Advanced Geothermal Innovation Leadership Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on average, we lose 100 Americans every single day to firearms.

Last week marked 1 year since the House of Representatives passed H.R. 8. It was a bipartisan bill. Both Democrats and Republicans supported it. The bill stood for a very basic proposition, and the proposition is this: Whatever your constitutional rights or God-given rights--if you make that argument--to a firearm might be, we as a society cannot allow people who are convicted felons or who are shown to be mentally unstable to legally buy firearms in this country. We are supposed to have background checks to make sure this doesn't happen. It turns out that more than one out of five firearms are sold in America without there having been background checks on the purchasers.

So H.R. 8, this bipartisan bill, passed the House to close the gaps in our background system. What kind of gaps are we talking about? We have terrible gun violence in the city of Chicago. Some of the critics of Chicago like to say: You have the toughest gun laws and the most gun deaths. Well, they don't tell you the whole story. Many of those guns start off not in Chicago and not in Illinois but at gun shows in Northwest Indiana, where they are sold sometimes in volume without there being any background checks made on the purchasers.

It has been 1 year of nothing in the U.S. Senate in responding to this national crisis--not one thing. It is within the power of the majority leader, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, to at least let us address the issue and debate it.

He has a majority. Nothing is going to pass here without Republican support. We know that. But don't the American people deserve a debate? One man, the Republican majority leader, says no. He styles himself as the Grim Reaper of the Senate. He takes pride in the fact that he has killed hundreds of bills passed by the House that will never, ever see the light of day in the U.S. Senate.

Well, I can tell the Senator from Kentucky that after attending so many funerals, after giving heartbreaking sympathy to the families of those who have lost their children and loved ones, after hearing about so many mass shootings--mass shootings that should shock our conscience--aren't we shocked when people just go to a movie theater in Colorado and are gunned down as they watch a movie? Aren't we shocked when a crowd in Las Vegas just wants to enjoy a country western concert and they are gunned down? Weren't we shocked at a high school in Florida or a first grade classroom in Connecticut when mass shootings take place?

What will it take, America? What will it take for this Senate, what will it take for this majority leader to realize enough is enough?

I believe in Second Amendment rights to bear arms for those who buy them legally, use them and store them responsibly, whether it is for self-defense, sport, or hunting. But none of the people who come to me and argue this issue are arguing for convicted felons and mentally unstable people to buy a firearm. We need them to stand with us and to stand with law enforcement, who are often the victims of these firearms, to make this a safer nation.

There are obvious gaps in the Federal gun laws that make it easy for felons, abusers, and mentally unstable people to get their hands on guns and hurt innocent people. Loopholes in the background check system, like the gun show loophole I mentioned and one I haven't mentioned--the loophole on the internet, where there is no real background check whatsoever--account for massive sales of firearms each year in the United States.

The House-passed Bipartisan Background Checks Act would close these gaps in the background check system. Around 90 percent of Americans support the proposals in this bill--90 percent of them. It is good enough for America, but not good enough for the Senate.

Obviously, the majority leader needs to be persuaded, and 90 percent of America is not enough. It is a commonsense, bipartisan step we should take, consistent with constitutional rights but consistent, as well, with common sense.

I can't explain why the Senate Republicans will not take up a bipartisan, House-passed bill that is so overwhelmingly supported, even by Republicans. There are literally hundreds of bills, which have passed the House of Representatives, gathering dust on the Senate desk, and this is one of them. These bills deal with issues like reducing the cost of prescription drugs, protecting the pensions of working Americans and retired Americans, securing our elections from foreign interference, and, of course, reducing gun violence. They all wait on the desk of the Senator who styles himself the Grim Reaper.

There have been too many excuses for inaction. There is plenty of time, as you can tell, on the Senate floor for us to roll up our sleeves and actually legislate, and when it comes to gun violence, the cost of inaction is devastating--100 Americans a day.

It is time for Senator McConnell to call up H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, and have this Senate actually debate an issue and actually vote on an issue that can make a real difference in America. S. 2657

Mr. President, I will commend the majority leader and Senator Murkowski of Alaska for doing something that is out of the ordinary. There is a bill pending before the Senate on the issue of American's energy policy. You see, last year on floor of the U.S. Senate--this deliberative body that has been honored throughout history for the great debates that have taken place here--last year, during the entire calendar year, the Senate considered only 22 amendments in the entire year.

I have served here for a while. I can never remember a time when there was so little activity on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Well, I want to commend Senator Murkowski. She has started us off this year, I hope, with an indication that things might change.

This Energy bill before us is going to be hotly debated. I am not going to agree with every provision, but that isn't required of it. What is required is to bring a measure forward, debate it, compromise where you can, and come up with the best product you can come up with.

Congress has not passed major energy legislation since the year 2009. Over 10 years have passed. Has the energy picture in America changed in 10 years? Of course. Has the environmental picture changed? We know it has.

President Obama, in 2009, in a stimulus package, included critical tax credits for renewable energy like wind and solar. This week's debate marks an opportunity to tackle a decadelong legislative slump on these issues.

The American Energy Innovation Act seeks to modernize our electrical grid, support research into advanced energy technology, and improve energy efficiency in buildings across America.

Through significant bipartisan effort, my colleagues have constructed a package that starts to address one of America's most pressing issues--energy for our future.

Although the bill contains provisions that support innovation and research at the Department of Energy, I have to say I think we can do more. We need more robust support for basic science research--the kind of research that costs too much and takes too long for private companies to undertake on their own.

Time and again, whether it is new medicine, new medical devices, or new energy policy, the Federal Government has shown the real leadership in basic research.

We are at risk of no longer leading the world in cutting-edge research because our generation is not adequately funding basic science. We are living off the achievements of previous generations. We are not leaving the world of our children and grandchildren better for the research we are doing today--at least not as much as we should. That is why I put forth an amendment to this bill to increase funding for the Department of Energy's Office of Science by 5 percent real growth--that is 5 percent over inflation--each year for the next 5 years.

This amendment will provide more than $43 billion over 5 years for basic research in energy technology and close a funding gap that has stunted some of DOE's most important projects.

Think for a moment about electric vehicles. Commonly now, their range of mileage is 200 to 300 miles. What if we doubled or tripled that number? Would it change the attitude of the public about using electric vehicles and reducing pollution? I think there is no doubt that it would.

This investment in research will pay off. It will strengthen the Energy bill and help move us into the 21st century in a leadership position where the United States should be.

While my amendment addresses one priority to enhance the American Energy Innovation Act, a larger question remains. It is fundamental and basic: How does this bill on energy address the existential threat of climate change? We should ask that about every bill that comes across the floor--certainly a bill talking about the future of energy.

My colleagues have worked to improve energy efficiency and fund innovation. I support both of those efforts. But this bill does not honestly and aggressively deal with climate change.

Unfortunately, facing the global threat of warming will require more than just faith and technology. Climate change impacts every sector of American life. It is well past time that we deal with solutions that can promise our kids and grandkids a habitable planet.

According to the climatologist in my State of Illinois, as a result of climate change, Illinois faces higher temperatures and more frequent, intense rainfall than at any other time in our State's history. That is over 200 years.

Our farmers have seen it. Last year, increased precipitation between April and June literally crippled our farmers when it came to planting and left them, many times, with fields that were not productive.

We have seen it in the city of Chicago. In January, there were waves as high as 20 feet pummeling the Lake Michigan shoreline of Chicago and flooding our coastal communities.

During the summer, record temperatures in Chicago last year threatened the elderly with heat stroke and kept many kids behind doors. Even the Trump administration has seen it. Despite the President's denial of climate change, people within his administration spoke up.

In November of 2018, the ``Fourth National Climate Assessment'' reported that American economic losses could reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century as a result of climate change.

For decades, scientists have warned us about this threat, and now we can see it in our lives almost every day.

As the Senate considers energy legislation, we do the American people a great disservice by failing to seriously address climate change. That is why I have been working on an approach that I think has some promise.

Let's look back at history, to the 1930s. The United States faced a different existential crisis called the Great Depression. At that time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. This was an agency that issued low-interest loans and harnessed investment across the economy. The RFC, as it was known, became a critical lifeline for the U.S. economy, and its catch-all approach to investment spurred us into a recovery.

Though climate change represents a different set of challenges than the Great Depression, the RFC model shows us an example of a broad strategy needed to combat existential threats to our Nation. We need to take immediate action to decrease greenhouse grass emissions and limit human-induced global warming.

According to the EPA, in 2018, the United States emitted more than 5.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide--a 3.2-percent increase over the previous year. We are moving in the wrong direction.

Clearly, this administration's strategy of removing the United States from the Paris climate accord and skirting around climate change is one that is not helping us address this issue successfully and effectively. Tackling this issue requires an immediate reduction in carbon emissions, massive investments in resilience and clean energy technology, and a willingness to take this threat seriously.

Climate change makes the normal disasters in America that much worse. It increases their frequency and their intensity, and it is devastating to the most vulnerable people and businesses in America.

I support efforts like the bill before us--the American Energy Innovation Act--that take small steps toward addressing climate change, but this problem calls for a much larger commitment, not just by the Senate and the House and by the President, but certainly by the American people. We have it within our power, if we have the will, to deal with this challenge.

Research, technology, and a willingness to make a sacrifice for future generations is all it takes. We can put that package together on a bipartisan basis.

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