Alaska Tourism Recovery Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I want to thank Senator Murkowski for her hard work.

For the Alaskans who are watching, what just happened here is kind of quick but important. The U.S. Senate just passed our bill, the PVSA suspension act, that is going to give our tourism season and the thousands of Alaskans in that industry and the hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses that are hanging by a thread a fighting chance for this summer--a fighting chance for the summer. That just passed the U.S. Senate and is going over to the House.

So, again, I want to thank Senator Murkowski for her leadership on this and, of course, the Senators that she mentioned who were very engaged: Senator Lee, Senator Markey, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Cantwell, Senator Wicker.

You know, this, to me, is an example of the U.S. Senate working at its best--at its best. What was going on here and what we did for the last several weeks is we went to all of our colleagues and said: Look, we have a unique problem right now. In the Great State of Alaska, we are so proud of how we have done in terms of getting through the health aspects of this pandemic, but our economy is getting crushed for a whole host of reasons I have talked about on the floor here many, many times. One of the huge areas is the tourism sector and the unique challenges we have with the borders being closed by the Canadians, which is not helpful; the cruise ship industry not being able to move; and the millions of passengers who were expected to come to Alaska on cruise ships.

So we were going to each Senator and saying: Look, we know you have big, philosophical differences on some things that relate tangentially to this issue, but right now this issue is very narrow. Help us help our constituents. That is it. It is not going to impact any other State.

And to our colleagues' credit, all of them said: OK, Senator Murkowski, Senator Sullivan, we will help.

And that is a good spirit of cooperation. We essentially went to them and said: Hey, if your State had a problem uniquely focused on just your citizens, we would help you.

So that is what you just saw here. It took a little while. That is OK. Nothing moves fast in the U.S. Senate, but that is a step forward-- an important step forward.

But we still have work to do, as Senator Murkowski mentioned. This bill right now is going to be heading over to the House, right now, and we certainly hope, with the great leadership of the dean of the House, Congressman Young, and all his relationships in the House, that the House is going to show the same cooperative spirit that we just witnessed here on the U.S. Senate floor. So we are hoping for that. That is the next step.

But as Senator Murkowski mentioned, we are working all kinds of different angles--plan B, plan C, plan D. We need the CDC to continue its progress, finally--frustrating but finally. They need to continue to provide detailed guidance to operationalize their lifting of the no- sail order.

And as Senator Murkowski also mentioned, we are going to continue to work with our friends in Canada--``O Canada.''

Now, you know, in Alaska, we have one neighbor. We don't have any of our wonderful lower 48 States as neighbors. We have Canada. We don't really include Russia. Canada. So I would say that the Alaska delegation is probably the most pro-Canadian, certainly the most knowledgeable about Canada issues of any delegation in the U.S. Congress. We work to help them out on issues--big issues, small issues, trade issues, NORAD, military issues, mining. We have a great relationship--the Alaska-Canada relationship. But, to be frank, we are not getting a lot of help right now. The border is closed--fully closed. We think that is pretty draconian, to be honest.

Alaskans are having a hard time even driving home to get through Canada. We put forward a number of very reasonable suggestions to try to accommodate what we are hoping will be a fighting chance for our tourism season, for our small businesses that have been so decimated by this pandemic.

To our colleagues in Canada, reasonable compromises in the event that we don't make progress here--we are making progress here in the U.S. Congress. That is good, again, so that we can have a fighting chance for somewhat of a tourism season this summer. But up until now, all of these suggestions--they are really not even neighbors to the north; they are neighbors for us to the east--haven't gotten a lot of cooperation. So this is not the cooperative spirit that has defined the Alaska-Canadian relationship for decades, and quite frankly, we have been disappointed by it.

So to our House colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--you have just kind of witnessed two examples of cooperation. What happened here on the Senate floor just a couple of minutes ago was really good cooperation. All 100 Senators essentially had to agree to move this bill forward, and they just did. That is what just happened. That is good cooperation.

We haven't had such good cooperation from our Canadian neighbors-- disappointing. But look, my own view is that we need to start making sure that the Alaska economy is not held hostage to another country. We are going to start working on that.

But until then, to our House Members, please, if you can look at what just happened in the Senate, listen to Congressman Young, whom you all know is a great advocate.

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