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“COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2016--Continued” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the Senate section on pages S4285-S4287 on June 16, 2016.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
2016--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of debate only for the next 30 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Remembering the Victims of the Mother Emanuel AME Church Mass Shooting
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, when I started preparing to give this speech, I must admit I was overwhelmed with emotion. One year ago tomorrow, a brutal attack, fueled by hate, led to the deaths of nine parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in my hometown of Charleston, SC.
A year later, the idea that someone's heart could be filled with so much anger and venom is still jarring.
Then, over the weekend, we saw it again. In Orlando, FL, a brutal attack, fueled by hate, led to the deaths of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub. This was an assault against the people of Orlando, the State of Florida, and the United States as a whole.
We can, and we will, have a much longer discussion on ISIS, Islamic terror, and the steps that must be taken in those areas. But today, as Orlando mourns and Charleston remembers, I want to return to 365 days ago and show how, with the world watching, love overcame hate.
On the night of June 17, 2015, I was here in Washington. Much like this week, we were debating the NDAA and our military priorities. But in Charleston, there was a Bible study. Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson, Felicia Sanders and her 5-year-old granddaughter, Polly Sheppard, and my friend, the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, had gathered together for a Bible study at Mother Emanuel.
Among them was a young man who was new to Emanuel--a young man they welcomed into their presence with God's love. While they did not and could not possibly see the darkness in his heart, they showed him the loving nature of their own hearts--so much so that he later told police that he almost, almost did not go through with this vicious, vile attack because everyone was so nice to him. But, tragically, almost was not enough.
In an instant, the horrors unleashed by this young man changed South Carolina forever. I remember getting a phone call about 9 o'clock p.m. on that Wednesday night from one of my friends at the Sheriff's office about the shooting at Mother Emanuel. Reports continued to come in, and so I texted my friend, Clementa Pinckney, hoping that he would respond and tell me what was going on at the church.
I am looking at my texts from June 17, 2015, at 10:31 p.m. I asked him: Are you and your parishioners OK? It was met with silence--silence that is still deafening, silence that I will never forget.
He should have been able to text back. He should have been able to go home and see his family, raise his daughters. He should have been able to have gone on and finished his work as a State senator in the statehouse and to continue spreading God's love. As we people of faith know, sometimes things simply don't go as they are planned. But as the families of the Emanuel nine showed you, God had a plan.
Within 48 hours, these men and women set the tone for my grieving city, my grieving State, and my grieving Nation. On Friday morning, about 36 hours later, looking into the killer's eyes, they said to the killer of their family members: ``I forgive you.''
Family member after family member, nine consecutive times, to the shock and the amazement of the world that was watching, said: ``I forgive you.'' Your life can be better in God's hands.
Those of us here today cannot even imagine how hard that must have been--how in their immense grief, these families chose to take this unique path. But they did. We as a nation, as a State, and certainly as a city are forever thankful.
I am fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to talk to many and all of the families at some point. I continue to be amazed at their grace, their dignity, and their righteousness. They have truly been the rock on which we all stand. In the days and weeks after the shooting, Charleston and South Carolina came together like never before. As the clergy and parishioners at Mother Emanuel said after the attack:
``Wrong church, wrong people, wrong day.''
It was the wrong place to try and sow the seeds of discord. It was the wrong people to try and break their faith and the wrong day to try and bring down the people of South Carolina.
Last summer, we saw chapters of history close and new ones open. While the debate over the Confederate flag may be the most widespread symbol of Emanuel's aftermath, the actions and words of folks across Charleston and South Carolina are the most enduring.
Looking ahead, we have come so far, but we certainly still face many challenges. It is going to take a lot of effort and strength to stand together in times of division. It is going to be hard sometimes in a world that is too often so full of hate to know that we are still taking steps forward, and it is going to require a continuing conversation on issues that are uncomfortable for some but necessary for all.
So where are we headed from here? Three words show where I believe that we, as a nation, are headed. These three words show where I believe we, as a nation, must head. They are simple words--words found in 1 Corinthians 13: faith, hope, and love. We saw these in abundance throughout South Carolina over the past year, and they remain our final goal.
As I head back to Charleston tonight, I will be thinking about the events honoring the Emanuel nine tomorrow. I am certain there will be tears--lots of tears. There will be moments, as there have been in the last few minutes, when it will be hard to speak, to truly show what all of this means to all of us, but the world will also see this from Charleston, SC: They will see that you can cannot destroy love with hate and that you cannot kill the spirit. We have not been torn down by this fury of hate, but instead we will continue to build a bridge, brick by brick, to a future without hate, a future filled with faith, hope, and love.
I will close by asking one more time, as I did a little more than a year ago in this very same place for a moment of silence to remember Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson, and my good friend and former State Senator, the Reverend Clementa Pinckney.
You are forever in our hearts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to thank Senator Scott for his eloquent words on behalf of our State and the leadership he has provided since this horrible tragedy a year ago.
What can I add? I will just remind people who might not remember why he did it that his goal was to start a race war. Well, he failed miserably. Quite the opposite happened in my State. I have never seen anything quite like it.
We have had our fair share of problems in South Carolina, and still do, but churches all over the State were filled. Black, White, rich, poor--all came together to help each other. So this young man's dream of starting a race war was a miserable failure.
I am sure this guy who attacked the nightclub in Orlando wanted to break our will and try to get us to kowtow to a radical form of religion. Well, you are not going to break a will. We will all stand behind the folks in Orlando and come together as a nation as best we can.
Senator Scott said it is hard to understand the hate that someone has to do what these two people did. What blows my mind is how someone can go and sit in a Bible study for an hour, after being welcomed in off the street to discuss the Word of God, and then get up and shoot the people you have been praying with. I don't know how you get there. Only God knows that. And what this man did in Orlando was beyond vicious.
Here is a question that I have asked myself a thousand times, and I am beginning to understand the answer: Why was it different in South Carolina? We have had shootings throughout the country where people took to the streets. There were riots, sores were exposed, and scabs were pulled off old wounds. What was it about South Carolina that was different? I promise you that we are not a perfect people. I promise you that under the right circumstances, what you saw in other places in the country would have happened in South Carolina.
Here is the difference: We were all in such a state of shock that somebody could come into a church and just randomly kill the people they prayed with. It was hard to get our heads around the thought of somebody being able to do that. But what woke us up was the way the families behaved.
Senator Scott indicated that within 48 hours of the killing, there was an arraignment of the accused, and all the family members appeared in court. Instead of taking to the streets and showing their frustration with a system that I am sure can always be made better and is far from perfect, they decided to channel their grief into something constructive, not destructive, and I promise you I could not have done this. If this had been one of my family members, I know Lindsey Graham well enough to know I could not have done this. I consider myself person of faith but lacking when it comes to folks at Mother Emanuel AME Church. Nadine Collier, the daughter of Ethel Lance, who was 70 years old, said the following, as her voice was breaking:
You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.
That is what is different. That is why the people of South Carolina followed her lead. She and the victims touched our hearts. They appealed to our better nature and reminded us of what humanity is all about. It is about love and forgiveness. Politicians--we can take all the credit we want, but if these people had not done this, it would have been a different result. I could have talked until I was blue in the face. If people had chosen to be angry, there was no way in hell I could have talked them into not being angry because they have every right to be angry. But because these people did what they did in open court, the rest of us followed behind and followed their lead.
A year later I am here to tell you that the reason South Carolina handled this so well, in my view, is that the people in that church chartered a path for the rest of us, and we were smart enough to follow their lead. It would be nice if, in the future, when we get mad at each other here in this body and other places throughout the country over something maybe not as important as losing a loved one, we could slow down for just a moment and try to imagine how things would be different if we could draw upon the example of the families of the fallen.
Look what we argue about. Look how we interact in America today over things not quite as significant as having your loved one gunned down. If you really want to honor what happened in South Carolina, as an individual and a society, whenever you can, remember what the people in that church did after losing their loved ones, and try to follow their lead. That would be the greatest respect you could pay to those families and the greatest honor you could give to those who died for no good reason.
I need to follow my own advice. There is no better feeling in the world than being petty and thinking of a reason you were wronged. It feels good. But every now and then I catch myself. I go back to last year and wake up and realize that there is a better way.
To those who showed us that better way, I know your pain is as real as it was on the day this happened. I know you will never get over it, but I hope you realize that your loved ones did not die in vain because, through their tragic deaths, you gave us--not just in South Carolina but throughout the world--the way forward. Whether we choose it or not is up to us. You have done all you could do and then some.
To the people of South Carolina: I am proud of the way we handled this tragedy, but we have a long way to go. This weekend will be tough throughout our State, and as we look back, let's make sure that we learn from the past and apply it to the future. If we can take that love and forgiveness and apply it in a constructive way to future problems in South Carolina, then we will have honored these victims and their families. If we go back to our petty ways, they will have died for nothing.
Here is my bet: South Carolina is never going to go back because the people of Mother Emanuel AME Church showed us the way. It is up to us to follow them, and I will do my best to follow their lead.
To the people throughout the country who have been generous to this church, thank you for the dollars that have been raised. It is appreciated. Thank you for your prayers and the support you have given. It was essential. You helped us in our time of greatest need.
On behalf of the people of South Carolina to the people of this great land, thank you for having us in your prayers and for your support and for being there for us a year ago when we needed you the most.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
PIPES Act
Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, this week I was pleased that the Senate acted unanimously to pass a pipeline safety bill that will help ensure the safety of our Nation's vast energy pipeline network.
The bipartisan bill, known as the PIPES Act of 2016, now heads to the President's desk to be signed into law. Safely transporting energy to our communities and businesses is a goal that we all share. It was encouraging to see my colleagues come together on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the Capitol, as well, to come up with a final product that will improve pipeline safety and oversight.
With more than 2.6 million miles of oil and gas pipelines across this Nation, the energy industry must work together at all levels of government in order to protect lives, communities, and our environment. Pipelines can be one of the safest ways to move oil and gas products; however, we have seen truly devastating explosions and spills with pipelines, including in my home State of Michigan. The cost to clean up an oil spill from a pipeline break near Marshall, MI, into the Kalamazoo River has totaled over $1.2 billion. A similar spill in the Great Lakes would be devastating to our economy, environment, and drinking water supply.
The transition to a clean energy economy is one of my top priorities, but in the meantime, as we push this transition forward, we cannot accept that pipeline spills are simply the cost of doing business. Our safety regulators must be equipped with the tools and equipment to better prevent pipeline accidents, protect public safety, and demand accountability when things invariably go wrong.
Our pipeline transportation system must be more transparent, and technology will continue to provide better insight into the pipeline network without compromising national security and proprietary information. Our land, air, water, and wildlife must be safeguarded against leaks and spills. By enhancing safety standards, we can reduce waste and cleanup costs while making sure we can proudly pass down a strong outdoor heritage to the next generation. We can also create jobs for our construction workers, pipefitters, steelworkers, and utility workers as we upgrade pipelines and fit them with state-of-the-art technology.
The PIPES Act will make strides in these and many other areas. I was especially focused on creating measures to safeguard against the catastrophic consequences of an oil spill in our precious waterways, especially the Great Lakes. Thanks to a provision I originally worked on with my colleague Senator Stabenow, the entire Great Lakes Basin will be designated as an unusually sensitive area. This will make any pipeline that could spill in and around the Great Lakes area subject to higher standards for operating safety. The bill also adds coastal beaches and maritime coastal waters as areas that should be considered when making an ``unusually sensitive'' determination.
We also must recognize the unique regional challenges our Nation's far-reaching pipeline network present. In Michigan, we get serious winters. Lakes and rivers freeze, and even the Great Lakes end up under very thick ice cover. To address these challenges, I worked to include a provision requiring pipeline operators to prepare response plans that address cleanup of an oilspill in ice-covered waters. The Coast Guard has stated that it does not have the technology or the capacity for worst-case discharge cleanup under solid ice and that its response activities are not adequate in ice-choked waters. We need to address this problem now before a spill under ice-covered water happens.
Any oil pipeline that is deeper than 150 feet underwater will be required to undergo an inspection every year as a result of this bill. This requirement would be especially relevant for pipelines running through the Great Lakes, especially the twin oil pipelines resting on the lakebed in the Straits of Mackinac. The bill also establishes emergency order authority so that PHMSA can take quick action to ensure safety when pipelines pose an imminent threat.
This bill goes beyond just addressing pipelines; it also directs the Department of Transportation to issue minimum safety standards for underground natural gas storage facilities. The dangers of a leak from an underground storage facility was illustrated in a massive methane leak at a facility in California just a few short months ago which resulted in evacuations and an emergency declaration. These new standards are especially important for my home State of Michigan because we have more underground natural gas storage facilities than almost any other State in the Union.
Other sections of the PIPES Act encourage collaboration on research, development, mapping, and technology between Federal agencies, public stakeholders, and industry leaders. All of these constituencies were key to providing input into this bill.
I would like to thank Senators Fischer, Booker, and Daines, and of course Chairman Thune and Ranking Member Nelson for their hard work on the PIPES Act. The Energy and Commerce Committee and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in the House were also instrumental in making changes and important improvements.
As we continue to move forward and find better ways to meet our energy needs, it is my hope that we can learn from past catastrophes and prevent future ones before they ever occur.
The bipartisan PIPES Act can be a model for how we work together to improve performance and raise our standards in the energy sector.
Mr. President, 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. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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