[Pages S2861-S2872]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

TAXPAYER FIRST ACT OF 2019--Continued

Justice in Policing Act

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, something is happening in America.
People across our country and in my home State of Michigan are coming
together for the cause of racial justice in a way that we have not
really experienced in a generation.
From Holland, to Bad Axe, to Marquette, to Detroit, people of all
ages and faiths and backgrounds have been marching together, singing
together, praying together, and kneeling together. In one voice, people
are demanding change, imploring our Nation to finally be that place
where all men and women are truly created equal. Unfortunately, we know
that, far too often throughout our history and even today, our Nation
has failed to live up to our highest ideals.
Eight minutes forty-six seconds--that is how long a Minneapolis
police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on the neck of George Floyd, an
unarmed, handcuffed Black man lying on the pavement. For 8 minutes 46
seconds, George Floyd pleaded for his life. He said, ``I can't
breathe.'' He cried out for his mother. He suffered. Then he was
silent.
Millions of Americans watched the video in shock and horror. Why
didn't the officer just lift his knee off of Mr. Floyd's neck? Why
didn't he just lift his knee up for just a minute--just lift it up? Why
didn't one--just one--of the other officers push his knee off of Mr.
Floyd's neck?
What is happening in America that someone--let alone police
officers--thought this was OK? Of course, we know it was not OK. It was
not OK. It was a crime. It was murder.
Watching those images has awakened something deep in the souls of
Americans across the country. We know that racial disparities in every
part of our society--from healthcare, to housing, to jobs, to
education, to the air we breathe and the water we drink--have existed
in our country since its very beginning. We have known for a long time
that experiences with the police are different for Black Americans than
for White Americans. Yet, despite all of the other times, this time--
this time--there the violence was, right in front of us, in a way that
people have decided cannot and will not be ignored.
There is much to do. For each of us, we have a personal journey--a
personal journey to take concerning our own behavior with one another,
and then we have a public journey to take together, to change laws and
policies and work together toward the day when what happened in
Minneapolis and across our country never happens again. That is the
goal of the Justice in Policing Act. I am honored to cosponsor it, and
I want to thank my friends Senator Booker and Senator Harris for
leading us in this introduction.
The Justice in Policing Act takes important steps to improve
transparency by collecting better and more accurate data on police
misconduct and the use of force. This will help ensure that problem
officers aren't simply getting a job with a police department in
another city or State to avoid being held accountable for their
previous actions.
The legislation improves police training and practices by ending
racial and religious profiling, requiring officers to receive training
on racial biases, banning no-knock warrants in drug cases, limiting the
transfer of military-grade equipment to police departments, and banning
chokeholds like the one that ended George Floyd's life. It finally
makes lynching a Federal crime--something that I would have thought we
would have done a generation ago. It makes important changes within our
criminal justice system to hold police officers and departments
accountable for their actions.
This legislation is not about defunding the police. It is not about
defunding law enforcement. It is about funding the right kind of law
enforcement, the kind of law enforcement that protects all of our
neighborhoods and the people who live in them; the kind of law
enforcement that officers I know in Michigan--including in my own
family, across Michigan--do every day; the kind of law enforcement I
know the majority of police officers believe in.
In short, this legislation is about treating people as professionals,
with high standards, and expecting them to meet those standards. In any
professional setting, including law enforcement, we should expect high
standards and accountability for meeting those standards. We have a
right to expect the best from our police officers.
Firing dozens of bullets into a Louisville apartment under a no-knock
warrant, killing a 26-year-old emergency medical technician and
aspiring nurse who grew up in Michigan, did not meet the high standards
we have a right to expect. Breonna Taylor deserved the best from our
police. She did not get it.
Shoving a 75-year-old man at a protest in Buffalo hard enough that
his head cracked open while hitting the ground, creating a pool of
blood, and then watching officer after officer walking past him without
offering any help does not reflect the high standards we have a right
to expect. Martin Gugino deserved the best from our police, and he did
not get it.
Kneeling on the neck of a man who is lying on the ground for 8
minutes 46 seconds, as he cries out for his mother and the life leaves
his body, is not meeting the high standards he had the right to expect.
George Floyd deserved the best from our police. He did not receive it.
The U.S. Senate needs to pass the Justice in Policing Act now. I
would love it if there was strong bipartisan support. Wouldn't that
send a wonderful message across our country if we could do that?
However, holding law enforcement to high professional standards is
only the first step in becoming the Nation we all want to be. Racism
has been with us since slaves were brought on ships to this country. It
is an immoral thread that is woven deep in the fabric of our Nation's
history.
It is simply not enough to end racial inequalities in policing
because the inequalities in our society don't end there. The pandemic
has shone a brutal light on this truth.
Our Democratic caucus released a report on April 30 that showed that
Black Americans are more than twice as likely as White Americans to die
from COVID-19, and in some communities, this disparity is even greater.
In Michigan, 14 percent of our citizens are African Americans. Yet
African Americans make up 41 percent--41 percent--of the deaths from
COVID-19. It is not hard to see why, if you look. Because of
generations of structural racism, Black Americans are less likely to
have health insurance, more likely to have preexisting health
conditions and higher risks for Black moms during labor and delivery,
more likely to be exposed to air pollution because of where they live,
and less likely to live in housing where social distancing is even
possible.
Black families also face challenges in accessing healthy food. While
around 12 percent of American families overall are food secure, we know
that more than 22 percent of African-American families are food
insecure--more than one out of every five families.
At the same time, in this health crisis Black Americans are more
likely to

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be the ones working on the frontlines--these are the frontline jobs
that can't be done at home--even though their children are home from
school or childcare because they have had to close. They have more
costs, but they are on the frontlines, and they are the ones still
working. In fact, 41 percent of our essential workers are people of
color. The majority are women. That is exposing them to both COVID-19
and now layoffs.
While more than 12 percent of White Americans are out of work, nearly
17 percent of Black Americans have lost their jobs so far. No single
piece of legislation, no matter how good, is going to solve these
systemic issues all at once. We know that, but our continuing actions
can do that, if we are aware and our eyes are open and we are paying
attention and we are doing the best we can on everything that we do.
That is why we need to pass the Heroes Act, passed by the House, as
soon as possible. It has been weeks now since the House took action,
and it is critically important that we get that done. This bill gives
premium pay to our frontline workers, so we are not just applauding
them. That does not pay for their childcare while they are working or
for food or for keeping a roof over their own heads. We need to provide
hazard pay, premium pay, for the people who are working when we have
the luxury of working at home. The House bill extends unemployment
benefits that are critical, strengthens emergency paid leave, and
offers food and rent and mortgage assistance to families who need it.
That is why it is so important to pay attention every time
legislation comes to the floor and that we evaluate through the lens of
how this affects everyone. How does this affect the poor? How does this
affect communities of color? Are we doing everything we can to make
sure we are not adding to the racial disparities or economic
disparities that have lived with us for way too long?
Senate Democrats, looking at every piece of legislation, paid
attention on the Paycheck Protection Act, and we were successful in
amending it to ensure that minority-owned businesses and underserved
communities would receive the same business help and the same access to
capital as majority-White businesses.
It was a real fight to get that done. It was a struggle. It should
not have been. When people say racial disparities are in the past, I
say it is right here, right now. When we look at moving forward on
legislation, we need to see who is helped, who is impacted, is it fair,
and does everybody have a fair shot?
Today, once again, we see in Georgia why it is outrageous that Mitch
McConnell has been blocking a vote on the Voting Rights Advancement Act
that the House passed 187 days ago. It was 187 days ago that they
passed a bill to restore the Voting Rights Act, with no action here in
the Senate. This needs to be passed immediately. It is another piece of
what is happening in terms of the racial inequality in this country.
Racial disparities are not in the past. Racism is not in the past. We
are seeing it every day right in front of our eyes. Now is the time to
keep our eyes open. Now is the time to lift America up to the best we
can be. We need to pass the Justice in Policing Act, and we need to
pass the Heroes Act to put people ahead of profits in this pandemic and
close the gaps in investments in our communities that have created the
racial disparities we see today in every part of our society and in
every community, and we need to pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act
right now. That would be a great thing to get done this week.
There is not much happening on the Senate floor right now. It would
be great if we could come together and all stand behind something as
basic as making sure that everybody fully has the right to vote in this
country.
One of George Floyd's high school friends, Jonathan Veal, remembered
that on their last day of 11th grade, George turned to him and said:
``I want to touch the world.''
George Floyd has touched the world. He has touched the hearts of
people around the world. His horrific murder has inspired a worldwide
movement against systemic racism and police brutality. I know that is
cold comfort for his family and his friends who are missing him so
much.
It is time for us--all of us--to set high standards for law
enforcement and the quality of life we want for all of our families. It
is time to hold each other accountable to live up to our highest and
best ideals as Americans. George's last breath cannot be the last word.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma

H.R. 1957

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, the Federal Government currently owns
about 640 million acres of land in the United States, which means 640
million acres is owned by the American people, and that is about 28
percent of all the land mass of the United States. If you round the
number up, let's say, a quarter of all the property in the United
States is owned by the Federal taxpayers. When you can break that down,
people immediately think it is all the National Park Service. Actually,
the National Park Service is a small amount of that.
The Bureau of Land Management holds about 244 million acres, followed
by the U.S. Forest Service with 192 million acres, Fish and Wildlife
Service with 89 million acres, and then the National Park Service right
at 80 million acres. The Department of Defense and some other agencies
hold another 34 million acres. All together, there are 640 million
acres and growing.
This doesn't even account for all of the land that is controlled by
the Federal Government. That is the amount just owned by the Federal
Government. That 28 percent of all the property in the United States
that is owned by the Federal Government doesn't take into account the
27 million-plus acres that are also controlled by the Federal
Government. Those are areas where they do conservation mitigation.
Those are areas where they have land in trust for other aspects.
All told, around 30 percent of the United States is owned or
controlled by the Federal taxpayer, by the Federal Government. That
would all be fine and good if we were managing it well, but we are not.
On those properties right now, we have almost $20 billion in deferred
maintenance backlog. That is almost $20 billion just in things that
haven't been done and where the Federal Government has proved to be a
bad land manager.
There is a bill that is coming this week. It is on the floor now
being debated. The conversation is about this: How do we get better at
maintaining the land that we have and how can we actually purchase
additional property?
There is something that has been around a long time called the Land
and Water Conservation Fund. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has
dollars set aside from offshore oil revenue to be able to purchase
areas of property. That has happened for decades now. The problem is we
haven't maintained that. Even with the property that we buy that has
maintenance issues, we don't fix the maintenance issues when we
purchase the property.
The proposal on the table this week is to double the amount of land
acquisitions that we have and to be able to solve the maintenance issue
that we have had for a long time. This conversation about the backlog
and maintenance has been an ongoing issue. There is finally a
resolution to it.
Here is the resolution. After years and years of debating a
resolution about how to reduce spending in one area so we can make sure
we can do the maintenance we need to do, the final decision was made to
be able to put a bill together that just says: Forget it; let's just
all add it to debt. Let's just completely do debt purchasing of all of
our maintenance stuff. We will figure out some decades in the future
how to be able to pay for that, rather than discerning how to pay for
it now because there is not an offset on how to be able to pay for the
maintenance.
The maintenance needs to be done. It is not a shock to anyone. I
brought proposals to this years ago, saying: Why don't we split the
dollars we have in the land and Water Conservation Fund, use half of
those dollars to purchase new properties and half of it just to be able
to work on maintenance?
That was denied. They said: No, that is an irrational approach. We
want to buy more land and figure out later how to maintain it.
We are at that point where we have to figure out how to maintain it
because an almost $20 billion backlog in

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maintenance is rising up and screaming at us all over the country.
Instead of actually deciding how we are going to do it, this is a punt
saying we will figure it out later.
Here is the fiscally responsible portion of it. We are not going to
do this forever just to work on maintenance backlog. This is just for
the next 5 years that we will have additional debt. Every single year
we will spend about $2 billion, all in debt money, to be able to do
this, and then we will figure out in the sixth year how to be able to
take care of the rest. The fiscally responsible portion of this is to
say we are not doing infinite amounts of debt. It will just be the next
5 years.
The problem is that in the sixth year we will still have a
maintenance backlog. We will still have issues, and there is still not
a plan to pay for the first $20 billion for what is still coming.
My challenge is figuring out what we can do with a bill that we need
to fix. We need to be better managers of our land, but we are managing
our land by not managing our debt and not making the hard decisions
that people have to make. At your home, you can't just say: Everything
needs to be fixed, but I can't afford it; so I will take out more debt,
and I will fix everything.

We have to make decisions on what is going to have to wait so we can
do this because it is more important. That is the kind of thing I would
like to be able to see with this.
Let me run through basic ideas. They are all amendments that were
already brought up that say: Here are logical ways to be able to fix
this, beginning with the most basic of them. Take part of the money
that already exists for the Land and Water Conservation Fund to
purchase new land, and then split it, saying we are going to dedicate
dollars to maintenance and also have dollars to buy new properties. We
will not be able to buy as many as fast as we want. We will not be able
to fix as many things as we want, but we are not adding additional debt
spending to do it. These are the same decisions that families make all
the time. I would love to have the nicer car. I can have the nicer car
if I just save up for several years to get it.
That is one recommendation.
There is a second recommendation to this. There is a portion of this
that gets into the budget scheming of everything that goes on. Part of
what is happening to the Land and Water Conservation Fund is moving
it--brace yourself from budget gimmicks here--to what is called
appropriated dollars that we vote on every year to mandatory dollars
you only vote on once and every year it keeps going. Think of it like
Social Security. Social Security was voted on a long time ago and keeps
going year after year. We don't vote on it each year. It happens
because it is mandatory.
The idea in this bill was to move the spending from being
appropriated each year like we do with the Department of Defense or
Department of Education or Health and Human Services, to take it out of
that area and move it toward mandatory. Then they still left the funds
over in the appropriated side and said: We are also going to spend
those dollars as well.
The gimmick that this sets up is it allows those funds that were
spent last year to be spent on the mandatory side this year and leaves
a big hole on the normal side that will just plus-up to spend for other
things.
My second idea is this: If we will not split the dollars we normally
use for half of the purchase and half to maintain, at least dedicate
the dollars that were left and aren't spent on something else and spend
those on maintenance, because then we will only have half a billion
dollars of new deficit rather than what this does at $2.5 billion of
new deficit spending.
The first challenge is to split it.
The second challenge is take the dollars that were ``left over'' in
appropriated dollars and just dedicate that to only doing the
maintenance funds that need to be done.
The third idea is pretty simple, as well. This has a 5-year tail on
it on the maintenance, at about $2 billion a year of additional debt
spending. I would just say that if we are only going to do maintenance
for 5 years, we should only do the purchasing, which is the big chunk
of this, for 5 years, as well, so that we sunset both of them. We are
not going to have this big plus-up and more and more purchasing at the
same time we have no plan to maintain it long term. As long as we are
going to maintain it, we will also do purchasing. Just sunset it. That
seems common sense as well.
Here is a fourth idea. When you purchase new properties, make sure
that with the dollars that are used to purchase it, there are also
dollars set aside to fix what is broken on it.
We often find that when people want to sell property to the Federal
Government, it is because there are major problems on the land already,
and they can't get another private seller. So they want to sell it to
the Federal taxpayer, knowing there are problems in infrastructure on
that property.
We buy property with major maintenance needs already on it, and it
just backs up our backlog of maintenance even more. Put a requirement
in that says when we buy property, part of the purchase of it is also
setting aside dollars for maintenance, so we have to fix it right then,
rather than add it to the backlog of maintenance issues. That makes
common sense.
That also is not getting a hearing right now. I think that is a
problem. There are commonsense things that don't drive us further into
debt, that aren't going to cause years and years of problems in our
budget, that maintain the properties that we have--maybe not as fast as
we want to, but its starts getting after our backlog of maintenance--
that continue to allow us to purchase new properties, but to make sure
that we are actually managing the properties that we purchase.
It is a frustration for me that we are not having amendments in this
process, that we are not having the opportunity to be able to fix some
of the things that are wrong with this bill--because we do need to have
Federal lands, we do need to maintain the lands that we have, but we do
need to honor our budgets for the future, as well.
Why would we say we really need to maintain all of this and purchase
this, but we don't have a plan for how to do it now and so we will just
wait 6 years? We will have 5 years of debt spending, and then we will
somehow figure it out 6 years from now.
Five years ago we were talking about this very same issue. We haven't
come up with an answer in the past 5 years because no one has been
willing to say we have to do less so we can take responsibility for
what we have. We just want to do more and not have the accountability.
So from 5 years ago to 5 years later now, to 5 years from now, when
this bill ``expires,'' we will still have maintenance issues.
We need to start making hard decisions. Some of those hard decisions
deal with the budget and making choices and saying that there aren't
any options to instead saying: There are options that I may not like as
well as the ``just do everything all at once'' option.
But there are options on how to do this, and we should have this
debate to be able to figure out how to manage these dollars better.
Maybe we will 5 years from now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.

Unanimous Consent Request

Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, a free society depends on the rule of law,
which is the foundation for public order and peace. Police are the
indispensable guardians of that law. We rightfully honor them for the
risks they assume every morning when they put on the badge and
sometimes the bulletproof vest, knowing they may not come home at night
to take them off.
But the police have a sworn duty to wield their power with justice.
They take an oath never to betray their character or the public trust.
They must hold themselves to the highest standard and overwhelmingly do
so.
But in the cases when they do not, the consequences can be
devastating. What happened last week to George Floyd in Minnesota was
horrific. He was killed by police officers--dying at the hands of men
who pledged to protect and serve their communities.
I am glad that justice appears to be moving swiftly in George Floyd's
case. The officers who participated have been terminated from the
department, and the criminal process is well underway.
But this is little consolation to many Americans, including many
Black

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Americans, who feel they have experienced unjust, unequal interactions
with law enforcement. Many have protested peacefully for change in the
finest tradition of our country. And in sharp contrast to the rioters
and looters, who have exploited this tragedy for their own purposes, we
must now seek to reveal national unity from the wreckage of broken
trust and broken glass on our streets. To do this, we will need to be
guided by our Nation's noblest principles, while rejecting the anti-
American suggestions of radicals who want a revolution.
Every American deserves to be treated equally by their government, as
guaranteed by our Constitution and our country's most fundamental
principle that all men are created equal. There is no greater bulwark
to tyranny and injustice than that old, simple proposition. But we must
reject efforts to scapegoat and demonize all police for the actions of
a few, and we must reject radical proposals to dismantle and defund
police departments, as some have suggested.
These proposals are offered in the spirit of revenge that would lead
only to more crime, more lives lost, and more sorrow. The communities
that would be hit the hardest by the disappearance of police would be
the most disadvantaged. When police are understaffed and undertrained,
there is greater risk of mistakes and misconduct, not to mention higher
rates of crime.
By contrast, a well-staffed, well-trained, and well-respected force
is a blessing to its community and a scourge to criminals who threaten
it. Defunding the police would be deadly. It isn't a solution but an
insult to good officers, and a threat to law-abiding citizens.
Americans are not blind to injustice. We all understand the hard work
that is needed to repair trust in this country, but defunding the
police is not the answer. We need the rule of law and equal just under
law. We need them both.
I urge my colleagues to join with us in passing this resolution,
which calls for justice for George Floyd and other victims of excessive
use of force, while also honoring the law enforcement officers who keep
us safe.
Therefore, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of a resolution that is at the
desk, calling for justice for George Floyd and opposing calls to defund
the police. I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be
agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no
intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. SCHUMER. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, there are millions of people in America
marching in the streets to reform our police practices, to ask for
equality, to ask for racial justice.
We have seen in the savage death of George Floyd, we have seen with
Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, and in so many other
instances that our police departments need real reform.
There is a demand of Americans that we act--and act soon. The
resolution my colleague offers is rhetoric, not action, and the great
worry so many Americans have is that so many on the other side will
feel rhetoric and then try to let this go away.
We demand action, and we demand it now--real action, not rhetoric--to
reform our police departments in a fair and comprehensive way. That is
what the Justice in Policing Act does. We need it on the floor now, as
soon as the House passes it.
Very few of us believe that Leader McConnell will put it on the
floor, but we want him to. We demand he does.
Again, the resolution by my friend will do nothing--nothing. It is
rhetoric. We demand action.
And so in a minute, I will be asking unanimous consent that upon
receipt of H.R. 7120, the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, the pending
business here in the Senate, after it passes the House, be that bill,
so that we are forced and required to debate it.
And at that point, my friend from Arkansas or anyone else can do
whatever they want, but not in an empty field of rhetoric and no
action, when Americans demand action.
We need justice. We need racial equality. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Arkansas is recognized
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, if the Senator from New York would like to
enter into a colloquy, I did not hear an objection to a single sentence
of that resolution, to a clause of that resolution, to a word in that
resolution, which calls for justice for George Floyd and other victims
of excessive force and also says that the Senate opposes radical ideas
to defund the police.
So if the Senator from New York would like to explain to the Senate
what part of that resolution he opposes and why he is objecting, I
would welcome to hear his answer.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I have a resolution at the desk.
Mr. COTTON. Reclaiming my time, I have not yielded the floor.
So I would just point out this. Let's be clear what just happened
here. We have a resolution. It is a couple of pages long. The Democrats
have had it for 24 hours. Until just moments ago, we had no indication
that they planned to object or that they had any other contrary
resolution.
We have heard objection from the Senator from New York not to a
single word of that resolution itself--a resolution which, I will say
again, calls for justice for George Floyd and for all victims of
excessive force, as well as opposes radical efforts to defund the
police.
So I will only conclude that the minority leader is here to speak on
behalf of the Democratic Party and defend this radical idea to defund
the police, since he is unwilling to cite what part of that resolution
he opposes.
And now, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, as the gentleman heard, we need action,
not rhetoric. That is the objection because we believe that too many on
that side of the aisle will not want to act and, therefore, for them to
be content with rhetoric will not serve any good purpose.
We can debate all of these issues when we have a real bill on the
floor and we are moving forward to bring justice. My resolution does
just that. It says very simply--very simply--that the minute the House
passes the Justice in Policing Act, the pending business here in the
Senate is that act, so we can debate it and we can hopefully pass it.
Some may choose to modify it in whatever way they choose, but rhetoric
is no substitute for action when the American people, overwhelmingly,
in the streets, peacefully, proudly, strongly demand action.

Unanimous Consent Request

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the
immediate consideration of a resolution at the desk that would make
H.R. 7120, the Justice in Policing Act, the pending business upon
receipt from the House. I further ask that the resolution be agreed to
and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the
table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am a bit
mystified about what has happened here. We had a resolution on the
floor, a couple of pages, calling for justice for George Floyd and
victims of excessive use of force, as well as condemning the radical
idea of defunding the police.
Now, the minority leader wants to offer a resolution that would
immediately make the pending business of the Senate--at some distant,
speculative time in the future--a piece of legislation which, if I am
not mistaken, hasn't even been written and filed yet in the House of
Representatives. Now, maybe it has been written in the last day or two
and I am not aware that they filed that bill, but it certainly hasn't
been debated and voted on in the House of Representatives.
There is all the time in the world to decide what is going to be the
pending business in the U.S. Senate when the Senate acts, but we have a
resolution

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right in front of us that condemns the unjustified killing of George
Floyd, calls for justice for his death and all those victims of
excessive use of force, and also--since the Senate opposes the radical
idea--of defunding the police.
Yet, the Democratic leader, on behalf of his party, objected to that
without citing a single word, a single clause, a single sentence that
he finds objectionable. I assume it is because they do, in fact, want
to defund the police.
I know he keeps talking about rhetoric versus action. I will just
remind you that the Senate, on almost every day we are in business,
passes multiple resolutions by unanimous consent. If I am not mistaken,
I think the Democratic leader was on the floor last week trying to pass
a resolution condemning the President once again. So the idea that we
don't pass resolutions expressing the sense of the Senate or, for that
matter, there is a choice between passing such a resolution and taking
action is simply foreign to the way the Senate acts every single day.
I will just say again that what we are seeing here is the Democratic
leader apparently objecting on behalf of the Democratic Party in
defense of the radical idea that we should defund the police. I object
to the Democratic leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, the gentleman from Arkansas has made my
point. He talks about business as usual. This is not business as usual.
The typical rhetoric, the kind of avoiding action which has been so, so
endemic in this Republican Party is showing itself again. If they
wanted to act, they could have supported our resolution. They are
trying to avoid it. We will not let that happen.
I yield the floor.
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, if the Democratic leader, again, would
like to engage in a colloquy, I will ask him, is the bill that he wants
to make the immediate pending business of the Senate even written in
the House of Representatives?
Since he has departed, I guess the answer to my question is, no, that
bill is not even written and filed in the House of Representatives, and
certainly it has not been voted upon in the House and sent to the
Senate for us to make it the pending business.
So the objection you just heard, again, didn't object to a single
word in our resolution, much less a clause or a sentence--a resolution
that calls for justice for George Floyd and the victims of the
excessive use of force, while at the same time opposing radical
Democratic proposals to defund the police. I can only infer, since I
didn't hear a single objection to the language of our resolution, that
the rub of the matter is that the Democrats really do support defunding
the police.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana

H.R. 1957

Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, it is an honor to stand here today in
support of one of the most historic pieces of conservation legislation
in decades--some are saying 50 years.
The Great American Outdoors Act will have a lasting impact on
generations to come. That is why, as Montana's voice in the Senate, I
am standing here today to make the Great American Outdoors Act a
reality.
Over the last few days, we have seen very strong bipartisan support
both here in the Senate and around the Nation. Senators from both sides
of the aisle, representing States all across our great Nation, have
been coming down to the floor to share stories and photos and to show
support for the bill. It is a very personal piece of legislation
because we all love the outdoors.
At this point, plenty of us have spoken in support of this bill, but
today I want to share some quotes from Montanans who are also in
support of the Great American Outdoors Act.
David Brooks from Montana Trout Unlimited says:

As the Senate takes up the legislation this week, we are
also excited to see progress on addressing decades of
maintenance backlogs on our public lands that benefit our
wild and native fish and their habitat.

Speaking of trout, this picture was taken at the Yellowstone River.
The main channel is over here. There is a little side channel as well.
That is Emigrant Peak. That is in a valley called Paradise Valley. It
is appropriately named. It is south of Livingston--between Livingston
and Gardiner. If you were to come visit Yellowstone National Park, one
of the entrances is in Gardiner, and that would be on the way to
Yellowstone Park.
As I mentioned before, that is, in fact, where in 1979 we had our
high school homecoming dinner, and I proudly took a date in a Griswold
station wagon with some couples, and we drove down to Chico's. It is
right by where this picture was taken. There are a lot of memories when
I see a picture like that. There was a lot of fish caught as I fished
that river many, many times. I do it several times a summer.
Ben Horan with Mountain Bike Missoula says:

There is a good reason the Land and Water Conservation Fund
has enjoyed bipartisan support since the 1960s. It is just
good policy. For more than 55 years, LWCF has supported and
funded open spaces and public lands that we in Montana rely
on for our work, for our play, and for our way of life.

Kyle Weaver from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation had this to say:

This important conservation program allowed the Rocky
Mountain Elk Foundation to complete more than 80 land
protection and access projects that conserved more than
152,000 acres of habitat for elk and other wildlife. RMEF
strongly urges Members of the Senate and House to rally
alongside Senator Daines, pass this measure, and forward it
to President Trump's desk so it can be signed into law.

Land Tawny with the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers said this:

Sportsmen and women have been the leading voices in this
effort to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund as
well as providing maintenance funding for the agencies that
manage places critical for public access and fish and
wildlife. Our public lands and our waters have traditionally
been places of refuge, of solace, and of adventure.

Never has this been truer than right now when we need to recenter and
get our minds right. Now is the most strategic time for investing in
these places of refuge by funding shovel-ready projects that sustain
important habitat, increase public access opportunities, and get people
back to work.
Mayor Bill Cole of Billings said:

Over the years, Billings has received almost $2 million to
fund construction repairs on our parks. The Great American
Outdoors Act will be a great help as we plan future projects
that address the backlog of maintenance needs. Parks and
trails are critical to our Western quality of life, they
attract visitors, and they support our economy.

The city manager of Great Falls, Greg Doyle, said this:

For many years, the city has utilized the LWCF
appropriations to complete a wide variety of projects. These
projects help support and develop park land and recreational
facilities for Great Falls residents and visitors.

Alex Kitchens with the Mystery Ranch. The Mystery Ranch--that sounds
kind of mysterious, doesn't it? They actually make some of the best
backpacks in America. In fact, when my wife and I and children get out
in the wilderness area every summer, we all are carrying Mystery Ranch
backpacks. They are some of the very best. In fact, in the early days
of this company, back in the seventies when I was going to high school
in Bozeman, I had a Kletterworks pack. Kletterworks was the precursor
to Mystery Ranch. In fact, the book bag that I then took to Montana
State University and carried my books in throughout my college
experience in Bozeman--I took that same pack to the top of Granite
Peak, our highest point in Montana, and the summit of the Grand Teton,
just south of Montana there--beautiful country outside of Jackson,
WY. It was a small pack. We went very ultralight with bivy bags, kind
of a sense of a quick up and down because of weather. We wanted to get
up there quickly on both peaks, and we made it. That was the precursor
to the Mystery Ranch, which are the packs we have today. They are
larger packs. You can carry more weight into the backcountry.

Alex said this: The Great American Outdoors Act is landmark
conservation to protect our public lands. The full funding of the LWCF
is a benefit to our parks and our forests at the local and State level.
We have Glenn Marx with the Montana Association of Land Trusts. I
will quote Glenn:

Passage of the Great American Outdoors Act means LWCF
funding and tremendous rural community, national park, and
outdoor recreation economic benefits for Montana and the
nation. More legislative steps to go. Let's finish the
journey.

[[Page S2866]]

I couldn't agree more, Glenn.
Finally, I want to highlight a letter. It is a letter signed by every
former Secretary of the Interior, from Secretary Babbitt, who served in
1993, to Montana's very own Secretary Ryan Zinke.
In fact, Ryan and I were Boy Staters together back in 1979. Ryan was
a junior, soon to be a senior, at Whitefish High School, and I was a
junior, soon to be senior, at Boozman High in 1979. Little did we know
when we were Boy Staters then that Ryan, after a distinguished military
career in the U.S. Navy as a Navy SEAL, would go on to be our Secretary
of the Interior.
The letter says this: ``The Great American Outdoors Act will help
ensure a better, brighter future for nature and for all of us.''
By the way, if you look at those Secretaries, those are Secretaries
who served under Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents.
Needless to say, Montana has its fair share of support for the Great
American Outdoors Act, and the list of support goes on.
Montanans know what it takes to conserve their public lands. Ensuring
full mandatory funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund will
make sure our public lands are managed correctly and that Montanans and
Americans around the country will have better access to share public
lands.
Dealing with the $12 billion maintenance backlog in our national
parks will be so beneficial for the employees who are working so hard
in national parks. We are seeing record visitation levels in many of
our parks, but our employee housing in many cases is terrible--
crumbling infrastructure, wastewater treatment systems that are in
desperate need of repair and upgrades. That maintenance backlog needs
to be addressed, and that will improve the visitor experience.
When I think about our national parks, I think of these parks as the
office of first impression. For visitors who come to our great country
from around the world, when they visit our national parks, they leave
with a profound impression. It is what sets America apart from any
other country--our national parks, our outdoor heritage, and preserving
and protecting that for generations to come.
The Great American Outdoors Act will directly impact everybody who
visits, who recreates, and who enjoys our public lands. This will be
truly one of those defining moments for conservation that so many will
remember for generations to come. It is one of these laws that we will
pass, and when the President signs it, it will truly be a legacy for
future generations. It makes me smile just knowing that so many others
will be able to have our public lands to enjoy, just as my wife and I
and my children all have done and continue to do, once we pass the
Great American Outdoors Act.
Thank you.
I yield back.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware

Free File Program

Mr. CARPER. Good afternoon, Mr. President and colleagues. I rise
today to highlight some recent work that we have done on the Senate
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that could help not hundreds,
not thousands, not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but
millions of Americans save some money when filing their Federal income
tax returns this year and in future years.
As the ranking member of the subcommittee called the Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations in the Senate, my staff and I worked
closely with a fellow named Rob Portman of Ohio, who is the chairman of
our subcommittee, and with his team. He put us all in a room together--
Senator Portman's team, Republicans; our team, Democrats--and wonder
who is who and whose side they are on. You wouldn't know one side from
the other. It is sort of like the Presiding Officer and I working
together on recycling issues, with his team and mine.
Senator Portman and I, along with our staffs, studied big problems
and big challenges facing Americans in America. We tried to identify
commonsense solutions in a truly bipartisan, almost nonpartisan
approach. That has characterized the work of the subcommittee not just
for a couple of years but for decades.
For years, I have heard the following question over and over again
back home, and the Presiding Officer probably has too. People in
Delaware and I am sure in the Presiding Officer's State asked this
question: Why can't you all work together in Washington and get
something done? That is what we do on our Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations. We work together, and I think we get a lot done. It is
our bread and butter. I want to talk for a few minutes today about some
of the work here on the Senate floor.
Over the past year, our subcommittee has examined a whole bunch of
issues, and one of those issues is relating to the IRS Free File
Program. Earlier this week, we released a short staff memorandum laying
out our findings.
Over the next couple of minutes, I want to explain the genesis and
the importance of the Free File Program, what our subcommittee learned
about it, and some of the things Congress and the IRS could do to
improve the program and better serve taxpayers.
I say to the Presiding Officer, I don't know if back in your home
State you do townhall meetings, but I guess you have done a bunch of
them. I did a bunch of them especially when I was a Congressman--
hundreds of them--and as Governor and even now.
When I was a Congressman, every year we used to--we only have three
counties in my State. The Presiding Officer has a lot more in his. Once
every year, a month or so before the tax-filing deadline, usually
March, I would host townhall meetings in each of our counties, and we
would invite the IRS to come, along with the State Division of Revenue,
to participate. We would offer to the people of Delaware the
opportunity to ask questions not just of me and my staff but of the IRS
and the State Division of Revenue about tax returns that were being
filed. It was something I loved. I love helping people, and I know the
Presiding Officer does as well. It was a real chance to help people in
a timely way.
If you take that idea--and that was an idea for, I will say, the 20th
century, a 20th century idea, and it was a good idea. But we have a
21st-century idea, and it is called the Free File Program. That is what
I want to focus on now.
Some people might be asking: What in the heck is the Free File
Program anyway? Going back to 1998--I was Governor then, and I think
our Presiding Officer might have been a House Member. I am not sure.
But Congress directed the IRS to work with the tax preparation industry
to create a way for Americans to file their taxes electronically.
This is around the time when the first version of search engines like
Yahoo! and Google were being developed and coming forward. Email
addresses and web portals, like America Online, were rapidly expanding
the availability of internet services not just for homes but for
schools and other places too. Suddenly, it was possible to do a whole
lot of things on the internet for the first time, including filing our
taxes electronically.
Free File is the program that grew out of a mandate Congress issued,
and taxpayers were first able to take advantage of the program in 2002.
So my guess is the mandate from Congress to the IRS to make this
program available was about two decades ago, and the first time
taxpayers were able to take advantage of that was a couple of years
later, in 2002.
The program is really a partnership between the IRS on the one hand
and tax preparation companies, like H&R Block and Intuit, to offer
complete and free online tax preparation and filing services--not to
all Americans but to most. Sixty percent was the original goal, the
original target. Today, it is available to about 70 percent of all
Americans.
This year, most taxpayers earning less than $69,000 could use Free
File to file their taxes for free. That is why we call it Free File. I
will say that again. This year, most taxpayers earning less than
$69,000 could use Free File to file their taxes for free.
A lot of times, when you hear somebody offer you something for
nothing, for free, you say: Well, I am not sure I would want to do
that. This is one that a whole bunch of taxpayers--about 100 million of
them, in fact--can take real advantage of because according to the

[[Page S2867]]

IRS, over 100 million taxpayers are eligible to use this program, Free
File.
Over 100 million taxpayers can file their Federal taxes for free. One
might ask: Well, how do they do that? All they have to do is to visit
this website to get started. The website--I am looking to see where
that website is listed. I don't see it here. Maybe it is on the back. I
don't think it is back there either, but I will just say it. Here it
is. All they have to do is visit this website to get started: IRS.gov/
FreeFile. That is it. That is a mouthful, isn't it? That is IRS.gov/
FreeFile.

As much as I do it--it is this close. There it is: IRS.gov/FreeFile.
I am blind. There it is.
To my staff who prepared this for us, thank you.
From there, whoever clicks on this address can choose to visit the
individual Free File website of one of several companies offering this
service and choose the one that works best for them. It sounds pretty
simple, even to me. But only a few million taxpayers out of 100 million
who are eligible use the program every year. Clearly, we can do better
than this.
On our subcommittee, we started looking into Free File about a year
ago, after reading news reports alleging that some of the companies
that participated in the program were making it harder, not easier, for
taxpayers to find their Free File websites. This is important,
colleagues. This is important because very few taxpayers go directly to
the IRS.gov address that I mentioned right here--website. Instead, when
most taxpayers are ready to file their taxes, they use search engines
like Google, and they type in phrases like ``free online tax filing''
or ``free tax return.'' For search terms like these, Google might
return thousands, maybe millions, of results. Those results could
oftentimes be confusing. Imagine that you are trying to get some
information, and you get thousands of ideas from searching on Google.
That can often be very confusing or just too much for a lot of us to
try to wade through.
On top of that, we were able to confirm that 5 of the 12 companies
that participated in the Free File Program in tax year 2018, 2 years
ago--that includes H&R Block, Intuit, TaxHawk, Drake Software, and
TaxSlayer--apparently took steps to actually prevent their Free File
websites from even appearing in search results. So when someone
searched on Google last year for free tax help, they were likely to
land on the website for one of the heavily advertised commercial tax
filing products.
Some of those commercial products have names that are similar to the
names companies have given their Free File offerings. For example, H&R
Block has a commercial product called Free Online, and Intuit has one
called Turbo Tax Free Edition. These names sound a lot like the names
given to the IRS Free File products, but they are not the same. In
fact, there is no guarantee that they will actually be free, despite
their names.
I want to be clear. There is nothing wrong with Free File partner
companies having their own successful commercial products and
continuing to innovate. There is nothing wrong with that. I am told
there are legitimate reasons someone might want to prevent a website
from appearing in a Google search result. However, it is important that
we make sure not to confuse taxpayers any more than they might already
be confused when it comes to preparing their tax returns.
It is also imperative to Senator Portman, his staff, and my staff
that the lowest income taxpayers are able to access the free filing
services that Congress wanted to be sure were available for them. It is
too easy for a taxpayer to click on a search result that looks like a
free filing option and wind up being charged for extra services they
didn't want and, frankly, didn't need.
In fact, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration
estimates that more than 14 million taxpayers who qualified for the
Free File Program used commercial software offered by a Free File
partner company and may have paid a fee to file their 2018 Federal tax
return when they did not need to do so. Just think about that. Fourteen
million taxpayers could have filed their Federal tax returns completely
free but instead ended up paying a fee.
While it is entirely possible that some of those 14 million people
knew they were using a commercial product and chose to pay more, many
simply didn't know they might have a better option. We have an
obligation to make sure they know about it. Both Congress and the IRS
need to do more to make certain that taxpayers who are eligible for a
free product and want a free product don't end up paying for something
they should not have to pay for. It is that simple.
So how did this happen? Well, we have learned that part of the blame
belongs to the IRS, which apparently has designated only three full-
time employees--think about that--for how many people we have in this
country? Three hundred-plus million? The IRS has designated only three
full-time employees to work on Free File and, I am told, has not
conducted sufficient oversight over the program for years. For example,
our Subcommittee on Investigations learned that the IRS has not
completed a customer satisfaction survey for the Free File Program
since 2009. That is 11 years. That is right--since 2009, even though
the Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration
recommended greater use of customer satisfaction surveys not last year
or the year before that but as far back as 2007.
Despite Americans' growing tendency to use search engines like Google
to navigate the internet, the IRS and its Free File partner companies
apparently never discussed online search practices until very recently.
This allowed individual companies to make their own choices about how
their Free File websites could be accessed.
There is also the fact that the IRS has not had a marketing budget
for the Free File Program in more than 6 years. When we asked IRS
officials to explain the lack of marketing, they told us a couple of
things. Here is one of the things we heard. They said: ``Well, it may
have been an IRS budget decision as part of the broader reduction in
spending the agency received over the last several years.'' He said
``as part of the broader reduction in spending.'' Actually, it was the
broader reduction in appropriations the Agency received over the last
several years.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration came to pretty
much the same conclusion. Here is what we got from the Inspector
General of the Treasury: The IRS was trying to ``save money and be more
efficient.''
Well, we should make sure that we save American taxpayers money, no
doubt, especially at a time when every dollar counts for our family
and, frankly, for our government.
With that said, what can Congress do? What is our role here in the
Senate, in the House, in the Congress, and in the White House, in the
executive branch of our government and Treasury?
As senior members of the Finance Committee, Senator Portman and I
have listened to former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, a great leader,
and to the Government Accountability Office led by Gene Dodaro, a
wonderful Comptroller General. We listened to them lament the fact
that, for years Congress has appropriated the IRS with far less money
than it needs to provide adequate tax enforcement and good customer
service, as well as to better ensure that all Federal taxpayers are
paying their fair share to fund our government and meet our many
obligations.
Despite a recent bump up in funding for the IRS in the past year,
since fiscal year 2010--so over the last decade--funding for the IRS
overall has declined by $3.1 billion, after accounting for inflation,
while the number of individual taxpayers has increased by 13 million.
That makes no sense to me. My guess is it doesn't make much sense to
most people. Let's listen to that again. Funding for the IRS--our job
is to appropriate money, among other things. Funding for the IRS,
overall, has declined by over $3 billion, after accounting for
inflation, while the number of individual taxpayers who need to be
served, who have questions to ask and tax returns to submit--that
number has gone up by 13 million people.
These IRS budget cuts have impaired both tax enforcement and taxpayer
service operations. For example, reduced funding has led to a reduction
in

[[Page S2868]]

the number of employees assigned to answer telephone calls. The
inevitable result is fewer taxpayer calls answered, longer wait times
to get through to the IRS representative, and a lot of needless
frustrations from the people we and the IRS are serving, the people who
have sent us here to work for them.
All of this was before the coronavirus pandemic forced the IRS to
send thousands of its employees home.
So as I prepare to wrap up here today, let me say to all of our
colleagues, those who are gathered here and those who are not--our
colleagues both here in the Senate and in the House of Representatives
at the other end of this building--while it is important that we ask
why the IRS didn't do a better job of overseeing the Free File Program
and make clear that it must do more, it is equally important that we in
the legislative branch of government and in the administration--this
administration and future administrations--provide the IRS with the
tools and resources it needs to do the important job it does.
The last time the IRS had a marketing budget for their Free File
Program, it spent between $750,000 and $1.5 million marketing the
program annually to, gosh, probably 200--over 100 million--we will say
close to 200 million taxpayers. That sounds like a lot of money, but
when you are talking about over 100 million taxpayers, it doesn't go
that far. I am not sure that is a big enough budget given the large
number of taxpayers who seem to be unaware of Free File. Even a modest
amount of funding would go a long way toward ensuring that millions of
eligible taxpayers do not have to pay a dime to file their taxes
online.
Well, colleagues, my staff and my other colleagues often hear me say
these--I think they are called aphorisms. One of my favorites is, find
out what works and do more of that. Think about it. Find out what
works. Do more of that. Well, we found out on our subcommittee how we
can strengthen and support this Free File Program. Let's do it. Let's
not just talk about it. Let's not just complain about it. Let's do it.
Let's begin by doing our part to provide--this year and in the years
that follow--the IRS with the resources it needs and, where necessary,
the additional guidance it needs to make Free File work the way we
intended it to work almost two decades ago.
Another thing I would like to say is that in adversity lies
opportunity. Think about that. I wish I could claim that as my own.
That is Einstein. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the filing
deadline for taxpayers has been pushed back, as we know, to July 15--
not April 15, a month or a month and a half ago, but July 15. Here is
what that means. It means we have--taxpayers have--we have more time to
get the word out, the IRS has more time to get the word out to eligible
Americans that they can file their taxes for free--more time to get the
word out to eligible Americans that they can file their taxes for free.
Get the word out to whom? To tens of millions of American taxpayers.
I want to encourage all eligible taxpayers to visit IRS.gov/
freefile--right here--IRS.gov/freefile--to ensure that they have access
to the free resources that are available to them.
I would also ask everyone to help spread the word. Talk to your
friends. Talk to your family. When you are cooped up at home and you
can't go anyplace, you are still locked down in quarantine, what will
you talk about? Talk about Free File; say: Here is a way we maybe could
save some money, and our friends could too--instead of taking a
different course.
That is it. I will close with this. I like movies. I know the
Presiding Officer likes movies. One of my alltime favorite movies and
our colleague who has joined us, from Alaska, one of his alltime
favorite movies--he has talked about it many times--is ``Back to the
Future.'' This is, in a way, back to the future.
Back when I first got to the House, we used to do this--as I said
before Senator Sullivan and Senator Cruz came to the floor--I talked
about how every year, in every county in Delaware, we would do--there
are only three counties--we would actually do townhall meetings, and we
would have folks in from the IRS and from the State Division of Revenue
to actually help people prepare and file their taxes. We don't do that
anymore. Actually, we have something that is even better, a whole lot
better, and it is this Free File Program that the IRS has. It is
available, if people just knew about it.
I will close with these words. I wish I could claim this as well. I
wonder who said this. Maybe one of our smart pages--if our pages were
here, I would ask one of the pages to figure it out. Have you ever
heard the saying: If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody
there to hear it, is there really a noise?
Think about that. If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody
there to hear it, is there really a noise? Well, if we have a great
program through the IRS to help millions and millions of people file
their taxes for free and they don't know about it, is there really a
benefit? I think, arguably, not. We can do something about that. Let's
do it.
I yield the floor to my friend from Alaska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). The Senator from Alaska.

Racism

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, there is no doubt that there is a lot of
anger in our country right now. We have seen that anger being given
voice all throughout our communities and small towns and big cities. We
have seen it in our households, among our families, our children, our
friends.
The killing of George Floyd has shocked us all. The video of a police
officer so nonchalantly kneeling on George's neck as he begged to be
released and three other officers standing by as if nothing was
happening, as if it weren't a human being's life being taken--this
shocked us.
By now, we all know how George Floyd called out, calling out for his
mother, who had passed years ago, a mother who loved him, whom he must
have seen coming to him in his final moments. ``I can't breathe,'' he
said--the last words of a man on a street in Minneapolis that have
rocked the Nation. They are three simple words that mean so much and
have so much resonance throughout our history; words that, at their
very heart, have helped to define the moral issue of our country, and
that is slavery and the struggle--the long struggle for civil rights.
The freedom to breathe and your life as your own are what were taken
from men and women and their children when they were ripped from their
countries and brought, in slavery, into this Nation. That is what was
taken away from Native Americans and Alaska Natives when they were
forced off their lands.
The freedom to take the full breath of life is what is taken away
from people when they are denied a quality education or housing in safe
neighborhoods; when they are denied jobs or promotions when they get
those jobs; when they are viewed, because of the color of their skin,
as less deserving or as less able.
I applaud those who have peacefully taken to the streets throughout
our communities to protest against racism, and I also applaud the brave
police officers and National Guardsmen all across the country who are
protecting those who need protecting and reaching out to constructively
engage peaceful protesters. The vast, vast majority of these law
enforcement officers are honorable and risk their lives daily for their
fellow citizens, and we need to remember that.
We are witnessing something that I believe is an important moment,
one that has potential to move our country in a direction toward a more
perfect Union. This moment has promise.
Senators are discussing with each other what kind of legislative
action should be taken. For example, we had a very good discussion on
these issues just yesterday led by my friend and colleague Senator Tim
Scott of South Carolina. State and community leaders are also having
these discussions.
Of course, we are a big country, and what might seem to be a good
idea in one place wouldn't be a good idea in some other place. For
example, one of the enormous challenges in the great State of Alaska
that I have been focused on for years is not enough law enforcement,
particularly in our rural and Native communities, dozens of which don't
have any law enforcement officers at all. So this is a huge problem in
Alaska that can create horrible situations, particularly when it comes

[[Page S2869]]

to violent crimes like sexual assault and domestic violence.
So I am not a proponent of defunding the police, but something else
that is happening in America right now at this moment are discussions--
not just in the halls of government but around dinner tables, among
families and parents and their kids and their friend groups--on what
can or should be done at the individual level, the individual American
level. This is certainly happening, for example, in my family.
That was the main point of a powerful and wisdom-filled op-ed by my
former boss, friend, and mentor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
last week, in the Washington Post
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this op-ed be printed in
the Record following my remarks.
It is entitled ``This Moment Cries Out for Us to Confront Race in
America.'' Condoleezza Rice was the daughter of the segregated South,
raised in Birmingham, AL, during the height of the struggle for civil
rights, with sit-ins, riots, and even bombings happening in her city.
When she was 8 years old, the Ku Klux Klan bombed a local church in
Birmingham, killing four school-aged girls. One of those girls, Denise
McNair, was a friend of Condi's. They used to play dolls together.
Over five decades later, through hard work, grace, dignity, and
supreme intelligence, she rose to become one of the most powerful
people in the world as Secretary of State of the United States, and I
had the honor of a lifetime to work for her for 5 years.
She recounts some of her journey in this op-ed, which I encourage all
of my colleagues and all Americans to read. She reminds us:

Our country has a birth defect: Africans and Europeans came
to this country together--but one group was in chains. In
time, the very Constitution that counted slaves as three-
fifths of a man became a powerful tool in affording the
descendants of slaves their basic rights. That work has been
long and difficult, but it has made a difference. We are
better than we were.

She notes one harsh indicator of progress. In Jim Crow Alabama, in
her youth, she says:

[N]o one batted an eye if the police killed a black man.
There wouldn't have been even a footnote in the local press.

Yet now we are seeing hundreds of thousands across America take to
the streets peacefully to protest such injustice.
In her piece from last week, she emphasizes that finger-pointing at
this moment will not help the cause:

And if we are to make progress, let us vow to check the
language of recrimination at the door.

Very wise words. We all need to focus on emphasizing unity and
empathy at this moment--all of us. Senators, Governors, the President,
the media--all of us have this responsibility, and it is what the vast
majority of our fellow Americans want. It is what they want and what
they want us to do and to see and hear from us.
Perhaps most importantly, Condoleezza Rice, in her op-ed, emphasizes
something seemingly so obvious but not spoken much: individual action
and responsibility. She ends her piece with this challenge that I put
up here on the posterboard. It is a really important challenge for
every American:

So I ask my fellow Americans: What will each of you do? My
personal passion is educational opportunity, because it is a
partial shield against prejudice. It is not a perfect shield,
I know, but it gives people a fighting chance. In my
conversations, I want to discuss why the learning gap for
black kids is so stubborn and what can be done about it. What
is your question about the impact of race on the lives of
Americans? And what will you do to find answers?

Those words in her op-ed--the challenge--really struck me, and I have
thought long and hard all week about them since reading those words in
the Washington Post.
Of course, as a Senator, I, with many of you, my colleagues, am
taking part in discussions which I hope will lead to collective action
by our Federal Government to address some of the challenges our Nation
certainly continues to have regarding race. But Condoleezza Rice's
question and challenge is about personal passion and action, and it is
a question for every American to consider.
I have an amazing Alaska Native wife from whom I have learned much
about the serious issue of racism in my State against indigenous
Alaskans and among the first peoples in our great Nation, but I have
never experienced the kind of racism that many across our country have.
I am a colonel in the Marines, an institution I am very proud to be a
part of, an institution that--like the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast
Guard--at its very heart, it isn't supposed to matter what the color of
your skin is, what religion you practice, or what part of the
socioeconomic ladder you come from. The fundamental ethos of the Marine
Corps and our military is supposed to be this: It doesn't matter what
race you are. You are just a U.S. marine.
Now, of course, the Marines and the rest of the military don't always
meet this ideal, but they strive for it, even in ways that might seem
puzzling to those who haven't served.
There is the story of the tough Marine Corps drill instructor
shouting at his raw recruits on day one of boot camp:

There is no racial bigotry here. In my eyes, every one of
you are equally worthless. My orders are to weed out all non-
hackers who cannot serve my beloved Marine Corps. Do you
maggots understand that?

That is the drill instructor. Again, it is the ideal--equality in the
U.S. military--but it is not always met.
I remember how the first rifle platoon I commanded as a young second
lieutenant was literally about one-third White, one-third Black, and
one-third Hispanic. My platoon sergeant was an African-American marine
named Willis Towns. He was outstanding in every way, Sergeant Towns. I
learned so much from him about leadership.
His dream in life was to be the first African-American sergeant major
of the entire Marine Corps. He never reached that goal. A few weeks
after I attended a Martin Luther King, Jr., ceremony with him in which
he received an award for his leadership in the community, he was killed
in a training accident. That was the worst day of my life. Just a few
years later, the Marine Corps named another outstanding African
American to be Sergeant Major of the entire Marine Corps. I remember
thinking when the announcement came out: Congratulations, Willis. You
did it. You did it.

I believe that the military--desegregated in 1948, nearly 20 years
before the passage of civil rights legislation by this body--is one of
the most important civil rights organizations in America. I am
passionate about our U.S. military, but it can improve in terms of
race. There are questions that need to be asked about the record of our
military on these important issues.
Yesterday was an important day in the Senate with the unanimous vote
to confirm Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., to be Chief of Staff of the U.S.
Air Force. For a whole host of reasons, I was probably more involved in
his confirmation than any other Senator. I had the opportunity to come
to the floor yesterday to speak strongly in support of his Senate
confirmation.
I have had many discussions with General Brown over the past year,
but what surprised me was that I learned recently that yesterday's vote
was actually a historic vote for America. His confirmation, 98 to 0,
was so historic because General C. Q. Brown was just confirmed
yesterday by this body as our first African-American service chief in
the history of the United States of America.
Let me explain a little bit more about that. The Joint Chiefs of
Staff consists of the service chiefs, the top four-star generals of the
Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Coast Guard, as well as the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, with the notable exception of GEN Colin Powell,
who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the early 1990s. General C. Q.
Brown, whom we confirmed yesterday, will be the first African-American
service chief ever for any military service. Of course, this is good
news in terms of racial progress for America, but it also begs an
important question: Why did it take so long for this to happen,
especially in one of America's institutions with probably one of the
best, longest records on positive civil rights in our Nation?
Some of the answers are surely hinted at in General Brown's very
moving video address that he gave last week when he talked about what
was on his mind in the wake of the horrible

[[Page S2870]]

George Floyd death. I would recommend that everybody take a look at
that. In the Air Force, he says he was often the only African American
in his squadron, and as a senior general officer, the only African
American in the entire room. What is he thinking about during these
challenging times? ``I'm thinking about wearing the same flight suit
with the same wings on my chest as my peers and then being questioned
by another military member, are you a pilot?''
What else is he thinking?
``I'm thinking about my mentors and how rarely I had a mentor who
looked like me.''
``I'm thinking about the pressure I felt to perform error-free,
especially for supervisors I perceived had expected less of me as an
African American.''
He continues saying he was thinking about the conversations he was
having with his sons and the immense responsibility that comes from his
historic nomination. He was thinking about how with this confirmation,
he could make things better in the Air Force and America.
Here is how I am going to take up Condoleezza Rice's challenge, as
she put forth for each individual American. I am going to ask
questions--as she prods us to do in this piece--on why, until
yesterday, no African-American four-star had ever been confirmed to be
a service chief in the U.S. military in the history of our country.
We are introducing an amendment to this year's NDAA to get data on
minorities and senior enlisted and officer billets in the military--
African Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans
and others. We know these are very patriotic segments of our
population. For example, Alaska Natives and American Indians serve at
higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the
country--what I refer to as special patriotism.
Is this patriotic service reflected at the highest leadership ranks
of our military? If not, then, why not?
I suspect that a lot of our military leaders who have risen to the
general officers ranks--like General Brown or other outstanding
African-American generals whom I have gotten to know or have the
privilege of serving with, like Army GEN Vincent Brooks, former CENTCOM
Commander GEN Lloyd Austin, and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Ron Bailey--will
have insightful views on these important matters.
Our military is something I am very passionate about, not only
because it protects and defends our Nation, but because for decades, it
has provided Americans of all colors and creeds with the opportunity to
rise up individually and as a collective force for good in our society
and to enable members of the military to achieve their full potential
and have a promising future after their service is completed.
If there is some kind of obstacle for minority advancement that
stifles opportunities at the highest ranks of our military, then we
need to know why and we need to work on addressing it together. As a
matter of fact, I just came from a full day of marking up the NDAA with
Democratic and Republican Senators, and we will be trying to look at
this issue, which we had a great discussion on in our markup today. We
need our military--like we need the rest of the country--to be a place
where everyone who joins can breathe freely. This is one of the ways I
am going to take up Condoleezza Rice's challenge to her fellow
Americans--this important challenge--and I hope my fellow Americans
will find their own individual ways to do this, as well
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From the Washington Post, June 4, 2020]

This Moment Cries Out for Us To Confront Race in America

Condoleezza Rice was secretary of state from 2005 to 2009.
She is a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School
of Business and a senior fellow on public policy at the
Hoover Institution, where she will become director on Sept.
1.
Words cannot dull the pain of George Floyd's family. Like
many black families before them, they find themselves in the
spotlight for reasons that every parent, sibling and spouse
dreads. While his death has catalyzed a symbolic call to
action, he was not a symbol to his loved ones--he was a
father, brother and son. I can only pray that they find the
``peace that passes understanding.''
In the wake of Floyd's death, Americans and people around
the world are experiencing shock, grief, outrage--a set of
emotions that too often are repeated. If the past is a guide,
these feelings will fade and we will return to our lives.
But something tells me--not this time. Floyd's horrific
death should be enough to finally move us to positive action.
Perhaps this is like the moment in 1955 when Rosa Parks
refused to move to the back of the bus. Or perhaps this is
like that fateful Sunday in September 1963, quite personal to
me, when a bomb in a Birmingham church killed four girls from
my neighborhood and shook our nation to its core. Some six
decades later, perhaps all of us--regardless of skin color--
are, to quote Mississippi sharecropper and civil rights
activist Fannie Lou Hamer, ``sick and tired of being sick and
tired.''
Our country has often moved forward and been made better
through peaceful protests. But our cities must stop burning.
Innocent people, including many minority and immigrant
business owners, are watching their livelihoods go up in
smoke. There is no excuse for looting and criminality, and
offenders must be stopped. But a call for calm is not enough,
either. This time, we must remain vigilant and maintain our
determination to make a difference.
Beyond justice for Floyd, systemic change is necessary to
make our institutions more just. Yet all the structural
reforms in the world are insufficient to remove the shadow
hanging over every incident of this kind. To be black is to
be forced to overcome implicit and explicit reactions to the
color of your skin. It might be dismissiveness or
underestimation or presumption of how you think. In some
circumstances, it might be fear. We encounter these responses
even among decent people who sincerely do not want to react
that way. The good news is that these emotions can be
overcome--and often are--with the respect that builds when
people know one another as human beings--as friends,
neighbors, co-workers and teammates.
Still, we simply must acknowledge that society is not
color-blind and probably never will be. Progress comes when
people treat one another with respect, as if we were color-
blind. Unless and until we are honest that race is still an
anchor around our country's neck, that shadow will never be
lifted. Our country has a birth defect: Africans and
Europeans came to this country together--but one group was in
chains. In time, the very Constitution that counted slaves as
three-fifths of a man became a powerful tool in affording the
descendants of slaves their basic rights. That work has been
long and difficult, but it has made a difference. We are
better than we were.
I grew up in segregated Jim Crow Alabama, where no one
batted an eye if the police killed a black man. There
wouldn't have been even a footnote in the local press. So it
is a source of pride for me that so many have taken to the
streets--peacefully--to say that they care: that they, too,
are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yet protests will
take our country only so far. The road to healing must begin
with respectful but honest and deep conversations, not
judgments, about who we were, who we are and who we want to
become. Let us talk with, not at, each other--in our homes,
schools, workplaces and places of worship. And if we are to
make progress, let us vow to check the language of
recrimination at the door. As united Americans, we can then
turn our fears into faith, hope, compassion and action. And
then we can accept and carry out our shared responsibility to
build ``a more perfect union.''
Yet, any call to action will be empty if it does not move
us to individual responsibility. We all have a role to play
in moving our country forward, in ensuring that our democracy
delivers not just for those who have but also for those who
seek and for those in need.
So I ask my fellow Americans: What will each of you do? My
personal passion is educational opportunity, because it is a
partial shield against prejudice. It is not a perfect shield,
I know, but it gives people a fighting chance. In my
conversations, I want to discuss why the learning gap for
black kids is so stubborn and what can be done about it. What
is your question about the impact of race on the lives of
Americans? And what will you do to find answers?

Mr. SULLIVAN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.

Coronavirus

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I have been thinking about the last time I
was in an airplane. It was mid-March. One of the many great things
about my State is I can drive back and forth in the car for 6 hours.
The last time I was in an airplane was mid-March. That day in mid-
March, South Korea had 90 diagnosed cases of coronavirus. On the other
side of the world, in the United States of America, we had 90 cases of
coronavirus.
Since then, fewer than 300 South Koreans have died. Their
unemployment rate is under 4 percent. More than 110,000 Americans have
been killed by this virus, and our unemployment rate is the worst since
the Great Depression. This isn't because South Korea has smarter
scientists or because

[[Page S2871]]

South Korea has better doctors or because South Korea has harder
workers. It is because of leadership.
Of course, Mr. President, you know because you ran against him. You
know the President is going to deny responsibility. He is going to
point fingers. He is going to blame others. It is what he did as a
failed businessman. It is what he did as a TV celebrity. It is what he
did as a Presidential candidate running against you, and it is what he
has done as President. It is his whole life. He has denied
responsibility. He pointed fingers. He has blamed others. My colleagues
all know that the buck never stops in this Oval Office.
But what is disappointing is the whisper-in-the-woods silence and
feet-in-concrete inaction on the part of so many of my friends this
side of the aisle. We know the President's playbook is to divide, to
distract, to play to race, to divide the country and distract from his
failed leadership. So far, it has marginally been ``like President,
like Senator.''
Yesterday, the President started attacking a private citizen whom he
is supposed to serve, spreading conspiracy theories about a 75-year-old
man peacefully protesting for change. What was my colleagues' reaction?
It was the same whisper-in-the-woods silence, the same feet-in-concrete
inaction, the hiding behind a column, behind a desk, hiding behind a
post, hiding from the media. When the free press tried to ask them
about it, when one journalist even printed out a copy of the
President's statement, some of my colleagues physically refused to look
at it.
You might be able to escape to your office in this building, but you
can't ignore the people in cities and towns and neighborhoods in your
State--in all of our States--who are demanding change. You can't ignore
the people whom we serve. I implore my colleagues to listen to the
calls for change. The President may ignore them. When he is not
dividing, he is ignoring what citizens want to do, but we can do better
in the Senate. We can step in to fill that leadership void. We can
answer those calls for change. We can tackle the problems we face as a
country.
We can start with the proposed solutions my colleagues and I have
introduced to help people get through this pandemic. We have a rental
assistance bill to help people pay their bills and stay in their home.
Can you imagine anything worse than when the unemployment benefit runs
out at the end of July?
In the State of Texas, there are twice as many. In my State alone,
there are more than a million people unemployed. They are not all going
to get called back to work by the end of July. If the unemployment
benefit stops, as a number of people and Senator McConnell seem to want
it to, there will be evictions. There will be a wave of evictions and
people losing their apartments. Can you imagine anything more ludicrous
in the middle of a pandemic than that people are put on the streets or
people are forced to move in with a cousin in an already-crowded second
floor apartment? Do you think that is not going to spread this pandemic
even worse
We have to have a rental assistance bill. We have a plan to put more
money in people's pockets so they can stay afloat and keep spending in
our communities. We have a plan to actually protect workers on the job
so they feel safe going back to work.
Yesterday, in committee, the Secretary of Labor told us there have
been 5,000 workplace complaints against employers by employees saying
their workplace wasn't safe. Do you know how many citations the
Department of Labor issued? One. There were 5,000 complaints and 1
citation. The Department of Labor is supposed to represent--surprise--
labor, not corporate interests who have corporate leaders who have no
interest in keeping their workplace safe.
We have a plan to truly scale up testing in this country so we can
begin the real test-trace-isolate plan we need to reopen safely. Leader
McConnell, the leader of this body, the Republican leader--elected, I
assume, unanimously by his Republican caucus--says he sees no urgency.
Those are his words. He sees no urgency on any of this.
We also have solutions to begin to finally tackle systemic racism
that puts Black and Brown American lives at risk. This week my
Democratic colleagues and I joined Senator Booker and Senator Harris to
introduce legislation to make real meaningful reforms on how we do
policing in this country. Americans of both parties agree we need to
rethink the role of the police and how we invest our tax dollars in
education, healthcare, and housing, and so much else.
I am also introducing a resolution declaring racism a public health
emergency. Let's be clear: This pandemic and racism in America are not
separate problems. They are intimately connected. A headline in the
Atlantic put it well: ``The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump
Found Out Who Was Dying.''
It is disproportionately Black and Brown Americans dying of this
virus. It is Black and Brown workers who have been on the job for
months, exposing themselves to the virus so grocery stores stay stocked
and packages keep getting delivered and hospital linens keep getting
changed. It is Black and Brown communities grieving the losses of their
friends and neighbors.
Here is what I wish more of my colleagues would understand: They are
our neighbors too. Breonna Taylor was our neighbor. George Floyd was
our neighbor. The 110,000 Americans who have died of this virus were
our neighbors.
Some of you expressed words of sympathy. Thank you for that. Some of
you issued statements saying you want to see reform and you will not
tolerate racism. All of you wish the President would stop tweeting. But
those words aren't good enough. People are dying. Platitudes and press
releases don't get us very far. They are not enough. You need to put
actions behind your words.
It is time for colleagues to join us to pass real solutions. It is
time to stand up to Leader McConnell and say: Let us do our jobs.
President Trump is not doing his job; that is for sure. Leader
McConnell is not doing his job; that is for sure. It is time for all of
us in this body to do our job.
It is time to stand up to the President, to use every ounce of
leverage we all have to stop the racism, to stop the division, to stop
inciting violence. There is a leadership void in this country. I am
waiting for my colleagues to join us to fill it.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cramer). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

H.R. 1957

Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, right now we are debating the Great
American Outdoors Act, which would be great if only it were balanced.
My problem with the Great American Outdoors Act is that it spends
billions on places where we vacation, but the authors of the bill would
not allow a few million to be spent to protect the places where we live
and we work and we help create livelihoods for many.
There is an amendment that would do that that is bipartisan and that
would not take any money away from the billions that the bill is
already allocating for those places where we vacation.
First, let me kind of make my point. Forty-two percent of Americans
live in a county or parish adjacent to a coastline--42 percent. Eighty-
five percent of Americans live in a coastal State. But of the billions
that go into the Great American Outdoors Act, of those billions, 50 to
close to 60 percent are spent in seven States, seven localities, and if
you exclude Washington, DC, and areas around Washington, it is not
spent on coastal areas.
We are spending billions on places where we go to vacation, but the
authors of the bill will not allow millions to be spent to protect
where we live. That is foolish public policy. We should be investing in
coastal resiliency.
Now, of course, the irony is, we are going to spend billions on the
coast. Why? We have seen it. Harris County flooded--that is Houston;
Florida flooded, the panhandle, other parts of Florida; Puerto Rico;
the American Virgin Islands; North Carolina; South Carolina; Georgia;
Hurricane Sandy in New

[[Page S2872]]

Jersey and New York; Hurricanes Rita and Katrina on the coast of
Louisiana; also Mississippi and Alabama.
We are going to spend billions. We are going to spend billions, but
we are going to spend those billions in the wrong way. We are going to
spend those billions on the coast repairing damage that could have been
prevented if we had spent millions now.
I draw attention to a flood wall, a levy, in Terrebonne Parish, LA,
which was recently completed. So we had a high-water event where
flooding came off the Gulf of Mexico. Ten thousand homes were not
flooded because that flood protection had been erected. Ten thousand
homes were not flooded.
All I am asking is for the authors of this bill to allow a few
million to be spent where people live, where people work, where people
help others earn their living, and they can still have their billions
to spend on the places where we vacation.
I don't want to minimize the need to take care of our national parks.
When someone speaks of a leaky roof, and if you fix it early, then
fixing it early keeps the damage from getting greater--that makes
sense. We should find a way to pay for it, but it makes sense that you
would do that. How much more so when we are speaking about coastal
resiliency?
I was told recently that the Army Corps of Engineers wants to build a
$3.5 billion floodgate in Miami to prevent Miami from flooding--$3.5
billion. We are going to spend billions on the coast; it is just a
question of whether we do it in reaction, or whether we do it in kind
of ``we have to fear the worst,'' or whether we do it like in
Terrebonne Parish--building a flood wall now so that 10,000 homes don't
flood.
It is my disappointment that the authors of this legislation will not
allow this bipartisan amendment to be added.
By the way, we have heard that Democrats are OK with the amendment,
but for whatever reason, the authors will not allow it.
Let me show you one other thing, just to make the point. The Great
American Outdoors Act actually has two pots of dollars, if you will.
One is for deferred maintenance--again, 50 to 60 percent of that goes
to seven States. But this shows where the Land and Water Conversation
money goes.
These are the coastal States. This is where people live, and these
States, on average, per capita, get $7.53 from the Land and Water
Conservation Fund. These blue States in the interior--some of them
populated, some of them not--on average get $17.66 per capita. We are
sending money to where people don't live to fix vacation spots, which
are important, but it is not where we live, and we are not spending
money where people do live, where their homes are, where their cities
are, and where, if we don't enhance resiliency, we are going to spend
billions when the hurricane hits. This is foolish public policy.
By the way, some of my fiscal conservative colleagues--and I consider
myself a fiscal conservative--have weighed in against the Great
American Outdoors Act, saying that we are not paying for it; we are
pretending to pay for it. We are taking dollars that would otherwise go
to the Treasury--otherwise go to the Treasury--and pretending like they
are new dollars. That is actually true. But what we can also say is
that if we add the amendment, the Coastal Act, which I worked on with
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse--he has been a great partner to work with--
we actually would be paying for it. We would be paying for it by
putting in the coastal resiliency that will prevent the future billions
from having to be paid to pick up the pieces after a hurricane hits a
populated area.
I will speak again on the floor tomorrow, but I just want to make the
point that the Great American Outdoors Act spends billions where we
vacation, fixing things that we don't wish to get worse. The Coastal
Act does not take away from these billions--these billions that are
spent on places where we vacation; these billions spent where people do
not live--it just spends millions, a paltry few million trying to add
resiliency to where we do live, to where we do work, to where we do
create livelihoods not just for ourselves but for others, and that is a
fiscally sound, fiscally conservative way to spend dollars. That would
save Treasury money, and it would save lives and maybe give people a
little extra money to spend in these parks we are spending billions to
fix up.
Mr. President, I thank you, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.

____________________