Save Our Seas Act of 2018
Floor Speech
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I have the happy occasion to actually pass a law. It is one that I have been working on for some time. So I have taken the opportunity to come to the floor to actually move it through myself. Yet, before I do that, there are a considerable number of thank yous that are in order.
The first and foremost thank you is to Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who chaired the subcommittee hearing that first moved this issue before the Senate in a bipartisan fashion within the Environment and Public Works Committee. It was a really important thing for Senator Sullivan to have done. In part, it solved the problem between the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee over jurisdiction in this area. We are very fortunate that Senator Sullivan served both as the chairman of the relevant Environment and Public Works Committee and also of the Fisheries Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee so that he was in a position to negotiate with himself over jurisdiction and, obviously, come to a happy conclusion.
I thank Senator Inhofe, who was an early sponsor of this legislation. He attended the hearing. I will confess that when Senator Inhofe came to our hearing on the Environment and Public Works Committee on an environmental matter, I was not convinced that it was a positive turn of events for the bill, but Senator Inhofe could not have been more gracious and took a very strong interest in this piece of legislation. He was an original cosponsor, so I thank him as well.
I thank Senator Murkowski. In her being from Alaska, she joined Senator Sullivan. Alaska has a terrific problem with the issue that we are addressing. The issue at hand is marine plastic debris--the plastic waste with which we are filling the ocean. In Rhode Island, we do beach cleanups whereby people go up and down the beach and pick up the plastic trash that has washed ashore. We do those with trash bags. In Alaska, they do those with front-end loaders, dumpsters, and barges, because Alaska faces the Pacific, and there is far more plastic waste and trash in the Pacific. The worst sources for plastic waste and trash are Asian countries, which have terrible upland waste disposal infrastructure. It ends up in the creek, and it ends up in the river, and it ends up in the sea. So Alaska has had a terrific role.
Senator Murkowski's role was as my coordinate on the Oceans Caucus. She helped to make sure that the Oceans Caucus--a group of 38 Senators--supported this. It was a very bipartisan group, so that provided some added oomph to all of this, if that is not too informal a word to use on the Senate floor.
I also thank my original Democratic cosponsor, Senator Booker.
A lot of people have had a hand in this, and there were a great number of sponsors. I appreciate all of them for their support in all of this.
We have had an interesting time because the bill actually passed the Senate before, but when colleagues saw something moving, they wanted to put things on it. So a few pieces have been added from the House side that relate to maritime safety and a Coast Guard Center of Excellence, which we welcome onto the bill and appreciate now that we have the chance to finally pass it.
I also thank Adena Leibman, of my staff, who has just been very persistent and thorough about making this happen and has worked very well with staff members from the offices involved in having helped to coordinate all of my activities with the Oceans Caucus. She has done a really exemplary staff job. As the Presiding Officer knows, the common description of Senators around here is that we are walking constitutional impediments to the smooth and orderly operation of staff. While Senators may disagree with that from time to time, Adena Leibman certainly does a smooth and orderly operation of staff, and I appreciate her.
Senator Sullivan could not be here. We had hoped to be able to do this together, but I do express to him my very, very strong appreciation for what a really wonderful partner he has been in all of this. Not only are we excited to pass the Save Our Seas Act, but we are already working on SOS 2.0. Just today, in the Environment and Public Works Committee, we held another hearing on marine plastics--this one at the full committee level, led by Senator Barrasso. So I owe Senator Barrasso a thank you.
I find it interesting that at today's hearing, the two leading Republicans on the committee who were there, at the top--Dan and I are more junior--were Senator Barrasso and Senator Inhofe, both of whom were present, both of whom were productive and helpful, and both who suffer this terrible disability of living in landlocked States. They don't actually have a coast. Yet they have been helpful in moving this forward. We also had a terrific coalition of business and other interests.
You have seen the reaction around the world to know how this problem has suddenly emerged onto the national and international stages, and I think we are really in a terrific position, after we pass this bill, to move on, I hope, with equal bipartisanship and alacrity, and pass our Save Our Seas 2.0.
3508, introduced earlier today by Senator Sullivan and me.
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Presiding Officer. Bravo to all who participated in making this possible.
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