresh water lake. It is actually a reservoir and the water supply for Celina, among other things. Celina has spent over $400,000 annually just to combat the algae in Grand Lakes St. Marys. Columbus was forced to spend over $700,000 to mitigate an algae outbreak at the Hoover Reservoir in 2013. Buckeye Lake in Ohio has also been affected by this. Again, it is not just Ohio; it is happening, unfortunately, around the country. These harmful algal blooms continue to put public safety and health at risk. We have to keep our fresh water resources safe so our drinking water isn't threatened, and natural habitats and echo systems are protected. By the way, this isn't just about drinking water either. Our waterways are important economic engines as well. Lake Erie, as an example, brought in $1.8 billion in business activity last year just through the fishing industry, and $226 million in taxes in 2013 alone. Tourism around the lake now supports one in four private sector jobs. I was at Lake Erie last weekend, and I had the chance to go out on Lake Erie. I was out there with Captain Dave Spangler. This is Dave Spangler. Dave was the charter boat Captain of the Year in 2014, and the reason he became the charter boat Captain of the Year is not only because he is a great fishermen and knows how to find the fish, but he is a good steward of Lake Erie. He gets out there, along with other charter boat captains, and they actually monitor the quality of the water, including taking samples. This is one of the samples that he took. This is what I saw when I was on Lake Erie. If you look at it, you can see that it is a jar. I was told I couldn't bring it on the floor today because I brought it back to DC with me from Ohio, but I wanted to have a photograph of it. This is what it looks like. This is the blue-green algae that are in that water. This is the stuff that is cutting off the oxygen supply for the fish, creating toxins so you can't swim in it, and it is also contaminating the drinking water if you get too much of it, as we did last year. We are fearful that it might happen again this year because it is another bad year. The weather patterns were all wrong. There was a lot of rain early on; therefore, a lot of runoff, and now a lot of heat and stillness on the lake which creates the algal bloom. This is a real problem for us right now, and it is a real concern to the people I represent in Ohio but also to places all over the country that are dealing with this issue. After we were out on Lake Erie, we hosted a townhall meeting where people came in from the area. This included not only fishing boat captains, but also small business owners, marina owners. It included people who are living along the lake, residents who are very concerned about the future of the lake. We had a bunch of experts there. We talked about the algal blooms and how to deal with it. It all came back to the fact that we have to take action at the local, State, and Federal levels. We have passed legislation on this. We passed it last year. It has been helpful at the Federal level. We have come up with a new bill that will help to deal with this issue by forcing the Federal departments and agencies to work better together to come up with a report on how to better monitor what is happening, how to ensure that we have a strategic plan that actually identifies the human health risks from contaminated algal toxins and recommends feasible treatment options, including procedures on how to prevent algal toxins from reaching these local supplies in the first place, and of course to mitigate adverse public effects of algal toxins. This is an appropriate role for the EPA. It is an appropriate role for NOAA, by the way, to do the monitoring because they have satellites that can help us to monitor what is happening on Lake Erie and other fresh water supplies for drinking water around the country. This is a critical piece of legislation. It was introduced in the House by Congressman Bob Latta. It was supported on a bipartisan basis in the U.S. House. They have already passed it in the House of Representatives. They passed it in February. It passed by an overwhelming vote of 375 to 37. It then came over here to the Senate where Sherrod Brown, my colleague from Ohio, and I had drafted legislation on this. I commend Senator Brown, who was just down here on the floor. We were just talking about this legislation. We put it into the process here to begin getting it cleared by Democrats and Republicans back in March. So for 4 and \1/2\ months, we have been trying to clear this legislation. This week, I learned that the legislation is cleared, that nobody has substantive concerns with it, and we can finally move forward with it, and none too soon. We need this help, and we need it now. The people who live along the lake and get their drinking water from these reservoirs and other lakes I talked about are worried, and for some very good reasons. By the way, they are closing down beaches in my area because of this. There are pets and people who are seeing negative health effects from it. We need to get the EPA more engaged and involved. We have a bipartisan way to do that. Again, it passed the House by an overwhelming 375 to 37 vote. I am hopeful we can get this legislation passed tonight by a voice vote. We need to do everything we can to bring the Federal resources together, along with State and local governments and local conservation groups to combat this threat. This is something, again, that is a no-brainer, as they say. It is one that everybody supports. It is one that is an urgent matter for us in Ohio. It is a matter that is of great concern to us right now. We need to get it moving, and it is one where we have bipartisan and bicameral support. If we act tonight to clear this legislation and get it done, it will go to the President's desk for signature. And, of course, the President will sign it. Why? Because it is good, commonsense, bipartisan legislation that engages the EPA in an appropriate role to ensure that we can deal with these harmful algal blooms before they cause more damage and before we have another huge drinking crisis, just as we had last summer, in Toledo, OH. So tonight I am going to ask my colleagues to pass this legislation. I am going to ask that there be a voice vote on it. I hope that this will go smoothly and that we can get this done. Again, for 4\1/2\ months we have had this out there. Everybody has had a chance to look at it. There are no substantive concerns with it. Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 212 So at this time I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to this legislation, which is H.R. 212, which is at the desk; that the bill be read a third time; and that the Senate vote on passage of the bill with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I don't know what the Senator from New Mexico is talking about, to be honest. He is my friend and colleague. I will say that I am from Ohio, not Oregon. We just talked about the importance of this bill to Ohio. It is also important to Oregon and to the Senator's State of New Mexico and to other States around this country. There is no paired bill with this. I am talking about a bill that has been around here for 4\1/2\ months. It has been cleared. There are no substantive concerns. My understanding is that the Senator from New Mexico is talking about a bill that is still in committee. It has not even come out of committee. It is not a House bill. In other words, it hasn't been passed in the House. It is not going to go to the President's desk for his signature. I would be shocked if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say they are going to block this commonsense, bipartisan bill that Senator Sherrod Brown and I have worked steadfastly on with both sides of the Capitol to get this done tonight on an urgent basis because we have to get it done. Ours has been out here for 4\1/2\ months; we didn't hear about yours until 45 minutes ago--45 minutes versus 4\1/2\ months. If the Senator from New Mexico wants to block this for other reasons, he ought to say so. But if he is blocking it because there is a pairing--there is no pairing. Maybe he is trying to pair it with something in committee. But let's get this done. This is not a difficult issue. This is one where we have total agreement. There is no substantive concern. I would urge my colleague to allow us to get this done tonight, and then I am happy-- happy--to work on this other bill, whatever it is--of course, we don't know because I just heard about it 45 minutes ago. In fact, I just directed the staff, because I just heard about it when I came here, to go ahead and run the hotline on the other bill. So we have already done that, and we will see what comes back. I know what is going to come back, which is people are going to say, probably on both sides of the aisle, we haven't had a chance to look at this. It hasn't been out for 4\1/2\ months; it has been out here for a couple of minutes. It was just a couple of minutes ago that we heard about it. So I can't believe we are going to block this tonight in order to say we have to move something that is in committee, has not been passed by the House, will not go to the President for his signature, and has not been through any process, as this has been. I urge my colleague and my friend to withdraw his objection.

Mr. PORTMAN. Yes.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I find it very strange that Senator Inhofe has somehow objected since he has signed off on this. It has been totally cleared. This has been cleared to have a voice vote and to have it done tonight. There is no objection from Senator Inhofe. He has cleared it. So I would check the Senator's sources on that. I would just say I am really disappointed that this legislation that makes so much sense, that is needed right now in my home State of Ohio, is being blocked, and I don't know why it is being blocked. I assume there are some reasons that aren't being discussed tonight. This is very disappointing to me. We are going to try this again on Monday. We are going to try it again on Tuesday. We are going to try it again on Wednesday. I would urge my colleagues on that side of the aisle to please allow us to get this done. Allow us to provide some relief right now. If my colleague was up there with me in Lake Erie talking with these people--talking to the folks who had to go through this water crisis last summer; who are worried about what is going to happen this summer; who are being told they can't use the beaches; the fishing captains are worried about their businesses; the small businesses; the marinas; the folks who are not allowing their pets to walk along the lakes and drink the water--I think he would feel differently about it. Let's get this done. This is not an example of something that should require some sort of partisan exercise. Let's do this in a nonpartisan way. Senator Sherrod Brown and I have been working on this for 4\1/2\ months. I am disappointed we can't move it tonight--very disappointed-- but I am very hopeful we can move it on Monday or Tuesday. We are going to keep trying, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, thank you. To the chair of the committee, congratulations, Mr. Inhofe, on the progress made so far with regard to the highway bill, indicating that we will pass something on Thursday and send it over to the House. It is important we address this issue. It is important we put people back to work. We have crumbling roads and bridges. I hope everybody in this Chamber agrees that we need a highway bill and, specifically, we need one as long-term as possible in order to give people predictability and certainty to be able to plan projects and to be able to deal with what is an increasing problem in our country, which is a lack of funds in infrastructure. I hear it back home in Ohio. What I am hearing is: Give us certainty. Let us know what the plan is. Congress, in doing these short-term extensions, is not creating a plan. If we end up with a short-term extension because the House and Senate can't agree, then I hope we will make a commitment when we do that to say: OK. After whatever that short-term period is--I have heard the rumor of 3 months--that at that point we will come up with a long-term proposal together. I happen to think one way we could find a longer term proposal is to have international tax reform. We should do it anyway. We should do it whether or not the highway trust fund is connected to it. There are ways to reform the Tax Code so companies that are overseas, that have revenues overseas, that won't bring them back now because our tax rates are so high might be willing to bring them back at a lower rate. If they bring those funds back and are taxed on those funds, there might be an opportunity to provide some funding for long-term solutions to the highway trust fund, perhaps in conjunction with some of the other pay-fors that are part of the bill we are talking about. International tax reform is necessary in and of itself. I didn't come to the floor to talk about that, although tomorrow we do have a hearing in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on this very issue. I will tell my colleagues and those who are listening, if we do not reform our Tax Code, update our currently noncompetitive Tax Code, we are going to see more and more jobs and investment going overseas. It is that simple. We already see it. Last year, in dollar terms, there were twice as many foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies than there were the year before. Think about that. These are big companies with big names. One name you might know is Burger King, another is Budweiser. Another one that is thinking about it is Monsanto. These are big companies. A lot of companies have already decided they are not going to stay in the United States because our Tax Code is so bad. It puts them at such a disadvantage vis-a-vis their competitors around the world that they can't survive. They have to become foreign entities in order to be competitive. We have to fix that. It is Washington that is creating the problem. Many criticize these companies. I say if there is any blame to show, it is right here in Washington, DC, by allowing the Tax Code that was written in the 1960s to continue when every other one of our competitors around the world has reformed their tax codes and lowered their rates. This is something we can and should do. There is bipartisan consensus around this--maybe not in the details but in a framework. Senator Schumer, on the other side of the aisle, and I put together a report on this recently. We spent 3 or 4 months working on this, but it is a combination of a lot of different hearings and projects that have been undertaken over the last several years on this. We know what we have to do. We know we have to go to a competitive international system that allows us to be able to say to our workers in America: We are going to give you the tools to compete and win. We are not going to allow you to continue to have to compete with one hand tied behind your back, which is what is happening right now. The beneficiaries of this would be the American economy but specifically the American worker. The folks in the boardrooms are going to be fine one way or the other. When you have these foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies or you have these so-called inversions where companies go overseas, the major executives in the company do just fine. The stock usually goes up. What happens is you lose workforce, you lose jobs here in America, salaries don't go up--they stay flat--and that is who is taking the brunt of this. So we have to fix that system, and I think we can do it perhaps in the next few months as part of this highway trust fund. That would be, I hope, an incentive to do it. Again, we should do it anyway, even if there is no highway trust fund need for us to find additional sources of funding. In the meantime, I applaud the chairman and others who included in the highway trust fund legislation we are currently looking at. This is the legislation the chairman says we are likely to vote on Thursday. Included in that are a couple of other provisions that are quite helpful. The one I want to talk about is with regard to regulations and permitting. When you think about it, we are struggling to find enough money to put into the highway trust fund to extend it as long as possible, right? Everybody is concerned about the fact that we have roads and bridges and can't put enough people back to work. One solution to this is to go to the taxpayers and say: We need more funding from the Federal tax base to go into this. That is what is happening, frankly. Another one is to say is there a better way to build these roads and bridges to save money so every tax dollar goes further, so we are telling the American people we are not only funding infrastructure, but we are doing it in the most cost-effective, efficient way. That is not happening now. One reason it is not happening now is because it is so darn hard to permit something, so hard to get the green light to go ahead and start construction on something. I hear this all the time back home. I hear it with regard to commercial buildings, I hear it with regard to energy projects, and I hear it with regard to roads and bridges. You have so many hoops you have to go through, many of which are Federal, some of which are local, some of which are State--many of which are Federal, that it adds costs to the project. It adds delay to the project, and it makes it so you are always worried about a litigation risk because people can go back years after the project is completed and say: Aha. I am going to file a lawsuit because you didn't follow all of these Federal regulations and rules quite the way you should have. That adds cost that we should not be incurring. Instead, as we pass this highway bill, we are going to pass something that is called permitting reform. The Federal permitting system is being reformed in this underlying bill. My colleagues ought to know about that. I am going to make a plea that regardless of what happens, whether it is a 6-year bill, which I think would be great, again adding predictability and certainty, or whether it is 3 years, which maybe we are going to pass on Thursday, or whether it is 3 months, which is what some are saying--the rumor is perhaps the House will send it back to the Senate--whatever the extension period is, let's include this legislation to make it easier to green-light a project to have America get back into the business of building things, not just roads and bridges--although it will help on this bill--but also other projects: energy projects, construction projects, commercial buildings, and so on. Let me give you a really frightening statistic. There is a group that does an international assessment every year of all the countries in the world. It asks: How easy is it to do business in various countries? They compare the countries. One of the countries of course in the mix is us, the United States of America. You would hope we would be at the top of the list--the best place to invest--that we would be the country, since we are a capitalist free enterprise country where we value ingenuity and want to move forward with projects and get things done, that we would be at the top of the list. We are not. We are now No. 41 in the world in terms of the ease to get a construction permit to build something--No. 41 in the world. Capital is global these days. It moves around the world, and certainly around the country, but around the world. So you go to a big city overseas, let's say London. You see all sorts of cranes. Why? Because actually in that city it is easier to build something than it is here in the United States. That is crazy. We should have a system here in the United States where you have to go for the proper regulations, you have to be sure you are building something that is safe and environmentally sound, but that it is easy to do it. You can do it quickly. We are now 41st in the world. This drives investment out of the United States and puts that investment in other countries. This is why this legislation is so important. Again, for the roads and bridges it is important, but also in general to put people back to work. Here is something interesting about this legislation. We have worked on this for almost 4 years--about 3.5 years now. My cosponsor is Claire McCaskill, who is a Democrat, so we have a Republican and a Democrat doing this together. Over time we have been able to build support, slowly but surely, to the point that we now have a good group of bipartisan cosponsors, pretty evenly balanced between Republicans and Democrats, but we also have some support from the outside that is unusually balanced. We have the Chamber of Commerce supporting this in the business community. That might be expected. A lot of them are interested in how to build something and build it more quickly, but we also have the AFL- CIO building trades council strongly in support of this. I appreciate that. Because they get it. This is about work and specifically about construction jobs. A lot of those jobs went away during the financial crisis of 2007, 2008, and 2009. They have been slow to come back. Unemployment is still relatively high among construction workers. Frankly, a lot of them have moved on to something else because they have not had jobs. The AFL-CIO building trades council and the business community are together on this. They are working with us together to ensure that we can get this done in the highway bill and to move forward with not just something that will help on roads and bridges, but it will help on all kinds of projects. I heard about this in the context of energy. When I first got elected, a company came to me. It is called American Municipal Power, AMP. AMP does small energy projects all over our State and some other States. They came to me and said: You know, Rob, we have been trying to put a powerplant on the Ohio River. Now, you might think that normally would be a coal plant or a gas plant, or even a nuclear plant--there are all those along the Ohio River. They said: No, we are actually trying to put a hydro plant. The Ohio River is not a particularly natural place for hydro, you would not think, but it turns out there is a nice flow in the Ohio River. It is a big river. They had this great idea at the locks of the Ohio River to add a municipal powerplant, hydroplant, but they said: We cannot get through all of these Federal hoops. There are up to 35 different Federal licenses and permits you now have to get to do an energy project. Think about that. You have to get 35 different Federal licenses and permits in order to start construction and to move forward with an energy project. That is what they found in the Ohio River. They came to me and said: What can you do to help? We started to look at it and figured out: My gosh. The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. You have so many agencies involved, so many different interests involved, whether it is the Army Corps of Engineers, the USGS, whether it is EPA, whether it is again State and local regulations. I am just talking about the Federal side when I talk about the 35 permits and regulations. What American Municipal Power wanted was to be able to get something done in a predictable way and have somebody be accountable. We liked that idea, so we moved forward with this legislation providing more accountability. We also heard from Baard Energy. Baard had plans to build a $6 billion synthetic fuels plant in Wellsville, OH. This was a coal-to- liquid plant that would not only convert coal into clean diesel and jet fuel, it would also have created, we were told, up to 2,500 jobs. This is in a part of Eastern Ohio where these jobs are so valuable, so precious. They couldn't do it at the end of the day because the permitting delays and the lawsuits they got so interfered with the project that their capital left. It wasn't patient enough to wait around for all the delays, all the potential lawsuits, all the problems. So, again, from them we learned: Well, let's have accountability, one agency responsible, but also let's look at this issue of not just lack of accountability, but the fact that these lawsuits continue to slow these projects down and make it more difficult to move forward. Our legislation addresses all of these issues. It does so in a very thoughtful and, I think, reasonable way, in a way that is common sense. We have got support on both sides of the aisle. First of all, it strengthens coordination and deadline setting. We talked about having some accountability. One agency is now accountable, so instead of agencies being able to go: Well, you know, we are fine, but how about this other agency? Not our fault, their fault, pointing fingers. Now you have got one agency that is in charge. Deadline setting. This creates an interagency council to best identify what the best practices are, but also set deadlines for reviews. Right now with no deadlines, the things often go on and on and on, in approvals of important infrastructure projects. It also strengthens cooperation between the State and local permitting authorities, another problem. As I said earlier, there are local and State issues as well, and we try to avoid duplication and the delay that comes from that. Second, the legislation facilitates greater transparency and greater public participation in the permitting process. It creates what we call an online dashboard where you can look at the dashboard--whether you are a company that is involved in this or whether you are a member of the public who is interested in this--you can look on that dashboard and see this is where the permit is. OK. It is at that agency. Well, why? You can see whether it has completed its review. And where are we on this? It encourages not just the ability to track agency progress, which I think will have a very important effect--sunlight is the best disinfectant sometimes in bringing this out; making the transparency better is a good idea, but it also brings more input from stakeholders. We also require in our legislation that the agencies accept comments from stakeholders early in the approval process. Why? Because another problem we found was that often the concerns come very late in the process, so you have an investment, you have workers working on this. All of a sudden a concern comes in, it stops everything, slows it down, and makes it very inefficient. Instead we are saying: OK. Comments, they are very important, but let's accept those comments earlier in the process. Let's identify these important public concerns from the very start. Then finally, it institutes a set of litigation reforms that I think is very important. One I will mention, which I think is probably going to be surprising to a lot of people: Right now there is a statute of limitations on lawsuits that runs 6 years. This is after the environmental review, the NEPA review--6 years. Think about that. We limit that 6 years to 2 years. I would have liked to limit it even further to be frank. In our original legislation we tried to limit it even further, but this again is a consensus-building project. We want to be sure we kept the bipartisan support, we kept support on the outside, including from groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council that have worked with us on this. So we have accountability, transparency, litigation reforms, with the whole goal of saying: Let's take, in the case of these construction projects, the roads and bridges, the Federal dollars, and let's let them work in a more efficient way so every dollar goes further, so we can get these roads and bridges going, so we are not paying so much for delays and redtape, so we are not paying so much more for lawsuits, so we can actually get this thing moving. That is in this legislation. I hope my colleagues who, like me, go back home and hear about regulatory reform and the need for us to streamline the process will strongly support this part of the legislation, even if they cannot support all of the legislation. I hope they will continue to push this Senate and the House of Representatives to pass this permitting reform legislation. If we do that and it lands on the President's desk, I believe he will sign it. I believe that because we have worked with him closely and because frankly it will have such strong bipartisan support. It is the right thing to do. It enables us to say to the people we represent: You know what. We are not just asking for some more money for roads and bridges, which is important and will create more jobs and make our economy more efficient--we need to do that. The crumbling infrastructure is real. It is also an opportunity for us to do it in a more efficient way. The President's job council, at the end of 2011, issued a report. You might remember that. President Obama selected Jeffrey Immelt, who is a very widely respected executive--GE CEO--to chair the jobs council. He came up with a bunch of recommendations, many of which I think were very constructive. One was about this very issue. This is what they said. They said we ought to reform the permitting process because we should, as the President said, ``do everything we can to make it easier for folks to bring products to market, and to start and expand new businesses, and to grow and hire new workers.'' That was the President. Sean McGarvey is the president of the North America's Building Trades Union. We talked about the AFL-CIO building trades union. This is what Sean McGarvey has said: ``If there was ever an issue that could be considered a no-brainer for Congress, the Federal Permitting Improvement Act is it.'' I agree with Sean. This is a no-brainer. Let's get it done as part of the legislation we are going to pass this week. I believe we will pass it. If we do not pass the highway bill this week, let's ensure that we include the permitting reforms in whatever we do pass. Again, whether it is a 3-month extension or a 6-year extension, we should be sure that we are removing unnecessary delays, bureaucratic hurdles, so that more Americans who are looking for a job can find a job, and so that tax dollars can go further. I want to thank Claire McCaskill, the Senator from Missouri, who has been the cosponsor of this over the last few years. Sometimes it has not been easy working through this. She has taken some arrows, but it is the right thing to do. It is meaningful legislation that will actually help move our economy in the right direction and help us to be able to repair more of these roads and bridges because we will be doing it more efficiently. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PORTMAN

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

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

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today with regard to one of the parts of the highway bill we are talking about, and that is the Export- Import Bank, otherwise known as Ex-Im. I rise today as somebody who feels strongly we need to have a long- term highway bill. I am glad we are on the floor with that because it is about jobs and crumbling infrastructure. I am also pleased that within this bill there is some regulatory reform on the permitting process, and I thank the authors for including my permitting reform bill. But I also am pleased by the fact we also voted to add as an amendment the reauthorization of this Bank called the Export-Import Bank. If I may, let me talk about why this is so important to Ohio jobs and to jobs around this country and to keeping our economy from falling behind. Some people say: Well, why do we need the government involved in this business of providing financing or credit to companies that do business overseas? Well, frankly, it is because often these are relatively high-risk ventures, so companies cannot get the credits, the guarantees or the loans from private-sector companies. I will give a few examples of this in a minute, but it is also because of the fact that other countries all over the world have these export credit subsidies. In fact, we are pikers. We have a lot less than our competitors. On average, our competitors do a lot more in terms of supporting their exports than we do. So we need to have this in order to ensure that we don't lose jobs in this country. By our unilaterally saying we are not going to help our companies to export, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Now, if these other countries around the world were to say, you know what, we are going to back off on our export financing, that would be great. When I was U.S. Trade Representative back in the Bush administration, that is what I pushed for. I think we should be getting rid of these subsidies. By the way, also in terms of agriculture subsidies and others, if there were a level playing field, where our competitors were not doing this, it would be a different world. I will note one thing I like about the amendment that was adopted--or at least the cloture vote here and the amendment that is likely to be adopted to this bill on the Export- Import Bank--is that it requires, as one of the reforms--and, yes, I think it should be reformed--that the administration begin the process of an international negotiation to get rid of these export subsidies all over the world. In the meantime, if we as the United States of America say unilaterally that we are going to stop these export subsidies through this financing mechanism, we are going to lose jobs. It is not just we are not going to create jobs that would be otherwise created by these projects, it is the fact that some companies will actually move overseas to take advantage of the export subsidies in other countries. They have told me this, and I am sure they have told other Senators this, and Senators know this. I view this in pretty simple terms: No. 1, this program actually puts money back into the coffers every year rather than taking money out. I think it added about $650 million or so to our surplus last year. Over time it has added billions of dollars, so it is not costing taxpayer money. It brought $7 million in profits to the U.S. Treasury since 1992. Last year it generated $675 million in profits, and by the way, it created 164,000 jobs and $27 billion in exports. So No. 1, it is not one of these government programs that is costing the taxpayer. No. 2, other countries are doing it, and if we don't do it, they will continue to do it and we will lose out on jobs, on contracts. I am told, for instance, that right now, while this program is in flux-- where we are not sure whether it will go forward or not because it has already technically expired--there are 100 transactions sitting in the pipeline worth more than $9 billion, and those transactions won't go forward unless we take action. So again, this is one where the United States of America would be shooting itself in the foot by saying we are not going to expand exports to the detriment of our workers. Then No. 3, yes, we ought to get busy on reforms to the Export-Import Bank, to make it more transparent. I think that is good. One of the reforms in here, as I said earlier, is to ensure the President submits a strategy for ending government supported export subsidies internationally. The Obama administration should be more aggressive at that. I believe that is appropriate, and they should be doing it. By the way, it also creates a risk management committee to oversee the Bank's risk exposure. It also sets up a new nonpolitical chief ethics officer to provide oversight with regard to the ethics practices of Bank employees. That is all important, and I support all those reforms. I could probably support some more, too, but let us not shoot ourselves in the foot and lose these good-paying jobs we have in this country. I view it frankly a lot like the trade debate we just had. What we want to do in trade is have a balance, where we are sending more exports overseas, creating more jobs in this country--in my State of Ohio, in the Presiding Officer's State of Indiana, and other States around this country--at the same time leveling the playing field by increasing our enforcement and stopping the unfair imports from other countries--the dumping and the subsidies. In the trade bill--we talked a lot about this over the last month--we actually got in place a new amendment to help companies be able to deal with unfairly traded imports, to get a remedy right away, and it is already working. Sherrod Brown, my colleague from Ohio, and I put together an amendment. It is part of the trade bill that was passed. Already, tire workers in Ohio, United Steelworkers union employees in Ohio have been able to take advantage of that because they got a positive determination from the International Trade Commission, in part because we gave them better tools. We improved the law to be able to more easily show they have been injured by these unfairly traded imports that are sold below cost or dumped or subsidized and so that they can get the relief needed to avoid losing so many jobs that they go out of business. That is one thing we ought to be doing to expand exports--more trade. Another thing we ought to be doing is ensuring we aren't pulling back on this export financing--again, it doesn't cost the taxpayers anything--at a time when we are under-exporting compared to what we should be doing as a country. When we look at our exports per capita in the United States of America, I think we are somewhere between Tonga and Ethiopia in terms of our exports per capita. Other countries depend a lot more on trade than we do. We need to export more. Why? It creates good jobs--jobs that pay 13 percent to 15 percent more on average and offer better benefits. The last thing we want to do is to pull the rug out from under these exporters by saying we are going to change the law to make it even harder to export and put American workers at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the rest of the world. It is the same thing with regard to trade policy, generally. Let's expand exports by opening up markets for our products through good trade agreements, and let's enforce the laws and increase the enforcement, as we did with regard to the amendment I talked about earlier. That makes it easier for those tire workers at Cooper Tire in Ohio and around the country to be able to say: This isn't fair. The Chinese tires--in this case--are coming in under cost and are being subsidized. We want our government to stand up for us so we can compete and so we can export more of our product. So if we were not to allow this Export-Import Bank to continue, it would be running counter to everything we just did in the trade bill. We want more exports. The final thing I have to say, again, is if we don't allow American companies to compete globally as American workers making products here in America, some of these companies are going to go overseas. A lot of them already have production overseas. Let's be honest. A lot of these U.S. multinational companies make things all over the world on two, three, four continents. They can shift production overseas, and then they take advantage of the export guarantees in that country. That is what some of them have told me they are likely to do if we don't have an export guarantee in this country and we don't do anything about the international situation, where these other countries do more than we do. That reminds me of another topic we ought to be taking up here on the floor of the Senate, and that is tax reform, because our Tax Code does the same thing. Our Tax Code says to an American company: You can't compete fairly. You have to compete with one hand tied behind your back. It is the American workers who are hurt by this because our tax rate is so high. Because of the way we tax internationally, we make it an advantage to be a foreign company. That is why so many U.S. companies are becoming foreign companies. Last year there were twice as many transactions in dollar terms--twice as many as the year before--of foreign companies taking over U.S. companies, driven largely by our inefficient and out-of-date Tax Code. So if we combine all of these--if we combine what is going on with trade, if we combine what is going on with our tax system--we certainly don't want to put our workers at a further disadvantage by pulling the rug out from under them with regard to this export financing. Yes, let's try to get the rest of the world to do the right thing. But in the meantime, let's not shoot ourselves in the foot. On many of these projects overseas, there is a de facto requirement that you have to have financing from a government. All these other countries provide it. So whether in Africa, Asia or in some of these other emerging economies, they say: Where is your financing? This is why, as I said, there are about 100 projects in limbo right now. Let me talk about some of the companies in Ohio that benefit from this Export-Import Bank--again, this bank that actually puts money back into the coffers every year. I have talked to these companies, and I have talked to the workers on the line whose jobs are at stake because of what we are going to decide here in this body. One is U.S. Bridge. They are in Cambridge, OH. They have been manufacturing and building bridges in America and around the world for 81 years. They are quite a success story. Their global business depends on the financial guarantees of the Export-Import Bank. They can't compete in bidding for these projects around the world without it. Recently, they got a $100 million contract to build bridges in West Africa, but it was immediately put in jeopardy after they got it because Congress refused to move on the Ex-Im Bank one way or the other. We just allowed it to expire without even voting on it. That is one of those projects currently in limbo. They have 150 employees in a very small county with high unemployment in Eastern Ohio. If they get this job we talked about to build bridges in West Africa, they say they can add up to 50 new manufacturing workers with this one contract. That is a big deal for a family-owned company that has been a cornerstone of the eastern part of Ohio in the small town of Cambridge, which has 10,000 people. That is 50 jobs right there, in a small town in an area of Ohio that has high unemployment, that are at stake if we don't move on Export-Import Bank. Let me talk about McGregor Metalworking in Springfield, OH. I know a lot about the McGregor family because they are distant cousins of mine. My family was the McCullough family. They came to Springfield from Scotland. The McGregors run a company that is a staple of the community. They are pillars in the community. They have skilled trade jobs. The workers there get good pay and good benefits. However, they are very concerned about what is going on with the Ex-Im Bank. More than 60 workers at McGregor work directly on products that depend on Ex-Im financing. That is about 16 percent of McGregor's sales. They are not a big company, but they are a really important company to that community, to those workers, and to their families. So to the people who have stood up on this floor over the last couple of days and said this is not about jobs, this is about jobs, folks. This is not just about big businesses. Yes, it is about them, and that is important too. We want those jobs here as well. It is also about a lot of small businesses. I recently spoke to some of the workers at McGregor. They told me there are a lot of manufacturing issues they just can't control--their health care costs, which are going up. ObamaCare has not helped. It has made it worse. In Ohio, they are told their costs are going to go up between 10 percent and 33 percent next year. That is what the insurance companies have told them. The price of steel goes up and down. Sometimes it is tough to get the skills to be able to compete and to get these jobs in places such as McGregor. Those are things that are out of their control. But Ex-Im is something they know we can control, and they are wondering why we are making it even more difficult and less predictable for them by not acting. Let me talk about another small business in Hamilton, OH, called Kaivac. They employ 50 people. They manufacture commercial cleaning machines used to clean floors in schools, museums, stadiums, and airports. They are a kind of modern-day mop and pail. With the help of Ex-Im, Kaivac grew its international sales by 60 percent last year, exporting their commercial cleaning machines all over the world. But as we have heard repeatedly, this is another company that said they can't do that in the future if they don't get this financing from Ex-Im. So what will happen to these companies? For a lot of these smaller companies, they will just lose business, and they will lose jobs. They will lose the jobs they already have, and they won't be able to gain the jobs we have talked about today. For some of the bigger companies, they will be OK. They will move overseas. Frankly, I am not worried about the companies. I am worried about the workers in Ohio--American workers who work hard, play by the rules, and do all the right things. We are going to pull the rug out from under them. That doesn't make any sense to me. We need to stand up for these American workers. Whether it is with regard to trade or whether it is with regard to taxes, as we talked about earlier, Washington is letting them down. We are not doing the basic things we ought to be doing to create the environment for success to allow them to be able to compete and to win. Today we have the opportunity to stand with American workers. We have the opportunity to move forward--yes, with regard to trade, knocking down barriers to our exports, making sure there is a more level playing field, including the amendment we talked about earlier that allows us now to bring trade cases and get results and help American workers. We have to be sure that we do reform this Tax Code, because if we don't, more American companies and investments are going to go overseas. That is our job. We are letting the American worker down right now. I see Senator Schumer here on the floor. Senator Schumer has been working on this international tax reform issue, and his point is a very simple one: We want the jobs and investments here. We are tired of seeing companies get taken over by foreign companies and move their jobs to those other countries. We saw this recently. A pharmaceutical company got bought by a foreign entity. By the way, the foreign company had just left America. They inverted to another country. They then came back and started buying American companies. One third of the workforce of that company bought by the foreign company is now gone--Raleigh, NC, to Canada. So these are things we can do. It is within our control here in this body for us to pass these kinds of bills and, with regard to Ex-Im, to ensure that we are not shooting ourselves in the foot and shooting American workers in the foot by taking away their opportunity to, yes, win these bids, to win these competitions, to build that bridge in West Africa, to send those cleaning supplies all over the world, to be able to ensure, with regard to McGregor Industries, that the parts they put into those locomotive engines that get sent to developed countries and developing countries can continue to grow. Our job here is not to make life harder for these workers and these small companies. It is to make it easier for them to compete and to win so that we can begin to bring back not just more jobs but better jobs. Over the last 6 years, we have seen wages flatten out and on average go down. Economists tell me it is about a 6-percent reduction in real wages. Think about that. This at a time when health care costs are up, in part thanks to ObamaCare, which makes it harder, not easier, to get health care at a reasonable cost. Education costs are up. Electricity costs are going up, in part because of the regulations that the Obama administration is putting on the economy in my home State of Ohio and around the country. That is called the middle-class squeeze. Wages are flat and declining, and expenses going up. That is what the people I represent are experiencing. Let's not make it more difficult for them. Let's stand up for American workers. Yes, let's tell the Obama administration, as this legislation does: You are required to put more pressure on the international community and other countries to reduce their export subsidies, their guarantees, their credit agencies. But in the meantime, let's be sure we are standing up for the people we represent and doing the right thing for the American worker. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, as we have been talking about fixing our Nation's infrastructure, I want to raise a concern I had with one of the potential ways in which we are talking about paying for it. That is by using funds out of what is called the Hardest Hit Fund. Over the years, I have worked in my State of Ohio and around the country to help deal with this issue of abandoned homes. We are all concerned about communities that have blighted properties because they tend to be magnets for crime, for drugs, and for other illegal activity. It turns out that one of the best ways to increase home values in some of the blighted neighborhoods around our country and in my home State of Ohio is to actually take these abandoned homes, tear them down, and have that property be used for other purposes, whether it is new development, a community garden or whether it is simply razing the property to ensure that homes in the neighborhood are not affected negatively by those home values going down. There is a lot of information out there about this now because many States have become active in doing it, and it appears it is working. In other words, home values are increasing, sometimes dramatically, by taking down these blighted properties. I think, perhaps inadvertently, Members of this body who are looking at ways to pay for the highway trust fund extension decided that the Hardest Hit Fund was the place to look. There is no question there has been a GAO report about some aspects of this fund and how it has been used, where there might be need for reform, maybe significant reform, but this one area of dealing with blighted properties is one we need to be very careful with. Main Streets across our country are looking to us right now in the U.S. Senate to ensure that we don't overreach, and trying to find funding for infrastructure, in effect, creates more problems in those neighborhoods. In my home State of Ohio, we have nearly 80,000 dangerous abandoned homes. One of the best things that you can do to address public safety in tumbling home values in those neighborhoods is to demolish these structures. By the way, some of the data that we have from cities in my home State of Ohio says they cost neighbors up to 80 percent of their value. We have also seen that first responders sometimes are at risk when these homes are subject to arson and other crimes. Sadly, we lost a firefighter in one of these homes in Ohio because of arson. I remember touring some of these abandoned homes in Toledo, OH, where I got to witness one of the homes being torn down. I have done the same thing in Warren, OH, and I have done the same thing in other communities around our State. I have done the same thing in Toledo with the mayor. As we were talking to neighbors, I asked the neighbor who was right next to one of the homes being torn down, how do you feel about this? She said what other neighbors have told me on other opportunities that I have had to go into these communities and talk about abandoned homes. She said: Well, it will be better because there is less blight and there is less crime. We have a concern because this abandoned home is being used by drug dealers. But she also said: You know, Rob, I live right next to this home. There are only a few feet that separated these two homes. She said: I have three kids at home. Every night when I went to bed, I was worried about what might happen, that an arsonist would light this home on fire, as has been done throughout the city of Toledo and other cities with abandoned homes, and that my kids would be at risk. This is something that is working. I am concerned that if we do not take this into account as we look at how to pay for this infrastructure bill, we will make the situation worse rather than better. One way we are getting at this in my home State of Ohio and around the country is land banks. In some of the hardest hit States, manufacturing States like Ohio and Michigan got to work attacking this issue. The resources they need to demolish these properties in order to help struggling neighborhoods recover come in part from the Hardest Hit Fund. In Ohio we now have 24 land banks. I think there are six more in formation. By the end of the year, we expect to have at least 30 county land banks in Ohio. After visiting some of these neighborhoods that are impacted by these homes and walking the streets with local officials in 2013, I authored a bill called the Neighborhood Safety Act. It was a companion bill to a bipartisan House effort that was led by some Ohio Members of Congress, including Dave Joyce, Marcy Kaptur, and Marcia Fudge. Our legislation called for the Hardest Hit Fund to be used for demolition purposes. After we pushed for this and pushed aggressively, this important change was made. It provided nearly $66 million to my State of Ohio to deal with these thousands of abandoned homes we talked about. I know the State of Michigan also received a significant part of the Hardest Hit Fund for these purposes, as did other States. Again, I am concerned about this potential pay-for in the legislation that could take away some of these funds, which are critical for doing this important work. I have been in touch with the land banks in Ohio. I am talking to the Ohio Housing Finance Agency to determine what is the best path forward to protect these funds. We are working right now with the committee leadership to see if we can modify the language in the underlying bill. I know it is something that is a concern to Senator Stabenow because I spoke to her about it earlier today, as well as my colleague from Ohio Senator Brown. I don't know what we are going to do going forward. We may need to offer an amendment to change the language. I am hopeful we can have this be part of a managers' amendment. Again, dealing with these abandoned, blighted homes is a public safety concern. It is a huge concern for local officials, local officials in my home State whom I have talked to, been on the streets with, but also local officials across our country. We have to protect these funds for the communities that so desperately need them. I wish to particularly thank a friend back home, Jim Rokakis, director of the Thriving Communities Initiative at the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. He has done excellent work highlighting issues in Ohio and has helped to bring people together. I hope we will be able to resolve this issue in a managers' amendment, but if not, I do intend to offer an amendment, and I hope that amendment can be supported on a bipartisan basis to ensure that we are not, perhaps inadvertently, taking away this tool that we are using every day to make our neighborhoods safer and to improve home values for the people we represent. The final point I wish to make about the underlying legislation is that it also includes very important language that reforms our regulatory system--specifically, our permitting system. For years now, people have been talking about the fact that America is a place where it is hard to building something. In fact, it has gotten to the point that one international survey that is widely respected has said that America has fallen to No. 41 in the world in terms of the ease of doing business as it relates to green-lighting a project. Think of a commercial building, road or bridge being built or an energy project, whether it is solar, wind or oil and gas. What we are finding out is that it is so hard to build something in America, that some of these funds are going somewhere else. Sometimes in foreign capitals, as we visit as congressional delegations, we see a lot of cranes and a lot of activity. Part of that is because these funds are not coming to this country because it takes so long to build something and to get the permits, and there is so much uncertainty and the capital is not patient enough. There is more legal liability here than in so many other countries. So being No. 41 in the world has led to our having fewer good-paying construction jobs here in this country. As a result of this concern, over the last 3 years, I worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to draft commonsense legislation to speed up the permitting process, while still ensuring that we go through a regulatory process that includes an environmental review and other reviews. This legislation streamlines the process and requires one Federal agency to be accountable, which is not the case now. It deals with some of the issues that we have now. For instance, you may have as many as 35 different Federal permits on an energy project just to get the project going. It also helps with regard to legal liability. With regard to the statute of limitations, instead of having it run 6 years after the final environmental review, we limited that to 2 years, which is plenty of time to bring a lawsuit. Some have found that the 6-year statute of limitations makes it very difficult to find investors. This is an important part of the legislation that we are dealing with as part of the highway trust fund. It is part of this infrastructure bill and will not only provide more funding for our highways and roads but will also ensure that we can move forward with more of these projects more quickly and use the money for efficiently. This legislation has been supported broadly across the aisle. It was reported out of our committee--the governmental affairs committee-- earlier this year with a strong bipartisan vote. I believe the vote was 12 to 1. It is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and also by the AFL-CIO Building Trades Council. They feel strongly about it for all the right reasons. They want to bring back some jobs. A lot of construction jobs that were lost during the financial crisis have yet to come back. This will help. I commend the authors of the underlying legislation for including my bill as part of the underlying bill. I sure hope it stays in the bill because it is the right thing to do for taxpayers, it is the right thing to do to get projects moving, and, of course, it is the right thing to do to create more jobs at a time when all of us continue to be disappointed by the recovery, which is one of the weakest recoveries we have ever seen in the history of our country. I thank the Presiding Officer for allowing me to talk about an issue that is of concern; that is, that the Hardest Hit Fund does an excellent job in our communities with regard to abandoned homes. We have to be careful that we not pull the rug out from under these organizations that are doing a terrific job helping to make our communities safer and helping to increase home values. Again, I wish to commend those who have included in this legislation our permitting bill. Senator Claire McCaskill from Missouri and I have worked on this for 3 years. It is good bipartisan legislation. It makes sense in order to get America back to work and building things again. It will help in terms of the highway funding by making sure that funding goes further, and it will also help in terms of all sorts of construction of other projects, such as energy projects, commercial buildings, and other infrastructure. With that, I yield to my colleague.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I wish to honor the life of Troy B. Elam, of Middletown, OH, and to recognize his legacy and service to our Nation. Troy was born in Knox County, KY, on May 31, 1926. He was the son of John Nathan Elam and Alice (Clouse) Elam and passed away on July 17, 2015. Part of our ``greatest generation,'' Troy Elam served his country valiantly in WWII. A decorated WWII combat veteran, Troy Elam was awarded two Bronze Stars for service on the front lines as part of a U.S. Army machine gun squad in the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Remagen. His unit liberated a Nazi concentration camp and Troy was proud to be part of the honor guard 21-gun salute for a Dutch soldier who died after being liberated. In addition to being a WWII veteran, he was a longtime and dedicated mechanic at the Portman Equipment Company. Troy raised his family in Middletown, OH, and is survived by his wife of 71 years, Dorothy Mae (Helton) Elam, his children Diane McCowan, Troy D. Elam, Don Elam, and Jerry Elam, 9 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren. Troy Elam was an American hero. He will be missed, but his legacy will not be forgotten.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in the German Village neighborhood of Columbus, OH, as it celebrates its 150th anniversary. In 1865, St. Mary initially operated under the leadership of Rev. Francis S. Specht in a building that featured a one-room church, one-room school and second- story rectory. In 1866, the parishioners began construction on a German-gothic inspired church. In 1893, the parishioners built the iconic steeple, which rises to 197 feet and still stands tall today. The parish is home to more than 500 families, with parishioners from 5 different counties in Ohio. St. Mary also hosts more than 50 weddings each year and has approximately 230 students enrolled in prekindergarten through the eighth grade. The parish mission is ``to be of one mind and heart with the Church by loving God with all our heart, all our mind, all our strength, all our soul; and by loving our neighbor as ourselves.'' St. Mary fulfills its mission by supporting the needs of its congregation, hosting community activities, and educating its students. Nearly 95 percent of the students at St. Mary have been fortunate enough to receive tuition assistance. I am here today to honor St. Mary of the Assumption and its congregation. I congratulate all who were involved in making its first 150 years a success.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I appreciate the fact that we have delayed the impact of this, but the impact is still severe. In my State and many other States, we will see a significant cut. Do my colleagues know what it is? It is telling States that if you invest in children, you are going to be penalized. This legislation, the underlying bill, is about helping our children succeed. Yet, in this amendment, we are actually telling States that if you help your kids succeed, you are going to be penalized under a new formula. It is not part of the bill that came out of committee. It is not part of the underlying bill. So I urge my colleagues to vote no on this amendment and ensure that the States that are helping our kids continue to be able to do so.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak regarding the Burr amendment, which has been offered to the underlying education bill. This is an amendment that I understand has been modified recently, but it still has some of the flaws it has had all along; that is, it tells States that if they invest in their kids, they are penalized, which I think is the wrong message. I hope this amendment can be defeated on that basis alone. It also happens to be bad for some States because, for instance, in my home State of Ohio, we would lose an estimated $70 million because we do invest in our children who are poor, who are vulnerable. Therefore, because of formula changes, we get less money in Ohio. I hope States that are affected one way or another, though, will look at this from a policy perspective and understand that certainly in this Federal K-12 education bill, we ought not to be telling the States, such as my home State of Ohio, that because they invest more in their kids, somehow they are penalized. I know the Burr amendment was changed to reach a different level before this formula change would occur. I think it is $17 billion; right now it is $14.4 billion. This means that this change will not occur for a few years, as I understand it, but the same problem remains. We hope this authorization will last through that period and we will not be back revisiting this on the floor of the Senate. Therefore, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--and I know there is opposition on both sides of the aisle to this amendment--to stand tall and to say let's not tell the States that if they invest in kids who come from some of the lowest income school jurisdictions in our country, that somehow they are going to be penalized under a new formula. This amendment is a mistake because it fails to take into account that the cost of education in different parts of the country differs, and again it penalizes States that invest more in education. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Burr amendment. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, amendment No. 2137 is about early college high school. This is a program that is working incredibly well around the country, both to get young people through high school and to increase graduation rates, which is part of the objective of this legislation, and also to get them not just into college but to stay in college. All of the experience from this program indicates it is working. I had a recent opportunity to visit the Dayton Early College High School, the academy, and 100 percent of their graduates are from a low- income area. Almost every single one of the students were either the first generation to go to college or into the military. Their retention rate in college is incredibly impressive. This amendment encourages more of that. Early college high schools are working. It is part of the reform effort that is being undertaken in my State and others, and I strongly encourage a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from West Virginia. He was just speaking about a need for us to support our young people. In essence, what he was saying is they can use their God-given abilities to be able to give back, and that is what the amendment I wish to speak to is all about. I appreciate the fact that the chairman and ranking member have agreed to take a look at this amendment. In fact, my understanding is that Senator Alexander is going to be offering this amendment later. This amendment has to do with substance abuse. It has to do with our young people. Unfortunately, we are seeing a younger and younger age of first use of drugs. We are seeing also, unfortunately, more and more young people who struggle with addiction. In the legislation and in the underlying law, there are provisions for prevention, and that is incredibly important. If we can get our young people not to go down this road, we can avoid some devastating consequences to them and to their future, to their families, and to their communities. If we look at the use today, in my home State of Ohio--I was just home the day before yesterday at a conference on this issue of heroin use and prescription drug use by our young people. It is growing. It is a huge problem. The No. 1 cause of death now in Ohio is overdose from these drugs. It is no longer car accidents, as it has been in the past. We must focus on this issue, and the most effective way, of course, is through prevention and education, which I strongly support, and it is in the underlying bill. What is not in the bill, though, is to provide support services for our young people should they be struggling with addiction. This is incredibly important. So the legislation I am offering along with Senator Whitehouse simply provides recovery and support services for our young people who fall victim to the dangers of drugs. We have a responsibility to do this, in my view, again not just to focus, as the underlying legislation does, on drug prevention and early intervention but also to focus on providing these important recovery services to students in schools and communities so they could overcome their addiction and achieve their God-given abilities and again be productive members of society, which the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from West Virginia were speaking about. I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. The second amendment I wish to speak about that I understand also may be offered later and included in a package--and I appreciate the chairman and ranking member taking a look at this--has to do with homeless youth. This is an amendment which basically enables us to streamline the current process, where it is very difficult to establish that somebody is homeless. In fact, under our current law, one has to go through quite a process with HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I am told there are sometimes up to maybe 10 or 12 different documents one has to go through. This streamlines the process and allows the counselors who are already in the schools to be able to make the determination to help get services to these kids. Homeless youth in America is now at an alltime high. We are told that 1 in 45 children is homeless each year. By the way, that is 1.6 million children. So I hope this amendment, which is amendment No. 2087, to help homeless youth will also be one we will be able to take up here on the floor. Senator Feinstein and I are offering it together. It is one that is bipartisan, and it is one that will help foster greater community collaboration between agencies and departments by streamlining the process and allowing these counselors who are already in the schools to get the training they need to be able to support these kids, to more quickly identify them and provide the services they need. I thank my colleague from Montana for allowing me to speak about these two very important amendments. I thank Senator Murray and Senator Alexander for giving this very serious consideration in the legislation. I hope these amendments can be adopted on a bipartisan basis. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor Candle-lite Company--the oldest continually operating candle company in the United States--as it celebrates its 175th anniversary. Candle-lite Company was founded in 1840 by Thomas Emery, who traveled door-to-door selling candles in Cincinnati, OH. His venture continued to grow and eventually his son, Thomas Jr, joined the business. Candle- lite's products were manufactured in various locations in the Cincinnati area before manufacturing was moved to its current location in Leesburg, OH, in 1952. Today, Candle-lite's 1 million-square-foot manufacturing and distribution facility in Leesburg employs over 600 Ohioans annually and the corporate headquarters in Blue Ash employs 70. I congratulate Candle-lite and its employees in making its first 175 years a success and extend my best wishes for the next 175 years.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I have no objection.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:50 a.m., Thursday, June 25; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, and that the first hour be equally divided, with the Democrats controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about what just happened on the floor, which was passing in the Senate the trade promotion authority for the President of the United States and for our good country to be able to get out there and expand markets for our exporters and for our farmers, our workers, and our service providers. This is a significant change because for the last 8 years the United States of America has not been engaged in opening up these markets. While other countries have completed these trade agreements, we have not been able to. So this gives us as a country the ability to be able to open up markets. That is a good thing, and it is significant and will have an impact on our economy that is positive because exports mean not only more jobs but better jobs. So we will see more jobs that are, on average, 15 to 18 percent higher pay and have better benefits, and we will be able to compete more globally. This is important to get America off the sidelines. There is also a benefit of getting us back involved in trade because it enables America to be able to set some of the rules of trade rather than other countries. And while we have not had this ability to be able to open up new markets, what has happened? Other countries have been completing agreements, shutting us out--our farmers, our workers, our service providers--but they also have been setting the rules of trade. We want to be able to set them because we are a country that believes we ought to have a rules-based system, that it ought to be fair, that there ought to be the rule of law, and that the standards we have--which are high standards in terms of getting tariffs down but also not being able to unfairly send imports to another country--that those are upheld. So this is a positive step. What I am also really happy about is that after we passed the trade promotion authority for the first time in 8 years, sending it for signature to the President, which he has indicated he will sign, we then passed legislation with regard to trade adjustment assistance, which is extending benefits to people who are displaced. So if someone in any particular trade agreement loses a job or a company gets hurt, they have the ability to get the worker retraining they need, get the help they need to be able to get the skills they need to find a job and to get themselves back on their feet. So trade adjustment assistance is important. But within trade adjustment assistance there is something even more interesting. We included an amendment which Senator Brown--my colleague from Ohio--and I had promoted previously. This is to help all of our workers all around America because it enables us to have the ability to go after countries that send their products to us unfairly, meaning that they subsidize them, which is not fair under the rules of trade, or that they dump them, meaning they sell them at below their cost, which is also unfair. So this is a very important amendment. We call it the leveling the playing field amendment because as we are expanding exports--which we, of course, should do because that creates more good jobs in my home State of Ohio and around the country--we should also be sure that we are more aggressively enforcing the trade laws that are in place, the international rules and our domestic rules. This amendment that just passed the Senate tonight enables us to do that. I am excited about it because it gives us the chance to be able to compete. It gives the steelworker in Ohio who is playing by the rules and doing all the right things--being more efficient, being more productive--and companies that are using technology to our advantage the chance to be productive, not to be undercut when other countries dump their products--say, their steel products, their tubes, and other products, structural steel--into the United States of America because they want to get market share. We are going to be able to stop that with this amendment because it enables us to be able to not just file lawsuits against these countries but actually get them resolved more quickly. Right now, my concern is that too often with these trade laws, by the time you bring a case and are successful at it, you have lost so many jobs that, in effect, although you get a remedy that is winning a trade case and getting higher tariffs on that product, it is too late. This is a really important amendment, the leveling the playing field amendment. I want to thank my colleagues for supporting it. I know there were some concerns and questions about it. We spent the last couple of months talking about it. Tonight it actually passed. I am told that legislation is now going to go to the House and that it will be passed in the House. I am told that Speaker Pelosi has said today that she is going to support that legislation. This is the trade adjustment assistance legislation with the leveling the playing field amendment as a part of it. Finally, as part of the TAA, there is another really important measure that I appreciate my colleagues supporting. It is one that I offered in committee, and I have offered it over the years in committee. It is to help workers who were left behind. Back when it was necessary for the U.S. Government to intervene and help our auto companies, there were some people who weren't helped. This provides a health care tax credit to those individuals who through no fault of their own lost health care and lost pensions. This is when their plans went into the PBGC. This includes Delphi workers in my home State of Ohio. There are several thousand of them. It includes some United Steelworkers. It includes some other employees who were left behind when other workers were given their pensions and given their health care. Every year we have fought for this. We have now been able to put in place an extension of the health care tax credit they desperately need. For most of these people, it is to provide them the ability between the age they are now--say, in their late 50s--and when they get on Medicare. It is a critical time for them to be able to have this bridge and to be able to provide health care for themselves and for their families. The health care tax credit is part of this broader TAA, or trade adjustment assistance, legislation that was passed here on the floor of the Senate this afternoon. I thank my colleagues for working with me on this over the past several years but also over the past several weeks with regard to this specific provision. Again, that will go to the House now, and we are told that will pass the House as it is. In other words, the House will take up this exact bill and pass it and send it to President for signature. This is also a really important opportunity for us to reach out to people who are hurting today through no fault of their own and to provide them the health care tax credit they deserve. In the legislation that we passed this afternoon, we also did something else really important that we have never done before, and that is to help protect Israel from discrimination. We included language in the trade bill itself that Senator Cardin and I had championed in the committee. It is the part of the bill that says that countries that engage in boycotts or sanctions or divestment of Israel in a trade agreement with the United States of America would not be able to get the benefits of trade with us. We think this is incredibly important leverage to help protect Israel from what, unfortunately, is happening around the world too often now, which is a double standard--telling the State of Israel that somehow it is going to be treated differently than other countries are treated. I think it is part of a larger effort to try to delegitimize the State of Israel, and it is one where the United States ought to stand up. Why is this being done in the context of trade? Because it works. It is an area where we do have leverage. When I was U.S. Trade Representative, I had the honor to be able to negotiate agreements with various countries. One was Oman, one was Bahrain, and one was Saudi Arabia. In all three cases, we were able to make great progress in the case of boycotts of Israel by telling those countries: If you want to do business with the United States and have a free-trade agreement with us, then you have to treat all countries fairly. You have to follow the MFN, or most favored nation status, which means you treat countries fairly and you don't discriminate against countries. Initially, they would say: No, gosh, politically that is too hard for us. But after discussions and after the United States stood tall with Israel, we were able to succeed in all three cases: Bahrain and Oman with trade agreements and Saudi Arabia with regard to their accession agreement to the World Trade Organization. I know it works. I have seen it. Again, that is in the legislation that was passed today here on the floor of this Senate. I am proud of us because we are actually doing some of this work on a bipartisan basis to help our country, to help our workers, to help our service providers, our farmers but also to ensure that these rules of trade are fair globally. Finally, I will say that we are not done. There is another bill that we were told would be part of this whole package. It is currently being negotiated in conference after this afternoon because we named conferees between the House and Senate. It is the Customs bill. In that legislation, there are additional provisions that I think are very important that we passed, including one called the ENFORCE Act. This is to avoid the situation where a country is told: You are dumping products in the United States or you are subsidizing your product in the United States, and you can't do that anymore. Instead, they figure out a way to divert their product to another country and still send it to the United States using the same unfair trade practices. We need to be sure that we are putting in place provisions that allow us to stop that diversion as well. That is what the ENFORCE Act does. That is in the Customs bill, as one example. There are other important provisions in the Customs bill, as well. I would urge my colleagues to work with us to get that conference done as quickly as possible because the House and Senate versions are a little bit different and to be sure that we can come up with a way to resolve those differences and bring that back to the floor as part of this package. The final one in that package is something that is very important to manufacturers in my State. This is to enable us to bring products in from overseas that were not made anywhere in America under what is called miscellaneous tariff bill. This is something that we have not had the opportunity to do in several years because there are concerns about earmarks. I agree with those concerns. We should not have earmarks, whether it is in trade or whether it is in appropriations or elsewhere. We have resolved that issue by not having it be earmarked under the definition we have in the House and Senate but rather have it go through the International Trade Commission and have them be the ones that determine whether a particular product fits within a miscellaneous tariff bill or not. This will help in terms of adding employment in America, reducing the cost to consumers, making our economy more productive and more efficient, and adding economic growth. It is another example that when once we complete this package, it includes expanding exports, which was very important. We had to do that today because America has been sitting on the sidelines for too long. We were losing market share for our farmers, our workers, our service providers. We needed to get back in the game and send more products stamped ``Made in America'' around the world. That creates jobs here. That is good. Second, we need to be sure that we have a level playing field, that we work on this issue of currency manipulation, which has some unprecedented language, and also on these other issues we talked about today with the level the playing field amendment to ensure that products are not being sold unfairly and that we do provide workers with trade adjustment assistance. Then finally, we move forward with this final bill called the Customs bill to ensure that we include all these provisions which are so important as a package and to make sure that yes, we are expanding exports at the same time and we are letting people know that they are going to get a fair shake. When they work hard and play by the rules here in America, our workers are going to be told: You are in the global marketplace; we are going to watch your back. That is important. It is important to me. It is important to my State. It is important to the people who send us here, who expect us to set the conditions in place for more exports but also to ensure that is more fairly done. Again, I thank my colleagues for the work that has been done today, and I also urge my colleagues to move quickly, passing trade adjustment assistance in the House and then passing the conference report on the Customs bill so we can keep this package together and actually give our economy a shot in the arm and give American workers the chance to compete. If they are given that chance, we have the best work force in the world. We will be able not just to compete but to win the global competition. I yield back my time. Mr. President, I have been asked to do the closing script, and then the Senator from Massachusetts will be recognized.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Markey and Senator Shaheen.