[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 157 (Monday, September 29, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10025-S10027]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 7060.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, one of the issues we have to address this 
morning--I have talked here on the floor and I have talked in press 
conferences about this--is how difficult it has been to get the energy 
and business tax extenders. It has been very difficult. We have had 
nine votes to get where we are--nine votes spread over a period of 
months. Finally, with the work of a number of Senators--principally 
Senators Baucus and Grassley, and two other members of the Finance 
Committee, Senators Cantwell and Ensign--we have worked to put together 
a package, and it is delicately put together.
  I have tried to explain to my House colleagues how difficult it is 
for me to accept what they have sent us. They have broken this up and 
said: Hey, look, this is what we want, and you should take it.
  Mr. President, I am going to ask unanimous consent now--they sent us 
one part of the thing we sent over to them, and that is the tax 
extenders, both the energy tax extenders and the business tax extenders 
in one package, and that is what I am going to ask consent about; that 
this matter I have just acknowledged, H.R. 7060, which is just as I 
have explained it--the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Tax Act is 
what they call it--which was received from the House, that the bill be 
read

[[Page S10026]]

three times and passed and the motion to consider be laid upon the 
table with no intervening action or debate.
  Remember, out of the package they sent, they broke this up and sent 
us the tax extenders--the energy and business tax. I ask unanimous 
consent that matter be accepted.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will 
object, but I would like to make a brief statement.
  The Senate and House are on the verge of a very historic action to 
deal with the crisis in our economy, an action that would not have been 
possible if Democrats and Republicans had not worked together and had 
worked with the administration. In the Senate, over the last several 
months, we have had the same kind of work with respect to the unanimous 
consent request that has just been made. We tried, each of us in our 
partisan ways, to get something passed that we could send over to the 
House of Representatives that deals with the so-called tax extenders--
the energy extenders and AMT relief. What we found was that neither 
side could prevail if we tried to do it our way.
  As the majority leader has said, we had something like nine separate 
votes, I believe. We finally concluded that the only way we could, for 
the good of our constituents, extend these important tax provisions and 
fix the AMT was to have a series of votes which expressed the will of 
the Senate, work together to pass in a bipartisan way legislation that 
we would then send to the House of Representatives. Democrats and 
Republicans in the Senate agreed that the legislation represented by 
the consent agreement is an important priority for the American people, 
and that is why we approved this bipartisan package by an overwhelming 
vote of 93 to 2. But before the package received the overwhelming 
approval, the energy tax extenders failed as a stand-alone bill, as I 
said, nine times.
  The Senate has spoken clearly. This legislation will pass the Senate 
if it receives a vote in the same packaged form that passed by the vote 
of 93 to 2. It is the path we must continue to follow. The majority 
leader has made that point, the minority leader has made that point, 
and I reiterate that point again to our colleagues in the House of 
Representatives. For that reason, I object to the request that has been 
made.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have served in the House of 
Representatives. My friend, the distinguished Senator from Arizona, has 
served in the House of Representatives. I understand the House. I loved 
my experience in the House, but their rules of engagement are different 
than ours. And if it were up to me, I would accept this in a second. I 
think it is fine. But, Mr. President, I don't have that ability here. I 
do not have the strength and the power legislatively and procedurally 
that they have in the House.
  The House is like the British Parliament. If you are in the majority 
there, you can get a lot of things done that we can't being in the 
majority here. And my majority is extremely slim; it is 51 to 49 when 
everybody is here. Many days, I am in the minority.
  So I just beg my House colleagues to understand that this isn't 
something we are trying to surprise them with. It has taken me this 
long to get here. The ability to get here has been long and hard. And 
we are not trying to pull anything over on the House.
  Mr. President, for us, as a congressional body, House and Senate, to 
approve this legislation would be historic--long-term tax credits for 
renewable energy, creating thousands and thousands of jobs. For the 
first time in a long time, we are extending the business tax credits 
for 2 years. The business community, small businesses and big 
businesses, is elated over that because we have given them 1-year 
extensions time and time again.
  In this legislation, there is some really good stuff. There is mental 
health parity, there is something that every State west of the 
Mississippi will benefit from--the State of Nevada, as an example. We 
have been cheated for years because the law is, if you have Federal 
properties there to take away from your tax base, then the Federal 
Government should help. And they have helped but not very much. Eighty-
seven percent of the State of Nevada is owned by the Federal 
Government. The legislation we have sent to the House removes some of 
the unfairness in that.
  So I just tell my friends from the House of Representatives, we can't 
do this. We can't do it. You send us over these things piece by piece; 
we can't get it done. The reason we were able to get AMT done was 
because it was part of a package. So I say to my colleagues: I wish we 
had more votes and we could just run over you, like they do in the 
House, but we can't do that. I wish we could do what we thought was 
right on this side of the aisle and not worry about you, but we can't 
do that.

  In the House of Representatives, this matter will get 250, 300 votes. 
This will pass overwhelmingly in the House. This is bipartisan 
legislation.
  I hope my friends who are part of the Blue Dog caucus would 
understand. We are not trying to embarrass them or embarrass anyone 
else. We believe things should be paid for. We look forward to working 
with them in time to come.
  I say, I wish we were not going to spend $700 billion. I wish we 
weren't going to spend $60 billion, unpaid for, on the AMT, but that is 
where we are. I hope my friends in the House will understand we are 
doing the best we can.
  Senator Kyl said it twice, I said it three times, it took us nine 
votes to get where we are. If we leave this Congress without having 
done this, it doesn't speak well of this Congress.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Montana is 
recognized.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, first, I regret the Senate is unable to 
take up and pass this legislation. We all know how important it is.
  The problem here now is that the Senate has demonstrated the limit of 
what it can do and what it cannot do. The Senate has now demonstrated 
it cannot pass the tax extender bills. This cannot be done. I want to 
follow on what the leader said. This is not a matter of embarrassing 
anybody. Sometimes our good friends in the other body think we are 
trying to embarrass them. This is not a matter of trying to embarrass 
anybody. It is a matter of trying to get some good public policy passed 
here for our country in these closing days of the Congress. We are 
talking about energy incentives to help make us more independent from 
OPEC; mental health, trying to get a mental health parity bill finally 
passed, which clearly is important for obvious reasons.
  Then the awful words are ``tax extenders.'' It helps America be 
competitive--the research and development tax credit to help kids get 
to school. This is very simple stuff. It is very basic stuff.
  I think some of our colleagues and friends on the other side think we 
are trying to stuff them, trying to embarrass them, it is partisan. 
This is not a matter of embarrassing anybody. This is not a partisan 
matter. This is an American matter--do something for America. If we go 
back too far in the weeds, some of our colleagues will say: Gee, we 
have this $700 billion fiscal relief bill and doesn't that add too much 
to the deficit.
  I don't know if it will. It is not like passing a $700 billion 
appropriations bill. This is an authorization. It is similar to the so-
called Chrysler bailout, the so-called New York bailout, where 
taxpayers made money on the deal.
  If I were a Blue Dog, I wouldn't get too worried about the big 
pricetag. The main point is we need to get this passed now. It is very 
modest. Next year is another year and we can deal with all kinds of 
issues we all want to deal with, but for the good of the country I very 
much say to my colleagues across in the other body on the other side: 
Please don't miss this opportunity. Please do what is right. Let's pass 
this bill before you leave town because not to do so would not be a 
responsible thing to do. It must be passed over there.
  It is a Senate bill we are sending over. That is the only responsible 
way out of this difficult situation we are in. Nothing is perfect. 
Nobody gets everything. But we have demonstrated now

[[Page S10027]]

that the House-passed bills here cannot pass. That has been 
demonstrated by the objection we just heard. It cannot pass. The only 
solution then is to take up the bills which were worked in a compromise 
with the Republican Members here and Blue Dogs over there; insofar as 
the extender, 2 years, only 1 year paid for. That is the compromise and 
it seems to me that is pretty fair compromise. It seems to me the House 
should take it up--I hope they do--and do the right thing.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, while the chairman is here and the assistant 
Republican leader, the mark of the Blue Dogs is on what we have done in 
this Congress. We struggled because of the Blue Dogs insisting, and 
rightfully so, on paying for different things. The chairman of the 
Finance Committee will remember the difficult time we had on SCHIP, and 
that was because of the mark of the Blue Dogs, wanting to make sure we 
paid for what we did. It is not as if we ignored them; we tried to 
follow their lead because their cause is a righteous cause. They want 
this Government to start paying for things and stop running up the 
deficit. We look forward to working with them in the future.
  Mr. BAUCUS. As the leader said, we did end up paying for the 
children's health insurance.

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