National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, absolutely we are ready to go, and I want to join my friend and colleague Senator Udall. I want to join the chairman of the committee, Senator Jim Inhofe, and urge all of us to come together, as we have been doing over these many months, and actually pass a good solid bipartisan TSCA reform effort.

It was over 2 years ago that I sat down with the late Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey in an attempt to find compromise and work together on updating the drastically outdated Toxic Substances Control Act, what we are talking about and sometimes known as TSCA. Updating this law was a long-time goal and passion of Frank's, as has been noted, and I am saddened he is not here today to see it finally moving forward because he worked so hard for that.

After Frank's passing, Senator Tom Udall stepped in to help preserve Frank's legacy and continued working with me to move bipartisan TSCA reform forward. But in the time since, Senator Udall and I have worked tirelessly to ensure the bill substantively addresses the concerns of our fellow Republican and Democratic colleagues as well as concerns and ideas from industry and the environmental and public health communities.

If you need any evidence of this being accomplished, look no further than the 60 bipartisan cosponsors of this bill--60 bipartisan cosponsors--as well as endorsements from groups ranging from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Chemistry Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the March of Dimes, and the Humane Society.

The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act was created to balance the needs of the regulatory bodies, the chemical industry, and the affected stakeholders in an effective and transparent way. Our bipartisan legislation ensures that Americans will have the certainty they deserve that the EPA is overseeing the safety of chemicals in the marketplace without stifling industry's success and innovation.

That work has been a long time in coming, as many of my colleagues have noted, but it is here, and now we need to move forward. We have a moment of opportunity we need to act on, and I urge all of us to come together here on the floor and get this done now. In our work in the Senate, these opportunities don't come a dime a dozen. They do not come every day. They are here before us right now, and so I urge all of us to act.

We have virtually unanimous agreement about a way to move this through the Senate on an extremely short time frame. The only issue is Senators BURR and AYOTTE and their desire to have a vote on a completely unrelated piece of legislation. I am completely sympathetic to their wanting a vote, but we have an agreement otherwise to deal with TSCA on the floor in 2 hours and move it through the Senate. So we must take up this opportunity in an effective, bipartisan and responsible way, and I urge all of us to do that.

I look forward to doing that in the very near future, and I thank again everybody who has worked so tirelessly on this, including my lead Democratic partner in this effort, Senator Tom Udall.

With that, I yield the floor.

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