Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, first, let me commend the chief cosponsors of this bill, Senators SHAHEEN and PORTMAN, for their perseverance and their great leadership on this issue. I am a wholehearted and passionate supporter of this cause and urge my colleagues to address what is truly a triple play.

This bill is a way to win for employment and economic growth. It is a way to win for energy savings and financial savings for our manufacturing companies, to make America more competitive. It is a way to win for our planet, indeed, to help save our planet along with saving money and saving energy.

I will not only support the bill and the amendments, but I have asked for support for an amendment of my own that would help to measure the nonmonetary benefits of some of the changes that would be brought about by this legislation. I ask Senators PORTMAN and SHAHEEN to accept this amendment and for my colleagues to support it as well.

NEWTOWN ANNIVERSARY

I am here to help commemorate the 9-month anniversary of the tragedy at Newtown that took the lives of 26 wonderful people--20 beautiful children and 6 courageous, skilled educators. It was a commemoration I was going to observe yesterday on the floor of the Senate, but, of course, there was no Senate session yesterday because of yet another unspeakable, horrific tragedy, this one close, literally within blocks of this great building.

It was physically close, but every one of those incidents should be close to us emotionally as Newtown has been for me and others of my colleagues, most especially my friend and colleague Senator Murphy. It brought back a rush of memories for me because Newtown is still close to us in emotional proximity, just as the Navy shooting was close in physical proximity. The Navy lost 12 of its members. My heart and prayers go out to those great sailors, civilians, and contractors, and their loved ones.

Today we have an inspector general report that is profoundly and deeply troubling. If reports of this audit are true, the Navy put the safety of personnel at risk to save dollars and cents. This apparent security lapse, permitting people with criminal records to freely access military bases and facilities, is deeply concerning, indeed shocking. I call on the inspector general to release the full report. I have the report. I have reviewed it briefly. I cannot talk about its contents because it has not been released. Make this report public so we know what the inspector general of the Navy has said about lapses of security and about the failures of the RAPIDGate technology that was supposed to protect people at the Navy Yard here in Washington, DC.

Lax safety and security measures at our military facilities is inexcusable. I commend the Secretary of the Navy and the leadership of the Navy for raising this issue and hope they will decide to make public the full report to the extent it can be done so consistent with our Nation's security.

But one of the lessons here is that the Navy, with RAPIDGate technology and all of its facilities with armed guards and the complex technology it uses, could not protect members of its own ranks at the Navy Yard. We should know why. If it could not do so there, can our schools be safe? Can our workplaces be safe? Can America be safe with the present plethora of firearms in our Nation today?

This day was horrific and tragic for America. Yet in many ways it was another day. The threat is these incidents will become the new normal. We need to ask, will these incidents, these horrific, unspeakable tragedies, make a difference? Will they change the political mindset and culture in this body and in the House of Representatives?

In the days to come, we will learn more. There is much more to learn before we draw conclusions. I emphasize the facts are disclosed one by one even as we watch the news. We will try to wrap our minds around whatever evil motive caused this senseless crime, but we know the means all too well. The moment shots rang out and the blurb came over the news wire, we knew with an instinctive understanding this unfolding incident was another act of gun violence in America, another act of gun violence in an America plagued by a plethora of guns.

The answer to the question, will it become a new normal, should find the articulate, in fact, deeply powerful words of Janis Orlowski, the chief medical officer of MedStar Washington Hospital Center, the hospital that received some of yesterday's victims, the hospital that deals routinely with gunshot wounds and sometimes deaths. I hope the Nation will hear her plea when she said, in effect, these senseless killings have to stop, stating:

There's something evil in our society that we, as Americans, have to work to try and eradicate. I would like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots. Let's get rid of this. This is not America.

When I went to Sandy Hook 9 months ago on December 14, I felt an obligation to go as a public official, but what I saw was through the eyes of a parent, the cries of grief and pain that I will never forget. They will live with me always, loved ones and parents emerging from that firehouse having learned moments before that their beautiful children and loved ones would not be coming home that evening.

Like the loved ones who said goodbye to the 12 victims at the Washington Navy Yard, it was another day, a day like every other day when they expected them to come home to the routine, mundane joys of life. Twenty innocent, beautiful children and 6 great educators did not come home that day. In the days that followed, we all hoped the Senate of the United States would keep faith with those families. In the 9 months since, we have hoped the Nation would keep faith with the 8,158 Americans around the country, the 8,158 victims of gun violence.

Last April, the Senate turned its back on Newtown families. One of the

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most difficult days of my career in this job or any other job was to try to explain to those families how more than 90 percent of the American people--a majority of gun owners, in fact many members of the NRA--could back a commonsense measure like background checks, the bill the Presiding Officer and Senator Toomey sponsored so courageously and ably--could have that kind of support and yet fail to pass this body. It had 55 Senators supporting it on that day--54 voting for it, but 60 votes were needed. One of the answers, of course, is to change the Senate rules, which I have long supported, to eliminate the filibuster.

The families of Newtown, and those 8,158 Americans, their loved ones, and all Americans deserve a better answer. It is not to accept these mass killings as the new normal, as the commonplace of America. We are better than that normal as a Nation. We cannot accept it. I hope, ask, and pray that the unspeakable, unimaginable tragedy of Newtown and now Washington Navy Yard will renew and reinvigorate this movement and give us impetus, emotional, intellectual, and political, which we need and deserve.

The shooting at the Washington Navy Yard makes clear that, as we said in the wake of Newtown, these kinds of mass killings can happen anywhere, any school, any community--in Newtown, the quintessential New England town, or at the Washington Navy Yard, a supposedly secure military facility. We need to make sure it happens nowhere.

Let us make a mental health initiative a centerpiece of this renewal and reinvigoration of our effort to stop gun violence. Let us combine it with background checks and other commonsense measures. Bring back this issue and these measures.

We are not going away. We are not giving up. Many of the Newtown families will be here again this week. The Newtown Action Alliance has been joined by other groups such as Sandy Hook Promise, Newtown Speaks, and Mayors Against Illegal Guns. They have formed a powerful gun coalition, and I promise I will never give up. I know together we can prevail.

Not long ago--in fact, this past weekend--I attended a playground dedication on the beach in Fairfield overlooking Long Island Sound, a beautiful, cloudless day lit by an early morning Sun, to dedicate a playground in honor of one of the children, Jessica Rekos, whose family was there as well. That playground will be a living reminder of our obligation to do better.

There are regulations right now that have not been approved in final form for mental health parity to enable more people to have private health insurance coverage. There are commonsense mental health funding initiatives. As we speak on this day, groups are going around to our offices from the National Council for Behavioral Health, asking for support for the Excellence in Mental Health Act, S. 264, ably cosponsored by Senator Stabenow and Senator Blunt, focusing on mental health and combining those measures with other commonsense, sensible gun violence prevention measures. It is the way to forge the consensus we need and move from those 55 votes to the 61 we need for passage of a gun violence prevention measure that can make us proud, make America better, safer, and that can make us, as Americans, a better Nation to leave for generations to come.

As we celebrate the lives lost but commemorate the horrific, unspeakable tragedy of Newtown, we should take heart from the courage and resilience of those families and their loved ones. From the Newtown community which will be visiting the Capitol again, their resoluteness and steadfastness should inspire us to do better and to ask more of ourselves and make America a better Nation.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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