Energy Policy Modernization Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I urge that Members oppose this amendment that would impose a Federal mandate on retail electricity and natural gas suppliers to reduce a certain percentage of electricity or natural gas that their customers use annually. We have considered this before. We have seen it. It has been under consideration for about a decade. Most recently, the energy committee rejected this same proposal as we were moving forward on this bipartisan Energy bill.

A national mandate like this depends on the behavior of end-use customers. The concern that you take a one-size-fits-all policy that refuses to recognize very real regional differences that are in play out there with energy use is problematic. As the Senator from Minnesota said, 25 States already have this in place, but what we do by imposing a new national mandate is we upend those existing State programs.

We have a good, bipartisan efficiency measure contained in this. That is why a Federal EERS has not worked before. Now is not the right time to move forward with it.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate Senator Rounds bringing this measure before us. It appears we do have an agreement to do a voice vote on the Rounds amendment, as modified; therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the 60-vote threshold with respect to Rounds amendment No. 3182, as modified, be vitiated.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we have seen an iteration of this before. It is Groundhog Day, but there is a difference with the approach that has been taken with regard to targeting oil and gas production with this basket of fossil fuel subsidies, where we are talking about the repeal of five very important tax provisions that are vital to our domestic small and midsize operators.

The sponsor is correct. It does tie the expiration of these provisions to the expiration of wind tax credits, which most of us would agree should be phased out.

I am in favor of reforming our Tax Code to make it more straightforward and fair. I would welcome that discussion for us to engage in broad-based tax reform on the Senate floor, but the Energy Policy Modernization Act is not the place to do it. It is not the appropriate venue for a tax amendment. As my colleagues know, all revenue-raising measures must originate within the House. The adoption of this tax-related amendment would therefore create an impermissible blue-slip problem.

I urge its rejection.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I understand that we have an agreement to voice vote the Durbin amendment. 3095 be rescinded.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I do think that at some point in time it is fair to discuss disclosure when it comes to campaign finance and campaign finance disclosure. However what this amendment does is require campaign finance disclosures from individuals receiving over $1 million from fossil fuel activities--no other activities.

What activities are we talking about? It defines fossil fuel activities as those including ``the extraction, production, refining, transportation, or combustion of oil, natural gas, or coal.'' That is pretty broad. We are talking about explorers, producers, refiners, perhaps even the automotive industry, the rail industry, powerplants, and many others.

We can have a discussion about campaign finance disclosure and what may or may not be appropriate. We defeated an amendment similar to this when we had the Keystone debate last January. We tabled another. The time and the place to debate this issue is not in this Energy Policy Modernization Act. Therefore, I will be opposing the amendment and encourage my colleagues to do the same.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, we have just concluded this series of eight votes. You combine that with the rollcall votes we had yesterday, as well as the voice votes we have taken, and we are up to 27 amendments that we have processed. We are moving right along.

I appreciate the cooperation of Members on both sides and the staff who are working as we speak to see if we can pull together yet another block of amendments we will be able to accept by voice vote. We will not have any more rollcall votes for the remainder of today, but know that we are working aggressively to try to process as many amendments as we can by voice vote and then set up a process tomorrow.

We will notify Members in terms of when we might be able to expect votes on amendments. I thank colleagues for the good work today. We encourage you to come down to the floor, speak to your amendments, speak to the issues you are hoping to advance. We would like to get this bill through to completion by the end of this week. I thank Members for their support.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we have been working hard this afternoon. I think we had a very productive day. We processed eight amendments, which was very good for the process we are in. I have appreciated Members' cooperation with that.

We have been working through the back-and-forth to come up with a package of amendments that we can process by voice vote. It has been good. It has been a little lengthier than we had anticipated, but I think we are in a good place now and I am pleased with that. Again, tomorrow we will look to set up a series of additional votes. Members can expect that beginning probably in the afternoon, but we are also looking to adopt additional votes as we try to reach that unanimous consent agreement.

Amendments Nos. 3064; 3065, as Modified; 3179; 3145; 3174; 3140, as Modified; 3156; 3143; 3194, as Modified; 3205; and 3160 to Amendment No. 2953

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, at this point in time we are now ready to process some amendments by voice vote.

3064; Hirono amendment No. 3065, with modification; Klobuchar amendment No. 3179; Inhofe-Carper amendment No. 3145; Heitkamp amendment No. 3174; Collins-Klobuchar amendment No. 3140, with modification; Baldwin amendment No. 3156; Carper-Inhofe amendment No. 3143; Boxer-Feinstein amendment No. 3194, with modification; Inhofe-King amendment No. 3205; and Booker amendment No. 3160.
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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on these amendments.

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate again the cooperation and the working relationship with my ranking member, as well as her very strong and able team working with mine, as well as the floor staff who have been doing a great job.
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