[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
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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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