The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“LEGISLATIVE SESSION” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the Senate section on pages S2748-S2761 on June 8, 2020.
The Department oversees more than 500 million acres of land. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the department has contributed to a growing water crisis and holds many lands which could be better managed.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
______
TAXPAYER FIRST ACT OF 2019--MOTION TO PROCEED--Resumed
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 1957, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 75, H.R. 1957, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modernize and improve the Internal Revenue Service, and for other purposes.
Mr. McCONNELL. 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. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Recognition of The Democratic Leader
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.
Protests
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now, ``Equal Justice Under Law''--those words are etched in stone above the doors of the Supreme Court, a bedrock principle of the American system. These past few weeks have been a searing reminder of how that principle does not reflect the lived experience for many Americans.
For Black Americans, confrontations with the police are not the same as for White Americans. You can be standing on a street corner like Eric Garner or asleep in your bed like Breonna Taylor and have your life ended by police. George Floyd's brutal death at the hands of a White police officer in Minneapolis sparked peaceful protests across this country because as singular and tragic as the death of George Floyd was, his experience was one that resonated with far too many Black Americans.
That is why hundreds of thousands of Americans have engaged in peaceful demonstrations against police violence and systemic racism. From Los Angeles to Washington, DC, and from Seattle to New York City, where I joined shoulder to shoulder with my fellow New Yorkers on Saturday, Americans from all walks of life have marched, sang, prayed, cried, and spoken out that Black lives matter; that our country promises justice for all but too often only delivers it for some.
The protests weren't confined to big cities. Thousands turned out in Allentown and Fayetteville, PA; in Fairmont, WV; and in Havre, MT. There were Black Lives Matter protests in Vidor, TX, a city with a troubled history as a haven for the KKK, and Harvard, NE, a city with only 1,000 residents.
Remarkably, though these protests concerned events within our borders, they sparked outrage far outside of them. The name ``George Floyd'' was chanted in Rome, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Mexico City. This is a rare moment for our Nation's history. Injustice stares us so plainly in the face that the great mass of our people are demanding change. The institutions of our government and our democracy have an obligation to answer.
Today, we are taking the first of many necessary steps to respond to our national pain with bold action. This morning, I joined with Speaker Pelosi and several of our House colleagues, Representatives Bass, Clyburn, Nadler, and Jeffries, as well as my colleagues, Senators Booker and Harris, to introduce the Justice in Policing Act--a response to the recent protests and the years of failure to reform our police departments.
The Justice in Policing Act proposes crucial reforms to combat racial bias and excessive force by law enforcement. It would ban the use of choke holds and other tactics that have left Black Americans dead. It would limit the transfer of military weaponry and equipment to police departments. It would change the legal standard to make it easier to hold police accountable for misconduct when they use deadly force on American citizens.
Through increased data and transparency, as well as important modifications to training and practices, it would help prevent police misconduct in the first place. This has never been done before at the Federal level, and it would encourage the same changes at the State and local level in order for those police departments to receive Federal funds.
In the Senate, Democrats are going to fight like hell to make this proposal a reality. Americans who took to the streets have demanded change. With this legislation, Democrats are heeding their call. Now is the time for Leader McConnell to commit to putting police reform on the floor of the Senate before July 4 to be debated and voted on. Several Republicans have acknowledged the egregious wrongs, but too few have expressed a need for floor action. Too many have remained silent. Maybe our Republican friends are hoping the issue goes away. I promise them it will not. Democrats will not let this go away, and we will not rest until we achieve real reforms.
Leader McConnell, let's have the debate not just on TV and Twitter but on the floor of the U.S. Senate. We need legislation and debate. A divided nation cannot wait for healing and for solutions. The Republican majority must not continue to squander the Senate's time on rightwing judges and conspiracy hearings. History will judge whether this Chamber responds to the Nation's pain with action or lets an old and terrible wound in our society continue to fester.
The poison of racism affects more than our criminal justice system. It runs much deeper than that. There are racial disparities in housing and healthcare, education and the economy, income and wealth, and COVID has only placed a magnifying glass on all these forms of inequality.
There are now 118,000 confirmed deaths from COVID in the United States. Black Americans have died at a disproportionate rate. As hospitals and healthcare workers have scrambled to secure enough supplies and create enough space, those institutions that serve communities of color have been the most strained. As our medical crisis led to an economic crisis, it is largely African Americans and Latinos who have seen their jobs disappear faster and more permanently.
The President is evidently prepared to declare the fight against COVID-19 over because 15 percent of our country's citizens are unemployed, not 20 percent, even though that figure--15 percent--is higher than at any point during the Great Recession. The reason unemployment isn't as shockingly awful as it might have been was that Congress leapt into action at the outset of the pandemic and passed a major bill, the CARES Act, to keep the country afloat. The bill that eventually passed was bipartisan, but Democrats had to push Republicans almost every step of the way to get many of the improvements in the bill. Much of the aid the bill gave to unemployment, to our healthcare systems, and to truly small businesses was because Democrats insisted.
If the President and Senate Republicans declare victory too early, if they lull into complacency now, and if they wait too long to pass another round of emergency relief, the economic conditions in our country will deteriorate. If we do nothing, more Americans will lose their jobs, more Americans will lose their healthcare, more Americans will struggle to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head, and more Americans will see small businesses they sweated so hard to create fail.
We fear that the recent bump in the employment number, caused in large part because of the stimulus money we pumped into the economy, will create, in Republicans, a sense of complacency, and the economy will get even worse.
The fact that we are confronted by so many challenges--so many challenges--can seem overwhelming. The fact and the consequences of Republican inaction, the fact that they fall so heavily on Black and Brown Americans is so confounding, but there is no reason that we cannot respond to this moment of national crisis with vigorous and sustained action, with purposeful action and bipartisan effort on the COVID pandemic and long, simmering issues of police violence and racial justice. We must do both.
That is what the Senate, supposedly the world's greatest deliberative body, was designed to do. There are four remaining weeks before July 4. The time for waiting is gone. Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans must commit to putting a police reform bill on the Senate floor for debate and a vote. They must commit to working with us on another emergency relief package. We have waited too long already. Let me repeat. Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans, we must accomplish two things before July 4: police reform and COVID relief. We can and must do both. Do not stand in the way of a nation yearning for solutions--
not for empty rhetoric, not for name-calling, and not for partisanship.
Before I yield the floor, I want to mention one other issue. Last week, President Trump was responsible for ordering Federal officers to force peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square--just across the street from the White House--in clear violation of their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and assembly. It was deeply offensive and wrong. Even more appalling was the purpose of the order: to clear a path for the President to stage a political stunt at nearby St. John's Church.
Today, Lafayette Square, a place which has long been a venue where Americans gather to freely exercise their constitutional rights, remains blocked off by heavy fencing. The President has converted this unique public park in the heart of the Nation's Capital into something resembling a militarized zone. Lafayette Square should be a symbol of freedom and openness to the world, not a place behind which the President cowers in fear of peaceful protesters crying out for justice.
So, moments ago, Speaker Pelosi and I sent a letter to President Trump urging him to reopen Lafayette Square. President Trump, tear down these walls and allow the public to gather in front of the White House for you and for all the world to hear their voices
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
H.R. 1957
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Great American Outdoors Act that we may be debating this week. I am hoping that we can find a responsible way to pay for the maintenance backlog of our national parks.
Our national parks are an important source of pride for our country. They are known internationally. We had the first national park in the world with Yellowstone Park. Unfortunately, our parks are in the midst of a rising crisis that has been building over many years. They are in desperate need of repair and maintenance and fixing them will require billions of dollars.
This week, the Senate is working on legislation to address this backlog, and I believe it is vital that we address this issue both responsibly and permanently. This will help generations to fix problems in our parks without having to put the cost on the Nation's credit card. We can pay now or we can make our kids pay through reduced Federal help and services that we are used to, or we can figure out a way to have a small fee now. It should be a pretty easy choice.
Unfortunately, the Great American Outdoors Act, as written, represents only a one-time fix and is neither responsible nor permanent. Instead, the bill adds over $17 billion to our national debt. Moreover, the measure includes a permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Program, which will add even more future maintenance to our already backlogged systems without being paid for.
After all of the spending we have just undertaken, we must be more vigilant in finding proper ways to ensure our government spending is paid for, and fixing this bill can be an important place to start. Without some changes, this legislation will force our country to borrow more money, burying us deeper in debt, and only provide funding for 5 years.
I am also concerned that the bill tries to spend the same money twice, which is using a budget gimmick. We should always strive to be fiscally responsible, and that is even more important now after Congress has spent more than $2 trillion to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. To address the current park's backlog, it would cost nearly
$12 billion, according to the National Park Service. In comparison, last year, the entire national budget for the national parks was $4.1 billion. Let me repeat that. The cost would be $12 billion to take care of the backlog. Their whole budget last year was just $4.1 billion.
Congress is already struggling to find funding for other worthwhile Federal needs. That is why, for the past several years, I have worked on a fix. I filed an amendment to this bill that addresses the maintenance issues responsibly and permanently without adding to our debt. Let me repeat that. My amendment is completely offset and provides a permanent solution. It has been ignored, so far, through this process.
The way my amendment works is by asking our foreign visitors, who numbers show are increasingly enjoying our parks, to pay $16 or $25 more when they enter the country as part of their visa fee--a part of it--not a big increase compared to that.
According to a study by the U.S. Travel Association, nearly 40 percent of the people who come to the United States from abroad are visiting one or more of our national parks. That is over 14 million people who come from abroad and visit our national parks.
It is great that people from all over the world recognize the value of these national treasures, but this increased visitation is adding to the maintenance backlog, and it is only fair that we ask them to help maintain these national treasures.
There is nothing novel about this concept. Anyone who has visited an attraction outside of the United States has probably encountered such fees in one way or another. For example, foreign visitors to the Taj Mahal in India will pay an $18 fee, compared to a fee of only 56 cents for local visitors. At Kruger National Park in South Africa, visitors from outside the country will pay $25 per day compared to $6.25 for local visitors.
Many European countries--like Spain, France, and Italy--charge a tourist tax on hotel rooms that is used to pay for tourism infrastructure.
We also ask park visitors to assist with addressing the backlog. No one likes to pay more for things, especially during times like these, but to maintain these national treasures for future generations, we either borrow money and put it on the national credit card or we take some modest steps to address the issue responsibly--kind of a pay-as-
you-go.
My amendment only raises entrance fees by $5 and annual passes by
$20, so bringing a vehicle into the park would still be cheaper than taking a family of four to a movie or visiting an amusement park for a day. In fact, it is a real bargain from that.
We, as a nation, have seen the joy our national parks bring to those who venture and visit them. In Wyoming and all across the country, America's national parks are something to be proud of and protect. We owe it to the parks and to the citizens and foreign visitors who partake of their wonders to keep them in good working order. We should not allow the maintenance and repairs to fester, which erodes visitor experiences and costs billions to fix.
Are people going to the parks? Yes, they are. Yellowstone National Park has opened up now and I think is at about 75 percent of capacity already. I read in the papers about this family from Georgia who was planning on taking their family to Florida to Disney World, but Disney World is closed, so they drove across the country to Wyoming and went to Yellowstone National Park. One of the adventures they got was to get to see a real wolf up close and personal. They got some good pictures of it too.
People will travel a long way to see these parks. They don't expect them to be an international bargain, and neither do foreign visitors who are used to seeing us, when we go to their country, pay a higher fee for national parks.
We need to fix our national parks. The question is, Will we pay as it is used or will we force our kids and grandkids to pay for something they maybe never got to enjoy? We can put a small addition on foreign visa fees or we can pass it on to our kids.
Let's do one amendment that will pay for parks in perpetuity, not just gimmick spending for 5 years. Fixing this bill will help ensure we no longer have to put our parks' current obligations on the backs of future generations.
I know the item at stake here will not end our fiscal crisis, but if we can't do something modest to start to address our spending addiction, then we are in greater trouble than I ever thought.
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. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ernst). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Reform
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, over the last few months, America has experienced a trifecta of crises, which are reminiscent of some of the most difficult periods in our Nation's history. In many ways, it feels like we are learning what it was like to live through the Spanish flu pandemic, the Great Depression, and the civil rights movement--all at once.
This period has challenged all of us physically, economically, and emotionally, and while we still have a long way to go, we are seeing incremental signs of progress. Last week, New York City--once the epicenter of COVID-19 cases--reported no confirmed coronavirus deaths. That was the first time that had happened since March 11.
Our economy is experiencing positive improvement as well. Friday's jobs report showed that employment rose by 2.5 million people in May--
an absolutely astonishing and recordbreaking figure. I think that is the first time that happened since 1934. Unemployment dropped to 13.3 percent. That is still way too high but a sharp contrast from the expectations and projections of economists.
While we are seeing the needle move in the right direction in our fight to defeat the coronavirus and restore our economy, the third in this trio of crises is much more complex. The murder of George Floyd has sparked passion and anger throughout our country and galvanized people of all skin colors, backgrounds, and ages to demand action. In big cities and small towns alike, we have seen peaceful marches and powerful demonstrations calling for an end to racial injustice that has existed sadly since our country's inception.
One of the largest protests in the country happened last week in Mr. Floyd's hometown in Houston, TX, where I was born and where he will be buried tomorrow. An estimated 60,000 people gathered to march in his honor and demand justice
The first step in justice for George Floyd, and now that all four officers involved in his death have been arrested and charged, is for the criminal justice system to work. But these four arrests do not erase the larger problems that exist in our society--the lack of trust, the sense that justice is not equal. In fact, they have only shined a brighter light on the systemic problems that we need to do our best to try to address. Making lasting changes will not be quick or easy.
At the rally in Houston, several of Mr. Floyd's family members spoke, and one said: ``This is going to be more like a marathon.'' I think that is pretty realistic. It is going to take some time, and it will be the result of difficult discussions but necessary discussions that are happening in homes, workplaces, and buildings like this all across the country.
No one has all the answers, but there is a lot we can learn--first, by simply listening to one another. Earlier today, I was able to speak to George Floyd's family and do just that--listen. They have gone through unimaginable pain over these last 2 weeks.
I told them I am committed to making sure that George Floyd receives justice. I said: In my experience during times like this, the best comfort you can offer to someone who has lost a loved one is that their death will not be in vain; that something good will come out of it.
We know some of the most important reforms that need to be made are in our criminal justice system. The tragic events of Minneapolis, Louisville, and a number of other cities across the country have renewed calls to transform policing practices and repair the divide that exists between some communities and the police. Of course, much of that will take place at the local and State level. It is, in fact, the city council and mayors who hire the police chief and make sure they are running their programs and their departments with integrity and professionalism. That is where most of the important decisions about day-to-day policing and procedures are made.
One example in my State is the Sandra Bland Act, which Governor Abbott signed into law in 2017. The namesake of that bill was a Black woman who was found dead in a county jail days after being arrested during a routine traffic stop. The law passed in her honor made a number of changes, including requiring deescalation training for law enforcement officials, much like we have done in the mental health space.
The individual police departments are the ones that make decisions about specific practices, responsible, of course, to their city leadership, such as banning knee holds or choke holds. There are important conversations taking place across Texas and the country about how we can effectively promote and improve police practices and begin to repair the damaged relationship between our minority communities and our police.
To strengthen that work, there are steps we can take in Washington, DC. I know many of us are engaged in active discussions about what is the best way to create real change. I know it is a priority for Members on both sides of the aisle.
One proposal I have mentioned is a bipartisan bill that I introduced with Senator Gary Peters of Michigan and Chairman Lindsey Graham last year. This bill actually had 20 bipartisan cosponsors. It was endorsed not only by the Urban League and the NAACP but the major police organizations in this country as well. It passed unanimously in the Senate. Unfortunately, we ran out of time in the House so it did not actually become law--not yet.
This legislation creates a National Criminal Justice Commission, much like the 9/11 Commission, that would review our criminal justice system writ large from top to bottom--something that has not happened since 1965. In 18 months, the Commission would report back to us and make recommendations for changes that could be considered and passed by the Congress.
This would allow us to systemically look at what is working and what isn't and what needs to be done to modernize our criminal justice system, including repairing the broken relationship between law enforcement and some of our minority communities.
The review that took place in 1965 produced 1,200 specific recommendations, and it is past time to once again take stock of the successes and failures of our criminal justice system.
As I mentioned, the bill that passed the Senate unanimously had 20 bipartisan cosponsors and was supported by the National Association of Police Organizations, Major City Chiefs Association, the National Urban League.
I believe this type of legislation would give us the basic framework for the lasting changes that we are all after. It would be an umbrella commission under which a lot of very specific and granular issues could be debated and voted on and, if meritorious, passed and become part of the law.
I hope it will become a part of our conversation that we are having in the coming days and weeks. Rooting out racial injustice that has existed for generations will require a long-term, bipartisan commitment in Congress and in homes and institutions across the country.
I do believe it is simply wrong to paint all police and all law enforcement as somehow racially biased. I think that is not deserved, and I think it is just flat wrong and irresponsible. Clearly, when there are cases of abuse, where even a police officer crosses the line, they need to be held accountable, and we need to be focused on identifying those individuals not only in prosecuting them but in sending a message that that sort of action will not be tolerated in a civilized society. And next, we need to regain the confidence for all of our people or all colors; that the police are our friend and a necessary part of our ordered liberty.
Without order, you have anarchy. Only with order, fair laws justly administered on an equal basis can we enjoy the liberty that is part of our birthright in America. I am committed to being part of the solution, and I am eager to roll up my sleeves with all of our colleagues and get to work
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
H.R. 1957
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I am on the floor to talk about the historic opportunity that is before this body this evening and throughout the week to be able to help us get our national parks back on track. These are our treasured national parks that are such a great asset to our country, and right now they are in trouble.
One of the bills before us this week, in what is called the Great American Outdoors Act, is the bipartisan Restore Our Parks Act. It directs Federal funding from royalties on oil and gas leases and other energy leases to Federal lands. It directs that funding to our national parks to take care of deferred maintenance.
Why is this investment needed? Thanks to the wisdom of Teddy Roosevelt, who had the foresight to set aside and preserve some of our most spectacular land for public use, and thanks to so many friends of the parks who have followed, America's national parks are without equal. The National Park Service and its system now comprise 84 million acres of land and historical sites that now attracts 330 million visitors every year. In fact, from 2006 to 2017, annual visitation in our parks increased by about 58 million people. They are popular.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear there is a lot of demand to be in the out-of-doors. And so I believe as we start to reopen our parks this summer, which we will do soon, Americans will be all the more eager to go out to our parks and explore our country's natural beauty and explore its history.
The problem is that when people head to the parks, they may be surprised that things are a little rundown. This isn't new. It has been happening to our parks for decades, actually. Some of the trails will be closed. Some of the bathrooms aren't going to be working. In places, roads and bridges will be crumbling, and visitor centers that have leaks in their roofs will be closed. It is a widespread problem of deferred maintenance that has gradually grown to become a huge backlog of around $12 billion at our national park sites. That is $12 billion in deferred maintenance that has not been taken care of.
The good news is, with my colleagues Senator Warner, Senator Alexander, and Senator King, we introduced this commonsense solution a few years ago called Restore our Parks Act. It will address this backlog.
To me, this is a debt unpaid. It would have been a lot smarter to pay it all along, by the way, but our annual appropriations here in Congress were never big enough, so what funds we had available went for things like park rangers, for programming, and, frankly, for applying bandaids to some of these maintenance problems.
Other funds also, of course, went to expanding our parks. Let me make one thing clear: This bill before us today--the Restore Our Parks Act--
is all about stewardship. It is about taking better care of what we have. Not a penny of it can be used for expansion.
Of course, one of our challenges right now, as a country coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, is to figure out how to get people back to work, and it is a real challenge because, although the jobs report on Friday was encouraging in terms of some jobs being added in May, we still have one of the highest unemployment rates we have ever had in this country.
One place we have an opportunity to get people back to work is, of course, rebuilding our infrastructure. There are lots of discussions about that. Well, this legislation does that. These are shovel-ready projects--infrastructure projects that are ready to go.
Last week, the National Parks Service released a new study that found that the Restore Our Parks Act will support 100,000 new jobs as we rebuild our national parks infrastructure over the next 5 years--40,000 direct jobs, about 60,000 indirect jobs--over 100,000 total new jobs.
By the way, these are good jobs. These are jobs with good pay and good benefits.
I first became involved in this issue of our national parks because I have grown to love the parks, as do so many Americans. Even those who don't have a chance to visit them very much are proud of the fact that we have this incredible system, this true treasure for our country.
When I was about 12 years old, my mom and dad took us to Yellowstone Park, and we went camping, and we saw the geysers, and we got to see things that I had never seen before--just this spectacular park in the West. This amazing park system that we have in this country continues to be something I am proud of. So ever since I was 12 years old, I have been a parks fan.
We have eight national parks in my home State of Ohio. One of those is called the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which is our largest single park. It is actually the thirteenth most visited park in the country. You may not have heard of it, but it is an awesome park. It is kind of situated right in between Cleveland and Akron. It is a place where you can go biking; you can go hiking; you can go fishing; you can go kayaking; you can take a scenic railway through the park. It is a spectacular place, and it is accessed by a lot of people, being so close to the suburbs and even so close to the cities. It is not a typical park out in the rural area; it is a park that is really right up against the suburbs and close to the cities. I am proud to be one of the 2.7 million visitors a year that goes to Cuyahoga Valley National Park to take advantage of all those things I talked about.
In addition to these larger parks, our park system also includes a lot of other sites. As an Ohio example, in my hometown of Cincinnati is the boyhood home of President William Howard Taft, who was both President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Like everywhere else in our park system, all of these sites are getting rundown. Why has this happened? Well, again, because every year we appropriate funding for the operations of the park--for nature programs, for rangers, for day-to-day operations and activities--but we haven't provided enough money to provide for these maintenance needs.
Think about it in terms of your own family or your own home or your own business. Taking that big step and making those capital improvements is a big, big cost, and we don't budget for that here very well. So we have allowed these maintenance projects to build up, meaning a lot of buildings, a lot of infrastructure--roads, bridges, water systems--are deteriorating to the point that a lot of them are really completely unusable.
I have seen this firsthand as I have visited our Ohio parks. Here are a couple photos of some of the visits we have made.
I go to Cuyahoga Valley National Park frequently, as I said, and there are always a lot of school field trips, a lot of hikers, a lot of other visitors. It is a great park, but it needs about $50 million in repair--just that one park, Cuyahoga National Park.
The railroad track is in such bad repair--and it is behind me here--
that it is dangerous or will be soon to go on that scenic railroad. So we have to fix the railroad tracks. Some of the trails seem to be falling apart because of erosion. An $11 million budget is the annual budget for that park, Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Again, it is the thirteenth most visited park in the country, yet they have a $50 million backlog--a $50 million backlog. So it is just not sustainable.
I also visited the Perry monument a couple of times in the last couple of years, including last summer. Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial is on the shores of Lake Erie. It honors those who fought in the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812, which was such a critically important battle for our victory. It also celebrates the long-lasting peace between the U.K., Canada, and the United States. So it is an important historical marker.
There I saw some of the $48 million in long-delayed maintenance needs at that site, which includes millions in needed repairs to a concrete seawall--and here is the seawall. You can see some of the damage to it. There are also sinkholes behind me here.
We have to repair that seawall, but, boy, it is a big cost. But if you don't repair it, you continue to have other damage, including the road behind me, and, obviously, people are not permitted to go near the lake there.
So $48 million is a lot for that small memorial, small national park. The visitors' center there also needs upgrades. It needs to be made ADA accessible, an example--Americans with Disabilities Act. Again, the budget for that park is miniscule, but the maintenance needs are huge.
It is not just our outdoor spaces that need work. The past 2 years I have visited the Taft home in Cincinnati where President William Howard Taft was born and raised. The house is still in pretty good condition, but there are infrastructure upgrades that have to be made--repairing the roof, repairing some of the woodwork. You can see the roof here and some of the mold. When you don't repair the roof, what happens? The roof leaks, and the walls get moldy, and the floor begins to couple.
So whether it is your house or whether it is our national parks, that is what is happening.
We have to do this in order to ensure that the costs don't expand even further, which is what happens, again, in your own home. If you don't fix that roof, you have all kinds of other problems, and they compound.
The compounding problem in our national parks is not just $12 billion. If we don't address it, it will grow to be much greater than that. The longer we wait, the more expensive it gets. The same story is true with all of our parks all around our country, and it is time for us to fix it.
By the way, people ask me: Well, how do you know what the most urgent needs are? Because we require the parks to keep it. We require them to tell the U.S. Congress every year their highest priority needs, spell them out, in specific terms, what is needed--what the cost is, how long the repairs would take, and so on. This is why I said that they are shovel ready, because we know what these projects are.
Here is the deferred maintenance cost in Ohio, as an example, just for Ohio--again, totaling $114 million. Here is the Perry's Victory Memorial, $48 million; here is the Cuyahoga Valley National Park at almost $52 million.
Again, at some of our bigger parks around the country, the costs are even higher. So this is an opportunity for us to do the right thing by these treasures that we have, to make sure they don't continue to deteriorate. This is where our Restore Our Parks Act is so important to pass.
As I said earlier, this legislation is going to support more than 100,000 jobs and cut into that maintenance backlog. What is even better about this legislation is that taxpayers aren't the ones footing the bill. Instead, this bill creates what is called the Legacy Restoration Fund, which will provide $1.9 billion per year for 5 years from 50 percent of the unobligated on- and offshore energy revenue. Again, this comes from on- and offshore oil, gas, and other energy projects.
This means we will have $9.5 billion to be divided across the National Park Service and other Federal Land Management agencies. It will not fund every needed repair, but the $6.5 billion our parks are going to get will address all of the high priority items, so 6.5 out of 12, roughly half--a little more than half--of those projects, but it does comprise all of the high-priority items for our national parks.
It is a win-win, especially right now. This enables us to restore our parks and our public lands--these great national treasures. It supports jobs at a time when people are anxious to get back to work, and it does all this by taking this funding that comes from the leases--oil, natural gas, and other energy projects. It is good for our economy. We need to get people back to work again, and it is an example of how Congress can pass laws that both create jobs and serve the public's interests.
It is particularly good news that we are voting on it this week, because the quicker we act, the better.
I want to thank Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing us to bring this to the floor. I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have worked so hard on this legislation. Specifically, I want to thank Senator Warner, who came up with this great idea of shifting the funding from the oil, gas, and other energy projects--some of these royalty moneys--into this particular project.
I have worked for years on parks. I am the author of the Centennial Act, which was back in 2016 for our national parks, which helps to get public-private partnerships involved, which I strongly support. That has helped a little bit on the maintenance, but it is not nearly enough money. So we need to do more, and that is what this legislation does.
I also want to thank Senator Alexander and Senator King for their work on this national parks legislation.
I also want to thank my other colleagues who have been so involved in this broader package. That would be Senator Gardner, Senator Manchin, Senator Daines. That is the Great American Outdoors Act. They helped me to put that together.
This is the right thing to do for our country at the right time.
I want to also say that the Trump administration strongly supports this legislation, and that has been really important, too, to get it in the budget, to be sure that the Office of Management and Budget, where I used to serve, is on board, because the funding here is not our typical appropriations funding, and I thank them for that. I thank President Trump for helping us to ensure that this can come to the floor today and can actually get passed by the U.S. Congress and then signed into law.
Let's do it. On a bipartisan basis, let's do something positive this week to move our country forward, to create more jobs, and to ensure that our wonderful national parks are there for future generations.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered
Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, today the Senate will take the first steps toward passing the great American Outdoors Act, with the vote to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the House bill, which will be used as the underlying legislative vehicle.
The majority of my Senate colleagues have cosponsored this bill, and we have an incredible opportunity to enact this important bipartisan legislation.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that our Nation is in turmoil and hurting. We are still very much in the midst of both a health and economic crisis, and this weekend we saw millions of people join peaceful demonstrations in communities across the country.
It is so important that we in Congress take action, and I am so pleased that we have returned to legislating. There is no shortage of important business for us to address as a body.
The Great American Outdoors Act will create jobs while protecting and expanding access to the great outdoors across our country for everyone, whether that be hunting, fishing, or hiking in the Monongahela National Forest in my great State of West Virginia or rafting down the Gauley River or learning about Civil War history--just to give a few examples of what my home State of West Virginia has to offer.
This is a legacy that we can all pass down to our grandchildren and generations to come, and it has been a long time coming.
I want to thank my good friend Senator Lisa Murkowski for working with us through the committee process. I would also like to thank my colleagues, Senators Gardner, Warner, Daines, Cantwell, Portman, King, Alexander, and Heinrich, for their work over many years on the Land and Water Conservation Fund--or as we call it, LWCF--and deferred maintenance bills that are now joined together in the Great American Outdoors Act.
This bill would realize a goal that so many of us in this body have fought hard to attain for so long, to provide permanent, mandatory funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund at its fully authorized level of $900 million annually.
Last year, the Senate passed a public lands package by an overwhelming vote of 92 to 8 that permanently authorized the LWCF--the most successful land conservation program in our Nation's history. A vote that bipartisan is, unfortunately, unheard of today and speaks to the overwhelming popularity of conservation programs in every State in the country.
The day after we secured permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, we made it clear that our next hurdle was achieving mandatory full funding. The Great American Outdoors Act includes the mandatory LWCF funding bill that I introduced, along with a lot of help from all my friends on both the Democratic and Republican sides.
We had strong bipartisan support for mandatory LWCF funding, with the majority of the Senate cosponsoring the bill, and a strong bipartisan vote coming out of committee.
We need to secure this funding because since the LWCF was established 55 years ago, over $22 billion--think about that--over $22 billion has been deposited in the LWCF fund but was never appropriated and instead went into the Treasury.
Although every State and territory and almost every county has benefited from LWCF, it has been fully funded only twice in the 55-year history--only twice have we gotten full funding. Think what we could have done with that $22 billion.
Despite that, LWCF has been able to do wonderful things with the funds that have been appropriated, which in recent years have been at half of the authorized funding level and, in previous years, less than that. Just imagine what we can achieve for our country with this full funding.
The LWCF is the primary conservation funding tool that helps provide public access for hunting and fishing and recreational use of public lands. It also helps fund State and local parks. It helps maintain working forests through the Forest Legacy Program. It protects historic battlefields through the American Battlefield Protection Program, and it helps landowners voluntarily protect habitats for endangered species.
Permanent LWCF funding will improve access to public lands, improving access to hunting and fishing opportunities, and will ensure the program remains an important contributor to a strong and growing outdoor recreation economy that will benefit State and local economies throughout our Nation.
A recent analysis from Boston University shows that at full funding of $900 million a year, the LWCF could support approximately 15,000 to 28,000 jobs at a time when our country needs them most.
Passing permanent LWCF authorization last year was an important step, and we are so close to realizing the ultimate goal of fully fulfilling the original intent of the LWCF Program and securing a permanent, dedicated funding source for the multiple conservation programs funded by the LWCF.
The Great American Outdoors Act also includes $9.5 billion for deferred maintenance projects on Federal lands, with 70 percent of that amount dedicated to our national parks. Senators Portman, Warner, Alexander, King, and many others worked so hard on that original legislation, and I was proud to cosponsor and support as it went through the Senate's Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The legislation will be the most significant reduction ever in eliminating a major portion of the deferred maintenance backlog of our national parks and public lands.
The impact of failing to fund our national parks and maintenance for so long is clear to see. Last year, I visited Pearl Harbor with my family, and I was incredibly disappointed to see the state of disrepair it was in. There were faded and torn signs and audio displays and lights that were not working. It was an embarrassment.
The infrastructure projects that will be funded through this bill are critical to protecting many of our national treasures. The LWCF funding will provide a significant benefit to the national outdoor recreation economy. Investing in deferred maintenance projects will create over 40,000 direct jobs and over 100,000 total jobs, and that is just for deferred maintenance projects in our national parks. This bill also includes funding for deferred maintenance projects at other land management agencies and Bureau of Indian Education schools.
The Great American Outdoors Act will help us to be good stewards of our public lands while, at the same time, creating thousands of new jobs--a bipartisan win-win, which we should have more of. We have broad, bipartisan support, with 60 Senators signing on, which is representative of how important these bills are to every State and every county in every State. We have support from the administration and unwavering support from over 900 conservation and sportsmen groups throughout the Nation. It is a shining example of Democrats and Republicans coming together to put politics aside to do what is best for conserving the natural resources of this great Nation.
The passage of this bill will be an historic achievement, and I believe this will be one of the most significant conservation bills ever enacted into law. What a legacy all of us can walk away with and look at our children and grandchildren, knowing that we have helped protect our wonderful national parks and outdoor recreation opportunities. I ask all of my colleagues to join me in voting yes to invoke cloture this evening and begin consideration of the Great American Outdoors Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Business Before the Senate
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, this weekend, I was thinking about the toll that the recent loss of fellowship has really taken on the American people.
I think everyone would agree that, over the past few months, we have really felt levels of loneliness, anger, and frustration that we have never experienced in our lives. For most of us, it has been a long time since we have been able to gather with friends and family or to go to a church service. This isolation has brought to the surface conflict that has been brewing for a very long time. For many years, powerful forces in politics and popular culture have insisted that there is nothing we can't learn from interacting with one another online. Technology has brought the world together under the premise of this false intimacy and convinced millions of people that what they see on their screens is all they need to know about the world.
There are many things that Americans can rightfully disagree about, especially during an election year, but contrary to what our social media timelines would lead us to believe, most Americans have held onto the lessons we all should have learned when we were mere children. When we were little, we learned that, as Americans, we have a duty to fight hatred wherever we find it, to be kind to one another, to practice the Golden Rule. Instead of giving in to stereotypes and assumptions, we should reject our own biases and, instead, meet people where they are, with open arms and listening ears and loving hearts, and truly listen to what they have to say.
There are destructive forces at work in this country that want the American people to forget these lessons and, instead, make a false choice between putting their beliefs into practice and protecting the institutions and symbols that define our Republic. They want to convince you that this Nation is broken beyond repair. That is their goal: to undermine what you believe and to convince you that the path forward must be forged at the expense of faith, hope, and free speech, free expression. This is a lie. Worse, it is an obvious lie to anyone who has studied our Nation's precious history. For hundreds of years, the American people have persevered in spite of conflict and more--
civil unrest, economic downturns, and neighborly disagreements.
That is what we are going to do now here in Washington, back at home in Tennessee, and in our communities. Instead of allowing Congress to come to a standstill, we will make and encourage strong policies that protect the American people. Even though the mainstream media has temporarily forgotten that we are in the midst of a global pandemic, the Senate has not forgotten that. We will continue to monitor the progress of businessowners as they slowly repair the damage done to our economy by extended lockdowns and do everything we can to make sure our scientists have the resources they need to develop a vaccine for COVID-
19.
Our relationship with China has changed forever, and we must pass legislation to reflect that. Our supply chains that provide pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and critical national resources are all vulnerable to manipulation by Beijing. We should pass legislation to incentivize domestic manufacturing, starting with the SAM-C bill that Senator Menendez and I have offered in this Chamber. This would support stateside pharmaceutical production.
We must also continue working with Big Tech to create responsible privacy guidelines and protect consumer data from Chinese hackers. Last week in Judiciary, we heard testimony that confirmed a history of corruption at the highest levels of the Obama-led Justice Department. There are many, even in this Chamber, who would rather not talk about that, but we must press forward with this investigation. We have to get to the bottom of what happened at the Department of Justice and with the FBI during Operation Crossfire Hurricane, and we will do all of this. We will do the job that we were elected to do while we maintain law and order and insist that those enforcing the law are accountable to the citizens whom they are sworn to serve and protect.
To those who insist that we as a nation are irreparably broken, I want you to know that I and the American people have taken note of your words, and now I hope that you will take note of mine. This country is strong. Our people are resilient. Over the course of just a few months, many of them have lost everything. They have lost the lives of family members. They have lost their livelihoods. Their lives and their futures--every waking moment of every day--are filled with uncertainty, but they still hold tight to those lessons they learned when they were children. They know that they were endowed by their Creator with the liberties that make America special and that no force on Earth has the power to separate them from their faith in God and their country and in one another.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
H.R. 1957
Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I rise to speak about the historic vote to happen shortly that will advance conservation and public lands projects, called the Great American Outdoors Act. I urge all of my colleagues to support this important legislation.
First, I thank everyone who has been involved in this legislation--
Senator Gardner, who just joined us on the floor; Senator Manchin, who spoke earlier; Senator Daines; Senator Warner; Senator Portman, who also spoke earlier; Senator Alexander; Senator King; Senator Burr; and then several other Senators who will, I know, participate tomorrow as a group and speak--Senators Tester, Bennet, Heinrich, and so many more.
This coalition has said we should spend the money in the fund for LWCF and combine it with taking care of parks' backlog. This has been a priority of two different groups of Senators who have worked together to try to pass this legislation.
I also thank Senators Portman, Alexander, King, and Warner and my House colleague, Representative Kilmer, for working so diligently on the parks' backlog. I thank Senator Alexander specifically, who has been one of the champions of the parks' backlog.
Just a few years ago, I remember I asked him: Lamar, do you think we are really going to get $6.5 billion spent on the backlog?
He said: We are going to try our darned best.
Apparently, Lamar Alexander's darned best today has been a success in helping us to move this forward.
Again, I thank the prime sponsors of the bill, Senator Gardner and Senator Manchin, for their steadfast work on the LWCF and the parks' backlog. I also thank Senator Burr, who is a steadfast champion of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and who, with me, helped to sponsor the permanent reauthorization of the Fund and tried to get the funds spent. This effort has continued over many decades by many colleagues, including by two former Senators, Bingaman and Baucus, who were both giants in all of this.
I thank everybody for their important efforts over the years that have gotten us to this point today.
Why are we here? A lot of people would ask: In the middle of a pandemic, an economic crisis, and a big struggle to energize the need for civil rights and equality, why are we talking about a public lands bill?
As I said, we are here because there is a lot of history behind the outdoors economy and the economy itself of the activities that generate an economic return from having public lands. This has been a juggernaut for us. There is $887 billion in consumer spending every year, and that helps to support about 7.6 million jobs.
While some are probably asking, ``How did we get so lucky to have this coalition of bipartisan Senators come together with regard public lands and public land investment, and why can't we take that same magic and make it happen in other places?'' I encourage my colleagues not only to get this legislation done and think about how we did get it done together but also to think about how special public lands are for the United States of America.
Public lands are part of our history. They are part of what we have invested in on behalf of the citizens of the United States so you have a place to recreate, to hunt, to fish, to find solace, to find recovery, to find enjoyment, to find amazement when you see the wonderful places, particularly in the State of Washington.
Because the LWCF is paid for by royalties from oil companies that drill off our shores, these investments don't cost the taxpayers a dime or add to our deficit. This bill will be injecting money into our economy, creating more jobs, and fixing the repairs that we need to our lands and lands infrastructure.
Over the last half a century, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has supported over 42,000 State and local projects, and it has included an investment of $725 million in the State of Washington. It has helped us to expand access to clean rivers, hunting lands, forestlands, and to improve our national parks. It has been a critical protection tool for heritage areas and for augmenting wildlife refuges across our State. In fact, the LWCF fund has supported 98 percent of the parks in counties across the United States of America. At one point in time, 98 percent of the counties across this country have used the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
In the State of Washington, it has helped us to establish iconic places like Gas Works Park; Bidwell Park, which is near Spokane; the Burnt Bridge Creek Trail, which winds through Vancouver; and the Warren G. Magnuson Park at Sand Point, which has been used for valuable conservation easements and to help popular forest legacy programs that partner with timber owners to promote sustainable forestry.
The Great American Outdoors Act has helped us to make a decision that has been long debated and long disputed. David Brooks, from the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, could tell you how many times we have had to debate both the backlog and the LWCF issues and how people have wanted to spend those dollars. It has been a very, very challenging issue for years.
Besides saying that we are going to take money and put it forward to permanently fund the LWCF, the bill also says that we are going to tackle the backlog and maintenance. I mentioned the $6.5 billion infusion for that maintenance. For us in the State of Washington, with our many national parks, there is $262 million for deferred maintenance costs to include repairs to the water treatment system at Olympic National Park. It could help us with $186 million in deferred maintenance at Mount Rainier. It could help us with miles of trails and access to campgrounds. It could also help us in the very important area of expanding access.
There are other projects in the State of Washington, and sometimes, when we don't take care of our backlog and maintenance, we don't get the dollars because they go to the larger parks. So this will help us to make sure we don't ignore that crumbling infrastructure or the deteriorating hiking trails or the aging visitors centers. It will help us with projects like the $28 million needed for the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area, the $2.6 million for the Whitman Mission National Historic Site, the $43 million that is needed for the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in southwest Washington, the $18 million for the North Cascades National Park in Washington, and the $5 million for the San Juan Island National Historic Park in the northern part of our State.
As you can see, the State of Washington is definitely in the outdoor industry business. We have been very blessed with a beautiful environment, and we have been very blessed with an economy that has been based on those beautiful outdoors. So we are very happy today that our colleagues have joined in this bipartisan effort to say that public lands really do mean a lot to our Nation and that they deserve an upgrade--a facelift--an investment, and a commitment to keep funding the things that will allow us to expand public access to them.
It is the legislation that we need to pass even in this unbelievable time of so many other critical issues. I believe now, more than ever, our local parks and our urban green space can give solace to Americans who need refuge from all of the issues we are dealing with. Now, more than ever, we need to promote access to the shared public lands so that every American can get access, and the American people have had an incredibly difficult several few months. Let's give them something to think about for their futures--access to the great outdoors, which will help all of us in the future.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. GARDNER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Washington for her leadership on our great public lands and the bill, the Great American Outdoors Act, that we will be voting on this week and debating into next week. What an historic occasion for the U.S. Senate. We don't often have the chance to make history. This week, we do. So thank you to the Senator from Washington.
June is, of course, the Great Outdoors Month. Since 1998, when President Clinton started with 1 week of the Great Outdoors Week, it has since expanded and has been observed every year, beginning with those Great American Outdoors Weeks in 1998 to the entire month of June celebrating that we do today.
This week, we are debating landmark legislation, the Great American Outdoors Act, that brings two ideas together that have been worked on by so many of my colleagues in this Chamber for so long.
I introduced this legislation with Senator Manchin, along with so many other bipartisan champions for the outdoors and our great public lands and spaces. The Great American Outdoors Act combines $1.9 billion a year for 5 years for deferred maintenance at the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, which is now headquartered in Grand Junction, CO, and the Bureau of Indian Education schools, and permanent annual funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the crown jewel of our conservation programs, at $900 million per year.
Let's revisit how we arrived at this historic moment. Last year, the Senate came together, in bipartisan fashion, and passed the most significant conservation measure in over a decade. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, among other things, included the permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Congress had established the LWCF in 1965, with the idea of using revenue generated from offshore energy development to fund improvements on public lands at no cost to the taxpayer. I repeat that again--at no cost to the taxpayer. The LWCF has increased access for Americans everywhere to hunt, fish, camp, and enjoy recreation activities on their public lands, the lands we own and hold as a country.
It has protected and expanded access for conservation in all 50 States, the territories, and in nearly every county. LWCF is the crown jewel, as I said, of our Nation's conservation programs, and it has broad bipartisan support. Yet, for decades, short-term authorizations and uncertain funding levels hampered the ability of the conservation community to come up with the long-term plans that we need to protect our most cherished landscapes.
The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act took care of one of those problems. We actually managed to solve a problem, but it was just half of the picture. The permanent reauthorization of the program guaranteed the full $900 million authorization would be set aside every year going forward. We won that fight. Together, we passed that legislation.
However, the fight for fully funding the program continued. While I am appreciative of the ever-increasing levels of funding we have successfully fought to secure--in fact, we have seen some of the highest funding over the last year or 2 years than we have seen in over 15 years that we have successfully fought to secure in the Senate--it is still not what was agreed to. It is still not what was agreed to when this program was created in 1965.
The Great American Outdoors Act fixes this issue. It guarantees that the full $900 million that is sent in to the LWCF trust fund are spent every year and not diverted for other purposes. I would like to share some of the landscapes in my home State that LWCF has preserved for the public and for generations to come.
You can see this picture, this incredible, awesome, majestic landscape of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. It is located in the approximately 122-mile-long San Luis Valley in Southeast Colorado. The dunes in the park are the tallest found anywhere in North America, and right now people are visiting to experience the seasonal flow of Medano Creek, which forms in front of the dunes as snow melts in the spring and early summer. It is the closest thing that we see to beachfront property every spring at the sand dunes.
As you can imagine, the ecosystem in this area is incredibly delicate. You see, the sand dunes are here because of basically the hydrostatic charge that is created from the groundwater when it comes to the sand particles. It is that water that forms around the sand that holds the sand dunes in place. Without the water underneath it, the sand dunes just blow away, and they are not there.
The sand dunes sit next to what are some of the most important wetlands in the State of Colorado. LWCF funds were used to protect those wetlands and to facilitate a transfer to an existing refuge, while also helping to protect the dunes. LWCF was able to protect the land that protected the water that keeps the dunes in place.
In northwestern Colorado--we go to the next picture--a ranch sits along the banks of the Yampa River, which flows into Cross Mountain Canyon, then downstream to Dinosaur National Monument. If you have ever been to Dinosaur National Monument, you know what an incredible treasure that is. It straddles the States of Colorado and Utah. The Cross Mountain Canyon run is one of the best white-water rafting trips in the State, and if it is one of the best white-water rafting trips in the State, you can guarantee that it makes it one of the best in the country because of what we have to offer in Colorado. There is also a very healthy elk population that facilitates seasonal hunting, and obviously the fishing is great as well.
Throughout this area of public land--through both the monument and lands under the Bureau of Land Management--and private land, access to our public lands is difficult for those who travel to this area of Colorado from all over the world to hunt, to fish, to raft, and more.
With a small amount of LWCF funding through the Forest Legacy Program, which we also fund through LWCF, the ranch on the banks of the Yampa River was able to enter a conservation easement. This protected and enhanced access to tens of thousands of surrounding acres of Federal lands. You see, we not only have the opportunity to continue protecting our public lands, but there are public lands that we don't have access to because you can't get to it. So utilizing a program like the Land and Water Conservation Fund helps the American people have access to what they already hold.
In southwest Colorado, we go to another successful Forest Legacy Program project that protects vital wildlife habitat and a watershed that provides water to thousands of people. The Sawtooth Ranch is visible from the San Juan Skyway, one of the most spectacular places on God's Earth--one of 31 designated scenic All-American roads. It is also visible from Mount Sneffels, one of Colorado's famous fourteeners.
Outdoor recreation of every kind takes place in the area next to the ranch to support the local economy, and the protection of the ranch has helped facilitate even greater opportunities.
Federal lands like the ones I have shown you are incredibly popular destinations for tourists from all over the world, as well as recreational enthusiasts. In 2018, Rocky Mountain National Park was the third most visited national park in the country.
There were 4.9 million people that visited the park last year, setting a new record. Just decades prior to 2009--think about this--
that was 4.9 million people in just the last year. In 2009, that visitation number was only 2.8 million a year.
The explosion of visitation numbers is not contained just to the lands maintained by the National Park Service. The entire Federal land system is supporting a recreation economy that has become a major economic powerhouse because as more people go to places like Sawtooth Ranch and as more people go to places like Rocky National Park, they are pushed out to other areas of Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests. They are pushed out to the north sand dune, the BLM land, and more use and more use and more opportunity.
But the Federal investment and infrastructure that supports these great landscapes and the recreation economies they facilitate has not kept pace, and we know that it has not kept pace with the use of the lands. In Colorado, that translates to the third most visited national park in the country, which saw 4.9 million visitors last year, having an $84 million maintenance backlog. In total, Colorado's units managed by the National Park System have a $247 million backlog of deferred maintenance needs.
The Forest Service in Colorado has an astonishing $325 million maintenance backlog. When you think about that pattern repeated on Federal lands and in our parks across 49 other States, you begin to understand how we arrived at a systemwide $20 billion backlog.
The Great American Outdoors Act will provide an annual funding level of $1.9 billion over the next 5 years to a restoration fund, for which money can be used solely for those deferred maintenance projects, and this is all paid for. It is all paid for by revenues associated with onshore and offshore energy development. This will allow the land management agencies to address the highest priority projects to bring our outdoor recreation economy into the 21st century for the enjoyment of the 22nd, the 23rd, and the 24th centuries of this great Nation.
And the 21st century, of course, is where it needs to be and where we start. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, paddling, and other outdoor recreation activities contribute to a total of $778 billion annually to the economy and support 5.2 million American jobs.
This sector accounts for 2.2 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. Each year our Federal public lands contribute nearly $60 billion to the American economy and support more than 400,000 jobs. Now is the time to invest in our recreation infrastructure. Now is the time to invest in this job opportunity.
You know, prior to the pandemic, we were living in the midst of one of the greatest economies the world has ever seen. Unemployment was at record lows, wages were growing, and people were spending their hard-
earned dollars in our communities supporting local economies, fishing, hiking, enjoying the great outdoors after spending 3 months in the great indoors. Our mountain towns and gateway communities were hit hard by COVID-19. That first wave decimated economies in our Western Slope of Colorado. The ski season ended early. Restaurants closed and hotels emptied. The jobs that are created and sustained by this bill, as we recover from the pandemic, will be a vital component of our overall economic recovery as Americans get back to work and back to playing after they have worked so hard--working hard and playing hard--two great American values.
As we have this vote tonight on cloture, I hope my colleagues will support this motion to support our public lands and the communities that sustain them by supporting the Great American Outdoors Act.
I will leave it with this. Enos Mills, one of the fathers of Rocky Mountain National Park, once said this about our public lands:
The trail compels you to know yourself and to be yourself, and puts you in harmony with the universe. It makes you glad to be living. It gives health, hope, and courage, and it extends that touch of nature which tends to make you kind.
I can think of no better piece of legislation on our public lands than to work our way to find a little bit more kindness, a little bit more hope, a little bit more strength, and a great deal of opportunity
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Protests
Mr. UDALL. Madam President, I thank you for the recognition, and I thank Senator Gardner for his hard work on this excellent piece of legislation.
Today, our Nation is in pain. It is the pain of centuries of deeply embedded racial injustice. This Nation has watched in horror as the last 8 minutes and 46 seconds of George Floyd's life were cruelly and needlessly taken from him by a police officer.
Our Nation grieves for the families of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many other innocent Black men and women violently taken from their families and loved ones. This is a pain all too familiar for too many Black Americans. This is a moment of reckoning for our Nation.
Black Americans have borne the brunt of this systemic racism, as have Hispanic and Native American communities in New Mexico and across the Nation.
So many of our officers protect and serve with honor and integrity, but we cannot continue to sweep police brutality and racial inequality under the rug, ignoring these painful legacies until the next tragedy. There are thousands of Americans of every political stripe across the Nation who have come out in peaceful protest demanding change.
Now, we know there are a few--a very small few--who are exploiting our Nation's pain and using violence to disrupt. We unequivocally condemn all acts of violence and call for nonviolent but urgent action. By calling for the U.S. military to quell protests, as the President and some in this body have done, that crosses a line between civilian and military rule that is antithetical to American traditions. Instead of calling for American soldiers to repress their fellow citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, I am calling for action from this body.
Today, Senators Booker and Harris introduced the Justice in Policing Act, a bill I am proud to cosponsor. This landmark bill holds police misconduct accountable in courts of law. It shines a light on police practices, requiring transparency, and ends racial profiling and mandates racial bias training. It bans choke holds and requires body cams and makes lynching a Federal crime.
This is a moment of reckoning for our Nation. I call upon the Senate majority to join with us to pass this long overdue legislation as soon as possible.
H.R. 1957
Madam President, I now turn to the bill before us, the Great American Outdoors Act. Our country's public lands are at the very core of our national identity. They protect our national heritage, our lands, waters, and our wildlife for future generations. Our national parks, monuments, and wildlife refuges are irreplaceable treasures--sources of beauty, of solitude, recreation, and of renewal.
From the Grand Canyon to Stonewall National Monument to the city park in our neighborhood, our public lands sustain our people, and we owe it to these special places and to ourselves and to our children to sustain them for the future.
Today, I stand here in strong support of the Great American Outdoors Act, legislation that at long last fully and permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund and invests in our public lands for the future.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund was passed in 1964. My father, Stewart Udall, was Secretary of the Department of the Interior at the time, and I am proud he helped establish the LWCF. As Secretary, he was troubled by how difficult it was to expand public lands. At that time, the Federal Government would redesignate existing Federal lands to create a new national park or a new wildlife refuge or rely on private donations to expand, but the Congress itself resisted appropriating funds to create new public lands.
At a wilderness conference in 1963, my father bluntly said: ``[T]he path of land conservation that our government has used for more than half a century is running into a dead end.''
But he had conceived of a new path forward, ``an entirely new watershed in the history of the conservation movement in the United States,'' he told them. Just 3 weeks before the conference, President Kennedy had sent Congress a new piece of legislation called the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. My father and others conceived of a Federal fund that would both generate money to acquire new Federal lands and provide States with funding to expand recreational opportunities. The bill passed Congress the next year.
The LWCF has been called our Nation's most successful conservation program. It is wildly popular with the American people, and it has touched every corner of our Nation--in rural and urban areas with parks, forests, wildlife refuges, trails, wild and scenic river corridors, historic monuments, and cultural sites. LWCF has funded 42,000 stateside projects. In my home State alone, it has helped over 1,200 such projects found in every 1 of our 33 counties.
After the LWCF was enacted, it became clear that the initial funding sources were too limited. My father persuaded President Johnson to support using Federal revenues from oil and gas leases in the Outer Continental Shelf to fund the program. His plan converted revenue from a nonrenewable source into a permanent protection for our renewable natural world.
While Congress amended the act to include this funding source and later authorized the fund to actually annually accrue $900 million, the full promise of LWCF was not yet fulfilled.
Throughout my career, I have championed increases to the LWCF, but it deserves the dedicated funding my father and many others envisioned. Last year, Congress finally permanently authorized the fund, a historic victory for conservation.
It is long past time we take the next step and permanently direct the full $900 million to the fund every year. Not only has the LWCF met its conservation mission 100 times over; it has helped fuel the outdoor recreation economy and support local economies, especially in rural areas throughout the Nation.
Since the creation of the fund, the outdoor industry has grown tremendously. It is now an $887 billion industry that powers 7.6 million jobs. That includes nearly 100,000 direct jobs in New Mexico, driving $2.8 billion in wages and nearly $10 billion in consumer spending.
Fully and permanently funding LWCF will translate directly into economic growth. We need to energize our economy now more than ever as we work our way out of the financial crisis created by COVID-19.
Throughout our history, we have seen investing in public lands energizes both our economy and our national spirit. Conservation must be a centerpiece of our recovery at this challenging time for our Nation.
Indeed, the economic benefits of the LWCF are great, but the human benefits to ourselves, our families, and our communities may be greater.
One of the most recent LWCF projects in New Mexico is the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, the first urban wildlife refuge in the Southwest. Here is a photograph of our State's newest refuge: Valle de Oro. The Rio Grande runs along this refuge, which boasts an amazing array of wild birds, including sandhill cranes--which you see here--the greater roadrunner, and the American kestrel. The $6 million contribution from the Land and Water Conservation Fund helped make the vision of this urban oasis a reality.
Valle de Oro is special to me because it introduces young people--
often Hispanic young people with limited means and limited access to nature--to their first outdoor experience. It introduces kids to a world of wonder and a lifetime of connection to nature. And it is just down the street.
As Richard Louv discussed so eloquently in his seminal book ``Last Child in the Woods'' and backed up with peer-reviewed study after study, our children need nature, and we suffer spiritually and physically when that bond is lost.
So as we take this historic action to add to our national heritage, I am glad we are also addressing the $19 billion worth of deferred maintenance on our existing public lands. Like the other days of the Civilian Conservation Corps, this work is especially timely and will help our economic recovery at a time of historic unemployment.
It is good news that use of our public lands has increased so dramatically over time. More than 1 billion visitors enjoy our Federal public lands each year. The infrastructure on these public lands--our roads, bridges, and trails; our campgrounds, marinas; and our drinking water and sewer systems--are wearing out. Historic buildings are falling apart. Trails are washed out. Roads and bridges can't be used. Water lines and sewer systems don't function. The list is long--$19 billion long.
In New Mexico alone, we have $121 million worth of deferred maintenance needed at iconic places like Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, the Gila Cliff Dwellings, and Bandelier National Monument.
The Great American Outdoors Act represents a substantial downpayment toward maintaining, repairing, and renovating the infrastructure on our public lands--allocating up to $1.9 billion annually for 5 years. This represents Congress's most significant commitment to date to the long-
term future of our public lands.
The American people own these precious resources. We need to maintain the American people's public spaces so that all of us can continue to safely and enjoyably visit these special places. How we take care of these public places says a lot about our Nation.
Our Nation's conservation heritage is uniquely American. The bill before us strengthens our Nation's commitment to conservation, to protecting our wild places, to preserving our history and cultures, and to nurturing our bonds with nature and the great outdoors.
I urge every Member here to wholeheartedly support our heritage and vote in favor of this bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Boozman). The Senator from Montana
Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to finish my remarks prior to the vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, today we have the opportunity to make history in the U.S. Senate. Together, we can move forward with passing one of the most important conservation bills in decades.
In fact, standing here today, I can tell you something. There are not many issues that bring Republicans and Democrats together, but something actually does that, and that is protecting our public lands.
If you remember, about a year and a half ago, we passed a major bipartisan lands package where we permanently authorized a conservation program--something we are here to talk about today--and that is the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Today we have the opportunity to move forward on this bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act, a conservation bill that will provide full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and finally tackle this massive maintenance backlog that is plaguing our public lands, including our national parks.
How we got here today isn't by chance. In fact, on February 27, I sat down with my colleague Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, Leader McConnell, and President Trump in the White House--we were in the Roosevelt room, in fact--to pitch a simple idea: Let's set aside political gridlock, and let's pass the most important conservation law in decades.
In fact, I showed the President of the United States, President Trump, pictures of land and water conservation projects in Montana--the Tenderfoot Creek and the Falls Creek projects--and we talked about the importance of this program in places like Montana.
As a fifth-generation Montanan, I know just how important our public lands are to protecting and preserving our Montana way of life, from fishing on the Yellowstone River to summiting Granite Peak, which I did back in college--in fact, the week after that, I summited the Grand Teton down in Wyoming--or backpacking in The Barracks, which we do virtually every summer. I have enjoyed our great outdoors, and this is an appreciation and something that Cindy and I have passed on to our four children. In fact, I proposed to my sweet wife Cindy on top of Hyalite Peak, a peak over 10,000 feet just south of Bozeman, in July of 1986.
Montana is a place where you can still go down to Walmart and buy an elk tag or deer tag over the counter and, literally, within minutes have access to our public lands to hunt and fish.
As Montana's voice in the U.S. Senate, I have made it one of my highest priorities to protect and expand access to our public lands, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund is a critical tool for accomplishing that.
Think about this for a moment: Over 70 percent of the fishing accesses across Montana are funded through this conservation program. Sportsmen, conservationists, and outdoor enthusiasts will agree that this program is critical for conservation and important for protecting our great outdoor heritage and our Montana way of life.
This conservation program is important for creating and protecting jobs for our outdoor economy. This program is also an important tool for land managers and agencies to address the checkerboard land ownership. We see that in Montana. Addressing that checkerboard ownership makes a lot of sense.
You see, over 1\1/2\ million acres of Federal land in our State sit entirely landlocked. In many cases, specific land and water conservation projects in Montana will help consolidate land ownership that can make overall landscape management less complicated and easier for agencies.
In fact, the Land and Water Conservation Fund was passed with the intent to be funded at $900 million per year, and, every single year,
$900 million plus goes into that trust account, but nowhere close to that level of funding is actually appropriated
In reality, if Congress wanted to, they don't have to fund the program at all. In fact, only twice--going back to 1965--has it been funded at the $900 million mark. What we see each year is the Land and Water Conservation Fund gets raided by Congress, and millions of dollars are spent on other programs.
Mandatory funding would create certainty for land managers that the full $900 million goes toward that program every year moving forward.
Now, we must also support and preserve our country's beloved national parks. Our national parks are what set us apart from the rest of the world. I like to think of them as our office of first impressions, and we need to do a better job taking care of them, be better stewards.
With record visitations and increased visitation each year, park infrastructure has inevitably experienced wear and tear, and this has led to a significant maintenance backlog. Today, there is nearly $12 billion in maintenance backlog facing our national parks across the Nation, including $700 million in Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks and an additional $34 million throughout the State in places like Little Bighorn Battlefield and the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Park.
The bill also addresses the backlog in our Forest Service, BLM, and Fish and Wildlife Service lands. In Montana, our forests are critical for outdoor recreation as well as our wood products industry. It makes sense that we protect and maintain access to these lands for future generations because the wonders of our public lands are unique to any other country in the world.
Montanans were brought up with a love of the outdoors and a sense of responsibility to conserve as well as maintain them. To us, protecting our public lands is about preserving the way of life unique to our western frontier heritage.
It is an honor to serve the people of Montana in the U.S. Senate and to bring this vote--a vote decades in the making--before the U.S. Senate today. I urge my Senate colleagues to stand with me to pass this bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act.
I am ready to get this done for Montana. Future generations are counting on our vote today, and I believe, truly, it is a conservative principle to conserve. The Founders' vision for America was a frontier nation, a wild nation.
What made America distinct from industrial Europe and all the other countries in the world was our outdoors, for, of course, what is America without Lewis and Clark?
I will leave you with this last thought from Teddy Roosevelt. This was in the context of thinking about our national parks and our public lands: ``We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune.''
I yield the floor.
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 75, H.R. 1957, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modernize and improve the Internal Revenue Service, and for other purposes.
Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis, Pat Roberts, Shelley Moore
Capito, Mike Crapo, Lindsey Graham, David Perdue,
Martha McSally, Richard Burr, Cory Gardner, Steve
Daines, Lamar Alexander, Tom Cotton, Kevin Cramer, John
Boozman, Rob Portman, Susan M. Collins.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the motion to proceed to H.R. 1957, an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modernize and improve the Internal Revenue Service, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar) and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote or change their vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 80, nays 17, as follows:
YEAS--80
AlexanderBaldwinBennetBlackburnBlumenthalBluntBookerBoozmanBraunBrownBurrCantwellCapitoCardinCarperCaseyCollinsCoonsCornynCortez MastoCottonCramerDainesDuckworthDurbinErnstFeinsteinFischerGardnerGillibrandGrahamGrassleyHarrisHassanHawleyHeinrichHironoHoevenHyde-SmithJonesKingLeahyLoefflerManchinMcConnellMcSallyMenendezMerkleyMurkowskiMurphyMurrayPaulPerduePetersPortmanReedRobertsRosenRubioSandersSchatzSchumerScott (FL)Scott (SC)ShaheenSinemaSmithStabenowSullivanTesterThuneTillisUdallVan HollenWarnerWarrenWhitehouseWickerWydenYoung
NAYS--17
BarrassoCassidyCrapoCruzEnziInhofeJohnsonKaineKennedyLankfordLeeMoranRischRomneyRoundsSasseShelby
NOT VOTING--3
KlobucharMarkeyToomey
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 80, the nays are 17.
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Protests
Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, a week ago, I did a television interview on race relations in America. They asked me to talk a little bit about what happened in Tulsa in 1921.
The worst race massacre in American history occurred in Tulsa in 1921. It was May 31, overnight, into June 1. I was on television a week ago, describing the event of how a group of White rioters had marched into Greenwood--what was called Black Wall Street--and had killed up to 300 people there. They had set Greenwood on fire, destroying homes and businesses.
Many people at home don't know this, but everyone in this Chamber does. As I was talking, I was just talking to a camera lens and couldn't tell what was on TV at the time. There were pictures of a town in the United States that was currently on fire while I was describing a race massacre that had happened 99 years ago that weekend.
We have come a long way with the issue of race in America, but we clearly have a very long way to go. We have four centuries of racial inequality stacked on top of each other. While we break through those things step by step, we have things that we can do. I have been on the phone for days with friends and with people whom I know from all over Oklahoma--from all backgrounds--and have been talking about race relationships and where we go as a nation. Some people throw up their hands and say: I don't know what to do. Many people have an idea, but everyone wants the situation to get better.
What is interesting is the dialogue about protesters and rioters and police officers. I share openly with them that I don't judge protesters and rioters the same. Some people do. They throw them all into one big group. I do not. There are people out standing on the streets who just want to be heard, who finally just want things in America to change, for America to fulfill her promise of equal justice under the law in every area, in every community. They are peaceful. They are sometimes loud and brash, but they are frustrated, and they want to be heard. There is another group that breaks through the middle of those protesters. These in this group smash windows, steal shoes and electronics from stores, and spray paint and destroy public property just from their own anger.
I don't treat protesters and rioters the same, and I encourage people not to treat all police officers the same. Are there some rioters mixed in with the protesters? Yes. Are there some police officers who need to be confronted for their racial views? Yes. Is that all of them? By far, no. Every person should be judged by his own character--every person. When we as Americans lump groups together and say they are like that, we have divided us even more.
It was 20 years ago when my State made it illegal for a police officer to stop someone simply because of one's race. Most police departments in Oklahoma don't allow a choke hold. In fact, I spoke with officers in the Oklahoma City Police Department who have been there for a very long time who said they were never even trained to do that. They were told not to do that. What has happened in other areas and other places has not happened in my State in the same way, but I still have friends of mine who are African American who still catch me and tell me the numbers of times they have been pulled over for driving while Black in places and neighborhoods in which I have never been pulled over but in which they have been multiple times.
We still have a long way to go. This legislative body can talk about it--we can share empathy, and we can listen--but we are also called to act.
So I bring to this body just a few ideas, some things we can do to engage, things like greater transparency. How can we oppose just getting information out?
There are simple things that we are not currently doing, like gathering a Federal database on the use of lethal force by law enforcement. All of that data of whatever police department in whatever place that uses lethal force should be collected and sent to a Federal database so there can be a national tracking of where lethal force is used. What race is the police officer? What is the race of the person on whom lethal force was used? What was the situation? How was the investigation handled? What was the result of that investigation? These are basic details.
City councils, city leaders, and city managers should not be afraid to look at the data and ask hard questions. We should not be afraid to look at the data and ask hard questions.
Most every community has oversight boards that are citizen boards. Good. Are they empowered to actually engage? Are they involved in the hiring process? Are they involved in the oversight? Do they get a chance to look over their shoulders to evaluate what happens? Do they know when there are reports on the same law enforcement officer over and over again? Are those advisory panels empowered?
Are there body cameras? It is not just if there are body cameras, but are they on? This has been our second challenge. Getting body cameras is just transparency. It is just the availability of information so that law enforcement can see and so that citizens can see what is happening. Law enforcement is in very, very difficult situations every single day. When law enforcement officers leave their homes each morning, their families give them hugs and hope they come home that night because, every day, they face challenges. I have great compassion for those folks. Body cameras help everybody, for they provide clarity as to what is going on, but they are not effective if they are not on, and we have had several situations lately in which it seems, conveniently, body cameras have not been on. That is a problem, and it is an area we should address.
Mental health training is an area that has come up over and over again and not just recently. This has come up for a long time. This body--the Senate--and the House have passed and the President has signed additional legislation dealing with mental health issues, but States and local areas have to engage in this as well. Even in my own State, law enforcement is responsible for transporting an individual across the State to a treatment facility for mental health or for treatment for substance abuse. My State really does need to determine a better, more compassionate way to transport someone with mental illness or substance abuse rather than in the back seat of a police car.
We have to have a better, more compassionate way to do that. Every time this occurs, law enforcement officers are taken off the streets for an entire day because they are transporting someone when someone else could have done that in a more compassionate, less obvious way than in the back of a police car. We have to find a better way to do that. Every time our law enforcement folks transition across the State, they lose the time they could have used for training, for getting out of their cars to meet neighbors and hear stories, for earning trust, and for healing relationships.
Every city of any size across America has boards and commissions, but those boards and commissions often have the same people who just shuffle around from the same boards and commissions. They get off one board and move to another board. I find, just by asking around, that many of those on boards and commissions do not match the diversity of their communities. They are groups of wealthy leaders or of activists who are there, but they don't match the diversity, and the leadership of those boards and commissions certainly don't rotate enough to allow the leaders of the boards and commissions that the cities use to have diversity.
Every year from this House and Senate, we put out community development block grants. Why don't we just add to the community development block grants that cities and communities can get access to these community development block grants and help improve their situations if they also improve access and opportunity to individuals within the communities so they may also lead in those communities. If your boards and commissions don't reflect the diversity of your community, there is a problem with that city in the way it is actually designing the leadership structure of how decisions are made with Federal dollars. This is not a hard way to be able to raise up new leaders who will get their voices heard at city hall and get their voices heard on how funds are actually used.
Oftentimes, big city police departments don't share the same racial diversity of the city itself. Why don't we allow some of the grant money that we have that we already dedicate to law enforcement to be given to recruiters so they can recruit from the same diversity of their communities and actually help to pay the salaries of people who are stepping in during the earliest days in the police academy and as they are starting into the force? That way, the diversity in our big city police departments will also match the diversity of the communities themselves, and if they have a difficult time recruiting, we will allow them to use those funds for recruiters.
You see, I really do believe there are things that we can do that will make a practical difference, but I also firmly believe that racism is not a legislative issue--it is a heart issue, and it is a family issue. One of the biggest things we have is the bully pulpit to be able to challenge individuals and push back on individuals. Do, quite frankly, whatever you can to push this. When I started 5 years ago, I was asking people a simple question: Has your family ever invited another family of another race into your home for dinner? It was just a simple question.
I have been amazed at the number of people I have talked to in my State--people of all races--when I have asked them: Has your family ever invited another family of another race into your home for dinner, they have responded back to me: I have friends of another race, to which I have always smiled at them and said: That is not what I asked. It is not: Do you have friends of another race? Has your family ever invited a family of another race to your home for a meal just for your kids to sit together and talk, just for your two families to sit and visit like neighbors would do? I have been astounded at the number of people whose thresholds of race are the thresholds of their own homes. Why would that barrier be there, and how do we break that barrier?
A friend of mine raised an interesting question to me this past weekend. A couple of years ago, as a law enforcement officer, he slipped into the Museum of African American History and found out that the Metro Police, which is here in the DC metro area, goes over to the Museum of African American History and gets a guided tour through that facility to help new police officers get an understanding of African-American history from a law enforcement perspective and see what has happened to the relationship between law enforcement and African Americans over the centuries.
He joined that tour, and his statement to me was, I wish every police department could get that kind of training; that they could go to that museum and could get that kind of context.
My statement back to him was that we do that with the Holocaust Museum.
The Holocaust Museum does tours and is currently designing a curriculum by which to train trainers and work on anti-Semitism across the entire country. This body helped to get that done. Why don't we do that with the Museum of African American History and law enforcement? Challenge them to take the program they already have and turn it into a curriculum. Train the trainers and then get that out across the entire country. Multiply that out. Why couldn't we do that?
Every year when Police Week occurs, why couldn't we have a large contingency of law enforcement go through the Museum of African American History, get that training there, and then take that training back home? Why couldn't that happen? It could if this body were willing to step up and do some pragmatic things--engage in actually finding practical ways to continue the work that our Nation is doing.
You see, we are not at the beginning with regard to race. We are four centuries into this conversation. Yet what I will remind everyone is that we are actually trying. There are many places in the world that are not working on race relations at all in their countries. If you are not the dominant race, you are still excluded from the courts, from education, from access. As a country, we are trying, but for those who think we are done, they are wrong. We are not done with the journey.
I love pointing out to people: Watch the beginning of the Olympics when all of the countries march in. Almost every delegation under every flag looks alike until the United States marches in, and you see this great diversity of our athletes. It again reminds us that we are trying, but the past 10 days should also remind us that we are not done. Let's continue doing the hard work that needs to be done with our own families. Let's continue to do the legislative work that needs to be done to make progress, but let's keep going until it is done.
My friend said to me last weekend that our founding documents are great founding documents. We have just never actually fully lived them out for everybody. I can't wait for us to continue the work in this body toward becoming a more perfect Union.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The majority leader.
____________________
