[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 29, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2100-S2102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. ALEXANDER (for himself and Mr. Corker):
S. 761. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow
individuals to receive a premium assistance credit for insurance not
purchased on an Exchange, and for other purposes; to the Committee on
Finance.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Health Care Options Act of 2017,
introduced by Senator Corker and me, would address the emergency in the
health insurance exchanges in Tennessee and in other States. This
legislation would allow any American who receives a subsidy and has no
insurance available on their exchange next year to use that subsidy to
buy any State-approved insurance off the exchange.
Second, the legislation would waive the Affordable Care Act
requirement that these Americans--who, remember, have zero insurance
options for their subsidies--have to pay a penalty for not purchasing
the insurance.
Third, the legislation would bring peace of mind between now and the
beginning of 2018 to millions of Americans--some of the most vulnerable
people in our country--who face having zero options of health insurance
to purchase with their subsidy in the year 2018 because of the
collapsing ObamaCare exchange markets.
Here is why urgent action is needed. There are 11 million Americans
who buy individual insurance now on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
Approximately 85 percent of them receive a subsidy to help them buy
insurance. For those who don't like subsidies for people buying
insurance, I would remind us that about 60 percent of insured Americans
get insurance on the job, and the average tax break for people with
employer sponsored insurance is about $5,000. What we are talking about
is the 4 percent of insured people who don't get insurance on the job,
who don't get it from the government and Medicare and Medicaid, and
this subsidy gives them some money to help them buy insurance if they
are mostly low income.
While these 11 million make up only 4 percent of the total insured
population in this country, this 4 percent is where much of today's
political turmoil rests.
In the Knoxville area where I live, the one remaining insurance
company on the Affordable Care Act exchange has pulled out for the year
2018. So it is a near certainty that there will be zero insurance
options for 40,000 Tennesseans who live there and buy their insurance
on the exchange. In other words, for approximately 34,000 Tennesseans
living in Knoxville who rely on an Affordable Care Act subsidy to buy
health insurance, their subsidies will be worth as much as a bus ticket
in a town with no buses running.
There is a real prospect that the same thing may happen to all
230,000 Tennesseans who buy insurance on the exchange. As I said, 85
percent of them rely on a subsidy to afford insurance; they just will
not have any insurance policies to buy.
The decision Friday by the House of Representatives to not vote on
the health care bill changes nothing about the urgency of rescuing
these 230,000 Tennesseans who buy insurance on the ObamaCare exchanges
that our State insurance commissioner has told us are ``very near
collapse.''
While Congress continues its work to enact long-term structural
health reforms, we must take immediate action to help these 230,000
Tennesseans and millions of Americans in other States facing the same
dire consequences.
This is not just a problem for Tennesseans. Last year, 7 percent of
counties in the country had just one insurer offering plans on their
Affordable Care Act exchange. This year, that 7 percent has risen to 32
percent of the counties in this country having just one insurer
offering plans on the Affordable Care Act exchange. There are five
States this year that have only a single insurer offering ACA plans in
their entire State--Alabama, Alaska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and
Wyoming. And in nine States, there is only one insurer offering ACA
plans in a majority of the
[[Page S2101]]
counties in the States: Tennessee, North Carolina, West Virginia, Utah,
Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, and Florida.
Next year, in 2018, we know the problem will be much worse. As more
insurance companies announce their plans for the 2018 plan year, it is
very likely that more counties across the Nation will face challenges
similar to those in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area, where, again,
having an ObamaCare subsidy will be as useful as having a bus ticket in
a town with no buses running.
Now, there is a solution to this. As I mentioned, the legislation
that Senator Corker and I are introducing will do three things: First,
it will allow Americans to use their Affordable Care Act subsidy--the
money they are getting now--to purchase any health insurance plan
outside of the exchange, as long as the insurance is approved by the
State for sale in the individual market. That means Americans on the
exchanges will have options to purchase insurance where the Affordable
Care Act has left them with none. This option will be given to
individuals who live in the counties where the Secretary of Health and
Human Services certifies that there are zero options on the ACA
exchange.
Second, when the Secretary certifies that there are zero insurance
options on the exchange, the legislation will waive the Affordable Care
Act's requirement to buy a specific health plan or pay a fine of as
much as $2,000 for a family of four. The law's individual mandate, in
other words, will not apply to these individuals. And, of course, it
shouldn't. They shouldn't be penalized for not buying insurance when
there is no insurance to buy.
The legislation's temporary authority would be in place only through
the end of the 2019 plan year.
Third, I hope that this legislation will provide some peace of mind
for those Knoxville area residents and Americans in counties across the
country trapped in collapsing exchanges.
This is not a permanent solution. Congress has a responsibility to
continue its work to solve this problem and to give more Americans more
choices of lower cost health insurance.
Long term, Americans should have the freedom to make their own
choices about their family's health care needs. But in the short term,
we must act on behalf of 230,000 Tennesseans, some of the most
vulnerable citizens in our State, and millions of other Americans in
other States who are likely to have zero choices of insurance in 2018.
Earlier this afternoon, the Tennessee insurance commissioner, Julie
Mix McPeak, who has testified before the Senate and made public
statements that the Tennessee Affordable Care Act exchanges were in
virtual collapse--what she means by that is no one will be selling
insurance in them--issued this statement in support of the bill that
Senator Corker and I have introduced. She said:
This bill ``would definitely be helpful for Tennessee
consumers. We are in favor of any legislation that improves
consumer choice and provides access for Tennesseans. It is
completely unacceptable for our consumers to have a subsidy
but no ability to purchase insurance on the exchange. We
support any option that avoids that result.''
I yield the floor.
______
By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself and Mr. Wyden):
S. 762. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to reform
provisions relating to whistleblowers; to the Committee on Finance.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in 2006, I was successful in enacting
much needed updates to the IRS whistleblower program. Up until that
time, the program was entirely a voluntary award program. There was
also no central office within the IRS for handling whistleblower
claims. Given this, there was little incentive for whistleblowers to
step forward potentially risking their careers.
My 2006 amendments sought to bolster the IRS whistleblower program by
making a special program targeted at going after high-dollar tax
cheats, such as corporations. It did this by making awards mandatory in
cases where a whistleblower discloses tax fraud totaling $2 million or
more. Moreover, the 2006 amendments established the Whistleblower
Office within the IRS to formalize and manage the program.
The IRS whistleblower program has turned into one of the most
effective programs in addressing tax evasion--leading to the recovery
of more than $3 billion in taxes that otherwise would have been lost to
fraud. I firmly believe the program has the potential to collect even
greater sums going forward. However, for this to occur, the IRS is
going to have to completely embrace the program and start to view
whistleblowers as their allies.
The Government Accountability Office, GAO, issued a report on the
program in 2015 that expressed concerns that long timelines and poor
communication may be discouraging whistleblowers. This is exactly what
I have been hearing from whistleblowers for years. Too often
whistleblowers are waiting in the dark for years with no communication
on where their claim is in the system.
While the IRS has made improvements in this area, I fear that without
further improvements some whistleblowers may start to question whether
stepping forward is worth their time and effort. My concern is
exacerbated by the fact that under current law, IRS whistleblowers have
no protections against employer retaliation for good-faith disclosures.
That is why I am pleased to be joined by Senator Wyden today in
introducing legislation that seeks to address these issues. The IRS
Whistleblower Improvements Act would increase communication between the
IRS and whistleblowers, while protecting taxpayer privacy, and provide
legal protections to whistleblowers from employers retaliating against
them for disclosing tax abuses.
To increase communication, our bill would specifically allow the IRS
to exchange information with whistleblowers where doing so would be
helpful to an investigation. It would further require the IRS to
provide status updates to whistleblowers at significant points in the
review process and allows for further updates at the discretion of the
IRS. It does this while ensuring the confidentiality of this
information is maintained.
Moreover, to protect whistleblowers from employer retaliation, our
bill extends antiretaliation provisions to IRS whistleblowers that are
presently afforded to whistleblowers under other whistleblower laws,
such as the False Claims Act and Sarbanes-Oxley.
Too often, whistleblowers are treated like skunks at a picnic. This
is unfortunate, as often the only way to discover fraud and abuse is
for a whistleblower to step forward. It is time we roll out the welcome
mat for IRS whistleblowers. Our bill takes a good step in that
direction.
I urge my colleagues to join Senator Wyden and me in supporting this
commonsense legislation.
______
By Mr. BENNET (for himself, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. Booker, Mr. Cardin,
Mr. Sanders, Mr. Markey, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Reed, Mr. Durbin, Mr.
Whitehouse, Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Udall, Ms. Cortez Masto, Mr.
Heinrich, Ms. Warren, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Franken, Ms. Hassan, Mr.
Nelson, Ms. Harris, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Coons, Mrs. Feinstein, Ms.
Klobuchar, Mr. Schatz, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Blumenthal,
Mr. Carper, Ms. Hirono, Mr. Murphy, and Mr. Van Hollen):
S. 767. A bill to provide that the Executive Order entitled
``Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth'' and signed on
March 28, 2017, shall have no force or effect, and for other purposes;
to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, even with all the dysfunction in Congress,
somehow the American people continue to expect that Washington will
enact policies that bear at least some relationship to the challenges
they face. Unfortunately, the administration's new Executive order on
energy fails even that low bar.
This order will not expand energy production, it will not make us
more energy independent, it will not create more American jobs, and it
will also not protect us from the ravages of climate change. That last
point is somewhat less surprising than the first because, unlike
millions of Americans and 99 percent of scientists, this administration
does not believe that climate change is real or that humankind is
contributing to it.
[[Page S2102]]
To understand where this Executive order comes from, I think it is
important to see where we were before this administration took office.
Put simply, the United States was already on track to achieve energy
independence. Our country is producing a tremendous amount of low-cost
energy. Since 2008, solar energy production has grown more than 50-
fold, wind power is up 3-fold, and oil production in the United States
of America is up 75 percent. In fact, 5 years ago, we began producing
more oil than we import.
You can see on this slide that over the period of time that the Obama
administration was in office, oil production rose like this, and net
imports have gone like this--an important fact considering our
geopolitical situation in the world. We are also now producing so much
natural gas that facilities that were built originally to import gas
are now being reengineered to export gas from the United States. I,
along with other people in this Chamber, have worked hard to try to
make sure those facilities are expedited so we can get the benefit of
that exported natural gas.
Even before President Trump rode to the rescue with his Executive
order, the Wall Street Journal told us that exports of natural gas
could more than double over the next 5 years, just based on what we are
doing already. We are also using energy far more efficiently in our
homes, our appliances, and our automobiles, which is why the
administration's action to reverse higher fuel standards last week--
well, I just would say, talk about a solution in search of a problem.
That is one.
There is not a person in Colorado who said to me: Michael, do you
know what we ought to do? We ought to reduce the fuel efficiency
standards on automobiles. We ought to create a regulatory environment
where the United States can't sell competitive automobiles in the
world. Nobody has said that because not only are they concerned about
climate, they are concerned that we lead the world when it comes to
innovation. And that order, just like a budget that cuts the EPA by 30
percent, that targets the climate scientists at the EPA, that targets
the satellites that are above our heads so that we can't see what is
happening on our planet--this is all so we can perpetuate a willful
view that climate change doesn't exist, and it is the same thing with
this Executive order.
All of the trends that are in place right now--right before this
administration took office--have combined to reduce our reliance on
foreign energy in recent years, even as our economy has grown and
average prices at the pump, because of the abundant supply, remain
under $2.30. We are just a few years away from exporting as much oil
and gas as we import. That is important for our country.
Colorado has been a huge part of America's growing energy
independence and, by extension, our national security. That is because
in many ways Colorado led the way in developing a commonsense approach
to expanding energy production while ensuring clean air and a healthy
planet. We brought environmentalists together with the oil and gas
industry to develop one of the first State limits on methane pollution.
It became a model for the country. We passed the first voter-led
renewable energy standard in the Nation, which became a model for the
country. We established our own limits on carbon pollution at the State
level, and in this process we have created 13,000 renewable energy
jobs, with wind jobs alone expected to triple by 2020. On average,
these jobs pay over $50,000. This is not some Bolshevik experiment or
some socialist experiment. These are manufacturing jobs in the United
States of America, in Colorado, that would not be there if it hadn't
been for the policy decisions that were made in this body and in other
parts of Washington, DC, and the supply chain that goes along with
those manufactured turbines is critically important to our economy. At
the same time we were doing all that, we preserved over 56,000 oil and
gas jobs, even as drilling has slowed because of, again, abundant
supply, to say nothing of the jobs Colorado has created just because it
is a place where other people would like to live. They want to come to
Colorado, as they want to go to Nevada, because there is a high quality
of life. There is a lot of sunshine in both places.
I am pleased to have the chance to work with the Senator from Nevada
to make sure we not only extended the investment tax credit with
respect to solar, but we put language in there together--Republicans
and Democrats together--to create an idea that those credits would kick
in at the beginning of construction, not having to wait until the end.
That has made a big difference to our solar industry.
Long ago, the State of Colorado and, I would say, many other States
have broken past the false choice between our economy and the
environment. That is the course we have charted in Colorado, and if the
President were serious about energy independence, he would support that
approach. Instead, he is trying to undermine it with this new order. By
undoing national standards for carbon pollution, the order threatens to
undercut our thriving clean energy industry. There are 465 solar and
wind businesses across our State supporting over $8 billion in
investments. By retreating from the fight against climate change, the
order recklessly endangers Colorado's $646 billion outdoor recreation
industry, not to mention the health of our national forests that line
the banks of some of the most vital watersheds in America.
As the President targets our environment and clean energy economy
with this Executive order, he has dressed it up as something good for
jobs, as he did during the campaign. Yesterday, the President stood
before a group of coal miners and promised to ``cancel job-killing
regulations'' and ``put our miners back to work.''
Just 2 weeks ago, I was on the Western Slope of Colorado, a region
with a number of mining communities. These communities, some of whom
have helped invent hydraulic fracture and directional drilling, know
that their challenges have far more to do with low prices and
competition from natural gas than from the EPA. They know that their
way of life and the way of life of communities like theirs all across
the United States require real solutions to help them grow and
diversify their economies. These communities get it. They understand
it, but the President clearly does not.
Just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran this article entitled
``Despite Trump Move on Climate Change, Utilities' Shift from Coal Is
Set to Continue.'' According to the article, last year, power from coal
plants fell while power from natural gas rose 35 percent. Nationwide
major utilities are shedding coal and increasing natural gas and
renewables. That is the reality of our energy market and of the global
economy, but this administration, when it comes to energy and when it
comes to climate, is not operating in reality. It is operating amongst
political slogans. It is operating in the theater of the absurd, where
policies have no relationship to problems, facts don't matter, and
false promises to struggling Americans are just another political
tactic to win a cable news cycle.
The American people deserve so much better. Colorado deserves so much
better than that. That is why today I am introducing a bill alongside
more than 30 Senators to rescind this disastrous order, protect
American jobs, and preserve our path toward energy independence. The
stakes could not be higher for our kids, our planet, and our economy.
We cannot let this stand.
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