politics and trying to do the right thing for the country. >> those things that you just cited though, his numbers nevertheless tend to move in this fairly narrow range, low to mid 40s, sometimes pushing 50, but never really beyond that. why is that? >> well, i think that's hard to assess. i'd sort of leave all the political and polling analysis to all of you. you know, what the president has done is tried to be as focused as he can on trying to move the country forward, and he's met some obstacles, particularly most prominently in the form of dis function in congress. dysfunction in congress. but i do think that people genuinely see the president as somebody in washington who is succeeding and actually getting some things done that are good for the country. and i think there are even some people who might disagree with many of the president's policy initiatives, but do actually acknowledge that he's the one person that's actually making some progress for the country up here. >> thanks, guys.

>> okay? i'll do one more. sarah. >> thanks, josh. on keystone, if the president hasn't made a decision for the paris climate negotiations, will that affect his credibility there? >> no, i don't think so. the administration has taken some very important steps to demonstrate our commitment to reducing carbon pollution. and, you know, obviously, the joint agreement that was reached with the chinese about a year ago is an indication that the united states is willing to do two things. one is take bold steps to reduce carbon pollution in this country, but also to use our influence around the globe to get other countries and other large economies to make similar commitments. and, you know, many of the critics of our climate policy for years were intensely skeptical of china making a commitment like this. in fact, this was actually the principal argument of -- against a number of the climate policies that this administration wanted

to implement, was the argument went something like why should the united states make these kinds of sacrifices if the chinese are just going to continue to pollute? the fact is the chinese have made substantial commitments in their own right, and that means that we can do something powerful to reduce carbon pollution while also capitalizing on the upside associated with investments in renewable energy. i would just point out that many of the nuclear power plants that will be built in china to help them meet many of these goals will include the involvement of some american firms. that is a tremendous opportunity. these nuclear power plants aren't cheap. and that kind of investment creates significant economic opportunity here in the united states, and it's an example of how we can take steps that are both important to reducing carbon be pollution and protecting the planet while also opening up the kind of economic opportunity that creates jobs

and significant economic growth right here in the united states. >> thanks. and one other question. we've talked today about things the president's hoping to accomplish possibly by working with a new leader over the next 14 months. but last night he kind of went after republicans a bit on several areas of the dnc fund raiser. is that a sign that in reality you've kind of moved to campaign mode instead of building consensus with the republicans mode? >> i think the president was making a speech at a political gathering, and, you know, i think the president's choicest words were reserved for the be republican presidential -- for the republican presidential candidates. many of you made note of that. look, we've never been willing to paper over the significantç differences that existç between democrats and republicans in this up to. what we have -- in this town. what we have been disappointed in is the willingness of too many republicans to allow those differences to undermine our ability to findç common ground.

and, you know, we've seen some more recent steps where republicans have resisted that temptation. and at least when it comes to the completion of this budget agreement prior to december 11th, we'll hopeful that bipartisan spirit will prevail. if both sides are focused on the best interests of the country, or we should be able to resolve the budget negotiations in advance of december 11th consistent with the need to insure that we're adequately funding both our economic and national security priorities. okay? thanks a lot, everybody. we'll see you tomorrow. [inaudible conversations] >> during his over hourlong briefing, josh earnest answered a number of questions about white house relations with the new house speaker, paul ryan. paul ryan a guest today at the senate republican conference lunch. in fact, our capitol hill

producer, craig kaplan, took this picture. speaker ryan entered that lunch this afternoon. senate gavels back in at 2:15 live here on c-span2. meanwhile, "the wall street journal" writes that the house speaker's promise of a more inclusive process for considering legislation starts this week on the highway bill. here's more about the house and senate are doing in this week. >> kelly joins us, she's a transportation reporter with cq roll call. and, kelly, the house begins work today on a multiyear transportation and highway funding bill, first piece of major legislation under the new speaker, paul ryan. what are some of the major details x how is this going to be funded? >> guest: so we're going to have the second rule today of two expected from the house rules committees laying out floor procedure on the highway and transportation bill. in the house, again, we're taking the senate bill as a shell and using the house policy inside of the senate bill which contains about, now it's about

36 billion, 35 billion in pay-fors and a provision that reauthorizes the export-import bank. so that's kind of the overarching plan that we have today. we're going to have a rules meeting at 3 p.m., and then we're also having 29 amendments on the floor today, consideration of the first of two rules on the house floor today. >> host: now, under speaker ryan how open do you think this process is going to be with this bill in particular in. >> guest: so transportation infrastructure committee chairman bill schuster was touting the open process that the house has laid out at a leadership conference today to reporters. the house rules committee is also boasting that this process, which basically splits consideration of the highway bill from the house policy portions today and the senate and other provisions tomorrow and for the rest of the week, as a process that gives members greater time and greater levels of consideration on both bills.

however, the house rules process does limit amendments on the floor, so technically this isn't the most open process. but with a highway bill that's spanning hundreds of pages and over 200 amendments submitted from the house, leadership has to do something to try to kind of limit the floor procedure process. >> host: and you mentioned bill schuster. here's a tweet that you sent out: i've been waiting three years for this, so here we go, he tells the house rules committee. why did it take so long to get to this point on this, and what's the current deadline? >> guest: so one of the major con tensions behind the surface transportation reauthorization bill is the difficult funding situation. and, again, we have a couple timetables in terms of the deadline on the highway bill. first of all, current authorization runs out november 20th, so we're trying to get a bill passed by thanksgiving. the highway trust fund, which

pays for projects and reimburses states for highway and transit projects across the nation, has enough money -- staff estimates there's enough money to keep programs going through the end of december. the department of transportation put out an estimate that the money in the highway trust fund could run through the end of the summer. however, they do note that there is a potential shortfall in the trust fund around the end of november. so all eyes are on thanksgiving as a deadline to get this bill passed. now, just to touch on the funding issue again, because the gas tax that funds highway and transit projects across the country has dwindled in value and there's not enough money in the highway trust fund to pay for the level of spending that congress has authorized, lawmakers have engaged in a process of transferring money from the general fund since 2008. it looks like this is going to be the continued process on this bill. again, we're looking at some $35

billion in a general fund transfer into the highway trust fund to keep programs going for three years. house leaders envision a six-year authorization bill, but they only have three years of funding, and that work was done by the senate. they're hoping that some type of international tax overhaul can bring in more money for the highway bill, but that's something that leaders are looking at for a later date. right now they're relying on three years of funding in the senate's bill, and that's going to be the subject of much discussion this week in the house. >> host: well, you mentioned the rules committee meeting to talk about some of the amendments. what are some of the key ones? you've already mentioned the gas tax, the export-import bank, also truck safety rules. talk about a few of those. >> guest: so monday's floor procedure is mostly transportation-related amendments. those truck safety provisions, those are going to maybe get a little bit of consideration. but the major truck safety amendment to watch on floor procedure monday has to do with

raising the allowable truck weight limit on interstates. representative reid ribble of wisconsin has gotten some support of democrats. kurt schrader of oregon and collin peterson of minnesota are also sponsors on this truck weight limit increase amendment. however, many democrats say safety advocates oppose this, so this is likely to be a contentious amendment on the floor. as for finance amendments related to export-import bank, other types of pay-fors, that's going to be the subject of a rules committee hearing tuesday. so tuesday evening there's going to be another rule that the house leadership puts out governing procedure on those provisions which, again, are included in the senate's legislation which the house is combining with its own house policy. >> host: and kelly reports on transportation for cq roll call. you can also find her reporting at cq.com. got a new article up there,

house rules setting up floor debate for transport parts of the highway bill. and what's your handle on twitter? >> guest: @kelmej, and you can follow me, i'll be tweeting all day today. >> host: thanks a lot. >> and kelly mentioned that rules committee meeting guesses under way at 3 p.m -- gets under way at 3 p.m. eastern. they will consider the amendments submitted to the highway bill. that's coming up live this afternoon on c-span3. >> a signature feature of booktv is our all-day coverage of book fairs and festivals from across the country. with top nonfiction authors. here's our schedule beginning this weekend. we'll be in massachusetts for the boston book festival. in the middle of the month, the louisiana book festival in baton rooming. and at the end of november -- baton rouge. and at the end of november, we're live for the 18th year in

a row from florida for the miami book fair international. and the national book awards from new york city. just some of the fairs and festivals this fall on c-span2's booktv. >> c-span presents landmark cases, the book, a guide to our landmark cases series which explores 12 historic supreme court decisions including marbury v. madison, coar mat sue v. united states, brown v. the board of education, miranda v. and roe v. wade. landmark cases, the book, features introductions, background, highlights and the impact of each case written by veteran supreme court journalist tony morrow and published by c-span in cooperation with cq press, an imprint of sage publications incorporated. land mark cases is available for $8.95 plus shipping. get your copy today at

c-span.org/landmarkcases. ♪ ♪ >> u.s. senate will be returning momentarily for more debate on clean water regulations. the pending bill would require the obama administration to rewrite a rule governing waters covered under the clean water act. a vote on whether to advance the bill is scheduled for 2:30 eastern. the white house has issued a veto threat. the associated press says republicans and some democrats from rural states say they fear a steady uptick in federal regulation every stream and ditch. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said on the senate floor today that some of the regulations are, quote, cynical and overbearing power grab dressed awkwardly as some clean water measure, and the ap says it was unclear whether mcconnell would have the 60 votes to proceed to consideration of the bill. so that vote to move forward coming up in about 15 minutes at 2:30 eastern.

meanwhile, over on the house side, the house today working its way through a long-term highway bill, transportation bill, and they'll also hear from the rules committee. the rules committee will be meeting this afternoon for consideration of additional amendments to that highway bill. those amendments would be debated tomorrow. they just wrapped up a series of votes on the house floor now, and debate will continue, general debate continue. you can follow that over on our companion network, c-span2. we showed you the white house briefing just a short while ago. you can see that online at c-span.org. and a number of questions about the news about keystone xl pipeline. the head of the company denied today that political motivation was behind the decision to ask the u.s. government to delay consideration of the project. the request by transcanada to suspend its review of the keystone xl pipeline could delay any decision until the next president takes office, says the associated press. so live coverage of the senate

coming up momentarily as they gavel in to take that procedural vote at about 2:30 eastern. rdere time until 2:30 p.m. will be equally divided in the usual form. the senator from kansas. mr. roberts: mr. president, i rise today as the senate considers an issue that is critically, critically important to agriculture and to rural america. it is my hope that the senate will advance landmark legislation that i, along with a bipartisan group of colleagues, have introduced in response to the u.s. environmental protection agency's final rule that redefines waters of the

united states, commonly referred to in farm country as wotus, among other acronym, under the clean water act. i am proud to be an original cosponsor of s. 1140 and represent agriculture and rural america's charge in pushing back against e.p.a.'s egregious federal overregulation. e.p.a.'s final wotus rule would adversely impact a vast cross section of industries, including agriculture. as i have said before, i fear that the sheer number of regulations imposed by this administration is causing the public to lose faith in our government. too often i hear from my constituents that they feel ruled and not governed. mr. president, s. 1140 is in response to exactly that sentiment. as chairman of the agriculture committee, i have heard directly from farmers, ranchers, state agency officials, various industries in cansz -- kansas

that ultimately would be subject to these costly requirements. the sentiment is unanimous and clear, this is the wrong approach and the wrong rule for agriculture rural america and our small communities. according to the kansas department of agriculture, e.p.a.'s final rule would expand the number of water bodies in kansas classified as waters of the u.s., of the united states, subject to all -- subject to all -- c clean water act programs and requirements by 460%, totaling 170,000 stream miles. this is just incredulous. the expanded scope will further exacerbate the duplicative pesticide preventing requirements and other overregulation by this administration. this simply is not going to work

and make zero sense especially in places like western kansas. the final rule undercuts the state's sovereign ability as the final regulator who administers and carries out clean water act programs. even more troubling, in recent months it has become apparent through the release of internal government documents between the e.p.a. and the u.s. army corps of engineers that there are serious concerns and questions with regard to the legality of e.p.a.'s role and actions during the famous or infamous public comment period to garner support for the final rule. the tactics employed by the e.p.a. throughout this rule-making process completely undermines the integrity and interagency review process and public trust. the e.p.a. claims they have listened to farmers and ranchers about their concerns. e.p.a. not only stacks the decks

again farmers and ranchers, e.p.a. ignored this. this requires the e.p.a. and army corps of engineers to withdraw the final rule, craft a new rule in meaningful consultation with stakeholders, state partners and regulated entities who are ready and waiting to work with e.p.a. if we can. mr. president, all of us want to protect clean water. no one here, especially agriculture, wants to threaten such a valuable and integral natural resource that sustains our livelihood. it's our water. it is time that the administration listen and develop a rule that is effective for farmers, ranchers and rural america. this wotus regulation is the number-one concern i hear about in farm country, that the agriculture committee hears about. and over 90 agriculture groups -- 90 -- have signed a letter in support of this legislation. additionally, ongoing litigation involves 31 states challenging the final rule.

only adds further confusion about implementation and applicability of the final rule across the rest of the country. it's time for congress to intervene. i thank my colleagues who have joined me in this effort, more specially, the senator from wyoming. and i urge all of my colleagues to support s. 1140 and vote "yes." i yield my time. mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i'd like to yield three minutes to the real champion of clean water in the united states, senator boxer. mrs. boxer: thank you very much. i want to thank my subcommittee ranking member ben cardin for taking the lead today on this opposition that we're expressing to a very radical bill that will essentially, in my view, in many ways repeal the heart of the clean water act. you know, the clean water act came about because the cuyahoga river in ohio went up in flames

because there was so much pollution and toxins in the water there. and people recognized -- this was in the 1970's -- that we were endangering our families and the health of our families. and so the clean water act was written, and basically said that if a, a river or a stream or a body of water found its way into a source of drinking water or recreational body of water, that the people who were dumping this stuff into this natural environment had to get a permit, had to show us that it was safe. it's as simple as that. that's why we have overwhelming support. and i had a chart. now i don't have it. 79% across this nation for moving ahead with the clean water rule. and then comes the barrasso bill, which has a beautiful

name: protecting the waters of the united states. and it reminds me of the book "1984, war is peace, love is hate and the rest, big government telling you what to think. really? this is not a bill that protects our water. it's not. it's a bill that essentially protects polluters and endangers 170 million people who want to drink clean water. this isn't right -- this is a right in our country. you don't want to be frightened when your child swims in a stream or drinks water that makes him or her sick. so what we do with this bill, what senator barrasso, my friend -- and he is my really good friend -- what he does here is he essentially takes the clean water act and stands it on its head and says that we're not going to worry about all these

bodies of water that feed into the nation's drinking water supply for 117 million people, and we're going to say you're free to dump into that water everything you want. now, in closing, mr. president, i've often said that when i go home, people come right up to me, barbara, you need to do that and barbara, you have to fight for that. never in all my years in elected office -- 40 years since i started; it's hard to believe -- has anyone come up to me and said the water is too pure. the water is too clean. my drinking water is perfect. don't make it safer. my air is pristine. don't pass any more laws. it's the opposite. so what this would do today is take us back, back, back, back to the days when rivers caught on fire, back to the days when you worried a lot about drimpging water. and -- drinking water.

as a person who wrote the law that protects the quality of drinking water for children, this is a step backwards. and it's all about the farm bureau, and i get it. but i think they don't really understand the rule that is coming out where millions of people actually commented on the rule, where they had hundreds of meetings. and this is an e.p.a. that wants to work with the people. so i hope we'll reject this and we can move on and let this clean water rule work its way through the courts and become the law of the land. thank you. i would yield back my time. mr. barrasso: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. with this vote on the motion to proceed to s. 1140, the federal water quality protection act, the senate has a unique opportunity today to pass a strong bipartisan bill, a bill that's going to direct the e.p.a. to write a reasonable

rule to protect our navigable waterways. as i mentioned before, i introduced this legislation with my democrat colleagues senators done lee, senator heitkamp, senator manchin as well as many of my republican colleagues and i appreciate all of my colleagues who spoke out in favor of this legislation. let me just conclude this discussion with these thoughts. our beautiful rivers and lakes deserve protection, and this boss nothing to block -- this bill does nothing to block the waters of the united states. by striking the right balance, we'll restore washington's attention to the country's traditional waterways. protecting these cherished natural resources. at the same time we'll give certainty to farmers, ranchers, small business owners that they can use their property reasonably without fear of constant washington intervention. the existing rule on waters of the united states is the poster child of e.p.a. overreach.

the courts have already begun to weigh in on their concerns and have stayed the rule nationally. there's a great legal uncertainty about whether waters of the united states will survive these legal challenges. these challenges could take years. meanwhile, a long-term viable solution to protecting our waterways will not be in place. many of my colleagues, both democratic and republican, are particularly -- and particularly those from rural states, they've talked about their concern with this rule. so i urge them to join with us today by showing their constituents that they're ready to do something about it. i urge them to vote for this motion to proceed to s. 1140 and work with me through an open amendment process to create an even better bill, a better bipartisan bill, a bill that gives the e.p.a. the certainty that they need to craft a rule to protect our nation's waterways for the long term. i urge a "yes" vote on the

motion to proceed on s. 1140. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president, this legislation does two things. first, it stops the final rule on the waters of the u.s. and secondly, it weakens the underlying clean water act, something i would hope none of us would want to do. i urge my colleagues to reject the motion to proceed. let me tell you what's at risk here. what's at risk is about one half of our nation's stream miles from being protected under the clean water act. their water supply would not be protected. what's at stake here? 20 million acres of wetlands could go unprotected because of being denied the protection under the clean water act. what's at risk here? the drinking water supply for 117 million americans, one out of every three americans, the source of their water could very well come from unregulated

supplies being exempt from the clean water act. i don't think we want to do that. i agree with my colleagues that we want to have certainty. that's why the rule was moving -- we want the rule to move forward. but it does more than that, the underlining bill. it also changes the standard which would be judged by what is to be regulated waters. the current law says it's to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation's waters. in other words, mr. president, science-based. if we need to regulate in order to protect our water supply, we can regulate. that's what we're trying to achieve. waters that end up in our streams, waters that end up in our water supply. if on the other hand, we take what is being done under this legislation to protect traditional navigable waters from pollution, we are exempting so much of the waters that are critically important.

i mentioned a little bit earlier, it has to have a continuous flow. there's seasonal variations of what enters into our water supply in this country. that would be exempt. i just wanted to spell two things. first, this bill would remove certainty, not give certainty. the supreme court cases caused us to lose our traditional definitions of what was covered under the clean water act. we need that. it returns certainty which i think is in everyone's interest. and the last point, mr. president, and i've said it many times, the department has confirmed this, this roles,, this final role on waters of the u.s. does not change the regulatory structure for permitting for agriculture. there's no additional requirements. they're exempt. the exemptions that exist today will continue to be exempt. the agency responded to the concerns of the agricultural community as they should. the bottom line, the clean

water, agriculture go together. we all need to work together in that regard. so i would urge mile colleagues to allow this rule to go forward. i would urge my colleagues not to have a legacy of weakening our protections for clean water in america. and that's what's this bill would do. with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 153, s. 1140, a bill to require the secretary of the army and it the administrator of the environmental protection agency to propose a regulation revising the definition of the term waters of the united states, and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the motion to proceed to s. 1140, a

vote to require the secretary of the army and the administrator of the environmental protection agency to propose a regulation revising the definition of the term waters of the united states, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under this rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, on this vote, the yeas are 57, the nays are 41. three-finals of the senate duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: the senate not in order. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i withdraw the motion to proceed to s. 1140. the presiding officer: motion is withdrawn. mr. mcconnell: i move to proceed to calendar number 118, h.r. 2685. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion.

the clerk: motion to proceed to h.r. 2685, an ablght making appropriations for the department of defense for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2016, as for other purposes.. mr. mcconnell: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators in in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to a close debate on the motion to proceed to proceed making appropriations for the department of defense for the fiscal year year signed by 17 senators as follows. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that the reading of the names be dispensed with. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum call be waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. a senator: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska is recognized for his inaugural address. mr. sasse: thank you, mr. president. i rise to speak from the floor for the first time today. i have never been in politics before and intentionally waited to speak here. i want to talk about the use of the senate, did the decades-long decline about the legislature relative to the executive branch and about what baby steps toward institutional recovery might look like. before doing so, let me explain briefly why i chose to wait a year since election day to fully engage in floor debate. i've done twool things in my adult work life. i'm an historian by training and strategy guy by education. i helped many through ugly strategic crises and one important lesson i learned again and again when you walk into any broken organization is that there is a very delicate balance between expressing human empathy

on the one hand and not become unwilling to sweep hard truths under the rug on the other. it is essential to listen first, to ask questions first, and to learn how a broken institution got to where it is, because there are reasons. people very rarely try to break special institutions that they inherit. things fray and break for reasons. still, empathy cannot change the reality that a bankrupt company is costing more to produce its products than customers are willing to pay for them, that a college that has too few students is out not only of money but out of spirit. and this is the two-part posture i've tried to adopt during my rookie year here. because of this goal of empathetic listening first and interviewing first and because of a pledge i made to nebraskans in deference to a senate tradition last year, i have waited. but please do not misunderstand, do not confuse a deliberate approach with passivity.

i ran because i think the public is right that we are not confronting the generational challenges we face. we do not have a foreign policy strategy for the age of jihad and cyber war. our entitlement budgeting is entirely fake. we are entering an age where work and jobs will be for fundamentally disrupted than at any point in human history since hunter gatherers settled in agrarian villages. i think the public is right that the congress is not shuttering our nation into the great future of this nation. i will outline the key observations from my interviews in summary form on another day but for now let me flag the painful top-line take-away. i don't think anyone in this body truly believes that we are laser focused on the greatest challenges our nation faces. no one. some of us lament this fact. some of us are angered by this fact. some of us are resigned to it.

some try to dispassionately explain how we got to the place where we are but i don't think anyone actually disputes it. and if i can be brutally honest for a moment, i'm home basically every weekend and what i hear every weekend i think is the same things most all of you hear every weekend which is some version of this: a pox on both parties and on all of your houses. we don't believe that the politicians are really even trying to solve the great problems that we face, the generational problems. to the republicans, those of us who would claim that the new majority is leading the way, few people believe it. to the grandstanders who would try to use this institution chiefly just as a platform for outside pursuits, few believe that the country's needs are as important to you as your own ambitions. to the democrats who did this body great harm through nuclear tactics, few believe that bare-knuckled politics are a substitute for principled governing. and who among us doubt that many

both on the right and on the left are now salivating for more of these radical tactics? the people despise us all. and why is this? because we're not doing our job. we're not doing the primary things that the people sent us here to do. we're not tackling the great national problems that worry our bosses at home. i, therefore, propose a thought experiment. if the senate isn't going to be the venue for addressing our biggest national problems, where should we tell people that venue is? where should they look for long-term national prioritization if it doesn't happen on this floor? or to ask it more directly of ourselves, would anything really be lost if the senate didn't exist? to be clear, this is a thought experiment, and i think that many great things would be lost if the senate didn't exist, if our federal government didn't have the benefit of this body. but game out with me the question of why. what precisely would be lost if

we only had a house of representatives, a simple majoritarian body instead of both bodies? the growth of the administrative state, the fourth branch of government, is increasingly hollowing out the senate and the entire article 1 branch, the legislature. and oddly, many in the congress have been complicit in this hollowing out of our own powers. so would anything really be lost if we doubled down on woodrow wilson's obsession, his inclination toward greater efficiency in government, his desire to remove more of the clunkiness of the legislative process? what would be lost? or we can approach the thought experiment from the inside out, and we could ask what is unique about the senate? what can this body do particularly well? what are the essential characteristics of just this place, which has often been called the gem of the founders' structure? what was the senate built for? let's consider its attributes. we have six-year terms, not

two-year terms, and the founders deliberated about whether or not senators should have lifetime appointments. we have proportional representation of states not of census counts reflecting a federalist concern we would always maintain a distinction between perhaps an agreement government has a responsibility to work on certain problems and guarding against a an assumption that only a one size fits all government could tackle problem x or y. third, we have rules to empower individual senators not to the end of obstruction but for the purpose of ensuring full debate and engagement with dissenting points of view for the founders didn't share wilson's concern with governmental efficiency. they were preoccupied with protecting minority rights and with culturally unpopular views in this big and diverse nation. fourth, we didn't even have any rules in this body that recognized political parties until the 1970's. that was merely an early 20th

century convention that gave right of first recognition and floor debate to the leaders of the two largest voting blocs. we have explicit constitutional duties related to providing the executive with advice. it's a pretty nebulous thing, providing advice about the building of his or her human capital team and about the long-term foreign policy trajectory of this nation. six-year terms, representation of states, not census counts nearly limitless debate to protect dissenting views, almost no formal views for political parties, what does all this add up to? what is the best answer to the question, what is the senate for? probably the best shorthand is this: to shield lawmakers from obsession with short-term popularity so that we can focus on the biggest long-term challenges we face. why does the senate's character matter? precisely because the senate is built to insulate us from short-termism. that's the point of the senate. this is a place built to

insulate us from opinion fads and from the bickering of 24-hour news cycles. that is the point of the senate. the senate is a place to focus on the biggest stuff. the senate was built to be the antidote to sound bites. i've asked many of you what you think is wrong with the senate. what's wrong with us? as in most struggling organizations, in private it's amazing how much common agreement there actually is. there is so much common agreement about what around here incentivizes short-term thinking and behavior over long-term thinking, behaving and planning. the incessant fund-raising, the ubiquity of cameras everywhere that we talk, the normalization over the last decade of using many senate rules as just search and skins exercises. the constant travel, again fund-raising, meaning that sadly many families around here get ripped up. that's one of the things you hear about most in private in this body. this is not to suggest that there is unanimity among you in

these private conversations. the divergence is most pronounced at the question of what comes next, of whether permanent institutional decline is inevitable in this body. some of you are hopeful for a recovery of a vibrant institutional culture here, but i think the majority of you from my conversations are pessimistic. the most common framing of this question or this worry is this: okay, so maybe this isn't the high moment in the history of the senate, but isn't the dysfunction in here merely an echo of the broader political polarization out there? it's an important question. isn't the senate broken merely because of a larger shattered consensus of sheer belief across 320 million people on this land? surely that's part of the story, but there's much more to say. first, the political polarization beyond washington is so often overstated. we could talk about the election of 1800, the run-up to the civil war, the response to catholic immigration waves at the beginning of the last century,

the bloodiest summers of the civil rights movement, the experience of troops returning from vietnam. if you want to mark high-water marks of political polarization in american life. second civic disengaugement is argue polya much larger -- arguably a much larger problem. it is isn't so much that regular folks we run into back home are locked into predictably republican and predictably democrat positions on every issue. it is that they have tuned us out altogether. despite the echo chambers of those of us who have these jobs, are we aware that according to pew research, the 24-hour viewership of cnn and fox and msnbc is about two million. that's it. third, one of our jobs here is to flesh out competing views with such seriousness and respect that we, the hundred of us, should be mitigating, not exs baiting the -- exacerbating the polarization that does

exist. this is one of the reasons we have representatives rather than direct democracy. fourth, surveys reveal that the public is much more dissatisfied with us than they're even scared about the intractability of the big problems that we face. consider the contrast. somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of the country think the nation is on a bad track, that the experiences of their kids and grandkids will be less than the experience of their parents and grandparents. that's bad. but consider this: only one in ten of them is comforted that we're here doing these jobs. let's be very clear what this means. if the american people were actually given a choice to decide whether or not to fire all 1 is00 of us -- all 100 of us and all 535 people in the congress, do any of us doubt at all what they would do? there are good and bad reasons to be unpopular. a good reason would be to suffer for waging an honorable fight for the long term that has

near-term political down sides, like telling seniors the truth, that the amount they've paid in for social security and medicare is far, far less than they think and far, far less than they're currently receiving. that would be a good reason to be unpopular. but we all know deep down that the real reason the political class is unpopular is not because of our relentless truth-telling, but because of politicians' habit of regularized pandering to those who most easily already agree with us. the sound bite culture, whether our stand-ups or press releases or what we experienced on our campaigns both for and against, the sound bite culture is everywhere around us. we understand that. but do we also understand and affirm here in this body that this place was built expressly to combat that kind of reductionism, that short-termism? the senate is a word with two meanings. it is the 100 of us as a

community, as a group, as a body. that's an important metaphor. and it's this room. this is the chamber where we assemble supposedly to debate the really big things. but what happens in this chamber now is what is most disheartening to a newbie like me. as our constituents now, something is awry here. we in recent decades -- again, this is a body, not just us but what we inherited. we allowed short-termism and the sound bite culture to invade this chamber and reduce so many debates to fact-free zones. i mentioned i've done two kinds of work before coming here. i was an historian/college president and crisis turn-around guy. although they sound really different they have a lot of similar 'tis because they are both driven by deliberation, socratic speech.

good history requires understanding different actors, differing motivations and competing goals. reducing everything immediately to good versus evil, it's bad history. not only because it isn't true and because it's unpersuasive, but because it's really boring. good history, on the other hand, demands that one be able to talk socratically, so you can present alternate viewpoints and explain how people got to where they are. similarly, can you imagine a business strategist who presents just one idea and immediately announces that it's the only right idea, the only plausible idea. every other idea is both stupid and wicked? how would companies respond to such a strategist? they would fire that guy. a good strategist, by contrast, puts the best construction on a whole range of scenarios, outlines the best criticisms of each option, especially including the option that you plan to argue for most passionately, and then you

assume your competitors will actually upgrade their game in response to your opening moves. this is a kind of so accurate -- socratic speech. but we don't do that much around here. we don't have many actual debates. this is a place that would be difficult to describe today as the greatest deliberative body in the world, something that was true through much of our history. socrates said it is dishonorable to make the lesser argument appear the greater or to take someone else's argument and distort it so you don't have to engage their strongest points. yet here on this floor, we regularly devolve into a kind of bizarre politicians speech. we hear the robotic recitation of talking points. well, guess what? normal people don't talk like this. they don't like that we do, and more important than whether or not they like us, they don't trust their government because we do. it's weird because one on one, when the cameras are off, hardly anyone around here really thinks that senators from the other party are evil or stupid or

bribed. there's actually a great deal of human affection around here, but again it's in private when the cameras aren't on. perhaps i should pause and acknowledge that i'm really uncomfortable with this as an opening speech, it's awkward, and i recognize that talking honestly about the recovery of more honest socratic debate runs the risk of being written off as overall romantic and naively idealistic. to add to the discomfort, i'm brand-new to politics, 99th in seniority and occasionally mistaken for a page. but talking bluntly about what is not working in the senate, in recent decades, not just this year or last year, but talking bluntly about what is not working around here is not naive idealism. it's aspirational realism. here's why -- i think that a cultural recovery inside this body is a partial prerequisite for a national recovery. i don't think that generational

problems like the absence of a long-term strategy for combating jihad and cyber war, like telling the truth about entitlement overpromising, like developing new human capital strategies and job retraining strategies for an era of much more rapid job change than our nation has ever known, i don't think that long-term problems like this are solvable without a functioning senate. and a functioning senate is a place that rejects short-termism, both in substance and in tone. the senate has always had problems. this is a body made up of sinful human beings. but we haven't always had today's problems. there have been glorious high points in the senate. there have been times when this place has flourished and i believe that a healthier senate is possible again, but it will require models and guides. to that end, i have been reflecting on three towering figures of the last half century who use this floor quite differently than we usually use it today and who thereby have much to teach us.

before naming them, though, let me clarify a purpose. i do not think there is any magic bullet to the restoration of the senate. my purpose in speaking today is really just to move into public conversations that i have been having with lots of you in private as i try to define a personal strategy for how to use the floor. i want advice and i'm trying to open a conversation on how to contribute to the broader team, and there are many of you here, who want an upgrading of the debate, of the culture, of the prioritization and of our seriousness about what are truly the biggest long-term challenges we face. two weeks ago, in a discussion with one of you about these problems, i was asked so you're going to admit our institutional brokenness and issue a call for more civility? no. while i'm in favor of more civility, my actual call here is for more substance. this is not a call for less fighting. this is a call for more meaningful fighting. this is a call for bringing our

a game to the biggest debates about the biggest issues facing our people and with much less regard for 24-month election cycles and 24-hour news cycles. this is a call to be four things that are big enough that you might risk your re-election over it. so let's name the three folks who have something to instruct us because they brought a larger approach to the floor. first, i sit -- or now stand quite intentionally at daniel patrick moynihan's desk. the new yorker who cast a big shadow around here for a quarter century famously cautioned that each of us is entitled to our own opinions but we are most certainly not entitled to our own set of facts. he read social science prolifically and sought constantly to bring data to bear on the debates in this chamber. like any genuinely curious person, he asked a lot of questions so you couldn't automatically know what policy he might ultimately advocate for just because he asked hard questions of everyone. he had the capacity to surprise

people. we should do that. second, in a time when circling partisan wagons and castigating opposing party feels reflexively easy, we could all benefit from reading again margaret chase smith's heroic declaration of conscience speech from this floor in june of 1950. the junior senator from maine was a committed anticommunist. she was often called the first female cold warrior in the nation. and for her, that meant not knee-jerk opposition to competing views but rather the full-throated defense of what she called americanism. she defined it as the right to criticize, the right to hold an unpopular belief, the right to protest and the right of independent thought. senator smith was rightly worried aboutal engineer he -- about alger hess and the infiltration of the state dppt by communist spies. this was actually happening. so for her, grandstanding and lazy character smears were not

only dishonest, they were distracting and inherently dangerous. hence, the freshman senator -- she was the only woman in the body -- came to the floor to demand publicly what she had repeatedly sought unsuccessfully in private from joe mccarthy. was there any evidence for all of his scandalous claims. think of that. because a committed truth teller was willing to challenge someone not just in her own party but someone with whom she had lots of ideological alignment, she wanted him to reject strongman arguments and disingenuine attacks. because of that moment, four years later the senate would censure mccarthy and banish his tactics from this floor. finally and for my purposes, most importantly, i'd like us to recall robert byrd, one of the larger figures in the two and a half century history of this body. as a historian, i have long been a student of the west virginian, troubled though he was. we sometimes conceive of our role today as merely policy

advocates, as those who argue for our respective party positions on short-term policy fights, and that is sometimes important. but that's only one of our roles. for we don't have a parliament system, and we don't have one on purpose. with moynihan and margaret chase smith, we also need to contextualize our debates about our largest national challenges with facts and data. we need to agree on what problems we're trying to solve before we bicker about which programs will be more and less effective toward those ends. we need to challenge those in our own party not to construct strawman arguments with those we are debating. but there is something else that we need as well. beyond policy advocating and policy clarifying, we need an overarching, shared narrative of what america means. we need to pause to regularly recall the larger american principles that bind us together. our constitutional creed, our shared stories and our exceptional american commitment to a dream of life, liberty and

the pursuit of happiness for all 320 million of our countrymen and women. we all know in our marriages that sometimes the only way around a small disagreement is to pause to embrace again our larger shared commitments and our history. we need more of that here. we need to be able more often to agree on some big things before we get to the work of honorably disagreeing about smaller things. and one of the important legacies of senator byrd -- and again, this is no commentary on other aspects of his messy past -- but one of the important legacies of senator byrd is that he forced this senate to grapple with our history, with the 100 of our specific duties and with the unique place in the architecture of madisonian separation of powers that this body and this body alone sets. to return to our thought experiment, do we think the founders would have regarded a 9% congressional approval rating, a stunning level of distrust in representative

government. do we think they would have regarded that as an existential crisis? and do we, is it conceivable that we can get away with just drifting along like this, or must we fix it? count me emphatically among those who think we need to fix it. we should not be okay with this. if we are going to restore this place, part of that will center on recovering the executive legislative distinction. the american people should be demanding more of us as legislators, and they should be demanding more of the next president as a competent administrator of the laws that we pass. this is only possible if we again recover a sense of our identity that has some connection not just to republican and democrat but to the constitution's article 1 legislative duties and some tension on purpose with the duties of the article 2 executive branch. everything cannot be simply republican versus democrat. we need democrats who will stand up to a democratic president who

exceeds his or her power, and i promise you that i plan to speak up the next time a president of my party seeks to exceed his or her legitimate constitutional powers. despite all of his other failings, robert byrd labored hard to mark these nonpartisan lines, and we should, too. and to that end, in the coming months, i plan a series of floor speeches on the historic growth of the administrative state. this will not be a partisan effort, it will not be a republican senator criticizing the current administration because it is democratic. rather, it will be a constructive attempt to try to understand how we got to the place where so much legislating now happens inside the executive branch. our founders wouldn't be able to make sense of the system we're living right now. this kind of executive overreach came about partly because of the symbiotic legislative underreach. republicans and democrats are both to blame for grabbing more power when they have the presidency, and republicans and democrats are both to blame in

this legislature for not wanting to take on hard issues and to lead through hard votes but rather to sit back and let successive presidents gobble up more and more power. we can and we must do better than this. and so a century-long look at the growth and the executive branch legislating over the next many months will be an attempt to contribute to the efforts of all here, both republican and democrat, who want to see the senate recover some of its authorities and to recover some of its trust worthiness in the eyes of the people for whom we work. each of us has an obligation to be able to answer the question why doesn't congress work and what is your plan for fixing the senate? and if your only answer to this question is to blame the other party, then you don't get it, and the american people think you're part of the problem, not part of the solution. this institution wasn't built for the two political parties, and this institution wasn't built just to advocate policy x

versus new policy y for next month. we must serve as a forum for helping our nation understand and navigate the hardest generational debates before us. our ways of speaking should mitigate, not exacerbate the polarization that does exist. as was well said around here last week, we will not always agree, not all of us, not all of the time, but we should not hide our disagreements, we should embrace them. we have nothing to fear from honest differences honestly stated, for i believe that greater clarity between us can lead to greater charity among us. again, saying that we should be reducing polarization doesn't mean that we should be partying down our convictions. i mean quite the contrary. we do not need fewer conviction politicians around here. we need more. we don't need more compromising of principles. we need a clear articulation and understanding of the competing principles so that we can actually make things work

better, not merely paper over the deficits of vision that everyone in the country knows exist. we should be bored by lazy politician speech. we should be bored by knee-jerk certainties on every small issue. we should primarily be doing the harder work of trying to understand competing issues on the largest issues. good teachers don't shut down debate. they try to model socratic seriousness by putting the best construction on other arguments, even and especially those with which they don't agree. our goal should not be to attack strawmen, but rather to strengthen and clarify meaningful contests of ideas for the american people. representative government will require civic re-engagement. our people need to know that we in this body are up to the task of leading during a time of nearly universal angst about whether this nation is on a path of decline. a six-year term is a terrible thing to waste.

a two-year term requires hamster wheel frenzy. our jobs do not. i think we can do better, and i pledge to work with all of those who want to figure out how. thank you, mr. president.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader.

middlmr. mcconnell: mr. preside, i want to congratulate our new colleague, senator sasse. there was a good deal of suspense attached to wondering what the junior senator from nebraska would have to say, since he chose to wait to the end of the year and to listen and begin to study the institution. i expect most people would not have predicted that the best lesson we were to hear about what's wrong with the senate and what needs to change would have come from somebody who just got here. so i think the fact that there were so many senators on the floor to listen is a tribute to the great work that you have done here and the study that you put in to this institution and what needs to be done on all of our parts to make it work better. so on behalf of all the senate, i want to congratulate the

junior senator from nebraska for an extraordinary maiden speech. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president, that was a wise speech, and it was a speech that made me think of the comment that the -- someone has once said that the united states senate was the one authentic piece of genius in the american political system. what senator sasse has done is put fresh eyes on a subject. and sometimes fresh eyes are the best eyes. what he's reminded us is to remember what a privilege it is to serve here and that if we are temporarily entrusted with the responsibility to give real meaning to the idea that this is the one authentic piece of genius in the american political system, that we have some work to do. i'm delighted he is here. i'm delighted he took the time to wait and study and listen and make his comments.

i listened very carefully. i hope every single member of the senate did. i pledge to work with him toward the goal that he set out. i look forward to serve with him for a long time. thank you, mr. president. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: for the information of all senators, we should expect a roll call vote around 4:00 on the motion to proceed to s.j. res. 22. that's the congressional review act on the waters of the united states. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mrs. ernst: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. ernst rnts i asmrs. ernst: i ase quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. ernst: i rise today to talk about this ill-conceived rules of the water and how its implementation threatens the livelihood of many of my fellow iowans. recent court decisions have forced this rule, e.p.a.'s latest power grab, to come to a screeching halt across the country because of the likelihood that e.p.a. has overstepped its authority. and, to be clear, it's not just me saying this; it's the courts. as my colleague and friend, the

senior senator from iowa, chuck grassley, often says, "washington is an island surrounded by reality." there is not a more perfect phrase to describe how the events and processes has unfolded surrounding this confusing rule. only in washington do unelected bureaucrats take 300 pages to simplify and provide clarity. this rule is so complex and so ambiguous, the folks in my state are concerned that any low spot on a farmer's field or a ditch or a puddle after a rainstorm may now fall under the e.p.a.'s watch. we all want clean water and clean air. that is not disputable. time and again, i have emphasized that the air we breathe and the water we drink

needs to be clean and safe. statements suggesting otherwise can't be fathe farther from theh and it is unfortunate that the e.p.a. continues to fuel that line of false attack through their election-style being a particulars and controversial lobbying efforts on social media. this rule and this debate isn't about clean water. no, mr. president, the heart of this debate is about how much authority the federal government and unelected bureaucrats should have to regulate what is done on private land. look at my state of iowa and yo- and you can see the map behind me. look at my state of iowa. this rule would give the e.p.a. extensive power to regulate water on 97% of the land in the state of iowa.

97%. if you compare that to iowa's federal land percentage in acreage of .3%, it is quite a shift in the current makeup of federal authority over the land in iowa. i spent the weekend going back through letters my fellow iowans have sent me on this issue and so many of them are frustrated with the lack of common sense coming out of washington. they are taking this issue personally because their livelihood depends on it. many of the letters i get are from farmers who spend their days working land that has been in their families for generations, some going back over 100 years. they have an incentive to take care of their land and conserve it for future generations. caring for the land and conserving is a way of life in

the heartland, and it's as if the e.p.a. just turns a blind eye to that fact. one iowan wrote, "this proposed rule is so vague, long, and very unclear that i feel they are wanting farmers to fail. so a large fine can be assessed. why am i taking this so personal," she writes. "because for me and my family, we live off this land. if we don't take care of it, it will not take care of us. so i will do whatever i can to protect this land and water for my children. my family lives on well water. my cattle drink from the same well. and i don't want either to get sick." that's what one iowan wrote. and i believe the same exactly, mr. president. this rule would give e.p.a. the authority to expand its power

over family farms, small businesses, ranches, and other landowners in our rural communities. iowans are so concerned about this rule because they know it will actually create a negative impact on conservation, and it is contradictory to the commonsense and voluntary work that is taking place in communities across iowa today. in iowa, we have had a state-level clean water initiative in place for several years now. it's a partnership between the state legislature, the department of natural resources, the iowa department of agriculture and land stewardship, iowa state university, and a myriad of stakeholders across the state. the voluntary nutrient reduction strategy is based on extensive research and provides a path forward for conservation efforts that individual farmers can

pursue with matching funds from the state. this science-based approach provides incentives for farmers and other landowners to make sustainable decisions on their own land rather than be forced to adhere to a one-size-fits-all regulation that would do far more harm than good. a farm in iowa is not the same as one in montana, and the rolling plains of texas are very different from the hills and valleys of pennsylvania. this is simply one more reason that this wotus rule is the wrong approach. a one-size-fits-all solution from inside the beltway could have disastrous effects nationwide. as i've mentioned, i've heard from constituents across the state of iowa who have grave concerns with the ambiguity of this rule. they are holding off on making

conservation improvements to their land for fear of being later found out of compliance with this wotus rule and facing significant fines. maybe it's because we are so iowa nice that we are inclined to work together collaboratively rather than simply issuing more onerous regulations. take the middle cedar partnership which uses local dollars and state funding coupled with federal grants from the usda to organize and advocate for land practices that improve water quality downstream. the coalition is made up of city, county, and state officials, business people, farmers, environmentalists, and other concerned citizens. together, they are making meaningful progress on multiple watershed projects within the

cedar river basin and sharing what they have learned. this approach is now being adopted by other municipalities within the state. contrary to what some claim, iowa has done all of this on its own, not at the behest of the e.p.a. in fact, the e.p.a. has asked the leaders of iowa's efforts to come to d.c. and explain how they're able to get such grass roots buy-in to voluntary conservation projects and programs. the other states in the mississippi river basin look to iowa as a leader on water quality and are modeling their own state-level efforts after ours in the state of iowa. mr. president, while there are clear indications that this wotus rule is illegal and likely to be scrapped by the courts,

that process could take years to play out, and all at the expense of the average american. let's not wait around for the inevitable and force our farmers and small businesses to operate in the dark while they wait. let's fix this now and give american families the certainty they deserve. and, mr. president, we can do that by passing the legislation before us. i have led the charge here in the senate on this joint resolution of disapproval which would scrap the rule entirely. my legislation is the necessary next step in pushing back against this blatant power grab by the e.p.a. we will send this to the president where he will be forced to decide between the livelihood of our rural communities nationwide and his unchecked federal agency. i also voted for s. 1140 which provides the e.p.a. with clear

principles and directions of how best to craft a waters of the u.s. rule. it spells out steps that they should have taken prior to finalizing this rule to guarantee they are taking into consideration the thoughtful comments from folks like farmers, ranchers, small businesses and manufacturers. congress is acting because it is evident that the e.p.a. did not seriously consider the comments and perspective from those whom this rule will directly impact. and it's clear they are far outside the bound of the congressional intent of the clean water act. mr. president, iowa is bounded by rivers. the very shape of our state is dictated by the mighty mississippi and missouri rivers. take one look at commerce and recreation happening on them and it's easy to see why these are

considered navigable water. when congress passed the clean water act, this was the type of water it intended to protect. not a grass waterway running across a farmer's field or a ditch bordering it. this rule ignores congressional intent and is nothing more than a power grab by the e.p.a. the e.p.a. continues to run roughshod over iowans, acting as if they are a legislative body, something they have no business doing. it's no wonder they have lost the trust of the american people and many here in congress. every community wants clean water to protect our nation's waterways, but we simply cannot allow l mounting unknells regulations -- mounting unnecessary regulations to overwhelm the commonsense voice of hardworking americans, especially when they are not

based on sound science. and again, it's not just me saying that. the courts and the army corps have both called the e.p.a. on their shaky data or lack thereof. yun unelected bureaucrats -- yet, unelected bureaucrats remain committed to making a political decision instead of the right decision. as iowa's united states senator, it's my responsibility to speak up for the folks i represent and hold the federal government accountable when it's clear they have gone too far. and make no mistake, they have here. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. i would note the absence of a quorum. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hovment. mr. blunt: i rise in strong support of this effort to turn back this rule. the rule has been well explained by the senator from iowa.

her efforts are about all the congress can currently do. frankly, mr. president, i would hope we can figure out how to go further so the congress has to approve every rule that's issued by every agency of government that has significant economic impact. it's, frankly, hard to imagine a rule that has a more wide-ranging impact or more economic impact than this one does. as has been well pointed out, the authority given to the e.p.a. under the clean water act was very consistent with federal discussions and debates for 170 years. i think 1846 was the first time that the term navigable waters was used in federal law in a bill that james knox polk actually vetoed the bill but the term was understood and it came back quickly into federal law, and it meant exactly what it said: navigable waters of the united states. why would that be a federal

responsibility? because navigable means you can move something on it. moving something on it means commerce. and one of the principal reasons for the constitution was to regulate interstate commerce. so this has been a long established principle. yes, there is some federal responsibility for those avenues of commerce in the country, areas, rivers, waterways you can navigate. but of course that's not good enough for the e.p.a. 170 years of federal law, of almost total and complete understanding around the country, and it appears even on the part of federal judges of what navigable means. there is a way to get expanded jurisdiction if the e.p.a. wanted expanded jurisdiction, and that's to come to the congress and say give us not just responsibility over navigable waters, but all the water that can run into all the water that can run into any water that can run into any water that can run into navigable waters. if the e.p.a. got this

jurisdiction, mr. president, you wouldn't be able to come up with enough federal bureaucrats to oversee this level of jurisdiction. in a map that's not nearly at large as the map that we had there, but a map that the missouri farm bureau put out, in our state this is the -- this is how much of the state of missouri would be under under the jurisdiction of the e.p.a. under this law. now, even if you're standing really close to this map, you can't see the nonred areas. the red areas, the new federal jurisdiction, the non-red areas is .3% of the state. so anything that goes on in 99.7% of our state also really founded on the basis of the rivers that cut through the middle of it, that bind it on the east would be obviously waters that are in most cases navigable and unarguably

navigable. but all the water that runs into any water that could ever run into any water that runs into that water is clearly not navigable. that's why county commissioners all over our state are calling and saying if this passes, what does it mean? can we mow the right of way without a federal permit? because there is no question if this passes that every roadside ditch in the entire state of missouri would be considered navigable waters. there is nowhere outside the offices of the e.p.a. and the most extreme among us where anybody would want to argue that every ditch along every road and every highway is navigable waters. the e.p.a. wants jurisdiction they couldn't exercise. this is a moment when the congress can stand up and say we do not want this rule to go into effect. we're going to pass a resolution that puts this on the president's desk. and if the president is going to be for this, no matter what the courts say, no matter what the

corps of engineers says, no matter what the congress says, the president has to take a position on this rule. it's his e.p.a. it's out of control on this rule. and, mr. president, i hope my colleagues join the senator from iowa and me and many others in saying we don't want this rule to go into effect. and i would yield the floor and believe there is the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: pursuant to the provisions of congressional, of the congressional review act, i move to proceed to s.j. res. 22, a joint resolution providing fosh for congressional disapproval relating to the definition of waters of the united states under the federal water pollution control act. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: the senator from kentucky, mr. mcconnell, moves

to proceed to calendar number 286, s.j. res. 22, joint resolution providing for a congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, united states code, and so forth. mr. mcconnell: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote: