[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 61 (Wednesday, April 20, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Page S2205]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ENERGY POLICY MODERNIZATION BILL

  Mr. McCONNELL. Now, Mr. President, passing the FAA reauthorization 
bill isn't the only legislative milestone we will mark this week. Today 
we will pass, as the New York Times put it, ``the first major energy 
bill to come to the Senate floor since the Bush administration,'' the 
passage of which, as the paper has also noted, would represent a 
significant step forward for the Nation's energy policy.
  It has been nearly a decade since the Senate last debated major 
energy legislation and much has changed in that time. That is why 
Senator Murkowski, the Energy Committee chair, and Senator Cantwell, 
the ranking member, worked for the past year to move broad bipartisan 
energy legislation, the Energy Policy Modernization Act.
  Like the FAA reauthorization bill I mentioned earlier, this bill 
won't raise taxes on American families, but it can help them by making 
energy more affordable and more abundant, by building on technological 
advances and bolstering national security, and by growing the economy 
and furthering innovation. In short, the bill before us takes a 
comprehensive approach to bring America's energy policies in line with 
the kind of challenges and opportunities we now face.
  The bill managers worked ceaselessly to see this bill through to 
final passage. Now, following the passage of the most pro-passenger, 
pro-security FAA reauthorization in years, the Republican-led Senate 
will today pass the first major Energy bill in nearly a decade. It is 
broad, it is bipartisan, and it is just the kind of legislation we are 
seeing a lot of in a Republican-led Senate that continues to show what 
is possible with good ideas and good old hard work.

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