Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2017--Motion to Proceed--

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, with all that has occurred in our country over the past few weeks, I wanted to take a moment to bring everyone's attention to something that had a profound impact in my home State of Florida and something all Americans should reflect on.

This weekend, the Navy's Flight Demonstration Squadron--most famously known as the Blue Angels--will take to the skies over Pensacola for the Pensacola Beach Air Show. It will be their first air show appearance in Florida since that fateful day of June 2, when they lost Capt. Jeff Kuss, a U.S. Marine Corps Aviator, and the No. 6 airplane in the Blue Angels lineup.

Captain Kuss, simply put, was an American hero. Like all Blue Angels pilots and the men and women who support the Blue Angels mission, Captain Kuss was the very best of what our military and our Nation has to offer. He was a war hero. He served our country proudly over hostile skies in Afghanistan. He was a decorated aviator who earned the Strike Flight Air Medal and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal during his time with the Corps. I commend the Marine Corps for training such a skilled aviator, as well as Naval Air Station Pensacola, where he first started flying in 2007.

Captain Kuss was a hometown hero, a local boy from Durango, CO, who graduated from Durango High School and attended Fort Lewis College. He fulfilled a lifelong dream by performing a flyover with his teammates over Super Bowl 50 and then watched his Denver Broncos win their third Super Bowl championship.

Captain Kuss was a hero in his own home. A loving son to his parents Janet and Michael, a devoted husband to his wife Christina, and loving father to his two young children, Calvin and Sloane.

The same attributes that Captain Kuss demonstrated throughout his life--service, sacrifice, loyalty, faith, devotion--they were all present in his final moments as well. He could have ejected, but instead he stayed with his plane and steered it away from a more populated area to spare any additional loss of life.

I know that in our country today there is ample reason for pessimism. We hear plenty from various voices about what is wrong with our country, but let's take a moment to reflect on the life of Capt. Jeff Kuss and the Blue Angels because they are everything that is right about our country. The love they share for one another, the sacrifices they make in service to our Nation, and the devotion they have to their calling represents the very best of the American spirit.

The rumble of those engines over the skies of Pensacola this weekend will not just be a resumption of their duties as aviators and military professionals; it will be a tribute--a tribute to Captain Kuss and the life he spent doing what he loved.

To the people of Pensacola, the ``Cradle of Naval Aviation'' and the place the Blue Angels call home, the Blues are their team. Think about whatever major sports team you have in your hometown and the love the community gives those professional or college athletes who compete on national television. It pales in comparison to the bond the people of Pensacola have to their home team, the Blue Angels.

Our State and the community in Pensacola took the loss of Captain Kuss very hard. To the people who saw him around town, he was Jeff, a friend, a neighbor, and someone to be proud of. And true to the spirit of Pensacola, the community has rallied to provide comfort to Captain Kuss's teammates and to his family.

I am so proud my home State is home to the Blues. I am proud Pensacola continues to embrace the Blues and to make every member of the Blue Angels family a part of the Pensacola family. I am proud the Blues will return to the Pensacola Beach Air Show this weekend, and I am proud the United States has a military made up of extraordinary Americans like Capt. Jeff Kuss.

So I ask all Americans to keep Captain Kuss and his family in your prayers. Thank God for him, for our military men and women and families who sacrifice alongside them, and for the freedom they risk their lives to preserve. I ask that God bless Captain Kuss and his family and God bless the Blue Angels as they fly this weekend and in the weeks, months, and years to come. Central Everglades Planning Project

Mr. President, I recently addressed the Senate and our Nation about truly a disaster that is wreaking havoc on my home State of Florida. It is a thick and putrid algal bloom known as the blue-green algae that has appeared along large stretches of the St. Lucie River and the Indian River Lagoon.

This is happening because nutrient-rich water--basically, water that has things in it like fertilizer--is running into Lake Okeechobee from north of that lake, which is the lake in the center of our State. Historically, that water sat in Lake Okeechobee but would run southward through the Everglades, but with development and canal systems and so forth, that all stopped.

So now that water sits in the lake, and it is held back by the Herbert Hoover Dike, which was put in place to prevent flooding and the loss of lives of those who live around Lake Okeechobee. When the water rises to levels that threaten the integrity of that dike, it needs to be released. And instead of being released in a clean form to the south the way it once historically was, it is now released to the east and to the west.

These waters, rich in nutrients, are released into estuaries and canals that also have nutrients in them because of storm water runoff or because of seepage from faulty or old septic tanks. When that flow reaches the ocean, the estuaries, the lagoon, the lake, or the river and is under the hot sun--as it is during the summer--the conditions become ripe for an algae bloom. That is what we are seeing now.

Although the bacteria is always present in the waters, it needs the present circumstances to form, and, unfortunately, the conditions we have now have been a perfect storm. This winter and spring provided numerous storms and produced so much rain that the Army Corps of Engineers began discharging water in January, and it hasn't stopped since.

I recently requested the Army Corps to stop these harmful discharges. They agreed to slow the discharges but not to stop them entirely. With the State of Florida's emergency declaration, more water is able to be held north of the lake, which allows for less water to be discharged east and west out of the lake.

I was there a couple of weeks ago, and it is a disgusting sight to see and to smell and to breathe. The algae has forced the closure of several beaches, killing fish and oysters, hurting tourism, harming local businesses, and sinking property values. People are canceling their vacations, and all of this is hurting the local economy in the Treasure Coast in enormous ways.

So far, we have done a number of things to help address this problem. For example, I supported our Governor's request that President Obama declare this a Federal disaster so that resources can be made available to the impacted communities. I asked that the President approve this request promptly so that the much needed resources can be deployed.

My office has also been working for months with the Small Business Administration on the harmful impacts of the discharges. In April we were able to get the SBA to ensure disaster loans were made available to businesses suffering from these discharges. We were recently able to confirm with the SBA that the disaster loans will apply to those affected by the current algal blooms.

We have been in touch with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about making sure the concerns many have about the health impacts of the algae are properly looked at and addressed. I was pleased to learn this week in a meeting that the CDC has been working with the State of Florida, and I have asked them to stand ready, should the State require more assistance.

Perhaps the single most important long-term solution we can put in place is the need for the Senate and for the House to pass and for the President to sign the authorization for the Central Everglades Planning Project, which will divert these harmful discharges away from the coastlines and send more water south through the Everglades. We cannot lose our focus when it comes to these projects.

As you heard a moment ago, the Senator from Michigan mentioned the water bill. Along with 29 other Senators, I sent a letter to Senate leadership, asking that the Water Resources Development Act receive floor consideration. I have also urged the leaders of the Senate to take this action, specifically because of the merits of the Central Everglades Planning Project included in that bill and because of its importance to Florida.

I want to focus the rest of my time here on a new problem that emerged just last Friday. It deals with the discharges from Lake Okeechobee. As I mentioned, these discharges--the water being released--have been ongoing since January of this year, and what the discharges do is lower the salinity levels and cause the algae to bloom.

Just when you think you have had enough problems to deal with on this, the Federal Government came out of nowhere last Friday and threw in another wrench. The Obama administration, through the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, ``recommended'' that the South Florida Water Management District force more water from the north into that lake that is already releasing too much water, and they did so in order to protect 10 snail kite bird nests--10 bird nests.

If the local water district does not comply with this ``recommendation,'' the Federal Government has threatened to sue them. As I have just covered, the Lake Okeechobee discharges are part of the problem. Yet here come Federal regulators from a completely different department asking for more discharges. And why? To protect 10 bird nests.

In Florida, we love our wildlife. We love our Florida panthers. We love our dolphins. We love our manatees. If you drive across the State, I can't tell you how many animals you will see on people's license plates because Florida's Department of Motor Vehicles provides many options for people to show just how much they love and support the different animals, the flora and fauna that our State has. In fact, I am one of those people with one of those plates. I have an alligator on mine, although it is the University of Florida Gator.

We love our wildlife in Florida, but when you have situations and conflicts like this one, you are essentially trying to figure out whose side to be on: 10 bird nests of a species with numbers on the rise or millions of Treasure Coast residents and the marine life that inhabits those waters? The answer should be clear. Stop the discharges and side with the millions of people on the Treasure Coast. But the Federal Government is clearly not on their side.

What the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is demanding is truly beyond comprehension, and it is an example of a Federal bureaucracy run amok. If the local water district does as the Federal Government demands and releases held water into Lake Okeechobee, the Army Corps of Engineers is going to be forced to increase discharges into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries.

These regulatory decisions are having a real impact on Floridians, on our ecology, on our economy, and on our very way of life up and down the Treasure Coast. I asked the Director of Fish & Wildlife, as well as the Secretary of the Interior, to immediately reverse this harmful, tone-deaf instruction that, if they implement it, will only prolong the ecological crisis along the Florida waterways.

Just admit that this makes no sense--no sense at all. Reverse this order, and let's focus on everything else we need to be doing on this algae issue and that we were focused on before the Federal Government decided to create yet another problem to deal with. Tribute to Emily Bouck

Mr. President, on a third and final topic, today I would like to acknowledge a valued and long-term member of my Senate office who recently left our office. Emily Bouck has been on our team for nearly 7 years. She started as an intern on my 2010 Senate campaign and then came here to the Senate, proving herself, taking on every challenge asked of her, and ultimately helping me develop higher education and health care policies.

Among the many issues that Emily handled for us, she worked tirelessly on the Zika issue and finding a way to help those afflicted with it. Everyone in my office has come to trust Emily's expertise. That is why she will be missed. We thank her for her service to our office and to the people of Florida, and we truly wish her the very best.

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