[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 43 (Thursday, March 15, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1688-S1693]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           STARTUP COMPANIES

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise to speak on some of the issues that 
were just addressed by the Republican leader; that is, the legislation 
we will hopefully turn to next about creating jobs.
  There are a lot of occasions when legislation comes to the floor of 
this Senate where I, similar to many Members, have a view on it, and we 
kind of weigh in on our positions. But this legislation, as it comes 
forward, is something for which I have more than just an intellectual 
or political or philosophical viewpoint. This legislation actually 
involves the business I was in for nearly 20 years.
  I was proud of the fact that starting in the early 1980s--up until 
the time I was elected Governor of Virginia--I was involved, originally 
as an angel investor and then as a venture capitalist, in helping start 
companies across this country. I am proud to have been involved as a 
venture capitalist in funding almost 70 companies--those companies that 
grew to now employ tens of thousands of Americans.

[[Page S1689]]

  As the Acting President pro tempore and some of the folks realize, a 
lot of those companies I was involved with were involved in 
telecommunications. I was the cofounder of Nextel, although I cannot 
seem to turn my cell phone off at the appropriate times. But I think 
that background gave me some sense of what it means to find a 
management team to find the capital and get a company started, to allow 
it to grow, create jobs, create economic prosperity.
  This issue around capital formation, encouraging startups, 
encouraging entrepreneurs, is an issue on which we ought to be able to 
come together.
  I see my good friend, the Senator from Kansas, who I know is going to 
speak in a few moments after I am finished. He and I have worked 
together on legislation called the Startup Act that has been endorsed 
by tech councils across the country, has been endorsed by and builds 
upon the work of the Kauffman Foundation, has been endorsed by and 
builds upon the work of the President's Council on Jobs and 
Competitiveness.
  This ought to be an area where we can find common ground. Some of the 
ideas we are going to be discussing in this legislation are not only 
ideas Senator Moran and I have worked on but I know Senator Coons and 
Senator Rubio and Senator Toomey and Senator Schumer have worked on, 
also Senator Tester, Senator Merkley, and Senator Brown. There is a 
list, actually, in terms of the sponsors or cosponsors on a number of 
these bills--a number not in the single digits but literally in the 
dozens, probably in excess of 20 and, for the most part, almost every 
one of these pieces of legislation is bipartisan.
  Why do we need to do this? Because if we look where the jobs have 
been created in America over the last 20 years, for the most part we 
find, unfortunately, the job growth from companies that are in the 
Fortune 1000 has been flat, if not slightly negative.
  So while we applaud and support America's largest businesses because 
of increased productivity, because of globalization, those are not the 
companies adding jobs.
  While every Member of the Senate, when they stand, stands and 
applauds small business--and I know my colleagues on the floor support 
small business, the traditional small businesses--the butcher shop, the 
retailer, the hardware store--there has not been much job growth 
amongst those companies as well.
  So where have the jobs come from? The jobs have come from startup 
businesses, the kinds of businesses where an entrepreneur tries to 
scrape up a little bit of capital and takes an idea to market. Nearly 
80 percent, according to the Kauffman Foundation, of all the new jobs 
created in America in the last 20 years have come from these firms.
  We oftentimes think of these firms as technology firms. Many of them 
are--the Facebooks and Googles. But there are also the companies that 
span the reach of all kinds of different areas--the Lululemons, in 
terms of clothing stores, or Under Armour, a company that is in 
Maryland. These are the kinds of companies we need to do more to 
support in their growth, particularly right now when our economy is 
still struggling.
  So what are we trying to do in this legislation? To my mind, there 
are three or four areas these bills need to address.
  First of all, we need to make it easier for these startup companies 
to raise capital. Over the last decade, a lot of the traditional 
sources of capital raising have actually diminished, particularly since 
the financial crisis. The number of venture capital firms that exist, 
that fund companies, has actually decreased.
  The ability for a company to go public--for which, perhaps, we got a 
little too excessive in the late 1990s, when we saw dot.com companies 
rush to go public and then that dot.com bubble burst and those 
companies failed--but that access to the public markets has been 
seriously constrained, partially because of added regulations, 
partially because of added reporting requirements, and partially 
because there has been a recognition that going public may not have 
been the right route for all these companies.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 
5 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. The result is, many of these startup companies end up 
having to sell to a larger company, and many of the ideas and many of 
the job-creation opportunities are then constrained.
  We need to make it easier for these companies to access capital. Some 
of the ideas that are going to be proposed in the legislation will do 
that. Some of the reforms to reg A, reg D--trying to look at raising 
the number of investors a startup company can have before they have to 
report--all are sensible, appropriate incentives to help these startup 
companies get going.
  I understand the very important requirements put in place by the so-
called Sarbanes-Oxley legislation a few years back, but the cost of 
going public for startup companies now, on average, is $3 million to $4 
million. Those costs are not costs that many of these startup companies 
can absorb. So some of the sensible reforms that have been proposed by 
Senator Toomey and Senator Schumer that I have been a proud cosponsor 
on, on a so-called on-ramp for startup companies, I think make sense as 
well.
  There are also other tools we can use to help startup companies as 
they try to access capital.
  We have seen a dramatic transformation of the Internet over the last 
20 years. Every business, every part of our life has been changed. 
There is now the ability to use the Internet as a way for small 
investors to get the same kind of deals that up to this point only 
select investors have gotten that have been customers of some of the 
best known investment banking firms, where we can now use the power of 
the Internet, through a term called crowdfunding. There has to be 
appropriate investor restraints under this and investor protections, 
but crowdfunding using the Internet is another source of capital.
  I hope that will be included in the legislation we are looking at, 
and I wish to commend Senator Bennet and Senator Merkley and Senator 
Brown for working hard on that.
  But there are other pieces of this legislation we have to take on if 
we are going to compete and win in this global competition for talent 
and ideas and have these jobs created in America. That is why I was so 
proud to work with Senator Moran in our startup legislation that says 
attracting capital is one part of making a company successful. Another 
part of making a company successful is winning the worldwide 
competition for talent. Unfortunately, time and again what we are doing 
in this country is losing that competition for the best talent. There 
are literally tens of thousands of jobs that are going unfilled right 
now because we do not have enough American-born scientists, engineers, 
and mathematicians with graduate degrees.
  Because we have the world's best system of higher education, we train 
many of the world's best and brightest. But with our current 
immigration policies, we train those folks at the Virginia Techs, the 
University of New Mexicos, get them that Ph.D. in engineering, and then 
we send them home when they have an opportunity to get a job in this 
country. We cannot talk to a tech company anywhere in America that says 
we are losing the competition for talent.
  So what does our legislation do? We actually do what tech firms have 
called for for years, which is, in effect, to staple that green card to 
those individuals who get not a bachelor's degree but a master's or 
Ph.D. in the science, technology, engineering or math field, the so-
called STEM fields, if they have a job opportunity in America.
  We allow that intellectual capital and talent to actually reside and 
help create jobs. What we do as well is create a new category--in 
effect, an entrepreneur's visa. We have a very narrow category within 
our immigration policies right now that allows certain immigrants who 
want to come, invest in other companies in this country, and hire 
Americans, to get access to a visa. We would expand that category.
  So if an individual can demonstrate that they have raised capital and 
are willing to hire a number of Americans, why do we not allow them to 
start that job in America rather than going somewhere else to do it? So 
I believe we put

[[Page S1690]]

in place small changes to our immigration policies that will, again, 
allow us to compete.
  Our startup legislation looks at how we can encourage our 
universities because we need capital, we need talent, but we also need 
the intellectual capital, and that comes from ideas. Our universities 
across this country do a good job of doing basic research. Our 
universities do not do as good a job as they could and should in moving 
those ideas from the laboratory into the marketplace.
  I know my time is about to expire so I will wrap up. What we do in 
our legislation as well is we do not add additional funding, but we 
take a small sliver, fifteenth-tenths of 1 percent of our existing 
research and development dollars, and actually use that as incentive 
funds to get ideas out of the laboratory into commercialization.
  So I know we are going to move to this legislation shortly. I do 
believe there were a number of Members, particularly newer Members, who 
have been working on this legislation across the aisle. That was an 
attempt to put together a broad bipartisan bill. I am not sure that is 
going to come to pass on the Senate floor, unfortunately, because on 
this issue I do agree with the Republican leader. This should not be 
Republican or Democratic legislation. This should be a bipartisan piece 
of legislation that would actually encourage startups to get the 
capital, to get the talent, to get the ideas, so we can actually make 
sure we move forward on job creation.
  The data is clear. The jobs over the last 20 years have come from 
these kinds of startup companies, the kind I was proud to help fund in 
my 20 years of identifying funding and working on these startup 
ventures. We need to do all we can to support them. We need to move 
this legislation as quickly as possible. My hope is that we can move 
beyond the rather narrowly drawn capital formation legislation that we 
are going to look at and look at these other areas around crowdfunding, 
around appropriate visa policies, around commercialization of 
intellectual capital to move these forward.
  I am going to yield the floor for my friend and colleague, someone 
who has been a leader on this issue as well, someone whom I know has 
been criss-crossing the country--over the last couple of days, 
recently, he came back from Austin, TX, where he was celebrated as a 
startup guru--and that is my friend, the Senator from Kansas. Let me 
also acknowledge the Senator from South Dakota who has been a leader, 
particularly on the regulation D reform.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota is 
recognized.
  Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with my 
colleague from Kansas, Senator Moran.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I do appreciate the opportunity to join 
with my colleague, Senator Moran from Kansas, to speak in support of 
the bill that is before us, H.R. 3606, the Jumpstart Our Business 
Startups, or JOBS Act. The JOBS Act is a bipartisan bill that passed 
the House of Representatives by a vote of 390 to 23. It has also been 
endorsed by the White House.
  Small businesses are the engines of our economy, but government 
redtape is currently preventing these businesses from creating even 
more jobs. This commonsense bill would enable small businesses in South 
Dakota and across the country to better access much needed capital so 
they can make investments and add employees.
  There is no reason it should not receive similar support in the 
Senate. Creating jobs should be one of our top priorities in the 
Senate. We owe it to the American people and to small businesses across 
this country that are counting on us to do something that will make it 
easier, less expensive, and less difficult to create jobs.
  Too often what we see coming out of Washington, DC, are policies that 
put up obstacles and barriers and impediments to our small businesses, 
making it more difficult and more costly to create jobs. We see that 
daily with regulations coming out of many of the agencies in 
Washington, DC. The Senator from Kansas and I have been on the floor 
previously talking about regulations proposed by the Department of 
Labor--85 pages worth of regulations--that would, in a very 
prescriptive way, tell farmers and ranchers how young people can work 
in their farming and ranching operations.
  It is amazing to me the level of detail to which those regulations go 
and how prescriptive they are with regard to something that has 
historically in this country and traditionally been very much a part of 
our heritage; that is, the young people growing up on farms, being 
involved in those farming and ranching operations, making them 
profitable. We have a Federal agency now that thinks it knows better. 
So these 85 pages of regulations came out and suggested that there are 
certain things young people on farms and ranches should not do--not 
only suggested them, it says they cannot do. They cannot herd cattle 
from the back of a horse, cannot work around grain bins and stockyards, 
cannot work with animals that are more than 6 months old, cannot work 
at elevations or heights more than 6 feet.

  These are all things the Department of Labor, in its infinite wisdom, 
has determined they know better about farming and ranching operations 
in this country than do the people who work there. It would transform 
the way in which family farm and ranch operations are conducted. It 
adds additional cost and barriers to these farmers and ranchers who 
work so hard to make a living. They are the quintessential small 
businesses in our country. They work hard. They have a tremendous work 
ethic. They are people who make their living on the land, and all they 
simply ask from their government is that they not impose these types of 
barriers and regulations and impediments to them doing what they do 
best; that is, to feed the world and to create a strong and vibrant 
farm economy.
  So the JOBS bill that is before us takes us in a different direction 
than all of the regulations I just referred to, which makes it more 
difficult and more expensive for people in this country to create jobs 
and to grow their businesses. This package of bills that came over from 
the House of Representative, which, as I mentioned, passed by a vote of 
390 to 23--there were only 23 dissenting votes in the House, an 
overwhelming bipartisan majority in support of this legislation. And it 
is because these are such commonsensical things--so commonsensical that 
the White House has endorsed most of these bills, if not all of these 
bills.
  They passed in the House of Representatives individually before they 
were packaged into this particular piece of legislation that was sent 
to us by that 390-to-23 vote. They were passed individually by huge 
votes. There is a piece of legislation, a bill that was passed in the 
House of Representatives, that Senator Toomey has the companion bill in 
the Senate that passed 421 to 1.
  We had one of those bills that passed in the House of Representatives 
by a voice vote and the legislation--the bill I have as a part of this 
package passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 413 to 11 
last November. That was also included in this JOBS bill that has come 
over to us now from the House.
  So what we want to do is make it easier for small businesses, which 
literally are the engine and the backbone of our economy, to create 
most of the new jobs in our economy; to do that, to create jobs, to 
invest capital, to put their capital to work, and to make our economy 
grow. So I would just say, by way of introduction, that I hope we 
cannot only get to this bill, get on this bill, but move quickly to 
pass it through the Senate, and get it on the President's desk because 
we do not have a lot of time to waste.
  We all know what the statistics are. We know the high unemployment 
rate we have seen, the sluggish economic growth. We need to get this 
economy growing again. We need to make it easier, not harder, for small 
businesses to create jobs and to get access to capital. Many of these 
bills in this package--this small business jobs package--really do 
focus on the issue of capital

[[Page S1691]]

formation and allowing small businesses to have easier access to the 
capital that will allow them to grow their companies and to grow jobs.
  So what I would like to do--my colleague from Kansas is here. As I 
said, he is someone who, as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, 
has been a leader on this legislation and on many of these issues, and 
a leader, as I mentioned earlier, in fighting regulations coming out of 
Washington, DC, that make it harder and more difficult and more 
expensive to create jobs, in particular, as I mentioned earlier--we had 
this discussion a couple of weeks ago with regard to these Department 
of Labor regulations impacting family farms and ranchers--just one of 
many regulations, the proliferation of regulations coming out of 
Washington, DC, that consistently are overreaching in terms of their 
impact and what they do to create additional burdens for our small 
businesses.
  So I would like to yield to my colleague from Kansas for his 
observations and thoughts with regard to the JOBS bill that is before 
us, and what we as a Senate ought to be doing to try to create better 
conditions and a more favorable environment for our small businesses to 
create jobs.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MORAN. I thank the Senator from South Dakota. I am pleased that 
we are here finally on a topic of significant importance to the 
country. We have heard for a long time about the necessity of creating 
jobs, of creating an opportunity for Americans to succeed. In fact, I 
would guess that is the primary motivation for why many of us serve in 
the Senate: so that every generation, those who follow us, but those 
even today have the opportunity to pursue the American dream.
  I think our goal is not to create a circumstance in which no one 
fails, but the goal is to create a circumstance in which many succeed. 
So while it has been very disappointing that the Senate has failed for 
so long to get to the important topic that we should be addressing, job 
creation, we are finally here today.
  I commend the leaders of both parties for reaching an agreement that 
allows us to begin the discussion and ultimately, hopefully, pass the 
JOBS bill in a form just like the House passed a few days ago.
  I came to this issue of job creation and innovation and 
entrepreneurship with a realization that this Congress is failing--this 
administration is failing to address the issue of the deficit and the 
financial condition of our country. I believe my kids and those 
Americans who follow us are going to be in much worse shape because the 
administration and Congress have failed to address the issue we face 
today, which is our country is broke. We are spending money we do not 
have.
  We cannot seem to resolve that issue in a way that puts us on a path 
toward a balanced budget. I will not ever walk away from my belief that 
is necessary. I will continue to work as a member of the Senate 
Appropriations Committee and in every capacity I have to see that we 
get our spending under control and that we are on that path toward 
balancing the budget. Because of the failure of the administration and 
the leadership of the Senate to address this issue of the deficit, I 
started looking for ways in which we could approach the deficit in 
perhaps a way that is easier for us to grasp, easier for us to deal 
with.
  And that is job creation, because the more people who are working the 
more taxes that are collected and the more money comes into the coffers 
of the U.S. Treasury to pay down this tremendous debt. These two issues 
are actually related. I have tried to figure out how to explain to 
Kansans why the deficit matters in whether they have a job or can 
pursue a better job. The answer is that no business is going to expand, 
grow, or invest in capital and plant and equipment and hire new people 
if they are concerned that the United States might be the next Greece--
the next country in which our creditors decide that we are no longer 
capable of paying back this tremendous debt that has accrued over a 
long period of time now and escalated in the last few years.
  The goal of paying down the debt is certainly worthy in and of 
itself. But if we can do that, we also have the opportunity to create 
an environment in which business feels comfortable in hiring more 
employees and adding plant and equipment and investing in their 
business and growing it.
  Today we come to the floor in support of the JOBS bill, as passed by 
the House of Representatives, in hopes that the Senate will do so in 
short order. It is the opportunity we have to make a tremendous 
difference so that Americans can, today and in the future, pursue that 
American dream.
  We, over a long period of time, have created many impediments toward 
the success of that job creation. The Senator from South Dakota talked 
about the regulatory environment, and we have highlighted on the Senate 
floor a major overreach that fundamentally alters the way we live our 
lives back home in Kansas in regard to family farms. Farming and 
ranching in our State is a family operation. Yet the Department of 
Labor believes it is their role to tell parents what that relationship 
should be with their own children and their ability to work on their 
own family farm. It is just an example of this mindset in our Nation's 
capital that exists today that says we know better than the American 
people, better than the moms and dads, about the families, about what 
is the role for a young person working on a family farming operation in 
Kansas and across the country. That is an example.
  Those regulations are there today and they are being proposed all the 
time. In my view, if the Federal Government believes it has this 
significant role to play in defining the relationship between moms and 
dads and working on a farm, what can't the Federal Government tell us 
back home what we can and cannot do? If they can go so far as to--I 
guess I should say, who more than a parent cares more about the safety 
of their own children, whom they are working side by side with or 
working with a neighboring farm? This is but one example in which we 
have decided that the government knows best, the Department of Labor 
knows better than moms and dads.
  Once we reach that kind of conclusion, then there is nothing off 
limits for the Federal Government to say we know better than the 
citizens of our country. That is a misguided approach to the Federal 
Government, the role that we are to play. But it is a handicap and 
hindrance toward the ability of the American people, the entrepreneurs, 
and those who believe in the free enterprise system--it is an 
impediment to them ever pursuing that opportunity to create jobs and an 
economy that encourages job creation.
  I appreciate earlier Senator Warner, the Senator from Virginia, being 
on the floor talking about legislation he and I are working on called 
the Startups Act. We continue to believe there is a great opportunity 
for entrepreneurs. In fact, research from the Kaufman Foundation shows 
that startups less than 5 years old have accounted for nearly all of 
the net jobs created in the United States from 1980 to 2005. In fact, 
startups create 3 million new jobs every year.
  What we are about today is a portion of this legislation that Senator 
Warner and I have introduced, the Startups Act, about the capital 
formation provisions of the bill. We have been working with Senators 
Coons and Rubio and others to blend these provisions into the Startups 
Act, but a portion is now on the Senate floor. I am here to commend the 
opportunity that we have today to pursue that portion of job creation. 
It is not enough, but it is certainly a great beginning point for us in 
the Senate to follow the lead of the House of Representatives and 
create an opportunity for capital formation.
  This legislation creates tax incentives that will spur investments in 
startups, reduce the regulatory burden and barriers that make it harder 
for startups to grow, and win the battle for us to see that the United 
States remains a highly competitive, innovative, entrepreneurial 
environment in which businesses succeed. I suppose what we say about 
businesses succeeding--it is not about necessarily the business success 
but about the consequences of that success, which is that Americans 
will have jobs, the opportunity to put food on the families' tables, 
save for their kids' education, save for their retirement, and meet the 
responsibilities we have as parents and members of the family.

[[Page S1692]]

  I join the Senator from South Dakota in my strong support for moving 
forward and passing this JOBS legislation. I also ask the Senate to 
consider further legislative initiatives, such as the one Senator 
Warner and I have, to make sure we do more to create that circumstance, 
that opportunity in America, where everybody has that opportunity to 
succeed, and that many will.
  Mr. THUNE. Will the Senator yield for a question on jobs and the 
economy?
  Mr. MORAN. Yes.
  Mr. THUNE. I appreciate the Senator's legislation. I hope it is acted 
on. It is a rare day indeed when you have legislation that has 
bipartisan support, and in the case of the JOBS bills, also supported 
by the White House. That is a tremendous rarity here and one we ought 
to take advantage of. We should move the JOBS package quickly. I hope 
the Senator's bill will enjoy similar bipartisan support and will be 
something we can act on as well.
  These are the types of things that right now I think the American 
people--certainly the people of South Dakota and the people of Kansas--
want to see us focus on. They want us to do things that will make it 
easier, less expensive, and less difficult to create jobs in the 
country and put people back to work and grow this economy and provide 
more opportunities for Americans.
  The question I have for the Senator from Kansas, because it bears 
directly on the issue of the economy and has to do with regulations and 
policies coming out of Washington, is this: We are talking about a 
package of legislation that would enable access for job creators and 
small businesses to the capital they need to invest and grow their 
business and create jobs. It is enabling, in a sense, allowing better 
conditions for capital formation, especially for small businesses, 
which is where most of the jobs are created. There are other things the 
Federal Government is not doing that it should be doing to help the 
economy grow and drive down input costs for people in the country.

  I want to refer to the issue of fuel prices. In a State such as mine, 
where you have an agricultural economy, it is very dependent upon 
energy, in terms of diesel fuel, fertilizer, and all those things that 
are incredibly dependent upon energy. It is also a rural State with a 
pretty big geography, where people have to drive long distances. When 
you see gas approach the $4 range--and in my State, it is not there 
yet, but in other States it is--that is a very serious impediment.
  There are things we ought to be doing to open more domestic 
production, to allow people who want to invest in energy to do so. We 
have lots of laws and regulations that make it more difficult, that 
prohibit it. We have what I would call some low-hanging fruit or easy 
opportunities to do that. The Keystone Pipeline is one that would bring 
about 800,000 barrels a day into this country, where it would be 
processed and refined and put Americans to work and lessen the 
dependence we have on foreign oil.
  I am curious how that impacts a State such as Kansas and how it 
impacts job creation and small businesses, when we talk about Federal 
policies that have a direct bearing on our economy and people's 
everyday lives, and particularly with regard to small businesses, which 
we are talking about today.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I have no doubt that the ability to have an 
economic recovery and create jobs is, in so many ways, determined by 
what happens with our actions in regard to an energy policy and the 
development of our own resources.
  Certainly, while we are here to talk about jobs today, there is a 
national security, military stance issue that is, unfortunately, 
related to our strong dependence upon foreign energy supplies. This 
Congress, this administration, in my view, needs to get out of the way 
and let the private sector begin the process of meeting our country's 
energy needs.
  When we talk about high prices and complain about the price at the 
pump, what we are complaining about is that the supply is insufficient 
to meet the demand. The supply is not increased and the demand goes up, 
and the resulting consequence is increasing prices. You can remedy that 
by increasing the supply of energy in this country. We have a vast 
array of those resources that, because of the regulations, environment, 
and the policies of the Federal Government, we are unable to pursue. 
The market would send the message that we need more supply, but the 
regulators are in the way of making that happen.
  In a State such as ours, as the Senator from South Dakota says, we 
have to drive long distances. Agriculture is dependent upon natural gas 
for fertilizer and fuel, for irrigation, and diesel fuel matters to us; 
and we have many industries that consume energy in the creation of 
manufactured products. Every time the price goes up, the ability to 
create a new job goes down.
  This country desperately needs an energy policy that is focused on 
the production of energy, using our own resources to meet our own 
country's needs. It is a significant and critical component if we are 
going to get the economy back on track and have jobs created.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I say to my friend, I believe sincerely--
and I think he does--that we need a real all-of-the-above strategy. We 
ought to be developing all forms of American energy, homegrown energy, 
domestic energy. I appreciate it when the President of the United 
States seizes upon that slogan and talks about supporting an all-of-
the-above strategy, but his policies tell another story. If you look at 
things the Senator raised, such as increasing our domestic supply, 
homegrown production, there are a series of things that would do that. 
Approving the Keystone Pipeline would be the first one. It is right 
there--20,000 shovel-ready jobs. It is a $7 billion initial investment, 
with 800,000 barrels of oil coming to us from Canada, as opposed to 
coming from Venezuela and Hugo Chavez and the Middle East. It is such a 
no-brainer hanging out there for us to immediately act on.
  Unfortunately, the administration said no to that. They also said no 
to development in Alaska, no to offshore development, no to oil shale 
development, no to streamlining permits, and no to new leases. All have 
been put off limits, which are the very things that would increase the 
supply and thereby address the issue the Senator mentioned, which is 
that we have too much demand chasing too little supply and, therefore, 
too high of a price, which bears on the pocketbooks of every single 
American, every small business, every family.
  We need a real all-of-the-above strategy, not just lipservice to it, 
which is what we get out of this administration. It is an example----
  [Disturbance in the Gallery.]
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Sergeant at Arms will restore 
order in the Senate.
  Mr. THUNE. This is an example of where public policy directly 
influences economic outcome. There is no way you cannot argue that more 
supply would lead to lower prices at the pump. For sure, more domestic 
supply would lead to more American jobs. That is what we are talking 
about today with jobs in the economy. That is why this issue bears 
directly on it.
  I appreciate my colleague from Kansas pointing out the impact it has 
in his State on small businesses, farmers, and ranchers, who generally 
have to drive long distances.
  I will wrap up by simply saying again that we need to focus like a 
laser on jobs. That is why I was pleased we were able to get the 
majority leader and, after some time our leader to move to jobs. We 
have lots of strategies mentioned that were going to be considered on 
the Senate floor.
  The real issue in the minds of the American people, in terms of 
getting people back to work, is putting policies in place that will 
enable and make it easier and less difficult and less costly to create 
jobs.
  Briefly, in addition to the bill the Senator from Kansas talked 
about--his bill--my legislation, which is included in the JOBS package, 
passed by 413 to 11. What it does is makes it easier for small and 
growing businesses to solicit investors to help them raise the capital 
they need to create jobs and, in the process, help our economy grow.
  Specifically, it would remove a regulatory roadblock that is 
currently preventing small businesses from reaching out to potential 
accredited investors and thereby allowing these job creators to more 
easily raise capital from accredited investors nationwide.

[[Page S1693]]

  This is commonsense legislation that will enable small businesses and 
startup companies to better access the capital they need to expand and 
create jobs.
  My provision has a lot of support from American job creators around 
the country. The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council called it 
``a long overdue solution that will widen the pool of potential funders 
for entrepreneurs . . . to seek and secure the capital they need to 
compete and grow. . . . Our economy will improve once entrepreneurs are 
provided the tools, opportunities and incentives they need to hire and 
invest.''
  There are 175 Democrats in the House of Representatives who have 
supported this bill as a stand-alone bill. It has been endorsed by the 
SEC's Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies. When it was 
included in the broader JOBS bill in the House, it passed, as I said, 
by a vote of 390 to 23. If job growth is our priority here in the 
Senate, we should not delay on moving forward with this important job-
creating legislation.
  I thank my colleague from Kansas for joining me on the floor today to 
talk about the need to pass this JOBS Act and get it on the President's 
desk, as he said he wanted in his State of the Union Address back in 
January. It represents exactly what we should be doing here in 
Washington; that is, creating a stable and productive economic 
environment by easing regulatory burdens and unleashing economic 
potential without adding to the national debt.
  The Senator from Kansas very ably addressed in his remarks earlier 
the importance of getting spending and debt under control, because that 
does also create conditions that are favorable to small businesses to 
invest. If there is uncertainty out there about what the Federal 
Government is going to be doing in terms of borrowing and spending, it 
creates a cloud under which it is very difficult for job creators to 
create jobs.
  I hope that my colleagues here in the Senate will support this 
important piece of legislation and ensure job creators across the 
country have access to the capital they need to hire and invest and 
that we will start taking steps to address the impediments, the 
barriers, the obstacles that are in place right now to the development 
of domestic energy production that will ease the price at the pump and 
make it more affordable for small businesses to invest in this country.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, just to conclude, I would like to thank and 
commend the Senator from South Dakota for his leadership on these 
issues and again express my pleasure that we are finally taking up 
legislation that will make it easier for new businesses to raise 
capital, creating a phase-in period for small, growing companies to 
comply with government regulations that will help young businesses 
expand and could ease the decision to go public, and, finally, to 
update our securities laws that have been in place since the 1930s to 
reflect a 21st-century marketplace so they can expand access to capital 
for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. And all this is done with 
the goal of creating the circumstance where many will succeed.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Delaware is 
recognized.
  Mr. COONS. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. COONS pertaining to the introduction of S. 2194 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. COONS. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  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 the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). Without objection, it is 
so ordered.

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