[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 6, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2681-S2684]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ENERGY SAVINGS AND INDUSTRIAL COMPETITIVENESS ACT OF 2014--MOTION TO 
                                PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 368, S. 
2262, which is the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency legislation.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 368, S. 2262, a bill to 
     promote energy savings in residential buildings and industry, 
     and for other purposes.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the 
Republican leader, the time until 11 a.m. will be equally divided and 
controlled between the two leaders or their designees.
  At 11 o'clock this morning there will be a cloture vote on the motion 
to proceed to the energy efficiency bill.
  The Senate will recess, as we do on virtually every Tuesday, from 
12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. for our weekly caucus meetings. I would advise 
all Senators that at 2:15 p.m. today we will do our congressional photo 
that we do every 2 years. So I hope everyone will make sure they are 
here on time so we have everyone in the photo.
  Additionally, there will be a Members-only briefing, a closed 
briefing, tonight at 5:30 regarding Ukraine. I hope everyone would come 
to that. There are some things going on in Ukraine we should all know 
about.


                           Slippery Progress

  Mr. President, being from Nevada and having traveled the State, as I 
have, in rural Nevada, we have rodeos. I have been to a few rural 
rodeos in my life. They are always a lot of fun, and it is a unique 
form of entertainment. It is good for everybody, for families.
  One of the things a number of these rodeos have around the country 
are greased-pig contests. For all those who do not know what a greased-
pig contest is, here is what it is: The organizers get a little pig--a 
piglet--and they cover this little animal with tons of grease. It is a 
greasy little pig. Then they turn the kids loose. They invite these 
children to chase one of these pigs. Pigs are a little slippery to 
begin with, but if you cover them with grease, they are really 
slippery.
  These kids run around the arena trying to grab this pig. They grab it 
and fall. They have a great time. The children run as fast as they can. 
Some of them get smart and do not run so fast. They wait until the pig 
turns around--and they do a lot of times. But they try to scoop up this 
scurrying pig. It is really quite a spectacle, and it is a lot of fun 
to watch. There is no pain to the pig. It is kind of a painless ordeal 
for the pig. But it is a lot of fun, as I said.
  It is obvious what happens every time they grab the pig. They slip. 
The pig goes on about its business, running. They fall into the dirt. 
They come out covered with grease and dirt. But eventually--
eventually--one of these kids will wind up with the pig. Sometimes two 
kids grab the pig. They understand what happens, and they put the pig 
in one of their arms, and someone comes and takes the pig. But they 
have a good time.
  The vast majority of the kids never touch the pig. They go away 
emptyhanded, for sure. And that is regardless of how hard they try.
  The reason I mention this, ofttimes working with my Senate Republican 
colleagues, it reminds me of chasing one of these little pigs in a 
greased-pig contest. Regardless of all of our efforts, anytime we get 
close to making progress, it seems as though we watch it slip out of 
our hands and the Republicans scamper away.
  Take, for example, the legislation that is currently before the 
Senate--the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill. This bill has 
bipartisan support. We tried to do the bill a year ago. Frankly, at 
that time the bill was good, but not nearly as good as it is now. It is 
a very substantive piece of legislation.
  From the time last year to today, the committee--under the direction, 
then, of Senator Wyden, who was chair of the committee, working with 
all the members on that committee--put other things in the bill, and 
the bill that is now before the Senate is much stronger than it was a 
year ago.

[[Page S2682]]

  This legislation will make our country more energy independent and 
protect our environment. It will spur the use of energy efficiency 
technologies in private homes and commercial buildings, at no cost to 
taxpayers. It is an energy efficiency bill, and it has bipartisan 
support.
  This legislation will make our country more energy independent and 
protect our environment. It will also save consumers and taxpayers 
money, and lots of it. It will do it by lowering their energy bills, 
saving about $16 billion a year--that is what they tell us--and it will 
create up to 200,000 jobs that cannot be exported.

  I have commended a number of times--and I will do it again--Senators 
Shaheen and Portman for their persistence in bringing this bill to the 
floor. This is a fine piece of legislation. But it seems, for the 
second time within a year, passage of this bipartisan legislation is in 
question because Senate Republicans keep changing their requests. This 
time around the minority party seems intent on a repeat performance of 
last year.
  Remember last year. The same thing. We want this; we want this. But 
the clincher we were told was that--last year--they would not vote on 
the bill unless we brought a bill sponsored by the Senator from 
Louisiana--the name was not Landrieu; it would be the junior Senator 
from Louisiana--saying: I demand a vote, before we do this legislation, 
on doing away with the health insurance Senate staff have. Can you 
imagine that. But that was his demand, and it is his demand again. He 
called to tell me that.
  In order to allow us to vote on this bill, I was told before the 
break that the Republicans wanted a vote on Keystone--a sense-of-the-
Senate resolution. I thought about it, and I came back to them before 
the recess and said: OK, we will do that. We come back after the break, 
and they come to me and say: Well, we have changed our mind. What we 
want now is a straight up-or-down vote on the legislation. That is not 
the agreement we had. But, anyway, I said: OK, we will do that.
  Well, now we are told that there are up to five amendments they want. 
And yesterday--last evening--I was told there is another one I never 
heard of. This is something about geothermal, but the extent of it I do 
not understand. But it is always something else.
  We have these new provisions that have been added to the bill to make 
this legislation even stronger than last year.
  To add further to the absurdity of what we are doing here, again the 
junior Senator from Louisiana wants a vote on taking away health care 
for our staffs. I said to him: But why would you do that? He said: 
Well, the higher paid employees, they can probably afford to get it 
themselves. I am paraphrasing because I remember the telephone 
conversation. He said--no, I am sorry; here it is--the lower waged 
salaried employees in the Senate, they will get subsidies--a lot of 
them. I said: What about those who do not? He said: They could buy 
their own insurance.
  These men and women who work in the Senate work very hard. They 
should be treated as other employees around the country. Their employer 
should help them with their insurance. But it appears as if it is a 
virtual reenactment of last September. It seems as though this is 
nothing but a game of diversion and obstruction to many Senate 
Republicans.
  But it is not a game. Every time a group of Republicans feigns 
interest in bipartisanship, only to scramble away at the last moment, 
it is part of a calculated political scheme.
  We know on the very night of President Obama's first inauguration, a 
group of Republican political consultants--there is some dispute as to 
who called the meeting, whether it was Frank Lutz or Karl Rove, but a 
meeting was held--gathered, the Republicans gathered, to discuss their 
plans for regaining power after President Obama won the election.
  They devised a plan to oppose all legislation and all nominees in 
order to make President Obama and Democrats look ineffective--to make 
our country, I assume, look more ineffective. But their No. 1 goal was 
to make sure President Obama was not reelected.
  They failed with that, but they have not failed at obstructing, 
filibustering, and stopping the legislative process. Instead of working 
with us to pass meaningful legislation that helps American families, 
Republican leadership has shown more interest in agreeing to nothing. 
So as Senate Republicans continue to play hard to get with Democrats 
who are working in good faith, the American people's frustration grows.
  This bill presents a unique opportunity for all my Republican 
colleagues--a chance to work with us in crafting and passing bipartisan 
legislation that will help the country.
  I and my 54 Democratic colleagues have been flexible throughout this 
process, and we hope to reach an agreement that gives both sides most 
of what they want. But time is running out on this good piece of 
legislation--running out again.
  So I invite all of my Republican colleagues to work with us in good 
faith. Help us pass a bill which creates jobs, saves money, and puts 
our country on the track to energy independence.


                   Recognition Of The Minority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The Republican leader is 
recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have the floor.
  Please go ahead.


                           Energy Amendments

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me briefly make a few observations 
about some of the majority leader's opening comments this morning.
  As he knows full well, Senator Vitter dropped his request for an 
ObamaCare amendment days ago, before the weekend. I think it is 
important for everybody to understand, the minority in the Senate has 
had eight votes since July--eight votes since July--on amendments that 
we wished to vote on.
  We have not had a fulsome energy debate in the Senate since 2007--7 
years ago. What we are asking for here is four or five amendments 
related to the subject of energy--one of the biggest issues in our 
country. That is hardly obstructionism. It is laughable to suggest that 
it is obstructionism for the minority to be given four or five 
amendments on issues related to the underlying bill, particularly since 
we have only had eight amendment votes on amendments that we wanted to 
vote on since last July, and we have not had a fulsome, broad-ranging 
energy debate since 2007.
  So I would say to my friend, the majority leader, I do not think 
there is anything at all unreasonable about what we are requesting. Far 
from obstructionism, it is about time we had a debate on energy. We are 
having an energy boom in this country. It is important to our 
constituents all across the land. Forty-five Republicans represent 
millions of Americans. We wish to have a chance to have our voices 
heard occasionally. Eight amendments for the minority since July? This 
is not the way the Senate ought to be run.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Responding to my friend, the reason we haven't had debates 
in the Senate on legislation is because Republicans won't let us get on 
bills.
  Let's take the bill that we are talking about today. Could we step 
back just a minute and try to do something that is good for the 
country? Shaheen-Portman is a good bill for America from last year to 
this year.
  My friend can say all he wants about the junior Senator from 
Louisiana. Everyone knows what he has done on legislation in the past. 
He called me and told me that we weren't going to move forward on this 
bill unless he got a vote--what I just talked about. But from the last 
time we did this bill, these are the amendments that are incorporated 
in this bill: Collins-Mark Udall on energy efficient schools; Bennet-
Ayotte, Better Buildings; Franken amendment to require Federally leased 
buildings to benchmark energy use data; Mark Udall-Risch, amendment to 
promote energy efficiency in data centers; Whitehouse-Collins--every 
one of these bipartisan--on low-income housing retrofits; Landrieu-
Wicker amendment on Energy STAR third-party testing; Landrieu-Wicker-
Pryor amendment on Federal green buildings; Hoeven-Pryor amendment on 
water heaters; Hoeven-Manchin and Isakson-Bennet amendments on energy 
efficiency in Federal and residential buildings; and the Sessions-Pryor 
amendment on third-party testing.
  Last month Shaheen and Portman introduced a new version of their bill

[[Page S2683]]

incorporating all of these changes. The bill has 14 cosponsors, seven 
on each side. It is sponsored on the Republican side by Senators 
Portman, Ayotte, Collins, Hoeven, Isakson, Murkowski, and Wicker; and 
on the Democratic side by Senators Shaheen, Bennet, Coons, Franken, 
Landrieu, Manchin, and Warner.
  It will be hard to find a more bipartisan, consensus piece of 
legislation. All of all of this is a bipartisan piece of legislation, 
but always it is a shell game. OK, we have got it here. I am trying to 
figure out where I put that shell. Is it here? Where is that dollar? Is 
it here?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Would the majority leader yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. I will yield in just 1 second.
  This is what I talked about earlier. We have been going 5 years with 
this--5 years--trying to stop anything Obama wants to do. Obama would 
like to see this passed and so would a bipartisan group of Senators. 
But for 5 years we have put up with this. It doesn't matter what it is. 
If Obama wants it, they are against it.
  We can have all this sweet talk about how the Senate shall operate. 
The Senate shall operate by allowing legislation to go forward. This is 
a perfect example but, no, no--I have told them, if they want a vote on 
Keystone, they have a vote on Keystone. That is not good enough for 
them. They add four or five other amendments.
  It is never quite enough. So we can see what is going to happen. They 
are going to let us on the bill today, and they are going to say: 
Because we don't get our amendments, we are not going to vote to get 
off the bill.
  It has happened time and time again. We waste hours on this.
  With all this happy talk about how the Senate should operate--
remember, we changed the rules. Why did we do that? Because we had 
scores of judges that we had to wait for them to give us permission to 
move to.
  We changed the rules. We don't in any way apologize to anybody for 
having changed the rules.
  This is where we are. Legislation is at a standstill, and we have on 
the books now 140 nominations that are held up. They have held 
everybody up. We get a few here and a few there.
  But the one thing I can't hold up any more are judges. We are moving 
on the judges. We are going to get the judges done.
  If they want to continue blocking ambassadors--we have the Secretary 
of State, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, who is going to Angola. We don't have an ambassador there. 
We don't have an ambassador to Peru. In scores of countries we don't 
have an American representative there.
  There are some political appointments. We can talk about those 
separately. Every President has political appointments, but I am not 
pushing this. What I am pushing is the fact that we have these career 
Foreign Service officers who have waited an entire lifetime. They have 
worked in these countries in very difficult situations. They have been 
political officers, they have been economic officers, and now they get 
a chance to be an ambassador. It is like going to the Super Bowl in the 
diplomacy world, and they are not going to get that.
  I think that the American people understand what is going on. That is 
why, as a result of polls we have seen, people understand the game the 
Republicans have played for 5 years. The people are going to have to 
decide this November as to whether they want another 2 years of 
obstruction as we have seen it.
  This is good legislative policy. The Shaheen-Portman bill would be 
good for the country, but as usual we have a lot that is good for the 
country--and we have had it. We don't get much done in the Senate.
  Give us some amendments. This is what they say every time because no 
matter what we do, it is not good enough.
  Shaheen-Portman is a good bill. We have 10 new provisions in it. That 
is not good enough.
  We can give them a vote on Keystone--that is not good enough, and 
that is the way it always is. So there are no surprises to me in what 
they have done today and what they will probably do on Wednesday or 
Thursday.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. My friend the majority leader wandered rather far 
afield. The subject for today is whether it would be inappropriate at 
10:20 a.m. on a Tuesday for the minority to have four or five 
amendments of its choosing, sometime during the course of the week.
  It is great that some amendments have been accepted by Members on my 
side. I am happy about that. The majority picked the ones they were 
willing to accept and accepted them. I think that is great.
  But what about the rest of the Members of the minority, who are not 
suggesting that we would drop unusual amendments or amendments on an 
entirely different subject--four or five amendments during the course 
of the week, with relatively short time agreements, related to the 
subject of energy.
  It strikes me that is simply not unacceptable. We have had eight 
votes on amendments of our choosing since last July--eight. This is not 
the way to run the Senate.
  The minority represents a lot of Americans, millions and millions of 
Americans. We are entitled to have our ideas debated and voted on in 
the Senate as well, ones that we want to vote on, not ones that the 
majority leader picks for us.
  That is the point. We don't think what we are asking is in any way 
unreasonable. It is certainly consistent with the traditions of the 
Senate, particularly since we have only had 8 votes on amendments of 
our choosing in the last 7 or 8 months. I mean, goodness gracious. 
There is a way to finish this bill. It does enjoy broad bipartisan 
support.
  The majority leader mentioned the President. I don't know that his 
name has come up in connection with this. We are simply asking for the 
opportunity to debate and vote on important energy amendments on an 
energy bill during the pendency of the week. That is all we are asking.
  I wish to go on. I understand later the majority leader is going to 
do some procedural matters, so let me go on and make my opening 
statement.


                                 Energy

  Later today we expect the President to talk about the weather at the 
White House. Presumably, he will use the platform to renew his call for 
a national energy tax, and I am sure he will get loud cheers from 
liberal elites, from the kinds of people who leave a giant carbon 
footprint and then lecture everybody else about low-flow toilets.
  But the vast majority of middle-class Kentuckians I represent 
actually have to worry about paying utility bills, putting food on 
table, and finding a job in this terrible economy. They are less 
interested in just doing something on energy. They want to do the smart 
thing.
  What they want are practical solutions to the problems and stresses 
they are dealing with every single day. That is what we should be 
focusing on this week because this debate shouldn't be about 
alleviating the guilt complexes of the liberal elite. It should be 
about actually achieving the best outcome for the environment, for 
energy security and, most importantly, for the people we were sent here 
to represent.
  One thing that seems clear is this. Even if we were to enact the 
kinds of national energy regulations the President seems to want so 
badly, it would be unlikely to meaningfully impact global emissions 
anyway unless other major industrial nations do the same. That means 
getting countries such as China and India on board.
  The President knows that. The President also knows that much of the 
pain of imposing such regulations would be borne by our own middle 
class.
  That is why this discussion has become so cynical, and it is part of 
the reason the President's own party couldn't even pass a national 
energy tax when it had complete control of Washington's Congress back 
in 2009 and 2010. If the American people weren't willing to go along 
with considerable domestic pain for negligible global gain then, it is 
foolish to think they would assent to a bad idea now.
  Remember, even the President's own party in the Senate wouldn't bring 
up the President's proposal for a national energy tax despite their 
overnight speeches and complaints about everyone else.

[[Page S2684]]

  Of course, none of this has stopped the President from trying to get 
his way anyway. That is why we have seen this administration's attempt 
to do an end run around the legislative process to try to impose a 
similar agenda through executive fiat.
  It needs to be stopped. The President's regulations are hurting 
people, often people who are already struggling and vulnerable--the 
very people the President claims he wants to help.
  Our constituents are being hurt because of a cynical political 
agenda, because of a war on coal and other sources off American energy 
that the far left like and the Democratic Party is simply demanding.
  The middle class doesn't even have a meaningful say in this 
discussion because the President has decided the Congress the people 
elect doesn't really matter anymore. Republicans are trying to change 
that this week.
  We have asked the majority leader to allow votes on energy amendments 
that would let our constituents have a say for once. My constituents in 
Kentucky should be able to weigh in on an EPA rule that would 
negatively impact existing and future coal plants. Kentuckians deserve 
a real say on ongoing regulatory efforts to tie up mining permits and 
the red tape that is stifling the creation of good jobs in coal 
country.
  Our constituents should finally be truly heard on the Keystone 
Pipeline they overwhelmingly support. The American people deserve a 
real debate on how we can best tap our own extraordinary natural 
resources to achieve energy independence at home and how we can help 
our allies overseas through increased exports of American energy.
  These are the proposals we should be voting on this very week, 
proposals that can help our economy, boost the middle class and jobs 
while strengthening our national security and lessening our dependence 
on foreign sources of energy.
  But we can't move forward if the Democrats who run the Senate keep 
trying to protect the President at the expense of serving their 
constituents. We know they are getting pressure from the White House to 
shut down a real debate on energy. One of the President's aides 
yesterday made it clear that it will be leaning on Democratic Senators 
to ``get the right outcome.''
  In other words, this is to do the White House's political bidding and 
to once again ensure that struggling middle-class Americans get the 
short end of the stick from the Democrats here in Washington.
  The American middle class is hurting, absolutely hurting. By a 2 to 1 
margin Americans say the country's economic conditions are poor. Only 
about one-quarter say there are enough jobs available where they live, 
and they have been suffering from years of spiking electricity prices 
that would only get worse if the President's agenda were fully 
realized.
  These are the people who deserve our attention. They are the ones who 
are struggling, not the far left, not the activists who yell the 
loudest and appear to care the least about who their ideas actually 
hurt, and not the President's political fixtures in the White House. 
These are not the people on whom we should be focusing.
  It is time--way past time--to start paying attention to the people 
who actually sent us to the Senate. They deserve a robust debate about 
how to develop policies that can actually lead to lower utility bills 
that can put coal families back to work, that can help create well-
paying jobs, that can help increase energy security, and that can help 
prevent energy from being used as a tool of war and oppression by 
global adversaries.
  That is why we were sent to the Senate to debate these kinds of 
things.
  If Democrats have good ideas on energy too, this is the time to share 
theirs.
  What is wrong with having amendments from both sides on this bill. We 
want to hear everybody's serious ideas.
  The American people have waited 7 long years, as I said earlier, for 
a serious energy debate in the Democratic-run Senate--7 years. It is 
about time they got it, and this is the perfect week to do it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. To belittle the President of the United States for wanting 
to talk about climate change is pretty obviously wrong. One can 
mischaracterize all they want the fact that President Obama recognizes 
climate is changing worldwide, but it is truly a mischaracterization if 
anyone thinks this is not something that is serious.

  It always appears when we get into a serious debate about a subject, 
whether it is energy efficiency or climate change, the Republicans want 
to change the subject, to divert or to obstruct. So what is the 
Republican answer to this climate change, which is real: more oil 
production--that is one of their solutions--block regulations to 
protect health and the environment, deny climate change is happening at 
all.
  The senior Senator from Oklahoma says it is a hoax. It is not a hoax. 
It is real, and I am very happy the President is saying something about 
this.

                          ____________________