Save Our Seas 2.0 Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, today is a happy day for me to be joining my friends Senator Menendez and Senator Sullivan here on the Senate floor to celebrate the successful conclusion of a second chapter in a long effort to address the problem of ocean plastics pollution, which has been described so well by my friend Senator Sullivan.

When we began, there was actually no program whatsoever on ocean plastics in the Senate. There had never been legislation in this area. With Senator Sullivan's support, we decided to see what the traffic would bear, see what the Senate and the House might tolerate in terms of legislating in a new area. For that, we undertook the Save Our Seas bill. And at the end of the day, after a certain amount of static, actually on both sides of the aisle, we were able to get Save Our Seas passed by unanimous consent. Every single Member of the Senate had to agree to it. To me, that was a really exciting test to the proposition that Senators actually care about this. One of my favorite moments in that whole episode was when a Senator, with whom I am often at war-- Senator Inhofe of landlocked Oklahoma--became an ally and a friend and a supporter of Save Our Seas, the original bill. And he did so because he had childhood experiences on the gulf coast with sea turtles that made him care about the plastic that was piling up in the oceans and strangling and drowning sea creatures.

It has, this topic, a gift, I guess, for bringing people together. And based on that success and that unanimous consent--and it cleared the House the same way on what they call suspension over there--we undertook 2.0; 2.0 is going to be bigger, better than 1.0. And it sure is bigger, better. And the role of Senator Menendez in putting some real structure to the international component of this was essential.

Senator Menendez is our ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee. In that role, he was essential in seeing to it that this bill, with such a big Foreign Relations Committee footprint, cleared that committee with momentum and good to go.

We are now in the happy position that 2.0 has passed as well. It creates a new marine debris foundation. It creates a genius prize for innovation in trying to get rid of or reinvent or reimagine our plastic disposal system. It creates new research to tackle this issue. It focuses more, as I said, directly on our international relations because so much of the marine plastic waste comes out of foreign shores and down foreign rivers. It also focuses on our domestic waste management program.

This is a good step. I have heard people say that 2.0 is not enough. Darn right it is not enough, but this is how you build momentum. You prove that you can do something and that the Senate is willing to act on it. Then, you stand on that platform and you build a bigger, better bill, and you get that passed. And now Senator Sullivan and I are already discussing what 3.0 might look like.

I am not in a position to speak for Senator Sullivan, but I am interested in looking under the hood of the recycling industry. When you put your plastic waste into a blue bin to go off and get recycled, how much of it actually does get recycled? How can we make sure that there is, in fact, a circle in which plastic gets manufactured, put into use, brought back out of the system, and not left in the ocean, not left as waste on our lands? How can you develop what is called the circular economy for plastic?

Plastic is a weird thing. Nature hasn't seen plastic before. It doesn't biodegrade the way things that were made by the Lord biodegrade. Nothing eats it. If something does eat it, it just piles up in its body or goes through it neutrally. It provides no nutrition or value to anything. It is just this new thing out there. We need to figure out how to deal with it, and we need to get it the heck out of our oceans.

More to come on this. But let me take this moment to thank Senator Menendez for his leadership, particularly, on the foreign side of this, and Senator Sullivan for his leadership and for being such a terrific ally in this cause.

With that, I yield back.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I should add a few other thank-yous because this, obviously, took a lot of effort to get through all these different committees in the Senate and the House and to get it passed on the Senate and House floor. I want to start on the House side, with the equivalent of the Whitehouse-Sullivan show is the Young-Bonamici show on the other side; Representative Bonamici and Representative Young, whom Senator Sullivan mentioned, were the key people working this issue.

I want to thank my delegation, Jim Langevin and David Cicilline, because, during key points when it looked like things were jamming up over there, they jumped up with their leadership and with their colleagues to help move things along, and I believe Representative Young did as well.

I want to thank the majority leader, Steny Hoyer, who at a really critical moment, when this could have gone one way or another, made sure it went the right way and got us teed up to get the thing done in the House and back here where we could move it in the Senate.

In the Senate, I have spoken about Senator Menendez's critical role, but, of course, as chairman, Senator Risch also had to support and permit this to go forward. It had to clear Commerce, where Senator Wicker and Senator Cantwell were supportive and helped move this along. Senator Wicker, indeed, has been a member of our Oceans Caucus from an early stage and has been very helpful on oceans issues.

Then on our--Senator Sullivan's and my--Environment and Public Works Committee, Chairman Barrasso and our ranking member, Senator Carper, were all very supportive.

Things like this don't get done without a lot of people pulling together, and I just wanted to make sure that I thanked all of them as I close out here on this subject.

So thank you.

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