[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 163 (Wednesday, October 16, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5829-S5830]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the next nomination.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Rachel 
P. Kovner, of New York, to be United States District Judge for the 
Eastern District of New York.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Will the Senate advise and 
consent to the Kovner nomination?
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
   Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. 
Isakson), and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul).
   Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''
   Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), 
the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California 
(Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator 
from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. 
Warren) are necessarily absent.
   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
   The result was announced--yeas 88, nays 3, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 323 Ex.]

                                YEAS--88

      Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Hawley
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     McConnell
     McSally
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                 NAYS--3

      Gillibrand
     Heinrich
     Markey

                              NOT VOTING--9

      Alexander
     Bennet
     Booker
     Harris
     Isakson
     Klobuchar
     Paul
     Sanders
     Warren
   The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motions to 
reconsider are considered made and laid upon the table, and the 
President will be immediately notified of the Senate's actions.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.


                              S.J. Res. 53

  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, with the election of President Trump in 
2016, it was reasonable to believe that the war on coal was settled, or 
at least we had a lasting cease-fire. This administration's policies, 
supported by the Congressional Review Act resolutions, undid many of 
the excesses of the Obama administration's regulatory

[[Page S5830]]

assault on coal country. Congress and the President overturned the so-
called stream protection rule, which would have made it nearly 
impossible to mine coal in Appalachia.
  The Trump administration has returned sanity to the clean water 
permitting process in section 404 and is in the process of restoring 
the Waters of the United States rule to align with congressional intent 
of protecting Federal waters and not every stream, ditch, and gully 
across this country, but the jewel of the War on Coal's crown was 
always the Clean Power Plan.
  A sweeping rule to limit the use of coal in our power generation mix, 
the Clean Power Plan ran roughshod over utility investments and States' 
rights to protect their taxpayers and ratepayers. In a moment of 
clarity, then-Candidate Obama acknowledged that under his vision for 
our power system ``electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.''
  The Clean Power Plan, if implemented, would have made that vision a 
reality. Energy is a topline item in many of our families' budgets and 
very expensive, and this policy would have grown these costs 
significantly. This plan was so disastrous and so clearly beyond the 
scope of EPA's authority that 24 States--with West Virginia in the 
lead--sued to stop it. The Supreme Court--our Supreme Court--heard the 
call and placed a stay on the rule while a lower court weighed the 
merits.
  This June, the Trump EPA finalized its replacement for this unlawful 
CPP with the Affordable Clean Energy rule. This commonsense alternative 
acknowledges the need to reduce carbon emissions from our power sector 
but ensures that EPA targets are actually achievable and will not kill 
jobs in the utility and energy sectors, nor crush American families 
with higher electric bills.
  Fully implemented, the ACE rule will reduce the CO2 
emissions by as much as 35 percent from 2005 levels. This 
administration understands that protecting our environment need not 
come at the expense of a growing economy. The result has been a growth 
in our national GDP that the Obama administration's economic 
projections predicted would be unachievable.
  The unemployment rate of my own State of West Virginia is now 4.6 
percent, after it had peaked in 2010 at 8.8 percent. This week, many 
Democrats in this body want to put all this progress in jeopardy and 
reopen the War on Coal with a Congressional Review Act resolution to 
block the ACE rule.
  Senate Democrats and their Presidential candidates have doubled down 
on policies that would destroy our jobs, hammer consumers, and burden 
future generations with staggering amounts of debt.
  Refusing to learn the lessons of Hillary Clinton's 2016 failed 
campaign promise, which was to put a lot of coal miners and coal 
companies out of business, the former Vice President has taken it a 
step further: pledging on a Detroit debate stage in July to ``make 
sure'' that coal and natural gas that comes from fracking are 
``eliminated.''
  There is much support on the other side for the Green New Deal's 
energy and environmental components, which would cost between $8 
trillion and $12 trillion, and that is before adding other extreme 
visions for the government takeover of healthcare, education, and 
agriculture.
  The Democrats' energy agenda will lead to fewer jobs, more expensive 
utility bills, and less reliable electricity. We already see the lack 
of reliability of our electricity grid in California right now. I hope 
the Senate will refuse to go down this path toward impoverishing the 
very people who power the country and make our quality of life 
possible.
  Passage of this resolution would serve as the starting point for a 
resumption of the War on Coal and a march to the extremist excesses of 
the Green New Deal. I urge my colleagues to heed the voice of the 
American people and vote no on the resolution disapproving the ACE 
rule.