[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 10 (Thursday, January 16, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S383-S385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HOMEOWNER FLOOD INSURANCE AFFORDABILITY ACT OF 2014--MOTION TO PROCEED
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 294, the
flood insurance legislation.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 294, S. 1926, a bill to
delay the implementation of certain provisions of the
Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 and to
reform the National Association of Registered Agents and
Brokers, and for other purposes.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, on this issue alone we have been trying for
months to move this vote. On our side we have heard constantly,
persistently, and always from Senator Landrieu indicating how important
this is to her State and to our country. So I would hope we can finally
have a pathway forward on this today with a consent agreement.
It is my understanding Senator Isakson of Georgia is going to come to
the floor soon and we will try to do that. I just want to alert
everyone to the fact if that isn't going to work out, we are not going
to delay this any more. We will file cloture and move on it when we get
back from our next work period.
Schedule
Following my remarks, Mr. President, and those of the Republican
leader, the Senate will resume consideration of the House message to
accompany H.R. 3547, which is the legislative vehicle for the Omnibus
appropriations bill.
The filing deadline for first-degree amendments to the House message
is 1 p.m. today. Under the rule, the cloture vote on the motion to
concur in the House message to accompany the omnibus will be an hour
after we come in tomorrow morning. There have been requests by both
Democrats and Republicans to move the vote forward, and if that is
possible--I am happy to cooperate with all Senators, if the majority of
the Senators would like to do this early--I will be happy to see if we
can get a consent agreement to do that.
We are also working, as I have indicated, on the flood insurance bill
and we will continue to work on that.
Measure Placed on the Calendar--S. 1931
Mr. REID. Mr. President, S. 1931 is due for a second reading, I am
told.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will read the bill by
title for the second time.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1931) to provide for the extension of certain
unemployment benefits, and for other purposes.
Mr. REID. I object to any further proceedings with respect to this
legislation.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard. The bill will
be placed on the calendar.
Unemployment Insurance Benefits
Mr. President, on this side of the aisle, we have not put to one side
and forgotten about unemployment compensation extensions for 1.5
million desperate Americans. I wish to just spend a minute or two on
this issue, but we have not forgotten this and I want to direct
everyone's attention to an editorial in one of America's leading
newspapers of today. Here is what it said.
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Republican Senators are pulling out every fake excuse they
can think of for filibustering an extension of jobless
benefits for the long-term unemployed. . . . The majority
leader, Harry Reid, was mean to us and wouldn't let us offer
amendments, they say.
We have heard that a lot. I am really a mean person.
Democrats refused to pay for the benefits. It's President
Obama's fault because people can't find work because he won't
approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The article goes on:
The truth is the Republican Party simply does not believe
that job seekers who have been out of work for 6 months or
longer deserve government assistance. The most hardhearted
believe cutting benefits will give people an incentive to get
back to work. The most cynical are hoping for widespread
misery, which they can pin on ``Obama's economy'' for
political gain in the elections this fall. Whatever the
reasons, nearly five million unemployed people will go
without benefits by the end of 2014, unless the party backs
down.
The most appalling demand from Republicans was that
benefits be paid for with cuts to other programs.
That is certainly the truth. The article continues:
For example, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire proposed
requiring that parents have a Social Security number to
receive the child tax credit--a move that would eliminate an
important anti-poverty measure for millions of children who
are citizens though their parents are not.
We will have more to say about this. We are not going to leave this
issue. This is a cutting-edge issue for the American people.
Republicans outside Congress believe this is the right thing to do--the
majority of Republicans.
House-Passed Omnibus
The Senate today will consider the House-passed omnibus spending
bill, an important bipartisan agreement that keeps our country on a
responsible path while preventing another manufactured crisis--and we
have had so many of those.
I cannot say enough about the work of the senior Senator from
Maryland Ms. Mikulski. We came to the Senate together. She is someone
who identifies with the people of Maryland as no one has ever
identified with the people of Maryland, but in the process she also
identifies with people around America. That is why she is revered in
Maryland. She has been to Nevada, and we love her in Nevada also.
I don't know of anyone else who could have done what she did, working
with the Republicans in the House. I admire her so very much, and I am
very happy to have reached the point where we are today. After 3 years
of damaging cuts to vital social programs, this bill finally increases
investments in the middle class.
Is it perfect? Of course not. There is so much good to say about this
bill. But Senator Mikulski, who represents the State where the
headquarters of the National Institutes of Health resides, got an extra
$1 billion for them--more than they got last year. It is too bad the
Republicans' cost-cutting whacked them $1\1/2\ billion in the year
before, but what she did with the NIH is exemplary of what she has done
to help America.
So enough about her, but she has done something no one else could do.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is
recognized.
Free Trade
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, yesterday, I said there were a number
of things the President could announce in his North Carolina speech
that would draw bipartisan support and actually boost the economy. One
of the things I was particularly disappointed he didn't push--at least
push harder--is trade.
As I said, this is one of the brightest areas of his economic agenda,
but if we as a nation don't act quickly and decisively, the world is
going to literally pass us right by. We are going to miss opportunities
to benefit economically, to open foreign markets to American goods and
to America's political and cultural influence.
When we look at the rest of the developed world, from Europe to
Canada to Australia, they are practically falling all over themselves
to negotiate more and better opportunities, while we basically have sat
on our hands, a consequence of the President's inability to persuade
his own party--his own party--to expand trade-related jobs.
So we need to catch up, but we can't do that without leadership from
the President, the kind of leadership as we have seen in the Senate
from the chairman of the Finance Committee, who himself obviously is a
Democrat. He has been a tireless advocate for trade and for American
agriculture. Yet with his retirement looming on the horizon, I am
afraid there might not be many Democrats left in the Senate willing to
help lead on this issue. That is why we need the President to be deeply
involved. We need him to step up for American workers and increase
exports by bringing his own party on board with a trade promotion bill
that was introduced just last week.
The authority in that legislation is key to enabling the
administration to conclude critical trade negotiations that hold
incredible promise for American jobs and economic growth. With our
economy in such dire straits these days, opening new opportunities for
American goods through trade should be a real no-brainer. It is an
issue that used to be fairly bipartisan around here, and it can be
again, if the President is willing to lead. Millions of middle-class
families and small businesses are counting on him to do just that.
So I look forward to him promoting the benefits of trade and the
legislation I mentioned in his State of the Union Address. I hope we
will hear about that. When he does so, Republicans will be right there
with him to move the trade promotion bill through Congress in a
bipartisan fashion.
EPA Coal Regs
Last week the Obama administration published a regulation that would
effectively ban coal-fired powerplants from being built in the future.
The head of the EPA, who will be testifying on this regulation today,
basically admitted as much herself when she called it ``significant
economic lift.'' She knows the technology this regulation requires is
prohibitively expensive; that her own agency knows it is nowhere near--
nowhere near--ready for adoption; that even some White House officials
do not believe her plan is feasible, and that is the point. The point
is to eliminate coal jobs in America.
That is why I wasn't surprised by emails that recently came to
light--emails which appeared to show EPA officials colluding with
extremist special interests in devising impossible-to-achieve
regulations. The emails even referred to previously shuttered
powerplants as ``defeated,'' making the intent behind coal-related
actions abundantly clear.
Here is the other thing. This new regulation is not even expected to
reduce emissions in a meaningful way--not even expected to reduce
emissions in a meaningful way. What it will do, however, is trigger a
section of the law that would allow the administration to eventually
shut down coal-fired plants that exist today.
In other words, it would allow the administration to achieve its true
aim of eliminating coal jobs completely. For struggling middle-class
families across eastern Kentucky, this is just the latest punch in the
gut from Washington, from an administration whose own advisers seem to
believe that ``a war on coal is exactly what is needed,'' from one of
the President's advisers.
Some call this regulation outrageous. Some say it is extremism at its
worst. Here is what I call it. It is absolutely cruel because here is
what is lost in this administration's crusade for ideological purity,
in its crusade for approval of coastal editorials--human lives are
affected, the lives of people I represent, folks who haven't done
anything to deserve a war being declared on them.
These are the Kentuckians who just want to work, provide for their
families, and deliver the type of low-cost energy that attracts more
jobs to Kentucky. And coal is what allows so many of them to do all
that. It provides well-paying jobs. And, as Jimmy Rose of Bell County,
KY, who has now become a rather famous country singer, puts it in his
hit song, ``Coal Keeps the Lights On.''
I remind my colleagues that coal does more than keep the lights on in
Kentucky; it keeps the lights on here too, both figuratively and
literally. From the anti-coal blogger tapping out a tweet to the EPA
staffer cooking up a meal, millions of Americans rely on coal to power
their homes and their offices. In recent years, coal has accounted for
about 40 percent of the
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electricity generated in our country. That compares to just 3.5 percent
for sources such as wind and solar. So even if the administration were
to achieve its dream of eliminating every last coal job, it is not as
though they could just fire up a few windmills to cover the gap. It is
going to take a very long time--decades--for alternative sources to
even come close to providing the same level of jobs and energy as coal.
In other words, the administration's ideological crusade doesn't even
seem to have a logical end game. It is basically just ideology.
Here is the thing. Republicans agree that alternative and renewable
energy sources are necessary for fuel diversity, but we believe wind
and geothermal and solar should be part of an ``all of the above''
energy strategy which also includes coal and natural gas and the oil we
can get right here in North America, with Americans providing the
workforce.
Another key difference is this: Republicans look at Kentucky coal
miners and see hard-working men and women, not obstacles to some
leftwing fantasy. That is why I, along with 40 Republican cosponsors--
including my friend and fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul--intend to file a
resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to ensure
a vote to stop this devastating rule. We believe the EPA regulation in
question clearly meets the definition for congressional review under
this statute, and I am sending a letter to Comptroller General Dodaro
outlining the reasons why that is the case.
If the majority leader were serious about helping Kentuckians, he
would stop blocking the Senate from passing my Saving Coal Jobs Act. It
is commonsense legislation that would give elected representatives of
the people a greater say in how coal is regulated in this country.
There is no reason for him to keep it bottled up a moment longer.
Look. Kentucky is facing a real crisis. The Obama administration
appears to be sending signals that its latest regulation is actually
just the beginning in a new, expanded front in its war on coal. Already
the administration's regulations have played a significant role in
causing coal jobs in my State to plummet. These are good jobs which pay
more than $1 billion in annual wages to my constituents. For every
miner with a job, three more Kentuckians will hold a coal-dependent job
as well.
The majority leader and his Democratic caucus now have a choice: Are
they going to stand with the coal families under attack in places such
as Kentucky and West Virginia and Colorado or are they going to
continue to stand with the powerful leftwing special interests who want
to see their jobs completely eliminated? That is the choice. It is
pretty clear where I stand and where most of my colleagues on this side
of the aisle stand.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Reservation of Leader Time
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
leadership time is reserved.
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