Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, Senator Scott's bill would prohibit the Department of Transportation, Amtrak, Transportation Security Administration, or other Agencies from requiring passengers in interstate transportation to show proof of COVID-19 in order to travel.

I appreciate my colleagues--all of whom I serve with on the Commerce Committee. I know that they know well--we have had a lot of discussions about the impacts of COVID-19 on our transportation sector. They know very well that we had to spend a lot of resources keeping our transportation sector moving.

Why?

Because we have to move goods and services and products. During COVID-19, we had to move essential workers, and we had to move product.

There is no doubt our transportation system needs to have keen oversight as it relates to moving in even a pandemic. That is what we did. I am proud of the work that we did. But it is not lost on anybody that COVID-19, the deadliest pandemic in U.S. history--as of September 28, there have already been 700,000 COVID-19-related deaths in the United States and over 43 million infections. In my State, 7,586 deaths and 652,000 cases.

So the point is here, we have been fighting this pandemic with all of these tools and no one has ever suggested the one--that Senator Scott nor my colleagues from the Commerce Committee are saying what the President might do. That is not what he has suggested.

In fact, I was very involved in an area of transportation where we wanted to get cruise ships back in service to Alaska at a critical moment--both for Alaska and a critical moment during the pandemic. Not everybody was ready to have that happen; not everybody was ready to move. And yet it meant so much to Alaska that we all worked together. And in some instances, those cruise ships said: We are going to require the vaccine.

So the point is here, we are not trying to mandate this. Now, if the President and the industry feel that it is important to have a workforce so that that workforce continues to serve us and conserve the growing response to the pandemic--which I mean responding to the aftermath of the pandemic--that is why we spent money. That is why we are trying to take off. That is why we are trying to return a workforce. That is why we are returning kids to school. That is why we are trying to get our hospitals staffed. That is why we are doing things.

That is the only thing the President said, is that those people should get a vaccine. He has not said, if you want to get on an airplane, you have to get vaccinated--maybe if you are flying overseas and have to work with another country.

My colleague from Florida knows all too well because he and I are working together to try to get temperature checks in a very broad way established at airports through the U.S. We have agreed that is a smart thing to do. It has been done on an international basis for a long time and it prevents people from getting on a plane who are sick. The President has not said this.

To now put a bill through that might have prohibited the cruise ship industry reestablishing service up to Alaska because now, all of a sudden, you are going to have all of these things is not the way I want to go.

I like what we have been able to achieve. It has taken hard work and working together. It does not take us passing this bill by Senator Scott.

economy moving.

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