Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, Relating to ``Contributions in Exchange for State or Local Tax Credits''

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I am here this morning very pleased to be at this point where we are talking about consideration of an appropriations package that includes the fiscal year 2020 bills for the subcommittees on Interior and Environment; Commerce, Justice, and Science; Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration; and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development; and the various related agencies.

It may be premature to call this a return to regular order, but I think that is kind of what it feels like. I would note that it is October 23, well past time that we should have finished our appropriations work, but we are advancing. We have bills that we have moved through the subcommittees and the full committee, and we are now moving packages of these to the floor.

I am pleased that we are here, where we have an opportunity to take up these substantive measures that the full committee has addressed with strong bipartisan support.

In the case of the Interior and Environment bill, there was unanimous support for our bill. Then, there is the opportunity to bring the bills to the floor for consideration, where other Members have an opportunity to debate these appropriations bills, offer amendments, and, then, advance them through the process.

I am pleased this morning--particularly pleased--to be able to speak on the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee bill and to be here with my ranking member, Senator Udall. We have worked through this subcommittee account now for several years. It has been a good partnership, a strong partnership, with our teams working side by side. It is not the easiest of bills. We get our fair share of controversy.

In addition to taking care of all of our public lands, we also have oversight of our Native peoples. We also have oversight of the EPA. So we have a range of subject matters that sometimes can bring us together and sometimes can cause some bumps along the way. Yet what we have committed to doing, I think, in working collaboratively, in working together, has resulted in a good, strong measure that the Senate now sees before it.

Last year was the first time since fiscal year 2010--9 years now-- that the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations was brought before the full Senate. We have been in a situation in which, for years, we have kind of been at the tail end of the line, the last of those spending bills to move. Now we are debating it in the first package, so we really feel like we have kind of arrived here. Again, you don't arrive here as part of the first package without having done a great deal of work. You don't do that and receive unanimous support coming out of the committee for the second year in a row now if you do not demonstrate this strong commitment that both sides have made to create an environment in which we can work through these issues in a bipartisan manner.

The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies portion of this minibus includes funding for all of the major Federal land management agencies. This includes the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency. We also provide funding for essential Indian health, education, and resource management programs through the BIA and the Indian Health Service. Then we also provide funding and oversight for important cultural institutions, like the Smithsonian Institution, our National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. This aspect of our oversight is often kind of forgotten because it doesn't necessarily fit in with the public lands, with the EPA, with the BIA, but it is an important and an integral part of our subcommittee's work.

Our subcommittee's allocation for fiscal year 2020 is $35.8 billion. This is $248 million more than last year, with an additional $2.25 billion being made available by the wildfire cap adjustment, and I will speak to the wildfire cap issue a little bit later here. Similar to the approach that we took in fiscal year 2019, the bill rejects the proposed budget decreases. We make investments in our highest priorities, such as infrastructure investments for our land management agencies, Indian Country, and wastewater and drinking water improvements.

The Department of the Interior itself is funded at $13.7 billion. These funds go to support energy development that is critical to our Nation's economy, to recreation activities that power our rural communities, and to conservation efforts to protect our public lands and the wildlife that relies on them. Funding is provided to support an all-of-the-above energy approach, both onshore and offshore, that will continue to help our country achieve energy independence.

On the conservation front, investments in grants programs for species protection, wetlands conservation, and to combat wildlife trafficking are included. We also took a keen look at some of the invasive species that are wreaking havoc in certain of our regions, like the Asian carp, so we provide a lot of good focus there.

Americans love to love our national parks, so this bill provides the funds that are necessary to meet our responsibility at the national park units. We also focus on the deferred maintenance, which is something we have talked a lot about in committee and on the floor. We invest $127 million for deferred maintenance. We also increase funding for historic preservation, which is critical to preserving the sites and the stories of our Nation.

The USGS, the U.S. Geological Survey, receives funding for important programs that help our emergency responders during natural disasters like earthquakes or tsunamis. We work within this bill to provide assistance for responses to natural hazards and disasters as well as to inform the public. In my State of Alaska, the support for the Earthquake Hazards Program helps us. As a State that is very seismically prone, it helps us with warnings, and it helps to enhance the earthquake monitoring capability. The bill also maintains funding for mapping initiatives that will help to gather data to improve our maps, which enhances the safety of activities such as aviation. In certain parts of the country, believe it or not, we do not have current and accurate mapping. Certainly, in my home State--and I know in other parts of the country--the updates to the maps have simply not been made.

We also fully fund another lands matter, PILT, which is estimated at $500 million, and it maintains our commitment to meeting the needs of local communities for county roads, public safety, and schools. I know many of us in this Chamber hear from our constituents about the significance of adequate PILT funding.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund is something that is near and dear to many in this body. You will see in this bill an increase to the LWCF, which receives $465 million. This is $30 million above the enacted level. This also includes $140 million for the NPS State side program as well as additional funding for recreational access. We focus on how we are able to access our treasured lands and ensure we have a level of conservation that is supported across the country.

In working with Senator Udall over these years, I think it has been important--it has certainly been important for me--to have had a great partnership, a strong partnership when it has come to trying to meet the needs of those within Indian Country and having to fund the critical services. With this bill, I think we are making good measure to do that. The two primary agencies that deliver services to the Indian community are the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. They receive a combined increase of $288 million over the 2019 levels. We maintain all critical program funding with some important increases for Indian Country.

For the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the BIA, we maintain the substantial increases we have provided over the last 2 fiscal years. We are helping on matters such as the construction, operation, and maintenance of Indian schools. We know, unfortunately, that in so many of the reservations in the lower 48, our schools are simply inadequate. The education scores we are seeing from our schools are not where we need to be. Making sure we are doing right by our Native children around the country is so important when it comes to education.

We also include funding for irrigation systems. We also fully fund contract support costs. We increase funding for public safety and justice facilities construction and programs. Certainly, as I hear from folks in Alaska and those around Indian Country in the lower 48, public safety is something by which, again, we are not doing right by those whom we must serve in these areas. This is an effort that I intend to continue to push in my going forward.

I would specifically like to point out to my colleagues that for the very first time, we include a comprehensive look with new funding into those issues related to murdered and missing indigenous women. Many of us have been shocked at what we are coming to understand about the murdered and missing of our Native women around the country. The data we have we know is lacking. We don't know what we don't know. Thus, oftentimes it is difficult to respond and to address resources. The fact is that many who live in Tribal communities are often located in rural areas that lack public safety, and even though you have high rates of violence, abuse, murder, trafficking, we simply don't have the resources there to help to respond to it.

I have been working with several of my colleagues to address these challenges--Senator Udall, Senator Hoeven, Senator Daines, and so many--to shine a light in this area. We know it is going to take a lot of coordination and communication among law enforcement agencies to get this right. In this bill, we include $6.5 million for cold case investigations, equipment, training, background checks, and the necessary report language to move us in the right direction.

Attorney General Barr came to the State of Alaska in May. In Anchorage, he had an opportunity to sit and listen to statewide leaders, Native leaders, and law enforcement. He then had an opportunity to get out of the rural areas and into the villages. After he left, he declared a public safety emergency in the State of Alaska because of where we sit. So we have been working with the Attorney General and greatly appreciate his efforts there, but we need to do more through these appropriations to look specifically at these issues as well.

For the Indian Health Service, there are also programs we have an obligation to fund that are vital to Indian Country. Many of these programs and the costs associated with them have grown since we enacted the 2019 bill. Among these are leasing and staffing costs that are associated with new healthcare facilities that are operated by the IHS or by Tribes under compact agreements. Our bill funds these new increases. We provide additional funding for recruitment and quality improvement as well as providing a $24 million increase for facilities, including an increase for medical equipment.

The Forest Service receives investments in funding for the improved health and management of our Nation's forests, including for recreation assets, such as the cabins so many of us enjoy, the trails on which we hike, and recreation special use permitting to allow certain businesses to operate in our national forests in order to enhance the many recreational experiences and opportunities.

At the beginning of my comments, I mentioned the wildfire cap adjustment. It was back in the 2018 omnibus that we created the wildland fire cap adjustment, and fiscal year 2020 is the first year this is now available. The bill invests $5.167 billion in wildland fire activity, including $2.25 billion in fire cap adjustment funding.

In my State over this past summer, we certainly saw intense and extensive fires. It was a recordbreaking heat year this past summer, and we had some pretty devastating fires. We are still talking about the fires just last year in California. We know the threat is real, and we know we have to respond. So making sure we have the capacity to fight fire is important. In this bill, we not only invest in fire suppression, but we also invest in State and volunteer fire assistance. We provide increases for hazardous fuels reductions.

As far as the EPA budget goes, we prioritize funding for the programs that result in concrete actions to improve the quality of the environment across our country. The bill provides significant increases in State and Tribal grant programs, which will lead to tangible, on- the-ground cleanup and environment benefits, which was another priority that was strongly supported by many in this Chamber.

The priority that was targeted by many in the waters phase was water infrastructure development. Many of the newly authorized programs in America's Water Infrastructure Act are funded for the first time in this measure. Funding is also provided for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds and for the WIFIA Program to build and support critical water infrastructure in communities in every State. The bill also equips the EPA with a powerful set of tools to further the Agency's core missions of clean air, clean water, and clean land.

One of the issues I hear a lot about from the folks back home, as well as from my colleagues in the Senate, is the issue of PFAS and PFAS contamination. In this bill, we have provided $25 million in increases to address PFAS, including new funding for State-led cleanup and remediation efforts. We also focus on the research of human health and environmental impacts and related priority regulatory actions. There is a $20 million increase provided for EPA grant programs to support States in their cleanup and remediation efforts of PFAS-contaminated water sources as well as the water systems and the lands.

The remaining $5 million in increases will support the EPA's priority actions on PFAS and supplement the research that other agencies are currently conducting on the chemicals.

So we heard the concerns of so many, and we really worked to respond in this measure.

Lastly, the bill includes important increases for our cultural institutions and our agencies. The Smithsonian Institution, the Gallery of Art, and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities all receive increases in our measure.

I think it is so important to make sure that when we think about our treasures--clearly our land, the cleanliness of our water, but we also have national treasures, and we see so much of that reflected in the arts, whether it is the Smithsonian, the galleries, or what the Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities do.

Consistent with fiscal year 2019, we do not include new policy provisions that were not in the enacted bill. So we worked with Chairman Shelby, Vice Chairman Leahy, and the ranking member, again, with Senator Udall, to assemble a package that both sides supported in committee.

I want to reiterate the work Senator Udall and I put in to produce a bipartisan product that invests in programs that we care about-- programs that protect our land and our people and enable infrastructure projects to boost the economy and help communities provide vital basic services that many might take for granted. We also worked hard to shape this bill so that it reflects the priorities of Members on both sides of the aisle. I am proud--I am really very proud--of the good, bipartisan work to ensure that this Interior appropriations bill directs the Federal resources to where they are needed most, providing critical investments in communities across the Nation.

Of course, this Interior bill is just a part of this package. We also have Commerce-Justice-Science, Agriculture, and T-HUD. All of these have significant impacts across the country. Certainly in my home State, we are looking at the Commerce-Justice-Science bill to help keep our fisheries healthy and provide assistance for public safety programs.

In the Agriculture bill, there is funding for much needed water infrastructure in our villages, and it helps expand our ever-growing agricultural industries.

Of course T-HUD makes sure that rural communities in my State can still receive things like essential air service and helps with our ferry transportation system and to provide Tribal housing.

There is so much good in all of these measures. I would commend them to Members' consideration but would certainly urge passage of this very important Appropriations bill.

I am pleased to be here with my colleague, the good Senator from New Mexico.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, as the Senator from Missouri has stated, this is a significant day. This is a very special day in the Congress, as later this afternoon we are going to gather to pay tribute to a truly great Senator, the late Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska. His official portrait will be unveiled shortly by the U.S. Senate Commission on Art. It will be part of the U.S. Senate Leadership Portrait Collection, which honors past Presidents pro tempore and past leaders. Like all of the family, the friends, the colleagues, and the former staff who have gathered for this occasion, I am so very pleased that he will be memorialized forever here in the U.S. Capitol and will be watching over all of us.

There are only 38 Members who are currently in the Senate who served with Ted, but I think it is important that all of us--and really every American--know who he was and why he so clearly deserves this honor.

Ted was a public servant. He was the ultimate public servant. He dedicated his life to public service. He spent more than six decades fighting for our State and the country he loved. His service began during World War II, when he flew as a pilot in the Army Air Corps. He flew missions behind enemy lines in China in support of the Flying Tigers. The stories we have heard over the years are truly legendary of his efforts in the war.

After the military, Ted helped Alaska to achieve its dream of statehood. He was basically Secretary Seaton's point man at the Department of the Interior during the Eisenhower administration. Think about what that means to have the opportunity to shape statehood for your State and then to go on and serve your State at this level as he did for some 40 years.

He went on to become one of the longest serving Republican Senators of all time. In this Chamber, he represented Alaska with great dignity, with great distinction over the course of 40 exceptional years. He was truly a public servant.

Really, from the very beginning, Ted was one of those special kinds of guys. After being appointed to the Senate in 1968, he established himself as a leader among leaders. Over the course of his time in the Senate, he chaired the Select Committee on Ethics; Rules and Administration; Governmental Affairs; Commerce, Science, and Transportation, as well as the Committee on Appropriations. From 1977 to 1985, his colleagues chose him to be the Assistant Republican Leader. He led the Senate's Arms Control Observer Group for 15 years, and he served as the President pro tempore, the senior member of the Senate's majority party, from 2003 to 2007--so leadership across all levels.

As one might expect, Ted was a force to be reckoned with. He made sure Alaska's voice was heard and was heard in every debate. As such, he secured an incredible number of legislative victories that shaped both the State of Alaska and our Nation.

He helped to settle most of Alaska's Native land claims, returning 44 million acres of land to First Alaskans and establishing a new model that empowered our Native peoples to create new economic opportunities. Ted was instrumental in securing the passage of a bill that enabled the construction of our 800-mile-long Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which, to this day, remains the backbone of our State's economy and is a critical part of our Nation's energy security supply.

Ted was a guy who worked very, very hard but who also loved to fish. He loved to be outside. His focusing on fishing led him to be very concerned about what he saw as being the overfishing by foreign fleets, which was taking place just miles off of Alaska's shores. So he worked across the aisle with Senator Warren Magnuson to protect and sustain our fisheries into the future. The Magnuson-Stevens law has been repeatedly reauthorized and, to this day, still bears their names.

It really is impossible to overstate the beneficial impact that Ted had on Alaska. Now, keep in mind he came to the Senate in 1968--less than a decade after Alaska had become a State. So he knew as well as anyone how tough those early years of statehood were. He knew probably as well as anyone how difficult life was for so many Alaskans, particularly in the rural parts of our State and, more than anyone else, he helped to change that.

Ted was an appropriator for a long time. He was legendary in that role. He once convinced the entire Committee on Appropriations to go to Alaska for 2 weeks to see Alaska's needs firsthand. The Federal funding he secured year after year allowed many Alaskans to gain access to very basic infrastructure. We are talking water and sewer--things that most Americans would take for granted. He also worked to help develop Alaska so we would have a telemedicine network that would work. He helped to facilitate bypass mail and Essential Air Service for our rural communities--programs and benefits that continue to this day.

There is absolutely no doubt that the people of Alaska are better off because of Ted Stevens. Many around the State still lovingly refer to Ted as ``Uncle Ted.'' We are happier, and we are clearly healthier. We are a safer and more prosperous State because of his contributions. Yet the same is true for every American because Ted's accomplishments did not end with the State of Alaska. He was a patriot. He was firmly committed to our national defense and the security of our country. He had great admiration for those who answered the call to serve in uniform, as he had. He traveled the world to visit with our troops and hear directly from them.

He was a longtime leader on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Department of Defense. He and Dan Inouye would kind of share the chairmanship, one between the other practically. Throughout his Senate tenure, he fought tirelessly to make sure our military had the best equipment, better pay, and the needed care it sought. He was a defender of those who defended us.

Ted was an avid surfer when he was young, and he recognized the importance of sports in our daily lives. I can remember a story that has gone around for so many years; that of having to put his eldest daughter, Sue, on a boy's softball team because we didn't have a girls' league in Alaska at the time. So he championed title IX of the Education Amendments Act, which provides equal opportunity for women to participate in sports. He also authored the Amateur Sports Act, which created the U.S. Olympic Committee, and worked to ensure funding for physical education programs--programs, again, that had that fingerprint of Ted Stevens from so many years prior.

I can go on and on about Ted's accomplishments. His legislative accomplishments are considerable and far too many to speak to here today, things like his work to ban damaging high seas drift nets to the funding he secured to advance AIDS and breast cancer research. He was involved in so much.

In recognizing that other colleagues wish to speak of Senator Stevens as well, I, instead, will speak very briefly about what I feel made him so effective and really so beloved--because he was beloved, maybe feared a little bit but beloved.

The first thing to understand is that Ted had a pretty simple motto. It was not very complicated.

He said:

To hell with politics. Just do what is right for Alaska.

He lived by that every day that he served here. He would work with anyone who was willing to do right by the State of Alaska no matter who one was, where one came from, or which side of the aisle one was on. I mentioned Senator Inouye and the relationship that Ted had with him on the Subcommittee on Department of Defense and on the Committee on Appropriations. They formed a very close relationship. They had a lot in common. Obviously, they were both veterans, and they were both from young, offshore States. Yet they looked out for one another. They had one another's backs. On committees, as I mentioned, they would be chairman and vice chairman and would trade off but would work with one another. In later years, it was not uncommon to find them both smoking cigars out on the pro tempore's balcony in the early evenings, talking about what had happened that day or what was going to happen the next day.

Another thing that folks should know about Ted is that he was definitely a fighter. I am told that Newsweek described him as a ``scrapper'' when he first arrived in the Senate, and it certainly proved to be an apt description throughout his tenure. Yet Ted was, again, pretty clear: If Alaska's interests were at stake, he was out there to defend them.

There were times he would put on his Incredible Hulk tie and channel the big guy's persona. When that happened, everyone knew to look out because Ted was going to the mat for Alaska on that day. Look out. Some suggested that Ted had a bit of a temper.

A Senator is chuckling back there. I hear that.

I think Ted knew that a little bit of a temper could actually serve him pretty well, and he would usually have a cute, little gleam in his eye when he would say, ``I never lose my temper. I know exactly where I left it.''

Ted was one of those guys who was great to his people, but when something needed to be said--when it needed to be direct and to the point--he was not going to shy away from it. That was another part of what really made him a legend around here.

I think those who are listening and those who know me know I have an immense, great affection for Ted and that this day and the recognition he is receiving has great personal meaning. I had the extraordinary fortune to know Ted Stevens for almost my entire life. At one point, he was my boss. I was a high school intern. My first opportunity to really be out of Alaska on my own was when I was an intern here for Senator Ted. Later, of course, he was my colleague in the Senate, where he mentored me and partnered with me to help serve Alaska. Above all that, he was a true friend--truly a friend--and I miss him dearly.

I am reminded of him all the time. I have his old office in the Hart Building. I have pictures and mementos that remind me of Ted. Every time I go back home to the State, I think of him. It is not just because, when I land, it reads ``Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.'' It is also when I go out to the communities and see a road or a bridge or a community that is no longer utilizing a honey bucket system because of the work that Ted did. When you go home, when you visit in Alaska, you see firsthand the impact he had. You see it everywhere. I often say that Ted built Alaska and that Ted was Alaska. So you can see why we named him the ``Alaskan of the 20th Century'' and why we remain so grateful for all that he has done for us.

I am happy there is now going to be a place in the Capitol where I can visit Ted, talk to him, and think about what he might have said and about the counsel he might have provided for our State and our Nation. I do hope his portrait will be a reminder to those of us who serve here that we can work together even on the hardest of days and that, if we do, we can achieve great things for the American people, which sometimes might just require us to say: To hell with politics. Just do what is right.

I am honored and privileged to be here with so many Alaskans, including Catherine, Ted's wife, as well as many of his children and grandchildren. I know they are overwhelmed by the number of friends and colleagues and staff who are here to celebrate Ted's life and legacy.

In channeling here, I think Ted is looking down on all of this and is thinking: Enough already. This is too much. You all have to get back to work because, after all, we have appropriations bills on the floor.

With that, I yield to the fine Senator from Mississippi.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source