[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 175 (Tuesday, October 5, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6904-S6906]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Infrastructure and Jobs Act

  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, this summer, the Senate passed historic 
bipartisan legislation that would make meaningful investments in our 
physical infrastructure. We did the hard work. We did the hard work to 
produce legislation that meets current and future needs by investing in 
our roads,

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our bridges, clean water, broadband, transit systems, rail, and our 
electric grid.
  Chairman Carper and I led a surface transportation reauthorization 
bill and a water infrastructure bill in our EPW Committee, both of 
which were unanimously reported out by our committee and really served 
as the backbone of this infrastructure package. The Commerce Committee 
and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee both also contributed 
bipartisan bills to this major effort. A bipartisan group of our 
colleagues, led by Senator Portman and Senator Sinema, negotiated with 
the Biden administration to complete the package. That effort resulted 
in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which earned the vote of 
69 Senators nearly 2 months ago. President Biden himself expressed his 
support for the legislation in a widely covered speech from the White 
House.
  By now, that bill should be law and Federal funding should be on the 
way to State Departments of Transportation, local water boards, and our 
economic development officials. All Speaker Pelosi had to do was put 
the Senate legislation on the floor in August and watch its passage 
with a strong bipartisan vote. However, House Democrats broke promises 
to their own Members and refused to ask for a vote on the bill, and 
that was in September. Our bipartisan work in the Senate advanced the 
infrastructure football to the 1-yard line. We were there, but somehow 
House Democrats were still unable to reach the goal line.
  Last Friday, our Federal Surface Transportation Program lapsed--
lapsed--for the first time in over a decade. After months of talking 
about rebuilding American infrastructure, House Democrats shut down the 
Federal Highway Administration, pressing pause on some of the most 
important infrastructure programs in this country. It was a short 
lapse, but it was a lapse. A lapse in these programs would be 
unacceptable in any circumstance, but House Democrats decided to let 
the programs expire rather than vote on bipartisan legislation that sat 
on their desks for more than 7 weeks during their August recess.
  In delaying this vote, those leaders didn't just break their 
commitment to the American people, but, again, they broke a commitment 
to their own Members when they said--they were originally promised the 
infrastructure bill would receive a vote by September 27. Instead, the 
House and Senate had to reauthorize, quickly, our existing Surface 
Transportation Program, but guess what--for a month--October 31. What 
does that do? Not much. It does continue, but it does create confusion, 
and that stop-and-start is difficult. I appreciate my colleagues' work 
to reopen these programs, but it is not enough.
  Over on the House side, they are holding core infrastructure 
legislation hostage in an effort to force Members of their own party to 
come on board in separate legislation that would, in my opinion, waste 
$3.5 trillion on social programs unrelated to infrastructure. The $3.5 
trillion package is what my colleague and our colleague, Senator 
Manchin, correctly described as ``fiscal insanity.'' House Democrats 
are telling the American people that if they want roads and bridges, 
they have to accept trillions of dollars in unrelated spending and 
unrelated tax policies.
  If this reckless tax-and-spending spree were popular with the 
American people, they wouldn't have to bind it to the infrastructure 
legislation and block that legislation in an effort to convince the 
Members of their own party to support it, but they understand there is 
a real concern back home to spending $3.5 trillion. I heard this over 
and over when I was just home over the weekend--over and over--from my 
constituents in West Virginia.
  We all know inflation is real, and it is impacting day-to-day 
families--families who are trying to figure out how to pay for the cost 
of gasoline, that gallon of milk, those new school clothes, books, 
pencils, the cost of heating and cooling their homes. It is hurting our 
American families. And yet, even with these red flags, the Biden 
administration and my Democrat colleagues want to spend an additional 
3.5 trillion--with a ``t''--dollars. And if that is not enough, they 
want to impose the largest tax hike in decades.
  These efforts will hit American families with higher prices and 
greater tax burdens at a time when they can least afford it. I am not 
sure there is a time we could ever afford it. So this makes zero sense.
  Now, I know President Biden has promised not to raise taxes on 
families making less than $400,000 a year. He has repeated this many, 
many times in his public speeches. But what he is not telling you is 
that the cost of everyday living is going up significantly because of 
these--and will go up more because of these progressive policies, which 
are a hidden tax on the American people. Your utility bills, your 
grocery bills, all the costs of everyday goods and services are going 
to go up.
  And have you heard this just really outrageous idea that they want 
your bank or credit union to tell the IRS every deposit or withdrawal 
of $600 or more? And if you have $600 in your bank account, they want 
your bank or credit union to report that to the IRS. Does that sound 
like it is designed to target billionaires or middle-class Americans?
  The taxes, fees, and penalties this partisan, reckless tax-and-
spending package includes ultimately still falls to you, regardless of 
how much you make. As ranking member of the EPW Committee, I am 
especially concerned about several environmental provisions in the $3.5 
trillion spending plan.
  Let's be clear. All of us, Republicans and Democrats, we do want a 
cleaner energy future, and we are moving toward that. The proof of that 
is our work together on technologies like carbon capture and 
utilization. But this rushed reconciliation package doesn't allow time 
for any sort of transition. Wind and solar energy still has serious 
gaps. They are growing, yes, but they still have serious gaps in 
reliability and stability. When the wind stops blowing and the Sun 
isn't shining, our country still relies heavily on coal, natural gas, 
and nuclear. But instead of recognizing this reality and investing in 
technologies to accelerate carbon capture, which would lead to less 
emissions, this package punishes companies that are already cutting 
their emissions. It is reckless spending. It is punitive taxation, and, 
ultimately, the American family will pay the price.
  Take, for example, the proposed methane tax--well, methane fee, it is 
called, but it is actually a natural gas tax. This regressive tax on 
natural gas would increase energy costs on American families and small 
businesses, disproportionately affecting middle- and low-income 
households at a time when natural gas prices are going up due to 
inflation and increased demand and reduced supply here and abroad due 
to some factors--and, right now, the pandemic.
  According to the EPA, natural gas systems in the United States 
reduced their overall methane emissions by nearly 16 percent between 
1990 and 2019, without these onerous regulations and taxes. It is 
widely recognized that the shale gas boom led to significant greenhouse 
gas emission reductions across our power sector. In fact, as our 
natural gas production has risen and has gone up, the country's overall 
greenhouse gas emissions have gone down significantly.
  According to API, the methane fee, or tax, would cost approximately 
$9.1 billion and as many as 90,000 jobs in a lot of the regions in the 
country, one of which is my own in West Virginia. Don't be fooled. Like 
any other part of this package, the methane fee is rushed government 
overreach when the market is already reducing emissions.
  More than 150 groups have written to Congress to oppose this natural 
gas tax. This is not about reducing emissions or even raising revenues 
for Washington; it is about targeting an industry, oil and gas, and the 
related good-paying jobs, like those in West Virginia, for elimination 
for wholly political purposes. The idea that our country will be able 
to transition to a cleaner future and keep up with our energy demands 
without natural gas is just not based in reality.
  So speaking of based in reality, let's talk about the proposed Clean 
Electricity Performance Program. This is a program in the $3.5 trillion 
bill to eliminate coal and natural gas from our electricity mix by 
requiring an 80-percent reduction in carbon emissions from utilities by 
2030. This goal is very unrealistic as fossil fuels now provide

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60 percent of our Nation's electricity today, 2021.
  The United Mine Workers of America wrote that this plan would 
``eliminate virtually all of West Virginia's coal generation fleet of 
eight baseload power plants well before the end of this decade. . . . 
All related coal mining and utility jobs would be lost, with severe 
[adverse] impacts on families, communities, and the local and state tax 
revenues associated with mining, electric generation, and electric 
power [generation].''
  This program is an explicit attempt to put energy producers out of 
work. It would use taxpayer dollars to get rid of coal and natural gas 
jobs in States like mine, using a convoluted system to try to mask the 
hit to our electricity taxpayers. And for all the promises we heard of 
lined-up green energy jobs for these workers to replace these jobs, I 
am certainly not seeing many of those in my State, certainly not the 
tens of thousands of jobs that would be needed to make up for the lost 
jobs. And I am definitely not seeing any of those green jobs pay--the 
pay on those green jobs even close to what a miner would make or 
somebody in the natural gas business.
  But the Clean Electricity Performance Program will impact more than 
just my home State, of course. If California is any indication, the 
clean electricity payment plan will lead to less reliability, rolling 
blackouts all across the country, and higher energy prices. We don't 
need to wait and see how a plan like this will impact a powerhouse 
country like ours.
  Germany is already trying this. According to Forbes Magazine, our 
German friends are spending as much as $4 trillion to install as much 
wind and solar capacity as possible--laudable goal--and to drastically 
curtail and hopefully eliminate the need for coal, natural gas, and 
nuclear. This has left Germany with the highest electricity prices in 
the world--harming their households and their world-famous 
manufacturing sector. When they have found themselves short of supply, 
they have to import coal-fired electricity from Poland.
  We, here, in this country, would have no kind of international 
fallback. So while we try to mimic a path similar to Germany and shut 
down American coal mines, meanwhile China is building new coal plants 
that will wash out any of our supposed carbon reductions. American 
energy prices will skyrocket, and the Clean Energy Payment Plan will 
make a negligible impact on global emissions.
  The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is another absurd provision in this 
reconciliation package. This is basically a $27.5 billion slush fund 
for Democrat States to use whatever they would use for their so-called 
green projects. This will increase our reliance on critical minerals 
and energy supplies that we get from China and other international 
competitors trying to put forward energy-free technologies and 
particularly looking at the production of lithium batteries and solar 
energy that is primarily produced in China.
  Another egregious provision tucked away in this reconciliation 
package is a $50 million expenditure to EPA to write new clean air 
regs. That is right, $50 million. They would give $50 million to write 
a new version of President Obama's Clean Power Plan and other 
devastating climate regulations. With the money, EPA will hire extra 
lawyers and bureaucrats to write additional regulations under section 
111 and other provisions of the Clean Air Act in ways that they have 
never done before, all, in my view, which would put my hard-working 
West Virginians out of a job.
  These are just a few of the environmental provisions in this reckless 
tax-and-spending spree. But the package is much broader than that. It 
is a wish list rolled into a $3.5 trillion bill that inserts the 
government into nearly every aspect of American life. The American 
people understand that passing this bill will harm our country by 
fueling inflation, and it will harm our country for generations to come 
as we add to our debt.
  It is no wonder that the Democrats are having so much trouble passing 
this. By shuttering our Federal Surface Transportation Programs last 
Friday, House Democrats made it abundantly clear that despite their 
rhetoric, physical infrastructure is not a priority. Instead, they have 
said that roads, bridges, broadband, water infrastructure--all 
infrastructure items that Americans in both parties support are only 
worth funding if they are accompanied by another $3.5 trillion in 
spending.
  I hope that our House colleagues will change their approach. The 
bipartisan infrastructure bill represents good policy, and it should be 
allowed to pass on its own merit. It will benefit every State in this 
country. It will provide the certainty of 5 years of funding for our 
Surface Transportation Programs and avoid future lapses like we saw 
last Friday. These programs cannot bounce from one short-term extension 
to the next. We have done that before. It is very, very difficult to 
conduct business, and they should not play second fiddle to a package 
of partisan policies.
  We came together in this body to pass a bipartisan infrastructure 
bill that the American people can be proud of, and that bill should 
become law soon.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The Senator from Wisconsin.