quorum call:

mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask consent the quorum call be suspended and i be allowed to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm honored to represent the state of illinois. it's a big state. from chicago to cairo at the southern tip of our state is 40e is more state north of chicago. i have traveled the state over the last several months and last week went to the southern tip of

the state, worked my way through it, came back through central illinois and was in the city of chicago. there is one recurring challenge i find all across the state. no matter what community i visit, i've learned that there is no town too small, no suburb too wealthy, no city that has caped the opioid heroin epidemic which we are now facing. america is losing more people to heroin overdose than we are losing to traffic accidents. it has become that common. i tried to have roundtables around the state. rural areas, suburban towns and really try to get the picture of what's happening here. i think i have come to understand it a little better because of this effort and i'd like to discuss it today. a senator: mr. president? i would ask if the senator from illinois could yield to me for ten seconds for unanimous consent?

mr. durbin: i would be honored. mr. donnelly on roll call vote 70 i voted yea. it was my intention to vote no. therefore i ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to change my vote since it will not affect the outcome. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. donnelly: thank you. mr. durbin: the opioid heroin crisis demands our immediate attention. it demands a comprehensive response involving local state and government, law enforcement agencies and the private sector. for too long, we have focused our efforts almost exclusively on responding to and treating addiction. now, that is a critical element. i'm not going to diminish it. but we need to look beyond that. yes, we need to make sure that substance abuse treatment is available. right now there are some archaic laws in the medicaid program that restrict the number of beds that one could have in a treatment facility. i see that senator alexander

from tennessee has come to the floor here, and he is the chair of a committee that may consider this issue. you may be aware of this fact that many years ago we restricted the number of treatment beds in substance abuse treatment facilities to 16 beds. if you can imagine for facilities treating the city of chicago, 16 beds don't even touch the problem that they're facing with addictions today. and so i hope that we can increase that number. i have talked to senator collins of maine. she has run into the same thing in her home state and i will bet others have as well. so when it comes to treatment, there are things we must do, and this is one when it comes to medicaid, but we have got to do more than that. simply dealing with substance abuse treatment as important and critical as it is is not enough. we need to look at the root causes of the issue. each year in america, the pharmaceutical industry produces

14 billion opioid pills, 14 billion. it's enough to provide every adult in america a one-month prescription of pain killers, opioid pain killers. now, there is a definite need for these pain killers and pain management. the center for disease control estimates that 14% to 16% of americans face chronic and acute pain. i want to be sensitive to their needs and make certain that they have the kind of pain relief and pain management which they desperately need every single day. but what we have now is a market in america flooded with these opioid pills. the number of opioid prescriptions have risen dramatically. 76 million prescriptions in 1991. 245 million in 2014. more than triple the amount. the united states is the largest

consumer of opioid pain pills. accounting for almost 100% of the world's total consumption of high row codone and -- hydrocodone and 81% of oxycodone. over the past two decades, there is an increased attention on identifying and treating pain. there is perceived financial incentive in some cases to overtreat pain. and the lack of insurance coverage for alternative pain treatment modalities. however, the single largest reason behind the dramatic increase is the production on the pharmaceutical side. the dramatic increase in prescriptions for these addictive pain killers can be directly linked to perdue pharma introducing oxycontin in the late 1990's. between 1996-2002, perdue pharma

funded programs through direct scholarship or financial grant and launched a multifaceted campaign to encourage long-term use of oxycontin for chronic noncancer pain. they, of course, promoted their pills to doctors, patients, on the false promise that these powerful pain killers could relieve pain for up to 12 hours in many patients. when clinical trials and physicians and patient feedback showed that oxycontin didn't last for that full period, perdue pharma refused to explore other dosing intervals. instead, they couraged doctors to increase the dosage, leading to highs and lows of crippling addiction and overdose. now, the recent guidelines released by the center for disease control and prevention recommended against using opioids for chronic noncancer pain management, but by this point, perdue pharma had opened

the doors for others to follow. from 1972-2015, the food and drug administration has approved more than 400 different opioid products, 100 brand name drugs and more than 300 generic versions. the pharmaceutical industry is flooding our communities with greater and greater quantities of these drugs. between 1993 and 2015, the production of hydrocodone increased twelvefold. the production of hydromorfone increased 23-fold. the production of fentanyl increased 25-fold. there are 14 billion, 14 billion prescription opioid pills on the market in america every year. what has been the result of this overproduction? and overprescribing? nearly two million people in the united states are currently addicted to opioids. we have seen alarming increases in opioid-related emergency room visits and treatment admissions for abuse.

in 2014, opioids were involved in 28,647 deaths in america. in 2014, illinois had 1,652 opioid-related drug overdose deaths, a nearly 30% over 2010. each week in illinois, we average eight deaths due to prescription drug overdose. it doesn't stop there. in so many cases, prescription opioid abuse leads to heroin addiction. four out of five current heroin users say their addiction began with prescription opioids. mr. president, it is heart breaking that these roundtables and communities and to sit across the table from recently recently -- recent graduates of high school who tell the story of having been addicted in high school for years, and then when they couldn't afford the expensive pills, they switched to heroin, which was cheaper, and in many cases for their

friends deadly. the united states currently has 467,000 heroin addicts. between 2002 and 2013, the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths nearly quadrupled with nearly 8,200 people dying from heroin in 2013. it's time to change. we need a comprehensive solution. we need it now. we've got to prevent these drug companies from flooding the market with excessive amounts of addictive pills. we can't sit idly by while they tell us these powerful pain killers are safe. we know better. we must encourage the drug enforcement agency and the f.d.a. to use their authority to keep unnecessary and unsafe drugs off the market. and we must crack down on doctors and providers who are overprescribing. let me repeat. people suffering chronic and acute pain need help. they need pain relief and they need pain management. i will never stand in their way.

but we know from the volume of pain killers that are being prescribed that there are many people who are abusing. i shared with four major medical societies a recent letter asking them to help us help our nation combat this epidemic. i want them to endorse mandatory continuing medical education programs for those who prescribe opioids, doctors and dentists. they should support proposals to require that physicians and dentists check prescription drug monitoring databases before they prescribe opioids to patients, ensuring that these patients aren't just doctor shopping, and they should increase awareness and transparency in physician-prescribing practices as well as proper accountability and intervention. every stakeholder, every stakeholder in that complex opioid epidemic has played a role in reaching this dreadful point, and now every stakeholder has the responsibility to help us address this crisis.

the senate passed a bill earlier this year that has some good provisions, authorizes new programs, but it did not go far enough. it didn't provide additional funding for the crisis. simply passing an authorizing bill and giving stirring speeches on the floor of the senate is not going to solve the problem. it didn't address the overprescription of opioids, and it's time for us to be honest about this. i recently heard one of our leaders on this subject tell us well we're going to start teaching the new doctors of medical school not to make the same mistakes. i'm sorry but that is not good enough. those who currently have the legal authority to prescribe have to change their ways to stop this epidemic, and the bills we considered didn't address the overproduction of these addictive drugs. we can't solve this massive american problem with half measures. we need to come together, congress, local government, law enforcement, health care providers, drug companies,

doctors and all together help solve this problem, and we need to do it as soon as possible. madam president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. merkley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be eliminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you. l thank you ver so much. today i'm rising to talk about a

movement, a vision called "keep it in the ground" and why it's so important to the future of our energy policy here in the united states and our energy strategy around the world. the core challenge that we face as citizens of this planet and as policy-makers in the united states is that the impact of global warming is having devastating effects across our country and across the world. we can systemly look at my home state of -- we can simply look at my home state of oregon and we can coo see that because winters are warming, the pine beetles are thriving, they're killing a lot more trees. such a broad swath of dead trees that's referred to as "the red disoafnlt -- zone." you can see this swath of red.

it's extraordinary damage to the forests and impacts certainly on the natural ecosystem but also upon the timber industry, which is a key part of the economy in oregon. or we can go across to the oregon coast where the oyster industry started having severe problems about the time i was elected to the u.s. senate, and the problem was rooted in the fact that baby oysters were dying and they couldn't figure out why. they thought, perhaps it's bacteria. perhaps it's a virus. they got help from research scientists who stepped in to study the situation. it turned out to be that it was the increasing acidity of the pacific ocean and that acidity was making it very hard for the baby oifters to start -- oysters to start forming a shell and the as a result was they were dying. so they've artificially manipulated the acidity of the water that the baby oysters are bred in and that's helping quite

a bit. but what challenges are there for the food chain in the oceans if our ocean has absorbed so much carbon that it has produced so much carbonic acid that is affecting the formation of shells on our oyster? what else is going to start going wrong? or we can turn to the changing weather patterns that are producing drought and are producing floods in greater intensity and understand the impact on agriculture. we can look a to the klamath basin in my state that has three worst-ever droughts within a 15-year period. or we can look at the impact on the snowpack in the cascades and realize and see the decline of the winter entertainment -- snow entertainment industry. or we could look around the country and see all kinds of other impacts. we see that the moose are dying

in the northeastern part of the united states because the winters are not cold enough to kill the ticks and the ticks are killing the moose, and the moose are disappearing. or we can look at louisiana, that recent reports are saying are losing a football-field worth of coastline every 48 minutes due to global warming. mr. alexander: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i wonder if the e senator from oregon would yield so i could make two unanimous consent requests? mr. merkley: i would be delighted to yield. mr. alexander: thank the senator for his courtesy and i apologize for interrupting him. madam president, i ask unanimous consent that at 1:45 p.m. on thursday -- that's today -- may 12, all postcloture tile be considered expired -- time be considered expired and following the dt disposition of the alexar substitute amendment, the cloture motion on h.r. 2028 be withdrawn and the bill be read a third time and the senate vote

on passage of the bill as amed. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. alexander: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that following disposition of h.r. 2028, the energy and water appropriations bill, the senate proceed to the consideration of h.r. 2577, the transportation, housing, and urban development aappropriations bill. further, that the pending amendments be withdrawn and that senator cochran or his designee be recognized to offer a substitute amendment that contains the text of 2844 and s. 2806, as reported by the appropriations committee, with the technical citation correction in 237. that the substitute amendment be considered an aeption pros committee amendment for the purpose of rule 16 and that h.r. 2577 serve as the basis for defense of germaneness under rule 16 for the division of the substitute that contains

s.r.2844 and that h.r. 4974 as resulted by the house appropriations committee serve as the basis for defense of germaneness under rule 16 for the division of the substitute that contains s. 2806. finally, that four amendments be drafted, one of the two divisions and use the corresponding house text for defense of germaneness and that rule 16 discipline apply during consideration of this measure. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. alexander: madam president, i thank you and i thank again the senator from oregon for his courtesy. mr. merkley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: thank you, madam president. i was laying out the various impacts we're seeing across the united states from the impact of global warming and just noting that these impacts are from the north to the south, from the moose being killed by ticks in the north to louisiana losing a football field's worth of

coastline every 48 minutes. that's less than an hour. that's a substantial amount of land gone hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, and of course year after year. it's a huge impact. and then we come to understand that, as the weather warms, certain insects that provide hosts to various diseases gain a greater terrain. one of those are mosquitoes in the southern part of the united states. and as the temperatures are changing, they are moving north, and two of those mosquitoes carry the zika virus. and just as an example of the concerns that are presented by changing insect populations, ors over on the -- or over on the atlantic coast, we can look at the impact on the lobsters in maine that are moving north as the water warms in maine. or the loss of their cod fishery

because of the changing water temperatures. so the impact is everywhere. for anyone who looks across the united states and does not recognize that we're in an extraordinary time, a time of multiple changes in the weather patterns, in the temperatures, and in the impacts on animals and insects and agriculture and timber, you just -- if you can't see that, you really are choosing not to look. and we cannot afford not to look. we cannot afford -- it's our responsibility to be aware of what's happening and why it's happening and how we need to respond. and so this is why i'm coming to the floor to talk about keep it in the ground, and i will a be doing a series of speeches about different components of the challenge we have in responding to global warming. a part of those conversations will involve looking at these

various effects in more detail, such as i've been mentioning. and other speakers will talk about the promise, the promise of new technologies, new investments, mission innovation, et cetera, that provide a glimmer of hope in what is happening near the united states and is happening across the globe. so here is the challenge. what this all boils down to is that these problems are created by the massive burning of fossil fuels. i think people are generally aware that fossil fuels are created by hundreds of millions of years in which plant life has settled to the bottom of the ocean, been trapped, been submerged. it gets converted over time to coal, to oil, to natural gas, and we're pulling out that carbon from these hundreds of millions of years in a very

short span of a generation, a few generations on this planet, just over the last 150 years, and bringing it so it's putting this massive infusion of carbon dioxide back into the air and changing the chemistry of our air, changing, therefore, the heat retention of our thin layer of atmosphere that covers our planet and, thereby, warming our planet. the greenhouse effect as it is referred to. so our core challenge is to pivot from burning fossil fuels for energy to other forms of energy that do not put carbon dioxide into the air, and to do so in a very short period of time. this leads naturally to the question: how much of these fossil fuels can we continue to burn without devastating consequences? and that is sometimes referred to as the climate math. that's what i'm going to return

to now. the basic situation is that we have proven reserves that equate to about 2,800 gig tons of carbon dioxide. that's fossil fuels in the ground equating to about 2,800 giga tons of carbon dioxide. if we were to burn all of those proven reserves that we have in the ground currently, we would massively accelerate global warming. and with the feedback mechanisms, it's disaster for our planet. now the international community has gotten together and said what do we need to aim at in order to avoid these catastrophic consequences. there will be serious consequences. we already have serious consequences. we can't avoid that. but how do we avoid catastrophic consequences? and the general position that they have put forward is that we

need to limit the warming of the planet to no more than two degrees centigrade. here in the united states, we primarily operate in terms of farenheit. so translate two degrees centigrade to 3.6 degrees farenheit. now, since the time that we started burning coal until now, we've already raised the temperature of the planet about half that amount, one degree centigrade or 1.8 degrees farenheit. so we've already -- we're already halfway towards the limit at which, beyond which the effects become more and more catastrophic. so as scientists have evaluated that 2,800 gigatons of carbon dioxide trapped in fossil fuels and asked how much more can we burn, they essentially have come to the conclusion we can burn about one-fifth of it, one-fifth

of the proven reserves. now, let's translate what that means. that means to avoid catastrophe, we have to leave 80% of the proven reserves in the ground. now this is an enormous challenge for human society, for governments and policy-makers and individuals across the planet to undertake. because every owner of those proven reserves has the knowledge that their coal, their oil, their natural gas has substantial value on the market, so they want to preserve the ability to extract it out of the ground and sell it for combustion. now some products are used, some oil is used, for example, in making plastics, but the great majority is utilized in

combustion, creation of energy, and that's where this challenge is coming from. so how do we go about creating policies that keep 80% of the proven reserves in the ground when they have so much value to their owners and the owners want to retain the ability to extract them? that is the challenge we face. it is extraordinarily difficult challenge. now the reason i particularly want to emphasize this keep it in the ground movement is it shines a bright light on this carbon map,, global warming math. when we talk about the planet is getting warmer and we need to make our buildings more energy efficient, that's true. we should do everything to make our buildings more energy efficient. but it doesn't convey the fundamental understanding of the size of the challenge we face, which is to keep 80% of the proven reserves in the ground. when we talk about the need to

make our cars more fuel efficient in order to burn less gasoline, which means burn less oil to produce less carbon dioxide, that's true. we absolutely need to make our cars more energy efficient. but talking about that doesn't convey the enormity of the challenge, which is to keep 80% of the proven reserves in the ground. and when we talk about the need to move more freight on trucks that are more efficient and shift more freight to trains because they're more fuel efficient, that also is absolutely true. but again, it doesn't convey the key challenge. so as we look at each of these areas of strategy in conservation, all of them are tools that we're going to need to use to keep our reserves in

the ground. and we're also going to need to use other tools, those tools certainly involve a quick pivot to produce more renewable energy to substitute for the electricity that is generated by the burning of coal and the burning of natural gas. we have to pivot quickly. but again, when we talk about pivoting quickly, it doesn't convey the size of the challenge. and what is that challenge? we must leave 80% of the proven reserves in the world in the ground. that is the challenge. and so we must do energy conservation. we must proceed to pivot quickly to renewable energy. but we need to understand that the urgency, the speed with which we do so is we have a limited carbon budget. now here on this chart, a layout in the orange bar the size of

the proven reserves that are in the ground. and here with this yellow bar is the amount of fossil fuels that we can burn and not exceed two degrees centigrade or 3.6 degrees farenheit temperature change. well, as you can see, the vast bulk of the reserves that are in the ground have to be left in the ground. that's the 80% that has to be left in the ground. well, this keep it in the ground movement is all about understanding this core carbon math and crafting policies in which we emphasize that we are at a pathway to achieving the success, that is to leave this 80% in the ground. and it also leads to a conversation about the united

states ownership of a vast amount of fossil fuels. you and i, as citizens of the united states, we are owners of a huge amount of coal, a huge amount of natural gas, a huge amount of oil. we don't think of ourselves as energy barons, but each and every one of us as a citizen owns a vast amount collectively of fossil fuels, because on federal land there's a tremendous amount of oil, a tremendous amount of coal and a tremendous amount of natural gas. and we have the responsibility here in the senate and in the house and in the executive branch to manage what we own as citizens of the united states for the public good. now in the past, managing it for the public good meant, well, let's do leases and raise some revenue for the federal government. and we have leased out about 10% of the carbon reserves that we

own as citizens, our citizen-owned carbon fossil fuel reserves. but 90% of it has not been leased out. now when we do a lease, it creates a legal contract in which the individual company that has purchased the lease now has the right to extract that oil, to extract that natural gas, to extract that coal for years to come and renew the lease. there are many leases that result in extraction going on for decades, for 10 years, for 20 years, but even three decades, four decades, five decades into the future. we cannot afford as americans or as citizens of this planet to be facilitating the extraction of fossil fuels to be burned three, four or five decades into the future. there is no way that the world is going to meet this challenge of keeping 80% of their carbon

in the ground, 80% of their fossil fuels in the ground if the public entities can't even exercise the discipline not to extract and burn these fossil fuels. so how much do we own? how big of oil barons are the citizens of the united states? how much oil, natural gas and coal do we have? well, the total amount measured in terms of carbon dioxide is about 300 to 450 gigatons. that's this green bar. if we think about the 80% we need to leave in the ground, that substantial amount, which is over 2,000 gigatons, well, this amount that we own as citizens is a substantial percentage. it's been estimated to be in the range of about 14% to 20% of the amount the world needs to leave in the ground. so if we make the decision, if

we make the decision as americans to leave what we own in the ground to save our planet, we have helped set the world on a course in which we reach this 80% target of what's left in the ground. but if we can't exercise the discipline and quit leasing out our fossil fuel reserves often at $1 or $2 per acre, if we can't stop that, how can we anticipate that doing the policies necessary to help lead the world in this enormous challenge? so this has led to the keep it in the ground bill that i introduced last year. the keep it in the ground bill says the fossil fuel reserves that you and i own best serve the public good by not burning them, by not doing new leases for extraction, extraction that will continue 30 or 40 or 50 years into the future, that we

cannot afford to do that without devastating consequences to our planet. and now existing leases, again, we've already leased out 10% of the fossil fuel reserves, means that this isn't a sudden complete shutdown of the fossil fuel enterprise off the public lands. but it does mean we're not going to go any further. or as it's been put, if you're in a hole, quit digging. in this case we're in a carbon hole, and we absolutely need to quit digging. well, there have been a number of senators sign on to the keep it in the ground bill, recognizing the best, highest use of our citizen-owned fossil fuels is to keep them in the ground. and i appreciate their support a great deal. but there's also been a series

of conversations around the country since the time the bill was introduced that have been very relevant or related to these issues. the first conversation was about the keystone pipeline. should we build a pipeline that turns the tap on to some of the dirtiest fossil fuels on the planet? the canadian tar sands,. the answer is no. those tar sands need to be left in the ground. we need a canadian keep it in the ground movement to say that canada too is going to utilize its citizen-owned fossil fuels to the highest purpose, which is to leave them in the ground, to keep them in the ground. and certainly the united states shouldn't be facilitating the extraction by building a convenient cheap way to move those fossil fuels out of the ground. so i applaud all those who stood

with humanity in this key mission and said no to the keystone pipeline. another aspect has been offshore drilling and there was a big conversation about drilling in the arc tirk. the arctic because it has been so cold and frozen and full of ice has been a terrain, particularly offshore, where drill something extraordinarily difficult, extreme risk of an oil spill and should an oil spill occur, very cold water. that means that the damage will be enormous because the oil would break down so slowly. so i put forward a "keep it in the ground" bill related to no drilling offshore in the arctic, and that's not a bill that we've had action on here in the senate. but, as it turns out, we have moved forward. the and by moving forward, it's shell that was the leading

company to explore offshore in the arctic. they sent ships up for several years. they had one calamity after another, one disaster in their plan because of the harsh and challenging circumstances. plus citizens here in the united states in a grass-root movement said, shell, no -- shell, no. this is wrong. this is the height of irresponsibility to our environment and to have the u.s. leading extraction in a whole new area -- we should shall leading the arctic nations and leaving the arctic region off-limits, not leading the front edge of extraction. well, shell abandoned its leases, both because of the difficulty of drilling and because of citizen reaction here at home saying, what you're doing is wrong. and i thank shell for ending its arctic drilling program. and i thank the administration for saying that they're not

going to issue anymore leases for drilling in the arctic waters. but let's go further. we are the chair -- the united states is the chair of the arctic counsel. let's use that chairmanship to lead the arctic nations in putting the arctic off-limits. that will be a tremendous collaborative effort among a modestly small group of nations to move forward this "keep it in the ground" movement to save our planet. and another big piece of this conversation has been about coal leases. as i mentioned, we often lease akers of coal -- acres of coal for just a few dollars. it's no substantial revenue in the large scheme of things to the united states. it's hugely beneficial to the cheap extraction of coal, though, which is the opposite direction we need to go. so we need to quit doing new coal leases. that's part of the "keep it in the ground" bill that i

introduced. no more leases of citizen-owned fossil fuels. and the administration has now suspended -- the obama administration has now suspended its leases on coal, new coal leases. this is a tremendous advance. and part of what the administration said was that we need to pause and evaluate the impact on global warming doing these leases. we also need to evaluate the impact on american leadership in the world on this major issue facing humanity. if we're telling other nations, please don't burn coal, please expand your use of renewable energy and do it quickly, how is that consistent -- how is our plea for partnership, because we must do this as a collection of nations, how is our request for partnership in this great and

important mission of our generation consistent with us continuing new leases of coal? it's certainly not consistent. we need to put an end to these. and i applaud the administration for suspending them. and the next administration, whether it is democrat or republican, we need to work together to do no new coal leases. so that is a tremendous step forward in this effort. now, back in december, nearly 200 nations came together to work together to create an international accord with the singular goal of reducing the burning of fossil fuels and converting to renewable energy, or reducing the burning of fossil fuels because of energy conservation. and the country has made a whole

variety of pledges. one of those countries that made those pledges was india. and i had the chance to lead a bilateral meeting between leathers from the united states and -- legislators from the united states and members of the government from india. and what they portrayed was this. they said, we have 300 million citizens in india who do not have access to electricity, and as a national government, we have to expand our electric infrastructure to provide electricity for basic standard of living and basic economic development. well, we can certainly understand that mission. we went through rural electrification. our goal was to make sure there was a wire in to every house in america, to improve the standard of living of americans. so we certainly, as americans, are understanding of the goal of the indian government. they proceeded to say this. right now, we plan to provide

electricity to 100 million individuals through renewable energy and 200 million citizens of india through coal-burning power plants. it just causes your heart to sink, this plan for massive increase in coal burning in india. so here's an opportunity. how can we in the united states work with india so that they can meet that demand of 300 million citizens with conservation and renewable energy rather than new coal plants? how can we work in partnership with china, as they work to provide electricity to their hundreds of millions of individuals, and to do so with renewable energy and conservation, not new coal-burning plants?

well, this is a challenge for us, and an important challenge. but we certainly have no credibility talking to india about trying to make sure they do no new coal-burning plants if we're signing new leases to extract coal off of our public lands. and so credibility is very important in this international conversation. now, it has been said that we are the first generation to feel the impacts of global warming the, and we are the last generation to be able to do something about it. this is profoundly true. this is the moral challenge to american leaders in our generation. this is the moral challenge to international leaders in our generation. our children and our children's children and our children's grandchildren,

great-grandchildren, they're going to say, you were the generation that saw the impact of global warming on our nation and on our planet, and you knew from the science that we had to move quickly to pivot off of fossil fuels, and yet you did too little and you damaged the quality of life for billions of children and children of children for genera generationsy -- for generations to come because of jur -- because of yor short-term failure to act. let that not be the story told by our children and our children's children and our great-grandchildren. let them instead say, that generation that was the first to see the impact of global warming and that knew it had to act quickly to reverse the steady climb of temperature on our

planet, let us thank them because they saw the challenge and they acted, and we're forever indebted to them for doing so. let that be the story that is told. let thb the moment that -- let this be the moment that we act. thank you, madam president. and, madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president, i ask consent the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: mr. president, i have seven unanimous consent

requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: in about 15 minutes the senate will vote on final passage of the energy and water appropriations bill that senator feinstein, the senator from california, and i have been working on with members of the senate for the last few weeks. the senate began consideration of this bill on wednesday, april 20. according to the congressional research service, this is the earliest date the senate's begun debating an appropriations bill in the last 40 years. when we finish today, this will be the earliest the senate has passed an appropriations bill in

the last 40 years. 80 senators either submitted requests or offered amendments to the bill, and senator feinstein and i have worked hard to accommodate most of those. the last time this bill, the energy and water appropriations bill, was considered by the senate and passed in regular order was in the year 2009. by regular order, i mean it came to the floor, it had an open amendment process. all 100 senators had a chance to participate in it instead of just 30 on the appropriations committee, and it was eventually voted on and approved. yesterday, the senate voted to end debate on the substitute amendment by a vote of 97-2. today, as i mentioned, we're ready for final passage in about 15 minutes. by the end of this process, we

will have considered 21 amendments and adopted 14. i appreciate my colleagues supporting the regular appropriations process. i thank senators who offered germane and relevant amendments, and i hope we can now overwhelmingly pass the bill. i want to begin by pointing something out, it's appropriate that we have in the chair the senator from georgia who has devoted so much of his time this year to reforming our budget process. this is the part of the budget we're working on. it's a little more than a trillion dollars. it's not the federal spending problem that we have. this is 2008 through about today. you can see that the spending levels are pretty flat. this is the projection by the congressional budget office about where spending for this part of the budget will go over the next several years. what is in this blue line? all of our national defense.

all the work we need such as in this bill to deepen the harbors in savannah and charleston. all the money for our national laboratories. all the money for our pell grants for college students. the money for the national institutes of health for treatments on cancer cures. in this part of the bill, in this part of the budget, in this trillion dollars that we work on, are very important matters that virtually everyone who votes for us would like to see us address. and i believe that those of us on the appropriations committee have done a good job of oversight of this trillion dollars in spending. here's where the problem is. this red line. this is the entitlement spending it gets to be three times as much as this blue line. it's up toward $4 trillion. this is $1 trillion. this is where we need to go to

work. sometimes senators of each party will come to the floor and beat their chests, bragging about cutting this blue line as if they were doing something about the red line. i hope we'll stop that. i hope we'll go to work and figure out what we are going to do responsibly to keep this line under control as we go forward. what we have done with the coopgz of the senate in the last couple of weeks is to pass the first of the senate appropriations bills and to do it earlier than it's been done in the last four years. i see the senator from california has arrived, and i want to acknowledge her leadership and thank her for it. in her words, we give and we take. we have a process whereby we stick to our principles and we -- but we do our best to come to a result which we have done, and it's a great pleasure to work with her and i'm going to cease my remarks five or six minutes before the vote so you

will have a chance to speak if you would like to speak, senator flient. i also want to -- senator feinstein. i also want to thank the staffs for their work on this. they have been remarkably good. senator feinstein's staff, doug clapp, chris hansen, samantha nelson. and the staff on my side, tyler owens, jed armstrong, haley alexander, mckenzie burt, caleb mcmurray, john brevard. and then the republican floor staff that have had to put up with us as we work through the amendments. laurie dove, robert duncan, tony hannism gan, katherine kilroy. that's the republican floor staff. i'd like to thank the democratic floor staff as well for working to make this possible. i will make a few remarks about this bill. this bill is almost half-and-half defense and

nondefense. it's about $37.5 billion. it supports several federal agencies that do important work including the u.s. department of energy, nuclear regulatory commission, the army corps of engineers, bureau of reclamation, national nuclear security administration which has to do with our nuclear weapons, the appalachian regional commission. it vests in our -- it invests in our waterways. it repairs our locks. it deepens our harbors. it puts us one step closer to doubling basic energy research. it helps to resolve the nuclear waste stalemate that our country has been in for 25 years, finding an appropriate -- finding proposes places to put used nuclear fuel so we can continue to have a strong nuclear power program which produces 60% of all of the carbon-free electricity we have in this country. and it cleans up hazardous

materials at cold war sites. i mentioned earlier that i thought we had done a good job of being stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. that's this blue line we are. we have -- blue line here. we have kept this under control. for example, senator feinstein and i have again recommended and the senate has agreed to eliminate funding for a fusion project in france. that saves us $125 million. we worked together to keep big projects like the uranium facility at oak ridge on time and on budget. and we're working with senator graham and senator scott and senator mccain to try to take the big mox facility in south carolina and see what we can do about the huge expense of what we're doing there. so we are being good stewards. the president cut $1.4 billion from the corps of engineers -- well, we put it back. we have set new records of level of funding for the corps.

there is no funding line in this budget that more senators are concerned with. it includes $1.3 billion for the harbor maintenance fund the third consecutive year that we have done that consistent with the recommendations of our authorizing committees. that deepens harbors in gulfport, charleston, mobile, louisiana, anchorage harbor. it's money for the west coast harbors as well. we take a step toward doubling basic energy research. our top priority was the office of science which for the second consecutive year has a record level of funding for an appropriations bill. $325 million for harper e, an agency we value because of the good work it does. and we support the administration's request to keep the united states at the forefront of supercomputing in the world. as i mentioned, we support nuclear power, especially efforts to find places to put used nuclear fuel.

we have included again the pilot program senator feinstein authored and which i support, and support for private waste facilities which could also serve that same function. we have money for advanced reactors and for safely extending the length of time nuclear plants can operate, which is the easiest way to keep the largest amount of reliable carbon-free electricity available over the next several years. in terms of the national nuclear security administration, we support the warhead life extension programs, the ohio class replacement submarine. we have $575 million for the uranium facility. $5.4 billion for cleaning up hazardous waste sites left over from the cold war. mr. president, i am proud of the bill, but i am even prouder of the process which we have gone through. this has almost been a learning

process for the united states senate. more than half the senators have never been through a process where we take more than one appropriations bill, take it through committee, consult with every member of the senate, bring on -- it on the floor, give all 100 members a chance to offer amendments and consider their amendments. we have processed 21 amendments, adopted 14, and almost any senator who had a contribution to make -- that they wanted to make to this bill has had a chance to do that, and so there is a great deal included in here that every senator can be proud of. i suspect that's why on the last vote that we had to cut off debate and move toward final passage, the vote was 97-2. i hope we have that same enthusiasm when it comes time in a few minutes to have a vote on the final passage of the bill. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. feinstein: thank you very much, mr. president. i'd like to begin by extending my congratulations to our chairman. and you really are a distinguished chairman, and it really has been a great pleasure for me to work with you. i think we have accomplished a task which hopefully sets an example for other bills that will be shortly forthcoming, but more importantly than not -- than anything, it's really, i think, the integrity and sincerity and earnestness with which you go about this job of sharing this subcommittee, and i am just very pleased to be your tonto to your lone ranger. so thank you very much for that. the things in the bill, and the

chairman has been very, i think, distinct in his remarks in pointing out some of the major features, but we have one major infrastructure program in our bill, and that of course is the army corps of engineers, other than i should say the highway bill. and that is $1.4 billion over the budget request. so i think that's a very good number that should enable more projects that are filth all across this great land to move forward. the second is the bureau of reclamation and that's $163 million over the budget request, and it includes $100 million for western drought. mr. president, we have 17 states within the bureau of reclamation 's jurisdiction, and what's happening with dryness in the western part of the united states is really a very serious threat to the economic and

social well-being of this country. so i am very pleased at that mark. all applied energy accounts are funded at levels equal to current year levels. we have increased funding for cleaning up nuclear sites, including the whip site in new mexico and the hanford site in the state of washington, and we match the budget request for nuclear nonproliferation. and actually this includes mox funding of $2,770,000,000. -- of $270 million. the chairman spent some time on the floor, and i did as well, in terms of making the point that what appropriation bills really concern is but 15% for what's called discretionary and 15% for military's domestic discretionary and military

discretionary. together they have but 60 -- 30% of what the federal government expends and outlays each year. and the fact of the matter is that 63% of the money that is spent in a given fiscal year, 2016, 63% goes for entitlements and mandates. social security, medicare, medicaid, veterans benefits and all other mandatory programs, and they are not actually in the budget. so this is huge spending. and interest on the debt is 6.3%. that brings the mandatory spending up until nearly 70% of what we spend in f.y. 2016. so f.y. 2017, it will go up slightly from there.

so the relative amount of spending that these bills contain is very small in comparison to the amount that the federal government actually spends. now, there are a lot of people that think we should do more with entitlements, increase that 63% of total spending to even more. so that's a question that remains to be seen, but how you pay for all of that is a totally different and more difficult story. so i'd like to extend my congratulations to the distinguished senator from tennessee on passing this bill. we have not passed a free-standing energy and water bill on this floor for seven years, since 2009, when senators dorgan and bob bennett were chair and ranking member. not only are we passing the bill but we're passing a good bill. and i want to thank the subcommittee staff for their

work. interestingly enough, the staff had only 12 days from receiving a notional allocation, which is how much we can spend, to help us produce a bill and report it for subcommittee consideration. so let me thank tyler owens, adam damelly, jennifer armstrong, and on our minority side, doug clapp, chris hanson, samantha nelson and time deikstra for their hard work. i'd also like to recognize the work done by senator alexander's personal office and my own in helping get this bill passed. and frankly i want to thank the floor staff on both sides of the aisle. they were really helpful and in addition to that, they were patient and willing to provide some guidance. so i thank them as well. i yield the floor, mr.

president. the presiding officer: under the previous order, all postcloture time has expired. the question now occurs on flake amendment number 3876. all those in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes have it. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the amendment is agreed to. the question now occurs on the substitute amendment number 3801 as amended. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the amendment as agreed to -- as amended is greed to. under the previous order, the cloture motion on h.r. 2028 is withdrawn. the clerk will read the title of the bill for the third time. the clerk: calendar number 96, h.r. 2028 an act making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2016 and

for other purposes. the presiding officer: the question occurs on h.r. 2028 as amended. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote: