[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9529-9530]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           AMENDMENTS TO EDA

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, this Congress convened in January with a 
single mandate from the American people: create jobs. So Democrats have 
brought to the Senate floor bill after bill aimed at helping American 
businesses innovate, grow, and hire. These were good pieces of 
legislation with proven track records of creating jobs.
  Take the latest, the Economic Development Administration 
reauthorization. Since 1965 the EDA has created jobs in economically 
distressed communities all over America, creating good jobs in places 
that need them, such as Nevada, California, Florida, and many others. 
This should be a goal on which we can all agree.
  In the last 5 years, the Economic Development Administration has 
created 314,000 jobs and has done it efficiently too. For every dollar 
the Federal Government invests, private industry invests $7.
  For 45 years the EDA has worked with businesses and universities at 
the local level to create jobs from the ground up. Even when 
Republicans controlled the White House, even when they controlled 
Congress, even when they controlled both, EDA was there helping 
businesses grow.
  Today, our economy needs jobs more than ever. Yet Republicans have 
found new ways to kill a piece of legislation that would put Americans 
back to work. They have stood on the Senate floor and talked with 
straight faces about job creation and then turned around and bogged 
down good job-creating legislation with amendments that would kill even 
the most bipartisan bill. Meanwhile, unemployed Americans wait and 
wait.
  They wait while Republicans filibuster, not with words but with 
amendments. A bill that has created 314,000 jobs in the last 5 years, 
they filibustered. One would think these must be important amendments 
if Republicans are willing to make Americans who are standing in the 
employment line wait longer and longer. But you be the judge.
  Our Republican friends are holding up a proven job creator to exempt 
the sand dune lizard from the Endangered Species Act. Lest the lizard 
be singled out, there is an amendment to exempt the lesser prairie 
chicken.
  This sends the message that such frivolous amendments, more than 90 
of them, are more important than putting people back to work.
  Here are some of the amendments they have filed: EPA water quality 
standards, lightbulbs, right-to-work laws, the estate tax, repeal of 
Wall Street reform, the United States-Mexico border fence. Yet, again, 
a handful of these amendments would delay or repeal health care reform. 
None of them are germane to the legislation before us.
  My staff looked through all of these, and they found one arguably is 
germane, and that one is an amendment offered by Senator Inhofe which 
the chairman of the committee, Barbara Boxer, agrees to. Again, they 
have amendments that would delay or repeal health care reform. It is a 
battle Republicans seem determined to fight over and over, no matter 
how many times they lose.
  We have already voted on bank card swipe fees and ethanol subsidies, 
and we voted on the regulatory reform amendment offered once again by 
the senior Senator from Maine. Yet we could not reach agreement to 
consider this worthy bill.
  This is not the first time Republicans have stopped the important 
work of job creation in its tracks. The small business innovation 
research bill died on the Senate floor because of amendments, none of 
which related to that bill. The Federal Aviation Administration 
reauthorization and patent reform bills, which would have put about a 
half million people to work, languish in the House. They are over there 
now someplace. Yet, still, unemployed Americans wait on this bill we 
are going to vote cloture on tomorrow--or try to.
  The amendments are really hard to comprehend: the Consumer Financial 
Protection Agency, to do away with

[[Page 9530]]

that; they repeal Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform, the Commission to 
Approve Oversight and Eliminate Wasteful Spending, debt instrument 
transparency, amend the NLRA with respect to States that have the 
right-to-work laws, national right to work, gainful employment 
regulation, termination of global climate change, permanently repeal 
the estate tax, substitute the Economic Development Administration, 
prohibit award and designation of funds to any area or entity named for 
a living Member of Congress, repeal position on withholding of certain 
payments made to vendors by government entities, extension of certain 
Outer Continental Shelf leases, removal of insurance moratorium for 
industrial banks, limit antitrust exemption, repeal Davis-Bacon wage 
requirements, prohibit printing of the Congressional Record, increase 
statutory limit of the public debt, enable States to opt out of health 
care reform.
  Another one is, Stability Oversight and Council authority, inclusion 
of application to independent regulatory agencies, amend Unfunded 
Mandates Reform Act, border fence completion, major rules of the 
legislative branch shall have no force for approval as enacted into 
law, delay implementation of health care reform until final resolution 
in pending lawsuits, securities laws amendments, rescind $45 billion of 
unobligated discretionary appropriations, rescission of unobligated 
discretionary appropriation, reduce amounts authorized to be 
appropriated, prescribe fires in Flint Hills region, EPA water quality 
standard, repeal Bright Fields Demonstration Program, terminate global 
climate change mitigation.
  Mr. President, these are amendments that go page after page. I have 
only mentioned a few of them. They have more than 90 of them. If there 
ever were an example of such a tremendous waste of the Senate's time 
and the indication that the Republicans don't care anything about the 
American people working--I guess their goal is to make things as bad as 
they can and, hopefully, the American people won't see through it, and 
maybe they will get somebody elected to replace President Obama. What 
other reason could there be?
  People are desperate for jobs. The unemployed wait and wait. It would 
be different if they came here and offered amendments that had some 
relevance or germaneness to this legislation. But they don't.
  Tomorrow, Republicans will get another chance to help us move forward 
on a bill that has a proven track record of putting people to work, for 
the amount of $1.2 billion, and the last 5 years we have created 
314,000 jobs. Why? Because it is good for the private sector. For every 
dollar we invest, they invest $7. In the meantime, though, I urge my 
Republican colleagues to consider the cost of these delaying tactics.

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