[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 111 (Monday, July 11, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4929-S4941]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2017--MOTION TO PROCEED
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 5293, which the
clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 524, H.R. 5293, a bill
making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the
fiscal year ending September 30, 2017, and for other
purposes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Tragedy in Dallas
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last Thursday night, hundreds gathered
in downtown Dallas to engage in a peaceful protest. Dozens of police
officers were on hand to make sure that these protesters could exercise
their rights under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and
protesters even snapped pictures of themselves with the officers in a
show of harmony, underscoring the peaceful nature of the event.
As we know now, near the end of the route, all this was shattered as
a gunman opened fire on law enforcement officers in a targeted,
senseless, and vicious attack. It was made clear early on, that the
attackers' goal was to kill as many police officers as possible, and he
made a calculated effort to do just that. To attack those who work day
in and day out to keep our communities safe is absolutely revolting. It
is an act of pure evil and the shameful work of a coward.
Today our country grieves with Dallas, the Dallas Police Department,
who lost four of their own, and Dallas Area Rapid Transit, who lost an
officer while protecting the community that night.
These officers did what all of our law enforcement officers
potentially would be called to do; that is, they put their lives on the
line. Some gave their very lives, and several others were injured in
actions that can only be described as heroic. These officers were
certainly worthy of the badge they wore, and their courage makes me
proud to be a Texan. They could have turned around and run away from
the sound of gunshots and commotion. They could have given up and
decided their lives were more important than the lives of those they
had vowed to protect, but they didn't. That is not who they are. They
are made of better, braver stuff than that. In fact, these officers ran
to the sound of gunshots without hesitation to protect the community
they serve.
Dallas police chief David Brown recounted that many ran out in the
middle of the gunfire knowing they were making themselves targets of
the attack in order to get injured officers to safety and to medical
help. Many used their own bodies to help shield protesters who were
fleeing in terror.
That is what the men and women of the Dallas police force are made
of--undeniable valor and unfailing courage. To say we are indebted to
them for their service to the community is an understatement, but I
want to thank each and every one of them who didn't hesitate to put it
all on the line to defend and protect the people of Dallas.
Today and tomorrow, when the President comes to Dallas, our country
will continue to mourn with the whole Dallas community. We grieve for
the first named officer who was killed, Officer Brent Thompson. Officer
Thompson was a newlywed who married a fellow officer just a couple of
weeks ago. We grieve for the loss of Patrick Zamarripa, who bravely
served three tours in Iraq and leaves behind a wife, a son, and a 2-
year-old daughter. We likewise grieve for the family and friends of
Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, and Michael Smith--three other officers who
were killed. We offer our prayers for those who were wounded, including
a woman who happened to be an African American who was shot in the leg
while trying to shield her sons from the bullets. We pray for her and
the several other police officers who were shot but survived as they
begin the long road to recovery.
I mentioned the race of the woman who was shot to underscore that
while the shooter said he intended to kill White police officers, his
actions did not discriminate based on race. Everyone who was in the
line of his sight that night was a target.
This is a national tragedy, the deadliest day for American law
enforcement since the events of 9/11. Tomorrow I will join leaders in
Dallas, President Obama, and former President Bush at the memorial
service to honor the lives of those we lost and to pray for healing and
peace for the city and for our country.
While it should not take an event like this to jolt our consciences,
we have to consider more ways to support our public servants who are
tasked with the daunting responsibility of keeping order, enforcing the
rule of law, and protecting our communities. One way we can do that is
to support additional training for our law enforcement, like some
legislation that I have introduced called the POLICE Act, which has
passed the Senate unanimously. It would make millions of dollars
available for law enforcement to pursue active-shooter training.
In other words, we have learned the hard way that by trained policed
officers running to the gunshot, we can actually save lives while
endangering, obviously, the lives of the police officers engaging in
that active-shooter practice. But with training, these officers can
minimize their own exposure and, hopefully, save more lives. I hope the
House will pass this legislation soon so we can send it to the
President's desk.
I also would note the contribution of my friend and colleague
Congressman John Carter from Central Texas, who has sponsored
legislation in the House. It is pretty clear that we don't have all of
the answers. That goes without saying, but we know we can make a
difference if we try. In addition, I plan on introducing other
legislation soon that would help law enforcement go after the violent
criminals who intentionally target police officers and give additional
authorities to our law enforcement officers to help them better defend
both the public and themselves.
As we continue to grieve and say our prayers, let's not neglect our
work to support law enforcement so that they can better protect and
defend our communities. Our law enforcement officers deserve our utmost
respect for the essential, irreplaceable role they play in our
communities.
Tragically, the officers we lost last week were killed and injured
for simply doing their job; that is, for keeping the community safe.
They were shot while actually protecting protesters so that they could
exercise their constitutional rights of free speech and assembly. These
officers didn't do anything wrong. They weren't responsible for any of
the real or perceived injustices that have occurred in other parts of
the country, but they were targeted by a twisted and demented mind who
lost his own life in pursuit of this terrible crime. There is no--
zero--justification for the taking of these lives.
As our country continues to grieve, I hope we will also unite to
support those who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.
Madam President, I see a Senator wishing to speak, so I will yield
the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I see that Senator Cardin has
arrived, so I will yield to him in one moment. But while Senator Cornyn
is still on the floor, I want to express the
[[Page S4930]]
sorrow and sympathy of the law enforcement community in Rhode Island
for the loss Dallas has sustained.
As anybody who has served in law enforcement knows, the two worst
words an officer can hear are ``officer down.'' They don't know who it
is, but they know it is one of theirs, and it is a sign of a casualty
among the brotherhood and sisterhood of the police department. Those
Dallas police officers had to hear the same words over and over again
on that deadly night: Officer down. Officer down. Officer down.
I think it has shocked the entire country, and I have certainly seen
people come from all around the United States when we have lost police
officers in Rhode Island. They come and stand in the freezing cold
outside of churches where a funeral is going on. They come in groups
wearing bands. They come to show their respect. It is not just the men
and women of law enforcement in Dallas and in Texas who feel this,
everyone across the country does. I wanted to express that to the
people of Dallas, the law enforcement community of Dallas, and our
friend Senator Cornyn of Texas.
With that, I will now yield to Senator Cardin, who will speak on a
different subject.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Climate Change
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, first I thank Senator Whitehouse for his
extraordinary work on an issue that affects the United States and the
global community, and that is the reality of climate change and the
impact it is having on the United States and on the global community.
Senator Whitehouse and I, along with eight other Members of this
Senate, represented the United States at the COP21 conference in Paris
in which over 190 nations came together on an action plan to deal with
climate and climate change. That would not have happened but for U.S.
leadership. I am proud of the work that was done by the United States
in setting up a blueprint so we can deal with the impact of climate
change in the international community.
We can talk about the specific aspects of climate change and the
impact it is having on the security of America. We can talk about the
number of climate refugees--people who are going to be forced to leave
their lands because of the rising sea level. We can talk about the
impact of famine by droughts and floods that are occurring as a result
of climate change. We can listen to our generals talk about the impact
it has on our national security.
I start by saying that this is an issue of international concern that
affects America's security. We can do something about it, and we have
done something about it. U.S. leadership has brought about a game plan
to deal with this issue. So it is particularly frustrating to see
special interest groups that have a direct financial interest in
maintaining the status quo by continuing to use high-carbon productions
in order to produce their products, and they finance groups that
produce documents to justify the science deniers. That is a
particularly frustrating aspect, particularly since we recognize how
much we need U.S. leadership.
I thank Senator Whitehouse for bringing to our attention the
different special interest groups interested in high-carbon emissions
and maintaining the status quo of our climate. They have financed these
groups to come up with studies that are really phony in order to
justify their opposition to responsible legislation here in the United
States and around the world that will lead us to a safer course on
climate change.
This is particularly important for us in America. I will get a little
parochial for one moment, if I might. The Chesapeake Bay is one of the
most vulnerable regions in the Nation to the effects of climate change.
According to a report from the Chesapeake Bay Program's Scientific and
Technical Advisory Committee, some of these effects, including rising
water temperatures and sea levels, have been observed in the watershed,
and the region is expected to experience further shifts in its
environmental conditions.
As water levels rise, so will coastal flooding and erosion. Marshes
and wetlands will be inundated with saltwater and will disappear faster
than wetland plants can populate higher ground.
There was an article in our local paper talking about the islands in
the Chesapeake Bay--Tangier and Smith. They are disappearing. These
islands won't be there in the future. And we already have islands that
used to be inhabited in the Chesapeake Bay that don't exist.
A loss of marshes and wetlands will mean a loss of the habitat that
traps pollution and provides food and shelter to fish, shellfish, and
birds, and a loss of livelihood to Maryland's men and women who earn a
living by fishing, crabbing, and oystering in the Chesapeake Bay. It
has a direct economic impact in addition to the safety issue.
Strong rain and snowstorms can damage crops, erode soil, and increase
flooding. Floods can damage ports, marinas, and historical monuments,
and threaten buildings, sewer systems, roads, and tunnels. Meanwhile, a
network of groups purporting to be unbiased has misled the public about
the scientific certainty of climate change.
In Maryland, junk science is a thing of the past. I take the time to
point that out. The now-defunct Annapolis Center for Science-Based
Public Policy was founded in 1993 by a former vice president of the
National Association of Manufacturers. In its own words, the center was
a ``national, non-profit educational organization that supports and
promotes responsible energy, environmental, and health and safety
policy-making through the use of sound science.'' Nothing could be
further from the truth.
In 1997, the Annapolis Center hosted a workshop discussing both the
scientific and economic uncertainty of climate change and that a
``firm, unqualified conclusion on the direction and rate of climate
change'' will come ``many decades in the future.'' That was their
finding. For reference, Dr. James Hansen, who was then a scientist at
NASA and is still one of the most world-renowned climate scientists,
testified before Congress nearly a decade earlier as to the certainty
of climate science. Fortunately, the Annapolis Center is not sending
out this kind of misinformation any longer. They are no longer in
existence. They closed their doors, thank goodness. They were funded by
special interest to produce a document that they could use to try to
prevent the progress that was being made on climate change with our
policymakers, including Congress.
Accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy will produce many
benefits with regard to sustainable economic growth, public health,
resiliency to natural disasters, and the health of the global
community.
My colleague in the House, Congressman Delaney, and I have filed
resolutions in the House and Senate affirming the establishment of a
national goal of more than 50 percent of America's electricity
production coming from clean and carbon-free electricity by 2030. This
is doable. Despite the misinformation that has been put out by these
special interest-funded groups, we can do much better on the use of
noncarbon sources to produce our electricity. Our ``50x30'' resolutions
are cosponsored by 30 Senators and 103 House Members. The resolutions
are also endorsed by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Green Latinos,
Green for All, Climate Hawks, and the House Sustainable Energy and
Environmental Caucus.
I am proud of the legitimate, science-based work of groups like the
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. I applaud its
hard work and the positive news of an improved score on the Chesapeake
Bay report card for 2015. We are making progress. Why? Because we are
following science-based solutions to deal with reducing carbon
emissions.
I am proud of recent efforts to divest in fossil fuels in Maryland.
The foundation that oversees the Maryland State university system's $1
billion endowment announced June 28 that it will stop investing
directly in coal, oil, and natural gas companies--a victory for a
student-led movement to direct more of the portfolio clean energy. The
University System of Maryland Foundation, which helps fund
scholarships, endowed professorships, and more, said it would sign on
to a United Nations pledge to be more socially aware of its investments
and appoint a staff person to identify opportunities in renewable
energy.
I am also proud of the work of the Maryland board members of the U.S.
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Chamber of Commerce. They have adopted proactive climate policies or
practices.
This should not be controversial. This is good for business, not bad.
For example, board member Xerox Corporation, headquartered in
Germantown, MD, is doing its part to reduce the financial risk of
climate change. It signed the American Business Act on Climate Pledge
and pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and energy
consumption by 20 percent by 2020. It is good for the environment, it
is good for dealing with the impacts I have mentioned, and it is also
good for business. This pledge is sponsored by the White House, and 154
businesses signed, voicing support for a strong outcome in the Paris
climate negotiations.
Another example is the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.
It is a proud member of the Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk, a
voluntary network of companies that have committed to improve their
environmental and social performance and to publicly report their
sustainable strategies.
These and many other examples across Maryland demonstrate--contrary
to what the chamber of commerce has said--that there is a business and
economic case to be made to take steps to fight climate change.
Unless we all act, we will continue on a trajectory that leads to a
grim future for us and our children. The first step that must be taken
is the recognition that climate change is real and that it is happening
right now so we can work cooperatively to come up with creative
solutions rather than continuing unproductive arguments about whether
everyone agrees the science is settled.
The types of activities we have seen should have no place in American
politics. It is one thing to have disagreements on how we can resolve
problems; it is another thing to say that the science points in an
opposite direction than it does, particularly when it is funded by
special interests that have a financial reward for trying to prevent
science from dictating the policies--or leading us to the policies--in
this country. I am proud to be part of the effort Senator Whitehouse
has brought to the floor to expose these types of organizations. I am
pleased that the organization that existed in Maryland no longer
exists. I am proud of the great work that is being done.
Tribute to Michael Wolfe
Madam President, before I yield the floor, I wish to point out the
incredible help I have had in my office from a detailee, Michael Wolfe.
Michael is a Brookings fellow who has worked in my office. His home
agency is the EPA, where he is the senior program analyst in the Office
of Air and Radiation. He has worked at the EPA since 2004, dedicating
most of his professional career to serving the American people.
I know how fortunate my colleagues and I are when we get detailees
from the executive branch to work in our offices. They provide
extremely valuable help. Michael Wolfe has been an incredible resource
to our office. He has been part of my team, and he is a civil engineer
by training, which is something we desperately could use in my office.
He was instrumental in my work on water infrastructure this year. He
has also worked tirelessly to protect the clean water rule, the
Chesapeake Bay agreement, and increase access to public lands in
Maryland.
While Michael is incredibly smart, the first thing one notices about
Mike is that he nearly always smiles. Even on tough days, he brightens
up our office. It has been a pleasure to know him. He will be leaving
our office next week, and I wanted to take this time to personally
thank him for his service to the Senate.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Climate Change
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, we expect that the Senator from
Delaware will be here shortly, but in the meantime, let me begin with a
few remarks.
This is the 144th time I have come to the floor to urge Congress to
wake up to the threat of climate change. This week, something new is
happening. I am joined by colleagues who will help me shine a little
light on the web of climate denial and spotlight the bad actors in the
web who are polluting our American discourse with phony climate denial.
This web of denial, formed over decades, has been built and
provisioned by the deep-pocketed Koch brothers, by ExxonMobil, by
Peabody coal, and by other fossil fuel interests. It is a grim shadow
over our democracy in that it includes an electioneering effort that
spends hundreds of millions of dollars in a single election cycle and
threatens any Republican who steps up to address the global threat of
climate change.
Just one of those electioneering groups, the Koch brothers-backed
Americans for Prosperity, has openly proclaimed that if Republicans
support a carbon tax or climate regulations, they would be ``at a
severe disadvantage in the Republican nomination process.'' It would
mean their political peril. When that threat comes from a group that
has openly and notoriously pledged to spend $750 million in an election
cycle, that is a threat that serves notice on the political class to
behave, and regrettably the political class too often does behave in
the face of that kind of money.
I see that Senator Coons has arrived, and I am delighted to yield the
floor to him.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Madam President, I wish to thank my great colleague, the
Senator from Rhode Island, for his tireless efforts to keep climate
change on this Chamber's radar. One day I hope that we can move it from
our radar to our to-do list and ultimately to the history books.
Today I am pleased and proud to join my colleagues to speak about
something I thought we had established in grade school but apparently
bears repeating; that is, the importance of science. It is troubling
that today in the 21st century, there is any doubt about the importance
of real, sound science in many facets of our lives. It is troubling
that we still need to defend science here on the Senate floor.
Scientific discovery and invention are the engine of our economy.
Science leads to transformative technologies and new ways of thinking
in a wide range of fields, including health care, manufacturing,
agriculture, clean energy, and national security.
Scientific inquiry is also the foundation of good public policy. It
shapes and informs how we inform global threats such as ozone
depletion, an issue on which the international community has made real
progress. Science must play an equally central role in how we address
climate change.
When we want to know what to do about a public health or
environmental crisis, we turn to science. For example, rigorous,
careful data collection and analysis are critical to understanding
long-term trends. Data can show the effectiveness of a medication in
treating a disease, for example, or the ability of a new material to
withstand extreme conditions over time. And data can help us make good
decisions based on those trends. Never have we had a greater ability to
collect and analyze data than today. That is why more than ever in
today's world, science should drive policy, not the other way around.
In a number of areas, I have worked with my Republican colleagues on
bipartisan bills that help substantially advance scientific inquiry,
from encouraging citizen science projects to improving public-private
partnerships with our national labs. So why is climate science so
threatening to some?
Sadly, there are far too many organizations in existence today that
have it backwards. These organizations have attempted to distort
science for purely political ends because the facts threaten the bottom
line of those who have created and sustained them. These organizations
claim to use sound science to support policy objectives, but their
actions indicate that the only science they find sound is the kind that
sounds like profits.
One of these organizations is the now-defunct The Advancement of
Sound Science Coalition, known as the TASSC--an organization that
played a key role in obscuring the facts around the dangers of tobacco
use. TASSC was originally founded back in 1993 under the guise of
promoting ``sound science in policymaking.'' In reality, as was later
uncovered in the documents that came to light in the course of
litigation against the tobacco industry,
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TASSC actually had the opposite goal. The year it was founded, it
stated in private documents at the time that one of its goals was to
lay the groundwork to help Phillip Morris advance its agenda of
promoting tobacco use nationally and at the State and local level. How?
Let me quote from one of these discovered documents: by ``encouraging
the public to question--from the grassroots up--the validity of
scientific studies.''
These are not the statements of an organization devoted to scientific
inquiry and data-driven policy.
Let me be clear. The problem doesn't lie in industry hiring
scientists to argue their case. That is well within the rights of
industry and of any organization in our country. The problem is when
groups like this one misrepresent their very motives, hide their
sources of funding and industry ties, and push out misleading or even
incorrect information under the guise of ``sound science.''
We all know today that smoking tobacco is profoundly harmful to our
health. Yet these same organizations, the ones that decades ago
promoted ``science'' that hid the truth about tobacco and threatened
public health for far too long, are now in sadly too many cases doing
the same with climate change.
Fortunately, today, this group I am discussing, TASSC, is now
defunct. But its former executive director, Steve Milloy, is still an
active climate change denier who helped draft the 1998 ``Global Climate
Science Communications Action Plan.'' It included the statement:
``Victory Will Be Achieved When Average citizens `understand' . . .
uncertainties in climate science; recognition of uncertainties becomes
part of the `conventional wisdom.' ''
Quite simply, his goal was and continues to be to persuade people,
using incorrect, scientifically unsound information, to doubt the
science about climate change, one of the greatest global challenges we
face. His policy goal is to halt action on climate change, and he is
using science incorrectly to achieve this political end. Frankly, this
is irresponsible and it flies in the face of the foundation of the
scientific method.
As someone who trained in chemistry in college, I am familiar with
how scientists are trained to formulate hypotheses, carefully construct
experiments to test those hypotheses, and without bias or preformed
assumptions, then draw conclusions about those hypotheses. Starting
with the answer and considering only evidence that supports the
answer--that is not science; that is politics.
The very existence of groups like TASSC and others that my colleagues
will speak about this evening and tomorrow make clear that we must work
even harder to defend and support science throughout our society.
That means providing robust funding for our national lab system.
That means establishing a Federal effort to coordinate research in a
new subfield of chemistry that I have been excited about promoting.
That means supporting the use of crowdsourcing and citizen science
methods in Federal agencies.
That means supporting policies that will support industry-relevant
training in engineering, including advanced manufacturing.
All of these are efforts that I have been involved in and that enjoy
bipartisan support. My colleagues know that I make an effort to promote
pragmatic, bipartisan policy ideas. Science should not be a partisan
issue, and neither, frankly, should climate change.
Climate change is all too real for those of us who live in low-lying
coastal States like my home State of Delaware, where flooding has
already devastated homes and communities up and down the State. The
science is clear: This severe flooding is only going to increase as
temperatures continue to rise around the globe and as the sea level
rises as well.
We live in an era of unprecedented scientific and technological
advantages. The NASA Juno spacecraft mission to Jupiter; the ability to
use 3-D printing to manufacture custom products, specifically
prosthetics; the evolution of new developments in robotics and
genomics--these advances capture our imagination, and they can change
our world. These developments happen because America's best trained
scientists and engineers have spent decades undertaking rigorous and
innovative research and applying their findings to address the big
questions of our world.
Certainly the challenges of climate change are daunting and urgent,
and so we should be focused on using the best science available to
tackle these challenges with the best policy solutions possible--not
convincing people who prefer denial and deception that the science
isn't even real.
I wish to thank my friend and colleague Senator Whitehouse for his
tireless leadership in addressing climate change and for assembling
today's important colloquy.
If I might, with the forbearance of my colleague from New Mexico who
I see has come to the floor, I wish to take just a few more minutes to
address an unrelated but urgent topic.
Tragedy in Dallas
Madam President, before I invite one of my colleagues to continue
today's colloquy, I just want to say a few words about the tragic
events in Dallas. Just four days ago, a peaceful protest in Dallas that
brought together protesters and police in an example of the very best
of our Nation was torn apart by a cowardly and savage act that
reflected the very worst. Five police officers were murdered, leaving
their families, friends, and country in shock, in mourning, and in
search of answers, and six of their colleagues were injured.
Last week was a very difficult one for America. From Dallas to many
other cities, including Baton Rouge and St. Paul, MN, far too many
lives were cut short by violence, far too many families will never be
whole again.
But as our President said this weekend, America is not as divided as
we may appear. We are united in mourning the tragic deaths of Brent
Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Lorne Ahrens, and Michael
Smith, and in mourning Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. We are
united in our grief for their families and communities.
We are united in our respect and admiration for police and first
responders, the overwhelming majority of whom do their dangerous jobs
with bravery and selflessness.
But we are also united in our awareness that we have so much more
work to do to strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and
the communities they serve and protect. We are united in our
understanding that moving beyond this tragic and unacceptable status
quo--to heal our wounds and build toward a national community of
respect and compassion--will challenge us in ways both new and
uncomfortable.
But as Franklin Roosevelt said in an address exactly 80 years ago
today: ``There are no limits to this Nation's capacity to obtain and
maintain true freedom, no limits except the strength of our Nation's
desire and determination.''
I am confident our desire and determination will build an America in
which police officers can serve their communities, worrying only about
how to make their communities safer, not whether they will come home
that night.
Our desire and our determination can and should build a Nation in
which every American can live, work, play, and worship free of concerns
about discrimination, a Nation in which all of us are able to abide by
the law as written with a law as lived. We must do better and we will
do better.
I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to join in this colloquy,
and I wish to yield the floor to my colleague from the State of New
Mexico.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Climate Change
Mr. UDALL. Madam President, I thank the Chair for the recognition.
Let me also, as my other colleagues have done, thank Senator Whitehouse
for his leadership on climate change, global warming, and the work he
has done in that area.
I was also part, with Senator Coons, of the Paris 10 who went to
Paris and did everything we could to let the rest of the countries in
the world and their representatives know, as Senator Coons knows very
well, that we are in this for the long haul and we are going to make
sure that it happens and that the United States will continue with all
of the good policies that have been put in place.
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Senator Whitehouse has shown particularly good leadership in the area
of exposing a sophisticated network of climate deniers, a network of
special interest groups and front groups that have all rallied around
the slogan of being climate deniers. I rise to join my colleagues to
draw attention to what we are calling the web of denial--interconnected
corporations and special interest groups spending millions of dollars
misleading the public about the harmful effects of climate change.
Contrary to what these groups want the American people to think,
climate change is a fact, it is a reality, and we have to deal with it.
Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas and a byproduct of fossil fuels, is a
major contributor to global warming. This is not some ideological
belief I share with some of my colleagues. We wish global warming did
not exist and that it was not threatening our health, our livelihoods,
and the environment, but it is real, and New Mexico and the Southwest
are in the bull's-eye. We are seeing it in the form of more frequent
droughts, increasingly severe wildfires, and rising temperatures. There
is no doubt and the data cannot be denied. Scientists cannot be
ignored. We can see it before our eyes in New Mexico and across the
country in so many different areas.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Academy
of Sciences, and independent researchers at our most esteemed
universities have written extensively about this link between
greenhouse gases and the warming of the Earth.
Scientists at Las Alamos and Sandia National Labs in New Mexico are
key parts of this scientific effort. We trust these institutions to
perform the scientific research that is critical to our Nation's
national security. They ensure our arsenal of nuclear weapons is safe
and secure. So when these scientists tell us that manmade climate
change is real and poses a serious threat, we should listen and take
them seriously.
The evidence has been mounting for decades. The research has been
thorough and unbiased. Countries around the world have been pressing to
address this challenge in a global manner. So why are people still
trying to foster a debate? Why are they asking if global warming is
really happening? That is what we are here to discuss--the web of
denial.
There are many who have different agendas that are not rooted in
truth or science, and those agendas are playing out in our politics in
the most disgraceful way possible, through the dark money that is
poisoning the system and spreading lies to benefit a few. It started
when industry became concerned that this link could harm the bottom
line. Over the years, industry groups have spent millions of dollars to
influence the debate through dark money and front groups. Many of my
colleagues have talked about this today and many more will talk about
it tomorrow. The evidence of this strategy is profound.
An early example is, the Information Council for the Environment, or
ICE, and the Greening Earth Society. These groups sound technical and
environmental, but they aren't. They were cooked up in the boardrooms
of fossil fuel industry executives--people who put profits over public
health. They were designed after focus groups and market data convinced
them the public trusted scientists more than politicians, more than
political activists, and certainly more than industry press people.
These groups, founded by the Western Fuels Association, aimed to shape
the global warming discussion at a crucial time in the early 1990s, as
the world was gathering in Rio and Kyoto to hammer out agreements and
tackle the problem.
ICE ran several print and radio advertisements asking: ``If the Earth
is getting warmer, why is Kentucky getting colder?''
Another quote: ``If the Earth is getting warmer, why is the frost
line moving south?''
``Who told you the earth was warming, Chicken Little? And how much
are you willing to pay to solve a problem that may not exist?''
These questions and claims were misleading and false, but they helped
to stir up the public. The public was looking to trust independent
scientists and analysts, not industry front groups. Even more
concerning is the way global warming deniers have refocused their
strategies at discrediting scientists and researchers.
We have seen a terrible trend. As the public has become more aware of
these front groups, they have changed their tack. Now they are working
to discredit and disavow the credible scientists who are out there,
charging that scientists have hidden agendas, wanting more research
dollars and more Federal funding. I find this absurd and ominous.
The funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the
National Academy of Sciences, and university researchers is
transparent. The money is there for the public to see. None of these
folks is getting rich. They don't have profits to protect. They are
providing the public with data and with research, but it is getting
harder and harder to stop these outside groups from spreading their
smear campaigns. These groups have an interest in making sure Congress
never gets anything done to prevent climate change, and they are using
our broken campaign finance system as a tool to keep it that way.
We used to have sensible laws on campaign finance. We used to have an
enforcement agency, a watchdog over the Federal finance system. The
laws have been gutted by the Supreme Court's devastating decisions,
whether it is Citizens United, McCutcheon, or many other misguided
decisions. The enforcement agency, the Federal Election Commission, has
become completely dysfunctional and mired in gridlock, leaving super
PACs and special interests free to pollute the political system with
unlimited dark money and always to protect someone's bottom line. That
is the way Western Fuels Association and so many other companies have
put pollution above public health.
We need to fix the system. A few months ago, several of my colleagues
and I got together to discuss the state of our democracy. The question
we asked ourselves was this: What can we do to repair this damage, to
return the government to the people--the government by and for the
people. The product of these meetings was the bill we introduced last
month, the We the People Act. It will bring dark money out of the
shadows and create a real watchdog to enforce campaign finance laws and
rein in the influence of special interests and lobbyists.
The ``we the people'' reform package includes my constitutional
amendment to overturn Buckley, Citizens United, and other decisions. It
will allow Congress and the States to enact real reform, to get the
flood of money out of our political system, laws that five conservative
Justices on the Supreme Court can't overturn.
I know the political climate of an election year makes bipartisanship
unlikely, but I will reintroduce the ``we the people'' reform package
in the next Congress and hope my Republican colleagues will join me.
Poll after poll shows that our constituents across the political
spectrum want reforms tackling climate change, eliminating dark money
from our political system, and standing up to groups that distort
public perception. It is time we listened. Our democracy, our
environment, and the planet are at stake.
I see Senator Whitehouse is here and there may be others. Once again,
I thank Senator Whitehouse for his leadership. I think one of the
things he has done in our caucus, on the floor, and being constantly
vigilant about it is, how many of these groups are out there networking
with each other. It is a very sophisticated operation that has to be
exposed if we are going to get down to what is happening and get down
to what we need to do.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, for purposes of the floor, I would
like to say I understand Senator Sullivan from Alaska will be coming,
and I will end my remarks so he can speak as soon as he arrives, but in
the meantime, I would like to intersperse my remarks between the
various speakers who come. So Senator Sullivan should not be
disconcerted if he sees me speaking. I will draw to a rapid conclusion
and allow him the floor and I will reclaim it at the conclusion of his
remarks.
[[Page S4934]]
When I finished my remarks a moment ago, I was describing the
polluter-funded front group that with one hand threatened to spend $750
million in this election cycle and with the other hand threatened to
cause ``severe disadvantage'' in the Republican nomination process and
``political peril'' to people who crossed them in their denial of
climate change. That raises the obvious question: Why all that money?
Why all those threats? Well, the threats are there and the money is
that big because the stakes are very high.
The International Monetary Fund, which is a generally respected
organization filled with very intelligent people, has determined the
fossil fuel industry receives nearly $700 billion in what they call
effective subsidies in the United States alone every year. How hard
would you fight to protect an effective subsidy of $700 billion a year?
No wonder throwing $750 million around seems like a wise investment by
the big polluters.
The fossil fuel industry has another problem, which is that it faces
worldwide consensus about the urgent need to address climate change,
consensus from the American public, consensus from every single major
American scientific society, consensus from a vast number of major
American companies. Essentially, the heraldry of American corporate
leadership signed on to the Paris Agreement--every single U.S. National
Lab, the scientists who have been mentioned before from NASA and from
NOAA, whom in every other respect we count on.
Imagine the NASA scientists who have put an explorer onto the surface
of Mars, and they are driving a rover around the surface of Mars right
now. Do we think they might know a little science? And yet when they
tell us climate change is a serious threat, suddenly we can't pay any
attention to that any longer because you have the Koch brothers, with
all their money, telling everybody don't listen. You also have
America's national security, military, and intelligence leaders warning
us of the threat. You have the Pope calling on us to take action and
most world leaders.
So if you are the fossil fuel industry, what do you do? You come to
Congress, to the chokepoint for legislation, and you put a chokechain
on the Republican Party so you can snap it to heel. In support of that,
they perpetrate this web of climate denial.
This is actually a graphic of the web that was done by one of the
academic researchers who specializes in this area. Why do they do this?
Well, to do their best to fool the public about the risk of climate
change, to provide talking points to rightwing talk radio, to take
advantage of a lazy media's impulse to offer both sides of the story,
even when one is false, and of course to hide the hands of the fossil
fuel protagonists who are behind the scenes.
So it is long past time we shed some light on the perpetrators of
this web of denial and expose their filthy grip on our political
process. It is a disgrace, and our grandchildren will look back at this
as a dirty time in America's political history because of their work.
I am grateful to my colleagues who are joining in this effort, today
and in the days to come, to help spotlight the lengths to which the
Koch brothers and other fossil fuel fronts go to advance their economic
self-interests by sabotaging America's response to the climate crisis.
As we look into this, we are aided by a growing body of research
examining the web of denial and examining how the actors in that web
propagate climate denial. So let's listen to some of the experts.
Drexel University professor Dr. Robert Brulle calls the web of denial
in his research ``the climate change countermovement.'' In his 2013
paper, ``Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation
of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations'' Professor
Brulle describes that movement as a constellation of organizations--as
you see here depicted in a graphic from that very paper--that, he says,
``engages in a wide variety of activities opposing any legislative
attempts to enact mandatory restrictions on carbon emissions.''
The green diamonds--here, and here, and here, and here--are the big
funders: fossil fuel billionaires' foundations, for instance, the
American Petroleum Institute, and so on.
The blue circles--here, here, and here--are the who's who of climate
denial groups. The Heartland Institute is in here, for instance. They
are that classy bunch who compared folks concerned about climate change
to the Unabomber, just to give you a sense of what sort of people they
are. There is the Hoover Institution; there is the Heritage Foundation;
there is the Cato Institute; there is the Mercatus Center, to name just
a few of the climate saboteurs on Dr. Brulle's graph.
Brulle's research describes these groups as part of what he calls--
and I will quote him here--``a deliberate and organized effort to
misdirect the public discussion and distort the public understanding of
climate''--``to misdirect . . . and distort.''
The coordinated tactics of this network in its effort to misdirect
and distort, said Brulle--and I will quote him again--``span a wide
range of activities including political lobbying''--we certainly see
plenty of that here--``contributions to political candidates,'' plenty
of that--``and a large number of communication and media efforts that
aim at undermining climate science.''
This is Professor Brulle's depiction of the web of denial. This chart
is from a 2011 study by Professors Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State
University and Aaron McCright of Michigan State University, describing
the behavior of the major actors in what they call the ``climate denial
machine.'' That is their quote. Remember, Professor Brulle calls it the
``climate change countermovement.'' These two researchers call it the
``climate change denial machine'' and, of course, we call it the ``web
of denial.''
I see that Senator Warren has come to the floor. I will gladly yield
to her and resume my remarks when there is again room on the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island
for yielding. I just want to talk a little bit about data. I believe in
data. I try to find good information about issues and use that
information to inform my work. We need good data. But can we trust the
think tanks and public policy groups that hold themselves out as
offering solid independent research?
The work at these think tanks and public policy groups is
increasingly funded by wealthy corporate interests, and the line
between objective scholarly research and pay-for-play studies is
becoming blurred. The problem is compounded by the fact that corporate
financial support often occurs in the dark. Think about it this way:
Companies are required to disclose their expenses when they directly
lobby lawmakers. But these same companies are allowed to make huge
secret contributions to think tanks, even if they have the same goal of
influencing those same lawmakers.
Today, climate deniers have an increasingly difficult time selling
their anti-science positions. So a small industry of think tanks has
emerged to give the veneer of plausibility to their bizarre views. Take
a look at just one organization, the Science and Public Policy
Institute. The Science and Public Policy Institute describes its
mission as providing ``research and educational materials dedicated to
sound public policy based on sound science.''
That seems pretty reasonable. But where is this sound public policy
and sound science actually coming from? Well, for several years, the
chief science advisor at the Science and Public Policy Institute was a
man named Willie Soon, one of the most notorious climate change deniers
around. Armed with scientific credentials and a part-time job at the
Smithsonian Institution, Soon churned out paper after paper,
disagreeing with the overwhelming scientific consensus that human
activities are driving climate change.
Eventually it was revealed that--surprise, surprise--Soon had
accepted $1.2 million from the fossil fuel industry. Exxon, the
American Petroleum Institute, the Charles G. Koch Charitable
Foundation, and coal giant company, Southern Company, made payments to
Soon, payments that he rarely disclosed when promoting his climate
change denial research.
In other words, Soon was raking in fossil fuel cash by producing
research helpful to the fossil fuel industry. Great deal. Willie Soon
left the Science
[[Page S4935]]
and Public Policy Institute a few years ago.
These days, the most prominent figure at the organization is
Christopher Monckton, the think tank's chief policy advisor. So let's
ask the question here: Who is Christopher Monckton? Oh, boy,
Christopher Monckton is a former politician from the UK. He has
presented himself as a member of the House of Lords, a claim that is so
off base that the House of Lords was forced to do something that it had
never done before, and that is issue a statement saying: No, he is not
part of the House of Lords, and he should stop lying about it.
Monckton used to represent the ultraconservative, anti-immigrant UK
Independence Party that recently led the Brexit campaign. In fact,
Monckton thought Brexit was such a good idea that he has also called
for a Texit, as he puts it, pushing for Texas to secede from the United
States to protect itself against Muslim and Latino immigrants.
Monckton is clear about where he stands on climate change and on the
people who are concerned about it. He said that global efforts to fight
climate change are part of a ``totalitarian'' plot to create a ``world
government,'' and he has compared climate change activists to ``Hitler
youth.''
To be clear, these allegations of government overreach are coming
from someone who believes that reading the Koran out loud should be a
prosecutable offense in the United States and who once called for
everyone with AIDS to be rounded up and permanently quarantined.
Now he has backed away from that last idea, but don't worry. Monckton
has found a new idea to address AIDS. He claims to have invented a
miracle cure that can treat everything from HIV to multiple sclerosis
to the flu. You can't make this stuff up.
The fact is, Monckton is not a climate scientist or a scientist of
any kind. His degrees are in classics and journalism. Actual scientists
who have taken a look at his work have found his conclusion to be
completely made up.
So why does it matter that scientific posers like Christopher
Monckton and industry-funded hacks like Willie Soon are running around
saying crazy things about climate change? Well, I will tell you why it
matters. It matters because by attaching themselves to the Science and
Public Policy Institute and other credible-sounding think tanks, people
start to take them seriously.
You don't think so? Monckton has testified in front of Congress three
times, each time representing the Science and Public Policy Institute.
A former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee called him
``one of the most knowledgeable, if not the most knowledgeable, expert
from a skeptical point of view on this issue of climate change.''
Soon's work has been repeatedly cited by influential climate change
deniers, those in Congress and elsewhere.
As Senator Whitehouse has pointed out, Monckton, Soon, and the
Science and Public Policy Institute are part of a much larger network
of pseudoscientific researchers and organizations who get paid to spin
a web of denials about the science behind climate change. It is a
network that has been funded by the fossil fuel industry and by its
friends.
But there is no getting around it. Climate change is real. It is
caused by humans. If we are going to address it in a meaningful way, we
need to take decisive action now. This is why the fake science think
thanks are so dangerous. They throw enough fake facts into the process
to justify inaction, enough fake facts to excuse inaction, enough fake
facts to let every politician in the pocket of Big Oil or Big Coal keep
right on blocking meaningful action while the earth slowly chokes on
its own filth.
It is time to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and its well-
funded PR efforts and say enough is enough. Our children's futures are
at stake. We will not sit on the sidelines while big fossil fuel
companies call the shots here in Washington.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I thank Senator Warren for her
terrific remarks. When I left off speaking, we were talking about the--
not just the web of denial of organizations that have been propped by
the polluters to look as though they are real and to broadcast phony
science, but also to know that people are on the hunt looking for them.
I had begun to talk about the academic researchers who are treating
this web as a social phenomenon--as a bizarre sociopolitical
phenomenon--and beginning to look at how it works. I mentioned first
Dr. Brulle of Drexel University, and then we were looking at the work
of Dr. Dunlap and Dr. McCright--Dr. Dunlap from University of Oklahoma
and Dr. McCright from Michigan State University.
Let's look for a minute at what they say in their publications. When
you listen to this, consider today's blockaded Senate Chamber. I will
quote them.
It is reasonable to conclude that climate change denial
campaigns in the U.S.--
This stuff--
have played a crucial role in blocking domestic legislation
and contributing to the U.S. becoming an impediment to
international policymaking. Because of the perceived threat
posed by climate change to their interests--
To the fossil fuel interests--
actors in the denial machine have strived to undermine
scientific evidence documenting its reality and seriousness.
Their success in these efforts weakens an essential component
of societal reflectivity when the need is greater than ever.
With that quote, I will yield the floor. I see my friend Senator
Sullivan has arrived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I rise to join my colleague from Rhode
Island and other colleagues this evening who are talking about the
critical issue of climate change, especially the facts around climate
change but also the fact that there are many who would deny the facts.
This is a very important issue to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Climate
change is not an abstraction. Climate change is not a next-year or
next-decade issue. Climate change in Virginia is a today issue.
Earlier today, I was in Norfolk, VA, which is in the Hampton Roads
area, near the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Norfolk, and the
surrounding communities, is the largest concentration of naval power in
the world. It is the center of American naval operations, the
headquarters of the U.S. Atlantic fleet, and it is already having to
spend millions of dollars to elevate the piers where aircraft carriers
come and go due to sea level rise. The Hampton Roads area is listed as
the second most vulnerable community in the United States to rising sea
levels after New Orleans.
This is a challenging issue in a lot of ways. I have friends who live
in these communities who recently bought homes, but now their homes
aren't marketable. For most Americans--certainly for me--my home is the
most valuable asset I own. If you have that, and then you suddenly
can't sell it because climate is changing, sea level is rising,
flooding is more recurrent, and no one will buy your home, it is a very
serious issue.
In addition to the effect on individuals and businesses because of
sea level rise, the effect on the naval station is significant. Current
estimates are that rising sea levels in Norfolk will take the main road
entrance into the center of American naval power and have that under
water 3 hours a day by 2040 just because of normal tidal action. In
times of storms, it would be worse. Imagine an America that counts on
that Navy, counts on that naval presence around the globe having its
largest base inaccessible because of sea level rise.
We have an interesting community. One of the most unique parts of
Virginia is a small island, Tangier Island, in the center of the
Chesapeake Bay. It has been continually inhabited since the 1600s as a
community for water men and women, the folks who have traditionally
made their living by going out and catching crabs, oysters, and fish.
This is a small island, a few acres. It is one of the only places you
can go in the United States where you can hear English spoken as
Shakespeare would have spoken it, with a language that is an
Elizabethan language. The community is very isolated in that way, and
so you hear this beautiful English spoken there. The community has many
wonderful virtues to it, but the Chesapeake Bay is coming
[[Page S4936]]
up around this community and eroding it.
I received a letter from a middle school student within the last
month--a handwritten letter that might have been the most heartfelt
communication I have received in 4-plus years in the Senate--saying:
What are you doing about sea level rise? What can you do to help us
deal with these issues so Tangier, as an island, does not completely
disappear? So for these reasons and many others, in Virginia, we take
this very seriously and we have to deal with it.
I will tell you something else about Virginia. Virginians believe in
science. The Virginia political figure we most admire was the
preeminent scientist of his day, Thomas Jefferson. He was a scientist.
Virginians overwhelmingly believe in science. Seventy percent of
Virginians accept the scientific consensus that human activity is
causing climate change and that it is urgent we do something about it.
Seventy percent of Virginians believe in that proposition.
I am here because my friend from Rhode Island asked me to come and
talk about the fact that there is an organized effort--not just a
battle about the policy about climate science--to knowingly try to
misrepresent the status of climate science and suggest that climate
change is not occurring. They are denying it exists, they are denying
it is a concern, and they are working against any reasonable solutions.
Of course, we have to be open to points of view, reasonable
differences of opinion, and have a debate, but when the science is
settled on some things and people in an organized way--who know
better--are trying to fight against it, we should be suspicious.
So a group of Senators are speaking today and tomorrow to discuss
these organizations that constitute what my friend from Rhode Island
has termed a ``web of denial,'' an organized effort to deny science.
Let me just talk a little bit because a number of these deniers are
companies that at least have PO boxes or nonprofit organizations that
at least have PO boxes in Virginia. The same Virginia where Tangier
Island is disappearing, the same Virginia where the Navy is having to
spend to shore up their infrastructure, also has some shadowy
organizations that are trying to deny the real science involved.
There is an organization involved called the Science and Public
Policy Institute, and it purports to summarize available academic
literature. Here is a quote:
They further note that decadal variability in sea level is
observed, but to date there is no detectable secular increase
in the rate of sea level rise over the period 1950-2000. They
also report that no increase in the rate of sea level rise
had been detected for the entire 20th century.
This is a group that throws in a few ``sciency'' words like ``decadal
variability,'' but what they are really saying is there is no sea level
rise. This is at odds with the conclusions of virtually every scientist
who studied this issue, including scientists at Virginia universities--
Old Dominion University and at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science
at William & Mary. Those scientists say sea level rise has risen a foot
since industrialization, and the range of future sea level rise on the
Virginia coast is anywhere from 1\1/2\ additional feet to 7 feet by the
year 2100. They will acknowledge some question about is it going to be
1\1/2\ feet, is it going to be 7 feet, but they don't challenge the
basic science surrounding sea level rise. So which is it--1\1/2\ feet
to 7 feet or you don't need to worry it? Don't worry, be happy.
Without getting a Ph.D. in atmospheric science and building your own
quantitative models, how do you know who is right? Here is a clue. Look
at who funds these organizations. In the case of ODU and William &
Mary, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science--which is one of the
most preeminent marine sciences organizations in the Nation, with
Scripps in San Diego and Woods Hole in Massachusetts--it is not hard.
They are State universities. They are funded by the general assembly of
Virginia, which are two Republican houses. They are reaching a
scientific conclusion that says climate change is serious, but with the
Science and Public Policy Institute, it is a bit nebulous, and it is
kind of hard to figure out.
There are online sources that enable you to track how organizations
are funded through foundations with ties, frankly, to the energy.
According to one of these sources, called ``DeSmogBlog,'' one of this
major funders of this institute, the Science and Public Policy
Institute, is called the Donors Capital Fund, which has distributed
$170 million to various conservative causes and describes itself as
being ``dedicated to the ideals of limited government, personal
responsibility, and free enterprise.''
A New York Times article from as far back as 2003, documents a
connection between this foundation and an organization that also has a
point of view, ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil is a funder or, in the past, has
been a funder of this organization.
Why doesn't ExxonMobil or a conservative organization just publish
the material on their own Web sites under their own bylines? My guess
is, they have scientists who actually know the science. There has been
recent information about ExxonMobil. They understand the climate
science. They couldn't publish this under their own byline and meet
their own standards of truthfulness, but they are providing funding to
an organization that is denying climate change. In other words, the
organization is just a delivery vehicle for information that is meant
to be seen as impartial scientific information, but it is, in fact, not
impartial at all. So when you see one group saying there has been no
sea level rise and another saying there has been a lot and we could be
in for more, if you are wondering which one to believe, take a look at
who is funding the research.
Here is another organization, the Virginia Institute for Public
Policy: ``Regulations prescribing a reduction, or even a complete
cessation, of Virginia's CO2 emissions will have absolutely
no effect on global climate.''
If there are Virginia regulations that even eliminate Virginia
CO2, it will have no effect on global climate. This is an
interesting quote because it is not technically a lie because it is
literally true. Virginia's share of world CO2 emissions is
infinitesimal. So if Virginia eliminated it all, it wouldn't affect the
entire globe in a measurable way. But that is like saying: One vote?
Your vote is not going to make the difference or one cigarette will not
hurt you so go ahead and have one.
This argument is a kind of a classic hide-the-ball argument that
makes a statement that is technically true, but it essentially is
promoting a false point of view that, oh well, we shouldn't do anything
about it. Again, it is the use of a literal truth that is basically
designed to pitch a message that is grossly misleading.
So let's ask about this group, the Virginia Institute for Public
Policy, who funds a group that would say something like that? Again,
the Donors Capital Fund that funded the first organization I discussed,
as well as the Chase Foundation of Virginia and the Roe Foundation,
which support a list of conservative causes.
If you call an organization the Virginia Institute for Public Policy,
it sounds kind of neutral and, again, probably trying to do a good
thing, but if you go back and look at who is funding it and you again
find the funding sources are heavily linked to energy industry groups
like ExxonMobil, then you understand they are not quite as impartial as
their name would suggest.
Here is another quote from the CO2 Coalition:
Concerns about carbon dioxide being a quote-unquote
``pollutant'' are not valid. Climate change is proceeding
very slowly, and the likely increase in temperature for the
21st century is about 1 degree Celsius or less.
Well, yes; is that technically true? The temperature of the Earth has
increased by about 1 degree since industrialization, and 197 countries
just signed an agreement in Paris last year to try to limit any further
increase to no more than 1 degree additional.
So this group makes it sound like 1 degree, who cares about 1 degree?
Well, a 100-degree fever is only 2 degrees more than normal, but it is
enough to make you pretty sick. It is actually 1.4 degrees more than
normal. It is enough to make you pretty sick.
The number of 0.8 sounds tiny in the abstract, but if that is your
blood alcohol content, that gets you a DUI in Virginia. The number
sounds small. Oh, gosh. Why would that make a difference? That gets you
a DUI because you are impaired.
[[Page S4937]]
So, yes, the group using the one temperature, 1 degree in
temperature, makes it sound like it is not that big of a deal--but it
is that big of a deal.
This is the last one I want to discuss before I close. This is kind
of a doozy because it is from an open letter to Pope Francis on the
topic of the Pope's environmental encyclical. The group is called the
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. Nothing like going
big if you are going to pick a name for yourself. I am glad there is
somebody who is trying to be a steward of creation. Their quote starts
with a quote from the 19th Psalm.
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament
proclaims his handiwork.
Beautiful aspect of the first verse in Psalm 19, but then the group
goes on to declare in their own words this:
By using fossil fuels to generate energy to lift billions
of God's precious children out of poverty, we liberate from
the tomb of the earth the carbon dioxide on which plants and
therefore all the rest of life depend. In light of these
considerations, we believe it is both unwise and unjust to
adopt policies requiring reduced use of fossil fuels for
energy.
So somebody is really using Scripture to argue that making our energy
production cleaner, safer, and cheaper violates the Christian tenet of
caring for the poor.
I am a Christian, and many of us in this body have a deep-faith
background in one faith or another, but I will use a non-Christian
phrase to describe that argument. It takes a lot of chutzpa to claim
your religious faith and compassion for the poor drives you to support
pollution-intensive energy, especially when the organization refuses to
reveal how it is funded.
In closing, we certainly don't want to imply that all groups that
have an agenda or have a point of view are motivated by funding
sources, but the web of denial the Senator from Rhode Island is asking
us to come out and talk about tonight is one that includes a number of
organizations that are climate deniers, and they are denying science
that in my view they actually know to be true.
There comes a point when the truth becomes so hard to deny that those
who deny it are simply not credible. And you have to then ask the
question: Why are you denying it?
I assert that most of these organizations understand the science,
they accept the science, and they realize it to be true. So why do they
deny the science? The answer is greed. That is the basic answer. Many
of the organizations we are discussing are funded primarily by fossil
fuel interests. If they can delay, even by 1 year or 2 years or 5 years
or even 6 months, the enactment of policies that would move us toward
fewer fossil fuels, it will hurt their bottom line.
So rather than come up here and argue about what the right transition
should be, they are handing funds over to organizations that are trying
to confuse the American public about science itself.
Let me close and read from Pope Francis's encyclical, since the
Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation cherry-picked the
piece. I am going to read it as a quote:
Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with
maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental
damage which they will leave behind for future generations?
Where profits alone count, there are can be no thinking about
the rhythms of nature, its phases of decay and regeneration,
or the complexity of ecosystems which may be gravely upset by
human intervention. Once we start to think about the kind of
world we are leaving to future generations, we look at
things differently--
As to future generations, we look at things differently--
we realize that the world is a gift which we have freely
received and must share with others. Since the world has been
given to us, we can no longer view reality in a purely
utilitarian way, in which efficiency and productivity are
entirely geared to our individual benefit. Intergenerational
solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of
justice, since the world we have received also belongs to
those who will follow us.
Science and faith have a number of things in common, but one of the
most important things they have in common is that their first duty has
to be to the truth. I hope all actors in the political process,
whatever their views, will remember that and have that same commitment.
I thank the Chair, and with that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, my colleagues from Virginia and Rhode
Island, for whom I have a lot of respect, have been on the floor
talking about an important issue--what my colleague from Virginia
called a ``today issue.'' Well, I would also like to talk about a today
issue as well, and one that I think certainly the American public is
interested in.
In the past week we have had a lot of today issues. As a matter of
fact, in the last week there have been new developments globally
relating to our national security, the defense of the United States,
and the importance of our military in ways that are pretty dramatic. I
would like to list some of these, and this is literally in the last 7
days.
Today, Secretary Carter announced from Iraq, where he is right now,
that the United States will be deploying another 560 troops in our
fight against ISIS. A lot of us support additional troops, and the
Secretary announced that. On Friday, at the NATO summit, President
Obama announced that the United States will be deploying 1,000 U.S.
troops and a separate brigade headquarters to Poland as part of an
effort by NATO to strengthen its eastern flank against Russian
aggression. The President was actually quoted in the Financial Times
extensively. He stated: ``This may be the most important moment for our
transatlantic alliance since the end of the Cold War.''
Then he talked about all the different national security crises--
ISIS, the terrorist attacks in Orlando, Paris, and Brussels, conflicts
from Africa to Syria, and Russia's aggression in Ukraine. This is the
President speaking to the Financial Times. These are today issues. I
also call them today issues.
On Saturday, North Korea launched another submarine-based ballistic
missile off the country's eastern coast. It didn't go that far, but
they are learning. Madam President, you and I were over there recently.
They are learning. That is a continuing threat.
Then, last Wednesday, before the President went to the NATO summit--
which, by the way was a successful summit, and I applaud the President
and Secretary Carter for that summit--the President announced that he
plans to leave 8,400 American troops in Afghanistan, more than he
originally planned to keep, to combat the Taliban. Again, a lot of us
applauded that decision. It could have been more, but it certainly is
better than the trajectory he was going on, which was to go to zero.
During an Armed Services Committee hearing last week, former NATO
Ambassador Nicholas Burns and the former Supreme Allied Commander,
Marine Gen. James Jones discussed the report that was coauthored by the
Atlantic Council, again talking about the importance of NATO's building
up our military forces not only on the eastern flank but in the
Arctic--an area in which, as Alaska's Senator, I am very interested--
where the Russians have dramatically expanded their military footprint
in exercises.
Over the weekend, in the Wall Street Journal, it was reported that
even after reaching the Iran nuclear deal, Iran continued trying to
illegally procure nuclear equipment from Germany. So we have the
Iranian threat, which definitely is not going away after the ill-gotten
and misguided nuclear deal by the President.
Tomorrow morning, there is going to be big news. There is expected to
be a tribunal ruling on what is going on in the South China Sea. Again,
the Chair and I were there recently, in that region of the world, in
Singapore, for the Shangri-La Dialogue. To Secretary Carter's credit
and Admiral Harris' credit, we have had two carrier battle groups out
there recently--two. That is very important.
So this is what has happened in a week. This is what our military is
facing in 1 week. So what did this body do? What did the Senate do as
it relates to actions in terms of our military and dealing with all
these threats of just 1 week? What did we do? Led by the Senate
minority leader and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we
filibustered spending for our troops. That is what the Senate did. We
filibustered spending for our troops. That is right. We blocked funding
for our military, which has to deal with all these issues.
Now, I know it was in the dead of the night. I think it took place
around
[[Page S4938]]
midnight. I am sure some of my colleagues were hoping nobody saw it.
But this is not like an anomaly. As a matter of fact, this was the
fourth time the minority leader led my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle into filibustering the Defense appropriations bill that funds
our troops and keeps our Nation safe. Let me repeat that. This bill has
been filibustered not once, not twice, not three times but four times
in the last year.
This is the bill the minority leader likes to filibuster more than
anything, and this is despite the fact that when this bill came out of
the Committee on Appropriations, it had huge bipartisan support. I
think only three members of the committee voted against it. This year
it came out of the committee unanimously.
So what does this bill do? We just talked about the threats that
everybody agrees exist. I will just cover a few of the highlights.
First, and very importantly, it is actually consistent with the
bipartisan budget agreement of 2015. So any discussion of how it is not
fitting what we agreed to is not true. It is consistent with that.
Readiness. We all know we need readiness for our military. It funds
$212 billion in terms of base operations and maintenance accounts,
training--enormously important--and shipbuilding. A significant portion
goes to shipbuilding to make sure we have a strong navy. It is similar
with regard to aircraft procurement to have a strong Air Force--
significant billions of dollars of funding for our Air Force. It even
has, for the first time, funding for an icebreaker, which more and more
of my colleagues in the Congress are recognizing as critical to our
national security.
Missile defense. With the growing threat from North Korea and Iran,
there is significant funding for missile defense and the National Guard
and Reserve equipment account. The Presiding Officer has been a leader
in the National Guard and Reserve. There is almost $1 billion for the
National Guard and Reserve equipment account, which is lacking.
Of course, there is military pay. The Defense appropriations bill
fully funds an Active-Duty end strength of 1.2 million members of the
military and a Reserve component end strength of 800,000, and it funds
a 1.6 percent pay raise.
Those are some of the highlights of the bill we need, and some of the
highlights of the bill that was filibustered in the wee hours of the
evening last Thursday night.
Our Nation needs this bill. Our troops certainly need this bill. Our
allies need this bill. We have held hearings in the Committee on Armed
Services. The Chair will remember when Secretary Kissinger came and
testified that the United States has not faced a more diverse and
complex array of crises since the end of World War II. Even the
President, last week in the Financial Times, stated that this is
possibly the most important moment in terms of the security of the
transatlantic alliance since the Cold War.
The Presiding Officer and I actually had the honor of recently going
to see the new Secretary of the Army review the troops and review the
Old Guard. She and I proudly represented the Senate. We have a new
Secretary of the Army who is going to do a great job. The Chief of
Staff of the Army, General Milley, spoke during that. He said one of
the most important things the Senate and the Congress can do in the
next 5 weeks is to make sure there is a budget for the U.S. military
and for the U.S. Army. That is what he said. So he certainly laid out
what he thought was important.
As a matter of fact, serving together on the Committee on Armed
Services, the Presiding Officer and I hear this from every single
admiral and general, including Secretary Carter: Fund the troops--
certainty.
But the minority leader thinks it is fine to block funding for our
troops. Maybe he knows more than Secretary Carter. Maybe he knows more
than General Milley. Unfortunately, he has made a habit out of doing
this. In my short time in the Senate--1\1/2\ years--this is the bill
the minority leader has decided to filibuster more than any other bill.
Since I have been here, he has done that four times. Think about that.
I hope the American people are watching. Four times in a year the
bill that gets picked on more than any other bill is the one that funds
the troops and our national security, and it happened again in the wee
hours of the night last week.
So why does he do this? I have no earthly idea why he does this. If
you asked Americans back home in Iowa, Alaska, or in any State--
Democrats or Republicans; it doesn't matter the party--the people would
say that national defense and funding our troops is probably the most
important thing we do. It is certainly one of the top one or two. But
the minority leader last year said the Defense appropriations bill is
``a waste of time.'' Last week he put out a statement saying he needed
a commitment that this bill abides by the bipartisan budget deal.
Well, guess what. The bill does abide by the bipartisan budget deal.
There is no one making the argument that it doesn't. So I have no idea.
I have no idea why he singles out funding for our brave men and women
in uniform, thousands of whom, by the way, are serving overseas in
combat--yes, in combat, right now. We are not going to fund them,
though. We will filibuster that. Maybe he can come down and explain it.
Here is something else I really don't understand. I mean, I really
don't understand this. Why is it that so many of my colleagues follow
his lead on this--to filibuster funding for America's military not
once, not twice, not three times but four times? Why are my colleagues
following his lead? I don't know why. But what I do know is that we
should not be heading out on a 2-month recess without voting again on
funding our troops--without voting to fund our troops--especially given
all the challenges I just listed here. We know they are there. The
President was talking about them. We talk about them. But we don't want
to fund the troops?
We owe it to the American people and to our troops to have a vote on
this Defense appropriations bill again. Let my colleagues come to the
floor and explain why they are going to vote to filibuster this bill
again, because when we bring it up again--and I certainly hope we do so
this week--if they vote to filibuster it again, that will become the
fifth time inside of a year.
What we need to do is to bring back a longstanding tradition that
used to exist in the Senate, which was the bipartisan funding of our
military. That is certainly what we are all focused on. That is what we
thought we were going to do when we got the budget deal. That is what
we thought we were going to do when we saw these very big bipartisan
numbers coming out of the Appropriations Committee. Yet, every time we
try to bring this bill to the floor--this year and last year--the
minority leader filibusters it. The American people are watching. The
American people are watching.
A recent Politico article talked about this. A defense analyst from
the Heritage Foundation said:
I think this is pretty disappointing, but sadly not
surprising. . . . There used to be a bipartisan consensus
that defense was a priority, but sadly I think that consensus
no longer exists. . . . With the Senate Democrats stopping
DOD [appropriations], the Pentagon will at least have to wait
until after the election for its budget, and maybe even into
the next calendar year [to get its budget].
That is because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are
filibustering this bill. How does that help our troops? How does that
help the national defense of the United States? Somebody please come
down here and explain this to me. I agree with this analyst where he
said this is sad.
I hope we will bring this bill to the floor again and drop what has
been happening, which is playing politics with our troops and funding
our military.
I will conclude by saying that after the Vietnam war, the Democratic
Party gained a reputation as the anti-military party of America, and
they struggled for years to shed that reputation. I don't think having
any of America's major political parties being viewed as anti-military
is good for us as a nation.
Support for our military should never be a partisan issue, and I
proudly serve--with the Presiding Officer and
[[Page S4939]]
others--on the Armed Services Committee and the Veterans' Affairs
Committee. I know for a fact that my colleagues on those very
bipartisan committees--Democrats and Republicans--support our troops,
support national defense, and support the military. And I know many of
my colleagues in this body--many on the other side of the aisle--have
served with distinction in the military for decades and are strong
supporters of our men and women in uniform. I have seen it. I have seen
it my entire short time in the Senate. But four filibusters blocking
funding for our troops inside of a year certainly makes one wonder what
is going on with the leadership of my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle when it comes to supporting our troops. I hope they come down
and explain it this week.
What we need to do this week is vote again on the Defense
appropriations bill and do the right thing. We all know what the right
thing is and the American people know what the right thing is. We need
to fund our troops, we need to keep them safe, and we need to keep our
country safe.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I am here to speak on the Koch
brothers, but first I want to say briefly to my good friend from
Alaska: Instead of playing political games, if he wants to pass a
defense bill, we all know what has to be done in a bipartisan way. You
don't just take a bill, throw it down, and say ``Take it or leave it.''
That is what happened last year. We worked in a bipartisan way. Defense
spending got an increase. So let's stop all the rhetoric and
politicizing this issue. Let's work together and get it done.
Climate Change
Now, Madam President, I want to talk about the issue before us, and
that is the amazing influence of the Koch brothers--two people--on what
is going on in this country and particularly when it comes to climate
change. I thank Senator Kaine, who spoke before me, and particularly
Senator Whitehouse, who has not only organized these speeches but has
been the leader in our caucus on focusing on this issue, and it is
getting good resonance with the American people.
We have talked. We have failed to act on a number of issues in the
last few weeks--Zika, funding the opioid crisis, sensible gun safety
measures, a Supreme Court nominee and other judicial nominees. It is
stunning how little we have done our job. But probably at the top of
the list which deserves attention is that Congress has not done its job
on climate change. Why? Why? It is so apparent. Just look at any map of
the globe. Senator Kaine and Senator Whitehouse are exactly right about
the reason: far-right groups dominated by the Koch brothers. They hide
where they send their money, but they dominate it all. They and other
deep-pocketed energy interests have funded campaign after campaign
against action on climate change. We know that the NRA has a
stranglehold on gun reform. Well, the Koch brothers have a stranglehold
on any legislation on climate change--at least as long as our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are in the majority in either
House.
One of the key strategies--how do they do this? Lots of different
ways. We have seen those ridiculous commercials. They are afraid to say
who they are. They have these ads; lots of poor people, minorities; oh,
the Koch brothers are hurting--are helping. Koch Industries. And then
they have one little sentence: Get rid of regulations. That is all they
say. So they have lots of different mechanisms for hiding what they
believe but profoundly influencing America.
One of the ways they have done that is by funding think tanks and
academic institutions to deliberately cast doubt on the signs of
climate change in order to protect their own financial interests. The
Koch brothers earn their billions leading the private oil, chemical,
and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries. In short, they are the
premier anti-environmental, pro-pollution duo of the 21st century, and
over the past two decades, they have mastered a strategy meant to
confuse the American people about climate change by funding ``think
tanks'' and ``university programs'' that adhere to their anti-science
agenda.
Take the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. They should call
it the Koch Center. Charles Koch sits on the board. Over the last
decade, it has received tens of millions in funding from the Koch
brothers and $300,000 at least from Big Oil. So it should come as no
surprise that the Mercatus Center publishes research that closely
mirrors the ideology of the Koch brothers and routinely advocates for
policies that are in their business interests, especially climate
change denial. They cloak their views in an academic guise, but if you
just examine it, you know what is going on: Mercatus Center, funded by
the Koch brothers, talks against climate change. Do we think that is
objective? I don't. Let's look at some of the activities of the center.
In 2001 they suggested that global warming would be ``beneficial'' and
would ``stimulate plant growth and make humans better off.'' These are
the Koch brothers.
During the early years of George W. Bush's Presidency, the Wall
Street Journal reported that 14 of the 23 regulations targeted for
repeal by the administration were suggested by--guess who. The
nonpartisan, objective, nonfunded Koch brothers' Mercatus Center,
including rollback of EPA pollution rules. In 2006 the Mercatus Center
attacked the bipartisan work to reduce tailpipe emissions and implement
new efficiency standards for automobiles and trucks. In 2007 Mercatus
was able to install staffers at the Bush Office of Management and
Budget in charge of regulations. In 2009 Mercatus attacked the Obama
administration's plan to monitor greenhouse gas emissions.
Some might be thinking, so what? It is just a few academic papers and
policy recommendations. Why does it matter? It matters because this
private sector-funded research is being used to give the false
impression that there is a legitimate academic debate about climate
change, and then that debate is used by colleagues as an excuse for no
action. It is no different from how the tobacco industry funded
research that minimized the health dangers of smoking cigarettes so
they could turn around and argue: There is no conclusive evidence that
cigarettes are dangerous. No need to regulate us.
Millions of people died because of that. And millions of people are
getting ill and many millions more will lose their jobs and we will
lose our globe because of what the Koch brothers are doing. We now know
how deceptive and cynical their strategy was. Well, that was the
tobacco industry. It is happening today, and it is having the same
serious consequences.
Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate change
is happening. Democrats know that climate change is happening and want
to do something about it today, but congressional Republicans,
following their Koch brother funders, holding up studies by the
Mercatus Center, funded also by the Koch brothers, refuse to act and
even deny it exists.
I would say to the Koch brothers: At least be honest. If you really
believe what you say, why not come clean? Why not put out a commercial
that says: ``Koch brothers. We don't believe in climate change. Koch
Industries. We don't believe that we should regulate the environment.''
Put that on TV so when we are watching ``Morning Joe,'' we don't have
these glossy ads that give the exact opposite impression. Do you know
why? They know no one is going to believe them. They want to use their
money as power, secret power, and one of the secret power ways they use
that money is through institutions like the Mercatus Center.
Before all of us can come together on climate change and do something
significant--it is not easy--we have to start agreeing about how
immediate and incredible the challenge is. With things like the
Mercatus Center throwing sand in the gears, that becomes more
difficult--not for legitimate reasons but because special interest
money cloaks its beliefs in academic centers that stall progress.
Anyone who participates in this should be ashamed of themselves--not
just the Koch brothers but so many others who put out these studies and
take the money. Shame. Future generations and our generation are going
to pay the price.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
[[Page S4940]]
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I understand the majority leader
will be coming to close out the Senate shortly and then allow us who
are speaking to continue after that. I see Senator Scott here, so let
me yield to him.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
A Family Conversation
Mr. SCOTT. Madam President, I believe our Nation is in desperate need
of a family conversation. The American family as a whole needs to sit
down, come to the same table, and talk with our relatives. That means
each of us talking to each other about the challenges we have seen in
our Nation over all of last week--a challenging week in America's
history, without any question; a challenging time period for Americans
all over this country, without any question; protests, riots;
challenges we haven't seen in a very long time.
We stand here today at a crossroads. Our Nation is experiencing
turmoil we haven't seen in generations--decades since we have seen this
type of turmoil all around the country. My heart breaks for all of us.
This week on this floor, I will give a series of speeches in hopes of
illuminating some of the issues before us, as well as what I believe
are essential steps toward closing both the wounds newly opened and
others that have actually never healed. In other words, there are
wounds that have existed for more than a generation, and it is time for
the American family to work together to heal some of these wounds.
Last Friday, deep in the heart of Texas, we saw both the best and the
worst of humanity. Only in America would you see police officers
alongside protesters who were protesting police brutality. If you take
a step back and picture it for just a moment, here is a scene of police
officers protecting protesters who are protesting police brutality. In
this picture, we don't see tension or animosity; we see smiles. We see
police officers working, taking pictures, and making sure that everyone
was having the appropriate time and, for some, even an enjoyable
experience with law enforcement.
But then the shots rang out. Police turned very quickly to protect
those protesters, and protesters helped police identify where the shots
were coming from. Somehow at the exact same time, Dallas came together
and at the exact time was torn apart. In what appears to be one man's
warped mind, retribution became his answer to frustration, and his hate
left five police officers dead and seven other officers wounded. We
continue to mourn for them and their families today. We must not--we
must not--become a society where revenge is the rule of the day.
Our Nation is dependent on the rule of law, and to enforce the law,
we need honest, hardworking men and women to take up the shield. For
the overwhelming majority of cops, it is a calling. It is not a job. It
is in the fashion of Romans 13--a chapter that speaks very clearly
about the fact that government officials wearing a sword can be
ministers; in other words, sharing love and affection and appreciation
for those they guard and having the ability to provide punishment when
necessary. We are talking about men and women who work for a very low
wage all over the country and who see their job as a calling. So many
of them--the vast majority--do it so well.
Law enforcement officers simply want to do two things: protect and
serve. We cannot allow the actions of a few to overwhelm the good of
the majority. To illustrate this, I want to share a few stories so we
can put in frame, put in focus the sacrifice and the commitment that so
many officers exhibit every single day throughout our Nation.
My first story is a story of a young lady named Jillian Smith, a
young African-American female police officer from just west of Dallas
in Arlington, TX. In December 2010, Officer Smith responded to a
domestic violence situation. She arrived and met a beautiful 11-year-
old girl and her mother, both fearful.
I want to stop for a moment and make sure we get the frame.
Here comes an officer, Officer Smith, who shows up to make sure the
folks who called were safe. The people who called were an 11-year-old
girl and her mother. They were fearful the mother's boyfriend would
show up and do something dangerous. And dangerous--he did do something
incredibly brutal.
Officer Smith, hearing gunfire, in an instant jumped on top of the
body of the 11-year-old. As the bullets rang out, she kept herself on
top of that 11-year-old girl. The girlfriend's boyfriend would end up
killing the mother and then killing himself. Before he did so, he
killed Officer Smith. Without a second thought, Officer Smith did what
so many law enforcement officers do instinctively--protect those who
are exposed. Officer Jillian Smith, a true American hero, gave her life
to protect the life of an 11-year-old girl she had never met before
knocking on that door.
This story and other stories aren't unusual. They want to serve and
protect. We saw this same heroism last Friday evening, as told by
Shetamia Taylor. Miss Taylor was at the protest. She was there
exercising her first constitutional right. Then the sniper started
shooting.
Miss Taylor had gone there with her four sons. She, for the lack of a
better word, freaked out. Bullets were flying. She ran to cover her one
son. According to her account of the situation, before she knew it,
there was a cop who was covering her and her son. The next thing you
knew, another cop was at her feet and another cop toward her head. In
the midst of a sniper shooting at cops, she found herself surrounded,
covered by police officers who were just doing their job, risking their
lives for this mother and her son.
What a picture: the best of America, very clear; the sniper, the
worst of America, is just as clear.
Miss Taylor made a very good point when discussing what happened.
Here is her quote. She said: ``These are the people you call when
you're in a situation. . . . What are we gonna do if they stop
policing?''
Let me ask the question that Miss Taylor asked one more time. What
are we going to do if they stop policing? Who are you going to call?
These are the stories that should give us faith in law enforcement.
While we certainly have issues that demand solutions--and I, too, have
had some issues with law enforcement that I am going to share in my
next speech on Wednesday. I will be giving three speeches. This is the
first one. In the next one, I will talk about some of the issues that
so many folks have experienced. I want to spend time on this, but this
is a moment in time when we should stop the camera, create a frame.
Let's focus on the fact that our law enforcement officers are true
American heroes, period.
When you are looking for a hero, sometimes you look for athletes;
maybe that is not the best place. You look for entertainers; maybe that
is not the best place. You look at Congress--9 percent approval rating;
that is probably not the right place. But our men and women who put on
a law enforcement uniform--these folks are real American heroes.
In my State of South Carolina, officers like Greg Alia, who gave his
life last year in Columbia, SC; officers like Allen Jacobs, who gave
his life in Greenville, SC; and in Charleston, Joe Matuskovic, who was
killed by a man shooting through a door--body slumps over, and my
mentor, whom I have spoken about for so long, John Moniz's son--I call
him a brother from another mother--was the first deputy on the scene
and dragged the lifeless body of his friend, his colleague, from that
door, trying to get that body completely out of harm's way.
To me, as I said a few seconds ago, Brian Moniz, sheriff's deputies,
and police officers are our heroes, and we should focus on that for a
moment. We must come together. We must find solutions. We must get to a
point where the American family--our family--has a real conversation
about the issues that divide us, the differences of our experiences,
yet remain a single family with a single mission and make sure that
every part of the American family feels valued.
I am starting tonight with our law enforcement, the part of the
family we depend on, as Miss Taylor so perfectly stated. If we do have
this necessary, painful conversation as an American family, we can say
with a new freshness, ``God bless America.'' We
[[Page S4941]]
can say with new focus to our American heroes, ``God bless our law
enforcement community.''
I don't expect to give such a speech without having some folks
respond positively and some even negatively. But this night, this day,
knowing that tomorrow in Texas our current President, our former
President, and a number of folks throughout the State of Texas will be
together in a part of our family territory, celebrating the sacrifices,
mourning the loss, but doing something that needs to be done. It is
simply this: not coming as a Democrat, not coming as a Republican, not
coming as a Black American, not coming as a White American, not coming
as a Hispanic American, but coming to a family gathering for family
funerals--plural--which hopefully will start a family conversation that
I will look forward to continuing on Wednesday.
Madam President, I thank you.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I wish to commend the Senator from
South Carolina for an extraordinary speech. I look forward to hearing
the two subsequent speeches that the Senator from South Carolina is
going to make on the subject. No one better expresses in stronger and
more persuasive terms what needs to be said in the wake of these
tragedies than the Senator from South Carolina, and I congratulate him
on his outstanding remarks.
____________________