[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 195 (Saturday, December 17, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8745-S8748]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            VOTE COMPROMISES

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, as happens once in a while here, we do not 
have a final score on part of the payroll tax issue that we have, the 
legislation. Joint Tax, CBO said they will have the score by 10 o'clock 
today. Therefore, we are going to reverse the order of what we are 
doing. We are going to vote on the matters relating to the omnibus 
first. However, I ask unanimous consent that if the Reid-McConnell 
substitute amendment is not agreed to--that is the payroll tax issue--
the Senate's action with respect to the conference report to accompany 
H.R. 2055 and H.R. 3672 be vitiated and the majority leader be 
recognized.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, what was the parliamentary procedure the 
leader just referred to?
  Mr. REID. We do not have a final score on the payroll tax matter. 
There is something dealing with SGR that is not quite right, so we want 
to make sure everything is totally paid for. We are going to get a 
score in just a few minutes, probably by 10 o'clock for sure, and we 
want to reverse the order. We are going to do all the omnibus stuff 
because people have things to do and want to leave. But if by some 
happenchance the payroll tax does not pass, then all this stuff, the 
votes on the omnibus, would be vitiated.
  Mr. CORKER. I object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page S8746]]

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, in the Senate we work on an adversarial 
basis lots of times because that is the way the Founding Fathers set up 
our country. I am not going to give a long lecture on this because I 
know people have a lot to do.
  This little Constitution was very hard to come by. It was very hard 
to come by. We tried the Articles of Confederation. They did not work 
at all. We had the State of Rhode Island, a little, tiny place, with 
not many people in it; we had the big State of New York, with lots of 
territory and lots of people.
  How were they going to work that out? They could not--until a man 
from Connecticut, Elbridge Gerry, came as one of the delegates, in June 
of 1787, to Philadelphia, who said: I have a great idea. It was an idea 
that had never been tried before. It was a stunningly interesting idea 
that he had. He suggested to the Founding Fathers a bicameral 
legislature, having a legislature made up of two bodies, two 
legislative bodies, the House and the Senate. That is the reason we are 
able to have a constitution.
  But in the process, built into our Constitution is constant vying for 
power. You have the executive branch, the judicial branch, but within 
the legislative branch, there is constant vying for power between the 
House and the Senate. That is the case, even though both bodies may be 
of one party. When Pelosi was the Speaker, the Speaker and I were very 
good friends, but we had problems trying to work out things between the 
two bodies. When you have one body with one party and the other body 
with another party, it becomes even more difficult.

  The times we are going through are not unusual for the Senate in the 
200-plus years we have been a country. In fact, they are very peaceful 
and calm compared to sometimes. As we know, a Member of the House of 
Representatives did not like what a Senator from Massachusetts was 
saying. He came over here and, with his cane, nearly beat to death the 
Senator from Massachusetts. The Senator from Massachusetts was out of 
work for 2 years, and he was irreparably damaged. His health never 
returned.
  So I know how difficult and hard it is for people to accept our way 
of doing business. But if you look back over the time we have been a 
country, it has worked out pretty well. For example, what we are going 
to vote on shortly--both the omnibus, the spending bill; and the 
payroll tax--were truly legislative accomplishments. They were 
compromises.
  The omnibus is much better than it was previously. We were able to 
actually pass individual appropriations bills this year. The goal of 
the Republican leader and me is to pass them all next year. We are 
going to try. It is going to be one of our important issues we have to 
deal with, to try to get our appropriations bills back together.
  I, when I first came to the Senate, became an appropriator. I think 
that committee is so integral to how this body works, and it has not 
been working well; that is, the appropriations process.
  So people may be disturbed about some of the stuff that is on the 
floor, but it was true legislation because it was compromise. The 
omnibus--there are lots of things in that I do not like, and I will bet 
you every Senator has something in it that they do not like.
  With the package we have dealing with unemployment, the package with 
the payroll tax and SGR, there are things in there I would rather not 
have in either one of those, but we are here because that is the way we 
were able to bring this and lead to what I think is an accomplishment 
that is important for the American people.
  I appreciate the ability of the Republican leader and myself to sit 
down and talk, as we do, often, away from all of you, away from 
everybody. We started this conversation alone, and we ended it alone, 
working on these measures we have here. I know members of my caucus 
say: Why couldn't I have been in on doing all this stuff? We involved 
as many people as we could.
  But, ultimately, as hard as it is for the two of us, we, on occasion, 
have to do what we think is right for the good of the country. So I 
appreciate very much the Republican leader and his ability to remain 
friends with me, as I do with him. I hope everybody understands today 
is a very important day for our country because we are doing today 
exactly what the Founding Fathers thought we would do.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I want to make just a few comments 
about the pipeline-payroll package that the majority leader and I have 
offered on which we will be voting shortly. It is not the bill I would 
have written. It falls short in several respects, in not having both 
certainty--the certainty issue is awfully important to the private 
sector if we are going to come out of this economic slowdown. But as 
the majority leader has indicated, our side approached this debate 
conscious of something Democrats in Washington tend to forget these 
days; that is, in order to achieve something around here, we have to 
compromise.
  As the majority leader indicated, that is, in fact, what we have 
done. We have crafted a bill not designed to fail but designed to pass. 
The main thing Republicans were fighting for and got was the Keystone 
XL Pipeline provision authored by Senator Lugar and also Senator 
Hoeven, and Senator Johanns was particularly instrumental in working 
out the Nebraska aspects of this to the satisfaction of his Governor 
and his State legislature.
  So why were Republicans fighting for the pipeline? We knew the whole 
reason we were even talking about temporary tax relief and extending 
unemployment benefits is because 3 years into this administration the 
private sector is still gasping, literally gasping for air. So we said 
let's also do something that would help create private sector jobs. 
Let's start to change the equation and do something that will actually 
get at the heart of the problem.
  Keystone was an obvious choice. Everybody in Washington says they 
want more American jobs right now. Well, here is the single largest 
shovel-ready project in America. It is literally ready to go awaiting 
the permission of the President of the United States.
  Some of the news outlets are calling this pipeline controversial. I 
have no idea why it could be called controversial. The labor unions 
like it, many Democrats want it, it strengthens our national security 
by decreasing the amount of oil we get from unfriendly countries, and 
it would not cost the taxpayers a dime--not a dime. It is a private 
sector project ready to go.
  All we are doing is saying the President has 60 days to decide 
whether the project is in the national interest--60 days for the 
President to make a decision one way or the other. Since most of us 
have not heard a good reason from the White House as to why they would 
block it, I am very hopeful the President, in the course of this 60 
days, will do the right thing for the country and get this crucial 
project underway.
  The only thing standing between thousands of American workers and the 
good jobs this project will provide is a Presidential decision. As I 
said, I am hopeful and optimistic the President will make the right 
decision.
  I thank my friend, the majority leader, for the opportunity to work 
together with him on something that could actually pass the Senate and 
be signed by the President.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, we are close to voting on a payroll tax 
extension bill that includes a House provision designed to force the 
President to approve the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. Proponents 
of this tar sands project argue that it belongs on this bill for one 
reason: building the pipeline would create jobs.
  Any construction project creates jobs, and it is no surprise that 
this debate has come down to this. Unable to sell the pipeline as 
necessary to meet the country's energy needs, which it is not, or to 
refute charges that tar sands strip mining and the refining and burning 
of high carbon oil cause egregious harm to the environment and health, 
which it does, the Canadian energy company TransCanada has flooded the 
media with dire warnings about the American jobs that will be lost if 
the pipeline is rejected.

[[Page S8747]]

  Not surprisingly, our Republican friends, always ready to fight for 
the oil companies, have echoed these scare tactics.
  What they don't tell you is that the 5,000 or 6,000 temporary 
construction jobs will disappear once the pipeline is built. Only a few 
hundred permanent jobs are needed to operate and maintain the pipeline.
  And they also don't mention that the choice is not between jobs or no 
jobs. They ignore the tens of thousands of permanent, safe American 
jobs that could be created by investing in clean, renewable sources of 
energy, which, unlike tar sands oil, don't pollute and will not be used 
up in a few short decades.
  People can disagree about building the Keystone Pipeline, but there 
is more to this than the short-term jobs it would create. Jamming it 
through Congress on this bill in the waning hours of the session has a 
lot more to do with politics than jobs.
  The Keystone provision in this payroll tax extension would force the 
President to approve or disapprove the pipeline within 60 days. Any 
decision to grant a permit would be ``deemed,'' by Congress, to satisfy 
all the environmental requirements, even if it does not, and any 
modification to the construction mitigation and reclamation plan 
``shall not'' require supplementation of the final environmental impact 
statement. In other words, don't study the consequences or give the 
public a chance to comment on the revised plan.
  This is from Members of Congress who in the last election ran on a 
platform of ``open'' government. Yet when it comes to helping Big Oil, 
it is a different story. They cut the time for making a decision from a 
year to 60 days and short circuit the environmental review process. 
Forget the science. Forget the public. Preempt the law. Ignore the 
risk. The only thing that matters is pumping more oil.
  Tar sands are a particularly dirty source of petroleum, from 
extraction to refinement. Anyone who is interested, regardless of which 
side of this debate they are on, should look at the photographs of the 
tar sands mines in the boreal forests of Alberta. What was once an 
extraordinarily beautiful landscape has been ravaged by heavy 
machinery, vast ponds filled with polluted water and sludge, and a 
ruined wasteland where the forests used to be.
  We all know that the extraction of oil, minerals, and other natural 
resources harms the environment, but there are degrees of harm. 
Extracting heavy oil from tar sands is among the most energy-intensive 
and destructive.
  Under the law, the State Department has the responsibility to approve 
or disapprove the pipeline because it crosses an international 
boundary. More than a year ago, I and 10 other Senators--Republicans 
and Democrats--sent the first of a series of letters to the State 
Department raising concerns about the proposed pipeline and the impact 
of tar sands oil on global warming.
  Since then, concern about the pipeline has evolved into a heated 
controversy over the impact the pipeline will have on our Nation's 
energy policy, our continuing dependence on fossil fuels, and the 
environment.
  From the beginning, I had misgivings about the State Department's 
ability to conduct a thorough, credible assessment of a project of this 
complexity that they were approaching with an attitude of 
inevitability. The State Department did not anticipate the strong 
reaction of Members of Congress of both parties, including several from 
Midwestern States that have been coping with multiple oilspills from 
the original Keystone Pipeline--oilspills that have caused damage 
costing hundreds of millions of dollars that company officials have 
treated as inconsequential.
  Concerns about the risks of this project have united not only those 
living along the proposed route but people across the Nation, including 
in Vermont, as well as in Canada, who care about the environment and 
who understand the need to wean our Nation from oil and other fossil 
fuels.
  Every President since the 1970s has spoken of the need to reduce our 
dependence on oil and coal, but despite all the speeches, year after 
year we are more dependent on these finite, polluting sources of energy 
than ever before.
  Today, energy companies are spending staggering amounts of money in 
search of new sources of oil in some of the most inhospitable places on 
Earth, where its extraction involves great risks to the workers 
involved, to the environment, and to precious sources of water for 
drinking and irrigation.
  No matter what we do today, later this week, or later this month, 
this country will be dependent on fossil fuels for many years to come. 
But while TransCanada and its supporters extol the virtues of the 
Keystone XL Pipeline, as the minority leader and others have done, 
simply by reducing waste we could eliminate entirely the need for the 
energy from the oil that would flow through the pipeline. It is one of 
those inconvenient facts they would prefer to ignore.
  I come from a State that shares a border with Canada. My wife's 
family is Canadian. I have a great fondness for that ``giant to the 
north.'' But this issue is not about U.S. relations with Canada. We are 
inseparable neighbors, friends, and allies. There are strong views 
about this pipeline, pro and con, in both countries. As Americans, we 
have to do what is right for our country's energy future, for the 
environment, for our citizens.
  Some have argued that if this pipeline is not built, TransCanada will 
simply build another pipeline to the coast of British Columbia and 
export the oil to China. But there are significant obstacles and no 
indication that such an alternative route is a viable option.
  Others maintain that the carbon emissions from extracting and 
refining this oil would not appreciably exceed those from oil shipped 
by tanker from the Middle East, but they do not address the 
environmental harm and pollution caused by the strip mining and 
separation process.
  Then there is the jobs issue, which has been shamelessly exaggerated 
in a last-ditch attempt to win votes in a time of economic hardship.
  Last month, in response to concerns about the crucial aquifer that 
the pipeline would traverse in the Midwest, the White House announced 
that the State Department would consider alternative routes through 
Nebraska and that the President would make a decision in 2013. Now, 
Republican defenders of the oil industry want to short circuit this 
process, whatever the risks.
  Fossil fuels are finite, inefficient, and dirty. The cost we pay at 
the gas pump bears no resemblance to the long-term environmental and 
health costs borne by society as a whole.
  We cannot lessen our reliance on fossil fuels by continually ignoring 
it, nor can we do it by spending huge amounts of money, energy, and 
American ingenuity to search the farthest reaches of the globe for 
every last drop of oil, regardless of how dangerous or harmful to the 
environment.
  This pipeline would perpetuate a costly dependence that has gotten 
worse year after year, for which we are all to blame. Keystone XL would 
once again do nothing to address the problems associated with fossil 
fuels. It would virtually assure more oilspills, it would do nothing to 
promote conservation and reduce waste, and it would do nothing to spur 
investment in clean energy alternatives.
  Most important, it would provide yet another excuse to once again 
postpone for another day the urgent, national security imperative of 
developing a sustainable energy policy for this country. That is what 
the decision about the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline has come to 
represent regardless of what route it takes.
  Mr. President, sometimes a bad situation can be the beginning of 
something better. Once this bill is passed, President Obama will have 
60 days to decide if building the pipeline is in the national interest. 
He should reject these strong-arm tactics by the other party. He should 
use this blatantly political maneuver as an opportunity to inaugurate a 
new energy policy that will finally end our dependency on foreign oil. 
It is time to finally put the environment, and the health and energy 
security of the American people, above the interests of the fossil fuel 
industry.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, once again, the Senate finds itself in an 
untenable situation. We can approve the legislation before us, which is 
inadequate to the needs of our Nation, or

[[Page S8748]]

we can reject this legislation and make matters even worse. I will vote 
to approve this legislation, but I will do so knowing that we have 
missed yet another opportunity to do the right thing for the people we 
represent. Instead, we are doing some damage to important goals, in 
order to avoid doing even greater damage.
  We are in this position because our colleagues across the aisle, and 
their Republican allies in the House of Representatives, refuse to make 
even the most basic of concessions to reality. The truth is, more than 
3 years after the beginning of a recession, too many Americans are 
still desperately in need of assistance. Those who are working need us 
to help support economic growth so their jobs are more secure and their 
incomes can grow. Millions are still without work not because they 
don't want it, but because the number of people seeking work is vastly 
greater than the number of available jobs and they need us to help 
support economic growth so they can find work to support themselves and 
their families.
  Yet what our colleagues have insisted upon is to present us with two 
choices. The legislation before us would continue middle-class tax 
relief, the only economic boosts Republicans have allowed us to even 
consider, but pay for it in a deeply misguided manner because 
Republicans refused to consider more equitable ways to offset its 
costs. It would extend unemployment benefits, but in a way that leaves 
thousands of Michigan families facing a sudden loss of their benefits, 
because it effectively eliminates 20 weeks of the current 99-week 
maximum benefit for Michigan and other States where, though 
unemployment remains high, it is beginning to fall. And these 
extensions would last for just 2 months.
  As bad as that is, the alternative rejecting this legislation is even 
worse. Without passage, economists tell us that the loss of middle-
class tax relief could put our already slow economic recovery into even 
greater doubt. Without passage, even more families, in Michigan and 
elsewhere, will lose the economic lifeline of unemployment benefits. 
More than 26,000 Michigan families will lose their benefits under the 
inadequate provisions of this bill, but that number would grow to more 
than 100,000 by Spring without passage of this legislation. Michigan 
residents would lose eligibility for 73 weeks of emergency unemployment 
compensation if we do not act today, instead of the 20 weeks we would 
lose if we pass this bill.
  Mr. President, my State would suffer in other ways if this bill does 
not pass. It extends the so-called doc fix that is important to health 
care providers in Michigan and elsewhere. And this bill continues an 
adjustment to the Medicare Program that provides crucial aid to nearly 
half of all Michigan hospitals. This so-called section 508 fix is 
technical and complicated, but extending it is vitally important to 
Michigan hospitals. Without it, their ability to continue providing 
care to Michigan's people would be hampered.
  The method Republicans have demanded to pay for this legislation is 
also badly misguided. It uses fees paid to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 
to offset its costs. Those fees should be going to repair what we all, 
on both sides of the aisle, acknowledge is a massive financial problem 
at those enterprises. If we increase these fees, the money should be 
used to help stabilize the value of Americans' homes by reforming these 
enterprises.
  The very fact that we have had to find ways to pay for middle-class 
tax relief is a remarkable acknowledgement by Republicans, given that 
it has been an article of faith among many of our Republican colleagues 
that tax cuts pay for themselves. Repeatedly, for decades, they have 
pushed for massive tax cuts for the wealthy and sold them with the 
promise that they will pay for themselves. Now, when we face the 
expiration of tax relief that overwhelmingly benefits middle-class 
families, they tell us that this tax cut must be paid for. Hopefully 
this inconsistency will not escape the notice of the American people.
  It didn't have to be this way. Republicans had the chance to accept a 
fair alternative one that extended the payroll tax cut, unemployment 
insurance and other important tax and Medicare provisions, and that did 
so in a way that provides what our constituents demand from us: a 
balanced approach that asks all Americans to share in the sacrifices 
necessary to address our challenges.
  That approach would ask Americans making more than $1 million a year 
to pay slightly more in taxes. A solid majority of Americans see this 
as common sense: The wealthiest among us have done extraordinarily well 
in recent decades even as middle-class incomes have stagnated, and 
asking those fortunate few to contribute along with middle-class 
families is only fair. Yet Republicans again rejected that equitable 
option out of hand. We will continue to press for it in the challenging 
year that awaits us.
  Over the last few months, Republicans have been willing to risk the 
full faith and credit of the United States, the continued functioning 
of the government, tax relief for middle-income Americans, adequate 
funding for our military, health care for our seniors, and an economic 
lifeline for the unemployed, all in an effort to protect the interests 
of the wealthiest, most fortunate Americans. None of these threats 
would loom so large if Republicans would simply acknowledge what 
roughly two-thirds of our constituents now acknowledge: that the 
solutions to our fiscal problems must include a balanced approach that 
asks the wealthiest Americans to sacrifice along with working families. 
Today, they have demonstrated that they have not yet received that 
message, and they have once again forced us to choose between the 
unacceptable and the catastrophic.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, just a brief comment on Keystone. I was the 
first elected official to write a letter opposing that. I know how I 
feel about this. I know how my friend, the Republican leader, feels 
about it. I was responsible for putting it in this bill. That is how 
legislation works.
  I would also say we are thankful that we have worked together to make 
sure that 160 million people have not a tax increase but a continued 
tax break. I am also thankful that the lifeline for unemployed people 
is going to continue for at least 60 days.
  I ask the Chair to report the legislation.

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