[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 15, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3799-S3801]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  JOBS

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his 
comments and for the way he delves into any issue we work on and comes 
up with some unique ideas from his past business experience. I hope 
people will look at his resume, the information in his biography, to 
see the fantastic things he has done that show he has the capability to 
solve problems such as this.
  I particularly appreciate the solution the Senator has come up with. 
Some people say it does not go far enough. You could make it go further 
than that, but it is timing that is important and actually getting a 
debate that is important, and I appreciate the way the Senator put it 
out in a reasonable way where we ought to be able to do it. We need to 
do it right now so we do not keep passing this debt down, so we get in 
a responsible position.
  I am going to talk about something very similar today. We are in a 
jobs crisis in this country. I come to the floor this afternoon to talk 
about jobs. There is not any more important issue for American families 
today than jobs.
  For 3 long years, we have been waiting for the economy to get back in 
gear and start creating the jobs necessary to keep America strong. I am 
afraid that Congress and this administration have not done their part 
to foster the healthy job-creating economy we need. We have heard 
plenty of talk about job creation, but the rhetoric simply does not 
match up with any action. So today I will speak about the headwinds we 
face, as well as some of the simple solutions to help spur job 
creation.
  This week the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness 
presented President Obama with five steps to create job growth. I agree 
with most of the suggestions. Some of them are steps I have been urging 
for some time, such as streamlining job training programs and speeding 
up the government permitting processes. But, unfortunately, for the 
most part, these are just baby steps. The truth is, the most 
significant step the Federal Government could take to allow greater job 
growth is even easier than a baby step. Washington government just 
needs to get out of the way. Washington keeps putting up roadblocks.
  Last month's dismal job numbers paint a very clear picture. 
Unemployment rose to 9.1 percent--far above the 8 percent level 
promised by the administration at the time of the passage of the 
stimulus bill. Nearly 14 million Americans remain unemployed and 
actively looking for work, and more than half of them are long-term 
unemployed. With only 54,000 jobs created last month, and 3 million job 
openings, the problem is clear.
  These numbers also reveal some solutions that could go into effect if 
government would step out of the way. For example, 7,000 of the jobs 
created last month were in the mining industry. Those of us from mining 
States know that the mining and domestic energy production industries 
offer good jobs with good pay and good benefits. Yet the administration 
has made it incredibly difficult for this industry to continue creating 
jobs. It has slowed the permitting process for existing mine plans, let 
alone new mining and drilling activities. Let me say that again. It has 
slowed the permitting process to a crawl and directed EPA to regulate 
greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
  Simply stated, the President's policies are making things worse. How 
bad is this permitting process? Fourteen different mines have asked for 
an extension so their mine plans could continue in a logical way. There 
was a big announcement 6 weeks ago: The administration is going to 
allow 758 million tons of coal to come up for bid. That is 4 of 14 
applications: 758 million tons. In my county alone, there are a million 
tons of coal shipped a day--a million tons a day. The amount permitted 
for bid is a 2-year supply, and it is going to take 6 years to permit 
it. And we cannot get the other 10 of them to be put out for bid and to 
go through that same delayed process. That is affecting jobs and it is 
also causing resources to be left in the ground that could be 
effectively used in our economy, which raises the costs.
  The broadest result of this misguided energy policy will be increased 
prices for Americans. That will only dig our economic hole deeper. 
American families are already coping with the terrible job market and a 
struggling housing market. Increasing reliance on foreign energy 
sources and ignoring the sources we could harvest here at home makes no 
sense.
  In certain regions of the country, the result of this misguided 
energy policy is lost jobs and bankrupted American companies. On the 
gulf coast, many of the thousands of jobs that were supported by the 
offshore drilling industry are simply gone due to the moratorium, 
permit, and bureaucratic delays on offshore drilling in the gulf. Also, 
when skilled people are out of a job, they go somewhere else to get a 
job. They go to other countries to get a job and it reduces the number 
of people

[[Page S3800]]

who can do the work here. It is another way of sending jobs overseas.
  Some of the production has moved to Brazil and other countries that 
are not impeding their domestic energy production. And we are their 
customers. We are the ones buying it at extra-high prices.
  Ironically, one of the largest discoveries of oil in the Gulf of 
Mexico was just announced last week. This discovery proves there are 
still massive amounts of domestic energy available to help alleviate 
the high prices if the government would simply get out of the way.
  Unfortunately, the slowdown in exploratory drilling as a result of 
last year's moratorium is expected to lead to a 20-percent production 
decline next year. And things don't happen overnight. Permitting takes 
up to 6 years as well.
  I do not know if the public is aware, but there is a Middle East 
cartel that helps set the price of oil. Years ago, they used to able to 
set prices much easier. They could cut back the supply and increase the 
cost or they could increase the supply and decrease the cost. Twice I 
watched them drop the price of a barrel of oil down to $8 and put the 
American oil industry out of business. They put it out of business long 
enough so that the people who were qualified to do the work got jobs in 
other countries. When they brought the price back up, it took years for 
us to bring the production back up.
  Now, they have said Saudi Arabia has run out of energy, that they are 
just about to use up their supplies. Well, last week they announced 
they are going to have this huge increase in production. How did that 
happen? Well, there are new techniques. There are new technologies that 
are being used for drilling. It is helping to bring up more oil.
  We ought to be doing that right here in the United States. We ought 
to be increasing our supply of oil. There are fields where only 20 
percent of the oil was producible at the time it was drilled. New 
technologies, one of which is to put carbon dioxide, or CO2, 
down the hole and force the oil up--that is good for another 10 or 20 
percent of the oil, and it captures the carbon. Why aren't we talking 
about capturing carbon? We ought to be encouraging that, not 
discouraging that.
  We also have a company in my state that would like to convert low-
sulfur coal to low-sulfur diesel fuel. Low-sulfur diesel is one of the 
things we really want. With these fluctuations in prices we have seen 
over the years, they said: We have the money to build this $2 billion 
plant and get it operational. But what happens if Saudi Arabia and the 
Middle East cartels decide to drive the price down again? What if that 
price got down to a point where our production was unproductive, if 
they put us out of business, if they bankrupted us?
  Well, several years ago, Congress said: We can take care of that. We 
are going to pass loan guarantees. We will provide loan guarantees for 
you. We are not going to give you the money, but if that price were to 
drop dramatically, then we would have some responsibility in the 
situation.
  Of course, the chances of it ever dropping to that point are pretty 
negligible.
  We allocated I think about $8 billion for loan guarantees for these 
types of projects--that is no cost to the Federal Government--out there 
for this company to go ahead and make low-sulfur diesel and even jet 
fuel. Our military needs jet fuel. But out of that $8 billion, none of 
it has been allocated--none of it. At the same time, we did programs 
for solar and wind in the amount of $20 billion. Which do you think can 
produce the most energy? But it is OK with me that we have the solar 
and the wind. I think it is a good idea, and we are developing a lot of 
that in Wyoming too. But how come we can't turn a loan guarantee loose 
so that we can change coal into diesel with carbon sequestration? It is 
because of this adverse opinion on coal that creates a lot of problems.
  So it is not just a problem in that area, this slowing down of the 
process; this is also affecting things such as medical devices.
  We are interested in the health care of the American people, and we 
have an agency that watches out for our safety and should watch out for 
our safety, and we help ensure that time after time. We did a food 
safety bill, which is a part of that FDA plan.
  But in 2003 it was obvious to the companies that make the medical 
devices that the agency did not have enough people, enough resources to 
expedite, to get their evaluation done in a timely manner, and the 
industry agreed to put up money--not to have any benefit to their 
particular company but for the whole industry--to get things 
streamlined, with more people looking at it so they could get the 
approvals, so they could get these health devices out to people so that 
they could be used.
  Well, since 2003 when they put in the first amount of money, the 
resources for the FDA have doubled, the fees have tripled, and the 
production has been cut in half. It is taking too long.
  Now, how do I gauge what is too long? Well, Europe does the safety 
process too. Europe approves these medical devices 2 years before we 
do. Two years before people in the United States are able to use these 
things, they are using them in Europe. And you are not hearing about 
any calamities with the medical devices in Europe. They are doing an 
adequate job of checking the safety and making sure what they are 
putting out produces the desired result. But not in the United States. 
We are slowing that process down--putting more money in, but slowing 
the process down.
  There are things out there that people could really use. Before I 
came to the Senate, I had a heart valve tear. At that time, they had to 
do open heart surgery and go in and stitch it up, put a special ring in 
there, which fortunately for me has held very well. It repaired my 
heart, and it is in as good or better shape than it was before that 
time.
  But there is a medical device, and now they can come in just like 
they go in with a stent and put that into that part on the heart, pop 
this little umbrella open, and I would be fixed. I wouldn't have to 
have that invasive heart surgery. That has already been available in 
Europe for 2 years. It still hasn't been approved in this country.
  That is a process which is bogged down, which is costing jobs. So 
what do the companies do about it? They said: Well, let's see, why 
don't we build our stuff over in Europe? Now, if you build a plant, you 
are probably looking at 10, 20, 30 years of production before you are 
in a position to move that plant somewhere else, like back to the 
United States should we cure our problems. So we have to cure that 
problem now before we drive all of that overseas and all of those jobs 
overseas. The people who do the manufacturing on those rings get good 
pay, they have skilled jobs, but they do them in the country where the 
plant is, they don't do them in the United States. That is just one 
more example.
  Well, I have another one. Right now, they are in the process of doing 
a rule and regulation about how long you can drive a truck, how long 
you can idle a truck, what kind of medical inspection the driver should 
have to have. One of the groups that brought that to my attention is 
the owner-operators of trucking companies, and they say the people who 
are drafting this rule have never driven a truck.
  That is one of the problems with a lot of these rules and 
regulations: the people who are making the rules have never owned a 
business. And there is this tendency in government to be afraid that at 
some point something might go wrong, and it might come back. They have 
never had anybody come back on them for saying no or for slowing 
something down. Well, actually, they have never had anybody come back 
on them for saying yes. I wish they would realize that. The outfit with 
the liability in this is the company, not the one who approve the rule. 
They just need a good process they can move through and we can have a 
lot more jobs in this country.
  Another way we can assist the jobs, as I have been saying, is by 
simply getting out of the way and by reducing the regulatory burden the 
Federal Government places on employers.
  The first step here would be to repeal the health care law that is 
already driving up costs and paralyzing employers who are uncertain of 
their future obligations. Unfortunately, the President and his 
supporters in Congress are fighting this effort every step of the way. 
Although the President issued an Executive Order on January

[[Page S3801]]

18 of this year directing agencies to reevaluate the regulatory 
requirements they impose to be sure they are tailored to impose the 
least burden, less prescriptive, and justified cost-benefit analysis, 
we have yet to see any regulatory relief from any agency.

  Speeches will not save America, action will. The President can say he 
wants to get things done, and if nobody does them, we are in worse 
shape than we were before, not better shape.
  I had hoped the entire administration would take this directive on 
looking at all of the regulations seriously, particularly because 
regulatory burden falls most heavily on small businesses whose hiring 
will pull us out of this ongoing recession. Small businesses represent 
99.7 of all employer firms. They employ over half of all private sector 
employees. They pay 44 percent of the U.S. private payroll. They 
generated 64 percent of the net new jobs in this country over the past 
15 years.
  I owned and operated a small business. I can tell you that if I had 
thousands of pages of regulations from a health care law hanging over 
my head, I would hesitate before creating any new position that 
increased my exposure. The key is to stay under 50 employees. There is 
less regulation under 50. I know of some companies that already were at 
52, 54, 56. They said: Do you know what we are going to do? We are 
going to reorganize so that we are under 50 employees.
  Although reorganization is always good--we should take a little dose 
of that here in the Federal Government, but we don't. Everything is 
based on what we had before plus inflation--no reinventing, no doing 
things differently. I am seeing that in Wyoming as they are trying to 
close down some of the small post offices without any new ideas for 
them, without even covering the costs. But that is another story, and I 
will cover that later.
  As the Senator from Tennessee said earlier, we are here and we are 
not getting anything done. I think that is part of the strategy. There 
was no budget--647 days with no budget and bills left undone. We get to 
this process here where, to keep us from doing amendments on this side, 
we just keep the floor open like this for days. Then we have a cloture 
vote, and because we have not had an opportunity to put any of our 
amendments in, we vote against cloture, and that keeps cloture from 
happening, and the leader then pulls the bill, and that ends the 
process. We go to another bill on which we are also going to do the 
same thing. Some of these are good ideas and ought to be passed, but we 
don't make it to that point. I am sure that is for the next election, 
saying: Those darn Republicans just held up everything. That is not how 
we ought to be operating.
  Reducing the regulatory burden that is imposed by the Federal 
Government would be an important step, but we also need to make sure 
the administration's independent boards and agencies get the message. 
So far, it is clear they have not.
  An extraordinary effort is underway at the National Labor Relations 
Board to deter Boeing from expanding into a right-to-work State, where 
it would create work for over 1,000 employees. Those thousand employees 
have already rejected a union, but they have the right to do that. Now, 
this would be 1,000 more people employed in a billion-dollar-investment 
facility.
  So what has happened in Washington State that might have the people 
there upset? Well, I am not sure. Boeing has also hired 2,000 
additional employees out there, so it obviously has not hurt their 
employment. There will be seven of the planes built in Washington State 
and three of them built in South Carolina per month. But the case has 
drawn a great deal of attention not because Boeing is a big company but 
because the agency's fact-twisting and publicity-seeking reveals a 
strongly biased agenda. Our economy cannot recover when this 
administration's policies result in exporting jobs rather than 
airplanes.
  The wisdom of the National Labor Relations Act is to defend the right 
of employees to collectively bargain when they choose to do so, not 
stepping in to limit employees' ability to exercise their right not to 
form or join a union.
  At the National Mediation Board, we have seen rulemaking to change 
the way election results are counted in order to favor organized labor.
  When that did not work and the majority of employees still voted 
against the union, the agency launched multiple investigations trying 
to smear the employer. These government-sponsored efforts to increase 
union density have done nothing to create jobs. In some cases, the 
Federal Government has been counterproductive to that goal and should 
get out of the way.
  Pending before the Senate and being held hostage under political 
pressure are three free-trade agreements--South Korea, Colombia, and 
Panama. These pacts have been negotiated for years, and they will open 
markets to our producers. Yet this administration has failed to submit 
these agreements to Congress and is refusing to consider a reasonable 
compromise. That is wrong and it is hurting over $1 billion worth of 
U.S. beef exports to Korea which would help ranchers all across the 
United States, including my home state of Wyoming. The Korea agreement 
not only helps grow U.S. agricultural exports but would also open the 
door for future trade with China which is an even larger market for 
U.S. farm products. And that is just one industry. The Korea agreement, 
as well as the Columbia and Panama deals would also help our service 
manufacturing and finance industries just to name a few.
  In the committee on which I now serve as ranking member, the majority 
scheduled three hearings on the middle class and job growth. I am 
concerned about the middle class. The first hearing asked the question 
of whether the American dream is slipping out of reach. I made the 
point then that I am repeating today. The American dream starts with a 
job. The focus on pay, benefits, and organizing does nothing to create 
a job. We are going to have another one of those hearings next week. I 
am not sure where it is going. We have not proposed any legislation yet 
to deal with these issues. We are just getting press. That doesn't get 
jobs. Stalling the growth of the domestic energy production industry or 
increasing the regulatory burden on American businesses doesn't 
increase jobs either and neither does blocking free-trade agreements 
with our partners around the globe. An unelected, unconfirmed general 
counsel at a small agency is getting in the way of business management 
decisions that create jobs.
  The American dream is not out of reach, but it is suffering from 
needless hand-slapping threats. Those should be changed to hand-
clapping progress. But this administration has to stop getting in the 
way of job creation so Americans can have jobs.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.

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