ms. cantwell: thank you, madam president. i want to thank my senate colleagues and senator risch for helping us get the next administrator of u.s. small business administration to the floor. first i want to recognize everybody's thoughts and prayers here for oso and darrington, washington and all their thoughts for the people who have been hit by this unbelievable tragedy. our hearts go out to this community. and i want to say this has been a tremendous effort by first responders and everyone trying to -- the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. please take your conversations out of the well. ms. cantwell: there are hundreds of volunteers, thousands of dollars of contributions. today darrington high school students made 1,300 sandwiches to try to support the research and recovery effort. and i want to thank them for all their hard work. one of the reasons why i want to get a small business administrator is because this agency is going to play a role in this recovery. i thank my colleague, senator murray, for her he

ms. cantwell: mr. president, i thank the senator from kansas for his remarks and sympathies to the family and thank you for that rendition of your state's fortitude. my state is working with fortitude right now, too, in the mudslides, and per veerens is a good word. thank you. mr. president, we took an important step today to improve the lives of millions of americans who deal with mental illness. i'm talking about the excellence in the mental health act that was included in provisions of legislation we just passed this evening. i want to thank my colleagues, senator stabenow and senator blunt, for their leadership on this bill. senator stabenow just gave a very passionate history of why she has been so involved with this issue. people may not realize, she has been working on this since 2005. so i want to thank her for that leadership because around here it takes time to get things done, and she has never forgotten how important those with mental illness and their loved ones and families who care about

ms. cantwell: mr. president, i want to thank senator burr and senator mikulski for their leadership on this bipartisan issue, but certainly senator mikulski for her constant leadership on making sure families in america are cared for. this is important bipartisan legislation, and the reauthorization of this legislation, the childcare development block grant of 2014, will help ensure that families have access to quality, affordable childcare. the childcare and development block grant program serves more than 1.6 million children per month nationwide, and in my state it serves more than 39,000 children per month. with the support of these grants, parents can work, look for work, participate in job training programs while their children receive affordable childcare at quality centers or in the child's home. the childcare development block grants are primary source of federal support for childcare assistance, and they play a key role in promoting healthy development in children, especially at young ages. r

ms. cantwell: mr. president, i thank my colleague from maryland, and i thank him for all his work on the chesapeake and so many important issues as it relates to this issue and for being here up all night with my colleagues on this important climate issue. and i want to thank senators boxer and whitehouse and schatz for organizing this and for everybody participating. obviously we're here to talk about climate change, but like my colleague, we know that climate change is actually impacting jobs now because it's impacting our climate now. so while we're here to talk about what might happen in the future, i'm here right now to specifically talk about what is happening to our economy today and why we need to take action. because ocean acidification is an economic issue and it affects so many different people in our economy in the pacific northwest, it affects our shellfish growers, which is a major industry. we have three and four generation of shellfish growers that are threatened now by the impacts of c

ms. cantwell: mr. president, climate change is not a problem of the future. climate change is drastically impacting our oceans today. acidification is increasing at astonishing rates and our oceans take up to 25% of our carbon emissions. that means that carbon and ocean acidification kills our oysters, our crabs and other shellfish and impacts the shellfish that other sea life count on, like our salmon. so the impact to an industry in our state that is worth $30 billion and supports 148,000 jobs is serious. just last week there was a huge dieoff of scallops in british columbia. this resulted in a 30% of employees in that region being laid off. so climate change is not only killing oysters and scallops but it is killing our fishing jobs. that is why we're here tonight, because we know we need to act to save jobs and help our economy. i thank than the president and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president, as a member of the climate action task force, i couldn't be prouder of my colleagues being on the floor