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Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I have laryngitis, which is the dream of my friends on the other side of the aisle, but I want to say that the Sullivan amendment is dangerous and it is unnecessary. It is the last thing we should do given the lessons we have learned in Flint, MI, because what the Sullivan amendment says is that you can be exempted from nine Federal health and safety laws when you rebuild the bridge. For example, it would allow the dumping of oil, toxic materials that could include lead, construction debris, and that all will go in the water--water we swim in, water we fish in, water we drink. After Flint, how could we do this?
This is not a problem. If you ask Senator Klobuchar--I just talked to her--and Senator Franken, they rebuilt their bridge in a year because there is already expedited language in all of the laws on which we worked together.
So please reject this. It is dangerous, it is unnecessary, and it certainly is unrelated to the underlying bill.
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Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, do I have any time remaining?
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Mrs. BOXER. Wow. In the beginning, God created.
I just want to say to my friend Senator King, just ask the people of Flint, MI, how happy they were that the State took over the health and safety rules. Their kids are suffering from lead poisoning. Sometimes you are talking about bridges that are 100 years old. They contain toxic materials. Again, this is not necessary. We haven't got a problem because we have taken care of expedited procedures. My arm was twisted on it in the FAST Act. So let's reject this because we want to protect the health and safety of the people we represent.
I urge a ``no'' vote.
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