Environmental Legislation

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor tonight to talk about many provisions that are currently moving their way through the House of Representatives and on our way to us. Obviously, our colleagues here are, I think, relieved that we have been able to give relief to the American people; that is, that we have been able to extend unemployment benefits and add bonuses to those unemployment benefits in the amount of 300 extra dollars per week, and we have been able to expand the COBRA tax credit programs to help people who have been unemployed and not been able to continue their insurance be able to continue health insurance. This is very important for laid-off workers in the State of Washington, like the aerospace workers.

We are very glad that we were able to give a stimulus check of $600 per individual and $1,200 for married couples; that we were able to get the PPP program that helps small businesses so that they can continue to try to make ends meet as we continue to work our way through this pandemic; and that we have been able to give $9 billion to healthcare workers who are stretched so thin on these battle lines, who need every support that we can give them.

I want to talk about the rental assistance. We are at a point where, if we didn't act tonight, if we didn't act before we left here, many more people were going to be without homes. It is so important for us to have these provisions and programs like SNAP, the additional money for broadband, for healthcare, and for other things that are essential in helping to communicate during this pandemic for both healthcare and for education.

I also wanted to mention work that was done in tandem with this legislation, specifically on the affordable housing tax credit. The affordable housing tax credit was always important. Affordable housing was always important, but in a pandemic, in a COVID crisis, it becomes even more important. The affordable housing tax credit is something that Senator Young and I worked on with Senator Wyden and Senator Isakson, and we wanted to say that we needed to do more than what our current Tax Code could do in helping build more affordable housing.

The affordable housing tax credit has provisions that have been in law since 1986, but, actually, using the tax credits and how they worked have been a fluctuating rate, so the consequence is that the historic rate of what people could get to use the tax credit has changed, and this legislation will put a floor of 4 percent in to give investors a bigger idea of what this investment can do for the market.

We believe that it will add, in the State of Washington, more housing that is needed immediately, more housing that is needed on the national basis, and help us stabilize things in the near term so that we can work on affordable housing and how we can put more incentives for people to build affordable housing.

People know affordable housing doesn't just get built. People don't just go out and say: I am going to build housing at this low rate.

The tax credit is a tax credit that helps people do it by giving those borrowers the ability to work with the tax credit. But the American people have been greatly impacted by so many trends--baby boomers reaching retirement age, not being able to save, people being pushed out of the last economic crisis into a rate of unaffordability. It really has been a dramatic increase.

According to the Hudson Institute, 60 percent of our affordable and low-cost housing was lost from the housing stock between 1985 and 2013. That is the housing that we had that was affordable. Basically, the time period ends, and they end up being swallowed up, like so many places in Puget Sound, into market-based rates. Literally, people are pushed out of their housing, and then there is no other affordable housing in the region.

These tax credits can help us build more affordable housing for the long run. Over the next decade, nearly 500,000 low-income housing tax credit unions and 655 other subsidized units will reach the end of their affordability period. Just like I was saying, they are going to get to a point where they are no longer in a protection of affordable housing, and the consequence is that growth and demand are pushing us even higher.

For example, seniors--10,000 baby boomers retire each day. That means that those low-income seniors, those woefully inadequate to pay for increasing housing costs, are going to be growing every single day and putting more demand on the system.

For veterans, nearly 2.5 million older veteran households--almost a quarter of men and women who helped protect our country--are cost- burdened. That means they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. The lack of affordable housing in our country has been a longstanding crisis, but the COVID crisis has made it much worse. One in five renters is behind on their rent, and the eviction moratorium expires in less than 2 weeks.

As I said, I am pleased that we are voting tonight, hopefully, on this legislation that includes a 1-month eviction moratorium and $25 billion for rental assistance and that we will continue to work on these issues. And I am glad that we are working on the passage of not just the low-income housing tax credit fix of a 4-percent floor but also that we will continue to work across the aisle on this legislation moving forward.

At a minimum, the 4 percent could increase affordable housing production by at least 130,000 affordable homes over the next decade. That is critically important--130,000 more affordable homes over the next decade. It could generate and help us with job growth--162,000 jobs and about $18 billion in wages and impacts to the economy.

Building more affordable housing helps us solve lots of problems. We have an increase in demand, as I just articulated, and a COVID crisis. Investing in affordable housing is very good for us in helping our economy grow and putting a roof over people's heads.

I would also like to mention as part of the small business package, the Paycheck Protection package, a provision that was supported by so many of our colleagues to help make sure that we continue to get local news and information out to the public. People understand that local news has been threatened ever since the transition to an information age and has certainly been challenged by what I think are unfair practices by tech companies and the compensation for material and proper reimbursement on advertising.

The issue for us is that COVID has created an environment where we absolutely need to get the news, and we absolutely need to get the local news. It is imperative that we do what we can in this legislation to help small newspapers, small broadcasters, small radio stations that didn't previously get helped in the last COVID package so they can continue to communicate important local news to people throughout the United States.

I want to thank Senators Schumer, Cardin, and, obviously, I want to thank specifically Senator Boozman for working so hard on this legislation with me and introducing legislation. I want to thank Senators Klobuchar, Ernst, and many of our other colleagues who signed on to that legislation, as well as our House colleagues, Representatives Velazquez and Cicilline and Sensenbrenner, who also worked hard on getting this provision in, and Senators Rubio and McConnell for helping us in this process.

These provisions are important to help make sure that large public institutions, like the University of Washington and others, continue to also get information out to the public.

This news information and local information isn't going to go away with the help and support of this bill, but it may be a lifeline in helping us continue to make sure we have critical public health information available to the public at all times, and, hopefully, we will then go on to really understand what has happened to local news and information and do something in the future Congress to help fix the inequities that are existing today.

If I could, I also just mention quickly the issue about broadband. This legislation that we are going to be voting on includes $7 billion for more broadband priorities, $1 billion for connectivity issues for Tribal country. I know, as the Presiding Officer knows, that Indian Country needs a lot of connectivity. So getting more broadband into those communities will be very helpful.

The COVID package also contains money, additional funding, that I know Senator Wicker and others worked on for telehealth. Telehealth is a critical path during the COVID crisis to make sure communities have the ability to get expert advice into our homes, into our communities, to connect people with information.

This telehealth grant is a very important program in the State of Washington. I think we probably got something like $8 million previously from telehealth, and this will help us continue.

I am disappointed that we did not include priorities in here for the E-rate program to help close the homework gap. This is something Senator Markey and others worked on very hard, and it is very disappointing that we can't come to an agreement on something as important as E-rate. This legislation provides the ability for hotspots for people who may be going to college and not going to classes, but are in or around a university.

I think that is a good idea, but we were prohibited from doing the same thing for students at the K-12 level. One thing the pandemic has shown us is that students are at home and need to be able to connect to stay connected to their education schedule, to do their homework, and to be part of the education system. I hope that we will address this inequity in the bill in the future.

I am pleased that, working with Senator Wicker, we were able include language that gives the Federal Trade Commission new authority to seek civil penalties for scams and deceptive practices related to the COVID pandemic. You probably think this is already something that was on the books, but in reality, the way the Federal Trade Commission has operated, they had to give a warning first, almost like a cease and desist. The next thing you know, the same practice would pop up over here, with somebody making a claim about how safe their product was or how this would stop COVID or something of that nature.

In my home State alone, the FTC reports that consumers have been scammed out of nearly $5 million since the pandemic and the number is over $200 million nationwide. These scams can range in everything from straightforward identity theft to making all sorts of accusations on people during the quarantine period.

I want to thank Senator Wicker for working with us on this important legislation. Now the FTC will be able to go after and find these people on first- time offenses. I think this is so important to do to make sure that we are policing an environment where public health is so important.

I also want to thank Representative Schakowsky for leading this effort on the other side of the Capitol.

I also want to talk about very important aviation legislation that we were able to include as part of the larger omnibus package that is moving through the House, as I said, tonight.

It is so important that we make safety a No. 1 priority in the United States. If we want to be No. 1 in aviation, we have to be No. 1 in aviation safety. Chairman Wicker and I worked with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to produce important legislation that improves the safety reforms needed at the FAA--the safety reforms of oversight of manufacturing and the certification process, and reforms that will help us here in Congress better stay on top of the information as far as the certification process.

This is so critical after the crash of the Lion Air 610 and Ethiopian Flight 302, both involving Boeing 737 Max aircrafts and the loss of 346 lives.

I can never say how painful this incident has been for those families. I can never say how much they have suffered in this horrific tragedy that has befallen them, but I know that these reforms are what are needed, and their help and support in passing this legislation has been critical.

I want to thank all of the families who helped us in communicating why the safety reforms are important, but I want to thank, particularly, Michael Stumo and his wife, Nadia Milleron, who lost their daughter Samya Stumo in the Ethiopian air crash, and to let them know that, even though we are putting a big down payment on safety reforms in the U.S. Congress by passing this legislation, this process does not stop with the passage of this legislation.

We need to continue to do more to improve aviation safety and to continue to act, even on a global basis, to be leaders--the United States leading the way on what aviation safety needs to be.

I also want to thank our staff: Doug Anderson, Ronce Almond, David Martin, Laurence Wildgoose, Jonathan Hale, Melissa Porter, and David Strickland for their work. And on the other side of the aisle: Mike Reynolds, James Mazol, Simone Perez, MaryAsa England, and John Keyes.

Many Members participated in the formation of this legislation. I want to thank Senator Duckworth for her work with us on the NTSB recommendations and flight deck alert system, which were part of this package of bills to reform the FAA and the FAA process.

I want to thank Senator Moran for his focus on helping us build those standards that we are talking about as far as the FAA going to ICAO and saying: These are the continued standards for improvement in aviation safety.

I want to thank Senator Blunt for his leadership on the Air Grants Program, a very important program that we think will help build up the expertise and knowledge of very, very technical subject certification for people here throughout the process of oversight and legislating and the executive branch.

I want to thank Senators Cruz and Blumenthal for working on such critical elements in the legislation as to how the certification process itself works and what we needed to do to continue to bolster it.

Tonight, we are sitting one step closer to reforms that really will be meaningful. It will return the FAA to being in charge of what are the oversight members of manufacturers who are doing the work of the certification process. It is clear that the individuals who are part of this unit report to the FAA. They are supervised by the FAA. You can no longer have incentives at the FAA for expediting work. You, basically, now have a new whistleblower protection, thanks to my colleague Senator Wicker and his incredible work on this legislation. You have better accountability on misconduct. You create new safety reporting standards for the FAA employees.

We repeal authorities that would permit a certification by industry. That industry could continue to make recommendations about the certification process is something, in specific provisions, that are repealed here.

We also prohibit interference with FAA designees. That is, no one can try to influence a manager or someone directly involved in the certification of the process. We also tried to make sure the process itself worked better. And, again, many of my colleagues played critical roles in this.

On required safety system analysis on any plane coming through the process--whether it was new or a derivative--you still have to do a safety system analysis. You have to have regulations that are the most up-to-date as it relates to making sure you comply, as we said in this legislation, with the NTSB recommendations on flight crew alert systems and to mandate a safety management system for manufacturers. This is something that is long overdue. And in some instances, people said: Oh, the OMB and executive branch don't think we need to do these things. Oh, these things are cost prohibitive. These are regulations we don't need to put in place.

Trust me, having a safety management system is essential, and we should make sure that this is in place as this legislation requires within the next few years.

This legislation also requires disclosure of safety critical information. This was something, as I said, our colleagues, Senators Blumenthal and Cruz and many others, worked on as part of this legislation.

It also provides expert teams of panels. At the beginning of any kind of certification process, the FAA will be assisted by the best experts in aviation, whether they come from NASA or the Air Force or outside individuals who understand the latest and greatest technology. Why do we have that? Because we know that we are in an era of unbelievable technological change in which now the human interface with technology is so critical. Whether you are going to be in driverless cars or whether you are in Amtrak with positive train control or you are in the flight deck of an airplane and the software that is working with it, we need to understand how people are going to respond to human factors.

We all get frustrated with our own computers and our own software, but we need to put safety first when it comes to a pilot interacting with that software in the cockpit of an airplane.

It also helps us make sure that the process for the certification appeals are strengthened and that we tighten the process. We need to listen to the engineers on the ground. The engineers are telling us what we need to do, and we need to listen to them. I hope that the leaders, both within manufacturing and the FAA, will do that.

As I mentioned, this legislation establishes a National Air Grant Program. Some of you can think of it here on Capitol Hill as similar to the Sea Grant Program, a program that was long-established to give us technical expertise on OSHA and maritime issues here in Congress. We want the same thing for aviation to exist.

It is too important of a sector and safety is too important to not have a technical skill set here that can stay on top and replace individuals as retirements happen throughout the aviation system.

It requires disclosures to Congress of post-crash assessments. If the FAA goes and investigates a crash, you have to notify Congress of that information. Why? We want to stay more on top of that information. It requires an identification of safety trends. I have no doubt that we are going to hear--when it comes back as these annual reports for the next several years--that this issue of human interaction in a technology cockpit is going to continue to be the largest safety trend issue, just as it is going to be in the automotive area and just as it is going to be in transportation.

Those are just some of the highlights of a very comprehensive safety reform legislation.

I want to thank my colleague Senator Wicker for his help, his leadership, his most recent report on whistleblower activity, and helping us get this legislation over the goal line.

I also, as I said, want to thank, again, those families. Our hearts and sympathies are still every day with you as you continue to face moving forward. We are not going to forget. We are going to continue to put safety as the biggest priority for us here in the U.S. Congress and continue to move forward on a process that puts the individual engineers on the line responsible for safety to make sure everyone continues to listen to their directives and their recommendations.

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