[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 143 (Thursday, November 20, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6172-S6174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NATIONAL RURAL HEALTH DAY

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise to recognize National Rural 
Health Day. I would like to take a moment to recognize our rural health 
care providers and all they do for this country.
  Approximately 62 million Americans live in rural areas and they 
depend on an ever-shrinking number of health care providers. Rural 
providers play a very important role in improving the health of their 
communities and supporting local economies.
  I thank our rural providers--individuals, hospitals, and clinics--for 
all they do. Rural providers support a population that makes invaluable 
contributions to this country through food production, manufacturing, 
and other vital industries.
  Yet more people in rural areas are living below the poverty line than 
their urban counterparts. Rural hospitals are struggling to continue 
providing care due to declining payments, many exacerbated by the 
Affordable Care

[[Page S6173]]

Act. The past few years have been marked by increasing rural hospital 
closures, with 27 hospitals shutting their doors in the past 2 years.
  The trend is concerning and deserves attention as many more 
facilities and communities are at risk. Once a hospital is gone, the 
devastating impact on the community cannot be undone. The economic 
impact is unmistakable.
  The typical, critical access hospital creates over 140 jobs in 
primary employment and $6.8 million in local wages while serving a 
population of over 14,000. When facilities close, the consequences of 
traveling great distances for medical care are much more than just mere 
inconvenience. The delays in obtaining care can mean the difference 
between life and death. According to the U.S. News & World Report, that 
was the case for an infant in Texas who choked on a grape and died 
after the only hospital in the county had closed just a few months 
before.
  There are a number of similarly tragic stories, and they will 
continue to mount if we fail to take action.
  In 1946, Congress recognized the importance of rural health care 
providers and worked to build the rural health care infrastructure that 
exists today. It is called the Hill-Burton Act. The country has changed 
dramatically since 1946 and thoughtful action to improve the 
distribution and capabilities of our rural health care system is 
overdue. We need to act now to support our rural providers and 
facilitate a responsible transition to a modernized health care system.
  Rural America is facing what I would call an arbitrary attrition of 
providers. The hospital closures are a function of no specific design. 
It is all about balance sheets strained to the breaking point of 
continual payment cuts. It is not about where providers need to be to 
serve populations. We need to take a thoughtful look then at what the 
future of rural health care needs to be.
  We need to be willing to consider bold steps to ensure that rural 
America has access to high-quality health care. Health care coverage, 
whether through private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid, without access 
to providers of that care is meaningless.

  We need to put a stop to the arbitrary process now and work forward 
in designing a better, sustainable future for rural health care.
  I close, once again, by thanking all of America's rural providers. I 
am committed to working with all stakeholders to transition to a better 
future and protect access to health care in America.


                             Tax Extenders

  I would like to speak about the tax extenders bill that is being 
worked on between the House and the Senate in an informal conference 
and to explain why I am concerned about the direction it might be 
taking, particularly as it relates to alternative energy and as it 
relates to wind energy tax production credit.
  Here we are in another lameduck session of Congress, working to 
finish the business we failed to complete the previous year or two.
  One of those critical pieces of legislation that must be enacted is a 
tax extender bill. It seems as though nearly every year in recent 
memory we have put off the extension of expired tax provisions until 
the very last minute.
  In 2012 revision provisions remained expired for an entire year 
before we finally extended them in January of 2013. Similarly, the 
previous extension of prior provisions did not occur until the middle 
of December.
  Now, once again, we find ourselves heading into the month of December 
with tax extenders having been expired for nearly 11 months, and there 
is a lot of uncertainty that causes a slowdown to the economy when 
people don't know what the tax provisions are.
  This is no way to do business. Such late action by Congress results 
in complications during filing season for taxpayers. That is a big 
problem for the IRS. We need to do something right now. It is almost 
too late to get tax preparers to know what to do for the next tax 
season. Obviously, tax season is unpleasant enough without our adding 
to it by failing to do our job in a timely fashion.
  Once again, we have created a lot of headaches and uncertainty for 
individuals and businesses. This uncertainty harms investment and 
business growth; in other words, slowing the economy, as I previously 
said. This is bad for economic growth and does nothing to create the 
jobs that can come when we have more certainty for people who invest in 
capital and want to provide jobs.
  The lapse of renewable energy incentives has also created a lot of 
uncertainty and slowed growth in the renewable energy. This only serves 
to hamper the strides made toward a viable, self-sustainable renewal 
energy sector.
  It didn't have to be this way. The Senate Finance Committee, under 
the leadership of Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Hatch, did its job. 
We marked up an extenders package in early April. The Senate never took 
up that package because the majority leader refused to allow 
Republicans to offer amendments. And it happens that even a couple of 
amendments that were going to be adopted had wide bipartisan support. 
Rather than consider and advance the Finance Committee bill, the 
majority leader shelved the extenders bill because of fear that Members 
of his party might have to take tough votes.
  With the election behind us, it is now time to get to work and get 
the extenders bill done. I understand that negotiations are ongoing 
between the House and Senate on this issue. I am encouraged by reports 
of progress being made. However, I am concerned about rumors that some 
are working to leave out or shorten the extension of the wind energy 
tax credit.
  I fought this issue in the Finance Committee when one of the Members 
on my side of the aisle tried to strike that provision. But we had a 
bipartisan vote of 18 to 5 to defeat that amendment that would have 
struck the wind production tax credit from the bill that is now before 
the Senate.
  It seems as though opponents of wind energy have tried at every turn 
to undermine this industry, and so I am not surprised that we are at it 
again, even considering the 18-to-5 vote in the Finance Committee.
  I agree the Tax Code has gotten too cluttered with too many special 
interest provisions. That is the reason many of us have been clamoring 
for tax reform for years now. But just because we haven't cleaned up 
the Tax Code in a very comprehensive way doesn't mean we should pull 
the rug out from under domestic renewable energy producers. Doing so 
would cost jobs, harm our economy, the environment, and our national 
security.
  I am glad to defend the wind energy production tax credit and 
continue to defend it. In fact, I can tell you that 22 years ago, when 
I first got this passed through the Congress to become law, I didn't 
think it would become the big thing it is. But there is a tremendous 
amount of energy being generated today by wind energy. Wind energy 
supports tens of thousands of American jobs. It has spurred billions in 
private investment in the United States, and it displaces more 
expensive and more polluting sources of energy.
  More than 70 percent of U.S. wind turbines value is now produced in 
the United States, compared to just 25 percent prior to 2005.
  Once again, opponents of the renewable energy provisions want to have 
this debate in a vacuum. They disregard the many incentives and 
subsidies that exist for other sources of energy and are permanent law. 
For example, the 100-year-old oil and gas industry continues to benefit 
from tax preferences that aren't generally throughout the economy for 
all businesses but only benefit their industry.
  These are not general business tax provisions--I want to say that 
again--they are specific to oil and gas business. A few examples: 
Expensing for intangible drilling costs, deductions for tertiary 
injectants, percentage depletion for oilwells, special amortization for 
geological costs.
  I am not going to find fault with that, but I will find fault with 
people who justify that, yet take on wind energy. These are four tax 
preferences for a single energy resulting in the loss of more than $4 
billion annually in tax revenue.
  Nuclear energy is another great example. The first nuclear powerplant 
came online in the United States in 1958. That is 56 years ago. Nuclear 
receives special tax treatment for interest from decommissioning trust 
funds.
  Congress created a production tax credit for this mature industry in 
2005,

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which is going to be available until 2020. Nuclear also benefits from 
Price-Anderson Federal liability insurance that Congress provided. That 
was supposed to be a temporary measure in 1958, but this temporary 
measure has been renewed through 2025. Nuclear energy has also received 
$74 billion of Federal research and development dollars since 1950.
  Are those crony capitalist handouts? Well, nobody seems to be 
attacking them. Is it time to end the market distortions for nuclear 
power? Well, nobody is talking about that. But they are talking about 
wind energy.
  We had a Cato study about nuclear energy that said:

       In truth, nuclear power has never made economic sense and 
     exists purely as a creature of government.

  People are saying that about wind energy, but I don't hear the same 
people saying it about nuclear power.
  I don't understand the argument that repealing a subsidy for oil and 
gas or nuclear energy production is a tax increase like the accusation 
against wind, while repealing an incentive on alternative or renewable 
energy is not a tax increase. So it is not intellectually honest.
  As I said before, we have had wind incentives since 1992, and I am 
the father of that. I suppose now, after 22 years, you might say I am 
the grandfather of it. I know it won't go on forever. In fact, it was 
never meant to go on forever. And people in the wind energy even admit 
that today and talk about phaseouts.
  I am happy to discuss a responsible multiyear phaseout of that wind 
tax credit. In 2012, the wind energy was the only industry to put 
forward such a phaseout plan. But any phaseout must be done in the 
context of comprehensive tax reform where all energy tax provisions are 
on the table, not just wind solely. And it should be done responsibly, 
over a few years, to provide certainty and ensure a viable industry.
  It is time to put an end to the annual kabuki dance that is tax 
extenders. Good tax policy requires certainty that can only come from 
long-term predictable tax law. Businesses need the certainty in the Tax 
Code so they can plan and invest accordingly.

  Moreover, taxpayers deserve to know that the Tax Code is not just 
being used as another way to dole out funds to politically favored 
groups. However, the only sound way to reach this goal is through 
comprehensive tax reform.
  I agree there are provisions in extenders that ultimately should be 
left on the cutting room floor. But it is in tax reform--comprehensive 
tax reform--where we should consider the relative merits of individual 
provisions. Targeting certain provisions for elimination now makes 
little sense for those of us who want to reduce tax rates as much as 
possible.
  Tax reform provides an opportunity to use realistic baselines that 
will allow the revenue generated from cutting back provisions to be 
used to pay for reductions in individual and corporate tax rates.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues in the future to enact 
tax reform and put an end to the headaches and uncertainty created by 
the regular expiration of tax provisions. Right now our focus must be 
on extending current expired or expiring provisions to give us room to 
work towards that goal.
  It is my hope that we can move quickly to reach a bipartisan, 
bicameral agreement that can quickly be enacted and that includes the 
wind energy tax provisions. Taxpayers have already waited too long.
  What really gripes me about this whole argument is that people say 
they are for all of the above. I am for all of the above, I can say. 
You know, that means fossil fuels, that means all sorts of alternative 
energy, it probably includes conservation, and it includes nuclear. But 
when I see the people fighting the wind energy tax credit coming from 
petroleum and natural gas and from coal, I think of these people who 
say they are for all of the above, they are really for all of the below 
but for none of the above. And that is wrong and inconsistent.
  I want a consistent, uniform tax policy for all forms of energy being 
extended right now.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WALSH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hirono). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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