Congressional Record, Volume 160 Issue 69 (Thursday, May 8, 2014)

[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 69 (Thursday, May 8, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2847-S2859]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

HIRE MORE HEROES ACT OF 2014--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.

ENERGY POLICY

Mr. HELLER. Mr. President, as has been discussed much this week, I
believe our Nation needs a comprehensive energy policy that allows us
to develop our own domestic resources and use existing resources more
efficiently. The United States is blessed with an abundance of natural
resources and we have to act to ensure an affordable, stable supply of
energy needed to power our economy by developing them responsibly.
Democrats and Republicans must work together to develop concrete
policies that will lower prices, expand domestic production, and reduce
our dependence on foreign sources of energy and minerals.
That is why the debate we are having in the Senate this week is so
important. As a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, I have seen how much work has gone into the Energy Savings
and Industrial Competitiveness Act so far and have enjoyed being part
of that process. This committee also has oversight over many of the
other important, responsible energy policies we have been debating this
week. That is why I was disappointed to see a procedural step taken by
the majority yesterday blocking consideration of any amendments--even
amendments related to the very legislation we are considering today. I
sincerely hope that prior to the cloture vote on this bill we can find
a bipartisan path forward to vote on related amendments such as the
Keystone XL Pipeline.
Earlier this week I filed two commonsense amendments that I hoped
could be and would be included in the debate this week. These
initiatives would expand renewable energy development across the West
and put the brakes on job-killing regulations that threaten to
drastically increase our constituents' electric bills at a time when
middle-class families across this country have already been forced to
tighten their belts. Both of these amendments are consistent with the
goals of the legislation before us today and are worthy of
consideration, I believe, by this body.
My first amendment, No. 2987, mirrors legislation I introduced in the
Senate last December, the Energy Consumers Relief Act. This initiative
would help protect Americans from new billion-dollar EPA regulations
that may increase energy prices and, of course, destroy jobs.
The United States, and especially my home State of Nevada, continues
to grapple with high unemployment, with record numbers of Americans
underemployed, and with families struggling to make ends meet. Instead
of advocating for policies that would put people back to work, the
Obama administration continues to develop rules that will increase
Americans' utility costs, causing companies to lay off employees and
stifle economic growth.
Just last month the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers put forth a
new rule that will significantly expand Federal regulatory authority
under the Clean Water Act. This rule would have a chilling effect,
particularly out West where our water resources are scant and
hydropower plays a significant role in our energy portfolio. Just this
week I visited with local irrigation managers and our rural electric
cooperatives in my office, and they expressed strong concerns that the
substantial regulatory costs associated with changes in jurisdiction
and increased permitting requirements will result in bureaucratic
barriers to economic growth, infrastructure development, and energy
production.
These are the types of administrative actions Congress must rein in.
My amendment would specifically require the EPA to be transparent when
proposing and issuing energy-related regulations with an economic
impact of $1 billion or more. Additionally, it would prohibit the EPA
from finalizing a rule if the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with
other relevant agencies, determines the rule would cause significant
adverse effects to the economy.
All we are talking about here is transparency and accountability.
American taxpayers deserve nothing less from their government. It is
important to note that this initiative passed the House with
overwhelming bipartisan support last year. The Senate should do the
same.
My second amendment, No. 2992, on which I teamed up with my friend
from Montana, Senator Jon Tester, to craft, is an initiative we have
been working on for many years. The Public Lands Renewable Energy
Development Act is a strong bipartisan proposal that will help create
jobs, progress towards energy independence, and preserve our Nation's
natural wonders by spurring renewable energy development on public
lands.
In Nevada we need jobs, not policies that make job creation more
difficult. Energy is one of our State's greatest assets, and I believe
continuing to develop renewable and alternative sources are important
for Nevada's economic future.
Geothermal and solar production in my State is an integral part of
the United States's ``all of the above'' energy strategy. In fact, my
home State of Nevada is often called the Saudi Arabia of geothermal.
Our Nation's public lands can play a critical role in that mission, but
uncertainty in the permitting process impedes or delays our ability to
harness their renewable energy potential.
Under current law permits for wind and solar development are
completed under the same process for other surface uses, such as
pipelines, roads, or power lines. The public land management agencies
need a permitting process tailored to the unique characteristics and
impacts of renewable energy projects. This initiative develops a
straightforward process that will drive investment towards the highest
quality renewable sources.
In addition, the legislation establishes a revenue sharing mechanism
that ensures a fair return for all. Since Federal lands are not
taxable, State and local governments deserve a share of the revenues
from the sales of energy production on public lands within their
borders. These resources will help local governments deliver critical
services and develop much-needed capital improvement projects, such as
road maintenance, public safety, and law enforcement. Additionally,
revenues will be utilized to support fish and wildlife conservation
projects and to increases outdoor recreation, such as hunting, fishing,
and hiking activities that serve as a critical economic engine in the
rural parts of my State.
There is no doubt alternative sources of energy are a critical
component of our ``all of the above'' energy future. While we work to
develop and perfect alternative technologies, we need to secure our
economy now by having an energy policy that respects the cause of the
problem--supply and demand.
I hope the Senate can put partisan politics aside and have the
opportunity to vote on related amendments to this bill--like those I
have just discussed today. These strong bipartisan proposals will rein
in harmful regulations and spur domestic energy production. Congress
should take this opportunity to take a major step forward in
implementing 21st century energy policies that will create jobs and
keep consumer energy prices low.
I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.

Remembering Jim Oberstar

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today to
honor the life of a truly remarkable man--a devoted husband, a loving
father and grandfather, a dedicated friend, and a true public servant.
Jim

[[Page S2848]]

Oberstar was a man of purpose and grit who never stopped fighting for
the people of his district, the people of northeastern Minnesota.
His resilience was the resilience of the people he represented. He
was one of those rare people who was just as comfortable in the Aurora,
MN, parade in khakis and tennis shoes as he was at the French Embassy.
One unique thing about Jim Oberstar was that he always broke into
French at a moment's notice, and he would literally speak French at the
French Embassy and in Paris, but he might also speak French at the
Aurora parade, even though no one else there spoke French.
Whether he was biking the Mesabi Trail or fishing on Sturgeon Lake or
hanging out with some of his constituents at Tom & Jerry's Bar in
Chisholm--which is where he grew up--he always loved northern Minnesota
and the people he represented.
Jim never lost sight of where he came from or the values he grew up
with. He knew that, among other things, his job in Washington was to be
an advocate, and he approached every day with a fierce but disciplined
urgency of purpose. What I loved most about him was that, in a day of
sound bites and quick fixes, he was never afraid to give that long,
long explanation of why he voted for something or why he thought it was
important to his constituents.
As the Star Tribune noted this week, Jim was always a popular
editorial guest and meetings with him were the ``equivalent of a
graduate school seminar.''
When I think about Jim, I first think--as someone whose roots are
also in northern Minnesota, whose grandpa worked in the mines--about
how he fought hard to keep the mines open when times were tough, back
when things were bleak and people were hurting.
Like my own grandpa, Jim's dad was Slovenian, and he was proud of
that. And Jim's dad, like my own grandpa, was also an underground
miner. They were part of a generation of immigrants who toiled hundreds
of feet underground day after day to mine the iron ore that built this
Nation and kept the world free in World War II.
It was a hard, hard life--long days and treacherous conditions, their
families living in fear of that dread whistle that meant another miner
had been injured or killed. Jim knew that sound well because he lived
through it.
So when Jim got to Congress, he fought tirelessly to not only keep
the mines open but to protect the rights of the workers and to improve
safety.
During his first years in the House, Jim pushed for legislation that
created the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Today, thanks to the
hard work of Congressman Jim Oberstar, mining conditions have greatly
improved.
That was bread-and-butter legislation for Jim--straightforward,
commonsense policies that made people's lives better. It sounds simple,
but we know in Washington today there are too many people who would
rather score political points than get down to the hard work of
governing. Not Jim Oberstar. He was a man of conviction.
In a business known for rewarding the expedient over the noble, he
lived a life of principle. He played the long game, and he did it on
behalf of the American people. That is a great American, and that is a
legacy worth celebrating.
We lost Jim suddenly this week in the middle of the night in his
sleep. The day before he had spent the day with his grandkids. He had
gone to one of his grandchildren's plays. He had been going on long
bike rides.
Even after he lost his election in 2010, he never let it get him
down. He took all that energy and zest for life and put it into his
family, put it into the continuing work he did on transportation, put
it into his friends and everything he loved to do.
We mourned him today, but we also celebrated the incredible gifts Jim
gave to our country. It is awe-inspiring to think about how much time
he spent mastering Federal transportation policy: 47 years--nearly five
decades--11 as a staff member on the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee and 36 as an elected representative. During
that time he literally changed the landscape of Minnesota and the
country. His fingerprints can be found on just about every major
federally funded transportation project during the last five decades--
roads, bridges, tunnels, rails, locks and dams, and bike paths.
Jim loved bike paths. He was a visionary. He was in front of everyone
on that. He would try to get money for bike paths, and people would
laugh at him: Bike paths? Who cares about bike paths?
Now everyone wants bike paths. Everyone wants bike paths in their
communities.
Every American who flies in an airplane or drives on our Federal
highways can thank Jim Oberstar. Every American who bikes their bike
trails and hikes places such as the beautiful Lake Superior Trail in
northern Minnesota or drives on our national highways and bridges
should remember him.
He was a treasure trove of facts, figures, and advice for every
Member of Congress. He always used to kind of poke fun at the Senate
because he claimed things came here and didn't get done. He would
always say: All that ever happens in the Senate is you ratify treaties
and confirm judges.
One day, close to my own election, I was looking at the newspaper
clips and I saw my name next to Jim saying that and I thought: Oh no,
what has he said.
It was in the International Falls paper, and I got it out and he had
said: Well, all the Senate ever does is confirm judges and ratify
treaties, but Amy is going to try to rescue this bill. She will try to
get it done.
I was quite relieved.
One of the most memorable stories for me came on his last day in the
House when Members came and told stories about him. There was a
Congressman from Pennsylvania who talked about the time Jim visited his
district to celebrate the opening of a new bridge. He said that Jim
stood up with no notes and recited in incredible detail almost every
infrastructure project that had ever been built in that district, along
with the name of every Congressman who had ever served in the district,
with all the right pronunciations, and he even included their middle
initials. He did it with no notes. The Congressman was in awe. He
walked back to his office, started looking back through the records and
Googling things, and it was no surprise to anyone that Jim was exactly
right. That was Jim.
He loved politics. He thought of government as an honorable
profession, and he was so proud of the people who followed in his
footsteps, whether what he taught Senator Franken and me as we started
representing Minnesota or one of his favorites, the mayor of Duluth,
Don Ness, who started working with him when he was 23 years old as a
young aide or whether it was all the staff members who worked for him
all those years. He was so proud of the people he taught, the people he
mentored. He was so proud of the Members in Congress--Democrats and
Republicans--with whom he worked. He would so often work to get
amendments and get little projects for their districts, and then he
would let them take the credit when they went home.
I wish to end today with something Jim said in his farewell speech to
Congress. He was reflecting on why he had originally run for office,
and this is what he said:

[The reason] why I came is to serve the people, to meet the
needs of their respective families, and to leave this
district, leave this House, leave this nation a better place
than I found it.

There is no question that Jim Oberstar left this world better than he
found it. Through his incredible legacy of public service, he found
immortality in the beautiful children and grandchildren who were and
are his family. He has left the world a better place. The youngest one,
a little baby we met today at the funeral, was recently adopted, and
Jim's daughter named him ``Jim.''
He left the world so much. He not only taught us how to win elections
because he knew how to do that, he also taught us how to act and what
to do when you lose an election.
He has found immortality in the hearts of those who knew him and the
lives of countless more who never will, in the majestic grandeur of
stately bridges and in the cool shadows of quiet bike paths, in the
hardhats hanging in the lockers of hard-working miners who go home
safely at the end of

[[Page S2849]]

the day. That is where you will find Jim Oberstar. That is where his
legacy lives on.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. FRANKEN. I thank Senator Klobuchar for her moving tribute to Jim
Oberstar. We both had the honor of speaking today at his funeral. We
were both honored by his wife Jean and by his family.
Jim served the Eighth District for 36 years as their Representative.
He served it for 11 years before that as a staffer on the Hill, as
Senator Klobuchar said. As she said, he died last weekend in his sleep.
I think Senator Klobuchar told me that the family said he wasn't 99
percent, he was 100 percent. So this came as a shock to all of us who
knew Jim, and it obviously deeply saddened us all.
I announced for the Senate in February of 2007, and a few days later
I had my first public event where I took questions from folks. This was
at a coffee shop in St. James, MN, in the southwest corner of our
State, in the First District.
The first question I got was from a woman asking if I believed there
should be term limits. From the way she asked it, I knew she thought
there should be term limits, and I thought: Great. My very first
question and I don't agree with the person who is asking it.
So I said: No, I don't believe in term limits, and let me tell you
why--Jim Oberstar. Jim has been Congressman for the Eighth District for
33 years now, and he is chairman of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, and he knows more about transportation than
anybody else in the country.
Everybody in the coffee shop, including the woman, kind of went,
yes--they nodded--yes, that makes sense.
Jim was a walking advertisement against term limits. He was the
consummate public servant, and it was all because he was a man who
sought knowledge. He had a fierce curiosity about the world and an
intense need to understand how it worked. All that enabled him to
accomplish so much.
If Jim were here today, if he had one more chance to speak to all of
us, first he would say how much he loved his family and his friends and
the people who worked for him. Then he would tell us the history of
American infrastructure, starting with the Erie Canal and how it opened
Midwestern agriculture to Europe because, he would explain, it was 97
percent more efficient to ship those goods over water, down the Hudson
and over to Europe, than before. He would tell us how the Erie Canal
made New York Harbor, New York City, made it what it is today. Then he
would take us through the transcontinental railroad, rural
electrification, the Interstate Highway System, and all the way to
rural broadband. Then he would go back to the Roman aqueducts, which
were built by slave labor, and make an impassioned speech about the
history of the labor movement. Jim sometimes had a tendency to go too
long, but it was because he believed that everyone was as curious about
the world as he was, and he was almost always wrong about that.
I once had the opportunity to speak before Jim at the naming ceremony
for the James Oberstar Riverfront Complex, the headquarters for the
Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota. Since I was speaking
before him, I took the opportunity to predict what Jim would talk
about. I said that he would tell us the legislative history of
Voyageurs National Park; he would tell us about all the different
streams of funding for the park; he would tell us the history of the
French voyageurs, the first White men in Minnesota; and that during
part of the speech, Jim would speak in startlingly fluent French.
Everyone laughed, including Jim, but that didn't stop Jim from telling
us the legislative history of the park, all the different funding
streams, and all about the voyageurs--and that part in French--and
delighting in every word of it.
The first time I ever saw him chair, I went over to the House to see
him chair a committee on high-speed rail. He had witnesses from China,
Japan, France, and some other European country. When it was time for
him to do his questioning, I learned that Jim had piloted every one of
those high-speed rail systems. Of course, when he questioned the French
witness he did it in French, and it was a tour de force--which I
believe is French.
Jim understood the importance of infrastructure to our economy, to
economic development, and, as Amy was saying, for recreation. His
legacy will be in the ports, locks, dams, highways, bridges, and water
systems throughout our country, but it will also be in the bike paths
in Minnesota and around the country.
Jim was an avid bike rider. He used to say he wanted to turn our
transportation system--the fuel--from hydrocarbons to carbohydrates.
Jim will leave a legacy, and, as I said, it all came from Jim's
thirst for knowledge. The pages are here, and I would urge them to
thirst for knowledge, not just information. Some people in this town--
and in other places too--just look for enough information to achieve
some short-term goal. Jim sought knowledge, an understanding of how
things work. Because of that, he was able to get things done and was
respected by all of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Amy and
I were both there the day that colleagues in the House paid tribute to
him, and it was both sides of the aisle equally.
We had a retirement tribute for Jim in Duluth in 2011, and Don Ness,
the mayor of Duluth--about whom Amy spoke briefly and who was at the
service today--told a story at that tribute that says everything about
Jim as a guy.
Don was 23 years old, and he had just been hired to be Jim's campaign
manager. Don's first thing to do with him was the Fourth of July
parades. The Fourth of July parades on the Iron Range are a big deal,
and there are a lot of them. There were six of them in 24 hours. This
was his big chance to impress his new boss, and he screwed up every bit
of it.
The first thing he did was he was so obsessed with making
arrangements that he forgot to make his own hotel reservation on the
Range. Don lived in Duluth. So he drove around the Range to get a room
until 1:30 in the morning. He found one in Virginia, MN. He overslept
and had to drive to Chisholm, and he was late. So he picked up Jim, and
to make up the time, he drove fast and, of course, he got pulled over
and got a ticket, which made them really late for this parade, and they
got put at the end, behind the horses, on a very hot, sweltering day.

All during the day, Donnie made one screw-up after another. He
offended a local DFL activist. He lost Jim for about a half hour. Jim
knew where he was, but he didn't know where Jim was. He left this black
car parked directly in the sun during the parade, and it became--well,
you know what that means.
Thankfully, after the fifth parade, there was going to be a 3-hour
break and they were going to drive to somebody's house where they would
be able to eat and get in the air-conditioning and relax. Donnie
decided to put the signs in the trunk, and as he was doing it, as he
was closing it, he saw the keys in the car, locked in the car, and it
took them 90 minutes to find someone who could open the car, so they
lost their break.
Donnie was a 23-year-old kid, and he was certain he was going to be
fired. He felt he deserved to be fired. Jim had been calm with him all
day, been nice to him all day, but he figured Jim was stuck with him
until the end of the day and at the end of the day he would be fired.
He drives Jim home to Chisholm. It is 9 at night now. They get out of
the car, and he starts to apologize and says: I blew it today. I know
this was my chance, and I have blown it, and I will never be in public
service.
This guy is now--what term is he in now, Amy? His third? Yes, his
third term as mayor of Duluth. What did he get, 87 percent, or
something like that?
But Jim stopped him and wouldn't let him finish. He stopped him and
he said: I am really proud of you. You had a tough day. We had a tough
day. You had a lot of adversity. You had a lot of things to overcome
and you never lost your head, which was really not true; Donnie was
panicking the entire time, which is probably why Donnie made those
mistakes.
But then he gave Don a big hug--that big Jim bear hug that so many
people talked about today. Then Don carried a

[[Page S2850]]

bag for Jim, and Jim one, too, up to the front porch, and Jim said,
before Don went back to the car: I am proud of you. Don't worry about
today. I am proud of you.
Don went back to the car, got in, with his head swimming, and he
couldn't believe the kindness, the warmth. As he started to back out,
he looked back and Jim was still on the porch, and he gave him this big
wave and said: Happy Independence Day.
Minnesota lost a giant, the United States lost a giant this week, but
we also lost a good guy. He was a great guy--a great man and a good
guy.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaine). 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 PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Moving Forward

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I hope my Republican colleagues will think
long and hard the next few days. We have made some progress this year--
it has been limited but some progress--in passing a few bipartisan
bills. We started with the Murray-Ryan budget, which was significant,
and we were able to get that done. We were able to get the debt ceiling
raised without the struggle we have had the last 5 years. We were able
to pass an Omnibus spending bill, which is significantly important. We
worked together to pass a childcare development block grant bill. And
after four or five attempts to end a filibuster, which we were unable
to do, but finally we were able to do that, we got five stalwart
Republicans to join with us and we passed the unemployment extension
benefits.
Today, we have before us the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill,
creating 200,000 jobs. It is a fine piece of legislation. It started
out good, but it got better as the bill's sponsors worked together to
incorporate 10 Republican amendments, joined by some Democrats, and it
is a better bill now than it has ever been.
My Republican colleagues, for more than a year, have been asking:
Please let us vote again on Keystone. I personally oppose Keystone. I
think it is really bad to make oil out of the most dirty carbon stuff
there is, to ship it clear across the United States, and then to ship
it overseas, which is what they would like to do. I oppose that. But if
Republicans think it would help get energy efficiency passed, let's
vote on it, and that is what I have told everybody.
If they want a vote on Keystone, that was the agreement they made,
let us have a vote on Keystone, and then let the bill that was
sponsored by 14 Democrats and Republicans--7 of each--to move forward.
I want to be very clear with my Republican colleagues. The Keystone
vote is on the table if they will simply stand by the agreement they
had a week ago with me. All it would do is to allow the Senate to move
forward with a bipartisan energy efficiency bill.
The Republicans have stated and stated and stated they want a vote on
Keystone. Good, let's take a vote on Keystone. Can't they take yes for
an answer? The answer is: No.
We are involved in this shell game. If seven of my Democrats made an
agreement with the Republican leader, I think it would be untoward of
me to go to those Democratic Senators and say--for base politics--drop
the approval of what you believe in.
We have been through this before. There is no better example of that
than the Transportation appropriations bill led by Chairman Murray and
Ranking Member Collins. They worked so hard on that--lots of work they
did on it. Amendments were offered. But do you know what happened? The
Republican leader said: We are not going to pass that, and we didn't.
That is when Ranking Member Collins said: I have never known--I am
paraphrasing, but this isn't far from an exact quote--I have never
known a leader to work so hard against one of their own.
All we are asking is for Republicans to drop their filibuster of this
bipartisan bill sponsored by 14 Democrats and Republicans. The bill is
supported by the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the
National Association of Manufacturers, and many others.
Sadly, the Republican leader has said, in effect, if he can't get
everything he wants--and right now that is a moving target--the
Republicans who worked on this bill are out of luck. This is not the
spirit of compromise in which this body is supposed to operate, but
unfortunately it is what we hear all too often from my friend the
Republican leader--nothing but endless obstruction and gridlock.
I know many Republicans are unhappy with the way things have been
going. They talk to me. I am sure part of it is just to get this off
their chest, but they want to change things around here. My message to
them is: The only thing standing in the way of our moving forward on
energy efficiency or other bipartisan legislation is to move forward on
it. And if Keystone is the object of what they want done, let's get it
done.
I hope my Republican colleagues will think hard in the coming days
about the right thing to do. Do they want to continue waging
obstruction, as we have seen on minimum wage and on pay equity? We know
the right answer is that we should move forward, and I hope in the days
ahead we will come together. It is really for the American people.
Mr. President, it is my understanding the motion to proceed to H.R.
3474 is now pending.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.

Cloture Motion

Mr. REID. There is a cloture motion I have brought to the desk and I
ask the Presiding Officer of the Senate to report that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to Calendar No. 332, H.R. 3474, an act to amend the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow employers to exempt
employees with health coverage under TRICARE or the Veterans
Administration from being taken into account for purposes of
the employer mandate under the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act.
Harry Reid, Ron Wyden, Robert Menendez, Patty Murray,
Barbara Boxer, Jon Tester, Debbie Stabenow, Maria
Cantwell, Bill Nelson, Thomas R. Carper, Patrick J.
Leahy, Brian Schatz, Mark R. Warner, Charles E.
Schumer, John D. Rockefeller IV, Benjamin L. Cardin,
Martin Heinrich.

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under
rule XXII be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Affordable Care Act

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, there was a fairly remarkable hearing in
the House of Representatives yesterday in the Energy and Commerce
Committee, upon which I used to sit when I was there. It called
together some of the Nation's biggest insurers to talk about the
failures of the Affordable Care Act as seen through the lens of the
insurance companies.
First up on the docket for Republicans was the claim that no one had
paid their premiums, that people had signed up for plans, but a report
which had been released by the Energy and Commerce Committee in the
House suggested in fact only maybe about 60 percent of them actually
paid their premiums.
So they asked representatives from WellPoint, Aetna, and other
insurance companies to confirm that fact, and of course they did not.
WellPoint said, in fact, 90 percent of the people who signed up for
WellPoint plans--the biggest insurer through the Affordable Care Act--
have paid their premiums. Aetna said the number for them is somewhere
in the low to mid-80s. Both numbers are actually representative of what
people in the non-Affordable Care Act market pay with respect to their
premiums.
When we dig deeper into the Energy and Commerce report, we found out
the

[[Page S2851]]

reason they suggested that only about 60 percent of the people had paid
their premiums is because most people's premiums hadn't been due yet.
They didn't have to pay them when they had signed up for the plans in
February and March.
So they tried another tactic. They said: We have heard all these
reports and news media representations that you are going to be
increasing premiums next year by double digits.
The insurers said: No, we have no idea what our premiums are going to
be next year. We don't have the data yet. In fact, we are starting to
get the subsidies coming into our plans that help keep these premiums
affordable for low- and middle-class individuals across the country.
It turned out to be an absolute disaster for Republicans on the
Energy and Commerce Committee because, as the insurers also pointed
out, their profits have done pretty well, their stock prices have done
pretty well over the past several years, because the Affordable Care
Act is working for patients and, as it turns out, for the insurance
companies that have offered plans on the exchanges.
It is representative of a whole litany of complaints Republicans have
registered with respect to the Affordable Care Act's horror stories and
worst-case scenarios which have simply not come true. I will take a few
minutes to run through each of these arguments because I think it is
important to have some context to understand that each one of their
representations has not come true. Thus, as they turn to their next
series of representations or challenges to the act, I think we can look
back on history as a pretty good predictor of the future when it comes
to Republicans' ability to prognosticate about an Affordable Care Act
which is working now for millions of Americans.
The first thing they said is nobody is going to enroll. They said the
Web site was unfixable. Of course we know that is the easiest to debunk
now that we have 8 million people who have enrolled through the private
exchanges and another 4 million to 6 million people who have enrolled
via Medicaid expansion, and 3 million young adults who are now on their
parents' plan. In fact, enrollment far outpaced what initial
expectations were and beat the CBO estimates by 2 million people.
So clearly Republicans were wrong when they said nobody would sign up
for the Affordable Care Act. They were also wrong when they said the
Web site couldn't be fixed. There is no excuse for what happened in the
fall of last year on the Web site, but it got up and running. Once it
did, people were able to get on in record numbers.
They said the Affordable Care Act was going to kill jobs. We have
done nothing but add jobs by the millions since the Affordable Care Act
was passed. There is a chart, which I don't have on the floor, that
shows what has happened since the Affordable Care Act went into law:
Job growth has continued unabated.
Specifically, Republicans said: It is going to result in people who
were working full time to move to part-time work. The Congressional
Budget Office in a report which came out about 2 months ago said there
is absolutely no economic evidence to suggest full-time work is
shifting to part-time work. That is not a trend actually happening in
the economy. I understand there are anecdotes and stories which are
true where employers have made that choice, but there is no broader
economic evidence that there is a shift from full-time work to part-
time work.
Republicans said it is going to cost too much. Sylvia Burwell was
before the HELP Committee today, and she was very articulate in
explaining the simple fact that the Congressional Budget Office has
revised downward Federal health care expenditures by $900 billion over
the 10-year period from the passage of the Affordable Care Act to a
decade later. We are going to be spending $900 billion less than the
CBO initially thought we would, in large part because of all the
wellness, prevention, and pay-for-performance measures built into the
Affordable Care Act.
Premiums are lower than expected on these exchanges, which saves $5
billion in and of itself. The overall cost of the bill is 17 percent
lower than what CBO initially estimated--huge savings for the Federal
budget and for the specific line items within the Federal health care
act.
OK. Fine, they said, but young people aren't going to sign up. It is
ultimately going to be older, sicker people, and you will not have the
right mix.
I think I said WellPoint was the biggest insurer. It is in fact the
second biggest insurer. They said the average age of enrollment has
come down every single day in a meaningful fashion. The risk pool and
the product selection seem to be coming in the manner we had hoped. It
is very encouraging right now.
Big companies such as United are going to be offering new plans on
exchanges similar to those in Connecticut because they as well see the
risk pools are exactly as they had hoped.
But the uninsured will not sign up. This is just people who were
insured shifting to other plans which are perhaps better or cheaper for
them--bunk as well. The new Gallup survey, which is the best data we
have on the number of people who have or don't have insurance in this
country, shows remarkable decreases over the last two quarters in the
number of uninsured people in this country--frankly, numbers which
almost seem too good to be true--a 25-percent reduction in 6 months'
time with respect to the number of people without insurance in this
country. One-quarter of the Nation's uninsured are now insured in the
first 6 months of the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Lastly, one of the biggest red herrings in this debate has been the
issue of cancellations. No doubt there have been hundreds of thousands
of plans all across the country that have been canceled since the
Affordable Care Act was put into place, but Health Affairs, one of the
most respected, nonpartisan health journals in the country, did an
article, I believe a couple weeks ago, which said there is absolutely
nothing different about the number of cancellations which happened in
the wake of the implementation of the act as compared to what had
happened in that same period before the implementation of the act; that
there is high turnover in the individual market.
While there are certainly some plans which were canceled by insurers
because they didn't meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act,
there wasn't a surge in cancellations compared with the number of
cancellations which happened prior to the act.
So if we just go through--whether it is the claim that no one is
paying their premiums or that rates are going to go up or that nobody
will enroll, that it will kill jobs, that it will cost too much or that
young people will not sign up or that the uninsured will not sign up or
that cancellations are higher than normal--every single one of these
claims turns out to be wrong.
That is not to say this act and its implementation hasn't been
without its significant warts. There are flaws in the bill. There have
been big bumps in implementation, but the fact is that polls are
starting to show a growing acceptance and approval of the law amongst
the American public because they have listened to these claims that the
sky is going to fall from Republicans, and not only has the sky not
fallen, but 15 million or so people across this country have more
affordable health care because of the Affordable Care Act. The
uninsurance rate in this Nation has dropped by 25 percent. Taxpayers
are saving $900 billion over the course of the 10-year period following
the passage of the bill.
I haven't even gotten into the quality metrics. Rates of hospital-
acquired infections are down. The number of people who are readmitted
to the hospital after a complicated surgery is dramatically down.
This is why we passed the Affordable Care Act. It hasn't lived up to
everyone's expectation, but to the extent that the goal of the act was
to reduce the number of people who are uninsured in this country, lower
the rate of growth of health care expenditures, and increase quality,
the data coming in on a day-by-day basis is overwhelming and impossible
to ignore. More people have insurance, cost is coming down, and quality
is getting better.
At some point the facts have to matter. As former Senator Moynihan
said: Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but you don't get to
have your own set of facts.

[[Page S2852]]

Taxpayers, the uninsured, consumers of all stripes understand what
the true story is; that all of the Republican prognostications about
the failure of the Affordable Care Act have not come true in the past
and they are not likely to come true in the future.
There is a lot of work to do to continue to make the Affordable Care
Act better, and I hope every Senator is ready to do that work, but the
data and the numbers tell us that increasingly, on a day-by-day basis,
the Affordable Care Act works.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Health Care

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to
talk about the health care law. I have visited with people in my home
State of Wyoming and people from around the country who come to
Washington, and many of them want to talk about the health care law and
the side effects of the health care law. They want to talk about the
health care law that the Democrats voted for unanimously in this body
and Democrats on the other side of this building voted for
overwhelmingly.
A little earlier today, one of my colleagues who is a supporter of
the law came to the floor to say it is working and everything is great.
I am here to say it is not and to dispute some of the comments made
by my colleague because I am hearing from people whose care has been
affected. Their lives have been affected, the ability to keep their
doctor has been affected, and the cost of their care and the cost of
their insurance has gone up. Many have had their insurance canceled all
because of the health care law.
One of the things the President promised the American people with the
health care law--he said it would lower the cost of care, and people's
premiums would go down $2,500 per family. He said he wanted to go after
this because health care spending was too high in the country, and the
spending was going up. Yet we had a colleague say that the health care
law is a success.
On May 5, just a few days ago, USA Today had a headline that said
``Health Spending Up Most Since '80.'' Health spending is up. The
President said it was going to go down because of his law, but it is up
the most since 1980.
The article says:

Health care spending rose at the fastest pace since 1980
during the first three months of the year . . .

They say that ``Health care spending climbed at a 9.9% annual rate
last quarter''--almost 10 percent. That is not what President Obama
told the American people would happen.
I would point out that this is a drastic increase in spending when
the health care law was supposed to do just the opposite.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports higher spending in
hospitals--the largest rise since the 1980's third-quarter. It is
astonishing when the President promises the American people one thing
and delivers another.
In this same Monday USA Today there is a Pew Research Center poll
which is interesting. When you read about this, it says:

The poll of 1,501 adults, including 1,162 registered
voters, was taken April 23-27 . . . Other findings help
explain the Democrats' woes. By more than 2-1, Americans are
dissatisfied with the direction of the country. They remain
downbeat about the economy. They aren't persuaded that the
Affordable Care Act is going to help them and their families.
Even the president's supporters worry he is a political
liability for fellow Democrats.

I come to the floor today as a doctor who has taken care of patients
for 25 years in Wyoming, and my concern with health care is actually
``care.'' The President became fixated, as did the Democrats, on the
word ``coverage.'' Coverage doesn't actually make sure that people get
the care they need from a doctor they choose at a lower cost. That is
what people wanted with the health care law. They don't want what was
pushed down their throats by the Democrats in the House and the Senate
who said they knew better than the American people.
I find it fascinating to see that in States run by Democrats around
the country--Maryland, Oregon, and Massachusetts--which have had the
exchanges and have given up. They have said, no, our State exchanges
don't work and can't work. Massachusetts has been in play for a number
of years, and they had to shut it down and turn it over to the Federal
Government because of the mandates and complexities of the health care
law--hundreds of millions of dollars that should have gone to care for
people. It should have gone to help people. Instead it has gone to
consultants and computer companies. It is not helping people. It is
wasted.
Massachusetts, Oregon, and Maryland have given up. They said: We
can't even live under this health care law's mandates. Our computer
systems don't work. So let's turn it over to Washington. The American
people are fed up with turning things over to Washington.
It was interesting to hear my colleague from Connecticut talk about
some of the concerns and stories that we are sharing with the American
people about folks losing their jobs, part of their pay, and bringing
home smaller paychecks as a result of fewer hours at work.
I would like to share a situation that is now happening in Iowa. It
was reported a couple of weeks ago in the Ottumwa Courier. Iowa is a
State where we have a Democratic Senator from Iowa who is a very active
supporter of the health care law. He was on the floor day after day
about how wonderful this health care law was during the debate.

Let's talk about what is happening in one community in that Senator's
home State in Eddyville. It says:

Faced with a nearly $138,000 increase in insurance costs
the Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont School Board--

We are not talking about a business here; we are talking about a
community school board--

this week approved reducing the hours of all para-educators
from about 37 to just 29 hours per week to avoid the
requirements of the National Health Care Act.

That is a side effect of the Obama health care law that every
Democrat in this Chamber voted for when that came up for a vote.
So they had some meetings.
The article goes on and says:

In February, Superintendent Dean Cook recommended cutting
12 special education para-educators and three more working as
librarians.

My colleague from Connecticut said none of this is happening and that
these are just incidental stories; don't pay attention to them.
The article goes on to say:

However, this week his recommendation instead was a choice
of either cutting eight para-educators or to reduce the hours
of all of para-educators (around 25 to 28 employees), for the
2013-14 school year.

One of the board members ``opted to reduce hours instead of cutting
jobs.'' This is a tough situation to put a school board in--reducing
hours and cutting jobs.
The board member noted:

It just gets pretty tight when we have cut paras in the
past. Those people play key roles in running the schools.

The article goes on:

In fact, several teachers spoke to or wrote letters to the
board, providing a detailed account of the jobs that para-
educators perform, urging the board not to cut these
positions.

The article quotes one of the members of the board, Gay Murphy, who
said: ``I feel very frustrated that our hands are tied with the health
care act.'' Fascinating. The board member has the same last name as the
Senator who was down here on the floor saying: Oh, no; pay no attention
to these important stories.
The article goes on to say that Gay Murphy ``asked that employees'
hours be cut by working less days instead of less hours per day''--but
still cut the hours under the President's health care law--``so it
would be easier for employees to get a second job if needed.''
The President's health care law is cutting people's hours, and they
are trying to find ways to make it easier for them to get a second job
because their paychecks are being cut. Their take-home pay is being cut
because of this health care law.
One other board member ``noted that quality employees may not stick

[[Page S2853]]

around for a 29-hour per week job and that special education students
have a need for more consistency that comes with full-time employees.''
This is a sad story, and it is happening in communities all across
the country. I think it is not a surprise that Republicans continue to
come to the floor to say there are huge side effects of the health care
law, and for some people who may have been helped by the law, many
people are being hurt, and it is happening all across the country.
That is why when I heard my colleague mention on the floor that
people are getting used to it or there is an acceptance of the health
care law, I would just point out an article in the Washington Post:

Poll: Obamacare hits new low.
A new poll shows the public's opposition to Obamacare has
never been higher.

The Pew Research Center poll shows disapproval of the law hitting a
new high of 55 percent. It comes on the heels of several polls last
week that showed the law had very little, if any, bump after signups on
the health care exchanges exceeded the goals.
So here we are, an all-time low for approval of a health care law,
and the reason is because people's lives have been impacted. They have
been hurt by this health care law. There are side effects of the law.
People who were promised they would be able to keep the coverage they
had--millions lost that coverage. They were told they could keep their
doctor if they wanted to keep their doctor, and many Americans lost
their doctor. They were told the cost of their insurance would go down
and it has instead gone up. They are paying higher premiums, higher
deductibles, and now people's paychecks are shrinking and their take-
home pay is less because of a health care law that remains very
unpopular.
That is why I felt compelled to come to the floor to point out to the
American people, and to this body, that comments made previously by a
colleague were not, at least in my opinion, based on what I have seen,
heard, and read, consistent with the real impacts of this health care
law and the impacts on patients, on providers, and on taxpayers.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Energy Efficiency

Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, we are considering the Shaheen-Portman
energy efficiency bill. That is what I believe this legislation is
called. I think we went on the bill on Monday. Here it is late Thursday
afternoon, and it is amazing that we haven't had a debate or a vote on
a single amendment in 3 days. Now we are finished for the week so we
are not going to have any debate on any amendments or any votes
tomorrow either. We are going to go the whole week without having been
able to seriously consider the merits or problems with this bill,
without being able to offer any ideas to improve or to change the
underlying text. It is unbelievable. But this is what has become
routine in the Senate.
I have offered four amendments. I fild four amendments I wish to
debate, I would like to have a vote on. I have cosponsored four other
amendments my colleagues have filed. I think, altogether, Republicans
have drafted and filed dozens of amendments; I don't know exactly how
many--there are dozens--in part because we haven't considered an Energy
bill in this Chamber in 7 years. Things change in 7 years. Lots of
things change. After 7 years of not having a debate over energy policy
in America--something that is so basic to our economy, so important to
every single family, every single business, everyone--it might be a
good idea to have a debate and to offer some amendments, to have a
discussion and have some votes. But that is not the way the Senate
functions. We can't do it. The majority party, the majority leader,
will not allow us to have amendments.
This isn't terribly recent. Over the last 10 months, since July of
last summer, the majority leader has permitted Republicans to have a
grand total of 8 amendment votes--8 votes in 10 months. The Senate is
virtually shut down. That is what has happened. It just so happens that
during that same period of time, the House Republicans, who are in
control of the House, permitted the minority party to have 136 votes.
Of course, the irony is it is the House that has historically always
operated under a kind of martial law approach where the majority party
dictates all terms--always has. But during that 10-month period, they
have had 136 votes permitted to the minority party and we have had 8,
and none on this Energy bill. None. Not one.
I truly don't understand why the majority party is so afraid of
votes. What is so horrifying about casting a vote on an amendment? But,
apparently, that is the case.
I will speak briefly about two of the amendments I have filed that I
would like to have a vote on. I am not asking for an outcome, by the
way. I accept that. I don't have any right to expect any particular
outcome, but I don't understand why we can't have a discussion, why we
can't have the debate, why we can't have the vote. By the way, Thursday
afternoon, by now, we could have processed dozens of amendments.
Actually, Republicans, in the end, all we wanted was a handful.
I filed amendment No. 3037. It would prohibit the Department of
Energy from issuing new energy efficiency mandates on residential
boilers. It is not very complicated. It is not the end of the world one
way or the other, but on the margins, I think this matters a little bit
to families.
I will tell my colleagues why. We all have residential boilers. These
are our hot water heaters. We have them in our basements. We use them
to heat water, to heat our house, in some cases, and to heat our water
so we can take a hot shower. This is pretty common. We all have them.
The Department of Energy is in their periodic process of reviewing
the mandates they impose on the energy efficiency standards for the
boilers. The only consideration in this review process is whether they
will make the mandates more stringent than they are today, make them
adhere to a tougher standard than the standard they are forced to
adhere to today.
Well, I think it would be better not to change the standard. That is
my opinion. The reason I hold that view is because the problem with a
more stringent energy efficiency requirement on these hot water heaters
is it makes them more expensive. It doesn't matter much for really
wealthy people, but for a middle-income family or a low-income family,
it raises the cost of their home. It raises the cost of replacing a hot
water heater. There are a lot of folks who can't afford to have an
unnecessary additional cost added to them.
By the way, I don't think we need to force consumers to conserve
energy. Everybody has an incentive to conserve energy, because energy
is not free. So people are perfectly happy to pay a little more for
more energy efficiency for a product if they can recoup that added cost
in the form of a lower energy bill over time. People get that. They
will make that decision. They will do it voluntarily. In fact, the only
reason we need to mandate standards is if we want to force consumers to
pay bigger premiums than they can recoup. If we only want them to pay
for what they can save in the future, they do it voluntarily.
So, to me, this is one of those annoying little government mandates
that is not necessary, and it reduces consumers' choices and raises
their costs, and I don't think it is a good idea, especially now during
difficult economic times when median wages have been declining, not
rising. I don't think it is a good idea for the government to impose a
new cost such as this. So I have an amendment that would forbid the
Department of Energy from ratcheting up the cost of an appliance we all
have in our homes.
I get the fact that not everybody agrees with me. That is fine. Some
people do want to impose this added cost for their own reasons, and
that is fine. What I don't understand is why we can't have the debate.
Why can't we have the discussion and then have a vote? Then I either
win or I lose, and

[[Page S2854]]

we are done. But we don't do that. Apparently, the majority party is
not willing to allow Republican amendments.
I have another amendment. This one has bipartisan cosponsorship. I
have cosponsors who include Senator Coburn, Senator Flake--actually, it
is Senator Coburn who introduced it initially. I am a cosponsor. This
amendment would eliminate the corn ethanol mandate from the renewable
fuel standard.
What is that about? Well, existing law mandates that we take corn,
convert it into ethanol, and then the law requires that the ethanol be
mixed with gasoline, and we all have to buy it when we fill up our
tanks. The Presiding Officer may be aware that we now burn over 40
percent of all the corn we grow in America. Over 40 percent of it, we
end up burning in our cars, by turning it into ethanol and mixing it
with our gasoline.
There were good intentions when this mandate was initially created.
Some people thought it would be good for the environment. It turns out
it is not; it is bad for the environment. It is not just me saying
this. The National Academy of Sciences, the Environmental Working
Group--everybody acknowledges it increases carbon emissions.
Members on the other side of the aisle thought the issue of carbon in
the atmosphere--CO2 releases--was so important they were
here around the clock in a dramatic display of political theater to
make this case. Well, here is an amendment that would reduce
CO2 emissions because the ethanol requirement increases
CO2 relative to where we would be if it didn't exist.
That is not the only problem with the ethanol mandate. It raises the
price of filling our tanks. This is expensive stuff. Having to mix it
with ordinary gasoline raises the cost of driving. Everybody has to
drive. So not only is it bad for the environment, but it is more
expensive for every single family who operates a vehicle.
That is not all it does. Because we are diverting 40 percent of all
the corn we grow to our gas tanks, it is not available in our cereals
or in the food we feed to livestock, and so food prices are higher than
they need to be; they are higher than they would otherwise be because
of this mandate.
That is not all. Everybody acknowledges that ethanol has a corrosive
effect on engines, so it is doing damage to our engines, which shortens
the life of the engines; again, not that big a deal if a person is
extremely wealthy and can kind of burn through cars. But for the vast
majority of people I represent, cars are a very expensive cost they
incur, and having a policy that systematically damages that very
valuable asset doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
There is yet another reason. These ethanol mandates can have very
dire consequences on some of our oil refineries, and that can cost us
jobs, and it threatens refineries in Pennsylvania. As a matter of fact,
I got a letter from a Philadelphia AFL-CIO business manager, a fellow
named Pat Gillespie, who wrote to me asking me to try to do something
about this, because it is threatening the jobs of the people he
represents at the refineries where they work. I will quote briefly from
a portion of his letter:

The impact of the dramatic spike in cost of the RIN
credits--

That is the system by which the EPA enforces the ethanol mandate--

from four cents to 1 dollar per gallon will cause a
tremendous depression in . . . [our refinery's] bottom line
in 2013. Of course at the Building Trades, we need [the
refineries] to maintain and expand jobs.

He closed by saying: ``We need your help in this matter.''
I am trying to help. I am offering an amendment which would repeal
the corn ethanol mandate, together with my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle.
Again, I understand not everybody agrees with this. There are some
people who like the ethanol mandate. They think it is a good idea to
grow corn to end up burning it in our cars.
Why can't we have this debate? Why can't we have a vote? Why can't we
resolve these issues on the Senate floor? But we do not. We spend the
whole week waiting and wondering whether we might be allowed to have
one or two amendments, only to find out, of course, as usual, we get
none.
So another week goes by with nothing productive being done on the
Senate floor and legislation that could be a vehicle for a meaningful,
robust debate about energy policy in America--I have just given two
examples. We have dozens of subjects we could be debating. We did not
insist on having all of them. But a handful of ideas? It is shocking to
me--shocking that we cannot allow the Senate to function, that Senator
Reid insists we cannot have an open amendment process.
It is disturbing because, of course, historically this was the body
that did exactly that, had the open amendment process, had the open
debate. This was the--I am chuckling because it seems so odd now, but
historically the Senate was considered the world's greatest
deliberative body because we would deliberate. The Senate used to do
this. The way it used to operate is the majority party would control
the agenda, would decide what was on the floor and that is fair
enough--but then, once the majority leader would decide what bill was
on the floor, then it would be open for debate, until essentially the
body exhausted itself and Members were finished offering amendments,
and then we would have a final passage vote. Nothing even remotely
similar to that is happening today.
I know a number of my colleagues, including the distinguished
Presiding Officer, have served in the House. It is unbelievable to me
that now, for an extended period of time, the House is having much more
robust debate and far more amendment votes, by both the majority and
the minority party, than we are permitted to even consider in the
Senate. This is a sorry state of affairs.
It has been 7 years since the last debate on energy policy. An energy
efficiency bill has come to the floor, and energy efficiency amendments
are not permitted to have a discussion or a vote. That is what the
Senate has come to.
I urge my colleagues and urge the majority party, in particular,
which controls this body, and urge the majority leader: Allow the
Senate to function. Allow us to actually have a debate. Allow us to
have some amendments. It is actually not that excruciating to have a
vote, and in a matter of a very short period of time, we could mow down
lots of amendments and move on to the next important piece of
legislation.
Energy is a very important issue for our country, for our economy,
for every consumer, and it deserves to have a more serious
consideration than it is getting.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold his request.
Mr. TOOMEY. I withhold my request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my
colleague and friend from Pennsylvania and the discussion of why we are
here on a late Thursday afternoon.
We started off the week with an air of optimism that with the energy
efficiency bill before us, we could get to that place where we could be
debating substantive issues of the day. As my colleague has noted, we
have not seen a real energy bill on this floor now for 7 years. When we
think about the energy landscape in this country and what has happened
in 7 years' time--7 years ago, we were looking to build import
terminals to receive LNG. Now we are debating--or hoping to debate--the
export of our LNG.
I have kind of put a target on my back, if you will, and said: Let's
talk about what is happening with our oil potential in this country and
our opportunity as a nation to export our oil, given that next year we
will actually be producing more oil in this country than the county of
Russia, than Saudi Arabia, but that is going to require some debate,
some discussion, some policy considerations.
If we cannot even get to the point where we can move forward on an
energy efficiency bill, how are we ever going to advance some of these
policy initiatives when it comes to our natural gas, when it comes to
our oil or how we might be able to deal with issues such as nuclear
waste, where, quite honestly, until we can resolve these issues, they
are going to be holding back our opportunity to advance in

[[Page S2855]]

these areas. How are we going to build out the potential in this
country for our renewables and how we integrate them into an outdated
system? There are so many policy issues we have to talk about.
So when people suggest all we want to do is talk about energy, I am
one Senator who would love to do a lot of talking about energy. I would
also like us to be able to legislate on energy initiatives. I would
like us to update some of our energy policies, because as times have
changed, unfortunately some of our laws have not.
My colleague from Pennsylvania has mentioned there was a time when we
would have substantive debate. Take that back to the Energy bills that
were before us when I first came to the Senate back in 2003. We took up
an energy bill at that time that was on the floor, I know, for multiple
weeks; it may have been multiple months.
On July 25, 2003, we resumed consideration of the Energy bill. We had
a unanimous consent agreement at that time that more than 370--370--
remaining amendments would be in order.
Now, 2003 may seem like a long time ago for some, but for me it seems
like just yesterday. Thinking about that, it is like: Wow. We were able
to come to a UC on 370 amendments.
If we go back to the Energy Policy Act, if we look at the amendment
log, it shows that more than 130 amendments from Senators of both sides
of the aisle were considered.
I think it speaks to the issues that were at play at the time. We are
still basing most of our energy policy, of course, on those 2005 and
2007 energy acts.
I think it is important to recognize that when it comes to something
as significant as our energy policy in this country, the debate is
worthy, the debate is important, and legislating on these issues is
critically important.
I know there are conversations yet underway as to whether an
amendment opportunity will be made available, whether the four or five
amendments the Republicans have offered that are being considered by
the majority leader and the bill's sponsors of ShaheenPortman, whether
we will be able to reach a fair consideration for the processing of
those amendments. I would certainly hope we are able to do just that.
The energy efficiency bill, as I noted in my comments the day before
yesterday, is good, sound policy. It is an important leg in the energy
stool. When we talk about our energy resources and what we have
available domestically, what we are able to be producing--whether it is
our fossil fuels, whether it is our renewable fuels, whether it is
other alternatives--the recognition is that our most readily available
energy source is the one we do not waste. If we can be more efficient,
if we can do more when it comes to conservation, this benefits all of
us.
So let's figure out how we can move an energy efficiency bill. This
is round No. 2 for us. Let us not allow the process to bog down a good
bill and a bill that deserves to not only pass this body but to be
worked through the body on the other side and to ultimately be signed
into law by the President.
I want to start work. I want to be legislating. I also recognize this
has been a difficult time for us all right now. We are not seeing a lot
of legislation moving through this Senate, but I have been trying to
use the time I have, as the ranking member on the energy committee,
wisely, trying to focus on those areas where we can critically examine
the energy policies we have in place and how we might refresh, how we
might reimagine the energy architecture we have.
Last year I released a pretty major report. We called it ``Energy 20/
20.'' It is a blueprint that kind of lays out my view of a sound,
robust energy policy. I did not want a report that had taken a lot of
time and energy and effort and love and passion to just sit on
somebody's desk, so we have been working in this past year to flesh out
some of the details we outlined in the blueprint.
I have released now four separate white papers stemming from ``Energy
20/20.'' The first one was on LNG exports. The second was on energy
exports generally but also focusing on the specific issue of the
prospect for oil exports. We released a very well-received white paper
on electric reliability, and then earlier this week I had an
opportunity to release a white paper on the nexus between energy and
water. All of these are available on the energy committee's Web site.
I have given speeches on the floor. I have addressed small groups,
large groups, basically anybody who will listen, not only in my State
of Alaska but around the country. My colleagues and those who have been
listening have heard me say multiple times that what I am looking for,
what I am hoping for, what I am trying to build are laws and policies
that will help us access our energy resources to be able to have a
policy that says our energy should be abundant, affordable, clean,
diverse, and secure.
I joke about it and say there is no acronym for that, but I have
arranged it alphabetically so you can remember it.
But when you think about these five components, when you incorporate
these all together--abundant, affordable, clean, diverse, secure--it
makes pretty good sense.
I think the effort we have engaged in, in the energy committee, has
been a worthwhile effort, and I hope this broader conversation will
forge consensus on what I think we recognize can be some tough issues.
I have been working hard, even though we are not moving a lot of
bills through the floor right now, to try to advance the conversation
on so many of these issues I think are a priority.

The Nexus Between Energy and Water

I would like to take a few minutes this afternoon to speak about the
most recent white paper I have released, and this is on the connection
or the nexus between energy and water. I mentioned I had an opportunity
to present this on Tuesday at the Atlantic Council here in Washington.
It is entitled, ``The EnergyWater Nexus: Interlinked Resources That Are
Vital for Economic Growth and Sustainability.'' It is a very timely
subject, very relevant to the current discussion of measures we can
take to support energy efficiency.
I think it is apparent, but it certainly bears repeating, that there
are clear links between energy and water and water and energy. These
fall into two categories. It sounds kind of simple, but it is water for
energy and energy for water. Without water much of our energy--
electricity included--cannot be produced. Our economy literally comes
to a halt. Without energy--and particularly electricity--the treatment,
the transport, the distribution of water does not function either. That
all seizes up as well.
So we have water and energy just inextricably linked, and I think it
is important to acknowledge that the continued availability and
reliability should not be taken for granted. I think sometimes this is
the part we fail to keep in perspective.
We are talking a lot about energy right now, but as we talk about
energy, let's talk about how that energy source intersects with water.
In an effort to produce this energy, how much water are we consuming?
In an effort to use that water, how much energy is being consumed to
move or treat? So, again, the nexus is tight.
When it comes to water-for-energy, an interesting statistic is that
about 41 percent of our freshwater withdrawals in the United States are
attributed to cooling the vast majority of our powerplants. This also
consumes about 6 percent of our freshwater. Water is also routinely
needed to produce the various energy resources we rely on, whether it
is oil, coal, gas, or uranium. According to the Congressional Research
Service, the production of biofuels has the highest water-intensity
value, requiring 1,000 times more water than conventional natural gas.
So, again, understanding the intensity is important as we talk about
our energy resources. Altogether, more than 12 billion gallons of
freshwater are consumed daily for the combined production of fuels and
electricity across the country.
Turning to energy-for-water, one study on a national scale found that
direct water-related energy consumption amounted to more than 12
percent of domestic primary energy consumption in 2010. That is
equivalent to the annual energy consumption of about 40 million
Americans.
We are seeing new technology, and we are seeing that really with the
potential to provide a paradigm shift. But

[[Page S2856]]

from today's vantage point, a steady population increase and the
resource needs of a modern economy could make freshwater a limited
resource in many parts of the country. We are certainly seeing that out
in the West. Severe droughts in California and for that matter across
most of the Western United States only serve to underscore the risks.
Out West, of course, hydroelectric power is a major contributor to
clean and cost-effective electricity generation, particularly in
Washington State, Idaho, and Montana. So if rivers and reservoirs are
running low, this power-generation capacity is at risk.
I believe the recent and rapid expansion of our domestic energy
production is very good for our Nation, particularly the growth in
unconventional oil and gas production. What we have seen is that it has
created jobs, it has generated revenues, it has revived local
economies, and it really does wonders for our energy security. As I
mentioned, the United States is now producing and exporting more energy
than ever before. Our net energy imports are at a 20-year low. They are
projected to fall below 5 percent of total consumption by 2025.
With many new wells located in regions that have already experienced
some water shortages, we are seeing producers who are moving in a
direction to help ensure that there is going to be sufficient water
available for both the work they are doing and other regional needs.
New technological advancements and new methods to maintain a balanced
use of freshwater resources have been continuously emerging.
I think it is important to recognize that folks are appreciating that
you can't count on an unlimited supply of this water resource.
Utilizing our technology to be smart, to be efficient, is going to put
everyone in better stead.
Even in the case of conventional power generation stations,
technological innovation and advances can assist in reducing--if not
eliminating--the overall amount of water that is required for cooling
purposes. But, again, the key is technology. Continued research and
development is at the heart of innovation and advancement.
The questions that are appropriate to ask are what can we do to
ensure an adequate supply of water and how can we responsibly minimize
the amount of water that is used for energy and then also energy for
water? Conservation, of course, can help reduce demand for both water-
for-energy and energy-for-water activities, but we have to recognize
that it can only go so far. As I just mentioned, innovative energy and
water use strategies, coupled with advanced technologies, are equally
important when trying to optimize our limited supplies.
I have called on all stakeholders in the private sector as well as in
government to support R&D and demonstration of new technologies that
can really work to reduce our energy and water consumption.
Again, talking about the bill that is on the floor--energy
efficiency--everything we can do to reduce our energy consumption as
well as our water consumption is all good. It is all good.
The genesis and sustainability of such efforts are highly reliant on
open and continuous information exchange between the parties. I have
suggested that the Federal Government not only can but should
facilitate this exchange of information on a national and international
scale. It can do that by forming genuine partnerships with the
stakeholders--including industry, utilities, and academia--and teaming
up to advance a better understanding of the energy-water nexus, adopt
better practices through technological innovations, and really learn
from one another about the procedures and implementation strategies.
This dialogue should also include international perspectives on the
energy-water nexus, utilizing the experience and expertise from around
the world. We have seen technological advancements and great work going
on in Australia, the Gulf countries, Israel, and Singapore. The
development of new and improved technologies can answer the needs of
both the domestic and international energy-water markets. This could
mean opportunities for job creation--good jobs--in high-tech, R&D, and
manufacturing.
What I am advocating with this white paper and the proposals out
there is really better planning and better collaboration. I am not
looking for a top-down approach. I am not looking for more binding
rules or mandates. I am certainly not advocating for the forceful
implementation of any new policies or directives to use certain
technologies. The adoption of best practices should always be on a
voluntary basis.

But having said that, I do believe that if we can demonstrate savings
and demonstrate efficiencies from new technologies and better resource
management approaches, the stakeholders are going to figure this out,
and they are going to say this is a win-win for their own bottom line.
This makes sense for their customers. It is good to advance.
Along these lines, I have introduced energy-water legislation with
Senator Wyden. We introduced it in January. Our bill is the Nexus of
Energy and Water for Sustainability Act--we call it the NEWS Act--and
it features some plain old commonsense policy improvements. What a
concept.
Just think, in more ordinary times perhaps I would have even
introduced the proposed NEWS Act as an amendment to the bill we have
before us. But what we have--S. 1971--is a short bill, a simple bill
that directs the Office of Science and Technology Policy to establish a
committee or a subcommittee under the National Science and Technology
Council to coordinate and streamline the energy and water nexus
activities of our Federal departments and agencies. We are asking this
panel--which would be chaired by the Secretaries of Energy and
Interior, and representatives would be brought in from these and other
agencies--to identify all relevant energy-water nexus activities across
the Federal Government--because we know it is just a huge spaghetti
mess here--and work together and disseminate the data to enable better
practices and explore the relevant public-private collaboration. We
also call for OMB to submit a cross-cut budget that details these
Federal expenditures related to energy-water activities. What we are
looking to do is to streamline these efforts not just to save water,
not just to save energy, but to save taxpayer dollars.
It is good. It is sensible. I think it is a rationed approach. I
would like to be able to legislate on this, and I hope we will get to
that point where we are beyond the energy efficiency bill, the Shaheen-
Portman bill we have been trying so hard to work to advance not only
this week but for years now; where we are beyond arguing over whether
we are going to be able to move on some amendments; where we will take
up with great energy and enthusiasm--pun intended--these initiatives
that will help our Nation to be more productive, to be more energy
secure, to have a stronger national security, and to have energy
policies that are current and sound.
I am one who tries to get up every morning optimistic, glass half
full, and I want to believe we will work out an arrangement so that we
can have a fair amendment process that allows Republicans to offer a
small handful of amendments to be debated and voted on, that will allow
us to move an energy efficiency measure that is important to our energy
policy and to demonstrate that perhaps we can do a little bit of
legislating, a little bit of governing, and advance the cause.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be placed in an
appropriate place in the Record and that I be able to complete my
remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HATCH. Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to address
some proposals we have been hearing about in the tax space.

Corporate Taxation

Some of us--myself included--were very concerned to hear the other
day that a very big American corporation announced plans to merge with
a somewhat smaller but still large UK corporation and then have the
combined entity domiciled in the United Kingdom. Apparently, a desire
to escape the high U.S. corporate tax was part of the motivation for
the merger. This type of transaction where a U.S. corporation escapes
the U.S. tax net is sometimes referred to as an inversion.
Broadly speaking, there are two different ways to address the problem
of

[[Page S2857]]

inversions. The first way is to make it more difficult for a U.S.
corporation to invert. Just today we have read accounts of Members of
Congress who propose doing just that. The second way is to make the
United States a more desirable location to headquarter one's business.
I believe the latter is by far the better way. That would mean lowering
the corporate tax rate and having a more internationally competitive
tax code.
Under current law, U.S. corporations are taxed on their worldwide
income, but foreign corporations are subject to tax only on income
arising from the United States itself. In other words, we subject our
own corporations to a worldwide tax system, while subjecting foreign
corporations to a territorial tax system. It is strange that the U.S.
Government treats foreign corporations more favorably than American
corporations, but that is, nonetheless, what we do.
There is a danger, if the relatively unfavorable treatment of
American companies is ratcheted up--which seems to be the effect of
some of these anti-inversion proposals--that American companies will
become even more attractive targets for takeover by foreign
corporations.
I don't know when my liberal friends will catch on and realize that
some of their approaches are just downright idiotic.
As important as it is to get the corporate tax rate down, no matter
how low we get the rate, we still need to replace our antiquated
worldwide tax system. Instead of imposing arbitrary inversion
restrictions on companies retroactively and thereby further
complicating the goal of comprehensive tax reform, we should first keep
our focus on where we can agree. By uniting around the goal to create
an internationally competitive tax code, we can keep American job
creators from looking to leave in the first place.
Successful tax reform can help reverse the trend and cause more
businesses to locate in the United States, bringing more jobs to
Americans. Make no mistake. The trend is alarming. Just look at the
number of U.S.-based firms, ranked by revenue, in the global Fortune
500 over the past decade, and you will see a significant decline in the
number. That, of course, means a lower tax base for the United States.
When are these people going to catch on?
As I just said, tax reform can be used to reverse that trend, make
the United States an attractive place to locate businesses and global
headquarters, and provide a base for more jobs in America.
As the ranking member of the Senate's tax-writing committee, that is
where my focus is, and I will work with anyone, Republican or Democrat,
to achieve that goal.
It is ridiculous the ways some of our people in this government
believe we can solve this problem by making it even more intrusive on
businesses, even more onerous and burdensome, and by thinking they can
force businesses to live in accordance with antiquated rules.

Executive Overreach

Madam President, I rise to defend, on a separate matter, the
separation of government powers enshrined in our Constitution and the
lawful prerogatives of the Senate, in which I have had the privilege
and honor of serving now for nearly 38 years.
Just last week I spoke from this podium about the Obama
administration's blatant disregard of its constitutional obligations
and in particular about how ideological devotion and political
expediency have again and again trumped the President's sworn duty to
uphold the law. In the short time since then, the White House has
provided yet another egregious example of its willingness to disregard
clear legal obligations in favor of playing partisan politics.
Just days ago we learned the Obama administration withheld
particularly significant information from disclosure to Congress,
despite a lawfully issued subpoena, during a House committee's
investigation of the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S.
mission in Benghazi, Libya. One of these documents, an email from a
senior White House official, casts serious doubt about a number of the
administration's key assertions about the explanations it offered
Congress and the American people regarding the cause and nature of
those attacks.
There are many important questions about Benghazi to which the
American people deserve answers; questions about how and why brave
Americans died in this terrorist attack, four brave Americans;
questions about the circumstances under which our Nation lost its first
Ambassador in the line of duty in more than a generation; questions
about how the Obama administration advanced an admittedly false but
politically advantageous narrative about the attack during the home
stretch of a heated election campaign.
I appreciate the efforts of my colleagues both in this body and in
the House of Representatives in seeking a fair and thorough
investigation of this matter. What compels me to speak out goes beyond
the substance of this particular investigation, as critically important
as that is. I am deeply troubled by the Obama administration's utter
disregard for essential legal and constitutional obligations. This
lawlessness is made manifest in many different forms.
I wish to discuss this administration's long pattern of obstinacy in
responding to congressional investigations and how this abuse has
become the latest front in a vital struggle against sweeping executive
branch overreach that has characterized President Obama's term in
office.
Congress's investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attack should
have been and could have been a collaborative endeavor aimed at
discovering the truth. Indeed, President Obama publicly proclaimed he
was ``happy to cooperate in ways that Congress wants'' and promised
that his administration would share with congressional investigators
all information connected to the administration's own internal review.
Secretary Kerry likewise pronounced and promised ``an accountable and
open State Department'' that would provide truthful answers about all
circumstances relating to the Benghazi attack.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration has been anything but open
and accountable, nor has the White House and/or the State Department
shown much willingness to cooperate in a constructive fashion with
congressional investigations into the matter. Instead, this
administration has repeatedly rejected document requests from several
congressional committees, broadly asserting its unwillingness to turn
over whole swaths of relevant material.
When congressional investigators responded with subpoenas, creating
clearly defined and legally binding obligations for the administration
to comply, Obama officials have continued to resist and in some cases
have refused to disclose entire categories of critical documents.
Throughout the investigation this administration has consistently
employed a strategy of minimal compliance. In many instances, executive
officials have heavily redacted the limited range of documents the
administration has in fact disclosed or forced congressional
investigators through the cumbersome and perhaps unnecessary process of
examining documents they insist must remain in the administration's
possession. Such methods, when reasonably employed, have historically
allowed the executive and legislative branches to make mutually
acceptable compromises, establishing arrangements that allow Congress
access to the information it needs but enable the administration to
protect legitimate interests and confidentiality.
Instead, President Obama and his subordinates have taken these
tactics to the extreme, creating an unmistakable impression the
administration has something to hide. How could anybody look at what
they are doing and not realize that is what they are doing. At the very
least, it is clear that executive officials have deliberately slow-
walked this important congressional inquiry.
Indeed, the administration has managed to drag its feet and frustrate
congressional investigators for more than 1\1/2\ years since the
Benghazi attack, limiting and delaying compliance for over 1 year since
the first subpoena was issued.
The Obama administration's most recent abuse--a particularly
egregious act--has been its long delay in releasing emails that were
clearly responsive

[[Page S2858]]

to an earlier congressional subpoena. The administration only provided
Congress these emails in mid-April after disclosing them as part of
compliance with an outside group's Freedom of Information Act request,
even though the emails were undeniably relevant and responsive to a
lawful congressional subpoena, a subpoena issued in the summer of 2013,
7 months earlier.
This is the second time the Obama administration has simply passed on
to Congress documents it has previously released to media and watchdog
groups, a weak attempt at complying with a congressional subpoena. Now,
that is an administration out of control, an administration not living
up to the laws, an administration that is ignoring legitimate inquiries
of the Congress, and an administration that seems to think it can get
away with anything. More important, this episode demonstrates the
careless and intentionally evasive approach the administration has
taken in responding to congressional subpoenas. A simple FOIA request
turned up multiple documents the administration admits are covered by a
prior congressional subpoena and therefore should have been disclosed
months earlier.
While the executive branch is obviously obliged to take all lawful
requests seriously, it is outrageous this administration would treat a
routine FOIA request from a private party with more care and serious
attention than a lawfully issued subpoena from a coordinate branch of
the Federal Government. I might add a coequal branch of the Federal
Government, the Congress of the United States.

I wish I could say the Obama administration's conduct and the
investigations into the Benghazi attack represented an anomaly, a
unique instance in an otherwise respectful record of good-faith efforts
to cooperate with congressional investigations and to respect
Congress's legitimate authorities. Unfortunately, that simply isn't the
case. Instead, we have experienced a pattern of obstruction, repeated
instances of bad faith in responding to lawful information requests and
subpoenas, and a fundamental disrespect of the laws and norms
underlying the Constitution's separation of government powers.
We have all witnessed such abuse in this administration's handling of
other high-profile investigations, such as the botched gun-walking
exercise in Operation Fast and Furious. We routinely observe such
hostility in more ordinary matters, as this administration regularly
delays and often refuses to provide answers or produce information to
Members of Congress.
As the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, I see this all
the time, whether it is the refusal of the Treasury Department to
explain how it deals with its statutory debt limit or the failure of
the Department of Health and Human Services to respond to even the
simplest questions about ObamaCare implementation. We see this
hostility most transparently when the administration openly challenges
the legitimacy of congressional investigations and when administration
officials display outright contempt for proper lines of congressional
inquiry.
None of this is to say that some assertions of executive privilege
are not reasonable or even valid. Past administrations have often
asserted privilege claims before Congress, and sometimes--sometimes--
they have done so aggressively. This area of law has relatively few
judicial precedents. It is largely defined by past practice in which
the distinction between legal requirements and prudential interests is
often quite blurry. As such, we can expect some legitimate disagreement
as to whether particular claims of executive privilege are within the
bounds of reasonableness.
But fundamentally the text and structure of the Constitution
enshrines a congressional right--and establishes a congressional duty--
to investigate executive branch activities. That is how through the
years we have kept administrations straight. It is a very important
part of our job on Capitol Hill.
Judicial precedents--as well as established practice between the
legislative and executive branches stretching all the way back to the
investigation of the St. Clair expedition under President George
Washington in 1792--also affirm the rightful authority of Congress to
require Presidential administrations to produce information in response
to congressional requests.
Since the great constitutional clashes of the Watergate period,
specific and binding precedents have detailed the requirement that
administrations must seek to accommodate congressional information
requests made in good faith, subject to adjudication by Federal courts.
The Obama administration's actions clearly fall short of these basic
obligations. Its abysmal record--highlighted most recently in the
Benghazi email controversy--has demonstrated that executive officials
are not acting in good faith to comply with legitimate congressional
inquiries.
The administration's public efforts to delegitimize congressional
investigations endangers not only the relationship between the current
White House and this Congress but more fundamentally undermines the
separation of government powers by attacking one of the most important
checks on executive overreach.
The administration's expansive justifications squarely contradict the
Supreme Court's command in United States v. Nixon that ``exceptions to
the demand for . . . evidence are not lightly created nor expansively
construed, for they are in derogation of the search for truth.''
Even more troubling, the Obama White House has even attempted to
undermine our congressional investigatory power at its core. This isn't
hyperbole. The current administration actually had the audacity to
argue in Federal court that a committee of Congress was categorically
barred from asking the judiciary to enforce a subpoena that the
executive branch had defied, a course of action implicit in the
structure of our Constitution, demanded by the Supreme Court's
jurisprudence, and recognized by courts for decades.
Thankfully, one of President Obama's own judicial appointees roundly
rejected this astonishing claim, but that should give Members of this
body very little comfort. By challenging the very authority of Congress
to investigate executive abuses, by challenging the obligation of a
Presidential administration to accommodate congressional inquiries in
good faith, and by challenging the power of Federal courts to resolve
such disputes, the Obama administration's actions represent a serious
threat to our constitutional structure.
Indeed, this particular effort to undermine essential institutional
checks and balances is part of a broader pattern of executive abuse--
one that includes the Obama administration's disregard for its
obligations to enforce the law, its actions to exceed legitimate
statutory authority, its attempts to defy specific requirements of duly
enacted law, and its efforts to usurp legislative power from Congress.
I spoke at length last week about many such abuses of executive power
by the Obama administration. I will continue to do so because I believe
keeping the exercise of executive authority within lawful bounds is
essential to the legitimacy of our government and to the liberties of
our citizens. I recognize that doing so will require continual
vigilance--by the courts, by the American people, and by those of us
who serve in Congress.
This latest episode with the Benghazi emails--as well as the
President's new pen-and-phone strategy--demonstrates quite clearly that
the Obama administration has not shown any signs of relenting in its
executive overreach.
This unprecedented pattern of executive abuse comes from a President
who promised unprecedented transparency and who regularly criticized
his predecessor's use of executive power, including in the context of
executive privilege.
The administration's actions demand a redoubling of Congress'
investigative efforts. I urge the majority leader to join the House to
form a joint select committee on the Benghazi terrorist attack and its
aftermath.
I know many of my friends on the other side of the aisle--not to
mention the Obama administration itself--have convinced themselves that
this investigation is simply a partisan exercise, apparently prompting
them to ignore the institutional struggle between Congress and the
Executive.
I just wonder: What would have happened had Robert C. Byrd been our
majority leader, as he was for so long? He

[[Page S2859]]

would not have put up with this for 1 minute. He would have asserted
this institution's authority and this institution's responsibility--
Congress' responsibility, if you will--to get to the bottom of this.
I served on the Iran-Contra special committee. It is not a bad thing
for us to investigate an administration that appears to be out of
whack, appears to be ignoring the basic tenets of the law, and appears
to be hiding information from the public. Forget the public right now.
How about the Congress? It is hard to respect an administration that
acts like this.
We should be eager to get to the bottom of the circumstances
surrounding the Benghazi attack, and my friends on the other side ought
to quit trying to protect the administration when they know these are
serious charges. These are serious matters. We have an obligation to
get to the bottom of it, and let the chips fall where they may. There
were four deaths here of heroes.
All the Members of this esteemed body--whether Democrat or
Republican--should demand that Congress' institutional prerogatives are
preserved and defended.
As members of the legislative branch, we have the fundamental right--
and the accompanying duty--to exercise a lawful oversight function.
When any Presidential administration engages in extreme resistance and
demonstrates an unwillingness to cooperate with legitimate
congressional investigations, we all--not just people on this side--
have an institutional obligation to defend our rightful constitutional
prerogatives.
These executive abuses matter. The Obama administration has clearly
and consistently overstepped its authorities and ignored its
obligations under our Constitution and Federal law. This overreach
threatens the rule of law, and it undermines the governmental checks
and balances necessary to secure our liberties as Americans.
President Obama promised unprecedented transparency that would
restore trust and confidence in government. But his administration's
lawless actions have heightened the need for more robust and effective
congressional oversight.
As even a liberal Washington Post columnist opined earlier this week,
``The Obama White House can blame its own secrecy and obsessive control
over information'' for the heightened scrutiny of its questionable
activities.
Oversight investigations are a critical tool that Congress must use
effectively to promote government accountability. The Obama
administration's escalating strategy of stonewalling, even to the point
of ignoring legal obligations and longstanding norms, now threatens our
rightful role in calling the executive branch to account.
Indeed, the basic assumption that underlies the Constitution's plan
of government, as James Madison explained in Federalist 47 and 51, is
that:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and
judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many,
and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may
justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. . . .
But the great security against a gradual concentration of the
several powers in the same department, consist in giving to
those who administer each department the necessary
constitutional means and personal motives to resist
encroachments of the others.
The provision for defense must in this, as in all other
cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition
must be made to counteract ambition.

As Madison explained, it is incumbent upon each of us to insist on
Congress' right and duty to investigate the executive branch, and to
ensure that the administration abides by the most basic--the most
fundamental--requirements of our constitutional system.
We owe the American people--not to mention the families of those who
perished--a meaningful investigation of the Benghazi attack, not just
to find answers to remaining questions but to affirm that this is still
a Nation of laws and that the people's elected representatives are
still capable of pursuing the truth and holding the executive branch
accountable for its actions.
This is a matter of great concern to me, and I am sure it is to a lot
of people who are starting to realize that there is a stonewalling like
we haven't seen since Richard Nixon.
I don't know that the President has done this personally. I hope not.
But he has to look into it.
If he doesn't, then I think it is up to the majority in this body to
hold the administration to account, with the help of the minority, and
to not have them ignore, disregard, and treat with contempt the
rightful oversight that we have an honor and an obligation to do up
here. This is really a very serious set of problems as far as I am
concerned. I hope the President will get after his people down there.
I think one of the problems is we have a lot of young people in the
White House right now who haven't had the experience. On the other
hand, some of these things are so deliberate that we can't blame it on
lack of experience. These folks know and the people in the Justice
Department know. To have withheld these emails the way they did,
knowing they were crucial to any investigation, is something we should
not tolerate here in the Senate.
Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

____________________