[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 145 (Tuesday, December 2, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6254-S6260]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    NOMINATION OF P. DAVID LOPEZ TO BE GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE EQUAL 
                   EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
  The assistant bill clerk read the nomination of P. David Lopez, of 
Arizona, to be General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. For the information of the Senate, with 
respect to the votes to confirm the Coloretti and Adler nominations, 
the motions to reconsider are considered made and laid upon the table, 
and the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The Senator from Texas.


                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last week, before the Thanksgiving 
holiday, our colleague from across the aisle, the senior Senator from 
New York, gave a very significant speech at the National Press Club. 
Senator Schumer is not just a senior Senator from New York; he is an 
important Member of the Democratic leadership here in the Senate.
  While giving the speech about the midterm elections, he said what 
many Members on this side of the aisle have been saying for the last 4 
years, and that is that the Democratic party, by making the passage of 
ObamaCare their top priority after they won the election of 2008, 
``blew the opportunity the American people gave them.'' He said they 
did so by focusing ``on the wrong problem.''
  What I think he meant and went on to say is that they should have 
focused on the lack of jobs and the wage stagnation for hardworking, 
middleclass families in America.
  As he pointed out, that broader group of the middle class represented 
a much larger segment of the electorate than just a small percentage of 
the electorate represented by the uninsured. I would add, 
parenthetically, that we know that even the best laid plans with the 
Affordable Care Act has proven to be a terrible failure.
  Today the Wall Street Journal reported that between 2007 and 2013 
health insurance premiums for an average middleclass American family 
have gone up by 24 percent. As we know, when the President said if you 
like your doctor, you can keep him, that proved not to be true. When he 
said the family of four would see their premiums go down by $2,500, 
that ended up not to be true either.
  Two weeks ago, despite the overwhelming rejection the President's 
policies received at the polls, the President then decided to 
circumvent Congress and take Executive action on immigration, far 
exceeding any arguable authority that I believe most lawyers would 
think he has. Certainly, while we recognize it is within the 
President's discretion to prioritize the people against whom 
enforcement action will be taken, there is no legal authorization for 
doing other things he purports to have the authority to do, such as 
issuing work permits.
  Then there is this. Just when it seemed that the Senate was beginning 
to work on avoiding a retroactive tax increase for millions of 
Americans, the President threatened to veto an important tax relief 
package, which, as I said, had bipartisan support, including the 
support of the majority leader, Senator Reid, and Senator Schumer, the 
senior Senator from New York. He did so because it did not include 
every single provision he thought it should include.
  If we have not learned before, we should now know that if you insist 
on absolute perfection--in other words, you want everything you want, 
and the alternative is nothing--then most of the time you are going to 
get nothing. That is what taxpayers are getting when it comes to 
aborting this retroactive tax provision in the so-called tax extenders 
bill.

[[Page S6255]]

  To again quote our good friend from New York, by threatening to veto 
this job-creating tax relief, it appears that the President has once 
again focused on the wrong problem and is certainly going about this in 
a nonproductive and unconstructive way. It is unfortunate because the 
President seems to be positively allergic to good-faith negotiations 
and genuine compromise. Again, if your attitude is ``my way or the 
highway,'' you are going to get the highway all the time because that 
is not how our democratic institutions work. The only way things work 
is for us to find common ground and to compromise. Yet the President's 
attitude seems, unfortunately, out of touch. He seems more interested 
in getting his way by any means necessary--hence, the Executive action 
on immigration.
  We increasingly know that actions are dividing the country and 
hurting hard-working Texans and American families across the Nation--
and not just by not contributing to the solution but by being a 
positive obstacle to bipartisan resolutions of so many of these 
problems. I realize the President must think that it is much easier to 
issue Executive orders and threaten to veto legislation from the White 
House, but it was not helping to solve problems we were sent here by 
our constituents to solve.
  There is no real reason preventing us from getting to the tax relief 
I mentioned earlier that the President said he would veto. For years 
House and Senate Republicans--often with significant bipartisan 
support--have focused on making progrowth provisions of the Tax Code 
permanent, such as the research and development tax credit, accelerated 
depreciation, for example, and the section 179 provision.
  To show how counterproductive it is for us to do these on a short-
term basis or to try to jam them through a lameduck session, I had a 
farmer from Texas come and see me. He said: I am prepared to spend and 
invest $200,000 on my farm if I know this tax provision is going to be 
the law. If it is not, I won't. To me, that is just another example of 
how what we do here--or what we don't do here--has a negative impact on 
our economy and on investment in job creation.

  While I know the bipartisan package proposed last week was not 
perfect, it certainly would have moved us in the right direction. It 
would have provided some certainty--indeed permanency--for some tax 
provisions and would have provided some temporary relief on others. 
Perhaps most importantly, it would have sent a signal to our 
constituents that we got the message that was delivered to us on 
November 4, and that we are going to commit ourselves anew to try to 
work together to provide certainty and protect millions of Americans 
from tax hikes that are just right around the corner and work on other 
constructive proposals to help solve problems that affect the middle 
class.
  Unfortunately, the President has persisted in his attitude of 
refusing to negotiate with Congress, resulting in another missed 
opportunity, and ultimately another short-term fix that will provide no 
long-term certainty to taxpayers struggling in the Obama economy.
  Come January, there will be a new majority in the Senate that will 
make the priorities of the American people the priorities of Congress. 
As for President Obama, we can only hope he will somehow have an 
epiphany and decide to work with us to unite the country rather than 
continue to divide the country with more Executive actions and his 
harmful ``take it or leave it'' approach to governing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. BEGICH. Madam President, I was not intending to come down here. I 
was getting ready to leave to see my 12-year-old son who just got home 
from school and make sure that he has dinner and do all the things that 
a parent would do, but I heard a speech earlier today--and I just heard 
another one--and it is like revisionist history. It is amazing to me to 
hear them talk about information that they claim is information--and 
really when you listen carefully, it is really more of the same.
  I agree with my colleague who was just here that people want 
something different as the new Congress comes in. I will not be here, 
as the Presiding Officer knows, but that does not mean I will not be a 
participant in my community and also making comments when I hear 
things. But what I heard was they are going to finally get to economic 
development and improve the economy.
  The two Members who spoke today whom I heard were here when I came to 
the Senate in 2009, and a few years later the Presiding Officer came to 
the Senate. People may have forgotten where this economy was in 2009. 
The stock market was in dismal shape. I believe it was around 6,500 or 
6,800--somewhere in that range. Unemployment was at 10 percent, and the 
pundits and economists all said it was growing. Approximately 700,000 
jobs were lost per month. Two of the three largest U.S. automobile 
companies were basically on their back and about to go bankrupt. New 
housing starts didn't exist, and prices of homes across the country 
were crashing. Consumer confidence was at the lowest point I have ever 
seen in I don't know how many years. The deficit was--annually--about 
$1.4 trillion.
  I know what happens these days--because I have experienced it for the 
last several years--is news by the minute. What happens today in this 
moment of time are these one-liners and I can tell they are very 
synchronized today. They said that the economy was bad, and is still 
bad, and the bright spot is around the corner.
  Actually, you have to look at where we are today, 6 years later. The 
stock market is at 17,000-plus. What does that mean? It means that 
people who have retirement accounts, such as 401(k)s or 529s--putting 
money aside for their kids' education--have had their value come back.
  For my home State, which receives a benefit called the permanent fund 
check--we invest in the stock market with oil revenues we put aside 
constitutionally, and it is put in the permanent fund and a check is 
issued once a year. Guess what? This year the check is double from what 
it was last year. Why is that? Because it works on a 5-year average. 
Going backwards--I took the year 2009 off; it was a very bad year--what 
happened to the permanent fund check? It doubled this year in Alaska, 
which meant that people got that money in their pocket and spent it on 
the economy and helped to grow the economy.
  Where is unemployment today? It is at 5.8 percent nationally--a 50-
percent drop. GM, Ford, and Chrysler have added 500,000 jobs since mid-
2009.
  I know that today was like revisionist history. Amnesia has set into 
some people over there. They want to recreate the news because the good 
news is hard to talk about because it is reality.
  Now, there is still a challenge. The Presiding Officer has talked 
about this a great deal, and that is that people are still working 
harder and longer because the incomes have not gone up enough. They 
have not seen it come down to them yet, but they have seen it in 
certain elements. Housing prices are up. In the one single largest 
investment an individual makes in a lifetime--their housing prices are 
back up.
  Gasoline prices--I have no idea if my colleagues fill up their cars 
with gas. I do. I know what it costs to fill up my tank, and it costs 
less now. The average price across the country now is about $2.77. In 
my State, it is about $3.35. But we were up to $5 in the urban areas--
but not anymore.
  I saw the statistic today, and I wrote it down. I think I have this 
right. The price of oil has gone down and so has the price of gasoline. 
What does that save consumers every day? It saves consumers $630 
million a day in current prices. It means that consumers are benefiting 
from that.
  When you look at job growth--I believe we are in our 55th straight 
month of private-sector job growth. Again, we don't have it fully 
trickling down to the wages yet, but first we have to right the 
economy. I know the voters have made a decision. Before I came in, the 
economy was a disaster. Before the Presiding Officer came in, the 
economy was barely recovering. But I will not sit here and listen to 
revisionist history.
  As a matter of fact, the consumer confidence level is the highest 
this month since 2007. That means consumers are finally feeling it a 
little bit. There is still more to go. But to pretend that nothing has 
happened over

[[Page S6256]]

the last 6 years--I can't use the words on the floor here because it 
would be disrespectful--is just not true. It has changed. We still have 
more work to do.
  As a matter of fact, the tax extender bill--the items they didn't 
want to support permanently would have brought it to every single 
family that is still struggling. But I know there are tax provisions 
they want for the NASCAR owners, the horseracing owners. I get that. 
Those are their issues. I understand that. But we have to be realistic.

  Also, the deficit. Think about this. When I came to the Senate in 
2009, the annual deficit in this country was $1.4 trillion. Today, it 
is $480 billion. It has dropped by $1 trillion per year. Now do we want 
it to be zero? Yes. Do we want to have a surplus so we can start paying 
off the debt? Absolutely. But we have to get recovery first--get some 
treatment, which is what we have been doing--and then reinvest in the 
future. That means infrastructure, education, and objectives that 
matter to everyday Americans and everyday Alaskans.
  I sit here and listen to these comments. Today it happened a little 
bit before 12:30 p.m., before our caucus break, because we usually 
break at 12:30 p.m. and I was going to go home. I turned on--my 
mistake. I turned on the station and I heard the commentary and I 
thought, Jacob is going to have to wait a little bit for dinner and I 
am going to come to the floor, because it is amazing to me. Exports--
businesses we create in this country we ship out, up 37 percent over 
the last several years. I will give an example of a company in Alaska. 
When I was campaigning, I ran into this company in Fairbanks. They had 
their manufacturing plant in China. Do my colleagues know where they 
have it now? It is in Fairbanks, AK. They moved it from China to 
Fairbanks. I told them they should put a 4-by-8 sign out there and say, 
We take jobs from China and bring them home. They are all good jobs. As 
a matter of fact, they are union jobs. So when people talk about how 
unions are destroying the country--they actually brought jobs back that 
are union jobs, paying good wages, good benefits, and took it from 
China and brought it to Fairbanks, AK. It is unbelievable what they do. 
They do business not only in Alaska, but in Hawaii and other places.
  I listened over and over again today, and I want to make sure 
people--also I should mention housing prices are up, new housing starts 
are up, which is important for the construction industry. It creates 
jobs and makes sure we have competition so prices are stabilized over 
time. Retail sales are strong. I have no idea if my colleague who spoke 
earlier has ever been in business. He talked about the 179 
depreciation. I have actually used it because I have been in small 
business. I have no idea if he understands how it works, but for small 
businesses, it is a big deal. It is why Democrats have supported that 
time and time again.
  As a matter of fact, we had it in the minimum wage bill we brought to 
the floor, the 179 extension, which they voted against, they did not 
support--raising the minimum wage, bringing people out of poverty and, 
by the way, helping small businesses expand and invest so they can grow 
more. As someone who used the 179 more than once--as a matter of fact, 
my wife has small businesses and is now expanding and investing and is 
using the 179 depreciation. I hear what they are saying, but I don't 
know if they understand how it is used. When we had the minimum wage 
bill, coupled with 179, it seemed to make a lot of sense, but they 
didn't like that, either.
  So I wanted to come to the floor because I think it is important that 
we, No. 1, don't take things out of context. They mentioned Senator 
Schumer's speech several times. They should read the whole speech, 
because I think they selected verbiage. I don't agree 100 percent with 
his comments, but I agree with the concept. We actually did two things. 
We worked on health care and we worked on the economy. I see people 
sometimes when they eat their food, they eat one piece at a time--their 
carrots first, and then their potato, and then their steak. We actually 
did a little bit of everything. We dealt with health care, because it 
was crushing the economy, but we dealt with the economy overall. We had 
to take votes on a regular basis that the other side would never do, 
because we bet on America. And the result is 6 years later, here we 
are. The economy is better. It is stronger. It needs more work, there 
is no question about it. We need to get the deficit to zero and get a 
surplus, and knock the debt down. That was driven up not just by this 
administration but by past administrations as well. They forgot about 
the two wars they didn't pay for. The extender bill is not paid for. We 
didn't hear one word about how that tax extender bill is not going to 
be paid for. It is going to be another part of the debt. But 4 or 5 
months ago--my colleagues may remember this--we were on the floor 
debating veterans care, and all they said is how are we going to pay 
for it. Well, the veterans paid, but we had to find a way. But here we 
are going to give more corporate tax relief without paying for it--
except actually we do pay for it. Everyday Americans will pay for it 
with their taxes, and the debt, and interest on the debt. So we have to 
be clear about that.

  I think about where we were, what we did, and where we are. It is 
significantly different than 6 years ago. It is better. I agree there 
is more work to be done to make sure we get more of the revenue stream 
and opportunities in the hands of individuals--hard-working Alaskans, 
hard-working folks from Massachusetts, and hard-working folks across 
this country. That is our next obligation. But to come to the floor and 
say the economy is a disaster is irresponsible. It is not correct. The 
numbers tell us differently. Actually, even the conservative Forbes, 
Wall Street Journal, and all of these other magazines and newspapers 
that I read are now talking about how the economy is moving because we 
have had this consecutive pattern which really tells how the economy is 
improving. That is important.
  The last thing I will say from a purely Alaska perspective is not 
only are exports important to us because we do a lot of business 
overseas--we have seen exports increase. Our unemployment in Anchorage, 
for example, the city I am from, is 4.9 percent--a pretty good economy. 
Our fisheries industry, which I know the Presiding Officer and I 
share--78,000 jobs are connected to that--a $5 billion, almost $6 
billion industry. Our tourism industry is up, with 2 million overall 
visitors to our State, again, generating income. There is more activity 
happening around the country than ever before, and my State is seeing 
it every single day.
  But to come to the floor and continue to be naysayers and talk about 
how bad things are is really not responsible. We have done a great job. 
Can we do better? Absolutely. That is what we strive for every single 
day. And I hope--and I say this to the Presiding Officer because I will 
not be here after January--that they don't take the position where they 
are mad at immigration so now they are not going to do these economic 
development issues, or they are mad at something else and they take it 
out on some other program. We are going to have--the Presiding Officer 
will have differences with her colleagues, on immigration, maybe, on 
health care, on the economy, but we have to find common ground. The 
economy is a constant issue, and where investments should happen if we 
really want to have an impact down the road is investing in 
infrastructure, education, relieving--as the Presiding Officer has 
tried to do--relieving debt from students and families. There is now a 
$1.4 trillion debt, I think, on families for student loans. It is 
outrageous. We should be lowering those rates.
  Also, as tax reform issues come up, which they will next year, I hope 
the Senate and the House look at objectives such as making a big impact 
for individual families, lowering the rates for individual families, 
hard-working families, if we want to put cash in their pockets, if we 
want to change the dynamics, give them more of their money back, not 
the top 1 percent or even the top 10 percent, but I am talking about 
the folks we see every day--I see every day--out there working hard. We 
need to make sure they can start putting money aside for college 
education for their kids, putting money aside for retirement, spending 
more in the economy, because maybe that car that is 15 years old isn't 
running so well anymore. That is what I hope we do. Individual relief 
is more important than corporate relief or the top 1 percent.

[[Page S6257]]

  On top of that, when we talk about corporate tax relief, never forget 
who really is driving the economy. It is the small business owners, 
including the limited liability corporations, the subchapter S 
corporations, the sole proprietor individuals. They all get taxed by 
individual rates. We will hear about corporate rate relief, which is 
important to be competitive, but that is for the big guys. But the guys 
we see every day--when we go to the cleaners, a sole proprietor; go to 
a restaurant, sole proprietor, maybe it is an LLC--they are not going 
to see that benefit unless we lower the rates for them. That is what we 
should be doing if we want to make a difference for them. Because they 
will use the 179 depreciation. The 179 has a limit. The big boys use it 
a little bit, but the limit is really designed for small businesses to 
reinvest. But if their tax rates are still too high, they won't be able 
to take advantage of that as much as they can. We want them to take 
advantage.
  I didn't mean to take time here at the end of the evening. I know 
lots of times people want to get out. But, honestly, I couldn't sit 
there and listen to the revisionist history that continues to go on. 
The elections are over. I know now it is called the Obama economy. That 
is a new phrase. It is really collectively all of our economy, because 
we participated in trying to save it. They have objected to it for the 
last 6 years, so by their objection, they get to be a part of not 
having the result that maybe they wanted, but the result is the economy 
is much better. We need to do more work to make sure it gets into the 
hands of the individual out there. I know that is a priority to the 
Presiding Officer. But if I continue to hear it, I will continue to 
come to the floor and speak, because people can't get away with just 
saying over and over again that they are stating the facts, because the 
facts are very clear as I just stated. The stock market has gone up. 
Unemployment has dropped. Housing is up. Housing starts are up. The two 
largest automobile companies, all three of them now, over a half a 
million new jobs. Fifty-five consecutive months of growth. That is all 
good news and we should be proud of it. The Presiding Officer should be 
proud of it and the Senate should be proud of it. But there is no room 
for revisionist history when we talk about the fact of where we were 6 
years ago and where we are today.
  I appreciate the time and yield the floor and suggest the absence of 
a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am here for my 81st ``Time To Wake 
Up'' speech and to ask this body to wake up to the effects of climate 
change and to say this: Acting on this issue will accelerate economic 
growth, spur innovation, and create jobs.
  We have settled any real argument about the leading cause of climate 
change. It is carbon pollution. Measurements in the atmosphere and 
oceans reveal dramatic, even unprecedented changes in the climate.
  Our scientists know carbon pollution heats up the climate and 
acidifies the ocean. That is beyond debate. They know this is already a 
problem for Americans and the world.
  We had wonderful testimony from a NASA scientist today in the 
Environment and Public Works Committee who talked about what they 
actually see when they look down from the satellites.
  They take measurements. They are not hypothesizing. They actually 
measure these things. The scientists know that continued, unchecked 
emissions of carbon dioxide will push the climate and the oceans into 
dangerous unchartered new territory.
  In the face of overwhelming evidence of climate change, some of our 
Republican colleagues--just a few--are beginning to move beyond denial 
of basic measurements and basic classroom science and beginning to talk 
about the costs of action. That is progress. When he was asked recently 
about climate change, the junior Senator from South Dakota acknowledged 
there are a number of factors that contribute to that, including human 
activity. The question is, he went on to say, what are we going to do 
about it and at what cost?
  Across the building, over on the House side, Congressman Paul Ryan of 
Wisconsin has also been talking about the costs of action. In his most 
recent campaign for reelection, he said that when it comes to action to 
reduce carbon emissions, ``the benefits don't outweigh the costs.''
  Let's talk about that. When we get past the denial, which with a few 
of our colleagues it seems we have--not all, maybe not even many, but a 
few--and we talk about balancing costs and benefits, if we look at the 
whole ledger, there is no doubt about it that the balance favors 
action.
  Climate change carries enormous costs to our economy and to our way 
of life. Acting now can accelerate economic growth and create new jobs. 
The costs of climate change are huge. We even hear this from our own 
advisers at the Government Accountability Office. In its 2013 high-risk 
list, our Government Accountability Office said that climate change 
poses a significant risk to the U.S. Government and to our Nation's 
budget. Why? The Federal Government owns and operates infrastructure 
and property that is vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The 
Federal Government provides aid and disaster response when State 
agencies are overwhelmed. The Federal Government is an insurer of 
property and crops vulnerable to climate disruption. These are major 
line items in the Federal budget.

  Our Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, recently explained:

       If the fiscal burden from climate change continues to rise, 
     it will create budgetary pressures that will force hard 
     trade-offs, larger deficits or higher taxes, and these 
     tradeoffs would make it more challenging to invest in growth.

  One example--just one. Last month, in the GAO report on what climate 
change means for private and Federal insurance for crops and for 
floods, it warned of increased hurricane-related losses to the Federal 
program. They estimated between a 14- and 47-percent increase by 2040 
and a 50- to 110-percent increase over the next century due to climate 
change. Remember, when you are doubling a number like that, you are 
starting with a pretty big baseline.
  Superstorm Sandy wrought $66 billion in damage in 2012. If we are 
constantly replacing damaged roads and bridges, always adapting farming 
and fishing practices to suit never-seen-before conditions, and 
frequently paying out big disaster relief and flood insurance claims, 
that will hit the Federal pocketbook hard.
  We do not even have to look to the costs of the future to justify 
reducing carbon pollution today. Increasingly, green energy makes 
economic sense for utilities, for business, and for consumers. Since 
2008, prices for solar photovoltaic have dropped 80 percent--80 
percent. Austin Energy in Texas recently signed a power purchase 
agreement for a 150-megawatt solar plant at 5 cents per kilowatt hour--
less expensive than comparable offers for natural gas at 7 cents, coal 
at 10 cents, or nuclear power at 13 cents. The story is similar for 
wind power. Since 2009, the cost of wind power has decreased by 64 
percent. At the lowest end of the price range nationally, unsubsidized 
wind power prices are just below 4 cents per kilowatt hour. This 
compares favorably to new coal generation, priced between 6 and 7 cents 
per kilowatt hour at the lowest end.
  The World Resources Institute has just done a brief report called 
``Seeing is Believing: Status of renewable energy in the United 
States.'' It is headlined ``Wind & solar are cheaper than coal & gas in 
a growing number of markets.'' It lists sales in Utah, Colorado, Texas, 
Georgia, and Minnesota--not States that have a lot in common except 
that renewables are beginning to outcompete fossil fuels in those 
States.
  Similarly, the New York Times just last week in its business section 
highlighted this shift in an article: ``Solar and Wind Energy Start to 
Win on Price vs. Conventional Fuels.''
  I ask unanimous consent that the World Resources Institute report and 
the New York Times story be printed in the Record at the conclusion of 
my remarks.
  Green energy jobs--they are out there. They are helping communities.

[[Page S6258]]

Indeed, they are helping communities recover from the great recession. 
Let me use a Rhode Island example--TPI Composites. TPI has a 
development and manufacturing facility in Warren, RI. It is also one of 
our leading manufacturers of wind turbine blades. They make them in 
Iowa. When the Maytag plant closed in Newton IA, leaving as many as 
4,000 workers jobless, wind jobs helped the town get back on its feet. 
In 10 years TPI has manufactured more than 10,000 wind turbine blades.
  In Iowa, MidAmerican Energy pays farmers thousands of dollars each 
year to site their turbines on their farms. The farmers love it. They 
can farm right up to about 25 feet around the base of the turbine. 
There is a little gravel road for the maintenance trucks, but they can 
farm right up to that. They get paid for having the turbines on their 
farms. So it is a win-win that has helped Iowa generate more than one-
quarter of its electricity from wind.
  They are investing more. They have been reducing emissions and moving 
the State's economy forward--step by step reducing emissions and moving 
the economy forward. More and more companies, in their own planning, 
are seeing the economic benefits from cleaning up their supply chains 
and reducing carbon pollution from their operations. They see green 
investments increasing profits. ``Too many people say it's this or 
that,'' Apple CEO Tim Cook explained earlier this year. ``We've found 
that if you set the bar high, then it's possible to do both.''
  Outside these walls here in Congress, where the deniers rule and 
polluter money reigns, State and local political leaders also see that 
reducing carbon pollution and growing the economy go hand in hand. 
Almost 10 years ago, the Presiding officer's State and my State and 
others--bipartisan--nine northeastern Governors came together and 
formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, called RGGI, which caps 
carbon emissions and sells permits to powerplants to emit greenhouse 
gasses. Since the program started, RGGI States that have cut emissions 
from the power sector have cut them by 40 percent.
  Here is the blue line. That is the emission chart from 2005 through 
2012. Well, if cutting emissions was bad for the economy, you would 
think that the State GDP would have followed downward in that curve, 
but, in fact, you see that the regional economy across these States 
actually grew by 7 percent--grew by 7 percent. Bear in mind, this is 
2008, the great recession.
  Here we are now. So you would think that during this period the GDP 
numbers would have taken a pounding. The underlying numbers are 
actually better than this once you adjust for the recession.
  Early estimates show that in its first decade, RGGI will have saved 
New England families and businesses in the participating States nearly 
$1.3 billion on their electric bills. It will have added $1.6 billion 
into local economies. Along the way, those RGGI States will have added 
16,000 job years. Additional investments are coming online because it 
is such a successful program. So those benefits also grow. Rhode Island 
has put over 90 percent of the money generated through the RGGI 
auctions into energy efficiency improvements, helping residents save 
money on their utility bills and making small businesses more 
competitive. This success led Tom Wolf, the Governor-elect of 
Pennsylvania--a coal mining and natural gas State--to campaign for 
office successfully on joining RGGI.
  RGGI shows that improving the environment boosts the economy. Look 
north to Canada. British Columbia has a revenue-neutral carbon fee that 
has reduced the use of polluting fossil fuels by 16 percent. What has 
happened to the economy? The BC economy has not missed a step. The 
carbon fee revenue has been used to lower personal and corporate rate 
income taxes. British Columbia now has the lowest personal tax rate in 
Canada.
  If our Republican colleagues would like to lower our American 
corporate and individual taxes, then I have a revenue-neutral carbon 
fee bill I am happy to discuss with them. Evidence from Rhode Island to 
British Columbia shows that action on carbon pollution spurs 
innovation, creates jobs, and economically boosts families and 
businesses.
  Today I discussed this larger report, again from the World Resources 
Institute, which is a group that has, for instance, executives from 
Alcoa and Caterpillar on its board. This is not some fringe group; it 
is a very responsible organization with significant corporate and 
international leadership.
  Here is the lead sentence:

       A growing body of evidence shows that economic growth is 
     not in conflict with efforts to reduce emissions of 
     greenhouse gasses.

  It continues:

       Policies are often necessary to unlock these opportunities, 
     however, because market barriers hamper investment in what 
     are otherwise beneficial activities.

  That is what we are about here. Unlock those opportunities for our 
economy. On the downside--here is the first chapter heading: ``Delaying 
action will have significant economic impacts.''

       Climate change itself constitutes a significant risk to the 
     nation's economy.

  The downside is on doing nothing, according to this report. The 
upside is on changing our policies to seize those opportunities. Why 
are we here fighting about this? Well, again, to quote the report:

       The persistence of pollution externalities--

  ``Pollution externalities'' means when the cost of your product--you 
can ship off to somebody else and make them have to take care of it.

     The persistence of pollution externalities gives an unfair 
     advantage to polluting activities. Externalities occur when a 
     product or activity affects people in ways that are not fully 
     captured in its price, such as the full health effects of air 
     pollution not being factored into the cost of electricity 
     generation. Thus, society rather than the company pays the 
     cost.

  Why are we in this fight? Because there are a lot of companies that 
folks on the other side are supporting and representing here that have 
been the winners in that fight. They have had those polluting 
externalities work in their favor. They have enjoying that unfair 
advantage. They do not want to give it up. But as the report continues, 
the well-designed policies can overcome those market barriers and 
direct investment into beneficial technologies and practices. New 
policies can enhance the transition to a low-carbon economy while 
delivering net economic benefits and, in many cases, direct savings for 
consumers and businesses. So that is pretty good news.
  Equally important, taking action helps to reduce the worst effects of 
climate change--what is coming at us. Do not just take my word for it. 
Many conservative economists, writers, and officials see the benefits 
of market-based climate action. ``A tax on carbon,'' wrote Hudson 
Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, ``need not swell the government's 
coffers--if we pursue a second, long-held conservative objective: 
Reducing the tax on work.
  He continues:

       It would be a relatively simple matter to arrange a dollar-
     for-dollar, simultaneous reduction in payroll taxes. . . . 
     Anyone interested in jobs, jobs, jobs should find this an 
     attractive proposition, with growth-minded conservatives 
     leading the applause.

  That is the economics of it unless you are shilling for the folks who 
have had the unfair advantage and want to keep it, but that is not 
market based, that is not economics, that is just taking care of 
special interests.
  A recent joint report from economists at the Brookings Institution 
and the conservative American Enterprise Institute described human-
induced greenhouse gas emissions as a textbook example of a negative 
externality. The report proposed--guess what--a revenue-neutral carbon 
fee program as the efficient and elegant approach to managing carbon 
pollution.
  According to the report's authors:

       Taxing something we do not want (e.g. greenhouse gas 
     emissions) rather than something we want more of (e.g., 
     productive labor and investment) could help lower the 
     economy-wide cost of the program and may even have economic 
     benefits in addition to its environmental benefits.

  Today, in the Environment and Public Works Committee, I had a 
conversation with a Heritage Foundation witness in which I read to the 
witness a very similar quote from the economist Arthur Laffer, Reagan's 
economist, saying: A carbon fee--where you tax the product in the 
ground and relieve taxes on work and effort by people--is a net win for 
the economy.
  I asked the witness what he thought about that, and he couldn't 
dispute it.

[[Page S6259]]

In fact, he considers himself to be something of an acolyte of Arthur 
Laffer's, so there is actually a lot of economic support for it.
  I will conclude by saying, if the topic is now not going to be denial 
but it is going to be the cost and benefits of climate action, I am 
ready to have that conversation all day long. Let's just make sure it 
is the whole conversation, not just the half of the conversation that 
looks at what losing their subsidy means for the big oil companies, the 
big coal companies, the Koch brothers and the rest of the polluters.
  A lot of my colleagues only look at one side of the ledger, how this 
affects the fossil fuel lobby. If we look at the whole ledger, if we 
look at both sides, when we look at all the evidence, it tells us one 
thing; that is, that the costs of climate change are already here. They 
are showing up in our lives in innumerable ways that carry real 
economic costs and carry real costs in terms of quality of life and our 
identity as a country, and in fact they may overwhelm us by century's 
end. Looking at all the evidence shows us that significant reductions 
in carbon pollution will actually support jobs and increase economic 
growth.
  Finally, a revenue-neutral carbon fee would spur innovative business 
models and technological development in the United States. If we lose 
this race to clean up our carbon mess, one of the collateral injuries 
we will sustain is that we will not have developed a robust clean 
energy economy and we will find ourselves buying products from the 
Chinese, the Indians, the Europeans, and others.
  We need to put our industry to the test. They will rise to it. They 
always have. We can trust them. We can count on them, but giving them a 
pass does not serve their interests or ours. This will drive market 
forces to decrease our emissions and grow our economy.
  We have the tools to do something big. It has been proven in British 
Columbia. It has been proven with RGGI. All of the economists across 
the economic spectrum seem to agree the time is right to put a national 
price on carbon.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From the World Resources Institute]

  Seeing Is Believing: Status of Renewable Energy in the United States


WIND & SOLAR ARE CHEAPER THAN COAL & GAS IN A GROWING NUMBER OF MARKETS

       For each region, the average wind power purchase agreement 
     (PPA) is cheaper than new coal plants, new coal and natural 
     gas plants, and new coal and natural gas plants, even without 
     federal tax incentives. Wind PPA data is unavailable in the 
     Southeast region.


Well Designed Policies & Technological improvements can continue these 
                                 trends

       Prices for solar PV systems have dropped 80 percent since 
     2008; analysts expect a continued decline in the coming 
     years.
       New, taller wind turbines with longer blades are able to 
     capture more energy and can open the U.S. up to new areas of 
     wind development.
       Long-term regulatory certainty is needed through a price on 
     carbon (like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade), or greenhouse 
     gas standards for existing power plants.
       Additional important policy signals include: States and 
     utilities should ensure that renewable energy providers have 
     access to long-term contracts, which could reduce the average 
     electricity costs of wind and solar projects by 10-15 
     percent. Major corporations are already taking advantage of 
     electricity price savings from these long-term contracts, and 
     are asking for access in more states through the Corporate 
     Renewable Energy Buyers' Principles.
       Congress should address the design flaw of renewable tax 
     incentives so that more of the value of the credit flows to 
     project developers (as opposed to third party investors) 
     without increasing the cost to taxpayers, for example by 
     making the tax incentive ``refundable''.
       Renewable projects can face high financing costs, so 
     financial regulators and lending institutions should work 
     together to develop new investment models that lower these 
     costs.
       Bringing more renewables online can be challenging because 
     the supply varies. States and utilities should update 
     regulations and business models to promote a flexible power 
     grid that uses more storage, distributed generation, and 
     demand response.
       Federal spending on research and development in the power 
     sector has fallen 77 percent since 1980, while the power 
     industry itself spends only .05 percent of its earnings on 
     R&D (compared to 11 percent for the pharmaceutical industry 
     and 8 percent for computers and electronics). Congress should 
     therefore increase federal funding for research, development 
     and commercialization of low-carbon and energy-saving 
     technologies, especially for those that could generate 
     baseload electricity like geothermal and concentrating solar 
     power.
       In the absence of other tools to provide long-term 
     regulatory certainty, EPA has used its existing legal 
     authority under the Clean Air Act to propose greenhouse gas 
     standards for existing power plants. EPA should finalize 
     these standards.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Nov. 23, 2014]

   Solar and Wind Energy Start To Win on Price vs. Conventional Fuels

                          (By Diane Cardwell)

       For the solar and wind industries in the United States, it 
     has been a long-held dream: to produce energy at a cost equal 
     to conventional sources like coal and natural gas.
       That day appears to be dawning.
       The cost of providing electricity from wind and solar power 
     plants has plummeted over the last five years, so much so 
     that in some markets renewable generation is now cheaper than 
     coal or natural gas.
       Utility executives say the trend has accelerated this year, 
     with several companies signing contracts, known as power 
     purchase agreements, for solar or wind at prices below that 
     of natural gas, especially in the Great Plains and Southwest, 
     where wind and sunlight are abundant.
       Those prices were made possible by generous subsidies that 
     could soon diminish or expire, but recent analyses show that 
     even without those subsidies, alternative energies can often 
     compete with traditional sources.
       In Texas, Austin Energy signed a deal this spring for 20 
     years of output from a solar farm at less than 5 cents a 
     kilowatt-hour. In September, the Grand River Dam Authority in 
     Oklahoma announced its approval of a new agreement to buy 
     power from a new wind farm expected to be completed next 
     year. Grand River estimated the deal would save its customers 
     roughly $50 million from the project.
       And, also in Oklahoma, American Electric Power ended up 
     tripling the amount of wind power it had originally sought 
     after seeing how low the bids came in last year.
       ``Wind was on sale--it was a Blue Light Special,'' said Jay 
     Godfrey, managing director of renewable energy for the 
     company. He noted that Oklahoma, unlike many states, did not 
     require utilities to buy power from renewable sources.
       ``We were doing it because it made sense for our 
     ratepayers,'' he said.
       According to a study by the investment banking firm Lazard, 
     the cost of utility-scale solar energy is as low as 5.6 cents 
     a kilowatt-hour, and wind is as low as 1.4 cents. In 
     comparison, natural gas comes at 6.1 cents a kilowatt-hour on 
     the low end and coal at 6.6 cents. Without subsidies, the 
     firm's analysis shows, solar costs about 7.2 cents a 
     kilowatt-hour at the low end, with wind at 3.7 cents.
       ``It is really quite notable, when compared to where we 
     were just five years ago, to see the decline in the cost of 
     these technologies,'' said Jonathan Mir, a managing director 
     at Lazard, which has been comparing the economics of power 
     generation technologies since 2008.
       Mr. Mir noted there were hidden costs that needed to be 
     taken into account for both renewable energy and fossil 
     fuels. Solar and wind farms, for example, produce power 
     intermittently--when the sun is shining or the wind is 
     blowing--and that requires utilities to have power available 
     on call from other sources that can respond to fluctuations 
     in demand. Alternately, conventional power sources produce 
     pollution, like carbon emissions, which face increasing 
     restrictions and costs.
       But in a straight comparison of the costs of generating 
     power, Mr. Mir said that the amount solar and wind developers 
     needed to earn from each kilowatt-hour they sell from new 
     projects was often ``essentially competitive with what would 
     otherwise be had from newly constructed conventional 
     generation.''
       Experts and executives caution that the low prices do not 
     mean wind and solar farms can replace conventional power 
     plants anytime soon.
       ``You can't dispatch it when you want to,'' said Khalil 
     Shalabi, vice president for energy market operations and 
     resource planning at Austin Energy, which is why the utility, 
     like others, still sees value in combined-cycle gas plants, 
     even though they may cost more. Nonetheless, he said, 
     executives were surprised to see how far solar prices had 
     fallen. ``Renewables had two issues: One, they were too 
     expensive, and they weren't dispatchable. They're not too 
     expensive anymore.''
       According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the 
     main trade group, the price of electricity sold to utilities 
     under long-term contracts from large-scale solar projects has 
     fallen by more than 70 percent since 2008, especially in the 
     Southwest.
       The average upfront price to install standard utility-scale 
     projects dropped by more than a third since 2009, with higher 
     levels of production.
       The price drop extends to homeowners and small businesses 
     as well; last year, the prices for residential and commercial 
     projects fell by roughly 12 to 15 percent from the year 
     before.
       The wind industry largely tells the same story, with prices 
     dropping by more than half in recent years. Emily Williams, 
     manager of industry data and analytics at the American Wind 
     Energy Association, a trade

[[Page S6260]]

     group, said that in 2013 utilities signed ``a record number 
     of power purchase agreements and what ended up being 
     historically low prices.''
       Especially in the interior region of the country, from 
     North Dakota down to Texas, where wind energy is particularly 
     robust, utilities were able to lock in long contracts at 2.1 
     cents a kilowatt-hour, on average, she said. That is down 
     from prices closer to 5 cents five years ago.
       ``We're finding that in certain regions with certain wind 
     projects that these are competing or coming in below the cost 
     of even existing generation sources,'' she said.
       Both industries have managed to bring down costs through a 
     combination of new technologies and approaches to financing 
     and operations. Still, the industries are not ready to give 
     up on their government supports just yet.
       Already, solar executives are looking to extend a 30 
     percent federal tax credit that is set to fall to 10 percent 
     at the end of 2016. Wind professionals are seeking renewal of 
     a production tax credit that Congress has allowed to lapse 
     and then reinstated several times over the last few decades.
       Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, who for now leads 
     the Finance Committee, held a hearing in September over the 
     issue, hoping to push a process to make the tax treatment of 
     all energy forms more consistent.
       ``Congress has developed a familiar pattern of passing 
     temporary extensions of those incentives, shaking hands and 
     heading home,'' he said at the hearing. ``But short-term 
     extensions cannot put renewables on the same footing as the 
     other energy sources in America's competitive marketplace.''
       Where that effort will go now is anybody's guess, though, 
     with Republicans in control of both houses starting in 
     January.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Donnelly). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant 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.


            Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the previous 
order be modified so the votes originally scheduled for 3 p.m. tomorrow 
now occur at 5:30 p.m. and that the time following the 10 a.m. cloture 
votes and 5:30 p.m. be equally divided in the usual form; further, that 
notwithstanding rule XXII, following the vote on cloture on Calendar 
No. 555, the Senate proceed to vote on cloture on the nomination of 
Calendar No. 660; that if cloture is invoked on either nomination, the 
time under cloture run consecutively in the order in which cloture was 
invoked, with all other provisions of the previous order remaining in 
effect.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. 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.
  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.

                          ____________________