Protected civil rights writ large. So this is going to require a longterm bipartisan commitment. But not just from us in washington but folks in the state capitals, city halls, and Police Departments across the country. Because ultimately its the local officials that have the responsibility to hire and fire the police chief, to make sure that bad Police Officers are removed from the force. And thats where the nearterm responsibility needs to lie, because we dont have that capability here. But we do believe, i do believe there are concrete steps we can take right now to address the racial injustices that were exposed once again with the death of mr. Floyd. So i appreciate senator scott and leader mcconnell for responding to this crisis with the urgency that it deserves, and im proud to be part of this effort in the senate. Mr. President , i yield the floor. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call the presiding officer the senator from. The presiding officer the senator from missouri. A senator i move we suspend the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Blunt this week were considering the bipartisan american Great Outdoors act. I think its fair to say this is one of the most important packages of conservation legislation weve seen in a long time. It might be fair to say that its the most important piece of legislation since president Theodore Roosevelt dramatically made additions to the National Park system just a little more than 100 years ago. The bill essentially combines two important provisions, the restore our parks act and the land and Water Conservation full funding act. Im a cosponsor of both of those. We have been trying to do the things that those two bills both do for a long time, and here we are. You know, during world war ii, mr. President , within just a few days of dday, president eisenhower, at that time general eisenhower, had a view that sometimes if a problem is too big to solve or seems to be too hard to solve, you solve it by making it bigger. Interestingly, what weve done here with two things that weve been trying to do for a long time, to have more full access to the reason the land and Water Conservation act was created, and to do a better job maintaining our parks, thats all been combined into the Great American outdoors act. The first thing this act does is make a significant investment for the deferred maintenance that we have on all kinds of federal land. Its one of our challenges as a government generally. Its been specifically one of our challenges as it relates to the National Park system, to the forest service, to the fish and wildlife service, to the bureau of Land Management. Every one of those has deferred Maintenance Issues that have been there for a long time. In fact, some of them have been there for decades. I mentioned earlier that the park system, as we now know it, is a little more than 100 years old, some of these Maintenance Issues are decadesold, maybe 50 years old. Maybe half of the life of the entire park service weve had these issues on a list of something needs to be done in yellowstone of the high bridge that thousands of cars go over every summer. That bridge needs to be repaired. Of the war marines systems of the water Maintenance Systems in our parks where particularly they have overnight accommodations and other things, many of those systems are almost as old as the dark itself park itself. Buildings we have on all of those locations where the access is no longer appropriate and hasnt been for a a long time. Sometimes that meant you closed the visitors center, close that part of the park that people previously had a way to get in, see a display or see an exhibit, but because of the issues that should have been fixed long ago, they havent been. Ive been saying for several years now that the second century of the park system needs to be different than the First Century of the park system. More privatepublic relationships. We saw a great example of that at the renewal of the arch and the museum and the area in st. Louis that just had a significant effort made almost all by either local or private funds. Very few federal dollars there. But if youre going to have a Publicprivate Partnership, the public needs to do its part but and were talking today about how the public would do its part of maintaining the parks, expanding the parks, building new facility, repairing a facility, of changing access to a facility, but a lot of this deferred maintenance will not even be all that obvious. Its just something that has to be done. And because its not all that obvious, the bridge hasnt collapsed yet, the water system still appears to be producing water that people can use so lets worry about that at some future time. Well, the future time, mr. President , is here. This act will work to help improve the Visitor Experience at the park service, certainly at the units in my state and, mr. President , in your state. I have been to a number of the facilities in georgia that will be impacted by this. In missouri, the westward expansion that is celebrated at the arch where we just made a significant investment in that facility, the truman home and independence would be a National Park service facility. The first park in america dedicated to an African American, a National Park, the George Washington carver park at diamond would be a place that would potentially benefit from this. The new park that we established in ste. Genevieve, new jersey that has more of the original architecture, big porches that would have looked like a farmhouse in normandy with a caribbean porch put on it, numbers of those are going to create the best one of the best walking historic parks in america. That park would benefit. So the federal park system benefits, but also this legislation includes permanent annual funding for the land and Water Conservation fund. Now, when you think of the title of the fund, why would you have to do permanent funding to be sure that the land and Water Conservation fund got spent on land and water . It doesnt seem to be a genius move to do what were doing here. But what were doing here with this fund is taking about 900 million a year that has been going in many cases for other purposes and saying, no, we collect the fund for this purpose, lets use it for this purpose. Its not like we ran out of things to do with the money and so we decided lets put it somewhere else. But this does what the fund is supposed to do with the fund. In our state, again, in missouri over the past 50 years we spent about 150 million out of that fund. The fund is being used to protect historically significant sites like the mark Taiwan National forest or the Ozarks National scenic river or the Big Muddy National fish and wildlife refuge have all been beneficiaries of that fund to some extent. The Wilsons CreekNational Battlefield has been a beneficiary of that fund. But the fund was created for the purpose that this legislation will ensure it largely serves. We know that we have to build important relationships between local communities, between the park service, between the American Public to ensure that these sites are managed in the right way, that they are preserved for the future and they are safe to use for the millions of americans that are going to use them this summer and next summer and the summer after that and this winter and next winter and the winter after that. In addition to the preservation efforts, the conservation efforts, the bill will help, frankly, bolster missouris Outdoor Recreation industry and it is significant. The Outdoor RecreationIndustry Association said that we generate about 14 almost 15 billion in our state in consumer spending, rather, about 133,000 jobs are created in missouri because of Outdoor Recreation. About five million american jobs are created and around 800 billion of Economic Activity created because of the ability to use these and other outdoor resources. Mr. President , this is obviously not a normal year so anything we can do to encourage people to use these facilities in a better way is important. Anything we can do as we look to the future to maintain them and hand them over and we have the chance here, mr. President , on all of these areas, whether its bureau of public lands or the National Forest or the National Parks, we have a chance to hand them to the next generation in better shape than we got them. We have a chance to look at projects that have been on the we need to do this list for 40 and 50 years and do whats needed to be done for 40 or 50 years. Im proud to be an original cosponsor of this bill. Proud of the leadership, particularly of senator gardner and senator daines on our side on this effort, and the vast bipartisan support that this bill will have. I look forward to voting for it. I urge my colleagues to vote for it, and even more importantly, i look forward to seeing this bill have the impact that it absolutely will have and has to have on the important resources that we need to make the right kind of investment in. And, with that, mr. President , i would yield the floor. Mr. Sanders mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from vermont. Mr. Sanders i ask that the quorum be ended. The presiding officer were not in a quorum. Mr. Sanders all right. Thats good, too. Mr. President , as everybody knows, our country today faces an extraordinary set of crises, unprecedented in fact in the modern history of this country. Over the last several weeks, hundreds of thousands of americans from one end of this country to the other, big cities, small towns have rightly taken to the streets to demand an end to Police Murder and brutality and in fact to rethink the nature of policing in america. And in the midst of that, that rising up for Police Department rethinking and Police Department murder and brutality, in the midst of all that, our country continues to suffer from the covid19 pandemic which in a number of locations in this country is actually getting worse and which has up to this point killed over 110,000 people and infected over two million americans. And then on top of all of that, the struggle for Racial Justice dealing with ap pandemic in the midst with a pandemic in the midst of all that we have the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. And in the last number of months, as you know, over 32 million americans have lost their jobs. Mr. President , in the midst of the struggle for Racial Justice, in the midst of this horrific health care crisis, in the midst of this economic meltdown, the American People are demanding to know what their government is doing in response to these crises. We were elected as senators, members of the house to respond to the needs of the American People. And all over this country the American People are looking around them. They see the struggle for Racial Justice. They see a pandemic. They see an economic meltdown. And many of them are asking what the Republican Leadership here in the senate is doing. Crisis after crisis after cris crisis. And what is the leadership here in the senate doing . And tragically, mr. President , the answer is nothing. Nothing. Historians have suggested that in the year 64 a. D. , while rome was burning, the emperor nero played his fiddle. At least he did something. He provided entertainment to his court. But here in the u. S. Senate, republican leader mcconnell and his Leadership Team are doing nothing. Sadly, tragically, this is the worst donothing senate in modern American History and every member of this body should be deeply ashamed at the degree to which we are failing our constituents. Mr. President , enough is enough. The United States senate must respond to the pain and the suffering of the American People. Let us quickly wrap up debate over the land and Water Conservation fund act which is on the floor right now. Let us wrap up debate. Let us vote on this bill. Its a good bill. Lets pass it. And then let us begin to work on the unpres unprecedented crisest are facing our country. Mr. President , if there is anything that the torture and murder of george floyd by Minneapolis Police has taught us is that we have to rethink the nature of policing in america and reform our broken and racist criminal Justice System. Let us be clear. The murder of george floyd is not just an isolated incident. It is the latest in an endless series of Police Killings of African Americans, including eric garner, sandra bland, mcdonald. Tamir rice, freddie gray, walter scott, and many, many, many others. And if anyone thinks that these Police Murders have just begun to take place in recent years when people had cell phone cameras, you would obviously have been mistaken. This has gone on forever. Mr. President , the American People are rightly demanding justice and an end to Police Brutality and murder. The u. S. Senate has got to act now. We have got to hear the cries for justice that are coming from the streets of this country, that are coming from the African American community, from the white community, from the latino community, from all of our people. We must act and we must act now. And let me just suggest some of the items that must be in the legislation that we passed. And this is a limited number. We can do more. In my view, every Police Officer involved in a killing must be held accountable and those found guilty must be punished with the full force of law. That includes officers who stand by while these brutal acts take place. Every single killing of a person by police or while in Police Custody must be investigated by the department of justice. We must create a process by which Police Departments look like the communities that they serve and not look like invading armies. We need to abolish qualified immunity so Police Officers are held sievally liable for abuses. We need to prohibit the transfer of offensive military equipment to Police Departments. We need to strip federal funds from departments that violate civil rights. We need to provide funding to states and municipalities to create a i civilian corps of unarmed First Responders to supplement Law Enforcement. For too long we have asked Police Departments to do things which they are not trained or proposed to do. Or prepared to do and have criminalized societal problems like addiction and homelessness and mental illness. These are not problems solved by incarceration. We need to make records of Police Misconduct publicly available so that an officer with a record of misconduct cannot simply move two towns over and start again. We need to require all jurisdictions that receive federal Grant Funding to establish independent Police Conduct review boards that are broadly represented representative of the community and have the authority to refer deaths that occur at the hands of police or Police Custody to federal authorities for investigation. We need to ban the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray on protesters. We need to make certain that when people go to the street to protest, that they are not treated like criminals and that thetheir basic constitutional and that their basic Constitutional Rights are denied. Mr. President , the struggle for Racial Justice is just one of the crises that we have got to address. Today, mr. President , we are looking at a pandemic unprecedented in the last 100 years. And i would tell you that new zealand, a very small country, about five Million People, d