The republican senate. We are living through one of the greatest failures of president ial leadership in our countries history. Did you hear that donald trump . You have created one of the greatest failures of president ial leadership. We are going to this last portion of the conversation because the senate is about to gamble back in after their weekly caucus meetings. Senators continue work on the 2021 Defense Authorization bill with votes scheduled later this afternoon for five Senate Coverage on cspan2 a senator madam president. The presiding officer the senator from wyoming. Mr. Enzi madam president , i rise today to discuss our federal finances and the need to address our unsustainable fiscal debt and deficit. The federal budget has already been on an unsustainable path before covid19 reached our shores and before the pandemic and our governments response to it, which has accelerated what i believed is a coming day of reckoning. I recognize the unprecedented crisis presented by the covid19. I supported the necessary response. Together, congress has passed and the president has signed five separate pieces of legislation responding to the pandemic and its economic fallout that together will cost more than 2 trillion. I never would have supported trillions in new spending unless i truly believed that it was necessary to combat the virus and prevent economic catastrophe resulting from the government shuttering the economy. I know many of my colleagues feel that same way. When this crisis abates and it will the federal government cannot afford to return to the status quo of unsustainable budgets and surging debt that jeopardizes the prosperity of future generations. We have to start serious conversation about how were going to pay our bills and put our finances on a more sustainable path. We can justify aggressive borrowing and spending as necessary during times of crisis, but that cant be the default. So far this fiscal year, we have already run up a deficit of 2. 7 trillion in one year, more than triple the size of the deficit we ran at the same time last year. The Congressional Budget Office says that we are on track to spend 3. 7 trillion more than we take in this year, and thats assuming we dont pass a new covid legislation. By the end of the fiscal year, our publicly held debt will exceed the size of our economy, and by the end of next year, debt as a percentage of the economy will be higher than it has ever been in our history. I have a little chart here that demonstrates that. We have been fortunate that Interest Rates on our debt are currently low, and the government has been able to borrow the funds necessary to address the crisis caused by the pandemic. The dollar has remained relatively strong, helping to keep inflation low. The u. S. Dollar remains the worlds reserve currency and the safe haven for investments in the current time of crisis. But how long will that be the case if we continue to run trilliondollar deficits each year . Future congresses will not have the same flexibility to deal with their own crises if we leave them saddled with an enormous national debt. They wont be able to fund new emergency programs without cutting other spending or raising revenues. Thats why its so critical that we get a hold of our debt and deficits once we emerge from this pandemic. Regardless of what some people far outside of the economic mainstream are saying, there are constraints on how much government can borrow and spend without triggering higher Interest Rates or inflation. If we just start printing money to pay for overspending, our country could face the curse of stagflation, a combination of high inflation and low to know economic growth. We havent had to think about this type of devastating combination since the late 1970s, and that economic history we should not repeat. And even if we have the capacity for significant onetime emergency spending, we should bear in mind the fact that the federal government doesnt have a good track record of reducing spending after its ratcheted it up during a crisis. Id remind my colleagues of the old adage there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program. Were already hearing calls to extend or make permanent many of the temporary entitlement expansions enacted in previous bills. More legislation may be needed to combat the virus and help the economy, but we cannot use the crisis to justify opening the spending floodgates and borrowing from future generations to fund nonemergency priorities. Low Interest Rates do not mean that Government Spending is free or that we dont need to spend it wisely. The house of representatives has passed a congressional a bill that the Congressional Budget Office says will cost nearly 3. 5 trillion. Thats more than the cost of all the covid19 legislation we have already enacted combined. Are we to believe every penny of that is absolutely necessary . A 60 billion bailout for Union Pensions . A massive giveaway for wealthy individuals . Living in hightax states. Billions in student loan forgiveness for all borrowers, regardless of income and ability to pay. We should not view this crisis, a crisis thats claimed over 130,000 american lives and left millions out of work as an opportunity to enact things that have nothing to do with the pandemic. And its not just the lower chamber. The senate recently approved 17 billion in new mandatory spending for land and Water Conservation fund and park and public lands maintenance. We refused to consider an amendment to even try to pay for that bill, an attempt that would have mostly charged foreigners visiting our parks. As i said, if we dont try to pay for that bill, what will we pay for . Were just adding to an already long list of unfunded mandatory spending programs that we allow to operate on auto pilot without ever being voted on or ever being evaluated again. Nobody runs a business like that. Even though these programs are allowed to bypass the annual appropriations process, most of them dont have any dedicateed revenue to pay for the spending, and those that do collect their own revenue often spend more than they take in. With no vote. It just happens. Even before the pandemic, the Congressional Budget Office projected that Social Security spending over the next ten years would total 15. 2 trillion. Listen to this. The programs dedicated tax revenues would only cover 12. 5 trillion of that. 15. 2 trillion. Cost. 12. 5 trillion revenue. Okay. Medicares taxes and premiums were projected to cover over only half of the programs 12. 6 trillion spending over the next ten years. We put the rest of it on the nations credit card left to be paid for by future generations. What kind of a crisis are they going to have . This chart shows again that this is the revenue coming in for Social Security. This is the additional that we have to borrow. This is the money coming in for medicare. This is the additional we have to borrow. Medicaid, we borrow every bit of it. The total revenue that we receive wont cover these deficits, so Everything Else that we do well have to borrow for. If the Interest Rate were to go up to its norm of 5 , we wouldnt be able to do defense, we wouldnt be able to do education. We wouldnt be able to do anything else, infrastructure or otherwise, that we expect the federal government to do for us. We would have to start getting we have to start getting control of it. It isnt an unlimited source of money. Were putting it on the nations credit card, and the future generations will have to pay for it. And there is a couple of ways you can pay for it. One is to eliminate services. The other one is to increase revenues. Another one, of course, is to eliminate a lot of the duplication that we have, but we dont even have an appetite for that. We have over 100 housing programs. Tell me there is no duplication in 100 housing programs, but we dont look at them. Most of them were mandatory, so we can just ignore the impacts of them. And the fact that we have got multiple administrators doing the same job, and we dont even know if its effective. I have been trying for a long time through the Budget Committee to get a list of the programs that we fund. Now, you would think if were writing checks, that we would have a list of programs, wouldnt you . We dont have a list of programs. We dont know what ee own. We dont know when its going to wear out. We dont know what the cost of replacement would be. All very basic business decisions, but we just keep sliding everything over to mandatory so that it has to be paid for regardless of whether we have any money or not, and we dont even look at them. That has to change and has to change rapidly, or our kids and our grandkids will find that all of their money has been spent and all they can do is pay more taxes. Im frustrated that were spending billions without so much as a discussion about how to pay for things. Yes, we needed a strong response to the covid virus, but i am disappointed that we cant Work Together on responsible solutions, even modest efforts like a paidfor fix for our parks and public lands maintenance that i mentioned would be paid for by foreign visitors. And i am dismayed that we keep digging the hole deeper for future generations. We all owe it to them to do better, and i hope we start to do it soon. Madam president , i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call a senator madam president. The presiding officer the senator from New Hampshire. Mrs. Shaheen madam president , i ask that the quorum call be lifted. The presiding officer without objection. Mrs. Shaheen i come to the floor today to speak in support of Senate Amendment 1729, which i hope will be added today to the national Defense Authorization act, and the goal of this amendment is to finish finish what i hope is to finish a Public Health study that we began with legislation in 2017 to address the contaminant known as pfas. And i know the presiding officer knows about this, because she has that chemical in her state as well. I want to begin by commending the work of the Armed Services committee, both chairman inhofe and Ranking Member reed, for working with me to establish the first ever Human Health Study of pfas and to institute a policy policies that will phase out the Defense Departments use of these chemicals over the next several years. We began this journey in 2017 when we put 10 million into a health study, the first of its kind in the country, to look at the impacts of pfas on humans, and we at the time authorized 10 million for three years. Unfortunately, because of the coronavirus pandemic, it is taking longer to complete this study than we had hoped and so were going to need some additional funding. There is real urgency in addressing pfas, as many of us know. Pfas chemicals have emerged as widespread pollutants in the Drinking Water sources of military bases across in country. Its because pfas chemicals were used in Fire Fighting foam that was used by the Armed Services. That was the main reason. And the number of military installations with known or suspected contamination from pfas continues to rise. In march, d. O. D. Updated its count of military installations impacted by these materials from 401 across the country to 651. 651 military installations which means that they are in almost every state in the United States. And other studies have reported that this is actually a conservative estimate. Now, we dont yet know what the longterm risk of exposure to pfas are, because were still trying to get research into that but studies have already linked these chemicals, and there are a whole hundreds of chemicals in the pfas category. And studies have linked these chemicals to a number of Adverse Health effects. The potential ties between pfas and various forms of cancer are of particular concern to firefighters who may have experienced exposure during Fire Fighting and Fire Training exercises. On june 11, the agency for toxic substances and disease registry, atsdr, which works as part of the centers for Disease Control, they issue add statement expressing concern about how how pfas exposure can impact the risk of covid19 infections. Now, for all of us who have constituents who have been exposed to pfas, we know that this has caused a lot of sleepless nights for countless American Families, both in New Hampshire and across the country. Who have been living appeared working near sites contaminated by these materials. In my state of New Hampshire, the city of portsmouth, which was the home of the former pees air force base, closed a major water supply well located at that air base after the air force found pfas in the Drinking Water at levels 12. 5 times higher than the provisional Health Advisory from the environment and Protection Agency at that time. That number has changed since then. Moreover, state Health Officials determined that more than 1,500 people, including children a tended Day Care Centers near the site, have he elevated legislatn of pfas in their levels of pfas in their blood from drinking groundwater. Ive heard from so many parents who are terrified about p what in means for the health of their children. One woman whos been a real leader in responding to the pfas emergency, andrea mi co of portsmouth, remembers feeling like her world was crashing down when tests showed that her two children exposed to pfas in ink doctoring water at peez, had elevated levels in their blood. She said, to actually see it on paper, to know it was true, was very devastating for me and the wide range of emotions that i experienced ranged from anger to fear, frustration, and guilt. Andreas children attended the child care center, one of the two Child Care Centers at peez. And ive already heard from elena, a mother near the air force in portsmouth. Elena said that she was exposed when she was pregnant with her son. She and her husband were devastated when they learned that their son had high levels of p n. A. S. His blood. Michelle was exposed to the contaminated water in january of 2011 when she started working on the base. Her youngest child has attended day care at pease since he was 2yearolds. Stories like theirs are not limited to portsmouth, sadly. And contamination from pfas is not limited to millets about as and bases and airports. Thats were this longterm health study is so important and its so critical that we complete it. We need to know what the Research Says are the dangers of pfas. Since congress authorized the study in 2017, the atsdr and centers for Disease Control have been working to identify the Health Effects of pfas exposure, starting with the former Pease Air Base in portsmouth. I believe its seven other sites around the country that have been designated as part of this study. Unfortunately, due to covid19, as i said earlier, the agencies expect additional costs associated with continuing the study, as well as a oneyear delay in finalizing the results. I think we could all agree that families that have been exposed to these chemicals deserve answers. What my amendment would do is provide additional funding for the pfas health study to ensure that atsdr and c. D. C. Can complete their work and do it without delay. The safety of our Drinking Water is essential and its nonnegotiable. And the potential serious Health Effects associated with exposure to pfas chemicals demand moving forward with policies that will protect our communities, especially our men and women in uniform. Senate amendment 1729 would help to do just that. Of course, this is just the beginning. This gives us a Baseline Study to tell us what the Health Effects are. Once we get that study and as we continue to move forward, we have a lot of work to do to ensure that pfas not just on military bases but in communities across this country that appears in so many different products that we can address that in a way that provides some sort of insurance and protection to families across this country. So they know what theyre dole dealing with and what theyre dealing with and so they know that they can get help. Thank you, madam president. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Cotton madam president . The presiding officer the senator from arkansas. Mr. Cotton the cars we drive, the planes we drive, the smartphones we have in our pockets are all powered by computer chips, by semiconductors. Technology that is key to modern society and that may determine whether america or the china leads the world. Programs like darpa and symantec coated the breakthroughs and demand for this hightech industry. Storied American Companies like intel, i. B. M. , texas instruments, micron and others commercialized and then perfected this technology. Brilliant american entrepreneurs and engineers kickstarted the technology that shaped