[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9397-9398]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         BIPARTISAN SPORTSMEN'S ACT OF 2014--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 384, 
S. 2363, the Hagan sportsmen's legislation.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 384, S. 2363, a bill to 
     protect and enhance opportunities for recreational hunting, 
     fishing, and shooting, and for other purposes.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Following my remarks and those of the Republican leader, 
the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with 
the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling 
the final half.
  At 11 a.m. the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider 
the nomination of Keith Harper to be a U.S. Representative to the U.N. 
Human Rights Council, postcloture. The time until noon will be equally 
divided and controlled in the usual form.
  At noon there will be two rollcall votes: first on confirmation of 
the Harper nomination, and then there will be a cloture vote on the 
nomination of Sharon Bowen to be commissioner at the CFTC.
  Following the votes, the Senate will be in recess until 2:15 p.m. to 
allow for the weekly caucus meetings.
  I yield the floor.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is recognized.


                             Energy Policy

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 4 years ago Washington Democrats sold 
this country a bill of goods. Like a Ginsu knife pitchman, they 
promised that ObamaCare would create jobs, improve the economy, lower 
premiums, and reduce health spending--all for the low, low price of not 
causing Americans to lose their insurance, their doctors or the 
hospitals they liked.
  Today, Americans know the truth. It was a sham, the lie of the year, 
convenient deceits told to advance the far left's agenda.
  The people we represent just want the pain of ObamaCare to go away, 
but the Democrats who run Washington have other ideas. Just yesterday 
they rolled out the red carpet for a sequel. That is just what we saw 
when the Obama administration announced its latest front in the war on 
Kentucky coal jobs.
  The newest attack is the most extreme yet. The President wants 
Americans to believe that his national energy tax can somehow heal the 
planet and regulate the oceans, and he wants you to believe that it can 
be done without harming middle-class families; that, in fact, his 
massive regulatory scheme will actually create jobs and bring billions 
in economic benefits and shrink--you heard that right, shrink--
America's energy bills.
  Well, if you believe that, I have some ObamaCare to sell you. This is 
the same President, remember, who boasted as a candidate that his 
energy tax policies would make electricity prices skyrocket. The truth 
is the President's energy tax won't even have an appreciable effect on 
global carbon emissions anyway.
  President Obama's last Environmental Protection Agency head told us 
as much, saying: ``U.S. action alone will not impact world 
CO2 levels.'' That is a quote from her. She said: ``U.S. 
action alone will not impact world CO2 levels.'' That was 
spoken by the previous EPA Administrator.
  You need emissions-heavy countries such as India and China on board 
first. That is just a scientific fact, although I suspect our friends 
on the left will conveniently ignore it because the point of this whole 
exercise is sadly obvious. It is not about science or global warming at 
all. It is all about making privileged elitists--elitists who may not 
feel the pinch of a higher utility bill or the pain of a lost job--feel 
as if they did something.
  There is another reason why the echoes of ObamaCare here are so 
unmistakable. The President's national energy tax represents a direct 
attack on the American middle class.
  Experts say it would devastate entire swaths of our economy and could 
lead to a loss of nearly half a million jobs, according to one AFL-CIO 
labor union estimate. In fact, the head of that union, the United Mine 
Workers of America, said this energy tax would lead to long-term and 
irreversible job losses.
  The national energy tax would also shift middle class jobs overseas, 
shatter our manufacturing base, and drive up energy costs for families. 
It is a dagger aimed right at the heart of the American middle class, 
at a time when our constituents are already struggling under the weight 
of so many of this administration's other failed policies.
  Let's not forget: Opportunity has already decreased for too many 
families under this President's watch. Millions of our friends and 
neighbors are still out of work, and the economy is at a standstill.
  This is President Obama's plan, to squeeze the middle class even 
harder, ship American jobs overseas and to do it by going around 
Congress? It is clear that the President is trying to impose this 
national energy tax via Executive order because he knows the 
representatives of the people would never vote for it.
  He knows that Congress already rejected a similar national energy tax 
when he tried to pass it back in his first term. Maybe he is avoiding 
legislative accountability because he knows this energy tax is too 
cruel, because he knows it would have an especially devastating impact 
on the most vulnerable members of our society--the poor, the 
unemployed, and seniors on a fixed income.
  It is a curious thing. The same elites who like to lecture us from 
their privileged perches about helping others are often the same people 
who seem to care the least about who their extreme policies hurt. To 
them the American people are just hoi polloi, the commoners who these 
elites think need their enlightened guidance.

[[Page 9398]]

  That is especially true when it comes to coal-mining families in my 
State, good people who this administration hasn't even bothered to hear 
from. Kentucky miners know that coal keeps the lights on. All they want 
to do is provide for their families and put food on the table.
  They have committed no crime, they have done nothing wrong, but the 
Obama administration has declared a war on them all the same. A White 
House advisor was quoted as saying that a war on coal is ``exactly 
what's needed.''
  These are callous positions, to be sure, but they are easy things to 
say when you live hundreds of miles away, when you don't have to live 
with the real-world consequences of your ivory tower ideological 
fantasies, when you don't have to see the raw human costs of your 
schemes. That certainly was the approach the administration took when 
it scheduled listening sessions to discuss its anti-coal regulations. 
It only wanted to hear applause from fellow leftwing elites, so it 
didn't schedule a single listening session in coal country--not one.
  This is what one miner said at a coal listening session that I hosted 
in Eastern Kentucky after the administration refused to attend: ``Our 
biggest worries now are just trying to keep a roof over our heads [and] 
food on the table.''
  He is not alone, and he needs to know this: We are on the side of the 
aisle that hears him. We are not going to let this administration's 
anti-middle class policies go unchallenged.
  That is why today I am introducing legislation, the Coal Country 
Protection Act, that would push back against the President's extreme 
anti-coal scheme. It would require that simple but important benchmarks 
be met before his rules could take effect.
  The Secretary of Labor would have to certify that it would not 
generate loss of employment. The Director of the Congressional Budget 
Office would have to certify that it would not result in any loss in 
the American gross domestic product.
  The Administrator of the Energy Information Administration would have 
to certify it would not increase electricity rates, and the Chairman of 
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the president of the North 
American Electric Reliability Corporation would have to certify that 
electricity delivery would remain reliable.
  It is just common sense. That is why I call upon the majority leader 
to schedule a vote on this legislation immediately and to help us pass 
it, because Kentucky mining families are counting on him and so are 
countless middle-class families in my State and across the country who 
stand to get hurt by this administration's cold ideological attacks.
  If the majority leader and Senate Democrats stand in the way of 
passing this bill, Kentuckians and the American people will remember 
who stood with them and who worked against them. I imagine they will 
want to send a majority to Washington that would actually work for the 
middle class for a change, instead of hurting seniors and shipping jobs 
overseas.
  At the end of the day it comes down to this: The President's national 
energy tax is ObamaCare 2.0. It is a massive big-government boondoggle 
that is being marketed as something it isn't. It is an idea that will 
not even solve the larger problem it purports to address, and it will 
hurt the middle class.
  So the President can pretend his national energy tax is about helping 
the environment, but we know better. It is not going to do a thing to 
meaningfully control global carbon emissions. This is really about 
growing government. It is really about making leftwing elitists feel 
better about themselves, and it is really about helping political 
supporters in places such as California and New York while inflicting 
serious pain on people and places like Kentucky.
  I am going to continue to fight. Kentuckians deserve no less. I am 
going to keep vigorously fighting against the Obama administration's 
continued war on coal jobs and this extreme, extreme anti-middle class 
national energy tax in particular.
  I yield the floor.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.

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