Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, as millions of Americans in Illinois and across the Nation finish filing their taxes, I come to the floor to discuss the most recent tax reform bill considered by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Last year, Republicans followed through with their promise and used a special procedural approach called reconciliation, which allowed them to bring a tax reform plan to the floor outside of regular order and without committee hearings and the ordinary amendment-invoked process. Democrats were not really participants in this but only observers, under the reconciliation process. That tax plan has now become the law of the land, and now we know what it is doing. It has created a massive tax giveaway to the largest multinational corporations, to the wealthiest corporate CEOs, and to well-connected campaign donors.

In passing this plan, Republicans said that if they could just cut taxes enough for large corporations, these corporations would invest in America, give breaks to their employees, and create more employment. The benefits of these tax breaks to the corporations supposedly would trickle down to workers in the form of higher wages, and the economy would explode, creating new jobs.

The tax plan was voted on favorably by every Republican in the U.S. Senate, and it added $1.5 trillion to the national debt, to fund these massive corporate tax cuts. So what did the corporations do with their tax cut benefits? They turned around and took their taxpayer-funded tax cut and gave their wealthy CEOs and shareholders a raise. So far, in 2018, large corporations have announced over $235 billion in stock buybacks--far outpacing the rate of companies announcing one-time bonuses for their workers. Not only that, but more than 100,000 employees in large corporations have actually been terminated. You couldn't get further from tax relief for working families if you tried.

It gets worse. The Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the Republican tax plan will actually cost another $300 billion beyond the $1.5 trillion estimate. Our children and grandchildren will pay off the cost of this tax cut for the wealthiest people in America and the largest corporations. So much for the promise that these tax cuts would pay for themselves. It will cost us roughly $1.9 trillion over 10 years for these tax cuts for major corporations and wealthy people. This is a burden our children and grandchildren will bear.

So what are we hearing now when it comes to the budget? Just last week, after seeing that the plan they voted for was expected to add $1.9 trillion to the deficit, Republican Tennessee Senator Corker said: ``If it ends up costing what has been laid out here, it could well be one of the worst votes I've made.''

The so-called fiscal conservatives here in the Senate didn't seem as concerned about the deficit when they were voting for a 10-figure increase that would go to cut taxes for wealthy people and large corporations. But make no mistake--as predictably as night follows day, we now have a renewed call in the House of Representatives for a budget amendment--a constitutional, balanced budget, ``stop me before I sin again'' amendment. Now that Republicans have exploded the deficit, the absolutely vital public assistance programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are now at risk. If there is a balanced budget amendment, they have said that we have to get to the basic programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to make up the difference. I think it is unconscionable to give tax breaks to people who are well off and comfortable and then to cut the basics of human existence for many senior citizens in Social Security and Medicare.

The devastating first act of the Republican tax plan and fiscal conservatives, as they define it, has exploded our Nation's deficit and provided enormous benefit to those who, frankly, don't need it. We can't let the second act be a balanced budget constitutional amendment that will end up pillaging the basic programs that help low- and middle-income Americans the most in the name of fiscal responsibility. Coast Guard Authorization Bill

Mr. President, there was a poll in the city of Chicago a few years ago by the Chicago Tribune, and they asked the residents of that city: What is the greatest asset in the city of Chicago? Overwhelmingly, they all said the same thing: Lake Michigan. That is understandable. If you have been to that beautiful city and seen that lakefront and realized the impact it has on the quality of life, it is understandable that Chicagoans would value it the most.

Millions of people visit Lake Michigan each year. They swim, kayak, and boat. They just walk along the beach and have little picnics. It really is a major asset. The lake is the primary source of drinking water for more than 10 million people not just in Illinois but in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and many other States. Together, the Great Lakes support a multibillion-dollar fishing industry, dozens of local economies, and thousands of small businesses. However, the Coast Guard reauthorization bill, which could come before the Senate as early as tomorrow, will do irreversible damage to the Great Lakes, and I am urging my colleagues to oppose it.

It is not uncommon in this Chamber for Members from each State to stand up from time to time and tell a story to their colleagues about something in their State of great personal value to them and to plead with their colleagues to understand what this means and to stand by them in protecting a great natural resource or a great natural asset.

The bill itself--the Coast Guard reauthorization--I don't have a problem with. It does a lot of good things for an important part of our military service. It helps equip the Coast Guard with the tools they are going to need so they can keep us safe and be part of the critical homeland security mission. There is, however, one provision in the bill that should not be there.

This bill was reported by the Commerce Committee. One of the provisions in this bill should never have started in the Commerce Committee; it should be in the Environment Committee. It is known as the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act, or VIDA. This provision in the Coast Guard reauthorization bill will undermine the Clean Water Act just to give a generous deal to one specific industry.

VIDA exempts the shipping industry from being regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act. It places it instead under the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is a great organization, and there are great men and women serving there. The Coast Guard, however, has no expertise in setting standards for clean water; the Environmental Protection Agency has that responsibility. This bill takes that responsibility away from the EPA.

This bill also preempts the States and their rights to implement their own standards that would meet specific needs and limits the public's ability to seek action in court.

Who opposes this bill? The attorney general of the State of Illinois, as well as the attorneys general from New York, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, so far.

The bill's supporters say all of this is necessary to establish a uniform national standard, but the bill doesn't do that. Instead, it cuts a big Great Lakes-sized doughnut hole out of its own standard and exempts ships operating on the Great Lakes from meeting the same ``best available control technology'' standard that all other shippers are required to meet. It is a sweetheart deal for shippers on the Great Lakes.

VIDA also makes it almost impossible for anyone to ever require ships operating on the Great Lakes to install new pollution controls in the future. This means these ships would likely never be required to use any available technology to prevent the spread of invasive species like mussels, blood red shrimp, and Asian carp.

I can't tell you how much money we have spent to stop the Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes. We think it is going to destroy the Great Lakes as a marine habitat if we are not careful, and we have stopped them so far. This irresponsible measure as part of the Coast Guard reauthorization goes in exactly the opposite direction. It opens the door for invasive species invading our Great Lakes through ballast water. That is unacceptable.

Chicagoans deserve to know that ships operating on Lake Michigan are using the best technology available to prevent the discharge of harmful chemicals into their primary drinking water and invasive species, but the bill's exemptions go far beyond the Great Lakes.

Another provision of VIDA would prevent EPA and States from enforcing standards to stop the shipping industry from releasing fluorinated chemicals into the lakes and oceans across the country. Many of my colleagues have become familiar with chemicals like PFAS and PFOA after they contaminated critical groundwater sources in their own States.

As the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, I can't tell you how many colleagues from all across the United States have now discovered that these perfluorinated chemicals are a danger to their drinking supply and a public health hazard. They come to me begging for Federal funds to clean up the messes at military bases and airports. Now we are considering a bill on the floor that weakens the standard for release of those chemicals into our water supply. What are we thinking? Is the shipping industry worth that much that we turn our backs on this public health hazard?

I have seen how the military has used these chemicals over the years for legitimate purposes like firefighting. Now we are going to spend millions of dollars cleaning them up, and this Coast Guard bill is going to make it worse. Allowing the commercial shipping industry to freely release these chemicals into bodies of water without proper oversight is downright disgusting.

All of these reasons are why more than 115 environmental organizations have announced their opposition to this Coast Guard bill. It has nothing to do with the Coast Guard--we value them; we treasure them; we want to help them--but to slip this provision in, this environmental rider which endangers the water supply for millions of Americans, is just wrong.

Despite all these objections, Senator McConnell now wants to bring this bill to the floor in a way that will limit debate, doesn't allow for any amendments to change it, and provides no pathway to improve the bill or to delete this terrible provision. This is not how to consider an issue that is so important with so many people concerned about it.

I urge my colleagues, when this measure of the Coast Guard reauthorization comes up for a vote on cloture on concurrence, to vote no.

Today it is the Great Lakes. Tomorrow it is your backyard, it is your water supply that some special interest group will want to contaminate in the name of more profits. We can do better. We owe it to our kids to do better.

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